Though I realize I'm a little late in doing so, I wanted to make a brief comment on some of the rhetoric that came out of the rampage by Army major Dr. Hasan in Ft. Hood some time back. Some conservative commentators complained that there was too much psychoanalysis of Hasan's motives going on, as they felt this amounted to excusing what he did. Of course there is no excusing what he did, and if anyone was really doing so, they were wrong. However, this does not mean there was anything wrong with examining the factors which motivated him, including stress and perceived discrimination. When something like this happens, it is obviously necessary to understand it as thoroughly as possible, as only by doing so can we reduce the chance of similar incidents occurring in the future, even if only by a slight amount.
I have to say I didn't bother to read every article published on this story, or indeed more than a few, as I find the media's tendency to obsessively dwell on this sort of thing to be annoying. But I did note that several articles quoted Hasan as telling others that he was a Muslim first and an American second. This was cited as evidence that he was "unpatriotic", even as something that that should have tipped authorities to the fact that he might do something like what he did. Right-wingers apparently focused on it, judging from one of the subtitles at the bottom of the screen from the Sean Hannity show featured in this hilarious Daily Show clip (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-12-2009/sean-hannity-apologizes-to-jon), which claim Hasan "taunted" classmates by saying he was a Muslim first. Now, first of all, I'm not big on the whole "patriotism" concept (a topic which deserves a separate essay), but even for many of those who think of themselves as very patriotic, what Hasan supposedly said should not really be such a big deal. Most conservatives in the US, for instance, consider themselves devout Christians. Are they going to say that they put a higher priority on being patriotic toward the US than on God and Jesus? Are they Americans first and Christians second? If they are being as true to their faith as most of them claim to be, then they should be Christians first and Americans second. So this supposed statement by Hasan should hardly be regarded as shocking coming from a truly religious person.
Then there is the efforts to label this a "terrorist" attack. Joe Lieberman is one who used the term, and as can be seen from the above clip, convicted felon Oliver North is another, with some prompting from Hannity, who obviously concurs. But as this blog (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24894) so accurately points out, these people seem confused about the definition of terrorism. Terrorism involves attacking civilian populations in order to terrorize them with a political goal in mind, usually getting the population to in turn pressure their government to change or abandon certain policies or efforts. Until it is shown that Hasan went on a rampage with some specific political goal in mind, such as getting the US to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, then his actions, while still murderous and reprehensible, can't be called terrorism. Even if he personally wanted the US to pull out of those countries, his attack can't be said to have made specifically with that goal in mind unless he made a statement to that effect before or during the assault (you can't terrorize people into doing something if you don't tell them what you want them to do).
It seems that in fact these people who call Hasan a "terrorist" are in fact equating "terrorism" with "violent, radical Islam". In other words, a radical Islamist is a terrorist, and terrorists are all radical Islamists. This is of course absurd, as there have been and are many non-Muslim terrorists, including the IRA and their Unionist enemies in northern Ireland, the Zionists who bombed that Jerusalem hotel to force the British out of Palestine in the post WWII period, the fundamentalist Christians that murder doctors who perform abortions, and arguably the Allied leaders who approved the firebombing of Dresden in WWII, just to name a few. So while there is no excuse whatever for Hasan's actions, the rhetoric of the right wing regarding them shows once again how completely irrational they can be.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Bangkok trip
It's been some time since I managed to post anything, one reason (along with preoccupation with other matters, sheer laziness, etc.) being that I was away last weekend. My wife had a meeting to attend in Bangkok, and I decided to go along. What's more, we took our daughter, who thereby had a number of firsts, including her first international trip (for that matter, her first trip out of the Taipei area) and her first airplane ride. It was a pretty short trip, probably the shortest of my many trips to Thailand, as we went on Friday and came back the following Tuesday. Not surprisingly, we didn't do much sightseeing (in fact we didn't do any, at least in the sense of going to specific tourist sights), though that wasn't a big deal, as most of the major sights of Bangkok we've seen at least once and in some cases multiple times.
The meetings my wife was attending went on all day Saturday and Sunday, and I stayed in the area of the hotel they were being held in -- the same one we were staying at -- so she could nurse the baby during their breaks. My furthest venture was to a used bookstore about 20 minutes walk away, a little way past Soi 26 on Thanon Sukhumvit (the hotel was on Soi 20). I took the baby in her stroller, which was complicated by the fact that at most intersections with sois (a soi is a lane or alley off a larger road) or driveways there was no ramp down from the sidewalk to the street, so if the curb was high, as it usually was, I had to pick up the stroller to haul it down and sometimes back up again (though when going back up it was usually possible to just push down on the back to lift the front wheels onto the curb). Also, I had to try to make sure the baby didn't get too much sun (not that a little sun is bad for anyone, but at her age she would certainly burn easily). Nevertheless, a trip of this distance proved manageable, though unfortunately, despite having a good selection, this time the bookstore only had one of the books I was looking for (on our last trip I was able to find several I was searching for there).
Much of the rest of the time we were in the hotel or at most in the soi outside. Fortunately the meeting was being held on a floor just two below the one we were staying on (though annoyingly the stairs were for emergency use only, so we had to use the elevator), and that floor (the 14th) also had the hotel's pool, which was outside on the roof of a shorter wing of the hotel. Though we didn't get to go swimming, it was nice to be able to sit outside while we were waiting for the next rest break in the meeting or while the baby was nursing. The baby was not surprisingly something of hit among many attendees of the meeting, who incidentally were human rights defenders from a wide variety of places, including Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, various South Asian countries and Mongolia.
On the last day the three of us first moved to a cheaper hotel across the soi from the one the meeting was held in (our stay in the latter was partly subsidized only through Sunday, the night following the meeting, so we decided to save some money by switching to a cheaper place). After that we took the Skytrain (the elevated rail line -- incidentally saturated with annoying advertisements; the underground subway called the MRT is much better in this regard, though it didn't go where we were headed in this case) to the shopping district of central Bangkok. We went to the chaotic but relatively cheap MBK shopping center before heading over to the Siam Center/Discovery Center/Siam Paragon shopping complex. Though unsurprisingly I didn't find many of the Thai CDs I was looking, most being either obscure, very old, out of print, or some combination of the three, I did manage to get a few things, and my wife also found a few interesting things. For dinner we met a woman I knew from previous trips who works at Thailand's largest record company GMM Grammy as a sort of assistant to the boss. The place she chose was a pretty good Italian restaurant (she suggested it after I said I'd like to have Italian food) not far from the GMM Grammy building, and fortunately also not far from our hotel (in the other direction), which meant we could walk back.
The other two days of the trip were pretty much taken up by our flights there and back, which fortunately the baby handled fairly well, with only a little fussing. We can only hope her next international trip goes at least nearly as well.
The meetings my wife was attending went on all day Saturday and Sunday, and I stayed in the area of the hotel they were being held in -- the same one we were staying at -- so she could nurse the baby during their breaks. My furthest venture was to a used bookstore about 20 minutes walk away, a little way past Soi 26 on Thanon Sukhumvit (the hotel was on Soi 20). I took the baby in her stroller, which was complicated by the fact that at most intersections with sois (a soi is a lane or alley off a larger road) or driveways there was no ramp down from the sidewalk to the street, so if the curb was high, as it usually was, I had to pick up the stroller to haul it down and sometimes back up again (though when going back up it was usually possible to just push down on the back to lift the front wheels onto the curb). Also, I had to try to make sure the baby didn't get too much sun (not that a little sun is bad for anyone, but at her age she would certainly burn easily). Nevertheless, a trip of this distance proved manageable, though unfortunately, despite having a good selection, this time the bookstore only had one of the books I was looking for (on our last trip I was able to find several I was searching for there).
Much of the rest of the time we were in the hotel or at most in the soi outside. Fortunately the meeting was being held on a floor just two below the one we were staying on (though annoyingly the stairs were for emergency use only, so we had to use the elevator), and that floor (the 14th) also had the hotel's pool, which was outside on the roof of a shorter wing of the hotel. Though we didn't get to go swimming, it was nice to be able to sit outside while we were waiting for the next rest break in the meeting or while the baby was nursing. The baby was not surprisingly something of hit among many attendees of the meeting, who incidentally were human rights defenders from a wide variety of places, including Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, various South Asian countries and Mongolia.
On the last day the three of us first moved to a cheaper hotel across the soi from the one the meeting was held in (our stay in the latter was partly subsidized only through Sunday, the night following the meeting, so we decided to save some money by switching to a cheaper place). After that we took the Skytrain (the elevated rail line -- incidentally saturated with annoying advertisements; the underground subway called the MRT is much better in this regard, though it didn't go where we were headed in this case) to the shopping district of central Bangkok. We went to the chaotic but relatively cheap MBK shopping center before heading over to the Siam Center/Discovery Center/Siam Paragon shopping complex. Though unsurprisingly I didn't find many of the Thai CDs I was looking, most being either obscure, very old, out of print, or some combination of the three, I did manage to get a few things, and my wife also found a few interesting things. For dinner we met a woman I knew from previous trips who works at Thailand's largest record company GMM Grammy as a sort of assistant to the boss. The place she chose was a pretty good Italian restaurant (she suggested it after I said I'd like to have Italian food) not far from the GMM Grammy building, and fortunately also not far from our hotel (in the other direction), which meant we could walk back.
The other two days of the trip were pretty much taken up by our flights there and back, which fortunately the baby handled fairly well, with only a little fussing. We can only hope her next international trip goes at least nearly as well.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
"Protecting" Marriage and Other Nonsense
Maine's recent vote overturning the state's same sex marriage law has brought this issue back to the forefront of national debate, at least temporarily. Every time I see a vote like this, I have to wonder, do all these people who voted to deny marriage rights to same sex couples have such warped moral compasses, or are they simply unable to reason clearly?
The most common argument cited by opponents of same sex marriage is that they want to "protect" traditional marriage. The question they are never able to answer logically is exactly how allowing same sex marriage will harm heterosexual marriages. One argument, if we can call it that, is that allowing different types of marriage will denigrate the "value" of traditional marriage. The argument is so vague as to be completely meaningless. How do you define the "value" of marriage in the first place? The chief value it has is the formalization of a strong family bond between two individuals, such that they can share their lives and fortunes and potentially raise children together. How would allowing people of the same sex to formalize such a bond, one which will arise between them whether or not it is officially recognized by society, hurt the bonds that heterosexual couples form? Surely the argument is not simply that if too many people are married, marriage is no longer special? If that's the case we might as well make obtaining a marriage license a long and difficult process, perhaps with probationary periods beforehand, for any kind of couple (the same would apply for the odd argument that because married couples get certain benefits from society, allowing same sex marriage would be costly to society and therefore shouldn't be allowed). But somehow I don't get the idea that these defenders of "traditional" marriage want in any way to discourage heterosexual couples from getting married or to reduce the total number of marriages. No, they simply don't want to allow homosexual couples to marry.
So what arguments do these opponents of same sex marriage put forth against it, other than out-and-out homophobia? None that are at logical, and many that are just homophobia thinly disguised. One I've heard is that homosexual marriages can't produce children. This is true, in the sense that two people of the same sex can't have a child together in the genetic sense (though it may someday be possible for lesbian couples through genetic engineering). But what of that? Many heterosexual couples can't or don't have children together either, and we don't require them to do so or invalidate their marriages because of their childlessness (the latter used to occur fairly frequently, especially among royalty, but I don't think many people would advocate making a law along such lines). What's more, homosexual couples, like childless heterosexual couples, can and do adopt children or use surrogates, and given the number of children in need of a home around the world, the more couples there are to adopt the better.
But this brings up one of the more homophobic (as well as ignorant) arguments some use against same sex marriage, namely that children raised by homosexual couples will be somehow unnatural. There is a similar argument that allowing homosexual marriage in the society will result in it being "taught in schools". The idea of it being "taught in schools" is a bit bizarre in the first place; what do they think, teachers are suddenly going to start telling children they should marry people of the same sex? At most, schools might use materials that present same sex marriage as being normal. This is what many opponents actually object to, as they don't regard same sex relationships as normal, so they don't want to see toleration of them taught or even passively encouraged. If that's not homophobia, what is it?
Furthermore, some opponents of same sex marriage seem to believe that presenting same sex relationships as normal will somehow cause more children to "become" homosexual (a similar argument is applied to children raised by same sex couples). This argument is simply ignorant, as overwhelming evidence indicates that sexual orientation is primarily a matter of nature, not nurture, so that the percentage of people who are naturally inclined to homosexuality does not vary significantly whether the society is tolerant of homosexuality or not. The only thing that varies is whether those who are by nature homosexual are open about it. In an extremely conservative society, very few if any people will be openly homosexual but there will be just as many homosexuals; they will simply hide their sexual orientation. Conversely, even in a society that treats homosexual relations as completely equal to heterosexual ones, the vast majority of people will still be heterosexual. At most, you may see an increase in open bisexuality, but this is not harmful either, as most people will still settle into a relationship based on their primary orientation, whatever that may be.
Some decry the possibility of more "experimentation" with different orientations among adolescents, but, as stated above, in the end people who are basically heterosexual (again, the vast majority) will end up in heterosexual relationships no matter what they do when they are young, and the converse is true of those who are naturally homosexual. In fact, studies indicate that quite a bit of experimentation goes on among adolescents already. I myself have heard of quite a few examples anecdotally, mostly from women (thought that might be a problem with my sample...). On the other hand, many young people will not experiment with different orientations no matter how widely accepted it becomes. Speaking for myself, I never had the least bit interest in men or boys at any time in my life, and even if I had been living in a society that was very tolerant of homosexuality (rather than the extremely homophobic one I did grow up in), I doubt I would have been inclined to experiment even a little with it. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of my friends and classmates did so, nor do I think it would have harmed them. And while, due in part to the homophobic society I grew up in, I'll admit that even now I sometimes feel slightly uncomfortable around gay couples (not, however, around lesbian couples, for some reason...), I recognize that this is my problem, not theirs, and in time I hope and expect to overcome it. Unfortunately, many other people don't even recognize their own homophobia, even when it is much more severe than my own.
In the end, the opposition to same sex marriage is no different from the opposition to marriages between people of different races or "miscegenation", as they used to call it. All of the so-called arguments against same sex marriage could be (and in many cases were) applied against mixed-race marriages. What's more, recalling the legalization of mixed-race marriages (for those who don't know, only a few decades ago mixed race marriage was actually illegal in many places, unbelievable though that may sound) is just one of many analogies that help illustrate why the argument that in this debate the "will of the people" should prevail is ludicrous. If people in states like Mississippi, Alabama, or even Texas had been able to vote on state constitutional amendments outlawing mixed-race marriage or for that matter desegregated schools, they certainly would have done so. It took the courts to force the overturning of these discriminatory laws (in the case of mixed-race marriage, it was a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court). In doing so, the courts were fulfilling one of their major functions, protecting the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. Similarly, in the current fight over same sex marriage, it has been primarily the courts that have been responsible for establishing equal rights for same sex couples, often in the face of public opposition, just as desegregation was a result of court rulings which were openly opposed by most people in the South. The idea that the electorate should be allowed to vote for inequality in the same sex marriage debate makes no more sense then allowing them to vote to uphold same segregation or anti-miscegenation laws would have been. Discrimination of this sort is wrong, no matter how many people support it. We can only hope that more and more judges will do the right thing and rule against these discriminatory resolutions, and that after same sex marriage has been legal for enough time, the public at large will come to see that it is not in the least harmful to the society, and there are no grounds for their fears and prejudices.
The most common argument cited by opponents of same sex marriage is that they want to "protect" traditional marriage. The question they are never able to answer logically is exactly how allowing same sex marriage will harm heterosexual marriages. One argument, if we can call it that, is that allowing different types of marriage will denigrate the "value" of traditional marriage. The argument is so vague as to be completely meaningless. How do you define the "value" of marriage in the first place? The chief value it has is the formalization of a strong family bond between two individuals, such that they can share their lives and fortunes and potentially raise children together. How would allowing people of the same sex to formalize such a bond, one which will arise between them whether or not it is officially recognized by society, hurt the bonds that heterosexual couples form? Surely the argument is not simply that if too many people are married, marriage is no longer special? If that's the case we might as well make obtaining a marriage license a long and difficult process, perhaps with probationary periods beforehand, for any kind of couple (the same would apply for the odd argument that because married couples get certain benefits from society, allowing same sex marriage would be costly to society and therefore shouldn't be allowed). But somehow I don't get the idea that these defenders of "traditional" marriage want in any way to discourage heterosexual couples from getting married or to reduce the total number of marriages. No, they simply don't want to allow homosexual couples to marry.
So what arguments do these opponents of same sex marriage put forth against it, other than out-and-out homophobia? None that are at logical, and many that are just homophobia thinly disguised. One I've heard is that homosexual marriages can't produce children. This is true, in the sense that two people of the same sex can't have a child together in the genetic sense (though it may someday be possible for lesbian couples through genetic engineering). But what of that? Many heterosexual couples can't or don't have children together either, and we don't require them to do so or invalidate their marriages because of their childlessness (the latter used to occur fairly frequently, especially among royalty, but I don't think many people would advocate making a law along such lines). What's more, homosexual couples, like childless heterosexual couples, can and do adopt children or use surrogates, and given the number of children in need of a home around the world, the more couples there are to adopt the better.
But this brings up one of the more homophobic (as well as ignorant) arguments some use against same sex marriage, namely that children raised by homosexual couples will be somehow unnatural. There is a similar argument that allowing homosexual marriage in the society will result in it being "taught in schools". The idea of it being "taught in schools" is a bit bizarre in the first place; what do they think, teachers are suddenly going to start telling children they should marry people of the same sex? At most, schools might use materials that present same sex marriage as being normal. This is what many opponents actually object to, as they don't regard same sex relationships as normal, so they don't want to see toleration of them taught or even passively encouraged. If that's not homophobia, what is it?
Furthermore, some opponents of same sex marriage seem to believe that presenting same sex relationships as normal will somehow cause more children to "become" homosexual (a similar argument is applied to children raised by same sex couples). This argument is simply ignorant, as overwhelming evidence indicates that sexual orientation is primarily a matter of nature, not nurture, so that the percentage of people who are naturally inclined to homosexuality does not vary significantly whether the society is tolerant of homosexuality or not. The only thing that varies is whether those who are by nature homosexual are open about it. In an extremely conservative society, very few if any people will be openly homosexual but there will be just as many homosexuals; they will simply hide their sexual orientation. Conversely, even in a society that treats homosexual relations as completely equal to heterosexual ones, the vast majority of people will still be heterosexual. At most, you may see an increase in open bisexuality, but this is not harmful either, as most people will still settle into a relationship based on their primary orientation, whatever that may be.
Some decry the possibility of more "experimentation" with different orientations among adolescents, but, as stated above, in the end people who are basically heterosexual (again, the vast majority) will end up in heterosexual relationships no matter what they do when they are young, and the converse is true of those who are naturally homosexual. In fact, studies indicate that quite a bit of experimentation goes on among adolescents already. I myself have heard of quite a few examples anecdotally, mostly from women (thought that might be a problem with my sample...). On the other hand, many young people will not experiment with different orientations no matter how widely accepted it becomes. Speaking for myself, I never had the least bit interest in men or boys at any time in my life, and even if I had been living in a society that was very tolerant of homosexuality (rather than the extremely homophobic one I did grow up in), I doubt I would have been inclined to experiment even a little with it. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of my friends and classmates did so, nor do I think it would have harmed them. And while, due in part to the homophobic society I grew up in, I'll admit that even now I sometimes feel slightly uncomfortable around gay couples (not, however, around lesbian couples, for some reason...), I recognize that this is my problem, not theirs, and in time I hope and expect to overcome it. Unfortunately, many other people don't even recognize their own homophobia, even when it is much more severe than my own.
In the end, the opposition to same sex marriage is no different from the opposition to marriages between people of different races or "miscegenation", as they used to call it. All of the so-called arguments against same sex marriage could be (and in many cases were) applied against mixed-race marriages. What's more, recalling the legalization of mixed-race marriages (for those who don't know, only a few decades ago mixed race marriage was actually illegal in many places, unbelievable though that may sound) is just one of many analogies that help illustrate why the argument that in this debate the "will of the people" should prevail is ludicrous. If people in states like Mississippi, Alabama, or even Texas had been able to vote on state constitutional amendments outlawing mixed-race marriage or for that matter desegregated schools, they certainly would have done so. It took the courts to force the overturning of these discriminatory laws (in the case of mixed-race marriage, it was a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court). In doing so, the courts were fulfilling one of their major functions, protecting the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. Similarly, in the current fight over same sex marriage, it has been primarily the courts that have been responsible for establishing equal rights for same sex couples, often in the face of public opposition, just as desegregation was a result of court rulings which were openly opposed by most people in the South. The idea that the electorate should be allowed to vote for inequality in the same sex marriage debate makes no more sense then allowing them to vote to uphold same segregation or anti-miscegenation laws would have been. Discrimination of this sort is wrong, no matter how many people support it. We can only hope that more and more judges will do the right thing and rule against these discriminatory resolutions, and that after same sex marriage has been legal for enough time, the public at large will come to see that it is not in the least harmful to the society, and there are no grounds for their fears and prejudices.
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