"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian." - Robert Orben

***

Someone: um. i never knew you advocated incest

aren't the biological safeguards and tendency to cause discord within family units reason enough?

Me: just because I do not disapprove of it does not mean I advocate it

Someone: you think it should be legalized
that's active, not passive

Me: biological safeguards - naturalistic fallacy
if you mean nature conspires against incest, would you prevent a couple who has had a child with down's syndrome from having another child?

tendency to cause discord - there's discord when a child born into a muslim home renounces his religion
does that mean I should disapprove of freedom of religion for muslims?

I believe in the principle that consenting acts between informed adults should not be interfered with by outside parties, especially not the state

Someone: naturalistic fallacy -- i don't mean to say what is natural is 'right', but just as you presented evidence that sodomy does cause more physical harm than conventional sex, a sexual coupling significantly more likely to result in genetic aberrations should be discouraged, if not outright prohibited

discord -- not quite a good analogy. the particular kind of discord that comes into the picture when sex is an issue is quite different from the discord caused by religious differences

Me: so
if there were a test available to see if a couple's offspring would be significantly more likely to result in genetic aberrations, should their sexual coupling be discourage, if not outright prohibited?
that would be like one of the dystopia of fiction
where reproduction must be state-sanctioned

and you didn't answer the question about down's syndrome
if a couple has had one kid with down's syndrome, subsequent kids are more likely to have down's syndrome
so should they be prevented from having more children?
again, we face the prospect of a dystopia

so how is the discord from sex different from the discord by religious difference
and if it's different, why should it matter?

Someone: hmm.

ok in reverse order...

one's carnal nature is more intimate with one's basic sense of self than one's religious beliefs
the former is primal, the latter is inculcated

therefore, issues concerned with sexual relations are different from those concerned with conflict of religion within a family unit

i suppose it should matter because when it comes to females, you have issues of conception
which can be very immediate and present problems

btw, is andre the giant in princess bride???
serious>>
??

Me: yes he is

Someone: waaa
sigh i can't make it this week

Me: religion can be very important to some people
more important than sex anyway. and there're frigid people. or people with low libidos.
and why must something inherent be more important than something inculcated. it does not necessarily follow.

so. if you want to talk about carnal nature, we should not disapprove of homophobia
since homophobia is a reaction to a carnal nature which is very different from one's self
most straight guys, even if they intellectually accept homosexuality, are viscerally repulsed by it. so, for their benefit, should homosexuality be banned?


I've already told you why conception is not an issue here

Someone: oh certainly homophobia should be allowed, hahahaha
i'm a homophobe

and by conception, i didn't mean the genetic issues

i mean, it's a very intimate part of a woman's life. a sexual relationship with, say, a father or an older brother could be leveraged upon to foster an unwanted pregnancy
for instance

Me: and you're just waving your hands and saying that "issues concerned with sexual relations are different from those concerned with conflict of religion within a family unit"

yes, they're different
but so?!
so what if they're different? does it matter that they're different? how does this difference play out and how is it more serious?

and even if it's more serious, should it be allowed to run roughshod over a non-interference between the principle of consenting and informed adults?
if it should, lots of other things can be allowed to run roughshod over it
eg people with AIDS should not be allowed to have sex with people who don't have the HIV virus, because it is FATAL.

I don't understand what you mean by "leveraged upon to foster an unwanted pregnancy"

Someone: i don't mean "more" serious, i mean it's different and should be conceived of differently

i mean she may be emotionally blackmailed to conceive, pressured by the weight of the family ties in addition to the physical language of dominance employed against her
by which i don't mean that sex = male is dominant

but it is a potential channel to establish psychological and emotional dominance over another party

and i don't understand your point about homophobia and carnality, why draw that analogy

Me: wah lao
all relations are power relations
like that we cannot have any conjugal relationships at all lor

more extreme examples:
50 year old man with 18 year old woman - she may be dominated and made to do god knows what
50 year old rich woman with 18 year old poor man - he faces the prospect of being poor if he leaves her, so he's dominated into doing god knows what
Ike Turner and Tina Turner - he was more famous so he beat her and dominated her into doing god knows what
black man and white woman who's run away from home to be with him - he has the potential to lord it over her and be dominated into doing god knows what


because homosexuality is a carnal activity
and homophobia is a reaction to people finding 2 men having buttsex disgusting


just because it's different does not mean it should be treated differently
why should it be treated differently?

parents being upset over their daughter marrying a black man, is different from
parents being upset that their muslim child is changing religion, is different from
parents being upset that their child is not going into medicine/engineering/law, is different from
incest causing familial discord

does that mean we should treat each case differently
you have to come up with concrete reasons rather than waving your hand and saying "it's different. therefore we should respond to it different"


anyway your point about advocacy and decriminalization

I strongly oppose abortion being made illegal
doesn't mean I want all women to go out and have abortions

I strongly oppose miscegenation being made illegal
doesn't mean I want everyone to go out and marry someone of another race

I strongly oppose homosexuality being made illegal
doesn't mean I want all men to go out and have anal sex with each other

similarly,
I oppose the criminzalization of incest
doesn't mean I want everyone to go out and commit incest

Someone: ah ok i get it. you just don't want state interference

Me: that's the main bit, but not all of it
I deplore social sanctions to similar or the same effect as well
(to varying degrees)

of course that is a bit more iffy
but you can agree that being refused service at all establishments in town if you're a mixed-race couple is almost as bad as being refused entry into the marriage register

Someone: won't it be a nice world where mothers and daughters could have sex and no one would bat an eyelid

Me: you have to ask: beyond reflexive opposition, are there substantive reasons to oppose incest?

you may not be comfortable with it, but that doesn't mean you should oppose it

Someone: hmm ok i shall take up your main point abt informed, consenting adults

adult: nominal age?
consenting: informed consent?
informed: bar of judgement?

even shorter version: i don't think it's really possible to have ppl generally informed enough to be eligible to give consent

a lot of gays, for example, don't know the data you dug up about how sodomy is genuinely more unhealthy and hazardous
than heterosexual sex

Me: like that we can't do anything at all lor

so how
ban anal sex between men and women
but allow oral sex between men and men and women and women

Someone: no, not ban
we recognize some things have more negative impact than others
but that doesn't mean we want to ban them

Me: so what do we do if we recognize some things have more negative impact than others

Someone: we judge the extent and nature of the impact. i do think the state has to do something at some point

you're a libertarian?

Me: I'm a Classical Liberal

Someone: hmm
oh and jiekai?

Me: he's a cock

...

Someone: basically you believe in the principle of informed consenting adults

i think even adults need governing, because extrinsically there are things that the harm principle doesnt' cover

but at some pt our basic premises will diverge, so well

your viewpoint is interesting anyway. it's just that i don't see much demand for incest, and also you posted up a study before that found out
that most ppl tend not to feel sexual attraction towards family members whom they grew up with

granted, there are fetishists...... and there ARE men who feel attracted to daughters...
but these seem to be decidedly in the minority. i'm not going into why

Me: most people tend not to feel sexual attraction towards people of the same sex also

so what sort of 'governing' do you see the need for?

Someone: withholding of legal sanction

Me: well I've already pointed out how you're being inconsistent

Someone: how so
with all that muslim stuff?

Me: and miscegenation
and homosexuality
and older men and younger women
and rich and poor partners
etc etc

Someone: sigh. that's why i said basic premises. one of my basic premises is that different kinds of things merit corresponding treatment

i'm not entirely sure how you mean to implement non-difference in treatmen

Me: you haven't told me how the difference merits different treatment
only that it's different

Someone: but i have! it's qualitatively different, you come into conflict with your family member over your views abt xtianity is one thing, you come into conflict with your family member over sexual relationships is obviously another thing

so should all these different points of contention you list above, be dealt with in the same way?

Me: wait
as in you screw your father and then you come into conflict with him
or you screw your mother and then you come into conflict with your father

Someone: *shrug* how abt either?? it's gonna feel very different from arguing with both or either of them about xtianity, i assure you. and because it's your physical well-being at stake, whereas religious debate isn't (unless it escalates into physical conflict), it ought to be handled with this in mind

Me: what does that have to do with physical well-being

Someone: .... being fucked doesn't have anything to do with physical well-being?

Me: only if you don't use protection and get pregnant
or use too big a butt plug and split your ass open
or don't use protection and get an STD

but none of those are unique to incest


well race is innate too rather than cultivated
so if your parents get furious you're marrying someone from another race, how?
should we ban miscegenation?

Someone: race and incest = completely unrelated

all those things above: ...it doesn't have to be just that sort of harm. physical intimacy is important all on its own. erm. have sex and you'll understand what i mean

Me: precisely. unrelated.
but both are innate and visceral etc whatever stuff you used to claim incest is wrong

so basically you're waving your hands and pointing to some "physical well-being" that comes about when you have sex with someone, but is an issue only when it's with someone related to you


well abortion is supposed to be both physically and mentally traumatic
which the feminists talk about everytime they're talking about why men should not be allowed not to pay child support which will 'force' women to abort
but conveniently forget about when it comes to legalising abortion

Someone: ah, dun talk abt feminists lah
stupid bunc

but basically
incest.....

really, it's the way things are
there's definitely going to be severe discomfort if sex is performed between family members

Me: it used to be the way things were that miscegenation caused severe comfort between family members

ditto for homosexuality
and many other things you can think of

Someone: yes, but for homosexuals, relatively few of the young men have the hots for their fathers
it's a different sort of discomfort

Me: nono
don't mix homosexuality with incest

yes it's different
but WHY SHOULD IT BE TREATED DIFFERENTLY
you haven't stated that yet

Someone: that's why i said, it's a basic premise of mine, different = must look at it on its own terms

you prefer comparing with all kinds of other situations and demanding a sort of "consistency"

Me: honour killing - do you support it?
those girls have brought such severe discomfort upon their families that they deserve to die

the difference here is "I don't like it"

Someone: no
it's not

if you look at what i said and that's all you think it is... sigh

Me: you haven't given me any good reason other than 'it's different'

Someone: also, you shouldn't use the same words I use, and expect that that will do the trick of making these decidedly different contexts similar enough

Me: 1) banning incest is alright because incest raises many problems and issues within families
2) however, the problems and issues within families that incest raises do not cause them to kill each other
3) problems and issues that cause you to kill family members are more serious than those raised by incest
4) honour killings are caused by serious problems and issues
5) these problems and issues are worse than those raised by incest, since they cause family members to kill each other
6) if the problems and issues caused by incest are sufficient to have it banned, actions resulting in problems and issues worse than those caused by incest should be banned
7) some actions that result in honour killings are women walking to the market with strangers and women going out of the house without a male relative
8) therefore women shouldn't be allowed to walk to the market with strangers or go out of the house without a male relative

this is the way things are in these backward (and I am ethnocentric for saying this) societies that condone honour killings, just like this is the way things are in societies where incest should be banned

Someone: hmm. try this.

4) honour killings is a serious problem caused by serious issues.
5) unchanged
6) unchanged
7) the root causes of the problem of honour killings are blind adherence to outdated social customs and a disrespect of female autonomy and individual security
8) therefore honour killings should be disallowed

Me: the root cause of disapproval of incest is blind adherence to outdated social customs and a disrespect of personal autonomy

therefore incest should be allowed

Someone: the root cause of disapproval of incest is a consciousness of genetic problems that may arise and a disrespect for the stability of social institutions

Me: as I've told you,

1) genetic problems - couples with kids with down's syndrome shouldn't be allowed to have more babies
couples whose kids could theoretically turn out to have genetic problems shouldn't be allowed to have babies
(besides which, what if incest was not intended to result in conception?)

2) social institutions - see honour killings


this is going nowhere
I'm going back to work on my thesis