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[SalmonGod]

Take for instance, the reaction of the very recent supreme court decision concerning same sex marriages.  Almost immediately, there were petitions to have it repealed.  At the same time, a significant portion of the population's reaction was "HAH! EAT IT, BIGGOTED LOSERS!"

Almost nobody went the route I would have proposed-- Accept the ruling, and seek a plausible route to implementation that does not result in lots of very angry people who feel that their government is failing them.

The number one cause of terrorism, is when people feel they are unable to affect social changes through non-violent means. Keep that in mind. It's the reason why we have freedom of speech, and a number of others.

What kind of route to implementation of "This group of people has a right to be legally married" would you propose?  How do you phase that in?

And you say that terrorism is the result of one group feeling that the government is failing and disempowering them... but the terrorism we're discussing is the result of the government deciding after centuries to STOP failing and actively disempowering certain portions of the population. 

When you put it this way, it seems like a double-standard.  When one side expects that the government should protect their ability to victimize another group... then one or the other side is going to believe the government is failing them, no matter what.  Government has failed everyone other than hetero white males through most of the western world for centuries, but we're more worried about terrorism if we correct these failures too quickly than if we allow them to continue?  What does that tell you?

[wierd]

The share cropping situation came about because there was now a glut of people that needed to be gainfully employed to support themselves (Say what you will about the abysmal conditions of slave habitation-- they did have a house and food supplied to them, which now they no longer were being provided with.) in an economic climate predisposed to treating them as sub-humans.

Consideration of this in the restructuring plan would have highly mitigated this problem.  The issue with the cotton gin promoting slavery is mostly due to this ^^ coupled with the necessity to harvest cotton by hand.  The "best" solution would have involved provisions to migrate former slaves from slave housing to independent housing using a form of social welfare, coupled with incentives to develop automated harvesting technology.

[wierd]

Take for instance, the reaction of the very recent supreme court decision concerning same sex marriages.  Almost immediately, there were petitions to have it repealed.  At the same time, a significant portion of the population's reaction was "HAH! EAT IT, BIGGOTED LOSERS!"

Almost nobody went the route I would have proposed-- Accept the ruling, and seek a plausible route to implementation that does not result in lots of very angry people who feel that their government is failing them.

The number one cause of terrorism, is when people feel they are unable to affect social changes through non-violent means. Keep that in mind. It's the reason why we have freedom of speech, and a number of others.

What kind of route to implementation of "This group of people has a right to be legally married" would you propose?  How do you phase that in?

And you say that terrorism is the result of one group feeling that the government is failing and disempowering them... but the terrorism we're discussing is the result of the government deciding after centuries to STOP failing and actively disempowering certain portions of the population. 

When you put it this way, it seems like a double-standard.  When one side expects that the government should protect their ability to victimize another group... then one or the other side is going to believe the government is failing them, no matter what.  Government has failed everyone other than hetero white males through most of the western world for centuries, but we're more worried about terrorism if we correct these failures too quickly than if we allow them to continue?  What does that tell you?

Again salmon, walk a mile in another man's shoes. You are treating your view as inherently and infallibly correct. Ultimately, the concept of human rights boils down to what humans (at the time!) agree to be such.  The inherent issue here, is that one group disagrees with the assertions of the other, and seeks to use the courts to claim the right to tell the other group to piss off.

One group believes, just as strongly as the other I might add, that gay marriage is an unspeakable moral affront.  The other believes that this group is systemically oppressing them.

I again ask you to imagine a world where the terrorists have won.  Would you view repeated court rulings against what you consider to be basic human rights as a triumph in the legal system?

If not, how do you propose that these people take repeated rulings against their beliefs?

Remember, ultimately, the very idea of a human right is a belief.

[mainiac]

(Say what you will about the abysmal conditions of slave habitation-- they did have a house and food supplied to them, which now they no longer were being provided with.)

Actually they had to grow their own food and build their own barracks.  Well that was the case in Maryland anyway.  I'm guessing that it was probably true in the deep south given the prevalence of soul food there.

The "best" solution would have involved provisions to migrate former slaves from slave housing to independent housing using a form of social welfare, coupled with incentives to develop automated harvesting technology.

So, to put it another way, the radical republicans were right about everything and the problem was that people didn't listen to them?

[wierd]

Nice strawman there.  Did you spend long making it?


People exploit other people for a handful of basic reasons.
1) There is a real advantage to doing so.
2) It makes them feel empowered to oppress another demographic.

When you want to prevent people from exploiting and oppressing each other, you have to tackle both of those reasons. Telling the plantation owners (at gunpoint) that they can no longer enjoy reason 2 above, makes their defiance become a thing of local cultural legend.  That's why "The south with rise again!" is still said today, despite it being completely and totally stupid.  As a means of stopping 2, it fails-- the people not only continue to feel that they are superior-- the rhetoric that feeds it persists LOOOOOOOOONG after the conflict ends, and fosters a veiw of being oppressed themselves.  Not a very harmonious solution at all. (And yet, you seem to think it was the best solution!! or at least, your replies seem to indicate that.) This nasty little thing is at the heart of the conflict in the middle east, and is pretty much present everywhere one group of people believes they are magically made superior to another group.  Trying to stamp it out only makes the infection go underground and fester. Cultural assimilation is the only real remedy.

Automation would remove item 1. 

[mainiac]

Nice strawman there.  Did you spend long making it?

No man, I just took your facts and swapped your headcannon for mine.  Super easy.

[wierd]

Actually, you just substituted your own instead.

[mainiac]

No man, I just took your facts and swapped your headcannon for mine.  Super easy.

Actually, you just substituted your own instead.

FEAR MY NINJUTSU!

[lemon10]

The share cropping situation came about because there was now a glut of people that needed to be gainfully employed to support themselves (Say what you will about the abysmal conditions of slave habitation-- they did have a house and food supplied to them, which now they no longer were being provided with.) in an economic climate predisposed to treating them as sub-humans.

Consideration of this in the restructuring plan would have highly mitigated this problem.  The issue with the cotton gin promoting slavery is mostly due to this ^^ coupled with the necessity to harvest cotton by hand.  The "best" solution would have involved provisions to migrate former slaves from slave housing to independent housing using a form of social welfare, coupled with incentives to develop automated harvesting technology.

The reason this didn't happen was because there was a very strong pushback against blacks getting any kind of assistance in the south, both politically up north (which ended the social programs attempting to do anything to help them), and more brutally in the south (via lynchings/house burnings of successful blacks and similar events).

I honestly doubt that slavery would have ever completely went away without it being outlawed. Slavery is valuable, because no matter what being able to work people 12 hours a day without paying them is going to end up being profitable for at least some of the time. Even if it did end up with 90% of slaveholders having to free their slaves due to economic reasons (which I highly doubt), you still would have huge numbers of slaves in the south.

Nice strawman there.  Did you spend long making it?


People exploit other people for a handful of basic reasons.
1) There is a real advantage to doing so.
2) It makes them feel empowered to oppress another demographic.

When you want to prevent people from exploiting and oppressing each other, you have to tackle both of those reasons. Telling the plantation owners (at gunpoint) that they can no longer enjoy reason 2 above, makes their defiance become a thing of local cultural legend.  That's why "The south with rise again!" is still said today, despite it being completely and totally stupid.  As a means of stopping 2, it fails-- the people not only continue to feel that they are superior-- the rhetoric that feeds it persists LOOOOOOOOONG after the conflict ends, and fosters a veiw of being oppressed themselves.  Not a very harmonious solution at all. (And yet, you seem to think it was the best solution!! or at least, your replies seem to indicate that.) This nasty little thing is at the heart of the conflict in the middle east, and is pretty much present everywhere one group of people believes they are magically made superior to another group.  Trying to stamp it out only makes the infection go underground and fester. Cultural assimilation is the only real remedy.

Automation would remove item 1. 

I'm honestly not seeing a better solution here.
If the north hadn't declared war to stop them from seceding, slavery would have been around for a very long time, and America as a single nation would have ceased to exist.
If we had let them keep slavery after the war, then it would have kept going for quite a long time, even if automation eventually removed the economic drive (which I doubt), maybe having another 30 years of slavery might have ended up with less racism in the south, but I highly doubt it.
And when it did end, the south probably would have done the exact same thing they did anyways, the the blacks wouldn't have been any better off.

E: Even without a economic drive there wouldn't have been the political capital to end slavery as long as the south remained so strongly opposed, and it almost certainly would have far past the point where money could be made off of it (not that I think that automation was that big of a threat to slavery). Honestly, it would probably have went on until the pressure from the rest of the civilized world was so great that we ended up having to outlaw it, which given that americans are stubborn and hate international influence would have taken a very long time.

[SalmonGod]

Again salmon, walk a mile in another man's shoes. You are treating your view as inherently and infallibly correct. Ultimately, the concept of human rights boils down to what humans (at the time!) agree to be such.  The inherent issue here, is that one group disagrees with the assertions of the other, and seeks to use the courts to claim the right to tell the other group to piss off.

One group believes, just as strongly as the other I might add, that gay marriage is an unspeakable moral affront.  The other believes that this group is systemically oppressing them.

I again ask you to imagine a world where the terrorists have won.  Would you view repeated court rulings against what you consider to be basic human rights as a triumph in the legal system?

If not, how do you propose that these people take repeated rulings against their beliefs?

Remember, ultimately, the very idea of a human right is a belief.

I agree that human rights are a social construct that can be easily debated.

But legal equality is not.  That is objective and measurable. 

When I say "human rights", it's usually convenient short-hand for "the legal protections that are ostensibly granted to human beings, even if they are not equally granted to all human beings in practice."  If there are legal protections for white hetero men to vote, get married, carry weapons, etc, then when I say "human rights" or just "rights", it's under the pretense that the law is SUPPOSED to grant such rights to all human beings equally, not just certain demographics.  If these legal protections are not being granted equally, then someone is being denied their rights.

If not, how do you propose that these people take repeated rulings against their beliefs?

How do I propose people take repeated rulings against their beliefs?
How do you propose people take centuries of repeated rulings against their legal equality?

It doesn't matter how strongly one group believes that gay marriage is a moral affront.  It's objectively true that denying gay marriage is unequal distribution of legal rights.

A.  The government refuses to discriminate, and fails the beliefs of bigots.
B.  The government agrees to discriminate, and fails to recognize a group as human beings by legal standards.
Either way, the government is failing someone, right?  And terrorism is a result of a group feeling disempowered and failed by authority?

But if you're more worried about terrorism as a result of scenario A than you are as a result of scenario B, then this is an extremely worrying double-standard, and I think it says something important about the nature of bigotry in society.

[wierd]

Salmon--

Your argument has a fatal flaw--- The court can choose not to hear a case, which is what they did for a very long time prior to the recent ruling.  The refusal to hear a case is neither an affirmation nor a condemnation. It is the court's version of "Not touching that."

I feel the court should have refused to hear the case. Prior to the verdict, many individual state governments had ratified same sex marriage protections on their own. The trend was that this was going to happen as an inevitable consequence-- It wasnt going to "go away" any time soon, and by the time all states had ratified it, the people who were so worried about the penis going into an anus instead of a vagina would have died of old age, and the younger generation replacing them wouldnt have given a fuck-- to be honest.  The supreme court had to go and fuck that all up though, by deciding that they would hear the case, and make their verdict. Now we have a still very much living demographic that feels disenfranchised.  I feel they should have refused to hear this case, but chosen to hear the case on making universal, the protections inevitably extended by all sates, after they had all extended them.  (EG, the question of "Is gay marriage legal?" is not what is heard-- the question of "Are gay marriages universal?" is what is heard.)

Also, answering a question with a question is not very sporting.

[wierd]

And now we are full circle again. (sigh)

The whole point was to space out this reform so that it takes longer than a single human lifetime to fully accomplish, so that there is not a disenfranchised population that can become radicalized!!!!

Complaining that "My gay spouse cant get emergency medical care in XXX state that has not endorsed gay marriages yet!" is 180 degrees counter that. 

Again-- Cancer patient analogy.  We have a cancer patient (society) that has tumors (Issues with social problems.) These tumors are not safe to just cut out (Causes radicalization)-- What do we have to do? Endure the tumors while we do radiation and chemo. (Suffer the issues like the above cited one, with the knowledge that our kids's generation wont have to endure them, and will have a better future for not having induced radicalism.)

YEESH.

[SalmonGod]

Also, answering a question with a question is not very sporting.

I think I communicated what I think about your question.  It frames the issue in a one-sided fashion.  So I presented your question next to its natural opposite and explained how I think the two compare.

[wierd]

It looks a lot like dodging the question though.

(I could have taken a similar route with your own one-sided questioning earlier, but it would not have been very profitable to the discussion. That's my basic point here.)

[SalmonGod]

It looks a lot like dodging the question though.

(I could have taken a similar route with your own one-sided questioning earlier, but it would not have been very profitable to the discussion. That's my basic point here.)

Ok.  The most direct answer I can provide -- it doesn't matter how they should take it, because to base our decisions on that is to show vastly greater sensitivity to their concerns that have objectively less footing in a fair legal system than the other side's concerns.