Why is it that everything I hear from Feinstein is anti-liberty, anti-individual, and pro-goverment-power? She is the modern poster child for exactly the kind of person that the founders fought the revolution in order to rid themselves of. Be gone, you power-mad, anti-liberty, disaster of a legislator.
All that you said is true, yet she is still alive, so clearly people don't care that much.
If they did, someone would either have run her out of office, or simply shot her.
Yes, but those were areas that Microsoft didn't already own and MS took way too long to push into them.
Chromebooks run Linux the way OS X runs UNIX. It kinda sort exists there somewhere, but not really. Not to the point where it matters or 99% of the users will remotely care.
What Linus wants and what Chromebooks actually are, are not the same thing.
Chromebooks run Linux and are quietly taking over the education world.
Meh, my local school has them, they are hardly used. They got them because they were nearly given to them. They use their iPads and Dell desktop PCs far more.
I might agree except that the local school system is flooded with Chromebooks... Linux.
My local school system has the same thing, they were nearly given to the school system for almost nothing.
And they largely sit unused, while the pair of iPads in each room get used every day and the PC lab gets used three times a week (filled with Dell desktop PCs running Windows 7).
It's amazing how much one can accomplish on a Chromebook - and a more familiar Linux environment is only a chroot away.
I am fully aware of it. A whole lot of people using Windows could just as easily be using a Chromebook (or Chromebox).
But the odds are, almost none of those people will ever run what you consider to be Linux on them, any more than most people would jailbreak their iPhone or install vanilla Android on their Galaxy.
Therefore, only men wearing full female attire and actually behaving like a women would be allowed. Anyone else would be forbidden.
Admittedly, this wouldn't remove all the risk. But I think we can both agree that a would be rapist who goes to the trouble of realistically wearing female attire and behaving like a woman so as to be able to rape in a public bathroom, as opposed to simply going for a defenseless women in a dark alley, is such a small one that it's negligible.
I would agree that is a reasonable middle ground. I would also agree that a would be rapist is highly unlikely to do all that you suggest just to be able to commit such a crime.
However, that level of nuance is hard for people who have the full time job of making laws (politicians), much less the general public who simply aren't all that interested in that level of detail. You simply aren't going to get the masses to pay enough attention to notice all that.
Abortion has the same problem. Trump ran into trouble over his answer, and shame on him for not being more prepared for that one, but frankly you can't answer abortion in a 15 second soundbite, the issue is simply more nuanced than that. People think they have a black and white answer, until you talk about it and find exceptions and middle ground.
I'd say most people don't give a damn about anyone beyond their closest acquaintances / social group. About 49% of the adult population being at stages 1 to 3 in the Kohlberg scale of moral reasoning, meaning they think in terms of their own groups as the limit of their experience of the other. Another 45% are at stage 4, meaning they think of others in terms of their being part of so many different groups linked by obedience (or not) to a common set laws of laws. And just 6% or so at stage 5 and 6, able to think of others as pure, non-group-bound individuals. Therefore, given the social contract is a political notion typical of people that reason about moral matters from a stage 4.5+ perspective, it isn't surprising half or more of the population see it as something ranging from a not really applicable ideal to a nice dream to outright incomprehensible.
I don't agree with the Kohlberg scale, much as I don't think trying to apply morals to everyone is a good idea, even if I believe in them.
Because on one hand, I believe that I was created in God's image and that all humans are special, but on the other hand, I believe there is a chance I'm completely wrong and none of it matters at all. I simply do not know. I'm also aware that most of my beliefs are simply programmed into me by society and my parents and that way too little of what I think is naturally mine.
If I think about it too much, it gets kinda freaky.:)
Let me give the extreme example... Hitler.. yea, him... He is viewed today as a "bad person", but early in his time, he was Germany's savior and hero. It wasn't until 1942 when the war started to turn against him that he started to lose support at home. What if he had won the war? What if the USSR had lost and Germany had defeated them? What if Britain had been invaded and Hitler had sewn up Europe such that America couldn't easily intervene?
Would Hitler be a "bad person"? Or would society slowly be taught over time that his ideas were good and that other people's were bad? It is easy to call him evil from behind the cloak of victory, but not quite so easy to do it behind the curtain of defeat.
Another possible option, perhaps he was stopped way early in the summer of 1939 and Europe never had WWII? Would the British Empire still be standing today? Would Japan have still attacked America in 1941 without a war in Europe to distract everyone? Perhaps all the colonies around the world including India would still be part of Europe. Is that a good or bad thing?
How about the American Civil War? What if the South had won? Would we still have slavery in the south today? Would it be vi
I'm sorry that you think I'm trolling. I'm really not, just calling a spade a spade...
Frankly, I think a Chromebox is a better choice for your average user who wants to leave Windows, it "just works". But those haven't sold very well either, likely because no one is spending any money to market them.
When is the last time you saw a TV commercial for Linux or Chromebox or anything besides Windows? (for desktops, we're not talking about phones here).
I agree that recent versions of Windows are easier to install than most recent Linux distros.
One of these days I need to try a recent version of Mint or something similar, I've run various versions of Linux over the years, mostly to try them out, and most worked "well enough, except for X", vs Windows which works all the time, and thus we have the primary problem.
For example, my wife turns her computer on, opens her web browser, and goes to town. 95% of everything she does on a computer is in a web browser.
So can she go to Linux? No. The only program she runs besides a web browser is Microsoft Office.
Yes, yes, there is Office Online, but it isn't the same thing, it isn't as fast, and why use it when you have the full version installed and are used to it?
Also, as for moving to Linux, the next question becomes... why? This is the single biggest problem Linux fans have in trying to get people to move, there really is no compelling reason to go.
What exactly does Linux do for my wife that Windows 10 does not?
Nothing, and that's the problem.
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Note: I didn't say Linux COULDN'T do anything Windows can't, I said that it doesn't do anything my wife needs. Of course power users may find Linux appealing, but most people really have no compelling need to make the change.
Windows is a huge pain in the ass to install. Install the base system, reboot, find the motherboard driver disk, reboot, find the motherboard network driver disk, reboot, find the mouse driver disk, reboot, find the video driver disk, reboot, repeat for almost every piece of hardware in your system. Did you later change your motherboard? Repeat the whole damned process over again.
You clearly haven't installed Windows in a long time, because none of that is true.
Insert Windows 10 USB stick into the USB port, turn the computer on, boot to the USB drive, click install, go do something else for an hour, come back, Windows is done and ready.
No one should be using all those driver CDs anyway, they are almost always horribly out of date, let Windows install its own drivers, it works fine.
And frankly, it has been this way since Windows 7. What you're describing was true back on Windows XP, but it has been a long time since then.
"Apple-like simple" is the job of a hardware manufacturer that tweaks a good Linux distribution to make it shiny and idiot-resistant.
That has been tried, more than once...
Dell has done it, HP tried it, etc...
It turns out that it costs real money to make it shiny, then you end up having to provide support and then people want to know why this or that Windows program doesn't run...
They all largely have dropped Linux on the desktop for that very reason.
Windows isn't free, but it is close enough to not bother fighting against.
Android won consumers, so there's hope for Linux for consumers.
No... Android is not Linux, no matter how much you want to point to the code under the shell and say it is...
I'm willing to bet that you could grab 100 random Android phone users and 95% of them wouldn't have a clue that Android was based on Linux. Many of those people would never have heard of Linux.
I seems that people care about apps, and what's on Windows that you can't get on Linux these days?
Less than there used to be, but still enough to matter.
Microsoft Office, for one. Quickbooks for another.
Video editors (e.g DaVinci) games(steam)
Yea, call me when Adobe Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas Pro are on Linux.
Games? Yea, a few token ones, some indie games...
Call me when Battlefield, Grand Theft Auto, and Call of Duty are on Linux...
How about League of Legends? World of Warcraft?
No, Wine is not an answer, the solution has to be native support or you'll never get mass adoption.
Linus definitely has a point I'd say.
Linus is smoking crack. The reasons Linux isn't a success on the desktop has nothing to do with the technology.
Heh, as a non-American who looks at American history from an outside perspective, I think you're making it less than what it is.:-)
As an American who loves history, but has also traveled the world to many countries, I'm really not...
And most Americans don't even know that if it were not for the French, we wouldn't bloody have a country, since they largely paid for the revolution and their fleet showing up broke the back of the British troops who couldn't get resupplied.
So thank you French people!:) I still call them French Fries (even if they were invented in Belgium)
By the way, I fully support doing the same to Islamic bakeries. The social contract MUST apply for ALL citizens, no exceptions.
You're the kind of person who would arrest 12 year old girls running a lemonade stand for not selling lemonade to a gay person.
The "social contract" doesn't extend as far as you think it does. It might exist in your mind, or in a book, or in theory, but frankly half the people in this country don't give much of a damm about the other half.
A good example is Clinton's recent comment about "she has a plan, will bring people together, and will move this country forward".
She isn't bringing me together, she can drop dead for all I care, I think she is a pile of dog meat. I don't think a whole lot more of Obama, one of the worst Presidents we've had in awhile.
On the flip side, I'm quite sure I could easily find someone else who would repeat the exact same words, but replace Clinton with Trump. He has exactly zero chance of bringing the country together, just like Clinton has zero chance. Cruz and Sanders probably have negative chance, but that is another story.
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You go on telling people what to think, how to live, and you'll end up with another civil war on your hands. A lot of people think your attitude frankly sucks. The irony is that you're far more of a dictator than I am.
On the other hand, a man wearing female clothes and makeup who enters a male bathroom is under risk of being beaten by one or more males. Anti-gay violence is pretty real in lots of places.
The grand irony here is that you're trying to protect gays from violence, but don't seem give to care about protecting women from being the victims of violence.
If the objective is to prevent men from entering female bathrooms to rape them, the simple physical distribution of doors already makes that impossible except in very few places.
Again, the point sails right over your head.
I'll try again: If a man walks into the ladies room, everyone involved and around can instantly take note that something happened that shouldn't. If I observe it, I can go confront the man, the ladies inside can do the same. If one of them screams, I would go running in to help them.
Under your plan, that can't happen, because then everyone has to assume they are just a transgender person who feels like a woman. Everyone has to wait until they actually do something wrong.
Waiting until you're actually attacked is stupid. No one who teaches self-defense will tell you that is a good plan. You need to identify threats early and the best option is to avoid them completely.
A simple example is walking on the street. If you see a man coming the other way and you two are the only people around, it may well make sense to cross the road or change direction.
You would tell the woman to just keep walking right by him with no idea what might happen, but if it does, it is far too late once within arms reach to do anything about it.
The kind of person that wants people who don't fit into your worldview to stay away from your family?
Yes, and somehow that has become a "bad thing" to say.
Not only do people want equal rights, they want "love and support".
That is their grand mistake. Somehow they think they should be invited over for Christmas dinner and given hugs or something. I want nothing to do with them, I think they are disgusting. But I do NOT think they should be hurt or denied basic human rights, I just don't want them next door to me.
I can hardly watch HGTV with my wife anymore, every bloody third episode is another gay couple. They are massively over represented on TV and wear it on their sleeve. I can't watch them, makes me want to puke.
And if any of the above gives you negative feelings towards me, then there is the problem, because what you're saying is that I'm not allowed to believe what I want, how I want, so long as I'm not hurting anyone.
There is a difference between accepting all humans as being from God and having equal human rights, and having to LIKE them for it.
Frankly you do sound more tolerant (in the parent comment only) than I would have expected, but combining that with the rest of your comments I suspect maybe your tolerance goes down as "weird" people's proximity to you and your family goes up.
I teach my kids to make up their own mind, don't take anyone else's word for how they should think and feel, including mine. I will guide them and tell them what I believe, but that they should in the end make up their own mind.
If one of my kids ends up being gay, I would love them unconditionally, but I wouldn't like it very much. I would, however, keep that opinion to myself.
We live in an area that has a lot of Hindu people, they don't celebrate Christmas. I've told my kids that different people around the world have different beliefs, and that is totally ok, so long as everyone is kind and peaceful to each other, there is no harm in it. My kids have asked why their friends sometimes don't have a Christmas tree up, and I tell them that not everyone believes in the story of Jesus Christ, some people believe other things, and some people believe nothing at all. I have also told them it is quite possible that all three major religions are really the same God with different versions of the story, and that I am not the ultimate decider of such things.
My wife's best friend is a Muslim, she is from Lebanon, and is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. You probably wouldn't believe it from some of my posts, but I'm actually very tolerant of other people. But I do have my limits, and the whole bathroom thing is one. As I have said in other posts, I've employed gay people, and I really don't care, so long as it doesn't cause office problems. I've done business with them, again, I don't care about that either. I'm not likely to invite them to Christmas dinner however.
And that needs to be OK, or our Republic has no future, because you're trying to control thought at that point and that is evil and wrong.
That's a intuitive position, not one based on actual statistics. If 50% of the population were in actual danger I'd be all for imposing restrictions so as do lower that danger. But those who say they are don't provide numbers. And those need to be balanced against other similar risks so as to gauge the level of objective concern to be had.
Such a response is the sort given by someone who has done too much reading and not enough thinking and living... It sounds great, until that place called outside happens. You know, when you step away from your computer and go outdoors.
Go look up rape numbers for universities, it is shocking how bad it is some places. Women have a real reason to fear male strangers in situations in which they cannot easily escape from.
This is but one example (bathrooms), but it shows that the real world doesn't work like your book world does.
That makes sense in principle, provided they are operating outside of the social contract. Otherwise, the owners benefit directly and indirectly from taxes, subsidies, law enforcement, tribunals, safety rules and several other things paid by for everyone, including those he thinks he shouldn't serve. If your country were a Democracy, sure, those owners could form a majority and vote so as to kick out the people they dislike from their communities, hence become thoroughly unbound to them, case in which that would be perfectly valid. But since it isn't, since it's a Republic, the common interest reflected by the totality of the different groups that signed the social contract has to be taken into account, which means, among other things, not being discriminative against other signers.
Another wonderful statement that sounds great in principle, but falls apart in reality.
The bakery owners simply make the mistake of speaking their mind, as opposed to what millions of people do, which is discriminate anyway and just keep their mouths shut.
It is the absurdity of the laws to even think you can tell people how to think or how to behave in their own place of business. Oh sure, large companies like Apple can't do it as easily, there are too many people involved, but your local Mom and Pop bakery? The gay people who sued them are douchebags, full stop. Just go somewhere else, clearly they don't want your business. But no, they had to be dicks about it (the irony) and make a federal case out of it.
They didn't do their cause any favors, because people like me, who actually DO support gay marriage, look at that and think "fuck, what the hell is wrong with them?"
This only means they're tired of living in a Republic
No, I don't think it means what you think it means. This nation was founded by rich, white, male, land owning slaver owners who wanted to toss out a bunch of other rich, white, male, land owning slave owners. Don't make it more than it is.
This Republic will not survive if it keeps pandering to very small minorities while disrespecting the majority.
Yes, they do. And thus, in fear of small changes, they'll happily allow an autocrat to bring about big ones.
It isn't "fear of small changes", it is growing tired of endless changes that benefit the few at the cost of many.
Trump is drawing a lot of support from white people who feel discriminated against. Go around and ask about "affirmative action" in white groups and all too often you'll hear "oh, that is discrimination against whites, giving special privilege to blacks over more qualified white people". And they are right.
In 2,000 years historians will find this period very interesting.
Yes, they'll note that no society can survive if it panders to the 5% on either end and ignores the 90% in the middle.
We are slowly being destroyed by special interests. On one side you have the super wealthy, who are indeed a problem (yes, a Republican who admits that, shock and horror!), and on the other side you have every small group of people who wants the middle 90% to change to not only accept, but support them.
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Why is it that everything I hear from Feinstein is anti-liberty, anti-individual, and pro-goverment-power? She is the modern poster child for exactly the kind of person that the founders fought the revolution in order to rid themselves of. Be gone, you power-mad, anti-liberty, disaster of a legislator.
All that you said is true, yet she is still alive, so clearly people don't care that much.
If they did, someone would either have run her out of office, or simply shot her.
I don't know what the school system pays for Chromebooks around here, but they definitely use them.
If memory serves, our school paid $50 per Chromebook.
They are on carts and they roll them around to the classrooms rather than sending the kids to a dedicated computer lab.
Each class room has a rack of them, every kid has their own. At $50 each, they just sprung for 650 of them for the whole school.
They still use the dedicated computer lab more.
Google has managed it with phones and tablets
Yes, but those were areas that Microsoft didn't already own and MS took way too long to push into them.
Chromebooks run Linux the way OS X runs UNIX. It kinda sort exists there somewhere, but not really. Not to the point where it matters or 99% of the users will remotely care.
What Linus wants and what Chromebooks actually are, are not the same thing.
Chromebooks run Linux and are quietly taking over the education world.
Meh, my local school has them, they are hardly used. They got them because they were nearly given to them. They use their iPads and Dell desktop PCs far more.
I might agree except that the local school system is flooded with Chromebooks... Linux.
My local school system has the same thing, they were nearly given to the school system for almost nothing.
And they largely sit unused, while the pair of iPads in each room get used every day and the PC lab gets used three times a week (filled with Dell desktop PCs running Windows 7).
It's amazing how much one can accomplish on a Chromebook - and a more familiar Linux environment is only a chroot away.
I am fully aware of it. A whole lot of people using Windows could just as easily be using a Chromebook (or Chromebox).
But the odds are, almost none of those people will ever run what you consider to be Linux on them, any more than most people would jailbreak their iPhone or install vanilla Android on their Galaxy.
All of that is just the reasons why the "Year of the Linux Desktop" isn't coming...
Because it is on phones doesn't mean it will be on desktops. No one is pushing it there and no one outside of the extreme edge cases cares.
WINE is a solution for the 1% of Linux users who already use it, not a solution to bring in large numbers of new users.
That was simply my point.
The other issue is that you're always just one patch or update away from breaking it, either on WoWs side or WINEs side.
Therefore, only men wearing full female attire and actually behaving like a women would be allowed. Anyone else would be forbidden.
Admittedly, this wouldn't remove all the risk. But I think we can both agree that a would be rapist who goes to the trouble of realistically wearing female attire and behaving like a woman so as to be able to rape in a public bathroom, as opposed to simply going for a defenseless women in a dark alley, is such a small one that it's negligible.
I would agree that is a reasonable middle ground. I would also agree that a would be rapist is highly unlikely to do all that you suggest just to be able to commit such a crime.
However, that level of nuance is hard for people who have the full time job of making laws (politicians), much less the general public who simply aren't all that interested in that level of detail. You simply aren't going to get the masses to pay enough attention to notice all that.
Abortion has the same problem. Trump ran into trouble over his answer, and shame on him for not being more prepared for that one, but frankly you can't answer abortion in a 15 second soundbite, the issue is simply more nuanced than that. People think they have a black and white answer, until you talk about it and find exceptions and middle ground.
I'd say most people don't give a damn about anyone beyond their closest acquaintances / social group. About 49% of the adult population being at stages 1 to 3 in the Kohlberg scale of moral reasoning, meaning they think in terms of their own groups as the limit of their experience of the other. Another 45% are at stage 4, meaning they think of others in terms of their being part of so many different groups linked by obedience (or not) to a common set laws of laws. And just 6% or so at stage 5 and 6, able to think of others as pure, non-group-bound individuals. Therefore, given the social contract is a political notion typical of people that reason about moral matters from a stage 4.5+ perspective, it isn't surprising half or more of the population see it as something ranging from a not really applicable ideal to a nice dream to outright incomprehensible.
I don't agree with the Kohlberg scale, much as I don't think trying to apply morals to everyone is a good idea, even if I believe in them.
Because on one hand, I believe that I was created in God's image and that all humans are special, but on the other hand, I believe there is a chance I'm completely wrong and none of it matters at all. I simply do not know. I'm also aware that most of my beliefs are simply programmed into me by society and my parents and that way too little of what I think is naturally mine.
If I think about it too much, it gets kinda freaky. :)
Let me give the extreme example... Hitler.. yea, him... He is viewed today as a "bad person", but early in his time, he was Germany's savior and hero. It wasn't until 1942 when the war started to turn against him that he started to lose support at home. What if he had won the war? What if the USSR had lost and Germany had defeated them? What if Britain had been invaded and Hitler had sewn up Europe such that America couldn't easily intervene?
Would Hitler be a "bad person"? Or would society slowly be taught over time that his ideas were good and that other people's were bad? It is easy to call him evil from behind the cloak of victory, but not quite so easy to do it behind the curtain of defeat.
Another possible option, perhaps he was stopped way early in the summer of 1939 and Europe never had WWII? Would the British Empire still be standing today? Would Japan have still attacked America in 1941 without a war in Europe to distract everyone? Perhaps all the colonies around the world including India would still be part of Europe. Is that a good or bad thing?
How about the American Civil War? What if the South had won? Would we still have slavery in the south today? Would it be vi
Trolling does not help much the discussion.
I'm sorry that you think I'm trolling. I'm really not, just calling a spade a spade...
Frankly, I think a Chromebox is a better choice for your average user who wants to leave Windows, it "just works". But those haven't sold very well either, likely because no one is spending any money to market them.
When is the last time you saw a TV commercial for Linux or Chromebox or anything besides Windows? (for desktops, we're not talking about phones here).
I agree that recent versions of Windows are easier to install than most recent Linux distros.
One of these days I need to try a recent version of Mint or something similar, I've run various versions of Linux over the years, mostly to try them out, and most worked "well enough, except for X", vs Windows which works all the time, and thus we have the primary problem.
For example, my wife turns her computer on, opens her web browser, and goes to town. 95% of everything she does on a computer is in a web browser.
So can she go to Linux? No. The only program she runs besides a web browser is Microsoft Office.
Yes, yes, there is Office Online, but it isn't the same thing, it isn't as fast, and why use it when you have the full version installed and are used to it?
Also, as for moving to Linux, the next question becomes... why? This is the single biggest problem Linux fans have in trying to get people to move, there really is no compelling reason to go.
What exactly does Linux do for my wife that Windows 10 does not?
Nothing, and that's the problem.
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Note: I didn't say Linux COULDN'T do anything Windows can't, I said that it doesn't do anything my wife needs. Of course power users may find Linux appealing, but most people really have no compelling need to make the change.
Windows is a huge pain in the ass to install. Install the base system, reboot, find the motherboard driver disk, reboot, find the motherboard network driver disk, reboot, find the mouse driver disk, reboot, find the video driver disk, reboot, repeat for almost every piece of hardware in your system. Did you later change your motherboard? Repeat the whole damned process over again.
You clearly haven't installed Windows in a long time, because none of that is true.
Insert Windows 10 USB stick into the USB port, turn the computer on, boot to the USB drive, click install, go do something else for an hour, come back, Windows is done and ready.
No one should be using all those driver CDs anyway, they are almost always horribly out of date, let Windows install its own drivers, it works fine.
And frankly, it has been this way since Windows 7. What you're describing was true back on Windows XP, but it has been a long time since then.
"Apple-like simple" is the job of a hardware manufacturer that tweaks a good Linux distribution to make it shiny and idiot-resistant.
That has been tried, more than once...
Dell has done it, HP tried it, etc...
It turns out that it costs real money to make it shiny, then you end up having to provide support and then people want to know why this or that Windows program doesn't run...
They all largely have dropped Linux on the desktop for that very reason.
Windows isn't free, but it is close enough to not bother fighting against.
I have setup Mint for relatives.
It works great for what they need.
Likely so would a Chromebox...
The question becomes, could THEY have setup Mint on their own without your help?
That is the question, because I suspect the answer is no. But installing Windows is beyond simple and the answer to that would be yes.
Android won consumers, so there's hope for Linux for consumers.
No... Android is not Linux, no matter how much you want to point to the code under the shell and say it is...
I'm willing to bet that you could grab 100 random Android phone users and 95% of them wouldn't have a clue that Android was based on Linux. Many of those people would never have heard of Linux.
I seems that people care about apps, and what's on Windows that you can't get on Linux these days?
Less than there used to be, but still enough to matter.
Microsoft Office, for one. Quickbooks for another.
Video editors (e.g DaVinci) games(steam)
Yea, call me when Adobe Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas Pro are on Linux.
Games? Yea, a few token ones, some indie games...
Call me when Battlefield, Grand Theft Auto, and Call of Duty are on Linux...
How about League of Legends? World of Warcraft?
No, Wine is not an answer, the solution has to be native support or you'll never get mass adoption.
Linus definitely has a point I'd say.
Linus is smoking crack. The reasons Linux isn't a success on the desktop has nothing to do with the technology.
Yes, but a Chromebook would do the same thing.
That it is running Linux that you setup for them is beside the point. Without you, they wouldn't have it.
And THAT is the point.
Every time a story like this comes up, someone like you makes the comment you did. Yet Linux is, what, 1% of the desktop market? Less?
I actually think it had more share 10 years ago.
Heh, as a non-American who looks at American history from an outside perspective, I think you're making it less than what it is. :-)
As an American who loves history, but has also traveled the world to many countries, I'm really not...
And most Americans don't even know that if it were not for the French, we wouldn't bloody have a country, since they largely paid for the revolution and their fleet showing up broke the back of the British troops who couldn't get resupplied.
So thank you French people! :) I still call them French Fries (even if they were invented in Belgium)
By the way, I fully support doing the same to Islamic bakeries. The social contract MUST apply for ALL citizens, no exceptions.
You're the kind of person who would arrest 12 year old girls running a lemonade stand for not selling lemonade to a gay person.
The "social contract" doesn't extend as far as you think it does. It might exist in your mind, or in a book, or in theory, but frankly half the people in this country don't give much of a damm about the other half.
A good example is Clinton's recent comment about "she has a plan, will bring people together, and will move this country forward".
She isn't bringing me together, she can drop dead for all I care, I think she is a pile of dog meat. I don't think a whole lot more of Obama, one of the worst Presidents we've had in awhile.
On the flip side, I'm quite sure I could easily find someone else who would repeat the exact same words, but replace Clinton with Trump. He has exactly zero chance of bringing the country together, just like Clinton has zero chance. Cruz and Sanders probably have negative chance, but that is another story.
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You go on telling people what to think, how to live, and you'll end up with another civil war on your hands. A lot of people think your attitude frankly sucks. The irony is that you're far more of a dictator than I am.
On the other hand, a man wearing female clothes and makeup who enters a male bathroom is under risk of being beaten by one or more males. Anti-gay violence is pretty real in lots of places.
The grand irony here is that you're trying to protect gays from violence, but don't seem give to care about protecting women from being the victims of violence.
Consider the objective situation.
I really, really wish YOU would do that...
If the objective is to prevent men from entering female bathrooms to rape them, the simple physical distribution of doors already makes that impossible except in very few places.
Again, the point sails right over your head.
I'll try again: If a man walks into the ladies room, everyone involved and around can instantly take note that something happened that shouldn't. If I observe it, I can go confront the man, the ladies inside can do the same. If one of them screams, I would go running in to help them.
Under your plan, that can't happen, because then everyone has to assume they are just a transgender person who feels like a woman. Everyone has to wait until they actually do something wrong.
Waiting until you're actually attacked is stupid. No one who teaches self-defense will tell you that is a good plan. You need to identify threats early and the best option is to avoid them completely.
A simple example is walking on the street. If you see a man coming the other way and you two are the only people around, it may well make sense to cross the road or change direction.
You would tell the woman to just keep walking right by him with no idea what might happen, but if it does, it is far too late once within arms reach to do anything about it.
Well, you're simply wrong about that. It has been a thing for many years. It is without problems.
Wanna bet?
http://www.fox13news.com/news/...
http://dailysignal.com/2016/01...
http://globalnews.ca/news/2546...
https://allisonslaw.wordpress....
That took about 10 seconds to find. Give me 10 minutes and I'll have a hundred of them.
You are wrong based on the facts in evidence.
Gender is about more than just what's in your pants.
You must be a lawyer to care about that sort of thing.
To normal every day use, no it really isn't. I'm willing to bet that I can grab 100 random people off the street and ask:
"Is gender based on your sex at birth, or based on how you feel", and probably 80% of them will say "sex at birth".
Which makes my point accurate. Or accurate enough. Only someone trying to make a pointless legal argument on the Internet cares about your side of it.
---
Side note: I notice that you completely ignored the second two lines, since you were in such a hurry to be proud of yourself:
"If you were born a girl, a girl you'll always be.
If you were born a boy, a boy you'll always be."
Do privacy concerns come before finding the bomb before it detonates?
Yes, they do...
If you don't have principles to stand on, then you stand for nothing and will fall, sooner or later.
The kind of person that wants people who don't fit into your worldview to stay away from your family?
Yes, and somehow that has become a "bad thing" to say.
Not only do people want equal rights, they want "love and support".
That is their grand mistake. Somehow they think they should be invited over for Christmas dinner and given hugs or something. I want nothing to do with them, I think they are disgusting. But I do NOT think they should be hurt or denied basic human rights, I just don't want them next door to me.
I can hardly watch HGTV with my wife anymore, every bloody third episode is another gay couple. They are massively over represented on TV and wear it on their sleeve. I can't watch them, makes me want to puke.
And if any of the above gives you negative feelings towards me, then there is the problem, because what you're saying is that I'm not allowed to believe what I want, how I want, so long as I'm not hurting anyone.
There is a difference between accepting all humans as being from God and having equal human rights, and having to LIKE them for it.
Frankly you do sound more tolerant (in the parent comment only) than I would have expected, but combining that with the rest of your comments I suspect maybe your tolerance goes down as "weird" people's proximity to you and your family goes up.
I teach my kids to make up their own mind, don't take anyone else's word for how they should think and feel, including mine. I will guide them and tell them what I believe, but that they should in the end make up their own mind.
If one of my kids ends up being gay, I would love them unconditionally, but I wouldn't like it very much. I would, however, keep that opinion to myself.
We live in an area that has a lot of Hindu people, they don't celebrate Christmas. I've told my kids that different people around the world have different beliefs, and that is totally ok, so long as everyone is kind and peaceful to each other, there is no harm in it. My kids have asked why their friends sometimes don't have a Christmas tree up, and I tell them that not everyone believes in the story of Jesus Christ, some people believe other things, and some people believe nothing at all. I have also told them it is quite possible that all three major religions are really the same God with different versions of the story, and that I am not the ultimate decider of such things.
My wife's best friend is a Muslim, she is from Lebanon, and is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. You probably wouldn't believe it from some of my posts, but I'm actually very tolerant of other people. But I do have my limits, and the whole bathroom thing is one. As I have said in other posts, I've employed gay people, and I really don't care, so long as it doesn't cause office problems. I've done business with them, again, I don't care about that either. I'm not likely to invite them to Christmas dinner however.
And that needs to be OK, or our Republic has no future, because you're trying to control thought at that point and that is evil and wrong.
That's a intuitive position, not one based on actual statistics. If 50% of the population were in actual danger I'd be all for imposing restrictions so as do lower that danger. But those who say they are don't provide numbers. And those need to be balanced against other similar risks so as to gauge the level of objective concern to be had.
Such a response is the sort given by someone who has done too much reading and not enough thinking and living... It sounds great, until that place called outside happens. You know, when you step away from your computer and go outdoors.
Go look up rape numbers for universities, it is shocking how bad it is some places. Women have a real reason to fear male strangers in situations in which they cannot easily escape from.
This is but one example (bathrooms), but it shows that the real world doesn't work like your book world does.
That makes sense in principle, provided they are operating outside of the social contract. Otherwise, the owners benefit directly and indirectly from taxes, subsidies, law enforcement, tribunals, safety rules and several other things paid by for everyone, including those he thinks he shouldn't serve. If your country were a Democracy, sure, those owners could form a majority and vote so as to kick out the people they dislike from their communities, hence become thoroughly unbound to them, case in which that would be perfectly valid. But since it isn't, since it's a Republic, the common interest reflected by the totality of the different groups that signed the social contract has to be taken into account, which means, among other things, not being discriminative against other signers.
Another wonderful statement that sounds great in principle, but falls apart in reality.
The bakery owners simply make the mistake of speaking their mind, as opposed to what millions of people do, which is discriminate anyway and just keep their mouths shut.
It is the absurdity of the laws to even think you can tell people how to think or how to behave in their own place of business. Oh sure, large companies like Apple can't do it as easily, there are too many people involved, but your local Mom and Pop bakery? The gay people who sued them are douchebags, full stop. Just go somewhere else, clearly they don't want your business. But no, they had to be dicks about it (the irony) and make a federal case out of it.
They didn't do their cause any favors, because people like me, who actually DO support gay marriage, look at that and think "fuck, what the hell is wrong with them?"
This only means they're tired of living in a Republic
No, I don't think it means what you think it means. This nation was founded by rich, white, male, land owning slaver owners who wanted to toss out a bunch of other rich, white, male, land owning slave owners. Don't make it more than it is.
This Republic will not survive if it keeps pandering to very small minorities while disrespecting the majority.
Yes, they do. And thus, in fear of small changes, they'll happily allow an autocrat to bring about big ones.
It isn't "fear of small changes", it is growing tired of endless changes that benefit the few at the cost of many.
Trump is drawing a lot of support from white people who feel discriminated against. Go around and ask about "affirmative action" in white groups and all too often you'll hear "oh, that is discrimination against whites, giving special privilege to blacks over more qualified white people". And they are right.
In 2,000 years historians will find this period very interesting.
Yes, they'll note that no society can survive if it panders to the 5% on either end and ignores the 90% in the middle.
We are slowly being destroyed by special interests. On one side you have the super wealthy, who are indeed a problem (yes, a Republican who admits that, shock and horror!), and on the other side you have every small group of people who wants the middle 90% to change to not only accept, but support them.
The majority of the population isn't being oppressed by this change.
Wrong. More than 50% of the population are women, that is a majority.
As always, this argument holds no water. Come up with something new.
Don't have to, you are not the decider here. My point is sound, you just don't like it, which is your problem.
And why, again, are you so concerned about what's in someone else's pants, anyway?
I'm not, until it walks into the bathroom behind my wife or daughter, then it concerns me a great deal.
That is the ONLY part of this that I care about.
Men should not be in ladies bathrooms.