The Concession Speech We'd Like to Hear

[Nym90]

1) Trying to link illegitimacy to gay marriage is a pathetic stretch and I challenge you to provide a real source to back up such an argument.  It is like arguing that people who like the color blue are more inclined to have skin cancer.  One does not relate to the other.  Trying to pretend it does demonstrates your lack of understanding of cause and relation.

2) When asked about Bin Laden, Bush DID in fact say "You know I don't spend that much time on him.  I don't really think about him."  Denying that Bush said this is BLATANTLY lying.  Now you can try and spin WHY he said it, but he did say it.

3) Ok, so according to you, when Bush said, "These safeguard measures have now achieved their purpose and as a result of changed economic circumstances, it is time to lift them." about the steel tariffs he was lying?  According to you he was forced to do it by the WTO NOT because of "changed economic circumstances"?

4) Who sold Saddam chemical weapons?  The US.  Who facilitated the deal?

5) When I have a little more time I'll provide a list of all the programs cut by Bush.

6) Your blind devotion to the Republican Party and refusal to admit any wrongdoing by it is, in a word, sad.

Its easy to link illegitimacy to gay marriage.  Once you re-define an instiution, you change how people behave towards the institution.  You de-link marriage from family, you damage traditional families, and I have the data to back it up (see Eurostat).  You got nothin' on this one.

You and I both know that there are other words in that quote THAT CHANGE THE ENTIRE MEANING OF THE QUOTE!  The full quote includes Bush saying he is worried about Al Qaeda, not bin Laden, because Al Qaeda is bigger than one man.  Not only are you only providing a partial quote, you don't even provide the elipses that indicate that more words are being said!

Politicians do a lot of things to cover their ass.  What's he supposed to say?  "The WTO ruled against us and I'm backing down on a policy I never believed in anyway."?  The WTO ruled the tariffs illegal.  Read a newspaper every once and a while and these thing won't happen to you in public anymore.

The US never sold Iraq chemical weapons, and once again you prove that your mouth is bigger than your brain.  We sold them precursor chemicals, or what are called dual use materials, that were sold under the pretense of agricultural research.  And the chemicals in fact are used in the US for agricultural research.  However, Iraq tried to use them to develop anthrax. This is very different than giving Iraq their chemical weapons.  The bulk of Iraq's program was in Mustard, Sarin, VX, ricin, and botulinum.  Not anthrax, which Iraq never weaponized anyway.  So not only didn't we sell Iraq chemical weapons, we weren't even indirectly responsible for even a small protion of the Iraqi program because he never got far with his anthrax prgoram.

Social spending has gone up under Bush.  How do I know?  Becuase Republicans like me complain about his profligate spending!

You are a flaming idiot with a snotty attitude.  Your learning curve is non-existent.  You keep coming back with the same old tired crap and DNC talking points, and every time you get the same dominating rebuttal from some GOPer on the board.  When are you going to figure out that your attacks have no merit whatsoever?

Regarding gay marriage, there is still a big difference between correlation and causation. I fail to see why encouraging monogamy among homosexuals leads to the breakdown of the family. Is society really better off encouraging homosexuals to not form stable, loving relationships with each other?

Gay marriage is a good thing for society for the same reason that straight marriage is; it promotes the creation of famlies and monogamous relationships.

I don't support delinking marriage and family; if gay couples are otherwise fit to adopt, I don't support not allowing them to. Now, if there are other factors other than simply their sexual preference that makes them unfit parents, by all means they shouldn't be allowed to adopt. Same thing for straight people, too.

Making interracial marriage legal changed the traditional definition of marriage, too, and in fact I am sure that illegitimate births and all other manners of bad things went up statistically in the years that followed as well.

Plus, why would redefining an institution automatically mean that people would change how they behave in a NEGATIVE way? Like I said, I feel that in this case, it would be redefined in a more positive way, since it would no longer discriminate against people on the basis of sexuality and would promote more monogamy and the creation of more stable relationships within ALL people. Why is that going to have a negative effect on society?

If you are worried about marriage being delinked from family, then it would make a lot more sense to pass a law banning 20 year old women from marrying 80 year old rich guys, or pass a law banning people like Britney Spears from marrying someone on a lark and then getting an annulment 24 hours later. I don't see any activity on either of those fronts, however. Gay people who sincerely love each other enough to want to get married are FAR from the greatest threat currently faced by the institution of marriage.

In any event, I don't support heterosexuals making a scapegoat out of gays and blaming them for their own irresponsible behavior within their marriages, anyway.

[Nym90]

One reason no action is taken on the fronts you mention is that there is no support for the reform, as there is for gay marriage ballot initiatives.  Another is that most people consider the matter settled whether they liked the outcome or not.

Of course there is no action on those, which tends to make ME very suspicious of the motives of most of those who oppose gay marriage. I realize that your motives are much different than most, and that you are not fueled by anti-gay bigotry and instead are motivated by the betterment of society as a whole, but I can just as well turn it around as you did in your next point. It goes both ways there. I don't think that anyone can rationally argue that gay marriage is the single biggest threat to traditional marriage and families, therefore those who support banning it but not other things that are more destructive are being intellectually dishonest about their goals.

I get very suspicious when social liberals tell me that they're really the pro-family conservatives.  When most of the drug users I know advocate legalizing drugs on the grounds that ti will reduce drug use, I smell something afoot.  Same here.  I find it a hard sell when Barney Frank tells me that he's the new advocate for monogamy and traditional families, especially when I have data that shows Scandanavia headed one direction while the rest of the world is headed another.

As I said, correlation doesn't equal causation, and my arguments and examples on that point and others still stand.

I don't see why Barney Frank or other gay marriage advocates are any less qualified to fight for monagamy and traditional families than anyone else. Is there other evidence, other than his sexuality which doesn't prove anything that I can see, that Barney Frank opposes monogamy and strong families?

Social liberals aren't claiming to be conservative, but we definitely are pro-family. That's not a contradiction at all. Even if you don't agrree with social liberals, there's a big difference between saying that someone is misguided on the one hand and outright distrusting their motives altogether on the other.

I don't believe that economic conservatives hate poor people, but I do believe that their policies aren't good for America as a whole. There's no reason why that's a contradiction, either.

[Nym90]

I don't see why Barney Frank or other gay marriage advocates are any less qualified to fight for monagamy and traditional families than anyone else. Is there other evidence, other than his sexuality which doesn't prove anything that I can see, that Barney Frank opposes monogamy and strong families?

Maybe because his boyfriend, who was about half his age, was running a prostitution ring from his house?  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

I agree with your basic point, that it's theoretically possible for homosexuals to have family values, but I don't think Barney Frank is the best example to use to make it.  And I do think the reality is that homosexuals are, in general, more promiscuous and socially liberal than heterosexuals.

I did not know that about Frank. I still feel that attacking the messenger rather than the message is still fairly irrelevant and unproductive nonetheless. But thanks for pointing that out, since I asked.

As for them being more promiscuous, the fact that they can't get married certainly doesn't help matters any. I'm certainly not saying that it will be a panacea by any means, but I think that homosexual promiscuity will decrease if the institution of marriage is made available to them.

The homosexual community certainly has to step forward and decry a lack of responsibility within their own members; however, giving them equal rights and access to the advantages of marriage would certainly help matters as well.