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Post by Proud on Jul 19, 2004 15:49:07 GMT -5
^
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reminds me of that one scene from the princess bride...
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Post by melon1 on Jul 19, 2004 17:04:33 GMT -5
You sound a little bitter, thorny. Do you mind telling us where your cynicism comes from?
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Post by strat-0 on Jul 19, 2004 18:43:24 GMT -5
Me: I’m not dismissing the depth or validity of anyone’s love, just call it something else, and admit that it’s not the same!
Matheus: Let me get this straight... The love that a man feels for a woman is different than the love a man feels for another man or a woman feels for another woman? Do you realize how insulting that is?
I didn’t mean to be insulting, Matheus; I think you should read all three of those clauses again carefully. It’s not the same. I didn’t say it was inferior or invalid. I consider myself a friend and supporter of gay people; I just don’t want the institution of marriage hijacked or made a mockery of by a few in the radical gay rights community to make a political point and further their own agendas.
I said this before at RS: Marriage, by definition, is the union of a man and a woman.
Mary feels that marriage is nothing but a legal construct, and that it doesn't have any kind of pure, ontological status outside the legal categories that define it. I wholeheartedly disagree. But there is some common ground on this issue even between Mary and me: I don’t have a problem with gays recognizing their unions and even having the state grant recognition of their unions, just call it something else! Like Jllm said, why would they even want to call it that? You can’t have it! Think of something else; the term is already taken! (I now pronounce you Giant Purple Hippos.) However, I also feel that the tiny benefits reserved for married couples should remain reserved for them. Sorry. I think it’s best for society. Gay couples may need to continue to use other legal means (wills, etc.), which are available to all citizens, to achieve their personal goals. Sometimes life just ain’t fair.
When a man and a woman choose to marry, they are saying several things. They are saying, “I love you. I have a natural propensity to want to propagate my genes. I love you so much that I want to choose you to propagate my genes with, thus propagating yours, as well. I want to do this together with you, and raise a family, and watch it grow as we grow old together.” (Spare me the senior citizen scenario about marriage and procreation, please, OK?)
And now for a hopefully more lighthearted look at some of the recent observations…
Quite right, Mary, we really can’t know how it was, at the shadowy and murky beginnings. I don’t know if there are any primates that mate for life, and if there are, I don’t know that they practice monogamy – I rather doubt it. However, many other animals do. Many bird species mate for life (just off the top of my head). While your statement was that, “I find it hard to believe that early mankind, before any kind of formal political arrangements and social structures existed, pair off in monogamous unions for life,” I think that after some of those social structures came into existence, that there may well have been tribes or clans who did go monogamous. They may have learned (without knowing why) that mixing it up too much caused disease – just as we have taboos against things such as incest, they may have realized the social health consequences of certain behaviors. Y’know, it wasn’t that long ago that syphilis was the killer that AIDs is today.
Ah, then there was that brief period when we had penicillin, birth control, and AIDs was undreamed of. What a great time to be young.
My granddaddy had two of the greatest cow ponies ever born. They were mates for over 20 years, and had several colts together. They sure could work a herd together. As the years went by, their love for each other was clearly evident. They could barely stand to be separated, and would always put a hustle on when they knew they were getting closer together. I have no doubt of how much they loved each other. You could see it in so many ways. But I’m sure if old Jelly Bean would have smelled another mare in season, he would have been quite the game rooster, that old swayback!
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JACkory
Struggling Artist
Posts: 167
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Post by JACkory on Jul 20, 2004 7:27:32 GMT -5
So, when two gay guys/gals get married how do they decide which one's last name will be retained and which one's will be sacrificed? Is it something they can just flip a coin over?
Just curious...
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 20, 2004 7:31:48 GMT -5
So, when two gay guys/gals get married how do they decide which one's last name will be retained and which one's will be sacrificed? Is it something they can just flip a coin over? Just curious... That just so happened to be one of the questions posed to Miss Manners in her column this morning. She came up with an answer, but I think it truly had even Miss Manners stumped. She basically said you ask the couple how they prefer to be addressed, but she never gives an answer like that, which is why I think she was stumped. |
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Post by Mary on Jul 20, 2004 8:42:50 GMT -5
So, when two gay guys/gals get married how do they decide which one's last name will be retained and which one's will be sacrificed? Is it something they can just flip a coin over? Just curious... This is increasingly becoming a question for straight married couples too, though. Whether they want to do the last name thing at all. And in some cases, if they do, whose last name to use (it's still extremely rare, but some husbands do take their wives' last name instead of vice versa) Most of my straight married friends retained their own last names. Some women view the tradition of taking their husband's name as a vestige of a more patriarchal marriage arrangement, and they'd prefer to have nothing to do with it. strat-o, I'm curious about your assertion that only straight couples should receive the benefits associated with marriage. Does this really apply to all the benefits? I mean, there's a list of several hundred of them, and it seems hard to think of reasons why some of them should be denied to gay couples. For example, should gay couples really not have next-of-kin status at hospitals? And is it really OK, if one partner dies suddenly, unexpectedly, and young, that his or her partner not receive anything in the absence of a will? They shouldn't get sick leave if their partner is drastically ill, or wrongful death benefits? One thing to note is that many of these benefits can't be contracted for. And of course, if these benefits were extended to gay couples, then straight couples would still have all of them. What's the danger that you're guarding against here? M |
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Post by JesusLooksLikeMe on Jul 20, 2004 9:42:40 GMT -5
Actually, I don't know about in the States, but in the UK it's not "straight" couples that get all the benefits, but specifically married couples. All those rights should be extended not just to gays, but to hetero couples who cohabit, and even perhaps, say, two elderly spinster sisters who've lived together for ages, and so on...
It's another thing I fear - that if gays get their right to lawfully wed and acquire these benefits, then the issue of cohabitee rights will go away (without the help of the powerful gay lobby), and us unmarried hetero cohabitees will again be left pissing in the wind.
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 20, 2004 9:47:56 GMT -5
Actually, I don't know about in the States, but in the UK it's not "straight" couples that get all the benefits, but specifically married couples. All those rights should be extended not just to gays, but to hetero couples who cohabit, and even perhaps, say, two elderly spinster sisters who've lived together for ages, and so on... At some point, don't we have to ask WHY some of these "rights" exsist in the first place? Usually, when you extend "rights' but don't give them to everyone, there is a reason for it. In the case of some, it could be money ... for example, the cost to a company of providing healthcare to employees spouses vs providing healthcare to employees spouses or co-habitators can be huge. In the case of hospitals, "rights" to visitation are limited because it's in the best interest of the patients health not to expose them to the germs of everyone and their brother. And then there's the issue of who makes the decisions for a patient who can't make them on their own ... this can be difficult decisions made all the more difficult if you open things up so much that you have several people claiming to speak for the patient. So before we just write all of this off as "give 'em to anyone" shouldn't we look a little closer at just what the cost of doing that is? |
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 20, 2004 10:29:34 GMT -5
July 20, 2004, 9:00 a.m.
W's Double Bind
He can’t win — even if he does!
by Rich Lowry, National Review Online
Sometimes a political figure becomes so hated that he can't do anything right in the eyes of his enemies. President Bush has achieved this rare and exalted status. His critics are so blinded by animus that the internal consistency of their attacks on him no longer matters. For them, Bush is the double-bind president.
If he stumbles over his words, he is an embarrassing idiot. If he manages to cut taxes or wage a war against Saddam Hussein with bipartisan support, he is a manipulative genius.
If he hasn't been able to capture Osama bin Laden, he is endangering U.S. security. If he catches bin Laden, it is only a ploy to influence the elections.
If he ignores U.N. resolutions, he is a dangerous unilateralist. If he takes U.N. resolutions on Iraq seriously, he is a dangerous unilateralist. If he doesn't get France to agree to his Iraq policy, he is ignoring important international actors. If he supports multiparty talks on North Korea, he is not doing enough to ignore important international actors.
If he bombed Iraq, he should have bombed Saudi Arabia instead, and if he had bombed Saudi Arabia, he should have bombed Iran, and if he had bombed all three, he shouldn't have bombed anyone at all. If he imposes a U.S. occupation on Iraq, he is fomenting Iraqi resistance by making the United States seem an imperial power. If he ends the U.S. occupation, he is cutting and running.
If he warns of a terror attack, he is playing alarmist politics. If he doesn't warn of a terror attack, he is dangerously asleep at the switch. If he says we're safer, he's lying, and if he doesn't say we're safer, he's implicitly admitting that he has failed in his core duty as commander in chief.
If he adopts a doctrine of preemption, he is unacceptably remaking American national-security policy. If the United States suffers a terror attack on his watch, he should have preempted it. If he signs a far-reaching antiterror law, he is abridging civil liberties. If the United States suffers another terror attack on his watch, he should have had a more vigorous anti-terror law.
Bush's economy hasn't created new jobs. If it has created new jobs, they aren't well-paying jobs. If they are well-paying jobs, there is still income inequality in America.
If Bush opposes a prescription-drug benefit for the elderly, he's miserly. If he supports a prescription-drug benefit for the elderly, he's lining the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies. If he restrains government spending, he's heartless. If he supports government spending, he's bankrupting the nation and robbing from future generations.
If he opposes campaign-finance reform, he's a tool of corporate interests. If he signs campaign-finance reform, he's abridging the First Amendment rights of Michael Moore (whose ads for Fahrenheit 9/11 might run afoul of the law).
If he accuses John Kerry of flip-flopping, he is merely highlighting one of the Massachusetts senator's strengths — his nuance and thoughtfulness. If he flip-flops on nation-building or testifying before the 9/11 commission, he proves his own ill-intentions, cluelessness, or both.
If he doesn't admit a mistake, he is bullheaded and detached from reality. If he admits a mistake, he is damning his own governance in shocking fashion.
If he sticks with Dick Cheney, he is saddling himself with an unpopular vice president, giving Democrats who can't wait to run against Cheney a political advantage. If he drops Cheney, he is admitting that the Democratic attacks against his vice president have hit home, thus giving Democrats who have made those charges a political advantage.
If he loses in November, the voice of the American people has spoken a devastating verdict on his presidency. If he wins, he stole the election.
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Post by Thorngrub on Jul 20, 2004 10:52:40 GMT -5
[glow=pink,2,300]You sound a little bitter, thorny. Do you mind telling us where your cynicism comes from? [/glow] Proud was right, I was merely referencing a movie: The Princess Bride. You know, interjecting a lil humour into the CE board.  |
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Post by Proud on Jul 20, 2004 11:07:05 GMT -5
on the whole bush-vp issue...
unless there is HEAVY pressure, bush will stick with cheney. not only is cheney a friend of the family, but he makes a lot of the white house decisions the president should be making and he's a business partner. bush will stick up with cheney until the bitter end. unless a majority of the party start yelling and screaming, cheney remains on the ticket.
cheney IS a drag on the ticket when it comes to voters. a great deal of citizens who are middle-of-the-roaders and democrats do not like him or trust him at all. there're even a notable amount of republican citizens out there who don't care for him (or bush, for that matter). but he does have the support of many bigger conservatives out there. the risk the bush administration takes is losing an election so that they can continue having a vice president who represents their beliefs and objectives.
IF bush chooses someone else, it will NOT be powell. as far as powell goes, he disagrees with bush on many issues, and he seems to simply want to retire (or just get out of his current political situation). as far as mccain goes, it's difficult to say. i don't think bush likes mccain's politics very much, and i don't think most of the party does either (mccain could pretty much be a democrat, if he wanted to). however, he would bring in a lot of voters. if bush cared on winning the election and that only, he could do this... but it would be harder for him to push the bigtime conservative agenda (which he went to working on not too far after 9/11).
things do not look good for bush right now, but he has plenty of time to make things "right" for him. he must continue pushing propaganda, but stuff that makes HIM look good. by focusing on bashing kerry, bush brings attention to kerry... even if it's negative. a lot of common americans have no clue who john kerry even is, or they might remember his name but not even know he's a political figure. even worse, he could start talking about edwards.
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Post by strat-0 on Jul 20, 2004 11:31:05 GMT -5
The Democrats are girlie-men!
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Post by stratman19 on Jul 20, 2004 11:54:17 GMT -5
Atta boy, Ahhnnnold! ;D
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Post by Proud on Jul 20, 2004 11:57:28 GMT -5
arnold, once again showing off his (lack of) intelligence.
i like him anyway.
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 20, 2004 11:57:53 GMT -5
It amazes me that the press will continue to allow itself to be manipulated like that ... and that the voters / viewers will continue to allow it. That whole girlie-men controversy is so obviously a move to avoid having to deal with the real issue of why a budget hasn't been past yet. But instead of holding the politicians to dealing with THAT issue, everyone involved falls right into line in being distracted from the real issue by a bunch of PC BS.
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