Author Topic: The Politics Thread v3  (Read 96013 times)

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #380 on: November 09, 2016, 11:42:49 PM »
Not to nitpick but that is from September.....
Trump's horrid transition team is on deck. And now here we go. It has begun. Here's a newer article if that helps. 

LINK: Meet Trump's Cabinet-in-waiting [11/09/16 02:56 AM EST]

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #381 on: November 10, 2016, 12:12:04 AM »
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Offline Chemus

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #382 on: November 10, 2016, 02:15:26 AM »
Then you backed the wrong horse.

Quite possibly; time will tell. I'm happier with DJT than HRC.

Interestingly, take a look at this: (http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president ); specifically the counties. This is where those who support DJT (or voted against Dems/HRC) live.

And dman, I'm talking about my free speech. None of the media has spoken to or for me in decades. The media only cares about its free speech and those who agree with it. Any dissenters are demeaned and shouted down. No, I don't want government controlled media. Nor do I want government controlled health care or wages.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2016, 02:33:00 AM by Chemus »
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Offline dman11235

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #383 on: November 10, 2016, 10:12:48 AM »
Those of us on the left have been saying for a while now the 'MSM' has been ignoring voices for a long time.  People like Nate Silver and 538 have been pretty much on point about the polling, even using the adjustments that needed to be made to make a more accurate prediction based on who's getting talked to.  So the math and the statistics have been pretty accurate.  But the pundits haven't been.  I mean, places like Breitbart had been predicting a popular landslide for Trump.  HuffPo predicted an electoral landslide for Clinton.  This is not a case of 'your voice being unheard' it's a case of 'your voice being heard in a bubble'.  The biggest challenge facing our nation moving forward is popping those bubbles, letting other people hear our voices.  But this is not a problem with the MSM!  This is a problem with the choices people make on where they hear things!  'They' didn't listen to you not because they didn't want to, but because they couldn't hear you.  Your speech is plenty free, nothing's changed that.  But people aren't required to listen, nor should they be, and that's been the issue: they haven't been.

You are part of this problem too though.  You think 'middle America' cares about what the urban centers think?  No.  They're in a bubble too.  They see all urban centers as dens of pot, sex, drugs, and violence.  Places where no body works because they're high on government funded weed.  Liberals are all just desperate whiny babies who aren't Real Men (tm) and can't do an honest day's work.  They don't know how the world works, right?  The people who are international, from other places, and regularly interact with people from other other places?  Right, that's also a problem, as much as those urban centers see the countryside as packed full of rednecky morons who are so inbred they don't know what proper clothes are.  I mean, all they do is sit on the porch watching plants grow and thinking about banging their sister guffaw guffaw guffaw!  They don't understand that black people are okay and exist, they don't understand what it's like to miss a payment on your 500k apartment on your slavish salary.  I mean, we have a homeless problem here, right?  They don't know what it's like to be poor!  This, right here, is the disconnect.  Both sides think the other is the one who is problematic.  I think David Wong nailed this on the head better than I ever could have hoped to with his article a while ago abut Trump.  It's written to and for urban areas though, it's part of that 'listening and learning' thing you are alluding to.  It's happening, just not enough.  Every person who is protesting Trump right now thinks all Trump supporters are the same person, an Other.  All people who would be 'protesting' Clinton are the same way, except with Clinton supporters.  I have seen so many people on both sides treating every single Other as a single entity, filled with the worst qualities that side has to offer, and it hurts me.  It really hurts me.  Know that Clinton won the popular vote.  Know that Trump won a plurality share in every state he said he would. Know that neither candidate won a majority share in any state except the certains (places like CA and NY and MA for Clinton, KS, AL, MN for Trump, etc.) and the other candidate did win a lot of votes in every state.  Clinton was only 9 points behind Trump in Texas.  Trump won 30% of the vote in California.  Clinton did the same in Alabama.  Know that in every single state, the other candidate won a large portion of votes.  I do blame the DNC for Trump winning, because I understand that there are a number of Americas.  We are a very diverse nation, and that's a good thing, but the DNC has stopped listening to rural areas the same way Reagan and such stopped listening to urban areas.

I'm from Maine.  I live in a university town in Indiana.  My mom's a city gal.  I can hear those voices from everywhere, where I am, for the most part.  I'm very left leaning (Sanders is pretty centrist in my view, left enough on some issues, too left on some, not left enough on some).  But I hear the voices on the right, I hear the extremists on both sides, all angles.

Trump doesn't want government controlled wages.  So there's one thing he has you want.  He hates that idea because he likes underpaying his employees (again, he's sued almost constantly for failing to pay a contractor).  But government run healthcare?  His latest publicly stated healthcare plan for the US is a system where the government runs a competitive, under priced public insurance plan.  Not to mention Pence has been supportive of all the regulations and whatnot to make healthcare harder to get for people.  None of this is from why I think there needs to be government involved in wages and healthcare, that's a wholly different issue.  I believe we need government in there because otherwise our country will be worse, more expensive, and people will be worse off and history and data backs me up on those claims.  But again, just looking at what Trump wants done? On the campaign trail he said that he wants the government to make sure there aren't sick people in the streets.  You know how we do that now?  The ACA is a start, but it's still a lot of emergency room.  Where doctors are required to treat you.  And then if you can't pay it gets more expensive and the government has to pay anyways.  Otherwise no one gets healthcare, even the people who can pay.
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Offline sirpercival

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #384 on: November 10, 2016, 11:00:29 AM »
Ooh, ooh - Chemus, I want to ask you questions. I don't know enough conservative republicans (at least, enough who have the ability to communicate in ways other than memes and vague generalities) to be able to do so in a real way. I hope you don't mind.

So first, what are your views on climate change/environmental stuff and LGBTQ+ rights?

EDIT: also, what's your stance on abortion in the cases of rape, or incest, or severe medical problems for the mother?

I want to be clear that none of these are leading or loaded questions. I actually want to know the answers - I feel like I live in a liberal bubble where everyone mostly agrees with me.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2016, 11:02:30 AM by sirpercival »
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Offline Chemus

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #385 on: November 10, 2016, 02:51:06 PM »
Ooh, ooh - Chemus, I want to ask you questions. I don't know enough conservative republicans (at least, enough who have the ability to communicate in ways other than memes and vague generalities) to be able to do so in a real way. I hope you don't mind.

So first, what are your views on climate change/environmental stuff and LGBTQ+ rights?

EDIT: also, what's your stance on abortion in the cases of rape, or incest, or severe medical problems for the mother?

I want to be clear that none of these are leading or loaded questions. I actually want to know the answers - I feel like I live in a liberal bubble where everyone mostly agrees with me.

Regarding climate change, I'm unconvinced that human endeavors are affecting it, let alone effecting it. I'm unconvinced as to the scale of the issue, and the fact that any time anyone dissents they're ridiculed rather than refuted does not convince me that it's being correctly characterized.

Regarding the celebration of non-heterosexual relationships, I say why? I don't care if they want to marry, but just like old people (re)marrying, I see no purpose in it. Neither is a breeder, so their marriage is meaningless to me. As for making non-het, or any other group, 'protected' against hate speech or hate crimes, or special employment rules I say fuck off. Equal protection under the law. No group should have special rules. Period.

In fact, grouping people is inherently divisive. Case in point: BLM. The fact that they're black doesn't matter. Their life does indeed matter, but not their skin. Statistics do not support the narrative that the BLM group has presented, but MSM tends to keep pushing their message. As Morgan Freeman said 'stop talking about it.'

Regarding abortion, my view is that I don't want my tax money paying for, or subsidizing, killing healthy babies that aren't a threat to their mother's life. Regarding rape and (coerced) incest, only consent needs to inform there. However the baby would become a victim too, in my view, if it were killed. Shortest answer: it's her body, but it's my money. Individuals can donate to, or invest in, say, Planned Parenthood, without forcing me to do so with public money.

We associate with those who agree with us, for one, and I personally feel that PC speech suppression has made it so that only one side is listened to. I have felt that it's 'social suicide' to speak out about how I feel. I'm going to try to ignore that feeling.


And dman, I don't care a whit about sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. I feel that liberals try to use other peoples' money to get their desires accomplished. I've never said anything about their 'man cards'. If you want 'government programs' you pay for them; quit forcing me to. I only want public safety (police, fire, etc) and defense. I'd be fine with toll roads. And before government-run public assistance, there had been many private institutions for assistance. There still are.

I want what's in the constitution; any powers not mentioned in these articles is retained by the states. That's what I mean about reducing the size of government.
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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #386 on: November 10, 2016, 03:13:14 PM »
Chemus, do you realize how many rights are only granted to married couples?  Just take a look at the Wikipedia article.  If you are for equal protection under the law, that includes the ability to marry.  Also, your argument makes no sense.  Do you see no purpose in someone who's infertile getting married?  Why is marriage intertwined with having children in your opinon?

I'm not going to touch any of the rest of your post, I'm worked up enough as it is.

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #387 on: November 10, 2016, 03:14:48 PM »
Regarding climate change, I'm unconvinced that human endeavors are affecting it, let alone effecting it. I'm unconvinced as to the scale of the issue, and the fact that any time anyone dissents they're ridiculed rather than refuted does not convince me that it's being correctly characterized.

Demonstrably, concentrations of CO2 are rising, and have been rising drastically, since the industrial revolution. There isn't some other plausible source to attribute the CO2 to, especially as burning oil produces water and Carbon Monoxide or Dioxide along with soot from incomplete combustion. There was also a dip around the time of Genghis Khan because forests got to grow back after killing so many people. From its physical properties and evidentially through looking at the surface of Venus, CO2 has an insulating effect. With more CO2 being put into the air and less removed via photosynthesis (deforestation for agriculture), concentrations go up.

The only way that humans can't be affecting temperature increases in some way is for comparatively simple physics knowledge to be wrong or for almost all measurements of atmospheric CO2 and historical levels to be incorrect. This includes direct measurements for the past 60 years, which would have been noticed by now.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2016, 03:16:40 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline dman11235

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #388 on: November 10, 2016, 03:31:33 PM »
So you want me paying for your government assistance, but you don't want to pay for my government assistance?  I mean, everyone, including, and especially, those in poorer, rural areas are getting government assistance.  Farmers want crop subsidies.  How are those paid for?  Taxes on everyone.  Everyone eats.

But the whole hospital thing comes up.  I'll say now it is absolutely cheaper for the government, as it is now, to give everyone free insurance than it is for them to keep up with what the healthcare costs were prior to 2009.  But regardless.  Who pays for the hospital visit if the person visiting can't?  Right now, the government.  Would you rather have:

A) the government forces the hospital to pay for the person's care
B) the person to not receive care
C) the government to pay for that person's care
D) the person to be forced to take a loan or something to pay for the care
E) other (please specify)

As it is now (and has been for decades and decades) the hospital is required to see the person and prevent them from dying.  This prevents places from only accepting the wealthy, and overall improves QOF for everyone in the nation (everyone being the statistical majority).

The reason there aren't as many private businesses that provide the assistance is because A) they can't do it all and B) they were exploiting the poor and thus regulations had to be put into place as consumer protection.  There's still charities.  There's still things like churches and mosques to help out.  But for every one of those you have a...what's that place called in Texas?  And the one in Georgia?  You know, with Kreflo Dollar and Pastor what's his name.  The people who exploit people's harm to make money.

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As for making non-het, or any other group, 'protected' against hate speech or hate crimes, or special employment rules I say fuck off. Equal protection under the law. No group should have special rules. Period.

And....that's the case now?  Ish.  I mean, right now local, state, and federal servants are trying to make it illegal to be gay.  Mike Pence is one of them.  Trump wanted to make it illegal to be Muslim.  Not sure where he stands on that fully.  Is that equal protection?  How on earth is that equal protection?  You said it was of no concern to you, great, sure, whatever.  So why are you not shouting about these people trying to make it illegal?  They are trying to make it unequal.  Rulings like the one that legalized same-sex marriage made it equal protection under the law.  They didn't give anyone special rights.  Personally, I think everyone should be protected from hate speech. And that's where liberals want to put things.

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Regarding abortion, my view is that I don't want my tax money paying for, or subsidizing...

Good news then!  It never has.  Planned Parenthood's government money goes towards things like cancer screenings, checkups, etc, and law prohibits it from going towards abortion.

Here's a good counter argument to the climate change thing.  A chart of the history of the global average temperature over human history and a little beyond.  You should see why scientists are pretty alarmed by the rate that it's increased.



Okay, PC speech suppression.  This is not a thing.  PC speech is not calling someone a racial slur.  PC speech is not being racist/sexist/whateverist.  You can and absolutely should be allowed to voice your own concern, for you and your family(ies).  Anyone who is suppressing this, is not a PC police.  They are not PC, themselves.  However. Someone telling you to stop joking about rape because they have PTSD from being raped?  That's not PC police.  You are the one who is hurting someone with your words.  This is specifically not protected speech under the (original) First Amendment.  You are not allowed to use speech to harm someone, just as you are not allowed to use your fists.  The ol' 'shout fire in a crowded theater' routine.

BLM is trying to get police to stop shooting unarmed black men.  Like you know, that time when cops rolled up and shot a kid who wasn't bothering anyone, without even talking to him, and then drove off.  That's not being divisive.  That's dealing with a divide that already exists.  You think black activists were being divisive when they were asking for the ability to attend school?  Vote without undue burden of extra voting tests that white people didn't have to take?  Not be shot for existing?  While there are some BLM tangential people who are very much anti-white, they are few and far between.  Just like there are some white people who are anti-black (see: the KKK).  There are bad apples, but do not blame them for wanting to be equal under the law and in practice.  That's what movements like this are about.  Perhaps they are equal under the law.  But then why are they perpetually being targeted, with sentences that are very disparate from their white counterparts?  Why is it 10 years for crack, but a fine for cocaine?
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Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #389 on: November 10, 2016, 06:16:33 PM »
Trump and Obama met at the White House ; I don't remember anything like it before.
I'd presume Trump got told about the Truman-didn't-know-about-the-Nukes stuff.

Erdogan has said if Trump wins, he'll shut down the Incirlik air base
... where the USA front line action toward ISIS is, and nukes too.



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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #390 on: November 10, 2016, 09:28:39 PM »
Regarding climate change, I'm unconvinced that human endeavors are affecting it, let alone effecting it. I'm unconvinced as to the scale of the issue, and the fact that any time anyone dissents they're ridiculed rather than refuted does not convince me that it's being correctly characterized.

Thoughts?

Quote
In fact, grouping people is inherently divisive. Case in point: BLM. The fact that they're black doesn't matter. Their life does indeed matter, but not their skin. Statistics do not support the narrative that the BLM group has presented, but MSM tends to keep pushing their message.

Could you clarify? What statistics?
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Offline Chemus

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #391 on: November 11, 2016, 12:52:21 AM »
Do you see no purpose in someone who's infertile getting married?  Why is marriage intertwined with having children in your opinon?

To me marriage is to create a family. That includes progeny. Many, not all, of the benefits, rights, and responsibilities are, or were originally, to support children, via their mothers, if the fathers died or if the family split. Alimony in childless couples is definitely not compatible with sexual equality; each member of the former family is an adult and supposedly takes care of their self.

Demonstrably, concentrations of CO2 are rising, and have been rising drastically, since the industrial revolution. There isn't some other plausible source to attribute the CO2 to, especially as burning oil produces water and Carbon Monoxide or Dioxide along with soot from incomplete combustion. There was also a [temperature?] dip around the time of Genghis Khan because forests got to grow back after killing so many people. From its physical properties and evidentially through looking at the surface of Venus, CO2 has an insulating effect. With more CO2 being put into the air and less removed via photosynthesis (deforestation for agriculture), concentrations go up.

The only way that humans can't be affecting temperature increases in some way is for comparatively simple physics knowledge to be wrong or for almost all measurements of atmospheric CO2 and historical levels to be incorrect. This includes direct measurements for the past 60 years, which would have been noticed by now.

http://www.science20.com/frank_schnell/blog/the_greenhouse_effect_fallacy-165119 Sums up one scientific rebuttal.

So you want me paying for your government assistance, but you don't want to pay for my government assistance?  I mean, everyone, including, and especially, those in poorer, rural areas are getting government assistance.  Farmers want crop subsidies.  How are those paid for?  Taxes on everyone.  Everyone eats.

Police, Safety and Defense suffer from greater risk of corruption if not paid for universally; they must cover everyone equally without regard for whether you paid your bill. The rest, including subsidy is just adding money into the economic system without any responsibility or accounting, and merely serves to increase prices.

Quote
...Who pays for the hospital visit if the person visiting can't?  Right now, the government.  Would you rather have:

A) the government forces the hospital to pay for the person's care
B) the person to not receive care
C) the government to pay for that person's care
D) the person to be forced to take a loan or something to pay for the care
E) other (please specify)
The person chooses 'B' or 'D'. The person responsible for my health, and healthcare, is me. If you injure me, you get to pay, but otherwise, I'm responsible. 'A' just means that everyone who pays the hospital also pays for those who don't pay (the exact same as "taxing corporations"; their customers get to pay taxes twice). One reason Healthcare prices have inflated is because there's unaccountable money (the person with the benefits is not ultimately responsible) injected into the system (Same with tuition prices; grants, scholarships, et. al. merely serve to inflate prices for all). Right now, if a person goes to ER when it's not life threatening and can't pay, everyone else picks up the tab anyway.

Quote
As it is now (and has been for decades and decades) the hospital is required to see the person and prevent them from dying.  This prevents places from only accepting the wealthy, and overall improves QOF for everyone in the nation (everyone being the statistical majority).
I don't know the QOF acronym. But I'm a capitalist; I ain't rich at all, but 'pay your own way' is what I do for healthcare. If you can't, do your best to find a group or individual willing to help, or take a loan. Life. Ain't. Fair. We can't make it so with laws.

Quote
The reason there aren't as many private businesses that provide the assistance is because A) they can't do it all and B) they were exploiting the poor and thus regulations had to be put into place as consumer protection.  There's still charities.  There's still things like churches and mosques to help out.  But for every one of those you have a...what's that place called in Texas?  And the one in Georgia?  You know, with Kreflo Dollar and Pastor what's his name.  The people who exploit people's harm to make money.
I'm a heartless bastard who wants there to be a reason for anyone capable of working to have real incentive to work. Those actually unable to work are either supported by their families, or can seek assistance from a group willing to help them. Making 'poor folks' seek assistance rather than making it 'automatic' (I know that there's a buncha paperwork, but there is with a job too) gives incentive for those who just don't wanna work to do it anyway. And 50% is a bit pessimistic there, dman. You don't hear about anyone doing their job right in the news merely because it doesn't sell.

Quote
Quote
As for making non-het, or any other group, 'protected' against hate speech or hate crimes, or special employment rules I say fuck off. Equal protection under the law. No group should have special rules. Period.

And....that's the case now?  Ish.  I mean, right now local, state, and federal servants are trying to make it illegal to be gay...  Mike Pence is one of them.  Trump wanted to make it illegal to be Muslim.  Not sure where he stands on that fully.  Is that equal protection?  How on earth is that equal protection?  You said it was of no concern to you, great, sure, whatever.  So why are you not shouting about these people trying to make it illegal?  They are trying to make it unequal.  Rulings like the one that legalized same-sex marriage made it equal protection under the law.  They didn't give anyone special rights.  Personally, I think everyone should be protected from hate speech. And that's where liberals want to put things.
You don't get to tell me what I can't say. You can disagree with me. You can oppose my position. You can decry that my words make me sexist/racist/homophobic. You. Don't. Get. To. Shut. Me. Up.

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Quote
Regarding abortion, my view is that I don't want my tax money paying for, or subsidizing...

Good news then!  It never has.  Planned Parenthood's government money goes towards things like cancer screenings, checkups, etc, and law prohibits it from going towards abortion.

Incorrect. My tax dollars subsidize abortion by covering those other things.

Quote
Here's a good counter argument to the climate change thing.  A chart of the history of the global average temperature over human history and a little beyond.  You should see why scientists are pretty alarmed by the rate that it's increased.
Yup. Seen that. But what about temps outside human history? Climate. Changes. We aren't gonna turn into Venus.
Quote

Okay, PC speech suppression.  This is not a thing.  PC speech is not calling someone a racial slur.  PC speech is not being racist/sexist/whateverist.  You can and absolutely should be allowed to voice your own concern, for you and your family(ies).  Anyone who is suppressing this, is not a PC police.  They are not PC, themselves.  However. Someone telling you to stop joking about rape because they have PTSD from being raped?  That's not PC police.  You are the one who is hurting someone with your words.  This is specifically not protected speech under the (original) First Amendment.  You are not allowed to use speech to harm someone, just as you are not allowed to use your fists.  The ol' 'shout fire in a crowded theater' routine.

These folks say you're incorrect. 1 2 3 4 (top 4, no skipping, on my "who is protected against hate speech?" search)

The closest is direct insult, likely to result in conflict; 'fighting words'. That's it. Even wikipedia shows that in the US, there's no 'hate speech' exclusion. But I can't call illegal immigrants by that name. I can't say that I want only those people who legally enter the US to be able to stay here, ever. I can't say I want people who come from countries, or religions, that hold large 'death to America' rallies in their streets to be slowed down and scrutinized harder before entering my country. That would make me racist, and being labeled racist is social suicide. Fine then, I'm racist.
Quote

BLM is trying to get police to stop shooting unarmed black men...

BLM is not trying to rein in any black-on-black killing. Why not? Here's a set of stats.

Precis: An individual black man is twice as likely to die by gun than a white man. Unless they're each 20-29, then he's about 4.5 times as likely. The white kid most likely killed himself (77%), with a 19% chance it was homicide, and the black kid most likely got shot by someone else (82%), with a 14% chance of suicide. The white kid has about a 1% chance to have died due to 'legal intervention' (Police, et. al. I presume) instead of suicide or homicide, and the black kid a 2.5% chance (last chart, and stats from Wash Post link below).

Wash Post states that 90% of violent black deaths are perpetrated by other black people, and 82% of whites offed are offed by whites.

It's bad statistics (I never took that), but 0.9 x 0.82 (the likelihood of 20-29 yr old death by gun homicide) is ~0.738. So if a black boy is killed by a gun it's an almost 74% likelihood that he was killed by another black person, 8% that a non-black did it, and another 14% chance that he did it himself, and 2.5% chance a cop did it, the rest being accidental or unexplained.

So I conclude that BLM doesn't care about lives, or else they'd start with the 'low hanging fruit' and teach black kids to stop killing each other before trying to narrow the disparity between deaths by police. I see it that at the leadership level they want something other than what they say they want. Most likely power of some sort.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2016, 12:57:58 AM by Chemus »
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Offline dman11235

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #392 on: November 11, 2016, 02:02:14 AM »
Um....dude....in that article itself, it admits that green house gases do indeed trap infrared radiation. It, quoting from the article you linked, says "it slows the release of infrared radiation to space".  That's trapping it.  Slowing it means it's here longer.  That's trapping it.  That's ignoring all the other, quite honestly, bunk claims and science in that article.  Another example is the moon being hot/cold compared to the earth.  The moon is actually quite cold.  Surface rocks can be very hot, but that's like saying your house is burning down because you touched a hot pan on the stove.  But even so, that's not even the point of climate change and global warming.  The point is that those buffers that your article talks about, the oceans especially, being those great heat sinks, are warming up.  The air is not a good heat sink.  The oceans are.  And I can actually go into the physics of why CO2 is a greenhouse gas (and why water and CO are as well) if you want, but it's kinda getting off topic and would take a while to go through.

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Yup. Seen that. But what about temps outside human history? Climate. Changes. We aren't gonna turn into Venus.

No, we aren't going to turn into Venus.  But we are going to lose a lot of resources we have now, it'll be more expensive and difficult to live here, and it will be our fault.  What about temps outside human history?  I don't have a fancy graph, but are you not disturbed by that insanely fast uptick at the end?  In that chart, there's Krakatoa, there's the mini ice age caused by the invasion of Europeans in the Americas, there's the end of the ice age, and look at how small and slow those are compared to the end of that chart.  Look at how subtle all those changes are until the end.  Venus is closer to the sun and has a LOT more green house gases than we do.  It has a CO2 concentration of something like 96%, and then it has sulfuric acid in the air as well which is an even better insulator.  We have no acid (well, not as much since we implemented reforms to emissions), and our CO2 levels hover way below that, below 5%  It's something like 2% right now I think?  At no time in the Earth's history, aside from the very beginning when it was basically a ball of molten rock and meteors constantly, has the temperature average of the planet changed so rapidly.  Not even the comet that hit 65 Myrs ago.

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The person chooses 'B' or 'D'. The person responsible for my health, and healthcare, is me. If you injure me, you get to pay, but otherwise, I'm responsible. 'A' just means that everyone who pays the hospital also pays for those who don't pay (the exact same as "taxing corporations"; their customers get to pay taxes twice). One reason Healthcare prices have inflated is because there's unaccountable money (the person with the benefits is not ultimately responsible) injected into the system (Same with tuition prices; grants, scholarships, et. al. merely serve to inflate prices for all). Right now, if a person goes to ER when it's not life threatening and can't pay, everyone else picks up the tab anyway.

So you are A) okay with hospitals not treating someone who can't prove they have the means of paying, and B) you are okay with them treating you and forcing them to pay regardless of their ability.  You are okay with the hospital doing a procedure, without consent, and forcing them to pay.  That's what option D is.

Option A is what we were doing because as a society we decided that we were obligated to help our fellow man.  The moral choice for a hospital was to treat everyone, and figure out payment later.  Because otherwise bad things happen (see: mob tactics).  Option C is what we are doing now, because the government was able to collect and provide a benefit to its citizens.  A safety net.  Obamacare attempted to move this one step further, letting the government provide insurance, which would have reduced prices for everyone, and it has spectacularly worked, given out medical climate.  Rates, even after the rate hike we're expecting next year, are far below what it was projected to be before the implementation of the law.

Do you believe that all consumer protection services should be canceled?  I'm honestly asking this.  Should companies and businesses be allowed to make whatever claims they want, any business practice they want, and just let them run wild?  That's the sort of stuff that we did in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Life was really, really bad back then, especially for the working class family.

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You don't get to tell me what I can't say. You can disagree with me. You can oppose my position. You can decry that my words make me sexist/racist/homophobic. You. Don't. Get. To. Shut. Me. Up.

You're right.  But do not confuse this with the person listening's right to not listen to you, or to not think you're a monster, racist, sexist, unicorn, whatever they want to think you are.  They have that same right.  They have the right to be offended and treat you as an offender.  However, you do not have the right to hurt someone.  Again, no shouting fire in a crowded theater.  Just like no punching.  You mentioned the whole conflict thing, this is that conflict thing.  You can absolutely be charged with conspiracy for shouting hate speech because the law knows that it is not 'fully protected'.  They have to show that you intended to incite violence with it, but in some cases this is not hard to do.  Others it is hard to do. And regardless.  You having the right to say something awful, does not mean the other people have to listen to you or respect you or take you seriously or insult you back.  You do not get to tell them what to say, you do not get to shut them up.  It makes you stressed to be called a racist after you say something that insults someone?  You just freaking insulted someone!  And you are complaining about them complaining about it!  You are trying to say that they can't say back to you what you just said to them!

Finally, the BLM stuff.  Your original complaint with them was that they were hateful and such.  I mentioned their purpose and now you are saying that they're not focusing on the correct part of things.  But are they?  Why is the existence of 'black on black crime' preventing people from being outraged that the government is killing people based on race?  I mean, it's not true that that's happening, but some police officers have shot people because of their race.  That i a thing that has definitely happened over the past entirety of human civilization, but more pointedly the past couple years.  I won't pretend to know what it's like living as a black teen in today's America, but I can listen to what they're saying about their own experiences, and I encourage you to as well.  I don't feel I need to counter the points and arguments you made in this section, because I feel they're irrelevant and sidestepping the issue.  Regardless of the existence of other times of gun related deaths, it's still wrong that police kill unarmed civilians.  And BLM is not supporting those other gun violences either.
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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #393 on: November 11, 2016, 04:03:58 AM »
I don't know enough to discuss all of that, but I hope you don't mind if I ask specific questions.


http://www.science20.com/frank_schnell/blog/the_greenhouse_effect_fallacy-165119 Sums up one scientific rebuttal.

If I may?

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The so-called “Greenhouse effect” is one of the most persistent fallacies in popular science. It is a flawed speculation left over from the late 19th century, when it was first entertained by such scientific luminaries as Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, and Svante Arrhenius.

In fact, however, the so-called “greenhouse gases” do not “trap” infrared energy radiated from the surface of the Earth, as proposed; they merely slow its inevitable return to outer space.

We begin with a straw man. No one's' saying greenhouse gasses trap CO2 indefinitely. This the the first result on my Google search for "How does Global Warming work", and it compares global warming to adding insulation to a house - and no one thinks that traps heat indefinitely, right?

This is the second result.

"Summary: (a) Earth absorbs most of the sunlight it receives; (b) Earth then emits the absorbed light’s energy as infrared light; (c) greenhouse gases absorb a lot of the infrared light before it can leave our atmosphere; (d) being absorbed slows the rate at which energy escapes to space; and (e) the slower passage of energy heats up the atmosphere, water, and ground. "

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The result is a moderation of both daytime and nighttime temperatures, not a multiplying of the warming effect of the sun. In fact, the oft promoted specter of “tipping points” and “runaway greenhouse effects” represent nothing less than violations of the First Law of Thermodynamics.

What?

A runaway greenhouse effect describes a situation where a net positive feedback between surface temperature and atmospheric opacity increases the strength of the greenhouse effect on a planet until its oceans boil away. The IPCC says that this is unlikely to happen on Earth, but, and here's the thing, this has nothing to do with the first law of thermodynamics.

The first law of thermodynamics states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed.

The Earth is not a closed system. A "runaway greenhouse effect" would no more violate the laws of thermodynamics than the existence of the planet Venus. It's just that whatever equilibrium that we could reasonably reach on earth would not be hot enough to boil off the oceans.

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Ironically, the conventionally described “greenhouse effect” (to the extent that it exists at all), would actually have a net cooling effect during the day, rather than a net warming effect, as invariably claimed. While excitedly promoting the absorption of ground-radiated IR by greenhouse gases, global warming enthusiasts ignore altogether the interception of incoming solar IR radiation by the same gases, which has been calculated to be several times greater than the absorption of ground-radiated IR.

This is far from my field of study, but there's no citation, so I'm not really sure how to check this off the top of my head. But given the author's understanding of scientific concepts so far...

Look, I don't want to dismiss this guy out of hand. And I wish I was knowledgeable enough to analyze his argument properly. But I know enough to spot one major logical fallacy and a fundamental misunderstanding of the first law of thermodynamics.

This is not a good thing.

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Incorrect. My tax dollars subsidize abortion by covering those other things.

How? Are you saying that because money is fungible, that the less Planned Parenthood pays for cancer screenings, the more money it has for abortion?

I am not under the impression that that is how they operate, but I'm not that well read on the subject. Could you expand upon that point?
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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #394 on: November 11, 2016, 04:15:14 AM »
I have more to say, but I feel like crap so this will be short. I also don't have the patience to quote specific posts.

Chemus: I only have one specific rebuttal of something that you said, because my purpose was not to try and convince you of anything. Re: temperatures outside human history, we KNOW them, by studying crystalline structures and ice composition in glaciers. We can track climate shifts over a much longer period of time than human history. (EDIT: here's an article about it https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ice-core-data-help-solve/ )

Re: the other stuff, it's coming like your stance on things is that each person should take care of themselves. Do you consider yourself a libertarian? Because this all seems consistent with other libertarians I've talked to.

EDIT: I'm also not clear on your answer about abortion in the case of rape. I wasn't talking about Planned Parenthood, or funding. Is your stance that in cases of rape, abortion is the woman's choice? Or are you still against it?
« Last Edit: November 11, 2016, 04:36:54 AM by sirpercival »
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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #395 on: November 11, 2016, 05:23:55 AM »
Sirp:

Yeah, I agree with lots of Libertarians, but there's never anyone good on. Republican mostly fits though.

Regarding abortions for rape etc., I said that (lack of) consent informs my feelings, but that if the kid is killed, it becomes a victim too, in my opinion. I never said that a woman can't choose, but that there are other choices, and I don't want to pay for abortions, as I feel that they're tantamount to infanticide.

Regarding Climate change (if that's still the name), I don't trust the reporting on it, as it's been 3-4 things in the 30 years I've been hearing about it. The world's real problem is population. Unless we can stabilize it, nothing we try to fix will stay fixed. But that's racist talk because right now the most populous areas, and the fast growing ones aren't white. Thus we can't discuss anything that might work, regardless of its palatability.

And dman, I never said BLM is hateful, I said that grouping by race, religion, etc is divisive. I even linked M. Freeman saying that not talking about race is the way to stop racism. And those stats about how many kids are getting killed by people who aren't police are more important than the number getting killed by police, because of the great difference. Pick the low hanging fruit first; deal with the largest issues before the smaller ones. And yes I mean that I care more about 20,000 kids dying to violence than about 700 kids dying to (possibly) violent cops. That's why I think that BLM is a power grab.
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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #396 on: November 11, 2016, 05:43:23 AM »
Edit: I changed my mind, I don't want to get into this. -_-'
« Last Edit: November 11, 2016, 06:12:03 AM by ketaro »

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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #397 on: November 11, 2016, 08:14:51 AM »
OK Chemus, thanks for answering. I don't agree with you even a little bit, but I appreciate you answering.
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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #398 on: November 11, 2016, 08:16:29 AM »
The world's real problem is population. Unless we can stabilize it, nothing we try to fix will stay fixed. But that's racist talk because right now the most populous areas, and the fast growing ones aren't white. Thus we can't discuss anything that might work, regardless of its palatability.
The total numbers are rising but the rate is actually going down.
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Re: The Politics Thread v3
« Reply #399 on: November 11, 2016, 10:26:29 AM »
Regarding abortions for rape etc., I said that (lack of) consent informs my feelings, but that if the kid is killed, it becomes a victim too, in my opinion. I never said that a woman can't choose, but that there are other choices, and I don't want to pay for abortions, as I feel that they're tantamount to infanticide.

I get you. I don't want to pay for illegal wars.

Perhaps I should pull a Thoreau?

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Regarding Climate change (if that's still the name), I don't trust the reporting on it, as it's been 3-4 things in the 30 years I've been hearing about it.

If that is the problem, then I believe that I can help you out. Let us skip the middleman.

 
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The world's real problem is population. Unless we can stabilize it, nothing we try to fix will stay fixed. But that's racist talk because right now the most populous areas, and the fast growing ones aren't white. Thus we can't discuss anything that might work, regardless of its palatability.

Birth rates level off as a country gets more prosperous and free. So we just need to make everyone better off. Which is the point of liberal economics in the first place, according to Adam Smith.

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And yes I mean that I care more about 20,000 kids dying to violence than about 700 kids dying to (possibly) violent cops. That's why I think that BLM is a power grab.
That may be, but it is very important that the system be fair, responsible, and accountable.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2016, 10:28:27 AM by Solo »
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