Posted on 12/27/2004 1:26:04 PM PST by quidnunc
When it comes to social progress — hang on, where are my scare quotes? — social "progress" — that's better. Anyway, when it comes to it, Britain and America often wind up at similar destinations but by two very different routes.
In the US, big changes — on abortion, gay marriage — are ushered in by judges claiming to have discovered a hitherto unknown right to them lurking in the "emanations" of the "penumbra" of the constitution: the "right to privacy", for example, under which abortion was legalised coast to coast. In Britain, everything's much more incremental and utilitarian: there was no great constitutional principle or human right attached to the legalisation of abortion; it was just a practical approach to a political problem.
On the whole, I prefer the American way. If someone constructs a great epic principle as the justification for social change — "a woman's right to choose" — it's very easy to respond with a great epic principle of your own — the "right to life". That's one reason why the anti-abortion movement in America is a going concern — and, indeed, year on year winning the argument. In Britain, by contrast, it's very hard to argue a great principle in the absence of any on the other side: "right to life" works well against the "right to choose"; it's less effective when the other chaps are mumbling, "Yes, well, there we are. Difficult question, did the best we could, all in the past now, no point raking everything up again."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The law of unintended consequences - the abandonment of traditional marriage leads to polygamy which in turn leads to a save haven in the US for Islam to reproduce unfettered.
I guess it could all be summed up as such: a sick individual (or society) is prone to all manner of opportunistic infections.
Spot on, Mark!!
I would remind you that polygamy was (and in some cases still is) practiced by Jews, Christians, and just about every other faith.
That began with a 50% divorce rate, not gay people wanting to tie the knot.
"It seems highly improbable to me that gay hedonism and creeping sharia can co-exist for long."
A British conservative gets the point that American liberals fail to understand. If the muslims ever impose Sharia in America it is the "multicultural" and "diversity" crowds whom they will target first.
The Islamonazis will kill the gays, the atheists, the liberal Jews, the Hollywierdos, and the UC Berkeley libs long before they go after the rest of us.
Oddly, it will fall to the religious right and the "gun nuts" to rise up to protect the effeminate liberals from reaping what they are sowing.
No, here's the real joke: aside from polygamy, Muslims believe strongly in a traditional and patriarchal family unit. And liberals are trapped in arguing against it because they believe ALL post-Western or post-Christian lifestyles, if you like, are created equal. Gotcha!
When they figure out that polyandry comes with polygamy I figure the latter will lose it's appeal.
My point put someone differently than yours but its a valid reading of Mark Steyn's position. And on reflection, it goes to the root of American liberal fear of conservatives: they might be right we need to be saved from our own stupidity. But they're too proud to admit the other side is doing it for their own good.
It's going, going, gone!
Polygamy must be totally banned. It would lead to Islamic takeover sooner rather than later.
I used a similar approach in "discussion" with a homosexual advocate of "gay marriage." In this case, he was indignant that I compared it to adult-child marriage, ie. if a person's sex is no longer relevant, why should a person's age be? It was a lot of fun. I asked him, "How can you deny to a child the very rights you yourself would like to enjoy? You're not prejudiced against children, are you?" He predictably replied that children don't have sufficient judgment to enter into such a relationship -- to which I asked him, "And homosexuals, who can't figure out which parts fit together properly, have better judgment?" I love talking to these guys.
LOL! Heck, if I could clone Mr. Mew, I'd like to have two hubbies :)
Begin by listing all Christian Churches (other than breakaway Mormon sects) that practice polygamy or we will consider the point withdrawn. Thanks for playing.
We could reinstitute it. Of course for men, it would lead to zero cases of adultery. Life would never be the same again.
bump
...Last year, I was strolling down the boulevard de Maisonneuve in Montreal and saw across the street a Muslim woman, covered from head to toe in black, struggling home with her groceries past a "condom boutique" whose front window was advertising massive discounts on a, er, item of useful gay-sex paraphernalia. I wish I'd had a digital camera: there, in a single image, were the internal contradictions of the multicultural society. It seems highly improbable to me that gay hedonism and creeping sharia can co-exist for long. As yesterday's dispirited poll results implied, the modern multicultural state is really a nullity, a vacuum. The question is what's likely to fill it.
The gays who so confidently emailed Steyn, huffily insisting there was no comparison between the legitimacy of their demands for marriage and muslims desire for legal recognition of their polygamy just might find themselves at the doodoo end of the old slippery slope given time. The murder of Theo Van Gough was a wake-up for the Dutch but a lot of the gays, lesbians and militant feminists who comprise part of the radical left that is happily patronizing the islamists just might figure out the contradiction only when they're being burned at the stake by their muslim fellow-travelers. Van Gogh, after all, was murdered specifically over the feminist-themed film he had just finished.
So was robbery and murder. But none of these was approved.
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