Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > but even that is
> > very rare and limited to small towns where everyone is inbred anyway.

> "Small towns where everyone is inbred anyway" is TRWTF. o_O

  Ever seen the movie Deliverance? Just like there. (If you haven't seen
it, I highly recommend it.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 10/17/2011 12:19 PM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott<sel### [at] npgcablecom>  wrote:
>> Recent law they are trying to pass - Protection for Catholic hospitals,
>> which are sadly a large percentage of them, to not merely deny help to
>> women on the verge of death, due to pregnancy complications, but to also
>> "deny them the right to be transferred to some place where they can be
>> treated". The theory being that, somehow, those women are, I don't know
>> what the fuck, maybe bribing the Catholic doctors to "fake" illness, or
>> causing it themselves, in some proxy to get shipped to another hospital,
>> to receive abortions? I mean WTF? But, apparently, this is *way* more
>> important than taking jobs seriously, or creating legislation about
>> *anything* other than bullshit like this.
>
>    I hear that in some state they are trying to redefine the legal meaning
> of "rape" in such a way that it's not grounds for abortion anymore. This
> not to talk about that law proposal that women seeking abortion must be
> subjected to a mandatory and extensive guilt-trip by the doctor (among
> other things, the doctor must make her listen to the heartbeat of the
> fetus, give a long lecture about the sanctity of life, and whatnot).
>
>    I don't really get it. Rather than these right-wing nutjobs jumping
> through incredibly ridiculous hoops to make abortion illegal in practice,
> why they don't simply make it illegal, period? That's what they want. Why
> are they engaging in these ridiculous legal acrobatics? (Not that I would
> endorse them to do that, I'm just honestly wondering. Is it some kind of
> federal law that they cannot override or something?)
>
Because, 90% of the people in the country wouldn't stand for the other 
10% making it illegal, and not just because:

1. The number of cases where higher when it was illegal.
2. The number of cases of teen pregnancies and abortions is far higher, 
in the places that these wackos come from (even if they have to go out 
of state to find services) than all the "liberal" places, which teach 
real sex education, don't have laws letting pharmacists opt out of 
selling birth control, etc.
3. Short of overturning decades of legal precedent, including the 
original Roe vs. Wade, they simply ***can't legally ban it***.

So, their tactic is the same as everything else they do, including 
sneaking creationism into classrooms, and other crap they also want. 
Find loopholes, lie, make it harder to stop their own agenda, lie, find 
way to circumvent people's freedoms, lie some more, and so on.

Its a gorilla war, being fought by fanatics, lunatics, and idiots, 
against the rest of the population, on some insane theory that every 
single damn thing that ever goes wrong in the US has **nothing** to do 
with the economy, or laws, or anything else that is fucked up. No, 
everything *wrong* is caused by gay rights, abortion, and daring to 
state that sex is something you can't scare/lie them into avoiding, 
until marriage. They probably literally, in some cases, *do* think that 
women are either faking their life threatening conditions, during 
difficult births, or that somehow those things are a "result of unwed 
sex, or promiscuity".

They simply cannot, without violating prior law, or the constitution, 
impose these rules on the rest of the country. This means that all they 
have is loopholes, lies, and money, to try to force such things through 
*at all*.

Sadly, in some cases, they end up being effective, like how Arizona, 
where I live, can't legally "not" teach sex ed at all, but *is* required 
to "emphasize stupid, religiously motivated, bullshit, which doesn't 
work, i.e. abstinence."

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On 10/18/2011 8:54 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 10/18/2011 0:57, Invisible wrote:
>>>> Is it true that if people find out you don't believe in God, you will
>>>> *actually* be brutally murdered in your sleep? Or is that an
>>>> exaggeration?
>>
>>> Depends, which state did you hear it happening in?
>>>
>>> Mind, that is an exaggeration of the truth, but its not that damn
>>> dissimilar to the reality in some places.
>>
>> OK, *so* glad I decided not to take that trip to America now... o_O
>
> Actually, no, nobody actually gets murdered in their sleep for being
> atheists. You get nasty looks from neighbors, and teachers give your
> kids bad grades, and your house might even get TPed, but even that is
> very rare and limited to small towns where everyone is inbred anyway.
>
There have been a "few" cases, someone dead by the road, a few days 
after raising a stink about something being done in a town meeting, or 
government event, that was purely sectarian. Whole families having to 
move, because while no one had died *yet* it was fairly obvious that 
staying was likely to end up with a corpse, even if it wasn't entirely 
clear if one of the family would be on the slab, or some idiot that went 
one step farther over the edge, and tried to rape/beat up one of them 
was there instead... They are not common, but they do happen, as much as 
we actually hear about it, in some parts of the south.

For the most part though, they know they are a small minority, they have 
a very insane idea about what is needed to "solve" the countries 
problems (in that it involves pretty much violating the rights of the 
other 99.9% of the US), a lot of it is small time BS, by people that 
wouldn't, themselves, lift of finger to hurt anyone, but never the less 
are *greatly* offended when someone suggests their sectarian behaviors, 
and even some ordinances/laws they have locally, are illegal under the 
US constitution, etc. The biggest problem is that the truly crazy are 
able to listen to the ranting, whining, idiocy, of such people, over the 
net, and you get the, "No one among the Christians For a Theocratic 
Constitution ***actually*** said to shoot at X person, its purely 
coincidence that we hinted at it for months over the local radio, and 
the internet, during which the person that did it happened to a) listen 
to the radio, and read our website!". I personally, in the case of some 
of the "pro-life" movement, and some others, this shouldn't be a valid 
defense of their actions. How often do you hear from "some" of the 
middle eastern wackos that they, "Talk about the west, and what someone 
should do about it, or blow up, or shoot, but they never *ordered*, or 
*payed* anyone to do so, personally!"? Too damn many of them. But, its 
the same defense by radical pro-life sites, to why its not their fault 
that certain clinics get fire bombed, or doctors shot and killed.

And, its the same "defense" from the radical, "Anti-everything that 
isn't Evangelical, often Biblical Literalist, Christian". Any 
inexplicable, oddly not well investigated, and, as far as we know, 
without looking at every local paper in the region, rare, case, is 
completely unrelated, according to these sorts of groups. After all, 
they never ordered, or paid, anyone to do it.

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On 18/10/2011 10:47 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> There have been a "few" cases, someone dead by the road, a few days
> after raising a stink about something being done in a town meeting, or
> government event, that was purely sectarian. Whole families having to
> move, because while no one had died *yet* it was fairly obvious that
> staying was likely to end up with a corpse, even if it wasn't entirely
> clear if one of the family would be on the slab, or some idiot that went
> one step farther over the edge, and tried to rape/beat up one of them
> was there instead... They are not common, but they do happen, as much as
> we actually hear about it, in some parts of the south.
>
> For the most part though, they know they are a small minority, they have
> a very insane idea about what is needed to "solve" the countries
> problems (in that it involves pretty much violating the rights of the
> other 99.9% of the US), a lot of it is small time BS, by people that
> wouldn't, themselves, lift of finger to hurt anyone, but never the less
> are *greatly* offended when someone suggests their sectarian behaviors,
> and even some ordinances/laws they have locally, are illegal under the
> US constitution, etc. The biggest problem is that the truly crazy are
> able to listen to the ranting, whining, idiocy, of such people, over the
> net, and you get the, "No one among the Christians For a Theocratic
> Constitution ***actually*** said to shoot at X person, its purely
> coincidence that we hinted at it for months over the local radio, and
> the internet, during which the person that did it happened to a) listen
> to the radio, and read our website!". I personally, in the case of some
> of the "pro-life" movement, and some others, this shouldn't be a valid
> defense of their actions. How often do you hear from "some" of the
> middle eastern wackos that they, "Talk about the west, and what someone
> should do about it, or blow up, or shoot, but they never *ordered*, or
> *payed* anyone to do so, personally!"? Too damn many of them. But, its
> the same defense by radical pro-life sites, to why its not their fault
> that certain clinics get fire bombed, or doctors shot and killed.
>
> And, its the same "defense" from the radical, "Anti-everything that
> isn't Evangelical, often Biblical Literalist, Christian". Any
> inexplicable, oddly not well investigated, and, as far as we know,
> without looking at every local paper in the region, rare, case, is
> completely unrelated, according to these sorts of groups. After all,
> they never ordered, or paid, anyone to do it.

You make America sound like how Europe was four centuries ago.

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On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:15:43 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> You make America sound like how Europe was four centuries ago.

Well, it's a diverse country....so it's hard to make a broad sweeping 
generalisation like that.

Some places it's fine to be an atheist, others not so much.  I'm in Utah 
and am an atheist, but I don't advertise it so much (though most of my 
friends here wouldn't particularly care, whether they're LDS or not).

But I think I'd avoid making it known while in places like rural areas in 
the southeast.

Jim

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On 10/19/2011 12:03 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:15:43 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>> You make America sound like how Europe was four centuries ago.
>
> Well, it's a diverse country....so it's hard to make a broad sweeping
> generalisation like that.
>
> Some places it's fine to be an atheist, others not so much.  I'm in Utah
> and am an atheist, but I don't advertise it so much (though most of my
> friends here wouldn't particularly care, whether they're LDS or not).
>
> But I think I'd avoid making it known while in places like rural areas in
> the southeast.
>
> Jim
Pharyngula has been running stuff recently from people on "Why I am an 
atheist". One of the recent entries is from someone in Mississippi. 
Doesn't say that its "dangerous" per-say to be one, but definitely 
damned inconvenient, if they ever came out and said so. I would argue 
that there are probably a "few" places in some of those states where 
"inconvenient" goes a bit beyond just not having anyone at all listen to 
anything you ever say, or the like. There are some real nuts in this 
country, more so even than the people running for office, and, pretty 
much by definition, such people are scared to death of being alone, so 
they tend to congregate all in one place. This means either clubs (if in 
larger cities), but little opportunity to really hurt anyone, or, 
possibly, whole bloody towns, in places where the "law" is one of their 
own members.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/19/why-i-am-an-atheist-lucretius-of-mississippi/

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On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:33:26 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Pharyngula has been running stuff recently from people on "Why I am an
> atheist". One of the recent entries is from someone in Mississippi.
> Doesn't say that its "dangerous" per-say to be one, but definitely
> damned inconvenient, if they ever came out and said so. I would argue
> that there are probably a "few" places in some of those states where
> "inconvenient" goes a bit beyond just not having anyone at all listen to
> anything you ever say, or the like. There are some real nuts in this
> country, more so even than the people running for office, and, pretty
> much by definition, such people are scared to death of being alone, so
> they tend to congregate all in one place. This means either clubs (if in
> larger cities), but little opportunity to really hurt anyone, or,
> possibly, whole bloody towns, in places where the "law" is one of their
> own members.

Absolutely - it's hard to even generalise about a region or even a small 
town.

Jim

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On 10/17/2011 9:14 AM, Invisible wrote:

> But yeah, these days, aside from a few people who are like "all them
> niggers should **** off back to their own country", most people in
> Britain don't walk around thinking they're better than the rest of the
> world, or even just the rest of Europe.

Oooh, that's a big no-no here in the USA, I didn't think that word was 
used outside of our country... But I guess it is.

>
> You realise that a lot of people think your entire country is filled
> with morons and crazy people, right?
>

Yeah, I'm completely aware of it, and understand the perception.

> I mean, damn, I have no idea what people who aren't British think about
> Britain - probably that we all eat fish & chips and drink beer all day
> or something - but AFAIK, they don't think we're crazy. At least, I hope
> not. o_O

Nope... I don't see Britain as crazy. Nor do I see them as eating fish 
and chips. But ... the beer.... well, your pints are bigger than our 
pints-- and you have real beer as opposed to this watery stuff that 
sells in droves over here.
-- 
~Mike

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On 10/17/2011 2:24 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 10/17/2011 7:03, Mike Raiford wrote:
>> As if GB has never said that they are superior? ;)
>
> Actually, I spent several minutes trying to figure out which George Bush
> you were talking about here.
>

Neh.. That would either be W or GHWB. :)

-- 
~Mike

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On 20/10/2011 3:07 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> On 10/17/2011 9:14 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
>> But yeah, these days, aside from a few people who are like "all them
>> niggers should **** off back to their own country", most people in
>> Britain don't walk around thinking they're better than the rest of the
>> world, or even just the rest of Europe.
>
> Oooh, that's a big no-no here in the USA, I didn't think that word was 
> used outside of our country... But I guess it is. 

It is a big no-no here too.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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