"In absolutely negativising disease, suffering and death, in opposing these to health and life in a mutually exclusive manner, the scientific medical system of knowledge can separate in individuals and in populations what is absolutely bad, the enemy to be eradicated, from what is good, health and life. In the process it can and does objectify people with all the repressive political possibilities that objectification opens." - Frederique Apffel Marglin

Commentary/commentary:

"She mounts her challenge by problematising the binary opposition that Western medicine invokes—not unreasonably, one might think—between disease and health, death and life, and she contrasts it unfavourably with the traditional Indian worship of Sitala, the goddess of smallpox...

There is something rather stunning about a level of science-phobia that sees “negativising” disease, suffering and death, as harmful and repressive. It is extraordinary that Marglin, even for a moment, countenances the possibility that human suffering might be a source of joy and pleasure if only it weren't for the intervention of an oppressive system of Western medicine."

***

I have just learnt that despite the progress of modern medicine, there is a "deeply restrictive, extraordinarily painful and sometimes fatal condition" that afflicts almost half of humans at some point of time.

It results in "serious physical suffering and medical risks, including incontinence, hypertension, weakened bones through calcium depletion, preeclempsia, the danger of deep vein thrombosis".

Furthermore, half of those who allow this condition to develop fully suffer prolapsed pelvises within 30 years.

Surely if we could stop this condition we would. What's more, the tools for doing so are safe and proven, and have been tested in the field for decades.

So what are we waiting for?

(The condition in question is pregnancy, and the cures for it range from abortion to sterilisation to mandatory IUD insertion)


Original letter (rejected by the ST forum - I can see why)

"Subject: Abortion debate must be concrete, not abstract

Dear Editor

I refer to Ms. Tan Seow Hon's proposal to revisit Singapore's abortion laws.

Two months ago, the UK Parliament considered this issue and decided to retain 24 weeks as the point during the pregnancy up to which abortions should be available. Opponents of abortion rights made claims, similar to Ms. Tan's, regarding changes to medical technology shifting the date of viability (i.e. when a foetus could survive outside the mother's womb). Their views were rejected by the British Medical Association and the Royal Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, both of whom supported the 24-week limit.

Ms. Tan suggests that in the face of uncertainty as to the "metaphysical" status of a foetus, we "err on the side" of disallowing abortion. Her statement suggests there are no other competing considerations, and thus sweeps aside the life-changing effects of pregnancy and childbirth on women. For instance, an employer may pre-emptively dimiss a female employee simply for being pregnant. Moreover, pregnancy and childbirth entail serious physical suffering and medical risks, including incontinence, hypertension, weakened bones through calcium depletion, preeclempsia, the danger of deep vein thrombosis, and a 30-year risk of pelvic organ prolapse, which affects about half of women who have given birth.

Ms. Tan portrays the proper policy approach as an abstract exercise involving figuring out the grand question of "when life begins". But the consequence of disallowing abortion is not abstract. It forces a deeply restrictive, extraordinarily painful and sometimes fatal condition, with long-term medical consequences, upon full grown women - women whose human status, unlike that of a foetus, is neither a metaphysical dilemma nor subject to any uncertainty.

A woman who is prevented from economically supporting herself and her family because of pregnancy, or who risks physical harm from pregnancy and/or childbirth, will not have her problems solved by putting the baby up for adoption. Moreover, adoption does not address the position of a woman who believes a foetus is not yet sentient and can be ethically aborted, but has qualms about giving away a baby she has birthed. By promoting adoption as a substitute for abortion, Ms. Tan is refusing to take seriously the effects on women of pregnancy and childbirth.

I agree we should consider whether first- and second-trimester foetuses constitute persons who should have legal protection. But even if a foetus is a person, another question is whether forcibly requisitioning one person's body to maintain another is justified. (Could we compulsorily require someone to donate their spare kidney, blood, bone marrow or liver tissue to save lives? Is forcing a woman to bring an unwanted pregnancy to term really any different?) The answers to these questions should not be based on shaky claims about medical technology, nor should they use a frame of analysis which treats harms done to women as inconsequential or costless.

Yours etc."

[Addendum: shlim205's reply:

"Much as this Tan Seow Hon's letter is nothing more than a ridiculous and one-sided view of abortion, I don't think your reply serves to level the discussion.

Ms. Tan suggests that in the face of uncertainty as to the "metaphysical" status of a foetus, we "err on the side" of disallowing abortion. Her statement suggests there are no other competing considerations, and thus sweeps aside the life-changing effects of pregnancy and childbirth on women

I might be very dense, but this seems like a huge leap of logic. How did you jump from an ethical debate to one about health risks and social ramifications?

pregnancy and childbirth entail serious physical suffering and medical risks

All this is true, but you have casually tossed aside the actual risk value in favour of the shock factor. Any number of pharmaceuticals carry the exact same medical risks. Health risks are also associated with exercise, driving a car, skydiving, etc. The state of modern obstetrics is not as bleak as you might think. Even if you were (as I presume) to argue that disallowing abortion is "forcing" women to take on these risks, there are 2 ways to look at this: 1) No one "forced" the woman to engage in behavior leading to her becoming pregnant (except in cases of rape, but we aren't arguing that now); 2) simply living in a civilized society "forces" us to engage in many activities that have costs as well -- when I cross the road, I have an increased risk of being run over by an SBS bus. It doesn't mean I'm not ever going to cross roads, just that I will take the sufficient safety precautions to avoid being run over."


"Risks Associated With Exercise

Vigorous physical exertion also acutely and transiently increases the risk of sudden cardiac death and actue myocardial infarction... The risk of exercise for any population depends on its prevalence of cardiac disease...

Individuals with sickle cell trait have a remarkably higher incidence of exertion-related death."

--- ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, American College of Sports Medicine, American College of Sports


Exercise Risks - Health encyclopaedia - NHS Direct

"There is always a risk of injury from exercise, particularly from strenuous activity that puts excessive pressure on the joints and muscles. If you want to start exercising, but you either have not done it before, or you have not exercised for a long time, you should talk to your GP about your fitness before starting any kind of exercise programme. This is particularly important if:

*risk factors*

*List of things to take note of:*
Preventing injuries
Always warm up and warm down
Try not to overdo it
Make sure your technique is correct
Use the right equipment
Injuries"


Abortion Risks - Risks of Abortion Procedures

"Serious complications occur in less than 1 out of 100 early abortions and in about 1 out of every 50 later abortions. Complications may include:

• Heavy Bleeding - Some bleeding after abortion is normal. However, if the cervix is torn  or the uterus is punctured, there is a risk of severe bleeding known as hemorrhaging. When this happens, a blood transfusion may be required.  Severe bleeding is also a risk with the use of RU486.  One in 100 women who use RU486 require surgery to stop the bleeding.
• Infection – Infection can develop from the insertion of medical instruments into the uterus, or from fetal parts that are mistakenly left inside (known as an incomplete abortion). A pelvic infection may lead to persistent fever over several days and extended hospitalization.  It can also cause scarring of the pelvic organs.
• Incomplete Abortion - Some fetal parts may be mistakenly left inside after the abortion. Bleeding and infection may result.
• Sepsis – A number of RU486 or mifepristone users have died as a result of sepsis (total body infection).
• Anesthesia – Complications from general anesthesia used during abortion surgery may result in convulsions, heart attack, and in extreme cases, death.  It also increases the risk of other serious complications by two and a half times.
• Damage to the Cervix - The cervix may be cut, torn, or damaged by abortion instruments. This can cause excessive bleeding that requires surgical repair.
• Scarring of the Uterine Lining – Suction tubing, curettes, and other abortion instruments may cause permanent scarring of the uterine lining.
• Perforation of the Uterus - The uterus may be punctured or torn by abortion instruments. The risk of this complication increases with the length of the pregnancy. If this occurs, major surgery may be required, including removal of the uterus (known as a hysterectomy).
• Damage to Internal Organs - When the uterus is punctured or torn, there is also a risk that damage will occur to nearby organs such as the bowel and bladder.
• Death - In extreme cases, other physical complications from abortion including excessive bleeding, infection, organ damage from a perforated uterus, and adverse reactions to anesthesia may lead to death. This complication is rare, but is real.

"


Uterine position and infertility

"If every woman with some displacement of her uterus had trouble getting pregnant, there would be a significant drop in the number of babies being born. Almost 20-40% of women who have never had a baby have some displacement. And over 50-60% of women who have had a baby have some, too. In other words, the position of the uterus, when different from what is considered normal, is not pathology but a variation of the normal...

Displacement of the uterus is usually an incidental finding on physical exam. Sometimes it can be in association with weakening of other pelvic supports, leading to rectal pain or urinary incontinence, but in most women is without any symptoms and requires no intervention."


Finally:

Preventing pelvic organ prolapse

"There are a number of things you can do to reduce your risk of prolapse or help prevent a mild prolapse form getting worse:

* One of the most effective things you can do to reduce your risk of prolapse is to exercise your pelvic floor muscles. Doing regular pelvic floor exercises (also called Kegel exercises) throughout your adult life helps keep the muscles toned and strong. Most women do Kegel exercises when they are pregnant and for a few months after birth, but by making pelvic exercises part of your daily routine you can further reduce your risk of both prolapse and incontinence in later life.
* If you are significantly overweight, try to lose weight. This will remove some of the pressure from your pelvic area.
* If you smoke, try to cut down or stop, as this will help reduce strain from coughing.
* Don't lift heavy objects. This can damage your pelvic muscles.
* Eat a high fibre diet (fresh fruits, vegetables, bran) to help prevent constipation and reduce straining.
* If you are menopausal or post-menopausal, some doctors may suggest you use hormone replacement therapy to protect against prolapse or prevent an existing prolapse from getting worse, but there is little scientific evidence to support the claim that HRT prevents prolapse. Before you make a decision about whether or not to use HRT, discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor."

"The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless." - Paul Johnson

***

Cock on the Tibet riots:

It seems to me that the riots in Tibet are in many ways similar to the riots that erupted against Chinese communities in urban areas all over South East Asia over the past few hundred years. Anti- Chinese riots are not a new thing, and the tale seems to have a familiar ring to it- poor industrious Chinese move into indigenious areas, outcompete the natives, which results in native resentment and rioting. There were anti-Chinese riots in Manila in the 1680s (see 1688: A Global History by John Mears, a very interesting book) , just as there were in KL and Singapore in the 60s and Jakarta in 1998.

The difference between the Tibetan riots and the South East Asian riots is of course that the Mainlanders are in political and military control over Tibet. And unlike Singapore, the Mainlanders assert that Tibet has always been part of China, and have been pursuing a policy of colonising Tibet ( instead of simply exacting tribute/ fealty to the Son of Heaven, as in dynasties past). It is both the political and economic domination of Tibet that has led to the riots in Lhasa.

But no doubt helped by their own delusional propaganda, the top Communists probably believe that this week's riots were started by the Dalai Lama himself.

This is of course not a particularly credible or helpful explanation. What has probably caused this week's riots was a mixture of sharp economic inequality mixed with quixotic messages of freedom and independence from Tibetan Independence activists who are not quite as pacifist as the Dalai Lama. The protesters are screaming "long live the Dalai Lama", for the same reason the Burmese protesters shouted support for Aung San Suu Kyi last year- they're both potent symbols of freedom from oppression (economic and political), not that these two individuals directed the protesters to do so. The Dalai Lama certainly doesn't approve of the violence exacted by the protesters. ( By the way, I think that the ordinary Chinese people who were injured, killed, and had their property destroyed are just as much victims of their own government's policy as the Tibetans; it was their government's policy which led to all this trouble, but they bore the brunt of the suffering).

The political elite on the Mainland isn't going to admit- not even to themselves- that this mostly likely to be the case. Why would they rather believe the conspiracy theory even if they don't find evidence for it ( bar evidence such as confessions exacted under torture, or sympathetic utterances by various inconsequential legislators from various western democracies)? I think we have to attempt to see things from their perspective. The first is a deep seated feeling that Chinese people can only possibly be the victims in global politics, and never perpetrators of evil to other peoples. The second is a suspicion that all countries with significant military power ( especially Western democracies), are out to hobble China's rise to global power. The third is an adherence to an orthodoxy about what is rightfully land belonging to China which goes something like this: all land which has been previously conquered by a dynasty recognised as effectively Chinese rightfully belongs to China today, unless that was (a) conquered by the Yuan dynasty or (b) the people that now sit on those lands are too strong for us to overcome for now, which is fine by us because they are not really Chinese anyway ( applies to Mongolia, Vietnam and Korea). The fourth is an ethnic prejudice against other cultures which never built empires holding significant political and cultural sway over large enough swathes of the earth.

These attitudes have, I think helped shape Mainland policy towards Tibet. The protest by the political elite and some educated Mainlanders would be that it is not as if China is deliberately impoverishing Tibet and stripping the land of its natural resources, that China has thrown a lot of money at the ( apparently) ungrateful Tibetans. Which is true; there has been quite a lot of money involved in attempting to improve the economic lot of Tibetans. But that is not the point- the point is that this economic development was going to be done with Chinese money and labour, with little Tibetan input. With the money also came the immigration of Chinese not all that better off than Tibetans- I wouldn't be surprised if most of these immigrants came from the impoverished inland provinces. The Mainland government probably underestimated the inherent sensitivities involved with such levels of immigration- they probably calculated that the Tibetans would be "grateful" because this influx of money and ( Chinese) labour was the most efficient solution to bringing about economic development. They probably thought that such immigration would pose less problems than immigration to the rich coastal cities, because they only thought of immigration problems in terms of overcrowding, never ethnic tensions.

What will the Mainland government do now? It can't have a bloody crackdown on its hands- not when the Olympics are only months away. It should start negotiations with the Dalai Lama to find some way of accomodating demands for even greater autonomy, but this would be too much for the political elite to stomach. It could try to limit immigration into Tibet, and in fact I think this is what the Mainland government will probably do, and will buy them a bit more time in Tibet. The alternative- accelerating its current economic and immigration policies and harsher political crackdowns in an attempt to uncover Dalai-Lama led conspiricies against it, will probably provoke something worse than mere urban rioting.

"Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life." - Robert Byrne

***

MFM: poor jiekai. most people who know of young republic associate it with you.


Me on food blogs: these people
a lot of pics
not much description
pfft

Frigid Girl: haha that's the POINT

first and foremost, judge food by its aesthetic appeal

haha
must be pretty enough to eat

Me: ... women

Frigid Girl: yar don't worry, *** is equally bafffled
he comments "you like your colourful food"


Someone: i like getting hit on! but im just not looking to get laid... it's about attracting male attention without having to give them "some". obviously u dun get my psyche haha.

Me: ... women

I guess that would explain why you wore that revealing top... It was for 'yourself'


Someone else: i once had a crush on a muslim guy and i was like "I WILL GIVE UP PORK FOR YOUUU" but then the next day my dad bought back tonkatsu (that deep fried omg delicious pork cutlet) and i never looked back

Me: what did the muslim guy say

Someone else: he never liekd me back D:
so sad

but pork will never judge me


Someone: i take it you're not a supporter of obama then

he's a uniter, not a divider!
i call him Liberal Bush

Me: well bush was a governor

Someone: yeah, but bush was just about as skimpy on details and strong on rhetoric and feelgoodness as obama

i wanted to resume blogging with a post that points out the hilarity of hillary being slimed by "progressives" with the same republican attacks and phrases from the


HWMNBN: last night's diary entry "maybe all those years of a subjugating a cowardly population of brainwashed zombies have totally failed to prepare them for a detainee who's a real problem"

that's pretty much what i think, rather than any konspirasi

either that or really has powers as some of my malay friends are telling me
"he probably used THE FORCE. tat's the only way the elite crack gestapo of the isa could have been outwitted"

*rhetorically* i guess calibrated coercion doesn't work so good against a person who actually has spine
which is why you never have singaporean terrorists

...

actually one thing that does tsrike me as weird

most of these guys are totally unknown (except to nuts like rohan gunaratna)
but when they suddenly hit the news they become the next biggest thing
ie "the most dangerous" etc etc

and all of their achievements are laid out in smoe impressive resume that shold've gotten attention much earlier

like that hizbollah dude they whacked recently
looking at his biography he sounds pretty zhai - and has been for at least 20 years
but wonder why no one seemed to have heard his name before

it's like hanbali

Me: they dont tell you about him before so you think you're safe
they blow him up after so you know you must catch him

HWMNBN: fair enough

the only single terrorist i can think of who was a real celeb BEFORE he got caught was carlos the jackal

i mean, i read a fair amount of the literature and even i'd never heard of imad mughniyah in connectio nwith the beirut attack

but some people are seriously misguided man
reading comments like this make me want to puke

What we have learnt and should always remember are that the JI operatives are extremely dedicated and deadly disciples of Osama Bin Ladin. This particular JI operative was forged from the fires of Afghanistan and perhaps the most intelligent and cunning amongst the organisation. How else could he be their leader!

That he has escaped is an indication of how dangerous JI operatives truly are. In my view, it is not the fault of our security forces. It is easy with the benefit of hindsight to criticise but bear in mind that even the CIA and the FBI could not prevent 9-11. Even the British M15 could not prevent the London bombings. We should rally behind and support our security forces and not undermine them

although he has a serious misapprehension of the skills needed to be a terrorist leader

a cell leader isn't necessarily the cunningest or most high level (in RPG terms) character

this guy makes it sound like th eleader of a terrorist cell has to be a level boss
which isn't necessarily the case

http://www.youngpap.org.sg/abtus_execommittee.shtml
jesus, nicholas lazarus is a real name?

...

we should bear in min dtha tso far all these problems are from indos
even in malaysia, the so-called "malaysian terrorists" were all indos

Me: I thought indonesia was the home of moderate islam

HWMNBN: out of 210m ppl, it's statistically impossible not to have a few wackos

and in absolute terms there rae more wackos
although probably not in relative terms

other factors come into play as well

eg porous borders
places to hang out
soldiers who sell weapons

those factors make indonesia a better breeding ground

in fact, the prevalance of moderate islam is more likely to breed terrorists simply because the minority wackos get more pissed off

same way why hardline islam in malaysia is the result of a backlash against the moderation of the 70s and 80s

(the racism issue at the time was couched in nationalist terms, but only in recent years have they started beating the religion drum again)

"All romantics meet the same fate someday. Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe." - Joni Mitchell

***

On Thio Li-Ann:


Cock: Actually, Thio Li Ann made a valid point about the debate over 377a:

....

However, I have noted a disturbing phenomenon over the 377A debate– the argument by insult. Instead of reasoning, some have resorted to name-calling to intimidate and silence their opponents. People with principled moral objections to the homosexual agenda are tarred and feathered 'homophobes', 'bigots', to shut them up. This strategy is unoriginally imported from foreign gay activists, which stifles creative thinking and intellectual enquiry.

When you shout, full of sound and fury, and call your opponents nasty names, this terminates public debate. No one wants to be called a bigot. But think about it – if I oppose incest, am I an incestophobe? If I oppose alcoholism, am I a winophobe? If having an opinion means you are bigoted, then we are all bigots! What is your phobia?

Where certain liberals accuse their opponents of being intolerant, they demonstrate their own intolerance towards their opponents! They are hoist on their own petard, guilty of everything they accuse their detractors of!

One of my colleagues, a young professor, suffered these vicious tactics when the Straits Times published an article this May where Yvonne Lee argued against repealing 377A. This well-researched, cogent article so incensed homosexual activists that they flooded her with a torrent of abusive, lewd emails and wrote to her head of department calling for her to be removed from her job. This appeared to be a co-ordinated campaign.

We academics are used to disagreement, but why write to her employer and threaten her livelihood? Why vilify someone and seek to assassinate their personal and professional reputation? I hope the House joins me in deploring these malicious attacks which also assault academic freedom. She is owed an apology. I would be ashamed to belong to any academic institution that cravenly bowed down to such disgraceful bully-boy tactics.

This August, I had my own experience with this sort of hysterical attack. I received an email from someone I never met, full of vile and obscene invective which I shall not repeat, accusing me of hatemongering. It cursed me and expressed the wish to defile my grave on the day 377A was repealed.

I believe in free debate but this oversteps the line. I was distressed, disgusted, upset enough to file a police report. Does a normal person go up to a stranger to express such irrational hatred?

Smear tactics indicate the poor quality of debate and also, of character. Let us have rational debate, not diatribe, free from abusive rhetoric and tantrum-throwing. As Singapore approaches her Jubilee, My hope for the post-65 generation is that we will not become an uncivil civil society borne from an immature culture of vulgarity which celebrates the base, not the noble.

I speak, at the risk of being burned at the stake by militant activists. But if we don't stand for something, we will fall for anything. I was raised to believe in speaking out for what is right, good and true, no matter the cost. It is important in life not only to have a Brain, but a Spine.

....

Given what we do know about the tone of some commentators on this mailing list....*AHEM*.


A: Can anyone tell me how to access Singapore Hansard? I want a softcopy in print of Thio Li Ann's shameful comments on 377A in Parliament, which I intend to write an article on in the student press.


Cock: Like a lot of good it would do, telling all of Oxford that Thio's a homophobe all over the Oxford Student and Cherwell. What's that supposed to achieve? Make her ex-college embarrassed enough not to give her an honorary degree?


B: The opponents of sexual freedom are just as likely to call gays and/or queer-friendly people "immoral", "unnatural", "sinful" and "diseased", as they are to be called "homophobes" and "bigots". I don't object to phenomenon of such labelling; but I would wish to counter the reasoning and reject the sensibilities that lay behind them, i.e. I would address the substance of what is being said, not the fact that it is said with strong negative overtones.

I found it bizarre at the time that Yvonne Lee could regard being VERBALLY LABELLED a "homophobe" and a "bigot" as "chilling" of her free speech, while apparently thinking that THREATENING STATE VIOLENCE (in the form of a criminal statute) against gay sex is not intimidating, so long as there are all kinds of unreliable (because wholly non-binding) assurances re non-prosecution. Thio's analogous position is similarly bafflingly small-minded.

No, there isn't much instrumental value in directing swearfestes at bigots. But that's a separate question from calling them "homophobes", which they are, and "bigots", which they are. And even where profanities are concerned, notice that these are people in privileged positions trying to take the language of anger away from people who are disenfranchised. That is, unfortunately, a common theme of conversations about "civility". The fact is when people have the power to crap all over your life, swearing back at them is small change. All it would take for her to stop being "vilified" by WORDS would be for her to stop supporting HURTING other people through ACTION. Fair's fair?


Me: Actually I agree with the extract from Thio's speech, except for the "homophobe" and "bigot" thing.

Would she be against the terms "racist" and "bigot" if they were used to describe those we consider racist and bigoted?

As for the threats of state violence, I observe again that from 1988 to 2003 (and AFAIK and most probably from 2003 till today), consenting, homosexual sex between adults has not been punished.

I might point out that this year is the 20th anniversary of Operation Spectrum (aka the "'Marxist' 'Conspiracy'"). Today, Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2 - formerly The Working Committee 2) does pretty much the same thing that 20 years ago got many social workers and professionals detained, and that anyone claiming that there is a THREAT OF STATE VIOLENCE (in the form of a criminal statute) against civil society work will be dismissed as paranoid and hysterical.


A: Jiekai, you have once again demonstrated your stupidity. If you had bothered to read the shit posted on keep377A.com you will note that large amounts of it qualify as hate speech. Saying 'fuck' and 'shit' may be profane, but it isn't hateful. Saying 'they are a disease and they should not go near my children' is hate speech.

AND YVONNE LEE's article was NOT WELL RESEACHED. It was a piece of moralistic AND ignorant propaganda.

It's LAUGHABLE that Thio compares her experience to being 'burned at the stake' just because people have pointed out that she is a homophobe, a bigot, and an ignorant and moralistic bitch.

I have the profoundest respect for those, Alibgensians, Lollards, Catholics, Protestants, etc, who endured the flames in centuries past for their beliefs. To compare herself to their brave example would be ragingly funny, were it not so ludicrous.

Anyway, allow me to share with you one of my favourite passages from Mill's 'On Liberty', which I think is most apropos here:

====

'Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where hte supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.'

Damn right.


Me: Perhaps this is true for the circles you move in, but I know many people who are able to disagree civilly.


Cock: I think that calling her a bitch is extremely unfair. I am very sure she is acting in good faith ( pun fully intended). It isn't her fault that she should have been brainwashed by her religion to believe that homosexuals are sub-human. Most people are born with a tendency to do that.

Derogatory terms are best reserved for people who do know better but sit on the fence and aren't willing to stand for anything. Like the whole bunch of vote-retaining politicians in parliament who just want to avoid the issue because they know their own popularity has been shaken by their forcing through unpopular CPF changes.


C: I usually do not post on this forum and am quite happy to just read the comments of others. however, since this touches on Thio Li-Ann, who incidentally, was my public law tutor last academic year, I think a few fair comments are in order. I assure you that Thio's comments in Parliament do not stem from a personal prejudice against homosexuality. She is essentially trying to make 2 points. First, that any call for repeal of S377A must be premised upon sound legal reasoning which she feels the abolitionist camp lacks. *snip* Thio's comments are made from, I believe, a purely objective assessment of the situation as it stands in Singapore today. She is in no way a gay bashing homophobe as some would like to believe. That being said, I am not however, saying that I agree with her arguments or POV. I'm merely trying to dispel the fact that she is a "disgrace to her profession". If anything, I have always had great respect for the intellectual rigour that Thio encourages and imposes on her classes.

Thio's intentions are probably masked by the strong language that she uses. But then, again, that's very characteristic of her, both in the way she writes and speaks. In any case, for a commentary with less fire and that most would find more palatable, read Hri Kumar's comments on the same topic.


D: i would just like to attest to C's observation about Prof Thio Li-Ann, because I was in her class too. she's an extraordinary teacher who constantly reminded her students, amongst other things, that we should value freedom of speech and exercise it responsibly. she is currently sitting in Parliament as an NMP and i believe she has the right to share her views on why s 377a should be retained, much as how Siew Kum Hong has the right to speak for repealing s 377a. it's extremely unfair to say that she's a disgrace to her profession by virtue of the views she has.

i must also add that i have not been "brain-washed" by Prof Thio in any way - in fact i support the repeal, but at the same time i believe we should agree to disagree and she's entitled to her views.

on another note, there has been too much name-calling by both camps in this debate, and it certainly does not develop the arguments by using terms such as "bigot" and "faggot". we might all be missing the real point of the argument in the midst of this name-calling exercise.


E: Eye for an eye what.

Since the establishment regularly loves to fire activists lose their job (e.g. teaching), it's only the activists' right to retaliate and make them lose their job

After all, do labels really threaten freedom of speech? What hypocrisy especially given the labelling tactics the establishment has been using?

>I think that calling her a bitch is extremely unfair.

I am sure losing your job on the basis of your sexuality is pretty fair too, hein?


Me: KILL THE BASTARDS!!!

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!


"To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty." - Maximilien Robespierre


A: [Thio] has degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge. Just because she is able to put an intellectual gloss on her homophobia, doesn't mean she isn't homophobic.

Thio Li Ann is a bitch because she uses her position and her credentials to suggest that [the criminalisation of homosexuality is] a matter of controversy and debate, whereas it is only so IN HER MIND. The rest of the thinking world, praise be to God, has moved on.

> I'm merely trying to dispel the fact that she is a "disgrace to her profession". If
> anything, I have always had great respect for the intellectual rigour that Thio
> encourages and imposes on her classes.

I renew my accusation that she is a disgrace to her profession. She is intellectually dishonest: as I said, she implies that there is a debate about this issue, when in fact there isn't one. She is no better than David Irving or historians who argue that the holocaust did not happen. There is no debate on that issue, just as there is no debate on this one.

If you don't believe this, I challenge you to find even ONE article, written by a law professor in an OECD country, in which the criminalisation of homosexuality is defended.

(I agree that Scalia seems to have defended a similar position in his dissent to Lawrence v. Texas, but in fact his dissent was based on an originalist reading of state's rights. Scalia may or may not have been right to argue that there is no constitutional right to sodomy in the US constitution, but that is completely separate from the *legislative* question of whether such a law should exist in the first place.)


B: What does her "entitlement" to her views entail? Surely not immunity from criticism if they are wrongheaded and harmful. Surely not silence as to how disingenuous her arguments are. Of course she has the "right" to her views: nobody is suggesting for an instant that she be forced to shut up or coerced to change her mind. But that doesn't stop them from being disgraceful.


Me: So do you support the letter-writing campaign to make her lose her job?

If so, is that not forcing her to shut up or coercing her to change her mind?

If not, good for you!


B: Depends on the grounds for the call. If the letter writers bona fide believe and the university administrators are bona fide persuaded that she is unfit for the job (i.e. actually unable to do what the job is required to do, which may or may not include reflecting a particular ethos and creating a particular environment in the institution), that seems OK to me. I have to say Yvonne Lee's legal abilities at least in that one article don't seem too hot.


F: Isn't there something like tenure in NUS, which would protect professors from getting sacked over such things?

I would absolutely not join a campaign to sack a professor on the basis of his/her opinions, because I don't think a university should attempt to reflect an ethos of any sort apart from the ethos of free intellectual inquiry. So unless Thio Li Ann is suggesting that we erase all pro-homosexual writings from the face of the earth or something like that, I don't think the university should sack her. Of course, it is not *morally wrong* for university administrators to want their institution to reflect a certain ethos, but I certainly think it is *inadvisable* to have such policies if one has any intention of making a university great.


A: But that is my point: do you honestly believe that someone who argued strongly in favour of gay rights -- gay marriage, gay adoption, the whole shebang -- would find a class by Thio Li Ann to be a haven of free intellectual inquiry?

Are you kidding me?


Me: Would someone who argued strong against gay rights find a class by a pro-gay Professor to be a haven of free intellectual inquiry?


F: A class, any class, is not a 'haven of free intellectual inquiry'. Classes are not meant to be such things. Every instructor has an idea of what they want their students to learn and will attempt to 'influence' their students' thoughts to that extent. The point of having tenure is to ensure that there is freedom of intellectual inquiry for university *scholars* (and I mean that in the general, non-Singaporean sense of 'scholar'), so that they are not pressured to take up intellectual positions for non-intellectual reasons. Students, I'm afraid, are irrelevant to the concept of tenure, which is meant to protect intellectual exploration and not teaching standards or whatever. I don't see how it matters whether someone in favour of gay rights finds Thio's class worthwhile, and in any case a couple of law students have spoken up here for the quality of her teaching in topics other than homosexuality. It is a necessary cost of having freedom of inquiry that some people will exploit it to promote an utterly wrong worldview. Once you start legislating which worldviews your researchers are supposed to hold, you lose sight of the whole point of research, which involves questioning those worldviews themselves. Whether those worldviews are justified is an issue to be settled by such questioning and not by university administrators, except for the worldview that intellectual inquiry should be suppressed, since *that* would be contrary to the purpose of the university.

Essentially, I'm saying that we should never, ever sack professors on the basis of their opinions (assuming their scholarly work meets the standards required to attain tenure, and I assume Thio's work on constitutional law did), no matter how repugnant they are, for the simple reason that university administrators and 'the public' cannot be trusted to take the 'correct' ideological stances (other than that of freedom of intellectual inquiry). Furthermore, any such action, no matter how apparently justifiable for a particular case, would deter people with radical ideas from speaking out in fear that they would face similar consequences. And the suppression of radical ideas is simply counter to the nature of intellectual inquiry itself. Radical ideas should be tested in the intellectual battlefield, not in the political battlefield.

I am not saying that I think it possible that Thio's radical stance is actually correct. Instead, I am saying that the rule that intellectual inquiry must be kept sacrosanct, otherwise it will be abused too easily, if not now, then in the future when perhaps less 'wise' university administrators see fit to discriminate against people they find repugnant. If putting up with Holocaust deniers and homophobes is a consequence of this protection, well I consider it a small price to pay for keeping a rule that ensures freedom of intellectual inquiry.


E: But why should we spare her when they have not spared us?


Me: "This great purity of the French revolution's basis, the very sublimity of its objective, is precisely what causes both our strength and our weakness. Our strength, because it gives to us truth's ascendancy over imposture, and the rights of the public interest over private interests; our weakness, because it rallies all vicious men against us, all those who in their hearts contemplated despoiling the people and all those who intend to let it be despoiled with impunity, both those who have rejected freedom as a personal calamity and those who have embraced the revolution as a career and the Republic as prey. Hence the defection of so many ambitious or greedy men who since the point of departure have abandoned us along the way because they did not begin the journey with the same destination in view. The two opposing spirits that have been represented in a struggle to rule nature might be said to be fighting in this great period of human history to fix irrevocably the world's destinies, and France is the scene of this fearful combat. Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny's friends conspire; they will conspire until hope is wrested from crime. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.

If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs.

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?

. . .

. . . Indulgence for the royalists, cry certain men, mercy for the villains! No! mercy for the innocent, mercy for the weak, mercy for the unfortunate, mercy for humanity.

Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people's mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonor the people's cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?"

- Maximilien Robespierre: On the Moral and Political Principles of Domestic Policy

A response to my opinion that we should not campaign to repeal 377A (the Gross Indecency aka Homosexual Sex law):


"Unlike XXX, I have come to the conclusion that arguing with you on this matter is a waste of time as well. I will therefore outline only the briefest of replies.

> Constantly bringing up and harping on 377A denigrates and frightens
> gays more than it would if you kept quiet about it and let it fade
> from the collective memory (like the song on Obscene Songs, which I'm
> quite sure =<1% of people on this mailing list knew about). We have a
> lot of immoral laws in our Penal Code, but since people don't talk
> about them they have no effective impact on the way people live their
> lives.
>
> Can you honestly tell me, if you believe the proclamation about
> non-prosecution, that you are "frightened" at being prosecuted by 377A
> for having gay sex?
>

Fuck you, Gabriel. I law which criminalises my private activity, while still on the statute book, denigrates me, whether or not it is enforced. As I said there is NO parallel with obscene songs, a point you have failed to address.

And, as many have pointed out, 377A is merely the font from which many other pieces of shit flow. I have NO legal protections at ALL in Singapore: this may strike you as surprising, but I actually want to, say, have a long-term relationship, adopt children, be honest and open about my life while being able to hold public office, not be arrested when I walk down Orchard Road and kiss my boyfried, etc, ETC ETC.

> Also, segregation marks you out by what you are whereas 377A marks you
> out by what you do.

> I cannot see how not being able to have sex is (morally) worse than
> public segregation and/or designating some people second class (or
> non-) citizens and thus inferior to the rest of the nation.

Fuck you. Do you expect me to be celibate?

And THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT YOU MORON. Since the laws are NOT enforced, the question is NOT the ability to have sex. It is the legal discrimination faced by homosexuals, which attacks their dignity as a group OF HUMAN BEINGS AND CITIZENS. This is not about sex, you fucktard.

> Well, look at Malaysia today. Non-Malays (primarily Chinese and
> Indians) are second-class citizens. Assuming that the laws weren't
> enforced, I am not sure that I would push for their repeal, since this
> would upset the Malay hinterland which might push for the existing
> laws to be enforced, which would make the non-Malays worse off.

Again, fuck you. Wild speculation about the possible long-term political effects is NOT an argument, unless you have like concrete evidence that something will actually happen. I assure the injustice of the law, which is inherent and obvious, is more important than your speculative negatives.

> Furthermore, decriminalisation in China was a quiet administrative
> procedure and not in response to a gay lobby.

NO. It was merely the government waking up to the fact that the 21st century has arrived.

You are beginning sound like Andy Ho. Well, I expected it to take longer, but there we are.

> I must also note that
> for all you might complain about Singapore, in China they are a lot
> more repressive and unaccountable to the people.

Sorry, where did I say 'China is better than Singapore'? I brought it up to show the lack of public outcry.

> Yet in China the
> government does not have unlimited political capital and must listen
> to the people sometimes, what more Singapore?

Erm, this is stupid. See above. See my point. Read English.

> For similar reasons, I would not have supported the push for gay
> marriage in the US (how come no one has talked about this yet?)

Since everyone with a brain supports either gay marriage or gay civil partnerships. EVERY major Democratic candidate supports civil partnerships.

At this point, you will argue that civil partnerships instead of gay marriage is a symbolic difference. I agree on that point, actually, BUT it has no parallel to 377A. A law is not symbolic simply because it is not enforced. In the case of 377A it is the legal fount of every single type of legal discrimination you can think of.

In conclusion: you are an idiot. The end."


This is all considering that I aim for the same end, just using different means.

Some instructive lessons:

- This is a good study in how resistance/opposition movements fail even if there is an obvious, "evil" enemy
- This is why I am very pessimistic about the feasibility of people with radically different beliefs forming cause-based alliances (eg left wingers and Muslims against the Iraq War)
- It answers the question of why people think and claim Singaporeans are not ready for democracy (and how some people think that humanity is inherently unsuitable for it)
- Gay guys are bitchy (no, this is not my only sample, but it is instructive nonetheless)
- The perils of arguing from and with emotion are revealed
- Hysteria is not limited to the homophobes

"The end of all hope is the birth of all freedom"

***

Seen: 'nature abhors a vacuum. so does my dog.'

At one time, I swore that half my ICQ list was invisible at any point of time. With MSN the proportion is probably at a third now; the sole saving grace is that there's no visible list.

It is good to be resigned to fate because if you try to fight it, you just end up more miserable than you would have been if you had accepted it - just look at Greek mythology.

The webcam on some laptops can be flipped around to face the direction the user is facing. This is good for taking spyshots (the light indicating it's on notwithstanding). Unfortunately my laptop's webcam cannot do that.

'Problematic' is a very problematic word.

"If a Western scholar is interested mainly in Western subjects, he's ethnocentric.
If a Western scholar is interested mainly in non-Western subjects, he's Orientalist.
If a non-Western scholar is interested mainly in Western subjects, he's been captured by the dominant Anglo-Saxon paradigm."

It seems more girls than guys are attached. Just as with how men report having sex with more women than the number of men women report having sex with, you can imagine how this goes.

Weird YR join request: "Hi, My name is *** and looking for the information on the best girls schools in Singapore."

According to California Girl, Black Women are big and fierce, which is diametrically opposed to the ideal of a woman (the same way Asian Men are the opposite of an ideal man). Furthermore, they only want Black Men (a comparison can be made with Asian Men here). I postulated that there should be extensive literature on their marginalisation, since this was double marginalisation (they're both Black and Women).

Data entry in Barclays can pay $3.8k. Wth.

Since bladder size is the same in both sexes, frequent toilet visits cannot be due to differential physical endowments and other causes must be found.

Someone was saying before slavery her guy friends were okay with Malays, but on coming out they all hated them. Indeed, NS is a social distillery for ethnic cohesion.

It's amazing how unfriendly poor people can be. I thought it was just Singapore, but the richer people are more receptive and less suspicious.

Race and religion only become flashpoints when they are exploited for political purposes, so maybe we should censor politicians and not normal people.


Some scholars advocate a critical approach to the Sunna and Hadith. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing, but if one critically examines them, there is no reason why one should not do the same for the main revealed text, and one must be prepared not to make a priori assumptions about it. Appealing to Faith sometimes and Reason at others is most inconsistent.

Seen: 'The Fountain. A magazine of critical, scientific and spiritual thought.' It's time to play: "Which of these words doesn't belong?"

***

I once heard an American complaint about how in France, the male toilets were always located before the female toilets, the urinals were located near the doors and the doors were left open, so women walking to the toilet would see men urinating.

(I swear this was in my July France travelogue, but I can't find it for some reason)

"Film.sg
TODAYS TOP LINKS!!

* Xxx Movie
* Teen Porn Videos
* Adult Dvds
* Xxx Teens

Cum in and enjoy our largest collection of best live shows, voyeur-cams, movies and pictorials. Bookmark us us for a daily update on XXX Webcam Clips and our new daily movies!"


Trying to find a hotbed of Singaporean films, one of our number typed "film.sg" into the URL bar.

To register a SG domain name, you need to be a Singaporean resident with a real address in Singapore. So we did a trace on SGNIC, the results of which are:

Registrar: Vooju Pte Ltd
Registrant: Expert Creations

Domain Name: film.sg
Creation Date: 06-01-2005 07:00:07
Expiration Date: 06-01-2008 00:00:00
Domain Status: Active

Owner/Main Contact:

Name: Expert Creations(SGNIC-ORGEX172867)
Registered Address(line1): 336 w fairview blvd.
Registered Address(line2):
Registered Address(line3):
Registered Country: United States
Registered Postalcode: 90302

Mailing Address(line1): 336 w fairview blvd.
Mailing Address(line2):
Mailing Address(line3):
Mailing Country: United States
Mailing Postalcode: 90302


Administrative Contact:

Name: Expert Creations(SGNIC-ORGEX172868)
Registered Address(line1): 95 singapore rd.
Registered Address(line2):
Registered Address(line3):
Registered Country: Singapore
Registered Postalcode: 98273

Mailing Address(line1): 95 singapore rd.
Mailing Address(line2):
Mailing Address(line3):
Mailing Country: Singapore
Mailing Postalcode: 98273

Technical Contact:

Name: Expert Creations(SGNIC-ORGEX172867)
Registered Address(line1): 336 w fairview blvd.
Registered Address(line2):
Registered Address(line3):
Registered Country: United States
Registered Postalcode: 90302

Mailing Address(line1): 336 w fairview blvd.
Mailing Address(line2):
Mailing Address(line3):
Mailing Country: United States
Mailing Postalcode: 90302

Telephone: 310-672-6223
Facsimile:
Pager / Mobile Number: na

EMAIL: richard@expertcreations.com

Billing Contact:

Name: Expert Creations(SGNIC-ORGEX172867)
Registered Address(line1): 336 w fairview blvd.
Registered Address(line2):
Registered Address(line3):
Registered Country: United States
Registered Postalcode: 90302

Mailing Address(line1): 336 w fairview blvd.
Mailing Address(line2):
Mailing Address(line3):
Mailing Country: United States
Mailing Postalcode: 90302


Name Servers:
ns1.bnmq.com
ns2.bnmq.com


Normally they're quite strict on this, so there're 2 possibilities:

1) Someone got shoddy and heads will roll (and knuckles dusted)
2) This is part of some elaborate social engineering ploy to get Singaporeans to procreate.

Collective remarks on NDP at the YR gathering:


We are wondering if when the RSM goes "baris, sediya" the floating platform will capsize.

Wth are the girl guides and other uniformed groups holding umbrellas?

On Bullying and Discrimination of Gay Kids and Gay Suicide / The Oppression Olympics

Edited extracts of YR posts on protecting gay teenagers from unfriendly remarks in schools (full reproduction on the YR blog or the mailing list itself):


B: Gabriel: I believe gay teenagers are still much more likely to commit suicide than straight ones.

Dying, generally, is not a good thing.


Gabriel: Men are also much more likely to commit suicide than women (3-4x).


Cock: I fail to believe that the lot of the white gay teenager in britain is worse than a female kurdish teenager in britain, considering the honour killings. Problems with acceptance exist but they are much better than in the past and are improving.


B: Er... Yes, but no.

No one said it was the shittiest thing to be in Britain... there is still much work to be done.

Take Section 28. Yes it has been abolished. But that merely means that it is not unlawful for a teacher to 'promote' homosexuality, whatever the fuck that means, in state schools. In no way is it mandatory for a teacher to ensure that gay schoolchildren are not picked on, etc etc. Do you really think that kids in all C of E or Catholic or Muslim schools are being told by their teachers that it's ok to be gay? Sadly I don't think so.


Gabriel: What about kids who are bullied by their peers because they are fat, ugly, poor (I am told that "His father drives a Mazda" is a slur in ACJC), short, bespectacled (okay, maybe the days of being called four-eyed are past), immigrants, speak with a funny accent, unpopular, orphans, politically conservative, have orange skin and/or vegan?

Beyond a certain point, authorities cannot and should not do anything; I don't see how it is acceptable for certain causes to be privileged above others.


Cock: But in Britain, the problem of schoolteachers making unacceptably discriminatory opinions of their gay or whatever students in Britain, while still there, is less and less likely to be a problem no thanks to the tireless efforts of legislators and the courts in placing a duty of care upon school authorities not to cause psychiatric harm on their students (i.e. fear of getting sued). It is only a matter of time before religious schools are also under the new sexual discrimination regulations too.

In contrast, while I am optimistic about the end of discrimination against gay teenagers in schools pretty soon, not enough is being done to prevent women who live in cultures which practice honour killings from being maimed, killed or driven to suicide. It is far more insidious than the gay discrimination problem in Britain because much of the abuse takes place in the private life context ( i.e. not in employment, dealings with government or business).

And Gabriel, the good news ( for the human rights lawyers and the zealous human human rights campaigners that is. Okay fine, the victims too, just to stop B and C frothing at the mouth at my lack of sympathy for their real suffering. ) is that school authorities can be held sued for failing to take steps to stop bullying on all those assorted grounds you mention. There was in fact a landmark case in Australia recently where a school was made to pay compensation for laughing off bullying of one of their students by his peers.


A: I used to find it difficult to identify why responses of this nature were so dissatisfying. Some recent comments threads on feministing.com have helped me figure it out. The thing is, the conversation wasn't about men committing suicide or women committing suicide. It was a conversation about gay teenagers. Why does it have to become a conversation about whether men have it worse than women? Even if it had been a conversation about women's problems, why would it have to have become a conversation about men's comparative problems?...

I mean, how ridiculous is this:

A: "Gay kids are bullied."
B: "Fuck gay kids, what about the honour killings, man!"

Well, yeah, honour killings are awful, but _they_ _are_ _another_ _topic_... If we were policy makers, of course, there would be the problem of limited resources which poses a constraint on the directions to which you point certain resources to solve the problems. But we are not policy makers dealing with a budget, this is a conversation


Gabriel: The point is not that "men have it bad so gays should shut up", or about scoring points to prove who is more miserable.

The point is, B says that gay teenagers are more likely to commit suicide than non-gay (presumably straight) teenagers. He says that this is evidence that there is a big problem, and that we should be more vigorous about making gay teenagers feel welcome, loved, cherished etc than catering for people with orange skin who might also similarly be laughed at, but presumably do not kill themselves at as high a rate.

The reason I made the point about the suicide rate of men is that nobody says that men are discriminated against, marginalised etc and that we should therefore revoke the Women's Charter (or whatever) so they stop killing themselves. Comparisons allow us to get a sense of perspective. For example:

A: "Gay kids are laughed at. Negative peer pressure is ruining their self-esteem. We need to make sure they are not laughed at by fining teachers who do not protect them from excoriation."
B: "Vegetarian kids are also laughed at but they turn out fine. Being laughed at for being different is part of growing up. Perhaps you are barking up the wrong tree."


A:

My perception is that on the contrary there are many oft-discussed men's issues... Women and men can BOTH be oppressed on account of their gender, IN DIFFERENT WAYS.

Thus, the statistic is not in any way a reason not to consider that gay teenagers face certain pressures that straight teenagers don't, as well...

On another note, the kind of "comparison" you did in the email below is very different from the kind of "comparison" you did in the earlier email regarding suicide rates and would not, even if on its own terms helpful, redeem the point of the earlier email. Taking it on its own terms however, I am very doubtful whether very many vegetarians have been beaten up in school or even murdered for being vegetarian - or whether negative attitudes towards them have resulted in the past in imprisonment... Which may be going on to a lesser extent with gays, now, as compared to in the past, but only as a result of very recent changes, which means we can expect the social attitudes of (for instance) schoolmates of gay children to probably still be influenced to some extent by this extremely recent discrimination.


D: But this could simply mean that we should be more vigorous about making vegetarians feel accepted. However, there is a reasonable case to be made that vegetarianism is a relatively less central part of vegetarians' identity compared to gayness and the identity of gays. And there is the issue of 'choosing' vegetarianism but not 'choosing' sexual orientation... So discriminating against vegetarians could be considered a less severe offence than discriminating against gays...

The 'being laughed at for growing up' point can be used to get people to tolerate essentially any kind of childhood hardship. For example, it's often part of growing up that one is caned by one's parents. Does that mean we should tolerate corporeal punishment?

In other words, the 'sense of perspective' point is either irrelevant, or, if it prescribes any attitudes we should take towards gayness, relies on fallacious reasoning.


Gabriel:

> My perception is that on the contrary there are many oft-discussed
> men's issues:

Okay you're right.

What I should have said was that much less attention is paid to the discrimination and marginalisation etc of men than that of women, gays etc, and nobody suggests privileging them with protection of the sort that women, gays etc get.

This is not just in a historical context but also a contemporary context.

>Women and men can BOTH be oppressed on account of their gender, IN DIFFERENT WAYS.

The point of raising the comparison is not to go: "Men are oppressed, therefore women cannot be oppressed as well". I accept and acknowledge that certain groups are oppressed, but the fact is that some phenomena which are labeled as, or being due to oppression or discrimination may not be so.

The classic example is that since men make up the overwhelming majority of the prison population, this means that the justice system is structurally biased against them and that there is massive and unacceptable discrimination perpetrated against them.

This is incorrect.

The reason why men make up the bulk of the prison population is because they commit more crimes.

>I am very doubtful whether very many vegetarians have been beaten up
>in school or even murdered for being vegetarian

The solution is to legislate against beating gays up or murdering them etc, not to fine teachers who do not prevent them from being laughed at (or whatever it was in the first place).

Going back to the gay suicide example, there seem to be 2 questions here:

1) Is the higher gay teenager suicide rate indicative of a problem?
2) If so, should we do anything about it (eg fine teachers who do not prevent them from being laughed at)


1) Looking at simple correlations is oftem misleading. I trust that no one would look at correlations of race and IQ or school performance and then proclaim that Blacks/Malays/insert-your-favourite-marginalised-minority-here are stupider than insert-your-favourite-non-marginalised-minority-here/insert-your-favourite-majority-here. Yet this is what is being done with gay teenagers.

The higher gay teenager suicide rate may not be indicative of a problem, for a variety of reasons. One that comes to mind are that gay people, almost by definition, tend to be less conventional and more eccentric (which results in the problem for the individual of social integration above and beyon the fact of being gay).

Another interesting point to consider is suggested by this paper:

Suicidality and Sexual Orientation: Differences Between Men and Women in a General Population-Based Sample From The Netherlands

"Homosexuality has been shown to be associated with suicidality and mental disorders. It is unclear whether homosexuality is related to suicidality, independently of mental disorders... Younger homosexuals were not at lower risk for suicidality than older homosexuals in comparison with their heterosexual counterparts. Among homosexual men, perceived discrimination was associated with suicidality. This study suggests that even in a country with a comparatively tolerant climate regarding homosexuality, homosexual men were at much higher risk for suicidality than heterosexual men. This relationship could not only be attributed to their higher psychiatric morbidity."


Even in what is probably the most gay-tolerant and friendly culture in the world, homosexuals are more likely to kill themselves than heterosexuals.

If you want to tell me that homosexuals in the Netherlands nevertheless still face discrimination and are marginalised, this would be marginally plausible, but for the fact that younger homosexuals were at as high risk of suicidality as older homosexuals. Presumably with the passage of time social attitudes towards homosexuals became more tolerant, yet we see no change in suicidality. Hell, even if, grasping at straws, you want to claim that Dutch social attitudes towards homosexuals had become less tolerant, we see that sucidality had nonetheless not changed.

[Addendum: Related - The Harm of Reparative Therapy / Reasons to think Social Discrimination is not important in Homosexuals' Health Problems

"perceived discrimination was associated with suicidality". Perceived discrimination and actual discrimination are not the same. So ironically, since going on about homophobia increases the perception that there is homophobia, it would result in more suicide.]


With regard to 2) there're practical issues as well as philosophical issues.

How do we draw the line? What would constitute a transgress against the putative (or are they already implemented) rules/laws?

Determining when someone has been assaulted is easy.
Determining when someone has been offended is not.

Of course death threats and the like should clearly be disallowed, but what about more subtle forms of 'discrimination'?

In secondary school, 'faggot' was a popular perjorative hurled at people. A gay would probably feel insulted if called a faggot. A gay could also feel offended if someone else (even if a straight person) were called a faggot, yet I'm sure one could agree that this offence is of a lower degree than the first.

But what about other examples? Is kids crowding around a laptop laughing at a Hard Gay video evidence of discrimination against gays? (For those not in the know: Hard Gay is this Jap guy who dresses up in tight black leather and does pelvic hip thrusts. In real life he is straight, so he's just pretending to be 'gay' for laughs. He has been criticised for plumbing homosexuality for laughs)...


Furthermore, how is the former example different from the atmosphere of derision that surrounds short people when they are called 'shorty'? If you do not understand the structural biases in society against short people, please ask The Cock how he feels.

You could say that it is more morally wrong to make fun of gays than short people. Why this is so is hard to fathom (perhaps someone could explicate).

You could also say that the consequences of making fun of gays are worse than those of making fun of short people. Yet this is untrue; it is alarming to note that one study has found a Strong Inverse Association Between Height and Suicide. A 5cm increase in height was associated with a 9% decrease in suicide risk (http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/7/1373). Clearly, we should fine teachers who do not stop height discrimination in school. Yet, we privilege gay issues above height issues despite the greater awareness and legal protection given to the former.


>it's often part of growing up that one is caned by one's parents. Does
>that mean we should tolerate corporeal punishment?

For the record I favor spanking but not caning.

Yet, the paranoia to protect children has resulted in some schools banning playground time (I can't remember the details).

Traditions should not be adhered to for the sake of adhering to them, but there is at least a case to be made of considering whether they can be kept. Going back to 'being laughed at for growing up', just as someone who doesn't visit Malaysia and eats clean food all the time gets diarrhea when he goes to Hangzhou (to wit, Me), so too will a child who has been sheltered from even the mildest form of derision when growing up find it hard to survive the real world.

Cock: We're Overthrowing the PAP government! Viva La Revolution!

Actually, no, far from it. But I hope that caught your attention.

Young Republic Summer Jamboree on the 9th of August ( isn't it appropriate?) at Gabriel's place.

[My address]

Starts at 5 pm.


Me: Once again this will be a potluck. So please bring whatever food you are both willing and able to (and tell me and preferably Jiekai too what you have in mind). Adequate cooking facilities are available, and arrangements can be made.

For those who do not bring anything, a donation is recommended but the truly destitute will not be turned away.

Esther Wong is still most unwelcome.

***

Among other things, we will deconstruct the National Day Parade (assuming we don't get raided by the ISD). Yay.

One of the most ridiculous threads ever:


A: I generally dislike the pro-life rhetoric of a 'culture of death', but boy, if there is one society with a culture of death, it's Singapore. We have the highest per capita rate of executions, and apparently when dear LKY was PM it was a Ministry of Health policy to 'strongly encourage' mothers who were found to have abnormal babies to abort them. Plus the whole thing about clever people like graduates being more eligible to reproduce, the flippant attitude to deaths and serious accidents in the military, etc etc etc etc.


Me:

>Plus the whole thing about clever people like graduates being more
>eligible to reproduce,

What does this have to do with death?!

>the flippant attitude to deaths and serious accidents in the
>military, etc etc etc etc.

Actually the concern with safety in the SAF is extremely intense. I believe it must be one of, if not the most safety-obsessed military in the world. There are boards of inquiry for all deaths and (I believe) serious accidents.

Slavery may be unacceptable but there's no need to claim there is a flippant attitude to deaths and serious accidents there.


A: The point about a 'culture of death' is that it does not respect the equal right of every person to equal moral consideration. That is why I am continually puzzled by those who think pro-life= biological life, which has almost no moral significance. It is moral personality which is at stake here. To say that some people have more of a right to reproduce is to suggest that certain kinds of people have less of a right to reproduce, and/or to live.

I trust this is clear.

> Actually the concern with safety in the SAF is extremely intense.

This is not true. Having typed up many of the reports issued by such 'inquiries', I assure you that they are generally farcical and for show.


Me: Saying that encouraging women to have abortions is symptomatic of a culture of social engineering in Singapore would be correct. Saying that it is symptomatic of a culture of DEATH (emphasis mine) is inconsistent with your other views and is anyway incorrect since foetuses are not properly alive.

> The point about a 'culture of death' is that it does not respect the equal right
> of every person to equal moral consideration... It is moral personality which is
> at stake here. To say that some people have more of a right to reproduce is to
> suggest that certain kinds of people have less of a right to reproduce, and/or to
> live.
>
> I trust this is clear.

No, it is not. In fact your point is extremely bizarre.

A government encouraging clever people to reproduce more may be reminiscent of a mild form of eugenics (since they are not forced to do so), but this does not mean that people are not given equal moral consideration. Note the difference between government *mandated* reproduction and government *encouraged* reproduction. You might as well say that advertising coerces you into buying products and thus should be banned.

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

Furthermore, what is this nonsense about having more or less of a right to reproduce and/or to live?! If a government gives tax credit for first time homebuyers does this mean that those who are buying homes for the second, third or subsequent times have less of a right to buy a home?!

I would also question the concept of moral personality defining personhood. Does a newborn infant have moral personality? Does a person in a coma have moral personality?


B: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

OK ALLOW ME TO DO THAT AGAIN:

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

You actually believe that? The SAF seven core values or whatever. We had an extended discussion about this already, on the nature of the SAF, and how every L or H BOI is a farce, and the culture of "safety" as you say is a farce. Gabriel, Gabriel, sometimes you say the most H-I-LA-RIOUS things.


Me: No one is saying Slavery is 100% safe or a walk in the park, but:

There are safety briefings before all events (one hilarious item I saw in the instructions for Company Games was under safety hazards: "Serviceman is hit by frisbee") and you have to stand up so you're alert (this is what someone tells me).

They force you to drink water before events so you are unlikely to get heatstroke (and you're not allowed to do strenuous events the night before).

Medics are assigned to cover even "recreational" runs out of camp (did you have medical cover when you did your 2.4km run in JC?)

Medics have to carry Automated External Defibrillators for all (most?)
events.

If you have a high fever in the middle of the night you can get medical attention relatively quickly (the queues are much shorter than in A&Es).

We have helicopter evacuation for important missions.

There's a safety hotline for you to call.

There are safety posters to encourage awareness.

What was that about a culture of death again?


B: I am going to pull a Gabriel, and reply to each of your points with a
one-liner.

> There are safety briefings before all events

Yes, the safety briefings are so, like, safety oriented! Yeah. That's why you have such important safety hazards like "someone is hit by a frisbee". This is so NOT evidence of some hasty S3 branch planning two hours beforehand. So NOT just going through the motions. SO an example of a culture of safety!

> They force you to drink water before events so you are unlikely to get
> heatstroke (and you're not allowed to do strenuous events the night
> before).

And yet many sergeants persist in telling their recruits NOT to report sick, under threat of malingering. And yeah, last time I checked, the "not allowed to do strenuous events the night before" and the "seven hours of sleep" thing were just like, guidelines that are not adhered to.

> Medics are assigned to cover even "recreational" runs out of camp (did
> you have medical cover when you did your 2.4km run in JC?)

Medics who spend their courses poking each other, who are badly motivated and don't even want to be there? Medics who can't tell a vein from a lymph node?

> Medics have to carry Automated External Defibrillators for all (most?)
> events.

Medics who don't know how to use it? Medics who know how to use it but just can't be bothered? Medics smsing and talking on their handphones and playing Nintendo? Yeah. So safe!

> If you have a high fever in the middle of the night you can get
> medical attention relatively quickly (the queues are much shorter than
> in A&Es).

? Ok. Yeah, this is like on Tekong, where the MO will grumpily wake up and give you a scolding if your fever is not life-threatening. Last I checked, most other medical centres were not 9-5.

> We have helicopter evacuation for important missions.

Righty-o. Like, for when the person has gone into a coma after being too scared by his sergeants to report that he thinks he has the
symptoms of heat exhaustion, one of which is disorientation and confusion. We've been through this.

> There's a safety hotline for you to call.

Yeah. And people call it, because you know, anonymity is like SUCH an important thing in the army.

There are also safety risk hazard forms for you to fill in, and sometimes people are asked to fill them in just for the sake of
showing that hazards are being identified and rectified. Once again - all for show, baby.

> There are safety posters to encourage awareness.

Are you listening to yourself? Yeah. Safety posters! Great! Yay! OHSAS certified! THE SAF ROCKS IT IS SUCH A SAFE PLACE!

> What was that about a culture of death again?

Yeah, not so much a culture of death as a culture of "oh my god I must guard my own ass" instead of a culture of "life is important and must be respected".


Cock: I will also agree with Gabriel on this one. Safety is also treated fairly seriously by mechanics in the various units that I was in. For example, repairing heavy machinery can be dangerous, if one does not take safety precautions.

But of course things like the duty of clearing up black lubricants spilled onto the workshop floor MUST be some meaningless and pointless task rather than something important to prevent people from slipping up and cracking their skulls, isn't it?

If safety was not really important in the SAF, then WHY is it that I felt relatively assured that the cranes we used to use in the workshop to lift out spoilt engines out of tanks were not going to snap? Oh that's because hm...the cranes get inspected for wear and tear regularly by outside inspectors.

Another example: some tanks float, and believe it or not we actually cross reservoirs in them. This is why soldiers take the duty of clearing out the muddy gunk that sometimes collects around the little pumps seriously, and why technicians make sure the pumps work before such exercises. NO commander in my mind has ever things said like " oh, let us be garang and let's see if we can ford this river even though the wire basket surrounding the pump is choked with leaves and mud". That is why despite many, many river crossings no soldier has drowned-by-tank.

And so on and so forth.

The point is, NO ONE wants to get injured, lose limbs and fingers, or get killed while doing routine military stuff. Ironically, I think that's partly because many military personnel are paid so badly. NO ONE is going to risk their life for a pitable few hundred dollars.

There are a lot of things one can accuse the SAF of, but having a culture of disregard of safety is NOT one of them. If I recall correctly, more SAF personnel die or get injured riding their motorcycles to and from work in army camps than in the course of doing military stuff.

And don't be silly. Everyone knows that there must be a culture of safety in all levels of an organisation. This generally be it a shipyard, or an oil refinery, or the army. YOUR safety and indeed, OTHER PEOPLE'S safety is NOT entirely the responsibility of your higher ups. Everyone has a part to play in having safe work practices. This is not meaningless management gibberish. Although I may have been stating the obvious, unfortunately there are quite a few selfish souls out there in the SAF of all levels who stubbornly refuse to recognise this.

I hope I have made my point clear to some ex-NSFs whom, basic military training aside ( and in my experience I agree that the safety culture on the Island of Doom is unsatisfactory compared to any of the other units I have been in), have really not done anything more risky than riding a 5 tonner.


A: Thank you, Jiekai. I bow to your superior knowledge, for of course, having been 'a real man' and done 'things riskier than riding in a truck' or whatever fuck, you of course know best.

OF COURSE there are safety checks. This is Singapore, not the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My point is PRECISELY that higher management don't really give a fuck for the safety of essentially dispensable privates/recruits/etc.

And for your information, I have typed out the 'plans' (or whatever fuck they are called I can no longer be bothered to remember) for many safety officers, and in fact I have done some of these plans myself since many are not literate. In my experience, the pervasive thought is 'ok we have XYZ safety guidelines, but they are something for us to work against -- it is how little we can get away with, not how much'. My point, I stress again, was that ultimately the lives of low-ranking NSFs, especially those who have poor educational qualifications, are given VERY LITTLE consideration. This is the 'culture of death' I was referring to.

More subtlety, please, people.


Me: I never thought the day would come when I would have to defend the SAF, but I suppose this is the price of intellectual honesty.


>Yes, the safety briefings are so, like, safety oriented! Yeah. That's
>why you have such important safety hazards like "someone is hit by a
>frisbee".

You misspelled "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" as "HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA"! Because of one spelling mistake, you must be a terrible speller and we can now disregard all of your postings!

>And yet many sergeants persist in telling their recruits NOT to
>report sick, under threat of malingering.

Yes, all recruits who report sick are charged for malingering. This is why the Tekong Medical Centre is empty and DB is full of inmates, since all of them are charged.

In the last year, I've seen people in Singapore littering many times, despite littering being an offence that brings not only a fine but
CWO. This must mean that, contrary to analyses, Singapore is not authoritarian and the populace are not socially engineered since they dare to litter.

> Medics who spend their courses poking each other, who are badly
> motivated and don't even want to be there? Medics who can't tell a
> vein from a lymph node?

Yes, I'd trust a nurse who had never drawn blood before to draw my blood.

The other day, I heard teachers complaining at lunch that they were underpaid and couldn't wait to finish their bonds. This means that they must be abusing their students and no one learns anything in MOE schools.

And wth do you need to be able to tell a vein from a lymph node to do what a medic does?!

>Medics smsing and talking on their handphones and playing Nintendo?
>Yeah. So safe!

I was at an A&E the other night and there were no patients. The nurses were talking to each other and going for coffee instead of practising their emergency drills and simulating triage. Oh my god. They must be fired for lack of dedication!

>? Ok. Yeah, this is like on Tekong, where the MO will grumpily wake
>up and give you a scolding if your fever is not life-threatening.
>Last I checked, most other medical centres were not 9-5.

If you report sick in the middle of the night and it's serious enough, you will be sent to the nearest 24 hour medical centre.

>>We have helicopter evacuation for important missions.
>
> Righty-o. Like, for when the person has gone into a coma after being
> too scared by his sergeants to report that he thinks he has the
> symptoms of heat exhaustion, one of which is disorientation and
> confusion. We've been through this.

The fact that MI5 failed to stop the 7 July London Bombings, although they have foiled lots of terrorist plots, means that they are incompetent, don't care about Britain's security and should be disbanded!

>>There's a safety hotline for you to call.
>
>Yeah. And people call it, because you know, anonymity is like SUCH an
>important thing in the army.

You don't have to say who you are. The SAF counselling hotline is also anonymous if you wish it to be so.

>>There are safety posters to encourage awareness.
>
>Are you listening to yourself? Yeah. Safety posters! Great! Yay!
>OHSAS certified! THE SAF ROCKS IT IS SUCH A SAFE PLACE!

WOO! Let's TEAR DOWN the posters! It's going to make the place much safer!

>Yeah, not so much a culture of death as a culture of "oh my god I
>must guard my own ass" instead of a culture of "life is important and
>must be respected".

To guard your own ass, you have to not get people killed or seriously injured.

The SAF may not give slaves enough dignity, care or respect, but it cannot be faulted for not caring about safety.

Once again I challenge you to name many armed forces that are more obsessed with safety than the SAF.


B: Gabriel, the obsession with safety of which you speak is merely superficial, as I have been trying to point out. You may be a champion of intellectual honesty, but anyone with half a brain can see that the SAF really only cares about the safety of its personnel because it is afraid of complaining parents. The dynamics of "this person is of intrinsic worth, therefore I must look out for his safety and well-being" is very different from "I must get this certification, and meet my KPIs, hence I will put up safety posters and have contingency plans". This difference is stark, and anyone with half a brain can tell that the SAF's safety standards are merely another symptom of its "wayang" nature. But of course, I could be wrong. After all, I only spent two years looking at 14001 and OHSAS certifications.


Me: I never said the SAF was benevolent, altruistic and caring.

My point was that claiming the SAF has a "culture of death" is preposterous and that many precautions are taken for the sake of safety.

I am glad that you now accept my points.


Cock: Yes. Even though it is true that regulars regard NSFs( reservists?) as a bunch of maggots, we are regarded as valuable maggots and there are strong incentives for regulars to do what is necessary not to maim or kill us. Even if done out of the wrong intentions, the general result is that for a conscripted force, casualty rates in peacetime activities from bad safety are low.

I do not claim to have done the riskiest tasks. On the other hand, as Gabriel has pointed out, news about accidents spreads like fast across units. It is very difficult for there to be a cover-up. We are a small island.

Finally, I think it is unhelpful to be too scornful of the value of safety posters and exhibitions. People actually do look at them, even if they won't admit it. Quite often, they also put up photos of mangled or damaged vehicles on them as well. If you were an NCO or an officer, you would be reminded that you don't really want to travel in a vehicle manned by an exhausted/disoriented driver. The moral of the story is, "mistreat the slaves and they don't even need to be pointing a gun in your direction to endanger your life".

As for comparisons with other conscript armies and terrible treatment, look at this:

http://www.russiablog.org/2006/06/genocide_or_stupidity.php
*snip story about Russian army*

The treatment of slaves in the SAF is nowhere close to this sort of thing. Please do not exaggerate the extent to which regulars or even senior conscripts regard the lives of junior slaves as worthless. I repeat, NSlaves may be maggots to them but there are prudential, if not moral reasons to harm NSlaves.


B: I don't accept your points, Gabriel, they're usually pointless one-liners like "Oh there are safety posters". Your points are ridiculous, namely, that the SAF takes intelligent, compassionate and necessary steps to look after its CONSCRIPT soldiers, above and beyond just going through the motions. Which is, as I have shown, problematic. This may not translate into what you think is a "culture of death", since, as you have shown, you have a tendency to be extremely - dare I say foolishly - literal. But as I have been trying to point out there is surprisingly little respect for the value of life in the SAF. For example, the case of the drowned commandos, where "justice" was served.


Cock: If there had truly been little respect for the value of life, no follow-up action or consequences would have ensued as a result. But there was a huge national scandal when the facts were revealed, criminal charges were pressed against some of the people responsible, and some other people's careers were destroyed. We are not like the Russians.


C: Perhaps a better description is not "a culture of death" but "a culture of ranking the importance of life", e.g. an officer's life is worth more than a recruit's. If an SAF officer had a chance to save the life of a recruit at the risk of his own life, perhaps he would think twice. Would one of the US Army values, "never abandon a fallen comrade", apply to the SAF?


A: I already said Jiekai:

'We are better than Russia' is NOT one of today's more desired accolades.


D: Summary.
Gabriel: You are saying that there's a culture of death in the SAF! You are wrong!
B: You are saying that the SAF is very nice, compassionate, and takes very good care of the conscripts! You are wrong! And stupid!

***
"..."


Me:

> I don't accept your points, Gabriel

Then we have nothing left to discuss.

More backlog on PC ideology, in response to the study showing NBA 'racism':


A: I'm not sure Gabriel actually thinks any unfair descrimination ever occurs in a manner worth mentioning, except against straight, male, majority race (on a local scale) atheists. The only time to my recollection he's indicated to the contrary was where he felt an Australian Muslim was wrongly attacked for misogyny. Strange how it's always the people who were actually historically violently, systematically oppressed who are being oversensitive and imagining things...


B: Not to mention, of course, that women who wear skimpy clothes bring
rape, molestation and all sort of sexual crime upon themselves. TAKE THAT, YOU WHORE! Go pre-enlightenment pre-feminist pre-school thinking!!!!


Me:

> I'm not sure Gabriel actually thinks any unfair descrimination ever
> occurs *snip*

If there's a whole row of Chinese takeouts along the street and I do not open another Chinese takeout, this does not mean that I dislike Chinese food.

If you don't understand that, too bad - I'm still on the road.

> The only time to my recollection he's indicated to the contrary was
>where he felt an Australian Muslim was wrongly attacked for misogyny.

Ah yes. That was a repellent case of homophobia. Cultural imperialists were trying to impose ethnocentric values on some Muslim imam who called women pieces of meat for dressing provocatively.

In any case, you suffer from serious selection bias. There are many times when I have 'indicated to the contrary'.

>Strange how it's always the people who were actually historically
>violently, systematically oppressed who are being oversensitive and
>imagining things...

Strange how people who have historically been oppressed must inevitably be oppressed now, and people who have historically been oppressors must inevitably be the ones oppressing now and cannot be oppressed in any way.

Really, this just shows the ideological biases inherent in PC/left wing discourse.

>Not to mention, of course, that women who wear skimpy clothes bring
>rape, molestation and all sort of sexual crime upon themselves. TAKE
>THAT, YOU WHORE! Go pre-enlightenment pre-feminist pre-school
>thinking!!!!

Drivers who leave their cars unlocked bring car theft upon themselves. Whoo!

(Short exposition: Victimology looks at the role of the victim in the commiting of a crime, and it is essential to study both the criminal and the victim. Unfortunately, in car theft, the victim is always blamed for the crime. Unfortunately too, in sexual crimes against women perpetrated by men, the role of the victim is never looked at,
and anyone who does that risks being called misogynistic, saying women deserve it blah blah)


B: Gabriel,

We have been through this whole "I am not racist, I am merely saying that I will
get raped in South Africa" (or whatever nonsense that you are on about) thing millions of times. If you are racist, just say you are racist. If you are sexist, just say you are sexist. Don't try to mask it under a veneer of progressive, iconoclastic but ultimately logical thinking. Because when you do that, you're no better than Yvonne C L Lee. Which, of course, I don't give you credit for.


D: In the sociological literature, we generally accept that culture changes slowly, and in fact pointing out this fact is one of the most common ways to challenge a cultural-type explanation. For example, Landes argues that late C19 British entrepreneurial failure was caused by the cultural conservatism of British industrialists, which led them not to profit maximise, etc etc. But then this explanation is flawed since it is then impossible to explain why Britain was at the forefront of the industrial revolution just half a century earlier.

My point is: cultures don't change easily. This means that racial attitudes do not change quickly. Segregation was only legally defeated in the 50s, and only really took effect after the Supreme Court mandated positive action to desegregate schools in the late 60s. That's about 50 years ago. If 50 years ago a black man could be lynched (i.e. beaten to death then hung on a tree to rot) for talking to a white woman, or a black WWII veteran who dared to join a victory parade could have his eyes gouged out by white supremacists, I think you'd forgive black people today for not exactly believing that they have been welcomed with open arms and hearts all over the place.

This analysis would extend to Jews, gays and other minorities.


Me: I am reminded of a poster on employment law in California which I saw
earlier today which proclaimed that discriminating against people because of language ability is illegal. Which presumably means that if you can't speak English, that is still not a good enough reason for someone to not hire you.

I recall too how Larry Summers was called sexist and ousted as President of Harvard for trying to address the reasons why women were underrepresented in the Sciences and Engineering (he said that, horror, fewer women than men might be extremely talented in mathematics - I hope that in the future we fire basketball coaches not for being pedophiles but for saying that girls are less physically endowed than boys).

I welcome the day when discrimination against the lazy and the stupid is outlawed as bigotry.

>My point is: cultures don't change easily... I think you'd forgive
>black people today for not exactly believing that they have been
>welcomed with open arms and hearts all over the place.

Sure, discrimination does exist today but I object to how discrimination is automatically jumped to as an explanation to explain inequality between historically oppressed and historically oppressing groups.

For example, blacks earn less than whites. The instinctive reaction in some circles is to cry discrimination and accuse society of being racist. But when you correct for education, it has been found that blacks actually earn *more* than whites, if they have the same educational level.

Also, female doctors earn less than male doctors. This is not because the medical profession is sexist, but because female doctors do not specialise, or if they specialise they choose less well-paying fields like paediatrics and obs/gynae. They also work fewer hours, choose flexi-time arrangements (which decreases the possibility of being on call) etc.

Furthermore, if oppressed groups keep thinking they are victimised and marginalised, regardless of whether this is the case, it's just going to generate a persecution complex and hinder them in daily life, to say nothing of the effects on the rest of society. For example, this black researcher at MIT failed to get tenure and went
on a 12 day hunger strike, claiming that he was being discriminated against. Some scientists looking on noted that he had not done much useful work in his field and so shouldn't get tenure. Nonetheless, Noam Chomsky and 10 other professors (only 2 of whom were scientists and in the field) wrote a letter in his support alleging discrimination.

For those who are not enamored of appealing to veracity as a criterion for judging arguments' worths, it might be borne in mind that self-righteously barking up the wrong tree, though making us feel better about ourselves, is going to perpetuate suffering rather than addressing its real causes.

>>(Short exposition: Victimology looks at the role of the victim in
>
> What was the point of this?

The point is that going into automatic "you are misogynistic and think women deserve to be raped" mode anytime someone mentions victim precipitation in relation to sexual crimes perpetuated by men on women is not only wrong-headed, it also hinders solution of the problem.


Cock: I want to add that just because one says that "environment X [e.g. the existence of men who think skimpily dressed women invite themselves to be raped] is dangerous" does not mean that we morally condone the existence of environment X. Environment X may be very difficult to eradicate or minimise for all sorts of cultural or practical reasons, and while we are at the job of doing that it makes sense to live with Environment X, in the sense of taking some precautions to minimise risk.

For example, while being drunk shouldn't be an excuse at all for men to sexually assault women who have had too much to drink ( and the law in England and Wales is highly deplorable in this respect), nevertheless, I do not think that it is insensible to say that objectively that "drunkeness increases your vulnerability to assault, and it is actually a good idea to take precautions, such as having friends to look out for you." I think that this is the gist of what Gabriel is trying to get at.


C: Yeah, for example, it would be really stupid for a girl to take part in some orgy of drinking with a bunch of teenaged guys. If she gets raped, the guy should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and her stupidity is no excuse for the guy's behaviour. But it's still really careless on her part!


D: Yes, but more importantly, no.

Gabriel thinks it is counter-productive to say 'the idea that a woman can act in certain ways which are likely to provoke rape is abhorrent', because apparently that encourages women to act in risky ways.

No. Alcohol, naivety and stupidity might lead a woman to do certain things which will increase her likelihood of being raped. Risk-loving behaviour is not the cause here.

MOREOVER, this abhorrent idea has been implanted in the minds of sexist judges, who DO in fact give very lenient sentences (at least in the UK) and make rape one of the LEAST prosecuted serious crimes. Indeed, you are more likely to be successfully prosecuted for tax evasion than raping someone in the UK.


Me:

>Gabriel thinks it is counter-productive to say... abhorrent',

Incidentally, what is true and what is abhorrent are not always mutually exclusive, at least to some people.

>because apparently that encourages women to act in risky ways.
>
>No. Alcohol, naivety and stupidity might lead a woman to do certain
>things which will increase her likelihood of being raped. Risk-
>loving behaviour is not the cause here.

When did I talk about risk loving behaviour? Is not imbibing a lot of alcohol a risky way to act? Do naivety and stupidity not make one act in risky ways?

>MOREOVER, this abhorrent idea has been implanted in the minds of
>sexist judges

From my reading, I was under the impression that worldwide, rape is one of the most harshly and enthusiastically prosecuted crimes. Perhaps it is different in the UK.