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[wierd]

PRECISELY!!!!!

[wierd]

Oh? Do explain--

To me, it looks like this:

State governments are an intermediate sized body, with sufficient population and resources to permit some level of independent autonomy without resorting to rampant resource strife internally, while also keeping the costs of relocation of citizens to manageable levels.  This makes them the ideal size entity to cut off the progression toward centrality. Within the state, the state government is central, and defines all the laws. (Preventing intrastate strife)  The federal government is established via consensual agreement by the member states, and via this consent, administrates and arbitrates matters of interstate interest. (Criminals that have committed offenses in many states, rules concerning trade between states, foriegn acts of aggression against member states, et al.) The primacy of the state government over the fed in all other matters assures that the federal government does not continue to progression toward centrality.

As government becomes more and more central, the costs of migration to avoid tyranny become greater and greater. In the case of world government, the costs include leaving the planet's surface.

Thus, keeping the costs of migration at manageable levels is exactly the point of keeping the progression toward centrality pinioned past the state level, to maximize total idiological prosperity of the citizenry of the federation of states.

Thus, the fact that there is higher mobility of people between states than between countries IS EXACTLY THE POINT.

[SirQuiamus]

Let me get this straight...

According to wierd, blue states should be allowed to be secular democracies, just like the rest of the western world, while red states should be allowed to be Christian theocracies ruled by the American Taliban? And gay people who have been born and raised in a red state should simply bugger off from their homeland?

I've heard this argument countless times, always from people who self-identify as "libertarians" while being vehemently opposed to every notion of liberty and equality.   

[Helgoland]

Rolls eyes.

Here, I know anectdote does not equal evidence, but here's some food for thought for you.  My own state representative outright told his state's constituency that he was going to vote yes for NAFTA, despite the fact that the majority of his state population was against, because he personally thought it was a good idea.

1%er does not mean what you are trying so hard to make it mean.

Representative democracy is not direct democracy, and the will of the people is not absolute. And that's a good thing.

Darf ich ein ketzerisches Wort sagen: Ich glaube, man verkennt das Wesen der Demokratie, wenn man glaubt, das Parlament sei der Exekutor der Volksüberzeugung. Ich meine, das Wesen der repräsentativen Demokratie ist ein anderes, es ist das der parlamentarischen Aristokratie. Die Parlamentarier haben die Pflicht und die Möglichkeit, aus einer größeren Einsicht, aus einem besseren Wissen zu handeln, als es der einzelne kann.

This was a central piece in the last debate about the reintroduction of the death penalty in Germany. I trust that you can put it through Google Translate yourself.

[LordSlowpoke]

m8 if they're pulling a parliamentary aristocracy over there then they're already past the point of the polish commonwealth and are just waiting for mexico to turn into neoprussia

[Twi]

So how about Jeb Bush's disgusting amounts of money
eh
eh

* Twi wiggles eyebrows

[Dutchling]

parlamentarischen Aristokratie

oh Helgoland <3

[Helgoland]

I know, I know. There's a reason my sig is what it is.

[Loud Whispers]

Reply to earlier stuff about the killer's identity reposted to cam progressive rage thread.

Speaking of identity, woman arrested for domestic battery after she hit her husband for refusing to take down the Confederate flag.


LEL
E
L

[FearfulJesuit]

The Donald continues to set new records in hubristic douchiness.

[NullForceOmega]

If he weren't dead serious, that would be an amazing joke.

[Dutchling]

an amazing joke.

i dont think its fair to involve his hair

lets keep this about political stuff okay

[smjjames]

Trump has certainly shown his ability to burn bridges with abandon.....

[SalmonGod]

This gets even more complicated philosophically, because it is often considered to be unconscionable for one group to force its views and ideals onto another group, because this destroys one of the groups, and diminishes the spectrum of the human condition.

Disclaimer:  I haven't read beyond this post, so I'm sorry if someone beat me to this...

But Wierd, you answered your own question right here. 

Fundamental human rights (in theory as I understand them) are those which prevent humans from from forcing their views and ideals on others or subjecting them to unjustified violence and suffering.

The problem with your use of the concept of group autonomy is that no group is isolated enough to practice their own prejudices in concrete action, without also forcing their views and ideals on other groups or subjecting them to unjustified violence and suffering.  As society becomes more complex and integrated, it becomes more essential for exactly those reasons you are expressing concern over to discourage or eliminate actions rooted in prejudice.

Can you frame this in such a way that the immediate steps taken appear hypocritical?  Sure.  But that's easily done with just about any issue.  It's not hypocritical if you take a broader view of the ultimate goals and effects as related to the principles in question.

Edit:

Ok... I see there was already a really drawn out and unchill argument for about two pages... I knew there were some posts, but didn't know it had already gone that far when I made this one.  So sorry if I'm causing it to flare up further...

And I'd just like to add anyway that within the framing that accuses progressivism of hypocrisy, it is logically impossible for anyone to have any stance on the issue without engaging in that same definition of hyprocrisy.  So the accusation is rendered completely meaningless, in my opinion. 

"You're forcing your views on me by not allowing me to force my views on others, and that's wrong because people shouldn't force their views on each other."

Even if your goal is to allow individual cultures to flourish independently by creating more clearly defined spaces for them to operate how they please, that's still what the whole argument boils down to, when the primary features of those cultures that you (wierd) are suggesting deserves protection is their hostility towards other specific cultures and life choices.  It's all hypocrisy and absurdity when reduced, so I lean towards whichever side of the absurdity causes the least actual victimization of individuals.

[Bauglir]

Even if wierd is correct, most states have lots of laws. Regardless of how things shake down on any given issue, the sheer number of possible combinations over all issues means that there will usually not be a state available that suits all of a given person's preferences. This is why the rational response to a disliked law is to complain and try to get it changed, rather than to move somewhere else. As a civilization, we advance by having perspectives on issues like this compete in the form of debate and rhetoric, not in the form of natural-selection-through-population-density. There simply isn't enough variance to allow the latter to work.

The fact is that living in a society means you are inevitably going to have rules you don't like rammed down your throat. There's no way around that. Seems to me that the best way to handle it is to make sure those rules are the best rules possible, and that there are as few of them as possible. State governments are more easily co-opted than the Federal (not that the latter is particularly difficult at this point), and have an easier time passing unnecessary or harmful rules precisely because they deadlock less easily, so I don't see how they help.