The Terrible Sweal
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Posts posted by The Terrible Sweal
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Sweal, ... Your worst posts are one line putdowns.
You are failing to make an essential distinction between a 'putdown' and a 'critique'. I do the latter and avoid the former. If you know of actually cases where I have failed to do that please make a specific reference.
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What a muddle.
First off, our society does not base marriage on reproductive potential. Infertile couples are perfectly free to marry in our society.
Second, you are not even responding to what I asked. I asked about 'what should', you respond with a (incorrect) reference to 'what does'.
Tell me something, CC. If I shoot down every one of your arguments against it, would you EVER admit SSM should be allowed?
Why am I required to agree with it?
You're answer is No, then?
By calling it the same thing as a heterosexual marriage you cheapen the whole purpose for heterosexual marriage which is to build a foundation for family.Since reproduction as a motve has been dispensed with, your idea that SSM cheapens marriage seems to lack any sensible content.
Tell you what. Why don't we ban marriage altogether? Why should anyone have something known as a "legal" marraige? What's the purpose of it? People can live together and have whatever religious ceremonies they want to show their commitment to one another; however, they state will always recognize them as individuals.How about instead the state provides any two willing people with a civil union and leaves 'marriage' to whatever religions or cults want to define it for their participants?
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Welfare is Robin Hood: steal from the rich and give to the poor. Policing is providing a service to the population that would be under-produced if privately provided.
Welfare is not Robin Hood. Since we live in a democracy, taxation is not theft.
The policing distinction fails because welfare is exactly an effort by government to provide a value which would be underprovided by the market. I.e. food and shelter to the impoverished.
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How about a trumped up sense of relevance?
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We should distinguish between people who follow the "scientific method" and those who don't, regardless of their religious beliefs. (Einstein believed in God, and was a devout Jew.)
I readily agree with that.
Maybe the ditinction we are seeking is beteen people whose choices are based in reason and those whose choices are not. (Bearing in mind that that may differ from one choice to the next for many people. In fact probably the focus should be the choices, not the people -- something for me to reflect on.)
Sweal, you use the term "theocrat". What do you mean exactly? Would you consider Stephen Harper to be a theocrat? IYV, is George W. Bush a theocrat?I'm using it with a whole lot of poetic licence. Practically licentiousness!
If I were to be precise, I would say instead of 'theocrats': persons who advocate the relevance of religious belief in the formulation of pulic policy. By this definition, yes to Bush, a tepid yes to Harper.
Also Sweal, why do passengers in the Middle East and Asia clap when a landing plane touches the runway?Why are you asking me that?
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I would not begrudge Harper spending some time with his son on Saturday ...
Do you know what a straw man argument is? It is a logical fallacy and you just committed it big time.
The idea is, you build up somebody else's position (usually making it sound really weak) then tear it back down and criticize the very position that you yourself created and ASSUMED was held by your adversary.
None of what you have said about Harper is true, it's only what you SUPPOSE. And being a lefty, your supposition about his intentions is almost certainly biased.
Nice try. Only a lefty would get angry at a father for hanging with his son instead of going to a parade.
HaHAHAAAAHAHAHA!
Look at this piece of idiocy or mendacity. Jerry gives a pedantic (and manque) rant on strawmen, then turns right around and does a blindingly obvious one of his own.
Jerry, did you not NOTICE Netherland's very first sentence, or did you not CARE that your reply was completely misplaced?
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I have yet to see government do ANYTHING more efficiently than private enterprise.
Look! Ignorance and ideology marching lockstep in folly.
What is more imprtant to YOU: timely delivery of care of equality?Reciting the same fale dichotomy falls far short of constitutng a convincing argument.
When people ignore (rather than meeting) the submissions of their interlocutors, and simlpy repeat the callenged claims , I always wonder: did they fail to notice the gaping hole in their position, or do they think we don't notice it?
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The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the claims are unfounded and without empirical evidence.
Three judges of the SCC ruled something like that on the the evidence before them.
It's amazing that somehow, even when Libs LOSE in court, they still turn it around as if their opinion is the RIGHT one and that no one, not even the Supreme Court of Canada can suggest otherwise.One: The decision we are discussing did not provide any decision under the Candian Charter. Two: In my opinion the judges who found against the government position made a wrong decision. It happens.
Sweal I have a newsflash for you. Courts tend to pass judgement on the EVIDENCE BEFORE THEM.
Yeah... if you were literate it would be clear to you that I just said that very thing.
The entire government of Quebec and all of their witnesses couldn't come up with satisfactory emprirical evidence to prove their ideological claims.Which judge(s) wrote the passage you rely upon? How many of them does that make? What percentage of the bench do they make up?
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Well I live in Canada. And I pay the government thousands every month for a system that made me wait in the emergency room strapped to a spinal board waiting for xrays and ct scan on my head and neck. What a disgrace.
Thousands every month for health care? You're not credible.
You have conveniently chosen an anecdotal example of the worst health care system in all of europe.Your aspersion there is disingenuous. He chose it from experience, not 'conveniently'. Why can't you debate fairly, I wonder? Ideology probably.
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For no reason should the public system ever be cancelled, let's make that perfectly clear right now. As a moral and responsible nation critical care for citizens should be provided for us.
Coming from you, this comment is supremely illogical. Why would you wat t bother preserving a semblance of the public system at the same time you obviously don't care whether it provides effective care? You give lip service to the public good while really supporting purely private benefit.
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I am sure there is a POINT related to this discussion somewhere in there.
Missed the point again, did you? Typical.
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Sweal rarely has a point other than trying to quash debate by saying anything other than HIS ideas are ridiculous.
Rarely have a point? What pathetic bullshit. Grow up and stop lying to bolster your ego in the face of your lack of reasoning ability.
There is a line up to buy groceries. there are 10 people waiting. Now, another check-out person opens up a till and says: "I can help someone over here but there is a 10% surcharge".Your simple example is stupid. Either you lack the education and intelligence to see that it is a reductionist farce, or you know it is, but see fit to excrete it anyway.
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Oh yah. But a poll based on the idea that everybody gets treated like billionaires is super-realistic, right?
Have you been drinkingn kimmy?
Are you the only guy allowed to post hypotheticals around here?No. Am I the only person not allowed to comment on someone's question?
You said that if people didn't like your crappy poll, they should go post their own, but Jerry does so and you have a hissy-fit.??
A hissy fit? You want an example of a hissy fit, reread your post above.
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There you go again. How do you get "prime healthcare" out of the question you asked?
There is prime healthcare and less-than-prime health care. The question asks which one you want for your kids. Not HOW, not WHY, just which.
... your preference for "Option B" and condemnation of "Option A" is based on the assumption that "Option B" provides awesome healthcare for your kids and "Option A" provides shitty healthcare for your kids.No. It is not about which "provides" better care it is about which of two qualities you want. Venturing into the "provides" question is exactly the ideological bent the question was meant to bring to the surface.
... why would anybody assume that giving my kids healthcare equal to the healthcare the rich are getting would mean giving my kids better healthcare?The question was do you Equal-or-Better, or Worse.
You'd have to be on crack to think our universal public healthcare will ever be funded enough to treat your kids and my kids like Belinda.ca's kidsWhy?
BTW, I never thought Batman is conservative. I took him as an old money New England democrat.
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The 'if' in this question is so unrealistic it makes the whole exercise almost pointless.
IF giving away your car would make it easier for you to drive around, would you? IF spending all your money in video-gambling would make your family more well-off, would you? IF voting for the BQ would make Canada more cohesive, would you?
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Have
your
say.
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Why should the state be bothered worrying about what sort of gonads are involved?
Because family law that pertains to opposite sex marriage doesn't pertain to same sex couples who have no means of creating offspring.
What a muddle.
First off, our society does not base marriage on reproductive potential. Infertile couples are perfectly free to marry in our society.
Second, you are not even responding to what I asked. I asked about 'what should', you respond with a (incorrect) reference to 'what does'.
Tell me something, CC. If I shoot down every one of your arguments against it, would you EVER admit SSM should be allowed?
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You see, a gay couple has partners of the same sex, a heterosexual couple are partners of opposite sex. Different things. I'd post pictures, but that'd probably get me banned.
A mixed race couple are partners with different races, same race couple are partners of the same race. Different things. I'd post pictures, but that'd probably get me banned too.
At one point in time it was considered immoral for a white person to marry a black person (considered against the laws of nature and an abominiation). It don't see any difference between the racial bigotry of the past and the gay bigotry that SSM opponents seem to have.
It's a biologically compatible relationship regardless of a person's race. Someone's skin colour and the type of gonads they have are entirely different issues.
Why should the state be bothered worrying about what sort of gonads are involved?
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Maybe Canadian federal politics will have to get much worse before people will turn to an honest politician like Harper. Or then again, maybe Harper would do better if he didn't pander to people who will never like him.
So which is he, honest or pandering?
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It's unconstitutional for a government to force people to wait ..
Says you, not the courts.
Say the courts.
I'm afraid you are mistaken.
Three judges said the Charter is violated, three said it wasn't, and one declined to rule on the Cdn. Charter (confining her decision to the Quebec bill of rights only). The effect of all that is that the law would not be unconstitutional.
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The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the claims are unfounded and without empirical evidence.
Three judges of the SCC ruled something like that on the the evidence before them.
It's amazing that somehow, even when Libs LOSE in court, they still turn it around as if their opinion is the RIGHT one and that no one, not even the Supreme Court of Canada can suggest otherwise.One: The decision we are discussing did not provide any decision under the Candian Charter. Two: In my opinion the judges who found against the government position made a wrong decision. It happens.
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The right thing to do is have a free vote on this issue in parlaiment, as Stephen Harper is demanding.
You mean "as the Martin government is providing".
Is it a free vote? I wasn't aware. If so, then I am with Martin on this one. See how easy it is to drop your partisan colours and see the world for what it is?
Yes, it is set to be a free vote. Ministers in the cabinet are expected to toe the line, but other government MPs are at liberty to vote as they wish.
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Harper to the Fraser Institute in Calgary 29 April 2005:
... Harper said a plan to gut medicare,... was both naïve and misguided. ... "I could not imagine a proposal that's more of a non-starter than that one," Harper said yesterday. ... the mainly business audience might not like his new position on health care, but said that political realism demanded it.
In other words, Harper's "new position on health care" is based on the raw expediency of wanting to get elected. If it was not a 'nonstarter', he'd prefer two tier healthcare.
That's a straw man logical fallacy: Avoid suppositions and stick to the facts.
If that were a strawman it would be a logical fallacy, but it is not a strawman.
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Sweal, you seem pretty sharp, but could I ask you to stop quoting little phrases and then cracking back on them? It makes it hard to understand what you're discussing, plus it might be more constructive to actually MAKE and argument instead of cutting up other people's ALL the time.
Jerry, seemingly you haven't been here long enough to notice the extesive arguments I make.
Anyway, no offence, but I'm not about to change my style now to suit you.
Why Harper Fails
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
It was a hard fought issue in their policy convention, and Harper's position retains some equivocation.
The Cons are taking their stance all on their own. It takes two to tango.
Let's face it. Most Canadians understand their taxes pay for social infratructure and services they value.
But it would not mean that.
Wellnow there's a peurile comment.
25 percent or so, isn't it?
The Libs are winning based on the Conservatives' attention to those marginal issues.