On 2011-02-10 04:16, RS1963 wrote:
That is a very good post Jeff and very true. There will be some that still won't be able to grasp the fact you pointed out however.

On 2011-02-10 12:30, landmark wrote:

Did I miss something here? The woman was fired. Lost her livelihood. Because she was gay.

On 2011-02-10 11:05, stoneunhinged wrote:

Quote:

On 2011-02-10 06:52, irossall wrote:
That is called democracy in my country.

What country is that?

Public pressure has nothing to do with truth, only with orthodoxy. We forget the difference to our detriment.

Regarding my faulty understanding of "libertarianism": the foundation of toleration, both philosophically and historically--from Locke to Roger Williams to Jefferson and so on--is freedom of belief. What did Jefferson say? "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." A libertarian may wish to prefer just about anything to government enforcement of something. But to what end, if not to protect liberty of conscience? Taking GDW's logic (which is very poor, IMHO), it is preferable for us to gang up on people to squeeze them into a politically correct position than to leave them alone, lest the government become involved.

But why gang up on people? Why not let them believe as they wish to believe? As long as they do not seek to use social, political, or legal institutions to push those beliefs on to others, why not leave them alone?

Destiny is right that I am a very tolerant man. If you want to believe in God, or Satan, or Cthulhu, or all of them together, what is that to me? If your beliefs are offensive--say, you think gay people are perverts--how is that going to restrict my right to be gay? Beliefs can be dangerous--very dangerous indeed. But the best prevention against intolerance or stupidity is a maximum freedom of the exchange of ideas, which requires freedom to have different ideas in the first place.

I myself am not a libertarian. Nor am I a relativist. I am simply convinced that all attempts to coerce others to believe in a certain way are unethical and ultimately destructive of the foundation of liberal society. And that would include forcing a Christian high school--whether through law or public pressure--to compromise what they believe to be true. And I always thought (apparently wrongly) that libertarianism comes closest to this view somehow. Pardon my mistake.

On 2011-02-10 10:17, irossall wrote:

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When I went to grade school corporal punishment was a common practice in the class room, and encouraged by parents, but now a parent, or teacher can get into a lot of trouble for beating children.

Maybe we should go back to corporal punishment. In the day's of spanking kids in school, the big problems with the kids were an occasional fight, playing hookie, chewing gum in class and running in the hall.
Now that we have prohibited the schools from smacking our kids and also made it very difficult for parents to discipline their own, we have new problems in school, like packing a gun in school, shootings, and stabbings. It has gotten to the point that some teacher's have feared so much for their lives that they have taken guns to class themselves.
"Spare the rod, spoil the child" I say smack the little demon's, knock some sense into their heads
Iven

On 2011-02-11 01:23, Destiny wrote:
I dread the day my Magical Association of Godless Irreverant Conjurors (MAGIC) has to accept Gospel Magicians as members because they want to learn some decent tricks.