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what is rational about outlawing divorce, or advocating marital rape? It directly follows logically that if the debater CLAIMS their intent in denying gay marriage is the preservation of the meaning and sanctity of the heterosexual variety, then, unless they are intellectually dishonest, the most expedient thing would be to put their own house in order first by making divorces, at the very least, difficult to get. We all know THAT isn't going to happen-- Christian heterosexuals like the option too much and though they pay lip service to the sanctity of marriage, their observed habits contradict their professions. Even the name of the federal law, Defense of Marriage, inherently proclaims this double standard and some of the politicians that voted for it have 3 divorces in their woodpiles. Maybe it would make more sense to have a Constitutional amendment proclaiming that a divorce can only happen between one man and one woman. BTW, I'm definitely NOT advocating marital rape, merely pointing out that much Fundamentalist religious doctrine demands that a woman SUBMIT to her husband, because in some cultures in the past, women were considered property. -Kerry O. |
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People who bring those topics up are basically confessing that they have no rational arguments against the topic at hand. And the MOST rational argument of all by religionists that _claim_ to have the sanctity of marriage at heart would be to _first_ virtually outlaw divorce. Or pass laws that demand that wives do their spousal duty and never deny their husbands' divine right of sexual congress. Sure, they'd get laughed off the planet, their contributions would dry up because their congregations would go elsewhere for more liberal 'laws', but at least they'd sound more consistently rational. -Kerry O. |
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I wish I knew a singular reason why things like incest or prostitution cause some to recoil The opposition to incest is largely based on the fact that it's wrong to the next generation. Every one of us is a product of the genetic lottery that is human reproduction, but the products of incest are handed an automatic losing hand. There is also the hierarchic relationships that are normal in a family. Younger family members look up to older family members and those ties can be manipulated easily. Especially when the top of the hierarchy is dysfunctional. Add in religion and you have a real train wreck in some cases. Some of the loudest voices for this theory of familial harmony have, themselves, the most dsyfunctional relationships with the broken families of which they are a part and for which their actions bear some of the responsibility for their being that way. BTW, your first paragraph just made an excellent case why comparing incest and homosexuality is a non sequitur when debating gay marriage. -Kerry O. |
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so if there is a god, and he is against it, why? wouldn't there be a reason behind it? According to the Bible, God created men and women to be matching pairs. Men are made for women and vise versa. So homosexuality goes against his plan for humanity. That doesn't make any sense to me. Given any human culture there simply isn't always an exact 50/50 mix of males and females. So it cannot have been God's plan that everyone pair up. In fact, if we accept your assumption that it is God's plan for everyone to pair up and he clearly did not provide a way for there to be precisely the same amount of males and females in a culture, then obviously he must have intended for some same-gender couples to pair up. So your argument actually supports that it is obviously God's plan for same-gender couples to exist. There you go with your sloppy thinking again. You ignore a multitude of possibilities to come up with the conclusion you want to be true. You'll never find true happiness until you stop following your heart and instead follow the facts where ever they lead. My sloppy thinking? I beg your pardon sir, but you are the one who is ignoring the TRUTH. The TRUTH is that it is seldom the case that there are equal numbers of males and females in a given culture. Therefore it cannot have been God's plan for all couples to be heterosexual. The means to that end is simply not possible. A God cannot expect humans to achieve results that he did not provide them the means to achieve. Therefore your claim is unreasonable and cannot stand. See, that's why he created divorce. If you find yourself with the wrong counterpart, you just get a divorce. And try, try again. Personally, I think if that was his plan, he would have given everyone a serial number, created a giant Noah's Ark where you went to be paired off with the perfectly matched mate he created for you from the master list. All would be fine. -Kerry O. |
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It remains to be seen if they can pull this wool over they eyes of the Libertarian branch of the party. Correct, its not happening. Gary Johnson or Ron Paul. These are the people who represent us Libertarians. Thank you very much. While I don't agree with a lot of what Ron Paul espouses, I think the country could do far worse presidentially. As with Bachmann, for example, a loose cannon ideologue who has little regard for accuracy when it flies in the face of her single-minded agenda. It's a long way to January 2013 and a lot of surprising things are apt to happen. Let's hope a Tea Partier hijacking the election via the hijinks like the Florida 2000 debacle isn't one of them. Personally, I think Mitt Romney has a chance despite all the Tea Party gnashing of teeth. -Kerry O. |
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People have been looking into the business activities of Michelle Bachman's husband, who describes himself as his wife's "political strategist." What kind of business is this clinic that has taken so much Federal money? This source is a notorious liberal news source, so it's probably all a pack of lies. http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=6882 Apparently, Marcus Bachman specializes in something called "restorative therapy", a regimen that seeks to "fix" people who are concerned that they may be gay. Good use of Medicare money. The Bachmans have long been known for their anti-gay agenda. There are plenty of sources to corroborate this. That figures-- and that's how they'll 'sell' this to The Base: that they were only getting reimbursed to do 'God's work'. It remains to be seen if they can pull this wool over they eyes of the Libertarian branch of the party. They _may_ be able to use her charisma to get the Tea Partiers to turn a blind eye, but I think their karma is going to catch up with them when it comes to the more moderate Libertarians. -Kerry O. |
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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann may hate Medicaid, but it sure looks like her husband doesn't. Marcus Bachmann's mental health clinic has received more than $137,000 from the very organization his wife likes to slam, according to an NBC News report. The government aid is in addition to the $24,000 in federal and state funds Bachmann and Associates has already received for staff training programs. The Minnesota Department of Human Services has allocated the Medicaid funds to the clinic over a period of six years. The funds are aimed at helping low-income mentally ill patients. Marcus serves as president of the Lake Elmo-based clinic. The Tea Party favorite insists that her family has not directly received government aid. "My husband and I did not get the money," Michele told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. She said the funding was solely for employee training purposes. "[It was] one-time training money that came from the federal government," Michele said. "And it certainly didn't help our clinic." Wallace did not ask her about the $137,000 in Medicaid payments -- and she did not acknowledge them either. The congresswoman's spokesperson Alice Stewart said Wednesday that Bachmann and Associates did accept Medicaid funding because it would be "discriminatory" not to do so. "As a state-sponsored counseling service, Bachmann and Associates has a responsibility to provide Medicaid and medical assistance, regardless of a patients financial situation," Stewart told CNN. Michele has been an outspoken critic of Medicaid and federal spending programs during her time in office. She demanded that Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton cancel his planned expansion of Medicaid for 95,000 Minnesotans earlier this year - claiming that the plan would add "recipients to the welfare roll at a very great cost." "This will be a very bad bargain for an already overburdened, overtaxed state," she said at GOP conference in St. Paul in January. In 2009, Bachmann told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly that she does not need federal financial support. "I don't need government to be successful," she said. The Bachmanns, however, are no strangers to federal aid. They received more than $260,000 in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2008 for a family farm in Wisconsin, in which Michele is a partner, according to the Los Angeles Times. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/06/29/2011-06-29_michele_bachmanns_husband_accepted_over_137000_in_medicaid_payments.html Perhaps Ms Bachman Isn't aware of how her businesses are operated. Looks like she has some 'splainin' to do. Wonder how THIS revelation will play with her Tea Party supporters? Will it be like the old political cartoon from last century with the 3 monkeys named See No, Hear No and Speak No (Evil)? -Kerry O. |
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Edited by
KerryO
on
Mon 06/27/11 12:04 AM
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Is it Palin's "sex appeal" combined with the abrupt and audacious way she captured the national limelight during the 2008 presidential campaign...made women jealous ? What 'national limelight'? Her ticket LOST the national election with a virtual electoral landslide vote of 365-173, with a plurality-- 52%-- of the popular vote going to the other party. Maybe you should be thinking 'grape' here, not 'lime'. As in sour grapes that the independent vote wasn't fooled by the cynical ploy to swing the election with a beauty pageant. That $arah Palin later quit her elected post as governor of Alaska shows that they weren't fooled for a second by the empty tough talk. There's an old saying that covers what happened quite nicely: "If you can't sell the message on its merits, try selling it with cleavage." -Kerry O. |
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Fans of Irony, don't you just love the way some Republicans express moral outrage with drool? :) -Kerry O. There's no moral outrage here, she hasn't or isn't committing any crimes or lying to a nation. Wny do I get the impression that you posted the article to stir that pot, though? :) If memory serves, someone, who shall remain nameless, posted something suggesting that Democratic party women were a real pack of barkers the other week. :) -Kerry O. |
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BTW, Spiderman-- your logic is faulty. It's a classic expression of Proof by Ignorance and it's self-serving hogwash. LOL! Thanks man. No problem. Someone has to keep an eye on you wetware programmer types, lest you think infinite loops could be run faster if only the hardware guys could give you faster cycle times. -Kerry O. |
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Amen. It makes no sense at all, that a supposedly divine being had no other option but to kill these children and make them suffer for something others were doing in the first place, rather than take them away from the Israelites in a kinder way. No sense at all, not even a little bit. Revelation 21:4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. Their deaths won't even be memories for them. Also, I have to keep reminding you guys of this. You fall into this logical trap and somehow none of you see it. You can't question the motivations or actions of God. A finite being cannot hope to understand the ways of an infinite being. You can legitimately argue against the existence of God, but it is completely fallacious to accept the existence of God (even for arguments sake) and then question His actions. By definition, you cannot be more pure, good or know more than God, so once you accept the premise that God exists, any argument against his actions is a logical fallacy. Since 'god' didn't slay the children in this Biblical story with his own 'hand', I'm instead questioning the motivations of the people who let themselves become dupes willing to murder for their beliefs. I have a more sensible quote from a piece of fiction that I think summons it up better: "People who lack empathy are capable of horrific crimes. Their acts of convenience are the tragedies of their victims." The Midianite children certaintly weren't the first children to be slaughtered with religious conviction and they probably won't be the last unless humanity rejects killing innocents while taking refugee for the slaughter behind obedience to a deity as justification. BTW, Spiderman-- your logic is faulty. It's a classic expression of Proof by Ignorance and it's self-serving hogwash. -Kerry O. |
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Here's the problem with your logic and it's a big one. You look at what individuals or mobs have done, but you haven't taken an honest look at Christian doctrine to see if those behaviors are taught or tolerated in Christianity. And as usual, the problem with yours lies in the story of the infanticide of Midianite children. Ordered by _your_ god, carried out by the same believers in your Abrahamic religious faith. Oh, I suspect you'll again pretend that it was the fault of the parents because although you won't come right out and condone it, you DO try to rationalize it away as justified and by blaming the victims. Infanticide is one of the penultimate acts our species finds repugnant, and were it not for religious dogma brainwashing people up front, virtually NO ONE would willingly worship a diety who ordered such things on a regular basis. -Kerry O. You are right, the Israelites SHOULD have left the children alive, because everyone can agree that if anything is more moral than a quick and painless death, it's to leave babies to die of starvation, exposition or to be eaten alive by animals. There you go again-- justifying your god's bloodlust and its consequences. I'm sure an omnipotent god could have found _some_way to spare the children. I mean really, he sent magical food from the heavens to sustain the Israelites, I'm sure he could have come up with something. But, I guess that would have spoiled the story, wouldn't it? Besides, if your dogma about the afterlife is to be believed, this same deity loves to torture people with fire forever and ever. Just my opinion, but it takes a special kind of monster to slay terrified children. All one need do is put themselves in the place of those Israelites and ask one's self if they could do it. Personally, that's why I think many of the stories in the Bible are just that-- stories with no validity. -Kerry O. |
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Here's the problem with your logic and it's a big one. You look at what individuals or mobs have done, but you haven't taken an honest look at Christian doctrine to see if those behaviors are taught or tolerated in Christianity. And as usual, the problem with yours lies in the story of the infanticide of Midianite children. Ordered by _your_ god, carried out by the same believers in your Abrahamic religious faith. Oh, I suspect you'll again pretend that it was the fault of the parents because although you won't come right out and condone it, you DO try to rationalize it away as justified and by blaming the victims. Infanticide is one of the penultimate acts our species finds repugnant, and were it not for religious dogma brainwashing people up front, virtually NO ONE would willingly worship a diety who ordered such things on a regular basis. -Kerry O. |
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Fans of Irony, don't you just love the way some Republicans express moral outrage with drool? :)
-Kerry O. |
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And you're going to win yours with namecalling? :) You just might want to review the forum rules. -Kerry O. He chopped up the quote to make it seem like Adam Smith supports progressive tax schemes. That's called lying. This wasn't the first time he's done that. They can ban me if they want, but I'm simply stating the facts. No, you just disagree with his interpretation and you showed no grace or civility in expressing same. An interpretation, I might add, that Adam Smith did indeed favor _some_degree_ of progressive taxation is pretty common if one takes the time to research it. People who disagree with you are not liars for having a different interpretation than yours-- they just disagree with you. Calling them names and impugning their integrity is not very persuasive. -Kerry O. |
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Leftist propaganda. Adam Smith supported a flat tax, which firmly places the majority of the income tax on the shoulders of the rich, but not unduly so. Well, there you go again. I had to do a little reading on that. Smith had to choose between a flat, tax, a proportional tax and a progressive tax. While he was ambiguos between the latter two, The flat tax was out of the picture. Among other remarks, he said, ""The rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion"[109]" That would be a progressive tax. Are you used to debating really dumb, lazy people? You aren't going to win this argument by being a liar, got it? And you're going to win yours with namecalling? :) You just might want to review the forum rules. -Kerry O. |
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I guess Jesus never saw a rich man he didn't love and admire, so it's a national sin to tax the top 1% at all. Jesus did say that stealing is wrong and he encouraged rich people to be charitable. Societies don't exist so that the politicians can screw the rich, they are supposed to be a compact of mutual defense between individuals. Keep overtaxing the rich and they can leave the country and take their money with them. Is that what you want? To kill the goose that laid the golden egg? And it's really sad that you think you know what or how I think. You have a stereotype that you just slap onto people so that you can feel morally superior. Maybe you are or maybe you aren't, but you assume far more than the facts will allow. Let me tell you something KerryO, anytime you think you know how I think or feel about something and I haven't EXPLICITLY taken that position, then you are probably 100% wrong. And equating taxing the rich to give the poor a minimal existence with stealing ISN'T making a moral judgement? A not just a little bit 'superior' on your part? It's so easy to pull off your mask. Just like the rest of the Far Right, you're an authoritarian who can't STAND to be disagreed with, so you invoke these phony morality arguments to rescue your flawed premises every time. Personally, I think it would be a godsend if the Wall St. bankers and speculators got pissed off and left the country. I know what Jesus through about the moneychangers-- do you? -Kerry O. |
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Topic:
Mitt Romney Get's Jeered
Edited by
KerryO
on
Sat 06/18/11 07:25 AM
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LOL!!
Well, now that Newt Gingrich's campaign has imploded, who's going to represent the Republican Death Star contingent? Bachmann or Santorum? :) Romney's the only hope you guys have of NOT having an Obama second term. Get with the program. :) -Kerry O. |
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I think its funny how people act like rich people don't pay any taxes. They are in the highest tax bracket already. They pay the highest percentages. That's not really true in any meaningful way. A look at the numbers shows that the curve for taxes paid versus income across all the income brackets is very slightly progressive. As well it should be. In fact I think the curve should be much more progressive. 50% of all taxes are paid by the top 1% of earners. 50% of Americans pay no payroll taxes. Your facts are about as screwed up as they can be. I guess Jesus never saw a rich man he didn't love and admire, so it's a national sin to tax the top 1% at all. Of course, the vast middle class spending accounts for 70% of the economy, so if you tax them more to give the Big Guys their just tax breaks, the economy is going to hurt even more. 'Trickle Down' never did work because of this small fact. But why should the rich and their apologists care about that? At least for now, they got theirs, right? Henry Ford had the right idea-- once you pay the working people a decent wage and give them some dignity, it's a tide that raises all boats. They'll be able to actually buy the products your company makes. Of course they could also get a little too uppity and demand to have their say in how things are run... -Kerry O. |
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No, no Kerry, haven't you heard?! There weren't really any dinosaurs at all. Satan just planted big bones to lead us astray! Maybe. *I* wonder who the beings are behind the "Satan". And if they are even more subtle than most people can imagine. For instance, I think they've already perfected the art of making fake Fakes. :) Imagine the fun they had in the Garden of Eden using ventriloquism to come up with a talking serpent... -Kerry O. |
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