Below is my column in the Washington Post (Sunday) on our recent victory in the Sister Wives case. The column looks at the most significant aspect of the case — the rejection of morality codes that once controlled across the country in prohibiting everything from homosexuality to adultery to fornication. These morality laws were upheld in the decision in Reynolds in 1876 in a polygamy case out of Utah. The Brown decision returned us to the same question involving the same issue in the same state. Some 136 years later however the answer from this federal court was very different. We are a different country today and, despite what one hears from politicians like Rick Santorum, I believe that we are a better country today.
There does seem to be confusion about the ruling with some saying that polygamy is still not legal after the opinion. That is simply wrong. Polygamy is not the same a bigamy. One is the crime defined under cohabitation statutes of living as a plural family or with a person married to another person. The other is the crime of having two or more marriage licenses. The latter has nothing to do with the structure of your family and has almost exclusively involved people who hold themselves out (falsely) as monogamous. We always argued that the state could prosecute people who obtained more than one marriage license. Bigamy has not been an offense committed by polygamists who traditionally have one official marriage license and multiple spiritual licenses. Indeed, the law targeted polygamy with the cohabitation provision precisely because there is a difference between the two. The state fought for years to preserve this law because it reached beyond simple bigamy. Before this opinion, it was a crime for polygamists to live, as do the Browns, in a plural family. After the opinion, it is legal. This is precisely what occurred in Lawrence v. Texas where homosexual unions were a crime but then became legal when the Texas law was struck down. This decision legalizes tens of thousands of polygamous families who will no longer been viewed as criminal enterprises. They will be allowed to be open plural families. They are now legal relationships. Legality of polygamy is entirely different from recognition of plural marriages just as the legality of homosexual relations is different from the recognition of same-sex marriage.
There is also a lack of knowledge about the existence of such laws outside of Utah. This law does exist outside of Utah. Indeed, the very same language is found in the Canadian cohabitation law. I was called as a legal expert in the recent challenge to that law. However, the Canadian Supreme Court in British Columbia upheld the law. Putting these distinctions aside, the thrust of this article is how this decision is part of a larger trend toward the repeal or the striking down of morality codes, including the rejection of a cohabitation law in Virginia this year.
——————————————-
The decision this month by a federal court striking down the criminalization of polygamy in Utah was met with a mix of rejoicing and rage. What was an emancipating decision for thousands of plural families was denounced as the final descent into a moral abyss by others.
Former senator Rick Santorum was among the social conservatives trying to claim the moral high ground. He tweeted on Sunday: “Some times I hate it when what I predict comes true” — referring to his 2003 claim that legalizing “consensual sex within your home” would lead to the legalization of polygamy and “undermine the fabric of our society.” (On Wednesday, with no apparent sense of self-contradiction, he expressed outrage over the removal of a Nativity scene at a South Carolina military base, tweeting: “Our Constitution protects free exercise of religion. No govt entity/official has the right to limit that.”)It’s true that the Utah ruling is one of the latest examples of a national trend away from laws that impose a moral code. There is a difference, however, between the demise of morality laws and the demise of morality. This distinction appears to escape social conservatives nostalgic for a time when the government dictated whom you could live with or sleep with. But the rejection of moral codes is no more a rejection of morality than the rejection of speech codes is a rejection of free speech. Our morality laws are falling, and we are a better nation for it.
In the Utah case, I was the lead counsel for the Browns, the polygamous family featured in the TLC reality program “Sister Wives.” They are members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, and they have one marriage license and three “spiritual” marriages among them. After the first episode of “Sister Wives” aired, state prosecutors threatened to bring charges under a Utah law that made it a crime when a married person “purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.” The Browns were under investigation for two years and were publicly called felons before they took prosecutors to court in a challenge to the constitutionality of the law.
The case was never about the recognition of multiple marriages or the acceptance of the religious values underlying this plural family. It was about the right of consenting adults to make decisions for themselves and their families. Judge Clark Waddoups, a conservative George W. Bush appointee,ruled that the criminalization of cohabitation clearly violated the due process clause and the free exercise clause of the United States Constitution.
In doing so, he departed from the prevailing precedent: the Supreme Court’s opinion inReynolds v. United States , which upheld a ban on polygamy in 1879. Waddoups wrote that courts today are “less inclined to allow majoritarian coercion of unpopular or disliked minority groups, especially when blatant racism . . . religious prejudice, or some other constitutionally suspect motivation, can be discovered behind such legislation.”
Indeed, in Reynolds, religious and racial prejudice were vividly on display. The court unleashed a tirade of indignation and condemnation, stating, “Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.” Just a few years later, the Supreme Court also upheld the criminalization of mixed-race relations in Pace v. Alabama .
The idea that polygamy was a “barbarous practice” and contrary to democratic principles drove the demand in the late 1880s and ’90s that Utah outlaw it as a condition of statehood. And in Mormon Church v. United States (1890), the Supreme Court labeled polygamy as “abhorrent to the sentiments and feelings of the civilized world.”
The stigma attached to polygamy continued to distort legal analysis into this century. As recently as 2006, Utah Justice Ronald Nehring began his opinion in a ruling upholding the criminalization of polygamy by lamenting, “No matter how widely known the natural wonders of Utah may become, no matter the extent that our citizens earn acclaim for their achievements, in the public mind Utah will forever be shackled to the practice of polygamy.” Nehring frankly admitted that this hostility “has been present in my consciousness, and I suspect has been a brooding presence . . . in the minds of my colleagues, from the moment we opened the parties’ briefs.” Rather than overcome that prejudice, Nehring not only yielded to it but warned any Utah judge of the peril of being the first to recognize the rights of polygamists: “I have not been alone in speculating what the consequences might be were the highest court in the State of Utah the first in the nation to proclaim that polygamy enjoys constitutional protection.”
Well, it wasn’t. A federal judge in Utah assumed that burden. Gov. Gary Herbert objected to the court making “decisions on social issues.” (He has not yet announced an appeal.) Waddoups, however, was not dictating a decision on a social issue but rather saying that governments could not impose a single version of morality. He limited prosecution under Utah’s anti-polygamy law to cases of bigamy, where someone acquires more than one marriage license — which is an offense more common to monogamous couples, who care about state recognition, than polygamists, who care about spiritual recognition.
Across the country, the era of morality codes is coming to an inglorious end. This year, the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act barring the federal recognition of same-sex marriage. And this week, the New Mexico Supreme Court and another federal judge in Utah struck down the ban on same-sex marriage in those states — bringing the number to 18 states (plus the District of Columbia) where same-sex couples can marry. Meanwhile, Virginia recently repealed its 1877 cohabitation law and Colorado replealed a criminal adultery law from the 1850s — both relics of a time when states used their criminal codes to force citizens to comply with the religious values of their neighbors.
Most states have wisely turned away from absurd laws criminalizing masturbation and fornication. Obscenity laws have also been curtailed by the Supreme Court in deference to the First Amendment.
Still rightly on the books are laws against bestiality, which involves an obvious lack of consent as well as manifest harm. Likewise, incest bans are based on claims of medical, not moral, harm.
Once any crimes or abuses are stripped away in cases like the Browns’, what remains is religious animus. Yet, polygamy is widely practiced around the world by millions of families and was condoned by every major religion — from Judaism to Christianity to Islam — at one time. While plural families are called polygamists in our popular lexicon, “polygamy” actually refers to a broad array of plural relationships, from polygyny (one husband and multiple wives, like the Browns) to polyandry (a single wife and multiple husbands) to polyamory (couples who reject the exclusivity of sexual relations). The vast majority of these families are based on consenting relations among adults without abusive or criminal histories.
Critics often ignore these other plural relationships (and even polygynists like the Browns) in favor of a stereotype of “compound polygamists,” living in remote walled communities where women appear captive and molestation flourishes. It is Warren Jeffs, not Kody Brown, whom critics want to invoke in debating decriminalization — a sinister figure in a secluded compound where women wear prairie outfits and hairdos from the 19th century.
Obviously, there will always be abusers like Jeffs among polygamists — just as there are abusers among monogamists. However, it is no more persuasive to criminalize all plural relationships because of a small number of abusive individuals than it would be logical to outlaw monogamy based on the convicted spouse- and child-abusers in conventional marriages.
One of the great ironies about the focus on compound polygamists is the circular logic of criminalization. The government first declared polygamists felons and then pointed to their hiding as evidence of their guilt. But decriminalization will allow these families to be plural, open and law-abiding as they reintegrate into society.
In truth, 19th-century Americans were no more moral than we are today. It simply appeared that way with the imposition of official morals, including (as Santorum recalls so fondly) being told whom we could love in our own homes. It is not a single moral voice that is heard today but a chorus of voices. Each speaks to its own values but joins around a common article of faith: the belief that morality is better left to parents than to politicians.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and lead counsel in the “Sister Wives” polygamy case.
Washington Post (Sunday) December 22, 2013
Smaller does not equate to less corrupt.
Removing money from the electoral and legislative processes would though.
Size is – again – the wrong metric for government function.
The proper metric is functionality in service to the social contract: maximal mutual benefit in exchange for the rights limited from the state of nature by the social compact itself.
The government should be big enough to do this and no larger.
“Smaller does not equate to less corrupt.”
Gene,
This is the obvious and provable point that so few of those screaming about shrinking the Federal Government never seem to understand. The most corrupt governmental entities in our nation’s history were always at the local levels. The reason is simple: it is easier to corrupt a smaller entity because it is infinitely cheaper.
Skipples,
So. The social compact theory of law is the biggest line of BS you’ve ever heard, eh? Too bad for you it is the underpinning of modern legal theory.
_______________
Oky,
Jefferson didn’t trust banks or bankers. His opposition to the first Fed, however, was largely the same opposition that many rightly have today. Namely that it was a private corporation working with a bias toward narrow private interests at the expense of the best interests of all. This is a view I happen to share. I think the Fed as set up is a joke, but I think that in an economy of scale a central bank is necessary for a variety of economic reasons not the least of which is controlling inflation. It should be a public trust though and not a private corporation. That form puts it at odds with the function of a central bank. He also objected thought the notion violated the traditional notions of property (it didn’t) and that the Constitutional basis for forming the first Fed was weak (it was not and Hamiliton won the day). Jefferson was a brilliant man. Without question the smartest man ever to hold the Office of President. He was, however, not perfect. Hamilton had a much better grasp on economics and the necessities of some form of central bank to running a nation.
“Withdrawing our US military from foreign entanglements.”
And yet Jefferson entered us into the First Barbary War. He was against needless foreign entanglements and probably would be appalled that the US attacked Iraq in response to Saudi Arabian backed aggression, but he did understand the use of war when necessary.
“Ending the drug war.”
He’d probably have never started the drug war. However, as an aside the President that did start the drug war – Nixon – would have been someone Jefferson would have wanted hung by the neck until dead for his crimes in office instead of being pardoning.
“Restoring US national sovereignty through the written intent of the USC & returning to the people it’s Individual Rights contained there-in.”
Not at the expense of the general welfare he wouldn’t. To think it would is the logical fallacy of presentism writ large. The way Constitutional jurisprudence evolved over the years? Honestly, Jefferson would have probably had a mixed reaction to. He was certainly intelligent enough to recognize that some changes were made by the necessity of changing circumstance and were rational and while he would have objected to some expansions of Federal power, I don’t think it is either fair or accurate to think he would have objected to all expansions of Federal power. I think his biggest problem would have been the overreach Congress often has under the Commerce Clause
“Returning back to the States duties the Federal Govt unconstitutionally took over.”
See above. I also think Jefferson’s take on the Civil War would have put him squarely in Federal camp versus the Confederate camp. He was pro state’s rights but I don’t think he’d have bought the manifest bullshit the South was selling to justify slavery. He was a very conflicted man on that topic but I think he’d have leaped at the chance to end a practice he knew he could not have in his lifetime. There has been a lot of history since Jefferson. We can only guess at his reactions. They should be educated guesses though. I think that as staunch an anti-federalist he was in his battles with Hamilton that the Civil War would have modified his way of thinking. That being said . . .
“IE: local policing as opposed to this growing nationalized Gestopo & their Fed Funded Nazi check points around the holidays. I hate that crap so now I don’t even leave the property hardly during those times.”
I think he would indeed be appalled at the state of Federal law enforcement. I think he’d have been disgusted from the time of Hoover onward. The DHS? Would probably make his head explode. And while he would likely understand the need of an intelligence apparatus, I think he would have real problems with how the CIA and NSA operate. Especially post 9/11.
An area of Paul’s platform I think Jefferson would have a problem with is where they apply to fundamental rights like marriage, prayer in public schools/tax credits for private religious schools (this one would have really bent Jefferson), homeschooling, creationism (Jefferson was a scientist who “rewrote” the Bible to take out the mumbo-jumbo spooky language parts), the whole “under God” language in the pledge (Jefferson would have probably thought the pledge was ridiculous to start with, but the “under God” language would have been an issue for certain). He wouldn’t be crazy about Paul’s “privatize government services” bent either. Jefferson was very anti-tyranny including economic tyranny (which would be the natural result of privatizing most governmental services).
Just to name a few.
No. Jefferson would have been sympathetic to some of the same goals as Paul, but not all and certainly not to all the methodologies Paul would employ. In reality, Jefferson probably would be so angry at the state of modern elections and the lobbying system, he’d be fostering a second Revolution in the literal sense.
I really doubt he’d be a Paul supporter.
By the same token, I don’t think he’d be happy at all where the partisan tradition he helped found in this country has led to either. There are very few modern pols I can think of that Jefferson might endorse and that would still only be a “might”. Paul isn’t one of them, nor is his son.
Why we have to have a smaller & much less corrupt Govts & Corporations:
Around the holidays & other times of the years I’ll be reminded of past cases that causes me to get pissed all over again.
I’ll give you this as a example of the many cases I’m speaking of.
A mother finds out that a cop has raped 2 or 3 of her underage girls. She turns the video/picture evidence over to the police chief & the FBI.
The cop is put on paid leave for 3-4 months & from what I understand the case was covered up, investigation cleared him & the cop remains at his job.
Mean while Wallst banks/insur co’s are repeatedly proven to be totally criminals.
So the town that (the excused) rapist works in has a bond issue to further fund the police dept. With the ability to tax the citizen why are they borrowing money in the 1st place? But they go ahead & float a bond issue & most likely get it passed with these rigged electronic voting machines.
Then most likely, as shown in the past, Wallst banks/Insur’s takes that one bond issue & resells that one security to hundreds of pension funds & other investors.
That type blatant criminal corruption can not be allowed to continue & I’m positive it will be stopped some how.
Stopped sooner rather then later I hope.
In the mean time I’ll just have to continue to contain my anger.
GeneH,
Getting Rid of the Federal Reserve, the 16th Amd, the outright fraud by Wallst banks/insur co’s
Correcting Judaical/Legislative/Executive branch corruption.
Withdrawing our US military from foreign entanglements.
Ending the drug war.
Restoring US national sovereignty through the written intent of the USC & returning to the people it’s Individual Rights contained there-in.
Returning back to the States duties the Federal Govt unconstitutionally took over.
IE: local policing as opposed to this growing nationalized Gestopo & their Fed Funded Nazi check points around the holidays. I hate that crap so now I don’t even leave the property hardly during those times.
This is not a complete list.
But it is evidence that Jefferson’s & Paul’s positions are aligned in most areas politically.
You’ve got my curiosity up so please elaborate.
Gene H.
You wrote: “It’s not my fault you don’t understand that absolute rights are virtually non-existent in any society as a function of the social compact. In any society. I’m all for security and rights. Rarely as an absolute though, one exception being self-defense. As I said on another thread, the goal is maximal mutual benefit in exchange for the rights limited from the state of nature by the social compact itself. It’s a balancing act of restriction of the absolute rights found at the state of nature in exchange for that mutual benefit to society. The absolute rights you have at nature are only as good as you the individual are at asserting them and are – in fact – illusory and built on the personal ability to bring force to bear in their assertion. By in large, what you get for limiting rights under the social compact is a government to assert your rights that you yourself would be unable to secure unaided. But I’ve explained that many times now.”
That is the biggest line of BS I’ve every read.
Especially the mutual benefit aspects of your warped ideology. This is your goal????? Pretty screwed up and it working really well for the poor and homeless isn’t it? A free for all based on some fictitious social compact. I thought that is what our Constitution was supposed to be.
Like, I didn’t know that the ruling oligarchy were the ones that controlled the game and that they lying to everyone about how the game is played.
Are you suggesting side with he most powerful gang, not matter how despotic they are. As long as you’re protected, who cares about everyone else.
You are however right to some degree, that the myth of the rule of law is just as illusory as are absolute rights without the majority asserting them?
With this in mind, it is borderline psychopathic to not tell people this truth, and not in some academic sociological garble. To not stand up for the rights of human beings, is being cowardice. I understand what you’ve been saying all along Gene H. I just thought that you were a webtroll, I must admit however, that if you are not a troll, you are surely a coward.
You wrote “It’s a balancing act of restriction of the absolute rights found at the state of nature in exchange for that mutual benefit to society.
Allowing the ruling oligarchy to determine the restrictions is an act of cowards and I have not seen you take a stance against or for anything of relevance. Instead you mislead, demean and discourage intellectual thought for so-called good theater and for this you will remain my enemy. Scumbag.
That’s pretty good theatre isn’t it. The problem is I’m not acting.
I think the Utah sister-wives case is relevant political because I believe we’ll see it used as a wedge issue by polecats to lock-in hardline christian voters.
ie: God hates America because we are immoral, in their preacher’s eyes.
** Harry Skip Robinson 1, December 26, 2013 at 4:06 pm **
Harry,
In that documentary I posted last week: American: From Freedom to Fascism, among other points, it cites some Supreme Court decisions on the 16th amd that at least in part backup your positions.
The sooner we throw the 16thAmd/income tax/federal reserve systems in the trash can the better off most Americans will be.
“But in his day Thomas Jefferson was a liberal yet in today’s time I think he’d be appropriately called a small L libertarian, a political position close in most ways to Ron Paul’s positions.”
Then I don’t think you’re really paying attention to what Paul says or perhaps you don’t grasp what a Libertarian is versus a libertarian, Oky. Many of Paul’s ideas are straight from Ayn Rand/Objectivism and the Austrian School. He even has a theist thread running through his platform. Jefferson would be a civil libertarian by today’s paradigm without question, maybe even a libertarian, but I think his head would explode if you thought he was in line with Ron Paul’s positions. Especially the theist bent he displays. Ol’ Tommy would have had a real serious problem with that. And I’m pretty sure he’d have thought Ayn was a crazy person.
____________
Skipples,
Alex Jones is unreliable because he’s a conspiricist and a fear mongering whack job who’ll run with the most sensationalist story possible with little or no regard to verifying facts and sometimes even pursuing stories that a whole cloth fabrications.
His attention or inattention to the Utah story is irrelevant to his being a hack in general.
hski,
I like much of what GeneH writes & I understand his issues with Ann Rand.
I seen earlier today he wrote he was Liberal political & I’ve seen him state he didn’t like big L libertarians.
Maybe Gene will explain to us as a liberal today seems to mean to many that they are authoritarian socialist like TonyC.
(Just trying to help us by beat us with an authoritarian club. lol)
But in his day Thomas Jefferson was a liberal yet in today’s time I think he’d be appropriately called a small L libertarian, a political position close in most ways to Ron Paul’s positions.
hski,
I think that TonyC cat must be high on crack reading some of his thoughts. 🙂
Skip: I don’t want to be a part of that.
Fortunately for you, you are not a part of that, because what you describe is not the case. Consider your wish granted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
Oky1,
Interesting that you bring up the Cloward-Piven Strategy. I was actually working in welfare when the welfare protests began in NYC and I was right in the middle of it because my Union supported the strategy. It was a mistake by the Union and I felt used by the protesters. The CP Strategy (you have no idea how ironic that is) was a stupid one based on wishful thinking and in the end actually made the lives of people who needed welfare worse. Six years later I was working on my Master’s at Columbia and Cloward was my professor for one course. He was a pompous ass of a man, who chain smoked in class and who appeared to be a heavy drinker. He and I got into some arguments in class and he gave me a C+, which was the worst mark I received at Columbia. Living through the negative effects of that strategy taught me much about people from all sides of the political spectrum who are considered famous “experts”. The main thing being that as “experts” they’re great self promoters.
I think Tony gives children a bad deal.
You are correct, and I apologize to children for the unintentionally insulting comparison.
Just further proving that Alex Jones is an untrustworthy source, Oky.
Which has been my contention all along.
GeneH,
Re; Propaganda
Note Alex Jones/Infowars did not report on Professor Turley’s victory in this sister-wives case.
But they did attempt to make a big deal about the Duck Dynasty dust up.
It’s been some time since I’ve seen reliable stats on the break down of peoples opinions on all of the major issues.
I know Jones studies marketing stats, etc., so I assume he’s attempting to carve out a niche, drawing partly on those that are somewhat religious, but the hardline fantastic types?
I look at Infowars as I would a car dealer, I may have to go down to the local Bob Hurley Furred dealership to buy a new Furred truck, but 1st rule always remains with all: Caveat emptor
Oky1, aren’t they just about all car dealers? Sites like Freedom Phoenix will at least allow anyone to post articles from whatever sources there are and allows just about all authors to post their own articles. They’re owners are predominantly libertarian, but all the other factions of the rainbow post as well. Not much bias but not much debate either. More of a reading site. You can scam the large list of ongoing articles rapidly. If you post an article it may be gone within an hour or two. Everything for then NY Times to Turley’s site. I think that’s how I found out about Jonathan’s site.
Gene H. He’s untrustworthy because he didn’t report on the Utah case? No offence, but this case is not going to effect our society very much, even though it’s a fantastic decision from my point of view. Divorce rates are at or near 50% so many don’t really care about old barbaric laws based on moral codes. Most American women are not going to allow most guys to have more then them as a wife. From what I understand, it didn’t flat out legalize multiple spouse marriages. Is this true.
“And look at DavidM, he brings up subjects that others would be crucified over but he takes it right back to them.”
True enough, but persistence is not the same thing as quality of merit.
““And look at DavidM, he brings up subjects that others would be crucified over but he takes it right back to them.”
Bron,
DavidM is bigoted against Gay People, people of color and feels women should be subservient to men. Like many bigots he feels his prejudice is based in fact and not in ignorance. I call him a bigot based simply on the views he has expressed in his comments and so my judgment of him is one of logic, not rancor, since he is indeed an amiable bigot. Aside from that though he does try to actually make a case for his positions.
Mike Spindell wrote: “DavidM is bigoted against Gay People, people of color and feels women should be subservient to men. Like many bigots he feels his prejudice is based in fact and not in ignorance. I call him a bigot based simply on the views he has expressed in his comments and so my judgment of him is one of logic, not rancor, since he is indeed an amiable bigot. Aside from that though he does try to actually make a case for his positions.”
I am not a bigot. This is such a hate-filled way to talk about me during the holiday season.
A bigot is a person “having or revealing an obstinate belief in the superiority of one’s own opinions and a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others.” Now you invent the phrase “amiable bigot” because you recognize that I am not intolerant? I do not have a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others. How can you make such a claim without evidence? Does not such a claim make you bigoted?
I have a different position on equality than you do. I believe that everybody is equal before the law, but everyone is not equal in nature, ability and talents. I believe everybody should have equal opportunity to make choices in life and better themselves, but not everybody is equal in how they take advantage of the opportunities available to them.
I believe in both gender diversity and racial diversity. We do not give equal opportunity to people because of equal abilities, but because of equal stations in life. I do not believe in furthering preferential treatment toward one class of people based upon the prejudicial idea that the class has been harmed historically by bigots. I believe we are all equal before the law, period. Anti-discrimination laws create unequal classes of people and perpetuate the kind of bigotry we see manifested by your sentiments here.
If I have a job that requires lifting 100 pound boxes, I am more likely to hire a male than a female. If I have a babysitting job, I am more likely to hire a female. You go around trying creating laws to make such illegal because you think only a bigoted person would think in such a way. The truth is that your anti-discrimination laws are contrary to nature. Your stupid laws deny reality and nature.
You want to pretend that same sex unions are identical to opposite sex unions, despite the clear biological distinctions that same sex unions use sexual organs in perverted ways contrary to nature, unable to produce offspring and children. In contrast, opposite sex unions are based upon gender diversity and complementary unity that produce offspring that best serve society if raised by parents who love each other and produced children through their union together. So because I recognize gender diversity, you feel justified to call me a bigot. That is unjustified, IMO.
“I am not a bigot. This is such a hate-filled way to talk about me during the holiday season”
David,
You have expressed belief that Black people are intellectually and emotionally inferior to White people and presented what you call proof of it. You have accused homosexuals of being deviant and promiscuous sexually to a degree that is threatening to society. Finally, you have written that women should be subservient to men in marriage since that is the natural order of things. You have also stated that propertied people are more entitled to vote than those who don’t own property. To me that shows you to be a bigot against people of color, homosexuals, women and people of lesser financial statues. You can define yourself however you choose, but that is my judgment of you. I find it funny that you, who expresses such prejudiced views would try to turn it around and accused me of being “hate-filled”. The funniest part is that I bear you no animus and actually welcome you here, because you provide me with the ammunition to dispel your rather extreme and un-American beliefs. DavidM, don’t you understand that you are far too insignificant for me to hate?
Mike Spindell wrote: “You have expressed belief that Black people are intellectually and emotionally inferior to White people and presented what you call proof of it. You have accused homosexuals of being deviant and promiscuous sexually to a degree that is threatening to society. Finally, you have written that women should be subservient to men in marriage since that is the natural order of things. You have also stated that propertied people are more entitled to vote than those who don’t own property. To me that shows you to be a bigot against people of color, homosexuals, women and people of lesser financial statues.”
Your warped misunderstandings of my positions notwithstanding, how would you feel if I called you a bigot for thinking that your judgment of me shows you to be a bigot against people with traditional values? Would that make you feel good, or would you be offended by me publicly calling you a bigot?
Mike Spindell wrote: “that is my judgment of you.”
Here is part of the problem. Try discussing the topic a little more and a little less time judging me.
“Your warped misunderstandings of my positions notwithstanding, how would you feel if I called you a bigot for thinking that your judgment of me shows you to be a bigot against people with traditional values?”
DavidM,
Call me whatever you’d like to call me, but your response is on the level of an 8 year old on the schoolyard going Nyahh, Nyahh, Nyahh. The confessed bigot calls me a bigot for calling him a bigot. David you’re amusing, but yet still a bigot based on your own words.
Skipples,
It’s not my fault you don’t understand that absolute rights are virtually non-existent in any society as a function of the social compact. In any society. I’m all for security and rights. Rarely as an absolute though, one exception being self-defense. As I said on another thread, the goal is maximal mutual benefit in exchange for the rights limited from the state of nature by the social compact itself. It’s a balancing act of restriction of the absolute rights found at the state of nature in exchange for that mutual benefit to society. The absolute rights you have at nature are only as good as you the individual are at asserting them and are – in fact – illusory and built on the personal ability to bring force to bear in their assertion. By in large, what you get for limiting rights under the social compact is a government to assert your rights that you yourself would be unable to secure unaided. But I’ve explained that many times now.
Any lack of understanding of rights and how they interact with government and society is entirely yours.
And I think Tony gives children a bad deal. Some of them are quite bright and capable of understanding these ideas. Discussing law with you is a lot like discussing quantum mechanics with a fish. Since you insist on arguing from a position of ignorance, you shouldn’t be surprised when your pronouncements are greeted as ignorant.
So we have not Constitution, Bill of rights and all political battles are moot because the ruling oligarchy will always win without a rule of law and justice? I don’t want to be a part of that.
Skip: So why would any right that is already protected by the 9th, have to be added as an amendment?
For the same reason the entire Bill of Rights was added in the first place, dummy. To clarify certain Rights, but to avoid the risk of future generations mistakenly thinking that ALL rights had been clarified by the Bill of Rights, the 9th was included. It is a lawyerly inclusion, the equivalent of “including but not limited to…”.
We could, if we so chose, including other rights, perhaps in order to set specific restrictions upon the government. For an example we might both agree upon, because it is NOT clear at the moment, a right to privacy and a prohibition on the government monitoring or storing by any means information about our whereabouts, transactions, the times, places (electronic or otherwise) or nature of our communications made by any means without a warrant issued in relation to a specific crime. Although I’d prefer a civil libertarian like JT draft that one and make it bulletproof.
Skip says: The 16 amendment does not specify a right so you are wrong again; it clarified a government power.
God you are dumb. By “clarifying a government power” it clarifies that you do NOT have a right to be free from an income tax. Or if you did, the Constitution now says you do not have that Right. It had to be removed from the amorphous and undefined set of rights “retained by the people” and made explicit.
Skip says: Once again read the book “The Law that Never Was.”
To what end? I don’t believe it already. I don’t care. The 16th is a century old and not overturned, I see no point in wasting time on such utter drivel. If JT blogs about some credible threat to the 16th coming up before the Supreme Court, THEN I would consider getting up to speed on the evidence that will be presented. In the meantime, a person that argues like a grade-schooler with a demonstrated inability to engage in actual logic (that is you) is not going to convince me to read anything.
I’ve got better things to read, specifically about 8 of them as of yesterday. Down from 9, since I finished one today.
Skip:
to tell you the truth, Gene H and Tony C offer valid feedback for their way of thinking. They make you think about your ideas.
Just throw it out there. You arent going to learn anything arguing with me since we agree to a point. I want a limited government, small, very small. Maybe 25-30% the size it is now.
I dont agree with Tony or Gene on most everything but they arent web trolls. They present their points well and give you something to think about.
You have to have something to test against so just ignore the insults. Tony and Gene are brawlers and they like blood. But the thing is that by thinking about what they say and checking what you know and believe against what they say, you can actually learn something.
And look at DavidM, he brings up subjects that others would be crucified over but he takes it right back to them.
GeneH,
I see news now that appears the social conservatives are going to put up former Gov Huckabee in a run for 2016 Prez race.
Those nut case leaders think they can just keep on wasting our time arguing they have an exclusive Right to tell the rest of us what is & is not moral.
I have gay friends & christian friends.
Those gay friends will likely never turn straight.
But maybe the christian fear in their minds that they’ll turn gay because in some of their minds they already are?
(Ralph Reed, Karl Rove & their friends)
For whatever reason the christain gen pop fails to realize that if the govt can deny gays equal protection under the law the govt can also deny the same to christians.
I’ll likely email Huckabee & relay the same msg.
ie: Set those damn social issues aside & focus on the real issues of the day.
We can always come back later & argue those social issues til the end of time.