The NRA may be in some deep shit

What if they're the only game in town?
What if one company monopolizes a type of business in a town?
You're kinda fucked then, aren't ya?

When does a conservative think anyone's a victim?
I can't remember a time.
Oh, right, when a white business owner is robbed by a black criminal.
That's about the only time I can think of.

 

Post #298.

 

Exactly like segregation, which took a hell of a fight to end and is (mostly) viewed as monstrous these days.

From a more mundane point of view though that does also allow the other shop an opening to push prices up given you have no choice to go to the other place, increasing the discrimination on top of that caused by the stigma and ostracising effects.

So yes, they are victims and you are favouring the perpetrators.

 

So, we DO need a set of common legal practices?

Now, explain to me why that legal framework cannot include a clause that a business must have a licence in order to legally form a contract. And then why that licence cannot require that businesses hold to a common set of practices when dealing with customers.

 

Indeed, laws are ideally there to regulate those aspects of society which could cause harm if left unchecked. Businesses not only fall under that umbrella but in many ways are capable of wielding more harmful influence than any individual.

Leaving them without oversight might sound appealing from a "libertarian" standpoint but inevitably fails the test of both logic and real world practise.

 

What is it you disagree with here?

 

For the record, this is a completely reasonable position in my book. Whether a given bakery has to accomodate all customers or not can be made dependent on the availability of alternatives. (I'm taking "only bakery in the world" as hyperbole and assuming you would also look at the only bakery in town the same way.) That's fine.

 

This, on the other hand, completely misses the point. We're talking about a world where these rights must never impose any burden on others aside from respecting them. I must not steal from you, rob you, rape you, or murder you; but why, in such a world, should I be forced to finance police and courts and prisons that protect you from other thieves, robbers, rapists, and murderers? Why should I be burdened with those costs?

 

This is almost in the vein of a thought I've been pondering today. For some time, I've known that Christianity and Objectivism (aka Rational Self-Interest) are antithetical to one another. We, as Christians, should be the opposite of selfish in every way. We should give freely of our time and our possessions. But, the context for today's ruminations are whether or not Christianity is compatible Libertarianism. At the end of the day, Libertarianism is built on selfishness just like Objectivism. But, I kind of had a diversion when thinking this one through in the back of my head.

That being, I'm probably as close to the gay marriage issue as a heterosexual man can be. Not only can I officiate the event, I also supply the symbols, the jewelry, for the event. I made the engagement ring and both wedding bands for the wedding I officiated last Saturday. But, I draw the line somewhere. I can and do make and sell jewelry for homosexual couples. That said, I will not officiate a homosexual wedding. I choose not to do that. The former is a matter of conscience and the latter is a matter of doctrine. I'm not going to armchair quarterback a bakery that doesn't want to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding reception because I think it's adiaphorus and largely a matter of conscience. Why? Because we have an example in Scripture. We know that the Apostle Paul was a tentmaker by trade. We don't have a lot of details, but I doubt he ran an extensive background check on every potential customer. I bet he sold tents to people that practiced temple prostitution in Ephesus. I bet he sold tents to pretty much anyone that wanted to buy one.

So, on that basis I'm okay with selling rings to homosexual couples and I do so probably once per week that I know about. I'm going to continue to try to be all things to all people and speak the truth in love.

 

Tell me, do you refuse to marry someone who's on their second or third marriage? How about someone marrying a person of a different religion? Do you ask if the bride has had an abortion? Would you refuse to marry a bride who had had an abortion? How about a trans person? Or someone who'd lost their testicles due to cancer? What about someone who's parents were never married? Tattoos? Mixed fibers? Those all good? Because those things are all condemned in the Bible.

And given your belief in pre-destination, does it really matter any way? After all, if God says you're going to Heaven, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going, and if he says you're going to Hell, it again, doesn't matter what you do.

 

You have to slow your roll. First, I won't go so far as Dayton does in rejecting the Old Testament, but there are some things we have to define first. First, there has long been an understanding, even in Rabbinical circles, that there is a three-fold division of the Old Testament Law. There's God's Moral Law which deals with Him and His character, which is immutable. Then there is the Civil Law and the Ceremonial Law. We always have been, are, and always will be bound by God's Moral Law. However, the New Testament Church is not bound by the Civil or Ceremonial portions. That's actually the whole point of the Epistle to the Galatians and is touched on several times in the Epistles to the Corinthians. I can't recall who said it, but I once heard a saying that's spot on. It said, "Antinomianism is grace without the law. Legalism is the law without grace." So, there's a fine line to be walked in there and it can only be walked by understanding the hermenutics and context of the texts.

What you're describing is commonly referred to today as Hyper-Calvinism or Neo-Calvinism. I am Calvinist in soteriology, but there are several degrees of nuance there. See, for many people that profess to be Christians, their faith is literally nothing more than a "Get out of Hell free" card. Christianity is so, so much more than that. I want to go to heaven not because I don't want to go to hell, but because I want to be where Christ is. The foundational starting point of the Christian life and Christian worldview is to be more like Christ in every minute of every hour of every day. To demonstrate and give the grace and love that He has given me.

What I've been teaching for the better part of a decade is motive. Motive, motive, motive. I think you would agree that how you say something is just as important as what you say. I would take that a step further and say that why you do, say, or think something is just as important, if not moreso, than what you do, say, or think.

 

Can't help but notice there, Dayton, that you've failed to define which of the points were God's Moral Law, Civil Law, and Ceremonial Law and how you come to those conclusions. After all, there's nothing in the 10 Commandments about rape or gay sex. One would presume that those things were God's Moral Law and not his Ceremonial Law.

Well,

Christ, if you believe the Bible, hung out with the dregs of society and didn't condemn them (for the most part). He said absolutely nothing about gay people. If you accept that he was the son of God, then his word must carry more weight than that of his apostles. If he doesn't think that gays were worthy of mention, then perhaps the whole issue of sexual orientation isn't a big deal. I mean, he didn't talk about mixed fibers, either, and you seem to be okay with folks wearing them.

Again, this assumes that one has control over their destiny, which pre-destination says that they don't.

 

The concept of predestination is a nightmare to square with the concept of redemption through Christ, as indeed it is with any belief system which is dependent a choice made by the individual. If anyone can make that work hopefully you will deign (or are fated...) to enlighten me.

I'm of the belief the Bible seems to be largely mute on the subject of homosexuality. Yes you can find the odd verse which can be creatively interpreted if you look closely enough but that seems incongruous with the overall nature of the beast, so to speak. Jesus leaves us with no doubt whatsoever with regard to his views about charity and compassion, for instance, giving us entire swathes of actions and text recording them to learn not only from verbal teachings but example. He explores morality from many angles across the board but given the significant prevalence of homosexuality in the gene pool he (or his father) created he seems hardly to address it, in fact he puts more focus on prostitution.

This is, to put it mildly, a shame.

 

Calvinists are the worst.

 

What if the baker is a homophobic Jew, and someone comes in asking for a gay Nazi wedding cake?

 

They legally have to make the cake, but they can use zombies and/or werewolves to deliver it.

 

I'd be really curious to see who attended the wedding breakfast.

 

That'd be like expecting Ford to build you a Volvo.

 

Or a car, come to that.

 

For a while they did, between 1999 and 2010 Ford owned Volvo, but that's by the by.

If you were asking a butcher to bake me a cake the analogy would work much better.

 

please stop dragging out that Old Testament gibberish - it rarely applies in today's sophisticated legal system!

 

If you're serious, I'll be more than happy to take some time over the next couple of years to go verse by verse through the books of the law with you.

That's not true. He did reinforce the Levitical code during the Sermon on the Mount. But, lets pretend for a moment that you're right. You're forgetting that Jesus is one third of the eternally existant, self-sustaining Triune Godhead. Jesus was not absent or in disagreement when rocks of fire and brimstone were falling on Soddom.

That's only true if the works of the Apostles were only the works of the Apostles. They're not. They are divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit another third, and fully God, portion of the eternally existant, self-sustaining Triune Godhead.

You'd make a good libertarian. I don't believe in, what is commonly referred to in theological circles, as libertarian free-will. But, free-will does exist. Paul had a paroxysmal reaction to Athens being given over to idols in Acts 17, which is what the citizens wanted and God allowed.

I would go so far as to say that all forms of Christianity agree with some form of predestination because there are several different degrees of predestination. They range from simple foreknowledge (God, being omnipotent, knows who is going to choose Him) to double predestination (God wills and decrees the elect unto eternal life and the non-elect to eternal wrath and separation from Him).

 

Why would you think that I wasn't serious?

And the destruction of Soddom was about the fact that folks were unkind to strangers. Also, I apparently need to point out that Lot offered up his virgin daughters to the mob for them to rape. This wasn't seen as a bad thing by God. These daughters, I should mention, would later go on to get their father drunk so that they might have sex with him and become pregnant by him. Does that not strike you as more than a little fucked up? Their mother got turned into a pillar of salt because she dared to watch God vaporize a city, but they rape their dad and that's just gravy as far as God is concerned.

Then why do they not always mesh with what he said?

Nope, because I recognize that what an individual wants isn't always the best for them and that there are very valid reasons for the government to override what a person thinks is in their best interest.

Gonna stop you right there. The best experts on human behavior say that most of our actions are not the result of free will, but are basically conditioned responses based on our upbringing.

As he did on the road to Damascus.

So, why should they be punished for it?

Do you want to know when I became an atheist? I can tell you the exact moment it happened to me. I was in church and they quoted Matthew 5:28

That told me whomever wrote it had no clue as to biology since the desire to procreate (ie fuck) is pretty much hard-wired into every species on Earth in order to ensure the survival of the species.

But it was this verse which sealed the deal.

At the time the parents of my then girlfriend were going through a very bitter and nasty divorce. My own parents had divorced almost a decade earlier. In both cases, both with my girlfriend's father and my own father, they were such bitter and nasty human beings that there was no way they could be redeemed. Neither of them would admit that they were in the wrong by committing physical abuse (beatings) and rape. (And yes, both of them were guilty of rape.) By what rationale should my mother and/or the mother of my then-girlfriend stay with their husbands? If you have any respect for human beings, then there's no way that you can say those marriages should remain intact. And after the divorces have happened, there's no way that you can say such women who've been subjected to that kind of abuse shouldn't embrace someone of their cohort who is willing to love them and treat them as an equal. Unless, of course, you don't think that women are equal to men.

 

NRA has laid off 60 employees.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/nra-coronavirus-lay-off-173465

 

Secret recording reveals the NRA's various legal woes have cost them about $100M.

Some people have far too much to do with their fucking money.

By some people, I mean Russia.