Wait, so you think couples that are sterile or very old shouldn't be allowed to marry either?
Yes, I think so — there is no legitimate interest in the government recognizing childless couples. Making a distinction, however, is difficult — medical advances (and luck — or lack thereof, as the case might be) some times cause pregnancies.
If you disagree with that statement, you're actually just an asshole, you're not a libertarian
Debating-101: the topic of today's class, children, is expressing your point without name-calling... Where you out sick, when this was studied?
I'm married, and we have no plans to have children ever
Then your "marriage" is just as fraudulent as a gay one. You found a convenient loophole exploiting the advantages of societal/governmental recognition of real marriage without planning to bear and rear children.
they're obligated to apply their rules fairly across all groups of people, regardless of their skin colour, ethnicity, orientation, gender
The rules are the same for all — anybody is entitled to marrying one person of the opposite gender. Some people aren't able to use that right, but that's not a reason to redefine the meaning of marriage. A paraplegic has the right to practice karate — but does not have the ability... Would you change the rules of volleyball to allow handless invalids to play? Of course, not — it would be an entirely different game...
Didn't realize the legitimacy of my marriage was contingent on whether or not my wife and I decide to reproduce.
That's what it was until invention — and wide proliferation — of contraception. A fairly recent thing.
Marriage is quite obviously a business contract, once you put emotion aside.
I agree — and so it should be treated, with the government only stepping in, when a court determines one of the parties to be in breach. But it is not. But gays have nothing to do with this aspect.
effects of American imperialistic practices in Latin America radicalized him
Our "practices" were meant to stop proliferation of Communism — the most murderous (and, incidentally, homophobic) school of thought known to man... Chile, where we succeeded, is Latin America's top economy today. Cuba, where we failed, remains a shithole.
Maybe he didn't choose the best expression of his righteous outrage, but there is little doubt that his outrage was appropriately righteous.
There was nothing "righteous" about his outrage and "not the best" hardly describes him. But that's all off-topic. My point was, people wearing Che Guevara T-shirts (as well as those with hummer-and-sickle and other Communist symbols) should be boycotted — but aren't. Because true Liberals are nowhere as vicious in pursuing their opponents, as the Illiberals are.
What about the freedom of hundreds of employees to feel uncomfortable working for someone who is advocating against you?
Prop 8 was never against people. It was against the self-contradicting phenomenon called "gay marriage". Even if the government should recognize marriage at all (an assumption I, as a Libertarian, doubt strongly), there is no justification for equating the regular, children-producing marriage and gay-unions. Indeed, no culture in the history of humanity has done so — even those, who (like ancient Athens) were perfectly tolerant of homosexuality.
Freedom goes both ways.
That it does... Boycotts — over any cause — are perfectly legal...
A majority of people in modern-day America work for corporate entities of some kind. If you argue that free speech should only be protected against the government and not against employers, then you are in effect saying that a majority of people shouldn't have any free speech protections at all.
It has nothing to do with where you work. The First Amendment only defends one from government punishing your speech. You can still boycott — and be boycotted — by non-governmental enterprises and individuals. Indeed, when the Amendment was written, the percentage of people working for private sector was much higher than today.
I am disgusted with the Illiberals' persecution of the supporters of the Prop 8, but I don't deny their right to do it... I do wish, the actual Liberals were as effective, though... Why, for example, is one getting into all sorts of trouble for opposing — not gay sex — gay marriage, but, for example, glamorizing Che Guevara is deemed perfectly acceptable?
I'm pretty sure you can "get your message out" in Cuba too, it's the consequences of doing so that are the problem.
Are you seriously comparing getting onto a no-fly list with incarceration? Wow... It is just as idiotic as comparing losing one's job due to McCarthy's investigations with being sent to GULAG for 25 years... Oh, wait...
but if you ever watch the Che Guevara 3 part movie, read books, memoirs, ect you'll find out he wasn't about power, he was about freedom
Yeah, sure. And so was Stalin... And to gain that "freedom", the opposition had to be executed or incarcerated — and no amount of romantic movie-watching can change this fact. "To ensure, everyone is good, let's kill all the bad."
Your attempt to distinguish between Che Guevara and Castro is noted — and discarded. There is no practical difference important to anyone, but historians. If anything, Castro is better — at least, he took the trouble of running the country, whereas Guevara left to continue enjoying himself.
Communism isn't this mythological thing that involves complete oppression of everything, and hatred of freedom.
Communism is simply the most murderous school of thought known to humanity. Even Hitler's peculiar strand of Fascism is but a distant second, while other Fascists (like Mussolini and Franco) don't come close to Stalin, Pol Pot, or the Kim dynasty.
Rant all you want about Marxism theory, but everywhere it was put into practice the result was mass-murder... And to what end? The survivors were left with both — economic misery and absence of human rights... Compare Cuba, where we failed, with Chile, where we succeeded — which one is a shithole and which is the Latin America's top economy? Compare South and North Koreas. Compare Western and Eastern Germanies...
Would the world have heard about "Nokia", would Linux ever have been written, if Stalin succeeded taking over Finland in 1939, the way he took over Estonia (and others)?..
These are the same things the US government claims about communism.
A very simple, yet universal answer to this kind of anti-American statements is thus: whatever wrong you can accuse the US of over the last 100 years, was provably committed far more gravely and severely by a Communist government over the last 50 years.
Photos of the school were then tweeted and shared in status updates — a reply to images of Beltran Leyva's corpse being shared on social media.
I wonder, why the cartels can't think of anything positive to say? They can, for example, emphasize the fact, that their products are primarily targeting the rich, while providing well-paying jobs for the impoverished youth, funding ample charitable donations, and investment in local communities...
How would any responsible politician push for such a program, when it is 30-100x more expensive than free market solutions?
Yep, good arguments for abolition of NASA as a whole. Tasking it with stuff, that — however cheap — has nothing to do with aeronautics and space, is not right.
You seriously think those things even begin to dent the budget of NASA?
This was your opportunity to provide the numbers, but you chose to miss it... I wonder why.
Regardless, even a single penny spent by NASA on helping people feel better about the ancestors is a penny wasted — because it is not in the organization's mandate.
The only problem is they don't funnel money into the pockets of established defense contractors...
NO... the referendum was called by the democratically elected government of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea...
Are you seriously suggesting, this annexation was in any way legal? Wow... What a shameless distortion — Programme "Vremya" much?
The referendum — whoever called it — was illegal on its premise: only the entire country can decide on territorial changes. It was called by a tiny sliver of the "democratically elected" legislature — without there being a quorum. Mere two weeks were given for campaigning — and the invaders promptly stopped rebroadcasts of Ukraine's TV over Crimea, talk about propaganda.
There was pro-Russian sentiment in Crimea, I'll grant you that, but Russia was not sure of the success — or they would not have poured 30 thousands special forces troops into peninsula before the annexation.
sui generis as the US likes to call the Kosovo debacle
Kosovo-shomosovo. Milosevic — a client of Russia, BTW — actually was engaging in ethnic cleansings and outright genocide in Kosovo and Bosnia. That is what justified the European intervention first, and then, only after the "Gayropeans" demonstrated their impotence did the US intervene to stop the humanitarian catastrophe.
Now Putin very much wants a similar catastrophe to unfold in Ukraine — that's why his TV is constantly blasting viewers with carefully-calculated lies about the country, and why his spetznas units are actively inciting violence. But they aren't very successful — exactly because Ukraine's new government are not the crazy "nazis".
it says a majority people can decide to unilaterally declare independence and it is not against international law
Blah-blah... To all such claims, I say this: would the US accept a "referendum" on secession in any of its States (such as California)? Would Russia accept Sahalin and/or Kurill islands voting to secede — even if Japanese "peacekeepers" weren't there to "help" people vote the right way? Of course, the answer is no — what legitimized Kosovo's referendum was the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the government, from which they decided to break.
Nothing of the kind is happening in Ukraine, so quit this "America is the worst" nonsense already.
If you believe in democratic process, if you subscribe to liberty, then you must accept the vote whether it wads your panties or not.
I asked you a straight question — would you accept the vote of Latinos (the single largest "minority" in California already) claiming independence of whatever lands they reside on in America from the USA — and the subsequent annexation of those lands by Mexico.
That's a "yes or no" question — please, answer. Without namecalling...
NASA is working on one, called the Space Launch System, but the agency is constrained by its budget
Maybe, if the National Aeronautics and Space Administration focused on the actual Aeronautics and Space, without venturing into things like Muslim outreach (to, and I quote: "help them feel good about their historic contribution to science") and research of industrial civilizations (collapse inevitable), they could scrape a few more bucks and deliver the rocket before Russia (or China) do...
It clearly says: "[racial slur for Jews] are an alien as individuals
First of all, "yids" is not a slur for Jews — not in Ukrainian. Nor in Polish, BTW. If, as it appears, Russian is your first language, then this may seem shocking, but that's just one of the differences between languages. For another example, the word for "smell" in Polish would mean "stink" in Russian — it does not mean, Poles consider flowers stinky...
Second, the paragraph you are referring to begins with filtering out those, who are "the supporters of NKVD and Soviet power in Ukraine" — not all the aliens.
Anyway, we can spend weeks here trying to analyze the letter and spirit of his writings, but the facts remain — there were Jews in his organization, and, much to the vexation of Germans, the organization did help (some of) them escape German persecution.
He certainly knew about the "Massacre of Professors" in Lviv
That was done by Germans. Get your villains straight, slanderer. There were, reportedly, Ukrainian translators helping the Germans, but there is no evidence to link them to Bandera. None.
And, once again, I ask you, whether your justifying Putin's invasion of Ukraine by Bandera's alleged misdeeds means, you'll justify an invasion of Russia by Stalin's murders... Because weeks before Germans killed the 45 professors (and their families) in Lviv, NKVD — before retreating from Lviv — executed several thousands of political prisoners held in Lviv's prisons.
Yet, despite this and numerous other crimes of Stalin, Russia worships him today. Should it be invaded on these grounds?
You dodged this question earlier, I'm posing it again...
about Volyn' massacre and so on - he orchestrated them.
From the inside of a concentration camp? Please... But, again, with your focus on Volyn' — whoever "orchestrated" it — aren't you forgetting other atrocities against the Poles, such as Katyn?
Point remains, Bandera was neither a fascist in general, nor a nazi in particular... Certainly no worse than Stalin. Poles do realize this very well — and know, that the true threat comes from Moscow, not Lviv or Kyiv.
"Latino" is not a racial group, it is an ethnic group pf multiple national origins and races.
A distinction without difference — in this case. The example I gave is perfectly valid regardless — you are trying to avoid answering the hard question on a technicality.
Is it really that hard to imagine a piece of United States, where some racial/ethnic (whatever the difference) minority is, in fact, the dominant — and a self-cohesive — local majority? I'm sure, there are bits of Arizona, Texas, and California that qualify. Or Brighton Beach in New York...
What a bizarre screed.
What happens in Crimea is bizarre. Or, rather, the West's reaction to it...
I'm not joking, it stated: "Jews should be stealthily destroyed, with as little disturbance to the general population as possible" (my translation).
Your translation and your interpretation. Bandera was not an anti-Semite — his targets were those, who opposed his movement. It was not racial. There were Jews in his organization, and the organization helped some Jews escape German persecution. You gave me the Wiki page — have you read it yourself?
And you should note, that Bandera was released by Nazis and they supplied him with weapons - he was definitely a collaborator
As I said already, Stalin was a collaborator too — in 1939. Russians in Crimea today are collaborators — welcoming invaders into their soil. Bandera had good reasons to hate Moscow. Crimeans have nothing to blame Kyiv for.
he struggled for Ukrainian independence from the USSR (though dependence on Germany was A-OK)
Of course, it was A-OK. USSR has just starved millions of Ukrainians to death, and killed Bandera's own father (May 1941). What could possibly be blamed on Germany, when Bandera chose their protectorate over Moscow's? That was before even Babiy Yar (nay, before Kyiv was taken by Germans), and the German death camps did not become known to the world until 1943 — but the Moscow crimes were very well known to Bandera and his, personally known. I don't blame him...
Anyway, unless you are going to suggest, Russia should be invaded on the basis of their worship of Stalin, lay off Bandera already.
I would recommend listening carefully to Putin-controlled media and making conclusions exactly the opposite to what they drive to. You'd be right far more often than wrong.
Yeah, that seems at least as legit as purple thumbs in US-occupied Iraq.
Had becoming a US territory been on the ballot in Iraq, those thumbs would've been a lot more suspicious.
The Crimeans did vote for it.
Latinos are the biggest racial group in California today. And they are — some times credibly — complaining of discrimination... Will you approve of Mexican army taking the state over, disarming local American units (army, national guardsmen, police) and staging a referendum?
Do you have doubts as to which way such a referendum will go?
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. And the society of California decided — quite convincingly — to continue defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman...
You were saying?..
Yes, I think so — there is no legitimate interest in the government recognizing childless couples. Making a distinction, however, is difficult — medical advances (and luck — or lack thereof, as the case might be) some times cause pregnancies.
Debating-101: the topic of today's class, children, is expressing your point without name-calling... Where you out sick, when this was studied?
Then your "marriage" is just as fraudulent as a gay one. You found a convenient loophole exploiting the advantages of societal/governmental recognition of real marriage without planning to bear and rear children.
The rules are the same for all — anybody is entitled to marrying one person of the opposite gender. Some people aren't able to use that right, but that's not a reason to redefine the meaning of marriage. A paraplegic has the right to practice karate — but does not have the ability... Would you change the rules of volleyball to allow handless invalids to play? Of course, not — it would be an entirely different game...
That's what it was until invention — and wide proliferation — of contraception. A fairly recent thing.
I agree — and so it should be treated, with the government only stepping in, when a court determines one of the parties to be in breach. But it is not. But gays have nothing to do with this aspect.
Our "practices" were meant to stop proliferation of Communism — the most murderous (and, incidentally, homophobic) school of thought known to man... Chile, where we succeeded, is Latin America's top economy today. Cuba, where we failed, remains a shithole.
There was nothing "righteous" about his outrage and "not the best" hardly describes him. But that's all off-topic. My point was, people wearing Che Guevara T-shirts (as well as those with hummer-and-sickle and other Communist symbols) should be boycotted — but aren't. Because true Liberals are nowhere as vicious in pursuing their opponents, as the Illiberals are.
Prop 8 was never against people. It was against the self-contradicting phenomenon called "gay marriage". Even if the government should recognize marriage at all (an assumption I, as a Libertarian, doubt strongly), there is no justification for equating the regular, children-producing marriage and gay-unions. Indeed, no culture in the history of humanity has done so — even those, who (like ancient Athens) were perfectly tolerant of homosexuality.
That it does... Boycotts — over any cause — are perfectly legal...
It has nothing to do with where you work. The First Amendment only defends one from government punishing your speech. You can still boycott — and be boycotted — by non-governmental enterprises and individuals. Indeed, when the Amendment was written, the percentage of people working for private sector was much higher than today.
I am disgusted with the Illiberals' persecution of the supporters of the Prop 8, but I don't deny their right to do it... I do wish, the actual Liberals were as effective, though... Why, for example, is one getting into all sorts of trouble for opposing — not gay sex — gay marriage, but, for example, glamorizing Che Guevara is deemed perfectly acceptable?
There is nothing automatically wrong with propaganda. It may very well be truthful — and usually is, when the US does it.
Are you seriously comparing getting onto a no-fly list with incarceration? Wow... It is just as idiotic as comparing losing one's job due to McCarthy's investigations with being sent to GULAG for 25 years... Oh, wait...
Yeah, sure. And so was Stalin... And to gain that "freedom", the opposition had to be executed or incarcerated — and no amount of romantic movie-watching can change this fact. "To ensure, everyone is good, let's kill all the bad."
Your attempt to distinguish between Che Guevara and Castro is noted — and discarded. There is no practical difference important to anyone, but historians. If anything, Castro is better — at least, he took the trouble of running the country, whereas Guevara left to continue enjoying himself.
Communism is simply the most murderous school of thought known to humanity. Even Hitler's peculiar strand of Fascism is but a distant second, while other Fascists (like Mussolini and Franco) don't come close to Stalin, Pol Pot, or the Kim dynasty.
Rant all you want about Marxism theory, but everywhere it was put into practice the result was mass-murder... And to what end? The survivors were left with both — economic misery and absence of human rights... Compare Cuba, where we failed, with Chile, where we succeeded — which one is a shithole and which is the Latin America's top economy? Compare South and North Koreas. Compare Western and Eastern Germanies...
Would the world have heard about "Nokia", would Linux ever have been written, if Stalin succeeded taking over Finland in 1939, the way he took over Estonia (and others)?..
A very simple, yet universal answer to this kind of anti-American statements is thus: whatever wrong you can accuse the US of over the last 100 years, was provably committed far more gravely and severely by a Communist government over the last 50 years.
I wonder, why the cartels can't think of anything positive to say? They can, for example, emphasize the fact, that their products are primarily targeting the rich, while providing well-paying jobs for the impoverished youth, funding ample charitable donations, and investment in local communities...
By poisoning the "1%" (also known as the "golden billion"), they are spreading the wealth and leveling the playing field — without even ever forcing anyone to participate...
Clearly, the PR-masters working for the thugs have a lot to learn yet.
Yep, good arguments for abolition of NASA as a whole. Tasking it with stuff, that — however cheap — has nothing to do with aeronautics and space, is not right.
Seems to me, you'd make the same statement about Brendan Eich. Please, confirm... Thank you!
This was your opportunity to provide the numbers, but you chose to miss it... I wonder why.
Regardless, even a single penny spent by NASA on helping people feel better about the ancestors is a penny wasted — because it is not in the organization's mandate.
Who is ranting now?
Are you seriously suggesting, this annexation was in any way legal? Wow... What a shameless distortion — Programme "Vremya" much?
The referendum — whoever called it — was illegal on its premise: only the entire country can decide on territorial changes. It was called by a tiny sliver of the "democratically elected" legislature — without there being a quorum. Mere two weeks were given for campaigning — and the invaders promptly stopped rebroadcasts of Ukraine's TV over Crimea, talk about propaganda.
There was pro-Russian sentiment in Crimea, I'll grant you that, but Russia was not sure of the success — or they would not have poured 30 thousands special forces troops into peninsula before the annexation.
Kosovo-shomosovo. Milosevic — a client of Russia, BTW — actually was engaging in ethnic cleansings and outright genocide in Kosovo and Bosnia. That is what justified the European intervention first, and then, only after the "Gayropeans" demonstrated their impotence did the US intervene to stop the humanitarian catastrophe.
Now Putin very much wants a similar catastrophe to unfold in Ukraine — that's why his TV is constantly blasting viewers with carefully-calculated lies about the country, and why his spetznas units are actively inciting violence. But they aren't very successful — exactly because Ukraine's new government are not the crazy "nazis".
Blah-blah... To all such claims, I say this: would the US accept a "referendum" on secession in any of its States (such as California)? Would Russia accept Sahalin and/or Kurill islands voting to secede — even if Japanese "peacekeepers" weren't there to "help" people vote the right way? Of course, the answer is no — what legitimized Kosovo's referendum was the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the government, from which they decided to break.
Nothing of the kind is happening in Ukraine, so quit this "America is the worst" nonsense already.
I asked you a straight question — would you accept the vote of Latinos (the single largest "minority" in California already) claiming independence of whatever lands they reside on in America from the USA — and the subsequent annexation of those lands by Mexico.
That's a "yes or no" question — please, answer. Without namecalling...
Maybe, if the National Aeronautics and Space Administration focused on the actual Aeronautics and Space, without venturing into things like Muslim outreach (to, and I quote: "help them feel good about their historic contribution to science") and research of industrial civilizations (collapse inevitable), they could scrape a few more bucks and deliver the rocket before Russia (or China) do...
First of all, "yids" is not a slur for Jews — not in Ukrainian. Nor in Polish, BTW. If, as it appears, Russian is your first language, then this may seem shocking, but that's just one of the differences between languages. For another example, the word for "smell" in Polish would mean "stink" in Russian — it does not mean, Poles consider flowers stinky...
Second, the paragraph you are referring to begins with filtering out those, who are "the supporters of NKVD and Soviet power in Ukraine" — not all the aliens.
Anyway, we can spend weeks here trying to analyze the letter and spirit of his writings, but the facts remain — there were Jews in his organization, and, much to the vexation of Germans, the organization did help (some of) them escape German persecution.
That was done by Germans. Get your villains straight, slanderer. There were, reportedly, Ukrainian translators helping the Germans, but there is no evidence to link them to Bandera. None.
And, once again, I ask you, whether your justifying Putin's invasion of Ukraine by Bandera's alleged misdeeds means, you'll justify an invasion of Russia by Stalin's murders... Because weeks before Germans killed the 45 professors (and their families) in Lviv, NKVD — before retreating from Lviv — executed several thousands of political prisoners held in Lviv's prisons.
Yet, despite this and numerous other crimes of Stalin, Russia worships him today. Should it be invaded on these grounds?
You dodged this question earlier, I'm posing it again...
From the inside of a concentration camp? Please... But, again, with your focus on Volyn' — whoever "orchestrated" it — aren't you forgetting other atrocities against the Poles, such as Katyn?
Point remains, Bandera was neither a fascist in general, nor a nazi in particular... Certainly no worse than Stalin. Poles do realize this very well — and know, that the true threat comes from Moscow, not Lviv or Kyiv.
Nice sleight of hand... The question was not, whether Mexican government would invade — they did before, they would again given an opportunity.
The question was, whether the Americans (such as Giblet535) would approve of it and accept the results of any referendum staged by the invaders...
A distinction without difference — in this case. The example I gave is perfectly valid regardless — you are trying to avoid answering the hard question on a technicality.
Is it really that hard to imagine a piece of United States, where some racial/ethnic (whatever the difference) minority is, in fact, the dominant — and a self-cohesive — local majority? I'm sure, there are bits of Arizona, Texas, and California that qualify. Or Brighton Beach in New York...
What happens in Crimea is bizarre. Or, rather, the West's reaction to it...
So far you have not "demonstrated" it to be false. Presence of foreign Nazis — even if true — is not proof.
I'm covering all bases, thank you for your concern.
Your translation and your interpretation. Bandera was not an anti-Semite — his targets were those, who opposed his movement. It was not racial. There were Jews in his organization, and the organization helped some Jews escape German persecution. You gave me the Wiki page — have you read it yourself?
As I said already, Stalin was a collaborator too — in 1939. Russians in Crimea today are collaborators — welcoming invaders into their soil. Bandera had good reasons to hate Moscow. Crimeans have nothing to blame Kyiv for.
Of course, it was A-OK. USSR has just starved millions of Ukrainians to death, and killed Bandera's own father (May 1941). What could possibly be blamed on Germany, when Bandera chose their protectorate over Moscow's? That was before even Babiy Yar (nay, before Kyiv was taken by Germans), and the German death camps did not become known to the world until 1943 — but the Moscow crimes were very well known to Bandera and his, personally known. I don't blame him...
Anyway, unless you are going to suggest, Russia should be invaded on the basis of their worship of Stalin, lay off Bandera already.
I would recommend listening carefully to Putin-controlled media and making conclusions exactly the opposite to what they drive to. You'd be right far more often than wrong.
More specifically: see this article. Funny, how the anti-Semites and the "anti-Nazis" never argue with each other...
Had becoming a US territory been on the ballot in Iraq, those thumbs would've been a lot more suspicious.
Latinos are the biggest racial group in California today. And they are — some times credibly — complaining of discrimination... Will you approve of Mexican army taking the state over, disarming local American units (army, national guardsmen, police) and staging a referendum?
Do you have doubts as to which way such a referendum will go?
"Neo-nazi" my furry tail. Tyagnibok is a "yid".