You’re countering your own inferences now? Well, enjoy. I guess.
Interesting. So your approach is that when you assert things by fiat, it’s because they reflect the will of all reasonable people but when I assert things by fiat (which I do for the purpose of calling out you asserting things by fiat) it’s because I have pretensions to absolute power? Yes, that makes sense.
I’ll file that next to the “things that aren’t onerous to me aren’t onerous to anyone and anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t taking personal responsibility for themselves” one, which is just as convincing.
I can always tell when you know you’re losing the argument - you get extra snide. Keep thumping the table, counsellor.
Hint: Jim Crow laws are in the past. And since we have a rather strong precedent for laws and the legal system being used to suppress voting in a specific population, your argument needs to be a little more robust than “hey, it’s currently legal so it’s all good”. But please continue to make the “milk is good for your bones so disregard what happened in the past” argument you’re currently pursuing.
Interesting. So your approach is that when you direct vituperative insults at other people it’s only because you are a poor persecuted conservative in this benighted land of liberals doing so in self-defense, and when other people do it it’s because they all big meanie-meanheads picking on you purely due to your political preferences and not because anything you’ve written might be legitimately considered highly objectionable. Have I got that right?
Ah, the Silent Majority of ordinary, right-thinking people. Good luck with that.
If he argues with himself, he is assured of at least one victory.
In that, you are failing. I largely got dragged into participating on this board specifically because you kept saying that you were appealing to the silent reader, which makes sense. It is unlikely that you are going to convince a debate opponent of your position, and that is very rarely the purpose of a debate. The purpose is usually to convince the audience.
As an audience member at the time, I wanted to let you know that your arguments were not compelling, not because you lack legal knowledge of intelligence, but because you tend to use fairly dishonest forms of rhetoric, one of your favorite is usually not actually stating the position that you’re coming from, but only play semantic and nutpicking games, not making any progress whatsoever of actually advancing your idea, but just bogging down and preventing conversation amongst those who are actually interested in discussing something with which you disagree.
Anyway, just wanted to counter point that if what you claim is really what you are trying to do, you are failing. As I no longer believe that that is what you are trying to do, I really see it as you enjoy disrupting conversations that are discussing topics you disagree with. Sometimes you have legitimate points to bring up, I can tell that because you actually bring up those legitimate points. When you know that you don’t actually have a legitimate position to argue from, that is when you engage in semantics and passive aggressive pedantry, rather than discussion.
Anyway, just an observation, you do you.
So, you believe that an over promise is the same thing as a deliberate lie?
If Obama could have kept you with your doctor or insurance, he would have. The fact that many insurance policies were not actually up to the task of covering people when they got ill, and those had to go away, maybe that should have been addressed, but if you “like you insurance” and your insurance isn’t going to cover you when you need it most, then your opinion on your insurance, and the fact that you “liked” it, isn’t really important.
That businesses decided to drop insurance plans for their employees was not really Obama’s fault either. If I were a state politician, looking to increase traffic safety, and I said, if you like your car, you can keep your car, but in the end, there were a few vehicles that were considered to be non-roadworthy due to lacking basic safety equipment like seatbelts or even seats, would you use those examples as claims that I had lied? If your parents take away your car, or you stop paying your car payment and get it repossessed, would you use that as an example to say that I lied? That is the logic that you are using to call Obama’s aspirational over promise as an actual lie.
Now, compare that to the claims made by trump about the healthcare program he was going to implement. He said it would be great and wonderful, and that it would cover more people at lower cost. The bill the republicans tried to pass did not even try to accomplish those goals. People voted for trump and republicans because they wanted this healthcare bill that was better than the ACA, which to be quite honest, really shouldn’t have been too hard. They wanted a bill that would better protect the health of themselves and their families, protect better against medical bankruptcy, and lower costs. Trump promised that bill, and that is what lead many voters to vote for him.
In trying to equate the two, you fail. I do not believe that you are actually stupid enough to really think that the two are equal, so the other option is that you believe that those reading your words (including that silent majority that you like to think is lauding you) are stupid enough to think that the two are equal. You treat not only your interlocutors with contempt, but also the lurkers that you claim benefit from your arguments.
There is potential for excessive hairsplitting in trying to separate falsehoods derived from well-intentioned overgeneralization versus those due to deliberate deceit, not least of which because speculation on intent may be involved.
In this particular instance, however, I feel the more significant distinction is that of magnitude. How often did Obama make the “you can keep your doctor” statement? How much weight was it given? How far from reality was it? Now how often have Republicans and their media outlets made the “repeal and replace” case and for how many years? How many of them made it? How many of them promised that an actual, substantive replacement plan would be drafted? How many (including the current president) claimed one already existed, even though it patently doesn’t? How many made claims about what this mythical plan would do (e.g. cheaper, more efficient, covering more people)?
One can acknowledge that Obama’s statement (which - I have not forgotten - garnered him ‘Lie of the Year’) was wrong and stupid and still point out the false equivalence with the years of far more egregious lies repeated far more frequently by far more people to a much larger audience and with far less actual basis in truth the Republicans have promulgated. This isn’t even “apples and oranges”; this is “apples and Sherman tanks”.
Well, it’s *possible *to claim that “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” is the moral equivalent of “No, honey, that dress doesn’t make you look fat”. Just not convincingly.
If only. Voter ID is just a new one.
“I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not! And I’m sick and tired of being told that I am.”
I’m still chuckling over the idea of defining reasonable as “that which elected officials do”.
I am not asserting things by fiat. I am asserting things that are the result of actions by elected representatives in a representative democracy.
You are asserting things by fiat, because you endorse the representative democracy approach when it yields a result you like and reject it when it doesn’t. That, pally, is fiat.
I mean, Your Highness. Sorry. Not sure how royalty feels about informality.
I endorse the approach when the majority of the people affected by legislation like the result. When those elected play games in order to keep themselves in power against the will of their constituents, you cannot really call those actions of its elected legislators reasonable standards in which society expresses its view. It is not really a representative democracy anymore, but more of a dictatorship, with the now authoritative government acting by fiat.
QFT
There have been many times in this thread and others where I see **Bricker **willfully ignoring the reprehensible character of the people in his team who are elected to make the laws, interpret the laws and at the executive level. They are getting worse nowadays than from a few years back. And it is better for **Bricker **to continue to tell others to ignore the ugly reactionary forest for the few nice legal twigs.
Not quite. Voter confidence is a “valid neutral justification”, as determined by men wearing the appropriate black polyester robes. Therefore, even if “some” Republicans have malign motives in voting this legislation, the legislation can still stand, because someone could have voted for a law that has a voting suppression affect for valid reasons. Therefore, we must assume that they did.
The robes, the gavel went bang, the decision is handed down, and its all legal and Constitutional. Is it legitimate political action, does it reflect the best traditions and standards of democracy? From these, the Counselor skates gracefully away. According to his personal definition of our argument, he has solidly won.
Its the sort of argument that makes a rationalization substitute for a value or a principle. To paraphrase Scripture, don’t cast pearls in front of sheep because they may be wolves in disguise, but so long as they are covered in wool, they are legally sheep.
I hope it won’t seem too vituperative of me to note that given his contributions to this thread over the last few days, I feel confident that Bricker has completely lost it. He reached the point where he can no longer argue and has resorted to declaring that we were never worth arguing with. Whether or not he is actually a lawyer, he’s now little more than a performance artist.
Possibly a starving artist.
That ain’t happening, though, so. . .
As opposed to your preferred method, which is that the legislators won’t do what you demand, so you . . . what, exactly?
“Yo Momma floss her teeth with barbed wire!”, well, sure this is the PIt. Jokes about someone’s presumed polyamorous perversions, no problem.
But there are limits, sir, limits!
So, this sacred value of “voter confidence”? What do you think is the effect on the voter confidence of the people intentionally and adversely hampered by this stuff? What do they say to themselves, gee, its more trouble for me, but at least Republicans don’t have to worry about voter fraud! Swell!
I’m gonna go way out on a limb here and suggest that they probably feel disrespected. As if their citizenship was not held to be valuable. How does that foster voter confidence? That’s a real negative impact, that is tangible injury. Voter fraud, on the other hand, is a chimera, a spook story. Do you hear any Republican plans to assuage this insult? Some effort of outreach to ensure that these laws only tighten voter security without putting up barriers for legitimate citizens?
Why not? Nobody told them? They didn’t hear anything about that? If voter confidence were the true goal of these actions, it would have been simple enough to make the effort, if they gave a shit. They didn’t. There was a very good reason that they didn’t.
They didn’t want to.
What you are talking here is that we should not complain about it. IOW you just continue to tell others that it is legally raining when they pee on Hispanics or other minorities and the poor. What you do is what you do not want to talk about what we should do: to toss all the congress rascals out, that nowadays are mostly Republican.
Of course they do know that and so they continue to mold the rules to be harder to follow by the poor or minorities, and that leads precisely to the point: Stop defending those reprehensible rascals with your obfuscation. Of course, since I do not expect you to tell your friends to cut it out as you do not want to be voted off the Republican island, I post for others to do then the right thing in the following elections.
You just keep believing that if it makes you happy. And the rest of us (silent majority potentially included) will continue to see it as the bullshit rationalization it is.
When you’re done playing with your strawman, remember to tidy it away.
Obviously, I should:
- Get my chosen media outlets to spread rumors of vast amounts of voter fraud to provide an excuse for my pet government officials (supported by ‘evidence’ provided by my private research company) to purge the voter rolls of ‘questionable’ voters, who always strangely seem to belong to demographics and geographic areas that skew to the opposition party.
- Require voter IDs but tailor the ID requirements to favor those most likely to be held by people I want to vote and least likely to be held by those I don’t, then make it more difficult for the latter group to obtain those IDs.
- Reduce the amount of voting stations and voting booths available in opposition-heavy areas, and reduce or remove any other voting practices favored by opposition voters.
- Conduct massive smear campaigns against any organizations seeking to help people overcome all the obstacles I’ve thrown in their way in order to justify closing them down.
I mean, that’s the sort of “representative democracy” you’ve been defending. One which represents you…but doesn’t represent “democracy” very much.
Forget it, GIGO - it’s Brickertown.
I don’t think it’s off-topic to mention the recent drawing in Virginia after a tied vote. Nevermind that the the tie resulted from GOP malfeasance, I want to ask about the lots drawing itself.
Am I the only one who thinks the Election Chairman probably cheated? It doesn’t take rocket science to know that the drawing would appear fairer if the “lots” were properly shuffled, or if the drawing was done by someone other than the shuffler, who kept his hands on the GOP canister the entire time. If the goal was to draw the GOP name by cheating I’m not sure what they would have done differently.
Do you have a point, Brickhead?
Nixon’s ordering an illegal burglary was an action “by elected representatives in a representative democracy.” Bush’s stupid trillion-dollar was an action “by elected representatives in a representative democracy.” Or, to explain it in terms that your ilk might grasp, when the Clintons murdered Vince Foster, that was an action “by elected representatives in a representative democracy.”
I’ve heard Dopers say that the Brickhead is intelligent. Please, someone, PM me if ever shows signs of intelligence, because I sure don’t see it.
He apparently used to. I suspect Obama’s election and the Tea Party success in 2010 made Bricker feel he had to choose a side, and he has, though it meant having to rationalize the abuses of his side, i.e. what happened to Garland was perfectly fair, given what happened to Bork, indeed what happened to Bork demanded what happened to Garland.