(April 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm)Heywood Wrote: First, majorities do not oppress minorities. Groups in power oppress the groups without power. The white minority oppressed the black majority for years in South Africa....but you are probably too young to remember that. I can give you numerous other examples. If you want to stop oppression, don't let power get concentrated. How do you stop power from getting concentrated? Empower the individual...let them have the power.

I'm not sure this is axiomatic, but I'll give it to you.

(April 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm)Heywood Wrote: Second, it was government intervention that caused segregation in the first place. If you knew your history, you would know that African americans were doing a fine job digging themselves out of poverty after slavery. It took government actions like Jim Crow laws and wage regulations to shove them off the economic ladder.

This is blatantly misrepresenting things. You are making government out to be some entity apart from human forces. The reason government made segregation laws in the first place is because men believed black people to be inferior to them, and thought everything would be better for everyone if everyone just stuck with their own kind. So they wrote laws. Racist people made racist laws. You represent things like the will of the men in power (read: majority) had nothing to do with government.

(April 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm)Heywood Wrote: Third, Slavery is absolutely being forced to do something against your will. If you do not want to call it slavery, then call it extortion. No matter what you call it, it isn't pretty. Forcing a baker to provide services to a person he doesn't wish to provide is absolutely slavery. It is economic rape.....It is sad that you advocate such a system.

You use these words pretty nonchalantly, Heywood. They mean very real things, and you are being very disrespectful.

It is very much not slavery or rape or even extortion to insist that if you want to open a business in a progressive society, you are obliged not to discriminate based on things a person cannot help, like race, sexuality, gender, or age. You can hold whatever beliefs you want, but if you want to open a public business, it's not allowed.

(April 26, 2014 at 5:33 pm)Heywood Wrote:

(April 26, 2014 at 5:18 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: Yes. The government caused segregation. That's it. Individuals weren't interested in segregation, or lynchings or cross burning. It was all the government forcing them to do it. Just like the government is forcing cake bakers to discriminate when they don't want to discriminate, but are afraid the government will step in and not let them discriminate.

Separate but equal was a legal doctrine....not an individual one.

Segregation was the result of the The Black Codes , Jim Crow Laws, and court decisions like Plessy vs Ferguson. If you knew your history you would know it was the state that caused segregation.

Had there been no Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, state mandated segregation, minimum wage, there would have been no Segregation for the state to fix. DP claims the state fixed it but completely forgets or ignores it was the state that caused it in the first place. How did that happen? Well you had a bunch of people in power telling the rest how to behave. I'm sorry but the solution to our social ills isn't a small group of people telling other people how to behave. The solution to our social ills is let people be free.

Yes, and it was a legal doctrine because of individual involvement in government, and had to be repealed BY THE GOVERNMENT because of said individuals.

Apparently you are demanding the government switch back to the support of Separate But Equal principles, but without Government involvement. You are demanding the Government tacitly support discrimination that happens to be in line with your crazy religious views, which is also verboten by the policy of separating church from state.

You don't have an argument here, you have "Because Jesus" and "Because I don't like it because Jesus"

(April 26, 2014 at 5:44 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: You don't have an argument here, you have "Because Jesus" and "Because I don't like it because Jesus"

Straw man argument. I never once mentioned religious reasons for my position. You mentioned religious reason because you can't defeat the argument that was made so instead you invent one and then defeat that.

Good Job....you knocked down the straw man......aren't you proud?

(April 26, 2014 at 5:49 pm)Heywood Wrote:

(April 26, 2014 at 5:44 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: You don't have an argument here, you have "Because Jesus" and "Because I don't like it because Jesus"

Straw man argument. I never once mentioned religious reasons for my position. You mentioned religious reason because you can't defeat the argument that was made so instead you invent one and then defeat that.

Good Job....you knocked down the straw man......aren't you proud?

Anyone with any exposure to politics whatever is used to seeing biblically driven arguments for laws stripped of scripture quotes to subvert separation of church and state.

Feel free to present your argument for why gays deserve discrimination, while such discrimination is not legally allowed against any other group.

HeywoodJablome Wrote:Forcing a baker to provide services to a person he doesn't wish to provide is absolutely slavery.

Nobody's forcing a baker to bake for anyone. The baker has the legal right to not operate a bakery. Nobody's putting a gun to the baker's head and forcing him to apply heat to bread-based food matter and sell the results to others. The baker makes the choice to do that. To do that requires certain rules to be followed.

(April 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm)Heywood Wrote: First, majorities do not oppress minorities.

They potentially can in democratic societies where majorities elect representatives into power. The dilemma for democracies, as Alexis de Tocqueville discussed early in America's history, was "tyranny of the majority". This is why the 14th amendment is so important. The will of the majority is respected so long as the rights of the minority are protected.

Quote:The white minority oppressed the black majority for years in South Africa....

Which was not a country were the black majority could vote.

Quote:If you want to stop oppression, don't let power get concentrated. How do you stop power from getting concentrated?

A top tier tax rate of 90% like we had in the 1950s to prevent the wealthy from using their fortunes to buy the government. If we'd kept that, we wouldn't have the problems we have today.

Quote:Second, it was government intervention that caused segregation in the first place.

...because of the popular will of the white southern majority (see my earlier comment on Tyranny of the Majority).

Quote:Forcing a baker to provide services to a person he doesn't wish to provide is absolutely slavery.

No, it really isn't. The baker is paid for his/her services at a price he/she has set. The baker is not put in chains, forced to work for free, beaten if he/she does not and raped with impunity by the owner.

Quote:It is economic rape.....It is sad that you advocate such a system.

Oh the humanity, being compelled under threat of lawsuit not to discriminate. It's "economic rape", I tells ya. You just love your hyperbole, don't you?

(April 26, 2014 at 5:56 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote:

HeywoodJablome Wrote:Forcing a baker to provide services to a person he doesn't wish to provide is absolutely slavery.

Nobody's forcing a baker to bake for anyone. The baker has the legal right to not operate a bakery. Nobody's putting a gun to the baker's head and forcing him to apply heat to bread-based food matter and sell the results to others. The baker makes the choice to do that. To do that requires certain rules to be followed.

The argument you and others have made....is the silliest one in this thread. You know what....given that argument I think I am justified in polluting the air....because nobody is requiring that you breath. By that reasoning we do not need abortion rights because nobody forces a woman to get pregnant(in the vast majority of cases).

The baker is going to try to make a living....because human beings try to survive. The circumstances of human existence require the baker to barter his goods and services.

Absolutely stupid argument you put forth Ryantology....You are very intelligent.......I know you are much better than this.

(April 26, 2014 at 6:12 pm)Heywood Wrote: The argument you and others have made....is the silliest one in this thread. You know what....given that argument I think I am justified in polluting the air....because nobody is requiring that you breath. By that reasoning we do not need abortion rights because nobody forces a woman to get pregnant(in the vast majority of cases).

Abortion isn't a matter of public interaction. It is a personal choice.

Quote:The baker is going to try to make a living....because human beings try to survive. The circumstances of human existence require the baker to barter his goods and services.

No, they don't. They can just as easily do some other job, in which their prejudices don't present an impediment to doing business legally. After all, discrimination laws don't exist to enforce a behavioral standard (basic human courtesy. or at the very least financial self-interest probably dictate self-policing anti-discriminating policies for most employers anyway). They exist to prevent the abuses of people who don't care about basic human courtesy.

Quote:Absolutely stupid argument you put forth Ryantology....You are very intelligent.......I know you are much better than this.

If it's so absolutely stupid, why can't you justify why employers deserve special discriminatory rights, but their employees should not have the same right to discriminate?

(April 26, 2014 at 6:12 pm)Heywood Wrote: The argument you and others have made....is the silliest one in this thread. You know what....given that argument I think I am justified in polluting the air....because nobody is requiring that you breath. By that reasoning we do not need abortion rights because nobody forces a woman to get pregnant(in the vast majority of cases).

The baker is going to try to make a living....because human beings try to survive. The circumstances of human existence require the baker to barter his goods and services.

So, is it also slavery when the baker is forced to use edible ingredients in his food, and submit to certain health standards? Is it slavery when he's forced to apply for licensing for his premises? Is it slavery when he's taxed?

From what I can see, your argument is "making someone do something as a professional that they don't want to do is like slavery," which is a stupid argument anyway because the rules that we put in place are to stop people from making decisions that are unfair or predatory to the consumer. More importantly, when you go broad, odds are that baker doesn't really want to be a baker either, but he's doing so to fund the things he really does want to do, like continue living.

See, that's the thing: your argument is so laser focused on this one tiny issue, but it's applicable to other things and you've given no reason for why it shouldn't be applied to those other things, bar your strange "not letting us discriminate is discrimination!" attitude.

(April 25, 2014 at 1:53 pm)YahwehIsTheWay Wrote:

(April 25, 2014 at 1:48 pm)Heywood Wrote: Big straw man argument. It is one thing to not trade with someone and another thing to put them on a rack.

What's wrong with putting a hell bound heathen on a rack?

If Hell really does exist and it is eternal, isn't a little torture and murder on this world in order to save more souls for all eternity a good thing?

After all, the torture of an unrepentant heathen is nothing compared to what our loving Lord will do to them after death. And if you kill them, you're just sending them to Hell a little ahead of schedule. And for this, you can prevent them from corrupting the minds of children and taking many more souls to Hell with them.

Isn't that a bargain? What am I missing here?

Honestly, an evangelical Christian once said, in a conversation that Quang Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who set himself on fire. Was in his suffering getting a foretaste of what he would get in hell. I guess that sort of mentality is bound to occur when somebody who is fairly intelligent and likes to think things out, gets high on the Jesus drug.

Down below is the picture of Quang Duc setting himself on fire.