sebster wrote:
So is there any value in maintaining an absolute position on abortion?

The hardline anti-abortionists won't go for it, but there's a whole middle ground of conservatives that won't freak out at the idea of making contraception freely available once they understand the impact it has on reducing abortions.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yes, because you have a large group of conservatives who view any compromise as just one step in the process of getting a total ban. So you "compromise" between the current laws and a complete ban, and add a few "minor" restrictions. And then as soon as those laws are passed they're back to demand more "compromising" between the new laws and a total ban*. Repeat until abortion is so hard to get that it's effectively banned.

But those middle ground conservatives already don't care about birth control. A lot of them are the Ayn Rand types who hate the thought of paying for any health care that can in any way be labeled "voluntary", but they have no problem with people buying their own birth control. Take away the "Obamacare = socialism" element and it's a non-issue for everyone but the religious zealots. And the religious zealots aren't going to compromise because the whole "pro life" thing is too important politically* to give up anything.

*Fun fact: abortion and birth control only became an issue for non-Catholics in the past 50 years. Previously they had no problem with it, but someone had the brilliant idea of unifying the conservative religious vote around the issue and using it to gain more political influence. So suddenly god changed his opinion, and anything that gets in the way of making babies is a sin.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
So, to answer the original post, given that America has so many freedoms and prizes individual liberty, I would argue that the USA went liberal the day it was founded. Or am I mistaking classical liberalism for something else?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
How have liberals won the culture war? I mean. what?

 Crablezworth wrote:
It's important for libs to know when to stand down. Everyone's been out for firefox's blood because their ceo's personal feelings towards gay marriage aren't "enlightened" let's say. There's been a number of loud voices calling for a boycott, it just strikes me as absurd, by all indications the guy has never once used the business he runs as a platform for anything political. Ideology of any kind can get perverted real fast.

 Peregrine wrote:
I think you're missing the history a bit here. Obviously opposition is inevitable, and that opposition tends to break down into two broad groups that share similar positions on a lot of issues, but the whole "culture war" thing is entirely a conservative invention.

Conservative leaders created the concept of gathering all of these separate issues into a single "culture war" as a brand identity thing, to unify "conservatives" and maximize their political power. So instead of treating, say, gay marriage and health care as separate issues, they reinterpreted both of them as an attack on "traditional american values".

Then they manufactured some more controversies, like the "war on christmas", to be outraged about, just in case the real issues aren't enough motivation. And it's no coincidence that it's all framed in terms of a war on traditional values, since "liberals hate Jesus" is guaranteed to get a reaction (and money and votes) from even apathetic conservatives.

Also, you can't really give left-wing commentators all of the blame for branding conservatives as "delusional, anti-science fools". Conservatives themselves have proudly declared things like young-earth creationism to be an inherent part of the conservative identity. Call it insulting if you want, but those "commentators" are just stating the obvious.

 sebster wrote:
First up, yeah I'm aware of the history, but thanks for assuming I have no idea about the basics of the issue.

To be a liberal is simply to accept a many headed hydra that rolls together labour issues,

And liberals post daily on new outrages, in which some business individual or minor celebrity said something politically incorrect, and it leads to lots of people demanding that some person give up their job. Outrage over nonsense is hardly a purely conservative thing.

Which, of course, is the difference between 'some' and 'all'. To say that modern day conservatism has a problem with rejection of science is true. To say that conservatives have such a problem is to confuse the group with the individual.

 Peregrine wrote:
But your comments sounded like you were placing the blame equally, rather than acknowledging that the concept of a "culture war" is a conservative invention.

To be a liberal is simply to accept a many headed hydra that rolls together labour issues,

Except that's not true at all. Liberals often have a lot of positions in common, but there isn't the same kind of concept of being a "true liberal" where anyone who disagrees about something is an enemy to be shunned. Liberals tend to view themselves as a coalition of various groups working together on certain issues for mutual benefit, "culture war" conservatives view themselves as a single unified whole that is constantly under siege by outsiders.

Yes, obviously not all conservatives are anti-science lunatics. But when "mainstream" conservative leaders proudly identify themselves as anti-science lunatics and declare that anyone who isn't also an anti-science lunatic can't be a "true conservative" then it's a fair generalization to make. I don't see any reason to constantly add disclaimers about the few conservatives who don't share that particular belief, because they aren't relevant to the overall ideology.

 sebster wrote:
Did you read the article? It places the majority of the blame squarely on one side, and then says that doesn't matter. Because it doesn't. What matters is now moving ahead and dealing with the issues facing society.

I think you're mistaking conservatism right now with conservatism as it always and forever will be.

In fact, even now try saying to a bunch of liberals that you think race awareness is excessively political or that maybe if people really believe that a foetus is a person then the state should protect it - and then see how inclusive liberalism is.

Right now the crazies dominate the Republican party not because half the country is actually that insane, but just through structural advantages in the political system.

Break that down by framing issues in terms of things everybody wants no matter how they view politics, and the stranglehold the crazies hold over the party at present starts to go away.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Here is a Tumblr image blog which to me is a very good use of the site.

http://winkbooks.tumblr.com/

 sebster wrote:
Lots of stuff

 Peregrine wrote:
Lots of stuff

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Thanks for the replies to my liberal rant!

But here's another thing that gets me: why is America considered a conservative country?

Once upon a time, a sizeable chunk of American society decided that they didn't enjoy being ruled over by the British. They went to war against them. That's radical, that's not conservative. The conservative thing to do would have been to preserve the old order, not fight the battle of Lexington!

So, when people say to me that America is conservative, I refuse to listen to such nonsense!

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:
Lots of stuff

 Peregrine wrote:
Lots of stuff

So now that liberals have won the culture war they'll continue infighting?

 Peregrine wrote:
And you can't move ahead and deal with the issues when one of the issues is the fact that a substantial percentage of the population views themselves as the last defenders of "true values" in the middle of an epic war on everything right and good in the world.

Well yeah, but what's the point in speculating about a hypothetical future that exists only in your imagination?

Similarly, talking about how the minimum wage debate could be re-framed in terms of "rewarding work" ignores the fact that a large part of the opposition to higher minimum wage requirements consists of "those lazy s don't deserve to make as much money as I do".

The whole principle of the article is just a way to feel good about being a moderate, not a constructive solution to any real issues.

 Easy E wrote:
Therefore, there isn't much room to compromise on the abortion issue because the only thing Conservatives want is to outlaw abortion. They don't actually want to decrease the number of abortions performed.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
So now that liberals have won the culture war they'll continue infighting?

 whembly wrote:
I don't know if they're winning...

I think the "Culture War™" is always ongoing...

Unless there's something that we don't know... Mozilla’s CEO, Brendan Eich, has been pushed aside by the “tolerance” brigade.

 Ouze wrote:
The market as spoken.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think there is something in that, though also one has to consider timing and the actions of a company executive while in office.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
The market as spoken.

You mean like when blacks and Irish were denied service? Or people refused to bake cakes for homosexuals?

 Ouze wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
The market as spoken.

You mean like when blacks and Irish were denied service?

If you don't see the difference between denying a public service to someone for who they intrinsically and unchangeably are, and the consequences for something politically unpalatable that someone chose to do, then this is another circular nonsense train of intentional obtuseness I'm not hopping on.

 Ouze wrote:

 sebster wrote:
And for the record I really hate that kind of scalp taking - picking someone who said something bad and then trying to cost them their job.

No one was concerned with what Mr. Eich thought or what Mr. Eich said. The problem is with what Mr. Eich DID. He actively participated in a (briefly successful) campaign to take rights away from his fellow citizens, to help make them less than he was in the eyes of the law. (He also did it while listing the name of his company, thus affiliating Mozilla with his political views).

Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. The market as spoken.

Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich resigns over Prop 8 controversy pic.twitter.com/FuzPYYRvJi

— NowThis News (@nowthisnews) April 3, 2014

The guy who had the gall to express his First Amendment rights and favor Prop 8 in California by donating $1,000 has just been scalped by some gay activists. After an OKCupid decision to boycott Mozilla, the recently appointed Brendan Eich just resigned under pressure:

In a post at Mozilla’s official blog, executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker confirmed the news with an unequivocal apology on the company’s behalf. “Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it,” Baker wrote. “We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”

The action comes days after dating site OKCupid became the most vocal opponent of Eich’s hiring. Mozilla offered repeated statements about LGBT inclusivity within the company over the past two weeks, but those never came with a specific response from Eich about his thousands of dollars of donations in support of Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage in the state.

Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.

 Frazzled wrote:
exactly. But the IRS outed him and he was blackballed. Awesome.

 Breotan wrote:
So, this guy was forced out for a campaign donation he made six years ago? And only now it is a problem?

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I also served, back in the Browser Wars.

We lost a lot of good men

Nabisco should be ashamed of themselves for their latest Honey Maid and Teddy Graham cracker commercial where they attempt to normalize sin. Right away it shows two men with a baby, followed by other families, and ends with different families pictured including the one with two dads. This commercial not only promotes homosexuality, but then calls the scene in the advertisement wholesome. The ad states, "Everyday wholesome snacks for every wholesome family. This is wholesome."

One Million Moms stands up for Biblical truth which is very clear in Romans 1:26-27 about this particular type of sexual perversion.

Honey Maid is also using the hashtag #thisiswholesome. There is concern about the way this ad is pushing the LGBT agenda, but an even greater concern is the way that they are changing the meaning of the word "wholesome."

This is truly sad. If this is what Honey Maid thinks is wholesome, then my family will no longer purchase Honey Maid or Nabisco products.

Satan wants us to see sin as normal and not so bad. He delights in taking what God has made “good” and was meant to glorify God and change it, counterfeit it, making it to please Satan himself instead of the Creator God. The fallen one desires men to see themselves as gods, having to answer to no one but themselves.

Much of the shock following the removal of Brendan Eich from the position of Mozilla CEO came from the realization that, in a manner of speaking, America was now at war. True it’s a culture war, not a physical conflict. But if you were waiting for the moment when the Cold Civil War actually begins, this might be it.

Not that anyone should have been taken aback. After all, Larry Summers was sacked as president of Harvard following his criticism of Cornell West’s rap album and as a result of a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a “different availability of aptitude at the high end”.

Mark Steyn, National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute are being sued for defamation by Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann for criticizing the theory of Global Warming. The Gannet newspapers declared open season on gun-owners by publishing a map showing the names and addresses of registered New York gun owners, as a kind of dinner bell for burglars. “Come and rob … me”.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal points out that a similar database was used to ferret out Eich. “Eich’s support for Proposition 8 became public knowledge because of a California law requiring disclosure of personal information–name, address, occupation and employer’s name — of anybody who gives $100 or more to a campaign for or against a ballot initiative. The secretary of state’s office is required to post this information online, and, as HotAir.com’s “AllahPundit” notes, the Los Angeles Times made it available on its site as an easily searchable database.”

To continue: in 2012, “American fast-food chain Chick-fil-A was the focus of controversy following a series of public comments made in June 2012 by chief operating officer Dan Cathy opposing same-sex marriage”. For those who still remember it (along with the forgotten episode of the Benghazi consulate), the 2013 IRS scandal was all about investigating people who held the wrong political views.

It might be mentioned, though it hardly seems relevant, that Proposition 8 actually won by 52.24% to 47.76. Irrelevant because unacceptable, as James Surowiecki of the New Yorker explains:

The obvious point to make about Eich’s resignation is that it shows how much a part of the mainstream that support for gay rights has become, particularly in the technology world. Eich’s problem wasn’t that he took a political stance: Amazon.com’s C.E.O., Jeff Bezos, has weighed in on gay marriage, too, by donating more than $2.5 million in support of it. The problem was that Eich’s stance was unacceptable in Silicon Valley, a region of the business world where social liberalism is close to a universal ideology. At this point, a tech company having a C.E.O. who opposes gay marriage is not all that different from a company in 1973 having a C.E.O. who donated money to fight interracial marriage: even if there were plenty of Americans who felt the same way at the time, the C.E.O. would still have been on the wrong side of history. And since the role of a C.E.O. as a public face of an organization is more important than ever these days, Eich’s personal views were inevitably going to shape his ability to run the company.

Yes, the culture was has been raging for a long time, except people didn’t notice it because it seemed to take place on the edges or in fringe settings. All the Eich affair did was make it obvious.

Ironically many people, even in the homosexual community, don’t want this culture war and are dismayed by the Eich witchunt. They don’t want it not only because … but I’ll get to that in a moment … especially since the Eich affair is not about gay marriage, except incidentally, any more than the Summers affair was about racism or feminism; or that Steyn’s suit has anything to do with warmism or denialism or the gunowners map was about school safety; or still less that the 2013 IRS persecution of Tea Party groups was to do with Citizen’s United.

The removal of Eich is about fascism. It’s about one group of people forcing everyone else to bow to their hat on a pole; it s about book burning, compelling obeisance to, as Jame Surowiecki put it, “a universal ideology” in a manner so bald that even those who might gain politically in the short term from it are horrified by its crudity.

Perceptive gays understand now, if they hadn’t noticed before, that a whole mechanism now exists for persecuting people whose views are deemed unacceptable. Today it is directed against Eich; once it was directed against Summers; on other occasions it was employed against Clarence Thomas. But sooner or later, probably sooner, they understand it will be directed against them — or us — or someone. And if it can get a corporate CEO who is widely regarded as the father of Javascript it can get pretty darned anyone.

Peter Burrows at Business Week quotes Joseph Grundfest, a law professor at Stanford University who says “this is a particularly fascinating situation, because it involves an illiberal reaction from a very liberal community. It’s fair to say that this could have been handled differently and better.” But Grundfest misses the point. It was the late Gerald Ford who really put his finger on the problem, which to paraphrase Ford, is that ‘any instrument of social coercion big enough to give you everything you want is an instrument big enough to take away everything that you have.’ Build the bonfire and you too can be torched at the stake. Or as Brian equivalently put it to Max in Cabaret: “do you think you can still control them?”

One person who doubts the fire is under control is Senator Rand Paul. He along with Eich, recently made a stir in the Bay Area in a speech at Berkeley arguing that all this time we’ve been building the apparatus that will soon be turned against us. And by us, he means everyone, including gays.

Paul used an example from Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 to explain how power can be retasked to any purpose and how the liberal can become illiberal. If firemen can become book-burners than anything is possible, which is the brilliance of Bradbury’s metaphor. An earlier Rand Paul editorial contains an almost identical text to his Berkeley example, and I will use to represent what he said:

In the opening pages of Ray Bradbury’s famous novel Fahrenheit 451, protagonist Guy Montag asks: Wasn’t there a time when firemen used to put out fires? They laugh at him, rebuke him and say: Everybody knows firemen start fires.

Montag knew this. Montag’s father and his grandfather had been firemen. It had been his duty for many years to start fires. He knew it was his duty to burn books, but this day would be different.

Montag arrived on the scene to do his job, but found a woman who wouldn’t leave. He complained that she had all of her books but still wouldn’t leave. Undeterred, Montag proceeds with the other firemen to douse her books-and her-with kerosene. The woman shouts out and goads them. She is indignant that they would touch her books at all and she still wouldn’t leave. She says to them: “Play the man, Master Ridley; today we will light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, that it won’t be forgotten.”

They keep dousing her with kerosene and she says it again: “Play the man, Master Ridley. Today we will light such a candle.” … The reference is to 16th century figure Hugh Latimer, who literally became a human candle. He was burned at the stake in 1555 for heresy-opposing the state religion. He wanted to promote the idea that the Bible should be translated into English, which the state forbade.

In America today, we’re not yet burning people at the stake, fortunately. Nor are we burning books. But your government is interested in what books you read. They’re interested in what you say in your phone calls. They’re interested in what you write in your emails.

As we all now know from the National Security Agency (NSA) revelations last summer, such government surveillance of citizens has been going on for a while now.

In the Summer of 2012, I asked for a report on this subject and was given a classified briefing. I wanted to know to what extent your privacy was being invaded. To what extent government was reading your emails, listening to your phone conversations without a judge’s warrant. At the time, I couldn’t tell you the answer because it was classified.

And wasn’t there a time when tolerance meant tolerant and the IRS was meant to collect taxes from everybody without favor and the NSA was meant to spy on America’s enemies? As many nightmares start with”wasn’t there a time” as fairytales begin with the phrase “once upon a time”. And the correlation is not concidental. The difference between a fairytale and a horror story is in the details.

Back in the 1960s there was successful Coca-cola ad campaign featuring hundreds of people standing on a hilltop determined to buy the world a soda. It seems like a wonderful and uplifting video. What no one stops to ask is, how did that crowd get up there? They must have been marched up the hill with a undrunk bottle of Coke and drilled for hours to sing in perfect harmony. And where are the port-a-potties?

Prince Charming’s Castle is architecturally identical to the Tower of London. And tolerance of the right sort of intolerance is of course, tolerance.

 Ouze wrote:
Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. The market as spoken.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
Well, fellow conservatives, as said by some guy on the internet the war is over. We can beat our posts into ploughshares and go home.

 Scrabb wrote:
Pretty good article. Thanks Sebster.

 d-usa wrote:
That 5 minute moment made a profound impact on me and I knew (at least in my mind) that I was on the right side of this battle no matter what I thought about it being a sin or not.

 whembly wrote:
After all, Larry Summers was sacked as president of Harvard following his criticism of Cornell West’s rap album and as a result of a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a “different availability of aptitude at the high end”.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So, how many countries legalized gay marriage, and how many did not ? I am still a bit confused on the fact “liberals have won”.

 Cheesecat wrote:
While I think the CEO firing was excessive I do feel company's should have the right to present themselves in the image they want and if a CEO is supporting a pro-traditional marriage and the company doesn't feel for OK with this I feel they should be allowed to do something about

it. Within reason of course.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Again and again and again it has been said that he wasn't fired over holding an opinion, he was fired for taking specific positive action to help enforce that opinion on the general population.

There certainly is an argument that people should be allowed to do significant actions in support of their opinions, without it risking their job. That is not the argument that you are advancing, though.

 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. The market as spoken.

A tolerant society requires people to be very wary of punishing others for taking legal, political action. I would find it completely unacceptable that a person would be fired for simply lobbying for an funding a gay rights cause, and so I find it equally unacceptable that person would be fired for undertaking their own political cause. Even when its a cause I find odious, the idea of a society in which people can be punished for falling outside of acceptable opinion bothers me even more.

 whembly wrote:
Over 60% of worker at Intel contributed to Prop 8. Should they resign?

 Medium of Death wrote:
Free speech but not freedom to act, right?

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Over 60% of worker at Intel contributed to Prop 8. Should they resign?

Only if you can't see a distinction between a random IT employee, and being the CEO and public face of a socially active and inclusive foundation which needs the ongoing support of a liberal pool of people.

I support his right to make the donations and think whatever he likes about gay marriage, just as I much as I support the right for the fake-hillbilly duck guy to say whatever he likes; and equally so: I support the right of the people who issue the checks to decide they no longer want to be publicly associated with said speech/activities.

Boy, this Brandon Eich thing well and truly came along just in time to screw over the premise in the OP, didn't it?

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Over 60% of worker at Intel contributed to Prop 8. Should they resign?

I don't know, we should let the free market decide. Does Intel feel it would be good or bad for business to fire them? Clearly they feel it would be bad, since they haven't done so. Mozilla, on the other hand, felt it would be good for business to fire the CEO for his political contributions. Now the free market will decide which company's decision was correct.

 whembly wrote:
In some ways... I don't.

The board should've been more tactful about this and asked him to resign for something else.

 Medium of Death wrote:
I thought the point was that a lot of people think he can say what he wants because "free speech".

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
In some ways... I don't.

Well then let's make it obvious for you: a random employee is pretty much invisible unless they do something spectacularly stupid, so their political views are extremely unlikely to damage the company's profits. Therefore the employee's work is more valuable to the company than the almost-nonexistent benefit to their public image of firing them. The CEO, on the other hand, can potentially attract a lot of attention and their views are easily associated with the company. And this can potentially harm the company's profits if, for example, outraged customers decide to organize a boycott. Therefore it is potentially a good business decision to get rid of a CEO with undesirable political views and replace them with a new CEO who is equally qualified. In fact, even if the replacement isn't quite the ideal candidate for the job the potential decrease in profit from having a less-skilled CEO might be less than the potential decrease in profit from lost sales due to a boycott.

In short: the free market has spoken. Replacing CEOs with bad beliefs is profitable, replacing random employees isn't.

The board should've been more tactful about this and asked him to resign for something else.

Why? Firing him in an obvious and public manner acts as an apology to the customers and cuts off any potential boycott or future bad publicity.

 Ouze wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
How do you feel about the Arizona cake law?

I think it's a bad law, and discrimination like that should not be allowed. But I don't see what that has to do with anything.

We're arguing that a business should be allowed to legally discriminate based upon unpopular political speech or other speech via a cost benefit analysis, i.e. the market has spoken. Does that extend to choosing to decline business with members of the public based upon whatever criteria they'd like? What's the distinction, here? Presuming unprotected classes.

I mention this because my gutsy feeling is it was OK for the board to ask the CEO to resign, but that it's wrong to refuse to sell a cake to a gay person because they are gay. Either I'm a hypocrite, or there is something I can't put my thumb on to distinguish them in principle. Maybe both, I guess.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I think it is already legal in a few states of the US, but I am not sure if it is going to spread in every states of the US anytime soon

 Ahtman wrote:
You think it is shameful that Europe, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States are moving to less discrimination based on sexual orientation? It is somewhat awkwardly phrased so I am trying to make sure I understand what you are saying.

 Frazzled wrote:
Central and South America is extremely conservative law wise, despite Brazil's beaches

 Ouze wrote:
This is a really good article that segues back from where we are now back to the OP.

We need to get comfortable with the reality that no one is going to shut up. You aren’t going to shut up. I’m not going to shut up. The idiots aren’t going to shut up.

 Ouze wrote:
I support his right to make the donations and think whatever he likes about gay marriage, just as I much as I support the right for the fake-hillbilly duck guy to say whatever he likes; and equally so: I support the right of the people who issue the checks to decide they no longer want to be publicly associated with said speech/activities.

Boy, this Brandon Eich thing well and truly came along just in time to screw over the premise in the OP, didn't it?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I disagree. Let me ask the question on a slightly different way : How many countries are on the verge of legalizing gay marriage ?
I know that very very few African countries are. I know China and India are not either. I know Russia is not.

I have no idea about how it is in America, both South and North. I guess it is legal, or will be soon, in Canada, and I think it is already legal in a few states of the US, but I am not sure if it is going to spread in every states of the US anytime soon. (By I am not sure, I mean I am not informed enough, not that I disagree with you saying otherwise.)

 Ouze wrote:
This is a really good article that segues back from where we are now back to the OP.

 Medium of Death wrote:
So obviously it's off topic, but I think it's the closest the UK has to a "Liberals have won" argument in which anybody offering another stance is drowned out in bile and accusations of being a racist.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Since its the US liberals we're talking about here, I think the answer is, and always will be, Versailles.

 Ahtman wrote:
On OT this is the time where we dance!

Spoiler:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think there's a fancy smanzy quote about how the phrase "I'm offended" means absolutely nothing and serves no useful purpose in any discussion. I rather like that quote.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The sad thing is that is is known that a lot of people do not change their minds even if presented with well founded facts that contradict their opinion. They simply argue with the facts, or even just ignore them. Look at the situation of Intelligent Design versus Evolution.

 Ouze wrote:
Or worse yet, are convinced of merits of an opposing argument, and then slowly return to believing what they did previously anyway.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I agree that simply to shout down opposition is not winning the argument.

The sad thing is that is is known that a lot of people do not change their minds even if presented with well founded facts that contradict their opinion. They simply argue with the facts, or even just ignore them. Look at the situation of Intelligent Design versus Evolution.

 LordofHats wrote:

I think there's a fancy smanzy quote about how the phrase "I'm offended" means absolutely nothing and serves no useful purpose in any discussion. I rather like that quote.

Stephen Fry wrote:
It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fething what.

 Cheesecat wrote:
Well if there's difference in treatment between genders wouldn't that imply that there are certain privileges due to those differences?

Conservatives are angry that Attorney General Eric Holder plans to make them wear "gun tracking bracelets." Which, as you might expect, he doesn't.

 LordofHats wrote:
When one side of a debate has slipped from arguing logical fallacies to argue that a logical fallacy isn't fallicious at all is the point in time you realize one side of the debate is spewing bile and should be ignored (which is probably why the conservatives in the US have been losing on the social side of things going on 60 years now; because their arguments suck).

Cross the bridge in front of you and stop living in paralyzing paranoia of some other (hypothetical) bridge 10 miles down the road.

Until we invent the [color=red]uncrackable judge dredd palm reading gun grip technology AND dna imprinted ammo that is [/color]

 skyth wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 skyth wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/conservatives-furious-eric-holder-them-wear-anti-freedom-130951982.html;_ylt=A0SO80rK_UdTFEYAtWtXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzY2c3aWszBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDM3NV8x?.tsrc=samsungwn

Conservatives are angry that Attorney General Eric Holder plans to make them wear "gun tracking bracelets." Which, as you might expect, he doesn't.

But thank you for demonstrating just WHY there can be no compromise in the culture war. As soon as someone suggests a reasonable compromise, they are instantly personally attacked and there are unrelated and/or made up issues that are brought up.

Ever heard of the "Slippery Slope™" argument? "Give someone an inch, and they'll take a foot"?

Besides it's a dumb idea and easily circumvented.

Again...Thank you for demonstrating why there can be no compromise in the culture wars.

 LordofHats wrote:

We do have RFID technologies to "activate" a pistol. However, I'd like to point out that this is very easy to circumvent. The only application of this technology, MAYBE, is if you want to fool proof it in your house so that your kids won't shoot themselves. But... that's it.

That's all I really want the technology for. (another good one though would be tag readers in hunting rifles that read tag readers in clothing to help draw down on those pesky hunting accidents by locking the trigger if they detect a tag in the line of fire).

 LordofHats wrote:
I've weighed the option of paranoid joe living in fear the government will kick his door down for owning some guns and take all his bullets away and little Timmy blowing his head off by virtue of childish stupidity.

Little Timmy wins.

 LordofHats wrote:
When one side of a debate has slipped from arguing logical fallacies to argue that a logical fallacy isn't fallicious at all is the point in time you realize one side of the debate is spewing bile and should be ignored.

As red states continue to rack up laws that restrict access to abortion, basic contraception and preventive care, it can seem that Republicans have put the needs of women second to toeing the Tea Party line. Oklahoma, for example, has continuously pushed through such legislation. But there's a surprising voice in that state: Republican State Representative Doug Cox, an MD who has continued to practice during his 10 years in office. "This bill is prejudiced," Cox said earlier this month, during a committee hearing for a bill that would make it harder for women under 17 to get the morning after pill. "It's prejudiced against women. A 14-year-old boy can go to the truck stop and buy all the condoms he wants. He can control his destiny. This bill takes the ability to control their destiny away from women. But that's what we do in the Republican Party these days."
...
What do you think of the current Republican Party's approach to women's reproductive rights?
Abortion is one thing, but when you start talking about limiting contraceptives, that's going too far. If you truly oppose abortions, you should do everything in your power to prevent unwanted pregnancy — from abstinence, to condoms, to birth control pills, all the way to IUDs and morning-after pills. When you take a morning-after pill, over 90 percent of those women probably aren't pregnant anyway. And they have no way of knowing in that early of a stage whether or not they're pregnant. To be able to do something that simple to prevent an unwanted pregnancy — and potentially prevent a pregnancy which might be aborted — is a good thing. And to prevent that, to me, is counterintuitive to saying, "We oppose abortions." To require a prescription for a drug that has been determined to be safe and effective by the FDA adds basically another $100 to the cost, and to me that discriminates against lower-income women.
...
But it's easier for me, as a physician, to explain why I vote the way I do. I can look people in the eye and say, "I've been in an exam room with someone who has always opposed abortions, but suddenly when it's their 14, 15, or 16-year-old daughter, they start second-guessing things." I don't try to guide them in one way or the other — it's their decision to make, between them, their doctor and their God. And I resent the government stepping into that exam room and standing between me and the patient, and standing between the patient and the patient's choices.

It's interesting to me that the Republicans, we are a party of less government, except when it comes to women's issues, then we become a party of more government interference.
...
I've seen you describe yourself as pro-life. Is that correct?
Well, yes. I've never done an abortion and never will. From a personal standpoint, I'm pro-life. On the other hand, people are humans. People make mistakes. And we all have our own personal lines, you know? To me, if you're pregnant and you're gonna terminate a pregnancy, you need to do that early on. In my mind, a 12-week pregnancy, if you haven't made a decision by then, well now we're getting up to where I start feeling uncomfortable. I've delivered 800 babies; that's the thing I enjoy the most. But on the other hand, I've been in the room when people say, "My 14-year-old daughter is pregnant.' And she may want to be a doctor or a lawyer. And the chances of her getting to do that are really gonna be slim. And doc, she made a mistake one night with a guy that has moved on down the road, and can you help me fix my problem." I have sympathy for those people. And I will not do an abortion, but I will tell them, "Here's a number and a place you can go if that's what you guys decide to do." At the same time, I'll put out the idea if you want to carry it, you can put it up for adoption.

So do you consider yourself pro-choice as well?
I consider myself anti-government. I guess that would be pro-choice. Let the woman decide her own fate. She's the one who has to live with her decision between her and her god or her and her family. And I don't think the government has the right to step in. Now on the other hand, if she's 30 weeks along, well then maybe the government does have some right to protect that unborn.

 easysauce wrote:

so you support background checks for people using the internet too then right? and rfid chips to make sure you are who you say you are, and every movment on the net can be tracked and recorded.

also, where the feth do you come up with total made up lies that I dont support background checks?

I have been saying for YEARS that there should be a national registry of those who are prohibited from owning firearms, that should be checked for each purchase.

 easysauce wrote:

well at least you admit its hypocritcal, at least that I can respect.

adding invasive limitations/security to things that have the potential to be mis used, in order to hopefully prevent their mis use.

you dont equate the two

simply because you like the internet, but dont like guns, so you are ok with infringing on the rights of others, but not on the rights you yourself enjoy. Which is the trend of both parties in our current culture of "me first, second, and last, the left will constantly erode the rights of the right, and the right will erode the left's.

 Cheesecat wrote:
Isn't most of gun violence and/or crime in America caused by legal owners?

Also why are we talking about guns?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

while you Americans get on with your gun obsession, the rest of the world watch scratching its head, wondering why you get in such a massive hysteria about it ?

The problem is that you want weapons when you have no sensible use for one.

 Frazzled wrote:
Aren't you part of the "rest of the world" that is doing nothing as Russia takes over a country larger than France because you like cheap gas?

 Da Boss wrote:
But the gun control thing seems to bring out the worst in smug superiority in us Europeans.

 Frazzled wrote:
I'm just noting your statements of superiority about the rest of the world is full of epic level bs.

 Frazzled wrote:
Frankly, I barely recognize your right to exist, much less have an opinion on gun ownership for US citizens.

 Seaward wrote:
There are lots of sensible uses for guns. I keep mine to incapacitate people, should I need to, and because drilling holes in paper is the closest I'll ever flirt with anything resembling a zen state.

 Da Boss wrote:
Not to make this another gun thread, but other EU posters- why the hell does it bother you, the gun laws that the US has?

 Da Boss wrote:
They've got their guns, for the most part, they're reasonably happy to have them.

 Da Boss wrote:
Not to make this another gun thread, but other EU posters- why the hell does it bother you, the gun laws that the US has? I mean, I know we get a lot of american media shoved at us through the internet and so on, but you can choose to ignore it.

Interest in american foreign policy is completely sensible, and sometimes looking at how they run things like education or healthcare can be interesting for sake of comparison with our own systems (same as looking at systems within Europe). But the gun control thing seems to bring out the worst in smug superiority in us Europeans. They've got their guns, for the most part, they're reasonably happy to have them. We've also got guns, with some different laws around them and in a different cultural context, and for the most part, we're also happy with that.
I mean, discussing it is all well and good, but there is really no need to be insulting and patronizing towards americans on this issue.

Anyway, I support the right to bear arms :

 dogma wrote:
Why is covering one's face in France worse than doing the same in the UK?

 dogma wrote:
As to hijacking: this is a culture war thread regarding the US, and most Americans consider Europe to be more liberal than the US. This is foolish, given that much of Europe is deeply chauvinistic.

 Seaward wrote:
I think keeping a tool around to be used for its primary purpose is eminently sensible.

 Seaward wrote:
But then, we probably have different definitions of sensible. You guys built the Rafale, we built the F-35.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
“I keep a gun because I want to kill people without any physical effort” is not sensible.

I think guns are the reason there are so many obese in the U.S.

Keep guns for when you need them, like wars and biathlon and stuff.

I did not build no airplane. Did you ? Which part did you build ?

 Seaward wrote:
It's hard to deny the pressing need of the biathalon, but sometimes you also need to defend yourself.

 Seaward wrote:
How much do you know about avionics?

 whembly wrote:
Here's a thought...

See this cute button of a chick?

Spoiler:

She barely weighs a buck over 100 lbs...

Say she's attacked by this dude (spoiler'ed):

Spoiler:

If she carried a Smith & Wesson... it's a great equalizer.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

 LordofHats wrote:
Dude, he's blind. Even our criminals aren't that heartless.

 whembly wrote:
Are you implying that we live in a world where people don't get attacked?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Are you implying that we live in a world where people don't get attacked?

I am implying that I live in an environment where the chance of being under an attack serious enough that a gun would be a relevant answer are absolutely negligible, yes. Not to mention that both people having guns would favor the aggressor : when someone puts a gun to your face, he generally will not let you get your gun out of the holster to have some western duel .
But I know that the U.S. is some pretty dangerous place !

 kronk wrote:
I'll just tell my next mugger that he doesn't want to fight.

I'm sure he'll agree and we'll laugh about the whole thing with some butterscotch ripple ice cream.

 easysauce wrote:
I mean, when I see the anti gun people completly ignoring every single benifit of having a gun, of course its a bad thing. to them.. same with anything where you totally ignore the benifits and screm very loudly about the detriments.

 kronk wrote:
I'll just tell my next mugger that he doesn't want to fight.

 whembly wrote:
You're wrong with "absolutely negligible" tho...

 easysauce wrote:
you are more likely to be killed, in the USA, by a malpracticing doctor then a gun...

 Hordini wrote:
Depending on where in the US you live, being mugged could be somewhat likely, or not likely at all.

 Hordini wrote:
But people don't own guns just because of muggings.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
What's your plan if you are ever attacked though?

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Also there are tricks to creating a window of opportunity for drawing your own gun, like dropping your wallet while handing it to them so they might try and pick it up themselves.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
What's your plan if you are ever attacked though?

I have no plan for if I am being attacked by a total stranger that wants to kill me for no reason. If someone wants to steal from me, I will just give him money, fill a complaint to the police, get insurance money. Yeah, I am not into vigilante justice, this is not my job to fight crime.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Also there are tricks to creating a window of opportunity for drawing your own gun, like dropping your wallet while handing it to them so they might try and pick it up themselves.

Uh? Why would I want to do that? If I give him my wallet, he will just leave, and I will be okay. 20€ is not worth risking my life at any rate!

 Hordini wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Surprisingly enough our European friends don't get beat up and killed any more frequently than we do, despite their lack of personal firearms.

They do have a lot fewer criminals running around with firearms though. They also have a higher population density and fewer remote rural areas in which police response time could be extremely long.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
What if the mugger wants more than your wallet?

I give him my cell phone.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

I will answer you as soon as some French people hijack a thread to launch a heated debate on face covering. I am sure it will be any minutes now. We do that all the time, do we not ? You are not French, are you ?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

I have no idea why you think it is more chauvinistic, and I am not sure how it relates to the idea that progressive need to compromise more and promote stable families.

 Seaward wrote:

I think it's high calorie processed foods.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
And start using the amendment to bear arms for what it is meant to, to overthrow a government that is limiting its citizens freedom.

Bullockist wrote:
why is there this idea that guns are intrinsic to safety over in the US?