Quiz: Were the following statements made in reaction to:
A: New Hampshire legalizing gay marriage.
B: The 1967 US Supreme Court decision legalizing interracial marriage
"This type of legal marriage must be forbidden simply because natural instinct revolts at it as wrong.”
“I believe that the tendency to classify all persons who oppose [such marriages] as ‘prejudiced’ is in itself a prejudice,” claimed a noted psychologist.
A U.S. representative from Georgia declared that allowing this type of marriage “necessarily involves (the) degradation” of conventional marriage, an institution that “deserves admiration rather than execration.”
“The next step will be (the demand for) a law allowing them, without restraint, to … have free and unrestrained social intercourse with your unmarried sons and daughters,” warned a Kentucky congressman.
“When people (like this) marry, they cannot possibly have any progeny,” wrote an appeals judge in a Missouri case. “And such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid their marriages.”
These types of marriages are “abominable,” according to Virginia law. If allowed, they would “pollute” America.
In denying the appeal of this type of couple that had tried unsuccessfully to marry, a Georgia court wrote that such unions are “not only unnatural, but … always productive of deplorable results,” such as increased effeminate behavior in the population. “They are productive of evil, and evil only, without any corresponding good … (in accordance with) the God of nature.”
A ban on this type of marriage is not discriminatory, reasoned a Republican congressman from Illinois, because it “applies equally to men and women.”
Attorneys for the state of Tennessee argued that such unions should be illegal because they are “distasteful to our people and unfit to produce the human race.” The state Supreme Court agreed, declaring these types of marriages would be “a calamity full of the saddest and gloomiest portent to the generations that are to come after us.”
“The law concerning marriages is to be construed and understood in relation to those persons only to whom that law relates,” thundered a Virginia judge in response to a challenge to that state’s non-recognition of these types of unions. “And not,” he continued, “to a class of persons clearly not within the idea of the legislature when contemplating the subject of marriage.”
A: They were ALL about interracial marriage, but it's hard to tell isn't it?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Why Womean Can't be Bosses
http://uk.askmen.com/money/career_250/278_why-women-cant-be-bosses.html
Thompson has fallen for the classic "Confirmation bias" logical fallacy. He's filtered his observations through his biases, discarding the evidence that refutes his beliefs, while accepting the experiences that supports them.
This is a common mental defect among people who fall for scams like your average "psychic." Because they want to believe, suckers remember all the vague, unspecified "hits" a psychic makes during a reading, but forget the 99% of the conversation that consisted of little more than inaccurate guesses, hemming and hawing.
It's clear Thompson either actively dislikes women, or is trying to convey that image in the article. I'm reminded of the members of the rather sad, pathetic "True Forced Loneliness" movement and their paranoia about WHY women reject them.
Thompson has fallen for the classic "Confirmation bias" logical fallacy. He's filtered his observations through his biases, discarding the evidence that refutes his beliefs, while accepting the experiences that supports them.
This is a common mental defect among people who fall for scams like your average "psychic." Because they want to believe, suckers remember all the vague, unspecified "hits" a psychic makes during a reading, but forget the 99% of the conversation that consisted of little more than inaccurate guesses, hemming and hawing.
It's clear Thompson either actively dislikes women, or is trying to convey that image in the article. I'm reminded of the members of the rather sad, pathetic "True Forced Loneliness" movement and their paranoia about WHY women reject them.
Monday, June 8, 2009
An observation
Western medicine tends to absorb and use any "alternative" treatments that are proven to be effective. Aspirin is an early example. It was found that the bark of certain trees contained a compound that eased pain. Bayer went to the trouble of isolating the active compound and mass producing a purified version. Many big pharmaceutical companies have departments that test and evaluate "natural" remedies to determine what the active ingredients are.
Most of the "natural" remedies that lie outside of western medicine fall into the category of folk medicine that refuses to die out, despite there being ample evidence that it's bunk. Others, like St John's Wort, are painfully inconsistent in the dosage of active ingredients. Saint John's Wort contains what many claim is a weak MIO inhibitor. The problem is the dosage of that inhibitor varies wildly not just from one brand to the next, but even from one PILL to the next in the same bottle. People using this "natural" remedy are, as a result, self medicating with a drug whose dosage can't be satisfactorily controlled. This is a recipe for disaster, particularly when dealing with ailments like clinical depression.
Finally, there's the myth that "natural" remedies aren't as "dangerous" as science based medicine. For some inexplicable reason, people tend to think that just because a drug is less refined (and thus has more contaminants) it's magically less dangerous. What's more, people often ignore "natural" remedies when discussing potential drug interactions with their doctors.
Most of the "natural" remedies that lie outside of western medicine fall into the category of folk medicine that refuses to die out, despite there being ample evidence that it's bunk. Others, like St John's Wort, are painfully inconsistent in the dosage of active ingredients. Saint John's Wort contains what many claim is a weak MIO inhibitor. The problem is the dosage of that inhibitor varies wildly not just from one brand to the next, but even from one PILL to the next in the same bottle. People using this "natural" remedy are, as a result, self medicating with a drug whose dosage can't be satisfactorily controlled. This is a recipe for disaster, particularly when dealing with ailments like clinical depression.
Finally, there's the myth that "natural" remedies aren't as "dangerous" as science based medicine. For some inexplicable reason, people tend to think that just because a drug is less refined (and thus has more contaminants) it's magically less dangerous. What's more, people often ignore "natural" remedies when discussing potential drug interactions with their doctors.
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