This Is What They Mean
It is often easy to shrug off accusations of racism, saying that a person was unaware of the effect of his behavior, or that he really doesn't have any negative feeling about some other group. You can look at the statistics and argue about whether differences are deserved or imposed. Racism is hard to define, hard to identify, easy to deny. You might think you know it when you see it, but you don't see it when it's you.
The television, radio, print, and online media are full of stories about a guy in New York who killed two cops. A black guy, that is. He was angry about recent high-profile police shootings of black men where the police were not charged with any crime. He also seems to have had mental health issues and a long criminal record. He killed himself after he shot the police.
The President has called for calm. The NYPD has snubbed the mayor for opposing police brutality. Everybody from Obama and Eric Holder and Al Sharpton on down has been blamed for the shootings. The police are complaining that it is "open season" on them. This story is on the news every minute of the day.
Before anybody accuses me of supporting this sort of thing, let me say that I am one of those who believe that acts of lethal violence by police and against police are equally wrong. I have no sympathy for a person who would kill a random human being for ideological reasons. I sympathize with the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and others, as well as the families of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. All these senseless deaths are unthinkably horrible.
Let me dial the time machine back a few months to make a comparison. Last summer there was a very similar killing. A couple killed two random policemen for political reasons. Here is the lede from the AP at the time:
The difference in reaction to these two stories is what they mean by racism.
The television, radio, print, and online media are full of stories about a guy in New York who killed two cops. A black guy, that is. He was angry about recent high-profile police shootings of black men where the police were not charged with any crime. He also seems to have had mental health issues and a long criminal record. He killed himself after he shot the police.
The President has called for calm. The NYPD has snubbed the mayor for opposing police brutality. Everybody from Obama and Eric Holder and Al Sharpton on down has been blamed for the shootings. The police are complaining that it is "open season" on them. This story is on the news every minute of the day.
Before anybody accuses me of supporting this sort of thing, let me say that I am one of those who believe that acts of lethal violence by police and against police are equally wrong. I have no sympathy for a person who would kill a random human being for ideological reasons. I sympathize with the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and others, as well as the families of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. All these senseless deaths are unthinkably horrible.
Let me dial the time machine back a few months to make a comparison. Last summer there was a very similar killing. A couple killed two random policemen for political reasons. Here is the lede from the AP at the time:
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A husband and wife who went on a deadly shooting rampage in Las Vegas harbored anti-government beliefs and left a swastika and a "Don't tread on me" flag on the body of one of the two police officers they killed, authorities said Monday.Do you even remember that incident?
Jerad and Amanda Miller had been kicked off a Nevada ranch where anti-government protesters faced down federal agents earlier this year because they were "very radical," according to the son of rancher Cliven Bundy.
Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the Millers had ideology shared by "militia and white supremacists," including the belief that law enforcement was the "oppressor."
...
Pulling the mortally wounded officers from the booth, they took their guns and ammunition and put a yellow Gadsden flag featuring the phrase "Don't tread on me" and a swastika on Beck's body. The flag, with its roots in the American Revolution, is a symbol for anti-government groups. Police said they believe the swastika was intended to paint police as Nazis, not necessarily as an expression of the Millers' own white-supremacist views.
The couple also told restaurant patrons that their act was "the beginning of the revolution," the same message as a note they left at the restaurant. Police: Vegas cop killers had anti-government view
The difference in reaction to these two stories is what they mean by racism.
posted by JimK at 4:16 PM
221 Comments:
"Do you even remember that incident?"
no
"The difference in reaction to these two stories is what they mean by racism."
no, it isn't
it's what preceded it and the rationale of the killer and the desire of our hate-mongering media to extend the type of story they love
to these media inciters, this is just the next chapter in their new favorite story: Ferguson
they are the ones bringing this focus
you know, I've assumed that racism against blacks does result, unjustly, in extra scrutiny to the detriment of black citizens, and sometimes tragedy
during the whole Ferguson controversy, however, I started to doubt that
if that was the best case the race-baiters could come up with, it seemed maybe it all wasn't so bad
the case in New York, however, was more clear cut
still, you know police in these inner city do subject themselves to significant danger, and it's not an easy job
few of us subject themselves to that kind of risk
but one thing that rarely, and maybe never, gets mentioned is why large numbers of whites are scared of inner city blacks
it was all started by Stokely Carmichael and Black Panthers in the 60s who decided they would rather be feared than victimized and consciously tried to make whites fear blacks
while our society has come far since, this is still the root of the problem in the inner city
prior to that, large number of whites didn't fear blacks
too many liberals, unfortunately, would rather continue to personally benefit from race tension than see us move to a color blind society
"in the 60s [every single black person in America] decided they would rather be feared than victimized and consciously tried to make whites fear blacks … this is still the root of the problem in the inner city
too many liberals, unfortunately, would rather continue to personally benefit from race tension than see us move to a color blind society"
It’s conservatives, exclusively (to the best of my knowledge) who are behind all the voter suppression laws, and it’s conservatives who continue to vote for conservatives who support voter suppression laws. I’ve never heard a conservative even denounce these laws.
Furthermore, it’s liberals who are on the front lines fighting these bills and speaking out against these laws. Blacks and other minorities have good reason to feel victimized.
You, ma’dear, are projecting:
Projection: "When a person has uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, they may project these onto other people, assigning the thoughts or feelings that they need to repress to a convenient alternative target."
Example: "I do not like another person. But I have a value that says I should like everyone. So I project onto them that they do not like me. This allows me to avoid them and also to handle my own feelings of dislike."
--
Besides, we tree-hugging liberals are too busy performing self-inventory to be wanton racists. Self inventory requires acknowledgement and elimination of racist thoughts and feelings amongst other negative thoughts about others.
That’s why it’s a laugh riot when conservatives deny they are racist in any way. If me, a bleeding heart liberal can recognize racist thoughts within myself, then surely voter suppression loving conservatives are completely and utterly racist when they deny it within themselves but feel certain that empathetic liberals are the true haters.
Like I said, projection -- Not just a defense mechanism anymore, but a tried and true conservative lifestyle.
"but one thing that rarely, and maybe never, gets mentioned is why large numbers of whites are scared of inner city blacks
it was all started by Stokely Carmichael and Black Panthers in the 60s who decided they would rather be feared than victimized and consciously tried to make whites fear blacks'
White folks in the Americas have been afraid of Africans they enslaved since the only successful slave revolt in the world in Haiti was successful in 1804.
I recommend reading 'The Half Has Never Been Told,' by Edward E. Baptist to learn about the history of three-fifths men in America.
"White folks in the Americas have been afraid of Africans they enslaved since the only successful slave revolt in the world in Haiti was successful in 1804."
actually, that isn't true
whites and blacks co-existed fine for decades and whites didn't fear blacks
I agree that blacks were victimized previously and that things needed to change
but not every method of change is equal, or preferable
the situation in Haiti is that slaves were lead by a demonic figure who prompted them to brutally kill all plantation owners
the result was that institutional knowledge was not passed on and Haiti is still in desperate poverty to this day as a result
"I recommend reading 'The Half Has Never Been Told,' by Edward E. Baptist to learn about the history of three-fifths men in America."
thanks for the recommendation, I'll put it on my list
I love hearing the absurd pretzel logic conservatives come up with in a vain attempt to claim they aren't racists but liberals are.
A big party in the middle of winter is the reason for the season.
As we celebrate this day let's keep in mind the real reason why we do. Its not because early christians chose to pretend their favourite imaginary character was born today, its because for over 30,000 years people have celibrated the winter solstice as a way of reminding us that we are halfway through winter. Early christians felt threatened by the pagan celebration of the winter solstice so they sought to co-opt the celebration, take its power and significance and dishonestly transfer that to christianity. So, for plausible deniability they chose a few days after the winter solstice for their own celebration to try to wipe out what they saw as the competition. And of course early chrisitans attempted the same thing with the pagan spring celebration Easter (from the Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess Eostre) but weren't successful and that's why we still have the Easter bunny and Easter eggs.
The common Western concept of Christmas, even including national variances, is essentially a fusion of Roman, Indo-European, Nordic and Celtic Pagan festivals and symbolism.
Jeremiah 10:2-4 condemns what today are called Christmas trees as 'heathen' (so don't let Wyatt/bad anonymous tell you they're a christian traditions); Kissing under mistletoe is a pagan fertility rite (the white berries represent the sperm of Woden); Gift giving is a pagan tradition from the Roman Mithras festival which ultimately originated in Sumeria; the Yule log is a pagan Scandinavian tradition marking the lengthening of days.
Let's not forget the real reason we celebrate this time of year - a tradition that goes back to the dawn of civilization itself, winter is half over!
Happy Holidays everyone!
Jim's comments are apt. FWIW, to the extent that any one has "blood on their hands" (other than the murderer) in the recent killings, I would argue that it is the killer of Eric Garner and the grand jury (and Staten Island DA) who did not return an indictment. That failure to indict when the policeman clearly, and on video, overreacted and employed a choke-hold expressing forbidden by NYPD rules, led to the chain of events -- notably, peaceful, legitimate protest in New York -- which the mentally ill murderer seized upon.
Merry Christmas, happy belated Chanukah, happy Kwanza, and happy new year
I do remember the murders in Nevada very well. I especially remembered them because I had seen a MoCo police cruiser with two "Don't tread on Me " stickers on the rear window, parked in a Silver Spring garage. I never saw that car again but I wondered after these murders- what the police officer who put those stickers on his cruiser thought when people who thought the same way murdered two of his own. The media is mostly trash - I hate CNN almost as much as Fox.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Priya Lynn: "As we celebrate this day let's keep in mind the real reason why we do. Its not because early christians chose to pretend their favourite imaginary character was born today"
--
I know you don’t believe, Priya, but please don’t say Jesus is imaginary without prefacing it with “I believe,” etc. Otherwise it comes of as antagonistic and it diminishes the credibility of your message and I’m sure that wasn’t your intent.
I don’t believe in Jesus-because of the Bible anymore, personal experiences among other things have lead me to the conclusion He is real.
Why do we swear “Jesus Christ,” or unknowingly say “Jesus” or “Geez” (short for Jesus). What is the emotional appeal? It’s usually involuntary and automatic, even for atheists. The same Goes for “God dm It!”, shouldn’t it be “Satan dm it?”
Anyway, the crucifixion story works even if Jesus wasn’t real - The cross is symbolic of the cross between spirit and matter, that’s what we humans are, a combination of both -- a “cross” between them.
The passion/crucifixion and resurrection: (I'm speaking generally here) The Passion, is when everything is going right and the goal appears to be within reach. Then the “crucifixion,” or what is known as the “all is lost”/ “worst case scenario” moment. Things then seem completely hopeless but they still try to put the pieces back together anyway and at the very last hour/minute/seconds, something that was previously overlooked saves the day - that would be the resurrection. It’s a universal cycle going on at every level. You’ll find evidence of that formula in almost every story, show, movie, and in real life.
I’m in the middle of watching “Banned From the Bible 2.” Extremely interesting. Apparently they had libraries of accounts of Jesus and others, but the ones who were putting the Bible together picked and chose which stories and which parts of stories would make the final cut. Then they closed the cannon, and all the many books they’ve found since then are -- of course -- ALL works of the “devil.” Honestly, how can you close a cannon that’s meant to convey an a neverending story?
Some “christians” think that once you’re “saved,” that absolves them of all responsibility for their actions in this life. They must think God Itself can’t keep them from entering heaven. What they don’t realize, is that when you die and realize the full impact of the damage you’ve done to others -- because you can now see them for the eternal brothers and sisters they are, whom we are incomplete without. And at that point they realize; God can’t make you forgive yourself.
I’ve explained all this before but you got angry and accused my of trying to push my beliefs on you. My intention was to explain that there is a grand chasm between (usually) liberal Christians and hateful social conservative christians and to please not judge us the same. And I certainly didn’t mean to upset you, then or now.
Please try to understand that I respect you and your disbelief, but you’re certainly crazy-intelligent enough to express your disbelief without being unnecessarily abrasive.
And please, PLEASE try and understand that this comment isn’t motivated by an attempt to “turn you” into a believer. I am speaking for myself and from personal experience. I go out of my way not to offend atheists, either by not talking about spirituality at all, generalizing it so it applies the same to the secular world, or couching it in terms of personal experience.
If it’s any consolation, I’m not a big fan of the Bible either, but the glaring mistakes and contradictions in it sure makes it easy to win and argument with anti-gay “christians” who mistakenly claim that their beliefs on based on it.
I enjoyed the rest of your post, however, I have read that the early Christians co-opted the Jewish religion. It’s fascinating stuff, I just wish I read more.
Anyway, Happy Winter Solstice, Priya
~Patrick
And Merry Christmas (for all those for whom it applies, lol :)
""Do you even remember that incident?"
no"
I remember it quite well, like Andrea does. Here's a little reminder for KeepsHeadInSand, a video of Jarad Miller from Bundy ranch "patriots protest" against law enforcement and Bureau of Land Management employees. A few months later, Jarad and his wife were hunting cops and trying to start a revolution to "free" a white cattle rancher from having to pay grazing fees all ranchers pay for the right to graze their profit-making livestock on public lands.
Two Americas: Ferguson, Missouri Versus the Bundy Ranch, Nevada
"As we noted before, we can’t help but to contrast law enforcement’s reaction to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri versus law enforcement’s reaction during the Bundy Ranch fiasco.
1) The Bundy Ranch: On one hand, a large group of armed white men marched in a line of battle while at least one civilian rifleman in a sniper’s perch trained his weapon at Bureau of Land Management officials. In reaction, the government didn’t fire a single round or canister of tear gas, and eventually retreated, conceding the disputed ground to the Bundy militias. It’s important to note that the protesters turned out in support of a man who refused to pay his taxes and grazed his cattle without paying the accompanying fees. This man, Cliven Bundy, and his supporters threatened secession and armed revolt against the United States goverment.
2) Ferguson, Missouri: On the other hand, unarmed African American protesters in Ferguson, enraged and grieving from the death of an (again) unarmed black man named Michael Brown who was shot in the back by a police officer, have been confronted for several days now by police in full military regalia. This time, the rifleman in the sniper’s perch is a police officer — his scope trained on the protesters.
In Ferguson, law enforcement is vastly overreacting in the face of peaceful protesters, while at the Bundy Ranch, law enforcement vastly underreacted in the face of armed secessionists and scofflaws.
What’s wrong with this picture? Better yet, what’s wrong with the following pictures?
LAW ENFORCEMENT IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI:
Click the link and scroll down to see the pictures.
LAW ENFORCEMENT AT THE BUNDY RANCH:
Click the link and scroll down to see the pictures
When some of us talk about “two Americas,” this is illustrates it — exactly.""
More of this please
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiWxrpikWgs
it's been a great year to see the gay agenda going down in flames
in the NFL and NBA, the first players came out
and both are already gone from the pros
a judge ruled that, contrary to other rulings, homosexual marriage is not a constitutional right
so, it's going to the Supreme Court
and you know what that means
best of all, the Republicans now control the Congress
the consequences of that are multi-faceted
and gays haven't been too friendly to Republicans
yes, my friends
the gay agenda is flaming
and going down, down, down, down, down.....
"going down"
What an interesting choice of words, Anonymous.
< eye roll >
"a judge ruled that, contrary to other rulings, homosexual marriage is not a constitutional right"
What you really said was:
"A SINGLE ACTIVIST judge ruled that, contrary to MANY other JUDGES' rulings, homosexual marriage is not a constitutional right"
"so, it's going to the Supreme Court
and you know what that means"
Yeah, it means the Justices will come to a decision.
Here's another decision they made on a related topic: Lawrence v. Texas
"it's been a great year to see the gay agenda going down in flames".
LOL! There's Wyatt/bad anonymous whistling in the dark and trying to put a brave face on a year that's been an absolute disaster for the anti-gay bigots. There's been over 30 court rulings favourable to marriage equality and only one anti-equality court ruling. Even many staunch gay foes have admitted its over, gay marriage across the U.S. is a fait acompli.
Further bad news for the anti-marriage side is that the U.S. supreme court refused to hear several initial appeals of rulings favourable to marriage and refused to enforce stays of the ruling thus letting thousands of gay couples marry across the U.S. Its highly unlikely they'd have done that if they were leaning towards ruling against marriage in a future case to resolve a lower court split.
And of course the Republicans having control of congress will have no effect on the march towards progress. All the gay rights issues are being resolved in the courts and even Scalia acknowledged after the striking down of the ironically named "Defense" of Marriage Act there was no grounds upon which to deny gays the right to marry. The vast majority of those Republicans who haven't come out in favour of marriage equality are now doing their best to avoid the issue for fear of losing votes and are relieved to see the courts taking the issue out of their hands.
No, as anyone with half a brain can see (and even Wyatt with his half a brain) this year has been an absolute disaster for the bigots war on gays. The pro-family side is on an unstoppable roll!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-metaxas-science-increasingly-makes-the-case-for-god-1419544568
"highly unlikely they'd have done that if they were leaning towards ruling against redefining marriage to include homosexual partnerships"
they aren't going to rule against anything
they will uphold the right of states to define marriage as they see fit
this is the logic of the ruling which overturned DOMA
when they make that clear, states will be free to make their own laws and homosexual "marriage" will instantly be an oxymoron in 36 states
those states have already made their decision
"A SINGLE ACTIVIST judge ruled that, contrary to MANY other JUDGES' rulings, homosexual marriage is not a constitutional right"
perfect example of the common homosexual tactic of word twisting
activism, on the part of the judiciary, is intervening in the legislative process
all those judges who ruled against the democratically determined definition of marriage are activists and the judge who didn't is not activist
by definition
it is going to the Supreme Court now
and the preposterous theory that homosexuals have a right to redefine marriage to accommodate their lusts will take a seat on the fringe with TTF and the pro "athletes" who came out
perfect way to end year
taking out Prey-a rhetorically
Wyatt/bad anonymous is too stupid to understand the U.S. system of government. The Judicial branch was given equal authority, it is the job of the judicial branch to ensure laws passed by the legislative branch aren't unconstitutional - when they are the judicial branch is obligated to strike those laws down - that's the American system of government.
If courts are limited to ensuring the laws passed by politicians or the people are enforced then there is no restraint on which laws may be passed. Laws are often passed that violate the ultimate law of the land, the constitution, and if there is no recourse in the courts then politicians are free to pass any law they like that ignores the individual rights guaranteed by the constitution and the constitution essentially becomes worthless.
When bigots like Wyatt/bad anonymous say they oppose "judicial activism" what they are really saying is they oppose judges striking down laws they agree with but they are perfectly fine with judges striking down laws they don't agree with. You never heard Wyatt/bad anonymous complaining about "activist judges" ruling that it was unconstitutional for government laws to require Hobby Lobby to provide birth control to its eimployees. You never heard conservatives like Wyatt/bad anonymous complain about the "activist judges" who passed down the Citizens United ruling that struck down the law the legislature passed laws limiting the amount of money corporations could spend on elections adds. You never heard conservatives like Wyatt/bad anonymous complain about "judicial activist" judges striking down key aspects of the 1965 voting rights act that allowed Republicans to suppress black and minority votes. No, because conservatives like Wyatt/bad anonymous don't oppose "activist judges", they don't oppose judges overturning democratically passed laws, they oppose judges overturning democratically passed laws they like.
All in all, stripping the right of the court to assure laws are subject to the constitution is going against what the founders of the U.S. intended. They knowingly and willingly gave the court the right to overturn laws that don’t follow the constitution because to do otherwise would be to invite anarchy, dictatorship, and the tyranny of the majority.
Of course no minorities rights should ever be voted on. In no democracy do people have a right to vote on every issue and politicians don’t have a right to pass whatever law strikes their fancy. Those laws must fit in the guidelines of the constitution. The American democracy is now functioning in general exactly as it should and as the framers intended. They may not have envisioned gays marrying when the wrote the 14th amendment but they also didn’t intend for the 14th amendment to allow interracial marriage when they created it and assured people it wouldn’t at the time.
But when you institute a broad overriding principle of equal protection under the law as the framers intended, it necessarily overrides desires to prevent interracial, or gay, marriages as they are subject to the superior principle.
The ninth amendment says the enumeration of rights in the constitution does not disparage unenumerated rights which the people still have. This means that although the constitution doesn’t specifically say there is a right to interracial or gay marriage that right is in the constitution, that right is required by the constitution because the constitution includes the overriding principle of equal treatment under the law.
The disingenous cry that people are being deprived of their right to vote is a farce. Under the constitution there is no right to vote to decide others may not have the same rights you have. Depriving people of this “right” is trivial or insubstantial in that it does not deprive them of anything in reality. But having that “right” has caused great deprivation to the equal rights of minorities. The person who is deprived of the “right” to vote to deprive others of equal rights has not suffered any harm, his life is no different with that “right” than it is without it. The same cannot be said of gays having the same right to marry as heterosexuals.
Now some make the unsustainable and irrational argument that gays have the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex as heterosexuals so there is no discrimination. Not true, that argument was rejected in Loving vs Virginia. The rights guaranteed under the constitution don’t apply to groups, they apply to individuals. So it is not sufficient to say the law treats men and women equally, the law must treat individuals equally. This means that if Jane has the right to marry Tom then Fred must also have the right to marry Tom.
The Constitution that conservatives claim to adore so much — the one that establishes what is “profoundly American” — was deliberately and explicitly designed to make sure that all laws do not, in fact, reflect the will of the majority. The entire point of the Bill of Rights was to make sure that no majority can violate the rights of the individual. That is what distinguishes the American Constitutional system of government from a pure, majoritarian democracy.
This is why judges were given lifetime appointments. The founding fathers spelled it out in great detail in the Federalist Papers. Lifetime appointments were given specifically to insulate them from the influence of the voters so they could pass judgment on the constitutionality of laws passed by majorities, whether directly by referendum or indirectly through elected legislatures, without caring whether their rulings were popular or not.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "they [the U.S. supreme court] aren't going to rule against anything
they will uphold the right of states to define marriage as they see fit this is the logic of the ruling which overturned DOMA when they make that clear, states will be free to make their own laws and homosexual "marriage" will instantly be an oxymoron in 36 states".
Obviously that's not the case or the U.S. supreme court wouldn't have ruled it was unconstitutional for states to define marriage as the union of a man and woman of the same race and unconstitutional for Utah to define marriage as the union of one man and as many women as he wants.
The states can define marriage but not in a way that violates the U.S. constitution. And defining marriage to deny gays the rights to marry violates the 14th amendment and serves no state interest as over 30 U.S. courts have ruled to date. Even the one appeals court that ruled states could ban gay marriage didn't rule that there was a constitutional justification for doing so, they stated in their ruling that they wanted the legislature to implement gay marriage. They abdicated their responsibility under the constitution to uphold the individual rights enshrined in the U.S. constitution - that abdication of responsibility won't stand.
If the U.S. supreme court didn't want to find a right to marriage equality they would have accepted one or more of the first five circuit court appeals to the rulings that struck down gay marriage bans across the U.S. If they didn't want to find there was a right to marriage equality they wouldn't have refused the stays to those lower court rulings that would have prevented thousands upon thousands of gay couples getting married. They wouldn't have let all those gay couples marry if they were intending to later say such marriages are banned.
Marriage equality is the law of the land in almost all of the United States. Its been a devastating loss for the anti-marriage bigots and those that haven't acknowledged that are now trying to hide from taking an anti-marriage stand.
The U.S. supreme court is not going to say over 30 U.S. courts got it wrong and the one court that couldn't even find a constitutional justification for banning gay marriage got it right.
The U.S. supreme court is NOT going to agree with the ONE lonely court out in left field that said "We don't see any justification for banning gay marriage, we just think the legisltative branch should implement gay marriage across the U.S. rather than us", contrary to their responsibilities under the U.S. constitution.
Correction, it was in the Lawrence Vs Texas court ruling striking down sodomy laws rather than the Windsor case striking down the "Defense" of Marriage Act that Justice Scalia said "With this ruling there is no rationale upon which gays can be denied the right to marry.".
In his furious dissent in the Lawrence case Scalia was prophetic. He'll go down in history for that comment.
oh dear
Prey-a is so confused
while seeming to address Cherries Flambe', Prey-a begins to rant over activist judges
but it the pro-TTFer who complained about a judge being activist
Mr. Flambe' merely pointed out that the term "activist judge" applies to those overturn laws, not those who uphold them
I'm sure Mr. Flambe' would wholeheartedly agree that judges need to rule on the constitutionality of laws
Prey-a is also very confused about the nature of race
an immutable physical characteristic, like skin color, is not the equivalent of a desire to engage in deviant sexual activity
to say it is
is an insult to racial minorities
males and females are fundamentally different and tend to complement one another: physically, mentally, emotionally, et al
this is not true of different races
you have a right to disagree with that but it is a matter that should be settled democratically
you have to be patient with prey-a
prey-a doesn't understand democracy
prey-a lives in a land with the queen on the money
the last comment was right on the money
perfect way to end year
taking out Prey-a rhetorically
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Mr. Flambe' merely pointed out that the term "activist judge" applies to those overturn laws, not those who uphold them I'm sure Mr. Flambe' would wholeheartedly agree that judges need to rule on the constitutionality of laws".
LOL! Wyatt, you poor fool, the examples I gave WERE of laws the court OVERTURNED that conservatives like you never complained about, never called "judicial activism". The U.S. supreme court overturned democratically enacted laws that set limits on the amounts corporations could spend on advertising, on the amounts individuals could give to politicians, a law requiring corporations to provide birth control to employees (Hobby Lobby). Conservatives like you never complained about the court overturning key portions of the democratically enacted law controlling state government actions in eletions (the 1965 Voting Rights Act).
I said NOTHING about any laws the courts enforced, and only spoke about laws the courts OVERTURNED, laws CONSERVATIVES DISLIKED and yet somehow in the twisted world of conservatives like you overturning those laws is not judicial activism, only overturning laws you like is judicial activism.
In the same way that courts have ruled those laws you oppose are unconstitutional, they have ruled the gay marriage bans you support are unconstitutional. I know on Planet Wyattnuttia, if you can imagine contradictory things to be be true, they automatically are true, but in the real world it doesn't work that way. In the real world if you claim to believe judges need to rule on the constitutionality of laws then overturning gay marriage bans is not judicial activism.
The false and profoundly idiotic arguments you'll make in a vain attempt to defend the irrational positions you've taken just shows how devoid of real arguments you are.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Prey-a is also very confused about the nature of race an immutable physical characteristic, like skin color, is not the equivalent of a desire to engage in deviant sexual activity to say it is is an insult to racial minorities".
All major mental and physical health organizations agree sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic. But of course its irrelevant whether it is or not. Religion is a mutable characteristic, it is still unconstitutional to deny people equal rights on the basis of religion. Individuals must be given equal rights regardless of whether or not the characteristic they're discrminated against on is immutable or not. There must be a legitimate state interest in denying a minority equal rights and over 30 times U.S. courts have ruled there is no legitimate state interest that justifies denying gays the right to marry.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "males and females are fundamentally different and tend to complement one another: physically, mentally, emotionally, et al this is not true of different races".
Utterly irrelevant. Many same sex couples complement each other physically, mentally, and emotionally just as much, if not more than many heterosexual couples do. The couple involved are the only ones who get to decide if they complement each other, not fools like you with no concern or interest in their marriage.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "you have a right to disagree with that but it is a matter that should be settled democratically"
How inredibly simpleminded, naive, and ignorant of you. No minorities rights should ever be voted on. In no democracy do people have a right to vote on every issue and politicians don’t have a right to pass whatever law strikes their fancy. Those laws must fit in the guidelines of the constitution. The American democracy is now functioning in general exactly as it should and as the framers intended. They may not have envisioned gays marrying when the wrote the 14th amendment but they also didn’t intend for the 14th amendment to allow interracial marriage when they created it and assured people it wouldn’t at the time.
When you institute a broad overriding principle of equal protection under the law as the framers intended, it necessarily overrides majority desires to prevent interracial, or gay, marriages as they are subject to the superior principle.
The Constitution that conservatives claim to adore so much — the one that establishes what is “profoundly American” — was deliberately and explicitly designed to make sure that all laws do not, in fact, reflect the will of the majority. The entire point of the Bill of Rights was to make sure that no majority can violate the rights of the individual. That is what distinguishes the American Constitutional system of government from a pure, majoritarian democracy.
This is why judges were given lifetime appointments. The founding fathers spelled it out in great detail in the Federalist Papers. Lifetime appointments were given specifically to insulate them from the influence of the voters so they could pass judgment on the constitutionality of laws passed by majorities, whether directly by referendum or indirectly through elected legislatures, without caring whether their rulings were popular or not.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "perfect way to end year taking out Prey-a rhetorically".
LOL! You took me out rhetorically in exactly the same way gay marriage going from 12 states to over 35 states this year is "the gay agenda going down in flames". A few more flames and there won't be any States without marriage equality.
The world Wyatt inhabits is a fantasy where he can declare anything to be and it magically is, evidence and facts be damned.
Perfect way to end the year - use facts and logic to leave Wyatt/bad anonymous clinging to absurdities, denying reality and lying about what he said.
poor prey-a
persists in claiming that Mr Flambe' has complained about activist judges when he merely defended the judge who upheld the law from a spurious TTF charge that he is an activist judge
but when anyone can read the above stream, prey-a merely makes a fool of themselves
"No minorities rights should ever be voted on"
no minority, defined by deviant desires, has a right to impose their own definition of marriage
it's an institution that requires majority support, or it's worthless
regarding religious belief, it is not a desire to engage in deviant behavior but merely a belief and churches are, indeed, within their rights to refuse to marry individuals who are religiously incompatible
always been that way
prey-a's stupid ideas are going down, down, down in flames
perfect way to end year
easily taking out slimy Prey-a rhetorically
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wyatt, I never said anything about the judges that upheld the gay marriage ban being activist judges. You're just making stuff up because you were afraid to read everything I wrote and make yourself aware you can't dispute it.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "no minority, defined by deviant desires, has a right to impose their own definition of marriage it's an institution that requires majority support, or it's worthless".
Gays aren't imposing any definition of marriage. Heterosexuals are free to define their marriages however they want. If they want do define their marriages as one man/one woman no one is stopping them. What heterosexuals don't have the right to do is to define anyone else's marriage. It is bigoted heterosexuals and self-loathing gays like you who seek to define other people's marriages, not gays who are seeking marriage equality.
The majority has always supported marriage, gays having the same right as everyone else doesn't change that. Gays marrying have no effect whatsoever on any heterosexual couple's marriage. If they think gays getting married makes their marriage worthless then their marriage never had any worth to begin with.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "regarding religious belief, it is not a desire to engage in deviant behavior but merely a belief and churches are, indeed, within their rights to refuse to marry individuals who are religiously incompatible always been that way".
I never said they weren't. Once again, you're so hopelessly incapable of defending your unjust position you have to make shite up because you can't deal with what I actually wrote - you're afraid to read my whole posts because you know it'll destroy your delusion that you're successfully refuting me. Despite hiding from what I'm writing you know deep down inside you're wrong, lying, and clinging to absurdities.
The Constitution that conservatives claim to adore so much — the one that establishes what is “profoundly American” — was deliberately and explicitly designed to make sure that all laws do NOT, in fact, reflect the will of the majority. The entire point of the Bill of Rights was to make sure that no majority can violate the rights of the individual. That is what distinguishes the American Constitutional system of government from a pure, majoritarian democracy.
Perfect way to end the year - use facts and logic to leave Wyatt/bad anonymous clinging to absurdities, denying reality and lying about what he and I said.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "regarding religious belief, it is not a desire to engage in deviant behavior but merely a belief and churches are, indeed, within their rights to refuse to marry individuals who are religiously incompatible always been that way".
Once again, I never said they weren't, what I said was that the government couldn't discriminate against people based on mutable characteristics like religion or immutable characteristics like race and gayness.
And of course gays having the right to marriage does not require any church that does not wish to do so to perform gay marriages.
Once again Wyatt/bad anonymous tries to distort and lie about what I said because he can't argue against my actual words.
Perfect way to end the year - use facts and logic to leave Wyatt/bad anonymous clinging to absurdities, denying reality and lying about what he and I said.
Further to this:
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "poor prey-a persists in claiming that Mr Flambe' has complained about activist judges when he merely defended the judge who upheld the law from a spurious TTF charge that he is an activist judge."
And that lie exposed:
At Dec 29, 2014 10:46 PM Wyatt/bad anonymous said "activism, on the part of the judiciary, is intervening in the legislative process all those judges who ruled against the democratically determined definition of marriage are activists and the judge who didn't is not activist".
And far from me being the one who lied about her opponent complaining about activist judges, it was Wyatt/bad anonymous who lied about his opponent and said "while seeming to address Cherries Flambe', Prey-a begins to rant over activist judges" - I never referred to any judges as "activist judges" or any judicial decision as "judicial activism".
Once again Wyatt/bad anonymous is confused, dishonest, and delusional.
"I never said anything about the judges that upheld the gay marriage ban being activist judges"
that's true
you just ignorantly took up the side of another TTFer that did
and then you falsely accused Mr Flambe' of complaining about activist judges
you would have a little more credibility if you'd to admit to your, ahem, frequent errors
"You're just making stuff up"
no, Mr Flambe' didn't make anything up
"Gays aren't imposing any definition of marriage"
they sure is
they are claiming their definition, which excludes the requirement of gender diversity, has to be imposed by the judiciary
"Heterosexuals are free to define their marriages however they want"
actually, they aren't
there are a number of specific requirements
you know that, you liar
"If they want do define their marriages as one man/one woman no one is stopping them. What heterosexuals don't have the right to do is to define anyone else's marriage. It is bigoted heterosexuals and self-loathing gays like you who seek to define other people's marriages, not gays who are seeking marriage equality"
there you go again, prey-a!!
marriage is a public institution which all of society participates in
society has to define its parameters
it's not just between individuals
"Gays marrying have no effect whatsoever on any heterosexual couple's marriage"
actually, by diluting the meaning of marriage to include deviant relationships, it devalues marriage and this is a loss for all of society
"If they think gays getting married makes their marriage worthless then their marriage never had any worth to begin with"
a tired and worn-out little piece of argumentation
"you're afraid to read my whole posts because you know it'll destroy your delusion that you're successfully refuting me. Despite hiding from what I'm writing you know deep down inside you're wrong, lying, and clinging to absurdities"
oh yeah
you just scare the bejeebies outta me
"The Constitution that conservatives claim to adore so much"
it's not just a "claim"
they really like it
"deliberately and explicitly designed to make sure that all laws do NOT, in fact, reflect the will of the majority"
marriage needs universal support to be effective
"The entire point of the Bill of Rights was to make sure that no majority can violate the rights of the individual"
have you read the Bill of Rights?
it makes sure that no majority can violate certain enumerated rights of the individual
none of the ten amendments mention a right to define the public institution of marriage
"what distinguishes the American Constitutional system of government from a pure, majoritarian democracy"
well, look at that
even the Canadians realize how distinguished we are
Perfect way to end the year - laughing at prey-a's vain attempts to resuscitate the gay agenda
ha-ha!!
when it comes to lack of intelligence and class
Priya has no inferior!!
I think it's kind of strange when anonymous comments in the third person about his own comments.
how would you know that's so, Robert?
do you have access to IP addresses, or are you just making that up?
hmmmmm, looks like Robert's been caught,,,
"I never said anything about the judges that upheld the gay marriage ban being activist judges"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "|that's true" you just ignorantly took up the side of another TTFer that did".
Liar. I never said anything about anyone's comments other than yours. And thanks for admitting that you lied when you claimed I "ranted" about activist judges. You said ""while seeming to address Cherries Flambe', Prey-a begins to rant over activist judges"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "and then you falsely accused Mr Flambe' of complaining about activist judges".
Liar. You did complain about activist judges. At Dec 29, 2014 10:46 PM Wyatt/bad anonymous said "activism, on the part of the judiciary, is intervening in the legislative process all those judges who ruled against the democratically determined definition of marriage are activists and the judge who didn't is not activist".
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "you would have a little more credibility if you'd to admit to your, ahem, frequent errors".
As I've shown, I haven't made any errors, you have, and then you've repeatedly lied about them.
I said "Gays aren't imposing any definition of marriage"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "they sure is they are claiming their definition, which excludes the requirement of gender diversity, has to be imposed by the judiciary".
There is no requirement for "gender diversity" in marriage as many countries with marriage equality have proven. The judiciary recognizing gays right to marry in no way forces any heterosexual couple to define their marriage as a same sex marriage - they are still free to define their marriage as "one man, one woman" just as they'd like. It is bigots like you who seek to impose their definition of marriage on others, not gays seeking marriage equality.
I said "Heterosexuals are free to define their marriages however they want"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "actually, they aren't there are a number of specific requirements you know that, you liar".
By that I meant once the courts recognize gays right to marry heterosexuals will still be free to define their marriages as "one man/one woman", or if they wish to, as same sex couples. The courts recognizing gays rights to marry does not deprive heterosexuals of anything marriage related they did not already have prior to that recogniztion. It is only bigots like you that seek to deprive others of the right to define their own marriages. No one has the right to define any marriage other than their own.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "marriage is a public institution which all of society participates in society has to define its parameters it's not just between individuals".
Absolute nonsense. No one other than the married couple themselves can be said to be participating in their marriage in any meaningful or significant way. And American is defining the parameters of marriage to include same sex marriages - you have no hope of stopping that.
I said "Gays marrying have no effect whatsoever on any heterosexual couple's marriage"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "actually, by diluting the meaning of marriage to include deviant relationships, it devalues marriage and this is a loss for all of society".
Nonsense. The gay couple down the street marrying has no effect whatsoever on any heterosexual couple's marriage. As there is no effect on any heterosexual marriage the idea that gays marrying devalues or dilutes their marriage in any way is obviously falsified. It is not enough for you just to make such an unsupported claim, you need proof of your claim before anyone can consider it true. And proof of that is something that simply does not exist.
I said "The Constitution that conservatives claim to adore so much deliberately and explicitly designed to make sure that all laws do NOT, in fact, reflect the will of the majority"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "marriage needs universal support to be effective".
That's obviously false on two fronts:
1) Marriage has never had universal support and never will - that hasn't stopped it from being effective.
2) Just as constitutional rights apply to the individual and not groups, the effectiveness of marriage applies to individuals and not groups. Whether or not marriage is effective for any couple depends entirely on the individuals involved. What other people outside of the marriage think has no bearing on that marriage. Bigots hating gay marriages has no effect on the effectiveness of those couple's marriage to provide them with the 1400 rights and responsibilities of marriage. And the same goes for heterosexual marriages.
I said "The entire point of the Bill of Rights was to make sure that no majority can violate the rights of the individual"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "have you read the Bill of Rights? it makes sure that no majority can violate certain enumerated rights of the individual none of the ten amendments mention a right to define the public institution of marriage"
The framers may not have envisioned gays marrying when the wrote the 14th amendment but they also didn’t intend for the 14th amendment to allow interracial marriage either and assured people it wouldn’t at the time. And since that time courts such as in Loving vs Virgina have ruled that under the American constitution marriage is one of the fundamental rights of man and people have a right to define their marriage as they wish unless the state has a legitimate interest in restricting that right. Over 30 court rulings have found that there is no such legititmate state interest in denying gays the right to define their marriages as same sex marriages. And that includes the sixth circuit court which although it upheld gay marriage bans was unable to find any constitutional justification for them, instead choosing to abdicate their responsibility to uphold the bill of rights and arguing that they would prefer the legislative branch implement gay marriage rather than them.
When you institute a broad overriding principle of equal protection under the law as the framers intended, it necessarily overrides desires to prevent interracial, or gay, marriages as they are subject to the superior principle.
The ninth amendment says the enumeration of rights in the constitution does not disparage unenumerated rights which the people still have. This means that although the constitution doesn’t specifically say there is a right to interracial or gay marriage that right is in the constitution, that right is required by the constitution because the constitution includes the overriding principle of equal treatment under the law.
Perfect way to end the year - use facts and logic to leave Wyatt/bad anonymous clinging to absurdities, denying reality and lying about what he and I said!
Poor dumb, lying, and delusional Wyatt. Doesn't understand his own constitution. He thinks just because a specific right isn't enumerated in the American constitution it doesn't exist. The 9th amendment goes completely over his head.
Pretty sad when an American needs a Canadian to explain his constitution to him.
I said "Gays marrying have no effect whatsoever on any heterosexual couple's marriage"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "actually, by diluting the meaning of marriage to include deviant relationships, it devalues marriage and this is a loss for all of society".
The lawyers for the anti-marriage side all made the same assertion in the over 30 court cases that struck down gay marriage bans as unconstitutional. In case after case the justices pressed the defending lawyers to give specific examples of how allowing gays to marry harms (or "devalues") heterosexual marriages and the anti-marriage lawyers couldn't and were forced to state pitifully "I don't have any." and "I don't know how allowing gays to marry would harm heterosexual marriages.".
That's why in over 30 court cases on marriage equality courts have ruled there is no legitimate state interest in denying gays the right to marry and even in the sixth circuit court of appeals ruling that refused to strike down a gay marriage ban the justices were unable to give any constitutional justification for letting such a ban stand instead choosing to pathetically abdicate their responsibility to uphold the bill of rights by stating they would rather have the legislative branch implement marriage equality.
Priya the Denier continues to lie and thinks multiple posts can obscure that
it's not that complicated
Cherries Flambe' said:
"a judge ruled that, contrary to other rulings, homosexual marriage is not a constitutional right"
Mr Flambe' clearly thinks this is good
in response a TTFer changed Mr Flambe's post to:
"A SINGLE ACTIVIST judge ruled that, contrary to MANY other JUDGES' rulings, homosexual marriage is not a constitutional right"
so, you see, the accusation of activism was made by a TTFer and directed at the judge who upheld the democratically determined law
Mr Flambe' deftly pointed out that upholding the law is not activism, by definition, saying thus:
"perfect example of the common homosexual tactic of word twisting
activism, on the part of the judiciary, is intervening in the legislative process
all those judges who ruled against the democratically determined definition of marriage are activists and the judge who didn't is not activist
by definition"
so, Mr Flambe' was not decrying activism but merely defining it
of course, activism is neutral, it all depends on whether the ruling is accurate or not
if homosexuals have a right, under the Constitution, to redefine marriage, judges would appropriately be activist
as it turns out, no such right is enumerated in the Constitution
the judges that ruled that way are wrong
they chose the wrong time to be activist
here's one of the rants that Priya denies making:
"Mr Flambe' is too stupid to understand the U.S. system of government. When bigots like Mr Flambe' say they oppose "judicial activism" what they are really saying is they oppose judges striking down laws they agree with but they are perfectly fine with judges striking down laws they don't agree with. You never heard Mr Flambe' complaining about "activist judges" ruling that it was unconstitutional for government laws to require Hobby Lobby to provide birth control to its eimployees. You never heard conservatives like Mr Flambe' complain about the "activist judges" who passed down the Citizens United ruling that struck down the law the legislature passed laws limiting the amount of money corporations could spend on elections adds. You never heard conservatives like Mr Flambe'complain about "judicial activist" judges striking down key aspects of the 1965 voting rights act that allowed Republicans to suppress black and minority votes. No, because conservatives like Mr Flambe' don't oppose "activist judges", they don't oppose judges overturning democratically passed laws, they oppose judges overturning democratically passed laws they like."
Priya is a classic denier. Denies their gender, denies the blog name of other posters, denies their lies, denies the gender diversity component of marriage, et al.
When it comes to recognizing reality, Priya the Denie-yah has no inferior.
Nice way to end the year, showing what a fool Priya the Denie-yah is.
I think Priya might be insane
good attempt to save face
but, alas, everyone has now seen:
as far as intelligence and grace go, Priya has no inferior
Blimey!
Whatever is wrong with the King's English?
Just come out and say it, then:
Priya is stupid and sloppy
Wyatt/bad anonymous falsely accused me of ranting about judicial activism. In the portion of my post he quoted I am not complaining of judicial activism - no where in that quote did I accuse any judge of judicial activism, or say any of the court cases I mentioned were examples of judicial activism. The part of my post Wyatt/bad anonymous quoted was a complaint about the hypocrisy of conservatives like him calling the decisions striking down gay marriage bans judicial activism while having no complaints about judicial decisions they like striking down democratically enacted laws.
Wyatt/bad anonymous has contradicted himself repeatedly on that issue, first accusing me of complaining of activist judges and then when I posted "I never said anything about the judges that upheld the gay marriage ban being activist judges" Wyatt/bad anonymous responded at December 29, 2014 5:49 PM with "that's true" thus admitting he lied. Then he lied again saying "you just ignorantly took up the side of another TTFer that did" when in fact I haven't referred to any comments in this thread that weren't made by either me or Wyatt/bad anonymous.
And now Wyatt/bad anonymous has reversed himself yet again and has again falsely accused me of having ranted about activist judges. However, he has now admitted he did say "those judges who ruled against the democratically determined definition of marriage are activists" while dishonestly also saying "so, you see, the accusation of activism was made by a TTFer" as though he had not made an accusation of judicial activism. The hypocrisy and dishonesty of Wyatt/bad anonymous is disturbing. He keeps ranting on and on about what "another TTFer said" when it has nothing to do with anything I've posted - god is he messed up.
And then in a HILARIOUS act of ignorance and self-delusion Wyatt/bad anonymous tries to fall back on his simple-minded and erroneous suggestion that if a right is not enumerated in the constitution then it does not exist by saying "if homosexuals have a right, under the Constitution, to redefine marriage, judges would appropriately be activist as it turns out, no such right is enumerated in the Constitution".
Here it is again for your hilariously dense and willfully stupid self Wyatt:
The framers may not have envisioned gays marrying when the wrote the 14th amendment but they also didn’t intend for the 14th amendment to allow interracial marriage either and assured people it wouldn’t at the time. And since that time courts such as in Loving vs Virgina have ruled that under the American constitution marriage is one of the fundamental rights of man and people have a right to define their marriage as they wish unless the state has a legitimate interest in restricting that right. Over 30 court rulings have found that there is no such legititmate state interest in denying gays the right to define their marriages as same sex marriages. And that includes the sixth circuit court which although it upheld gay marriage bans was unable to find any constitutional justification for them, instead choosing to abdicate their responsibility to uphold the bill of rights and arguing that they would prefer the legislative branch implement gay marriage rather than them.
When you institute a broad overriding principle of equal protection under the law as the framers intended, it necessarily overrides desires to prevent interracial, or gay, marriages as they are subject to the superior principle.
The ninth amendment says the enumeration of rights in the constitution does not disparage unenumerated rights which the people still have. This means that although the constitution doesn’t specifically say there is a right to interracial or gay marriage that right is in the constitution, that right is required by the constitution because the constitution includes the overriding principle of equal treatment under the law.
Honestly, if Wyatt had a brain he'd be down on the floor playing with it.
Well, I've demolished the troll repeatedly and now he's just desperately repeating the lies, delusions, and errors I've already delt with. I'll leave Wyatt/bad anonymous to lick his wounds and try to salvage his self-esteem by repeating his dishonest idiocy yet again.
Perfect way to end the year - use facts and logic to leave Wyatt/bad anonymous repeatedly clinging to absurdities, denying reality and lying about what he and I said!
The ninth amendment to the American contitution goes right over Wyatt/bad anonymous's head!
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
ha-ha
looks like the denier formerly known as Randy is no longer yawning
sadly, Priya the Denie-ya doesn't understand that multiple consecutive posts trying to play petty games with words is ranting
there is no constitutional right to redefine marriage to include any relationship you want to justify
homosexuals indeed have equal protection under the law but the purpose of marriage is not protection
it is the encouragement of certain behavior that benefits overcharging society
hint: Canadian sofa spuds who live off the public dole and spend their days desperately scouring the web to find argumentation to justification for their hate and bitterness don't benefit society with exclusive (wink-wink) relationships formed to participate in deviance
priya.
Is your new years resolution to get a job ?
Or are you perfectly happy asking everyone to pay more so that you can work less ?
Just curious.
====================
On another note. I know you hate your parents, but if they were dying would you come to their bedside ?
and if were you were pretending NOT to hate your parents, how long is it okay to wait to come, after a parent has been checked into the ICU ???
How long ?
thanks for any insight.
"There is no constitutional right to redefine marriage to include any relationship you want to justify"
Funny, I just looked up the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and neither of them mention marriage at all.
Not even once.
Go check for yourself.
So it is equally valid to state that "there is no Constitutional right for heterosexuals to get married."
One could argue the "Freedom of Religion" angle from there, but that would also apply to gay people since they go to churches and get married there as well.
So your oft repeated faux dictum while technically true, is for all legal intents and purposes, utterly irrelavent, just like the rest of your posts.
I've never argued that heterosexual have a constitutional right to get married
marriage laws are democratically determined, and not all heterosexuals are allowed to marry each other
you have to remember what we're talking about is really state endorsement of marriage
nobody proposes banning any two people from throwing their own ceremony and calling themselves "married"
they have freedom of speech
the debate is over what the government will recognize and preference
it's not a constitutional issue at all
it's always kind of sad when a TTFer soundly stops commenting and you just know they had to go in for electro-shock therapy
but, hey, maybe they'll get to start the year out in better shape
they just zap 2014 right out
yeah, sometimes electro-shock is the only effective treatment for uncontrollable ranting
Electro-convulsive therapy was also used for many years as a "cure" for being gay.
it's just part of an overall therapeutic strategy, Robert, not a "cure"
it's very helpful in treating the desire to rant though
2014 Officially the Warmest Year on Record
that's progress!!
technology is making the weather nicer
"yeah, sometimes electro-shock is the only effective treatment for uncontrollable ranting"
Good idea! In fact, it sounds perfect for the person who posted seven of the last nine comments!
the only ranting I've noticed comes from this individual calling him/herself Priya
If the numbers of comments posted determine who is ranting, KeepHeadInSand/UsesManyAliases and Priya Lynn appear to be just about tied on this thread.
However, KHIS/UMA is actually ahead because clearly several of Priya Lynn's posts were individual comments filled with facts and quoted sections with links provided to verify them, requiring multiple entries to complete one comment so her actual number of comments is fewer.
It's clear as clear can be for all the world to see, KHIS/UMA actually rants more than his nemesis Priya-Lynn, who mops the floor of KHIS/UMA's drivel with clarifying facts.
Thanks Priya-Lynn. Keep teaching the facts and Happy New Year, girlfriend!
Oh and Jim, if you get a minute, please look up the IP numbers of the comments posted by the aliases used on this thread: cherries flambe', don't get nearer, my vision can't be clearer [yes it can, get your head out of the sand], pray-a doesn't seem very smart, canadian dollar, pop-pop-pop, sludge on the holly, I like Cherries Flambe', a justified superiority complex, trust but verify, kiiiiwapp, baked alaska, Cherries Flambe', Lake Superior, Reginald Cromwell, yawn..not, fruitgum company, lightning lad, brainiac 5, raving about a movie, and dr moxley and confirm for Vigilance readers whether they mostly come from the same computer or not. Thanks.
oh, it's not mere repetition that makes lazy Priya's comments rants
it's the tone and nature
personally, I don't recall any facts presented by Preya the Denier
I mainly see a misrepresentation of the words of others, including the Founding Fathers
laced with a lot of bitterness and anger
our Constitution clearly doesn't bestow the right to redefine marriage in our society to include same gender relationships
that's a FACT that angers Priya, who thinks a bunch of repetitive verbiage making the same tired argument will obscure that FACT
that's all Priya's non-factual ranting has been about on this thread
"our Constitution clearly doesn't bestow the right to redefine marriage in our society to include same gender relationships"
It doesn't deny the right to define marriage in any way either. In fact, the words "marriage," "marry," "husband," and "wife" do not appear in the US Constitution at all.
"our Constitution clearly doesn't bestow the right to redefine marriage in our society to include same gender relationships"
The equal protection clause covers it, which is why you despise the Constitution. Not just because it protects gay people, but because it protects everyone else and all religions (or lack thereof) that you consider to be inferior to you and yours.
Point being, even your appeal to Constitutional authority is fake.
Apparently lgbt people will be able to get married in most or all of Florida next week.
The state should be embarassed about the Idaho-like clown-car they've created over enforcing a very clear court ruling.
"The state should be embarassed about the Idaho-like clown-car they've created over enforcing a very clear court ruling."
You'd think so, Robert, but the bozos who live here just voted all the clowns back into office.
The 46 Democrat sentators got 20 million more votes than the 54 Republican sentators. Since the mid-terms Republicans like to claim the people have spoken and they've rejected the Democrats policies, but that's obviously not true, the people overwhelmingly voted for Democrat policies but the Republicans rigged the system to steal power they haven't earned.
there's actually no way to "rig" the Senate
the Founding Fathers set up a bi-cameral legislative body, one of which represents populations evenly and the other of which represents regions evenly
the Senate is the later and if disproportionate to the population as a whole, it's because people of a certain mind-set have all moved to a small number of areas rather than spreading out
it was "rigged" that way by the writers of the Constitution
and everyone likes that
ha,ha,ha!!!
good one
looks like Priya's out of therapy and thirsty for more rhetorical defeat!
Priya Lynn: "but the Republicans rigged the system to steal power they haven't earned."
I ain't no robot: "there's actually no way to "rig" the Senate … it was "rigged" that way by the writers of the Constitution"
Correct me if I’m wrong Priya, but were you not talking about Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression laws?
"people of a certain mind-set have all moved to a small number of areas rather than spreading out"
That's an interesting question: do progressive people move to cities, or does living in cities make people progressive?
rrjr
"Correct me if I’m wrong Priya,"
Priya can't correct you, improv
no one has ever been wronger
"but were you not talking about Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression laws?"
I think it was the former, Patrick, and the point is that gerrymandering doesn't affect the Senate because Senators are elected by entire states
Priya is too ignorant to realize that
"voter suppression laws" is liberal propaganda
"That's an interesting question: do progressive people move to cities, or does living in cities make people progressive?"
I agree with you, Robert. It is interesting. I had a history professor in college who had a theory that all great people in history came from backgrounds where they were exposed to different cultures and synthesized their experiences to achieve transcendence. Every class she would take a different figure and show how this is true.
MIAMI — Miami-Dade County became the first place in Florida to allow same-sex couples to marry on Monday, half a day before a gay-marriage ban that has been ruled unconstitutional is lifted in the rest of the state.
In an 11 a.m. hearing, Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel lifted the legal stay she had placed on her sweeping July decision declaring the ban discriminatory.
“In the big picture, does it really matter whether or not I lift the stay or leave it until tomorrow?” she said from the bench. “I’m lifting the stay.”
The elected clerk of courts, Harvey Ruvin, at first said same-sex marriages would begin at 2 p.m. But once his office received a signed copy of Zabel’s two-page order at noon, he said couples could apply for marriage licenses immediately.
“All of our offices are now fully prepared to follow the judge’s order, and everyone will be treated equally,” said Ruvin, a Democrat in a nonpartisan post.
Same-sex couples will now be able to marry in 36 states and Washington, D.C. The ruling also means same-sex marriages performed outside Florida will be recognized in Miami-Dade, effective immediately.
Cheers erupted in downtown Miami’s historic civil courthouse with Zabel’s decision. Some of the couples who were plaintiffs in the case cried tears of joy. Outside, surrounded by a throng of reporters and photographers, they held hands and raised their arms in victory.
“I feel good. I am relieved. I feel vindicated,” said Catherina Pareto of Coconut Grove, Fla. She and her partner of more than 14 years, Karla Arguello, arrived in cream-colored dresses, ready to get hitched in a few hours — possibly by Zabel herself.
“Finally,” Arguello said. “Finally, our family will not be treated any differently.”
Outside of Miami-Dade, most Florida court clerks will start marrying gay couples Tuesday — some of them at 12:01 a.m. — following a federal judge’s order. Several counties in conservative North Florida and the Tampa Bay area have stopped marrying people in their offices, in part to avoid marrying same-sex couples, although they will still have to issue marriage licenses.
"gerrymandering doesn't affect the Senate because Senators are elected by entire states"
But that's not how the Founding Fathers set up the election of US Senators. It wasn't until after the Civil War that "entire states" voted on who to send to the US Senate. Before that, State Legislatures made up of legislators from gerrymandered districts or not, chose who to send to the Senate. That plan of the Founding Fathers proved unworkable when the State House and State Senate were controlled by opposing parties and could not come to agreement over who to send to the US Senate.
Historical facts about the election of US Senators found here:
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/State_Houses_Elect_Senators.htm
And let's not forget, those same Founding Fathers only allowed white males to vote. Native Americans, African Americans and all American women including whites, did not have the right to vote in any US election until about a century later.
Native American Voters
African American Voters
Women Voters
"But that's not how the Founding Fathers set up the election of US Senators. It wasn't until after the Civil War that "entire states" voted on who to send to the US Senate. Before that, State Legislatures made up of legislators from gerrymandered districts or not, chose who to send to the Senate. That plan of the Founding Fathers proved unworkable when the State House and State Senate were controlled by opposing parties and could not come to agreement over who to send to the US Senate."
didn't know that, or if I once learned it in school, I'd forgotten it
in any case, Priya's ignorant comment was about the present situation and, as it stands, gerrymandering wouldn't affect Senate races now
"And let's not forget, those same Founding Fathers only allowed white males to vote. Native Americans, African Americans and all American women including whites, did not have the right to vote in any US election until about a century later"
again, not germane to this discussion
We went to school today.
Robert, you should have stayed home. Fairfax County was closed due to flaky conditions
Fairfax schools: ‘We apologize for the difficulties’
"The following is the text of a letter sent Tuesday morning to Fairfax County parents after the district decided to hold classes amid wintry weather:
Dear Parents:
We apologize for the difficulties the weather caused this morning. Please know that significant area government entities were coordinating at a very early hour. The decision was made with the best information we had very early this morning. Needless to say, the conditions were far worse than anticipated.
Weather conditions are expected to improve around midday. At this time, we are planning to dismiss schools at their normal dismissal time, however, we are continuing to closely monitor the situation and will keep parents apprised.
We are aware that people are asking us to cancel school. Students are safest at school when parents have not had a chance to make alternate plans for their child’s return home from school. However, should you wish to pick up your child early, we will accommodate you.
Again we apologize for the difficulties experienced this morning and we thank you for your patience.
Fairfax County Public Schools"
In 2012, the CEO of a company sent an email to his employees telling them that if Obama were to be reelected, the results would be devastating for that company and would threaten their jobs and their benefits. Two years later, the company has grown significantly and he’s handing out raises.
“In the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election, David Siegel, billionaire chief of Florida timeshare company Westgate Resorts, sent an email to all employees. “Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for,” Siegel wrote, but offered “a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest.” These included that re-electing Obama would “threaten your job” and result in “less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.”
Just over two years after penning that company-wide email, Siegel informed Westgate employees that instead of layoffs, he would boost their minimum wage to $10 per hour beginning in 2015.
In fact, according to Siegel, 2014 was a banner year. “We’re experiencing the best year in our history and I wanted to do something to show my gratitude for the employees who make that possible,” Siegel said in announcing the wage hike. He also recently told the Orlando Business Journal that “things have never been better.”…
Despite writing in 2012 that any tax increases on the wealthy would mean job losses — “Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back,” he said at the time — Siegel has been extraordinarily successful growing Westgate in the two years since taxes were modestly increased on the wealthy.
Another failed prediction of doom, just like Donald Trump predicting a stock market crash and Newt Gingrich predicting $10 a gallon gas if Obama was reelected. And Ted Nugent, sadly, still isn’t in prison or dead.
what do you know?
despite the Congress refusing to pass the Obama jobs bill, refusing to raise taxes on the 1% as much a Obama wanted, refusing to buckle down on the energy industry, refusing to raise the minimum wage, indeed, refusing to do anything Obama wants, America is doing fine
indeed, as it became clearer the Repubs would take over, economic confidence has soared and the economy has improved
America, as usual, reigns
meanwhile, China, Europe, Russia, Japan are all in free fall
turns out the Republicans were right: doing nothing was the wisest policy
the restoration project will be completed in 2016
LMAO
You sound like Mitch McConnell, "who suggested that the GOP takeover of Congress — not yet 24 hours old — had already boosted the American economy...
He was referring, obviously, to news that the U.S. economy grew at a 5 percent rate in the third quarter, the fastest in more than a decade, furthering record highs in stocks. By McConnell’s logic, Americans began to spend freely in July, August and September because they had a hunch Republicans would win the Senate in November and take control in January...
McConnell, when he wasn’t taking credit for things that preceded his ascent, gave a remarkably angry and ungracious first speech to the body he now leads. It was an 18-minute snarl, dripping with contempt and packed with campaign-style barbs for the president. He didn’t even offer an expression of condolences to the French after the terrorist attack Wednesday in Paris. (He mentioned the carnage to reporters later, after lunch.)...
If this opening speech was a sign of McConnell’s leadership, it’s going to be a long and unproductive session..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-mitch-mcconnell-is-off-to-a-bitter-start/2015/01/07/0b8cd304-96a0-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html?hpid=z6
Another win for the pro-family side! Florida has become the 36th state to implement marriage equality, or as Wyatt/bad anonymous puts it "Another example of the gay agenda going down in flames" LOL!
Now 70% of Americans live in a marriage equality state. Cue Wyatt/bad anonymous bragging about how the anti-marriage group is rolling over the gay agenda. You gotta love Wyatt, he'll never give up his lifelong and incredibly brave battle against reality, LOL!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
"Now 70% of Americans live in a marriage equality state"
now, they won't
SCOTUS is looming, to defend our Constitution from its loathsome abusers
"EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW"-These words, written above the main entrance to the Supreme Court Building, express the ultimate responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court is the highest tribunal in the Nation for all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States. As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.
The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution limit the power of the federal and state governments to discriminate.
The Fifth Amendment has an explicit requirement that the Federal Government not deprive individuals of "life, liberty, or property," without due process of the law and an implicit guarantee that each person receive equal protection of the laws.
The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly prohibits states from violating an individual's rights of due process and equal protection. Equal protection limits the State and Federal governments' power to discriminate in their employment practices by treating employees, former employees, or job applicants unequally because of membership in a group, like a race, religion or sex. Due process protection requires that employees have a fair procedural process before they are terminated if the termination is related to a "liberty," like the right to free speech, or a property interest.
Republicans demonstrate they really do believe facts have a liberal bias:
In his latest column for the New York Times, Nobel prize-winning economist and liberal champion Paul Krugman argues that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s recent claim that Republicans are to thank for the improving economy is just another example of the GOP’s “epistemic closure” and belief “that facts have a liberal bias.”
After first noting how McConnell is taking credit for an economic boomlet that started well before last year’s midterm votes were cast, Krugman writes that while this latest example of the GOP’s signature embrace of “voodoo economics” is amusing, it’s also scary. “[I]t’s a symptom of his party’s epistemic closure,” Krugman writes, in reference to McConnell’s claim. “Republicans know many things that aren’t so, and no amount of contrary evidence will get them to change their minds.”
To further his point, Krugman next looks to other major policy predictions from the GOP in the recent past that have failed to come true — as well as conservatives’ refusal to acknowledge their misfires. Obamacare, inflation, climate change; no matter the issue, Krugman argues, the dynamic is the same. “[E]veryone makes predictions that turn out to have been wrong; it’s a complicated world out there, and nobody’s perfect,” Krugman writes. “The point,” he continues, “is that Congress is now controlled by men who never acknowledge error, let alone learn from their mistakes.”
We’re looking at a political subculture in which ideological tenets are simply not to be questioned, no matter what. Supply-side economics is valid no matter what actually happens to the economy, guaranteed health insurance must be a failure even if it’s working, and anyone who points out the troubling facts is ipso facto an enemy.
And we’re not talking about marginal figures. You sometimes hear claims that the old-fashioned Republican establishment is making a comeback, that Tea Party extremists are on the run and we can get back to bipartisan cooperation. But that is a fantasy. We can’t have meaningful cooperation when we can’t agree on reality, when even establishment figures in the Republican Party essentially believe that facts have a liberal bias.
Mcconnel's claim that the economy has suddenly started to improve because of optimism over the GOP taking power in the midterm elections is laughable for two reasons. Economists are in agreement that it takes about a year for the policies of a new government to have an effect on the economy. Americans were enthusiastic and hopeful for an economic recovery when Obama took office in 2009 but it was almost a year before the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs per month stopped and jobs began being created and the economy turned around.
Far from the economy turning around immediately after Republicans took over the senate in 2014 the recovery started in 2010 and there has been steady economic growth since that time with a record 58 straight months of private sector job growth. 2014 was the strongest year of job growth since 1999.
The second reason Mcconnel's claim the economy has turned around because of optimism over the Republicans taking over the senate is that at any given time only 20-30% of Americans are aware of which party controls congress. This worked to Republicans favour when they spent the last six years trying to block every Democrat effort to improve the economy or get anything done at all. Americans didn't know what congress was doing and who was in charge and so in 2014 by default blamed Obama for the do nothing congress and gridlock. Now that the American public is becoming aware that the economy is booming and are no longer buying the flood of Republican lies about how terrible the economy is Obama is getting the credit. Much to the dismay of Republicans Obama's approval rating is now rising and he'll get the credit for the ongoing economic growth as well as is apropriate given that only legislation he approves of will be passed in the next two years.
"the Supreme Court of the United States is the guardian and interpreter of the Constitution"
no argument there
maybe Canadians should adopt the U.S. Constitution so their citizens can be protected too
"The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution limit the power of the federal and state governments to discriminate"
note that this poster says "limit" rather than "eliminate"
very interesting
"The Fifth Amendment has an explicit requirement that the Federal Government not deprive individuals of "life, liberty, or property," without due process of the law and an implicit guarantee that each person receive equal protection of the laws"
without completely endorsing this statement, it is notable that defining marriage as a relationship including both genders does not deprive anyone of life, liberty, or property and still allows for equal protection under the law
single people obviously receive "equal protection" under the law so why wouldn't a gay person even if they were considered not married?
"The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly prohibits states from violating an individual's rights of due process and equal protection"
individuals are not the same as couples
is there someone here that doesn't understand that?
"Equal protection limits the State and Federal governments' power to discriminate in their employment practices by treating employees, former employees, or job applicants unequally because of membership in a group, like a race, religion or sex"
notice there is no mention of sexual preference
"Due process protection requires that employees have a fair procedural process before they are terminated if the termination is related to a "liberty," like the right to free speech, or a property interest"
no one in America is deprived of their freedom of speech or property
you're thinking of socialism
"Republicans demonstrate they really do believe facts have a liberal bias"
what an amusing distortion
actually, rational people, not just Republicans, realize that facts and stats can be judiciously selected to obscure truth
this is something people have realized since the advent of the scientific method
simply put, you need to be careful when people are highly motivated to deceive
"Mitch McConnell’s recent claim that Republicans are to thank for the improving economy is just another example of the GOP’s “epistemic closure”"
you may remember that Sir Barry Obama predicted apocalyptic catastrophe if Republicans didn't give him what they want
so, the economy is finally recovering despite not borrowing and spending the trillions Obama wanted
why shouldn't Republicans get credit for their foresight?
"McConnell is taking credit for an economic boomlet that started well before last year’s midterm votes were cast"
there was positive but anemic growth before the third quarter
this is largely because of the doubt caused with his poor leadership skills and constantly pushing for more taxes and regulations as well as demonizing every national institution other than the West Wing
as soon as it became clear, in the third quarter, that Dems would lose the Senate and Harry Reid would no longer be empowered to block any action by Congress, the economy began to boomlet
just to splain to you, economy is psychology
"Obamacare, inflation, climate change; no matter the issue, Krugman argues, the dynamic is the same. “[E]veryone makes predictions that turn out to have been wrong;"
you mean like when Obama said the ACA would bring down healthcare costs and you'd be able to keep the doctors and there'd be no death panels and unemployment would top off at 8% and Gore said the ice cap would be gone now?
oh, that's right
those weren't bad predictions
they were lies
btw, it's real cold in Washington
I guess global warming was a lie too
Butterfly is half-male, half-female
the sexual morality of the Bible is the plan for man
the Democratic Party's presidential field is basically a bunch of old, tired, worn-down white socialists
the Republican field is a young, energetic, encouraged, diverse group of libertarians with an average age ten years less than Hillary & gang
who do you think America will go with?
hahahahaha!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/01/12/the-democrats-2016-field-is-more-than-a-decade-older-than-republicans-on-average/
‘Only God’ Can Stop Gay Marriage
"The fight for marriage equality seems all-but-over. But don’t count out the Man Upstairs, a leading foe of LGBT rights says.
2015 is shaping up to be a disaster for groups fighting gay rights in the United States.
The year started off positively for supporters of LBGT equality: same-sex marriages began in Florida on Monday, making the Sunshine State the 36th state in the country to allow it. With this milestone, Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin wrote, more than 70 percent of Americans, totaling more than 200 million people, now live in a state that recognizes marriage equality.
Those opposing same-sex marriage are on their heels, and increasingly unwilling or unable to make a stand against it. Asked whether the public acceptance of gay marriage was inevitable, one of the foremost opponents of gay marriage, Maggie Gallagher, gave this vague, philosophical answer:
“Nothing is inevitable. ‘Inevitability’ is the progressive substitute for the idea of Divine Providence,” Gallagher, the former president of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, told The Daily Beast. “Either God is in charge, or the future hasn't yet happened and is freely determined. Or God leaves us free.”
In a sign of the times, the ordinarily media-friendly National Organization for Marriage and the American Family Association have outsourced their press inquiries to specialized conservative consulting groups. On Monday, the two associated consulting groups told The Daily Beast they couldn't even get in touch with their counterparts at NOM or the AFA to book interviews about what 2015 holds for them.
“Nothing is inevitable. ‘Inevitability’ is the progressive substitute for the idea of Divine Providence. Either God is in charge, or the future hasn't yet happened and is freely determined. Or God leaves us free.”
By their own acknowledgement, the National Organization for Marriage is struggling: in a year-end fundraising plea, its president admitted that the group’s “resources are nearly exhausted” going into 2015, in part due to spending in the 2014 election cycle.
But it’s worse than “nearly exhausted”: NOM’s 2013 tax filings showed the group with more than $2.5 million in debt. And their fundraising collapsed by 50 percent from the previous year.
"They have a tough road ahead, and more and more they're being honest about that. That's becoming their new cry, now they're the David against Goliath," said Jeremy Hooper, a political consultant who has monitored the activities of anti-LGBT groups for a decade. “They're owning the fact that they're at a loss now.”..."
..."Those who have watched anti-gay groups closely suggest that there will be two major strategic shifts in their strategy.
First, as opposition to gay marriage collapses, American anti-LGBT activists will slow their battle against it. Instead, they’ll fight for the rights of those who hold anti-gay views—with resources shifting to so-called “religious freedom” groups.
"It's becoming increasingly evident that where the opponents of same-sex marriage can make a serious case is that it is a violation of religious liberty to sanction same-sex marriage," said Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a long-time adovate for marriage equality. “[Their strategy is] to circle the wagons and say, look, if we're not going to win the debate on the public legitimacy of same-sex marriage, we can win the religious liberty one so that we don't have to be a part of this."
And second, with falling support domestically, many anti-LGBT groups will take their message abroad to places where the momentum is with them.
“It looks like the hardest core of anti-gay marriage advocates are turning their attention overseas, by lobbying for anti-gay marriage and anti-gay rights in places like Uganda and Russia,” Rauch said.
This is where much of the action will be for anti-LGBT groups. In February, Slovakia will have a referendum on whether marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman. The month of May will see an Irish referendum on the legalization of same-sex marriage. In Uganda, legislators are considering further criminalization of LGBT advocacy and same-sex relationships. And the homophobia in Putin's Russia may be a contagion that spreads to former Soviet satellite states such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Ultimately, 2015 might be the year American anti-LGBT advocates wish they could skip. Asked about potential victories this year for those who oppose gay marriage, Gallagher replied, “I suspect the focus is going to be on 2016[‘s presidential race,] and that social conservatives are going to struggle between choosing a champion and choosing a conventional ‘winner.’”"
"The fight for marriage equality seems all-but-over"
actually, gay "marriage" now exists in a number of places simply because a misreading of the Constitution has become current among lower intellect judges
the SCOTUS will rule, correctly, that no constitutional right exists to redefine marriage
then, we'll be back to square one and the lunatic fringe will have to work through the democratic
process in each state
that hasn't gone well for them in the past
In March 2009, at the depths of the recession, when the stimulus bill passed Michael Boskin, economic adviser to the first President Bush, took to the Wall Street Journal editorial page on March 6, 2009, to proclaim ”Obama’s Radicalism is Killing the Dow.” Were his budget and stimulus plans to be adopted, the U.S. would risk becoming a “European-style social welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation.” That day, the Dow touched, 6,600. Almost immediately, the markets commenced a raging, historical bull run. The Dow closed Friday at 17,737, an increase of 168 percent from March 2009.
In February, 2011, Rep. Paul Ryan, the former vice presidential candidate, took out after Bernanke, arguing that the Fed’s efforts to support an economy still laboring under the fallout of a financial crisis and a deep recession were poison. Specifically, Ryan assured the public that the Fed’s bond-buying efforts would ignite runaway inflation and tank the dollar. “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens than debase its currency.” Whoops. Since then, inflation has been remarkably tame. The consumer price index, the official measure of inflation, actually fell .3 percent in November, and is up a mere 1.3 percent in the previous 12 months—far below the historical norm. And the dollar? Far from depreciating, it has been going gangbusters. The trade-weighted dollar index, which measures the strength of our currency against those of our major economic partners and competitors, has soared 15 percent since early 2011 and now stands at a nine-year high.
You would think that this would occasion a few mea culpas, some rethinking, an admission of poor prognostication. But, alas, it continues.
As the Bureau of Labor Statistics started pumping out reports that showed the economy adding jobs starting in early 2010, the response was generally to ignore them, or worse. In October, 2012, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch famously tweeted, “Unbelievable jobs numbers...these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers.” In fact, we now know that the September 2012 jobs report was one of a continuing series—59 straight months and counting—in which the economy has added jobs. More than 10 million in all, more than recouping all the positions lost in the deep recession.
In 2011, candidate Mitt Romney claimed that, were he to be elected, the unemployment rate would fall below 6 percent by the end of his first term in 2016. Last month, under Obama, the rate fell to 5.6 percent, the lowest level since June 2008.
Next we were assured, the botched rollout of Obamacare was certain to manage the twin tasks of tanking the economy as a whole and resulting in a massive loss of insurance. In March 2014, House Speaker John Boehner noted “there are less people today with health insurance than there were before this law went into effect.” In fact, as countless studies and the continuing series of Gallup polls have shown, the percentage of people without health insurance has declined dramatically—from 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013, to 12.9 percent in the final quarter of 2014, a decline of nearly 30 percent. Oh, and in the year since Obamacare formally launched, the U.S. economy has posted solid growth while adding 2.95 million jobs—the best such performance since 1999.
that's just amazing
what is your explanation for the FACT that Democrats didn't want Obama to campaign for them in 2016
and why did so many legislators who voted Obama's way lose?
why did the American people not put the Democrats who helped Obama with this amazing miracle in control of Congress?
truth is, the gap between rich and poor has exploded during Obama's term
as has the long-term unemployed who gave up on ever finding work
Americans won't endorse socialism
that's right!!
Democrap
"the Republican field is a young, energetic, encouraged, diverse group of libertarians"
On Friday, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt "Retread" Romney walked back months of promises and told a group of his past donors that he is “seriously considering” another White House bid. According to the Washington Post, he then spent the weekend “calling former aides, donors and other supporters” to rebuild his political operation, and even told one senior Republican that he “almost certainly will” launch another presidential campaign.
There’s still plenty of reason to believe that Romney will not run — and that he’d struggle to win if he did. But if Romney does join the race, he won’t be the only retread candidate seeking the GOP nomination in 2016.
Romney’s runner-up in 2012, former Pennsylvania senator Rick "frothy" Santorum, has made no secret of his intention to pursue the Republican nomination again. When Santorum was informed that Romney may run again in 2016, he reportedly responded, “bring it on,” and declared that he sees himself as “the winner” in what looks as though it will be a crowded field. Former Texas governor Rick "Oops" Perry has also begun laying the groundwork for a campaign, huddling with donors and policy experts in the hopes of avoiding a repeat of his 2012 disaster.
If frothy Santorum does run, he’ll likely be joined by fellow Iowa caucus winner Mike "Holier than thou" Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor recently ended his Fox News show to explore a White House bid. Huckabee won 278 delegates in the 2008 presidential race, barely edging Romney’s 271 but losing easily to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who has dismissed 2016 speculation by quoting the late Morris Udall: “The people have spoken — the bastards.”
As Romney, Huckabee, Perry, and Santorum weigh their options, former Florida governor Jeb "Not another!" Bush has moved decisively towards a run and established himself as the early frontrunner. Of course, Bush isn’t exactly a fresh face, either; he has not held elected office in six years, and he would almost certainly not be mentioned as a top-tier candidate were he not the brother of the 43rd president and the son of the 41st.
There’s plenty of precedent for Republicans considering well-known national figures and former candidates for their nomination; it’s been the party’s modus operandi for decades. But this year was supposed to be different. As various pundits repeated ad nauseam during the 2012 campaign, the Republican Party was supposed be the party with a “deep bench” of “rising stars” to lead America into the future. But upon further review, anointing Bob "Transvaginal Probes" McDonnell, Chris "Corrupt" Christie, or Marco "You must be kidding" Rubio as the party’s standard-bearer doesn’t seem like such a great idea.
Some candidates who won media favor in 2012 (such as Wisconsin governor Scott "Is he under indictment yet?" Walker and Kentucky senator Rand "Amnesty" Paul) still seem capable of mounting serious campaigns. But they have generated so little support as to leave candidates like Romney and Huckabee confident that they could run again and win. And so the GOP once again seems poised to turn to its failed candidates of the past.
Perhaps it’s no wonder that many Republicans seem determined to take down Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton with a campaign straight out of 1994.
it's easy to see why you're so bitter when Dems are apparently stuck with an old hag, whose main claim to fame is that she was the original "Good Wife", about decades ago, while Repubs have a stable of strong and accomplished contenders who average ten years younger
I will give you that another Romney run is ridiculous
but there's little chance he'd be nominated again
it's easy to see why you're so bitter when Dems are apparently stuck with an old hag, whose main claim to fame is that she was the original "Good Wife", about decades ago, while Repubs have a stable of strong and accomplished contenders who average ten years younger
I will give you that another Romney run is ridiculous
but there's little chance he'd be nominated again
that's right!
Good Wife
For years — since Obama took office, not coincidentally — we’ve heard from the (white) right wing constantly about the need for (white) people to walk around in public, individually and in groups, while heavily armed to take a bold stand for the 2nd Amendment. Now that a group of black people are doing the same thing, that prospect is suddenly seen as ominous and disturbing.
"The Huey P. Newton Gun Club (really? You couldn’t even use H. Rap Brown or Stokely Carmichael as a namesake?) has been conducting armed drills in Dallas for some time now.
The club was founded by Charles Goodson, described as a “31-year-old dreadlocked vegan,” and Darren X, who is the national field marshal for the New Black Panther Party…
“We accept all oppressed people of color with weapons,” Darren X told Vice. “The complete agenda involves going into our communities and educating our people on federal, state and local gun laws. We want to stop fratricide, genocide — all the ‘cides.”…
Given its frontier reputation, Texas is surprisingly one of the few states that doesn’t allow concealed carry. However, it does allow the open carry of firearms, which the group uses to an alarming effect."
Funny, I don’t remember the Conservative Tribune calling it “alarming” when a group of armed white people started patrolling Houston neighborhoods last summer. In fact, I’m quite sure they applauded it and loved the idea. But apparently the 2nd Amendment only applies to white people. When groups of white people armed with AK-47s and AF-15s hang around in parking lots, patrol neighborhoods or gather inside a business, that’s their God-given right. When blacks do it, that’s “alarming” and something must be done.
This is nothing new, of course. Gun control laws were pushed through after the Civil War to prevent former slaves from owning guns that they might be inclined to use against their former owners. And in the 1960s, the NRA and conservative hero St. Ronald the Magnificent were in favor of gun control when black civil rights activists started buying guns to protect themselves against the police.
"Funny, I don’t remember the Conservative Tribune calling it “alarming” when a group of armed white people started patrolling Houston neighborhoods last summer"
were these people calling for weapons for "the oppressed"?
sounds alarming
we have democratic processes to fight systematic oppression
when people give up on that, it is cause for alarm
Bikini Graph Time! Jobghazi! 2014 “easily best year for U.S. job creation since 1999.”
"....November was the 50th consecutive month of positive job growth – the best stretch since 1939 – and the 56th consecutive month in which we’ve seen private-sector job growth – the longest on record...."
whew!
good thing Congress didn't pass Obama's jobs bill and, instead, defied him by "doing nothing"
2016 slogan
Republicans: We were right again!!
.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/townhallmagazine/2015/01/05/obamas-shattered-presidency-n1938722
"good thing Congress didn't pass Obama's jobs bill and, instead, defied him by "doing nothing""
Now we know who is responsible for "the long-term unemployed who gave up on ever finding work"!
< eye roll >
The ‘liberal’ label is getting more and more popular
On Thursday, we threw some cold water on the idea that Americans are becoming more politically independent -- even as a new Gallup poll showed a record number of people claim the I-word as their political affiliation.
Well on Friday, the very same pollster shows that the rise in "independents" clearly does not mean a rise in "moderates" or even a decrease in partisanship. In fact, quite the opposite.
The poll shows a record low number of Americans now identify as "moderates" -- at least going back to 1992. And perhaps more illustrative, a record high number of Americans identify as "liberal."
Just 34 percent of Americans now call themselves moderates -- down one point from the last two years.
Perhaps the more interesting numbers in the chart, though, are the lowest ones. While Republicans have used the word "liberal" with great gusto to marginalize Democrats over the last couple decades, it's becoming more and more en vogue -- at least among Democrats.
While just 29 percent of Democrats used the L-word in 2000, 44 percent use it today. That's still well shy of the 70 percent of Republicans who identify as "conservative," of course.
Could that be partially because some conservative Southern Democrats are finally leaving their party, once and for all, and leaving a more liberal party behind? Sure. But most polling suggests they left the party years ago.
There were about the same number of conservative Southern Democrats in Gallup's 2005 poll (21 percent) as there are today (19 percent). But while the number of conservative Democrats dropped by two points over that span, the number of liberal Democrats has risen 10 points, from 34 percent to 44 percent. So it's pretty clear that some Democrats who used to avoid the term are warming to it.
Which is why liberals now comprise about one-quarter of Americans.
"Now we know who is responsible for "the long-term unemployed who gave up on ever finding work"!
< eye roll >"
poor Aunt Bea
must roll her every morning when she looks in the mirror
the economy is indeed recovering because a Republican Congress restrained a President who has socialist tendency
on the other hand, the economy is nowhere as near as robust as it was when it recovered from recessions during the Reagan era (1980-2006)
Harry Reid blocked all progress and wouldn't allow a vote on anything the Republican House would do
got it, Bea-atch?
"The ‘liberal’ label is getting more and more popular"
yea, liberals are a real legend in their own mind
"Just 34 percent of Americans now call themselves moderates -- down one point from the last two years"
one point, huh?
we used to call that, liberally, a statistical irrelevance
"Perhaps the more interesting numbers in the chart, though, are the lowest ones. While Republicans have used the word "liberal" with great gusto to marginalize Democrats over the last couple decades, it's becoming more and more en vogue -- at least among Democrats."
sure
unless you're actually a lunatic fringe flaming liberal, you likely don't want to be tainted with a sleazy label like "Democrat"
sounds reasonable
"liberals now comprise about one-quarter of Americans."
let's see:
liberals about a quarter
call it 24%
moderates 34%
(down 1 point, mind you)
OK, 100 minus 24 minus 34 equals our most popular political identification
42% Tea Party
makes a lot of sense when you consider that liberal cable news programming ratings (MSNBC) are anemic and objective cable news programming (FOX) is robust
liberals just aren't, ahem, very popular
Gallup -- "Bottom Line
Second-term presidents serving their final two years can often seem like reduced figures in the political landscape, as their ability to shape public policy is perceived to diminish. Many factors contribute to this perception. For instance, in the modern era, nearly all second-term presidents have had a Congress controlled by the opposition party in their final two years (only Lyndon Johnson had an allied Congress) -- but a main factor is that second-term U.S. presidents are typically less popular than they were in their first terms. And this erosion in public support in turn reduces the president's ability to influence Congress.
Obama has tried to stay ahead of these historical forces by launching a flurry of policy moves, but the proportion of Americans preferring his guidance on the nation's direction has increased only marginally. Republicans in Congress, for their part, have seen a substantial drop in support from November [that was quick!], just as they begin to try their hand at governing. Ratings of the economy have greatly improved since the November elections, which could be one reason fewer Americans support the GOP. Indeed, the improving economy could eventually give Obama the edge on this measure, perhaps giving him the political momentum. But at the moment, judging by public opinion, it appears the last two years may not be better or worse for Obama, but rather more of the same: a nation divided, with both sides fiercely contesting that they have the mandate to lead it."
"wouldn't allow a vote on anything the Republican House would do"
"Mitch McConnell was full of promises last November about how things were going to be different in the Senate when he was in charge. Like how the Senate was going to start working on Fridays. That promise was broken last Thursday, the first week of the session. The other thing the Senate was going to do under his watch—open amendments. Republicans had grumbled incessantly over the last six years about how Harry Reid was a dictator who refused to allow them to offer up their amendments, almost all of which were poison pills that had little or nothing to do with the underlying legislation. Well, the worm has turned with Republicans now in power, and McConnell doesn't like it one bit. In fact, he's pretty whiny about it.
'"Some of our colleagues on the other side continue to filibuster the motion to proceed to this bill. All senators should know that we will get on this bill today and begin the amendment process—either this afternoon by consent, or shortly after midnight without consent,” he said. […]
McConnell vowed he would not let Democrats use their ability to offer amendments to stretch out floor debates for weeks simply to burn up the calendar.
"We will conduct a fair and open amendment process but not an open-ended one," he said.'
And so much for open amendments. That fair and open process apparently won't include one proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)..."
makes a lot of sense when you consider that liberal cable news programming ratings (MSNBC) are anemic and objective cable news programming (FOX) is robust
liberals just aren't, ahem, very popular
You clearly haven't been paying attention. Liberals don't care about being popular, they care about being correct.
Raising taxes is never popular, but 35 years of Reaganomics has shown us that cutting taxes and deregulating businesses only leads to stock, housing, derivatives bubbles, and exploding deficits. Cutting taxes has NEVER made up for the revenue losses conservatives always promise they will, and it keeps pushing us further towards a fiscal cliff. Popularity isn't the right answer here, paying attention to how the math works is. But then math has never been popular among conservatives either.
Then of course there's gay marriage - how popular was that? But we either have gay marriage or we have to come out and admit that our Constitution, all our laws about equality, and even religious freedom are BS if we don't allow both gay and straight folks to marry the consenting adult they love.
Popularity is a game for shallow idiots. Intelligent people don't waste their time with it - there are too many important issues to deal with. Did I mention global warming?
as for McConnell, he will obviously allow votes on bills passed by the House
Harry Reid, without much attention from the media and thereby the public, has shut down the legislature for years by refusing to vote on anything passed by the House
and then his buddy, Sir Barry, had the gall to rail against the "do-nothing" Congress
it was the ultimate Orwellian PR move: refuse to allow a vote on anything you disagree with and then accuse the other side of doing nothing because they won't act as your errand boy
it was a nice bit of jaded politics but the gig's up and Americans showed they were on to the Dems in November
"Liberals don't care about being popular, they care about being correct"
well, that's a nice sentiment, and hopefully it's true
but when you preceded the remark by saying to me:
"You clearly haven't been paying attention"
you clearly weren't paying attention because I was responding to a liberal who posted this:
"The ‘liberal’ label is getting more and more popular"
apparently some liberals care
"Raising taxes is never popular,"
neither is it often wise
most of the world has realized this but Obama forgot it
basically, taxes are necessary to fund the government but taxes should be on things that society wants to discourage
we don't want to discourage income or business profits
"but 35 years of Reaganomics has shown us that cutting taxes and deregulating businesses only leads to stock, housing, derivatives bubbles, and exploding deficits"
actually, during that time, we achieved surpluses for a number of years, high inflation was defeated, and unemployment practically vanished
since the Dems took Congress in 2006, we had an economic implosion, the percent of the population not working has reached the highest level since WWII and income inequality has soared.
"Then of course there's gay marriage - how popular was that?"
defining social norms should indeed be by popular will
"we have to come out and admit that our Constitution, all our laws about equality, and even religious freedom are BS if we don't allow both gay and straight folks to marry the consenting adult they love"
"allow" is a disingenuous term
people are allowed to do as they wish
anyone can have there own little ceremony and marry anyone or anything they like
the issue is what the state will preference to promote a healthy society
marriage, defined traditionally, is it
if you say that not considering someone married takes away their rights, you are saying singles don't have rights
this is obviously untrue
"Popularity is a game for shallow idiots. Intelligent people don't waste their time with it - there are too many important issues to deal with"
the liberals that frequent this blog seem quite concerned about popularity
"Did I mention global warming?"
no, but it's a hyped, alarmist farce of an issue
there is no evidence that the warming observed is man-made or that it will be catastrophic
Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States
"Economists have widely discredited trickle-down economic theories espoused for more than three decades, but that hasn’t stopped new generations of supply-side theorists from repackaging those philosophies and pushing for lower state tax rates for wealthy individuals, businesses and corporations. In fact, recent years have brought tax proposals and changes in multiple states that would overwhelmingly benefit the highest income households under the guise of stimulating economic growth. This report doesn’t seek to rebut ideological claims; rather it is an in-depth analysis of all taxes that all people pay at the state and local level.
This study assesses the fairness of each state’s tax system by measuring state and local taxes paid by non-elderly taxpayers in different income groups in 2015 as shares of income for every state and the District of Columbia. The report provides valuable comparisons among the states, showing which states have done the best — and the worst — job of providing a modicum of fairness in their overall tax systems. The Tax Inequality Index (Appendix B) measures the effects of each state’s tax system on income inequality and is used to rank the states from the most regressive to the least regressive.
The bottom line is that every state fails the basic test of tax fairness. The District of Columbia is the only tax system that requires its best-off citizens to pay as much of their incomes in state and local taxes as the very poorest taxpayers, but middle-income taxpayers in DC pay far more than the top one percent. In other words, every single state and local tax system is regressive and even the states that do better than others have much room for improvement["
"taxes should be on things that society wants to discourage"
Apparently all 50 states want to discourage low income and middle income people from earning salaries, hence "every single state and local tax system is regressive."
"Economists have widely discredited trickle-down economic theories espoused for more than three decades,"
hey stooopid!
we weren't talkin' "trickle-down economic theories"
we were talkin' about the economic suppression of high marginal tax rates
all honest economists agree about the deleterious effect of such
it's why most countries have lower marginal corporate rates than America
"In fact, recent years have brought tax proposals and changes in multiple states that would overwhelmingly benefit the highest income households under the guise of stimulating economic growth"
tax cuts favor the rich because they pay most of the taxes
"This study assesses the fairness of each state’s tax system by measuring state and local taxes paid by non-elderly taxpayers in different income groups in 2015 as shares of income for every state and the District of Columbia"
well, unless taxes rise as income rises, it is not germane to this conversation
"The report provides valuable comparisons among the states, showing which states have done the best — and the worst — job of providing a modicum of fairness in their overall tax systems. The Tax Inequality Index (Appendix B) measures the effects of each state’s tax system on income inequality and is used to rank the states from the most regressive to the least regressive"
the only thing relevant here is whether taxes go up as income rises
these states are regressive because of their sales tax, which isn't directly affected by income
"The bottom line is that every state fails the basic test of tax fairness. The District of Columbia is the only tax system that requires its best-off citizens to pay as much of their incomes in state and local taxes as the very poorest taxpayers,"
in all states, the "very poorest taxpayers" pay no income tax or less income tax than its best-off citizens
"every single state and local tax system is regressive and even the states that do better than others have much room for improvement"
the best-off already pay for most of our society's common costs
they need a break
"Apparently all 50 states want to discourage low income and middle income people from earning salaries, hence "every single state and local tax system is regressive."
hey, stooped
sales tax discourages consumption not the production of income
when you tax something, you discourage it
we shouldn't discourage people from adding to the GDP
just because something is a certain percent of income doesn't mean it varies with income
how stooooopid can you be?
"In other words, every single state and local tax system is regressive and even the states that do better than others have much room for improvement"
the bottom 50% are already exempt from Federal income tax
are you suggesting they also should pay no sales tax or not be permitted to participate in social security?
it's hard to believe how stupid liberals are
For the third time in a decade, the globe sizzled to the hottest year on record, federal scientists announced Friday. 2014 has been the hottest year ever recorded. What makes this of even greater concern is that we are in the midst of a natual cooling weather cycle that should see us in a period of below average global temperatures and solar output is also lower than normal which should also have resulted in cooler than average global temperatures. Futher, in the past record hot years have been associated with the El Nino warming trend but in 2014 there was no El Nino. All the natural trends should have resulted in 2014 being cooler than average but as we can see those natural cooling trends were no competition for the greenhouse effect of growing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Don't buy the lies from the global warming deniers that there's been no warming since 1998 or that the globe is cooling.
Further proof that the global warming deniers are trying to mislead the public is the fact that sea levels have risen faster than predicted.
So, obviously when global warming deniers like Wyatt/bad anonymous point to record sea ice levels in antarctica that's not the whole story. The truth is that ice in the Arctic is being lost at five times the rate Antarctic sea ice is growing and Antarctic and Greenland and other land glaciers are shrinking at an alarming rate. Obviously far more ice is melting than is growing or ocean levels wouldn't be rising.
And of course the same is true when Wyatt/bad anonymous brings up isolated cooling in the eastern U.S. and pretends that disproves global warming while he pretends the rest of the planet which had much warmer than normal temperatures doesn't exist.
When Wyatt/bad anonymous claims scientists' predictions about global warming have been wrong, don't believe him. The truth is that in almost every case where global warming predictions have been wrong scientists have underestimated the effects and extent of global warming.
NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record
The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.
The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
In an independent analysis of the raw data, also released Friday, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.
“NASA is at the forefront of the scientific investigation of the dynamics of the Earth’s climate on a global scale,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The observed long-term warming trend and the ranking of 2014 as the warmest year on record reinforces the importance for NASA to study Earth as a complete system, and particularly to understand the role and impacts of human activity.”
Since 1880, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades.
“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt....
And while I'm at it:
Wyatt/bad anonymous most oft repeated alleged example of climate scientists being wrong in their global warming predictions is a speech given by Al Gore in the late 90's in which Al was quoted as saying the Arctic could be "ice free" in a several years.
Now putting aside the fact that Al Gore is not a climate scientist there are several problems with that "example" of scientific predictions about global warming being wrong.
First, Al Gore was using the technical term "ice free" from a U.S. Navy report on the Arctic. That technical term didn't mean that the Arctic ice cap would be gone, but rather that the Arctic would be free enough from ice to allow navigation by navy ships. So, while the Arctic ice cap hasn't disappeared, the Arctic certainly has become navigable by Navy ships since Al Gore's speech and in the technical sense the term was used in, the Arctic is now "ice free".
Secondly, in the 1990s as scientific concensus and understanding of global warming was growing the concensus amongst climate scientists was that the Arctic ice cap would be gone by the year 2100. Since that time recods of ice loss show the Arctic ice cap could be gone by the year 2050 if current rates of ice loss continue.
So, once again, contrary to Wyatt/bad anonymous's attempts to deceive, climate scientists' predictions about the disappearance of the ice cap were only wrong in that they underestimated the rate of ice loss.
Supreme Court agrees to hear gay marriage issue
The Supreme Court on Friday said it will make a historic decision this term about whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The court will answer a question left open when it last confronted the issue in 2013*: whether individual states may define marriage as only between a man and a woman, or whether marriage is a fundamental right that cannot be denied to same-sex couples no matter where they live.
The court will hear arguments in April and make a decision before adjourning at the end of June.
Last week, Florida became the 36th state, plus the District of Columbia, in which gay couples may wed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-gay-marriage-issue/2015/01/16/865149ec-9d96-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html
*"A deeply divided Supreme Court nudged the nation toward broad recognition of same-sex marriage on Wednesday in rulings that advocates hailed as a "joyous occasion" -- but still left many questions unanswered.
Voting 5-4 in each of two decisions, justices threw out part of a law that denied hundreds of federal benefits to same-sex couples and cleared the way for gays and lesbians to once again marry in California.
At the same time, the high court declined to make a sweeping statement on the broader issue of same-sex marriage rights nationwide, rejecting California's same-sex marriage ban but leaving intact laws banning such marriages in 35 other states."
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/politics/scotus-same-sex-main/
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis said Thursday he is convinced that global warming is "mostly" man-made and that he hopes his upcoming encyclical on the environment will encourage negotiators at a climate change meeting in Paris to make "courageous" decisions to protect God's creation.
Francis has spoken out frequently about the "culture of waste" that has imperiled the environment and he elaborated en route to the Philippines. While there, Francis will meet with survivors of the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, which the government has said was an example of the extreme weather conditions that global warming has wrought.
"I don't know if it (human activity) is the only cause, but mostly, in great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face," he said. "We have in a sense taken over nature."
"I think we have exploited nature too much," Francis said, citing deforestation and monoculture. "Thanks be to God that today there are voices, so many people who are speaking out about it."
Francis, who pledged on the day of his installation as pope to make the environment a priority, said he expected his encyclical on ecology to be released by June or July. He said he wanted it out in plenty of time to be read and absorbed before the next round of climate change negotiations opens in Paris in November after the last round in Lima, Peru, failed to reach an agreement.
"The meetings in Peru were nothing much, I was disappointed," he said. "There was a lack of courage. They stopped at a certain point. We hope that in Paris the representatives will be more courageous going forward."...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/pope-francis-climate-change_n_6477388.html
"ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis said Thursday he is convinced that global warming is "mostly" man-made"
I'm sure he's a genial fellow but this just proves a truism as old as the hills:
he ain't infallible
"The Supreme Court on Friday said it will make a historic decision this term about whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The court will answer a question left open when it last confronted the issue in 2013*: whether individual states may define marriage as only between a man and a woman, or whether marriage is a fundamental right that cannot be denied to same-sex couples no matter where they live."
When you think about it, they've already ruled on this.
They overthrew DOMA because they said the Federal government has no right to not recognize marriage if a state has deemed it valid.
Thus, they are implicitly agreeing that states have that right.
If not, they would have overthrown DOMA because it was a constitutional right.
"In an independent analysis of the raw data, released Friday, NOAA scientists found 2014 to be the warmest on record."
really?
I thought it was nice
how do we keep this going?
btw, for umpteenth year, we're having a cold winter in Washington
glad to see all the TTFers have now conceded that high marginal tax rates are bad for America
let's not tax productivity
let's tax something we want to discourage:
Priya's internet usage
never underestimate Priya's stooopidity
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-climate-changes-instructive-past/2015/01/07/2ae70ee6-95d2-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html
Global warming implies an end to snow days, eheu.
"When you think about it, they've already ruled on this."
Yes, they did. They ruled against centuries of tradition and found that Virginia could not prevent white Mr. Loving from marrying his African American wife. When they do their job and interpret the Fourteenth Amendment to same-sex marriage, like they did for interracial marriage, Americans will achieve more of the equality and liberty our Founding Fathers hoped for when they created our democracy.
"for umpteenth year, we're having a cold winter in Washington
And what do you expect the weather will be here in August? You prefer to mistake DC weather for global climate, so here's some factual data for you.
Enjoy the simple presentation of facts, KeepHeadInSand.
"The animation below shows the Earth’s warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements from land and sea over 135 years. Temperatures are displayed in degrees above or below the 20th-century average. Thirteen of the 14 hottest years are in the 21st century."
"Yes, they did"
As I pointed out, the most recent ruling they made on this matter was that the Feds couldn't overrule the states when the states define marriage, as two-thirds have. Why do you think they will reverse their most recent ruling when the composition of the court hasn't changed?
"They ruled against centuries of tradition and found that Virginia could not prevent white Mr. Loving from marrying his African American wife."
That's because skin color is not integral to marriage. Gender is. Gendered relationships are fundamentally different from ungendered ones, in a way that is integral to the marital relationship.
"When they do their job and interpret the Fourteenth Amendment to same-sex marriage, like they did for interracial marriage, Americans will achieve more of the equality and liberty our Founding Fathers hoped for when they created our democracy."
Saying that one doesn't have the right to define marriage any way they want does not take away anyone's freedom or equality. If the state regards someone as unmarried, they still have the same liberty and are just as equal as those the state regards as married. Otherwise, you wouldn't have so many these days who choose to be married in every way except getting a marriage license. You argument doesn't hold up.
Further, the only reason gays want to marry is to force society to consider homosexuality as normal. They don't care about society's mores so why do they want society's endorsement in the form of a state-recognized marriage? This current push is part of a larger gay agenda.
"And what do you expect the weather will be here in August?"
well, if we have been warming since the industrial age, I'd expect the winters to be milder than they used to be
"You prefer to mistake DC weather for global climate,"
I just think it's odd that in the one place where the concentration of knowledge and power is greatest, there is no really no discernible warm change in the weather
"so here's some factual data for you.
Enjoy the simple presentation of facts, KeepHeadInSand.
"The animation below shows the Earth’s warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements from land and sea over 135 years. Temperatures are displayed in degrees above or below the 20th-century average. Thirteen of the 14 hottest years are in the 21st century.""
As I've said many times, the globe is warmer than it once was
but, also, there is clear empirical evidence that it has been warmer in the past, even in recorded history, and live thrived
there is no clear evidence that it has a cause we can alter
and there is little evidence it will have catastrophic consequences prior to a likely change in technology from the alleged man-made causes, or ever
in the near-future, snow days will be irrelevant because every will be able to do the same things virtually at home they can do at another location
this already true in many fields
I could provide details but I don't feel like it
"Global warming implies an end to snow days, eheu."
Robert, never heard "eheu" before
what does that mean in homosexualian?
"Saying that one doesn't have the right to define marriage any way they want does not take away anyone's freedom or equality."
The State of Virginia told the Lovings the definition of marriage in their state of residence did not permit them to wed and the Supreme Court told VIrginia it was unconstitutional to deny marriage rights (AKA "take away anyone's freedom") to them. The Supremes will rule similarly for same-sex couples when they do their jobs and interpret the US Constitution.
The Supremes have already ruled "that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage" and "spouse" to apply only to heterosexual unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment; Justice Kennedy wrote: "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.""
"and there is little evidence it will have catastrophic consequences"
Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’
"At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.
The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.
“What the science has shown is that human activities — economic growth, technology, consumption — are destabilizing the global environment,” said Will Steffen, who holds appointments at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center and is the lead author of the paper..."
oh, I agree, pollution is a problem as is deforestation
I just don't climate change is
btw, this latest story about 2014 being the hottest ever is only true if you accept that land-based temperature monitors are more accurate than satellites, which few scientists do
according to satellite measures, this is the third hottest
I would say that means the temperature is starting to fall
except there's something more significant:
all these measurements, both land and satellite agree that the variances in the years since 2001 have been so slight that they are statistically insignificant
basically, the climate has essentially remained the same since the beginning of the 21st century
that's not something the alarmists predicted
recently, they've come up with some hilarious and unproven theories that allow them to pursue their alarmism despite the facts
but remember:
making up theories to buttress foregone conclusions is not science
it is advocacy
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/011615-735156-2014-not-the-hottest-year-on-record.htm
"The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.""
that doesn't say that any states have that purpose or effect
it said the Federal law did
not being considered married does not change anyone liberty or equality
under TTFism, this is fine:
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/01/17/teen-plans-to-marry-father-have-children/21131240/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing11%7Cdl7%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D600411
Why the Supreme Court is Set to Make History on Gay Marriage
"The writing's been on the wall since the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down in 2013
The fight for same-sex marriage rights in the United States has reached its final round. On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear arguments on whether state laws that ban these unions violate the constitution.
There’s not much question which way the decision will go: same-sex couples are going to prevail. The logic is plain:
In 2013, the court—the very same nine justices—struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. The plaintiff was a lesbian spouse whose marriage was recognized under New York law. The court ruled that the Constitution bars the federal government from treating traditional marriages differently from same-sex marriages in states that legalize both.
Now the court will apply the same reasoning to state laws. Does the constitution allow states to discriminate when Congress cannot? Can the 14 states that still ban same-sex unions refuse to recognize marriages lawfully performed in other states?
In other words: suppose that two couples lawfully married in, say, Utah both move to Ohio. Can the authorities in Ohio refuse to recognize one of the marriages—the two-husband marriage—while recognizing the union of husband and wife?
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the deciding vote on same-sex marriage in 2013, left no doubt about his thinking in his majority opinion: “No legitimate purpose” exists to justify a law “to disparage and injure” same-sex couples. And that’s what these laws do, he concluded. DOMA “instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others.”
Lower federal courts pretty clearly agree on this point. Even some of the most conservative courts of appeal have ruled that state laws against same-sex marriage are in conflict with the 2013 ruling. Earlier this term, the Supreme Court declined to take up the issue, for the simple reason that the lower court judges were all arriving at the same decision. Where there was no dispute, the high court saw no need to step in.
But last fall, a panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals—with jurisdiction over Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee—upheld state laws against same-sex marriages. With lower courts now in conflict, the Supremes have a role to play.
Given Kennedy’s long history as a defender of the dignity and rights of homosexuals, it defies belief to think that he has been sitting in Washington, watching couples in one state after another gain the freedom to wed, if he doesn’t in fact believe that freedom exists. For the Court to uphold the 6th Circuit opinion, Kennedy would have to join the court’s conservatives in a ruling that would potentially invalidate thousands of marriages across the country.
Polls now show that a majority of Americans believe in the right to marry. The shift of public and judicial opinion on this issue in a single generation has been startling. But it is less controversial with each passing day.
Now the issue will be resolved once and for all."
"Does the constitution allow states to discriminate when Congress cannot?"
typical of the way media tries to manipulate
Congress wasn't found to discriminate
the problem was they were involved in a realm where states should have sole jurisdiction, without any constitutional authority
the fact that a majority of Americans believe gay marriages should be recognized is all the more reason they won't feel compelled to impose gay marriage by judiciary
you lose
Of course we all knew this already but another study of gays seeking to become heterosexual has found when gays marry an opposite sex heterosexual partner there's a far higher probability of divorce than there is with marriages where people are of the same sexual orientation. Further, Zero percent of participants were able to eliminate same-sex attraction. And they were psychologically damaged by trying.
Those whose mixed-orientation marriages ended experience “a kind of triple blame by their family and faith communities — first for being gay, then for having ruined the lives of their spouses and children by … marry(ing) in the service of trying to ‘overcome’ their homosexuality, and then finally for having failed in the marriage and ‘given up,".
Three seperate global temperature data sets have confirmed 2014 is the hottest year ever recorded - data from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and by the Japan Meteorological Agency.
"A record warm year, especially absent (the warming effects of) a strong El Niño, is mostly a reminder that the long-term trend for Earth's temperature is up, up, up," said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist. The planet has not seen a month with below-average temperatures since February 1985. 9 of the hottest 10 years ever recorded have occurred since 2002 with 2005 and 2010 being the second and third hottest years on record.
The global warming deniers/liars like to point to cooler than normal temperatures in the eastern U.S. and pretend this shows the planet is cooling, but the U.S. accounts for less than 2% of the entire planet's surface and as you can see in this graph of global temperatures while the eastern U.S. has been cooler than normal the vast majority of the planet is hotter than normal - note how little of the planet is coloured blue (cooler than normal).
The linear regression lines for average global yearly temperatures since 1880 show the temperature trend has been upwards since record keeping began.
The last time the planet saw a cooler than average year was 1976.
This video from Climate Central does a great job of putting into perspective how rare this hot streak is. The odds of 13 of the 15 hottest years on record occurring since the year 2000 without the assistance of greenhouse gas-induced global warming are 1 in 27 million.
"Eheu" is Latin for "alas."
It shows up most famously in quote from Horace's Odes in a lament on the inevitibility of old age and death:
"Eheu, Postume, Postume, fugaces labuntur anni."
"Alas, my friend Postumus, the fleeting years slip by."
(Postumus was a name commonly given to boys whose fathers had died before they were born)
"The odds of 13 of the 15 hottest years on record occurring since the year 2000 without the assistance of greenhouse gas-induced global warming are 1 in 27 million"
the idea that someone could determine such odds without knowing or understanding the forces at work, which scientists clearly don't at this point, is ludicrous
by not realizing this, it goes to show, Priya is ignorant and gullible
""Eheu" is Latin for "alas."
It shows up most famously in quote from Horace's Odes in a lament on the inevitibility of old age and death:
"Eheu, Postume, Postume, fugaces labuntur anni."
"Alas, my friend Postumus, the fleeting years slip by."
(Postumus was a name commonly given to boys whose fathers had died before they were born)"
thanks for the interesting trivia, Robert
you're my go-to guy for Latin
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/16/in-graphic-videos-and-on-twitter-isis-members-record-and-tout-executions-of-gay-men.html
Family Research\ Council Vice President Peter Sprigg I prefer to "export homosexuals" from the US
Support for gay marriage across all age groups of white evangelicals has increased by double digits over the past decade.
To the surprise of no one who has studied history, now that it appears all but inevitable, support for marriage equality is growing even among the group most likely to oppose it. The gay agenda is going down in flames! LOL!
This fits quite well the patterns of history, only it’s happening considerably faster than it has in the past. While pretending to have the One Eternal Truth, religions evolve in response to shifting societal attitudes and beliefs and they always have. Texts are simply reinterpreted, then everyone moves on as though there were no such reinterpretation at all, as if they had believed that all along. It happened with separation of church and state, with slavery, with women’s suffrage and with civil rights for blacks. There are still holdouts on all those things, of course, and there always will be. But the patterns are clear.
Our hottest year, our cold indifference
Perhaps at some future date it will be seen as a stroke of particular bad luck for the planet that the Eastern United States was one of the few parts of the world that wasn’t unnaturally hot in 2014—the site of “a temperature anomaly,” as NASA put it. The East Coast is where Congress and the main financial markets are, and so anything that contributes to climate-change denial has a systemic toxicity. But that would be a fairy tale, one which assumes that all politicians and businesses were waiting for was first-hand evidence, and that, if the evidence appeared—if they opened their windows and remarked on the unseasonably warm weather—they would have quickly acted.
The new numbers are so striking that they surprised even climate scientists; 2014 was, in science parlance, “an El Niño neutral year.” El Niño is one of those “natural” forces that climate deniers say can account for fluctuations and for warming the ocean up; a reply might be that man-made climate-change may come to affect even the oceans’ currents. (It already appears to have affected their level of acidification; add to that a new report warning of impending mass oceanic extinctions.) But that point doesn’t even need to be made. This past year was hot without any room for disingenuous excuses. The planet is changing, and we are close to the time when trying to check climate change will be like trying to redirect El Niño with canoe paddles.
Do we want to pretend that the problem is one of mere abstract numbers—scientific data, spreadsheets? At this point, we are hardly lacking in shimmering photo essays of melting glaciers, or of stories about tourists arriving in New Zealand or Switzerland and not finding the walls of ice they’d been led to expect. We are overwhelmed with anecdotes and uncanny scenes of habitat destruction. (Read Elizabeth Kolbert’s book.) But, even without the pictures and stories, there are some useful, and frightening, ways to visualize those figures, and few honest ways to look at them and say one doesn’t understand. NASA has a set of color-coded maps—one can see the East Coast’s lonely coolness anomaly, joined only by one in part of Antarctica—and the Times has a version supplemented with historical data. Bloomberg has put together a striking animation of the jagged lines of average temperatures rising in the course of the past hundred and thirty-four years, like the water stains on an seawall.
Conservatives - willfully burning down the house we all live in so they can spite liberals.
"To the surprise of no one who has studied history, now that it appears all but inevitable, support for marriage equality is growing even among the group most likely to oppose it"
gay "marriage" is likely on the upper east and whole west coasts but has bleak prospects elsewhere
a number of courts have inappropriately overruled state constitutions but that will be corrected by SCOTUS later, in the Spring
in keeping with their prior ruling, the SCOTUS will assign responsibility for defining marriage to the states
then, many states will again properly recognize marriage as a gendered institution and male-female complementarity as a universal constant
"While pretending to have the One Eternal Truth"
this seems to describe the Priya attitude perfectly
"religions evolve in response to shifting societal attitudes and beliefs and they always have. Texts are simply reinterpreted, then everyone moves on as though there were no such reinterpretation at all, as if they had believed that all along"
that happens when religion is used inappropriately to reinforce cultural prejudice and scripture is deemed more specific than it actually is
that's not the case with homosexuality
scripture is clear
there will always be churches that compromise but they tend to die out
"It happened with separation of church and state,"
this was a concept first introduced by Jesus
"with slavery"
scripture rarely focuses on societal change but instead on individual change
that doesn't mean it ever supported institution such as slavery
"with women’s suffrage"
there are biblical verses clearly indicating the equality of men and women, which is why women's rights are only common in the Judeo-Christian world
"and with civil rights for blacks"
again, this began in the churches not the other way around
read up on history
"Our hottest year, our cold indifference"
Priya, you fool
we have presented you with the facts:
satellite temperature gauges indicate that global temperatures have not significantly changed in the 21st century
you're confused
this site is "teach the facts" not "fuel the ignorant alarmism"
"The new numbers are so striking that they surprised even climate scientists"
no, they aren't
they're barely different from a couple of earlier years in the last decade
"Do we want to pretend that the problem is one of mere abstract numbers—scientific data, spreadsheets?"
no, I'm suggesting you actually read them with objectivity
"At this point, we are hardly lacking in shimmering photo essays of melting glaciers, or of stories about tourists arriving in New Zealand or Switzerland and not finding the walls of ice they’d been led to expect. We are overwhelmed with anecdotes and uncanny scenes of habitat destruction"
you mean like the global warming alarmists expedition that went to Antarctica last year to document global warming and wound up stuck for weeks when even the ice-breakers sent to rescue them became stuck?
anecdotes are anecdotal
like the rumor that you have an IQ above 70
. (Read Elizabeth Kolbert’s book.) But, even without the pictures and stories, there are some useful, and frightening, ways to visualize those figures, and few honest ways to look at them and say one doesn’t understand. NASA has a set of color-coded maps—one can see the East Coast’s lonely coolness anomaly, joined only by one in part of Antarctica—and the Times has a version supplemented with historical data. Bloomberg has put together a striking animation of the jagged lines of average temperatures rising in the course of the past hundred and thirty-four years, like the water stains on an seawall.
January 19, 2015 11:35 AM Blogger Priya Lynn said...
Conservatives - willfully burning down the house we all live in so they can spite liberals.
January 19, 2015 11:39 AM
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"To the surprise of no one who has studied history, now that it appears all but inevitable, support for marriage equality is growing even among the group most likely to oppose it"
gay "marriage" is likely on the upper east and whole west coasts but has bleak prospects elsewhere
a number of courts have inappropriately overruled state constitutions but that will be corrected by SCOTUS later, in the Spring
in keeping with their prior ruling, the SCOTUS will assign responsibility for defining marriage to the states
then, many states will again properly recognize marriage as a gendered institution and male-female complementarity as a universal constant
"While pretending to have the One Eternal Truth"
this seems to describe the Priya attitude perfectly
"religions evolve in response to shifting societal attitudes and beliefs and they always have. Texts are simply reinterpreted, then everyone moves on as though there were no such reinterpretation at all, as if they had believed that all along"
that happens when religion is used inappropriately to reinforce cultural prejudice and scripture is deemed more specific than it actually is
that's not the case with homosexuality
scripture is clear
there will always be churches that compromise but they tend to die out
"It happened with separation of church and state,"
this was a concept first introduced by Jesus
"with slavery"
scripture rarely focuses on societal change but instead on individual change
that doesn't mean it ever supported institution such as slavery
"with women’s suffrage"
there are biblical verses clearly indicating the equality of men and women, which is why women's rights are only common in the Judeo-Christian world
"and with civil rights for blacks"
again, this began in the churches not the other way around
read up on history
"Our hottest year, our cold indifference"
Priya, you fool
we have presented you with the facts:
satellite temperature gauges indicate that global temperatures have not significantly changed in the 21st century
you're confused
this site is "teach the facts" not "fuel the ignorant alarmism"
"The new numbers are so striking that they surprised even climate scientists"
no, they aren't
they're barely different from a couple of earlier years in the last decade
"Do we want to pretend that the problem is one of mere abstract numbers—scientific data, spreadsheets?"
no, I'm suggesting you actually read them with objectivity
"At this point, we are hardly lacking in shimmering photo essays of melting glaciers, or of stories about tourists arriving in New Zealand or Switzerland and not finding the walls of ice they’d been led to expect. We are overwhelmed with anecdotes and uncanny scenes of habitat destruction"
you mean like the global warming alarmists expedition that went to Antarctica last year to document global warming and wound up stuck for weeks when even the ice-breakers sent to rescue them became stuck?
anecdotes are anecdotal
like the rumor that you have an IQ above 70
. (Read Elizabeth Kolbert’s book.) But, even without the pictures and stories, there are some useful, and frightening, ways to visualize those figures, and few honest ways to look at them and say one doesn’t understand. NASA has a set of color-coded maps—one can see the East Coast’s lonely coolness anomaly, joined only by one in part of Antarctica—and the Times has a version supplemented with historical data. Bloomberg has put together a striking animation of the jagged lines of average temperatures rising in the course of the past hundred and thirty-four years, like the water stains on an seawall.
January 19, 2015 11:35 AM Blogger Priya Lynn said...
Conservatives - willfully burning down the house we all live in so they can spite liberals.
January 19, 2015 11:39 AM
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Calm your nerves, double clicker.
"a number of courts have inappropriately overruled state constitutions but that will be corrected by SCOTUS later, in the Spring"
"On June 12, 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared: "There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. ... There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause [of the U.S. Constitution]""
I bet on or about June 7, 2015, the Supreme Court will declare, "There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious sexual orientation discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only marriages involving homosexual oriented persons demonstrates that the sexual orientation classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain Heterosexual Supremacy. ... There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of sexual orientation classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause [of the U.S. Constitution]""
scripture rarely focuses on societal change but instead on individual change
that doesn't mean it ever supported institution such as slavery
It's time for a little history lesson:
"Nearly every proslavery pamphlet, or article, or speaker made at least some reference to a biblical sanction of slavery. The reason for such a position should be clear. From the very beginning much of the attack upon slaveholding had always been upon moral grounds. Opponents of slavery claimed that it was a sin to hold slaves; the principle of right and wrong involved with slavery became fundamental to the argument. The South's use of the Bible to defend slavery and the master-slave relationship was thus an attempt to erect a moral defense of slavery. The emphasis from proslavery defenders was always upon a literal reading of the Bible which represented the mind and will of God himself. Slaveholding was not only justified but also moral because it was recognized as such in Holy Scripture. Slavery's defenders relied on this literal reading as a response to the emphasis upon the "principles of Christianity" used by those opposed to slavery. Proslavery advocates continually contrasted the rightness of their position, based on such a literal biblical reading, to the open-ended interpretive religion implied by those opposed to slavery. In 1820, for example, in the midst of the debates over Missouri statehood, the Richmond Enquirer went to elaborate lengths in a long editorial to emphasize the literal truth of the Bible and its sanction of slavery. After a long section giving various scriptural sanctions, the article concluded by giving "a plain concise statement of certain propositions that we presume few faithful believers will controvert....
The first element of this biblical defense of slavery was the concept of divine decree, that is, through the curse of Cain God had decreed slavery before it had actually come into existence. Genesis 9:20-27 tells the story of Noah and Ham. After the flood, Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard, eventually getting drunk from the wine produced. While drunk, he also became naked within his tent and was seen by Ham who told his brothers, Shem and Japeth. The latter two backed into Noah's tent in order to cover him without being seen. When Noah awakened he knew what Ham had done, and pronounced the curse (Gen. 9:25-27) which was to become the standard explanation for the origin of slavery. This particular proof of the divine sanction of slavery was quoted extensively in the proslavery literature...
An article in the Richmond Enquirer carried the consequence of Noah's curse even further. Commenting on Newton's Dissertation, the writer explained that since the Africans were the descendants of Ham and "their slavery an accomplishment of Noah's prediction," which was "divinely inspired," then "the present condition of the African is inevitable; all efforts to extinguish black slavery are idle. . . . " Ultimately, Dalcho reached this same conclusion. The Bible had also said, he pointed out, that the Jews would be exterminated as a nation and dispersed over the earth, but finally would be restored. However, nowhere in the Bible was there a prophecy which removed the curse of slavery from the descendants of Ham and Canaan. The obvious implication therefore was that slavery was to continue indefinitely...."
I only caught one line of Wyatt/bad anonymous's response, but of course he couldn't have been more wrong - the bible repeatedly condoned slavery:
Old Testament
Exodus 20:17"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."
Deuteronomy 5:21"Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbor's.
Exodus 21:20-21 "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money [property]."
Exodus 21:26-27 "And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake."
Exodus 21:1-4: "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."
Deuteronomy 15:12-18: "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him."
Exodus 21:7: "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."
you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly." (NIV)
Leviticus 25:48-53: "After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him."
Exodus 21:8: "If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money."
Leviticus 19:20-22: "And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the LORD for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him."
Leviticus 25:39: "And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant: But as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee: And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return."
New Testament
Matthew 18:25: "But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made."
Mark 14:66: "And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest:"
Luke 12:45-48: "The lord [owner] of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."
Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."
Colossians 4:1: "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven."
1 Timothy 6:1-3 "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;"
According to the Bible, God hands out hundreds of very specific and explicit commandments, down to what to eat and how to dress, and makes violations of many of those commands punishable by death. But nowhere does he say “Oh yeah, and don’t own other human beings. It’s wrong.”
So, its a poor cop-out to say "scripture rarely focuses on societal change but instead on individual change". Its individuals who own slaves, its individuals who are culpable for owning slaves, one cannot claim society is responsible for slavery but he as an individual slave-ower is not. If the christian god was a moral god he'd have unequivocally and explicitely told people it was wrong for them as individuals to buy, sell, or own slaves.
After all, society is nothing but a collection of individuals. When you tell individuals what to do and what is moral you tell society what to do and what is moral. Individuals and society are not unrelated and distinct things where one has reponsibility and the other does not. For a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient god there is no such thing as focussing on changing individuals and not society. You change individuals and you change society.
"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause"
as has been explained to the prize idiots of TTF, race has nothing to do with the marital relationship and gender has everything to do with it
furthermore, homosexuals never wanted to be married until it became part of the gay agenda
the goal of which is that anyone who says homosexuality is not normal will be penalized by the government
there is a complementariness of the genders which makes marriage a stabilizing, indeed organizing, institution of society
that's the rationale and it is not up to the Supreme Court to rule on whether that's true or not
it's enough that that is the motivation for defining marriage to include both genders
Gays getting married won't stop any marriages from including both genders. Banning gay marriage won't result in any additional marriages that include both genders.
Once again, the anti-marriage bigot's claimed purpose for marriage is not impacted by marriage equality - there is no legitimate state interest in banning gay marriage. Just as the bigots say marriage is for the children marriage will benefit the children of gay couples.
well, as was said before, the scripture focuses on how individuals should serve God regardless of the economic system they are part of
it never advocates revolutions to overthrow the existing system
even Jesus, in the time of the evil Roman rule over Palestine,, did not advocate anything other than living righteously within the society as existed
there could be a long discussion, and this is not the place for it, about how "slavery" in biblical was nothing like the vicious and evil slavery of America and England during the colonial period
the church, first led by a cleric from England named Wilberforce, finally led the abolishment of this form of slavery
back in biblical times, life was more desperate and there were many who would gladly become slaves in large estates and farms as a way to survive
it wasn't possible to sit on your ass all day and surf the web and have the government take money from others and give it to you
when you think about it, when someone works and then the fruit of their labor is taken away by governmental force and given to someone who doesn't work
isn't that slavery?
"Gays getting married won't stop any marriages from including both genders"
what it will end is the uniqueness of marriage
there will no longer be a word that means a man and a woman coming together as one
and the purpose, again, is to manipulate the forces of government into thought and speech control, imposing on everyone a requirement not to say that homosexuality isn't normal
"Banning gay marriage won't result in any additional marriages that include both genders"
using the term "banning" is propaganda
no one is proposing "banning" anything
what is being opposed is a redefinition of the term used to encourage societal stability
is gays want to get together and have a little party and tell everyone they're "married", no one is suggesting banning them from doing that
it's simply that society shouldn't have the charade opposed on them
"Once again, the anti-marriage bigot's claimed purpose for marriage is not impacted by marriage equality - there is no legitimate state interest in banning gay marriage"
actually, there is no legitimate state interest served in redefining marriage to accommodate deviant practices
but whether there is or not, is a question each state should decided for themselves
and. indeed, that's what will happen
""Once again, the anti-marriage bigot's claimed purpose for marriage is not impacted by marriage equality - there is no legitimate state interest in banning gay marriage"
actually, there is no legitimate state interest served in redefining marriage to accommodate deviant practices"
The court case is not about what goes on in couples' bedrooms even though you remain obviously fixated there. The Supreme Court already decided in Lawrence v. Texas that consenting adults are free to enjoy sexual relations as they choose.
The case is about the US Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
For example -- marriage equality laws protect the children of same sex marriages the same way existing marriage laws already protect the children of opposite sex marriages.
The Supreme Court ruled Virginia must redefine marriage to accommodate not only those who believe, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.," but also those who don't hold such racists beliefs.
The Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution means regardless of your beliefs, you have the right to be treated equally under the law. If you believe God put "different races" on separate continents to keep them apart, or made humans male and female and only wants opposite sex couples to wed, by all means marry within your own race and/or a person of the opposite gender by your own choice, but you cannot prevent those of us who believe differently from also having the legal right to wed.
Unequal treatment under the law might works in Russia but we eschew it here in the USA.
"The court case is not about what goes on in couples' bedrooms even though you remain obviously fixated there. The Supreme Court already decided in Lawrence v. Texas that consenting adults are free to enjoy sexual relations as they choose."
they are free from prohibitions
that's not to say our society can't encourage or preference certain activities
indeed, doing so is one of the primary functions of government
for example, the government has an interest in promoting condom use among homosexuals but couldn't outlaw unprotected deviance
encouragement of an activity does not equate to banning its opposite
"The case is about the US Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law."
it's alleged to be that by gay advocates but.in truth, no protection is involved, regardless of how the court rules
"For example -- marriage equality laws protect the children of same sex marriages the same way existing marriage laws already protect the children of opposite sex marriages"
the children of single persons, which is what the children of gays will be when the SCOTUS upholds democratically determined laws in 2/3 of states, have exactly the same protections under the law as the children of married couples
we don't discriminate against the children of the unmarried
"The Supreme Court ruled Virginia must redefine marriage to accommodate not only those who believe, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.," but also those who don't hold such racists beliefs."
race is not integral to marriage
gender is
"The Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution means regardless of your beliefs, you have the right to be treated equally under the law"
the definition of marriage doesn't change anyone's treatment under the law
"If you believe God put "different races" on separate continents to keep them apart, or made humans male and female and only wants opposite sex couples to wed, by all means marry within your own race and/or a person of the opposite gender by your own choice, but you cannot prevent those of us who believe differently from also having the legal right to wed"
everyone has the right to wed
no one has the right to redefine it
"Unequal treatment under the law might works in Russia but we eschew it here in the USA"
under your definition of "equal treatment", we couldn't, for example, give family leave to those with children or tax the wealthy at higher rates
you haven't thought through the logic of your position
OXFAM reports:
WEALTH: HAVING IT ALL AND WANTING MORE
"Global wealth is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of a small wealthy elite. These wealthy individuals have generated and sustained their vast riches through their interests and activities in a few important economic sectors, including finance and pharmaceuticals/healthcare. Companies from these sectors spend millions of dollars every year on lobbying to create a policy environment that protects and enhances their interests further. The most prolific lobbying activities in the US are on budget and tax issues; public resources that should be directed to benefit the whole population, rather than reflect the interests of powerful lobbyists."
it is OXFAM's mission to say that
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/20/oxfams-still-wrong-about-the-global-1-and-all-economic-growth-flowing-to-them/
"you haven't thought through the logic of your position"
Did you find Justice Kennedy's majority decisions in Lawrence v. Texas and U.S. v. Windsor to adhere to your definition "logic?"
I didn't think so.
It would appear you are the one who has more thinking to do.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "well, as was said before, the scripture focuses on how individuals should serve God regardless of the economic system they are part of it never advocates revolutions to overthrow the existing system".
No one is talking about overthrowing the existing system. If your god had advised individuals that its wrong to buy, sell, and own slaves and all individuals follow him as he desires then individuals choose to abolish slavery of their own volition, there is no overthrowing. Surely a just and loving god believes individuals can serve him by not buying, selling, and owning slaves but yet your god gives no such directive to any individuals.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "even Jesus, in the time of the evil Roman rule over Palestine,, did not advocate anything other than living righteously within the society as existed".
Wrong.
Mathew 10:33-37
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
Mathew 10:21
Families will be torn apart because of Jesus (this is one of the few "prophecies" in the Bible that has actually come true). "Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death."
Mathew 24:37
Jesus had no problem with the idea of drowning everyone on earth in the flood. It'll be just like that when he returns.
Luke 12:46-47
Jesus says that God is like a slave-owner who beats his slaves "with many stripes."
And let's not forget all the times God instructs the Israelites to invade other peoples lands, overthrow the existing system, kill all the men and married women and keep the unmarried women for sex slaves.
I could go on but suffice it to say the idea that the christian god never advocates revolutions to overthrow the existing system shows great ignorance of the bible.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "there could be a long discussion, and this is not the place for it, about how "slavery" in biblical was nothing like the vicious and evil slavery of America and England during the colonial period".
A common christian lie about slavery in biblical times. As the bible says its all right if a man beats his slave to death so long as the slave survives at least a couple of days after the beating.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the church, first led by a cleric from England named Wilberforce, finally led the abolishment of this form of slavery".
Another gross distortion. Wilberforce advocated the abolition of slavery but for every one of him there was two people who justified slavery through Christianity.
Wyatt'bad anonymous said "back in biblical times, life was more desperate and there were many who would gladly become slaves in large estates and farms as a way to survive".
What you're talking about is indentured servitude which was only one sort of slavery practiced in biblical times. In slavery where Israelites didn't own other Israelites no one entered slavery by choice, they were taken and enslaved by force.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "when you think about it, when someone works and then the fruit of their labor is taken away by governmental force and given to someone who doesn't work isn't that slavery?".
By that logic all taxes are slavery. Many right wing extremists would agree with you but people who value society do not.
I said "Gays getting married won't stop any marriages from including both genders"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "what it will end is the uniqueness of marriage".
Looking at it one way, with billions of couples marrying there is nothing whatsoever unique about marriage. Looking at it another way every married couple is unique and every marriage is unique. Gay couples marrying has no effect whatsoever on the "uniqueness" of marriage.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "there will no longer be a word that means a man and a woman coming together as one".
Nonsense. Marriage will still mean a man and a woman coming together as one. It will just also mean a same sex couple coming together as one. Just as the word "colour" means both yellow and brown.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "and the purpose, again, is to manipulate the forces of government into thought and speech control, imposing on everyone a requirement not to say that homosexuality isn't normal".
Nonsense, that's just an excuse for you to pretend there's a reason to deny gays the right to marry. Fact is as long as LGBT people have equal rights none of us give a damn if you run around screaming from the top of your lungs "It isn't normal!". In Canada the bigots still rail against gays and lesbians and their "abnormality" just like they always did. Gay marriage changed nothing whatsoever about what they are able to do.
I said "Banning gay marriage won't result in any additional marriages that include both genders"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "using the term "banning" is propaganda no one is proposing "banning" anything what is being opposed is a redefinition of the term used to encourage societal stability".
What obvious Orwellian tripe. You can call a turd by any name you want but it still smells as bad. The gay marriage bans were introduced in response to gays seeking to marry, they were intended to prevent such marriages, they did prevent such marriages, those laws preventing gays from marrying can only honestly be called bans on gay marriage. If they weren't bans on gay marriage gays would be able to marry - case closed. And "redefining" marriage has no effect whatsoever on the encouragement of societal stability. Wait, I take that back. It does affect societal stability in that it makes gays and lesbians more stable as couples and benefits all society. It has no effect on encouraging the stability of opposite sex couples.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "is[sic] gays want to get together and have a little party and tell everyone they're "married", no one is suggesting banning them from doing that it's simply that society shouldn't have the charade opposed [sic] on them"
That's not the problem, the problem is that bigots are trying to prevent the government from recognizing those marriages and giving gays and lesbians the same 1400 rights and obligations heterosexual married couples get. That's a violation of the 14th amendment. The gay couple down the street marrying has no effect whatsoever on any opposite sex married couple and so nothing is "opposed" on any one. Contrary to your absurd claim that everyone else "participates" in a couple's marriage, only the couple involved can be said to participate in their marriage in any real and meaningful sense. You have no right to control any marriage other than your own.
I said "Once again, the anti-marriage bigot's claimed purpose for marriage is not impacted by marriage equality - there is no legitimate state interest in banning gay marriage"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "actually, there is no legitimate state interest served in redefining marriage to accommodate deviant practices".
Wrong on two counts. First, all major medical and mental health organizations agree gayness is a normal, natural, and healthy variant of human sexuality. Second, just as all bigots agree that marriage is beneficial to opposite sex couples and their children it is beneficial to same sex couples and their children. It benefits individuals (and harms no one)and thus by extension benefits all of society to fulfil the obligations of the 14th amendment and give gays the right to marry.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “but whether there is or not, is a question each state should decided for themselves”.
The states are free to decide marriage for themselves within the framework of federal laws and of the federal constitution. When the states contravene the constitution’s guarantees with their marriage laws they must be overturned as was the case with Loving vs Virginia and will be the case with same sex marriage bans.
Good anonymous said "The court case is not about what goes on in couples' bedrooms even though you remain obviously fixated there. The Supreme Court already decided in Lawrence v. Texas that consenting adults are free to enjoy sexual relations as they choose."
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “they are free from prohibitions that's not to say our society can't encourage or preference certain activities indeed, doing so is one of the primary functions of government for example, the government has an interest in promoting condom use among homosexuals but couldn't outlaw unprotected deviance encouragement of an activity does not equate to banning its opposite”.
Gays and lesbians are most certainly not free from prohibitions. They are in 16 states prohibited from marrying, from making life and death decisions for their life partners, from seeing each other in the hospital when all but family are banned from the hospital room, from receiving their life partners social insurance and so on - that is a gross injustice that must be rectified. Society can encourage or preference certain activites but there must be a legitimate state interest for it to have the power to do so. There is no legitimate state interest served by banning gay marriage and it is an afront to freedom for the state to “encourage or preference”(ban) certain activities when there is no legitimate reason to do so.
Good anonymous said "The case is about the US Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law."
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “it's alleged to be that by gay advocates but.in truth, no protection is involved, regardless of how the court rules”.
Nonsense. The right to equal protection under the law is at the heart of this case. There is no equal protection under the law if gay couplesx don’t have the same right to marry as opposite sex couples. As the Supreme court has ruled several times before, “Marriage is one of the fundamental rights of man” and “if the right to marry does not include the right to marry the partner of your choosing it is no right at all”.
I said "For example -- marriage equality laws protect the children of same sex marriages the same way existing marriage laws already protect the children of opposite sex marriages"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “the children of single persons, which is what the children of gays will be when the SCOTUS upholds democratically determined laws in 2/3 of states, have exactly the same protections under the law as the children of married couples we don't discriminate against the children of the unmarried”.
Right, president Huckabee. Marriage gives parents 1400 rights and obligations that even the bigots agree benefit the children of married couples. Unless the children of gay couples have married parents they don’t have the same protections under the law as married parents. For example, if an unmarried gay couple split their children don’t automatically have the same right children of married parents do to visit both parents. As many of the federal circuit courts have ruled, not allowing the gay parents of children to marry sends a message to their children that society does not value them as much, that society disparages their parents and deprives both them and their parents of many fundamental rights and obligations of marriage - that is gross and invidious discrimination against the children of gay couples who are banned from marriage.
Good anonymous said "The Supreme Court ruled Virginia must redefine marriage to accommodate not only those who believe, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.," but also those who don't hold such racists beliefs."
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “race is not integral to marriage gender is”.
Nonsense. The successful marriages of hundreds of thousands of same sex couples proves opposing genders is not integral to marriage. That a couple is opposite sex is no assurance they are complementary and that a couple is same sex is no assurance that they are not. What the courts have consistently ruled (eventually(the arc of justice is long...)) is that the government cannot prevent the marriage of couples based on harmless characteristics such as race. They will rule the same regarding sexual orientation.
Good anonymous said "The Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution means regardless of your beliefs, you have the right to be treated equally under the law"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “the definition of marriage doesn't change anyone's treatment under the law”.
Obviously wrong. There are 1400 rights and obligations associated with marriage. Banning gay marriage denies gay couples those 1400 rights and obligations and treats them drastically differently than opposite sex couples - that undeniably violates the 14th amendment.
Good anonymous said "If you believe God put "different races" on separate continents to keep them apart, or made humans male and female and only wants opposite sex couples to wed, by all means marry within your own race and/or a person of the opposite gender by your own choice, but you cannot prevent those of us who believe differently from also having the legal right to wed"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “everyone has the right to wed no one has the right to redefine it”
That’s the same argument used by the racists in Loving vs Virginia - “Whites have the right to marry a person of their race just as blacks have the right to marry a person of their race”. It didn’t fly then and it won’t fly now. The rights under the bill of rights are rights given to the individual, rights are not given to groups. Therefore it is the individual that must be treated equally, not groups. The law cannot say “males and females each have the same right to an opposite sex partner”, the law must say that if John can marry Alice then Betty must have the same right John has to marry Alice. Anything else is a violation of the 14th amendment and indeed courts have ruled “the right to marry means nothing if it does not include the right to marry the partner of your choosing”.
Good anonymous said "Unequal treatment under the law might works in Russia but we eschew it here in the USA"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said “under your definition of "equal treatment", we couldn't, for example, give family leave to those with children or tax the wealthy at higher rates you haven't thought through the logic of your position”
The one who hasn’t thought through with logic is you as is evidenced by the simplemindedness of your argument. Under our definition of equal treatment the law must treat people equally unless there is a legitimate state interest in not doing so. And as I’ve masterfully demonstrated there is no legitimate reason to ban gay marriage but there is a societal interest in allowing gay couples to marry as marriage benefits them, their children, and thus by extension all of society.
Oh, and I almost forgot:
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "No one has the right to redefine marriage".
Obviously nonsense. Societies make their own rules and have the right to define marriage however they wish according to the legal procedures they've established. In the United States that means the federal constitution is the overriding law of the land.
Wyatt/bad anonymous is too stupid to understand the U.S. system of government. The Judicial branch was given equal authority, it is the job of the judicial branch to ensure laws passed by the legislative branch aren't unconstitutional - when they are the judicial branch is obligated to strike those laws down - that's the American system of government.
If courts are limited to ensuring the laws passed by politicians or the people are enforced then there is no restraint on which laws may be passed. Laws are often passed that violate the ultimate law of the land, the constitution, and if there is no recourse in the courts then politicians are free to pass any law they like that ignores the individual rights guaranteed by the constitution and the constitution essentially becomes worthless.
Ignoring the right of the court to assure laws are subject to the constitution is going against what the founders of the U.S. intended. They knowingly and willingly gave the court the right to overturn laws that don’t follow the constitution because to do otherwise would be to invite anarchy, dictatorship, and the tyranny of the majority.
And of course although states have the right to regulate marriage they do not have the right to do so in a way that violates the U.S. constitution. The U.S. supreme court overrode the states' right to define marriage in Loving vs Virginia based on the 14th amendment and will do so again regarding gay marriage bans.
Gay couples aren't redefining anyone's marriage, they are only defining their own and no one has a right under the U.S. constitution to tell them they can't.
eleven drolling, fuming rants is a row
ah, Priya, repetition and rage do not suffice as an argument
the chances are 27,000 to 1 you're wrong
"By that logic all taxes are slavery"
only when the purpose is to redistribute income
in that case, by definition, you have slavery because you are forcing someone to work for someone else without remuneration
taxes should be for common societal expenses we have all decided it would be advantageous to pay for together
Wyatt/bad anonymous will likely eventually get to posting this bit of global warming denialismIs 2014 The Hottest Year Ever? Satellites Say No or something similar so I decided to address it before he attempts to deceive people with it.
The denialism article says "In one sense, the breathless stories are correct: 2014 was the hottest year on record — by no more than four-hundredths of a degree. But that's based on surface thermometer records, which are not reliable. Better measurement is done by satellites, and they indicate 2014 was the third-warmest in the 36 years that satellites have been used to document temperatures.".
The denialism article goes on: "John Christy says the satellite data show that temperature changes since 2001 are "statistically insignificant.". Roger Pielke, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, told the Post that "there remain significant uncertainties in the accuracy of the land portion of the surface temperature data, where we have found a significant warm bias." Judith Curry said that "with 2014 essentially tied with 2005 and 2010 for hottest year," the implication is "that there has been essentially no trend in warming over the past decade."
Roger Pielke has a long history of misrepresenting the science of global warming,--- as does Judith Curry. 97% of climate scientists agree global warming is happening and is man-made.
In fact its a lie that there has been no trend in warming over the past decade. Surface temperature measurments are far more accurate then satellite temperature data. While early surface temperature measurements from the 1850's were not taken from as many places as they are today those measurements vary little in accuracy from measurments taken today. And the majority of global warming in the last 164 years has taken place since 1970 after more widespread temperature monitoring was in place and there is no doubt about the accuracy of those measurements. The author of this global warming denialism article falsely claims a "scandal" was uncovered by the hacking of emails of climatoligists which showed them "manipulating" the data. In fact the so called scandal was thoroughly investigated and it was discovered that the so-called data manipulation was really routine statistical analysis work that is widely accepted as valid procedures amongst statistitions and that the calculations made had no effect on the temperatures reported.
Satellites can only measure surface temperatures indirectly and there's a lot of room for error. They use microwave signlals which tend to reflect temperatures at various altitudes. As the satellites vary in age their technology is different, readings vary and the data must be adjusted to try to account for that. The area of the earth covered by each satellite needs to overlap with the area covered by other satellites to try to make the numbers compatible and this is problem prone. Each satellite has slightly different calibrations, orbits etc. To get a long term temperature series, you need to ‘splice’ together the data from various satellites, launched and de-activated at different times. You need enough overlap between the operating lives of each satellite to compare their results to establish a common baseline. Many of the satellites have had quite long lives so another factor is degradation of the equipment and ‘drift’ in their calibrations. There is then the question of whether to use a new satellite’s data with its overlap issues or continue using an older satellite with its ageing issues.
The satellites also do not have propulsion systems so orbit decay affects the readings as does heating and cooling of the satellites. All of this combines to result in satellite temperature measurement data being quite unreliable. There are far more problems than I've mentioned here, have a look at the link to see the true depth of problems with satellite temperature data.
The aforementioned John Christy who once claimed the satellite data show the temperature increases since 2001 are "statistically insignifcant originally made that assertion in after he completed a series of papers in the 1990s. Later analysis of the satellite data he was using in a 2006 study found him recanting that claim and writing in the study "Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human-induced global warming... This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies."
When the correct adjustments to the satellite data were applied the data matched much more closely the trends expected by climate models. It was also more consistent with the historical record of troposphere temperatures obtained from weather balloons. As better methods to adjust for biases in instruments and orbital changes have been developed, the differences between the surface temperature record and the troposphere have steadily decreased.
So, contrary to the global warming denialism article ":Is 2014 The Hottest Year Ever? Satellites Say No" there is no growing discrepancy between climate model projections and the surface temperature observations. The truth is the most recent satellite data show the earth as a whole is warming.
The denialism article then attempts to deceive the reader by pointing out that ice cores and other long term temperature data show its been warmer than now at times during the past 10,000 years. But, that's not the whole story by any stretch. Temperatures now are warmer than they were during 75% of the last 11,000 years and what we're seeing now is unprecedented.
You might think, so what's to worry about? But the record shows just how unusual our current warming is. It's really the rates of change here that's amazing and atypical, it's warming up superfast.
Here's what happened. After the end of the ice age, the planet got warmer. Then, 5,000 years ago, it started to get cooler — but really slowly. In all, it cooled 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, up until the last century or so. Then it flipped again — global average temperature shot up.
Temperatures now have gone from that cold period to the warm period in just 100 years. So it's taken just 100 years for the average temperature to change by 1.3 degrees, when it took 5,000 years to do that before. The global warming denialism article "Is 2014 The Hottest Year Ever? Satellites Say No" tries to make a big deal out of 2014 only being warmer than the previous record hottest year by 4 one hundredths of a degree. While the change from one year to the next may be quite small what matters is how these small yearly temperature increases are adding up to something substantial over time and that is a serious matter.
"The climate changes to come are going to be larger than anything that human civilization and agriculture has seen in its entire existence," says Gavin Schmidt, a climate researcher at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "And that is quite a sobering thought."
sorry, you've pushed over two hundred
no point in any more posts
you screwed up
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