[akhare]

matmat, on Nov 8 2008, 06:22 PM, said:

luke warm, on Nov 8 2008, 06:11 PM, said:

in that case helene, it sounds opposite of here... here, liberals are associated with governmental control, especially central gov't control... they've usually never met a regulation they don't like and prefer to leave choices in the hands of gov't rather than the people (who they don't think are smart enough to choose for themselves)

i think in the case of abortion and marriage, liberals would want the choice to be PERSONAL, not a choice made by any sort of random government, religious or social organization.

it really is none of your business if a woman chooses to have an abortion or if two people of the same gender want to live together and be entitled to the same legal protections as people of the same gender.

what gives YOU the right to dictate how others are to lead their lives?

I find it absolutely amazing that the religious right imposes its own morals and ideals on everyone. When will you realize, that if you are right about the existence of your particular deity (whichever one it is that you might believe in) then you don't NEED to do anything about other people on Earth as your own belief (usually) spells out that the deity will punish the non-believers. why can't you just let others live happy and fulfilling lives?

Well said Matmat -- pretty much echoes my own views.

[mike777]

akhare, on Nov 8 2008, 07:05 PM, said:

matmat, on Nov 8 2008, 06:22 PM, said:

luke warm, on Nov 8 2008, 06:11 PM, said:

in that case helene, it sounds opposite of here... here, liberals are associated with governmental control, especially central gov't control... they've usually never met a regulation they don't like and prefer to leave choices in the hands of gov't rather than the people (who they don't think are smart enough to choose for themselves)

i think in the case of abortion and marriage, liberals would want the choice to be PERSONAL, not a choice made by any sort of random government, religious or social organization.

it really is none of your business if a woman chooses to have an abortion or if two people of the same gender want to live together and be entitled to the same legal protections as people of the same gender.

what gives YOU the right to dictate how others are to lead their lives?

I find it absolutely amazing that the religious right imposes its own morals and ideals on everyone. When will you realize, that if you are right about the existence of your particular deity (whichever one it is that you might believe in) then you don't NEED to do anything about other people on Earth as your own belief (usually) spells out that the deity will punish the non-believers. why can't you just let others live happy and fulfilling lives?

Well said Matmat -- pretty much echoes my own views.

I agree that I think this seems to be a good start on a definition of how conservatives vs liberals view themselves.


On the one hand conservatives say a core belief is a smaller government on the other hand many seem to want to place some limits on abortion and central government sanctioned marriages........In other words...unlimited abortion based on the Woman's PERSONAL decision....no....unlimited Government sanctioned marriage based on the person's PERSONAL decision...no....

OTOH LIberals seem to want to spend more government money on ..you fill in the blank...but want abortion and marriage to be PERSONAL .. "think in the case of abortion and marriage, liberals would want the choice to be PERSONAL, not a choice made by any sort of random government, religious or social organization"......

1) IMHO.....NOTE how abortion seems to play such a large issue in however one defines liberal or conservative in USA.
1b) As science marches on I think the "artificial womb" will just increase the focus on this issue.
1c) At what point should government say a Fetus cannot be aborted in an artificial womb and why should the Central Government impose rules...


2) NOte how spending trillions of taxpayers money to save the "free market" seems less important.....

[helene_t]

mike777, on Nov 9 2008, 01:21 AM, said:

2) NOte how spending trillions of taxpayers money to save the "free market" seems less important.....

Lol, that was at least something the two major parties could agree on

[gwnn]

Matmat, If somebody that I've never met brutally murders his or her 1 year old child, how is that my business?

The point of pro life movement is that there are certain people who think that the fetus is a living human being so the two questions are related.

[onoway]

a side comment no doubt but..I have never understood how people who are adamantly opposed to pro choice are blissfully unconcerned about the life that children have who already exist outside somebody else's body. It also bewilders me how someone who thinks it is murder to abort a two month old fetus is perfectly accepting (if not eager), of the murder of a doctor who may do abortions as part of his practice.
Hundreds of thousands of children already live in hunger squalor neglect, abuse and illiteracy. When no child has to suffer under those conditions, when a child is something that society values and cherishes and will care for properly if the parent is unable or unwilling to do so, then perhaps it is a discussion worthy of considering, as a sort of punishment. But then what of the father? Hardly fair to punish only the woman who got pregnant with a child she doesn't love, want or feel she can care for the way every child born deserves.
Of course a side issue to THAT is what sort of care such a woman might be likely to take of herself and the developing fetus..fetal alcohol syndrome anyone? as an example. As long as the "no choice" people don't consider anything beyond the 9 month mark they will be imo simply the sort of people who secretly believe slavery is really not so unreasonable (as long as it isn't them being the slaves).

[luke warm]

matmat, on Nov 8 2008, 06:22 PM, said:

luke warm, on Nov 8 2008, 06:11 PM, said:

in that case helene, it sounds opposite of here... here, liberals are associated with governmental control, especially central gov't control... they've usually never met a regulation they don't like and prefer to leave choices in the hands of gov't rather than the people (who they don't think are smart enough to choose for themselves)

i think in the case of abortion and marriage, liberals would want the choice to be PERSONAL, not a choice made by any sort of random government, religious or social organization.

it really is none of your business if a woman chooses to have an abortion or if two people of the same gender want to live together and be entitled to the same legal protections as people of the same gender.

what gives YOU the right to dictate how others are to lead their lives?

that doesn't quite comport with reality... what gives *you* the right? i personally don't want you to have that right, or me, and i certainly don't think it's any business of the federal gov't... but if you say liberals agree with me on this, you're badly wrong... from reading your posts i'd guess that your views are more liberal than mine, so answer this question: do you think there should be a federal law guaranteeing a woman's right to abort her fetus?

if you answer yes, you are being inconsistent... my view is that abortion should not be the subject of any law, but if it must be then the law should be as local as possible... the same for gay marriage, if there must be a law on this it should be as local as possible

[david_c]

onoway, on Nov 9 2008, 03:40 PM, said:

a side comment no doubt but..I have never understood how people who are adamantly opposed to pro choice are blissfully unconcerned about the life that children have who already  exist outside somebody else's body. It also bewilders me how someone who thinks it is murder to abort a two month old fetus is perfectly accepting (if not eager), of the murder of a doctor who may do abortions as part of his practice.
[...] As long as the "no choice"  people don't consider anything beyond the 9 month mark  they will be imo simply  the sort of people who secretly believe slavery is really not so unreasonable (as long as it isn't them being the slaves).

I find this really offensive (and I'm not easily offended).

I happen to regard the foetus as a living human being, as gwnn put it. Apart from that, you have no idea what I think. You're labelling me with some extremely nasty views here.

Maybe you did not intend your comments to refer to everyone who is anti-choice. But if so you need to be a hell of a lot more careful with what you write.

[matmat]

luke warm, on Nov 8 2008, 06:11 PM, said:

take this prop 8 vote in california... liberals would tend to want to take the choice out of the state's voters' hands totally (same for abortion or any number of things)... they'd want the control of such things to be national... now it's true that some conservatives want the same thing on some subjects (pornography, etc), but insofar as either wants the fed gov't to control the issues, that would be a liberal position

My perception is that conservatives want state regulation of these social topics, because that gives them a much better chance of oppressing the opposition in highly rightist communities, whereby essentially denying those people their rights.

And yes, I think these social problems do require federal regulation. mostly because having individual states (or even smaller governing bodies) do so creates major inconsistencies.

[jdonn]

matmat, on Nov 9 2008, 12:22 PM, said:

luke warm, on Nov 8 2008, 06:11 PM, said:

take this prop 8 vote in california... liberals would tend to want to take the choice out of the state's voters' hands totally (same for abortion or any number of things)... they'd want the control of such things to be national... now it's true that some conservatives want the same thing on some subjects (pornography, etc), but insofar as either wants the fed gov't to control the issues, that would be a liberal position

My perception is that conservatives want state regulation of these social topics, because that gives them a much better chance of oppressing the opposition in highly rightist communities, whereby essentially denying those people their rights.

And yes, I think these social problems do require federal regulation. mostly because having individual states (or even smaller governing bodies) do so creates major inconsistencies.

To put it differently, what is obviously right is far more important to me than what a piece of paper, written 230 years ago by people in no position to imagine what the world would be like now, can be interpreted as saying.

[TimG]

onoway, on Nov 9 2008, 09:40 AM, said:

It also bewilders me how someone who thinks it is murder to abort a two month old fetus is perfectly accepting (if not eager), of the murder of a doctor who may do abortions as part of his practice.

I'm sort of the opposite in my bewilderment.

If people really believe that abortion is murder, then their passive acceptance and tolerance of these millions of murders is truly sad. They should be out there making a whole lot more noise and taking (perhaps drastic) measures to see to it that these murders are prevented.

[DrTodd13]

akhare, on Nov 8 2008, 04:05 PM, said:

matmat, on Nov 8 2008, 06:22 PM, said:

luke warm, on Nov 8 2008, 06:11 PM, said:

in that case helene, it sounds opposite of here... here, liberals are associated with governmental control, especially central gov't control... they've usually never met a regulation they don't like and prefer to leave choices in the hands of gov't rather than the people (who they don't think are smart enough to choose for themselves)

i think in the case of abortion and marriage, liberals would want the choice to be PERSONAL, not a choice made by any sort of random government, religious or social organization.

it really is none of your business if a woman chooses to have an abortion or if two people of the same gender want to live together and be entitled to the same legal protections as people of the same gender.

what gives YOU the right to dictate how others are to lead their lives?

I find it absolutely amazing that the religious right imposes its own morals and ideals on everyone. When will you realize, that if you are right about the existence of your particular deity (whichever one it is that you might believe in) then you don't NEED to do anything about other people on Earth as your own belief (usually) spells out that the deity will punish the non-believers. why can't you just let others live happy and fulfilling lives?

Well said Matmat -- pretty much echoes my own views.

The godless impose their beliefs on people just like the religious. The only difference is what those beliefs are. The religious are mocked for having a system of morality backed by a book which their antagonists would claim is mystic hogwash. This is the pot calling the kettle black. Several attempts at "objective" systems of morality have been tried but in my opinion all fail because they all have the mystical belief at their core that humans matter. There's no proof or reason to believe that humans matter. Humans have an interest in believing that they matter though so they go on believing something for which there is no proof. Even the admittedly morally relativistic position that most non-religious take is based on the same mystic premise that humans matter. Why can't the religious leave other people alone? The same reason the non-religious don't leave other people alone. People seem to be born with a desire to tell other people what to do when given the chance.

[matmat]

DrTodd13, on Nov 9 2008, 01:36 PM, said:

The religious are mocked for having a system of morality backed by a book which their antagonists would claim is mystic hogwash.

And yet, they are allowed to attend their weekly (in some cases more frequent) religious gatherings without someone trying to legislate against them being able to do so.

Whether humans matter or don't matter is irrelevant. what matters is that individuals be able to live happy lives. Unfortunately, for some the only way they can achieve this is schadenfreude.

[hrothgar]

DrTodd13, on Nov 9 2008, 09:36 PM, said:

The godless impose their beliefs on people just like the religious.  The only difference is what those beliefs are.  The religious are mocked for having a system of morality backed by a book which their antagonists would claim is mystic hogwash.  This is the pot calling the kettle black.  Several attempts at "objective" systems of morality have been tried but in my opinion all fail because they all have the mystical belief at their core that humans matter.  There's no proof or reason to believe that humans matter.  Humans have an interest in believing that they matter though so they go on believing something for which there is no proof.  Even the admittedly morally relativistic position that most non-religious take is based on the same mystic premise that humans matter.  Why can't the religious leave other people alone?  The same reason the non-religious don't leave other people alone.  People seem to be born with a desire to tell other people what to do when given the chance.

Actually Todd, if you look at this forum you don't see the "Godless" trying to impose their beliefs on others.
Nor do you see the religious actively proselytizing.

There are plenty of moderate atheists and agnostics who respectfully keep quiet about their beliefs. In much the same way, I'm quite sure that alot of religious members of the forums don't bother to comment about their belief structures.

You do see plenty of debate about religion, however, it appears to be the more extreme members of either camp that get drawn into these discussion.

For my own part, I don't have any real problem with "religion" per see. I have plenty of friends who cover a wide range of sects from Buddhist to Wicca to Muslims and even a few Baptists. I think its all pretty silly - aside from maybe the Buddhism - however, I really don't have much problem with it. I also don't understand why some of these folks watch soap operas, read romance novels, or eat cherry pie. However, at the end of the day, none of this matters, so I don't tend to get to worked up about it.

I do have some very real issues with religious fundamentalists; especially conservative Christians. However, that comes about because they're the ones trying to insert their belief systems into my life... Moreover, I suspect that if some crazed bunch of militant atheists were annoying me, I'd get works about them.

However, here in the US I really don't see much evidence of an organized secular humanist agenda trying to corrupt our precious bodily fluids. (I see plenty of folks who don't seem to give a rat's ass about religion, but this is very different from militant atheists trying to impose their beliefs on others)

[DrTodd13]

There are many organizations now that advocate for acceptance of gay marriage just like there were many organization in the 60s who advocate for racial equality. It is one thing to lobby to make the government completely neutral with respect to race. It is something wholly different to lobby to use government force to punish individuals who in private dealings wish to discriminate. You can debate the merits all you like, whether that is good or bad is not my point. The point is that surely these advocates desire to impose their will that one should not discriminate on the basis of race or sexual orientation on everyone else. We've come to an agreement in this country not to use the government to force the trappings of religion or atheism on each other. However, people still have beliefs about right or wrong and so long as these beliefs aren't overtly religious we've adopted a system whereby the majority can enforce those beliefs on the minority. W.r.t. prop 8, IIRC, around 20% of people who self-identified as not being religious voted for it. Therefore, there must be some non-religious reason these people are voting for it and given that that reason exists, it is impossible to separate whether the religious are voting based on religion or based on the aforementioned non-religious reason.

[akhare]

hrothgar, on Nov 9 2008, 02:07 PM, said:

However, here in the US I really don't see much evidence of an organized secular humanist agenda trying to corrupt our precious bodily fluids. 

You must have been living in a cave working on Moscito or something. Surely you have heard about the flouride in the water and its effects on our precious bodily fluids (with apologies to Dr. Strangelove).

[hrothgar]

DrTodd13, on Nov 9 2008, 11:49 PM, said:

There are many organizations now that advocate for acceptance of gay marriage just like there were many organization in the 60s who advocate for racial equality. It is one thing to lobby to make the government completely neutral with respect to race. It is something wholly different to lobby to use government force to punish individuals who in private dealings wish to discriminate. You can debate the merits all you like, whether that is good or bad is not my point.

Just so we're clear:

No one is trying to force the Latter Day Saints, the Roman Catholics, or the Southern Bapists to conduct same sex marriages. No one is suggesting that the government punish the LDS because they want to discriminate...

People are arguing the following: If the act of marriage conveys special legal advantages, then some avenue for marriage needs to be granted to all citizen. This could take the form of a civil ceremony. Alternatively, it might be a religious ceremony via some church that has chosen to sanction same sex marriages.

I certainly don't like this solution. I've been arguing for years that religious sacrements like marriage shouldn't be granted special status under the legal code. However, if you're going grant special privledges to married folk then you shouldn't deny anyone the right to marry.

[DrTodd13]

Well, given your response the discussion is far from clear. I am saying nothing about whether gay marriage should exist or not. I am saying there are groups with an agenda and that agenda is to make gay marriage legal AND then to punish ANYONE (religious or otherwise so long as the context is non-religious) who would discriminate against those of the same gender who say they are married. Sure, they may allow churches to refuse to perform gay ceremonies or allow churches to refuse membership to gays. Outside of a religious context however, they are plenty happy to push their notions of right and wrong on everyone. If a religious person opposed to gay marriage ran a wedding cake shop and wanted to refuse service to a gay couple, the people with this agenda would be all bent out of shape. Whether their agenda is good or bad is a wholly separate question but it seems a bit disingenuous to suggest that groups with this agenda don't exist or that they are less inclined to use authority to enforce their unfounded notions of morality than the religious are. (To be fair, I will say that the basis of religious morality is just as unfounded in fact.)

[hrothgar]

DrTodd13, on Nov 10 2008, 12:19 AM, said:

Well, given your response the discussion is far from clear. I am saying nothing about whether gay marriage should exist or not. I am saying there are groups with an agenda and that agenda is to make gay marriage legal AND then to punish ANYONE (religious or otherwise so long as the context is non-religious) who would discriminate against those of the same gender who say they are married.

I guess the question then becomes "So What?"

The world is full of idiots... The fact that you can point to a specific type of idiot isn't newsworthy.

Individuals and private groups discriminate against one another all the time. In extreme cases, this rises to the level of boycott. As I mentioned before, I refuse to buy Dominos pizzas, or shop at Walmart or Home Depot because I disagree with the company's politics. I don't see anything wrong with this sort of boycott.

In much the same way, I accept that private country clubs have the right to exclude blacks, woments, jews, whites, whomever they damn well please.

Government policy... That's a whole nother story.

For what its worth: I don't think that "gay marriage" is the best topic to explore. If you want an interesting discussion, I recommend reading up on the debates surround private pharmacists who want to be able to refuse to sell birth control:

As I understand matters, there are a number of legal cases surrounding this issue.

* Can health care professions be required to dispense birth control measures even if it runs contrary to their religion?
* Can health care professions be fired if they refuse to sell birth control?
* Can the owners of private businesses - for example an independently owned pharamcy - be required to stock birth control measures ?

[DrTodd13]

Should Domino's be able to refuse to serve you for whatever reason they desire? If you believe so, then you are more enlightened than I thought.

Those with an agenda matter because they drive public policy. It isn't just some fringe group or if it is they are having a high impact per member because society is moving in that direction. They and legislators seem incapable of differentiating between good/bad for government and punishable/tolerable for everyone else.

In my opinion, both gay marriage and the pharmacy topics are interesting to discuss because they reveal what is considered the ultimate good by the parties involved. The pharmacy question is easy for me because I consider personal freedom the ultimate good and therefore a private business should not be required to do anything. Most people are in a sense of the word communists because they consider the communal good superior to the individual. They might reject that statement but their actions and their other positions reveal their true beliefs whether they are willing to acknowledge it to themselves or not. But what is the communal good? There being no objective way to compare the pain caused to gays by not being able to marry and the discomfort of a present or future society in which gays could marry to those who oppose such marriage then we've sunk to the ridiculous approach of having to assume that said discomfort is equal on both sides and just counting the individuals involved.

[hrothgar]

DrTodd13, on Nov 10 2008, 01:50 AM, said:

Should Domino's be able to refuse to serve you for whatever reason they desire? If you believe so, then you are more enlightened than I thought.

I chose the example of a private country club with good reason. I agree with the 1964 Civil Rights Act which specifically states:

Quote

All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

Dominos is a place of public accomodation. I don't believe that they should be able to refuse me service based on race, color, religion, or national origin. If they had another reason... That's a different kettle of fish.