02-15-2012, 11:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-16-2012, 12:47 AM by FireIceTalon.)
Sometimes I wonder if you know how to think critically.
Cultural traditions should be abandoned if they discriminate, impose themselves on, or otherwise lead to harmful results for someone else who doesn't agree (or even doesn't disagree) with them, such as Fundamentalists position on marriage which discriminates against same-gender couples. Unfortunately, many of the traditional values held by conservatives are hypocritical if not downright dangerous for society in general. Slavery was once a "cultural" tradition in this country, but that hardly makes it justified. Yes, this is an extreme example, but it nevertheless can apply to other conditions of society where a particular group of people would be affected. As much as I deplore government being in everyone's business just as you do, they are far from the only ones being the problem. Religious fundamentalists and other reactionary groups are just as well to blame. The whole purpose of society is not to maintain social traditions, but to IMPROVE upon them. Government or not, modernists and traditionalists will never be on the same page so long as traditionalists force their views down others throats as they have done historically, resulting in the tyranny, injustice, and discrimination towards others, and continue to do so. So when people say, "but you want to do away with the values and traditions of what this nation was founded upon!"...my simple reply to that is, you're damn right I want to. Because this country was founded upon slavery, racism, and the systematic slaughtering of almost an entire culture of people who were here long before us. And why shouldn't I? If we kept social and traditional norms as conservatives so desire, we'd still be living under a hereditary ruler that has justification to subject the rest of us to his will by Divine Right, or we'd still have "legal" slavery, women would have no identity in society except to be home makers, etc....Once again, I dont want any government or institution, based on traditional values, religion, or otherwise, telling me who I can or cannot marry. It is that simple.
Cultural traditions should be abandoned if they discriminate, impose themselves on, or otherwise lead to harmful results for someone else who doesn't agree (or even doesn't disagree) with them, such as Fundamentalists position on marriage which discriminates against same-gender couples. Unfortunately, many of the traditional values held by conservatives are hypocritical if not downright dangerous for society in general. Slavery was once a "cultural" tradition in this country, but that hardly makes it justified. Yes, this is an extreme example, but it nevertheless can apply to other conditions of society where a particular group of people would be affected. As much as I deplore government being in everyone's business just as you do, they are far from the only ones being the problem. Religious fundamentalists and other reactionary groups are just as well to blame. The whole purpose of society is not to maintain social traditions, but to IMPROVE upon them. Government or not, modernists and traditionalists will never be on the same page so long as traditionalists force their views down others throats as they have done historically, resulting in the tyranny, injustice, and discrimination towards others, and continue to do so. So when people say, "but you want to do away with the values and traditions of what this nation was founded upon!"...my simple reply to that is, you're damn right I want to. Because this country was founded upon slavery, racism, and the systematic slaughtering of almost an entire culture of people who were here long before us. And why shouldn't I? If we kept social and traditional norms as conservatives so desire, we'd still be living under a hereditary ruler that has justification to subject the rest of us to his will by Divine Right, or we'd still have "legal" slavery, women would have no identity in society except to be home makers, etc....Once again, I dont want any government or institution, based on traditional values, religion, or otherwise, telling me who I can or cannot marry. It is that simple.
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"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)