He doesn't know what he's talking about.

No they won't. That hasn't happened in any of the jurisdictions that have legalized gay marriage. The only consequence of equality is that states can't deny gay couples marriage licenses.

I was wrong about that, then. I still stand by my original position.

It's problem of semantics. Many people say "we don't have anything against the gays getting hitched, as long as they don't call it marriage. Marriage is for us, not the gays."

Kinda like how people used to say "we don't have anything against the blacks, we just don't want them voting. Voting is for us, not the blacks."

Which is why in the other thread I called "civil unions" the "back of the marriage bus." Separate but equal.

If you make the legal definition of all marriage a 'civil union' and leave 'marriage' to the churches, all you'll be doing is shifting the blame from the government to religious institutions. What is that supposed to accomplish?

It would be the same as saying "we're ok if you have school and restaurants and swimming pools... just as long as they're not the same ones we learn/eat/swim in."

It'll be a hard fight to have the words "marry/marrage" separated from religion. Christianity is....married to that word.

Since you all seem to be so terribly, completely biased against anyone who labels himself a conservative, what do you propose I designate myself?

Not reading threadive.

Eh, I read most of it, but I already had something very like this thread with you guys a week or two ago, I'm kinda done with it.

Nobody's biased against conservatives. We're biased against idiots. You can easily be a conservative without being an idiot.

For example, if your income or ambitions are great enough conservatism is actually quite a smart choice. Calling a wealthy or a powerful person conservative is tautology, unless they have no long term plan to remain that way. Being a poor conservative by career (like Wookie06) is pretty much dropping the soap on purpose, but by itself that doesn't make someone an idiot.

I think a good start is to slowly work out what kind of conservative you are, and then figure out if it makes you an idiot as you go. Look up Keynesian economics and ask yourself if the conservative politicians you support really honestly swear-to-god wouldn't be doing the exact same thing Obama's doing if they were in power (in particular read about the Great Depression, and the consequences of government non-intervention.) If applicable, try to reconcile your opinion about gay marriage and abortion with your opinion about government control over your daily life and the separation of church and state, because very few American conservatives seem capable of internal consistency on these issues.

Again, there's nothing wrong with being a conservative as long as you know what you're talking about.

Er... so does Christianity have a problem with the fact that Jews, Muslims, and Hindus get married? How about atheists?

Quoted for brevity, accuracy and because some of the bits in the middle made me chuckle.

But yeah, a lot of my friends vote Tory: they've gone to uni, got well paid jobs, feel like the welfare system will take a larger portion of their hard earned cash than they'd want to part with and more often than not believe the government should stop interfering so much with the day to day running of the country. Good luck to them.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I believe in the welfare system. It may not be perfect, but most of the people who are on it geniuinely need it and it comes down to people like me to sacrifice things I don't really need for those who didn't get the leg up in life that I got from being exceptionally lucky - i.e. that I was born to loving parents who supported me through school. The money I spent on my education came from their hard work, and the Student Loans Company and I'm still paying it off.

Yes there are problems with our benefit system, and it would take a blind man to say that they are small, but the fundamental idea is sound. Those of us that are lucky enough to earn a comfortable life PROBABLY got their money through being lucky enough to be born to the right parents, and I believe it's their obligation to give SOME of that money to people who weren't as lucky as them.

/end derail.

Yeah, we had this discussion in a previous thread. Marriage has existed long before Christianity, so it's utterly absurd for Christians to somehow claim it as theirs.

Yknow I've never actually seen christians attempting to claim marriage as their own.

Whenever the argument is made to "protect the sanctity of marriage" or "protect family values", it is implicitly assumed that those institutions and those values are inherently Christian and need protecting from non-Christian influences. The fire-and-brimstone crazy fundies are fairly explicit about hating gays, but even the non-fundies will often argue along the lines of "I don't hate gays, but the Bible does, and that's why they can't marry". But there is nothing at all Christian about the concept, history, or ceremony of marriage.

/resume derail

I submit a couple quotes:

10th commandment (if you're into that kind of thing):
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Some guy in some paper a long time ago:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

P.J. O'Rourke:
Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he is willing to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he will do good with his own money— if a gun is held to his head.


I support what you're saying, of course...I think charity is very important to society. But charity is different from a welfare state, in my mind.

And that's totally fair play. It is quite easy though for people like me and you to say "welfare isn't freedom - it's dependency" or words to that effect. I suspect that those who are on benefits (the ones not cheating the system) would view it differently though...

I'm off to bed now, but will catch up in ze morning

Yeah, I don't pretend that I am not lucky to be where I am, but the thing is...there's always going to be people worse of than you, and there'll always be people better off. I'd like to help people worse off if I can, but I'd rather some people have a hard time than ALL people lose their liberty.

Except that is generally the will of the people as opposed to the government failing to expand the definition of marriage to include unions of homosexuals. Unless I am mistaken, "gay marriage" has never been passed in any ballot initiative anywhere. I haven't researched that claim, though.



More of a general issue than specific. Our nation was intended to be a federalized union of states and commonwealths with various relations made regular between them with the federal government generally responsible for military and foreign matters. We are no longer the type of country our constitution provides for.

Of course the southern states we not correct with regards to slavery and that HAD to be ended but it is clear that both Union and Confederate sides were right and wrong on various issues behind their disagreements.

Elected legislatures, of course, ceased to count when legislatures in Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut voted to legalize gay marriage.



Well that makes this entire post pretty disappointing.



Your copy of the Constitution may be missing some passages. Of course, it's hard to be sure without hearing any specific complaints.

I would not put it past some of them to have problems with that. Probably moreso the atheists.

I have more sympathy with this idea if you inherited a lot of dough but if you've genuinely busted your balls and ended up being successful, you shouldn't be taxed so much. Easier said than done, yes. I mean I'm all ready being taxed close to 25% of income and I make about $55K/yr (£30,166.91). If I go up to $60K (~£36K) I'm taxed 30% of income. I'm sure I'll get flak for this but I think it's much esp. for living in one of the most expensive states. I certainly do not feel like I'm rich enough to have 25% of income taken away. It makes it harder to save up for things like houses...of which we really need to start back up to get economy back going. I'm fortunate to be able to contribute to a 401 (k)...retirement fund so I'm grateful for that. But many cannot and what really sucks is that Social Security will NOT be there for our generation. This is going to be the Working Generation, people working until they cannot/croak.

Dalf just kind of clarified for me one of the reasons that I am against that. There seems to be this mentality that anyone with anything has been given it, and in order for anyone to get anything, they must be given it. That's the dependence mindset I'm talking about.

That's because Social Security is just a Ponzi scheme. They government doesn't save it for whenever someone retires, they spend it right away. It's going broke now, but so is the whole United States government. Apparently their solution is just to spend more money on things like health care and either print money or tax people.

Yeah, like I said dalf, the system has BIG problems but I believe its heart is in the right place. I earn about £26k and get taxed at about 20% so I'm in pretty much the same boat as you (well, apart from that alien about to burst out of my wife).

You know, this may seem weird coming from me, but I think we're being a little tough on Wookie06's views. He could be saying things along the lines of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke

its heart would be in the right place if it was not using OTHER PEOPLES MONEY!!! people who have little say in how much is taken or what it is spent on. the fact is, even if i vote in every local and national election representatives from OTHER STATES can still hold sway over how much is taken from me. which is why a federal government with very limited power is such an important idea for so many people.

Uh, you'll never be in charge of how much tax you're charged. If we let people decide how much tax they wanted to pay, no one would pay any.

i am not saying i actually want to control how much i am taxed. i mean yes it would be great... until the roads fell into disrepair and garbage started piling up and such.

i am simply saying that the government deciding that regardless of how i got here now that i am supposedly one of the "have's"* i am suddenly obligated to deposit funds into a pot for the "have nots" is total crap.

*incidentally i dont think i even qualify as one of the "have's" i dont make enough money.

You do realise I'm British, right?

Name one reason that didn't come down to slavery.

Bah Humbug!

lolZING

Even assuming you're speaking specifically of slavery of blacks, and not slavery in general, it's still fair to say that it all comes down to slavery...but that's kind of sidestepping a lot of issues. Yeah, slavery was the core issue that started everything (and anyone that argues otherwise probably needs to do a bit more reading), but dismissing the issue because it all "comes down to slavery" is avoiding a lot of very important issues in our country's history which are STILL important today.

Sort of like those who say that the issue today all comes down to healthcare. Well, yeah, sure, the entire discussion is CAUSED by a problem with healthcare, but to ONLY discuss healthcare is to miss a lot of important issues that have arisen because of that discussion relating to our system of government, liberty, states' rights, etc.

The issue isn't what I'm dismissing.

Of course not. You are dismissing me because you believe I'm not intelligent enough to explain other, underlying reasons for the war. Of course the main reason was "slavery" but, as is often pointed out by the intellectual elite, that didn't mean there was some pure-as-the-wind-driven-snow reason for the war.



Wow, never seen this before. Maybe I need to review the rules. I wonder if a sarcastic response to being called a racist will always result in my receiving an infraction.

And I still don't see you posting any of them, or responding to Michael MacFarlane for that matter.

I think you being a ****ing retard receives you an infraction. I never knew about this point-based system, though! That's quite interesting. If I get enough infractions, maybe I become eligible to emigrate to Australia.

One time Wolfy gave me an infraction. That guy hates me for no reason.

The infractions are based on points?

How many points do I have against me?