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Double_R

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Reflection on January 6th
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@bmdrocks21
The good guys are the ones that compare you to Nazis for reading a book
You know damn well that if Jill Biden has said Joe kept an Adulf Hitler book by his bed you and every right wing cable pundit would be talking about it all the way through 2024.
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Reflection on January 6th
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@bmdrocks21
I don't know if those rioting were just ordinary people. If they were, I don't think Rittenhouse would have shot a pedophile, woman beater, and a felon burglar with all of his shots. But hey, that's probably a collection of the ordinary people rioting for that cause.
An unsurprisingly irrelevant throw away comment. You picked out one person out of literally tens or possibly hundreds of thousands who took part in the protests over the summer. Congratulations.

Now perhaps you’d like to address the actual point - that whatever your personal view on the police killings were, the protests were a result of individual Americans looking at the video footage for themselves and coming to their own conclusions about what they saw with their own eyes. Not one single rioter went out and smashed windows claiming that they were there because Biden told them to be there.

But of course, lefties are angels that would never believe lies…
And of course the righties would never just address January 6th. Every single time the attack on the US Capitol comes up all we ever get is “but BLM!”


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Reflection on January 6th
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@Athias
You mean that staged event?
So the Capitol riot was staged? By who? How? Please explain, I’d love to hear this.

But it's always prudent to first gauge the consequences of the riot, which was the foolish attempt to impeach Donald Trump. Once one understands that, the "who" becomes clear.
Same argument made by 9/11 truthers when asking who brought down the WTC. It’s conspiracy theory logic 101; start from the back and work your way towards the front.

Were the "democrats" not trying to impeach Trump after he lost the (s)election, which at the time was subject to scrutiny?
I know of no democrat who set their sights on impeaching Trump after the election.

Many however did want to impeach him before as they did throughout his presidency. That is completely irrelevant. Trump was eventually impeached for his actions and what resulted from them. Why is that so difficult? The fact that someone wanted something, and then that something happened does not mean they caused it. You know this, or at least you should.

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atheism is irrational
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@Tarik
My god dude, this is really simple stuff.

I love how you ignore the first half of the definition as if it’s not of utmost importance just to acknowledge the latter half, the definition still stands on the first half alone it doesn’t with the second.
Here’s the entire definition, again:
evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth”

I didn’t cut off any part of the definition, I highlighted the second part because it was more straightforward.

The first part states “sufficient to establish a thing as true”. Do you know what that’s called when something is sufficient to establish that something is true? That’s called belief. The literal definition of belief is to accept something as true.

Meaning it doesn’t only take belief for proof but sufficient evidence, so your not gaslighting anyone here.
Sufficient: “enough; adequate.”

If the person believes a proposition (aka accept the proposition as true) then the evidence is by definition sufficient as proof.

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atheism is irrational
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@Tarik
…Yes you did, the extra variable you added was belief.
Proof: “evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth”

It’s not an added variable, it’s embedded in the definition of proof. And not only embedded, it’s literally the thing that separates that which qualifies as proof from that which does not.

I didn’t say they aren’t I said they are.
Sorry I misspoke. But that is not relevant to the point I was making. Again, for something to be proof it must result in belief. So to say that facts are subject to proof is to say that facts are subject to belief. But we all know that is not the case.
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atheism is irrational
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@Athias
Identify and sufficiently explain the contradiction.
That’s not relevant to my question. Imagine one.

You argued that the claim “god does not exist” is inherently illogical. I’m just trying to understand whether you believe that applies to claims of a self contradictory god. It’s a simple yes or no.
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Evidence for God
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@Tradesecret
This is what’s referred to as the nuclear method - if you can’t substantiate your position then just blow up all knowledge so that it’s all the same.

I don’t categorize logic itself as an axiom but even if we do, then not all axioms are created equal. We presume the validity of logic because we have no other choice. Any attempt we make to invalidate logic requires the use and therefore acceptance of it, so there is nothing that could come before it. Logic is therefore foundational, and everything else that comes, comes after it and as a result of it.

So to claim that because we all accept logic that we’re all doing the same thing is absurd, and certainly does not justify any argument you have made.
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Reflection on January 6th
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@Greyparrot
The usual meaningless non-answer I’ve come to expect.

I am concerned about what happens then Graham and McConnell take control of the investigations. Not because I’m concerned about what they will do to “people like me”, but because I’m concerned about how they will continue to embarrass us and continue to degrade the institutions our society depends on to project seriousness and stability. We’ve already seen it… does Benghazi ring a bell? How about Hillary’s emails?
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Is Inheritance Morally Wrong?
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@thett3
I tend to think the “looking down on others” attitude you described is really nothing more than jealousy. It’s always going to piss people off when they see someone else as having gotten a free ride where as in their view they’ve had to work for everything they have.

Key phrase here of course is “in their view”. Illusory superiority infects all of us on some level. The same notion applies to the challenges we have had to face.

I don’t agree with your view however that a family should be regarded as an entity. The most basic principal of capitalism is the idea that we are each in control of our own destiny and are each therefore responsible for it. What you’re describing is the antithesis of that.

I do believe some amount of wealth should be able to be passed down tax free, but that’s more for the benefit of the individual who earned it. If I work hard all my life to gain what I’ve got I should be able to leave something to those I care about most. We all deserve that. It’s when we start getting into the millions and especially tens of millions that I think it becomes excessive and more importantly, detrimental to society. 

I believe in a society where everyone is given a fair opportunity to succeed. Excessive wealth passed down from one generation to the next all but ensures the opposite.
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Reflection on January 6th
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@Greyparrot
You left out the important part; “…as the minds of all the morons out there who think breaking into the US Capitol to stop congress from certifying a presidential election shouldn’t come with serious consequences.”

See, it was a comparative statement, so if you want to raise an issue with it you need to take both ends of the comparison into account.

But even setting that aside… please provide one example of a “political trespasser” being jailed because of partisan corruption. I’ll wait.
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Reflection on January 6th
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@Greyparrot
You're just proving my point that when all those people you quoted get power in 2022, it will be Democrats in jail for political trespassing with no trial date
Nothing in my post proved anything you just said. What my post demonstrated is the fact that we all understood how bad what was happening was and that the dear leader was directly responsible for it at the time it was happening. Propaganda doesn’t work in the moment, that requires the passage of time so that history can be re-written in the fog of hindsight.

The fact that not one right winger on this site can come on here and just say “yeah, January 6th was terrible and it’s a good thing that we are fighting to make sure it never happens again” is indicative of how fucked we are as a nation.

And no, democrats won’t be jailed for political trespassing because democrats aren’t the ones dumb enough to storm the US Capitol thinking they can overturn an election, and because democrats are not dumb enough to sign up for a cult pledging allegiance to history’s biggest man-child.

Surely you know in your quiet moments that 2022 is going to be a year of absolute GOP congressional power.
They’re not quiet moments, the political pendulum will continue to swing back and forth like it has for centuries. There is nothing about this that validates the absurdity coming from the political right on this.

Are you not the least bit afraid of what they plan to do to people like you?
No, because our justice system is not as easily corruptible as the minds of all the morons out there who think breaking into the US Capitol to stop congress from certifying a presidential election shouldn’t come with serious consequences.

What I’m afraid of is that by this time next election the US will no longer be a democracy. That’s something we all used to agree on but it appears that is now a partisan value.
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Evidence for God
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@Tradesecret
Well that just shows that you did not read what I posted for it is not Scripture.
It’s not a direct quote from scripture, that is blatantly obvious, but you are still using scripture to validate scripture because everything  written there was lifted directly from scripture and cites scripture as its source. That was the point, not the semantics you want to focus on.

The document itself is demonstratable that the methodology of interpreting scripture by scripture is a valid and indeed proper one despite your denigration of it.
Using scripture to validate scripture is called circular reasoning, a violation of the most basic principal of logic. If you insist on sticking to that then you are by definition irrational and therefore incapable of having a logical conversation.
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Reflection on January 6th
“I hate it to end this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he’s been a consequential president, but today, first thing you’ll see. All I can say is a count me out. Enough is enough.” - Lindsay Graham

"There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," - Mitch McConnell

The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” - Laura Ingraham

“Please, get him on TV — [the riot is] destroying everything [Trump] accomplished,” Brian Kilmeade

“Can he make a statement, ask people to leave the Capitol?” - Sean Hannity 

Just a few examples of the fact that we all understood how egregious January 6th was during and in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. But yet here we are, a year later with half the country still pretending there was nothing to see here. It’s absurd. And clearly no Trump defender wants to touch this with a ten foot pole, so as usual it’s all whataboutisms.
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atheism is irrational
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@Athias
I don't take issue with some atheists stating "God does not exist" or that "I don't believe in any Gods." I take issue with some atheists stating that "God does not exist" is a rational or logically consistent argument.
What if the god proposed is logically contradictory?
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atheism is irrational
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@Tarik
Do you understand the difference between a fact, and the acceptance of a proposition as a fact?
Yes why?
Because if you do you should understand that I didn’t add in an extra variable. The difference matters and is what makes your original statement that facts are not subject to proof incoherent. There are facts about reality that are true regardless of what you think about them, and then there is the concept of proof which deals with what you think about them. Two entirely  different things.
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Evidence for God
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@Tradesecret
Is this a joke? I just explained how scripture cannot be the method by which you determine whether scripture is correct and your response is to quote scripture?
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Reflection on January 6th
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@ILikePie5
Any follower of politics knows politicians only do something if it affects them. 

Summer of Love and J6 are classic examples.

We shouldn’t fear politicians. Politicians should fear us. And if you support the standard of indefinitely jailing someone without a trial, that’s on you
I take that as your concession.
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Reflection on January 6th
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@Greyparrot
They certainly are, that’s why the GOP didn’t even bother to present a defense of Trumps actions in either impeachment and instead just relied on demonizing the democrats for holding him accountable for what would have gotten any other president thrown out of office. When your constituents live in whatever reality you invent, you don’t need a valid argument.
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Reflection on January 6th
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@ILikePie5
The summer riots of 2020 were fueled by ordinary people tired of watching more unarmed black people being killed by those charged with protecting them with no accountability. 

January 6th was fueled by a president and his associates blatantly lying to the American people about the outcome of the election.

These are not the same thing. Anybody not entrenched in every day American politics of the moment understands that. 
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Reflection on January 6th
As we approach the 1 year anniversary of the attacks on the Capitol I wondered how the DART community as a whole views the days events given everything we now know about what took place that day.

Discuss.
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Evidence for God
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@Tradesecret
This is a tried and true method of millions of people around the world.
You haven’t provided a method. You stated that scripture interprets scripture, which as I explained does nothing to help anyone understand how you come to your conclusions, and certainly does not explain why there are over 30,000 denominations of Christianity.

You also haven’t addressed the more important point; even if I grant you that your method for understanding scripture is objectively the best method for understanding it, you still have to determine whether you accept scripture as the authority on what is true. Why should I or anyone else care about what the Bible says? You can have your arguments for why, but you ultimately have to decide for yourself whether to accept it, so you are still your ultimate authority.

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The Political Consequences of Low Birthrates
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@thett3

Not everyone having children in red states are white conservatives (in the south especially many are minorities) and not all children from conservative households stay that way so I don't think this portends a long term and inevitable conservative dominance. But I think it is still a socially/politically relevant fact that white liberals seem to be going the way of the dodo bird, genetically speaking. If this groups wants to continue to hold onto its share it must do so through conversion.
But that conversation is natural, so I don’t think this is at all concerning from a left wing perspective. Conservatism is by definition about conserving the past, future generations have no interest in that which is why younger voters tend to be far more liberal than their parents.

Another factor here is the urban rural divide, which is a far bigger indicator of how a population will view  political issues. So unless cities dwindle in population while rural areas boom, I wouldn’t expect anything to change there either. In fact a population boom in rural areas would only make them see things more like their liberal counterparts.

I don’t find any of this surprising though when you look at it, the less dense a population then less there is to do. If I lived in the middle of no where (no offense to anyone living in rural America) I would probably have lots of babies too. Plus it’s so much cheaper as you mentioned that it just makes sense.

Overall this may bring some hard times for future generations economically, but is ultimately good for the species and the earth. There are too many people on this planet and resources are already stretching too thin. Only 1% of the earths water is drinkable and towns around the world are starting to run out. Treating salt water is expensive, so the price of everything will skyrocket. We are quite possibly living in the most preposterous time in human history.
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The Biden Border Crisis
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@thett3
Now people come to the border and they are released into the country, often times without a court date. Thus the incentive to illegally immigrate went way, way up.
Biden rolling back Trump’s policies means we end up right back to the same laws we’ve had in place for the past few decades. I get that you find Trump’s policies better by comparison, but once again, you are blaming the surge on Biden and his policies when there has been no significant change to any longstanding US policy on this. So if we weren’t seeing these numbers with the same policies before, why is the surge Biden’s fault now? This is what I’m talking about when I point to correlation =/= causation.

And not for nothing, but do you not think Trump’s hyper-focus on this issue has had something to do with this as well? I mean the guy rambles on and on about how stupid our immigration laws are all the time. Before he came along I had no idea what asylum laws were, and most people had never even heard the term. Now it’s a prominent national debate the whole world is talking about. You can’t argue that this has had nothing to do with it, especially while you simultaneously argue that migrant awareness of our laws is a major catalyst here.

What would you call it if one group subverts the law whenever they are in office, for the purpose of damaging the prospects of another group?
Hmm, voting rights, SC nominations in an election year, using legislation to strip the other side of their power… I’d call it the republican playbook.

I don't know if Democrats thought about race and immigration in this way before the book or not because I was far too young to be paying attention, but it seems to be the genesis of the current positions on immigration by party. Do you think they would be so fervently pro-immigration (legal and illegal) if immigrants voted 70%+ GOP
Well first off, you claimed that the left was open about their nefarious intentions, I still haven’t seen any examples of this.

I don’t doubt that the fact that immigrants voting overwhelmingly Democratic has a big influence on the policies championed by the left. But this issue really wasn’t front and center until Trump came along, and to attribute it all to that is just confirmation bias. The left’s passion for defending immigrants is more of a backlash to the blatantly apparent racism fueling much of the right on this. I mean seriously, Trump began his campaign by calling Mexican migrants criminals and rapists, and all that did was make him more popular with the base.

What I see happening here is that the left is simply reacting to what the right is fomenting while the right pretends that there is no context to the left’s reactions. Well, in the absence of that context sure it looks like this is all about winning elections and diluting conservatism. It’s a classic projectionist tactic. The reality is that what you keep pointing to is mostly a defense of a group the left sees as being under attack, not a war against conservatism.

And that’s not to suggest that there isn’t some of this the other way around. Like I just explained, the right has become far more entrenched in this because of their view of what the left is doing so I’m not arguing that it’s all racism or any other nefarious motivation, but if we’re trying to get an accurate picture of what exactly this is we need to ask ourselves where this “react to the other side” battle really began. I’ve been following politics for years, immigration has never been a left wing issue, it’s always been a focus on the right.
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The Biden Border Crisis
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@thett3
“Correlation =/= causation” is a pretty weak argument though. 
Not when you ignore the fact that the conditions today are nothing like any conditions we have seen in our lifetime. A valid argument needs to consider the whole picture.

Again, I’m not arguing that Biden’s roll back of Trump’s  policies don’t account for any of it, I’m just asking those who are branding this as a problem almost entirely of Biden’s creation substantiate that claim.

Addressing the root causes of why people feel the need to migrate is important for a long term solution but it does absolutely nothing to fix the here and now
No, it probably wouldn’t but whether you accept it or not that is the issue. Biden’s policies wouldn’t mean a damn thing if these people didn’t find their conditions so horrible that they would literally risk their lives and that of their families to trek across an entire country to possibly be let into a land completely foreign to them in the hopes that they might find a better life for themselves. Folks like yourself talk as if these people are just hopping in vans and going for a joyride. The issue is much bigger than “let’s deter them by making them wait in Mexico”.

But if you’re suggesting that illegal immigrants are all watching Fox News and that has more to do with why they’re coming over than policy changes I think that’s laughable
It’s your claim. You’re the one arguing that their perception of what’s happening at the border is driving them to come here. Where do you think that perception comes from? You think these people are reading printouts of Biden’s executive orders? You think they’re consulting with their attorneys before jumping in their caravans? Of course not. It’s mostly word of mouth, and talking points like “open borders”, “amnesty”, and “they care more about illegals than US citizens” spread amongst South America every bit as much as Biden’s actual policies.

it’s proponents are extremely open about what the goal is. The goal is to import more people so that people with my ethnic background are outnumbered, with the purpose of ensuring that the politics I support will be crushed.
Can you provide an example or two of a prominent left wing figure that has openly stated this?

It is quite literally demographic warfare against me
Yeah, I was waiting for this. It’s a war against White people. Got it.

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Evidence for God
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@Tradesecret
Did you ever read my words?  I say Scripture interprets Scripture.
This is a completely incoherent statement. Scripture is, by definition, words on a piece of paper. It doesn’t think. It doesn’t act. It just is. Interpretation is done by a thinking agent. That would be you.

On the contrary. I am using the tried and trusted methods of literature experts.  We need to understand what the author meant…
Yes, and coming to that understanding requires you to use your own judgement and your own reasoning. And this is after you have already used your own judgement and reasoning to conclude for yourself that the literature is where you will find the truth about the universe. There is no way around this, you are your ultimate source. You are no different in that regard from any atheist.

I never said it was a problem. I just want Atheists to be honest with themselves.
I’ve never met an atheist who didn’t acknowledge and ultimately champion this fact.

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The Biden Border Crisis
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@thett3
You can see quite clearly that there was a spike in 2019, that peaked at BELOW the ongoing numbers we've had for over NINE MONTHS STRAIGHT now with Biden, and quickly dissipated. You can argue that people don't respond to incentives and so ending catch and release, summarily expelling everyone caught, forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico instead of being released into our country, strong-arming the countries of origin to keep their people in line, etc didn't matter. But I think that's a truly ridiculous statement. 
I never argued any of that. I’m arguing that your rhetoric is over-dramatic nonsense.

According to your source we saw a 77% increase in encounters from 2019 to 2021. That’s not nothing, and it’s certainly not something for the administration to ignore. But the increase amounts to a difference of one quarter of one percent of our population, and matches the same number of illegal crossings we were seeing 20 years ago when none of this was even considered a political priority. So to say as you have, that Trump solved the immigration problem but now under Biden we don’t have a border any more is just absurd.

The question asked in your OP has been answered: Yes, there is a border crisis, and yes it is unprecedented. Given that there were SIGNIFICANT policy changes between Biden and Trump it seems totally plausible that Biden bears a huge portion of the responsibility.
The OP hasn’t been answered, because correlation is not causation. You have done nothing to show that the policy changes you point to account for any significant portion of the increase, and ignore the fact that while our sudden increase in illegal immigration is unprecedented so are the circumstances surrounding it. When was the last time the world economy was shut down by a pandemic? When was the last time that economic conditions in South America were this bad while the US faces a labor shortage? All Biden can do is deal with the influx of crossers, he has little to do with the conditions driving them here in the first place, if you actually care about keeping these numbers down that is where you should be focused.

And to that point, you continually blame the crisis on the perception that the US border is wide open without addressing where the majority of that perception comes from. Hint: you won’t hear the words “open borders” uttered very much on MSNBC.

All of this has been pointed out to you repeatedly.
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Evidence for God
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@Tradesecret
Oooh a trick question.

Didn't I already answer that question? 

Hmm - you will find it is CIRCULAR REASONING.  also known as an axiom. 
No, it’s not a trick question. It’s about as straight forward as it gets.

No, I don’t believe you did answer that question.

No, there is nothing about it that is circular. Again, you claimed that the atheist’s primary source is themself, which is supposed to be some kind of problem. However, setting aside what exactly is wrong with this, you ignore the fact that the only way you can interpret your professed ultimate source is through yourself. So how are you any different? Are you not deciding for yourself based on your own reasoning what to accept is true?
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Evidence for God
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@Tradesecret
I base my measure of truth and knowledge from various sources. The most authoritative source is the Bible.  

Your authoritative source is yourself.
What source tells you that the Bible is true?
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Evidence for God
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@rbelivb
However, it is unclear what would constitute positive empirical evidence for God's existence
Then one cannot make the empirical claim that a god exists.
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atheism is irrational
basically, you said 1. a bare assertion that you think it's reasonable to question if they actually are accurate…
 
find some actual evidence to back up your claims before you try responding next time
A bare assertion is a statement of fact without evidence. What I think is reasonable is not a statement of fact, so your point here makes absolutely no sense. Nor does your retort that I need to provide evidence.

This isn’t how logic works.

Again, you are the one making claims, so you are the one with the burden of providing evidence. I have no such burden until I make an empirical claim, which I haven’t or at least not one that you have challenged.

My objections to your position are on philosophical grounds, so in order to have a conversation about them you need to have an understanding of  basic philosophy. These comments demonstrate the exact opposite. Dunning Kruger? I suggest you look in the mirror.

pointing out that these have not been repeated in a lab is a good point, but it's not enough to counter point the fact that there are so many witnesses corroborating the examples.
Yes it is, because of *none* of these examples have been repeated in a lab then *none* of these examples have been scrutinized as to rule out alternative possibilities to explain them. That’s the most basic element of evidence, but I’ve explained this already and you will continue to claim that anything being evidence is perfectly fine. 

you didn't elaborate on your occam's razor point but i think that point is just a repeat that you think the simplest solution is that my evidence isn't accurate. everything comes back to you to the point that you think hallucinations are the simplest solution,
Yes, this is the point in the conversation where we start talking about what simplicity is and why it matters, but you continue to avoid it because you seem to be allergic to epistemology.

basically, you provide a lot of bluster, but very little in the way of actual logic or science.
Again, these are your claims so you’re the one who needs to bring the science which you don’t even pretend to do, at least not on the terms of actual science.

And logic? I find the most fascinating thing about you to be your insistence on focusing on logic while avoiding all conversation about any of its principals.

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atheism is irrational
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@Tarik
That latter sentence doesn’t justify the claim that facts aren’t subject to proof, it just makes it more redundant. All you literally did was add an extra variable to the claim I already made.
Do you understand the difference between a fact, and the acceptance of a proposition as a fact?
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The Biden Border Crisis
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@thett3
These levels are unprecedented. The purpose of a country = to establish a claim to a certain territory and defend it militarily from outsiders.
These levels are not categorically different from what we saw in 2019. And very little apart from the details has changed since then. I’m just saying it is dramatic to the point of unseriousness to claim that we had a border in 2019 and not now.

I would square it by pointing out that Trump pursued pretty cut throat policies such as prosecuting all illegal border crossers…
But clearly it wasn’t working according to your own metrics.

When we experience a surge under Biden, it’s because of his policies. When we experience a surge under Trump, it’s in spite of his policies. The surges are not that far apart from each other, and there are plenty of other factors you don’t even seem to take into account. So I’m just trying to understand if there is any real justification for putting this all on Biden, because this really just looks like political expediency.

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USA - A Backsliding Democracy
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@Greyparrot
I know right? That we shouldn't have ANYTHING unregulated should come as a shock, I guess.
If this is the limit of your bandwidth it’s no wonder we can’t get past this point. I don’t believe it is, I just don’t think anything being that is convenient for you, but you are free to handle reality however you wish.

So why defend them? 100 votes being nullified won't matter, right?
I’m not defending them, I’m defending you, and me, and everyone. That’s the whole point of defending rights.

I’ve made this point repeatedly, so if you don’t understand it by now then you simply choose not to, so I’ll say it again one note time just for the hell of it…

There is no valid and logically consistent argument to justify talking voting rights away from any segment of the population, aside from those who cannot make their own decisions. Why? Because either one of two things will always be true:

A) the segment is too small to be significant, in which case you violate the most basic principal of democracy for nothing

B) the segment is large enough to be significant, in which case you no longer have a real democracy

This isn’t complicated GP, unless you want it to be.
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The Biden Border Crisis
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@thett3
It’s about whether we have a country or not. If people are allowed to illegally enter and you’re financially obligated to take care of their kids, against the overwhelming will of the voters and the law itself….you’re not a citizen, you’re a serf
Illegals have been crossing the border for as long as there has been a border, an increase in traffic doesn’t mean we go from being a country to not being a country. There’s really no way to describe that other than just plain silly.

I would argue that Biden and Biden alone is responsible for the border crisis. Trump had a similar border crisis and his zero tolerance policies drove crossings to multi decade lows. Biden gets in, reverses those policies and things go to multi decade highs with no signs of slowing down 
I understand you would argue it, are you actually going to though? As far as I can tell from reading your posts the thing you seem to credit the most for the increase is Biden’s rhetoric, which not only has nothing to do with policy but as Ram has pointed out a few times, the rhetoric from the right claiming illegals are getting free everything and better treatment than US citizens probably plays a far bigger role than anything Biden has said.

And when it comes to which policies you attribute to this surge, I’m wondering how you square that with the surge we experienced in 2019 when Biden was no where near the White House. If it’s all about Biden’s policies then what did Trump do to cause that?
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@Greyparrot
I’m talking about the basic principals of democracy, and all you come back with is “I don’t think domestic terrorists should vote”.

Domestic terrorism accounts for a whopping 100 or so arrests per year, but let’s focus on that instead of the country.

For the third time…

If you are going to respond to anything I have to say in this post respond to this; the way we deal with ignorance and/or malice within our voting population is to drown out those individuals with educated or well intentioned voters. And if that doesn’t work because the population at large is ignorant or malicious enough to put “the wrong” politician in office then we get the government we deserve. We are all subject to the same laws and governed by the same authorities, therefore everyone gets a say in what that governing authority should look like.

That’s not rhetoric, that’s not left wing talking points, that’s not propaganda, it’s the most basic idea of democracy.
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@thett3
I will be voting Republican for the foreseeable future no matter who is the nominee, and no matter what other policy issues are at stake.
This is the very reason I find the immigration debate interesting. Please help me understand, what personal impact does illegal immigration have on you that this would be your top and only priority issue? Not healthcare, not taxes, not Covid, and not even democracy itself… but this?

Is your position seriously that Trump's policies had nothing to do with illegal border crossings reaching a 20 year low, and Biden reversing those policies had nothing to do with border crossings reaching a 21 year high scarcely a year later?
Missed this… No, I don’t engage in such black and white thinking. The question isn’t ‘are Biden’s policies solely responsible or not responsible at all?’, the question is what policies are responsible and more importantly, how much of an impact are they actually having? If his policies account for a 10% increase that certainly doesn’t justify the rhetoric.
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@Greyparrot
The difference between us when it comes to domestic terrorists is that I believe in the principal, you don’t. But we’ve already established that.

Let’s try this again…

If you are going to respond to anything I have to say in this post respond to this; the way we deal with ignorance and/or malice within our voting population is to drown out those individuals with educated or well intentioned voters. And if that doesn’t work because the population at large is ignorant or malicious enough to put “the wrong” politician in office then we get the government we deserve. We are all subject to the same laws and governed by the same authorities, therefore everyone gets a say in what that governing authority should look like.

That’s not rhetoric, that’s not left wing talking points, that’s not propaganda, it’s the most basic idea of democracy.

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@Greyparrot
My god dude, why is this so difficult? Let’s make this really simple…

Someone who has the ability to make their own decisions… ok to vote.

Someone who cannot make their own decisions, not ok to vote.

If we follow this principal, we end up with the politician whom the people *decided* on.

Is that simple enough? Are you going to keep going down this road looking for gotcha’s, or are you finally going to address the point I have been making for at least 3-4 posts now?
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Should people be allowed to sue a vacciene company if they get very bad effects from it?
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@TheUnderdog
If you get a sour arm for a day, you won't win much in court since you would have to pay the legal fees of the lawyer.
A sore arm is a natural effect of someone jamming a piece of metal through your muscles and injecting a bunch of fluid into it. Just hearing that case would be silly.
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@TheUnderdog
In a class action lawsuit yes, not any individual. Ethical considerations aside, there is no practical way it would work because each individual case would have to demonstrate causality, which would take far too many resources.
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@Greyparrot
The only restriction I can see when it comes to who can vote would be someone not capable of making decisions for themselves, like children or mentality disabled. That’s it.

I can understand restricting felons or someone convicted of terrorism, but I’m still against that because this is an insignificant portion of the population. Upholding the principal that *everyone* can vote is more important.
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@Greyparrot
Someone who’s unvaccinated clearly doesn’t take Covid seriously, so what would make you think they are more likely to get tested?
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@Greyparrot
That's the very definition of unregulated voting.
No, it’s not. Regulations are rules, so unregulated voting would be voting with no rules. That’s an absurd interpretation of everything I’ve argued. Your entire post is one big strawman.

I'd imagine even if they were to somehow charge all 500 for felony insurrection on Jan 6 you would be scrambling to remove the barriers that might prevent them from voting even though they actively destroyed your democracy.
Correct, until their citizenship is renounced they should all retain their right to vote.

What a ridiculous cross to die on, a right to vote free from ANY government interference in ALL cases.
Guaranteeing a constitutional right to all Americans is a ridiculous cross to die on? Wow GP, you have an interesting definition of ridiculous.

Those 500 or so individuals from all over the country are beyond unlikely to turn any election. But you know what is far more likely to make a difference? Picking and choosing which segments of the population get to be privileged enough to vote.

If you are going to respond to anything I have to say in this post respond to this; the way we deal with ignorance and/or malice within our voting population is to drown out those individuals with educated or well intentioned voters. And if that doesn’t work because the population at large is ignorant or malicious enough to put “the wrong” politician in office then we get the government we deserve. We are all subject to the same laws and governed by the same authorities, therefore everyone gets a say in what that governing authority should look like.

That’s not rhetoric, that’s not left wing talking points, that’s not propaganda, it’s the most basic idea of democracy.

That's the result of unregulated voting. Chaos and deregulation of any sensible rule to ensure a fair election system.
No, that’s the result of having only one party in this country that cares about democracy and the other party obsessed with fantasies of rampant voter fraud. If we had two parties working together to find ways to make voting both easier and more secure we could solve these issues pretty quickly.

And the term “as easy as possible” is a colloquialism. No I’m not arguing that we have to allow everything  which doesn’t violate the laws of physics. Of course practicality is taken into account. If you actually cared about understanding opposing points of view you would have picked up on that.
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@n8nrgmi
using your standards, the evidence i presented isn't valid or repeatable. but it could be said to be both of those under different criteria.
This is the entire point of studying epistemology. It’s not about my standards vs your standards, it’s about which standards get us the most consistently reliable results. What we’ve found is that those standards which follow the most basic principals of logic do just that. And when it comes to implementing those standards into practice to determine the best model for explaining reality we’ve come up with a name for it… science.

we have no reason to assume this stuff isn't accurate, the surveys, so it's valid
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying here cause it sounds like you’re misusing the word validity. Validity is a logical term meaning that the conclusion follows from the premise, it has nothing to do with the accuracy of the premises.

So having no reason to assume surveys are not accurate doesn’t make them valid, it makes them tentatively acceptable. As far as how tentative, that’s where Occam’s razor comes into play. And given what they are alleging, it’s not unreasonable at all to question their accuracy, which again would not be a problem if these phenomenon were repeatable, which they’re not, so we’re left with very little to support any of this.

if i go to south america and see penguins, that's evidence that there are penguins in south america. if someone dies and says they experienced the afterlife, that's evdience for the afterlife.
You can call anything evidence. We’ve been through that already, but this is where ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ comes in.

If I told you I went shopping yesterday, you wouldn’t need anything other than my word to be rationally justified in accepting that.

If I told you I ran into Beyoncé at the grocery store, you’d probably not believe me unless I showed you a photo.

If I told you I bought a time machine and traveled back to visit the dinosaurs, I could take you with me and you’d probably still not believe it.

As the claim becomes more extraordinary, you need more before you accept it. That’s basic logic. So telling me you saw penguins in South America is quite extraordinary, but we know there are such thing as penguins and there are ways to explain them being in South America without invoking the super natural. Leaving your body and visiting the next life? That’s a whole different category of extraordinary. The two claims are not comparable.

So at the end of the day if you want to go with your tautological definition of evidence then sure, I prefer a more useful definition.

you also confuse probable with possible.
-it's not probable that someone would hallucinate only family and dead people. if it's just a hallucination, it shouldn't be so consistent. all your arguments for why it's possible that would happen to people so consistently is just that... you are showing a possiblity. not a probablity. based on all dreams, hallucinations, and drugs that we know.... that shouldn't be that way, as a matter of probability.
The way we determine probability is by dividing the number of known instances by the total number of opportunities for that result. We don’t have the latter, so this argument has nothing to do with probability.

The way we determine what something should be is through observation, so claiming these hallucinations shouldn’t happen so frequently is completely baseless. Again, we typically use the word hallucination to describe it but we have no practical way of studying what is actually happening to the brain in these instances, so we have no way of concluding anything about what we should expect from them, other than what we have already observed. This whole point you’re making is again, one big argument from incredulity.

i could say the exact same thing to you
You could say anything you want, but your claim would have no merit to anyone who understands epistemology.

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@Tarik
Well your hypothetical doesn’t logically follow because morality and it’s objective nature is predicated on reality not hypotheticals
Clearly, you still do not understand what a hypothetical is or why we use them.

There are two elements to forming a conclusion; premises and logic. That’s it. Everything you believe to be true is a result of some combination of these two things, and in order to present a sound argument *both* of these have to pass muster.

Hypothetical examples are a test of the latter, they have nothing to do with the former. The idea is that you strip the argument of its content in order to analyze its construct. If your argument is constructed in such a way as to be logically invalid, then your argument is invalid. That’s what hypothetical examples allow us to examine.

In this case you are claiming morality is objective so my hypothetical challenges the construct of your argument. Thus, coming back and claiming that the content being different somehow invalidates my hypothetical is absurd and a demonstration of woeful ignorance on how reasoning works.

since facts are subject to proof does that make facts subjective?
Facts are not subject to proof. Belief in a fact by definition is, because proof is literally defined as “that which makes someone believe”.

This is why when we learn more about how reason works we start focusing on logic, the reasonableness of an argument, validity, etc. It’s why public officials have to be more careful with their language and instead of calling someone’s claim BS they have to say things like “there’s no evidence to support that allegation”, or “there’s no basis for that claim”. 

So in case you missed it… no, facts are not subjective.

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@bmdrocks21
Last month unvaccinated individuals were 5.8 times more likely to contract Covid than those who were vaccinated, which means 5.8 times more likely to expose someone else to Covid. So getting vaccinated is about more than just personal protection. My body my choice doesn’t cut it, not as long as you continue to go out and interact with society.

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@bmdrocks21
Do you think that not getting a vaccine is the moral equivalent of murder? If they aren’t, I don’t see what the issue is.
This is like asking if first degree murder is the same as negligent homicide. Sure the former feels so much worse, but the end result is still the needles loss of life.
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@Greyparrot
I never said I was against QE, and there’s very little Biden can do. The inflation we are experiencing is primarily a result of the disruptions to the global supply chain, Biden has little to no control over that.

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@Greyparrot
I never said anything about unregulated voting, you made that up. I’m talking about voting being accessible and made as easy as possible for all citizens. You are arguing that it’s ok *principally* to make people jump through hoops to vote as a demonstration of their education level or motivation to vote. The idea that this is principally terrible policy does not mean we do nothing to ensure elections are secure.
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@Greyparrot
I never said I had an issue with it, I was asking if you’re really serious about going back to this. One would think after being shown what nonsense their argument was the first time that they would drop it.

And yes, I’m going to bring Trump into the conversation anytime I’m arguing with someone who had no problem with Trump doing the same thing they are now now attacking Biden for.
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