Wrath of Dagon

@alanschu I haven't said anything to the contrary, although your claim of "the same acts" is debatable.

It sure sounds like you're trying to justify your earlier positions by evoking the class... Especially as it was, quote, a "response to Enoch's link." People do not normally bring up things like that unless they're trying to prove their side is correct - and the context of your post makes it clear that this was your intent. I said that because the whole point of Enoch's link which apparently you haven't read before jumping to conclusions was that this guy was fervent in his defense of what he thinks is the Constitution even though what he thinks is completely wrong and just ranting he picked up from right wing talk shows. Hence I pointed out that I did not learn about the Constitution from right wing talk shows. You then went on to build a whole elaborate rant in your own mind which had nothing to do with what I actually said.

That has nothing to do with fanaticism, the Constitution is what protects our rights as citizens, and when it's violated we lose some of those rights.

It's not a Strawman argument if it's attacking what is being used to defend ones position (id est it's not a Strawman argument to attack a person who claims to be a PhD but got his Doctorate from an unaccredited diploma mill) and you seemed to argue that you're positions must be true because you had a history class. I'm not attacking you for being young or being conservative, I am attacking you for claiming that one history class gives you a perfect insight to the Constitution and all the nuances surrounding it. It's a perfect strawman argument because I never claimed any of those things, it all happened in your head somehow, and it's not the first time either. You didn't even understand the context of my post, which was in response to Enoch's link. Edit: Dude, it was a joke. The 10th Amendment is a grant of residual power-- the power not discussed in the other parts of the Constitution. No single right or power was "clearly and specifically" reserved by its language. The Commerce Clause happens to be in one of the other parts of the Constitution. The scope of the power it grants the Congress has increased, but this corresponds with an enormous increase in the portion of the nation's "commerce" that has interstate effect. Increase in the volume of commerce has nothing to do with the scope of the powers. Yes, but those rats are always trying to pass laws they know are unconstitutional for political reasons. It's the Supreme Court's job to uphold the Constitution, as they're supposed to be above political influence.

Nightshade, has anyone ever explained to you what a "strawman argument" is? Because you seem to be awfully fond of them.

Well, to not approve is pretty close to disapprove, so I guess so. The reason it was stated in the constitution was because there is a push to legalize it, so that was a counter reaction to make sure it didn't happen. Also one state normally recognizes marriages performed in another state, so that's the other reason for the amendment.

No, there's the explicit text saying "all powers not specifically delegated to the Federal government shall remain with the states or the people", I'm paraphrasing from memory. The Commerce Clause has been used by the Supreme Court to mean that anything that has to do with interstate commerce whatsoever is subject to the Federal powers, which renders what I quoted meaningless.

So your argument is a fake news story? Why don't you actually show why my statement is wrong, I'm basing it on what I was taught in history class, not on right wing radio shows.

I got news for you, that's exactly what it is.

It's an issue for some people who believe the state must somehow put a stamp of approval on homosexuality.

You don't even have to look overseas-- we've tried Dagon's idea right here in the USA. Then there was a war. The conservatives lost. American federalism has worked pretty well over the years, with authority split between national, state, and local governments. Yes, the scale has tilted towards the national level over the last century, but that's a natural consequence of growing technological interdependence, the rise of the US as a world power, and the increased prominence of national issues that require the resources of the whole country to address. OK, first of all, Germany did not split voluntarily, East Germany was captured by the USSR and forced to be part of their empire, completely different situation. The Civil War in the US is a bit more analogous, but the big difference was first there was a war, it was not voluntary, and second the Confederacy wanted to completely leave the Union, while I'm proposing we still have a Federal defense and foreign policy, only economic and social policies would be under the super states, really much more like the Union was intended to be initially. There would need to be a Constitutional convention and the Constitution would need to be changed to do all this legally and in good faith on both sides. And no, the federalism has not worked pretty well, the Federal government has used the lame excuse of the Commerce clause to illegally seize power clearly and specifically reserved for the states and the people. If the scale did indeed need to be tilted to the national level, this should've been done by Constitutional amendment, not judicial fiat.

Yes, and the turnout for that election was huge.

Making anything new is hard, even harder if creativity is required.

First I could care less. Second the meaning of the law is quite clear when read in context.

What about all the other things we vote on? California is actually a fairly evenly split state when it comes to political parties. Just look at the governor, and the recent Prop 8 victory was about as right wing conservative christian as you can get. You can't be serious. California is dominated by Democrats, look up your congressional delegation. Even the governor is a liberal. May be CA isn't as liberal as you'd like, but it's the bluest of blue states. Gay marriage hasn't succeeded in any state's referendum so far as I know, so that tells you nothing. That's an internal state matter, it shouldn't affect us. And it's not like all of CA actually has SF values. Austin is very liberal btw.

A liberal retard says so, so it must be true.

That's what needs to happen.

Most of my favorite games are already dead, so there's not much left to lose.

Well yeah, look at the past 5 or so presedential elections, that's 20 years.

Apparently due to all the technical difficulties they were having, a lot of the content had to be cut/changed, or left in a threadbare state, resulting in that effect. The fact that the game had such a linear structure and the dialogs were designed to be skippable didn't help either.

In what way? I hope you don't mean financially, as a lot of "blue states" often contribute more federal money than they receive. As the most relevant example, California generally receives less per capita than it pays per capita. http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/cffr-08.pdf http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html West Virginia and New Mexico are notable "blue" exceptions. Of course, NM and WV are ranked 37th/36th in population as opposed to California, which is 1st by a large margin. There are also several high-population "red" states, like Texas, that federally give more than they receive per capita. I don't think either "side" is holding the others back. Of course this also assumes that you can clearly divide red/blue, which you can't. My home state, Wisconsin, had a Republican governor for a long, long time -- but continued to send Democrat representatives to Congress and vote for Democrat presidential candidates. Texas has had an enormous number of Democrat governors -- of most notable recent interest, Ann Richards. You'd be better off trying to split urban/rural, but even that doesn't make much sense. I meant economically, through harmful Federal legislation, not Federal government subsidies, which don't make sense since a portion of them just goes to the Federal bureaucrats and also are counter productive being subsidies. For example, the Blue super state could have government run healthcare, while the Red super state would not. So I also meant holding each other back politically from where each wants to go. As far as Texas, yes it used to be yellow dog Democrat, but those days are long gone. I don't think trying to split urban from suburban/rural would work at all, I think you have to work at the granularity of states. As for the voting record, it doesn't matter, you'd have a referendum in each state to decide which super state to join, it being understood one would be more liberal and the other more conservative.

I believe the warrantless wiretapping program has already been revised anyway, so now they do have to get a warrant.

Habeas Corpus has not been suspended. Prisoners of war never had Habeas Corpus. Warrantless wiretapping was only used for foreign phone calls and only to suspected terrorists so far as I know. Certainly I haven't seen any of my civil liberties resticted.

Why does it have to be one extreme or the other? I haven't noticed any loss in civil liberties since 9/11.

Pandemic made some really good games in the past, but everything they've been doing lately bombed.