The 12 Revealed

So when last my words graced here I took a short cut and made a quick list. The list was designed to get a reaction from readers…and it didn’t. I got two responses. The one from My space that pointed out (correctly) that I had written “Museum” instead of “Muslim”. I will tackle that at then end of this. The Second on LiveJornal was a smaller version what I am going to say now. (Kudos to Cheshirekitty) The statements on my list are all things I believe but are all improvable as written. Let us explore my list in grater detail.

1) “If you want to live in a Christian nation, you do not want to be an American citizen.”
This is my personal take on the Church and State Issue. As a Pagan and a student of the Constitution, I despise the people who try to take my country from me by claiming it is a Christian nation. Yes all of the founding fathers were raised Christian and many were in adulthood. However several (Ben Franklin for one) revealed in their writing that while they believed in a “higher power” they were unsure that Christianity (at least as it existed then) had it right. Those who were Christian weren’t all the same type of Christian either, so when given an opportunity to create a new nation they added a clause to allow all religions. Any attempt to force any religion (even the “right one”) on the U.S.A. is an assault on this freedom. There fore those who want to live in a nation with out this freedom, such as in a Christian nation (or Jewish, or Museum etc.), do not want to live in our nation with this freedom.
“But Bradleyman what makes your statement improvable then?” I am so very glad you asked. The main problem is the world “want”. “Want” presents us with a triple flaw. First, as humans we can want things that are mutually exclusive. You might want to be old for the wisdom but young for the energy. I might want to have the fame of stardom but also be able to go to the corner store and not be noticed. A third person might want a woman who was his love/sex slave, as well as a strong independent woman. Second, wants do not affect reality. My father used to say to me as a child “want in one hand spit in the other see which one fills up first” (once I hit 18 the word “spit” was replaced). Wants are only desires. They have no real value. They are illusions. Third, since wants are illogical illusions, you can not deduce them from a logical argument. With out that (or the ability to read minds) you can not assume any person’s want from any of their other wants.

2) “The Original Star Wars Trilogy is far better then the Lord of the Rings movies (the LoR Books being better then both)”
I love both trilogies. I grew up with Luke. I was in first grade when Star Wars (not yet referred to as a New Hope as it was the only one) came out. I wanted to be Luke when I grew up. So I like Star Wars better. However dose that make it a better movie? With out guide lines “better” is meaningless. We could argue over “better acting”, “better special effects”, “better drama” etc. that would give us some direction, but we would still need a pre argument agreement on what “better” meant in any of those. With out guidelines “better” is just what I (or whom ever) likes, and by that standard the final 3 episodes of “The Tomorrow People” could be considered good science fiction. Just for the record if you remove the childhood nostalgia I think they are about equal in terms of ways to waste my time enjoyably.

3) “Most people who say “get a life” don’t have one and are speaking to people who do.”
My original reason for including this in my “improvable but believed” list can be simply sated as “while the statement made might imply something about the speaker we can't infer anything about who it is being spoken too” (Thank you Cheshirekitty for saying it in about half as many words as I would have). It was in fact the reason I added the “and are speaking to people who do”. That said in trying to write this I came across a problem. I do not know what “get a life” means. If we are not dead we all have a life. Witch means that even those who say this have one; I hate it when I disprove my self but I just did. Well at least I can take this opportunity to point out that I am capable of changing my mind if there is a good enough argument. I think “get a life” just irritates me so much I want to say bad things about the people who use it. So the new statement is “people who say ‘get a life’ are being meaningless in way that irritates Bradleyman” (and even that statement could be changed if some one can tell what the phrase actually means).

4) In the comics, Batman could give Iron man the beating he deserves, armor or no armor.
I didn’t actually expect a whole lot of argument on this one. It can’t be proven because we can’t test it. They do not exist in this universe for us to test. Heck in the comics they don’t even exist in the same universe. Given what they have been shown to do well the Bat is the better fighter and has taken on armored foes. (And for those who read Civil War you know why Iron Man deserves to be beat). This is the sort of improvable debate that all comics fans LOVE to have but the saner ones fear to tread on. Yes it is fun to discuss “X” vs. “Y” and try to counter your opponent’s arguments. However that Sub-Set of Comics fandom that gets rabid will eventually show up and call you names for disagreeing with him (or rarely her). Worse yet they offer no argument to support their position that your are a "retarded dunder head” for disagreeing with them. I am embarrassed to share ANY of my hobbies with theses people.

5) If you are pro war you are anti-Christ.
This is a statement based on the title “prince on peace” and nothing else. I can think of MANY reasons why one would reluctantly decide there was a need for war, despite the peaceful teaching of their religion. This holds true for Christians. True Christ taught peace but when your family is threatened there may be reasons to fight back. “Bradleyman if you feel this way then why did you include the above” Because my dear reader I have been told “Christ supports us in this war”. I have read the Bible, I like the Bible, and it has great stories, regardless of how true you think they are. Jesus as he is presented to us in said book would not support ANY war. He would forgive you for your actions, especially if they were necessary, but he would not support war. I take this to the extreme in my bit of rhetoric here. I still basically believe it, but with exceptions. (Yes it is my opinion that the War in Iraq flies in the face of everything Christ taught, but I am not a Christian any more so it is not my place to correct them in their beliefs)

6) In the movies, Bruce could beat Tony but the suit could take the car.
The simple answer here is see #4. However it’s really based on the movie trailers I had just seen seconds before writing the above. The suits just look far more awesome then the current movies “bat tank”. So this actually goes back to 2. None the less I have already given it more words then it disserves as a subject.

7) Keeping Marijuana illegal supports gang activity.
I could go on at length about why Marijuana should be legal. There are many people out there who can do it better then I can. Google it. The fact that prohibition of a substance leads to a black market of said substance, and said black market will be run by organized crime is irrefutable. However to say that support of said prohibition equals support for said gang activity, is a serious error. Removing the revenue from gangs would be a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that if you think pot is bad you think the gang banger are good. This could be fixed had I said “Keeping Marijuana illegal helps fund gang activity, via the black market.

8) There are Museums who are loyal Americans.
Yes I meant “Muslims” not “Museums”. How ever the statement is equally false either way. The flaw: “loyal Americans”. I believe, that to be a loyal American you must question your government. I believe, that to be a loyal American, you must vote as often as you can and do so in an informed fashion. There are people who think the only “true” loyal Americans are the members of their political party (and I see this in third parties as well as the big two). We have NO solid definition of what it means to be a loyal American, so regardless of weather we are talking about a religion or a building with cool stuff in it the argument is not provable.

9) If marriage is a sacred institution then it is religious and must be separated from state sponsorship or tax breaks.
10) If marriage is a state institution then it is a legal agreement and ANY ONE should be able to do it, with any one (over the age of consent) they want.
First these are really two parts of one argument but 12 is my favorite number and I need to reach that goal. Second they belong to a much longer rant that I am still try to work the kinks out of. Also after trying in my own words to describe the problems with the statements I find that I am going to have to steal from Cheshirekitty’s comments once again:
“9-Separation of church and state does not mean exclusion of all things religious from government. The government has granted all religions a certain level of support including tax breaks, because our founding fathers believed that religion in whatever form was beneficial and necessary for a healthy nation.
10- when you say "should" you reduce the statement to personal opinion rather than logic; moreover, just being of the age of consent doesn't consider situations like mail order brides or marriages for the sake of citizenship. It's not enough to break down a law to allow what you support without consideration for the doors it opens to other things.”
She said it better then any of the 47 ways I tried to so I will use her quote and let it stand.

11) If you swear before God and the people to “uphold the constitution”, then in ANY WAY try to get around for ANY reason, then you have betrayed that oath.
To this the lovely Cheshirekitty replied “by this logic you stand against the Bill of Rights and consider those who instituted it to be traitors...” and she is WRONG. Ok. Only a little wrong, but my ego is still bruised over my lack of a better answer for 9 and 10 so allow me to briefly gloat. The only reason she is wrong, she used the Bill of Rights. No one swore anything about the Constitution until it was ratified, and that didn’t happen until after those 10 amendments were added. That said the flaw she pointed out does hold for any one who voted on any amendment after # 10. As I am a fan of many if not all amendments since then (big fan of 13, 19, 21 and hate 18) then I can not truly stand by the above statement. Now I could fix the above to read “If you swear before God and the people to “uphold the constitution”, then try to get around it, with out a valid and explainable reason then you have betrayed that oath and those you swore to.”, but that still leaves the “what does valid mean” argument, to keep it from being truly fixed.

12) Allen Scott IS the greatest Green Lantern of all time.
Yeah this is #4 again. However I am a huge GL fan (all of them even Guy Gardener) and Allen Scott is my favorite. I like magic over science as an explanation for ANY superpower as I expect a reasonable answer from science, and that takes time to explain, “poof magic” gets the story going faster.

13) Believing something doesn’t make it fact and arguing as if it does is will solve little.
Ok that wasn’t on the original list but it’s the point of why I did this. Yeah I added flaws to some of these to make a point, others were pure improvable opinion. As statements of belief I would stand by most of them, but I also accept that many are not provable. I am not saying they are wrong, I am saying I can’t prove them. I like most humans have beliefs that I can not prove. I will stand by those beliefs unless a reasonable argument against them can be proven. With out proof you do not expect me to change my beliefs; I won’t expect you to change yours.

A few notes before I go. Although not provable I stand by most of what I said until proven wrong. I can’t really stand by 3 or 7 as both “get a life” and “loyal American” lack a proper definition in my head right now. Witch I suppose shows I am open minded enough to let some things go. (Huxxah for me). Also in refuting my arguments Cheshirekitty said “For the record I am personally painfully in favor of gay marriage. I'm just addressing the construction of your arguments.” The first sentence it one I 100% agree with, the second was my point.

Peace, Love, and Goldfish
Bradleyman.

P.S. About the spelling. I have a learning disability called Dysgraphia. Dysgraphia is a learning disability resulting from the difficulty in expressing thoughts in writing and graphing. It generally refers to extremely poor handwriting and spelling. I have taken tests that show that despite my intelligence I spell AT the “national average”. Now I know my spelling is bad so that is a sad statement about our “national average”. I use a spell checker but words as other words may sometimes slip though. I apologize for this. That said if you don’t like what I said and use my spelling to say I am stupid, I will assume you were too stupid to form a real argument. Yes I am sensitive about this, I have had my spelling used against me like this before and the scars and bruising are far from healed.