Social Issues vs. Economics

I don't, thanks.

 

Them gays !!!

 

In what way?

 

In the view of the religious right, homosexuals undermine "traditional" family values.

 

American voters don't understand economics, so that side of the debate is pointless.

 

You didn't answer my question. If you are in a traditional heterosexual family and have right-wing moral views, what does gay marriage have to do with you? Gay couples are not going to show up at your house and demand that you change anything you are doing or teaching your children. Define what you mean by "undermine".

I can't honestly say that I disagree.

 

But then, neither do our elected politicians.

 

EXACTLY, now he wants credit for saving the auto workers even though he supported killing the workers unions. What an idiot. But you know the GOP sheep will believe whatever they are told to believe.

 

Maybe it's the likes of John Edwards, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Don Sherwood, Strom Thurmond, Gary Condit, on and on, people that are in so-called "traditional" marriages and espousing the importance of family values while they are having affairs and babies behind their wives back, all the while lying to their families and pushing their agenda on other people, that are the ones "undermining traditional family values".

The code phrase traditional family values and stating that gay marriage is a threat to hetrosexuals is nothing more than a guise for hatred of gays. Period.

And while we're at it, how about if we just ban government involvement in marriage all together? Since when does the government have a say in a religious practice anyway? Want to hide behind the false projection that you're not anti-human rights by saying your are for state-sanctioned domestic unions but not marriage? Let's do that for hetero couples too. Any couple that wants to be partners gets the legal pro's and con's of being "married" by civil union, straight or not. By that standard everyone is entitled to equal treatment and rights under the law.
If you want to get married, go to your house of worship and get married. If they don't allow it, maybe you're in the wrong religion. This argument in politics over gay marriage is an insult to any thinking person. Where is the discussion over how a church can ex-communicate a member? Where is the discussion in legislatures over who can and cannot be ordained? There is none because it's none of governments business.

Neither is marriage. Except when you hate fags and dykes so much you want to make sure they are kept second class citizens.

 

The question here is - why don’t Americans understand economics?

Basic economic is not that hard – the recent major movements are neoliberal or Keynesian in flavour (with collective ideas bubbling under the surface).

This is my personal view – Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

But possibly they are being taught a type of economics but they just don't know it.

As I’ve pointed out before wealth spends a lot of money promoting neoliberal economic ideas through the financing of think tanks and lobbyists (including political candidates for office). These ideas are then widely disseminated by the wealth backed media.

I’ve talked to many people here and elsewhere who seem to have been unknowingly indoctrinated with neoliberal economic doctrine to the point that they see them as just ‘common sense’.

Edit: I mean there are a lot of people out there that seem to believe ‘freedom’ and ‘free market’ are the same thing, so that to be against the ‘free market’ is to be against ‘freedom’ and that the ‘freer’ the ‘free market’ is the freer they will be.

 

Apparently the de facto rule is that you can do whatever you want, as long as you repeat the standard rhetoric (especially when you get caught) in public.

I think it is more than just hatred of gays. In this state (NC), now that the far right has won the recent battle against gay marriage, I expect them to go after pornography, contraception, alcohol, drugs, and everything else that doesn't fit their vision of the traditional lifestyle. To them, tolerance is a bad word. They think there is only one way to live, and they get to decide the details for everyone.

They came to power here two years ago, on a platform of economic reform. Their first act was to remove Everclear (190 proof) from liquor stores. Zero economic impact.

The wording of the state constitutional amendment just passed also outlaws heterosexual civil unions and domestic partnerships. That part of it does not single out homosexuals.

Is there any room left for thinking people in the South? Maybe it's about time for all of us to get the hell out, no matter if all our friends, relatives, and jobs are down here, and our families have been here for 4 or 5 generations. Nobody can make the rest of my life all about honoring somebody else's understanding of a religious book.

I'm very depressed today. I feel like giving up.

On the local news, every station has been showing footage of religious right-wingers celebrating, gloating, making their usual stupid statements about "victories for Christ" and "defeating evil".
:willy_nilly:

As hard as it is for me to watch it unfold, I saw all this coming a long time ago, and made one big change to protect my interests:

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=7249557#post7249557

The only glimmer of light on the horizon today was President Obama's proclamation that he is now fully in favor of gay marriage. He had Joe Biden float the idea out there last week to check the reaction. It's so rare for Obama to take a firm stand on anything.

It isn't taught in high school, and at the university level, your exposure depends on your major. It isn't a part of every college's core curriculum. Also, we generally suck at math.

 

Why is Obama taking this stand on gay marriage now? Do you think it might just be a campaign strategy? Maybe he's trying to rally the gay vote as well as pull some gay republicans to his camp since he knows the republican party would not compete for those votes.

I'd call that using the social issue of gay marriage to accomplish his real agenda of getting re-elected.

 

Hi Karen

Please don’t

Regards

Balbus

 

I won't. After another day or two of having my home state bashed in the national media for being a bunch of fucking dinosaurs, I'll be ready to go out of my house again without wearing a paper bag over my head.

Life goes on.

We were the last Southern state to pass an amendment like this one, and we were the last state to join the Confederacy. I guess you could say we have established a tradition of being the last Southern state to come down on the wrong side of major issues. I guess that's better than being first.

I wasn't born yesterday. I know how politics works. Obama saw that he was being outplayed by Romney on social issues. Romney is not a true social conservative, but he's going to give those voters what they want. Obama wasn't giving his base (on the social side) anything at all, while expecting them to stay loyal to him. That was a stupid political strategy. Has that ever worked for anybody? Playing to the undecided, independent center only works when your base feels like they have a reason to leave home on election day.

When your only job is being a politician, you care about re-election. Nobody wants to get fired.

 

Let me guess... they vote on the right.

A majority of the people may be in favor of it right now, but the majority doesn't always win -remember 2000?- so I think it's still bold to state he's in favor of gay marriage.

 

Are you saying this is anything more than just a political stunt to get re-elected?

 

Because Stewart and team are so much better with words than I...

(bare with the adverts if you're willing)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/359450/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-rainbow-disconnection#s-p4-sr-i1

And his buddy Colbert... just golden.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/360459/the-colbert-report-barack-obamas-gay-blasphemy#s-p1-sr-i1

 

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I read this article the other day and thought of this thread –
People haven't turned to the right. They just don't vote :A new theory of choice isn't useful to politicians. The left is losing because it isn't offering policies of care and economic justice

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/11/voters-have-not-turned-right

Extract -
As Larry Bartels, professor of political science at Vanderbilt, Nashville, points out, the political views of white working class voters in the US “have remained virtually unchanged over the past 30 years.”(8) Voting for the Democrats by those on low incomes has in fact increased. Political decisions in this class are still shaped overwhelmingly by economics. On what Haidt calls “moral” values, there is “no evidence of any shift” in this group. It is only among more affluent voters that the Democrats have lost support. “Economic status has become more important, not less important, in structuring the presidential voting behavior”(9).
The real issue is surely turnout. In the US it has been low for a long time: between 50-60% for presidential elections and 30-45% for mid-term congressionals since the second world war(10). In the UK it has slipped dramatically: from 84% in 1950 to 65% in 2010(11). An analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that the collapse has occurred largely among younger and poorer people. “Older people and richer or better educated people … are now much more influential at the ballot box”(12).
The major reason, the institute says, is the “’low-stakes’ character of recent elections”: the major parties “fought on quite similar platforms”. The biggest decline in recent political history – from 1997 to 2001 – lends weight to this contention. In 1997 the young and the poor believed they faced a real political and economic choice. By 2001, Blair had moved Labour so far to the right that there was scarcely a choice to be made.
If Haidt and his admirers were right, the correct political strategy would be for Labour, the Democrats and other once-progressive parties to swing even further to the right, triangulate even more furiously, and – by seeking to satisfy an apparent appetite for loyalty, authority and sanctity – to join the opposing tribe. But if the real problem is not that working class voters have switched their voting preferences but that they are not voting at all because there’s too little at stake, then the correct political prescription is to do the opposite: to swing further to the left and to emphasise not “order and national greatness” but care and economic justice.

 

Sounds like the Left just needs to spend more money to get the votes they need. While we seem to complain about our politicians being bought and paid for, it's acceptable for them to buy the voters who put them into office?