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At 2/1/05 09:44 PM, RoboFrog wrote: you start out this thread against the libreals now you take there view, do you or do you not support the current admistion (neo conservative) FUNKbrs

I'm sorry..... I'm an independent. I voted for Ralph Nader (yes, I'm old enough to vote). Just because this thread attacks liberals by no means implies that I'm a consevative. I'm not a big fan of conservative bullshit like banning stem cell reasearch just the set the precedent of the Fed PWNing science either.

At 2/1/05 09:38 PM, RoboFrog wrote:

At 2/1/05 09:33 PM, Ravens_Grin wrote: Don't cut your eye blind.

WhiteHouse.Gov

just because they have the programs doesn't mean there working in favor of the lower-middle citizens

Give me a link, or better yet, give me an ISBN number of something that says otherwise.

And FunkBRS:
And you misinterpreted what I said. I was referring to taxes helping out in all of those benefits, and that gangs usually do not do so. I see that other people got the point, and I'm sure you did too. It's just you dodged what I was saying to make a stab at a reference to something in your life to make your opinion seem more authentic.

If the government did it's job, there'd be no power vacuum for gangs to fill.

So really what is your point in saying this? Do you want more government? Nah, that's more taxes; you don't want that. Do you want less government? Nah that'll provide a void that will be consumed by gangs. Really, what do you want?

At 2/1/05 09:45 PM, MembrsOfBushWhackers wrote: Um, the constitution? There shall be no state religion.

Actually the precedent of seperation of church was implied in the constitution and verified by Thomas Jefferson.

At 2/1/05 09:42 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Nice graph. The best part was the little dip at the beginning of the Bush Administration, with a sharp increase beginning after 9-11.

It DOES make Reagan look really bad, but hell, that's what you get when you elect an actor instead of a president.

Actually it makes Reagan, H.W. Bush, and W. Bush all look pretty bad. Although I must say, the nice dip at the beginning of the Bush administration was probably more from the actions of the previous president rather than the current one. Same thing happend with Clinton when he took office, some of the stuff that H. W. was doing at the end started it in the right direction and Clinton kept it up. What did O'l H. W. do you might ask? He raised taxes.

At 2/1/05 09:45 PM, MembrsOfBushWhackers wrote:

Um, the constitution? There shall be no state religion.

Right, the FEDERAL constitution. Anyways, that only really translates to that there can't be a Church of America, not that the government isn't allowed to have anything to do with the Church.

Of course, as I've mentioned, the federal constitution does NOT apply to the states. They have their own constitutions.

Um, no. Funerals are ways to pay your last respects to someone. Plenty of people have funerals no matter what if any religion they have.

Why would you want to pay your last respects to someone if you know they'r already gone? ITS ALREADY TOO LATE WHEN THEY'RE DEAD. Believing visiting the dead has any effect is clearly a religious belief, because it is readily contradicted by science.

A state can't violate the U.S. constitution. A state can't take away someones freedom of speech, or protest, or right to bear arms, etc. etc.

Not true. In fact, they're are quite a few court cases in the 1800's that say just the opposite. In particular, the Slaughterhouse Case, where state regulations interfered with the ability of a company to make a profit, and Barron Vs Baltimore, where state use of a harbor as a dumping site made it impossible for a harbor man to keep his dock operating. In particular, the Slaughterhouse case said the 14th amendment only applied ot slaves.

This was all decided over 200 years ago. There is no conspiracy.

The current constitution was drafted completely in secret while the original Articles of Confederation were still in effect.

You were saying?

Yea, I think No Child Left Behind is B.S. too.

Perfect example of Bush doing something Liberal to support Federal power. They're all in it together, baby, whether they admit it or not.

Who cares what the liberals want to do? Republicans donminate all 3 chambers.

And they aren't over turning any of these rulings, even though technically they could......

Just because they don't PUBLICLY support the power grab, doesn't mean they don't see how they benefit, and silently approve....

At 2/1/05 09:49 PM, Ravens_Grin wrote: And FunkBRS:
And you misinterpreted what I said. I was referring to taxes helping out in all of those benefits, and that gangs usually do not do so. I see that other people got the point, and I'm sure you did too. It's just you dodged what I was saying to make a stab at a reference to something in your life to make your opinion seem more authentic.

Duh. That's how you play politics. The US is clearly run much better than the Crips, which is why "crip" is not a political party. The Crips COULD provide services if they had too, but if they did, they'd probably turn out just like our current government.

After all, you can only take an extended metaphor so far....

So really what is your point in saying this? Do you want more government? Nah, that's more taxes; you don't want that. Do you want less government? Nah that'll provide a void that will be consumed by gangs. Really, what do you want?

I want more efficient goverment, ie, BOTH. However, I know I'm not going to get it, so I'm settling for this bitchfest. You have to take what you can get.

At 2/1/05 10:02 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Right, the FEDERAL constitution. Anyways, that only really translates to that there can't be a Church of America, not that the government isn't allowed to have anything to do with the Church.

Of course, as I've mentioned, the federal constitution does NOT apply to the states. They have their own constitutions.

The goverment can't do anything that promotes 1 religion over another, so basically the goverment is recquired to seperate church and state. If you want to combine them your walking a very fine line. The American constitution applies to everyone living in the 50 states and D.C.

Why would you want to pay your last respects to someone if you know they'r already gone? ITS ALREADY TOO LATE WHEN THEY'RE DEAD. Believing visiting the dead has any effect is clearly a religious belief, because it is readily contradicted by science.

No it's not. You talk with friends and family to remember a person who's died. Many funerals have nothing to do with religion. People don't get together to watch someones soul leave the grave and go to heaven. People just get together to remember a friend or family member.

Not true. In fact, they're are quite a few court cases in the 1800's that say just the opposite. In particular, the Slaughterhouse Case, where state regulations interfered with the ability of a company to make a profit, and Barron Vs Baltimore, where state use of a harbor as a dumping site made it impossible for a harbor man to keep his dock operating. In particular, the Slaughterhouse case said the 14th amendment only applied ot slaves.

What's your point? A court interpreted what the constitution means. That's what they do. They never said that the constitution doesn't apply to any state.

This was all decided over 200 years ago. There is no conspiracy.

The current constitution was drafted completely in secret while the original Articles of Confederation were still in effect.

You were saying?

It was formed by delegates from every state, everyone knew it was being written, every state ratified it. There is no conspiracy.

Yea, I think No Child Left Behind is B.S. too.

Perfect example of Bush doing something Liberal to support Federal power. They're all in it together, baby, whether they admit it or not.

How is NCLB a liberal program?

Also, your really sounding like a conspiracy theorist, coming up with secret motives for Bush's education policies.

At 2/1/05 11:25 PM, MembrsOfBushWhackers wrote: No it's not. You talk with friends and family to remember a person who's died. Many funerals have nothing to do with religion. People don't get together to watch someones soul leave the grave and go to heaven. People just get together to remember a friend or family member.

The point was that the actual burial itself is a waste of a body that can be used for science or disposed of much more efficiently via cremation. Burying a body is purely religious, simply because there's no point to doing so outside of a religious context.

Like many have said before, but I would like to clarify, is the fact that Separation of Church and State means that our government cannot force any governed members to follow a certain relgion. They did this because of the religious troubles in England (ie. people being forced to follow the Protsitant, Anglican, Catholic, etc. church). THAT is why the law was created, not because of the fact that no religion should be a part of a government. Hence why there is "in God we trust" on all our currency.

Furthermore, everyone gets all pissy about Separation of Church and State with regards to the government (and they enforce this law under false pretences), but no one recognizes the infringement of the government upon religion. If a child wants to wear a crusifix to his school and is not allowed to under the pretext of "separation of church and state", the school is acutally breaking that very same law of a persons right to practice their own religious beliefs. Hypocrisy? Yes. And it's a damn shame that our government and society has degraded to such a point that an individual can't even express their religious beliefs because someone, somewhere may be offended.

At 2/2/05 12:13 AM, Gunter45 wrote:
The point was that the actual burial itself is a waste of a body that can be used for science or disposed of much more efficiently via cremation. Burying a body is purely religious, simply because there's no point to doing so outside of a religious context.

Yeah those are good points. In my opinion, I would not care if laws were passed to make organ donation mandatory and to make cremation the only form of disposing dead bodies. But in the case of funerals, it would be hard to convince people to change what they think is traditional and proper. Speaking of which, how do atheists deal with their funerals? They are against religions, but I'm definitely sure they would go and follow whatever religious procedure that they feel is most correct.

At 2/2/05 12:13 AM, Gunter45 wrote:

At 2/1/05 11:25 PM, MembrsOfBushWhackers wrote: No it's not. You talk with friends and family to remember a person who's died. Many funerals have nothing to do with religion. People don't get together to watch someones soul leave the grave and go to heaven. People just get together to remember a friend or family member.

The point was that the actual burial itself is a waste of a body that can be used for science or disposed of much more efficiently via cremation. Burying a body is purely religious, simply because there's no point to doing so outside of a religious context.

No it's not! Your making a generalization that you assume, but really you don't know wtf your talking about. A majority of Americans don't live their lives based on "what's efficient" or "what's best for science" and it has nothing to do with religion. Same with funerals. Some people would like to see or be seen by their relatives one last time, and it's not because they think they'd have a better chance of getting into heaven if they were buried in the ground with their organs, or not burned. I've been to plenty of funerals most of them didn't even have a preacher, and a lot of the ones that did have a preacher, the preacher was just their for ceremonial reasons, like alot of weddings.

You have a point with your topic, but you need more justification for it. Certainly the funerals thing is convincing, but one blip like that could simply be an oversight, so we'll need more examples.

I don't really see what the problem is. Everyculture has had a farewell ceremony for their deceased since the dawn of time. A funeral isn't something Christian/Jewish/Islamic/Hindi/etc. Its is a cultural thing. Granted Relegions do have funerals, that does not make funerals, in general, religious.

I also mentioned the fact that the Ten Commandments ARE CARVED IN STONE INSIDE OF CONGRESS.

Congress gets the Ten Commandments carved in stone, but they can't even be MENTIONED in a public school? Hypocrisy? yes. Uncommon? no.

Another great example of the state not being required to follow the Bill of Rights is..... FREE SPEECH ZONES! Yes, that's right, Bush's "Free Speech Zones" violate both right of assembly, and free speech. However, by using local (ie, STATE) police to organize things, the Fed keeps their hands squeaky clean.

At 2/2/05 09:55 PM, BarferPro wrote: ...THE BILL OF RIGHTS!

Excuse the double-post.

Now I think the thread has no following sensible arguement.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. "

See that? That means that just because the Fed doesn't have the power to pass legislation PROHIBITING THE PRACTICE (ie, they cant stop religion, which is exactly how this verbage is being twisted to use), BY DEFINITION means that the states DO have this power.

Read what the words say, not what you've been told they say.

See, now you're going all loose constructionism on me. Separation of Church and State is NOT the phraseology of the Constitution; not by a long shot. By taking an extremist interpretation of the Amendment, as opposed to the intent of the Amendment, you've twisted a law from protecting religion to attacking it, which at the very least is a perversion of justice.

At 2/3/05 12:09 AM, FUNKbrs wrote: See, now you're going all loose constructionism on me. Separation of Church and State is NOT the phraseology of the Constitution; not by a long shot. By taking an extremist interpretation of the Amendment, as opposed to the intent of the Amendment, you've twisted a law from protecting religion to attacking it, which at the very least is a perversion of justice.

Noones attacking religion, it's just that kids should not be forced to pray to Jesus in class, and our constitution forbids it.

At 2/3/05 12:18 AM, MembrsOfBushWhackers wrote:
Noones attacking religion, it's just that kids should not be forced to pray to Jesus in class, and our constitution forbids it.

Uh, where in a public school are students forced to pray to Jesus...

FUNKbrs, what exactly is it that you believe? Do you believe that the government is somehow twisting religion around in their favor? Do you think that it's hypocritical that some religion things are allowed while others are not? Or is it something else? I'm asking because I simply can't tell what your view is exactly on the subject matter. So please, enlighten us.

At 2/3/05 12:25 AM, -LazyDrunk- wrote:

At 2/3/05 12:18 AM, MembrsOfBushWhackers wrote:
Noones attacking religion, it's just that kids should not be forced to pray to Jesus in class, and our constitution forbids it.

Uh, where in a public school are students forced to pray to Jesus...

They're not because they can't, and that's the point. Our constitution forbids it. Funks been saying it's some kind of liberal conspiracy or something.

At 2/3/05 05:32 PM, Tal-con wrote: Yeah, sure let's go with that. And let's make slavery legal again while we're at it.</sarcasm>

How is slavery even remotely relevant?

How can you look at what it says in black and white, and still call it extrememist for me to believe that?

Probably because it says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", which is clearly intended to protect religions from federal interference. I don't see what else it could possibly mean.

You restriction of homosexual's rights based on religion is a perversion of justice.

Again, what was the relevance of that statement?

Quoted for great justice.

At 2/3/05 05:32 PM, Tal-con wrote: Yeah, sure let's go with that. And let's make slavery legal again while we're at it.</sarcasm>

What the hell does what I just said have to do with slavery? States have constitutions TOO, and many of those state constitutions contain copies of the Bill of Rights. Why do you assume because I wish the states freedom with their own laws that this implies injustice? Before slavery was nationally abolished, it was abolished by individual states! Denying a slave to remain property to its owner when it crosses state lines deprives that owner of property unjustly according to his state laws. If my interpretation of the wording was false, then the Underground Railroad could never have existed! Slaves wouldn't even have a chance to escape to freedom under your definition!

How can you look at what it says in black and white, and still call it extrememist for me to believe that? You'd have a better shot just saying the ban on gay marriage has nothing to do with religion (You'd still be wrong, but it's easier than blatantly ignoring the 1st Ammendment)

The "ban" on gay marriage has NOTHING to do with religion. Marriage is a legal union for BREEDING couples. BREEDING. Failure to produce offspring is grounds for anullment, and always has been. Because a marriage is not valid until offspring is produced, gay couples can never validate their marriages legally, nor can the institution of marriage perform its designated purpose in that situation.

Gays can't marry because they can't breed. It has nothing to do with religion; it's scientific fact. There's no law saying "GAYS CAN'T MARRY!" It just happens to be a scientific fact.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for civil unions for anyone who wants one. And a marriage IS a civil union. However, this by no means implies I support a "ban" on gay marriage. That's like banning gremilins from eating babies. There are no gremlins, so there's no reason to ban or to not ban them eating babies.

You restriction of homosexual's rights based on religion is a perversion of justice.

(I figured since you assumed my position as anti-gay marriage, I assumed such a stance. Don't count on me going along with a straw man next time you try to pull one.)

I just explained why the gay marriage ban ISN'T religious. Next you'll claim scientists are homophobes because they can't find a way to make an asshole and a penis concieve, or because they can't make a vagina exude semen.

At 2/3/05 09:03 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: The "ban" on gay marriage has NOTHING to do with religion. Marriage is a legal union for BREEDING couples. BREEDING. Failure to produce offspring is grounds for anullment, and always has been. Because a marriage is not valid until offspring is produced, gay couples can never validate their marriages legally, nor can the institution of marriage perform its designated purpose in that situation.

Because a marriage is not valid until offspring is produced, gay couples can never validate their marriages legally,

What is your view on heterosexual married couples that never conceive a child? Are they an invalid marriage because of this simple fact? Can the state deprive them of their marriage license because they are 50+ and cannot conceive? Simply put, NO. Yes if there were false pretenses before the marriage that there would eventually be child bearing and there is failure of either parties to do so, then there is a possibility for divorce/annulment. That's because of false pretenses.

Gays can't marry because they can't breed. It has nothing to do with religion; it's scientific fact. There's no law saying "GAYS CAN'T MARRY!" It just happens to be a scientific fact.

Scientific fact= gays can't marry..... hmm I can't see the coorelation. I can see the coorelation that gays can adopt a child, and raise a child, as well as the fact that they cannot conceive a child. I just can't see marriage as in any science except in social science. Also, I'd like the ISBN number of a book that says that it's scientific fact that gays can't marry.

At 2/2/05 09:55 PM, BarferPro wrote: I'm a moron

Yes you are, the democrates rip the bill of rights to shreds just as the republicans do*cough*gun control*cough*.

At 2/3/05 10:40 PM, Ravens_Grin wrote:
What is your view on heterosexual married couples that never conceive a child? Are they an invalid marriage because of this simple fact? Can the state deprive them of their marriage license because they are 50+ and cannot conceive?

Simply put, YES. There is EXTENSIVE legal precedent of annulment due to infertility. Henry the VIII, for one. Hell, it's even in the Bible, the precedent goes back that far. However, an annulment also requires consent of at least one partner, so if the couple is happy with having no children, there's no real need for litigation.

Simply put, NO. Yes if there were false pretenses before the marriage that there would eventually be child bearing and there is failure of either parties to do so, then there is a possibility for divorce/annulment. That's because of false pretenses.

You act like "false pretenses" are a direct attempt at deception. How do you know you're fertile until you try to have a baby? YOU DON'T. You could have a perfect relationship in every other way, but if you fail to bear children, the marriage can be declared annulled.

Scientific fact= gays can't marry..... hmm I can't see the coorelation. I can see the coorelation that gays can adopt a child, and raise a child, as well as the fact that they cannot conceive a child. I just can't see marriage as in any science except in social science. Also, I'd like the ISBN number of a book that says that it's scientific fact that gays can't marry.

Try highschool health, for one. Man+Woman+Sex=Baby. Man+Man+Sex=No Baby. Woman+Woman+Sex=No Baby. Marriage is for having babies. Marriage is a social institution. Social institutions have a functional purpose. Gays can't have babies, so they can't have the social institution of marriage.

Civil unions? Fine. Wanna call that civil union a marriage? Fine. Will it be a real marriage? No.

seperation of church and state is mentioned nowhere in the constitution, bill of rights, or any other amendment. It is first mentioned in a private letter Tohmas Jefferson wrote. in the constitution it says the state cannot regulate the church. And, if this is really in there, which it is, we have a huge right being violated.

At 2/1/05 08:36 PM, Relorian wrote: Now in modern times it seems the Republicans have a hard time following the rules the founding fathers put down so long ago. THey use state money to fund Church activities and accept church money to get people into office.

Hold on there. The whole Church/State argument seems like a huge misfire. I agree with the original post in that religion really has nothing to do with it at all. On the same note, funding church activities and church donations to political parties is NOTHING new. It's been going on for years.

I know this president is nut case who wears God on his sleeve, but I'm not buying that he's imposing anything on anyone other than a War.

At 2/4/05 01:58 AM, darkmage8 wrote: I know this president is nut case who wears God on his sleeve, but I'm not buying that he's imposing anything on anyone other than a War.

And before anyone tries to fire a "Sanctity of Marriage" argument on me, I don't expect anything like a constitutional ban ever happening [because it's such a stupid idea] and thus don't see it as something that's being "imposed".

At 2/4/05 12:02 AM, BarferPro wrote:
The intent of the amendment was to insure that each state would be able to have its own individual government--WHILE BEING INSIDE THE CONSTITUTION!

That's erroneous, the constitution is a peice of paper, how is any state supposed to be inside a peice of paper.