Yes, truly, their self-righteous belligerance is to be avoided, these bigots, while your generosity of spirit and benign tolerance is a beacon to us all.
Well, whether he deserved it or not, it represents you losing your cool in Great Debates or at best forgetting which forum you were in (which I guess might be understandable under the circumstances and I recall doing something similar myself once, though I immediately took action to report my own post when I realized my mistake).
Well, I don’t have much pity for you, especially in the face of such a self-serving account. The case you made is flawed and feeble. We point out that it is flawed and feeble and ask for more. This is no way means we failed to understand the flawed and feeble argument - we just dismissed it as insufficient.
No warnings for me.
I’d say they both equally valid, and neither is relevant. Love is not and never has been a requirement for marriage. The only reason I would bother to use love in an argument is to demonstrate that I can create a position as “empathetic” as yours. If your empathetic stance is what you consider a valid argument, you have no reason to reject mine, except through personal bias.
Well, if I decide to give it a shot, I’ll let the readers decide which of us does a better job at presenting the argument.
I feel he’s being a touch generous, myself. Anyway, I don’t care who calls who a bigot at this point, just what can be proved and what can’t be proved.
I see. When?
I don’t see any evidence that you want “a more logically consistent reasoning in support” of SSM, at least not since you settled on calling your opponents stupid. If you indeed want a logically consistent reasoning, I’m confident I can give one by citing the 14th amendment and other relevant legislation all in building up an position where the government making a distinction by gender is not a consistent application of the law. No religion-baiting, no bigot-labeling.
Would that interest you?
So they’re the death throws of a fatally wounded political, cultural philosophy trying desperately to reassert it’s old order is what you’re saying.
Even Der Trihs should be happy about that idea.
No, I just dislike not being able to point out the truth. And you’ve lowered the level of discourse just fine without me using the Forbidden Word.
I don’t believe you for a moment.
Oh, please. Hating a belief system that people choose for acts committed in it’s name is completely different than hating people who aren’t a danger for something they are born as.
And if that IS how you define bigotry; congratulations, everyone who hates Nazism or racism or Communism or the Republican party or sexism is now a bigot. According to your standard, anyone who has any moral opinions at all about any group is a bigot. This isn’t about me being a bigot; it’s just another case of the religious demanding religion to be placed in a special inviolable category. Calling Christianity evil isn’t any more bigoted than calling Nazism evil. I condemn both, for the acts in their name and the philosophy they uphold.
It wasn’t accidental and I didn’t lose my cool. If people want to deal with that, they can deal with it as they will.
Pity? who said I wanted pity? The case I made wasn’t flawed and feeble, you just wanted it to be something else other than it was. You dismissed it as insufficient when you said that bigotry was a sufficient explanation. It didn’t matter what I was going to say, you guys had already decided that name-calling was sufficient explanation.
I’ve seen you get warnings. I guess you ignore them when they come shortly after your posts. Generally the warnings are for several people all at once.
You again are making a mistake a critical flaw. You think I am trying to argue against SSM. I am not. I am arguing against ‘You’re a bigot.’, being considered sufficient for intellectual discourse. I admit, “You’re a fucking moron.”, isn’t any better, but then you’ll never hear me argue that it is, either.
Go for it.
If you were more of equal opportunity with your calls for rationality in argument, this board would be benefitted greatly. Until you are more equal opportunity about it, I’ll remain skeptical that your demeanor is indicative of your inspiration.
By defending the use of the term, ‘bigot’, as an useful term in an argument. “They are just bigots.”, is a statement of finality. If you want a real argument you don’t talk like that. Using that word shows that you don’t care to actually have a debate, you just want a shouting match. You were not one of the worst offenders, but you were a voice of encouragement for those who were.
That was pages after the actual meat of the debate had been set aside. After about 3-400 posts when it’s generated, I give up and stop taking it seriously. I called people stupid, who were pretending to be stupid. If I thought they were ACTUALLY stupid, I wouldn’t call them stupid.
You’ve made the argument before and I admitted it was a good one. You don’t seem to remember that though.
Sure, it would, I won’t argue against it really, because it’s a good argument. The only counter I have to it is the definition one. If a marriage as defined is between a man and a woman then two men are not being discriminated against by not being able to do it, they just don’t fit the criteria. Of course it’s only fair that they have some method by which they can join together contractually that protects them and their rights to share their property and their lives in any manner that they see fit. Thus the, ‘marriage vs schmarriage’ argument.
I mean I really do agree that homosexuals should be able to be married, they should be able to CALL it marriage, and the whole nine yards, I would not withhold anything from them. In fact I argued that I think it would be a GOOD thing for society because legitimized relationships might improve the pool of adoptive and foster parents. I had a particular experience with some rather evil hetero foster parents that resulted in my best friend from Junior High ending up fucked up and in and out of prison his entire life. Maybe if there was a greater pool then they could have stronger requirements based on less superficial requirements. But I’ve made this argument before.
I’m interested to read you argument, and I will if you make it, but just try to remember going in that I already agree with you.
Meh, I stated earlier that SSM represents a fairly trivial challenge to Christianity, at least compared to its own past schisms and internal holy wars and corrupt Popes and Reformations and whatnot. While I’d like to see its influence continue to diminish in American politics, I’ve no doubt it’ll adapt and live on.
Again with the Nazis. I hearby nominate this thread for the Godwin Lifetime Achievement award.
Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot!
I’ve known any number of admirable and sincere Christians, who I would trust without so much as a qualm. Can’t say the same for Nazis, since the only self-professed Nazi I’ve met was crazy as a duck on acid. But its a pretty safe bet, I reckon.
They are handy for the argument in this case. If you can’t condemn a group of people for a belief you choose, you can’t condemn the Nazis, which is not a position most people will admit to.
They also WON, and largely mellowed out a long time ago. If Nazism ( or Communism, or any other evil ideology ) had won a thousand years ago, slaughtered or converted everyone, and then somehow survived, after so long it might well have changed into something like Christianity. Something that goes on and on about benevolence and pretends it wasn’t responsible for the slaughter that raised it to power. And prefers in the present day something more subtle than open slaughter in it’s name.
In other words, you might feel a bit different about about Christianity at the hands of the Crusaders, or the Inquisition.
I don’t believe you.
Well, I wanted it to not be flawed and feeble; I would have preferred something substantial and challenging.
I don’t recall saying this exactly, but the closest I can remember was something along the lines of “bigot is as bigot does”, by which I meant the argument being presented was indistinguishable from one a bigot would use, whether or not the person advancing the argument was himself a bigot. If the argument had involved some actual analyzable facts, like claiming gay marriage would lead to a catastrophic drop in birth rates (versions of this were advanced early on), then it would be quite distinct from an argument a bigot might use.
In any case “bigot” has become useless simply from being thrown around so much in every direction, so I don’t attach any particular significance to it.
I’m prepared to listen to what you have to say, in hopes you’ll have something new. What you’ve already said is insufficient. Evangelicals will be upset, sure. I just don’t see that as sufficient reason why that should slow the advent of legal SSM in the U.S., which by its own constitution cannot pass laws based on religion alone.
Recently? For crude and blatant rule violations like calling someone a “fucking moron” in GD? Are you moving the goalposts? By this I mean you say I cannot argue this issue dispassionately, I point out that I’ve received no warnings during the discussion, and you reply that I’ve received warnings in other discussions in the past?
If this not your intent, I invite you to clarify.
You’ve made several attempts to justify your use of “fucking moron”. Anyway, I don’t care who calls you a bigot or who you call a bigot. As far as I’m concerned, this thread is just a slightly rougher version of the GD thread. If you’re not arguing against SSM, are you arguing for sympathy for those who are against SSM, that we should understand their position and the real harm the SSM will do to them? If this also isn’t what you’re arguing, then I guess most of your posts in the two threads are useless.
I don’t know what you mean by “equal opportunity”. I have no authority to make “calls for rationality” that have any weight to them or can compel compliance. I don’t even know how much respect I command. I think some people like me, a little.
I’m not sure how simpler I can state it - I don’t care about the whole “bigot” thing because it is indeed a waste of time. Those who like the term need no encouragement from me.
Well… good for you?
I remember it well. It fell to the wayside because it was irrelevant when the anti arguments were so specious. If an anti-SSM argument had some legal precedent in it in which a judge plausibly argued (even in a minority opinion) that laws restricting homosexuals were justifiable, I’d’ve been happy to read them and counter with other legal arguments, to to limit of my layman’s ability. Instead, the anti-SSM arguments were a lot of, well, guff.
If I had confidence that a separate-but-equal solution could work in the U.S., fine, but history indicates otherwise.
No problem.
I expect I might.
Yeah, basically.
I imagine when he stops being so angry that he doesn’t realize his faction has basically won, I am sure he will be.
shrugs
Okay the thread is about SSM. The antiSSM folks are against it for religious reasons, but don’t have death camps or punctual trains. The Nazis rounded up, tortured, and killed 11 million people.
Just throwing that out there.
Wow. What a truly irrational statement. If most Americans don’t really hold them, then they are not our true American ideals, are they?
Maybe, but the true American ideals of watching TV and playing video games and going to bars and looking at porn and such seem kinda mundane when done in front of a gently waving flag.
Completely besides the point. This thread is ALSO about the use of the word bigot. If it’s your premise is that it’s wrong to condemn people as bigots for what they believe, then calling the Nazis bigots is wrong. Which is ridiculous, and shows that the premise is wrong. The Nazis are a good example because they are a group few people will deny were bigots.
Look, you’ve caused Carol Stream to make a somewhat rational and reasonable statement. Yet, in the presence of a miracle, you deny religion!
If someone doesn’t know anything about why Nazis did what they did, would you say, “Because they were bigots.”, and expect them to understand sufficiently what you are talking about?
I dunno, Carol. Even after the 2006 and 2008 elections, the social/fiscal/religious wing of the Republican Party continue to insist that they represent true American values. I’ve spent my entire life being informed by that ilk that due to my political beliefs I am not a real American.
That said, you’re right that Kalhoun’s statement was irrational.