POLITICAL THREAD

[Bill Cosby]

So by your take here, we were wrong to end segregation

This is as far as I made it through your post. Saw FTS liked it. Makes perfect sense.

Yep. You nailed it Fuzz. As can be seen from all of my posts, I'm a big fan of the government stepping in and requiring segregation, and it should never have ended.

 

[Willy4UK]

So Barak comes out and says after the Brussels event that the U.S should take in more Muslim refugees. This guy is effing nuts. And he says this approximately with 8 months left on the job?

Oh and Barak signed an order that gives him lifetime protection with Secret Service.

Unbelievable.

 

[jamo0001]

I thought POTUSes already got lifetime protection?

 

[Willy4UK]

I thought POTUSes already got lifetime protection?

Nope. Apparently not

 

[qwesley]

http://www.theonion.com/article/affluent-white-man-enjoys-causes-the-blues-1511

Affluent White Man Enjoys, Causes The Blues

HIGHLAND PARK, IL–Steve Smalls, a senior vice-president at Chicago's Alliance Manufacturing, the world's largest producer of industrial refrigeration systems, is a self-described "blues nut."

 

[WildcatFan1982]

I thought POTUSes already got lifetime protection?

There was a law passed two years ago that gives presidents lifetime protection. In 1997 it was changed to 10 years

 

[fuzz77]

So you're for the keep doing things the same way and expect a different outcome frame of mind.

We didn't just wage war against a uniformed Army fuzz. We firebombed cities, intentionally inflicting mass casualties against citizens that were not in uniform.

What I'm saying is we can eliminate the caliphate, as long as it's maintained its going to draw fighters.

Do you want innocent people to continue being killed? Simply because they aren't Muslim, are you ok with that? Because it's going to continue until they succeed in killing ALOT of innocent people. Hopefully it won't be anyone we love.

Again, we were at war with a nation with fixed borders and a single, centralized government.

What you are suggesting is that we should have firebombed Paris because the Nazis controlled France.

This I can agree with. But its quite a different position than you had when we began this discussion.

No, it really isn't. You made the claim below.

Your position is that government action is the best/only way to stop discrimination.

I challenge you to find anywhere where I said anything of the kind.
Perhaps through me restating my position several times I finally made it in a way you understood.
Let me make a couple of things quite clear. Government is never the best or only way to ever stop any type of discrimination...or any problem I can thing of. In fact it is usually, and probably always should be the method of last resort.
The best way is for people to stop doing so on their own, to live by the golden rule and treat others as they wish to be treated.
Institutional discrimination should have ended with the 14th amendment in 1868 which was supposed to guarantee everyone equal protection under the laws...but after another nearly 150 years of more laws and societal changes there are those who question if the promise of the 14th amendment has yet to be met.

 

[Supreme Lord Z]

Trump is not going to accept his 400k salary if he wins.

 

[jamo0001]

Trump is not going to accept his 400k salary if he wins.

Just as Socrates predicted, amirite?!

 

[fuzz77]

I thought POTUSes already got lifetime protection?

Forget if Clinton or W was the last to do so (get lifetime protection). It was changed so that they now only get protection until it is deemed no longer necessary.
Had a good friend who was a SS agent assigned to Gerald Ford the last 10-12 years of his life. It's a pretty good gig if you can get it. Spent like 6 months in Palm Springs and 6 in Vail each year on Uncle Sam's dime.

 

[Big_Blue79]

I am Bill. 100% Libertarian. I struggle with this. Because technically, you're right, business owners should have the right of refusal. I agree with that. Truly do think businesses should run how they see fit without government interference. For me, it's hard to have this discussion about Libertarians' individual freedoms when those freedoms are being squashed at the root before it even gets to the business side of things. That's where my hang up is. I don't look at this as a right or left issue, but a common sense humanity issue.

I hate the gov't. Absolutely abhor it. Wish we didn't have a gov't at all other than military protection. But I do struggle with the humanity side.

Great post.

Traditionally, tax breaks through the IRC have been notoriously guilty of "social engineering". Basically, giving tax breaks based on desired behavior. I dont have a problem with it, generally, since participation and reward are both voluntary for the actor. But....Im also not a fan of "the man" deciding what behavior is desirable and rewarding it (ie home ownership, marriage, etc).

Yup. People rail on handouts, but then happily accept mortgage interest tax breaks and child tax credits. It's damn near the same thing. Also, I read a while back that if there was no tax fraud our deficit would be less than half of what it is. As someone who pays taxes honestly, that's offensive.

 

[Big_Blue79]

Went to an Easter service yesterday where the mixed race baby (black and white) of a gay (dudes), mixed (black and white) couple of differing faiths (Christian and Jewish) was baptized. Also had a brass sixtet and a full on Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah at the end. And dancers with streamers. Along with the traditional scripture reading, sermon, and everyone-mumbling-through-songs-from-a-hymnal droning sound. Might have been the most surreal thing I've ever seen.

 

[bigblueinsanity]

Let me make a couple of things quite clear. Government is never the best or only way to ever stop any type of discrimination...or any problem I can thing of. In fact it is usually, and probably always should be the method of last resort.

If that's really how you feel, then you should change your password. Because theres been someone else posting under your account.

 

[From-the-stands]

Georgia Governor to veto "Religiuos Freedom" bill. The state's Republican-controlled legislature thinks it would be a great idea to legalize discrimination, but Gov. Deal, also a Republican, has better sense.

http://newschannel9.com/news/local/georgia-governor-to-announce-fate-of-religious-freedom-bill

 

[Willy4UK]

Georgia Governor to veto "Religiuos Freedom" bill. The state's Republican-controlled legislature thinks it would be a great idea to legalize discrimination, but Gov. Deal, also a Republican, has better sense.

http://newschannel9.com/news/local/georgia-governor-to-announce-fate-of-religious-freedom-bill

No, it's because most of America's film making goes on in Georgia and the state will lose a lot of money from that.

 

[bigblueinsanity]

No, it's because most of America's film making goes on in Georgia and the state will lose a lot of money from that.

Exactly. This looks like government working, but it was really the free market working.

 

[qwesley]

Reuters Top NewsVerified account‏@Reuters
Iran vows to pursue missile program despite new U.S. sanctions http://reut.rs/21OYj5v

Rascals...

 

[bigblueinsanity]

Reuters Top NewsVerified account‏@Reuters
Iran vows to pursue missile program despite new U.S. sanctions http://reut.rs/21OYj5v

Rascals...

BUT THEY SWORE!!!!111 - liberals

 

[From-the-stands]

No, it's because most of America's film making goes on in Georgia and the state will lose a lot of money from that.

Exactly. This looks like government working, but it was really the free market working.

So it took one branch of government to stop another branch of government from disriminating. Problem solved.

 

[bigblueinsanity]

So it took one branch of government to stop another branch of government from disriminating. Problem solved.

When faced with the likelihood of losing all the movie business, the governor backed up. Had nothing to do with checks and balances. Luckily for Georgia, they weren't in the position of Indiana, whod already passed and signed the law, and then had to back up and "clarify" the law to save their ass.

 

[Mojocat]

I don't know anything about the Georgia bill other than what you can infer online. Here's a brief summary fro the ABC News story about the governor refusing to sign it:

"The legislation would have allowed clergy to refuse to perform gay marriages and would have protected people who refuse to attend the ceremonies. Churches and affiliated religious groups also could have declined to serve or hire someone based on their faith."

1. Allowing clergy to refuse to perform a gay marriage.
2. Protect someone who refuses to attend a gay marriage ceremony.
3. Protects churches/affiliated religious groups who decline to hire or serve someone based on faith.

Not seeing the parade of horribles here. The first two seem common sense to me. The third one - you'd have to police that to make sure it's not a cover for something more pervasive.

Point is that there are valid and reasonable religious tenets at play here. The problem is with the politicization of it, which distorts everything. Opponents of this bill react just like they would if the bill instead said "anyone who has ever been to church or stated an intention to attend any church may lawfully execute anyone suspected of being gay."

 

[Mojocat]

Anyone interested in learning more about Islamic State and what their goals are and how they think should read this piece in The Atlantic. It's good.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

e.g.,

"Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, un-Islamic. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment. But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”

heh. interfaith Christian nonsense tradition......

 

[Willy4UK]

Exactly. This looks like government working, but it was really the free market working.

Exactly.

 

[Big_Blue79]

^ which of those first 2 are happening or in danger of happening? Neither. Seriously, do people think they can be forced to officiate or attend a gay wedding? Might as well write legislation that would prevent businesses from being forced to sell dildos.

 

[bigblueinsanity]

To the posters claiming this is much ado about nothing - I agree with you. I have no idea why anyone would want people to force others to do business with them against their will.

 

[Bill Cosby]

do people think they can be forced to officiate ...a gay wedding?

I'd say that's a very likely scenario, assuming you want to officiate any weddings at all.

 

[JHB4UK]

^ which of those first 2 are happening or in danger of happening? Neither. Seriously, do people think they can be forced to officiate or attend a gay wedding? Might as well write legislation that would prevent businesses from being forced to sell dildos.

you haven't been paying the least bit attention to social justice warriors & how they have operated subverting this country's culture for the last 40 years if you think it is impossible to imagine a couple of gay guys trying to force a Catholic or Mormon or Baptist church into holding a marriage ceremony for them. The arguments that will be used by the state to force those places of worship to do so are so predictably easy....the tax exempt status of churches will require them to provide service all members of the society! the priests & ministers will be treated same as the wedding cakes bakers & photographers, comply or be forced to close your doors & cease operations.

 

[fuzz77]

you haven't been paying the least bit attention to social justice warriors & how they have operated subverting this country's culture for the last 40 years if you think it is impossible to imagine a couple of gay guys trying to force a Catholic or Mormon or Baptist church into holding a marriage ceremony for them. The arguments that will be used by the state to force those places of worship to do so are so predictably easy....the tax exempt status of churches will require them to provide service all members of the society! the priests & ministers will be treated same as the wedding cakes bakers & photographers, comply or be forced to close your doors & cease operations.

BS. Churches, especially Catholic churches refuse to do weddings all the time. They refused to do my wife's first wedding because she was marrying someone who wasn't Catholic and he had no desire to convert.

The ONLY people whom this might apply would be wedding chapels that are solely in the business of performing weddings.

The attempt to pass this law was political pandering plain and simple.

 

[Bill Derington]

Interesting that the minute the Soviet Union collapsed and the need for a giant military

Again, we were at war with a nation with fixed borders and a single, centralized government.

What you are suggesting is that we should have firebombed Paris because the Nazis controlled France.


No, it really isn't. You made the claim below.

I challenge you to find anywhere where I said anything of the kind.
Perhaps through me restating my position several times I finally made it in a way you understood.
Let me make a couple of things quite clear. Government is never the best or only way to ever stop any type of discrimination...or any problem I can thing of. In fact it is usually, and probably always should be the method of last resort.
The best way is for people to stop doing so on their own, to live by the golden rule and treat others as they wish to be treated.
Institutional discrimination should have ended with the 14th amendment in 1868 which was supposed to guarantee everyone equal protection under the laws...but after another nearly 150 years of more laws and societal changes there are those who question if the promise of the 14th amendment has yet to be met.

No I'm not, I'm not saying we should fire bomb anything. I'm saying we can't effectively defeat an enemy by trying to win hearts and minds, it does not work.

Every war is fought o we different ideologies, this isn't something unique to this situation.
The western ideology is under attack from the Mid East ideology.
They've gotten bolder because they know we won't do anything. Drop a few smart bombs, try to avoid non military targets and then be done.

Look at how quickly Russia with a handful of planes completely swung the war in Assad's favor. They went in with a mission and completed it.

 

[WettCat]

Go Russkies!

 

[bigblueinsanity]

BS. Churches, especially Catholic churches refuse to do weddings all the time. They refused to do my wife's first wedding because she was marrying someone who wasn't Catholic and he had no desire to convert.

The ONLY people whom this might apply would be wedding chapels that are solely in the business of performing weddings.

The attempt to pass this law was political pandering plain and simple.

And they can still refuse to perform such marriages (presumably). They just cant refuse based on sexual preference. To want to force these people to officiate marriages they disagree with is just the minor issue.

Since Obamacare, the government began forcing private businesses to do business with customers, against their will. Its a troubling pattern. Maybe you will agree these pastors should be forced to do these weddings. But....what if you don't agree with the next intrusion? One cant just pick and choose. That's the danger.

 

[Big_Blue79]

Lol. You guys are cute.

Since Obamacare, the government began forcing private businesses to do business with customers, against their will.

Since Obamacare? Or since the 1960s? Pretty sure the whole "you can't discriminate on the basis of race [at least] in certain privately owned businesses" has been going on for a while. Any instances of churches required to do more than check a box on a form (re: contraception)?

you haven't been paying the least bit attention to social justice warriors & how they have operated subverting this country's culture for the last 40 years if you think it is impossible to imagine a couple of gay guys trying to force a Catholic or Mormon or Baptist church into holding a marriage ceremony for them.

SJW =/= SCOTUS, or Congress, or Constitutional Convention. So, no, I have been paying attention, I just don't care because it doesn't matter to this issue. No wonder it's easy to rile people up about stuff.

Has a church been forced to marry anyone against the church's will? Realistically threatened to by someone with some cloak of authority to do so? Are social justice warriors even attempting this?
What's the basis? The First Amendment is no joke, guys, and free exercise of religion is almost always upheld. On your side, you have that case against, what was it, Liberty University or some such about letting blacks attend (or interracial dating or whatever, been a while). And maybe that case that said some Native Americans couldn't smoke peyote or whatever for religious reasons. On my side, I have the whole, you know, First Amendment and strong jurisprudence protecting religious institutions. And all of US history. And all the legal arguments. It would take quite a leap to get from that single case to forcing a church to perform a gay wedding against its will. That case was about an IRS provision that does not apply to churches themselves, IIRC - 501(c)(3).

My instinct is to avoid passing laws that allow for discrimination where there is no threat that they are needed to avoid what would clearly be First Amendment violations, but maybe I'm just one of those small government guys that you've been hearing so much about. If anyone credibly threatens to force a church to perform a wedding against its will, and the case goes to court and the church is ordered to perform said wedding, and that church loses on the inevitable appeals (there are so many lawyers at my firm that would love to take the church's case, let alone the not for profit religious liberty legal groups), then pass that legislation post-haste because that would be a clear violation of the First Amendment, and the normal course of rectifying a constitutional violation will have failed.

 

[Big_Blue79]

BTW, pastors/churches can and have refused to perform interracial marriages, or even allow interracial couples as members. How come no one forced them? Because it's not possible? Yup.

 

[Big_Blue79]

And they can still refuse to perform such marriages (presumably). They just cant refuse based on sexual preference.

Sorry, but you have zero basis for this whatsoever besides the fevered dreams of Ted Cruz. So you think that somehow churches can refuse to perform weddings on the basis of constitutionally protected classes like religion and race, but they cannot refuse for whatever class Kennedy's ramblings put sexual preference into? That's completely illogical.

 

[Catfan in Tn.]

Bernie headed to his next rally.

 

[Bill Cosby]

Is anyone going to be shocked when a state or county refuses to license priests or pastors who will not marry gay couples? Sure, they won't have to marry them in god's eyes or whatever, but if they're going to be able to marry people in the eye's of the law, I guaran-damn-tee you we're going to see counties or states going in that direction.

 

[Big_Blue79]

^ well, I was wrong I guess. Bill Cosby personally "guaran-damn-tee[d]" it, so it must be true. Because so many pastors have been denied a license for refusing to marry interracial couples, or refusing to marry couples of different faiths, or any other analogous situation wherein the pastor refused to marry any protected class of people. Why, it's a wonder any Catholic priests are even allowed inside a DMV, let alone licensed by the state to perform legally binding marriages.

Like I said, no basis that I've seen for this fear.

 

[fuzz77]

No I'm not, I'm not saying we should fire bomb anything. I'm saying we can't effectively defeat an enemy by trying to win hearts and minds, it does not work.

Every war is fought o we different ideologies, this isn't something unique to this situation.
The western ideology is under attack from the Mid East ideology.
They've gotten bolder because they know we won't do anything. Drop a few smart bombs, try to avoid non military targets and then be done.

Look at how quickly Russia with a handful of planes completely swung the war in Assad's favor. They went in with a mission and completed it.

Winning a war is easy. Winning the peace is hard.
We wiped out Iraq's army in a few days...then spent the next 10 years dealing with the consequences. No doubt we could take any ground held by ISIS in the same manner...then what? At some point we have to leave and there is nothing to keep the cycle from repeating itself.

 

[Willy4UK]

To me this is the problem.

Do businesses have the right to more freedoms than the individual themselves?

Let's say Chik Fila found the cure to cancer through their fried chicken sammiches. No one else can get the cure from Chik Fila unless they purchase from Chik Fila, but Chik Fila doesn't like gays and withholds the gays ability to receive that cure. We've just given more freedom to that business than the individual could get for themselves.

 

[JHB4UK]

Winning a war is easy. Winning the peace is hard.
We wiped out Iraq's army in a few days...then spent the next 10 years dealing with the consequences.

Iraq was won & stabilized after the 2007 surge. Obama's political decision to cut & run to satisfy political promise lost it.

...then what? At some point we have to leave and there is nothing to keep the cycle from repeating itself.

we still have troops stationed in Germany & Japan 71 years after the conclusion of hostilities with those countries. and on the Korean peninsula 63 years after the ending of that shooting war.

When are they going to leave? according to you, at some point they have to. say the date spanky, if occupying troops HAVE to leave at a date certain when do we do so in those 3 countries?