03/15/2005: "California Marriages and the great myths of the 20th century"

Well, we've all heard the news. A California judge has decided that it is discriminatory to prevent two men or two women from getting "married". If you haven't heard about it yet and you're worried you might have low blood pressure, go over to the San Francisco Chronicle to read about it.

After reading more about it, I've decided it is time to write an article/essay entitled: "The greatest political myths popularized in the 20th century". I haven't come up with my complete list although I want to keep the list short, but here are some of the myths I'm considering:

1. Privileges are the same as rights
2. Past errors by groups mean they're always wrong.
3. No state established religion means separation of Church and State
4. Equal protection means you can't make distintions
5. Sex is not associated to procreation
6. Quality of life is all that matters
7. Money facilitates happiness (this may transcend the 20th century)
8. Overpopulation is a big problem/it is immoral to have a lot of children
9. Being charatable/reconcilitory requires compromising your beliefs

Any others to recommend? Anything in my existing ones where I'm missing an over-arching myth?

Ken Crawford :

Oh! I thought of another one that although similar to #9 deserves mentioning:

11. Religious tolerance is incompatible with religious zeal.

(#10 Of course being Pauls: "The government grants us rights"

I should have thought of that one right off the bat since it was a significant portion of my recent letter to the editor.

03.18.05 @ 09:28 AM PST

Ken Crawford :

That's a good one Paul, although your example sucks! Goes back to what I said in my letter to the editor from last week: The reality is that the government is created to protect God given rights, it does not give rights of its own in fact it's job is to limit our abilities so that we don't infringe on others God given rights.

03.18.05 @ 08:54 AM PST

Ken's Brother :

Actually this is the first I've heard of this. Man, I should stop playing Lego Star Wars and watch the news!

03.18.05 @ 03:13 AM PST [homepage]

Paul :

Consider perhaps "The Government grants us rights" or something along those lines. The only thing the government can do is take away rights/privileges. As you well know, the more laws we have, the more criminals we create. Remove all the laws and we have complete "freedom". The government puts laws in place to protect things, thereby removing rights from others. For example, the government wants to protect its populace, therefore it enacts a law to forbid murder. This law thereby removes my "right" to murder you. An extreme (and probably flawed) example.

I don't think I am expressing myself very clearly, but I think you get the thrust of what I am saying.

Paul

03.17.05 @ 09:24 PM PST