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Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

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201–207 of 207 posts

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Laws related to abolition, marriage, etc. is not necessarily religious Pray tell me what non-religious arguments you have against same-sex marriage and abortion (I assume you meant "abortion" instead of "abolition").

you say that as if you can't imagine that there are any or something. so silly. um, okay: government has no business in marriage. abortion is arbitrarily deciding you have autonomy over the life of another possibly intelligent being for political reasons. I'm in favor of self-ownership and property rights--I don't know about you. none of these things have anything to do with religion. (hint: I am not religious.)

> um, okay: government has no business in marriage.

That's not argument against same-sex marriage; it's against all government-recognized marriage, even opposite-sex marriage.

It's funny how people come out against "marriage" only when teh gays become interested in it.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#202
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been conditioned into thinking libertarians are the devil, basically.

It might be more general than that. People here (and most other forums) seem conditioned to treat politics like sports teams and they will ignore all the horrible ideas their "team" has just as long as they can beat the other team. It is pretty sad...

Can I use this explanation when Canadians ask me why I left the states? do I need to pay royalties?

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#203
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I believe in old-fashioned traditional marriage but I don't really think the government needs to be too involved in this..." http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/21967... "Senator Paul believes marriage is an issue that should be dealt with at the state level,” political adviser Doug Stafford told The Daily Beast. “Nothing about his position has changed." Stafford later added: "Senator Paul does no…

In other words he told positions which conveniently would be enforced by not interfering with the status quo. Why is state government the only acceptable level of government interference in citizens private lives?

That way government more closely follows the will of the people when people have geographically non-uniform distribution of what they want in government. For example, if 60% of Maryland wants children to be banned from playing outside while 40% of Pennsylvania does, it more closely matches the will of the people if Maryland bans it and Pennsylvania doesn't, instead of having the feds ban it or ban states from banning it. Not that "will of the people" democratic mysticism is a good justification for anything.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That strawman is just about the same as saying, 'liberals seem to universally believe that nobody could be incompetent and every personal outcome is controlled by everyone else instead of personal decisions.'

Close, but more something like: "Liberals seem to universally believe that the status you are born into will probably be the status you stay in your entire life." The important distinction here is that competence isn't a factor and that the above statement is true in every measurable way.

It might be true that some people hold the belief but the belief is not true in "every measurable way". Otherwise you would never have stories of poor people becoming rich.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#207
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words he told positions which conveniently would be enforced by not interfering with the status quo. Why is state government the only acceptable level of government interference in citizens private lives?

That way government more closely follows the will of the people when people have geographically non-uniform distribution of what they want in government. For example, if 60% of Maryland wants children to be banned from playing outside while 40% of Pennsylvania does, it more closely matches the will of the people if Maryland bans it and Pennsylvania doesn't, instead of having the feds ban it or ban states from banning…

Ah, so tyranny of the majority all round then?
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