Followup response.
Let me put it this way - if you go around setting precedents and giving elected officials enormous power, you may end up making it harder for liberals and easier for rightwingers, because someday a rightwinger is going to win that seat. And all that stomping and complaining and donating and voting may not help much because you gave them so much power. (And people like me aren’t going to be as motivated to join your fight, because we warned you.)
Weird. The article I read discussing the recall mechanism said only the governor could be impeached, and I didn’t bother to look it up. :smack:
Was MLK Jr. a thug? Was Rosa Parks being thuggish to that white person who wanted her seat?
Thuggery is defined by the winners. If we win, then our actions are justified, righteous, and proper. The point isn’t to not exercise our power when we can because anyone doing that would look like a thug, the point is to win then we can call our actions a moral good
This one is. Sure, it does look like things are moving that way, but like King said, a dream deferred is a dream denied. Would you tell the gay couple where one is in the hospital dying that now is not their time, they have to wait a few more decades to get progress? Or would you, like me, rather say fuck the law and if I were the County registrar, just give them a marriage license despite the law and then fight it out in court?
I disagree. There is nothing illegitimate about forcing schools to desegregate using the National Guard, or sitting in a lunch counter and refusing to move. The reason is that they won and society smartened up. I have no doubt society will do that with gay marriage as well so I’m not willing to wait another decade or more for full acceptance of gay marriage. It needs to happen now, over the protests of conservatives if necessary
Actually, I do agree a court should hear out this case. But it looks like the difference between you and me is that if a court doesn’t, or finds that no other party has standing, then you would disagree with Herring and McAuliffe (since they are deciding it themselves) doing this as it undermines the rule of law? My position, if that were to happen, is that they found a loophole in the system, exploited it, and the results are good so they were right to do it.
This has been a right wing version of history on the abortion debate. Not saying you’re making it on purpose, but I’ve heard right wingers say that exact same thing. They said that because the courts decided abortion, it removed gradual acceptance of it and forced it into a continually bitter national issue. I disagree. I think many people who have so much invested in opposing abortion or opposing gay marriage will never come around anyways. We will never convince them, so we must overcome them. My proof is that of all of the people I’ve heard make that argument for abortion, no one has ever once said they would have supported abortion if only the SCOTUS didn’t interject itself. Not one. And what mindless drone refuses to approve or disapprove of something just because a decision by a court was made on it decades ago? You’d think if they were that bitter, they would have gotten over it by now.
Perhaps surprisingly, I agree with you. Totally. 100%. But your argument is not the whole argument, there is a critical piece missing. I’m completely aware that should Virginia re-elect a conservative in a few years, all of these gains would most likely be lost. But you are seeing it from the wrong perspective. As the status quo goes, gay marriage is illegal. All of the gains you say a right wing AG can undo IS the status quo now. The liberals are operating from the right wing’s position, of no gay marriage, state Constitutional ban. The pendulum is already on the right side, not the middle.
Assuming that the liberals move the pendulum to the center or to the left, they have simply equalized what has traditionally been a very right wing position. They lose nothing with this move because should someone like The Cooch get elected next time, then they will move the pendulum back no further than where it is now. So its a win-win for liberals: Either move the pendulum left permanently, or move it left for a few years then it will shift back
I suspect you see the pendulum in the middle, neither favoring one side nor the other, and if the liberals swing it too far left, it will swing back eventually with equal force to the right instead of resting at the middle. That’s the wrong way to look at things.
No we won’t because then when a liberal gets elected, they will simply exercise the established powers that the right winger most likely abused.
You’re essentially saying liberals have a weapon but shouldn’t use it out of fear that conservatives will use it. But conservatives have used it, they passed gay marriage bans all over the country. I think the gay marriage legislation process was at one point at 0 wins and 20 or 30 losses. Only when liberals started pushing back through the courts first, then in liberal states legislatively did we start winning, and winning begets more winning.
Of course not. But a hypothetical white attorney general who refused to prosecute somebody who lynched Parks would be a thug, and your logic would excuse him.
No. But I’m really the one who should be using them as analogy, not you.
Think of the principle of non-violence they both operated on. They could have said the ends justify the means and used violence, but they didn’t. They were patient, and determined, and defiant, but they exercised restraint and followed a specific process which followed rules (no violence).
Perhaps violence would have been just given the extreme injustice they were opposing. But it wasn’t smart. They kept the high ground, they didn’t give their enemies an excuse to use violence against them, and they didn’t set themselves up as opponents of the rule of law, rather as those who wanted to improve it.
If you go around saying the ends justify the means in every case possible, it’s bound to backfire. You have to be patient sometimes.
No.
So rightwingers are justified, righteous and proper when they win?
To continue with your analogy, we should use superior weapons–ones that disarm conservatives, not just defeat them–so that we will have a lasting peace and not just back and forth wars.
THAT is how the civil rights movement succeeded. It didn’t just beat the righties, it changed them. You won’t see many conservatives propose whites-only seats on buses today.
… unless he takes an even more expansive view of the AG’s authority and start arresting people for engaging in gay sex. Because hey, he’s “doing the right thing.”
Why not just kill everyone who disagrees with you? You would be able to call your actions a moral good since you’ve won and you’d be able to craft any policy you wish. And of course you would be right!
Your world seems like a shitty place to live.
No I wouldn’t. Its not about determining some simple heuristic to define thuggishness, its about getting to the right answer. The AG in your case would simply be wrong
I’m not advocating violence, I’m advocating total disregard of the law by the governor and AG on the issue of Constitutionality of gay marriage. Of course violence is merited sometimes, but not this time so I’m not advocating it. I probably should have been more clear about it…
Anyways, they’re just using legal tactics. They ignored the law, but no violence, and they got the correct result, therefore I support it. Its perfectly fine to ignore the will of the electorate if your electorate is a bunch of raving loons
Then who is it defined by? A universal objectiveness? Religious doctrine? At some point, this made up human word and definition has to be made up by humans.
No, you’re trying to bring it back to hypocrisy again. I’m never going to claim “both sides do it” or “both sides are equal”. Right wingers are almost never correct, no matter what. But left wingers are correct when we win
You have to understand that I’m not somebody who’s trying to claim rule of law, equality of ideas, or fairness to both sides is the highest aspiration we can have within our government’s political process. I’m saying that liberals are correct, we should always win, we should be able to break or bend laws to our will for the good of society and conservatives should not get to do that, ever. Because we’ve seen them do it and the result is a horrible, illogical mess of crazy.
Then we disagree on what changed them. You think the process changed them. I’m saying their losing changed them.
He tried that with oral sex and failed. I simply don’t believe that any right wing AG would be capable of mustering up the support to swing the pendulum back too far to the right. I’m saying they are powerless to do so, thus I fear little retribution for liberals breaking or bending the rule of law in their favor. Ultimately, that is because I’m sure liberals are correct and people will see that and prevent right wingers from trying to out crazy each other
Because I’m not willing to go that far. I don’t have to. Advocating one position doesn’t mean I’m going to slip down that slope to something more. You can believe what you want but there are some lines I draw. Ignoring the electorate to make a decision that’s good for them on their behalf? Ok! Killing anyone who disagrees with you? Not ok!
Its a liberal paradise, it doesn’t appeal to you, I get it. Once we eliminate bans on gay marriage and maybe some other things like pot, we can go with a strict adherence to the rule of law again. There are just some things that need to be fixed quickly without regard to the process
But by your logic, violence would be completely justified, wouldn’t it? Even in this case?
No, it’s not.
It’s perfectly fine if their actions violate the Constitution.
Sure. But not your way.
And rightwingers would say “Left wingers are almost never correct, no matter what. But right wingers are correct when we win.”
So what?
No kidding.
I am a liberal who supports gay marriage too, but you scare me more than right-wingers do.
You’re quite the little Machiavelli.
But according to YOUR LOGIC, it is okay. As long as you’re right, how you do it doesn’t matter. The ends justify the means. That’s your argument.
Until the rightwingers win again and start banning gay marriage and whatever else. What then? Do you whine about “the rule of law” after you just got done snubbing your nose at it?
You can’t claim the protection of the law, or democracy, without extending that to others. It never works out.
Of course I can. You keep forgetting that periodically, humans do that. We go too far and then we pull back. What was the Civil War? A war where differing political ideas brought the nation into a bloody conflict. But one side won and the nation moved on. Other conflicts go far but not as far into disobeying the rule of law and then when one side wins, we pull back and most everyone respects that “things needed to be done”. Its always been like this and it will continue to be like this.
My stance is: acknowledge that. Sure we would all love for the law to be followed and everyone do things the right way, but sometimes we just can’t, either because the other side is shooting at us, or the to a lesser degree, rampaging over civil rights by blocking access to voting, representation, etc.
This time, with gay marriage in Virginia, we have the good fortune that the side that wants to break the law supports a political position that really isn’t in the minority. So what will happen is they will go through their little stunt and ignore the willing of 2004 Virginians and most people won’t give a damn enough to punish them. THEN, after they achieve their goals, we can all go back to following the law perfectly. Just like it happened right after the Civil Rights era, just like after the Civil War, just like after every time the persecuted needed to kick some ass and bash some heads in order to force their position through and damn the law. Once Herring is successful, Virginia will go back to respecting the law again and the next AG, no matter his politics, will find it very difficult to turn back the dial
Now I read your response to me above, most of it was similar in that we disagree and you made it clear you want to follow the law more than make good laws. That’s fine, we’ll just agree to disagree. But I want to respond to the killing of the opposition part: It doesn’t matter if you think the logic is sound, there is simply some lines I won’t cross. I’m telling you I don’t care what you think of my reasoning, I won’t go so far as to kill the opposition. At least not before they threaten me first
Sure. But you can’t have a civil war over every little thing. That’s what our system tries to avoid.
You want a civil war over gay marriage? I don’t.
Are you being blocked from access to the political or legal process that makes such action necessary?
See, this is the part you JUST DON’T GET.
YOU might go back to following the law, but the other side could just as easily use the same tactics you did. So no, you can’t just declare that the rule of law protects you except when it’s inconvenient for you.
LOL. You really are self-centered enough to believe that once you win, you can’t lose again.
Bull.
Your logic opens the way to killing people. You’re still trying to have it your way. You can’t declare that anything goes and then dictate the rules. Your philosophy not only allows for killing in the name of your cause, it allows for someone to kill you too. You’d argue with them first about why they shouldn’t do it because you’re right and they are wrong, but that would just make them kill you faster.
Which is why this isn’t a Civil War. This is some lesser degree of lawbreaking which will probably not be enough to sow the discontent that exploded into the Civil War. I’m talking about a small and limited campaign of liberals ignoring laws they know the general public now disagrees with. Just like how the Civil Rights era didn’t explode into war (though there were incidents of extreme violence), this doesn’t have to and won’t go that far either. So because the benefits are so great and the risk is so small, I support it totally
My contention is that the process you want to happen is too slow and harms gays right now. If Herring and McAuliffe can change or ignore the law through fiat by their inaction in defending it, then its a better result and a faster result. And given recent GOP tendencies to put up barriers to voting, I believe action is definitely necessary while we have the power to do so. They GOP controlled state legislatures might enact enough changes to make Democratic lawmakers almost non-existent in the next election. Better to act now when we have the power to do so
I get it, I’ve mentioned many times that I know the GOP may have that power in the future too. What you keep forgetting is that I don’t think that’s a likely occurrence AND I think the goals are honorable enough to risk that possibility. Can you please stop ignore that? Thanks.
Are you such an angry person that you refuse to even consider the argument put forth and just want to substitute your own reality? If you’re going to keep doing that, there’s no point in the debate anymore. Just believe whatever you want of me and be done with it :rolleyes:
WHY NOT?
They’re denying basic human rights! They’re still doing it. You think we should sit around and wait for a court to decide this? What if it rules in favor of the gay marriage ban? Your side is right!
Would war have been justified though?
And then watch the Republicans reverse it.
It’s a really lame response though. YOu don’t think it’s likely?
The goals are honorable enough to do this the right way, in a way that will make it likely to last in the future. Not by rushing it through and ignoring the process.
Yes, if you can’t live up to your own logic, there’s no point.
But I would also think that if Kennedy was inclined to uphold Prop 8 on narrow or broad terms that Scalia would have strained to find some sort of standing and switched sides; at which point Sotomayor might have NOT found standing to make it a majority against standing. Roberts would do a repeat performance of his ACA ruling trying to look like a statesman and go against the grain so he asked Scalia and Sotomayor to stick with their original standing arguments and keep the status quo (I’m totally WAGing here).
However, from all of his opinions, Kennedy does not seem to want to take that extra step. I’m thinking that he agrees with freedom of sexuality and against unnecessary government intrusion into a person’s life (Casey, Lawrence) and wants to limit the powers of the federal government into state activities (Lopez, Morrison, Perry) but simply cannot bring himself to say that the United States Constitution requires a state to recognize same sex marriage. I think that with his conservative judicial approach he may have drawn the line between personal freedom and required government recognition of that freedom. Again, just a WAG, but I think it is a line he is not yet ready to cross.
Calm down. Feigning my outrage at more serious violations doesn’t help your argument. :rolleyes:
It doesn’t and won’t rise to Civil War level because our society is becoming more tolerant. Not fast enough, but certainly we’re not at a standstill. There is light at the end of the tunnel and while some people are willing to wait a decade or more, I am not. There is also less comparable violence towards gays, and support for them elsewhere is more widespread.
I could turn the question back to you. If you think bans on gay marriage is a civil rights violation like slavery was, why would you presumably support the Civil War and not one today? Unless you don’t support the Civil War and thought the North should have litigated or voted the South back into the Union.
Probably not. It wasn’t as serious as it was a hundred years before. History has proven those of calmer minds correct
Let them try, that’s the risk we take.
No I don’t think it is. What’s lame about looking at the realities of political disagreement now and saying it doesn’t rise to the level of extreme national violence?
That’s a terrible argument. Are you saying that ending slavery through a war or fighting for civil rights with illegal sit-ins at lunch counters and buses were NOT honorable enough goals? That we could break the law and make war on each other back then, or break the law and force integration over a protesting population back then, but right now gay civil rights are more honorable so we can’t use the same tactics that worked in the past?
Um, I was mocking you.
Why do YOU get to decide what level it rises to?
Why do you get to decide what risk we all take?
Because you’re busy telling us that it does rise to the level of ignoring the rule of law.
Back to the beginning of this thread again.
They are honorable goals! We must declare war immediately and storm the lunch counters! Kill all white people in our way!
What could go wrong? How could it possibly be unjustified? We have right on our side.
You aren’t even remotely advocvating using those tactics though. You’re not advocating a civil rights struggle, you’re saying elected officials should do whatever they want, even if they lack the power, because it’s right. Hardly the same thing.
No one does. YogSothoth was making a prediction, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet, all in all. The A.G.'s failure to defend the law is very unlikely to lead to the mobilization of military forces to meet each other on the field of battle.
Do you think that’s likely to happen? If so…then why do YOU get to decide? If not…then why do YOU get to decide? Is your opinion more privileged than anyone else’s?
But that’s a copout. This is about whether it SHOULD. Or rather, would a civil war be justified over this.
If he was making a prediction, he wasn’t getting the question.
Nobody here thinks laws must be followed or elected officials not exceed their powers without question in all circumstance. But Yogosoth’s position is that no laws ever need to be followed. All that matters if you think you’re right. That’s not a civil society.
Consider me mocked, I guess? I’m glad that at least, for your sake, you weren’t trying to pass that off as a serious argument though
Like Triponus said, its just a prediction. Oh, why do I get to make a prediction? Because I’m the Grand Purple Poobah Predictor that Shalt Not be Questioned of this multiverse! Any more lip out of you and I predict somebody’s going to get a finger in their chili.
And? So?
So I guess this is officially the point where you’ve run out of pedantic arguments to make and start repeating yourself? Do us both a favor and don’t reply to this line, I’m just going to ignore it
Course its the same thing. Tactics may have changed, but its the same thing. And they will do it and it will be glorious and Virginia will be a gay paradise just as soon as the appeals process is over. 
And that will all be worth it, ignoring bad laws is always a good thing