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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#172101: Feb 2nd 2017 at 5:19:08 AM

Somehow I feel more secure in Germany...last month the police took down a group of Reichsbürger (right wing nutter), last week a group of Salafists (Isis nutters) and in between they even managed to finally clear up a more than 20 year old bomb attacks against Russian Jews....

Point is, I feel secure if the police works against groups of fanatics, not if they are fanatic against one fanatic group.

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#172102: Feb 2nd 2017 at 5:26:39 AM

Did you notice that the draft order actually included a bit stating that a religious belief can be personally held and not part of a larger group? Like, I don't like it, but I can get a Catholic business owner not wanting to subsidize contraception. It sucks, but it's a genuine Catholic belief.

But if the religious belief doesn't have to have anything to do with an actual religion, it's really easy for someone to abuse it.

The vehemence against gay marriage is just strange to me. How does it affect a straight person when two gay guys get married? The end result of that is that two gay guys are married, and the straight person is still living their own separate life.

...maybe they're all jealous or something?

Heatth (X-Troper) Relationship Status: In Spades with myself
#172103: Feb 2nd 2017 at 5:39:16 AM

[up]Gay people getting married destroys the "institution of marriage", which is something very important. As we all know, marriage was created by Christians, for Christians and it is suppose to follow strict Christian values. If it doesn't, then "marriage" itself is destroyed and that is terrible.

So, basically, it doesn't actually make sense, but they do have a whole narrative around it.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#172104: Feb 2nd 2017 at 5:44:37 AM

The vehemence against gay marriage is just strange to me. How does it affect a straight person when two gay guys get married? The end result of that is that two gay guys are married, and the straight person is still living their own separate life.
Speaking as a Muslim who is against gay marriage on religious principles but doesn't care if non-Muslim secular countries legalize it (because, hey, they're not Muslim and they explicitly do not hold religious law as the end-all-be-all of laws), and considering the many similarities between Islam and Catholic Christianity on several issues, I believe that religious arguments against gay marriage tend to boil down to the following:
  • Legalizing gay marriage implicitly legalizes gay sex, which is against the natural order, in which sexual intercourse is an act of reproduction first, and it being a source of physical pleasure comes second. (And yes, I know about the whole "But homosexuality amongst animals exists!" counter-argument. You don't see people advocating for legalizing cannibalism just because it's the norm for a significant number of animal species, do you?)
  • It may not affect a straight person directly, but it does affect the society around him. Legalizing gay sex (per argument #1) implies an erosion of the boundaries on what venues of pleasure are permissible, the Logical Extreme of which would be the example set by Sodom and Gomorrah, whose sinfulness went beyond sexual depravity (according to the Islamic version of the story, they wanted to gang-rape Lot's guests — who were secretly angels — just because they can).

That's all that comes to my mind at the moment. And yes, I can see how such arguments would not make sense to someone who does not believe in the supremacy of divine/religious law over all other laws. Considering the long history that motivated the separation between state and church in Europe (and, by proxy, the prevalence of such a societal model in European-descended nations like the US), I find it hard to blame such people for having something against putting religious law as supreme.

edited 2nd Feb '17 5:49:11 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#172105: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:07:10 AM

In the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, it is explicitly stated that Sodom and Gommorah's chiefest sins were their refusal to aid the needy with their extravagant wealth.

The gang-rape thing was a Kick the Dog moment for them, but their Moral Event Horizon was letting the poor starve while the rich partied and drank.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#172106: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:18:17 AM

[up] Strange how almost the exact opposite of that message is now standard groupthink among evangelical Republicans.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#172107: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:25:36 AM

What's more, GOD HIMSELF is telling someone this. This is, of course many chapters/verses after the actual destruction of those cities so i might could see how someone could miss that if they were reading to justify their own views.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#172108: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:26:47 AM

My little brother, the misogynistic extremist exaggeration of a dudebro, sent me videos in the past from Reason.com. It's a libertarian site - and they don't seem to like Trump. I'm really hoping that if he's the libertarian he claims he is, he too will get disgusted with Trump.

Conservatives and liberals don't combine to make up all of the population. Besides moderates, there's other subgroups, and even conservatives include libertarians who might be freaked out at what they're getting.

On another subject, a bunch of people protested Milo Yiannopoulos giving a speech at UC Berkeley - and sadly it got violent. That fucking violence plays into the right's hands. These idiots need to learn to stop their god damn violence - I realize it's caused by individuals, not everyone, but all it takes is one dumbass setting a limosuine on fire. The left needs to get the message out that violence backfires. Not a tepid "it's not the answer", but that it fucking backfires. That it emboldens the right and changes public opinion in that direction. I'm really disturbed by this.

blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#172109: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:30:31 AM

'It's not "the left" that got violent. it was obe specific faction that calls themselves "antifa".

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#172110: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:31:25 AM

[up][up]The problem is that A) emotions run high during demonstrations, making it hard to simply hold back when people get up in your face, and B) protest are often infiltrated by groups that have interest in it turning violent, like anarchists that just want to see everything burn.

edited 2nd Feb '17 6:31:49 AM by Kayeka

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#172111: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:38:26 AM

And there's the issue that violence sometimes is indeed the best answer/solution to a problem, if not the only viable one. It's hard to look at the history of the world dealing with Nazism, then look back at what's happening now, and not have thoughts along the lines of "OMG WE'RE ABOUT TO BECOME NAZI GERMANY!" and then conclude that since only violence proved to be a feasible solution against the threat of Naziism, the same holds true for Trumpism / modern GOPism once it's evident that the non-violent checks and balances built into the political system have utterly failed.

edited 2nd Feb '17 6:39:28 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#172112: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:45:08 AM

President Trump asks to pray for Schwarzenegger's 'Apprentice' ratings at the National Prayer Breakfast according to CNN

I'm legitimately sitting here in awe with my jaw on the floor

New Survey coming this weekend!
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#172113: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:47:43 AM

I'm really not surprised at this point. Trump is a shallow manchild being led about by genuinely scary Chessmasters.

Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#172114: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:50:40 AM

You know what? Being a total assbag is one thing. It's generally something we expect from people attracted to political office. But being so completely shameless and open about it just really feels like a slap in the face.

This is a guy who actually believes to have been blessed by God.

blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#172115: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:52:01 AM

We've had vicious kings and we've had idiot kings, but I don't think we've ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a king before...

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#172116: Feb 2nd 2017 at 6:55:35 AM

Trump says "don't worry" about his combative phone calls with Australia and Mexico. DON'T TELL ME HOW TO FEEL. And maybe I wouldn't worry if you showed even a shred of competence at your job. Instead, we're in danger of breaking decades old alliances and starting Cold War II/World War III.

edited 2nd Feb '17 7:05:01 AM by speedyboris

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#172117: Feb 2nd 2017 at 7:28:53 AM

It's kind of sad that Trump would arguably be doing better as POTUS if he just spent the entirety of his term golfing.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#172118: Feb 2nd 2017 at 7:31:59 AM

Not sure who had posted/linked to it, but there was a scarily plausible theory that part of the reason why Trump acted like such an ass on that Australia call (besides the obvious) is that he was told that the PM was a member of Australia's Liberal party and he assumed that Liberal meant liberal in the U.S. sense. And when you couple Trump's hatred of liberals and hatred of refugees...

Also, I take back the vaguely good things I had said about Trump's Supreme Court nominee. Although this is from the Daily Mail, apparently he started a club called Fascism Forever to protest against the left wing politics of teachers at his (exclusive, all male Jesuit prep) school. And generally seems to have been the typical right wing ideologue young conservative.

So if Democrats needed a reason to vote against and/or filibuster him, here it is.

It kind of annoys although doesn't really surprise me to find this kind of thing out. Originalism is often to varying extents a cover for conservative political views, but I don't think that every Originalist legal thinker has this kind of outright "stick it to liberals" thing, especially one where they jokingly identify themselves with Fascism.

Edit- Also, wonder if Trump/Bannon knew about this and considered it a feature rather than a bug.

edited 2nd Feb '17 7:32:45 AM by Hodor2

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#172119: Feb 2nd 2017 at 8:00:53 AM

What does Originalism even entail? The FF were at each other's throats! Extrapolating their intent as the sole source of legality seems even more futile and insane than Ultraorthodox Talmudism or Wahabbism.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Balmung Since: Oct, 2011
#172120: Feb 2nd 2017 at 8:04:32 AM

It supposedly means "read the Constitution as the Founders intended" or "only read the exact text of the Constitution and nothing else". In practice, it means "rule hard conservative/reactionary all the time and cover it up with some warm feelsy Constitution words".

And yes, it is exactly as insane as the things you compare it to.

edited 2nd Feb '17 8:05:06 AM by Balmung

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#172121: Feb 2nd 2017 at 8:09:37 AM

Just on the matter between Small and Big government, I can hear Madison and Hamilton screaming obscenities at each other, and see Jefferson advocate the former but end up promoting the latter.

edited 2nd Feb '17 8:09:54 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Krieger22 Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018 from Malaysia Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: I'm in love with my car
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
#172122: Feb 2nd 2017 at 8:10:25 AM

Trump is threatening to cut funding to U. C. Berkeley following protests against Milo. As expected. Is there dom/sub slash fic of Trump and Milo yet?

The Baffler: Extreme Hating

“I had always hoped,” our nation’s first President wrote to one of its first refugees, “that this land might— become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” It was 1787 and François Van der Kemp, an anti-monarchist radical, had fled the Netherlands to seek asylum in the newly formed United States, to escape persecution and imprisonment by the Prince of Orange.

Two hundred and thirty years later, orange has become synonymous with tyranny on the other side of the Atlantic, and the horizon of our time as a “safe and agreeable Asylum” is within view.

Last Friday, the White House suspended all refugee admissions to the United States, cancelled the Syrian refugee program, and stopped issuance, processing, and admissions of visa holders (and, briefly, lawful permanent residents) from seven Muslim-majority nations. The order (and Trump himself) suggested possible exceptions for Christians from these countries even while Muslims overwhelmingly remain the principal victims of ISIS and associated terror groups.

Chaos ensued, not only from thousands of Americans turning out for spontaneous protests, but from within the administration itself as it quickly became clear that these orders were issued without consultation or (in a supreme irony) vetting from the Department of Homeland Security.

Many of our leading political and media lights have come together over the past three days to denounce this order as contrary to American values and refugee policy, but this is, to be generous, an optimistic view of the evidence. U.S. federal immigration policy has historically been designed not to attract the immigrants that we want, but to exclude those that we do not.

Congress began to exercise its plenary power to legislate immigration in 1882, and to review its efforts to filter out the undesirables amongst the huddled masses is to stroll through a rogue’s gallery of our historical Others. Of the dozens of possible subjects, one might pause to consider Chinese nationals (1882), polygamists (1891), anarchists (1903), homosexuals (1917), Communists (1950), and the HIV-positive (1987). Each of these policy choices were purely reactionary, a defense against the latest perceived threat to our national security and way of life. Many have been eased or lifted with changing national priorities and social sensibilities. Others remain.

On the 74th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—a terrorist assault subsequently used to justify othering and detaining thousands of U.S. citizens—U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed a new category of inadmissibility: Muslims. Citing a single, thoroughly discredited survey conducted by Islamophobic conspiracy peddler Frank Gaffney, Trump solemnly informed his base in a rare scripted rally appearance that their Muslim neighbors hated them. “Where this hatred comes from and why,” he read, awkwardly, “we will have to determine.”

Trump’s own boundless capacity for hatred should be evident to anyone who has watched him stomp and grimace his way around the national stage during the most indecently grueling (and gruelingly indecent) Presidential campaign in modern American history. Where this hatred comes from and why, we will have to determine.

While Friday’s executive order is not the ban Trump promised, no serious thinking person expected that a full-on ban on Muslim immigration could have possibly been accomplished with any immediacy. This is merely the opening salvo in a long war of attrition against our national moral center.

The initial draft of the proposed order was circulated last Wednesday to the general alarm of the immigration bar and policy experts. Taken on its own broad, poorly-drafted terms, it read as a hard stop not only to the issuance of new immigrant and non-immigrant visas from a handful of majority-Muslim nations—citizens of which were collectively responsible for not a single instance of terrorism on American soil—but to the admission of current non-immigrant visa holders, newly-issued immigrant visa holders, and even long-time lawful permanent residents. This is exactly how it was applied this weekend, until federal judges in New York, Boston, and beyond weakened the immediate impact of the order, and the White House oafishly reversed its prior reversal of DHS’s announcement that green-card holders would be exempt.

Why this? Why now? There was no exigency, no Reichstag fire, no 9/11; not even a passing reference to a thwarted sleeper cell. If our intelligence services—even in the diminished and accessorized role the new administration seems to prefer them—have any credible evidence to support this extreme measure, they have remained silent. And other than a principled statement of opposition from Senators John Mc Cain and Lindsey Graham, Trump’s own party has quietly acquiesced along with a number of Democrats. Seeing so many accept the unacceptable during a time of relative peace should be reason for all of us to be concerned about what might be to come in more turbulent times.

Refugees are a human creation, the inevitable products of human prejudice. While we refer to disaster victims around the world as “refugees,” famine and plague and natural disaster claim their casualties indiscriminately without regard to race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, or anything else. Humanity has recognized a special moral obligation to refugees since before the time that the Torah was put to parchment.

Sweeping restrictions closer to the scale of what has just been put into place were reasonably implemented around both world wars, true national emergencies with defined national enemies. Yet even then our failure to allow visas for thousands of Jewish refugees trying to flee Europe as Hitler’s intentions became unavoidably clear is a source of national shame. Or, at least, it was before we had an American president who specifically erased any mention of Jews from Holocaust Remembrance Day in an affirmance of his commitment to the white supremacist “all lives matter” crowd.

Friday’s order could not have made it more clear that all lives do not, in fact, matter, and that some lives matter above others. The permanent suspension of our commitment to resettle Syrian refugees is a moral outrage, but there is simply no acceptable justification whatsoever for the 120-day suspension of all admission of refugees from around the world beyond the obvious: Trump’s rapid, relentless effort to normalize the unthinkable.

It is reasonable to conclude that the small junta at the top of this administration responsible for this order would end our entire refugee resettlement program tomorrow if given the opportunity. We must not allow them that opportunity.

The private-public partnership between the U.S. government and the “VOLAGs” (voluntary agencies), which employ the resources of private charities to resettle refugees is one of our country’s greatest humanitarian success stories. Millions have been peacefully resettled and assimilated at minimal cost to U.S. taxpayers, and they have flourished in the way that only those who have seen the very worst of what humans can do to one another can do, when shown the life-saving kindness of strangers. If our nation were only bending a little further down King’s moral arc toward true justice, we would celebrate the exceptional achievements of our refugee program as a matter of national pride. Instead, we are promised that the most complex series of background checks ever designed and implemented for incoming immigrants by any government in Earth’s history will be made more “extreme” while Trumpists eagerly await the fulfillment of the full ban on Muslim immigrants which they were promised.

Trump signed this order within the first week of his presidency, and there are 207 more long weeks left for his administration to slowly normalize and expand the idea not only that some countries will no longer be supplying immigrants to ours, but that one of the world’s major religions poses an inherent risk to our nation’s interests and well-being. We must hold the line. We must keep our eyes, hearts, and minds open, and our bodies in the streets and airports. If we deny our heritage as a nation of immigrants, we will be proven a nation of cowards.

Matt Cameron is the managing partner of Cameron Law Offices, and a visiting lecturer at Northeastern University.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
carbon-mantis Collector Of Fine Oddities from Trumpland Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: Married to my murderer
Collector Of Fine Oddities
#172123: Feb 2nd 2017 at 8:11:39 AM

The way "Originalism" usually plays out is someone claiming their interpretation is the same as the founders, thus it is immutable.

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#172124: Feb 2nd 2017 at 8:14:53 AM

[up]x5:

Background: Two broad interpretations of Constitutional law: 1.) That the exact textual meaning of the constitution must be followed at all times — that which is not explicitly outlined in the Articles and the Amendments is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is there to wrangle government when it goes outside this framework; 2.) The Constitution is a living document, to be interpreted within the context of the times. Just because something is not explicitly mentioned, mandated, or permitted in the text does not make it unconstitutional if it follows the "spirit" of the Constitution's text. The Supreme Court interprets the constitutionality of legislation and declares whether it is or isn't constitutional (judicial review).

Republicans are generally pro-originalism, Democrats are generally anti-originalism.

edited 2nd Feb '17 8:15:14 AM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#172125: Feb 2nd 2017 at 8:15:47 AM

While not a fan of libertarianism, I do hope that reason.com is right when they say Trump's power is fragile. But I think they're naïve. These are the same kinds of people who think that "the rational free market" is both real and a good thing. Maybe they're placing too much faith in people being rational. That doesn't sound very rational to me.


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