WatchWhy should I vote?
One party says I "hate" just because I believe that marriage should be defined as one man and one woman. If they had their way, I'd be prosecuted under "hate crimes" laws and put in jail.
The other party wants me enslaved to a permanent aristocracy.
For me, a vote for either party is a vote to slit my own throat.
How did we get to this point in America?
Maybe Trey Parker and Matt Stone will save us.
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kentm says
Verklempt perhaps but not maudlin.
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freak80 says
This isn't really true.
freak80 says
This is 100% true.
That should answer your question.
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What party is against unlimited Free Trade at any price to the US worker?
Oh, both parties are for unlimited Free Trade (except for a handful of industries that provide little middle class employment like drug manufacturing - not research - and agriculture like sugar and corn). Wow, what a choice I have!
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thunderlips11 says
One of the first and most destructive acts of the Heritage Foundation and other right wing propaganda mills back in the 1980s was to destroy the idea of protective tariffs. They did a very thorough job of it. They argued that the Reagan recovery was largely the result of dropping tariffs. They made the case that the smoot-hawley tariffs of the 1930s made the depression longer and much worse. They pushed the myth of competitive advantage and economic retaliation. They were so successful that to even the suggestion of a resumption of tariffs and quotas is considered heresy. Even Democrats often drink the Kool aid.
It's one of the genuine reasons to hate the new Republican right.
As a result, the United States charges China 2.5% on automobile imports and China charges us up to 22%. It's insanity.
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.............................VOTE ROMNEY.....VOTE FOR AMERICA!!!....................
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Randy H says
Not true. "Not Voting" is the same thing as a "Vote of No Confidence."
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thunderlips11 says
Bingo.
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kentm says
That's like saying "A permanent aristocracy is happening, it's inevitable, only a matter of time, so you might as well give up." I'm not going to vote for something I'm against just because someone tells me it's inevitable.
Nobody knows the future.
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Please read the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and section 10 of New York's Domestic Relations Law (which defines marriage as a civil contract), and reconsider your statement about marriage. Whatever your religious views might be, they do not excuse denying other Americans the equal protection of the laws. Everyone has the right to their own opinions, but not their own facts, nor can they be made strangers to the laws of their own country.
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When marriage was allowed to become a function of the state rather than a strictly religious tradition, it was assumed by all that this would be a partnership between the two with the fundamental core of the definition of marriage held up by the state and thus administered. What the gays are doing by insisting on a redefinition of marriage is to have the state hijack the institution completely and force it into the realm of politics where the fashion of the day is law.
Perhaps religion should never have relinquished its hold on the administration of marriage, but that ship sailed centuries ago. Today the function of religion in marriage is perfunctory in many cases. Two people get married at a time and place of their own choosing, probably by a clergy person who just printed out his/her ordination certificate from the Internet last week.
I fully understand and sympathize with the folks who are upset at the gay marriage agenda and want to hold it to one man and one woman. They've been cheated here, by a government who promised to hold this trust and is now breaking its word.
But I also agree that a redefinition of marriage (to include gay marriage) is inevitable. The religious roots of marriage have lost their grip on anything substantial and have been waving around in air searching for soil that was stolen years ago. As a partnership of church and state, marriage is done.
Here's what I see for the future:
1) gay marriage
2) polygamous marriage (sooner than you think!). This type will be quite popular for people who want to raise a family in tough economic conditions. If you have two men and three women in a marriage, three or four of them can be working and still have plenty of child care available. As well as ... Um, interesting social activity among the five parents.
3) The utter rejection of state sponsored marriage by many religious conservatives of different religions, replaced with church-administrated unions where all conflicts would be mediated by church ministers. This will likely have as many names as there are religions: Catholic marriage, Hindu marriage, Mormon marriage, Sharia marriage.
The gays will get marriage, but it will not be what they want. They want legitimacy, but what they will get is entry into an institution which has lost all integrity. It will be about as meaningful to get a marriage license as it is to sign up for Unemployment.
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thunderlips11 says
Thanks for the excerpt and the interesting parallel to Frank Herbert, I hadn't considered that before.
I appreciate Patrick.net because I feel a paradoxical quandary similar to what others here have described. Most Americans support the equal protection of the laws, including marriage equality, and I agree. Most Americans do not support Obamneycare, though most would support a British or Canadian style system, and I agree. If these issues were candidates or parties, they would win by a wider margin than almost any presidential contest of the last 20 years. But here is the paradoxical quandary: there is very little overlap between these clear majorities, nor is it possible to find a major party that agrees with the the majority of voters on both issues, and it is terribly unfashionable to hold the majority view on both issues.
Each major party demands the voters to accept a different poison pill. If you support the freedom to marry, then you must also support punishing people for not buying and maintaining medical insurance, unless they adhere to a fundamentalist religion that renounces all medical care entirely. If you think people should be allowed to take control of their own health, then you must support a theocratic party nominating a cult member who actually signed the original Romneycare before discovering his opposition to it when Obama signed the same thing. Meanwhile, both parties prop up banks by propping up housing prices, while more than a million children have been evicted from their homes due to foreclosure, and houses stand empty while people are homeless, all to keep the price up for the lenders who control the Federal Reserve ("Operation Twisted").
Either way, we are not allowed to think for ourselves, because our "mental activity" (Judge Kessler's opinion upholding Obamneycare) can now be regulated and penalized by the federal government. Her "reasoning" was that millions of people deciding not to buy something might affect interstate commerce. Specifically, it might affect the value of her shares in medical stocks, on which she made more $$$ during the resurrection of Obamneycare than from her salary during the same period. And her job is guaranteed for life, along with her pension, as part of the governmental aristocracy.
We live in troubling times.
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Quigley says
You are mistaken about the history of marriage. First of all, it is older than any of the currently popular religions. It included same-sex couples prior to the existence of Islam and Christianity, and in fact John Boswell traced a continuous tradition of same-sex marriages in Christian Europe including benedictions based on Serge and Bacchus. (BTW consider the story of David and Jonathan, as told by Samuel.)
The roots of marriage are probably older than humanity itself, arising from natural law. It has included polygamy for most of human history; Romney comes from a polygamous family, and it remains popular in Islam. I'm not a fan personally, but many of our fellow primates do seem to live that way.
As a legal matter, married couples expect rightly to have the equal protection of the laws. That applies even if one is Catholic and the other Jewish (even though "conservatives" in both religions would prohibit the marriage), even if one or both are male or female, the same or different colors (see Loving v Virginia), etc. Stretching the definition of marriage to include larger numbers of people would raise a number of different issues that can easily be distinguished. Whether polygamy will return to America is entirely independent of whether same-sex couples get the equal protection of the laws.
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freak80 says
no they don't. they say you're free to hate as long as you don't act on that hatred.
if you act on that hatred they'll put you in jail.
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BTW, freak80, in the past you wrote favorably about Chris Hedges, who supports same-sex marriage. In fact, his wedding to Eunice Wong was officiated by a gay minister whose same-sex wedding Hedges had previously attended.
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curious2 says
I don't remember the name. I'm not saying I didn't write favorably about him, it's just that my memory sucks.
Can you link to it?
At any rate, just because I agree with someone on one issue doesn't I have to agree with them on every issue.
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Quigley, that's probably the most intelligent commentary on the whole issue I've seen in a long time.
My two cents: we should just abolish marriage (as a government/legal institution) altogether since it doesn't seem to carry much value anymore anyway. What's the divorce rate? 50%? Heck, even "religious conservatives" get divorced at the same rate as the "secular" folks (or maybe it's even higher).
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Chris Hedges link as requested:
http://www.truthdig.com/tag/chris+hedges/
freak80 says
Beware sophistry, it can seem intelligent especially when it starts with a false premise then reasons to a false conclusion. That is a polite way of saying, "garbage in, garbage out."
Saying that marriage laws should be abolished because gay people would pollute "the institution" is like southern cities that decided to abolish public swimming pools rather than integrate them: legally permissible, morally reprehensible. If you don't like the equal protection of the laws, you should reconsider and ask yourself why. If you don't like the fact that other people have the same right to their own religions (many of which support same-sex marriage) as you have to yours, you should reconsider and ask yourself why. There may be valid reasons to separate government from marriage, for example the benefits attached to marriage discriminate against single people, but if the goal is to retreat into balkanized sects stigmatizing each other then I think you should reconsider and ask yourself whether such mutual stigmatization would confer any real benefit to anyone other than the preachers and pols who gain $$$ and power by keeping people divided against each other.
The founders of our republic, who comprised people of different religions and of none, risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to establish a new republic with no king and no official religion. Theocrats think that was wrong. I think theocrats are mistaken, but I also think their priorities are misaligned.
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freak80 says
Except that your "no confidence vote" is easily written off as another fat, lazy American too stupid to inform themselves or wipe the Cheetos off their hands to vote.
Viva la Revolucion!
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Curious2: it's interesting to me that we are having a discussion about American politics, within the scope of our culture, and to refute my point about the state taking over marriage you bring up ancient history! Like, thousands of years ago! Whats next? A debate about Whether cavemen were possessed of Liberal values? If you're going to argue the point that marriage has always included gays, you should start on the same page as the rest of us.
David and Jonathan? Really? They were friends! Haven't you ever had a same sex friend who you truly admired and appreciated? Trust me, it's very possible to have a friend you love "closer than a brother." There doesn't need to be a sexual component to make such a friendship very close. I am secure enough in myself that I need not be bothered by calls of "fag" or "homo" by small minded people who wish to taunt. If nothing else good comes of this discussion of gay rights, I hope we can at least eliminate those taunts from our lexicon.
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StoutFiles says
Perhaps we should have a lottery for nominees, instead of party primaries. Each person would have the option to buy one lottery ticket for $1. Ten candidates would be selected at random, for three debates. They divide the lottery money equally to spend solely on organizing their campaigns, e.g. putting up a website etc. At the end of each debate, half the candidates are eliminated by popular vote (first debate has 10 candidates, second debate has five candidates, third has two candidates). Probably parties would find a way to game the system though, because the opportunities for patronage have become so enormous, especially in the context of deficit spending. The system would need some basic limits on the prize at stake, like balanced budgets and constitutional rights (including the equal protection of the laws, which some people don't seem to support currently).
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Quigley says
We are trying to, but your assertions regarding American history are simply incorrect.
Quigley says
Marriage was never, in American history at least, a strictly religious tradition. The founders of the American republic included people of different religions and of none. They wrote specifically that the Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor restricting the free exercise thereof. To say that exactly the opposite was "assumed by all" is to ignore what they believed and what they wrote.
And David and Jonathan were not only closer than brothers. According to Samuel, King James translation, David called Jonathan's love "wonderful, passing the love of women." And remember David had 800 wives, the Lance Bass of his day, so he should know. But that's irrelevant to the laws pertaining to marriage, which are part of government and subject to the Constitution, not any sect's holy text.
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freak80 says
I would be interested to hear someone who actually studied Constitutional Law describe for me exactly how a Presidential Election could produce no winner in our current system (assuming we're talking about the electoral process). My understanding is that "no confidence" = "failed system" under the current form of government.
If I'm right, then in reality, as opposed to the idealized fiction you guys like to talk about, when you don't vote you're casting your lot for things continuing to rot.
And for the record, I don't always vote. Sometimes I would rather see a failure and reset than to support the currently diseased system.
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The American left lacks the balls to lynch anyone. All you're in for is a shaming.
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Raise the richin's taxes, but give them deductions for investments that are directly related to creating jobs. Investments that are well defined and vetted by both parties....
thunderlips11 says
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I feel like i'm watching O'Reilly's "word of the day"...
CaptainShuddup says
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CaptainShuddup says
Glad to hear you finally say that paying taxes is a great American trait:
Ordinary Americans try the new tax calculator, "We are going to be really screwed under Romney.”
http://freakoutnation.blogspot.ca/
Except of course for those kindly rich folk:
"Romney: ‘Romney hood’ attack is ‘Obamaloney’ - but, An analysis released by the Tax Policy Center determined that Romney’s plan to slash tax rates by 20% would actually mean that 95% of Americans would pay an average of $500 more per year, while millionaires would see a $87,000 cut in their taxes."
http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/romney-romney-hood-attack-is-obamaloney,502160347af68a84dc6e152e
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curious2 says
Then why do you keep bringing up "a sect's holy text"?
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curious2 says
That doesn't mean they were anally penetrating each other.
Yes, in our culture Love = Sex, but not in all cultures.
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freak80 says
It was in reply to Quigley's false assertion that marriage was a "strictly religious tradition" and that the laws pertaining to it were "assumed by all" merely to establish and administer that religious tradition.
freak80 says
Speak for yourself. You're the one who started writing about anal penetration. Project much? According to Samuel, Jonathan defied his own father to save David, who was by all accounts gorgeous btw. David could have called Jonathan's love "passing the love of brothers," or "passing the love of friends," but Samuel quotes him specifically saying "passing the love of women." On a related point, since you often quote the Bible, you might read Luke, who quotes Jesus describing the rapture, when believers are supposed to be taken up while unbelievers are left behind: "in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other left." Notice he doesn't say, "both shall be condemned." Also you might want to re-read John, "the disciple [singular] whom Jesus loved," i.e. the disciple whom Jesus loved in a way that was different from the way he loved the other disciples. (That is why Renaissance artists tended to depict John as more feminine than the other disciples, a detail that was given a different interpretation in The Davinci Code.) The purportedly (not really) "Christian" fear and loathing directed against two men in bed together requires a disingenuously selective reading. Ultimately it says more about the people making that claim than about the Bible or the people who lived at the time it was written, for example it was a useful subterfuge to distract Catholics while the priests molested children (of both sexes).
What really shocks me is that you base your opposition to the Democratic party on the party's support for the equal protection of the laws. You could have mentioned Obamneycare, NAFTA, or any number of other things, but no. For you, apparently, the party's unforgivable sin is supporting equal rights.
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curious2 says
You're the one that reading homosexuality into the text. Not me. And if you were really "open minded" about homosexuality you would *not* use the above as an insult.
curious2 says
What are you taking about? Where do I quote the Bible?
curious2 says
The whole "rapture" thing is a recent phenomenon that developed in certain protestant circles. It was never part of classical Christianity. Yes, classical Chrsitianity speaks of a "last judgement" but "The Rapture" is a recent innovation.
curious2 says
And you accuse ME of projection? You automatically assume love = sex. Yes, OUR culture is saturated with that idea, but not all cultures.
curious2 says
Ah, the Da Vinci Code. There's a reliable source for the intention of Renaissance artists. You know George Washington and the other founders look pretty feminine by today standards to. Hmmmm...
curious2 says
I assume you mean "equal protection under the law"? Who *doesn't* support equal protection under the law?
I believe people who engage in homosexual behavior are 5/5th of a person. Really! I just don't think such behavior should be codified into law, that's all.
curious2 says
Again, you're arguing under a false premise. As you said above, "garbage in, garbage out."
No one is against equal rights. Nobody is trying to take away the right to vote, free speech/religion, fair trial, right to bear arms, etc etc based on sexual behaviors.
Marriage is an institution, not a "right."
And yet you accuse Quigley of sophistry.
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freak80 says
He didn't say it as an insult. He just said you were closeted. Hope that helps!
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freak80 says
Wow, you really do have a faulty memory. Try checking your own comment history for your preferred authors and your favorite (selective) quotations:
http://patrick.net/forum/comments.php?s=ecclesiastes&submit=Search
freak80 says
Yes. See the history above including the example copied immediately below.
freak80 says
You said that, I didn't. You accuse me of saying it, when in fact only you said it. You're also the one who started writing about anal penetration.
freak80 says
No, you're projecting again. I said the Da Vinci Code gave a different interpretation from the Renaissance Artists'. For a source on their intentions, consider for example Charles Nicholl's thoroughly researched biography of Da Vinci, which notes Da Vinci was gay btw.
freak80 says
In law, marriage is a fundamental right. Institutions don't marry, they merge. Of course, with Mitt "corporations-are-people" Romney, the distinction can seem blurry.
freak80 says
The Constitution says "equal protection of the laws." It means what it says.
freak80 says
You don't, because you contend that gay couples don't deserve the equal protection of the marriage laws. Also, perpetuating discrimination against gay couples is apparently so important to you that it is your sole proffered basis for condemning the Democratic party.
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curious2 says
lol. That quote had *nothing* to do with homosexuality. The quote was in a different thread about a totally different subject.
curious2 says
You just repeated the same stuff I already soundly refuted.
Garbage in, garbage out.
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I said you often quote the Bible. You then asked: "What are you taking [sic] about? Where do I quote the Bible?" I provided a link with examples.
freak80 says
You haven't refuted anything. To the contrary, you've admitted that you oppose the equal protection of the laws relating to marriage, i.e. you insist there must be a "gay exception" to render gay couples strangers to the laws that everyone else takes for granted, and it remains your only basis for rejecting the Democratic party. BTW, if the Republican Party decrees that only Baptists can marry, or that Catholics should be restricted to marrying only other Catholics (which happens to be the position of the Vatican), will you continue to insist that it's a religious institution not a right?
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freak80 says
I'm pretty sure that democrats are a-okay with you defining marriage for yourself as one man and one woman. The problem the pro-marriage-equality movement has is when you define marriage for all of us and force that definition and the legal consequences of it down our throats by making it into law.
I am a heterosexual male. I have no gay friends. But I find it absolutely unacceptable that gay people have to pay higher income taxes, are wrongfully denied health and other benefits, and are denied other rights on the basis of their sexual orientation. My support of marriage equality has nothing to do with the word or the definition of marriage and everything to do with equality under law. Hell, I've argued that there shouldn't even be a legal definition of marriage or any laws that use the word marriage.
You can have the word, but you can’t have other people’s rights.
Any law that directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly denies equal legal status and rights to same-sex couples as different-sex couples is a violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and goes against the very foundation of our country: all men are created equal with the same rights.
The thing is, republicans are supposed to believe in this as well. Aren’t republicans always stating things like there are too many regulations, government should be small and nonintrusive, the individual matters not the group (i.e. socialism bad, capitalism good)? Well, shouldn’t there be less regulation of marriage? Doesn’t a small, nonintrusive government stay out of the marriage business?
Why should marriage equality even be a left vs. right issue if it’s not about bigotry and denying rights to people? Sure, you can be against gay marriage as a social and as a religious institution. But to be against gay marriage as a secular, legal institution is to be against the 14th Amendment.
freak80 says
I know of no instance where anyone has accused a person of a hate crime for being against marriage equality. It would be a ridiculous accusation. Now maybe there are a few nuts that would make such a claim, but it is not a mainstream belief of democrats, liberals, or leftists.
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curious2 says
I don't "condemn" the Democratic party. I just won't vote for them, since people like you represent the base. I'm not going to vote for a party that considers "traditional marriage" to be the same thing as "discrimination."
Not all "discrimination" is bad. There's a reason why one particular relationship (1 man + 1 woman) was given special treatment under the law. Can you think of it?
That doesn't mean the other relationships (like casual friendships, homosexual relationships, etc) are looked at as "necessarily inferior" in the eyes of the law.
I get the sense that you're trying to draw a false analogy between the "gay marriage" movement and the struggle to end slavery and/or abolish Jim Crow, etc. Nobody is trying to prevent gays from voting, having a fair trial, or sitting in the front of the bus. Not me, at least.
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curious2 says
You're putting words in my mouth. You're using the classic "straw man" tactic. It's on display for all to see.
I think two best friends shouldn't be able to marry (each other). I believe they should be able to marry a member of the opposite sex (within the usual restrictions of course). That doesn't mean those two folks don't have equal protection under the law.
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freak80 says
Actually no, I can't think of any reason that hasn't been soundly refuted. That's why marriage equality tends to prevail in court, where people have to present facts and laws to support their positions. Ballot measures driven by fear-mongering preachers and pols trying to gain money and power for themselves are a different story though.
Dan8267 says
It's a shibboleth fabricated by preachers and PACs to fool parishioners into voting against equal rights, thereby stoking division and animosity, which the preachers and pols can profit from in terms of $ and power for themselves. "Divide and misrule."
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curious2 says
Really? Surely you jest. There's nothing that makes a sexual relationship between a male and female fundamentally different than all other relationships?
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freak80 says
Wow, your memory is faulty again. You've said repeatedly that you oppose the equal protection of the marriage laws for gay couples. For example:
freak80 says
freak80 says
freak80 says
And, you've confirmed that the subject is so important to you that you can't vote for a party that supports the equal protection of the marriage laws:
freak80 says
(BTW, "traditional marriage" means different things to different people. In places where same-sex marriage has been recognized for a long time, it's traditional. Again, check John Boswell's book about Catholic same-sex marriage ceremonies in pre-modern Europe. Or current Hungary, which recognized same-sex marriage at common law because it had always been that way.)