"How can anyone believe we want slavery...."

People frequently attack straw-man arguments, because they're uninformed, stupid, and often don't have legitimate arguments to make.

I watched a liberal talking head yesterday respond to pro-capitalist arguments by suggesting his opponent wanted a repeal of child-labor laws. Because, clearly, people defending capitalism want to repeal child labor laws. That's what they're arguing for.

I think it's indicative of our therapeutic culture's tolerance of stupidity. Everyone is talked to like children (by public figures) all the time and most of us put up with it. Public discourse has degenerated into advertising where misleading, oversimplified messages are the norm.

One thing I find curious is that the dishonest messages more often come from the left. It's at least debatable how much the right wants to starve poor people and force your children to work 14 hour days. The left, on the other hand, really does want to confiscate all guns and institute full on socialism.

"Yet Kemp, claiming that Obama is a laughing stock in Europe when he in fact in the most respected president for a looong time is completely false or ignorant at best."

Most respected by whom? The opinions of sheep do not concern me.

It's been a pleasure shooting the shit with you gentlemen. Though we don't always agree, I respect your opinions and appreciate your candor.

If I were ever to get banned, let it be known that I won this... um... discussion! Information-relaying thing!

I suppose insofar as they're always going to demand acceptance to the point of school indoctrination, I'm with you on that. It's not government's place.

I'm not really disputing your claim, Noir. I was stating that Obama is naive, ineffective, ignorant, stupid, and embarrassing on foreign policy matters. I was not remarking on Bush's actions or perceptions of him, which your statements were in comparison to.

The Yell,
"We are being ordered by liberals to fund and endorse what other people do and teach our kids to celebrate it."

I'm completely opposed to government teaching children what parents can and should handle entirely on their own. I don't need government telling my kid what they should [cluck]. They can figure that out on their own without mentally dysfunctional people telling them what they think. They _should_ be too busy teaching language, math, science, and history to have time for that bullshit anyway.

Primo:
"that's funny, because so far all predictions i have heard are giving him pretty much a landslide."

This says more about you and what skewed news/polls you choose to view/hear/read than it does about the election. While many polls show Obama with a lead, it's usually within the margin of error; and Republicans don't even have a candidate to coalesce around yet.

I'm not a Romney fan, Republicans are clearly bringing their B-game this year, and it's down right embarrassing to watch Gingrich cry like a baby about Romney's past work. But the rhetoric, messaging, and where energy is directed will be substantially different between now and when Republicans officially pick their nominee.

Everyone expects polls to change between this time and the election; it's a matter of how much, and which directions over which issues. People extrapolating on polls now all the way to the election w/o any expected changes, as messaging changes and in-fighting wanes, are an amateur minority.

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The Yell:
I don't want to be near them, I just don't want to waste money giving a damn what they do. You sound awfully concerned with their sexuality and drug use for someone who claims not to be into it!

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Justinian I:
" divide between social conservatives and those with libertarian tendencies. A coalition between them may overcome the Democratic party, but if social conservatives like you impose moral policing on us, then that coalition will break apart in the long-run."

Exactly.

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Firewing

Thank you for a ridiculously ignorant view on Israel and Iran! Calling Romney a rookie, while I don't disagree, is absolutely hysterical when you describe how _you_ think Obama is handling Iran and what _you_ think he'd do if he has a second term! A little humor always brightens my morning. Thank you, sir.

Again LULZ when you describe Obama's supposed advantage in dealing with North Korea. You presume that his first term inherently in-and-of-itself gives Obama an edge in knowledge and experience in dealing with foreign policy which Romney (again, not saying he'd be a superstar) would lack. Judging from Obama's performance to date, this is a good one to keep me laughing. He can't even manage not to disrespect the British (while embarrassing himself/us all)! Nevermind how naive, groveling, and ignorant he is with the rest of the world.

"4. The Revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East are still not finished. Most of the political action is behind the scenes there, so if the US-president is Obama or Romney is not important. "

Again you're spot-on and insightful. It's not like the billions the US gives Egypt annually, which Egypt wants to continue to receive, could be used to influence them in any way, shape or form. That's a silly notion! Billions of dollars aren't valuable nor useful.

"5. With the baby-boomers retiring the US, as most western nations, are faced with a challange for their social networks. Obama made a half hearted reform that took far too long to implement. But would Romey really destroy it or try to change it a bit? "

It's not a "reform" unless you redefine the word. I find this dishonesty offensive. Seeing as the healthcare law increases costs and puts rationing in the hands of an unelected federal panel of bureaucrats, let's hope Romney is elected, actually keeps his word, and "destroys" it. I like that word choice.

Your position is essentially that Obama will have had 4 years experience, so obviously this makes him the better choice, regardless of bungling literally everything he's touched and not doing what he claimed he would. It's cute.

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Einstein

Hahahahaha! Thanks for the reminder of Obama's boxing analogies. I saw 0 coverage of it on American news. Another fine example of Obama being a bumbling amateur fool, embarrassing himself and all of us to the world.

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[TI] Primo,

If you don't cringe when you see the embarrassing foolishness Obama shows off to the world, you're as bad as the American people. Of course you prefer a lap dog in America's White House to... Well, Bush was an idiot too. But Bush sucking doesn't make Obama any less ignorant, naive, stupid, and embarrassing now.

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Noir chimes in to back up Primo's point that sheep like Obama's groveling and aren't on a level to identify embarrassing foolishness.

I declared war on him for caring who people have sex with and what they put in their bodies. I was just kidding when I mentioned "fighting" him in the other thread. I've always disagreed with him on these issues. I wasn't suggesting a change in anything with that joking remark.

In neither event is there any evidence that government policy significantly impacts behavior, so in both cases a lot of money is spent and a lot of freedoms are restricted for the sake of nothing.

- - - - - - - - - -

***Homosexuality:
I believe that homosexuality is a mental disorder (I'm with the lunatic Freud on this one), but I have no moral objection to it (it doesn't effect me; it's none of my business) and do not agree with any government policy which discriminates based on sexuality.

If one argues that homosexuals should get government marital benefits, I argue that government shouldn't be involved in marital benefits.

If one argues they should have adoption rights, I argue that men and women are chemical/physiologically/psychologically different, children are primarily socialized in the home, and so heterosexual couples are ideal parents whereas homosexual couples are not. That some heterosexual couples are bad parents and some homosexual couples make better parents is a matter of coincidence. Anyone who doesn't understand the significance of form vs coincidence is not on my level and should attain and introductory logic/philosophy education before debating this topic with me.

That said, institutionalized care has to suck. And Neil Patrick Harris adopted (he wanted to; I presume he did. He is legendary, after all.) a son (or daughter? It was probably one or the other), and he's pretty damn awesome. I'm open to debate on the matter of adoption. While I've argued about that heterosexual couples can make better ideal parents, I wasn't raised as an orphan and I imagine most all orphans would prefer loving parents to public institutions, regardless of their genders.

Yes, I use the words "gender" and "sex" indiscriminately. Deal with it. Surgery doesn't change DNA. One can act like whatever he/she wants, I'm not going to redefine a word to be PC about describing fairy behaviors. Again, I make no moral objection. I'm all for doing whatever makes one happy. I'm just not going to redefine words to be PC about it.

- - - - - - - - - -

***Drugs:
The evidence is, from countries which have legalized all/virtually all drugs, use rates were not significantly impacted. They didn't rise. They didn't fall.

While I in no way support the use of [hard] drugs and would beat the living shit out of my own children (when I have them) if they tried them, I don't see the point in outlawing them when this doesn't impact usage rates.

Massive amounts of money are spent combating illegal drugs, yet the evidence shows we get no benefit in reduced drug usage rates.

Lives of law-enforcement officers are threatened and taken regularly because of the illegalization of drugs. Tens of thousands have died in Mexico/on the US border for 0 gain. Others, in addition to dealers and robbers, are innocent victims, collateral damage caught in the crossfire, witnesses whose testimony is silenced, authorities who wouldn't look the other way.

I'm not sure if I support the legalization of _all drugs_. But, as I just outlined, evidence appears to show that we're spending a lot of money and getting a lot of people killed for no absolutely no benefit. I don't like the idea of hard drugs being legal, but it looks like what we're doing is just stupid. I wouldn't support legalizing all drugs tomorrow, as our culture should be given time to adapt/prepare for such a change if we were to do it. But joints aren't killing anybody. Outlawing them is.

I referred to "hard" drugs. I was referring to drugs other than alcohol, marijuana, and [I guess] nicotine: Drugs like crack and heroin which are very addictive and do massive amounts of damage to the human body very quickly.

I believe that adults should be as free as society can reasonably leave them. While I don't think drug use should be glamorized and anyone who hasn't finished their education and started working is a fool to drink/smoke marijuana regularly [to any degree], it's clear that laws against marijuana accomplish nothing but to waste buyers' money with jacked-up prices and to get a lot of people, often innocent, killed.

I'm not endorsing drug use and hesitant to admit I think full legalization is best. I miss a relative who ODed some years back. But our laws obviously didn't save him, and the evidence suggests the lack of these laws wouldn't have done him any more harm. The evidence very strongly suggests that if we legalized marijuana next year and considered further legalization down the road after that, money and lives would be saved, not lost. Though I'm no fan of drug use, I have a hard time disputing the evidence on this subject.

"I don't like it/it's evil, so it should be illegal!" is ignorant and stupid. I don't like it either. I agree, most of it is pretty evil. But it'd be pretty damn arrogant of me to pretend this, alone, was a legitimate basis for wasting money and getting people killed.

- - - - - - - - - -

So there we have probably a much more succinct and complete picture of my thoughts on government policy regarding homosexuality and drugs. In both cases, I generally figure that you're an adult and what you do with your life is none of my damn business. I don't presume to know what's better for you than you do. I hope each and every one of you do what you love and are happy. To each his own.

I know I've surely offended many of you with my homosexuality is a mental disorder belief. Maybe I'm trolling. But what do you think of what followed? Does the rest sound so ignorant and hateful?

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***On socialism/communism and people who want it: (I refer to both because the difference is mostly an equivocation: ultimately power is consolidated and, honestly, you don't want to have a say in how the burger joint down the street runs anyway [and you'd make a crappy consultant on new medical technologies ])

You could claim government should tax 100% and do 100% to ensure that nobody wants anything. Some on this forum and all over the world literally argue for nothing less. It's a nice picture, to pretend everyone will just chip in out of the goodness of their hearts, to pretend that all-powerful bureaucrats will just be incorruptible out of the goodness of their hearts, and everyone will work to their ability and we'll all share in the goods equally.

But people just aren't this way. People aren't incorruptible. People don't work their hearts out and strive to achieve all that they can purely "for the good of mankind!", especially when it's a mankind dominated by a totalitarian government, repressive of most of their freedoms.

But government isn't efficient, and people aren't _nearly_ as efficient outside of a free market.

To all of you bleeding hearted fools who fall more on the "government should tax/do 100% to ensure everyone is taken care of!" end of things, consider donating and volunteering. I suspect most who advocate huge government, massive taxes, and less freedom don't volunteer a minute of their time to help others. The more you help others purely for the sake of helping them, the more your eyes will be opened to the fact that government bureaucrats do _not_ share your motivations and are not as efficiently spending/distributing (in the case of safety-net aid) what they take from us.

Wasting money does not enrich anybody. It doesn't help the least among us. I'm not arguing for hurting the poor by disagreeing with 70% tax rates so they can see 5% of it. I'm not arguing for hurting the poor by arguing that safety-net programs should be designed to help people get back on their own feet (even if it involves funding training and spending _more_ in some cases), _not_ to buy votes (as they currently are). Supporting government waste in the name of helping the less fortunate isn't compassion, it's hypocrisy.

If you love controlling other people, pretending you can do better for them than they can do for themselves, consider for a moment that you might be being a little arrogant. We both know I don't want you messing with my shit, so consider loving a little more and controlling a little less.

I'm not a man of faith, but I was raised in a Catholic household and I hold Christian values very dear. You gotta love.

twosidedeath, after you wasted our time with a link that had _absolutely nothing_ to do with your ignorant claims, I'm not going to be trolled into clicking 5 more links and reading more of your suggested reading materials.

There's no excuse for linking something which 100% supports my claims and 0% supports your claims. That's just stupid. Like your claims of time travel. The topic is clearly over your head, so please consider not trolling it.

As much of a turd as Romney is, he's not as bad as Santorum.

Everyone crying about how crazy Santorum is is a communist Obama supporter, though: It's irrelevant, because even Republicans won't nominate such a jackass. People complaining about how crazy Santorum is and talking about how they can't vote for him are just Obama supporters who want to complain about a Republican but don't have good dirt on Romney.

It's a legitimate thing to point out and discuss, but there's no point in complaining about Santorum as if he might be nominated. He won't.

Judging from his posts in his thread about syringes, his goal is to keep things from the poor (they might misuse them!) and kill them.

I'm sorry, but it's not libertarian-leaning conservatism, so I'm gonna fight you!

You may not be Communist filth, but you still hate freedom!