Thank you for your contribution. Can you elaborate or are you better at or just satisfied by name-calling?
Sure - why not. Tradition, like patriotism, is the refuge of the weak minded and cowardly. The constitution and the bill of rights were intentionally written to be malleable documents. Proclaiming that an amendment banning gay marriage is acceptable due to tradition is akin to saying that the 13th and 14th amendments should never have been passed, or any other legislation that attempts to curb discriminatory practices. For that - you are an idiot.
If it makes you feel better to call most of the country "idiotic," go right ahead. For the record, and recorded here many times, I have no problem with gay marriage. If tradition is the refuge of the weak-minded, do you also scoff at birthday parties and parades? And thanks for the reminder that it is weak-minded to be patriotic. I needed that refresher!
Most of the country is against an amendment in the constitution prohibiting gay marriage. They are against marriage as well, but don't want an amendment added to the constitution to strike it out. That being said, calling people an idiot doesn't help anything. You made good points sunsequently, but the debate is only side tracked when names are brought into it.
Sam said it well...Nixon originated the Southern Strategy (split the Democratic working class coalition by getting the blue collar white male vote in the South) and Reagan solidified it into the GOP gameplan. Whenever I hear what a nice guy Ronald Reagan was I think back to hisappearence Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1980. Philadelphia, Mississippi is most famous for being the place where three civil rights workers were murdered by white supremicists in 1964. Reagan *kicked off his presidential campaign there* ("I am for states' rights") with the express intent of getting the southern racist vote to stop voting democratic as they had since the Civil War. Reagan didn't take the opportunity to condemn the murder of those three men, or call for racial harmony....nope, he just send a code to racists that he was open for business. Trent Lott got scapegoated for expressing much the same sentiments.
Danforth was the chancellor of my University! Quite a way back I saw somebody attempt to say that Newt Gingrich was a liberal in conservative clothing and I laughed it off at the time, but I'm beginning to wonder if he was... The alteration of political demographics is a completely normal thing in the history of American politics. Anybody remember the odd world of the Dixicrat, or the Bull Moose party? The Wall Street Republican and the Christian Coalition Republican really do make strange bed-fellows. I've also saw somebody compare Bush to Leon Trotsky in the degree of belief in ideology above all else, which doesn't sound like a conservative to me. Traditionally, a conservative in America has been described as a liaise fair capitalist and one who doesn't seek to have the government involve its self in everyday life. Under this description, he not a conservative, his brand of liberalism is at once completely different and similar to liberalism in the traditional sense. It reminds me of Hitler's National Socialism vs. Stalin's Communism. Both evolved from the same idea, but both were subverted, and both were forms of state control, though on the surface they couldn't be more different. I think perhaps the terms liberal and conservative are less than enough to properly describe the spectrum of beliefs.
Sometimes it does - for a brief moment. I apologize for calliing you an idiot. Glad to hear it. Wish more republicans thought that way. Sorry, let me adjust the previous statement. Tradition, when used to prevent forward movement in society, is a bad thing. We can agree to disagree. IMO, patriotism is more often than not just an excuse to ignore the opposition's position. Logically, that self-imposed ignorance in turn fuels a bigoted agenda. I am not trying to say that all patriotism is evil necessarily. However, patriotism without proper judgement is only asking for trouble. And it seems there is a lot of that going around...
I should hope not; I hope you have some patriotic stirrings of your own. The challenge here is that you discount a judgement that does not agree with your own as not being proper. I guess we can all be guilty of that sooner or later, but your comparison of a hetero-marriage amendment to issues of slavery is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. I've heard gays who do not feel oppressed that they cannot marry because they understand its place in our society... and there is a 200-year history behind it. It oppresses no one-- except some who enter the matrimonial gates!
I'm just glad Arnold Vinnick has secured the nomination and returned some real rational thinking to the Republican Party.
The judgement I discount is a lack of judgement. I don't think it hypocritical to take a stance against not thinking for one's self and mindlessly following an agenda.
HAHAHAHA!! If my Mom could have written in the fictional Bartlett(Martin Sheen) as a REAL canidate she would have.
I like how you keep turning what I say against myself. Seriously - it's a neat trick that you no doubt aquired from all of this debate on D&D. Being a lurker (at least for the most part in D&D) this has been fun... Addressing your question: Logically, someone not thinking for themselves and being blindly patriotic is "mindlessly following an agenda". Currently, I think this ideology has a distrubingly large following in America. Someone buying into that agenda even after some critical thinking has other issues (IMHO, mind you) which do not pertain to this debate.
You called me an idiot for my views and you think I'm up to some trickery? If what you say deserves being turned against you or upside down is not my fault... I'm just trying to figure out what you mean. The form on this place is brevity so sometimes we have to ask for amplification. It's not necessarily a challenge... though sometimes it is.
I have not changed my opinion from that second post. However, I have clarified it to amend against absolutes. Also, I still think that having the US government endorse discrimination based on tradition is silly. Let each individual church decide who can get married in them. Oh - again, sorry about calling you an idiot.
No, I'm pretty sure he called you an idiot because you act so obtuse on this board so often. You post moronic chain letters in the guise of "discussion" and act offended and upset when they are refuted. I imagine he called you an idiot because you compare being against an amendment that strips rights of homosexuals to being against birthday parties. Or that you claim nobody is oppressed by said amendment when it prevents a large number of homosexuals from getting insurance equivalent to a heterosexual spouse and from being able to attain power of attorney, let alone such mundane issues as veterans benefits. It's not your views per se that got you labeled. It's your complete lack of understanding.
