Point for point rebuttal of So-called liberal satire

Ive seen this satire going around a bit on facebook, and I wanted to point out the inconsistencies and/or bad thinking: in depth. It doesn’t get off for being stupid just because it’s tongue in cheek, so don’t even think about going there.

Top 17 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong

17. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

I don’t think anyone worth listening to would suggest that society hasn’t been founded on the relationships that exist between men and women, and the offspring that comes from those unions. In reality, there would be no civilization without an organized way to do this. If we took cars, or any of these other things away, I don’t think we could see such a profound change as negation. The satire here conveniently ignores that gay marriage, conceptually, really is diametrically opposed to the foundations of life. Maybe this would make some sense if the joke revolved around how marriage isn’t really any kind of foundation, but then no one would be able to take it seriously, or funniy.

16. Gay culture is a new fad created by the liberal media to undermine long-standing traditions. We know this is true because gay sex did not exist in ancient Greece and Rome.

Yeah, rome and greece are the picture of functional, compassionate society, aren’t they? The funniest thing about this is that it is written in defense of a social move to subvert traditional definitions… uhm,,,, regardless of which side of the fight you’re on in this, undermining *is* what is happening… So.. denying that it is…. is pretty much the stupidest thing you can say about it. Good example of so-called liberals trying to be slippery.

15. There are plenty of straight families looking to adopt, and every unwanted child already has a loving family. This is why foster care does not exist.

? Anyone can adopt….? I think i missed whatever this is trying to say?

14. Conservatives know best how to create strong families. That is why it is not true that Texas and Mississippi have the highest teen birthrates, and Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire have the lowest. This is a myth spread by the liberal media.

Something wrong with pregnancy? Look, I know you’re gay, but try to understand: People that actually classify as reproducing life forms have babies. Besides that, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire have lower young birthrates because they, you know…. are more prone to terminate the pregnancy with knives. Always a good sign of functioning families.

13. Marriage is a religious institution, defined by churches. This is why atheists do not marry. Christians also never get a divorce.

Yeah….. Church recognized marriage has literally nothing to do with civil marriage, which is the only thing you could be having a problem with, seeing as how having a gay marriage ceremony in a church isn’t illegal. And while we’re on the subject, gay marriage isn’t “illegal”, dumb-asses, there’s no penalty for it. It simply isn’t assigned a legal definition and standing.

12. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why our society has no single parents.

Actually, the conservative position has to do with Ideal environments, not exclusive ones. Again, single parents struggle, they are not the picture of functionality, and This is generally attributed by experts to the high cycle of crime in black communities. This….. isn’t new, Im sure you’ve heard of this before, unless you’ve been living under a rock.

11. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

Our founding documents, on the other hand, are intensely theistic. ready to rip them up? yeah, I bet you are.

10. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

Actually, the point is that gay parents raise more *promiscuous* children: which is, actually, backed by studies. I don’t know where so-called liberals got this idea that conservatives are anti-gay above all other things. We against OTHER bad things, too.

9. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

I know it’s hard for you to understand, libs, but conservatives don’t believe that government controls everything. Our version of social engineering isn’t to pass laws to make things invalid, it’s to *encourage* certain behaviors over others by incentivizing them. Try to put that frame of mind on, and stop acting like the goal is to control everything.

8. Gay marriage should be decided by the people and their elected representatives, not the courts. The framers checked the courts, which represent mainstream public opinion, with legislatures created to protect the rights of minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Interference by courts in this matter is inappropriate, just as it has been every time the courts have tried to hold back legislatures pushing for civil rights.

Uhm….. Yeah, you need to show that something unconstitutional is happening if you want the courts to do something….. problem with doing that?

7. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

Uhm, yes, broader definitions of marriage mean less meaning. The fact that britany spears is crazy… well, I refer you back to the “conservatives dont want to control people” idea.

6. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because “separate but equal” institutions are a good way to satisfy the demands of uppity minority groups.

*shrug* If you can’t tell that there’s an actually different between homosexuality and heterosexuality, then you need to look harder. homosexuality does not equal heterosexuality, in a principal way. Black man DOES equal White man, in a principal way.

5. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

it really hasn’t changed much. we still put round pegs into the round holes.

4. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Liberals really are prats. How about minors? Groups? Yeah. They can sign legal documents. Doesn’t that create a problem?

3. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

Promiscuous. I know you like to fit conservatives into a nice little box, but there’s more depth to us than “we hate the gays”

2. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

At least you’re admitting that homosexuality is manufactured.

1. METEORS and VOLCANOES.

? Substance, please.

This is such shite.

Liberals really need to pull their heads out.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/race-for-whitehouse/the-long-search-for-kennedys-successor-1451327.html

This is about on par with Caroline Kennedy saying that she’s a Roosevelt Democrat, a Truman Democrat, a Kennedy Democrat, a Clinton Democrat, an Obama Democrat.

I listen to people talking like this, and they give me the intense impression that they don’t know what they are saying

For instance:

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shank from this responsibility – I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. “

Not bad, huh? Kennedy, for the dum-dums

“Generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties–it says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

Guess who? That’s right. Taken from a 2001 public radio transcript, an interview with Our New President that is about to be sworn in, in a matter of hours. See the inherent difference? It’s like, you know. uhhhhhhhhh- the opposite.

My personal favorite from the article:

“No Democrat since Kennedy has rekindled the hipster flame like Barack Obama.”

The democratic party suffers from the same things the church does: looking at things through magical happy jesus emotion glasses.

It ceased being funny 50% of the vote ago.

Prince Caspian; reviewed by a fan

For those that don’t know, I’m a huge Narnia fan. Here is my opinion of the new film. There are definately spoilers.

The film is not a let down; The film doesn’t suck, which is a real relief.

But it does fail, and pretty consistently, throughout.

Opening in Narnia is weird. There are only twoof seven books that do this in the series, one is the final installment, and the purpose, as I see it, is to experience the arrival of the Friends from the perspective of a Narnian king in prayer. The other, in a story where none of the principle characters are from earth.

Instead, this film opens mid-plot in Narnia, for,… well, no good reason. Caspian’s flight from the castle may indeed be a center piece for the drama in the film, but not to such a degree that the audience can be thrust into it without any background.

The reasons that this is bad:

~ No one understands what it going on unless they know the book

~ Caspian doesnt really understand what is going on

Further Ramifications of these things

~ Caspian blows the horn in the opening sequence, for no good reason (rather than as a matter of great debate)

~ Trumpkin is captured immediately by the military presence that prompts said horn blowing

~ There’s no way that Trumpkin could have known who caspian was, or what he was doing

~ There is no space for Trumpkin’s cynicism to develop, at all (consequently, no one understands why he gets roared at, including himself)

~When Trumpkin meets the Friends of Narnia, he’s supposed to get them up to date on what’s been happening. Except he doesnt know anything about Prince Caspian— it was certainly a surprise to Trufflehunter and Nikabrick that this was who was staying in their hole in the ground.– how much more so for a cynic like Trumpkin? So how is it that peter knows anything about what’s going on when he runs into Caspian, “I believe you called”, etc. He should know nothing.

How people make millions of dollars to make films and this kind of BS slips through is completely beyond my understanding.

Now, I’m not a huge stickler for adaptations keeping to the letter of the source material, and I’m a big proponent of, well, principally, the kind of awesome adaptation that we saw in 1994 when Branagh imagined Frankenstein, mostly because it was smartly adapted.

Smart adaptation is the key, not accurate adaptation. You are recreating spirit, not the reality of the book into images (not always, anyway)

Now, that said, the changes made in the adaptation of Prince Caspian were not done in the spirit of the book, they were done to create moods and tension, and pacing, that was never present. While this isn’t bad in and of itself, they were done in ways that left big gaping holes in the plot and characters. unacceptable.

Peter is a good leader, but is actually really terrible at it.  Caspian is a follower of the old ways, but is pretty enraptured at the idea of using evil.  Caspian is noble, but doesn’t fight in the single combat to save Narnia, even though he’s not wounded like he’s supposed to be…. Nikabrick, well, we saw so little of him that I have to write a sentence about nothing just to bring him up. Susan hates being in Narnia, but loves it.

Again, all this would be fine, if the book was about contradictions, which it isn’t.

I totally disregard this idea that “Well, it’s not a cinematic book, they had to change it a lot”

That’s a total load of crap. Any topic can be delivered cinematically. But it will be that topic, not something else.

The first few chapters of the book of Prince capsian are filled with an odd mix of adventure and mystery. How did they get here? Where is here? How could this possibly be narnia? What on earth are we doing here? et al. Point is, there are plenty of things to focus on in the source material, and a person writing a good adaptation would take all of these elements from the source, and condense them into compact, efficient scenes that would hail the souls out of the viewers, and inundate them with what knowledge the visual medium can allow for. IF you need to change things to make it so compact, then do it in the knowledge that things must flow, and must make sense, and must be… you know, believable.

Glossing over the central themes of the source material so that you can devote an extra 20 minutes to action sequences is a nice way to make a bad film.

The problem is not so chronic, though. Just a thick cough. .. and even though I would like the source material to be adapted as well as it can be to the visual medium, I would rather have the filmmakers stick to the letter of the novels if they are unable to keep it logical, and in the spirit. of the text. and otherwise.

Also, Last battle won’t work without an R rating. This barely did, I need to see some blood. Reep was great, in spite of all, though he should have been insane. Edmund rocked, I cant wait to see him in Dawn Treader. I hope they keep the Regina Specktor out until the credits roll next time, not at all would be even better, though. Not because she’s so terrible, because she isn’t, but because its completely inappropriate to get whiny guttural lyrics in the middle of my fantasy opera. What is this, a disney flick?

My vote, B+, for changing crap around for no reason and making everything make less sense. I gave LWW an A-, basically for not giving peter any kind of backbone.

That’s about all I’ve got at the moment.

Trailer Mashing.

Often worthwhile.

Miniguns abound.

The silence often of pure innocence pursuades when speaking fails.

Doesn’t really work on the interwebs, though.

Acre Fields fell apart just before the new year, for a variety of intangible reasons.  Someday, soon, there’ll be a lot of new, best on my word.

Apologies to those who have been affected by the destructive collapse of AF.

Look to the east, soon, for Astrolabe Dimensions.

Driscoll, again.

Having looked a bit more into him

There’s a lot of reasons to dislike Mark Driscoll, or at least not care too much about what he says: but Im pretty sure that I like him a lot:

“We built this church going after young, single, non christian, perverted, educated, technological men”