TheRealNihilist

It is not fair that an LGBTQ+ pride drawing is added but none for Memorial Day. Sad

Forcing a leftist agenda over respecting our veterans is so stupid and is literally the pure reason why liberals are the biggest idiots. Veterans have done WAY more than one Muslim person, jewish person, or Canadian person has done. They show no respect. They are a shame

All of it is PURE COMEDY. It is a conservative talk show that makes fun of them. If they can't take the heat, they are crybaby pussies

It is simply his style of humor. If this is what the world comes too, liberal bullshit plauging or society, then we are doomed

Wikipedia articles are backed up by multiple sources of the type you are describing. If you want to examine the claims made in a Wikipedia argument more in depth, the superscript footnote numbers will link to the relevant articles and studies.

This is an example of pigovian taxation. The closest parallel which you can base its possible effects are the various soda taxes implemented across the world. The results of which have generally been reductions of soda consumption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax

I completely agree with you. I would like to bring up a  new point though. Even though the tax may seems like it works, it probably won't. You see, the problem of obesity and heart disease is too complicated for just a tax to fix.

This website has rules. You say '4Chan has rules' but the wild west had rules too. You couldn't be gay, you couldn't be sensitive, you had to conform to the fashion, religion, accent and hierarchy of both criminal and law enforcement agencies. When you talk of the wild west, perhaps you mean 'jungle'. Even in the caveman times, we had rules. The illusion that anywhere is without rules is something that comes from a need to feel more than animals. You're not more than an animal, other than in the eyes of subjective humans and socially constructed 'rights' that are made from our species' egotistical urge to procreate and outdo all other species.

In this website, unlike the wild west, someone like you can't just go ahead and tell Mopac to shut the fuck up or fear being beaten into submission because he is ranting and it's annoying you. On 4Chan, createdebate and many other such websites, you can shitpost such abuse all you want with the worst outcome being a restraining order IRL that results from your own retardation to have revealed your identity on the site. 

I don't think you understand that it is inherent to a non-wild-west community to abhor threads like this that seek to humiliate and intimidate someone into peer-pressured silence. I have seen this happen before, not just in my childhood IRL but also online and no, not just involving me of course but also as a bystander; people feel angry at another's opinion so instead of addressing the opinion they address the person's right to express that opinion. Sometimes this has validity, such as preventing severely militant groups from spreading their agenda but if you truly fear that anyone you mentioned in this thread's OP is genuinely gathering people in an outlaw militia, that's for you to report to the authorities or make seen wider elsewhere. This has nothing to do with site-moderation and as I know those users I can tell you, you're lying.

There have been two users who crossed that line. One is Type1/Sparrow and the other is WisdomofAges and his many alts. They have genuinely called for brutal violence and murder and both are permanently banned to my knowledge (the latter is an educated guess).

If you have questions, our prior conversation is out there to be found.

Bsh1 doesn't support a wild west forum but many of his allies tried to misguide him into it along the way of this site's evolution. When you say he supports wild west forum, you don't really know the real Bsh1. Bsh1 struggles at times with being a people pleaser by nature and being a power hungry politician through nurture (yes, you read this right, I strongly believe the latter has come from the life he's lived).

Greyparrot is not the type of user you describe at all, he is entitled to have fun and post semi-relevant shit. He doesn't shitpost and earned a place on my friends list recently (which despite having 42 is something that is earned, not just granted and based on my analysis of the users' consistent conduct, I have 42 but out of all users I observe and/or interact with here that's not much as I no-life this site and am unashamed of that).

I don't know about Mopac's true motives here but the idea that you are entitled to say he can't post things that upset you because of the title of a thread is a bit childish in all honesty. Like, I am a butthurt SJW and even I don't see the issue with Mopac. I have users that repulsed me and they still do but as I said, I handle them just fine. Either they go too far and indeed moderation handles them or I learn to toughen up and ignore it. 

I know what a wild west forum is, I know 4Chan, CreateDebate and all kinds of varying moderation practices on the Internet. This is not wild west and that's one of the hugest reasons why I like it. 

That last sentence was ungrammatical and difficult to understand. Please re-phrase.

That's really the best that is on offer.

And, to be really clear, I do not believe I have ever issued an official warning to anyone *just* for spamming. Those very few people with whom I've raised the issue of spamming in an official warning have had it raised as an aggravating or ancillary factor. So, unless someone went really crazy, I doubt I'd do much about spamming, either.

The issue here is one of degree, and your argument treats it as some sort of absolute. 

At its core, this site is about conversation and debate. Interference in the natural flow of conversation and debate should be kept the barest minimum, and not present at all if possible. The barest minimum in this sense is to protect users from harm. Doxxing is a pretty substantial harm. You being annoyed that a flat earther is making some idiotic argument or tangential point is not a substantial harm.

And, importantly, it's not my job as a moderator to pronounce certain views right or wrong--esp. on a debate site. Their are going to be genuine flat earthers out there, and they, like any other user, have the right to debate and discuss those opinions.

If they choose to stubbornly defend those positions in the face of superior counterarguments, then you face a choice: engage or walk away. That choice is yours, but the fact that you face that choice or that it annoys you that you do is not nearly sufficient justification for me to take away their right to engage on this site. 

90% of the time, even on here, arguments don't change people's opinions, and probably 90% of the users on here, myself included, have made stupid arguments or back-peddled in order to salvage our views from argumentative salvos.

Ultimately, then, my job as a moderator is to keep the peace, it's not to evaluate the merits of users beliefs. Anything else would cause me to encroach too much on the free speech here. I can intervene to prevent abusive speech, but I am not going to intervene to prevent dumb or stubborn or annoying speech.

Talk about a false equivalency and strawman...

This again comes down to issues of abuse vs. annoyance, and it's pretty clear that an interjection is nowhere near racism on anyone's scale of social acceptability.

Organic conversation shifts and changes.

Spam is an artificial attempt to redirect that organic conversation, and it is so severe or frequent that it prevents the natural flow of the conversation from taking place, or prevents any conversation taking place.

We've debated the whole subjectivity thing before, and we did so quite thoroughly. I am not keen on rehashing it atm.

Ramshutu was given no such directive.

So there’s a couple of things here. 

Save for extreme abuse; the moderators are generally immune from the personal attack clause of the CoC. It’s important that members feel free to openly criticize moderation. That’s why you see bsh, virt and myself being openly attacked by individuals in some threads, posts, debates, etc, and those threads don’t get locked.

This behaviour is not normally allowed against regular members -  hence why multiple

threads and debates personally attacking other members are removed.

Ultimately, your request is both too subjective 

and too great an infringement of free speech to implement

It is not moderation's job to keep conversations narrowly focused to the OP topic like some Nazi schoolteacher. 

While I do appreciate that random comments and interjections are problematic for someone seeking a narrowly-focused discourse, they're something all people have to deal with in any social setting.

If someone is deliberately trying to derail a thread with incessant, non-topical posts, then that could be spam, and spam is something moderation can take action to stop. But, unless the content qualifies as spam, it would not seem wise to me to impose topicality requirements on forum discussions, or to give OPs power to police their own threads, essentially making all users mini-moderators (diluting actual moderation authority and making exact standards of behavior in the forums unclear).

Ultimately, your request is both too subjective 

The problem is that you can’t moderate based on the validity of someone’s arguments. If someone is simply an idiot and doesnt realise it, is unable to convey their point of view, or is deliberately dishonest - there’s no objective test that isn’t down to the moderators subjective personal opinion.

If the moderator were, say, Trump supporting conservatives - they could probably say the same about either you or I.

Worry less about calling others names and branding them as 'trolls' and worry more about being consistent with your own depiction of an ideal user.

You come here violating CoC with this callout thread where you name Mopac and GreyParrot. You then proceed to call them 'filth' who ironically you don't want to spend time with because you want to learn new things and yet you completely deny me advising you to just that.

You need to learn patience, Omar, or you will become the very thing you hate: A forum troll. Don't think you're special or unique in this regard, we are all prone to become that which we hate because like love, hate makes you start to pick up characteristics as you obsess over it more and more. Don't hate, outplay and outsmart. 

There is always the fine line between the right and wrong time to begin engaging a troll who is that severe and as I said previously, that's finesse and requires a lot of observation and trial-and-error.

This is a callout thread as he didn't just allude to them but named some of the users he's calling filth AKA trolls (interchangeable to Omar, it seems). 

Be the change you want to see in the world or be the reason others change.

What do I do to ensure such trolls don't do that stuff to me? I block and starve them of my attention. Additionally, I actively engage with others around them. People have done the same to me, it's how I learned of how powerful this method is to the user you target.

It's a clean way, completely abiding by the rules, to handle such users.

Anyone can use the ignore and redirect method, so stick to that if you are not willing to risk your enjoyment of the site. 

And that's the problem.

• Have discussions where people waste time not specifically addressing what was asked in the opening comment
  

• To have the power to remove remove comments or you know have the moderators moderate in forums. I am sick and tired of people adding nothing of importance to the forums I have created to specifically address something. This can be seen with the likes of Mopac and Greyparrot. 
  
• To have rules in the forums which make sure bad faith actors or people who do not care about the topic at hand have their comment removed per the rules. 
  

Please, tell me more about how reasonable you are.

"Liberal" is a term that has had varying meanings across time. It could mean Classical Liberal (a vision the Left rejects, based on its visceral hatred for private enterprise and right-wing free speech) or, in the modern context, Progressive.

This country was founded as a classical liberal state, but even the Founders' vision for America was a lot less libertine. I heard once that homosexual intercourse was a capital crime in George Washington's army, for example.

My point is, you can't simply say "The United States is a liberal country" as though anything outside of that vision is an aberration. Different people are going to have different visions of what liberalism is, for one, and your particular vision of such did not come about until modern times. You think the ways our society have changed are a major improvement? Alright. You're perfectly free to think that. But the idea that you're somehow entitled to have your way in this country is absurd.

This is not an argument. As you yourself have repeatedly said, just because something is right doesn't mean it'll prevail as an institution or government policy, and just because something is very wrong doesn't mean it won't become entrenched as such.

The second and third sentences in this were incoherent so I'm just to ignore it and move on.

Nope. Rights exist independent of the state. The state's job is to uphold and acknowledge these. But if we were to go by your line of reasoning, there is no such thing as an immoral government policy, no?

That opens up a whole other can of worms about positive and negative rights. I'd prefer not to go into that. It is far from decided a question as to what degree positive rights even exist. Virtually everyone can all agree, however, that we have negative rights.

So isn't it more fitting, then, to say that gays have a right not to be subject to state interference as they enter into marital/sexual unions with one another?

It would have to have been established, however, that anyone has a right to behave sexually or romantically with other people as they please without interference, an assumption not yet shown to be true.

All men, regardless of sexual orientation, have the equal freedom to pursue relationships with women, and vise-versa. What, then, do you mean by equality?

That is to say, the right to have sex is nowhere near as fundamental as the right to freedom of conscience. 

I didn't mean that to be a winning argument. It was more of a "gotcha" thing

You denied the claim that "Nationalism is healthy, within reason", suggesting instead that it has always been a bad thing in whatever form it manifested itself, though obviously some very good things have come about as a result of nationalism in some form (e.g. independence struggles).

You seem to have a very narrow view of what nationalism is. You think Hitler and Mussolini, though more often than not that isn't the form nationalism takes. Love of country is good in itself, and it does not preclude doing things to improve one's country. The Left nowadays wants to improve this "society" (or, at least, pass measures that they see as improvements), but they do not love the country itself. They separate the two things in their minds, and regard any such love of country as a bad thing. I can think of no explanation for this save that they want the consolidation of the entire world under one global government (ruled by themselves, of course), and that they see nation states as an obstacle to this.

Nationalism means rejection of this vision of one global government, a rejection that I see as good and proper because loyalty to one's country should come before loyalty to foreign peoples. The only explanation for your behavior here is that you reject loyalty to country altogether. I probably cannot convince you that you're wrong, so we'll just have to agree to disagree here.

And you accuse me of dodging questions...

I'll ask you again. If a leader is doing things that benefit the rest of the world but are not in the best interests constituents of that country, is it wrong for said constituents to reject that leader come next election season in favor of somebody who'll do the opposite?

Nope. What economists agree upon is that in general tariffs are bad. They do not agree that "making things worse in the short term to advance mutually beneficial free trade in the long term is bad". You're just pulling that out of thin are.

I will admit that at this time I cannot prove that Trump will succeed. He has already seen some success in regards to Canada, Mexico, and Japan, but China might prove to be a whole different animal.

It's a gamble. It carries risks but also possible rewards. That's what's happening now.

And I've already explained why this is a fallaciously simplistic way of looking at it.

Wrong, I have conceded no such thing. Try again.

Nah, you aren't going to listen anyway. You are obviously very passionate.

For all your talk of "rationality" I don't see in your approach to converse with me a single shred of it. It seems to me that you are simply insulting my character and declaring your own ignorance to be a lack of evidence.

Way to shut the conversation down.

Jesus Christ loves you.

At llesst you admit you have comprehension issues. You should now adapt an attitude of humility that is consistent with the knowledge that you have comprehension issues. 

I know that you hate Christians for no good reason, but what does that have to di with the subject?

This is about illegal immigration.

This is what happens when you don't let Trump build the wall.

Please build the wall, I like a avocados.

The reason Donald Trump is threatening my avocado addiction is because politicians that you probably like don't want to do anything about the illegal immigration problem. 

Donald Trump said build a wall, which of course would stop an awful lot of illegal crossings, and then reform the immigration process so thst people can get here legally.

There are billions of people in this world who believe in the Bible and the Quran, both of which regard homosexuality as a sin against God. The modern LGBT movement will not change what these two books say. It will not make people stop believing in what these books say. They're not going to remove a snippet from the book.

And, quite frankly, they not only have as much right to believe what they do as gay people have the right have sex with each other, but in fact their right is greater. 

Freedom of conscience is THE most important human right in the world. There is no absolute right to have sex with whoever you want; the fact that rape is illegal (or at least in theory) everywhere proves this is not the case, as does the fact that you're not allowed to have sex with a minor even if they consent.

In the modern world we've decided that same-sex relationships between consenting adults are harmless (in theory, at least) and that it would cause more suffering than good to deny them the right to engage in such. Okay.

LGBT and Christianity are able to coexist in the United States. It requires showing regard for the rights of both, but to some degree at least both the Left and the Right have regarded it as a zero-sum game.

The Left swings too far in favor of LGBT rights at the expense of that of Christians, whereas the Right would swing opposite if they were not too timid (with the exception of them opposing legislation that would prevent hiring discrimination against gays, lesbians, transgender people, etc).

Since you considered what I said in that prior thread to be unreasonable, then I'm sure you'll think the same about what I've written above. Tell me specifically why I'm wrong. Here's your chance to make your opinion heard.

This argument could basically be made about anything, though I guess so could whatever I said preceding this.

My point was, nationalism is far from a recent, alien development in the American civic tradition. It's been here about as long as anything else. Certainly it predates modern notions of internationalism.

It should be noted also that as far as US Presidents go, Theodore Roosevelt is usually ranked pretty high up there. And, in fact, he was quite liberal for his day.

Nationalism is a very broad concept. It includes right-wing nationalism AND left-wing nationalism. Colonial independence movements were nationalist in character, by definition. It can include aggressive imperialism and isolationism, and pretty much anything in between.

I have a question for you: imagine if a country's leadership, instead of simply acting in accordance with how their constituents voted, decided to, say, spend large sums of money on foreign aid (from the public coffer) and send tens of thousands of that country's young men to go fight and die in some foreign war which did not concern that country's national security. Imagine if they did this simply because they wanted to be buddies with other heads of state and the UN, or because, say, they wanted to win a Nobel Peace Prize or whatever crap.

Perhaps it benefits other countries that such a thing should happen. But the people of that country didn't have a say in it. It was patently anti-democratic. If a populist (nationalist) leader came along and said "Screw what my predecessors did I'm going to put our interests first by no longer doing these things", would that really be so terrible, according to you?

This relates to what we were talking about in the other thread. What I said was that Trump was trying to get China to open up its own markets (that is, to stop doing protectionist stuff of its own), and you asked me what would happen if Trump failed in this effort. My answer would be that at some point, if nothing was happening, we'd have to get somebody else in power to negotiate with China to restore the status quo ante bellum (metaphorically speaking).

But we don't know what the outcome of Trump's policies will be.

He could legitimately succeed, by doing enough damage to the Chinese economy that the communist regime has to cut a deal to stave off collapse (China operates per the Mandate of Heaven model, in which the Chinese people are only willing to tolerate totalitarian rule so long as the economy's still growing strong). We're taking a chance, but former Presidents were content to allow an uneven trade situation to continue. They weren't willing to try to solve the problem. Trump is at least trying, for which one must give him some credit.  

Trump is a businessman who's had fairly extensive dealings with foreign companies and countries. He understands that tariffs and trade barriers are bad for business overall, which is why I highly doubt that his long-term goal is permanent protectionism.

You do realize that Presidents as far back as Theodore Roosevelt openly endorsed nationalism, right?

Nationalism is an ideology and movement characterized by the promotion of the interests of a particular nation,[1] especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty (self-governance) over its homeland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism

Trump lost most of his wealth in the last 2 years because he stopped focusing on his business and traded in his equity on his name recognition to run the country.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/trump-has-lost-1-billion-personal-wealth-running-president-n916221

I'd like to see the same commitment from the current elected lawyers in the swampy D.C. to lose a proportionate amount of wealth by focusing more on the country and less on themselves.

Sadly, most lawyers accumulate wealth after being elected off of the backs of the poor taxpayers.

So spot on. This is why people who care about the economy need to stop electing lawyers like Schumer to run the economy and start electing entrepreneurs like Trump.

Um, he's a guy who voiced his view on President Trump's policy, and you disagree with it?

Chuck Schumer agreed in principle that China had it coming.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/392636-schumer-on-china-tariffs-china-needs-us-more-than-we-need-them

Just hope for public safety that you remain at stage 3 infestation.

https://c10.patreonusercontent.com/3/eyJ3IjoxNjAwfQ%3D%3D/patreon-media/p/post/21932645/0221c62e248341b18a6e8e6006ca18c7/3.jpg?token-time=1561593600&token-hash=wEHK3MyMmh41q7JVuqT9vErEipOo6spSGVlIs9vpNx0%3D

The 5 official stages of TDS.

I'm not saying the tariffs themselves help the economy. But it's harmful to the competitveness of foreign companies for whom the U.S. market comprises a big share of their profits

Eventually countries like China may realize that the only way to remove this ill-effect on their economy is to sign a deal with the US. That's the point.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/06/06/jim-acosta-trump-d-day-speech-newday-vpx.cnn

Ok checkmate, you got me. Acosta mused in this CNN coverage that while people were desperately hoping for Trump to fail, Acosta gives praise to Trump for this speech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoTZZDqvGS4

Congratulations CNN for providing a rare 3rd opinion about Trump besides the 99.9% 2 CNN positions of 

1) orange man bad...or 

2) Orange man REALLY bad.

"your words don't actually no real meaning to me. "

Oh the Irony...

Trump's tariffs have two purposes in mind:

1. Extra tax revenue (because this Congress is stonewalling him at every turn funding-wise)

2. To force other countries to the negotiating table as to get them to comply with principles of free trade in areas where they are not right now, which stands to the detriment of U.S. exporters. Opening up China, in particular, would probably be a massive boost to our economy for many years to come.

As for the second reason, nobody expected the tariffs to do their job overnight. Reagan spent eight years playing hardball with the Soviet Union and even then it wasn't until his successor that the Eastern Bloc actually fell. If it's possible that Trump could eventually accomplish what he's set out to do, then clearly he's going to need more time.

You're not very bright.

But don't let me stop you from hatin'.

Avocados are good for you.

This is about illegal immigration.

This is what happens when you don't let Trump build the wall.

Please build the wall, I like a avocados.

All opinions are a source of fake news, and CNN has no journalists on staff, only biased editorialists.

You can fall on only one of 2 sides, 1) orange man bad...or 2) Orange man REALLY bad.

Trump also is not a journalist, so you can never expect news to come from Trump, fake or otherwise. You can only gather his opinions.

Do you know more?  Really?  Because I made a statement that you contradict, or disagree with, then you want me to show proof.  Why don't you show proof that it is not true. 

I have read these things in certain places throughout my life and certain times.  I don't feel like spending the time to research where I saw them, or where I read them.  

You are right, citations would be nice, but so would a vacation, unfortunately, I'm not getting either of them.