You make the same mistaken "leaps in logic", implying causality where none exists, and appear to do it for the same reasons conservatives have traditionally used scare-mongering and falsities...of course <g>. This is typical of a poorly developed cognitive skill set, and one we have seen over the decades as being particularly pronounced among conservative/authoritarian personalities. While previous evidence of such traits had to be elicited using research methods, it is now being brilliantly displayed via the internet to everyone. The fear, anger, hostility; needs for certainty, closure, and order; the negative correlation for new experiences; the need to justify the status quo by rationalizing economic and social inequalities are all par for the course and in no way represent the kind of righteously stated argument you suppose you have made. You do not not feel you are at all a self-righteous type of person. But of course that is precisely what such a person would think of Himself, is it not? The denial, projection, and other myriad self-defense mechanisms employed by the conservative adult/child so they don't have to continue facing the result of low integrative complexity and empathy needed for successful socialization have resulted in your idea that theories of the supernatural like religion should trump the empirical evidence that feeling well, here and now, today and tomorrow, is capable of supplying those of us with our reasoning skills intact. And furthermore, I personally resent your assertion that people who enjoy life and desire happiness for themselves and others without victimizing anyone else are incapable of raising well-adjusted children. Because the truth is the opposite of what you think morality is all about. Your parent(s) were strict, cold, and hard to please. And as a result you failed to develop some intellectual skills that occur during passage away from the authoritarian child/parent relationship we as animals are hardwired at birth with, and thru onto the abstractions that mark the intellect of the modern, group-socialized strategy.While others were successful, your attempts to bring them down to your level are just that:--- attempts to lower humanity, not raise it...as I'm sure your defense mechanisms tell you must be true because that's the way YOU are.

Not so. Grow up.

Again we have stunning evidence of the cognitive retardation that mars the intellect of so many having extremely stern, hard to please and distant parenting style. You see, all children are born hardwired with what is called an authoritarian personality. They see authority as everything. What that authority thinks is best...is best. It is not to be questioned.
Fortunately for civilization, around pre-teen or adolescence we begin to develop mental skills and abilities that allow successful socialization with others, and the need for the authoritarian personality diminishes and dies. In children of stern, militaristic and often extremely religious parents however, this transition is delayed or retarded completely, leaving them with the same lack of critical reasoning skills that almost surely resulted in the parents treatment of them. Such faulty reasoning could be excused in millennium past where what was known from unknown were largely the same things. But no more. Adults with a conservative personality are very often violent, and are the subject of a great deal of research into social and sexual deviance. Here's one paper that nicely sums up much of the work.
"It appears that conservatism has pathological dimensions manifested in violence and distorted psycho-sexual development" (Boshier, 1983, p. 159). This is supported by a study conducted by Walker, Rowe, and Quincey (1993) in which there was a direct correlation between authoritarianism and sexually aggressive behavior. An investigation done by Muehlenhard (1988) revealed that rape justification and aggression toward subordinate individuals was much higher in traditional (conservative personality) than non-traditional personalities. It is postulated in this paper that the offender has a conservative personality and, therefore, manifests that violence. McClosky (1958) noted that, "Conservatism is not the doctrine of the intellectual elite or of the more intelligent segments of the population, but the reverse. By every measure available to us, conservative beliefs are found most frequently among the uniformed, the poorly educated, and the less intelligent" (p. 38). http://www.doc.state.ok.us/offenders/ocjrc/95/950725C.htm

Persons who had a dogmatic belief in religions and adhered to the teachings of absolutist and perfectionistic religious groups, tended to be more frequently and more intensely emotionally disturbed than those who followed less dogmatic religion (Ellis, 1986). Authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism were positively correlated, with scores on authoritarianism significantly related to those on ethnic and racial prejudice, hostility toward homosexuals, and punitiveness. (Wylie & Forest, 1992).

*Accordingly, dogmatism and orthodox belief seem incompatible with ethical acuity.*

IOW, the research reveals that it is you who are the truly sick puppies who get on your high-horse so you can convince yourself that you are a righteous man. But inside you re a writhing mass of distorted sexual impulses and desires, ready to explode into rape and/or serial killing at any moment. Up until now, conservatives have been successful at painting peaceful, loving hippies and war-protesters as the person society should watch out for, and whom our LEOs should harass, and imprison. But the evidence clearly shows that this has been our mistake at having believed your self-denial and subsequent projection back out onto someone else of your own deviance. A tactic that is actually very typical, and can be seen in others doing the same thru the radio or elsewhere; pointing a guilty finger at others, accusing them of the very things they themselves are repeatedly found to be doing.

In short, conservatism is not an ideology, but a personality syndrome resulting from poorly developed intellectual, social and cognitive skills. Their life is spent trying to convince each other that they aren't as sick as they fear they may truly be. But we now know, with empirical evidence, that they are the ones behind most of the death and destruction the world has seen. It's only a matter of time till this too is turned into an old, sad chapter in human evolution.

McClosky (TMcClosky, H. Conservatism and Personality. American Political Science Review, 52, 27-45. ) noted that, "Conservatism is not the doctrine of the intellectual elite or of the more intelligent segments of the population, but the reverse. By every measure available to us, conservative beliefs are found most frequently among the uninformed, the poorly educated, and the less intelligent" (p. 38).

Note the projection this RWA uses to throw his own shortcomings way from his own profile and hopefully make others deal with the drama and restrictions people like him employ on others in a tactic that confirms to themselves that they are not guilty of the crimes they accuse others of. It is truly a very sick, very extreme syndrome society faces from these dysfunctionals due their inability to adapt to the extreme changes we underwent at the Neolithic jump-off point.

"This represents yet another example of the raw, unadulterated hatred displayed by so many heterosexual Americans towards their gay fellow citizens"

Please do not confuse the faulty reasoning that create the conservative mindset with all the rest of us who managed to successfully negotiate our way thru the developmental phase they so sadly missed out on, The rest of us developed proper levels of empathy that allow us to socialize properly. There is a reason why all religious fundamentalists no matter what the faith or culture, are also social/political conservatives with a strong need for order and rules. Only someone suffering from a learning disorder is capable of ignoring the evidence of such beliefs being false. It is this same psychological deficiency that is responsible for the kinds of prejudices you have suffered.

So once again, it is NOT Americans... It is conservative RWAs, both here and around the world that do this to others.

You miss the point. For conservatives to continue trying to stop these behaviors is evidence of their compulsion to maintain the status quo, no matter if it's doing more harm than would otherwise be present or not. Such was their resistance to Repeal then and now. Successful species adapt to constants in their environment.

This guy is a joke.

For all your book-learning and self-righteous smack, you dishonestly portray that I have written a single word anywhere on this or related threads about "medical marijuana." It is another separate debate, complicated by contending studies, about which I have not written nor argued.

I know plenty about emetics. My wife's health was severely debilitated by severe and prolonged hyperemesis over different periods. She suffered the nausea and weakness and poor quality of life rather than continue to use the drugs provided which made her high and jittery and resless. I have sat and held the hand and emptied the bedpans of both friends and near-strangers hospitalized during chemotherapy. Your aspersions fall short.

You yourself have indicated your dire condition is as result of irresponsible, abusive, even malicious parentage. No doubt that is of horrific and personal consequence. Yet, as a victim, and as encouraged and exploited by the likes of Revs Jackson and Sharpton, instead of recognizing or opposing the behaviors that put you in this way, you are, as a consequence of the morally-degraded environment, buying in to the attitudes that have wronged you.

Instead of opposing the factors and crutches that your parents used to destroy their own senses and conscience, you are feeding the cycle. The kind of abuse you suffered should not be propogated and proliferated. It takes just one generation of lucid, responsible, moral behavior to stop the cyclic nature of abuse. But here you are, the victim, writing that whatever feels good, whatever is done in private, is ok, and that it had no outward or lasting consequences. You are wholly denying the causes, and immersed in the culture. You condone drug use for wide-spread recreational or escapist abuse, instead turning your anger on those that oppose its use and ease of access.
That which added to, exacerbated the conditions of your abuse, or were perhaps that which started, and certainly prevented the cessation of it, you are condoning the effects of drug-addled, alcohol-possessed, vice-inhibited behavior and the permissive, rationalized attitudes that accompany them, for all of society. Sorry, I don't get the logic, or the benefit on any terms.

You discredit any intellectual prowess or persuasive argument when you spout unsubstantiated statistics from disreputable sources. There have not been 'hundreds of thousands' of deaths perpetrated by those who liberated Iraq from the rule by Saddam Hussein.
The vast majority of the deaths in Iraq are the responsibility of Iraqis, vile clerics, Iranian and Syrian and Baathist instigators, and the perversion that is Islamic jihad. Those deaths, by the way, barely reach the 100,000 mark.
The hypocrisy of the liberal left as regards morality is stunningly self-serving and mendacious. An example: The American Left demands that non-Americans taken on the battlefield sans uniform, who would therefore under the Geneva accords justifiably warrant on-the-spot execution, should be given, under 'human rights,' taxpayer-provided lawyers and habeus corpus. (I don't believe our WWII, Korean or Vietnam era solders held as POWs had lawyers, trials, or even three squares?)

However, while we are willing to give so much to comfort people who were engaged in killing our sons and daughters, the Left would deny so many other innocents so much. In America, we, for example, have freedoms of speech, belief, protection, self-defense, press and assembly. Further along, our women, mothers/wives/daughters/friends, have opportunity to vote, to work, to seek an education, to earn, and to be protected in their choice of dress, customs, associations, and ownership/investment.

And we are extending unprecedented legal rights to terrorists? Where is your moral outrage at those who deny their citizens, particularly their women and children, basic human rights? No, it stops at our shores, huh? The fact that our sons and daughters are abroad, seeking to first defeat those planning and carrying out attacks on us, but also to clear and provide for the environment that would foster the opportunities and protections that we have is immoral? We can have, but they cannot? Their opportunities and human rights end when it might cost you? Those whose actions who prompted the arrival of our troops to their lands can have American protections and rights, but those on whom they brought or forced miserable conditions are devoid of protections, and a future of hope?

Where is your evidence that these were wars of imperialist aggression? Where is the free oil, the annexed states, the exploited slave labor, the markets for NASCAR, WWF, Hollywood porn, and the Marriott and Hilton sea-side resorts? Where are the graves of those who died under your 'torture?' On what principle do you rest your moral basis for infusing a POW with greater protections than that of a whole nation?

That is hard, as moral relativists have no principles. Their only principle is "me."

i disagree with the idea of "pot" being legalized it is a stupid idea weather medicanal or not it still affects you mentally and it is very easy to become addicted to.. it would be stupid to legalize and about gay marriage i dont know my opionon as far as that goes ive always been pro choice and the fact is it is your life to decide what you want...

I have more moral fiber in my left ball than you will have in your entire existence, friend, because I'm not full of sanctimony, and I can tell a terrorist from a hole in my ass. You can't, if you really believe any of the debates of the last ten years around "legal rights for terrorists" are about anything but stopping indefinite and revenge-based detainment and torture. No modern Republican seems to have any idea that a lot of the so-called "terrorists" these days really aren't - just another example of this neo-Judeo-Christian Crusade you all decided to swagger yourselves into. Sorry, but I believe the higher figure. The fact that there's a dispute suggests that you all waged a highly mercenary war that falls far from the "morality" you claim. I do not believe there is currently a spot reserved for whichever version of Heaven you believe in with your name on it, at present.

But I'm tired of arguing with evil men who consider themselves good ones. God will deal with you. For now, I have a life to live and money to make.

Really, dude, I would argue with you, but there's no point. I've seen the pictures of at least one tank with "New Testament" painted on it.

Your actions of supporting proxy terrorists like that - Christian ones - are sending you right to hell, where I hope God burns the sanctimony and harshness of your self-righteous soul right out of you. I really do. And I will continue to smoke medical marijuana. Thank you for playing.

Let's outlaw marriage because it leads to adultery, one of the big ten no no's on the tablet from heaven.

With all marriages outlawed, we would only have nine commandments left. Just think. The elimination of a whole one tenth of the world's sin in one simple law.

And the fact that you're far more interested in talking down to me and acting like an angry judgmental *** instead of doing anything about all this yourself does not bespeak well of your holy-roller mentality. Please inform me if you're actually doing anything charitable or otherwise worthwhile in your life, other than condemning the left for a variety of self-determined "sins" and hypocrisies. Words are easy. Go grab your balls and do something about it. Why don't you become one of the cops that routinely imprison and beat minor "drug" (i.e. cannabis) offenders all the time? Oh, wait, I forgot, I have "no proof" that these things go on.

Keep your eyes blinded by the light if you want. Have a care it does not come back to burn you.