EPTOn October 21 2011 07:00 Senorcuidado wrote:
I was just reading Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" and he is quite insistent in the first chapter that he prefers the term "liberal". He didn't think that "conservative" accurately represented his views at all. These days we call such views libertarian, and while the Republican party does pay some lip service to the economics, modern conservatism is something quite different. Putting libertarians on that linear spectrum is pretty nonsensical.
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On October 21 2011 01:56 Kiarip wrote:
Yeah... I already talked about this earlier, but it's the reason I hate when people make claims about libertarians like Ron Paul that they are far right wing.
Because based on today's standards far right-wing generally means, very socially constricting, and pro-war/imperialism, etc.
Some people say Ron Paul is very far right, and then Democrats are obviously on the left, but then somehow as you move across this political line more right, before you get to libertarian, for some reason you need cross the territory of the war-hawks, the homophobes, and the Federal bankers... All of whom are considered right-wing, but all of whom also support big government.
The Republicans have lost their way, and it gives libertarians a bad name too, because Libertarians were the original "Right-wing," and now it's polluted with mild fascists.
On October 21 2011 00:51 Bibdy wrote:
Plus the Michelson-Morley experiment. That one put the final nail in the coffin.
It's the ultimate hypocrisy within the religious base of the Republican party. They want smaller government and less intervention like moderate conservatives, but then simultaneously wants the government to go to great lengths to control social behaviour. And this guy (Penitent) had the audacity to call out liberals as being hypocrits earlier in the post, calling them too blind and stupid to realize it. Oh the irony.
Edit: I shouldn't say non-religious conservatives, because there are plenty far-right non-religious conservatives who want to put a stop to anything they deem is changing society too much, too. Usually older people who want society to go back to the way it was when they were kids.
On October 21 2011 00:39 Kiarip wrote:
When a person supports gay marriage, he isn't attacking religious beliefs... He is defending some individuals' rights to an act that fits into their right of pursuit of happiness without infriging on the rights of any other citizens.
When a person supports banning gay marriage he is supporting the Federal infrigement of personal liberties...
How is the distinction not obvious? No one is making any do gay marriages just because they're legal, it just gives people that want to a legal ability to do so.
As for evolution. Yes it's not a complete theory, but tons of theories are incomplete at this point for example in particle physics, and etc. There's nothing found so far to contradict evolution, although it's true that there phenomena found that evolution has not yet explained.
There's a difference. If there's counter evidence that it becomes obvious that the theory is wrong in its curent state, but if there are phenomena that the theoy hasn't yet explained it simply means that our understanding of nature doesn't yet encompass that particular phenomenom.
An example of disproving a theory for example, is how in early 20th century physicists believed that everything existed in some kind of medium, called ether, but then astronomists measured the red shift, and this directly contradicted the possibility of existence of ether.
On October 20 2011 19:07 Penitent wrote:
That said, your second paragraph is pretty accurate, and I think the Court has made statements on this in the past. (but I can't remember the context and it's too late for me to search google for more than 5 minutes, which was unsuccessful. my apologies.) Basically, as long as a law has a secular purpose, then religious support for the law doesn't disqualify it constitutionally. For example if a bill was being considered to broaden welfare programs and Johnny was in favor of that because Jesus said to feed the poor, that's okay (Constitutionally) because the law itself clearly has a secular purpose. Or if somebody supported capital punishment because at times it was mandated by God in the Bible, that's also okay Constitutionally, because clearly the purpose of capital punishment isn't to advance religion and it has secular support.
You are correct that Supreme Court jurisprudence over the last century and a half has largely followed this train of thought. Consider, however, that the Supreme Court (or to be more precise, the portion of the Court that agreed with this line of thinking) could be wrong. I repeat the irrefutable claim that there is nothing in the Constitution which requires any law made at any level of government to have some "secular" purpose. I challenge any and all who disagree with me to find in the text or the history of the text any hint whatsoever that the Framers of the Constitution or its subsequent Amendments ever intended to pass into law a general, universally binding requirement that all laws have some "secular" purpose.
There is a reason why the Framers never did so, and why they would be appalled to know that our Supreme Court has unilaterally inserted such a requirement into the Constitution by raw judicial fiat. Consider the consequences of such a requirement (which in technical legal parlance is actually framed as the requirement that all laws have some "rational basis"). Who decides what is "rational"? Why, the Supreme Court does. So if all laws everywhere must be "rational", who then commands ultimate veto authority over every single law in America? Why, the Supreme Court does. Consider carefully that what is "rational" to some will be madness to others. There is no infallible way of establishing the boundaries of "rationality". Because of this, any legal requirement that a law be "rational" - or in your terms, have a "secular" purpose - is effectively nothing more than a power grab by the one branch of our government that is immune to electoral challenge.
The very idea that a law must have some "secular" purpose or "rational" basis is repugnant to the concept of a democracy. This is America, where we have the right to elect our rulers and replace them if they rule for ill. I didn't sign up to be ruled by a minimum of five unelected elites wearing black robes, and I suspect neither did you.
As I said, I don't find it hateful if somebody wants to make marriage a religious ceremony and make civil unions about the legal rights. I don't find it hateful if someone wants to deregulate marriage entirely. Or even if they want government marriage for heterosexuals and civil unions with full legal benefits for homosexuals. (which I very strongly disagree with - "separate but equal" has tended to fail miserably - but won't go so far as to say it's definitely indicative of hatred)
But if someone wants the law to expressly treat homosexuals as second class citizens, to the point of not even accepting if we take the literal word "marriage" and keep it hetero-only and come up with a different word for gays, how can I not find that hateful? That's no different that saying gays should be arrested for living together or shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Okay, so let's take your stand against "hatred" to the next logical step. Do you support polygamous marriage? If not, why do you hate people who just want to engage in loving, polyamorous relationships? What about incestuous marriage? Or, if you think the possibility of genetically deformed children is too great a risk, what about homosexually incestuous marriage? Do you support that? If not, why do you hate family members who want to engage in loving, sexual relationships with each other? What about pedophiliac marriage? The age of consent in many countries around the world is as low as 13; isn't it hateful for us to bar significantly older adults from taking willing spouses at young ages?
I know you'll probably try to call this a straw man argument, but it isn't because it gets to the heart of the problem of officially recognizing gay marriage - that doing so obliterates the original purposes of having the institution of marriage in the first place, and having done that, there's no logical reason why the institution of marriage should be denied to other possible sexual groupings of people.
The whole point of marriage was to create stable bonds between the two halves of our species so that they could pool resources and work together to birth and raise the next generation of children. Governments realized that it was in their best interests to promote and protect marriage and correspondingly recognized marriage and included it in the basic framework of governance.
You are free to disagree with this understanding of marriage, as indeed most everyone still participating in this thread does, but recognize too that if you choose instead an understanding of marriage as the mere conference of special rights and benefits, there is no logical reason why marriage shouldn't also be extended to sexual groupings of people that even the most die-hard gay marriage supporters would find repugnant.
That's the problem with a statement like "across all cultures at all times in all of recorded human history." "All" is a pretty strong word. Saying "all prime numbers are odd" is actually false, just because of little ol' number 2. Similarly your statement is incorrect. Something like "the vast majority of marriages throughout human history have been heterosexual" would be correct.
I also wouldn't consider the Emperor of Rome insignificant myself.
Fair enough. As for the Emperor of Rome, however, I will note that Nero is widely recognized as having been a seriously disturbed and psychopathic individual; he "married" a man because he was the emperor, and no one says no to the emperor, especially when he's as likely to cut your hand off as shake it.
Religion and philosophy have their place in our society and in human thought, but it's not in the laboratory.
I'd have quoted the entire section but it was quite long and all I had to say in reply is that if there is in fact more to speciation than I have been able to find on my own, then I'm quite happy to have evolution taught in public schools as a proper scientific theory. As it is, I have yet to find anywhere a sufficiently plausible theoretical model for how a fish becomes a zebra a billion generations down the line. But I do think it is overly simplistic to say that ID boils down to finding the gaps in evolutionary theory and then saying "that's where God is". Many of the questions posed by scientists who support ID are eminently valid ones for which, to my knowledge, evolutionary biologists have yet to formulate any answers, theoretical or otherwise (such as the problem of irreducible complexity on a molecular level - and no, exaptation does not explain how the molecular pieces of a ribosome could have come together for some other purpose only to magically chance upon the awesomeness of being a ribosome). But I digress.
I'm not trying to take away anyone's right to vote. Anyone is free to vote like a complete jackass if they want to, and I'm free to call a spade a spade if I want to. Democracy does NOT mean you can't call people out if they take stances you find reprehensible. It seems like you're objecting to me objecting to other people's positions/voting behavior. You can have your opinion on an issue, but I can have my opinion on your opinion.
You're definitely right that you and everyone else is free to call me out for opposing gay marriage. But the manner in which that "calling out" is done is what so often devolves into hypocritical bullshit. If you want to say that you disagree with me because you believe that homosexual relationships are exactly the same as heterosexual relationships and should be accorded the same rights and benefits, fine. But to claim that my position is bad or illegitimate simply because it is based on my religious beliefs is hypocrisy because the opposite position isn't based on anything better (and I direct this not at you in particular but to liberals in general).
Why do you support gay marriage? Because I believe in equality for all people. Why do you want equality for all people? Because of the following 32 reasons, all of which boil down to equality being a good thing. Why is equality a good thing? Because ... um ... because it is. Why? Because it just is. Well, why is it better to support good things instead of bad things? Because I think good things are better than bad things. Why? Because.
That, right there, is the opposing viewpoint's foundational religious belief on this matter. At some point, every value preference must be rooted in a belief that is accepted without question or further basis, be it religious in origin or not. So to claim that religious voters, like myself, who vote their values, are somehow imposing our religion on others while non-religious voters, who vote their values, are not, is complete and total hypocrisy. They ARE imposing their religious values on others when they vote - they just don't see it as such because they don't organize their values and beliefs into coherent, internally consistent religions like religious voters do.
No, that's another straw man argument. At this point I'm starting to think you're an atheist trolling the forum... either that or you don't know how to have a discussion without being extremely combative.
Exactly what about my argument makes it a "straw man"? When a liberal (not necessarily you btw) blithely declaims that religious nutjobs like me are ruining the country by imposing our religious values on everyone else, how is that not also a statement that my religious values and beliefs are somehow less legitimate than the values and beliefs of those who disagree with me?
Everyone says that I am imposing my religion on homosexuals when I deny with my vote a homosexual's ability to marry his sexual partner, but no one seems to understand that they too impose their "religion" (i.e., value and belief system) on me when they vote to recognize and support something which I want society to reject. No, I am not being forced to marry a man, but I am being forced to live in a country that officially recognizes and accepts and promotes homosexual relationships - something which I do not want.
The whole point of my original post and these succeeding replies is to counter the notion that religious values and beliefs are a less legitimate source of political preferences than a-religious / atheistic / "secular" / "rational" / spaghetti monster values and beliefs.
That said, your second paragraph is pretty accurate, and I think the Court has made statements on this in the past. (but I can't remember the context and it's too late for me to search google for more than 5 minutes, which was unsuccessful. my apologies.) Basically, as long as a law has a secular purpose, then religious support for the law doesn't disqualify it constitutionally. For example if a bill was being considered to broaden welfare programs and Johnny was in favor of that because Jesus said to feed the poor, that's okay (Constitutionally) because the law itself clearly has a secular purpose. Or if somebody supported capital punishment because at times it was mandated by God in the Bible, that's also okay Constitutionally, because clearly the purpose of capital punishment isn't to advance religion and it has secular support.
You are correct that Supreme Court jurisprudence over the last century and a half has largely followed this train of thought. Consider, however, that the Supreme Court (or to be more precise, the portion of the Court that agreed with this line of thinking) could be wrong. I repeat the irrefutable claim that there is nothing in the Constitution which requires any law made at any level of government to have some "secular" purpose. I challenge any and all who disagree with me to find in the text or the history of the text any hint whatsoever that the Framers of the Constitution or its subsequent Amendments ever intended to pass into law a general, universally binding requirement that all laws have some "secular" purpose.
There is a reason why the Framers never did so, and why they would be appalled to know that our Supreme Court has unilaterally inserted such a requirement into the Constitution by raw judicial fiat. Consider the consequences of such a requirement (which in technical legal parlance is actually framed as the requirement that all laws have some "rational basis"). Who decides what is "rational"? Why, the Supreme Court does. So if all laws everywhere must be "rational", who then commands ultimate veto authority over every single law in America? Why, the Supreme Court does. Consider carefully that what is "rational" to some will be madness to others. There is no infallible way of establishing the boundaries of "rationality". Because of this, any legal requirement that a law be "rational" - or in your terms, have a "secular" purpose - is effectively nothing more than a power grab by the one branch of our government that is immune to electoral challenge.
The very idea that a law must have some "secular" purpose or "rational" basis is repugnant to the concept of a democracy. This is America, where we have the right to elect our rulers and replace them if they rule for ill. I didn't sign up to be ruled by a minimum of five unelected elites wearing black robes, and I suspect neither did you.
As I said, I don't find it hateful if somebody wants to make marriage a religious ceremony and make civil unions about the legal rights. I don't find it hateful if someone wants to deregulate marriage entirely. Or even if they want government marriage for heterosexuals and civil unions with full legal benefits for homosexuals. (which I very strongly disagree with - "separate but equal" has tended to fail miserably - but won't go so far as to say it's definitely indicative of hatred)
But if someone wants the law to expressly treat homosexuals as second class citizens, to the point of not even accepting if we take the literal word "marriage" and keep it hetero-only and come up with a different word for gays, how can I not find that hateful? That's no different that saying gays should be arrested for living together or shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Okay, so let's take your stand against "hatred" to the next logical step. Do you support polygamous marriage? If not, why do you hate people who just want to engage in loving, polyamorous relationships? What about incestuous marriage? Or, if you think the possibility of genetically deformed children is too great a risk, what about homosexually incestuous marriage? Do you support that? If not, why do you hate family members who want to engage in loving, sexual relationships with each other? What about pedophiliac marriage? The age of consent in many countries around the world is as low as 13; isn't it hateful for us to bar significantly older adults from taking willing spouses at young ages?
I know you'll probably try to call this a straw man argument, but it isn't because it gets to the heart of the problem of officially recognizing gay marriage - that doing so obliterates the original purposes of having the institution of marriage in the first place, and having done that, there's no logical reason why the institution of marriage should be denied to other possible sexual groupings of people.
The whole point of marriage was to create stable bonds between the two halves of our species so that they could pool resources and work together to birth and raise the next generation of children. Governments realized that it was in their best interests to promote and protect marriage and correspondingly recognized marriage and included it in the basic framework of governance.
You are free to disagree with this understanding of marriage, as indeed most everyone still participating in this thread does, but recognize too that if you choose instead an understanding of marriage as the mere conference of special rights and benefits, there is no logical reason why marriage shouldn't also be extended to sexual groupings of people that even the most die-hard gay marriage supporters would find repugnant.
That's the problem with a statement like "across all cultures at all times in all of recorded human history." "All" is a pretty strong word. Saying "all prime numbers are odd" is actually false, just because of little ol' number 2. Similarly your statement is incorrect. Something like "the vast majority of marriages throughout human history have been heterosexual" would be correct.
I also wouldn't consider the Emperor of Rome insignificant myself.
Fair enough. As for the Emperor of Rome, however, I will note that Nero is widely recognized as having been a seriously disturbed and psychopathic individual; he "married" a man because he was the emperor, and no one says no to the emperor, especially when he's as likely to cut your hand off as shake it.
Religion and philosophy have their place in our society and in human thought, but it's not in the laboratory.
I'd have quoted the entire section but it was quite long and all I had to say in reply is that if there is in fact more to speciation than I have been able to find on my own, then I'm quite happy to have evolution taught in public schools as a proper scientific theory. As it is, I have yet to find anywhere a sufficiently plausible theoretical model for how a fish becomes a zebra a billion generations down the line. But I do think it is overly simplistic to say that ID boils down to finding the gaps in evolutionary theory and then saying "that's where God is". Many of the questions posed by scientists who support ID are eminently valid ones for which, to my knowledge, evolutionary biologists have yet to formulate any answers, theoretical or otherwise (such as the problem of irreducible complexity on a molecular level - and no, exaptation does not explain how the molecular pieces of a ribosome could have come together for some other purpose only to magically chance upon the awesomeness of being a ribosome). But I digress.
I'm not trying to take away anyone's right to vote. Anyone is free to vote like a complete jackass if they want to, and I'm free to call a spade a spade if I want to. Democracy does NOT mean you can't call people out if they take stances you find reprehensible. It seems like you're objecting to me objecting to other people's positions/voting behavior. You can have your opinion on an issue, but I can have my opinion on your opinion.
You're definitely right that you and everyone else is free to call me out for opposing gay marriage. But the manner in which that "calling out" is done is what so often devolves into hypocritical bullshit. If you want to say that you disagree with me because you believe that homosexual relationships are exactly the same as heterosexual relationships and should be accorded the same rights and benefits, fine. But to claim that my position is bad or illegitimate simply because it is based on my religious beliefs is hypocrisy because the opposite position isn't based on anything better (and I direct this not at you in particular but to liberals in general).
Why do you support gay marriage? Because I believe in equality for all people. Why do you want equality for all people? Because of the following 32 reasons, all of which boil down to equality being a good thing. Why is equality a good thing? Because ... um ... because it is. Why? Because it just is. Well, why is it better to support good things instead of bad things? Because I think good things are better than bad things. Why? Because.
That, right there, is the opposing viewpoint's foundational religious belief on this matter. At some point, every value preference must be rooted in a belief that is accepted without question or further basis, be it religious in origin or not. So to claim that religious voters, like myself, who vote their values, are somehow imposing our religion on others while non-religious voters, who vote their values, are not, is complete and total hypocrisy. They ARE imposing their religious values on others when they vote - they just don't see it as such because they don't organize their values and beliefs into coherent, internally consistent religions like religious voters do.
No, that's another straw man argument. At this point I'm starting to think you're an atheist trolling the forum... either that or you don't know how to have a discussion without being extremely combative.
Exactly what about my argument makes it a "straw man"? When a liberal (not necessarily you btw) blithely declaims that religious nutjobs like me are ruining the country by imposing our religious values on everyone else, how is that not also a statement that my religious values and beliefs are somehow less legitimate than the values and beliefs of those who disagree with me?
Everyone says that I am imposing my religion on homosexuals when I deny with my vote a homosexual's ability to marry his sexual partner, but no one seems to understand that they too impose their "religion" (i.e., value and belief system) on me when they vote to recognize and support something which I want society to reject. No, I am not being forced to marry a man, but I am being forced to live in a country that officially recognizes and accepts and promotes homosexual relationships - something which I do not want.
The whole point of my original post and these succeeding replies is to counter the notion that religious values and beliefs are a less legitimate source of political preferences than a-religious / atheistic / "secular" / "rational" / spaghetti monster values and beliefs.
When a person supports gay marriage, he isn't attacking religious beliefs... He is defending some individuals' rights to an act that fits into their right of pursuit of happiness without infriging on the rights of any other citizens.
When a person supports banning gay marriage he is supporting the Federal infrigement of personal liberties...
How is the distinction not obvious? No one is making any do gay marriages just because they're legal, it just gives people that want to a legal ability to do so.
As for evolution. Yes it's not a complete theory, but tons of theories are incomplete at this point for example in particle physics, and etc. There's nothing found so far to contradict evolution, although it's true that there phenomena found that evolution has not yet explained.
There's a difference. If there's counter evidence that it becomes obvious that the theory is wrong in its curent state, but if there are phenomena that the theoy hasn't yet explained it simply means that our understanding of nature doesn't yet encompass that particular phenomenom.
An example of disproving a theory for example, is how in early 20th century physicists believed that everything existed in some kind of medium, called ether, but then astronomists measured the red shift, and this directly contradicted the possibility of existence of ether.
Plus the Michelson-Morley experiment. That one put the final nail in the coffin.
It's the ultimate hypocrisy within the religious base of the Republican party. They want smaller government and less intervention like moderate conservatives, but then simultaneously wants the government to go to great lengths to control social behaviour. And this guy (Penitent) had the audacity to call out liberals as being hypocrits earlier in the post, calling them too blind and stupid to realize it. Oh the irony.
Edit: I shouldn't say non-religious conservatives, because there are plenty far-right non-religious conservatives who want to put a stop to anything they deem is changing society too much, too. Usually older people who want society to go back to the way it was when they were kids.
Yeah... I already talked about this earlier, but it's the reason I hate when people make claims about libertarians like Ron Paul that they are far right wing.
Because based on today's standards far right-wing generally means, very socially constricting, and pro-war/imperialism, etc.
Some people say Ron Paul is very far right, and then Democrats are obviously on the left, but then somehow as you move across this political line more right, before you get to libertarian, for some reason you need cross the territory of the war-hawks, the homophobes, and the Federal bankers... All of whom are considered right-wing, but all of whom also support big government.
The Republicans have lost their way, and it gives libertarians a bad name too, because Libertarians were the original "Right-wing," and now it's polluted with mild fascists.
I was just reading Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" and he is quite insistent in the first chapter that he prefers the term "liberal". He didn't think that "conservative" accurately represented his views at all. These days we call such views libertarian, and while the Republican party does pay some lip service to the economics, modern conservatism is something quite different. Putting libertarians on that linear spectrum is pretty nonsensical.
Right, I've always preferred the term "classical liberal" since the word liberal has been hijacked by the socialists and because classical liberals are certainly not "conservative."
It's kind of funny when so many people today attack libertarianism as though it is some new wacky right-wing philosophy instead of being the philosophy of the most progressive thinkers in recent history. Freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly? lol those nutjobs.
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