Which things are not import about #piggate
I was completely unable to resist spending about 12 hours making puns about this. But I was probably wrong in that.
Which things are import about #piggate
The idea that the book was written by Ashcroft as an attack for not acceding to more of his influence over the conservative party. This seems likely, I hope it will quickly become apparent how certain it is, and who is to blame for the influence-peddling. But "not giving in to blackmail" is generally a good thing: even if I condemn Cameron for lots of other things, this isn't something I should criticise him for.
Which things are not important about #piggate
I think raising animals to be slaughtered is a bad thing AT ALL. But once the animal is ALREADY DEAD, I don't think it's harmed any more by being used for sexual purposes than for food purposes, it's just a matter of which penis goes in which mouth.
We should be critical of things that are harmful, not things we personally are disgusted by[1]. It can be hard to do that, our instincts often encourage us to be judgemental based on personal disgust, maybe for good reason. But we should avoid that. Lots of people object to being anything-other-than-straight mostly based on their "ugh" factor, even though they try to come up with good justifications for it. And for many other issues. And we don't accept that. But it's harder to accept things that we personally haven't emotionally accepted, or to say "I'll never personally like it, but I'll fight for other people's right to do it." And why shouldn't that extend to dead animals -- it shouldn't be a maybe, it should be a definite.
And that's not because I care about Cameron, it's because the accusation hurts other people who might be accused of it.
I don't know if that actually applies to many people! But shouldn't we practice being accepting whether we need to or not, so when we do need to, we're on the right side?
Except that, my argument sounds intellectually convincing, but I'm not sure I'm actually convinced by it. Surely there have to be SOME things we can mock people for? Or don't there? Am I right?
[1] Insert humorous exception here :)
I was completely unable to resist spending about 12 hours making puns about this. But I was probably wrong in that.
Which things are import about #piggate
The idea that the book was written by Ashcroft as an attack for not acceding to more of his influence over the conservative party. This seems likely, I hope it will quickly become apparent how certain it is, and who is to blame for the influence-peddling. But "not giving in to blackmail" is generally a good thing: even if I condemn Cameron for lots of other things, this isn't something I should criticise him for.
Which things are not important about #piggate
I think raising animals to be slaughtered is a bad thing AT ALL. But once the animal is ALREADY DEAD, I don't think it's harmed any more by being used for sexual purposes than for food purposes, it's just a matter of which penis goes in which mouth.
We should be critical of things that are harmful, not things we personally are disgusted by[1]. It can be hard to do that, our instincts often encourage us to be judgemental based on personal disgust, maybe for good reason. But we should avoid that. Lots of people object to being anything-other-than-straight mostly based on their "ugh" factor, even though they try to come up with good justifications for it. And for many other issues. And we don't accept that. But it's harder to accept things that we personally haven't emotionally accepted, or to say "I'll never personally like it, but I'll fight for other people's right to do it." And why shouldn't that extend to dead animals -- it shouldn't be a maybe, it should be a definite.
And that's not because I care about Cameron, it's because the accusation hurts other people who might be accused of it.
I don't know if that actually applies to many people! But shouldn't we practice being accepting whether we need to or not, so when we do need to, we're on the right side?
Except that, my argument sounds intellectually convincing, but I'm not sure I'm actually convinced by it. Surely there have to be SOME things we can mock people for? Or don't there? Am I right?
[1] Insert humorous exception here :)