Gore sexual assualt Follow

It can either assume that they are not equal now, and want to be made equal, or it could assume they want to be put ahead of others. You seem to be ignoring the first possibility though. We can refer to them as "gay rights" simply to identify who's right's we are talking about. After all, it would be rather silly to talk about the right for straight people to get married, since they already have that right.

It's funny, people who think gays shouldn't have the right to get married get supported by a large number of people, but if anyone thought the opposite they would rightly be labeled batsh*t insane.

Edited, Jun 28th 2010 10:02pm by ThePsychoticOne

Nobody is saying they are CHOOSING to become haters of gays.


Hypocrisy is one of those magic things that happens without conscious effort. If Jimmy dislikes when people treat him one way, but he inherently treats other people that exact way, he is being hypocritical. He doesn't CHOOSE to be hypocritical, he just is.

-edit-
clarityz

Edited, Jun 28th 2010 9:21pm by Bardalicious

Not necessarily - it's entirely possible that you're voting in an intentionally self-destructive manner instead, which just makes you an asshole.

(And then there's the "voting against your own self-interest" liberals who choose to raise their own taxes - as well as, obviously, taxes for other people as well - who I'm almost certain you don't mean to call altruistic.)

This being the concept behind an entirely unregulated free market, apparently the answer you want is "yes".

Uh, that's not what I'm suggesting.

It has happened, in cases like that of Ted Haggard. These few cases of a conservative who is anti-gay and actively homosexual (hypocrite) are conflated with cases of conservatives who are gay and do not advocate for "gay rights" as liberals see them. I am drawing a distinction between the two because of this.



Certainly, the conservative position is that enlightened self interest, working unhindered in a free-market system, is preferable to government meddling, but this hardly equates to a condemnation of altruism, as many conservative advocate giving to charity and believe doing so helps people. The contention is that forced giving - that is, government taking - does not help as much, as monolithic and unwieldy bureaucracy that can be as inefficient as it wants, as it has no competition and cannot fall, and the harm it does do, depriving people of their freedom, is greater than any good it does do.

Edited, Jun 29th 2010 2:34am by Kavekk

No, it does not. While I'm sure that people would give more to charity with more money, it wouldn't be a one to one thing - they'd, on average, give less than the government takes from them. Probably to such an extent that yes, the increased efficiency of the private sector would still result in losses.

To answer the first question: yes, at least sometimes. I think mostly everyone would agree with this - the difference is where you put that line.

Ah. Valid point then. It wasn't clear from your initial post.



Precisely. Government imposes and is not judged based on direct effect, but rather public opinion. If I invest money in something that no one wants to buy, my investment will fail and I'll lose money. But if I don 't invest in anything, I wont be able to increase my wealth. Thus, my selfish desire to earn money encourages me to both invest and to invest wisely. Assuming the market isn't rigged in some way (ie: no government stepping in to provide rewards to industries which produce less value then they gain), a wise investment gains money because it produces some new or better product or service. And it often results in employment along the way. My selfishness not only helps me, and is directed towards fruitful actions, but tends to help others as well.


If I'm poor, I might support a government program designed to provide me with financial assistance. I will do this because right now, it benefits me more to have the program than to not have the program. However, in order to pay for the program, the government has to take the money from some other portion of the economy, presumably the same portion which might have employed me. Thus, my selfishness ends out harming my long term outcomes. Worse, even if I realize it and decide to oppose such things, most of the people around me will continue to support programs which benefit them. This effect is made worse when there are many different groups all competing for the same limited government funding. If I don't support the program which benefits me, that money taxed from a potential future employer will still be spent, but perhaps on something which doesn't benefit me directly. So I'll fight to get my share, and everyone else in need will as well. The net result of this is harmful to everyone.

If we only measure in terms of total dollars "received" via some sort of charitable process, sure. That assumes that every single government program out there is actually needed and worth paying for, something I don't agree with at all. More relevantly, private charities can pick and choose what to pay for, while government programs have to set broad (and often easily abused) rules for their aid.

We really lose on both sides of the equation. Not only does the government do less productive things with the money than private hands would do, but the charitable process is less efficient and well targeted when it's handled by the government as well. At some point even the most giving person will turn the guy who's clearly just taking advantage of him away, while government can't do that because any change to the program would have to apply to everyone, and there's always a case of some innocent person in need who might be denied if we changed the rules to block the scam artists.


We're also not taking into account the longer term social effects. When someone is dependent on private charity for assistance, they know they are living off the niceness of others and tend to work hard to avoid needing it. There used to be quite a bit of social stigma associated with someone being in such a state as well. But once you formalize those things into government programs, it becomes an entitlement. You're entitled to X aid in Y situation. People are less likely to feel ashamed, and more likely therefore to linger in those states.

I know, I know... "But gbaji! No one would ever choose to be poor!". They don't choose to be poor. They just choose not to work as hard not to be. And when you apply that factor to a large enough population, it has a measurable statistic effect. Enough so that after decades of government programs which are sold to us as "fighting <some need>", the needs have grown, not decreased. We try to help poor people by giving them aid, but when it's the government doing it, and it's an all the time thing, the net effect is to increase the number of poor people. Seems counterintuitive, but there you have it.

Have you ever listened to a gay conservative before? Ever? Ever read what they've written on the subject? And I'm not talking about the occasional "religious guy struggling with his homosexuality". That's a different issue. I'm talking about people who hold conservative political ideals, not strictly religious ones. I'm talking about the guys who do *not* bash gays or homosexuality or consider it a sin, but simply don't agree with the "gay rights" agenda.

You really should read what some of those guys have to say. It might just open your eyes about this whole "hypocrisy" thing. Mark Foley, for example, was outed even though he didn't oppose the "gay agenda", but merely for being a member of a political party which included people who did. That was hypocrisy enough, apparently.



I'll ask the question again: Define the "right to marry". What does it entail? Take gay/straight out of the equation and just define the right itself. If you can't do this, then you can't possibly argue that any specific law is denying gay people the "right to marry".

Edited, Jun 28th 2010 9:07pm by gbaji

According to Rogers' blog...


I have no idea what legislation he's referring to but that seems to have been the catalyst. In the entry for Mark Kirk it says that Rogers had no issue with Kirk for years until Kirk voted against the DADT repeal. Voting history seems to be more important than straight party membership.

Edited, Jun 28th 2010 11:15pm by Jophiel

Rogers wasn't primarily involved in outing Foley. That was another guy who's name I don't feel like looking up at the moment. Feel free to google if you want, but that's not a major part of my position so I'm not going to get into a nit picking contest with you over it.

The fact that said contract would, in this case, be several hundred pages long in order to cover everything that the status of "marriage" confers with a much simpler form on a straight couple?

It doesn't have to be illegal to be impossible. Ask any black person who tried to vote back in the days of poll taxes.

That and it still wouldn't be legally admissible in many cases. You can't gay-contract-marry someone and receive their military pension when they die overseas.

But, cutting it short, Gbaji's arguments against gay marriage are ludicrous and based on fallacies from the very root. I don't think Gbaji is homophobic but I recognize that much of his party is and so, rather than admit that his party might be wrong on something, Gbaji instead comes up with some of the most laughable tortured logic to try to reconcile the two. It goes right back to what I said a week or two ago about GOP ideology being religious dogma to the guy.