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softlynow

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by softlynow

  1. No. I'll grant that a person who is uninformed or unwilling to consider the problems being addressed could infer it. But that's their problem. My sympathies aren't with the animal going into prison, but with the people harmed when we choose to harden that animal rather than tame it. That isn't tolerance, it's learning from the copius amounts of data we have.
  2. A whole bunch of violent offenders get something like 10-15 years prison and parole out in 5-7.5 years. I've pled guys down to as few as 2 years and had the "aggravated" tag dropped in the deal, meaning they were parole eligible in 6 months in Texas. You really like that we traumatize them and make them more likely to re-offend? I'll grant that many would do it again even if rehabilitation is really attempted. However, there is a significant non-zero amount that would lean into the life course-correction and not hurt someone again. You are saying that other people getting hurt is fine because of your feels. You might want to reconsider.
  3. Just more confirmation that Maher is neither a serious person nor all that funny anymore. There are never Trumpers out there who have actually disavowed not just Dotard, but Dotardism as well. Nicki is not that. She would run the same plays any GQPer would, and probably more effectively than the Dollar Store fascist himself. I would’ve been surprised by something as breathtakingly idiotic as this from him a couple years ago, but this seems to be his new normal. Covid must’ve really broken him.
  4. You're supposed to brag about having a black friend, not having had one. Bragging that you used to be less racist is a weird flex.
  5. When Stephen Miller is president we will look back fondly and with longing at the Trump Administration.
  6. Boring. Doesn't drive clicks. I'm sure a new bad-for-Biden narrative about something that registers no more than a blip in the numbers will take hold soon.
  7. Smart. Introducing that theory inevitably leads to a discussion of WAP, which could mistakelnly move this thread to another board and a quick death.
  8. The GOP needs gutting. We used to have wild swings to the composition of Congress. The winning party used to be able to give its agenda a try. Considering the major issues facing us, Christofascism and Climate Change the foremost, maybe we should have a do something Congress this go 'round.
  9. That he doesn't do it with advanced statistics anymore is the real sign of decay of our community.
  10. I'm glad someone engaged on that point. I tried to find spirituality. I tried and found myself totally disinterested in those thoughts, techniques, teachings, and so on. But I know myself to be very empathetic and also know my many limitations. Sprirituality does not speak to me. The call to natural order or of its rights does not give me solace or ring true with my experience and knowlegde of the present or past. For any that it does, I only hope that the practice of spiritual thought gives them insight into the needs of others. I believe it does for you. I believe it is the justification of evil thoughts and deed in others. I do not take issue with your conclusion. We will end ourselves. I'm not sure Hollywood has showed us how yet, but it would probably make for a good epic trilogy for a successor sentient being.
  11. Yep. Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
  12. Fix on? Fixated? Mentioned once. But, OK. You, though, are quite obsessed with your white whale of positivism. As someone who lacks the rigidity of philosophical thought to be such an adherent, and who has made no assertions here holding me in that camp, I suggest that you find someone else on whom to fixate. What concerns me more than this spiritualism of natural rights is the strength of our legal rights. I'm happy that there are multiple ways to convince folks to preserve and strengthen them, whether it is by an appeal to God, an emotional appeal to something innate in carbon based life, an appeal to the utility of the happiness they bring to many, or an appeal to the pocketbook if that is what it takes. What good is a natural right or natural law if the default setting for humanity is to violate them with impunity? History tells us that violating every natural right anyone has concocted is just about our favorite pastime.
  13. Good for them. They knew you should use shared feelings to give weight to your document. Much like the legislatures used in secession documents when citing their citizens’ understanding of the moral imperative to maintain the legality of chattel slavery and codify the superiority of the white race. Who said we needed to get further down any road, other than the question asked? That question is yes/no, and the “yes” camp keeps spinning its wheels or relying on bare, unsupported assertion.
  14. If that was your argument, then you weren't making it clearly. The following quotes do not support you currently stated thesis, but rather my interpretation: In any event. I disagree with that thesis as well. Like most rheotorical devices, the concept of natural rights just made persuasion easier. Now the next part: Which leads us back to a definition of rights. You are, here, working with a different one than the generally accepted one. Your "right" is really just shared compunction. Does that exist? Absolutely. Does calling that a right make any sense? Yes, to the extent that it is persuasive to get societal buy-in to give force to others to cofiy that feeling with a mechanism to level the playing field at the level of the more temperate amongst us. And the last: Cool. That doesn't seem to address anything I said. It may be pointed at DixonHur and his cite of Çatalhöyük (yes, I know it was in modern day Turkey, for those who would proceed to argue like my mother).
  15. This is coming across as resentment of your inability to defend your position. Just FYI. Your strongest point has been that jettisoning our framework for ordering society would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, that point only proves your opponent’s position to be true. Without human enforcement of rights, they are not operative. Meaning they do not exist, or they are meaningless. Also, saying “natural rights don’t exist” doesn’t (for all of us) mean that we want to ditch that construct as a call to action. Keeping it makes it easier to communicate with the masses and many decision-makers who lack the flexibility of thought to question the “truths” they’ve grown up knowing. I just think it’s best to not be deluded into thinking we don’t have to work at keeping and protecting those rights we hold dear.
  16. People who believe in made up things are being asked to defend themselves.
  17. Pointless discussion can be entertaining. This one would be unlikely to bring in unique views even with an MS Paint dick drawing showdown.
  18. Arguing the wording or phrasing is purposeless. In Heller, Scalia said, “[It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” The words in the USC mean what a majority of the nine say it means. They will torture the phrasing as they please and find persuasive whatever fact/anecdote/lie/gibberish gets them the result they like. This bickering is pointless. Power is all that matters, and those with power think their hobby, manufacturers stock price and/or gun lobby campaign donations are more important than human lives, let alone predicate phrases or antiquated syntax.
  19. I don't have time to deep dive twitter accounts, so it's unclear to me that this is not the real Nick Adams. I've had the displeasure of hearing Mr. Alpha Male speak in person on more than one occassion (don't ask), and based on my memory of those speeches, that twitter account posts exactly the kind of idiotic drivel he would say and which his infinitely gullible audience eats up. His victims undoubtedly believe TS to be a money-grubbing whore.
  20. Time-stamped for thread-title quote:
  21. If Trump has it wrapped up, I could see it, but if the presidential nomination is still in doubt, no.
  22. Y’all best not start arguing about the number of days in a week. It’s been done: https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=107926751
  23. Their jokes are facsimiles of copies of summaries of faint rememberances of tired tropes. Everytime I hear one of their jokes I think of Robert Wuhl's character in Good Morning, Vietnam (although it could be any of his characters, really).
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