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@bmdrocks21
Yes, Trump didn't do what he needed for the white working class, which is why he has nobody but himself to blame for being a one term president. He didn't exactly abandon the working class and he did a lot of good things, but there was a lot of low hanging fruit he missed.
Georgia turning blue (potentially) and Stacey Abrams almost becoming governor tells you one thing: demographics IS destiny.
No. Those things happened because WHITES shifted left. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly obvious that the Dem's are attempting to (and mostly succeeding at) import new voters en masse, and that needs to be stopped. But that doesn't mean that America's current demographic trajectory means that there will be a permanent majority for any one party. Latinos shifted to Trump HARD this election, and a more competent version of Trump will probably win even more of their votes.
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@HistoryBuff
what policies do republicans have? As far as I know republicans haven't had a new idea since regan. They just keep going back to cut regulation and cut taxes over and over despite trickle down economics being a failure.
The GOP is in serious need of reform because a lot of their best qualities are the things they *don't* do. Certain elements on the left all but call for the extermination of Western society and culture. They claim that America is a white supremacist country, that white men are scum, that the police need to be systemically dismantled and replaced with social workers (lol), and they try to destroy the livelihoods of any who dare disagree with them. It's the culture warring stuff that makes voting Dem a complete non starter for me even though I think their actual policies tend to be better. I have self respect and I'll never throw my lot in with people like them.
That said, the GOP does have *some* good domestic policies. I know it was unpopular and understand why but the corporates tax cut was actually good and necessary (but should've been offset by higher taxes on high personal incomes.) I don't know what foreign policy looks like in a future GOP, but if they follow Trump's footsteps they'll be heads and shoulders better than the Dem's on this issue. Recent presidents from both parties prior to Trump unleashed Hell on Earth in various portions of the globe, it's messed up that it just isn't discussed. Right now, the GOP is the party standing up for the working class when it comes to issues of trade and outsourcing, and facing down China. Dems have moved rapidly to the "elite" consensus that the complete economic devastation of vast swathes of the country is a fair price to pay for cheaper iPhones. Also, mass immigration is really bad and needs to be stopped
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@Greyparrot
Man, I hope so. It just isn’t acceptable to have this level of sluggishness and incompetence
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@Death23
Not really, we don’t know the exact popular vote margin but it will likely wind up being around Biden +4. Most polls had him up double digits or very close, the only ones that showed a relatively close race were partisan R polls that everybody laughed at.
More importantly, the polls were wildly outside the margin of error in most critical states, and the few polls that tested deep red states were WAY off. The NYT/Siena polls, considered to be the very best, had Trump up single digits in Kansas and Alaska...didn’t happen. The only places I can think of where the polls were good were Georgia, Texas, and Arizona
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@HistoryBuff
Yeah I agree with everything you said. Tucker Carlson made a good point (I know you probably hate him lol) when he said the party that will win in the next generation will be the party that makes it easier for 25 year olds to get married, buy homes, and start families. And they’re going to deserve the win.
Both parties have some good (or at least popular) policies and there’s ripe opportunity for someone who can bridge the gap. Donald Trump promised to be that person, he failed, and that’s why he’s a one term president.
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Oh I forgot my other key takeaway:
Taking this long to count votes is completely unacceptable and cannot be allowed to happen again. All states need to take a lesson from Florida
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@HistoryBuff
The problem for the left is that a good deal of Biden voters either voted Republican down ballot, or used to vote Republican and now vote Democrat out of disgust for Trump more than policy. It’s true that politics makes for strange bedfellows but a coalition where rich white suburbanites are a key portion is going to have a hard time staying together if the party lurches to the left
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@HistoryBuff
That’s a good perspective. The left certainly won’t be happy if he doesn’t get them any major wins. It’s a pretty tight line to walk but Biden is a skilled politician (a lot more than people say) so he might be able to do it
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@n8nrgmi
When I say Trumpism I mean right wing populism not Trump/his family specifically
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-Trumpism is a viable electoral strategy
-The polls were horrifically wrong, worse than 2016 by a lot. Don’t pay much attention to them next time.
-The “shy republican” vote was real
-Biden’s mandate is to not be Donald Trump. If he can govern respectfully and moderately he will be popular. If he tries to go far left, he will fail.
-The “demographics is destiny” argument that democrats liked to make is dangerously wrong and extraordinarily toxic. I freely admit I believed in it and supported some pretty nasty things as a consequence
-“It’s my or the left” worked for almost every Republican in a close race and almost worked for Donald Trump himself. It’s going to work in every close race in 2022 and 2024 if Biden doesn’t temper the more violent and anti civilizational undercurrents on the left.
-Susan Collins is an unbeatable political goddess
Any others? Throw your hot takes in here!
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He’s all but certain to lose, but make no mistake. The loss will be one of personality, not of policy. I remain convinced that right wing populism is the future
Man, not to toot my own horn too much but--I was definitely right. Looking at the down ballot results where the GOP (almost certainly) held the senate, came within a hairsbreadth of winning the house against all expectations, and held onto every single state legislature they currently controlled this was a repudiation of Trump, not of Trumpism. Hell, it was hardly even a repudiation of Trump. He came extraordinarily close to winning re-election (around 70k votes between three states--again.) It was close enough that even relatively minor victories, such as a better first debate or passing a stimulus, would've made him a two term president. Actually governing as he promised he would in 2016 instead of a weird half populist/half establishment mess and laying off the tweeting would've resulted in him winning comfortably and taking congress with him--EVEN WITH CORONA!
Make no mistake, this election was very, very close. It was basically a roll of the 2016 dice all over again and they just came up slightly differently. He has no one but himself to blame for this loss. Good luck to democrats against the competent version of Trump who is absolutely on the way.
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@HistoryBuff
We disagree. I made my case for Trump here, if you’re interested in my thoughts. But I’m much more interested in talking about the election itself than trying vainly to convince someone who will never agree with me
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The most encouraging sign for Trump is that his vote share always lags his approval and I think the vast majority of people who approve of him will end up voting for him. If that happens it will be enough to stave off a humiliating loss, but it won’t be enough to win. People really are afraid of the wokastapo (I would never admit to voting for Trump to some random person calling me) so there probably is a bit of a shy Tory effect going on...I don’t expect the Biden +12 polls we have been seeing to bear fruit.
But let’s get real. I don’t think he’s ever beaten Biden in a single national poll. I can’t remember the last time I saw a poll in a critical state where he is leading.
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I’m hoping that Biden acts as a Deng like figure that calms down and diffuses the more radical and violent elements of the left, allowing us to enter into a new era of politics in 2024 where the Trumpist right and the Sanders (economic) left compete head to head. Whether Biden can do this remains to be seen since he’s always been a complete empty suit. But I have at least some hope.
To the republicans in this thread, you’re in denial. Trump can win but if he did it would be the biggest comeback since Dewey v. Truman, which is famous for a reason. If your plan involves winning every single election you’ve already lost, so don’t be too upset if he loses. I can look past Trumps behavior and actually think it’s funny and way less relevant than his policies (which have been great for the most part) but I can see how it turns off tens of millions of people who would otherwise be amenable to a platform of protecting blue collar jobs, ending overseas adventures, protecting the border, etc.
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He’s all but certain to lose, but make no mistake. The loss will be one of personality, not of policy. I remain convinced that right wing populism is the future
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@Greyparrot
Biden is, and always has been, a puppet. But I think the “powers that be” are realizing what a mistake they made by totally abandoning the working class and exporting our industrial base to China. Biden won’t be nearly as good as Trump or any future republican on trade/jobs but I am hoping that he won’t actively be bad like every other post Reagan president...
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@bmdrocks21
Well this, ladies and gentlemen, is what you like to see. I have been noticing that we agree on more than I expected. Thought you were #YangGang
I liked Yang a lot because he was the only democrat who didn’t seem like a radical (Sanders) a transparent puppet (Biden, Buttigeg) or someone who has a seething ethnic hatred towards people like me (Warren, Harris). His policy focused approach was extremely refreshing even if I thought many of his policies were bad.
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So these past few years have been extremely frustrating. It’s true that Trump has made a number of mistakes due to his inexperience, like being tricked by congressional republicans, and also his own inability to pluck even the lowest hanging of fruit (just stop tweeting!!)
Many of his recent moves only make one question “why the hell was this not done on January 21st, 2017” such as cutting off taxpayer funding to the anti white agitation/propaganda known as critical race theory. Still, I think this has been a modestly successful presidency. Compared to anyone else in the last thirty years, he gets extremely high marks. Here’s why:
1) He didn’t start any new wars
First president not to do so in a long time. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to see the “strange new respect” people have for George W. Bush because he’s capable of conducting himself as a gentlemen. He started a war based on faulty information that nearly bankrupted the country and cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives. Obama’s foreign policy wasn’t quite as bad, but his Libyan adventure still resulted in the toppling of a stable government, that the United States has sworn not to topple, and its replacement with anarchy and the return of open air slave markets in North Africa. And with the benefit of hindsight we now know that is isn’t a coincidence that ISIS cracked IMMEDIATELY after Trump stopped funding the “moderate rebels” that our foreign policy establishment was so fond of.
President Trump has been a force for peace, his administration has brokered several peace deals between Israel and its neighbors, and he tried unsuccessfully to do the same between North and South Korea. It looks like those countries are slowly moving to peace on their own terms, but the blessing of the United States is extremely significant. Trump has also known when to put down the sword. After Iran shot a US drone down, the military establishment planned a retaliatory strike that would’ve resulted in around 150 deaths. Trump, recognizing that making 150 widows over an unmanned drone was not a just or proportionate response, canceled the strike.
It’s really unbelievable how much better his foreign policy has been than his predecessors. He actually deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
2) TRADE
Trump has started the long, slow process of chipping away at untold decades of propaganda regarding free trade and globalization. And it seems that the policy establishment is actually waking up to how foolish it is to play free trade with a mercantilist country like China.
BY FAR the most important “issue” in the United States is: who will make it easier for 25 year olds to lead a stable enough life to get married and have children? The party that best answers that question will win for at least a generation, and they will deserve the win. The protection of current high paying, high skilled blue collar jobs, and the return of as many as possible, is a giant piece in that puzzle.
I don’t want to undersell Trump here. People really are waking up to what a menace China is and what a mistake it was to outsource our entire industrial base to them. His positions and policies are a big reason why. I actually have some hope that Biden might be a decent President when it comes to trade issues, even though the administration he served under wasn't.
3) Conservative Supreme Court Justices
Enough said.
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I strongly support this, and other pro-natalist policies. Population growth and sustainment needs to come from the existing people, not through immigration.
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@Death23
[The senate] may have been a good idea at the time, but times have changed. Populations and communities have shifted across state borders, and people don't really identify with their states as much as they did back then, except maybe Texans seem to have a Texas thing going on.
This is the wrong way of looking at it. Just because people don’t have patriotic feelings towards their state doesn’t mean that there aren’t large cultural differences between states. As a person born and raised in Texas, there is a very big cultural difference between me and someone from, say, Vermont or Michigan. The cultural gap would be far larger between a farmer in Alabama and someone who has spent their whole life in Brooklyn.
The United States is an incredibly large, decentralized, and diverse country. Both the senate and the electoral college reward running up small margins in a diverse array of places over large margins in a handful. This minimizes conflict, as you can only alienate so many groups of people before you aren’t competitive, and even groups you do alienate retain a lot of power that can be used against you. The president from Tennessee can’t abuse the people of Vermont, even if he does not like them, because the senators from Vermont have significant power. He cannot alienate the people from North Dakota, even though they have a vastly different culture, because if he does they may return senators from the opposing party. Federalism encourages a delicate balancing act that is necessary to maintain peace in a country where, let’s face it, we really have nothing in common.
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@Death23
I view it that way because that's what it does. They had to throw the smaller states a bone so that they'd get with the program. There wasn't anything inherently good about it. Citizens in smaller states should have equal voting power as citizens in larger states. One man, one vote. That is fair.
That’s not fair, actually. That’s how you get things like swathes of Nevada being turned into a nuclear waste dump, which was only stopped due to opposition from Senator Harry Reid: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
Frankly I don’t see why the will of the “people” matters. The idea that the United States is one “people” is utterly absurd, which is why federalism is credited. A party that can manage to run up a broad coalition that’s competitive in California, New England, the rural Midwest, Alaska, and the Deep South (aka the Democratic Party until like 2015) is a better party than one that can only win in a handful of places, even if those places are quite populated. When that party is electorally punished for alienating portions of its former base we should all celebrate.
Moreover I don’t see any evidence that the senate obstructs the will of the “people” considering that both the ten largest and the ten smallest states are evenly split between the parties.
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@ILikePie5
People don’t seem to like the Connecticut Compromise anymore because it doesn’t fit the narrative. The Senate is effectively a check to the House and vice versa
Right. The big states already get their fair share of representation in the House of Representatives. This was the deal made to smaller states in order to get them to agree to join the union. Maybe this isn't how everyone would build the system if we were starting from scratch again (although I would), but it's the system we have and there is nothing inherently unjust about it. And I would argue that it isn't even that disadvantageous for democrats considering that senators in the smallest states are evenly split and likely to be more democratic than republican after the next election.
All of this "abolish the senate" talk is just leftists whining that they "waste" a lot of votes by running up a gigantic margin in California. They think having a monopoly on one state should ensure them a permanent majority. Before the 2010 midterms democrats held senate seats in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, Alaska, and Louisiana. They held both seats in Montana and West Virginia and now only hold one in each state. These seats have been whittled away over the past decade. Maybe if they ran on a platform that didn't alienate an incredibly diverse set of states that they used to be competitive in they would be in a better position.
It’s just funny to think that you have a party that in very recent history was competitive in all parts of the country, from coast to coast and from as far north as Alaska and the Dakotas all the way down to the Deep South. A party that very recently accomplished the holy grail of politics, when they briefly had a filibuster proof majority. And suddenly when this party starts losing in all kinds of places it used to win the issue is with the system and not the party
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Unrelated but it’s funny to see Dems constantly complain about how republicans rack up the numbers in the small states and lose the big ones badly. In reality, President Trump won 7 out of the 10 most populous states and Clinton won 5 out of the 10 least populous states. There are 10 republican senators from the top 10 most populous states and 10 democratic ones. There are 10 republican senators from the least populous states, and 8 democratic ones (plus two independents who caucus with Dems)
This talking point is entirely derived due to the fact that Dems are angry that their gigantic margins in California don’t result in a permanent senate majority (they never seem to complain about 87% of California’s house members being democrats despite republicans making up ~40% of the state). As recently as 2004 Texas was far more republican than California was Democratic. Things change, states change, people change. You need to play the game, not try to change the rules every time there’s a chance you lose.
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@ILikePie5
It’s not a flimsy pretext if that’s what he actually said. It is by no means hypocritical. The rule was created by Biden and Mitch just using it. A side effect is that he’s serving his party’s best interest. Historically same party in Senate and Presidency have nominated people
I mean that’s basically just a fancy version of “screw you, I have the votes” lol. Which is a perfectly justified and entirely correct argument. President Trump is entirely correct, there is a consequence to winning and losing elections. If Democrats had held onto the senate in the 2014 midterms Obama’s appointment would’ve gone through, and it would’ve been entirely justified that it go through.
And before any Dems start complaining about how the small states make it impossible for democrats to win the senate (having never heard of Vermont, Delaware, Maine, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or Hawaii)...there was a democratic senate majority for years and there will be one again, most likely as soon as January 2021. All arguments to the contrary are just excuses to rig the system to ensure that instead of having a fair playing field that Dems cannot lose again, by adding deep blue “states” such as DC and packing the court every time they suffer the consequences of losing an election.
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Mitch is going to pull out all of the stops for this. He will make it clear that any Republican who votes no is done as a senator. They will lose all of their committee assignments. If they are currently in a race, he will cut off all funding. If they are not, he will fund primary challenges in the next election.
The President has the authority to make an nomination, and the senate has the authority to confirm or reject that nomination. The only thing unusual about 2016 was that McConnell refused to even hold a vote, because the outcome was already certain. While it’s true that the arguments both sides used were and are transparently disingenuous, “screw you, I have the votes” was always the honest and correct argument.
President Trump won in 2016. Voters kept the Republican senate majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018. They need to confirm this justice. To not do so will be the greatest political betrayal of my lifetime. If they don’t, I probably won’t vote ever again and I don’t think I’m alone in that.
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@SirAnonymous
I do actually!
Good vanilla ice cream rules, and is very underrated. Think like homemade ice cream. However it can also taste like air if it’s bad so chocolate is a safer bet
Trump
Classic country, classic rock, folk music, sea shanties, Kanye West
Who am I? I am just a Loser
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@Vader
I’ve thought about writing something since our current era is ripe for satire but having writers block. I was rereading some of my stuff on here and laughing at my own jokes, imagine if I actually wrote something people would read instead of on the spin off site of an obscure debate site
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You care enough to ask questions r-right guys?? H-haha I’m still cool and relevant right.......
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@Death23
Wow I didn’t realize it was that close. I’m truly not trying to be condescending but most people unfamiliar with guns don’t understand how loud they are. If you want to understand what Kyle heard, drive to your nearest outdoor gun range without hearing protection and stand twenty feet away from someone firing. Your ears would be ringing. If a mob is chasing me and I hear a gunshot that close I’m definitely going to think they’re shooting at me
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@Death23
I'm actually pretty convinced that the gunshot in the air is what caused Rittenhouse to turn and fire, mostly because it immediately preceded Rittenhouse opening fire. The chase, the throwing of the object, and then the gunshot (which he may have assumed came from Rosenbaum) all taken together, may form a reasonable basis for an objective belief that great bodily harm was imminent. Especially if there were threats from Rosenbaum leading up to the event, then it may be more than enough for me to be convinced, I think. A little curious about the location of the muzzle flash in the photo. It's not clear what direction it was in or how far it was. Also wondering how easy it is to estimate distance and direction of gunfire using only your ears. The existence of gunfire would dispense with any alternative imo.
I don’t know if Rosenbaum threatened him. The closest thing I saw was a clip of an altercation they had where Rosenbaum gets in his face and yells “shoot me nigga!” Repeatedly, but that isn’t a threat. I think this claim is the weakest argument I’ve seen from the pro-Kyle side unless I missed something
When it comes to the gun shot...guns are a lot louder than most people think. A LOT louder. It was definitely close enough to factor into his consideration.
Who are the parents? What were they doing?
Yeah I know. He could’ve very easily have been killed. As it stands he killed two people...that changes a person. Yeah it was in self defense but not to the same degree as if someone broke into your house or tried to kill you out of nowhere. He went looking for trouble and way more trouble than he bargained for
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@Death23
It didn't look like the person who fired the shot into the air was chasing Rittenhouse. It didn't look like a mob was chasing him. But yes, the shot in the air immediately preceded Rittenhouse opening fire. I hadn't considered that Rittenhouse may have thought that Rosenbaum had opened fire.
My impression was that the person who fired the first shot was chasing him, albeit a lot further behind but I'm struggling to find the video now. Here is how the NYT (which if it is biased at all is biased against Rittenhouse) describes the incident:
"While Mr. Rittenhouse is being pursued by the group, an unknown gunman fires into the air, though it’s unclear why. The weapon’s muzzle flash appears in footage filmed at the scene. Mr. Rittenhouse turns toward the sound of gunfire as another pursuer lunges toward him from the same direction. Mr. Rittenhouse then fires four times, and appears to shoot the man in the head."
He is being chased by a mob, hears gunfire from the direction of the mob, turns around and sees a man lunging at him. It seems like that would be INCREDIBLY hard to get a conviction on.
Definitely agree that his actions should not be emulated, and that he bears substantial moral blame for what happened. He was looking for trouble, and he found it. If anything, I begin to think he may have wanted to kill someone that night, and that he was baiting them. If that's the case, then self-defense doesn't apply at all.
Yeah but those are moral questions, not legal ones. As for his intent to kill, he was retreating in all circumstances so he fulfilled his moral duty to retreat if you believe in that. A LOT of people do the “bring your gun to the protest” LARP, including at that very protest. I’ve long thought it was a bad idea for this precise reason.
You can have all the private suspicions you want but the state won't be able to prove that to a jury
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@Death23
I'm having difficulty seeing that an objectively reasonable belief of imminent great bodily harm can be formed based on what Rittenhouse observed. The first shooting is the one I'm having a hard time with. According to a witness, Rosenbaum began to approach Rittenhouse, who then began to running away and the chase ensued. At some point, Rosenbaum threw an object at Rittenhouse. It was shortly after the object was thrown that Rittenhouse began to turn and shoot. So, I'm thinking the Rittenhouse's decision to shoot rather than continue to run was heavily influenced by that object being thrown. I don't know what that object was. I can't tell from the video, and the prosecutor says it was a "plastic bag", but plastic bags don't move like that. (at least not the ones in the grocery store) Rittenhouse was close enough to see what the object was and the object was well-illuminated by the light. He was also looking in the right direction to see it.
The NYT actually did an excellent analysis of the event--it looks like it's been paywalled now unfortunately, but as Kyle was being chased right before the first shooting, someone chasing him fired a shot into the air--but since Kyle was running away, he had no way of knowing that the shot coming from the mob chasing him was not actually aimed at him. He turned around and returned fire, killing the man who was charging him. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html
It seems very reasonable to assume that someone who knows you are armed but is pursuing you anyway as you attempt to retreat intends to inflict grievous bodily harm upon you, especially when you hear a shot from behind. Unless there is something that was not caught on video, I would be stunned if he doesn't walk.
Still, going through the legal system is punishment enough. He is innocent of the crimes he is accused of and thus deserves a rigorous defense...but everyone else also needs to understand that his actions are NOT to be emulated. The most important lesson to learn is that when trouble comes, don't be there.
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@Lunatic
Totally agree, bluesteel was one of the smartest and nicest people ever on DDO. I think RM is being ridiculous by thinking that he tried to swindle the DDO community out of a few hundred dollars...but I also dont think RM should be banned for having weird and unfounded opinions about the actions of people 5-6 years ago on a different site
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@Barney
RationalMadman has been banned for 2-months. This is primarily due to the following..."Targeted harassment of any member prohibited, as is inciting others to do so at your behest."This one goes on endlessly. Claiming victim to the moderation team regularly via insisting roughly half the active user base are actively bullying him; while regularly being the instigator of conflict and following people around complaining at them obsessively.
This isn't against the rules just because it annoys you
A recent example of targeted harassment against voters: complaining with obscenities and drama that someone's vote was not automatically deleted for being against him. This further doubles as low level vote tampering, via informing any other potential voters what to expect if voting against him; while insisting in the vote request thread that they've troll voted (implying it needs a counter vote in his favor, when their questionable vote already is) https://www.debateart.com/debates/2114/comment_links/28755 (note, this was posted within minutes of the vote in question, denying any possibly for the admin team to review and delete it).
People complain about votes all the time. He has a flair for the dramatic,so what
A recent example of targeted harassment via the forms: Derailing a thread with insults rising to the level of extravagant made up stories about users (if not lying, it's doxxing to have spied on them braiding their hair and giving each other manicures) basically because they play board games without you. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191128Same thread: Threatening to ban someone, which is impersonating moderation. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191181
"Impersonating moderation" lol
Accusing another member of getting a cut from a gofundme which you insist was a scam: This raises the seriousness, as it's accusing a third party of criminal activity. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/4593/post-links/191270
GTFO of here. It looks like the post was deleted but he's entitled to have his conspiracy theory about an event that happened like six years ago. Mikal is not in any legal danger due to this post, the way you've worded it is incredibly dramatic
"Multi-accounting and any action indistinguishable from it is prohibited."Technically forgiven, but still of note with recent complaints of it not being rewarded. Coordinating with someone for them to make fake accounts to give him a bunch of free wins, is still within the purview of this crime.
I dont know the context of this, if true its worth of a ban, but you also say it has been forgiven? If it has it shouldn't be relevant
"Doxing is strictly forbidden. Without their express permission, you may not post, threaten to post, nor encourage others to post, anyone’s private or identifying information no matter how it was obtained."Doxing another user: While this is from a while ago, it does feed into history of poor decisions, particularly as related to being fixated on certain people.
I support a zero tolerance policy for actual Doxxing, but all he did here was threaten to Doxx someone (which he should not have done, either.) It's from October 2019, almost a year ago. It's not relevant to banning him now and shouldn't be considered
TLDR this site barely exists anyway and Rationalmadman is a key member, if this is all you've got you're clearly banning him mostly because he annoys you and he's right that the "charges" in general are trumped up, and two months is way too long
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@bmdrocks21
Explosives: lots of collateral damage. Also terrible for self-defenseNuke: not a personal self-defense weaponAn AR-15 on the other hand... look no further than the riots to understand why someone might require a high-capacity rifle for self-defense
This is definitely true, the riots have basically been a months long advertisement about how the left is wrong about gun control.
But honestly I wonder if this “Yes we do NEED it!” Argument is even the right approach. You shouldn’t have to justify “needing” something in order to own it. Swimming pools result in far more deaths per year than “assault rifles” and absolutely no one “needs” a swimming pool. But as a society we accept that the value people get out of them, getting to spend time with family and friends in the sun, exercise, the fact that statistically very few instances do result in tragedy and people’s right to make their own choices is paramount. Why should guns be any different?
We can debate the merits of each individual regulation (some actually do make some sense and aren’t just naked power grabs imo) but I just don’t understand the worldview where a vetted, responsible gun owner shouldn’t be allowed to own an “assault rifle” and the burden is on them to prove why we shouldn’t be allowed to
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
what would be one argument? how it looks? the caliber? what is it?
Honestly I was mostly trying to be charitable lol. I have a hard time thinking of one that doesn’t apply to all guns in general
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@n8nrgmi
this link has a lot of people saying they're all the same...i may have misunderstood it. so do mass shooters just pick an AR cause they look scarier? is that all there is to it?
It's the civilian version of a military rifle, the military chooses to use them because they are at least marginally more deadly than, say, this (https://www.legacy-collectibles.com/media/catalog/product/cache/79a015b0686a9fbe981cff5bfc43588b/2/0/2020-03-19_109.jpg) but yeah this is the point us gun nuts are making for a while. A mass shooter could definitely do a lot of horrible damage with guns that most leftists do not want to ban. For example, one of the first well publicized mass shootings was committed primarily with a bolt-action rifle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting)
Almost all modern guns are semi automatic and any gun that can accept a magazine can accept a high capacity magazine (I support better regulation of these because of how low effort a lot mass shooters are but lets be realistic: a magazine is basically just a metal box with a spring, they'll always be available on the black market.) I'm not an AR expert and don't own one (or any "Assault weapon") so I don't know what specific advantages it has from a traditional hunting style semi automatic rifle,but it's more lightweight and probably has other minor advantages for combat.
It's a military rifle with the automatic capability removed so there's definitely some argument to regulate these, but a blanket ban seems unnecessary to me, especially when nobody can seem to define as assault weapon and almost all shootings are the result of handguns.
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@RationalMadman
I really am an amazing person.
Yes
This is the only comment on the thread worth reading.
No
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@n8nrgmi
Can you define an assault weapon for me?
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@HistoryBuff
Restrictions of some kind are obviously reasonable (theres no reason for a civilian to own a nuclear warhead to go to the most extreme), but what I don't understand is the fixation on "assault weapons", which represent a tiny portion of overall gun deaths. I feel like it's because they have been used in very well publicized mass shootings which, while horrible, are statistical anomalies. A handgun ban would save far more lives if gun control works as advertised (not convinced that it does.)...so why the focus on assault weapons? Serious question, not trying to do a "gotcha" type thing.
Also, I'm not trying to be nitpicky or rude but automatic weapons have been banned in the United States for quite some time, "assault weapons" are all semi-automatic and really not that different from what you would envision as a standard hunting rifle. They are marginally more deadly which is why the military uses them but the difference between an M1 Garand, which looks pretty much like a standard wooden rifle, and an AR-15 really is not as severe as people would think...one just looks a lot scarier. And as someone who is a gun enthusiast that is open to reasonable restrictions (for example, I think high capacity magazines should be legal but more strictly regulated) the amount of misinformation coming from the left is frustrating. The previous assault weapons ban, for example, had some of the dumbest restrictions imaginable. Not to excuse the people who act like banning bump stocks will result in a tyrannical government, but the rhetoric on both sides is really bad/annoying
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@HistoryBuff
it doesn't throw them through a loop. I have asked them on here before. They are completely disconnected. They see no problem with there being a line where you can't own a rocket launcher, but can own an assault rifle. But the second that line is somewhere they don't like, suddenly it is unconstitutional for the government to ban weapons.They honestly cannot see how their position makes no sense.
Where should the line be drawn? Only 4% of homicides involve rifles, and "assault weapons" are a subset of rifles. To be fair, a solid third of firearms involved were unclassified but it seems very unlikely that "assault weapons" were used in more than 8% or so of firearm deaths. With this in mind, why should a responsible gun owner be prohibited from owning them? Unless you believe that all guns should be banned, which is a different debate but at least the position is consistent.
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@Intelligence_06
What do you mean your worldview is new?
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@Discipulus_Didicit
What does the phrase "de-scaled" mean?
It's referencing the concept of scale, which is a theory of social science my friends and I were interested in that originated from a now defunct internet forum. The basic contention is that ever increasing complexity in human social experiences contributes to ever more dysfunction. Compare someone who would score highly on this survey, whose life is stable and rooted, vs. someone who scores well into the negative.
This survey is more or less a joke, ofc
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@Intelligence_06
I suggest the more the value, the more conservativ(Nationalist), and the less the value, the less conservative and more liberal(Globalist). But it is just my thought. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Pretty much, yeah. When I did this on DDO there was a strong correlation
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@ILikePie5
Yeah I mean DC and Puerto Rico statehood would pretty much mean a permanent Dem senate majority, or close to it. That's an automatic four seats...and it's obvious they're going to go for it. If the GOP doesn't retain the senate/there are not enough dems like Manchin they've basically won it all for a generation or more.
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@Greyparrot
That's laughable. Every educated person knows you need 60 seats for undivided control.
If the Dems win in November they’re going to show you what real power looks like. The filibuster is gone. Obama already rolled out the “racism” charge yesterday at one of John Lewis’s many funerals (but remember if grandma dies she isn’t allowed to have a funeral. She isn’t important.)
New states, court packing, why not? It’s imperative that Republicans keep the senate but I’m extremely nervous.
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@Vader
I don’t think taxes should be raised on the middle class—I just think it’s inevitable if changes aren’t made soon. I think tax increases should be targeted towards the wealthy, and we probably could claw some moderate spending decreases as some form of compromise which would help, but it will never be enough.
Want to talk about a tax on the middle class? Imagine what would happen if the US Dollar lost its status as the worlds reserve currency
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@RationalMadman
I find it irksome and bemusing how often you come to correct end-points in political views via warped reasoning.
Lol well my position isn’t just selfishly motivated. I’m just well aware how truly screwed a lot of people in my generation are. Most of the remaining well paying jobs require a college education (the trades are mostly a meme, sadly) and there are far more people that want these jobs than there are slots.
The median member of my generation has a life path that is leading right off of a cliff. At the same time there is a top third or so that is doing quite well. The economic stratification in the millennial generation seems to be a lot more severe than in previous generations and the inheritances that some will receive over the next 20-30 years will make things even more unequal.
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