Arkansas Judge Strikes Down Gay Marriage Ban
The ruling is expected to be appealed Arkansas' Supreme Court.
I wonder, how many more of these cases do we have to have before the Supreme Court just gets tired of it and passes a nationwide ruling?
I wonder, how many more of these cases do we have to have before the Supreme Court just gets tired of it and passes a nationwide ruling?
Hiraghm - while I do agree that the natural relationship is at least one male and at least one female to foster pro-creation, that is less of a need in our modern, non-agrarian society. For economic growth we do need population growth, but without economic security, that is not going to happen of its own. We will only grow via immigration - with peoples looking to make a better life here than they could in their native land. Thus, we need to revamp our immigration system - no, not let in illegals, but change the levels of permissible immigrants of all abilities.
Like you thought lines:
Economic growth requires population growth. Interesting hypothesis, what do you base it on?
Immigration (not procreation) is the means to achieve it. I like the immigration approach, since I believe (don't know) that there are way too many people in the world, and no checks on human population. Immigration got us all kinds of growth before. The problem might be the potential stress on the welfare system, if the drivers from Ellis Island on aren't there this time.
If the overall population stalls, then there will be less spending, thus less growth. After WWII we had an explosion of birth (the baby boom). The economy of the '70's was as much a function of the decline in births during the depression and WWII as it was the oil shock. Likewise the economic boom of the 90's was as much a function of the baby boomers reaching their 40's as it was any governmental policy (no, it wasn't Clinton economic policy, nor the R budget compromises of the later '90's, although those things helped).
We are in a slump because us BBers have passed our peak spending and our children are still a decade away from their peak spending. We will remain in this stagnant economy until the mid '20's. It is too late to break this cycle with immigration, as spending is not merely a function of age, but of peak productivity. Those that haven't gained the skills and capabilities to be worth increased pay won't get it. Merely picking fruits and vegetables won't garner the increases in wages that will sustain increased spending. Had we allowed immigration of those in their early 20's and provided them small business loans back in the '90's, those immigrants would now be bolstering the economy - having bridged the gap between the BBers and their children. As it is, we've basically only "allowed" in those with low skills and little possibility for economic growth. This has been shortsighted and economically stupid.
I'm not sure how you come up with there being too many people on the earth. If you gave every human being 100 sq ft of living space, you could fit every man/woman/child currently living into the state of Texas. There's plenty of room. There are also plenty of resources, although not well distributed and managed due to gov't interference.
"Consumer Spending By JLP | April 15, 2010 Consumer spending has always been an important part of our nation’s GDP. In fact, consumer spending currently makes up about 70% of the GDP. That’s a lot."
http://allfinancialmatters.com/2010/04/1...
I don't have time to continue to educate you, as you clearly don't seem to want to become knowledgeable about the economy. Read the link and some other articles on economics before you come here to display your ignorance again.
p.s. it's sickening that "the world" [e.g. the Pope] is beginning to call for Wealth Redistribution, not just income redistribution ... and we all know, here, that all the wealth in the world couldn't fix these fascist and socialist policies -- just look at Haiti !!!
2) You should read my statement again. I said that this spending (deficit) is taking the place of future spending. Thus, we won't have the money in the future to spend as we will be paying off the debts being created today.
Also, they live under bridges or in caves, and they eat children...
I believe that this is why government spending doesn't increase the turnover of money. They deflated the value to something earned to get it and often give it to those who have not exchanged the value of their labor or mind to get it.
You can find huge farms and small farms each employing itinerant workers. Neither the large nor the small has specialized workers, they just pick whatever it is that needs to be picked.
Your farming example is a poor one to illustrate any point other than scale, as they are doing the same jobs - you're comparing the same specialists in the same market segment. If you were to compare a mechanical harvester against harvesting by hand, THAT would be an example of specialization.
As for luxury items, you are mistaken here. They are rarely ever affected by a downturn in the economy, as the rich are the only ones who have the means of purchasing more than subsistence. Those who serve the uber rich (the artists, the bankers, the jewelers, etc.) feel less of an impact than those providing mass market goods in a downturn. In fact, the goods that you cite (food and gas) are some of the first goods that are affected in a downturn.
The problem with your argument is that you fail to take into account an economic measure known as elasticity. Elasticity is a measure of the change in demand for a given product or service relative to a price change. A purely elastic good's price responds immediately and commensurately with the increase or decrease in demand: increase in demand leads to increase in price and vice-versa. Consumer electronics are an example of an elastic good. Luxury products such as automobiles are an outstanding example of an elastic good.
Inelastic goods are priced mostly based on supply, as the demand for such is relatively stable, such as fuel and food. Every economics textbook I own uses gasoline as the quintessential example of an inelastic good because there is relatively constant demand regardless of the price of the good. It takes a pretty substantial price increase to force us to decrease our consumption of fuel. Fuel has doubled in price in the past 10 years, yet consumption has remained on a pretty consistent upward trajectory. http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_...
The same can be seen with food, whose prices have similarly gone up, as with this example of milk: http://nypost.com/2014/03/17/milk-prices... This despite the government subsidies being given to milk producers to artificially keep prices low. As a derivative, check out cheese prices, as they are the highest they've been in decades. Bacon prices are over $6/lb, and beef prices are up as well even though supply is only slightly down (demand hasn't substantially changed).
I work in the food service industry and see billions of dollars in transactions. If what you were saying was true, there would be a lower demand given the economy and prices would be stable in areas of falling supply and falling in areas of excess supply. That simply is not the case, and all one has to do is look at their grocery bills over the past 10 years as further proof. (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost) Have you been out to eat lately? It's pretty hard to go to a restaurant for <$25 a couple - before drinks and tip.
I highly recommend that you reassess your premises and their sources.
You misunderstand the concept of labor differentiation, then. Differentiation is based on HOW you do the job - such as utilizing technology or machines - not what job you are doing. It doesn't matter whether you are picking strawberries or carrots - if you are doing it by hand, you are not differentiated at all from another laborer using their hands. Differentiation is a matter of process control, not inputs or outputs.
Our economy is a mess because we are using fiat currency which can be (and is being) manipulated by the Federal Reserve and the politicians. They are propping up the banking industry and their own deficit spending. The only reason the money hasn't made it into the economy in general is two reasons I can see: one: it is fake money that only the Fed can use, and they are using it to buy up US debt, therefore the majority never makes it into the general money supply - it sits as an asset on the balance sheets of the Fed! Second, banks and businesses alike are hoarding cash because there is no investment vehicle right now which presents a favorable risk for return - especially in the long-term markets - and the interest rate is so low right now that there is literally zero (and sometimes even a net loss) in in short-term investments. Businesses aren't even investing in capital (property, plants, equipment) or people either because of the general volatility introduced by the aggregate of all these policies and the additional taxes and wage uncertainty (minimum wages + insurance) are such wildcards that the only hedge against these risks is to stockpile funds.
The general result is that in order for businesses to return to business as usual, the whole environment for business has to stabilize - money printing must stop to stabilize currency value. Debt must stop accruing - especially given the inevitable rise in interest rates. Capital costs can not be made subject to the whims of central planners - ie Obamacare must go.
Barring those, I am afraid that it is only a matter of time before the faultline slips and reminds us that we can not neglect the laws of nature - whether economic or natural without reaping the consequences. And the consequences keep building at an alarming pace.
Look at bitcoin. It is also a fiat currency. I don't believe that it is beyond manipulation, but those who created it and support it do. It supposedly has a mechanism that will only allow a slow increase and that it is limited. If those are true, then it will be able to function as a stable store of wealth for those who accept it. As would any like item.
There is never perfect production/consumption responses. There will always be instances of over-production (in which case prices will be reduced or the business falters), and other instances of over-consumption (also known as under-production) in which cases prices will rise and/or other producers will enter the market to make up for the increased demand.
Look at it this way - your kids decide to start up a lemon aid stand. You had previously procured the ingredients as just a normal expenditure (sunk costs). They make the pitcher and set up a card table. Still no increase in economic activity has occurred. Only when the first customer approaches the stand and asks for a lemon-aid and pays for it, is there any economic activity. After a few customers, they need to replenish their pitcher, but you are out of ingredients, so you all go to purchase more. This is new activity, not sunk costs, so counts in the economic cycle. As they get more productive (let's say they figure out how to get more flavoring from the lemons, somehow, so now they have lower costs per pitcher. Their innovation now provides them the ability to not only buy more ingredients, but to purchase some gum in addition. So, an increase in consumer spending has occurred - now the grocer has had increased economic activity, again fueled by consumption which was made possible by increased efficiency brought about by increased technology/innovation.
That's the only way the system works. If you tried to run it by first pushing production, it doesn't work. Let's say that you had no existing raw materials, so you have to go procure them. Now you've only moved the cycle of economic activity upstream to you being the consumer of the grocer, which then starts the cycle anew. Production is a response to consumption, not the other way around.
Take another example - a farmer. This farm is totally self-sustaining neither purchasing nor selling. The farmer can produce as much as possible over his own consumption needs but no economic activity ensues despite how much he produces. Only when a consumer comes and actually purchases something does economic activity occur. You might say that the farmer must produce more than he needs in the first place for him to be able to sell some. That is not accurate - nor is it logical. It takes resources to produce (time, energy, etc.). Unless there is an expectation of sales, there will not be additional production. In most cases, the first purchase occurs as a deficit to the producer.
Think of your own book. You might think that you produced it prior to any consumption, but you did so with an expectation of consumption. You might be wrong, but the activity started with the expectation of consumption.
You seem to be mixing up level of consumption with consumption as the driving force of an economy. People may have unlimited levels of desired consumption, but they do not have unlimited assets to satisfy that desire. As I've said innumerable times, with increased efficiency comes increased income which leads to increased consumption (or savings, which fuels other producers).
I also tend to disagree that economic growth requires population growth. In fact, there are studies that show, changes to economic growth increases, lead to population decreases. For example, professional couples waiting longer to start a family or choose not to have a family in advancing their careers. The Malthusian Trap leads to increses in population because of starvation/disease rates. The more children you have, the chances increase you have someone to take care of you in old age, more hands to work for the family. That, of course, is part of the trap. This is separate from a religious doctrine encouraging large families for the success of the religion. See Brazil and Spain and huge child homeless/orphan populations
Another example is that one is qualified in all states if one has driving privileges in one.
I'd also like to see that if a permit to carry is issued in one jurisdiction it is good all across America.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Note the word "also."
That's from: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ft...
I'll say it again, Marriage is not a federal issue. It should be eliminated from all federal policies and regulations. It is at most a state issue, and if not specifically enumerated by a state constitution, then it is an issue of the people and should be dealt with via contract law - period.
I won't "try" to carry outside my issuing jurisdiction except in those places where there is a reciprocal agreement in place.
But, although I appreciate your insistence upon State's rights we do need some standardization from Federal government or there will be chaos. The best example is gun control.
However, in marriage specifically, as a mobile society someone married in MA should not have to get another contract when they move to another state.
That's why the Federal Government needs some power. Also states should not be able to set salaries, or any other part of contracts with government employees, including military. Again, chaos.
Driving is another example. If I want to go to Chicago I don't need to take a driving test in Chicago just do visit. They accept my home state license.
ALL CC LAWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
Unlike the 1st Amendment, the 2nd is an absolute:
"...The right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" - 2ND
"Congress shall make no law respecting..." 1ST
The 1st explicit restricts Congress, the 2nd restricts EVERYBODY.
Jan
white water...Arkansas is good for white water
Assuming we are talking about consenting adults, I might add.
If we could rely on SCOTUS, legislature and executive to throw the religion of equality in the toilet where it belongs, and use rational, sane, reason, there would be no issue, period.
Unfortunately, because we can't rely on that, we have this battle on our hands.
It's the left who made it a federal issue, for the purpose of destroying American culture.
Either rights are never a federal issue...
Or all rights are a federal issue.
Read the 9th Amendment, the one everyone skips over in order to rush to the 10th and trade 1 tyranny for 50 tyrannies.
The passage about limiting federal powers to those specifically enumerated is exactly that: a limitation on powers. It is NOT a limitation on which rights the federal government is allowed to review, and to interpret it that way is to distort the meaning and intention of the Constitution, and thereby allow tyranny to reign at the state level.
So, they are retained by the people. They are not conferred by the federal government. Therefore, they are not a federal issue.
But for consenting adults I can only think that those who are trying to control others are somehow perverted. Why should anyone care what consenting adults do behind closed doors? I think voyeurism is kinda sick.
If they didn't insist everyone has to agree that abnormal sexual attractions and activities were normal and healthy, nobody would care.
Here, let me share an Ayn Rand quote with you:
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."
Ayn Rand
Saying "why do so many have a concern about who one lets touch their private parts?" is the equivalent of taking the middle. It's not saying that sexual deviancy is just as valid and good as sexual normalcy, and it's not saying that sexual deviancy is... deviancy. It's saying, "you shouldn't care about what you can't see".
Or, alternatively, "Everyone should live like a Bugblatter beast of Traal, or *they're* the ones with the problem."
By a non-issue, I mean that it is not the province of the Feds or for that matter even the states. Marriages can be performed by those qualified to do so. If it is not recognized by the gov(s) that can be rectified with a will or other legal documents. Gay marriage is neither a life or death, nor an economic situation. If legislators want to use their time wisely, they should focus on those more imperative issues. Let's leave marriage, gay or otherwise up to the two people involved and the business of governing to those elected to do just that and that only.
In the words of Jean Luc Picard: The line must be drawn HERE.
There is no such thing as "gay marriage"... or otherwise. It is an oxymoron.
I will not leave it up to the two people involved. Because the next step will be to involve 3 or 4 or 5 people, and after that animals or computers or ideas or anything else to destroy the institution of marriage and turn the nation into a Humpty Dumpty country where, like the Party in "1984", the cultural powers that be can redefine any aspect of society almost at will to suit whatever purpose they choose... or no purpose beyond the raw power to do so.
Marriage MEANS something. It saddens me that people whose philosophy is based on reason are so ready to equivocate with absurdity. But then, AR was guilty of the same type of errors.
"We had a form of social contract that we called 'marriage,' but it wasn't the same thing as marriage was in the old days. There was no love. There used to be a crime called 'adultery,' but even the word had gone out of use on the Earth I knew. Instead, it was considered antisocial for a woman to refuse to give herself to other men; to do so might indicate that she thought herself superior or thought her husband to be superior to other men. The same thing applied to men in their relationships with women other than their wives. Marriage was a social contract that could be made or broken at the whim of the individual. It served no purpose because it meant nothing, neither party gained anything by the contract that they couldn't have had without it. But a wedding was an excuse for a gala party at which the couple were the center of attention. So the contract was entered into lightly for the sake of a gay time for a while, then broken again so that the game could be played with someone else—the game of Musical Bedrooms." - from The Highest Treason by Eric Frank Russel... a narrative by the greatest and most self-sacrificing hero ever conceived in literature.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24302/243...
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24302?ms...
The question is more one of how any change to society gets effected and who has a say in the process. To that end, I'm with Robbie - because the Federal Government has no enumerated power to regulate marriage, it should keep its hands off - including the Federal Court system.
Yes, I understand that it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to arbitrate disputes between the states, but that is not what it has been doing. The Federal Courts have been assuming a responsibility to rule on a matter where they themselves have no jurisdiction - not to mention invalidating the duly passed laws of an individual state.
This was the great debate between Hamilton and Jefferson over Federalism and it is the primary reason why the Constitution initially deferred to the States. Over the passage of time, the Federal Government has usurped the powers once exercised by the States by misapplication of either the Supremacy Clause or the Commerce Clause, but these usurpations are not justified by the Constitution itself.
All that aside, a contract is not a right.
If you really want equal rights under the law, then recognize marriage between humans and animals, and humans and inanimate objects. No argument you can make against these can't also be made against homosexual "marriage". The specious argument that inanimate objects don't have rights, animals don't have rights, and neither can consent is irrelevant, because a single (or multiple, come to think of it) humans ARE involved and they DO have "equal rights"; you can't justify denying their "equal rights" just because creatures or objects which *don't* have equal rights can't give consent. Their consent isn't needed.
Suppose one is sexually attracted to goats. If one is put in the hospital, one's goat/lover cannot come visit him/her, because right now s/he's not allowed to marry his goat/lover. Who are homosexuals to judge one's love of one's goat/lover as somehow less deserving of acceptance and recognition than their own love of their partners in anal spelunking?
The flaw in your premise is the suggestion that people with abnormal sexual appetites constitute a separate race and/or sex. They don't. A person suffering from homosexuality can marry now, today. They have equal rights.
What they don't have is legal pandering to their abnormality.
You know this, but you're going to continue to sing this one off-key note until the grownups get so tired of it they give in, and let you destroy American society to satiate your perversity.
I'm not even going to bother addressing the rest of your nonsense strawman arguments.
Who are we to judge his god's creations?
God doesn't create "homosexuals" because "homosexual" isn't a race, sex or species, but a condition, an appetite.
There, FIFY.
sexual attraction to members of the same sex is no more natural than sexual attraction to rocks.
Biology does make mistakes, but rational people don't insist that they are not mistakes. Lactose Intolerance, allergies, cleft palates, sickle-cell anemia, these are caused by biology, but they are not "natural".
With apologies to khalling, she may not want to read on...
You simply cannot fathom... penis -> vagina in order to make babies. The function is to make babies; if a person is sterile, there is something WRONG with him, just as if a person is attracted to something other than a mature member of the opposite sex. The solution is NOT to convince him that he's fertile, but to repair what's broken.
If a man is impotent, the solution is to address the cause of his impotence, if possible, not to convince him that his middle finger is the same as a penis.
Sexual desire and romantic feelings do not exist so we can have fun, get high on endorphins, or argue on the internet. They exist to promote... not ensure... the perpetuation of the species.
There is no reconciliation between that mandate and abnormal sexual desires or romantic feelings.
No one is saying you *can't* put your penis wherever you like (provided any other humans involved are willing and cooperative). All most of us require is that you cease demanding that we equate your messed up attractions, however they are derived, with the natural, necessary, mating behavior of men and women.
There, FIFY.
Biology does make mistakes, but rational people don't insist that they are not mistakes. Lactose Intolerance, allergies, cleft palates, sickle-cell anemia, these are caused by biology, but they are not "natural".
---
Actually no, you didn't fix it for me, you just denied scientific evidence. Sexual orientation is controlled by biology, which means it must be subject to mutation and deviation, just like every other aspect of biology.
As for all those other things, actually yes, I would say they are all natural, as well. Abnormal, sure, but not unnatural. There is absolutely nothing "unnatural" about genetic mutations. In fact, nothing could be more natural. Mutation is the fundamental key to evolution. Without it, life could not exist. Just because a particular character trait is uncommon, that doesn't make it unnatural. That which is uncommon is every bit as much a product of nature as that which is common. The common and the uncommon are both controlled by nature, and are both derived from it.
"I don't really have a word for 'unnatural.' I say, 'if nature permits it, it is natural. If nature doesn't permit it, you can't do it.' You may not be familiar with the fact that nature allows that, but the fact of your unfamiliarity doesn't make it unnatural."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
"
IT DOESN'T MATTER!
Your genitalia don't exist for you to have fun. That's where it always breaks down. The genitalia of mammalian species exists, was designed for or evolved for... has the function of, reproduction. Sexual attraction doesn't exist so you can get high on endorphins, it exists to MAKE BABIES. It's not that homosexuality is EXTREMELY uncommon, it's that it misapplies the purpose of sex. Again, Google "Pica".
People with Pica are uncommon. That's not the issue with Pica. The issue with Pica is that it is unnatural.
Ask Bucky to explain Article 2 section 1 clause 5 of the Constitution. He'll get that wrong, too, if that's his opinion of "natural".
Neither animals nor inanimate objects can give informed consent in the marriage issue.
Why do you continue to pose such false arguments?
To refuse to allow *me* to marry creatures or objects of *my* choice denies *me* MY RIGHTS. As they are animals and objects, THEIR CONSENT IS NOT REQUIRED.
You keep coming to this conclusion because you keep insisting upon viewing marriage as a type of contract. It isn't. Marriage existed long before contract law, and the mating instinct behind marriage exists in all mammalian species. Wolves mate for life, and a contract has nothing to do with it.
I dunno why I'm typing in caps. It's not that you're blind, it's that you refuse to think.
Part of my disgust with your side of the argument is that I took Anthro 101. I saw chimpanzee society. I do NOT want to degenerate to that.
What difference is it in your life if a same sex couple marries in America?
Why is it any of your business to impose your beliefs upon another in this issue?
Because marriage, the life long mating of a man and a woman, is a vital institution in society. It predates civilization as we know it.
And you want to redefine it as, "A contract to fuck for awhile" (I'm sorry khalling but when these idiots get me disgusted like this I want to use language as ugly as their ideas).
First, I *can't* impose my beliefs on anyone, I can only argue in favor of them. if I *could* impose my beliefs on this matter on people, I'd make Hitler look like Mother Theresa. Oh, I wouldn't slaughter homosexuals; I'd slaughter any idiot who thinks equality is more important than civilization.
Let me throw it back at you, maybe you can find an answer for me...
What difference is it in your life if a human/animal couple marries in America? What difference is it in your life if a human/umbrella couple marries in America? What difference is it in *your* life if an adult/child couple marries in America?
The concept of gay marriage is just as absurd as these concepts... and your side of the argument are trying to force me to belief it isn't!
I don't want to be forced to accept absurdities in public or face persecution like Donald Sterling has. THAT is one difference it makes. I'm not the one forcing my beliefs on another... the mass of unthinking, ignorant idiots are forcing their "beliefs"... in reality, "feelings"... on me. And I'm fighting back. With reason.