Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Sebiale »

Uniform Two Six wrote:CThey're locked into the extremist idiot crowd which is so vital in primaries. Meanwhile, moderates (like McCain used to be before aliens apparently abducted him and replaced him with a Xylon cyborg or something) are marginalized as politically irrelevant, since most of us are going to vote for the Republican nominee regardless of who that person is. And even with that realization, the moderates are still tagged as "Rhinos", for "Republican In Name Only" (which just goes to prove that the neoconservative morons can't spell). It's gotten as nasty within the party as it has in the attacks on the Dems. I'm at the point where I'm so alienated, that I'm just voting Democrat right now.
Terastas wrote: There's sort of a difference between being Republican voters and Republican politicians. Republican voters are genuine believers in conservatism, whereas Republican politicians are only conservative when it's convenient for them.
[/quote]
For much of the country, it's become a popularity contest more than an actual vote for a candidate who you believe will support your beliefs in office, and the candidates have adopted the same idea. They seem to spend more time attacking each other than explaining to their voters what they're really going to do for them (or keeping their promises once they're in office). Like this parody of a perfect political campaign ad. The dude does paint with a broad brush, but it's almost scary just how much his ad resembles what I usually start to see being spammed across the TV and radio when election time comes around.
The political landscape in the US is far too polarized IMO. There are groups besides Democrat and Republican, but really, the only way something passes in Legislature is if you have a good amount of support from one of the groups.
It needs to be less about, "You're X, and you're a Y." And more about, "What will you do for the country better than I can, and how will that help."
I can't remember the last time I even hear something approaching a logical argument in a political debate. Except for maybe c-span, I think I heard someone declare a non-sequitur in there. Although that's hardly proof of a good argument. Honestly, I have trouble understanding what they're saying, they just mutter into the microphone...
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Sebiale wrote: The political landscape in the US is far too polarized IMO. There are groups besides Democrat and Republican, but really, the only way something passes in Legislature is if you have a good amount of support from one of the groups.
Yeah... sort of. The problem is that in a representative republic (like the U.S.) a two-party system is the one which actually works best. In countries which have much more dynamic political structures (most parliamentary structures, for instance), like Italy, Israel, or Taiwan for example, the proliferation of smaller parties which cater to the political ideologies of more specific segments of the population, in actual practice leads to a near lock-up of the government as a whole. Italy has such problems with its budgetary legislation, that it funds itself mostly through semi-intentional inflation (although in the last decade, we here in the States are rapidly "catching up" -- or as an acquantance of mine once put it: "Going down the long and painful path that the Romans took to becoming Italians"). The two-party system here in the U.S. has its problems, but it sort of works -- after a fashion.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Aki »

The best part is that they're also trying to outlaw Sodomy.

Sodomy, for those that don't know - or are under the false understanding that it's just anal sex - is ANYTHING BUT VAGINAL SEX.

Texas is outlawing blowjobs. Inadvertently, but still.

Hilarious. :lol:
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Chris »

Aki wrote:The best part is that they're also trying to outlaw Sodomy.
Especially funny considering the Supreme Court already declared laws against sodomy are unconstitutional. And guess where that case came from (hint: it's abbreviation is TX).
Sodomy, for those that don't know - or are under the false understanding that it's just anal sex - is ANYTHING BUT VAGINAL SEX.

Texas is outlawing blowjobs. Inadvertently, but still.
To be fair, Christian fundamentalists do see any form of sexual recreation as abhorent. If it's not missionary, under the covers, and an attempt at procreating (ie. no birth-control), it's evil. And don't think about deriving pleasure from it.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

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Chris wrote:And don't think about deriving pleasure from it.
That NEVER made any sense to me. God made it feel good just so he could tell people not to enjoy it? What a prick.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Terastas »

Set wrote:
Chris wrote:And don't think about deriving pleasure from it.
That NEVER made any sense to me. God made it feel good just so he could tell people not to enjoy it? What a prick.
The Christian Reich also want us to believe God is running around burying dinosaur bones to try and trick us into not believing in him. :P
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Aki »

Chris wrote:
Aki wrote:The best part is that they're also trying to outlaw Sodomy.
Especially funny considering the Supreme Court already declared laws against sodomy are unconstitutional. And guess where that case came from (hint: it's abbreviation is TX).
Yeah, which is why it'll never fly.

Texas is just dicking around wasting taxpayer money to make some kind of 'point' like we didn't know their slant on particular social issues.

I mean, hey, it's not like there's a massive, ecologically destructive oil spill in that Gulf near Texas or anything, right?

Oh, wait...
To be fair, Christian fundamentalists do see any form of sexual recreation as abhorent. If it's not missionary, under the covers, and an attempt at procreating (ie. no birth-control), it's evil. And don't think about deriving pleasure from it.
True, which is also pretty ridiculous.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Flatline »

dude! enough already! what the hell is wrong with being a gay or a lesbian? i fail to see the epiclly pathetic excuse for a point that gay-haters have. theres nothing wrong with being yourself
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Terastas »

Flatline wrote:dude! enough already! what the hell is wrong with being a gay or a lesbian? i fail to see the epiclly pathetic excuse for a point that gay-haters have. theres nothing wrong with being yourself
Overcompensating.

What exactly for varies from one neanderthal to another, but no matter what, I always interpret it as an Xtian trying to overcompensate for their lack of "good proper Christian" behavior by stressing over and harping about something "unchristian" that they may or may not be doing. All five of the gay Republicans listed in that article were against gay rights, and the most vocal opponent of gay rights is a known alcoholic, fraud and child abuser, just to name a few.

I've said before that Republicans (Neocons especially) have a history of refusing to admit that they are anything but perfect and will plow their way down the same dark and destructive path just to keep themselves from having to admit that taking that path was a mistake in the first place (Bush and Cheney actually argued in favor of remaining in Iraq solely because it would "demoralize the troops" to know that their deployment had been a mistake). This is just another example of such: The Christian Reich would rather distract itself with, and obsess over, homosexuality (and abortion) than encourage their members (or themselves) to be better role models.

Dr. Phil once had a woman on his show that was terrified of cotton balls, and he basically summed up her problems by saying that when people can't, or don't want to, deal with their problems, they have a tendency to attach all their fears an anxieties onto one item and say "it's those damn cotton balls!" instead. I figure it's more or less the same story: It's so much harder for Xtians to stop drinking, beating their wives and abusing their kids than it is for them to target gays.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Don't forget science as a representation of the ongoing war against Christianity (all those white-coat-wearing evil Satan-worshippers and their "Theory of Evolution").
:D
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Terastas »

Uniform Two Six wrote:Don't forget science as a representation of the ongoing war against Christianity (all those white-coat-wearing evil Satan-worshippers and their "Theory of Evolution").
:D
That being the ultimate case scenario of such. Science is evil to Xtians because it can be used to prove that the Bible is wrong.

Because those idiots need the faux facts since they can't practice Christianity at all without the threat of some massive guy in the sky with an even more massive stick up his butt that will smite them with natural disasters, disease and Michael Moore movies and throw them into a lake of fire if they even so much as look at him funny. To loosely quote Lewis Black, it's not enough for them that it's written in the Bible -- they want it in the Constitution too, because the fewer places they have it written, the more likely they are to forget.

Of course, disproving creationism doesn't disprove the entire Bible, but it does in their minds. They're too lazy, selfish and stupid to take the time and actually, you know, read the book, much less think about it and sort out the meaningful from the meaningless. It's all or nothing for them.

Xtian: "But if the story of creation is wrong, that means the Ten Commandments are wrong too!"
Terry: "So what? You weren't following those anyway."
:grinp:
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by alphanubilus »

Wow... a lot has been said in my absence... now I'll have to catch up... :D

As touching Communism... Karl Marx created Communism as the idealist government for a Utopian society. Everybody in such a society works together for the better on their fellow brother and sister, and thus the entire nation process. On paper, it is a dream come true. Everybody is treated as equal, everybody has equal wealth... everybody prospers. It is very much like an ant/bee colony. The problem though, is Communism doesn't take into consideration, human ambitian. Our ambitians make us strive for different means, and sometimes those means aren't so honest. In the end, what starts out as a Utopian government transforms into a dictatorship of sorts, where a small ruling party controls the lives, wills, minds, of all the people, of which equals enslavement. Socialism will only work once people can set aside, greed, hate, and all the other flaws that infiltrate our beings.

As touching gays/lesbians... There isn't a place in the Bible where God condemns a man or woman for being "gay". It is the indulgance of homosexuality that is looked down upon, and that is primarily with concern to believers. In short, a person can't help what comes into their mind, but they can help what they do with those thoughts. The Semites/Jews were taught, as CHRISTians are taught to show self-control. As we know, just because you can dream it up, doesn't make it right. God doesn't hate homosexuals scripturally speaking... It is the act of homosexuality, but again that is largely talking about believers practicing such. To also clarify, Soddom and Gomorrah weren't simply destroyed because people were "gay", albiet happy. The reality is, these two cities were so depraved, that murder was the leading cause of death. Sources other than the BIble, depict these cities as being "very wicked". In the Biblical narrative for example, when the "angels" of God visit Lot to warn him of the cities impending doom, the men of the city wanted to abuse them, both physically and sexually. The term used in the scripture is to "know"... of which is in the same context as a man "knowing" his wife for the first time. In short, they wanted to rape and then murder these new visitors. They were terrible places to live, and those who stayed there lived in constant fear. There wasn't happiness... It was a literal hell on earth, as the people that chose to stay their lived without restraint. So God had enough and wiped them out.

As touching Creation/Evolution... The BIG issue here is ignorance in both science and the Bible on the part of the believer. My Grandfather is best friends with the head cheese of the Creation Science movement, and their supposed "findings" are dubious at best. A lot of them AREN'T scientists, but evangelists who are pretending to be scientists, of whom get their data from individuals who not only have wild "theories", but will often manipulate the evidence to prove a point. While this does (cough GLOBAL WARMING cough) on the other side, for a people trying to be showing the HONEST love of Christ, it is sort of problematic. One of their lead scientists was at our church, and I (being an evolutionist) had a hay day with this guy, and what he actually believes was quite scary. Not only did he believe that the earth was only 6000 years old, but he believed that angels (demons) interbred with humans creating super genes (hince the GIANTS in the Bible) that also allowed humans to interbreed with wolves and tigers creating werewolves, weretigers... and... well... needless to say, he must be a closet furrie of sorts, but I stopped listening once he went there. The actual word for giant in the Bible is nephilem, and the proper translation isn't giant but hybrid. History teaches us that there are two sep races of "humans"... Neanderthals, of which went extinct, and homosapians. The reference is actually implying that the homosapians who recieved the neshima (spirit-knowledge) of God interbred with the ones who did not. Science shows that the two races did live amongst each other and did interbreed...

What a lot of Chrisitans forget is that the Genesis account is written in a compressed form. Much of the stories were shortened, abreviated to only show the most important parts, because they were being told orally. It doesn't mean that they were altered or are wrong, but just giving you the most important parts. The theme of the Genesis account of Creation is that our world's creation has a purpose and wasn't a random occurance. Evolution, even in its randomness, has a drive and purpose, so in short, they both coexist. I believe that God created the world, and I believe that evolution is the key to that process, as randomness allows the most important aspect of all... choice...free will.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Uniform Two Six »

alphanubilus wrote: As touching gays/lesbians...
You touch gays and lesbians? Ewwww... You don't know where they've been. :grinp:
On a more serious note, before this becomes a flame war, there's something that maybe I misunderstood. Could you clarify?
alphanubilus wrote:It is the act of homosexuality... Soddom and Gomorrah weren't simply destroyed because people were "gay", albiet happy. The reality is, these two cities were so depraved, that murder was the leading cause of death... In the Biblical narrative for example, when the "angels" of God visit Lot to warn him of the cities impending doom, the men of the city wanted to abuse them, both physically and sexually... It was a literal hell on earth, as the people that chose to stay their lived without restraint... So God had enough and wiped them out.
Was that meant to imply that homosexuality and rape are related acts? Maybe I just read it wrong, but that sort of seems to have been the direction you were going, or were you trying to make an entirely different point?
alphanubilus wrote:While this does (cough GLOBAL WARMING cough) [happen?] on the other side...
Me nitpicking here: Those dudes did some serious damage by fooling around with the numbers, but the reality is that the science underlying the theory of Global Warming is sound. What they were doing was selectively deleting "outlier" datapoints in order to strengthen their (apparent) position. In any dataset you will always get outliers. That's normal. The data still rather conclusively supports the existence of a upward trend of global average temperature.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by alphanubilus »

To clarify...

Hands Uniform Two Six some really expensive glasses... Now can you see clearly? :P

On gays/lesbians and Soddom and Gomorrah... You often hear Christians state that God destroyed Soddom and Gomorrah for the sin of homosexuality... You get a lot of really hateful people using this as "proof" per say to justify the mistreatment of gays. Biblically speaking Soddom and Gomorrah was destroyed because of habitual lack of self control. I wasn't inferring that a person being gay or even having homosexual relationships is the same as rape, but that the individuals in the Biblical narrative wanted to rape the men of God that had come to warn Lot. I'm not stating that because a person is gay/lesbian that they are then wicked/evil...perverted... what would have you. Some of my best friends are gay/bisexual... What I am saying is Sodom and Gomorrah were wicked cities to be sure.

Getting on Global Warming... The problem isn't about our Earth getting warmer. History, paleontology, and whot-knot shows that our planet cycles through hot/cold periods. Our world is getting warmer, and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it, because it is and has always been a natural process. The problem with "Global Warming" scientists is that they try to pin the blame on human interaction. Their quest per say, is to prove that human interaction in the world, has caused our planet to get warmer, where as most REAL scientists disagree. Most of these "so called scientists" have a political agenda that is motivating their diagnosis vs. a pure scientific standpoint. They're getting kick backs by forcing people to purchase more expensive fuels, cars, and such. This isn't real science. This is a tragedy.

The actual evidence does show an increase in temperatures, but that is only by 1 degree or so, and that is over the last 100 years. Think about it this way... People gripe about greenhouse gasses... Well one volcano can dump trillions greenhouse type gasses into our atmosphere... Krakatoa in the 18th century caused an early winter in the states. Volcanoes have been hear since the dawn of time, and some, like Santorini (a caldera) can cause catastrophic damage. Yet our planet lives on, and has faced such issues for billions of years.

We should look for cleaner fuels. Oil ain't gonna last forever, and the more (US speaking) we are independent from foreign fuels, the better. We should pick up our trash, recycle, and such because these have an immediate impact on our lives and our world. It is common sense for us to learn ways to better take care of our special little earth.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Terastas »

alphanubilus wrote:To also clarify, Soddom and Gomorrah weren't simply destroyed because people were "gay", albiet happy. The reality is, these two cities were so depraved, that murder was the leading cause of death. Sources other than the BIble, depict these cities as being "very wicked". In the Biblical narrative for example, when the "angels" of God visit Lot to warn him of the cities impending doom, the men of the city wanted to abuse them, both physically and sexually.
Actually, even that is debatable.

"And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, 'Where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.'"

This is the only passage in the entire Bible where "know" is (supposedly) used to mean "have sex with." In the rest of the Bible, the typical referencing term is "to lie with."

So the real Sodom and Gomorrah may have actually been communities of militant xenophobes, and that when they came to Lot's house demanding to "know" them, they may have actually meant to brutally interrogate them.

Sound like anyone we know?
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Set »

In the Biblical narrative for example, when the "angels" of God visit Lot to warn him of the cities impending doom, the men of the city wanted to abuse them, both physically and sexually. The term used in the scripture is to "know"... of which is in the same context as a man "knowing" his wife for the first time. In short, they wanted to rape and then murder these new visitors.
And if you remember the ENTIRETY of that story, Lot wanted to throw his own daughters to the mob instead. Lovely man. :P

Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in 2 Peter 2:7-8. 19:7-8

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html
(cough GLOBAL WARMING cough)
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Uniform Two Six »

alphanubilus wrote: Getting on Global Warming... The problem isn't about our Earth getting warmer. History, paleontology, and whot-knot shows that our planet cycles through hot/cold periods. Our world is getting warmer, and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it, because it is and has always been a natural process.
Yes there are natural cycles, and indeed some of those cycles have shown greater temperature differentials than we have thus far seen. The real problem lies in the fact that this 1.5 degree (or so) average increase has occurred during one single century. That's huge. Worse, the rate of increase is, itself, increasing.
alphanubilus wrote:The problem with "Global Warming" scientists is that they try to pin the blame on human interaction. Their quest per say, is to prove that human interaction in the world, has caused our planet to get warmer, where as most REAL scientists disagree.
I'd actually like to know whom these "real scientists" are, since the scientific community is pretty suspicious that human intervention is responsible. Simply put, there aren't any other factors that are obviously contributing. The only natural phenomena that are involved are things like reduced reflection from the shrinking ice caps, and increased methane and carbon dioxide releases from melting permafrost, which (while "natural" in form) are more likely than not being precipitated by already extant global warming. In short, if we're not responsible, what is (or could possibly be)?
alphanubilus wrote:Most of these "so called scientists" have a political agenda that is motivating their diagnosis vs. a pure scientific standpoint. They're getting kick backs by forcing people to purchase more expensive fuels, cars, and such.
:eyebrow:
Huh?

I'm sorry. You've got to explain that one to me. Who's funding this?
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Terastas »

Uniform Two Six wrote:
alphanubilus wrote: Getting on Global Warming... The problem isn't about our Earth getting warmer. History, paleontology, and whot-knot shows that our planet cycles through hot/cold periods. Our world is getting warmer, and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it, because it is and has always been a natural process.
Yes there are natural cycles, and indeed some of those cycles have shown greater temperature differentials than we have thus far seen. The real problem lies in the fact that this 1.5 degree (or so) average increase has occurred during one single century. That's huge. Worse, the rate of increase is, itself, increasing.
Bingo. The Earth's natural cycles occur over thousands of years, not within a single lifetime. Denying responsibility for global warming because it would have happened anyway would be kind of like trying to justify shooting a kid because he would have just grown old and died eventually anyway.

And FYI, you've got it in reverse Alpha. There's no great big conspiracy to make us all buy green. It's the other way around: the scientific community makes a statement, and then big oil throws a lab coat on some nimrod and pays him to deny it so they can keep selling their product.

Those are the same "scientists" that told us an environmental disaster in the Gulf was "unlikely." Care to venture a guess how accurate those claims were?

"The danger is that global warming may become self-sustaining, if it has not done so already. The melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps reduces the fraction of solar energy reflected back into space, and so increases the temperature further. Climate change may kill off the Amazon and other rain forests, and so eliminate once one of the main ways in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. The rise in sea temperature may trigger the release of large quantities of carbon dioxide, trapped as hydrides on the ocean floor. Both these phenomena would increase the greenhouse effect, and so global warming further. We have to reverse global warming urgently, if we still can."
~Stephen Hawking


So, if Stephen Hawking is not a REAL scientist, who, pray tell, is?
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Set »

...but will often manipulate the evidence to prove a point. While this does (cough GLOBAL WARMING cough) on the other side...
The climate scientists were cleared of manipulating data.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_ ... 538198.stm
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... th-rattle/
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by FoxKnight »

I'll never understand Texas or California. That's all I have to say on the subject.

How can you all be so sure it isn't just a hiccup in the pattern? Sure, humans probably didn't help much over the last hundred years but since when has anything natural ever been constant. Even gravity and time are not constant.

I believe in most of the Bible like I believe most of science. Both of which I cannot commit to entirely. The Bible is, to me, a guideline of what humans should strive to be. Science can never be exact but it can come close.

Marriage should be separated from the government altogether. I don't think anyone should be treated better for being religiously correct. Men and women have their parts and such because we were meant to create more people with them. What people do with their bodies shouldn't be other peoples' concern. Even if it means marraige.

That is not to say that I believe Church and State should be entirely separate. Church, on the basis of the teachings and not the people who have fouled up religion, teaches morals and values. Both of which are necessary for making the laws of a government.

Communism is wrong because it takes the human aspect out of society. We're just going to change things to better suit our desires for the population. Sure, it is a desireable outcome but not possible in the real world. Why people think it can work the next time is beyond me. And insanity is defined as doing something over and over and expecting a different outcome each time. Yes, that was meant to be related to the rest of the paragraph.

This isn't really related to anything but the states should be in charge of knowing what is best for themselves. Not the federal government. (I fear a government that controls everything like in the movies "1985" and "The Matrix" and people like Christine O'Donnell who want to ban sex or something else crazy like that) But they should not pass legislation that hurts the minorities, which is the only valid case against majority rules.

And I agree with whoever said that God made everything and that evolution is just the process of how it happened.

I do like how we strayed away from political attacks, (in which nobody really ever wins anyways). I'm tired of reading all of this polarized balogney. Unless there are specific facts from credible sources, I cannot completely agree with anything that I don't believe in already.

Which is one reason I sometimes tune in to Glenn Beck. (I know I'm probably going to be bashed my Terastas or someone for finding anything he says to be ok, but I have yet to be exposed to anything that proves him wrong on anything he talks about that I've seen)

I think that sums up my views on all of the subjects discussed in this thread so far. Oh, and Texas should not pass the legislation.

And I do not mean to speak towards anyone in particular on any subject unless specifically stated otherwise.

Man, it would be so much easier if people were just honest and caring to one another xD
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

Post by Sebiale »

FoxKnight wrote: How can you all be so sure it isn't just a hiccup in the pattern?
How about the UN voting to remove a reference to sexual orientation in a resolution condemning arbitrary and unjustified executions?
FoxKnight wrote: That is not to say that I believe Church and State should be entirely separate. Church, on the basis of the teachings and not the people who have fouled up religion, teaches morals and values. Both of which are necessary for making the laws of a government.
You do not need a religion in order to teach morals...

FoxKnight wrote: This isn't really related to anything but the states should be in charge of knowing what is best for themselves. Not the federal government. (I fear a government that controls everything like in the movies "1985" and "The Matrix" and people like Christine O'Donnell who want to ban sex or something else crazy like that) But they should not pass legislation that hurts the minorities, which is the only valid case against majority rules.
The federal government doesn't control everything, there's actually an...amendment I think they're calling--although I don't think it has anything to do with the constitution--that would allow a vote of 2/3 majority by state representatives to repeal any state legislature.
How do you create a system of majority rule while still respecting the rights of minorities?
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

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Sebiale wrote:
FoxKnight wrote: That is not to say that I believe Church and State should be entirely separate. Church, on the basis of the teachings and not the people who have fouled up religion, teaches morals and values. Both of which are necessary for making the laws of a government.
You do not need a religion in order to teach morals...
Not to mention that there is no universal morality, nor is morality static. Someone who believes in Christianity would not want to follow the "complete" morals of Islam or (neo-)Druidism, for example. And what was moral 100 years ago could be illegal and shunned today. Sure, you could break it down to something a great majority can all agree on, but at that point it's not religious anymore. It's a simple concensus.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

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Sebiale, how is that article about gay rights even remotely related to my Global Warming paragraph? (Which I apologize for not making clear that it was about Global Warming)

I did not mean religion is the only way we should teach morals; I was only saying that that is where our government bases it's morals and values from. Chrisitan teachings in the Bible. Without religion our government would be very different from the way it is now. That doesn't mean it couldn't be better or worse than what we have for a system but I just wish we can keep our system working the way it was designed to be and have faith involved in it somewhere.

And as for my remark on federal government vs. state governments; the federal government should just keep the state governments in check. I did not mean to say minority rights aren't important but I was just getting the feeling here that the majority's opinion isn't important. And that was just a general statement, which I did say wasn't really related to anything posted here. Not directly at least.

Wow...it feels good having only a few flaws in my viewpoint that were probably just misunderstandings. And it's also surprising that two posts against me were submitted within 6 hours even though my post has been the only one since July.
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

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FoxKnight wrote:Communism is wrong because it takes the human aspect out of society. We're just going to change things to better suit our desires for the population. Sure, it is a desireable outcome but not possible in the real world. Why people think it can work the next time is beyond me. And insanity is defined as doing something over and over and expecting a different outcome each time. Yes, that was meant to be related to the rest of the paragraph.
Well that's full communism. And as I said before, just because a full socialist system was tried and failed in the past doesn't mean we should be opposed to any degree of socialism at all. That, unfortunately, is the notion that a lot of Republicans (and the people they work for) are trying to perpetuate: that it is all or nothing and that democracy and socialism cannot in any way be compatible with each other.

The reason communism didn't work for the Soviets (apart from the fact that "communism" for them was just a pretty word for "military dictatorship") was that they tried to socialize everything. Literally everything, from the absolute essentials like food and medicine to the frivolous pursuits like athletics and entertainment. The U.S.S.R. ultimately had to vote itself out of existence because of a complete lack of productivity, which was the result of an entire nation under the sentiment that, no matter what they did or how dedicated they were to it, nothing would ever change for them.

So no, I don't expect the government to take care of everything. I just expect the government to enable us to do everything that they expect of us.

Here's a list of everything that I believe the government should have (or keep their) free-to-access social programs for:
1: Food
2: Medicine
3: Housing
4: Clean water
5: Security / Law enforcement
6: Electricity
7: Public transport
8: Critical service training

That's it. Services that are critical (either to the people or to the government) should be socialized and everything else can be left privatized; enough to keep the people in good health and able to work, but not so much to discourage them from personal aspirations.

And mind you that the fact that we have police has not done anything to make it impossible to find work as a security guard, bodyguard or private investigator, nor has the fire department impeded the production and sales of fire extinguishers or sprinkler systems. When I say "food," "public transport," I don't mean "free cars."

I got a notice for jury duty this year, and screw getting out of it; I'm just hoping whatever courthouse I have to report to is even remotely nearby a train station since I don't own a car. Otherwise, it'll be a case of the state not enabling me to do something that is absolutely expected of me.

Unfortunately, there's money to be made in running a B.S. pay-now-and-get-nothing-later scheme such as those being run by insurance companies all across the country. That's why they insist on perpetuating the notion that socialism is an all-or-nothing deal.
Sebiale wrote:You do not need a religion in order to teach morals...
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Re: Texas Republicans trying to make being gay illegal

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That was all very well worded and well thought out, though I was only talking specifically about communism in that paragraph.

Communism is the idea that everyone should be equal in all aspect to sustain an equal community, right? (Well, the general idea anyways) Well, people aren't all equal and aren't all willing to work to help those they don't even know or dislike. The only way to make everyone equal is to either build androids or to own everything so no one can be different/better off than others. The government has to force everyone to be equal here. I don't see how Marx could have spent so much effort into making his manefesto and not factor in that people will not all have the exact same ideals and ambitions to help their society. People commit all kinds of sins for all reasons but he doesn't include that in his manefesto. And if he does, what is it he planned to do with the free thinkers?

And if communism can be done properly, how do you plan to make it work this time?

And I, more or less, agree with your list of necessary programs. Though I believe unemployment benefits are meant for food, water, clothing, and medicine already. These should be given to the people who want to contribute to society by getting a job; not to the people who want to only free load off of the taxpayers' hard earned money. It should not be society's problem to care for those who only wish to abuse the opportunities available to them.

I do ask, though, that you please explain what critical service training is.
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