Confirmed! You finally win a debate with Scott Plaid. W00t!
Woo hoo!
Go me! Go me!
I am the champion, my friends, and I’ll keep on fighting to the end!
I will, I will, rock you UNH!
And so forth, and etc.
Bricker = Queen? :eek:
Given the topic of this thread, that’s a rather interesting choice of bands, Bricker. 
Hey, I have always said I was open-minded.
Bricker’s comment was quite clear in context (and I think the pile-on was completely unnecessary.) Even if it hadn’t been, Bricker explained what he meant quite thoroughly. Why do you sit there and imply that he didn’t really mean what he said he meant? He explained what he meant, so why do you care if he’s not willing to defend a viewpoint that he doesn’t even hold? You seem to want to force him into some viewpoint he doesn’t share because it’s convenient to argue against.
You’re worthless, Scott Plaid.
In reality, Rick posted a comment that a lot of Americans felt that homosexuality is wrong. He did so without noting approval or disproval of such a view, in that post. Now, he claims to be supportive of gay marriage. However, he only approves of if it is passed into law in the manner he approves, not how it is actually working out. Now, at what point should I conclude that he actually approves of gay marriage, and not simply paying lip service to a concept he knows won’t happen? Same thing here. He might be perfectly sincere, but they way he expresses himself is very suspicious. That is why I “seem to want to force him into some viewpoint he doesn’t share because it’s convenient to argue against.” Because my perception of what he is saying appears to be closer to what he actually means.
Also, as for your calling me worthless, well, I have said before, insults don’t phase me, so you might as well not waste your energy.
P.S. This hi-jack has continued for a few pages, and looks to go on longer. I was not talking about you or Binarydrone specifically when I said that people will read Rick’s posts charitably, but instead about people in general. In addition, I was not “chewing you out” for being insufficiently zealous towards the liberal cause. A very good example of reading what you think the author intended, rather then what they actually said.
What you’re missing is that Bricker holds the process to be as sacred as the result. That’s not necessarily a fault, though when it rubs up against my pet causes I tend to find his process-worship frustrating. If we’d been around at the dawn of civilization and the First Court of Trogg had found a verdict of murder without the Legislature of Trogg having made that law, Bricker would scream blue…well, murder.
Bricker isn’t necessarily my favorite Doper (he’s not my least favorite either, though) but I hate to see him lambasted as a homophobe every time this comes up by people who just don’t get his mindset.
As I said earlier, a simple majority opinion should hold no weight when it comes to the people’s right to live their own lives, and to own their own thoughts. The people which the OP is about need to learn and understand it. Various posters need to learn it too. Sheer numbers does not make a thing true.
Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
– Henry Brooks Adams
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds…
– Samuel Adams
“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“If fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”
–Anatole France
The community which does not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves. If there is anything in the universe that can’t stand discussion, let it crack.
- Wendell Phillips
The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
–John Fitzgerald Kennedy
It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into laws.
- Thomas Sowell
“You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.”
-Scott Adams
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the
-Ayn Rand
The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
-Johann von Schiller
Well, to be brutally honest, I really don’t think that people misunderstanding specifically your writing is necessarily super telling in terms of drawing conclusions about how people read and parse information. I am sure that you have many sterling qualities as a person, but using the written word to communicate what you are thinking seems to not be one of them.
On another note, I want to just toss something out there for thought RE: that statistic that states that the majority of Americans feel that homosexuality is a sin. I had stated earlier that I was not sure how really meaningful that stat was.
While it is true that it does no good to pretend that we are anything but a large minority in our thinking on this issue, I think that the whole notion of sin is worth talking about. Bear with me here. I will be using my understanding of friend Bricker as an example of what I am getting at. I am more than willing to be corrected by him if I am wrong, and will promptly apologize for any misreading that I have had of his posts in the past.
With that said, it is my understanding that friend Bricker is a devout, practicing Catholic. As such, as he mentioned in this very thread, he would be anti-abortion and (if my understanding of doctrine is correct) view at least homosexual behavior as a sin. In other words, if polled he would probably be numbered among those that view being gay as a sin, yet in spite of that he is “out” as supporting gay marriage.
Now personally, I do not hold much with the idea of sin. That said, there are things that consenting adults do together that I would find distasteful or unwholesome in some way. So, for example, if polled I might be numbered as someone that is “against” people beating the shit out of each other as part of a consensual arrangement, but when it came time to fight for the right for people to do just that I would be on the front line.
So, I think that my overall point (and I had to be reminded of this myself earlier in the thread) is that there are probably many hidden allies within that slim majority that finds homosexuality sinful.
Correct.
The only observation I would add to someone asking me about “sin,” is that in a society such as ours, in which church and state are two separate institutions, it’s pretty meaningless to ask about sin if the thrust of your question is development of public policy.
I think one commits a sin by failing to fast and abstain from meat on certain days. But that view has absolutely no relevance to the formation of public policy; I certainly would not support a law punishing those that did not fast or abstain from meat on certain days.
Yes, I think homosexual acts are sinful. Absolutely. I think hetereosexual sex acts outside marriage are sinful, too. But I think that question is utterly meaningless in a discussion about the formation of public policy. As a legislator, I would not vote in favor of a law punishing such acts; as an executive, I would not sign such a law, any more than I’d vote for or sign laws punishing Lenten fast or abstenstion violations.
Yeah, I’m sure they’ve heard of Mary Magdalene.
I went to the library to read the article from the July 17th edition of The New York Times. From the article:
There is a reason they don’t track their success rate.
I’m trying to have some sympathy or understanding for what his parents did, but I just can’t.
Does anybody have an update on the kid? Is he still being held at camp or is he home?
Zach was released on July 29, nearly seven weeks after starting the camp. I couldn’t find out much beyond that. People are still commenting in his blog.
10 points from the Canadian judge.
He’s made a new post today. He’s quite understandably pissed off at everyone involved in the media circus and does not appreciate being made into a cause celebre.
He’s made a new post today. He’s quite understandably pissed off at everyone involved in the media circus and does not appreciate being made into a cause celebre. He’s erased his old board entirely.
Well, you’re welcome, you damn ungrateful bastard. Seriously, he posts about killing himself and his family, how he’s being held against his will, now he’s pissed because people took action?
Dude, then don’t post that info publically! Jesus. I feel for the kid, I understand all the attention he’s getting must suck, but damn. Just…damn.
Well, I’m sure his father is coming down hard on him because of all the negative attention he got. Plus, he’s just been in a brainwashing program for six weeks. Cut the kid a little slack.
Yeah, it’s too bad that this whole thing snowballed out of his control like that. Of course, if he hadn’t been that camp and cut off from the outside world (his blog included) by the asinine, draconian policies of the camp, he might have been able to mitigate the media impact a little bit, but since his parents sent him out to the cornfield, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Somehow, I suspect this particular irony is lost on his folks.
I’m glad he’s no longer being held at “Love” in Action.
I’ve skimmed over his new blog. In one of his replies he made this curious comment
Less safe??? from classical music and such like??? And what clients do, really need to be there??
One comment to his blog:
Dunno if it was supposed to be funny, but it gave me a chuckle.
I hope he’s going to come through this without too many scars. If I were him, I’d never trust my parents again.