BoardRoom/Soapbox Archive
	Article

The "Sabina vs. Nick" show...
By Lauren Sabina Kneisly

Time: Mon, 05-Apr-1999 23:13:00 GMT     
IP: 207.239.111.80

:In other words, if I have read your reply right,
:you want to be able to publish in a public forum
:but don't want the public to reply?

Nick: you are replying, publicly, in our board
room that we were thoughtful enough to include for
exactly that reason: so the public COULD
reply. Where have you been? Where do YOU think you
are? Fasting again, too much are we?

:I guess you are afraid of what a little
:interaction with other opinions may do to your
:arguments.

See above, dear. If this is not interaction, then
how do you define interaction?

:A closed mind indicates someone is not firm in
:their beliefs, only afraid of their ability to
:explain them.

To the contrary. I'm a womyn that has carefully
studied the facts and listened to folks on all
sides of the issues, and then made up my mind
(which is of, course an evolving process). I'm not
a closed mind, rather a mind that has come to
conclusions and defends them, (passionately if I
do say so myself). I am clearly not afraid to
explain my beliefs, as that's what I've been doing
on this boardroom, giving clarification, and
expounding upon my positions.  Nick, you're back
to rhetoric ('closed mind', etc) and you're
beginning to bore me.

:You can be anything you want.  If you want to be
:a Witch, that is your choice.

I don't 'want to be a witch' any more than you
'want to be a christian'. I am a Witch, and as
usual, you've disrespected my religion.

:God gave us the ability to choose.

Presupositional assumption. And you prove you
either don't belive that, or unwilling to accept
its ramifications below.

:If that is what you choose, be firm in your
:conviction.

Like I'm not? (Oh, but wait, that's what you just
called a closed mind.)

:My opinion in this matter is of little
:importance.

Send up the fireworks, we've found the mythical
'common ground'!

:The God I believe in still loves you.

Care to define love? Care to define god, for that
matter? Nick, we're deep in Rhetoric land...

:The only part of your message that I take
:exception to is the notion that it is OK for 13
:year-olds to have sex, consensual or otherwise.

Congratulations!  You've found your own belief,
which you are also welcome to defend
passionately. However, should you try to impose
that standard on others, it is no longer a
personal belief, but rather a political
conviction, and that, is up for contention.

You were 13 you didn't want to have sex, great. I
was 13 and you don't want me to have sex, not so
great. Quite frankly, that's not your body for you
to go making decisions over, so again, you're
willing to override my conscience and consent
based solely upon your personal morality.

The entire point of our page is that you are
welcome to make up your own mind and do what you
will without harming others. But that's not enough
for you, you also want to apply your standards to
others. There's my problem. You're not satified
governing yourselves, you want to govern us. Our
response? We'll NEVER surrender, NEVER submit. Get
it?

:If you would like to change the laws to reflect
:this view go ahead and try.

To the contrary, I'm not trying to WRITE laws
saying 13 year olds can have sex, rather I'm
trying ERASE laws saying those 13 year olds who
have sex (and those who consentually have sex with
them) should be punnished.

I firmly believe in individual conscience and free
will. Some christians are even willing to
awknowledge that humans are free moral agents, and
should there be a god, then people, AFTER they die
would be 'held to account' for their lifetimes
worth of behaviours. The problem with folks like
you, is that you want to PREVENT people, HERE AND
NOW, from making what you view as 'mistakes' in
the first place. 'For our own good'. Thus
curtailing and circumventing OUR own morality,
consent, and concience. If 'god gave us choice'
how come you don't want us to exercise it?

:If someone, anyone attempted to have sex with my
:underage child I would make sure that they suffer
:to fullest extent of the law.

Well, there you have it. You don't want control
over your own body and your own decisions, you
want dominion over your children (and everyone
else who might come in contact with your
children), their options, and consentual
behaviours. Hence the political extrapolation: you
wish the courts (and other institutions) to
enforce your particular version of morality as
universal standard.  I have a problem with that.

Where is your 'faith'? Can you not trust in your
'god' to mete out punishment upon death? Why would
christians even need an earthly justice system?
Perhaps we have earthy laws for another reason? I
would argue this would appear clear evidence of a
social contract. Perhaps as humans are social
beings who tend to group, we've worked out a few
rules for dealing with those who hurt others. For
our own survival, as leaving non-consensual
'harmers' on the prowl is a detriment to the whole
of the 'village' as it were.

:If my child encouraged this

'Encouraged this'? Are you refering to your kid
wanting to have sex, i.e. consenting? Or are you
refering to 'encouraging' as in dressing wrong,
'being slutty', etc and being 'taken'? If so, are
you not refering to non-consesual sex? Here I'm
just asking for clarity, I don't understand you.
 
:... then I would consider it a personal failure
:on my part for not equipping them with the right
:emotional tools.

(There's that rhetoric again: equipping. You
accused me of rhetoric?)

Why, if the kid is happily having sex consentually
with a loving partner, would you take it as a
personal failure? Why are you wandering around
with this burden of your kid's decisions reflect
somehow upon you? How vain! Hate to break it to
you, but you're not the center of everyone else's
universe. If it's your 'job' to self perpetuate
your own moral values, then what is individual
conscience? Maybe your 'god' appointed you to have
such a 'job', but quite frankly, you kid probably
didn't.

:Personally, as someone that suffered from child
:sexual abuse I find the views you expressed
:hideous.

Well abuse sucks, not matter how you cut
it. Acting against someone else's consent with
intent to harm to me and my personal ethics would
seem perhaps the greatest violation. I'm sorry you
had to go through whatever you did.

This would be where that social contract kicks
in. If people are running around intentionally
harming others, then society as a whole tend to
try to restrain them from doing so, for our own
survival.

To extrapolate my experience must be the same as
yours, however, would even on the face of it
appear pattenently wrong. What to you may look
like abuse to me may be my hottest and
wettest. So much for absolutism.

:The horror of child abuse has marked me my entire
:life and I have been determined not to let my
:children become victims of it.

Abuse is abuse. You can only do the best you can
to support your kids and listen to them. Perhaps
what you would define as abuse they would call
love and consentual, at the same time,
relationships that many appear perfectly wonderful
externally, can be filled with hidden abuse
internally. Again, don't leap to conclusions based
upon your own values. LISTEN to your kids! Love
(not a codeword) your kids, don't 'what's best for
you' your kids into corners. All that does is
promote closeted behaviours.

(*Sabina's parenting advice for April*)


:I believe that every individual is responsible
:for their own actions according to the law.

No, you don't, you've shown so above. You want to
take responsibity for others actions and thereby
'justify' enforcement of your will upon
others. And which law dear? 'God's law'? Not my
standard thank you very much.

:I have never advocated violence against
:homosexuals, abortion doctors, or people of
:different ethnic backgrounds.

OK, but have you ever treated us as full equals
either? Think about it. you certainly didn't treat
my religion as equal above.Does your defintion of
'love' include treating us as people just like
you, who came to different -but equal- decisions?
Have you ever treated our decisions as if they
were 'right', even for us?

:You continue to want to lump all of life's
:injustices onto the backs of Christians.

Hardly. I'll be happy to rant about Democrats,
Republicans, rapists, parents, social services, or
any other topic. This particular page is dealing
with issues of Biblical America, in part, because
I see it as the most direct threat to my continued
existence. If I had the time I'd be happy to build
webpages to bitch about Democrats, too.

:That is unfounded and undeserved.

Sorry, that's where you're wrong. You've just
proven via your 'preying for me' that you're
willing to go against my consent, and get fixated
upon me, from there, it's just a matter of degrees
and how deep your're in.

-Sabina

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