Aah, yes the government, always thinking they know what's best when the people are just mindless drones to them. Gee, and I thought people could decide for themselves. What people choose to do in their own lives is their business, not the government's. It's bad enough they try to tell us what we can/can't eat, how much gas our cars are supposed to use, how much CO2 we can produce, etc. etc. I do what I want to do, and as far as I'm concerned, the government can screw off. They've no right to tell us what we can or can't do in our personal lives. There are schmucks on both sides of the political spectrum, in fact, it's easily a clown college in disguise.
I didn't want to join in the discussion without thinking beforehand on what I wanted to say. All I can say is the government isn't for the people, the do the things they do for themselves. They tell us what's right or wrong, moral or immoral, acceptable or unacceptable. Frankly, they should stay the hell outta our personal lives.
There, I said my piece. If people want to come down on me for my rant on why I despise the government, so be it.
Again?
"It's bad enough they try to tell us what we can/can't eat"
They try to stop fast acting poisons from coming into the food chain and otherwise maintain a level of quality in the food. I do not see them saying yay or nay explicitly (salted sugar butter is something anybody is perfectly legally free to eat by the trough assuming they are not otherwise bound by an additional contract where that would be unwise), they do try to discourage people from making themselves or their spawn into fat bastards but they are still quite capable of doing it should they want to. About the closest you will get is in a lot of schools they might try to up the quality level a bit in terms of making a balanced meal which I will certainly be front and centre for when it comes to the protest against it.
"how much gas our cars are supposed to use"
Oil products are often a net import and one that is quite costly on a whole bunch of fronts. Trying to disincentivise use of fuel guzzlers when equally functional options are available that use far less makes complete sense. Likewise I do not know of anywhere in the world that expressly forbids existing vehicles of a certain distance to fuel volume ratio, it might happen as a result of emissions testing though most of those are volumetric and more concerned with unpleasant by-products. In many ways that is no different to other general roadworthyness tests.
"how much CO2 we can produce"
With the possible exception of an industry or two in Scandinavia every single carbon credits/limit has been optional I believe. There might have been tax breaks/accounting reasons and soft encouragements for various actions but it is all still optional. Car emissions testing..... have you seen smog?
"[the government] tell us what's right or wrong, moral or immoral, acceptable or unacceptable."
Again that is their job and it is how society works. They feel for the pulse of present morality in domestic, international, in line with established principles and give it out as a baseline -- you are quite free to adopt harsher morals for yourself. Sometimes they get it wrong, sometimes they appear almost capable of predicting the future and most times you get to revise it every couple of years as the world moves on.
"What people choose to do in their own lives is their business, not the government's."
To take it back onto topic it is. However as marriage is a government directed function/service/contract with potential benefits for those that utilise it the argument came up of why should this entirely acceptable group have a lesser version of it (typically not the done thing in a place that espouses equality as a governing principle) for no reason at all.
This is a very stupid reason. In general if you attempt to argue your opinions to a brick wall, you will only be yelling at yourself. Like wise for the opposite party. If you can not accept someones opinion, then maybe it is you who needs to open up their eyes. I saw no benefit arguing with someone such as that person, it was clear what that guy was attempting to provoke, and im ashamed to see people even back it up. Its just as bad for you to even claim my post had any righteous attitude. It seems you are attempting to provoke emotion into a subject that revolves souly around personal opinion. That road is a very slippery path that i have been down an obscene amount of times, i decided to not do it again, i saw no point.
This thread is nothing but a hot mess of people attacking each others opinions on the subject. A hot mess i refuse to be apart of.
Your opinion is your opinion and pending evidence of your having to type it out under duress I will happily accept it as your opinion. However there are various standards against which your opinion can be compared/judged/rated.
Such options include but are not limited to
"rule of the jungle" -- if you can take it then you can have it, not a great way of doing things if society is functioning but an option none the less.
"rule of law" -- various options including international, domestic, comparison to other systems, religious law. Which system will be used or is suitable will have to be established first but it works.
"rule of governing ethical principles" -- possibly quite similar to rule of law but at times less specific and perhaps more broadly applicable. Usually what directs formations of the rule of law as well so quite useful.
Establishing which is to be used/will frame the debate is reasonably important for at times each of those is mutually incompatible. That is OK as one might have higher merit than the other.
I agree that arguing against a brick wall is seldom that useful if your intention is to change the brick wall, however this is a multi person discussion and to go a slight aside arguing against the entrenched is a difficult thing and one seldom worth the effort of doing, arguing in such a manner that someone that has yet to generate an opinion or someone that has a weak/unconsidered opinion is very often worth the effort. As mentioned we are in a multi person discussion and thus typing things out becomes worth the effort.
Righteous... I fear we may have had a miscommunication or are operating on slightly different definitions of the word. Perhaps if I rephrased as "put forth and opinion on a public forum and held it up as one of merit".
"into a subject that revolves solely around personal opinion"
But it does not -- I wish to live in a society that values equality and if there is an issue where equality has not been achieved in the principles/code that governs that society it is not a subject that revolved solely around personal opinion.
"This thread is nothing but a hot mess of people attacking each others opinions on the subject."
You say attacking, I say debate and as people are providing detailed reasoning.... Debate is encouraged as this is a forum. I will go so far as to say I see no merit in general opposition to the issue at hand (pick out specifics of the implementation and we can certainly talk further) and would also go so far as to say general opposition is akin to being out of line with modern general/baseline ethics, however I have free time enough to pick apart reasoning that might be given for it.
"A hot mess i refuse to be apart of."
Read literally/grammatically speaking I found that amusing.
BakerMan
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Psionic Roshambo:
