its_the_minds

home

low info info

Why should dark complected-
individuals be given full
citizenship, women be given the
vote and NOT gays be "given"
marriage?

          1830
Daniel Webster refutes a
southern senator's reasoning
about the right of secession:

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look
beyond the Union, to see what might
be hidden in the dark recess behind. I
have not coolly weighed the chances
of preserving liberty when the bonds
that unite us together shall be broken
asunder. I have not accustomed myself
to hang over the precipice of disunion,
to see whether, with my short sight, I
can fathom the depth of the abyss
below; nor could I regard him as a safe
counselor in the affairs in this
government whose thoughts should be
mainly bent on considering, not how
the Union may be best preserved but
how tolerable might be the condition of
the people when it should be broken
up and destroyed. While the Union
lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying
prospects spread out before us, for us
and our children. Beyond that I seek
not to penetrate the veil.
God grant that in my day, at least, that
curtain may not rise! God grant that on
my vision never may be opened what
lies behind! When my eyes shall be
turned to behold for the last time the
sun in heaven, may I not see him
shining on the broken and dishonored
fragments of a once glorious Union; on
states dissevered, discordant,
belligerent; on a land rent with civil
feuds, or drenched, it may be, in
fraternal blood! Let their last feeble
and lingering glance rather behold the
gorgeous ensign of the republic, now
known and honored throughout the
earth, still full high advanced, its arms
and trophies streaming in their original
luster, not a stripe erased or polluted,
nor a single star obscured, bearing for
its motto, no such miserable
interrogatory as "What is all this
worth?" nor those other words of
delusion and folly, "Liberty first and
Union afterwards"; but everywhere,
spread all over in characters of living
light, blazing on all its ample folds, as
they float over the sea and over the
land, and in every wind under the
whole heavens, that other sentiment,
dear to every true American heart—
Liberty and Union, now and forever,
one and inseparable!

                  1920
Guy Emerson in The New
Frontier: A Study of the
American Liberal Spirit... (Henry
Holt and Co., )

"...men and women are born to put
more into their country than they take
out of it." (The copy of the book in the
Kennedy Library was a gift to the
President received at the White House
in April, 1961).

                   1960
John Kennedy accepting
Democratic nomination

"It sums up not what I intend to offer
the American People, but what I intend
to ask of them."

            2008
Lots of people:
"No More Mister Nice Gay!"

It seems that people can vehemently
disagree even when they agree,
because they put different weights on
the same agreed-upon facts. Another
thing is definitions. Great debates and
weighty matters vanish and materialize
as definitions vary.
Marriage is all about definition. A man
and wife remaining together long
enough to raise a child to adulthood,
because of psychological as well as
physical factors, is not a given.
Waking up each day knowing what
being married means to one's spouse,
family, friends, co-workers, social
group, municipal group, state, nation,
continent, hemisphere and planet goes
a long way toward stabilizing this
situation both for the benefit of most
children and therefore for the benefit
of society (everyone, in other words) in
addition to the satisfaction and peace
of mind of the couple in question.
This type of beneficial "object", existing
in no physical manifestation other than
some poorly understood
"configuration" of the little gray cells,
perhaps, of hundreds of millions of
humans, is the crux of the matter: its
traditional meaning-- a partnership
stemming from the possibility that a
new human will be created unique to
this pairing, as well as a new and also
unique group (a microcosm and
component of the larger society).
What all this represents in the
formation and maintenance of a
civilization, and the FOUNDATIONAL
nature of the clear understanding by
everyone that this unique organism
must be acknowledged and respected
in and of itself, and that a concept of
"congress nor the courts shall hinder
the formation and continuance of
these small and precious subgroups"
(How? By making nitpicking but
onerous tweaks in the simple and well
accepted traditional definition for any
reason, including but not limited to
promoting lovers' hospital visitation
rights, alleviating inadvertent inequities
in the tax system, showing respect to
and building the self esteem of other
pairings of humans, EVEN FOR THE
PURPOSE OF MAKING
REPARATIONS FOR SLIGHTS AND
OPPRESSIONS VISITED BY THE
SOCIETY ON THESE OTHER
PAIRINGS IN THE PAST) should be a
no-brainer to those not so in love with
legal briefs and technical speak as to
be functionally addled.
Tweak, if you must, definitions, rules,
precedent interpretations in tort law,
contract law, etc., but don't mess with
this fundamental human agreement!
Don't tread on me is a rallying cry and
challenge from a past unifying effort,
and it could well be taken up by the
supporters of traditionally understood
marriage against those whose do-
gooder impulses impairs their common
sense.

man’s chief environment is man

imagine zooming in from off planet:
you see all these buildings and great
walls etc. now imagine that a psionic
blast just destroyed all human minds
on the planet.
imagine what structures will be
viewable 1000 years from now, 10000
years... if you just zapped the
structures, though, and left the human
minds, how fast would they reappear.
It’s the MINDS, Dearie!