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(12-18-2019, 11:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-17-2019, 06:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If you dislike minority preferences, then stick to small business and avoid the public sector and giant enterprises under pressure for a head count.
The Republican Party abandoned the center-Right when it morphed into the TEA Party.
I dislike/despise most everything that the Democratic party represents and claims that it stands for today. Like I've said, I think your leaders will be content with living off the smaller portions of the country that they have damn near complete control over these days. I mean, they've got a pretty good gig going for themselves right now. So, which would you prefer, living out the rest of your life with people who are able recognize your rights whether you appreciate them all or not and recognize your right to exist whether you appreciate that or not and willing to defend you and all of your rights whether you appreciate them or not. The nasty Democrat's don't seem to care as much about the Democratic people who live else where these days. Hint, you don't know who the Republicans are in your area because you don't ever see the Republicans in your area because the Republicans live outside of your area and prefer to stay out of Democratic politics and the Democratic system of preference all together. It's going to be tough for the Democratic population who are still into them and still clinging to a system that allows preference. Right now, there is a Republican population that Democrats have always had issues with and a much larger and much more powerful American population that the Democrats are now having issues and finding itself at odds with too.
Ha ha. But the only "right" you guys care about, and complain about us Democrats and progressive ignoring, is the "right" of nutcases to possess the means to blow people away with semi-auto weapons. All the other rights you guys are perfectly content to throw away as long as you can have your demagogues in power.
There are plenty of Republicans around in our areas, as another poster here pointed out. We can't entirely avoid contact with them.
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(12-19-2019, 11:56 AM)David Horn Wrote: (12-18-2019, 09:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Article I vote
■ Democrats: 229 yes, 2 no, 1 present
■ Republicans: 0 yes, 195 no
■ Independents: 1 yes
Article II vote
■ Democrats: 228 yes, 3 no, 1 present
■ Republicans: 0 yes, 195 no
■ Independents: 1 yes
Aside from telling you that the one Independent is a former Republican, libertarian Justin Amash... the numbers need no embellishment on my part. I shall spare you.
Tulsi Gabbard as the sole Present vote is the really weird one. I read her excuse, and it made no sense at all.
She is politically crazy.
I can't understand how House Republicans can believe that the President is so essential that he be unaccountable. Maybe our system promotes rigidity in elected officials that only elections can undo. Flexibility and discretion used to be commonplace virtues that mitigated partisanship. Maybe we will end up with saner times in which flexibility and discretion become criteria for electing our pols... after the Crisis is over.
I would like to believe that Democrats would impeach one of their own if that President had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" if that President did not seek wise counsel on a matter of moral gravity.
Remember: every member of the House is up for re-election in November.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(12-19-2019, 12:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-18-2019, 11:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-17-2019, 06:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If you dislike minority preferences, then stick to small business and avoid the public sector and giant enterprises under pressure for a head count.
The Republican Party abandoned the center-Right when it morphed into the TEA Party.
I dislike/despise most everything that the Democratic party represents and claims that it stands for today. Like I've said, I think your leaders will be content with living off the smaller portions of the country that they have damn near complete control over these days. I mean, they've got a pretty good gig going for themselves right now. So, which would you prefer, living out the rest of your life with people who are able recognize your rights whether you appreciate them all or not and recognize your right to exist whether you appreciate that or not and willing to defend you and all of your rights whether you appreciate them or not. The nasty Democrat's don't seem to care as much about the Democratic people who live else where these days. Hint, you don't know who the Republicans are in your area because you don't ever see the Republicans in your area because the Republicans live outside of your area and prefer to stay out of Democratic politics and the Democratic system of preference all together. It's going to be tough for the Democratic population who are still into them and still clinging to a system that allows preference. Right now, there is a Republican population that Democrats have always had issues with and a much larger and much more powerful American population that the Democrats are now having issues and finding itself at odds with too.
Ha ha. But the only "right" you guys care about, and complain about us Democrats and progressive ignoring, is the "right" of nutcases to possess the means to blow people away with semi-auto weapons. All the other rights you guys are perfectly content to throw away as long as you can have your demagogues in power.
There are plenty of Republicans around in our areas, as another poster here pointed out. We can't entirely avoid contact with them.
Well, that's what you think we only care about these days even though we actually care about all of them and no intentions of giving them up or letting go of them or trading them for a liberal trinket or a liberal promise of some sort. Dude, I don't care if you're foolish, naive, biassed, ignorant, cheap, petty, devious and prefer living in a state of denial and continue clinging to hope that the world will change and become a world that's better for you and more favorable to you and more accommodating when it comes to serving your interests as well.
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(12-19-2019, 01:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: She is politically crazy.
I can't understand how House Republicans can believe that the President is so essential that he be unaccountable. Maybe our system promotes rigidity in elected officials that only elections can undo. Flexibility and discretion used to be commonplace virtues that mitigated partisanship. Maybe we will end up with saner times in which flexibility and discretion become criteria for electing our pols... after the Crisis is over.
I would like to believe that Democrats would impeach one of their own if that President had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" if that President did not seek wise counsel on a matter of moral gravity.
Remember: every member of the House is up for re-election in November.
Did the Democrats impeach Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice? Accountable for what? Having the audacity to make a meager suggestion to a foreign leader about reopening an investigation into a corruption scandal involving a Ukrainian company that Joe Biden's son was a board member of at the time. Yes, I know that it's rear view mirror stuff and rear view mirror or hindsight doesn't matter matter much to idiots who are all about today and living in the moment. You know, overly loving/ protecting fathers who have sons/daughters with a history of doing stupid shit and getting themselves in trouble have a tendency of getting themselves involved and doing stupid shit to help them get financially set up for the rest of their life without them in it and help protect and help cover up the involvement and activities of their crooked/wayward son. Gee, you seem more interested in Trump than Biden.
As far as Tulsi, she's not fake, she's not timid, she's not dumb, she's street smart and she's not lacking in integrity either. Like I said, she's the best one I've seen so far and she better than any of the worthless higher ranking Democratic congress critters that I've seen lately as well. Yes, there is an election next year and it's pretty clear to me that she wants to remain in office.
I don't know how the incumbent Democrat representing our district is going to remain in office considering the promises that they she broke and considering the type of college educated suburban women that she duped to get elected. You see, she wasn't supposed be like them or do what was expected of her by them either. She's done. Oh well, she'll just have to go back to the private sector and make more money like she did before.
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(12-19-2019, 12:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-18-2019, 01:50 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-17-2019, 12:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, and that's the problem with Americans on the Right speaking about "American rights." They are not speaking of a "right" to which anyone should give any respect.
Yes, that's a problem that Liberals have with every American on the Right these days. I think you should pay more attention to your crystal ball and even cling to your personal preference's as you often do even if it ends in your own demise. I mean, that is what left wing radicals have been taught to do right?
Well, I'm cool with that.
I don't think the Left reads crystal balls any more often than the Right does. But I stand on my statement that the Right's defense of the constitution consists of little more than the defense of the "right" of terrorists and nut cases to blow hundreds of innocent people away with semi-auto military weapons that have no place in a civilized civilian society. Anyone who defends this "right" is lost in barbarism, at least on this issue if not others.
And these days, those who oppose this "right" are not necessarily confined to those on the "Left." And indeed, support for our point of view is growing.
As for my crystal ball, it does imply the possibility that crazy portions of the Right (which may be sizable) may stage a rebellion if gun control is strengthened, in the mid 2020s probably. So, we'll watch some of you on the front lines get slaughtered by the state, probably. I don't ignore that you guys exist. Some of my fellow crystal and star readers and more sanguine and don't allow for this possibility.
But eventually, I don't know how far into the future exactly, I do predict civilization will prevail, and this meaningless scourge will end. I hope we can end the other scourges you guys inflict upon us, such as perennial virtual poverty and inequality, attacks on democracy, and destruction of our climate and environment. We might not have as long a time span available for those other issues to be resolved in our favor. If they are not, then America declines and fades away as a shadow of its former self, and the world suffers along with us.
Your crystal ball doesn't tell you that, your crystal ball says there's going to be turbulent/troublesome years during the mid 2020's. I'll be about 60 years old and I should still be in pretty shape for my age and I expect to be a legal gun owner who owns an AR-15 too. Gee, we have a common belief and even reached a consensus. Now, the mid 2020's puts us at about four score and seven right.
As far as your statement, if I believed that every gun owner was a bad person, I would completely agree with your statement. If I believed that every person who owns an assault rifle was a bad person, I would completely agree with it. If I believed that every legal purchaser of a firearm was a criminal or cold blooded murderer and so forth, I would completely agree with it as well. How many Democratic gun owners know a fellow gun owner who used their gun to slaughter innocent children and how many of them would use their gun to defend innocent children? You better figure a way open up that mind of yours because it's going to need some new ideas after it goes through the trauma of losing the house.
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(12-19-2019, 08:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-19-2019, 01:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: She is politically crazy.
I can't understand how House Republicans can believe that the President is so essential that he be unaccountable. Maybe our system promotes rigidity in elected officials that only elections can undo. Flexibility and discretion used to be commonplace virtues that mitigated partisanship. Maybe we will end up with saner times in which flexibility and discretion become criteria for electing our pols... after the Crisis is over.
I would like to believe that Democrats would impeach one of their own if that President had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" if that President did not seek wise counsel on a matter of moral gravity.
Remember: every member of the House is up for re-election in November.
Did the Democrats impeach Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice? Accountable for what? Having the audacity to make a meager suggestion to a foreign leader about reopening an investigation into a corruption scandal involving a Ukrainian company that Joe Biden's son was a board member of at the time. Yes, I know that it's rear view mirror stuff and rear view mirror or hindsight doesn't matter matter much to idiots who are all about today and living in the moment. You know, overly loving/ protecting fathers who have sons/daughters with a history of doing stupid shit and getting themselves in trouble have a tendency of getting themselves involved and doing stupid shit to help them get financially set up for the rest of their life without them in it and help protect and help cover up the involvement and activities of their crooked/wayward son. Gee, you seem more interested in Trump than Biden.
I would guess that Democrats believed that the investigation centering on consensual sex (Bill Clinton) was itself wrong, so perjury about it was moot. Had it been about such blatant misconduct as taking bribes, then Democrats would have gone along with impeachment. Fornication is apparently not a "high crime or misdemeanor".
Quote:As far as Tulsi, she's not fake, she's not timid, she's not dumb, she's street smart and she's not lacking in integrity either. Like I said, she's the best one I've seen so far and she better than any of the worthless higher ranking Democratic congress critters that I've seen lately as well. Yes, there is an election next year and it's pretty clear to me that she wants to remain in office.
The consensus among most Democrats is that she is a crank.
Quote:I don't know how the incumbent Democrat representing our district is going to remain in office considering the promises that they she broke and considering the type of college educated suburban women that she duped to get elected. You see, she wasn't supposed be like them or do what was expected of her by them either. She's done. Oh well, she'll just have to go back to the private sector and make more money like she did before.
The generational cycle itself suggests that the American political scene is becoming more D-friendly as the Millennial Generation is the bulk of new voters supplanting those who die off or go senile. The older voters dying off (deaths start picking up around age 55) tend to be about 5% more R than D, and the ones replacing them are about 20% more D than R.
Add to this... Donald Trump is a horrible person.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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12-20-2019, 06:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-20-2019, 07:15 AM by Eric the Green.)
(12-20-2019, 02:21 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-19-2019, 12:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-18-2019, 01:50 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-17-2019, 12:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, and that's the problem with Americans on the Right speaking about "American rights." They are not speaking of a "right" to which anyone should give any respect.
Yes, that's a problem that Liberals have with every American on the Right these days. I think you should pay more attention to your crystal ball and even cling to your personal preference's as you often do even if it ends in your own demise. I mean, that is what left wing radicals have been taught to do right?
Well, I'm cool with that.
I don't think the Left reads crystal balls any more often than the Right does. But I stand on my statement that the Right's defense of the constitution consists of little more than the defense of the "right" of terrorists and nut cases to blow hundreds of innocent people away with semi-auto military weapons that have no place in a civilized civilian society. Anyone who defends this "right" is lost in barbarism, at least on this issue if not others.
And these days, those who oppose this "right" are not necessarily confined to those on the "Left." And indeed, support for our point of view is growing.
As for my crystal ball, it does imply the possibility that crazy portions of the Right (which may be sizable) may stage a rebellion if gun control is strengthened, in the mid 2020s probably. So, we'll watch some of you on the front lines get slaughtered by the state, probably. I don't ignore that you guys exist. Some of my fellow crystal and star readers and more sanguine and don't allow for this possibility.
But eventually, I don't know how far into the future exactly, I do predict civilization will prevail, and this meaningless scourge will end. I hope we can end the other scourges you guys inflict upon us, such as perennial virtual poverty and inequality, attacks on democracy, and destruction of our climate and environment. We might not have as long a time span available for those other issues to be resolved in our favor. If they are not, then America declines and fades away as a shadow of its former self, and the world suffers along with us.
Your crystal ball doesn't tell you that, your crystal ball says there's going to be turbulent/troublesome years during the mid 2020's. I'll be about 60 years old and I should still be in pretty shape for my age and I expect to be a legal gun owner who owns an AR-15 too. Gee, we have a common belief and even reached a consensus. Now, the mid 2020's puts us at about four score and seven right.
As far as your statement, if I believed that every gun owner was a bad person, I would completely agree with your statement. If I believed that every person who owns an assault rifle was a bad person, I would completely agree with it. If I believed that every legal purchaser of a firearm was a criminal or cold blooded murderer and so forth, I would completely agree with it as well. How many Democratic gun owners know a fellow gun owner who used their gun to slaughter innocent children and how many of them would use their gun to defend innocent children? You better figure a way open up that mind of yours because it's going to need some new ideas after it goes through the trauma of losing the house.
It's nice to reach a consensus on something.
Don't worry, I have gone through that trauma before several times and it hasn't changed my mind. On this issue, I only move on the margins. I am sure that there are too many people with too easy access to military/semi-automatic weapons. There is no such thing as a good guy with an AR-15. (S)he (usually he) can go bad at any time. Nor can an AR-15 or any semi-automatic be used to defend anything. That would just mean that innocent bystanders get killed too by all the shooting. You guys want teachers to be armed, but teachers can go crazy too. We need to take away these guns from everyone as best we can under the law. Confiscation may not be possible, but bans on sales and bans on certain people owning them can be done.
Again, if you want your gun in order to participate in a rebellion against the Left, then that may be another matter. But you won't win your civil war in my opinion unless you organize into an alternate state. Then you will form an army where these weapons belong anyway, just like the Confederates did. Aimless random violence by disaffected "Americans" will not work for you; you won't be able to stop a Left government that way. If you just want to have a semi-automatic to shoot a government official you think is unfair to you, you will be killed yourself for your trouble. If you think semi-automatic weapons are able to stop a criminal in a rural area, well a shotgun does just as well, or better yet, other methods work better, and with less danger that your semi might be stolen or used by a disturbed relative or even yourself to kill themselves or others. You don't live in a rural area though, so that argument does not apply to you. The police forces in this country agree that there should be fewer guns out there; they are outgunned by criminals if they have easy access to AR-15s and such.
It would be ironic if your side wages a civil war in order to protect your right to own weapons whose only viable use is to wage a civil war.
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(12-20-2019, 02:39 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (12-19-2019, 08:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-19-2019, 01:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: She is politically crazy.
I can't understand how House Republicans can believe that the President is so essential that he be unaccountable. Maybe our system promotes rigidity in elected officials that only elections can undo. Flexibility and discretion used to be commonplace virtues that mitigated partisanship. Maybe we will end up with saner times in which flexibility and discretion become criteria for electing our pols... after the Crisis is over.
I would like to believe that Democrats would impeach one of their own if that President had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" if that President did not seek wise counsel on a matter of moral gravity.
Remember: every member of the House is up for re-election in November.
Did the Democrats impeach Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice? Accountable for what? Having the audacity to make a meager suggestion to a foreign leader about reopening an investigation into a corruption scandal involving a Ukrainian company that Joe Biden's son was a board member of at the time. Yes, I know that it's rear view mirror stuff and rear view mirror or hindsight doesn't matter matter much to idiots who are all about today and living in the moment. You know, overly loving/ protecting fathers who have sons/daughters with a history of doing stupid shit and getting themselves in trouble have a tendency of getting themselves involved and doing stupid shit to help them get financially set up for the rest of their life without them in it and help protect and help cover up the involvement and activities of their crooked/wayward son. Gee, you seem more interested in Trump than Biden.
I would guess that Democrats believed that the investigation centering on consensual sex (Bill Clinton) was itself wrong, so perjury about it was moot. Had it been about such blatant misconduct as taking bribes, then Democrats would have gone along with impeachment. Fornication is apparently not a "high crime or misdemeanor".
Quote:As far as Tulsi, she's not fake, she's not timid, she's not dumb, she's street smart and she's not lacking in integrity either. Like I said, she's the best one I've seen so far and she better than any of the worthless higher ranking Democratic congress critters that I've seen lately as well. Yes, there is an election next year and it's pretty clear to me that she wants to remain in office.
The consensus among most Democrats is that she is a crank.
Quote:I don't know how the incumbent Democrat representing our district is going to remain in office considering the promises that they she broke and considering the type of college educated suburban women that she duped to get elected. You see, she wasn't supposed be like them or do what was expected of her by them either. She's done. Oh well, she'll just have to go back to the private sector and make more money like she did before.
The generational cycle itself suggests that the American political scene is becoming more D-friendly as the Millennial Generation is the bulk of new voters supplanting those who die off or go senile. The older voters dying off (deaths start picking up around age 55) tend to be about 5% more R than D, and the ones replacing them are about 20% more D than R.
Add to this... Donald Trump is a horrible person.
What, you don't think Democrats are capable of bribery? That's funny! Dude, the Democrats only bribe for a living and remain in office when their caught taking bribes these days. It's obvious. I'm but your beloved Democrats are going off the deep end these days.
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(12-20-2019, 08:20 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-20-2019, 02:39 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (12-19-2019, 08:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-19-2019, 01:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: She (Tulsi Gabbard) is politically crazy.
I can't understand how House Republicans can believe that the President is so essential that he be unaccountable. Maybe our system promotes rigidity in elected officials that only elections can undo. Flexibility and discretion used to be commonplace virtues that mitigated partisanship. Maybe we will end up with saner times in which flexibility and discretion become criteria for electing our pols... after the Crisis is over.
I would like to believe that Democrats would impeach one of their own if that President had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" if that President did not seek wise counsel on a matter of moral gravity.
Remember: every member of the House is up for re-election in November.
Did the Democrats impeach Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice? Accountable for what? Having the audacity to make a meager suggestion to a foreign leader about reopening an investigation into a corruption scandal involving a Ukrainian company that Joe Biden's son was a board member of at the time. Yes, I know that it's rear view mirror stuff and rear view mirror or hindsight doesn't matter matter much to idiots who are all about today and living in the moment. You know, overly loving/ protecting fathers who have sons/daughters with a history of doing stupid shit and getting themselves in trouble have a tendency of getting themselves involved and doing stupid shit to help them get financially set up for the rest of their life without them in it and help protect and help cover up the involvement and activities of their crooked/wayward son. Gee, you seem more interested in Trump than Biden.
I would guess that Democrats believed that the investigation centering on consensual sex (Bill Clinton) was itself wrong, so perjury about it was moot. Had it been about such blatant misconduct as taking bribes, then Democrats would have gone along with impeachment. Fornication is apparently not a "high crime or misdemeanor".
Quote:As far as Tulsi, she's not fake, she's not timid, she's not dumb, she's street smart and she's not lacking in integrity either. Like I said, she's the best one I've seen so far and she better than any of the worthless higher ranking Democratic congress critters that I've seen lately as well. Yes, there is an election next year and it's pretty clear to me that she wants to remain in office.
The consensus among most Democrats is that she is a crank.
Quote:I don't know how the incumbent Democrat representing our district is going to remain in office considering the promises that they she broke and considering the type of college educated suburban women that she duped to get elected. You see, she wasn't supposed be like them or do what was expected of her by them either. She's done. Oh well, she'll just have to go back to the private sector and make more money like she did before.
The generational cycle itself suggests that the American political scene is becoming more D-friendly as the Millennial Generation is the bulk of new voters supplanting those who die off or go senile. The older voters dying off (deaths start picking up around age 55) tend to be about 5% more R than D, and the ones replacing them are about 20% more D than R.
Add to this... Donald Trump is a horrible person.
What, you don't think Democrats are capable of bribery? That's funny! Dude, the Democrats only bribe for a living and remain in office when their caught taking bribes these days. It's obvious. I'm but your beloved Democrats are going off the deep end these days.
Huh? Have you ever heard of Abscam? Some politicians, mostly Democrats, were caught with their hands out. One Senator resigned for it. Then there was William Jefferson, a Democratic Representative from Greater New Orleans who was the only incumbent House Democrat to go down to electoral defeat in what was a great year for Democrats. Obama did not help this man out.
Let me put the real objective of impeaching Donald Trump into context: impeachment is a warning to subsequent Presidents (or other officials who might be subject to impeachment who do something really bad) that they too can go down. Impeaching Donald Trump is a warning to any Democratic President who so blatantly misbehaves as Trump seems to have done.
I cannot tell you what President will be next to have a scandal involving criminal misconduct; at this point it is more likely to be a Republican because Nancy Pelosi has likely banked something else as cause for impeachment of Donald Trump (like violations of campaign law that involve mail fraud, tax fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, or money laundering). Other than that, I hope that the next President in a tough position choose the honorable path over something disgraceful when the disgraceful path is easier and more promising. Our politicians are humans, and all people are flawed. Some are more principled, cautious, and circumspect. Some are Donald Trump. Elective politics is a theater largely for narcissistic types; one commentator long ago said that without the narcissists, we Americans would have few politicians.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(12-20-2019, 06:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-20-2019, 02:21 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-19-2019, 12:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-18-2019, 01:50 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-17-2019, 12:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, and that's the problem with Americans on the Right speaking about "American rights." They are not speaking of a "right" to which anyone should give any respect.
Yes, that's a problem that Liberals have with every American on the Right these days. I think you should pay more attention to your crystal ball and even cling to your personal preference's as you often do even if it ends in your own demise. I mean, that is what left wing radicals have been taught to do right?
Well, I'm cool with that.
I don't think the Left reads crystal balls any more often than the Right does. But I stand on my statement that the Right's defense of the constitution consists of little more than the defense of the "right" of terrorists and nut cases to blow hundreds of innocent people away with semi-auto military weapons that have no place in a civilized civilian society. Anyone who defends this "right" is lost in barbarism, at least on this issue if not others.
And these days, those who oppose this "right" are not necessarily confined to those on the "Left." And indeed, support for our point of view is growing.
As for my crystal ball, it does imply the possibility that crazy portions of the Right (which may be sizable) may stage a rebellion if gun control is strengthened, in the mid 2020s probably. So, we'll watch some of you on the front lines get slaughtered by the state, probably. I don't ignore that you guys exist. Some of my fellow crystal and star readers and more sanguine and don't allow for this possibility.
But eventually, I don't know how far into the future exactly, I do predict civilization will prevail, and this meaningless scourge will end. I hope we can end the other scourges you guys inflict upon us, such as perennial virtual poverty and inequality, attacks on democracy, and destruction of our climate and environment. We might not have as long a time span available for those other issues to be resolved in our favor. If they are not, then America declines and fades away as a shadow of its former self, and the world suffers along with us.
Your crystal ball doesn't tell you that, your crystal ball says there's going to be turbulent/troublesome years during the mid 2020's. I'll be about 60 years old and I should still be in pretty shape for my age and I expect to be a legal gun owner who owns an AR-15 too. Gee, we have a common belief and even reached a consensus. Now, the mid 2020's puts us at about four score and seven right.
As far as your statement, if I believed that every gun owner was a bad person, I would completely agree with your statement. If I believed that every person who owns an assault rifle was a bad person, I would completely agree with it. If I believed that every legal purchaser of a firearm was a criminal or cold blooded murderer and so forth, I would completely agree with it as well. How many Democratic gun owners know a fellow gun owner who used their gun to slaughter innocent children and how many of them would use their gun to defend innocent children? You better figure a way open up that mind of yours because it's going to need some new ideas after it goes through the trauma of losing the house.
It's nice to reach a consensus on something.
Don't worry, I have gone through that trauma before several times and it hasn't changed my mind. On this issue, I only move on the margins. I am sure that there are too many people with too easy access to military/semi-automatic weapons. There is no such thing as a good guy with an AR-15. (S)he (usually he) can go bad at any time. Nor can an AR-15 or any semi-automatic be used to defend anything. That would just mean that innocent bystanders get killed too by all the shooting. You guys want teachers to be armed, but teachers can go crazy too. We need to take away these guns from everyone as best we can under the law. Confiscation may not be possible, but bans on sales and bans on certain people owning them can be done.
Again, if you want your gun in order to participate in a rebellion against the Left, then that may be another matter. But you won't win your civil war in my opinion unless you organize into an alternate state. Then you will form an army where these weapons belong anyway, just like the Confederates did. Aimless random violence by disaffected "Americans" will not work for you; you won't be able to stop a Left government that way. If you just want to have a semi-automatic to shoot a government official you think is unfair to you, you will be killed yourself for your trouble. If you think semi-automatic weapons are able to stop a criminal in a rural area, well a shotgun does just as well, or better yet, other methods work better, and with less danger that your semi might be stolen or used by a disturbed relative or even yourself to kill themselves or others. You don't live in a rural area though, so that argument does not apply to you. The police forces in this country agree that there should be fewer guns out there; they are outgunned by criminals if they have easy access to AR-15s and such.
It would be ironic if your side wages a civil war in order to protect your right to own weapons whose only viable use is to wage a civil war.
Yes, it's nice to know that we can reach a consensus on at least one thing. It's to bad that the one thing is commonly viewed by most as a good thing. I often wondered why liberals were so excited and seemed to be licking their chops about the idea of economic collapses, economic depressions, getting rid of Christians, getting rid of Republicans and the Republican voters and the US Constitution and the 2nd Amendment and religious rights/religious freedoms of others and so forth.
Oh, it's also nice to know that we (the Americans of the right) are/ will be better prepared to deal with whatever it is that happens then. You have been very consistent about what your crystal ball tells you as far as that goes. So, I see know no reason for me to dispute it or view it as unbelievable or untrue at this point. Also, as I have mentioned, it matches what I've been feeling is coming all a long. Hint, my long time feelings are very accurate. So, it's just a matter of time now.
Hint...What would be so ironic if what you said about us and our relationship with a particular weapon/fireman and a particular class of weapons/firearms that scare you and the liberals so much turns out to be that way? Now, if you had payed attention like you probably should with me, you would have learned that principled people like myself require proof/ justification before those weapons are used for civil war and I've even informed of the boundary's you should never consider crossing or you fucked up and didn't respect or viewed as not being applicable to you or the liberals for some stupid reason.
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(12-20-2019, 08:46 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (12-20-2019, 08:20 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-20-2019, 02:39 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (12-19-2019, 08:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-19-2019, 01:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: She (Tulsi Gabbard) is politically crazy.
I can't understand how House Republicans can believe that the President is so essential that he be unaccountable. Maybe our system promotes rigidity in elected officials that only elections can undo. Flexibility and discretion used to be commonplace virtues that mitigated partisanship. Maybe we will end up with saner times in which flexibility and discretion become criteria for electing our pols... after the Crisis is over.
I would like to believe that Democrats would impeach one of their own if that President had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" if that President did not seek wise counsel on a matter of moral gravity.
Remember: every member of the House is up for re-election in November.
Did the Democrats impeach Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice? Accountable for what? Having the audacity to make a meager suggestion to a foreign leader about reopening an investigation into a corruption scandal involving a Ukrainian company that Joe Biden's son was a board member of at the time. Yes, I know that it's rear view mirror stuff and rear view mirror or hindsight doesn't matter matter much to idiots who are all about today and living in the moment. You know, overly loving/ protecting fathers who have sons/daughters with a history of doing stupid shit and getting themselves in trouble have a tendency of getting themselves involved and doing stupid shit to help them get financially set up for the rest of their life without them in it and help protect and help cover up the involvement and activities of their crooked/wayward son. Gee, you seem more interested in Trump than Biden.
I would guess that Democrats believed that the investigation centering on consensual sex (Bill Clinton) was itself wrong, so perjury about it was moot. Had it been about such blatant misconduct as taking bribes, then Democrats would have gone along with impeachment. Fornication is apparently not a "high crime or misdemeanor".
Quote:As far as Tulsi, she's not fake, she's not timid, she's not dumb, she's street smart and she's not lacking in integrity either. Like I said, she's the best one I've seen so far and she better than any of the worthless higher ranking Democratic congress critters that I've seen lately as well. Yes, there is an election next year and it's pretty clear to me that she wants to remain in office.
The consensus among most Democrats is that she is a crank.
Quote:I don't know how the incumbent Democrat representing our district is going to remain in office considering the promises that they she broke and considering the type of college educated suburban women that she duped to get elected. You see, she wasn't supposed be like them or do what was expected of her by them either. She's done. Oh well, she'll just have to go back to the private sector and make more money like she did before.
The generational cycle itself suggests that the American political scene is becoming more D-friendly as the Millennial Generation is the bulk of new voters supplanting those who die off or go senile. The older voters dying off (deaths start picking up around age 55) tend to be about 5% more R than D, and the ones replacing them are about 20% more D than R.
Add to this... Donald Trump is a horrible person.
What, you don't think Democrats are capable of bribery? That's funny! Dude, the Democrats only bribe for a living and remain in office when their caught taking bribes these days. It's obvious. I'm but your beloved Democrats are going off the deep end these days.
Huh? Have you ever heard of Abscam? Some politicians, mostly Democrats, were caught with their hands out. One Senator resigned for it. Then there was William Jefferson, a Democratic Representative from Greater New Orleans who was the only incumbent House Democrat to go down to electoral defeat in what was a great year for Democrats. Obama did not help this man out.
Let me put the real objective of impeaching Donald Trump into context: impeachment is a warning to subsequent Presidents (or other officials who might be subject to impeachment who do something really bad) that they too can go down. Impeaching Donald Trump is a warning to any Democratic President who so blatantly misbehaves as Trump seems to have done.
I cannot tell you what President will be next to have a scandal involving criminal misconduct; at this point it is more likely to be a Republican because Nancy Pelosi has likely banked something else as cause for impeachment of Donald Trump (like violations of campaign law that involve mail fraud, tax fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, or money laundering). Other than that, I hope that the next President in a tough position choose the honorable path over something disgraceful when the disgraceful path is easier and more promising. Our politicians are humans, and all people are flawed. Some are more principled, cautious, and circumspect. Some are Donald Trump. Elective politics is a theater largely for narcissistic types; one commentator long ago said that without the narcissists, we Americans would have few politicians.
Dude, you're naive. OK, I understand that you're more naive than the average person because partially mentally handicapped and unable to read signs and so forth. How do you think Obama got the newly elected blue dog Democrats who ran opposed to Obamacare to burn the constituents who elected them and vote in favor of passing Obamacare without bribery or extortion being used? OK, you're naive because you're partially mentally handicapped. Dude, the jig is up, middle America has seen enough and the traditional Democratic voters are ether going to switch political allegiance or vote independent or leave there fate in our hands and stop voting altogether.
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(12-21-2019, 02:09 AM)taramarie Wrote: (12-21-2019, 01:51 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-20-2019, 06:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-20-2019, 02:21 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-19-2019, 12:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't think the Left reads crystal balls any more often than the Right does. But I stand on my statement that the Right's defense of the constitution consists of little more than the defense of the "right" of terrorists and nut cases to blow hundreds of innocent people away with semi-auto military weapons that have no place in a civilized civilian society. Anyone who defends this "right" is lost in barbarism, at least on this issue if not others.
And these days, those who oppose this "right" are not necessarily confined to those on the "Left." And indeed, support for our point of view is growing.
As for my crystal ball, it does imply the possibility that crazy portions of the Right (which may be sizable) may stage a rebellion if gun control is strengthened, in the mid 2020s probably. So, we'll watch some of you on the front lines get slaughtered by the state, probably. I don't ignore that you guys exist. Some of my fellow crystal and star readers and more sanguine and don't allow for this possibility.
But eventually, I don't know how far into the future exactly, I do predict civilization will prevail, and this meaningless scourge will end. I hope we can end the other scourges you guys inflict upon us, such as perennial virtual poverty and inequality, attacks on democracy, and destruction of our climate and environment. We might not have as long a time span available for those other issues to be resolved in our favor. If they are not, then America declines and fades away as a shadow of its former self, and the world suffers along with us.
Your crystal ball doesn't tell you that, your crystal ball says there's going to be turbulent/troublesome years during the mid 2020's. I'll be about 60 years old and I should still be in pretty shape for my age and I expect to be a legal gun owner who owns an AR-15 too. Gee, we have a common belief and even reached a consensus. Now, the mid 2020's puts us at about four score and seven right.
As far as your statement, if I believed that every gun owner was a bad person, I would completely agree with your statement. If I believed that every person who owns an assault rifle was a bad person, I would completely agree with it. If I believed that every legal purchaser of a firearm was a criminal or cold blooded murderer and so forth, I would completely agree with it as well. How many Democratic gun owners know a fellow gun owner who used their gun to slaughter innocent children and how many of them would use their gun to defend innocent children? You better figure a way open up that mind of yours because it's going to need some new ideas after it goes through the trauma of losing the house.
It's nice to reach a consensus on something.
Don't worry, I have gone through that trauma before several times and it hasn't changed my mind. On this issue, I only move on the margins. I am sure that there are too many people with too easy access to military/semi-automatic weapons. There is no such thing as a good guy with an AR-15. (S)he (usually he) can go bad at any time. Nor can an AR-15 or any semi-automatic be used to defend anything. That would just mean that innocent bystanders get killed too by all the shooting. You guys want teachers to be armed, but teachers can go crazy too. We need to take away these guns from everyone as best we can under the law. Confiscation may not be possible, but bans on sales and bans on certain people owning them can be done.
Again, if you want your gun in order to participate in a rebellion against the Left, then that may be another matter. But you won't win your civil war in my opinion unless you organize into an alternate state. Then you will form an army where these weapons belong anyway, just like the Confederates did. Aimless random violence by disaffected "Americans" will not work for you; you won't be able to stop a Left government that way. If you just want to have a semi-automatic to shoot a government official you think is unfair to you, you will be killed yourself for your trouble. If you think semi-automatic weapons are able to stop a criminal in a rural area, well a shotgun does just as well, or better yet, other methods work better, and with less danger that your semi might be stolen or used by a disturbed relative or even yourself to kill themselves or others. You don't live in a rural area though, so that argument does not apply to you. The police forces in this country agree that there should be fewer guns out there; they are outgunned by criminals if they have easy access to AR-15s and such.
It would be ironic if your side wages a civil war in order to protect your right to own weapons whose only viable use is to wage a civil war.
Yes, it's nice to know that we can reach a consensus on at least one thing. It's to bad that the one thing is commonly viewed by most as a good thing. I often wondered why liberals were so excited and seemed to be licking their chops about the idea of economic collapses, economic depressions, getting rid of Christians, getting rid of Republicans and the Republican voters and the US Constitution and the 2nd Amendment and religious rights/religious freedoms of others and so forth.
Oh, it's also nice to know that we (the Americans of the right) are/ will be better prepared to deal with whatever it is that happens then. You have been very consistent about what your crystal ball tells you as far as that goes. So, I see know no reason for me to dispute it or view it as unbelievable or untrue at this point. Also, as I have mentioned, it matches what I've been feeling is coming all a long. Hint, my long time feelings are very accurate. So, it's just a matter of time now.
Hint...What would be so ironic if what you said about us and our relationship with a particular weapon/fireman and a particular class of weapons/firearms that scare you and the liberals so much turns out to be that way? Now, if you had payed attention like you probably should with me, you would have learned that principled people like myself require proof/ justification before those weapons are used for civil war and I've even informed of the boundary's you should never consider crossing or you fucked up and didn't respect or viewed as not being applicable to you or the liberals for some stupid reason.
*paid
*boundaries
I know this will get backlash. Just know I am just simply helping you out. No harm intended.
Would you be kind enough to fly over here and write for me when I feel like posting? I know that writing for me would help me way more than just doing this to help me out. No worries. No harm taken.
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(12-21-2019, 05:35 AM)taramarie Wrote: (12-21-2019, 04:41 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-21-2019, 02:09 AM)taramarie Wrote: (12-21-2019, 01:51 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-20-2019, 06:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It's nice to reach a consensus on something.
Don't worry, I have gone through that trauma before several times and it hasn't changed my mind. On this issue, I only move on the margins. I am sure that there are too many people with too easy access to military/semi-automatic weapons. There is no such thing as a good guy with an AR-15. (S)he (usually he) can go bad at any time. Nor can an AR-15 or any semi-automatic be used to defend anything. That would just mean that innocent bystanders get killed too by all the shooting. You guys want teachers to be armed, but teachers can go crazy too. We need to take away these guns from everyone as best we can under the law. Confiscation may not be possible, but bans on sales and bans on certain people owning them can be done.
Again, if you want your gun in order to participate in a rebellion against the Left, then that may be another matter. But you won't win your civil war in my opinion unless you organize into an alternate state. Then you will form an army where these weapons belong anyway, just like the Confederates did. Aimless random violence by disaffected "Americans" will not work for you; you won't be able to stop a Left government that way. If you just want to have a semi-automatic to shoot a government official you think is unfair to you, you will be killed yourself for your trouble. If you think semi-automatic weapons are able to stop a criminal in a rural area, well a shotgun does just as well, or better yet, other methods work better, and with less danger that your semi might be stolen or used by a disturbed relative or even yourself to kill themselves or others. You don't live in a rural area though, so that argument does not apply to you. The police forces in this country agree that there should be fewer guns out there; they are outgunned by criminals if they have easy access to AR-15s and such.
It would be ironic if your side wages a civil war in order to protect your right to own weapons whose only viable use is to wage a civil war.
Yes, it's nice to know that we can reach a consensus on at least one thing. It's to bad that the one thing is commonly viewed by most as a good thing. I often wondered why liberals were so excited and seemed to be licking their chops about the idea of economic collapses, economic depressions, getting rid of Christians, getting rid of Republicans and the Republican voters and the US Constitution and the 2nd Amendment and religious rights/religious freedoms of others and so forth.
Oh, it's also nice to know that we (the Americans of the right) are/ will be better prepared to deal with whatever it is that happens then. You have been very consistent about what your crystal ball tells you as far as that goes. So, I see know no reason for me to dispute it or view it as unbelievable or untrue at this point. Also, as I have mentioned, it matches what I've been feeling is coming all a long. Hint, my long time feelings are very accurate. So, it's just a matter of time now.
Hint...What would be so ironic if what you said about us and our relationship with a particular weapon/fireman and a particular class of weapons/firearms that scare you and the liberals so much turns out to be that way? Now, if you had payed attention like you probably should with me, you would have learned that principled people like myself require proof/ justification before those weapons are used for civil war and I've even informed of the boundary's you should never consider crossing or you fucked up and didn't respect or viewed as not being applicable to you or the liberals for some stupid reason.
*paid
*boundaries
I know this will get backlash. Just know I am just simply helping you out. No harm intended.
Would you be kind enough to fly over here and write for me when I feel like posting? I know that writing for me would help me way more than just doing this to help me out. No worries. No harm taken.
No need if you remember how to spell. Easy enough. Kids learn, I am sure adults can too. As for flying, I will be flying but thankfully not to USA. I am flying next month to Slovakia to actually teach English to those who want to learn how to properly speak and spell English.
Nope. You'll be flying off to live in a small and relatively newly established country that speaks a different language located in Eastern Europe that we (the good old USA) basically freed from the Soviet Union. I wish you good luck and hope as goes well for you.
I actually do know how to spell paid and payed and even boundary. Boundary's was okay with spell check. So, I stuck with it. It was a long time ago but I vaguely remember being taught that boundaries and boundary's are both acceptable spellings (one's proper and the other is common but both are viewed as acceptable in today's English language). Payed passed too. I assume the same rule applies. Thirty six years is a long time, ain't that fairly close to your age young lady? Any how, no harm inflicted on my end.
My issue is just not writing a lot or having to write a lot frequently. You don't really need do them much or really need to pay much attention to writing skills when you speak more often than than you write and you are really good at speaking with people directly and carrying/conducting yourself in person and maintaining a certain level of composer/confidence in a real life discussion or dispute. So, how good are you at doing that?
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12-22-2019, 02:34 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-22-2019, 03:37 AM by Classic-Xer.)
(12-21-2019, 10:05 PM)taramarie Wrote: I know where I am going next month. My partner comes from there and lives there. I actually have employment that will also be teaching me Slovak in exchange for me teaching English. Unsure how my age comes into play into our conversation here. As a grown man, I am sure you are quite capable of learning how to spell basic words.I will look like a dork when I am learning Slovak next month, but I am open to learning new things. I will also be learning German and Czech because I am open to learning other languages and spelling and pronouncing them properly as they were intended. So, how good are you are doing that? Seriously, just take it as a lesson. I certainly will next month.
I brought up your age because the last time written communication skills mattered a lot more to me personally was around the time you were born. If I said paid or boundaries while speaking to you, would you be able to tell if they were misused or misspelled? I'm the first to admit that my writing skills are mediocre at best. I'm not ashamed of it, it's not my forte as we say. Kinser is much better equipped to communicate with the college crowd than me. I suppose, I could go back to using short and pithy responses. I'm really good with that style but it tends to end discussions and arguments and weaken or eliminate positions pretty quick.
Oh, I'm sure that I could learn a foreign language if I really needed to or really interested in doing so but I'm not so what's the point of me doing that right now to prove to you that I could do that too. I'm not sure if the Bohemian language of the 1860's was Czech or Slavic or a variation of the two but that's the native language that my great-great grand parents spoke when they settled in the USA or what was the South Dakota territory back then before it became an American state.
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Few things so broaden one's mind as does learning a language dissimilar to those that one already knows. For good reason, the educational system at one time insisted that the Best and Brightest learn Latin, and that the extreme Best and Brightest learn classical Greek. Not existing languages that one could use among peasants in the Algarve or Bohemia, which might even be more practical, but a difficult language with an archaic literature Ancient Greek was of course the original language of the really-good stuff of the Ancient World (at least west of about the current eastern border of modern-day Iran), but most of the really-good stuff from the ancient Greeks got translated into Latin, anyway. Grammar is a structure of thought... and the more grammars that one knows, the better.
Slavic languages are very different from Romance and Germanic languages, and I congratulate you on the effort.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(12-04-2019, 10:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-04-2019, 01:30 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-03-2019, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote: (12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.
Just looking at large cities alone:
- Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
- Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho.
- Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.
This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.
You're comparing pumpkins and grapes. Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number. Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition. I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end. That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add. The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000). Their burbs are both very Red. I think that's typical.
Right, and in our electoral college system, the Trump voters in big blue cities and counties do not matter. The Trump voters, with their overwhelming majority in rural and small-town areas, turn states red that do not have big blue cities in them, and they have far more clout in the electoral college, because it's set up to favor smaller states. So, the source of the power of Trump and Republicans today, in the Senate and in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016, is the rural and small town and small city areas that vote Republican by overwhelming margins.
What? Absolute number no longer matters to the liberals anymore. What are the liberals going to do when Trump gets the majority of the vote in 2020, wins the majority of the electoral college again, regains the majority of the House, strengthens the majority of the Senate and has the majority of the Supreme Court and the right to pick them too? Right now, I'd say that those unpleasant realities for liberals are more likely going to happen at this point. Are you going to support liberal revolts/riots and support liberal movements to secede from the Union at that point?
In that scenario, if the Republicans try to abolish the filibuster in the Senate there will be a Second Civil War - and the left won't care who they have to collaborate with, just like the Irish collaborated with the Germans in 1916, the Slovaks collaborated with the Germans in 1939, the Balts, Ukrainians, Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovars collaborated with the Germans in 1941, and the Sicilians collaborated with the Americans in 1943. The enemy of their enemy will be their friend.
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892
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One of the 'features' of the partisan divide is alternative facts, of people out and out lying to make sure people will believe and vote up is down, black is white and truth isn't. A large part of this is the internet. There are a lot of sources of information, and a tendency to latch onto sources that fit what you tend to believe. This is exaggerated be groups generating massive amounts of disinformation, that have learned to pull people away from a reality of facts. Putin's Russia and Trump's Republicans might stand as examples.
The "Meet the Press" Episode of Dec 29 features the Washington Post and New York Times editors talking about how to tell a modern professional media source which is a source of truth from a group which is throwing out lies. I quite believe that the modern internet , social media, and disinformation methods can succeed for a time. However, with not much effort, if one is interested, you can learn to tell the techniques used to speak truth from the methods used to tell lies.
The way the current disinformation sources work is predictable. Base all disinformation on a kernel of truth. Repeat you lies often. Attack the true sources as unreliable to create a bubble.
And the professional media is learning to fight back. The big boys have to have a fact checking department. Their reporters have to put their sources on line with links to verification.
I have left a lot out of the program which is easy enough to find. Thing is, if you do not want to be bamboozled, it is fairly easy not to be. The current administration thus becomes a worst case bunch of folks influencing a public which was not familiar with the methods. I don't know that the people will allow themselves to become that gullible to disinformation in the long term. It is rapidly possible to recognize the techniques for how it is done.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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(12-29-2019, 03:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: One of the 'features' of the partisan divide is alternative facts, of people out and out lying to make sure people will believe and vote up is down, black is white and truth isn't. A large part of this is the internet. There are a lot of sources of information, and a tendency to latch onto sources that fit what you tend to believe. This is exaggerated be groups generating massive amounts of disinformation, that have learned to pull people away from a reality of facts. Putin's Russia and Trump's Republicans might stand as examples.
There is truth, falsehood, and possibility. One can choose one's opinions, but nobody has the right to determine that something is truth despite it being falsehood.
Quote:The "Meet the Press" Episode of Dec 29 features the Washington Post and New York Times editors talking about how to tell a modern professional media source which is a source of truth from a group which is throwing out lies. I quite believe that the modern internet , social media, and disinformation methods can succeed for a time. However, with not much effort, if one is interested, you can learn to tell the techniques used to speak truth from the methods used to tell lies.
Transcript here, for those who prefer reading to video. The video came back a blank when I tried to upload it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-december-29-2019-n1106036
Quote:The way the current disinformation sources work is predictable. Base all disinformation on a kernel of truth. Repeat you lies often. Attack the true sources as unreliable to create a bubble.
And the professional media is learning to fight back. The big boys have to have a fact checking department. Their reporters have to put their sources on line with links to verification.
The alternative to relying upon media that fact-check is to accept rumors and disinformation -- and to become a fool and a tool.
Quote:I have left a lot out of the program which is easy enough to find. Thing is, if you do not want to be bamboozled, it is fairly easy not to be. The current administration thus becomes a worst case bunch of folks influencing a public which was not familiar with the methods. I don't know that the people will allow themselves to become that gullible to disinformation in the long term. It is rapidly possible to recognize the techniques for how it is done.
People are not as media-savvy as they need be. They need learn the techniques of manipulation, including logical fallacies.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(12-30-2019, 11:36 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: People are not as media-savvy as they need be. They need learn the techniques of manipulation, including logical fallacies.
Amen. I figure learning how to read liars is one of the natural skills we all well have to have in the Information Age. It is one of the new values we have to transition to, and the Trump alternate reality is a hard lesson which will drive the values change.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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I find that fools and liars contradict themselves at some point, often after frantic efforts to protect one falsehood with another.
Lying requires little imagination. All it takes is contempt for the person to whom one lies. Just think of the offensive expression "Who are you going to believe -- me or your lying eyes?"
Classical Greek philosophy developed in Athens in part as a means of keeping the political discussions honest. The tool is logic, still within the realm of philosophy. Philosophy might not achieve the truth, but it can certainly tear down falsehoods. Most basically the law of non-contradiction applies: truth does not lead to anything worse than paradoxes. Falsehood in contrast leads quickly to contradiction.
Logic also establishes that certain syntheses of facts cannot lead to certain results. Some work: thus
All cats are predators
Fluffy is a cat
Therefore Fluffy is a predator
is valid.
Here is another one:
All cats are predators
"Mr. Ed" is not a predator
"Mr. Ed" is not a cat.
This one isn't valid:
All cats are predators
All snakes are predators
Therefore cats are snakes
(or is it that snakes are cats?)
It is telling that the first introduction that most people get to formal logic is in high-school geometry, and that high-school geometry separates as few other courses do "college material" from non-college. To be sure, geometry is vital to such tradesmen as machinists who may need no college degree, but at this point almost any skilled trade is best done with some college education. At the least a college education is good for getting more out of life than mass low culture.
Let us remember this inglorious statement of Donald Trump as a campaigner:
"I love low-information voters".
Before Trump, just about politician would be loath to admit such. Ignorance is not innocence, and it makes one vulnerable to manias, swindles, and demagogues. It is telling that the vilest dictatorships typically promoted bare literacy so that people could absorb propaganda without criticism. Thus such likes as Lenin, Mao, and Saddam pushed basic literacy... and little else unless purely technical training. Hitler and Pinochet, who took over literate societies, debased formal learning. So does Donald Trump and so do most of his political partners.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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