America being ridiculous...again

[Crystal]

I read something in englishclass once that said "Some are born to sweet delight some are born to endless night" and my teacher asked me which I would choose. I knew he wanted me to say sweet delight but I thought how would you know sweet delight if you had never experinced "endless night". Can you know love if you have never felt hate? I would say that when we read about violence and conflicts, and killing we feel better about our own life.

Hay

*smiles* thought nobody would response and would think i was crazy or what. ya, i liked what you said. but, it seemed plausible as one give it a second thought, that one would not know what is love without having experienced hate. let me think it over. but, thank you! Hay.

even Jesus by sacrifice himself cannot reslove this chaos, I, am too little to think for the whole human being

have a rest/coffee, people, don't argue anymore. can it lead to anywhere?

 

[True@1stLight]

*smiles* thought nobody would response and would think i was crazy or what. ya, i liked what you said. but, it seemed plausible as one give it a second thought, that one would not know what is love without having experienced hate. let me think it over. but, thank you! Hay.

That's from Auguries of Innocence, which I think you had a quote up from not all that long ago.

A very valid question that is asked throughout literature. The dichotomies of language and implication of each end when referring to one seems to make it hard to think they could be independent. Anyway, if you like that topic I would suggest looking around. There are some authors that really tackle the issue more intentionally than Blake does.

 

[True@1stLight]

"It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another, each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawl of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. In the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister--mutual victims as they have been--may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

[Wabbit]

Hey Wabbit, what the heck are you reading down in that hole? Are they spiking your carrots with crack or something?

No

Where you live, for starters:

--England's official state religion is Church of England Christianity,

Very true and I never stated it was not. My point, dear girl, is that church and state are separate. Here in the UK you would NEVER hear a politician talk about God. NOT EVER. it docent happen but it happens in the states all the time. We separated church and state hundreds of years ago.[

--gay marriage is illegal in the UK,

Yes, and it's wrong but you must not have your reading glasses on! I didn't say UK what I said was EU didn't I? I said, the EU is much more free and liberal not the UK. There are many places in the EU where IS legal.

France has an official state religion, Roman Catholicism.
So does Spain.

True, but my point, as stated above, is not that they have a state religion but that church and state are kept very separate. France is probably one of the most secular countries you can get!

The US does not have a state religion. That is barred by the Constitution.

PFTT. Yeah right. Mr Born again Bush and his Christian politics. Are your really gonna go with that?????????????????

Gay marriage is legal at this point in several US states (Massachusetts for one). This is an issue in flux that has not yet been adjudicated at the federal level, and states' laws are still in effect.

Yes, I know that but it's legal across most of Europe and has been for many years and the US shows no sign of doing the same for the whole country.

T

he death penalty, like gay marriage, is presently left up to states' law and is not legal in every state. In NY since the death penalty was reinstated, nobody has been killed. It's very likely that it will be rescinded in the next couple of years. As for the State of Texas, well. . . .

Yes, but you STILL have the death penalty. The government says that a state can kill people. Is that liberal?

I think before you go on the attack with this stuff you might want to read around a teensy amount.

You assume much. Just because I don't agree with you does not mean I'm not well read or stupid.

 

[True@1stLight]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the EU quite obviously allows more liberties. Ok so it wasn't a limb so much a big freaking road, a highway perhaps. Anyway, just so that everyone claiming this can't be accused of having an outside perspective, my opinion comes from right inside the good ole' US of A.

-True

 

[Wabbit]

HORAY! back up! LOL

Yes it is a lot more liberal and i'm speaking of one that has spent a LOT of time in both places. Of the whole of the EU the UK is probably the least liberal though. Although, it's still more liberal than the U.S

 

[bobbyburns]

red shirts: 12

blue shirts: 0

 

[True@1stLight]

red shirts: 12

blue shirts: 0

Can I have a polka dotted one?

 

[Rogue]

Where Have Child Offenders Been Executed?
Although the vast majority of countries that still practice the death penalty have turned away from executing child offenders, children are still not totally safe from this outdated practice. Since 1990 Amnesty International has recorded 38 executions of child offenders – 19 of them in the USA. Since 2000 there have been 18– nine of them in the USA. But even in the USA, such executions are not widespread: 19 of the 38 US states whose laws retain the death penalty exclude its use against child offenders, as does the federal government, and only three states – Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia - have executed child offenders since 2000.

Recorded excecutions of child offenders (1990-2004):
China: 2
Democratic Republic of Congo: 1
Iran: 10
Nigeria: 1
Pakistan: 3
Saudi Arabia: 1
USA: 19
Yemen: 1

Twenty-two child offenders have been executed in seven US states since 1977. Over 70 child offenders are currently under sentence of death in the country.

In April 2003 the US authorities revealed that children as young as 13 were among the foreign nationals being held at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. One detainee, Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, may be suspected of involvement in the shooting death of a US soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. Amnesty International has urged the Canadian authorities to seek assurances from the USA that it will not seek the death penalty against Omar Khadr should he be brought to trial before a military commission set up by the US authorities. Amnesty International opposes the military commissions.

The use of the death penalty against child offenders rejects any notion that wider adult society should accept even minimal responsibility in the crime of a child. The profiles of the condemned teenagers are often those of a mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed adolescent emerging from a childhood of abuse, deprivation and poverty. The backgrounds of child offenders executed in the USA since 1990 suggests that society had failed them well before it decided to kill them.

Glen McGinnis, born to a mother who was addicted to crack cocaine and worked out of their one-bedroom apartment as a prostitute, was sentenced to death in Texas in 1992. He had suffered repeated physical abuse at her hands and those of his stepfather, who beat him with an electric cord and raped him when he was nine or 10. He ran away from home at the age of 11 and lived on the streets of Houston where he began shoplifting and stealing cars. Black, he was sentenced to death by an all-white jury for the shooting of Leta Ann Wilkerson, white, during a robbery in 1990. Various juvenile correctional officials testified that he was non-aggressive even in the face of taunts about his homosexuality from other inmates and that he had the capacity to flourish in the structured environment of prison. He was executed in January 2000.


Amnesty USA

 

[Wabbit]

red shirts: 12

blue shirts: 0

Tribalism has nothing to do about this It's a debate about freedom not a competition.

 

[Wabbit]

Where Have Child Offenders Been Executed?
Although the vast majority of countries that still practice the death penalty have turned away from executing child offenders, children are still not totally safe from this outdated practice. Since 1990 Amnesty International has recorded 38 executions of child offenders – 19 of them in the USA. Since 2000 there have been 18– nine of them in the USA. But even in the USA, such executions are not widespread: 19 of the 38 US states whose laws retain the death penalty exclude its use against child offenders, as does the federal government, and only three states – Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia - have executed child offenders since 2000.

Recorded excecutions of child offenders (1990-2004):
China: 2
Democratic Republic of Congo: 1
Iran: 10
Nigeria: 1
Pakistan: 3
Saudi Arabia: 1
USA: 19
Yemen: 1

Twenty-two child offenders have been executed in seven US states since 1977. Over 70 child offenders are currently under sentence of death in the country.

In April 2003 the US authorities revealed that children as young as 13 were among the foreign nationals being held at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. One detainee, Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, may be suspected of involvement in the shooting death of a US soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. Amnesty International has urged the Canadian authorities to seek assurances from the USA that it will not seek the death penalty against Omar Khadr should he be brought to trial before a military commission set up by the US authorities. Amnesty International opposes the military commissions.

The use of the death penalty against child offenders rejects any notion that wider adult society should accept even minimal responsibility in the crime of a child. The profiles of the condemned teenagers are often those of a mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed adolescent emerging from a childhood of abuse, deprivation and poverty. The backgrounds of child offenders executed in the USA since 1990 suggests that society had failed them well before it decided to kill them.

Glen McGinnis, born to a mother who was addicted to crack cocaine and worked out of their one-bedroom apartment as a prostitute, was sentenced to death in Texas in 1992. He had suffered repeated physical abuse at her hands and those of his stepfather, who beat him with an electric cord and raped him when he was nine or 10. He ran away from home at the age of 11 and lived on the streets of Houston where he began shoplifting and stealing cars. Black, he was sentenced to death by an all-white jury for the shooting of Leta Ann Wilkerson, white, during a robbery in 1990. Various juvenile correctional officials testified that he was non-aggressive even in the face of taunts about his homosexuality from other inmates and that he had the capacity to flourish in the structured environment of prison. He was executed in January 2000.


Amnesty USA

That was very well said Gizmo

 

[RaVeN]

I agree with Freya.

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

But you did suck 'em in.


If you build it, they will come.


RaVeN

 

[cajunmama]

What about this little Guantanamo stuff? Don't you think that what the US is doing down there is pretty much illegal?
Let me see what else there is: frying kids and retarded people on the electric chair, can't vote properly, not allowed to drink alcohol till age 21 or in public, the Patriot Act, you can sue everbody for everything you did wrong (and win), you have a lot of stupid laws, don't have social health care....
I wouldn't call the US a tolerant or free country.


The following are genuine State Laws that are still technically in force in America:

In Hartford, Connecticut: it is illegal to cross a street while walking on your hands.

In Ottumwa, Iowa: it is unlawful for a man to wink at any woman that he does not know.

In Los Angeles: you cannot bathe two babies in the same tub at the same time.

In Zion, Illinois: it is illegal to give lighted cigars to dogs, cats, and other animals kept as pets.

In Carmel, New York: a man cannot go outside while wearing a jacket and trousers that do not match.

In St. Louis: it's illegal to sit on the kerb of any city street and drink beer from a bucket.

In Baltimore, Maryland: it's illegal to throw bales of hay from a second-storey window within the city-limits. It's also illegal to take a lion to the cinema.

In Carrizozo, New Mexico: it's forbidden for a female to appear unshaven in public (includes legs and face.)

In Michigan: a woman isn't allowed to cut her own hair without her husband's permission.

In New York: it is against the law to throw a ball at someone's head for fun.

The state of Washington has passed a law stating that it is illegal to paint polka dots on the American flag.

In order for a pickle to be officially considered a pickle in Connecticut, it must bounce.

If you sell hollow logs in Tennessee, you are breaking the law.

Oklahoma forbids a person from taking a bite out of another person's hamburger.

Selling doughnut holes in Leigh, New England, is forbidden.

In North Carolina: it is against the law to use elephants to plough cotton fields.

In Pennsylvania: cars travelling on country roads at night must send up a rocket every mile, then wait ten minutes for the raod to clear.

In Utah: it is against the law to fish from horseback.

In South Bend, Indiana: back in 1924, a moneky was convicted the crime of smoking a cigarette and was sentenced to pay a 25 dollar fine and the trial costs.

In Oklahoma: Harthahorne City Ordinance, Section 363, states that it shall be unlawful to put any hypnotized person in a display window.


In Gary, Indiana: people are prohibited from attending a cinema and from riding public transport within four hours of eating garlic.

Okay Gizmo, now go read the dates on those laws. Most of them were put into the books when women wore corsets and there was a hitchin post outside of every house. The dumbasses just never took them off the books. And way back then, the lawmakers were a binch of nutbars anyway. Well, they are nowadays, too, but that's besides the point.
Wabbit:
The separation of Church and State means simply this: The State shall not mandate a religion. This does not mean there shall be no mention ever, anywhere of God or anything remotely religious from anyone even remotely connected to anything resembling government. That is simply ridiculous. One of the freedoms our Constituton stands for is the freedom of speech. Bush or Kerry, or me for that matter can stand up in any old public place and spout off about any religion as long as their voice holds out.

 

[True@1stLight]

Does it really have anything to do with running the country though? Granted, there are certain values entailed, but why not talk about the values instead of copping out behind an idea of a religion. Which about 95% of the people that claim they are part of don't really invest in any of its principals.

 

[cajunmama]

Good point. My point is that some people take (and took) the idea of separation of church and state and just run with it until there is nowhere left to go and the point of the whole idea is totally lost.

 

[mr_michel]

Good point. My point is that some people take (and took) the idea of separation of church and state and just run with it until there is nowhere left to go and the point of the whole idea is totally lost.

what!!!!!
there had been civil wars because of that (thought maybe not in the u.s.a)

 

[cajunmama]

Yes there have, been wars, I mean. My whole problem is extremism. I am so moderate that I can honestly say the only thing extreme about me is how middle-of-the-road I am! I just have a hard time comprehending anyone or anything that choses to be extreme. Right-wing, left-wing, extremely religious, adamantly atheistic, no-carb dieting (you mean no pasta, ever?), all grapefruit diet, my nephew who has never ever had a piece of fresh fruit and has absolutely no desire to have any, ever. There is a whole world out there, why limit yourself so? And war is very extreme. Politicians are extreme, even if they pretend to be otherwise. It's all kinda sad, really, if you think about it too much, which I have so now I am going to bed. Good-night.

 

[bobbyburns]

It's a debate [...] not a competition.

lolz this isn't even a debate

 

[Crystal]

"It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another, each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawl of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. In the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister--mutual victims as they have been--may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

You answered my question last time by quoting the same paragrap which I was recalled now as it impressed me that time. i think i should honestly admit that i did not figure it out, and which was why lead to this my repetition.

And please just help with this question: is it true that in the u.s. , the relationship among familiy members are kind cold or detached?? Thank you.

 

[Crystal]

Highly educated doesn't mean unemotional, watercrystal. Most wars and crimes are emotion-driven. Anger, and hate and fervant belief that one belief or another is "right" cause intelligent people to lose their minds, or at least shut down their minds long enough to cause harm.

Do people need violence? Good question. I don't know the answer. I think probably people need conflict of some form, just as people need release of some form. Just as conflict comes in a variety of manners, so does release. Some people read to release, some get drunk. Others eat themselves into oblivion, or take drugs. Something has to uncoil the tightly-wound spring of emotions inside. If peaceful methods can't do it, then violence follows. Lots of books have been written about a world at peace. It doesn't last for long, so you're probably right. We need violence. Sad, but true.

Cathy

Cathy, thanks for your response. and please, if you like, help with the same question i have asked True:

is it true that in u.s., the relationship among family members are somewhat cold or detached? is it common? Thank you.