Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Kilkrazy wrote:Why do they keep banging on about creationism?

Many republicans love Jesus too bloody much thats why.

I am very afraid of whats going to happen in the US.. It just seems to be filling more and more with wackos. And Obama's election has sent them off the deep end. It certainly wasnt like that when i first went over there in 2000. I have no idea whats going on right now, but have you seen the NY times hardcover list?!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html?_r=1&ref=books

Sam Harris and Stephen Hawking are being trounced in sales by Bill O'Fethhead, Dinesh Desouza, Micheal Savage and Tucker frigging Max.

Says it bloody all to me, in ten years America seems to have transformed from one of my favourite places to live, into a nation with far too many idiots in it.

I for one am hoping that the tea party gets all of its aims, you know, bans abortion, teaches all the kids about Gods magic and Noahs dinosaur ark in science class, ban stem cell research and issue everyone with an assault rifle. That way, my missus will happily up sticks and move for good, and i wont have to argue with her anymore over my refusal to move back to California!

mattyrm wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Why do they keep banging on about creationism?

Many republicans love Jesus too bloody much thats why.

I am very afraid of whats going to happen in the US.. It just seems to be filling more and more with wackos. And Obama's election has sent them off the deep end. It certainly wasnt like that when i first went over there in 2000. I have no idea whats going on right now, but have you seen the NY times hardcover list?!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html?_r=1&ref=books

Sam Harris and Stephen Hawking are being trounced in sales by Bill O'Fethhead, Dinesh Desouza, Micheal Savage and Tucker frigging Max.

Says it bloody all to me, in ten years America seems to have transformed from one of my favourite places to live, into a nation with far too many idiots in it.

I for one am hoping that the tea party gets all of its aims, you know, bans abortion, teaches all the kids about Gods magic and Noahs dinosaur ark in science class, ban stem cell research and issue everyone with an assault rifle. That way, my missus will happily up sticks and move for good, and i wont have to argue with her anymore over my refusal to move back to California!

To be fair, have you read Sam Harris' new book on the science of morality? He pretty much falls under the idiot category after that one. The entire book is a long testimony to his personal genius and in the end he doesn't even make a coherent argument for how science can provide the answers to ethical problems. Its a really long rehash of the golden rule minus any references to God. At least DeSouza makes a few decent arguments in "What's so Great about Christianity?" that leave you thinking about what he says.

Aye to be fair ive not read it Panzer, but he seems a pretty level headed bloke, im pretty sure i dont need to read it to know that i would rather read anything he writes over anything Bill O Reilly or Tucker bastard Max!

PanzerLeader wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Do we agree that murder is bad, and therefore should be regulated, and the government has a role in doing this?

An alternate view is that murder is the private concern of individual citizens, and the government has no business sticking its nose in.

Yes, the government can regulate murder. At the minimum, the government is protecting the minority from indiscriminate killing. There is also a compelling state interest to protect the lives and property of its citizens. The general idea in the traditional liberatarian views is that the government shouldn't regulate what individuals do on their private property so long as it does not affect the lives or property of others. The "War on Drugs" is the classic example. If you choose to smoke pot in your house, you are not having an adverse effect on anyone else and the government shouldn't stop you from doing that. However, the government does have a right to say "No driving while high" because you then become a threat to everyone you have to drive past. Liberatarian views also split from the Republican party on other key social issues such as homosexual marriage (it's not the government's business whose doing who), abortion (it's a personal decision and the government shouldn't regulate whether or not you can do it or when you can do it), and the environment (government is responsible for telling property owners what the standards for land use are and then holding individuals and corporations accountable for them).

You can find alot more information here: http://www.lp.org/platform

I see that the LP view on racial and sexual discrimination is that the government shouldn't do it.

Does that mean it is all right if citizens do it to each other?

Everything would be just hunky dory if we could get ole' G.W. Bush to stop running in so many elections!

I mean come on, how many Democrats have to run against him! It isn't fair!

Poor Democrats, all of them have to run against G.W. Bush and he hasn't even been campaigning since 2004!

I mean he was such a bad president... We may never EVER clean up his mess... all we can do is just keep the Democrats in office FOREVER cause he was so bad, ya know, that it might take Democrats a BILLION MILLION GADJILLION years to clean up the mess....

I mean come on, seriously, remember in 2008? I mean you probably can't cause it was so long ago, the litterally the country was on FIRE, and the water had turned to blood, and the unemployment was almost like 7 percent, I mean only 93% of people could afford ANYTHING!

...and there is ole' G.W. Bush in the whitehouse praying to Hitler-Jesus and raping babies! Don't you remember?

Poor Democrats! Waaaah!

****SARCASM: It's so original!****

Kilkrazy wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Do we agree that murder is bad, and therefore should be regulated, and the government has a role in doing this?

An alternate view is that murder is the private concern of individual citizens, and the government has no business sticking its nose in.

Yes, the government can regulate murder. At the minimum, the government is protecting the minority from indiscriminate killing. There is also a compelling state interest to protect the lives and property of its citizens. The general idea in the traditional liberatarian views is that the government shouldn't regulate what individuals do on their private property so long as it does not affect the lives or property of others. The "War on Drugs" is the classic example. If you choose to smoke pot in your house, you are not having an adverse effect on anyone else and the government shouldn't stop you from doing that. However, the government does have a right to say "No driving while high" because you then become a threat to everyone you have to drive past. Liberatarian views also split from the Republican party on other key social issues such as homosexual marriage (it's not the government's business whose doing who), abortion (it's a personal decision and the government shouldn't regulate whether or not you can do it or when you can do it), and the environment (government is responsible for telling property owners what the standards for land use are and then holding individuals and corporations accountable for them).

You can find alot more information here: http://www.lp.org/platform

I see that the LP view on racial and sexual discrimination is that the government shouldn't do it.

Does that mean it is all right if citizens do it to each other?

Sadly, I think this is the point where the Libertarian platform begins to run into serious issues. The relevant quotes are these:

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

No individual, group, or government may initiate force against any other individual, group, or government. Our support of an individual's right to make choices in life does not mean that we necessarily approve or disapprove of those choices.

The question then becomes how you define forcible action. But the bottom line is that in the classic libertarian views, passive discrimination by individuals and corporations is sanctioned but active discrimination is not. In other words, you can selectively not hire minority candidates because you define that they don't fit into your corporate strategy but you are not allowed interfere with another company that does hire minority workers. It is one of the fairness questions that arises when you value an individual's decision making process as one of the highest benchmarks of freedom.

That's the point I was trying to get at.

Why is it wrong to kill someone because you dislike them, but right to deny them employment, medical aid and housing because they are Korean, or Jewish and you dislike Koreans and Jews?

Thank GOD for us gun toting crazy Americans with our faith in country and our pride in our military.... the whole world wants to talk down to America, but should your neighbor kick your ass and take your SH*T, who's the FIRST country you call? ....then you cry about being occupied if we stay, and cry about being abandoned if we go.

If a Tsunami wipes your 3rd world hell-hole off the face of the map, who is the first people on the scene with BILLIONS of dollars in Aid? ... and if we try and help your government we are exploiting your national disaster for political gains, and if we don't try and fix your hell-hole's government we are accused of isolationism...

Damn straight... I don't want to hear about American Imperialism, cuse if we really wanted your SH*T.... we'd have your SH*T. True Faxx!

Now if you don't mind, I am off to the shooting range. I have to sight in my Glock 17 and my AR-15 before the november election. Cheerio D-Bags!

Kilkrazy wrote:That's the point I was trying to get at.

Why is it wrong to kill someone because you dislike them, but right to deny them employment, medical aid and housing because they are Korean, or Jewish and you dislike Koreans and Jews?

The philosophical point is that an individual or a government cannot take someone's life, liberty or property except under extreme circumstances when they threaten someone else's life, liberty or property. I personally do not believe it is right, but the classic libertarian answer would be that while an employer has the right to deny employment for whatever reason, he also has to accept the consequences for all his actions. So if because of his decision to deny someone employment, he ends up being boycotted and losing a considerable amount of money he would be entitled to no redress from the government either.

On the flip side, some of the newer libertarian philosophies are beginning to tackle these problems by defining the quality of a life a person is entitled to. Under these ideas, you begin to see how the central idea that bigotry is repugnant should be applied to all aspects of public life but it hasn't bled into the central ethos yet.

As Panzer said. To me, libertarianism is a very idealistic point of view, and this is coming from an avowed libertarian. But Panzer hit it right on the head.....the government has no right to tell the businesses 'you can't factor race into you decision to employ', because deciding who to hire is the choice of the employer. Who works for him is a right of the employer that the government has no right to interfere in.

However, when people realize that the employer is only hiring white people, and refuses to higher blacks simply because they're black, and thus choose to vote with your wallets and not buy goods or services from the employer in question. As such, it is in the employer's best interest to avoid racism in decisions, and thus racism will become a non-factor without government intervention! The same thing goes for environmental concerns, and other things. If the companies don't do what the people want, they will find people no longer buying from them, and they will be forced to change, or go out of business.

Of course, that is how libertarians like me want things to work. Unfortunately, I've come to realize that most people aren't going to act in that manner, and thus the government has to have some kind of hand in the economy, but I still want to see that hand be as minimal as possible.

Edit: Oh, someone complaining that Republicans/conservatives are evil evil people...hmm, where have we heard this before?

PanzerLeader wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:That's the point I was trying to get at.

Why is it wrong to kill someone because you dislike them, but right to deny them employment, medical aid and housing because they are Korean, or Jewish and you dislike Koreans and Jews?

The philosophical point is that an individual or a government cannot take someone's life, liberty or property except under extreme circumstances when they threaten someone else's life, liberty or property. I personally do not believe it is right, but the classic libertarian answer would be that while an employer has the right to deny employment for whatever reason, he also has to accept the consequences for all his actions. So if because of his decision to deny someone employment, he ends up being boycotted and losing a considerable amount of money he would be entitled to no redress from the government either.

On the flip side, some of the newer libertarian philosophies are beginning to tackle these problems by defining the quality of a life a person is entitled to. Under these ideas, you begin to see how the central idea that bigotry is repugnant should be applied to all aspects of public life but it hasn't bled into the central ethos yet.

Bigotry will be an age old problem of humans so long as there are divisions in any aspect of life.

For instance, if we as Americans evolve beyond bigotry towards those who fear or hate others based on ethnicity, race, gender, mental capacity, sexual orientation, what happens to those people who actually do fear or hate others? Will they become bigoted against because of their classification as bigots? Will they be shunned and reviled and discriminated against because they refuse/have a hard time accepting those different from them?

Look at sex offenders. For a group of people who have served their time for laws they broke because of their actions, we have seen huge recriminations against them because of what they did. Even if they get out of jail, repent their ways, become cured of their problem, and try to become upstanding members of society again, they will forever be seen as outcasts under the law and by people who know of their status as a sex offender. Many people will be bigoted against sex offenders as a whole because they represent an outcast of society with almost no support or defense against them.

WarOne wrote: :snipped:

Look at sex offenders. For a group of people who have served their time for laws they broke because of their actions, we have seen huge recriminations against them because of what they did. Even if they get out of jail, repent their ways, become cured of their problem, and try to become upstanding members of society again, they will forever be seen as outcasts under the law and by people who know of their status as a sex offender. Many people will be bigoted against sex offenders as a whole because they represent an outcast of society with almost no support or defense against them.

For the record, sex offenders are a fairly specialized case as far as bigotry goes, and especially in the United States, people can go on to the sex offender registry for even the most minor offense. The fact that you now must register as a sex offender makes it so that anyone who searches for you will know you're a sex offender (regardless of cause), and that leads to the discrimination in question.

I know this is a bit OT, so I'll just link this Economist article which talks about it in depth.

ChrisWWII wrote:For the record, sex offenders are a fairly specialized case as far as bigotry goes, and especially in the United States,

Agreed. However it is a slippery slope when defining people and then marginalizing them for who/what they are.

I'm not saying to accept bigots or sex offenders. Bigots are people with irrational fears or hatred and it could take a life time to overcome if a person believes they can change. Plus being identified as a bigot can darken your reputation for the rest of your life.

As for sex offenders, you must have some cause for concern, as some caused great harm to others. Those sex offenders do need to be watched and protected from the public backlash as they re-enter society. Their condition was inflicted, but under current laws they are free to go once they enter society. However, society rejects and shuns them, even the ones with relatively minor offenses.

They arenh't really free to go anywhere as they have to check in with wherever they are going. This on top of being put on a public list, assuming no one puts things in their yard and the like, saying they are sex offenders. I'm not sure why we let them out of prison if we are just going to keep them in a defacto prison on the outside. The reason society shuns them, even the minor offenses, is because people don't look at the offenses, they just see 'registered sex offender' and call it a day. When a kid who receives oral sex from his 16 year old girlfriend on his 18th birthday (actual case) has to be put on the same list as someone who diddled children there is something wrong.

Ahtman wrote:They arenh't really free to go anywhere as they have to check in with wherever they are going. This on top of being put on a public list, assuming no one puts things in their yard and the like, saying they are sex offenders. I'm not sure why we let them out of prison if we are just going to keep them in a defacto prison on the outside. The reason society shuns them, even the minor offenses, is because people don't look at the offenses, they just see 'registered sex offender' and call it a day. When a kid who receives oral sex from his 16 year old girlfriend on his 18th birthday (actual case) has to be put on the same list as someone who diddled children there is something wrong.

They can go where they please. However, society has now placed restrictions on where they can and cannot go. They can go where they want...they just may end up in jail for not abiding by where society tells them they can and cannot go.

Regulation of the condition of the sex offender has become a chronic weakness of society to excise undesirables from their midst. Arguably, we don’t want these people (sex offenders) to harm others, especially children. That is why we have laws and statures against rape and sexual offenses. But then the society indulges it’s own worst fears. We then want sex offenders to be punished further when they get out of jail. Public outcry over Meagan Kanka’s death demanded Meagan’s Law; a tool used to tell the public about where sex offenders live and move to. Okay, the public got their wish, and now we can track where sex offenders live and go. The federal government also tacked on the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act for good measure to make the issue national and force sex offenders to register for their sexual offenses, including offenses related to consensual teenage sex, failure of parents to stop consensual teenage sex, streaking, mooning, and urinating in public.

However, this was not enough. These people could still go wherever they wanted and possibly commit another sex offender crime. Again the public demanded more action. We now have a string of Jessica’s Laws (named for Jessica Lundsford) across the country at the state and local level that harshly punishes a sex offender in various other ways. While these are geared towards giving sex offenders and reoffenders longer terms in prison, it still did not deal with the public perception of the remaining sex offenders who did not commit another sexual crime. The public then demands more must be done.

In come the recent spat of zoning laws, and here is where we as a community are doing something better than many other locations around the United States that have also enacted such laws. Laws across the country have disabled sex offenders from reintegrating into society. Zoning laws passed against sex offenders restrict them from coming anywhere from 1,000 to 2,500 feet from schools, libraries, parks, daycares, playgrounds, public places where children congregate, and public places where children could congregate. As such, sex offenders cannot travel, live, work, or loiter anywhere within these circles of prohibition. They get pushed to the edge of society and in most instances, become homeless. They homeless sex offenders must still abide by laws that they must register where they live or get jailed again. They say nowhere.

If you are restricted to an area and will get arrested for going there, you don't have the freedom to go where you want. The capability of doing something isn't the same as the freedom to do it.

I really don't have an issue with the Sex Offender registry thing.

There's some flaws in the system, sure, but I still think that it's a good idea to keep tabs on potentially dangerous people. I don't know why they don't do it for all violent criminals, to be honest.

Monster Rain wrote:I really don't have an issue with the Sex Offender registry thing.

There's some flaws in the system, sure, but I still think that it's a good idea to keep tabs on potentially dangerous people. I don't know why they don't do it for all violent criminals, to be honest.

Unfortunately those flaws are really huge gaps. If you slept with your 17 year old girlfriend when you were 19, it's statutory rape and you're placed on the sex offender registry. It's not specified that you only had consensual sex with someone a bit younger than you. It only says that you are a sex offender, and people can see that with a quick google search. More importantly, you're not allowed to live within a certain radius of certain location, which means in some suburban areas you literally can not buy a house. THey likely won't be able to get a job, due to background checks.

Really, is it fair that someones life should be completely ruined for that? Even for just keeping tabs, it's a little extreme don't you think?

ChrisWWII wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I really don't have an issue with the Sex Offender registry thing.

There's some flaws in the system, sure, but I still think that it's a good idea to keep tabs on potentially dangerous people. I don't know why they don't do it for all violent criminals, to be honest.

Unfortunately those flaws are really huge gaps. If you slept with your 17 year old girlfriend when you were 19, it's statutory rape and you're placed on the sex offender registry.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but does it really happen that often?

I honestly don't know.

Well, technically speaking it should happen every time as it's technically statutory rape. However, I can't give you figures on how often that kind of thing happens, but the restrictions apply to every person on the sex offenders registry, regardless of their crime. Some people are even on their for public nudity, and there in the same boat as pedophile rapists. The article I linked a few posts up has some more in depth information on it, if you're interested.

Ahtman wrote:If you are restricted to an area and will get arrested for going there, you don't have the freedom to go where you want. The capability of doing something isn't the same as the freedom to do it.

But they still can do it if they want, even if they are restricted. Unless of course we are talking about physical barriers actually preventing them from going someplace they are restricted.

The downside is they get jailed for violating a law.

WarOne wrote:
Hmmm...so could you have something like popular liberty, where you give the most liberty to the most people?

Absolutely, but that sort of thing is antithetical to populism, because it necessarily turns on the perceptions of elites with respect to the good of the people.

I suppose the implication is then that populist governments almost always fail because they either become too weak to function, or fail to become aware of their newly elite status, and thereby carry the assumption that their needs are the people's needs.

dogma wrote:

WarOne wrote:
Hmmm...so could you have something like popular liberty, where you give the most liberty to the most people?

Absolutely, but that sort of thing is antithetical to populism, because it necessarily turns on the perceptions of elites with respect to the good of the people.

I suppose the implication is then that populist governments almost always fail because they either become too weak to function, or fail to become aware of their newly elite status, and thereby carry the assumption that their needs are the people's needs.

Okay. Now how do you view the current position of the United States in terms of identifying their structure of government relative to the power(s) held by the people (people being broad since we have no royalty, nobles, serfs; technically we have a tiered upper, middle, and lower class but not sure how to approach that).

agnosto wrote:Let me break it down. Democrats espouse a centralized, authoritarian Federal government while Republicans have always believed that the states should be stronger than the national whole. It's the same state's rights issue that divided the country and was a major cause of the Civil War.

Your grasp of history is just a little off, and it's really amusing since you mentioned the Civil War. Pop quiz question: Which party was Lincoln a member of?

BearersOfSalvation wrote:

agnosto wrote:Let me break it down. Democrats espouse a centralized, authoritarian Federal government while Republicans have always believed that the states should be stronger than the national whole. It's the same state's rights issue that divided the country and was a major cause of the Civil War.

Your grasp of history is just a little off, and it's really amusing since you mentioned the Civil War. Pop quiz question: Which party was Lincoln a member of?

He was a whig and then a republican. What you are failing to mention is that the republican party of lincoln was a different animal compared to the modern republican party. Since you think my grasp of history is off, why don't you look up the history of the whig party and the two main factions that it consisted of, the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery....in fact it was that issue that saw to the demise of the party in the mid 1800s (1850-something if I recall). The reason Lincoln left the Whig party and became a Republican is for the simple fact that it was founded on an anti-slavery premise. After reconstruction, the party started taking a turn towards what you see today. In fact it wasn't until the 1960s, when the conservative coalition caused the party to become more polarized vs. the democratic party. Before the '60s the republicans espoused classical liberalism and progressivism; it's really turned the corner from its progressive roots if you ask me since most modern republicans could care less about the middle class but this last part is my opinion.


Since we're talking about history, maybe you should do a little research before you belittle someone else's knowledge.

...and here I thought my degree in History would be useless...

ShumaGorath wrote:
You could just ban him you know. You seem to be banning people for saying things you don't like lately.

The fact you're here disproves the veracity of that statement...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WarOne wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:For the record, sex offenders are a fairly specialized case as far as bigotry goes, and especially in the United States,

Agreed. However it is a slippery slope when defining people and then marginalizing them for who/what they are.

I'm not saying to accept bigots or sex offenders. Bigots are people with irrational fears or hatred and it could take a life time to overcome if a person believes they can change. Plus being identified as a bigot can darken your reputation for the rest of your life.

As for sex offenders, you must have some cause for concern, as some caused great harm to others. Those sex offenders do need to be watched and protected from the public backlash as they re-enter society. Their condition was inflicted, but under current laws they are free to go once they enter society. However, society rejects and shuns them, even the ones with relatively minor offenses.

The only good sex offender is a dead sex offender.

If I slept with my 17 year old girlfriend (consensually), I've just committed statutory rape, thus making me a sex offender. Does that make me an evil human being who has no right to live where he chooses anymore?

ChrisWWII wrote:If I slept with my 17 year old girlfriend (consensually), I've just committed statutory rape, thus making me a sex offender. Does that make me an evil human being who has no right to live where he chooses anymore?

Yep. You want to help stop teen pregnancies? Make statutory rape a capital offence, on the spot.

Frazzled wrote:The only good sex offender is a dead sex offender.

That's a bold statement considering that peeing behind a tree can get you added to the sex offender list. I'm pretty sure you've done it; does that mean we can kill you now?

Edit: noticed this was worded too strongly; I don't mean to say someone should kill you.

ChrisWWII wrote: I slept with my 17 year old girlfriend (consensually), I've just committed statutory rape, thus making me a sex offender.

Do you want me to add this to your profile ?