Steve King: "I don’t expect to meet [gays] should I make it to heaven."

[Mr. Illini]

How good to know that Rep. King is so clean of sin himself and also so familiar with every single gay person in the world and what they have done in their lives that he has the privilege to make a statement damning a massive group of individuals to hell.

Except King doesn't claim that.  He assumes that if gay can make it there, his own actions are going to preclude his being there.

So he assumes that he is less sinful than every member of the gay community?

[AggregateDemand]

AggregateDemand,

Yes—I referred to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution!

Spin yourself around and around all you will.

You are the one who is wasting everyone's time, here in this thread, with your stupid rationalizations.


You are a homophobe!


And you want discrimination against LGBT persons.

I realize that the idea of common good and mutually-beneficial populism between gay and straight people is an alarming concept for a Democrat, but you don't need to resort to bolded 10pt font.

I understand your political impulses. They are as predictable as a child demanding more snacks during break time at preschool. If you look at the big socioeconomic picture, you may eventually see the situation in a different light.

Because we have abandoned the notion of Equal Protection and populism, we are trying to choose between the lesser of two evils, which is a false dichotomy. If you fix the blatant disregard for the Constitution, the situation is disarmed, and we can pursue whatever existential end we desire without without oppression looming over the populace.

This is just a retread of the suffrage movements in the late 19th century. African Americans and women had the same political ambition, but by cleaving the demographic with artificial distinctions, like amount of melanin or gender, Congress was able to split their efforts and undermine their populist power. You are the modern day equivalent of the people who divided and conquered the suffrage movement.

Fly your flag high.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Are you honestly saying that gender and racial distinctions are artificial distinctions? You can't believe that.

[AggregateDemand]

Are you honestly saying that gender and racial distinctions are artificial distinctions? You can't believe that.

When it comes to voting, do you feel otherwise?

[Slander and/or Libel]

Are you honestly saying that gender and racial distinctions are artificial distinctions? You can't believe that.

When it comes to voting, do you feel otherwise? We have a hangman's noose at the ready, if you manage to screw this one up.

WTF?

[AggregateDemand]

WTF?

When it comes to voting, do you really believe that gender and skin color are legitimate differentiations?

[Slander and/or Libel]

WTF?

When it comes to voting, do you really believe that gender and skin color are legitimate differentiations?

Not the WTF part. The part where you're hinting about my death.

[AggregateDemand]

Not the WTF part. The part where you're hinting about my death?

I sometimes forget that you are incapable of understanding figurative speech and rhetorical tropes so I edited accordingly.

Regarding the matter at hand, do you believe that skin color and gender are legitimate personal traits that warrant modification of voting privileges?

[Slander and/or Libel]

Not the WTF part. The part where you're hinting about my death?

I sometimes forget that you are incapable of understanding figurative speech and rhetorical tropes so I edited accordingly.

Regarding the matter at hand, do you believe that skin color and gender are legitimate personal traits that warrant modification of voting privileges?

What was the rhetorical trope of telling me you had a hangman's noose ready for me?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

How good to know that Rep. King is so clean of sin himself and also so familiar with every single gay person in the world and what they have done in their lives that he has the privilege to make a statement damning a massive group of individuals to hell.

Except King doesn't claim that.  He assumes that if gay can make it there, his own actions are going to preclude his being there.

So he assumes that he is less sinful than every member of the gay community?

Are you incapable of reading comprehension, or are you simply insisting on continuing to make your point regardless of whether it has any relevance as part of a reply?  To the degree I bothered to decode King's logic, he was saying that if he was wrong about actively gay people wouldn't be in heaven, then his own hateful mistakes would preclude him from being there with them.  (Yeah, I know, I'm being awfully generous to King, as I doubt he realized he was allowing for the possibility that he truly might be wrong, but still...)

[Slander and/or Libel]

How good to know that Rep. King is so clean of sin himself and also so familiar with every single gay person in the world and what they have done in their lives that he has the privilege to make a statement damning a massive group of individuals to hell.

Except King doesn't claim that.  He assumes that if gay can make it there, his own actions are going to preclude his being there.

So he assumes that he is less sinful than every member of the gay community?

Are you incapable of reading comprehension, or are you simply insisting on continuing to make your point regardless of whether it has any relevance as part of a reply?  To the degree I bothered to decode King's logic, he was saying that if he was wrong about actively gay people wouldn't be in heaven, then his own hateful mistakes would preclude him from being there with them.  (Yeah, I know, I'm being awfully generous to King, as I doubt he realized he was allowing for the possibility that he truly might be wrong, but still...)

The bolded part isn't just being generous, it's imposing a reading that the text doesn't explicitly support. It doesn't preclude it, but that's all.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

How good to know that Rep. King is so clean of sin himself and also so familiar with every single gay person in the world and what they have done in their lives that he has the privilege to make a statement damning a massive group of individuals to hell.

Except King doesn't claim that.  He assumes that if gay can make it there, his own actions are going to preclude his being there.

So he assumes that he is less sinful than every member of the gay community?

Are you incapable of reading comprehension, or are you simply insisting on continuing to make your point regardless of whether it has any relevance as part of a reply?  To the degree I bothered to decode King's logic, he was saying that if he was wrong about actively gay people wouldn't be in heaven, then his own hateful mistakes would preclude him from being there with them.  (Yeah, I know, I'm being awfully generous to King, as I doubt he realized he was allowing for the possibility that he truly might be wrong, but still...)

The bolded part isn't just being generous, it's imposing a reading that the text doesn't explicitly support. It doesn't preclude it, but that's all.

Perhaps. I'm not going to go back and reread what was attributed to King to double check the degree to which my impression matched reality because I don't really care all that much about King. However, it certainly does match what I said the first time and to which M. Illini made his non-sequitur of a reply to me.

[AggregateDemand]

What was the rhetorical trope of telling me you had a hangman's noose ready for me?

I was referencing the lynch mob mentality in the court of public opinion. You made a rhetorical misstep, and someone could have implied that you believed race and gender were integral parts of establishing suffrage privileges.

I shouldn't have allowed you to clarify, I should merely have branded you a racist, sexist bigot; reported your post and then hit the ignore button <---------sarcasm <-------meta sarcasm.

[King]

would you know i'm gayyyyy
if i saw you in heavennnnn

[Badger]

Figs, you seem like a reasonable guy, so I'll give some advice: Don't try speaking anything approaching rationalism to Arrogant Demand. He lives in some bizarre bubble world filled up with snatches of statistics and libertarian screeds, and literally can't comprehend it when we ignorant plebes don't grasp his brilliant yet obvious analysis of the world.

Good show trying though! Trust me, you'll learn there are some people on this Forum you can't begin to have a two-way communication with. The best you'll get is some verbal sparing practice.

Ooh! There's this friend of mine named Phil you should meet.....

[AggregateDemand]

Figs, you seem like a reasonable guy, so I'll give some advice: Don't try speaking anything approaching rationalism to Arrogant Demand. He lives in some bizarre bubble world filled up with snatches of statistics and libertarian screeds, and literally can't comprehend it when we ignorant plebes don't grasp his brilliant yet obvious analysis of the world.

Good show trying though! Trust me, you'll learn there are some people on this Forum you can't begin to have a two-way communication with. The best you'll get is some verbal sparing practice.

Ooh! There's this friend of mine named Phil you should meet.....

Why is it a bad idea to balance the social/economic privileges of the married and the unmarried? Besides fulfilling a Constitutional mandate, we would also take the power of discrimination away from the definition of marriage crowd, which includes churches like King's. 9/10ths of the problem would be solved without needless political bloodletting, and the benefits would be spread to far more Americans than just same-sex couples.

I have no desire to participate in your silly bikeshedding arguments. I am interested in the political/bureaucratic malfeasance that created the situation.

[pbrower2a]

Human rights are not counter to each other. They do not imply an exclusive choice as it is for middle-income budgets with respect to buying a Ford or Chevrolet automobile. One might be able to buy one, but buying one precludes buying the other. There is no limiting budget for human rights. The civil rights struggle for Southern blacks was not contrary to the right to union representation, to environmental protection, to the rights of the handicapped, or to women's rights.  If it is simply a matter of a right offending a special interest or a personal sensibility with no other merit, then tough.

Personal license may be a different matter, as when "gun rights" imply a severe compromise of the assumption that we have a right to safety from gun violence.

Political capital is like a budget. You cannot buy everything, and if you spend/invest your capital in the wrong places, you end up fixing nothing and spreading misery.

It is not a budget. One difference between FDR and Obama is that FDR started with more political capital than did Obama, who started with more than did Carter.

Political capital is unlike financial assets in that one cannot accumulate more by letting it sit as if a deposit in a savings account. Of course, like any intangible asset it can be squandered. If you own a copyright and refuse to publish, then the copyright simply wastes.

Simple fact: even before President Obama was elected the Right was greasing the skids for him. He rushed as much of his agenda as he could with the expectation that the Right would turn on him. He achieved in two years what most Presidents have achieved in four or more.   

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Wrong: it is contempt for anything different. Antipathy to homosexuals relates to ethnic and religious bigotry, having much the same psychological dynamics.

The GOP is now a coalition of people who believe either that they have a right to everything other than the bare survival of those that they tolerate and to people who have rejected the Enlightenment altogether. In other countries that has been the typical basis of fascist movements.

[Maxwell]

I'd love it if he somehow made it to heaven and it was ONLY gays that were there, and he had some real thinking to do about his sexuality.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I'd love it if he somehow made it to heaven and it was ONLY gays that were there, and he had some real thinking to do about his sexuality.

Wouldn't that be his personal hell?

[Napoleon]

[Maxwell]

I'd love it if he somehow made it to heaven and it was ONLY gays that were there, and he had some real thinking to do about his sexuality.

Wouldn't that be his personal hell?

God works in mysterious ways, X