Have you had your liver function checked recently?

[DPF: As with most defenders of the status quo, you are full of ignorance. Many people do work on those days. The retail ban affects less than 10% of employees]

December 11th, 2009 at 9:22 am
The question of just why religious holidays are being forced on everyone in a supposed secular society thats supposed to uphold the seperation of Church and State remains unanswered….

I am an atheist, and I understand the issue far clearer than you. This “separation of church and state” is bullshit. It is a term lifted from the American system that does not apply in countries such as NZ where the head of state is also the head of the church of England. There is no separation there.

Now, you may say that doesn’t matter here as NZ is one of the world’s most secular nations, but it doesn’t change the constitutional facts of life?

I can put up with your bullshit, I can put up with your determination to force others to work 365 days a year so you can pursue your selfish shopping habits, I can put up with your hypocrisy, hell, I can even put up with you supporting something that you do not really understand.

But to accuse me of using violence to achieve my goals just shows that you have lost this argument and proves that you are an idiot of the highest order, to quote Dr Cullen, we won, you lost, eat that!

Are you afraid that these nasty bible bashers will ‘get you’?

Are you that mentally weak that you cannot say ‘thanks, but I am not interested’ when they knock on your door?”

Its when they whield political power and use it to enforce their doctrines on others I have a problem.History shows that when the Church can call on the gun of the State no-one is safe.

“I find it interesting that you (and DPF to a degree) are so passionate about this issue yet fail to see that your pursuit of this hard right ideology is actually going to force thousands of others to do something that they do not want to do.”

How so? No one is being literally forced to do anything under what DPF and I advocate.No worker is forced at gunpoint to work on anyday he doesn’t choose to.Remember that a limited number of choices of is not the same thing as a lack of freedom.Whats “hard right about allowing people to work it out themselves?Sounds like civilised common sense to me…Your position looks at the worker only without a thought for the employer and what he wants.

“But hey, just as long as you get what you want aye.”

At least what I want involves no force and threat against people wanting to make their own choices….you on the other hand are quite happy for violence to be used to force your wishes on others and to hell with what they want.

Are you afraid that these nasty bible bashers will ‘get you’?

Are you that mentally weak that you cannot say ‘thanks, but I am not interested’ when they knock on your door?

I find it interesting that you (and DPF to a degree) are so passionate about this issue yet fail to see that your pursuit of this hard right ideology is actually going to force thousands of others to do something that they do not want to do.

But hey, just as long as you get what you want aye.

You don’t get real respect by waving a gun in someones face Mike.If religion really wanted respect it would stop acting like a bunch of thugs trying to ram Jesus down the throats of the rset of us.Same for any non-religious group that wanted to violate the rights of the religious to do as they wish with their time and property.Just leave others alone…is that so hard for people?

Not just the wanker no godders who want to impose on us all their views and the Fundy Godders who feel the same but in a different way!

It’s about respect mon

Or how about we make it illegal to force someone to work on their religious holidays?
make it a really big fine $10,000 say or 3 months in jail.
that would show we honour each others beliefs..

or how about we make ALL religious holidays NON shopping days instead and make people work every Saturday, (that would of course include April 1st for atheists

I hope you will be true to your word and work Good Friday, Easter Sunday, ANZAC day and Xmas day.

On your other points I will always agree with you for the other 361.5 days of the year.”

I work on the days rostered to me by my employer….you know…the person I CHOOSE to seek employment with on conditions that I was well aware were part of the job before I took it.If I want a certain day off I apply for it but must expect that request to be declined as has occasionaly happened.But thats the nature of my job….if I don’t like that I can leave and go else where….which is all the protection I’or anyone deserves and need.As my current roster stands I will have the 24th to the 27th off but thats the luck of the draw…many other years I have had to work Christmas and did so without complaint….

Sorry Bruv but your flipflopping on these three odd days invalidates any principle you and I may agree on the rest of the year….its at the hard edge that principles matter and you have failed to front on this issue.

Pete George: “their right to liberty.

That is bollocks, no one has a right to liberty, we all have to restrict ourselves and accept restrictions to live in a semi civil society.”

There speaks an illiterate re rights and human nature.There is no conflict between ones right to liberty and a true civil society.As every human has the exact same natural rights then one is free to do whatever one wishes until it violates the rights of the next person.There is no such right as the “right” to use force to get your way.Genuine rights don’t conflict….Go here…learn something.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_man_rights

Kiki:”James think of these days as being days of freedom for those that work in retail. 3.5 days of liberty a year.

Also

freedom to starve is not freedom.”

Im talking of political freedom Kiki….meaning freedom from the use of force by other men…not freedom from reality and the law of caurse and effect that you are implying.No one is owed by others the means to sustain his existence….only the right to seek to attain those means by his own efforts.Freedom to stave …or to prosper IS freedom.

Your attempt above to equate those who seek individual liberty with a mass murdering collectivist totalitarian dictator is what makes you so often such an odious deceitful coward Mr. George.

getstaffed
All that is fine if the worker is under no compulsion to work or agree to get the job, But in reality as BB says, That is not the case.
I suggest that we close off shopping on Saturdays rather than Sundays or High days to avoid the supporting the religious fundies.
that way we can be supporting school sport, family time and parties!
that way we get 26 shopping free days and 26 days that we can properly show that we support families and community life.

Hell why not the slogan Never on a Saturday for all our T shirts

Of Course we should make it illegal to force someone to work on their birthday shouldn’t we?

Your “right to liberty” philosophy seems to be modelled on Pol Pot, but maybe a bit more extreme.

Speak for yourself Comrade. That you are so constantly intent on destroying other people’s right to liberty just might be the endeavour that sees you and your ilk swinging from lamp posts one day in the not too distant future. The tipping point grows ever nearer.

I agree that families should spend time together on the day they choose, but I don’t agree that “families should be forced to be families”. They should be families because they want to be.

This is just more big government socialism, and that self professed “right wingers” are saying it is a good thing is a demonstration of just how fundamentally crippled right wing thinking is in NZ.

No need for government interference and regulation.

Funny thing about this is the other day BB was arguing against religious Conservatives promoting regulations that were based on their religious values.

Here’s a case where they were doing just that, and in doing do, have allowed an outcome BB is applauding, but that I disagree with.

Makes one’s head spin.

getstaffed, Without wishing to sound rude it is too simplistic. I well remember when Saturday shopping was introduced, the bullshit line from the MP’s was ‘of course nobody would be forced to work on Saturday’.

The premise here is that whatever we did last time, it didn’t work. I partly agree here. So this means we either don’t make any changes ever again, or we find a better way. I’d like to think we’re smart enough find a better way to solve these sorts of problems so that everyone wins… rather than accepting a ‘winner creates looser’ outcome.

If a business that want to open and staff want to work then they should have that choice. Equally businesses that don’t want to open – or do but their staff elect to take the holiday – then they will close. Shopping malls can be directed to provide compatible lease terms – and most lease agreements already reference relevant legislation with catchalls for newly introduced legislation.

So why does this have to be so polarised? The risk of just stonewalling is that if/when it does eventually get through it will be sub-optimal and passed contentiously, rather than by arrangement that’s acceptable to everyone and readily agreed by everyone (save for some of my more stoic Christian friends)