I was at the counter and this woman that I presume was the mother of two small children, a boy and a girl, came into the store to look around.
The boy wanted a specific game and the mother was asking me about it. Her daughter was running around being a little shit, intentionally knocking things off of the shelves and talking far too loudly. The mother was in mid sentence, she reached out and caught the little girl by her pony tail spanked her twice on the bottom and sat her down on the floor without breaking the cadence in her speaking or breaking eye-contact with me.
It kind of went something like this... "So, is this a an action game, a puzzle game or a " --Catch, WHACK WHACK, plop-- " strategy game?"
I wanted to thank her, because it was going to be me that had to pick up all of the things that the little girl had knocked onto the floor.
So who was President when France(1960), England(1952), USSR(1949), PRC(1964), South Africa(1979) and Israel(1979) developed nuclear weapons? Here's a hint...it wasn't Bush or Clinton.
Yet we squandered our military resources chasing down militias armed with leftover 1970s weapon technology, hiding in caves in Afghanistan, and toppling a contained dictator with no active nuclear or biological weapons programs in Iraq.
You do realize that most of the US's military technology is rooted in the 1970's and 1960s and before, right?
M-16 Developed in the 1960s. M-9 based on firearms designs going back to the 1940s. F-16 & F-18, 1970s aircract technology with modern day avionics. I could go on and on. Our tanks, APCs and bombs are based on 30 year old technology was well. The justness of the war aside, please don't try to downplay the difficulty of the soldiers' tasks.
Not many Presidents can boast of being asleep at the wheel while another nuclear power was born.
STFU. Clinton was in office when India and Pakistan developed nuclear weapons.
This just became Bush's biggest disaster and that's saying a lot. Hey at least gays can't marry so we got the important stuff done! Nice to see we have priorities in the US.
Yeah, that's it. It's Bush's fault that North Korea lied to and tricked the previous administration and didn't come clean about what they were doing until shortly before they were ready to initiate a test.
You're pissed off at Bush because "gay marriage" and want any excuse to bitch about him.
As such, it is better for us to attack now as they can NOT use their bomb.
They can't use it against us, but they can use it against our allies in the region. An unguided rocket can deliver a nuclear payload well into South Korea. The Mig 21s that North Korea certainly has in their fleet can easily carry a nuclear payload as far as Japan.
If we attack them, they will use their weapon(s) against our allies.
It all depends on the judge of course, but I'd say it's pretty clear that the above was meant to include whatever it takes to make the program run. The Tivo case hasn't gone to court, so that's why they get away with it.
That's the difference between spirit and letter.
I'm sure that the original intent of the GPL was to include everything it takes to make a program work. However, if the binaries are signed by hand after compilation and later installed then the section of the GPL that you quoted wouldn't apply.
Or even if it was done using a script, the private key used to sign the binaries would not be covered.
You would imagine that people would know this by heart by now...
Restricting the hardware to only run signed binaries, would allow them to comply with the letter of the GPL if not the spirit. Any modifications could be released under the GPL and no one would be able to compile a custom kernel for the Wii.
Is this a politicly correct blackboard or something?
They haven't made blackboards since the 1970s. The new ones are green. So instead of saying "Greenboards and blackboards", one merely has to say "chalkboards".
I know you're trolling, but I felt like explaining.
Reality is that Sony could have Jessica Alba give blow jobs to one in every 1,000 PS3 owners and it still won't change the fact that only a small portion of the population can afford a $500 gaming system; all that would happen is that Jessica would get some pretty chapped lips and herpies.
I'm sure that a few million more people would go without food for a month to get one.
There are other, smaller examples. Native Americans have been granted rights to kill endangered animals, for instance -- I can't remember what tribe, but I think it was the Bald Eagle.
You are incorrect. Native American were allowed to possess the feathers of such animals but they were not permitted to kill them. For you or I it would have been a crime, punishable by time in a federal prison. For them, it was allowed.
Take marriage: How does having the state recognize your marriage make it any more of a "free exercise" of your religion? Credit ratings, tax breaks, etc -- can you show me these in your scripture?
I have never attempted to use religion to justify any of my positions. It's always a losing proposition because not even practitioners of the same religion can agree on every point.
Supposing the state only recognizes your marriage as a "civic union" -- in what way does this restrict your free exercise of religion?
I never said that it did. Please stop trying to put words in my mouth.
Which is why I suggest that people we would ordinarily put on death row should be separated from everyone else.
Until the appeals process is exhausted, they too even have the right to life.
You'd give up that quickly?
No. I mean that I disagree with you and would be willing to bet that you're incorrect.
Wow. Just wow. You never studied any philosophy, did you?
I feel completely confident taking this out of context here. That I can't come up with any specific examples does not, ever, mean that I can be sure none exist.
Are you intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying, or are you really that incapable of inference?
No such examples exist. That is why you can't think of any.
She was already dead. Completely vegitative -- no brain at all.
Incorrect oh yet again... She was in a persistent vegetative state. She had severe brain damage and a large portion of her brain tissue had died and was replaced by spinal fluid. That's not the same thing as being completely vegetative with "no brain at all".
She wasn't going to recover. That much is true. She likely didn't feel any pain. I still can't agree with letting someone die from lack of sustenence.
Are you suggesting that you expect there to be some hope of recovery, such as re-growing a brain?
I'm suggesting that if you believe that it's ever acceptable to euthanize innocent human beings that you are beyond redemption.
For the record, not all pro-choice people believe that birth is the absolute cutoff. I'd argue that many sane people looking at this issue hate the idea of third-trimester abortions.
Then why do the Democrats oppose partial birth abortion bans?
I am suggesting that a creature which is alive, but not yet human, should not be given any rights at all simply because he has DNA.
If a fetus isn't human, what is it? A frog?
So does my big toe. Is my big toe a human being?
Only if you're a human fractal.
If it was, then every time a guy masturbates, he'd be guilty of murder -- not of kittens, but of billions of sperm, each of which have human DNA, and are thus human, by your logic.
No, by your twisted interpretation of my logic. You've obviously just stepped out of your element. You abviously don't know this, but sperm are not truly cells. They are gametes, they have half of the nuclear genetic material of a cell. In other words, they don't have 23 pairs of chromosomes. They have 23 individual chromosomes. These are combined with the 23 chromosomes in the mother's egg to produce a new and unique (with the exception of identical twins...down's syndrome...turner's syndrome...etc)human being. Sperm do have full mitochondrial DNA, but that's discarded at the time of conception.
The 3/5ths compromise does, although it has been stricken. I would have no problem putting "separation of Church and State" into the Constitution, if it could be expressed clearly and unambiguously enough.
Therein lies the problem. People with an agenda will always find ways to "misunderstand" that which should be crystal clear.
More to the point, you cannot have effective freedom of religion without that separation, and I believe freedom of religion does exist in the Constitution. We can look it up if you like.
Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion. I suspect that you already know this. But in case you do not, the "separation of church and state" crowd most often mentions the establishment clause but they convienently forget the next part that protects "the free exercise thereof".
Murders you shouldn't care about anyway -- you were in favor of killing these people, remember?
Not everyone who is raped or murdered in prison is a murderer. I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that murderers are less likely to be victimized than non-violent inmates.
And assuming we throw all these people in together on a perpetual Death Row, I'll bet most of them would rather be alive and raped than dead.
I'd take that bet.
There are always doubts. I'm sorry, I don't have any specific examples off the top of my head, but there have been innocents executed, or at least people who might have been innocent, but we don't find the evidence until after they're dead.
There are not always doubts. I'll concede that there have been executions that we later found additional evidence, but nothing has ever exonerated an executed convict.
You can't come up with any specific examples because none exist.
However, consider Terry Schiavo. By the time they finally pulled the plug, she didn't have a brain worth mentioning.
They didn't "pull the plug", she wasn't on life support; they starved her to death. To be more accurate, she died of dehydration.
And yes, in situations like these, I'd have them euthanized, because of the financial and emotional burden on the living, and the absolute, complete hoplessness of recovery.
All I needed to hear...
At what point does it become a human being?
That's the crux of the debate. The "pro choic" side says that birth is that point. Some of the pro lifers say that conception is that point. My personal belief is that life should be protectable at the point that brain waves are detectable.
That blurb isn't nearly enough, and by what definition?
Any reasonable one.
Me and Bubbles, we have skin, hands, ears, and feet. We can see -- our eyes aren't fused shut. We can think. Food good, fire bad. We can use tools -- we can both brush our teeth without being told. We can contribute to society -- yes, even Bubbles, he'd make a nice companion for the elderly.
So Dr., when do you propose that we start rounding up the mentally ill, homeless and other desirebles for euthanasia?
What has Little James got that Bubbles doesn't?
23 pairs of chromosomes.
You also haven't touched on anything about the mother. Given a choice between the "little person" and the mother, who would you kill? I can understand "women and children", but I think defining a fetus as a child is a bit extreme.
Of course you would. If the mother's life is endangered, we have to do all that we can to save her and if it's possible save the child.
Unpopular opinions don't make you a troll. I'm as radically progressive as they come, but I'll be damned if I'll let anyone turn slashdot into a liberal echo chamber.
Thank you for getting it. We don't have to agree, yet we don't have to kill each other either.
I'm guessing you're old school, like him: fiscally conservative, states rights, small federal government, am I right?
At one time, what I believe would be considered fiscally conservative, today it's thought of as moderate.
I still think the federal government has to take a strong hand in ending injustice, regulating market inefficiencies like monopolies and externalities, and generally moving the country forward.
Depending on the circumstances I can agree with most of this. The civil rights movement wouldn't have gone nearly as well without federal involvement.
Now, if you really are trolling I'm not gonna metamod that unfair. I troll sometimes, too. It's a great stress relief and a better option than my going completely postal on all y'all, but I deserve it when I'm really trolling and I get modded that way. However, the above post is not trolling.
Usually if I want to troll, I do it as an AC. If I'm being serious, I post normally.
But does it make marriage any less valid if the government refuses to have anything to do with it? Separation of church and state and all that? Why are you against the law only recognizing a "civil union" between any two individuals, which may or may not be marriage?
"Separation of Church and State" does not appear in the constitution.
I do not agree with "civil unions" being given equivalency with marriage, because marriage has a specific definition.
Or maybe your new analogy is drug laws? In that case, what are you trying to change -- get cocaine redefined as something other than a narcotic? In which case, why would you be opposed to doing the same thing for a gay marriage law?
This is one of those straw men that I referred to earlier. For the most part, I think that drug prohibition is good.(although I think marijuana is debatable) I brought it up as an example of how laws can be crafted based on nonsense.
Would you feel the same way if it was, say, the institution of slavery? As a country, we've been over this before.
This is a nonsensical example.
I'll bet, if you could, you'd establish marriage, heterosexual only, across the country.
If I could, I'd establish marriage as a heterosexual monogamous institution in the state that I live.
Not if they are locked up.
Murders and rapes don't happen in prison?
Why are you in favor of protecting the life of a bundle of cells, or a doll without a brain (literally!), but not an innocent adult who's been wrongfully convicted of a crime?
In cases where there are any doubts about the actual guilt of the person, the death penalty shouldn't be imposed.
I guess I'd assumed that it's self-evident that sentient life is more important to preserve than a bunch of unintelligent cells.
Does that mean that you would be in favor of euthanizing people with traumatic brain injuries or severe dementia? These people are usually only alive in the biological sense.
This "lump of cells" business is another straw man. We're not talking about that. For 6 weeks or so after conception, that's what you have but beyond that you have a little person.
Frankly, it's an insult to the children -- they have more in common with adult chimps than with first or second trimester fetuses.
James Elgin Gill was born before the end of the second trimester. Although quite small, he was a complete human being.
You have more in common with him than with Bubbles the chimp.
Let's try to be rational about fairness -- it is, after all, based on equality, which can certainly be rational. Is it fair that married couples get benefits? Tax breaks, better credit rating, etc?
Yes.
If you don't want the law to recognize gay marriage, the only rational, fair response is to make the law ignore marriage altogether. Would you be against that? Why?
I suspect that you already know that I'd be against such lunacy. Marriage predates the US government.
Regarding the Easter Bunny, you're really reaching here. We know exactly what laws regarding gay marriage would look like. Can you make up any kind of law that in some way recognizes the Easter Bunny?
Neither exists, it's possible to craft a law that recognizes anything. Hell, our current drug laws recognize cocaine as a narcotic when pharmacologically, it isn't.
Once again, your motivation is because you think it's your best shot. If you don't care about gay marriage in Vermont or California, why do you care about it anywhere else?
Because I don't live in Vermont or California. The people of those states have the right to define for themselves what institutions they'll recognize.
Why do you care if your gay neighbors up the street get hitched?
I don't care in the least is my gay neighbors decide to cohabitate, but whatever they do it won't be a marriage.
Funny, have you even tried? At least the far left has, with Libretarianism. Hell, even the TM Movement has, with the Natural Law Party.
Libertarians are fiscally conservative and socially moderate. Abortion is the big stumbling block that keeps me from supporting them.
How do neocons feel about the death penalty?
Ask one.
Do "conservatives" even have a position about it?
Yes. Pro.
This seems much more important to me than Abortion.
We each define our own priorities.
You're all for protecting something which may or may not have the consciousness of a flea yet, but you'll kill a fully developed, thinking human?
An adult human being can be a threat to the rest of society. So yes, I support the death penalty.
Or the war, you haven't said a thing about that.
The war isn't a big issue for me. I'm opposed to it, but I don't vote on it.
I am not saying that you should not have a position about abortion. I understand that it must be an important issue to you. But is it so much more important to you than life after birth?
A lot of liberals take that approach. We don't much care. It is an imporant issue to people like me. In a day and age when presidents are chosen by such thin margins, every issue that people base their votes on becomes important.
I am all for going out of the way to protect life before the age of majority. After you're 18, you're responsible for yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
No sir, you're "incredibly stupid" by not reading the full article.
This, boys and girls, is a fantastic example of what we like to call a "Bitch Slap".
LK
I was at the counter and this woman that I presume was the mother of two small children, a boy and a girl, came into the store to look around.
The boy wanted a specific game and the mother was asking me about it. Her daughter was running around being a little shit, intentionally knocking things off of the shelves and talking far too loudly. The mother was in mid sentence, she reached out and caught the little girl by her pony tail spanked her twice on the bottom and sat her down on the floor without breaking the cadence in her speaking or breaking eye-contact with me.
It kind of went something like this...
"So, is this a an action game, a puzzle game or a " --Catch, WHACK WHACK, plop-- " strategy game?"
I wanted to thank her, because it was going to be me that had to pick up all of the things that the little girl had knocked onto the floor.
LK
Congressman Foley, is that you?
LK
That's as far as a I got. One is "many"?
So who was President when France(1960), England(1952), USSR(1949), PRC(1964), South Africa(1979) and Israel(1979) developed nuclear weapons? Here's a hint...it wasn't Bush or Clinton.
So keep on counting.
LK
Try some good porn, you might like the attractive women more than pimply, needle marked, wrinkled $5 meth whores.
Getting paid to have sex, be it on the set of a "movie" or in the back room of a crack/meth den puts you in the same catagory.
A 5$ whore and a $5,000 whore have one thing in common. They're both whores.
LK
Yet we squandered our military resources chasing down militias armed with leftover 1970s weapon technology, hiding in caves in Afghanistan, and toppling a contained dictator with no active nuclear or biological weapons programs in Iraq.
You do realize that most of the US's military technology is rooted in the 1970's and 1960s and before, right?
M-16 Developed in the 1960s. M-9 based on firearms designs going back to the 1940s. F-16 & F-18, 1970s aircract technology with modern day avionics. I could go on and on. Our tanks, APCs and bombs are based on 30 year old technology was well. The justness of the war aside, please don't try to downplay the difficulty of the soldiers' tasks.
LK
Not many Presidents can boast of being asleep at the wheel while another nuclear power was born.
STFU. Clinton was in office when India and Pakistan developed nuclear weapons.
This just became Bush's biggest disaster and that's saying a lot. Hey at least gays can't marry so we got the important stuff done! Nice to see we have priorities in the US.
Yeah, that's it. It's Bush's fault that North Korea lied to and tricked the previous administration and didn't come clean about what they were doing until shortly before they were ready to initiate a test.
You're pissed off at Bush because "gay marriage" and want any excuse to bitch about him.
LK
That could quite well get the Japanese to deny the U.S. use of Okinawa, which would logistically cripple any U.S. military response.
It would hurt, but the US would move some aircraft carriers and destroyers off of the North Korean coast and glass Pyongyang.
LK
As such, it is better for us to attack now as they can NOT use their bomb.
They can't use it against us, but they can use it against our allies in the region. An unguided rocket can deliver a nuclear payload well into South Korea. The Mig 21s that North Korea certainly has in their fleet can easily carry a nuclear payload as far as Japan.
If we attack them, they will use their weapon(s) against our allies.
LK
It all depends on the judge of course, but I'd say it's pretty clear that the above was meant to include whatever it takes to make the program run. The Tivo case hasn't gone to court, so that's why they get away with it.
That's the difference between spirit and letter.
I'm sure that the original intent of the GPL was to include everything it takes to make a program work. However, if the binaries are signed by hand after compilation and later installed then the section of the GPL that you quoted wouldn't apply.
Or even if it was done using a script, the private key used to sign the binaries would not be covered.
LK
Darwinists routinely ignore evidence that modern humans have existed for longer than they choose to believe.
Modern day Darwinists, are less objective than they like to pretend.
LK
You would imagine that people would know this by heart by now...
Restricting the hardware to only run signed binaries, would allow them to comply with the letter of the GPL if not the spirit. Any modifications could be released under the GPL and no one would be able to compile a custom kernel for the Wii.
LK
All they would have had to offer were some of Marina Sirtis's & Denise Crosby's "gently used" undergarments.
LK
THe Neo-con movement is the evangelical wing of the republican party.
I disagree. The so called Neo-Cons are the big business Republicans.
Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush are all different kinds of Conservatives.
LK
Is this a politicly correct blackboard or something?
They haven't made blackboards since the 1970s. The new ones are green. So instead of saying "Greenboards and blackboards", one merely has to say "chalkboards".
I know you're trolling, but I felt like explaining.
LK
Reality is that Sony could have Jessica Alba give blow jobs to one in every 1,000 PS3 owners and it still won't change the fact that only a small portion of the population can afford a $500 gaming system; all that would happen is that Jessica would get some pretty chapped lips and herpies.
I'm sure that a few million more people would go without food for a month to get one.
LK
Perhaps we will wake up before the world turns its back on us permanently.
I doubt it. If the world turns its back on us, maybe they'll stop taking our jerrbs!
LK
kg...
Most of us are Americans here, you need to put it into imperial measurements.
LK
Uh, no.
355/133=2.6691729323308270676691729323308
LK
There are other, smaller examples. Native Americans have been granted rights to kill endangered animals, for instance -- I can't remember what tribe, but I think it was the Bald Eagle.
You are incorrect. Native American were allowed to possess the feathers of such animals but they were not permitted to kill them. For you or I it would have been a crime, punishable by time in a federal prison. For them, it was allowed.
Take marriage: How does having the state recognize your marriage make it any more of a "free exercise" of your religion? Credit ratings, tax breaks, etc -- can you show me these in your scripture?
I have never attempted to use religion to justify any of my positions. It's always a losing proposition because not even practitioners of the same religion can agree on every point.
Supposing the state only recognizes your marriage as a "civic union" -- in what way does this restrict your free exercise of religion?
I never said that it did. Please stop trying to put words in my mouth.
Which is why I suggest that people we would ordinarily put on death row should be separated from everyone else.
Until the appeals process is exhausted, they too even have the right to life.
You'd give up that quickly?
No. I mean that I disagree with you and would be willing to bet that you're incorrect.
Wow. Just wow. You never studied any philosophy, did you?
I feel completely confident taking this out of context here. That I can't come up with any specific examples does not, ever, mean that I can be sure none exist.
Are you intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying, or are you really that incapable of inference?
No such examples exist. That is why you can't think of any.
She was already dead. Completely vegitative -- no brain at all.
Incorrect oh yet again... She was in a persistent vegetative state. She had severe brain damage and a large portion of her brain tissue had died and was replaced by spinal fluid. That's not the same thing as being completely vegetative with "no brain at all".
She wasn't going to recover. That much is true. She likely didn't feel any pain. I still can't agree with letting someone die from lack of sustenence.
Are you suggesting that you expect there to be some hope of recovery, such as re-growing a brain?
I'm suggesting that if you believe that it's ever acceptable to euthanize innocent human beings that you are beyond redemption.
For the record, not all pro-choice people believe that birth is the absolute cutoff. I'd argue that many sane people looking at this issue hate the idea of third-trimester abortions.
Then why do the Democrats oppose partial birth abortion bans?
I am suggesting that a creature which is alive, but not yet human, should not be given any rights at all simply because he has DNA.
If a fetus isn't human, what is it? A frog?
So does my big toe. Is my big toe a human being?
Only if you're a human fractal.
If it was, then every time a guy masturbates, he'd be guilty of murder -- not of kittens, but of billions of sperm, each of which have human DNA, and are thus human, by your logic.
No, by your twisted interpretation of my logic. You've obviously just stepped out of your element. You abviously don't know this, but sperm are not truly cells. They are gametes, they have half of the nuclear genetic material of a cell. In other words, they don't have 23 pairs of chromosomes. They have 23 individual chromosomes. These are combined with the 23 chromosomes in the mother's egg to produce a new and unique (with the exception of identical twins...down's syndrome...turner's syndrome...etc)human being. Sperm do have full mitochondrial DNA, but that's discarded at the time of conception.
Have a nice life.
LK
The 3/5ths compromise does, although it has been stricken. I would have no problem putting "separation of Church and State" into the Constitution, if it could be expressed clearly and unambiguously enough.
Therein lies the problem. People with an agenda will always find ways to "misunderstand" that which should be crystal clear.
More to the point, you cannot have effective freedom of religion without that separation, and I believe freedom of religion does exist in the Constitution. We can look it up if you like.
Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion. I suspect that you already know this. But in case you do not, the "separation of church and state" crowd most often mentions the establishment clause but they convienently forget the next part that protects "the free exercise thereof".
Murders you shouldn't care about anyway -- you were in favor of killing these people, remember?
Not everyone who is raped or murdered in prison is a murderer. I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that murderers are less likely to be victimized than non-violent inmates.
And assuming we throw all these people in together on a perpetual Death Row, I'll bet most of them would rather be alive and raped than dead.
I'd take that bet.
There are always doubts. I'm sorry, I don't have any specific examples off the top of my head, but there have been innocents executed, or at least people who might have been innocent, but we don't find the evidence until after they're dead.
There are not always doubts. I'll concede that there have been executions that we later found additional evidence, but nothing has ever exonerated an executed convict.
You can't come up with any specific examples because none exist.
However, consider Terry Schiavo. By the time they finally pulled the plug, she didn't have a brain worth mentioning.
They didn't "pull the plug", she wasn't on life support; they starved her to death. To be more accurate, she died of dehydration.
And yes, in situations like these, I'd have them euthanized, because of the financial and emotional burden on the living, and the absolute, complete hoplessness of recovery.
All I needed to hear...
At what point does it become a human being?
That's the crux of the debate. The "pro choic" side says that birth is that point. Some of the pro lifers say that conception is that point. My personal belief is that life should be protectable at the point that brain waves are detectable.
That blurb isn't nearly enough, and by what definition?
Any reasonable one.
Me and Bubbles, we have skin, hands, ears, and feet. We can see -- our eyes aren't fused shut. We can think. Food good, fire bad. We can use tools -- we can both brush our teeth without being told. We can contribute to society -- yes, even Bubbles, he'd make a nice companion for the elderly.
So Dr., when do you propose that we start rounding up the mentally ill, homeless and other desirebles for euthanasia?
What has Little James got that Bubbles doesn't?
23 pairs of chromosomes.
You also haven't touched on anything about the mother. Given a choice between the "little person" and the mother, who would you kill? I can understand "women and children", but I think defining a fetus as a child is a bit extreme.
Of course you would. If the mother's life is endangered, we have to do all that we can to save her and if it's possible save the child.
LK
Unpopular opinions don't make you a troll. I'm as radically progressive as they come, but I'll be damned if I'll let anyone turn slashdot into a liberal echo chamber.
Thank you for getting it. We don't have to agree, yet we don't have to kill each other either.
I'm guessing you're old school, like him: fiscally conservative, states rights, small federal government, am I right?
At one time, what I believe would be considered fiscally conservative, today it's thought of as moderate.
I still think the federal government has to take a strong hand in ending injustice, regulating market inefficiencies like monopolies and externalities, and generally moving the country forward.
Depending on the circumstances I can agree with most of this. The civil rights movement wouldn't have gone nearly as well without federal involvement.
Now, if you really are trolling I'm not gonna metamod that unfair. I troll sometimes, too. It's a great stress relief and a better option than my going completely postal on all y'all, but I deserve it when I'm really trolling and I get modded that way. However, the above post is not trolling.
Usually if I want to troll, I do it as an AC. If I'm being serious, I post normally.
LK
Oh, I'm quite calm, just a little confused.
Your repeated use of straw men says something about your reaction to my position.
That's your reason? Hey, witchcraft also predates the US government! And so does any religion.
The Mormons do not.
But does it make marriage any less valid if the government refuses to have anything to do with it? Separation of church and state and all that? Why are you against the law only recognizing a "civil union" between any two individuals, which may or may not be marriage?
"Separation of Church and State" does not appear in the constitution.
I do not agree with "civil unions" being given equivalency with marriage, because marriage has a specific definition.
Or maybe your new analogy is drug laws? In that case, what are you trying to change -- get cocaine redefined as something other than a narcotic? In which case, why would you be opposed to doing the same thing for a gay marriage law?
This is one of those straw men that I referred to earlier. For the most part, I think that drug prohibition is good.(although I think marijuana is debatable) I brought it up as an example of how laws can be crafted based on nonsense.
Would you feel the same way if it was, say, the institution of slavery? As a country, we've been over this before.
This is a nonsensical example.
I'll bet, if you could, you'd establish marriage, heterosexual only, across the country.
If I could, I'd establish marriage as a heterosexual monogamous institution in the state that I live.
Not if they are locked up.
Murders and rapes don't happen in prison?
Why are you in favor of protecting the life of a bundle of cells, or a doll without a brain (literally!), but not an innocent adult who's been wrongfully convicted of a crime?
In cases where there are any doubts about the actual guilt of the person, the death penalty shouldn't be imposed.
I guess I'd assumed that it's self-evident that sentient life is more important to preserve than a bunch of unintelligent cells.
Does that mean that you would be in favor of euthanizing people with traumatic brain injuries or severe dementia? These people are usually only alive in the biological sense.
This "lump of cells" business is another straw man. We're not talking about that. For 6 weeks or so after conception, that's what you have but beyond that you have a little person.
Frankly, it's an insult to the children -- they have more in common with adult chimps than with first or second trimester fetuses.
James Elgin Gill was born before the end of the second trimester. Although quite small, he was a complete human being.
You have more in common with him than with Bubbles the chimp.
LK
Advanced CounterStrike classes involve running around vandalizing walls with pr0n.
I used to spray Mr. Goatse with the caption "I fucked you" whenever I'd get a particularly sweet kill.
LK
Sounds like a step backward to me.
You're entitled to that opinion.
I must have touched a nerve.
As have I.
Let's try to be rational about fairness -- it is, after all, based on equality, which can certainly be rational. Is it fair that married couples get benefits? Tax breaks, better credit rating, etc?
Yes.
If you don't want the law to recognize gay marriage, the only rational, fair response is to make the law ignore marriage altogether. Would you be against that? Why?
I suspect that you already know that I'd be against such lunacy. Marriage predates the US government.
Regarding the Easter Bunny, you're really reaching here. We know exactly what laws regarding gay marriage would look like. Can you make up any kind of law that in some way recognizes the Easter Bunny?
Neither exists, it's possible to craft a law that recognizes anything. Hell, our current drug laws recognize cocaine as a narcotic when pharmacologically, it isn't.
Once again, your motivation is because you think it's your best shot. If you don't care about gay marriage in Vermont or California, why do you care about it anywhere else?
Because I don't live in Vermont or California. The people of those states have the right to define for themselves what institutions they'll recognize.
Why do you care if your gay neighbors up the street get hitched?
I don't care in the least is my gay neighbors decide to cohabitate, but whatever they do it won't be a marriage.
Funny, have you even tried? At least the far left has, with Libretarianism. Hell, even the TM Movement has, with the Natural Law Party.
Libertarians are fiscally conservative and socially moderate. Abortion is the big stumbling block that keeps me from supporting them.
How do neocons feel about the death penalty?
Ask one.
Do "conservatives" even have a position about it?
Yes. Pro.
This seems much more important to me than Abortion.
We each define our own priorities.
You're all for protecting something which may or may not have the consciousness of a flea yet, but you'll kill a fully developed, thinking human?
An adult human being can be a threat to the rest of society. So yes, I support the death penalty.
Or the war, you haven't said a thing about that.
The war isn't a big issue for me. I'm opposed to it, but I don't vote on it.
I am not saying that you should not have a position about abortion. I understand that it must be an important issue to you. But is it so much more important to you than life after birth?
A lot of liberals take that approach. We don't much care. It is an imporant issue to people like me. In a day and age when presidents are chosen by such thin margins, every issue that people base their votes on becomes important.
I am all for going out of the way to protect life before the age of majority. After you're 18, you're responsible for yourself.
LK