Evil? Now, perhaps. Later? Not so much.

[KitemanSA]

And stealing? You could do what you liked to the other tribes. If you dared. "Universal" morality is a new thing. Well except for the Jews who had that tradition going on for about 2500 years. Before that they were pretty much like the rest.

Just as a point of clarification, when was it that the Jews stopped saying in effect "you can charge usery to the goyim but not to the people"?

I believe that is false information. I studied the Talmud on the matter and never found anything like that. Besides charging interest was a great innovation for a money economy. Before that interest went like this: you pledged your cattle as collateral which the lender kept and his profit was in kind. i.e. any animals born while the lender held them. That was in the Talmud. Of course the Talmud recorded all kinds of opinions on any given subject. So there may have been the opinions you "cite" but they were not generally followed. They were outliers.

In fact the church held on to the old rules and kept the vast majority of its subjects in poverty because money was kept buried in the yard or under the mattress. People couldn't lend it at a profit. The Jews made out like bandits because they had no competition for 1500 or 1800 years. Don't blame it on the Jews when it was the church that did it.

Well, it is true that I have never actually read a Talmud, I have olny looked thru the Old Testament, and who knows what has been changed since the Council of Nicaea adopted those books. But I did a search using "BibleGateway" (IIRC) regarding usury and found that basic statement in one of the OT books.

The idiocy with the "church" was based on that passage.

And I am not "blaming the Jews", I just was wondering when they got smart! (Yeah, I know, they always were...)

[MSimon]

The war on people in pain:

viewtopic.php?t=3452

[Diogenes]

Diogenes, I'm just guessing here, but I'm doubting you watched the films you listed above. If you did you'd realize in Towelhead, the adult was arrested and was NOT a sympathetic character. You'd also note that in Birth, there was no sex between a child and an adult, just a creepy story of reincarnation. Woodsman was about a child molester who was attempting to start anew. He has a very serious mental disease and was more about seeking rehabilitation than about child molestation. Furthermore, these were not at all released in the same year, but were 2004, 2005, and 2007. I don't mind you arguing a point, but at least use reliable information when doing so.

My methodology is fairly consistent. I take the headlines from the web page I link, I take the picture(s), and I take a quote. I add a link to the page at the bottom of such posts. Strange as it may seem, the author of the article used those three pictures, but provided only one picture from one of the movies in the quote I posted. The movies he referenced in that quote were " Doubt", "Towelhead" and "The Reader."

In any case, your comment misses the point of the post, which is: Hollywood is creating content that "normalizes" this behavior. Again, I point out the title of the thread: "Evil? Now, perhaps. Later? Not so much."

This thread was created to demonstrate that over time social pressure will move people's opinions towards tolerance of more and more behavior that is currently considered evil and debauched. People pooh poohed the idea that sex with children will ever become acceptable, I am trying to show people how it is going to be accomplished.

[Diogenes]

Society can stop it if society is made aware of it and imbued with the knowledge that it is wrong.

Of course. I never said otherwise. In fact "awareness campaigns" is what I have suggested over and over.

As to my argument "justifying anything"? Well only if you mischaracterize the libertarian argument which is: "my right to swing my arm ends just before I reach the tip of your nose". Otherwise I own my body. It is my RIGHT to use it as I see fit.

Let us not obfuscate the meaning of what is being said and to how it is responded. When I replied "your argument will justify anything" I was referring to your constant lament, lately put thus:

"So you think government can stop it?"

And meaning therefore we shouldn't try. The argument that all government interference with crime is pointless because the government is unable to stop all of it, is a blatant justification for tolerating ANY kind of behavior, including murder, rape, theft, etc.

In mathematical terms, you argue that since 95% < 100% therefore 95% = 0. This is a fallacy. Few processes are 100% efficient or effective. Our Automobiles only manage about 20% efficiency, yet we make widespread use of them.

Your argument is fit for slaves.

It is fit for civilization. Your's is fit to take us back to poverty and barbarity, from whence slaves come.

And if you want to be one I'm happy for you. It is not for me. I will continue to do what I have always done "live free" and only have personal interactions with consenting adults.

When the behavior of "consenting adults" endanger other people, it is not sufficient to concern ourselves only with the opinions of the consenters. Had we quarantined those infected with AIDS early enough, or not tolerated their behavior, Millions of people who are now dead would have remained alive. Even San Fransisco finally realized that a city's toleration of a certain behavior had reached it's limits when they finally shut down the gay bath-houses. When "consenting adults" leave behind a wake of dead bodies and wrecked lives, they cannot argue that it's no one else's business.

You can make all the laws you want. Americans (generally) will only follow them if they agree with them. And you need more than 51% agreement for laws to be effective. My threshold is 99%. Less than that and the outlaw culture, so vibrant in America, takes over.

Oh, so i'll need to re-work the equation. Since 99% != 100%, therefore 99% = 0.

Look at the mess we have from 95% (formerly) agreeing with the prohibition laws. And even that agreement level has gone down considerably and is still declining. Evidently even having government on your side is not making the case. It is worse than useless to have laws on the books that people will not obey.

Like Murder, Rape, Robbery, Assault, Arson, etc. Yeah, since people won't obey laws, we shouldn't have any. As I said, your argument justifies anything.

[ScottL]

Diogenes, I am going to call you on the assumption of Hollywood normalizing sex with minors. As previously pointed out, "TowelHead" rapist character was not a sympathetic character and was arrested. In "The Reader" a mid teen (17 year old) had an affair with an older woman. While being on the border of statutory rape, the older woman is also a known war criminal later in the story showing that she is neither sympathetic nor innocent (criminals do bad things.) Finally in "Doubt" the story although never stating an inappropriate sexual relationship, it is inferred that a preacher has an inappropriate relationship with an altar boy. The preacher is called on his suspicious behavior and is removed from the church. The story is a reflection on the not too long ago outting of prominent catholic priests who committed sexual crimes against minors. The movie does not condone the action, but says it happens and we should be aware and alert.

Now that I've successfully refuted all evidence you've brought on the subject at the base of your claim of normalizing by Hollywood, any arguments built upon those assumptions are now null. Please refactor your argument with appropriate evidence and then resubmit.

[Teahive]

Yes, a willful misunderstanding of the point. Not a thing you mentioned was an example of "debauchery."

So If I am to follow your reasoning, flowing water justifies molesting children?

Some people would call sex without procreation in mind "debauchery". But yes, they're really examples of what some people would call "decadence". And "unnatural" as well. My point is, whether something is "natural" or enabled by scientific progress has no bearing on whether it is moral.

You were referring to homosexuals there, by the way.

[Diogenes]

Diogenes, I am going to call you on the assumption of Hollywood normalizing sex with minors. As previously pointed out, "TowelHead" rapist character was not a sympathetic character and was arrested. In "The Reader" a mid teen (17 year old) had an affair with an older woman. While being on the border of statutory rape, the older woman is also a known war criminal later in the story showing that she is neither sympathetic nor innocent (criminals do bad things.) Finally in "Doubt" the story although never stating an inappropriate sexual relationship, it is inferred that a preacher has an inappropriate relationship with an altar boy. The preacher is called on his suspicious behavior and is removed from the church. The story is a reflection on the not too long ago outting of prominent catholic priests who committed sexual crimes against minors. The movie does not condone the action, but says it happens and we should be aware and alert.

Now that I've successfully refuted all evidence you've brought on the subject at the base of your claim of normalizing by Hollywood, any arguments built upon those assumptions are now null. Please refactor your argument with appropriate evidence and then resubmit.

You jest. What you have done is referred to as "hand waving." It is not so easy as all that. The movies in question fit as variations on a theme, and that theme being the point in question.

In any case, you are arguing with the wrong person. You need to address your comments to John Nolte, because it is he who wrote the article which you think you are refuting. Here is what he had to say about the three movies.

"Doubt:"

Last year Miramax released “Doubt,” a high-profile piece of Oscar-bait starring Academy Award winners’ Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Streep plays a puritanical nun on a moral crusade to expose a Priest (Hoffman) who she believes is sexually abusing a 12 year-old boy. Both characters are portrayed as unsympathetic (especially Streep’s) but in just a couple scenes the boy’s working-class mother (Mrs. Miller, played by Viola Davis) is established as the moral center of the film – the only one truly interested in the welfare of her child. When Mrs. Miller’s informed that her son’s being molested, the Moral Center Of The Film responds that her 12 year-old boy is gay, a social outcast, and beaten regularly by his homophobic father … so maybe the best option for him is a sexual relationship with a forty-something child predator.

"Towelhead:"

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, and written and directed by Oscar-winner Alan Ball, last year’s “Towelhead” is a film Roman Polanski might have seen many, many times while wearing a rain coat. The protagonist is 13 year-old Jasira (played by the then barely eighteen Summer Bishil) and the story surrounds her sexual abuse at the hands of a number of men, including Eckhart’s Gulf War Vet. Rather than the repeated abuse damaging the young girl, the filmmaker portrays the rapes and molestations as a healthy and sexually liberating experience. More than once the audience is “treated” to lingering shots of Jasira’s bare legs as she discovers the joys of the orgasm while masturbating to photographs of naked women.

"The Reader:"

Kate Winslet won last year’s Best Actress Oscar for her role in “The Reader,” in which she plays a “sympathetic” Nazi guilty of mass murder who seduces and then engages in a steamy sexual affair with a 15 year-old boy. The sex scenes between this mature woman and a child lean heavily on the erotic, as opposed to the creepy. (The “sympathetic Nazi” issue we’ll save for another post.)

Yes, in just one year, Hollywood released three films that in one way or another portrayed sex with children as potentially healthy or their molester as sympathetic. And these aren’t fringe, indie films either. All three involve name stars and Oscar winners.

Were I to point out evidence for Hollywood "normalizing" aberrant behavior, I think I would start with "Glee".

'Glee' Star Chris Colfer Talks Show's First Gay Sex Scene



The episode is entitled "The first time" and features the "devirginization" of one young boy by another, presumably as a "bottom" in an homo anal sex act. A Huffington post article referred to it as "sweet".

In the 1960s, the Actors, the Director, the Producers, the Executives, etc. would have all landed in Prison. Nowadays? Not so much.

More articles than you are willing to read on the subject.




How about "hound dog"?

JANUARY 25--With the Dakota Fanning rape movie 'Hounddog' yet to find a buyer at the Sundance Film Festival, it remains unclear when (or if) the controversial film will land in U.S. theaters. Until then, film fans will have to make do with the below excerpt from the 'Hounddog' shooting script, which describes the sexual assault of the 12-year-old actress.

Of course Hollywood has been stirring this pot for awhile.

(Harold and Maude 1971)


And of course there is this:

Recent Charges of Sexual Abuse of Children in Hollywood Just Tip of Iceberg, Experts Say

Another child star from an earlier era agrees that Hollywood has long had a problem with pedophilia. “When I watched that interview, a whole series of names and faces from my history went zooming through my head,” Paul Peterson, 66, star of The Donna Reed Show, a sitcom popular in the 1950s and 60s, and president of A Minor Consideration, tells FOXNews.com. “Some of these people, who I know very well, are still in the game.”

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/20 ... perts-say/

[Diogenes]

Yes, a willful misunderstanding of the point. Not a thing you mentioned was an example of "debauchery."

So If I am to follow your reasoning, flowing water justifies molesting children?

Some people would call sex without procreation in mind "debauchery".

More obfuscation. Obviously very few would argue that sex within marriage is a form of debauchery, but many would see excessive promiscuity that way perhaps, though even that is a quantum state of difference from pederasty or bestiality.

I've noticed that when people attempt to conflate extremes as equal, they are floundering for a real response. The Tu quoque is a fallacy so old it is known by it's Latin name.

But yes, they're really examples of what some people would call "decadence". And "unnatural" as well. My point is, whether something is "natural" or enabled by scientific progress has no bearing on whether it is moral.

I disagree. This is a topic I have studied for many years, and I argue that there is an objective moral code described by physics and nature which is discernible and cannot be violated without consequences.

I am fond of pointing out Adam Smith's invention of the "invisible hand" as a metaphor for processes that seemed to imbue economics activity with a sort of anthropomorphic ghost. A "spirit" of economics if you will. Disobey the spirit, and it will punish you.

In the same manner, I believe there exists a similar effect in social interactions that works very much like Adam Smith's invisible hand in economics.* Break the rules, and someone will pay. I refer to this as the "disembodied hand" because it is mentioned in the bible as appearing at Belshazzar's feast telling him that because of his wickedness, his time was at an end.

Of course, no such actual "spirit" exists. What we experience is merely the consequences of actions, the complexity of which is often beyond our ability to follow. (In the same manner that people would blame the complex workings of the weather on invented "gods.") As an example of social complexity, inbreeding has consequences that do not become obvious until a great deal of time has passed, after which people recognize that it is a bad thing. They don't know WHY it is a bad thing, they just know that it is.

Were the Libertarian types unaware of the consequences of inbreeding, they would even now be demanding everyone's RIGHT to engage in incest. For all I know, some of them probably do anyway.

How about it Libertarians? Is Incest an act between consenting adults?

You were referring to homosexuals there, by the way.

A bit more quoted context would certainly help me to respond better. I regard homosexuality as a sort of disorder, such as autism, or epilepsy. I have studied that issue quite a lot as well, and it has characteristics quite different from what is considered "normal" for heterosexuals. One of my ongoing arguments with MSimon is the peculiar statistic that the 2% of the population that appears to be homosexuals make up far more than their fair share of the child molestation cases. I don't remember the numbers at the moment, but I think they were along the lines of 20% of all molestations are homosexual.

Here's a link to JAMA if you want to look. There are other well researched articles out there.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/280/21 ... l.pdf+html






* I believe that what most people regard as "boundaries" are simply manifestations of their perception. That there should be a distinct category called "economics" and another category called "social dynamics" is entirely the result of people wishing to see such a boundary. In my mind, there is in fact, no boundary. Just as in reality, there is no boundary between Physics and Chemistry, though people wish to see them as distinctly different disciplines.

There are no boundaries.

[ScottL]

Your author can't even seem to realize these weren't filmed nor released in the same year, let alone comprehend visually what the movies are about. Matter of fact, it looks as though he skimmed the plot lines and checked a few youtube links.

TowelHead Summary - Kids masterbate, adult rapes girl and goes to jail. Adult is not sympathetic and its very clear he's pressuring her into the sex. This is no way translates to "it's ok to have sex with children."

The Reader Summary - Kid is seduced by nazi war criminal. Criminal is not a sympathetic character and while the scenes inferred eroticism in this author's view, the point was that a corrupt person can corrupt an innocent person. This is no way says its ok to do these things, but instead is associating the act of this rape with the criminality of the woman.

Doubt - The moral center of the story is the nun and the focus is on outting the inappropriate relationship between the preacher and the boy. The critique of the boy's mother is a critique on the conservative blind-eye towards potentially gay children for their lack of "normativity." The thought being if they can't beat the gay out of them, than perhaps they deserve the actions taken against them. It's as much against child molestation and rape as it is against the casting aside of recognized gay children.


Dio, I don't mind you arguing your point. It's your opinion and you're welcomed to it. What I would appreciate is that you base your argument off of facts, not some guy's rather pathetic attempt to critiquing films he's never seen.

These films are attempting to point out that rape and discrimnation happen instead of ignoring it. I know it's the mainstream view to pretend nothing bad ever happens, but lack of awareness leads to lack of action.

[Diogenes]

Your author can't even seem to realize these weren't filmed nor released in the same year, let alone comprehend visually what the movies are about. Matter of fact, it looks as though he skimmed the plot lines and checked a few youtube links.

TowelHead Summary - Kids masterbate, adult rapes girl and goes to jail. Adult is not sympathetic and its very clear he's pressuring her into the sex. This is no way translates to "it's ok to have sex with children."

The Reader Summary - Kid is seduced by nazi war criminal. Criminal is not a sympathetic character and while the scenes inferred eroticism in this author's view, the point was that a corrupt person can corrupt an innocent person. This is no way says its ok to do these things, but instead is associating the act of this rape with the criminality of the woman.

Doubt - The moral center of the story is the nun and the focus is on outting the inappropriate relationship between the preacher and the boy. The critique of the boy's mother is a critique on the conservative blind-eye towards potentially gay children for their lack of "normativity." The thought being if they can't beat the gay out of them, than perhaps they deserve the actions taken against them. It's as much against child molestation and rape as it is against the casting aside of recognized gay children.


Dio, I don't mind you arguing your point. It's your opinion and you're welcomed to it. What I would appreciate is that you base your argument off of facts, not some guy's rather pathetic attempt to critiquing films he's never seen.

These films are attempting to point out that rape and discrimnation happen instead of ignoring it. I know it's the mainstream view to pretend nothing bad ever happens, but lack of awareness leads to lack of action.

I am not John Nolte. I do not in fact work in the industry as he has done during his life. You assert he hasn't seen the movies, and I have no way of knowing whether this is true, but given his past as Director and Writer in the movie industry, and the fact that he is the Editor of the Big Hollywood website, I would find it unlikely that he did not see the movies.

You gloss over the fact that movies of such structure would never have been created during an earlier time, and that it is not necessary for those engaging in the practice to be perceived as good or bad for it to have an impact on the public consciousness. Spreading the notion that such things are commonplace, prepares the minds of the public to believe that they are inevitable.

In any case, you seem to have overlooked the examples that *I* cited in preference to once more argue that John Nolte's criticisms of these movies is misguided. You made no mention of the movies that *I* cited as examples, but instead are trying to hold me to account for what someone else has written just because I think he is right.

I think you are like many people, you want to believe what you want to believe, and you don't like for people to poke holes in the protective bubble that surrounds your world. Sorry, but I tend to be a prick.

[MSimon]

I think you are like many people, you want to believe what you want to believe, and you don't like for people to poke holes in the protective bubble that surrounds your world. Sorry, but I tend to be a prick.

And yet you are losing the battle.

It is your inability to discriminate. You have difficulty telling the difference between bad and worse.

[Diogenes]

I think you are like many people, you want to believe what you want to believe, and you don't like for people to poke holes in the protective bubble that surrounds your world. Sorry, but I tend to be a prick.

And yet you are losing the battle. .

Of getting through to people living in a delusion bubble? Yes, but that is the nature of the malady.

[
It is your inability to discriminate. You have difficulty telling the difference between bad and worse.

What we have now is bad, what you propose we have will be worse. Making drugs and aberrant sex more ubiquitous is not going to make anything better. Not for the people who engage in it, and not for those who have to clean up the mess after the fact.

[ScottL]

Diogenes, you're of the view that if we pretend these things don't exist they'll magically go away? Hollywood is pointing these atrocities out so that people will take action against them, not condone them. If you really think things will simply stop being if you ignore them, then I suggest you ignore threads like these about drug use....it'll just go away right?

[Teahive]

As an example of social complexity, inbreeding has consequences that do not become obvious until a great deal of time has passed, after which people recognize that it is a bad thing. They don't know WHY it is a bad thing, they just know that it is.

Except we know now why it's a bad thing. And if we could avoid the bad consequences, the reason to call it a bad thing would be gone entirely.

I'm happy to oblige with some quoted context:

I have long thought that were it not for the fact that Science has progressed so much over the last 50 years, most homosexuals would have died of a horrible unknown disease, and the surviving heterosexual population would have a social reinforcement of why such behavior is bad. (it kills people who engage in it.)

Thanks to Modern Medicine and Modern communications, the pathogen was identified, and the word was spread world wide. In the absence of either of these two circumstances, I dare say AIDS would have got virtually all of them.

Even if that were true, which I highly doubt: if science gives us the tools to avoid bad consequences, or explains that it is a specific, identifiable behaviour (promiscuity, lack of awareness of STDs, re-using needles, etc.) which has bad consequences, there is no reason to condemn by association those which do not engage in such behaviour. "Homosexuality" does not spread AIDS.

One of my ongoing arguments with MSimon is the peculiar statistic that the 2% of the population that appears to be homosexuals make up far more than their fair share of the child molestation cases. I don't remember the numbers at the moment, but I think they were along the lines of 20% of all molestations are homosexual.

So what? The crime is still molestation, not "homosexual behaviour".

[Diogenes]

Diogenes, you're of the view that if we pretend these things don't exist they'll magically go away? Hollywood is pointing these atrocities out so that people will take action against them, not condone them. If you really think things will simply stop being if you ignore them, then I suggest you ignore threads like these about drug use....it'll just go away right?

How you can get the exact opposite out of what I am saying I cannot fathom. I am not suggesting we ignore this or any other issue, I am suggesting that we need to create social pressure AGAINST this conduct.

Hollywood needs to receive a backlash for their promotion of abnormal conduct. If they don't, the rest of us will, (receive a backlash) for our tolerance of it.

And by the way, this thread is NOT about drug use, it is about the evolution of social mores to eventually permit conduct currently considered reprehensible. It is serving the purpose of a compass, that points toward the direction we are traveling.