By Chuck Norton
[Editor’s Note – This post is about the propaganda technique described, we are not interested in having a “gay marriage” thread and any comments trying to make it so may be deleted at the Editor’s discretion.]
The left uses the tactic seen in this video endlessly. They try to redefine and/or justify something based on a rare exception and not the pattern, the ideal or the principle. Such as, 80 million gun owners should have their guns taken away because of the actions of a few untreated schizophrenics.
How about a 60,000 page tax code to allow the government to pick winners and losers in the economy, enabling massive corruption and job killing regulations, all because “a few people are too rich”?
In the case of the video below, marriage has no ideal and cannot be about procreation or a contract to raise children well because an elderly couple who marries is unlikely to have children.
Truth is in fact a long series of sub-truths that create a narrative or “paint an accurate picture”. When many of those sub-truths are omitted the crumbs of truth that are left are manipulated to paint the desired false picture. When your child throws a ball in the house and knocks over a lamp, breaking it, and the child tells you that the lamp fell over – sure the lamp did fall over, but he is still lying by omission and deception. This is the type of lie President Obama and the the elite media use constantly to manipulate the public. Consequently, anyone who engages in such a dishonest tactic has torn up the “civility card”.
Political Arena 
The “pattern, ideal, and principle” of American society is equal rights for all, free from religious, ethnic, or sexual persecution. This is why we don’t deny women the right to vote, deny parishioners the right to worship, or deny blacks the right to marry. What you wrote is so vague that it’s almost impossible to respond to, like the video you linked to: Alan Keyes it trying so hard to make a point out of nothing that he has to constantly twist himself in circles. If he had something worth saying, I’m sure he could have said it in a more straightforward manner. He’s twisting into knots up there.
I understand what he’s saying: that marriage was intended to be between a man and a woman, and therefore if you try to marry a same-sex couple, you are then altering the meaning of the term, and it is no longer marriage. However, I think most anybody reading and viewing the video can decide for themselves that Mr. Keyes has taken an incredibly roundabout way of saying it. I think it’s evident as well that the initial post twisted itself around many, many talking points rather than sticking to the core topic.
On the other hand, your response was extremely clear and could more easily be responded to. Denying somebody the right to marry based on their sexuality is absolutely sexual persecution, and I’m not sure how you could argue otherwise. In the same way, it would be racial persecution to deny blacks the right to marry, and religious persecution to say that Christians/Muslims/et al must marry gay people according to their religious rights.
I think when we turn “the left” or “the right” into an object of scorn, we’re stifling conversation. I very much agree with certain points commonly held by both sides, but if we create a paradigm of “left stances” versus “right stances,” we’ve effectively limited ourselves to a sector.
As for Mr. Keyes’ point, the definition of words and phrases changes every day. We are not bound by old terms; our language is constantly Marriage, as it is used today, is not an institution meant solely to bear children. If anything, the world is becoming rapidly overpopulated. Nobody takes marriage as the be all end all qualifier for if they have children.
Anyways, thanks for responding, and have a good day.
************************************************************************************
Political Arena Editor responds:
Respectfully I do not believe you understand the meaning of what you are saying.
First of all no one is being denied marriage based on their sexuality. You cannot come up with a single case. It does not matter what your sexuality is, if two members of the opposite sex wish to marry than they will not be stopped for any reason based on sexuality.
You are also confused on another matter. You mentioned a “right to marry”. No one has a right to be married. Rights apply to individuals not groups. If you had a right to marry and no one would marry you than your rights would be violated. There is no right to traditional marriage so how can there be a right to any other kind of marriage? NOTE: Just because you want something it does not make it a right.
You talked about not being constrained by the definitions of words. Well congratulations, you have just rendered all agreements and contracts and laws meaningless. Today I decided that “rights” means that all of your money and assets are at my disposal to spend on myself as I see fit….after all, who the hell do you think you are to restrict me using the constraints of definitions that are objective or convenient for you?
The Constitution says that I have a right to a trial by jury, OK I define a jury as two lawyers in the CIA deliberating in secret. My definition is every bit as good as yours, and if you think otherwise it simply means that you are intolerant.
If marriage can mean anything, what if I I chose it to mean that your mom and little sister are now my concubines. Who are you to say any different? Also, if marriage is totally separate from the social institution for procreation, than I assume that you consider the massive out of wedlock childbirth among the most violent inner city communities to be a good thing. In fact, if they are totally separate as you imply, why even measure the illegitimacy rate at all as a social ill. Perhaps you should make the case that kids not having a father at home in the inner city makes no difference to our society at all nor does it have any impact one way or another on said children.
By all means educate us, but remember, you cannot use words that have any meaning, because according to you, we cannot be constrained by such things.
Thanks for reading.
Respectfully, huh?
Anyways, your response that everyone has the ability “to marry somebody of the opposite sex,” doesn’t hold up. On paper it’s a pretty good defense: we all have the same stature under the law, so nobody is being mistreated, correct? Except that we have a clear precedent for this argument, that being the allowance for two people of different races to get married, something which was at one point illegal. At that point in time the argument was “yes, everyone has the ability to get married equally. White men can marry white women, and black men can marry black women.” Everyone has the right to marry within their race.
It would appear that there is no infringement on anybody’s equality under the law, and yet it was determined that this was unjust. You may say that this is a wholly different scenario, but it is the same. I would imagine that you find interracial marriage completely acceptable, as most people do, and I find it completely baffling that a proponent of one situation would not be a proponent of another. It takes an enormous ideological blockade to not make this clear step. By now, the bottom line should be clear: two consenting adults should be able to marry, if not in the church, then by the state.
I would absolutely say that US citizens have a right to marry. You say yourself that if two people of opposite sex wish to marry, they will not be stopped for any reason based on sexuality. Sounds like a right. But lets get to your next argument, because it’s much more concrete than trying to define what an inalienable right is under the US government – I don’t suspect that either of us can spout wholesale all of the United States’ marriage legislation.
You say that rights apply to individuals and not groups. Your argument is weak here, and I can feel you struggling to justify it to yourself. A group is a collection of individuals. One gay man or woman with the right to marry becomes a group of gay men or women with the right to marry. So by its very nature a right, which you say yourself applies to individuals, must also apply to groups. What we consider absolutely fundamental human rights – the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – are you really trying to tell me that these apply only to individuals and not to groups?
And before you respond, think about what you’re saying. You’re saying, in essence, that individual people have rights, but then as soon as they clump together, say in the case of the gays, or blacks, or the NRA, or lawyers, or fishermen, then poof, their rights are gone, as if they had never even existed. It is a joke argument. You may retract it or you may try and justify it, but I think you know how difficult it would be. Because it is impossible. I have the right to due process, as does every United States citizen. Citizens of the United States. A group with rights.
About the meaning of words – you misconstrued the meaning of mine. I said only that the meanings of words change, which is indisputable. Do you mean to tell me, for instance, that the meaning of “game” has never changed? That, for instance, physical games like kicking a ball were invented in the same instant as games played on a board, and that it was immediately understood that they were both games? That “space” was always understood as an airless void? That “crabs” was always the word for miniscule mites that plague the seedier elements of human civilization? You are arguing for a static lexicon. How then are new words introduced, and new meanings?
You joke about this as if it were ridiculous, but if it is ridiculous in any way, it is ridiculously obvious. Words change. That is NOT to say, as you joke, that words can mean anything we want them to. I don’t say apple to mean orange, because it confuses people. I would say they are both fruit, because it’s the accepted vernacular. But since words do change, we now also recognize “fruit” as a slur against gays, don’t we? Words do change, though we cannot change them solely of our own singular will. Change takes time. It takes diction and slang. So when I say that words change, I do not mean we make them up to suit ourselves, individually. I cannot say red for green unless I want to sow confusion. But yes, the tides are turning, and people are beginning to recognize that marriage is the civil and/or religious union between two consenting adults. You can’t stop it, and you can’t fight it. It will not go away. Whether you like it or not, you are fighting a losing battle.
Let’s reiterate, because you’ve misconstrued me once: words are not arbitrary. They do mean something. But what they mean changes over time. The meaning of marriage has changed over time, and will continue to change. And this is why we have a judicial system, analyzing laws and determining their intent, deciding what fits in word and spirit of the law.
About my mom and little sister… I do remember you saying respectfully, but I suppose you’re willing to weaken your argument with incendiary baiting. If your argument doesn’t stand on its own, if you feel the need to goad me into misspeaking, then your argument is too weak. And when you use strawman tactics, taking what I’ve said and rewriting it so that it looks ridiculous, you’re committing a well-known logical fallacy. There’s a reason strawman is a well-known logical fallacy: because it’s used often by politicians to misdirect people from their weak arguments. It works well on stupid people.
As for educating you, I don’t feel either of us is educating the other. I will never feel the way you do, and I’m all but certain you will never feel the way I do. Such is life.
Thanks for responding.
***********
Political Arena Editor Responds:
Thanks for responding, however your answer is both illogical and racist.
First of all, to draw a moral equivalence with homosexual behavior and being black is offensive to almost very Black person I am aware of. Say what you said to the wrong black man you may find yourself punched in the nose. Aside form the fact here is no moral equivalence, there is also no logical comparison between a racial characteristic and a behavior. After drawing such racist and bogus equivalencies you dare to lecture us about straw-man arguments. Priceless.
You spoke of definitions, a marriage is a blessed union between a man and a woman, the skin color of the couple involved is completely irrelevant. They could be purple and yellow for all we care, but even if they were, it would in no way change the definition of marriage. We just looked up the definition of marriage in Black’s Law Dictionary. It hasn’t changed.
You spoke of reality, well here is some. Equal justice means just that, EQUAL. It does not mean that the law bends to your feelings of “fairness” or that it bends “just because you say so” or just because you want it to. The law in no way treats marriage different and as far as Supreme Court is concerned, that is the question they will concern themselves with. They will also decide if the courts have any jurisdiction at all in the matter and judging by the oral arguments, if so it will mean that there is no 14th Amendment equal protection issue.
Also, 6000 years of human culture and experience do not suddenly have to change because you have come along to enlighten us with your overtly racist remarks and your apples and oranges nonsensical comparisons. California voted to resist same sex marriage afforded to them by judicial fiat. We are confident that said vote will stand.
You spoke of inevitability, we have heard that how many times before? Recently we were told that Mitt Romney was the most electable and with the poor economy his win was inevitable because Obama was under 48%. History has shown that only fools buy into the conventional wisdom pushed by the elite media.
We found the following quote from you to be most entertaining. We regret having to tell you this so bluntly, but you just demonstrated that your reading comprehension is not at the
universityhigh school level:After reading this all we could do is say wow and shake our heads.
You spoke of feelings. You made so clear it is feelings that dictate what you think. For us, facts, history and reason are what guide our judgment.
Thank you for commenting.
Absolutely not. Being black and being homosexual absolutely do share moral equivalence – they’re both completely morally neutral. A man has not chosen to be born black or white, and a man has not chosen to be born gay or straight. When I was born, I did not make a conscious decision to be straight, and it has never occurred to me to be gay. Listening to gay people speak, it is much the same for them. They were born into this world gay, or rather, they realized they were gay when they hit puberty, with no choice in the matter.
Black people are not such a clear-cut group as you seem to assume. Each person is an individual, and each person has their own individual views on the subject. You act like black people are part of a tight-knit group who have banded together because of similar beliefs. But they are as disparate as any natural group. They are people, individuals. It may be true that a certain black man would punch me if I said that the fight for gay rights paralleled the right for black rights, but that black man would be bigoted, as would any white man who grew upset over hearing the same comparison. They are easily compared: a social group marginalized by the majority and the church, speaking up for their rights as citizens of the United States. Once again, you try to defame my character instead of providing rational arguments. It is a weak argument.
Black’s Law Dictionary is behind the times, as is any dictionary in the weeks or years after it is codified. It can never hope to keep up with an ever-changing cultural lexicon, but merely tries to. Now, you may say that it is still the de facto definition, but that definition can and will change as times change. That is what happens to dictionaries. That is what will happen when gay marriage is legalized and all this furor is forgotten. The people of the future will say “how were we so backwards as to oppose this?”
As for equality, yes, equal means equal. However, courts decide on what rubric to measure this. If it is decided that “marriage is a civil or religious union of two consenting adults,” then all said adults will be equal, even the two men or two women who marry each other. There is no breach of equality here, yet we might say equality is being breached if we give preferential treatment to heterosexuals. I do agree, however, that this is the question the Supreme Court should focus on: equal rights to all citizens of the United States. I wholly agree.
6000 years of human history are on your side, you say? What about homosexuality in ancient Rome, considered one of the great bastions of Western civilization? But nevermind that, because you are ignoring billions of years of nature. Homosexuality is as natural as anything. Homosexuality is not new.
Who told you that Mitt Romney would win, and why did you believe them? For that matter, who is “we”? I dislike Obama’s policy, but I never thought for a second that Mitt Romney could win. Politics is as much a popularity test as anything, and Mitt Romney talked and acted like a robot. He had no personality, and he represented corporate interests as much as any other presidential candidate. He was just much more obvious about it.
My favorite part of your response is where you again try to belittle me and my education by copying what I’ve said and repeating it wholesale, without any input on why it’s foolish. You make no claim to what you actually mean, then, and so you must be saying that groups have no rights.
You say: “No one has a right to be married. Rights apply to individuals not groups.”
As if it were sensible. Let me reiterate, and let anybody who reads these comments (however unlikely that is) decide for themselves:
Let’s say that all citizens have a right to free speech. Fishermen are citizens. All fishermen have a right to free speech. It is as simple as that. By single entities having the right to be married, so do groups. I post more than just “wow, shake my head” because I have thought about the matter. You have no deep thoughts or you’re unwilling to share them, which makes your argument null.
As for speaking with our emotions, you’ve done so in your entire response, using charged words in an attempt to discredit my arguments, without providing any logical refutations. You call me a racist before pulling a blanket-statement over the entire population of US blacks. You say that marriage is a “blessed union,” even though a separation of church and state means that there should be nothing blessed about any event that gives tax breaks. You insult my education without providing any reason or logic of your own.
Keep shaking your head, if you’d like. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, and it would behoove you not to try and pull the wool over the eyes of your readership. They deserve better.
Thanks for responding.
************************************************************************************************************
Political Arena Editor Responds: