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Discussion only: Gun rights, Abortion, Gay Marriage, Marijuana, State Rights

Which of these topics are relevant and important to our project?

  • Gun rights, explain

    Votes: 15 62.5%
  • Abortion, explain

    Votes: 7 29.2%
  • Gay marriage, explain

    Votes: 7 29.2%
  • Marijuana, explain

    Votes: 9 37.5%
  • State Rights, explain

    Votes: 15 62.5%
  • Trayvon Martin, explain

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • None of these, explain

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • All of these, explain

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • Other, explain

    Votes: 3 12.5%

  • Total voters
    24
  • Poll closed .
Sorry. I try not to be contentious but do bristle a bit

We are all passionate about the subject. That's why we're here. So it's understandable if someone gets a bit of temper. No one is perfect all the time.

But as President, I feel I have a duty to engage in some moderation, despite my having absolutely no mod powers or authority to compel any type of behavior of enforce any sort of rule, so all I can do is suggest/remind my fellow members of the sort of tone we want to promote when I believe that things have gotten a bit too heated.

I trust that you admonished the member I was responding to as well?

After reading the above, I hope you realize that I'm walking a very fine line here. I have no official mod powers, and usually, even asking other posters to change their tone is considered acting as a mod which is against the rules but I have gotten a provisional OK from the mods to do that if I tread lightly, so I'm only going to do so when I feel it's truly called for.

As far as the other poster goes, his post suggests that the policy you're pushing for would lead to feudalism and a denial of civil rights. That is a criticism of your policy and not your person. Though I would like to see less heated rhetoric from everyone, what he said was not personal (ie an attak on your character or your personality, etc). That's where I was drawing the line.

I hope you can understand my position and I appreciate your cooperation in the matter as well as you not getting all worked up because I suggested you tone down.
 
I did not argue that it is not a legitimate interest of government. I argued that it should not be an issue for federal government to deal with.

It would be if some states were not treating all citizens as equals under the law when it came to marriage.
 
It would be if some states were not treating all citizens as equals under the law when it came to marriage.

So in our current constitution, "equal protection of the law" covers letting two people marry regardless of genders/ethnic background/felony status (prisoners can marry). Do we need a specific right to marry in the constitution or will it be under a similarly worded protection?
 
So in our current constitution, "equal protection of the law" covers letting two people marry regardless of genders/ethnic background/felony status (prisoners can marry). Do we need a specific right to marry in the constitution or will it be under a similarly worded protection?

It's really up to the membership, but IMO I'd rather see a "non-discrimination clause" in the constitution which states that any benefit or privilige or right or etc provided to the people by the govt shall not be determined on the basis of sex, gender, race, religion, etc....

That would cover marriage and a whole lot more
 
We are all passionate about the subject. That's why we're here. So it's understandable if someone gets a bit of temper. No one is perfect all the time.

But as President, I feel I have a duty to engage in some moderation, despite my having absolutely no mod powers or authority to compel any type of behavior of enforce any sort of rule, so all I can do is suggest/remind my fellow members of the sort of tone we want to promote when I believe that things have gotten a bit too heated.



After reading the above, I hope you realize that I'm walking a very fine line here. I have no official mod powers, and usually, even asking other posters to change their tone is considered acting as a mod which is against the rules but I have gotten a provisional OK from the mods to do that if I tread lightly, so I'm only going to do so when I feel it's truly called for.

As far as the other poster goes, his post suggests that the policy you're pushing for would lead to feudalism and a denial of civil rights. That is a criticism of your policy and not your person. Though I would like to see less heated rhetoric from everyone, what he said was not personal (ie an attak on your character or your personality, etc). That's where I was drawing the line.

I hope you can understand my position and I appreciate your cooperation in the matter as well as you not getting all worked up because I suggested you tone down.

Well when the fine line you walk results in license to censure the member you disagree with while giving a pass to the one you agree with, we probably will have a serious problem much sooner than later. :)

But I will accept the admonishment and will try to watch that better.
 
Well when the fine line you walk results in license to censure the member you disagree with while giving a pass to the one you agree with, we probably will have a serious problem much sooner than later. :)

But I will accept the admonishment and will try to watch that better.

Just to be clear, there is no censure. As I noted, I have no mod powers so let's not over-dramatize what I've done.

And I know that everyone likes to think that they're a victim of the "other side", but I am doing doing my job impartially so your accusation of bias is nothing more than an attempt by you to avoid taking responsibility for your actions.

So grow up and learn how to take a suggestion without throwing a tantrum
 
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It's really up to the membership, but IMO I'd rather see a "non-discrimination clause" in the constitution which states that any benefit or privilige or right or etc provided to the people by the govt shall not be determined on the basis of sex, gender, race, religion, etc....

That would cover marriage and a whole lot more

That makes sense to me.
 
It's really up to the membership, but IMO I'd rather see a "non-discrimination clause" in the constitution which states that any benefit or privilige or right or etc provided to the people by the govt shall not be determined on the basis of sex, gender, race, religion, etc....

That would cover marriage and a whole lot more

Maybe another way to put that would be that any law would apply to all citizens equally.
 
Maybe another way to put that would be that any law would apply to all citizens equally.

I think that would get us 90% of the way there, but not completely. using marriage laws as an example, a law saying that no one could marry someone of another race would apply equally to all citizens. Blacks would not be able to marry whites or asians or latinos, etc and vice versa. Such a law would comply with the "equal application" requirement you just stated, but it would still be wrong (IMO) and should be prohibited.
 
I think that would get us 90% of the way there, but not completely. using marriage laws as an example, a law saying that no one could marry someone of another race would apply equally to all citizens. Blacks would not be able to marry whites or asians or latinos, etc and vice versa. Such a law would comply with the "equal application" requirement you just stated, but it would still be wrong (IMO) and should be prohibited.

I see your point. One I would add is why is marriage something that government must sanction? You point out why. So government can control it. Everything that government becomes involved in becomes something that it can and will control. By giving benefits to people who are married, and not those who are not, which was my point, government is maybe trying to promote marriage as long as its marriage that they approve of.
 
I see your point. One I would add is why is marriage something that government must sanction? You point out why. So government can control it. Everything that government becomes involved in becomes something that it can and will control. By giving benefits to people who are married, and not those who are not, which was my point, government is maybe trying to promote marriage as long as its marriage that they approve of.

When you get right down to it, govt doesn't *have* to sanction marriage. It doesn't have to do anything, let alone sanction marriage. But we have the govt do the things that we, as a society, believe we will be better off if we have the govt do it. Of course, different people define "better off" differently than others, but that is the underlying justification for having a govt at all (unless you believe in the "divine right of kings" or some other nonsense)

As far as the govt is concerned, marriage is just a specific type of contract which, like many other contracts, the govt enforces. There's nothing unusual about thinking the govt has a role to play in enforcing contracts. Even in a libertarian state, where the govt does much less than it does in a modern, liberal state, most libertarians believe the govt should enforce contracts. So why should the marriage contract be excluded from govt enforcement?
 
When you get right down to it, govt doesn't *have* to sanction marriage. It doesn't have to do anything, let alone sanction marriage. But we have the govt do the things that we, as a society, believe we will be better off if we have the govt do it. Of course, different people define "better off" differently than others, but that is the underlying justification for having a govt at all (unless you believe in the "divine right of kings" or some other nonsense)

As far as the govt is concerned, marriage is just a specific type of contract which, like many other contracts, the govt enforces. There's nothing unusual about thinking the govt has a role to play in enforcing contracts. Even in a libertarian state, where the govt does much less than it does in a modern, liberal state, most libertarians believe the govt should enforce contracts. So why should the marriage contract be excluded from govt enforcement?

I don't see marriage as a contract in the sense that there is a quid pro quo. I can see where some might.
 
I don't see marriage as a contract in the sense that there is a quid pro quo. I can see where some might.

I don't if it can or should be called a "quid pro quo" but there's definitely an exchange of "consideration" in that both agree that they share in the earnings they make once married. There is also shared responsibilities (ie contractual obligations). Without those, it's not only not a marriage, it's not really much of anything.
 
I see your point. One I would add is why is marriage something that government must sanction? You point out why. So government can control it. Everything that government becomes involved in becomes something that it can and will control. By giving benefits to people who are married, and not those who are not, which was my point, government is maybe trying to promote marriage as long as its marriage that they approve of.
It has absolutely nothing to do with "sanctioning".

It has everything to do with transfering property and the raising and socializing of children.
 
It has absolutely nothing to do with "sanctioning".

It has everything to do with transfering property and the raising and socializing of children.

I would suggest that there is sanctioning as a tool to accomplish maybe what you suggest. Transferring property and arguably raising children can be accomplished outside of marriage. I continue to believe like most things in government that is more about the political class being smarter, shrewder, better informed than the rest of us and thus controlling us for our own good.
 
I see your point. One I would add is why is marriage something that government must sanction? You point out why. So government can control it. Everything that government becomes involved in becomes something that it can and will control. By giving benefits to people who are married, and not those who are not, which was my point, government is maybe trying to promote marriage as long as its marriage that they approve of.

I think society has decided that marriage is a "good" and should be encouraged; our govt. reflects that society. Thus we have tax breaks for kids born to married couples; there are other incentives for married couples throughout our society (even insurance used to be cheaper for married couples vs. couples living together, although this has changed over the last twenty years). So inheritance, social security benefits, health care benefits, adoption rights, etc etc etc were tied to the married state because it was felt married couples were more stable and contributed more to society. Or maybe we just wanted to chain everyone down in a marriage - I imagine motivations varied!

But in general "marriage" is considered to be a good thing, and therefore our govt provides incentives to be married and disincentives to be unmarried. That is why civil marriage needs to be available to same sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples. That doesn't mean a church has to marry two people; but the state does. We can't have our laws discriminate based on sexual orientation, especially in a case like this where we award so many benefits to being married.

This was probably too long a digression, but just wanted to share my thoughts.

I've thought about this topic a long time - I never wanted to get married to either of my husbands because I didn't see why the state had to legalize my union; but the financial benefits were such it would have been stupid to not get married.
 
I would suggest that there is sanctioning as a tool to accomplish maybe what you suggest. Transferring property and arguably raising children can be accomplished outside of marriage. I continue to believe like most things in government that is more about the political class being smarter, shrewder, better informed than the rest of us and thus controlling us for our own good.

It is true that one can do those two things (see bolded) outside of marriage, and since those can be done outside of marriage, it shows that marriage is not a way for the govt to control people. No one is forced to do anything because no one is forced to get married. Instead, they do it because of the benefits and priviliges marriage affords them.
 
I went with none of them, but I'm not sure that applies unless a specific situation occurs.

Namely that we do not have any laws specifically outlawing/banning specific behaviors, but rather have a general "do no harm" law, that covers everything, with scaling punishments based on degree of harm caused.

This might result in far too much power for the judicial system, because it would effectively require the judicial system to determine what harm occurred in a case, if any - and this translates into opportunity to determine no harm occurred when some clearly did.


But I suppose that is already the case in many ways
 
I went with none of them, but I'm not sure that applies unless a specific situation occurs.

Namely that we do not have any laws specifically outlawing/banning specific behaviors, but rather have a general "do no harm" law, that covers everything, with scaling punishments based on degree of harm caused.

This might result in far too much power for the judicial system, because it would effectively require the judicial system to determine what harm occurred in a case, if any - and this translates into opportunity to determine no harm occurred when some clearly did.


But I suppose that is already the case in many ways

But you have to have laws somewhat specific, people need to know what they're not allowed to do.

Montana used to have a speed law that said drive no faster then "Reasonable and prudent" there were actually speed limit signs listing the speed limit as "reasonable and prudent" well that didn't survive a court challenge when someone was issued a speeding ticket.

just declaring someone harmed, sounds more like a function of civil courts and not criminal ones,
 
>

Just to point out a couple of minor details...


IThus we have tax breaks for kids born to married couples;

There is no difference in the "tax breaks" for having a child in wedlock or out of wedlock. The deduction for a child is the same whether married or single. Same with deducting child care costs - no difference.

Transferring property and arguably raising children can be accomplished outside of marriage.

While technically you can "transfer property" outside of marriage, the taxation is not the same.

If you sell property to someone that might be a taxable event. If you gift property to them there is no tax (federal) for transfers under $14,000 - over that there is a Gift Tax liability. For married spouses there is no limit on the property that can be transferred without tax.

>>>>
 
>

Just to point out a couple of minor details...




There is no difference in the "tax breaks" for having a child in wedlock or out of wedlock. The deduction for a child is the same whether married or single. Same with deducting child care costs - no difference.

>>>>​


Good point!

I should have used property tax breaks instead...​
 
I voted for gay marriage, everyone, homo or hetero, should be happy while married, or else.
 
None of these should be subject to regulation by a govt, therefore they aren' important-but only if approached from that point of view.
 
I voted for gay marriage, everyone, homo or hetero, should be happy while married, or else.

You got some secret formula that makes people happy, 100% guaranteed? If not, we are on our own, no matter who our spouse may be.
 
I agree.

Regarding STATES RIGHTS: the USA of 2014 is NOT the USA of 1776. Today a person is often born in Massachusetts, spends part of their childhood in Connecticut and New York, goes to college in Michigan, does grad work in Ohio, takes a job in Texas and marries a person originally from California with their own travels to match. That couple then lives in three different states over the next thirty years as they change jobs residing in New Mexico, Colorado and Alabama. They retire to Florida only to sour on the climate after several years and end up spending their final years in South Carolina. One dies and the other goes to Oregon to live with their adult children.

That is the reality of the 21st century America we live in. The concept of a state as a individual place with its own culture and population and government is as old fashioned and out of date as the tri-cornered hat and knee breeches.

I agree with you that "states' rights" need to be ripped to shreds, but why is that, if the states have no cultures? They should just be a microcosm of the collective then. Even in 21st century and i suspect, until travel is dirt cheap and instant, people are not so mobile as you think. The poor kid from south boston isn't going out of state for college, unless he somehow lands scholarships. He's not leaving the state for work in texas, as he can't afford to make interviews all over the place and has no skill set that would lead these companies to offer an interview. What you describe sounds more like upper middle class

The states do have culture, especially where the poor abound, which is why mississippi is so damn bigoted still, but MA has had say gay marriage for a decade. For me, it's that i don't respect their culture of oppression at all, which is why i want to just get rid of states altogether and let the federal courts run things. They basically do already, but this would expedite the process, so that unconstitutional laws aren't constantly passed and stay in effect for years before being struck down
 
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