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There are only three kinds of social networking sites:
1. The kind where you can never get hold of the mods when you need them
2. The kind where the mods are extremely overzealous and will permaban you for ridiculously slight infractions
3. The kind where the mods do an amazing job but everyone hates on them anyway
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Yeah, pretty much. In exchange for the "ceasefire" the Kurds must abandon certain fortified positions, which'll just make it easier for Turkey to advance. Turkey doesn't believe that they're dealing with another country so they feel no obligation whatsoever to honor even the tiniest letter of their agreement.
Plus, they're trying to resettle some 3 million Syrian refugees, which'll go a whole lot smoother for them if the Kurds abandon their homes.
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@ebuc
Another thing:
You already accept that it's okay for women to kill their own babies--or, more charitably, simply to "let them die"--so as to avoid the bad of them being inconvenienced and experiencing career setbacks and societal disapproval. 60-70 million of such have been slaughtered since 1973, which is about as many people as the total death toll of WW2.
And yet you think it's okay to force unwilling men to die for complete strangers halfway around the world?
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@ebuc
Typical of you type, lets talk about Obama, not Trump.
You refuse to talk about how Obama's policies caused nearly a half million Syrian fatalities, and instead only bash Trump for mostly petty stuff, and yet you have the audacity to call me cultish.
Kurds are being butchered because USA removed miltary forces from their bases ---that now Putin/Assad control--- and your policy is 'I sure hope nobodyd gets butchered'....duhd, to late.
More to the point, people are getting butchered every day in Syria. This has been the case for the past 8+ years...But most of those who died before were Arabs and not Kurds so I guess that means you don't care because Kurdish lives matter more for whatever reason.
I think Putin/Assad happy to have those USA bases for themselves.
Those US bases in Syria did not exist before the civil war, the government whose country those bases are located in hasn't given us permission to be there, and the present Syrian government for so long as it exists has the right to choose Russia as its partner, something that it did long before Trump become President. Anything else?
I think we should have a draft military so as priviledged are side by side.
The draft would flood the military with millions upon millions of surplus people who would more or less be complete dead weight. They would be a drain on the defense budget and serve little productive purpose. In addition, these men would be taken out of the economy, which would contract sharply as a result.
But equally pressing, are you okay with ordinary Americans being made to die on account of the backroom deals or passing ideological fads of the neocons in Washington?
As in the case of the Bosinan war I thought within our military those who felt a humanitarian need to go fight could volunteer for that mission and should be supported provided enough number of votes give them them the go-ahead.
In theory, it wouldn't be unfair if we allowed Americans to go overseas and volunteer to fight in wars for the side they felt was in the right. But it's also not very practical for a number of reasons.
FDR ---and every USA president--- along with constitution via congress does have the legal right to send their citizens to die. Your confused.
Moral right, I meant. My bad.
Ditto my above. Blood for oil is not my motto and never has been. Your confused and dont anything of signifcance about my life choices.
Again, if you see benefit in your personal life from these "blood for oil" policies undertaken by the US government then what does it matter?
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Alright, scratch one thing I said above.
Because our's is a volunteer force it may be used for moralistic purposes that do not directly benefit the United States...so long as whatever cause we threw their lives away for is able to prevail and so long as that cause is sufficiently worthy.
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1} So give "hope" a chance is your foreign policy. I sure "hope" nobody in the middleast gets butchered because USA needs their{?} oil. Theirs till the Shah of Iran was removed.
Since you have such beef with our "oil wars" I'm sure that means you use very little of such, or otherwise find a specialized "oil made in USA only" dealer who sells it to you for higher prices. (Hint: Even if somehow that were true those oil prices on USA oil would certainly be much higher if everyone in America was only using USA oil, and so you would still be benefiting from a lower price made possible by Middle Eastern oil.) You're using the internet on a device powered by electricity, which in all likelihood is supplied to your home by a power plant that uses oil, possibly Middle Eastern oil.
So don't act like you're superior when you reap the same rewards as everyone else in America does from such.
Even if you're not American, you still probably live in a society powered by Middle Eastern oil, made possible by, you guessed it, USA wars designed to keep the supply flowing.
2} USA peoples did not want to get involved with Nazis either. I sure hope nobody in Europe gets butchered because USA does not want to get involved in Europe. Then Pearl Harbor occured and USA realizes that Japan and Hitler were on same page.
However bad the suffering and slaughter of peoples overseas, FDR had no right to force Americans to fight and die against their will to rectify the situation. If he wanted to help so badly he could've grabbed a rifle, hopped a plane, and wheeled himself to the Russian front lines. In that sense American involvement in WWII was only justified so far as an Axis victory would've been very bad for us in the long term.
Now, today we have a volunteer force. But even then there's a general consensus nowadays that our troops are not 100% expendable and should only be endangered when the good of the nation counts on it.
5] Oh yeah, USA troops are not out of Syria and are in grave danger of being caught between Turkey/Syria/Russia and Kurds as ISIS prioners are making a prison break,--- thanks to Trumpity Dumpity---. I sure hope nobody gets butchered in middleast ---including USA troops---.
Trump is withdrawing those forces now so I fail to see your point. Virtually everyone, myself included, does naturally sympathize with the Kurds. But their statehood is ultimately unsustainable anyways, and it would definitely not be in our best interests to go to war with Turkey, a crucial NATO ally, over the statehood of a regional minority group. Especially not a group whose state would be dominated by a communist party.
Now, I will admit that Trump has made one serious blunder here. After announcing he wouldn't stand in the Turks's way he STILL went and supported sanctions against the anatolian state. And yet, if the Turks end up leaving us anyway over that then it'll have been for nothing. We've made our bed with the Turks already so let's lie on it.
So Putin and Assad are now running the show in Syria even more than before. Wouldnt surprise me if Putin is running the Trumpity Dumpity show on this issue also.
And? The only way to prevent this was to have toppled Assad back in 2011, or in any year since then, by outright invading Syria. Trump wasn't willing to do this, and neither was Obama.
(Also, you want to talk about butchering innocent people? The Obama administration helped inspire the Arab Spring, and then sat on its hands for six years as hundreds of thousands of Syrians died in a war that Assad's going to win anyway. In September 2015 Russia entered the war. At this point Obama had more than one year to get America directly involved and reverse the situation, as at this point an Assad victory would've otherwise been guaranteed. But he did nothing, save arm and train the rebels just enough that they still wouldn't be able to win the war but at least it'd be prolonged, leading to countless more deaths. This program was not halted until Trump came along. Obama has 300,000+ Syrian deaths on his conscience, far more than anything Trump could even dream of.)
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This really isn't even a question of Trump's decision-making. Turkey was going to invade Northern Syria either way, the US had the option of either keeping forces dead smack in the middle of the war zone or evacuating. A no-brainer.
We need Turkey at least loosely on our side to keep the Russian black sea fleet at bay. Otherwise the Mediterranean would become Putin's next playground. And while the UK does control Gibraltar, this would nonetheless make it easier for Russia to bring its naval might to bear in the Atlantic and bypass the Greenland-Iceland corridor that NATO relied so heavily upon during the Cold War. So actually fighting Turkey was not an option. In addition, Turkey's got some 3.6 million refugees that they could unleash on Europe at a moment's notice. Finally, we'll likely need Turkey as a launchpad for any future military action deep in the heart of the Middle East. In other words, the Turks have us by the balls and Trump knows it.
The idiot Republican senators who want to sanction Turkey now aren't doing anyone any favors. What they're doing isn't going to stop anything, it's just going to make Erdogan double down and accuse the US government of conspiring against Turkey. It's no big secret that politicians think with their dicks and not their brains, but the "Oh poor Kurds we need to support you no matter the strategic costs and no matter how unsustainable or even undesirable your statehood in the smack middle of a landlocked area surrounded by four/five hostile countries would be" shtick is too much. All we can hope for is that Erdogan doesn't butcher too many people.
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I really don't think it matters as much as you believe.
First, most "minimum wage" people actually make more than minimum wage. $8-$10 an hour is pretty common, whereas the federal minimum wage is $7.25 last I heard.
Second, people working minimum wage are usually gonna be working for local joints that either aren't doing very well or had to pay an exorbitant franchising fee they're still paying back. So they can't deal with the added expense of overtime, meaning any given employee will be at his job fewer than 40 hours a week.
That means if the minimum wage were to be hiked to $10 an hour the employee in question would make perhaps $20k a year. Perhaps a single person could get by on that (it'd be harder after his 26th birthday), but a family of four with bills to pay couldn't possibly. For most people, then, holding down a minimum wage career is not a sustainable life path anyways.
The only real escape from his plight is to get a good job, for which pro-growth economics have traditionally worked best to provide. In fact, to make an unsustainable choice more comfortable might only serve to delay much needed action to better his condition, making him worse off in the long run. Unfortunately, there are lots of young single people stuck in exactly this kind of trap. I see it every day. It could even be me right now.
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Okay, wait. Turns out this wasn't the nationwide Church of Sweden but only a local parish called Limhamn. And the guy might've gotten fired for it.
So...nevermind.
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In a tweet dated back to, strangely enough, December of last year, the Church of Sweden tweeted that:
"Jesus of Nazareth has now appointed one of his successors, Greta Thunberg."
Based on their follow-up tweet in response to the controversy that ensued, in which they apologized for hurt feelings but also declared that "Our meaning has been to talk about Jesus Christ in our own way", it would appear that they weren't kidding.
This kid, who has championed a social cause unrelated to religion and who has made little in way of personal sacrifice pursuant to such, is evidently now regarded as a saint at least by the Church of Sweden and a new messiah superseding Jesus's ministry at most.
...Which is why European Christianity is a joke. "We're behind you and the good work you're doing" is one thing. This is just, ugh.
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@billbatard
Who gets to decide who hits the floor? Naturally every person advocating the idea thinks "I'm special and so I should be exempt from what everyone else has to suffer".
Perhaps you fantasize about being a political leader who would solve the world's problems through measures like this. But the catch-22 is that you will not be a political leader some day, and so you should exercise the empathy to imagine it being done to yourself as well and shape your ideas accordingly.
How much could you personally bear? To be euthanized in the prime of your life? I highly doubt it. To be euthanized as an old man? More bearable perhaps but even then people are going to be terrified of death no matter their age.
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Okay, so:
Right outside where I work there's a dumpster. We throw out trash bins with food waste, and the lids are too large and heavy to "leave them closed and open them just when you're throwing something away". So they're pretty much open all day long.
To summarize: the dumpster is open and has food in it. So it's attractive to little furry mammals, if you know by now what I'm getting at.
Sometimes I go out there and spot the raccoons in the dumpster. A family of them, I think. Most of the time they're absent, especially when it starts to fill up. I'm not exactly sure where they go during this time but there's a small woods right next to the restaurant.
This evening I went out there to throw a bag out, and there it was.
Right. In. Front. Of. My. Face.
I turned around and ran away, but before I turned I think I saw it jump. So I'm not entirely sure what happened.
I am fully aware, of course, of the risk of contracting rabies, the only disease known to man that has a 100℅ fatality rate. So as fascinated as I am by the raccoons I always try to keep a safe distance.
But tonight I'm not 100℅ sure what happened. I probably wasn't bitten, as I think I would've felt it. Surely a raccoon's jaw strength is nothing to dismiss entirely. But in any case if I should keel over and die from rabies in the next few days, weeks or months that is why. It happened today, September 24, 2019.
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@Greyparrot
You're describing a Louisiana that used to exist. We haven't had an insane populist governor since the 1990s. Having lived in the northern part of the state all my life, I'd have to describe it as "not too bad". It's definitely a full part of the first world, or so to speak, though maybe not exactly the richest state in the union. If I want a good career I might have to move away at some point but overall I'm glad to live here.
Also:
The fact that Huey P. Long got elected on a platform of "Every man a king" astounds me. Were people really that gullible?
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Each decade sees a higher quality of life for most people. Certainly there must've been untold scores of millions who languished in abject poverty back in 2009 who're noticeably better off now.
HOWEVER, as an American I do have a few gripes about how things went downhill in the '10s.
For most of the 2000s the economy was doing pretty alright and for about half of the 2010s it kind of wasn't. Our politics have devolved into large-scale baboon turd flinging contests and a whole world of media-induced paranoia is literally at our fingertips wherever we go.
10 years ago many basic, even lifesaving medicines were more affordable than they are now. This is a bad time to be diabetic in America, for example.
IN ADDITION, modern Microsoft Word just completely sucks d*ck whereas the version 10-15 years ago was pretty much immaculate, the occasional frozen screen aside (and that was more of a hardware error). You just bought it once, installed it onto your desktop, and you were good to go as long as the device itself still worked. Nowadays if you lose wi-fi then that goes caput even if you're not using it online. Also, the fact that it requires internet access to use means Microsoft now presumably has a record of every edit ever made to any such document. I'm not sure whether I even own the rights to whatever I type on there.
Also, Windows XP had such an easy user interface compared to most devices now. On my Google Chromebook I can't edit or print anything I download. If it's possible to do that I don't know how, whereas it should be rather intuitive and straightforward. Heck, when I delete stuff on my Chromebook I don't even know if it's actually been deleted. Most of the time it doesn't look like it has been so.
We now live in an era where if back in 2010 you were an edgy sh*tposter teen who posted a racist joke somewhere on the internet, a joke that in itself did no harm to anyone and was meant in good fun, you could lose your job over it 9 years later as an adult. Journalists can incite a social media mob against someone, destroy that person's life, and then not face any consequences whatsoever for doing so.
Also, at work the radio's constantly playing garbage that came out recently. Mainly country, but also some synthpop.
Like what on earth are these people supposed to be? The best and brightest musicians of 2019?
"Just wait...a minute...to take...the time...the clock...is ticking...something something...all you have to do is wait...a minute..."
Show me a song from the 80s that wasn't at least tolerable.
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(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.)
Attack on Titan Chapter 121 made a startling revelation: that Eren, using pathways combined with the power of the Attack Titan, altered the past and manipulated his father into murdering the royal family though originally Grisha refused to kill children.
So what would've happened in the original timeline? The one in which Grisha walked out of the Reiss chapel emptyhanded? Just for fun here's some speculation:
The following five or so years would proceed more or less the same way in both timelines. The "bubble city" of Shinganshina + the outermost wall would collapse. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin would escape to behind the middle wall. Grisha would still be alive. He would take in Eren and Mikasa, along with Armin after the death of his grandfather.
Because of his personality, Eren would refuse to see reason and join the military. In spite of Grisha's continued survival there's some chance his two young comrades would join him.
Near their graduation Reiner and pals, also cadets in training, would attack Trost.
Eren would get eaten early into the battle, and this time he would stay dead. Mikasa also nearly died in the timeline we know if not for titan Eren's intervention, so she'd probably end up dead too, though she resolved to keep on fighting and so might have made it out.
As they had no qualms about carrying out their mission thus far, Reiner Bertolt and Annie would've most likely proceeded to breach the middle wall.
At this point Paradis's fate would be sealed. Even if the innermost wall wasn't attacked, the survivors holed up behind there would be faced with such a dire food shortage that everyone would be dead in two or three years at best.
If I'm not mistaken, the royal family lived deep in the interior. If so, they'd be among the last killed. But if, say, they were among the first to die as Frieda most likely planned, then the people behind the remaining two walls might've survived as there'd be no pressing need for Marley to continue their attack. The "one surviving human" behind the outermost wall would be whatever titan ate Frieda. Even if that person were then eaten, another titan would become "it". If Marley found whoever was it, then they could bring that person back with them as a prisoner.
Assuming this person wasn't Dinah, Marley would have no way to use this person to kill the remaining Paradisians. However, a sizable chunk of the island would be cleared of possible military resistance, and drilling activities could commence.
However, this is where Zeke, possessing royal blood, would make his move. The end result would be the sterilization of all Eldians, an outcome more or less favorable to Marley since they'd have sufficient time to transition to a post-titan military apparatus before the last of their warrior candidates died of old age.
HOWEVER, what if Grisha had passed on his attack titan power to Eren as in the timeline we know?
In that case, the Warriors' assault on Trost would've failed as before, assuming the "it" person was never found by Marley. Everything would proceed the same until the end of Season 2 as per the anime, when Eren made physical contact with titan Dinah. At this point he, Mikasa, and probably Armin would've been eaten at long last, though Reiner and Bertholt would probably be unaware of this fact (initially, at least). Dinah would end up in Paradis's hands, and she'd be obliged either to continue the fight or pass on the attack titan to someone who was so willing (say, Erwin), assuming they all made it back alive from that expedition to begin with.
And that's all I got.
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@Pinkfreud08
Have you watched all 3 seasons of SAO?
(As for your question I could give you a very detailed list.)
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@Greyparrot
Dude. Not cool. You broke your composure, after however many years you've been on here. This reads like the jumbled screechings of a 65 year old grandpa on Facebook.
I basically agree with all of what you wrote, but you could've been a lot more articulate than you were. This just looks horrible.
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@Pinkfreud08
Some objections:
1. The Boy Scouts have always been a boys' space. Where they can be themselves without being sh*tted on by society for it. If girls are allowed in, eventually you'll have woman scoutmasters who'll approach scouting from a woman's perspective, which typically means harshly prohibiting any and all rough play, which can be good and healthy for boys and also a lot of fun depending on how it's done.
2. Many such guys, being still young and dominated by their hormones, will excessively try to attract the attention of a female scout. Some of them will cross the line into harassment or even worse. At this point, it'll be reported on by the media, and the response, of course, will be to sh*t on boys for being their natural selves in what's supposed to be a boys' space.
3. Related to the second point, many such guys will be distracted by a pretty girl and not take scouting as seriously. If the response to this, of course, is to blame the boys in question for being distractable, then once again they'll be sh*tting on boys for being their natural selves in what's supposed to be a boys' space.
In short, this will invite misandry to a boys' space, which is literal insanity.
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@TheRealNihilist
How are they not more moral?Is reducing the footprint not a good thing to do?
Can you buy morality, though? If people have to resort to cannibalism because food is extremely scarce, and you're a rich guy who doesn't have to because you can afford to buy actual food, are you actually a better person? Likewise, if you're rich enough to just buy an electric car and a million dollar all-green home, are you more moral than a working-class Joe who couldn't afford any of that and so has to live with more dirty options?
By that stuff would be worse. I already dislike the heat. I can't imagine what it would be like in a couple of years from now.
Nobody wants the planet to get hotter. But is preventing such an outcome worth the astonishing cost that it would require us all to pay?
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For example, what was it Democrats proposed earlier this year? A 90 trillion dollar Green New Deal? Let's say this was a plan that covered the next 30 years. That'd amount to an additional 3 trillion in tax revenue every year, or more than 14℅ of the existing economy (that's not to say 14℅ the economy would be taxed, but rather existing taxes plus another 14% of the economy). How many small businesses are just barely getting by right now? How many of them would be forced to shut their doors for good? 80-90℅, maybe? How much of the tax burden would be passed on to the American consumer?
Or would the government be forced to take on debt? The national debt's already larger than our whole economy. What would it do in that case? Double? Triple? All while the economy contracts? How long before the United States went bankrupt, nobody would loan us anymore, and all our creditors demanded their money back?
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@TheRealNihilist
It's a problem but it's something we're going to have to live with. People want to live comfortable lives, and we're not going to give that up no matter what. Green hardliners are not more moral than everyone else because they act on their desires to live comfortably as everyone else does, which results in carbon emissions. They might be willing to pay a little extra to lower their carbon footprint, but overall it's a drop in the bucket, and it's also a luxury that many lower-class Americans couldn't afford.
Solar and wind energy are faced with the problems of storage and slow capture, which makes them an unsuitable replacement for conventional fuels on an industrial scale with current technologies. A full transition would cost tens of trillions of dollars and devastate the economy, undoing a whole decade or two of GDP growth (if not more). The new jobs created by this transition would not be enough to justify its enormous cost, and even after the transition was finished we'd be faced with chronic energy shortages (or at least compared to the energy we're able to use daily as of the present).
The only way forward is a slow transition, which'll be completed by the end of the century. It entails gradual phasing in of stricter emissions and waste standards. Trump's probably going in the wrong direction by deregulating dirty industries to the extent that he has, and perhaps in withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, though I don't know how tolerable the provisions of that agreement were.
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Requirement no. 2 is ridiculously vague. Any employed immigrant is technically taking a job opportunity from everyone else who's looking. So can immigrants not be employed at all? Are they just supposed to live on welfare?
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Ban nuclear? WTF? "Nuclear can't solve the problem" alright, I guess that's a valid opinion, but seriously? Is the man constantly high?
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Have a happy rest-of-your-life. Be the best that you can be. Do hard things and make sure you have few regrets when you're old.
You spiced things up around here and so it's a shame to see you leave. But I understand where you're coming from, I think.
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"Expected market crash" doesn't mean squat. If we actually hit a recession then Trump's goose will have been cooked and he'll lose re-election, but otherwise nobody's going to think any less of Trump just because the media, which is always trying to paint his Administration as a failure no matter what the reality is, claims there might be a recession soon.
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That's odd. I don't think the Bible so much as mentions the subject.
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Update: This person was arrested for flashing a stun gun not owned legally on camera during a live YouTube debate with fellow transgender YouTuber "Blaire White" a few days ago. Strangely enough, the latter-mentioned person is both extremely well-transitioned despite not having started the process until 20 years old (as in contrast to Yaniv, who's like a football jock in a blonde wig) AND a vocal Trump supporter, having been attacked once by Leftist protesters and apparently having been doxxed by them as of a couple of hours ago.
For the latter reason this person's denouncement of Yaniv may say less about what the Left in general thinks. He's obviously a voyeuristic creep so they ought to, but then again the media also doesn't want to draw any attention to a case that so patently contradicts the notion that no pervert will ever take advantage of the transgender bathroom push.
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The shooter was most certainly an unstable person to begin with, looking for any excuse to do some "big" thing like this. Because the logic behind his actions make little sense.
If Latin-Americans are already a demographic majority in many Southwestern states, then in attacking them wouldn't you merely accomplish the effect of radicalizing the local majority against the local white minority? What good does that do?I
There are thousands of "mini-philosophers" out there, each with little to nothing in way of a unique contribution to the discussion. But they all want recognition in the wider society, because they see themselves wrongly as great artists entitled to esteem for their works. At the end of the day they're narcissists and second-rate people. Therefore they publish longwinded manifestos, and view these shootings as a way of drawing attention to such, and therefore to their own perceived brilliance.
It's a loser's way of going about things. Instead of working hard and earning the acknowledgement of their peers, they demand instant gratification without sacrifice.
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@ebuc
Oh yes. A Jewish guy, quoting a Jew, who lived long before the formation of modern racial ideology, was a white supremacist. Jesus in John chapter 19 basically instructed one of His disciples to care for His mother after His death, so if Jesus didn't hate His own mother what in your right mind makes you think He was speaking literally?
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There's no need. Both the Old and New Testament are part of the same running narrative, and the study of both contribute to one's understanding of God.
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I'm afraid I can't make sense of this: if they're not willed by god, then how does he use them to accomplish anything? He's not involved with them, so it seems a little strange that he can somehow "take credit" as it were for this retribution. If he wants to say "I used Nebuchednezzar to punish you," then Neb is no longer fully accountable for his actions, as god is 'using' them. It'd be like blaming the saw for cutting a plank, rather than the carpenter, do you see what I'm saying? The saw is the tool, but it's really the carpenter's action. If Neb truly had free will to destroy the Israelites or whatever, then it sounds like god showing up later and basically taking credit after the fact. If one football team spends 55 minutes absolutely obliterating their opponent, then decides their backup QB can take snaps to close the game out, the backup QB does not have a press conference about how much he contributed to the win, right?
I'm not sure if this explanation will be sufficient but here goes:
Bob molested Joe's 12 year old daughter. Joe is furious, has homicidal tendencies, and wants revenge against Bob no matter what. Bob lives with his dad, Jared, a former Navy SEAL who is strong enough to protect him from Joe. Jared realizes that Bob is a scumbag who deserves whatever happens to him. Jared could either call the police on Bob or simply not intervene as Joe enters his house to kill Bob. Jared chooses the latter option.
Are you saying, in this scenario, that Jared's choices played absolutely no role in Bob's subsequent death at Joe's hands? Or that Joe, doing something that Jared wanted to happen, is therefore not culpable for murder?
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@ludofl3x
You're saying here you do know his motivations: he wanted to confound the listener AND ACCOMPLISH HIS GOOD PURPOSE through, somehow, this confusion.
It is impossible to fully know the will of God, to be cognizant of every possible consideration going through His mind when He makes a decision of any kind. However, a key motivation behind an action of His can be known if the Bible gives us a why.
In Matthew 13:11-13 Jesus said "The knowledge of the mysteries of heaven has been given to you but not to them...This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.' "
In other cases, in reading Scripture there may seem to be an intuitive and commonly accepted explanation for X. That explanation might feasibly be incorrect, but a passage oftentimes may be straightforward enough that one can speak on its meaning with reasonable confidence.
If I grant that, then what end would this achieve? Because it seems according to the rules, by doing this and then allowing other religions to form subsequent to the correct one, he is doing so either not caring, best case, that so many of his creations are going to burn in hell tormented for all eternity through no fault of their own, or worst case, is designing a system to accomplish exactly that. I welcome your explanation of the contrary.
Again, one could ask why God didn't just transmit His word into everyone's brain and then perform a miracle for every living person so that they have no doubt as to the Truth. Nobody knows the answer to that but God, though people might be able to speculate. That's the best answer I can give you.
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@ludofl3x
All persons will be held accountable for their wicked actions. In the end nobody will get a "pass", except so far as the blood of Christ has washed over them and made them righteous. However, people's sinful choices, while not willed by God, may be used by God to accomplish judgment.
For example: Nebuchadnezzar swept his armies into Judah, murdered huge scores of people, and brought the rest into exile/probable slavery. There was nothing about what he did that was morally "okay". A wicked person like him would eventually get his dues, either in this life or the next. No question about it. But God saw fit to use Nebuchadnezzar to punish the Israelites for their idolatry and draw them back to Him. The fact that the man was so used does not excuse him in any way. God could've sent a plague to Israel instead, for example. But He let their invasion and conquest by an earthly power happen and did not protect Israel from the Babylonian king's hands.
A more famous example is Judas. Early gnostics suggested that Judas was doing God's will by betraying Jesus to the Roman authorities, a claim that mainstream Christianity rejected.
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@ludofl3x
Alright, my bad. I didn't realize you were asking in bad faith.
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@ludofl3x
Bad behavior is something you choose on your own, something that contradicts the will of God. It is not by His grace that somebody sins, nor does He usually shield somebody from the negative consequences on earth of their behavior, though sometimes He does use such to achieve something good.
The grace of God is a powerful thing. It uplifts and restores an unworthy person. The grace of God is evident in Jacob's life in that he didn't die for his sins, and in that he was able to receive an honor that he was ultimately unworthy of. However, the manifestation of God's grace in the Old Testament is different, because Christ had not yet come. It more concerned temporal conditions rather than the state of one's eternal soul.
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@ludofl3x
Jacob was entitled to the freedom to act as a cheat and a scoundrel. I'm not sure I understand the question.
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@ludofl3x
You could take that a step further and ask "Why didn't God just transmit His literal voice directly into the heads of every human?" The answer is we don't know what God's motivations are. Perhaps He sought to confuse the Jewish religious elites, who professed to be wise but couldn't even understand His relatively simple message. He could've just handed over a scroll with a five-page catechism, I guess, but the point is that because their hearts were closed to higher truth they did not understand what believers earnestly seeking Him would discover the answer to.
But considering that Christianity is still transforming untold numbers of lives around the world every day even in 2019, I'd say the Gospel is sufficiently universal in its scope.
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@keithprosser
moral judgements are properly based on the intended outcome of an act rather than its actual outcome
See, there's something about this line of thought I don't like. Because far too often there's something people neglect to add to this. A moral judgment should be made based on both the intended outcome of an act and on whether reasonable precautions were taken against a bad outcome. We have the world at our fingertips, let's do some research before we make decisions with wide-reaching implications for other people.
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@keithprosser
Jacob didn't exactly suffer as a consequence of his dishonesty, did he?
His relationship with his brother was dashed to pieces, and Jacob thought he was going to be killed. He had to part ways with his mother and father, and ended up in two unhappy marriages. He was humiliated by his son Reuben, who slept with his wives, and he was led to believe that the son who he adored had died.
So yeah, I'd have to say that for all Jacob's shenanigans in the end he didn't get everything he wanted. A lot of things went sour for him. That he was able to be the father and namesake of the nation of Israel was only because of the grace of God.
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Here's how I would go about it:
Start off by describing a "condition" you have. Lay out exactly what it entails, and what it doesn't entail. And THEN tell them the name of said condition. If they just hear schizophrenia right off the bat, well, some really extreme preconceived notions will come to mind. Like, that you have multiple personalities or whatever. At that point it'll be hard to win them over.
Start with something simple like a fast food job. Hold down a job like that for, say, half a year and do the best you can to not give off "unstable, possibly trigger happy" person vibes. Afterwards, apply for something a little better and have your previous boss vouch for your sanity and reliability.
(And to answer your question, I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility. But I wouldn't if it seemed that said applicant would probably pose more of a liability than an asset.)
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@disgusted
Christ spoke in riddles and mysterious sayings, to confound the listener and accomplish His good purpose. Similarly, He said "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves." Many turned away from Him, for it was a hard saying, but only those whose hearts earnestly yearned for God staid behind and continued to follow Him, and unto these the hidden meaning of His words became known in due time.
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@Dr.Franklin
They did, yes. And the US lent support to the Iraqis as they were at war with Iran, contributing to the deaths of Iranians.
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(Also, the idea that Poland is the "whitest nation" is absurd. The Nazis thought that all Slavs were non-white and made a point to murder any well-educated or successful Pole. If that was what Trump was going for then Norway, Sweden, or Denmark would've made for a near-infinitely better venue.)
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The entire speech you referenced can be read here:
While it does seem that he is praising the "community of nations" that is Western civilization (and which also seems to be a rare praise of NATO), it is far from clear that he's referring to any external enemy that threatens the West, save Islamic terrorism and hostile foreign governments. He concludes his description of threats by blaming "government bureaucracy" for sapping the vitality of the people. He does say "South and the East", but it's not clear at all just from this that he's singling out migrants from Latin America. In referring to Poland, Iran could be interpreted as a threat to the south, as much of NATO's ballistic missile defense infrastructure is geared around defending against an attack from Europe's southern flank.
Mainly it appears to be a speech that says 'Thank you Poland for buying our expensive military hardware and helping keep our defense industries in business". I would be wary of taking some malicious subliminal message from this.
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@bsh1
Please clarify as to the first article. If somebody else on the visible internet has already doxxed an anonymous person, would it be a COC violation to re-post that information here?
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The difference between the normie Yahoo article about the guy and discussions about his background on the deep web is pretty hilarious. Having recently gone on a TCAP watching binge, the similarities between him and the kinds of guys who appeared on that show are kind of unnerving. He apparently wanted to insert tampons into preteen girls, evidenced by snapshots of text conversations he's had, including one rather inappropriate convo with a 14 year old girl. In fact, much of the armchair investigating into him has dated back to at least 2018, long before this present controversy. But there's no mention of any of that in the article. This guy is pretty much just painted as a warrior for social justice (though the article is more fair than I would've expected), whereas in fact even some prominent transgender YouTube personalities have openly and unreservedly disavowed him for his seedy past.
Discuss.
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We see the effect #MeToo is having at workplaces now. Male bosses are increasingly too afraid to associate behind closed doors with female coworkers, out of fear that a false charge will be levied against them one day. This carries the risk of denying women access to the social networks that facilitate career advancement opportunities.
In short, women are going to feel some heat for this current climate. I think that's good and proper. Because it'll mean everyone has a vested interest in finding a way out of this mess.
The right way forward is to re-establish clear rules of conduct, so that everyone knows how to act and what to expect in their dealings with people of the opposite sex (outside of family, of course).
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@keithprosser
Statistics which which claim that the overwhelming majority of rape claims are not false are predicated upon the notion that claims "neither confirmed nor debunked" are not false. Therefore, the true number of false rape claims is likely much higher than 4%.
All claims should carry no penalty for the accused until the claim against him/her is proven in a court of law. That means no termination from work or school, nor severance of contract. The assumption of innocent until proven guilty should never be suspended under any circumstances, regardless of whether a large number of highly publicized cases in short succession were all proven true. Every person is entitled to due process, period.
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Now I know what you're going to say: "Trump had no qualifications either". That is true. The only reason he had a platform in the first place was because he was a famous billionaire. So you can mock him for his business difficulties, occasional shady dealing, and so on.
He did not win because he was a white male. His grandfather was an immigrant from Germany, and thus his family's last name would've been an albatross around their neck for a long time due to *ahem* some bad things that happened between Germany and other countries. It's been said that for a long time the Trump family even tried to downplay this by claiming to be of Swedish heritage instead. In 2016 Trump beat out a very large field of other white males, and could next year feasibly lose to a black woman (Kamala Harris). So his race and sex were never central to his political career, unlike certain other people now.
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