Philosophy 101
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sassy_girl1963
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quoll said:
I'm with BG - lately I have felt like I've had too much air in with my brain -
And plus I really like what quoll said - mmmmm yummy good!
EJFan
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i was having a conversation with another litizen the other day when i shared a thought i've had for a long while... this is it...
i think the government should take itself out of the religion business entirely. it made SOME degree of sense when, before WWII, the US was primarily christian and even without a state religion there was some validity to have national holidays for things like christmas and easter.
at this point i believe there are enough different religions in the US that we can stop with these holidays. let the government not mark any holidays, let them get out of the marriage business, let them allow the private sector to deal with these issues on their own. if you're a religious person, work out your holiday schedule with your employer... let those who want to work on those days work and vice versa.
i think the government should take itself out of the religion business entirely. it made SOME degree of sense when, before WWII, the US was primarily christian and even without a state religion there was some validity to have national holidays for things like christmas and easter.
at this point i believe there are enough different religions in the US that we can stop with these holidays. let the government not mark any holidays, let them get out of the marriage business, let them allow the private sector to deal with these issues on their own. if you're a religious person, work out your holiday schedule with your employer... let those who want to work on those days work and vice versa.
Hisbabydoll26
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EJFan said:
Teacher here....You might find it interesting to note..that in addition to the other new holidays being added to my time off this year...Cinco De Mayo was added. Now really.....is this taking the holiday thing a little too far?
EJFan
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i think holidays are becoming an economic hinderance. as the economy globalizes more each year, these extra days off will become far more localized because our commerce will be far more wide-spread. think of how much money could be saved by not paying triple time for workers to come in on holidays... particularly when the only thing being done in observance is not going to work.
it's a very good point you make, HBD.
it's a very good point you make, HBD.
bobsgirl
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EJFan said:
As ingrained as these holidays are in American society, it would be virtually impossible to eliminate them as official government holidays. You'd never get enough support in Congress for a bill to get anywhere.
I am far more uncomfortable with government sticking its nose in people's private business and trying to legislate morality. Our administration wants to reduce the size of government in the economic arena, but they sure don't mind finding a cozy spot for themselves right at the foot of my bed.
EJFan
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i agree.bobsgirl said:
the inherent problem with being a society that is founded on laws (rather than a religion or culture) is that it evolves into a society that expects government to legislate away the problems around them. there's a fundamental issue to be had with government profiting from the very things they want to stop us from doing. what probability is there, for example, of the government making a real effort to stop smoking or foster healthier lifestyles, when they profit from cigarette taxes and finance the production of high fructose corn syrup? they have a vested interest in these things... stopping their use would kill an income stream.
Recidiva
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Legalize all things that do harm to an individual by their own hand (drugs, suicide).
You can't legislate intelligence. You can't turn back what brain chemistry does to a person by forcing laws and punishments on people who are already punished by their own bodies.
It would eliminate black markets and release so many people from the criminal system.
Mistakes either result in learning or progressive death. Let's make both of those options faster and more transparent, and provide enough education to help people through these trials.
What did Elliot Ness say when prohibition was repealed? "I think I'll go have a drink"
You can't legislate intelligence. You can't turn back what brain chemistry does to a person by forcing laws and punishments on people who are already punished by their own bodies.
It would eliminate black markets and release so many people from the criminal system.
Mistakes either result in learning or progressive death. Let's make both of those options faster and more transparent, and provide enough education to help people through these trials.
What did Elliot Ness say when prohibition was repealed? "I think I'll go have a drink"
EJFan
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this is a very libertarian view and reminds me of something.Recidiva said:
ALL legislation that governs an individual's liberties in these areas are basically rooted in the idea that there's a group of people who can control themselves and a group of people who cannot. those who (supposedly) have control feel they have an obligation to protect those who can't.
The largest entanglement of government and religion involves the most personal area of human relations — marriage. Marriage is generally seen as a religious institution. We often here about the sanctity of marriage, holy matrimony, the wedding sacrament, and "What God has put together … ". Yet the rights and obligations of spouses and the legalities of marriage occupy substantial portions of civil laws. In California, the Family Code contains 138 sections devoted to marriage, excluding the addtional sections relating to the termination of marriage.
Here, we have the unique situation in which government delegates to ordained clergy the authority to establish a legal partnership that only the courts can terminate. In no other area of family law does such a delegation exist. Even adoption through a religious agency requires final approval by a government agency. (Note that a marriage license does not grant government approval of a marriage; it merely provides a means to record the result.)
We also have the government uniquely defining and regulating a situation established through a religious rite. The government does not define or regulate baptism, bris, confirmation, or bar mitzvah. And here, we have government — but not religion — having the final authority to undo a religious rite through divorce or dissolution.
This would not be as serious an issue as a cross in a public park or the Ten Commandments in a court house if it were not for the problem of same-gender marriage. Condemned by many religions but endorsed by others, decisions by the state supreme court in Massachusetts and actions by the city of San Francisco in favor of same-gender marriage have generated a political movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit such marriages. This would implant within our nation's fundamental document of civil law a one-size-fits-all religious declaration, nullifying the positions of those religions that support same-gender marriages.
Rather than amend the Constitution, we need to end this entanglement. Marriage should be strictly a religious situation. Civil laws should neither define, regulate, nor even recognize marriage. Instead, the legal aspects of two persons in a committed relationship should be defined and regulated without reference to marriage, perhaps as domestic partnership even for mixed-gender couples. Just as government would not recognize marriage, no religion would be required to recognize domestic partnership. Just as in some European nations, a couple that wants both the religious and legal significance of what we know today as marriage would need separate religious and civil weddings.
my two cents worth
Here, we have the unique situation in which government delegates to ordained clergy the authority to establish a legal partnership that only the courts can terminate. In no other area of family law does such a delegation exist. Even adoption through a religious agency requires final approval by a government agency. (Note that a marriage license does not grant government approval of a marriage; it merely provides a means to record the result.)
We also have the government uniquely defining and regulating a situation established through a religious rite. The government does not define or regulate baptism, bris, confirmation, or bar mitzvah. And here, we have government — but not religion — having the final authority to undo a religious rite through divorce or dissolution.
This would not be as serious an issue as a cross in a public park or the Ten Commandments in a court house if it were not for the problem of same-gender marriage. Condemned by many religions but endorsed by others, decisions by the state supreme court in Massachusetts and actions by the city of San Francisco in favor of same-gender marriage have generated a political movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit such marriages. This would implant within our nation's fundamental document of civil law a one-size-fits-all religious declaration, nullifying the positions of those religions that support same-gender marriages.
Rather than amend the Constitution, we need to end this entanglement. Marriage should be strictly a religious situation. Civil laws should neither define, regulate, nor even recognize marriage. Instead, the legal aspects of two persons in a committed relationship should be defined and regulated without reference to marriage, perhaps as domestic partnership even for mixed-gender couples. Just as government would not recognize marriage, no religion would be required to recognize domestic partnership. Just as in some European nations, a couple that wants both the religious and legal significance of what we know today as marriage would need separate religious and civil weddings.
my two cents worth
Recidiva said:
ok...but the Supreme Court has ruled that states may legislate away a motorist's Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ruled that police officers could forcibly extract blood from anyone suspected of drunk driving. Other courts have ruled that prosecutors aren't obligated to provide defendants with blood or breath test samples for independent testing (even though both are feasible and relatively cheap to do). In almost every other facet of criminal law, defendants are given access to the evidence against them.
These decisions haven't gone unnoticed in state legislatures. Forty-one states now reserve the right to revoke drunken driving defendants' licenses before they're ever brought to trial. Thirty-seven states now impose harsher penalties on motorists who refuse to take roadside sobriety tests than on those who take them and fail. Seventeen states have laws denying drunk driving defendants the same opportunities to plea bargain given to those accused of violent crimes.
Until recently, New York City cops could seize the cars of first-offender drunk driving suspects upon arrest. Those acquitted or otherwise cleared of charges were still required to file civil suits to get their cars back, which typically cost thousands of dollars. The city of Los Angeles still seizes the cars of suspected first-time drunk drivers, as well as the cars of those suspected of drug activity and soliciting prostitutes.
Newer laws are even worse. As of last month, Washington State now requires anyone arrested (not convicted -- arrested) for drunken driving to install an "ignition interlock" device, which forces the driver to blow into a breath test tube before starting the car, and at regular intervals while driving. A second law mandates that juries hear all drunken driving cases. It then instructs juries to consider the evidence "in a light most favorable to the prosecution," absurd evidentiary standard at odds with everything the American criminal justice system is supposed to stand for.....
Even scarier are the laws that didn't pass, but will inevitably be introduced again. New Mexico's state legislature nearly passed a law that would mandate ignition interlock devices on every car sold in the state beginning in 2008, regardless of the buyer's driving record. Drivers would have been required to pass a breath test to start the car, then again every 10 minutes while driving. Car computer systems would have kept records of the tests, which would have been downloaded at service centers and sent to law enforcement officials for evaluation. New York considered a similar law.......
That isn't to say we ought to ease up on drunken drivers. But our laws should be grounded in sound science and the presumption of innocence, not in hysteria. They should target repeat offenders and severely impaired drunks, not social drinkers who straddle the legal threshold. Though the threat of drunken driving has significantly diminished over the last 20 years, it's still routinely overstated by anti-alcohol activists and lawmakers. Even if the threat were as severe as it's often portrayed, casting aside basic criminal protections and civil liberties is the wrong way to address it.
Recidiva
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DLL said:The largest entanglement of government and religion involves the most personal area of human relations — marriage. Marriage is generally seen as a religious institution. We often here about the sanctity of marriage, holy matrimony, the wedding sacrament, and "What God has put together … ". Yet the rights and obligations of spouses and the legalities of marriage occupy substantial portions of civil laws. In California, the Family Code contains 138 sections devoted to marriage, excluding the addtional sections relating to the termination of marriage.
Here, we have the unique situation in which government delegates to ordained clergy the authority to establish a legal partnership that only the courts can terminate. In no other area of family law does such a delegation exist. Even adoption through a religious agency requires final approval by a government agency. (Note that a marriage license does not grant government approval of a marriage; it merely provides a means to record the result.)
We also have the government uniquely defining and regulating a situation established through a religious rite. The government does not define or regulate baptism, bris, confirmation, or bar mitzvah. And here, we have government — but not religion — having the final authority to undo a religious rite through divorce or dissolution.
This would not be as serious an issue as a cross in a public park or the Ten Commandments in a court house if it were not for the problem of same-gender marriage. Condemned by many religions but endorsed by others, decisions by the state supreme court in Massachusetts and actions by the city of San Francisco in favor of same-gender marriage have generated a political movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit such marriages. This would implant within our nation's fundamental document of civil law a one-size-fits-all religious declaration, nullifying the positions of those religions that support same-gender marriages.
Rather than amend the Constitution, we need to end this entanglement. Marriage should be strictly a religious situation. Civil laws should neither define, regulate, nor even recognize marriage. Instead, the legal aspects of two persons in a committed relationship should be defined and regulated without reference to marriage, perhaps as domestic partnership even for mixed-gender couples. Just as government would not recognize marriage, no religion would be required to recognize domestic partnership. Just as in some European nations, a couple that wants both the religious and legal significance of what we know today as marriage would need separate religious and civil weddings.
my two cents worth
I agree, I'm glad to see this issue redefining what marriage is and what it means.
My husband and I had been together for years and years, but the tax breaks and the benefits for being "married" heavily outweighed the penalties we took financially and socially (hospitals won't let you give consent unless you're married, taxes are completely out of whack, "domestic partnership" benefits cost four times more than if you are married)
We gave up living in sin under financial protest. Married at city hall.
Recidiva said:
Our voting system's foundation is built on the sand of states' rights and local control. We have fifty states, 3,141 counties and 7,800 different local election jurisdictions. All separate and unequal.. .....
In four states, if you're an ex-felon you're barred from voting for life. There are 5 million Americans (including 1.8 million African-Americans, mostly in Southern states--where 55 percent of African- Americans live) who have paid their debt to society but are prohibited from voting. At the same time, in Maine and Vermont you can vote even if you're in jail.
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