From Jasmine Sailing (jsailing@netonecom.net) Mon May 5 16:01:33 1997
*This Message by - Chris Y
* I haven't been following this discussion, but I do want to say that
* I think there's a difference between laughing at something and
* purging it.
Of course this is somewhere in between because it's laughing at wanting to purge it. Excuse me, laughing WITH wanting to purge it. I have a difficult time laughing about the desire to purge the gene pool of diversity. In fact, I think it's downright frightening that anyone can laugh at it. I suppose it's pretty fucking hilarious what Hitler did... gotta tip back a few brews and have some chuckles over making Jew-skin lampshades because they aren't real people. I believe that is called religious genocide, and it isn't very high on most peoples' chuckle lists.
* I personally don't take the Darwin awards so seriously. I do laugh
* at the Heaven's Gate people. I would not have stopped them from
* fulfilling their destiny, or worshipping their own deities in their
* own ways.
I think it's fine to laugh at Heaven's Gate as long as you realize one simple thing: they're no weirder than Christians. They're no weirder than the status quo. They simply have a slightly different, and more peaceable, take on religion. Laugh at Christians, laugh at Wiccans, laugh at Heaven's Gate, laugh at anyone who follows a leader. Whatever. There's simply no difference. It's no more weird to think a UFO is going to take you to Heaven than it is to think angels and the dead son of God will do so. Or that a skeleton will row you down the river Styx. Or whatever. As long as people realize it's all the same thing and the HG beliefs are no more silly than that of any other religion, then that's fine by me.
I'm not taking the Darwin awards seriously though. I stated that they are all in good fun and I realize that. What I am taking seriously is a precedent of saying people with different belief systems are idiots who should be purged from the gene pool. THAT should be taken seriously no matter how it is presented. Precedents in general should be taken seriously, but no one bothers because no one gives a damn about anything until it personally effects them. Why worry about precedents when you can wait until it's too late, you're all fucked, and there's nothing that can be done anymore? If it's there, it at least needs to be thought about.
* will laugh at them. I think humour needs to be somewhat
*immune to political correctness. I understand your basic
* complaint
This isn't political correctness. PC is separating people for their differences, then trying to act like the differences aren't there. This is saying there aren't differences in this instance, and people should realize that. There's humour, though, and there's tasteless humour that sets a bad precedent. This would be the latter. People are free to say everyone here is a nut who should be purged from the gene pool. They're free to laugh about it, and likely would because we're all just a bunch of deranged morons anyway. I wouldn't consider it to be particularly humourous, though. I wouldn't just laugh and wait for the lynch mob.
Besides, I think it's really called "ethics" rather than "PC". There are
no ethics to PC, there's hipness. In this case it's far more hip to just laugh
at Heaven's Gate and be done with it.
* situation, but I think you're overreacting to a humour thang.
No, I'm not overreacting to a humour thing. I'm reacting to a very valid issue. I've loved the Darwin awards for the past few years. I think it's quite sad that they're drifting from something I found amusing to something I find outright abrasive. It's not funny to me that people think anyone who stands up to the government deserves to be murdered for it. It's not funny that people got shot in the back of the head at the Jim Jones mass death, and are now morons deserving of genetic extinction for it. It's not funny that people approve of the government killing kids because their parents stood up to them. It's not funny that people should be eliminated for not being of good WOP upbringing. Where's the humour in this? Am I somehow missing it? The Darwin awards were funny. This? No. It's not at all amusing to me.
* were legislation against this religion or something like it, I'd
* probably take up my pitchfork and march the front line with you.
* But I won't get that riled up over a joke.
Do you seriously think legislation is the only thing that matters? It isn't. Public opinion is what matters, and here public opinion is, as usual, trying to head in the directions of stomping out individualism. Public opinion changes legislation. We didn't have legislation saying Jews could be genocided for being Jews, but it happened anyway. We didn't have legislation saying everyone in Rwanda could try to genocide each other, but it happened anyway. People thought it was nothing more than a joke when Hitler started spouting off about Jews (and Czechs and...). They thought it was a political platform aside that would never actually be carried out. Oops, right? That was a pretty durned funny political joke in the long run...
What this reminds me most of is a legislative situation that came up here about 7 years ago. I would like to know how many people heard about this one aside from my mentioning it in the past. Legislation has a way of not involving the public. A committee was appointed to decide on some new laws. There weren't any public hearings, we only got it through a leak and jumped on it. The laws would illegalize any form of spiritual/herbal/etc practices without licenses. It would've meant that 85 year old Indian Shamans would've been forced to go to college and get licenses so they could continue to practice their religion. It would've largely illegalized anything from Wiccan spell casting to palm readings. That's pretty drastic, and hardly anyone knew about it. It wasn't a normal legislative thing, it was only about licenses, it simply would've fucked everyone up and rendered them outlaws for their non-standard religious beliefs because it's so difficult to go through the rituals of getting the licenses. The 85 year old shaman can no longer do anything, but the young green 20-something dork who just went to college and never had a legitimate apprenticeship or other training can do everything. They could've gotten away with this too. It wasn't taking rights away, it was simply requiring the licensing of it. So a board was appointed to say whether or not this would go into effect. At least half the people on the board were licensed psychotherapists who don't want their business taken by uneducated religious nuts. No public notice, no nothing, the board decides it all.
Of course we didn't want this to happen and were rather infuriated by it, so we all got the word out as much as possible and tried to get as many protestors as we could before that fateful board meeting. This was happening here in Colorado, but several other states (including California) were waiting to see which way it was going to go. They were all going to follow the precedent. I sent letters about it to the anarchists rags like MRR and Profane Existence. I know they're anti-religion but I certainly thought the general politics and ethics of it would be enough to freak ANY government-fearing people out. I was wrong. Never got a printed letter or a response or anything. Since this involved religion it probably didn't matter that it was going to be setting yet another precedent for completely destroying the Bill of Rights. Just say "Good, ban religion!", then say "Hey, wait, why the hell are you attacking my freedom of speech?". Like I said, people don't care about precedents until they're right there biting their asses in a gruesomely personal way. And, by then, it's generally too late to do anything.
We got enough support against the professionally licensed psychotherapists. We had to. The problem was right there biting our asses in a gruesomely personal way and we couldn't get uninvolved people to help.
Then again, I wouldn't have been effected by the licensing requirement. I always keep my religion to myself, it's very personal to me. I actually did get involved with that one because I cared about the variety of precedents it would be setting. I was horrified, for everything it would lead to. For the general abuse of rights in favour of lobbying, the status quo, and the straight people with the money. I was horrified the most by the people who didn't care though they should have. (I tend to think many new age people are nuts, or I did back then when I bothered to think about it, but I'm firmly behind letting them maintain the right to balance crystals on their own chakras to their hearts' content.)
I'm not bothered by a simple little thing like the Darwin awards. I'm horrified by the thought patterns this particular nomination projects. I'm horrified by everything it represents. I don't like bad precedents in anything, no matter how small or silly it is.
In case this somehow slipped by, I'm not being reminded of the legislation in the psychotherapist situation. I'm moreso being reminded of the lack of reaction from anarchists. So religion is icky. That's their deal. If they had any actual belief in the politics they always spouted, they would have dropped that difference rather than letting the government have one more thoroughly discreet and foul massive attack on our rights. It's the same damned thing as claiming to be pro freedom of speech and respectful of the wisdom of our founding fathers, then turning around and saying guns should be banned and for government use only. You chunk out one section of the Bill of Rights, they aren't just going to let the other chunks lie. They'll be next, with less resistance. Just like the public opinion easily sways with each precedent set. BTW, wanting guns banned, and for government use only, doesn't quite equal respecting the wisdom of our founding fathers. "It is not the right of the people, but their duty, to overthrow a government which does not represent their basic human rights" doesn't sound quite like "Disarm yourselves, and give all of your weapons to the government". People just like to forget that this was an uppity country based on revolution. The Uptight Status of Armageddon. =)
I wouldn't work in the fields I do if I didn't care about rights, public opinion sway, and precedents. Or if I didn't care about protecting the right to be a nut with diverse interests (without getting committed and sterilized). These things bother me, so I check around to see who else is bothered. Test the opinions around me, see if people will think about on several levels. I'll probably only wind up getting one email from a random Heaven's Gate person saying "Kewl! Thanks for defending us!". Then I'll go bonk my head against a concrete wall a few times, once again wondering why I ever bother when the world is hopeless, and then go my own merry way. Till then...
I'll rant and rave and get called a kook and when I get lynched I'll get the award for being so moronic as to get myself killed for spouting my nutty views. And then I'll have the last laugh on them because I have 2 kids, both female and male, so my genes are quite likely to spread no matter what happens to me now! Ha ha ha! =)
Jasmine, frothingly insane advocate of the insane.
Jasmine Sailing %%%% Cyber-Psychos AOD %%%%
jsailing@netonecom.net
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http://www.netonecom.net/~jsailing %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Cyber-Psycho originates from the Greek roots khyber (governor)
and psyche (soul). In this world only the crazy are sane. We are the crazy
who seek to be our own governors, we regulate and correct the evolution
of our own souls. Trust no one who doesn't laugh.