I emailed you.

Crawford,

The crazies are a small percentage….or maybe I’m one of them and don’t know it.

Go to my website and shoot me an email, so I don’t have to keep searching for this thread.

If you can find a group, I’ll check it out. I’m in Wichita, KS.

there were far too many “truthers” and people with anti-Semitic and anti-capitalist leanings in leadership positions in those groups for me to be interested in working with them.

That’s unfortunate. Would you be willing to lend some of your time and expertise if I can find you a group that better matches your beliefs?

I’m in Michigan, Chris.

Well put. I disagree personally with the idea that homosexuality (or any other non-violent consensual activity) should be an alienable right but I can’t really argue with the fact that many states treat it this way and the Constitution appears to allow them to do so.

Chris,

Nope, nor do I work for Ron Paul (although I’m voting for him).

Your responses indicate that you don’t understand my position. I don’t care if you agree or not, but I take precious time to choose my words carefully. If you’re not going to read them and understand them exactly as they are, you’re wasting my time.

- The very core of “freedom” and the 18th century philosophy that studied it was essentially “live and let live”
- Those ideas played a central role in the American Revolution
- The constitution does not grant any rights to us as individuals.
- The constitution does not in any way limit sexual behavior
- The constitution permits the state governments to legislate things the national government cannot.

Thus there is a natural right to engage in homosexual behavior (just like you have the right to type on a keyboard assuming it’s your keyboard), so long as it is entirely consensual, but it is a right that has been generally considered alienable.

Are you both VA residents

Nope.

Damn, damn! I knew I recognized the language. That truly sucks to be smoked that bad. (I say “sucks” in the non-homosexual sense.) I still disagree with your modern views but have no choice but to concede a loss here just for missing that one.

JEFF

You’d better stay away from 18th century philosophy. You’ll not find a writer in that era to declare Homosexuality to be good wholesome conduct let alone a right. That ought to be a clue that you should reevaluate your position.

I just don’t understand why you boys don’t see a problem putting rules and words into the constitution where they don’t exist. Why doesn’t the constitution tell us that this rule you’ve posited is the one we’re supposed to use?

I am patently ridiculous. Homosexuality is no more a right that me having a right to type on a keyboard or a right to touch the door of a business establishment. Not one 18th century philosopher would tell you it’s a right. And this is simply another reason.

CRAWFORD & JEFF

Are you both VA residents working on a RP campaign?

You missed my Monty Python reference, which apparently flew right over Chris’ head :)

You probably are thinking of the maxim: “expressio unius est exclusio alterius uno.”

No, I was referring to a precedent-setting quote of an early SCOTUS opinion.

I have a right to define whatever I want a right to be because the Constitution says nothing about it?

No, you have a right to anything that doesn’t infringe upon anyone else’s rights. This is basic 18th century philosophy we’re talking here.

Now, not all rights are equal. Some are held to be inalienable and some are alienable. Feel free to argue that it is an alienable right. Many will disagree with you, but you have a lot of legal precedent on your side. To say it isn’t a right at all, however, is ridiculous.

See, that’s the thing…no one’s forcing their morality on you or anyone else by allowing other people to engage in whatever consensual activities they choose, because you’re not being forced to participate in those acts. If you’re trying to claim that consensual homosexuality isn’t legal and other people have no right to engage in it even though they’re not forcing you (or anyone else) to join in, then you are attempting forcing your morality on them. I’m not sure if this position (homosexuality should be defined as illegal behavior) has been what you’re saying, because you’ve never explicitly said you want laws banning homosexuals, but that’s the gist of the argument I get from you. Laws are violent by their nature and those that are designed to manage behavior are coercive. The absence of laws is not coercive, nor is telling other people to mind their own business when it comes to consensual activities that don’t harm them or anyone else.

I said sperm has no place in your rectum any more than your morality can be forced on my family.

I can’t let you force your morality on me or my community. Whether you think homosexuality is good or bad conduct is irrelevant to me.

So what you’re saying is that every sperm is sacred? Every sperm is great? When a sperm gets wasted, does God get quite irate?

Dude, you have no point here and I no longer care. Your religion might hate recreational sex and consider it wrong, and that’s fine if you want to believe in that, but I don’t care about it and in a free society as long as I’m not causing demonstrable harm to someone else your personal moral preference has no authority over me or anyone else who doesn’t want to play along.

Closer to Hillary? Please. Religion is about control, fear, the rejection of reason, and forced obedience to an allegedly infallible master. So are the philosophies of Hillary, Bush or any other statist you might care to name and I don’t buy into any of that crap. Go peddle that faulty analogy to someone who doesn’t recognize slavery when they see it.