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Of Yale, hookers, and tolerance
Townhall.com ^ | 9-1-2004 | Ben Shapiro

Posted on 09/02/2004 8:28:17 AM PDT by outlawcam

Last Sunday, I picked up a copy of Boston Magazine while sitting in the green room at the Fox News studios in Watertown, Mass. Leafing through the publication, I came across an article titled "Confessions of an Ivy League Callgirl," written by Jeannette Angell, a university lecturer with a master's degree from Yale. The fact that she was a Yalie caught my eye -- as a Harvard Law student, I've already adopted our communal animosities -- and so I read the piece.

 Apparently, Angell began trading sex for cash after receiving her doctorate in social anthropology. But what was shocking was not Angell's experiences but her insistence that she not be condemned for her actions. "Please don't be so quick to call us hookers, to judge us," she wrote. "We could be your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your daughter. Even your college professor. No, I take that back. It's not a matter of saying that we could be. We are."

 The logic goes something like this: If you have a relative who engages in a sinful act, the act cannot be condemned. After all, blood is thicker than morality, right? Loyalty to the tribe comes before loyalty to moral values.

 It's a successful tactic often employed by proponents of liberal social policy. Just this week, Michael Moore wrote in USA Today that most Republicans are actually social liberals. As proof, he cited a supposed interview with a "proud Republican." "Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?" Moore asked the man. "Um, no," the man answered. Moore comments: "The pause -- I get that a lot when I ask this question -- is usually because the average goodhearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend."

 Unfortunately, Moore's explanation of moral hesitancy rings true. Social liberals expect to emerge victorious from the culture wars because of conflicting allegiances among social conservatives: allegiances to friends and family, and allegiances to traditional morality.

 In order to assuage the moral qualms of conflicted social conservatives, social liberals have created a whole new system of morality. Social liberals redefine right and wrong: It is right to value your friends and family, and wrong to condemn them for moral failings. According to the social left, in any pitched battle between traditional morality and friendship, those who side with traditional morality are morally wrong.

 And so tolerance has become the new morality. Those who condemn homosexuality are morally wrong. Those who condemn prostitution are morally wrong. Those who condemn abortion are morally wrong. Tolerance is moral -- and traditional morality is simply intolerant. Moore rips the traditional morality crowd as a bunch of conspiratorial bigots: "Your people are up before dawn figuring out which minority group shouldn't be allowed to marry today."

 Socially liberal Republican Sen. Arlen Specter labels traditional morality immoral: "When you talk about gay rights, it's a civil rights issue, and you ought not to count votes on it. In the long sweep of history, those who favor gay rights are on the right side of the issue. It's a matter of moral principle."

 The new religion of tolerance provides a slippery slope into moral oblivion. All activity must be tolerated, since sympathy for friends and family trumps traditional morality. With tolerance for sin comes acceptance of sin, and with acceptance, promotion. With Roe vs. Wade, Americans grudgingly tolerated abortion.

 With tolerance came acceptance: Those who received abortions were no longer seen as immoral. Instead, they were the moral equals of ordinary mothers. Finally, abortion was promoted as a valuable alternative to pregnancy completion -- and those who condemned abortion were slandered as sinners.

 When Republicans passed the partial-birth abortion ban last year, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California complained that such policy was immoral: "What I think is immoral is to take your views ... or my views ... and force them on the people of this country," she stated. "It is disrespectful, it isn't right, and it isn't what America is about."

 The same progression holds true for gay marriage: tolerance, acceptance and promotion. The first step is always tolerance, and tolerance must be attained by appealing to sympathy. The easiest way to gain sympathy for social liberalism is to point out close friends or relatives participating in sin, and then dare us to condemn their actions.

 So can we condemn Jeannette Angell as a whore? Can we condemn homosexuality or abortion as sinful? Of course we can. Morality cannot survive in a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) context. If morality extends only to those far removed from our personal lives, it has no meaning. To preserve traditional values, justice must take precedence over sympathy.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: apostacy; celebrateperversity; culturewar; decadence; eli; eliyale; homosexualagenda; homosexuality; immorality; morality; newhaven; prostitute; prostitution; puritans; sexlaws; sin; sodomites; sodomylaws; whore; yale; yalewhore
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1 posted on 09/02/2004 8:28:17 AM PDT by outlawcam
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To: outlawcam
Apparently, Angell began trading sex for cash after receiving her doctorate in social anthropology. But what was shocking was not Angell's experiences but her insistence that she not be condemned for her actions. "Please don't be so quick to call us hookers, to judge us," she wrote. "We could be your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your daughter. Even your college professor. No, I take that back. It's not a matter of saying that we could be. We are."

I believe it about my ex-girlfriend, but mom? Has she ever seen my mom?

2 posted on 09/02/2004 8:30:00 AM PDT by sharktrager (The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And the paving contractor lives in Chappaqua.)
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To: outlawcam

Do Yale hookers summon the maid to perform the act?


3 posted on 09/02/2004 8:31:19 AM PDT by George Smiley (The only 180 that Kerry hasn't done is the one that would release ALL his military records.)
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To: sharktrager
Has she ever seen my mom?

Reminds me of DeNiro's line in "Analyze This"...

Dr. Ben Sobel : Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother.
Boss Paul Vitti : F*ckin' Greeks.
Funny.
4 posted on 09/02/2004 8:33:56 AM PDT by mattdono ([mattdono to John Kerry]: I voted for you...right before I voted against you.)
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To: outlawcam

They could be our professors?
*thinks for a moment*

I've seen some professors worth haggling price with.
/ evil tasteless joke.


Seriously, just how twisted does someoe have to be to sell themselves for sex, and then turn around and scream "don't condemn me" to soothe their hurt conscience?


5 posted on 09/02/2004 8:35:04 AM PDT by Darksheare (Don't greet customers at the drivethrough with: "We are the Borg, resistance is futile!")
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To: outlawcam

If nobody forced her into this profession and she paid taxes on her hooker earning nobody should care.


6 posted on 09/02/2004 8:35:52 AM PDT by alex
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To: sharktrager

What's more pathetic? A whore on the street downtown somewhere, or an educated Ivy League one? I would say the Ivy Leaguer.


7 posted on 09/02/2004 8:36:09 AM PDT by Vision ("This is in God's hands now")
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To: outlawcam
And so tolerance has become the new morality

This article fits perfectly with my new tagline.

MKM

8 posted on 09/02/2004 8:36:50 AM PDT by mykdsmom (Tolerance is the last virtue of a degenerate society)
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To: outlawcam
Excellent article.

This is the Mafia argument for immorality - if anybody in my family does something, it's OK because they're in my family.

Societies based on moral principles rather than moral nepotism have civilizations that survive.

9 posted on 09/02/2004 8:37:12 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: outlawcam

This is exactly right. I see it all the time among "progressive" friends. They call anyone who makes a moral judgment "judgmental," even as they themselves berate and condemn such people as hypocrites or worse.


10 posted on 09/02/2004 8:44:04 AM PDT by madprof98
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To: Vision

Especially if the whore in question is a US Senator who hopes to become President.


11 posted on 09/02/2004 8:44:59 AM PDT by sharktrager (The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And the paving contractor lives in Chappaqua.)
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To: outlawcam

You can hate the sin but still love the sinner. If a sinner is unrepentant and leading a self-destructive lifestyle, it is hardly the thing to do to embrace that person's lifestyle choice.


12 posted on 09/02/2004 8:45:46 AM PDT by weegee (YOU could have been aborted, and you wouldn't have had a CHOICE about it.)
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To: outlawcam
Yeah, an article is fine, but here is a picture, and I think it says it all.

from her site: http://www.jeannetteangell.com/

13 posted on 09/02/2004 8:49:24 AM PDT by Wayne07
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To: outlawcam

The author is right on the money. Love the sinner, but hate the sin. Love does not mean affirming immoral or sinful behavior.


14 posted on 09/02/2004 8:52:21 AM PDT by Unam Sanctam
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To: madprof98

That's what I think is funny about their argument. They are being judgmental of those who are exercising a judgment on the premise that judging is morally wrong. It is self-contradictory and unsupportable by logic.


15 posted on 09/02/2004 8:53:51 AM PDT by outlawcam (No time to waste. Now get moving.)
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To: outlawcam

Bump!


16 posted on 09/02/2004 8:54:26 AM PDT by mtbrandon49
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To: outlawcam

Perhaps if she'd gotten an MBA instead of a useless degree in social anthropology, she wouldn't have to have sold her body?


17 posted on 09/02/2004 8:56:16 AM PDT by garyhope
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To: outlawcam
"Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?"

Two job applicants.
All other things being equal.
One is homo, one is hetero.

I hire the hetero.

Sorry, but the hetero has a much less chance of contracting a life threatening disease than the homo.

18 posted on 09/02/2004 8:56:38 AM PDT by Just another Joe (Warning: FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: wideawake

maybe Cheney ought to read this ,too?


19 posted on 09/02/2004 8:57:22 AM PDT by Rakkasan1 (Justice of the piece)
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To: George Smiley
Do Yale hookers summon the maid to perform the act?

LOL!

20 posted on 09/02/2004 8:58:01 AM PDT by Lazamataz ("Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown" -- harpseal)
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