Donald Trump

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NeroNoah wrote:

That's a slipery slope argument. Just because you force someone, it doesn't mean you'll end forcing them in all situations. Just because you enforce non discrimination you won't end enforcing someone to help racists. If one is going to accept sometimes there is a need for coercion, you need a really high standard to allow it (you can argue if that's the case in the cake situation, of course).

There are two beliefs at play here: the people making wedding cakes that feel they shouldn't serve a homosexual couple, and the couple feeling they shouldn't be treated differently because of what they are. Which one has priority? In the racism situation, it's obvious we treat as inferior the discriminatory, unsound belief.

False dichotomy. There's always a third option: decline to intervene, give neither option priority.

As far as government is concerned, it should be simple calculus: it's the baker's property (the cake), he can do what he wants with it.

As far as society is concerned, either the homosexual couple or some other witness should report it to news outlets, news outlets should see it as a story, and people hearing about it should be outraged.

Do you honestly believe that society and government are or should be essentially the same entity? That everything appropriate to our social mores should be made into legislation, enforced by our police, and the merely unethical (as opposed to truly criminal) should be dragged into our courts?

Liberty is about allowing difference of opinion. Yes, to include the genuinely crazy idea that homosexuality's somehow evil.

As far as I'm concerned, unless it involves force or the threat of force on another person or their property, it isn't criminal, and if it doesn't involve the failure to deliver on a binding contract, it shouldn't be grounds for action in civil court.

I think at this point is mostly ideological differences. You care more about liberty and private property rights than the outcome. I'd balance both. The liberty to be evil requires some strict scrutiny.

In your non intervention world, it's totally possible for some subgroups of people to be screwed without alternatives (or at least be very inconvenienced). Specially if the religious people go and make the laws, rather than having a totally free environment. Then there is the information/level of resources gap. Think of segregation of schools.

Also, I'd argue that homosexual people deserving to not be discriminated goes beyond mere society's mores, and it would be the same for, let's say, black people.

Force and threat of force are not the only bad things in the world, you can do harm without those.

I'm not interested in jailing people for this stuff, but discouraging them should be good.

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NeroNoah wrote:

I dislike the terminology. It's from the jock dictionary, or for zoologists. Izaro wouldn't aprove a leader like him, :P

Now, I must really pick at this. While I can agree that Izaro wouldnt approve of a leader like him, his labyrinth method would never get any beta to be emperor. Chitus was right, he lost his mind with the labyrinth. THIS
would be the president of the USA with Izaro's method.

The only right answer to that is this:



I think the labyrinth tests more how patient are you (at least in the short run) rather than raw strength, given how much people are complaining about filthy Mario/Contra/Prince of Persia/Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones.

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NeroNoah wrote:

It's somewhat a subjective argument, and I wonder if it even applies to some place that it's sunk in negativity anyway (think a shitty town in the middle of nowhere, or a place full of likeminded people; in those places a choice doesn't exist). US has a history of screwing sistematically over groups of people (like segregation), so I wouldn't even be that sure.

It isn't subjective, there are entire industries promulgated on the premise.

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NeroNoah wrote:

You may be right, but it requires a higher standard of proof if you are going to say discrimination is tolerable because the market will punish that people.

If it were wide scale practice, which it isn't, then there would be a need to deal with it, but you'd still have to follow the Constitution.

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NeroNoah wrote:

Also, not all the childless couples have money, so it would guarantee rights for people above some level of income, but not for the rest.

The vast majority do, for the very simple reason of less expenses. Given person A with Income A, and expenses of X will always have more money than Person B with income of A and expenses of X + Y. Disposable income is the terminology, and being younger and childless is a major factor. It is a big part of the reason the 18-25 year old demographic is so heavily targeted by advertising.

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NeroNoah wrote:

That's a slipery slope argument. Just because you force someone, it doesn't mean you'll end forcing them in all situations.

It isn't slippery slope at all. It is a matter of a constitutional precedent being set. Those are by definition used by the courts to determine how future actions are interpreted. They are very difficult to overturn.

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NeroNoah wrote:

Just because you enforce non discrimination you won't end enforcing someone to help racists.

But they aren't enforcing non-discrimination. When you look at all the cases of discrimination that they turn down and never look at, you can see they are selectively advancing a change in legal policy through judicial fiat. A change in which an opinion that they prefer is pushed over another opinion. Using that same precedent, a later judge can use it to enforce an opinion that others do find to be racist. It has happened before in US history.

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NeroNoah wrote:

There are two beliefs at play here: the people making wedding cakes that feel they shouldn't serve a homosexual couple (and no, giving a cake doesn't mean some type of aproval, it's just bussiness)

While I would agree with you that in my opinion it doesn't show approval, the belief of the cake makers is different. It isn't our choice to interpret what they believe, any more than we interpret whether eating during the day during Ramadan is really prohibited, or whether orange popsicles are tastier than red popsicles.

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NeroNoah wrote:

, and the couple feeling they shouldn't be treated differently because of what they are. Which one has priority? In the racism situation, it's obvious we treat as inferior the discriminatory, unsound belief.

First off, - thinking that you mean discrimination, not racism - since race isn't involved in the cake scenario - you are assuming that not wanting to do something for someone else is discrimination. Trump could say voters who won't vote for him are racist.

Ah, but this isn't the same, since they are running a public business you might say. And yet, signs like these are common in many small businesses, and you don't see public outcry about them:



Ah, but they aren't targeting a specific group, you might say.

Then we'd have Disney, or any of the other companies that targeted a specific state because of it's bathroom laws.

Well those aren't legally protected groups, you might say.

Then we are back to judicial interpretation of laws and the Constitution. One of the things the Constitution protects is the freedom of religion. It doesn't say - with exceptions.

"Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."


The Constitution doesn't say, Congress can make laws from time to time that prohibit the free exercise of religion when it feels like that expression is politically incorrect.

What about existing anti-discrimination laws? You might ask. There is nothing in the Constitution explicitly supporting them. It is just like there is nothing in the Constitution which explicitly supports sexual discrimination laws, except for voting. You might say that there should be, but the fact remains that there isn't.

What about the oft cited 14th Amendment and its prominently touted "Equal protection clause"?

First off, the whole meaning of the Constitution is derived by reading it as complete ideas and sentences, and amendments, not as "Clauses"

As an example - if we were progressive interpretists, we could look at GGG's code of conduct and its hate promoting "clause"

"Make hateful or needlessly negative comments"

So, GGG actively encourages hate, correct? The "clause" says so. Except that it isn't a clause, it is part of a whole sentence which says

"DO NOT Make hateful or needlessly negative comments."

Futhermore, the 14th Amendment doesn't cover racial or sexual discrimination, but rather says:

" No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Is buying a cake a constitutionally protected privilege? Is buying a cake some kind of immunity? Is the person wanting to buy a cake being deprived of life, liberty or property?

Now, on the flip side, the person who loses their business license, is deprived of their property, and there has been no due process of law. (which in this case would require a jury trial and a civil suit, since the dispute is between two private parties.

The Fifteenth Amendment is strictly about voting rights.

The Thirteenth Amendment does apply to individuals, but it only explicitly covers slavery.

" Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."


Even Wikipedia understands the obviousness of this:

"The Thirteenth Amendment applies to the actions of private citizens, while the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments apply only to state actors."

So, in the end, we are left with judicial imaginings overriding the explicit wording of the US Constitution. They are saying that their opinions matter more than the actual document.

Considering that the only authority those judges have is derived from the Constitution, their thinking places them on shaky ground at best, and at willful sedition and dereliction of constitutional fidelity at worst.

You and I and the common person might say "Well the Constitution should say that... but the fact is that it doesn't, and the judges are saying whatever they want about it, because ... well another judge before them said what they wanted about it.

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NeroNoah wrote:

In a secular society, sometimes there is a need to make choices about what beliefs respect or not. "

Such a choice was made, and enshrined in the US Constitution in the Bill of Rights, which was important enough that without an agreement to pass, there would have been no signing of the original Constitution. The very first and foremost line in the bill of rights protects the right of religion. It was passes as part of a secular Constitution.

Here is the original proposed wording:

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship

That is pretty dang clear. NONE. It doesn't say "the civil rights of bakers shall be abridged because their religion isn't as important as their customers' sexual preferences."

Should it say such? The US has an amendment process, and Congress and the States are allowed to propose and ratify changes to the Constitution. The Constitution does NOT allow judges such wide reinterpretational latitude.



It should be more evident with religions like Islam, rather than Christianism. If you think society should be modeled around a religion (read: a belief overriding the rest), you'd disagree, of course.

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DalaiLama wrote:

This is also in the process of changing, with the military leading the way by purging chaplains who aren't enthusiastic enough about perform ceremonies they object to.

Question: those chaplains work for the government? Because it makes a world of difference. Forcing a private religious entity is one thing, but enforcing non discrimination at government level is another one. A government by design should be for everyone.[/quote]

Read the first amendment again. It doesn't give the US government the right to determine that religious rights are secondary to what society thinks should be right and wrong. The Supreme Court (and its inferior courts) have stomped on what the US Constitution means so many times that people accept whatever it says as gospel now.

Imagine if the Supreme Court were to say that setting freckled people on fire was perfectly legal because that's how they interpreted the precedents?

It may not seem so blatant from the outside, but if you watch the process unfold, and see how various factions work, you begin to see what is really happening.

A good comparison, would be if the forum posters felt that we had established precedent and that GGG now had to do things the way we thought they should be done.

It is clear from Federal and State laws that discrimination is not where any government agency wants to go. They have legislated on such clearly, time and time again. Why can't they have the backbone to propose and pass a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing these rights?

If you keep paying attention to US politics and decisions, in twenty years you will see exactly what I am talking about and when you try to explain it to anyone who wasn't paying attention, they will think you are a conspiracy nut.

I'm not saying that the opposite side, wouldn't just as happily advance their interpretation of the Constitution if they could get away with it. The can and do twist the system at both ends of the spectrum.

They really don't care what happens to the people in the middle, or what the Constitution and laws were supposed to mean and do in the first place. When Judges run wild, all we are doing is exchanging one lynch mob mentality for another.

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NeroNoah wrote:

rights are not universal, a right is limited by other's people right. LGBT people had the short stick for many thousands of years, so some protection is deserved.

First off, if a right can be limited by another person's right, then it shouldn't be a right, and arguably isn't a right at all. If a person has a right to free health care, then those providing medical care do NOT have a right to turn down those who cannot pay. If a person has a right to be a customer in a restaurant, then the restaurant does NOT have a right to refuse service.

A right to be left alone, a right to freedom from interference, is a a proper right, one which can be universally applied and protect everyone. A right to be provided for, a right to demand services from others, always involves forced labor on the part of those doing the providing, and can only be accomplished by violating the liberty and property rights of others.

Second, no one, much less someone LGBT, has been alive for a thousand years in order to get the short stick for that long. Even in cases involving ethnicity I consider it an amazing stretch to use conditions outside this lifetime as a rationale for favorable treatment, but for something which is not inherited, the argument is even shakier... At most, the "short end of stick time" is limited to the lifetime of the person.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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NeroNoah wrote:

rights are not universal, a right is limited by other's people right. LGBT people had the short stick for many thousands of years, so some protection is deserved.

First off, if a right can be limited by another person's right, then it shouldn't be a right, and arguably isn't a right at all. If a person has a right to free health care, then those providing medical care do NOT have a right to turn down those who cannot pay. If a person has a right to be a customer in a restaurant, then the restaurant does NOT have a right to refuse service.

A right to be left alone, a right to freedom from interference, is a a proper right, one which can be universally applied and protect everyone. A right to be provided for, a right to demand services from others, always involves forced labor on the part of those doing the providing, and can only be accomplished by violating the liberty and property rights of others.

Second, no one, much less someone LGBT, has been alive for a thousand years in order to get the short stick for that long. Even in cases involving ethnicity I consider it an amazing stretch to use conditions outside this lifetime as a rationale for favorable treatment, but for something which is not inherited, the argument is even shakier... At most, the "short end of stick time" is limited to the lifetime of the person.

When i was younger i was a pacifist. I had drunk the kool-aid. Believed in absolute rights. Believed that if everyone thought just like me, the world be a a better place(which i still stand by).

But now that im older, i realize that absolutes are very very rare in this world. People are imperfect, cruel, and greedy. Committing an evil act in order to further the greater good is better than inaction, yet still is a failure in that you couldnt find a non-offensive solution to the problem... but none the less, better.

We have a responsibility to destroy that which is detremental to the whole of intelligent life and to promote the advancement of harmony and technology. To maximize the future freedom of action of every living person in the universe, not just those born on friendly soil or any other arbitrary category(non-homosexuals/white skin/upper class/etc). Even if we have to become monsters in order to accomplish these goals. The ends truly do justify the means.

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NeroNoah wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

First off, if a right can be limited by another person's right, then it shouldn't be a right, and arguably isn't a right at all. If a person has a right to free health care, then those providing medical care do NOT have a right to turn down those who cannot pay. If a person has a right to be a customer in a restaurant, then the restaurant does NOT have a right to refuse service.

No, the notion of rights is human made, relative, and it's limited. A lot of times you have conflicting rights that matter and you have to make choices. I do care about private property and liberty, but that's just a subset of all possible rights, specially if you follow things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

A right to be left alone, a right to freedom from interference, is a a proper right, one which can be universally applied and protect everyone. A right to be provided for, a right to demand services from others, always involves forced labor on the part of those doing the providing, and can only be accomplished by violating the liberty and property rights of others.

That just means you prioritize a group of rights over others for ideological/philosophical reasons.

I disagree. Although having conflicting laws on the books is nothing new, one purpose of courts is to resolve such conflicts when they occur and create an objective body of law.

In order for law to apply without any non-explicit discrimination (I'm using the word the way it's meant to be used, not the fucked-up "new" way), the entirety of its discrimination needs to be made implicit. Who do we put in jail? People found guilty of these precise things. Everything needs to be defined, laid out, and above all not subject to interpretation.

Conflicting rights means one or both of those rights aren't rights, because at least one doesn't always apply.

If the law permits internal contradiction, the result is that not all people are equal before the law. Some rights apply sometimes, sometimes not... who decides?

In order to work as a servant of the people, under the people's control, government must be a clockwork machine, doing the things it explicitly says it will do.