Author Topic: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.  (Read 27616 times)

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Plane

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #30 on: November 18, 2008, 11:34:35 PM »
There are no stones in the Chaco Boreal of Paraguay. There executions were generally done with really long thorns. Also, some of the Indians preferred to tie their enemies down over anthills.



That is interesting, what were the capitol crimes of that culture?

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #31 on: November 18, 2008, 11:39:59 PM »
That is interesting, what were the capitol crimes of that culture?

Trying to convert them to Christianity seems to have been rather high on the list. Occupying Indian lands, hunting in their lands, raping their women, kidnapping their young to enslave them were all rather major no-nos.

They were not a terribly advanced culture. They were famous for burying their chiefs in huge ceramic pots.
They had no stones, so they sharpened sticks for arrows and spears and hardened them in the fire.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #32 on: November 18, 2008, 11:51:47 PM »
That is interesting, what were the capitol crimes of that culture?

Trying to convert them to Christianity seems to have been rather high on the list. Occupying Indian lands, hunting in their lands, raping their women, kidnapping their young to enslave them were all rather major no-nos.

They were not a terribly advanced culture. They were famous for burying their chiefs in huge ceramic pots.
They had no stones, so they sharpened sticks for arrows and spears and hardened them in the fire.



Where I live is red clay , stones of good quality were a trade item for the anchient people. Stone arrowheads were imports , it can be speculated that many arrowheads were made of hard wood or bone , but few of these are found.

sirs

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #33 on: November 19, 2008, 01:14:50 AM »
You, yourself and ..?  Couldn't have been some typing mistake, you being all perfect in that regards

No, the y of the word YOUR was truncated.

*gasp*...you mean you made an error in posting, by missing the y when you copied to paste??  Say it ain't so, oh great perfect grammar/spelling nazi
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #34 on: November 19, 2008, 01:27:05 AM »

Homosexuals have EXACTLY the same rights I do. Any man can marry any woman who is willing. Just as I can.


That is a semantic argument. I can counter it with a semantic argument of equal or higher value. Heterosexuals are allowed marry one another; homosexuals are not allowed to marry one another. And while I might technically agree that homosexuals have the same right, they do not have the same liberty under the law, which is to say the law discriminates against them. So in the sense that you are using the word "rights", no, homosexuals do not have the same rights as you. In the sense that I am using the word "right", their right is infringed by the lack of liberty. They ought to have the liberty to exercise their right. A desire to protect a definition of a word is not, imo, even close to sufficient grounds for legally preventing homosexuals from marriage. It seems, in point of fact, rather petty.
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sirs

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #35 on: November 19, 2008, 02:24:35 AM »
Homosexuals have EXACTLY the same rights I do. Any man can marry any woman who is willing. Just as I can.

That is a semantic argument. I can counter it with a semantic argument of equal or higher value. Heterosexuals are allowed marry one another; homosexuals are not allowed to marry one another.

That would again be because marriage is between a man & a woman.  But I appreciate you validating my point, that this argeuemnt has little to do with rights, as domestic partnerships & civil unions can produce precisely the same rights as a married heterosexual couple.  This instead is where a pattern of livelyhood is being portrayed as perfectly normal, and dammit it's to be accepted by all.  Usurping the normalized term marriage, and allowing it to be placed on that which many do not see as normal, or acceptable, minus any effort at compromise, does appear to be the sole purpose, at this point.  Would you not agree, Prince?

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Christians4LessGvt

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #36 on: November 19, 2008, 02:39:12 AM »


The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage

Adam Kolasinski

The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one?s spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.

I do not claim that all of these other types of couples restricted from marrying are equivalent to homosexual couples. I only bring them up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason. When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse?s social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse?s health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy. Why? Because a marriage between two unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.

Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate. One might argue that the exclusion of blood relatives from marriage is only necessary to prevent the conception of genetically defective children, but blood relatives cannot marry even if they undergo sterilization. Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reading technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children.

Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.

One may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages, but a lesbian?s sexual relationship, committed or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce. Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe?s Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Unfortunately, small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. However, the empirically verified common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child?s development should give advocates of gay adoption pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomy, so it is essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Is it wise to have a social policy that encourages family arrangements that deny children such essentials? Gays are not necessarily bad parents, nor will they necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female.

Some have compared the prohibition of homosexual marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage. This analogy fails because fertility does not depend on race, making race irrelevant to the state?s interest in marriage. By contrast, homosexuality is highly relevant because it precludes procreation.

Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships today. Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to the state and society.

Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation. In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years. Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation.

The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.

Adam Kolasinski is a doctoral student in financial economics.

http://tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" - Ronald Reagan - June 12, 1987

Plane

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #37 on: November 19, 2008, 05:27:32 AM »
So I can't marry my first cousin?

He is going to be so disapointed.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #38 on: November 19, 2008, 11:34:13 AM »
Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.


=================================
So now the individual exists for the benefit of the state? The state should also prohibit all couples who cannot reproduce from marrying. Indeed, a coupe's marriage should not be finalized and rewarded with tax breaks until a hild has been produced by this logic.

But I suggest that the individual does NOT exist for the benefit of the state. It is the state that exists for the benefit of the individuals.

This argument, is therefore, bogus, and not only bogus, but founded on a dangerous and majorly bogus assumption: that the individual exists for the state, and that the state should benefit by the growth of the society it rules by creating even more citizens, which in turn would require more, and therefore a BIGGER government.

Thereby violating your desire "4 less government".





« Last Edit: November 19, 2008, 11:37:55 AM by Xavier_Onassis »
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sirs

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #39 on: November 19, 2008, 11:44:25 AM »
Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.
=================================
So now the individual exists for the benefit of the state?

IIRC, they do, if its a state of Socialism or Communism

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Christians4LessGvt

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #40 on: November 19, 2008, 12:30:59 PM »
"Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights"

agreed so stop murdering the babies!




"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" - Ronald Reagan - June 12, 1987

richpo64

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #41 on: November 19, 2008, 01:44:05 PM »
>>So I can't marry my first cousin?<<

And who are we to say you can't? Or perhaps you'd like to marry your sister? If you love each other, and are committed to each other? Maybe you'd like to marry your mother? What right does anyone have to take away your right to marry?

Universe Prince

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #42 on: November 19, 2008, 01:49:12 PM »

But I appreciate you validating my point, that this argeuemnt has little to do with rights, as domestic partnerships & civil unions can produce precisely the same rights as a married heterosexual couple.


I don't recall having said or implied that, so I'm not sure how I validated your point.


This instead is where a pattern of livelyhood is being portrayed as perfectly normal, and dammit it's to be accepted by all.  Usurping the normalized term marriage, and allowing it to be placed on that which many do not see as normal, or acceptable, minus any effort at compromise, does appear to be the sole purpose, at this point.  Would you not agree, Prince?


What appears to me to be the point is the preservation of a word as if somehow this one word has some sacred meaning handed down by a divine being. The whole "they can do everything just like a marriage but they just cannot call it a marriage" seems like a ridiculous position to me. If we agree they can have a legal agreement with the same privileges as a marriage and that functions, supposedly, exactly as a marriage, then why not simply call it a marriage? I don't see the point in trying to preserve the word "marriage".

You say "minus any effort at compromise" as if there is some compromise between having a liberty and not having a liberty. What is there to compromise? Heterosexuals are allowed marry one another; homosexuals are not allowed to marry one another. What is your compromise? We can't call it a marriage because it's not normal? What the frak does normal have to do with it?
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
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richpo64

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #43 on: November 19, 2008, 01:58:30 PM »
>>What appears to me to be the point is the preservation of a word as if somehow this one word has some sacred meaning handed down by a divine being.<<

To most people that's exactly the point. I believe, and I think most people do also, that marriage is a sacrament given to us by God. It's not a big stretch to think that governments will eventually force churches to approve such marriages and punish those who don't by removing their tax exempt status or worse. The governments in the banking business and could soon be in the automobile business, would the marriage business be a big stretch?

Let them create a contract. Hire a lawyer. Personally I don't believe this, "I can't visit him on his deathbed" bullshit anyway.

sirs

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Re: Unpopular decisions are the price of constitutional rights.
« Reply #44 on: November 19, 2008, 02:08:14 PM »
But I appreciate you validating my point, that this argeuemnt has little to do with rights, as domestic partnerships & civil unions can produce precisely the same rights as a married heterosexual couple.

I don't recall having said or implied that, so I'm not sure how I validated your point.

Because an earlier point I made, which you may or my not have read, was that rights are largely a red herring, in this discussion.  You yourself have acknowledged that there are equal rights, and that your criticism is aimed at so-called equal liberty.  But you echoed my point with your concession, "while I might technically agree that homosexuals have the same right, they do not have the same liberty"


This instead is where a pattern of livelyhood is being portrayed as perfectly normal, and dammit it's to be accepted by all.  Usurping the normalized term marriage, and allowing it to be placed on that which many do not see as normal, or acceptable, minus any effort at compromise, does appear to be the sole purpose, at this point.  Would you not agree, Prince?

What appears to me to be the point is the preservation of a word as if somehow this one word has some sacred meaning handed down by a divine being. The whole "they can do everything just like a marriage but they just cannot call it a marriage" seems like a ridiculous position to me.

Ridiculous to you perhaps.  Not to the millions who would consider the word far more important than you apparently see it.  Which begs the question then, if the word marriage isn't a big issue to folks like yourself, why the inability to compromise by referring to it as a domestic partnership for same sex couples??


If we agree they can have a legal agreement with the same privileges as a marriage and that functions, supposedly, exactly as a marriage, then why not simply call it a marriage? I don't see the point in trying to preserve the word "marriage".

Because marriage is between a man and a woman.  That's why


You say "minus any effort at compromise" as if there is some compromise between having a liberty and not having a liberty. What is there to compromise?

A position of not supporting any civil union, what-so-ever, making such relationships analgous to adultery, and largely demonizing the term homosexuality & homosexuals, as it once was, on a 24/7 basis.  The compromise is to accept said relationships, to accept equal rights under a civil union, to accept the increasing prevelence of said relationships as the norm in society.  Where's the compromise from the other side?  I'm not seeing it

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle