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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one.
In that case making blacks sit at the back of the bus isn't really discrimination, because they're still allowed to ride the bus?
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Look like Trump is not bringing in the "DOJ framing" lawyer due to conflict of interest. This is good news for the country since it, at least, delays the true offensive on Mueller.
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To the above, DJT seems to be hinting that he will be running a legal incompetency defense against Mueller's queries. John Dowd was the key guy who knew the facts of the case and was point man between DJT and Mueller. If DJT liquidates all the lawyers who are doing the real work of responding to the investigation, then perhaps he can claim the investigation cannot continue because other lawyers need 'time to get up to speed'.
... Dowd was deeply versed in the facts of the case, including the tens of thousands of pages of documents that had been handed over to Mueller and the dozens of witnesses Mueller had interviewed.
...
Dowd and Cobb were originally recruited with full awareness of the long history they share with Mueller. Cobb has had a friendly working relationship with Mueller for more than three decades, and Dowd shares a common bond over their time as prosecutors and as Marines who served in Vietnam. ...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-22/john-dowd-resigns-as-trump-s-lead-lawyer-in-mueller-probe
EDIT: only mcGahn left. But ... https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/23/don-mcgahn-to-resign-timing-482179
+ Show Spoiler +
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On March 26 2018 01:43 Evotroid wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2018 23:51 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 13:12 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 12:34 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 11:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 08:14 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 07:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 06:10 iamthedave wrote:On March 25 2018 04:38 Danglars wrote:[quote] I covered the trampling of civil in the unquoted part of my last post. You can read it there and respond to what I wrote if you still don't understand. As you haven't responded to it, I don't know what was less than clear. You're still really deep in the hole with a historically acknowledged religious ceremony. Religions all over the world call the union of a man and woman a central God-purposed event. God ordains this union. You act or don't act in accordance to his will in this union. Et cetera. You're taking a historical revisionist route, and frankly an unsupported assertion, that it should be a secular event because you think some people just happen to choose to put religious undertones on the event. It's a religious event that some people adopt secular attitudes towards, and that's precisely why it's a core feature of this case. None of this wordy mash justifies adopting your attitude. It is a religious ceremony for a huge number of Americans, and just because you think it shouldn't be the case does not diminish that it will involve religious objections if they're making you be part of the service. Will you force a pastor to officiate the event on grounds of discrimination, because after all it's just this secular event to you? The folly just stretches on and on. I understand your perspective in the last three paragraphs. I live in a country that recognizes the role religion plays in life and how government intrusion on core beliefs would destroy a society and cause it to trend authoritarian over time. To re-purpose a sentence of yours, you really don't give a damn about civil liberties for people who you don't think deserve them. You simply don't think they should exist, therefore they don't exist, therefore they should be done away with. Therefore, direct your attention to constitutional amendments because I'm definitely talking about interpreting laws on the books by judges ... the proper realm for judicial battles. Okay. I'd like to get you to directly engage with something you consistently are ignoring, as it seems you don't understand my actual argument. If religion is required for marriage and it is a God-purposed event, why is the marriage a) not legal unless the state recognises it and why b) can the state annul it irrespective of the wishes of religious leaders? I have yet to see you concretely point towards a group I think don't deserve civil liberties. I do think that no group has the liberty to oppress another, and I think that the religious hide behind their religion regularly and use it as a shield to permit them to discriminate. And I think that is wrong. I don't think I'm rocking the boat there. I think I've already answered the post you're directing me towards. I believe marriage is obsolete personally so I do not intend to get married. I have no issues with other people choosing to do so, or the methods and trappings they use to complete that union. But I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular, and that marriage being secular is the only way to reconcile the vast gulf between what people say marriage is and what it actually is, and which part of that union the state - which is required to legitimise the union in the first place - actually cares about. We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious. Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage. You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them. The problem with your argument is that you try to imply that the religious aspect is inseparable from marriage due to the fact that marriage was historically co-opted by religion. What you don't do is acknowledge that marriage has pretty much universally been a legal/cultural institution that shaped the family dynamic, and religion has absolutely no right to uniquely claim it. To strengthen your argument, you would have to make a plausible argument as to why marriage is required to be religious. For example, why did my marriage that was strictly secular (not in a church, no involvement of religious ideas or practices) have some kind of religious component to it? What about the very nature of marriage makes it OK for religious people to discriminate based on it? This also brings up a larger question of why is religious belief ever an acceptable excuse to discriminate, but that's an entire discussion on its own. No requirement, just an extreme likelihood that someone religious would find the ceremony in direct conflict with his or her sincerely held religious views. I only bring it up because someone thought it was secular by nature and nobody’s civil rights were being violated. So really you’re falsely reducing my argument to points I never made. So then you have to justify why religion is an acceptable excuse to discriminate, because this is precisely what your argument is supporting. If he was truly discriminating against gays, he wouldn’t sell premade cakes to them either. The US has a rich history of weighing religious liberty concerns against others ... like unemployment benefits even though jobs were available that didn’t have sabbaths off .. or LGBT groups in a veterans parade. If we could return to a rational discussion of trade offs compared to the unilateral declaration that it’s discrimination ... that would be a good step one. It's the definition of discrimination. You can be triggered by the word "discrimination" since it seems to be a buzz word, but this isn't a debate. It is the very definition of discrimination. He is refusing service to an individual based on a particular trait of that individual. It doesn't matter if it's only a single service, it's still discrimination. There are different situations in which different institutions are allowed to discriminate. This is easily shown by many examples. However, there is always a reason or justification under the law; as you said, a trade-off. There are two different facets to the discrimination that is in question here; the basis for it (religion) and the reason for it (homosexuality, specifically a perceived endorsement of homosexuality). If you really want to justify this instance of discrimination, then you have to tell us why religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination, because that is the argument that you are constantly throwing your support behind. You will have to open your mind to alternative looks if you want to truly understand this issue. When you call it discrimination and leave it at that, you can’t progress to see what rights the other party has. That’s one of the reasons this is such a cantankerous issue in general: too many people are willing to cry discrimination and leave apart whether artists have the ability to be in business and still reject messages and whether or not that applies here. One easy reason why the uniform view of discrimination does not bear out is why the Supreme Court actually took up the case. According to some of the people in here, they should never has issued a writ of certiorari, just a one word rejection “Discrimination is not ok!” In real life, this is a balance of rights and responsibilities. I am sorry, but this seems like a (maybe unintentional) dodge I have to call you out on it. You accuse Stratos_speAr of just "call it discrimination and leaving it at that" while in reality the whole second half of his post is about how there are different cases, tradeoffs that can be justified, etc. With a serious question: Why do you think that religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination? (especially based on a trait for which the individual has no control over such as sexuality? I might add) Not meant to dig on you too much, but I was seriously hoping for a clarifying answer after reading Stratos_speAr 's comment.
We're still waiting to see whether he'll answer the question on interracial marriage, but he seemed happy to change the subject and resume his argument elsewhere. Don't hold your breath.
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Trump is a "Las Vegas Republican." He talks a lot about virtue and charity but seems to be entirely nonreligious & concerned only with profit & money. Now this Stormy Daniels story is threatening to take over the national news cycle again. This is Trump, the New York media mogul, all over again, but this time it is on a national stage. Sighhhh!
https://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/stormy-daniels-scandal-donald-trump/
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On March 25 2018 21:26 Excludos wrote:
Again guys, I must reiterate. Danglar is always going to be Danglar. The best ways to deal with his views is to not engage with them. If you find it ridiculous, then stop entertaining them. This thread is consistently derailed by one person and everyone who answers him.
I engage him for two reasons. One, all the people replying to him can collect the best of the arguments made against his position and hopefully use them elsewhere in ways that matter more.
Two, I keep holding out hope for mod action on his steady stream of condescension and thinly veiled insults.
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Here's the danger of putting incompetents in the Executive Branch - they don't understand the law. For a party that loves the Constitution, they are oddly tolerant of having leaders right now who don't understand it.
President Trump floated the idea of reviving the line-item veto on Twitter Friday evening, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appeared on Fox News 36 hours later to echo the proposal.
The subject at hand was the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill Trump signed Friday, a package Mnuchin claimed was excessive only because "the Democrats demanded a massive increase in non-military spending." To trim future bills, he argued, Congress "should give the president a line-item veto."
"But that's been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, sir," Fox host Chris Wallace interjected. Mnuchin was undeterred. "Well, again, Congress could pass a rule, okay, that allows them to do it," he said. "No," Wallace answered, "no, sir, it would be a constitutional amendment." "Chris, we don't — we don't need to get into a debate in terms of — there's different ways of doing this," the treasury secretary sputtered before moving on.
Wallace is correct. Congress approved the line-item veto, which permits the president to strike individual items from budget bills, in 1996. Just two years later, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional, finding it usurps congressional power.
theweek.com
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On March 26 2018 00:39 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2018 13:17 Sermokala wrote:On March 25 2018 13:12 NewSunshine wrote:On March 25 2018 12:34 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 11:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 08:14 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 07:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 06:10 iamthedave wrote:On March 25 2018 04:38 Danglars wrote:[quote] I covered the trampling of civil in the unquoted part of my last post. You can read it there and respond to what I wrote if you still don't understand. As you haven't responded to it, I don't know what was less than clear. You're still really deep in the hole with a historically acknowledged religious ceremony. Religions all over the world call the union of a man and woman a central God-purposed event. God ordains this union. You act or don't act in accordance to his will in this union. Et cetera. You're taking a historical revisionist route, and frankly an unsupported assertion, that it should be a secular event because you think some people just happen to choose to put religious undertones on the event. It's a religious event that some people adopt secular attitudes towards, and that's precisely why it's a core feature of this case. None of this wordy mash justifies adopting your attitude. It is a religious ceremony for a huge number of Americans, and just because you think it shouldn't be the case does not diminish that it will involve religious objections if they're making you be part of the service. Will you force a pastor to officiate the event on grounds of discrimination, because after all it's just this secular event to you? The folly just stretches on and on. I understand your perspective in the last three paragraphs. I live in a country that recognizes the role religion plays in life and how government intrusion on core beliefs would destroy a society and cause it to trend authoritarian over time. To re-purpose a sentence of yours, you really don't give a damn about civil liberties for people who you don't think deserve them. You simply don't think they should exist, therefore they don't exist, therefore they should be done away with. Therefore, direct your attention to constitutional amendments because I'm definitely talking about interpreting laws on the books by judges ... the proper realm for judicial battles. Okay. I'd like to get you to directly engage with something you consistently are ignoring, as it seems you don't understand my actual argument. If religion is required for marriage and it is a God-purposed event, why is the marriage a) not legal unless the state recognises it and why b) can the state annul it irrespective of the wishes of religious leaders? I have yet to see you concretely point towards a group I think don't deserve civil liberties. I do think that no group has the liberty to oppress another, and I think that the religious hide behind their religion regularly and use it as a shield to permit them to discriminate. And I think that is wrong. I don't think I'm rocking the boat there. I think I've already answered the post you're directing me towards. I believe marriage is obsolete personally so I do not intend to get married. I have no issues with other people choosing to do so, or the methods and trappings they use to complete that union. But I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular, and that marriage being secular is the only way to reconcile the vast gulf between what people say marriage is and what it actually is, and which part of that union the state - which is required to legitimise the union in the first place - actually cares about. We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious. Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage. You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them. The problem with your argument is that you try to imply that the religious aspect is inseparable from marriage due to the fact that marriage was historically co-opted by religion. What you don't do is acknowledge that marriage has pretty much universally been a legal/cultural institution that shaped the family dynamic, and religion has absolutely no right to uniquely claim it. To strengthen your argument, you would have to make a plausible argument as to why marriage is required to be religious. For example, why did my marriage that was strictly secular (not in a church, no involvement of religious ideas or practices) have some kind of religious component to it? What about the very nature of marriage makes it OK for religious people to discriminate based on it? This also brings up a larger question of why is religious belief ever an acceptable excuse to discriminate, but that's an entire discussion on its own. No requirement, just an extreme likelihood that someone religious would find the ceremony in direct conflict with his or her sincerely held religious views. I only bring it up because someone thought it was secular by nature and nobody’s civil rights were being violated. So really you’re falsely reducing my argument to points I never made. So then you have to justify why religion is an acceptable excuse to discriminate, because this is precisely what your argument is supporting. If he was truly discriminating against gays, he wouldn’t sell premade cakes to them either. The US has a rich history of weighing religious liberty concerns against others ... like unemployment benefits even though jobs were available that didn’t have sabbaths off .. or LGBT groups in a veterans parade. If we could return to a rational discussion of trade offs compared to the unilateral declaration that it’s discrimination ... that would be a good step one. But what's the distinction between something you're selling on a shelf, and something you're doing on order? They're both things you're offering to sell to those who pay you money. What is the meaningful distinction? I don't see one. And you don't have to deny both to the gays for it to be discrimination, just one. One is a service and the other is a product. The cake maker is being specifically asked to take a commission to make an artistic expression for a non legal ceremony. The cake maker refuses as they make these artistic expressions for specific non legal ceremonies. The person being refuses the service cites being discriminated against and wants to force the artist to make an artistic expression for all non legal ceremonies. Is the service vs product thing what's the deciding factor here or the artistic nature of the service? Would you argue that likewise someone who is trying to sell software is okay to refuse when approached with either some completly original request or a custom alteration to some code to make it fit better for the specific customer at hand? Or are you arguing that because it's artistic in nature he get's a pass on denying service? In that case, who looks at what counts as artistic and what doesn't? Or to give a more down to earth example, would you argue that someone working as a designer for websites being asked to make one can refuse that, because he doesn't like that it has pictures of a gay wedding on it? Does that work for everyone in the process? Just front-end because that's perceived to be the more "artistic" part or back-end as well? Let's say you've got some mmorpg that let's people marry ingame. Let's continue by saying that it was coded so that you are only able to marry a character of the opposite sex in the game and they want to change that. Would you be okay refusing to make that change as a programmer? Would you ultimately be okay to turn someone down for a credit at a bank because that's a service? Just curious since I'm not really getting which of the two is what's important to you in that distinction.
I want to preface that I'm not entirely set on this debate because I feel its more of a question on what a corporation actually is. For the sake of arguing I'm going to asert my own feeling that a cooperation should be its own entity operated and created with bias but in it of itself is not a human.
I think the case for it being okay is entirely situated on it being a service. Not only a service but a specific artistic expression of what the company believes is a marriage. Not a marriage in the civil union or anything that the state recognizes but the cake itself is a custom artistic expression made explicitly for the traditional ceremony that goes with a marriage. That being the type of marriage that has been traditionally accepted for hundreds of years or for the sake of the argument enough for the market to develop to the point where an custom cake maker business would spring up to cater to it.
Now there is a different type of marriage ceremony that the cake maker hasn't made cakes before. I would qualify that as a new market. I believe that the business has the right to not get i nto that new market. I would also qualify that the only way the cake maker was in the right is if the person(s) requesting the cake explicitly wanted a "gay marriage" cake or a cake for a "gay wedding". If this is the case then I believe that the company has the right to not make the cake out of legitimate concern for the companies brand or out of a desire not to expand into a new market (that being making cakes for gay weddings) due to a verity of legitimate business reasons.
But ultimately I don't know if my argument applies if we don't solidify on what a company actually is in the first place.
Just to go down your questions
1. I would think a website designer looking at the front end would have an argument but not the back end due to the artistic component of website design and not the technical aspect of backend.
2. Yes I think they should be legitimately allowed to (and shouldn't be allowed to) if they don't understand or appreciate gay marriage. I think the bigger question would be cross species marriage in an MMO game which would be a lot harder to answer.
3. No a bank has no artistic expression and denying loans on non bank related reasons wouldn't be justifiable from a business perspective so it would be a human discrimination issue.
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Do you think Trump is correct that lots of lawyers would take his case? Or is it just posturing, trying to save face after the legal shakeups?
I remember that during one case his lawyers would always meet with him in pairs because they couldn't trust Trump to not lie 'say certain things and then have a lack of memory'
Q. That's interestingly put. As I recall
in your letter to Mr. DeSanctis, which we marked
yesterday, you indicated the policy of your office
was to have two attorneys present for meeting with
public officials?
A. Correct.
Q. Here, you are meeting with your client?
A. That's right.
Q. Was it necessary for both you and Mr.Miller to always attend the meeting --
A. We always do that.
Q. Always?
A. We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.
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On March 26 2018 05:13 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Do you think Trump is correct that lots of lawyers would take his case? Or is it just posturing, trying to save face after the legal shakeups? I remember that during one case his lawyers would always meet with him in pairs because they couldn't trust Trump to not lie 'say certain things and then have a lack of memory'Show nested quote +
Q. That's interestingly put. As I recall
in your letter to Mr. DeSanctis, which we marked
yesterday, you indicated the policy of your office
was to have two attorneys present for meeting with
public officials?
A. Correct.
Q. Here, you are meeting with your client?
A. That's right.
Q. Was it necessary for both you and Mr.Miller to always attend the meeting --
A. We always do that.
Q. Always?
A. We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.
I'm going to go with posturing. Trump has already had a lot of trouble finding lawyers to represent him. This article mentions quite a few law firms that have already declined to take his case.
President Trump, whose top attorney handling the Russia probe resigned Thursday, is struggling to find top-notch defense lawyers willing to represent him in the case, according to multiple Trump advisers familiar with the negotiations.
Some law firms have signaled that they do not want the controversy of representing a divisive and unpopular president, while others have told Trump advisers they have clients with conflicting interests, according to several lawyers and three of the president’s advisers. Several prominent white-collar lawyers also have declined requests to sign on with the president in recent weeks, including former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson. www.washingtonpost.com
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It's pretty crazy to think about how people would've reacted if it was obama and not trump that top law firms refused to associate with because of his consistent problems of lying, not listening to advice, and not paying bills.
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On March 26 2018 01:11 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 01:02 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one. And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments). The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all. But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. Do you think the law would have prevented them from just saying they refuse to serve them and pointing to the sign that says "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" and kindly asking them to leave? Maybe other religious people would’ve used that dodge, but the owner is not ashamed of his religious beliefs. Neither should he try and dodge the Colorado law: it is unjust in present form and should be limited quickly. His religious beliefs that tell him gays don't deserve equal rights, you mean. And you seem perfectly okay supporting that. Given I'm not going to change your mind, because that's not why you're here, answer me this: why is even a disclaimer too much? Why is the only person that doesn't have to make any effort or question anything about what they're doing the religious person? Why does belonging to a religion grant you these privileges?
It’s really hard to go with the gay equal rights thing when he serves all gays, and just not the wedding ceremony itself. When all things point to just a special religious event, don’t shoehorn some hairbrained discrimination or unequal rights angle in. It just doesn’t fit!
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On March 26 2018 06:57 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 01:11 NewSunshine wrote:On March 26 2018 01:02 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one. And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments). The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all. But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. Do you think the law would have prevented them from just saying they refuse to serve them and pointing to the sign that says "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" and kindly asking them to leave? Maybe other religious people would’ve used that dodge, but the owner is not ashamed of his religious beliefs. Neither should he try and dodge the Colorado law: it is unjust in present form and should be limited quickly. His religious beliefs that tell him gays don't deserve equal rights, you mean. And you seem perfectly okay supporting that. Given I'm not going to change your mind, because that's not why you're here, answer me this: why is even a disclaimer too much? Why is the only person that doesn't have to make any effort or question anything about what they're doing the religious person? Why does belonging to a religion grant you these privileges? It’s really hard to go with the gay equal rights thing when he serves all gays, and just not the wedding ceremony itself. When all things point to just a special religious event, don’t shoehorn some hairbrained discrimination or unequal rights angle in. It just doesn’t fit!
Nah, I'm sticking with equal rights for gays vs. discrimination. Your arguments of late aren't terribly convincing.
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On March 26 2018 06:57 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 01:11 NewSunshine wrote:On March 26 2018 01:02 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one. And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments). The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all. But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. Do you think the law would have prevented them from just saying they refuse to serve them and pointing to the sign that says "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" and kindly asking them to leave? Maybe other religious people would’ve used that dodge, but the owner is not ashamed of his religious beliefs. Neither should he try and dodge the Colorado law: it is unjust in present form and should be limited quickly. His religious beliefs that tell him gays don't deserve equal rights, you mean. And you seem perfectly okay supporting that. Given I'm not going to change your mind, because that's not why you're here, answer me this: why is even a disclaimer too much? Why is the only person that doesn't have to make any effort or question anything about what they're doing the religious person? Why does belonging to a religion grant you these privileges? It’s really hard to go with the gay equal rights thing when he serves all gays, and just not the wedding ceremony itself. When all things point to just a special religious event, don’t shoehorn some hairbrained discrimination or unequal rights angle in. It just doesn’t fit! Which part of a gay couple engaging in a civil union is a religious event?
Is cutting and eating a cake with your (now extended) family a religious event?
Does this mean Christian bakers cannot serve Muslims because eating cake is a Christian religious event?
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On March 24 2018 12:25 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2018 10:55 mierin wrote:
It sucks because in theory, if everyone making below a certain amount (say 60k for arguments' sake) just stopped coming in to work, the country would be crippled (and workers' rights might have to be addressed). Unfortunately there would be an unlimited number of "scabs" or people who would go in to work regardless of the low pay. Most Americans don't generate anything like the value equivalent to the purchasing power in their labour. The value of their labour is amplified through artificial barriers to trade, the dominance of the dollar as a global currency, the exploitation of the third world, and American ownership of the means of production globally. The reality is that minimum wage workers are only underpaid in relative terms when compared to previous generations and their American peers.
What is this "value" you are referring to? The market only recognizes exchange value.
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On March 26 2018 01:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one. And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments). The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all. But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. I suppose that's one way to analyze the two kinds of harms experienced, but I'd imagine others might interpret them differently. For example: The harm done to the gay couple is that they had to experience yet another individual perpetuating an ignorant and discriminatory belief that unfairly judges them as inferior. The harm done to the cake maker is that he got called out on his bullshit and is now being forced to address the issue of whether or not his freedom to prejudge others is morally acceptable.
And the religious person considers that ignorant attitude towards the role religion plays in his life and hopes God works on his heart. It’s both ways. I don’t really care about the ignorant and hateful characterizations along the lines of “getting called out on his bullshit.” It’s your opinion and try as best you can to convince people it’s the right way to view it. Just don’t enslave people’s artistic expression to the state. Preserve some rights while you figure it out.
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On March 26 2018 07:15 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 01:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one. And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments). The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all. But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. I suppose that's one way to analyze the two kinds of harms experienced, but I'd imagine others might interpret them differently. For example: The harm done to the gay couple is that they had to experience yet another individual perpetuating an ignorant and discriminatory belief that unfairly judges them as inferior. The harm done to the cake maker is that he got called out on his bullshit and is now being forced to address the issue of whether or not his freedom to prejudge others is morally acceptable. And the religious person considers that ignorant attitude towards the role religion plays in his life and hopes God works on his heart. It’s both ways. I don’t really care about the ignorant and hateful characterizations along the lines of “getting called out on his bullshit.” It’s your opinion and try as best you can to convince people it’s the right way to view it. Just don’t enslave people’s artistic expression to the state. Preserve some rights while you figure it out.
We established they have the right to refuse to do their art for the gay couple's wedding though didn't we? So it's hardly enslaved to the state no?
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On March 26 2018 07:15 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 01:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one. And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments). The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all. But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. I suppose that's one way to analyze the two kinds of harms experienced, but I'd imagine others might interpret them differently. For example: The harm done to the gay couple is that they had to experience yet another individual perpetuating an ignorant and discriminatory belief that unfairly judges them as inferior. The harm done to the cake maker is that he got called out on his bullshit and is now being forced to address the issue of whether or not his freedom to prejudge others is morally acceptable. And the religious person considers that ignorant attitude towards the role religion plays in his life and hopes God works on his heart. It’s both ways. I don’t really care about the ignorant and hateful characterizations along the lines of “getting called out on his bullshit.” It’s your opinion and try as best you can to convince people it’s the right way to view it. Just don’t enslave people’s artistic expression to the state. Preserve some rights while you figure it out.
That's precisely the argument we're making. Being religious isn't a good excuse to deny the rights of others.
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On March 26 2018 01:43 Evotroid wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2018 23:51 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 13:12 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 12:34 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 11:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 08:14 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 07:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 06:10 iamthedave wrote:On March 25 2018 04:38 Danglars wrote:[quote] I covered the trampling of civil in the unquoted part of my last post. You can read it there and respond to what I wrote if you still don't understand. As you haven't responded to it, I don't know what was less than clear. You're still really deep in the hole with a historically acknowledged religious ceremony. Religions all over the world call the union of a man and woman a central God-purposed event. God ordains this union. You act or don't act in accordance to his will in this union. Et cetera. You're taking a historical revisionist route, and frankly an unsupported assertion, that it should be a secular event because you think some people just happen to choose to put religious undertones on the event. It's a religious event that some people adopt secular attitudes towards, and that's precisely why it's a core feature of this case. None of this wordy mash justifies adopting your attitude. It is a religious ceremony for a huge number of Americans, and just because you think it shouldn't be the case does not diminish that it will involve religious objections if they're making you be part of the service. Will you force a pastor to officiate the event on grounds of discrimination, because after all it's just this secular event to you? The folly just stretches on and on. I understand your perspective in the last three paragraphs. I live in a country that recognizes the role religion plays in life and how government intrusion on core beliefs would destroy a society and cause it to trend authoritarian over time. To re-purpose a sentence of yours, you really don't give a damn about civil liberties for people who you don't think deserve them. You simply don't think they should exist, therefore they don't exist, therefore they should be done away with. Therefore, direct your attention to constitutional amendments because I'm definitely talking about interpreting laws on the books by judges ... the proper realm for judicial battles. Okay. I'd like to get you to directly engage with something you consistently are ignoring, as it seems you don't understand my actual argument. If religion is required for marriage and it is a God-purposed event, why is the marriage a) not legal unless the state recognises it and why b) can the state annul it irrespective of the wishes of religious leaders? I have yet to see you concretely point towards a group I think don't deserve civil liberties. I do think that no group has the liberty to oppress another, and I think that the religious hide behind their religion regularly and use it as a shield to permit them to discriminate. And I think that is wrong. I don't think I'm rocking the boat there. I think I've already answered the post you're directing me towards. I believe marriage is obsolete personally so I do not intend to get married. I have no issues with other people choosing to do so, or the methods and trappings they use to complete that union. But I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular, and that marriage being secular is the only way to reconcile the vast gulf between what people say marriage is and what it actually is, and which part of that union the state - which is required to legitimise the union in the first place - actually cares about. We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious. Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage. You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them. The problem with your argument is that you try to imply that the religious aspect is inseparable from marriage due to the fact that marriage was historically co-opted by religion. What you don't do is acknowledge that marriage has pretty much universally been a legal/cultural institution that shaped the family dynamic, and religion has absolutely no right to uniquely claim it. To strengthen your argument, you would have to make a plausible argument as to why marriage is required to be religious. For example, why did my marriage that was strictly secular (not in a church, no involvement of religious ideas or practices) have some kind of religious component to it? What about the very nature of marriage makes it OK for religious people to discriminate based on it? This also brings up a larger question of why is religious belief ever an acceptable excuse to discriminate, but that's an entire discussion on its own. No requirement, just an extreme likelihood that someone religious would find the ceremony in direct conflict with his or her sincerely held religious views. I only bring it up because someone thought it was secular by nature and nobody’s civil rights were being violated. So really you’re falsely reducing my argument to points I never made. So then you have to justify why religion is an acceptable excuse to discriminate, because this is precisely what your argument is supporting. If he was truly discriminating against gays, he wouldn’t sell premade cakes to them either. The US has a rich history of weighing religious liberty concerns against others ... like unemployment benefits even though jobs were available that didn’t have sabbaths off .. or LGBT groups in a veterans parade. If we could return to a rational discussion of trade offs compared to the unilateral declaration that it’s discrimination ... that would be a good step one. It's the definition of discrimination. You can be triggered by the word "discrimination" since it seems to be a buzz word, but this isn't a debate. It is the very definition of discrimination. He is refusing service to an individual based on a particular trait of that individual. It doesn't matter if it's only a single service, it's still discrimination. There are different situations in which different institutions are allowed to discriminate. This is easily shown by many examples. However, there is always a reason or justification under the law; as you said, a trade-off. There are two different facets to the discrimination that is in question here; the basis for it (religion) and the reason for it (homosexuality, specifically a perceived endorsement of homosexuality). If you really want to justify this instance of discrimination, then you have to tell us why religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination, because that is the argument that you are constantly throwing your support behind. You will have to open your mind to alternative looks if you want to truly understand this issue. When you call it discrimination and leave it at that, you can’t progress to see what rights the other party has. That’s one of the reasons this is such a cantankerous issue in general: too many people are willing to cry discrimination and leave apart whether artists have the ability to be in business and still reject messages and whether or not that applies here. One easy reason why the uniform view of discrimination does not bear out is why the Supreme Court actually took up the case. According to some of the people in here, they should never has issued a writ of certiorari, just a one word rejection “Discrimination is not ok!” In real life, this is a balance of rights and responsibilities. I am sorry, but this seems like a (maybe unintentional) dodge I have to call you out on it. You accuse Stratos_speAr of just "call it discrimination and leaving it at that" while in reality the whole second half of his post is about how there are different cases, tradeoffs that can be justified, etc. With a serious question: Why do you think that religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination? (especially based on a trait for which the individual has no control over such as sexuality? I might add) Not meant to dig on you too much, but I was seriously hoping for a clarifying answer after reading Stratos_speAr 's comment.
He doesn’t see both sides. He just wants to launch into one side. See “It's the definition of discrimination“ (after I said it was obviously more than that) and “You can be triggered by the word "discrimination" since it seems to be a buzz word” (saying someone is triggered in an Internet forum surrenders the argument. See: SJW is triggered). Why would the Supreme Court even need to take up this case if it’s so clearly only discrimination? I want to first see an even handed treatment of the civil rights of the person involved before looking at what he’s calling discrimination and the nuance there. You can look at my previous posts for examples of what has always been dodged for religious exemptions in the workplace—it will do you good to answer a few.
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On March 26 2018 07:20 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 07:15 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 01:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 15:17 Kyadytim wrote:
I like how Danglars just subtly pushed the premise that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding isn't truly discriminating, because discriminating is something else worse that includes not selling off the shelf cakes, too. It's a pretty nice rhetorical trick, but refusing to make a custom cake is still truly discriminating.
I'm pretty sure he's done the same sort of thing with racism when talking to GreenHorizons.
We can still talk about how we're weighing the harm of requiring bakers to make cakes against the harm of allowing bakers to opt of providing custom wedding cake services to gay couples. We can also talk about the larger harms set by the precedent of requiring people to provide services that in some way go against their religion or the precedent of allowing people to not provide services by claiming it's against their religion.
On the last of those subjects, allowing people to opt out of following non-discrimination laws by claiming it's against their religion is potentially going to open a floodgate of discrimination because religion has been a tremendously popular excuse for all sorts of terrible things throughout history, so anyone looking for a religious justification for discriminatory practices will probably be able to find one. And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments). The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all. But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. I suppose that's one way to analyze the two kinds of harms experienced, but I'd imagine others might interpret them differently. For example: The harm done to the gay couple is that they had to experience yet another individual perpetuating an ignorant and discriminatory belief that unfairly judges them as inferior. The harm done to the cake maker is that he got called out on his bullshit and is now being forced to address the issue of whether or not his freedom to prejudge others is morally acceptable. And the religious person considers that ignorant attitude towards the role religion plays in his life and hopes God works on his heart. It’s both ways. I don’t really care about the ignorant and hateful characterizations along the lines of “getting called out on his bullshit.” It’s your opinion and try as best you can to convince people it’s the right way to view it. Just don’t enslave people’s artistic expression to the state. Preserve some rights while you figure it out. That's precisely the argument we're making. Being religious isn't a good excuse to deny the rights of others.
Being religious isn’t a good enough reason to forfeit your free speech and free expression rights. Apparently, you’re allowed to have them as long as you’re a hypocrite or don’t seek gainful employment. I really didn’t expect such a callous approach.
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EPT
