The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

In the gun debates, it is often said that no right is absolute, without specifying what the limits are. I have often clarified that. A right does not protect someone who causes harm to another, or violates another’s rights. Thus the Second gives a right to own and carry a gun, but not to murder someone.

Can the principle be applied to free speech other than the example of crying 'fire' in a crowded theater? In that case the potential harm is obvious. If you lie, at what point are you causing harm. If you say COVID is a hoax and it is not, are you doing deadly harm to those that believe you? Negligent homicide? If you knowingly falsely say there is election fraud and there is not, and that you should send money to prove it, using the money for other personal reasons, is that theft?

Thoughts?

[David Horn]

(12-09-2020, 12:18 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: In the gun debates, it is often said that no right is absolute, without specifying what the limits are.  I have often clarified that.  A right does not protect someone who causes harm to another, or violates another’s rights.  Thus the Second gives a right to own and carry a gun, but not to murder someone.

Can the principle be applied to free speech other than the example of crying 'fire' in a crowded theater?  In that case the potential harm is obvious.  If you lie, at what point are you causing harm.  If you say COVID is a hoax and it is not, are you doing deadly harm to those that believe you?  Negligent homicide?  If you knowingly falsely say there is election fraud and there is not, and that you should send money to prove it, using the money for other personal reasons, is that theft?

Thoughts?

If you want to define the limits to free speech, consider the following:

• SLANDER - There is no inherent right, or stipulated right for that matter, that permits any person or organization to slander.  Slander must be based on a lie or misrepresentation and be intended to harm, and most of us know it when we see or hear it.
  
• INCITEMENT TO RIOT - This is actually rather prescient at the moment, because the Trumpist phalange seems destined to cross this line.  The recent harassment of the Michigan Secretary of State might qualify.
  
• FALSE WITNESS - Again, it's not acceptable or legal to lie about someone -- especially in a legal matter. This one can get you jail time.
  
• TRIGGERING A PANIC - This is the 'fire in a crowded theater' issue, so enough said about that.
  

I'm sure other cases exist too, but these came to mind.

[pbrower2a]

(12-09-2020, 02:35 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-09-2020, 12:18 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: In the gun debates, it is often said that no right is absolute, without specifying what the limits are.  I have often clarified that.  A right does not protect someone who causes harm to another, or violates another’s rights.  Thus the Second gives a right to own and carry a gun, but not to murder someone.

Can the principle be applied to free speech other than the example of crying 'fire' in a crowded theater?  In that case the potential harm is obvious.  If you lie, at what point are you causing harm.  If you say COVID is a hoax and it is not, are you doing deadly harm to those that believe you?  Negligent homicide?  If you knowingly falsely say there is election fraud and there is not, and that you should send money to prove it, using the money for other personal reasons, is that theft?

Thoughts?

If you want to define the limits to free speech, consider the following:

• SLANDER - There is no inherent right, or stipulated right for that matter, that permits any person or organization to slander.  Slander must be based on a lie or misrepresentation and be intended to harm, and most of us know it when we see or hear it.
  
• INCITEMENT TO RIOT - This is actually rather prescient at the moment, because the Trumpist phalange seems destined to cross this line.  The recent harassment of the Michigan Secretary of State might qualify.
  
• FALSE WITNESS - Again, it's not acceptable or legal to lie about someone -- especially in a legal matter. This one can get you jail time.
  
• TRIGGERING A PANIC - This is the 'fire in a crowded theater' issue, so enough said about that.
  

I'm sure other cases exist too, but these came to mind.

[*] CRIME -- criminal speech, writing, or image-making necessary for the furtherance of a crime is not protected as communication. Thus speech facilitating a robbery, writing that facilitates a fraud, or the forgery that makes counterfeiting possible is not recognized as an exercise of free speech. Such speech is of course tolerated in a screen or stage play, which distinguishes between the deeds of the original Barrow-Parker gang from the perfectly-legal depiction of their deeds in the movie Bonnie and Clyde. 

Obviously, criminal speech is rarely imaginative in content.

[Bob Butler 54]

Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

[Eric the Green]

(12-11-2020, 07:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

A good one, and they didn't even need astrology to make it 

[pbrower2a]

(12-11-2020, 01:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 07:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

A good one, and they didn't even need astrology to make it 

I thought that the role would go to the SARS-2 virus that causes COVID-19, and, so far, about 300,000 deaths in America.

[David Horn]

(12-11-2020, 01:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 01:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 07:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

A good one, and they didn't even need astrology to make it 

I thought that the role would go to the SARS-2 virus that causes COVID-19, and, so far, about 300,000 deaths in America.

I would have preferred their Kid of the Year.

[Einzige]

Quote: When the ruling elite can demand that the common man suffer for the power, gain, and indulgence of rapacious elites... then someone like our friend "Einzige" is right.

This is not what I believe.

I do not have a conspiratorial view of society, in which a capitalist class orchestrates things for nefarious purposes ala the Jews in antisemitic mythology. It is, rather, Capital, a disembodied abstract, which determines the behavior of all humans within capitalist systems, whether capitalist or worker. It is possible to be a good capitalist who treats her workers very fairly, and indeed to be an egalitarian at heart, and still have ones actions dictated wholly by Capital.

The solution does not lie in traditional leftist organizations like unions or the state, or worker's co-operatives, all of which simply rearrange Capital. The solution is the self-abolition of the working class. This position is a typical left-communist one, not a Stalinist or anarchist one, both of whom we regard as desiring to reproduce a fundamentally capitalist social order.

[CH86]

(12-11-2020, 03:42 PM)Einzige Wrote:

Quote: When the ruling elite can demand that the common man suffer for the power, gain, and indulgence of rapacious elites... then someone like our friend "Einzige" is right.

This is not what I believe.

I do not have a conspiratorial view of society, in which a capitalist class orchestrates things for nefarious purposes ala the Jews in antisemitic mythology. It is, rather, Capital, a disembodied abstract, which determines the behavior of all humans within capitalist systems, whether capitalist or worker.  It is possible to be a good capitalist who treats her workers very fairly, and indeed to be an egalitarian at heart, and still have ones actions dictated wholly by Capital.

The solution does not lie in traditional leftist organizations like unions or the state, or worker's co-operatives, all of which simply rearrange Capital. The solution is the self-abolition of the working class. This position is a typical left-communist one, not a Stalinist or anarchist one, both of whom we regard as desiring to reproduce a fundamentally capitalist social order.

Capitalism vs Communism has already been tested against each other, Capitalism won. The Main divide today is between those who want to feminize society and turn the citizens into slaves for globalist tycoons and financiers, and those who fight for freedom: and want Men to be Men, and children to have actual childhoods.

Harris personifies this elite drive for feminization. Remember she is the one who wants school hours extended to 6PM and jailed truant Kids parents.

[Einzige]

The Cold War was a contest of two variant capitalist systems. Lenin noted the capitalist nature of the Soviet Union in e.g. The Tax In Kind.

Also, globalism is simply a byproduct of capitalist development. That's all. It doesn't want "sissy boys"; it wants programmers.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-11-2020, 03:42 PM)Einzige Wrote:

Quote: When the ruling elite can demand that the common man suffer for the power, gain, and indulgence of rapacious elites... then someone like our friend "Einzige" is right.

This is not what I believe.

I do not have a conspiratorial view of society, in which a capitalist class orchestrates things for nefarious purposes ala the Jews in antisemitic mythology. It is, rather, Capital, a disembodied abstract, which determines the behavior of all humans within capitalist systems, whether capitalist or worker.  It is possible to be a good capitalist who treats her workers very fairly, and indeed to be an egalitarian at heart, and still have ones actions dictated wholly by Capital.

The solution does not lie in traditional leftist organizations like unions or the state, or worker's co-operatives, all of which simply rearrange Capital. The solution is the self-abolition of the working class. This position is a typical left-communist one, not a Stalinist or anarchist one, both of whom we regard as desiring to reproduce a fundamentally capitalist social order.

Capital was the Industrial Age term.  I would use the more general term resources.  Whether you are talking about the hunter gatherer period, Agricultural Age, Industrial Age or Information Age, the nature of what is exchanged is different.  The dominant classes are different.  The relationship between the classes is different.

What has been common is that one group of elites controls the mean of production and sticks it to the other groups.  It is in human nature to seek resources.  It is in human nature to form groups.  It is in human nature to perform work and exchange resources.

A philosopher or internet debater can create imaginary systems any way they like.  The trick is taking into account reality and human nature.  Thus far, no matter what age you examine, the elites control the means of production oppress the worker.  That is not going to go away, poof, magic, like Trump is claiming of the virus.  To break class oppression, you need the common worker to have some way to check the elites, some way to distribute the resources considerably more evenly.

The latest situation in the US has the elites and racists controlling the Republican Party.  Each has something needed to maintain control, be it money and media control for the elites, and votes for the racists.  Thus, democracy has not been able to bring a sufficient control of the elites, has not been able to since Nixon brought in the racist votes.  This might shift this crisis.  This seems to be the greatest problem with the culture, and such generally gets attacked and solved by the crisis.  

It might not this time, but it is lining up such that it might happen.

Violence overthrowing the system is not a contending philosophy.  Doing so will do nothing if the working man doesn’t buy into the solutions to the two problems which you have not provided.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-11-2020, 07:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

Is that it? I expected the greatest political duo that mankind has ever seen to receive more than just that award. I expected an Emmy, an Oscar, a Noble Peace Prize, the medal of honor and whatever else is readily available to give them in advance. You have to be appealing to the blue youngsters and the elders who become more childish (blueish) with age. Other than sitting around dreaming and wishing they were more like the Cavaliers or pretending to be Cavaliers or trying to convince the youngsters they are Cavaliers who are better then the Cavaliers, what else do the round heads do with the abundance of time that they all seem to have these days.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-11-2020, 06:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 07:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

Is that it? I expected the greatest political duo that mankind has ever seen to receive more than just that award. I expected an Emmy, an Oscar, a Noble Peace Prize, the medal of honor and whatever else is readily available to give them in advance. You have to be appealing to the blue youngsters and the elders who become more childish (blueish) with age. Other than sitting around dreaming and wishing they were more like the Cavaliers or pretending to be Cavaliers or trying to convince the youngsters they are Cavaliers who are better then the Cavaliers, what else do the round heads do with the abundance of time that they all seem to have these days.

I believe the agenda includes curing the pandemic, fighting racism, reducing the imbalance of wealth and saving the planet.  I could add flying to the moon, but the poor economy is putting that on hold.  

Obama's peace prize was early.  People of the year feels more right.  

[Classic-Xer]

(12-07-2020, 03:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 12:56 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You don't think we should have a middle class anymore? You've talked a lot about needing a middle class. You so partisan, you missed your opportunity to help them out. You're screwed dude. I assume that climate change and further enriching tycoons and making black people feel better about themselves is more important to you from a political perspective than helping them save their jobs. I haven't figured out whether your mind is warped or your a two faced piece of crap. Either or, your pretty much screwed at this point. Yep, Trump was defeated but Trump ain't going away anytime soon. If Twitter won't let you speak, you create an alternative to Twitter and play the same game as Twitter and Facebook has played with Conservatives and Donald Trump. Like I've said, you's guys are so stupid it's unbelievable. It's no wonder why you guys get blind sided so much these days.

A society polarized into a few rich people and a proletariat of destitute toilers is typically one famine or one military calamity away from a Jacobin or Bolshevik revolution. 

Beginning with Nixon, who partially revived his activity as a diplomat-in-all-but-name, ex-Presidents have had some involvement in American life after the President unless they went senile (Reagan) or became near-recluses (Dubya). Trump has much to offer his cult, but little to offer anyone else. He is already a sick, stale joke. Contrast Barack Obama, who is welcome almost everywhere in the world. He did little bad and much good, and he says some wise things that people like to hear. Trump is simply a shock jock, someone more likely to offend than to inspire. Trump's style is distinctly 3T, and any practice or trend from the 3T had better be really good to survive through the 4T.

If Trump was simply a shock jock then you wouldn't be in the unenviable position that you're in right now. I already made it through a group of Democrats who were much tougher than you. Oh, and I did it without a major fight or firing a shot so to speak. You weren't around, you wouldn't know what I'm capable of doing and guess what, I'm just one of the millions of Trump supporters. Guess what, Trump got me three supreme court judges and a few hundred lower court judges to balance the lower courts and his loss has given us a couple of chumps with something to prove to play with so to speak. Trump still has a term left and as long as he's not in the same condition as Biden then he'll vindicate himself and accomplishment by winning a second term.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-11-2020, 06:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 06:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 07:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

Is that it? I expected the greatest political duo that mankind has ever seen to receive more than just that award. I expected an Emmy, an Oscar, a Noble Peace Prize, the medal of honor and whatever else is readily available to give them in advance. You have to be appealing to the blue youngsters and the elders who become more childish (blueish) with age. Other than sitting around dreaming and wishing they were more like the Cavaliers or pretending to be Cavaliers or trying to convince the youngsters they are Cavaliers who are better then the Cavaliers, what else do the round heads do with the abundance of time that they all seem to have these days.

I believe the agenda includes curing the pandemic, fighting racism, reducing the imbalance of wealth and saving the planet.  I could add flying to the moon, but the poor economy is putting that on hold.  

Obama's peace prize was early.  People of the year feels more right.  

The pandemic has already been cured and its just a matter of waiting for the delivery of the cure at this point. So, are the Democrats willing to kill thousands while their dragging their feet trying to make Biden look great? I wouldn't put it past them at this point. As far as fighting racism, what's racism look like to you guys these days? A video of white cop suffocating a black crook during a struggle that took place during an arrest. Is that all you need to see to call it racism and trigger large scale riots and looting and unleash quasi socialists on missions to deface and destroy symbols related to American greatness/progress and attacks institutions associated with American law enforcement and divide a country that you need to remain intact in order to pay all the bills and meet all the obligations and so forth . If you want a war Bob, if you want to wake up and learn every digit is either gone or worthless and we've got the cash, the gold and silver pretty much locked up then you just continue being stupid and talking stupid, clucking like chickens as you say and doing what the monkeys are doing so to speak. As far as saving the planet, sucking up and going along and playing patty cake China and trying to out bid Chinese supporter among the UN ain't going to be able to save the planet.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-11-2020, 09:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The pandemic has already been cured...

The pandemic has been cured, yet again we set a record for deaths in a day.  Are you like Trump in thinking it will all go away magically?  There is a great deal of work that has yet to be done and which the Republicans are not doing.

Racism looks like the bad cops murdering minorities at whim, the Proud Boys invading minority areas and instigating violence, the Wolverine Watchmen planning to kidnap a state governor.  Passing a federal bill to make it unnecessary for the protests to start up again when the weather warms seems prudent.  Without such a bill, the people will let their will be known again and the red violence will restart.  We will see if the Republican obstructionism continues.

Destroying monuments dedicated to the Civil War isn’t a key element for me.  In Massachusetts  the monuments celebrate the winning side.  They celebrate freedom and courage.  I can see how many would see an end to celebrating racism.

Clucking like chickens is a reference to being obsessed and advocating violence while being too cowardly to actually do anything.  I do not advocate violence.  You do.  Between your obsession with violence, CH56’’s strange ideas on boomers, and Xenakis’s tribal thinking and xenophobia, it would be nice to deal with something relatively sane.  It is less about intelligence, more about people clinging to worldviews which are more than a little disconnected from reality.

[David Horn]

(12-12-2020, 03:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 09:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The pandemic has already been cured...

The pandemic has been cured, yet again we set a record for deaths in a day.  Are you like Trump in thinking it will all go away magically?  There is a great deal of work that has yet to be done and which the Republicans are not doing...

Amen to that!  The really hard work of science seems to be winding down at the very instant that the really hard work of the logisticians is just beginning.  Assuming the best case, it will be next summer before we have enough people vaccinated for herd immunity to begin, and best case is unlikely.  The anti-vaccers are roughly 30%, and the fence-sitters are about 25%, making no-vacc a majority at the moment.  For this to work,, we need 70% vaccinated, or roughly all the anti-vaccers.

[Eric the Green]

(12-11-2020, 08:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 03:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 12:56 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You don't think we should have a middle class anymore? You've talked a lot about needing a middle class. You so partisan, you missed your opportunity to help them out. You're screwed dude. I assume that climate change and further enriching tycoons and making black people feel better about themselves is more important to you from a political perspective than helping them save their jobs. I haven't figured out whether your mind is warped or your a two faced piece of crap. Either or, your pretty much screwed at this point. Yep, Trump was defeated but Trump ain't going away anytime soon. If Twitter won't let you speak, you create an alternative to Twitter and play the same game as Twitter and Facebook has played with Conservatives and Donald Trump. Like I've said, you's guys are so stupid it's unbelievable. It's no wonder why you guys get blind sided so much these days.

A society polarized into a few rich people and a proletariat of destitute toilers is typically one famine or one military calamity away from a Jacobin or Bolshevik revolution. 

Beginning with Nixon, who partially revived his activity as a diplomat-in-all-but-name, ex-Presidents have had some involvement in American life after the President unless they went senile (Reagan) or became near-recluses (Dubya). Trump has much to offer his cult, but little to offer anyone else. He is already a sick, stale joke. Contrast Barack Obama, who is welcome almost everywhere in the world. He did little bad and much good, and he says some wise things that people like to hear. Trump is simply a shock jock, someone more likely to offend than to inspire. Trump's style is distinctly 3T, and any practice or trend from the 3T had better be really good to survive through the 4T.

If Trump was simply a shock jock then you wouldn't be in the unenviable position that you're in right now. I already made it through a group of Democrats who were much tougher than you. Oh, and I did it without a major fight or firing a shot so to speak. You weren't around, you wouldn't know what I'm capable of doing and guess what, I'm just one of the millions of Trump supporters. Guess what, Trump got me three supreme court judges and a few hundred lower court judges to balance the lower courts and his loss has given us a couple of chumps with something to prove to play with so to speak. Trump still has a term left and as long as he's not in the same condition as Biden then he'll vindicate himself and accomplishment by winning a second term.

Trump is simply a shock jock, because that's all it takes to hook you idiots.

[Eric the Green]

(12-11-2020, 04:10 PM)CH86 Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 03:42 PM)Einzige Wrote:

Quote: When the ruling elite can demand that the common man suffer for the power, gain, and indulgence of rapacious elites... then someone like our friend "Einzige" is right.

This is not what I believe.

I do not have a conspiratorial view of society, in which a capitalist class orchestrates things for nefarious purposes ala the Jews in antisemitic mythology. It is, rather, Capital, a disembodied abstract, which determines the behavior of all humans within capitalist systems, whether capitalist or worker.  It is possible to be a good capitalist who treats her workers very fairly, and indeed to be an egalitarian at heart, and still have ones actions dictated wholly by Capital.

The solution does not lie in traditional leftist organizations like unions or the state, or worker's co-operatives, all of which simply rearrange Capital. The solution is the self-abolition of the working class. This position is a typical left-communist one, not a Stalinist or anarchist one, both of whom we regard as desiring to reproduce a fundamentally capitalist social order.

Capitalism vs Communism has already been tested against each other, Capitalism won. The Main divide today is between those who want to feminize society and turn the citizens into slaves for globalist tycoons and financiers, and those who fight for freedom: and want Men to be Men, and children to have actual childhoods.

Harris personifies this elite drive for feminization. Remember she is the one who wants school hours extended to 6PM and jailed truant Kids parents.

I wish she could put you back in school. You still have so much to learn.

[Eric the Green]

(12-11-2020, 02:07 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 01:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 01:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 07:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody predicted Trump wouldn't like Time magazine's person of the year.  That would be Biden and Harris?  Good prediction.  

A good one, and they didn't even need astrology to make it 

I thought that the role would go to the SARS-2 virus that causes COVID-19, and, so far, about 300,000 deaths in America.

I would have preferred their Kid of the Year.

Cool! Kids today are so much smarter than adults.