I go into the bank. The ones here in Belize are the same in their general features and procedures as banks in the USA. The tallyer (teller - they don't match tally sticks any more) asks me for ID. I turn and point to a bank manager who knows me whose desk is within sight of the teller window.
"Bautista knows me; ask him." The teller demurs and asks for a document - a passport or other government card. I respond in a friendly but incredulous voice: "You mean to tell me that you trust this piece of paper (my passport), which could be counterfeit, over an actual person that we both know? Really?" The teller, being Belizean and not a U.S. Urban Democrat, understands the point I am making and smiles. Yet the procedure calls for the paper instead. By the way, I no longer have bank accounts.
Second, I fully agree, Jim, about this pronoun madness. Indeed, I now make it a point to inform anyone (happily, none here in Belize) that I speak Standard English, spoken for centuries and codified in such authoritative works as the widely-recognized reference for American English grammar: _The Elements of Style_, by Strunk & White, third edition. On page 60 it reads: The use of _he_ as pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language. _He_ has lost all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances." The sexually disturbed can choose whatever pronouns they would like to have apply to them, but I am equally free to choose to speak Standard English. If it hurts their widdle feelin's that is their responsibility. Their troubled emotions can be ameliorated by ridding themselves of sexual fantasies about language.
With regard to the documentation matter, I think it is a useful topic for further discussion. William of Ockham noted that it is mistaken to multiply entities unnecessarily.
If I do not trust the word of someone who says he is Jack Smith, why would I be more inclined to trust the word of a piece of writing and some art work that asserts his name to be SMITH, JACK and symbols indicating that various other people in some state capital city in some building generated this document? In such case I would have gone from not trusting one person at his word to trusting a half dozen people in government departments without even cross examining one of them. It is a bizarre ritual, unworthy of a free people.
You are who you say you are. If you have documents to support your contention, great. I don’t care. Or you are not who you say you are, in which case, whatever documents you offer are irrelevant to the matter.
It isn’t as though I trust the cia. I wrote “Langley et Quantico delenda est” with the view that those places are evil and should be destroyed. But we know from many popular films and documentaries as well as various books that the cia is adept at issuing passports, even real passports, from several countries in various names, for any one agent. So why should I trust anyone’s passport? What manner of idiocy is that?
Asking for ID is foolish. “I am going to need to see your ID” is not a clever statement. You don’t actually need any such thing. Your life will continue quite well without you seeing any such document from me. And I have no inclination to offer such a document for your inspection, because I don’t agree that evil filthy agents of the state, who are paid exclusively in stolen funds, have any proper authority to demand “papers please.” And the servile people who hand them over are mistaken in their view that compliance is sufficient to a free people. No one should cooperate with the police. They are evil. Cooperation used to be called collaboration. Later that tradition declined. So did America.
Thank you again Jim, for this excellent article and all the good works you do.
In this one, I do have one quibble to inquire about. You wrote, "Homosexuality is wrong..."
While you are entitled to your own opinion, no matter how wrong it may be, is it merely an opinion or do you further believe that there should be some punishment or other consequences meted out to those who engage in homosexual acts and lifestyle?
For myself, I believe that whatever sexual acts occur between consenting adults in private are no one else's business but theirs.
> Thank you again Jim, for this excellent article and all the good works you do.
You're welcome. Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff.
> In this one, I do have one quibble to inquire about. You wrote, "Homosexuality is wrong..."
It is well to make inquiries, as through discussion we can each arrive at a better understanding of the truth. Let us proceed on the search for greater understanding.
> While you are entitled to your own opinion, no matter how wrong it may be,
> is it merely an opinion
I believe it is not merely an opinion in the sense that I believe it is supported by Scripture. It is important to understand that all the things in the Bible are true, even though many of them are not well understood. It is also important to understand that there are true things which are not in the Bible. The admonition against homosexuality is found in a great many scriptures, both in the old Testament and in the new Testament. So, to say that it is "merely an opinion" would seem to assert some authority about morality that arises from some source other than God. If you would like to make that assertion then we can proceed to examine your evidence for the claim that moral wrongness can be established without reference to God, to God's words through the prophets, and that would seem to be a very deep well of inquiry indeed.
"or do you further believe that there should be some punishment or other consequences meted out to those who engage in homosexual acts and lifestyle?"
I believe that God punishes those who make war against God. Moreover, I believe God is righteous in so doing, and that we should be on God's side in these matters. If God views someone's conduct as worthy of death, God has many means at His disposal to punish with death. For example, Elijah was challenged about being a man of God and called down fire from heaven to utterly consume two commanders of fifty and their fifty of men.
In the book of the Acts of the apostles, Peter confronts Ananias and Sapphira who had agreed to sell a property and donate the proceeds. They lied about the amount they received. When Peter told Ananias that he had lied to God, Ananias fell down dead. Shortly thereafter, as the body of Ananias was being carried out, Sapphira persisted in the lie. She too fell down dead.
If God can punish someone with death, God can punish someone with any other manner of difficulties. So, I would say "God's will be done, amen," as I often do.
"For myself, I believe that whatever sexual acts occur between consenting adults in private are no one else's business but theirs."
That is an interesting opinion, and has a sort of roundness and complacency about it. But let us take the matter to further examination.
Homosexuals are not born that way, they become that way. Many, many homosexual men were raped when they were children. You have not proposed the thought that a man may rape a boy and it is no one else's business, so I might suppose we are in agreement on this point, but it would be reassuring to me if you were to indicate whether you agree. I believe that rape is violence, and having been a victim of childhood violence, I believe that violence toward children is among the very worst sort because they are so comparatively powerless to resist.
It is violence toward children that generated in me the view that I had been rejected by family, school, and society. Violence toward me as a child inculcated a desire for anonymity. Violence toward me as a child confirmed my view that there is something terribly wrong with the world.
As a result of these views, I heartily endorse teaching children self defence and the use of firearms. Children need to understand judo, jiu jitsu, and how to overcome apparent disadvantages of weight and reach. Children should be taught to ride, to swim, and to shoot.
So, then we come to the possibility of eternal salvation for persons who willingly participate in homosexual activities. I have prayed about this matter. It is not available. They would have to repent and sin no more.
Finally, we come to what I suppose you intended for me to address which is whether I believe that there is some way to have a group of people assert authority over other people in the community such that they spy on the private bedroom activities of adults, spy out homosexuality, report it based on true witness or false witness, and whether there is some secular or worldly authority that should punish such behaviours. I do not. Again, I have prayed about it. God doesn't want me to be involved in a system that would do such things.
Jesus gave us a great commission, to speak the Gospel in every language and to every living creature. Those who believe may be baptised. God's will be done. Amen. Jesus purchased for us the rewards of eternal salvation. Baptism is the washing clean of sin, in symbolises the death of the person who was and the rising of the person who has become. It is a great sacrament and should be taken very seriously by those who choose it and by those who provide it.
At no time does Jesus say that we should take up a sword, hold it to the throat of someone else, and command that they believe. Doing so is evil. I gather it is the way of those who purport to enforce Sharia. I am against coercion in these matters. I went over my reasoning about consent in a recent essay. Your consent cannot be coerced, or it is not consent. Similarly, your profession of belief in God is meaningless if it is made under coercion, including the threat of coercion should you be found to be violating some tenet of Sharia. People who are under threat of force do not sincerely believe and they only pretend to believe to avoid punishment, including death. That is not what God has ordained. It is hypocritical to seek such injustice and call it justice.
There is also a matter of whether homosexuality in private should be paraded in public or encouraged, as it is very clearly encouraged today by all the big box stores during priDEMONth and at other times. I don't think that behaviour is any good. I think people should celebrate marriage, celebrate procreation between man and woman, and celebrate the birth of children, including the anniversaries of those births, as they think best. It is exceptionally depraved and perverse to associate the rainbow, which God put in the sky to symbolise the covenant with Noah, who told those who had come forth from the ark he had built to be fruitful and multiply, with conduct which is incapable of fruition. It is also important to remind everyone that God did not say there would be no more chastisements. Far from it. As the spiritual of those held in bonded servitude past the beginning of the seventh year in defiance of God's law says, "God put the rainbow in the sky. Won't be water next time but fire."
I believe in privacy. I am a subject matter expert on the topic of privacy technologies, data security, and communications secrecy. I also believe in morality.
The World Economic Forum has made a religion of depopulation. It has made a religion of worshipping demons. It has made a religion of promoting homosexuality and depravity. I am against those things. Where do you stand on them?
The only problem with this view that is inconsistent with the general principle of live and let live is that some behaviors in private affect the mind of the same person who also acts in public. Otherwise, there would not exist political activists promoting various sexual perversions; they would be private about it.
So yes, Jim is right; homosexual behavior is wrong, regardless of who knows about it. Some people understand the depth of the effects of sexual perversion on the totality of the human psyche.
Thanks for helping to be a priv/acc <3
You're welcome. Thank you for your kind words, and for your work for privacy and freedom. God bless you. Amen.
Thank you once again.
A couple of responses: the first is a true story.
I go into the bank. The ones here in Belize are the same in their general features and procedures as banks in the USA. The tallyer (teller - they don't match tally sticks any more) asks me for ID. I turn and point to a bank manager who knows me whose desk is within sight of the teller window.
"Bautista knows me; ask him." The teller demurs and asks for a document - a passport or other government card. I respond in a friendly but incredulous voice: "You mean to tell me that you trust this piece of paper (my passport), which could be counterfeit, over an actual person that we both know? Really?" The teller, being Belizean and not a U.S. Urban Democrat, understands the point I am making and smiles. Yet the procedure calls for the paper instead. By the way, I no longer have bank accounts.
Second, I fully agree, Jim, about this pronoun madness. Indeed, I now make it a point to inform anyone (happily, none here in Belize) that I speak Standard English, spoken for centuries and codified in such authoritative works as the widely-recognized reference for American English grammar: _The Elements of Style_, by Strunk & White, third edition. On page 60 it reads: The use of _he_ as pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language. _He_ has lost all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances." The sexually disturbed can choose whatever pronouns they would like to have apply to them, but I am equally free to choose to speak Standard English. If it hurts their widdle feelin's that is their responsibility. Their troubled emotions can be ameliorated by ridding themselves of sexual fantasies about language.
With regard to the documentation matter, I think it is a useful topic for further discussion. William of Ockham noted that it is mistaken to multiply entities unnecessarily.
If I do not trust the word of someone who says he is Jack Smith, why would I be more inclined to trust the word of a piece of writing and some art work that asserts his name to be SMITH, JACK and symbols indicating that various other people in some state capital city in some building generated this document? In such case I would have gone from not trusting one person at his word to trusting a half dozen people in government departments without even cross examining one of them. It is a bizarre ritual, unworthy of a free people.
You are who you say you are. If you have documents to support your contention, great. I don’t care. Or you are not who you say you are, in which case, whatever documents you offer are irrelevant to the matter.
It isn’t as though I trust the cia. I wrote “Langley et Quantico delenda est” with the view that those places are evil and should be destroyed. But we know from many popular films and documentaries as well as various books that the cia is adept at issuing passports, even real passports, from several countries in various names, for any one agent. So why should I trust anyone’s passport? What manner of idiocy is that?
Asking for ID is foolish. “I am going to need to see your ID” is not a clever statement. You don’t actually need any such thing. Your life will continue quite well without you seeing any such document from me. And I have no inclination to offer such a document for your inspection, because I don’t agree that evil filthy agents of the state, who are paid exclusively in stolen funds, have any proper authority to demand “papers please.” And the servile people who hand them over are mistaken in their view that compliance is sufficient to a free people. No one should cooperate with the police. They are evil. Cooperation used to be called collaboration. Later that tradition declined. So did America.
Thank you again Jim, for this excellent article and all the good works you do.
In this one, I do have one quibble to inquire about. You wrote, "Homosexuality is wrong..."
While you are entitled to your own opinion, no matter how wrong it may be, is it merely an opinion or do you further believe that there should be some punishment or other consequences meted out to those who engage in homosexual acts and lifestyle?
For myself, I believe that whatever sexual acts occur between consenting adults in private are no one else's business but theirs.
> Thank you again Jim, for this excellent article and all the good works you do.
You're welcome. Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff.
> In this one, I do have one quibble to inquire about. You wrote, "Homosexuality is wrong..."
It is well to make inquiries, as through discussion we can each arrive at a better understanding of the truth. Let us proceed on the search for greater understanding.
> While you are entitled to your own opinion, no matter how wrong it may be,
> is it merely an opinion
I believe it is not merely an opinion in the sense that I believe it is supported by Scripture. It is important to understand that all the things in the Bible are true, even though many of them are not well understood. It is also important to understand that there are true things which are not in the Bible. The admonition against homosexuality is found in a great many scriptures, both in the old Testament and in the new Testament. So, to say that it is "merely an opinion" would seem to assert some authority about morality that arises from some source other than God. If you would like to make that assertion then we can proceed to examine your evidence for the claim that moral wrongness can be established without reference to God, to God's words through the prophets, and that would seem to be a very deep well of inquiry indeed.
"or do you further believe that there should be some punishment or other consequences meted out to those who engage in homosexual acts and lifestyle?"
I believe that God punishes those who make war against God. Moreover, I believe God is righteous in so doing, and that we should be on God's side in these matters. If God views someone's conduct as worthy of death, God has many means at His disposal to punish with death. For example, Elijah was challenged about being a man of God and called down fire from heaven to utterly consume two commanders of fifty and their fifty of men.
In the book of the Acts of the apostles, Peter confronts Ananias and Sapphira who had agreed to sell a property and donate the proceeds. They lied about the amount they received. When Peter told Ananias that he had lied to God, Ananias fell down dead. Shortly thereafter, as the body of Ananias was being carried out, Sapphira persisted in the lie. She too fell down dead.
If God can punish someone with death, God can punish someone with any other manner of difficulties. So, I would say "God's will be done, amen," as I often do.
"For myself, I believe that whatever sexual acts occur between consenting adults in private are no one else's business but theirs."
That is an interesting opinion, and has a sort of roundness and complacency about it. But let us take the matter to further examination.
Homosexuals are not born that way, they become that way. Many, many homosexual men were raped when they were children. You have not proposed the thought that a man may rape a boy and it is no one else's business, so I might suppose we are in agreement on this point, but it would be reassuring to me if you were to indicate whether you agree. I believe that rape is violence, and having been a victim of childhood violence, I believe that violence toward children is among the very worst sort because they are so comparatively powerless to resist.
It is violence toward children that generated in me the view that I had been rejected by family, school, and society. Violence toward me as a child inculcated a desire for anonymity. Violence toward me as a child confirmed my view that there is something terribly wrong with the world.
As a result of these views, I heartily endorse teaching children self defence and the use of firearms. Children need to understand judo, jiu jitsu, and how to overcome apparent disadvantages of weight and reach. Children should be taught to ride, to swim, and to shoot.
So, then we come to the possibility of eternal salvation for persons who willingly participate in homosexual activities. I have prayed about this matter. It is not available. They would have to repent and sin no more.
Finally, we come to what I suppose you intended for me to address which is whether I believe that there is some way to have a group of people assert authority over other people in the community such that they spy on the private bedroom activities of adults, spy out homosexuality, report it based on true witness or false witness, and whether there is some secular or worldly authority that should punish such behaviours. I do not. Again, I have prayed about it. God doesn't want me to be involved in a system that would do such things.
Jesus gave us a great commission, to speak the Gospel in every language and to every living creature. Those who believe may be baptised. God's will be done. Amen. Jesus purchased for us the rewards of eternal salvation. Baptism is the washing clean of sin, in symbolises the death of the person who was and the rising of the person who has become. It is a great sacrament and should be taken very seriously by those who choose it and by those who provide it.
At no time does Jesus say that we should take up a sword, hold it to the throat of someone else, and command that they believe. Doing so is evil. I gather it is the way of those who purport to enforce Sharia. I am against coercion in these matters. I went over my reasoning about consent in a recent essay. Your consent cannot be coerced, or it is not consent. Similarly, your profession of belief in God is meaningless if it is made under coercion, including the threat of coercion should you be found to be violating some tenet of Sharia. People who are under threat of force do not sincerely believe and they only pretend to believe to avoid punishment, including death. That is not what God has ordained. It is hypocritical to seek such injustice and call it justice.
There is also a matter of whether homosexuality in private should be paraded in public or encouraged, as it is very clearly encouraged today by all the big box stores during priDEMONth and at other times. I don't think that behaviour is any good. I think people should celebrate marriage, celebrate procreation between man and woman, and celebrate the birth of children, including the anniversaries of those births, as they think best. It is exceptionally depraved and perverse to associate the rainbow, which God put in the sky to symbolise the covenant with Noah, who told those who had come forth from the ark he had built to be fruitful and multiply, with conduct which is incapable of fruition. It is also important to remind everyone that God did not say there would be no more chastisements. Far from it. As the spiritual of those held in bonded servitude past the beginning of the seventh year in defiance of God's law says, "God put the rainbow in the sky. Won't be water next time but fire."
I believe in privacy. I am a subject matter expert on the topic of privacy technologies, data security, and communications secrecy. I also believe in morality.
The World Economic Forum has made a religion of depopulation. It has made a religion of worshipping demons. It has made a religion of promoting homosexuality and depravity. I am against those things. Where do you stand on them?
The only problem with this view that is inconsistent with the general principle of live and let live is that some behaviors in private affect the mind of the same person who also acts in public. Otherwise, there would not exist political activists promoting various sexual perversions; they would be private about it.
So yes, Jim is right; homosexual behavior is wrong, regardless of who knows about it. Some people understand the depth of the effects of sexual perversion on the totality of the human psyche.