Posted on 07/20/2007 3:22:06 AM PDT by monomaniac
What is really great is that the Government of Singapore could care less about your lame rating or Ian’s limp-wristed opinion.
Nobody outside of Islam lives in a Theocracy.
Too much of the Cath kool-aid you've been drinking. The possibility of Japan or any other nation going extinct, short of a natural or man made nuclear disaster, is nil. With the world population as it is, no nation is lacking in people. Why you think more is better is beyond me.
And what about his rights to shoot heroin and torture animals??
Singapore is a parliamentary republic. Somehow they ended up making laws which are not approved by you. Tsk.
When Mr. & Mrs. Singapore and their age-cohort are old enough to retire, they will have only one offspring (per two retirees) to support them.
That one adult child of their will be able to find a spouse, but the two of them will have 4 elders to support. (Don't talk to me about social security. It's paid by the working, taxpaying population.) The working-age generation may want to have children of their own, but on the other hand they may want to put it off, tax-burdened as they are by an ever-rising percentage of dependent elderly and super-elderly.
So things are likely to get worse. Many couples will not reproduce at all. And the upshot is:
"The government, fearing that the tiny, prosperous city-state will shrink into oblivion, has recently adopted a series of incentives to encourage people to have not just one or two but three or more children.....Singapore's birthrate has sunk to an all-time low... Raising it has become a national cause, as significant as the fight against terrorism. If the birthrate continues to wane, officials warn, the workforce will shrink. There will be fewer people to support a growing elderly population and to sustain the military that protects this 400-square-mile island sandwiched between Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore's vaunted tiger economy will whimper.."
You might want to look up the news article these quotes came from to get a real-life perspective on Singapore's no-future future.
As an individual ? Horsepuckey !! That is NOT a libertarian or Libertarian position. Only the GOOBERMINT must not discriminate. Individuals can and should discriminate as they see fit !
Your argument in 172 is entirely valid. It also is added to by the fact that most homosexuals are big goobermint fans and vote ‘rat.
But allowing laws against private consensual behavior may start with ones you approve of, but it will grow like a cancer, as it has done today.
One wrong or two wrongs are wrong. Let’s do it right instead.
I don’t need to do the math. In a nation of declining birthrate (that is their option, don’t you agree?), the nation has a choice of saving more for later years or receiving less in old age pensions or welcoming immigration. That is their choice. It has nothing to do with math. It has to do with choice. With the planets population, no nation will go extinct due to low birthrate. It’s just not possible.
Are you sure you read my post?
I was debating someone who asserted that the Bill of Rights guarantees homosexuals the right to rent a house even if the owner of the house doesn’t want to rent to them, and even if the owner of the house has religious beliefs that regard homosexual acts as sinful.
In response, I told him that I could find nothing of the sort in the Bill of Rights.
What part of my argument do you disagree with?
In light of this belief, what is your take on the First Amendment and equivalent amendments to state constitutions? Does it protect a right to impious or evil speech? Not just pornography, mind you, but blasphemy, apostasy, insults, racist slurs, etc?
Would you support outlawing those evils, if the laws could be drafted and enforced in a practical way?
We criminalize that which we believe to be evil, or at least harmful to society in some way. Why else would we criminalize anything?
But how far should that criminalization extend? When do we say, "This act is evil/harmful, but it's not a matter for the law."
Furthermore, who determines that standard, and who determines what is evil?
All human laws are based on human beliefs -moral beliefs. Certainly, imposing beliefs that are specific to a particular religion would represent a violation of conscience, and should be generally avoided. But sodomy doesn't represent such a belief.
I'm sure there are religiouns that condone homosexuality. How do we determine which religions are valid, and which beliefs are "specific" to a particular denomination?
Have you ever criticized the immigration, social, or economic policies of Mexico or Western Europe?
What about Sharia? If Iraqis vote to force the burqa on their women, do we just mind our own business and accept their sovereign authority?
Note that McKellen blames anti-homosexual laws on “old British” legal systems, as if that’s the only reason for them and not, say, Singapore’s large Muslim community.
Note that he does this in Singapore, not in neighboring Malaysia, where he would be all but stomed to death for being what he is.
Thanks for your sane perspective. Laws have in part been written to protect society from itself. It is not a perfect world yet some order is far superior to naive utopian dreams.
BB — I’m not interested in making Singapore’s laws for them. Let them ban gay bars. Let them give their moms and dads sizeable tax breaks. Let them slow down and smell the coco-puffs. It’s all OK by me.
Actually, it's to protect our "precious little society" that people go to the trouble of forming governments and making laws.
You seem to think you could defend your individual rights, indifferent to the disintegration of the "precious little society" in which you live, a society which you disdain to take responsibility for, create and sustain cultural norms for, or protect.
Maybe you could, if you lived in a treehouse way, WAY back from a gravel road in Idaho.
oops, the above message was for arderkrag!
Exactly! As far as I’m concerned, McKellen’s whining carries about as much weight as an Arab sheik moving to the states and complaining that we don’t permit polygamy.
Since when does a visiting actor get to demand that an entire nation change their laws and traditions to satisfy his desires?
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Homosexuality is a perversion that completely engulfs its practitioners if society fails to keep it under wraps. What other group in our society defines itself by its sexual behavior? Now that we’ve taken this perversion out of the closet, you can’t even take your kids to a ball game without being confronted with a celebration of homosexuality.
If you were to start a new monthly magazine for celery farmers, within a week you’d receive a call from some “gay rights” group demanding that you dedicate at least one issue per year to highlighting “gay” celery farmers, homosexual chefs who use celery in their creations, or lesbians who drive celery trucks. And if you failed to comply, you’d be called a homophobic hate-monger.
These people are so thoroughly absorbed in their perverted lifestyle that everything they do must be seen as an extension of their sexuality. Everyone who disagrees with them must be shut up. And even entire nations are expected to toss aside thousands of years of tradition and religious faith to accommodate their deviancy.
"...to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them... that all men are created... Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world... with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence..."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.