Posted by HamStarr

that concert was a blast

too soon, ik
pls don't kill me
shmegg the egg, pls spare me

It had quite the explosive finale

I'm sorry I couldn't help it  

Posted by Kuz

You do realize in Islam it states if you kill the life of one it is as if they killed the lives of all humanity.

Furthermore Shariah law (Which a lot of you have slandered off in the past few pages in regards to some of its rules) states that you should follow the law of the land, which the terrorist clearly didn't do as he commited murder which is clearly illegal.

Edit: Sorry I posted my opinion, even though I don't have " PhDs in Tafsir, Hadith, Tawhid, and Fiqh" so don't give it any credit.

That's 5:32.

Do you mind reading 5:33 for me?  

Posted by Señor Albonio

That's 5:32.

Do you mind reading 5:33 for me?

You can't just pick one line and use it as an argument. You'd have to consider the circumstances (e.g. war) aswell. Read 20:71 - does anything sound similar?  

Posted by Sig.

You can't just pick one line and use it as an argument. You'd have to consider the circumstances (e.g. war) aswell. Read 20:71 - does anything sound similar?

Sounds comfy desu. But this is the reason why church and state were separated years ago in most countries. Holy books don't make good laws.  

Posted by Señor Albonio

Sounds comfy desu. But this is the reason why church and state were separated years ago in most countries. Holy books don't make good laws.

I'm not a fan of it either but it did work during Islams primetime. The main problems are coruption and greed in my opinion.  

Posted by Sig.

I'm not a fan of it either but it did work during Islams primetime. The main problems are coruption and greed in my opinion.

Greed and corruption eh
http://images.wisegeek.com/nose-closeup.jpg (Unsupported image host)

this is gonna get me banned lmao  

Posted by PigParty

Spoiler

1: It's hard to answer your first question because each scenario is different. There has to simply be enough evidence to accurately make a connection between two things. Even then, the amount of evidence required is based on each individual's opinion, and differs with each situation. But the easiest recognizable relationship between two things is often not the cause when it comes to complex things such as human behavior.

Spoiler

2: As for the UN votes, I've learned that when it comes to votes on bills & any peice of legislation, there's often a caveat, small or large, that causes votes to be for or against certain bills. I don't know any specifics of any of the UN votes mentioned above, but I know that no one votes a certain way for no reason. The US wouldn't vote against human rights unless there was an issue surrounding practicality, finances, or something to make them vote no. Same goes with any country. I see political commercials each election year about local representatives having voted some way on an issue, and it makes you think what kind of person with a heart and brain would vote that way? Then I google it and find out there was some line in the bill that would have given millions of dollars in tax cuts to the wealthy, or other stupid, usually unrelated things that are put into these bills. So anyways, with the UN votes, I don't know enough and probably never will to actually understand why the US voted the way they did.

Spoiler

3: As for the Constitution/SCOTUS, yes, the idea is to work towards a perfect society. The Constitution was never intended to be perfect from the get-go, which is why Amendments were actually made immediately after it was enacted, and why we can still amend it today. When the SCOTUS changes precedent, they say that the prior ruling was wrong. The Court initially ruled that the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government. It took many years to start selective incorporation of the amendments, and the SCOTUS said those rights always applied to state/local governments, but that the previous interpretation was wrong. The point of the Constitution is to allow the country to grow. We had slavery even under the Constitution, but the Constitution allowed us to fix that over time. We live in a nation in which 9 imperfect humans are making life-changing decisions and interpretations of the Constitution. We're not always going to be right, but we're always going to be able to get there eventually. I'm admittedly biased in all of this, though, because I'm really interested in constitutional law.

1. I won't deny that each scenario is different, but at some point as an individual you have to be willing to draw the line and decide when enough is enough. Not to equate the two in scope or magnitude, but think about German Nationalism and how out of hand that got during the rise of the Nazi party. If you refuse to draw a line somewhere those sorts of things can happen (again, not saying something like that will, just an example). Ultimately I would never want to ask my soldiers to draw that line, but if they're killing people across the globe we don't have a choice. Besides, it isn't like we can't use other methods as opposed to violence to show we disapprove of their (countries that still oppress women, gays, ect) actions, like economic sanctions or embargoes. But at some point you have to decide what the issue and what you want to do about it right?

Personally I don't care if it's destroying Islam or just making those countries stop oppressing their citizens, but we have to do something. Do you agree that we shouldn't just let those countries continue with oppressing women and gays, regardless of what it means for Islam? I don't mean to trap you, but if you support human rights there is kinda only one acceptable answer. Personally I find it absolutely ridiculous that we have the ability to change that, but when push comes to shove we back down.

2. Yeah, there could be a caveat and I can't prove that there is not (finding those UN voting results was already a pain, their website is pretty abysmal so I doubt I could find the actual agreements word for word). But, it still begs the question, why would stuff like this not get press if there was a caveat? Don't you think the united statues would call them out for putting something like that in there? Aside from that, isn't it strange that it's always just us that's saying no? Maybe a caveat could go against specifically the United States, but even so you would think we would try and put a real bill up there for vote, instead of just saying no.

Regardless it would be nice if votes like these got more press, because the US (or their allies, if there was dumb or weird caveats) should have to explain themselves for it. I wouldn't say you don't know enough; I don't think it is outside anyone's capabilities to reason and question why their country is doing what it is doing. Either way, I agree with you on that without knowing what the contracts really were we can't completely blame the US, but I also don't think that's a good sign for our human rights interests regardless. We should have an interest in making the world a better place, right? So having no press releases or discussion about votes like these explaining why we did what we did doesn't say to me that we want to progress.

Related question; do you believe that citizens deserve positive human rights? If you do, which ones?


3. I'm not going to argue with the logic behind the constitution or SCOTUS, but even if that's what we want to do (work towards a perfect society) we normally don't seem to go down that path in a timely manner. You're right that the end result can always be changed if it's shown to be flawed, but it just doesn't give me much faith in the system if decisions like that can be made in the first place.

Part of what makes me feel that way, that the Supreme Court has vested interests and can be corrupted, is just the bountiful reserve of shameless rulings by them over the years. I'm not going to bore you with a lot of cases, but what should make me feel confident in them as interpreters of the constitution? I don't think it's deniable that their decisions have been influenced by big business. Rulings like Hammer v. Dagenheart, once again, don't match the ideologies of the people, just so that argument is hopefully off the table.

(I'm switching to theoretical now) Why should the Supreme Court decide what is right and wrong anyways? Why can't, we, the citizens, make decisions like that? If it's a nation by the people and for the people, we should be making our say in those decisions, right?

Posted by Señor Albonio

Sounds comfy desu. But this is the reason why church and state were separated years ago in most countries. Holy books don't make good laws.

but we still have a party that doesn't want to allow gay marriage... because of their evangelical base? Isn't that still a failure to separate church and state? Correct me if I'm wrong.  

Posted by Areo

but we still have a party that doesn't want to allow gay marriage... because of their evangelical base? Isn't that still a failure to separate church and state? Correct me if I'm wrong.

We?

Keep in mind I said most, not all. And that of course is a discussion for another day.  

Posted by Señor Albonio

Greed and corruption eh
http://images.wisegeek.com/nose-closeup.jpg (Unsupported image host)

this is gonna get me banned lmao

A lot of people like coke, not only political leaders  

Posted by Sig.

A lot of people like coke, not only political leaders

Not what I was going for lmao but drugs do play a huge role in politics as well.  

Posted by Areo

Spoiler

1. I won't deny that each scenario is different, but at some point as an individual you have to be willing to draw the line and decide when enough is enough. Not to equate the two in scope or magnitude, but think about German Nationalism and how out of hand that got during the rise of the Nazi party. If you refuse to draw a line somewhere those sorts of things can happen (again, not saying something like that will, just an example). Ultimately I would never want to ask my soldiers to draw that line, but if they're killing people across the globe we don't have a choice. Besides, it isn't like we can't use other methods as opposed to violence to show we disapprove of their (countries that still oppress women, gays, ect) actions, like economic sanctions or embargoes. But at some point you have to decide what the issue and what you want to do about it right?

Personally I don't care if it's destroying Islam or just making those countries stop oppressing their citizens, but we have to do something. Do you agree that we shouldn't just let those countries continue with oppressing women and gays, regardless of what it means for Islam? I don't mean to trap you, but if you support human rights there is kinda only one acceptable answer. Personally I find it absolutely ridiculous that we have the ability to change that, but when push comes to shove we back down.

But isn't freedom of religion also a right that should be given to all people? The thing is that America has law and order while many Middle-Eastern countries do not. Wouldn't it violate human rights to simply purge Islam from the world? Physical forces aren't the way to change ideologies. Ideologies have to change over time and often through societal struggles. We should be pushing more for human rights, which Trump completely ignored and admitted to doing so when he was speaking in front of many of the leaders from those countries.

Posted by Areo

Spoiler

2. Yeah, there could be a caveat and I can't prove that there is not (finding those UN voting results was already a pain, their website is pretty abysmal so I doubt I could find the actual agreements word for word). But, it still begs the question, why would stuff like this not get press if there was a caveat? Don't you think the united statues would call them out for putting something like that in there? Aside from that, isn't it strange that it's always just us that's saying no? Maybe a caveat could go against specifically the United States, but even so you would think we would try and put a real bill up there for vote, instead of just saying no.

Regardless it would be nice if votes like these got more press, because the US (or their allies, if there was dumb or weird caveats) should have to explain themselves for it. I wouldn't say you don't know enough; I don't think it is outside anyone's capabilities to reason and question why their country is doing what it is doing. Either way, I agree with you on that without knowing what the contracts really were we can't completely blame the US, but I also don't think that's a good sign for our human rights interests regardless. We should have an interest in making the world a better place, right? So having no press releases or discussion about votes like these explaining why we did what we did doesn't say to me that we want to progress.

Related question; do you believe that citizens deserve positive human rights? If you do, which ones?

I'm not dismissing those votes, but I can't imagine that under multiple presidencies, the U.S. would repeatedly vote no against those bills without some justification. The problem is the UN usually does nothing, and when they try to do something, they have little power to enforce it. In my opinion, the UN mostly acts as a way for leaders to remain diplomatic with other countries' leaders, rather than to get involved with other countries and their problems such as human rights abuse. Russia blatantly violates human rights all the time and no one even cares because Russia has power.

As for what rights people deserve, I mean that list could go on forever. I guess a good word would just be equality.

Posted by Areo

Spoiler

3. I'm not going to argue with the logic behind the constitution or SCOTUS, but even if that's what we want to do (work towards a perfect society) we normally don't seem to go down that path in a timely manner. You're right that the end result can always be changed if it's shown to be flawed, but it just doesn't give me much faith in the system if decisions like that can be made in the first place.

Part of what makes me feel that way, that the Supreme Court has vested interests and can be corrupted, is just the bountiful reserve of shameless rulings by them over the years. I'm not going to bore you with a lot of cases, but what should make me feel confident in them as interpreters of the constitution? I don't think it's deniable that their decisions have been influenced by big business. Rulings like Hammer v. Dagenheart, once again, don't match the ideologies of the people, just so that argument is hopefully off the table.

But what other solution is there? I forget who, but one of the authors (Madison I think) wrote a piece in the Federalist Papers explaining why the Constitution shouldn't have a Bill of Rights, and one of the arguments was that by writing it down, it opened them up to interpretation and word twisting. But to not write them down, anyone could claim anything, and no one would know what specific rights people had. I don't see a better solution than what we have now because decisions have to be made, otherwise we won't be able to advance as a society. Without SCOTUS, we'd have a lot more human rights violations than we do now.

Posted by Areo

(I'm switching to theoretical now) Why should the Supreme Court decide what is right and wrong anyways? Why can't, we, the citizens, make decisions like that? If it's a nation by the people and for the people, we should be making our say in those decisions, right?

I understand the argument, and it is compelling, but it also seems impractical. If the people were to decide what is right and wrong, then would we have a nationwide vote on those issues? Who decides what issue we vote on? If politicians decide that, then you could see how a Democratic-majority or Republican-majority government could pick issues that benefit their party politically. How often would we vote? America already has one of the world's lowest voter turnouts. Making us go to the polls more often would only lower it substantially. The SCOTUS is the best way I can think of to solve these issues. They have nothing to lose, no one to campaign for, and they are approved by the Senate so there is a decent amount of confidence in them to do their jobs impartially.

Posted by Areo

but we still have a party that doesn't want to allow gay marriage... because of their evangelical base? Isn't that still a failure to separate church and state? Correct me if I'm wrong

Church and state will never be that separate. Everyone's religious views affects their political views. Just as political views affects judicial interpretations of law. Just as an atheist would be affected by their beliefs. They may think praying should be banned from schools or public areas. I view religion when it comes to politics as an interest group. A Christian group, organization, or church has just as much right to be involved in politics as the NRA, EPA, AARP, and any other organization does.  

Posted by PigParty

Spoiler

1: But isn't freedom of religion also a right that should be given to all people? The thing is that America has law and order while many Middle-Eastern countries do not. Wouldn't it violate human rights to simply purge Islam from the world? Physical forces aren't the way to change ideologies. Ideologies have to change over time and often through societal struggles. We should be pushing more for human rights, which Trump completely ignored and admitted to doing so when he was speaking in front of many of the leaders from those countries.

Spoiler

2: I'm not dismissing those votes, but I can't imagine that under multiple presidencies, the U.S. would repeatedly vote no against those bills without some justification. The problem is the UN usually does nothing, and when they try to do something, they have little power to enforce it. In my opinion, the UN mostly acts as a way for leaders to remain diplomatic with other countries' leaders, rather than to get involved with other countries and their problems such as human rights abuse. Russia blatantly violates human rights all the time and no one even cares because Russia has power.

As for what rights people deserve, I mean that list could go on forever. I guess a good word would just be equality.

Spoiler

3: But what other solution is there? I forget who, but one of the authors (Madison I think) wrote a piece in the Federalist Papers explaining why the Constitution shouldn't have a Bill of Rights, and one of the arguments was that by writing it down, it opened them up to interpretation and word twisting. But to not write them down, anyone could claim anything, and no one would know what specific rights people had. I don't see a better solution than what we have now because decisions have to be made, otherwise we won't be able to advance as a society. Without SCOTUS, we'd have a lot more human rights violations than we do now.

Spoiler

4: I understand the argument, and it is compelling, but it also seems impractical. If the people were to decide what is right and wrong, then would we have a nationwide vote on those issues? Who decides what issue we vote on? If politicians decide that, then you could see how a Democratic-majority or Republican-majority government could pick issues that benefit their party politically. How often would we vote? America already has one of the world's lowest voter turnouts. Making us go to the polls more often would only lower it substantially. The SCOTUS is the best way I can think of to solve these issues. They have nothing to lose, no one to campaign for, and they are approved by the Senate so there is a decent amount of confidence in them to do their jobs impartially.

Spoiler

5: Church and state will never be that separate. Everyone's religious views affects their political views. Just as political views affects judicial interpretations of law. Just as an atheist would be affected by their beliefs. They may think praying should be banned from schools or public areas. I view religion when it comes to politics as an interest group. A Christian group, organization, or church has just as much right to be involved in politics as the NRA, EPA, AARP, and any other organization does.

1. Yes, it is a right everyone should have, you'll notice I didn't say that we had to purge Islam. I said it was an option. I want to push for human rights, just like you do. The only difference I see in how we feel is that you're opposed to purging Islam, whereas I'm willing to leave that on the table. Of course I would rather have us not have to do that and have the people and religion modernize without the Wests interference, but if that's not possible, I personally feel like we have to step in. Again, that doesn't even mean war or invasions or something, it could just mean sanctions until they improve the intense oppression of their people.

I respect people's right to choose their religion, but I also can't ignore their government forcing that religion upon them. That violates that same right, does it not? They're not free to worship whatever religion they want, if any at all, because their state demands they worship. No matter which route we go in the short term that right will be violated, whether it be by us or by them.

2. I don't really see the problem as the UN doing nothing. While that can be the case, that does not justify voting in the fashion that the US did. I understand that you and I don't know why they voted that way (there are some options, like it's bad for business) but I still would say it's our governments job to explain why. It makes me lowkey angry that we don't question why our government does what it does; we should be demanding answers for stuff like that... I would love to hear that there were caveats and that we still think human rights are dear to American foreign policy. But right now we are kinda trapped in a gray area when it comes to them, sadly.

Here's a question on what you mean by equality; Do you mean like an Egalitarian stance?

3/4. That's the money question, really. How can we possibly improve on that system? The system I mentioned in a theoretical sense would be very difficult to implement... it would require us, as in our population, to become a lot more interested in politics and policy. I don't think it's anywhere close to impossible, but right now it isn't something that I think we can pull off. Yes, I would imagine we would have a nationwide vote on those issues. Creating a system like that would be a massive undertaking, I can definitely imagine ways it would be done, but nothing that would be called practical. But if it was up to me, which it obviously is not, I would be doing something like that. What if, instead of that system, we did a system where the people could call for a vote if they disagreed with the Supreme Court? (Or is that possible now?). Once again, I'm unsure how we would decide which to vote on though. Just thought experiments more than anything, the systems aren't changing anytime soon. Not like we even get to vote on that sort of thing.

I think we could drastically increase voter turnout by placing voting days in holidays... like Veteran's Day. We could also impose a tax credit or fine for not voting (yes, there is a precedent to this. Australia does this and has a very high voter turnout). That could help solve those issues, right?

Also, you can't say that the SCOTUS have nothing to lose... Well, you're right, but they have a lot to gain by rulings. I'm not sure if you believe that they can be bribed, but assuming they can be imagine what could be gained by voting certain ways on gun ownership bills or religious bills?

5. Yeah, I realize this, I was merely bringing up that we suffer from those issues. But you can do your best to try and mitigate how religion impacts politics.  

Posted by Areo

3/4. That's the money question, really. How can we possibly improve on that system? The system I mentioned in a theoretical sense would be very difficult to implement... it would require us, as in our population, to become a lot more interested in politics and policy. I don't think it's anywhere close to impossible, but right now it isn't something that I think we can pull off. Yes, I would imagine we would have a nationwide vote on those issues. Creating a system like that would be a massive undertaking, I can definitely imagine ways it would be done, but nothing that would be called practical. But if it was up to me, which it obviously is not, I would be doing something like that. What if, instead of that system, we did a system where the people could call for a vote if they disagreed with the Supreme Court? (Or is that possible now?). Once again, I'm unsure how we would decide which to vote on though. Just thought experiments more than anything, the systems aren't changing anytime soon. Not like we even get to vote on that sort of thing.

We already do have a way to veto a Supreme Court ruling by amending the Constitution, which the people can control through electing their representatives. No, that's not easy to do, but that's also kind of the point. Any decision so morally atrocious would get bipartisain support for adding an amendment.

Posted by Areo

.
2. I don't really see the problem as the UN doing nothing. While that can be the case, that does not justify voting in the fashion that the US did. I understand that you and I don't know why they voted that way (there are some options, like it's bad for business) but I still would say it's our governments job to explain why. It makes me lowkey angry that we don't question why our government does what it does; we should be demanding answers for stuff like that... I would love to hear that there were caveats and that we still think human rights are dear to American foreign policy. But right now we are kinda trapped in a gray area when it comes to them, sadly.

Here's a question on what you mean by equality; Do you mean like an Egalitarian stance?

Yes, an egalitarian stance on equality for all. But even that is ambiguous. In my opinion, equality for all means that abortion would be wrong and violating human rights. But in someone else's mind, equality would mean that to prohibit abortion would be to violate the rights of women.

Posted by Areo

1.
1. I think we could drastically increase voter turnout by placing voting days in holidays... like Veteran's Day. We could also impose a tax credit or fine for not voting (yes, there is a precedent to this. Australia does this and has a very high voter turnout). That could help solve those issues, right?

2. Also, you can't say that the SCOTUS have nothing to lose... Well, you're right, but they have a lot to gain by rulings. I'm not sure if you believe that they can be bribed, but assuming they can be imagine what could be gained by voting certain ways on gun ownership bills or religious bills?

1. I don't think we should be mandating political participation. Should we entice someone to vote that will only vote for the first name on the list, or the name of the person they saw the best commercials for? Do we actually want politically uneducated people voting? I definitely agree that our voting days are flawed. At the very least, voting days should fall on weekends. To place them during weekdays is a poor idea.

2. Yes, anyone can be bribed. We have a system to impeach them if they violate the law. It doesn't mean it will work 100% of the time but once again, what better way can you do it? It's flawed, but I feel that it works because it's flawed. The Constitution set up three branches of government to compete against one another. Hopefully if there was corruption, someone somewhere would be motivated, politically or otherwise, to catch them and reveal their corruption.  

Still,its important to note that it is a bad ideology.

Link if it won't work through graalians:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvPno57V-4o  

Posted by Red

Still,its important to note that it is a bad ideology.

Link if it won't work through graalians:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvPno57V-4o

Ew Milo. Couldn't you find anything else?