After reading a bunch of very interesting posts I've realized part of the "problem" with America. We encourage people to gravitate towards their interests when choosing careers. Girls and boys have different interests so they'll have different careers.
Some cultures care less about interests and more about status, wealth, stability, etc. I was thinking about why the female programmers I know are all from outside America and I think that's why. They are not stereotypical computer nerds, and nor should that be required. They don't LIVE computers. They don't care about how many cores the latest smartphone has. They weren't building circuit boards at age 5. Who cares? You don't need to do any of that stuff to be a good programmer. They like it because they make good money and they're around smart people all day and they get to coordinate to solve challenging problems.
I don't know if engineering or programming will ever be seen like that in America by Americans, particularly girls. The reason I put "problem" in quotes at the top is I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not. I personally would like to see more women in computers because I like women -- I get along well with them and of course enjoy flirting. On the other hand, it feels right for people to pursue their interests, and if American women aren't interested in computers so be it. Luckily, the foreign women are!
Nearly everything about the western culture kind of discourages women and girls from being techies, and geeks.
This is so true. And in some cultures the problem doesn't seem to be present. Of the women who actually program that I know, 100% of them are non-Western. Back in college, of the women in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science, at least 75% of them were non-Western. Most of them were Indian, Chinese, or Korean.
They were also really normal though. They weren't tech-heads or uber-geeks, they were just normal people with well-rounded interests who likes computers. The American women who persevere in these fields trend more towards the uber-geek, maybe because they have to really really love it to stick around. I don't know why though, since it seems so easy to stick around for the non-Westerners. I really don't think it's the men within the field who are driving women away, it's the women themselves who flee.
As for the 'mating display' you don't get it. It doesn't matter what women dress. Some men, somewhere, will ALWAYS interpret it as a mating display.
Yeah, it's a spectrum... that doesn't invalidate the point.
As a male, I assure you, you are speaking for yourself, if you assume that just because a girl is in short shorts, she's sending you a 'mating display'.
Remember you're speaking for yourself too. You are clearly too scared to admit that you have urges, and many men are, but many men are honest enough to admit them. The fact that you can't even admit it on an anonymous forum is sad.
Shame on you if you blame her for not being able to control your own urges. It's your own problem, not hers.
Are you talking about rape or something? "Real sociopaths and abusers" are not the typical person, so what is your point? I think you're going way overboard. There's no doubt that women CAN dress provocatively (do you even believe that much? do you believe the word "provocative" has any meaning, or it's just a fake word because really nobody can provoke anybody?). So when they DO dress provocatively, they will get a reaction from men, whether they wanted it or not.
And if they did it was always about boys trying to get into their pants.
What's wrong with that?? Boys have biological drives just like girls, and your attempt to turn that into a negative is no better than companies who say "Eh, don't hire her, she acts really maternal so she will be pumping out babies and taking tons of leave."
You're operating on two major assumptions -- that the distribution of performance of male and female IT job candidates is the same, and that the only reason there aren't more females in IT is discrimination. If there is another force besides discrimination pulling women away from IT, then a quota will not necessarily target the women you think it will (the upper end of the bell curve) because that force will not be addressed directly. It could very well pull in more people from the lower end who otherwise wouldn't be there.
Also, arguing about the top of the bell-curves doesn't make sense since you've taken this from a specific example where the bell curve comprises the candidates to that particular job to a general n-ized example looking at the whole industry. In the new case, there will be plenty of jobs where only people from the lower half of the bell curve apply, whereas in the first case, the entire population of interest (by definition) is applying to the same job.
There aren't enough women for them to have a 50% share of every industry except the ones that they dominate by 70-80% or more. So the problems like the shortage of male teachers you mentioned aren't just something interesting to note, they're core to the problem. The focus is always on helping women in the areas they are underrepresented. Look what you said, you don't even know enough about the problem to comment. That's sad. Nobody cares enough to find out or even have a discussion.
I think people who suffered violations of their rights like that should be compensated. If you want to give $1 million to everyone who suffered because his ancestor was a slave, and forget about affirmative action, that would be fair.
Many Europeans who emigrated to America did so because of religious persecution, slave-like work conditions, or discrimination. Europe had a feudal system for hundreds of years where the majority of the population were serfs owned by the local lord. Earlier than that, the Romans took over and oppressed everybody and stuff.
Pakistan is far worse. But it's more a difference of degree than of category compared to the modern USA.
Yeah no shit.
Theocrats everywhere have more in common than divides them.
Wrong conclusion. Degree matters more than category. Ask the gay men who are hanged in Iran if the "oppressive Christians" in America are more or less the same as the Muslim thugs in Iran.
They pointed out potential problems with the numerator but their real error was in the denominator. They correlated the tax payments to the wrong year of income, and since Apple's income has been growing rapidly, that incorrect too-large denominator makes the tax rate look lower than it is.
That's only if you assign a ridiculous cost to cleaning up the mess of any kind of power, nuclear included, by making a bunch of assumptions of what "cleaned up" means.
Why's that? Not many people would stop using refrigeration just because the coolant is more expensive. The cost of coolant is a relatively small factor in most Americans' lives.
On the other hand, AGW proponents want us to change transportation, construction, agriculture, etc, making almost everything in life more expensive. So you've got increased costs in many areas, plus legislation that often comes off as petty or patronizing. I mean, a tax on plastic grocery bags? And the point is to get all those evil oil users to change their behavior and be more good and eco friendly.. that's a far bigger role for government than I'm comfortable with.
Right now a station with 6 double-sided pumps can service 12 cars at a time. 12 cars every 5 minutes is 144 cars per hour. If charging takes 1/2 an hour, you'd need 72 chargers to maintain the same number of customers. How many gas stations have room for 72 parking spots?
I think the quick change approach is better, though it'll probably mean the return of full-service gas stations, tips and all.
Well, if you agree with me that we all have an infinite number of beliefs about an infinite number of non-existent things, then I think that issue is settled.
Probably not an important distinction for the sake of this discussion, but I'd say you don't have a belief about something until you've considered it. As soon as you asked me about your unicorn I formed a belief about it, but not before then.
Yes, yes I do. I don't walk around all day thinking about my disbelief in God (like I imagine true believers of God do in the opposite way); it's not at all a part of my identity.
Then you should have said no, no you don't. If it's not part of your identity, why do you feel identified by that label? I'm technically a pisces, for instance, though I don't care about astrology or anything like that. I'm not at all offended if someone calls me a pisces. I certainly wouldn't say "No I'm not, it's YOU who have a sign."
Well, I *do* think of myself as the default state. NOT because I think everyone else is somehow stupid or a "non-person"/barbarian, or because I'm smarter than everyone else, but for three specific reasons:
Your reasons make a lot of sense to me and I agree with them, but they don't address the point that virtually all people have beliefs about God, one way or the other, simply because everybody on Earth has been exposed to an Abrahamic religion.
That's also why the atheist joke you mentioned doesn't make sense. Not-stamp-collecting could indeed be a hobby if nearly everybody in the world agreed that the distinction between stamp collecting and not stamp collecting was important. At that point it would become important to identify yourself as a not-stamp-collector.
It's closely related to the whole unicorn/fingernail thing which may be why we see both issues differently in the same way. Not believing in the unicorn under your fingernail just isn't important. Nobody but you and I and a few people reading this thread even have it in their consciousness. Similarly, whether I collect stamps or not is immaterial to the vast majority of humanity. It's not even interesting to know that someone is a stamp collector or not.
But religious belief is incredibly widespread and there are fierce arguments about it, between all factions, believers and non-believers, and within factions, strong atheists vs weak atheists, Muslims vs Jews, etc. To draw an analogy with stamp collecting or your fingernail is just silly. The reality of religious belief is so powerful that, against common sense, it turns your argument on its head. I have to say, yes, I do have a belief about the unicorn under your fingernail. I have to say, yes, not-stamp-collecting could be a hobby. And it's all true, I'm not just saying it rhetorically.. those arguments simply expand on the underlying nature of religious debate and bring it into the patently ludicrous. But it's all still valid. I can accept that ludicrousness, maybe you can't.
I.. don't get it. Why do you understand that? The only thing I've heard about incest is it's banned in the modern, "non-discriminatory" world because of the risk to the children of incest. Here are two counterpoints to that.
First, should a father be allowed to marry and have sex with his adult gay son? That removes any risk to potential offspring.
Second, should two straight people, not related, be allowed to marry if they have genetic conditions that are risky for children? What about someone with HIV/AIDS?
I think the real reason incest is banned is that people find it gross.
and the polygamy laws just make it easier to argue against marriage in the first place
Hah.
But why deny Fred marrying Shaggy while allowing Fred to marry Daphne? What's the basis of that denial?
Well we already have two examples that don't make any sense. Even gay marriage proponents generally support bans on incest and polygamy, without being able to give a reason. The ban on gay marriage is around for the same reason -- people just don't like the thought. It doesn't mean they're bad, intolerant, or cruel people, they just don't like gay marriage.
Heh, no, I don't, but I don't think the logic is flawed either. The typical comparison is incest, polygamy, bestiality -- all "non-traditional marriage" types that are still illegal and that even gay marriage proponents tend to distance themselves from. I thought it's an interesting twist to look at single people as a group. I stand by the logic 100%.
No, because then you're co-opting marriage as a thing belonging to your specific religion then trying to stop gay people from doing it.
What if it's not necessarily my religion but just something I don't like? On the other hand, what if it is part of my religion, and also part of many other religions, and we form a vast majority of the society? Are we not allowed to shape society in an image we like? It's not like we are hurting gay people by not letting them marry, I mean lack of marriage is rather different than slavery for instance. I don't think you can call a society that bans gay marriage cruel or intolerant just because it bans gay marriage.
In fact there's no way you can logically be against gay marriage and not be against marriage between people of a significantly different religion from you.
I don't know if there's a logical argument either way. It's all based on our personal preferences.
No, I think the right to marry the person you love is a fundamental civil right. The grounds I have are not only the UN Declaration on Human Rights
The UN is a joke. So is their declaration of human rights. Here's an example:
Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
So do you agree that you aren't allowed to attack anyone's honor or reputation? So.. negative political ads should be banned?
Sorry, I prefer OUR declaration of rights to the crap the UN comes up with.
Anyway I assume you're talking about this:
Article 16. (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Is that it? That doesn't address whether men can marry men, just that men and women of full age can marry. It doesn't say to whom. Why do you think that applies to gay marriage? Do you think it also applies to incest and polygamy, because those are also "men and women of full age?"
the Loving v Virginia decision, in which the SCOTUS said that marriage was a fundamental right.
Okay, first of all, wrong. You amended your statement to say "I think the right to marry the person you love is a fundamental civil right." That case, based on the wikipedia article, is about race restrictions on marriage, not about "the right to marry the person you love."
I think you have a problem understanding technical arguments or something. The examples I gave, which you called cute but shitty reasons, are the corner cases that test the laws. You can't just dismiss them, the law has to deal with them. Your citation of Loving v Virginia confirms that -- you take what the court actually said and transform it into something different. As far as I know, Supreme Court decisions are treated as narrowly as possible. Excuse me for having to point out the obvious thing, but you seem to have missed it: there is still debate over the constitutionality of gay marriage. If the Supreme Court had unambiguously ruled about it, the debate would be over. Crazy how that works huh?
Neither point you brought up supports your position that we have a constitutional right to marry people of the same sex.
Why? Because your bigoted self says so?
Don't be an idiot. I was paraphrasing the law as it stands. We're talking about the constitutionality of those laws and whether gay marriage is a fundamental civil right.
Because a few straight people don't get to marry for love, we should stop a whole bunch of other people from doing it?
You talk about UN rights and the Supreme Court.. then you say stuff like this? So hypocritical.. so much for arguments like "equal protection before the law."
I guess you have a very strange idea of what a fundamental civil right really is. To you it's not something that applies to everyone.. it applies to the people you want it to apply to for your own agenda.
Certainly going from gay to completely straight or straight to completely gay is a big step. But I'm sure every day there are people who have been straight their entire lives who meet someone and suddenly they're a little more bisexual. Do you think there's something wrong with that or something? Is it wrong or impossible for a gay person to change as well?
Frothing? I'm simply saying I no more "actively" disbelieve a God exists than actively disbelieve any other of the infinite variety of other nonexistent things that a human mind could conceive of.
It's an exaggeration if only considering your post, but to me it's just as much "from the Moon" to me to think that someone would have any problem at all with having your thoughts about a common social idea like God called a belief.
Or do you actively define yourself as an aunicornist? Or an asentientmushroomist?
No, but that's an interesting way of putting it. Do you feel like if someone applies a label to you, and you accept it, you are defining yourself as that label? I don't get that. Maybe you mean "defining" in a less encompassing way than what I'm thinking.
Anyway, no, but I don't reject the label when it's offered.
I'm not the atheist; the other guys are the theists.
Don't you think it's kind of sad that you are worse than the other guys? Especially in light of what you think about defining yourself, you are saying that you are the default state and they are other, not that you're both equal and have different beliefs about something. That's a weird way of thinking. It reminds me of all the primitive tribes whose language basically calls members of the tribe "person" and any foreigner "non-person".
I would learn some Polish to get by but I would be reading English websites, watching English TV and movies, etc
Why would you want nothing more than to get by for the remainder of your life? And lose touch with your kids and grandkids? Your kids are going to change. To me it's better to lead than try to hold on and fail. Even without a family, if I were moving there permanently then learning the language would be a top priority, if only so I could be a little more sociable.
If I were going for a year or two on business, sure, I'd live with other English-speakers and not bother learning more than I needed.
Here's the thing. We as Americans can be picky. There are plenty of potential immigrants who would come here and adapt beautifully. Why not let them in, and keep the others out? Testing overall culture is hard and not at all politically correct, but you can cherry pick things like language. Add a language test for green card renewal and citizenship. Done. You can come here with poor English but you have to learn within a few years. Perfectly reasonable. Exemptions for age assuming whoever you're dependent on passes.
To be frank, I think many people are uncomfortable with different cultures and change, and try to rationalize their feelings by finding problems with immigration.
I think that's an outdated perspective. Perhaps you're a child of the 80s like me and you were exposed to a strong multiculturalism agenda in your education. As a grownup now with world experiences I realize that if you don't like another culture that's perfectly fine. You don't have to rationalize it at all. Obviously you have a problem if you see no value whatsoever in any culture but your own, but that's not too common. Who doesn't like ANY foreign food, for instance?
What kind of body count are you doing? Natural deaths or something? Sure there are more Christians in the world than Muslims, so there's a higher body count.. but that's nonsensical.
Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if the US were open about supporting these groups, and honest about the character of the groups. The bullshit of the Mujahideen is that we called them freedom fighters and heroes. We should have said "We're supporting these barbarians to FUCK UP the Soviets, and then we're done with them. If they ever come to much power, we'll bomb them too."
I agree with the idea of total war, but nation building can only be done in very limited circumstances.
Sure it worked in Germany. Germany's culture is almost completely compatible with our own.
Japan had a very different culture, but part of their culture was a willingness to adapt. Look at baseball in Japan. Look how popular American Western stuff became -- cowboys, cattle ranching, etc. I always am like "wtf??"
There is not a single Muslim country that has either of those attributes as far as I can see. If you were to try to nation-build Saudi Arabia it would be a miserable failure, no matter how much total war you threw at them first. For countries with such radically different, non-adaptable cultures, colonization is the only way to impose change, and I don't think anybody really wants to do that. So at that point the best strategy is total war to reduce their offensive capabilities, then gtfo.
What are your "beliefs" about the tiny pink unicorn that lives under my fingernail?
See, that's such a bad argument. Why do you think it's difficult say "I believe that doesn't eist" and not start frothing at the mouth about "That can't exist! I have a complete lack of belief about it, not just a belief that it doesn't exist!!! Don't you dare call that a belief!"
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After reading a bunch of very interesting posts I've realized part of the "problem" with America. We encourage people to gravitate towards their interests when choosing careers. Girls and boys have different interests so they'll have different careers.
Some cultures care less about interests and more about status, wealth, stability, etc. I was thinking about why the female programmers I know are all from outside America and I think that's why. They are not stereotypical computer nerds, and nor should that be required. They don't LIVE computers. They don't care about how many cores the latest smartphone has. They weren't building circuit boards at age 5. Who cares? You don't need to do any of that stuff to be a good programmer. They like it because they make good money and they're around smart people all day and they get to coordinate to solve challenging problems.
I don't know if engineering or programming will ever be seen like that in America by Americans, particularly girls. The reason I put "problem" in quotes at the top is I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not. I personally would like to see more women in computers because I like women -- I get along well with them and of course enjoy flirting. On the other hand, it feels right for people to pursue their interests, and if American women aren't interested in computers so be it. Luckily, the foreign women are!
Nearly everything about the western culture kind of discourages women and girls from being techies, and geeks.
This is so true. And in some cultures the problem doesn't seem to be present. Of the women who actually program that I know, 100% of them are non-Western. Back in college, of the women in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science, at least 75% of them were non-Western. Most of them were Indian, Chinese, or Korean.
They were also really normal though. They weren't tech-heads or uber-geeks, they were just normal people with well-rounded interests who likes computers. The American women who persevere in these fields trend more towards the uber-geek, maybe because they have to really really love it to stick around. I don't know why though, since it seems so easy to stick around for the non-Westerners. I really don't think it's the men within the field who are driving women away, it's the women themselves who flee.
As for the 'mating display' you don't get it. It doesn't matter what women dress. Some men, somewhere, will ALWAYS interpret it as a mating display.
Yeah, it's a spectrum... that doesn't invalidate the point.
As a male, I assure you, you are speaking for yourself, if you assume that just because a girl is in short shorts, she's sending you a 'mating display'.
Remember you're speaking for yourself too. You are clearly too scared to admit that you have urges, and many men are, but many men are honest enough to admit them. The fact that you can't even admit it on an anonymous forum is sad.
Shame on you if you blame her for not being able to control your own urges. It's your own problem, not hers.
Are you talking about rape or something? "Real sociopaths and abusers" are not the typical person, so what is your point? I think you're going way overboard. There's no doubt that women CAN dress provocatively (do you even believe that much? do you believe the word "provocative" has any meaning, or it's just a fake word because really nobody can provoke anybody?). So when they DO dress provocatively, they will get a reaction from men, whether they wanted it or not.
And if they did it was always about boys trying to get into their pants.
What's wrong with that?? Boys have biological drives just like girls, and your attempt to turn that into a negative is no better than companies who say "Eh, don't hire her, she acts really maternal so she will be pumping out babies and taking tons of leave."
You're operating on two major assumptions -- that the distribution of performance of male and female IT job candidates is the same, and that the only reason there aren't more females in IT is discrimination. If there is another force besides discrimination pulling women away from IT, then a quota will not necessarily target the women you think it will (the upper end of the bell curve) because that force will not be addressed directly. It could very well pull in more people from the lower end who otherwise wouldn't be there.
Also, arguing about the top of the bell-curves doesn't make sense since you've taken this from a specific example where the bell curve comprises the candidates to that particular job to a general n-ized example looking at the whole industry. In the new case, there will be plenty of jobs where only people from the lower half of the bell curve apply, whereas in the first case, the entire population of interest (by definition) is applying to the same job.
There aren't enough women for them to have a 50% share of every industry except the ones that they dominate by 70-80% or more. So the problems like the shortage of male teachers you mentioned aren't just something interesting to note, they're core to the problem. The focus is always on helping women in the areas they are underrepresented. Look what you said, you don't even know enough about the problem to comment. That's sad. Nobody cares enough to find out or even have a discussion.
I think people who suffered violations of their rights like that should be compensated. If you want to give $1 million to everyone who suffered because his ancestor was a slave, and forget about affirmative action, that would be fair.
Many Europeans who emigrated to America did so because of religious persecution, slave-like work conditions, or discrimination. Europe had a feudal system for hundreds of years where the majority of the population were serfs owned by the local lord. Earlier than that, the Romans took over and oppressed everybody and stuff.
So basically we all get $1 million. Sweet.
Pakistan is far worse. But it's more a difference of degree than of category compared to the modern USA.
Yeah no shit.
Theocrats everywhere have more in common than divides them.
Wrong conclusion. Degree matters more than category. Ask the gay men who are hanged in Iran if the "oppressive Christians" in America are more or less the same as the Muslim thugs in Iran.
They pointed out potential problems with the numerator but their real error was in the denominator. They correlated the tax payments to the wrong year of income, and since Apple's income has been growing rapidly, that incorrect too-large denominator makes the tax rate look lower than it is.
That's only if you assign a ridiculous cost to cleaning up the mess of any kind of power, nuclear included, by making a bunch of assumptions of what "cleaned up" means.
Why's that? Not many people would stop using refrigeration just because the coolant is more expensive. The cost of coolant is a relatively small factor in most Americans' lives.
On the other hand, AGW proponents want us to change transportation, construction, agriculture, etc, making almost everything in life more expensive. So you've got increased costs in many areas, plus legislation that often comes off as petty or patronizing. I mean, a tax on plastic grocery bags? And the point is to get all those evil oil users to change their behavior and be more good and eco friendly.. that's a far bigger role for government than I'm comfortable with.
Right now a station with 6 double-sided pumps can service 12 cars at a time. 12 cars every 5 minutes is 144 cars per hour. If charging takes 1/2 an hour, you'd need 72 chargers to maintain the same number of customers. How many gas stations have room for 72 parking spots?
I think the quick change approach is better, though it'll probably mean the return of full-service gas stations, tips and all.
Well, if you agree with me that we all have an infinite number of beliefs about an infinite number of non-existent things, then I think that issue is settled.
Probably not an important distinction for the sake of this discussion, but I'd say you don't have a belief about something until you've considered it. As soon as you asked me about your unicorn I formed a belief about it, but not before then.
Yes, yes I do. I don't walk around all day thinking about my disbelief in God (like I imagine true believers of God do in the opposite way); it's not at all a part of my identity.
Then you should have said no, no you don't. If it's not part of your identity, why do you feel identified by that label? I'm technically a pisces, for instance, though I don't care about astrology or anything like that. I'm not at all offended if someone calls me a pisces. I certainly wouldn't say "No I'm not, it's YOU who have a sign."
Well, I *do* think of myself as the default state. NOT because I think everyone else is somehow stupid or a "non-person"/barbarian, or because I'm smarter than everyone else, but for three specific reasons:
Your reasons make a lot of sense to me and I agree with them, but they don't address the point that virtually all people have beliefs about God, one way or the other, simply because everybody on Earth has been exposed to an Abrahamic religion.
That's also why the atheist joke you mentioned doesn't make sense. Not-stamp-collecting could indeed be a hobby if nearly everybody in the world agreed that the distinction between stamp collecting and not stamp collecting was important. At that point it would become important to identify yourself as a not-stamp-collector.
It's closely related to the whole unicorn/fingernail thing which may be why we see both issues differently in the same way. Not believing in the unicorn under your fingernail just isn't important. Nobody but you and I and a few people reading this thread even have it in their consciousness. Similarly, whether I collect stamps or not is immaterial to the vast majority of humanity. It's not even interesting to know that someone is a stamp collector or not.
But religious belief is incredibly widespread and there are fierce arguments about it, between all factions, believers and non-believers, and within factions, strong atheists vs weak atheists, Muslims vs Jews, etc. To draw an analogy with stamp collecting or your fingernail is just silly. The reality of religious belief is so powerful that, against common sense, it turns your argument on its head. I have to say, yes, I do have a belief about the unicorn under your fingernail. I have to say, yes, not-stamp-collecting could be a hobby. And it's all true, I'm not just saying it rhetorically.. those arguments simply expand on the underlying nature of religious debate and bring it into the patently ludicrous. But it's all still valid. I can accept that ludicrousness, maybe you can't.
The incest laws I can understand
I.. don't get it. Why do you understand that? The only thing I've heard about incest is it's banned in the modern, "non-discriminatory" world because of the risk to the children of incest. Here are two counterpoints to that.
First, should a father be allowed to marry and have sex with his adult gay son? That removes any risk to potential offspring.
Second, should two straight people, not related, be allowed to marry if they have genetic conditions that are risky for children? What about someone with HIV/AIDS?
I think the real reason incest is banned is that people find it gross.
and the polygamy laws just make it easier to argue against marriage in the first place
Hah.
But why deny Fred marrying Shaggy while allowing Fred to marry Daphne? What's the basis of that denial?
Well we already have two examples that don't make any sense. Even gay marriage proponents generally support bans on incest and polygamy, without being able to give a reason. The ban on gay marriage is around for the same reason -- people just don't like the thought. It doesn't mean they're bad, intolerant, or cruel people, they just don't like gay marriage.
Heh, no, I don't, but I don't think the logic is flawed either. The typical comparison is incest, polygamy, bestiality -- all "non-traditional marriage" types that are still illegal and that even gay marriage proponents tend to distance themselves from. I thought it's an interesting twist to look at single people as a group. I stand by the logic 100%.
No, because then you're co-opting marriage as a thing belonging to your specific religion then trying to stop gay people from doing it.
What if it's not necessarily my religion but just something I don't like? On the other hand, what if it is part of my religion, and also part of many other religions, and we form a vast majority of the society? Are we not allowed to shape society in an image we like? It's not like we are hurting gay people by not letting them marry, I mean lack of marriage is rather different than slavery for instance. I don't think you can call a society that bans gay marriage cruel or intolerant just because it bans gay marriage.
In fact there's no way you can logically be against gay marriage and not be against marriage between people of a significantly different religion from you.
I don't know if there's a logical argument either way. It's all based on our personal preferences.
No, I think the right to marry the person you love is a fundamental civil right. The grounds I have are not only the UN Declaration on Human Rights
The UN is a joke. So is their declaration of human rights. Here's an example:
Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
So do you agree that you aren't allowed to attack anyone's honor or reputation? So.. negative political ads should be banned?
Sorry, I prefer OUR declaration of rights to the crap the UN comes up with.
Anyway I assume you're talking about this:
Article 16. (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Is that it? That doesn't address whether men can marry men, just that men and women of full age can marry. It doesn't say to whom. Why do you think that applies to gay marriage? Do you think it also applies to incest and polygamy, because those are also "men and women of full age?"
the Loving v Virginia decision, in which the SCOTUS said that marriage was a fundamental right.
Okay, first of all, wrong. You amended your statement to say "I think the right to marry the person you love is a fundamental civil right." That case, based on the wikipedia article, is about race restrictions on marriage, not about "the right to marry the person you love."
I think you have a problem understanding technical arguments or something. The examples I gave, which you called cute but shitty reasons, are the corner cases that test the laws. You can't just dismiss them, the law has to deal with them. Your citation of Loving v Virginia confirms that -- you take what the court actually said and transform it into something different. As far as I know, Supreme Court decisions are treated as narrowly as possible. Excuse me for having to point out the obvious thing, but you seem to have missed it: there is still debate over the constitutionality of gay marriage. If the Supreme Court had unambiguously ruled about it, the debate would be over. Crazy how that works huh?
Neither point you brought up supports your position that we have a constitutional right to marry people of the same sex.
Why? Because your bigoted self says so?
Don't be an idiot. I was paraphrasing the law as it stands. We're talking about the constitutionality of those laws and whether gay marriage is a fundamental civil right.
Because a few straight people don't get to marry for love, we should stop a whole bunch of other people from doing it?
You talk about UN rights and the Supreme Court.. then you say stuff like this? So hypocritical.. so much for arguments like "equal protection before the law."
I guess you have a very strange idea of what a fundamental civil right really is. To you it's not something that applies to everyone.. it applies to the people you want it to apply to for your own agenda.
Yes.
Certainly going from gay to completely straight or straight to completely gay is a big step. But I'm sure every day there are people who have been straight their entire lives who meet someone and suddenly they're a little more bisexual. Do you think there's something wrong with that or something? Is it wrong or impossible for a gay person to change as well?
Frothing? I'm simply saying I no more "actively" disbelieve a God exists than actively disbelieve any other of the infinite variety of other nonexistent things that a human mind could conceive of.
It's an exaggeration if only considering your post, but to me it's just as much "from the Moon" to me to think that someone would have any problem at all with having your thoughts about a common social idea like God called a belief.
Or do you actively define yourself as an aunicornist? Or an asentientmushroomist?
No, but that's an interesting way of putting it. Do you feel like if someone applies a label to you, and you accept it, you are defining yourself as that label? I don't get that. Maybe you mean "defining" in a less encompassing way than what I'm thinking.
Anyway, no, but I don't reject the label when it's offered.
I'm not the atheist; the other guys are the theists.
Don't you think it's kind of sad that you are worse than the other guys? Especially in light of what you think about defining yourself, you are saying that you are the default state and they are other, not that you're both equal and have different beliefs about something. That's a weird way of thinking. It reminds me of all the primitive tribes whose language basically calls members of the tribe "person" and any foreigner "non-person".
I would learn some Polish to get by but I would be reading English websites, watching English TV and movies, etc
Why would you want nothing more than to get by for the remainder of your life? And lose touch with your kids and grandkids? Your kids are going to change. To me it's better to lead than try to hold on and fail. Even without a family, if I were moving there permanently then learning the language would be a top priority, if only so I could be a little more sociable.
If I were going for a year or two on business, sure, I'd live with other English-speakers and not bother learning more than I needed.
Here's the thing. We as Americans can be picky. There are plenty of potential immigrants who would come here and adapt beautifully. Why not let them in, and keep the others out? Testing overall culture is hard and not at all politically correct, but you can cherry pick things like language. Add a language test for green card renewal and citizenship. Done. You can come here with poor English but you have to learn within a few years. Perfectly reasonable. Exemptions for age assuming whoever you're dependent on passes.
To be frank, I think many people are uncomfortable with different cultures and change, and try to rationalize their feelings by finding problems with immigration.
I think that's an outdated perspective. Perhaps you're a child of the 80s like me and you were exposed to a strong multiculturalism agenda in your education. As a grownup now with world experiences I realize that if you don't like another culture that's perfectly fine. You don't have to rationalize it at all. Obviously you have a problem if you see no value whatsoever in any culture but your own, but that's not too common. Who doesn't like ANY foreign food, for instance?
What kind of body count are you doing? Natural deaths or something? Sure there are more Christians in the world than Muslims, so there's a higher body count.. but that's nonsensical.
If you're talking about war on terror related deaths, you're flat out wrong. Just one example: http://www.pakistanbodycount.org/
Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if the US were open about supporting these groups, and honest about the character of the groups. The bullshit of the Mujahideen is that we called them freedom fighters and heroes. We should have said "We're supporting these barbarians to FUCK UP the Soviets, and then we're done with them. If they ever come to much power, we'll bomb them too."
I agree with the idea of total war, but nation building can only be done in very limited circumstances.
Sure it worked in Germany. Germany's culture is almost completely compatible with our own.
Japan had a very different culture, but part of their culture was a willingness to adapt. Look at baseball in Japan. Look how popular American Western stuff became -- cowboys, cattle ranching, etc. I always am like "wtf??"
There is not a single Muslim country that has either of those attributes as far as I can see. If you were to try to nation-build Saudi Arabia it would be a miserable failure, no matter how much total war you threw at them first. For countries with such radically different, non-adaptable cultures, colonization is the only way to impose change, and I don't think anybody really wants to do that. So at that point the best strategy is total war to reduce their offensive capabilities, then gtfo.
What are your "beliefs" about the tiny pink unicorn that lives under my fingernail?
See, that's such a bad argument. Why do you think it's difficult say "I believe that doesn't eist" and not start frothing at the mouth about "That can't exist! I have a complete lack of belief about it, not just a belief that it doesn't exist!!! Don't you dare call that a belief!"
Without extremists there are no religious fundamental extremists.