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The Boston trolley accident—just another day in liberal America
Last Friday evening, May 8, a trolley driver on Boston’s Green Line drove through a red light in a “crowded and twisting subway corridor” and crashed into the rear of a stationary trolley, causing injuries to 50 passengers and $10 millions in damages, including the totaling of three trolley cars.
The following facts have emerged:
- The driver was text messaging his girlfriend when the accident occurred.
- Not only that, but he had received three speeding tickets from driving his own car in recent years, yet he was hired as a trolley driver.
- Not only that, but “he” is not a he. “He” is a transgendered person, formerly Georgia Quinn, now Aiden Quinn.
- And not only that, but “he” was hired as a minority because of “his” transgendered status.
Call me square, call me fastidious, call me a narrow-minded bigot who does not look with a welcoming and sympathetic eye on all things human, but I really don’t want to know whether and in what sense a transgendered “man” can have a “girlfriend.”
So let’s sum this up: a transgendered “male” trolley driver who had had three speeding tickets but was hired as a “minority” because of “his” sex-change operation was text messaging “his” “girlfriend” while driving “his” trolley and drove through a red light into another trolley injuring dozens of people.
Question: How many perversities can be squeezed into a single situation?
Answer: America is about finding out!
But what I really mean is:
Liberalism is about finding out!
I’ve copied several stories in this entry. The first is from ABC News:
Texting Trolley Driver Could Face Charges
Driver Tied to Boston Crash Had 3 Speeding Tickets, Could Face Criminal Charges
By MICHELE McPHEE
BOSTON, May 11, 2009
The Boston-area transit authority trolley driver who allegedly slammed into another train while text-messaging his girlfriend Friday had three speeding tickets on his driving record in recent years and could face criminal charges.
Aiden Quinn, 24, received the three speeding tickets in his private vehicle, two in New Hampshire in April 2007, and one in Massachusetts in 2002, sources told ABC News.
Quinn, who was hired as a minority because of his transgendered “female-to-male” status, was born Georgia Quinn and boasts on an Internet networking site that he was one of the first transgender hires by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, sources said.
The trolley driver lists his sexual orientation as “FTM” and was hired as a minority using his transgender status, two sources told ABC News.
“[Quinn] was initially hired as a minority and used her transgender status,” an MBTA source said today.
Here is a followup in today’s Boston Herald:
T to drivers: Talk or text and you’re fired
Any T driver caught using a cell phone on duty will be fired on the spot, MBTA officials announced this morning unveiling what could be the toughest such policy in the country.
“We believe this is the strongest policy of its kind for any major transportation agency in the nation and I think it will help make us one of the safest,” said MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas this morning.
Any subway or bus driver caught using a cell phone on the job will be fired and any driver caught even in possession of a cell phone while on duty will be suspended for 10 days, Grabauskas said. A driver in possession of a cell phone on duty could be fired for the breach on a second offense.
The new policy takes effect Monday.
Under the old policy, drivers caught using a cell phone on the job were suspended for three days and could fired for the gaffe on the third offense.
Grabauskas unveiled the new policy five days after 24-year-old T driver Aiden Quinn rear ended a stopped trolley at Park Street, causing millions of dollars in damage and injuring dozens. Quinn at the time said he was text messaging his girlfriend when he crashed.
Yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick expressed outrage at the T’s apparent low standards that allowed a young, inexperienced driver with a poor record to take the controls of a trolley full of commuters.
Patrick ordered a full review of T hiring, safety and training.
“These jobs have the public’s safety in their responsibility, and these drivers have the public safety in their hands, and we want the absolute best, most conscientious performance all the time,” Patrick told reporters yesterday.
Quinn applied in 2004 at age 19 and was hired as a part-time worker in 2007. He had three speeding tickets and an accident on his auto driving record within that period. He was a full-time T driver for just two months when he rear ended the trolley.
It was the second time in less than a year that a Green Line driver’s inattention caused a wreck. On May 28, 2008, driver Terrese Edmonds, 24, was killed and a dozen commuters were injured in a similar rear-end crash.
Meanwhile, the T Carmen’s Union last night called on the T to install automatic sensors that would reduce the potential for driver error. The union also voiced support for better training and hiring standards.
“The truth is that the T’s commitment to safety is lacking,” union president Stephan G. MacDougall’s statement said. “When it comes to passenger safety, MBTA operators should be held to very high standards… . But T management should be held to the same high standards.”
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo, when asked whether commuters are safe on the T, responded by e-mail: Texting while driving is not an issue of age or experience. In L.A. last year, a 46-year-old train engineer was texting when he crashed his train, killing 25 people. He had more than 20 years of experience in operating a train.
Pesaturo declined to answer questions by phone.
Patrick, who wants a review of all the state’s public transit systems, said yesterday he was “outraged, and I think everybody else was” by Quinn’s alleged admission to T authorities he was text-messaging his girlfriend while he was at the controls. Patrick also wants the T to reconsider its minimum age of 18 for trolley drivers.
Here is a statement from Georgia/Aiden Quinn’s lawyer
May 12, 2009 04:56 PM Email| Comments (4)| Text size—+
Here is the statement issued this afternoon by Aiden Quinn’s lawyer, Michelle Menken:
“Aiden is extremely remorseful about the accident which occurred on the T last Friday. He is scheduled to have surgery on shattered wrist later this week and remains in substantial pain from the injuries he suffered. Aiden has suffered and will continue to suffer serious consequences as a result of this unfortunate accident. He and his family would appreciate it if the media would respect their privacy as they seek to cope with this difficult situation.”
Boston radio host Howie Carr discusses Georgia/Aiden Quinn. He mentions that in the the May 11 Boston Globe’s article reporting that Quinn had been talking to “his” “girlfriend” at the time of the accident, the news of Aiden Quinn’s sex change operation was in the 19th paragraph of the article.
Here is the Boston Globe’s May 11 story which reconstructs the accident, but it only has 17 paragraphs and doesn’t say anything about the sex change.
Trolley driven through red light
By John C. Drake and Jenara Gardner
May 11, 2009
The operator of an MBTA trolley who authorities said was typing a text message when he rear-ended a train at Government Center Station on Friday night drove through a red light before the crash, federal investigators said yesterday.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board joined local authorities over the weekend in analyzing the Green Line train and track conditions at the time of the crash, which sent nearly 50 people to the hospital, and have found no mechanical problems. The operator told T police he was sending his girlfriend a text message while driving the trolley through the crowded and twisting subway corridor.
But the safety board has not been able to meet with the driver, 24-year-old Aiden Quinn of Attleboro, who did not appear for a scheduled meeting yesterday with his supervisor and representatives of the federal agency. Joe Pesaturo, T spokesman, said Quinn called in advance of the meeting to say he was not feeling well and could not attend.
Debbie Hersman, of the safety board, said the crash totaled three of the four trolley cars involved, causing $9.6 million in damage. The board is in Boston investigating the city’s second Green Line rear-end collision in a year.
“We are very interested in talking to the operator,” Hersman said.
Quinn, who has not responded to calls requesting comment, did not answer the door at his apartment yesterday. A downstairs neighbor in the three-unit building who declined to give her name said Quinn had left early in the morning and was not planning to return yesterday.
Daniel A. Grabauskas, MBTA general manager, has said Quinn will be fired. Pesaturo said Quinn was on a paid suspension, and authorities plan to fire him early this week. He may face charges, Grabauskas has said.
Hersman said investigators have determined that the 18-year-old, two-car trolley Quinn was operating had no mechanical defects and had its last overhaul last month. The tracks were in good condition and the signals were operating, she said.
After leaving Government Center Station, she said, the train passed two green lights and a yellow light before going through a red light. It then proceeded 80 feet past the red signal, traveling at the posted speed limit of 25 miles per hour, before striking a trolley that was stopped because of congestion on the tracks. Two other trains were stopped in front of the train that was struck.
The impact jolted the stationary train 31 feet down the tracks at 10 miles per hour, according to an “event recorder”—which is similar to an airplane’s “black box”—on the train that was struck. According to an on-the-tracks reconstruction of the incident yesterday, Quinn should have been able to see the train ahead at a distance of 480 feet.
The safety board also will check the results of a toxicology test, as well as training and personnel records, Hersman said.
Grabauskas said after the collision that the T, which bans cellphone use by operators while driving, would now prohibit drivers from carrying cellphones onto trains and buses. The safety board has been looking for years at the risks of using a cellphone while driving, Hersman said.
“You should not be talking on your cellphone, texting, or operating a wireless device while you are operating a vehicle,” she said.
The MBTA reopened the Green Line yesterday at 5 a.m. Some anxious T riders said the incident made them reluctant to get back on the trains, but others said they appreciated the driver’s honesty and the T’s response.
“What happened is very scary because I ride the T with my daughter to and from work and school,” said Shani Wilkerson, 34, of Dorchester, who was walking with her family through Boston Common yesterday. “Before I was worrying about drunk drivers, and now it’s texting T drivers? Maybe I’ll take the bus more or try and ride the T less, at least when I’m with my daughter.”
Robert McIntyre, 47, of Somerville has been a Park Street food vendor for 12 years and has always taken the T to work. “I rely on the T and usually I’m very happy with it,” he said. “What happened was horrible and irresponsible, but I give the guy credit for coming forward. He realized he did wrong.”
Mary Hopkins, a 27-year-old Jamaica Plain resident who was exiting Government Center T Station yesterday, said the incident did not make her feel the T was less safe.
“It seems like the MBTA is taking it very seriously, so that is good,” she said. “Now, if anything, being on the T is safer with the drivers being under such scrutiny.”
John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com. Globe correspondent Matthew P. Collette contributed to this report.
- end of initial entry -
David Frum writes:
OK I admit it—this made me laugh.
A liberal correspondent writes:
OK, you’re a square, fastidious narrow-minded bigot. Also, some unpleasant things. Also, frequently entertaining.
Ken Hechtman, VFR’s Canadian leftist reader, writes:
You don’t want to know the “with what and to which and to whom” aspects of the story. You really don’t. But they’re not the point here. Watching the road is the point. I want my bus driver watching the road when he’s working—I don’t care what he does when he’s not. Let’s do the math. Trannies are one American in 20,000. There are 60,000 major traffic accidents a year. All other things being equal, three of them will be caused by a tranny.
Kevin J. writes:
I was astonished to read that Georgia “Aiden” Quinn is part of the “LGBT” subculture. When I first heard of the accident, I thought of Los Angeles Metrolink passenger train driver Robert Sanchez, a homosexual who crashed his train on September 12, 2008. He crashed because he was habitually text messaging teenage boys who were fans of trains.
E. Michael Jones, whatever his other flaws, collected the facts in an article at Culture Wars:
Sanchez, it turns out, “was something of a celebrity… among young train fans,” which was the main-stream media’s way of saying that he was in the habit of communicating with teen-age boys while he was running his train. It turns out that there was a link between Sanchez’s compulsive texting and his sexual compulsions after all, even if everyone from the main-stream media to the mainstream railroad establishment was determined to ignore it. Sanchez called these boys “his teenage train buffs,” according to his next-door neighbor Bud Amelsberg. “They would all yell at him as he rolled by.” And instead of ignoring them and keeping his eyes on the track in front of him, Sanchez would try to contact his fans and arrange to meet them. The last message Sanchez ever texted, the one he sent 20 seconds before his death, “apparently told the teen and his friends where Sanchez would be meeting another passenger train,” according to KCAL 9 and CBS 2 reporter Kristine Lazar. Or is this just another way of saying that Sanchez last act before he died was arranging a meeting with a 14-year old boy, a meeting so important to him that he was willing to risk the lives of hundreds of people to arrange it.
When I heard of Quinn, I thought “So I guess these accidents can happen among heterosexuals as well.” Then I learned that he/she is a “transgender”!
People who are “sexual minorities” are not being challenged to correct their obviously negligent habits. And these habits are no longer limited to self-destructive behavior, if they ever were.
Perhaps fears of lawsuits or political activists alleging sexual orientation-based discrimination are in effect mandating negligence.
- end of initial entry -
David Frum writes:
OK I admit it—this made me laugh.
LA replies:
Thank you.
A liberal correspondent writes:
OK, you’re a square, fastidious narrow-minded bigot. Also, some unpleasant things. Also, frequently entertaining.
LA replies:
Thank you.
Ken Hechtman, VFR’s Canadian leftist reader, writes:
You don’t want to know the “with what and to which and to whom” aspects of the story. You really don’t. But they’re not the point here. Watching the road is the point. I want my bus driver watching the road when he’s working—I don’t care what he does when he’s not. Let’s do the math. Trannies are one American in 20,000. There are 60,000 major traffic accidents a year. All other things being equal, one out of three will be caused by a tranny.
Kevin J. writes:
I was astonished to read that Georgia “Aiden” Quinn is part of the “LGBT” subculture. When I first heard of the accident, I thought of Los Angeles Metrolink passenger train driver Robert Sanchez, a homosexual who crashed his train on September 12, 2008. He crashed because he was habitually text messaging teenage boys who were fans of trains.
E. Michael Jones, whatever his other flaws, collected the facts in an article at Culture Wars:
Sanchez, it turns out, “was something of a celebrity… among young train fans,” which was the main-stream media’s way of saying that he was in the habit of communicating with teen-age boys while he was running his train. It turns out that there was a link between Sanchez’s compulsive texting and his sexual compulsions after all, even if everyone from the main-stream media to the mainstream railroad establishment was determined to ignore it. Sanchez called these boys “his teenage train buffs,” according to his next-door neighbor Bud Amelsberg. “They would all yell at him as he rolled by.” And instead of ignoring them and keeping his eyes on the track in front of him, Sanchez would try to contact his fans and arrange to meet them. The last message Sanchez ever texted, the one he sent 20 seconds before his death, “apparently told the teen and his friends where Sanchez would be meeting another passenger train,” according to KCAL 9 and CBS 2 reporter Kristine Lazar. Or is this just another way of saying that Sanchez last act before he died was arranging a meeting with a 14-year old boy, a meeting so important to him that he was willing to risk the lives of hundreds of people to arrange it.
When I heard of Quinn, I thought “So I guess these accidents can happen among heterosexuals as well.” Then I learned that he/she is a “transgender”!
People who are “sexual minorities” are not being challenged to correct their obviously negligent habits. And these habits are no longer limited to self-destructive behavior, if they ever were.
Perhaps fears of lawsuits or political activists alleging sexual orientation-based discrimination are in effect mandating negligence.
LA writes:
Ken Hechtman wrote:
You don’t want to know the “with what and to which and to whom” aspects of the story. You really don’t. But they’re not the point here. Watching the road is the point. I want my bus driver watching the road when he’s working—I don’t care what he does when he’s not.
And Mr. Hechtman lives in the amiable but fatal liberal delusion that you can “liberate” all human sexuality, “liberate” all cultural diversity, and you’re still going to have an orderly society where people will watch the road.
Ken Hechtman replies:
The connection escapes me. Is there a reason why trannies in particular are more prone to cause traffic accidents. Or are you focused on this accident in particular because the tranny shouldn’t have been there in the first place?
LA replies:
The connection between sexual liberation and train accidents escapes you because, as a liberal, you have no sense of SIN, of MAN’S NATURAL TENDENCY TOWARD DISORDER, which civilization is about containing and restraining, and how sexual liberation by breaking down those restraints has unleashed entire populations that, e.g., get drunk and walk around NYC at 4 a.m. wearing a halter top; chat and flirt while flying a plane below 10,000 feet and ice is accumulating on the wing; allow obviously dangerous men into one’s home where they have access to one’s daughter; use one’s job as a train driver to make homosexual connections with teenaged boys; send text messages to one’s girlfriend while driving a commuter train. You don’t see the connections between sexual liberation and the unprecedented human and social disorder that is gathering steam all around us.
Look at the items at VFR over the last couple of days. Don’t they tell you ANYTHING?
Ken Hechtman replies:
“The connection between sexual liberation and train accidents escapes you because you have no sense of SIN,”
Not in the sense you understand it, I don’t. To the extent that I do, it has very little to do with sex.
“get drunk and walk around NYC at 4 a.m. wearing a halter top”;
It is not a pleasant thing to tell children that there are people in the world who rape and kill the vulnerable simply because they can and they enjoy it. But it is a necessary thing.
“chat and flirt while flying a plane below 10,000 feet and ice is accumulating on the wing”;
Like I said, it’s about watching the road. It could have been two heterosexual men talking about the football game. It wouldn’t let you illustrate a greater moral lesson out of Genesis 19. But the passengers would be equally dead.
“send text messages to one’s girlfriend while driving a commuter train.”
Balancing your checkbook is a fine, respectable conservative activity. But I don’t want my bus driver doing that on the job either.
LA replies:
Clueless, Clueless!
Lydia McGrew writes:
If, as you say, the transgendered driver was an affirmative action hire, hired because of being transgendered, then this is a complete answer to Ken H. The person’s sexual status is relevant, because this would-be male was unqualified, but the people doing the hiring overlooked warning signs in her record in the name of making an affirmative action hire!
Gintas writes:
Ken Hechtman sees it, and likes it. You could draw a direct line from him to Mikhail Bakunin, the founder of Russian Nihilism, who liked the idea of anarchy. Chaos and disorder are the waters in which leftist fish swim.
Alan Levine writes:
Ye Gods!
I had heard about the accident, but assumed it was just an ordinary piece of modern “goofola” as Steve Allen used to call it.
This, however, is really the trifecta of insanity! I can recall when “transgendered” persons, or would be “transgendered persons,” were simply dismissed as psychotics.
Thank God for progress.
Gedaliah Braun writes:
I believe (1) that homosexuals and others in the GLBT group are generally speaking, inherently unstable, psychologically speaking, (2) that this instability is clearly demonstrated by statistics regarding such pathologies such as drug use, promiscuity, disease etc, (3) that this instability in large part stems from an internal conflict and the resulting inner turmoil caused by the fact that these people know that their behaviour is unhealthy and abnormal (and in the case of sodomy intrinsically disgusting) and therefore (4) that they feel shame, disgust and self-loathing with their lifestyle, while at the same time everyone around them is cheering them on as “superior.” This psychological “dissonance” has to cause serious psychological problems, and this incident is simply one excrescence of this.
LA replies:
I don’t know that this argument can stand up to scrutiny. Lots of homosexual men function well in their jobs and, leaving aside our disapproval of their sexual behavior, in life. If your argument were correct, most homosexual men or a very large proportion of them would be falling apart in front of our eyes, behaving chaotically, and so on, and that’s not the case. Now I think that a case could be made for specific types of behavior, e.g., the kind of hysterical overreaction we’re seeing from so many homosexuals on the homosexual “marriage” issue, and, before that, with the blaming of AIDS on President Reagan. Also, there is the increasing looseness and carelessness of behavior seen not only among homosexuals but through the entire population which I have argued (see my reply to Ken Hechtman, above) is a result of sexual liberation. But I don’t think your sweeping statement about male homosexuals being inherently and necessarily beset by serious psychological problems manifesting in dysfunctional conduct in their jobs and elsewhere can hold up. In fact, a major part of the apparent triumph of liberalism in our time has been the “normalization” of homosexuality, not just in society’s attitudes toward homosexuals, but in their own conduct, as seen in their forming stable relationships and households, adopting children, forming “families,” indeed, forming an entire, rather well-to-do, sub culture. Now, in the larger picture, this normalization of the non-normal is fantastically destructive to society and to human well-being. But we cannot argue that the homosexuals in such situations are miserable, tortured, flagrantly dysfunctional persons.
Which is not to say that they’re in good shape, either. I think that something like the conflict you describe is at work in them. Their sexual orientation and behavior puts them apart from the normal course of mankind, and, no matter how much they and society may say that they are normal, there is no way that they can be entirely immune .from the disordering effects of that, at a profound level of their being. But, again, your portrait of people in total conflict with themselves is a caricature.
Finally, the person in this case is not a homosexual but something far more abnormal and unnatural, a woman who has had a sex operation changing her into a “man.”
Richard S. writes:
Anyone with any experience of the world knows that there is a direct connection between those who lead chaotic “whirling” lives and lack of attention at and to the work they (barely) do. The very concept of the obligation to do one’s work, whatever it is, with all thy heart and all thy mind, because it is owed to OTHERS, runs counter to the primacy of the wonderful all encompassing flowering of MY SELF for such people. But this insight, spoken to a liberal, is simply water that runs off the liberal’s back. After all, to JUDGE anyone is the one and only sin; far worse than the damage the chaotic do to their innocent passengers or patients or students or customers or clients every single day.
Michael S. writes:
May I never again say … “Now I’ve heard (seen) it all.”
May 14
Ken Hechtman replies to LA’s reply to Gedaliah Braun:
Well said, sir. At least for the first paragraph.
When you talk about the “normalization of the non-normal,” consider this: twenty-five years ago the number one issue in gay politics was: “Keep our bathhouses open even though there’s a fatal and incurable disease out there that is primarily spread in bathhouses.” Today it’s: “Make it easier for us to live in stable, committed monogamous relationships.” Even you ought to admit that’s progress.
Regarding transsexuals as “abnormal and unnatural,” I’m going to guess you don’t know very many personally. I know two. One was the roommate of a friend of mine from high school. She might not count because she was born hermaphroditic and had the surgery in childhood. She doesn’t like to talk about it much. “I’m a woman now. How much more do you need to know?”
The other was the vice-president of the Quebec NDP. “She” was an army officer as a man, a labor lawyer and mediator as a woman. I cannot count the number of times there’d be a vicious floor-fight going on at one convention or another, half the party at the other half’s throats, and Micheline-Anne would walk up to the mike and say “Here’s the face-saving compromise that all of you can live with. You do this.” And she’d invariably be right. And yeah, it took me a while to get over how freakish she looked and just listen to what she was saying, but there was value in it. So now the transsexual I know best will always be associated in my mind with getting the train back on the tracks, at least figuratively.
LA replies:
Thank you.
Mr. Hechtman wrote:
So now the transsexual I know best will always be associated in my mind with getting the train back on the tracks, at least figuratively.
But isn’t this typical liberal reasoning? Everything comes down to the individual. If you find an individual belonging to a questionable group who makes a reasonable, worthwhile contribution to society, you use that to argue that society should drop all its obstacles against the acceptance of that group. But in the case of groups that really should not be normalized in society, the real-world result is, not an increase of reasonable, worthwhile contributions to society from that group, but the increase in the power of that group to undermine the society. The individual with his sacred rights is always the doorway by which an unassimilable group is admitted.
Mr. Hechtman wrote:
When you talk about the “normalization of the non-normal,” consider this: twenty-five years ago the number one issue in gay politics was: “Keep our bathhouses open even though there’s a fatal and incurable disease out there that is primarily spread in bathhouses.” Today it’s: “Make it easier for us to live in stable, committed monogamous relationships.” Even you ought to admit that’s progress.
No, I don’t admit that, for the same reason that I was disgusted by Norman Podhoretz’s 1996 article, “Neoconservatism: A Eulogy,” in which he celebrated, as a victory for conservatism, the fact that homosexuals were now seeking to be “married.” What he demonstrated in that article was that he did not care about defending our society; he only cared about preventing outright disruptive attacks on it. So long as the left avoided outright disruption, he had no problem with the left. The template through which he viewed homosexual rights (as so many other issues) was the Sixties. The Sixties were bad because they were disruptive. If something was not disruptive, then it was not bad. By this logic, you can transform the society into a completely different society, a society with homosexual “marriage” in some places, a society with sharia law in others, a society that’s been thoroughly Hispanicized in others, and as long as you do it without disruption, then it’s fine. Podhoretz thus demonstrated his fundamental non-conservatism.
Not only that, but, based on the same “disruptiveness analysis,” the next year, when First Things published a ground-breaking symposium, “The End of Democracy?”, challenging the Supreme Court’s attacks on constitutional self-government in a way that mainstream conservatives had never done before, Podhoretz launched a campaign against First Things, slapping down its editor Richard John Neuhaus (who, while he didn’t surrender to Podhoretz’s bullying, didn’t fight back against it either, so great was Podhoretz’s power to intimidate the conservative movement), and thus shut down this very promising development which might have led to a real conservative resistance to liberalism.
And why did he attack the symposium? Because it actually challenged the liberal rule over society. Which meant, in his fevered, rigid mind, that it was “disruptive,” like the Sixties.
Thus Podhoretz cheered for the movement to establish homosexual “marriage,” calling it a victory for conservatism, because it was “non-disruptive”; while he viciously attacked a serious attempt by conservatives to turn back liberal judicial tyranny because the attempt was “disruptive.”
That was a long way for me to be saying that I’m not interested in the normalization or stabilization of homosexuality, or in any development that leads to increased acceptance and approval of homosexuality. In my view, as I explained in a discussion on the subject in 2003, the only proper and sustainable approach toward homosexuality is that it should receive no public approval or recognition. I realize that to everyone today, including “conservatives,” what I just said sounds ridiculous, insane. But look at where our social approval and legitimization of homosexuality had led to. We’re rapidly coming under a homosexualist tyranny, as seen in the organized intimidation of people who supported Prop. 8, as seen in the treatment of Carrie Prejean simply for stating an opinion whihc most of the country (including Obama) shares. Further, this tyranny is being enacted specifically in the name of homosexual “marriage”—that “stabilizing” form of homosexuality that Mr. Hechtman thinks I ought to welcome and endorse.
Laura W. writes:
Excellent statement by Gedaliah Braun. Here’s a good way to think of it, again referring back to Jeffrey Satinover’s points. Homosexuality is a behavioral disorder that inevitably causes either overt or hidden instability. It is best understood as similar to alcoholism. Many alcoholics function normally, to all appearances. But, beneath the surface, they are struggling with a compulsion.
Mr. Auster says to Mr. Braun: “But I don’t think your sweeping statement about male homosexuals being inherently and necessarily beset by serious psychological problems manifesting in dysfunctional conduct in their jobs and elsewhere can hold up.”
It doesn’t necessarily manifest itself in poor job performance. Other signs of dysfunction: poor relations with family members, explosive tempers, promiscuity, unstable love affairs, workaholism, depression, alcoholism, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and pervasive anger. Liberalism itself is a dangerous psychological condition, a warped view that when carried to the extreme that homosexuals often take it leads to an inability to accept or understand much of humanity or everyday life.
Here’s another important point. The health consequences of male homosexual activity are so serious that they are themselves evidence of psychological instability. Who but someone operating under a dangerous compulsion would expose themselves to the many health risks and everyday discomforts associated with male homosexuality? Remember, the life span of the male homosexual, even without AIDS, is significantly shorter than that of the heterosexual male.
LA replies:
Laura writes:
“Liberalism itself is a dangerous psychological condition, a warped view that when carried to the extreme that homosexuals often take it leads to an inability to accept or understand much of humanity or everyday life.”
And that was my point too. I felt that Mr. Braun’s portrayal of homosexuals was a caricature. I’m saying that the deeper disorder related to a homosexual way of life does not necessarily or most significantly have to do with individuals acting like dangerous madmen (though we’ve seen a good deal of that, as with disease-spreading behaviors). Rather, the deeper disorder has to do with a “normal” homosexual subculture which in fact is profoundly alienated from and hostile to the larger culture. That’s the bigger danger of the acceptance of homosexuality, not extreme, individual behaviors.
To repeat, the normalized, “stable,” homosexuality poses a greater threat to society in the long run than the disruptive, liberationist type of homosexuality.
Laura writes:
One other point. Who but someone operating under a destructive compulsion would accept as a necessary condition of their sexual fulfillment the inability to reproduce or have a normal family life? Homosexuals do not have biological children. They put themselves in this position not because they have made a choice against a family life. They live this life because their sexual activity makes the alternative impossible. This meets the very definition of psychological compulsion, which entails an acceptance of abnormality so that one can feed one’s compulsion.
Ed writes:
Did you ever ask yourself the question, “Who paid for her “transsexual operation”? Probably the tax payers.
Mark P. writes:
Re Ken Hechtman and the trolley accident:
I guess the purpose of liberalism is to reduce the number of personal indicators that suggest a person may be a problem.
LA replies:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Dennis Mangan writes:
There’s significant evidence that homosexuals suffer from vastly increased rates of mental illness. Here’s a good article on the topic. Michael Bailey, a leading scholar on homosexuality, is quoted:
“These studies contain arguably the best published data on the association between homosexuality and psychopathology, and both converge on the same unhappy conclusion: homosexual people are at substantially higher risk for some forms of emotional problems, including suicidality, major depression, and anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, and nicotine dependence … The strength of the new studies is their degree of control.”
The book goes on to say that a libertarian economics professor, Hans Hoppe, nearly lost his job a few years ago after saying in class that homosexuals had a higher time preference, i.e. they were more present- than future-oriented, possibly due to lack of children:
In his lectures, Mr. Hoppe said that certain groups of people—including small children, very old people, and homosexuals—tend to prefer present-day consumption to long-term investment. Because homosexuals generally do not have children, Mr. Hoppe said, they feel less need to look toward the future. (In a recent talk at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which Mr. Hoppe says was similar to his classroom lecture, he declared, “Homosexuals have higher time preferences, because life ends with them.”) [The student], Mr. Knight found that argument unwarranted and obnoxious, and he promptly filed a complaint with the university. In a telephone interview on Saturday, Mr. Knight said: “I was just shocked and appalled. I said to myself, Where the hell is he getting this information from? I was completely surprised, and that’s why I went to the university about this.”
Here is Wikipedia article on Hoppe.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 13, 2009 01:09 PM | Send
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