So then you're in favor of skinheads and Westboro Baptist-style nutjobs forcing LGBT and ethnic owned bakeries to provide cakes with Nazi/KKK/skinhead themed cakes.

Be very careful what you wish for. A law forcing people to participate in, enable, and/or advocate for things they are fundamentally opposed to have historically demonstrated a nasty habit of being turned around and used against the very people who thought they were a great idea.

You're a special kind of stupid. The kind that enables tyranny.

Strat

"Hate speech" is a completely arbitrary, subjective, politically-driven, and constantly-changing standard, meaning it is no standard at all.

As I said above, bake them a cake, sure. But, to *force* a person under threat of deadly force to include symbols/symbolism, slogans, etc which convey support for or against any religious, ideological, political, or ethical subject/topic/party/etc to which they are fundamentally opposed is WRONG.

No matter the motive, it is wrong.

The next time there's some Bill or Proposition seeking to restrict rights of a protected class like LGBTs before a legislative body over which there is much contention, would it be OK for some anti-LGBT group to force an LGBT baker to provide them a cake with the graphic symbol being used to self-identify by that group? Like a swastika, maybe?

Sorry, you cannot force free people to participate in and/or advocate for things they fundamentally oppose. That's one of the reasons people came to colonize America, to escape exactly such tyranny by the churches and the monarchies of the Old World.

Only an ideological Luddite would want to turn history back and destroy basic pillars of individual liberty and freedom that so many have died for.

Strat

So, you're in favor of the Westboro Baptists forcing LGBT-owned bakeries to bake cakes with "God Hates Gays" and other equally disgusting slogans? You'd like to see black-owned bakeries forced to bake cakes with "Niggers Are Monkeys" for the KKK?

That is what you're advocating for.

Of course to realize this you would have to have spent some time actually "thinking" about the subject rather than simply "emote" your way through logical problems.

Strat

Just, wow. This is not about some vast right-wing religious conspiracy or hatred for some group or groups.

This is about not being forced to advocate for a religious/ideological/political belief/position to which one is fundamentally opposed.

From my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Strat

Sell somebody a cake regardless of race/religion/sex or sexual orientation/etc/etc fine. No problem.

Being forced to *participate in and/or advocate* for or against a religious principle or political/ideological position, *there* is where the problem lies.

For example, an LGBT-owned bakery should not be forced to provide a cake with "God Hates Fags" on it for the Westboro Baptist nutjobs. Provide a generic cake? Yes. Provide the message? No.

Same thing here. Provide a cake, yes. Participate in advocating LGBT practices, no.

Why is this so difficult a concept to understand? What gives anyone the right to force someone else to participate in and/or advocate for something they are fundamentally opposed to?

Strat

Wow, that works for pretty much anything US Federal Government-controlled/regulated.

Strat

So you would punish a gay owned & operated photography-for-hire that refused to take on a job photographing the next Westboro Baptist Church anti-gay protest? You would punish that business if it were owned by Muslims and refused to photograph a gay or Jewish wedding?

Being a law does not make something right. It was the law that blacks sat at the back of the bus. So by your reasoning Rosa Parks should have 'suffered the consequences'?

You really should try thinking farther than your knees can jerk.

Strat

They also on average generate far more in taxes than the average working individual. Do you generate 100's of thousands in taxable income on an hourly wage job? They also foot the costs of both employer and employee. Do you pay the full costs of labor (both the employer portion and employee's portion)?

If you lose your job, you are likely to be eligible to collect unemployment benefits. The owner of a sole proprietorship does not receive unemployment benefits if the business fails.

Muslim cabbies have refused on religious freedom grounds to take fares who carried alcohol or were accompanied by guide dogs.

I've noticed that no Muslim businesses have been targeted in this manner. Why don't they attempt to force a Muslim business to participate in a gay wedding, for example? Note that in the Middle East, with the equally-notable exception of Israel, killing/stoning to death of gays is common practice.

IMHO, no, they should not. However Christian photographers for hire have found themselves in legal trouble for refusing to take on photography jobs for gay weddings. Should a gay-owned/run photography business be forced to take on work from the Westboro Baptist Church?

It seems many here want the knife to only cut one way.

Strat

A sole proprietorship is a business...

Then they shouldn't get the tax relaxations that businesses get.

Income to sole proprietorships is treated as individual income, no different than any working stiff, for tax purposes. They pay individual income tax rates.

The government classifies and treats them as private citizens. Why don't they have the same religious freedom to not participate in another private individual's religious ceremonies/activities/practices as a private citizen does?.

Should a Muslim who operates a shop be compelled against his religious beliefs to participate in another religion's religious ceremonies/activities/practices that conflict with and violate their own religious beliefs?

This road does not end in a good place. For anyone of any beliefs, or even of no beliefs.

Strat

Future Testimony, House of Representatives-Government Oversight Committee

"I don't know, maybe some rogue extremist US intelligence operatives were taking a Predator out for a stroll one night and decided to fire a couple Hellfires at some US Representatives they disagreed with!

What, at this point, does it matter?"

Strat

"The Government prevented competition".

But why? Because their corporate masters didn't want competition. ( and the voting public isn't paying enough attention )
Why do they have corporate masters? Because we allow corporations influence in the political arena, through campaign contributions.
Why do we allow corporations to make campaign contributions? Because the camel's nose got under the tent with the "corporations are people", and the line keeps getting pushed a bit further over time.

"Corporations are people" has zero to do with it. That SCOTUS ruling did not exist in the 1930s (as your example started with H. Hoover). Government is corrupt because it's made up of corruptible humans. And guess what? The more power and control over more things you give them, the more corrupt they will become.

Government is a necessary evil, and is a dangerous and deadly entity that can easily spin out of control if not tightly reined-in and allowed only the very minimum amount of power and resources to do what we decide to have done.

"regulatory capture"

The mechanism is above.

Which I already debunked above. Regarding the "corporations are people" meme, that's hogwash as well. It tells me you have no clue what the case was actually about. People have a right to organize, pool their resources, and buy advertising, etc and promote their views. People do not give up their right to participate in elections by being part of an organization like a corporation or PAC.

"blind trust"

There should not be blind trust in government. Or in anything.

Except that your statements regarding your views reflects the opposite. The cognitive dissonance is startling.

"Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce."

Do you see that Conservatism generates just as much police state?

No. I see Progressives who claim to be conservatives/Republicans. Heck, even a so-called "conservative" like John McCain has proudly stated he was a "Progressive" Republican. RINOs.

Sorry, that was J. Edgar Hoover, who was initially put in place by President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat and vocal Progressive who also racially segregated the military which had not been officially segregated prior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

Immediately after getting his LL.M degree, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department to work in the War Emergency Division. He soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by President Wilson at the beginning of World War I to arrest and jail disloyal foreigners without trial.[12] He received additional authority from the 1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable.[18]

In August 1919 Hoover became head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Divisionâ"also known as the Radical Division because its goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals.

Except the Watergate "Plumbers" were election campaign operatives, not members of the FBI or other TLA.

McCarthy was destroyed because he overreached, not because he was wrong. There were and are communists in the US government. Alger Hiss and others are examples.

Another Progressive Republican. Progressives have completely subsumed the Democratic Party and have almost done the same to the Republican Party.

Why do you think that nothing much changes no matter if the (R)s or the (D)s are in power? Progressives in both Parties is why.

Strat

The FCC also heavily regulated the telecom industry. We had no innovation for decades

We also had no competition for decades. It had nothing to do with regulation, it was because Ma Bell was the only game in town (FSVO "town" approaching "manifest destiny").

Gee, how was Ma Bell able to maintain a monopoly and keep anyone else from competing?

Oh, that's right! The FUCKING GOVERNMENT prevented competition!

And yes, there *will* be regulatory capture. Shit, practically every federal regulatory agency/dept./bureau suffers from it!

I've got a morbid curiosity to see just how the government through it's short-sightedness and desire to monitor everyone/everything causes an internet 'Deep Horizon'-scale disaster.

"You like your internet anonymity, you can keep your internet anonymity!"

You know it's coming.

And you know what?

It's just this kind of blind trust that government will make everything better you display that will help complete the transformation of the US into a soft-fascism surveillance/police state.

Strat

fellow-travelers

The 1950s called and wants its insult back.

Your hgh school English teacher called, he wants your passing grade in 'Vocabulary' back.

Strat

You mean we should drop multi-ton cannisters of (water? almonds?) on Sacramento at orbital speeds resulting in kinetic energy releases rivaling nuclear weapons?

Probably the best thing that could happen to California at this point.

Strat

Who are the same school of economists that didn't see the either the 1930s Depression or the current US economic crisis coming.

Yeah, the school of economics and economists that was correctly screaming warnings both times and were ignored and/or attacked/destroyed by those economically/politically/ideologically invested in the status quo and their economic/political/ideological fellow-travelers.

Strat