Obama '08?

That's just a flippancy. The post referred to the ambiguation of the word "marriage" and that if its meaning gets frayed the arguments for same-sex unions taking the word over apply equally to polygamy. Hence they are arguments for a free-for-all.

From a legal point of view the word"marriage" has to be unambiguous and if it isn't we will arrive, sooner of later, where it doesn't mean anything and partners in heterosexual marriages will be in the same place legally as single people as will partners in any other type of relationship.

Thus homosexuals are arguing for nothing because they end up being treated as singles, as now, just as "marrieds" will be.

We are considering the future. So--the arguments being put on here look like they represent mere envy of whatever benefits "marrieds" get and I assume most homosexuals have married parents. Thus--for a self-centred and gratuitous attention-seeking phot0-op, with attendant fuss, they are out to take away whatever benefits their parents, and other married relations, get, which exist to encourage people to get married and stay married, and all for nothing apart from the legal profession whose fees will expand in direct proportion to the confusion.

It's a minefield and there are no easy answers. It is the homosexuals who are being disingenuous by pretending there are easy answers.

The are arguing for polygamy with what I have seen said so far. And if it arrives potato pickers have to save up to hire a prostitute as a birfday treat. How do they deal with a threesome that arrives at the front desk demanding to be "married" and those have a better claim than homosexuals? All the arguments I've seen on here apply to them. Otherwise the homosexuals are discriminating against what floats other people's boats. The very offence they continually whinge about.

Okay para. Read the other post again, carefully. Then this one, likewise. Then tell us what you think. It's a subject that requires more than one-liners.

I think that if the whole thing was let loose, as it was not very long ago (jumping over a brush and back) for the propertyless lower orders, the great majority, same sex living arrangements for sexual purposes would still be discriminated against and perhaps moreso because in such circumstance lewdity in language and spades being spades would discourage that reticence in easy-going heterosexuals to say out loud what they actually think except when standing in the privacy of a voting booth.

Mr Obama needs some better advice it seems to me. Still--he's a lawyer isn't he. They all piss in the same pot.

Just more strong statements from someone that admits they don't know anything?

Voltaire is supposed to have left it to the almost last moment. But ci. is, I think, made of sterner stuff. "Wor a wimp Voltaire was" ci. should go aroung saying. With Pascal looking down laughing.

It's inconceivable to me that anybody would turn down a bet to nothing on eternal bliss to maintain an intellectual position. Can stubbornness get more stubborn than that. It's jumped the asymptote.

What Mr Obama is in dire need of is a Court Jester. "Alas, poor Yorick". (see Tristram Shandy)

You're out of your depth para. I didn't say I don't know anything. I know enough to say what I've said; which hasn't been said before on here.

I'm quite happy to debate what I've said. Your one-line throwaways are pointless and have no effect on me.

No news there.

Your argument has certainly been made before spendi. Arguing that allowing homosexuals to marry will lead to polygamy is a slippery slope argument. It makes as much sense as arguing that denying homosexuals marriage will soon lead to no one be able to get married. While you may try to obscure your argument with references to literary works it doesn't change the essence of your argument. It is still bereft of logic and thought.

Why should denying homosexuals marriage soon lead to no one being able to get married when it didn't lead to that when homosexuals were denied the right to marriage for all these years. How do you arrive at a history-denying conclusion like that? Marriage is not agitating to change its condition.



Not on here.



I said it was. And you're on the gentle slopes thinking you can manage it. But the statement is just an assertion exposing itself undressed. I said why. Not just that it is. There's no conclusion to be drawn from it "just is". I gave you an example of a threesome turning up demanding their rights. Admittedly a rather twee example.

But by a twist of logic I am unable to fathom, American logic I presume, expensively inculcated, you do draw a conclusion. It is--



which I have already shown to be ridiculous but not as ridiculous as drawing a conclusioon from something no conclusion can be drawn from. Suppose the slippery slope slides gently into a warm bath containing 3 eagerly smiling chicks. Does that make as much sense as " arguing that denying homosexuals marriage will soon lead to no one be able to get married" ? Which was a history-denying stupidity. As well as a conclusion being drawn which is illogical ( a non sequitur). Who said anything about the slippery slope leading to disaster. I specifically pointed out that it would be no disaster to the legal profession. Or in the short term at least. The conflict between Yin and Yang is a very fruitful resource for those sweet talkers as some of us well know. Not me I hasten to add.

It's all very well to have majored in non sequiturs but one is supposed to thereby have been abled to avoid employing the dirty trick before an audience which has got into long pants. The educational system in a gigantic Able to Know. (Oh yeah!!).

For the exact same reason that allowing homosexuals being allowed to marry will lead to polygamous marriages. It's a slippery slope argument. You seem to recognize one as such but not both. Are you wearing blinders?

That's lovely spendi. Let us know when your mother finally decides you can wear long pants.

You knitted two shocking blunders into one Willie Warmer and finished off with a diatribe. Literary refences are used to clarify arguments, not obscure them, although I can understand that to those they don't register with they might seem obscure. But that doesn't make them obscure. The assumption that they are obscure to everyone in a debate audience is a trifle solipsistic as well as being an insult to the prestige of A2K.

That I am "bereft of logic and thought" makes a similar assumption. If you represent American logic and thought then I am very glad I am bereft of the both.

Do you ever talk airily about "critical thinking"? Does anybody in the US know what it means. But I have to admit that from an evolutionary standpoint whatever it is that it does mean in the US, if it is only the use of it in intellectual conversations, is a successful adaptation. So far anyway.

Unless the meaning has been changed in recent years since large amounts of money were distrubuted within the educational system and it hasn't been tested long enough yet. In order to sell certificates of excellence, and the associated kit, to millions it is probably necessary to change the meaning of critical thinking from what it was to a badge of honour when flashed at the door.

spendi, Where you go "wrong" is the assumption that a word like "marriage" should have more meaning than two lovers having the legal bless of laws and equal treatment under the laws. Everything else you suppose can happen are not the issues of marriage. They are social issues that are already illegal such as polygamy. If it doesn't "mean anything," that's because the marriage partners decide to leave their legal contract called marriage. It doesn't affect anybody else - except in the case of children. Who did they harm by their marriage or divorce? You?

Your world is a fraud when you must affect other people's lives with your bigotry and discrimination against your fellow humans based on a word.

When will you start disallowing other adjectives you think deserve scrutiny towards people you don't even know?

I often wonder about your use of literary references spendi when you can't understand that trying to obscure your argument in no way means that the literary works you use are obscure nor does it mean that your argument is obscure.

Since I never said anything was obscure, I can only assume you are referring to yourself as being solipsistic for saying anything was obscure. I would argue that your statements are often very unShandylike. We see where you are going from the beginning and nothing is hidden from view in spite of your attempts at being sterne.

Saying your argument is bereft of logic and thought is not the same thing as saying you are bereft of logic and thought though your response may well support the assumption I never made.

I made no assumptions. It's the law that defines the word. Not me. And it defines it unambiguously. Everything else is excluded. Leaving aside those few places which either don't understand the issues or don't care. Once it becomes ambiguous I don't see that homosexuals have the right to insist that the ambiguity stops with them. Their own argument about rights denies them that opportunity.

It isn't just polygamy that is illegal now. Homosexuals getting married is also in 45, is it, sensible states. As are other things. You're hanging on your own rope with illegality.

Do you really not understand that the benefits for marriage are an encouragement. An inducement in some cases. The state encouraging men and women to marry and stay married. Not for no reason either. It is not just some nice sounding idea. The State wants stable marriage. What reason is there for the State to want homosexual unions given the same benefits (inducements) ?



It's your world that's a fraud. Pretending social consequences are not a factor. The main factor. I have no bigotry or discrimination. I am concerned exclusively with efficient social organisation under the real circumstances. I'm not fannying around with abstract idealisations to make some subjective point of my own like you are. As you do also on the evolution threads.

And don't talk about being "harmed" either. That's just another dollop of bullshit and a rather large one. When you have to stoop to that shite it is you who have been harmed. It's a social worker's expression designed to get petty criminals into their financial orbit rather than that of the wardens. Mother Theresa types with beady gleams in their eyes. Or an all purpose, suit any occasion, gambit when no other answer presents itself to the consciousness.



Are you trying to close A2K down or do you just want some sweet baby-talk while you slip in the back door and get the rules changed on your own account?

Nice argument Spendius. However, I fear it is wasted on Parados.

Dialogue or argument with parados is a bit like boxing an amoeba - very hard to leave a lasting impression. He apparently believes that if he can select and misrepresent any small component of your argument and reach what he styles as a contradiction, then he has demolished the whole thing,

The exercise is futile.

parados, Just proves that being well-read doesn't help ones common sense or logic. He just loves to show that he's well-read, and also proves the maxim that "some people never learn."

It's not George. For a start I enjoy it. And if there are viewers who see what I've said and think it, or part of it, might be a show-stopper in their conversations, the argument would be spreading. Saying it is futile and abandoning the field on that basis leaves the other side in possession and then you get what they want.

Perhaps so. However, he is an obnoxious little insect. It requires more energy and interest to counter his endless sophistry than I am usually willing to expend.

It's those damn niggling things like facts george. It takes so much energy to counter them. I can see why you are unwilling to expend it. It requires building a whole different set of facts and trying to convince others that your facts are real.

I think there's a great deal of truth in what you say here. And that this definitely shapes certain posters' style of argumentation.

Cycloptichorn

No. Your problem is that you persistently evade central points and look for details you can attack, using them as a mask to enable you to evade the main points. You then attempt to clothe yourself in virtue for the effort all while continuing to evade issues that are uncomfortable to yourself.

It makes you an uninteresting partner in dialogue.

Which central point am I evading in the discussion about card check? Pointing out that your "facts" are all unsupported may cause you discomfort but it certainly isn't avoiding any main points unless your main point is that I should agree with your made up facts.