ParanoiA

The term "anti-religion" creates the margin right out of the gate. That's a deliberate focus on one brand of irrational thought. Those that bash religion repeatedly use the term 'religion' as they assail it. That's where I'm getting that. They are only focusing on religion. If they were assailing religion predicated on challenging unsubstantiated belief systems in general, then I would expect that terminology to make an appearance. When someone posts about psychic phenomena, I would expect the same assault we see from posts about god. It doesn't earn the same level of disgust - not even close. It should.

And the answer is directly proportional to the reality in the public's faces. Take a look at some photos of little japanese kids after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Does waterboarding compare to that? We will do the most evil shit as long as we don't see it. As soon as we actually see people with disfigured faces and bodies, chemical burns, amputations and etc we being to question ourselves. I resent this. We know this and yet we comply with it. That's why these torture threads annoy the hell out of me. One hypocritical post after another. People drawing a line at a technique that doesn't kill nor cause any kind of permanent damange, other than maybe psychological, yet are perfectly ok with all of the other atrocities we commit but don't see on TV. Hell, we are actually ok with annihilating an entire country with nuclear weapons. We depend on that commitment to respond if we are attacked. How can you draw a line at waterboarding, yet remove the line on nuking a country full of innocents? It's good we ask these questions. But I really wish everyone would get a little more real about this. Question yourselves. Why do you draw the lines you do? And why do you excuse yourself from the inconsistencies with your lines?

Yes there is. A big clue is how religion is attacked yet all other forms of unsubstantiated belief systems are not. Those who are so averted to religion, tend to focus only on religion, proving a personal bias that excludes all other forms of irrational deductive reasoning. This further indicates, to me, that's it's not about promoting rational thought and reasoning, rather it's about religion being a thorn in their side - prejudice. Otherwise, they would be consistent and expand beyond the short sighted specious indictment of one brand of unsubstantiated belief. The label should be something about irradicating such belief systems; not just religion and god. There's nothing healthy about a psychic draining your bank account so you can talk to your dead relative, or believing that ghosts have unfinished business on earth.

I called it bullshit myself. It's certainly no more silly than the idea that if we call a different thing a different name since it's a different thing that it makes it inequal because people might interpret it as an inferior thing. Yes it was a silly comment, and perhaps it doesn't work as an analogy since domestic partnership doesn't inherently restrict hetero couples, but whether or not the analogy is sound, it's all silliness anyway. The rest of my post was where my logic and argument is really at. And they should get it. Let's be clear and distinguish the difference between state recognized and self recognized - no one can stop them from "marrying", they're trying to stop the state from recognizing their marriage. There's nothing wrong with privilege here, except that it's being used to feed downstream rights. And that's a big issue. And this doesn't address the problem at all, and retains an element of inequality since many rights are determined by the institution termed "marriage", so by not sharing the same term they don't share the same downstream rights. Note, this is entirely different than inferring inferior value by different labels - an argument I reject. Where did I suggest this? The only thing I suggested was that it was a weak argument that speaks to a person's prejudices to say a different label provides a subservice, based solely on the words themselves. Instead, I added functional substance by relaying to Dak that the words themselves matter since the laws that extend rights for married couples (again, like medical decisions and so forth) are written with the word "marriage", thus using any other term retains that inequality. If we didn't have any laws or rights that depended on the institution of state recognized marriage, there would be no discrimination, in my mind. I suggest you catch up with my position, if you haven't already. I've been honing in on the detail that's been bugging me about this entire issue from the very beginning. This disturbing relationship between privilege and rights.

You're right, I jumped the gun. Sorry.

Oh yeah, absolutely. But all we're getting is lip service and barely that, anymore. I'm not impressed with fences and bulky physical structures. I'm thinking of something more technologically advanced. I find it hard to believe that we can't electronically revolutionize the art of border security. Maybe you're right and there's really no security to be had. I do understand the nature of the situation in that we're a rich country bordering an impoverished one - no matter what we do, people are going to risk it all to come here. I know I would.

I'll do it for him. By your own argument above, they were killed and it was stopped - THEN we wrote our laws. The verbiage in our laws are trapped in time - we must interpret them per their definition at the time they were written in order to establish the true intent of the law. Even if it was discriminatory and evil. Because we interpret the intent of the authors first, then we determine if it's constitutional. Which means, if you think about it, that the laws could be considered unconstitutional. That's actually the argument I'm making in another thread, that it's a privileged institution that is being used to filter rights. I can't imagine that's constitutional at all.

Yeah, I second that. And great follow up there Pangloss. We know there are problems with the border and security. This is egregious neglect by congress as they've been well aware for close to a decade now how the populus feels about border security. I guess I don't think of gun regulation when I hear about the number of guns getting to Mexico. I think of failed border security. I think they want us to think of gun regulation and how we need to be stripped of more of them and we're all southerners who drink beer, drag minorities behind our pick-em-up truck and shoot deer from the cab. But I don't. I want the border secure. For once and for all.

I fully appreciate that conclusion Dudde, but for me, right is right and wrong is wrong and I have a duty to "be the change I want to see". I have to follow my principles, faithfully, or else I'm not living up to my rhetoric - which no man can, but all men should try. That means I can't be bothered with how realistic my beliefs of "right" will ever be pluralized or implemented. State recognized marriage is not a right, no different than any other labels citizens give themselves, or clubs they fabricate. State recognized marriage, being a privilege, should *not* create rights, which means that using marriage to decide who calls medical decisions, inheritance and etc is invalid since it establishes rights based on an institution that is exlusive and discriminatory in ways rights cannot be (in other words, it forces a citizen to traverse through a privileged institution to exercise their right). For this reason, I challenge all laws that use "marriage" to extend rights of any kind. My take is not to exalt same-sex marriage, and continue to discriminate by using a privileged institution to filter access to one's rights, but rather to tear down hetero marriage to discontinue this disparity. Government has no business legislating marriage. And that's what I believe. It will never be a reality and it's highly likely not a single person will agree. Incidentally, it may be helpful if everyone restated their ideal positions. I'm not sure who's standing where on this stuff anymore. I know many of us have included compromises we'd agree to, but I'm more interested in everyone's ultimate preference.

Ok, fair enough on the children. Good point. But how does that change the rights afforded to the rest? Children are only restricted based on the idea they can't fully appreciate and negotiate their rights. They can't be prosecuted as severely, and they can't exercise freedom as liberally. They are not fully empowered citizens. So, I guess in terms of fully empowered citizens - adults - how can rights be cherry picked without being discrimination? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Ok, I guess your question was limited to that same scope as well. Sorry. That's cool, I thought maybe you were dismissing some detail that might suggest something less than essential. Good to hear from you by the way. I always enjoy your logic.

Not sure where you're going with the "Slippery Slope Fallacy" comment. I certainly haven't argued that. I'm arguing consistency. And yes, if playing baseball is a "right", and it is, then yes all humans get to play it - men, women and children. Oh did you mean professional baseball? The private institution - no different than any exlusive voluntary private club? Yeah, my point is about calling state recognized marriage as a right. Not talking about private constucts created by free society. Which is really interesting since that touches on WHY I don't believe marriage is a right - because it's as much a private sector institution as professional baseball. The only problem being that this particular institution drives downstream "rights" and pro baseball does not.

Sure, in Washington. We have 50 states in our union and all of them have any number of laws impacting marriage. As long as it isn't called "marriage" then all of those laws do not automatically apply to domestic partnerships. Also you used the word "essentially" - why was that necessary?

How about inheritance? Or for a partner to make medical decisions for the other when they are not conscious to do so? The institution of "marriage" is referenced in those laws - hence the consequences of "rights" descending from a "privileged" institution. So, it can harm same-sex unions because they will not enjoy the same set of consequential rights as married folks - and only because of not calling it "marriage". Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged And same-sex domestic partnership is some special institution where membership is restricted to same sex partners only. Ergo, opposite sex couples are "excluded" from that institution... And really that's all bullshit too. What you're arguing here is inference. You're suggesting it isn't good enough since free society will infer a subclass out of it. We don't go running around tweaking laws to preempt what society will infer from them. If people infer a subclass, that's their problem. Calling it marriage won't change that anyway.

Now that's a thoughtful answer. Actually, I was expecting someone to point out that Texas should have to compensate the union for federal assets. That could really break their back, depending on how tough we were on them. I wonder how much NASA has invested there.

What in the world does Texas depend on that 23 million free people on 7% of the US current land mass can't achieve? You really believe that? And what makes you think no one will do business with Texas?

Yes you are. You're trying to define marriage with the limitation of two people. You're proposing a definition that is codified with prejudice. They're already suffering right now, and now you're going to liberate one group while maintaining the oppression of the other. And I'm supposed to support that? In America? In the 21st century of enlightenment? I don't think it downplays it as much as it presents it in a way that undermines your position because it makes you rethink why you're so intent on using the word marriage for both. It doesn't make him right, it's just a reasonable observation. More importantly, it is far from irrelevant. Think about it..how many times have people pointed how "stupid" it is that "marriage" be contingent on genitalia - when that's exactly the partition for a number of other terms, like "female"? That, at the very least, takes some steam out of that argument since it isn't stupid for a term to be contingent on genitalia. In other words, it requires someone to make a reasonable argument instead of relying on specious appeals to "stupidity" - by just pointing at it.

What is ridiculous and irrelevant about pointing out inconsistency in language when we're arguing about consistency in language? My definition says 'a union between two or more people is a marriage'. I guess my next question is, why are you all so intent on restricting the rights of polygamists? Why are you denying rights to familial marriages? You all are fighting about defining marriage so that it remains an exclusive institution and by the arguments I've read here, that tramples rights. So we have one group of bigots arguing that they should be included in the present group of bigots. So what? To be one giant group of bigots? I'm watching bigots compete, apparently.

I have a right to be a woman. You have no right to deny me that right just because of my genitals. What a bunch of traditionalist, oppressive mumbo jumbo by the moral elite. No wait, I want to be a manbearpig...

Well yeah, they won't make it if we war with them, we'll slaughter them. I meant if we let them secede, does anyone really think they won't survive? I think they'll be just fine. They'll have their problems and chronic conditions, just like us and every other country in the world, but there's nothing in particular about them that would suggest they just couldn't make it work. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged No you're not the only one. It's the problem with party worship. It's totally cool to be an ass as long as the other side was. It's all he-said she-said elementary school groupthink.

No kidding. You know there's a problem when this is top news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090417/ap_en_ot/people_winfrey_twitter We, Americans, are a shallow lot. I think this is a better alternative though. Instead of the unbiased pretense, which damages any resemblance to critical thinking, it openly declares the bias so we know how the information is favored. Of course, this may require a change on our part now. Instead of writing off reports from a biased source 180 degrees counter to our ideology, we should require a fair burden of verification instead.

scrappy, my man, we are in agreement. Give everyone the same legal title to facilitate the functionality of state recognized commitments between citizens, and let the free market bat around "marriage" all they want. I would also like to see all laws that empower "marriage" with rights, to be stricken. Make them write the laws fair. I'm thinking those laws, not marriage laws necessarily, are the ones that create the inequality. It would be akin to cancelling the privileged status of "whites" and establishing the all inclusive concept of "man" as opposed to redefining "whites" to include all races.

Now wait a second. Taxes come from the states. The federal government is a collection of states. I realize there will be some disparity between the states in terms of net gain or loss of federal revenue, but generally speaking any state that secedes just has to add that difference to their tax structure, in order to maintain present levels. In theory anyway, each citizen shouldn't be paying any more taxes at all. Does anyone really think Texas couldn't make it on their own? Really?

Putting this in perspective though, marriage is not an institution directly restricted by any laws. We're talking about "recognition" of marriage by the state, which is used to grant privilege and is used to gauge the credibility of relationships between humans, in order to determine inheritance, medical decisions for the unconscious..etc. In other words, no one is denied the right to marry. No one is denied the right to be BFF's with whomever they want either. And yet, they have no right to force the government to call them BFF's or recognize their BFF relationship. I don't believe anyone has a "right" to force the government to see them as married, any more than they have a "right" to force the government to see them as a member of the Winnie The Poo Club. Hetero or otherwise. Instead, we should be complaining that we don't think the qualifiers in that privilege are fair, or just. And most important, they're using that privilege to determine rights, downstream. So here we have a privileged institution that impacts rights. And that's where the domestic partnership, civil union, whatever seems to come into play. It isn't right nor just, to use the privileged institution of marriage exclusively, as the effective arbiter of downstream rights. That's the disparity, to me. Homosexual couples are every bit as legitimate as heterosexual couples, which are every bit as legitimate as poly couples. I'm starting to think the appropriate battle is against the laws that use the privileged institution of state recognized marriage as a qualifier for rights. And that the institution of state recognized marriage should be entirely abolished for that reason. Do we have other "privileged" institutions that drive "rights"? That sounds like a principle we should reject. Can an institution truly be said to be a privilege if it causes consequence to other's rights? I don't think so. That seems like a glaring disparity in the law.

Since that's the only thing to be gained, it does stand to reason doesn't it?