william.scherk

The story (by Christopher Booker, historian, author and journalist) at the Telegraph contains a link to the blog home of "Steve Goddard," a pseudonymous1 consultant. It was Goddard's work, not Booker's that is the original source of 'fabricated' data claim. Several recent postings at the Goddard blog inspired the Telegraph column, but Booker only mentioned this one, without providing a direct link: "Data Tampering At USHCN/GISS." Here is the image from that posting that illustrates the main argument2: In a nutshell, Goddard prefers raw temperature data over any 'adjustments.' Though there might conceivably be good reasons to 'adjust' raw temperature data -- in the sense of reducing error, bias, poor sampling, and other concerns3 -- Goddard is having none of that. Adjustment is manipulation is fabrication. We should note he has been touting 'fabrication' for at least a couple of years. Here's a link to and an excerpt from a 2012 story at Forbes that helps explain what he sees in the data: I personally find Booker to be unreliable and a bit kooky (being an "intelligent design" creationist). He (earlier articles cribbing from Goddard) has been wrong before. I kinda gotta file the Telegraph story under 'not news,' but advise those who take it under advisement to read at least a little bit of the 'pushback,' both in the comments at Goddard's blog and elsewhere. Here's an eye-opening article published yesterday at Reason that challenges the Telegraph article and Goddard, and quotes well-known climate skeptic Anthony Watts. (There is of course more critical material, though it can be a hard slog to identify and integrate both 'sides' of this particular question, as with any other polarized schmozzle. Bottom line is that we can be easily convinced that fraud, manipulation, hoaxing and conspiracy surrounds and infects the business/science of Climate Change -- if we want to. Measuring and accurately reporting the degree of the conspiracy is more tricky. Sifting the gold from the dross more tricky still.) I post the whole dang thing, since it contains links to the important errors and other analyses. ________________________ 1 -- from a Heartland Institute conference speakers list: "Tony Heller has spent much of the past seven years studying the history of extreme weather, as well as the history and methodology behind the reported NOAA/NASA temperature record. Tony is an expert in computer graphics and high performance computing. He has a B.S. in Geology from ASU, and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Rice University. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado and blogs under the pen name of Steve Goddard." 2 -- two links to explanations of 'corrections'/systematic fraud: National Temperature Trends: The Science Behind the Calculations and Quality Control, Homogeneity Testing, and Adjustment Procedures 3 -- the Forbes article cited above resulted in some "pushback" and in the process suggested the 'might be smart' reasons for adjustments: Heartland’s James Taylor hits new low with defamatory false accusations against NOAA

If the emperor of SOLOpassion had set out with a goal of driving his audience down to nothing in five years, he could not have done better. He took what followers and interest were his share of SOLO/Rebirth of Reason, drove away the reasonable, banned the contrarians, tolerated kooks, turned on his own allies, and just generally stunk up his own party.

Thanks for the note, PDS. I tend to be a contrarian, which is not always welcome on an Objectivish site. I don't think Wolf is up to the challenge of sustaining an argument on this particular field of study. The scientists are clods, so ... Lawd, how many tomes and articles have come down the pike on Free Will? Tony, if you are interested in the study, as I am, you might be confused, as I am, about some of the concepts. I looked for "occipital alpha-band power" and research work that includes it as a factor of prediction. In the abstract, the authors suggest "an alternative view is that this variability is fundamental to perception and cognition and may be particularly important in decision-making." They are not alone in linking the brain wave 'noise' to pre-conscious bias, attentional states, learning and so on. I am by no means up on work in the immense field of cognitive neuroscience, but with a little reading I find out the kind of research corner carved out around decision-making and "occipital alpha-band power." I think it's pretty neat. Here's an example of alpha waves ('formerly noise') under at least partial conscious control (from 2012): Here's another intriguing finding, from 2009. One more (from this year) spells out a bit more of the variability that is predictive:

I thought Binswanger sounded reasonable for the first eleven words. By the second paragraph, however, he shifted hard from the real world to a magical world of 'let's suppose.' In the magical world, what are mostly impractical or insane prescriptions for the actual world (wide-open borders/no quotas/no visa regime/no perks of citizenship) almost sound sane. Because in a perfect world, all is perfection. I live about two miles from the US-Canada border. I have been crossing that border since I was five. I can just barely imagine what that border would be like if Binswanger were Mr Thompson. I guess that Mr T would somehow negotiate away the notion of a sovereign Canada entirely. What these dreamworld arguments leave out is the will of other parties to the deal. The other countries. By what moral principle can every person queuing at the border north force his way into a different realm of law? Well, grab the wand and wave it hard. I immediately think of the power of the border agents on both sides to detain, question, examine each and every person and object which comes up to the gate. As a Canadian citizen, I want Canadian law to apply going north, I want experienced agents able to identify the citizenship of the person and the details of the goods and his or her plans. I want to be able to consult a book of rules and exceptions that tell me how we deal with every kind of applicant at the gate: refugee, visitor, temporary worker, student, tourist, businessperson, doctor, actor, oil-field worker and so on. In Binswanger's world of dissolved borders and concomitant dissolved national sovereignty, our three countries would essentially give the full freedoms and privileges of citizenship to each other's millions sight unseen -- by some hand-waving, the North American free-trade treaties would also extend full freedom of movement, work, residence. Without discussion. This magical Bizarro North America, Binswanger style, removes the very operation of jurisdiction that each country has built up. A little bit of Wite-Out and it's gone. A couple of readers seem to get agitated about Third World persons and their presumed socialist bias infecting the USA with alien values and life-choices. Even infecting and killing a putative Libertarian States of American, also in the dream world. I'd suggest the agitated look a bit further north, and consider the province of Alberta. It is as right-wing libertarian/reform/conservative/capitalist as it gets in Canada, and has accommodated many Third-World immigrants since our rules were liberalized in the sixties. The immigrants actually are slightly more Randian than the 'white' voters. Note Calgary's popular businessman-mayor (also notable for being brown, and for being Muslim). I'm also thinking of the BC political scene. The descended-from-3rd-world-immigrant communities are split, but the majority votes right. Consider the most multicultural cities of Canada, Toronto and Vancouver. In TO's case, the 'Ford Nation' is by no means a 'white' conservatism, much of his electoral support spawned from the middle classes of descended-from-3rd-world-immigrant communities. These two cities are dynamos in the national economy, despite or perhaps because of their small majorities of 'third world' residents. Canada seems to have inculcated the rule of law successfully, encouraged free market participation, made it relatively easy to work hard and prosper, made a good stab at integrating newcomers into the full breadth of citizenship. We don't have the same extent of an ethno-racial underclass as the USA, unable or unwilling to bootstrap up. Nationally, we are governed by the Conservative party. Although it is to the left of the Republicans, it conducts a very Republican foreign policy. Mark brings up his favourite taboo factor, race, suggesting it is perfectly natural to prefer one's own race, as natural as sex. I don't know what this means over the long run. How natural 'types' of race select sexual partners, workmates, neighbours, friends, what does this taboo factor suggest, in terms of immigration? I don't know if 'racial preference' is as natural as sex (I suspect not, as both of our countries show increasingly numerous 'biracial' couplings). As for the whitest neighbourhoods in metropolis, I am sure there are other criteria in play today. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles are both racially-segregated in parts and racially-mixed in others. Moreover, their dynamic neighbourhoods are not 'all-white' ... Neil suggests that Binswanger's open immigration dream would also open the doors to Muslim immigration. I think that is right, but outside the dream, American does not have any particular bar set against this or any other religion. Similarly, Binswanger's "crushing military defeat" of terror regimes comes from the same magical place as his disappearing national citizenships, and erased borders and controls. Hand-waving. Francisco asks, What about ethnic character? In the US, residential segregation is greater now than it was before 'desegregation.' Most modern (post-reform) immigrant communities follow the same exact path as those who preceded, seeking both wealth and community support: work, business, community institutions, political engagement. Ethnicity tends to become less important as a set-off marker with each generation following immigration, I believe. Folks will 'vote with their feet' in any case. In a racially-divided nation, exclusive enclaves may be given tacit blessing, and customary support in real estate practices. For those who don't really care about the race of other citizens to any great degree, they will live in mixed areas. It is depressing to consider that Objectivists might be pining for a less-brown world in the USA. Or worrying about the consequences of a Binswanger Border. The one is going to happen regardless ... browner/darker people on average ... while the other is pure fantasy. As for the Israel question, Binswanger is probably somewhere around Diana's Hsieh's position, that Israel (among Western nations) should racially/ethnically/religiously select its immigrants to maintain a Jewish ethnocultural/racial majority in Israel proper. The only possible way that Israel could agree to a non-racial immigration is if all its enemies who have expelled Jewish populations (all but Iran) agreed to redress, or otherwise made peace. That is a hundred-year project to my eyes. Almost as magical as Free America from the Arctic to Panama. Kyrel raises the alarm that a Binswangerite open border would flood society with barbarian hordes who hate freedom and America and civilization. This seems like crazy talk, stressing the innate awfulness of those offshore. Look north, Kyrel! It is so much worse; not only is the base population socialist/altruist/Canadian, we tend to instill the erstwhile "Canadian" values of tolerance and good government in our newly-arrived on top of their innate barbarian altruism. As is obvious then, you need only view Canada's climate of poisonous hate and its ongoing destruction of civilization to get really worked up. Neil suggests that the Binswanger dream would overwhelm normal governance. Of course, but I would say that we can arrange any fantasy world to obey fantasy logic.** Brant suggests Binswanger is working off a "should be" instead of a hard-nosed understanding the real world situation. I agree. I appreciate in a kind of thought-experiment his stand on principle, but the details sound nuts given the realities of the issue in the USA. Brant also suggests that California may be set adrift in some future instance. What does this mean? California is a modern industrialized state that exports all over the world. It is a world-leader in technological advances, an incubator of the information age, with outstanding educational institutions and research facilities. That it may contain a majority of brown, black, Asian and Hispanic-descent citizens this century tells us nothing about its prospects, economy, or its ability to generate wealth (in both knowledge and tech). _______________________ ** to see what happens in places with massive movement of human beings, consider what happens in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon because of the war in Syria and Iraq. Ordinary government is not overwhelmed per se -- because the moving folks are refugees. They have few options for becoming citizens, most residing in camps, or listed with UN refugee agencies. They have not a hope of citizenship. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees are almost a third of its population right now.

I have the kind of tidy mind that enjoys looking at books of urban planning and engineering. It's been interesting to watch the last thirty years of urban growth in North America. The malls story is one small part (dead mall syndrome even has an informative Wikipedia page!) that I find interesting. There has been a series of articles over the last year on the phenomenon, the best at CityLab. Sad folks can feel sadder by visiting DeadMalls.com. The flow of commerce through and past some malls reflects local eddies and sloughs of development that happen in a complicated continental economy. Not all US malls of a certain age are in decline or empty or repurposed or demolished. Some regions suffer depopulation, others less dire results of industrial base decline. The death-rate of malls is relative to the overall pitch of local economy -- where would we expect a dead mall: metropolitan Detroit or Atlanta? I can't speak to other cities in detail, but should mention that in metropolitan Vancouver, if a mall is aged or troubled, it will be rebuilt with high-rises included. Even if it isn't old or troubled, it will be building highrises on its former parking lots. The major malls in the region compete with each other in establishing denser urban form. The next major conversion will turn the aging but prosperous Brentwood Mall into a many-towered neighborhood hard on the train to Vancouver. I don't know what to say to someone whose economy foundered enough, or changed enough, to shutter major regional malls. I think there has been a 'peak suburbia' kind of moment, when the least expensive option for continued growth in the future is to 'densify' the near city nodes and neighbourhoods. Though sprawl will continue, it will be balanced by more development closer in. Some places will continue to coast or contract.

The issue here may be simplistic science journalism, or even 'science by press release.' LiveScience jazzed up the UC-Davis press release, did an email interview with one of the study authors, fished out a comment or two -- then applied a 'sexy' title. Then the LS article went on the wires and was reproduced with more speculation, less attention to the specifics of the findings in the published article. This does not make the folks who wrote the journal article and conducted the research weirdly wrong, yes? It's a small interesting piece of work that will stand or fall in replication or extension. What struck me was that these "clods" were able to predict 'voluntary' choice from listening to the previously ignored "noise." I'm leaning towards the unsexy headline of "'Brain "noise" affects decision-making." Here's the abstract. It's in the April 2014 issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience: Here's a bit more explanation of the research by one of its authors. from the UC-Davis press release. It helped me understand how a misreading of the article's import might lead to cloddishness:

I was born and grew up in northwest British Columbia, specifically the port of Prince Rupert. For anyone with a glancing knowledge of anthropology, this area was at one time the unknown, a last blank region on the map of the world, a place where the seafaring nations and empires sought to each make their mark. Here the blank region was visited by the Russians, the Spanish, and the British. Here the redskins were differentiated into multiple nations. Prince Rupert thus was populated not only by recent immigrants and other Canadians, but also by the Tsimshian, Nisga'a, Kwakiutl, Haida, Tlingit, and so on, cultures whose historical areas bordered the city or were close at hand. As I grew up to teenhood, I heard many names for these people, all the curse words and denigrating terms, insults and fighting words. On the other hand, the words that covered every one of them changed with usage over time. The terms of the Indian Act (Canada's carryover of royal responsibility) implied and prescribed tutelage. "Indians" were not full citizens. They could not vote until 1960, for example, nor attend university, among other strictures of 2nd class citizenship. Indians of BC's northwest had never made treaties with the Crown (from imperial Britain to colonial and later provincial governments) unlike all the other provinces. Until the 1980s the official Crown/BC government line was that any presumed rights of the natives, whether in land or fisheries or resource management -- all such rights had been extinguished. Meanwhile ... The words that referred to "Indians" of the Act were joined by native indian, aboriginal people, first peoples, first nations. Growing up to adulthood, I saw the multiple barriers to full citizenship fall away from the "Indians" and as the barriers fell new ways of self-naming came to be favoured. (many similar lexical shifts took place with regard to other 'minority' groups in Canada. Kike, Hymie, Sheenie fell out of favour, as did Jap, Chinaman, East Indian, Paki, Hindu, N***er, Polack, Frenchie, Half-Breed and so on). If one has a measure of or even no respect for the "Indians" in their multiple instances, one can use the worst of the insults, or one can use words that the "Indians" themselves choose to go by. To strain an analogy, you can say, "Call me Kyrel," and I could use "Monkey-face" ... How much Cherokee heritage 'shows' (ie, could we spot you in a crowd), and how much of it can you pass on to your children? I expect that you do not celebrate Cherokee Day in your household, nor speak Cherokee language. I appreciate the sarcasm, but I find the issues clouded by slippery slope type argument. What I learned living among a whole host of 'different' native Indians in my early years was that words hurt kids, can be used to shame and humiliate and denigrate. I saw it, I even participated at times in 'aping' the accent and stereotype. The degree of active, persistent discrimination in work, housing, schooling, however, changed over the years. What was once shameful (think of status, think of civil rights, think of the systematic effect of a hundred odd years of tutelage, in this case culture at its most basic, language), became 'different,' became worthy of pride. I am proud of my country in the slow progress we have made to enfranchise a once-curbed class of people. The town I grew up in eventually shed a legacy of racism and tutelage. It took time and effort. Whether you think of them as a large pot of similar, Cherokee not much different from Nisga'a, or whether you think of them as oppressed or properly subjugated or federally-favoured, I think we have to be alert to what Native Indians (or First Nations, or whatever) say about words that hurt, that tend to denigrate individuals. I don't really think anyone would (all things being equal) choose to call a new Native American acquaintance a 'brave,' a 'redskin,' or similar. On the issue of sports-team names, I wonder if there is a disconnect. If what would be tasteless in personal conversation (N-word, Redskin, Brave, Klooch, Paiute) is used as a trademark for a team, is there a similar tastelessness?** It sounds like you emerged from the Hills without a particular ethnicity -- and then plunged into a multi-ethnic society in Brazil. I doubt you have ever traded on a Cherokee status, be it in family myth or careful genealogy. You have no lick of racism remaining that may have been acculturated in the mountains, anyways, nor tolerance for fighting words on race. I really don't know how your 'redskin'-ness may have been expressed, nor if 'redskin' was used against you in the rough and tumble of youth. Some folks do get teased and bullied for their looks. For example, both my half-sisters were able to discover the names and 'bloodedness' of their paternal relations to several generations. One of my sisters also inherited a much more 'Asian/Native' phenotype, so much so that she was teased for being a Chink or Chink-eyes. But, like Deanna and MSK, she had no "Cherokee" culture handed down, and nothing to preserve by the time she was an adult. I could believe that "Redskin" was common in Hillbilly Heights, as a pet-name, or neutral badge of identity. But I doubt that the ups and downs of the Cherokee nations has had any particular meaningfulness, that neither Cherokee Blonde nor Cherokee Redface participate in Redface get-togethers or pow-wows or other cultural events. I mignt be wrong. Isn't this another slippery-slope type argument? I think more in terms of 'register' -- is it in my own interest to use terms that are derogatory and demeaning in my everyday life, as my preferred identifying speech act? Do I use Redskin or Injun face-to-face with folks from the reserve? Do I even use that word when thinking about recent history? ___________________ ** I don't know how this squabble over the Redskins will end. I did a bit of research when this issue popped up at OL earlier. I have no idea if, when, or how the Washington team (or the Cleveland Indians) might change names, mascots or trademarked logos and icons. I don't care one way or the other, mainly because the status of (North) American native Indians bears scant relation to the names of sport teams. I think as others do here, that mere 'offence' on behalf of a group (whether Injuns, Negroes, Wetbacks, Faggots or C*nts) is one thing, and the 'rights' of the native indians in America are almost entirely another subject.

The full text of the passage comes in an online chapter, "Is Electricity FIre?" from Feynmann's book Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman (the host site seems Slavic, and seems also to fly over any copyright concerns):

Okay. You accept there are 'early' warning systems that a person may turn out gay, as I alluded to above. Children may display behaviour and express a gender-nonconformity in play before the important "sexual urges" emerge, so we may be able to predict the orientation of a given child or children. "Choice" of orientation may then by your theory begin in such otherwise unimportant things like playing with dolls, rough and tumble activities. Playing house, though not generally sexualized, will have gender roles. The pre-homosexual might then choose the maternal or helping roles. Then -- bam, urges. Sexual urges. Urges to kiss a same-sex friend. Time to take a stand. Unfortunately, I don't think that this would be a very accurate method of getting to the facts. Oh dear. This is where I do not understand how you will provide further evidence for your theory. You certainly take your own personal case as 'evidence' of your theory of sexual orientation choice. To rule out asking heterosexuals about the specifics or mechanics of their conscious choice of orientation seems against reason. I am sure you could design a protocol, a structured interview, a tool, to instruct the subjects on your measure of choice. Same goes with asking the same questions of a gay cohort. This is unsettling. Not interested in the actual human beings and their actual responses/validation of your theory, you sweep away all that might speak to or against your theory of sexual orientation choice. As a concocted notion, rather than an honest telling of psychosexual history or sexual development. Because gays (as well as heterosexuals) are evasive. This is not evidence adduced for your theory, but special pleading. As for "Some (gays) are happy with their choice and willing to defend it as the right choice for them," I would ask that you identify one or two of these 'some' gays, and let us examine their happiness/defense of their orientation, to see if what they are happy with/to defend is actually what you report -- conscious choice. Some gays (me) report that they did not make a conscious choice. What do you do with that kind of counter-evidence? My theory doesn't predict what gay people will report. It predicts that -- all things being equal -- each gay person experienced having made a conscious choice, or series of choices, beginning in childhood, a choice to be gay over being heterosexual. It should predict that -- all things being equal -- heterosexuals experienced the same series of choices. Now to test that theory by examining actual homosexuals and heterosexuals, this won't return predicted responses, because people are evasive, don't understand choice(!) or are otherwise unreliable. The assertion of bias or defect or dishonesty seems like more special pleading. My claim is not that environmental factors have no predictive value. My claim is that all genetic and environmental factors, taken together, still are insufficient to absolutely predict sexual orientation. Such factors influence the choices that people make, but they do not make the choices. Well, I believe a well-grounded theory of conscious choice would at the very least review all the purported factors from environment (including prenatal environment) and genetic/epigenetic transmission, would mention the heritability studies, would place itself against all the 'concocted notions.' Your theory as presented does not take all of these factors into account. More importantly it does not assemble even the minimum of evidence required to take the 'choice' centerpiece seriously -- evidence from human beings in the real world. First, from Wikipedia, Plutchik's Emotion Wheel! -- this is getting into Deep Objectivish territory, where Ayn Rand's pronouncements about emotion and cognition reign. I have to unpack your reasoning again, Darrell, and place in your argument what is missing: sexual attraction, sexual interest, sexual urges. But let's start to attach your claims to a real person: "Every sexual thing that a pubertal boy thinks, everything sexual that he imagines, every sexual concept that he forms or considers generates an internal emotional response." Does this tell us anything about the actual sexual urges or orientation of those pubertal urges? No, and Darrell, this is one example of where your theory needs a lot more process, detail and specifics. Let's continue to read in sexual attraction, sexual object preference, sexual imaginings, sexual urges. Emotions, whether the identified common emotions of Plutchik's theory, or the unnamed emotions of Rand's theory, must all be distinguished from sexual urges. Sexual urges and attractions are pre-emotion(s), unexamined sexual feelings. Now, this may or may not be true, but I will go along with it for the sake of argument. Emerging into the harsh light of interrogation are these pre-emotive things, these almost animal-like things, urges that are sexual in nature, urges that accompany or initiate sexual thoughts or straightforward sexual arousal. If I follow the turns of your paragraph, the 'desire' for (something) is an emotion. It does not closely correspond to any of Plutchik's observed emotion, but let's set that aside. The desire to satisfy a sexual urge -- whatever that sexual urge -- can be either be acted upon or not, and can be acted upon in a variety of ways (cold shower, aversion therapy, thought substitution/distraction, masturbation, sexual congress of some kind leading to orgasm). Okay so far, but we have still not accounted for or explained the genesis of the sexual urge/orientation/feeling in the first place. We haven't qualified the urges either, whether they are gender-congruent or not. You seem to be affirming the consequent -- whatever the urges, they are always subject to conscious deliberation of alternatives. This merely assumes as evidence that which you conclude. As before, I think we need to keep in play the very thing at issue: sexual orientation. We are no nearer to finding support for your theory than we were when you first presented it. Well, I can't respond to this. The analogy is more than strained. If we are talking about the process of conscious choice of homosexual/heterosexual orientation, then we should be frankly speaking about sexual urges, feelings, desires, whims, orientations, choices. Analogizing homosexual orientation choice to drinking anti-freeze is an example of fallacious reasoning. False analogy. Darrell, I am happy to agree to disagree with you. I have read all you wrote about homosexual orientation in an earlier thread, and it seems to me you have made your mind up on the issue**, and really don't have any clear idea how homosexual orientation emerges in other human beings. To the political question, are you against or with Ed Hudgins on this topic? Whatever the genesis and regenesis of homosexuality, the danged gays have gone so far as to legalize gay marriage in a number of states, with more state laws set to tumble on appeals. Given the state of public opinion going in to 2016, do you have any advice for the Republican Party on this issue? _____________________ ** Darrell's bottom line from "Objectivism and Homosexuality":

Many more happy returns, Michael. Long may you reign.

Of course the characters "talked too much"--Rand was Jewish. --Brant how did you ever get through Atlas Shrugged?--she wrote that too I had just finished L Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth when I began Atlas Shrugged. I thought AS was much better designed as a dystopia than TF was designed as then present-day America. I thought the titanically evul AS characters were less believable than L Ron's titanically evul cohort of Psyclos. About every six pages of Atlas Shrugged I winced at some howler or non-sequitur. I remember thinking "the moral decay of America under Mr Thompson leads directly to bricks falling off New York buildings." And "evul people look different than good people, with loose lips and sloven features." And "the names of these people are absurd." And so on through the entire thing. It just never felt real to me, more like an overwritten comic book. The relationships seemed drawn from a diagram, not an up-close and intimate psychological knowledge of Man, let alone Woman. By the time I flew into the Gulch with Dagny, evading its magic eraser barrier, I had of course given up on finding reality in its pages. About the best I could say is that Atlas Shrugged was an Over-The-Top fictional psychological drama without psychological drama. Lots of events, a bit of perpetual motion, and a whole lot of passages marked by moralistic cartoon characters declaiming endlessly. I also read only the first and last of the Galt Speech. For another slice of cherry pie, I might read the skipped part of the book. I won't hurt anyone's feelings by being down on AS. So many more vituperative critics have had at it. If you want a bit more detail, my brief 2005 comments to Monica Pignotti and the FreedomOfMind forum are still on the internet: All in all I thought Atlas Shrugged was what they used to call a 'pot-boiler,' a lusty sprawling saga of a lusty, brawling family, with few brawls, little lust, and a vacated realism for sagacity. It bored me and made me think Ayn Rand was a little bit nuts. If my boss at the time hadn't strongly suggested I read it -- the better to understand our company and its leaders -- I would not be here today at OL.

I've been spectating on this thread, and from time to time chuckling. I have a hard time grasping Tony's points -- perhaps due to not having absorbed the Romantic Manifesto -- but I love looking at the art and pondering it whenever one of the discussants adds a picture. I kind of like Tony's critical art detective stance, where I imagine him grilling The Maid for her metaphysical value judgments, her salary and perks, the entire bleak pointlessness of her life, how much milk she must pour in a day. I image Tony also sweating down a metaphorical Vermeer at his easel, questioning him as he did the maid, and sternly assessing his sense of life. So, that's fun. I also very much enjoy Ellen's art assessments, coolly passionate, emotional and rational, well-informed on genres, techniques, schools and eras. So also Jonathan, who is a compelling artist in his own right, subjecting the artwork under consideration to his comprehensive appreciation. I like very much when he puts an artwork up and explains what he knows and feels about the piece -- whether ridiculing it as kitsch or praising it as sublime. I can't say I enjoy Tony's machinery of art appreciation. It seems like a protracted mathematical operation that despite its complexity cannot account for differences in taste. To Tony's identifying a mystical premise and false alternative, I just can't get my head around what he is trying to say by reference to a piece of art, In each and every instance of an artwork (and given Tony's tastes, of non-abstract work only) under discussion, do all we wrong-headed people tend to argue for 'perfection' or 'Immorality' only as opposing poles? I have not seen anybody do this so far. Volition I never understand strongly. I almost always replace volition with Will in my mind. So, winnowing and trimming to my understanding, Tony is saying something like this: there is no actual dichotomy between perfection and morality. Immoral artworks can be perfectly executed. It is then fallacious to argue that if a given artwork approaches perfection (per technical mastery) as measured by most observers, said perfection says something further about the morality of the artwork. Perfection assessment is thus on a different scale than moral assessment. I sort of agree, but I probably got the pith wrong in the first place. To add to my puzzlement are Tony's rare selections of art to illustrate his points, diagnosing defective art in sweeping terms without assembling real-world items in support. Perhaps I am primarily a visual thinker, but I find it difficult to apply his formulas for assessment across the board considering one priceless Vermeer. I am not convinced that there can be a 'moral measurement' of a given artwork, at least one that offers an objectively rendered result in the same way an objective assessment renders a degree of 'perfection' analysis. I mean, Vermeer, despite our many and varied moralistic/romantic opinions, is judged by experts and markets as a painter of extremely valuable art. I tend to think there is no actual 'moral quotient' or 'romantic quotient' to be reliably calculated in Vermeer. Maybe I am actually helping Tony prove his point. Anyway, I find there is something missing, something I don't read in his latest remarks: valuing, wanting, having. I always think of an artwork as having value, first to the artist†, second to its purchaser(s) or final owner, finally to a generalized market. I think of the value of that particular work. In the case of Vermeer, I found it so interesting that as Ellen pointed out at least once, his works were within a vernacular, a genre. In Vermeer's work, and of and in the genre, many other ostensibly similar scenes as the pouring maid were painted. How did other paintings of that genre fare in the market? Which were preserved but did not increase in value more than any other hoard of fine art? In the end, the Vermeer in question is not for sale at the moment. I forget which gallery holds it and how much it might fetch at auction or by purchase from another art museum. I am, of course, of the opinion that art can ultimately be judged by many different measures, personally and individually and institutionally. The moral/immoral/amoral reckoning does not interest me, except in times of Piss Christ and other provocations. The technical details do interest me, so that I can find out the multiple reasons why a particular artist (eg Vermeer) chose subject matter and style. I am also interested in who is generally seen as a master in a school or genre or movement. In this case, why is Vermeer now an acknowledged master, how long did it take for his ascent, how many others of the genre exhibit the same complex qualities and effects? Because (in part) of human's tendencies to be collectors of unique or rare or unusual items, and to deem them valuable, we know there is a vast market in everything from kitschy sculptures to Old West cowboys and beyond. Even the most personally-unappealing example from this huge trove can be worth something to somebody else. In this sense, the value scales are most interesting, and also probably the most objective means to find out what the invisible hand of the market chooses to favour or disfavour. A whole lot of interlocking subjectivities, one could say, that makes possible a hard valuation, no matter the work. Even the most marginal art can accrue value (this I say from personal acquaintance with third tier art pricing in Vancouver). Whatever piece of art might come into your hands, you would likely never junk it, however awful you thought it was, without getting an independent assessment of dollar value. Of course, discussing the dollar value estimations of this or that piece opens up a whole wonderful can of worms. No doubt each of us can find an item of which the price seems insane, or a whole school of artists whose works seem bizarrely awful and at the same time priced only for the insane. Maybe we all think the art market is completely insane from top to bottom. Maybe there is an Objectivist essay lurking in one of us that does what Torres and partner did, explain in excruciating Randian detail how awful shite becomes golden. Maybe the essay will be free of moralistic twaddle, maybe not. Back to Vermeer for a moment, in the context of value. The only item** released to auction in 80-odd years, the tiny Young Woman Seated At The Virginals, once thought a fake, sold for 40 million dollars in 2004. I love lots and lots of many types art, but my favourite artist is Francis Bacon, my favourite painting of his being Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. This example is not currently valued as it is the property of a midwest museum, but one of Bacon's triptychs sold for over $140 million last year. An astonishing amount. What do any of my observations add up to? Probably not a hill of beans to the main movers in this thread. The only suggestion I have for Tony and Ellen and Jonathan is to put up lots of images of art. Because this thread could become never-ending, and Tony would get a re-match on every single item. I think I could almost write his reaction to the the subjective value/objective value of Bacon's piece above. Or rather, apply the diagnostic provided by Rand ... As for Rand's procedure, I can also imagine she might not only be horrified at the painting's 'ugliness' and depraved sense of life, but that the accrued value of all of his paintings (as with Picasso's) is so monumental as to be evidence in itself of societal depravity in general. This is where my brains seem to slide off the table into the sandbox. I feel reasonably able to conceptualize. I think I might have conceptualized up a storm in my comments today. As for being prepared to 'abstractify,' why I am perfectly willing to do so if given the terms and a flow-chart and a slice of cherry pie. Beyond that, I don't know if I am a damned literalist or not. I think I can conceptualize trees and forests, as well as copses, plantations, seedlings, saplings, softwoods and hard, climax forest and so on. And I do think the universe of artworks is knowable, and I do choose to understand this to my best ability. Whether or not this understanding lays down in the grooves set by Rand and obeyed by Tony, I don't think it does, and I don't care either way. Regarding The Fountainhead, I couldn't finish it. The characters were unreal and talked too much, and interacted strangely, unnaturally with others. I think I got to around page 150 before it hit the wall -- so I can't discuss the book with the experts. ____________________ † -- I can think of many times I have viewed an item of art and wondered hard how the maker could value what I saw as an atrociously executed piece of shit. ** A 31st Vermeer may come to market.

I'll make you a deal. Somewhere on this board there is a way to block morons. I will endeavor to find it. You can find the tool by clicking your name in the upper right of your forum window, and the link below should work for you too. I shall consult the Supreme Being about doing the same thing. Manage Ignore Prefs

Darrell reacts to my suggestion that if his theory is correct (homosexuality is clearly a conscious choice), then all things being equal he should be able to find evidence in the world to support his theory. He disputes this on several grounds. I note again that in attempting to prove one's assumptions it is necessary to devise a test or series of tests that challenge the assumptions. One seeks to falsify the hypothesis. So, I have to ask Darrell -- what would tend to falsify your theory to your own satisfaction? I have to unpack your assumptions, first of all. I do not dispute a generalization that "humans have capacity to make choices." I just do not see support for your notion that homosexuality is the product of conscious choice in each individual. In any case the generalization is so broad as to be meaningless. The very question is not whether human beings make conscious choices, but whether human beings -- all of them -- make a conscious choice to be heterosexual or homosexual (or bisexual). If one puts it in a form that can be tested or verified or supported by research, we get "Is homosexuality generally a matter of conscious choice?" It is not obvious that "most scientists begin their studies with a preconceived notion that there is only nature and nurture" on the subject of homosexuality. It makes no sense to bifurcate using terms that you do not yourself use. You use 'choice' not nurture, and so the corollary pole in the continuum would be 'non-choice' not 'nature.' But let's remember where you are starting from. If -- as you assert, Darrell -- each individual makes a conscious choice to be homosexual -- how would you know if your contention is wrong? There must be some evidence, counter-evidence, that would overturn your theory. I ask, what would that be? I would also like to know at what time in development you think that homosexuals are pre-homosexual, meaning at what age does any sort of sexuality choice first emerge? Your theory is opaque on these details so far. Another door to answering your question about conscious choice is to ask homosexuals and lesbians themselves about choice. You might argue that I myself did in the past make a conscious choice to be homosexual. Same with Reidy. You might ask of the bisexual OLer, Brant the same, and also ask the one or two others here who have noted their homosexuality. I think you would agree that if your theory is correct, and that it applies to all sexual beings, then it would logically apply to me, Reidy, Brant, Stephen B. If it turns out that none of us gays/bisexuals reports a conscious choice to be non-heterosexual, how would you adjust your theory accordingly? I imagine you might say that each of us is misremembering -- in hindsight -- or that each of us is lying or misrepresenting our actual development, or even that you know the hearts and minds of others much better than they do! That question could be extended as a research question: how many gays and lesbians report a 'conscious choice' of their sexuality? How many heterosexuals report a 'conscious choice' of their sexuality? Now, another thing that stands out in your discussion is how you adopted the theory of Greg's. He is straightforward: Child Sexual Abuse is the Foundation of homosexuality. This theory is in opposition to yours, no? Which makes me wonder why you wrote this: You say that Child Sexual Abuse of boys and girls seems to play a large role in the development of homosexuality. What I don't understand is how you keep both balls in the air. Your variable is conscious choice, Greg's is child sexual abuse. If Greg's theory is "largely true" then it upsets your own theory, no? As for the rest of the paragraph, 'messed up families' does not mean child sexual abuse, nor does a father's death constitute child sexual abuse, nor does a divorce indicate child sexual abuse. So, you seem to offer partial support for Greg's unwarranted theory, while clinging to your own unwarranted theory. I would expect this to cause some cognitive friction. In any case, I still entertain your theory, and am willing to test it against my own life-course. Given what you believe are causative (now an unwieldy amalgam of child sexual abuse, troubled families, divorce, death of loved ones, unspecified trauma), could anything I tell you about my own sexual development change your theory? Well, this strikes me as special pleading. You have claimed not that homosexuals have choices, but that a conscious choice resulted in each/most homosexual's adult orientation. You haven't presented any hard evidence to support the claim. The special pleading suggests that you will cannot find evidence in support of your theory in any of the vast literature, because the scientific enterprise is corrupt. Again the cart leads your horse. I can say it must exist in the people you are talking about, Darrell! If you theory is correct, then I made a conscious choice of sexuality. In other words, your theory predicts that gay people will report "choice" and never "non-choice." Why not test your prediction? Are you afraid of being wrong on this issue? I would hate to think that an Objectivish person would not put his own notions to a rational test. The easiest way to do your own research would be to ask homosexuals and lesbians you know in your family to help you out. You might start by asking "can you please tell me in detail how you came to consciously choose to have a homosexual orientation?" Of course, you might also put it in a less biased way: "Would you say your orientation was the result of a conscious choice?" "Can you tell me the story of how you came to believe you were gay? Was anytime when you felt that you chose being gay over being heterosexual?" You are misstating the research. There is no 100% concordance between identical twins/identical sexual orientation. That does not mean there is no genetic contribution to homosexuality. As for "merely genetic" -- no one is arguing so far that homosexuality is due only to genes. For common sense, I will restate my challenge to your theory one more time: If your theory is true, what to do with the reports of homosexuals and lesbians themselves on "conscious choice"? Can you give us a reasonable argument that we should set aside this kind of evidence? Bullshit, Darrell, seriously. Greg does not posit some fluffy 'environmental factors,' he clearly states Child Sexual Abuse as the foundation of homosexuality. Now, about 'genetic' -- you don't seem willing to explore beyond a simplistic model. Some genetic contributions to homosexuality have been discovered, although as you point out, particular genes are not 100% determinative. If you insist upon your own terminology of choice/non-choice, and also if you use the unhelpful nature/nurture distinction, there is much you have not noted or accounted for. Look at it this way: genes are considered only part of what comes under the rubric natural/non-choice. Your theory still needs to account for other plausible non-choice processes. Maybe the extended theory would account for heritability by saying there is none, account for epigenetic factors (they are meaningless), it may account for anti-natal hormone effects (irrelevant), and it may account for other areas of study (politically-tainted). The male-brain/female brain/homosexual brain (formed by choice). Etcetera. You might even account for early 'indicators' of future homosexuality in children, the so-called gender-nonconforming behaviour. I would expect you to assert that young Timmy femme-job and young Trixie butchgirl's non-conforming behaviour is not a predictor of adult homosexuality. This is just garble. Imitation of what, sexual feeling? A person sees another person experiencing sexual feelings? How does the first person peer into the mind of the other person and accurately describe their sexual feelings? Let's say you are the first person, Person A. You want to survive. Right. You see by occult means person B doing something interior to themselves (having homosexual thoughts and desires). You then subject yourself to a natural question: "should I also have homosexual thoughts and desires?" Then you want to subject B to internal criticism, whatever the heck that means. There is Person A having homosexual desire (maybe expressing it to you in stark behavioural terms, like rubbing your crotch or saying, "I'll give you a blowjob, Darrell. I'd really really like to. I am attracted to you"). Or maybe you observe B having sexual intercourse with person C. Whatever, you have Person B's thoughts or behaviours revealed to you. If I read your scenario correctly, after this kind of assay or initial assessment you then would subject the homosexual behaviour/thought to some murky thing called "internal criticism." How would this work in the real world? Frankly, none of what you said makes any sense to me if you are trying to organize an argument for your contentions about "conscious choice." But ... Let's say there you are there in the above scenario, and you have finished a round of cogitation upon poor B. You have criticized the behaviour in your own mind, and you have decided not to imitate B. You have chosen not to grab other males' crotches or initiate a sexual encounter with another guy. Here's the problem -- nowhere in your argument have you yet dealt with the question of B's desire or A's sexual feelings. It's unaccounted for and undescribed in the context of time, development, emerging object attraction. So, your theory is woefully incomplete in its scope. I should add that none of what you said makes you a bigot or a homophobe. You obeyed your own orientation. You didn't feel a pull of sexual desire or excitement at the prospect of gay sex. I would suggest that you long ago left it up to your feelings. You felt a strong attraction to the female. Your object choices of fantasy were based on the female form. Breasts were exciting, as was the curve of a woman's haunches, her feminine face, etcetera. I would think you might apply reason after the fact. Since you didn't and don't feel any attraction to males at puberty or any time beyond, then there was no conscious choice necessary. Of course, I would change what I have said above if you actually had ambivalent sexual feelings, attraction to both genders, and you have struggled with your choice in terms of sexual behaviour (indulging your bisexuality would destroy your marriage, etc). Maybe I read you entirely wrong, but the only way your argument makes sense is if you struggled with bisexual orientation and decided that you would never let your homosexual feeling, urges, desires become actual homosexual behaviour. You may be somewhere in the middle of the Kinsey scale. You noted to Jonathan that most homosexuals have had at least one sexual encounter with the opposite sex, thus it would be wrong to think that anyone would be repulsed by the idea of same-sex encounters in the straight population. Are you maybe reading too much from your own particular life choices, Darrell? If you as a young teen or young man consciously weighed the options and rejected expressing your male/male sexual attraction, choosing a future happy monogamous straight marriage to channel your urges over a disastrous gay life -- then how would your bisexual orientation unexpressed speak to homosexuals and lesbians? All in all, you seem to be telling me something about myself that isn't true.

I'm one of the four... except that I hold the opinion that God personally formed the first morally accountable human beings with souls less than 10,000 years ago as described in Genesis... and that it is this unique moral quality that made them, and us as their offspring, "created in God's image". Since God has no image, that quality logically had to be a non-physical attribute such as being created as morally accountable beings, because the most notable quality of God is goodness. It's also my opinion that humans were preceded by amoral humanoid animals who were not accountable for their behavior, and in that regard were similar in nature to the other animals. Let me see if I get this right. Of the four choices given in the survey, Greg would answer that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so. Of course, Greg has not said anything in particular about the age of the universe, the age of the earth, and not a word yet on the reality of evolution. The best spin I can put on these beliefs (and still place Greg in the world of Reason) is that Greg more or less accepts the Catholic position as enunciated by the pope John Paul II. The official Catholic position does not dispute what science tells about the age of the world, that evolution spawned human beings. At some point the god thing created human souls ... here is the pope Benedict summing it all up (from the church article Human Persons Created in the Image of God).

How nasty and yet nicely informative. Then again you have just a slight bit more evidence for your theory than does Greg for his. I will give you that for a straight guy he sure has a lot to say about The Gays. No doubt he can fork up anecdote after anecdote and even a few front-porch whittlin' sessions, but there is no sign he is going to be asking himself any more questions. What makes a homosexual? Snick snick. Why, child sexual abuse, I figger, ever' danged time, it's the foundation, it's gotter be there ever' time. But wait, Uncle Festus, hadn't you oughter ask a certain number of homosexuals themselves before you get all fixed and set on your answer? Hadn't you oughter try to prove your answer? Naw, little fools, drink your koolaid, proving things is not in my nature. Bless the lawd. Okay, but Uncle, what if I go out and ask a whole buncha homosexuals if they were sexually abused as children and most of 'em say no? Don't make no difference. But Uncle, if they weren't sexually abused as children, doesn't that make your idea wrong? Nope. Not one Bit. I am entirely right in ever' respect about the Gays. But Uncle, if the truth is something else to your beliefs, then you telling you still got all the truth don't make any sense! YOU fool kids get yourselves to remembering that I am a Man of God. Mine Righteous Eyes Have Seen. I don't care if all the gays and lesbians on earth deny they were sexually abused as children. The fact remains that they were! Or something sexual and bad. Or something to shock 'em sexual. Or something. I haven't figured it all out enough to makes sense in telling it, but I know more about homosexuals than they do and that is that. It`s a FACT. I am the authority on this one. But, Uncle, that's just stupid. You are all over the map. You are getting worked up and confused. Tell us you wont' say such stupid things at cousin Judd and cousin Brick's wedding next Tuesday. Promise. Argh! The Gays! Argh the molesters! Gargle gargle. Koolaid Consensus! Studies! NUMBERS! Testing a theory! You kids get inside. Soon it's gonna be Monster Time.

I am gay as a goose, and had no child sexual abuse, thus no hate against a male abuser to fail to work through, so another counter-example. Greg says child sexual abuse is the foundation of homosexuality. Not in my case, not it your case. Back to the drawing board for Greg? Er, nope. As to the other theory, I no more chose my sexual orientation than I chose my handedness. I was occasionally bullied in my pre-puberty years for being a 'femme.' In my teen years, my emerging sexuality came as an upwelling urge, with the pole of attraction the male rather than the female. My teen friends/foes certainly gossiped the hell out of me. Some cruel, some not. No one expected me to find a female partner and spawn. My stepmother years later told me she and my father knew I was 'different' at a young age, that homosexuality (at the time a terrible thing) was the 'difference' they detected long before I did. We may be moving into permanent La-La land, where one can sit in a chair and pontificate about the origins of homosexuality while thoroughly rejecting real-world data.** If Greg (or Darrell) wanted to know if there were data standing against their notions, then they probably would have already looked at present-day research. At least with Greg, I don't see that he even understands that there might be research out there in the world -- plodding, step-by-step, rigorously checked rational inquiry -- that could falsify his theory to his own satisfaction. I think what he is dogmatically opposed to is precisely this rational, rigorous means of establishing an answer to his question: "Does male-on-male child sexual abuse provide the foundation of all adult homosexuality?" Since he has already said that he does not care what anyone says, that his theory is correct and damn the evidence, I set his opinions to one side as ignorant and unwarranted, if not subject to Scherkian ridicule. Am I surprised that Greg merely proclaims his beliefs on the foundations of homosexuality, damn the evidence? Nope -- he only ever proclaims, and never checks 'the literature' on any other issue. (I think, from reading his garbled evangelizing on The Gays that any such evidence could only be socialist koolaid fool consensus rot, all wrong sight unseen. There goes science). I am surprised that more of us here aren't challenging Greg (or Darrell) to come up with stronger evidence to support their respective theories. If Greg's abuse theory is correct (also, if Darrell's choice theory is correct) then the evidence must be there in great abundance, just waiting to be cited! If either gentleman believes that their theory is true, there should be no difficulty in finding scads of evidence, mountains of evidence -- and zero counter-evidence to account for. I should mention that in testing one's favoured hypothesis, we don't go searching for supporting evidence -- we go out to find counter-evidence. We seek to overturn our theory by the harshest tests possible. If it survives the sternest, most powerful challenge, we can have a measure of confidence in our theory. If we do not test it, or account for counter-evidence, then our theory is mere conjecture, even if garbed in moralistic gabble or Camille Paglia. -- thank you, Reidy, for donning The Breastplate of Reason. There have been some very direly bigoted and ignorant claims in this thread. I find it quite depressing that at a site where the only thing that unites us is respect for reason, such crippled reasoning is so evident. Greg exemplifies this logically-crippled, unworkable, indignantly arrogant epistemology, viz "Only the politically correct with the need to try to convince others of the collective societal consensus believe in data, numbers, and "studies". I find this hilarious, sad, stupid, wrong-headed, even kooky. The Breastplate of Righteousness seems here to be thoroughly anti-knowledge. He also seems afraid to test his own guesses, not accepting the simple logical entailment that if his theory is true then the data, numbers and 'studies' will confirm. Greg, that you don't bother to test your guess means you have zero actual confidence that the real world will confirm your guess. Are you really this afraid of a reality check? Are you really this afraid that reality will fail to confirm what you believe to be true? Signed, Counter-evidence in Vancouver ____________ ** what would represent real-world data? Well something like this: "97% of gay men, 67% of lesbian women report child sexual abuse" ... or "Sexual orientation as choice: the evidence is overwhelming."

Barely-human Chinese monkeys? Give your fucking head a shake -- or better yet, explain the current democratic Chinese state in Taiwan in terms of their monkey culture and their primitive monkey-like mindset. A more repulsive set of bigoted twaddle I have yet to read on OL.

Nevertheless, it is my view that childhood molestation causes homosexuality when the emotional trauma is not internally resolved in adulthood. Yes, your view is unsupported by any evidence. Yes, you don't care about evidence or what I or any other reasonable person might bring forward to counter your assertion. This is hilarious in a way. On a forum where most folks -- Objectivist, Objectivish, or not -- value reason most highly, a righteous voice proclaims a wildly implausible theory of homosexuality, says evidence be damned, suggests he alone holds the truth and that further rational inquiry is unnecessary. I have to hand it to Greg. He has killed his own argument dead without external aid. Well, yah, I think we get the picture. An irrational idea impervious to reason, fingers stuffed in ears, mouth grimly set. That kind of thing.

What you described is already happening, as people get the government they deserve for demanding it to make others pay their bills.. But I don't believe the solution is to run away in defeat... but rather to establish a beach head right where you are... right now. For disaster is never totally uniform, so it's your own personal responsibility not to become collateral damage. Wolf, Greg recommends obeying reality. He understands that righteously campaigning against gay marriage by Republican presidential candidates is not optimal for a party that wants to win the White House. He would happily vote for a gay-marriage-supporting candidate and has already done so in the past. It is striking that Ed's argument has been consistently misread and poorly translated. It's main points have been re-articulated several times. Can it be that Wolf does not understand that it is the population as a whole and Republican consituencies themselves that have "liberalized"? That the entire younger generation of Republicans is out of step with elder party cadres on the topic of gay marriage, gay adoption, anti-gay discrimination? Okay, so the argument is misunderstood. At the great risk of hammering a hole through the drum, let me spell it out as simply as I can, in the form of a riddle: The Republican Party platform is strictly opposed to gay marriage; It's top ranking hopefuls have campaigned against gay marriage (some individual Republicans have put on their kooky pants) The general population (especially the young) is not so strictly opposed. IF the GOP insists on campaigning against gay marriage nationally The 'other party' will exploit this issue Some 'swing voters' will swing away from the GOP because of this issue What is the Republican Party to do, to win, given the state of play ... ? Now, I understand that Wolf is philosophically disabled from voting, but he might still solve the riddle. Greg might help Wolf to see wisdom, to appreciate the stance of a prospective voter calculating political reality -- and the politically necessary response. Put aside Greg's 35-year partner-in-capitalism handshake with the gay hotelier. Put aside all the vile sexual abuse said hotelier perpetrated upon the next generation of gays. Put aside the gay sexual abuse he suffered. Put aside all such odd and nasty things and look at this stinking world practically, in political terms. Wolf, if you could vote, would you advise the party to stress opposition to gay marriage, at the risk of the prize of office?

This is completely unreasonable, unsupported by evidence, and itself evidence of profound ignorance. Just check the logical entailments of Greg's sweeping generalization. He is first of all making a causative claim -- that in each situation where male homosexuality found adult expression, we can trace back each life and find an instance of sexual abuse on that male child by a male, an abuse that caused future homosexuality. Each homosexual will show this history. Then consider lesbians. Each future lesbian in Greg's general theory of sexuality will have a history of child sexual abuse by a female.

I both contributed to his campaign as well as voted for Kevin James for the Mayor of Los Angeles. Glad to know you voted for a Republican who is firmly and publicly for Gay Marriage. It looks like you looked past the, what did you call it, "social decomposition ... societal degeneration" of gay marriage and forged a consensus that it Did Not Matter. Which is Ed and my freaking point for consideration by Republicans who think a hardline against gay marriage will gain them a White House. You not only accept Ed's point, but you illustrate by your own actions that you already understood the point. This is good stuff, Greg. You set aside any moralistic pleadings about gay marriage to make a political calculation. And all things considered it looks like you could agree that the Republican Party deprecate opposition to gay marriage in 2016. Ed, we have a new convert!

These are the right questions. It is quite interesting how some people have not come to a conclusion over how gay people arise across all human societies -- how sexual attraction is determined, how sexual orientation is self-perceived as having developed. If Darrell entertains your questions, even if not answering in detail, I would suggest he offers what evidence he knows that supports either side of the question he is posing to himself: what causes homosexual/heterosexual orientation/behaviour. For added fun in seeking evidence one way or the other, he might also consider homosexuality across the animal kingdom. Greg best look away from gay duck and killer whale relations lest his godhead explode. I should note something about the Pew international findings cited a few times. Darrell gave the US numbers above: "37% of Americans believe homosexuality is morally unacceptable, only 23% believe it is acceptable, and 35% don't think it is a moral issue." I think the number to consider is the combined weight of the last two opinions. 58% of Americans do not find homosexuality morally unacceptable. Fit those numbers into electoral calculations. How does a national campaign that stresses opposition to gay marriage overcome the built-in antipathy of the voters? You do well in probing and answering the reasonable and unreasonable assumptions that surround the issue. No apologies necessary! The moralistic spluttering about gays will go on before, during and after the election here at OL. It's obviously a freakout emotional issue for Wolf and Greg, who seem unable yet to move past their personal revulsion to rationally consider the topic, discuss practical mechanics of winning an election. Do they want a Republican on the ballot who fulminates as they do against gays and their evil ways, who rails against the tide of gay marriage -- if this means Hillary at 1600 Pennsylvania? What are their choices? What are their thoughts? Crickets. As the jostling intensifies for Republican primaries over the next eighteen months, the gay marriage issue will tend to dog any hopeful candidate who has opened his mouth on the issue (and they all have, as I documented above). How will these guys and the larger party play this issue through? The Democrats are alert to the issue, and are definitely not going to play nice or in any way give advantage to their foes. They will exploit the issue (as they exploited the so-called Republican War on Women in 2012) in any way they can, to peel away socially-liberal voters from the conservative coalition. That's reality. Here's what Greg said about his 2012 bottom line: Since this is the only thing that Greg has uttered on a similar electoral matter, I am sure his opinion still logically holds. So despite his anger and disgust I am sure he would agree that if stressing, thumping, gnashing and erupting on the anti-gay marriage issue compromises the chances of defeating the Democrats, then real-world considerations apply. It looks like Greg's Tea Party values move sideways to accommodate political reality. If he would have voted for a Wiccan Mitt Romney in 2012, he would surely vote for a gay-positive Republican in 2016. So, I can imagine Greg quite reasonably counselling his Tea Party colleagues that they will have to hold their noses along with him, put down their Gawd Sez No Queer Marriage! placards, and tone down the fulminating.

My guess would be certain people's anger and irrationality about gays is an overreaction of their suppressing their own latent homosexuality. J Maybe. Research is suggestive, but nobody is about to strap on the penile plethysmograph to Greg to test your hypothesis. And it is by no means clear that Greg dreads the the nearness of homosexuals nor that he finds their company threatening or disturbing in the least (a more ferocious antipathy to gays is what is correlated with latent homosexuality in the extant literature). Given his plainly stated beliefs, I am reasonably certain that Greg takes the measure of a man or woman on their honesty, integrity, independence, and so on -- and so does not judge a person by where his or her genitals are lodged at night. We have lost Wolf and Mark, so we don't know how they treat gay folks in interpersonal dealings. It may be that each of these guys has known and loved gay men and lesbians, and it also may be that their families contain a cherished gay or lesbian member. We have no idea if any of these folks would change their behaviour towards a particular person upon learning details of their private sexual lives ... In any case, this emotive, religious, knee-jerk anti-gay gnashing of teeth has little to do with assessing what makes the Republicans more or less likely to take back the White House in two years. The freaking point of Ed's article. Ultimately, given a choice between a hardline anti-gay candidate who would lose an election, and a soft-on-gay-marriage candidate who can win, those who want a Republican in the White House will make their calculations free from the shackles of ingrained prejudices. As far as I know, Wolf doesn't vote -- so he may have no personal calculation to make come 2016.

So, still wondering if anyone outraged or disgusted by gay marriage will discuss the continuing softening of American attitudes to the issue. So far, those who find Ed's commentary preposterous have not grappled with the facts in hand. I find this curious -- and curiously irrational. The data is clear -- the tide is moving towards acceptance of gay marriage. The pool of voters who are passionately against legalizing gay marriage is shrinking. Every demographic shows this change. The most important and telling portion of the demographic is the youngest. These folks, sometimes referred to as Millennials, simply do not share the visceral antipathy of Christian evangelicals. Poll after poll shows these younger voters -- regardless of their party affiliation, are strongly in favour of marriage equality. Ed says that if the Republican Party continues to cater to the oldest, most conservative, most religious part of their coalition -- and underlines this issue in official party policy -- then they will find it more difficult to accrue enough votes to take the White House in 2016. Is this a credible argument? I think so -- and so do some Republican strategists -- but these demographic arguments are entirely ignored in the moralistic sputtering so far. Why is the fact-based argument on electoral strategy in light of changing mores so difficult to grapple with for some posters? In other contexts, Greg has seen reality and adapted his electoral calculations accordingly: Greg's limited appreciation for the real world might let him consider this: So, let's look at possible Republican candidates, consider what the real world suggests will be their fate against Hillary Clinton, and also consider their various positions on gay marriage. Ted Cruz**, anyone? Anyone suggesting that he stress his opposition to gay marriage in hopes of winning? What about the other possible candidates? What do Greg, Mark and Wolf suggest these guys do with the issue of gay marriage in the campaign -- Huckabee1, Christie2, Ryan3, Rubio4, Bush5, Walker6, Perry7, Jindal8 -- what should these guys do with the issue if they want to win? Should they stress it, deprecate it, muffle it, de-fang the party platform or their official positions -- or should they campaign strongly against it, make it a cornerstone of their policies, promise action to prevent it spreading? (note that there is an emerging 'softness' among some former hardliners -- though not all) No answers yet from the morally disgusted on practical ways the party can successfully use this issue to prevent a Democrat taking the presidency in 2016. Maybe the angry and disgusted should listen to Rand Paul. He says that the Republican Party may have to 'agree to disagree' on the issue of gay marriage. "The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues." I'd be interested in any views that suggest the Republican party can use this issue nationally to advance its electoral chances. Sputtering about immorality, personal disgust, anal sex, and so on does nothing to answer the reality of changing social mores. What has anybody fetched up to support the notion that campaigning against gay marriage will do the Republicans any good in their quest to wrest the executive from the Democrats? So far, to my eyes, nothing. ________________ ** Cruz says, "If you look at other nations that have gone down the road towards gay marriage, that’s the next step where it gets enforced. It gets enforced against Christian pastors who decline to perform gay marriages." Which is absolute bullshit. Canada has had complete marriage equality since 2003. Not one pastor has been forced to perform gay marriage. The same obtains in Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Belgium, France and the UK. 1. "“My immediate thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: ‘Jesus wept.’” 2. "Although the governor strongly disagrees with the court substituting its judgment for the constitutional process of the elected branches or a vote of the people, the court has now spoken clearly as to their view of the New Jersey Constitution and, therefore, same-sex marriage is the law," 3. "The things you talk about like traditional marriage and family and entrepreneurship...these aren’t values that are indicative to any one person or race or creed or color ... These are American values, these are universal human values." 4. "In terms of the Bible’s interpretation of marriage, what our faith teaches is pretty straightforward. There’s not much debate about that. The debate is about what society should tolerate, and what society should allow our laws to be." 5. “I know for a fact that as it relates to gay marriage and other social issues there is growing divergence of opinion on this. When we talk about it, we ought to talk about it with a different tone — and we ought to talk about it recognizing that there is more than one point of view, and we should talk about it in a way that is not judgmental. If we can get to that point where people who have diverging points of view and express them in a civil way, the conservative coalition can stay intact.” 6. “Any federal judge has got to look at that law not only with respect to the state’s constitution but what it means in terms of the U.S. Constitution, as well. Again, I’m not going to pretend to tell a federal judge in that regard what he or she should do about it ... I don’t know what (allowing gay marriage) means. Voters don’t talk to me about that. They talk to me about the economy. They talk to me about their kids’ schools.” 7. "Texans spoke loud and clear by overwhelmingly voting to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman in our Constitution, and it is not the role of the federal government to overturn the will of our citizens. The 10th Amendment guarantees Texas voters the freedom to make these decisions, and this is yet another attempt to achieve via the courts what couldn't be achieved at the ballot box. We will continue to fight for the rights of Texans to self-determine the laws of our state." 8. "This law [illinois gay marriage] and others like it would require believers to essentially choose to break with their deeply held theological beliefs, or give up their daily activity of evangelism, retreat from public life, and sacrifice their property rights. Churches that do not host same sex unions would essentially be barred from participating fully in civil society.”