Would you say that about all religions?
I didn't say anything about anyone's religion, I was talking about your world view. But again, when you have no responses of any value to offer you have to troll.
Would you say that about all religions?
I didn't say anything about anyone's religion, I was talking about your world view. But again, when you have no responses of any value to offer you have to troll.
Which is 150 billion dollars per year.
Which is still 2%. Which still means gutting the federal workforce does nothing to address 98% of government spending, which means the benefit to all of this upheaval is minimal at best.
But some services shut down too, which saves more money.
That's not the way it works. The money that goes out is codified into law. That obligation doesn't disappear because there are no workers, it only gets delayed. So in effect we're still paying for the services, we just aren't getting the full benefit of them.
Government services are always more expensive and of lower quality than private services
The whole point of government services is that these are things which are needed that the private sector does not have incentive to offer.
Do you think private businesses will just regulate themselves?
Who do you think is going to look out for the poor and elderly? They can't afford private services, that's the whole point.
Who do you think is going to build roads and bridges? Where's the profit in that? The isn't any, that's why government does it.
If the private sector was the solution to these issue then the private sector would already be solving them.
Economy is about production, and re-distribution only costs money and produces nothing
The economy is about spending, it doesn't matter what you produce if there's no one to buy it. Government services and "redistribution" help to ensure everyone can be a part of that which has a positive impact on spending, not negative.
This has been studied. Looking only based on economic impact, the least stimulative thing the government can do is give tax breaks to the rich. The most stimulative? Food stamps.
thats actually a brilliant move by trump. He tried his best to reduce government spending, but then he realized he can just shut down the government and end spending. Its much faster than getting democrats to agree to cut spending. USA already has low spending to GDP, but this move will reduce it further and give big boost to economy.
The federal workforce is something like 2% of total spending, and that includes the military which no one is even talking about cutting back on. The only thing gutting the workforce does is make the money we are spending terribly inefficient (think of the $200k of food purchased for AID distribution that rotted away because no one was there to distribute it) and reduces services Americans rely on.
This isn't going to help the economy, it will only make things worse.
And not for nothing, this is a clear example of Trump cultism at work. Trump has been adamant that the democrats were responsible for shutting the government down, but here you are reframing the shut down as some sort of secret genius plot by him. Whatever you want him to be, that's what he is. Facts, evidence, reality... All be damned.
I disagree (and that’s because Trump is my God). He healed from a bullet that hit him in the ear in 5 hours while being 80 years old and fat.
Trump is God.
I see we've reached the part of the conversation where you just give up. No problem, if my worldview was that vapid I'd give up too.
Society is coalescing around a right wing view of transgenderism. Democracy at work!
And you won't see me complaining about why these people get to say the things they are. What you will see instead is me using my free speech to call many of these people out for being morons and/or dishonest hypocrites. That's how it works.
An honest racist is better than one who tries and hide it.
Not when we're talking about someone in a position of power, and certainly not the most powerful position on earth.
Trump being alive prevents the right from passing a lot of policies. Trump can TALK about a border wall; a lot of people get mad. Bush ACTUALLY builds it, virtually nobody from the left gets mad.
Decourm privilige exists.
These are the only words you wrote worthy of response, everything else was just obvious trolling or your brain just doesn't work anymore.
Trump's incompetence is definitely a hindrance on his ability to accomplish any of the goals republicans have been wet dreaming about for decades, but that doesn't mean we pretend that his more incompetent predecessors or his succeeders were or ever will be in as good of a position to accomplish them.
Trump's downfall is ironically also his super power. Somehow, he has managed to convince half the country that there is nothing wrong with electing a fundamentally unserious person into the most serious job on earth.
Moreover, he has also managed to convince an even larger swath of the country that there's nothing wrong with holding him to a lower standard because he's an unserious person. My take is that most Americans just aren't intelligent enough to understand why we have a tendancy to treat unserious people differently and why those reasons do not apply when we're talking about positions of power.
It is only because of his facial unseriousness that the country doesn't revolt when he does and says the batshit crazy things he does on a daily basis. This is why he's able to get away with the insane things he does, people just don't take him seriously even as he's doing crazy shit, or they assume there's some magical payoff coming courtesy of his untranslatable genius.
But his insanity isn't without cost. No one was pissed about a wall. What people were reacting to was Trump's overt bigotry and how he used the wall as a symbol for it. The was nothing like this with Bush. That was the difference.
It is your problem because they are the majority of voters.
What are you talking about?
This is about Canada. You're trying to argue that the American left is somehow hypocritical because we aren't up in arms over another country's lack of a check against authoritarianism, as we are over our own country's president trying to bulldoze his way over one. That's absurd.
For now, there isn't that type of political will. That is probably going to increase.
Apple pie and ice cream could not garner the support needed for a constitutional amendment in today's divided political climate. To think that such a thing could happen over presidential term limits just to give Donald Trump another 4 years is straight up delusional. If you believe that, seek professional help.
What were MLK's protests at? I'm not trying to deflect, but to compare.
Irrelevant. You're trying to downplay January 6th as if it were nothing remarkable. That's absurd, your deflections, ahem, your comparisons, notwithstanding.
That's a religion. To be against Trumpian Christianity due to their god having xenophobia is to apply that to all religions who have way more xenophobic leaders.
Do you really think xenophobia is the only reason people oppose Trump?
What would it mean to be honest?
It means stop making arguments that you are not stupid enough to really believe. It also means that if you're going to respond to and criticize my posts, read them first.
What do you consider yourself now?
Atheist? Agnostic? Other?
Believe in
Objective morality?
Souls?
Even if technical, I'm curious.
Atheist. My full position is that whatever lies beyond this universe, if anything at all, is unknowable and therefore not worthy of serious consideration beyond the exercise of imagination.
I believe in embracing reason and critical thinking, which leads to the conclusion that the most rational approach is to begin only with what is necessary and work from there. So I exist, my senses are reliable, my reasoning faculties work, etc.
Based on that... the universe exists, that I know because I live within it, and any argument that could possibly be formed to explain how it got here could apply to it as well. So if there has to be an uncaused cause, the universe itself could be that cause. Going back any further doesn't solve anything, it only pushes the problem back a step further except that it does so with unnecessary assumptions.
You might think this sounds more like agnosticism, but agnosticism isn't some middle ground between theism and atheism, agnosticism addresses knowledge, which is a different question from what do you believe.
So do I believe in souls? No, for the same reasons. Our conciseness clearly comes from the physical, that's what we observe. Anything beyond that is just pure assumptions, which are irrational.
Morality - will always be subjective ultimately. You can have objective moral determinations, but any moral determination requires a standard, and the standard itself will always be subjectively chosen, including God even if he exists.
So experience is good now. Wondering why that didn't matter when picking a Secretary of Defense, an FBI director and deputy director, an HHS secretary, a US attorney, etc.
And experience at what exactly? Scrolling back and forth between Fox News and OANN, playing golf, and shit posting on Truth Social?
I would argue the country needs an adult who has integrity, is at least a mildly decent human being, can speak with all of the sophistication of a 5th grader, who at least cares about and takes into account reality when speaking, cares about enriching people other than himself and as a reward to his sycophants, and doesn't overtly use the DOJ as his personal mafia.
But that's just me I guess.
I apply the 1st amendment on a personal level because I don't care what opinions people say to me. People could say that my mother deserves to be raped and skinned alive, it doesn't bother me. The majority hate free speech on a personal level.
Well first of all, you can "apply" the first amendment all you want, that has nothing to do with what it actually is and why it exists.
Second, your apathy towards what people say about your mother is your right, just as the intense backlash others may have against such comments is there's. That's how free speech in a free society works. No one had the right to cancel you, but if society coalesces around that idea that is society's right, because that's their freedom at work.
They won’t, because they have a party to stick too whether they will admit it or not.
Then that's their problem, not mine.
All policy is plausible if there is enough political will.
Except there isn't, and everyone knows that, including Trump
It was about as deadly as you can expect a protest to be. No guns were used. No private property was destroyed. A few people broke in; but it was mostly peaceful.
Right right right. Let's sit here and list all of the things that didn't happen on January 6th, all while pretending 140 police officers didn't sustain serious injuries and the US Capitol wasn't overrun for the first time since the war of 1812. Cause that's honest.
Just another Leftimsult against a religious minority.
Well, we agree that Trumpism is built on the absence of critical thinking, so that's progress.
If you don't want leftimsults come up with something better, or hell just be honest.
How is it possible that you don't know that is "Best Korea"?
Best Korea was a weirdo who played every side of the fence, SatanLucy is much more focused, and BK definitely wasn't a presuppositionalist from what I saw.
I have no problem accepting that they're the same person, neither of which were impressive debaters, but they're personas seem quite different.
Blame women for being obsessed with wanting dick-free spaces and XY free sports. This issue isn't about denying anyone dignity. It’s about recognizing that rights often compete
You guy always go back to sports because that is the one area where your arguments sound reasonable. No where else in the "trans agenda" do the rights of women come into conflict.
Sports is just the excuse you all give, but your obsession goes way, way beyond that.
What I declared was that I *was* unknown to myself. I'm not anymore.
The reason letting go of religion provided me this is because up until that point, large swaths of who I was as a person was entangled with a belief system that was artificially inseminated into me and for which I was told I was basically not allowed to question.
Why is murder wrong? Because God says so. Don't question God, therefore don't question why murder is wrong, just accept it.
What is my purpose in life? My purpose is whatever God has decided it to be. I can have desires, but only God can approve of them and don't question why.
In essence, I lived my life as a subordinate following instructions. Getting to know myself required me to question myself deep down, to challenge the things I was taught but when that means challenging God's word... that was of limits.
It wasn't letting go of religion itself that gave me the sense I talk about today, that was just the event that removed the road blocks. From there I did the work and continue to this day. It's why I come here.
I really wonder what and why you believe.
Happy to expand if there's anything you feel I didn't address
So come over to my side.
There's nothing on your side, that's the problem. Worrying about other people's genitals will not lead to any changes I care about.
Unless there is a 100% wealth tax all of the time, we aren’t getting equal rights.
Complete red herring, and that's before we get to the conflation of rights and equality.
Are 40 year olds banned from getting their sausage and meatballs cut off in TX? No. Chill out.
Chill out? I'm not the one whose politics revolves around other people's genitals.
So come over to my side.
There's nothing on your side, that's the problem. Worrying about other people's genitals will not lead to any changes I care about.
Unless there is a 100% wealth tax all of the time, we aren’t getting equal rights.
Complete red herring, and that's before we get to the conflation of rights and equality.
Are 40 year olds banned from getting their sausage and meatballs cut off in TX? No. Chill out.
Chill out? I'm not the one whose politics revolves around other people's genitals.
Checks that Canada doesn’t have and you’re fine with that because it’s about defending the status quo for you.
This is just stupid.
I already explained my position to you. Do you remember what it was? No, of course not because that would require you to read.
I only respond at this point for the exercise in expression. You are clearly not a person worth taking seriously.
The absence of term limits is not a good thing, so no, I do not approve of Canada’s lack thereof. However, I also don’t give a shit about Canada’s lack thereof because I’m not Canadian. The people of Canada can worry about that one.
Do you understand?
Never mind, of course not.
What would be immoral about getting all of those votes if you can get them?
It’s not a question about morality, it’s a question about plausibility, which is non-existent. So if somehow he is to get a third term, it would be through some other non-constitutional means, which is why it’s a very serious when he talks about it. It is not a joke when the person most heavily responsible for protecting our constitution talks about destroying it.
Then why didn’t the cops shoot them like they would have to BLM protestors? If it’s because they’re white…
Another stupid and unserious response. Not even bothering with this one.
You said January 6th was not violent. You wanna back that statement up or try to distract with this kind of nonsense?
If you believe I’m a MAGA cultist, then what’s wrong with that exactly?
It means you are a sad and pathetic excuse for an American who is either incapable or unwilling to apply critical thinking and instead allow your mind to be warped by people who are laughing at how stupid you are.
It’s called being Republican.
Yeah, that’s the problem.
This statement is the same as you telling me to stop being obsessed with politics
No, it isn’t. Politics is a space where we as a society come together to make the decisions that will impact our lives. It’s supposed to be about things like whether we all get to enjoy equal rights, how much of our hard earned money will go to the government, whether we will have the opportunity to earn a dignified living, whether we will have acres to affordable healthcare, stuff like that.
But to republicans, it’s all about how we can further trash and dehumanize something like 2 percent of the population whose lifestyle choices you disagree with.
Either way, it’s all about values, so you can feel however you want about it. But if you ask me or any normal human being for that matter, if you’re spending this much time thinking about the decisions other people are making with their genitals, you need help.
Alright; so then the left wants their government to be pro free speech, but the left personally isn't
The entire concept of free speech, the reason it is enshrined in the constitution, the reason political philosophers for centuries have talked about it, and the reason soldiers have sacrificed their lives to protect it has always been about protection from the government. Anyone who tries to claim some sort of “personal free speech” clearly has no idea what they’re talking about.
Free speech, just like presidential term limits, is all about establishing a check against the government as another way of preventing authoritarianism. That’s its point. Governments that seek to violate the rights of its citizens always start by silencing those who speak out against it.
The reason it applies to the government and no one else is because the government has power that no one else in our society has. If Twitter bans you, find another platform. If the government bans you, that’s it.
Moreover, the government is run by a single individual or at most a very small handful of individuals. The free market is run by all of us. No where in the concept of free speech is the notion that you get to say whatever you want without consequence. You get to say whatever you want, and the rest of us get to say what we want in response. That’s our free speech. If it means you get cancelled that’s only because no one wants to hear what you have to say, which is exactly how a free society is supposed to work. Free speech doesn’t grant you the right to force everyone else to listen to you.
I don't get why democrats don't like Trump. I mean he has 3 baby mommas, lives in govt subsidized housing, gets govt subsidized food, govt subsidized utilities, free healthcare. He fits every aspect of the kind of person a Democrat would like and represent.
And he even has the felony convictions, so checks across the board
Why transgenderism is a mental disorder
You are obsessed with trans people. Please seek help. No, really.
How did the change of faith influence other connected beliefs?
Morality?
Afterlife?
Souls?
Consciousness?
Meaning?
Human value?
Other?
Afterlife, souls, and consciousness obviously changed, but that’s more technical. The rest didn’t change at all in principal, it just became clearer to me where they were coming from. Instead of just accepting for example that something is good because the Bible says so, I was freed to think about why I actually feel the way I do and where we get our moral systems from.
Letting go of my religious predilections gave me a sense of clarity and confidence in myself. I know who I am now way better than I ever did before.
So you are status quo defending?
No, my political views are more nuanced than to think the term “status quo” has any meaning at all. It’s just a vapid term used as a catch-all to avoid thinking through what policies make sense vs which ones don’t and instead just pretending that anything we’ve always done must be bad, because we’ve always done it.
What I am doing is trying to explain to you what you should have learned in middle school - such as why we have checks against authoritarianism, and some of the ways you can tell when authoritarianism is creeping in to your democracy. Trying to knock down well established term limits so that one can remain in power indefinitely being one of the obvious examples.
The president’s job is to change rules in a way they see fit.
No, the president’s job is to protect and defend the constitution. That means, by definition, to keep them intact by preventing their abuse. Again, this isn’t “liberal ideology, this is the literal oath he swears as a precondition of accepting the job.
You can change the constitution.
No, the country can change the Constitution, either by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress or by a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the states, but any amendment still has to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. In practice, that makes it impossible, so the proposal is basically dead on arrival.
So for the president to take this idea seriously he would have to be thinking of a way to bypass this constitutional check on his power, which is exactly how Trump works. And you love to defend it for reasons that are beyond me.
Jan 6 was done by MAGA supporters without firearms. It was a peaceful protest.
Oh wow ok, so you’re delusional.
We have the footage, we can see them beating their way past the Capitol police, beating them with flag poles, spraying them with bear mace, breaking through the windows, etc. and 140 Capitol police officers suffered serious injuries. But tell me more about how peaceful it was. I’m listening.
You think I’m a MAGA cultist?
You might as well be, you fail to grasp the most basic of constitutional concepts for which Trump is overtly defying and you buy his made up batshit crazy conspiracy nonsense hook line and sinker, like the idea that January 6th was peaceful. Telling me you would vote for Obama is meaningless, your tacit support is the very thing that allows him to keep doing what he is doing, so there’s no meaningful daylight.
Yes. Trump wants a 3rd term; something that Trudeau was easily able to obtain. Why hold Trump to a different standard?
I apologize if I’ve gone too fast, let me try and slow this down.
The difference between Trudeau wanting a third term and Trump wanting a third term has absolutely nothing to do with the abstract idea of whether third terms are good.
Stop. Read that sentence a few more times if you have to, then continue reading.
So what is the big difference? It’s the fact that the rules have already been written. You don’t come out at halftime after getting your ass kicked and claim the rules need to change so that only the second half counts. Trump’s job as President, the very thing he swore am oath to, is to protect and defend the constitution, not figure out ways to reimagine it despite the intentions of the amendment he seeks to violate being very clear.
Moreover, what makes this situation remarkable and totally different is that unlike Trudeau, Trump has demonstrated time and time and time again an utter disregard for democracy itself, so when he expresses a desire or even an openness to running for another term, knowing it’s flagrantly unconstitutional, that fits into a pattern of behavior that we have seen from him that is shared with notable fascists and dictators since the dawn of the 20th century.
Trumps playbook isn’t new, we have seen this before, and perhaps if you’d ever bothered to stay awake during history class you would know this.
The answer is in your mind, "Trump always bad no matter what! Trump always bad no matter what!". You just don't want to say that because it pisses off normies
You can save your projection. Your mind might really be this simple, that doesn’t mean this is how other people’s minds work. If you’d like to better understand what nuance is and how it works, you can start by reading what I’ve written instead of just glossing over it because you don’t think all those extra words carry any meaning. They do. Read them carefully and you’ll understand the full message. That’s how it works.
When someone holds a strong belief, it seems reasonable to me that the belief is modified for a time until it becomes unlikely or untenable.
Long held ingrained theory seems the most obvious conclusion, so first one modifies one's most obvious theory.
That doesn’t work here because it wasn’t a strongly held belief. As I explained, the reason this single moment resonated with me and is what I credit as the catalyst to me changing my views is that deep down I already didn’t believe it. I refused to face my beliefs because I feared them, as religion teaches us to do. Once that fear was lifted off of me, I could no longer pretend any of this made sense. At that point I started debating religion and watching religious debates and all of that only entrenched my position further.
I am almost 99% certain I made that argument when I was there in 2019 or 2018
Debate.org wasn’t even functioning by 2018 genius.
Regardless, I stopped using the site back towards the end of 2016, well after I turned atheist, so nice try.
It has nothing to do with standards, I’m pointing out why your red herring isn’t the gotcha you think it is.
The issue here isn’t about the abstract concept of third terms, it’s about the context in which Trump and his cult followers are trying to actuate it. Do you understand the difference?
I could very easily alter my belief system to make it coherent, but that’s not an honest evaluation of reality, that’s just me picking and choosing what I want to believe then figuring out how to justify it.