I get the part about irrational and unreasonable beliefs being roughly equal. That the other guy’s irrational notions are just as good as mine. They aren’t, of course, but I’m willing to pretend. What I don’t get is why a minority gets to impose their preferred nonsense on everybody else. Seems to me there’s a link missing in that chain of steel logic.
People who have had abortions are 37% more likely to genuflect correctly.
I’ll need clarification before I can decide whether I can decide.
Do they also bow their heads with great respect?
Which minority are we talking about in this case? IOW, is the law in question being “imposed” by a minority? Did it not pass the legislature, which was voted in by the majority of the people?
Have you any reason to believe that these laws represent the values and preferences of a majority of the citizens? And if not, does legislation have some magic mambo that makes the unjust just?
You know how laws get written, right?
And when the minority favors YOUR view, I might add, you suddenly develop a deep and abiding distaste for the tyranny of the majority.
Yes, I do: When the legislators who were duly elected by the citizens pass a certain law. When they overstep their bounds, they subject themselves to being kicked out, like the bums they are, and replaced with new Legiscritters who can then correct the error.
We can watch this play out over the next few years. There is, of course, no guarantee that the sitting Legiscritters will always get everything right at exactly the right time, but if you have a better way of ensuring that, I’d be eager to hear it. We could, for example, try direct democracy, but I fear for my Muslim friends if we ever adopted that system.
Bricker, we talked about his, and you agreed: you only get to play the “liberal hypocrisy” card once per thread.
Not necessarily, thanks to gerrymandering. A majority can be, and were, elected to congress with a minority of votes. See e.g., Republicans Win Congress as Democrats Get Most Votes
Sometimes the race is fixed and we get idiot legislation of which the majority of voter do not approve or support. See e.g. Poll: Majority Supports Failed Senate Gun Control Bill
So, yes, a law can be imposed on a majority by a minority, and I think we will see a backlash against the TP republicans in 2014.
Well, now, just a second there, legalsnugs. I, for one, am grateful for John’s willingness to take the time to explain the rudiments of legislation for me, even if I find the patronizing condescension a bit grating. OK, a lot. But I am going to peacefully assemble a red dress of grievances, just like it says. Though John might look better in it, I hear he has the legs for it and totally rocks a little black cocktail dress with a string of pearls.
Still, its generous of smart people to help out a poor ol’ ignorant country boy like me. Though I advise people who are inclined to pat me on the head to count their fingers when they are done, I can be a bit surly sometimes…
My post said “in this case”, not “in some hypothetical case”. I also said “duly elected”, and like or not, gerrymandering is often legal and so, “duly” is an important operative word here. We elect legislators knowing they may or may not follow the will of the people on each and every issue. This is a feature, not a bug, especially since we can kick them out in the next election cycle if they stray too far off the desired path. The alternative, that they always represent the precise will of the people at any point in time is a terrifying thought, especially since we are talking about minorities here.
You are supporting laws that make others live by Catholic rules. That specific rules are also shared by other (very similar) religions is besides the point.
If you want to enforce the eating of God-Berries, because your God, Larry, says so. That’s shitty. If some other guy’s God, Dennis, also wants people to eat God-Berries that guy would be shitty if he tried to enforce it. The two of you trying to foist your religious beliefs in eating God-Berries on others means you’re both assholes, not suddenly reasonable, because your Larry Worship and his Dennis Worship overlap at this point.
If a third group of atheists like God-Berries because they taste awesome, and want to force others to eat them to, that’s shitty.
Each is undertaking the same shitty act for different reasons. Surely someone able to limp through law-school, like yourself can understand that the same action can have different motives, right?
If I stood out in front of a gunstore with bleeding child that was shot in the face, and I screamed at the people who entered, I might drop gun sales a tick too.
Berating and terrorizing women will get some to do as you say. You’re still a shit-head for doing it even if it is effective.
Indecent exposure is something where you are changing someone else’s day. You, or any other gray-haired biddies fretting about all the souls being lost to the abortionist’s hook, aren’t impacted in the slightest by an abortion happening.
You are deciding to be outraged because it goes against some mythology your parents brainwashed you into believing. Not because it is making your day any shittier.
I beg to differ. The founders set America up with the idea that equality and freedom from religious oppression were big deals. Certainly America could vote itself into a Muslim theocracy and become the new seat of the Caliphate if enough citizens wanted it to, but at that point, I’d side with Magellan and say that it changes the meaning of the word substantively.
It would still be called America, but you’d have to make a bunch of statements in historical texts about, pre-Caliphate America and so on. So at the least advocating religious laws would be un-TheCurrentVersionofAmerican.
Well…the definition of absolutism generally means that no exceptions are allowed, hence my assumptions that you’re not an absolutist after all.
If that is the basis by which we judge things to be unAmerican, then ending slavery was unAmerican. The Founders set America up with the idea that equality and freedom did not extend to non-Europeans. Besides, many of The Founders were quite OK with states having established religions, and some did for decades after the constitution was ratified.
But I have to say I’m quite surprised to see you hold such conservative views.
That’s awesome. A bill that would require gun purchasers to listen to the 911 call from the kid who shot his sister by mistake and look at pictures from the Newtown and Aurora massacres. Conservatives couldn’t possibly object, could they?
I would suggest that freedom from religious dominance is more of a founding value of America, than the continuation of slavery.
Nobody gets me, I’m the wind, baby.