The deaf baby cult: Joseph Farah on lesbians who hoped for kids with disability

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Thursday, April 11, 2002 | Joseph Farah

[Paul C. Jesup]

Joseph Farah is reaching on his views. I think if you ask most people, include lesbians, they would find what these two women did was sickening.

By the way, it is already possible to separate XX sperm from XY sperm using a blood vile spinning machine (I don't know what the name of the machine is).

[Harrison Bergeron]

" I think that what's happened is that the very small minority with such an interest has grown more vocal over the years -- but I see little chance of them getting their way. "

You are very well schooled on the names and intracies of logical fallicies, but your resort to unfounded opinion to support your arguments. The argument you make above might be called the "That's so outrageous it could never happen" fallacy. Going back 50 years and coming forward, we could reference a string of "experts" explaining to us how out of wedlock pregnancies, the homosexual agenda in public education, animal rights, multiculturalism, a sex scandal in the White House, etc. would never become accepted as normal. The ongoing breaking of moral barriers has become normalized. People have come to accept that "morals are declining." Observation tells us that morals are, indeed, declining. It's only logical to assume that they will continue to decline - meaning that what is immoral today will become acceptable tomorrow. Another word for a decline is a slope. A really steep decline might be called slippery. The only correct thing in your nit picky list of fallacies is that we can't accurately link correlations to causality - we don't know which norms will be the next to fall. But we can guess. It doesn't take a degree in linguistics and logic, just a memory and a little common sense.

[GSWarrior]

I was reading about this on Democratic Underground. Most people there found it an abomination.

Be that as it may, if it were possible to determine if an unborn child was going to be a homosexual and that there was a way to correct this, the uproar from homosexuals would be deafening (no pun intended).

[avg_freeper]

"Slippery slope fallacy."

Some slopes are slippery. Just a brief study of control systems would prove that.

Given the right environment a perturbation can produce divergence.

To say it can never happen is in its self a logical fallacy.

[L.N. Smithee]

Fiddle away, Nero.

[L.N. Smithee]

I believe that until a certain age it is impossible to fully give informed consent to sex.

That's clear as mud. Wanna give us a number?

[L.N. Smithee]

You are very well schooled on the names and intracies of logical fallicies, but your resort to unfounded opinion to support your arguments. The argument you make above might be called the "That's so outrageous it could never happen" fallacy. Going back 50 years and coming forward, we could reference a string of "experts" explaining to us how out of wedlock pregnancies, the homosexual agenda in public education, animal rights, multiculturalism, a sex scandal in the White House, etc. would never become accepted as normal. The ongoing breaking of moral barriers has become normalized. People have come to accept that "morals are declining." Observation tells us that morals are, indeed, declining. It's only logical to assume that they will continue to decline - meaning that what is immoral today will become acceptable tomorrow. Another word for a decline is a slope. A really steep decline might be called slippery. The only correct thing in your nit picky list of fallacies is that we can't accurately link correlations to causality - we don't know which norms will be the next to fall. But we can guess. It doesn't take a degree in linguistics and logic, just a memory and a little common sense.

Thanks for saying what I am too PO'd to say coherently.

[Rytwyng]

At what age do you believe it's possible to fully give informed consent?

That's a tough one. If we didn't have existing age-of-consent laws already, where would we start? I suggest the following chain of reasoning --

First, it can't go below biological, sexual maturity. Until secondary sex characteristics and sexual impulses arrive on their own, it's a clear assault on nature to get that young person involved sexually, even if the acts are "consensual". In a small tribe, the definition of "old enough" could be individualized -- "My daughter bleeds with the moon, she is ready to marry!". In a large society, an arbitrary rule is pragmatically necessary, therefore, an age should be chosen, by which virtually all physically normal children have gone through puberty. The limit is necessarly set on the high side of the bell curve. Granted, many individuals mature earlier than that, but the law does have provision for individual exceptions in some states -- with (hopefully wise) parental consent, one can marry at a lower age than is usually permitted. (I think, in Calif, it's 18 on your own, and drops to 16 with parental permission.)

Secondly, childbearing - the usual consquence of sex - requires that one assume adult responsibilities, economic and otherwise. For a variety of reasons (among them, the centuries of accumulated wisdom of raising children), various societies set limits on at what age one can leave school, take full-time job, rent or buy one's own home, etc. These adult responsibilities are, of course, normally necessary to provide for a family -- so, if they must be delayed to a certain age, so should family formation -- and therefore, sex. The age that is chosen, is the point at which nearly everyone can be fairly held accountable for adult responsibilities, altough here again, the law provides for some exceptions -- minors can apply to be emancipated, and at the other end of the scale, some people NEVER grow up.

Finally, there are some sexual activities that are not good for us, no matter how old we are. But to prevent adults from engaging in them would require an unacceptable degree of repression in society. Nevertheless, it's desireable to shield children and adolescents from... dare I say it... RECRUITMENT. Once again, the legal age of adulthood is a good cutoff, since a man who can earn his own living and rent his own apartment cannot be prevented from acting out consensual perversion, and by that age is probably pretty sure that he really wants it.

Personally, I suspect that when all the debating was done, we'd end up enacting age-of-consent laws pretty similar to what we've got now.

[Kozak]

Slippery slope fallacy

Please point out the fallacy. What would make homosexual marriage acceptable but not polygamy?

[Dimensio]

Please point out the fallacy. What would make homosexual marriage acceptable but not polygamy?

Whether or not homosexual marriage is acceptable shouldn't have any bearing on whether or not polygamy is acceptable. They are two seperate issues, and should be considered such.

If it is true that allowing homosexual marriage would lead directly to polygamy, then the steps of progression should be detailed to explain why removing the gender requirement for the legal benefits of marriage implies that the limit of two within a marriage contract should be removed as well.

[Dimensio]

That's clear as mud. Wanna give us a number?

I can't. There is no exact number. There might be an average age for the majority of the population, but emotional maturity doesn't occur at a constant rate for everyone. The best I can offer is that it shouldn't be considered to have happened until after puberty.

[Dimensio]

Homosexuality is against God's law.

You'll need to demonstrate that this God exists, that this "law" you claim can be attributed to "God" and that "God's laws" are more than an axiom but actually have merit.

[Dimensio]

By the way, it is already possible to separate XX sperm from XY sperm using a blood vile spinning machine (I don't know what the name of the machine is).

Centrifuge. I learned it from a movie ("At least we didn't put his sperm in a centrifuge to seperate the Xes from the Ys.").

[Paul C. Jesup]

Thank you.

[Dimensio]

Feel free to explain them. I'm listening. However, first answer the root question: WHY should society be functional? Or exist at all? To preserve the human race? But why should humanity be preserved? Give me reasons OTHER than your personal preference, or the personal preferences of a 51% voting majority.

I tend to go overboard when discussing this and I still always manage to forget important details. I'll try to avoid being too verbose.

Humans typically share a common set of desires. Those common desires include, but are not necessarily limited to, continued posession of property, life, well-being and the life and well-being of loved ones. Why those desires exist can be debated, but humans tend to show those desires more often than not (feel free to disagree with any assertion here, I'll try to back up anything you don't buy right away). Given that most people want to continue living, it's logical to assume that they wouldn't want someone to kill them. Given their desire to maintain and keep their property it is logical to assume that they would not want someone to take their property. Given a group of humans with mutual desires -- continued living and property posession -- they could potentially form an agreement whereby no one will kill or steal from another. To make the agreement have merit, punishments for violating the agreement are determined in andvance and should an individual violate the agreement the rest of the group can see that the punishment is carried out.

That, IMO, is the absolute foundation for organized socieities: implied agreements based upon mutual desire. Yes, should someone not care about their own life, they could freely violate the agreement and thus face the consequences from their society. That much has been happening for thousands of years. Should the majoirty decide that a minority no longer has a "right" to life and property it can be removed, thus mob rule.

[Dimensio]

ACK. I hit "post reply" way too early. I had a little more to say.

As for why it is "desirable" to have a functioning society -- it's desirable for the humans in it. There's nothing inherently "good" or "bad" about it, it's just what happens when humans with common interests get together. The only reason for humans to preserve human existence is because humans desire it to continue. Should a significant number of humans ("significant" being variable depending on the abilities of the group in question) suddenly desire otherwise, then human existance would end.

Thus, I freely admit that my "moral" choices are based on my own desires. I *want* to live in a functioning society. I don't *want* to be raped, killed or deprived of property. I happen to live amongst a large group of people who, for the most part, share the same desire and are willing to live under rules wherein potentially undesirable consequences are imposed for murder, rape or theft.

[headsonpikes]

Thank you, Harrison.

I believe the characterization of a 'slippery slope' moral argument can be either valid or invalid, depending upon the particulars.

Our rationalizing friend imagines that syllogisms have more substance than reality itself; he is wrong.

Remember, dimensio, analysis of terms yields tautologies, at best.

All actual truths about the empirical world around us are rooted in observation, not analysis.

I think I know a slippery slope when I see one, so spare me your argumentum ad misericordium.

The truth may make you unhappy, but it's better to be unhappy than ignorant.

[Dimensio]

Here's the problem.

People argue against legal recognition of homosexual unions. In their arguments they bring up the "slippery slope" concept of polygamy, bestiality and pedophilia -- well, some do.

The argument is fallacious when they do not explain why one leads to the logical progression of another. Most who make such arguments don't bother to do that. It consists of handwaving "well if we allow X, why not allow Y? Why not allow everything!?" when in fact X and Y are two different issues and allowing X might have very different implicaitons than allowing Y. As an example: legal recognization of homosexual unions means you remove the gender requirement. Everything else stays the same, all legal rights and benefits as well as obligations and penalties (such as the marriage tax) are granted, the only difference is that there is no requirement that the persons entering the contractual agreement must be of opposite genders. In polygamy you run into problems because you are introducing additional parties. Marriage grants, among things, next of kin rights to the spouse. In a polygamous relationship, how is this next of kin transferred? Should one spouse die, how does that affect the contractual relationship amongst the others? In two-person marriage death dissolves the marriage and only residual benefits (inhertance and all) remain. In a >2-party marriage, is it multiple spouses joined to a single party (in which case all would be "unmarried" should the main spouse die) or is it multiple people all within the same "marriage", so that no matter who dies everyone else is still married to each other?

Note that I'm not saying that polygamy is good or bad, I'm just pointing out issues in considering legal recognition that are distinctly different than any issues for 2-party same-sex unions.

The other problem is associating the slippery slope as an argument against homosexual unions itself. Is the person making the argument stating that homosexual unions themselves are a "bad thing", or is the arguer saying that regardless of whether two people of the same gender gaining the legal benefits of marriage is good, bad or indifferent the other items down the slippery slope, like pedophilia, are "bad" things and thus homosexual unions themselves should be condemned?

If someone wants to use the slippery slope method as an argument, they should detail it with more than just "it will lead to recognition of pedopihlic unions etc etc". A detailed analysis of how it will lead would be preferrable and IMO the best way to do that is to point out what is "wrong" or undesirable about allowing pedophilia and then pointing out how homosexuality shares some of the same attributes.

[headsonpikes]

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

I would guess that my aversion to over-dependence on strictly logical considerations as to the merit of an argument is rooted in my early aversion to 'ideological' arguments for the merits of socialism.

I firmly believe that theses about the observable world are best confirmed or refuted by facts about that world, not by analysis of the terms. Over-reliance on analysis leads one to the error of reductionism, the most dangerous of all logical fallacies.

Your 'Candidean' assessment of the foundation of the rights to property, the exclusivity of marriage relations, etc. is based, it seems to me, on the belief that humankind will always do the rational and prudent thing.

I think the 20th Century is an adequate rebuttal of that view.

Abandon your calculations! Affirm your life, and the heritage of your ancestors.

[Lady Jag]

If I discovered that my parents tried to ensure my deafness I would sue them for everything they had, regardless of their sex.