California and Mob Rule

[KrazyHorse]

My purpose here is both to clarify EXACTLY what is meant by the word

Good luck with that. I've been trying my best to clarify exactly what is meant by the word "torture" for years now, to no avail...

Torture is the systematic infliction of severe mental or physical stress on an unwilling participant.

[Drake Tungsten]

I would agree with that except for the usage of "stress". Rather vague word and not a good replacement for "pain" or "anguish".

[KrazyHorse]

"Pain" is not a necessary element. As for "anguish" I have no idea what that means in this context.

For example, say that an interrogator determines that a prisoner has a deeply-ingrained fear of falling and heights. He hangs him upside down from the top of a 200 foot high crane. That would be torture, in my view.

Deliberately making a prisoner feel like he is drowning is also torture. In both cases the torturer is using knowledge of psychology or physiology to provoke an incapacitating fear, unaccompanied by physical damage.

Waterboarding is no ****ing joke. Neither, depending on the psychology of the prisoner, is locking somebody in a box with an insect crawling all over them, etc. This is some sick ****ing ****. It's torture.

[Kuciwalker]

a) WTF is up with your post formatting? Why is it that when I quote it I get all sorts of html table code?

I don't know. The quote formatting in the new vbulletin is all kinds of weird.

b) Marriage AS RECOGNIZED BY THE LAW can ONLY be a civil contract. It has certain rights, privileges and responsibilities associated with it. It is the LEGAL implications of marriage which are at stake here. The government has no place deciding what place people give to marriage outside the law, by definition. Governments make and enforce laws. That is their purview. It is these laws which are the focus of this discussion.

c) I have no idea what your last paragraph is trying to say. Just as you cannot claim that there is no discrimination because a government throws the discrimination into a definition, you cannot claim that there is no discrimination because the government chooses to recognize a discriminatory definition decided on by some subset of the country's population.

To be clear, the following are debunked arguments:

1) Something has been done historically therefore it is not discriminatory to continue doing it

2) Something has a valid purpose therefore it is not discriminatory

3) Hiding discrimination in a definition or outsourcing discrimination to some portion of society chosen by the government makes the government's actions non-discriminatory



BY DEFINITION restricting the ability of two people to enter into a civil contract based solely on the group or class that one or both belong to is discriminatory.

Why can't you marry your car? Because your car isn't a 'person' and so it can't enter contracts. THEREFORE CONTRACT LAW (and by extension any possible marriage law) IS DISCRIMINATORY etc. by your definition.

Your definition of discrimination is meaningless because it will apply in every possible circumstance.

[BeBMan]

Are there any cars fighting for the right to marry now? If not it's correct that marriage is not possible in that case, cuz they cannot agree, so it would be forced onto them

[MrFun]

It is still a man and a woman. Marriage has never been, previously, between two humans. It has always been between a man type human and a woman type human.

Therefore, it is an expansion to make a male/male marriage (for example).

Since I was mistaken about JM's argument, I will try again.

Here, he was saying that marriage has never been between two humans but more specifically, between a human man and a human woman.

This goes back to his comment about people having scientifically proven that blacks are human beings. Thus, interracial marriage between a black man and a white woman would still fit within the traditional definition of marriage.

So where I was mistaken was I thought he was also arguing that you should not expand or change the traditional definition of marriage.

[KrazyHorse]

Why can't you marry your car? Because your car isn't a 'person' and so it can't enter contracts. THEREFORE CONTRACT LAW (and by extension any possible marriage law) IS DISCRIMINATORY etc. by your definition.

Cars don't have moral standing in my books, so I'm willing to live with this "discrimination" without the state needing to prove anything

[SlowwHand]

If a person falls in love with an inanimate object, but marriage is forbidden, it's the person being discriminated against.

[KrazyHorse]

No, it's discrimination BETWEEN persons (who are allowed to enter into marriage) and non-persons (who are not). The marriage between a man and his car fails not because of the identity of the man, but because of the identity of the car.

[SlowwHand]

Cars have no rights, so it's the person.

[KrazyHorse]

Slowwy, that is a retarded comment. The very fact that cars do not have rights to enter into marriage is what is "discriminatory" here.

[SlowwHand]

By God, you're right.



MARRIAGE RIGHTS FOR INANIMATE OBJECTS!

[BeBMan]

What if my car is a transformer???

[Theben]

It'll never work. A large portion of the gay community won't settle for anything less than state-approved marriage because they really believe that they're engaged in a civil rights struggle on par with the black experience in the 60s. Still, it's a good idea...

Crap, I got Drake, TMM, and Ben to agree with me. What'd I do wrong?


To be clear, I meant that marriage would not have any legal implications in of itself; that it would not be a legal contract. The only legal contracts would be the 'civil unions' or whatever name was chosen. Of course getting married would in almost all cases be done hand-in-hand with said union, so the idea centers around de-emphasizing the marriage ceremony to a religious ritual only.

I'm sure a gay couple would be able to find a church willing to marry them somewhere, so discrimination shouldn't be an issue. And if they're upset that their church won't let them marry... why the hell would they want to be a part of that following?

[Drake Tungsten]

"Pain" is not a necessary element.

It's included in far more definitions of the term than "stress" is.

For example, say that an interrogator determines that a prisoner has a deeply-ingrained fear of falling and heights. He hangs him upside down from the top of a 200 foot high crane. That would be torture, in my view.

I disagree.

Neither, depending on the psychology of the prisoner, is locking somebody in a box with an insect crawling all over them, etc. This is some sick ****ing ****.

Really? You think the caterpillar in the box is torture? This is exactly why a clear definition is needed. It's also why "stress" doesn't belong in the definition, as it's so vague that almost anything, no matter how mild and pain-free, can be called "torture". The word loses all meaning at that point.