...meaningless. With the US Supreme Court ruling based that "discrimination" in favor of man/woman marriage to be unconstitutional, then discrimination against any union whatsoever is also unconstitutional by that self-same logic. Discrimination, as a concept, is now evil, regardless of the necessity for discrimination against the behaviors which is outlined in tens of thousands of laws which are still on the books. If discrimination is to be eliminated, then all laws must go the way of DOMA, in favor of completely legalizing all behaviors. Otherwise discrimination still exists, only it exists as applied to other behaviors, just not to homosexuals, who are now favored in the discrimination equation.
And with Obama immediately declaring that he will not force churches to perform homosexual weddings, it is apparent that he believes that he could, in fact, do that. The First Amendment is effectively dead, except as it applies to the benefit of the Left.
With wanton killing of progeny on demand and the sodomizing of marriage, the Left has effectively de-institutionalized moral behavior and codified libertinism. Further, Congress is no longer a player in the law of the land; the Supreme Court is now the director of that. And the Supreme Court has been corrupt for at least a century now, having been stacked with Leftists who are not touchable by anything but their own deaths. Even Republicans have appointed hard Leftists to the Court. Democracy, and even representative government, cannot withstand the dictatorship of the amoral who ignore the actual ruling document called the Constitution, and who depend upon their own personal desires instead.
It seems now apparent that the recovery of a nation which is moral in nature cannot happen, that is, it cannot happen without a realignment of the government which is disruptive in nature, driven by a desire to restore constitutional respect in all the separate engines of government, from the absolutely out-of-control executive branch to the Supreme Court. If they will not respect the US Constitution, they must be eliminated from the reins of power.
55 comments:
There are two completely separate concepts here, and I think equivocation abounds on both sides of the aisle: contract law, and matrimony.
It is contract law that is at stake, here. I don't see why I should not be able to choose the person I want to be by next of kin, exclusive visitation rights when I'm in the hospital, etc, etc. Even if that person is just my heterosexual male friend. All without intrusion from big government.
Government should not be in the "marriage" business at all.
"If they will not respect the US Constitution, they must be eliminated from the reins of power."
Where is marriage mentioned in the US Constitution?
As I said, very little time on my hand but this issue interests me, a lot more than the existence of god to be frank, so let's see if we can have a civil discussion. Your post is filled with a lot of slippery slopes and red hearing so it will be tough to keep you on topic I am afraid...
With the US Supreme Court ruling based that "discrimination" in favor of man/woman marriage to be unconstitutional, then discrimination against any union whatsoever is also unconstitutional by that self-same logic.
It does not follow that ANY union should be legalized using that logic. It's actually very simple: Banning gay marriage is actually gender discrimination. Marriage can simply be defined as between 2 people to avoid that discrimination. That's it.
Why do you disagree with this; why should the definition of marriage specify the gender of the 2 individuals getting married?
...homosexuals, who are now favored in the discrimination equation.
They are not 'favored'. Their gender simply stops to matter. Marriage between 2 people now becomes the norm, instead of the discriminating definition which specifies 1 man 1 woman.
What if the gender of the person cannot be accurately determined? It's very unusual (thankfully) but some humans are born with really messed up physical conditions that can make it difficult to classify them as 'male' or 'female'. Should we prevent them from getting married since they cannot be labelled?
Not specifying gender in the definition of marriage solves this issue at the same time and goes to show why it's not 'for' homosexuals couples that this battle is fought, but rather against baseless discrimination.
Obama immediately declaring that he will not force churches to perform homosexual weddings, it is apparent that he believes that he could, in fact, do that.
No. It's the other way around. Obama's statement is a response to ignorant people who think that gay marriage should be completely banned so that churches don't have to marry gay people, which they would never be forced to do. Obama is merely replying to these ridiculous claims. I think he should not have mentioned it at all to avoid that confusion but it's politics, they have to deal with the idiots too...
...sodomizing of marriage...
I can't believe I am reading this... you cannot possibly think that sodomy is a gay-only thing... so why did you write this?
This had nothing to do with the issue btw, but I am curious, and I would love to discuss so many of the other things you wrote but it has nothing to do with gay marriage so I would prefer you to try to refute my position logically instead.
@Hugo: you started your post with an ad hominem attack on Stan's ability to stay on topic. That it rapidly slid downhill from there is not surprising.
If you don't have the time on your hands, why do you persist in coming here and authoring these pointless rants? I for one wish you would use your time more wisely. Preferably elsewhere.
I gotta say, gays and lesbians getting the right to marry based on 'dignity' and other emotional appeals, rather than common sense and traditions that have been around since before recorded history?
Well, we knew it was coming. The Church will still restrict marriage to male and female. Atheistic liberal same-sex couples could care less about that. Everything else is just legalistic stuff.
Let them have their day. They will find some new perversion to champion soon, never fear.
Hugo said,
”It does not follow that ANY union should be legalized using that logic. It's actually very simple: Banning gay marriage is actually gender discrimination. Marriage can simply be defined as between 2 people to avoid that discrimination. That's it.
Why do you disagree with this; why should the definition of marriage specify the gender of the 2 individuals getting married?
Marriage can be simply defined as being between three men and four sheep. Your simple definition has no limiting value, just because you think you limited it. What you think no longer matters, just as what I think no longer matters. The definition of marriage is now mutable, where before it was immutable. So don’t try to interject your personal morality where there is no longer any morality to be had.
The issue is not homosexuals per se; it is the now-open door for any change. Why should marriage specify the gender of the individuals getting married? That you even ask that means that marriage as a concept has no value to you. What marriage has now become is a triviality. That has been presaged by the overwhelming trend not to get married at all, to shack up and screw until you’re sick of it and then move on to some strange.
The bullshit about hospital visitation has nothing to do with marriage; visitation can be accorded to those who are accorded Power of Attorney, a simple documentation effort. Contracts can be drawn for all sorts of relationships, including inheritance. No, what the AtheoLeftist homosexuals wanted was the destruction of yet another institution. Marriage is now a joke. People in my own family laugh it, while producing children.
” What if the gender of the person cannot be accurately determined? It's very unusual (thankfully) but some humans are born with really messed up physical conditions that can make it difficult to classify them as 'male' or 'female'. Should we prevent them from getting married since they cannot be labelled?”
You are not actually serious, right? This is exactly the issue: anyone in any condition with any other people or thing will now find lobbies which will fight for their “right” to marry.
”Not specifying gender in the definition of marriage solves this issue at the same time and goes to show why it's not 'for' homosexuals couples that this battle is fought, but rather against baseless discrimination.”
Yes the Holy Discrimination argument. We may not discriminate against any person on account of behavior in which he is involved; we may not discriminate against any behavior because there are persons involved. Bullshit^2. Atheists and Leftists and Progressives all discriminate freely and often, passing judgment on everyone who disagrees. Only their discrimination is Holy and beyond rebuke. Holy Tolerance is invoked… for their particular ox which is “being gored”, and Holy Intolerance is invoked for the Other. There is no one more involved in the purposeful destruction of institutions today than the AtheoLeftists in government, for whom there are no consequences for what they do to the nation.
(more below)
” No. It's the other way around. Obama's statement is a response to ignorant people who think that gay marriage should be completely banned so that churches don't have to marry gay people, which they would never be forced to do. Obama is merely replying to these ridiculous claims. I think he should not have mentioned it at all to avoid that confusion but it's politics, they have to deal with the idiots too...”
Yes, we’re idiots to think that Obama’s goons would try to force the religious to provide abortions for their employees or receive punishment. We’re idiots to think that Obama’s goons would harass religions and demand that they not speak of their religion or else acquire the wrath of the IRS. We’re idiots to think that the religious would be targeted as terrorists on Homeland Security’s hit list. We’re idiots – all of us who disagree. You have defined us completely.
” ...sodomizing of marriage...
I can't believe I am reading this... you cannot possibly think that sodomy is a gay-only thing... so why did you write this?”
Marriage is absolutely screwed by the so-called “logic” of the AtheoLeft, of which you are apparently a devout subscriber. As always, they want only this one thing more, just one thing more, and, well, one thing more after that. And it always involves destruction, of human lives, of children in both poverty and fatherless, of long standing institutions, of rational meaning (there is no actual objective meaning in AtheoLeftism, aside from “just one more destruction, really, just one more…). Progressives never tumble to what they are really progressing toward, they just destroy one more, just one more hated institution must be destroyed, just the one... The nation must have Social Justice; we will level all fortunes to the same value, and level all productivity to complement that. There can be no excellence, because that would discriminate against the obviously common, or worse, against the ne’er do wells. It is Holy Egalitarianism: it’s only fair. Pour more billions into teacher’s unions and watch the grades level out at “illiterate”. Pour trillions into bankers and watch the jobless level out at tens of percent, especially for the minorities on the Progressive reservation.
Marriage is just the latest of the Progressive stalking horses, on the way to the total dismantling of the hated America The Exceptional. And the best way to do it is to claim “Moral” precepts which are brand new: asymmetrical Tolerance, asmmmetrical Eqalitarianism, asymmetrical Social Justice. All are vague Progressive mantras. All require the total dismantling of America’s exceptional roots, the constitution.
” This had nothing to do with the issue btw, but I am curious, and I would love to discuss so many of the other things you wrote but it has nothing to do with gay marriage so I would prefer you to try to refute my position logically instead.”
Your position is a rationalization, produced after the fact, produced to justify the Progressive destruction of honored institutions which have, in the past, produced the hated American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism is the ultimate target, an admission by none less than Obama. You have produced an excuse for destruction; anyone can do that, and it will be done over and over as the future destructions progress. That’s the Progress in Progressive.
no name said...
"If they will not respect the US Constitution, they must be eliminated from the reins of power."
Where is marriage mentioned in the US Constitution?"
The US government involvement in marriage is unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment. The constitution does not allow the US government any say in such matters, yet the government has invoked in tax law, for example, Leftist Progressive taxes for social engineering purposes. This has resulted in the immense IRS warfare Department and the abuses of citizenry by the Feds.
There should be no mention of marriage in any federal law or regulation; there should be no mention of marriage in state law or regulation; if homosexuals want to feign religious ceremonies of commitment, they are free to created their own faux churches and get married in their own faux religion. If Mormons want polygamy, its nobody's business. But the equating of marriage types in government regulations is intended purely as a step toward complete intolerance of non-congruent opinion. And that always results in hate crime charges a la Canada and the EuroProgressives.
You can get married at city hall without involving a church; there is no reason to involve a 'church' at all. Atheists get married all the time, and don't require the blessing of a church. You can get married by a justice of the peace or a ship's captain without ever once invoking a god.
There's marriage as a religious institution, and marriage as a legally recognized civil institution. This decision is ruling on the civil aspects of marriage.
The civil institution of marriage confers legal rights to people, and this was basically about denying those same rights to another group of people.
If marriage only affected religious aspects of your life, it would be one thing. But it affects taxes, property rights, and all sorts of things which have nothing whatsoever to do with a church.
So, no, as long as there are rights granted to people on the basis of being married, this is not an issue for the churches. Marriage has long since ceased to be a purely religious institution, and that's what this ruling is addressing.
It's weird.
The "Left" once again upholds limited central government and states' rights. The "Right" once again argues (unsuccessfully) for central planning taking a larger role for the "common good" at the expense of individual liberty and states' rights to govern and set their own policies.
The majority opinion repeatedly makes the point that DOMA stepped on states' toes specifically to HARM a certain group, instead of help it, and that was unconstitutional. The US shouldn't be in the business of denying rights to citizens that states want them to have.
"DOMA’s avowed purpose and practical effect are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states."
"When the State used its historic and essential authority to define the marital relation in this way, its role and its power in making the decision enhanced the recognition, dignity, and protection of the class in their own community. DOMA, because of its reach and extent, departs from this history and tradition of reliance on state law to define marriage"
"DOMA seeks to injure the very class New York seeks to protect. By doing so it violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government."
V,
You seem quite confused. What the Left does, and did here, is to take whatever steps it finds Consequentially necessary to get what they want.
The Leftist Supremes hate a certain congressionally voted law, they negate it (DOMA is equated to hate crimes); The Leftist Supremes like a certain court mandated law, they supports it (Roe v Wade) and negate all contrary state legislations, and even state amendments.
Bleating about state's rights and state's sovereignty is bullshit. The Leftist supremes do not care one whit about those things. They use whatever tools are available to advance the Leftist agenda.
They got what they wanted, both on Prop 8 and on homosexual infiltration of marriage.
The hypocrisy is eyebrow deep in the Leftist world, a world where hypocrisy is not even recognized as evil, because the only evil is not getting their agenda done (Alinsky).
Further, see today's post, above. The Leftist supremes will NEVER apply the same logic to the killing of preborn humans, or to the protection of US borders, or to economic activity which is confined within a "sovereign" state.
They are out of control messiahist ideologists, not protectors of the US constitution.
On another thread, Stan told me:
" So your concept of “justification” must vary quite widely from mine, and from the use of actual knowledge.
Kindly justify your concept of “justification” – after you have fully laid it out with complete specifics for what facts you accept as justifiable."
Stan,
I don't think our concept of "justification" varies that much. The real difference is our opinion on certain key items. Overall our concept of "justification" is similar because it relies on objective facts and truth values. Truth being singular, its versions are non-true. Justifications are thus nothing more than the set of reasons that support the truth value of a claim.
In other words, the purpose of a justification is to convince the 'receiver' that the opinion of the 'emitter' is correct. For example, if I claim that "Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system", I am, as the emitter, assumed to be a believer that the claim is true (unless I claim the statement is false obviously...) Since I believe that the statement is true, I must have reasons to believe that it is true. These reasons are what I call the "justification".
A "justification" is thus dependent on the nature of the claim. This is made obvious by the fact that axioms are truth statements that require no justification. Statements such as
"X is X"
"X is not Not-X"
"X cannot be both X and Not-X"
require no justification at all. They are self-evident for anyone who uses what we call 'logic'.
At the other extreme, some statements are extremely vague and/or complex and require a very elaborate "justification" set in order to convince the 'receiver' that the statement is true. "Justifications" attempt to prove that a statement can be believed to be X, and not non-X. It cannot be both. It has to be one of the two; for any statement. Any statement made can thus either be true, or not-true. Its accompanying justification can thus in turn be composed of true or non-true statements.
Another important point regarding "justification" is that it depends on whether the "justification" attempts to support a statement of fact or a statement of opinion. Unfortunately, we use the same word "justification" in both cases but the content is actually quite different.
Finally going back to marriage, we can use a few key items to explain what I mean by "justification" depending on whether we are talking about facts or opinion. Quoting both Martin and Stan:
"Government should not be in the "marriage" business at all."
"There should be no mention of marriage in any federal law or regulation; there should be no mention of marriage in state law or regulation"
These are 2 statements of opinion. They can have a "justification" attached to them in order to convince the receiver that this statement should be believed to be true. But the 'truth' here, and thus the "justification", is not really a 'truth' value, since it's a matter of opinion. Stan and Martin both share the opinion that government should not be involved in the marriage business. Personally, I never really thought it was a problem for the government to be involved but I also can see many good reasons why it should not.
Now, to make it clear obvious, let's use a statement which is factually true, and I will quote Martin again to remain neutral myself:
"It is contract law that is at stake, here."
This is a statement of fact. It can either be true or not-true. In this case, the "justification" would be that the changes made to DOMA impact the laws governing the contract between 2 people that we call 'marriage'. That's it; that's the truth. This is a fact.
The problem is that the debates people have surrounding gay marriage often go into this long red hearing that have nothing to do with the contract law being discussed in the first place. This is thus an example of why a statement of fact, a true statement, can be perceived as more than just a fact by individuals who are very passionate about an issue.
Overall, the goal here was simply to explain what "justification" means to me and I hope I made it very clear. Every time I write or read something that I consider 'true', I think to myself 'why' and that is the "justification". If someone disagrees with me about something I consider 'true', I will lay down my justification upon request and stick to it until I either convince the receiver or change my mind. Same thing goes for the other way around; if someone builds an argument using certain statements, I will ask for "justification" if I disagree with the truth value of a particular statement. The emitter can then try to convince me, as a receiver, that the statement has proper justification, rephrase the statement, or change their mind...
Now that this is out of the way, let's go back to a 'normal' response to comments posted here....
Hugo said:
"Why do you disagree with this; why should the definition of marriage specify the gender of the 2 individuals getting married?"
Stan replied:
"Marriage can be simply defined as being between three men and four sheep. Your simple definition has no limiting value"
Marriage is already defined between 2 people. 2. Not 3, 4, 5 or 48; 2. None of us are going to change that anytime soon since it would simply not work with the current state of the law. Simple things such as the survivor inheriting the spouse's wealth would not work in a 3+ union since there would not be a clear definition of who remains. It could be done I suppose but that's a completely different topic, and it actually already exists in a way since a 3+ union is actually pretty much the same as a business...
Therefore, yes, my preferred definition of marriage, as a legal entity, does have a very strict limiting value: 2 people. Yes, I do specify people since apparently involving animals is an option that we need to specifically reject. That's what we call poisoning the well I believe...
"The definition of marriage is now mutable, where before it was immutable."
The definition of marriage has always been mutable at all levels I can possibly think of, culturally, socially, morally, ethically, historically and most importantly legally, which is the only thing I care about here: the legal aspect of marriage.
It is a fact that marriage was mutable legally. The simplest example is interracial marriage made legal in the US quite recently relatively speaking...
The exact same principle applies to interracial marriage as it applies to gay marriage. As I mentioned above, banning gay marriage is discrimination against gender, just like banning interracial marriage is discrimination against gender. A simpler definition of marriage that specifies 2 people removes any of these discriminations and makes all individuals equal in the eye of the law.
"The issue is not homosexuals per se; it is the now-open door for any change."
No. The main restriction is that marriage remains between 2 people so clearly does not open the door to any change, the number of people involved being the most obvious example proving your point wrong. It also does not open the door to any change regarding more complex issues involving consensual adults. We all know that some people would like to allow adults to marry children for examples, something I find terrible and appalling, so the point here is that removing 'gender' from the equation does not in any way affect these other principles.
"Why should marriage specify the gender of the individuals getting married? That you even ask that means that marriage as a concept has no value to you."
That does not answer the question at all. It implies that I don't care about marriage, which I do, and only serves to show that gender 'must' be specified because you have something against homosexuals. It's very ironic since you also said
"The issue is not homosexuals per se"
Then why would you care about gender in the definition of marriage?
There is absolutely no one else concerned by these changes beside homosexuals. NOBODY.
The question is stands: Why should marriage specify the gender of the individuals getting married?
"What marriage has now become is a triviality. That has been presaged by the overwhelming trend not to get married at all"
This has nothing to do with the issue at stake; it's only your opinion on the state of the real world we live in. And I mostly agree with you... Long-term unions unfortunately are losing some ground and this creates what I think is a climate where people care less about family stability. At the same time, I am not too worried since I see more pros than cons. People are not stuck into terrible unions and are more free to make their own choices. I think that the problems we see might thus actually be not more numerous but simply more exposed, while in the past it was shameful to get divorce, for example, so people would put up and shut up, especially women...
Note that I did specify 'unions' though, not marriage, because of notion of getting married in the eye of the law, or religiously, is not something I care about. Where I am from especially, in Quebec, there is almost no difference between the automatic domestic partners status people get by living together and the actual legal marriage or civil union. Some people thus simply remain domestic partners and file a will with a notary to make sure that everything is clear, should something bad happens to them. My sister took that choice for example; she is not married but has a kid and a house with her boyfriend. They are actually more stable than me who will get married in a few months and has no intention to get a kid soon, and even if I am buying a condo right now, I don't plan to stay here for too long. So in that sense, you can see that my sister is actually more "married" than I will be soon.
"to shack up and screw until you’re sick of it and then move on to some strange"
That's also another issue... I have always been against these 1-night stand and multiple encounters, but I don't think it's terrible as long as the person stays in control and just want to explore for some time. It's their personal choice, their freedom.
"” What if the gender of the person cannot be accurately determined? It's very unusual (thankfully) but some humans are born with really messed up physical conditions that can make it difficult to classify them as 'male' or 'female'. Should we prevent them from getting married since they cannot be labelled?”
You are not actually serious, right? This is exactly the issue: anyone in any condition with any other people or thing will now find lobbies which will fight for their “right” to marry."
You avoid the question completely, again. Actually it's worse, you complain that these people will want to fight for their rights! We are talking about people born with birth defects here; people who are not clearly identifiable as either man or women. You don't want them to be included in the notion that "2 people can get married"?
"Yes the Holy Discrimination argument. We may not discriminate against any person on account of behavior in which he is involved; we may not discriminate against any behavior because there are persons involved."
You use ridicule by saying 'Holy Discrimination' instead of actually addressing the point. You also judge homosexuals by mentioning 'behavior', which has nothing to do with legal rights to get married.
Yes, we should continue to discriminate against certain behavior. We could discuss any behavior you want and lay down the pros/cons of such discrimination so that we can come up with the laws that we think make our society work best.
That's not the issue here. What we are talking about is preventing discrimination based on GENDER in the eye of the law. Marriage has a ton of legal implication (you mentioned 1 example regarding hospital visitation; there are more than 1 thousand others!)
Therefore, by specifying that marriage is "2 people, 1 man, 1 women" instead of "2 people", we are denying tons of legal rights to people based on gender Discrimination.
Now, it could be your opinion that Discrimination against gender is fine, but I personnaly think that men and women should be treated equal in the eye of the law, and in general of course. This implies that each individual, male or female, should be allowed to choose the life partner of their choice, regardless of their gender and the gender of the other person.
" Atheists and Leftists and Progressives all discriminate freely and often, passing judgment on everyone who disagrees. "
That's an example of 'useless rhetoric' I mentioned before. It serves no purpose other than to insult a group of people. I can say it too: the conservative right is self-centered, not open-minded, intolerant of differences, willing to deny equal rights based on gender, race, religion, and on and on... What purpose would that serve? None, because not everyone self-labeled in the 'conservative right' group is like that. Therefore, I don't think that way. I don't lump in people together like that. If I do say someone making a racist comment, I will find that comment from that person racist. If that person insists and continue, I will conclude they are a racist person. If that person is supported by many, I will then lump then in and call them a racist group because of that initial comment, and probably others that come with it. I have yet to see you do that Stan.
" Yes, we’re idiots..."
That whole paragraph was a big misunderstanding. I was not calling you an idiot, nor people who disagree with gay marriage as a whole. My point was that, legally, the state cannot force churches to marry gay people. Obama thus did not need to specify that. However, some people think that the law will force churches to marry gay people, these people are the idiots...
"” ...sodomizing of marriage...
I can't believe I am reading this... you cannot possibly think that sodomy is a gay-only thing... so why did you write this?”
Marriage is absolutely screwed"
Haha, this one is actually quite funny. I thought you meant that marriage was turning into a sodomy fiesta or something like that. I did not get that you simply meant this as an expression that marriage is getting destroyed/raped/broken/screwed, etc... my bad!
The rest of your comment shows how emotional you are about this issue though, jumping from topic to topic, accusing entire groups of people of being evil, while at the same time claiming that I subscribe to some form of bad logic. The irony is strong since you are basically not using logic to discuss this 1 topic: gay marriage. Instead, you write a couple of points about it here and there and then launch on huge rants about anything you can think about that pro-gay marriage people also agree with. A lot of red hearings, poisoning the well, ad hominems...
@Steven
"@Hugo: you started your post with an ad hominem attack on Stan's ability to stay on topic. That it rapidly slid downhill from there is not surprising.
If you don't have the time on your hands, why do you persist in coming here and authoring these pointless rants? I for one wish you would use your time more wisely. Preferably elsewhere."
It was not really an ad hominem on Stan's ability to stay on topic, because I know he can. It was more a statement of fact: he mostly talked about things that have nothing to do with the topic of legalizing gay marriage. If that comes as an ad hominem because I attack Stan directly, then yes it was.
The reason I mention the 'time' issue is simply because I have been commenting a lot more over the past week because I was on vacation. It's just common courtesy so indicate that if I don't reply back it's not because I ignore but because of lack of time. You know, I do try to deal with you guys as if you were decent human beings I could have a chat with in real life. Sometimes I think I very naive to do so...
No worries Steven, since you never write arguments, I don't have much to talk about with you so you can just ignore me as I usually do with you.
Oh and by the way... I just had a semi-fight with my fiancée because I spent too much time on this blog thing today. So ya, I should spend my time on other things. It's just that in real life, I never ever get to discuss with people I disagree with so much. It's interesting to do so here. That's why I only visit this blog now and never ever go on Atheists/Leftist/WhateverYouDislike blogs...
Hugo,
Your concept of justification is black and white and based on your concept of Truth being completely true, apparently demonstrably so, and with no falseness included. That cannot be argued with, as far as I can see, so long as the demonstration of the truth value of the premises can be produced with the same absoluteness with which the principle is declared.
You did not address the issue at hand, which is how to decide the truth value of correct deductions which are anchored in universal observations, but which result in conclusions which cannot be tested, empirically. That is the issue which Atheists face, and the very issue which causes much stumbling around in this conversation.
So although I agree with your statement regarding justification as far as it goes, it does not go far enough to cover the problem at hand.
Let’s take this statement which you made:
”Hugo said:
"Why do you disagree with this; why should the definition of marriage specify the gender of the 2 individuals getting married?"
Stan replied:
"Marriage can be simply defined as being between three men and four sheep. Your simple definition has no limiting value"
Marriage is already defined between 2 people. 2. Not 3, 4, 5 or 48; 2. None of us are going to change that anytime soon since it would simply not work with the current state of the law.”
The state of the law is completely ignored in the SCOTUS rejection of DOMA. The current state of the law was completely ignored in Roe v Wade. That is fact #1. Now, for fact #2: contract law disregards the number parties, and contracts can be between any number of parties, including corporations full of people and stakeholders. Fact #3: the SCOTUS decision was based on moral grounds, not on any specific constitutional paragraph (the morals were strictly Leftist derivations, which directly injure those who object by declaring them to be immoral in the eyes of the US Supreme Court). Fact 4: this is the definition of hate thought, and is a direct revocation of the First Amendment as it applies to whatever the SCOTUS declares sacrosanct and untouchable.
And here you contradict your own premise:
”Simple things such as the survivor inheriting the spouse's wealth would not work in a 3+ union since there would not be a clear definition of who remains. It could be done I suppose but that's a completely different topic, and it actually already exists in a way since a 3+ union is actually pretty much the same as a business...”
Are we just watching you think this out, or are you trying to make a consistent argument??
”Therefore, yes, my preferred definition of marriage, as a legal entity, does have a very strict limiting value: 2 people. Yes, I do specify people since apparently involving animals is an option that we need to specifically reject. That's what we call poisoning the well I believe...”
Poisoning the Well is what Justice Kennedy did. Opening the definition by declaring all opposition to be immoral in the eyes of the court sets a poison precedent, whereby any decision will have the capability of being made a Leftist Moral Law, rather than a mere opinion on the constitutionality of a particular issue.
Kennedy has declared the court to be arbiter of everyone’s morality, and he is elevated to godhood.
”"The definition of marriage is now mutable, where before it was immutable."
The definition of marriage has always been mutable at all levels I can possibly think of, culturally, socially, morally, ethically, historically and most importantly legally, which is the only thing I care about here: the legal aspect of marriage.”
That is false, an assertion with no premise and certainly going against all evidence. The definition of marriage for centuries, within the legal structure of the USA, has been man/woman, monogamous. Until the 1960’s, divorce was only for sexual activity outside the monogamous marital relationship.
”It is a fact that marriage was mutable legally. The simplest example is interracial marriage made legal in the US quite recently relatively speaking...”
Not a point in favor of your perpetual mutability argument.
”The exact same principle applies to interracial marriage as it applies to gay marriage. As I mentioned above, banning gay marriage is discrimination against gender, just like banning interracial marriage is discrimination against gender. A simpler definition of marriage that specifies 2 people removes any of these discriminations and makes all individuals equal in the eye of the law.”
Not “all individuals at all. Still discriminating against certain types of loving relationships, based only on your personal prejudice. That makes you immoral according to SCOTUS. It is more mora and even simpler to remove the specification of number and type of individuals, living or dead or never having been alive. Just make it totally simple and equal, especially since egalitarianism is one of the Leftist mantras, a moral concept not to be breached, just like total tolerance of all behaviors (except the specific ones the AtheoLeft chooses for us to not like, today anyway). Your choice of which discriminations are acceptable shows the flaw in the Leftist thinking.
”No. The main restriction is that marriage remains between 2 people so clearly does not open the door to any change, the number of people involved being the most obvious example proving your point wrong. It also does not open the door to any change regarding more complex issues involving consensual adults. We all know that some people would like to allow adults to marry children for examples, something I find terrible and appalling, so the point here is that removing 'gender' from the equation does not in any way affect these other principles.”
It takes only a reading of Kennedy’s majority opinion to clearly see that your opinion here is an “expression of enmity” against specific groups, groups which obviously receive discrimination and approbation at the hand of bigots, which is Hate Behavior.
”"Why should marriage specify the gender of the individuals getting married? That you even ask that means that marriage as a concept has no value to you."
That does not answer the question at all. It implies that I don't care about marriage, which I do, and only serves to show that gender 'must' be specified because you have something against homosexuals. It's very ironic since you also said
"The issue is not homosexuals per se"
Then why would you care about gender in the definition of marriage?
There is absolutely no one else concerned by these changes beside homosexuals.
NOBODY.
The question is stands: Why should marriage specify the gender of the individuals getting married?”
Your declaration of me and the majority of Americans as NOBODY shows that you think that your elitist declaration is TRUTH. Why should marriage specify TWO people?? Just because you say so? Why should you care how many individuals get married to each other? It is no skin off your nose (to redirect a common AtheoLeftist argument). Who are you to make this declaration of number allowable? You then, being in the minority of the population which approves of changing marriage at all, are less than NOBODY when it comes to making proclamations of what is right and wrong in defining marriage. You fully believe that the definition is mutable; that being the case, who are you to declare the limits of mutability? What exactly gives you the authority to define the new limits, or to declare the historic limits immoral?
You need to answer these issues, before continuing. These are the actual issues, and they are NOT specific to homosexuality.
(On phone, pardon mistakes)
I will correct one mistake I made for now so that you can perhaps adjust your response in turn. When I said that nobody else is 'concerned', I meant that nobody else but gays are 'affected'. Many are concerned, no doubt about it.
If you're interested in languages, the reason why I made this mistake is cause in my native tongue, French, the verb 'concerner' has a slightly different meaning... it's really above being involved, not just interested by an issue.
Hugo might not be back for a while, so I will complete my reply now.
Hugo said:
"Yes the Holy Discrimination argument. We may not discriminate against any person on account of behavior in which he is involved; we may not discriminate against any behavior because there are persons involved."
You use ridicule by saying 'Holy Discrimination' instead of actually addressing the point. You also judge homosexuals by mentioning 'behavior', which has nothing to do with legal rights to get married.
I exactly define the issue as it is held by the AtheoLeft: The precept of Non-Discrimination (and Tolerance) is held as an inviolable moral issue (not a functional issue regarding practical consequences). It is a moral issue based on the concept of “enmity” or “hate” toward subgroups: thought crime. As a moral issue, it is exactly equivalent to a Holy precept for the AtheoLeftist religion, which is moral, not rational. The Holy Discrimination argument is exactly the argument which Justice Kennedy codified into Law Of The Land this very week: his decision was based on “enmity”, not on specific constitutional clauses. As a Holy Moral precept, violating it has consequences which are determined by the AtheoLeftist Priesthood.
As for behaviors and eligibility for matrimony, your position defines the exact problem: lack of morals regarding the behaviors of favored Victimhood categories which benefit the messiahism of the AtheoLeft. That lack of morals extends to all categories of behaviors, UNLESS the AtheoLeft decides to discriminate against certain other categories.
Discrimination by the AtheoLeft is seen as moral. It is the same sense as cult leaders who declare any of their own behavior to be morally acceptable, just because. Exactly the same.
” That's not the issue here. What we are talking about is preventing discrimination based on GENDER in the eye of the law. Marriage has a ton of legal implication (you mentioned 1 example regarding hospital visitation; there are more than 1 thousand others!)
Therefore, by specifying that marriage is "2 people, 1 man, 1 women" instead of "2 people", we are denying tons of legal rights to people based on gender Discrimination.”
You are attempting to deny what the decision actually said, and you are attempting to ignore what the consequences of the decision actually are. You are attempting to define the narrative to suit your own purpose, and it does not work. The issue is absolutely NOT gender; the issue is why you think that you and the Left have the right to redefine an established norm, in order to satisfy your messiah desires.
The US Supreme Court does not have the constitutional right to do what they have done. They are the AtheoLeftist strike force for Progressivism and wanton “change” with no limiting factors external to their own restraint, of which the Leftists on the bench have none.
” Now, it could be your opinion that Discrimination against gender is fine, but I personnaly think that men and women should be treated equal in the eye of the law, and in general of course. This implies that each individual, male or female, should be allowed to choose the life partner of their choice, regardless of their gender and the gender of the other person.”
But you freely discriminate against OTHER categories of loving humans, merely based on your opinion of their behaviors.
That is the SCOTUS definition of “enmity” and bigotry.
” " Atheists and Leftists and Progressives all discriminate freely and often, passing judgment on everyone who disagrees. "
That's an example of 'useless rhetoric' I mentioned before. It serves no purpose other than to insult a group of people. I can say it too: the conservative right is self-centered, not open-minded, intolerant of differences, willing to deny equal rights based on gender, race, religion, and on and on... What purpose would that serve? None, because not everyone self-labeled in the 'conservative right' group is like that. Therefore, I don't think that way. I don't lump in people together like that. If I do say someone making a racist comment, I will find that comment from that person racist. If that person insists and continue, I will conclude they are a racist person. If that person is supported by many, I will then lump then in and call them a racist group because of that initial comment, and probably others that come with it. I have yet to see you do that Stan.”
Hugo, do read what you write? You declare my statement an “insult to a group of people”, while your own statement is this:
”. If that person is supported by many, I will then lump then in and call them a racist group because of that initial comment, and probably others that come with it.”
Your declaration of my “insult” is applicable directly to your own behavior. You just passed judgment on my statement, freely and you have done so often, and based on your personal, proprietary, self-derived moral principles which you apply to me.
Hypocrisy. Pure and simple.
”That whole paragraph was a big misunderstanding. I was not calling you an idiot, nor people who disagree with gay marriage as a whole. My point was that, legally, the state cannot force churches to marry gay people. Obama thus did not need to specify that. However, some people think that the law will force churches to marry gay people, these people are the idiots...”
You completely ignored the evidence regarding Obama’s overt and feverish attempt to force churches to violate their moral principles due to ObamaCare. So now you both deny that you called me an idiot, and then you call me an idiot AGAIN, while ignoring actual, factual historical evidence.
”The rest of your comment shows how emotional you are about this issue though, jumping from topic to topic, accusing entire groups of people of being evil, while at the same time claiming that I subscribe to some form of bad logic. The irony is strong since you are basically not using logic to discuss this 1 topic: gay marriage. Instead, you write a couple of points about it here and there and then launch on huge rants about anything you can think about that pro-gay marriage people also agree with. A lot of red hearings, poisoning the well, ad hominems...”
Here you dodge the issue. All of which are related to the issue of AtheoLeft relativist amorality, and the Progressive thrust to eliminate all fixed morality standards from American culture, save for their mutable, Consequentialist, destructive “morals” designed to replace actual morality with sub-paganism and libertinism.
Which is why you declare them to be fallacies rather than to address them head on, much less to illustrate the exact fallacy accused of being involved in each topic. So your accusation is false and without merit.
It is a dodge, which is the standard AtheoLeft response when caught out with no rational response or defense for their actions or their onerous consequences.
To summarize, then.
1. Your argument that the “state of the law” precludes changing it (beyond your prescription of 2 people), is completely falsified by the SCOTUS demolition of the state of the law this very week.
2. Your personal requirement of two people is not binding for any conceivable reason, and discriminates against other loving relationships.
3. Your argument for a “simpler” law excludes other loving relationships by your personal rules for discrimination.
4. You have consistently failed to address the Progressive definition of “Change” which is unlimited in scope.
5. You have not addressed the issue of why it is that you and your Progressives have the moral authority to eliminate moral codes and establish new ones.
6. You have charged ridicule against the idea that Discrimination (and Tolerance) are now inviolable (Holy) moral precepts of the Progressive cult, but you do that as a dodge against having to address that issue.
7. You have not justified, using your own definition of justification, your personal principles of discrimination and intolerance, while requiring tolerance of your own position: Special Pleading.
8. You claim that my position is discrimination against gender, while ignoring the actual argument being made, which is: Minority Progressives have dictated, via the Supreme Court, that to disagree with their change in a moral institution is “enmity” (hate), and therefore illegitimate immoral; that Progressives have the only moral authority to determine what conditions or behaviors are immoral; that Progressives therefore are the High Priests of the New Religious Values being jammed down the throats of the Other, the Other being Hateful and Inferior (idiots).
My position is not against gender, in the least, and for you to claim that is a Red Herring Fallacy (not a red hearing).
At least argue against the actual position which I take.
9. You deride my claims as being “useless rhetoric” and an “insult” to categories of people, and then you try to justify yourself doing the exact thing of which you accuse me! And in the exact same paragraph. Fallacy of Special Pleading, on top of dodging the charges with bogus claims. Either face the claims or get off the pulpit.
10. You make this incredible statement:
”Now, it could be your opinion that Discrimination against gender is fine, but I personnaly think that men and women should be treated equal in the eye of the law, and in general of course. This implies that each individual, male or female, should be allowed to choose the life partner of their choice, regardless of their gender and the gender of the other person.”
Which can be written thus:
Now, it could be your opinion that Discrimination against [any individual(s) of any age, sex, number, or state of life, or whether homo sapiens sapiens or other] is fine, but I personnaly think that men and women and/or [any individual(s) of any age, sex, number, or state of life, or whether homo sapiens sapiens or other] should be treated equal in the eye of the law, and in general of course. This implies that each individual, male or female and/or [any individual(s) of any age, sex, number, or state of life, or whether homo sapiens sapiens or other], should be allowed to choose the life partner[s] of their choice, regardless of [any individual(s) of any age, sex, number, or state of life, or whether homo sapiens sapiens] or other of the other person[s].
Mutability, for which you argued, and non-discrimination, for which you argued, logically shows up as the above… UNLESS, you deny mutability outside of your personal desire for its limit, and UNLESS you discriminate under your own personal rules.
These are the points to be discussed.
I do have little time here and there, but I am not away... I actually had a lot of waiting time this morning...
First, quick recap of the point I insist on here: I don't see why the definition of marriage needs to include the gender of the people involved. It is my sincere belief that neither moral principles nor laws should discriminate against gender. If we agree that something is moral and/or legal for a man, it is also moral/legal for a woman.
Why do you disagree with this? Some parts of your comments give hints as to why:
"As for behaviors and eligibility for matrimony, your position defines the exact problem: lack of morals regarding the behaviors of favored Victimhood categories which benefit the messiahism of the AtheoLeft."
Lack of morals? So according to you, certain actions are immoral because of the gender of the people involved? If that's correct, we will never be able to discuss gay marriage since we end up with a difference in our core values.
"That lack of morals extends to all categories of behaviors, UNLESS the AtheoLeft decides to discriminate against certain other categories."
There is no 'de facto' extension. I am trying to focus on 1 item here: gender. We can discuss as many topics as you want but it won't change what I think about this 1 type of classification: gender. So again, and again, why do you care about the gender of individuals when it comes to wedding? Why do you care about the gender for anything at all actually!?
I really don't see why the gender of a person matters for any moral issue. All humans should have the same basic human rights and the same moral principles should apply to all of them by default. Discrimination should occur only after the fact, when a person commits a crime for example, but not because of gender alone. Never. It's my opinion, one of my core values, and I will always stand by it.
"The precept of Non-Discrimination (and Tolerance) is held as an inviolable moral issue (not a functional issue regarding practical consequences)."
Personally, yes, non-discrimination and tolerance are some values that are part of my worldview. I don't understand what the problem is here and I have never heard of anybody not agreeing with these general principles.
The problem is on the details of whom should we discriminate against without being immoral? Who should we not tolerate? I mean, even the strictest groups still tolerate some form of divergence amongst their rank; that's tolerance... the very idea of individual liberty, a very American concept that you support I am sure, is in line with tolerance. Being free is synonym with being tolerated, up until certain limits of course. Nothing is all black or white...
"It is a moral issue based on the concept of “enmity” or “hate” toward subgroups: thought crime."
I don't see who you think I 'hate' or consider an 'enemy'. I heard that from you a lot. Your blog screams 'hate' and 'enmity'; you call large groups such as Atheist, Progressists, Leftist dangerous... Did you ever hear something like that from me? I really don't get these charges of 'hate'...
"Not “all individuals at all. Still discriminating against certain types of loving relationships"
Yes of course, and I was very clear on that. I am not discriminating against GENDER. I am discriminating against age for example. There are reasons for that that we can discuss to see where we agree or not, but again, this is a different issue unrelated to GENDER.
" tolerance of all behaviors (except the specific ones the AtheoLeft chooses for us to not like, today anyway). Your choice of which discriminations are acceptable shows the flaw in the Leftist thinking."
If it's "tolerance except..." then it is NOT tolerance of all behaviors. So you accuse me, or the AtheoLeft as a whole whoever that is, of being simultaneously too tolerant and not tolerant. There is some truth in this in the sense that by default I am probably way more tolerant than you are, but I don't tolerate anything, certainly not. We both have opinions on what should be tolerated or not and that's the way it is with any moral issue.
The choices on what to discrimate against of not can be discussed, 1 by 1 as I said. You don't attack any specifics here so I don't even know what you are talking about. We know we disagree on the 'gender' part of marriage, but besides that I have presented no other opinion that we disagree on as far as I can tell. How can you conclude that my thinking is flawed?
Next, after I said "Therefore, by specifying that marriage is "2 people, 1 man, 1 women" instead of "2 people", we are denying tons of legal rights to people based on gender Discrimination.”" You replied:
"You are attempting to deny what the decision actually said, and you are attempting to ignore what the consequences of the decision actually are. You are attempting to define the narrative to suit your own purpose, and it does not work. The issue is absolutely NOT gender; the issue is why you think that you and the Left have the right to redefine an established norm, in order to satisfy your messiah desires."
You are partially correct. I am not talking about the details of the decision because what I care about is the core value at the hearth of such decision, which we clearly disagree on. You are correct that I think the 'norm' should be redefined because I think the 'norm' is flawed. Gender should not be specified in any law, in my opinion. Therefore, marriage should not specify gender. It's that simple.
I am still waiting for 1 single reason as to why my thinking is flawed in that respect: why should we care about gender?
And yes, it is re-defining a "norm" and we do it all the time. All laws were 'norms' at some point or the other and (almost) none survive the test of time. They are at the very least adapted to the context of the day. Just think about slavery and interracial marriage. It used to be a 'norm' that black people are not seen as equal...
"But you freely discriminate against OTHER categories of loving humans, merely based on your opinion of their behaviors."
Absolutely, I do. That's why we are having that kind of discussion. I think we should discriminate on the age of the 2 people getting married, for example, but not on their gender. I can and do explain in length if needed exactly why I think that this is the ethical way to go. I have yet to hear any defense of your opinion! Why do you care about gender?
"Hugo, do read what you write? You declare my statement an “insult to a group of people”, while your own statement is this:
”. If that person is supported by many, I will then lump then in and call them a racist group because of that initial comment, and probably others that come with it.”
Your declaration of my “insult” is applicable directly to your own behavior. You just passed judgment on my statement, freely and you have done so often, and based on your personal, proprietary, self-derived moral principles which you apply to me.
Hypocrisy. Pure and simple."
I am sorry but you clearly did not understand the thought experiment... The point was that you keep using these broad terms such as 'Leftist thinking' without specific examples that would apply to me and Leftists as a whole. You are right that I would agree with most "Leftist" on many issues but it's still a issue-per-issue discussion I am trying to have here (clearly you don't).
So the point was that if I see a specific claim: "black people are not as intelligent" then I will label that claim 'racist'. If someone supports that claim, I will call that person 'racist'. If a group of people support that claim, I will call them 'racists'. Therefore, my point was that even though I label groups of people sometimes, I never generalize to include other claims at the same time, like you do...
It's not hypocrisy. It's actually a very detailed description as to why you are wrong to label me as a 'Leftist' just because of the gay marriage issue and then conclude that I am X,Y,Z, whatever it is, because of that.
"You completely ignored the evidence regarding Obama’s overt and feverish attempt to force churches to violate their moral principles due to ObamaCare. So now you both deny that you called me an idiot, and then you call me an idiot AGAIN, while ignoring actual, factual historical evidence."
You completely ignored my point which was related ONLY to the legality of gay marriage VS churches. You bring up another topic to make a point that's not related. You know how it's called... a red hearing. Plus, I insist that I did not call you an idiot since you know that marriage legislation do not entail forcing anybody to marry anybody, but some people do not understand that.
Regarding ObamaCare, I really don't care since that's another issue completely and I am not aware of the details anyway.
"Here you dodge the issue. All of which are related to the issue of AtheoLeft relativist amorality, and the Progressive thrust to eliminate all fixed morality standards from American culture, save for their mutable, Consequentialist, destructive “morals” designed to replace actual morality with sub-paganism and libertinism."
You are correct, I do dodge all the generalization that you make. This paragraph where you accuse me of dodging proves my point. You make broad general statements that have no weight since they just label me as 'wrong/destructive/immoral' and you as 'right', but I don't even know about what.
"To summarize, then."
1. I don't know what you mean. I am only arguing for the gender being specified in the law.
2. My requirement as to why it should be binding to 2 people only was not discussed because it is not the issue here. I am interested in discussing 'gender' only.
3. My argument for a 'simpler' law does exclude other relationships yes, you are correct, and I did not say why, you are correct. See point 2...
4. I have not addressed the definition of 'change' that's correct. I don't know what you are talking about. Some changes are good, others or not, so what?
5. Nobody has more moral authority than anyone else on moral issues. That's why we are discussing them among ourselves so that we can come up with regulations that matches our expections. Perhaps I am naïve but even if we disagree on the moral issues, we all have the good intention of trying to put in place laws that make for a better society.
6. You misunderstood. Discrimination is acceptable in many cases. It is not in the case of 'gender'.
7. I did it a bit more here, but I focus on gender since it's a big enough issue already, especially since you dodge it.
8. Correct, I do ignore your arguments since there is no reason to argue the details of how to implement solutions when the core values that these solutions are based on is not agreed upon.
9. I never take one of your opinion in order to classify you in a broad group and then attack that group like you do all over your blog.
10. Re-phrasing my statement completely changes its meaning. GENDER is the ONLY thing I was talking about. GENDER. MALE vs FEMALE vs UNDEFINITE.
Mutability, for which you argued, and non-discrimination, for which you argued, logically shows up as the above… UNLESS, you deny mutability outside of your personal desire for its limit, and UNLESS you discriminate under your own personal rules.
If there is one thing I don't find mutable it's GENDER discrimination.
I only argued for the mutability of the LAW.
Regarding justification:
"Your concept of justification is black and white and based on your concept of Truth being completely true, apparently demonstrably so, and with no falseness included. That cannot be argued with, as far as I can see, so long as the demonstration of the truth value of the premises can be produced with the same absoluteness with which the principle is declared.
You did not address the issue at hand, which is how to decide the truth value of correct deductions which are anchored in universal observations, but which result in conclusions which cannot be tested, empirically. That is the issue which Atheists face, and the very issue which causes much stumbling around in this conversation.
So although I agree with your statement regarding justification as far as it goes, it does not go far enough to cover the problem at hand."
My concept of justification is the opposite of 'black and white'; it is broad and covers any kind of claims/premises/statements. The degree of certainty (or absoluteness as you said) depends on the claim. Whether a claim can be accepted or not depends on the justification. The issue at hand is thus covered by my concept of justification since you are simply talking about certain claims that may be true or not. Nothing special with these claims; their content is irrelevant to what a justification is.
Perhaps what you mean is that we disagree on whether or not a certain claim is justified? Obviously that is the case, otherwise we would agree on everything... and the most obvious claim is the one which states that it's 'possible' for the material universe to be infinite. I believe it is possible; you believe it is not possible. We will need to go back to the other thread to discuss that again if we now agree what 'justification' means.
Hugo says,
”It is my sincere belief that neither moral principles nor laws should discriminate against gender. If we agree that something is moral and/or legal for a man, it is also moral/legal for a woman.”
It was moral/legal for both sexes to marry someone of the opposite sex. No discrimination there.
And, homosexual marriage is not even about discriminating against a sex, is it?
What you want to declare is that if it is moral legal for a male to marry a female, then a female should also have the right to marry a female. But that is not how the discrimination principle works, is it?
If Q and !Q are complementary, it does not follow that what applies to Q also applies to !Q.
Even you, in your personal attribution of your personal morality have declared that rights don’t apply to criminals. So if Q :: lawful, and !Q :: !lawful, then you have removed the restriction against discriminating against !Q. So your argument is discriminatory and Special Pleading.
Homosexuality at one time was criminal. Progressivism has changed homosexuality first from a psychological disorder to “normal”; and second, from criminal to !criminal. What falls under your discrimination criterion has now been “changed” by changing the category of !Q to Q. But you do not do this for everyone, just for the Victims Du Jour.
This change of !Q to Q was done due to the Progressive concept of Total Equality, unequally applied.
So you want to argue for your “reasons” to apply Total Equality Unequally Applied, when the actual issue is your presumed “right” to issue moral change orders, and your presumed moral authority to do so.
We can argue the fallacy of blanket egalitarianism all day:
For example, if an adult can choose X for their offspring, it does not follow that offspring may choose X for other sibling offspring due to egalitarianism in the first phrase. Egalitarianism is denied due to supervening priorities.
It does not follow that if a male can go into dressing room Z, that females must also be allowed into dressing room Z. Egalitarianism is denied due to supervening priorities.
It does not follow that men must have uteruses installed in order to be equal to women in the pain of childbearing. Egalitarianism is denied due to supervening priorities.
It does not follow that women have testosterone injections into their brains so that they think equally to men. Egalitarianism is denied due to supervening priorities.
The examples of non-equality can go on forever; blind blanket egalitarianism has bad consequences, including those which affect children.
” "As for behaviors and eligibility for matrimony, your position defines the exact problem: lack of morals regarding the behaviors of favored Victimhood categories which benefit the messiahism of the AtheoLeft."
Lack of morals? So according to you, certain actions are immoral because of the gender of the people involved?
Homosexual marriage is not about gender discrimination. It never has been.
” …. we will never be able to discuss gay marriage since we end up with a difference in our core values.”
Exactly!! And yet you sound surprised. It’s as if you think that everyone will share your personal, self-derived and self-authorized morals, and adopt them as their own new core values. I do not accept your core values, which I consider to be examples of the transient, faux “values” which are espoused by Hegelian Progressives who are on their way to destroy all moral values in the existing culture, which they obviously despise. That is why the mantra of “change” – undefined, indiscriminate, amoral, destructive, libertine change – sounds good to Progressives.
Here are the Progressive values:
(1) Blanket Total Equality (Unequally Applied) is not a value of any society except under Communism, and even then “some pigs are more equal than others”. Blanket Total Equality is totalitarian, since it must be enforced in a totalitarian manner.
(2) Blanket Total Tolerance (Intolerant of Dissent), is not a value of any society either, except under totalitarianism, which enforces it.
” "That lack of morals extends to all categories of behaviors, UNLESS the AtheoLeft decides to discriminate against certain other categories."
There is no 'de facto' extension. I am trying to focus on 1 item here: gender. We can discuss as many topics as you want but it won't change what I think about this 1 type of classification: gender. So again, and again, why do you care about the gender of individuals when it comes to wedding? Why do you care about the gender for anything at all actually!?”
Homosexuality is not about gender; homosexuals are now freely having sex with both sexes and in vast numbers of partners. Homosexual marriage is not about gender, it is about the Progressive moral authority to change whatever moral institution they wish, merely by demonizing dissent as legally “bigotry” under legal decisions.
So why do you not care about the actual subject, which is the Progressive lack of absolute morality, and their propensity for destruction of ALL the hated artifacts of the culture which spawned them? Your opinion of the morality of homosexuality is not the subject: the subject is why do you think that your opinion of moral marriage should be allowed to destroy moral marriage? And when you change your volatile opinion next, why should that destroy the next issue? Where do you get the moral authority to make those destructive decisions?
Don’t bother claiming that there is no destruction involved. There absolutely is.
First, with this Supreme Court decision, my adherence to traditional marriage is deemed “bigotry” and “hate” according to the Progressive Law of the Land. In fact, some 80% of the population will likely fall into that brand new criminal category.
Second, the precedent has been set for mere Progressive moralization to determine the Law of the Land and the criminalization of dissent, so that any other Progressive moralization can now be declared supreme, by the Supreme Court, with no reference to the US Constitution whatsoever. In other words, diktat by oligarchy of five Progressives, which overturned the will of the people in California and the will of the people as expressed by the US Congress.
So here’s the problem for you. You have a rationalization which you want to argue. But I don’t care about your rationalization, I care about your presumptive right as a Progressive to preemptively destroy existing moral institutions. Because that is what Progressives progressively progress towards: destruction of the culture which has allowed them to exist in comfort and peace.
Self-authorized Progressives cannot survive, much less prevail, in countries which are already the totalitarian paradises which Progressives crave. Thus Progressivism is a self-deluded, messiahist, yet totalitarian philosophy which will destroy itself along with everything which sustains it. Progressives were derided by the real totalitarians as “useful idiots” in the first half of the 20th century.
So far, Progressives have succeeded wildly in redefining undeniable living humans into categories which may killed, and are killed daily, and have been killed by the tens of millions, right here in the western world. Progressives have now succeeded in determining that marriage has no real boundaries beyond which Progressives may redefine it while demonizing – legally – opposition as moral defectives.
” I really don't see why the gender of a person matters for any moral issue. All humans should have the same basic human rights and the same moral principles should apply to all of them by default. Discrimination should occur only after the fact, when a person commits a crime for example, but not because of gender alone. Never. It's my opinion, one of my core values, and I will always stand by it.”
And I will stand by my core value which is that self-derived morality, immorality and amorality and destructive blind counter-cultural, anti-moral takeovers by those who are immoral or amoral, yet self-deluded into belief in their own moral authority, must be stopped.
I have time only to discuss this, then I have to leave:
”9. I never take one of your opinion in order to classify you in a broad group and then attack that group like you do all over your blog.
10. Re-phrasing my statement completely changes its meaning. GENDER is the ONLY thing I was talking about. GENDER. MALE vs FEMALE vs UNDEFINITE.
Mutability, for which you argued, and non-discrimination, for which you argued, logically shows up as the above… UNLESS, you deny mutability outside of your personal desire for its limit, and UNLESS you discriminate under your own personal rules.
If there is one thing I don't find mutable it's GENDER discrimination.
I only argued for the mutability of the LAW.”
First, the Progressive Legal Decision made by the US Supreme Court demonized, in legal parlance and with legal force, my right to hold my opinion. Whether you are doing so as a Progressive is not the issue; the issue is the progress of Progressivism such as you espouse.
Second, your restriction of the conversation to gender is rejected because that is not the issue and never has been. Both sexes previously had the exact same right: to marry someone of the opposite sex.
Third, your “moral” immutability decision is personal and without actual objective moral force or logical force and is merely personal opinion. It does not even apply to the actual subject.
So you are arguing for a non-starter, and rejecting every opportunity to defend your personal moral authority to declare immutability for your opinion and the mutability of moral precepts and to describe why you have it.
It appears that your presumption of your personal right and moral authority to declare moral mutability of existing morality is so ingrained that it is not even open to discussion. So you refuse to discuss it.
Because that is what Progressives progressively progress towards: destruction of the culture which has allowed them to exist in comfort and peace.
Like I said elsewhere, the hallmark of a Progressive/Liberal seems to be their determination to saw off the branch they - and everyone else - sits on. This is self-destruction 'because I can', an exercise of their will simply because it is their will.
The added ego boost of making tens, hundreds and even millions of other people march to their step, willingly or not? Is not just icing on the cake - I submit it is the cake itself. It is the engine that drives the whole process, no matter where it leads.
I also submit that this is one of two reasons why Progressives are almost always Atheists.
First, in order to claim their intellect, conclusions, system of ethics, etc is dominant, they have to get rid of or undercut anything that has a prior claim to override it. That includes a belief in a God that is good, and who cares that we are good as well.
Second, they must limit the consequences of their behavior to this world, and this life. A "heaven on earth", held out as a sop and a promise if we only follow their demands, loses much of its allure if this world we live in is not all.
Of course, placing such limits is a mighty undertaking, but if a thing is so simply because a Progressive announces that it is so, well... not so hard.
"Four legs good, two legs bad". No reason was ever given for this, so when it changed to "Four legs good, two legs better", what was there to dispute? The gun that was to everyone's head in Animal Farm enforcing this slogan was exactly the same as the one that enforced the first slogan.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I disagree with Hugo and his ilk. We all sit on the same branch. Just because some decide it's okay to start wrecking things because they don't personally care for them - I can handle that. But when these same people insist that not only is it possible to sit in the air with no branch, but that I should pay for the saw and help with the cutting?
That's really going too far.
It was moral/legal for both sexes to marry someone of the opposite sex. No discrimination there.
And, homosexual marriage is not even about discriminating against a sex, is it?
As soon as a gender is specified it is necessarily discriminating against, or for, that gender.
It is specified implicitly in the notion of 'opposite' gender.
By opposing gay marriage, you are saying that:
- It's 'ok' for a man to marry a woman, and vice-versa
- It's 'not ok' for a man to marry a man
- It's 'not ok' for a woman to marry a woman
Each of these statements is discriminating both in terms of 'who' has the right and 'what' the right is.
Let me re-phrase the belief I laid down, which you quoted at the start of your comment:
- It is my sincere belief that neither moral principles nor laws should specify people's gender; any values that I hold to is gender-less.
- As a consequence, it logically follows that my moral views on specific issues related to sexual orientation are independent of gender.
This is why I asked you:
"According to you, certain actions are immoral because of the gender of the people involved?"
You avoided the question by saying that homosexual marriage is not about gender discrimination. Therefore, I would still like to know why, if it is the case, you think that moral judgments need to specify the gender of the person/people involved? Do you care about the gender only when it comes to marriage or are there other moral issues where you think that gender should be specified?
And again, this is why I said:
” …. we will never be able to discuss gay marriage since we end up with a difference in our core values.”
You replied:
" Exactly!! And yet you sound surprised."
No I am not surprised; I am just waiting. I am waiting for you to answer the questions above.
Using 'Q' as you did, I am asking you why you care about 'Q' in the case of gender. Because I agree with your explanations regarding 'Q' and '!Q', but what you got wrong is that I don't care about Q when Q is 'gender'.
Why do you?
There is really nothing else to talk about here since the rest of your comment is either personal attacks based on strawman, attacks on groups you claim I must be part of, red herrings, attacks how the court system works, attacks on values I don't hold to, and so on... In order to prove my point, I will list many of these items in a 2nd comment. Feel free to specify any of the items I will write and ask for clarifications since I will not go in details for each.
" Homosexuality at one time was criminal."
Red herring
" you want to argue for your “reasons” to apply Total Equality Unequally Applied "
Strawman
"presumed “right” to issue moral change orders"
Strawman
" your presumed moral authority to do so"
Strawman
" We can argue the fallacy of blanket egalitarianism all day "
Strawman followed by long red herring
" It’s as if you think that everyone will share your personal, self-derived and self-authorized morals, and adopt them as their own new core values "
Strawman / Ad hominem
"I do not accept your core values, which I consider to be examples of the transient, faux “values”"
Strawman / Ad hominem
" Progressives who are on their way to destroy..."
Generalization, lumping me in a group, red herring
" Here are the Progressive values:"
Strawman
" Homosexuality is not about gender; homosexuals are now freely having sex with both sexes and in vast numbers of partners."
Can't find the words for that... lies, wishful ignorance?
" Progressive moral authority to change whatever moral institution they wish, merely by demonizing dissent as legally “bigotry” under legal decisions."
Strawman
"So why do you not care about the actual subject, which is the Progressive lack of absolute morality, and their propensity for destruction of ALL the hated artifacts of the culture which spawned them?"
Generalization, lumping me in a group, red herring, strawman
" why do you think that your opinion of moral marriage should be allowed to destroy moral marriage? And when you change your volatile opinion next, why should that destroy the next issue? Where do you get the moral authority to make those destructive decisions?"
Strawman, strawman, red herring and simply a general attack à la conspiracy theories.
Ok this is taking longer than I thought so I will stop here... the general tone of your comments is starting to irritate me since it's clear we are not talking about the same things. You keep repeating these comments on destruction and I find this appalling. The main reason why I think discussing these issues is important is precisely because I don't want to see the society we live in be destroyed. People fight because they don't communicate, because they don't try to understand each other.
I try really hard to stay on topic and not fall into gross generalization and attacks like you do, and I have succeeded so far. Apparently, that's not sufficient to make you come back to a civil discussion. Instead, you keep bashing on groups of people as a whole, instead of specific issues. You keep complaining that morality is being violated by people you disagree with without ever giving examples with justification as to why you disagree.
The fact that you concluded with the following is very telling: "It appears that your presumption of your personal right and moral authority to declare moral mutability of existing morality is so ingrained that it is not even open to discussion. So you refuse to discuss it."
The exact opposite is true. I am here to discuss precisely because I don't claim to have moral authority; nothing is off limit and I will support any claim I make if you think I wrong, but will change my mind if there are good reasons to. If you think on the other hand you do have the answers to all questions, that you do have a perfect solution to all moral issues, then please stop discussing with any other human being and start writing a Holy Book. It worked a few times before and it will surely work again...
What is it with Mentally ill people and Random Capital Letters?
Hugo,
You have made false accusations of fallacy. You have not made any attempt to justify your accusations. You use those false accusations to avoid discussing the actual issue, which is why you think you have the moral authority to demand the destruction of existing institutions based on your personal opinion which you say is immutable, and is therefore a permanent moral (religious) tenet.
You have no intention of defending your personal right to demand change to these institutions based merely on your personal moral revelation. You merely want to declare that your opinion is logical therefore immutable. I have no intention of pursuing that with you.
So you now say this:
” Ok this is taking longer than I thought so I will stop here... the general tone of your comments is starting to irritate me since it's clear we are not talking about the same things. You keep repeating these comments on destruction and I find this appalling. The main reason why I think discussing these issues is important is precisely because I don't want to see the society we live in be destroyed. People fight because they don't communicate, because they don't try to understand each other.”
Yes. I agree that you are not willing to discuss either the consequences of your demand for change of morals to your new morality, or your moral authority for attacking existing moral institutions.
I do understand your position: it is that you have the right to ignore consequences for your moral stance, and that your moral stance is immutable (your words), and that your moral stance must prevail, because, well, it is your moral stance and it is immutable.
This is the commonality between all AtheoLeftists: they have self-authorized with moral authority to attack and demolish existing moral institutions, merely because – they are self-endowed with immutable morals which must be established against whatever objections to the consequences might be made. The desirable consequence (establishing their own moral atheocracy) overrides any and all negative consequences which anyone might point out.
That you find this appalling is totally expected.
” I try really hard to stay on topic and not fall into gross generalization and attacks like you do, and I have succeeded so far. Apparently, that's not sufficient to make you come back to a civil discussion. Instead, you keep bashing on groups of people as a whole, instead of specific issues. You keep complaining that morality is being violated by people you disagree with without ever giving examples with justification as to why you disagree.”
I disagree that you have the right to dictate your personal opinion as morally immutable and therefore there is a moral necessity to destroy existing institutions. In fact, I deny it outright. You cannot defend that position, so you attack back on the basis of “civil conversation”, when what you actually want is to dominate the conversation by (a) ignoring the issues of your moral authority and immutable moral revelations, and (b) demanding a hearing for your illegitimate immutable moralization.
If you see no justification for demanding that you provide evidence for your moral superiority and your immutable moral revelation, then in effect you are blind to your own seizure of the position of Priest To The Universe, or perhaps it is the position of Prophet Of Acceptable Immutable Morality As Revealed To Yourself By Yourself.
” The fact that you concluded with the following is very telling: "It appears that your presumption of your personal right and moral authority to declare moral mutability of existing morality is so ingrained that it is not even open to discussion. So you refuse to discuss it."
The exact opposite is true. I am here to discuss precisely because I don't claim to have moral authority; nothing is off limit and I will support any claim I make if you think I wrong, but will change my mind if there are good reasons to. If you think on the other hand you do have the answers to all questions, that you do have a perfect solution to all moral issues, then please stop discussing with any other human being and start writing a Holy Book. It worked a few times before and it will surely work again...”
Hugo, I no longer believe a single word you say. You claim immutable moral positions, then turn around and claim to be oh-so-open-minded. You cannot make such claims and expect to be believed. If you claim immutability for moral positions which you create yourself, then you automatically have presumed the moral authority to have done so. You do X, and deny that you have presumed the authority to do X. That is irrational.
I really can’t figure out what it is that you are here to discuss. Surely you know that this is a forum for discussing the consequences of Atheism and the positions of Atheism, including AtheoLeftism. AtheoLeftism is a consequence of the Atheist moral and intellectual VOID, wherein standards for morals and intellectual processes are rejected in favor of the pure and ecstatic freedom of self-derived “free thought” and self-derived morality. Those are the first consequences of Atheism, and they lead inexorably to AtheoLeftism, and self-derived everything. Surely you must know that your positions and reasoning are totally congruent with AtheoLeftism. So why do you expect to be seen as outside of AtheoLeftist thinking when it is totally obvious that you are not?
And how can you possibly deny that you have self-authorized your own personal self-derived “immutable” moral principles? That denial is irrational.
Bottom Line:
Yes, I do deny that your personally derived moral principles are immutable, I deny that they are valid, I deny that they are true in any sense, I deny that they have no abhorrent consequences, because they do.
I also deny that you or any group with like beliefs of self authorized immutable principles has the right to automatically destroy existing moral institutions.
It is specifically because of your lack of moral authority to declare immutability of your personal moral derivations that I make the above denials.
The above denials result in the conclusion that your self-derived immutable principles and their implementation are illegitimate, in the sense that most of the population still doesn’t buy into your claim of immutability.
When you have overcome all social standards in opposition to whatever you choose to eliminate in the way of existing moral institutions, then you can claim legitimacy. But by then, the consequences of such destruction will have created enough chaos that it won’t matter that much.
@Stan: Hugo is vexing, but not surprising.
Has it not always been one of the hallmarks of the atheoleft that they change their ground every five minutes, depending on its convenience to their present situation?
Pointing out to Hugo that he is self-contradictory is hardly going to affect him - though it may be (and for me, is) edifying for other readers. He doesn't give a rap about that. If he did, he would not repeat himself endlessly, or heap insults on you, or shift his ground over and over and over.
It might not be a bad idea to shake the dust off your sandals. This guy is... well, if he's not lost, at least he is lost to the likes of us.
BTW, how was your 4th? I held a party for my son and his friends. Quite modest, but a fun time was had by all!
Steven,
We went to a 4th party on the 5th, lots of friends and lots of food and lots of fireworks. Great time!
Stan,
"You have made false accusations of fallacy. You have not made any attempt to justify your accusations. "
Correct, I purposely avoided given justification to every single identified fallacy because there were too many, and I did not even list all of them. That's why I said:
"Feel free to specify any of the items and ask for clarifications since I will not go in details for each."
Here are 2 examples:
1)" Homosexuality at one time was criminal."
--Red herring
It's a red herring since the notion of something being 'criminal' or not, be it now or in the past, is irrelevant to whether or not it's moral. Slavery was certainly legal at some point in the past, does that make it moral? Would we be justified in using that fact in order to support a position supporting slavery? No; red herrings.
2)"presumed “right” to issue moral change orders"
--Strawman
I don't pretend to have any 'right' to issue moral change. I am merely discussing why I think a certain issue is moral or not, the topic here being the legal definition of marriage. Just like any other legal definition, it is influenced by the moral choices and values of the people who are making these laws. We can then discuss, among human beings, on the reasons why we think a certain law should be put in place or not, and why.
"why you think you have the moral authority to demand the destruction of existing institutions"
I don't demand the destruction of anything; feel free to be part of any institution you want and institute any standards you want for members of that institution. Feel free to have this institution declare what a wedding means internally, I really don't care.
What's ironic is that if 1 side of this issue is on the 'destruction' side, then it is certainly yours, since you want to destroy existing legal marriages between homosexual people and make sure it does not get legally recognized. It's clear that you also want to destroy loving relationships between people because they happen to be of the same sex. It's clear that you would not want gay people to be able to adopt so you are also in favor of destroying families.
"based on your personal opinion which you say is immutable, and is therefore a permanent moral (religious) tenet."
I clearly stated the opposite: my opinion is subject to change; it is not immutable.
There is certainly nothing religious about it; anything is opened to discussion, which is the very opposite of what 'religious' means!
Obviously, the other extreme is also not true. It does not mean that I could easily be convinced that raping and murdering someone is 'ok' or that I am changing my opinions everyday depending on my mood. I do have certain core values that I cherish and it would be very difficult, probably impossible, for me to change these.
"You have no intention of defending your personal right to demand change to these institutions based merely on your personal moral revelation. You merely want to declare that your opinion is logical therefore immutable. I have no intention of pursuing that with you."
I really don't get what's the point here. You just repeat what was written in the previous paragraph and it's nothing more than a personal attack based on strawman. The rest of your comment contains several repetition of it. You even said it was 'my words' but I have no clue what you are talking about...
"I do understand your position: it is that you have the right to ignore consequences for your moral stance"
Absolutely not. Consequences matter. I really have no idea what you are talking about. What 'moral stance' do I have that has terrible consequences?
" That you find this appalling is totally expected. "
What I find appalling are your personal attacks based on this false idea that I want to destroy things.
" You cannot defend that position, so you attack back on the basis of “civil conversation”, when what you actually want is..."
What I actually do is defend my position (you did not) and what I actually want is a civil conversation about moral issues (you prefer personal attacks). Clearly, this blog is not the place for such discussion.
What you think I want is:
"...what you actually want is to dominate the conversation by (a) ignoring the issues of your moral authority and immutable moral revelations, and (b) demanding a hearing for your illegitimate immutable moralization. "
As I said above (a) is completely off-track but (b) is partially true, since in order to have a conversation, the participants need to both listen and be heard.
"I really can’t figure out what it is that you are here to discuss."
You have post that starts with "Marriage is Now meaningless. With the US Supreme Court ruling based that "discrimination" in favor of man/woman marriage to be unconstitutional, then discrimination against any union whatsoever is also unconstitutional by that self-same logic."
All I have been doing in this thread is discussing these few words. I have written in detail why I disagree, what related moral principles I adhere to, and why. I explained how these moral principles lead to my position on gay marriage.
You, on the other hand, never came close to explain why you decide to discriminate gender when making a moral judgment.
"Surely you know that this is a forum for discussing the consequences of Atheism and the positions of Atheism"
No it's not. First of all, this is not a 'forum' since this is your own personal blog Stan, on which you have total control, provide all of the content, and refuse to entertain discussions with people who dare express a different opinion, or dare point out what you got wrong regarding them.
Second, you discuss what you 'think' are the consequences of Atheism without ever considering the fact that this is a flawed approach from the start for reasons you have been told hundreds of times now.
Third, you lump in your 'AtheoLeft' category so many people that have absolutely nothing to do with Atheism that it's clear that what you really talk about are the 'others', which are anybody with a non-Christian & non-Conservative worldview. At least you started to complain about Progressist recently; I think that's a good start. This is way more in line with what you complain about rather than this made up category you call the 'AtheoLeft'.
"Surely you must know that your positions and reasoning are totally congruent with AtheoLeftism"
Probably not actually, since you made up that category and have a very flawed view of what I actually think and believe; but how can we really know? you just make up stuff instead of trying to isolate 1 issue at a time and discuss it...
"And how can you possibly deny that you have self-authorized your own personal self-derived “immutable” moral principles? That denial is irrational."
Your morality is just as self-derived as mine and the morality of any other human being. I don't see why I would deny that. What I deny is that I have some sort of 'immutable' moral principles or some sort of 'authority' on moral issues. I don't; you don't.
Let's recap with the 'Bottom Line:'
" Yes, I do deny that your personally derived moral principles are immutable"
(never claimed they were)
"I deny that they are valid, I deny that they are true in any sense"
(but you will not say 'why' and avoid discussing yours)
"I deny that they have no abhorrent consequences, because they do."
(They certainly have consequences; I agree)
" I also deny that you or any group with like beliefs of self authorized immutable principles has the right to automatically destroy"
(I don't want to destroy anything.)
" existing moral institutions."
(Your own personal moral choices don't get any added value if you label them as a 'moral institution'.)
" It is specifically because of your lack of moral authority to declare immutability of your personal moral derivations that I make the above denials."
(We agree again here; I don't have any authority. You don't either though, but you pretend that you are backed by a 'moral institution'.)
" The above denials result in the conclusion that your self-derived immutable principles and their implementation are illegitimate"
(but you won't say what's wrong and WHY??)
" in the sense that most of the population still doesn’t buy into your claim of immutability."
(First, morality is not a popular vote. Second, please don't look at polls, I don't want you to be upset. Third, I was obviously not talking about my 'immutability' since that's non-sense you invented; look at polls on gay marriage)
" When you have overcome all social standards in opposition to whatever you choose to eliminate"
(First, regarding the specic issue of gay marriage, it has been fully legal where I am from for almost 10 years so overcoming social standards would not be too hard. Second, there is no 'whatever' since I discuss issue by issue. You are the one who generalizes all the time...)
" in the way of existing moral institutions, then you can claim legitimacy."
(Again, calling your favorite moral values an 'institution' does not give them any value. Slavery was a strong institution not so long ago, so was gender inequality; women could not vote/study. So you think it was wrong to 'destroy' these 'moral institutions'? I can give reasons to explain why these 'institutions' needed to be changes; can you?)
" But by then, the consequences of such destruction will have created enough chaos that it won’t matter that much."
What consequences!? You refuse to discuss the reasons why you think gay marriage should remain unacceptable. Stating the consequences you believe in would have been a good start, but you never did...
As I just mentioned, Canada legalized it already, and it's been long enough to judge the consequences of such 'devastating' decision. Can you point out what went wrong since 2003?
More importantly, there is absolutely no consequences on YOUR life, that's for sure, so why do you even care so much about OTHER people lives when what they want concerns themselves and themselves alone.
@Steven
Thanks for all the insults buddy; it's always interesting to read your comments.
Hugo,
I wrote a rather lengthy reply to your message above, but I think it is time to summarize this and terminate it. To summarize, you want to justify a moral position for changing the definition of marriage, which you base on a personal opinion of what you want to define as gender equality. You do not address arguments against that; you dismiss them with false accusations of Red Herring. I will include my analysis of that in the Note below, merely FYI, and I expect no further response.
My position is that you are presuming and seizing the personal moral authority to make moral decisions in pursuit of a new morality which is congenial with your personal tastes. Further this seizure of personal moral authority is (a) based on no innate actual moral authority, and (b) has far reaching, onerous consequences. You wish to discuss none of this.
Based on this, there is no reason to continue this conversation. So I am terminating it.
Note:
An example of an argument ignored and falsely accused of Red Herring:
” 1)" Homosexuality at one time was criminal."
--Red herring
It's a red herring since the notion of something being 'criminal' or not, be it now or in the past, is irrelevant to whether or not it's moral. Slavery was certainly legal at some point in the past, does that make it moral? Would we be justified in using that fact in order to support a position supporting slavery? No; red herrings.”
You have attempted to eliminate an entire argument by attacking one select statement completely out of context. Here is the entire argument:
” What you want to declare is that if it is moral legal for a male to marry a female, then a female should also have the right to marry a female. But that is not how the discrimination principle works, is it?
If Q and !Q are complementary, it does not follow that what applies to Q also applies to !Q.
Even you, in your personal attribution of your personal morality have declared that rights don’t apply to criminals. So if Q :: lawful, and !Q :: !lawful, then you have removed the restriction against discriminating against !Q. So your argument is discriminatory and Special Pleading.
Homosexuality at one time was criminal. Progressivism has changed homosexuality first from a psychological disorder to “normal”; and second, from criminal to !criminal. What falls under your discrimination criterion has now been “changed” by changing the category of !Q to Q. But you do not do this for everyone, just for the Victims Du Jour, an example of Special Pleading.
You do not address the argument being made, you merely dismiss it as Red Herring. It is not.
This change of !Q to Q was done under the Progressive concept of Total Equality, Unequally Applied. This principle, along with Total Tolerance, Unequally Applied, are immutable precepts of the morally superior, who define morality to suit themselves and their pursuit as saviors/messiahs of people declared to be “victims”, and further to pursue the elimination of noncongruent moral precepts due to their own moral superiority, and self-endowed messiahism. Noncongruence in moral precepts equates to immorality, which is, under TTUA, intolerable, and must not be tolerated.
So you want to argue for your “reasons” to apply Total Equality Unequally Applied, when the actual issue is your presumed “right” to issue moral change orders, and your presumed moral authority to do so.
Your own position is this:
” Even you, in your personal attribution of your personal morality have declared that rights don’t apply to criminals.”
The argument surrounds these issues: (a) the “necessary” moral change which drives the change of moral and legal status of homosexuality, and finally this issue, (b) the rebuttal to your attempts to totally equalize genders, shown here:
” If Q and !Q are complementary, it does not follow that what applies to Q also applies to !Q.”
No further commenting is expected; this conversation is terminated.
Agreed! This conversation is terminated... because it never started:
- you have still not given 1 single reason for your opinions
- you have still not listed 1 consequence of my beliefs
- you repeated the same false accusations (even quoting yourself to describe my position!)
Finally, these exchanges demonstrated a serious disconnect on what we consider to be objective morality. For every moral judgment, there is an objectively moral choice, which is exactly like the truth value of any statement. The moral choice is independent of anybody's opinion (objective) but everybody can have their own personal opinion on what the correct 'answer' is. It is then up to disagreeing parties to try to convince the others as to why they think that their position has the correct 'answer'. Claims of pre-existing moral institutions, legality in the law, divine revelations / holy books, traditions or cultural artifacts are all examples of 'wrong' ways to support a moral position.
Thanks for your time and sorry to read such hate and anger in your comments; I hope your life is not as depressing as your view of the world we live in!
I guess I can't let this last shibboleth by Hugo go unanswered:
His denials are all false, to the point of outright lies.
His moral confusion is perfectly represented in his take on the meaning of "objective" vs the necessity for opinion to reign.
The denial of the utility of existing institutions in determining the morality of an issue is a clear statement of the AtheoLeftist belief that they own morality and have the moral authority to declare their morality as superior and necessary.
And the final recourse is call "hate", which is the ultimate sin of pointing out the emptiness of AtheoLeftist morality, and their total lack of moral authority to declare what is or is not moral.
"Hate" is, of course, a thought crime against protected, sacred entities which are determined by the moral discriminations of the AtheoLeft. It is Hate to claim that man/woman parenting gives superior sexual identity modelling to children. It is Hate to claim that the attraction of males to the anus of other males is abnormal, biologically. It is Hate, in fact, to disagree with the presumption of moral authority by those who wish only to destroy existing moral standards in favor of non-discrimination against certain now-favored behaviors (while denying any consequences as morality evaporates along the slippery slope).
It is in fact the hatred of actual mmoral restrictions with which the AtheoLeft wishes to not be saddled as they remonstrate those who think that some restrictions should remain, because if not, then the AtheoLeftist "freedom" becomes enforcement of chaos and disintegration.
Atheism is, in the last analysis, a jump into the intellectual and moral Atheist VOID, where absolute freedom is experienced breathlessly, and restraints are seen to be immoral. After having been removed from the - now elite - individual, restraints must be removed one at a time from all of society. Sexual restraint was first to go; marital fidelity and divorce restraint was second; morality in government was third; homosexuality restraint is fourth.
And thus, the call for continued restraints is defined as Hate, and it is the new crime against the intellectual and moral libertines, the self-elected moral arbiters for this libertine age.
First of all, I don't know what kind of 'crowd' you think you are addressing but I would be extremely surprises if more than 5 people read this thread, so no need to speak 'about' me, we are speaking 'together', even though this seems to annoy you to no end for some reason...
Regarding 'hate', you got it completely wrong. I was referring to the fact that you are clearly upset by a lot of things that is going on in your country and society in general. You really seem to 'hate' what's going in our modern society and seem to 'hate' the shift of values and opinion of the average American, or 'Westerner' should I say.
Hugo said:
”- you have still not given 1 single reason for your opinions”
Maximally false. I have stated this in as many ways as possible, including the comment just above your last – and I mean last – comment, repeated here:
”Atheism is, in the last analysis, a jump into the intellectual and moral Atheist VOID, where absolute freedom is experienced breathlessly, and restraints are seen to be immoral. After having been removed from the - now elite - individual, restraints must be removed one at a time from all of society. Sexual restraint was first to go; marital fidelity and divorce restraint was second; morality in government was third; homosexuality restraint is fourth.”
You have specifically refused to discuss this, because you want to discuss ONLY your personal rationalization for changing morals as you, under your own self-derived moral authority, see fit. Under your personal authority to determine what is and is not moral, you are seen to be purely relativistic, morally. That makes you dangerous, since no one can determine what your morals will turn out to be tomorrow. What you say now is meaningless, since you are self-authorized to change morality as you will it.
”- you have still not listed 1 consequence of my beliefs
False, many times over, starting here, with your attempt to “simplify” marriage definition:
“Marriage can be simply defined as being between three men and four sheep. Your simple definition has no limiting value, just because you think you limited it. What you think no longer matters, just as what I think no longer matters. The definition of marriage is now mutable, where before it was immutable. So don’t try to interject your personal morality where there is no longer any morality to be had.”
And here:
“Marriage is just the latest of the Progressive stalking horses, on the way to the total dismantling of the hated America The Exceptional. And the best way to do it is to claim “Moral” precepts which are brand new: asymmetrical Tolerance, asmmmetrical Eqalitarianism, asymmetrical Social Justice. All are vague Progressive mantras. All require the total dismantling of America’s exceptional roots, the constitution.”
And here:
“Your position is a rationalization, produced after the fact, produced to justify the Progressive destruction of honored institutions which have, in the past, produced the hated American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism is the ultimate target, an admission by none less than Obama. You have produced an excuse for destruction; anyone can do that, and it will be done over and over as the future destructions progress. That’s the Progress in Progressive.”
And here:
“The denial of the utility of existing institutions in determining the morality of an issue is a clear statement of the AtheoLeftist belief that they own morality and have the moral authority to declare their morality as superior and necessary.”
You refuse to discuss this. Your statement above is false, false, false. You seem to think that whatever you say at any moment becomes truth. That is self-delusion – only – because it does not serve to delude anyone watching this exchange.
”- you repeated the same false accusations (even quoting yourself to describe my position!)”
False, logically, rationally, and rhetorically. You have undertaken to avoid addressing your logical failures, and your avoidance of issues by counter charging fallacies which do not exist: blatant intellectual dishonesty. Of course in a morally relativistic person, there can be no dishonesty from his perspective. Under your type of personally derived morals anything goes, as you decide what is and is not moral, giving you the ability to define your own actions and opinions as moral as you personally see fit.
I conclude that your entire attempt here has been just as relativistic and intellectually dishonest as I have described above. As evidence, you have shamelessly lied as this conversation has come to termination.
No more of your comments will be posted.
Post a Comment