#self justification

[serenityquest]

[gettothedancing]

Today, the passive value of tolerance means little more than “I will overlook your sins if you overlook mine.” Just so, egalitarianism and multiculturalism do not lead to the affirmation of all that is unique and glorious in masculinity or femininity or in the various cultures of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, but rather to the collapsing of all distinctions in favor of a Marxist identity politics that reduces people to their race, class, or sex, without imbuing them with any kind of essential worth. Worse yet, swapping out traditional virtues with progressive values has helped create a generation of young people who say to themselves, “Well, yes, I may be living a sinful lifestyle, but that is OK because I recycle cans.” Rather than train up young people to live in accordance with a set standard of virtue, our values-driven schools have taught students to justify their own sinful behavior by commending themselves for the great tolerance and inclusivism they extend toward others who have likewise given in to their base, misdirected passions. Two full generations have been instructed to feel intense concern for the destruction of the environment and for social justice issues on the other side of the globe, while feeling no compunction about indulging their appetites, humiliating their peers, and treating their parents with contempt. In the moral-ethical haze that sets in when values take the place of virtues, it becomes all too easy to redefine narcissism as self-esteem, envy as fairness, and consumerism as a natural and inalienable right. . . . The best way to expose the smallness, meanness, and ultimate ineffectiveness of the pseudo-virtues is to build up in young people a passionate love for the real virtues. Let them come to know, experience, and love transcendent, time-tested, traditional virtues, and the pseudo-virtues will lose their charm and appeal.

Louis Markos

[gettothedancing]

Woman Who Killed Baby Over Leave Proves Welfare Won't Fix Abortion

A perfect example of the ‘give us socialism or we’ll kill the kids’ genre was recently published in The Guardian.

The author does not provide details, but it is revealing that she described her decision in terms of anxiety and planning preferences—“Was having the baby with extremely limited funds, in a small apartment, actually a romantic way to start a family?”—rather than directly stating that having the baby would be financially ruinous. She concludes her self-justification by declaring that “our situation did not embody the climate of confidence we agreed was necessary for us to be parents.”

This shift from paid leave to a general “climate of confidence” gives the game away. If this was just about a few weeks of pay, it raises the question of whether there was some way for the author to raise that money in lieu of having her child killed. Notably, she does not report asking anyone for help. Her initial framing forces her to put a dollar amount on the life of her child, and confronts whether she could have done anything to ransom her baby. In contrast, demanding a “climate of confidence” makes her subjective sense of things a justification for what she did, regardless of the actual details of her case.

This is not to say that her situation was not sympathetic. Having a baby is hard. Caring for a baby is hard. Going back to work after a few weeks, or even a few months, of leave is hard, made harder still if that leave has been at least partly unpaid. But a few weeks of salary is not worth killing your baby for.

I am open to arguments that the United States should have more substantial pro-natalist policies, and conservatives have been promoting and debating various proposals that would add to existing policies such as the child tax credit and, yes, paid family leave, which President Trump promoted in his latest State of the Union address. But the left wants more than generous family leave policies, and will still champion abortion even if it gets its entire wish list.

Looking around the world, there is never enough socialism for socialists to agree to abolish abortion. Looking around the United States, there is never enough welfare for the left to agree to end abortion—solidly Democratic states lead the nation in abortion rates. Even if the left gets everything else it wants, it will still insist on a right to kill developing humans in utero.In contrast, I and many others would happily compromise to end the legal killing of developing human persons in utero. Tax us more, cut the military, regulate businesses more, and expand the welfare state—we could tolerate America becoming more like 1970s Scandinavia if it meant that the left would agree let the babies live. But the left won’t, and the Guardian article shows why.

[gettothedancing]

If abortion did not result in the destruction of an innocent human being, then abortion advocates would be justified in their protestations. Pro-lifers could fairly be labeled as meddling busybodies interfering unjustly in the lives of women. But a scientifically-informed understanding of the earliest stages of human life demonstrates that pro-life advocates do in fact represent a movement that seeks to defend and protect the lives of those who cannot defend and protect themselves. This is why when abortion activists like Pollitt write columns trying to demonstrate how or why it is difficult for women to access abortion, the response should be to immediately redirect the discussion back to the abortion procedure and what it does to those unborn babies. To focus solely on the woman facing the unplanned pregnancy is to ignore the other human being whose life hangs in the balance with every abortion decision. Pollitt writes: “As long as [the abortion is] successful in the end, the difficulties along the way don’t matter. But why do we accept that women should have a hard time? Do anxiety and stress and fear not count? What about loneliness and having no support, even from the people closest to you? What about stigma and shame?” She is missing the point here, but not because the stories of women facing unplanned pregnancy are unimportant. They certainly deserve to be heard, and listening to these stories can help the pro-life movement understand how to better help women in those types of situations. But this does not mean we should condone their choice to abort their children. All the stories of all the pregnant women in the world would never be enough to justify abortion, though they should lead us to a search for possible solutions. Surely, people are going to disagree on the right course. But abortion ought not be a legal option. Unborn human beings should be afforded the same right not to be killed as born human beings. As such, the question of abortion is both a moral and a legal question. After all, the right to life is a human right, so it should be afforded to all humans.

Cullen Herout, “For Every Woman’s Abortion Story, A Baby Has One, Too” (response to Katha Pollitt’s piece in The Nation )

[chuckstiposition]

'In Benares (Baranasi), foul mouthed and incontinent Aghori ascetics wallow in ritual pollution by claiming literally to eat putrid human flesh from skulls and to sleep with menstruating prostitutes as a way of denying the reality of the everyday distinctions of this world and developing extraordinary spiritual power'

Nigel Barley - Dancing on the Grave

This sentence is quite something. Humans really are able to justify anything to themselves. Spiritual power..... sure 🤔

[howifeltabouthim]

I'm not supposed to feel this, but I do: I don't think the act was vile. I think it was necessary.

Lisa Taddeo, from Animal

[lieutenantdru]

Now, I'm not a doctor and this ain't medical advice. But.

I just think that smoking (in addition to being cool+sexy) clears your T zone, gives you a cough with a mechanical cause, dries out your mouth and lungs, changes your voice just enough that your smart speaker gives you that "I couldn't verify your voice" routine, lingers on everything you ever touched, adds interesting texture to your jeans when you brush ashes in, makes you steal lighters, makes you have to focus on how to light while driving, makes you buy tea in glass bottles that you can use as an ashtray in your car, gives you an excuse not to get back together with your ex who said they'd leave you if you started smoking again, makes your pocket friends sad...

It makes your body an inhospitable environment for any diseases to take hold. If you're already emotionally and physically dead inside, what's it gonna do? Nothing, that's what.

Anyway, that's why I feel comfortable buying a pack of Reds while wearing a face mask.

[honestheretic]

"I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday. "

--Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, 1948