However I got married in a place that kind of seemed like a church hall, by a guy who kind of seemed like a minister, except that it was the Ethical Culture Society, and nothing involved in it had anything to do with religion. It was not civil in the Justice of the Peace sense, but it was definitely a marriage. In Pennsylvania, by the way, thanks to Quaker law, you can marry yourselves with just a witness.
I agree that marriage is bio-cultural, but the state has delegated the right of performing marriages to various groups of people, So, there is no real distinction between being married by a priest or a JoP or a bellhop.
I’m not complaining about that at all. Whether something is the best way to do something is subjective. THAT is what is debatable. Telling someone what the idea is that they’re putting on the table is not. It’s as if I say I think it would be wise if we passed a law stating everyone over 75 had to take a driving test every year. And you say, “That’s dumb, why should we make every single driver take a driving test every year.” You’d be changing what my idea actually is.
Of course it does. They have to evaluate* the actual idea I present*. Not some other idea that I don’t advocate.
No it’s not. He’s doing the normal thing any fair person would do. This is Debate 001. Hell, it’s Life 000.5:
*You: Hey, magellan01. I have an idea about how fix the tax code. Can you tell me what you think?
Me: Sure. What is your idea?*
And then I would evaluate what YOU propose. Right? Not some idea that 1) you did not put forth and 2) have stated that you do not advocate.
That you might know what your ideas are better than anyone else is silliness? This has got to be a woosh. Or a late April Fool’s joke. I’m not complaining about not agreeing to the wisdom or “effectiveness” of my ideas. Just to their definition. it goes to the “What is your idea?”. You state YOUR idea then people can evaluate IT.
I feel like I’m in Bizarro Debate World, where you get to state what my ideas are before you evaluate them. Never mind that I don’t advocate what you came up with.
And it’s been explained why your wrong 27 times, and yet here we are. The fact that we can’t reach any sort of consensus on this issue does not mean that one of us is lying.
Except that, evidently, you don’t understand your own ideas. I’m not saying this to be a dick - again, I’m not trying to antagonize you here, but on this issue, you genuinely don’t seem to understand what you’re saying. You keep describing a solution that’s clearly a two-law system, then labeling it a one law system. It’s certainly possible that I’m suffering some total lack of comprehension when you describe your idea, but I don’t think that’s what happening. Every time you clarify your position, it jibes perfectly with my previous understanding of what you said… until you get to the part where two mysteriously transmutes into one, and I’m left scratching my head, because up to that point, the system you’re describing is clearly not a one law system.
Yes, you are advocating one set of laws. One set of two laws. Do you really not understand that? You just said it yourself: not “my idea is to have one law” but “my idea is to have one set of laws”.
Let’s try it this way: Miller, you believe that a system that calls a set of rights by two different names, depending on whom those rights apply to, is by definition a two-law system, right?
Do you or do you not understand and accept that the idea that I have been putting forth would use one set of laws? Yes or no?
That was the only point I was making. Quoting what you wrote. I know you think the idea is a bad one for myriad reason, but I thought I understood what you wrote in that one sentence.
Through most of the history of Western civilization, stretching to the present, marriage was between one man and possibly several women. When Christian civilization did away with this, do you think they should have renamed ,marriage?
While I appreciate your desire to have equal civil unions, which is way beyond where most on the social right have gone, I think you realize that marriage goes beyond this. In civil union states, heterosexual couples qualify also, and not all who get married despite having a recognized civil union do so for religious reasons. Perhaps we care about marriage because of cultural brainwashing, but we still do. (At least some of us, and I include myself in that category.) Given that we both love the concept of marriage, why not show that love by making it available as widely as we can? How will it hurt?
Clearly white people loved the concept of being free men in 1865. Did broadening this concept to include all black people diminish the joys of freedom for them in any way? Except that is, for bigots who felt diminished because of the enhanced rights of others. But I don’t think anyone today would claim they have a valid point, do you?
:rolleyes: Because there would be laws having to do with say, taxes, inheritance, end of life decisions, etc. There would NOT be 2 laws making the same point about end of life decisions, for example.
Is that really not obvious? Sheeze.
Here’s the situation as I see it:
You: “We should have a law where people over 75 have to take the driver’s license test every year. The way the law would work is, every year on January 1st, the DMV would send letters to everyone who has a driver’s license, telling them what date they have to come in to take their driver’s license test.”
I: “That seems silly. Why would you want everyone to retake their driver’s test every year?”
You: “I don’t! Only people over 75 have to take their test every year!”
I: “But you said you want the DMV to send letters to everyone.”
You: "Right! The DMV sends letters to everyone telling them to retake the test every year, and that’s how only people over 75 have to retake the test.
I: 
I am! And when I evaluate it, I see that it doesn’t actually do what you say it does.
Everyone understands that you say that–and also that you say it would use two different labels for the rights under this set of laws. Most folks seem to think that the labels are themselves part of the law, and that if you have two different labels, that by itself is sufficient to constitute a difference between the set of laws. Do you or do you not understand and accept that?
Yes, that’s correct.
As you may recall, I went in to depth about how SSM is not like marriage between different races. As I did with the “how will it hurt”. I’ve neither the time or inclination to get into a 20-page debate about the merits right now. For the purposes of THIS discussion, it doesn’t matter if my idea is a good one or a bad one. I’m just arguing that I be allowed to state what my position is.
Doesn’t seem to be asking a too much.
That’s correct. But if you say you think it would be wise if we passed a law stating everyone had to take a driving test every year, and I say that’s dumb, and ask why everyone should have to take that test, and you respond that that’s not what you mean, “Everyone should take a driving test” means “Everyone over 75 should take a driving test”, then *you *are a wrong about your idea.
Obviously that’s a foolish situation. But in a situation where the stated point is less obvious, it’s a perfectly possible situation. It is possible to misunderstand the very point you’re making.
But this presumes you’re correctly advocating the idea you think you’re advocating.
Only if my idea was actually what I stated it to be. If I come up to you with a big handful of red balloons, and declare my method for fixing the tax code is to give everyone one of the shiny blue balloons i’ve got here, you would be entirely correct to evaluate my inaccurate idea. Because, mistakenly, i’m advocating giving everyone red balloons.
It’s silliness. You can’t measure a tool by using the tool. If your idea-evaluation process is flawed, then you cannot use your idea-evaluation process to evaluate your idea. I’m not talking about how wise or effective an idea is either; i’m talking about the basic nature of the idea itself, which, if flawed, cannot be judged or categorised or understood by the owner of the idea because the flaw in the idea betrays a flaw in judgement.
But in this example you’re putting words into my mouth. I understand you did it for illustrative purposes, but YOU are putting things into my idea that I didn’t have there. You added something. One thing you did not do was to say, “Oh why do you want to test people 28 years old?” And that IS what you’re doing by insisting that my idea—which uses one set of laws—uses two. :mad:
What the fuck kind of debating tactic is that?
I don’t care where you come out after you evaluate the idea. I’m sure we’ll disagree on that. But, sheeze, you should be evaluating what my idea actually IS. You keep telling me what my own idea is. Good or bad, I pretty fucking sure I know what it is better than you. Positive, in fact.
This is not relevant. It is not what happened.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I mean, I’ve certainly explained it enough to erase any confusion that might have legitimately arisen from a badly worded post. So, again: not relevant.
For the final time, I’m not talking about the evaluation process. I’m talking about accepting what someone’s idea is before you evaluate it. “I have an idea to increase the IQ of posters. They should always type wearing a hat, because it improves blood flow to the brain.” The part of that you must accept is that my idea is that posters can increase their IQs by wearing hats while they post.
Whatever else is going on in this debate, this is simply incorrect. It is more frequent than not that people do not grasp the implications, effects, and even the nature of their own ideas.
That’s basically what’s going on here. You insist that you are creating a single system of laws, and everybody else is saying “You do realize by proposing X, you’re actually creating Y.” Simply claiming that this isn’t true because you’re proposing X and not Y isn’t answering the criticism.
But from my reading, that is what happened. I’m not asking to accept my word for what your idea is over yours; that’d be even sillier. I’m simply asking you to accept that it is possible for a person to misunderstand even their own idea.
Is your implication by using the word “legitimate” there that my confusion arises illegitimately from a badly worded post?
Simply put - people can misunderstand their own ideas. That’s it, really.
No, I don’t. I’m not talking about evaluation in terms of accepting the idea, and then evaluating what that idea might mean, what the results are, and so on. I’m talking about the basic knowledge of what that idea is. The basic evaluation that allows you to look at something and see what it is; the evaluation that enables you to identify an idea.
I’m sure most of us are sick of faux-conversations to make the point, but here’s how I see it;
“I have an idea, this is the idea, and the results of it are X.”
“I disagree that the results are X - but I also disagree that your idea is actually as you’ve described it.”
“I disagree with your disagreement about X, but you can’t argue at all that my idea is not my idea. That’s not even in question.”
My point essentially is that it is in question. That you can misunderstand your own idea.
I was really hoping **Puddleglum **would return and tell me why my marriage to my wife shouldn’t have been legal.
So I’m thinking he has me on ignore, but whatever. Listen:
“I have an idea to improve the IQ of posters. Everyone should do exactly the same thing: they should wear hats. Gay posters should wear purple hats, and straight posters should wear gray hats. It’s exactly the same thing, I only have one proposal, that everyone wears hats. There’s no way to legitimately be confused about my proposal. Argue it’s a bad one, but everyone would wear hats under it, at least accept that it’s my idea that everyone is treated exactly the same under it.”
Actually, they’re not. If they were, you wouldn’t be bothering to specify a distinction between the two groups.
Nothing I said has anything to do with marriage between different races. If you’ll try reading it again, my point was that giving voting rights and freedom to blacks after the war in no way diminished the rights of whites, just as giving marriage rights to gays in no way diminishes marriage rights for straights. In fact, giving voting rights to a new group dilutes the effect of the vote of someone who already had the right, while extending marriage rights in no way dilutes anything.
And, just to be clear, I am not saying you are against any rights. Of course you can state your position, but the devalues marriage argument is made often, and I’ve never seen any reason for it beyond that it makes people uncomfortable.