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@ADreamOfLiberty
a significant backtrack by you.False.
- Yesterday it was' all argument from authority is fallacious.' Today, it is 'depends on how much you trust that authority.'
- You may take as given I trust the sources I cite, just as I take it as a given you will deny any source that refutes your bias.
*whoosh* <- the sound of you dodgingDodging what, I wonder? Consensus and conventional wisdom are extremely useful sources of knowledge for the open minded.Why is ad populum a fallacy?
- I agreed with you and you called it a dodge.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
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And why should I give that opinion any weight?
please yourself
At least if you did a real debate, at the end somebody would take the time to explain your headless state to you.
There's none so blind as those who will not see
Anyone who agrees with you that this is obviously false is beyond the realm of reason and reasoning.
extremist talk
Authority and logic do not interface except through the medium of trust.obv false. Logic does not give a shit about authority or trust.
Then all your appeals to authority would be truly dead on arrival.
A dozen informal fallacies are variants of the fallacy of authority based epistemology.We've long established you have little comprehension of fallacies, formal or informal.
I don't share faith in your establishment.
There is no such thing as a fallacy of authority-based epistemology.
.... the irony of you talking about "little comprehension", have you have see an organized religion?
To claim that all knowledge from expertise or testimony is fallacious
Assertions are never fallacious on their own, only purported arguments.
is mentally ill.
If mental illness had an objective measure such as the harm it does society and the individual few would have caused more than faith because faith allows for the maintenance of delusions on a massive scale; a critical component of practical collectivism.
You could have thought of a better example, a language is a medium of communication. A person needs to trust no authority when he observes that a language is being used as a medium of communication first hand. A better example would be someone claiming to be from a distant land offering to teach you the language of that land. He could be lying or insane and you would have no direct evidence to reveal it.
- Nonsense. When your mother points at herself and says "mama" that is non-deductive information from authority. If you don't trust that authority you never to learn to speak
appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.
- a significant backtrack by you. Yes, by a long history of high dependability, I trust FBI analysis, AP News, NY Times, sources that have a large stake in their dependability and who's profit is tied to that dependability and I learn to distrust motivated rogues like Christian bloggers who have no stake in dependability and who's profit is tied to maximizing interest.
The fallacy is believing that it could ever match a deductive argument or that you can, by force of will, inject trust for an authority into others.
- I rank knowledge according to the confidence in veracity instilled by consistency in repetition. Deduction is just as prone to self-deception as experience or perception.
If someone does not cede the authority in your argument, your argument is dead; period.
- Fanatical and silly. You can't legitimately reject evidence on the mere basis of stubbornness any more than you can accept evidence on the mere basis of assertion. . Relying on the knowledge of trusted reporters is far more persuasive than some troll's stupid rejection.
If however a sound argument is brought forth that the testimony was false all inductive arguments (including an appeal to authority) fall.
- and vice versa, more often.
*whoosh* <- the sound of you dodging
- Dodging what, I wonder? Consensus and conventional wisdom are extremely useful sources of knowledge for the open minded.
No. I don't do faith.I've seen enough of your statements to know that is wrong.
- Right. You're going to tell me what I think.
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@Ehyeh
All you've been saying is that yes, I've only had 10 hard debates on this site, but its not as bad as it seems! You're saying what im saying but making it look better by naming out the 10 debaters in the last 6 years or so.
Three and half years with a two year hiatus between debates 99 and 100- so one and half years of active debating on this site.
I'm saying you are drawing false conclusions from superficial analysis, just as you tried to correct how many top debaters I've sparred with. There's plenty of junk debates of necessity but I think you give far too little consideration to a lot of hard engagements with talented and tenacious debaters. I don't think you've been on this website long enough to know how smart and challenging debaters like Athias or Fauxlaw or Jeff_Goldblum or Mharman or PressF or twenty others can be. I've won the longest and shortest debates on this site. I think I've engaged on the widest range of subjects by a significant margin- shit I know absolutely nothing about artificial intelligence, plane engines, boxing, etc. I'm very proud of winning many difficult engagements that you ignorantly blow off as foregone conclusion.
Take that recent "abortion is immoral" debate that just ended. Vici taunted me like you did until I accepted a debate but I'd gone to bed before I realized that he made the debate argument time 2 hours and had submitted his canned debate right after acceptance. I had less than hour to wake up and write an argument good enough to make him forfeit the rest of the debate. You look at that superficially and say, "Oh Oro beat some guy on his first day on the site who didn't even bother with his second round" but in fact, that was a very difficult test that I'm proud to have won, even if novices' don't appreciate the degree of difficulty.
I guess that's what I'm saying- I'll match the degree of difficulty in those debates against any other debater here and care not a fig for your uninformed opinion regarding that degree of difficulty.
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@Ehyeh
My actual argument was not plagiarised, from the encyclopedia.
You wrote (without any citiation):
"Universals can be said to be a class of mind-independent entities, usually contrasted with individuals (or so-called “particulars”), postulated to ground and explain relations of qualitative identity and resemblance among individuals. Individuals are said to be similar in virtue of sharing universals. An apple and a ruby are both red, for example, and their common redness results from sharing a universal. If they are both red at the same time, the universal, red, must be in two places at once. This makes universals quite different from individuals; and it makes them controversial."
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins its article on UNIVERSALS thus:
"Universals are a class of mind-independent entities, usually contrasted with individuals (or so-called “particulars”), postulated to ground and explain relations of qualitative identity and resemblance among individuals. Individuals are said to be similar in virtue of sharing universals. An apple and a ruby are both red, for example, and their common redness results from sharing a universal. If they are both red at the same time, the universal, red, must be in two places at once. This makes universals quite different from individuals; and it makes them controversial."
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@Bones
I think NY Post, Tucker Carlson, etc know it all amounts to nothing but just keeping the subject live works for any anti-Biden interests. There's no question that the whole nepotistic lobbying game feels wrong even when no laws have technically been broken and it certainly doesn't hurt to keep reprinting all those sex and drugs pics.
If real proof emerges that Giuliani bought the hard drive in Kyiv for $5mil and gave it to the FBI without telling them he got it from Russians (as Lev Parnas now asserts), Rudy could be doody. But then, there's a lot of things that might still catch up with Rudy.
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@Bones
he's pretty much better than everyone in the top 10.
I agree. Especially like classic, formal debating I think WF is best. That said, I think he's a little boring to read (sorry, WF). I'd rather read Ragnar's arguments. As I've said elsewhere, if we're going by the framework of this website, RM is the best debater in spite of being lazy and often incomprehensible but others are starting to figure out his game. I predict he will be number one again some day but he will get overtaken by somebody active and more disciplined- that could very well be you.
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@Bones
let me off the hook man
You just PM'd about it yesterday! Am I not supposed to think we might be on again?
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@Ehyeh
-->@oromagiYou've debated 3. Rationalmadman, whiteflame and intelligence. One of them you lost and another rationalmadman just forfeited. Who else in the top 10 have you debated?
MisterChris, Novice_II, and Trent_0405. I've beat trent twice and RM 3 times. I've asked Barney for debates. Ramshutu asked me but when I was ready he was on a break. I'm sure we'll do that one some day. Bones asked me to debate Hunter's laptop and I accepted but then he got busy.
(Barney beat me rather handily on DDO in 2013, tho. MisterChris and I were still pretty new when we debated - I think he's way better now)
Although i didnt expect you to be so much of a sophist before going into it. You're very well aware yourself of how slimy and dishonest your arguments are, which has just took all the enjoyment out of what could of been an enlightening discussion.
- Here you are ten days ago:
- "Let it be known to everyone here with eyes to see and minds to read: Oromagi has made some very bold claims. First he said reincarnation is falsifiable, then he moves the goalpost to continuously saying how unlikely it is despite me cutting off an arm and a leg, giving him all the advantages he could hope for in this debate, yet he still refuses despite being so sure of its unlikelihood. If you're so sure, come and sweep the floor with me like you do with the other 99% you debate. It should be easy. Come get your free win."
- Now you're all like:
- "Boo Hoo! I just wanted an enightening discussion. You're so mean."
- This in a debate where you actually PLAGIARIZED your best argument out the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and I went ahead and argued against it anyway. Jeez.
Although you did attempt to rig the debate as much as possible in your favour, that is correct, yes. If the debate was fair you wouldn't of debated me. Which not only shows how fortified and padded your record is but also your ego, unfortunately.
- As you said ten day ago- you gave me all the advantages and still I spared you. Then you taunted me until I accepted. Hard to summon much sympathy now.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
-->@oromagiI'm in the middle of a debate on the Biden corruption scandal.Not on this site, you ain'tThat's debate. It's not pretty but it's debate.
- That's a good example because that is no kind of debate. Multiple posters take the time to explain that there's no evidence to support your assertions, that you are merely parroting Trump/Russian disinformation without any kind of real research. You don't refute, you don't come up with new arguments, you just stupidly keep repeating the same unwarranted speculations you've been instructed to repeat. It's lie watching Mike the headless chicken, convinced he is winning a cockfight. At least if you did a real debate, at the end somebody would take the time to explain your headless state to you.
Always about authority with you isn't it. It's an epistemological disease that they pound into you.After all, who needs knowledge when you can just churn out opinion, right?The sole means of attaining true knowledge is reason, that is objective observations + logical inference.
- obv false. There are many types and source of knowledge.
If you need knowledge you need logic.
- seldom true
Authority and logic do not interface except through the medium of trust.
- obv false. Logic does not give a shit about authority or trust.
A dozen informal fallacies are variants of the fallacy of authority based epistemology.
- We've long established you have little comprehension of fallacies, formal or informal. There is no such thing as a fallacy of authority-based epistemology. To claim that all knowledge from expertise or testimony is fallacious is mentally ill. You could not learn the English language without relying on knowledge from expertise and authority. Most criminal convictions rely on knowledge from expertise and testimony, are all criminal convictions therefore fallacious?
Why is ad populum fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the majority is an authority and truth or falsehood depends on their authority.
- Sure that doesn't mean the majority is always wrong or must be mistrusted as source of wisdom.
Why is ad hom fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the man is an authority and you want to de-legitimize him:
- Sure but sometimes a authority's character is very relevant to the topic. You can't just disregard the fact that Trump is the most prolific liar in ever documented by history when considering Trump's testimony, for example. The probability of Trump lying needs to continuously factored in.
That's what you perceive when I say something, an authority vying for your faith.
- No. I don't do faith. But I've seen enough of your arguments to know you'd sooner burn reality to the ground than admit you're wrong.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I'm in the middle of a debate on the Biden corruption scandal.
Not on this site, you ain't
Always about authority with you isn't it. It's an epistemological disease that they pound into you.
After all, who needs knowledge when you can just churn out opinion, right?
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@Sidewalker
It's not like his embrace of the Qanon crowd was all that clandestine before, he has always been thier mesiah,
Right. I think QAnon was essentially purpose-built by Flynn for Trump - hard to say how intentionally but given Flynn's training, probably very intentionally.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Hi remember me? Yea I was the guy who would double check if the FBI said the sky was blue. The reasons were legion. Here is another:
Sure but you're so allergic to facts and reason that you won't even engage in debates. It's not as if there's some reason to give your opinion any weight.
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@Ehyeh
-->@oromagiThat's true, you were the first to do it. You have over 100 debates. About 10 at absolute max are legitimate debates. If we're being cruel only 5 are. More than 1 in 10 of your debates are borderline rigged either through you vsing someone like mall (and farming them intentionally for elo) or vs someone you know will forfeit.
9 out of my debates are against debaters currently ranked in the ten slots after me. Only one of those was a loss. Of those ten, I've debated 6, challenged and been declined by 3 others. Another 8 wins and 1 loss come from the next 39 debaters, but you only need to be 3 and 0 to be a top 50 fifty debater on this site. If you want to be a high-ranked debater on this site, you must take and win a fair number of junk debates. I don't pretend to be a great debater but I think that my record for quality debates matches or exceeds anybody else's on this site.
I've also let many debaters back out of debates after they read my opening argument.
It's funny because you'd almost certainly count our present debate as one of those rigged debates if you did not already know that I tried pretty hard to discourage you.
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@Public-Choice
Well DUH.A lot of the most politically active in his fanbase are Qanon cult members.Do you have references for these circumstances?
- How about the AP article in the OP?
Because Qanon is strictly nonviolent. Q was never about violence.
- Needless to say, informed opinion disagrees
- In the Summer of '21, the FBI's assessment of QAnon potential for violence was:
- "We assess that some DVE [Violent Domestic Extremists] adherents of QAnon likely will begin to believe they can no longer “trust
the plan” referenced in QAnon posts and that they have an obligation to change from serving as digital soldiers”
towards engaging in real world violence - including harming perceived members of the cabal” such as Democrats
and other political opposition instead of continually awaiting promised actions which have not occurred.
Other QAnon adherents likely will disengage from the movement or reduce their involvement in the wake of the
administration change. This disengagement may be spurred by the large mainstream social media deplatforming
of QAnon content based on social media companies' own determinations that users have violated terms of
service, and the failure of long-promised QAnon -linked events to materialize. Some DVEs have discussed how to
radicalize new users to niche social media platforms following QAnon adherents' migration to these platforms
after large scale removals of QAnon content from mainstream sites . Adherence to QAnon by some DVEs likely will
be affected by factors such as the severity of the COVID- 19 pandemic, the level of societal polarization in the
United States, social media companies' willingness to host QAnon -related content on their sites, and the
frequency and content of pro -QAnon statements by public individuals who feature prominently in core QAnon
narratives.
I'm not a part of the cult, but I did actually read what Q had to say because I like to have my own opinion on things, not let others die tate my opinion.
- And yet your opinion is so consistent with those dictates
Q was nonviolent. His thing was information warfare and using social media to spread his message. So people who are violent are not really embracing his message, tbh.
- QAnon originates with Michael Flynn, career US Military Intelligence and disgraced, convicted Russian and Turkish spy. Bellingcat's analysis suggests that early Q was 3 or 4 people 4chan dudes that eventually just pared down to Paul Furber and then Jim and Ron Watkins when they stole Furber's tripcode in early 2018.
- QAnon is closely associated with perhaps dozens of violent incidences.
But, thank you for not reciting mainstream media propaganda about his beliefs. I can't tell you how many times I inaccurately heard people say the "Qanon conspiracy theory" about pedophilia. Like, completely misunderstanding the entire structure of the drops and such.
- QAnon's first and most prominent belief system is copious unwarranted accusation of pedophilia against pretty much anybody who criticizes Trump. Either ironic or pre-emptive since Trump was such a close friend, neighbor, night-club buddy of Jeff Epstein's for 15 years.
Once again, not a member of that cult at all. But I think we need to actually understand cults and what they are really teaching so we can counter them with logic and reason and the facts.
- Do you believe Hillary Clinton is a pedophile?
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I wonder where Novice learned that trick from? In any case, can't RM beat Novice pretty much at will? Why not just beat grab every debate Novice_II instigates and beat him into Novice_III?
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@Intelligence_06
congrats on surpassing 1800!
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Trump openly embraces, amplifies QAnon conspiracy theories
By DAVID KLEPPER and ALI SWENSON
today
After winking at QAnon for years, Donald Trump is overtly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory, even as the number of frightening real-world events linked to it grows.
On Tuesday, using his Truth Social platform, the Republican former president reposted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin overlaid with the words “The Storm is Coming.” In QAnon lore, the “storm” refers to Trump’s final victory, when supposedly he will regain power and his opponents will be tried, and potentially executed, on live television.
As Trump contemplates another run for the presidency and has become increasingly assertive in the Republican primary process during the midterm elections, his actions show that far from distancing himself from the political fringe, he is welcoming it.
He’s published dozens of recent Q-related posts, in contrast to 2020, when he claimed that while he didn’t know much about QAnon, he couldn’t disprove its conspiracy theory.
Pressed on QAnon theories that Trump allegedly is saving the nation from a satanic cult of child sex traffickers, he claimed ignorance but asked, “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”
“If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” Trump said.
Trump’s recent postings have included images referring to himself as a martyr fighting criminals, psychopaths and the so-called deep state. In one now-deleted post from late August, he reposted a “q drop,” one of the cryptic message board postings that QAnon supporters claim come from an anonymous government worker with top secret clearance.
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Even when his posts haven’t referred to the conspiracy theory directly, Trump has amplified users who do. An Associated Press analysis found that of nearly 75 accounts Trump has reposted on his Truth Social profile in the past month, more than a third of them have promoted QAnon by sharing the movement’s slogans, videos or imagery. About 1 in 10 include QAnon language or links in their profile bios.
Earlier this month, Trump chose a QAnon song to close out a rally in Pennsylvania. The same song appears in one of his recent campaign videos and is titled “WWG1WGA,” an acronym used as a rallying cry for Q adherents that stands for “Where we go one, we go all.”
Online, Q adherents basked in Trump’s attention.
“Yup, haters!” wrote one commenter on an anonymous QAnon message board. “Trump re-truthed Q memes. And he’ll do it again, more and more of them, over and OVER, until (asterisk)everyone(asterisk) finally gets it. Make fun of us all you want, whatever! Soon Q will be everywhere!”
“Trump Sending a Clear Message Patriots,” a QAnon-linked account on Truth Social wrote. “He Re-Truthed This for a Reason.”
The former president may be seeking solidarity with his most loyal supporters at a time when he faces escalating investigations and potential challengers within his own party, according to Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University who has studied QAnon and recently wrote a book about the group.
“These are people who have elevated Trump to messiah-like status, where only he can stop this cabal,” Bloom told the AP on Thursday. “That’s why you see so many images (in online QAnon spaces) of Trump as Jesus.”
On Truth Social, QAnon-affiliated accounts hail Trump as a hero and savior and vilify President Joe Biden by comparing him to Adolf Hitler or the devil. When Trump shares the content, they congratulate each other. Some accounts proudly display how many times Trump has “re-truthed” them in their bios.
By using their own language to directly address QAnon supporters, Trump is telling them that they’ve been right all along and that he shares their secret mission, according to Janet McIntosh, an anthropologist at Brandeis University who has studied QAnon’s use of language and symbols.
It also allows Trump to endorse their beliefs and their hope for a violent uprising without expressly saying so, she said, citing his recent post about “the storm” as a particularly frightening example.
“The ‘storm is coming’ is shorthand for something really dark that he’s not saying out loud,” McIntosh said. “This is a way for him to point to violence without explicitly calling for it. He is the prince of plausible deniability.”
Bloom predicted that Trump may later attempt to market Q-related merchandise or perhaps ask QAnon followers to donate to his legal defense.
Regardless of motive, Bloom said, it’s a reckless move that feeds a dangerous movement.
A growing list of criminal episodes has been linked to people who had expressed support for the conspiracy theory, which U.S. intelligence officials have warned could trigger more violence.
QAnon supporters were among those who violently stormed the Capitol during the failed Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
In November 2020, two men drove to a vote-counting site in Philadelphia in a Hummer adorned with QAnon stickers and loaded with a rifle, 100 rounds of ammunition and other weapons. Prosecutors alleged they were trying to interfere with the election.
Last year, a California man who told authorities he had been enlightened by QAnon was accused of killing his two children because he believed they had serpent DNA.
Last month, a Colorado woman was found guilty of attempting to kidnap her son from foster care after her daughter said she began associating with QAnon supporters. Other adherents have been accused of environmental vandalism, firing paintballs at military reservists, abducting a child in France and even killing a New York City mob boss.
On Sunday, police fatally shot a Michigan man who they say had killed his wife and severely injured his daughter. A surviving daughter told The Detroit News that she believes her father was motivated by QAnon.
“I think that he was always prone to (mental issues), but it really brought him down when he was reading all those weird things on the internet,” she told the newspaper.
The same weekend a Pennsylvania man who had reposted QAnon content on Facebook was arrested after he allegedly charged into a Dairy Queen with a gun, saying he wanted to kill all Democrats and restore Trump to power.
Major social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have banned content associated with QAnon and have suspended or blocked accounts that seek to spread it. That’s forced much of the group’s activities onto platforms that have less moderation, including Telegram, Gab and Trump’s struggling platform, Truth Social.
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I guess everybody's done trying to defend Ashli Babbitt cause they immediately changed the subject to black people.
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@Public-Choice
Thoughts on my proposition?
The like gets proposed fairly often but I wouldn't say that there's consensus that the site needs to grow. I think you could market a debate site as a more formal way to settle disputes, endless online bickering, he said, she saids, etc.
For example, Wikipedia is a place where there's always a tremendous amount of debate going on about facts, wording, biased language, locked articles, locked out users, etc. I think they could really use a formal forum that limits the debate, gives voters an opportunity to decides winning arguments, and records the debate for future reference. I wonder if we could promote this site as a tool for dispute resolution in partnership with other sites.
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Now we are learning that DeSantis had to import his refugees from Texas. Why?
and he spent $615,000 in taxpayer's funds to send 50 people to Martha's Vineyard. Even if tickets cost $2000 per refugee that still leaves me wondering what pocket he put the remaining half a million dollars into... emergency election funds?
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@IwantRooseveltagain
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@ADreamOfLiberty
-->@oromagiAccording to the Trump administrationAccording to the deep state which Trump failed to purge....
According to Steve Mnuchin and Ron Johnson in 2020 but even Giuliani now admits he's a Russian Spy.
You saw the part where he literally betrayed Ukraine, right? He actually organized security teams to secure border gates and bridges for the Russian tanks of Feb 24th.
and you know because US intelligence told you so....
Well, US intelligence always called him KGB (his father openly represented KGB in Ukraine, Andrii was trained by KGB in the late '80's). I'm saying Trump insiders now admit that PC-'s source is an active, open, traitor to his country spy for Putin.
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@Public-Choice
You are indeed correct it is not Shokin. I was mistaken about that. But it certainly is not Russian Government propaganda. The people in the video are Ukrainian government officials.
It's not Victor Shokin it is Andrii Derkach. According to the Trump administration, Derkach was a Russian spy working for Putin in the Ukrainian government for "more than a decade," wanted in the US for interference in the US election.
I assumed Derkach was in Moscow since he has been wanted for treason in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion on Feb 24th. Derkach's security firms gave the Russian army intelligence, opened key roadblocks, etc in the opening days of the war. It looks like nobody knows where Derkach is hiding right now. I don't have any reason not to believe you when you say this was from 2020 ( and just republished by the Russian government in the opening days of the war) and if so Derkach was still in parliament when he made that press conference then although wanted by the US for interference in the 2020 election.
When Senator Ron Johnson was investigating Hunter Biden in 2020 his key witness was Andrii Telizhenko who was going to testify about Blue Star but Johnson had to cancel his testimony in embarrassment after discovering that Telizhenko was just a plant working for Derkach, the man speaking in your video.
Be clear- you are literally just parroting information fed to you by Russian intelligence.
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@Public-Choice
One more thing, Shokin dropped a press conference where he released everything he found on Biden:
This is not a Victor Shokin press conference. This is an Interfax.com press conference filmed in Moscow, Russia on Feb 27th of this year - 3 days after Russia launched its all out invasion of Ukraine.
The reason you can't link to this through YouTube is that it is just pure, unfiltered Russian govt. propaganda. This is the Russian govt. telling you "facts" about Joe Biden less than 24 hours after Biden announced massive sanctions against Russia. This is the Russian govt. telling you about what they think counts as corruption in the Ukrainian government less than 24 hours after Zelensky surprised and slaughtered a Chechnyan assassination team coming for him in Kyiv.
If you tried as hard as you possibly could, I don't think you could come up with a more biased or less reliable source of information about corruption in Ukraine.
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@Public-Choice
Just one month later, then-Vice President Joe Biden did exactly what those emails specified by visiting Ukraine and threatening to withhold U.S. aid unless the prosecutor investigating Hunter’s cash cow was fired. Moreover, Biden did this by going after two “key targets” identified in the emails: the “President of Ukraine” and the “Prosecutor General.” . . .
Doesn't make much sense.
- Shokin was under public criticism from the UK and US for not being willing to continue existing investigations into Mykola Zlochevsky and Burisma.
- Firing Shokin did not kill any of those ongoing investigations.
- The main investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky ended two years later Dec 2017. New charges were filed in Mar 2018 regarding Zlochevsky's giving favored contracts to Burisma when he was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources in 2011/12. After just 3 months back in Ukriane, Zlochevsky had to flee the country again and is probably hiding out in Cyprus with other Russo-Ukraine Oligarchs. If the Bidens were being paid to keep Zlochevsky from being prosecuted they did the opposite since Shokin was the only prosecutor who was cutting Zlochevsky slack and there's only been a brief period when Zlochevsky was not being sought for prosecution.
I love how Biden's laptop is an endless source for new discoveries year after year always claiming to finally prove that the whole conspiracy is not just some Giuliani bullshit. No matter how many investigations fail to find anything criminal, there's always another magic mail that all those previous investigation somehow overlooked. Eventually they'll discover an email proving that Biden stole nuclear documents, sold them to Saudi Arabia for $2.5billion and then snuck them into Trump's basement on Aug 8th.
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A truly astonishing and historic and admirable reversal. But Russia's apparent weakness is dangerous and provocative. China will not ignore the largest country in the world lying defenseless at it doorstep for long. The West needs to be ready for Putin's end and start preparing irresistible incentives for a post-Putin Russia to become more democratic, open for immigration and ideally, itself a member of NATO.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Almost a month, good thing we never did one for recalling the president.
I've been thinking that if we want to make any changes to that office or election process, now is probably the time to start the discussion.
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Oh, take me back to dear old Blighty
Put me on the train for London Town
Take me anywhere
Drop me anywhere
In Liverpool, Leeds or Birmingham
But I don't care
I should like to see—
Put me on the train for London Town
Take me anywhere
Drop me anywhere
In Liverpool, Leeds or Birmingham
But I don't care
I should like to see—
I don't bless them
(Farewell) To this land's cheerless marshes
Hemmed in like a boar between archers
Hemmed in like a boar between archers
Her very Lowness with her head in a sling
I'm truly sorry, but it sounds like a wonderful thing
I'm truly sorry, but it sounds like a wonderful thing
I say, "Charles, don't you ever crave
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your mother's bridal veil?
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your mother's bridal veil?
(Oh, oh-oh, oh)
And so I checked all the registered historical facts
And I was shocked into shame to discover
How I'm the 18th pale descendent
Of some old queen or other
And I was shocked into shame to discover
How I'm the 18th pale descendent
Of some old queen or other
Oh, has the world changed or have I changed?
Oh, has the world changed or have I changed?
Oh, has the world changed or have I changed?
Some nine year old tough who peddles drugs
I swear to God, I swear I never even knew what drugs were
I swear to God, I swear I never even knew what drugs were
(Oh, oh-oh, oh)
[
So I broke into the Palace
With a sponge and a rusty spanner
She said, "Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing"
I said, "That's nothing, you should hear me play piano"
With a sponge and a rusty spanner
She said, "Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing"
I said, "That's nothing, you should hear me play piano"
We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
And talk about precious things
But when you are tied to your mother's apron
No-one talks about castration
No-one talks about castration
(Oh, oh-oh)
[Verse 4]
We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
Like love and law and poverty, oh, oh
(These are the things that kill me)
We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
But the rain that flattens my hair, oh
(These are the things that kill me)
All their lies about makeup and long hair, are still there
And talk about precious things
Like love and law and poverty, oh, oh
(These are the things that kill me)
We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
But the rain that flattens my hair, oh
(These are the things that kill me)
All their lies about makeup and long hair, are still there
Past the pub that saps your body
And the church who'll snatch your money
And the church who'll snatch your money
The Queen is dead, boys
And it's so lonely on a limb
And it's so lonely on a limb
Pass the pub that wrecks your body
And the church, all they want is your money
And the church, all they want is your money
The Queen is dead, boys
And it's so lonely on a limb
And it's so lonely on a limb
Life is very long when you're lonely
Life is very long when you're lonely
Life is very long when you're lonely
Life is very long when you're lonely
Life is very long when you're lonely
Life is very long when you're lonely
Life is very long when you're lonely
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@ADreamOfLiberty
No surprise that Dream give zero shits about the quality or process or accountability of fact-finding. Dream ranks sources by their degree of conformity to his infallible biases.
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@Lemming
Odd in a way, the idea of more than one nation, yet the same borders,The whites who didn't consider blacks citizens I mean, after emancipation.
That's really the nub of the problem of black assimilation in the US- that slaveowners were off the hook for slaves' well-being as soon as the war was over. Rome handled slavery much more sensibly- you were a slave for about 20 years or so and then your owner emancipated you and sponsored your participation in society- got you an apprenticeship or gave you a small business loan or made you an employee in one of the owner's companies. Typically, the owner was expected to care for the well-being of that slave at least through retirement and the education of that slave's children.
We should have required slaveowner to make slave a part of the household or else an employee or else set them up in business elsewhere- those were the people with the money and relevance to have made a big difference in black assimilation.
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@Shila
Agreed, but that history doesn't reflect much on the quality of a portrait painting. Bill Cosby's jokes didn't suddenly stop being funny just because we found out he was a rapist.
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@Athias
- Here this is from a recent debate with Mall
- BUSINESS
- Business establishments are a little more nuanced but there is still a material right to equal access to goods and services. You can't have a whites only Wal-Mart because that would substantially limit non-white's right to freely access goods and services, to freely associate.
- If you want to run a Whites only Klan meeting out of your mother's basement, then the freedom of nonwhites to associate is not much infringed and such kind of private segregation ought to be generally permissible.
- Let's take for example, a rural gas station run by white supremacists. No nonwhites allowed.
- How far away does one have to be from the nearest gas station that allows non-white business to qualify as a constructive choice? 20 miles? 10miles? 1mile?
- It almost doesn't make a difference because there always be some nonwhite who's running on fumes who will denied a fairly important access to product. What if the non-white loses his job because he ran out of gas? What if a woman dies in labor because she ran out of gas that a whites only station refused to provide?
- There's no way to account for the needs and situations of all people wherein any public segregation is not very likely to deny the segregated their equal freedom to associate.
- If there's a modern, reasonable gas station right next door, freedom of association is not greatly harmed by such prohibition.
- But, of course, then the supremacist station is fucked either way.
- If they advertise their "whites only" policy, almost everybody including whites are going to prefer the modern, reasonable gas station for their business.
- If they don't advertise their "whites only" policy then the will run into the problem of constant enforcement, driving disgruntled and inconvenienced nonwhites away from their pumps. Intervention by law enforcement and public objection will again shut the supremacist station down.
- Generally speaking, segregation is anti-capitalist- bad for competition, bad for business. Segregated markets are less competitive than integrated markets. Certainly there were some businesses that were required to comply with integration by the the1964 Civil Rights Act but there was very little force involved from the compliance (in spite of significant violence by segregationists), and you'd be hard pressed to find a large scale business that did not profit and improve from integration.
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@ILikePie5
It's a good point that new voter registrations might be a misleading statistic if we don't look by districts.
I know registered women in Kansas surged right before that abortion vote but I don't know the district breakdown of that 70%.
No good pollster would ask this question right now, but the bad pollsters are asking "Biden vs. Trump" and if the election were held today, they claim Biden would win by 6 points.
Generic democrat in Congress has gone from -4 points two months ago to +4- an 8 point swing in two months, just two months before the election.
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@Public-Choice
So, in order to find a poll to confirm your bias you had to dig down through hundreds of respectable polls to come up with Triton Polling and Research.
- Based on methodology, 538 gives Triton as C/D provisional rating for accuracy.
According the Christian Blog that paid for the poll:
A majority of voters gave the correct answer to only 4 of the 21 questions.
- Stop right there. If the bell curve of your test takers peaks at 20% (super F-) your test is too fucked up to accurately gauge anything.
The questions themselves are full of bias.
For example,
Would you say that the number of strong-to-violent tornadoes in the U.S. has generally increased since the 1950s?
The Christian blogger say the the correct answer is "NO" but that's not really a yes or no question.
The correct answer is "UNKNOWN" or "IT's COMPLICATED" Substantial improvements in weather radar technology, particular in rural areas has lead to big increases in reported tornadoes of every kind of strength since the 1950's but actual scientists caution that does not necessarily mean there are more tornadoes now that in the 50's or 60's because there were probably many tornadoes that we could not/did not detect.
Also the original Fujita scale rating estimates were just based on damage so tornados that hit populated areas tended to get much F3-5 ratings. Now the same classification is made with actual windspeed measurements so some tornados that might have been and F4-5 in 1960 are only an F2-3 today. With these factors in mind, the average number of F4-5 has remained pretty flat but this could be misleading.
But then "YES" is also a correct answer because "strong-to-violent" is both a relative characterization (even F1 tornados can kill people) and also a meteorological classification for F2-5 tornadoes . It is certainly true that the overall number of documented tornados is way up. It is true that number of reported F2-5 tornadoes has stayed about the same since 1954 but that's likely misleading because of big changes in how those numbers are assessed.
The blogger turns a fairly nuanced, scientific answer into a yes or no question that just about everybody gets wrong but Public-Choice wants to place significance on the fact more Democrats got the question wrong than Republican.
Also, do tornado questions really tell us if a voter is informed about the candidates, ballot measures, issue?
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@ILikePie5
Also, the GOP national is out of cash two months before the election. Democrats have outraised Republicans the last four months running.
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@ILikePie5
You’re also comparing apples to oranges. With greater turnout, holding % the same, Palin would have won even with Begich exhaustion.
Hmmm, taste that sand, ostrich!
November will definitely be fun though. I predict 238-197 in House and 52-48 in Senate for GOP
Experts say you should ignore everything before labor day. Right now, all the betting houses predict Dems hold the Senate, lose the House by 10-15 but the momentum has swung crazily toward Democrats in recent weeks.
Think about it, what is the GOP even running on these day? " Hate blacks, hate gays, give Europe to Putin, love Trump". That's it. They criticize inflation but what's their plan? Conservatives plans in UK and Brazil are handling inflation far, far worse that the US.
The top issues for voters preserving democracy, abortion, economy, and guns. Dems dominate three of those issues are rapidly improving on the fourth. 70% of all new voter registrations are women- that bad for GOP. Turnouts are rivaling record 2018 turnouts- bad for GOP.
By Nov, Trump may very well be under indictment for selling US secrets and running for President in 2024. I think at this point he has no choice but to run as his best legal argument for slowing down court proceedings.
A lot can happen between now and Nov but it certainly looks possible that MAGA is going to kill the GOP's easy pickup, just as McConnell predicted.
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@ILikePie5
My b. My point still stands with 20% of Begich voters. If those 20% of Begich voters voted Palin, she would’ve won by 5,000 votes. It’s a problem of RCV that disenfranchises voters.
I think in this particular case, RCV allowed voters to both express their preference and their antipathy towards Palin or MAGA (hard to separate in this case since Palin brings a lot of baggage to the game independent of MAGA).
A smart GOP would use this data to drop Palin, support Begich in November.
Both AOC and Ilhan Omar faced strong moderate opposition during the primaries, I wonder how RCV would have impacted those elections.
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I think this conversation is encouraging. Republicans will blame Democrats or RCV or whatever rather than recognize that MAGA is dividing the GOP vote- which should significantly help Democrats in the next two elections.
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@ILikePie5
I actually disagree. If the 30% that didn’t rank anyone second, come home to Palin, she easily wins. RCV is confusing
As I said, exit polling strongly suggests those Republicans who left second place blank weren't confused- overwhelmingly the refused to vote for a democrat or Palin.
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@ILikePie5
The problem here is that Palin won Begich voters 2-1. But this is after 1/3 of Begich votes exhausted meaning they only listed Begich and no second. With a primary system, Palin would’ve easily won by 5-10
- False.
53,810 voted for Begich first
of these, 42,520 (80%) listed a second choice
of these, 15,467 (36%) preferred a democrat to Palin
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If the Palin voters had strong reason to believe that Begich would be eliminated and not enough Begich people would go to Palin the tactical option would be to put Begich as 1st and Palin as second despite Palin being their ideal choice.
I think that would happen in many situations but Trump voters aren't allowed to break ranks. If Republicans want that seat back in November, Trump is going to have to throw his support to Begich.
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@3RU7AL
so it makes me wonderif people "self-segregate"how do you stop them ?
You don't, unless and until that segregation impacts equal access to:
- government services,
- reasonable access to other goods and services and
- freedom of association, freedom of movement.
An Italian Restaurant is a fine thing. An Italians ONLY restaurant is anti-American.
the italians want to live in an italian neighborhood
This is generally true in the first generation of any immigrant population that speaks a different primary language from the majority population but this becomes increasingly less true for the next few generations until the distinction disappears.
A hundred years after the large Italian migrations, there are more Americans of Italian descent than ever- perhaps 18 million but only 5 million of those describe themselves as only of Italian descent and 1 million fewer of those identify as Italian than just 10 years ago. New York was founded as a Dutch colony, Los Angeles was founded as a Spanish colony but those distinctions faded in just a couple hundred years.
My paternal grandparents' ancestors moved from Massachusetts Bay colony to the wilderness of Pennsylvania in the 1680s and then lived in the same little Appalachian town for ten generations. My grandparent's met at a Klan Rally and now they have Vietnamese and Black and Native American and Spanish great-children.
The impulse to self-segregate is an understandable defense measure for a few generations as language and culture are slowly blended but the history of the world tells us that no group voluntarily self-segregates for much longer than that.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
More importantly,
- Rhodes is a US Army paratrooper and
- a Yale lawyer
- who was a long time staffer for Ron Paul and maintains close ties to the Paul family
Rhodes goes on trial this month for seditious conspiracy against the US govt for his activities on Jan 6th. Specifically, Rhodes commanded several well-armed "Quick Reaction Forces" including one on a boat in the Potomac, waiting to deliver caches of semi-automatic weaponry, body armor, etc to the coup attempt, although at who's command - Trump, Stone, Flynn, or even Paul is unclear.
In March, the Dept of Justice revealed that Trump's personal lawyer, Sidney Powell was surreptitiously funding the legal defense of all 12 oath keepers charged with sedition and was in control of at least $15 million in funds towards that defense. The fund is listed as a Nevada non-profit although the IRS has never approved any non-profit status for the Oathkeepers.
Trump has refused comment on why his lawyer is paying for the defense of conspirators when on Jan 6th, he advised "If you broke the law, you're going to jail."
It seems natural to assume that if Trump were not funneling a bunch of cash to Rhodes, Rhodes would be far more likely to say who he was taking orders from on Jan 6th.
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@Bones
Semperfortis is the best debater on this site, and if you contend, you must posit either an a posteriori and a priori symmetry breaker lending credence to the contrapositive ontology, which is currently impossible.
It's funny. I don't think I've ever exchanged words with him before and I haven't seen any activity from him here for at least a year but when I listed him as one of the best debaters on this site, he sent me a friend request within 10 minutes. My guess is he'll see your post.
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@Tejretics
What is your feelings about world population? What do you suppose is the carrying capacity of the Earth? If you think the Earth is overpopulated do you have any policy proposals?
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Palin joined the election late and has hardly even been visiting the state during the campaign. She had one tele-rally with Trump in June. One campaign rally event with Trump on July 9 and then never had another campaign event until the election! She's having another tele-rally with Trump tonight and now she has no future events scheduled in Alaska until the November election. Will she even be in Alaska?
Exit polling suggests that most Palin voters would settle for Begich but a sizable proportion of Begich voters would rather see a Democrat win then Palin.
Seems like the Republican's best move is to ditch Palin
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I didn't say it was illegitimate
- Huh? The thesis you are defending is "As usual democrats change rules at the last minute to get power"
- You are clearly stating that Peltola's election is unfair
- We've established that "democrats" is bullshit
- We've established that "last minute" is bullshit
- We've establihed that "as usual " is bullshit
No, but what if those 189,951 had decided that Alaska would from that point on be reorganized into the first Alaskan Empire (with Palin as empress and Trump as godhead)?
The STRAW MAN fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:
- Person 1 asserts proposition X.
- Person 2 argues against a superficially similar proposition Y, falsely, as if an argument against Y were an argument against X.
For example:
- Exaggerating (sometimes grossly) an opponent's argument, then attacking this exaggerated version.
- I am quite confident any ballot measure rejecting democracy and the US constitution wholesale would fail judicial review
because it takes someone who is paying attention to vote republican, not the low information voters who couldn't care less.
- I will match the comprehension of the Party of QAnon against any other party in any democracy o the world for least informed/most disinformed.
Do you support mail-in ballots in Alaska?Not when...
- But then you'll gripe about turnout. You create the problem you whine about.
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@3RU7AL
3RU7AL should be defending ranked choice voting here....
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@ADreamOfLiberty
So even though we've established that this ballot measure rec'd record popular support, you'd argue it is illegitimate because that popular support represents only 24% of population?
Trump won the state with 25.9%
189,951/733,391
Should we toss out that result as well?
- By your line of reasoning there has never be a legitimate statewide election in Alaska.
- If you really want to hold out for true majority participation, Republicans always lose.
- The problem with voting in Alaska in November is that the distances are very long and the temperatures are fatally cold
- Do you support mail-in ballots in Alaska?
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