MN Republicans to our community: Fuck off.

[NineOfClubs]

Most indentured servants voluntarily entered the arrangement.

Often to work off their passage to the New World.

They committed to a 3 to 5 year term, typically.

Not akin to slavery, at all...

 

[NineOfClubs]

Or otherwise would be slaves...

And were duped into the agreement getting something entirely different. And you honestly think if they left indentured servitude they woulds find work elsewhere? Fat chance.

Seriously, do you ever read anything with an open mind?

Indentured servants were mostly English and Germans who were desperate to escape the class system and misery of their home countries. They worked under contract. At the end of the contract they got a new suit of clothes and went off to farm or work in trades. A huge proportion of our early immigrants were just such people.

And they never would have "become slaves" in Europe....

 

[NineOfClubs]

I'm very open minded.

No, you aren't at all.

Please provide me with a source, a cite, that proves that (many, as you say) Europeans who signed contracts to become indentured servants (often signed by their parent, btw) were later inducting into slavery.

 

[NineOfClubs]

Do you?

Many came to America and ended up being slaves in America. You think I don't have gripes with how Europe did things in the past? You're sorely mistaken. The history of my country is very brutal... and they did things a lot worse than slavery.

I can see things with an open mind. I can find faults even with my own country. Don't even get me started...

But... I see Americans always say "but the founding fathers said..." and so forth... and use it as a mandate to impose their doctrines on other people and countries. I've seen people use that line and use it to impose their viewpoint on others.

I'm very open minded.

The part I bolded, I took that literally.

 

[NineOfClubs]

Oops. Then I correct myself. That's not what I believe.

Sorry.

But I will emphasize again... please don't tell me that indentured servants were treated better than slaves. Often they were not.

Well, at the end of their contracts they were free men.

Slaves didn't have any such guarantee.

As an aside, a lot of indentured servants insisted in their contracts that they couldn't be fed salmon more than two, three times a week. They wanted pork.

 

[NineOfClubs]

Then why on earth did so many run away? Indentured servants were often treated WORSE then slaves. Stop trying to revise history.

I can't believe you're actually trying to support indentured servitude. I think I've said enough.

Commenting on, being interested in, talking about a thing from the past does not equal "supporting" it!

And just what was the percentage that ran away?

 

[NineOfClubs]

Where did I say "it wasn't that bad"?

Hell, I think work conditions in China today are miserable, so was the indentured servant system.

But what were their choices back then, working in a call center, selling on Ebay?

But millions of Americans are descended from those poor Europeans that were looking for a new start. Somewhat akin to the illegal immigrant of today.

 

[NineOfClubs]

GC, you claim to have an open mind.

Open it for a second.

You're a low class, dirt poor third son of a serf in some European backwater. You can stay there and farm turnips in the mud until you die an early death.

Or you can go off to the New World, serve a few years working for room and board until you are given the opportunity to live out whatever dream you have.

As that 17th and 18th century person, what would you do?

 

[BostonPirate]

Isn't there still a "marriage penalty" in our tax system?

Maybe not anymore. Doesn't apply to me, so I'm not in the know.

But I can remember hearing of elderly couples divorcing to save money by filing as individuals.

Surely, unmarried gays do gain, in some ways....

that is federal. Since the Commonwealth of Massachusetts changed its marriage laws to allow non residents to marry here, really for all intensive purposes, any gay couple in america CAN get married. It only affects inheritance law in the commonwealth, though.

DOMA stops the Federal gov't from recognizing the marriages, and that means that the gay spouse cant get social security when their spouse dies, and it means that the IRS cannot allow gays to file as married, even if they are. They have to falsify federal papers and claim they are not married. Techinically they are not in a marriage recognized by federal law, so there is no real perjorative action, BUT there is also no adility to file jointly.

sorry if I interrupted the off topic conversation with a bit of commentary on the topic of the thread

 

[Centexfarmer]

sorry if I interrupted the off topic conversation with a bit of commentary on the topic of the thread

NO!

Thank you for bringing the discussion back around to the topic OF this thread!

That, and may I add that Republican's still SUCK and the whole "Gay Marriage" debate is nothing more than an "WEDGE ISSUE" designed for nothing more than to motivate their "base" and to generate votes and campaign contributions.

One doesn't have to be a "Constitutional Scholar" to figure that one out!

 

[NineOfClubs]

NO!

Thank you for bringing the discussion back around to the topic OF this thread!

That, and may I add that Republican's still SUCK and the whole "Gay Marriage" debate is nothing more than an "WEDGE ISSUE" designed for nothing more than to motivate their "base" and to generate votes and campaign contributions.

One doesn't have to be a "Constitutional Scholar" to figure that one out!

I think it's the other way around

The HRC and the gay left chose to focus on gay marriage to create a "wedge issue".

There are issues FAR MORE IMPORTANT to gays than marriage that were put on the back burner.

Most of the public would support eliminating discrimination against homosexuals in the job market and in housing. Yet, the gay powers-that-be chose to go for the more emotional target, marriage. Wonder why?

Lots of people never plan to marry, yet almost everyone needs a job and a home.

 

[BostonPirate]

I think it's the other way around

The HRC and the gay left chose to focus on gay marriage to create a "wedge issue".

There are issues FAR MORE IMPORTANT to gays than marriage that were put on the back burner.

Most of the public would support eliminating discrimination against homosexuals in the job market and in housing. Yet, the gay powers-that-be chose to go for the more emotional target, marriage. Wonder why?

Lots of people never plan to marry, yet almost everyone needs a job and a home.

everyone needs to be protected from hate crimes and have equality protected by law before they can be assured of having a Job or a Home. Both housing and employment are two areas that openly gay people have a hard time with, due to prejudice within the republican conservative areas they may live in. Even gay farmers deserve to be protected.

You can't have anything, if your right to have it is constantly under assault. The GOP need to attack Gay people as a means of driving conservative voters to the polls, is a HUGE window into the minds of not only the GOP leadership, and their feelings about gays, but also into the GOP voters minds, who consider us freaks, molesters, and ungodly.

 

[NineOfClubs]

^You prove my point.

 

[BostonPirate]

^You prove my point.

what that Gay rights are being blocked by the GOP and that they need to be defeated to assure we are not legislated into sex offenders again?

 

[Centexfarmer]

I think it's the other way around

The HRC and the gay left chose to focus on gay marriage to create a "wedge issue".

That's certainly a matter of perspective.

The HRC = Human Rights Campaign, became a "political lobby" during the Clinton Administration.

Prior to that the HRC was known as the Human Rights Campaign FUND.

How do I know this?

I was a part of it at the grass roots level.

I haven't sent one dime (nor volunteered) toward/for the HRC since they dropped the "Fund" and became an organization to represent monied gays, who's dollars meant more to the organization than the time being offered at a grass roots level.

FUCK THE HRC, I say!

Bastards!

The HRC has usurped more cash, and distracted and taken away more resources that could have been used here in Texas to defeat the Anti Gay Marriage Amendment (which was nothing more than a wedge issue to get Gov. Rick Perry's base out to vote), than anyone single contribution that the HRC has EVER politically made for the Gays of Texas.

AND ironically, one of the HRC's biggest fundraisers is the Black Tie Dinner.

It's like Gay Prom, but for Dallas Gays and the proceeds go to the Human Rights Campaign.

Texas Gays get maybe 10 or 20% of it back, because the HRC gets to decide what's "winnable" or not when it comes to fighting for our Equality here in Texas.

Which is why the HRC takes away more resources then they contribute here in Texas. IMHO.

If there's a WEDGE ISSUE, I think that it's pretty disingenious to claim that it's the HRC that's making it.

The Human Rights Campaign is now nothing more than the "political lobby" for the LGBT community.

Think AARP, or NRA for Gays.

The HRC and the gay left chose to focus on gay marriage to create a "wedge issue".

No.

Being a "lobby" the HRC, like the AARP, and the NRA "poll" there membership every year and ask them "what's most important" to you.

And my fellow Gay Brothers and Sisters, who never once stood in the hot sun with a clipboard and a registration form, or a voter registration drive, or who've never been accosted or harassed by drunken closeted fags that only wanted to get laid and resented being asked to sign a petition, voter registration card, or join a LGBT political lobby, proudly display this symbol everywhere they go:

Because that symbol on their bumper stickers, coffee mugs, baseball caps, and t-shirts is more "Gay" to them than the rainbow flag.



But the Human Rights Campaign lobbies our Nation's Elected officials on behalf of the members of that organization, and suddenly THEY'RE the ones creating the "wedge issue?"



You reside in Oregon, I reside in Texas.

Here in Texas they don't call it "The Gay Agenda" any more.

They call us "Liberal, Homosexual, Socialists."

Even more reason to NOT fund public education, because our Universities and Public Schools are full of them.

But you claim that the HRC has created that wedge issue?

Do you get where I'm going with this?

There are issues FAR MORE IMPORTANT to gays than marriage that were put on the back burner.

I agree, and do you see what has happened when somehow this became "political" instead of about "equality?"

Most of the public would support eliminating discrimination against homosexuals in the job market and in housing. Yet, the gay powers-that-be chose to go for the more emotional target, marriage. Wonder why?

Let me ask you this (and please answer honestly), you and I seem to be in agreement that this is a "wedge issue," between the GOP and the HRC which of those two groups weighed it out that they had the most to politically gain from it, and why?

I'm thinking that the Gays would be more "politically savvy" than that.

Lots of people never plan to marry, yet almost everyone needs a job and a home.

Two topics neither of which care to address, and if they do it's only a matter of semantics.

One opposing the other.

Please explain your preference, one over the other.

 

[Kulindahr]

I can't believe you're actually trying to support indentured servitude. I think I've said enough.

What's wrong with indentured servitude? I know some people these days who would be far, far better off with indentured servitude than with the lives they've been handed by the money-loving Republicans screwing the economy and the politically-correct Democrats regulating them out of places to live. One, who's 20, even said he wishes he could sell himself as a slave to someone for three years; he'd work hard, have a place to live and something to eat without having to commit a crime to get into jail for food and housing, and when he was done he'd have the original money plus whatever the contract guaranteed him.

If it's legit to sell one's self as a wage laborer or contract laborer, it's legit to sell one's self on a sterner contract -- the only difference is one of degree, not of kind.

Wishful thinking on your part. The life in the new world was often extremely difficult. Even when people went to the US in the 19th century to seek a better life were often met with far different circumstances.

What you don't see is that their lives thus became theirs. They were no longer subject to the whims of the landgrave or burgomeister, baron or sheriff, with no end in sight but being a criminal, runaway, even outlaw; they had taken their lives to themselves, exercised their self-ownership, and exchanged an endless servitude for one with a set duration.

Think of it this way: you're gay and living in Iran. You're not allowed to flee to escape persecution because you're gay, but you can go abroad as a worker. You see an ad from a company in Singapore that will give you $20k US up front and $20k US more at the end of a five-year contract which makes you a slave in everything but name -- and they will also pay your fare to a destination of your choice when you're done.

Now, do you stay in Iran and gamble with your life under an oppressive regime, or do you take the five-year contract in Singapore and spend five years laboring twelve hours a day so afterward you can move to Australia where you can marry the man of your choice?

 

[Kulindahr]

NO!

Thank you for bringing the discussion back around to the topic OF this thread!

That, and may I add that Republican's still SUCK and the whole "Gay Marriage" debate is nothing more than an "WEDGE ISSUE" designed for nothing more than to motivate their "base" and to generate votes and campaign contributions.

One doesn't have to be a "Constitutional Scholar" to figure that one out!

Or even a lecturer in a narrow aspect of constitutional law.

Most of the public would support eliminating discrimination against homosexuals in the job market and in housing. Yet, the gay powers-that-be chose to go for the more emotional target, marriage. Wonder why?

Easier to motivate people to donate and march and all, because it is an emotional issue.

what that Gay rights are being blocked by the GOP and that they need to be defeated to assure we are not legislated into sex offenders again?

Trivia: people on trial as sex offenders, who are revealed as gay during the trial, are more likely to be convicted.