DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: The_Professor on January 28, 2008, 11:25:42 AM
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Article published Jan 26, 2008
Brattleboro to vote on arresting Bush, Cheney
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff
BRATTLEBORO ? Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.
The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.
According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March.
Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper balloting March 4.
Kurt Daims, 54, of Brattleboro, the organizer of the petition drive, said Friday the debate to get the issue on the ballot was a good one. Opposition to the vote focused on whether the town had any power to endorse the matter.
"It is an advisory thing," said Daims, a retired prototype machinist and stay-at-home dad of three daughters.
So far, Vermont is the only state Bush hasn't visited since he became president in 2001.
Daims said the most grievous crime committed by Bush and Cheney was perjury ? lying to Congress and U.S. citizens about the basis of a war in Iraq.
He said the latest count showed a total of 600,000 people have died in the war.
Daims also said he believed Bush and Cheney were also guilty of espionage for spying on American people and obstruction of justice, for the politically generated firings of U.S. attorneys.
Voting to put the matter on the town ballot were Chairwoman Audrey Garfield and board members Richard Garrant and Dora Boubalis.
Voting against the idea were board members Richard DeGray and Stephen Steidle.
Daims said the names submitted to the town clerk's office were the second wave of signatures the petition drive had to collect, because he had to rewrite the wording of the petition.
He said he gathered nearly 500 signatures in about three weeks, and he said most people he encountered were eager to sign it. He started the petition drive about three months ago.
"Everybody I talked to wanted Bush to go," he said, noting that even members of the local police department supported the drive.
"This is exactly what the charter envisioned as a citizen initiative," Daims said. "People want to express themselves and they want to say how they feel."
He said the idea is spreading: Activists in Louisville, Ky., are spearheading a similar drive, and he said activists were also working in Montague, Mass., a Berkshires town.
The article asked the town attorney to "draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities."
The article goes on to say the indictments would be the "law of the town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro police ... arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro, if they are not duly impeached ..."
Daims said people in Brattleboro were willing to "think outside the box" and consider the issue.
Daims had no compunction in comparing Bush and Cheney with one of the most notorious people in history.
"If Hitler were still alive and walked through Brattleboro, I think the local police would arrest him for war crimes," Daims said.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080126/NEWS04/801260359/1003/NEWS02&template=printart
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Wow, that's just amazing. Good for them. America's STILL a great country, but it's been hijacked for so long. So there's a real America buried under all that fascist, militaristic shit after all.
<<So far, Vermont is the only state Bush hasn't visited since he became president in 2001.>>
That's hilarious. What a great people. What a great state!
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The murdering communist calling Americans fascist.
Hilarious.
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<<The murdering communist calling Americans fascist. Hilarious.>>
What's hilarious is your total fucking ignorance combined with your misdirected rage. If anyone has any questions about the success of the Nazi/Cold War propaganda campaign against communism, I will definitely tell them to read your posts. It's obviously thanks to morons like you that Amerikkka has the "leadership" that it does.
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My rage ... lol.
It's not rage kid, it's outrage. That some basement dwelling communist nerd is allowed to make outrageous slanders about America outrages me. If it weren't for Americans you'd be driving your dog sled to the nearest lake digging a hole in the ice struggling to feed yourself.
But I really should apologize. History has show communism for what it is. A brutal totalitarian form of government rejected wherever it's been tried. There are lots of Eastern European folks here in Northeast Ohio. You should come down and hop up on a shop box downtown one day and preach your communist tripe and see how survivors of communist death squads react to your drivel.
You wouldn't last 20 minutes.
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The murdering communist calling Americans fascist.
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What "murdering Communist"? who has he murdered?
Or are you just full of crap as always, Richiepoo?
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MT, Rich does have a point as far as national security. America provides a nuclear umbrella over Canada and would definitely come to its aid if needed.
It seems ot me the primary reasone why Canada developed a different legislative and executive strrucutre and een culture is due to the inherently pro-British sentiment versus American revolutionary zeal. So, You got the more "liberal" bent due to this history.
That being said, the two are closely linked in a myriad of ways and I expect that to not change.
Canada is a great nation and I have been there several itmes but America is where I CHOOSE to live. With my experience and credentials, I could go just about anywhere and be economically successful, but I CHOOSE to live here.
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<<It's not rage kid, it's outrage.>>
Sure coulda fooled me. But OK, it's outrage. At stuff that never happened. At lies and bullshit made up by Nazis, anti-Semites, billionaires and imperialists to give some plausible excuse for all their years spent coddling Nazi extremists in the hopes that one day they would destroy the U.S.S.R., the greatest threat to their hegemony that they'd ever seen.
<<That some basement dwelling communist nerd is allowed to make outrageous slanders about America outrages me. >>
Yeah, especially when every word of them are true. After all the efforts the murdering bastards put into brainwashing morons like you to think they were fighting for "freedom" and "feeding the world" instead of impoverishing it.
<<If it weren't for Americans you'd be driving your dog sled to the nearest lake digging a hole in the ice struggling to feed yourself.>>
LOL. Where do you find this stuff?
<<But I really should apologize. History has show communism for what it is. >>
"History," huh? What's that? A new word for the bullshit that your schools and your MSM feed you 24/7?
<<A brutal totalitarian form of government rejected wherever it's been tried. >>
You mean successfully sabotaged by the West and finally brought down by a combination of Nazi invasions and post-war encirclement.
<<There are lots of Eastern European folks here in Northeast Ohio. You should come down and hop up on a shop box downtown one day and preach your communist tripe and see how survivors of communist death squads react to your drivel.>>
"Survivors of communist death camps," huh? Try "veterans of Nazi armies, Jew-killers and anti-Semites" and their offspring and women and you'd be a lot more accurate, moron. You bet they'd react violently to anyone telling the truth about them. Letting those fucking war criminals into the country was one of the worst scandals of the Cold War. They already had their chance to tangle with real communists and the Red Army planted most of 'em. Too bad these fucking Nazis got away. Naturally, they came to Amerikkka. Next time you meet one of 'em, ask what they REALLY did in the war. Moron.
<<You wouldn't last 20 minutes.>>
Probably not, the way THEY operate. Give me 20 minutes in a room alone with just one of them and we'll see who lasts the 20 minutes. It would be my pleasure to make just one of the bastards pay for Hitler's crimes.
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<<MT, Rich does have a point as far as national security. America provides a nuclear umbrella over Canada and would definitely come to its aid if needed.>>
Well, so what? We came to their aid in Afghanistan when needed. And lot faster than they came to our aid in WWII. Lost close to 100 good people so far and never even asked whose fault it was that America was attacked in the first place.
<<It seems ot me the primary reasone why Canada developed a different legislative and executive strrucutre and een culture is due to the inherently pro-British sentiment versus American revolutionary zeal. So, You got the more "liberal" bent due to this history.>>
It's mostly the other way round, Professor. Except for the concept of slavery and two-tiered citizenship, which was anathema to the British, it was the U.S. that was more liberal than Canada. We never had a Bill of Rights, or the right to question jurys before selecting them, we still have an appointed Senate instead of an elected Senate (standng in for the House of Lords.) Britain was always much more conservative a country than the U.S.A. This whole first-name thing - - I went to the only high school in the Province where the teachers called the students by first name - - every other school, Bob Smith was "Smith" and Lucy Jones was "Miss Jones" to the teachers. We always thought of the U.S.A. as the most liberal country in the world, except of course the Southern States.
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>>Canada is a great nation ... <<
A once great nation, and hopefully will be in the future. I know lot's of Canadians, and none of them are Communists. In fact, they all dislike Canadian healthcare. Communists are pariah, nobody takes a communist seriously, nor should they.
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>>At lies and bullshit made up by Nazis, anti-Semites, billionaires and imperialists ...<<
Yeah, that must be it. Lies ... all lies. You're not paranoid, everybody really is out to get you.
:D
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<<Yeah, that must be it. Lies ... all lies. You're not paranoid, everybody really is out to get you.>>
Yeah, Rich, I just imagined all those Nazis. Nobody was out to get me. It never happened. And those Eastern European friends of yours in Ohio? Funny they never went back home to Eastern Europe after the defeat of the Nazis, huh? You don't think the Russians, uh, kind of wanted to talk to them? About their activities during the war?
Here's a little experiment for you - - just ask 'em what they did in the war, where they were. And ask 'em what they think of the Jews, too. Confidentially, kind of. Just one on one.
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Oh ... the folks who fled the death squads are the guilty ones.
How typically fascist of you.
Seriously, you really need help.
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<<Oh ... the folks who fled the death squads are the guilty ones.>>
Why are WE debating this? These guys are right there in front of you. Don't take my word for it. Just ask them in confidence, man-to-man, no one else present, what'd they really do in the War? What do they really think about the Jews?
It's an eye-opener. Specially if these guys have had a few. Just do it, and then we'll talk. Communist death squads, my ass. The only people the "communist death squads" were looking for were the Nazis who had raped, tortured and murdered their way through the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. They were out for revenge, and thank you, God, they got it.
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>>Canada is a great nation ... <<
A once great nation, and hopefully will be in the future. I know lot's of Canadians, and none of them are Communists. In fact, they all dislike Canadian healthcare. Communists are pariah, nobody takes a communist seriously, nor should they.
All kinds of horrible people were socialists.
Albert Einstein
Martin Luther King Jr.
Clement Attlee
Golda Meier
Willy Brandt
Ernest Bevin
Keir Hardie
H.G. Wells
Ernest Hemingway
W.B. Yeats
The Hashomer Hatzair, without whom your state of Israel would likely not exist
It is a good thing no one ever takes socialism seriously, huh?
::)
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A lot of those people you mentioned were also fascists.
Big fans of Mussolini.
Who else were socialists .... Hitler, Gerbels, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao ...
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>>Canada is a great nation ... <<
A once great nation, and hopefully will be in the future. I know lot's of Canadians, and none of them are Communists. In fact, they all dislike Canadian healthcare. Communists are pariah, nobody takes a communist seriously, nor should they.
All kinds of horrible people were socialists.
Albert Einstein
Martin Luther King Jr.
Clement Attlee
Golda Meier
Willy Brandt
Ernest Bevin
Keir Hardie
H.G. Wells
Ernest Hemingway
W.B. Yeats
The Hashomer Hatzair, without whom your state of Israel would likely not exist
It is a good thing no one ever takes socialism seriously, huh?
::)
Doesn't mean their view was correct, however.
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There are no politically "correct" views. People make a decision on how to run their country, and are satisfied or dissatisfied with the results. China was a disaster from the times of the Empress Dowager at the turn of the Century until Mao. Mao was also a disaster, but starting in the late 1970's, the government gradually managed to learn from its mistakes and the economy turned around. Lately, the PRC has had a growth rate of over 9% for over a decade. This has never happened in the US or any European nation. Not even the glorious "Conservatism" has ever come close.
There are tradeoffs, especially pollution and a lack of workers' rights, but the results cannot be denied.
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>>Canada is a great nation ... <<
A once great nation, and hopefully will be in the future. I know lot's of Canadians, and none of them are Communists. In fact, they all dislike Canadian healthcare. Communists are pariah, nobody takes a communist seriously, nor should they.
All kinds of horrible people were socialists.
Albert Einstein
Martin Luther King Jr.
Clement Attlee
Golda Meier
Willy Brandt
Ernest Bevin
Keir Hardie
H.G. Wells
Ernest Hemingway
W.B. Yeats
The Hashomer Hatzair, without whom your state of Israel would likely not exist
It is a good thing no one ever takes socialism seriously, huh?
::)
Doesn't mean their view was correct, however.
According to George Orwell, W. B. Yeats was a fascist.
Yeats was certainly an elitist.
I cannot see socialist, because calling a socialist a fascist is contradictory.
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I could be wrong about Yeats, still not a bad list.
Add in:
Nelson Mandela
Salvador Allende
George Orwell
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A lot of those people you mentioned were also fascists.
Big fans of Mussolini.
Who else were socialists .... Hitler, Gerbels, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao ...
Hitler and Goebbels were of course not socialists. They denied the class struggle and fought for corporatism. They were true Fascists.
Many people admired Mussolini when he first came to power. He had done something that many thought impossible. He united the disparate right wing of Italian politics. By doing so he provided a front against the socialists and especially Marxists, which many people had thought impossible. His greatest admirer, Hitler, said it best:
I conceived the profoundest admiration for the great man south of the Alps, who, full of ardent love for his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists, but to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it.
Notice where the admiration lies, both with fighting the left and in not negotiating with "the enemy."
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>>Hitler and Goebbels were of course not socialists. They denied the class struggle and fought for corporatism. They were true Fascists.<<
A common misconception, especially by liberals/communists.
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<<A common misconception, [that Hitler and Goebbels were not socialists] especially by liberals/communists.>>
Are you unable to read English? Or just an imbecile? It was just pointed out to you in the last post, in black and white, the words of Hitler praising Mussolini for his uncompromising stand against Marxism. His determination to destroy it.
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Uncle Mike, take a deep breath, get hold of your seathing hatred, and pay closer attention.
Here it goes: National SOCIALIST Party = Nazi Party. I'm sure this has been pointed out to you before.
I know it's asking you to step out of your little pink box, but you really need to expand your horizons and read something other than Moa's Little Red Book.
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<<Here it goes: National SOCIALIST Party = Nazi Party. I'm sure this has been pointed out to you before.>>
What's in a name? You might find certain "Benevolent Societies" are nothing but Mafia fronts. Nothing at all "benevolent" about them. "Progressive Labour" as the name of a leftist political party - - would you agree that they are "progressive" just because that's what their name says?
Thank you for your advice that I expand my reading horizons. That's always good advice, and I'm never to proud to accept good advice. Here's a little advice for you in return: you too should expand YOUR reading horizons. If you did, you might learn that Hitler was not the founder of the German Nazi Party. Anton Drexler and others were. Anton Drexler and his associates founded the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (the DAP) whose translated name is German Workers' Party. Adolf Hitler was an early joiner who took over the party and changed its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) translated as National Socialist German Workers' Party.
Why did Hitler want the word "Socialist" in his party's name? Because socialism was selling like hotcakes to the German workers. It was a socialist and Marxist German workers' movement that overthrew the government of the day in 1918, forcing the Kaiser to abdicate and go into exile, effectively ending the war. Communists almost took over the Prussian government in the chaos that followed. The Communist Party influence was growing every day, mostly in the working class. "Socialist" was a BRAND name that Hitler needed in order to attract workers to his party.
Apart from the name itself, which is meaningless - - deceptive advertising, actually, the key to Hitler's political success - - you have absolutely nothing to back up your absurd claim that Hitler was a socialist. You could see for yourself that his first actions once in power were to liquidate the socialist movement even before he turned to the Jews. He told the world that Mussolini was a great man because he was out to crush Marxism in Italy. But you stay fixated on the name. It fooled only those German workers who were dumb enough to take the Nazi party as the real (socialist) thing, which is understandable, but it's amazing that the name can still fool morons like you, almost 63 years after the whole fraudulent enterprise blew apart.
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I could be wrong about Yeats, still not a bad list.
Add in:
Nelson Mandela
Salvador Allende
George Orwell
"Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideal are involved. By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes is the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is by its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, NOT for himself, but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own identity."
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"Nationalism, in the extended sense in which I am using the word, include such movements and tendencies as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, AntiSemitism, Trotskyism, and Pacificism."
---George Orwell
http://www.george-orwell.org/Notes_on_Nationalism/0.html
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Uncle Mike, take a deep breath, get hold of your seathing hatred, and pay closer attention.
Here it goes: National SOCIALIST Party = Nazi Party. I'm sure this has been pointed out to you before.
I know it's asking you to step out of your little pink box, but you really need to expand your horizons and read something other than Moa's Little Red Book.
Wow. I kind of expected something a little more than that.
A good example of this is Portugal's current Partido Social Democrata or Social Democratic Party. The name is misleading as the party itself is a center-right party that in no way advocates socialism or social democracy. When the delegates of the PSD meet in the EU Parliament, they sit with the conservative parties, such as the Christian Democrats.
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A good example of this is Portugal's current Partido Social Democrata or Social Democratic Party. The name is misleading as the party itself is a center-right party that in no way advocates socialism or social democracy.
Well, it was founded as a Social Democrat party, and most political parties bearing that name advocate Democratic Socialism.
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A good example of this is Portugal's current Partido Social Democrata or Social Democratic Party. The name is misleading as the party itself is a center-right party that in no way advocates socialism or social democracy.
Well, it was founded as a Social Democrat party, and most political parties bearing that name advocate Democratic Socialism.
Yes, but it does not - hence my point.
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There's really no point in belaboring the socialism in the Nazi party. The left has created their own meaning to the word in order to cover their fascist origins.
This isn't to say the modern American socialist is a fascist in the same manner as the National Socialist Party was in Germany. But they are fascist in their motivation and inclination.
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There's really no point in belaboring the socialism in the Nazi party. The left has created their own meaning to the word in order to cover their fascist origins.
This isn't to say the modern American socialist is a fascist in the same manner as the National Socialist Party was in Germany. But they are fascist in their motivation and inclination.
Erm...socialism pre-dates Fascism by about two centuries, if not more. Socialist movements began in the 17th century, if not earlier depending on how one wants to define them.
Fascism began in the late 19th century. So I'm a little unclear as to how socialism has fascist origins when it pre-dates the other. That is akin to claiming that Judaism has Christian origins. Or the United Kingdom has American origins.
No, this is a tried and true testament to the right wing. Fascism was and still is a philosophy of the right. Franco was supported and beloved, not by the left-wing of Spain, but by the right-wing. Pinochet was loved and supported, not by the left wing of Chile and the United States, but by the right wing. Maggie Thatcher even called the guy a hero, long after his crimes were well known. Hitler himself was admired by industrial titans such as Henry Ford, hardly a bastion of socialist ideology and worker's rights! The Nationalist Party in South Africa was once again supported by the American and British right wing. It was nothing more than a Fascist party, some were openly sympathetic to Nazism. Thatcher and Reagan both supported them as being "anti-Communist."
Again and again we see the right wing of the United States has supported Fascist leaders and Fascist principles as well. While they may hate the historical conlusions to fascism in Italy and Germany, there is no denial that fascism was and is a right wing ideology. It may not be the ideology professed by most Americans on the right (just as most Americans on the left are not Communists), but it always amazes me how the right is in such dire need to revise history.
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JS:<<While they may hate the historical conlusions to fascism in Italy and Germany, there is no denial that fascism was and is a right wing ideology. It may not be the ideology professed by most Americans on the right (just as most Americans on the left are not Communists), but it always amazes me how the right is in such dire need to revise history.>>
They don't like it because the truth hurts, so they hire some dopey guy to write a book that has a cute cover, and voila, they get to hear something more pleasing than the truth.
But what I wanted to point out was this article about Brattleboro, Vermont. Now people are emailing, calling and faxing them with very nasty messages.
Think of that! People in Vermont take the trouble to have a meeting, to engage in participatory democracy and tell Bush and the rest of his gang just what they think. And some people just can't stand that.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080129/NEWS02/801290309/1003/NEWS02
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<<Think of that! People in Vermont take the trouble to have a meeting, to engage in participatory democracy and tell Bush and the rest of his gang just what they think. And some people just can't stand that. >>
Fascists can't stand that. Nazis can't stand that. Some people love war and hatred and killing so much that they are willing to choke off the most basic constitutional freedoms in order to shut up anyone who would stand in their way. As ugly as Amerikkka has gotten in the past eight years, there's a good chance it's gonna get a helluva lot uglier.
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The father of Facism's father was a socialist.
Is this a tenuous link?
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0859842.html
His father, an ardent Socialist, was a blacksmith; his mother was a teacher. Mussolini taught briefly and lived (1902?4) in Switzerland to avoid military service. He achieved national prominence for his opposition to the Libyan War (1911?12) and, as leader of the revolutionary left of the Socialist party, became editor of the Socialist daily Avanti (1913). Soon after World War I began, Mussolini abruptly turned nationalist and joined the pro-Allied interventionists. The Socialist party, which opposed all participation in nationalist wars, expelled him. He then founded his own daily, the Popolo d'Italia, which was subsidized by the French to encourage Italy's entry into the war on the side of the Allies. He joined (1915) the army and attained the rank of corporal.
Sections in this article:
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>>They don't like it because the truth hurts ... <<
True. Todays liberals are fascist to the core, and the truth has always been to liberals like holy water to a vampire.
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Mussolini evolved into a right wing leader.
No matter what his father believed, he was right wing to the core.
Hillary Clinton was all for Goldwater in college. So what?
What he liked most about some Socialists was the idea of dictatorship.
What Rich knows about politics he learned from Rush and other paid propagandists, and is simply wrong.
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Some folks are fascinated with the label. If the party label says "socialist," the party must be socialist. Don't need to examine the policies, just look at the label. Similarly if the guy's father was a socialist, if he himself was ever socialist one time in his life, he's a socialist. People never can change opinions, the label they are given at age 20 is the one they will wear all their life. Don't bother examining what they did, just look at the first label they ever wore.
Political analysis for morons. Just pray that Rich doesn't do all his buying from mail-order catalogues.
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Plane, Mussolini was a socialist and that is not in dispute. He became a right wing politician. I don't really see the "connection." As an example, while he was a socialist he was avidly against the colonialism of Italy in Eritrea and attempted expansion into Abyssinia. The argument was that Italy was not taking care of her own poor and working class, why are they subjugating another people to this same rule? Yet, after his conversion, he became a staunch militant and pro-colonialist. He wanted revenge for Adua.
I disagree that Mussolini is the "father of Fascism." He was the earliest to take action with it. He might be the equivalent of Fascism's Lenin, though without Lenin's penchant for theory. But, there were already Fascist thinkers and philosophers laying the groundwork before Mussolini.
Still, Socialism pre-dates Fascism by at least two centuries. These connections are extremely weak. Most of them come because either 1) people are deliberately trying to "cleanse" the right-wing of historical responsibility or 2) people do not understand early and mid 20th century politics and are trying to place modern 21st century political theory onto a different time period.
Listen, the right-wing of the time did not believe in what the right-wing of today does. Neo-liberalism had yet to be invented. Keynesianism was the radical new economics of the 1930's. Neoliberalism is very much an offshoot of Fascist economics. Yet, it simply cuts one side from the triangle of corporatism.
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You know, another interesting difference in Fascists and Socialists, and something that still lingers in the right-wing today is a general disdain of culture and society.
Goering probably made the most famous statement regarding this: "When I hear someone speak of culture, I reach for my revolver."
I've read articles where a right-wing editorialist attacks something for "not being art" or "not being literature." Margaret Thatcher infamously disavowed the existence of society. Many arguments are made for not allowing any public funding for music, art, theater, dance, and other such cultural institutions.
Fascism was renowned for its loathing of the "cultural." Books, especially a book not glorifying warfare such as All is Quiet on the Western Front was considered anathema and outright banned and burnt by the Nazis. Militancy and the military were viewed as very sacred, to slander the military was an horrifying crime. They were the epitome of glory. To fight and die for the country was not a duty, it was an honor! Dancers, musicians, authors, artists - were useless losses of productivity. They might as well had been Roma or Jews.
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>>Mussolini evolved into a right wing leader.<<
This is of course a left-wing fantasy. Italian fascism wasn't German fascism, but both were left wing and Mussolini was a hero to the American left, that is until he invaded Africa. Even then it wasn't the fascism that bothered the left, it was the aggression.
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You know, another interesting difference in Fascists and Socialists, and something that still lingers in the right-wing today is a general disdain of culture and society.
::) "Disdain for culture & society" huh? Rings right up there with how all Republicans want women to die of Cancer. I kinda thought better of you, Js. Perhaps I was mistaken. Or is your definition of disdain different than ...... most everyone else?
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When you look at who is actually showing disdain for today's society, any rational person can see that the left is attempting to dismantle it and remake it in a socialist/fascist image. Homosexual marriage, government run healthcare, political correctness, hate crime laws, trans fat laws, anti-smoking laws, set asides, and quotas are all ways the left shows it's contempt for todays society. They want to reduce America to just another "citezen of the world," and care less about Americans than they do about what other countries think about Americans.
The idea that Conservatives disdain society is the rambling sickness of a socialist mind.
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The idea that Conservatives disdain society is the rambling sickness of a socialist mind.
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There is no image more annoying that I can recall that portrays the disdain for conservatives more than that of William F. Buckley fiddling with his mini-phallic pencil as he debated against unions, civil rights, taxing corporations in any way.
His tone of voice, his raised eyebrows, his gloomy bloodhound eyes were disdain personified, just as Dick Cheney is the military Industrial complex made flesh.
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... disdain for civil rights ...
<chuckle>
Liberals really do create their own reality don't they.
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The rightwing fascists are at it again. This time, they're making terrorist threats.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080130/ap_on_re_us/bush_warrant;_ylt=AoOIqyxZzF.v7W5yLfw.kO2s0NUE
Vermont anti-Bush petition lambasted
By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 24 minutes ago
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. - A town petition making President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney subject to arrest for crimes against the Constitution has triggered a barrage of criticism from people who say residents are "wackjobs" and "nuts."
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In e-mail messages, voicemail messages and telephone calls, outraged people are calling the measure the equivalent of treason and vowing never to visit Vermont.
"Has everyone up there been out in the cold too long?" said one.
"I would like to know how I could get some water from your town," said another. "It's obvious that there is something special in it."
The petition ? with more than 436 signatures, or at least the 5 percent of voters necessary to be considered ? was submitted Thursday and the town Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put it on the ballot. It goes to a town-wide vote March 4.
It reads: "Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?"
News of the measure made the rounds on the Internet, and soon people started calling and writing. The Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce got about 60 e-mails Monday, all of them negative, said Executive Director Jerry Goldberg.
A day later, he said, "we had three or four calls in a row that were very positive. One even volunteered to help."
The petition has no legal standing, since the town attorney has no authority to write an indictment and the police have no authority to arrest Bush or Cheney if either visits Brattleboro.
Bush has not visited Vermont during his presidency; Cheney visited Burlington in 2002, but has not been to Brattleboro.
Anger at the Bush administration is hardly new in Vermont. The state Senate voted last year to support impeaching the president. Anti-war rallies are regular occurrences, and "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers are common.
The petition prompted Brent Caflisch to go to his computer in Rosemount, Minn. "Maybe the terrorists will do us all a favor and attack your town next, our country would be much safer with several thousand dead wackjobs in Vermont," he wrote.
It went on to say terrorists could kidnap the three Select Board members who voted in favor, "cut their heads off, video tape it and put it on the internet."
Caflisch, who confirmed sending the e-mail, said Tuesday he did it out of disgust after reading about the measure on The Drudge Report.
A few messages were positive ("Arrest Bush and Cheney? You go, Brattleboro!" wrote one man) but most were critical.
"Be American, not a sniffeling liberal town that sleeps under the shield of safety provided to you by your President," said another e-mail. "Vacation to VT CANCELLED!"
The reaction caught town officials off guard, and left some workers on edge.
"We have some concerns about safety," said Town Clerk Annette Cappy. "After reading some of these e-mails, you can't help it."
Acting Police Chief Eugene Wrinn said any threats would be taken seriously and possibly prosecuted. So far, no threats have been made, he said.
"If someone is concerned for their safety, if there's a threat of harm, we will look at that seriously," he said.
Resident Kurt Daims, who submitted the petition, said late Tuesday he was chagrined that the town and its employees were subject to ridicule.
"I feel bad for people who are loyal to Bush who have lost a son or had one in the service and it's hard for them to admit the utter waste of it, and that it was caused by this man in the White House," he said.
___
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::)
So Lanya thinks free speech is fascist if you disagree with a lunatic liberal.
More evidence liberals have no idea what a fascist is.
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<<The petition prompted Brent Caflisch to go to his computer in Rosemount, Minn. "Maybe the terrorists will do us all a favor and attack your town next, our country would be much safer with several thousand dead wackjobs in Vermont," he wrote.>>
That is not "disagreeing" with a liberal. That is a fairly clear statement that the country would be safer if a few thousand liberals in Vermont were dead. A thinly veiled death threat if I ever heard one. And a typical Nazi or KKK "argument." Telling anyone that the country would be a lot safer if the were dead is to remind them that the expression of their views could bring many others to the same conclusion and then to start calculating the odds of one of those many others actually acting to make the country "safer."
It's a threat - - your life is in danger if you continue to express such views.
That is classic fascism in action.
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The fascist calling the kettle fascist.
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Sounds more like YOU calling me a fascist. You calling Lanya a fascist. You calling the Brattleboro councilmen fascists.
And in fact you calling everyone a fascist EXCEPT the guy who issued a death threat against the Brattleboro councilmen.
Well, we all need a little humour in our lives, and I guess if you're determined to provide it, we should all be appropriately grateful.
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Sounds more like YOU calling me a fascist. You calling Lanya a fascist. You calling the Brattleboro councilmen fascists. And in fact you calling everyone a fascist EXCEPT the guy who issued a death threat against the Brattleboro councilmen.
Or ANYONE that dares not support how evil and diabolical Bush and Amerikkka are supposed to be
On a more unfortunate tangent, that may get me in trouble with the founders, is the witnessing Lanya's devolving of debate. seriously, I remember when lanya was a sincere, steadfast liberal, but open minded, one who'd acknowledge when she was wrong, apologise when she was over the line, concede when a position of hers was shown to be in error. She was nearly always civil and courteous. Call it BDS, call it frustration, call it whatever, but from my perspective, while it was bad enough watching that dialog morph down to "all Republicans want women to die of cancer" (that she still stands by, BTW), now she's even adopted the Tee tact of dialog, calling largely anyone of the "RW", Fascists now.
Sad.....it really is sad, IMHO. I apologise if my comments are offensive, and if I'm required to take some time off, I'll follow the decisions handed down
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>>And in fact you calling everyone a fascist EXCEPT the guy who issued a death threat against the Brattleboro councilmen.<<
How would this make him a fascist? And where did he threaten anyone?
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You know, another interesting difference in Fascists and Socialists, and something that still lingers in the right-wing today is a general disdain of culture and society.
::) "Disdain for culture & society" huh? Rings right up there with how all Republicans want women to die of Cancer. I kinda thought better of you, Js. Perhaps I was mistaken. Or is your definition of disdain different than ...... most everyone else?
If you read what I write, as opposed to reading what you wish I'd write, you'll note that I said it still lingers amongst the right-wing today. I never said it is common or prevalent. Yet, there are those that take the very attitude of Goering.
Rich, just by reading what he writes, is an excellent example.
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Sounds more like YOU calling me a fascist. You calling Lanya a fascist. You calling the Brattleboro councilmen fascists. And in fact you calling everyone a fascist EXCEPT the guy who issued a death threat against the Brattleboro councilmen.
Or ANYONE that dares not support how evil and diabolical Bush and Amerikkka are supposed to be
On a more unfortunate tangent, that may get me in trouble with the founders, is the witnessing Lanya's devolving of debate. seriously, I remember when lanya was a sincere, steadfast liberal, but open minded, one who'd acknowledge when she was wrong, apologise when she was over the line, concede when a position of hers was shown to be in error. She was nearly always civil and courteous. Call it BDS, call it frustration, call it whatever, but from my perspective, while it was bad enough watching that dialog morph down to "all Republicans want women to die of cancer" (that she still stands by, BTW), now she's even adopted the Tee tact of dialog, calling largely anyone of the "RW", Fascists now.
Sad.....it really is sad, IMHO. I apologise if my comments are offensive, and if I'm required to take some time off, I'll follow the decisions handed down
Now, Sirs, be honest NO ONE really believes Republicans want women to die of cancer. If they truly did ,they would be friggin indiot of immense proportions. Someone with less than half a reasoning brain. A true nincompoop. Heck, I don't half of what I hear about commie pinko <insert derogatory comments here> liberals either. Talk is talk; reality is reality. Sometimes they meet and sometimes they don't. Simple, actually.
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be honest NO ONE really believes Republicans want women to die of cancer.
Lanya titled a post "Why do Republicans want women to die of cancer?" and when pressed she claimed that she stood behind what she wrote. Since her post was an article, and the ONLY part she wrote was the title, it stands to reason that Lanya believes this. Also, during the discussion, a number of others on the left also said that they felt she was right.
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Then BT can boot me from the Forum when I categorically state that any and all who believe this are devoid of brain cells and need some common sense kicked into their brains, Lanya and/or anyone else.
Anyone who seriously believes this is a friggin IDIOT.
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>>Mussolini evolved into a right wing leader.<<
This is of course a left-wing fantasy. Italian fascism wasn't German fascism, but both were left wing and Mussolini was a hero to the American left, that is until he invaded Africa. Even then it wasn't the fascism that bothered the left, it was the aggression.
Were you home-schooled?
Were you schooled?
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Now, Sirs, be honest NO ONE really believes Republicans want women to die of cancer. If they truly did ,they would be friggin indiot of immense proportions.
Ask her, Professor. Seriously. Last time she was questioned she stated clearly how she "stood by" her statements
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::) "Disdain for culture & society" huh? Rings right up there with how all Republicans want women to die of Cancer. I kinda thought better of you, Js. Perhaps I was mistaken. Or is your definition of disdain different than ...... most everyone else?
If you read what I write, as opposed to reading what you wish I'd write, you'll note that I said it still lingers amongst the right-wing today. I never said it is common or prevalent. Yet, there are those that take the very attitude of Goering. Rich, just by reading what he writes, is an excellent example.
There are fringe elements to every ideology Js. But to imply some generalized "disdain for culture & society" by the RW is pretty egregious. Let's match that by saying the Left despises and loathes our military. That's accurate, right?
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::) "Disdain for culture & society" huh? Rings right up there with how all Republicans want women to die of Cancer. I kinda thought better of you, Js. Perhaps I was mistaken. Or is your definition of disdain different than ...... most everyone else?
If you read what I write, as opposed to reading what you wish I'd write, you'll note that I said it still lingers amongst the right-wing today. I never said it is common or prevalent. Yet, there are those that take the very attitude of Goering. Rich, just by reading what he writes, is an excellent example.
There are fringe elements to every ideology Js. But to imply some generalized "disdain for culture & society" by the RW is pretty egregious. Let's match that by saying the Left despises and loathes our military. That's accurate, right?
No, that is inaccurate.
What the Left hates is imperialism.
There is a difference, but not to the RightWind propaganda machine you seem to memorize.
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Now, Sirs, be honest NO ONE really believes Republicans want women to die of cancer. If they truly did ,they would be friggin idiot of immense proportions.
Ask her, Professor. Seriously. Last time she was questioned she stated clearly how she "stood by" her statements
Sirs, I cannot believe this to be true, ok? No one is this shortchanged and biased.
I disagree a lot with what those more Left of me say, but that doesn't mean I believe they would seriously believe this feldercardb. It must have been a fishing expedition, for sure.
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There are fringe elements to every ideology Js. But to imply some generalized "disdain for culture & society" by the RW is pretty egregious. Let's match that by saying the Left despises and loathes our military. That's accurate, right?
No, that is inaccurate.
As is the idea that the RW disdains culture & society
What the Left hates is imperialism.
And what the Right hates, is enabling victimization & pushing Socialism
There is a difference, but not to the RightWind propaganda machine you seem to memorize.
LOL....no different than your memorized cover to cover all the DNC talking points
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Sirs, I cannot believe this to be true, ok? No one is this shortchanged and biased. I disagree a lot with what those more Left of me say, but that doesn't mean I believe they would seriously believe this feldercardb. It must have been a fishing expedition, for sure.
Easy....just ask her. Then wait to see if you even get an answer
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<<How would this [issuing death threats against the Brattleboro councilmen] make him a fascist?>>
I honestly thought this was explained in one of my earlier posts in this thread. However, threatening the opponents of militarism and aggression with death was a standard Nazi tactic during the Weimar Republic. They spoke of "treason" as this fella did, and called for the deaths of the "traitors," basically the pacifists and anti-war activists and in fact were often able to follow through on their threats.
<<And where did he threaten anyone?>>
He said that if a few thousand Vermonters like the "treasonous" councilmen were killed by "terrorists," the country would be a lot safer. This means that the continued existence of the councilmen is a threat to the nation. As long as they live, the country is in great danger; the danger would decrease sharply if they were not alive. That's like issuing an open invitation to anyone who gets the message to kill them off for the good of the country.
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<<The petition prompted Brent Caflisch to go to his computer in Rosemount, Minn. "Maybe the terrorists will do us all a favor and attack your town next, our country would be much safer with several thousand dead wackjobs in Vermont," he wrote.>>
That is not "disagreeing" with a liberal. That is a fairly clear statement that the country would be safer if a few thousand liberals in Vermont were dead. A thinly veiled death threat if I ever heard one. And a typical Nazi or KKK "argument." Telling anyone that the country would be a lot safer if the were dead is to remind them that the expression of their views could bring many others to the same conclusion and then to start calculating the odds of one of those many others actually acting to make the country "safer."
It's a threat - - your life is in danger if you continue to express such views.
That is classic fascism in action.
Consider it as if he ment it exactly as stated.
Perhaps it is a fact that a terrorist attack that scilenced a bunch of liberals would make the US as a whole safer, but this would not be the same as an attack from fellow Americans.
A mob of angry Americans attacking these guys is extremely unlikely , but a terrorist attack on randomly chosen Americans is not unlikely at all .
AS a right winger myself I do not feel impelled by these statements to take arms and shoot at these idiots , but if a terrorist gets loose here these guys are just as likely to get the terrorists attention as any other of us.
Shortly after the 9-11 attack th US was united and resolute in purpose , our opponent was too weak to keep us so motivated very long but it was nice while it lasted.
I disagree with this guy tho , even if all of the victims were liberals , it is better to do without the unity and resolve than to undergo the pain that produces it.
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When you look at who is actually showing disdain for today's society, any rational person can see that the left is attempting to dismantle it and remake it in a socialist/fascist image. Homosexual marriage,
And the right is trying to turn it into some faith based, theocratic version of their utopia. That was sarcasm btw. Care to tell me Rich, how homosexual marriage is ruining America? Are there like Jehova Witnesses of Gaydom going door to door to convert? Do they hop out of their cars with their purses and pumps and ring your doorbell? Care to make a coherent argument against it that doesn't involve Old Testament Judaic Law?
Ronnie was right. There you go again...
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<<How would this [issuing death threats against the Brattleboro councilmen] make him a fascist?>>
I honestly thought this was explained in one of my earlier posts in this thread. However, threatening the opponents of militarism and aggression with death was a standard Nazi tactic during the Weimar Republic. They spoke of "treason" as this fella did, and called for the deaths of the "traitors," basically the pacifists and anti-war activists and in fact were often able to follow through on their threats.
<<And where did he threaten anyone?>>
He said that if a few thousand Vermonters like the "treasonous" councilmen were killed by "terrorists," the country would be a lot safer. This means that the continued existence of the councilmen is a threat to the nation. As long as they live, the country is in great danger; the danger would decrease sharply if they were not alive. That's like issuing an open invitation to anyone who gets the message to kill them off for the good of the country.
You are carrying thislogic a step further than the originator did , how can you know that he would have chosen this same next direction?
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When you look at who is actually showing disdain for today's society, any rational person can see that the left is attempting to dismantle it and remake it in a socialist/fascist image. Homosexual marriage,
And the right is trying to turn it into some faith based, theocratic version of their utopia. That was sarcasm btw. Care to tell me Rich, how homosexual marriage is ruining America? Are there like Jehova Witnesses of Gaydom going door to door to convert? Do they hop out of their cars with their purses and pumps and ring your doorbell? Care to make a coherent argument against it that doesn't involve Old Testament Judaic Law?
Ronnie was right. There you go again...
Homosexual marrage is an injury to marrage the institution, much as incest marrage , polyandrus marrage or interspecis marrage would be.
Marrage is failing already , for reasons that have nothing to do with homosexuality, but every little cut hurts.
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Professor, you should read this and see if it sounds like these people want their children to be protected from this type of cancer, come hell or high water, or if they're more worried about them being sexually active.
THE COMING STORM OVER A CANCER VACCINE
Christian conservatives fear that new, amazingly effective cervical-cancer vaccines will spur promiscuity and undermine abstinence. Let the lobbying wars begin.
(FORTUNE Magazine)
By JANET GUYON
October 31, 2005
(FORTUNE Magazine) ? Eliav Barr has popped the champagne. After a decade of development, his team at Merck has just finished presenting the clinical-trial results on the company's cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, to an enthusiastic audience of doctors in San Francisco. It's a medical milestone--the first cancer vaccine ever. The results show an unprecedented 100% efficacy in fighting the dominant strains of the virus that causes cervical cancer, a scourge that is the second-biggest cancer killer of women worldwide. The story is on every TV network and on the front pages of newspapers nationwide. If Merck gets Gardasil to market in the U.S. next year as planned, not only might it become a blockbuster--with a rival vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline, it is projected to spawn an $8-billion-a-year global market by 2010--it could also help lift the stigma that's haunted Merck since the debacle of Vioxx. Says Barr, the head of clinical development for the vaccine: "This is it. This is the Holy Grail."
Some 3,000 miles away in Washington, D.C., however, a man named Tony Perkins doesn't see it that way. Perkins is president of the Family Research Council, a Christian organization that describes itself as a champion of "marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue." He is so critical of cervical cancer vaccines that he has no intention of inoculating his 13-year-old daughter, who the drug companies say would be a prime candidate. The reason: The human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, is in most cases transmitted through sexual intercourse. If his daughter were to get the shots, Perkins believes she would be more inclined to have sex outside marriage. "It sends the wrong message," says Perkins. "Our concern is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence."
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It's too soon to tell how strong a stand the Christian right will take. It could simply counsel believers to avoid vaccination. Or it could actively try to prevent mass inoculation--blocking its acceptance by doctors and insurers and its funding by state and federal entitlement programs. Some cancer survivors have trouble understanding how there could be any debate. Diane Kae was diagnosed with cervical cancer two years ago in Philadelphia. She still has hearing loss and digestive troubles from the chemotherapy and radiation she went through to defeat her illness. It all could have been avoided if the vaccines had been available when she was young. "If someone else's life doesn't have to be changed the way mine has, that would be a blessing," says Kae, 54, who has been married and divorced twice. "No matter how chaste your daughters are, there is still a risk of them getting the disease. Why would you want them to go through that?"
Although the Merck and Glaxo vaccines are still a year from the market, already they are at the center of a brewing storm over cost, social class, family values, and women's health. Analysts argue over whether they will be cost effective, given that the U.S. already has a $6 billion program of screening and treatment based on Pap smears, the cancer test that most women in developed countries undergo regularly and that the vaccines would not replace. Conservatives view the vaccines as morally corrosive. And the drug companies see them as much needed new sources of profit and prestige.
Given the high efficacy and safety shown in Merck and Glaxo trials thus far, it seems almost certain that the FDA will approve the vaccines next year. But their fate from that point--whether they will become widely available in the U.S., whether they will succeed commercially at all--depends not on the market, as you might expect. Instead it rests with a little-known but hugely powerful government group known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Attached to the Centers for Disease Control, the ACIP makes up the national list of recommended immunizations--setting the standard for doctors, insurers, and public funding of vaccinations. Its mandate is to weigh medical need, cost effectiveness, and public attitudes in arriving at a decision about a vaccine. The Bush administration has already appointed one ACIP member from the ranks of the Christian right. So in the case of cervical cancer, the committee is the stage on which a modern drama of health and morality will ultimately play out.
No one disputes the need for a cure. Cervical cancer kills 270,000 women a year worldwide, 80% of them in developing countries, with 30% in India alone. In the U.S. this year, the CDC estimates that 3,710 will die of the disease, most of them black, Hispanic, or poor. About 10,000 women will get cervical cancer and recover after difficult treatment like Kae's. If the vaccines are widely administered, especially to girls before they become sexually active (the median age for first-time sex in the U.S. is 15), chances are that cervical cancer could be reduced to a relatively minor threat. And if the vaccines succeed in the U.S., the profits they generate will likely help the drug companies make them available faster in the developing world. It all comes down to what the ACIP decides.
When Merck and Glaxo began working on cancer vaccines a decade ago, they never thought that something so revolutionary would come to fruition so soon. A German virologist named Harald zur Hausen first linked HPV with cervical cancer in 1975. His theories were discounted for years, until new research tools enabled better detection of viral DNA. By the early '90s, clinicians began to accept that HPV was the sole cause of cervical cancer. If a woman had HPV and abnormalities on Pap smears, she was aggressively treated, sometimes with procedures that hurt her ability to bear children. Researchers later understood that only a few strains of HPV actually cause cancer--of more than 100 viral types, just seven account for 90% of the cancers. Others cause only warts or do nothing. Yet all are highly contagious--transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, not just intercourse--so condoms aren't effective. "You can just have genital touching using a finger or toys or whatever," says Eliav Barr at Merck.
Because HPV is so easily transmitted, researchers believe that 80% of all sexually active people in the U.S. will carry the virus at some point in their lives, with 20 million women and men affected at any one time. Unlike many other viruses, HPV doesn't enter the bloodstream, so it doesn't provoke a strong immune response. Nonetheless, the body defeats most HPV infections as effectively as it does ordinary colds; only a small percentage of women develop the persistent infections necessary to cause cancer. To protect a population as a virus circulates, public health experts generally want to vaccinate anyone who is likely to be exposed.
Both the Merck and Glaxo vaccines are based on the protein shell of the virus. So far, clinical studies have shown that when women are injected with an empty shell, they develop a high level of antibodies that prevent the virus from ever taking hold. Both companies' vaccines protect against the two most common cancer-related strains, HPV 16 and 18, which cause more than two-thirds of the cancer cases. But Merck has thrown in two more variants that cause genital warts, HPV 6 and 11, in hopes of doubling its potential market by enticing men to get inoculated too. The companies now are engaged in the large, Phase 3 studies that directly precede seeking FDA approval. Merck says it will file with the FDA in the fourth quarter of this year--Glaxo says it will be a few months behind.
Meanwhile, the ACIP drama has already begun. As FORTUNE went to press, Barr was scheduled to present his team's stunning results at a late-October ACIP meeting, one of only three public meetings the committee holds each year. A working group has been gathering research on HPV in the population, but "we certainly don't have a recommendation yet" on the vaccines, says Janet Gilsdorf, a University of Michigan physician who is the subcommittee chief. Merck is hoping that the ACIP will be so impressed that it will begin to view mass inoculation favorably--just as this June, the committee recommended that 11- and 12-year-olds get a newly licensed tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough vaccine in place of the old tetanus-diphtheria shots. Ages 11 and 12 are also the natural time to administer the HPV vaccine, says Merck, before children are likely to have had sex and when they routinely get assessed for catch-up shots for chicken pox, measles, mumps, and other diseases.
ACIP approval isn't binding, but most states look to its recommendations to mandate what vaccines children must get before entering school. The committee votes separately on whether to recommend federal funding, and its support also virtually guarantees state funding, insurance reimbursement, and--crucially--coverage of the manufacturers under a federally funded liability-insurance program if a vaccine turns out to have deadly side effects. "What the committee comes out with is what the doctors will rely on," says John Salamone, head of the National Italian American Foundation, who until June 30 served as the consumer representative on the ACIP. "That means the government will also buy the vaccine. You notice you never see a vaccine advertised? That's because they don't have to. It is a great business."
But if the ACIP doesn't give its blessing, a vaccine can fail. In 1999, Smith-Kline, now part of Glaxo, didn't get a full ACIP recommendation for a Lyme disease inoculation, partly because its medical efficacy was questionable. "So the uptake of the vaccine wasn't very good," says Larry Pickering, the ACIP's executive secretary in Atlanta. After attempting to market it directly to patients and doctors, the company pulled the product.
The ACIP's deliberations on the dual cervical cancer vaccines promise to be contentious. The committee has 15 appointees, all public-health doctors and academics except for the single consumer representative. To help ensure that conservative views are articulated, one of the Bush appointees is Reginald Finger, a public-health doctor named to the ACIP in 2003. Until September he was also the medical-issues analyst at Focus on the Family, the influential Colorado Springs, Colo., Christian advocacy group run by Dr. James Dobson.
Merck expects Finger to be the point man for family-values advocates. So it has been lobbying him hard, says Finger, in hopes of heading off a controversy over teen sex that could torpedo Gardasil. Finger says he had many meetings at Focus with Merck representatives. "We have a cordial relationship, but I've made no deal" with Merck, he says. He adds that he's leaning toward putting the HPV vaccines on the national list, but not necessarily voting for federal funding or pushing the states to require them. That would fall short of what Merck wants. "I have a lot of different feelings about the vaccine," Finger says. "The objective is to prevent as much cervical cancer as possible without crossing bioethical or moral lines." (The company confirms that it is talking to Finger, but says it talks to a lot of experts about Gardasil and won't discuss details.)
A Focus spokesperson says the group hasn't taken a position on the vaccines yet; it will convene a meeting to discuss the subject in early November. A priority, according to Finger, will be for Focus to align itself with the three other groups that have medical expertise and preach abstinence--the Medical Institute for Human Sexuality, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and the Physicians Consortium. Focus also will consult with Perkins's Family Research Council, which split off from Focus in 1992. The FRC predicts a grassroots uproar among Bush's "value voters" if the ACIP recommends mass inoculation for preteens. "The vaccine is associated with sexual activity," says Pia de Solenni, who heads women's issues at the FRC, "and the family groups want families making that decision." She wouldn't vaccinate her own daughter, if she had one, she says.
"This isn't as much about morality as it is about good medicine," says Hal Wallis, a Dallas ob/gyn who heads the Physicians Consortium. "If you don't want to suffer these diseases, you need to abstain, and when you find a partner, stick with that partner." Gary Rose, CEO of the Medical Institute, says his group won't take a position until after it convenes its own panel of experts on Nov. 2. But the Institute has always maintained that abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage is the best recipe for good sexual health. How much Finger and his allies will influence the ACIP's decision isn't clear. But at the very least, other committee members are likely to take into account the family-values viewpoint. "These other voices I am sure we will hear, and we will listen to them," says Gilsdorf.
With Merck lobbying the abstinence groups, Glaxo has been pushing cost effectiveness. "The economic advantages of this vaccine are very easy to demonstrate," says CEO J.P. Garnier. The company argues that because the vaccines will cut the number of abnormal Pap smears and consequent follow-up treatment, the U.S. could cut its $6 billion annual screening and treatment costs by some 40%, or $2.4 billion. That saving more than pays for the $1 billion or so a year Glaxo and Merck hope to charge for the vaccines (Garnier says a course of treatment, which consists of three shots, will cost between $150 and $450). Still, the vaccines won't eliminate Pap smears. Because they protect only against the most common strains of HPV, women will still need to be tested for infection with others.
The ACIP has twice scheduled, then postponed, a discussion on cost effectiveness, which now probably won't occur until February. Herschel Lawson, an epidemiologist in the division of cancer prevention and control at the CDC, says the issue will be enormously tricky: "A lot depends on the data available and the many assumptions that need to be made to assess various health states and outcomes." The ACIP also will take into account indirect benefits, such as reduced anxiety from false positives on Pap tests. "A vaccine doesn't have to save money to be worth recommending," says Lauri Markowitz, a CDC epidemiologist who is the principal staff member advising the ACIP on the vaccines.
With all this doubt swirling, the ACIP could well straddle the fence. That's what happened after the FDA first licensed the vaccine for hepatitis B, another sexually transmitted disease, in 1982. The ACIP recommended it only for high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, gays, and health-care workers--a strategy that didn't make a dent in disease statistics. Finally, in 1991, the ACIP changed its mind and advised doctors to inoculate newborns as well. Only then did the national incidence of hepatitis B infections begin to decline.
Neither the drug companies nor liberal groups such as Planned Parenthood want the ACIP to get timid about HPV. "The conservatives are going to turn this into a larger issue than it needs to be," says Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood. It hopes federal funding will be available so it can administer the vaccine at its 850 health-care sites. "This isn't about morality, it is about public health," adds Cullins. Glaxo's CEO is even more blunt: "Getting the vaccine is an IQ test. You should get it. It's that simple."
If the drug companies are to pull off their medical miracle, though, they know they will have to win over conservatives one at a time. In July, FORTUNE went on the road with David Hager, a Lexington, Ky., ob/gyn who gives talks on HPV on behalf of the abstinence-preaching Medical Institute. Lately Merck has enlisted him as an advisor in exchange for picking up some of his travel expenses. "I've come under criticism for supporting the HPV vaccines," says Hager. "Some conservative groups are trying to sabotage them." The day before he was scheduled to give an HPV talk organized by the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, Leslie Unruh, the group's leader, threatened to cancel it. "I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100% preventable with proper sexual behavior," she says. Nonetheless, she decided to leave the schedule intact.
So a few days after the Fourth of July, Hager shows up to talk HPV in front of 70 or so abstinence educators at a "Teens and Sex" conference given by Unruh's group in Indianapolis. The meeting is being funded by the Department of Health and Human Resources. Eagerly awaiting his talk is Cathy St. John, a nurse who is the education coordinator for Making Abstinence Possible, a sex-education outfit in Cincinnati. Will giving the vaccine to a young girl "give her more of a predilection of having the casual sex she sees on TV?" wonders St. John, a blond, middle-aged woman in a pink twinset with matching shoes and handbag, who deplores the lifestyle portrayed on shows such as Sex and the City. Hager's talk makes it clear that he doesn't believe that. "I don't think a vaccine allows people to be sexually active," he tells the crowd. "If you knew there was a vaccine for AIDS, would you be opposed to it?"
Afterward, St. John seems persuaded. "He gave me a different way to look at it," she says. "But I don't think it changes the primary way of prevention. Which is abstinence."
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/10/31/8359188/index.htm
However, it's now 2008 and the "Family Research Council" seems to have seen the light.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF07B01&v=PRINT
-
So you would deny two consenting adults the benefits and rights that other consenting adults are granted on the basis of their sex? Consent is the one thing that differentiates gay marriage from incest marriage and intraspecial marriage, though not polygamous marriage. I have no problem with polygamous marriage, it was common throughout history and in Biblical times. If someone wants to make themself even more miserable go right ahead (an attempt at humor).
I thank you though Plane for at least saying that homosexuality has nothing to do with the failing marriages of today, though some would have you believe. I'm still not clear though on the why gay marriage is damaging to the institution.
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Professor, you should read this and see if it sounds like these people want their children to be protected from this type of cancer, come hell or high water, or if they're more worried about them being sexually active.
THE COMING STORM OVER A CANCER VACCINE
Christian conservatives fear that new, amazingly effective cervical-cancer vaccines will spur promiscuity and undermine abstinence. Let the lobbying wars begin.
(FORTUNE Magazine)
By JANET GUYON
October 31, 2005
(FORTUNE Magazine) ? Eliav Barr has popped the champagne. After a decade of development, his team at Merck has just finished presenting the clinical-trial results on the company's cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, to an enthusiastic audience of doctors in San Francisco. It's a medical milestone--the first cancer vaccine ever. The results show an unprecedented 100% efficacy in fighting the dominant strains of the virus that causes cervical cancer, a scourge that is the second-biggest cancer killer of women worldwide. The story is on every TV network and on the front pages of newspapers nationwide. If Merck gets Gardasil to market in the U.S. next year as planned, not only might it become a blockbuster--with a rival vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline, it is projected to spawn an $8-billion-a-year global market by 2010--it could also help lift the stigma that's haunted Merck since the debacle of Vioxx. Says Barr, the head of clinical development for the vaccine: "This is it. This is the Holy Grail."
Some 3,000 miles away in Washington, D.C., however, a man named Tony Perkins doesn't see it that way. Perkins is president of the Family Research Council, a Christian organization that describes itself as a champion of "marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue." He is so critical of cervical cancer vaccines that he has no intention of inoculating his 13-year-old daughter, who the drug companies say would be a prime candidate. The reason: The human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, is in most cases transmitted through sexual intercourse. If his daughter were to get the shots, Perkins believes she would be more inclined to have sex outside marriage. "It sends the wrong message," says Perkins. "Our concern is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence."
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It's too soon to tell how strong a stand the Christian right will take. It could simply counsel believers to avoid vaccination. Or it could actively try to prevent mass inoculation--blocking its acceptance by doctors and insurers and its funding by state and federal entitlement programs. Some cancer survivors have trouble understanding how there could be any debate. Diane Kae was diagnosed with cervical cancer two years ago in Philadelphia. She still has hearing loss and digestive troubles from the chemotherapy and radiation she went through to defeat her illness. It all could have been avoided if the vaccines had been available when she was young. "If someone else's life doesn't have to be changed the way mine has, that would be a blessing," says Kae, 54, who has been married and divorced twice. "No matter how chaste your daughters are, there is still a risk of them getting the disease. Why would you want them to go through that?"
Although the Merck and Glaxo vaccines are still a year from the market, already they are at the center of a brewing storm over cost, social class, family values, and women's health. Analysts argue over whether they will be cost effective, given that the U.S. already has a $6 billion program of screening and treatment based on Pap smears, the cancer test that most women in developed countries undergo regularly and that the vaccines would not replace. Conservatives view the vaccines as morally corrosive. And the drug companies see them as much needed new sources of profit and prestige.
Given the high efficacy and safety shown in Merck and Glaxo trials thus far, it seems almost certain that the FDA will approve the vaccines next year. But their fate from that point--whether they will become widely available in the U.S., whether they will succeed commercially at all--depends not on the market, as you might expect. Instead it rests with a little-known but hugely powerful government group known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Attached to the Centers for Disease Control, the ACIP makes up the national list of recommended immunizations--setting the standard for doctors, insurers, and public funding of vaccinations. Its mandate is to weigh medical need, cost effectiveness, and public attitudes in arriving at a decision about a vaccine. The Bush administration has already appointed one ACIP member from the ranks of the Christian right. So in the case of cervical cancer, the committee is the stage on which a modern drama of health and morality will ultimately play out.
No one disputes the need for a cure. Cervical cancer kills 270,000 women a year worldwide, 80% of them in developing countries, with 30% in India alone. In the U.S. this year, the CDC estimates that 3,710 will die of the disease, most of them black, Hispanic, or poor. About 10,000 women will get cervical cancer and recover after difficult treatment like Kae's. If the vaccines are widely administered, especially to girls before they become sexually active (the median age for first-time sex in the U.S. is 15), chances are that cervical cancer could be reduced to a relatively minor threat. And if the vaccines succeed in the U.S., the profits they generate will likely help the drug companies make them available faster in the developing world. It all comes down to what the ACIP decides.
When Merck and Glaxo began working on cancer vaccines a decade ago, they never thought that something so revolutionary would come to fruition so soon. A German virologist named Harald zur Hausen first linked HPV with cervical cancer in 1975. His theories were discounted for years, until new research tools enabled better detection of viral DNA. By the early '90s, clinicians began to accept that HPV was the sole cause of cervical cancer. If a woman had HPV and abnormalities on Pap smears, she was aggressively treated, sometimes with procedures that hurt her ability to bear children. Researchers later understood that only a few strains of HPV actually cause cancer--of more than 100 viral types, just seven account for 90% of the cancers. Others cause only warts or do nothing. Yet all are highly contagious--transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, not just intercourse--so condoms aren't effective. "You can just have genital touching using a finger or toys or whatever," says Eliav Barr at Merck.
Because HPV is so easily transmitted, researchers believe that 80% of all sexually active people in the U.S. will carry the virus at some point in their lives, with 20 million women and men affected at any one time. Unlike many other viruses, HPV doesn't enter the bloodstream, so it doesn't provoke a strong immune response. Nonetheless, the body defeats most HPV infections as effectively as it does ordinary colds; only a small percentage of women develop the persistent infections necessary to cause cancer. To protect a population as a virus circulates, public health experts generally want to vaccinate anyone who is likely to be exposed.
Both the Merck and Glaxo vaccines are based on the protein shell of the virus. So far, clinical studies have shown that when women are injected with an empty shell, they develop a high level of antibodies that prevent the virus from ever taking hold. Both companies' vaccines protect against the two most common cancer-related strains, HPV 16 and 18, which cause more than two-thirds of the cancer cases. But Merck has thrown in two more variants that cause genital warts, HPV 6 and 11, in hopes of doubling its potential market by enticing men to get inoculated too. The companies now are engaged in the large, Phase 3 studies that directly precede seeking FDA approval. Merck says it will file with the FDA in the fourth quarter of this year--Glaxo says it will be a few months behind.
Meanwhile, the ACIP drama has already begun. As FORTUNE went to press, Barr was scheduled to present his team's stunning results at a late-October ACIP meeting, one of only three public meetings the committee holds each year. A working group has been gathering research on HPV in the population, but "we certainly don't have a recommendation yet" on the vaccines, says Janet Gilsdorf, a University of Michigan physician who is the subcommittee chief. Merck is hoping that the ACIP will be so impressed that it will begin to view mass inoculation favorably--just as this June, the committee recommended that 11- and 12-year-olds get a newly licensed tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough vaccine in place of the old tetanus-diphtheria shots. Ages 11 and 12 are also the natural time to administer the HPV vaccine, says Merck, before children are likely to have had sex and when they routinely get assessed for catch-up shots for chicken pox, measles, mumps, and other diseases.
ACIP approval isn't binding, but most states look to its recommendations to mandate what vaccines children must get before entering school. The committee votes separately on whether to recommend federal funding, and its support also virtually guarantees state funding, insurance reimbursement, and--crucially--coverage of the manufacturers under a federally funded liability-insurance program if a vaccine turns out to have deadly side effects. "What the committee comes out with is what the doctors will rely on," says John Salamone, head of the National Italian American Foundation, who until June 30 served as the consumer representative on the ACIP. "That means the government will also buy the vaccine. You notice you never see a vaccine advertised? That's because they don't have to. It is a great business."
But if the ACIP doesn't give its blessing, a vaccine can fail. In 1999, Smith-Kline, now part of Glaxo, didn't get a full ACIP recommendation for a Lyme disease inoculation, partly because its medical efficacy was questionable. "So the uptake of the vaccine wasn't very good," says Larry Pickering, the ACIP's executive secretary in Atlanta. After attempting to market it directly to patients and doctors, the company pulled the product.
The ACIP's deliberations on the dual cervical cancer vaccines promise to be contentious. The committee has 15 appointees, all public-health doctors and academics except for the single consumer representative. To help ensure that conservative views are articulated, one of the Bush appointees is Reginald Finger, a public-health doctor named to the ACIP in 2003. Until September he was also the medical-issues analyst at Focus on the Family, the influential Colorado Springs, Colo., Christian advocacy group run by Dr. James Dobson.
Merck expects Finger to be the point man for family-values advocates. So it has been lobbying him hard, says Finger, in hopes of heading off a controversy over teen sex that could torpedo Gardasil. Finger says he had many meetings at Focus with Merck representatives. "We have a cordial relationship, but I've made no deal" with Merck, he says. He adds that he's leaning toward putting the HPV vaccines on the national list, but not necessarily voting for federal funding or pushing the states to require them. That would fall short of what Merck wants. "I have a lot of different feelings about the vaccine," Finger says. "The objective is to prevent as much cervical cancer as possible without crossing bioethical or moral lines." (The company confirms that it is talking to Finger, but says it talks to a lot of experts about Gardasil and won't discuss details.)
A Focus spokesperson says the group hasn't taken a position on the vaccines yet; it will convene a meeting to discuss the subject in early November. A priority, according to Finger, will be for Focus to align itself with the three other groups that have medical expertise and preach abstinence--the Medical Institute for Human Sexuality, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and the Physicians Consortium. Focus also will consult with Perkins's Family Research Council, which split off from Focus in 1992. The FRC predicts a grassroots uproar among Bush's "value voters" if the ACIP recommends mass inoculation for preteens. "The vaccine is associated with sexual activity," says Pia de Solenni, who heads women's issues at the FRC, "and the family groups want families making that decision." She wouldn't vaccinate her own daughter, if she had one, she says.
"This isn't as much about morality as it is about good medicine," says Hal Wallis, a Dallas ob/gyn who heads the Physicians Consortium. "If you don't want to suffer these diseases, you need to abstain, and when you find a partner, stick with that partner." Gary Rose, CEO of the Medical Institute, says his group won't take a position until after it convenes its own panel of experts on Nov. 2. But the Institute has always maintained that abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage is the best recipe for good sexual health. How much Finger and his allies will influence the ACIP's decision isn't clear. But at the very least, other committee members are likely to take into account the family-values viewpoint. "These other voices I am sure we will hear, and we will listen to them," says Gilsdorf.
With Merck lobbying the abstinence groups, Glaxo has been pushing cost effectiveness. "The economic advantages of this vaccine are very easy to demonstrate," says CEO J.P. Garnier. The company argues that because the vaccines will cut the number of abnormal Pap smears and consequent follow-up treatment, the U.S. could cut its $6 billion annual screening and treatment costs by some 40%, or $2.4 billion. That saving more than pays for the $1 billion or so a year Glaxo and Merck hope to charge for the vaccines (Garnier says a course of treatment, which consists of three shots, will cost between $150 and $450). Still, the vaccines won't eliminate Pap smears. Because they protect only against the most common strains of HPV, women will still need to be tested for infection with others.
The ACIP has twice scheduled, then postponed, a discussion on cost effectiveness, which now probably won't occur until February. Herschel Lawson, an epidemiologist in the division of cancer prevention and control at the CDC, says the issue will be enormously tricky: "A lot depends on the data available and the many assumptions that need to be made to assess various health states and outcomes." The ACIP also will take into account indirect benefits, such as reduced anxiety from false positives on Pap tests. "A vaccine doesn't have to save money to be worth recommending," says Lauri Markowitz, a CDC epidemiologist who is the principal staff member advising the ACIP on the vaccines.
With all this doubt swirling, the ACIP could well straddle the fence. That's what happened after the FDA first licensed the vaccine for hepatitis B, another sexually transmitted disease, in 1982. The ACIP recommended it only for high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, gays, and health-care workers--a strategy that didn't make a dent in disease statistics. Finally, in 1991, the ACIP changed its mind and advised doctors to inoculate newborns as well. Only then did the national incidence of hepatitis B infections begin to decline.
Neither the drug companies nor liberal groups such as Planned Parenthood want the ACIP to get timid about HPV. "The conservatives are going to turn this into a larger issue than it needs to be," says Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood. It hopes federal funding will be available so it can administer the vaccine at its 850 health-care sites. "This isn't about morality, it is about public health," adds Cullins. Glaxo's CEO is even more blunt: "Getting the vaccine is an IQ test. You should get it. It's that simple."
If the drug companies are to pull off their medical miracle, though, they know they will have to win over conservatives one at a time. In July, FORTUNE went on the road with David Hager, a Lexington, Ky., ob/gyn who gives talks on HPV on behalf of the abstinence-preaching Medical Institute. Lately Merck has enlisted him as an advisor in exchange for picking up some of his travel expenses. "I've come under criticism for supporting the HPV vaccines," says Hager. "Some conservative groups are trying to sabotage them." The day before he was scheduled to give an HPV talk organized by the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, Leslie Unruh, the group's leader, threatened to cancel it. "I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100% preventable with proper sexual behavior," she says. Nonetheless, she decided to leave the schedule intact.
So a few days after the Fourth of July, Hager shows up to talk HPV in front of 70 or so abstinence educators at a "Teens and Sex" conference given by Unruh's group in Indianapolis. The meeting is being funded by the Department of Health and Human Resources. Eagerly awaiting his talk is Cathy St. John, a nurse who is the education coordinator for Making Abstinence Possible, a sex-education outfit in Cincinnati. Will giving the vaccine to a young girl "give her more of a predilection of having the casual sex she sees on TV?" wonders St. John, a blond, middle-aged woman in a pink twinset with matching shoes and handbag, who deplores the lifestyle portrayed on shows such as Sex and the City. Hager's talk makes it clear that he doesn't believe that. "I don't think a vaccine allows people to be sexually active," he tells the crowd. "If you knew there was a vaccine for AIDS, would you be opposed to it?"
Afterward, St. John seems persuaded. "He gave me a different way to look at it," she says. "But I don't think it changes the primary way of prevention. Which is abstinence."
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/10/31/8359188/index.htm
However, it's now 2008 and the "Family Research Council" seems to have seen the light.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF07B01&v=PRINT
Ok, I read the article. Where does it mention that Republicans want women to get cervical cancer? Did I miss this? How do we know that Democrats and Republicans aren't all in this group? Why only Republicans? Am I missing something?
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<<How would this [issuing death threats against the Brattleboro councilmen] make him a fascist?>>
I honestly thought this was explained in one of my earlier posts in this thread. However, threatening the opponents of militarism and aggression with death was a standard Nazi tactic during the Weimar Republic. They spoke of "treason" as this fella did, and called for the deaths of the "traitors," basically the pacifists and anti-war activists and in fact were often able to follow through on their threats.
A "threat" Tee, is person A saying they're gonna hurt person B (or something belonging/important to person B). Person A hoping that something bad happens to person B isn't a threat. It's distinctly not very civil, but it isn't a threat, regardless of your hatred of those evil fascist Amerikkkans. If we went by your twisted logic, we'd have to round up thousands upon thousands who would love something not-so-nice, to happen to Bush, or Limbaugh, or Justice Thomas, or Rumsfeld, or a whole host of folks you utterly dispise
And all the while, the continued repetative asanine proclaimations of fascist & nazi to simply anyone on the right who doesn't agree with yours and Lanya's twisted concept, simply keep eroding how evil they (fascists & nazis) really were. Really pathetic
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<<Homosexual marrage is an injury to marrage the institution . . . >>
OK, hold it right there. I just don't know what that means. Never mind "incest marrage , polyandrus marrage or interspecis marrage," just with reference to gay marriage, just tell me, what do you mean by "marriage the institution" and how would it be "injured?"
I mean I've been married 45 years to the same lovely woman and I don't know what "marriage the institution" even IS. The reality is MY marriage works for ME and I hope it works for my wife. And if it's working for me, I just don't give a shit if it didn't work out for the couple across the street or for Adam and Steve. Just doesn't affect my marriage one bit how anyone else's marriage is gonna work out.
So (a) what is this "institution of marriage" that is gonna be "injured" by gay marriage? And (b) what the fuck would I care about an "institution?" I'm not married to "an institution," I'm married to my wife. I love that I'm married to her, and I'd do it all over again even if every other fucking couple married on the same day turned out to be gay and flaming. That's what it is when you love somebody - - you want to be with them for the rest of your life, you want your friends and family to know that's how it's going to be and you want them to celebrate that day with you.
Do you really think if my wife and I were gonna get married at City Hall and saw that the couple in front of us was Adam and Steve, that either one of us would say, "Awww, shit, there goes the institution of marriage, let's just go home and be fuckbuddies?" What's it mean IN THE REAL WORLD, to "injure" "marriage the institution?"
There is no such thing in reality as "marriage the institution." There's only a marriage between Michael and Marilyn, another between Joe and Kristina, and another between Donna and Sam and - - hopefully - - one between Adam and Steve. And my marriage does not depend upon any of the others in any way any more than theirs depend on mine.
You delight in using empty words that have no relationship whatsoever to the real lives of real people.
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Ok, I read the article. Where does it mention that Republicans want women to get cervical cancer? Did I miss this? How do we know that Democrats and Republicans aren't all in this group? Why only Republicans? Am I missing something?
It's apparent deductive reasoning on her part, Professor. Because a certain group doesn't support MANDATORY vaccinations (when optional is simply preferred), and that this group supposedly runs the GOP, then that = the GOP want women to die of cancer.
I know, I know, it's an amazing leap of (il)logic
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"Still, the vaccines won't eliminate Pap smears. Because they protect only against the most common strains of HPV, women will still need to be tested for infection with others.'
I didn't know this!
This strikes me as the most significant fact in the essay.
The common type being supressed and persons that have been immunised beleiveing that they are protected, the uncommon types will become common and the people who beleive themselves protected are going to be especially vunerable.
What painfull irony it would be if the net result were more cancer deaths instead of fewer.
The vaccine should be made availible , I would advise young women to get vaccinated and also to remain chaste untill a monogomous relationshp beomes possible.
Might want to vaccinate men too , but tell them that their safety is improved only a little if they engague in promiscuous sex.
The most foolproof protection seems to be chastity for both sexes , too bad this is out of vogue , th sexual revolution wants lots of women to die of cancer.
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So you would deny two consenting adults the benefits and rights that other consenting adults are granted on the basis of their sex? Consent is the one thing that differentiates gay marriage from incest marriage and intraspecial marriage, though not polygamous marriage. I have no problem with polygamous marriage, it was common throughout history and in Biblical times. If someone wants to make themself even more miserable go right ahead (an attempt at humor).
I thank you though Plane for at least saying that homosexuality has nothing to do with the failing marriages of today, though some would have you believe. I'm still not clear though on the why gay marriage is damaging to the institution.
Pologamy and polyandry change the definition of marrage . What would prevent a motorcycle club from being also a marrage?
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<<A "threat" Tee, is person A saying they're gonna hurt person B (or something belonging/important to person B). >>
So far you're correct.
<<Person A hoping that something bad happens to person B isn't a threat. >>
So far, you're still right. (This must be some kind of record for you, sirs, two whole sentences and not an error so far.)
<<It's distinctly not very civil, but it isn't a threat, regardless of your hatred of those evil fascist Amerikkkans. >>
Wow, three whole sentences. You're on a roll, sirs.
<<If we went by your twisted logic, we'd have to round up thousands upon thousands who would love something not-so-nice, to happen to Bush, or Limbaugh, or Justice Thomas, or Rumsfeld, or a whole host of folks you utterly dispise>>
Awww, shit! I was really rooting for you, sirs. Hoping you'd get to the end of one whole post and actually say something that made sense! That normal, sane people could agree with. Well, you DID come close, sirs.
You are unfortunately lacking in simple analytical powers, sirs. Probably because you are so blinded by your ideology that you are unable to follow any argument that leads to a conclusion you don't like. Now this guy was not simply hoping that the councilmen would get killed. If it was just a wish that they all die, preferably through some kind of horrific violence, it would certainly be typical of the fascist impulse towards anyone who hates war and loves peace, but it would not be a threat.
The threat came when this Nazi paladin went beyond just wishing for something bad to happen to them. He actually stated that the country would be a lot safer with them dead. So we have a wish for death, COUPLED WITH A PREDICTION OF WONDERFUL BENEFITS (ENHANCED PUBLIC SAFETY) TO THE NATION AS A WHOLE that would put the councilmen in fear of their lives.
It's very simple. If some Nazi moron tells me he'd like for me to be dead, I'm not worried.
If he publishes a letter saying that my death and the deaths of thousands like me would be a boon to national security, there's a new dimension added to the death-wish: (a) that it's in HIS interests to kill me (because he'll then be living in a more secure nation;) and (b) that it's in the interest of the general public for someone to kill me (they'll all be more secure;) and (c) that whoever kills me is doing a good thing because it'll be for the good of the killer and the whole country.
By telling me how much benefit would accrue to the nation from my death, he's suggesting to me that he is not the only one who'd like to see me dead, that lots of others would as well. Naturally that's a much scarier prospect than just one screwball hoping I'm gonna die. He can only speak for himself, and since he didn't threaten me himself, I can assume he's not gonna do the deed. But he's pointed out that by expressing my own opinion, I am incurring the wrath of millions of Americans whose lives I have endangered, and of course he can't speak for them. So logically I don't know if any of those millions wants to kill me himself.
He's made me aware that it's very dangerous to express the thoughts I expressed. Basically he attempted to shut me up by telling me that I should fear for my life if I make statements like that.
The death threat was admittedly subtle but a death threat nonetheless.
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What would prevent a motorcycle club from being also a marrage?
A. They don't live together
B. They probably don't have sex together
C. They didn't date
D. They probably aren't going to try and adopt a child together
E. They probably don't have or aren't willing to make a lifetime commitment
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What would prevent a motorcycle club from being also a marrage?
A. They don't live together
Not in the definition of marrage already.
B. They probably don't have sex together
Oh?
C. They didn't date
Tipical of marrage.
D. They probably aren't going to try and adopt a child together
Why not ? Make them a marrage ad they gain this right.
E. They probably don't have or aren't willing to make a lifetime commitment
Some motorcycle clubs make better comittment than the advradge marrage.
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What would prevent a motorcycle club from being also a marrage?
A. They don't live together
B. They probably don't have sex together
C. They didn't date
D. They probably aren't going to try and adopt a child together
E. They probably don't have or aren't willing to make a lifetime commitment
Look, if you believe the Government should reflect your beliefs and if you are a conservative Christian, then the Government should not in any way condone homosexuality. Why? Both the Old & New Testaments are full of condemnations of homosexuality.
Why should the government condone or in any way promote marriages between homosexuals? see above rationale.
Now, if you do not "buy into" this rationale, then it is more of a free-for-all and the Government is free to do otherwise.
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You know it just occurred to me that the whole gay marriage thing is really about letting people define themselves rather than letting the government define them.
I mean this: doesn't bother my marriage one bit if two gay guys get married. Fuck do I care what they do, I am married to my wife and that's how I want it to be.
So then I thought, OK, wifey and I are waiting our turn at City Hall and ahead of us are THREE people who want to get married. There was a moment of just wanting to throw up my hands, turn around and walk out of there because the whole thing - - marriage - - was becoming a joke.
But I thought about it. I love my wife and I know what I want. I wanna be married to her for the rest of my life and that's what she wants too. So we're gonna do it. And as far as that threesome is concerned, how the fuck would I know if their feelings for one another weren't every bit as deep and as real as my wife's and mine. Common respect for the humanity and the decency of every single person would dictate that we allow them to have the same depth of feelings as we ourselves, that we respect those feelings as we would like others to respect ours.
So I thought about fascism and liberalism - - the fascist has no basic respect for the dignity and the worth of other human beings but has to control the most personal aspects of their private lives, even who they love, who they can share their lives with and HOW THEY EXPRESS that love and that sharing. "Sure, Adam, you can get married, JUST FIND A NICE GIRL FIRST. YOU CAN'T MARRY STEVE." The liberal respects the love between Adam and Stever, or the threesome, and credits them with enough wisdom to live life as they see fit, which may not be the way we see fit.
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Look, if you believe the Government should reflect your beliefs and if you are a conservative Christian, then the Government should not in any way condone homosexuality.
I do believe the government should reflect my beliefs, and I am not a conservative Christian, so the government shouldn't have any say regarding homosexuality.
Old Testament has a couple of obscure passages in Leviticus. Right up there with the Jewish dietary restrictions and wearing clothing made of more than one type of fabric. The New Testament has St. Paul's story of Sodom and Gomorra, which is more about insulting hospitality than homosexuality. Forgive me Professor if I don't let that determine whether or not I live a moral life. What do the 10 Commandments say about homosexuality? What did Christ say about it? To me, these are the true tenets of Christianity, Christ's teachings and the 10 Commandments. The rest is dogma and theological rhetoric.
Why should the government condone or in any way promote marriages between homosexuals? see above rationale.
Why should the government not condone marriage between homosexuals?
Now, if you do not "buy into" this rationale, then it is more of a free-for-all and the Government is free to do otherwise.
I think you know where I stand Prof ;)
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What would prevent a motorcycle club from being also a marrage?
A. They don't live together
B. They probably don't have sex together
C. They didn't date
D. They probably aren't going to try and adopt a child together
E. They probably don't have or aren't willing to make a lifetime commitment
Look, if you believe the Government should reflect your beliefs and if you are a conservative Christian, then the Government should not in any way condone homosexuality. Why? Both the Old & New Testaments are full of condemnations of homosexuality.
Why should the government condone or in any way promote marriages between homosexuals? see above rationale.
Now, if you do not "buy into" this rationale, then it is more of a free-for-all and the Government is free to do otherwise.
In support of Marrage the Government has given certain priveledges to the married.
One of these is that a spouce may not be compelled to testify against his spouce in trial.
There is a long list of these priveledges , but Marrage predates our government , might predate government itself , and doesn't need the government's help to exist.
As long as the government doesn't do things harmfull to marrage , it is all good.
Lets allow anyone to designate a power of atturny to a single other person of his choice , and to this coupleing let the tax advantage, the right to speak for , the right to visit in hospital and all other appropriate rights attached to marrage ,give.
Soon every gangster in the county will have "married " hs bookeeper.
Oh well , unintended consequences are oten more important than the intended ones.
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Look, if you believe the Government should reflect your beliefs and if you are a conservative Christian, then the Government should not in any way condone homosexuality.
I do believe the government should reflect my beliefs, and I am not a conservative Christian, so the government shouldn't have any say regarding homosexuality.
Old Testament has a couple of obscure passages in Leviticus. Right up there with the Jewish dietary restrictions and wearing clothing made of more than one type of fabric. The New Testament has St. Paul's story of Sodom and Gomorra, which is more about insulting hospitality than homosexuality. Forgive me Professor if I don't let that determine whether or not I live a moral life. What do the 10 Commandments say about homosexuality? What did Christ say about it? To me, these are the true tenets of Christianity, Christ's teachings and the 10 Commandments. The rest is dogma and theological rhetoric.
Why should the government condone or in any way promote marriages between homosexuals? see above rationale.
Why should the government not condone marriage between homosexuals?
Now, if you do not "buy into" this rationale, then it is more of a free-for-all and the Government is free to do otherwise.
I think you know where I stand Prof ;)
I understood this from the beginning, Fatman. We disagree. I doubt the world will stop revolving because we disagree. No problem...
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The death threat was admittedly subtle but a death threat nonetheless.
Actually, there was no threat, death or otherwise, just some severe uncivilness/rudeness, at wishing someone some severe illwill. Nice to see how the left uses that now as "threats". Time to push more anti-1st amendment legislation to curb those "threats', isn't it
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Pologamy and polyandry change the definition of marrage .
They change YOUR definition of marriage. Polygamy and polyandry have existed for many centuries. When you learned of these, and as a result your ignorance vanish, then you decided that they somehow threatened YOUR definitions.
What would prevent a motorcycle club from being also a marrage?
I imagine that you and Professor and Richie poo would try, but only in the extremely unlikely event that the members of said motorcycle club claimed they WANTED to get married. This is just another of those silly questions you seem to think inspire some sort of useful thought.
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Pologamy and polyandry change the definition of marrage .
They change YOUR definition of marriage. Polygamy and polyandry have existed for many centuries. When you learned of these, and as a result your ignorance vanish, then you decided that they somehow threatened YOUR definitions.
What would prevent a motorcycle club from being also a marrage?
I imagine that you and Professor and Richie poo would try, but only in the extremely unlikely event that the members of said motorcycle club claimed they WANTED to get married. This is just another of those silly questions you seem to think inspire some sort of useful thought.
If everyone is qualified and anysort of hook up meets the definition , what will "marrage " mean ?
In our law it gets special recognition , but if the definition changes the special recognition wll have to change also in order to remain meaningfull.
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<<Actually, there was no threat, death or otherwise, just some severe uncivilness/rudeness, at wishing someone some severe illwill. Nice to see how the left uses that now as "threats". Time to push more anti-1st amendment legislation to curb those "threats', isn't it>>
No actually there was a very real threat. The councilmen were invited to think on how many people were not only endangered by their opinons, but would be made much safer were they all dead.
Anytime somebody points out to me that by expressing an opinion, I am endangering millions of people who would be a lot safer if I were dead, is trying to intimidate me, trying to shut me up with threats of death, if not from him directly then from any one of 300 million other people.
Anyone dumb enough to consider a threat like that as mere incivility has my deepest sympathy.
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<<Actually, there was no threat, death or otherwise, just some severe uncivilness/rudeness, at wishing someone some severe illwill. Nice to see how the left uses that now as "threats". Time to push more anti-1st amendment legislation to curb those "threats', isn't it>>
No actually there was a very real threat.
No, actually, there wasn't. Just some testosterone induced inappropriate posturing.
Anytime somebody points out to me that by expressing an opinion, I am endangering millions of people who would be a lot safer if I were dead, is trying to intimidate me, trying to shut me up with threats of death, if not from him directly then from any one of 300 million other people.
No, someone wishing you were dead is NOT the same as threatening to kill you. A pretty blatant difference, I'm afraid to tell you. I realize to the (in)tolerant left, any speech that doesn't agree with them is tantamount to hate speech, and in this case, "threats" when there actually weren't any, but when anyone dares to simply criticize the left, for criticizing Bush and/or the war....boy oh boy, do the shrill cries of "you're trying to suppress my speech!!...you're trying to prevent me from my constitutional right to dissent!!...you're calling me unpatriotic!!
Gotta love that transparent hypocrisy
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<<No, someone wishing you were dead is NOT the same as threatening to kill you.>>
Yes we already agreed on that, didn't we? Unfortunately, this guy went beyond merely wishing, he pointed out to the councilmen that there would be a big benefit to 300,000,000 Americans if they and a few thousand other Vermonters were dead. So much as you would like to minimize the letter by conveniently "forgetting" the most significant part, I'm afraid that it won't go away just because you are too intellectually dishonest to mention it.
<<when anyone dares to simply criticize the left, for criticizing Bush and/or the war....boy oh boy, do the shrill cries of "you're trying to suppress my speech!!...you're trying to prevent me from my constitutional right to dissent!!...you're calling me unpatriotic!!>>
REALLY? And when did this happen? When did simple criticism, unaccompanied by the kind of death threats that fascists like you are so enamoured of, generate that kind of outrage? (I mean, of course, when in real time and space, not when in your pathetic right-wing fantasies?)
<<Gotta love that transparent hypocrisy>>
Gotta find it before you can love it. Find it in the real world, I mean.
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<<No, someone wishing you were dead is NOT the same as threatening to kill you.>>
Yes we already agreed on that, didn't we? Unfortunately, this guy went beyond merely wishing, he pointed out to the councilmen that there would be a big benefit to 300,000,000 Americans if they and a few thousand other Vermonters were dead.
In other words.........WISHING he (& others) were dead. oy
<<when anyone dares to simply criticize the left, for criticizing Bush and/or the war....boy oh boy, do the shrill cries of "you're trying to suppress my speech!!...you're trying to prevent me from my constitutional right to dissent!!...you're calling me unpatriotic!!>>
REALLY? And when did this happen?
Anytime anyone dares criticizes the likes of John Kerry, or any other politician with a military background. Yep, gotta love that Hypocrisy
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<<In other words.........WISHING he (& others) were dead. oy>>
Yes, sirs - - WISHING he (& others) were dead. AND pointing out the advantages thereby to be gained in national security by 300,000,000 Americans. Double oy.
<<[Shrill cries of protest over the attempted suppression of speech or Constitutional rights happen] anytime anyone dares criticizes the likes of John Kerry, or any other politician with a military background.>>
Really? Because I don't recall anyone raising a First Amendment or Constitutional rights issue over the criticism of anyone with a military background. Perhaps you could give one single example of something you seem to think happens all the time? Because otherwise, we're going to have to conclude that you're all fulla shit. As always.
<<Yep, gotta love that Hypocrisy>>
As I said before, sirs, you gotta find it before you can love it. And find it in the REAL WORLD, not in the raving delusions of a crypto-fascist "mind."
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I understood this from the beginning, Fatman. We disagree. I doubt the world will stop revolving because we disagree. No problem...
True enough Prof. I do like the ability to disagree cordially though.
In support of Marrage the Government has given certain priveledges to the married.
Why? What does the Constitution say about marriage, gay, straight, or polygamous?
There is a long list of these priveledges , but Marrage predates our government , might predate government itself , and doesn't need the government's help to exist.
But it needs the governments help to protect it from homosexuals? (Constitutional Amendments)
As long as the government doesn't do things harmfull to marrage , it is all good.
What possible harm can government do to marriage? It's been around forever (above) so I don't buy into the idea that because some homosexuals marry each other that it's suddenly under assault and about to fall into this morass of depravity.
Lets allow anyone to designate a power of atturny to a single other person of his choice , and to this coupleing let the tax advantage, the right to speak for , the right to visit in hospital and all other appropriate rights attached to marrage ,give.
Why not? What business of yours is it? Because Soon every gangster in the county will have "married " hs bookeeper? That's a straw man argument and we both know it. How many husbands and wives marry each other to further their criminal enterprises? Relatively few I would imagine, I don't see how it would be different with gay marriage.
Oh well , unintended consequences are oten more important than the intended ones.
So the best policy is to always do nothing because it may have unintended consequences more important than the original? That's hogwash plane and we both know that too.
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"No, someone wishing you were dead is NOT the same as threatening to kill you"
Actually, not be be legalistic, but according to the Lion of Judah, it could. After all, He said if you lust at a woman, then it is the same thing as "knowing" her. So, could not it be the same analogy here?
<< stirring the pot >>
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::) "Disdain for culture & society" huh? Rings right up there with how all Republicans want women to die of Cancer. I kinda thought better of you, Js. Perhaps I was mistaken. Or is your definition of disdain different than ...... most everyone else?
If you read what I write, as opposed to reading what you wish I'd write, you'll note that I said it still lingers amongst the right-wing today. I never said it is common or prevalent. Yet, there are those that take the very attitude of Goering. Rich, just by reading what he writes, is an excellent example.
There are fringe elements to every ideology Js. But to imply some generalized "disdain for culture & society" by the RW is pretty egregious. Let's match that by saying the Left despises and loathes our military. That's accurate, right?
Sirs, I'm having difficulty understanding your point here. What I said is that the Fascist disdain for culture still lingers amongst the right wing. I never said that it is "pervasive" or "common." I used the verb "to linger" specifically.
Now, let's look at your sentence: "the Left despises and loathes our military"
Notice the difference? It is not parallel to mine in any way. Your sentence is universal to anyone in "the Left."
I don't understand why you are so defensive Sirs. I did not make a broad sweeping generalization as you just did.
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Js, perhaps Sirs means that the Left does not tend to admire and/or respect the military appropriately.
"Blessed are the peacemakers...":
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I suggest that if you do not try to have a gay couple arrested or do not stone one or both of them, you are condoning homosexuality.
If you just leave them alone, even if you do not approve of them being married or in some sort of legal union, you are condoning homosexuality. If you do not speak out against gthe homosexual couple, you are condoning them.
I am all for condoning any activity that does not interrupt my private enjoyment of life, bit I think it is a bit lazy and perhaps even cowardly if you fundie types think you are doing the Lord's Work by spouting it from the Bible in this forum and not doing the same out in the real world.
It's like Juniorbush saying that it is enough to refuse to fund stem cell research in defense of 'innocent human life'. If it is really that bad, he should try to get it banned altogether.
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>>And the right is trying to turn it into some faith based, theocratic version of their utopia.<<
Could you please explain this? Can you sight some examples of government action that supports such a ridiculous claim? Remember now, you're charges with sighting actual litigation to turn America into a theocracy.
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>>I do believe the government should reflect my beliefs, and I am not a conservative Christian, so the government shouldn't have any say regarding homosexuality.<<
You obviously do or you wouldn't want the government to santion homosexual marriage. Nobody is stopping you, find someone to marry you.
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>>Why should the government not condone marriage between homosexuals?<<
Why shouldn't the government condone polygamy?
Why shouldn't it condone it between siblings?
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>>No actually there was a very real threat.<<
I swear, this place is loaded with pretentious thumbsucking liberals. They see fascists everywhere! It would be nice however, if they had the slightest clue what a fascist was, but that's really too much to ask. Hell, they don't even understand the meaning of the word threat let alone a complicated political philosophy and it's history.
You also get a glimpse at what it would be like if our local communists, fascist, and liberals actually got hold of power. The guy they're discussing here would be locked up, as would I, sirs, and anybody who disagreed with them. It's the thought that counts to our communists/fascist/liberal members, and that's enough to condemn you as a Nazi and put you away. Just like Good old Uncle Joe, Mao, Pol Pot, and the rest of their hero's.
Listen to what the real fascists say folks. They're showing their hands in her everyday.
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They're showing their hands in her everyday.
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Yeah! and if they don't keep their hands to themselves and out of her everyday, she will slap them silly!
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>>No actually there was a very real threat.<<
I swear, this place is loaded with pretentious thumbsucking liberals. They see fascists everywhere! It would be nice however, if they had the slightest clue what a fascist was, but that's really too much to ask. Hell, they don't even understand the meaning of the word threat let alone a complicated political philosophy and it's history.
You also get a glimpse at what it would be like if our local communists, fascist, and liberals actually got hold of power. The guy they're discussing here would be locked up, as would I, sirs, and anybody who disagreed with them. It's the thought that counts to our communists/fascist/liberal members, and that's enough to condemn you as a Nazi and put you away. Just like Good old Uncle Joe, Mao, Pol Pot, and the rest of their hero's.
Listen to what the real fascists say folks. They're showing their hands in her everyday.
Even fiction should not confound logic.
You grab and mix willy-nilly, and pretty soon your whole picture of politics is an Alice in Wonderland hodge podge of contradiction and confusion.
To begin at the beginning: fascism is a phenomenon of the right in politics, and your continual insistence to the contrary makes some wonder if you really understand even the most basic substructure of the whole business.
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>>Why should the government not condone marriage between homosexuals?<<
Why shouldn't the government condone polygamy?
Why shouldn't it condone it between siblings?
Or, to personalize to your particular case, why shouldn't the government condone throwing away the baby and raising the afterbirth?
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>>Why should the government not condone marriage between homosexuals?<<
Why shouldn't the government condone polygamy?
Why shouldn't it condone it between siblings?
Or, to personalize to your particular case, why shouldn't the government condone throwing away the baby and raising the afterbirth?
It seems that they do , Abortion is the most protected right we have ever had, my right to own a firearm or speak my mind has exceptions , no sort of Abortion , no reason for abortion , is unprotected.
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I understood this from the beginning, Fatman. We disagree. I doubt the world will stop revolving because we disagree. No problem...
True enough Prof. I do like the ability to disagree cordially though.
In support of Marrage the Government has given certain priveledges to the married.
Why? What does the Constitution say about marriage, gay, straight, or polygamous?
There is a long list of these priveledges , but Marrage predates our government , might predate government itself , and doesn't need the government's help to exist.
But it needs the governments help to protect it from homosexuals? (Constitutional Amendments)
As long as the government doesn't do things harmfull to marrage , it is all good.
What possible harm can government do to marriage? It's been around forever (above) so I don't buy into the idea that because some homosexuals marry each other that it's suddenly under assault and about to fall into this morass of depravity.
Lets allow anyone to designate a power of atturny to a single other person of his choice , and to this coupleing let the tax advantage, the right to speak for , the right to visit in hospital and all other appropriate rights attached to marrage ,give.
Why not? What business of yours is it? Because Soon every gangster in the county will have "married " hs bookeeper? That's a straw man argument and we both know it. How many husbands and wives marry each other to further their criminal enterprises? Relatively few I would imagine, I don't see how it would be different with gay marriage.
Oh well , unintended consequences are oten more important than the intended ones.
So the best policy is to always do nothing because it may have unintended consequences more important than the original? That's hogwash plane and we both know that too.
Try not to mix My responses with the Professors , we have slightly diffrent points of view and I hate to loose the nuance.
The government has seen it to be in the governments interest to forbid marrage in several circumstances , close relitives , interspecies , single sex, corpses , bigamists , underage. The act involved may be forbidden or not , but the sanction of marrage is withheld, do all the people who want to have non-traditional marrages feel that they are repressed and ill treated ? Because I have the right to marry a woman but not a horse is there an inequality twards those who would rather marry a horse?
Why does the government have an intrest in preventing any of these catagorys of non traditional marrage?
If someone wanted to marry many underage horses of the same sex as he , and of course we are talking of dead horses , who is hurt? What business is it of the governments?
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There is a long list of these priveledges , but Marrage predates our government , might predate government itself , and doesn't need the government's help to exist.
But it needs the governments help to protect it from homosexuals?
Is this just a legacy problem?
Thousands of years of considering a marrage to be the union of a man and a woman has produced an inertia ?
Where were the homosexuals of anchient times lax in establishing their brand ?
What was the origin of the public reguarding them with horror?
Marrage is as marrage does , right now two guys can team up and take on the world without government sanction , they just can't call it marrage on a leagal document . How long should this model prove itself successfull before the public and the government accepts it as such?
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Where were the homosexuals of anchient times lax in establishing their brand ?
What was the origin of the public reguarding them with horror?
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That would be Judaism, followed by Christianity.
The Romans and Greeks had no problems with it, and neither do the Buddhists, the T'aoists, the Shintos or most other world religions.
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Where were the homosexuals of anchient times lax in establishing their brand ?
What was the origin of the public reguarding them with horror?
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That would be Judaism, followed by Christianity.
The Romans and Greeks had no problems with it, and neither do the Buddhists, the T'aoists, the Shintos or most other world religions.
Oh , then which of these has a centurys old tradition of Gay marrage?
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The Spartans not only allowed something akin to homosexual gay marriage, they REQUIRED it.
Alexander the Great was gay and lived with a lover, and he was far from the only one.
I am sure you could find out a lot about this if you used your googling talents.
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The Spartans not only allowed something akin to homosexual gay marriage, they REQUIRED it.
Alexander the Great was gay and lived with a lover, and he was far from the only one.
I am sure you could find out a lot about this if you used your googling talents.
I don't feel obliged to build my opponents argument , FM is very able , as are you.
I understand the records of Spartan habits are quite explicit , includeing the raiseing of children by the state , common homosexuality , brutal training for war the entire length of a boys youth, slavery and ritual murder. Are these the records left us by Spartans or by their good freinds the Athenians?
I hate to tell you what Confederate accounts of Northern habits were like.
Anyway if it worked so well , where did it go?
According to the theroy of "Triumph of the Meme " good habits perpetuate themselves .
If it was an advantage to a society , what enabled another sort of society to outcompete?
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The Spartans were outnumbered by other Greeks, and all of Greece was conquered, first by Alexander, then by the Romans, then the Christians took over. The Spartans were good at what they did in their historical moment in time. But the Greeks were unable to unite effectively until Alexander.
It would be silly to attribute the fall of Sparta to homosexuality alone.
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>>You grab and mix willy-nilly, and pretty soon your whole picture of politics is an Alice in Wonderland hodge podge of contradiction and confusion.<<
Is this something like the rats of your greed eating the corn of your conscience stain? You truly are the Daniel Johnston of 3DHS.
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Could you please explain this? Can you sight some examples of government action that supports such a ridiculous claim? Remember now, you're charges with sighting actual litigation to turn America into a theocracy.
Evidently in your haste, you forgot to cut and paste the part (that was sarcasm btw). I don't know if you intentionally left that out and proceeded to jump down my throat for an attempt at humor, or if you're really just that fucking stupid, but maybe you should think before you do it next time. It's not only lame, it's dishonest.
>>I do believe the government should reflect my beliefs, and I am not a conservative Christian, so the government shouldn't have any say regarding homosexuality.<<
You obviously do or you wouldn't want the government to santion homosexual marriage. Nobody is stopping you, find someone to marry you.
What I want is for the government not to stop me from homosexual marriage. I have married someone, in a church service (I know, amazing a church will do that huh? Much less a fine WASP denomination like Episcopalian). What I want is the rights that marriage grants me from my federal and state governments. Also, passing Constitutional Amendments, as has happened in several states, is not quite "hands off". Fairs fair.
Why shouldn't the government condone polygamy?
I don't know, you tell me? After all, polygamy was referenced numerous times in the Bible.
Why shouldn't it condone it between siblings?
Probably because of the drastic risk of birth defects and retardation if they have children.
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>>It's not only lame, it's dishonest.<<
My mistake. My apologies.
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>>Probably because of the drastic risk of birth defects and retardation if they have children.<<
I've read a some studies that contridicts this thinking, at least between cousins.
But so what? Who is the government to stop two people who love each other?
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http://surveyg2.pollingpoint.com/vf4QnwKFT8t3Pl
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I apologize for putting my answers to both your and the Prof's points in one post Plane, I was in a hurry for work this morning, so I hope you'll accept that I wasn't trying to minimize your point of view.
The government has seen it to be in the governments interest to forbid marrage in several circumstances ,
close relitives answered above, see my reply to Rich
interspecies an animal cannot give consent, even a talking parrot
single sex this is what we're debating here (I assume you're referencing same sex)
corpses a corpse also cannot give consent (only to vote)
bigamists if it's consensual bigamy, I have no problem. If it's not consensual, then a person should not be allowed to marry twice, as marriage requires the consent of both partners.
underage the age of consent varies in different states (and countries). As I said above, a marriage requires consent of both parties, if one is not of the age of consent then there is no marriage.
do all the people who want to have non-traditional marrages feel that they are repressed and ill treated ?
I don't feel repressed or ill treated. I simply want what's ours, or what should be.
Because I have the right to marry a woman but not a horse is there an inequality twards those who would rather marry a horse?
No, because a horse cannot give its consent.
Why does the government have an intrest in preventing any of these catagorys of non traditional marrage?
Other than same-sex marriage, consent cannot be given, thus a marriage cannot be formed.
If someone wanted to marry many underage horses of the same sex as he , and of course we are talking of dead horses , who is hurt?
Conceivably, no one. However, a person could NOT marry many dead underage horses, because once again, there is NO consenting party.
Is this just a legacy problem?
No, and I notice that you didn't answer my question, so again: Marriage possibly predates all government, and certainly our government, but it needs a Constitutional Amendment to survive, because it's under threat, attack, assault, pick your buzzword?
Thousands of years of considering a marrage to be the union of a man and a woman has produced an inertia
I never said that. For the vast majority of that thousand years, government benefits weren't granted to married partners, nor were marriages recorded or licensed. Also polygamy was very common, if not prevalent, so that's not a man and a woman.
Where were the homosexuals of anchient times lax in establishing their brand ?
It's vaguely insulting to hear gay marriage referred to as a brand. Are you denying that there were homosexuals in ancient times?
What was the origin of the public reguarding them with horror?
Being as how homosexuality as anathema is only common to Western Civilization, and some Eastern and Native Americans believed it to be far more spiritual than heterosexuality, I'd have to say that XO is correct in the lineage from Judaism to Christianity.
Marrage is as marrage does , right now two guys can team up and take on the world without government sanction , they just can't call it marrage on a leagal document .
If, as you state Plane, marriage is as marriage does, then that means that marriage has no clear definition. Right? If 20 years from now, gay marriage is legalized, does that mean that you will feel obligated to recognize a homosexual union as a marriage? Because that's what I'm getting from that statement.
How long should this model prove itself successfull before the public and the government accepts it as such?
Slavery was successful for thousands of years Plane. Civilizations were built on it. 140 years ago it was viewed as acceptable and natural to buy the freedom of another person and subject them to the whim of the owner, in this country! So I've got to tell you I'm not buying into the whole legacy/tradition thing.
According to the theroy of "Triumph of the Meme " good habits perpetuate themselves .
And homosexuality, despite the near constant attempt at eradication, still survives. It might thrive or perpetuate, but it's still here thousands of years later. So either a. it's born with, which would allow your theory to retain validity, or it's a choice, which causes the loss of the validity of your theory. I don't know what camp, if either, you fall into (personally, I think it's a little of both), but it seems to me that a lot of conservatives want to have that one both ways (not necessarily you).
If it was an advantage to a society , what enabled another sort of society to outcompete?
Perhaps there was no competition. Perhaps one group did their thing and another did theirs.
I don't feel obliged to build my opponents argument , FM is very able , as are you.
Thanks for the compliment Plane. You're quite capable yourself. I really do enjoy these debates, even if nothing is really gained by them.
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My apologies as well for jumping down your throat Rich. Mistakes happen, my bad.
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After re-reading my post Plane, I saw some things that needed clarification.
And homosexuality, despite the near constant attempt at eradication, still survives. It might thrive or perpetuate, but it's still here thousands of years later. So either a. it's born with, which would allow your theory to retain validity, or it's a choice, which causes the loss of the validity of your theory. I don't know what camp, if either, you fall into (personally, I think it's a little of both), but it seems to me that a lot of conservatives want to have that one both ways (not necessarily you).
Should be:
And homosexuality, despite the near constant attempt at eradication, still survives. It might not thrive or perpetuate, but it's still here thousands of years later. So either a. it's born with, which would allow your theory to retain validity, or it's a choice, which causes the loss of the validity of your theory. I don't know what camp, if either, you fall into (personally, I think it's a little of both), but it seems to me that a lot of conservatives want to have that one both ways (not necessarily you).
Also, with this line
(personally, I think it's a little of both),
I was trying to say that it's my personal opinion that it's both upbringing and inborn. I wasn't trying to say that I think that's what you believe.
My apologies for any confusion.
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I've read a some studies that contridicts this thinking, at least between cousins.
I've seen that too, though I think the risks increase many times between siblings (a near match) vs. cousins (a match of 50% unless they're double cousins, which is again a perfect match).
But so what? Who is the government to stop two people who love each other?
If the child of a marriage has (I don't know the chances here, I'm just going to state a number) an 80% chance of producing a non-viable offspring, then that marriage probably shouldn't happen, because this (to me) is a form of child abuse (which isn't to say that it won't or can't happen, I'm sure it has and does). This is kind of a grey area in my feelings on civil rights (yes I have grey areas). I would imagine the numbers requesting an incestuous marriage vs. those requesting a gay marriage would be a fraction of a percent. Further, with the societal taboos against incest (which to be sure, there are still some against homosexuality, but not nearly as drastic as with incest), I would think that two people requesting such a thing should see a good psychiatrist, and not Dr. Phil. He didn't do Britney any good.
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Professor, you should read this and see if it sounds like these people want their children to be protected from this type of cancer, come hell or high water, or if they're more worried about them being sexually active. http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF07B01&v=PRINT
Ok, I read the article. Where does it mention that Republicans want women to get cervical cancer? Did I miss this? How do we know that Democrats and Republicans aren't all in this group? Why only Republicans? Am I missing something?
Notice the non-answer, Professor?
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One can get consent from an animal , and marrage without consent is an anchient practice.
I don't want to advocate either of these as a practical matter , I am just quibbleing to narrow the definition.
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Professor, you should read this and see if it sounds like these people want their children to be protected from this type of cancer, come hell or high water, or if they're more worried about them being sexually active. http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF07B01&v=PRINT
Ok, I read the article. Where does it mention that Republicans want women to get cervical cancer? Did I miss this? How do we know that Democrats and Republicans aren't all in this group? Why only Republicans? Am I missing something?
Notice the non-answer, Professor?
I am sure Lanya perhaps read too much into the article or posted the wrong article since I do not see the word "Republican" anywhere in it. Perhaps I missed it?
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Professor, you should read this and see if it sounds like these people want their children to be protected from this type of cancer, come hell or high water, or if they're more worried about them being sexually active. http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF07B01&v=PRINT
Ok, I read the article. Where does it mention that Republicans want women to get cervical cancer? Did I miss this? How do we know that Democrats and Republicans aren't all in this group? Why only Republicans? Am I missing something?
Notice the non-answer, Professor?
I am sure Lanya perhaps read too much into the article or posted the wrong article since I do not see the word "Republican" anywhere in it. Perhaps I missed it?
To catch you up on our controversy.
Months ago Lanya brought to our attention an article about certain persons attitude twards a certain vaccine , this was news to most of us , but the thread heading was to the effect that Republicans want women to die of cancer.
Coming from so far out of left field this has become a catch phrase in our community which represents an overblown accusation , that is to say "Republicans want women to die of cancer" has been repeated by our conservative members to allude to this particular incident whenever another accusation seems exaggerated .
In fact there has never been found a Republican committee in charge of increasing Womens cancer rates , nor even a few persons who want this vaccine to be made unavailable to anyone , at most there are some people who do object to the vaccine becoming mandatory for everyone.
During the course of this thread I have learned that the vaccine in question has great effectiveness against some HPV but that there are some less common HPV strains that the vaccine is ineffective against.
This may mean that persons would consider themselves protected after the vaccination , but would not be protected from the alternate strain at all , this could lead to the uncommon strains becoming common and spreading widely through the population. This disease has a long latent period , and transmission could occur before any symptoms did. The lifesaving potential of the vaccine would be wasted if the persons protected by it were not aware that there were still dangerous viruses ready to attack them.
This leads me to the notion that the total effect of this vaccine could be a greater number of cancer cases , if it is carelessly applied , and thus the accusation that all Democrats want women to die of cancer.
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hmmmmm...........well summized, as ususal, Plane
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hmmmmm...........well summized, as ususal, Plane
Thank you ,
I was shooting for symetry , many things become interesting when turned over.
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Professor, you should read this and see if it sounds like these people want their children to be protected from this type of cancer, come hell or high water, or if they're more worried about them being sexually active. http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF07B01&v=PRINT
Ok, I read the article. Where does it mention that Republicans want women to get cervical cancer? Did I miss this? How do we know that Democrats and Republicans aren't all in this group? Why only Republicans? Am I missing something?
Notice the non-answer, Professor?
I am sure Lanya perhaps read too much into the article or posted the wrong article since I do not see the word "Republican" anywhere in it. Perhaps I missed it?
To catch you up on our controversy.
Months ago Lanya brought to our attention an article about certain persons attitude twards a certain vaccine , this was news to most of us , but the thread heading was to the effect that Republicans want women to die of cancer.
Coming from so far out of left field this has become a catch phrase in our community which represents an overblown accusation , that is to say "Republicans want women to die of cancer" has been repeated by our conservative members to allude to this particular incident whenever another accusation seems exaggerated .
In fact there has never been found a Republican committee in charge of increasing Womens cancer rates , nor even a few persons who want this vaccine to be made unavailable to anyone , at most there are some people who do object to the vaccine becoming mandatory for everyone.
During the course of this thread I have learned that the vaccine in question has great effectiveness against some HPV but that there are some less common HPV strains that the vaccine is ineffective against.
This may mean that persons would consider themselves protected after the vaccination , but would not be protected from the alternate strain at all , this could lead to the uncommon strains becoming common and spreading widely through the population. This disease has a long latent period , and transmission could occur before any symptoms did. The lifesaving potential of the vaccine would be wasted if the persons protected by it were not aware that there were still dangerous viruses ready to attack them.
This leads me to the notion that the total effect of this vaccine could be a greater number of cancer cases , if it is carelessly applied , and thus the accusation that all Democrats want women to die of cancer.
However, when I hear of this vaccine being discussed on commercials on TV, they actually indicate that it only protects against most not all of these viruses, so I fail to see the "biggie" about this. In fact, I have recommended our two girls, aged 14 and 21, become innoculated via this vaccine. Sounds entirely reasonable and prudent.
So, if I understood you, Lanya then NEVER said that Republicans want women to die of cancer?
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So, if I understood you, Lanya then NEVER said that Republicans want women to die of cancer?
Well, the thread title was "Why do Republicans want women to die of cancer?"
But other than that, and the repeated claims that Republicans want women to die of cancer within the thread, no she didn't say it.
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Oh, okay, I didn't think she was brain cell challenged enough to believe that. Thank you!
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I don't want to advocate either of these as a practical matter , I am just quibbleing to narrow the definition.
I understand Plane, thanks for the debate, it was fun.
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I don't want to advocate either of these as a practical matter , I am just quibbleing to narrow the definition.
I understand Plane, thanks for the debate, it was fun.
Ok , we can return to it sometime .
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In fact, I have recommended our two girls, aged 14 and 21, become innoculated via this vaccine. Sounds entirely reasonable and prudent.
I concur .
Tho it may not be bullet proof , it is probly worth doing .
The theroy of the accusation is that fundamentalists want their daughters to be chaste so badly that they want sex to be dangerous .
As a fundamentalist myself ths seems silly ,as an accusation ,the vaccine is protection from a pathogen ,a very bad pathogen, people can pick up ths pathogen through no fault of their own , so all protection is welcome.
And removeing this one pathogen from the plethera of dangers facing young people makes them safer , not safe , foolish behaviors can overcome a precaution like this , prudence needs to be a general principal.
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>>If the child of a marriage has (I don't know the chances here, I'm just going to state a number) an 80% chance of producing a non-viable offspring, then that marriage probably shouldn't happen,?<<<
Homosexuals can have no offspring at all and you?re not disqualifying them.
>> ? because this (to me) is a form of child abuse (which isn't to say that it won't or can't happen, I'm sure it has and does).<<
To you perhaps, but not to the couple involved. What if the couple were cousins and both of them were male? Would that be alright, since you?re concern about child abuse would be limited to a zero chance?
>>This is kind of a grey area in my feelings on civil rights (yes I have grey areas). I would imagine the numbers requesting an incestuous marriage vs. those requesting a gay marriage would be a fraction of a percent.<<
I?m sorry, but what do numbers have to do with a couple in love?
>>Further, with the societal taboos against incest (which to be sure, there are still some against homosexuality, but not nearly as drastic as with incest), I would think that two people requesting such a thing should see a good psychiatrist, and not Dr. Phil. He didn't do Britney any good.<<
It wasn?t to long ago that homosexuality was viewed as mental disorder, and still is in some circles.
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I understood this from the beginning, Fatman. We disagree. I doubt the world will stop revolving because we disagree. No problem...
True enough Prof. I do like the ability to disagree cordially though.
In support of Marrage the Government has given certain priveledges to the married.
Why? What does the Constitution say about marriage, gay, straight, or polygamous?
There is a long list of these priveledges , but Marrage predates our government , might predate government itself , and doesn't need the government's help to exist.
But it needs the governments help to protect it from homosexuals? (Constitutional Amendments)
As long as the government doesn't do things harmfull to marrage , it is all good.
What possible harm can government do to marriage? It's been around forever (above) so I don't buy into the idea that because some homosexuals marry each other that it's suddenly under assault and about to fall into this morass of depravity.
Lets allow anyone to designate a power of atturny to a single other person of his choice , and to this coupleing let the tax advantage, the right to speak for , the right to visit in hospital and all other appropriate rights attached to marrage ,give.
Why not? What business of yours is it? Because Soon every gangster in the county will have "married " hs bookeeper? That's a straw man argument and we both know it. How many husbands and wives marry each other to further their criminal enterprises? Relatively few I would imagine, I don't see how it would be different with gay marriage.
Oh well , unintended consequences are oten more important than the intended ones.
So the best policy is to always do nothing because it may have unintended consequences more important than the original? That's hogwash plane and we both know that too.
"Plane: Try not to mix My responses with the Professors , we have slightly diffrent points of view and I hate to loose the nuance."
Gee, no one loves me, it seems. :-)
Different points of view? Doesn't sound like it, Plane. At least on many issues discussed here. Weird, actually. Hmmm, upon reivew, you are a bit more pro-Bush than I. On social and theological issues we do not differ. Must be why we attracted the same woman.
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Homosexuals can have no offspring at all and you?re not disqualifying them.
Why would I? They're not going to have a retarded child. The idea of marriage for procreation in today's society is laughable.
To you perhaps, but not to the couple involved. What if the couple were cousins and both of them were male? Would that be alright, since you?re concern about child abuse would be limited to a zero chance?
No, it would not be alright, because of the incest taboo. Incest is only ok if you're a member of a royal family it seems.
I?m sorry, but what do numbers have to do with a couple in love?
When a movement has numbers and support, then it becomes recognized and becomes an issue for discussion. Non numerical issues (incest marriages) are not clamoring to be recognized by the incest community. I've been told that the incest community is a pretty close one. (that's a joke rich).
It wasn?t to long ago that homosexuality was viewed as mental disorder, and still is in some circles.
There is a lot that has changed in sexual psychology in the last 40 years. The treatments for pedophiles and fetishists for example. Thatsaid, it wasn't too long ago that being black, Jewish, insert your minority, were considered to be inferior, and still are in some circles.
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>>Why would I? They're not going to have a retarded child. The idea of marriage for procreation in today's society is laughable.<<
I suppose you would because earlier you said:
>>>If the child of a marriage has (I don't know the chances here, I'm just going to state a number) an 80% chance of producing a non-viable offspring, then that marriage probably shouldn't happen,?<<<
You put forth the assertion that marriage is for procreation when you said a marriage between siblings would produce (you said 80% chance) of a ?non-viable? offspring. If marriage isn?t for procreation why would you use procreation as a reason against allowing siblings to marry?
>>No, it would not be alright, because of the incest taboo. Incest is only ok if you're a member of a royal family it seems.<<
Homosexuality is also taboo in the majority of the world. When given the chance to vote on allowing homosexuals to marry, it is soundly defeated. Why? Because it?s taboo. That doesn?t stop homosexuals from demanding it. Why can?t sibling demand it too?
>>When a movement has numbers and support, then it becomes recognized and becomes an issue for discussion. Non numerical issues (incest marriages) are not clamoring to be recognized by the incest community. I've been told that the incest community is a pretty close one. (that's a joke rich).<<
Again, it doesn?t have support, as is evidence by popular vote. Regardless of numbers, if two people have a loving and committed relationship, why can?t they marry? What business is it of yours?
>>There is a lot that has changed in sexual psychology in the last 40 years. The treatments for pedophiles and fetishists for example. That said, it wasn't too long ago that being black, Jewish, insert your minority, were considered to be inferior, and still are in some circles.<<
One thing is for certain, Americans are much more tolerant about homosexuals in general than they were 40 years ago, but disagreeing on the subject of same sex marriage doesn?t translate into inferiority and I believe it is disingenuous to say so.
So in your opinion siblings shouldn?t marry because they are inferior? I can only assume it to be true since you are denying them something you think you consider a ?right.?
... and Johnny Cash rocks ...
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I suppose you would because earlier you said:
>>>If the child of a marriage has (I don't know the chances here, I'm just going to state a number) an 80% chance of producing a non-viable offspring, then that marriage probably shouldn't happen,?<<<
You put forth the assertion that marriage is for procreation when you said a marriage between siblings would produce (you said 80% chance) of a ?non-viable? offspring. If marriage isn?t for procreation why would you use procreation as a reason against allowing siblings to marry?
Alright, I probably need to make this clearer. The argument against allowing siblings wasn't based on whether or not they would procreate, or whether procreation should be a factor in any marriage, but with the fact that if they did procreate there is a drastic likelihood of non viablility of the child. If marriage is for procreation purposes only then perhaps we shouldn't allow marriages of people over age 45, and disband marriages when the children are raised. Hopefully I've cleared that.
Homosexuality is also taboo in the majority of the world.
Mostly only in Western Civilization, where culture has been influenced by Abrahamic faiths.
When given the chance to vote on allowing homosexuals to marry, it is soundly defeated.
Same sex marriage/civil unions/marriage benefits are legal in these countries:
The Netherlands, 2001.
Belgium, 2003.
Canada, 2005.
Spain, 2005.
Denmark, 1989.
Norway, 1996.
Sweden, 1996.
Iceland, 1996.
France, 1999
Germany, 2001.
Finland, 2002.
Luxembourg, 2004.
New Zealand, 2004.
Britain, 2005.
And these states:
Vermont, USA, 2000
Massachusetts, USA, 2004.
Connecticut, USA, 2005.
New Jersey, USA, 2006.
New Hampshire, USA, 2008.
Oregon, USA, 2008.
Maine, USA.
California, USA.
Washington, USA.
Hawaii, USA.
Admittedly, the rights and responsibilities of these unions vary from nation to nation and state to state, but I don't buy into the rationale that it's defeated everywhere it's come up for a vote.
Because it?s taboo. That doesn?t stop homosexuals from demanding it. Why can?t sibling demand it too?
What country or state allows incest marriage? (I'm going to refrain from humor here, no point in offending someone by accident). Obviously in those countries and states where same sex unions are allowed, the taboo of homosexuality is greatly diminished. The same can't be said for incest.
Again, it doesn?t have support, as is evidence by popular vote.
Popular vote isn't everything in our system of government. There is a reason why we elect representatives and appoint judges instead of voting on every issue. The legislative, judicial, and executive branches all have mechanisms to protect people from negative aspects of a popular vote.
Regardless of numbers, if two people have a loving and committed relationship, why can?t they marry?
Outside of an incestuous marriage, which I've tried to address, I think that's the topic of this debate.
What business is it of yours?
None, except (in the case of an incest marriage with nonviable offspring [I've got think of a new phrase, I hate that one]) for when my tax dollars go to subsidize the relatively expensive and continuing health care of that child, and the relatively expensive special needs education of that child.
One thing is for certain, Americans are much more tolerant about homosexuals in general than they were 40 years ago,
Very true, a lot of progress has been made.
but disagreeing on the subject of same sex marriage doesn?t translate into inferiority and I believe it is disingenuous to say so.
It might to you, as I am unaware of your personal views on the morality of homosexuality. That said, it is clear that to at least some people, homosexuality is a morally inferior activity, by which inferences could be drawn that homosexuals are inferior persons. I don't think it's disingenous, I said in here before that I realize there are a myriad of reasons that people oppose gay marriage, some for religious reasons, some simply because they don't like homosexuals. I've always made it a point not to call someone homophobic unless I see direct evidence that they are.
So in your opinion siblings shouldn?t marry because they are inferior?
Inferior as a comparison to what?
I can only assume it to be true since you are denying them something you think you consider a ?right.?
You know what they say about the word assume. What makes straight marriage a "right"?
... and Johnny Cash rocks ...
And there is something that you and I can unequivocally agree upon Rich.
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I understood this from the beginning, Fatman. We disagree. I doubt the world will stop revolving because we disagree. No problem...
True enough Prof. I do like the ability to disagree cordially though.
In support of Marrage the Government has given certain priveledges to the married.
Why? What does the Constitution say about marriage, gay, straight, or polygamous?
There is a long list of these priveledges , but Marrage predates our government , might predate government itself , and doesn't need the government's help to exist.
But it needs the governments help to protect it from homosexuals? (Constitutional Amendments)
As long as the government doesn't do things harmfull to marrage , it is all good.
What possible harm can government do to marriage? It's been around forever (above) so I don't buy into the idea that because some homosexuals marry each other that it's suddenly under assault and about to fall into this morass of depravity.
Lets allow anyone to designate a power of atturny to a single other person of his choice , and to this coupleing let the tax advantage, the right to speak for , the right to visit in hospital and all other appropriate rights attached to marrage ,give.
Why not? What business of yours is it? Because Soon every gangster in the county will have "married " hs bookeeper? That's a straw man argument and we both know it. How many husbands and wives marry each other to further their criminal enterprises? Relatively few I would imagine, I don't see how it would be different with gay marriage.
Oh well , unintended consequences are oten more important than the intended ones.
So the best policy is to always do nothing because it may have unintended consequences more important than the original? That's hogwash plane and we both know that too.
"Plane: Try not to mix My responses with the Professors , we have slightly diffrent points of view and I hate to loose the nuance."
Gee, no one loves me, it seems. :-)
Different points of view? Doesn't sound like it, Plane. At least on many issues discussed here. Weird, actually. Hmmm, upon reivew, you are a bit more pro-Bush than I. On social and theological issues we do not differ. Must be why we attracted the same woman.
You are ?
Don't get too interested in N.
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;D ;D ;D
Only L.
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>>Alright, I probably need to make this clearer. The argument against allowing siblings wasn't based on whether or not they would procreate, or whether procreation should be a factor in any marriage, but with the fact that if they did procreate there is a drastic likelihood of non viablility of the child.<<
Since in your opinion, procreation has nothing to do with marriage, you shouldn?t have mentioned it. However, we do know that procreation is one of the products of a marriage between a man and a woman. Every civilization is based on the family unite. In this way our species survives and prospers. Of course we could just mate indiscriminately, but without the family unite, bonded by marriage, survival rates would be greatly diminished. Human beings survived because of marriage between men and women. Without it, I doubt we could have evovled into what we are today.
>>If marriage is for procreation purposes only then perhaps we shouldn't allow marriages of people over age 45, and disband marriages when the children are raised. Hopefully I've cleared that.<<
You did, but the idea of not allowing people over 45 to marry, or dissolving marriages after children are raised is kind of silly, don?t you think? Men can father children virtually until death, so you?d really be talking about women.
>>Mostly only in Western Civilization, where culture has been influenced by Abrahamic faiths.<<
It?s dangerous to be a homosexual in the Middle East, and while homosexuality is becoming more excepted in Western civilization, I?d have to say that it?s still taboo in most of the world. Here?s a link to Countries that have laws against homosexuality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world#Africa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world#Africa)
You?ll find that while there are many, many countries that don?t have laws punishing homosexual activity, there are probably more that do. And most that don?t have laws against it per say, don?t have any laws to protect it either, let alone laws that allow homosexuals to marry.
>>Same sex marriage/civil unions/marriage benefits are legal in these countries: Admittedly, the rights and responsibilities of these unions vary from nation to nation and state to state, but I don't buy into the rationale that it's defeated everywhere it's come up for a vote.<<
A very small number, and all of them are Western counties. By the way, I have no problem with a civil union, I?m against (at least) the Catholic Church condoning homosexual marriage.
>>What country or state allows incest marriage? (I'm going to refrain from humor here, no point in offending someone by accident).<<
What difference does that make? Homosexuals weren?t allowed to get married and it?s been changed, at least a little. If it needs to be changed to allow same sex marriage because they have the same ?right? as heterosexuals, couldn?t or shouldn?t it be changed to allow siblings to marry?
>>Obviously in those countries and states where same sex unions are allowed, the taboo of homosexuality is greatly diminished. The same can't be said for incest.<<
Greatly diminished? I really don?t think so. In the real world homosexuals are still the butt of jokes from children and adults. You know this. I don?t think much has changed regarding how average people view homosexuals. The activity of a small, loud group of activists is drowning out decent. One big factor in what appears to be increased acceptance is the media. Hollywood approval doesn?t necessarily translate into acceptance in fly-over country.
>>Popular vote isn't everything in our system of government. There is a reason why we elect representatives and appoint judges instead of voting on every issue. The legislative, judicial, and executive branches all have mechanisms to protect people from negative aspects of a popular vote.<<
True, but once again, when laws pertaining to homosexual marriage are put to a vote, it almost always loses. It?s true, the federal government can force something upon the people, but it doesn?t mean they like it, nor that they wouldn?t attempt to change it.
>>Outside of an incestuous marriage, which I've tried to address, I think that's the topic of this debate.<<
I thought the topic of this particular debate was why homosexuals who have a loving committed relationship can marry and loving committed siblings cannot?
>>None, except (in the case of an incest marriage with nonviable offspring [I've got think of a new phrase, I hate that one]) for when my tax dollars go to subsidize the relatively expensive and continuing health care of that child, and the relatively expensive special needs education of that child.<<
You?re speculating. You don?t know the result of siblings having children anymore than I do. Besides, you claimed marriage has nothing to do with marriage and should be left out of this discussion.
>>That said, it is clear that to at least some people, homosexuality is a morally inferior activity, by which inferences could be drawn that homosexuals are inferior persons. ? I've always made it a point not to call someone homophobic unless I see direct evidence that they are.<<
Okay, when you put ?morally? in front of homosexuality I can agree that people do look upon it that way, not simply inferior.
If you?re going to open up marriage to people of the same sex because they love each other and want to enjoy the benefits (tell me what those are sometime because after 21 years you begin to wonder ?. ;)) why shouldn?t siblings, or polygamists enjoy the same right? I don?t think you?ve made your case for discriminating against these groups.
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I suppose you would because earlier you said:
>>>If the child of a marriage has (I don't know the chances here, I'm just going to state a number) an 80% chance of producing a non-viable offspring, then that marriage probably shouldn't happen,?<<<
You put forth the assertion that marriage is for procreation when you said a marriage between siblings would produce (you said 80% chance) of a ?non-viable? offspring. If marriage isn?t for procreation why would you use procreation as a reason against allowing siblings to marry?
Alright, I probably need to make this clearer. The argument against allowing siblings wasn't based on whether or not they would procreate, or whether procreation should be a factor in any marriage, but with the fact that if they did procreate there is a drastic likelihood of non viablility of the child. If marriage is for procreation purposes only then perhaps we shouldn't allow marriages of people over age 45, and disband marriages when the children are raised. Hopefully I've cleared that.
Homosexuality is also taboo in the majority of the world.
Mostly only in Western Civilization, where culture has been influenced by Abrahamic faiths.
When given the chance to vote on allowing homosexuals to marry, it is soundly defeated.
Same sex marriage/civil unions/marriage benefits are legal in these countries:
The Netherlands, 2001.
Belgium, 2003.
Canada, 2005.
Spain, 2005.
Denmark, 1989.
Norway, 1996.
Sweden, 1996.
Iceland, 1996.
France, 1999
Germany, 2001.
Finland, 2002.
Luxembourg, 2004.
New Zealand, 2004.
Britain, 2005.
And these states:
Vermont, USA, 2000
Massachusetts, USA, 2004.
Connecticut, USA, 2005.
New Jersey, USA, 2006.
New Hampshire, USA, 2008.
Oregon, USA, 2008.
Maine, USA.
California, USA.
Washington, USA.
Hawaii, USA.
.
Are these all recent?