I wonder if you share this view: I tend to look at most things as either progressing or regressing. Equal rights seems to be a progressive issue to me. In order for any social issue to change, a transition must occur. Since a transition must occur, it must be judged based on its rate of progression, rather than its state only.

Agreed. And the US government has done a great job with handling social issues such as this and segregation. I know that the USAF was the first government department to fully desegragate in '47 and I know that women aren't paid any less or promoted any less in said service branch.

Change is hardly ever instant - and rarely should be.

And for those who feel that what you do in private doesn't affect others: tell that to the children of the parent who OD'd on crack or alcohol, or the neighbors of the kid-genius who built a small nuclear reactor in his garage and couldn't properly contain the radiation, or the spouse who contracted the HIV virus from an unfaithful partner.

Every choice has a consequence - and I don't have to try something just because someone told me not to. I know not to point a loaded gun at my temple and pull the trigger without trying it. I know that whizzing on an electric fence isn't the brightest idea either. You may feel its okay to sit in your room and jack-off to the Sear's lingerie catalog, or smoke some pot while watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force - but those decisions have consequences. A childhood friend liked to masterbate, making a life-long habit out of it. He became addicticed to porn (a needed source to fulfill his habit), and his attitude toward sexuality was very carnal. He became prone to cheating on his wife, caught the HIV virus and passed it onto his faithful spouse (all this happening over a course of 20 years). Another high school aquaintance loved a little pot, especially before his MTV liquid television or Orange Clockwork viewing. He loved the feeling of being high - of having his mind expand. Soon MJ wasn't so exciting, and he was found dead 2 weeks after high school graduation from crack OD - full college academic scholarship lying on his desk. He could've become a great military officer, or discover the next-best libido drug, or simply pass that knowledge onto future high school students: but now his worm-infested corpse lies six feet under a California graveyard.

Not that everyone who masturbates or smokes pot is going to end up like these people, but that possibility exists for each who does. Stop with the little things, and you cannot progress into something more serious. Will your life be less without jerking off, or a little chemical high? If you really think so, then you have a very limited exposure to what life can really offer you.

"Wise is the man who learns from his own mistakes, but wiser is the man who learns from the mistakes of others."

I'll wait for a black or woman president before I say progress has been made since the last major update, right now things are just getting cockblocked into the back burner with other issues

Clinton '08

I'll be very suprised if Hillary is nominated in 2008 - let alone the Democrat's pick to represent the party. Hillary's just another Kerry, only louder. I think democrats, in hind perspective, mutually agree that Kerry was a weak canidate (much like his campaign strategy - weak). If the democrat's are going to beat out the Gobernator in '08 they need to find a 'moral liberal'. If that canidate happens to be black or female or both - so be it, you may get your wish Baron. But making an individual's race or sex an issue is racism/sexism. I could care less about the pigment of your skin, or the shape of your sexual gonads - since when does that make you a good/poor decision maker?

It's all about the issues.

what

No I don't. I support majority rule, but not absolute majority rule. It's far too easy to get 51% majority for supreme simple majority rule. I never said anything to the contrary.

Edit: Also, Daeath, no democrat will have to run against the Governator for quite some years, and it certainly won't be in '08 :P

Then I am not understanding your argument. If you want to suggest majority rule as a better solution than absolute majority rule, okay. But I am still having trouble seeing how a decision with majority support will be overturned by this "49%" minority. When does majority rule turn into absolute majority rule?

I think we agree but are just wording the arguments in different ways.

Absolute majority rule is when the 51% majority of voters has the power to vote the other 49% out, making them a 100% majority.

Majority rule is when certain rights like voting are guaranteed. :p

Just like there are nukes in iraq

Just curious so don't blow up with some crazy attack on my intelligence but has the iraq war personally affected you or are you just using it as a crutch to support your obvious bitterness?

going to war is a huge fucking deal, and sending your country to war with the notion of a preemptive strike (which is a lie) and then have it proven that the whole thing was a lie is a huge fucking deal.

ever watch the news? it went from
shock and awe
hunt for saddam
operation iraqi freedom

notice how there is a lack of operation wtfsecure the wmd caches? once we blew the crap out of one of the oldest civilizations in the world (which I could give a fuck about don't think I care about iraqis), we hunted down their insane leader (sure why not he's a douchebag), looked for his supposed nukes and bio bombs and couldn't find shit so then seamlessly moved into "liberating" the iraqis.

That's a misrepresentation. Because majority rules on an issue does not make that majority 100%. It makes them the majority. By the way, for reference, you might want to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority, which describes absolute majority, among others.
If the majority does not agree with the minority, then the minority's voting rights have been infringed? I am still having trouble understanding why the minority should have power over the majority.

Ok, been reading for a while. No real strong arguments that I felt needed a comeback against. But I'll comment on a couple things.

I would say, punish the true crime, no something that happened to take place before the crime. Charge child neglect as such. I know parents who are great parents and do drugs. People have been charged with passing AIDS on to a partner, that is a crime. But the unfaithfulness is not (though depending on vows you made, could be a verbal contract for faithfulness).
It is not anyones business what I think about these things. Maybe life would be less without them. That is for me to decide, not you.

Oh well, people will awlays try and tell other people the "propper" way they should be living their own lives. Great thing this is a free and fairly liberal country where those A-holes will eventually lose.

I think as far as the iraq war goes, obviously the nuke thing was sort of overblown. We can all pretty much agree there's no nuclear weapons. Chemical and biological weapons are a different story, he used them in the past. There are satellite photos, as well as on the ground intelligence that watched him move large numbers of trucks into syria days before the war began. Also iraq is about the size of california in terms of landmass, not to mention half of it is barren desert and a large part of what's not is mountainous. Basically I'm still sure there are chemical and/or biological weapons in Iraq, they just haven't been found yet.

And as a side note, even though the nuclear threat was a scare tactic, which is low, iraq has now sort of fallen in under the blanket global war on terror, where it belonged. I think it was just too hard to convince the american public that even while people were fighting in afghanistan, iraq had to be handled. So yes, he lied about nukes but no, the war isn't unjustified. Also it was always about liberating iraqi's as an ancillary mission, it just wasn't as hyped by the media and the presidency as the weapons were.

route, you must believe anything. The reason was never WMD or liberating the people, those were just something that was fed to us. When the first lie was called, they came up with another story. The end does not justify the means..