Gays are the new Jews

Shane Costello

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Prosperity and Tolerance

There seem to be two economic lessons we can draw from Sicily. The first lesson is that tolerance works. The Jews were creative, freewheeling and enterprising. They used their heads and toleration reflected a certain attitude in Sicilian society towards enquiry, irreverence and adventure.

Kicking out the Jews was emblematic of a more profound malaise.

It represented an intolerance of creativity, an inclination towards censorship and a strangling of freedoms among the more inquiring minds of the greater Christian population as well.

Economic history tells us that this is the road to ruin. The second lesson is that intolerance, ignorance and superstition are much easier to acquire than to uproot and that such attitudes pertain today in Sicily contributing to its persistent backwardness.

Today, gays are the new Jews.
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Interesting. Is there anyone in the house knowledgeable about Jewish or Sicilian history? For that matter is the notion that gays are overrepresented in the creative industries a fact or a myth?
 
Check out Roger II, Norman King of Sicily. (There's a fine book by John Julius Norwich.) He, and his dynasty, enforced toleration in a typically effective Norman way, and for typically pragmatic reasons. Sicily - like Iberia - was a jewel until the Vatican got in there. Result : third-world status, and the Norman role in Southern Italy written out of mainstream history. No mention of them in the piece you cite. Straight from the Punic Wars to Ferdinand and Isabella; it's a travesty. But we do get:
Without the Jewish traders (who had formed only a tiny percentage of the population), no one traded. Without trade, there was no cash and without cash, there were no jobs.
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Toleration wasn't just of Jews, it was of Muslims. (And atheists and Hindus, if they'd been about). Jews weren't the only traders. Christians and Muslims have an eye for business and a willingness to travel as well. It wasn't just Jews that were expelled from Sicily and Spain, it was Muslims as well. And the dead hand of orthodoxy closed on the Christians as well. Just as the dead hand of Jewish and Islamic orthodoxy has closed on most Jews and Muslims through history.
 
Shane Costello said:
For that matter is the notion that gays are overrepresented in the creative industries a fact or a myth?
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It seems to be the case, but whether this is because creative people are more likely to be gay, gay people are more likely to be creative or people in creative industries are more likely to 'come out' than factory workers is another matter entirely.
 
Shane Costello said:
Prosperity and Tolerance



Interesting. Is there anyone in the house knowledgeable about Jewish or Sicilian history? For that matter is the notion that gays are overrepresented in the creative industries a fact or a myth?
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I noticed that the start of economic stagnation in Sicily also coincided with the discovery of the Americas which would have resulted in a huge shift in enterprise and investment across the ocean. Could there be a link there. Maybe there were reasons for trade to shift elsewhere and this was just the last straw.
 
Re: Re: Gays are the new Jews

Ian Osborne said:
It seems to be the case, but whether this is because creative people are more likely to be gay, gay people are more likely to be creative or people in creative industries are more likely to 'come out' than factory workers is another matter entirely.
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Nature is ruthlessley efficient. I can't see how gays could be so common in humans and not have something to contribute that made human survival more likely.
 
TillEulenspiegel said:
Your right AUP.....they don't reproduce.
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Actually, they do. Peer pressure is a b****, so many marry, have kids, and pretend they aren't gay. Like the now former governor of New Jersey. Plus, if a gay couple wants to have kids, they only need a donor from the opposite sex (and a surrogate if the couple is male).
 
I can't see how gays could be so common in humans and not have something to contribute that made human survival more likely.
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Gays are a result of relatively rare gene combinations that appear every so often. Nothing more.
 
I think gays may be overrepresented in the professional and creative classes because they will be accepted there. Gay are less likely to become blue collar workers and gay blue collar workers are less likely to admit they are gay.

I knew a landlord who only advertised in the gay papers. He did not discriminate against heterosexual but he did not actively recruit them. He found out that he got better qualified tenants and paid less via the gay papers. If you have a business, it's a good lesson to learn.

CBL
 
from Nikk:
I noticed that the start of economic stagnation in Sicily also coincided with the discovery of the Americas which would have resulted in a huge shift in enterprise and investment across the ocean.
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Also the opening of the sea-route from Europe to the Indian Ocean when Vasco de Gama rounded Cap Bon Esperanza. But it was a century before that had a major effect - Venice was still going strong on East-West trade. More important, I think, was the way that Sicily changed from being the cross-roads of the Med to being the periphery of Christian Europe, hostile to North Africa, and the periphery of the Hapsburg Western Med, hostile to the Ottoman Eastern Med. Peripheral areas don't generally prosper.
 
Has Capel Dodger persuaded you that Jews are not to be praised for anything or not yet?
 
Hi Cleopatra:
Has Capel Dodger persuaded you that Jews are not to be praised for anything or not yet?
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I don't think exaggeration helps anybody. And, as you know, I don't hold with treating people as members of groups rather than as individuals.
 
Yes Capel Dodger, I know.

I just had this mental image of yours typing passionately in an attempt to put things into perspective and order and I wanted to tease you a bit, that's all.


:c1:
 
jay gw said:
Gays are a result of relatively rare gene combinations that appear every so often. Nothing more.
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Does that mean homosexuality is curable?
 
Shane Costello said:
Prosperity and Tolerance
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An American magazine, The Atlantic Monthly recently produced a fascinating map plotting the concentration of gay men and women in various cities and correlating it with income.

What emerged was that the cities with the highest concentration of gay people were also by far the richest.
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Possible correlation/causation error here. Maybe even curve-fitting. No way to tell without the data.
 
TragicMonkey said:
About as curable as being Jewish is curable.
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There are Jew genes?

If homosexuality is the result of rare gene combinations then it's a physical trait. So it must be alterable.
 
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