Religious Discussion

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Nemo
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Nemo »

Some old dead dude once said, "You're wrong, but I'll defend to the death your right to be wrong." Yes, I just bastardized the quote, cope. The point stands, that freedom exists in being wrong, right?
Would you agree that it is good and correct for a business to refuse service to someone who is gay?
Would you agree that it is good and correct for a business to refuse service to someone who is black?
Would you agree that it is good and correct for a business to refuse service to someone who is muslim?
Would you agree that it is good and correct for a business to refuse service to someone who is french?

Those last three are flat out illegal.
Would you agree that a person declining to do business with someone, for whatever reason or objection they may have, warrants sticking a gun to their head? Is the use of force against others justified simply because you hold their belief to be morally wrong? Are we free if we are only free to behave as you permit? In what way can such be described as "tolerance"? How is this any different from the accusations tossed at that reprehensible religious right? Is it justified because your morality is correct, and theirs not?


I will say this, the government certainly must be restrained from making such distinctions. Equality before the law, justice being blind and all that. However, using the government's monopoly on the use of force to coerce people of different beliefs into putting your own beliefs into practice is a step too far. And that includes forcibly taking marriage out of the church and into the court, btw.

Absalom wrote:From a low-level perspective he is actually perfectly right.
From a base level, perhaps. Human sexuality is a bit more developed in that humans have divorced sex from reproduction and partake for the sake of indulgence as well. What they are concerned with is the long term implications such a clinical view of sexuality implies. Consider for a moment a situation where the Department of Social Services rolls up and takes your child away from you because you neglected their medical care. It is increasingly common, even in cases where the answer is not cut and dry and even the doctors themselves do not agree on the proper treatment path. Consider also the rash of new laws mandating vaccines for children even if the parents object. What would happen for a situation where a medical treatment is available for someone who is, by their own admission, incapable of choice in the matter? Grayholme finds it horrifying? Frankly I'm glad to see he agrees with me. Think you guys might have missed a little something, though I was working on the language of that part and looks like I never completed that sentence, but remember when I said it was thought through poorly? You're beginning to see what I see.

If it were a choice it would fall under Voltaire's shield. You could choose it and be free to be wrong. If it is a purely biological function where does that function end and the choice begin? If you refuse treatment, have you made a choice? If you attack research into related fields in fear that it may affect your own sexuality, is that a choice? If it is something that happens outside your control, something which abrogates free will in its entirety, how do you expect society to respond when science catches up?

And then Razor throws a wrench in that whole idea. I have to thank him for bringing it up before I could.
There are cases of twins where one is homosexual and the other not. You can't really argue that genetics are a factor there, and since a lot of those cases have the twins growing up in identical environments and frequently together, sociological factors become difficult to underpin as well.
In any other case, looking at this objectively, if you had genetic twins in the same environment and they arrive at different outcomes would you pin the difference on biology or psychology?

In truth its likely to be found to be some complex mixture of both. Genetic predisposition or environmental factors during development which then are compounded through life experience to shape ones world view and choice. But this too, is soundly rejected. Why the insistence that it be biology and nothing else? In a word, insecurity. If you introduce choice it introduces the possibility of choosing wrong. And the LGBT community can not accept, permit, or dare I suggest tolerate, those who think such.

Which brings us full circle back to that cake. You are not permitted to hold contrary beliefs. Or, at the very least, not permitted to act based on your contrary beliefs.

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Razor One
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Razor One »

Absalom wrote:
If the Hobby Lobby case is carried forward, then depending on the respective groundings of the decisions (I don't even remember if I heard why the court ruled the way it did), eventually all of those refusals may actually be legal... with caveats. The Hobby Lobby health-care case established that certain corporations can be legitimately ascribed specific moralities, but also established that forcing action against those morals is indeed against the law. The later of which is certainly reasonable when applied to groups that genuinely have some form of morality, since otherwise a Neo-Nazi could legitimately sue the Anti-Defamation League for not being hired if the successful applicant was verifiably the vastly inferior candidate. No, seriously, if you take that last, uncomfortable step back then you do find that if a group's morality is not allowed to play a role in business decisions, then the Neo-Nazi is the correct hire, because the organization's hiring procedures are capable of calculating that in the absence of the moral-horror of that particular hiring decision the Neo-Nazi is the superior choice, and any decision to the contrary is a violation of legal non-discrimination rules.
The Hobby Lobby case as I understand it was specifically for closely held, for profit corporations. The anti defamation league is a non-profit, NGO, and thus wouldn't actually be held to the precedent set by the the Hobby Lobby case, but would still fall under the Civil Rights act, which outlaws discriminatory practices based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Political groups are not covered by the civil rights act, so a neo-nazi trying to apply for the ADL and getting knocked back does not count as a violation of non-discrimination laws.

And if morality is a valid factor in business choices for groups (whether corporations, labor unions, social lodges, etc.), as the Supreme Court has itself de-facto ruled to be the case, then it is virtually impossible to not apply that rule to individuals. Which is where a bit of irony comes in, because while you can usually tell if someone is black from looking at them, you can't reliably determine that with homosexuality: I expect that either the laws will be changed, or we will discover what the Supreme Court thinks about requiring business decisions to all be enforceable :lol: (if they say "yes, it must be enforceable", then all business rules against serving gays and Muslims will instantly be invalid, rendering the whole point of those laws moot: because that plaid-wearning grizzled slightly smelly white male trucker that you serve at the lunch counter might say if asked that he is both gay and Islamic, yet you were fine with feeding him for years).

This is one of the reasons why the BSA allowing gays is actually major within their ranks: it makes the BSA itself (not necessarily the individual troops) subject to discrimination rules in a way that they previously were not (it's a less extreme equivalent to the Vatican deciding that homosexuals can serve as clergy).
I'm not sure I entirely follow your reasoning here, but you seem to be conflating the decision the supreme court made with wider implications that have yet to even emerge in a court of law. In the case of Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, the decision rendered allowed for closely held corporations to refuse contraceptive health insurance for some of its employees based on their closely held religious beliefs. If such is to apply to anything beyond closely held corporations, it needs to be argued and won in a court of law before it can even begin to apply.

The entire debacle really arises out of the backwards nature of the US healthcare system and the way the ACA was written to try and fix the problem. A more progressive, single payer, universal healthcare system would have obviated the case entirely by giving everyone effectively low cost health insurance with none of the drawbacks of forcing corporations to provide services to their employees they are otherwise disinclined to provide, which is more or less the norm.
Razor One wrote:That first statement is still a rather emergent phenomenon legally, and so varies state by state. The flipside of freedom is responsibility. Freedom is also a two way street. One of the cornerstones of freedom, democracy, and the sheer success that the US is built on is the fact that anyone can do business with anyone within certain legal restrictions. You can't be refused service just because you're black. Or french. Or muslim. Buy you can be refused service in some areas because you're gay, or you're promoting a pro-gay message.
And customers can refuse to buy from you because you sound Texan, or you have a christian bumper-sticker, or you promote a anti-gay message. Freedom is a two-way street all right, but bear in mind that there is always some dark implication of this or that which can bring the whole thing tumbling into chaos or tyranny, and that all of us customers in some sense depend on those rules being applied only to the "merchants", and never to the "peasants".
The thing is, an individual deciding not to shop at a business because the boss has a Texan accent is a lot less of a problem for society at large than a business who refuses to serve all Texan sounding people. Businesses and large organisations can exert a lot more of a deleterious effect than any individual can, hence why their behaviour is more closely regulated than an individuals, though with the way the supreme court has been ruling regarding corporations being people and having morality, that's starting to change, and not necessarily for the better in my view.

I've actually heard it before, though it was years ago.
The overwhelming consensus amongst my contacts in the LGBT community is that homosexuality is no more a choice than heterosexuality is. If homosexuality is a choice, then it follows that heterosexuality is a choice, bisexuality, asexuality, and so on.

As a heterosexual male, I don't ever recall a period in my life where I suddenly 'decided' that I liked women. I didn't decide to fall in love with my first girlfriend, I didn't choose to be utterly heartbroken when we broke up. Choice was never a factor as to which gender I was attracted to and the people I came to love romantically. The only point at which choice was ever a factor was whether or not to act on those feelings.

You can construe homosexuality as a choice if you parse things like that, but it means that heterosexuality is also a choice, and as in the original phrasing by Nemo, can be "picked up or dropped as a habit". I'll admit that on rare occasions I've found other men attractive, but I've never decided that "Today I am gay!" in such a cavalier manner. I can grant that sexuality might change or evolve over time in the natural course of things, but I don't think that one can simply flip a switch whenever they want and choose to be attracted to whatever gender they fancy.

This particular perspective actually arises out of taking a very mechanical view of the biological aspects behind it, rather than anything sociological. My point earlier about transsexuals was actually much the same: if you actually think about the biological subjects in question, rather than any other influencing factors, then asexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality don't make a lot of sense, because you have limited resources (sperm and eggs.. and time, I suppose) with which to achieve something that theoretically the biological processes in question should be attempting to achieve (reproduction). From a low-level perspective he is actually perfectly right.

It's much like transsexuality, where it would only make sense for society to touch the subject if some sort of societal gain could be reached via that intervention, but none the less, when you're just considering the biological concepts it's a perfectly sensible question to ask.
I suppose if you restrict yourself to a purely mechanical notion of reproduction it could make a bit of sense, though that does come into question even then since the genetics that improve fertility have been shown to increase the likelihood of homosexuality in men in certain families. Even from a mechanistic standpoint, if the improved fertility of related females is worth the 'cost' of homosexual males, then it will be evolutionarily selected for, so that accounts for homosexuality rather neatly.

Even so, human reproduction cannot be realistically divorced from sociological factors. There are loads of things in human reproduction that make literally no sense at all unless you account for sociological factors. Condoms for instance make no sense biologically, until you account for the fact that sex is pleasurable, and having unwanted children is unlikely to produce the high quality offspring that human reproduction and society tends to favour.

It was years ago, but some study gave me the impression that around 80% of the human population is probably genetically bisexual, with the minorities being homosexuals, heterosexuals, and asexuals (apparently a genuine category: they enjoy sex, but they don't experience sexual attraction like most people).
The study has already been addressed, so I'll skip that, but asexuality is a thing. As I understand it there's a fairly broad spectrum. It covers romance (or lack thereof), sexuality (or lack thereof), and combinations of those factors, so you can have a sexual aromantic, an asexual romantic, an asexual aromantic, and a few others that memory fails to provide at this moment.

As I recall, there was an active forum for asexuals if you were interested in reading more about them. Lemme dig it up. Here.

Agreed, but when I was a child I was interested in living in isolation on a mountain, so I am fully aware of why: I prefer individuality, whereas those actions are rooted in social tilts, where communism and fascism eventually manifest (Fascism is economically the "conservative" counterpart to Communism). We actually see some level of manifestation of this darkness, such as the Shining Path's opposition to the concept of human rights. The monster is ever on the other side of the mirror, and we cannot outrun it, but instead merely not become it.
I also wanted to live as a hermit, though mostly that was to do with the rampant persecution I had to deal with growing up in addition to a preference for individuality.

Fascism and Communism aren't really opposites of each other. They're both authoritative forms of government, just governing from opposite sides of the political spectrum, with fascism representing the authoritative economic right and communism being the authoritative economic left.

Authoritarianism has its opposite in libertarianism, which can be further divided into a libertarian left and right. I fall mainly on the libertarian left side of the political spectrum (not to be confused with the libertarian right) at least as far as Political Compass is concerned.
Nemo wrote:
Some old dead dude once said, "You're wrong, but I'll defend to the death your right to be wrong." Yes, I just bastardized the quote, cope. The point stands, that freedom exists in being wrong, right?
It was a woman actually. :P

She wrote that to sum up Voltaire's beliefs, though the quote is frequently misattributed to Voltaire himself. How accurate she was I'm not certain as I've not read enough of Voltaire's works. His music on the other hand... :P

Would you agree that a person declining to do business with someone, for whatever reason or objection they may have, warrants sticking a gun to their head? Is the use of force against others justified simply because you hold their belief to be morally wrong? Are we free if we are only free to behave as you permit? In what way can such be described as "tolerance"? How is this any different from the accusations tossed at that reprehensible religious right? Is it justified because your morality is correct, and theirs not?

I will say this, the government certainly must be restrained from making such distinctions. Equality before the law, justice being blind and all that. However, using the government's monopoly on the use of force to coerce people of different beliefs into putting your own beliefs into practice is a step too far. And that includes forcibly taking marriage out of the church and into the court, btw.
Can you show me where precisely a gun was put to someone's head for refusing someone service? As far as I'm aware, and this depends on which baking company incident you're referring to because there are multiple cases, this sort of stuff usually gets sorted out by court orders, not by swat teams. If the court rules against the baking company, they're obligated to obey the court order if they don't opt to appeal or risk further consequences. Certain states do have non-discrimination laws which includes discrimination against sexuality, so if the case you're referring to is such, then the baking company in question is in violation of the law and must be held to account. While America is a land of freedom, it is also a land where the rule of law applies. Absolute freedom is as undesirable as absolute autocracy.

As for 'forcibly' taking marriage out of churches... wat? Even Catholics are starting to think separating civil and sacramental marriages might be a good thing. You're going to have to be a bit more specific there. There is no federal marriage act in the USA as far as I'm aware beyond protections and recognitions that assure that if you get married in California it must be recognised in Texas or wherever, so marriage conventions will vary state by state.

In general, as far as I'm aware, you could always get a marriage license from either a church official or a court official. If someone wants to get married in a church that's certainly their right and nobody is stopping them from doing so, but what of the couple that doesn't want to be married in a church? Should they be forced to go to church in order to be married?

Consider also the rash of new laws mandating vaccines for children even if the parents object. What would happen for a situation where a medical treatment is available for someone who is, by their own admission, incapable of choice in the matter? Grayholme finds it horrifying? Frankly I'm glad to see he agrees with me. Think you guys might have missed a little something, though I was working on the language of that part and looks like I never completed that sentence, but remember when I said it was thought through poorly? You're beginning to see what I see.

If it were a choice it would fall under Voltaire's shield. You could choose it and be free to be wrong. If it is a purely biological function where does that function end and the choice begin? If you refuse treatment, have you made a choice? If you attack research into related fields in fear that it may affect your own sexuality, is that a choice? If it is something that happens outside your control, something which abrogates free will in its entirety, how do you expect society to respond when science catches up?
Parental objection to vaccination is often founded in astounding ignorance and ought to be considered a form of child abuse, the same as beating or starving them. The fact that a wide enough proportion of people regularly do not vaccinate their children such that diseases once thought eradicated are cropping up again is absolutely reprehensible. It threatens those that can't be vaccinated for medical reasons and puts a significant number of other people's lives at risk.

I'm all for freedom of choice and the right to pursue your way of life peacefully. I fully advocate living an individualistic life. I kind of draw the line at choosing to allow your children to become a breeding ground for virulent diseases, putting the whole of society at risk. I love and adore individualism, but even individualism has limits.

That being said, medical treatments for those incapable of rendering a decision generally falls into a tier system. It falls first to next of kin, and if no next of kin are apparent, I think it falls to the doctor acting in the best interests of the patient. The hippocratic oath would then guide them in the selection of treatment. In the case of vaccination, no harm befalls the patient for being vaccinated and great benefits are conferred, so it's pretty much a no-brainer. In the case of 'curing' homosexuality, the doctor has fundamentally altered the personality of the patient, putting the treatment on par with a lobotomy. I'd argue that the hippocratic oath would have a few things to say to any doctor that carried out that procedure.

With regards to biology and choice and the nature of freedom... that's a definite can of worms. I don't think that any part of sexuality can really be ascribed to choice. Genetic, societal, and personal factors all arise within a person to give rise to sexuality. It is I think beyond notions of biological determinism and philosophical freedom. We are almost certainly not free in an absolute sense. We sacrifice our freedom to gain utility. I have, for instance, the freedom to scream at the top of my lungs in a theater. I don't, because I gain the utility afforded by both relative anonymity and conformity to societal norms in order to enjoy the play that is showing tonight.

Sexuality is something I don't think I really had a choice in, as I discussed above, and something I don't think anyone really has a choice in. What I do have a choice in is whether or not I act upon that sexuality. Do I choose to pursue that attractive woman or not? I am free to make that choice, but the desires that inform that choice are certainly not. I cannot pick and choose whom I am attracted to, merely whether I choose to act upon those feelings. The same applies to everyone, I think.

Who and what we are aren't merely shaped by our hardware, brains, hormones, muscles and so forth, but also by our software, what we think, what we've experienced and how we catalyse the experience of life and thought and emotion. I don't think that human life is so simple that it can be reduced to mere determinism. You might come close to being able to predict that 4% of a given population might be homosexual, but I don't think you could get it down to the point where you can spot homosexuality in the womb and nip it in the bud, or point at a random person and determine with 100% accuracy his or her sexuality and proclivities. Individuals are more complex than that. The vast majority of humankind, moreso.

And then Razor throws a wrench in that whole idea. I have to thank him for bringing it up before I could.
There are cases of twins where one is homosexual and the other not. You can't really argue that genetics are a factor there, and since a lot of those cases have the twins growing up in identical environments and frequently together, sociological factors become difficult to underpin as well.
In any other case, looking at this objectively, if you had genetic twins in the same environment and they arrive at different outcomes would you pin the difference on biology or psychology?

In truth its likely to be found to be some complex mixture of both. Genetic predisposition or environmental factors during development which then are compounded through life experience to shape ones world view and choice. But this too, is soundly rejected. Why the insistence that it be biology and nothing else? In a word, insecurity. If you introduce choice it introduces the possibility of choosing wrong. And the LGBT community can not accept, permit, or dare I suggest tolerate, those who think such.

Which brings us full circle back to that cake. You are not permitted to hold contrary beliefs. Or, at the very least, not permitted to act based on your contrary beliefs.
The problem here is that the LGBT community is forced by brevity to distil their arguments into a very concise format in order to get their message across to people who would otherwise consider them to be subhuman and aren't interested in an enlightened or philosophical debate. LGBT's are people who feel that they are second class citizens in their own country and want nothing more than equal rights, lives, liberties, protections, and justice under the law.

When an LGBT person says that they were 'born that way', they are often trying to justify that their way of life to the Religious Right in the US, that who they are isn't some kind of phase or fad, that they are not so different from people who were born straight.

But entertaining the notion that it is born out of insecurity rather than trying to get religious people to see that their lives are not the result of Satan's machinations, given the history of how LGBT persons were treated up until very recently, I figure that's an insecurity brought about by an overwhelming history of persecution and discrimination.

As to the cake and the holding of contrary beliefs, that is, as always, subject to the limitations of the law as set out by either the courts or the legislature. You can believe that shouting fire in a crowded theater is perfectly fine, but that doesn't change the fact that you can and will be arrested for it. You can scream first amendment all you like, but that is not constitutionally protected speech.

Individualistic freedom is both protected and curtailed by the rule of law. One is perfectly free to have and act on contrary beliefs. That freedom is limited by the extent of the law. If you violate the law, you will reap the consequences of your actions, just as shouting fire in a crowded theater most assuredly will.
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discord
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by discord »

Aight, on to the sexuality and morality stuff, joy!

#1 What one person does in the bedroom with other free, volunteering and not complaining people is none of anyone not in said bedrooms business.
note: To say anything else is to invite being prosecuted for any other opinion and a VERY dangerous path for society.

#2 Any owner of business, private person, dog(or any other animal) should bloody well be free to not do business for ANY reason that individual feels is adequate reason to not do business(and thereby not earn money or treats or whatever).
see above note.

#3 Delusional people should be allowed to be delusional as long as these delusions do not bother people that do not want to be bothered by them.
See above note.

#4 sexuality is based on nature, nurture AND a choice as are just about any other preference known to mankind(I can't think of any exception).
note: to say otherwise is to....basically say either 'there is no free will', 'I am retarded and cannot see reality' or 'I am retarded and cannot see reality', pick your poison.


I am hoping most of us can agree that these simple points are self evident and true? Otherwise we can restart this argument by figuring out exactly where our views differ.

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Razor One
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Razor One »

discord wrote:
#2 Any owner of business, private person, dog(or any other animal) should bloody well be free to not do business for ANY reason that individual feels is adequate reason to not do business(and thereby not earn money or treats or whatever).
see above note.
I think we agree on most things, but this one is the current thorny issue at hand. What constitutes adequate reason? As written, the language is quite broad and can be used to deny service to blacks, latinos, jewish people, bald people, unattractive women, etc. etc.

What I feel to be adequate reason to deny service is going to be different to someone elses opinion of what constitutes an adequate reason. There needs to be a general standard that encompasses the majority without necessarily infringing upon the right to deny service and making accommodation for those that might otherwise be off put.

To use the bakery example oft cited above, a christian baker denies service to a gay man who wants a wedding cake, because doing so violates his religious beliefs.

In my view, there are several ideal solutions. The first is that he should rebrand his business as a christian baking company. One can then claim that there is a religious component to the business and that they can deny service on that basis. Another is that the baker apologises to the customer, says that he cannot personally bake the cake, but that his assistant, who holds no such religious beliefs, can do the work in his stead. Yet another solution would be to, again, apologise for being unable to serve the customer due to religious beliefs, and then direct them to a nearby bakery that will serve them, or order such a cake on their behalf to save them the trouble.

The first of course is too little too late, but would obviate any future problems. The latter solutions are all very basic customer service dealies that should be done in any civil society. If you can't do, find someone who can or direct them to a nearby competitor that can. To do anything less is terrible customer service.

It all comes down to treating people with decency and respect in the end.

Of course, there might not be an ideal solution, such as if they're the only bakery in town and for the next hundred miles. Your right to refuse should probably take a back seat to a customers right to be served.

Consider a similar scenario with doctors.

A doctor refuses to treat a patient because they are a homosexual (black, french, Ted Cruz) and doing so would violate their religious beliefs.

A reasonable solution, outside of a life or death situation, is for that doctor to bring in another doctor who can treat them just as well. If they're the only doctor in town, they have no right to refuse to treat the patient even if it does violate their religious beliefs.

Ideally one should be able to accommodate both parties in wanting to maintain their religious integrity and the customers desire to be served. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world, and when presented with a bad situation, a bad solution is all that we can really deliver, as opposed to no solution.

Legislating that in a way that encompasses the majority, respects the rights of all parties, delineates the rights and responsibilities thereof, and maintains both religious integrity and service to the customer, is a very difficult ask, and is a reason I am so very glad I am not a solicitor.
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Krulle »

Piping in as I stumbled over one thing here:
discord wrote:#1 What one person does in the bedroom with other free, volunteering and not complaining people is none of anyone not in said bedrooms business.
note: To say anything else is to invite being prosecuted for any other opinion and a VERY dangerous path for society.
I can immediately punch a hole here, as you missed "understanding". I also miss the modern formulation "consenting adults". Imagine a 14year old going freely and voluntarily with someone of my age to bed. Does (s)he fully understand possible consequences? Or even younger persons. There's also the issue of possible abuse of care-taker relationships (psychologist/patient; teacher/pupil;...). The laws in this field have been developed for a reason.
Also: I am in a monogamous relationship. If I find out my significant other did go to bed with someone else, may be of my business, as this can influence my health severely (STDs!), and I feel I have a right to know that I should stop wanting to have sex with her until any necessary tests show "negative". I feel she has the obligation of care towards me to at least tell me (possibly not in all details, but certain details are necessary and if she warns me without telling I also implicitly know).
Courts do take a different stance in these specific circumstances and do have a different opionion than your #1... They found it a very dangerous path for society to not step in in specific circumstances.
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Razor One »

And hence the point I've been harping on for quite a bit.

Our freedom is both protected and curtailed by our laws. Marriage is a contract (a social contract at least) that is legally binding, and the expectation of fidelity is part of that, the violation of which is grounds for an open and shut divorce. The free practice of religion is both a right and is curtailed by the rule of law.

What shape those freedoms and curtailments take is determined by the legislature and the courts. If you want to ignore them in favour of freedom, then you also desire a land where the rule of law does not apply, a land where your freedom ends upon meeting those that can bring more force than you can bear.
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by discord »

razor: I think our views might differ in the regard that in my opinion, if you do not want to sell your services to.... people wearing green clothes, you should be allowed to do so, since unless you have a monopoly(btw. monopoly is usually bad, mkay?) that business will simply go to someone that has no problem selling that service to someone wearing green clothing.

This is the 'open market' approach to the problem, something that should be common in the land of the free.
Result? People with hangups on the clientele will have less business, and therefor a natural incentive to be more open minded happens.... Or not, I do not really care, since the alternative is to infringe on your freedom to do whatever the hell you want with YOUR stuff/skills.


where does this stop? the right to your own body and your religious or lack thereof views(oh right, abortion.)

Religious freedom in general? oh right, being atheist in the US, or any other theocracy I suppose.
On theocracy, out of 44 presidents, five might have been non-christians some serious debate about it and all of those held office in the 1800's.
Out of the 100 currently sitting in senate, 2 have no clearly defined and publicly announced religious views(admittedly only 85% christians here).
sounds pretty much like a theocracy....well without the official god is above all, oh right 'in god we trust.'... well allah akbar to you too.

freedom of speech? basic nuclear physics is illegal in the US, speaking of this or understanding how any nuclear bomb(it is not complicated, pretty basic physics today) works can get you thrown in
jail, since this is classified as Top Secret and therefor comes in under national security.... oh right that stuff gets you Guantanamo'd.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 <---- well that debacle was interesting, and if certain media interests had their way I should be thrown in jail for posting that.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archiv ... ree-speech <--- or a few other examples.

The freedom to not be stopped and searched without probable cause? Well that one is pretty much gone in some parts of the US.

No taxation without representation? Puerto rico, Guam, american Samoa, US Virgin islands. And the four million people living there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE <----- nice little tubing on the territories.

I wanted to be a pro boxer when I was young and stupid, but noooo it's not allowed in Sweden due to..... Reasons?


Infringing on basic human rights can get bad real quick, or as it is often said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
ANY reason you deem enough to not want to do business with that person should be adequate, period fucking dot.

discord
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Location: Umeå, Sweden

Re: Religious Discussion

Post by discord »

krulle: I actually added a few 'possible exceptions' but I decided to cut them out, since it would get insanely convoluted and annoying to read(aka legalese), still does not change the basis.

Age of consent in Sweden is 15, funny story, 15 year old girl lives alone(for reasons) and takes home 40 year old men, and having quite vocal sex with them, neighbors call the police, she meets police in the door, they complain to which she replies 'Age of consent, you do not have a case', they continue being a bother at which point she replies 'end your effing harassment or I'll defend myself competently backed by 10 years of proper muay-thai training', police backed off, she then went and picked up some real geezers just to prove a point to the neighbors.
a good question though is why they backed off? Was it because she was legally in the right or maybe because having their asses handed to them by a little girl would be rather embarrassing?

age of consent? A apparently difficult and much contested question.
the simple and obvious answer that should be true makes everyone cringe though.

When is a person ready to experiment with sexual acts? whenever the bloody hell the person WANTS to, if this is 12(I have friends that did this) or 30(seen a friend take this route as well) does not really matter, the key is if that person wants to.
Another friend started being interested at age 6, and got absolutely hammered with 'you are wrong/evil/sick' by concerned and helpful adults, it did not exactly help to put it mildly.
If the person does NOT want to, it is rape/abuse in some way and illegal, I could even go so far as giving the courts the right for arbitrary 'it is wrong because this person can not be trusted to have an opinion due to young age.' my definition however would involve pre-puberty, since it is rather unusual for anyone to have any such interest before puberty.
But after puberty as age goes up, the level of coercion involved for it to be illegal should go up aswell.(or to put it differently, the victim does not scream bloody murder at the prosecution for being dickwads, cockblockers and being mean to their partner.)

But this is not as bureaucratically easy and simple as saying 'below XX it is crime!'
http://www.memecenter.com/fun/128310/Al ... -years-old <---- Yeah, never bone anything that looks like it might be under 30 unless it can provide photo ID, check.

Interesting child molestation case, man(assistant teacher if I recall correctly) has a relationship with a younger female, due to a preference for BDSM they get dragged into a courtroom, both involved parties are in agreement they like each other and see no problems here, her parents do not agree, he gets... I think it was five years in jail.
Result? five years later she picks him up at jail and they get married, she never talked to her family ever again.
Happy end? Justice served? according to that gods be damned book, yes.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_6400542 <---- is another interesting child molesting case that actually, after quite a while(three years) managed to find sanity.

children and sex, it is a legal mess, should you protect children? Yes, but how do you do that without infringing on their right to free will or article 22 of the UN human rights declaration? tricky.
that ends my rant on that subject.


Marriage, well that is a civil contract, and therefor a contractual breech could happen, and therefor a crime could be committed, this is another law(contract law), not really related to 'bed chamber activities'.
However, if ALL involved are fine with it? it might technically be a marriage breach, but if all are fine with it, simple answer, throw'em in jail! backed by the book!

My point here is that context is quite often everything.
BDSM with consent= happy fun time VS BDSM without consent= kidnapping, illegal detention, assault and battery, probably rape and a few more.
How do you differentiate? one of these is done consensual, as simple as that.


Bottom line.
consensual sex=good
non consensual sex=bad
difficult huh?

Absalom
Posts: 718
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Absalom »

Horray for playing both sides of the issue!
Razor One wrote:
Absalom wrote:If the Hobby Lobby case is carried forward, then depending on the respective groundings of the decisions (I don't even remember if I heard why the court ruled the way it did), eventually all of those refusals may actually be legal... with caveats. The Hobby Lobby health-care case established that certain corporations can be legitimately ascribed specific moralities, but also established that forcing action against those morals is indeed against the law. The later of which is certainly reasonable when applied to groups that genuinely have some form of morality, since otherwise a Neo-Nazi could legitimately sue the Anti-Defamation League for not being hired if the successful applicant was verifiably the vastly inferior candidate. No, seriously, if you take that last, uncomfortable step back then you do find that if a group's morality is not allowed to play a role in business decisions, then the Neo-Nazi is the correct hire, because the organization's hiring procedures are capable of calculating that in the absence of the moral-horror of that particular hiring decision the Neo-Nazi is the superior choice, and any decision to the contrary is a violation of legal non-discrimination rules.
The Hobby Lobby case as I understand it was specifically for closely held, for profit corporations. The anti defamation league is a non-profit, NGO, and thus wouldn't actually be held to the precedent set by the the Hobby Lobby case, but would still fall under the Civil Rights act, which outlaws discriminatory practices based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Political groups are not covered by the civil rights act, so a neo-nazi trying to apply for the ADL and getting knocked back does not count as a violation of non-discrimination laws.
My bad for being lazy.

Does the baker bake cakes for profit? Supposing that the baker is registered as an individual instead of a corporation, and has employees, it would be difficult to justify not applying the Hobby Lobby ruling to the baker, right? Not saying that it has been applied to individuals, but it's fairly straight forward and (in my eyes) reasonable to make the extrapolation.
Razor One wrote:
And if morality is a valid factor in business choices for groups (whether corporations, labor unions, social lodges, etc.), as the Supreme Court has itself de-facto ruled to be the case, then it is virtually impossible to not apply that rule to individuals. Which is where a bit of irony comes in, because while you can usually tell if someone is black from looking at them, you can't reliably determine that with homosexuality: I expect that either the laws will be changed, or we will discover what the Supreme Court thinks about requiring business decisions to all be enforceable :lol: (if they say "yes, it must be enforceable", then all business rules against serving gays and Muslims will instantly be invalid, rendering the whole point of those laws moot: because that plaid-wearning grizzled slightly smelly white male trucker that you serve at the lunch counter might say if asked that he is both gay and Islamic, yet you were fine with feeding him for years).
I'm not sure I entirely follow your reasoning here, but you seem to be conflating the decision the supreme court made with wider implications that have yet to even emerge in a court of law. In the case of Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, the decision rendered allowed for closely held corporations to refuse contraceptive health insurance for some of its employees based on their closely held religious beliefs. If such is to apply to anything beyond closely held corporations, it needs to be argued and won in a court of law before it can even begin to apply.
It's easy to make the extrapolation though, since the morality of "closely held corporations" (and won't the definition of that be dickered over for years) arises from the individuals who own the corporations in the first place.

The more compelling question is "where do the constraints of the Hobby Lobby ruling lie? Entirely within contraceptives?". The interpretation of that could decide all sorts of questions.. including this one.
Razor One wrote:The entire debacle really arises out of the backwards nature of the US healthcare system and the way the ACA was written to try and fix the problem. A more progressive, single payer, universal healthcare system would have obviated the case entirely by giving everyone effectively low cost health insurance with none of the drawbacks of forcing corporations to provide services to their employees they are otherwise disinclined to provide, which is more or less the norm.
An insurance voucher system would have been good as well (corporate-provided healthcare is apparently the legacy of some salary restriction, I assume from the Wilson era). Enforcing fair practices would have been worthwhile (I don't think I ever looked up the details of the relevant ACA rules), medical reinsurance would have been worthwhile, all sort of things could have been done. Just a shame that we had the too-big-to-plan ACA instead of a sane piecemeal route.
Razor One wrote:

I've actually heard it before, though it was years ago.
The overwhelming consensus amongst my contacts in the LGBT community is that homosexuality is no more a choice than heterosexuality is. If homosexuality is a choice, then it follows that heterosexuality is a choice, bisexuality, asexuality, and so on.

As a heterosexual male, I don't ever recall a period in my life where I suddenly 'decided' that I liked women. I didn't decide to fall in love with my first girlfriend, I didn't choose to be utterly heartbroken when we broke up. Choice was never a factor as to which gender I was attracted to and the people I came to love romantically. The only point at which choice was ever a factor was whether or not to act on those feelings.

You can construe homosexuality as a choice if you parse things like that, but it means that heterosexuality is also a choice, and as in the original phrasing by Nemo, can be "picked up or dropped as a habit". I'll admit that on rare occasions I've found other men attractive, but I've never decided that "Today I am gay!" in such a cavalier manner. I can grant that sexuality might change or evolve over time in the natural course of things, but I don't think that one can simply flip a switch whenever they want and choose to be attracted to whatever gender they fancy.
Well no, but you can't just flip a switch with habits either, and those are less likely to have additional biological integrations entrenching your personal status-quo.
Razor One wrote:

This particular perspective actually arises out of taking a very mechanical view of the biological aspects behind it, rather than anything sociological. My point earlier about transsexuals was actually much the same: if you actually think about the biological subjects in question, rather than any other influencing factors, then asexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality don't make a lot of sense, because you have limited resources (sperm and eggs.. and time, I suppose) with which to achieve something that theoretically the biological processes in question should be attempting to achieve (reproduction). From a low-level perspective he is actually perfectly right.

It's much like transsexuality, where it would only make sense for society to touch the subject if some sort of societal gain could be reached via that intervention, but none the less, when you're just considering the biological concepts it's a perfectly sensible question to ask.
I suppose if you restrict yourself to a purely mechanical notion of reproduction it could make a bit of sense, though that does come into question even then since the genetics that improve fertility have been shown to increase the likelihood of homosexuality in men in certain families. Even from a mechanistic standpoint, if the improved fertility of related females is worth the 'cost' of homosexual males, then it will be evolutionarily selected for, so that accounts for homosexuality rather neatly.
Yes, but then someone applies the thought process on an individual basis, which is what I was thinking of, so you have the same question pop up again.

The better approach is to ask why society should intervene. In our current society only hard-liners strike me as likely to think it justified to actually intervene in such ways. Fortunately our current societal perspectives have supposedly been in development for 100 or more years, so gay or straight we're unlikely to have the rug pulled out from under us (in contrast, consider the progressivist era when eugenics was passingly in vogue).
Razor One wrote:

It was years ago, but some study gave me the impression that around 80% of the human population is probably genetically bisexual, with the minorities being homosexuals, heterosexuals, and asexuals (apparently a genuine category: they enjoy sex, but they don't experience sexual attraction like most people).
The study has already been addressed, so I'll skip that, but asexuality is a thing. As I understand it there's a fairly broad spectrum. It covers romance (or lack thereof), sexuality (or lack thereof), and combinations of those factors, so you can have a sexual aromantic, an asexual romantic, an asexual aromantic, and a few others that memory fails to provide at this moment.

As I recall, there was an active forum for asexuals if you were interested in reading more about them. Lemme dig it up. Here.
I go off on reading tangents too much already, so I'll skip.
Razor One wrote:

Agreed, but when I was a child I was interested in living in isolation on a mountain, so I am fully aware of why: I prefer individuality, whereas those actions are rooted in social tilts, where communism and fascism eventually manifest (Fascism is economically the "conservative" counterpart to Communism). We actually see some level of manifestation of this darkness, such as the Shining Path's opposition to the concept of human rights. The monster is ever on the other side of the mirror, and we cannot outrun it, but instead merely not become it.
I also wanted to live as a hermit, though mostly that was to do with the rampant persecution I had to deal with growing up in addition to a preference for individuality.

Fascism and Communism aren't really opposites of each other. They're both authoritative forms of government, just governing from opposite sides of the political spectrum, with fascism representing the authoritative economic right and communism being the authoritative economic left.
If you re-read it, you'll see that I was actually placing them both on the same end of the spectrum.
Razor One wrote:Authoritarianism has its opposite in libertarianism, which can be further divided into a libertarian left and right. I fall mainly on the libertarian left side of the political spectrum (not to be confused with the libertarian right) at least as far as Political Compass is concerned.
I came out basically centrist again, though I should probably mention that I personally expect the balance of things to vary with the situation, and would be disappointed were it otherwise (WW2 was no time for US libertarianism, the 90s were no time for US authoritarianism).
Razor One wrote:
Nemo wrote:
Some old dead dude once said, "You're wrong, but I'll defend to the death your right to be wrong." Yes, I just bastardized the quote, cope. The point stands, that freedom exists in being wrong, right?
It was a woman actually. :P
Apparently my contact with it was someone quoting it. Who'd've thunk it?
Razor One wrote:

Would you agree that a person declining to do business with someone, for whatever reason or objection they may have, warrants sticking a gun to their head? Is the use of force against others justified simply because you hold their belief to be morally wrong? Are we free if we are only free to behave as you permit? In what way can such be described as "tolerance"? How is this any different from the accusations tossed at that reprehensible religious right? Is it justified because your morality is correct, and theirs not?

I will say this, the government certainly must be restrained from making such distinctions. Equality before the law, justice being blind and all that. However, using the government's monopoly on the use of force to coerce people of different beliefs into putting your own beliefs into practice is a step too far. And that includes forcibly taking marriage out of the church and into the court, btw.
Can you show me where precisely a gun was put to someone's head for refusing someone service? As far as I'm aware, and this depends on which baking company incident you're referring to because there are multiple cases, this sort of stuff usually gets sorted out by court orders, not by swat teams.
I think it was a metaphor for governmental force as decreed by the courts, actually, rather than a literal gun.
Razor One wrote:In general, as far as I'm aware, you could always get a marriage license from either a church official or a court official. If someone wants to get married in a church that's certainly their right and nobody is stopping them from doing so, but what of the couple that doesn't want to be married in a church? Should they be forced to go to church in order to be married?
The Romans didsn't have governmental marriage, period. They left it to the religious authorities, and when they were concerned with inheritance issues they focused on marital patterns such as a ceremony and living arrangements, instead of an official governmental registry.

According to some wiki reading, then entire idea of non-religious marriages appears to have popped up in the 1500s to late 1700s. In the English case, the 1750s, and I remind you that England was (and I believe technically still is) a state with an official religion.
Razor One wrote:Parental objection to vaccination is often founded in astounding ignorance and ought to be considered a form of child abuse, the same as beating or starving them.
At the same time, if they did not act upon such beliefs than they would be committing negligence of another sort. At any rate, as long as mercury-based preservatives are used then there will always be some cause for concern (there are also individual vaccines that have concerns, but I think those have mostly been withdrawn). There is literally no mercury compound that is known to be safe for human exposure, much less injection, it just gets used for effectiveness at preservation.

Razor One wrote:
discord wrote:
#2 Any owner of business, private person, dog(or any other animal) should bloody well be free to not do business for ANY reason that individual feels is adequate reason to not do business(and thereby not earn money or treats or whatever).
see above note.
I think we agree on most things, but this one is the current thorny issue at hand. What constitutes adequate reason? As written, the language is quite broad and can be used to deny service to blacks, latinos, jewish people, bald people, unattractive women, etc. etc.

What I feel to be adequate reason to deny service is going to be different to someone elses opinion of what constitutes an adequate reason. There needs to be a general standard that encompasses the majority without necessarily infringing upon the right to deny service and making accommodation for those that might otherwise be off put.
We don't necessarily need a general standard for that: but in the absence of such a general standard we need a requirement that the rules be posted in such a way that it is impossible to enter as a customer without encountering a recounting of the rules. "Enforcability" should also be required, since that's a starting requirement before you can reliably uphold the very rules you're claiming to follow.

Still, ideally we would have some congressionally-mandated rules in addition. Such rules should have the goal of integrating population groups, which I believe was actually the point of the existing protected categories.
discord wrote:razor: I think our views might differ in the regard that in my opinion, if you do not want to sell your services to.... people wearing green clothes, you should be allowed to do so, since unless you have a monopoly(btw. monopoly is usually bad, mkay?) that business will simply go to someone that has no problem selling that service to someone wearing green clothing.

This is the 'open market' approach to the problem, something that should be common in the land of the free.
Result? People with hangups on the clientele will have less business, and therefor a natural incentive to be more open minded happens.... Or not, I do not really care, since the alternative is to infringe on your freedom to do whatever the hell you want with YOUR stuff/skills.
This has it's caveats of course: I work for a company that's connected to the utilities. A good definition of a utility is as follows:
Any service that is rarely or never subject to competition, due to the large base-level investment required to start a competitor. Gas pipelines, electric lines, wired telephones (wireless telephones too, really) all fall into this category.

Similarly, sometimes there are no competitors within a realistic range. So, if you need to buy the cake, how do you buy the cake?

discord
Posts: 629
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Location: Umeå, Sweden

Re: Religious Discussion

Post by discord »

absalom: on services.
I happen to live in the 'failed socialist state of Sweden (tm)' where just about all basic services needed for society to work, like water, electricity, phones and such are owned and run by the government, the system is slightly more complicated when the second hand service selling comes in, but other than that there usually are competitors and the state will usually sell to you anyway at slightly higher rate.
Example, I have where I live 10 different electricity suppliers to choose from, about the same on phone and internet, just saying.
This results in the government having direct control over those services and therefor can say whatever the hell they want about how to run them, works pretty well so far on most services.

A interesting exception is the state run debt collection agency(which is where the debt collection agencies go when they do not get paid.) it works pretty well, except under certain circumstances and this is because of three policy choices.
#1 do not use first come first served, instead treat all debts equally and pay them all off at the same time.(remember kids, equality is good!)
#2 pay off debts to the state(and thereby state run institutions) first.
#3 service charges for the handling of cases.

Each of these look just fine and dandy, but the combination when you have several debts at the same time(this happens quite easily if you spend some time in jail) is that all the debts are independent cases, and get their own service charge, which can become a greater sum/month as compared to what you can pay, and therefor your debt increases.

My father was(and still is) subjected to this, 70k debt, over five years time he payed over 200k towards this debt and now have a debt of damn near 200k without adding any new debts.
Just wrong. (Do not recall the exact numbers of the top of my head, but something like that)

if any one of those three policies were changed he would not have had a problem and would today be debt free, but instead he is in much more debt in fact he can never repay it due to these bad policies.


Back to the cake.
If the only seller of cakes in the area dislikes you to the point that your money is no good at his store, then I suppose you either go further afield in your search or get no cake(or get someone else to buy it for you?).

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Razor One
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Razor One »

discord wrote:
razor: I think our views might differ in the regard that in my opinion, if you do not want to sell your services to.... people wearing green clothes, you should be allowed to do so, since unless you have a monopoly(btw. monopoly is usually bad, mkay?) that business will simply go to someone that has no problem selling that service to someone wearing green clothing.

This is the 'open market' approach to the problem, something that should be common in the land of the free.
Result? People with hangups on the clientele will have less business, and therefor a natural incentive to be more open minded happens.... Or not, I do not really care, since the alternative is to infringe on your freedom to do whatever the hell you want with YOUR stuff/skills.
And in an ideal world, the rational factors of the free market would curb the irrational business practices, leading to those businesses either changing for the better or getting outcompeted by their more rational rivals. It's a pleasing fantasy, but we don't live in a rational world. Customers can be as racist as businesses, discriminatory business practices are not necessarily punished 100% of the time and may even actually be rewarded.

The free market does not adequately curb deleterious discriminatory practices in the business world. The non-discrimination legislation which is a legacy of the civil rights act is designed to incentivise businesses to act rationally where they otherwise would not. Businesses are subject to all sorts of legislation which constrains their practices, such as wheelchair access, health codes, duty of care, etc. etc. The removal of such legislation would generally mean that businesses would be free to infringe upon the freedom of individuals.

Do businesses have a right to infringe upon the rights and freedoms of individuals? In my opinion, no. The only entity that even vaguely has that right is the government, and only insomuch that the government is the only entity capable of both granting and assuring rights and freedoms to both its citizenry and whatever organisations form under its protection. Both individuals and businesses have certain freedoms, rights, and restrictions, the lines of which are perhaps up to debate, but not I feel in this case. The law of the land in the case of the baking company incident is very clear and the court found them guilty of discriminatory practices. The only way to allow for businesses to refuse anyone they want for any reason is to repeal the civil rights act, something that would on balance disenfranchise a lot more people than it would enfranchise businesses.

freedom of speech? basic nuclear physics is illegal in the US, speaking of this or understanding how any nuclear bomb(it is not complicated, pretty basic physics today) works can get you thrown in
jail, since this is classified as Top Secret and therefor comes in under national security.... oh right that stuff gets you Guantanamo'd.
I can kind of understand why nuclear physics is a restricted branch of knowledge on the basis of trying to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the USA's enemies, though I'm fairly certain that what you're talking about constitutes the more detailed knowledge of the inner workings of nuclear weapons or enrichment, not the basics of how nukes work. If someone is trying to pass nuclear secrets or other suchlike strategic information to a countries enemies, then they should by all means be arrested, given their day in court and either found guilty and sentenced or found innocent and released. Gitmo is a blight on due process.
A lot of this article is blatant misinformation or is so caught up in ultra-rightwing bias that it's hard to swallow. There are legitimate concerns though, so I'll see what passes and what doesn't.

1. Pass. SOPA and PIPA are an affront to free speech and gives corporations huge concessions that any right thinking person would balk at. Even so, it's a bit out of date, since the TPP makes SOPA and PIPA look like childs play in comparison. It's fairly conclusive given that the legislation is even being considered that US politics have been bought out by corporate interests.

2. Provisional pass. The example shown does seem to be a case of politicians shutting down speech they don't like, but I'd like more evidence that this is an actual trend across a broad enough spectrum of politics to actually be a credible threat to the first amendment.

3. Fail. A mishandled incident being blown out of all proportion.

4. Fail. The article linked to is only so much paranoid blather, and the article that links to is so completely different than what it was made out to be that this point can be considered blatant misinformation.

5. Fail. Kevin Trudeau is a convicted fraudster, and if you actually look into his prior claims, such as sunscreen being the cause of cancer instead of the sun, or the HIV/AIDS virus being a hoax, you get the feeling that the guy deserves to be thrown in jail.

6. Fail. The quote from Hillary Clinton is completely mischaracterised, which is quite a feat considering the quote is right there. The writer of that article utterly fails at basic reading comprehension.

7. Fail. WorldNetDaily is not a credible source even for bullshit. Did a bit of googling and found a more credible source, which gives better details. Considering America has separation of church and state, mentioning Jesus in any official governmental capacity actually violates the first amendment. The writer of the article gets basic factual information wrong. Factual information that is a two minute google search to find.

8. Fail. North Carolina's guidelines on house prayer requires that all such be generic in nature, lest such a prayer endorse a specific religion and thus violate church and state. As with the prior point, this is not an attack on the first amendment, it's a violation of the first amendment.

9. Fail. The writer links to an article that has since been removed. A cursory google search revealed this article showing that it was a case of reactionary and horribly inaccurate reporting.

10. Provisional fail. While police brutality and general antagonism towards protesters is a thing in the US, his only source on this is himself where he predicts the situation would only get worse, and the sources provided there were highly shocking emotive videos and the like with very little in the way of hard data. The article was written four years ago and things did not necessarily become worse in the manner that he implied it would. I'm not willing to give it a full fail though, because it does link to a serious problem of the militarisation of police forces, something that's a byproduct of an incessant military industrial complex.

11. Fail. Paranoia.

12. Fail. Article links to another that is biased and lacks critical details. Found a better one. The Pastor was arrested for blocking access to the center and was the only one of his entire protest to even be arrested. As the article I link to said it best:

"I want you to think about this," Journey said. "What if the shoe had been on the other foot and someone from the Islamic Center had come to your place and tried to convert your members and had blocked your driveway?"

...

The judge reminded Holick that the Constitution provides protection for people of all faiths, not just Holick's.

"I hope you will reflect on the choices you made," Journey said. "There's nothing wrong the proselytizing or holding your beliefs. It's the manner of how you carry them out that's the problem."
13. Provisional fail. The guy once again uses himself as a credible source (hint: he isn't). Googling about uncovers a lot of RelRight Sharia law conspiracy sites and blogs, with the only vaguely neutral source being this website. It's a definite case of police overreach, but once again the writer goes more for shock and feel rather than any hard data that would prove that there is a trend towards chipping away at the first amendment.

14. Fail. Refers to himself as a source. Again. Sounds like paranoid frothing at the mouth. I'm not even going to bother to research this.

15. Fail. Links to a biased source that doesn't do a thorough investigation. googled, found the other side of the story. Case is ongoing, factual disputes, he said they said. The writer of the article does not do sufficient research and seems to prefer sources that feed into his agenda rather than trying to be factual in his case.

16. Fail. Links to a biased source again. First Amendment does not protect you from the social consequences of your speech.

17. Fail. Links to dead article. Googled. Politifact filled in the blanks. The congressmen in question aren't banned from saying merry christmas, merely doing it with public tax dollars in official government letters. It seems the article writer likes to scream "MUH FREE SPEECH!" whenever religion, the thing that's meant to be kept nominally separate from government, is being kept separate from the government.

18. Pass. Actually links to a credible source! Genuine cause for concern about the lack of due process! Followed immediately thereafter by paranoid blather.

Overall, the writer of that article isn't very credible. He tends towards emotive appeal over a factual one, loves the sound of his own voice, thinks he is his own credible source, links to just about anyone who supports his own implicit and explicit biases without doing the necessary further research to verify at least basic facts and tends towards hyperbolic fearmongering that serves no purpose other than to whip like-minded people into a frenzy.

He's great if you already agree with him and won't bother to check if what he's actually saying is even true, but if you're even vaguely skeptical, you're forced to examine what he's saying and find that he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. He does hit on some good points here and there, but it's a case of the broken clock being right twice a day more than having any actual insight. He would be more convincing if he dropped the rhetoric and supplied verifiable facts rather than trying to tug at my heart strings.

The freedom to not be stopped and searched without probable cause? Well that one is pretty much gone in some parts of the US.
I'll agree to this. Stop and frisk laws, in addition to Papers Please laws are not very encouraging to hear about.

No taxation without representation? Puerto rico, Guam, american Samoa, US Virgin islands. And the four million people living there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE <----- nice little tubing on the territories.
Agreed here too. Those territories should definitely be given the opportunity to become fully fledged states in their own right. It probably won't happen though for political reasons, since, if I recall correctly, if those territories were made states, the new senators would most likely be Democrat and not Republican. Might be wrong there though.

Infringing on basic human rights can get bad real quick, or as it is often said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
ANY reason you deem enough to not want to do business with that person should be adequate, period fucking dot.
As long as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a law, no, they don't. The law of the land is very clear on this matter. If the law infringes on someone's basic human rights, then there is a legitimate means to challenge that law in the courts. As we've seen historically, the courts tend to find that the right to live free of discrimination generally trumps another persons right to discriminate.
Absalom wrote:
Does the baker bake cakes for profit? Supposing that the baker is registered as an individual instead of a corporation, and has employees, it would be difficult to justify not applying the Hobby Lobby ruling to the baker, right? Not saying that it has been applied to individuals, but it's fairly straight forward and (in my eyes) reasonable to make the extrapolation.
No, I don't think so. Closely held corporations and individuals are different entities, even if there is some overlap now in what rights they hold and can exercise. Closely held corporations have limited liabilities and perpetual lifetimes, whereas individuals do not. It stands to reason that due to these differing factors that individual owners will be governed by a different set of laws.

If it were to be applied to individuals with the Hobby Lobby case being cited as precedent, it'd need to be argued in a court of law, and I don't think the Hobby Lobby case would pass muster as a valid precedent to apply to individual ownership.

It's easy to make the extrapolation though, since the morality of "closely held corporations" (and won't the definition of that be dickered over for years) arises from the individuals who own the corporations in the first place.

The more compelling question is "where do the constraints of the Hobby Lobby ruling lie? Entirely within contraceptives?". The interpretation of that could decide all sorts of questions.. including this one.
Hmm, yeah, as before, a lot of this is stuff that the courts will need to pick over in the coming years. There are a lot of thorny issues that go with this, such as exemption from laws that apply to the public, the imposition of religious belief on others, and may even call into question the notion of limited liability for corporations.

An insurance voucher system would have been good as well (corporate-provided healthcare is apparently the legacy of some salary restriction, I assume from the Wilson era). Enforcing fair practices would have been worthwhile (I don't think I ever looked up the details of the relevant ACA rules), medical reinsurance would have been worthwhile, all sort of things could have been done. Just a shame that we had the too-big-to-plan ACA instead of a sane piecemeal route.
Like food stamps for health insurance? :P That would make so many people mad. :lol:

The ACA at least works better than the previous system. Aspects of its implementation leave much to be desired, but improvement is improvement, and it's about time that American healthcare caught up to the 19th century.

Well no, but you can't just flip a switch with habits either, and those are less likely to have additional biological integrations entrenching your personal status-quo.
Sure, but you can drop habits. You can quit drinking, smoking, speeding or eating chicken at strange hours of the morning. You can never quit being straight or gay, and the programs that were aimed at stopping people from being gay, such as reparative or conversion therapy, have been shown to be little more than torture. The implication behind the word habit is that one can change. Sexual identity is not something that is correctable.

Yes, but then someone applies the thought process on an individual basis, which is what I was thinking of, so you have the same question pop up again.
Thinking of reproduction on an individual basis is doomed to failure, since individuals cannot reproduce. :lol: It takes two to tango, and you need a few hundred at a minimum to ensure a sustainable breeding population and prevent inbreeding. The only way the individualistic mechanist approach to reproduction can really exist is if one rejects the mechanics of reproduction.

I came out basically centrist again, though I should probably mention that I personally expect the balance of things to vary with the situation, and would be disappointed were it otherwise (WW2 was no time for US libertarianism, the 90s were no time for US authoritarianism).
Leftwing libertarian on my end, and compared to the last time I took the test, I've shifted more to the left. That's understandable in my case, since locally the conservatives are in power and they're doing everything they can to enact all their political vendettas before they're removed from power.

I think it was a metaphor for governmental force as decreed by the courts, actually, rather than a literal gun.
The courts have the constitutional right to interpret and apply the law to a particular case. The customer that was denied service took the business to court and won. The usage of governmental force is in this case fully constitutional and within the law of the land. If this is in some manner unacceptable, the legal routes to redress this would be to appeal the case and overturn the decision, repeal the amendment which gives the court the right to apply the law, or to repeal the constitution of the United States. This may be the force of the government, but it's completely above board and by the books. If this is somehow fundamentally unacceptable, then any and all forms of government force are unacceptable, making the law unenforceable and leading to complete and total anarchy.

Yeah, that's a bit slippery slope, but if an above board and by the book ruling of a court does not apply because government force is bad, then it stands to reason that all government force is bad and all the ills that follow on from that.

The Romans didsn't have governmental marriage, period. They left it to the religious authorities, and when they were concerned with inheritance issues they focused on marital patterns such as a ceremony and living arrangements, instead of an official governmental registry.

According to some wiki reading, then entire idea of non-religious marriages appears to have popped up in the 1500s to late 1700s. In the English case, the 1750s, and I remind you that England was (and I believe technically still is) a state with an official religion.
The Romans also didn't have marriage for the plebians as we do today. Marriage was the exclusive domain of the elite and extending that right to plebians would have disgusted them as much as marrying for love.

My comment though was more addressing the status of marriage in the United States rather than in general. I should've probably clarified on that point. In any case, it's a bit hard to research the historical factors influencing the early history of the US, but as I understand it, they inherited a lot of the common law practices in their legal framework. Given that the Marriage Act of 1753 did incorporate both religious and legal factors, the early US probably would have had to change certain aspects of the law to accommodate both the constitution and the fact that they couldn't really be part of the Church of England anymore.

At the same time, if they did not act upon such beliefs than they would be committing negligence of another sort. At any rate, as long as mercury-based preservatives are used then there will always be some cause for concern (there are also individual vaccines that have concerns, but I think those have mostly been withdrawn). There is literally no mercury compound that is known to be safe for human exposure, much less injection, it just gets used for effectiveness at preservation.
Actions taken on beliefs founded on astounding ignorance is child abuse. The first two results on google link to a detailed FDA Report on Thimerosal, autism, and vaccines. A casual skim shows that they talk about Thiomersal removal and the fact that there is no causal relationship between vaccination and autism. In this day and age when it is so easy to research these things and make an informed decision, ignorance is not an excuse.

But let's leave that aside. Suppose that autism was caused by vaccination. I'll let Penn and Teller do the talking, since they tell it better than I can at the moment.


discord wrote: Back to the cake.
If the only seller of cakes in the area dislikes you to the point that your money is no good at his store, then I suppose you either go further afield in your search or get no cake(or get someone else to buy it for you?).
Do you hear that? It's the sound of millions of people becoming second class citizens.

There is a reason that non-discrimination laws exist. I suggest you do some research on the Civil Rights Act, Jim Crow laws, and assess if you want to live as a black man in the United States during the 1950's where businesses did have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
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Absalom
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Absalom »

Razor One wrote:
No taxation without representation? Puerto rico, Guam, american Samoa, US Virgin islands. And the four million people living there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE <----- nice little tubing on the territories.
Agreed here too. Those territories should definitely be given the opportunity to become fully fledged states in their own right. It probably won't happen though for political reasons, since, if I recall correctly, if those territories were made states, the new senators would most likely be Democrat and not Republican. Might be wrong there though.
Every once in a while Congress throws a proposal at Puerto Rico. They're gradually shifting towards statehood, but have so far always chosen "the status quo" (the choices have been independence, status quo, and statehood, maybe with some subtle variations in addition). Depending on how their current debt issue goes, the next time might be final (the Supreme Court has ruled that territory status is inherently temporary due to the Constitution).

The others don't actually have enough population to independently be states, which I think is part of the reason why those proposals haven't been thrown at them. They'd be stuck with either independence, joining an existing state, or joining each other, all of which seem likely to be unpopular.
Razor One wrote:
Absalom wrote:Does the baker bake cakes for profit? Supposing that the baker is registered as an individual instead of a corporation, and has employees, it would be difficult to justify not applying the Hobby Lobby ruling to the baker, right? Not saying that it has been applied to individuals, but it's fairly straight forward and (in my eyes) reasonable to make the extrapolation.
No, I don't think so. Closely held corporations and individuals are different entities, even if there is some overlap now in what rights they hold and can exercise. Closely held corporations have limited liabilities and perpetual lifetimes, whereas individuals do not. It stands to reason that due to these differing factors that individual owners will be governed by a different set of laws.

If it were to be applied to individuals with the Hobby Lobby case being cited as precedent, it'd need to be argued in a court of law, and I don't think the Hobby Lobby case would pass muster as a valid precedent to apply to individual ownership.
Closely held corporations were never before held to be entitled to religious beliefs. One of the concerns with the Hobby Lobby ruling was also that it may open closely-held corporations up to a loss of limited liability. At any rate, as I understand it, the success of the Hobby Lobby case was grounded specifically in the company's ability to have religious beliefs: which would mean that if it didn't apply to individuals as well, it would be a form of discrimination against individuals, in favor of corporations. I won't say that such a ruling would be impossible, but I will say that it would be difficult. Easier to argue against the baker's case on other grounds, such as the constraints of the Hobby Lobby ruling.
Razor One wrote:
It's easy to make the extrapolation though, since the morality of "closely held corporations" (and won't the definition of that be dickered over for years) arises from the individuals who own the corporations in the first place.

The more compelling question is "where do the constraints of the Hobby Lobby ruling lie? Entirely within contraceptives?". The interpretation of that could decide all sorts of questions.. including this one.
Hmm, yeah, as before, a lot of this is stuff that the courts will need to pick over in the coming years. There are a lot of thorny issues that go with this, such as exemption from laws that apply to the public, the imposition of religious belief on others, and may even call into question the notion of limited liability for corporations.
As mentioned above, I specifically saw the loss of limited liability mentioned as a potential consequence of the Hobby Lobby ruling.
Razor One wrote:
An insurance voucher system would have been good as well (corporate-provided healthcare is apparently the legacy of some salary restriction, I assume from the Wilson era). Enforcing fair practices would have been worthwhile (I don't think I ever looked up the details of the relevant ACA rules), medical reinsurance would have been worthwhile, all sort of things could have been done. Just a shame that we had the too-big-to-plan ACA instead of a sane piecemeal route.
Like food stamps for health insurance? :P That would make so many people mad. :lol:
I was thinking specifically ones provided by your company as pay ("medical dollars", essentially, legally payable only to special medical accounts and for medical matters, redeemable for dollars only via FDIC financial institutions), but it might actually be a good implementation for the existing federal health systems as well, since it pushes some medical costs onto insurers in the form of bankruptcies :innocently whistles: .
Razor One wrote:
Well no, but you can't just flip a switch with habits either, and those are less likely to have additional biological integrations entrenching your personal status-quo.
Sure, but you can drop habits. You can quit drinking, smoking, speeding or eating chicken at strange hours of the morning. You can never quit being straight or gay, and the programs that were aimed at stopping people from being gay, such as reparative or conversion therapy, have been shown to be little more than torture. The implication behind the word habit is that one can change. Sexual identity is not something that is correctable.
Ah, but in the absence of studies, how do you know that it can't be changed for everyone? I don't recall that point a few posts back ever being countered.

Though I do buy in to roughly the statistics that I mentioned earlier (note: I do this as an extrapolation of some animal studies specifically), so I'm dubious about the number of gays who could be re-oriented.
Razor One wrote:

I came out basically centrist again, though I should probably mention that I personally expect the balance of things to vary with the situation, and would be disappointed were it otherwise (WW2 was no time for US libertarianism, the 90s were no time for US authoritarianism).
Leftwing libertarian on my end, and compared to the last time I took the test, I've shifted more to the left. That's understandable in my case, since locally the conservatives are in power and they're doing everything they can to enact all their political vendettas before they're removed from power.
You over estimate them: most of those doing the enacting probably aren't convinced they'll lose power, just as most teenagers aren't convinced that they'll ever die.
Razor One wrote:This may be the force of the government, but it's completely above board and by the books. If this is somehow fundamentally unacceptable, then any and all forms of government force are unacceptable, making the law unenforceable and leading to complete and total anarchy.
Every revolution begins with a group's conviction that what is above-board and by-the-books is terrible and unacceptable.

And some do take it to the extreme that you mentioned.

I personally prefer a Starship Troopers/Imperial Chinese version: it's right until it's overthrown.
Razor One wrote:Yeah, that's a bit slippery slope, but if an above board and by the book ruling of a court does not apply because government force is bad, then it stands to reason that all government force is bad and all the ills that follow on from that.
We actually have this in common-law jurisdictions without requiring that interpretation. The nature of the jury system (and judge trials have this as well, though it's harder to get it to happen) is that rather than literal law deciding what the ruling will be, "guilt" is the basis, and has been for as long as the jury system has existed (i.e. since before the Angles, Saxons, and Juts initially tried to invade Britain). In one of the states around North Dakota, it was for a while impossible for a certain faction of the population (the "farmers") to be held guilty of murdering a member of the other (the "ranchers") due to the federal government's intervention before statehood to prevent a farmer militia from exacting vengeance upon the ranchers, who had obtained their ranches by murdering or otherwise forcing out their neighbors. It's nasty, brutish, and best left forgotten, but it's there and it's actually important (it was used successfully in England several centuries back to prevent the enactment of a vindictive law by the king of England, for example).
Razor One wrote:There is a reason that non-discrimination laws exist. I suggest you do some research on the Civil Rights Act, Jim Crow laws, and assess if you want to live as a black man in the United States during the 1950's where businesses did have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
There's also reason to question if you want to be a business at that time. Businesses in Oklahoma where I live liked it because they could take down their "no blacks" signs while placing the blame on the federal government instead of taking it for themselves.

discord
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by discord »

Razor:

The problem with discrimination is that it is endemic of the human condition, analytical brain seeks patterns, these may be universally true or locally or only perceived, but quite often these prejudice are based in reality in some way, this means it is quite logical to make broad predictions on groups of people, to not be able to see beyond those initial predictions is a problem(known as racism, homo phobia and other nasty names) which usually comes from not understanding why you make those predictions in the first place.

and on the other hand i did say 'Or not, I do not really care, since the alternative is to infringe on your freedom to do whatever the hell you want with YOUR stuff/skills.'
bah, long post on how the human mind seems to work and how it does not get along with the values of today would be a bother, so whatever.

another point here might be that the US is among the world leaders when it comes to racism and bigotry, so I guess extreme measures might be needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKGZnB41_e4 <--- yeah, racism is a thing.


On nuclear secrets, sure I could buy that .... problem is a gun type nuke is so idiotically simple you do not need much more information than what you can write on a napkin, and it's already all over the world, no stuffing this genie back in the bottle....but the US sure as hell is trying!
The difficult part btw. is getting enough enriched plutonium(or one of the other suitable materials).
Although this might explain the damn near total lack of understanding of nuclear stuff from the US, not that the rest of the world is that much better now that I think about it.

bottom line, ANY infringement on the freedom of speech(and as far as I am concerned by extension freedom of information) is bad, might be necessary and tolerable on the national security level, just about anything short of that is just plain 'bad'.
please do not ask how that view does not conflict with privacy.


on that site, just googled and saw the first couple points seemed not crazy....
#1 the scary part is since any such bill quite directly infringes on either first and/or fourth maybe even fifth amendment depending on how you look at it makes the bill illegal by definition, yet still they keep coming.
#2 if you are not penalized for abuse of power....
#18 illegal according to the fifth and sixth amendments....
the rest, dunno, never read it as I mentioned, but even one valid grievance is rather bad.

absalom:
on the island territories, exempting puerto rico the rest of them combined have 2/3 of the population of wyoming.
living on US soil, born on US soil, paying US taxes but not allowed to vote by legal shenanigans, I'd be upset.

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Grayhome
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Grayhome »

on the island territories, exempting puerto rico the rest of them combined have 2/3 of the population of wyoming.
living on US soil, born on US soil, paying US taxes but not allowed to vote by legal shenanigans, I'd be upset.
John Oliver on Last Week Tonight had a show on that very subject not too long ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE

Absalom
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Absalom »

discord wrote:Although this might explain the damn near total lack of understanding of nuclear stuff from the US, not that the rest of the world is that much better now that I think about it.
People have all sorts of religious concepts that their actual religion says nothing about...
discord wrote:on that site, just googled and saw the first couple points seemed not crazy....
#1 the scary part is since any such bill quite directly infringes on either first and/or fourth maybe even fifth amendment depending on how you look at it makes the bill illegal by definition, yet still they keep coming.
Parts of DOMA might be infringing (can you legally disclose how to break digital rights enforcement?), but all I recall about SOPA PIPA is that they were aimed at digital piracy, which "free speech" doesn't normally touch. The fifth (due process) is much more likely, though these things can temporarily be legislated around.
discord wrote:#18 illegal according to the fifth and sixth amendments....
Also potentially violates 1st amendment's right to petition.

Regardless, now that I've seen that page, definitely a paranoia site. They might be right on a lot of stuff, but question their analysis, and doubt that the perpetrators they list are actually conscious of their misbehaviors (except for those who justify it under "social contract" grounds, because those people are fully aware that they don't have actual legal grounds, hence their invocation of a unwritten & unenacted "social" contract).
Grayhome wrote:
on the island territories, exempting puerto rico the rest of them combined have 2/3 of the population of wyoming.
living on US soil, born on US soil, paying US taxes but not allowed to vote by legal shenanigans, I'd be upset.
John Oliver on Last Week Tonight had a show on that very subject not too long ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE
In the defense of that iteration of the supreme court, I'm pretty certain a lot of Anglo-Saxons (possibly the majority!) aren't capable of understanding Anglo-Saxon legal concepts (or, you know, any legal concepts). Them, and a decent ratio of Congress.

discord
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by discord »

Absalom:
On nukes. I was actually referring to legislation actually forcing media and education to portray nuclear power incorrectly, much as comic books had heroes throwing around cars because teaching kids to 'punch' could be cause for litigation or something.

Radiation, many are scared shitless of this silent green glowing killer! Without understanding that they get irradiated daily and during a trip to Chernobyl the part you get most radiation poisoning from would be during the flight.
Unless of course you go cuddle the Elephants foot for a few minutes which would kill you.


The US does not really have postal privacy it seems...which basically says that information(mail) sent by you to someone is not to be read en route by(federal agency, private individuals or anyone really) and thereby your information transaction should not be seized nor searched without probable cause and a goddamn search warrant, since it is an intrusion on someones private life.
Without that I suppose you can't claim observer effect will infringe on your freedom to say whatever the bloody hell you like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence <----that stuff
But there is still the fourth, which basically says the same thing, just without specifically mentioning postal service or mail, and therefor not applicable?

Side note, would artistic expression be covered by the first? that is a big thing about not letting anyone 'infringe' on the copyrighted material.


So, you should not have the right to vote unless..... what exactly?
Universal suffrage is such a nice wording.

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Siber
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Siber »

The fact that secrecy of letters is not enshrined exactly in the constitution doesn't mean it does not exist, as that wikpedia page goes on to explain how it arose through case law.


And it's funny, I seem to have stumbled on a lot of easily accessible information about how nuclear weapons work just from sources like wikipedia. What seems to be suppressed if anything is specific geometries, and tricks that got used in later designs like the Teller-Ulam design. This is the first I've heard of deliberate misinformation campaigns, I'd be curious to see sources.
Atomic Space Race, a hard sci-fi orbital mechanics puzzle game.
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Absalom
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Absalom »

discord wrote:But there is still the fourth, which basically says the same thing, just without specifically mentioning postal service or mail, and therefor not applicable?
The beauty of the Constitution and Amendments is that in conjunction with the freedom of interpretation of the common-law system, they don't need to specifically list cases in order to apply. The Supreme Court ruled against the police secretly placing GPS tracers on peoples cars without a warrant a few years ago despite the relevant portion of the Constitution mentioning nothing about electronics or cars. This inherent flexibility is one of the things the Constitution has over other styles of base-most laws: you don't have to update it on a weekly basis to keep it relevant, and instead can just put foundational matters into it, while leaving the details and balance to laws, administrative policies, and judicial decisions.
discord wrote:Side note, would artistic expression be covered by the first? that is a big thing about not letting anyone 'infringe' on the copyrighted material.
It depends. Either the constitution or the law enshrines "fair use" requirements, but what one person deems fair use is not necessarily what the courts deem fair use. Definitions tend to float, which they usually need to.

What we can say is that those guys that upload entire episodes of tv series and stick a note about fair use in the comments are 99% of the time not making fair use, because there is no reason for them to use that much of the show at once except to infringe upon the usage rights of the rights owners.

At the same time, we can also know that you are absolutely justified in using enough of the material from the show to represent what the show is: for the Battlestar Galactica reboot it might be pretty easy to justify directly grabbing their "previously on" sequences, for example.

To generalize a bit more: the Constitution seeks to have a well-rounded system rather than a pure system, so provisions of both it and the amendments often clash. These conflicts are resolved in the fashion that makes sense at the time, which drifts over time; a process that was in fact recognized by at least some of the founding fathers (it's mentioned at least once in the Federalist Papers).
discord wrote:So, you should not have the right to vote unless..... what exactly?
Universal suffrage is such a nice wording.
I would never suggest any particular wording, because I don't particularly want to see restrictions passed. In fact, that was (mostly) a throw-away joke.

The "correct option" is of course to require a certain level of civics education (and probably logic, philosophy, and debate training to support it) be instituted throughout the school system. Regretfully, that won't happen until we develop a wiser society, which itself can't realistically happen until something like this is instituted, which won't happen until we develop a wiser society, which...

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Grayhome
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Re: Religious Discussion

Post by Grayhome »

Jhon Oliver from "Last Week Tonight" with a video on LGBT discrimination in the United States.
This video does a good job of explaining the problems facing the LBGT community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d667Bb_iYA

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