grtwhtgrvty

.......

Because that's who my entire point was directed at???

DwnWthVwls

Yeh, but we are having a different discussion that doesn't include him, and the point I was making was a generalized statement about your narrow minded view towards the affects of straight people and gay rights violations.

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grtwhtgrvty

Explain to me how a straight person can be affected by gay righs violations on the same calibur that a gay person can.

John Wilkes Booth

yea, it's not necessarily more democratic in this case. in this one case mob rule would result in the same result. representative/decentralized democracy (i.e. state autonomy instead of federal autonomy), on the other hand, would drag this issue out for decades to come.

to clarify: i never actually did say this was a bad thing. i'm pleasantly surprised that gay marriage is now legal across the board in the US. i am pretty sure the only way this would be possible is for the supreme court to unilaterally declare it as such, as opposed to waiting for state legislation to fall in line on an individual basis in each of the 50 states.

but i don't take this as a sign that direct democracy would be preferable in general... because the fact that a popular vote would result in the result i want in this one case is a completely arbitrary and circumstantial fact. and i would want equal rights for gays regardless of how popular or unpopular the idea was with the general populace.

to highlight an example of what i mean.. i think it was you who told me about switzerland and their more direct form of democracy (iirc). i googled that to look in to the idea a bit and found some credibility to what you were saying. i also found an example that runs contrary to pro-democratic rhetoric which manifested in that very country, and manifested as a direct result of populism and direct democracy. the example was the banning of minarets in that country, which was a piece of legislation that was spawned out of a basic grass roots movement that was essentially rooted in nationalistic and xenophobic sentiments in the general populace. so this is an example of democracy resulting in (what i perceive) as oppressive and counter-productive legislation.

of course this doesn't demonstrate that democracy is bad cause it results in bad legislation. it just demonstrates that it can swing either way. so dedication to democracy as an ideal must be overridden by other concerns via a more centrally controlled structure, in some cases

which, in this case, comes in the form of the supreme court, which as fiddler noted is set up for this purpose (to interpret the overriding law of the land/constitution). funnily enough, i believe the supreme court essentially granted themselves this power, as it doesn't actually appear in the constitution. which, yea, sounds a bit autocratic in spirit to me. but once again i am in favor of that sort of thing.

that's fair enough... and i know i have an incendiary way of phrasing things... mostly for effect

i don't necessarily say this demonstrates we need a dictator. more that it demonstrates one advantage that autocratic rule has over democracy... that being efficiency/efficacy in terms of getting **** done.

of course autocratic rule has other problems which democracy works to safeguard against... so this can't be used to say "we should have a dictator"

but i just sort of find (in my perception) that many westerners are so dedicated to democratic ideals that they refuse to even acknowledge this simple fact.. because they dislike the ideological implications

DwnWthVwls

It doesn't have to be the same caliber. A straight person's life can be meaningfully and negatively impacted by gay rights violations. Just because they aren't gay or they don't experience it the same way you do doesn't make it less important. I mean it may be less important to YOU but as an objective whole it isn't less important.

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Josef K

Big picture though, I feel like you're making two contradictory arguments. First you say, essentially, that you're bombarded with anti-gay prejudice all the time - which I absolutely believe - and you need to be free from hateful stuff that triggers you when you're here, even if said hateful stuff is being quoted disapprovingly. Okay, great. There's another conversation we could probably have about that but I don't disagree strongly enough to argue with you.

But then things start to get complicated, because you say that Chula's quoting of Ted Cruz saying hateful stuff is perpetuating homophobia. This is an issue because if you're already so acutely aware of how much homophobia there is offline in the real world, or in other places online, or whatever, how is Chula "perpetuating anti-gay commentary"? From what you've posted, it seems like anti-gay commentary is already pretty perpetual for you. Why does Chula saying that he doesn't approve of a specific instance of anti-gay rhetoric make you so uncomfortable?

I also don't get this point in general. If another gay person were to post that same Ted Cruz quote and say "ugh, go away Cruz", would you still object? Of course I believe that the same thing can be acceptable or not depending on who says it, BUT I don't understand why, here specifically, a straight person saying Cruz is wrong is perpetuating homophobia but a gay person doing it isn't, since the emphasis from your perspective seems to be on the quoting itself and not the disagreement with the quote.

Josef K

Fair point. I don't believe that democracy always makes things turn out the right way and I was kind of nitpicking your argument. That said, I am still a committed democrat, if just because I think we can't ensure that a ruler that isn't accountable to everyone will make decisions that are good for worse-off groups.

It's sort of a contrast - while I believe that the way courts ought to work (at least at higher levels) involves personal views more than so-called legal philosophy, like I talked about in my last post, I don't believe that it works in the long-run to throw the whole democratic system out the window every time the will of the people disagrees with me. Not saying you support that either, of course.
Yeah, like I said, I'm a committed democrat, but I don't have any problem admitting that democratic ideals can sometimes stand in the way of progress. But overall, I still think the benefits of the system (and obviously I'm not a true democrat, whatever that means) definitely outweigh the harms.

grtwhtgrvty

Can someone ****ing go read my post.

That's not what I said. I said that a celebratory thread shouldn't be adulterated by straight allies needlessly waving their ally flag and pointing out homophobia. That's why it's perpetuating it. I'm going to respond to the rest of your post by quoting myself. Hopefully, this time, you actually read what I have to say.

Please read my posts..

"It'd be one thing if it was actual LGBT people feeling oppressed by the person's commentary, and was coming to this thread to express this feeling in order to gain emotional support"

It perpetuates homophobia because it serves as a needless trigger. A straight person reciting homophobic comments someone has made without offering anything outside of quoting that isn't actually doing anything but spreading that message and making the people who that comment is directed at feel worse. That's why it perpetuates homophobia. This is my ... I think 11th (ballparking it) time saying that.

YorkeDaddy

I mean...I assure you I've read your posts GWG, and I don't exactly have problems with reading comprehension, but I'm still not sure why you're so upset.

I'm terribly sorry for all the horrific **** you have to go through, and I'm sure it's a sensitive topic. But why does it make you so angry when a straight person tries to voice their support? I'm straight and so is Chula and so are lots of people and we'll never be able to understand what it's like but that doesn't mean we're not concerned and want things to be better. You're literally getting angry at someone who wants to be on your side...

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grtwhtgrvty

I wasn't angry at his comment. I wasn't even upset when i made my first post.