[b]Ten[/b] threads and you joined [b]this month[/b]
:frog:
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;28660814]When "gay rights" is a hotly debated topic in our capital, I would say that perhaps the government's nose has extended a bit too far into peoples' business.[/QUOTE]
Wait, what?
A bunch of countries banned games and porn therefore the world is totalitarian.
Right.
I agree with the overall sentiment of the post but OP god damn you picked the worst possible examples
[QUOTE=BagMinge104;28660899]Wait, what?[/QUOTE]
What's confusing about that statement? The government has absolutely no business considering laws that impose limitations based on sexual preference. If they're concerning themselves with what goes on in the bedroom between two consenting adults, then I have to say that they ought to butt out and mind their own business--yet gay rights is still a hotly debated topic. The only thing about this that doesn't make sense to me is why people are still arguing about it.
Well, I do think the world is slowly becoming more like an Orwellian state.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;28661007]What's confusing about that statement? The government has absolutely no business considering laws that impose limitations based on sexual preference. If they're concerning themselves with what goes on in the bedroom between two consenting adults, then I have to say that they ought to butt out and mind they're own business--yet gay rights is still a hotly debated topic. The only thing about this that doesn't make sense to me is why people are still arguing about it.[/QUOTE]
Oh, I took it completely the wrong way.
[url]http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0930918.html[/url]
From this ranking, I'd say quite of this world is [I]not[/I] totalitarian.
The world just seems to have been taken over by soccermoms who think that censorship is the only way to protect our children and society.
right now there world is more free than it has ever been
doesnt mean we cant be better though
[QUOTE=tommofandan;28660885][b]Ten[/b] threads and you joined [b]this month[/b]
:frog:[/QUOTE]
Not one good one out of the ten either :(
I think the world is become not grammar enough.
[QUOTE=Pantz76;28654992]I believe in ultimate freedom for whatever you want to do by/to yourself, as long as it doesn't hurt others.[/QUOTE]
anyone who disagrees with this is a idiot.
[editline]18th March 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=LaserOfDoom;28661854]I think the world is become not grammar enough.[/QUOTE]
agree i do you with
No the world need to be a proletarian communist state run by a Dictator of the Proletariat and everyone will be equal except for the dictator but he will be equal but he will not be just forget about it and then the government will provide for all the proletariat people and they can tell us what to do for safety and harmony of people's proletariat and then the world will be under communist socialist peace for all people and we will be safe happy proletariat.
That's why we have democracy. If people didn't like the government's decisions they would vote for another government.
Please don't ask a question when the answer is obviously no.
[QUOTE]Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments that tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has perfected despotism itself, though it seemed to have nothing to learn. Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression; the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as the will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose proudly superior. Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The master no longer says: "You shall think as I do or you shall die"; but he says: "You are free to think differently from me and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow citizens if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence worse than death."
Absolute monarchies had dishonored despotism; let us beware lest democratic republics should reinstate it and render it less odious and degrading in the eyes of the many by making it still more onerous to the few.
Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old World expressly intended to censure the vices and the follies of the times: LabruyŠre inhabited the palace of Louis XIV when he composed his chapter upon the Great, and MoliŠre criticized the courtiers in the plays that were acted before the court. But the ruling power in the United States is not to be made game of. The smallest reproach irritates its sensibility, and the slightest joke that has any foundation in truth renders it indignant, from the forms of its language up to the solid virtues of its character, everything must be made the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever be his eminence, can escape paying this tribute of adulation to his fellow citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual utterance of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can learn only from strangers or from experience.
If America has not as yet had any great writers, the reason is given in these facts; there can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in America. The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast number of anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority succeeds much better in the United States, since it actually removes any wish to publish them. Unbelievers are to be met with in America, but there is no public organ of infidelity. Attempts have been made by some governments to protect morality by prohibiting licentious books. In the United States no one is punished for this sort of books, but no one is induced to write them; not because all the citizens are immaculate in conduct, but because the majority of the community is decent and orderly.[/QUOTE]
-Tocqueville
Before people go bitching about America having loads of great writers please be aware that Tocqueville wrote this in the early 1800's. However, it is still almost frighteningly applicable.
I'm not agreeing with the OP, but I figured that this was relevant enough to warrant posting it.
Here's the source if you want to read any more:
[url]http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch15.htm[/url]
[QUOTE=Crypptic;28662362]That's why we have democracy. If people didn't like the government's decisions they would vote for another government.[/QUOTE]
Not that I would ever recommend anything other than a democracy, but there is one essential flaw to a democratic government: people. People tend to vote based on ideals and opinions and beliefs, and this means that laws based entirely on subjective moral dilemmas can come into play. To re-use my previous example, let's look at gay rights. In the vast majority of the United States, gay marriage is illegal. Why, I ask? Do same-sex couples getting married somehow prevent Christian Joe from leading his sin-free life of merry Christian values? No, not at all. In his eyes all gays are damned to skip down the road to Perdition anyway, so is it really his, or anyone else's, place to force them to live under his values now? No, but his values and beliefs are still enforced by law under popular vote in a democratic government.
When a law goes above and beyond keeping everybody safe and protecting their freedoms, that's when you know the law has gone too far. The above example was not intended to jab at Christian values, I'm merely trying to show how popular opinion can lead to laws enforced democratically that [i]don't[/i] actually work out best for everyone. There are safeguards against such things, such as the Supreme Court, but not even they are infallible, and sweeping legal changes across the nation can take a very long time.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;28662700]Not that I would ever recommend anything other than a democracy, but there is one essential flaw to a democratic government: people. People tend to vote based on ideals and opinions and beliefs, and this means that laws based entirely on subjective moral dilemmas can come into play. To re-use my previous example, let's look at gay rights. In the vast majority of the United States, gay marriage is illegal. Why, I ask? Do same-sex couples getting married somehow prevent Christian Joe from leading his sin-free life of merry Christian values? No, not at all. In his eyes all gays are damned to skip down the road to Perdition anyway, so is it really his, or anyone else's, place to force them to live under his values now? No, but his values and beliefs are still enforced by law under popular vote in a democratic government.
When a law goes above and beyond keeping everybody safe and protecting their freedoms, that's when you know the law has gone too far. The above example was not intended to jab at Christian values, I'm merely trying to show how popular opinion can lead to laws enforced democratically that [i]don't[/i] actually work out best for everyone. There are safeguards against such things, such as the Supreme Court, but not even they are infallible, and sweeping legal changes across the nation can take a very long time.[/QUOTE]
Well yeah, I agree.
We need meritocracies up in this thread.
[QUOTE=Pantz76;28654992]I believe in ultimate freedom for whatever you want to do by/to yourself, as long as it doesn't hurt others.[/QUOTE]
That is an incredibly vague ideal that nobody can argue against, but isn't valid because it is too vague to be put into action.
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