California voting

This post is merely a transplant of a discussion begun in another forum concerning arguments of voting in California. The discussion begins as follows, and follow up comments and points can be made in the Comments section. Comments will not be moderated or deleted, provided basic standards of civility are maintained. Names have been truncated for privacy of those who have not yet consented for their comments to be made public. All comments from the other forum have been pasted word verbatim, with no editing (including spelling errors) or censorship. Hopefully I got all the "... Read More"s out. Enjoy!

Nate just received my voting packet for California. Now he'd better decide on how to vote. Any persuasive arguments?

Mike: Do you like socialist health care? Do you want to be conscripted for mandatory "Volunteer" political activism? Do you enjoy paying taxes? Do you think the Government knows how to run the economy better than individuals and business owners do? Do you think scary looking guns that almost never get used in crimes should be banned? Do you think it's okay for the courts to shove gay marriage down our throats? If you like all those things, vote Obama.

If you think having a leftist Democrat president and a Democrat super majority in Congress, under the current leadership (which currently enjoys about a 6% approval rating) is a scary proposition, vote McCain.

Mike: Whatever you do, since you're voting in CA, vote YES on Prop 8. Nobody's exaggerating when we say this decision is probably MORE important than the presidential election.

Katie: Vote yes for proposition 8!!!
Oh and vote for Palin. I mean, McCain. ;)

Shirin: does voting yes for prop 8 mean that you are admiting that you are homophobic? and is that as bad as being racist, sexist, and a biggot?

Mike: Nope. It simply means that you wish marriage to mean the same thing it has meant since the dawn of time, and that you don't want some judge that thinks he's smarter than the entirety of human history and civilization to change that.

Shirin: hmm... what ever happened to separation of church and state? and should we keep things like slavery too.. since we had that at the dawn of time?

Mike: Separation of church and state is irrelevant here. Even if it were a strictly religious issue, it still does not violate the Establishment Clause, because EVERY religious tradition of any consequence both now and in ancient times has agreed that marriage is between man and woman. Some have allowed polygamy or polyandry, but even those instances are in the minority, and fundamentally, a marriage was defined between man and woman, NEVER man and man, or woman and woman.

Additionally, EVERY civilization in history also defines marriage as between man and woman. No, the Greeks did not practice gay marriage. Homosexual activity in that culture, to the extent that it existed, was recreational, non-binding, and co-existed with "marriage" which was one man and one woman.

Slavery is irrelevant to this discussion.

Craig: i would ague that you should find out how that first guy is voting, then do the exact opposite

Mike: And I thought liberals were supposed to be champions of independent thought? What is independent or thoughtful about simply doing the opposite of someone else? A childish display of rebellion that ultimately leaves the actor a slave to someone else's decisions. Nate is a thoughtful guy, and will make up his own mind about what he believes is right according to his values. I'm sure he would be appreciative if you contributed something of value to the discussion, Craig.

Craig: everything you argued for is the opposite of what i would tell thoughtful nate. i was just trying to be concise.

Mike: So let's hear it. I provided specific points, details, reasons, and examples, and I have plenty more to back up what I already wrote. Let's hear what you have. Stand behind something and back it up. I'm happy to have a discussion, but simple opposition requires no thought and is never taken seriously by serious people.

Mike: Point of order though, it might be more prudent to point the discussion to an alternate location such as a blog or actual message board, where space and formatting are not so constrained.

----END OF WHAT'S ALREADY THERE AT THE TIME OF THIS POST----