Savant

I definitely agree, which is why I think this compromise may be necessary. Anyone who wants to be challenged and discuss more controversial topics could still do so in unmoderated threads or start one of their own. (And I think most people would.) I'd rather lose the participation of some people in those threads than have those topics banned entirely if the censorship crowd gets their way.

I think both places would benefit from cross-promotion. But yeah, I think a lot of DART people could do well there if this site doesn't gain more users.

Modern-Day Debate

What system do you propose that wouldn't just be "prison" by another name? Would you try to reform the prison area itself? Advocate for house arrest as an alternative?

More users means more donations.

We could all pitch in to buy search ads. Maybe give credits to people who pay for ads?

I'd like to see some of our top debaters on MDD, if they're not there already.

Is prison solely about retribution? I thought it was mainly about keeping violent criminals off the streets. You can argue for lower incarceration rates within the current system, as liberals do, but zero law enforcement is going to lead to crime spikes. If there's a serial killer going around murdering people, what do you think should be done about it, at least in the short-term?

Are you...badgering him?

I like this solution. But instead of having different channels, maybe have an optional tag to put on a post for "moderated discussion," if someone wants to create a thread with more strictly regulated comments.

Ik lol, I was trolling.

Spirituality is on the rise. Just because people are turning away from religion doesn't mean they're turning toward materialism.

Interesting

I don't think she's likely to run.

No I mean I wonder why they renamed the website.

Yeah, but they don't think that, and he's still the main part of their brand.

I wonder why they renamed it.

r/the_donald was shut down years ago. The comments they refer to are from this site. The RS article is behind a paywall, so here's the specific thread.

That one's been around for a while.

But she didn't have children. Do you make exceptions for people who are contributing to society in other ways?

How do you feel about Mother Teresa?

Why is he called the unabomber if he sent over a dozen bombs? Did they give him the nickname after he sent the first one?

EDIT: Appears to be because he sent the bombs to universities...but then shouldn't he be the unibomber?

I agree with that. I think Israel has handled the West Bank badly, even though I think they do much better than Palestine overall.

I think the assumption is that each Palestinian man will marry 4 Israeli or Palestinian women, hence no Israeli men (or very few) get married because they can't keep up or something. Whether that's realistic is a completely different discussion.

Palestine is not a democracy. If the Palestinian government took over Israel, it would not be majority rule. But Palestinians can vote in Israel, so you'd actually be taking away voting rights from Palestinians.

I don't disagree, but we're largely talking about a dichotomy here. If the land isn't ruled by Israel or Palestine, who else is going to be in charge? Israeli rule comes with baggage, but the Palestinian government comes with a lot more. I'd rather that citizens in both countries were treated better, but I think the only practical way of getting closer to that is determining which government does a better job of protecting human rights (even if neither country is great at it). I think a two-state solution is better than a full-scale war, which is why I'm mainly talking about Israel's claim to the land it already has.

In a few months, maybe. Unfortunately, I don't meet the account age requirement.

Nice of you to use gender-neutral language 😉

I'll discuss two things here: (1) the conflict between human rights and national sovereignty, and (2) how it applies to Israel's current status as a nation.

Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government held that the legitimacy of a government depends on how it treats its citizens. It would seem to follow from this that a government that has existed for thousands of years has no moral justification to pass tyrannical laws, while a new government following a revolution does have a justification to rule via the consent of the governed, even if it hasn't existed for very long. This would seem consistent with almost every moral theory, including utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Not to mention that national sovereignty usually comes from one nation conquering another nation, and "might makes right" is generally looked down upon as a justification for tyranny. So on most widely-accepted ethical theories, the preservation of human rights is all that matters. Everything else is secondary.

Yet almost every time I've heard the Israel-Palestinian conflict or any other border dispute discussed, this issue rarely comes up. Both sides seem to rest their claims almost entirely on historical events and on which government controlled the land first. But if we accept what I established above, the only issue of relevance would be which government has a better track record on human rights. In that regard, I see little reason to side with Palestine. Even if I concede that Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip are unjustified, it's without question that Palestinians and citizens, in general, are treated better in Israel than they are in Palestine. Even if a two-state solution is best for human rights in the short run, I see no reason to support Palestine invading Israel based on historical claims (which has been advocated for). I'm not convinced of those historical claims in the first place, but even if I were, I don't see why we ought to care about them. I'm not contesting the rights of individual Palestinians to own and maintain land, but I am contesting the right of the current Palestinian government to rule current Israeli territory. You could give many examples of Israel getting its hands dirty, but I don't think you could possibly defend the Palestinian government as more humanitarian overall. I could go on about this, but even if you disagree with my assessment of the situation, it's tangential to my larger point.

If you go back far enough, you can make the case for the national sovereignty of almost any government that has ruled a particular area. But you either get to a government that has taken power by force (in which case, what gives them any justification to rule?) or one that took power via revolution by the people (in which case, why shouldn't we support the country that is more democratic today?) So national sovereignty is largely an appeal to the consent of the governed from many years ago or to might makes right. I'd much prefer a government that is treating its citizens fairly today to one that did many years ago.

BK is in for a surprise though.

I suspected as much.

Yea does anyone know if this decision is actually binding? Assuming whoever is using that account is actually being serious.

Ok then...

???

I may be making premature judgments about the point of this post, in which case I will agree that media narratives about racism certainly are misleading. That said, I think that point could be made more constructively if it's what TWS is getting at. These kinds of vague attacks on a group are what I think are leading to racial hostilities in the first place.

I'm basing my response on what TWS has said in the past, as well as the way he chooses to phrase his conclusions. Observing correlations between race and views on racism is different than choosing to generalize members of a particular group. I think the implication here is that we should be hostile toward black people, and I'm basing that on other things TWS has said.

Why are you hitting yourself?

You appear to be generalizing black people as the kind of people who generalize white people as the kind of people who generalize black people. If generalizing people on the basis of race is wrong, then why do you do it?

Fair enough

I'm not saying that users are owed anything, I'm saying that these opinions are relevant because the owner tends to care about what the userbase wants.

Why is age a bad argument to use? It's clearly affecting Biden's cognitive abilities. Maybe there are other criteria you consider more important, but that doesn't make Mr. Smith's argument bad, especially when we're still in the primaries.

DART is a community. It belongs to Mike, but he usually cares about what the userbase wants. It's not quite the same as a public space but also not quite the same as your living room.

A non-based person wouldn't understand.

It's America's fault for being so based

No, you should be comparing him to the total numbers under Bush or something, but that would lead to erroneous results. That's why your standard doesn't work.

Counting the total number is like looking at the GDP under each president instead of at the increase in GDP under their presidency. By that standard, George Washington was terrible at economic management and great at keeping out immigrants, despite the US having no restrictions on immigration.

Why would I do that? Plenty of sources count it.

The number you should be looking at is how many migrants enter per month under each administration, not just the total number at some point in time.

The source actually says that part of Mexico can be considered part of Central America. Others include all of it. I'm not sure why you've spent so long arguing a semantic point; it's irrelevant to what we're discussing.