Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/31/president-nixon-ranting-about.html
…
4 Likes
At least Nixon had enough of a filter to keep his hate-filled rants behind closed doors instead of broadcasting them to the world in real time.
13 Likes
Nixon: The last six Roman emperors were fags.
I forgot he was there, and boy did he have fun.
5 Likes
JC: ”Et tu, Brute?”
B: “You know it!”
(high five)
20 Likes
Part and parcel of the “moral majority” movement in the 70’s and carried on through the repubs of today.
6 Likes
I don’t really understand how saying that the founder of western philosophy and the inventor (/discoverer, whatever) of propositional logic are gay reflects badly on gays, or suggests that homosexuality was in any way implicated in the decline of classical Greece. In fact, their careers occurred during Athens’ golden age, didn’t they?
That’s ignoring the fact that they both had wives and children (which is not to say they weren’t homosexual, just that calling them gay is simplifying a little bit.)
18 Likes
14 Likes
In fairness, Nixon was sort of an equal-opportunity hater: he had something nasty to say about pretty much everyone.
9 Likes
" Nixon: The point that I make is that goddamit, I do not think that you glorify, on public television, homosexuality! You ever see what happened, you know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Aristotle was a homo, we all know that. So was Socrates.
Ehrlichman: But he never had the influence that television has.
Nixon: The last six Roman emperors were fags."
We doesn’t he love Western Civilization?
2 Likes
So do we know what show he was talking about?
“All in The Family.”
1 Like
“Of the first twelve Roman emperors, only one was exclusively heterosexual. Since these twelve men were pretty tough cookies, rigorously trained as warriors, perhaps our sexual categories and stereotypes are – can it really be? – false.”
– Gore Vidal
12 Likes
Either this lacks some context, I’m not aware of one of those progressive episode where Archie learned that “the Gays” weren’t all that bad, or Tricky Dick was as crazy as I thought.
It would make more sense if he though Felix and Oscar were a couple.
2 Likes
This passage jumped out at me with regard to :evangelical support for Trump:
Today, American evangelical Christians are busy trying to impose on the population at large their superstitions about sex and the sexes and the creation of the world. Given enough turbulence in the land, these natural fascists can be counted on to assist some sort of authoritarian—but never, never totaliarian—political movement.
8 Likes
I wonder if Nixon was sort of projecting from America. I’m sure when Nixon was president many (most?) homosexual men had wives and children too. Maybe he imagined the ancient Greeks as contemporary Americans, having families as a smokescreen to hide behaviour they knew to be shameful.
Also, my first thought was your first thought. Like, he was trying to say being gay is bad because Aristotle was gay? Like, a guy who is in the running for the single most important person in western history is your example of why you don’t want to be gay? I’m not an Aristotle superfan by any stretch, but it’s easy to trace his influence on western thought right up to now.
6 Likes
To say nothing of at least one of the more capable ones, Hadrian, probably being exclusively not heterosexual. His political marriage to Vibia Sabina was notably miserable, as contrasted to his relationship with his probable lover (and certainly beloved) Antinous.
Now, Elagabalus, on the other hand: anybody looking to cherry-pick would have found a lot to confirm Nixon’s ideas in that one.
6 Likes
Disgraced president Richard Nixon says “Aristotle was a homo, we all know that. So was Socrates.”
So, is this an ad for homosexuality?
Homos: 2 brightest minds in history.
Straights: 1 disgraced crooked politician.
Score: homos 2: straights -1
11 Likes
I’d be astounded if Turmp was supporting his inevitable bigoted ramblings with Classical references. It’d be like a rat walking on its hind legs.
6 Likes
Imagine if Nixon had Twitter. Hoo boy.
2 Likes
