Faust and yopele- taking a break, and will reapproach this all in the morning. All I’ll say for now is that over the past few weeks, you couldn’t have missed that fact that I think some things are immoral even if they don’t hurt anyone. 
Sage - in truth, I agree. The slammer. I suspect this will happen to the leaders. There are ways.
And also argreed - Moore is a brilliant moviemaker and a less than brilliant polemnicist.
moore makes crockumentaries with little to no facts to back up his statements.
for example, his south park mock in bowling for columbine, he makes the false assertation that whites went to Africa with guns to get slaves. (this south park mock btw, is what got the creators of south park to blow him up in team america.)
Anyone who has studied history knows that it was the Muslims that traded slaves.
Heard of the Barbary wars? If we hadn’t had guns, we’d still be paying out money to the muslim pirates.
since this was ignored the first time I’ll repost it to make it a little more visible.
I’m torn. I think Moore is a good filmaker. But good filmakers are a dime a dozen. I think most filmakers considers themselves artists. And I, personally, find little artistic value in Moore’s films. But I don’t want to be the final judge here. Society doesn’t measure the value of filmakers by their artistic abitlitiy or content alone. So to be fair I must weigh the impact of his films, bearing in mind that they were not made for artistic purposes (I don’t know how the Cannes Festival judges missed this). I suppose to be fair I must determine whether his films had the intended impact.
They didn’t
His film was made with the purpose (entirely political, entirely a-artistic) of promoting the election of someone other than GW Bush.
The film failed.
It was a flop.
I will say that Moore is extremely skilled at presenting reality as he sees it.
That’s a valuable skill - as the multi-millions he made off of exposing the warmonger’s profits wrt Iraq will attest.
EDIT:
(I don’t want to correct my use of too many “s”'s above, cause I like the sound.)
That’s what I mean, Yo. He preached only to his choir. I can’t think he convinced any fence-sitters. Documentarists are presenting reality, some reality, the way they see it. It’s what they do. I found Columbine entertaining at times, and scary (Heston as the head of one of the most powerful lobbying groups - scared for the NRA, I was) at others. That ain’t bad.
I thought Marilyn Manson was the most intelligent person in the film, despite that I’m not a big fan of his (hers?).
His goal was too lofty, and his rhetorical skills too honed.
Even so, the films are entertaining,
But a Palme d’Or?
Come now, are our politics getting ahead of our abilities to appropriately criticize fims?
Maybe, maybe not.
It is a good documentary, if one is willing to close his eyes to the fact that the other side of the political view had been distorted. That it received the award indicates that the judges were able to do so.
Okay, Yo. But I don’t think a documentary has to be fair and balanced. I’ll put it this way. Moore is a punk, but it’s only a movie. Bill Moyer used to do stuff like this regularly, but it was television. No hype. No one paid much attention, I think. We also can’t let our ability to critique a film be swayed by the fact that it was an “event”. It was “important” only because we made it so. Unlike Moyer, Moore at least has a sense of humor.
I see Moore’s work in the same vein I look at the so-called “news” documentaries. Any pretense at a balanced presentation is out the window, and social discourse is no longer discussion, but diatribe. It’s the Bill O’reilly syndrome. You can literally smell the ozone in the air from all the ax grinding, and not a single one of them is immune - even the ones I like.
Alright, here I go again.
A clarification of my position on the whole ‘gay’ mess for those concerned.
faust
Make no mistake, I think homosexual acts are wrong. If most people disagreed with me, I would still think so. Why? Well, remember I'm a theist. As such, I believe every human is in an ongoing relationship with God (regardless of their opinion on the matter). As such, that means there's a whole range of immoral behaviors that don't hurt any other human being, based on how they affect one's relationship with God. God's unique position as Creator gives Him a vested interest in one's character- one must strive to be an exemplary human being, even in ways that don't impact the well-being of their fellow man. I know all that's probably a non-starter for you, but maybe I can still shoot for coherence. Besides, this is the religion forum, after all.
Now, all of that said, I think the objectives of the law are different than morality. The law is there to regulate those moral issues that do affect other people- things like stealing, murder, and so on. So in some, but not all cases, just because I think something is immoral, doesn't mean I think it should be illegal. Homosexuality is such a case- in case it needs to be repeated, I'm not in favor of sodomy laws or any other law that restricts homosexual behavior, even though I think it's immoral.
Where I draw the line is the popularization and promotion of homosexuality as a valid lifestyle choice. I still think it's immoral, and the act of promoting and excusing an immoral act is a very great wrong in itself- a wrong that actually [i]does[/i] harm others. So, while homosexuality can be legally permitted, I can't agree that it should be legally protected or sanctioned in the form of marriage licences or the Government-backed idea that homosexual unions are as valid as any other.
I know it's subtle, and it leads to constant misunderstanding- homosexual acts are a small wrong, the promotion of the idea that homosexual acts are ok is a great wrong.
I hope my explanation above has straightened this out some. Of course, slaves should strive to be free. Heck, I can even understand why some few gay people fight for the things they're fighting for. Are they wrong to wish that the world was different? No. Would it be nobler for them to buck up, and accept "There are consequences to choosing the life I've chosen, and I ought to accept that rather than try to move the world to make myself more comfortable"? Yes, I think it would be. People do that all the time. That said, of course homosexuals have the right to try to change and effect things any way they want- they just happen to be wrong. I'm not sure how you got the idea that I thought otherwise.
Eh? Who do I have to be? This Constitution talk just seems like an obfuscation to me. From this quote alone, you could be advocating for people who like to have sex with their dogs or their sisters. Both are banned behaviors that could be called a 'lifestyle' burdened with 'discrimination' if only they got together and hired some expensive lawyers to say as much. Sooner or later, a person can be liberal enough to bite the bullet and say "Well, fine, I think all that stuff should be allowed and promoted". Even if deep down, it makes them sick to think of it, and they are banking on never having to put their money where there mouth is. It's cases like that where I have to resort to the cultural argument- I simply don't want the country to look that way, and neither does hardly anyone else.
In case it needs to be restated, we aren’t disagreeing about the sorts of relationships people should be allowed to enter into, we’re disagreeing about the level of Government acknowledgement that should be extended to such.
Yopele
Well, the obvious answer that springs to my mind is that this doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality anymore- and in fact, less so them than heterosexuals. It would be easy for a long-term heterosexual couple to mistakenly believe that they are common-law married, only to learn they are mistaken when one of them dies, or one tries to visit the other in the hospital, and so on. That's unfortunate, and perhaps those sorts of laws could be more uniform- though these things are still publicly available knowledge, and it's on the individual to educate themselves ultimately. It would be next to impossible for a gay couple that owns a television to be under the impression that they are considered married, and will be treated as a married couple- or at least, it was impossible until these mistakes that happened in Massachusettes and Vermont.
Now, that some states allow gay marriage (for the moment, the populations of at least one of those states doesn't actually support it, and it will become a federal issue before much longer) is actually part of the confusion, and that's part of the reason I'm against it. The whole thing was a mess from the start- when homosexuality stopped being a fetish and started being a de facto ethnic group, everything got screwed up.
Tada.
Ucci - your position is inconsistent. I can accept your moral stnace, but it is you that makes the distinction between the moral and the legal. Homosexuality is legal. If the law is there to regulate those issues that affect other people, then those acts that only reflect their supposed relationship with God are not pertinent. You allow that it is legal to be a homosexual - then there is no reason why this legal status should otherwise carry legal sanctions. Denying rights to homosexuals, legally, merely because they are homosexuals, which it legal to be, and should be by your own reckoning, is a restriction on homosexuality - a restriction on homosexuals.
We cannot make laws based upon your view of our relationship to God.
You say that homosexuality should be permitted but not protected. That’s past subtle. Legal permission is protection.
I understand that you wish to be tolerant of your neighbors and true to God. In theory, I can have no objection to that. But in practise, I think you might have to choose. I have no illusions as to which choice you would make, if you saw you had to make a choice. I respect that. But we are here talking about how the law must respond to the Constitution, and to a secular society. It will respond.
edit - by the way, you are mistaken about something - Massachusetts - it’s not so much whether the people support it - it’s that few residents of the state care. There was an effort to rewrite the law that the court’s ruling on allowed gay marriage - it was abandoned because no one seemed to care either way. Don’t take poll numbers too seriously - ever.
It is legal to have sex with multiple partners, but it is illegal to marry mutiple partners. Is the second a restriction of the legality of the first? That sounds like what you are saying to me.
faust
Well, this is where we disagree- I don't see any legal sanctions in place now, and I don't support any so far as I am aware. Gay unions are not marriages, and are not treated as they were- more to the point, they never have been. Gay folks are not from some land of acceptance, and upon getting off the boat on Ellis Island, have discovered to their suprise that they can't live life as they always have. Just because homosexuals have stepped up to the plate and said "We want this thing we do to be considered a 'marriage' from now on" doesn't make it so, and doesn't make a refusal to go along with it a sanction. To my knowledge (correct me), people of the same gender have never been allowed to marry anywhere, until this recent pro-gay cause swept the planet in the past couple decades. There is no sanction against what has never been permissed.
Homosexuals are allowed to do everything I am allowed to do, and I am forbidden from doing everything that they are forbidden from doing.
If there was some banned behavior (and there’s not) that homosexuals were more inclined to that other sorts of folks, that still wouldn’t amount to a denial of rights. Nobody is allowed to steal- even people who really really want to. Again, all this amounts to is a little personal responsibility- a person chooses a certain lifestyle, they accept certain consequences. I could have gotten married, and I haven’t. I pay for that decision in all sorts of ways as well.
Here's the thing. I'm not advocating the passing of one single solitary law with regards to this, and in fact, I'm for abolishing sodomy laws where they are still in place. I would have been totally content if the issue never arose. The idea that it's me and mine parading around trying to pass laws to restrict what was once permissed irks me.
Did you mean to say "You can't try to [i]prevent[/i] new laws from being passed based on your view of our relationship to God"? I think that's quite a different thing.
Of course I will. Of course it will all come to a head. But in these days, while we're still a little before the rubber meeting the road, so to speak, it's good to go on the record and state how I would have liked things to have turned out. I know my position is impractical, but I still don't think it's inconsistant- homosexuality has been regarded in most places in most times exactly how I would like to have it regarded still, minus any violence or spite.
Ucci - your argument is now based solely on precedent. Political precedent. Not God, nor morality. I can’t keep up with the changes. The banned behavior is the exercising of marital rights. Or the act of getting married, as a legal act. Take your pick.
That having been said, I still think yours is a reasonable view, oddly. I think there is a better argument for your view, but I’m not telling. I will say this - if marriage was still fully a functional social institution, I would be more likely to agree. Part of the reason that this matter is “practical” is that, as a matter of fact, we care very little about marriage as a society anymore. Whether that is bad or good is both pertinent and a topic for another thread.
Well, I just saw my argument shifting to meet your demands. At first I was a religionist with no popular ground to stand on, then I was a populist with no moral ground to stand on, and then I was an oppressor with no legal ground to stand on. My argument is still rooted on religious ethics- that it has the support of the majority and of precedent are nice perks too.
For what it’s worth, I think my position can take the offense as well as the defense- I think a secular view of sexual ethics that permits homosexuality is flawed and inconsistant, especially as long as it’s forbidding many of the things people are loathe to yet permit. I wrote a lot about that…
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … &start=175
Towards the bottom of that screen, you’ll see a couple longish posts where I try to present a coherent view of sexual ethics with a lot of intuitive appeal, that condemns what we all want to condemn, and shows the necessity of condemning a few things that are currently in debate.
This is not too bad…
“Sex is proper only in the context of a man and woman pair-bonded in a relationship, and both willing and able to accept the consequences of childcare”.
…but what about contraception, doesn’t that get round the moral issues of childcare and thus negate your definition of moral sex? Or maybe that was your point?
Ned: I don’t believe every sex act has to be performed such that procreation is a possibility, I just think it should only be performed between adults that define themselves as ready to commit to each other if it does. I avoid the term ‘marriage’, because that’s a social construct that may not have a place in a purely ethical statement, but that’s the jist.
Ucci- maybe we can get past sex, here. Let’s say a man and a woman are married for fifty years. Let’s say they never have kids. Let’s say they stop having sex after seven years of marriage. Medical problem, or some New Age philosophy, or they just lose interest in each other. - who knows? It happens. If marriage is about sex, and about who’s having sex with who, then at what point should they have gotten divorced?
I’m serious. Because, in the end, you are concerned here with who is having sex with who. Marriage is a legal contract, bestowing a certain legal status to each party to the marriage. And it is also, evidently, about sex. So when should this hypothetical couple have gotten get divorced?
Don’t tell me this is rare - there are many married couples who no longer have sex with each other. So they should get divorced, right? Maybe we should not be arguing about who should get married, but about who should get divirced. I mean, if it’s all about the sex.
I don't see why they should if they are both happy. Yes, I am concerned with who is having sex with whom, because thats the part of the arrangement that is immoral. I've had a man living in my house before, I have let them use my shower, I'm sure I've even made another man breakfast before, though I can't recall doing so off the top of my head.
Your comparison confuses me- because I think that certain partnerships that imply immoral sex shouldn't be endorsed, that means a married couple who isn't having sex should get divorced? I'm truly lost.
If you want to say marriage is about way more than sex, and that sex is, in fact, such a small part of marriage that it doesn't deserve the attention I'm giving it even granting that homosexuality is immoral, then I guess I'm left perplexed as to why it's the homosexuals who desire this same-sex marriage thing in the first place. Are there that many straight guys who want to get married to their male friends?
Ucci - I’m saying that it’s less than sex. No one questions why any two people get married if they are of opposites sexes. Nor, as a society, should we. We do not ask if they have sex. Why should we ask if it’s two men or two women? Why is this even an issue? If I got married to a woman for some convenience, so what?
You claim that since sex between two people of the same gender is immoral, we should not sanction gay marriage. But why do we even ask if they are having sex? besides, like masturbation, what they may be doing may not qualify as sex at all. technically, it’s not. So why the fuss?