I can't help but feel a weird, smirking detachment from current events in the US. We get our dose of news out here. I mean, let's look over the recent months
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I agree with much of what you said. Yes, the media is way out of line. Yes, video games are too violent. Yes, it is up to parents to raise children to be decent, ethical human beings. But that is not the purpose of the state.
I find nothing morally wrong with homosexuality. As a heterosexual male, I find the concept of sleeping with another male distasteful, but that's different from finding it wrong. I'll agree with you about the violence, though: the glorification of pointless violence in the media is disturbing. (Though not all violence is to be wiped out of our art. Consider the difference between violence in works like Schindler's List and works like Pulp Fiction. Ban Schindler's List? Hell no.)
One of the state's purposes is to defend the rights of all people, even those we personally abhor. We as citizens are responsible for policing our societial values. This is far different from having the state impose ethics from the top-down. Historically, every example of state-imposed ethics and morals I can think of in the 20th century was a disaster. (Cambodia, Vietnam, Nazi Germany, Mao's China, everything in Russia from 1917-present, the Taliban, the Ayatollah, pre-WWII Japan, and, in our own country, McCarthyism are just a few examples.)
We cannot expect our laws to teach children good values. That is for parents to do. We cannot deny rights to a group just because we don't like them or their message. The KKK and the Neo-Nazis, sadly, have every right to hold rallies promoting their view provided they stay within the law. I believe that gay marriage is an issue of civil rights conflicting with our older morals, and that the civil rights of an individual trump a part of society's dislike of what he does.
I'm not convinced gay marriages threaten the concept of the family. I've heard the belief that such unions undermine the family but have never seen any actual evidence. And while I certainly agree that our standards of behavior have fallen into questionable times, I cannot just out-of-hand believe that Fred and John's marriage has some method of making little Jonny into a killer.
I find nothing morally wrong with homosexuality. As a heterosexual male, I find the concept of sleeping with another male distasteful, but that's different from finding it wrong. I'll agree with you about the violence, though: the glorification of pointless violence in the media is disturbing. (Though not all violence is to be wiped out of our art. Consider the difference between violence in works like Schindler's List and works like Pulp Fiction. Ban Schindler's List? Hell no.)
One of the state's purposes is to defend the rights of all people, even those we personally abhor. We as citizens are responsible for policing our societial values. This is far different from having the state impose ethics from the top-down. Historically, every example of state-imposed ethics and morals I can think of in the 20th century was a disaster. (Cambodia, Vietnam, Nazi Germany, Mao's China, everything in Russia from 1917-present, the Taliban, the Ayatollah, pre-WWII Japan, and, in our own country, McCarthyism are just a few examples.)
We cannot expect our laws to teach children good values. That is for parents to do. We cannot deny rights to a group just because we don't like them or their message. The KKK and the Neo-Nazis, sadly, have every right to hold rallies promoting their view provided they stay within the law. I believe that gay marriage is an issue of civil rights conflicting with our older morals, and that the civil rights of an individual trump a part of society's dislike of what he does.
I'm not convinced gay marriages threaten the concept of the family. I've heard the belief that such unions undermine the family but have never seen any actual evidence. And while I certainly agree that our standards of behavior have fallen into questionable times, I cannot just out-of-hand believe that Fred and John's marriage has some method of making little Jonny into a killer.
/rant
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