“Passive smoking”; “man-made climate change”; “prison doesn’t work”; “fair trade” (code for protectionism), dyslexia; attention deficit disorder; “sex change operation”.
What those phrases have in common is, they are all lies that the left has promoted for its own purpose, which is two-fold: to if-not-destroy, then at least damage the progress of, capitalism. And two, to deharmonise and destabilise society/family and make it more dependent on the state.
Control.
The first three examples are obvious. I have noticed that now some doctors, and some educators, are beginning to express doubts about the received wisdom of “dyslexia” and ADD. At least in Britain – which means the Americans probably did it first – but these doubts are subjects in themselves and aren’t my focus here.
They’re all irritating, but I am increasingly exercised by the Big Lie of the “transexual” meme, although, in a sense, “transgendered” is even more manipulative. Transgendered is something that happened to them. They got transgendered. Passive tense. It wasn’t their fault! There was a universal mistake in their case and they were born into the “wrong sex”.
So they are only righting an error when they take their first tottering stiletto-heeled step down the road to “changing” their sex. Did they ever think they may just be gay? Or is that not dramatic enough?
But some things are impossible to change, even with the help of pharmaceutical companies and, where we are today, DNA is one of them.
I’m guessing that most of us, reading the latest account of some dissatisfied person who subjected him/herself to the surgeon’s knife and massive doses of hormones, stifle a yawn and think, “Whatever”.
But it’s a creepy, dangerous road we travel when we agree to perversions of the legal truth about these individuals.
A few weeks ago, the new lefty sensitivity scale was ratched up a few pointettes, when, in England, a “transgendered man”, who had had surgery and takes hormones to pretend he’s a woman, won a mayoral election. So far, so bland. What else is new?
Well, this “former man”‘s partner is, wouldn’t you just know it? – also a “former” man! You could have knocked me down with a feather!
So now, these two guys are lesbians!
One is [ancient English titles] the “mayoress” and one is the “lady mayoress” [the wife of a mayor]. Except neither is a woman. They are both men who have been julienned and pumped up with hormones and silicone sacs.
A harmless enough hobby in many respects, in that it does no damage to other than volunteers.
Each to his/her aspirations, but for some reason, this silly story, accompanied by so many congratulations for their bravery by the newly “inclusive, nonjudgmental” British – kicked in an irritation with the “transgender” industry and a sense of unease.
There is, of course, no such thing as trangender. You are born with your DNA, which reports on whether you are a male or a female. The thing about DNA – the reason it can be employed to prove murder, for example – is that it is inalterable.
Sliced, diced, moulded, siliconed, pumped with megadoses of hormones, still do not a male or a female make. Your DNA knows who you are.
The ravenous lawyer wife of Britain’s recently retired – after his very last Final World Farewell Legacy Tour – prime minister is hyperactive in the courts of European Human Rights. She got her husband to ramrod through Britain’s membership of this fantasy new world order – everyone can be Cinderalla or her prince depending on which outfit you find more appealing – and then formed a law company to make out like a bandit.
While he was still PM, one of her more gruesome triumphs was to make it legal to get a birth certificate altered throughout countries which are EU signatories. Where it says “Boy”, it may now be changed, with no hint that it has been edited, to “Girl”. Sex choice by fantasy, not by the only definer, DNA.
A big lie endorsed by the European Court.
So Cherie Blair and her cohorts are making official and legal a sickening abuse of the integrity of legal birth certificates and perpetrating a fraud on the peoples of EU signatory countries. The consequences could be disconcerting to say the least.
This is horrifying and I’m surprised that genuine gays and lesbians who are comfortable with themselves as humans want to be mixed up with such a dog’s breakfast by belonging to societies serving the “gay, lesbian and transgendered communities”.
But it’s all part of the socialist brave new world. I swear, you can’t let your guard down for a minute!
Your assumption – and it may be quite correct for all I know – is that the DNA is clearly male or clearly female. Nonetheless, it is a given in the gay community (which may or may not make it a scientific fact) that homosexuals are born and not bred – that the love for one’s own sex is as biologically determined as the more common love for the other is.
This isn’t something I know anything about, so you may be right in your apparent assumption that our DNA is specific and relatively simple in its clear declaration of whether we are male or female. And, of course, it may also be relatively simple in determining our sexual preferences – or not. And further problems can arise from the hormones with which a baby is bathed in the womb, irregularities of which might appear a matter of nature but still not be clearly shown in DNA.
Given the complexity of our sexuality, it is not surprising that minor and even major variations will occur. That the “rights” community likes both drama and subjectivity (as well as the monetary rewards of litigation) is true. And of course, traditionally, the divisions into those who are attracted by the same and those attracted by the other sex fell into easily understood divisions. I’ll admit that leads to divisions that are easy to understand and, generally, easy to sympathize with. That doesn’t make them necessarily right – though certainly that is an intuitive perspective.
Nonetheless, I am interested in exactly what DNA can tell us on this and in your understanding of DNA (since mine is pretty minimal).
Anonymous – Forgive me for not being clearer but I fear you have misunderstood my post.
I thought it was generally accepted these days that homosexuals are born, not bred. Indeed, I am sure it is! Same sex attraction seems to be a presence among 4% of people worldwide on a constant basis across all races. In other words, a normal, if exceptional, human condition. But those people attracted to their own sex are still that sex.
Male homosexuals have male DNA and female homosexuals have female DNA. In other words, if you’re a drag queen, you are still physiologically a male.
This has absolutely nothing to do with my post and I am sorry I wasn’t clearer.
Your psychological and emotional feelings are nothing to do with your DNA. And it cannot be altered by hormones or operations. This has nothing to do with emotions!
My post is about the manipulative and destructive left, not feelings.
The nuclear family is a myth and always has been. It’s very short existence fell apart quickly, because it’s a fraudulent idea pushed by Christian nutcases. You “conservatives” need to quit complaining because your impossible lifestyles failed, they were doomed to fail from the moment those ideas were conceived.
It’s funny how conservatism is supposed to be about smaller government, yet modern “conservatives” are obsessed with telling people how they may worship, who they may marry, how they may perform coitus, what they may say and do, what they can hear on television, etc etc. The list goes on and on. Modern “conservatives” are also massive frauds.
Stop sticking your noses in other peoples’ lives trying to be “morality police”, it’s simply not conservative.
Donovan, how is it not “conservative” to write about a topic of moral significance? Val didn’t propose a sweeping legislative and enforcement program.
Your nonsense about the nuclear family is just that, nonsense and in your case wishful thinking. Even more oddly, given your point of view, why should you care whether there is an ancient source for “alternative lifestyles”? Why would a non-conservative need to rely on the authority of human tradition?
Talk about complaining about a failing lifestyle. Complain or not, admit it or not — the bankruptcy of “non-traditional families” is all around us.
Donovan Bock – May I ask what your first language is? Did you understand the article? You seem to have been reading runes rather than my words if you read into this that it was about “alternative lifestyles”.
On the other hand, it is instructive to note how imaginatively you read your own agenda into this, as socialists always do. Blind to what they read, they take a massive leap of imagination and manufacture a ramshackle vehicle to condemn the writer for saying things he did not say.
This is standard. British writer Peter Hitchens (yes, Christopher’s brother) recently did a column on two “contitions” that also do not, in fact, exist, except in the minds of the leftwing educational establishment: ADD and dyslexia. The shrieking fury of the responses was quite entertaining.
I was writing about “sex change” operations, which also exist only in the minds of the leftist establishment. Scientifically, there is no such thing. That is inarguable. It is another Big Lie that people get bullied into not questioning.
Val:
I am a bit unhappy with categorical statements such as those. I understand very well what you are getting at, and some people use this issues just as you allege, but you are basically ruling out that anybody who disagrees with you can be honest about it. Al Gore is exaggerating to an extent that simply is ridiculous, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that anthropogenic global warming is a complete non-issue. I also oppose smoking bans, but I still think that second hand smoke is dangerous.
I’ll post on both issues soon, so fell free to take sime potshots. :)
Hello, Ralf, there is absolutely no evidence that passive smoking presents any danger whatsoever, and real climate scientists tell us that climate change is caused by changes in the sun’s surface and always has been. It was much hotter in Britain in the early part of the first millenium than it is today. When the Romans were in charge, the posh Brits were swanning around in togas. There were vineyards around York in the North of England.
Funny how the Ice Age came out of it without the help of gas guzzlers, eh? Then it really hotted up with most of the world tropical and peopled by gigantic lizards. You may remember that 20 years ago, the hot topic for self-publicists was global cooling. Yes, we were all going to freeze in the dark! Especially Africans! All these putative climate changes are always going to affect Africans more than anyone else.
In any event, my point is that the governments of the EUSSR are now colluding in a lie: there is no such thing as sex change.
Those are some pretty big-caliber potshots, thanks! :)
I’ll get back to you on sunspots and pasive smoking soon ;)
Well, as someone who actually has Attention Deficit Disorder, I’m quite surprised to learn that my disorder does not exist.
Perhaps you could explain to me why it is that I am unable to focus on things regardless of interest or intention unless I take my prescribed dose of dextroamphetamine (10mg), at which point I am able to focus without – surprise surprise – becoming a zombie slave to the liberals, or whatever it is you believe happens to people who undergo treatment for ADD.
Also, you might want to meditate on the fact that if I weren’t on dexedrine right now, chances are I wouldn’t have been able to read your blog entry all the way through. You should give thanks for the pharmaceutical companies for increasing your readership. :-)
To be fair, I do find it both highly probable and mroally repugnant that children are being misdiagnosed with ADD/ADHD and put on medication they don’t need because of the Nanny State’s impulse to control. But the disorder – which is by no means confined to children – is certainly real, regardless of the sins of school administrators.
Marc – May I courteously suggest that you go to Peter Hitchens’ blog at dailymail.co.uk He has discussed ADD and dyslexia and has answered most of your points. He is a clever and agreeable writer and you will not regret making his acquaintance.
He has addressed your points far better than I would be able to. Like passive smoking and “man made climate change” (formerly known, and discredited, as “global warming”) and “sex change” operations, there is a vast industry promoting, and feeding off, these issues.
I am not interested,Ralf, in deflecting the point of this argument, which is that the faceless, monolithic EUSSR government is colluding with the left in a provable scientific lie. DNA cannot be altered. If one is born a female, no amount of hormones and silicone jiggery-pokery can make you into a man, because your DNA has marked you with the female chromosome. That an entity governed by unnamed bureaucrats and lawyers of the ilk of Cherie Blair should collude in this lie is very frightening indeed and should serve as a warning to the peoples unfortunate enough to be living under its faceless governance.
They knew it was a lie, and they wrote it into law.
What can never understand about the transgendered people is rather than go through all the painful surgery and take the multitude of hormones to make your body look like what your mind thinks you should look like, wouldn’t it be less painful and more cost effective to treat your mind so that those mis-applied gender impulses would be purged from your mind? That is, if you’re born a man yet think you are a woman, wouldn’t it be easier to get psychological treatment to help you think like the body you were born in?
Well, I did as you courteously suggested, and I don’t see that Mr. Hitchens knows much about ADD, nor does he answer the main points that I’ve raised, so why don’t you give it a shot? You really should be prepared to defend your statements yourself instead of pawning them off the responsibility onto other bloggers.
So, again: it’s one thing to say that children, who don’t know any better, are being put on drugs unnecessarily. But how do you explain away the millions of adults like me who have the disorder and require the medicine to function? If ADD doesn’t exist, why do I need dextroamphetamine to concentrate sufficiently to hold down a job and balance my budget?
Marc – No offence, and Peter Hitchens isn’t a blogger, he’s a well-established columnist and author who is paid by his paper to have a blog on the side, but I have a sincere lack of interest in your problem.
What alarms me is the 1984-esque Big Lie that has been hammered into the legislature – although the EU nomenklatura say it’s not really a legislature – of 400m people. The integrity of the birth certificate is now shredded to suit the aims of left.
Marc, could you stop taking the pills and lose your will to continue to post on this thread?
It’s not about you.
The retroactive changing of birth certificates makes no sense whatsoever. It is destroying a factual, historical record of a past event. A very poor idea. I don’t think the government should retroactively change records of past events. Very Orwellian.
Whoa.
Have I got a Surgeon General’s Report for you!
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/sgr_2006/index.htm
I’m not going to follow your link to an outfit I don’t trust nor engage in a futile, adolescent brickbat discussion of a subject in which I have absolutely no interest. I’d as soon discuss lifestyles of earthworms.
My concern is the obscenity of an EU court and EU bureaucrats agreeing to change people’s birth certificates to suit the tastes of adults with a gripe. The government has knowingly colluded in a lie and destroyed the legal integrity of the birth certificate. One more point for Big Brother – who was probably Big Sister before she realised she was really a guy born into “the wrong body”.
Whoa, yourself Chel. The by far largest ever multinational, long term, study on the effects of second hand smoke came to the following conclusion in the late 1990s:
“The world’s leading health organization (WHO) has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect.” From the UK Telegraph
The following quote is from a speech by Michael Crichton, MD and author, at CalTech:
“In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had “committed to a conclusion before research had begun”, and had “disregarded information and made findings on selective information.” The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: “We stand by our science”¦.there’s wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings”¦a whole host of health problems.” Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn’t even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It’s the consensus of the American people.
Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke.
As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don’t want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you’ll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions. And we’ve given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We’ve told them that cheating is the way to succeed.”
This is what Val is talking about. The science is not “settled” on this issue. Therefore, political decisions based on banning second hand smoke are just that, political decisions. These kinds of manipulations of science for political purposes usually come from the left side of the political spectrum, to promote anti-business, anti-capitalist ideology. It’s not superstition, it is the politicization of science.
I’d like to endorse JohnSal’s final paragraph. Although I am particularly exercised that lying on birth certificates is now OK,all the conditions I mentioned are manipulative and have no basis in reality. But your government endorses them.
Funny you should mention that quote from the UK Telegraph. I recommend that you read this peer reviewed article from The Lancet describing the events surrounding that newspaper story (Just go to pubmed.com and search. If you’d like a copy of the full text, e-mail me.):
Ong, EK, Glantz, SA. Tobacco industry efforts subverting International Agency for Research on Cancer’s second-hand smoke study. Lancet. 2000 Apr 8;355(9211):1253-9
(Also something to consider: Michael Crichton is certainly no expert in this area. I have no idea how he forms his opinions.)
Also, even in situations where x does in reality cause y, if you do 100 studies examining the relationship between x and y there will still likely be a few where it looks like x might not cause y. But when the overwhelming majority of rigorous studies shows a relationship, we have scientific evidence for x causing y. And this is what we have with passive smoking causing heart disease and lung cancer. Again, I really recommend the Surgeon General’s report that I cited above. It’s an extremely exhaustive account of the research and evidence. Published during a Republican administration no less!
I have no problem with conservatives or liberals acknowledging science but then deciding that other concerns such as personal freedoms or shared values are more important that the scientific evidence when deciding on policy. For instance, I acknowledge that active smoking causes cancer, however I would not be in favor of a policy outlawing all smoking. I don’t need to deny the science to have this position, I acknowledge it but I value personal freedom more in this particular case. The thing that I have a major issue with is when people deny scientific evidence. There’s no need. We’ve never made policy decisions in this country solely on the basis of scientific evidence and we shouldn’t. That’s okay, everyone.
The Sovietesque government-by-stealth of the EU has knowingly written a lie into a law. The voters, who do not vote for the bureaucrats/apparachiks who make the laws behind closed doors in the EU, can do nothing about this. There is no one to complain to. And besides, they churn out new laws and regulations daily. Everyone has forgotten this outrage of being able to change an accurate record of one’s birth into a notional record of one’s fantasy which is not, and can never be, fact.
Americans do not appreciate the Soviet nature of the EU and how dangerous it is to the world. Already, the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy, a boondoggle for the French farming industry) keeps African producers out of the market of some 400m people. What this means is that African growers have no chance at a rich 400m person market in an affluent area of the world. It means that African entrepreneurs and African producers do not have a chance to better themselves and create wealth by trying their hand with the EU.
This is outrageous, but so what?
Can anybody change their birth certificate? What a wonderful opportunity for financial fraud or other imaginative chicanery. Armed with two birth certificates, it’s much easier to then construct two identities. With a bit of make-up and a padded bra there’s no telling how much mischief I could do.
Is it too much to ask that I could also change my birth certificate name from a male name to female name?
Elliot – You raise interesting points. I don’t know whether they take your old, real, birth certificate away from you when you proudly walk out with your new one, certifying that you were born the opposite sex to what you really were. But nevertheless, the opportunities for fraud – while certainly not something that would bother the corrupt EU – are certainly there. Presumably one could find a doctor to certify that one had been through a “gender reassignment” procedure and therefore eligible for a new birth certificate Could be an intriguing plot for a murder mystery …
Well…as a gay man, I’ve always found the inclusion of “transgendered” in LGBT and GLBT to be pretty queer. Heh. I don’t consider myself a part of such a grouping; what commonality is it supposed to signify? Actually, even those two terms bother me, since if transgendered must be included I nonetheless see it as “GLBT” — but the “mainstream” community it addresses prefers to list L first as a sort of acquiescence to the feminists in that community: “Poor things, we’ll put you first since you’ve experienced double-persecution!!”
The entire “queer ethic” has actually transcended even those who are meant to be labeled under LGBT/GLBT, while many who are supposed to be so labeled do not in fact subscribe to a “queer ethic.” How perverted is that, huh?
In any case…Your entire argument about DNA is bullshit. My genes also determine that I should have long hair, but I keep it close-cut in the military style. Furthermore, what is “boy” and what is “girl”, if such designations are merely code for XX or XY, is hardly important for understanding much about a person. Genetic variation within races, within XX and XY groupings, and within Blond and Brunette groupings ensure that individuals themselves are quite distinct from others within those groups, or quite different. Whatever authoritative role a birth certificate plays in labeling one a Boy or a Girl seems pretty irrelevant given the various emergences of phenotypes which occur within those groupings. At the same time, spending so much capital to alter a birth certificate — indeed, to institutionalize the ability to alter them — seems like a big waste of capital.
The fact that you think of this issue in terms of “lies” suggests to me that you’ll have great difficult adapting to the future. I do not believe you’ll be able to force the future to adapt to your vision.
Curtis Gale Weeks – Personally, I loathe this whole woman, gay, minority ethos and think it counterproductive to a cohesive society which is, in fact, the intention. The Left doesn’t miss a trick.
Most of the gay men I know don’t go around thinking “I’m gay, I’m gay, I’m gay” any more than women go around thinking “I’m a woman”. We’re all just s likely to identify ourselves by our profession or metier, by being a parent, if we are one, by our nationality, by our experiences, by many things.
Your brown hair analogy doesn’t work. You could shave your head daily, but your chromosomes will state that you have brown hair.
This European Court or Court of Human Rights or whichever one of the new, faceless EU entities devised by the nomenklatura this one is, is wrong to join in the pretence of transgenderism. It’s a fantasy. If some people want to pretend they are really a member of the opposite sex,that is their right. But they cannot force the rest of us, legally, to go along with the lie. If a man wants to take hormones and get himself cut about to look like a facismile of a woman, that again is his business. It is not the business of the state to support his fantasy.
This legalising of a lie was the work of one Cherie Blair, a dangerous Trotskyite. She makes Hillary Clinton look like Barry Goldwater.
Your final paragraph suggests that you have a very fragile grasp of the law.
“Whatever authoritative role a birth certificate plays in labeling one a Boy or a Girl seems pretty irrelevant given the various emergences of phenotypes which occur within those groupings.”
Curtis,
You miss the point, I think, that the birth certificate sexual identification is based upon an unchanging genotype, not phenotype. This genotype is a basic and unchanging “type”, a useful and practical identifier. IMHO for the state to change such a document is willful pandering and/or madness.
Tyouth,
No, I think you miss my point, I think. Consider the “murder mystery” scenario (and crime in general), in which no DNA is collected but the victim’s DNA; then consider an eye-witness or even merely a security camera that captures a “woman” leaving the scene of the crime. If that woman was born a boy, chances are good that any database searches utilized in the investigation will miss the real culprit, since only XX’s will show up. Or consider the reverse, in which male DNA is collected at the scene of the crime; how likely are investigators to miss scrutinizing the full-breasted, apparently female babe during investigations? But the real point is simply that having “boy” or “girl” listed on the birth certificate, as if these designations always tell us something important about a person’s current development, social milieu, activities, and so forth, may be relatively useless.
Or would you argue that having every person’s entire (and unique) genome listed on future birth certificates, when such becomes feasible, is the way to go?
Curtis,
Although it’s a little silly, the “murder mystery” is easily solved by the thorough detective who checks DNA for both sexes.
No identifier shows an individuals “current development” but that seems obvious and aside from the purpose of recording an identifier(eg: my brown eyes don’t reveal very much info. re. my character, self-view, etc., but does help define the physical me).
Before I type a comment I am curious to know the author’s opinion on children born with two sexual organs? Hermaphodites are more rare then the current growth of transgendered identity, but the issues does exist. Is a child to be labeled the gender of their parents choosing with no hopes for correcting any mistakes in the future? Birth records are nothing more then a tracking device, so why would someone so opposed to this Orwellian type of system be concerned that birth certificates can be changed?
Basically, there are children born who are raised in the incorrect gender – because their sex is unknown to them and their families. Either way, I think the issues you are talking about are about personal freedom…and policies to encourage people the right to follow their own path do not only apply to smoking or any other non-dichotomous ‘choice.’ A birth certificate is only as useful as it apply’s to an individual. If an individual no longer has a penis and no longer acts according to their gender then it should be changed …