Did I say I have no issues with that? No. It is not the ideal situation by any means. However, until Christ's second coming we are going to have to settle for earthly governments. Some forms are better than others and our goal is to build the best we can in this life.Chozon1 wrote: Problem is, you're handing the other end of the leash to other people, and seem to have no issues with that.
Also, a specific religion should not also be the governing force either. A theocracy is simply another man made government system, and it is not the goal of the Church to become a state (to paraphrase Dostoevsky).
I would cry discrimination. You gotta call it for what it is. No amount of "I personally wouldn't be upset" type of sentiment will change the fact that this is objectively wrong. How you may react to it personally does not change the fact that it is discrimination. It means only that you would handle being faced with it differently than someone else, that's all.Chozon1 wrote: What I don't get is...if I drove up to an auto shop that said "No Christians, discounts to liberal atheists!" I'd simply drive across the street to another auto shop and get on with my life. I would not cry "discrimination", I would not immediately report a heinous crime to the media so that everyone and their grandpa might join me in hating them, and I would not launch a crusade against them.
What I really find confusing is that you would cry discrimination regarding having to make a wedding cake and will insist on fighting back, but if you were in a situation like this with a far more clear cut example of discrimination, you claim that it somehow isn't? I don't understand how this is consistent.
True, however they do not have a right to deny equality under the law and use "religious beliefs" as a pretense for blatant discrimination. This is America, not the middle east.Chozon1 wrote: Because, hey, they have a right to be a jerk. This is America, not the middle east.
Equating blatant and obvious discrimination to just mere "bruised feelings" really downplays what is actually happening. Basically it's like denying someone service based on the color of their skin and saying it is no big deal, they can just go somewhere else. Believe me when I say that I did not initially want to make a racial analogy here but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any other way to get the point across. If businesses started denying people based on race once again then either you would expect the government to intervene and enforce civil rights laws or brush them aside as simply having "bruised feelings" as well. I am not gonna lie, I sincerely hope you would choose the former, otherwise, why bother talking about civil rights at all then? There's no point of discussing this further if we can't even agree on this much.Chozon1 wrote: As long as you aren't hurting someone (and it is not my belief that bruised feelings count),
Yes of course, and the people of course need to keep the government in check too, but the government must have the power it needs to keep society going and the kind of limited and/or minimalist approach of American Libertarianism would effectively neuter it. If the Founding Fathers did not intend for the Constitution to create a strong central government they would have framed the Constitution differently or just stuck with the Articles of Confederation. They did not do this because they saw that what they had previously simply did not work. A central government with too little power is hardly a government worth having at all.ArcticFox wrote: You realize, don't you, that a government not kept in check will do the exact same thing, because the humans who run any government have the same human nature as the governed.
That is one possible option but not the only one and in my opinion not the best. I think a far better option would be to simply allow more room for other political parties to legitimately join the fray, break the monopoly of power concentrated in the current two party system, and give us more real choices to begin with. If we had real options to vote for and more parties we can vote in to begin with, it will force the two major parties to come to the negotiating table cause now they aren't the only two players anymore. It would be sort of like the multi-party system in England, where you have a few major parties but they alone can't get everything they want done without the support of some of the others, nor can they block another major party without said support.ArcticFox wrote: This is the reason for preferring limited government... it's to keep it in check precisely because of the human nature being used to justify statism.
So my proposal is reform what we have currently to allow real choices for the people. Even if it turns out we have to come up with additional changes, no real change is possible with the way our electoral system is currently set up anyway. No reason to throw out a strong central government, but it should be one where we are allowed to have real choices of who to vote in. These are people we can expect to force the two incumbent parties to play ball with and possibly accomplish something more beneficial than what we currently have now. All branches of the government will benefit from having more than two equally bad choices. The wider variety of people you get, the less concentrated the power between parties is and the more people will be forced to rely on negotiation to get things done.