Posted on 12/29/2010 11:03:28 AM PST by Kaslin
So now openly gay soldiers get to fight and die in neocon-imperialist wars too?
David Brooks saw such ironic progressive victories coming. In his book "Bobos in Paradise," he wrote that everything "transgressive" gets "digested by the mainstream bourgeois order, and all the cultural weapons that once were used to undermine middle-class morality ... are drained of their subversive content."
Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian "free love" and avant-garde values. In this, they were simply picking up the torch from the straight left of the 1960s and 1970s, who had sought to throw off the sexual hang-ups of their parents' generation along with their gray flannel suits.
As a sexual lifestyle experiment, they failed pretty miserably, the greatest proof being that the affluent and educated children (and grandchildren) of the baby boomers have re-embraced the bourgeois notion of marriage as an essential part of a successful life. Sadly, it's the lower middle class that increasingly sees marriage as an out-of-reach luxury. The irony is that such bourgeois values -- monogamy, hard work, etc. -- are the best guarantors of success and happiness.
Of course, the lunacy of the bohemian free-love shtick should have been obvious from the get-go. For instance, when Michael Lerner, a member of the anti-Vietnam War "Seattle Seven," did marry, in 1971, the couple exchanged rings made from the fuselage of a U.S. aircraft downed over Vietnam and cut into a cake inscribed in icing with a Weatherman catchphrase, "Smash Monogamy."
Today Lerner is a (divorced and remarried) somewhat preposterous, prosperous progressive rabbi who officiates at all kinds of marriages -- gay and straight -- and, like pretty much the entire left, loves the idea of open gays becoming cogs in the military-industrial complex.
The gay experiment with open bohemianism was arguably shorter. Of course, AIDS played an obvious and tragic role in focusing attention on the downside of promiscuity. But even so, the sweeping embrace of bourgeois lifestyles by the gay community has been stunning.
Nowhere is this more evident -- and perhaps exaggerated -- than in popular culture. Watch ABC's "Modern Family." The sitcom is supposed to be "subversive" in part because it features a gay couple with an adopted daughter from Asia. And you can see why both liberal proponents and conservative opponents of gay marriage see it that way. But imagine you hate the institution of marriage and then watch "Modern Family's" hardworking bourgeois gay couple through those eyes. What's being subverted? Traditional marriage, or some bohemian identity politics fantasy of homosexuality?
By the way, according to a recent study, "Modern Family" is the No. 1 sitcom among Republicans (and the third show overall behind Glenn Beck and "The Amazing Race") but not even in the top 15 among Democrats, who prefer darker shows like Showtime's "Dexter," about a serial killer trying to balance work and family between murders.
Or look at the decision to let gays openly serve in the military through the eyes of a principled hater of all things military. From that perspective, gays have just been co-opted by The Man. Meanwhile, the folks who used "don't ask, don't tell" as an excuse to keep the military from recruiting on campuses just saw their argument go up in flames.
Personally, I have always felt that gay marriage was an inevitability, for good or ill (most likely both). I do not think that the arguments against gay marriage are all grounded in bigotry, and I find some of the arguments persuasive. But I also find it cruel and absurd to tell gays that living the free-love lifestyle is abominable while at the same time telling them that their committed relationships are illegitimate too.
Many of my conservative friends -- who oppose both civil unions and gay marriage and object to rampant promiscuity --often act as if there's some grand alternative lifestyle for gays. But there isn't. And given that open homosexuality is simply a fact of life, the rise of the HoBos -- the homosexual bourgeoisie -- strikes me as good news.
You know what I think is the dirty secret that makes the discussion even more difficult? The number of heterosexuals who engage in sodomy. They don’t want to be denigrated.
He had Geico, they refuse to pay.
That’s terrible! Will your insurance company deal with Geico?
Yup. They have backpedaled a little but not enough. This should have never become a political fracas.
People make choices and have to live with the consequences.
I agree; society used to put pressure on people to conform to general standards. That kind of “peer pressure”, I guess, is lacking.
Exactly, it is a mental health issue and should be treated as such.
I know you’re right. I also know I can’t judge the quality of Spoon’s life without walking in his shoes. It just makes me sad; sometimes I feel like my six-year-old son about these things. ;)
Yeah, they don’t always want help, someties they see your resistance to their advances as a challenge and a come on, sometimes they try to force the issue.
During Basic training [1996] we had a guy we referred to as Bannannasack in our platoon.
He was a homosexual who signed up because Bill Clinton signed the “Don’t ask Don’t tell end to the ban on gays in the military.”
He’d jump into the shower with you.
He repeatedly got his face bashed in for it, but he wouldn’t stop.
The DrillSars said of him, “Hunh, he sure falls down alot” and that was that.
Finally he bothered me, and I beat his face bad enough that he resembled a chimp due to the swelling.
And he still would not give it up.
Last I knew, he was assigned a duty station in South Korea.
Maybe he learned, I don’t know.
But that was my experience with gays in the military.
And it illustrates the “sometimes they don’t want help” in a way.
He didn’t see anything wrong with his actions, in his mind he was simply doing what everyone wanted.
Thanks to all of you all for an interesting conversation; I have to go pick up my little munchkin now. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year! Take care!
No, I only had liability on my car, a 1996 that wasn’t worth full comp and collision as the value of the car was far lower than what full comp and collision was worth.
I hear you. Compassion is never misplaced. We just need to realize that not everyone can be helped nor do they want to be. It was something that I had to learn.
And to you and yours!
I would not necessarily say that it is lacking -more it is being depressed by government. The founders did not create the greatness of America, they created the environment fostered it that allowed it to take root and happen.
I think that the drive to better ones condition, wealth creation, moral order etcetera are all imprinted withing man and that is only freedom that allows these things to develop fully. We see know a tyranny that seeks to enslave man -a tyranny that oppresses individual self determination for collective ideology. I feel the answer is to simply remove the tyranny and man will recover "naturally"....
IBTZ
Moral relativism doesn't work.
Nope. No zot. Didn’t need one.
Red herring.
Americans don't fear or hate people who are different than they.
On the contrary, talking to a lot of people who have visited or lived in foreign countries, there is far more prejudice against foreigners there than here in the US. We're used to it here. Many of us have grown up being exposed in our own families to more than one culture and more than one language. I grew up listening to three languages spoken at family gatherings. The relatives were always careful to speak the mother tongue when they didn't want the kids to hear the family dirt.
Besides, the default option of accusing someone who disagrees with you of *hatred* or *fear* is nothing more than smear tactics by someone who has lost the argument.
Your deceived liberal cohorts may fall for it, but anyone with any conservatism in them sees it for what it is. Simply manipulation tactics used by a loser.
I agree with you 100%.
As a matter of fact, I’ve found the majority of the smileys associated with posts have been put at the end of a post that is inflammatory or insulted to the person being responded to.
Posting a smiley like that is more of an indicator of trollish behavior than about anything else I’ve seen.
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