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#301 User is offline   TheOrator Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 04:51 PM

Stop putting my words in my mouth, Civilian number 2.

This one is the worst, because it is the opposite of the truth:
QUOTE (Civ)
as for failing to acknowledge the lip-service paid to those who really love marriage and believe in its importance and all that, you said you don't believe such people exist.


I said:

QUOTE (me)
Now I'm sure there are some people who are truly passionate believers in the marriage deal[...]



I said I am sure some people truly and sincerely believe in marriage. I do not believe that they only do this because they are particularly impressionable, as I said when I mentioned that they would still be getting married if there were no tools. It was not a lip-service to that sect, and you can tell because in my Halloween analogy I was one of that sect.

Stop saying I'm against tradition; I've already said I approve of getting lost in tradition. I am neither against marriage; I would not be surprised to hear that marriage could be important to someone in particular, but I do not believe it is important to society as a whole.

As for the argument not being the importance of marriage, I'm pretty sure Spoon was arguing just that.

Determining the rights of others is a matter of personal opinion, not of societal norms. I personally believe "the rights of one end where the rights of another begin," and I believe this is the fairest outlook. I suppose it's a little selfish to say then that we should base our laws on it, but I suppose I could argue that point if I really had to.

We didn't need marriage--unenforced monogamy was good enough--to raise our young for the first hundred thousand years of humanity, and I doubt very much we've needed it these last three or four thousand.

The fact that people who got divorced have remarried further mars this "sanctity of the institution" idea. It provides only evidence that the institution is popular. I'd even say the high rate of divorce and remarriage indicates that the gravity of the institution is not fully comprehended by many of those entering into it.


I did not say there are two types of people who get married. I said most people who get married (because as I'm sure you agree, you need only a majority, not a consensus, to decide what is popular, and I was explaining why it is popular) fall into one or both of those groups. I said a third sect truly believes in it. I never once said anything close to denying their existence, merely denying their existence in such numbers as to keep the tradition popular. There are still people who listen to doo-wop, I would argue however that it's not popular.


The differences between prom and marriage were irrelevant to the comparison. Let me spell it our for you.

QUOTE (me)
I think Prom is dumb. I probably won't go to Prom. Prom benefits the school by charging way too much for admission and keeping up the morale of the students, but they shouldn't offer extra credit if you go to Prom, nor should they bar any paying student from going to Prom.

If they did offer extra credit to Prom goers, however, I would be even more displeased to hear that they were barring any paying student entrance.

[I'll add as a footnote that there are other means by which I can give money to the school, and as such I can benefit the school in the same way without attending prom. This isn't part of the original quote, but as it is part of the analogy it makes the most organizational sense to put it here.]


As you can see, I addressed all of the points being argued.

As Spock once said, a difference that makes no difference is no difference at all.


Interestingly, this relates back to the argument. The only difference between marriage and long term commitment à la Gene Simmons is legal recognition. As legal recognition is demonstrably irrelevant to raising a child, the only difference between the two makes no difference. As such, rewarding one over the other is arbitrary.

This also relates to the gay marriage argument, but since no one here is arguing against gay marriage it would be silly to explain in what way.
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nooooo
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#302 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 06:46 PM

...I wasn't arguing marriage isn't important to some people? I was arguing that it's not important enough to society for it to merit these benefits that no one else, only married people, get. Important to the people involved, sure! But so important to society that it should have all sorts of benefits and incentives? Nah.

Kinda like to some people, it is very important to have a garden. I really want to have a garden someday, and as soon as I have the land for it, I am going to have a wonderful one. Gardens are a benefit to themselves, as they provide an excellent hobby, as well as the vegetables/herbs/whatever you are growing. Some people might not even survive without their gardens, as they provide the bulk of their sustenance.
However, while these gardens are important to the individual, they are not so important to society that the government is going to heap extra benefits on anyone who decides to grow a garden.

That's all I meant. I didn't mean to belittle marriage completely. *shrug*
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#303 User is offline   TheOrator Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 08:27 PM

I know, I know, and that's all I'm arguing too. I asked Civ to explain why it's important to society and he says it's facepalmingly obvious and that no one has asked that yet. I disagreed.

Hope that clears that up.
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nooooo
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#304 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 09:13 PM

I hold that social security and universal health care are not important enough to enough people that society should get involved with them. After all, I never get sick, so why should my tax dollars fund hospitals and medical research? Also, in the stone age, when you could spend your entire life never seeing more than 40 people, they didn't have socialized medicine.

Universal health care and medical research are for traditionalists and for tools. The minority of people who really like them should set up their own system and stop pretending we live in a society.

Yes, Orator, you needn't point out that marriage and universal health care are not the same thing. But the above is actually very much like actual arguments against socialized medicine, which I can assure you works well in the countries that have it.

You don't personally need to use something for it to be useful. Without marriage we would still desire commonlaw status and the notion of dependents for purposes of taxation. All the other stuff is specific legal distinctions to guarantee people with different parents can enjoy "family" status without actually having children together. I would like to assure that that stuff is important as well, but apparently you want an argument full of stats and syllogisms wto counter your caveman/hallowe'en analogies, and I refuse on the grounds that I should not be asked to work 1000 times harder than you are willing to.

Is marriage necessary to make the wheels of industry turn? No it's not, but like many other things that don't turn industry's wheels, it is important to society, and not just because people are tools, traditionalists, or romantic lovers of weddings (who love a thing that is popular only because of traditionalists and tools, so how sincere can their love be?). There is a place in society for marriage, and I want gay couples to be in that place alongside straight couples. I don't consider the instiutution to be worthless or outdated (or at best lacking any purpose or validity). I don't want to look to the cavemen for guidance in contemporary social matters, for all kinds of reasons I won't get into here. Let's just say I had a bad experience with a caveman once and I don't really trust them to speak of the social institutions of people whose life span is about 3-4 times theirs.

Note: your argument could be used in an identical way to say that it is about time that we removed religion from society, time we taxed churches and stopped considering the social implications of legal decisions that defy religious radition. I am an atheist, and still I disagree. Religion is "facepalmingly" important in our society, regardless of how useless it is to me and indeed of how much a lot of it pisses me off. I believe that the business of living in a society is that you should learn to accept that some of your nation's industry will go to things that you will never use, and that some of your nation's decisions will go against your wishes.

Spoon, if everyone else who has a garden gets a modicum of government support for keeping one, I will support the idea of you getting one, even if you are a dirty faggot. Because that is what this argument is about, if not here, then at least on the national level. It is about faggots and how they are dirty. Noone on the "Yes to Prop 8" side has ever suggested seriously the notion of removing marriage from society, or of opening it up to more groups. The closest to the latter is to keep marriage as it is and to create a new thing called a civil union that can be available to whoever wants it, even faggots.

If I could have voted No on Prop 8, I would have.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#305 User is offline   TheOrator Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 09:23 PM

All right. You aren't listening to me at all.

QUOTE (Civ)
who love a thing that is popular only because of traditionalists and tools, so how sincere can their love be?


Except I specifically said that is not the case.

I never once said marriage wasn't useful because I didn't use it. Hell, I believe I even said I was going to get married when the time came.

I never asked for statistics or syllogisms or anything.

I ask that when you argue against me, you argue against the actual claims I am actually making.

Much like I do with you.

I have to go.

I might do a better followup later.
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#306 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 09:59 PM

Right, but the gardens... Might not have been the best example, because anyone can have a garden. So if the gov't decided to give benefits to anyone who kept a garden, anyone would be able to find some way to get those benefits. Whether straight, gay, polyamoric, asexual, or just someone who likes to fuck a different guy/gal every night; they can get these gardening benefits.

However, the marriage benefits are exclusive to the straight ones that want to get married.

I support either:
Option 1: everyone getting gardening benefits, if they so choose to keep a garden, no matter what kind of person they are
Option 2: still anyone can have a garden if they want it, but the government does not offer additional benefits for having one.



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#307 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 10:26 PM

QUOTE (Spoon Poetic @ Nov 10 2008, 09:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Right, but the gardens... Might not have been the best example, because anyone can have a garden. So if the gov't decided to give benefits to anyone who kept a garden, anyone would be able to find some way to get those benefits. Whether straight, gay, polyamoric, asexual, or just someone who likes to fuck a different guy/gal every night; they can get these gardening benefits.

However, the marriage benefits are exclusive to the straight ones that want to get married.

I support either:
Option 1: everyone getting gardening benefits, if they so choose to keep a garden, no matter what kind of person they are
Option 2: still anyone can have a garden if they want it, but the government does not offer additional benefits for having one.

Well, apparently I agree with that. I am not sure entirely of the gardening analogy, but yes. If you are keeping a garden, and some folks who do that get certain considerations, then yes you should get those considerations, I think. I would like to consider the term "keeping a agrden" while we're at it. I am assuming that you are wanting to include necrophiliacs, mom/daughter couples, folks who like to fuck their dogs, etc? If so, then you are using a conservative reductio ad absurdum, and I disagree. If by "keeping a garden" you are referring to socially recognized gardeners, then yeah. Straight copuples, gay couples, and pairings and groupings as yet undefined and socially unrecognized. This is case law, so one case at a time. Right now I don't care about your polyamoric triads and brother/sister allainces. Right now I am concerned about the millions of gay couples whose marriage contracts are little more than souvenirs, because gay marriage made the baby Jesus cry.

Orator, I can't say anything to please you. You can say "yes there are people who sincerely believe in marriage but the only reason marriage is popular is because of traditionalists and tools (ie the people who sincerely believe in it are not numerous enough to make it popular)" but if I cite that back to you for clarification you will accuse me of not reading what you have written. I have read what you have written.

You can also ask me to explain why marriage is "important," but then you say that you haven't asked for syllogisms or stats or anything. Ok, so what sort of an answer were you looking for? Did you really wnat to follow up using arguments about cavemen? Because that's what I did, and I thought that was pissy at best, but at least a response to the very claims you had made about marriage's relevance (you said the cavemen didn't need it, and their societies obviously were at least as complicated as ours). Apparently silly analogies aren't wht you want in response to your silly analogies, and you say no syllogisms or stats neither. So what then? Don't say I'm not reading your posts, because if I am not, then how can I refer to them in so much detail?

All right. I will be as simple and as clear as I can. Forget everything that has come before: resistance to gay marriage on any grounds, and by any tactic, whether it be an effort to reduce marriage to absurdity or to strip it of its legal status entirely, is derived fom bigotry. When only straight folks could marry, this was not a topic of discussion. It is a topic of discussion only now that gays are seeking the right to marry. So like it or not any discussion on the legitimacy of marriage is a gay marriage debate. I not only think marriage is popular even without the tools and the traditionalists; I not only think marriage has an important place in society whether you want to have one yourself or not; I also support gay marriage. So I disagree with all resistance to gay marriage, whether it be simply that gays shouldn't be allowed, or whether it be more insidious, such as suggestions that if we let gays do it we have to let everyone do it (this sort of thing won't pass, which is the point of bringing it up), or if we don't let everyone do it we should get rid of it altogether, rather than just add gays (this won't pass either, since noone can even define what this would mean for the people already married, or for society in general).

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#308 User is offline   Slade Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 11:17 PM

Civ: From what I've read, nobody is even arguing against gay marriage. The Orator appears to view it in part as a dated institution that is wearing thin. Spoon wants to open up marriage benefits to any two+ people (by which she clearly is referring to consenting adults, not one person and one dog, or one guy and one dead mother) willing to engage in that sort of long-term commitment. I think you're reading much more into their arguments than they are putting in there.

The Orator: Society is pretty much the only thing that can really define rules, and like Civ said, it's inherent whenever two or more people interact. Society decides what is acceptable and what is not in terms of morals, etc. Modern societies tend to document these determinations as laws. If you don't like society making the decisions, you pretty much have to resign yourself to rule by the few, or an anarchistic hermetic lifestyle.

Overall, do carry on, everyone. Thank you for being civil, and don't let me stop the debates. I just wanted to pop in and remark because I was left scratching my head at times.

This post has been edited by Slade: 10 November 2008 - 11:25 PM
Reason for edit:: Clarity.

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#309 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 10 November 2008 - 11:22 PM

Here's a ploy to sympathy...

Agatha has been married once before, to the love of her life. He died in some tragic way, and she never wants to marry again. However, she is also the primary - and only - caregiver for her severely handicapped brother. She is fine with this, as she loves her brother very much. However, it is not always easy.

I would argue that she should be able to apply for some benefits that are only given to married couples, to her partnership with her brother. Sharing health benefits, for one big one.



Anyway, I'm not looking to decriminalize crimes. Bestiality - the animal has no say in the matter, so I find it akin to rape (but grosser). Incest - that one gets tricky (as in, I do not agree but it is hard to argue against without using the very same arguments that go towards arguing against homosexuality), but as procreation in an incestuous relationship usually begets some serious birth defects, I think it can be safely refuted for now. Necrophiliacs - well, that is not a partnership, as there is really only one person involved in that exchange...

However, if someone is in a non-law breaking partnership of some kind that would benefit from marriage benefits, and they can handle that kind of commitment (I would still believe in a long, hard contract that's hard to break and that would be a super commitment, in order to get these benefits), it should be made available to them. (But at that point, they wouldn't be "marriage benefits," since it wouldn't be a marriage. I'm using the term "marriage benefits" just to talk about the benefits that can only be attained through a marriage.)



And I am offended by your insistence that the belief that benefits related to marriage are unnecessary automatically means resistance to gay marriage.

I am not arguing against MARRIAGE. I am arguing against BENEFITS given only to a CERTAIN GROUP OF PEOPLE. As in, only white males can own property. Only males can vote. Only straight couples can marry. Only married couples can share health insurance, inherit each other's crap without specific listings in the will, have custody of a child, etc.

(Because see, the example that was given earlier, about the gay woman not getting custody of her child because of no blood relation? This could apply to other instances. A polyamoric triad that raises a child, etc.)

Since you don't seem to get this, I will also be as clear as I possibly can:

I AM NOT RESISTING GAY MARRIAGE.
I AM NOT SAYING MARRIAGE IS BAD.
I AM NOT SAYING BROTHERS SHOULD MARRY SISTERS or whatever else.
I AM NOT SAYING WE SHOULD DO AWAY WITH MARRIAGE.

I AM, however, saying that marriage BENEFITS are unfair.

If there were NO SUCH THING as marriage benefits, and gays still couldn't marry, it'd still be just as horrible that gays cannot legally marry. The arguments are NOT THE SAME.




This argument might not have been around when only straight folks could marry, but neither was I. So it's not fair to automatically assume that because this argument has only been around since it was okay to be gay and the topic of gay marriage came up in society, and I do argue this, that must mean I am anti-gay marriage. How do you know I wouldn't have had these same thoughts 50 years ago, had I been alive? I even told you that I believed this way before I even knew the existence of such a thing as homosexuality. But I did know that there were people that didn't want to marry for whatever reasons, and that they were ineligible for these benefits. That struck me as unfair from the beginning.




I'm not saying Agatha should be able to marry her brother if she wants to, or that marriage should be done away with. I'm saying she should be able to have some way of getting similar benefits that married people automatically receive. Or that marriage shouldn't be so hugely rewarded.




People do NOT get married so they can have a bunch of marriage benefits. Right? They're just a perk. Not the reason. So, since the benefits aren't why people are getting married in the first place, then why are they so necessary? You have yet to argue why benefits from the government/healthcare/etc MUST be included when a couple ties the knot. You've only provided the straw man that since I don't like the idea of benefits going to only husband and wife, I must hate the gays.



I don't know how I can be much clearer. So I will stop for now and wait for you to wrongly accuse me of bigotry again.

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 10 November 2008 - 11:28 PM

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#310 User is offline   BigStupidDogFacedArse Icon

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Posted 11 November 2008 - 12:03 AM

I believe he is setting up common gay marriage assaults and rebuking them. When Orator trivialized the necessity of marriage, Civillian_2 pointed out that it was in fact a technique used to undermine gay marriage. IE- Marriage is so useless that we should just hand it over to homosexuals, no biggie.

But that’s not a great argument since marriage is a huge issue and is meaningful to many, regardless of statistical failure rates. Marriage is important and so are gay rights. Watering down marriage then handing it to gay people is not exactly empowering anything. Its like (oh shit another analogy) waving around your favorite play toy in the face of your envious friend. One day you break the toy and decide it's time for your friend to have a go with it.

I too have given the subject some thought, and I've broken it down into two categories.

1) Religion
2) its gross

Religious people never use dogma to support their argument since it wouldn't hold up in any court house. Therefore, they use arguments of tradition and natural relations. Both are bogus.

The gross sect are just meatheads.

This post has been edited by BigStupidDogFacedArse: 11 November 2008 - 12:05 AM

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#311 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 11 November 2008 - 01:05 AM

Marriage should be rewarded because it helps provide a stable base for childrearing and thus sustains a society and is likely to increase the tax base. A child from a home where both parents live happily married to eachother will likely do better in school than a child from a broken home or who is shuffled between his parents and their sometime lovers. Doing better in school he will, likely, have more success in life and thus contribute more to the tax base. This is why marriage should be rewarded.

The idea that it's unfair to give benefits to one group for doing something (which is a difficult and expensive process) and deny them to those who fail to voluntarily go through the process, is absurd. Well, hey, I don't have any kids, but I still want a tax rebate. Why should only parents who elect to have children get a tax break? Why not everyone? This argument of obsessive equality goes all the way to the extent of some mad Harrison Bergeron situation.

People who are not married, as has been pointed out quite often, can still get lots of goodies like visitation rights, executor of estate, and burial choices, just by writing it down and filing with a lawyer.

But why would we want to encourage them to do so? I happen to like Civ, and I don't have a wife. So I think I'll have marriage-lite with him. That'll be great because for the moment we're on the same side of the debate, but then when we start debating about Fidel Castro, we'll be on different sides, I'll call him a cock smoker, and then when a bus hits me the next day, he'll show me by having my remains gibbeted as an example of why you shouldn't argue with him.

It is not a good idea for society to encourage people to have marriage type rights with just anyone. Marriage is primarily a family and reproductive unit. Gays can do this same thing and provide as loving and nurturing an atmosphere for their children as straight couples, thus contributing to the continuance of human civilization. But your lady and her disabled brother probably won't be adopting a kid, since she has to take care of her brother.

And there are tax breaks for her anyhow, so don't act like the marriage tax breaks are the only ones in existence. If she's looking after someone who's disabled, she can get some money back for that.

But if she just happens to want to live with a friend, I don't see why she deserves a tax break for that. I can live with whoever I want, but unless that union benefits society in some fashion, I don't deserve a tax break for it.

And no, marriage benefits are not absolutely necessary. But the same argument could be made for lots of things. Do the parents of children absolutely need the child tax credit? Do low income Canadians absolutely need to get their sales taxes on food returned to them? Do religions HAVE to be tax exempt?

Benefits should not be given to a certain group of people based on their background. But they should be given based on their actions. You have to make a distinction between the two.

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Posted 11 November 2008 - 02:37 AM

Spoon, I know you don't oppose gay marriage. This topic however brings you to conclude that the benefits of marriage need either to be removed from everyone or allowed to anyone. These are both arguments used by opponents of gay marriage. I know, guilt by association isn't necessarily real guilt, but I have to point it out anyway. The typical argument regarding opening the door to any form of union ultimately leads to a denial of gay marriage out of fear that the benefits will be abused. The arguments that you are using are used nearly exclusively by opponents of gay marriage. This is not a coincidence, either. Those arguments are successful in keeping gay marriage illegal.

Several of the things you mention are available by private contract, while many others, yes, are not. You want to make arguments for individual categories of unions, then you can go ahead. But by saying "anyone and everyone" you are opening up the argument to abuse. And no, I never said that you approved of human/animal relationships, but listen to the rhetoric of the Yes side. These folks insist that the gay marriage argument is a libertarian one, that folks are saying they should be allowed to do whatever they want. The gay marriage argument is not a libertarian one. Gay folks aren't trying to legalize incest or man/boy love. But listen to the Yes side.

(As for decriminalizing crimes however, we did that with homosexuality only within the last 40 years. Mostly. It is worth noting that homosexuality is still illegal in the military, and discovery of homosexuality still grounds for court-martial. So the gay marriage argument is in fact one of trying to decriminalize a crime).

Slade, of course I am reading more into their arguments than they are saying. They are using classic conservative arguments used to defeat gay marriage, and making the mistake of thinking that by limiting the way they word their points, they are being liberal. I am sure they feel like liberals when they make these arguments. But no mistake - those are arguments in favour of rulings like Prop 8.

Why do I say this Orator? Because marriage is not going to go away, and the benefits of marriage will remain in place. Suggesting that marriage is outdated now that gay people who have only been legally able to be open in North America for roughly the span of my lifetime, is putting a lot of emphasis on the last few decades of divorce stats. You convince folks that in the wake of the gay marriage debate the natural move is to do away with marriage altogether, and they'll disagree with you by simply banning gay marriage.

Why do I say this Spoon? Because an open-ended piece of legislation like you're describing is impossible. You will need to create separate referenda for each type of couple and set. You want to do that, go for it. The best way to get that ball rolling is to vote in favour of gay marriage. Later you start up a new campaign for another variation of the contract. You'll probably achieve your desired result in about 10 moves. You want instead to argue that the natural thing to do in order to make gay marriage legal is to make the marriage contract open-ended and largely unrestricted, and you know what will happen. Folks will disagree with you by simply banning gay marriage.

"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#313 User is offline   Deucaon Icon

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Posted 11 November 2008 - 04:23 AM

QUOTE (civilian_number_two @ Nov 11 2008, 07:07 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I don't have to. Strife is not anathema. We elect representatives so that they may act in our best interests. If they could make only popular decisions based on referenda, then why would we bother electing them?


Because a politician can have a policy when they are running for election then change it as soon as he/she is elected.
"I felt insulted until I realized that the people trying to mock me were the same intellectual titans who claimed that people would be thrown out of skyscrapers and feudalism would be re-institutionalized if service cartels don't keep getting political favors and regulations are cut down to only a few thousand pages worth, that being able to take a walk in the park is worth driving your nation's economy into the ground, that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed at a whim, that problems caused by having institutions can be solved by introducing more institutions or strengthening the existing ones that are causing the problems, and many more profound pearls of wisdom. I no longer feel insulted because I now feel grateful for being alive and witnessing such deep conclusions from my fellows."
-Jimmy McTavern, 1938.
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#314 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 11 November 2008 - 05:31 AM

You do realize how destructive a governmental system based upon referendum would be, don't you?

With an informed populace and such, yeah, maybe it'd work. But in the current US of A? Jesus that's a frightening thought. Not only because it would eventually degenerate into some kind of mass charismatic dictatorship, but because it would be bloody impossible to get anything done. How can you pass a budget by referendum?

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#315 User is offline   Deucaon Icon

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Posted 11 November 2008 - 06:33 AM

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Nov 11 2008, 09:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
But in the current US of A? Jesus that's a frightening thought.


And Yanks say they aren't socially primitive!

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Nov 11 2008, 09:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Not only because it would eventually degenerate into some kind of mass charismatic dictatorship,


LMAO! Even if a dictatorial person was elected into the White House, do you think all those militias would just stand idly by while said person took away all their rights? I can tell you, if there were as many people armed in the Weimar Republic as they are people currently armed in the USA, Hitler wouldn't have stood a chance of gaining absolute power.

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Nov 11 2008, 09:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
but because it would be bloody impossible to get anything done. How can you pass a budget by referendum?


Because changing the annual budget is the same as changing the constitution.
"I felt insulted until I realized that the people trying to mock me were the same intellectual titans who claimed that people would be thrown out of skyscrapers and feudalism would be re-institutionalized if service cartels don't keep getting political favors and regulations are cut down to only a few thousand pages worth, that being able to take a walk in the park is worth driving your nation's economy into the ground, that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed at a whim, that problems caused by having institutions can be solved by introducing more institutions or strengthening the existing ones that are causing the problems, and many more profound pearls of wisdom. I no longer feel insulted because I now feel grateful for being alive and witnessing such deep conclusions from my fellows."
-Jimmy McTavern, 1938.
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