Safe Haven

Sometimes, people will say, "Unless you do/have/experience X, you don't get to have an opinion." It's a radical subjectivism, from one angle, and a pragmatism, from another. Quite honestly, it's a move people usually make to shut down debate--especially with regard to abortion, for example--most likely because the moral justification for such an act is dubious, and they know it. Funnily enough though, when they are wronged, many people conveniently rediscover their notion of objective truth! The pragmatism is almost centered on the body, as if the actions we take with our bodies are by definition morally neutral. Then again, when someone isn't trying to justify themselves, they are able to see how foolish this would be, applied to all situations. I have never committed adultery in the strict sense, but I can give you all sorts of reasons and examples of its harm. Again, when you're not implicating someone you're talking to, you're a trenchant soc...

One of the arguments in favor of the mainstreaming of homosexual relations goes like this: "It's more than a bit rich for the hypocritical heterosexuals to worry now about the downfall of our society." I agree. Which is why adultery, divorce, abortion, contraception, etc. are all wrong. I find it hard to believe that no gay "allies" could see this argument coming. They may take advantage of the destruction of all the laws and mores with respect to human sexuality, but anyone trying to rebuild the culture would say, "Hypocrisy is still the tribute that vice pays to virtue." That's also why a slippery slope argument isn't always a fallacy. The long form of, "It's a slippery slope" is, "The basis for a principled distinction between a behavior you deem acceptable, and one you deem abhorrent, has been removed." The very purpose of a reductio ad absurdum is to create the conditions where a person of good will will cr...

It's somewhat disorienting, to not know for sure in some instances what is true. It seems like many people are using half-truths, or outright lies, to advance an agenda. It happens all over. Behind this is an internalized skepticism that sounds something like, "Well, everyone's got a perspective." On the contrary; they are not all equally valid. The truth is the truth, and lies (or honest errors) are not. To be blunt, I may not be willing to engage in lying to discredit Planned Parenthood--I may even be angry about various willful deceptions for that purpose--but it doesn't actually change the fact that the intentional killing of children in the womb is a species of murder. No amount of right-wing exaggeration, or cowardly moral capitulation in another area, makes such actions acceptable. Suppose we even take the dubious claim that only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's funding goes toward abortion. There is no doubt that the purpose of such a claim is in ...