The Myth of Liberal “Intolerance”

A couple of nights ago, some transphobe made a comment on my blog under Transphobics get busted by crime victim they tried to take advantage of.

I rejected it for the filth that it was, but I made a screenshot of it in order to make an example of it.

Transphobe commenting

What an idiot!

First, transgendered people are not trying to be shocking or scary towards anyone; they just want to live their lives without being a target of others’ hate. It is the transphobes who choose to react with hostility to the open existence of transgendered people. If there was no hostility, what would be the problem?

Second, who the hell made this guy an expert on mental illnesses? Most psychologists decades ago classified homosexuality as a mental illness, but they eventually stopped doing that once it became clear that the mental disorder that supposedly caused homosexuality could not be clearly defined and treated. The same may well be true of the transgendered condition. If being homosexual or being transgendered are not themselves harmful, why call them illnesses at all?

Third, if people’s rights are being violated, it does not matter if it is 50% (women) or less than 1% (transgendered). This looks like the reverse of the popularity fallacy, in which there being very few of a non-privileged group somehow justifies discriminating against them. If 100 transgendered people had been exterminated by the Nazis during World War II instead of six million Jews, it still would have been a horrible thing for them to do.

How nice of the asshole to use the slur for transgendered people that is the same as “nigger” for African-Americans!

I am a champion of tolerance for gays, lesbians, and transgendered people. Ironically, that means I have to be INTOLERANT of conservatives who express bigotry towards those types of people. Does this mean I am a bigot towards conservatives? Of course not!

The concept of bigotry towards someone’s OPINIONS is nonsense. When conservatives accuse their liberal opponents of bigotry towards them, that is merely a silencing tactic. It is the same sort of arrogance that leads to them referring to the “regressive left”. A pathological liar named Jonah Goldberg even wrote a book as right-wing propaganda titled “Liberal Fascism” based on that lame fallacy.

Liberal_Fascism_(cover)

To explain the concept of false bigotry a little more clearly, consider this analogy: “Men fear that women may laugh at them for not being manly, while women fear that men may beat them nearly to death for not being ladylike.” Trust me, being publicly ridiculed for one’s bigotry is nothing compared to being MURDERED for being gay, transgendered or even being in the wrong place at the wrong time if you are black in a mostly white neighborhood and get confronted by a cop or some vigilante with a gun.

SO GROW THE FUCK UP, CONSERVATIVES! I am having NONE of your shit anymore!

Another (and much better) Presidential race!

After the absolute disaster that was last year’s Presidential election for the United States, and then watching the madness and chaos that is President Trump’s administration since he took office, I am beginning to worry that our country may be sliding down to ruin like the Roman Empire did.

And yet this year another Presidential race is going on right now. And I am unable to decide which candidate would be best for the job, because all of them seemed highly qualified. This is for the Unitarian Universalist Association, the organization for the religion I belong to! Continue reading

Transphobics get busted by crime victim they tried to take advantage of.

I’m against all forms of bigotry, which is simply judging all members of one group as if they all have the same moral failings instead of judging human beings strictly as individuals. I do not assume all Muslims are terrorists, that all women deserve to be sex slaves to their husbands, or that all French people are alcoholics.

Recently, various states in the United States have either tried to pass laws allowing discrimination against transgendered people or tried to repeal laws prohibiting discrimination against them. The rationale behind such absurdities is that all transgendered women are actually still men pretending to be women so they can attack and rape women and girls in bathroom stalls. Where they get that crazy idea from is anyone’s guess, but it actually encourages hatred against all who happen to be transgendered, often making THEM targets of violence. Quite simply, people need to stop equating sexual deviancy with immorality. Just because someone is homosexual or transsexual does not mean they are inclined to violate the personal autonomy of anyone else.

Now someone who was abused TWICE, first by an actual criminal and then by opportunistic transphobes, has decided to fight back against both types of bastards.

Continue reading

Responding to The Future of Freedom Foundation

Freedom is a precious thing, but the best way to promote it is to take all facts into account, not merely the ones that make your cause or extreme positions look good. That’s cherry picking, a classic tactic of denialism and thus dishonesty.

Check out this statement on the The Future of Freedom Foundation website. It will be in red and my responses will be in blue.
http://www.fff.org/about/
Our nation was founded on the principles of individual freedom, free markets, private property, and limited government. As the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution reflect, people have the natural and God-given rights to live their lives any way they choose, so long as their conduct is peaceful. It is the duty of government to protect, not destroy or infringe upon, these inherent and inalienable rights.
Note that the Articles of Confederation are not mentioned. This was the first actual Constitution of the United States and was based on pure “libertarian” ideals (then known as “classical liberalism”).  But reality eventually proved the Articles unable to maintain order in the USA. Government that is too limited leads to anarchy, which benefits only would-be tyrants that flourish in a society where they can engage in abuse of others and not fear punishment. Eventually, a tyrant may become popular enough to impose his own law on the society, resulting in despotism. But despotism and anarchy have no provisions for human rights. Only a government can protect them. And if rights are given by God (who is by nature an absolute monarch), they can also be taken away, making the concept meaningless. And rights cannot be natural because animals do not have any, as their behavior shows. Only humans have rights among themselves and those rights only exist when they are recognized by both governments and the people.
For well over a century, the American people said “no” to such things as income taxation, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, public schooling, economic regulations, immigration controls, drug laws, gun control, paper money, the Federal Reserve, overseas empire, militarism, entangling alliances, and foreign wars. Despite the tragic exception of slavery, the result was the most prosperous, healthy, literate, and compassionate society in history.

Wrong! The people did not say no to income taxation, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, public schooling, economic regulations, immigration controls, drug laws, gun control, paper money, the Federal Reserve, overseas empire, militarism, entangling alliances, and foreign wars.  Many of these were simply not political issues at all until the 20th Century, the public schooling was done as early as the mid-19th Century, and the first of the foreign wars was the Mexican War of 1846-1848. Slavery was not merely a “tragic exception” (what an insult to the descendants of those slaves); it was a basic part of American society and thus proving that America was not at all the libertarian paradise being implied here. Slavery was ended by federal government force as a result of the Civil War (a denial of property rights of the slaves’ owners) , and more federal government force was eventually required to end the institutional racism that remained in the Southern states. The proliferation of bureaucracies resulted from the people demanding more and more services from their government, which must be paid for.
In the 20th century, however, America moved in the opposite direction—in the direction of socialism, interventionism, and imperialism. The result has been massive infringements on our economic liberty, civil liberties, gun rights, and privacy, along with out-of-control federal spending, debt, and inflation, all of which have reduced our prosperity, damaged our families, and weakened our sense of morality, self-reliance, and voluntary charity.
Again, only because the people have demanded certain things to improve their lives and then we become dependent on them. An example would be the interstate highway system. Without that, trade, tourism, and other matters relating to commerce would be far more difficult and would thus limit our economic growth. And the very reason government welfare programs were established was because with welfare being only voluntary, people still starved. People simply are not generous enough to provide for the needs of all without government intervention and force. If they were, we would not have so many billionaires in America, along with so many that are impoverished, even with government helping the poor. So that statement above is simply absurd!
The time has come for the American people to lead the world out of the statist morass in which it has plunged. The time has come to restore libertarian principles to our land. It is to that end that The Future of Freedom Foundation is dedicated.
We never had the kind of freedom they are calling for, and we likely never will. What they may really be saying is that we need to use force to overthrow the government and have libertarian extremists take over and run it their way – which would negate their entire premise of promoting freedom. If the people WANT an authoritarian government and elect one, via a free and fair democratic process, it is the height of arrogance for anyone in the name of “liberty” to say that is unacceptable.

Why more people should join the Unitarian Universalists

symbol_gradient

A symbol of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

First, take a look at this video:

For more details, see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

Over 30,000 divisions?! Remember this warning from Jesus himself: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” (Matthew 12:25) If his word is true, then the Church is useless. It has been divided against itself since at least 1054 AD, when there was a schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The leaders of the two factions actually excommunicated each other!

Continue reading

My words are going VIRAL!

When I started this blog about a decade ago, I always hoped it would be a useful reference for people seeking credible arguments about science, religion, politics, and other social issues, backed with a consistent ethical standard. Little did I know just how far my words would travel!

Recently, other bloggers that are critics of the Baha’i Faith have begin taking my words and directly posting them onto their own blogs and even on one video on YouTube, much to my astonishment.

First the video, based on Four Ways to Create a Religion of Hypocrites

Which also appears here:  http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2016/12/4-ways-to-create-religion-of-hypocrites.html

The original blog entry was copied here:  http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2015/07/four-ways-to-create-religion-of.html

That same blog also reposted several other blog entries of mine:

http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2010/07/fatal-flaw-in-bahai-authority.html

http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2011/10/universal-house-of-international.html

http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2015/07/equality-of-sexes-not-in-bahai-faith.html

http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2015/10/bahai-scandals.html

http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-i-abandoned-haifan-bahai-faith.html

http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2016/04/dale-husbands-battle-on-amazon-with.html

When it comes to faithfulness and accuracy in quoting my writings, ‘s blog is indeed the best. Others, not so much.

Here are other examples of blog entries elsewhere that got it right, mostly:

https://thebahaiinsider.com/2017/03/05/why-i-abandoned-the-haifan-bahai-faith-extract-from-dale-husbands-blog/

https://thebahaiinsider.com/2015/11/02/some-interesting-bahai-scandals/

http://en.bahairesearch.org/article/independent-investigation-truth-baha%E2%80%99i-case-hypocrisy

http://en.bahairesearch.org/article/fatal-flaw-baha%E2%80%99i-authority

http://en.bahairesearch.org/article/why-i-abandoned-haifan-baha%E2%80%99i-faith

Another blogger, Ed Darrell, referred to one of my early statements on climate change, which is an even bigger issue to me than the Baha’i Faith:

https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/astounding-manipulation-of-data-from-the-climate-denialists/

Which actually came from here:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/damning-evidence-of-fraud-by-nils-axel-morner/

And loooooong before any of that, one of my oldest online friends referred to my blog here:

https://dovaryeh.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/fundamentalism-second-take/

Which came from here:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/religious-fundamentalism-is-blasphemy/

Earlier, he made this:  https://dovaryeh.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/science-can-it-dictate-ethics/

Which referred to this: https://dalehusband.com/2007/07/21/three-opponents-three-different-results/

Which is also more important in some ways than criticizing the Baha’i Faith.