Gyroscopic Investing

One more comment on our recently departed new member:

I appreciate everyone's input and thoughts on the matter.  My view is that a person who begins his forum career with such an aggressive (in his words "bared teeth") presentation is unlikely to get less aggressive and more thoughtful in the future.  That's a judgment that is based on about 10 years of moderating forums that can get rowdy.

We're not running a finishing school here for liberals who like to show their teeth.

Just be cool, be polite, and be respectful and you can do whatever you want.  If, however, a person doesn't see the value in being cool, polite and respectful, then this may not be the right forum for them.

He's the third person to be banned in four years and he's the first liberal.  Based on that track record, I'm not concerned that unpopular points of view are being stifled due to their content.

Xan wrote: That's another area where a citizens' divedend could increase freedom.  It's a bit of a paradox that reliance on government could do that...  But by removing poverty from all these equations (hiring, firing, paying, etc), the laws on many of them could be relaxed or repealed.

Agreed.

moda0306 wrote: Tyler,

I think I'm with you currently.

I 100% support the right of same-sex couples to engage in the contract the state refers to as marriage.

But I don't like businesses being told how to hire, fire, promote, pay or serve folks. My liberal friends think I'm a fascist for this. So be it. :/

<liberal mode>
Fascist!
</liberal mode>




The "squelches religious freedom" argument is something that liberals simply do not understand. In their estimation, nobody is going to be forced to do a gay marriage. Churches and priests and whatnot who don't want to won't have to, and gay couples will always be able to just go to the county clerk or whatever.

Pointedstick wrote:

moda0306 wrote: Tyler,

I think I'm with you currently.

I 100% support the right of same-sex couples to engage in the contract the state refers to as marriage.

But I don't like businesses being told how to hire, fire, promote, pay or serve folks. My liberal friends think I'm a fascist for this. So be it. :/

<liberal mode>
Fascist!
</liberal mode>




The "squelches religious freedom" argument is something that liberals simply do not understand. In their estimation, nobody is going to be forced to do a gay marriage. Churches and priests and whatnot who don't want to won't have to, and gay couples will always be able to just go to the county clerk or whatever.

For me it's more about property rights than religious rights. If I'm an atheist, I should be able to not make a cake for someone if I want, right?

What relevance does gay marriage even have in MY life on an ongoing basis?  Why should I care?

I write the above as someone who actually knows quite a bit about gay marriage because my employee benefits consulting job requires me to and I have a close relative who I assisted in getting a same sex marriage in Iowa before it was legal in Texas.

I look at the topic of gay marriage and it holds no emotional charge for me.  If society wants it, fine, have it.  If society doesn't want to have it, my life is exactly the same.

Why do straight people care about this issue either way?

moda0306 wrote: For me it's more about property rights than religious rights. If I'm an atheist, I should be able to not make a cake for someone if I want, right?

Interesting situation. The question: do business owners lose more rights to free association by owning businesses than religious people gain by being religious? To most liberals, the answer seems to be yes, with the frequent clarification that being religious shouldn't grant any special rights at all.

Pointedstick wrote:

moda0306 wrote: For me it's more about property rights than religious rights. If I'm an atheist, I should be able to not make a cake for someone if I want, right?

Interesting situation. The question: do business owners lose more rights to free association by owning businesses than religious people gain by being religious? To most liberals, the answer seems to be yes, with the frequent clarification that being religious shouldn't grant any special rights at all.

Couldn't business owners just put up signs that said "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"?

The gay community (and the public) would understand that florists and bakeries with those signs in the windows were anti-gay businesses, and the free market could figure out how to adjust demand for businesses of that type.

If we live in an enlightened society with respect to personal freedom, then people will presumably put enough economic force on such businesses to make them reconsider their "No Gay Cakes" policy.

When you think about a No Gay Cakes policy, I want you to visualize a modified version of the "NO Stairway to Heaven" sign in the guitar store in Wayne's World.

Most liberals totally understand the desire to not participate in things they do not agree with when you talk about things like the draft or baking a cake with a Confederate flag.  Religions have similar moral objections but often do not get the same latitude.  To me it comes down to respecting freedom to choose one way or another without harming anyone.  And no, hurt feelings don't count as harm.

As a business owner, I would understand things like potentially not being eligible to do contract work for the government because of my anti-gay policies.

The government is just one more entity in society with the power to boycott businesses.

Simonjester wrote: if pushed far enough and if they are forced to bake.. christian bakers will either close their door or turn their business into a club or some other form of organization that can choose who they serve or give membership to..

there used to be a common sign "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"...  there were no caveats or exceptions involved, its your business who you serve is your business.. 

But you do have legal requirements with respect to whom you MUST serve, right?

You can't open a "no disabled people" business just because you don't feel like building a bunch of ramps and buying special toilets.

l82start wrote: ↑Sat Jun 27, 2015 6:55 pm yes we do now.. in certain areas anyway "you MUST" .. the civil rights did away with the "no blacks served" establishments and the disability's acts did the same for requiring ramps and accommodation for the disabled.. now there is a push for the same to happen with "you must" serve gays weddings.. but at what point is it no longer your establishment and it becomes a government business? is it when the majority of aspects of how it is run/rules about what you can and cant do are determined by government? two thirds? three quarters? not until they wrestle every last bit of control? or has it already happened?
i am not saying that these laws forcing businesses to act are necessarily wrong, or that all the results are bad, just pointing out that this is the path we chose to go down to get civil rights then handicap access .. maybe we would have been better off achieving the same ends by different (and more libertarian) means?? who knows? we can only speculate at this point..

craigr wrote: I banned NWODurruti. IMO, he's trolling.

Just because he pointed out that polygamy has been accepted a lot longer than same-sex marriage (which is true), or for some other reason?

Polygamy is not a different kind of marriage, though.  It's one person having multiple marriages.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that nobody ever said that all the wives were married to each other, only that for each of them, their husband was the same man.

Libertarian666 wrote:

craigr wrote: I banned NWODurruti. IMO, he's trolling.

Just because he pointed out that polygamy has been accepted a lot longer than same-sex marriage (which is true), or for some other reason?

He wiped his nose on the tablecloth.

MediumTex wrote:

Libertarian666 wrote:

craigr wrote: I banned NWODurruti. IMO, he's trolling.

Just because he pointed out that polygamy has been accepted a lot longer than same-sex marriage (which is true), or for some other reason?

He wiped his nose on the tablecloth.

Ok, I must have missed his rudeness. Never mind then.

Back to the original topic, or at least something related to it, who wants to make a gentleman's bet as to when plural marriage is legalized? All of the arguments against it are the same arguments made (and lost) against same-sex marriage.

Other than the silly one of "the tax laws don't allow for more than two spouses in one marriage", which would be obviated by the simple rule that you have to specify who you want to be your "tax spouse"...

Libertarian666 wrote: Back to the original topic, or at least something related to it, who wants to make a gentleman's bet as to when plural marriage is legalized? All of the arguments against it are the same arguments made (and lost) against same-sex marriage.

Other than the silly one of "the tax laws don't allow for more than two spouses in one marriage", which would be obviated by the simple rule that you have to specify who you want to be your "tax spouse"...

Seems like you've perhaps missed the whole point here, which is that "marriage" brings a tremendous number of legal benefits to the spouses - starting with medical consent and survivor Social Security.  There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of laws that create benefits that exist solely between spouses.  What SCOTUS has ruled is that denying these benefits to same sex couples is unconstitutional.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with polygamy or polyandry (or, since my guess is you'll bring these up next, bestiality or pedophilia).  SCOTUS has not, and cannot, rule that your church must condone or recognize same sex marriages, but rather that every state must afford the same legal benefits to same sex couples (i.e  "marriage") that they afford opposite sex couples.  In this context "marriage" is a legal term, which basically has nothing to do with whatever your church calls "marriage".  It is definitely confusing that the same term ("marriage") is used for both a religious union and a legal (civil) union - but what we're talking about here is the legal one, not the religious one.

MediumTex wrote: What relevance does gay marriage even have in MY life on an ongoing basis?  Why should I care?

I write the above as someone who actually knows quite a bit about gay marriage because my employee benefits consulting job requires me to and I have a close relative who I assisted in getting a same sex marriage in Iowa before it was legal in Texas.

I look at the topic of gay marriage and it holds no emotional charge for me.  If society wants it, fine, have it.  If society doesn't want to have it, my life is exactly the same.

Why do straight people care about this issue either way?

MT,

Sorry for posting this link again.  I posted it in the Religion thread earlier, but it seems to fit here probably better.  I think the real issue is much broader than who is marrying whom.  I'm pretty much with you on the impact to my life IF the SCOTUS ruling stays limited to giving gays the right to marry each other.  However, I suspect, with that ruling the camel nose is under then tent and the camel is not going to be satisfied with one breath and a peak.  Matthew Harrison's letter says it best on what the future may hold.  IF he is correct, I think there may be a major impact on all of us, gays and straights.  If we lose the rule of law as a defining principle in this country and become another totalarian state - God help us!  It has been a good ride for a couple hundred years, I'm thankful to have lived much of my life in that couple of hundred year part.  I hope my children, grandchildren, and great grand children can say the same.  Maybe Harrison is just sabre rattling, but knowing the man somewhat, I doubt it.  We shall see.  Note that Sasse (last paragraph below in the excerpt) was a German and wrote that statement in 1932 - "Hitler time" with the worst yet to come.  Maybe our "worst yet to come" began in the 1970s with Roe vs. Wade mentioned below - we now can thank that ruling for about 55 million inocent Americans who never had a chance to speak for themselves - SCOTUS usurped power and spoke for them too.

... Mountaineer 

http://blogs.lcms.org/2015/synod-presid ... age-ruling

Pertinent parts of the letter from my perspective:

Like Roe v. Wade, this decision will be followed by a rash of lawsuits. Through coercive litigation, governments and popular culture continue to make the central post-modern value of sexual freedom override “the free exercise of religion” enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

The ramifications of this decision are seismic. Proponents will seek to drive Christians and Christian institutions out of education at all levels; they will press laws to force faithful Christian institutions and individuals to violate consciences in work practices and myriad other ways.

During some of the darkest days of Germany, a faithful Lutheran presciently described how governments lose their claim to legitimate authority according to Romans 13.  The Caesar cult in its manifold forms, the deification of the state, is one great form of the defection from the [true] idea of the state. There are also other possibilities of such defection. The government can forget and neglect its tasks. When it no longer distinguishes between right and wrong, when its courts are no longer governed by the strict desire for justice, but by special interests, when government no longer has the courage to exercise its law, fails to exercise its duties, undermines its own legal order, when it weakens through its family law parental authority and the estate of marriage, then it ceases to be governing authority.  Raising such a question can lead to heavy conflicts of conscience. But it is fundamentally conceivable, and it has time and again become reality in history, that a governing authority has ceased to be governing authority. In such a case there may indeed exist a submission to a superior power. But the duty of obedience against this power no longer exists. [Hermann Sasse, “What Is the State?”(1932)]

Pointedstick wrote: What's worrying is to hear from someone who admits he is made angry by simply coming into contact with other people's perspectives and who is positive he's right, just wanting to defend his viewpoints.

Did he really say all that?  I must have been asleep in an alternative reality!

moda0306 wrote: But I don't like businesses being told how to hire, fire, promote, pay or serve folks. My liberal friends think I'm a fascist for this. So be it. :/

You are a fascist if those businesses are serving the public interest.  It doesn't get talked around here much, but the Disability Act of 1990 was the hardest of the civil rights legislation to get.  It was absolutely jaw-dropping how unbelievably mean, prejudiced, rude and xenophobic businesses and their employees were about not selling to, serving or accomodating anyone with a disability before 1990.  It fully took the awesome and majestic force of government coercion to get people to pull their heads out of their ass.  I make no apologies for that one.  Sometimes the only way to get people to change for the better is to literally force your way into their mind and plant an outpost.

I think the real problem with being an ideologue is that it makes you less empathetic...  and at a certain point, you'll start dehumanizing all of your opponents to keep purity.

MediumTex wrote: He's the third person to be banned in four years and he's the first liberal.  Based on that track record, I'm not concerned that unpopular points of view are being stifled due to their content.

Who were the other two, besides KShartle?

Desert wrote: Maybe I'm missing something.  Or maybe I'm just numb to the whole gay thing.  We're surrounded by sin of all kinds; I don't know why I need to worry excessively about one brand of sin, particularly one I'm not personally tempted by.  (sorry to bring religion into yet another thread)

You're not missing anything.  The whole hullabaloo is just a dog and pony political show so that their same sex true loves can get hospital, SS, veterans, etc. benefits.  It's more economically practical than The End Is Near.  Wake me up when this movie is over.

I suspect part of being a religious believer nowadays is you're going to have to learn to deal with increasing secularism and risk becoming ostracized if you act out about it.  Might or faith may not make right, but reason certainly does.

moda0306 wrote: For me it's more about property rights than religious rights. If I'm an atheist, I should be able to not make a cake for someone if I want, right?

If you can make sure that private businesses do not treat gay people as they used to do to the disabled, then there should be no issue in them willing to POLITELY (i.e. not coercive discrimination) not serve them only due to their religious beliefs.  But can you come up with legislation to accomplish this?  That would be the trick.

Libertarian666 wrote: Back to the original topic, or at least something related to it, who wants to make a gentleman's bet as to when plural marriage is legalized? All of the arguments against it are the same arguments made (and lost) against same-sex marriage.

I think it'll happen at about the same time marriage to artificial self-autonomous entities (i.e. robots) is legalized.  Give or take 25 years.

I like the idea of legally renaming marriages as civil unions so the religious types can have their fantasy unspoiled.

Simonjester wrote: ditto... get government out of marriage altogether, a contract is a contract is a contract... call it a civil union for everyone if you like, and let marriage be whatever the hell people define it as in their own minds.... no government definition or approval required..

rickb wrote:

Libertarian666 wrote: Back to the original topic, or at least something related to it, who wants to make a gentleman's bet as to when plural marriage is legalized? All of the arguments against it are the same arguments made (and lost) against same-sex marriage.

Other than the silly one of "the tax laws don't allow for more than two spouses in one marriage", which would be obviated by the simple rule that you have to specify who you want to be your "tax spouse"...

Seems like you've perhaps missed the whole point here, which is that "marriage" brings a tremendous number of legal benefits to the spouses - starting with medical consent and survivor Social Security.  There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of laws that create benefits that exist solely between spouses.  What SCOTUS has ruled is that denying these benefits to same sex couples is unconstitutional.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with polygamy or polyandry (or, since my guess is you'll bring these up next, bestiality or pedophilia).  SCOTUS has not, and cannot, rule that your church must condone or recognize same sex marriages, but rather that every state must afford the same legal benefits to same sex couples (i.e  "marriage") that they afford opposite sex couples.  In this context "marriage" is a legal term, which basically has nothing to do with whatever your church calls "marriage".  It is definitely confusing that the same term ("marriage") is used for both a religious union and a legal (civil) union - but what we're talking about here is the legal one, not the religious one.

The arguments against plural marriage are the same as those against same-sex marriage.
Neither of them has anything to do with bestiality or pedophilia, which lack the crucial element of consent. Of course, many "conservatives" (like Rick Santorum) seem to equate same-sex marriage (and plural marriage) with bestiality. Do you really want to be on the same side as him in this argument?

Bestiality isn't illegal because of a consent issue.  As I've said before, killing something and eating it for lunch is a lot worse than "having your way" with it, and we don't require consent for the former.

No, bestiality is illegal because we're socially conservative about it.  But social conservatism has just been ruled unconstitutional.