Not to rephrase it, but I interpret it as securing blessings, which come as a consequence of liberty. The question seems more to be: what is a blessing? It again falls to interpretation. Who will decide on an interpretation, if not the majority? Either laws should or should not be controlled by the majority. It can't be both ways. If you disagree with a decision, argue to the majority, rather than isolating the minority.

Just so we're in the clear, I hate all gays, women, blacks, and jews. I hope to eventually die alone.

We the Liberals of the United States, in Order to prove ourselves Correct, establish a divisive Bandwagon, insure an arrogant Society, provide a Lack of foresight, promote action in spite of Consequence, and secure our Notions by agreeing with each other, do ordain and establish this Egocentric Constitution for the United States of America.

When you don't like what someone says, just misrepresent it.

Until we agree on this, we probably won't agree on much else. It's a false premise, as far as I'm concerned, so anything based on it is in question. But I continue on..

Did I say it would? No. See above. If a child watches me pee out in my front yard, does it mean they will do the same? No. Does it have an affect on them? Note that this does not imply that every action affects society. That is not determinable.

It does not make them a moral person, definitely. Does teaching your children values, and providing for them a good example, influence them to become a "better" person? Why is there so much violence in the Middle East? Does it have anything to do with the child's parents or society?

The second statement is more or less correct, but I don't see what it has to do with anything. (I am guessing that you are referring to Matt. 5:28.) But since you are mentioning the Bible, it does have evidence of homosexuality (read Sodom and Gomorrah).

I don't know how you know my beliefs. Personally, I support determinism. I am not sure that free will (choice not determined by prior causes) exists at all.

That sounds like a cop out to avoid responsibility. The truth of the statement depends greatly on consequences (operant conditioning, for example).

What you are saying: if a man and woman marry, but a man and a man cannot, then the only factor in marriage is sex. May I say that your view of love being the only factor in marriage is based entirely on selfishness? Both are probably just as valid. By the way, I never said my view was to marry for sex only or love only.

I am taking off. Sorry for such a lengthy post. Have a good weekend, guys. You have given me some things to consider, and I appreciate it.

m0oni9 i have a question for you.. how is it you can watch aqua teen hunger force and never of smoked weed in your life?

Props to m0oni9 ^ ^ ^!!

depends if they throw radioactive materials into a pot of water and boil them, pretty sure that would effect anyone close enough.. mmm radioactive steam.

besides the constitution is just a piece of paper to protect slavery and plutocracy.

yay for a debtor nation. ww1 england banked in their values in the usa for what.. something like 100mil gbp for military goods, we broke out then into a creditor nation, around 1970s slowed down and reverted to debtor, we're what, >7t debt now? nice common defense and general welfare note btw, that means money can be slushed about whereever.

yeah when the congressional party got shanked by shays rebellion it was pretty clear to constitutional framers that they were boned without an army of their own.

yeah basically you can do your own thing aslong as you do what we say.

that pretty much means your ass is grass if you ever try to change the system

yeah bush might want to have this tatooed on his asshole so when the saudi's are fucking it they can double check it.

crap, was giving bin laden's family a free ticket out of the usa after 911 giving aid and fomfort? I think so.

yeah anyone without money is really gonna be thinking about joining up after the age of 35. gotta keep those old rich white guys in power. by that age you've been force fed so much bullshit in your life you are all for the machine.

basically you can't do shit about it.

pretty much if you don't get a puppet you still have the legion to do what you want, congress is a fucking shopping mall of bribed people.

What if the majority suddenly decided the minorities were no longer allowed to voice their opinions, or vote? What if the majority decided that dissent was no longer allowed?

Im european and glad Bush was elected, because it will enfore european cohesion, weak USA = Strong europe. But one thing i REALLY wonder is how people can vote Bush, i mean, drop the iraqi shit, and look at Bush bilan, its like the worst done by an US president. If the four next years are like the last four years, in an economic view, maybe USA will no more be the first country in the world lol.

yeah... it will take more then 4 years to work through 11.7 trillion in market revenue a year. usa's per capita gdp is still worlds ahead of the next on the list... and yeah europe isn't really anywhere on there.

Luxembourgh is like $20000 ahead of you and Norway is equal to you according to your own intelligence.

owned by a stupid little country in the middle of Europe and a bunch of monkeys up north http://humme.dk/emot/sax.gif

not according to my economics textbooks.

your economics textbooks are clearly outdated

what if baron replies and tells you its the 2004 edition? THEN WHAT WILL YOU DO MELWIN!?!?!? OMG U BE DONE FORE

the CIA trumps his stupid books anyway

I was spanked with moon rocks until I became submissive.

Aren't some of the "minority" claiming that the "majority" is doing this right now? What is happening? You tell me.

This is such an ambiguous question in the first place. It is more of a FUD type of scenario than anything else. Example: What if the minority tomorrow decided on a physical assault on the majority?

latest edition, I'll take fiscal analysts word over the WMD IN IRAQ word

Strawman. Whether or not any minority is claiming anything is irrelevant to the core of this argument. But nice try.

There's nothing ambiguous about it in the first place, but let me clarify. Imagine this scenario: A law is passed that says, in legalese, "Only white Christians may vote".

The physical assault scenario is another strawman. Stick to the argument.

a law like that wont ever pas in todays society, so your arguement is hard to debate.

If a law saying only white Christians could vote i would be a General in the revolution!!!!

My point by showing my ridiculous example was to show the ridiculousness of your example. From my vantage point, you are evading the original question of whether a majority should rule or not by constructing these false scenarios. A straw man attempts to change the appearance of the opposing argument. If the original question was "should majority rule?" then I do not think that I am the one constructing straw men here, especially when you draw on biases, like the following:

Only because I hate unanswered questions, I will reply to this.

First we assume that there is majority support this law. By the same token, we also assume that there is a minority which opposes the law. We also assume that somehow this law was passed.

If you are asking what will happen, I will say that I can only make the assumption that the law will be revoked. I will admit, it is hard for me to argue against a point with such false premises.

It is already clear that the majority has made poor decisions in the past. I am sure that they will in the future. I must ask my original question again. How can we better govern if not by a majority? I never said or implied that the majority opinion should not be questioned.

How will this law be revoked if the minorities no longer have a say? http://humme.dk/emot/confused.gif

How has it happened in the past? I am sure the same factors that have shaped things like equal rights would come into play.

Exactly - women have become property holders, segregation (except the confederates) has been abolished, Apple Mac's are slowly becoming paper holders...

Thru the right of public speech, public demonstration, etc. the minority has been able to shape the majority's views - a freedom granted by both the Constitution and the spilt blood of the majority. But its still the majority rules - doesn't mean its the 'right' choice or the 'best', but its the best setup we have.

M0oni9, will you father my next child? :lol:

Ah, but that's where it gets funny.

Since the majority holds absolute power, they can also outlaw public speech, public demonstrations and every kind of dissent imaginable. Even a 51% majority, according to m0oni, should be able to do this.

The fact that the US managed to pull out of the minority oppression doesn't mean that it will always happen, or even that it happens most of the time. As person of some reknown proved in the '30s.

/applaud m0oni9

We're going back and forth at this point. By this reasoning, I could say that you want the minority to have power to silence the majority, and power to create the laws of the land.

too bad women get paid less on average and are hired less on average... seems to still be in effect to me

I wonder if you share this view: I tend to look at most things as either progressing or regressing. Equal rights seems to be a progressive issue to me. In order for any social issue to change, a transition must occur. Since a transition must occur, it must be judged based on its rate of progression, rather than its state only.

Agreed. And the US government has done a great job with handling social issues such as this and segregation. I know that the USAF was the first government department to fully desegragate in '47 and I know that women aren't paid any less or promoted any less in said service branch.

Change is hardly ever instant - and rarely should be.

And for those who feel that what you do in private doesn't affect others: tell that to the children of the parent who OD'd on crack or alcohol, or the neighbors of the kid-genius who built a small nuclear reactor in his garage and couldn't properly contain the radiation, or the spouse who contracted the HIV virus from an unfaithful partner.

Every choice has a consequence - and I don't have to try something just because someone told me not to. I know not to point a loaded gun at my temple and pull the trigger without trying it. I know that whizzing on an electric fence isn't the brightest idea either. You may feel its okay to sit in your room and jack-off to the Sear's lingerie catalog, or smoke some pot while watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force - but those decisions have consequences. A childhood friend liked to masterbate, making a life-long habit out of it. He became addicticed to porn (a needed source to fulfill his habit), and his attitude toward sexuality was very carnal. He became prone to cheating on his wife, caught the HIV virus and passed it onto his faithful spouse (all this happening over a course of 20 years). Another high school aquaintance loved a little pot, especially before his MTV liquid television or Orange Clockwork viewing. He loved the feeling of being high - of having his mind expand. Soon MJ wasn't so exciting, and he was found dead 2 weeks after high school graduation from crack OD - full college academic scholarship lying on his desk. He could've become a great military officer, or discover the next-best libido drug, or simply pass that knowledge onto future high school students: but now his worm-infested corpse lies six feet under a California graveyard.

Not that everyone who masturbates or smokes pot is going to end up like these people, but that possibility exists for each who does. Stop with the little things, and you cannot progress into something more serious. Will your life be less without jerking off, or a little chemical high? If you really think so, then you have a very limited exposure to what life can really offer you.

"Wise is the man who learns from his own mistakes, but wiser is the man who learns from the mistakes of others."

I'll wait for a black or woman president before I say progress has been made since the last major update, right now things are just getting cockblocked into the back burner with other issues

Clinton '08

I'll be very suprised if Hillary is nominated in 2008 - let alone the Democrat's pick to represent the party. Hillary's just another Kerry, only louder. I think democrats, in hind perspective, mutually agree that Kerry was a weak canidate (much like his campaign strategy - weak). If the democrat's are going to beat out the Gobernator in '08 they need to find a 'moral liberal'. If that canidate happens to be black or female or both - so be it, you may get your wish Baron. But making an individual's race or sex an issue is racism/sexism. I could care less about the pigment of your skin, or the shape of your sexual gonads - since when does that make you a good/poor decision maker?

It's all about the issues.

what

No I don't. I support majority rule, but not absolute majority rule. It's far too easy to get 51% majority for supreme simple majority rule. I never said anything to the contrary.

Edit: Also, Daeath, no democrat will have to run against the Governator for quite some years, and it certainly won't be in '08 :P

Then I am not understanding your argument. If you want to suggest majority rule as a better solution than absolute majority rule, okay. But I am still having trouble seeing how a decision with majority support will be overturned by this "49%" minority. When does majority rule turn into absolute majority rule?

I think we agree but are just wording the arguments in different ways.

Absolute majority rule is when the 51% majority of voters has the power to vote the other 49% out, making them a 100% majority.

Majority rule is when certain rights like voting are guaranteed. :p

Just like there are nukes in iraq

Just curious so don't blow up with some crazy attack on my intelligence but has the iraq war personally affected you or are you just using it as a crutch to support your obvious bitterness?

going to war is a huge fucking deal, and sending your country to war with the notion of a preemptive strike (which is a lie) and then have it proven that the whole thing was a lie is a huge fucking deal.

ever watch the news? it went from
shock and awe
hunt for saddam
operation iraqi freedom

notice how there is a lack of operation wtfsecure the wmd caches? once we blew the crap out of one of the oldest civilizations in the world (which I could give a fuck about don't think I care about iraqis), we hunted down their insane leader (sure why not he's a douchebag), looked for his supposed nukes and bio bombs and couldn't find shit so then seamlessly moved into "liberating" the iraqis.

That's a misrepresentation. Because majority rules on an issue does not make that majority 100%. It makes them the majority. By the way, for reference, you might want to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority, which describes absolute majority, among others.
If the majority does not agree with the minority, then the minority's voting rights have been infringed? I am still having trouble understanding why the minority should have power over the majority.

Ok, been reading for a while. No real strong arguments that I felt needed a comeback against. But I'll comment on a couple things.

I would say, punish the true crime, no something that happened to take place before the crime. Charge child neglect as such. I know parents who are great parents and do drugs. People have been charged with passing AIDS on to a partner, that is a crime. But the unfaithfulness is not (though depending on vows you made, could be a verbal contract for faithfulness).
It is not anyones business what I think about these things. Maybe life would be less without them. That is for me to decide, not you.

Oh well, people will awlays try and tell other people the "propper" way they should be living their own lives. Great thing this is a free and fairly liberal country where those A-holes will eventually lose.

I think as far as the iraq war goes, obviously the nuke thing was sort of overblown. We can all pretty much agree there's no nuclear weapons. Chemical and biological weapons are a different story, he used them in the past. There are satellite photos, as well as on the ground intelligence that watched him move large numbers of trucks into syria days before the war began. Also iraq is about the size of california in terms of landmass, not to mention half of it is barren desert and a large part of what's not is mountainous. Basically I'm still sure there are chemical and/or biological weapons in Iraq, they just haven't been found yet.

And as a side note, even though the nuclear threat was a scare tactic, which is low, iraq has now sort of fallen in under the blanket global war on terror, where it belonged. I think it was just too hard to convince the american public that even while people were fighting in afghanistan, iraq had to be handled. So yes, he lied about nukes but no, the war isn't unjustified. Also it was always about liberating iraqi's as an ancillary mission, it just wasn't as hyped by the media and the presidency as the weapons were.

route, you must believe anything. The reason was never WMD or liberating the people, those were just something that was fed to us. When the first lie was called, they came up with another story. The end does not justify the means..