Responding to an Anti-Anti-Vasectomy Site

Here's a letter I wrote to an anti-anti-vasectomy site, responding to this site, that I doubt will see print, so posting it here instead.

Hey, I doubt my email will see print, but I'll write and send it anyway just for the therapeutic effect it gives me.

Bottom line: seriously, the entirety of your 'response' site sounds like pharmaceutical propaganda, but in this case, Big Urology propaganda. My unfounded-yet-likely suspicion: enough prominent urologists are talking together one day over beers, lamenting their profits affected by Kevin Hauber's site (or perhaps doctors find themselves getting far too many pestering questions thanks to his site) so -- enough is enough! -- break out the propaganda machine! Pool funds and get a professional, "medical sounding"-response site together, and get it out there, with the same efficiency of the vaccine industry getting the counter-autism propaganda online (only the top pro-vax articles seem to get the top search engine hits!) Urologists scramble, assemble funds, perhaps a call made to an ivy-league buddy or two, and the big money comes rolling in for a professional-looking, objective-sounding website ("be sure to include text like 'no book to sell' so that no one will suspect any ulterior motives to this site...")

But seriously, the polish used to refute Kevin's documentation seemed strained: using tactics such as marginalize the studies that support chronic issues and dismiss everything else in a cheerful ad homonym wave, and do what you can to steer around and away from the chronic page issue. Make his site as fringy and anecdotal-sounding as possible. Let's stamp out his documentation and research with our impressive-sounding, big-budget research. Chronic pain.... let's make this sound minor, dismissive, something to elicit the collective shrugging of shoulders, and let's watch the business come flooding back in again. Besides, EVERYONE takes a pain-killer when they first wake up, right, so why not someone damaged by a vasectomy?

If you think about it, vasectomies probably mark the singular reason a man would go to a urologist in the first place. So if there is skepticism of the safety of this procedure, you take away from that business, and what else would there be to give urologists business? A periodic, rare health issue with the reproductive organ? No, I see the big picture going on here. A well-played counter-move by a not-so-well-meaning group of urologists who need business.

But for what it's worth, frankly, it's not just Kevin Hauber's site that has dissuaded me from ever getting my manhood components mutilated, nor does it have anything specifically to do with philosophical or religious purposes. For me, it's all about cold, clear reason. If there is an elective operation that could potentially cause, no matter how small the likelihood, chronic pain in the region of my manhood, for every day for the rest of my natural life, then there is no way on earth would I get this operation. The other side-effect stuff that Kevin lists, that the anti-anti-vasectomy folks like trashing the research of, is secondary: I'm more concerned about the lingering, ongoing pain. My heart goes out to any guy who got the operation, experienced endless pain as a result, then when questioning the doctor received little more than a pain-killer prescription and a shrug. If there's the prospect of pain, then there's no possibility of getting this operation for me. At least with a barrier, I don't have to fear living each day with pain for the rest of my life.

Rational Neo

Squinty Whistles Reborn as Ultraconservative, ESV-only, Pro-life, anti-PowerPoint Revivalist Pastor

Squinty Whistles, late 19th-century mountain man and corn bread enthusiast, has been thawed and revitalized in a secret new Mexico lab, and once he came to his senses, and sprouted a massive beard, suddenly vaulted into a calling of a revivalist pastor of a most unusual persuasion. His followers, known affectionately as "Whistletarians", have been following him as he leads a series of revival crusades across the Midwest. His key tenants include

A radical new idea to preaching: Squinty actually does the incredible... he stands up, opens the Bible, and actually TEACHES from it! No stories, no jokes, no idiotic personal reflections, no puppet shows, but he actually opens the Bible and explains it to people! An incredibly novel idea!

Also, Squinty holds to strict ESV-onlism! (Although the NASB is fine as well. KJV is cool, too. And he doesn't mind the NIV. The Message is strictly forbidden, though)

Strict credo-credible-baptist. No sprinkling water on angry, unrepentant babies, or even on smug, just-doing-it-because-youth-pastor-said-to pre-teen kids, but rather it's adult-only baptism featuring a full-submersion (for an extended 5-10 seconds to make sure the candidate is completely dunked) and only done when the baptismal candidate can make a completely credible, convincing, realistic and plausible profession of faith and genuine repentance. None of this 'unguarded baptismal' stuff.... that's just as idiotic as sprinkling water on a baby and calling it a "sacrament" (and where, Squinty wonders, is the actual word "sacrament" found in Scripture, or was that just whimsically dreamed up by some goofy Pope? It's an "ordinance", papists. Call it what it is.)

Strictly guarded (literally) elements of the Lord's Table. And when I mean strict, I mean that there's an elder standing at the table, guarding it with a tazer. And if anyone comes up who is not a church member, and has not met with the session and again provided the aforementioned genuine profession of faith, they get the loving reprimand of a 50,000 zolt zap.

Hymns alone are sung, but not the stuffy kind. The only rule is that the hymns must be completely Scriptural, and they must not contain any one word/verse that's repeated more than 10 times. Those aren't Christian hymns: those are tortuous exercises in monotonous chanting

Squinty holds to a literal, universal interpretation of Leviticus 21:5, "'They shall not make any baldness on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts in their flesh." Squinty has a handsome head of hair, and the edges of his beard are vibrant, but most importantly, he holds to a strict antivasectometarian viewpoint, that Lev. 21:5 is saying that "cuts of their flesh" applies to the vasectomy scalpel of the urologist

Squinty also quotes from I Kings 18, regarding the priests of Baal: "So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom..." It is also the custom, he notes, that urologists slash at the vas deverens of men with swords, attempting to make them shout louder. "The priests of Baal aimed to serve a false god," observed Squinty, "no different than men today who go to urologists in order to serve their own false gods of self, indulgence, and convenience. Two kids was probably all the priests of Baal had as well."

Squinty is fiercely pro-life, and demands that all members of the church be as well. "Well, of course we are, pastor!" "And how many kids do you have?" "Well, two, of course, pastor... how else would we afford the over sized SUV and the annual Disney trip?" At this Squinty goes on an impassioned explanation of the Scriptural emphasis on the blessing of children, from Gen. 1:28 through the life of Israel and explains, clearly and slowly, that blessed is the man who fills his quiver with children, and two or three arrows in a quiver would be a pathetically lacking arsenal. He then drives home the pro-life thing: "How can you be pro-life, and yet only be pro-two lives, when you could easily have more, or easily foster care or adopt more. What, you think if you asked the church to raise up a fund to help you adopt that no one in the church would rise up to help support you in that goal? You can't say that you're TRULY pro-life unless you prove it with your actions and actually LIVE a pro-life life with lots of lives..."

Women wear head coverings in the church as well, because, as Squinty puts it, "Quit fiddling around with I Cor. 11 and making it say things it doesn't. 'Covering' isn't long hair, nor is it a wedding ring. Those are the lame Eve-style excuses whispered by pastor's wives to their husbands so that they wouldn't tell their church to do what the Bible actually says to do. Covering should be worn because it's tied to the creation order, it's done on behalf of the angels, and it goes against the proto-feministic rage of this era (aka "the spirit of the age"). Stop making excuses and do it!"

Finally, Squinty maintains that any church that incorporates PowerPoint is violating some Levitical law, but he hasn't quite pinpointed it out.

The Squinty Whistles campaign is slowly growing in momentum, and Squinty himself hopes to soon become a regular contributor of this blog, with regular messages and a handy guide to theological definitions and what not. Stay tuned!

Antivasectometarianism.... or.... a new home

A new home, but the same erratic nonsense...

I'm grateful to Fishhawk over at The Trib-Times for humoring a lot of my diabolical and often nonsensical posts for so long, but I think I pushed the envelope just a few too many times with my comments about Calvinism, cosmetic surgery, perverted tanning salons, sterilizations, Big Pharma, The Duggars, and far too much chillwave music to do any good. So after repeated warnings to clean up my act and be more responsible, I thought it was the best to move on, and dedicate one site specifically to my nonsensical ruminations. For the record, Fish was a good sport, and he's a great guy, and his blogs are definitely worth checking out.

But as for my nonsense, it will start showing up here. Don't expect much to change - if anything, there is no longer the sane voice of Fish to hold me in restraint, so things might get odd...