Bush is trying to ban gay marriages nation-wide.... wow.

[GmanJoe]

Originally posted by Black Samurai
Are you saying that the country is becoming too liberal? Even if that were true(I think its arguable) why would that screw up the country? There are countries that are WAY more liberal than we will ever be and they don\'t have half the problems we do.

That\'s coz they don\'t have nearly 300 million people like the US does.

^^^Is that supposed to make sense? China dwarfs our population and they are extremely conservative, are they better off?

It is not a matter of conservative or liberal. If the government listened to the people as a whole then we would be better off. I know I would much rather prefer that than having some corporation or biased politician tell me how I am supposed to feel about something.

You also don\'t have a dozen different cultures and languages in those countries.

Can you imagine how much better off this country would be if little changes like term limits in the legislature and campaign finance reform were in place?

Of course that is like asking criminals to arrest themselves.

[GmanJoe]

Originally posted by Black Samurai
^^^Is that supposed to make sense? China dwarfs our population and they are extremely conservative, are they better off?

It is not a matter of conservative or liberal. If the government listened to the people as a whole then we would be better off. I know I would much rather prefer that than having some corporation or biased politician tell me how I am supposed to feel about something.

China is a Communist country. And no, they are not better off. That was my point. Switzerland is by far a better place to live, compared to the US but they don\'t have even a 10th of the problems the US has.

Originally posted by Black Samurai
Can you imagine how much better off this country would be if little changes like term limits in the legislature and campaign finance reform were in place?

Of course that is like asking criminals to arrest themselves.

If you keep giving them grief like this they might have to give themselves a pay raise to compensate.

Originally posted by Black Samurai
Can you imagine how much better off this country would be if little changes like term limits in the legislature and campaign finance reform were in place?

Of course that is like asking criminals to arrest themselves.

I gotta say I agree with Black Samurai 100% on this point.  I think that campaign finance reform is the number one thing that needs to happen to get this country back on track.  That, combined with term limits in legislature would help to give the country back to more than just the elite majority that rule it now.  Like Giga said, every politician has money, because in the current system you can\'t be a politician without being rich on any large scale.  I think that is one of the very biggest problems with our current system.

I agree here as well.  There definately need to be term limits for all legislators, nothing worse to me than a life-long politician (see Ted Kennedy).

It sucks that only the uber rich can run for office in this country any more.  People with a spine and no handcuffs to special interest groups or large contributors have no chance... no chance at all.

[quoteIf you really want to know what has screwed this country up it is the political correct zealots who will sue over anything they don\'t agree with (religion, race, gender, sexuality, etc.) [/quote]

There are politicaly correct zealots and we still have a combination of church and state.....

Throughout history, liberal ideas have brought about the neccicary changes.

[SirMystiq]

Yes, racism against white males have brought this country down the drain. It wasn\'t Bush\'s overspending or the unecessary war. And it couln\'t be the No Child Left Behind. Oh no, It was those damn minorities who think they can come to this country with their liberal views and deter this country from the path of prosperity. Homosexuals are trying to infect everyone of us with their abnormal behavior, it\'s not right! I mean WHO NEEDS MEDICAID ANYWAYS?! If they weren\'t born into certain luxuries then too bad.
If they are born into a family with no money, well, we shouln\'t pay for it. Let them get a job at Burger King and let them raise their kids with 400 dollar per month...


From what I understand. The state that caused all the commotion during the last Presidential campaign was Florida. Hmm...Wasn\'t Bush\'s brother the Governor? Didn\'t he stop the recount and just went with what they had?! Yup, sounds fair to me!...It\'s kind of odd that people are bringing this "majority" thing with the homosexuals getting married issue, but then say that the "majority" vote doesn\'t count in something as important as choosing a president.

It\'s not the homo\'s, minorities, whites three-legged people, etc.. that brought this country down. It\'s the over-conservative people that have helped keep it goind further down. If it wasn\'t for "liberal" ideas, black people wouln\'t be allowed to vote or get a job. "Liberal" ideas are the main ingredient that make this country free(but for how long?) in the first place. If the conservatives got it their way all the time, we couln\'t probably have a house unless you made 120,000 a year, your kid has blue eyes, your car is worth over 50,000 and you hate homo\'s...

Originally posted by SirMystiq
Yes, racism against white males have brought this country down the drain. It wasn\'t Bush\'s overspending or the unecessary war. And it couln\'t be the No Child Left Behind. Oh no, It was those damn minorities who think they can come to this country with their liberal views and deter this country from the path of prosperity. Homosexuals are trying to infect everyone of us with their abnormal behavior, it\'s not right! I mean WHO NEEDS MEDICAID ANYWAYS?! If they weren\'t born into certain luxuries then too bad.

So the country was perfectly fine until Bush got into office? Even YOU can\'t believe that.

Originally posted by SirMystiq
If the conservatives got it their way all the time, we couln\'t probably have a house unless you made 120,000 a year, your kid has blue eyes, your car is worth over 50,000 and you hate homo\'s...

If the Liberals got their way you would gross $120,000 a year and net $30,000 due to taxes, you couldn\'t get a job or get into school without first letting women and minorities get first crack, and the flag\'s colors would be changed from red, white and blue to native american pride, caucasian american, and happiness challenged. Its a two-way street. Neither one has the perfect formula.

[SirMystiq]

Yeah, I guess I implied that but I really didn\'t mean it that way. It was just an example. But Bush is the president now and he isn\'t helping now is he?

If tax money was going to some family that doesn\'t need it I would have a problem, other than that, you are still helping other people out. Whether they are grateful or not.

Ha! Well I\'m a minority so it wouln\'t matter to me But I don\'t think that there are many liberals with that mind set. If the conservatives got it their way, minorities or women wouln\'t be allowed to get a job in the first place. It\'s all a matter of extremity, there are liberals that are that extreme on those issues. But mostly they aren\'t, I know alot that aren\'t like "Women should rule the world!"

And I\'m not going to try to spark a religious debate but it really amazes me to meet Christians who think that Republicans are the best because they are anti-abortion and anti-homos and stuff like that. SO WHAT?! Just because you are anti-choice doesn\'t mean you can rule the country. Another thing, how can they believe in Republican ways when even the Bible talks about sharing your riches and blah blah blah! Irony at its best...

I think the problem is that both parties are very much flawed, and change in those flaws doesn\'t seem to be happening.  That\'s one reason I don\'t like the two party system.  I hate both parties...it\'s too easy to disagree with both on so many issues.  I don\'t know, it really feels like every time you vote, the question is as much who will do the least harm as who will do the most good.

[clips]

do you think bush would have pushed that 83 billion for iraq for something worhtwhile in the country if not for the war?..nope. I believe term limits are the answer to put a quick end to all those old racist farts in congress..yes alot of them are racist..trust..alot of those cats have been in congress since the 50\'s & 60\'s with segregationilist views & themes.

It\'s time to let some younger politicians in there with fresh ideas & new ways of thinking. Not saying that some of these young politicians wouldn\'t be racist maybe some are..but i feel most will be in touch with issues that effect us today...


a few weeks ago i heard arnold swarzeneger (spell) wanted to tear the roof off some buliding & add i think a glass celing or something to that degree for smokers...point is your\'re supposed to be finding ways to bring cali back on point..not spending money on interior decorating..he\'s only been in office for a few months and already he\'s F**ki\' with the bull****! Sadly this is the case of parties on both sides of the field..with no change whatsoever in sight.

Update:

The mouthpiece of Transnational Capital,
The Bible of Global Free Trade
The summit of all thinking espoused by the corporate sponsors of George Bush\'s administration...

...comes out in favor of gay marriage.

No, it\'s not The Nation or The San Francisco Chronicle

It\'s The Economist

PAGING CHICKEN LITTLE: The sky is falling.  

The case for gay marriage

Feb 26th 2004
From The Economist print edition

It rests on equality, liberty and even society

 
SO AT last it is official: George Bush is in favour of unequal rights, big-government intrusiveness and federal power rather than devolution to the states. That is the implication of his announcement this week that he will support efforts to pass a constitutional amendment in America banning gay marriage. Some have sought to explain this action away simply as cynical politics, an effort to motivate his core conservative supporters to turn out to vote for him in November or to put his likely “Massachusetts liberal” opponent, John Kerry, in an awkward spot. Yet to call for a constitutional amendment is such a difficult, drastic and draconian move that cynicism is too weak an explanation. No, it must be worse than that: Mr Bush must actually believe in what he is doing.

Mr Bush says that he is acting to protect “the most fundamental institution of civilisation” from what he sees as “activist judges” who in Massachusetts early this month confirmed an earlier ruling that banning gay marriage is contrary to their state constitution. The city of San Francisco, gay capital of America, has been issuing thousands of marriage licences to homosexual couples, in apparent contradiction to state and even federal laws. It can only be a matter of time before this issue arrives at the federal Supreme Court. And those “activist judges”, who, by the way, gave Mr Bush his job in 2000, might well take the same view of the federal constitution as their Massachusetts equivalents did of their state code: that the constitution demands equality of treatment. Last June, in Lawrence v Texas, they ruled that state anti-sodomy laws violated the constitutional right of adults to choose how to conduct their private lives with regard to sex, saying further that “the Court\'s obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate its own moral code”. That obligation could well lead the justices to uphold the right of gays to marry.

Let them wed
That idea remains shocking to many people. So far, only two countries—Belgium and the Netherlands—have given full legal status to same-sex unions, though Canada has backed the idea in principle and others have conferred almost-equal rights on such partnerships. The sight of homosexual men and women having wedding days just like those enjoyed for thousands of years by heterosexuals is unsettling, just as, for some people, is the sight of them holding hands or kissing. When The Economist first argued in favour of legalising gay marriage eight years ago (“Let them wed”, January 6th 1996) it shocked many of our readers, though fewer than it would have shocked eight years earlier and more than it will shock today. That is why we argued that such a radical change should not be pushed along precipitously. But nor should it be blocked precipitously.

The case for allowing gays to marry begins with equality, pure and simple. Why should one set of loving, consenting adults be denied a right that other such adults have and which, if exercised, will do no damage to anyone else? Not just because they have always lacked that right in the past, for sure: until the late 1960s, in some American states it was illegal for black adults to marry white ones, but precious few would defend that ban now on grounds that it was “traditional”. Another argument is rooted in semantics: marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and so cannot be extended to same-sex couples. They may live together and love one another, but cannot, on this argument, be “married”. But that is to dodge the real question—why not?—and to obscure the real nature of marriage, which is a binding commitment, at once legal, social and personal, between two people to take on special obligations to one another. If homosexuals want to make such marital commitments to one another, and to society, then why should they be prevented from doing so while other adults, equivalent in all other ways, are allowed to do so?



Civil unions are not enough
The reason, according to Mr Bush, is that this would damage an important social institution. Yet the reverse is surely true. Gays want to marry precisely because they see marriage as important: they want the symbolism that marriage brings, the extra sense of obligation and commitment, as well as the social recognition. Allowing gays to marry would, if anything, add to social stability, for it would increase the number of couples that take on real, rather than simply passing, commitments. The weakening of marriage has been heterosexuals\' doing, not gays\', for it is their infidelity, divorce rates and single-parent families that have wrought social damage.

But marriage is about children, say some: to which the answer is, it often is, but not always, and permitting gay marriage would not alter that. Or it is a religious act, say others: to which the answer is, yes, you may believe that, but if so it is no business of the state to impose a religious choice. Indeed, in America the constitution expressly bans the involvement of the state in religious matters, so it would be especially outrageous if the constitution were now to be used for religious ends.

The importance of marriage for society\'s general health and stability also explains why the commonly mooted alternative to gay marriage—a so-called civil union—is not enough. Vermont has created this notion, of a legally registered contract between a couple that cannot, however, be called a “marriage”. Some European countries, by legislating for equal legal rights for gay partnerships, have moved in the same direction (Britain is contemplating just such a move, and even the opposition Conservative leader, Michael Howard, says he would support it). Some gays think it would be better to limit their ambitions to that, rather than seeking full social equality, for fear of provoking a backlash—of the sort perhaps epitomised by Mr Bush this week.

Yet that would be both wrong in principle and damaging for society. Marriage, as it is commonly viewed in society, is more than just a legal contract. Moreover, to establish something short of real marriage for some adults would tend to undermine the notion for all. Why shouldn\'t everyone, in time, downgrade to civil unions? Now that really would threaten a fundamental institution of civilisation.