And now one party is pretty much fully behind acts of domestic terrorism committed by their own supporters.
Reich was in Clinton’s cabinet and has a pretty good take.
I am sick to death of these morons dominating my politics and culture.
What about Fentanyl?
Lol. Lady and protesting too much…
But that’s the real problem. Your brilliant electoral solution is for Democrats to adopt the Republican platform so they can win. You only care about the name of the party, not what it stands for. It’s politics as a team sport, you don’t care about policy as long as your team wins elections.
Actually when I say you, I mean all of the ‘enlightened centrists’ out there just love to play your masturbatory mental academic games with other human lives.
I’ve tried to be very polite with you guys, but you are a fucking moron.
So I’ve now been called: right wing gun nut, enlightened centrist, and someone who apparently is only loyal to the “name of the [democratic party]” despite despising the democratic party. Your shitty party doesn’t stand for anything except a slightly more sane version of oligarchy.
It’s certainly not because I’ve been unclear. It’s because none of you give a shit about truth, intellectual integrity, good faith, decent debate, or anything like that.
You somehow concluded when I said that we shouldn’t focus on gun control as a rallying cry for the election, because it is an issue that is not an election winner, and we are not facing an existential crisis due to gun violence, while we face several crisis of greater consequence, including fascist coups, excessive wealth inequality, and climate change, and your conclusion from this is that I want to “adopt the Republican platform”
You guys have really become lazy. Just because republicans have all become incredible cult-like doesn’t mean you can get lazy with your reading comprehension, argumentation, media literacy, and knowledge and still maintain being right about things.
You are simultaneously calling me a partisan democrat that only cares about my team winning while also calling me an “enlightened centrist” and even that - ignoring how fucking stupid both accusations are - is itself obviously contradictory and stupid.
- I hate the democratic party, and I have made no shortage of complaints about them, so the idea that I’m only rooting for my team to win as a tribal partisan is incredibly fucking stupid, I am one of the least partisan people on this board. I think partisanship is at odds with all higher pursuits of understanding and actively try to avoid it.
I also hate when people “on my side” make stupid arguments. We should aspire to better arguments, better knowledge, and better understanding, and not just side with people we think are on our side. THAT is the sort of partisanship I am avoiding and you’re engaging in.
- You would almost certainly consider me, if you actually listened to me, more “extreme left” than whatever positions you hold, so calling me an “enlightened centrist” or “wanting to adopt the republican agenda” are both comically stupid. You just want an easy, lazy way to dismiss me rather than to actually understand what I’m saying and argue against me.
Effectively you do. If Democrats focused on excessive wealth inequality you would be a back seat driver smugly criticizing them for that and saying they should figure on other issues least they invoke the wrath of white “moderates”. You want to be the smartest in the room rather actually achieve anything.
Find in my posting history anything that suggests this would be true. You are making stupid, wrong assumptions with absolutely no merit at all. I understand that there are people like you describe, but I am not one, and you cannot reasonably conclude that I am one because I feel that gun control is not a good issue to run on.
I would never criticize democrats for running on issues of economic inequality and I could find at least 100 posts that would solidly support this. You are making completely arbitrary conclusions about me based on absolutely nothing, all of which could be easily disproved by actually looking at my posting history.
Lol. During the civil rights era you would have been the guy sadly clucking his tongue as the black kids were hosed down in the street and telling you other “liberal” friends " I support those blacks , but they need to wait and find a better message before they can get their rights".
You’re just repeating your unfounded accusations. I am more radical than you are, you are likely far more fitting of the “enlightened centrist” mold than me.
You’re an ineffectual smug coffee shop liberal. Sorry, bro. You’re no radical.
Not that being a radical is something to boast about anyway.
Now you’re just trolling. Initially, you were being stupid, but now that you’ve been called out on it, you’re just leaning into being stupid so you can pretend you were just trolling all along. You have done nothing at all to actually make a case to substantiate what you have to say - and doing so is entirely available to you since my entire posting history on the boards is available to you. I’m not going to feed the troll any further. If you actually make a real argument, I will respond, but this is pathetic.
You’ve got it wrong. The point is not “maximalist-utilitarianism” or being willing to trade off absolutely anything for “absolute minimization of death”.
If we could eliminate all gun-related and alcohol-related human deaths forever by periodic bouts of viciously torturing puppies, for example, I would not be willing to accept that, because it’s fundamentally immoral. Even though I feel that as a general matter of social policy, a human’s life has to be treated as more important than a puppy’s.
But it would not be in any way immoral to agree to give up a replaceable recreational activity—which, in practical terms, is all that civilian gun ownership and alcohol use actually are; neither one of them is really ensuring us any fundamental happiness or rights—for guaranteed permanent elimination of all human deaths related to that activity. Rejecting that trade-off is what I find shocking (and, tbh, not a little contemptible).
Als wij kunnen het Nederlands lezen, dat kunnen wij zeker doen.* 
But of course, most Americans wouldn’t be able to.
(*) “If we’re able to read Dutch, we can certainly do that.”
That’s the issue in these discussions. It invariably turns into “Unless you want all guns completely banned, maybe with some totally insane exception that would allow farmers to own a literal flintlock musket, you’re a monster with blood on your hands”.
What makes it worse is the people making these proposals know nothing about guns beyond “I hate them”. And that’s fine, but when they’re spouting ignorant nonsense like “You should only be allowed to have 12 cartridges for your gun at any one time, that covers literally anything you could ever want to do with a gun” or “I don’t care if you enjoy international-level target shooting, your sport should stop existing and you should go and do something I personally find more wholesome instead” it rather undermines the legitimacy of their argument.
Mr. Steward sat in Norma’s chair. He reached into an inside coat pocket and
withdrew a small sealed envelope.“Inside here is a key to the bell~unit dome,” he said.
He set the envelope on the chair~side table.
"The bell is connected to our office.
“What’s it for?” asked Arthur.
“If you push the button,” Mr. Steward told him, “somewhere in the
country ten thousand people you don’t know will die. In return for which you will
able to shoot as many guns as you want for a whole year.”
I take some of the sentiments expressed towards Martin_Hyde in this thread as a desire for he and other who would agree to such a bargain, to consider the full consequences as occurs at the end of the story.
You are disingenuous as fuck and this board can do very well without you.
I’m fine with fentanyl’s current status–it isn’t some evil drug invented to kill people. It has medicinal/pharmacological uses, and it is a regulate drug for which such uses are appropriate.
However you rephrase it–this is still a utilitarian argument. Alcohol and guns both have a rich cultural history behind them, and both have different roles they serve in society. Alcohol even has religious connotations for some faiths, and many people consume alcohol without causing any problems. Guns are important for people’s ability to hunt, self-defense, and they are understood in our country as a fundamental right–which is where much of the dispute comers, many of you simply don’t agree with that, and I’m sorry–but it is not an extremist position to believe there are gun rights. And as I’ll add again–I don’t think this is a valuable forum to discuss gun rights broadly, we have threads not filled with mouthbreathers spewing ad hominems and profanity non-stop where such topics can be discussed.
Dixie begins playing in the background
As does slavery
As does slavery
Slavery is very important for the South’s economy, and for federal tariffs on cotton, and it is understood in our country as a fundamental right
–which is where much of the dispute comers, many of you simply don’t agree with that, and I’m sorry–but it is not an extremist position to believe there are slave holding rights.
And as I’ll add again–I don’t think this is a valuable forum to discuss slave holder rights broadly, we have threads not filled with damnyankees spewing ad hominems and profanity non-stop where such topics can be discussed