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d-usa wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

d-usa wrote:I thought that the logical conclusion to gay marriage was pedophiles marrying six year olds and grandpas marrying goats?

No, first Polygamy, then Pederasty, then Bestiality.

Focus, d-usa, Focus!

When does Lars get to marry his doll?

When the Ghosts and Horses can marry.

Medium of Death wrote:The UK doesn't have Gay Marriage. It has a Civil Partnership which is pretty much the same thing.

Would Civil Partnership not go down better in the States? It's not got Marriage in the Title, but it's pretty much the same thing.

Surely all the 'Sanctity of Marriage' types would back down if it wasn't technically a Marriage?

In the UK, people increasingly call it "Gay Marriage" even though legally it is a Civil Partnership.

Amusingly, there is a movement to have Civil Partnership made available to non-same-sex couples, to allow them to be "married in all but name".

Some form of state registration of marriages and civil partnerships is necessary when legal privileges are granted to people who are married and denied to people who are not married.

d-usa wrote:

CptJake wrote:

d-usa wrote:So separate and not equal again?

Not sure what you mean, I have all those documents to ensure my intent is met and I've been married to my wife for over 20 years. She has those documents too. We also have the 'in case we both get capped' documents.

Nothing 'separate but equal' when the EXACT SAME protections and instruments can be used by everyone.

If the intent is SO gets to make medical decisions, THEY CAN DO SO. Right now. Today. If they want to leave their wordly goods and cash to their SO, THEY CAN DO SO. Right now. Today.

So can the hetero couples that don't get married. They have THE SAME protections IF they take advantage of them. To NOT take advantage of these instruments is frankly asinine if you are concerned about the effects of not having done so.

Difference being: you can do it, and if you don't you are still married which gives you many rights.

They have to do it, and if they don't they are fethed.

BUT my point was and remains, the whole SO can't make medical decisions or inherit argument makes no sense, because, again, using the same instruments ANYONE can use, the SO can make medical decisions and inherit. Go back to my original post on it.

CptJake wrote:

streamdragon wrote:And yet she has no legal standing with that. If her SO were to be hurt, she would have no visitation rights, no say in medical care, and ultimately no right to anything involved.

This part of the argument has always interested me. Do homosexual couples lack the ability to generate wills, living wills, and powers of attorney? If so, what limits their capability? If not, why couldn't they address these issues if they chose to do so using currently available instruments?

I stand by it. That part of the argument makes no sense. All it does is show laziness or ignorance on the part of certain people who don't take advantage of existing mechanisms to protect their loved ones regardless of sexual orientation. This isn't a gay/straight issue. It is a 'I don't care enough about you to fill out a POA and will' issue.

Any other legal/tax issues you want to bring up may be worth discussing, but this 'issue' is too easy to address, and it affects straight non-married folks the same way it affects the homosexual folks.

Show me the form a homosexual fills out so that if their military SO is killed, they get the flag.

There is no form that allows me to add my non-married spouse to my healthcare plan. I can only add spouses or children.

You can nitpick the specifics of the benefits all you like, but the fact remains that unless ALL benefits are the same, you have created a state of "separate but (not really) equal".

Go back to the topic which discussed the end of DADT here on Dakka. I specifically brought up it was WRONG to end DADT the way they did BECAUSE as implemented it would not allow homosexuals to have dependents get the same privilleges.

Again, I am only arguing that the 'my SO can't make medical decsions or inherit' argument is asinine. It is. You can bring up OTHER arguments and should. BUT that argument is asinine because the solution is the SAME for everyone, homosexual or straight.

Bluntly, if you don't give enough of a crap about your loved one to do a POA and will, don't blame the Gov't.


By the way, there are a lot of health care plans that allow the addition of a Life Partner. I suggest shopping for the plan that best fits YOUR requirements vice depending on the Gov't to fix YOUR problems.

You can make medical decisions for your SO by getting married.

They cannot get married and have to jump through hoops and fill out state specific forms to get the same healthcare powers you get by getting married.

Just because you can fill out the same form doesn't mean that it is right that they have to fill out a form for any state that they may have an emergency in.

Let's say they do have all their papers, go on vacation in Hawaii and have a horrible accident. They would most likely have their documents with them, and even if they did it would often mean that it is not valid in that state. So a road trip along route 66 would require a trip to the attorney to draw up legal documents for how many states?

Of course you don't have to do any of that, because you are married.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Ok question. If we allow gay marriage, will polygamy follow.
I find that arguement ALOT, but i cant for the life of me find a counter argument that doesn't use my own statements against me.

There is already polygamy going on, whats your point?

sirlynchmob wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:Ok question. If we allow gay marriage, will polygamy follow.
I find that arguement ALOT, but i cant for the life of me find a counter argument that doesn't use my own statements against me.

There is already polygamy going on, whats your point?

He's talking about legalized polygamy.

The real issue here is people want the government to have permission to say who can and can not get married.

Imagine how much fun it would be if you go to get married and they don't give you a license.


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Chowderhead wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:Ok question. If we allow gay marriage, will polygamy follow.
I find that arguement ALOT, but i cant for the life of me find a counter argument that doesn't use my own statements against me.

There is already polygamy going on, whats your point?

He's talking about legalized polygamy.

weird I thought it was legal in Nevada.

But really whats the problem with polygamy? If you want to have more than 1 wife who does it hurt? or if a woman wants more than one husband. As long as everyone is consenting adults they should be able to do so.

What I find humorous about that whole argument is it usually comes from the religious people who don't want gay marriage so they use it as a slippery slope argument, Even though their bible tells them how to treat all your wives, the bible endorses polygamy.

Medium of Death wrote:The whole 'all or nothing' stance for gay marriage isn't really going to get anybody anywhere. It's a shame Obama didn't advocate Civil Partnerships.

He did for a very long time. He changed his mind when realizing something very important: "separate but equal" is not actually equal in practice, just like it wasn't equal during the segregation era.

This is especially true given that the same conservative whackjobs are also doing things like...

... trying to remove insurance reform that DOES allow for homosexual SOs to use their insurance to cover their lover (because they want homosexuals to suffer).

... trying to write federal laws that nullify the supreme court ruling that declared sodomy laws illegal (because they want to jail and punish homosexuals).

... trying to enforce a law which directly defies the constitution so that states can deny married couples any and all benefits under law, as long as the married couple is homosexual (because they want homosexuals to suffer).

... trying to pass laws that make adoption by homosexual couples illegal (even though psychological and sociological studies prove that homosexual couples raise well adjusted kids).

... trying to put DADT back on the books so that they can force homosexual soldiers to lie to their fellow servicemen and women (because they want homosexuals to suffer and don't care about how it reduces the effectiveness of the military).

These are sick, demented people. Welcome to the US legislative body.

As an aside:

Nero plays the hard while Rome burns. The real unemployment rate is still at 11%.

Frazzled wrote:Nero plays the hard while Rome burns. The real unemployment rate is still at 11%.

Whcih is lower than it was when his term started. You can argue that there hasn't been enough improvement ,but there HAS been improvement.

No thanks to the Republicans, who have been enforcing massive amounts of job cuts to the public sector which have done a lot to counteract the various job increases in the private sector.

But they don't like it when you point out the fact that whenever you fire someone who works in the public sector, it adds to the unemployment rate.

Frazzled wrote:Nero plays the hard while Rome burns. The real unemployment rate is still at 11%.

Nero was a neckbeard.

Melissia wrote:But they don't like it when you point out the fact that whenever you fire someone who works in the public sector, it adds to the unemployment rate.

So to take your argument the other way, if we allowed the governement to double its expenditures, increase its payroll headcount by 100%, and drop the unemployment rate to ~3% within the span of months, the US would be a better place?

sourclams wrote:

Melissia wrote:But they don't like it when you point out the fact that whenever you fire someone who works in the public sector, it adds to the unemployment rate.

So to take your argument the other way, if we allowed the governement to double its expenditures, increase its payroll headcount by 100%, and drop the unemployment rate to ~3% within the span of months, the US would be a better place?

That all depends on why the headcount was increased. A massive public works project could easily make the US a better place-- building and repairing roads and railroads, renovating aged sewage infrastructure, replacing aging phone lines and internet infrastructure with newer infrastructure, rebuilding or renovating old government buildings so that they're more energy efficient and better looking, public art projects, improving the efficiency of our power grids and power lines, etc etc etc. All of them would improve the country and make it a better place to live, while also employing many people who otherwise would have been an unproductive drain on society.

That'd make the country a better place, and it could also be used to stimulate private sector employment at the same time (private sector companies contracted to design the new buildings and infrastructure, or to put in and manage high-tech parts of them such as sensors, solar panels, and the like, or to provide skilled labor, nevermind the increased consumption and economic demand that would be a direct result of the increased employment, and the benefits that they would have from the infrastructure itself).

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Nero plays the hard while Rome burns. The real unemployment rate is still at 11%.

Whcih is lower than it was when his term started.
No, its not. Not by a good bit. Don't let facts get in the way though.

No thanks to the Republicans, who have been enforcing massive amounts of job cuts to the public sector which have done a lot to counteract the various job increases in the private sector.

Good. Show me two government workers and I'll show one who should be fired.

Frazzled wrote:

No thanks to the Republicans, who have been enforcing massive amounts of job cuts to the public sector which have done a lot to counteract the various job increases in the private sector.

Good. Show me two government workers and I'll show one who should be fired.

That doesn't make sense...

Melissia wrote:

sourclams wrote:

Melissia wrote:But they don't like it when you point out the fact that whenever you fire someone who works in the public sector, it adds to the unemployment rate.

So to take your argument the other way, if we allowed the governement to double its expenditures, increase its payroll headcount by 100%, and drop the unemployment rate to ~3% within the span of months, the US would be a better place?

That all depends on why the headcount was increased. A massive public works project could easily make the US a better place-- building and repairing roads and railroads, renovating aged sewage infrastructure, replacing aging phone lines and internet infrastructure with newer infrastructure, rebuilding or renovating old government buildings so that they're more energy efficient and better looking, public art projects, improving the efficiency of our power grids and power lines, etc etc etc. All of them would improve the country and make it a better place to live, while also employing many people who otherwise would have been an unproductive drain on society.

That'd make the country a better place, and it could also be used to stimulate private sector employment at the same time (private sector companies contracted to design the new buildings and infrastructure, or to put in and manage high-tech parts of them such as sensors, solar panels, and the like, or to provide skilled labor, nevermind the increased consumption and economic demand that would be a direct result of the increased employment, and the benefits that they would have from the infrastructure itself).

Check your Facebook. Marx wants to friend you.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:

sourclams wrote:

Melissia wrote:But they don't like it when you point out the fact that whenever you fire someone who works in the public sector, it adds to the unemployment rate.

So to take your argument the other way, if we allowed the governement to double its expenditures, increase its payroll headcount by 100%, and drop the unemployment rate to ~3% within the span of months, the US would be a better place?

That all depends on why the headcount was increased. A massive public works project could easily make the US a better place-- building and repairing roads and railroads, renovating aged sewage infrastructure, replacing aging phone lines and internet infrastructure with newer infrastructure, rebuilding or renovating old government buildings so that they're more energy efficient and better looking, public art projects, improving the efficiency of our power grids and power lines, etc etc etc. All of them would improve the country and make it a better place to live, while also employing many people who otherwise would have been an unproductive drain on society.

That'd make the country a better place, and it could also be used to stimulate private sector employment at the same time (private sector companies contracted to design the new buildings and infrastructure, or to put in and manage high-tech parts of them such as sensors, solar panels, and the like, or to provide skilled labor, nevermind the increased consumption and economic demand that would be a direct result of the increased employment, and the benefits that they would have from the infrastructure itself).

Check your Facebook. Marx wants to friend you.

Who cares?
It sounds like a pretty good idea...

purplefood wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

No thanks to the Republicans, who have been enforcing massive amounts of job cuts to the public sector which have done a lot to counteract the various job increases in the private sector.

Good. Show me two government workers and I'll show one who should be fired.

That doesn't make sense...

Translation: Government employees are slow an bureaucratic. Half could be fired with no impairment to efficiency. Don't believe me? Go to the local DPS, tax assessor, or UK equivalent of social security office.
I had the misfortune of having to register and transfer some cars and had to deal with the local tax assessor. Outside of a nursing home, I've literally never seen anyone LITERALLY move that slowly (plus they were, er huge). Saw a few bolt out for lunch at the crack of 10.15 (must have been lunch they didnt't come back) and they sure grabbed their purses and bailed fast.

Sure business sucks (United I am flinging poo in your general direction), but they don't ALL suck.


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purplefood wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:

sourclams wrote:

Melissia wrote:But they don't like it when you point out the fact that whenever you fire someone who works in the public sector, it adds to the unemployment rate.

So to take your argument the other way, if we allowed the governement to double its expenditures, increase its payroll headcount by 100%, and drop the unemployment rate to ~3% within the span of months, the US would be a better place?

That all depends on why the headcount was increased. A massive public works project could easily make the US a better place-- building and repairing roads and railroads, renovating aged sewage infrastructure, replacing aging phone lines and internet infrastructure with newer infrastructure, rebuilding or renovating old government buildings so that they're more energy efficient and better looking, public art projects, improving the efficiency of our power grids and power lines, etc etc etc. All of them would improve the country and make it a better place to live, while also employing many people who otherwise would have been an unproductive drain on society.

That'd make the country a better place, and it could also be used to stimulate private sector employment at the same time (private sector companies contracted to design the new buildings and infrastructure, or to put in and manage high-tech parts of them such as sensors, solar panels, and the like, or to provide skilled labor, nevermind the increased consumption and economic demand that would be a direct result of the increased employment, and the benefits that they would have from the infrastructure itself).

Check your Facebook. Marx wants to friend you.

Who cares?
It sounds like a pretty good idea...

Of course it does if you're not a student of math, consequences, economics, etc. etc.

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

No thanks to the Republicans, who have been enforcing massive amounts of job cuts to the public sector which have done a lot to counteract the various job increases in the private sector.

Good. Show me two government workers and I'll show one who should be fired.

That doesn't make sense...

Translation: Government employees are slow an bureaucratic. Half could be fired with no impairment to efficiency. Don't believe me? Go to the local DPS, tax assessor, or UK equivalent of social security office.
I had the misfortune of having to register and transfer some cars and had to deal with the local tax assessor. Outside of a nursing home, I've literally never seen anyone LITERALLY move that slowly (plus they were, er huge). Saw a few bolt out for lunch at the crack of 10.15 (must have been lunch they didnt't come back) and they sure grabbed their purses and bailed fast.

Sure business sucks (United I am flinging poo in your general direction), but they don't ALL suck.

Both of my parents have worked for both private and public sectors in the UK.
According to them they are pretty much the same private just gets paid more.

Melissia wrote:A massive public works project could easily make the US a better place-- building and repairing roads and railroads, renovating aged sewage infrastructure, replacing aging phone lines and internet infrastructure with newer infrastructure, rebuilding or renovating old government buildings so that they're more energy efficient and better looking, public art projects, improving the efficiency of our power grids and power lines, etc etc etc.

So employ ditch-diggers, fence posters, and artists, basically? Raise minimum wage effectively to $15/hour and massively boost unskilled labor headcounts? Frankly the implosion of massive Greek and Southern Italian public expenditures-based economies provide an unignorable case study for the long term sustainability of this sort of FDR-esque stimulus. What happens when a career based on ditchdigging at $15/hour comes to an inevitable end when the stimulus ceases? What valuable skills has that individual been imparted with? Remember that public works didn't end the Depression, it took the self-imposed austerity measures and the mid-WWII industrial rampup to do so.

sourclams wrote:

Melissia wrote:A massive public works project could easily make the US a better place-- building and repairing roads and railroads, renovating aged sewage infrastructure, replacing aging phone lines and internet infrastructure with newer infrastructure, rebuilding or renovating old government buildings so that they're more energy efficient and better looking, public art projects, improving the efficiency of our power grids and power lines, etc etc etc.

So employ ditch-diggers, fence posters, and artists, basically? Raise minimum wage effectively to $15/hour and massively boost unskilled labor headcounts? Frankly the implosion of massive Greek and Southern Italian public expenditures-based economies provide an unignorable case study for the long term sustainability of this sort of FDR-esque stimulus. What happens when a career based on ditchdigging at $15/hour comes to an inevitable end when the stimulus ceases? What valuable skills has that individual been imparted with? Remember that public works didn't end the Depression, it took the self-imposed austerity measures and the mid-WWII industrial rampup to do so.

The forgotten problem is that these jobs aren't just created. You're taking money out of the system via taxes to do it, now or later. That money would be used in the actual econmics to generate goods and services that people actually want, not more stifling paper pushing bureaucrats. Unless of course you like the GSA spending your money in Vegas.

The point of infrastructure is not that it merely employs people building it.

Infrastructure boosts the whole economy by making it easier to move around the country and so on.

Kilkrazy wrote:The point of infrastructure is not that it merely employs people building it.

Infrastructure boosts the whole economy by making it easier to move around the country and so on.

But if they have no money they can't afford to go anywhere.

Of course, if the US had actually spent a trillion on infrastruscture we might see some benefit. We didn't.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Nero plays the hard while Rome burns. The real unemployment rate is still at 11%.

Which is lower than it was when his term started.

No, its not. Not by a good bit. Don't let facts get in the way though.

The estimated real unemployment rate when Obama started was 13-16%, with some estimates as high as 20%. Which is greater than the current 11%, at least according to normal math.


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Frazzled wrote:Of course, if the US had actually spent a trillion on infrastruscture we might see some benefit. We didn't.

Yes we did (perhaps not that exact amount of money, but quite a bit regardless). It helped lift us out of the Great Depression.

Melissia wrote:The estimated real unemployment rate when Obama started was 13-16%, with some estimates as high as 20%. Which is greater than the current 11%, at least according to normal math.

The U6 unemployment rate in January 2009 was 14.2%. In April 2012 it is 14.5%. If you want to be generous and use February 2009, the U6 unemployment rate was 15.1%.

In January 2009 the employment level (seasonally adjusted) was 142,187 thousand. In April 2012, it is 141,865 thousand. Again, if you want to be generous, in February 2009 the unemployment level was 141,660 thousand.

The only reason the unemployment level has been dropping is because the participation rate has dropped. Check out the table on page 4: the number of employed workers dropped from March 2012 to April 2012 by 169 thousand! And yet the unemployment rate decreased from 8.3 to 8.1%. This is possible because the civilian labor force dropped by 342 thousand workers.

d-usa wrote:You can make medical decisions for your SO by getting married.

They cannot get married and have to jump through hoops and fill out state specific forms to get the same healthcare powers you get by getting married.

Just because you can fill out the same form doesn't mean that it is right that they have to fill out a form for any state that they may have an emergency in.

Let's say they do have all their papers, go on vacation in Hawaii and have a horrible accident. They would most likely have their documents with them, and even if they did it would often mean that it is not valid in that state. So a road trip along route 66 would require a trip to the attorney to draw up legal documents for how many states?

Of course you don't have to do any of that, because you are married.

So again, too lazy or ignorant to take care of their loved one is your reasoning for needing Gov't intervetion. Crappy reason. A POA is not some state specific form, and in your unlikely 'disaster in Hawaii' scenario, a married hetero couple would not have their marriage license, living wills, or specific POAs on hand and would have to 'jump through hoops' to take care of a horrible accident too, and the unmarried hetero couple has the same issue as the unmarried homosexual couple.

You can keep coming up with silly scenarios, but the bottom line is there are good points to argue, good valid points. This isn't one. If you can't 'jump through hoops' as you put it (or fill out a very simple to execute POA to be accurate) for your loved one, that is on you. Frankly regardless of sexual orientation you are going to screw your loved one if you do not take proper precautions. POAs, living wills and a normal will are just smart. If you REALLY care for your loved ones you make sure you do these things. Regardless of the sex of the parents, if both get capped how are underaged kids taken care of? Without setting up the proper documents you can't be sure. Again, it is just smart. To think that non married couples of ANY sexual orientation shouldn't or can't do these things is asinine. To think their inability or unwillingness to do these things is best fixed by the Federal Gov't is asinine.

By the way, these types of issues affect married couples too. For example, I cannot deposit money into my wife's IRA without a POA allowing me to act on her behalf.

CptJake wrote:So again, too lazy or ignorant to take care of their loved one is your reasoning for needing Gov't intervetion.

So if a straight couple is married it isn't government intervention to get their benefits, but if it is a gay couple it is?

Ahtman wrote:

CptJake wrote:So again, too lazy or ignorant to take care of their loved one is your reasoning for needing Gov't intervetion.

So if a straight couple is married it isn't government intervention to get their benefits, but if it is a gay couple it is?

Its government intervention.