Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Because- Look Over There! Is Not a Valid Argument


First of all, I can't see what's wrong with this picture. I'm fairly certain that legally, you can get married in a clown costume if you want to. I'm not sure what that has to do with equality. I also think a man can legally get married while wearing a dress or sporting a mohawk. I'm fairly certain a woman can get married while dressed like an extra in a Wagner production, too. As for the dog, I've seen pictures of weddings in which dogs performed the role of best man and ringbearer, so yeah . . . I dunno.

As for Simple Dollar: Who Do You Love, I would like to start with WHOM! WHOM do you love. "Who" is a subject, "whom" is an object. In the sentence "Whom do you love?", the subject is "you", you are the person doing the loving, therefore it is "whom", not "who". Grammar, people!

You see, when a reader asks me if marriage is about love, then why can't they marry the person they love? The answer is simple, marriage is about who is most deserving of that love -- who you are most responsible to -- then who you most conveniently love, or who you figure might give you the kind of romance you want most expediently. When you focus on your responsibilities, the love grows between you naturally. And as the love grows, so does your ability to recognize your responsibilities. It all ties back to the man and the woman.

That is an entire paragraph of wharrgarbl followed by "because- look over there!" That is not a valid argument. That last sentence has nothing to do with the preceding four. On Lawn may as well as have written four oddly constructed sentences on the proper way to prepare hummus* and then tacked on "it all ties back to the man and the woman". It would have made exactly as much sense.

If On Lawn is going to wharrgarbl his way through some bigotry, he could at least do me the great favor of doing it grammatically. Honestly.




*A blender, a lot chick peas, some garlic and some olive oil. Anything else you'd like to add is up to you.

14 comments:

  1. "That last sentence has nothing to do with the preceding four."

    To be fair, the preceding four had almost nothing to do with the preceding four.

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  2. The answer is simple, marriage is about who is most deserving of that love -- who you are most responsible to -- then who you most conveniently love, or who you figure might give you the kind of romance you want most expediently.

    Oddly, I completely agree with that statement. Were I, as a man, in love with another man and wanted to make a life together with him, I would hope it's because he is deserving of my love and we could responsibly marry each other and care for each other. Meanwhile, it would be really stupid of me to marry the pizza delivery guy even if it did mean free Meat Lover's Pizza* for life if that was the only reason for me to marry the pizza delivery guy.

    See? See how easy that is? That wasn't a defense of traditional marriage at all. Any time they try to take it out of, "Teh Bible sez so," they make such fuck stupid arguments that they're either not even wrong or so useless as to be defense of anything anyone feels like defending.

    They've lost. They just keep trying to convince themselves otherwise.

    *I see what I did there...

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  3. I dunno, the higher food prices get, the better the pizza delivery guy looks . . .

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  4. GRAMMAR, PEOPLE!
    I can't even understand that quote of Ged's. Is it suppsoed to be an if-then conditional, with a missing 'if'? Is 'then' a misspelled 'than'? is it three adjectival complement phrases? wtf?

    There is no way to parse that sentence.

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  5. The only way that the last sentence makes sense is if they don't believe that same sex couples are responsible to their loved ones. Am I reading the quote wrong or is the writer suggesting that only certain people deserve love?

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  6. There is no way to parse that sentence.

    Yeah. I had to stop, like, three times while writing my original comment to say, "Wait, does this really say anything?

    The actual answer is, "No." But the, "Making the point it doesn't argue for the things the person thinks it's arguing for," answer is, "Yes."

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  7. My kids don't even fall for the "Because - look over there!" tactic.

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  8. My dog doesn't fall for "look over there!"

    He just cocks his head in a way that clearly says, "Look, I can see you made the throwing motion, but the ball is still in your hand and we all know that. Now throw it."

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  9. My kids don't even fall for the "Because - look over there!" tactic.

    Hell, my dog sees through it most of the time. And she doesn't understand that when I point at something I'm not trying to get her to look at my finger...

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  10. Guh what the who now?

    I love On Lawn's philosophical mansplanations on life. I'm just always reminded of Dunning-Kruger.

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  11. I... what?

    This reads like a. it's missing an all important "more" in the clause after the m-dash, and also like they are inadvertently arguing for forced heterosexual marriage.

    Just lock them together in a cage! They'll be fine! They'll learn to love each other if we work them hard enough and rig a rube goldbergian machine which makes them each responsible for the others life.

    WTF?

    I really can't even fathom why they still think that there's an argument here. There is no argument that does no come from deep seated hatred, so...there is no argument.

    But curse those damned hipster/wagner weddings, with their little dogs, and clown Dj's!! CURSE THEM!

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  12. "But curse those damned hipster/wagner weddings, with their little dogs, and clown Dj's!! CURSE THEM!"

    They blew it up! They blew it all up! Darn them! Darn them all to heck!

    Sorry.

    "When you focus on your responsibilities, the love grows between you naturally. And as the love grows, so does your ability to recognize your responsibilities"

    Keep in mind that "responsibilities" amongst fundies is synonymous with "baby production," and suddenly these two sentences become utterly reprehensible. "Don't marry someone you love who makes you happy! Marry the nearest fertile member of the opposite sex and start humping! Don't worry, you'll eventually come to love each other as you raise the kids you didn't want together!"

    Because stockholm syndrome is the basis for a healthy relationship.

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  13. Because stockholm syndrome is the basis for a healthy relationship.

    It keeps butts in seats on Sundat morning...

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  14. Sunday morning, even.

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