Have random searches or racial profiling stopped any plots? I wasn't able to find any examples, but I'm not the best at searches. I'm curious.

Does a base in Germany cost more than a base in the US?

Is there a word for libel in picture form?

I don't understand why this makes people mad. Since when do non-Muslims take cartoons seriously?

The efficaciousness of a democracy can be judged by wealth distribution? How can one read that as anything but communism?

It doesn't surprise me that when we don't take as much of their money rich people would make more money, and if you let them give more to their kids they'll have an easier time making money too.

Yeah? I thought a mortgage was a contract with a fixed schedule of payments, unchangeable by either side without agreement, so even the most evil of lenders can't take your house until you miss a payment. New loans might be harder to get, but even that is not necessarily a purely bad thing.

I can't name a non-state terrorism fighting organization of any religion and there are several Islamic states providing material support to the US's anti-terrorism efforts.

As to the first I'd be interested in how often that death sentence is carried out. Just because it's written doesn't make it true. I'm pretty sure my local church hasn't put any witches to death, but I'd bet someone here could cite where they're called to.

I get responsibility is a necessary ingredient for a responsible person, but I would say a good faith parent should have control of when and how those responsibilities are added.

Perhaps age is not the best method for dividing the self responsible from the dependent, but I can't think of any I like much better.

I'd bet the US can beat 10billion if we get to include private investment, but good going Portugal, 45% in 2 years is amazing.

I'm a little gray on teenagers as children, but if one does think of it that way (you need a judge's order here for the state to count it the other way) one cannot enter into binding contracts with a child so I wouldn't extend privilege to them.

I get that helping the patient is what doctoring is all about, but a child cannot consent to treatment, and I'm a little uncomfortable giving a doctor a free hand.

Do you know where that factoid came from? I'm curious about his money, and I've heard all sorts of stuff both ways, but nothing I'd give much weight to.

You are mixing issues. These backwoods polygamists have different standards for age of consent and a different way of looking at consent for marriage, but I wouldn't condemn the venue because they use it badly. These closed and regimented communes where all the young women are married young is not a clear indication of effects on a larger and less controlled system like a city or state, where there are presumably many people looking to be married, and some stay unmarried. I do not think these problems are inherent in polygamy as much as part of the culture of the groups that practice polygamy.

My question is not a question of whether polygamy is good or bad, it's whether it should be recognized, protected, and enforced by the state.

I've never heard of an objective study on the effects of polygamy on children. And I'd really call effects on children a secondary, probably even a separate issue, drug addicts and pedophiles can marry and single parents raise children all the time. If one was to defend children at the expense of their parents choice of relationships I'd start somewhere sensible.

Marriage. I think it kinda harsh to say no one should ever be confused about the difference between the decree of a priest, and the paper he signs confirming that decree.

Where does the public money go if not to the party it was earmarked for?

I curious about the unilateral decision to abandon a less than ideal but regulated system for ad hoc. I'd like some help understanding how this is anything but a move to grab all the money people want to throw at him.

You have a very good point, but I think it's confusing using one word for more than one thing. My interest is entirely in the government status rather than the religious one.

What I'm leaning towards is if the government institution of marriage has limits and restrictions why is it unallowable for those limits to be at any particular place. I don't own a farm by USDA's standards so I don't collect a farm subsidy.