Besides Religion is bullshit or God is great, what is your Unpopular opinion? I'll tell you mine:
I think that people on both sides of the issue are wasting their energy arguing about transgender bathroom rights. I don't know if it's because I grew up in a city, but growing up I've seen transgender people use whatever bathroom and I couldn't even tell that some were women/men until hearing them speak. Why such a big fuss now? Because as a community they have made some progress recently? In my point of view they are fighting for something they've already had. I am no enemy to the LGBT community and would not want to sound insensitive, but let's be real. This is not important.
Also business owners, If you're not willing to hire a bathroom bouncer to lift everyone's skirts, then please move on to a more pressing issue.. So your political representatives can move on to a more pressing issue. I'm tired of this ball being thrown around by lawmakers while there are things that should actually be prioritized. Like Flint, Michigan still not having clean water. Now I don't claim all knowledge, but again.. this is MY unpopular opinion.
What's yours?
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Well personally I dislike democracy at least most forms of it. I have plenty of reasons why but it mostly come down to the fact that the majority of people are stupid or uneducated and can be easily deceived by politicians makeing impossible promises.
I think we should have reciprocal bilateral relations. IOWs, if our religious nuts can't set up shop in muslim countries then they should not be allowed to set up shop in America. Likewise, if criminal Americans can't bunk at will in other countries then their criminals should not be allowed into America. If they want to do it here then we should be able to do it there.
My VERY unpopular idea is that NO ONE needs a gun. I am a 22+ combat vet. I know how to use guns safely and effectively. BUT, I don't need a gun for anything in civilian life. Not for protection, not for anything. Hunting is just stupid. Killing an innocent animal for sport is irresponsible and demented.
Nations that don't allow civilian gun ownership have virtually no gun crimes. Last year Japan had 6 murders by use of firearms. 6 Total in a nation the size of California with twice the population.
I don't think cops need guns. I see the need for "Armed Response" like the UK has but not the beat cop.
I know I will get a lot of flack about this, constitutionally and otherwise but I don't care. Every death caused by a gun can be avoided by eliminating guns. You aren't macho, brave or "a man" just because you have a gun. I have gone up against gangs and people putting guns in my face, and still I have never ever needed a gun. The NRA is completely out of control!
I agree with you. Furthermore I feel like people like to see guns being used on people. Like in zombie themed movies and shows. I hear it all the time "bro I'm ready for a zombie apocalypse" I'm ready to bust some heads" like are you fucking kidding me? They want a tragic zombie breakout to happen so they can justify shooting at actual human bodies. Mykcob4 I see your point about People as a whole, but People like these especially should not have access to guns.
Very persuasive. I'm conflicted on this point only insofar as this: a 100 pound person is at a chilling disadvantage to a 300 pound person, so some means to protecting one's own person is needed. But we as individuals and as a society are paying a grissly price for personal protection via firearms, and we as individuals and society are in all liklihood more endangered by firearms' presence than from the threats they purportedly protect us from. And the NRA is off-the-charts awful.
Luckily we live in a somewhat free country- that way I can own a gun, and you can chose not to! Isn't freedom of choice awesome?
I dislike the way the press in the US covers up the disproportionate amount of black criminality. For example, according to DOJ and FBI although blacks are 13% of the US population they commit half the homicides. Many news sources will not report a racial description of the perpetrators.
I suppose my most controversial position is my desire to see a globalized government with a complete abandonment of the nation state model and borders. I don't know the best means of governance, but socialist democracies in Northwest Europe are the best option, though I would insist on the addition of a US style bill of rights (minus the second amendment). I'd like to move toward a standardized language so all peoples can communicate without translation. For 7.5 billion humans to survive the nuclear age I think it is critical that we unify into a common community of humans. Maybe we and all other species can survive the 21st century if we do.
You want a one world socialist government? I thought those conspiracy theorists were nuts when they were talking about this.
I am not sure whether or not this counts as an unpopular opinion; but it does seem to be pretty controversial when I bring it up. I think our prisons are completely fucked and we shouldn't have them at all. In the absence of incarcerating people, we should be able to take justice into our own hands.
Personally I would enjoy hunting down and torturing rapists without penalty. I don't see anything wrong with that; and our current justice system doesn't do shit to those animals.
However if the justice system is too light on some, for the rest it is inhumane. No real rehabilitation or none at all, mental abuse of inmates (brutal treatment and complete lack of real health care and mental care and such; and then solitary confinement when these people break under the misery) and the vast majority of the people in our prisons should not be there in the first place. They should be getting help instead or the laws that put them there shouldn't even exist (laws that make marijuana illegal, for instance.)
I could go into how things like solitary confinement break the Geneva convention, but that's for a different discussion.
Of course there are a lot of things that could go wrong with this. I'm no politician and haven't worked it out that far yet. I just see how completely fucked our court system and our prison system is (and our police force too,) and I feel like justice would be better kept in the hands of the people.
Hey SecularSOB! See what you did?! That was one hell of a conversation starter!
Yeah Lol @Truett I figured it would be good for the debate room.
My unpopular opinion is that capitalism is actually a good thing. If someone with an idea or an invention can persuade people with money to invest in that idea, we can get things like computers, trains, cars, planes, antibiotics.... Since the emergence of modern capitalism in Holland and Britain, every indicator of development and social well-being has improved dramatically. Even people slaving in "dark satanic mills" were better off than their grandparents scratching a living from the dirt in between Black Death outbreaks. (BTW, the "Dark Satanic Mills" reference in Blake's "Jerusalem" has also been interpreted as meaning the orthodox churches.)
The problem is in the relationship between capitalism (and corporations) and government. As PJ O'Rourke said, "when buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." Government needs to be a neutral referee capable of making and enforcing laws that benefit and protect everyone. The corruption seeps in because of the huge expense of political campaigns, and because legislators align themselves with specific industries. The "too big too fail" idiocy has also poisoned capitalism by destroying the discipline of the market.
Governments should write laws outlawing bad industrial practices, such as child labor, forced labor, pollution, bribery. Those laws should state that any corporation domiciled in Country A will be prosecuted at home regardless of which other country those laws are broken. Socially responsible investment funds are already driving a shift in this direction.
Governments should also be unable to own or invest in any kind of business. Elected representatives should be prohibited from investment except through blind trusts. Election campaign spending should be limited by law, and all expenditure should be audited, with over-spending resulting in disqualification.
That's my rant. Instead of condemning capitalism and corporations out of hand, we need to get smart and find ways to make these forces work for everyone's benefit.
It's misleading to consider this a 'bathroom bill' because that ignores the more sensitive issues.
First question is why the federal government is involved at all. The Obama administration stretched the language of Title IX, which was about providing sports opportunities for women into something certainly NOT envisioned by the Congress that approved that bill.
The issue involves not just bathrooms but locker rooms and showers. In several the cases the schools offered private dressing facilities, but the administration decided this is no good because that person would feel 'different'. So, instead, it was determined that the sensitivities of this person were FAR more important than the privacy rights of ACTUAL girls (whose feelings about this apparently don't matter).
Much like the scene in 1984 where Winston is repeatedly told that 2+2=5, despite his common sense denials, we are told that we are required by law to actually believe these people are really, truly of their selected gender (which in some cases changes from week to week, and in many cases is completely made up). To actually advocate for some reality is now reinterpreted as bigotry.
It gets worse. We're expected to accept them into women's sports which already has had numerous cases of transgender 'women' dominating sporting events, and in the case of contact sports (including MMA fighting), resulted in some serious injuries. Because once we've gone down that rabbit hole, everything that follows gets crazier and crazier. So, in effect, Title IX, which was about providing EQUAL sports opportunities for women is now being used to destroy equal sports opportunities for women.
As an atheist I've long gone by the maxim: "A delusion, not matter how firmly believed, is still a delusion." There is no reason why gender delusions should get any special treatment. They are no different from delusions about being from the planet Krylon.
NeverHappened, yes. "To actually advocate for some reality is now reinterpreted as bigotry." Right. And I'll go even further.
I consider those individuals who think and strongly feel that they absolutely positively must change their gender to be in desperate need of all the psychological and /or medical help they can get--in order to NOT change anything literally, physically. This is not a religious opinion, btw, and I have no condemnation of gays. It's just that it seems to me that some very critical and deep seated mental/emotional/biological issue(s) must surely be at stake and need to be benevolently and wisely dealt with by medical professionals. I know that this idea will be promptly stomped on here. I know it. But there it is.
Now, I understand that there are "variations" in the very biological, genetic makeup of some people that make it nearly impossible for them to "identify" as either male or female. Or to be ambivalent, or to not know who or what the hell they really are. That small segment of folks are not those I'm wondering about, and I have the utmost respect for their dilemma (or their okayness with what they are or are not). No, it's people who really, actually might be simply in need of professional help and guidance--and possibly medication that I'm talking about (yes, even d r u g s--and don't condemn me for that idea, because countless humans take countless drugs for countless "conditions" (both physical and psychiatric) and you are probably one of them).
Why is the cry often so loud and so vicious against this opinion? Why is the "need" to "transgender" considered somehow sacrosanct and off limits for disagreement? If a person gets to the point in life, not for the sake of any illness or disease, where they want to start changing their very biology, where they choose, for life, to take hormones that alter how their body works and looks, where they want cut things off they were born with, or have something added that they weren't, well, my opinion is that those people need help, not agreement of the crowd, which agreement is often for the sake of political correctness. I mean they need **serious** help.
Tell me why this issue for any one actual man or any one actual woman who feels the strong compelling need to drastically change their very body to be the opposite gender and will go through hell in order to do it, physically, mentally, emotionally, not to mention financially, tell me why the first order of business might not be consideration of mental and psychological issues? Such issues, that if they were resolved, would obviate the need for what amounts to self-mutilation. Would it not be better to examine and alter your emotions and your thoughts, (rid yourself of your delusions, if you will, or heal and come to terms, perhaps, with your bitch of a mother or your bastard father or your horrific religious upbringing) or make the attempt, before you have a surgeon put a knife to your body?
I'm no expert on sex reassignment surgery, but I believe the patients must undergo a considerable amount of psychological screening/evaluation ahead of time (at least in the United States).
I'm from North Carolina, home of the infamous bathroom bill. On the face of it, it is silly to get bent out of shape about who uses which bathroom. But further down the bill, which the conservatives hope you don't see is that sexual orientation, gender and gender identification are not protected classes and cities and municipalities are not allowed to enact laws to protect these classes from discrimination. No matter how you look at it, that's bad.
I have a bad opinion about all LGBT&Q people expecting special treatment or other attention strictly for their method preference of physically pleasuring themselves. How is that relevant on any front? How is that a front at all? Let's not let the special interests of any group slay those of the common good.
Biological blueprinting prescribes that heterosexuality is normal whereby it is the natural procreative relationship between the sexes. Same sex preference is the antithesis of that and therefore abnormal at the biological level. To allow the exhortation of normal to subordinate its logical make-up to abnormal defies the logic of relationships at first glance. How is that kicked to the curb rather than expressed as a truth? When truth becomes unfashionable in the face of some contrivance of political correctness?
Like religion, when the facts do not support the preference, the facts are thrown out. The chemistry of the LGBT&Q is not normal. Nor is it a focus for correction. It simply is what it is and there is no manner of human effort that can modify it. This is to say that no one is to blame for it. It is simply a malady and normal versus abnormal will always remain at the crux of it. That said, I do not understand the motivation to enslave a normal majority to its minority abnormal special interest preferences. There's wrong and then there's that.
Pitar
I have issue with all three paragraphs you wrote here
1 st LGBT&Q Comunity want equal treatment not special treatment.
2 nd Your truth is false. Sexuality (or sexual orientation) refers broadly to an individual’s physical and/or emotional attraction to a person of the same or opposite sex. Do you believe sex is only good for procreating? Come on. Is their no value to human connection through sexuality if an offspring doesn't occur?
3 rd A malady is a sickness. Homosexuality is not. Its something that has always been apart of human life. Id like the "normal" heterosexual couples to explain why they have a hard time staying married with divorce rates close to 50%. How are us straight people going to be enslaved by their "abnormal special interest preferences"?
Also,
Did you know Katy Perry kissed Miley Cyrus?!
Did it affect you? Should we make a law to prevent this from happening again?
The thing is; giving equal treatment to a minority who typically does not receive it, seems like special treatment to members of dominate groups (like myself, a Caucasian male). This is why we have to be dragged kicking and screaming to change (or we just die out, pining for the "good old days").
Nyarlarthotep
I'll drag you Caucasian males:)
Im pretty strong if I focus
I think South Park and Family Guy aren't funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WNrx2jq184
No >:(
Dammit! Now you made me watch Family Guy clips for an hour!
Great thread Secular!
I'm open to the possibility that all races may not be the intellectually identical. It seems that as humans spread to different climates they would have been met by different sets of challenges. This would require evolution in different directions. It would be miraculous for all of us to land in the same spot intellectually. We know and acknowledge physical differences between races so it's unlikely that it doesn't go deeper than that. I don't however see any merit in researching this because I only see it being used to negative means.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND, I'M SPEAKING ABOUT VARIETY AND NOT SUPREMACY.
PS-Data does support the possibility that grammar was not required for my ancestors to pass on their genetics-lol!!!
@JB G's C: "I'm open to the possibility that all races may not be the intellectually identical."
I'd have to disagree with you on this one, JB. I'd wager that children brought up in similar environments with similar educational opportunties and encouragement will have similar intellectual capabilities (allowing for individual differences). Our brains are very plastic and quickly adapt to different challenges and environments.
I think that any differences in the level and nature of intellectual performance across ethnic groups are explained by culture, education, history, nutrition, and opportunities. Some ethnic groups, such as the Jews and the Japanese, have a powerful cultural drive toward education. The average Japanese has amazing mental arithmetic skills and has to memorize over 2,000 different characters just to read a newspaper. The Polynesians were using star charts and maps (made of shells and sticks) to navigate across oceanic distances centuries before Columbus and were the first to settle in New Zealand, which is a very long way from absolutely everywhere. Both Africa and the Americas had great civilizations that were decimated by colonization, slavery and introduced diseases. American blacks were denied education for centuries and are only just starting to catch up. The Australian aborigines were smart enough to survive in Australian outback, which is a very challenging place, for millennia. White colonists disrupted their society, hunted them like animals, and introduced them to alcohol. Today they are in a sorry state and would show up right at the bottom of the bell curve. GIven the right environment and encouragement, I believe they'd be back on a par with everybody else in a couple of generations.
You make some great points Algebe. You definitely could be right on this. I certainly prefer your theory. It's a hell of a lot more palatable.
Thanks JB. There's a lot of interesting comments here. It's also good to see cool heads prevailing so far lol.
"I'm open to the possibility that all races may not be the intellectually identical. It seems that as humans spread to different climates they would have been met by different sets of challenges. This would require evolution in different directions."
That's really interesting. I disagree though. I think that different climates and regions are a big reason as to why differ physically, not so much mentally. The human brain is able to adapt rapidly. Then again, I'm not sure if there's a correlation of the percentage of grey brain matter with respect to race. If so.. you might be on to something. I'll have to look that up.
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