[Discussion] Count Chocula.

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[Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Starting at this post, the thread in question degenerates into a series of idiotic hateful screeds displaying a massive Wall of Ignorance:

I have no problems with same-sex or transgendered couples having the same legal rights as married men and women; I see no reason why Joe and Jim or Gen and Jane should not be able to share leases, mortgages, bank accounts, inheritances, or health benefits in the exact same way that married couples do. However, I believe that those rights should be civil rights. The notion and reality of marriage through history has been a contract between man and woman (supported by religion, make of that what you will), usually though not always with the object of promoting offspring. Marriage has historically been a religious and civil ceremony designed to acknowledge and promote families. And I feel the word "marriage" should be reserved for the union between man and woman.
Most importantly here he includes transgendered people in his definition of legal rights as men and women--this is particularly odious, because it shows he wants to ban something which is currently legal in every single state except for Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, and Ohio; 45 against 5, and in a lot of the rest of the world too, which is heterosexual marriage between a postoperative transwoman and a man. He clearly thinks this is unacceptable even though it falls within his own definition of "marriage is between a man and a woman" -- since of course he doesn't propose banning marriages between, say, castrated men and women, or men and women with high testosterone levels or ovarian cysts who are sterile, etc, etc, all these other combinations of reproductive defects which prevent a couple from having children. So there's a clear bigotry involved in the statement which, ironically, destroys his own consistency in addition to the "consistency" being an irrational demand.

But of course he continues;

In particular, I want everyone to look at this post.
Upon further contemplation of the word "marriage," in my mind it really boils down to one basic premise: if you're going to have children, the best environment to raise children is in a family, with a mother and father, stability and structure. The legal rights and prerogatives that accompany marriage are designed to encourage the traditional Mom-Dad-kids family structure. The dominant cultural associations with marriage include a man, woman and usually children. Frankly, I don't see the harm in this association if heterosexuals and homosexuals have the same legal rights as couples but use different terms to distinguish their relations. The difference in relations is already implicit in the different choice of partners; vive la difference! Use a different phrase to define your relationship.

In this post, we can see that he slyly tries to justify his position of marginalizing homosexual couples as second-class citizens, because though he says he has no problem with the legal rights, he also says: "the dominant cultural associations with marriage include a man, woman, and usually children." I.E., he wants to preserve the usage of the word marriage for heterosexuals to preserve the dominant cultural associations--in otherwords, to preserve oppression and separation against homosexual couples. This is a classic segregationist argument.

It's also a personally deeply offensive one, as he implies that in two arbitrary categories (I'm bisexual so I easily could end up marrying a girl someday) I, for example, am an inferior citizen, and less suited to be a parent (and I certainly will be, given the chance; there are many children in the world to be rescued through adoption) than, say, a smoker (of course, he is one--he doesn't mind giving his kids cancer, but we can't let them catch the gay!), a drug user, a convicted paedophile, a murderer, an obese fathead, a retard, the impoverished who don't have enough money to keep their kids from being horribly malnourished, etc, etc. All of these people who are objectively far, far worse than a pair of gay/lesbian parents who are more likely than average to be successful and prosperous, are somehow better for their kids, in some magic way, than having two mommies or daddies. And indeed, the male/female structure may be ideal, but by denying the male/male or female/female structure any legitimacy at all he is declaring that the male/female structure is inherently better, even if when it involves deadbeats, drug users, cigarette addicts, abusive parents, felons, and countless other examples of abhorrent and deviant behaviour which can enormously harm the lives of children, or even kill them or give them health problems for life.

That, is unquestionably bigotry, and bigotry defended by a wall of ignorance, no less. And that is something worth discussing here.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by Bounty »

I strongly disagree with Chocula but you are overreacting badly here. If Chocula breaks debating rules, if he refuses to respond to challenges for evidence, by all means savage him for it. But I don't understand what you're trying to achieve by coming in here and presenting what I can only call a gross exaggeration of his position sprinkled with a litany of imaginary accusations (paedophilia, really?).
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Bounty wrote:I strongly disagree with Chocula but you are overreacting badly here. If Chocula breaks debating rules, if he refuses to respond to challenges for evidence, by all means savage him for it. But I don't understand what you're trying to achieve by coming in here and presenting what I can only call a gross exaggeration of his position sprinkled with a litany of imaginary accusations (paedophilia, really?).
It is legal for a paedophile to marry a woman in the United States, so you're clearly misunderstanding the point. This is no gross exagerration. That is a fact.

Also I didn't call for punishment, if you notice, I just think the whole thing warranted a discussion; I don't see how this is a massive overreaction at all. It's just that his debating behaviour and evident bigotry are warranted for some discussion.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by Darth Wong »

I'm pretty sure he won't respond to most of the points raised against him in that thread.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

It was actually Surlethe, in that thread, who first made that point, BTW:
You're trying to elevate "associations" to "definition". I suppose that because Republicans are associated with Limbaugh, the Republican party should be defined as holding beliefs equal to Limbaugh? Or because libertarians are associated with Ayn Rand, all libertarians are Randroids? Why should the fact that marriage is associated with "man, woman, child" mean that marriage is exclusively defined as a man and a woman? If the institution of marriage is purposed toward the stability and propagation of the ideal traditional family, why don't we exclude smokers or drug addicts or pedophiles? How will including stable gay couples under the umbrella of "marriage" harm the goal of promoting traditional marriage - after all, if they're not allowed to "marry", it's not like they'll turn straight.
I love how I always get blamed for things by people too inattentive to read the original thread.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Darth Wong wrote:I'm pretty sure he won't respond to most of the points raised against him in that thread.
No, he won't, and that's the problem. Conceding that he just feels that way out of a totally irrational knee-jerk sentiment would be quite enough and nobody would hold it against him if he continued to privately hold that sentiment anyway. But instead he keeps trying to justify himself against all reason and sanity, and that's where the problem comes in.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by The Yosemite Bear »

also I added my own dissection of the "Unraveling the Fabric of Society" bull shit.

scary part is that from the point of view of those who are so vocal, particularly the mormons, some catholic organizations, and american fundamentalists, it really would be the unraveling of their society, not being able to persecute or assail a minority group they dispise without fear of recrimination, children questioning thier authority. etc.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by Coyote »

So, this is about some sort of censure measure? A title or privilege loss, some sort of sanction for being a... sexist bigot, or something?

I just want to make sure, because we have a custom title for people who are racist; and I suppose if CC were spouting off stuff about, I don't know... Blacks and "the Bell Curve" or Jews and controlling media & banks, we'd have something to gauge by.

Is this being a bigot, or is it just having a opinion that's unpopular and not well thought-out?
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Coyote wrote:So, this is about some sort of censure measure? A title or privilege loss, some sort of sanction for being a... sexist bigot, or something?

I just want to make sure, because we have a custom title for people who are racist; and I suppose if CC were spouting off stuff about, I don't know... Blacks and "the Bell Curve" or Jews and controlling media & banks, we'd have something to gauge by.

Is this being a bigot, or is it just having a opinion that's unpopular and not well thought-out?

It's about someone who has consistently shown a wall of ignorance. I'll post more examples later tonight in a more systematic way; this isn't the only time he's done it.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by RedImperator »

I think the issue here is that he's not addressing points made against him, which is against the rules no matter what position you hold.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by GrandMasterTerwynn »

Coyote wrote:So, this is about some sort of censure measure? A title or privilege loss, some sort of sanction for being a... sexist bigot, or something?

I just want to make sure, because we have a custom title for people who are racist; and I suppose if CC were spouting off stuff about, I don't know... Blacks and "the Bell Curve" or Jews and controlling media & banks, we'd have something to gauge by.

Is this being a bigot, or is it just having a opinion that's unpopular and not well thought-out?
If he's guilty of anything, it'd likely be violations of DR5 and DR6. His debating style is "throw out GOP talking points and, when pressed, link to conservative blogs; and when told that aforementioned blogs are full of shit, run like hell. Rinse, repeat." It's not so much that he holds an odious opinion, it's that he apparently refuses to put any thought into it and hides behind a wall of ignorance.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by Thanas »

He has been known to concede in the past when pressured on it, though. I know that from personal experience.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Since Chocula has been encouraged to actually go back to the thread and answer points, I'll say this thread has served its purpose for the moment and move to have the discussion tabled. There's no vendetta here, just an expectation that he actually play by the rules--you either answer points, or concede.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by Bounty »

There's no vendetta here, just an expectation that he actually play by the rules--you either answer points, or concede.
That was not what you said in your opening post. You initially pointed out his wall of ignorance as a exacerbating his bigotry, not as the main cause for your complaint.
I love how I always get blamed for things by people too inattentive to read the original thread.
Surlethe made an argument. You are the one who took that (valid!) argument, exaggerated it beyond recognition, and then strongly implied it is an exact rendition of the position Chocula holds, rather than an extrapolation of that position of which you have zero proof that he actually ascribes to it; and considering his latest post, where he openly states he doesn't hold his position for any rational reason, I find it extremely unlikely that he would actually support the idea that a stable gay couple is worse at parenting than a dysfunctional heterosexual one.

In short, it looks to me like you have an axe to grind with Chocula. That's perfectly understandable considering the subject matter and his position, but I do not believe it's an excuse to drag the debate into another forum based on false pretences.
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Re: [Discussion] Count Chocula.

Post by CmdrWilkens »

Well the complaint has been withdrawn, if a situation arises in the future bring it up but in the meantime this thread serves no further purpose.
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