Perhaps we need a new and updated discussion on “the fences”. I can’t recall the first time I was taught about the fences, I do recall it was in a civics class sometime during middle school, but it would be a good time to look at “the fences” and draw some parallels and conclusions based on where we are today in the culture wars and society standing in general.
When I learned about “the fences” it was in relation to politics. In general we all have a shared agreement about what constitutes “normal” behavior, and what is “out-of-bounds” or beyond the width of our agreed upon “fences” that wrap what we all agree upon constitutes decency and decorum in arguing over policy.
We set boundaries, on the Left and the Right, about what is acceptable in discussion and what is “beyond the pale”, or, in “fence” terminology, beyond the boundaries of what we set as acceptable discourse. Thus “beyond the fences”.
Somewhere along the line the Left began to understand that if they can amplify enough voices beyond the fence, and out past the acceptable norm, then what used to be consider the fringe, the acceptable discourse right at the very edge of “the fence” in the discussion, would no longer be fringe, but more mainstream.
As those voices being amplified way out past the acceptable norms within the “fence” begin to expand our ideas of what is outrageous way past the edge of “the fence”, this creates a situation where the crazy ideas at the very edge of “the fence” seem more normal and acceptable.
A great example would be the fight we’ve had my entire lifetime over “gay rights”, and I’m going all the way back to “Stonewall”.
Now this idea that gays couldn’t find acceptance in society and had to hide in the closet wasn’t quite an ironclad argument. Liberace was the biggest star in the country in the mid-1950’s and everyone knew he was gay. Everyone, even grandmother on the sofa waiting patiently for him to appear on the television screen for a performance. Staid old, Christian values grandmother, just in love with Liberace, his act, his piano playing, and his outfits. The more outrageous the better. She adored Liberace, his personal lifestyle of no real concern to her. From Danny Kaye, to Paul Linde, and on to the single sidekick as portrayed in film by Tony Randall, always the effeminate twit, society was not as uncomfortable with gay behavior as we’ve always been told.
Now that doesn’t mean the police didn’t give out an undeserved beating in New York City at the Stonewall and in it’s environs now and then, which was completely unacceptable. And it doesn’t mean that there weren’t ignorant people who yelled epithets and nasty things in passing. Or that at time gays faced some persecution from citizens as they just tried to live their lives.
But past the Stonewall riots society was asked to “just accept”, and society did.
They “moved out the fences”. Where once homosexuality stood just beyond the acceptable range of the Left side of the fence, now “the fence” moved to accept that gays were amongst us, they were our children, our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and the fences settled into a new order.
But then acceptance wasn’t quite fulfilling, we needed to add gay marriage inside “the fence”. And surprising even to the movement, and it’s leader Andrew Sullivan, society moved “the fence” quite quickly, and gay marriage became acceptable.
But the movement wasn’t happy. No, not at all.
“The fences” still excluded the marginalized transgenders, drag queens, and others who considered themselves part of the movement.
Now under the “old fences”, the ones before Stonewall, everyone agreeing on what the fence boundaries were would have used terms such as freak, abnormal, even suggested that these were people afflicted with mental problems, these cross-dressers, transgenders, and drag queens. Candy Darling of Warhol fame was celebrated because she was so different, and Myra Breckenridge was a breakthrough novel due to its unique subject matter. Both far ahead of the times. But perhaps both instrumental in creating our time today.
With these “new fences” where gay marriage is now not only acceptable but celebrated, well, the idea of acceptance of transgender and drag queens isn’t far afield, far outside the norm, they are just over the new “fence” boundary. Far beyond the fences in the times of Candy Darling, just at the edge of our new fences today.
And so the voices from the Left grew louder, and louder, and are now a shout to include as perfectly normal all things transgender, and drag queens are so commonplace that we are holding drag shows for the children in the libraries across the country. In fact, if you look at the alphabet soup they use, we now have a two spirit. Yes, we are all now supposed to accept two spirit humans.
The “fences” have widened indeed.
And believe it or not, and I swear to you this is true, I am not making this up at all, there now is beginning to appear on twitter, and in articles in some publications, in support of relations between adults and children, what used to be considered the ultimate sin and taboo. There are those at the fringes of the entire alphabet soup movement in support of such behavior, a behavior that should never, ever, ever under any circumstances be allowed, countenanced, or accepted in any way, shape, or form.
But that is what you get when you move “the fences”, the progressives at both ends don’t stop pushing, they are never satisfied, they are never happy that they’ve been able to move “the fences” to make their position generally acceptable.
There are always those that want no fence at all. There are always progressives that feel that there should exist no fence, no guide rails on acceptable behavior.
And so where the boundaries of acceptable societal behavior from the 1950’s appear to be so antiquated as to belong forever trapped in black-and-white photography, we’ve expanded those boundaries to an extent that our general society would be unrecognizable to anyone reincarnated from 1955 and shown life today.
One might ask, “how the Hell did we get to the point where we have drag queens shaking their scrotum into the face of five year olds in the public library”?
Well, once you accepted gay marriage as equal to heterosexual unions it was a very slipper slope actually. Not very far down at all.
Patrick J. Moynihan called it “defining deviancy down”.
You can look at so many aspects of American society and wonder, “how the fuck did we get here”, and the answer is simple, we “moved the fences”.
The divorce rate exploded with the advent of women’s rights, the availability of the pill, and the change toward a two parent employed household.
The unmarried birth rate exploded with the advent of the women’s movement, the removal of shame in sex before marriage, and concurrent with the extreme decline in religious affiliation.
“Fence” movement has not necessarily been good for society in general.
And it works from both sides of the aisle. Though the Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives have used extreme tactics to move “the fences” far extreme, and have caused us to live in this new world order, they understand such tactics on the Right as well.
Send out a gadfly like Marjorie Taylor Greene to voice extreme positions, to sound as if she is just Right of Hitler himself, and then a Marco Rubio, or Jim Jordan sound sane in their slightly far Right positions. It can be useful to utilize the outrageous voice to make the case for one that cannot gain traction in its extremes. Use a voice that is really, really extreme to make the merely extreme sound mainstream.
The Democrats have perfected this art.
Movements have perfected this art.
It is how you get from Oh, ho-hum, a gay couple displaying PDA right there at the dinner table across the restaurant being “normal”, to walking outside to find a Pride Parade of the leather-clad fetish crowd leading their gimps on chains as if such behavior is as normal as walking your dog.
You do hit some point where you realize, “Holy Shit, “the fences” have been moved way, way, too far out for me.”
That is how we’ve arrived in a society where yes, indeed, I did see the leather clad in parades leading their gimp, I didn’t conjure that from my sick, twisted, and deviant mind, I saw it on my television screen just last week. This is how we’ve arrived at a turnstile justice system where perpetrators victimize citizens and are out before the citizens’ bruises heal, “moving the fences” explains all aspects of the decline of our current civilization. Criminal Justice activists have taken over our city justice departments and wreaked havoc on the major cities with repeat offenders out-of-control. The “fences” have been widened to the extreme. We once had Giuliani’s “law and order” and “broken windows policing”, now we have anarchy and chaos in the streets.
Civilizations have “fences”, or guidelines for a purpose. To maintain a cohesive, and successful society. Within the boundaries of acceptable behavior lies stability.
Outside “the fences” lies chaos, mayhem, and the breakdown of natural order.
“The Fences” define a healthy, normal, and ordered society. Every “good book” details the boundaries from the Bible to the Koran to the Talmud to the Vedas.
All successful societies have codified proper behavior because such behavior leads to a successful, ordered, functional, and working grouping of people. Even diversity of people. As long as they collectively adhere to some set of rules and regulations to guide behavior. And just as importantly to curb behavior found outside the norm, or as I would say in this exercise “beyond the fences”.
Needless to say I am of the opinion we’ve gone far afield of the necessary boundaries to maintain an orderly and productive society.
I do not begrudge acceptance of gay people amongst us all, there has always been a gay segment of society. I do not agree to an equality in marriage, but that is due to one issue, adoption. I believe in a gay union, recognizable as a “marriage”, but not equal to a marriage. For if you equalize two gays with a heterosexual couple in marriage from the point-of-view of government, then you cannot give a greater degree of acceptance to having a heterosexual couple adopt verses a gay couple. In the eyes of the law they’d be an equal opportunity for adoption. And any society that fails to recognize the superior benefits to a child in having both a female mother, and male father over a single sex couple is doing things wrong. A child benefits from having heterosexual parents over same sex parents, all other things being equal. Under current laws that recognize gay marriage as equivalent to heterosexual marriage, that is not the case. Our courts would give equal measure in the adoption to both sets of parents, all other things being equal. Sorry, but the heterosexual couple deserves to be favored in such a situation. Always. But if you make the union of marriage equal, the courts are going to treat both couples as equals. They are not equal. Or shouldn’t be.
One thing is certain today. Progressives are pushing harder than ever to “move the fences” of our acceptable societal behavior. And I mean harder than ever.
If we fail as a society to recognize the boundaries, to even have boundaries, we can continue to see decline. And we will continue to see decline.
In any sane society, there are always “fences”. And never as wide as we have them today.