EFFin’ Unsound

Now, understanding the above two facts, imagine two societies. In one societies, for the most part, almost everyone is doing good almost all the time. In the other society, for the most part, almost everyone is doing evil almost all the time.

Are we going to invade one of them? It’s the one with oil, right? “one societies”?

What is the effect?

There sure are a lot of variables to work out. But I suspect the evil society will be evil and the good not so much.

Obviously, the evil society will drag itself down into evermore evil depths, while the good society will begin an upward trend in the reverse. There is a chain reaction going on within societies and cultures, and it will eventually carry the society one way or the other.

Obviously. Humanity has no capacity to change.

The fruits of good societies–ones where value is placed on life, others as much as self–is peace and prosperity for all.

Let’s see, we’re at war and while the wealthy are getting better off, the rest of the country isn’t. FWCon must hate this country.

The fruits of evil societies–ones where self is more valued than others, and life is worthless–is war, bloodshed, and depravity. The worst societies implode, slaughtering each other in horrific scenes of violence.

So Iraq was a better society before we invaded. I hope to see the upcoming post, “Mr. President, you have a duty to put me on trial for treason and when convicted kill me.”

It is in the society’s interest to foster good behavior and to discourage evil behavior for this reason. Obviously, as ever, good is preferrable {the extra “R” is for retarded — Carl} to evil. And to create a good society, good must be encouraged, while evil prohibited and forced to participate at the fringes or not at all.

Well thehim can probably speak more specifically about many of the things we’ve pushed to the fringe. The call it evil and push it to the fringes strategy sure worked well at solving the problems of drug addiction.

So societies inevitably must implement some moral restraints, restraints that go beyond simply eye-for-an-eye forms of justice. Crimes against society, crimes which don’t obviously affect everyone, are also punished. These crimes are just evil acts, evil acts which would spread a bad influence on everyone around them.

Maybe calling people evil and throwing them in jail for things that “don’t obviously affect everyone” is the higher form of evil. And even more so for the “crime” of being in loving committed relationships.

For instance, the Mosaic code of executing someone who has lain with an animal, in addition to slaughtering and destroying the carcass of the animal, goes beyond someone harming their neighbor. This was the punishment even if the animal belonged to the offender! Why was this necessary? For that matter, why were there any prohibitions against extra-marital sex between consenting adults in Moses’ law?

Yeah! Let’s go to a strict biblical law. There’s no evil, nothing anti-life, nothing immoral about stoning non-virgins to death at their father’s front door.

The answer is obvious: because allowing such deviants to continue their course unpunished allows them the opportunity to influence those around them, and perhaps destroy the entire moral make-up of the society itself.

I’m a believer in grace, and I think that even the most evil people can become good. But I guess we all find different parts of the bible more comforting. Or none at all.

You may argue that there is a line drawn in morality which we can approach but never should cross. For instance, sexual relations between consenting adults is bad, but ultimately, not that bad, at least not as bad as, say, rape. Therefore, you might argue, we can just draw the line at rape and allow other forms of consenting sexual relations.

I would argue that sexual relations between consenting adults is good. Especially when I’m one of them. But holy shit! A fine line between rape and consensual sex? it’s a fucking gulf.

The problem with this thinking is that the line would be continually in retreat.

What the fuck? The “line” disappearing has allowed us to better punish rape. Now we punish date rape. Now when a husband rapes his wife, we don’t excuse it because it’s within marriage. The elimination of that bullshit line has allowed us to better punish violence.

Unless you fix that line permanently, and fix it in a place where it cannot be negotiated away from, it will be in steady retreat.

I don’t want to fix that line in a bullshit place that says killing the 90% or so of Americans who don’t want more war is good, but letting people live in committed loving relationships is bad.

When we allow ourselves to move that line in retreat, we allow ourselves the ability to do so again. And when we allow that line to move, we allow our society to grow evermore corrupt. And as we grow more corrupt, we approach the ultimate end–self-destruction. We also experience all the various shades of gray on the road to black. None of them are preferrable {The extra “R” is still for “retarded” — Carl} to the whiter shades of gray, or the ultimate white at the other end.

Huh?

On the other hand, we can choose, as a society, to restore that line where it really belongs. We can choose to outlaw all extra-marital relations, for instance. By choosing to be uncompromising in matters of morality, we ensure that our society will be safe and peaceful and ultimately good forever. We ensure that we are approaching ever whiter shades of gray.

We can be a society that affirms life. That affirms sex. That affirms peace. That affirms our basic human condition. That affirms our boundless humanity. Or we can be a “good” society that kills a lot of people and defines our humanity in as narrow terms as possible.

That’s why it matters to me whether or not John and Joe in Massachusetts can get married. I don’t know John, I don’t know Joe, and I will never participate in their evil acts of sexual depravity. However, their actions will affect those around them for evil, and that in turn will eventually affect me. And ultimately, we will all pay the price together for John and Joe’s actions.

Teh gay menace is spreading! Aaaaaah.

I know I will get called all kinds of names for spelling this out. I’m not the subject here, however. It is the arguments I make above. I invite you, as always, to attack my arguments and reasoning. Go ahead and expose its weaknesses. Don’t bother engaging in logical fallacies, however. It doesn’t help either of us.

Fuck you!

One further note, I do not accept homosexual acts as being neutral or even good. Let’s be clear here, homosexual acts are just as wicked as adultery. (I am not certain that it is any worse, however, though it certainly is socially more stigmatized than it.) I do, however, accept homosexuals with the understanding that they should exercise control over their urges the same way heterosexuals must control their urges.

I’m fine with the blue ballsiest of the gays. But everyone else, there’s a problem.