Do you have any evidence linking church vandalism to atheists? Property is vandalized all the time, so it's no surprise that churches would be targeted from time to time. (And no, "sexually-driven" words do not automatically implicate atheists.)
As for the latter point, the issues of placing pro-Christian monuments on public land and forcing homosexuals to abide by Christian marriage rules are indeed similar, but not in the way that you suppose. They both represent Christians using the government to impose their religion on other people. If they would just leave other people alone then there would be no problems.
athiests try to get every reference to the 10 commandments removed
You're grasping at straws here. I have heard of no initiative to ban or censor the Christian Bible (which includes the Ten Commandments). What you've heard from the media is that secularists (including many Christians) are trying to keep pro-Christian monuments out of public institutions.
This act of vandalism is most likely the work of a Christian. I'm (sincerely) sorry to inform you that Christians are not one large, happy community. There is a lot of hatred between and within the various churches. This kind of vandalism can happen if the victim is not considered 'worthy' of the iconography or if the symbol in question represents an opposing church. Put a jesus fish and a pro-choice bumper sticker on your car and see how long it takes the vandals to strike.
In the eminent domain case they took the rights from the individual to his property and gave it to the government.
Eminent domain has existed for a long, long time. You have no constitutional right to be free from eminent domain. The only questions are these: Is the property for public use? And did the owner receive a fair compensation? They are both nontrivial questions, but they really have nothing to do with the supposed right of an individual to be free from eminent domain.
So if the gov't wants your property, even if the reason is that some other person "bribed" them with the promise of more taxes, there's nothing you can do but stand there holding your... ( Seinfeld joke here )
Some laws suck. That's why you have to vote. The SCOTUS is not a nanny institution in charge of solving all of your problems.
The victimization is really a big trend I see everywhere. Victim of society. Victim of propaganda. Victim of violent video games. Nothing is your responsibility, nothing is your fault.
You are not talking about victimization. You are taking about blame. The lack of distinction is a problem found among people who see everything in moral terms.
Any time harm is done, there is victim. The reason you try to deny their identity as victims is that you want to feel justified in punishing them. Those of us who believe in rehabilitation instead of the Good vs Evil crap have no such difficulties.
An amendment numbered 15 printed in the Congressional Record to prohibit funds in the bill from being used to implement provisions of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act which permits searches of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, or book customer lists under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
To put it simply, 186 Republicans voted in favor of the Patriot Act, with only 38 voting against. 199 Democrats voted against the Patriot Act, with only one in favor. 83% of Republicans voted pro-Patriot Act. 99.5% of Democrats voted anti-patriot act.
Must reach Slashdot Liberal spinner
The reason you perceive an anti-Republican sentiment is that most people have correctly concluded that legislation like the Patriot Act is supported strongly and almost exclusively by Republicans.
I dunno, I was skimming over that link and read this:
"I supported the war in Iraq and the world is much safer. (Oct 2004)"
Missing something here?
That's bizarre - it's even miscategorized as Homeland Security instead of War and Peace.
As far as I can tell (based on web searching), it's based on a mistaken identity of a quotation from the Feingold-Michels debate of 2004:
FEINGOLD: We are better off Saddam Hussein is gone, but we are not safer.
MICHELS: I supported the war in Iraq, progress is being made and putting a democracy in place will make the Middle East and the world much safer. Osama bin Laden has his troops deployed in Iraq right now.
To eliminate any remaining confusion over this error, here is another account of the debate in question.
The web site has been made aware of this error. Begin the right-wing hacker conspiracy theories!
Someone who wants to be prepared if the government decides to move to a police state.
I sympathize with the sentiment, but I don't believe that this translates into an "absolute right to gun ownership". I think it's fair to follow what the constitution says and insist that gun ownership be "well regulated".
Besides, in the event that the government does decide to become a police state, you and I both know that it will have the patriotic support of at least half the people, who will gladly sacrifice their rights for the State.
Well, let's think rationally about this. There are two possible scenarios that we're considering:
1) There is an electronic voting system. The software used in this system is not publically available or verified. If the software is faulty or malicious, every vote count made by these machines in the entire country is potentially fraudulent. The numbers would not be consistent with exit polls, but that doesn't seem to bother people.
2) A paper voting system is in use. Each ballot box would have to be stuffed independently by corrupt officials under the watch of election monitors. The number of people involved in the scam would decrease the feasibility of getting away with it.
So, it appears that it would be far easier to use one greedy and politically motivated company executive than it would be to coordinate efforts among corrupt election officials across the country.
Typical liberal distortion of the facts, thinking no one remembers what the truth is within a few days.
Hilarious. The word 'liberal' seems to have encompassed every intelligent, educated person in the country.
Really now, when you call the 9/11 report and the UN Iraq weapons report "distortion of the facts", I have to wonder where you get your "facts". Maybe less than 100% of what your beloved politicians have been saying is actually true. Do you think you might actually do your civic duty and become more informed on these issues, or is being informed too liberal for you?
The guy doesn't know what the CSM and the SIL are, but he's clearly familiar with the conservative Christian attitude toward science that makes it into the newspaper. Given the kind of bad, bad, bad press the Christians have been getting, I can't blame anyone for being skeptical about organizations professing to be Christian.
While it's correct to say that a belief in aliens is not absolutely falsifiable, it is incorrect to call it a religion. It can be a part of a religion's doctrine, but it is also possible for it to be part of a secular belief system. The real question is whether the appearance of new evidence could possibly change your mind.
Keep in mind that the difference between a religious belief and a secular belief is the ardor with which the belief is held. Religion requires faith.
For example, suppose that Alice analyzes the Drake Equation, makes a few assuptions that seem reasonable to her, and comes up with an approximate evaluation. This number leads her to believe that the existence of aliens is a certainty. Bob, on the other hand, actively participates in a religion that teaches him that aliens exist. Now, new evidence appears that casts considerable doubt on the possibility that aliens exist. (Suppose that the number of planets in the universe turns out to be much lower than previously thought.) Alice is likely to doubt her original assertion, perhaps modifying it from a certainty to an unlikelihood. Bob, on the other hand, will not doubt his belief in aliens because, as long as he maintains his religion, the doctrine is not subject to new evidence.
Since when do libertarians share private property at all? And why would closed source companies want to support an economic model that diminishes their power?
Change "libertarianism" to "liberalism" and "communism" to "fascism" and I'll agree with you.
My lamp diverged from streetlights millions of years ago.
Actually, at the rate that proto-lights reproduced in the wild, it would have taken quite a bit longer than millions of years to evolve lamp DNA. On the other hand, the fosil record shows that the entire genus of electrical appliances appeared only very recently. Obviously, these luminescent creatures were created by God (precisely as described in the Bible).
Not one US Supreme Court justice came down on the side of Gore. The 5-4 malarky you hear is just a lot of hot air - Gore was on really thin ice legally.
Since the Florida supreme court came to the opposite conclusion, it would appear that you are the one with the balderdash.
Naturally, the court you agree with is the correct one and the court you disagree with is activist. That fact remains that the highest court with authority to interpret Florida law ruled in Gore's favor.
SCOTUS played nice with SCOFLA. The US Supreme court could have gone all the way to Article II of the US Consitution that says that electors are selected "as the legislature directs".
According to Justice Scalia, "the only issue was whether we should put an end to it, after three weeks of looking like a fool in the eyes of the world." (reference) His opinion is therefore based on foreign standards, not US law. I'm sure you could rationalize the decision until you're blue in the face, but let's agree on the facts:
- it was a 5-4 decision - it could easily have gone in Gore's favor if the court were composed differently
From my vantage point it appears that evolutionists are often hellbent on wrecking people's faith.
Oh really? As far as I know, no one is trying to force Sunday Schools to discuss evolution. But many religious groups throughout the country are trying to force science classes to teach creationism.
Which pink unicorns you worship is your business. When you try to force those unicorns onto others, it becomes a problem.
I think "fight for their votes" was supposed to mean that the politicians have to benefit the people while in office in order to secure votes. The 2004 campaign was one of smear and counter-smear, with the most powerful propaganda machine winning in the end. The actual track records of the politicians were mostly ignored.
It's revealing that we in the USA view "fighting for votes" as spending massive amounts of money on politicized slander.
I'm not the original poster, but I'll take the bait anyway.
GB laid out a somewhat vague, yet also understandible (as it it was easy to parse for just about anyone) foreign policy (support democracy) and seem to be sticking by it. vs. the waffling and backtracking on the part of the democrats who were complaining but then discover elections in other countries are actually kind of nice.
Don't rewrite history. I recall exactly what happened. First, Bush promises to pull troops back to the US and not engage in nation-building. Fine. Then all of a sudden we HAVE to invade Iraq IMMEDIATELY OH MY GOD FOR OUR OWN DEFENSE! When that rationale turned out to be based on thin air, Bush waffled again and attempted to embrace this "free the people" attitude. (At that point only the delusional really believed him, no offense.) As expected, when it was time to help out in Sudan (to "free the people") we couldn't be bothered to actually send anybody there. So I'd have to say that Bush's foreign policy is totally inconsistent.
That's what they say they are for, and managed to convince everyone. This will probably come back to haunt them, or at least it might if Democrats were not so silly.
Not everyone. Obviously.
That's pretty stupid to lay out as something you "stand" for because everyone "stands" for a strong economy.
It's a matter of priorities. Think about what would happen if Bush were as eager to bolster America's economy as he is to wage unilateral wars.
Same problem as before, everyone is "for" these things. And since Democrats voted for the same steamrollering the Republicans voted for, there was little use arguing which side had the high ground here. Anyone who tells me Democrats are the holy protector of freedom and rights gets from me a request to explain Al Gore championing the Clipper Chip.
That's irrelevant; we're discussing the hypocrisy of Republicans. They claim to want less interference from Big Government in your life, but then turn around and legislate the opposite.
You Democrats are really annoying, oh sure only YOU stand for apple pie and honesty and anything else you think anyone would admire.
You seem to love talking about the Democrats to mask the Republicans' shortcomings. In this case, even you have to admit that the Republican leadership has been involved in some pretty dark scandals. From Plame to Torturegate to the Gannon affair, they have shown over and over that we really can't trust them.
It's time you stopped treating members of the gay community as little pigeons to be sheltered behind your cloak and realised they are real people who in the end have lots of different opinions just like everyone else.
Make no mistake buddy, it isn't through any altruistic yearnings that liberals stand up for gay rights. I find it offensive and dangerous that a personal lifestyle choice such as sexuality is used as a basis for discrimination. I don't care if every homosexual on the planet loves Bush, if we allow the government to treat us (the people, as a whole) this way then we're opening the door for future abuses.
Myself, I'm steadfastly Libertarian so you can say all you like about the Republicans, I don't care as we are just waiting in the wings for the Democrats to finish imploding so we can become the other majority party for once.
Be wary of what you wish for. Majority parties have to pander to the general populace. The Republicans have had to pander to religious fanatics (pardon my editorialization) and the Democrats try to pander to the working class.
Of course, it is highly unlikely that the Democrats will "implode" just yet. In fact, if it weren't for 9/11 we would probably have a Democratic president right now. Using a crisis to grab power is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it won't last forever. The writing is already on the wall; Bush won reelection by a vanishingly small margin, becoming one of the least popular two-term presidents in history.
You seem to have a few misconceptions about the Schiavo case. It's not that the woman is sick. It's not that she's just in need of a transplant or painkillers or something. This case is NOT about euthanasia. Unbiased experts agree that this woman has no chance of recovery - she will never be conscious ever again. So the surviving family (her husband in this case) must decide whether to keep her in a vegetative state or pull the plug. Of course, the government would like to change the rules for this one case and deny the husband this right.
I don't really know what reason the conservatives could have for wanting to do this, other than to posture politically. Keep in mind that they have made no attempt to change the law or set a precedent. Don't be fooled.
So, no shit-blowing is going on. Jeb is intimately involved, but he's pretty much impotent right now. I suppose he could try to amend the state constitution to make himself a sort of dictator, but he'd just embarrass himself (like his brother did).
You're letting your desire not to be harmed interfere with my natural ability to bash your skull in. If the law agrees with you, that's a moral decision.
Morals are based on dogma. Laws against murder are based on philosophy. If someone can't be bothered to put their beliefs in a coherent philosophical framework then they forfeit their claim to rationality.
a definition should be neutral enough so that everyone can agree on it
That's why the rant you call a 'definition' should not be used. That's why you were given a thorough, well-considered explanation of what a liberal is.
But you couldn't even finish reading it. How sad it is when people refuse to learn anything if it's not in a five-second sound bite.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, why not? It couldn't be any worse than having Paul Wolfowitz run the World Bank.
Do you have any evidence linking church vandalism to atheists? Property is vandalized all the time, so it's no surprise that churches would be targeted from time to time. (And no, "sexually-driven" words do not automatically implicate atheists.)
As for the latter point, the issues of placing pro-Christian monuments on public land and forcing homosexuals to abide by Christian marriage rules are indeed similar, but not in the way that you suppose. They both represent Christians using the government to impose their religion on other people. If they would just leave other people alone then there would be no problems.
athiests try to get every reference to the 10 commandments removed
You're grasping at straws here. I have heard of no initiative to ban or censor the Christian Bible (which includes the Ten Commandments). What you've heard from the media is that secularists (including many Christians) are trying to keep pro-Christian monuments out of public institutions.
This act of vandalism is most likely the work of a Christian. I'm (sincerely) sorry to inform you that Christians are not one large, happy community. There is a lot of hatred between and within the various churches. This kind of vandalism can happen if the victim is not considered 'worthy' of the iconography or if the symbol in question represents an opposing church. Put a jesus fish and a pro-choice bumper sticker on your car and see how long it takes the vandals to strike.
In the eminent domain case they took the rights from the individual to his property and gave it to the government.
Eminent domain has existed for a long, long time. You have no constitutional right to be free from eminent domain. The only questions are these: Is the property for public use? And did the owner receive a fair compensation? They are both nontrivial questions, but they really have nothing to do with the supposed right of an individual to be free from eminent domain.
So if the gov't wants your property, even if the reason is that some other person "bribed" them with the promise of more taxes, there's nothing you can do but stand there holding your... ( Seinfeld joke here )
Some laws suck. That's why you have to vote. The SCOTUS is not a nanny institution in charge of solving all of your problems.
The victimization is really a big trend I see everywhere. Victim of society. Victim of propaganda. Victim of violent video games. Nothing is your responsibility, nothing is your fault.
You are not talking about victimization. You are taking about blame. The lack of distinction is a problem found among people who see everything in moral terms.
Any time harm is done, there is victim. The reason you try to deny their identity as victims is that you want to feel justified in punishing them. Those of us who believe in rehabilitation instead of the Good vs Evil crap have no such difficulties.
It's all on house.gov.
Voting record for roll call 258.
Description of The Sanders Amendment:
An amendment numbered 15 printed in the Congressional Record to prohibit funds in the bill from being used to implement provisions of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act which permits searches of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, or book customer lists under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Republican Representatives vote against Patriot Act.
Read the vote results.
To put it simply, 186 Republicans voted in favor of the Patriot Act, with only 38 voting against. 199 Democrats voted against the Patriot Act, with only one in favor. 83% of Republicans voted pro-Patriot Act. 99.5% of Democrats voted anti-patriot act.
Must reach Slashdot Liberal spinner
The reason you perceive an anti-Republican sentiment is that most people have correctly concluded that legislation like the Patriot Act is supported strongly and almost exclusively by Republicans.
I dunno, I was skimming over that link and read this:
"I supported the war in Iraq and the world is much safer. (Oct 2004)"
Missing something here?
That's bizarre - it's even miscategorized as Homeland Security instead of War and Peace.
As far as I can tell (based on web searching), it's based on a mistaken identity of a quotation from the Feingold-Michels debate of 2004:
FEINGOLD: We are better off Saddam Hussein is gone, but we are not safer.
MICHELS: I supported the war in Iraq, progress is being made and putting a democracy in place will make the Middle East and the world much safer. Osama bin Laden has his troops deployed in Iraq right now.
To eliminate any remaining confusion over this error, here is another account of the debate in question.
The web site has been made aware of this error. Begin the right-wing hacker conspiracy theories!
Someone who wants to be prepared if the government decides to move to a police state.
I sympathize with the sentiment, but I don't believe that this translates into an "absolute right to gun ownership". I think it's fair to follow what the constitution says and insist that gun ownership be "well regulated".
Besides, in the event that the government does decide to become a police state, you and I both know that it will have the patriotic support of at least half the people, who will gladly sacrifice their rights for the State.
Well, let's think rationally about this. There are two possible scenarios that we're considering:
1) There is an electronic voting system. The software used in this system is not publically available or verified. If the software is faulty or malicious, every vote count made by these machines in the entire country is potentially fraudulent. The numbers would not be consistent with exit polls, but that doesn't seem to bother people.
2) A paper voting system is in use. Each ballot box would have to be stuffed independently by corrupt officials under the watch of election monitors. The number of people involved in the scam would decrease the feasibility of getting away with it.
So, it appears that it would be far easier to use one greedy and politically motivated company executive than it would be to coordinate efforts among corrupt election officials across the country.
Typical liberal distortion of the facts, thinking no one remembers what the truth is within a few days.
Hilarious. The word 'liberal' seems to have encompassed every intelligent, educated person in the country.
Really now, when you call the 9/11 report and the UN Iraq weapons report "distortion of the facts", I have to wonder where you get your "facts". Maybe less than 100% of what your beloved politicians have been saying is actually true. Do you think you might actually do your civic duty and become more informed on these issues, or is being informed too liberal for you?
Ignorant? Obviously. Bigoted? Probably not.
The guy doesn't know what the CSM and the SIL are, but he's clearly familiar with the conservative Christian attitude toward science that makes it into the newspaper. Given the kind of bad, bad, bad press the Christians have been getting, I can't blame anyone for being skeptical about organizations professing to be Christian.
While it's correct to say that a belief in aliens is not absolutely falsifiable, it is incorrect to call it a religion. It can be a part of a religion's doctrine, but it is also possible for it to be part of a secular belief system. The real question is whether the appearance of new evidence could possibly change your mind.
Keep in mind that the difference between a religious belief and a secular belief is the ardor with which the belief is held. Religion requires faith.
For example, suppose that Alice analyzes the Drake Equation, makes a few assuptions that seem reasonable to her, and comes up with an approximate evaluation. This number leads her to believe that the existence of aliens is a certainty. Bob, on the other hand, actively participates in a religion that teaches him that aliens exist. Now, new evidence appears that casts considerable doubt on the possibility that aliens exist. (Suppose that the number of planets in the universe turns out to be much lower than previously thought.) Alice is likely to doubt her original assertion, perhaps modifying it from a certainty to an unlikelihood. Bob, on the other hand, will not doubt his belief in aliens because, as long as he maintains his religion, the doctrine is not subject to new evidence.
Since when do libertarians share private property at all? And why would closed source companies want to support an economic model that diminishes their power?
Change "libertarianism" to "liberalism" and "communism" to "fascism" and I'll agree with you.
My lamp diverged from streetlights millions of years ago.
Actually, at the rate that proto-lights reproduced in the wild, it would have taken quite a bit longer than millions of years to evolve lamp DNA. On the other hand, the fosil record shows that the entire genus of electrical appliances appeared only very recently. Obviously, these luminescent creatures were created by God (precisely as described in the Bible).
Not one US Supreme Court justice came down on the side of Gore. The 5-4 malarky you hear is just a lot of hot air - Gore was on really thin ice legally.
Since the Florida supreme court came to the opposite conclusion, it would appear that you are the one with the balderdash.
Naturally, the court you agree with is the correct one and the court you disagree with is activist. That fact remains that the highest court with authority to interpret Florida law ruled in Gore's favor.
SCOTUS played nice with SCOFLA. The US Supreme court could have gone all the way to Article II of the US Consitution that says that electors are selected "as the legislature directs".
According to Justice Scalia, "the only issue was whether we should put an end to it, after three weeks of looking like a fool in the eyes of the world." (reference) His opinion is therefore based on foreign standards, not US law. I'm sure you could rationalize the decision until you're blue in the face, but let's agree on the facts:
- it was a 5-4 decision
- it could easily have gone in Gore's favor if the court were composed differently
From my vantage point it appears that evolutionists are often hellbent on wrecking people's faith.
Oh really? As far as I know, no one is trying to force Sunday Schools to discuss evolution. But many religious groups throughout the country are trying to force science classes to teach creationism.
Which pink unicorns you worship is your business. When you try to force those unicorns onto others, it becomes a problem.
I think "fight for their votes" was supposed to mean that the politicians have to benefit the people while in office in order to secure votes. The 2004 campaign was one of smear and counter-smear, with the most powerful propaganda machine winning in the end. The actual track records of the politicians were mostly ignored.
It's revealing that we in the USA view "fighting for votes" as spending massive amounts of money on politicized slander.
I'm not the original poster, but I'll take the bait anyway.
GB laid out a somewhat vague, yet also understandible (as it it was easy to parse for just about anyone) foreign policy (support democracy) and seem to be sticking by it. vs. the waffling and backtracking on the part of the democrats who were complaining but then discover elections in other countries are actually kind of nice.
Don't rewrite history. I recall exactly what happened. First, Bush promises to pull troops back to the US and not engage in nation-building. Fine. Then all of a sudden we HAVE to invade Iraq IMMEDIATELY OH MY GOD FOR OUR OWN DEFENSE! When that rationale turned out to be based on thin air, Bush waffled again and attempted to embrace this "free the people" attitude. (At that point only the delusional really believed him, no offense.) As expected, when it was time to help out in Sudan (to "free the people") we couldn't be bothered to actually send anybody there. So I'd have to say that Bush's foreign policy is totally inconsistent.
That's what they say they are for, and managed to convince everyone. This will probably come back to haunt them, or at least it might if Democrats were not so silly.
Not everyone. Obviously.
That's pretty stupid to lay out as something you "stand" for because everyone "stands" for a strong economy.
It's a matter of priorities. Think about what would happen if Bush were as eager to bolster America's economy as he is to wage unilateral wars.
Same problem as before, everyone is "for" these things. And since Democrats voted for the same steamrollering the Republicans voted for, there was little use arguing which side had the high ground here. Anyone who tells me Democrats are the holy protector of freedom and rights gets from me a request to explain Al Gore championing the Clipper Chip.
That's irrelevant; we're discussing the hypocrisy of Republicans. They claim to want less interference from Big Government in your life, but then turn around and legislate the opposite.
You Democrats are really annoying, oh sure only YOU stand for apple pie and honesty and anything else you think anyone would admire.
You seem to love talking about the Democrats to mask the Republicans' shortcomings. In this case, even you have to admit that the Republican leadership has been involved in some pretty dark scandals. From Plame to Torturegate to the Gannon affair, they have shown over and over that we really can't trust them.
It's time you stopped treating members of the gay community as little pigeons to be sheltered behind your cloak and realised they are real people who in the end have lots of different opinions just like everyone else.
Make no mistake buddy, it isn't through any altruistic yearnings that liberals stand up for gay rights. I find it offensive and dangerous that a personal lifestyle choice such as sexuality is used as a basis for discrimination. I don't care if every homosexual on the planet loves Bush, if we allow the government to treat us (the people, as a whole) this way then we're opening the door for future abuses.
Myself, I'm steadfastly Libertarian so you can say all you like about the Republicans, I don't care as we are just waiting in the wings for the Democrats to finish imploding so we can become the other majority party for once.
Be wary of what you wish for. Majority parties have to pander to the general populace. The Republicans have had to pander to religious fanatics (pardon my editorialization) and the Democrats try to pander to the working class.
Of course, it is highly unlikely that the Democrats will "implode" just yet. In fact, if it weren't for 9/11 we would probably have a Democratic president right now. Using a crisis to grab power is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it won't last forever. The writing is already on the wall; Bush won reelection by a vanishingly small margin, becoming one of the least popular two-term presidents in history.
You seem to have a few misconceptions about the Schiavo case. It's not that the woman is sick. It's not that she's just in need of a transplant or painkillers or something. This case is NOT about euthanasia. Unbiased experts agree that this woman has no chance of recovery - she will never be conscious ever again. So the surviving family (her husband in this case) must decide whether to keep her in a vegetative state or pull the plug. Of course, the government would like to change the rules for this one case and deny the husband this right.
I don't really know what reason the conservatives could have for wanting to do this, other than to posture politically. Keep in mind that they have made no attempt to change the law or set a precedent. Don't be fooled.
Jeb has been involved in this silly case from the start. Let's see if I can dig up a link for you...
Jeb abuses power as governor.
That's unconstitutional, Jeb!
So, no shit-blowing is going on. Jeb is intimately involved, but he's pretty much impotent right now. I suppose he could try to amend the state constitution to make himself a sort of dictator, but he'd just embarrass himself (like his brother did).
You're letting your desire not to be harmed interfere with my natural ability to bash your skull in. If the law agrees with you, that's a moral decision.
Morals are based on dogma. Laws against murder are based on philosophy. If someone can't be bothered to put their beliefs in a coherent philosophical framework then they forfeit their claim to rationality.
Anybody who understands the historical context of the Geneva Convention would agree that it is obsolete.
You don't seem to know what obsolete means. Anyone who understands the role of the Geneva Convention in modern policy knows that it is not obsolete.
Once you accept this, we can try to discuss whether torture should someday be an internationally accepted practice. It currently is not.
a definition should be neutral enough so that everyone can agree on it
That's why the rant you call a 'definition' should not be used. That's why you were given a thorough, well-considered explanation of what a liberal is.
But you couldn't even finish reading it. How sad it is when people refuse to learn anything if it's not in a five-second sound bite.