Extermination

Hi there

I’m Lizzie. I have no idea who is still posting here, but I’m the owner of the site. Alan Fox drew my attention to a recent post by Erik about LGBTQ+ people. I read it with growing horror, culminating when I arrived at these words:

 [LGBTQ+ people] exist sure enough and extermination is not the way to deal with them, but

“but”.

I set up this site as a venue in which people who wanted to discuss issues such as evolution, theism, and morality in good faith with people with who vehemently disagreed with them, could do so with minimal censorship.  I have been absent from the site for many years now, though I continue to pay the hosting fees.

I could simply delete Erik’s post. He would consider it “cancel culture”.  Yes, indeed I do wish to “cancel” those views from this blog. Committed as I am to uncensored discussion between people with radically opposing views (as exemplified in the original posting rules for the site) I will not provide a platform for articles that are Nazi-adjacent. I am deeply worried by the rise of right-wing fascism in the world, and I will not facilitate the propagation of such views.

No poster capable of considering, albeit rejecting, “extermination” as a “way to deal with” people like my own beloved daughter is welcome to post those views here. Every day I worry for her safety from people who want to exterminate her.

Alternatively, I could simply pull the plug on this site.

I will sleep on this. I would also welcome comments from any posters still active here. If there are hardly any left, I will probably do that last thing.

186 thoughts on “Extermination

  1. This doesn’t really fit the discussion, but I can’t resist.

    My parents had nine great grandchildren, all of them boys. One of them used to be a girl.

  2. petrushka: My parents had nine great grandchildren, all of them boys. One of them used to be a girl.

    Another way of putting this, which reflects the experience and perception of many trans people, is: “My parents had nine -great grandchildren, all of them apparently boys. One of them turned out to be a girl”.

    I will do a post on this. I think it’s important, given the shibboleth that trans topics has become in current politics.

  3. CharlieM:

    Erik, have you heard the term, “in the closet”? Mainly people who do not reveal their sexual orientation because they are afraid of the reception they get if they “come out”.

    Right, and in addition to those, there are people who don’t consider themselves gay or bisexual yet experience same-sex attraction or engage in same-sex behavior. I’ve read that there are as many as two of such people for every one who identifies as gay or bisexual. All of this to point out that Erik’s assertion that LGBTQ people are “numerically negligible” is questionable at best.

    In any case, their prevalence in the population is irrelevant to their right to choose their partners. The homo- and transphobia of people like Erik is not and should not be binding on those choices.

  4. Elizabeth,

    Lizzie, I don’t think I said that. One off the nine was an apparent girl, who became a boy.

    I don’t like playing with language this way. I would prefer we leave sex determination to biology — chromosomes — and do away with dichotomies regarding expected or acceptable behavior. There are, of course, chromosomal anomalies and chimerism, and hormonal anomalies.

    Sports are a can of worms. I don’t really like sports, but if we have them, they should pit people of equivalent stature against one another, regardless of sex. Particularly in school.

  5. petrushka: Lizzie, I don’t think I said that. One off the nine was an apparent girl, who became a boy.

    Yes, that was how I understood what you originally wrote. So I was surprised by Elizabeth’s reply which seemed to take a different interpretation.

  6. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply say that your parents had 9 great grand children that they dearly love?does it really matter whether or not they have a penis?

  7. petrushka: Lizzie, I don’t think I said that. One off the nine was an apparent girl, who became a boy.

    I don’t like playing with language this way. I would prefer we leave sex determination to biology — chromosomes — and do away with dichotomies regarding expected or acceptable behavior. There are, of course, chromosomal anomalies and chimerism, and hormonal anomalies.

    Neil Rickert: Yes, that was how I understood what you originally wrote.So I was surprised by Elizabeth’s reply which seemed to take a different interpretation.

    Yes, indeed, I misunderstood your sentence, Petrushka, but my point is still the point you correctly took, i.e. about language.

    “Become a boy” conveys the idea that the person’s gender identity changed from being that of a girl to that of a boy. Most (well all those I know, which is quite a few) don’t think of transition as a change in their own gender, but rather a change in how they are categorised by the world, e.g. in terms of name, pronoun, gender expression (clothes, hair etc), and possibly, but not necessarily, in terms of actual biology.

    And it’s somewhat ironic that the objection often made to trans people is “you can’t change your biology”. Quite apart from the fact that in many respects you can, most trans people consider that their gender was miscategorised, rather than that it has changed. They are under no illusion that their “sex” i.e. most of their biological features, are not those paradigmatic of that gender.

    You could call this “playing with language”, but language is the very medium at issue here – it’s the tool that at least English language speakers use to categorise others (socially and legally) into one of two labelled boxes. We also use it to categorise ourselves. And some people for whatever reason, find their self-categorisation at odds with the way they are read by others.

    So the point I was making is one I have made to my own family – that my daughter didn’t “become a girl”, but rather “discovered she was a girl”. And it matters in small ways, especially for the family of origin. They manage the new name and pronouns for the adult, but struggle to refer to her that way when remembering her as a child. Like many trans people who come out as adults, she came out to her friends (and to her parents) before the wider family, because it can seem easier, and probably is, for people who have known you less long as a member of the gender category you are disavowing. For my siblings, who knew my daughter as my son, that’s harder. And for me. I look at those cute photographs, trying to see the daughter that was always there, just as I look at her now and see the daughter she is and always was.

    Sure her biology is changing, and she is more readily now “read” as woman than she used to be. But that doesn’t mean she is “becoming” a woman. As people (in my view irrelevantly) point out, her chromosomes won’t change, even if some of her secondary sex characterstics do. Her body will be read differently by others, and feel different to her, but she has not “become” someone else. The first thing she said to me was: “I’m the same person, Mum”.

    Philip Pullman provided us both with an apt metaphor – what happened (metaphorically) is that we both mistook the human for the daemon. We mistook Pantalaimon for the child, and Lyra for his daemon, and it turned out that Lyra was the child, and Pantalaimon was her daemon. So sometimes I look at photos of little Pantalaimon, and think – it’s the same person, I just couldn’t see Lyra then!

    I will do a post on this though. I’m appalled that it has become the latest wedge issue in some very horrible culture wars. Not just culture wars. Putin is using transgender issues to justify his brutal shooting war in Ukraine. It’s not just the new gay, it’s the new abortion.

  8. Elizabeth: I will do a post on this though. I’m appalled that it has become the latest wedge issue in some very horrible culture wars.

    I will read and learn! Life-long ignorance of these issues on a personal level has left me quite shaken.

  9. Alan Fox: I will read and learn! Life-long ignorance of these issues on a personal level has leftme quite shaken.

    Bless you, Alan! It has been a steep learning curve for me too. But one I’ve glad to have ascended! My daughter and I have always been very close and she’s always been hyperarticulate. Other Mums used to listen to her prattling away as a toddler, and say “it’s really interesting to listen – it makes me realise what mine is thinking when s/he does that!” A bit like those jokes about what cats would say if they could talk.

    And she’s kind of parented me through the process of understanding her gender identity.

    She’s turned out to be a good writer too – she wrote a great piece about the whole “doesn’t even know what a woman is” shibboleth, which I still hope she might get published somewhere, but if not I’ll see if I can get her permission to post it here.

  10. Acartia:
    Wouldn’t it be easier to simply say that your parents had 9 great grand children that they dearly love?does it really matter whether or not they have a penis?

    That’s kind of what I have in mind by accepting behavior whether it is culturally stereotypical or not. What I find troublesome is the binary thinking implied by the word trans.

    Personally, I am non-conforming in so many ways that have nothing to do with sex or gender. Have been since early childhood. I don’t “understand” trans people, but I understand feeling alone and outside. What I don’t want is to be someone else, even if it made life easier.

  11. Elizabeth,

    Your daughter is very lucky to have a mother like you. Most right wingers don’t hold a candle to trans people in terms of courage and determination. Those snowflakes wouldn’t endure a fraction of the pain they inflict on those they hate so irrationally.

    So happy to hear your daughter had your unconditional support throughout her journey, you’re awesome, Elisabeth.

  12. petrushka: That’s kind of what I have in mind by accepting behavior whether it is culturally stereotypical or not. What I find troublesome is the binary thinking implied by the word trans.

    Personally, I am non-conforming in so many ways that have nothing to do with sex or gender. Have been since early childhood. I don’t “understand” trans people, but I understand feeling alone and outside. What I don’t want is to be someone else, even if it made life easier.

    Thanks for this petrushka!

    The important step-change in my understanding of transgender identity was realising that it is not about conforming to a gender stereotype, role, or expression. Like you, I’ve always been a gender non-conformist, and when I first met a transgender woman I found it disconcerting that she seemed to want to “conform” to the very straitjacket I was struggling to escape! Ideologically, it seemed to me that if transgender identity is something to do with being forced into the “wrong” gender stereotypes, then the answer is to get rid of the stereotypes, not “change sex”. There seemed to be something fundamentally anti-feminist about the entire concept – and indeed there is a vociferous “feminist” segment of anti-transgender opinion: “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists” (TERFs) or, as they seem to prefer, “Gender Critical” feminists (GCs).

    But I got it quite wrong. Sure, trans people do often express their gender identity by adopting the cultural signifiers (e.g. dress, hair) of the “other” gender, because those signifiers are how we read the gender of others and how, in turn we are read. And some do enjoy pursuits that are “stereotypical” of the other gender. But many do not. Just as many tomboys (I guess I was one) are not transgender, conversely many trans women are also “tomboys” and many trans men enjoy styles and activities that are “stereotypically” associated with girls or women.

    It turns out (and I think this is the best way to think of it – as an emerging discovery about human self-concept) that transgender identity is about something much deeper and intuitive about the nature of the self than role preferences or self-expression. It really is about identity, and there’s even emerging evidence about what might be its developmental biological basis.

    My daughter was not a stereotypical girl OR boy – she was into trucks, dinosaurs, and construction toys (as was I as a child), but also soft toys, language and poetry (again, as was I). She did not say she was a girl but frequently expressed how “unfair” it was that “you can’t choose”. She was fascinated with the idea of reincarnation – the idea that who you “are” is dissociated with the physical embodiment you end up with.

    But it was only later that either of us had the language to figure out what was going on.

  13. This is not a new debate. My high school biology teacher (1959) addressed the question of whether homosexuality was the result of hormones. His answer was no, but he at least posed it as a question to be answered by research.

    I’ve watched a lot of kids grow up, and I believe in a nebulous concept I call temperament, which I believe is inborn. It is not the same thing as the social behaviors that we learn. It is a way of seeing and addressing the world.

    My two children wound up living in the same city, a thousand miles from home. They started careers in the same industry, have similar incomes and interests, but are temperamentally night and day.

    Perhaps relevant to this discussion: my son is a house husband, and my daughter teaches construction management. My kind of people.

  14. Hi Elizabeth. I’ve lurked around for years but I think this is the first chance I’ve had to interact with you. Put down as being in favor of taking out the trash.

  15. petrushka: This is not a new debate. My high school biology teacher (1959) addressed the question of whether homosexuality was the result of hormones. His answer was no, but he at least posed it as a question to be answered by research.

    Most things are multi causal but the idea that hormones in utero may play a role is supported by evidence that fraternal birth order affects the probability that a boy will be gay – the more older brothers you have the more likely you are to be gay. However much of this work was done by Ray Blanchard, who has proposed some pretty problematic “theories” of transgender identity, so I’m not sure how much weight to put on that evidence.

    And there are potentially non-hormonal alternative explanations for the effect, as proposed by this commentary on a meta-analysis by Blanchard:

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1069-3

  16. So where is this original “Extermination” post by Erik? I cannot find it and I want to read it for context …

  17. It seems Elizabeth is of the opinion that feelings trump rational thought.

    The colossal confusion swimming in peoples brains arises from the mistaken notion that ‘feelings’ are somehow intrinsic to the self.

    As Jordan Peterson would say “That’s wrong, man. And it’s not good!”

    Erik has it right. Trans people are punching way above their weight. Its pretty clear their prominence in current social discourse is manufactured. Its a phenomenon that will wane once the actors behind them lose interest and/or control.

  18. Steve: It seems Elizabeth is of the opinion that feelings trump rational thought.

    What did I say that made it “seem” that way to you?

    Because it isn’t what I said. Trans people are not delusional about their biology. They are perfectly rational. The problem isn’t lack of “rational thought”. The problem is that rational thought reveals to them that their sense (“feelings”) of their own gender identity does not match the biology of the rest of their bodies.

    What they are asking is for is not the suspension of “rational thought” in favour of “feelings”, but a recognition of the reality that the “feelings” a person has about their gender identity sometimes conflicts with the rest of their biology.

    Denying that these “feelings” about gender identity exist is letting your “feelings” about their “feelings” trump your own rational thought.

    Perhaps you don’t think “feelings” are real?

  19. Elizabeth: What did I say that made it “seem” that way to you?

    Because it isn’t what I said. Trans people are not delusional about their biology. They are perfectly rational. The problem isn’t lack of “rational thought”. The problem is that rational thought reveals to them that their sense (“feelings”) of their own gender identity does not match the biology of the rest of their bodies.

    What they are asking is for is not the suspension of “rational thought” in favour of “feelings”, but a recognition of the reality that the “feelings” a person has about their gender identity sometimes conflicts with the rest of their biology.

    Denying that these “feelings” about gender identity exist is letting your “feelings” about their “feelings” trump your own rational thought.

    Perhaps you don’t think “feelings” are real?

    No one is denying that feelings exist. But claiming that somehow feeling makes who you(pl) are is absurd.

    But i guess that is where the divide is. Liberals like yourself place feelings ahead of rational thought as if feelings are of paramount importance; as if feeling are some unchangeable, inherent part of who someone is. Which is hardly the case.

    It is how people respond to ‘feelings’ that matters. The saying “Know Thyself” applies here. How many people are actually able to fully understand the ‘source’ of those feelings and make an informed decision as to whether those feelings should be acted upon or not, and if so, HOW.

    I would venture to say a huge slice of the human population do not have the inclination (for a slew of reasons) to actually confront their feelings head on and understand the source. They are easily deceived into coming to the wrong conclusions.

    Detransitioned people are a case in point. If feeling are who you are, then detransitioning would not take place. Yet, there it is. Proof that feelings are are often misconstrued, misinterpreted, misunderstood. But when the realisation sets in, its too late because mammary glands and penises have already been incinerated.

    And that’s not good.

  20. DNA_Jock:
    HMGuy,

    Here is Erik’s original text.

    I’m going to come to Erik’s defense here … Lizzie seems to be accusing him of a crime basically, but we all know that the real essence of any crime is INTENT. And now that I have had the opportunity to read Erik’s context, it does not appear that EXTERMINATION OF PEOPLE was in his mind at all. Here’s the paragraph in question …

    Seventh, if history is any guide, then things are irreversibly downhill whenever LGBTQ+ issues come to the forefront, be it decadent emperors, papal pornocracy, or inter-world-war gay culture trends and styles that were outright mainstream at the time. And look what happened next. This all is to say that I do not deny that LGBTQ+ people or community do not exist or that the related activism should be annihilated. They exist sure enough and extermination is not the way to deal with them, but they got too many things obviously wrong and they think disproportionately big of themselves, compared to their numbers first of all and also in terms of what they contribute to the society. They contribute decadence and moral corruption, and this is best kept as small as their numbers are, not any bigger. They are properly a subculture, not mainstream; they belong underground, not to the forefront. And they have no good reason to be anywhere close to children, certainly not without competent supervision.

    And yes, if you just read that one bolded sentence in isolation you do indeed recoil in horror at what appears to be his thought. However … if you read THE PRIOR SENTENCE … “or that the related activism should be annihilated” … you find that Erik has in view “annihilation of their activism” i.e. their behavior, not the people themselves.

    So I think a better way for Erik to write the paragraph would have been as follows …

    This all is to say that I do not deny that LGBTQ+ people or community do not exist or that the related activism should be annihilated. They exist sure enough and [extermination] annihilation of their activism is not the way to deal with them

    (I don’t know how to do strikeout text so I put “extermination” in brackets instead)

  21. HMGuy,

    I don’t know whether it qualifies as a “manly” trait but you have the worst case of being tone-deaf I have seen in a very long time.

  22. Corneel,
    HMGuy identified himself in his first comment here so I’m not outing him. He should be well known to regulars as Dave Hawkins aka AFDave.

  23. HMGuy:

    And yes, if you just read that one bolded sentence in isolation you do indeed recoil in horror at what appears to be his thought. However … if you read THE PRIOR SENTENCE … “or that the related activism should be annihilated” … you find that Erik has in view “annihilation of their activism” i.e. their behavior, not the people themselves.

    That is obviously wrong, on multiple grounds, as anyone competent in the English language can tell you:

    1. Let’s review some rules of English usage. Subjects and verbs must agree in number. “Tall people” is plural; we would say “tall people are”, not “tall people is”. “Totalitarianism” is singular; we would say “totalitarianism is”, not “totalitarianism are”. Likewise, pronouns and their antecedents must agree in number; we would say “I like Bob. He’s hilarious”, not “I like Bob. They are hilarious”.

    With that in mind, let’s examine Erik’s statement:

    This all is to say that I do not deny that LGBTQ+ people or community do not exist or that the related activism should be annihilated. They exist sure enough and extermination is not the way to deal with them, but they got too many things obviously wrong and they think disproportionately big of themselves, compared to their numbers first of all and also in terms of what they contribute to the society.

    Under your interpretation, “they” and “them” in the second sentence somehow refer to “activism” in the first, which is nonsense:

    They exist sure enough and extermination is not the way to deal with them…

    “They” and “them” are plural, while “activism” is singular. Thus the former cannot be referring to the latter. “LGBTQ+ people or community” is plural, as reinforced by the use of the plural form “do not exist”. * “They” and “them” match in number, so the latter are obviously referring to the former. Erik is thus referring to “LGBTQ+ people or community” when he says “extermination is not the way to deal with them…”.

    2. A common device to check the correctness of pronouns is to replace them with their antecedents and see if the sentence still parses correctly. “Activism exist” is ungrammatical. “The LGBTQ+ people or community exist” is correct, and so “they” and “them” refer to the latter, not the former.

    3. Erik’s sentence hammers the point home. The rest of the sentence reads

    …but they got too many things obviously wrong and they think disproportionately big of themselves, compared to their numbers first of all and also in terms of what they contribute to the society.”

    Try substituting “activism” for “they”, and you get gibberish, both grammatically and semantically:

    …but activism got too many things obviously wrong and activism think disproportionately big of activism’s selves, compared to activism’s numbers first of all and also in terms of what activism contribute to the society.”

    4. You focused on the wrong word. “Extermination” is the word of interest here, not “annihilated”. “The related activism should be annihilated” obviously refers to activism, but “extermination is not the way to deal with them” refers to LGBTQ+ people, as shown above.

    All of the above should be glaringly obvious to any competent speaker of English, and I spelled it out just to emphasize how obvious it is. You, to my knowledge, are a native speaker of English, and your comments show that you know the rules. Given that, there is no excuse for your distortion of Erik’s clear meaning.

    * Erik no doubt meant to say that LGBTQ+ people do exist. Either way, the plural verb form is used, so my point stands.

  24. Add to the above that Erik never disputed that “extermination is not the way to deal with them” referred to LGBTQ+ people.

  25. keiths … I think your failure is to apply the principle of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” … which is an extremely important principle which “The Left” in America at least have forgotten or ignored in their quest for Total Power.

    You DO. NOT. know what is in Erik’s mind, or what he was thinking when he wrote that. You can ONLY INFER what YOU THINK was in his mind.

    And charitable people — like me — will give him the benefit of the doubt … allow him to be innocent until PROVEN guilty, which is EXTREMELY hard to do.

    Look at you and all the gyrations you are going through about the English Language. And it seems to me that all that effort falls far short of proving anything.

    In short, you’ve wasted your time because you forgot one of the most important principles of Human Freedom — Innocent Until Proven Guilty … Benefit of the Doubt … Etc.

    Thank you.

  26. HMGuy: You DO. NOT. know what is in Erik’s mind, or what he was thinking when he wrote that. You can ONLY INFER what YOU THINK was in his mind.

    Communication is not your thing, is it?

  27. <excess_capitaization_mode=on>

    HMGuy,

    You are accusing me of VIOLATING the IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”. You are basing your accusation on what I wrote above.

    You DO. NOT. know what is in my mind, or what I was thinking when I wrote that. You can ONLY INFER what YOU THINK was in my mind.

    You have VIOLATED the PRINCIPLE of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty. I expect an APOLOGY forthwith.

  28. HMGuy,

    You sure set yourself up for that one.

    You infer what people think based on their words, just like the rest of us. And despite being a self-described “charitable” guy, you failed to apply the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” to me, as I just demonstrated.

    Erik’s statement was clear, and I took him at his word. My statements were clear, and you took me at my word.

    So please, none of this pious nonsense about how we shouldn’t INFER what people THINK based on what they write.

  29. OK fine. I cannot know what is in keiths mind any more than keiths (or anyone) can know for sure what was in Erik’s mind. I did not realize I stated or implied that I do. I do not. Let me try again.

    1) It seems to me that a more charitable inference from what Erik wrote would be to give him the benefit of the doubt (until proven otherwise) that he did not have “extermination of a people group” in view, but rather “extermination / annihilation of their activism”. I think he worded the paragraph poorly and could have been more clear.

    2) It seems to me that keiths is going through all kinds of gymnastics to try to justify everyone being horrified at what Erik said and to me, his gymnastics are unconvincing. Spectacular. Impressive. If he were competing in the Olympics. But we’re not here. So not impressive after all.

  30. HMGuy:

    OK fine. I cannot know what is in keiths mind any more than keiths (or anyone) can know for sure what was in Erik’s mind. I did not realize I stated or implied that I do. I do not. Let me try again.

    Come on, HMGuy. ALL of us, including you, infer people’s thoughts from what they write. Think about it: You and I are communicating via a blog. We cannot hear each other’s voices. We cannot observe each other’s body language. We cannot see each other’s facial expressions or read each other’s lips. We cannot read each other’s minds. Our communication is limited to the written word, yet we manage to carry on a conversation. How is that possible? Obviously, it’s because we infer each other’s thoughts from the words that appear on our screens. There is nothing problematic about that.

    Written communication isn’t perfect, to be sure. Sometimes people express themselves poorly. Sometimes they misread what others write. Is all hope lost? Should we abandon our attempts at communication and assume that it’s impossible to glean thoughts from words? Or should we do what non-idiotic people everywhere do? Namely, a) ask for clarification if someone’s words are ambiguous or confusing, and b) correct others when they seem to be misunderstanding us.

    I vote for the non-idiotic approach.

    Note that Erik did not avail himself of (b) despite many opportunities to do so, not even in a thread devoted to his ‘extermination’ comment. That alone is conclusive evidence that he really was talking about LGBTQ people. If you haven’t noticed, Erik is not the sort to remain meekly silent in the face of a false accusation. He knew the accusation was correct, and that’s why he didn’t contest it. What is YOUR explanation for Erik’s silence in that regard?

    Note also that Erik’s statement was clear. It was obvious that he was referring to LGBTQ people, and I’ve already explained why any competent speaker of English should be able to see this. When someone expresses in clear language a thought that fits perfectly with what they have said before, it is not our duty to assume without evidence that they meant something else, particularly when they decline multiple opportunities to correct the record.

  31. HMGuy:

    It seems to me that a more charitable inference from what Erik wrote would be to give him the benefit of the doubt (until proven otherwise) that he did not have “extermination of a people group” in view, but rather “extermination / annihilation of their activism”.

    By the same logic, a more charitable inference from what Kanye West has said and written is that he actually loves Jewish people and that we’ve badly misinterpreted him. We should therefore give him the benefit of the doubt, right? The answer is no, of course, because we have more than sufficient reason to take Kanye at his word when he expresses his antisemitism. His statements are unambiguous, they’re in character, and they jibe with many other things he’s said. The “Kanye loves Jews” inference is charitable, but it’s also stupid, and the charitableness doesn’t outweigh the stupidity.

    Ditto for your charitable interpretation of Erik’s statement. It’s charitable, but it’s also implausible, stupid, and incompatible with a straightforward reading of his words. The charitableness doesn’t outweigh the stupidity.

    I think he worded the paragraph poorly and could have been more clear.

    The paragraph conveyed what Erik meant instead of what you wanted him to mean; therefore, according to you, it was poorly worded and unclear. Never mind that it was quite clear and that “they”, “them”, “their”, and “themselves” obviously referred to LGBTQ+ people, not to activism.

    It seems to me that keiths is going through all kinds of gymnastics to try to justify everyone being horrified at what Erik said…

    The thread had gone dormant and we had all moved on long before you showed up and posted your “defense” of Erik. My response has been to the illogic of your defense. The creepiness of Erik’s statement was dealt with long ago.

    …and to me, his gymnastics are unconvincing. Spectacular. Impressive. If he were competing in the Olympics. But we’re not here. So not impressive after all.

    Do you suppose that by labeling my arguments as “gymnastics” and “not impressive”, you’ll fool people into thinking that you can actually refute them? If you want to persuade people that you truly can, then go ahead and do it. The arguments are “not impressive”, so they should be easy to refute. Show us how it’s done. Here’s a link for your convenience.

  32. Let’s apply the technique of substituting antecedents for pronouns again, this time using a longer excerpt from Erik’s post. The exercise will show how ridiculous your interpretation of Erik’s statement is.

    You say that when Erik wrote

    They exist sure enough and extermination is not the way to deal with them…

    …he was referring to activism, not to LGBTQ people.

    Let’s test that by substituting “activism” in place of “they”, “them”, “their”, etc:

    This all is to say that I do not deny that LGBTQ+ people or community do not exist or that the related activism should be annihilated. Activism exist sure enough and extermination is not the way to deal with activism, but activism got too many things obviously wrong and activism think disproportionately big of activism’s selves, compared to activism’s numbers first of all and also in terms of what activism contribute to the society. Activism contribute decadence and moral corruption, and this is best kept as small as activism’s numbers are, not any bigger. Activism are properly a subculture, not mainstream; activism belong underground, not to the forefront. And activism have no good reason to be anywhere close to children, certainly not without competent supervision.

    By your logic, that’s what Erik was trying to say. You claim you’re being charitable, but in fact you are accusing Erik of being so incompetent that he can’t pick the correct pronouns to match his nouns, doesn’t know the difference between singular and plural verb forms, and believes that “activism think disproportionately big of activism’s selves”.

    It’s comical. You’re a hoot, HMGuy.

  33. Again it appears to me that you are spending lots of words in an attempt to hide something seriously wrong with you … your inability / refusal to give a person the benefit of the doubt / assume his innocence until proven guilty. I’m far more worried about people like you in our society than I am about people like Erik or Kanye. And yet, I don’t propose to “do anything” about “people like you” other than continue to engage / expose / etc. That is all we should do in a supposedly free society. We should never censor / ban / hate / punish people for what they SAY (as long as it labeled “opinion” — of course if they make statements that purport to be facts and they damage someone’s reputation / business / etc, then the damaged party has the right to sue for slander / libel / etc.) Otherwise, we don’t really have “free speech.”

  34. HMGuy: 1) It seems to me that a more charitable inference from what Erik wrote would be to give him the benefit of the doubt (until proven otherwise) that he did not have “extermination of a people group” in view, but rather “extermination / annihilation of their activism”. I think he worded the paragraph poorly and could have been more clear.

    I did not word anything poorly and I was perfectly clear.

    Lizzie has achieved her desired outcome: What I said is buried, while her abhorrence at what I said is up front for everyone to see, making it appear as if I said something very nasty.

    Here’s the funny thing: I did not suggest to exterminate anyone. I said NOT to exterminate anyone. And Lizzie agrees with this, obviously, but well, no, my post had to be buried, and a post denouncing me had to be put up, as if there was any disagreement on the point of extermination. Very barringtonian of her.

    Now everybody is talking about the completely irrelevant extermination, on the point that everyone agrees on anyway, instead of about something intellectually interesting or where we have genuine moral disagreements.

  35. Erik:

    I said NOT to exterminate anyone. And Lizzie agrees with this, obviously, but well, no, my post had to be buried, and a post denouncing me had to be put up, as if there was any disagreement on the point of extermination. Very barringtonian of her.

    Kudos for the term “barringtonian”, but Lizzie has already explained why she was horrified by your statement DESPITE the fact that you weren’t advocating for extermination.

    Imagine you’re at a restaurant with your family. Your kids are making too much noise and annoying the other patrons, one of whom confronts you about it. During the discussion he says “I’m not saying that your kids should be killed, but they really need to quiet down.” Any normal parent would be horrified that killing crossed his mind at all, even if he rejected it.

    It’s the same with your statement. The fact that you mentioned extermination at all, even if you rejected it, is appalling. Lizzie has a trans daughter. In effect, you were telling Lizzie “I’m not saying your daughter should be killed, but she really should shut up about this trans stuff.”

    Now do you understand why she was horrified?

  36. I had already written the following when Erik appeared and settled the question, but I’ll go ahead and post it as written:

    HMGuy:

    Again it appears to me that you are spending lots of words in an attempt to hide something seriously wrong with you … your inability / refusal to give a person the benefit of the doubt / assume his innocence until proven guilty. I’m far more worried about people like you in our society than I am about people like Erik or Kanye.

    You crack me up, HMGuy. After droning on and on about the importance of charity, you now declare that there’s something “seriously wrong” with me and that I’m a danger to society. How charitable of you.

    All of this based on nothing more than our interactions at TSZ. So much for “innocent until proven guilty”.

    Even funnier, you failed to notice that I have already extended the principle of charity to Erik. Recall that he wrote:

    This all is to say that I do not deny that LGBTQ+ people or community do not exist or that the related activism should be annihilated.

    Taken at face value, that sentence means that he’s OK with claims that LGBTQ+ people don’t exist and OK with the annihilation of their activism. I could have run with that, but instead I applied the principle of charity. Why? Because it was obvious that Erik had misspoken (miswritten?), and that what he was really trying to say was something like “I’m not saying that LGBTQ+ people don’t exist or that their activism should be annihilated.”

    The lesson here is that the principle of charity should be applied rationally, not indiscriminately. It was rational, based on the evidence, to conclude that Erik had misspoken in that sentence. Therefore I applied the principle of charity. It would be irrational, in light of the evidence, to conclude that Kanye West loves Jewish people. Therefore I did not extend the principle of charity to Kanye. It’s really quite simple, but for some reason you don’t seem to get it.

  37. keiths: Any normal parent would be horrified that killing crossed his mind at all, even if he rejected it.

    Actually, I reckon that using the word ‘extermination’ in the context of Jews, Gypsies or homosexuals is more analogous to complaining about the uppity colored folk and conceding that lynching is not the solution. I think we are being trolled.

  38. Jock,

    You’re right that “there ain’t no need to lynch them Negroes” is a better analogy to Erik’s statement, but I was actually looking for an analogy that would help him empathize with Lizzie’s situation, assuming he’s capable of that. Her horror at his statement is partly a matter of principle, to be sure, but it’s also a matter of flesh and blood, since she is the parent of a trans daughter. In effect, I was saying to Erik “If you want to know why Lizzie responded so vehemently to you, imagine how you would feel if someone casually mentioned the murder of your children as an option, albeit a rejected one.”

  39. HMGuy:

    I tried to help you Erik, but you blew it.

    LOL. He doesn’t want your “help”, HMGuy. He meant what he said and he isn’t trying to weasel out of it.

  40. HMGuy: I tried to help you Erik, but you blew it.

    Erik blew nothing. Nobody on this site had any problem understanding what Erik was saying, and nobody was fooled by your silly smoke screen. I strongly disagree with Erik’s conservative stance on the LGBTQ+ community, but I appreciate his straightforward attitude and he has earned my respect during the previous discussions. It is you that tainted his side of the debate with your clear double standard and diversionary tactics. You are the one that blew it.

  41. Uh … no. You’re wrong. Erik DID blow it. Here are the steps in his “blowing it” that I see … (1) He allowed himself to entertain an idea that horrifies many people — exterminating other human beings because of their beliefs / lifestyle / activism / etc … (2) He gave everyone a glimpse of that which justifiably horrified the owner of this site and others here … (3) When I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, he could have remained silent (the old adage “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt”) … and some people would have had a higher opinion of him than they do now. (4) But he didn’t so people REMAIN justifiably horrified. IOW … he blew it. If I were Lizzie, I would ban him. Of course, maybe his goal was to horrify people by showcasing his views. If so, then he didn’t “blow it” at all … he accomplished his goal!!

  42. keiths: You’re right that “there ain’t no need to lynch them Negroes” is a better analogy to Erik’s statement, but I was actually looking for an analogy that would help him empathize with Lizzie’s situation, assuming he’s capable of that.

    I have no trouble with empathizing. The way you are putting it, it is clear that you have no empathy for the folks who used to say “there ain’t no need to lynch them Negroes”. So you fail. I have empathy for both sides, so I beat you all easily on the empathy count. Anybody who supposes I have no empathy or too little of it is fundamentally misconstruing the situation. Note: Empathy does not mean agreement. If you think it does, you double fail on the point of empathy.

    In my post, I laid out what LGBTQ+ folks are – a marginal sexual minority. Sexuality is normally NOT out in the open. It’s not in the colour of the skin or anything like this, so Negroes and Jews and immigrants are NOT comparable. Yet you love the race card a lot.

    Moreover, LGBTQ+ are marginal in a particular way. For one, their kind of sexuality cannot bring forth children. So, they are marginal by virtue of natural biological necessity – instead of marginalised by others, it’s rather a marginality of nature’s doing. So your Hitler card also fails.

    Once these points are understood, we can start approaching the main point I made, which is the active self-aggrandisement of the LGBTQ+ community beyond what nature permits. But of course, the society is already so far into LGBTQ+ propaganda that everybody must swallow the celebration of LGBTQ+ ideology without any rational inquiry lest be faced with race card and Hitler card.

    Studies in the fields of sociology and politology indicate that when society goes overboard for a while in one direction, there is likely to be backlash, more definitely so when coupled with social justice – justice in the sense how and if circumstances are justified. LGBTQ+ ideology is overboard enough to distort justice clearly enough in the eyes of the majority – the minority is demanding explicit equal rights even while their community is marginal by virtue of biological necessity, i.e. they simply cannot have equal rights, no matter how much one would try to give them to them (see the Loretta sketch in Life of Brian for a lucid illustration, since you like analogies so much). Moreover, they are demanding rights that never were rights, e.g. “right to marriage”. If you think “right to marriage” exists, then incels are justified in all their complaints also.

    At this stage, in some places the LGBTQ+ have a solid history of uberrights and the backlash is unfolding from there. Instead of slavery, races or immigrants, the LGBTQ+ are approaching the position of aristocracy. Aristocratic elite used to have its power by virtue of ideology (plus superior weaponry and wealth sufficient to secure favourable judicial decisions every time). The way to equalise the situation was to abolish the concept of aristocracy from law. Similarly, the way to bring more balance and justice with regard to people’s sexuality is to regulate it less rather than more, and the little that is regulated better be in harmony with nature – you see, I’m eco-friendly too.

    All of this was clear from my original post. Now, feel free to continue to display your lack of empathy and project it on the other side.

  43. HMGuyOf course, maybe his goal was to horrify people by showcasing his views.

    Certainly I had a good hunch that I was testing the limits of this forum/website. However, my expectations were off. I did not get banned, but also I did not get my views through – the worst of both worlds.

    But I learned a valuable lesson: Apparently I live in a more free country than you do. There are no prejudices here, there are no fears. And now you know too the kind of discussions that can be had in some parts of the world where experience with LGBTQ+ community has been intense enough to have produced some fruits on the tree of knowledge.

  44. Erik: Certainly I had a good hunch that I was testing the limits of this forum/website. However, my expectations were off. I did not get banned, but also I did not get my views through – the worst of both worlds.

    But I learned a valuable lesson: Apparently I live in a more free country than you do. There are no prejudices here, there are no fears. And now you know too the kind of discussions that can be had in some parts of the world where experience with LGBTQ+ community has been intense enough to have produced some fruits on the tree of knowledge.

    So would you? Or would you not ever consider “extermination” as a “solution” for ANY group of human beings? (I’m starting to think that your actual view is the latter, and that your wording was intentional just to “test the limits” of this forum) I’m not sure why you think banning would have been a good outcome. That does make me wonder about Kanye … maybe he was TRYING to get banned from Twitter … for some reason I don’t understand yet.

    What magical country is this that you live in where they have no prejudices and no fears?

    Pretty sure that’s impossible, but your point is taken … “I live in a place where intense discussion is generally not feared so progress can be made.”

  45. HMGuy: Or would you not ever consider “extermination” as a “solution” for ANY group of human beings? (I’m starting to think that your actual view is the latter, and that your wording was intentional just to “test the limits” of this forum)

    I have some familiarity with the level of debate among Anglo-Americans on this topic, so my wording was an (evidently failed) attempt to pre-empt those stupid lame knee-jerk accusations (that perhaps were justified some ten years ago when the debate on this topic was more raw on the English-speaking internet). I hoped to indicate that I had already considered the matter all the way in that direction too so that there’d be no point going there. But yeah, I was outplayed – the Nazi card was pushed very effectively in this OP by singling out half of my sentence and burying the rest.

    I was not quite ready for this, because where I live the LGBTQ+ proponents don’t do this. They realise how dangerously bigoted and self-damaging it would be of them to hop in the Nazi direction. Many here have ancestors who were real-life soldiers of the Third Reich, SS officers or Communist apparatchiks (who were definitely not any better than Nazis), so we realise that whatever those ideologies and actions were they appear to be part of human nature that may go mainstream at some point and therefore it needs some more delicate management than calling it out loud when it is not there.

    HMGuy: That does make me wonder about Kanye … maybe he was TRYING to get banned from Twitter … for some reason I don’t understand yet.

    Kanye is by now only of interest as a clinical case. From the rational point of view he does not have any meaningful goals. He already achieved everything there was to achieve as an artist. It would be good for humanity if his handlers convinced him soon that he lacks any talent as a spokesperson of anything.

    HMGuy: What magical country is this that you live in where they have no prejudices and no fears?

    The magic may not last very long, but for the time being it is the best place to be ever.

Leave a Reply