If you observe people fighting the pathetic culture wars that dominate public discourse you will find patterns.
Here is an unmistakable pattern: no matter if the issue is inappropriate contentography, the prohibition of marijuana, or same-sex marriage the people--on both the left and the right--espousing liberalism say that it is not having any effect on anybody else if people produce and consume inappropriate contentography, practice recreational marijuana use, or enter a marriage contract with someone of the same sex. Furthermore, they either imply or directly state that anybody who has a problem with such behavior is paranoid, wants to control people, etc.
Please do not distort what is being questioned here. Whether or not things like the production and consumption of inappropriate contentography are morally right or protected by the U.S. Constitution is not the question here. The question is about the premise that says that when people participate in such things they are either not harming anybody or they are only harming their own selves.
It is patently false. Nobody lives in a vacuum. Everything that everybody does affects everybody else.
That is why statements like "If you don't like same-sex marriage then don't marry someone of the same sex" are not only condescending, they are absurd. A cynic would probably also have to say that such statements are disingenuous.
The whole paradigm is contradictory anyway. On one hand liberalism is celebrated for its contribution to "progress". On the other hand, we are told that we have nothing to fear because liberalism is about people doing things that have no effect on anybody but their own selves. And then people defending policies such as same-sex marriage produce all kinds of "studies" showing that such policies either do not have negative effects or have only positive effects on individuals, communities, humanity, etc. In other words, it's just people having no effect on others, but scientists can investigate the effects that they have on others.
The one variable that the champions of liberalism never seem to include in the equation is the fact that the behaviors that they associate with liberty--and possibly the existence of liberalism itself--have been made possible by people being dispossessed, oppressed and exploited. The U.S. Supreme Court, along with any rulings it has made about things like same-sex marriage, might not even exist if the Native Americans were not, as part of government policy, removed from what is now the U.S. It could be argued that when somebody does something in the name of liberty it is the culmination of centuries, if not millennia, of abuses and injustices. Yet, nobody is being harmed, people insist.
The dominant narrative says that all of this is part of "moral progress". On the contrary, it is increasingly looking like the height of irresponsibility.
Here is an unmistakable pattern: no matter if the issue is inappropriate contentography, the prohibition of marijuana, or same-sex marriage the people--on both the left and the right--espousing liberalism say that it is not having any effect on anybody else if people produce and consume inappropriate contentography, practice recreational marijuana use, or enter a marriage contract with someone of the same sex. Furthermore, they either imply or directly state that anybody who has a problem with such behavior is paranoid, wants to control people, etc.
Please do not distort what is being questioned here. Whether or not things like the production and consumption of inappropriate contentography are morally right or protected by the U.S. Constitution is not the question here. The question is about the premise that says that when people participate in such things they are either not harming anybody or they are only harming their own selves.
It is patently false. Nobody lives in a vacuum. Everything that everybody does affects everybody else.
That is why statements like "If you don't like same-sex marriage then don't marry someone of the same sex" are not only condescending, they are absurd. A cynic would probably also have to say that such statements are disingenuous.
The whole paradigm is contradictory anyway. On one hand liberalism is celebrated for its contribution to "progress". On the other hand, we are told that we have nothing to fear because liberalism is about people doing things that have no effect on anybody but their own selves. And then people defending policies such as same-sex marriage produce all kinds of "studies" showing that such policies either do not have negative effects or have only positive effects on individuals, communities, humanity, etc. In other words, it's just people having no effect on others, but scientists can investigate the effects that they have on others.
The one variable that the champions of liberalism never seem to include in the equation is the fact that the behaviors that they associate with liberty--and possibly the existence of liberalism itself--have been made possible by people being dispossessed, oppressed and exploited. The U.S. Supreme Court, along with any rulings it has made about things like same-sex marriage, might not even exist if the Native Americans were not, as part of government policy, removed from what is now the U.S. It could be argued that when somebody does something in the name of liberty it is the culmination of centuries, if not millennia, of abuses and injustices. Yet, nobody is being harmed, people insist.
The dominant narrative says that all of this is part of "moral progress". On the contrary, it is increasingly looking like the height of irresponsibility.