Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
"...if you will just sign here promising you will not take any of these items onto an airplane, please."
--Patrick
Yep, that's going to the Supreme Court.
I have to say, and I know I'm late to the party, that, while I'm all in favor of gun registration and more gun control, being institutionalized once shouldn't mean you're banned for life. it's perfectly possible to have a breakdown, depression, whatever, be treated, and come out a stronger, better individual. Just like I don't think "having been jailed" should mean anything afterwards - once you've served your time, you deserve a new start. Once declared mentally OK, you're...supposedly mentally OK.
I don't agree with most of what you say on Gun Control Bubble, but I completely agree with this stance when approaching crimes, mental health, and whatever else. If something is so heinous that you are "marked for life" as being dangerous, then why aren't you still in prison? The first role of law enforcement (which should be public protection) is obviously failing in this case. Anything beyond your sentence itself is then "extra-legal" and therefore should be IMO not allowed. Or it should be right there in sentencing: "I sentence you to 1 year in prison, and 10-15 years of not being able to get any non-minimum wage job until a pardon comes through. Good luck in your life not sucking, though I know it will!" And yes, that up-front about it, or we're just kidding ourselves, kind of like has been happening with legal representation and legal recourse for years now (ie: the rich can afford lawyers and get what they want, and others can't, and thus don't).
I do think that, like losing your civil rights in some cases, losing the right to carry a gun temporarily could be a part of a sentence... In very specific cases. Y
If the government is going to require schooling, and dictate the level of schooling required, then the government should pony up funds. If the state allows charter schools, letting parents choose where to educate their children, then as long as the schools are teaching to the standards why prevent them from choosing institutions that fit their needs? Particularly if they are expressing a first amendment protected religious belief.
- Students that are part of protected groups may be excluded from the institution due to their protected group membership.
- Potential workers of protected groups may be excluded from the institution due to their protected group membership.
Are you suggesting I'm suggesting anything? I've been answering questions and have not stated my position(s) on this issue (except to say that I consider grants and student aid to constitute government funding, which I don't think is a controversial position).
To re-iterate:
[DOUBLEPOST=1449358925,1449358759][/DOUBLEPOST]To further clarify, the two items I gave you are the two main drawbacks I see to schools that are allowed to discriminate against protected classes in employment and education. Whether those are worth the benefits obtained from the discrimination is something I'm not set on.
I think that a private institution that funds itself can discriminate all it wants, but as soon as it gets money from public funds, it no longer has the right to do so.
No one HAS to attend a private school, regardless of the level of schooling required by the government. Religious freedom is guaranteed by the first amendment, but that doesn't mean they should get public funding. It's a problem I see with the idea of school vouchers personally.
No one HAS to attend a private school, regardless of the level of schooling required by the government. Religious freedom is guaranteed by the first amendment, but that doesn't mean they should get public funding. It's a problem I see with the idea of school vouchers personally.
Which essentially means the poor would not be able to put their kids into a private school. The advantage of charter schools or vouchers is that it enables everyone to participate in specialized schools regardless of income because they are able to use the funds that are already earmarked for their child on a variety of schools.
Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think there are sex-separated public schools or charter schools.
I see a lot of parallels with the Planned Parenthood discussion that happened a week or two ago. People may not want their fungible tax money being spent on schools that reject students for being part of a protected class. Couldn't private organizations fund those efforts when the parents can't afford it?
In Colorado, my kids have a designated public school. However, I can choose to send them to any public school in the area, pending approval due to space, as long as I can bring them there myself. And I don't have to worry about whether or not they will be discriminated against. And please, do not compare all boys and all girls schools to discriminating against LGBT.
Like I said, discriminate all you want, but if you want government funding, it has to come with equal access. I don't agree with people throwing fits at cake shops not doing gay wedding cakes (and really, why would you want a cake made by someone being forced to make it), but this is a whole different ball of wax.
Because the school has a duty of care to its students. Just because the parents might agree with the school that being gay or transgender is somehow "wrong" does not mean that the student will not be LGBTI. And for the school to expel the student over that, potentially harming their education while they try to get into a new school, for something that is now perfectly legally acceptable - if sadly not considered morally acceptable by some societal groups - is to fail that duty of care.
Also your first amendment protected religious belief just means you can believe whatever you do, and not be punished for that. It does not mean that you get to push that belief on others and punish them when they refuse to follow those beliefs. And yes, the fact that the parents were willing to enroll their child in that school does mean that they probably do subscribe to those beliefs, but the student might not and they are the one punished by the expulsion. So at best you can argue that the schools have a first amendment protected religious belief allowing them to refuse to accept LGBTI students but once they're in (if they only come out as LGBTI later) the school shouldn'y be allowed to kick them out over it.
But you're also de-facto segregating these institutions by allowing the schools to exclude these people. There really isn't much difference between this and excluding blacks, whether the basis for doing so is religious or bigotry. The government has already ruled that this kind of thing is illegal... fuck, it's one of the reasons parents were given vouchers to begin with, so they would have equal access to private education.
This makes the government complicit in discrimination, period. It'll go to court and those exemptions will be revoked based on that alone, unless you can convince a majority of Supreme Court justices that religious exclusion is somehow important enough to overturn the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. To paraphrase the late Justice Lewis Powell (who wrote for the Court for Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Corp.), proof of discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause and this very clearly intended to exclude based on religious bigotry. It even follows the "equal opportunities, not equal outcomes" precedent from Washington v. Davis; these students and faculty aren't even being offered the opportunity to seek employment/an education at these schools, they are being rejected outright BECAUSE of their identities.
Really, if ANYTHING is about to happen, we're probably going to see sexual orientation and identity become full on suspect classes.
I'm sort of worried about this, mostly because I feel like we're going to be yo-yoing on this forever. The moment we loosened the shackles on the South in regards to voter oversight, they immediately sought to subvert and suppress black and minority votes... if we do the same in regards to employment/education, I feel like we're going to see a lot of the Ivy League close it's doors to minority students again and allow big business/government to become even whiter again. Then we'll try to undo it again in 50 years and try to undo THOSE changes in another 50. The issue will never get resolved and the animosity will just keep building on both sides.
I've always felt affirmative action was like using dandruff shampoo: it's humiliating and degrading that you might need it, but the moment you stop using it is the moment the problem comes back.
Necronic
Staff member
The irony of all of this stuff to me has always been that if the south/republican states were actually allowed to do what they wanted they would implode in a fairly short order. Republican states, especially the deep south, are notoriously the biggest drains on the federal rolls. Republican policies don't even work on a state level and they want to expand it to the federal government.
lol.
lol.
On the other side of "Radical religious folks who don't feel the need to spew hate and intolerance", comes this statement from @stienman 's Church, showing it's perfectly possible to be profoundly religious and somewhat conservative, without being a dipshit. Huzzah!
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Necronic
Staff member
So apparently republicans voted down a bill that would ban gun sales to people on the no fly list. Honest to god one senator said that being a terrorist does not eliminate your second amendment rights.
The only complaint I did think held water was that the no fly list has very little due process involved, so it could be used to arbitrarily ban some people from owning guns who shouldn't have a problem with it. And I know someone who shares a name with someone on the no fly list so I can appreciate that it's based on a pretty flawed system.
The republican countr seems to have some kind of judicial review involved. Which could work. Like, if you are banned from buying a gun it would be reviewed by a court. But it needs to be a guilty until proven innocent deal, if you want the ban lifted you need to go to a court and prove why you don't need to be on the list.
Honestly this just illustrates how the whole No fly system is deeply flawed.
The only complaint I did think held water was that the no fly list has very little due process involved, so it could be used to arbitrarily ban some people from owning guns who shouldn't have a problem with it. And I know someone who shares a name with someone on the no fly list so I can appreciate that it's based on a pretty flawed system.
The republican countr seems to have some kind of judicial review involved. Which could work. Like, if you are banned from buying a gun it would be reviewed by a court. But it needs to be a guilty until proven innocent deal, if you want the ban lifted you need to go to a court and prove why you don't need to be on the list.
Honestly this just illustrates how the whole No fly system is deeply flawed.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, a few hundred years ago, this strategy might have actually saved the native american population from being so close to statistical annihilation as makes no real difference...