[Skybird]

Steve,

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."
-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Skybird, I find it interesting that you have openly attacked me several times in the past for my feelings about freedom and liberty, and yet here you are proclaiming that freedom is more important than democracy. That's fine. What I don't see as fine is that you are proclaiming freedom in a thread where you are also preaching just the opposite. If you truly believed in liberty you would be hailing gay marriage, not opposing it. There is only one true liberty - the freedom of the individual to choose for himself.

I recall those debates, namely the one on the filibustering. And of course the tolerance paradoxon thing.

My criticism of the practice of filibustering I still hold up. However, where we maybe went beyond that (I admit I have no complete and detailed memory on it anymore) and you said - at least I recall it that way - the US were not found as a democracy but a republic, and I said the Us is a democracy, obviously you were right on the historic part indeed, while I was right that now the US is more a democracy like any other, than the republic of the past. That'S how I have it in memory, and if that memory is correct, then maybe we both failed in making clear we were referring do different eras in history. But I admit that I was not aware that much of the founding fathers attitude indeed - as I said some postings earlier, I got busy with examining democracy more closely in books just around 2 years ago. In these 2 years I was forced to make some dramatic changes on my former views and opinions. Like once I was a defender of the EU and now am a bitter enemy. Or 12 years ago I was tolerant on Islam and tried to gloss over it, now I am an uncompromised opponent to it, and to any theistic organised religion. However, on America not founded as a democracy, you probably was more ight in that part of the debate than I was. I recognise that with the input I had since then.

So, different to what peopems ometimes claim abiout me, I am capable of and do chnage my views and opinions sometimes. But I need good reasons to do so.

On the paradox of tolerance, I still score you as a technical K.O., sorry. It is a dilemma that to defend tolerance you cannot afford to show unlimited tolerance, but need to accept a certain limitation to it in order to save the better part of it. Same for freedom. Unlimited freedom there cannot be as long as you are not living alone on a planet. The question is what an acceptable relation is between duties and rights, rules and freedoms. ThatS what it is about. even in any ideal society of the future. Any form of social interaction between humans needs to obey a certain minimum of rules, you cannot avoid that.

I take it that we both can agree that the limitations of national and supranational entities of today are limiting freedom too much. I somewhat doubt that you would follow me in my ideas of how small communities indeed should be to be "ideal" in the meaning of what I have outlined earlier, I think in much smaller scales there than the foundign fathers or than you give me the impression that you do. Well, with some good will people like us maybe still would find a balance setting that is a compromise we both could live with and that kost would find beneficial.

Still, what I said about family relations and gay marriage, in principle remains true in social communities of big and small sizes alike . The thing with discrimination it means for singles, remains the same. The importance of families as the utmost vital social core cell of a social communities as we know them in most of the world, remains the same. And thew realities of the ideological battlefields of the present in this global conflict about power, also stay the same. - I am aware that total freedom is only an abstraction, an ideal and utopia, something that gives us direction at which to look - but realities need some more pragmatism in practical implementation. He who tries to defend absolutes, will loose absolutely, if I may lend nd slightly change that quote by Sun Tzu. I am not willing to help compromising the institution of "family", and I also stick with my criticism of genderism and feminist quota regulations. Because how big or small a community is, is unimportant to assessing the importance of these questions. In the Muslim world, we have a massive failing of family, instead we have patriarchalic tyranny by fathers and subordinated mother-slaves, which leaves young men in deep inner crisis and vulnerability for religious ideology: Islam and patriachalic structures both play hand in hand in making the Muslim sphere that biog problem to the world that it is, I always have said that. In Japan, you can observe social distortions and psychohygienic consequences from derailed family structures ainsce after WWII as well, it would lead to far to start a detailed discussion on that now, I just cut iot short and say: they have biog problems too, due to overaging - and family-related probolems that leave young people in deep inner conflicts and a state of social isolation and loneliness - medical ndices on psychohygienic variables show that. - But when we destroy the family in the West and replace it with a socialist'S wet dream of collectivism, we seriously expect no consequences from that? We expect that in todays difficult world couples will suddenly choose to get more babies again so that the pool of future tax payers to pay for our financial sins of the present will fill up? Do you mean to be serious?

We need no dysfunctional families that create social wrecks, and we do not a state claiming that it is the state'S priimary duty to care for children ( a statement by a German socialist some weeks ago). We do need functional family environments were it is understood - as it is written black on white in the German Basic Law! - that educaiton of the children is the most important and first duty and right - not of the state, but the natural parents.

We complain about lacking values and misbehavior, violence, and the young being overly aggressive, lazy and what else there is. We complain about a culture of false media idols, of disinhibition, or excesses of street violence. And so iuch more. But we think we must not look at the families when checking for reasons and causes? We cannot be serious!

I have many school teachers in my social circle (Freundeskreis), it just happens to be like that, I cannot help it. Plenty of stories I hear about juveniles having problems, falling into personal crisis, ruining the future. And always "family" is the most important key variable to look at. ALWAYS. The importance of it cannot be overestimated - additionally to what I said earlier about the need for children to have a mother and a father to serve as role models for what is female and what is male. You cannot compensate for that need by letting two gays adopt a foreign children, like you cannot compensate for it by sending little children to Kindergarden at the age of two, even one as the socialists demand to become mandatory over here. It then even causes psychological and medical long term health problems.

Freedom is an ideal, and we both agree on its importance and noblesse. But you think since it is an ideal, it must be realized, or could be realized in an absolute manner. I am aware that this is not possible, and some more pragmatism is needed. Thats' why you entangled yourself in Poppers tolerance paradoxon and could not escape it, and if your thinking prevails in our society, your demand for absolute tolerance/freedom will make sure that both get destroyed. I am aware that Popper is absolutely right in his description, and some rules are necessary nevertheless to defend most of freedom and tolerance - that "most" of it that is the maximum possible to realize in this world .

So you can go on and argue in absolutes about freedom, but it will lead you nowhere. You only help to destroy what you claim you want to defend.

So, to me it is unimportant whether we live in this or that society, my utopia, Hoppe'S one, or yours, or the present society we have. The principle wrongness of eroding family as a social core cell that the community must have utmost interest in to protect and to foster, remains to stay wrong. And that'S why I am against equalising the status and material benefits of homo and hetero marriages and families. The principle injustice that it is a discrimination to not grant the same rights to singles if all others benefit from these privileges, also remains to be that:_ discrimination of singles. You do not contribute anything of merits to a community by being homosexual or live with somebody in one household. You do not deserve any reward therefore. Families deserve our protection and recognition, and a privileged status, because a society where there is no families has no future, where as a society with intact family does have a future. Giving it a specially protected status is in the interest of all, therefore: couples, homos, heteros, singles. Also, raising children is a huge work, and a massive, cost-intensive investement.

Say, if I would say: instead of giving homo couples the same tax reliefs and financial benefits like hetero couples and from which singles are excluded, instead of this then do not give any couple any tax reliefs and financial benefits at all as long as the hetero couple never has risen children of itself - what would you say, would you accept that? It would be the cleaniest solution, imo, I am all for it. No difference made between homos, heteros, and singles, no merits of theirs recognised, none of them gets any relief and benefits at all - only hetero couples who have had babies and raised them over years of their lives and with their money get appreciation and recognition by granting them certain financial and tax privileges, as assistance as well as a recognition of their contribution to the community's most basic interests. Would you accept that? It would render marriage meaningless as far as fiscal policies are involved. And I remind you: I am strictlty against adoption rights for homosexual couples if the child being adopted is not brought into the relationship by one of the partners, from an earlier relationship from which he child stems.

This I would sign immediately, I do not see it as perfect, but as the compromise i cannot avoid: I could accept it. Could you?

On conditions for adoption, I am adamant: intact families/couples only, stable social and economic conditions, one women as mothers, one man as father. No singles. No poor. No social crisis families. No homos. This is non-negotiable for me. Since infertility is spreading in the West, there are more couples who want a child but cannot have one by themselves, then there are orphants. So it is no issue at all to hold up these standards for adoptions. And a homosexual man is no woman, and a lesbian woman is no man. I insist on orphants being given in to families that are intact and where there is surely a mother (female) and a father (male).