billsfan89

Here is a few links to Shapiro's history on the issue. He never makes it about the government shouldn't be involved in marriage. He thinks (or at least thought) at the time that gay marriage would destroy heterosexual marriage. There is another interview on Youtube where he states he used to be outright against it on a legal level and I can't find it but I will search at another time and edit it in. https://www.creators.com/read/ben-shapiro/02/07/the-homosexual-assault-on-traditional-marriagehttps://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ben_shapiro_636974?src=t_gay_marriageWhile you do have the freedom to practice your religion and certain protections under the law to do so, your religion is not a blanket protection to do whatever you want. You can claim it is a religious belief to not pay overtime but you still have to pay overtime. Yes, that is an extreme and rather stupid example but I think you get what I am going for your religious belief is not some blanket protection.As to gay marriage being an issue of control I simply don't see it that way. I see it more as a group of historically very marginalized people wanting the same rights and protections afforded to them as anyone else. If a church is forced to marry a gay couple I will be the first person to cry that is ***** up and a violation of that organization's rights (Church's are not technically public institutions as you have to become a member of a parish so they can discriminate.)Bakers and other public services not being able to hide behind their religion to discriminate against a same-sex couple I do not get as being some egregious violation. If your religion was against non-Christian marriages would it be OK to not serve non-Chrisitan couples? Either all discrimination is OK or none of it is in my mind. The legal standing is that if you are a public institution you must be willing to serve the public and not discriminate based off of immutable qualities (Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation.) Sexual Orientation is a protected class (link below) so I do not see the difference between a baker refusing a cake for a black person, a Muslim, or a gay person. https://www.upcounsel.com/is-sexual-orientation-a-protected-class The context of the public and the entire public is that you can't choose to only serve all white people. If you are a business open to the public then you can't discriminate based off of immutable qualities. Sexual orientation is a protected class. I see no difference as to someone claiming a custom cake made for a gay wedding violates their religious beliefs and someone claiming a custom cake for an interracial wedding violates their religious beliefs. https://www.upcounsel.com/is-sexual-orientation-a-protected-classEven in the case of the Colorado Bakery, the court agreed that you couldn't discriminate against gay couples due to religious beliefs they won the case in a non-prescident setting case because of the way the state agency acted towards the bakery and not based off the principle of it being a custom cake.https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado-gay-marriage-cake-supreme-court/index.html"The court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility toward the baker based on his religious beliefs."

A bakery that serves anyone off the street who has the money to pay for their services by definition serves the public. Unless you are a business that has membership requirements to obtain a service then legally speaking you serve the public and you can't discriminate based off of immutable characteristics (Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, things people can't change about themselves in any reasonable fashion.) Yes you are free as a public institution to refuse service to anyone but legally speaking you can't base that refusal on immutable characteristics.

I think the whole argument of civil unions OK but just don't call it marriage is basically advocating for a separate but equal system which philosophically I think states that there is something wrong with a homosexual marriage that isn't equal to that of a relationship with a man and a woman in a legal sense. If a government is truly secular and there is no good non-religious argument against issuing marriage licenses to same-sex adults then I fail to see why you can deny people the same legal standing. I also fail to see what the slippery slope argument is in gay marriage. If a church is forced to marry a same-sex couple I will be the first person to say that is too far and a violation of that churches freedom of association and religion. But from what I can tell that is simply not happening in any even remotely significant manner. But bakeries that serve the entire public being forced to bake a cake or cater a same-sex wedding is treating gay couples with basic protections under the law. If you serve the public you have to serve the entire public. Yes, you can deny service to anyone but you can't do so based off of immutable characteristics.

My position is backed by their shift in opinion serving a pragmatic purpose coinciding with convenient timing. It also is backed by their general lack of consistent principles and their partisan nature. I can't prove anyone is lying about what their opinion is anymore than you can confirm they are telling the truth. I gave you my reasons for why I think their shift in opinion is an insincere way to be both for and against something at the same time so as not to piss off two opposing audiences. If you disagree with those reasons and think my assessment is motivated by my own confirmation bias/general disdain for them, then I honestly can't dissuade you. I look at the circumstances that their shift to a libertarian position took them to and I think that their shift was done more so as a means to an end as opposed to a genuine change of heart. I don't honestly think Sean Hannity and Shaprio thinks the government shouldn't have issued them a marriage license. Is it possible that's the case? Of course., but I am just giving my opinion on the matter and how it appears to me.

Shapiro and Hannity were against the state sanctioning gay marriage for many years before shifting to a libertarian position on the issue to avoid sticking to an increasingly unpopular position. They were not holding a personal position (to which anyone is certainly entitled to) they were holding a policy position that would impact many people's lives. The criticism I have with them on this is that they didn't shift their stated position because of a legitimate intellectual revolution but rather to preserve their popularity. To me you certainly are entitled to believe and interpret your religion how you want to. However when it comes to advocating for public policy that everyone has to follow your religion is not evidence to support changes to public policy esp in a country that has a definitive separation of church and state as one of its founding principles. Now if there are non-religious moral (as in moral arguments that go beyond this is what the bible or my religious texts say) and legal arguments that exist outside of religious texts then that is a different story. Also as a side note I think the "Take it to the States" mantra is also a bit disingenuous of an argument. For some issues I think it makes sense so this is not a blanket argument. But I think that saying that people "Can Vote With Their Feet" makes the proposition that it is easy for people to up root their lives to go to other states that have policies they agree with. It's not always a realistic proposition for someone to leave their job, family, friends, and everything they know behind just to go a state that has a policy or policies they agree with. Can I saw for sure that they are 100% liars? No, it's almost impossible to prove that. But in my opinion, their shift in position coinciding with the unpopularity of their original position makes the timing of their change in beliefs look more like a business decision than an actual intellectual change.Toss in the fact that the position they took was one that seems to be designed to protect themselves from pissing off two audiences in a very calculated manner and I think there is very legitimate grounds to be very suspicious of their new position.I think guys like John Stossell or Penn Gillette have the sincere belief that the government shouldn't be involved in marriage and they have held that belief for a long time and it is in line with their overall philosophy. Nancy Grace is an awful human being. Rachel Maddow is a partisan left wing hack. Hillary Clinton is a scumbag who lost due to arrogance and here generally being a bad person. Bernie Sanders is a guy with good intentions and genuinely trying to represent working people, I didn't agree with all of his policies but he was the best of all the flawed choices out there.

Obama and Hillary were full of ***** too, shifting an opinion to adjust to changes in popularity. Just because I criticize right wing hacks like Shapiro doesn't mean there aren't plenty of hacks on the left.

I don't know too much about Tomi in general (Although she is definitely easy on the eyes) but from what I have seen from her I don't think she is really sincere about most of her beliefs (I think she saw an emerging right-wing alternative market and latched onto it.) I also don't see any interesting ideas coming from her (granted my exposure to her is limited) seems mostly like she caught fire because she was a passionate hot girl spouting off fairly typical right-wing talking points. The only interesting thing I ever saw her do was come out as pro-choice which got set her career in that space back.

I am against the pivot because I don't sincerely believe that this is a change of belief amongst most conservative pundits. It's a calculated move to appeal to the most people and not a legitimate critique of the government's involvement in marriage. Guys like Hannity and Shapiro spent many years being outright against gay marriage and then the moment it became a 50/50 issue among conservatives and an unpopular position amongst the general public they suddenly shifted to a calculated position that allowed them to straddle both sides. If this was a pivot that didn't coincide with the shifting of public opinion I would be more inclined to think it was an intellectually based change of opinion instead of a PR move. The use of the term "Libertarian Cheat" is the context of calling their move to a libertarian position a cheat to appeal to a mass audience as opposed to a sincere intellectual decision.

The context of the "Old Libertarian Cheat" is that the belief is a soft way for conservatives to be against gay marriage without looking like they are against gay people/gay rights. That's not to say that there aren't sincere libertarians who would just abolish marriage as a government institution. There are a lot of libertarians who have held that belief for decades. Those people aren't cheating or doing something inconsistent with their principles. However, in the case of Shapiro and a lot of other conservatives, in the past 4-5 years, they have only pivoted to that Libertarian position because it is wildly unpopular to be outright against gay marriage. But there are enough conservatives still holding onto old beliefs where you can't come out and be for gay marriage either. The whole I am against the government being involved in marriage thing is now being used as a mostly soft middle ground to allow a lot of conservative pundits to straddle a middle line among an older more traditional audience and a new less socially conservative audience. It comes across to me as a cheat because it is just a soft way to be against something. If you have an unpopular opinion stand by it, to go to a more vague position that you probably don't believe just to save face with both audiences is a cowardly move.

Except he doesn't say gay marriage should be allowed under the law. He does the old libertarian cheat that "The government should stay out of marriage" and that's a recently held belief as he was outright against gay marriage up until recently when that became such an unpopular belief that he had to pivot to the "neutral" position. Shapiro also fears that public school will teach children tolerance of gay couples that are married. Once again preaching his religious feelings over the laws of the land (In a country where gay marriage is legal why would a public institution teach students otherwise.) I just don't see this guy as providing any value to public discourse other than being a new generations Sean Hannity. I am not against conservative pundits at all, but rather why is this guy held up as some intellectual when he doesn't really offer anything new? Is anything else I said about Shaprio inaccurate in your opinion?

Ben Shapiro is a partisan hack. Shapiro's big mantra is "Facts over feelings" yet he constantly wants to put his religious feelings and beliefs into laws that impact everyone in society. Shapiro is just a new generations Sean Hannity consistently spouting right wing talking points and going after soft targets overwhelming people he knows are underinformed with sophistry and straw man arguments. How can you fashion yourself an intellectual if your best intellectual feat is making uninformed college kids look uninformed? Shapiro also has no consistent principles. He will routinely chastise the left wing for calling Trump and his supporters Nazi's and fascists. However, he would routinely make those comparisons to people within the Obama administration and others he deemed to be on the left. He even as recently as 2017 called the organizers of the Women's march Nazi's for ***** they did to Taylor Swift. That's not to say that Shapiro is wrong in this clip but rather that I just ***** hate this guy in general.

I always see Star compared to guys like Snacks Harrison and other big run stuffers who make right around the same amount of money as Star. I just don't see Star as having the same impact as those guys. Don't get me wrong Star is a good active defensive tackle who holds some center of gravity. But Snacks Harrison is an immovable object in the center of the defense. Snacks despite grading out as an average interior pass rusher is currently graded as the number 7 DT in metrics that greatly favor interior pass rushers. Now that's not to say that PFF and Football Outsiders grades are the be all end all. However for the type of contract, Star holds I think you want one of the top rush interior defenders in the league who can collapse the pocket somewhat. Star is a good interior run defender for sure but he is only playing on early downs and he isn't quite dominant at that role. Once again that's not to say that Star's role doesn't have value and that he isn't good at what he does. But rather that the type of role Star does (Interior run stuffer) isn't highly valued and for the contract Star has he should be an elite type of player. I really wanted Star going into free agency too, I thought 8 million aav would get it done and be a modest overpay (which you have to do in free agency.) However what the team gave Star was a significant overpay.

At the very least they should have picked up Derek Anderson the moment they traded AJ.

Star does his role well, my main issue is the fact that he is just massively overpaid for a run down defensive tackle. Dude will be on the cap for over 11 million next season.

Gordon hasn't light it up for the Pats just yet, don't get me wrong he has been solid the past two weeks but he has yet to go out and be a major factor in the game. If Gordon is anywhere close to what he was at his best for that Pats team then look out because they are going to be super scary. Gordon at a high level is a legit number 1 receiver, Gronk is the second best tight end in the game, Edleman is a legit slot receiver, White out of the backfield is a very good pass catching back, Michel is looking very good as an early down back between the tackles, while Hogan and Paterson are nice complementary players. Now if Gordon gets hurt/suspended or just never becomes close to what he was then the offense comes down to Earth a bit as they don't have that one commanding reviving threat but they still probably are a top offense in the league.

I actually wouldn't hate the move to trade for Fitz, A 6th rounder for Fitz would massively improve the QB situation for the rest of the season.

I don't know if Allen will pan out but I honestly don't know what people expected Allen to look like 5 starts into his rookie year playing with a very very subpar supporting cast. Also the defense playing lights out makes Allen have to play a more conservative game plan. Overall Allen looks like a raw rookie with a high ceiling he may or may not be able to tap into. His performance is what should be expected.

I do think Mahomes will have a period where he struggles (Defenses will adjust to him, he still is a young fairly inexperienced starter, some regression is likely) but the Chiefs will certainly make the playoffs (Likely with a bye week) unless there are catastrophic injuries.

If Kyle retries at the end of the season (Which I think he will) Phillips becomes a bigger priority to resign. Phillips through 2 games has brought a lot of energy and pressure to the defense. I think the Bills price they can afford Phillips at is certainly much higher if Kyle doesn't come back for one more year. Granted if Kyle comes back then I think you still want Phillips back but maybe your price point is lowered a little big as you would have 3 decent to good players on the roster at DT and you need to spend on the offensive side of the ball.

If Lorax continues his strong play I think the Bills have to bring him back as long as his demands are relatively in line with his production. Lorax is a versatile player who can be moved all around the front 7 and is a key pass rusher pretty much all over the defense. Add in his veteran presence and I think he would be a considerable loss for the defense.

I think Kyle is calling it after this season but if he wants to come back for one more year the team would certainly welcome him back on a similarly priced deal. I also think Lorax will be back on a modest deal as his versatility and intangibles are invaluable to the team. Those two veteran leaders I am certain will be back. As far as the rest I think the only one I think that might get priced out of the Bills is Jordan Phillips. If Phillips strong play continues throughout the year than I think he will want to test the market and might get an offer that makes him too expensive. The Bills don't have to worry about anyone but Phillips getting a huge offer in my opinion. While I would love to keep Phillips because he seems to be a monster up the middle who brings good energy to the team there are costs you have to cut. Although if Kyle retires the amount you can spend on Phillips has to go up.

We will see just how much cap space and draft picks they invest into the offensive side of the ball now that they have pretty much all or most of the pieces in place on the defensive side of the ball. I would hope they use all 3 picks in the first three rounds on the offensive side of the ball. I would also hope that they sign at least 3-4 starting caliber players on the offensive side of the ball in free agency (Particularly 1-2 players that can catch a pass and 2 interior OL players.) The offense needs at least 6 new starters if not more and the regime has no need to spend major money or early round draft resources into securing the defense (The depth needs can be filled out in the mid rounds and they can sign 1-2 players with cap space if the right players come at the right price, but the defense in 2019 does not need a major infusion of talent.) I am not sure how confident I can be in this regimes ability to sign or draft offensive talent mainly because they haven't really had the cap space to sign any offensive free agent over 3 million aav besides AJ who they shipped out (idiotically.) Their only major draft choices on offense (Besides Allen) are Dion Dawkins (who looks to be a pretty good pick) and Zay Jones (Who got off to a rough start to his career but is showing signs of life now.) There just really hasn't been much to go off of to see if they can acquire talent on the offensive side of the football.

Allen's ability to read a defense and work out of the pocket is not very good at the moment. That was the other big non accuracy related issue Allen had coming out of college. Although to be fair to Allen I don't know how much of his current level of play is related to scheme/coaching, lack of reviving talent, subpar O-line play, or his own short comings. It's probably a mix of all factors combined. But once again Raw rookie looks Raw. It's been 5 starts in this baptism by fire, he is 2-3 as a starter and has only had one game (the Vikings game) where he looked really good. The rest of the games Allen has looked poor and like a player that is going to need a lot of development. Overall I am a bit disappointed in the way that McBeane and this organization have handled the QB position and the offense in general. I get trading Tyrod on the last year of his deal for a solid but unspectacular return, I understand the cap situation and the trade up for talent made compromising parts of this roster a reality necessary to complete a more long term build, but I can't understand how this regime has set up it's biggest investment (Allen) up for failure. Even the Daboll coaching decision might not be the worst decision (Although I certainly did not understand the hire) but how can this team have it's veteran starter behind you highly invested rookie QB be Nathan Peterman? How did they get fooled by him twice, how did they not learn that being good in the pre-season is not indicative of future success especially when the guy who is good in the pre-season has looked like hot garbage in the regular season the previous year. How could you trade AJ McCaron (a QB who probably is nothing more than a high end backup but certainly serviceable) when your only other option in front of a rookie QB is Nathan !@#$ing Peterman. This regimes obsession with him has to be one of the worst decisions they have ever made.

If Allen's injury won't be made worse by basic playing motions and he is able to Allen should play. If Allen is unable to go, Anderson has had over a week to study the playbook and will have a full week to practice and get a semblance of the playbook. I don't have high expectations for Anderson if he is called upon but we know Peterman can't get the job done. Why would Allen be losing the team anyway? The team is 2-3 with him as a starter and in the last game he lost it was Peterman who blew the game. Allen has made big plays and the defense and offense has to feel he gives them the best chance to win.

Allen's struggles are justifiable (In a sense that he should be expected to struggle if put in this position.) If the Bills kept AJ or Tyrod and they were competent but got hurt and Allen was forced in and he looked like this I wouldn't think Allen is a bust or has no future. Allen was a raw prospect coming out and is surrounded by some lackluster talent. Its understandable that Allen would perform this way. What isn't understandable is why this coaching staff got fooled by Nathan Peterman not once but twice. What isn't defend-able is why they took until week 5 to sign a veteran backup when by week 2 it was clear that Peterman might not be good enough to start in the CFL. This coaching staff has an absurd loyalty to Peterman whose greatest accomplishment is the dude looked good in pre-season.