I happened to find Pinocchio performing what appeared to be anal sex on Tinkerbell with his nose absolutely charming.

That's bullshit, and you know it. You simply can't argue the irrefutable fact that the US was not set up as a Christian country. Here are some more sources, including an actual scan of the paper that the treaty was written on:

http://nobeliefs.com/document.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html (mid-way down the page).

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ bar1796t.asp#art11

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

"...but we also need to realize what this nation was founded on... GOD. One nation under God~!"

No it wasn't. Do you know what Article 11 of the The Treaty of Tripoli is? It was a declaration of peace between The United States and the Tripoli of Barbary, signed in 1796 (only 20 years after the Declaration of Independence), which stated:

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." [source]

"Name one Republican ruled state that is in trouble there is none."

One of the states the mentioned literally four words back, California, has a Republican governor, as does Minnisota.

"This is ONLY for those who oppose homosexuality, homophobics, those who oppose homosexuality within their family."

I oppose homophobia, so I guess I'm in, right? If, as I beleive it is, that is actually a mistake on your part, then why even bother? What's the point of starting a debate, and only allowing people who agree with your view to post?

Anyway, I have absolutely no worry that a child of mine will be gay. Their sexuality will be absolutely none of my business. As I don't adhere to a religious foundation that teaches homosexuality to be wrong or immoral, I can find absolutely no reason to feel any differently about homosexuals than straight people. There's nothing wrong with being homosexual, and therefore I don't worry about my child being so.

"There was a movie in the footsteps of yeti or something of that sort, though i don't know the exact name! It argues that humans were first yetis and that they all were just parting from that place, and they lost hair due to heat and became men! Isn't that suckingly wierd?"

Bad film plots do not count as scientific theories.

"Firstly - Arranged marriages are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to FORCED MARRIAGES."

No they're not. An arranged marriage is essentially a third party selecting your future partner and a person who you have to spend your entire life with. If the third part is selecting, and the selection of that third party holds regardless of the wishes of those being engaged into marriage, that is the very definition of a forced marriage. I'm sure it would be great for yourself, being male; having a wife selected for you who can, as you believe a women's job should be, be great in the kitchen.

It's not so great for the wife though, being arranged without any choice, in to a loveless and forced marriage of convenience. Women are not commodities. Marriage should be a commitment between two people based on a foundation of love and trust.

Although I don't want to actually get involved in the debate as a whole, I did just have one point that I wanted to make.

"Domesticated cats are just as artificially selected as dogs are. You don't know what you're talking about."

It is actually now thought that "domesticated" cats are the product of natural selection in response to Human agriculture, rather than direct artificial selection for favourable characteristics. So in a way, the evolutionary path to domestication does differ between dogs and cats.

Firstly we must establish that justice is indeed mutable when concerning law within a democratic political system before we discuss measures of righteousness or solutions for dealing with a lack of such.

The majority of western justice systems include measures to amend the law through either the courts or government (in some cases, both). In fact, nearly every democratic country has measures for law addition or amendment by the government. Whilst democracy itself is purely a system of government rather than a statute for how justice is to be determined or whether it be by the elected government, the political theory behind democracy clearly includes the principle that all citizens are equal before the law. Whilst not implicitly stated, it is implied within the very values of democracy that a democratic government should have the power to amend the justice system to better reflect the principle of all citizens being equal before the law.

So, we assume for the remainder of this argument that the justice system is intimately entangled with the principle of a democratic governance system, and therefore measures of a democracy's "righteousness" can theoretically be performed on the quality of the justice system. This measure, as laid out in the description for this debate, should be discretely measurable.

What is far harder to assert within the context of this debate is whether a measure of the righteousness of a democracy in regards to its justice system is even possible, and if so, whether this should affect the ability to amend the law. Scientific measurability is extremely difficult to perform on something that is firmly routed in concept rather than physicality. How exactly does one measure righteousness, and how does one apply that inexact measurement to something as complex as an entire nation's justice system?

Measures of the ability of a justice system are usually performed on conviction rates, or some other measure of effectiveness of conviction or reduction of criminality. However, the current amount of offenders currently being processed (either in prison or awaiting a trial, etc) within the justice system is simply a measure of the effectiveness of the implementation of the laws in place and the effectiveness of enforcing those laws. This is evidently no measure of how right (morally or otherwise) those laws are, or how right the enforcement of those laws are. How do we even begin to discretely quantify a measure of righteousness, and even if we jump that hurdle, how do we apply it to laws? The simple answer, and the one posited at the beginning of this debate, is that we are unable to effectively measure (in any scientific manner, at least) how righteous a law or the enforcement of said law is.

However, I disagree entirely with the solution suggested. I would even go so far as to say that a lack of any scientific measure of the righteousness of justice would in fact point to a solution that specifies that justice must be mutable.

If we ever found an effective measure of righteousness, then justice would be eternal. We would create our laws, create measures to enforce those laws, set up a fair justice system and then effectively end any discussion of what is and isn't fair and just. This assumes an absolute morality though. This would be the only situation where we could have an immutable justice system, because there would never be a need to modify it.

Morals and society change. What would be classed as both morally and legally acceptable even a hundred years ago may now be deemed wrong and illegal. Is this because society was moulded by changes in justice, or was justice moulded by changes in society? (This is most likely a subject best kept to another debate, as it is extremely wide ranging). I suggest that society is always at the forefront when it comes to either justice or morality.

The morals of society drive and mould justice, and this is heavily reflected in the way that the current democratic systems work. Actual governing is carried out by the people governed or the power to do so is granted by them. Members of society choose to elect leaders who, in turn, reflect the wishes of the people within the law. Society picks it government, and its government amends the laws based on the will of the people. (Again, this is something that can be left to another debate: is democracy really the will of the people, or a charade of such?).

If we stick purely to the theoretical aspects of democratic government, it should hold that justice is entirely mutable, and, in fact, a mutable justice system (one with an effective measurement of its righteousness other than by reflecting the wishes of the people) is one of the indicators of a democratic government.

"I still stand by my point that NO WAR is justified."

So declaring war with Germany in 1939 wasn't justified?