Hugo

Sure, but Bill Clinton promised repeatedly that the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole and the World Trade Center (the first attempt) would be brought to justice, and then failed to fulfill those promises in any capacity whatsoever. The least you can say of President Bush is that he does what he says he will, which doesn't apply to Clinton.

Too right, Craig. Furthermore, did you know that the Clinton administration spent more US tax dollars chasing after Bill Gates than Osama Bin Laden? Shows the Liberal mindset alright - it's a crime to make money, but to kill innocent people means you are just misunderstood.

They already have equal rights.

What in the name of sanity are you talking about?

You've never been married, have you?

Of course. Why work at a marriage? Why try and please anyone but yourself? Tell me - why don't you rob your parents blind? Why don't you steal candy from kids when their parents are not looking? The first time your boss looks cockeyed at you, I expect you'll quit and go on welfare, right? Why try at anything if it's not immediately beneficial to you and only you? I'm sorry if this damages your 4-year-old's moral outlook, but self-sacrifice, compassion and empathy are actually important and human society depends upon them.

Community size is key. If you have maybe ten families you can get close to real socialism, but in a society of thousands or millions the facelessness encourages people to abuse the system and break it. Communism may work just fine for small collectives but it is not, never has been and never will be a viable national or even regional economic system. Kindly explain.

Sure! Let's all spin webs and eat flies too! It must be alright if a spider does it.

Riff, What are you arguing now? That homosexuality should be endorsed by society for compassionate reasons? I just don't agree. All the evidence shows that homosexuality is a mental illness and a deviancy because it defeats the intended purpose of sexual attraction and sexual intercourse and because it so often stems from other problems. The most compassionate thing would be to recognise this, and while respecting the afflicted, to help them get the help they need. Simply endorsing them because their lobby groups are the most vocal is ridiculous. As Ronda said to you, I can't wait until the pedarasts and pedophiles are shouting (louder) for their rights and decrying their oppression - will you join with them too? Despite my warnings, you still insist on comparing gays to blacks and women - it's not valid and you can't do that. Valid comparisons can be made with smokers and alcoholics, but I don't see you asking that we endorse smoking and alcoholism as equal choices. It's not about the threat that homosexuals pose to society (apart from the moral fatigue and so on), it's about the threat that homosexuals pose to themselves, and the fact that the truth about such behaviour - which could save many lives if told widely - is hushed up and kept out of sight. It would be the same if the government outlawed all anti-smoking campaigns, advertising and so forth, and started teaching the "equality" of smoking in schools. What do you think would happen? Life expectancy would increase or decrease? Cancer rates would increase or decrease? And whose fault would it be - the smokers, who know nothing about the health risks, or the people who lied to them? For instance, all the statistics that I posted about gay death and disease rates came as a great shock to many on this forum. Some still don't believe them, but they are all true, all independently gathered, and people on this forum tend to be more intelligent than most. It comes as no surprise to anybody that smoking is bad for you, and homosexuality should be the same way.

So what you are saying is that the law of the UN is completely worthless - a mere 14 resolutions is a trifling matter to be ignored. So a UN resolution is like a parking ticket - nobody's really going to bother until you've built up hundreds and it's license renewal time. Correct?

Sure it could - but then it isn't socialism anymore, because you have abandoned "to each according to his needs" in favour of a system of benefits for hard work - to whit, "to each according to how hard he works." That's basically capitalism, as the Chinese have learnt.

You miss my point again, Riff. I specifically stated that genetics was not a basis for discrimination. I stated that it was factually incorrect for homosexuals to compare themselves to blacks or women, and more correct to compare themselves to smokers. Please read over my post.

No, actually it was not. They fought against segregation law which was official public discriminatory policy. Rosa Parks was arrested and fined $10 plus $4 court costs for violating Montgomery segregation law, which was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on November 13, 1956, and overturned. Discrimination by private individuals and their privately-owned institutions is a wholly different matter. I firmly believe, as Parks and King Jr. did, that public discrimination is wrong, but when you begin dictating to individuals who they may choose to associate with you are removing their freedoms, not adding to them.

Fourteen UN resolutions were passed against Saddam Hussein, all of which sanctioned the use of force should they be broken, which they all were, without exception. The sad fact is that the UN sanctioned Gulf II over ten years before it even began, fourteen times, and then failed to put their money where their mouths were at crunch time. They left Bush and Blair to do their dirty work.

Both capitalism and socialism require effort. Capitalism requires that you remain a fair dealer and not rip your fellow man off, which is where Christian ideals can play a useful role, but socialism requires that one subvert oneself to the state and work as hard as possible without further reward. That's why socialism always fails, everyone's tuned in Radio WII FM - What's In It For Me?

Actually, the original Hebrew says "Thou shalt commit no murder." The word used for "kill" in the Commandments is different from the word used for "kill" throughout the rest of the text.

It does not matter. Whichever faith brings you closest to God is the one you must follow. They're all simply paths to the same goal. Some are dead-ends, some are longer than others and some are simply impassable for some people, but that is something every individual must work out for himself. That's why we are made as thinking entities. Here's an analogy. Most people work for money, and for those who want careers, the plan is usually to get lots of money, to get rich. Stephen King and J.K. Rowling got rich writing fiction, while Bill Gates and Henry Ford got rich through a combination of technical knowledge and business acumen. Bruce Willis and Tom Hanks got their wealth through acting. Michael Jordan got rich playing basketball. Michael Jackson got rich writing songs and performing them. All of these people attained their dreams of wealth, but they all picked a different path. Had they attempted to do other things they probably would not have been nearly as successful. I'm sure Stephen King is a lousy computer programmer, and Michael Jackson would probably write really nauseating and dire fiction.

Define "discriminate against." Refuse to serve in a store? Well, too bad, and sorry if that rankles, but business owners have the right of refusal, whereas customers have no right to service. Here's an example. Let's say I'm a big Nazi and I own and run the Big Nazi Convenience Store. A Jewish man comes in, and I tell him to get out and refuse to serve him. The store premises are my property. The store stock is my property. Why would I not have the right to tell somebody to leave my privately owned premises and to refuse to sell somebody my privately owned stock? The reason does not matter, the fact is that it's all owned by me and I can do whatever the hell I want with it as long as it's not directly causing harm to anyone, and refusing to serve a Jew is not causing direct harm to him.

Right, but Nazism is a combination of lifestyle and beliefs and therefore should also be protected. You see? What I meant by not getting away with it, is that these days the lobby groups run things so much that private organisations can't claim their rights anymore. Look at that golf club in (I think) Augusta who is under attack for not admitting women. You may think this is a Bad Thing, but near my house a women's only gym has just opened. Why are they not being attacked for sexual discrimination? Now, I have no objection to a women's gym. I also have no objection to a men's golf club. A private organisation should be able to exclude anyone they want - but they also have to bear the consequences! A private business could refuse to serve Jews, but when they lose business from boycotts, nobody should bail them out. Freedom of association, but not freedom from responsibility. By that example, it would be fine for people to boycott the Augusta golf club, but it's not OK for them to try and make a court force them into changing their admission rules. Public organisations are different. Since they are paid for by citizens, all citizens should have right of membership.

Furthermore to the subject: As I've said previously, Islam has always had two paths: an enlightened and philosophical one and a warlike one. The latter is dominating right now, but as I said, you can see more enlightened Islam in the works of Mohammed Abduh, Sayyid Ahmad Khan or Mohammed Iqbal. All of these Muslim theologians argued for a more tolerant and peaceful Islam that was more open to Western ideas. I believe they even advocated the "Westernisation of Islam" in those terms, meaning that Islam should move away from rigorous adherence to medieval practice and towards a more enlightened and tolerant religious practice as post-Renaissance Christianity had done. Islam is actually a very diverse and subtle religion with many interesting and divergent sects. I mentioned the Sufi as an example in addition to the mainstream Shi'i and Sunni. As I also said, Islamic theology and philosophy is also very complex and there are a great many long-running debates, for instance, the great Islamic dispute over pre-determinism. It's a shame that all of this has been overshadowed by fanatics shooting kalashnikovs at clouds...

Suetonius refers to Christ as well in "The Twelve Caesars" by the Latinised name "Chrestus." He mentions that Roman Jews were rebellious in the reign of Claudius and alleges that their rebellion was instigated by Christ. Suetonius was not a contemporary of Christ but was born in 69 AD, and the crucifixion would still have been first-hand to some people at that time. Claudius was preceded by Gaius (Caligula) who was preceded by Tiberius, in whose reign Christ was crucified.

Unfortunately, Lost, Freedom of Association means that you can exclude anyone from any private group on any grounds, because it does not grant right of admission to a group that has refused you. So, yes, it would be within the rights of a private school to refuse admission to white trash or of a restaurant to refuse admission to blacks. Businesses have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. I very much doubt that anyone could get away with those acts, in this political climate, but theoretically they would be able to.

Riff, You see what I mean about self-contradiction? Just now, in the topmost quote above, you state that it's entirely possible that sexuality is completely genetic and pre-determined. In the second quote from a couple of pages back, you state that "all along" you believed that both genes and environments have a major part to play. Either you believe the environment has a role to play (in which case, why would you say the former) or you don't (in which case, why would you say the latter)? The same thing can be said of any human behaviour, but as in all behaviours, as you've said, you cannot discount environmental influence. That's the key difference. Sexuality, like any other behaviour, is open to environmental influence, but innate traits like skin colour are absolutely not. Now, you can say that it could be entirely genetic, but there is no evidence so far to prove that, whereas there is considerable evidence to prove that sexuality can result from environmental influence. That sexuality is at least in large part environmentally determined is the theory that best fits the facts available, and ultimately, that's the best one can come up with for anything. I think that we have established, based on all the facts available, that homosexuality is a behaviour, like alcoholism, and not an innate trait, like skin or eye colour. It's open to the influence of the environment. To what degree, we do not know, however, it's differentiated from skin or eye colour or gender because these latter things are set before birth and are immune to environmental influence. What this means is not that we have an excuse to discriminate against gays, but a reason why they should not compare themselves to blacks and women, and I'll give an example to show you what I mean: Maybe they're discriminated against in marriage, unable to be blood donors, and so on. Smokers are discriminated against in restaurants and other public places in a very similar way. While gays can marry, just not to someone of the same sex, smokers can go to a restaurant, they just can't smoke while they're there. Smoking is a behaviour (but you probably have to be genetically vulnerable). Homosexuality is a behaviour (but you probably have to be genetically vulnerable). You see where I am going with this? "We are born that way" is not viable as a justification for homosexual endorsement, any more than smokers could claim the same thing and demand the right to smoke anywhere, anytime. Similarly, gay people cannot claim that "blacks were discriminated against just because of how they were born, and so are we." They are not being discriminated against because of how they were born but because of how they act. Being black is not a behaviour, nor can you stop being black. But many homosexuals and heterosexuals have crossed the line in either direction or even straddled it, as have alcoholics, smokers and so forth. You might argue that the homosexual who sleeps with an opposite sex partner is still a homosexual at heart, but a black man cannot become white and yet remain black at heart.

The spending isn't even particularly smart anyway. What use are diesel patrol submarines in this day and age? Increase the spending and spend it on things that will actually be useful in the age of modern warfare.

I really didn't want to start a spelling-flame war, but since you insist on it, you might want to look at comma usage. Then your "explanation" might have some validity. As it stands, there are two interpretations of the sentence in question, and both would mean that that sentence was grammatically incorrect. I'm not about to take spelling lessons from somebody whose writing skills are as poor as yours. I also never heard of a geneticist who couldn't write at a high school level, by the way. Just look at the quote above. Missing capitalization, missing commas, misspelled words, missing apostrophes - are you sure you graduated? HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT INNATE IN THE SAME WAY AS SKIN COLOUR OR GENDER. That should be loud and clear enough that you can't misquote it again - at least not without making an even bigger fool of yourself. Scotch, I'll try this one more time. Maybe I should put some emphasis on it for you, too. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW BLACK YOU ARE OR WHAT TIGER WOODS LOOKS LIKE. YOUR SKIN COLOUR IS SET BEFORE BIRTH BY GENES AND IS INVULNERABLE TO ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE, BARRING THE MOST SUPERFLUOUS AND TRANSIENT OF CHANGES. Tiger Woods might be hard to pigeonhole, but environment will never, ever make Tiger Woods look like Chris Rock or Yao Ming. It's not my fault you can't do your research, by the way. I got my figures from the CDC, like it or not, and a quick search of CDC's website under the keyword "homosexuality" listed a ton of information - and none of it was positive about the health aspects of the behaviour. Go look at the "Beyond Satire" thread where you'll find a mass of sources from myself and Neal that prove the grave health risks of being homosexual.