From: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (James Woodyatt)
Subject: I think I've trapped Clayton Cramer!
Keywords: blah blah
Organization: Space Systems/Loral
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 06:57:05 GMT

[If you haven't been following this flame-fest I've been having with
 Clayton Cramer, it's probably just as well... but I think I've got
 him pretty well treed a few pages down. He asked me to fabricate a
 hypothetical situation where he'd have to admit he'd sacrifice his
 principles to satisfy his prejudices or look foolish trying not to,
 and I think I've got him. Check it out. (Search for `*****')
							--JHW.:.]

In article <10371@optilink.UUCP>, cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
|> In article <1992Apr7.035029.3955@wdl.loral.com>, bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (James Woodyatt) writes:
|> # [Clayton's *artful* dodge of my Christian Radio analogy is deleted.]
|> 
|> Artful dodge?  No, you were largely correct.  Why should I disagree
|> with you?

Hmmm? Evidently you're so good at dodging the issue, you can do it without
even realizing you're doing it. You ought to run for office. You're a
natural.

I was trying to turn your own argument against you, by making an analogy.

You dodged it by doing a fairly decent job of showing that my analogy had
limits that you weren't willing to accept.

I still think it's a good analogy, but I'm not going to press it.

-----

|> And you would be wrong.  I will agree that my anger about the homosexual
|> community's support for fascism makes me more willing to fight a
|> law aimed specifically at helping them -- but I would have the same
|> irritation if the law prohibited discrimination based on heterosexual
|> promiscuity.  It's none of the government's business!

Ah, but do you have a reasonably equal amount of anger for other groups
that call for similar (or greater) levels of government intervention? (I
refuse to help you abuse the word `fascism'.)

I don't think so, and I base that judgement on the level of vitriol you
reserve for homosexuals alone. The Democratic tax bill that eventually
got vetoed by the President was right up your alley, but I heard less about
it from you than I did about the doomed-to-fail reincarnation of AB101.

I may be wrong about you, Clayton. I'd like to be wrong about you, but I'd
have a hard time explaining to my friends why, after reading what you've
written, I *don't* think you're probably a homophobe, because *that's* the
easiest explanation for your specific targeting of homosexuals over all the
other `bad guy' groups out there.

-----

|> # This is what I have come to expect of you from reading what you write. I
|> # have to ask myself, is my perception wrong? Because if it's not, there
|> # would seem to be something else besides your opposition to anti-
|> # discrimination law driving you, and it would be within reason to wonder
|> # if you hadn't just concocted the opposition to anti-discrimination law
|> # position to allow you to escape the charge of bigotry.
|> 
|> Sorry, but my opposition to antidiscrimination laws in general has
|> been expressed for years on USENET.  That opposition is typical of
|> libertarians in the U.S.

Yup. I know that. Knew it when I wrote that above.

My belief that there are some Libertarians who find the ideology appealing
because it allows them to feel comfortable about the bigotry has been
expressed before in this forum. I'm wondering out loud whether you fall
into that category, the category of people who take the Libertarian
position against anti-discrimination law because it suits their prejudices.

Your denial that you are one of these people is assumed. (I still wonder.)

-----

|> You support a law that forces one person to consent to an action that
|> another wants.  You seek to force consent from employers and landlords.
|> Put it another way: a landlord is a consenting adult, all by himself.
|> Your liberal/fascist policies seek to abolish that consent.

You have a ferociously warped understanding of my positions.

I support laws that prohibit the systematic discrimination in housing,
employment and education that denies equal opportunity to groups of
people based on their race, sex, religion, etc. (this includes sexual
orientation).

But I'm talking past you right now. Your mind is closed to any possible
understanding of what I'm saying other than that I'm a Liberal-Fascist
and I want to make you my slave.

Get a life.

----- [ ******** Here's where it gets interesting ************* ]

|> # Further, there *are* expansions of government power I am in favor of,
|> # that fall outside that set.
|> # 
|> # Finally, I dare say I expect I could fabricate a hypothetical situation
|> # wherein an adult could consent to do something in private with another
|> # consenting adult and you would jump through flaming rhetorical hoops to
|> # explain that the activity should be punished by the government.
|> 
|> Such as?

Okay, since you asked...

Let's say I run a day care center... from a decidedly alternative point
of view (one you *really* don't like). I advertise that I and my caring
staff will teach young girls how to be women. I outline in complete
detail, right up front, how I give the girls LSD, beat them silly, force
them into performing a *wide* variety of sexual acts, feed them low-
carbohydrate gruel and continually apply psychological terror techniques
until their will is completely broken down. For this service I charge
US$20000, and I demand rigorous proof of identification for the purposes
of clearly determining that the customer has the authority to give
consent on behalf of his/her daughter.

Hmmm. Pretty nasty, huh? *But* *there's* *a* *market* *for* *everything*,
Clayton. I don't think you need me to tell you that there is indeed a
market even for this.

I seem to recall words came out of your very site with your .sig on the
end to the effect that young girls are not capable of consenting to this
kind of activity. I'm using that to my advantage here.

That's fine. In my hypothetical situation, they don't have to. Their
parents are the ones consenting.

Now, before you go off on how ridiculous my scenario seems at first glance,
understand that a great deal of our laws are justified on the basis of
protecting children who aren't able to make decisions for themselves. There
are other tools government uses to sell the public on its draconian laws,
concern for national security probably most notable among them.

This is important. Would you say that the government should punish me
for *my* behavior? Take note that I'm not concerned with whether you think
my customers should be punished -- just whether you think *I'm* doing
something which I should be *prevented*, by government if necessary, from
doing.

I expect you'll do one of three things:

	1. Trip over yourself explaining how I have every right to engage
	   in this odious business as long as I can find customers without
	   engaging in any other foul play.

	2. Trip all over yourself explaining how I shouldn't have the
	   right to enter into agreements of this kind with the parents
	   of young girls who want their daughters abused by a
	   professional, which is precisely what I'm daring you to try
	   not to do.

	3. Trip over the inherent difficulty of explaining how young girls
	   don't have the capability to consent to such treatment them-
	   selves, while explaining how the parents don't have the right
	   to make *this* decision on behalf of their daughters in light
	   of their daughters' inability to consent, while still retaining
	   the right to make *other* decisions on behalf of their
	   daughters -- like say brain surgery -- and, that I am therefore
	   not entering into valid contracts with my customers.

Any way you decide, I expect to be entertained.

Go ahead. Shock me. Think of a way to dodge this one.

-----

|> 1. Homophobia has lost all meaning, just like the use of "fascist"
|> by liberals to describe every non-Communist idea almost caused that
|> word to lose its meaning.  I am described as a homophobe for saying
|> that the government shouldn't be interfering in private adult
|> concerns.

This from the same man who only a few paragraphs before was abusing
the word `fascist' far worse than most liberals ever do.

Clayton, I'm an educated man. I know how to use a dictionary. When I
use the word` homophobe', I expect you know what it means at least as
well as I do. Further, I would guess that most people know what it
means.

I don't buy this crap from you that `homophobia' has lost its meaning.
Everybody knows what it means -- except maybe you. When I say, ``I
wonder if you might be a homophobe,'' I'm really saying, ``I wonder
if you might have an irrational fear of homosexuality and homosexuals
which would explain why you seem to hate them so.'' Granted there are
others here who exhibit stronger homophobia than you.

|> 2. This may surprise you, but I am considered a flaming liberal in
|> some circles.  I have an acquaintance who will never use the word
|> "homosexual."  It's always, "faggot."  Why?  He was molested as a
|> child by Scoutmaster.  He has never quite overcome it, and works in
|> a low paying blue collar job.  He might qualify as a homophobe.
|> If you asked if homosexuals should be all locked up, he would 
|> doubtless say yes.

(`Might'? *Might?* ...Jeez, Clayton, would you have to *see* him with
your very own eyes, throttling to death someone you *knew* to be a
homosexual before you'd be willing to say something like `There is no
reasonable doubt that he qualifies as a homophobe?')

This sounds vaguely like a `some of my best friends...' story, to me.
Kind of a `see, I'm not as bad as *some* people...' thing. Yeah, like
John Seymour is sweetness and light next to Bill Dannemeyer... I don't
care. We're quibbling over how much sewage has overflowed the toilet.

All I can say is that I'm glad I don't have your friends. But then,
I don't. I don't associate with people like that anymore. These are
exactly the kind of people I chose to avoid when I decided not to
sail after graduating from the Academy.

Forgive me. I'm weak. I find it difficult to argue about such things
as this with someone I must live and work with, day in and day out,
with no alternative.

-- 
James Woodyatt  Space Systems/Loral   Palo Alto, CA   bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com

``And when he dreamed his ears drooled thirty weight engine oil
He took personality tests and stapled them to his lower lip''
				    --Stan Ridgway,
				      `Jack Talked (Like A Man On Fire)'
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