Posted on 02/17/2004 4:10:43 PM PST by presidio9
Last week, every Yale undergraduate received an e-mail heralding "Sex Week: A Celebration and Exploration of Sex and Sexuality at Yale University."
Imagine a modest student's reaction to "Grandmother of Masturbation" Betty Dodson's impending lecture on the topic, "One Woman's Illustrated Sexual Revolution." Yale sophomore David O'Leary, upon returning from five o'clock mass, found in his inbox the promise of a "Porn Party! sponsored by Wicked Pictures with porn star Devinn Lane."
According to event organizer and Yale senior Eric Rubenstein, Sex Week was supposed to open discussion about issues of love, intimacy, and romance, and was timed to coincide with Valentine's Day, to distract the many unattached Yalies who, Rubenstein says, are made lonely and depressed by the holiday. In truth, however, it was little more than a week-long bacchanal.
It was all under the guise of education, of course: Take, for example, the talk with "Rebecca and Claire from Toys in Babeland: 'Sex Toys 101.'" Or the lecture by professor — yes, that's right, a Yale professor — Naomi Rogers, on the "History of the Vibrator."
Sex Week was run by Students for a Sexually Aware Campus, an officially registered and university-approved "student organization," which (along with Sex Week) got a green light from Yale College Assistant Dean Edgar Letriz, who oversees administrative matters for student organizations (registration, funding, etc.). According to Rubenstein, Letriz knew what Sex Week was about when he approved it, and was "fine with it."
But how, exactly, does Sex Week enrich the quality of campus activity and education? David O'Leary wanted to know; after overcoming the initial revulsion he felt upon receiving the Sex Week e-mail, he was overcome by curiosity. "I went to a Sex Week event to see how offensive it might actually be," he explains. "On my way in, people attempted to hand me condoms and literature about sex-toy cleaning, vaginal and anal-sex tips, and safer-sex tips. When the speaker asked who in the room had never used a sex toy, I raised my hand. When she began to throw miniature vibrators to the people who had their hands raised, I quickly put my hand down and hoped she wouldn't throw one my way."
"Shortly thereafter, she began asking people why and how they masturbate, and read an explicit story about a boy and his mother's vibrator. I left with face red, directly after... I have never been more embarrassed in my life."
O'Leary may have been mortified, but Rubenstein doesn't really care. When asked whether he was worried that people might take offense at the vulgarity of Sex Week, especially as it invaded their inboxes, Rubenstein responded: "No, not really. People might be offended, but they won't openly reprimand me." And about this kind of sexual activity: "People need to accept the fact that it's here, because it is here. And the response I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive — there were only three people who sent me e-mails back saying 'don't send me any more of this.'" Besides, "If Bush can handle most of the country voting for his opponent and his still being in office, I can handle a few people not liking my emails."
It's not just that Sex Week was in bad taste: It went beyond vulgarity to promote downright pernicious behaviors, and sometimes with odd allies. Take, for example, the seeming obsession with pornography. Strangely enough, Sex Week was put on with the help of Yale's Women's Center, the locus of radical feminism on campus. Feminists are always decrying the objectification of women, and yet pornography is one of the most demeaning and widespread means of objectifying women available.
Or consider that the proceeds from Sex Week's concluding party will go to Planned Parenthood. Or think about Sex Week's promotion of inappropriate relationships: On its website, it has a photograph captioned "Detention will be served in my bed," with an image of a young girl writing over and over on a chalk board, "I will not suck d*** in class." Having sex with a student, at least at most serious academic institutions, is grounds for dismissal; if the student is a teenager, as this girl appears to be, it's grounds for arrest and jail time for statutory rape.
In Rubenstein's eyes, though, nothing depicted on his website was "inappropriate." And again, it's probably true that most people agree with him.
But just because they do, doesn't mean everyone does. And just because people could put on Sex Week, doesn't mean they ought to have. And certainly Yale — insofar as it is a respected institution of higher learning and a supposedly serious environment for a supposedly serious education — didn't need to put its seal of approval on it.
In the e-mail and on its site, Sex Week was touted as "the only event of its kind on any college campus." That's a relief — there are at least a few Sex Weeks to go before Yale introduces the Janet Jackson Chair in Cultural Studies.
Actually on this board and other boards that I post on most libertarians will be very quick to discredit the founding fathers as being "Slave Owners" "Moralists" "Archaic" ect... When I point out the truth about the founders.
The founders were not libertarian at all. The Founding Fathers believed in the ideology of Edmund Burke who stated that liberty must be connected with order or else it becomes License, which is not freedom at all.
Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public council to find out by cautious experiments, and rational cool endeavours, with how little, not how much, of this restraint the community can subsist; for liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of the state itself, which has just so much life and vigour as there is liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not (for I know it is a fashion to decry the very principle), none will dispute that peace is a blessing; and peace must, in the course of human affairs, be frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty: for as the sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not man for the sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the temper and character of the people with whom it is concerned, and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection. The bulk of mankind, on their part, are not excessively curious concerning any theories whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state is the propensity of the people to resort to them— Edmund Burke
In some people I see great liberty indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude. But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.— Edmund Burke
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite he placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot he free. Their passions forge their fetters.— Edmund Burke
This ideology is opposite of what the libertarians stand for. Libertarians want everyone to be free to do whatever they want. This is the defintion of LICENSE not LIBERTY.
I pointed out some of the goals of the communists to achieve the destruction of America. Your response shows how much it hurts. You see most conservatives have much more in common with the Founding Fathers than modern libertarians.
The Founders had no qualms banning sodomy, adultery, sex outside of marriage, blasphemy, pornography and many other vices that destroy society and thereby limit freedom.
They understood that when a society's morality is destroyed that the people become corrupt and those corrupt people then proceed to limit freedom.
Please tell me how you and modern libertarians are more enlightened than the following men:
"The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty." John Adams
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
"Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being....And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will...this will of his Maker is called the law of nature. These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil...This law of nature dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this... Sir William Blackstone
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom." Patrick Henry
"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." Patrick Henry
"Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God." Gouverneur Morris
"By removing the Bible from schools we would be wasting so much time and money in punishing criminals and so little pains to prevent crime. Take the Bible out of our schools and there would be an explosion in crime." Benjamin Rush
"If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him....Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." William Penn
These are not quotes that seem to support a libertarian agenda of Anti-Christian Ammorality.
I think my post may have upset you by showing you how closely the libertarian platform on social issues mirrors the communist goals for destroying America.
The fact is Libertarians are not for smaller government. I can point out a good example for you. Lets take a look at the homosexual marriage issue.
The libertarians have no problem with 1 state forcing it's standards on the rest of the 49 states. They have no problem with the FEDERAL courts being used as agents to FORCE that change. Libertarians are hypocrites. To hear them say that they are the party of "small government" is laughable. They will use the full force and power of the FEDERAL Government and the FEDERAL courts when it suits their underlying ammoral agenda. Then they will sit back and claim that anyone who opposes them also supports "Big Government."
They have been quite effective in silencing many conservatives with this propaganda tactic.
The fact remains that libertarians have no problem with a small minority in a small state forcing it's values on the entire nation through the Federal Court system, in a manner that is completely incompatable with the founders intent.
The simple fact that the libertarians are Ok with the idea of an Activist Court inventing a new right out of the blue with no basis in law, no basis in common sense and no basis in the Constitution, Shows that they do not support limited Government at all.
The libertarians support perversion and immorality, not limited government.
To even suggest that John Adams intended for Homosexuals to be married when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts is laughable. Anyone seriously suggesting such nonsense probably needs to quite smoking the crack.
The libertarians will line up lock step behind activist judges inventing new rights when it suits their agenda, then they will sit back and claim that it is "Big Government" to oppose this garbage.
Problem is if you can invent a right out of thin air, then you can take away a right just as easily. We shouldn't be needing a Constitutional Amendment to BAN sodomite marriage, the perverts should have to propose an amendment CALLING for it. Not one of the Founders intended for marriage to be open to degenerate sodomites. In the entire history of our nation to just bring up something so stupid would have gotten you laughed out of any conversation now look where we are.
The libertarians are so bent on destroying society's morality and pushing an AMMORAL code on everyone else, that they cannot even see how pro big government they really are. IF it suits their agenda.
TRUE liberty is not LICENSE.
And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow. Judge Learned Hand.
What are you talking about I like libertarians, if they have a decent leader I would support them. Their political platform is amazing.
I don't know where you got this idea from, but it wasn't from me.
First, Respectfully, the list that you posted is not the official libertarian party platform. The list that I posted underneath the communist goals is taken word for word from the libertarian party platform.
Secondly On the list you posted It stated "Judges have *no* authority to make new law."
Do you agree with this statement, and if so what is your position on the MA Supreme Judicial Court inventing new law out of the blue and ordering the State Legislature to enact sodomite marriage?
What is your position on the United States Supreme Court inventing new law and overturning sodomy statutes of individual states?
What is your position on the United States Supreme Court inventing new law and making legal the murder of unborn children?
Having read you posts here, I find your own rationality is suspect.. But sure, we can try..
First, Respectfully, the list that you posted is not the official libertarian party platform. The list that I posted underneath the communist goals is taken word for word from the libertarian party platform.
So what? I consider american libertarians as those supporting our constitution. I don't care what the big 'L' party plank says.
Secondly On the list you posted It stated "Judges have *no* authority to make new law." Do you agree with this statement, and if so what is your position on the MA Supreme Judicial Court inventing new law out of the blue and ordering the State Legislature to enact sodomite marriage?
Did they? I'm positive they do not have that power.
What is your position on the United States Supreme Court inventing new law and overturning sodomy statutes of individual states?
That they did not do so. They simply overturned the verdict in that case, as it violated the individual rights of the queers..
What is your position on the United States Supreme Court inventing new law and making legal the murder of unborn children?
That they did not do so.. They simply overturned the verdict in that case, as it violated the individual rights of the mother..
The closest thing I can think of on the libertarian platform is open immigration, but that it not really true because they don't want the immigrants on welfare and/or other social programs, or anyone else for that matter.
Yep, the 4 Activist Judges gave the Legislature 180 days to bring the statutes in line with their opinion.
The MA Supreme Judicial Court had no precent, no law, nothing other than their own activism for making the decision that they did. In fact they had to quote a Canadian Court Decision as precedent because never in the History of this nation has the idea of sodomite marriage been thought of as legal. No one can seriously say that it was the intent of John Adams (who wrote the MA Constitution) To allow sodomites to marry.
That they did not do so. They simply overturned the verdict in that case, as it violated the individual rights of the queers..
Once again there was no basis for the courts decision. Just 17 years prior the same court had ruled that: "The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable.
At the founding of our nation Every single state had laws banning sodomy. Once again no one seriously considered that the Constitution protected sodomy. The Same men that wrote the Constitution BANNED sodomy and made it a very serious crime.
That they did not do so.. They simply overturned the verdict in that case, as it violated the individual rights of the mother..
Once again there was no basis for the Court's decision in law. Nothing. The Founding Fathers never intended for a FEDERAL court to tell individual states what they could and could not do.
It seems that my take on libertarians was correct. You seem to have no problem with the United States Supreme Court using it's FEDERAL power to force individual states to confirm to a certain social position. How this can be called "small government" is beyond me.
The Founders never intended for any branch of the FEDERAL government to force individual states to do anything.
In fact the USSC back in 1833 found that:
The constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of the individual states. Each state established a constitution for itself, and in that constitution, provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government, as its judgment dictated.
The counsel for the plaintiff in error insists, that the constitution was intended to secure the people of the several states against the undue exercise of power by their respective state governments; as well as against that which might be attempted by their general government.
Had the people of the several states, or any of them, required changes in their constitutions; had they required additional safe-guards to liberty from the apprehended encroachments of their particular governments; the remedy was in their own hands, and could have been applied by themselves. A [32 U.S. 243, 250] convention could have been assembled by the discontented state, and the required improvements could have been made by itself. The unwieldy and cumbrous machinery of procuring a recommendation from two-thirds of congress, and the assent of three-fourths of their sister states, could never have occurred to any human being, as a mode of doing that which might be effected by the state itself. Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of the state governments, they would have imitated the framers of the original constitution, and have expressed that intention. Had congress engaged in the extraordinary occupation of improving the constitutions of the several states, by affording the people additional protection from the exercise of power by their own governments, in matters which concerned themselves alone, they would have declared this purpose in plain and intelligible language.
We are of opinion, that the provision in the fifth amendment to the constitution, declaring that private property shall not be taken for public use, without just compensation, is intended solely as a limitation on the exercise of power by the [32 U.S. 243, 251] government of the United States, and is not applicable to the legislation of the states.
Having read you posts here, I find your own rationality is suspect.. But sure, we can try..
First, Respectfully, the list that you posted is not the official libertarian party platform. The list that I posted underneath the communist goals is taken word for word from the libertarian party platform.
So what? I consider american libertarians as those supporting our constitution. I don't care what the big 'L' party plank says.
Secondly On the list you posted It stated "Judges have *no* authority to make new law." Do you agree with this statement, and if so what is your position on the MA Supreme Judicial Court inventing new law out of the blue and ordering the State Legislature to enact sodomite marriage?
Did they? I'm positive they do not have that power.
Yep, the 4 Activist Judges gave the Legislature 180 days to bring the statutes in line with their opinion.
And then what? Will they send in the bailiffs?
The MA Supreme Judicial Court had no precent, no law, nothing other than their own activism for making the decision that they did. In fact they had to quote a Canadian Court Decision as precedent because never in the History of this nation has the idea of sodomite marriage been thought of as legal. No one can seriously say that it was the intent of John Adams (who wrote the MA Constitution) To allow sodomites to marry.
BIG deal. Get over it..
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What is your position on the United States Supreme Court inventing new law and overturning sodomy statutes of individual states?
That they did not do so. They simply overturned the verdict in that case, as it violated the individual rights of the queers..
Once again there was no basis for the courts decision.
Not true.. They cited their basis. Read the case.
Just 17 years prior the same court had ruled that: "The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable. At the founding of our nation Every single state had laws banning sodomy. Once again no one seriously considered that the Constitution protected sodomy. The Same men that wrote the Constitution BANNED sodomy and made it a very serious crime.
Yep, common law of the day had many laws against sin & sodomy. And against many of our other individual rights, -- all long since struck down as unconstitutional.. -- You want the return of autocratic rule?
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What is your position on the United States Supreme Court inventing new law and making legal the murder of unborn children?
That they did not do so.. They simply overturned the verdict in that case, as it violated the individual rights of the mother..
Once again there was no basis for the Court's decision in law. Nothing.
Wrong again. The court cited their basis. Read the case.
The Founding Fathers never intended for a FEDERAL court to tell individual states what they could and could not do.
Read Art. VI.. The States are bound to obey the Law of the Land.
It seems that my take on libertarians was correct. You seem to have no problem with the United States Supreme Court using it's FEDERAL power to force individual states to confirm to a certain social position.
The US Constitution 'forces' states to conform. ALL officials swear to honor it in their oaths of office.
It seems my take on you was quite correct. You are as irrational about our constitution as you are about libertarians.
How this can be called "small government" is beyond me. The Founders never intended for any branch of the FEDERAL government to force individual states to do anything. In fact the USSC back in 1833 found that: --
'Barron' and misguided 'states rights' movement it fostered was settled by a bloody civil war, and the 14th amendment..
Give it up, -- you anti-constitutionalists lost.
I don't think that the Constitution forced any states to conform except in very limited circumstances,
Read the supemacy clause, Art VI.. All States are bound by our "Law of the Land" is pretty forceful language.
and I don't believe that the Supreme Court was intended to have the role that Marshall pushed it into.
He pushed no one. The role of the USSC is part of our separations of power doctrine. The three branches are supposedly roughly equal in powers.
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'Barron' and misguided 'states rights' movement it fostered was settled by a bloody civil war, and the 14th amendment.
I am 100% grade-A pro-Constitutionalist, in that I think that the Constitution should be a limiting document and speaks in plain language that has been consistently misinterpreted. But I do think that the Constitution doesn't speak to secession, and I think that before the Constitution, the States had the right to nullify any acts by the unifying government.
So I think the States should have had the same rights after the Constitution was ratified as well.
Sorry, that's not the way it worked. The people of the states gave up some of their power to benefit from union under our constitution.
They can't change that decision [nullify acts] without amendment.
That the cause was lost doesn't mean that they were wrong about the limitations on the power of the federal government.
Who said limiting fed power is wrong? Not me..
It's just that the wrong guys won, and ever since, federal intervention in all sorts of unConstitutional spheres has been expanding as a direct result.
The civil war did not change the power structure that much, imo..
I see the major change coming at the turn of the century, when both parties started to support socialistic programs..
Party politics have ruled both fed & state since then, and socialism has won.
The 'states rights' movement is wrongly blaming constitutionalism for our political socialism, imo.
They should be blaming republocratic 'two party' politics.
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