Comments

  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The man who squashed efforts to regulate derivatives was Greenspan. The crisis went far beyond housing. The crash just started with the implosion of the housing bubble.

    You are an extremely unreliable historian and you're unapologetic about it. Definitely to be ignored.
    frank

    A few things:

    - The cite I provided specifically referenced the federal reserve's involvement in the financial crisis, so I'm not sure why you're pointing out something that was not omitted from my prior post and claiming it was omitted. .

    - Nothing you've said contradicts anything that I've said, which is (1) there were multiple hands from both sides that that played a role in the financial crisis, and (2) Bush instituted TARP.

    - My point was that no one gets a pass, as @Baden was suggesting that the Republicans caused the entire mess.

    - Your post is obviously retaliatory from my comments in a prior thread where you were repeatedly corrected on your historical inaccuracies, so now you're saying "You are what you said I am." This post is your attempted zinger comeback.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The effective corporate tax rate is 18.6%. Companies are the largest users of energy, natural resources, air and water and their related infrastructures. What exactly is the justification that private individuals pay more to maintain those infrastructures than those that actually use it?Benkei

    There needn't be a moral justification, only a pragmatic one, meaning that the question isn't fairness, but what will maximize the wealth of the individual. There is certainly a point of diminishing returns where if we overtaxed corporate revenues than the economy would be less productive and the individual would suffer. If not, we'd just tax corporations at 100%, considering they have no moral worth to begin with.

    The bulk of total tax revenues comes from individuals, although I could not find a per capita figure, comparing the average tax revenue per corporation versus the average individual revenue. My point being that I expect that in raw dollars, the average corporation pays taxes greatly exceeding the average citizen, meaning they are paying for more of our roads and whatever else.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    GW crashed the economy through idiotic policies of financial deregulation which Obama had to reverse, so he didn't continue what GW set in motion. He reversed a negative trend set in motion by GW. Trump is continuing a positive trend set in motion by Obama. I don't think that's hard to grasp.Baden

    Right, Obama's TARP program bailed out the banks that the Republicans deregulated and caused to crash. It's a good argument except that the banks were deregulated equally by both parties (and notably by the Democrats who wanted to increase home ownership for everyone) (https://www.factcheck.org/2008/10/who-caused-the-economic-crisis/)., and it was Bush, not Obama, who instituted the TARP program. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-americans-think-obama-not-bush-enacted-bank-bailouts-poll-shows/ Not too hard to grasp.

    Let's now talk about how hawkish Bush was and how dovish Obama was and try to ignore all the facts.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Right, and we'll credit Obama's genius on what GW set in motion.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    "Nine of the last 10 recessions have been under Republicans."Baden

    Now that you have accepted the link between the presidency and the economy, you can thank Trump for the booming economy. As much as you might wish to find some hidden weakness in the economy, I can vouch that for the fact that the job market is stronger than I think I have ever seen it. It's definitely an employee's market. There are few things that give workers greater rights than increased demand for their services.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    That's no different in principle to saying if someone offers me 1000 bucks to call someone a nigger or to support someone else calling someone a nigger, do I do it because it's in my self-interest? No, I don't because a more important part of my self-interest than money is a basic level of moral integrity. I mean nothing angelic, just basic. If someone can't even get to that level, they're screwed.Baden

    Your position is largely an ad hom, arguing that the speaker of the position must maintain a certain moral character in order to be supported even if that speaker speaks views you agree with. As long as Trump's racism, to the extent it actually exists, is not made part of his policies, then it just makes him a stupid fucking racist, but not someone I must vote against.

    David Duke, for example, was an actual white supremacist who, as I understand it, wanted to implement racist laws. I obviously wouldn't vote for him. I don't know of any anti-black policy Trump's supported though.

    With Trump, you have someone who is an elitist, megalomaniac and who is egotistical, brash, and unapologetic. The only ones he respects either carry his same last name or his genes. I feel fairly confident that he's made plenty of anti-Semitic comments in his time, and has little respect for Italians, Asians, or anyone other than those in his little protected family environment. The point being that I don't know what you expect to prove with this latest episode of his use of the N word. Do you think I'm just now learning that he's not a loving, caring, open hearted sort of guy? Go back through my posts. I've very consistently called him a buffoon, but he has my endorsement as long as he's the leading candidate with an R next to his name.

    You argue there is some moral imperative to abstain should your only choice of candidate be racist, else you'll somehow be guilty of racism by association. I just reject that as long as the person has no intention to bring about racist policy. I also truly believe that Obama and Hillary harbor racist views as offensive as Trump's, just they're far more sophisticated, cautious, and civil not to say it in stark indefensible terms.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Thank fuck for that. I've had enough making enemies for one night.Baden

    Dude, you'll never be an enemy. :love:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    What aspects would you consider "good ideas" of the following:

    1. increased corporate tax (pay for what they use),
    2. higher capital gains taxes (the Buffet Rule)
    3. roll-back of recent tax cuts for the rich
    4. repeal of Citizens United through legislation
    5. universal healthcare
    6. stricter environmental protection regulation
    7. tax incentives for green initiatives (like duties on gas-guzzlers for instance)
    Benkei

    None appear to be good ideas, but instead are fundamental components of the Democratic platform.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    If your president uses the N-word, he's a racist scumbag just the same as anyone who would come on this site and use it would be considered so, and he should be condemned by everyone no matter what their political persuasion. If you can't come out and say that, that 's your problem not the left's.Baden

    I hereby condemn my president for any racism he may harbor. So damned, this the 15th day of August, 2018.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Fuck the U.S.Michael

    Get over it. You lost the war.07kxh01cbu1hclms.jpg
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I like Benkei's analysis on the topic.

    One thing I'd add is that the left has no perspective on how morally bankrupt and hypocritical the right thinks it is. That is, the right does not see Hillary or Obama as better people than Trump.

    This tape, whatever it might show, will be no more damaging than the pussy grabbing tape. The left needs a new strategy that focuses on something other than character assassination. It doesn't work. It might just be that issues matter more than character. Want a knock out blow? Come up with some good ideas. How is that a redneck viewpoint?

    What this tape might do is further limit the effectiveness of polling data, causing more people to misstate who they'll vote for.
  • Am I alone?
    And it seems language is incapable of expressing anything relating to an actual meaningful experience.Blue Lux
    And yet you have.
    The only exception to this is in poetryBlue Lux
    Yet you have expressed meaning without being poetic.
    But can poetry be adequately defined as language?Blue Lux
    If it's not language, what is it, applesauce?
    And I am to the point where I don't know whether or not to give up on philosophy, which has been my greatest passion.Blue Lux
    The significance of your giving up your greatest passion will be a tragedy only to you.
    The will has always been an objectivity... But what is an objectivity but another? The Other. What could possibly firmly base an objectivity other than another? But is this too not an illusion? An objectivity? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal?
    Blue Lux
    I take back my prior assessment that your linguistic expression is meaningful.
    Am I delusional with all of these thoughts?Blue Lux
    Incoherent more than delusional.
  • Am I alone?
    So don't take anything in life more seriously than yourself and be empathic to the fact that we are all alone and therefore ought to be extra nice to each other, so that through little acts of kindness and thoughtfulness we alleviate each other's feelings of being alone.Benkei

    This sentence attempts to salvage your theory which was headed in the direction of pure egoism. You posit that we know only ourselves, that the external world is our playground to experience how it best fits our fancy, and we shouldn't place the external world over our self.

    The problem, as I see it, is that other selves are the external world as much as any physical object, and you therefore can't sustain your distinction between selves and objects on the basis of one being external and the other being internal. You should be kind to others not because the external world needs to be relegated to a lower status, but because other souls (and that is dangerously what you are talking about here in your dualistic external/internal distinction, but I do welcome you aboard the Cartesian train with open arms) have that special spark that provides them the knowledge of good and evil.

    Yours is an argument for empathy, which hints at some degree of prior internal suffering that has caused you to understand that others might be in need of the same kindness that once sustained you. I suppose my real objection doesn't come from your observation that we are at a most foundational level alone in our experiences, but it's that empathy (which is the foundation of love) doesn't bridge to some degree that loneliness that exists between two people. That is to say, my kids are decidedly not alone, as there is someone who 24/7 is on the look out, well aware of the pain and suffering they feel, maybe sometimes to a degree more than they do. What frees them from the pain of loneliness isn't that someone provides them medication to reduce their symptoms, but it is that empathy and love result in a cure.

    Painfully romantic. Hug me.
  • The Gun In My Mouth
    And so this is non-responsive to the question, which was whether the media has the power to bring about world peace.

    It also is non-responsive to my prior post, which was whether it was the media's role to effectuate societal change consistent with its values, or whether it was the media's role to simply report the news as objectively and neutrally as possible. If the former, does CNN decide the societal priorities that need to be advocated or does Fox News?

    And last, has it been suggested that the media not report on actual nuclear bomb detonations or were we just talking about how the media ought prioritize its reporting on the nuclear threat?
  • The riddle of determinism and thought
    Denying the world is an exercise for developing free will. One holds back all impulses; instinctive, personal, habitual and collective so one can differentiate the predetermined. Since so few people will make this effort, very few people ever develop free will.wellwisher

    You're arguing that the development of free will is a choice, thus creating a circularity problem. If you can choose to transcend all worldly impulses, that presumes you already had free will, making it predetermined at birth, which you denied.

    If denying one's impulses is necessary for the exercise of free will, how does one deny one's impulses prior to acquiring free will so that they'll then have it?
  • The Gun In My Mouth
    It would change the group consensus in that the round the clock media coverage (which would dwarf 9/11) would focus everyone on the issue.Jake

    You really think that the media possesses the power to bring about world peace?

    At any rate, the media ought have no agenda. To the extent it does, it comes under legitimate attack. The "fake news" claim, whether justified or not, is a claim that the media has abandoned its role of just reporting the news, but has instead taken on the role of shaping societal values. While it may seem obvious to you that the limitation of nuclear weapons is a good thing and that no reasonable person would disagree, I do think it'd be a legitimate concern if the media acknowledged that their reporting on the horrors of nuclear war was motivated by their political position that there should be nuclear disarmament. Their motivation ought be only in reporting the facts, and once that is done, continued use of the bully pulpit would remove the media from the neutral role it ought occupy.

    Whether that focus would have positive or negative results is indeed unknown, agreed.Jake

    What sells newspapers, gains clicks on websites, and sells magazines is the same thing that sells loaves of bread and yoyos. It's called demand. So, if we decide that the cure to all sadness is yoyos and we require that the market be flooded with yoyos, your sale of yoyos will only rise to the extent people really want yoyos. I would assume that soon after the excitement of the increased yoyo production settled, there's be a whole lot of unbought yoyos on the shelf and people would start looking elsewhere for their diversions.

    I believe the demand placed on the media is to report the news so that people will know what's going on, not that the media repeat over and over the same thing because it has an agenda.

    What this means is that you're going to have a whole bunch of media outlets going belly up if they decide to flood the market with the story they think is super important while ignoring the fact that he public has bought their product, heard what they've said, and now grown bored and are now looking for a new yoyo.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Air traffic control is done on the basis of radar not GPS.Benkei
    Military planes are dependent upon GPS so that our bombs blow up the right shit. Without it, we'd have to use paper maps and look for landmarks out the window.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    To anyone with half a brain it's clear that Barron was complicit, no doubt taking charge of some aspects given Trump's penchant for nepotism.Michael

    I looked up "Barron" and it means warrior. So, if we can combine all these clues, the culprit is a 400 pound Chinese warrior sitting on their bed. Doesn't seem too hard to find.

    Prolly one of these guys (my guess is the one on the right, not his svelte counterpart):

    22rejml8bcr39ikq.jpg

    At a minimum I just proved there is a picture of everything on the internet.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The link between the Russian hacking and Trump (in trying to figure out why it's being discussed in a thread about Trump) appears to be limited to the fact that Trump has gone from being highly skeptical, to outright denying, and then finally reluctantly acquiescing to claims of official Russian involvement in the DNC hack. There is no evidence of Trump collusion in the hacks, nor is there any evidence of the election being impacted by the hacks. What we have here really amounts to some embarrassing revelations about the DNC brought about by the hacks and concern, if left unaddressed, that one day an election could be affected by hacks.

    You've got nothing on Trump here other than his stubborn and apparently irrational defense of the Russians over the his own intelligence sources. I actually knew he was stubborn and impudent before this episode though.
  • The purpose of baseball
    Like Meta, youre trying to stomp out my question instead of exploring it. WTF?frank

    The question assumes a false premise, which my comment made clear, which is that sport is a representation of war or that there is some other purpose to baseball than scoring more runs than the other team.

    That's wtf.
  • The purpose of baseball
    It's pretty clear that tossing a javelin is preparation for war. Football is likewise modelled after some sort of primitive military action.frank

    What is basketball, curling, bobsledding, tennis, golf, bowling, hopscotch, 4 square, Jinga, Candyland, or the long jump?
  • Sex
    What you are saying is we should eat anything we want if it brings us pleasure, since pleasure comes first.wellwisher

    No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I've not advocated hedonism or irresponsibility and am aware that any excess can lead to problems. What I said was that the primary reason people engage in sexuality is for pleasure, beyond that, it is also used to build and sustain romantic relationships. The use of sexuality is rarely used specifically for reproduction. Most people attempt pregnancy only a few months of their entire lives. Those who cannot conceive due to age continue to have sex. It's hard to argue that someone who cannot conceive is having sex primarily to induce conception.
    People are asked to control the lure and not chase every carrot on the string, so the final result is healthy.wellwisher

    Nothing you say here distinguishes having sex for pleasure from having sex for reproduction. It would seem more harmful for someone to recklessly try to have sex for reproduction as it would for someone to recklessly try to have sex for pleasure. The solution would therefore be to avoid being reckless, not insisting that people stop chasing pleasure but instead start chasing pregnancy.
    An interesting observation is the left wing of the political movement is more outwardly concerned with natural things than the right wing; going green and save the earth. This is based on compensation for believing the secondary is the primary.wellwisher

    The desire to go green and save the earth is based upon the belief that not going green will destroy the earth. It's an empirical claim rejected by the right. Some on the left may argue that the preservation of the earth has inherent value in itself, but it seems an equally legitimate argument to argue that the protection of humanity can only be acheived by protecting the planet. Regardless, even if true, I don't see the relevance in pointing out that both the right and the left have an equal attachment to the irrational command that we do only that which is natural.
    Religions have no problem with sex in marriage and with this sex being pleasurable. The reason is, it is following the natural hierarchy. Birth control is not acceptable o avoid tricking the system via will power.wellwisher

    This is not the common religious view, but one found primarily in the Catholic Church. Different religions treat contraception differently and it's a misrepresentation to suggest the religious view on contraception is monolithic.
    It is humanly possible, but it should not be called natural since it often leads to unnatural balances.wellwisher

    You don't have a consistent definition of "natural."
  • Sex
    Thank you for the masturbation manual. I'm wondering if there really are those who need such assistance.
  • Sex
    If you cant ask your partner for a specific thing, out of shame, then you arent really partnersAkanthinos

    Yes you are. You're just partners who aren't fully comfortable expressing your sexual desires.
  • Sex
    The point this is being missed about sex is, sex evolved as a path for reproduction which increases genetic diversity in offspring. This is the natural and primary goal of sex. The pleasure of sex is the carrot on the string; secondary, used to lead the critter to the primary goal. Humans are not always natural, so they tend to get it backwards.wellwisher

    Since the primary use of sex is pleasure, I would say that the primary purpose is pleasure, with pregnancy being a byproduct that is most often not fully expected.
    The same is true of sex. The unnatural path of using the secondary as the primary is reflected in STD's and psychological problems and sublimations. Using an instinctive secondary, as the primary, is an example of human will power and free will. It is short term thinking where the long term result may not always be satisfactory or healthy at many levels.wellwisher
    Historically, pregnancy has been a far greater threat to health than STDs.
    Abortion is not natural, but is an example of free will and choice. The goal of abortion appears to be a disruption in the natural primary goal, in favor of the secondary coming first. This is like passing a law that repeals all nutritional labelling on food, so people can eat for pleasure in peace without regard to the natural consequences.wellwisher
    If the distinction between natural and unnatural is that the latter involves the exercise of free will, then sex is unnatural.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Everything everyone knows about Trump is wrong:

  • Sex
    Now I have been with the same person for the last two decades but I would be hard pressed to be able to name all the men I was with before getting married.ArguingWAristotleTiff

    You go girl.
    So I have tasted what is on the salad bar but I really want to get to where the Champagne and Truffles that I have heard so much about are.ArguingWAristotleTiff

    Sorry, I'm taken.
  • Sex
    There are very, VERY, few males that in a relationship are willing to take the time to allow a woman to orgasm.ArguingWAristotleTiff

    We're limited by our personal experiences though, so you may be speaking of what you experience instead of what is typically experienced.
  • Sex
    I think heterosexuality is inherently related to patriarchal subordination of women.darthbarracuda

    Either that or it's the cause of the continued existence of the species. Non-humans also engage in heterosexuality, despite having no idea what patriarchy means.
    And the idea that all that makes sex moral is "consent", is related to capitalism, because it makes sex out to be a service or exchange between two parties - the buyer and the seller. Invariably the buyer is the man, the seller is the woman.darthbarracuda

    And so in progressive Marxist countries do they grab women by the hair and drag them into the cave and have their way with them or is the idea that consent must precede my probing your body and impregnating you a capitalist idiosyncrasy?
    We do not typically ask for consent for other activities - I do not ask for consent to sit across from you, for example. I do not ask for consent when I approach a cashier to check out from the grocery storedarthbarracuda

    And yet I do ask for consent before I walk into your house, drive your car, remove your earrings from your ear, or play with your tongue, So we've now established that some things require consent and others don't. Typically we require consent when we seek to use something that belongs to someone else, which would include anything from your ballpoint pen to your vagina.
    So then what is it about sex that makes consent so important? It is because (this sort of?) sex is inherently violating, objectifying, manipulating.darthbarracuda
    Your sex life isn't like mine I guess.
    Consider: it is usually the man who asks for consent of the woman (to do things to her body, to use her body as a mean for his own climax, to satisfy some urge that is inherently questionable).darthbarracuda

    So women don't enjoy sex? Interesting.
    My perspective on consent in sex is this: if you feel the need to ask for consent, then there is something questionable about what you wish to do (to the other person). "Kinks" are so often not about satisfying the other person but instead are about whether or not the other person will allow you to do something to them.darthbarracuda

    Asking for consent doesn't take the form of "Pardon me ma'am but would you like a good rogering," but it takes the form of all communication, which is partly verbal, partly not. That is, I can know I lack consent without being told "Stop! You lack consent." Your view on "kinks" strikes me as silly, as if you can't have two people with the same preferences who both wholly consent, even should you find their shared preferences odd.
    "I respect you as a person, so I ask you for consent so that I can treat you not as a person but as an object." Yet this is clearly contradictory, you cannot ask a person to suspend their dignity and still claim to respect them as a person.darthbarracuda

    Did you grow up in a nunnery where they taught you sex was dirty?
  • The Gun In My Mouth
    Nuclear weapons aren't in some random guy's mouth awaiting detonation by the tapping of a hair trigger. That's an important distinction and probably why the hysteria surrounding the existence of nuclear weapons is more subdued than you might expect if they were being toted around in someone's mouth.

    But, should we say that anything and everything could happen on whim and we can't fully expect that day in and day out we'll be protected from nuclear disaster, we could also say the same of world peace and harmony. That is, why aren't we all walking around in jubilation knowing that just like it's possible that a hair trigger could blast smoeones' face off at any moment, world peace and harmony could also just sort of come about in the same way? I mean, if we're going to be irrational, let's at least be optimistically irrational.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    I will need to look at those Scripture passages in more detail to see what's going on in there, hopefully when I have more time.Agustino
    https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Stoning
  • The Irving trial and Holocaust denial
    The Austrian David Irving was sentenced to 3 years in prison for Holicaust denial.

    It occurred to me that this likely wouldn't happen in the US, but I have mixed feelings about it. Is it a test of one's convictions regarding free speech? Or is Austria right to safeguard its society from people like Irving?
    frank

    It wouldn't happen in the US because the US was founded on the principle of distrust of government and an important check against the government is freedom of speech. Austria, on the other hand, was not founded on such principles, but instead previously found itself and much of Western Europe on the verge of collapse because of Nazi ideology. It therefore has created laws protecting itself from a reemergence of that ideology.

    The distinctions between the two nations are historical and understandable. I am biased toward the US policy and think it's probably more enlightened, but, then again, the US was the victor in WW2 and affected to a much less extent than Europe.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    Yes, adultery is absolutely wrong, but not because God said so.Agustino

    Why is it wrong?
  • What are you listening to right now?

    When music was great.
  • Discussion on Christianity
    Most everyone knows of Trump but few of Seneca. Why is that?
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    Because they would interpret our way of living as effeminate, weak - they being used to cutting heads off, public beatings, etc. would have found our modern world a world for weak men and women, who cannot bear anything more.Agustino

    Should an ancient society exist alongside a modern one, the manly men ancients wouldn't scoff at the girly moderns, but would live in constant fear and dependence on them. The good old days weren't.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    That's not being a moral relativist. I did not claim that X or Y is immoral at one time in history and not at another.Agustino

    That's an incorrect definition of relativism. You're explicitely stating that the morality of stoning is relative to the moment in history when it occurred. Should it occur today, it's immoral, yesterday moral. It denies the absolute nature of morality, which would be that stoning is wrong whenever and where ever it occurs.

    It's historically obvious that views on morality have shifted over time, as is it clear that moral values vary across the globe, but unless you're willing to state that there is only one right and wrong, you're a relativist.

    You think adultery is absolutely wrong because God said so, and I suspect you would consider any society over the history of mankind that felt otherwise morally wrong, correct? That is absolutism, a concept you abandon when it comes to stoning.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    Does it matter in a court of law if she was a mother, a prostitute, or a barbarian?Waya

    These distinctions have less to do with mercy than standing in the community, but absolutely, a showing of remorse will result in a lesser sentence than would defiance.
    It would be a bad judge to let a criminal go, UNLESS someone offered to pay the price AND the person accepted it.Waya

    We're not talking about "letting someone go" as much as affecting one's sentence. At any rate, stoning an adulterer fails as being disproportionate, not just in lacking mercy. The bar against cruel and unusual punishments would also be violated.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    When only justice exists, and no mercy, why do we perceive as unfair?Waya

    Mercy is an element of justice as is proportionality. That's why stoning a mother at the town's gate is draconian. In fact, I find your argument disingenuous to the extent you are suggesting you would advocate throwing rocks at a child's mother until she died because she cheated on his dad. Say it all you want, but your conscience wouldn't allow it, so why pretend to believe it?
    Is it draconian when a person is struck by lightning? Rather, we see that as the result of nature. Justice is natural, but the problem is in defining justice.Waya

    This is just a nonsensical analogy.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    From an objective viewpoint though, what determines right from wrong?Waya

    The question of what establishes objective morality is a legitimate one and involves looking at what our intuituve conscience determines is moral and in looking at consistencies and themes in what presents as moral and arriving at logical theories to explain what is moral.

    In arriving at a theory (e.g. Kantianism, utilitarianism, divine command theory, etc.), we have to see how well each theory works against what we know to be right and wrong. The Bible, if presented as a morally inerrant document, is rejected based upon it's draconian response to dishonesty in marital relationships. The Bible therefote can't be looked upon as a perfect guide, but more a source of inspiration from very primitive peoples.