People use these words to justify a lot of things. Oftentimes, I think they’re misused, or warped in a fundamental, definitional way to mean exactly the opposite of what they actually mean. At a certain point, words like these just lose their meaning.
So it’s good, once in a while, to see them used appropriately.
(via)
Erik Kain
Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.
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Man that’s a great pic!Report
It would have been better with a little tongue — Frenchy like.Report
The expression on the kid’s face seems to say “I will never be allowed to play with cap guns.”Report
“The expression on the kid’s face seems to say “I will never be allowed to play with cap guns.”
I just spit soda all over my PC. Thanks a lot man.
Man that was good.Report
Yuck.Report
I’m confused, Art. Why is it that you comment at this blog?Report
Because it’s yucky, and it’s important we all know just how very, very yucky we are.Report
In all fairness to Art Deco – if it was two dudes I would be saying yuck too. As much as I support equal rights for gays and lesbians I don’t think I will ever get over the yucky factor. I don’t think that makes me a bad person. It’s a generational thing.
In contrast to my parents, not only am I not bothered by seeing inter-racial couples but when I see a black woman with a white man I actually cheer a little bit inside because it’s so rare. When my kids are in their adult years I don’t think they will even blink when they see a gay couple.Report
Every couple of years, Russian coaches have to tell their athletes not to smooch on camera because Americans get all wigged out about two dudes (or two chicks) smooching.
Apparently the culture over there allows for good friends who are celebrating to smooch. Full on the lips.
It seems to me that a refusal to show two celebrating folks smooching indicates more of a problem on the part of the people who prefer their smooches behind closed doors than on the part of those who celebrate by smooching.
Of course: to each his or her own.
But smooching is a positive good that would benefit us all if there was more of it around. Except for the mono thing. Beyond mono, however, smooching is something, like music, that enriches a culture, a society, and a person who partakes in it.
More smooching. Even between folks with similar plumbing.Report
I’m pro-smooching too. My wife thinks it’s gross that I kiss my dog on the mouth. We all draw the line somewhere.Report
“Ugh! Dog germs”
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Y90hFKCnHXU/S1nZK0l99bI/AAAAAAAADqs/XK5gUh7n-4A/s320/snoopy-lucy-kiss.jpgReport
Every couple of years, Russian coaches have to tell their athletes not to smooch on camera because Americans get all wigged out about two dudes (or two chicks) smooching.
I wonder if it would help or hurt if they knew that American gay guys really like watching two male athletes smooching? In our house, we always cheer for the Russians.Report
Apparently the culture over there allows for good friends who are celebrating to smooch. Full on the lips.
I recall this from August 1914; two Russian soldiers kissing, full on the lips, to express what Americans would express with a firm handshake or maybe (in extreme cases) a manly hug.Report
Beyond mono, however, smooching is something, like music, that enriches a culture, a society, and a person who partakes in it.
Up to a point. For every thing, there is a season.Report
There is a smooching by countries mnemonic that I find handy:
German kissing: jaw clenched tight, lips clenched tight
British kissing: jaw clenched tight, lips somewhat loose
American kissing: jaw somewhat loose, lips all over the place
French kissing: aw yeah
It seems to me that the folks in the picture are somewhere between German and British.
Which, by my lights, is well within okey-dokey territory.Report
To state my opinion of the squibs you write and those of a number of others.Report
Not good enough. I expect more from regular commenters than “yuck”.Report
Than write something which merits something more.Report
I have a better idea. Don’t comment if you have nothing of value to say. In my own house, as it were, I will do as I please.Report
But in context, ‘yuck’ is something of value to say. The picture was not an argument, and neither was the brief caption you offered. You wish to ‘affirm’ something, I wish to dispute that. ‘Yuck’ is concise, and about as elaborate as your original affirmation.Report
You mean, like “Man that’s a great pic”?
Seems to me that the issue is not AD’s comments but his/her opinion. It’s understandable to expect more of a defense from someone who’s challenging the prevailing consensus than from someone who’s supporting it, but might as well be up front about it.Report
Oh I don’t know. If someone wants to argue the merits or lack thereof of gay marriage, fine! Great! Just saying “yuck” is basically trolling.Report
“Yuck” was way out of line. And few would post such things under their real name. Bad show, this.Report
Exactly, Tom. I could honestly care not one bit if people disagree with me about gay marriage. I welcome any discussion of the debate so long as it’s done honestly.Report
It is not out of line.
I have also been known to say ‘yuck’ in face-to-face conversation.Report
Yes, but I assume you’re not pseudonymous in real life and have to stand by what comes out of your mouth, and neither would you walk into a gay bar and say “yuck.” This is clearly a gay-sympathetic blog, and you should expect some brushback for sentiments that are clearly as unaesthetic in this milieu as you found the photo. Unless you’re a total idiot, of course.
Hence, “trolling,” driving by pseudonymously with something designed solely to inflame–or that any intelligent person should have expected it would–isn’t an inaccurate charge.
Should you choose to walk into a gay bar sometime and say “yuck,” do let me know. I’ll even lend you the cabfare to get to the hospital. I thought you got off pretty easy here.Report
I post here for periods of time, generally in counterpoint to the Official Idea around here. So do you. So does Cheeks. Sorry it bothers you someone else occasionally gets into the act.
I have none too many expectations about the quality of people’s interventions here and in other loci, and stated none. That people commonly do not discuss this particular issue with any degree of temperance is, well, something one just expects. No one needs me to inflame them and I seek to inflame no one; they are already quite inflamed of their own accord.Report
“Mr. Deco,” you yrself spoke of “propriety,” which is a conventional, not absolute term, relative to the milieu. You can have [presumably hetero-] sexual relations, but not on the sidewalk.
You violated the propriety hereabouts, and it’s disingenuous to argue otherwise. Unless you’re a complete idiot. And BTW, you put whatever point you might have in the worst possible light. Congratulations.Report
You violated the propriety hereabouts
Evidently. ‘Tis a pity.Report
So is the rule you have in mind something like “content-free agreement is OK, but disagreement must be defended”? It’s a reasonable convention if enforced equitably.Report
This.Report
Did I say I have a rule in mind? I would like more than ‘yuck’ to be posted in regard to a picture of two women kissing. It’s not a rule. And frankly, I tend to judge based on patterns (or whether someone is a drive-by-commenter rather than an old-timer). The point of having comments is to spark discussion. Sometimes ‘content-free’ can do that, sometimes it can’t.Report
Defended? Maybe not. But is explained too much to ask? If I make a complex argument (not that this post did that) and you respond with “I agree!”, I should have a better idea of your opinion than if you respond, “Wrong!” That just seems logical.Report
Rufus, I don’t disagree with that, but as your aside indicates, the original post wasn’t anything more than a “yay!”, so calling foul on the “yuck” comment seemed unjustified for a blog like this.Report
How bizarre. I’m really not following your reasoning here. But if Art Deco wants to post “Yuck” (which is apparently no different than my post…?) he can do that at his own blog…
“Yay!” would be low calorie and all, but at least it would not be empty of substance & offensive all at the same time.Report
Wrong!Report
Yeah, I don’t know. I took the post to be saying that Erik thinks the recent same sex marriage ruling in New York state was in accord with justice and liberty as he sees them. It’s not complex, but it’s more specific than “yay!”Report
I suppose, although it was more assertion than argument. Anyway, I guess I don’t need to spend any more time defending a comment that I didn’t make and don’t agree with. I’m just always curious about the underlying conventions governing the discussions in a blog like this — my first reaction to ED’s accusation of “trolling” was that it seemed like simple PC enforcement that didn’t really belong here, but I guess it’s not quite that simple.Report
Wrong again!Report
What-ever!Report
I think everyone is getting hung up on agree vs disagree issues and missing the bigger more obvious point:
Seeing a picture of two people with their kid and saying “that’s nice!” out loud is kind of sweet. Seeing picture of two people with their kid an saying “yuck!” is kind of douche-y. I’m not sure that Erik’s opinion is an issue.Report
“Douch-y”? That’s cute. When and where?
Mine was a brief statement of opinion on the propriety and taste of what was depicted.Report
Then I totally misread the yuck, and I withdraw my comment.Report
“Yay!” would be low calorie and all, but at least it would not be empty of substance & offensive all at the same time
And evidently the recent run of commentary here about one Dr. Marcus Bachmann was substantive and inoffensive.Report
To be fair, Art Deco has actually stated, in the most succinct fashion imaginable, the true argument against same-sex marriage.Report
I thought the true argument was that even fewer women would be willing to marry me.Report
Um, no, Burt, that’s not being fair, although aesthetics enters into it for many. But not all.Report
No, that is not the true argument. It articulates that there is something seriously wrong here. The argument defines and elaborates on that.Report
Then please consider my misstatement of your position a platform upon which you may expound upon what you contend is the true argument.Report
I would refer you to the writings of Robert George or David Blankenhorn if you want a professional job of it.
Homosexual affiliations are user-defined associations constructed around people’s sexual disorders. They are sterile, and are certainly of no more import than ordinary friendships between men (which no one proposes to give official recognition or a menu of privileges and obligations). There is no reason offered to grant them any official sanction accept that a mess of noisy people will be put out if you turn them down. Well, tough.Report
Wow. This is a very different line of thought than you gave above that made me retract my douche-y statement.
Do you mind if I ask what brings you to these conclusions?Report
Should sterile heterosexual couples be granted official sanction? The ones who marry but don’t have children- is that a sexual perversion? And what interest does the state have in licensing non-childbearing couples to wed?Report
Rufus, I never found that line particularly resonant. What do you want to do, impose fertility tests? Ban post-menopausal women from marrying in the name of “fairness?”
Such couples already fit the extant definition of marriage. Re-defining marriage carries its own burden of argumentReport
But Tom, those are responses to arguments for why SSM should not happen.
You can’t have someone say “I would like X,” be told “You can’t have X because Y” and then object to an argument against Y just because Y guy has no burden of proof.
Otherwise any argument for any change is moot if there is a voice speaking for status quo.Report
Tom, I’m trying to suggest that the extant definition of marriage isn’t what the defenders of marriage claim it to be. There simply is not the same expectation for married people to have children that there once was; nor is there an expectation for parents to be married for that matter. We can bemoan the effects of that, but if heterosexuals have redefined marriage to be what people do when they really love each other, whether or not they have any intention to have children, it’s not terribly surprising that gays want in on it.Report
Not to mention the fact that redefining marriage away from family arranged matches to love matches probably had a greater impact on the institution than anything this generation can think up.Report
Having trouble following you here, RTod.
Otherwise any argument for any change is moot if there is a voice speaking for status quo.
That’s sort of what happened in Judge Walker’s courtroom. If I understand the thing correctly, he put the status quo on trial under “rational basis,” and decreed there was no rational basis for the status quo.
This is not jurisprudence: this is legislation, or the rule of philosopher-kings. “Voice[s] speaking for status quo” were declared irrational and rendered moot—that’s how it went down.
I dunno if you’ve let something slip here, RTod, but
Otherwise any argument for any change is moot if there is a voice speaking for status quo
in my view, this is exactly the state of things, and you already know who I think shouts whose voices down in the American discussion.
Or simply declares them “irrational,” and bangs the gavel.Report
Rufus, as you know, love complicates things.
Per the man-woman definition, the redefining of which is a separate question, love has nothing essentially to do with marriage as defined and understood until recently.
The “evolution” you speak of was not that that the woman marry for love, it was that she have the freedom to choose her mate.
An essential difference, obscured by all this talk about love.
Per Bertrand Russell, society’s only compelling interest in sexual relations is in the kind that makes babies. Strangely enough, this supports Lawrence but weakens the case for “love” and SSM. Love the one you’re with, for all society cares, and for all the law should care.
Now if society wants to redefine marriage for “love” and obliterate the notion of gender, well, societies—which afterall are mere collections of conventions—can create new conventions anytime they want, if there is consensus. [Since societies are no more or less the sum of their conventions, be they the result of religion, moral sentiment, or simply trial-and-error about what works and what doesn’t.]
But per Russell, it’s a valid empirical argument that the state’s defense of society re marriage is in that for every marriage that raises its own children is one the state doesn’t have to.
The rest is abstraction, moral sentiment, even aesthetics. Which is not to say the latter are invalid either pro- or con- on any given issue, in my view anyway. It all plugs into ethos somewhere, and I am not in favor of its abolition.Report
Tom, society *ALREADY* redefined marriage.
This is something that *ALREADY* happened.
When procreation was divorced from marriage, marriage changed then. We saw it evolve through the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.
As recently as the 80’s, a scene of two guys getting married was absurd comedy. “Look! Two guys! GETTING MARRIED!!!”
The problem is that all of the kids from the marriages where the heterosexual partners screamed at each other about not loving each other anymore and then getting a divorce?
They were raised to see marriage as something completely different than what you see.
Every single argument that I have heard in support of “traditional” marriage has come from someone for which one of the two following things is true:
They are from a generation older than me
They are divorced
You know how I keep harping on Koz about Republican leadership from 2002-2006?
I keep harping on Christians about the divorce rate of Christians from the 70’s-90’s.
This is why Christians aren’t trusted when it comes to their defenses of Marriage, Tom.
They’re Dubya Republicans on Fiscal matters.Report
If I follow you correctly, JB, we have made a joke of the whole thing. One more won’t hurt.Report
No, Tom. You haven’t made a joke of the whole thing any more than Dubya made a joke of the concept of Fiscal Conservativism.
See those who support two guys entering into a lifelong covenant as the marital equivalent of the Tea Party.Report
I’ve had my say, Jaybird. Dubya and “fiscal conservatism” is like, whatever. I probably agree with you on that.Report
“But per Russell, it’s a valid empirical argument that the state’s defense of society re marriage is in that for every marriage that raises its own children is one the state doesn’t have to.”
And this is probably the argument for keeping marriage traditional that I would most lean towards. Actually, I’m more sympathetic towards Mike’s argument that the state should get out of the business altogether, but I don’t see that happening quicker than I see the state licensing same sex marriages. (Not to mention the fact that I went to them for my marriage- the immigration advantages helped there, admittedly.) But I can see the point that the state has an interest in promoting legitimacy.
The problem is that most of my friends are now married and at least 1/3rd of them are married with no intention of ever having children. So far, society seems to have said to friends like Laura and Jason, “No, go ahead and be married. The point is you’re making a commitment to each other and to your relationship. That’s what marriage is all about”. I don’t know anyone who has a problem with them getting the state’s sanction for their childless marriage. Most of us don’t even think about it. That’s seemingly the current status quo with heterosexuals- they “love each other so much” that they get the imprimatur of the family, the community, and the state. Conversely, getting married “proves” they really love each other a lot.
So, when Dan and Steve want to get married and society says, “Wait- no. You’re not having children, so your relationship is of no import”, it rings a bit hollow. If society is going to start caring so deeply about married people having kids, they could have done so when heterosexuals started seeing childbearing as a choice, say fifty years ago.Report
Laura and Jason might make—create and bear—a “mistake.” Not so for Dan & Steve, back to Bertrand Russell. I wish them all well, each to their own, FWIW. Were there no such thing as children, the state would have zero compelling interest in any of it.Report
Hard to say. I’ve known a few couples that have gone with vasectomy since they don’t plan on having kids. We considered it. It did lead me to make this inappropriate joke, which nobody laughed at: I was worried about the risks involved with having a vasectomy, but the doctor reassured me that I’ll still be able to fuck a piano.
My opinion on the state and kids is shaped by living in the “teen pregnancy capital of Canada”. What’s more troubling to me than a statistically small number of gay married couples are the young straight men who see pregnancy as a compelling reason to end their relationships with the mother. I’d love to know how society can change that status quo.Report
I can do you one better, Rufus, I’ve actually been snipped. Yet no one questions that Mrs. Likko and I are “really” married in either a legal or a social sense. This demonstrates that the extant definition of marriage already excludes conception as a necessary, much less sufficient, element.
Russell’s argument is that society only cares about procreative sex; it seeks to encourage this behavior. That was the intellectual foundation for the conclusion of the Indiana Court of Appeals in Morrison v. Sadler, which is that because heterosexual sex can sometimes produce unintended children, society can rationally and legitimately offer a special kind of privilege to heterosexual couples so as to encourage them to jointly raise the children resulting from such accidental sexual encounters.
But if procreation is not really part of what marriage is, since marriage licenses are issued to couples who cannot possibly procreate (like Mrs. Likko and I), then why are we even talking about the fact that two men can’t concieve?
Prof. George, the current intellectual darling of the anti-SSM movement, attempts to square this circle by arguing that heterosexual coitus is “imitative” of procreative sex, thus morally sanctionable (unlike other kinds of sexual activity), and thus appropriate to legally favor. For all the erudition George brings to the table, his argument is ultimately fancy intellectual window dressing on the core concept that the imitation of procreative sex somehow is procreative sex. Which it isn’t.
Dr. George is guilty of either magical thinking (the voodoo doll somehow is the victim) or an elaborate expression of an aesthetic preference for penises in vaginas as opposed to other imaginable combinations of genetalia. Maybe Dr. Russell didn’t go so far down this rabbit hole as Dr. George (I’m confident you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, TVD) but if we do drill down to the end of that rabbit hole all we shall find are small round pellets that are neither appealing nor useful.Report
The joke I told my doctor when I went in for mine was “I gotta warn ya, Doc… I have three testicles.”
His eyes got really big and I realized that he didn’t think “that’s funny” but “I am going to get published”.
So he was disappointed when I told him that I was just kidding.Report
Mr. Likko, you’ve merely redefined the basis of marriage as the pleasure bond [or the even more amorphous “love”] by obliterating the quite real fact of gender. That is a begging of the question of course and quite a rabbit hole of its own.
That a society may freely [or under judicial theory] make such a redefinition is the issue, but it is a redefinition.Report
Tom, you keep saying “you redefined marriage”.
Dude.
It was like that when we got here.
It already happened.Report
“Basis,” JB.Report
The basis was also like that when we got here.Report
I didn’t ask Prof. George or Mr. Blankenhorn. I asked you. It sounds like you think that attraction to the same sex is a “sexual disorder,” which is a proposition about which we will have to disagree. It sounds as though you claim that the sterility (by which I presume you mean “childlessness”) of a relationship is causally linked to its being worthy of no more import than an ordinary friendship between men. That means you’re attacking my childless, heterosexual marriage as well as those of my gay neighbors and colleagues. Sorry if I seem snippy, but an argument based on reproductive capability is personal to me, because I happen to think my marriage is just as good as anyone else’s even if my wife and I haven’t had children.
I do not concede that those of us who favor the legal recognition of same-sex marriage have an obligation to offer any justification for it other than that there are people who desire to be married — as a legal proposition, the burden is on the government that offers marriage to some people but not others to justify why it treats them unequally. I do not have to offer a justification for why I engage in acts of free speech. I do not have to offer a justification for why I want to own a gun. I do not have to offer a justification for why I do not want to quarter soldiers in my own house. And so on right on down to I do not have to offer a justification for why I should be permitted to marry a would-be spouse who mutually consents to the marriage. But even if the burden were on me to offer a justification for same-sex marriage, “equal treatment before the law” would be a more than sufficient justification for it. So would a justification like “I believe that adopting same-sex marriage would be likely to improve the well-being of gay and lesbian households and their children.” You might want to look up who offered that opinion.Report
Bad move on the Blankenhorn, “Mr. Deco.” He’s such an idiot that Vaughn Walker had to disqualify him as an expert witness in that charade he was running about Prop 8.
You should have called with Robbie George and stood pat with yr own argument that’s reminiscent of Bertrand Russell’s.
Counselor Likko just ate yr lunch.Report
Bad move on the Blankenhorn, “Mr. Deco.” He’s such an idiot that Vaughn Walker had to disqualify
Why is a ruling of the odious Judge Walker indicative of anyone’s idiocy?Report
Betwixt and between eating my lunch, advocate likko offers:
I do not have to offer a justification for why I should be permitted to marry a would-be spouse who mutually consents to the marriage.
Whatever you are “permitted to do” or not, you are asking institutions of state to enforce general obligations and asking that the state, the corporation, and individuals view you a certain way and treat you a certain way. You are asking that your elective associations be sanctioned and rendered a part of social architecture. You ain’t got no rights to that.Report
What do you think I do in court all day long, if not ask an institution of the state to enforce general obligations, whether those be in the form of contracts, or deeds to real property, or [gasp] marriages?
As to the government and corporations regulated by it, I don’t just ask that they treat my wife and I this way. I demand it. If my demands are not met, I will use the courts to compel recognition and sanction. To do so is my right as an American citizen.
As to individuals, at least with respect to marriage, they can do what they like. I’ve never argued that any individual has to personally or socially acknowledge my marriage or anyone else’s.
My marriage to a woman is no less an “elective association” than it would have been had I chosen to marry a man instead. Do I have the right to ask, to demand, and indeed to compel the state to recognize my “elective association”? Bet the house on it. And my gay neighbors should have the same right.Report
I know! Justice ‘s bra strap and slip are showing. Eww. And OMG is Liberty wearing a hospital gown? Some people have no fashion sense.Report
What I find so interesting about many people who reply with “Yuck” to a photo like this is how different their response often is if the women are disrobed and going at it on their computer screen while they jerk it into a sock. They have no problem with homosexuality when getting off to lesbian porn. But suddenly when the exact same, or far tamer, imagery is used to support gay relationships, it becomes “Yucky”…Report
?Report
We’ve no way of knowing whether Art Deco gets off on lesbian porn, nor any particular concern if he does. I’ll attack his arguments, but not him. What he does in the privacy of his own sock and what he looks at while he does it, is not at issue here nor should it be.
I would also not call the picture in the OP pornographic.Report
Burt-
The picture is most assuredly not pornographic. And I was not referring to Art Deco in particular, only some people who might share his initial response. The picture is a great one. Some people might say “Yuck” to it. Those same “some people” might also masturbate or otherwise get turned on by lesbian porn. I find that interesting.Report
The wallpaper on my phone is this image, which I’m sure you’ve seen before.Report
Dammit Burt, I was gonna post that!Report
Awesome! Who doesn’t go for a little icon on icon action every mow and then?Report
Okay, so you’ve got Lady Liberty and Lady Justice and they’re getting married. I get that. But I’m pretty damned sure that the gay-positive baby of the future there can start fires with its mind.Report
He’s our secret weapon.Report
Better than a toaster!Report
I assumed the baby was shoving the “Justice” sign down and thinking, “Damnit, they’re here to take a picture of me, not your silly sign!”Report
Can you give a couple of examples of the misuse of these words, so that we have a proper contrast?
From my perspective, the only position with integrity is that the State should have nothing to say legislatively about marriage.Report
You may recall the Iraq War.Report
That’s a good one.Report
Or perhaps the two and a half million Americans locked up in prison.Report
You mean the druggies? Yep. I could have been locked up a million times between 1968 and 1983 — no liberty, no justice – I was just expressing my inner-Cassidy.Report
“my inner-Cassidy”
Hilarity.Report
Shawn, or David?Report
Thanks for that one. The thought of Mr. Farmer walking down a Mexican railroad track stoned on seconal while singing “I think I love you” has made my day.Report
you’re right, I misspelled Cassady — Neal, of course.Report
Dammit, I had you pegged the other way.Report
Which of them do not belong there?Report
Are you implying that they all do? Or do you accept the proposition that some of them likely don’t?Report
I am implying nothing. I am asking a question since their was an implication in his statement.Report
I think this is what Erik’s talking about.
Usually, in a discussion, one expects someone to offer something. If you’re implying nothing, is it because you have no stance? If you have no stance, then why do you have a question?
If you *do* have a stance, why not offer it so that your question has the appropriate context for it to be answered meaningfully?Report
What I am offering is a question.Report
Is AD’s point that obscure? Here’s a BHL post by Fernando Teson that’s in the same vicinity.Report
If even the large majority of them belong there, then we are the most evil nation on earth.
Or, to be blunt about it, African-Americans are the most evil ethnicity on earth.
That’s if the prisoners mostly belong there. I’m not ready to admit that.Report
“Which of them do not belong there?”
How do you define “belong there”?Report
A person belongs in prison when he:
1. Commits crimes;
2. Is identified, arrested, and prosecuted for said crimes;
3. Is sentanced to imprisonment at the appendix of legal process, a sentence within the common-and-garden range of sentences for said crime and not in excess of common expectations of what sentences should be for said crimes;
4. Has not yet been reviewed for parole or has been found to have systemically or severely disrespected the rules of the prison.Report
Not to get all baloon-juicy… just curious how you would answer this based on your phrasing that a person “belongs” in prison.
Does a runaway slave, once captured, “belong” in prison?Report
Contracts of indenture are not enforceable under New York law.Report
Nice dodgeReport
Not a dodge. Your hypothetical has had no practical application in any Occidental country for 140-odd years.Report
I’m pretty sure you can construct a number of other hypotheticals just fine, A.D.
Or are you going to require RTod and E.D. to examine you by exhaustion to find a potential counter to your position laid out in comment #60?
If so, I think you can see how someone might find that to be less than entertaining or enlightening.Report
Yeah, “slavery” hypotheticals are pretty week. I think I was trying to determine if you thought that anyone in prison for a crime deserved to be there, regardless of the crime or circumstances… Which is what I read “belongs” as meaning.
IOW, are we not seeing eye to eye because semantics are getting in the way, or do we really fundamentally disagree? Some times it’s hard for me to tell on the inter tubes.Report
I am not in a position to require anyone to do anything.
Kain, with the agreement of Kuznicki, profess to be disgusted that 0.8% of the population is incarcerated. They do not elaborate much on why that bothers them.Report
It bothers me because
(1) liberty is for me the only reason we are ever justified when we descend into the cesspool of politics;
(2) prison is just about the antithesis of liberty; and
(3) basically every other country imprisons fewer people per capita, which should give us pause if we profess to care about liberty.Report
Art,
I truly understand the rule of law, and I think we have to have laws, but some laws are not just, and locking up non-violent drug users is not only unjust,. it’s a waste of money and that part of the person’s life. If the person has an addiction problem, treatment makes much more sense — but the War on Drugs has been a tragedy for many individuals and their families. Just imagine a brother or sister (it happened to my son) who gets imprisoned because of drug possession — when you can personalize it, you realize that most of these people aren’t criminals, and putting them in prison is a miscarriage of justice.Report
Damn straight, Mike. There is more to justice than the law.Report
E.D.:
“There is more to justice than the law.”
Like what? You may disagree with a law but it is still the law. If you chose to break the jail and go to jail then tough cookies.Report
the issue here is not following the law — but rather identifying unjust laws and making changes. It’s high time we go through all our laws and start making changes to fit the 21st century — some irrational, destructive laws stay on the books for decades, and they should be removed. There’s nothing holy about laws — they are made by fallible people and can be changed when we realize they are unjust.Report
I have read the New York Penal Law. The provisions on sentencing options are a barnacle-laden mess and it is disconcerting (and not spelled out explicitly) how much discretion prosecutors have in the application of charges. (Indictments will be larded with redundant counts which are then negotiated down and neither the original bill nor the final charges agreed to seem to bear more than passing resemblance to the crime which occurred). There is not much in the way of archaic provisions, though there are crimes defined therein which appear to have been a play to the galleries (e.g. doing such and such ‘near school grounds’). (The prohibitions on street drugs took their current form only in 1973).Report
Like what? You may disagree with a law but it is still the law. If you chose to break the jail [sic] and go to jail then tough cookies.
Suppose the law prohibited the public practice of Christianity, as is the case in some Muslim countries.
Suppose you lived there.
Still tough cookies? Or do you appeal to justice? At what point would you appeal to justice, if ever? Or are all laws justified by virtue of being enforced? Is there no concept in your mind of justice, outside of power?
Do you approve of the killing of Socrates?
And Jesus too?Report
It had occurred to me somewhere along the line that positive law was not precisely coterminous with justice.
Most federal prisoners have been incarcerated on drug charges, but federal prisoners account for only about 11% of the total population of convicts (and I think you might find if you looked into it that those in federal prison are implicated in the commercial traffick in street drugs and have ties to organized crime). With regard to the sum of federal, state, and county inmates, about 21% have been sent there on drug charges. E.D. Kain’s reference (“two and a half million”) was to the total population of convicts.
Haven’t a clue as to the proportion of those in prison on drug charges would be considered fitting clientele of the mental health trade; do not have much faith in that crew.Report
Iworked in facilities dealing with addiction for 15 years in differnet capacities — counselor, clinical director, Out-Patient manager, etc.
Addiction treatment, when done by those who understand addiction treatment, is very effective — much more effective and humane than prison. I left in 1996 to start a business, and at the time Dupont, GM, Norfolk-Southern, Owens-Corning and several other large companies had done ten year studies on their EAP programs, and the results were impressive. I witnessed many amazing turn-arounds through the years. Of course, there are some bogus treatment philosophies which avoid the fundamental problems, but what we were doing at the time worked.Report
Doesn’t follow.Report
Guys – the crazy long discussion about Art Deco’s comment seems REALLY silly after reading through it all. He has made plenty of comments on the League that had a satisfactory amount of content. I would suspect other commentors would be forgiven for a one-word negative reply to a different post on a different topic. I think some of you are taking this way too personally. In all fairness he could have posted two paragraphs that contained no singular negative words but the overall theme could have far surpassed ‘yuck’ in potential offensiveness. This is mountain-out-of-a-molehill stuff.Report
Mr. Kain would have been OK with that, if I read him correctly. And “Mr. Deco” would have done his own ideas a lot more justice if he had. If you argue aesthetics unaesthetically, you’re going to reap as you sow, and boy howdy did he.
By contrast, Mr. Kain argued his rather aesthetic point quite aesthetically, to the approval of those who share his aesthetics. If you’re still with me here.
Something like “It’s a shame that poor kid’s going to have to grow up without a father” might have returned Mr. Kain’s aesthetic serve, which I imagine he would have seen as fair play.Report
Of course he could have said more. I just tend to think of the League as a place where we don’t hound someone for the occasional violation of internet decorum when it’s harmless. I guess the flip side of my previous statement would be to ask how often we have seen someone posts multiple paragraphs that make little or no sense? Are we going to now be content police?Report
how often we have seen someone posts multiple paragraphs that make little or no sense?
Both those folks were banned, iirc.Report
Mr. Stick, “we” at the LOOG? You are expected to conduct yrself as though you’re in management’s living room, as a guest, not an equal. This is a salon, not a marketplace.
I have an affection for this community and admit an addiction to it, but dissenting voices are not granted dachas, they are offered a one-way ticket to somewhere/anywhere else.
;-}Report
Tom/Mike – I’m completely fine with dissenting opinion. In fact, I hope that we have lots and lots of it. My annoyance with Art Deco was the inflammatory nature of his remark, the fact that it added no value to the discussion, that it was neither witty nor much of anything else. It was something a troll would say.
I am not out to censor comments. I do think that to keep these comment threads lively and honest we, as the authors of the posts, need to remind people now and then about our commenting policy, and the goal of conversation here at The League. We have rarely banned or censored anyone.Report
“It was something a troll would say.”
And what do we do with trolls?
We don’t feed them.
The comments on this post show us why.Report
Probably so. Admittedly, people here are chatty. I’m guessing I could post that I went to the grocery store today and chose the paper bags over the plastic and there would be a heated discussion thread about it.Report
Or I guess not. Damn!Report
So fishing PC of you.Report
Real Men use reusable bags.Report
The trouble is, my comments were not and are not inflammatory. You are inflamed (or wish to appear inflamed). Why that is and what that might indicate concerning the evolution of public manners is a question of some mild interest.
I note again in this regard a post about two weeks ago the commentary upon which was chock-a-block with scurrilous attacks on a private citizen in Minnesota whose wife is a member of Congress. You seem to have had other things to do with your time, ‘Russell Saunders’ had only anodyne remarks to make about the whole rancid business, and Jason Kuznicki even got mildly creative with it. There are things that inflame you chaps, and things that do not.
The tendency on the part of some to look at the world through distorting prisms is not my offense against public order and social peace (unless manners are to be regarded as perfectly conventional and specific to context, which appears to be the view of one of your commenters).Report
The trouble is, my comments were not and are not inflammatory.
Isn’t inflammatory measured by flamms?Report
I think the “in-” suggests it’s measured by lacks of flamms?Report
That one always gets me in trouble.Report
It’s measure in units of flamgiston.Report
But ED – to be clear – I think there would have been no problem with a positive comment that added nothing to the discussion. I guess I just think that if you use comment value as the criteria you have to complain about positive/neutral comments that add no value as well. And I would hate to lose Jaybird’s witty jokes.
I also think ‘inflammatory’ is a bit of an exaggeration. As I stated way up in my first comment, I think ‘yuck’ is the response of many Americans when they see same-sex PDA. It’s an uncontrollable response that comes with our age and experience. I’m 100% pro-gay rights but if two guys kiss on TV I get a little uncomfortable. I have been known to even say ‘yuck’ myself. Does that make me prejudice or inflammatory? I hope not.Report
Whlep, Mike, I’m not too interested in this particular rabbit hole, but I’ll note:
Someone says something that implies a complex argument. I offer fairly content-free “I agree”. This implies that I more or less agree with the complex argument itself. There’s a lot of tacit that goes along there, transitively speaking. If someone takes issue with the argument they can start disassembling it and I’m sorta obligated to pony up a defense of the bits, or fess up I have a problem with a bit, too. I staked something out.
Someone says something that implies a complex argument. I offer also the fairly content-free “I disagree”… but there’s nothing tacit that comes along there. I’ve staked nothing. In fact, I’ve staked less than nothing.
Nobody knows anything about which part of the argument I have an issue; the foundational principles, the logic, the conclusion, one of the steps in-between.
That’s not the same amount of “content-free”. There’s no real basis for discussion. I haven’t really put anything *out there* for anyone else to get their teeth into.
If I then start talking out of my ass about individual points, it’s not clear what the hell my point is, really, except to be a wet blanket.
Now, A.D. hasn’t done this on every thread he’s commented on, but on this particular thread his first comment was at 12:59 pm (comment #3, no less)… and the first time he said anything that resembled an actual position was at 6:02pm.
In between there he was doing a lot of much ado about nothing, or digressing about another thread and implying that there were parallels there without even drawing some explicit lines.
That’s not exactly trolling, but it’s close enough for government work.Report
“Someone says something that implies a complex argument. I offer fairly content-free “I agree”. This implies that I more or less agree with the complex argument itself. “
But does it? If the post made one specific point and you said, “I agree,” then we could make that assumption. What if it was a post with 5 key points? Does a simple, “I agree” still really mean the same thing or is more elaboration required?
ED’s post doesn’t really elaborate on his opinion – it simply offers a statement. If ED makes a statement of opinion and you reply with, “I agree” are you explaining why you agree with the point? If not, then it seems a reply of “I disagree” requires no further explanation either.
Basically, if you offer an opinion without explaining how you arrived at it then i don’t see why someone can’t dismiss that opinion without explaining how they got there.Report
> But does it? If the post made one
> specific point and you said, “I
> agree,” then we could make that
> assumption.
Well, sure.
> What if it was a post with 5 key
> points? Does a simple, “I agree”
> still really mean the same thing
> or is more elaboration required?
I suppose it depends on how you look at it. If you offer no elaboration or qualification, then you lit the fire and put your goose on it. If you didn’t mean to cook it… that’s on you.
If a post has five key points, and you just toss out an “I agree”, then either you’d better agree with the five key points, or you’d better be ready to walk back yourself when someone else says, “Hey, wait a minute, key point 4 seems weak at best, you agree with that nonsense?”
If you’re walking back, then you have to issue a “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea minima culpa” and fess up to being lazy.
If you’re walking back on a bunch of points, sub in “maxima” for “minima” and we all get to make fun of you ’cause people around here don’t usually get lazy like that (although, it happens to everybody).
At any rate, arguments are structures. If you agree with it, you either buy the structure, or you buy most of the structure and have subbed in some bit for a part you don’t like (which you should elaborate), or you buy most of the structure and think the weak spots aren’t that weak (which you should qualify).
If you disagree with it, point at the part you disagree with. If it’s an implied argument (like this whole OP actually was), you might find out that you’re disagreeing with something the OP didn’t mean to imply. Hey, everybody gets to communicate and clear the air, yay!
If you’re not telling people which part you don’t like, then one either needs to ignore you or start playing Sherlock Holmes to try and figure out what you don’t like. That’s leaving out a foundation for a constructive conversation, IMO.
Alternatively, what RTod sez in the follow up post *does* have some value, so maybe this is a guideline about which I’m being overly pedantic.
Overly.Report
Mike:
There is nothing to the original post that seeks to inspire intelligent discussion. The entire purpose of the post is for E.D. to espouse SSM and then for him to criticize folks that don’t agree with him. I expect something better of the content posted here.Report
More charitably:
Which, as corrected, is pretty much how it has worked out.Report
Burt:
Sorry but I have to say BS. E.D.’s first comment after Art’s comment was “I’m confused, Art. Why is it that you comment at this blog? Is that a comment designed to “intellectually engage” someone or just shut them down for not parroting the PC party line?Report
That’s a fair cop, Scott. His comment isn’t the original post, but I agree that comment is not calculated to intellectually engage on the subject.
I think the overall record shows E.D. shaped up as the situation developed and maybe the sting of something that got to him on an emotional level faded. And others jumped in to flesh things out in a more intelleectual fashion too.
I’ve been guilty of typing first and thinking later myself so I’ve got some sympathy for E.D. there. He’s only human.Report
bububububub he made me feeeeeeeeel baaaaaaaaadReport
I don’t have a problem with Art’s “Yuck” comment, in fact it’s not over the top at all, if one assumes the women(?) in the pic are lesbians and the viewer embraces what we might assume is a more traditional perspective on sexuality in America. Unless, of course, the management would prefer that those of us who don’t share sundry progressive ideas make ourselves scarce so the enlightened can massage their egos without fear of rebuttal or critique.Report
‘Sok Bob, much of what you say makes me say “yuck” as well.Report
Oh Chris, it’s becoming more and more obvious to many here at the League that you not only love me but seek out my opinions and clarifying remarks. As a result I’ll try to ‘comment’ more frequently (the subjects here, lately, have been both puerile and strange, kinda like reading the Police Gazette back in Eliot’s Barbershop in 1956). I do have some remarks on parousiastic gnosticism I wanna make.Report
By “many here” you mean you, right?Report
“Yuck” is neither a valid argument nor even properly speaking a proposition that might be argued.
“Yuck” is not a valid argument because it can (and still does) justify many things we find abhorrent, while forbidding many things we find permissible. A valid argument would not yield obviously invalid results — like infanticide or female circumcision. So yuck isn’t valid as a reasoned argument. (Are any reasons valid in moral philosophy, given that there are always disagreements? Some still are, I’d say — if I had the space. But it is striking how the invokers of “yuck” so freely dismiss the very same reasoning made by others. Convenient, too.)
Nor is yuck a claim, as I understand it. Yuck… and therefore what? This is left to the imagination. Stoning, perhaps? That seems like a valid inference from yuck. Or at least we can’t deny its longstanding popularity.Report
“Yuck… and therefore what? This is left to the imagination. Stoning, perhaps? That seems like a valid inference from yuck.”
C’mon Jason. That is over-the-top. I realize you have more interest in this than a straight individual but you’re better than that.Report
Mike, you’re right. Jason, who started out house-a-fire, intellectually and now what…the oppressed editor of Cato Unbound writes from the American Gulag? I’ll give him credit, at least we didn’t have to read another rant against the evil Christians.Report
Christians? Yuck.Report
Mike said ‘yuck!’
Mike said ‘yuck!’
So that means he’ll be oppressing me anytime now! Hep me, hep me!Report
Bob, aren’t you oppressed already?Report
He appears to be the only one to have used that word on this thread.
I don’t feel all that oppressed, for what it’s worth. I just don’t trust “yuck” to be a good reason for anything. It’s gone wrong too often in the past.Report
Mike:
Based on Jason’s attempt to hide his silly criticism in the garb of an intellectual argument, I think we can say that he isn’t “better than that.” This goes to show what length some supporters of SSM will go to in order to discredit folks that don’t agree with them.Report
What’s silly about it?Report
Chris:
Jason goes from “yuck” to “stoning” which is quite a stretc.Report
It’s not a stretch at all. Consider the crimes punished by stoning in the Bible. Overwhelmingly they appear to be prohibitions based on disgust — sex acts, necromancy, and burning children alive. Disgust has indeed led to stoning, and in the Muslim world it still does today.Report
Jason:
All he did was say “yuck”, not suggest folks be stoned which is what you miss. If you want to read other implications and hidden arguments into “yuck,” fine but don’t be surprised if some people don’t take you seriously.Report
I am not finding hidden implications in his statement. I am showing why statements of this type, considered as a class, are unreliable guides to morality.
It is not a personal accusation… not, at any rate, of anything more than a probably faulty moral reasoning.Report
Jason – honestly, aren’t you ‘disgusted’ by people that are intolerant towards gays? And if not that, are you disgusted about anything? If so, do you feel an urge to harm someone?Report
I’m disgusted by inelegant or faulty thinking.
I’m disgusted by cheap tequila, roadkill, and week-old leftovers in the fridge.
I’m even disgusted by certain sex acts.
Do I feel an urge to harm people in order somehow to satisfy my disgust? No.Report
So then why do you feel it’s okay to automatically link another kind of disgust to violence? Have there been acts of violence against gays based on disgust? Absolutely. But equivocating ALL admissions of discomfort with those few that ended in violence is unfair and it seems a deliberate attempt to box someone into a corner. The goal seems to be to label benign personal discomfort as completely unacceptable and akin to the worst of human actions. It’s an unfair tactic aimed at forcing personal acceptance rather than allowing it to happen organically.
IMO, gay rights supporters are going to have to accept that while they may gain legal support and support from individuals at the personal level , it doesn’t mean that the public is going to become comfortable with the concept overnight, especially in a sexually-repressed country like the U.S. It’s going to take a generation or two.Report
The goal seems to be to label benign personal discomfort as completely unacceptable and akin to the worst of human actions. It’s an unfair tactic aimed at forcing personal acceptance rather than allowing it to happen organically.
Absolutely not. I am simply pointing out that disgust is an unreliable method of cognition. In you. In me. In everyone.
It’s really, really not personal.Report
I think I know you well enough to know it’s not personal Jason. But I also think that linking an expression of personal disgust/discomfort towards homosexual PDA with stoning is waaay over the top. To me it feels eerily like linking a political party to Nazis or some variation. It’s meant to label that type of feeling as mean as evil and forcibly shame the person that feels that way.
And to be clear, i am fine with shaming people for all manner of distasteful behaviors. But when you shame someone you should do it based on the merits of the actual act, not by linking it to bible-based violence committed by a fractional minority (especially when their personal feelings probably go way beyond ‘yuck’). So to request a little perspective, the action we are talking about is Art Deco expressing his personal discomfort with the imagery ED shared. It may be tacky – but that’s about it.Report
I’m not trying to shame anyone. I’m making a very simple modus tollens-type argument.
It runs as follows:
1. If an argument (here, the argument from disgust) is deductively valid, then, given true premises, it will always yield true results. (This is the definition of a valid argument, by the way.)
2. Aside from its other problems qua argument, the argument from disgust does not always yield true results. Sometimes it yields obviously untrue results (like — for example — stoning homosexuals).
3. The argument from disgust is therefore invalid.
This shouldn’t be so hard to understand. Really.Report
You lost me there man – a philosophy major I was not.Report
Here, in street language:
1. Disgust can prove fishing anything.
2. An argument that appears to prove anything really proves nothing.
2. Disgust proves nothing.
Would you like the limerick version?Report
Jason – you are talking about the digust itself. Fine, we agree that personal disgust is a human flaw and expressions of it are bad (with bad being a vague term).
But what I am getting at is then taking that bad action and equivocating it with other actions that are way beyond bad and could accurately be described as evil. That is the crux of my complaint.
The intent of the equivocation seems to be a marginalization of undesirable expressions of digust.Report
No, no, no.
You’re still not getting it. Disgust is not “bad (with bad being a vague term).”
Disgust is bad because it interferes with rational thinking. How much? Arbitrarily much.Report
But disgust also doesn’t always lead to violence or even usually lead to violence. At best it occasionally leads to violence.
It may be irrational to imply otherwise.Report
There was a funny (but serious) study published a few years ago (I wrote about it at the link below) on this issue. The gist of the study’s findings is that an irrelevant disgust-inducing stimulus (in the study, fart spray – no, really) causes moral judgments to be more severe, whatever the moral judgment. It seriously undercuts rational moral judgments. Politicians take advantage of this all the time: associate a party or a candidate with either disgust-inducing behavior or a disgust-inducing position (like, say, gay marriage), and suddenly you can’t think about it rationally. My favorite example occurred in Texas. Governor Perry made the HPV vaccine part of the mandatory (with exceptions, so not really mandatory) series of vaccines at age 12. Those campaigning against this policy went straight to disgust-inducing (fallacious) implications: 12 year olds need a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease? Because 12 year olds are having sex? Yuck! After that, no amount of factual information about cervical cancer and the benefits of the vaccine was going to sway minds, because the disgust made it difficult, if not impossible for some people, to think about the issue rationally.Report
Although it doesn’t work out so well for last week’s casserole, I’m willing to wager.Report
Except that it’s not a stretch, because “yuck” signifies disgust, and as Jason notes, disgust has been used to justify all sorts of atrocities. “Yuck” as a serious reason for opposition, particularly as Bob seems to believe it to be, is quite dangerous.Report
I don’t think Jason is being over-the-top. Disgust has been used to justify all sorts of horrible things, because it is such a powerful player in moral psychology. If you just leave it at “yuck,” as Bob and Art did, then you deserve exactly what Jason just gave those two.Report
C’mon Jason. That is over-the-top. I realize you have more interest in this than a straight individual but you’re better than that.
I don’t agree. One of the most salient aspects of the argument from disgust is that it leaves wide open the door to brutality, in that it does not have any necessary measure or proportionality about it. Unlike, for example, a harm and restitution approach to justice.Report
I disagree with your disagree.
I am grossed out but some of the clothing my daughters’ friends where – but I’m not beating anyone. I am grossed out by a significant portion of the pornography on the internet – but I’m not beating anyone. I am HORRIFIED by the thought of abortion – but I’m not beating anyone. My wife is digusted by the thought of eating sushi – but she’s not beating anyone.
Disgust only leads to violence when someone is a flawed individual IMO. For the rest of us it is possible to be uncomfortable with a visual image or an action and not resort to violence. When you link ‘yuck’ to stoning that lumps all of us in with a tiny majority that would do real violence because of their discomfort. It’s sensationalism.Report
Except when it comes to homosexuality, disgust has often led to violence in our society. In other cultures, the “yuck” factor at the way women or girls are dressed has led to violence as well, but “yuck” towards that carries less weight here (though I note that most of the time, “yuck” as a result of dress is “yuck” as a result of female dress).Report
FTFY.Report
Has anyone suggested that the aforementioned yuck is going to lead to violence? Of course not, so suggesting that something may happen or could happen or that it will happen today b/c it happened in the past is a stretch or just a ploy to get sympathy.Report
Except that no one is suggesting that this particular “yuck” is going to lead to violence, and I can’t imagine how anyone’s shooting for sympathy. The point Jason made, and that I tried to reiterate, is that as a position on homosexuality, or this picture in particular, “yuck” is irrational. If it makes you go “yuck,” that’s fine. If that’s your only response, which it seems to have been in Art’s case (hence his entire comment being “yuck”), then what you’ve got is objectively pretty shitty.Report
I don’t know. I find the economy of words to have been pretty powerful. Look at the visceral reaction it triggered in several commenters.
The only flaw I would see in it is that it wasn’t a specific ‘yuck’ and the readers had to infer their own meaning. Most of the complaints seemed to believe AD was grossed out by two girls kissing. This was probably correct. But what if his reaction was actually more like mine which is that I don’t like the use of patriotic imagery and I REALLY don’t like the addition of a minor child into the proaganda? The ‘yuck’ could have completely different context and possibly not even cause so much outrage.Report
I totally agree with this, Mike.
On the other hand, though, if you were objecting to the use of patriotism and a child, you should probably know that if you just go with the “yuck” without any explanation that most people will misread what you are trying to say.
Not that this is a big criticism. I don’t think there are any of us here that haven’t made a poorly worded comment that hasn’t been totally misinterpreted by everyone, and been forced to go back and say “My bad. What I meant to say was…”Report
Maybe I’m being naive here – but something tells me that someone who would be prone towards violence towards lesbians based on PDA would use a word that is a little stronger than ‘yuck’.Report
Perhaps. Perhaps not, particularly in a blog comment section populated by commenters mostly unsympathetic to the “yuck”-producing position.Report
Whilst at Redstate (full disclosure: banned), I got into an argument with someone over God’s attitude towards the whole gay thing in relationship to the whole shellfish thing.
He explained to me that Paul explained that it was okay to eat shellfish in the section about meat that had been offered to idols but no dispensation has ever been made about homosexuality. *BUT*, he pointed out, he didn’t think that homosexuals ought to be killed.
Personally, I hate the phrase “mighty white of ya”.
Despite this, I was tempted to use it.Report
I have to ask:
How does one get banned from RedState? Is there a thread that resulted in your banishment?
Because I confess I’m curious to read it.Report