No, it doesn't, because he also declared his allegiance to a group that hated and wanted to kill the first group. So that kinda complicates the nice, clear inference of people who want to increase the hatred toward Muslims and ignore the hatred toward gays.
Yes, that's true. Which is why the USA is/was referred to as Exceptional. A historical fluke that happens now and again.
ZeroHedge: The Obama administration’s pro-gun control stance has done nothing but make the gun culture stronger and cause firearms arms to fly off gun store shelves. As PlanetFreeWill's Joseph Jankowski notes, under Obama, background checks for guns reached 141.4 million through the end of May, amounting to sales of about 52,600 a day, according to the FBI... And 2016 is on pace to surpass last year’s record. --o-- Obama could have went on air and said something sensible, like: We have good regulations regarding gun ownership, we will not be augmenting these regulations, they have worked fine for decades and while this incident was tragic, the truth is gun crime in at historic lows. The truth is, this man was taught, by his father, to hate who he was: A gay Muslim man. He acted on this self-hatred in the most heinous manner. What we need to do now, is have an honest conversation about the biological reality of gender identification and sexual preference. What we're not going to do is demagogue this for political effect, but instead we're going to invite some of the top scientists from our best universities and discuss the role of biology and gender. Of course, you'll never hear anything as reasoned from a politician, that's not who they are. They're bullshitters. It's all they know. I mean, this man worked for "Home Land" Security for Christ's sake. You know, picking up non-Latino's at the boarder, without VISA's or ID or any form of any paperwork, and then driving them into the US and dropping them off in various cities around the US Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You know, because "Home Land" Security.
madanthonywayne: And the practical effect of that is ... what? As I said, the idea of a right, whether it be endowed by a creator or a "natural" right that everybody is just supposed to have (for whatever reason), is a useful idea, but in practical terms if other people (including people forming governments) aren't willing to respect the right nothing will happen. What is really being argued in many cases where people complain about "rights" being violated, are ideas of morality. Rights are tied up with doing what most people believe is right most of the time, or something like that. More specifically, a right usually involves legal recognition of an interest, based on moral considerations. Historically, rights endowed by the Creator, or "natural" rights, have regularly been applied only to subsets of the human race, and more recently to only human beings, largely to the exclusion of non-human animals. Exactly who has these "natural rights" is decided by groups of human beings, and the Creator (or whoever/whatever is supposed to "grant" the rights) is largely not involved. Morality. And there we're about to open a whole other can of worms. What is this "natural law" you speak of? If we look at the natural world, life is mostly "nasty, brutish and short", as Hobbes had it. So in what sense is this natural world somehow the source of "natural rights"? Yes. And these rights are legally recognised in the more enlightened societies. Nevertheless, there are many examples of societies in which rape and murder, for example, are commonly-used tactics, especially in war and oppressive regimes. Exactly my point. Rights exist only in so far as people and their representatives are willing and able to put them into effect.
Michael: True. If you have secret police looking over your shoulder all the time, it is probably more difficult to go around murdering people willy nilly. If by "sensible governance" you are here referring to Australia becoming an oppressive communist state, I guess my answer is: significantly more than currently die needlessly by gun violence. That's assuming, of course, that the major effective societal change of such a change in regime would be in regard to the gun violence, which I very much doubt would be the case in such a scenario. Notice, however, that I am not shouting "Never! You can take the guns from my cold dead hands!" like you are. See? Rationality.
On certain matters, yes. Interesting that you believe that. I would be interested to know how you make the leap from human consciousness to moral rights. But that's probably a topic more suited to the Philosophy forum. Like I said, that's a useful fiction you have. See above for further explanation. Are you waving your penis now, Michael? Do you think you are an "alpha male" because you like your gun rights? Who are these beta males you are thinking of, specifically? Are you trying to insult me, perhaps? And what is virtue-signalling? Your repetition of an empty claim continues to make it no more true than before. You know you have what they call a "tell" in poker, Michael? It is this: whenever you're not confident in your arguments, your use of "LOL" increases exponentially. I guess you're trying to buoy up your own confidence by trying to laugh things off or something. Anarchy is a state of lawlessness. My relationships with family and friends etc. are conducted within the law. Nice speech about slavery and all, but I'd say that preventing the unnecessary gun deaths of innocent people is a moral aim, as opposed to clinging onto the guns because of some kind of ill-defined notion of "natural" rights.
LOL Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! How's that? LOL Kant identified four kinds of government: Law and freedom without force (anarchy). Law and force without freedom (despotism). Force without freedom and law (barbarism). Force with freedom and law (republic). Then I assume you are in favor of Australia transitioning towards Communism. Given Communism is empirically evidenced to be a much safer society. As for the US, we don't have a gun problem. Never did. Still don't. As a matter of fact, gun violence is at 50 year lows.
Grotesquerie (Part the First) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Look, I don't know if you remember the time you posted anti-Hispanic racism, then used your authority as a moderator to strike the denunciations on the grounds that posting racism and ethnic stereotyping is okay but accusing racism is an unfair personal attack. In our subsequent discussion you even pointed out that you participated in Republican Party politics, and, look, that is what it is, except you really do seem just a shill generating useless talking points. #160↑ responds to #159↑, but the general point of my post is still the same as it was when you wrote #101↑ ten days ago, which in its turn responded to #97-98↑. Indeed, the general point of my posts then was the same as it was when I entered this thread: • It seems an important point, though I admit it's a little harder to fit into the larger scheme. And the contrast is to figure out what it means compared to the Shoney's incident (they must be plotting), or shaking down a Muslim for taking a photo (he must be casing). I don't have an answer for that, but not only are the people on, for lack of better term, "my side" in a general context pertaining to these issues ready to put down any baiting talk, it seems the people from that nebulous "other side", who often try to tie everything having to do with Muslims and various Muslim-related ethnic heritages to international terror, are also showing some degree of restraint. Unfortunately, this latter might well be forced by stupid political violence in South Carolina and Colorado, and our long unwillingness to call Christian terrorism by its name. But one of the fascinating things about these moments is watching Americans somehow fail to lose their shit. Amid everything else wrong with a day like today, there is this hopeful glimmer. (#10↑) • American queers will stand; we have practice with people trying to kill us in the name of their religion. In the context of your pro-Daa'ish culture-war messaging, it's worth pointing out bloodthirsty, delusional, hatemongering American Christians were good practice. (#18↑) • A closet case with a gun .... Just sayin'. (#21↑) • Every time we hear our fellow Americans ranting their demands for wicked political (ahem!) correctness about "radical Islam" and "fundamentally incompatible historical traditions", I am only reminded that I already know who the enemy is. (#31↑) • And then there are the politics: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)↱ is on our side, now, or so we are expected to believe but only because he wants us to hate Muslims; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)↱ is most worried about the poor, defenseless guns; Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)↱, facing a desperate re-election fight, follows Rubio down that path and then sprints past him in a manner making the difference between an AR-15 and a bomb very, very important; Donald Trump↱, the de facto leader of the Republican Party, reiterates his terrified, xenophobic nationalism; and it turns out thirty-two percent↱ of respondents to the latest Gallup poll on the subject favor requiring Muslims in the U.S. to carry special, mandatory identification. (#32↑) Do you get it yet? Because next is the part where the discussion focuses more particularly on Christians― • Whether we wish to blame this mass murder on international terrorism or a mix of the closet, guns, homophobia, and adoption of an antisocial emblem―say what we want about this one, but Muslim heritage says nothing about the six-two, stick-skinny, floppy-haired, young white Christian I know who, sure, has every reason to complain, but if the family was to be believed before they actually heard the word and started changing their description, is presently radicalizing and adopting corrupted Islam while in Ecuador whereas this time last year he looked forward to joining the Marine Corps―the Orlando Massacre is at root a matter of prejudicial hatred. And right now, when when sick values like those of Mr. Sessions speak their voice, the rest of America simply brushes them aside. Our society will not at this time tolerate mitigating excuses like we heard in the wake of Mother Emanuel and Planned Parenthood. (#46↑) • The question is pretty straightforward: Is Roger Jimenez a terror sympathizer, or simply bloodthirsty in the name of Christ? .... Imagine if we treated Christians the way we treat Muslims. (#48↑) • Specifically, the idea of killing us off is hardly new .... (#59↑) ―leading up to the part where you pick up with your usual, wilfully invalidating dishonesty and arrogance. • You do not get to deny "America". The Orlando shooter was also an American; he grew up in our culture, was educated in our schools. He lived in Florida. Throughout the entirety of his life, the primary driver in normalizing overt, belligerent discrimination against homosexuals, and normalizing violence and violent rhetoric against homosexuals. (#97↑) • People who advocated all manner of hatred against homosexuals are now trying to cast themselves as our friends in order to enlist us in their Christian-supremacist crusade against Muslims. (ibid) • Having societal institutions crashing against people for the sake of Christianity is really, really unhealthy for the objects of Christian hatred. It is also really, really unhealthy for everyone else. This shooter was an American. He made his decisions in a context inextricable from American culture. The one thing you don't get to do is wash Christianity's hands of its contribution to these outcomes. Christianity is the justifying argument normalizing violence and violent rhetoric against homosexuals. (ibid) • Still, though, if you wish to advocate on their behalf, you should probably try working with reality. Twenty-five years, now, I've been hearing Christians calling for our murders, and that's simply since I tuned into the issue of gay rights because a bunch of Christians went out of their way to demand that I did. Though we've won out over the years, violent rhetoric has become so normalized within Christian circles that this year Republican presidential candidates pitched to be seen demonstrating their piety for the sake of being seen beside others alongside a crazed Christian deathmonger. That's pretty normalized. The Christian response to suicide rates among gay youths was to restrict access to counseling and mental health resources through legislatures. Organized legislative response counts as pretty normalized .... This has been going on longer than the shooter was alive. (ibid) • People have pointed to American Christians' involvement in the Uganda bill; Scott Lively has long had the ear of Christian radio and print media; consulting with foreign governments as American Christian advisors is pretty damn normalized. (ibid) • In trying to make this about "Muslims", conservative Christians have been erasing the queer community from its own tragic experience↑. It really is a weird thing to watch. You present the other effect, erasing America from its own tragic experience. (ibid) • Christians are the prevailing driver of murderous homophobia in the United States of America, where Omar Mateen was born, raised, and educated; the fact that he was Muslim is exactly as important or incidental as Christianity is in considering Eric Rudolph, Paul Hill, Scott Roeder, Robert Lewis Dear, and other Christians so notorious. (ibid) • You don't get to erase all this. You don't get to pretend it doesn't exist. (ibid) That last post is one you ignored entirely, the first part of the one you did, in fact, respond to. ―End Part I―
Grotesquerie (Part the Second) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And that's the thing; it's not just me you're ignoring. Like our neighbor↑ Bowser↑, who insists↑ on a pretense of ignorance↑, you require simplifications↑ ignoring―at best, if not wilfully misrepresenting―what other people write. If you actually pay attention to and respect what I and other people are saying, you'll find that "because......you don't like Christians?" really is that stupid. And I use the word stupid because the other choice is sinister. Go through that part leading up to #97-98, and try actually reading and paying attention to and respecting what other people are saying. For instance, we have different views regarding the role of the elder Mateen's homophobia, but you didn't bother with actually addressing any of that because you were too busy simplifying to the point of idiocy. There is the question that of appearances of anti-American militancy and homophobia, only the fact that the father was Muslim seems to stand out. The militancy and the homophobia have been with us the whole time; once again it is simply a question of who gets to behave like white Christians. Why didn't the Muslim father's homophobia stand out until after the fact? As I noted, it wasn't Muslims who normalized bigoted violence in the United States of America. How convenient that you just happen to know more about the homosexual experience in America than homosexuals themselves. It's disgraceful. The thing is that for various reasons, some of which are even Biblical, many liberal Christians don't identify in any manner countervailing conservative evangelical Christianity; even if we pretend these liberal Christians are some manner of statistical majority, they do not have the overt market impact their conservative, squeaky-wheel brethren have managed to create over the years. In the end, the Christianity that affects the daily lives of my queer brothers and sisters so terribly, that hounds women even beyond the grave from sea to shining sea and beyond, that advocates, sympathizes with, and normalizes political violence, is not found among this apparent minority of liberal Christians. We know they exist; they've been in the fight before. We needed their votes to win when we won. But they're not really doing anything to refute the evangelical conservative claim to represent and define Christianity; the discourse has essentially written them out until they get back into the fight. Right now, it appears only a small handful, and they generally know to not protest the avalanche of criticism crashing on "Christianity" for the sake of their bigoted brethren having so defined the word. There really is no way around it: Christians made a tangible contribution to Omar Mateen's decision. I take it back; there is a way around it. That is, one can pretend astounding ignorance of history particularly relevant to the subject they purport to discuss. (#98↑; boldface accent added) These basic, matter-of-factish retorts from conservatives aim only to invalidate history and experience. To reiterate Marcotte↱, "If Republicans can trick people into thinking this was some kind of generic Islamic assault on the West, then they can run the terrorists-are-coming-for-you script that has worked so well for them politically in the past." It's an important point, one you overlook when invalidating the gay American experience; Steve Benen↱ suggested, in the wake of the atrocity, that "Congressional Republicans, by and large, chose to overlook" the homophobic aspect: In an interesting twist, though, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was a notable exception. The right-wing Texan is a fierce opponent of expanding civil rights to the LGBT community, but note how his statement yesterday referenced the Orlando gunman's targets. "For all the Democrats who are loud champions of the gay and lesbian community whenever there is a culture battle waging, now is the opportunity to speak out against an ideology that calls for the murder of gays and lesbians. "ISIS and the theocracy in Iran (supported with American taxpayer dollars) regularly murder homosexuals, throwing them from buildings and burying them under rocks. This is wrong, it is evil, and we must all stand against it. Every human being has a right to live according to his or her faith and conscience, and nobody has a right to murder someone who doesn't share their faith or sexual orientation. "If you're a Democratic politician and you really want to stand for LGBT, show real courage and stand up against the vicious ideology that has targeted our fellow Americans for murder" Got that? Republicans in general were loath to mention the role of anti-LGBT attitudes in the Orlando attack, but Cruz saw an opportunity―not because of his sympathies, but because the slayings might be a wedge issue. Follow Cruz's logic here: 1. Violent religious crackpots are anti-gay. 2. Democrats support gay rights. 3. Therefore, Democrats should join the Republicans' anti-Muslim campaign. It's a pretty decent summary; in this particular case of conservative now-more-than-everism, we're supposed to forget that the people appealing to us to finally get on board with their persecutory anti-Islamic plans actually hate us. Or, as Benen put it: What Cruz doesn't seem to appreciate is the fact that the LGBT community and its allies already know that radicalized loons hate gay people―just as we know Ted Cruz pals around with Christian extremists who believe Scripture demands the death penalty for homosexuality. It even got to the point that Sen. Pete Sessions (R-TX)↱ tried to pretend the Pulse wasn't a gay club. Mark Joseph Stern↱ reminded, "Republicans Are Erasing LGBTQ People From Their Own Tragedy". We're not going to side with one group of people who wants us dead in order to foster a war against another group of people who wants us dead, all the while ignoring the fact that in both cases these are outliers. To reiterate, the fact that he was Muslim is exactly as important or incidental as Christianity is in considering Eric Rudolph, Paul Hill, Scott Roeder, Robert Lewis Dear, and other Christians so notorious. In other words, if you and Ted Cruz and Donald Trump want us to have this talk about Muslims, we're also having this talk about Christians. You don't get to pretend this is new. If we blame Muslims for Seddique Mir Mateen and his closet case son, we also blame Christians for their contribution to the normalization of political violence in general and homophobic violence in particular. Look, I can't tell the nice Christian down the street who has nary a problem in the world with gay people what they need to do in order to protect themselves from people like Ted Cruz, or Roger Jiminez, and Kevin Swanson. The problem is so apparent that Bowser is even trying to whitewash↑ the Christian↑ experience↗ in America. What is my point, then? My point is the same as it's been the whole time. You don't get to erase the gay experience from this. You don't get to erase the Christian experience from this. You don't get to erase the American experience from this. That Omar Mateen was a Muslim means exactly what it means that Ted Cruz's terrorist pals are Christians. (Seriously, did you miss that fun little bit, too? When Ted Cruz and Hugh Hewitt talk about never knowing any pro-life advocates who were violent, shortly after the Texas junior acquired the endorsement of Christian terrorists? Oh, yeah, you skipped that post↑.) ____________________ Notes: Benen, Steve. "Cruz sees Orlando massacre as possible wedge issue". msnbc. 13 June 2016. msnbc.com. 30 June 2016. http://on.msnbc.com/25T6qFt —————. "GOP lawmaker says Orlando shooting site wasn't a gay club". msnbc. 15 June 2016. msnbc.com. 30 June 2016. http://on.msnbc.com/25Xlke5 Marcotte, Amanda. "The narrative falls apart: Evidence that Omar Mateen was in the closet undermines GOP framing of the Orlando shooting". Salon. 14 June 2016. Salon.com. 30 June 2016. http://bit.ly/1S5uHv3 Stern, Mark Joseph. "Republicans Are Erasing LGBTQ People From Their Own Tragedy". Slate. 12 June 2016. Slate.com. 30 June 2016. http://slate.me/1VZl5Zz ―Fin―
Michael: It tends to confirm what I wrote above. Looks like Kant made a blunder, then. Anarchy is usually defined as a state of lawlessness and disorder, usually resulting from a failure of government. You don't have to assume. You can read what I wrote when I addressed this point in my previous post. Did you forget you already said that, again? Still no more true than before.
Used, maybe, but not defined. Kant, or his translator, was more careful. You've seen the T-shirt reading "This is chaos. I want anarchy", no?
LOL You're confusing Barbarism with Anarchy. Well, now you know better. Good. Progress Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It should also be noted, 'Government' only delineates itself from other groups of humans in its ability to legally initiate violence against morally innocent 'Citizens' within the geopolitical landmass (State) wherein it rules. In this way, government is inherently immoral. Why anyone would think an inherently immoral institution is the bedrock of law and order is beyond me. I have noticed that belief in the State, in many ways, mirrors other superstitious beliefs. Probably for the same psycho-social reasons. Atheists earned the name Satheists due to our general predilection towards Statist Authoritarianism. I didn't say true, I said empirically evidenced. And it is. Two very different concepts. A reasoned person would look at the decades long lows in gun related violence and objectively conclude there's no 'gun problem'. There is a problem with Statism though.Which expresses itself in many ways, such as medical error and 20% functional illiteracy rates in government school graduates, and never ending wars of various sorts: War on Drugs, War on Terror, War on Poverty, War on ... Literacy (this last one was won apparently). See? This is what the State does, it wages war against morally innocent people for the 'good of society' - leaving swaths of destruction in its path. IMO, government is sort of like one of those parents who beat their children - you know, for their own 'good'. Then wonder why their kids abuse drugs and cut themselves.
