Recent content by riw

Read "From Darwin to Hitler.' There are plenty of quotes to prove this in there. Or even spend some time reading up on the American Eugenics movement. There are a number of good books in this area. Two points: 1. Human institutions have done lots of horrible things in the name of almost every...

Beware the law of unintended consequences. It's not what you intend to say that counts, it's where the argument goes in the end. This is biologically and experientially incorrect. Many people have been married without ever having met, and have gotten along just fine. Many have been persuaded by...

Here I quoted the wrong person, I think. Sorry--I've edited to answer the question as a praphrase, since picking up the original is a real pain: I have made my argument multiple times: 1. Marriage is not a right. 2. The state only sanctions marriage because it has a specific interest in the...

Note you're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say Darwin condemned interracial marriage. I said the evolutionary belief that different races were actually different species was one of the primary supports under the argument against interracial marriage. Try reading "From Darwin to Hitler." It...

In other words, you believe marriage should not be allowed when one person has some "hold" over the other. I assume you would argue that such holds would include emotional ones, based on your statement above. Logical conclusion: Anyone who is "in love" is liable to be unable to give informed...

I'm mixing replies here, in the name of time and simplicity. In other words, you support laws you agree with, and don't support laws you don't agree with, and you can't see any point in referencing anything from God's laws, or natural law, or anything else, to back up your opinions. There's no...

Can you prove it in all cases? Or do you assume that all cases on incest involve a minor, and minors cannot decide? And if so, aren't you assuming that minors will never gain rights? And isn't this a rather strange assumption, given there are cases of minors gaining the right to "divorce" their...

Hence, you will agree with anything the US Supreme Court declares as law? Which means that if you lived in the time of the US Civil War, you would agree with the US Supreme Court that slaves were not people, because they said so. And now you believe that murdering children in the womb is...

Can you prove this assertion? Can you back it up with quotes from major Christian leaders, using a Biblical foundation as their guide? The specific reason interracial marriage was banned was because it was believed the different "races" were actually more akin to different "species," (asserted...

Lets start simple: Is marriage a right, or a privilege? If you claim it is a right, then provide me with the fundamental reasoning behind this assertion. Not a Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court also declares that murdering children in the womb is a right. I must assume you agree with them...

Saving and investing are, in fact, closely related. Saving and going into debt are two different things. Your argument was that the US Government should promote same sex marriage because those who are married save more. The first problem here is that the US Government does not encourage saving...

Rather than refuting the claims, you start in the middle, claiming the argument from that point forward is a "straw man." Then, although you call the argument a straw man, you accept the outcome, trying to defend marriage not as a right, but rather something given as a privilege by the...

A negative right is a right you have to do something without interference, such as a right to pursue happiness. A positive right is a claim that someone else (generally spoken as "society") must do something to provide you with something, such as a claim to happiness. Marriage, in one sense, is...

So you would expect the state to go around testing everyone's fertility before they were allowed to marry? No, the state sets general rules, based on its interest, when it is not a matter of rights, but of privilege. BTW, have you ever gotten married? Did anyone draw your blood so you could...

Let's go back to the beginning.... The only place the law can and should treat people equally is in the case of rights. Hence, you are claiming marriage is a right. Now, if you agree with this statement, you need to answer these questions: 1. If marriage is a right, is it a positive right or a...