Are you sure? I was not aware HIV only attacked innocent people. I didn’t think the disease made a moral distinction. I find it difficult to beleive that any human being could make it through adolescence without “hurting anyone except himself.” We are all flawed.
So did lots of other people. That was the societal norm. Even if Strom alone was responsible for the whole thing, that aspect of him does not define his entire being. It does not invalidate his humanity.
That’s demonstrably untrue. The civil rights movement did not tell us what we may or may not do. We certainly can and do deny rights to despised minorities with a depressing frequency that denies your argument’s factual basis.
What the civil rights movement taught us is why we shouldn’t. That reason is simple basic human dignity.
I know exactly what I mean. You are wrong to weigh the worth of another human being according to your criteria and dismiss him, just as others are wrong to weigh you or anyone else according to their personal criteria and dismiss you.
You may feel that you have the moral high hand and are thus justified, but I can assure you this is the identical rationale used to justify the beliefs and judgements of those you see demeaning you.
And the day I pass laws to persecute a minority you may make that comparison.
But does his humanity absolve him of his reprehensible attitudes?
On an unrelated, but quite personal, note, how about child abusers? My mother’s second husband beat the living shit out of me from the time I was 5 until she finally divorced him when I was 13. He’s old and sick now, and he’ll die eventually. When that time comes, I am going to celebrate and might even go to Kentucky just to piss on his grave.
Profound distress. He dearly hopes that Ms. Clinton will be nominated for Prez and that the ensuing debacle will lead to Republican dominance through the rest of the century. Should she win, of course, he might very well emigrate.
They shouldn’t pay attention no matter who wants them to. I don’t care if it’s in support of a liberal position or a conservative one, Europe’s idea of what is a fundamental right has nothing to do with what our Constitution says is such a right.
I’m not going to just go along with this poorly reasoned decision because I like the outcome. There’s more to the law than outcome. I don’t want our Supreme Court looking to Europe for guidance on anything.
I can’t imagine that there are people out there who completely despise me based on the beliefs I hold deeply and the work I do. (I’m just not a very controversial guy.) However, if they exist, the worst disrespect they could pay me after my death is to act like they’re not happy to see me go.
For one thing, if they’re capable of respecting me after I’m dead, they should have respected me while I was alive. If they’re just acting respectful and hiding their true feelings, they shouldn’t bother.
For another thing, whatever I did to make those people hate me was something that I obviously considered to be worthwhile. Softening their words toward me after I’m dead takes away from whatever my life was all about.
Thus, I think the responses here are completely appropriate.
Considering decisions from other jurisdictions is the norm. If you believe that this should not be, then you are proposing a major change in how cases are argued and how decisions are made.
Personally, I think that prior to making an important decision, it is wise to look at a variety of points of view.
Mockingbird hurts any sides’ case just by showing up to join it.
Seeing Mockingbird get totally owned by Euty made my day.
And gobear proposing that he’d lead a parade when Helms died is just plain sick. I can’t see having a fucking parade to actually celebrate someone’s death (unless it’s one of those cool New Orleans funerals with the brass band where they take the coffin down the street on their shoulders to that cemetary from the movie Easy Rider, those are cool and respectful.) It’s odd how some of the people in here sounding sickly pleasured at a man’s death are so generally reasonable concerning a myriad of other topics we discuss on this board.
BTW, I fail to see why it’s a logical necessity that opposing anti-discrimination laws is necessarily anti-gay. As a libertarian, I think private-sector employers should be able to hire/fire whoever they want to for whatever reason (absent a negotiated union contract, of course), but that doesn’t make me or any other libertarian “anti-gay”. Now I doubt Thurmond was being so ideological about it, but it’s not strictly true that opposition to that bill was opposition to gays.
I’m about to start my third year of law school. Back when I was a first-year law student (a One-L), they had the One-L Moot Court competition. I had to give an argument in support of a motion for summary judgment. We were to presume the case arose here in Missouri, in the 8th circuit. I got basically rebuked by the judges (real bench judges from Missouri who volunteered to participate) for referencing a 2nd Circuit decision that illustrated the principle I was arguing for. Basically, she told me not to ever use a case from another jurisdiction, a nonbinding precedent, unless it was directly on point, not just on the legal principle it embodies but also in the fact pattern. She was extremely curt with me during my argument, and pointed out afterwards that this is how she would have responded from the bench in a real case.
That was using a 2nd Circuit opinion in the 8th circuit. Both are US federal circuits, similiar in everything but the US states that comprise the circuit. In this case we’re talking about using a European Court of Human Rights case as persuasive before the Supreme Court of the United States. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go before the Supremes with something like that. I can only imagine that the rebuke I’d expect to draw from them would dwarf anything I might experience here from a state judge. Kennedy apparently decided to use it, but I’d still be quaking with fear to approach the honored Court with such a weak nonbinding case.
How any European international court’s holding could possibly be “on point”, when the very framework of the laws is not shared, I don’t know. I sure as hell wouldn’t try it.
And why do you demand respect and mourning for evil men who did their best to keep down blacks and gays during their political careers? IMO, your brand of solemn hypocrisy is far sicker than myhonest relief at the absence of an oppressor.
Strom Thurmond was a very old man whom the voters allowed to be in office far, far too long. He was against the civil rights movement in his younger days and changed with the times (even if on a purely expedient basis) on this issue as society changed. One of the reasons he stayed in office so long was that he was beloved by many of his his constituents for taking care of day to day problems and being accessible.
He was a complex and accomplished man with both stellar and distasteful aspects to his personality and politics. He overstayed his visit by several decades in Washington, but I don’t think he was an evil man. Kicking and spitting on his corpse may give those who disagreed with his politics some small and mean satisfaction, but it is a petty thing to do.
Speaking of accomplished but flawed men, how should those dopers who disagree with Ted Kennedy’s politics send him off when he dies. How many hot pokers should we jam up his ass to make the corpse jump for our amusement?
As many as you please. The man is a murderer, no matter how gay-friendly he might be.
I don;t think you people understand. Thurmond never repented for his anti-racist and antigay stances, so I fail to understand why he gets respect merely because he is old an dead.
He never respected me, so why should I respect him? More to the point, why do you revere the memory of a bigot?
These people are expecting you to show respect for a dead man who would have never shown you respect in life, gobear.
I don’t know whether it is just partisan politics, an overdeveloped anal retentitive sense of deportment to the dead, or just a stubborn desire to not allow another to express how they feel.
Regardless… these posters aren’t going to agree, and they aren’t going to shut up. They will probably keep this thread going for a few more pages so they can continue their sanctimonious posturing for a dead man who left behind a legacy of hatred.
I think there is little left to defend. It isn’t as if your point of view has changed, will, or should.
That they don’t agree and want to criticize you is their control issues combined with a warped sense of propriety.
Mockingbird, let’s not turn this into any more of a fight than it already is.
It seems to me that every person castigating me and the other gay Dopers who are being irreverent askes us to see thing s from Strom’s POV, but not one of you has bothered to see things from our perspective.
I wil not participate in hypocrisy by playing the nil nisi bonum nonsense. You can all weep for him and mourn his loss, I will not.