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Danielle

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Bodily Autonomy
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@RationalMadman
The constitution does not afford citizenship (rights) to the unborn regardless of people's feelings on the matter. 

But the constitution does give citizens the right to bodily autonomy, correct? I'm wondering if anyone disagrees.
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Let's have a discussion on the virgin birth
Virgin births are definitely possible. Ever hear of a turkey baster? 
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Bodily Autonomy
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@Greyparrot
No, what would be the point of that? 
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Vaccine mandates
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@Greyparrot
What kind of reasonable exception? 
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Vaccine mandates
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@Greyparrot
The OP doesn't specify Covid vaccines. Are you opposed to all vaccine requirements for public schools, the military, or those of private businesses? 
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Bodily Autonomy
Does anyone deny that we have a constitutional right to bodily autonomy, or does anyone feel that we shouldn't have this right?
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The Second Amendment, Reinvigorated
So what will New York City look like now that we can carry guns around? Probably the same as it has for awhile. 

The city can still prohibit you from carrying guns in government buildings; in any location providing health, behavioral health or chemical dependence care or services; in any place of worship or religious observation; in schools and libraries; in public playgrounds, parks and zoos; the location of any state funded or licensed programs; in any vehicle used for public transportation; across all public transit including airports and bus terminals; in bars and restaurants; in entertainment venues; gaming and sporting events ; polling places; any public sidewalk or public area restricted for a special event; and protests or rallies. LOL.

New Yorkers use public transportation to get just about everywhere, so unless we plan on walking across all 5 boroughs we won't be allowed to carry our guns around. Also the presumption is that every private business restricts guns unless they display a sign saying otherwise. I highly doubt many NY businesses would invite all patrons to open carry inside. 

It's going to be fascinating to see what happens if/when the lawsuit arises that will make someone challenge New York's new gun rules. It's gonna be like some minority gang banger that shoots a cop, and Republicans are gonna shit themselves trying to figure out whose side to be on. 
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The Second Amendment, Reinvigorated
No, it defies a god-given right

Stop pretending that the constitution has the magical power of some infallible religious text.  There's no such thing as a "god given" right. God doesn't exist.

And even if she did exist, whatever rights she bestowed upon people are positively useless and mean nothing unless and until they are recognized by government, or whatever other entity has physical power and dominance over a given area.  The nonsense about an invisible spirit in the sky who picks and chooses which humans are worthy of rights-protections based on the latitude and longitude they exited their mother's vagina  is indeed one of the more idiotic and pathetic ideations of religious hypocrites. 

Rights come from government. That's it. They come from people's valuation of the law and the ability to enforce those values.

There should definitely  be some modifications to the second amendment. The same way society has restricted the "god given" right for convicted murderers to own guns and prevented citizens from the legal acquisition of nuclear bombs and chemical weapons, we can impose other types of regulations and god will just have to deal with that.

There's also the fact that the constitution does not give manufacturers the right to sell without regulation, but I digress. 
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@badger
The very next day this 60 year old man gets banned from Twitter for posting something stupid and uninteresting: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10970365/Jordan-Peterson-suspended-Twitter-tweeting-transgender-actor-Elliot-Page.html

The man is a clown. 

He really is such a clown ass man-child. He said  he would rather DIE than take down his tweet lmao. So dramatic.  

I don't get why he feels the need to specify Ellen Page as if using their birth name is something he feels VERY strongly about and MUST triple-down on.  Is he also opposed to referring to Lady Gaga by that moniker because it wasn't on her birth certificate?  Who fucking cares what name Elliot Page uses?! What a whiney ass hill to DIE on. 

What's weird is that he has a lot of libertarian followers who would clearly disagree that two adults engaging in a consensual procedure is somehow criminal, but they don't have it in themselves to criticize daddy Peterson because they're a bunch of pussies themselves, desperate for guidance.  People have surgery on their bodies all the time to change the way they look and yet I doubt Jordy wastes time going on such antagonistic tirades about those people. He really needs to go back to work. 
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@Tejretics
In the abstract, a check against majority rule is good, but I think the Senate is a pretty poor check, because it empowers an arbitrarily selected minority. I don’t think the solution to majoritarianism is to unequally and unfairly give overwhelming political power to a randomly selected group of citizens based on the region they live, unless said group has a history of significant disadvantage due to majority rule. 

It’s like, among a group of a 100 people, you give 10 randomly-selected people three times the vote of the other 90, with the logic of a “check against majority rule.” Personally, I think that’s a sufficient injustice that a check against majority rule doesn’t justify it, especially if it’s the same small group of people getting additional political power year on year

I get what you mean, but the separation of powers is a good thing.  Getting rid of the Electoral College is preferable to abolishing the Senate; two of our branches of government should not be elected undemocratically. It seems fine to have two senators per state because they are supposed to represent the interests of the state while the House represents the people. Getting rid of the Senate filibuster would solve a lot of the minority-rules problems. 


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@Athias
I did not suggest he was thoughtful to imply that he was (always) "right." I suggested that he was thoughtful to contradict badger's statement that "his only utility" is to coddle "bitch men."

I think that's his only utility these days.



So what do you believe he's incorrect about? / He didn't say that they were objective; he said they were universal.  

He said, "Sorry. Not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that" followed by "It's a conscious progressive attempt to manipulate and retool the notion of beauty, reliant on the idiot philosophy that such preferences are learned and properly changed by those who know better. See [here] and [here] but don't let the facts stop you."

It's hard not to laugh at this catastrophizing right off the bat, but I did give him the benefit of the doubt considering how boldly and assertively he was scientifically posturing.  

The first link is a study titled 'Newborn Babies Prefer Attractive Faces.' The study shows that 12 out of 16 babies (a pitiful sample size for a study) spent more time looking at faces deemed attractive by adults. It wasn't able to say what features made the infants look for longer. However what's important here is the emphasis on faces, when Peterson's remark about the model being objectively "not beautiful" was in reference to her body size. That makes the study pretty useless to his point all-together. 

The second link cites a study which looked at people's yearbook photos to study attractiveness. The research notes, "The majority of the yearbook photos were face portraits, so the rated physical attractiveness was based mostly on facial attractiveness." A similar problem. And the study was conducted by having 33 people aged only between 63 and 91 years old rank people's attractiveness in their HS photographs. Essentially none of what is contained in that study counters the idea that beauty standards are learned / change over time (we have historical evidence that they do), yet Peterson declared "THE FACTS" so condescendingly even though he didn't present any facts that were relevant to his claim.

I think we can characterize his tweet as a gaffe because the studies were so completely and utterly useless to his point. Since he is considered one of the most famous and prominent intellectuals on earth,  we can either assume it was a gaffe to include such pitifully irrelevant citations - or we can assume that he's a just a pathetic whiney old man-child concerned more with generating 'likes' on twitter from his incel followers than he is with data and truth telling.  I am comfortable agreeing to the latter scenario rather than it being a gaffe. You're right that it's more likely he wasn't even trying to make a cohesive point; his goal is primarily to get other dorky men with girl problems to stroke his ego. You can just tell he's the sort of guy who never got over the trauma of always being picked last in gym class. 


Was it directed at her physical attractiveness, or the alleged PC Machine against which he has wagered a personal intifada--the one which catapulted his public image and career? Why would one who's aware of his M.O. be surprised or shocked by what he stated, much less characterize it as a "gaffe"?

This is exactly the point. He is whining like a little bitch boy re: "progressives" at Sports Illustrated choosing to highlight a plus size model (waaah) which he doesn't find attractive. Boo hoo. Someone get the man a tissue before he palms a handful of klonopin to calm himself down. 

I am not surprised at all that Peterson is choosing to focus on lamenting such things of miniscule significance, because that's what catapulted him to fame. That's precisely what I said about him buying into his own bullshit and becoming a self-obsessed ego maniac that panders to fellow white boy betas. He's lost a lot of credibility as an intellect. I got into JP circa 2010 when I was going through a Jungian phase in philosophy, reading a lot of his earlier stuff geared toward that. It wasn't until like 2017 that he became an insufferable douche more obsessed with whining about the politically correct left than philosophizing or writing about history and psychology. I admit that there are people who knee jerk react hate him based on what he "represents," and I admit that he can be really interesting and compelling in some of his engagements, but there really are a lot of flaws in his positions that go beyond mine and other people's bias. 


How much of this has to do with Jordan Peterson himself, and not your issues with the image his followers sustain? 

I think it's both. I think I'm disappointed that he positioned himself as a mouthpiece for the alt right considering he is reasonably intelligent, and I wish he focused his time and energy on more intellectual pursuits or things he used to write about previously from a researcher point of view. Now he's just another anti-social justice crusader. The world doesn't need another Ben Shapiro.

I agree with you to an extent that Jordan Peterson has "always been this"  if by this you mean a resentful dweeb. He always seemed frustrated that his already diminished status as an effeminate male continues to decline as the world becomes less impressed by (and perhaps even more hostile to) mediocre white men.  But I think it wasn't until he was catapulted to notoriety via YouTube that his focus changed from history and psychology to basically trolling people on twitter all day. I don't use twitter, but people on other social sites I use have been mocking him relentlessly for what appears to be an addiction to fighting with feminists and trans people online. That doesn't exactly seem like something an "intellectual giant" would be focused on to the point of obsession. 

But my biggest issue is indeed with his followers (and I think you chose a good word by calling them followers; his fanbase is very cult-like). I resent that his stans eat up everything he says without scrutiny. I can digest JP the same way I digest some of my other favorite thinkers, and none of them are right about everything. I feel like we can value so many people in history / philosophy / science yet criticize their shortcomings. Not so with Jordan Peterson. His stans go absolutely berserk and have these ridiculous fangirl meltdowns if you  disagree with  or criticize one of his really novice-level understanding positions he takes. Plus, like I said, telling a bunch of grown men to "make friends with the people who want the best for you" really isn't some monumentally profound piece of life-changing advice we haven't all been told since kindergarten. He's no Socrates, he's a father figure for lost boys. And the remarks about "setting your house in perfect order before you criticize the world" is just straight up horse shit, not genius. I just don't understand the worship of him is all. 


 I too do not believe he's the most prominent intellectual of this generation, or any generation, but nevertheless, he is thoughtful and rigorous in his reasoning. At the very least, he's worth hearing out.
I agree. But I've listened and I'm over it. 



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@badger
I agree women are too lazy to get on top lol it's really exhausting. But guys basically give up once they cum which I find to be pretty selfish. Ultimately it's women's fault though for letting them get away with it and faking it so often to feed their ego. As the great Samantha Jones once said, "When I RSVP to a party I make it my business to come!" 

What I find weird is that gay people seem to be into giving pleasure way more than our straight peers. For instance my gay guy friends LOVE sucking dick, but my straight female friends hate sucking dick (same in reverse for straight men and gay women with eating out). My female friends are always saying how ugly penises are, but my gay male friends look at cock like it's the Mona Lisa. It's interesting that both gay men and women seem more into giving than receiving. 
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@badger
The US has made an intellectual superstar out of a 60 year old man frothing at the mouth about pronouns. Do you lot really have nothing better to do? 
1,000,000 % this 
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@Athias
And from personal experience, the difficulty in "satisfying a woman" is quite exaggerated.
I agree with this. If I could make a girl cum with two digits under three inches long it really doesn't seem that difficult at all. What a shame. 



Disagree. Jordan Peterson is a thoughtful man whose utility goes beyond his political interjections.

Thoughtful doesn't mean right though. People who get super high and start rambling about idiotic nonsense are thoughtful. Conspiracy theorists are thoughtful. Communists are thoughtful. 

I thought JP was awesome before he became lionized by losers online as some sort of intellectual monolith who could do no wrong. There are hundreds of videos, podcasts, articles, etc. that pick apart  his arguments and explain pretty straightforwardly why he's incorrect about a lot of things he takes a position on, including his latest nonsense about standards of objective beauty (he started whining about not being attracted to a plus size Sports Illustrated model, and he cited two positively useless articles as "proof" that don't back up a thing he said in any way whatsoever as another recent gaffe). 

I mean Jordan Peterson  basically bought into his own celebrity, became a drug addict and is now a meme who can't pry himself off twitter like some sort of desperate for attention wackadoo. I really enjoy his books, but the people who act like he's the second coming of Shakespeare are such tools. He's like the Dan Brown of philosophy for fucks sake, not the revelational  guru people portray him as.  Essentially JP is  like "son, don't lie" and "women really shouldn't be given the autonomy to work outside the home or else all us beta boys won't be chosen and can't be happy" so all the ugly, pseudo intellectual white boys with no girlfriends  online are like yasss kinggg!!  It's sad what he's become. 

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@badger
Jordan Peterson's whole utility is to be one big "there, there" for bitch men.
I agree. Jordan Peterson appeals to incels and people with daddy issues. It's like some elderly, soft spoken father figure that has zero impact of fear on anyone (I honestly think I could beat him with my bare hands lol) told them to stand up straight and clean their room, and now they can't stop raving about how he's the greatest intellect of our time 😆 It's so ridiculous. I was into lobster boy before he bought into his own hype/bullshit and went completely off the deep end. 
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Leftists on DART
Right-wingers at me: Despite you being an advocate of private property, free speech, free markets, free trade, gun rights, school choice, private health insurance and defunding the most expensive public institutions, you're a leftist!

Me: If those positions don't make me a right-winger, then what positions do?

Them: Oh, you know the ones...

lol
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@Bones
As for systemic racism, I'm unsure, but I think the definition of "systemic" is a reference to something imbedded in a system through policy, in which case I would disagree. But if the question were "is there widespread racism against African Americans" then my stance may be different. 

I understand what you mean, and for the most part I agree. But I think it's worth noting and accounting for how previous policies have a widespread impact today. A demonstrable systemic racism existed pretty blatantly in recent American history, so an honest consideration would absolutely consider to what extent we should acknowledge that systemic racisms impacts still linger rather than just snarkily dismiss it as nonsense as some people try to do. 

Literally the GOP's entire electoral strategy at this point is to make it harder for black people to vote so they might actually win a popular vote more than once every 30 years. Yet people want to chide the idea that bigotry and racism could possibly be the root of so many rights issues in the U.S. today.? Nah. 

I can agree that our policies, legal and otherwise, have made big changes (especially in recent history) to account for past discrepancies (not that right wingers haven't gone kicking and screaming every single step of the way). But I reject the idea that bigotry is nonexistent or irrelevant. For example there is evidence of pro white racist gangs and KKK members within police departments and across the judiciary. So while there might  not be official racist policies, there can still be a sense of "institutionalized racism" that isn't on the books. And ultimately it just seems nonsensical for a plethora of reasons to suggest that bigotry doesn't explain a great deal about our policy and why things are the way they are.
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@Bones
In what sense? Socially? Systemically? I would say that black on twitter is far better than being white on twitter.
lol 
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@Tejretics
On the filibuster, they’re mostly constrained by the median Democrats being pretty much center-right (Sinema and Manchin), because the Senate is structurally biased against Democrats -- meaning even when the Democrats do control the Senate, they rely on conservative Democrats as the median voters. 

The Senate honestly needs to be abolished or significantly reformed. It’s an absurdly undemocratic institution. 

Yeah,  it's true Dems can't abolish the filibuster because of those two peeps (and I just realized my typo from my last post -- I meant to say put back the filibuster in the end, I think). I don't agree that the Senate is necessarily an un undemocratic institution, although I see what you mean in the sense of majority rule. But I do think the Senate is good for checks and balances and specifically a check against majority rule. Sinema and Manchin are just doing what their constituents want them to do. It's not like W Virginians are super liberal. 

As I said in another post the GOP is desperate for a culture war because they have zero answer to American poverty.  The fear mongering about gays, their obsession with trans people, lying about the left / pedos and just their whole incessant massively hypocritical whining about "cancel culture" etc. is just so lame and transparent. There will never be any change or progress so long as people focus on those wedge issues.

Right wing populists refuse to form coalitions with progressives  despite them all being pro regulation / pro American and anti trade. Libertarians and progressives agree on so many things (anti surveillance, pro immigrant, abolish ICE, pro weed, pro drug decriminalization,  anti war, anti occupation, anti money for Israel, etc.) however the Libertarian Party has notoriously ceded to a right wing caucus that obsesses over whining about leftist cultural issues to the point where libertarians completely ignore all the ways they agree with the likes of the Squad to everyone's detriment. Nothing significant policy wise gets done. It's hard to see a way out of this mess. 
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If  Democrats had the shameless will to win like the Republicans do, they would #1 get rid of the filibuster; #2 make Washington DC and Puerto Rico states; #3 pack the court; and finally #4 overturn the filibuster.

But  they won't do those things. No balls. 


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For Republicans, Mitch McConnell has been a really good Senate leader.
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For Democrats, Nancy Pelosi has been a good House leader and speaker.
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Those proclaiming to love America the most as evidenced by all their flag paraphernalia don't really seem to like the that much about it.

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Cities are better than suburbs.
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NFTs are a scam.
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The border wall is an impractical, expensive and ineffective border plan.
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The NAP is not a philosophically sophisticated or useful metric of morality.

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Spanking children is a violation of the NAP.
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Economic populism = garbage demagoguery for the disenfranchised.    
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Economic populism and respect for human rights are inversely correlated.
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Economic freedom and respect for human rights are positively correlated.
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Economic freedom works and central planning doesn't.

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"Libertarian socialism" is easily one of the most idiotic and nonsensical ideologies to ever exist.
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The DNC had zero reason to feed into Bernie Sanders' delusions of winning the presidency in 2016; they were completely justified in diminishing and disregarding his candidacy.
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The liberal outcry demanding taxation of unrealized capital gains is undoubtedly one of the most asinine, absurd policy proposals they've come up with in recent years.
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The teen girl from Massachusetts who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for convincing her boyfriend to commit suicide was not guilty / should not have been charged with his death.
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Sexually active gay men should be allowed to donate blood.
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Bigotry is the default motivation for many people's political views.   
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White privilege exists.
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White people complaining that there is too much focus on race and identity politics today is a comical albeit tragic display of self righteous ignorance.
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Watching the "anti snowflake" conservatives wildly melt down over some people kneeling during a song they like is a lot more amusing than it should be.
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Religious schools should not be publicly funded.
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Most lawns are a huge waste of space and water.
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Indoctrinating children into religious cults is child abuse (some more than others).
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Republicans are desperate for a culture war because they have no remedy to thwart American poverty.

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In a few decades our immigrant detention cages will be looked down upon by the majority, not just liberals, with as much shame and disgust as our WII Japanese internment camps.
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The world should invest more in nuclear energy. Anti nuclear = anti science.
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If you cannot effectively argue a position you do not believe, you suck at debate.
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Straight men should be more concerned with and disappointed in their statistical inability to sexually satisfy women.
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The people clutching their pearls over a leaked SCOTUS decision that simultaneously shrug off Mitch McConnell's blatant disregard for precedent and the "non-politicization" of the Court might as well choke to death on their pearls.
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