1

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Yet Another Gun Law Thread

« on: October 15, 2024, 11:51:37 PM »

Joe down the street is not going to say goodbye to his wife and kids and leave home so he can fight in the Battle of Washington or whatever. Very few people would make that kind of sacrifice for the sake of their ideals.

Wrong. You have spent years posting that thousands of people decided to mutiny against the United States with violence. Simply look into the congressional investigation on this:

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-167/issue-25/senate-section/article/S615-4

President Trump had truly made them believe that their election had
been stolen and that it was their patriotic duty to fight to steal it
back--``patriotic,'' a term he gave those who use violence for him--and
they were willing to say goodbye to their children for this fight.
  These supporters didn't just rely on entering the Capitol with guns
haphazardly. They had maps of this building. They talked through which
tunnels to use and how to get to the Senate Chamber. Some posted
specific floor plan layouts of the Capitol alongside hopes of
overwhelming law enforcement to ``find the tunnels; arrest the worst
traitors.''
...
The day before the rioters stormed the Congress, an FBI office in
Virginia also issued an explicit warning that extremists were preparing
to travel to Washington to commit violence and ``war,'' according to
internal reports.

  The FBI report cited to an online post where the user declared that
Trump supporters should go to Washington and get violent. The supporter
said:

       Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there
     ready for war. We get our President or we die.

  These threat warnings were not just hypothetical. Actual arrests
occurred in the days leading to the attack.
...
 On January 4, 2 days before the rally, one extremely well-publicized
arrest was of a Proud Boy leader who destroyed a church's Black Lives
Matter banner a month earlier during the December 12, second Million
MAGA March. The report emphasized that when he was arrested, he was
carrying high-capacity firearms magazines, which he claimed were meant
to be supplied to another rally attendee for January 6.

By the night before the January 6 attack, DC police had already made
six arrests in connection with the planned protests on charges of
carrying weapons, ammunitions, assault, assaulting police.
...
And leading up to the event, there were hundreds--hundreds--of posts
online showing that his supporters took this as a call to arms to
attack the Capitol. There were detailed posts of the plan to attack
online. Law enforcement warned that these posts were real threats and
even made arrests days leading up to the attack.

2

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: October 15, 2024, 02:23:22 AM »

3

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: October 15, 2024, 12:50:46 AM »

There is a pretty simple explanation for why Kamala's popularity dropped after her recent media tour.

https://twitter.com/TiffanyFong_/status/1845927364594913744

4

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: October 14, 2024, 11:25:23 AM »

It is correct that the people polled tend to vote differently than the people who vote. However, Trump is beating those prior trends.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/10/12/polls-trump-vs-harris-biden-clinton/75532448007/

5

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: October 13, 2024, 05:35:47 PM »

And?  Do you have a point?

Yes

https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1845452116090835138

6

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Yet Another Gun Law Thread

« on: October 13, 2024, 02:34:56 PM »

I didn't say that people weren't willing to participate in insurrections or political violence. I'm specifically talking about the idea that gun owners will rise up against the government if it grows too oppressive and overthrow it via revolution.

Rising up against a government and overthrowing it via revolution is called an insurrection. 

The people marching through the Capitol on Jan 6th and calling to hang the politicians risked their freedom for doing what they did. Many of them did go to jail because of it, and would have faced a much harsher punishment if they had actually found a politician to hang. The claim that people are too scared to risk anything anymore is clearly false.

The attackers swarmed the Capitol through sheer numbers (and also through complicit Democratic authorities, according to your contradictory take on it), not through force of arms. Only one person was shot, and it was by the police.

The only reason more guns were not there at the event is because the crowd went through the Trump rally security, which involves going through high-tech weapon scanners for entrance. However, many guns were found in cars outside of the event.

There is video of people breaking down the windows of the Capitol building with bats. The characterization that this isn't violent enough is laughable. People were willing to insurrect even without the benefit of guns, which speaks more to their bravery and willingness to insurrect when they believe that the other side has crossed the line.

I never even mentioned Trump, but now that you mention it, if Trump or any other politician called for a civil war, very few people inside or outside of the military would join him. That's the power of de jure authority.

You will recall that at least 13 red states, including Texas, were telling the SCOTUS that the results of the election should not have been accepted with the concerning discrepancies.

In the 2020 election there was growing concern over a civil war. It would have been divided between the red states versus the blue states. In a civil war the military bases in those areas would go to the parent states, just as what happened during the first civil war. In a civil war the military in Texas will obviously be defending Texas regardless of what federal orders they receive.

Nice try, but this effort at rewriting history to portray Trump as magnanimous and merciful isn't going to work. Trump didn't tell anyone to stop until hours after the Capitol had been breached and the members of Congress had all long since been evacuated. At that point, the attackers - most of whom were already gone - were just hanging around in the empty building. There was nothing that any of them could have done at that time, regardless of what Trump did or didn't say to them.

Incorrect. Look any timeline:

https://www.jan-6.com/january-6-timeline

January 6th: Capitol Tunnel + Upper W. Terrace

3:30pm
Fighting resumes at the tunnel.
On the Upper W. Terrace, a large group of officers push rioters back from NW Courtyard.
Crow continues surging at tunnel until 4:17pm.

4:17pm
Police threaten lethal force.
 Trump tweets, “This was a fraudulent election, but..we have to have peace. So go home. We love you; you’re very special...But go home..

4:26pm
Rioters realize Roseanne Boyland is trampled after the one rioter trips over her body while leaving the tunnel.

4:27pm
The mob drags out Officer Miller & beats him with fists and weapons.

Ten minutes after Trump made that announcement the crowd was beating policemen with fists and weapons. The situation clearly wasn't over.

7

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: October 13, 2024, 02:13:00 AM »

https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1844595602467721607

8

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Yet Another Gun Law Thread

« on: October 12, 2024, 07:21:52 PM »

So they were invited in.
It was a Democrat stunt.
And it was also an insurrection which would have totally overthrown the government had Trump not called it off.
Logical consistency is overrated to be fair.

If someone goes into your capitol and hangs your politicians, they have overthrown the government.

The people were in the building and were chanting to hang the politicians, and it is irrelevant that the police allowed them in. Are you seriously arguing that if they had gotten to democrat senator Chuck Schumer, that they were there to just there to shake his hand and leave?

Honk's idea that people are unwilling to attempt to overthrow the government in modern America is obviously wrong.

9

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: October 12, 2024, 05:47:12 PM »

It sounds like the party's over for Kamala.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-kamala-harris-honeymoon-is-coming-to-an-end/

This is the race Democrats feared. Less than a month before the US election, Donald Trump is regaining the slight edge he held before Democrats convened in Chicago to nominate Kamala Harris. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average in battleground states, Trump trailed Harris from late August until late September. Now, though, he’s back on top at 48.4 to 48.1. His lead may be fractional — and Harris is up two points in the popular vote — but the numbers have Kellyanne Conway feeling good.

Alongside a picture of the RCP numbers, the pollster argued this week that Trump is “in his best polling ever era, even as media outlets are likely undercounting his voters — again”. On CNN, Harry Enten crunched the numbers too. “Let’s say we have a polling miss like we had in 2020. What happens then?” he asked on Tuesday. “Well, then Donald Trump wins the election in a blowout with 312 electoral votes.”

In his Wednesday column, Charles Blow of the New York Times lamented that FiveThirtyEight now gives Harris and Trump “close-to-even chances” of winning. “The campaign doesn’t need a post-joy strategy,” he wrote, “but it definitely needs an in-addition-to-joy strategy.” FiveThirtyEight‘s win probability chart mirrors RCP‘s battleground chart in that as Harris’s DNC bump has waned, Trump’s numbers have gone up, closing the gap significantly in just the last few weeks.

10

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Yet Another Gun Law Thread

« on: October 12, 2024, 04:38:11 PM »

Try being more honest in your life. The whole protest itself was not a democrat stunt. The democrat administration removing the barricades and keeping the front doors open and letting them into the building is the democrat stunt.

Quote all of it:

lol at anyone dumb enough to believe this Democrat stunt

If you tried to force your way into the country's capitol building on a normal weekday with a group of people do you think you could do it without all of you getting totally massacred?

Here are the protestors getting past the barricades. The barricades are pulled open for them and the police casually turn their backs to them and walk with the protestors towards the capitol building:

https://twitter.com/PollEveryday2/status/1346969946992029696

https://youtu.be/2Hpj-CAJB6Y

Here the protestors gain entrance into the building. The vigilant policeman is unarmed, waves a little stick, and just runs away from them, leading them into the interior:

https://twitter.com/IndigoLeo10/status/1346941327720796166

https://youtu.be/vsPIZk6MRyE

11

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Yet Another Gun Law Thread

« on: October 12, 2024, 03:44:48 PM »

There was an insurrection against the US Capitol in 2020, and they only stopped because their leader told them to go home.

They didn't "storm the capitol." They were invited in.

It is irrelevant that they were allowed in by police incompetence. They were calling to abolish Congress and to hang politicians while they were in the building, whether they were allowed in or not.

If Trump had given the go ahead instead of telling them to stop, America would be much different today.

12

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Yet Another Gun Law Thread

« on: October 12, 2024, 02:22:29 PM »

Americans are not going to sacrifice their livelihoods and leave their families so that they can become unpaid freedom fighters and spend the rest of their lives as hunted fugitives. They have too much to live for.

You seem to conveniently forget your prior rantings about what you guys describe as the scary Jan 6 2020 insurrection.

There was an insurrection against the US Capitol in 2020, and they only stopped because their leader told them to go home.

Obviously, people are willing to participate in insurrection in modern America. Also, in a real civil war parts of the military would very likely be joining Trump. The insurrectionists wouldn't be on their own.

13

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: October 06, 2024, 10:19:49 PM »

Actually almost all of our definitions and concepts, such as degeneracy, are defined by people long ago. You are basically arguing that an apple is not an apple because you don't want it to be and are proceeding to attack the people who decided what an apple was. Your opinion is irrelevant to the fact that what is commonly known as an apple, is an apple.

14

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: October 06, 2024, 09:42:03 PM »

Sex work being decriminalized is far from a radical or extreme concept. It's been very successfully implemented in other countries, and it's objectively an ideal way to all but eradicate every negative effect that prostitution has on society at large - diseases, violence, sexual assault, and the like. There's no good reason to keep it illegal.

What you think is a good idea is irrelevant to the fact that prostitution has been historically given as a prominent example of degeneracy.

15

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: October 06, 2024, 06:40:23 PM »

Conservatives getting more religious and traditionalist is merely the response to Liberals getting more degenerate.

https://twitter.com/_johnnymaga/status/1838557946545844666?s=61&t=dBbdqd_YOX7K8phCZrsUOQ

16

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: October 06, 2024, 03:39:41 PM »

It makes sense to me why they would need a special Bible with the Constitution in it. They are attempting to bring Biblical study back into the school system. If they use a regular Bible then they can be accused of running afoul of their students' freedom of religion. They would get criticisms and questions like why not use the Quran or Torah?

 

Yeah, add the Constitution in there and this issue just vanishes, right Tom? 

Correct. They have been working on strategies for this for decades and now we have a conservative Supreme Court. They will probably get away with it this time.

https://www.the74million.org/article/oklahoma-schools-ordered-to-use-bible-in-history-teaching/

Oklahoma Schools Ordered to Use Bible in History Teaching
...
State Superintendent Ryan Walters said he wants the Bible kept and taught in every Oklahoma classroom, particularly how it is referenced in America’s history and founding documents.

“We’re going to be looking at the Mayflower Compact (and) other of those foundational documents to point to and say, listen, here’s conceptually what the founders believed,” Walters said while speaking with news reporters on Thursday.

They are going to teach it under the guise of "here is what the founders believed".

In that same article they also suggest that they already have state laws in place which allows teaching from the Bible:

“Oklahoma law already explicitly allows Bibles in the classroom and enables teachers to use them in instruction,” the AG’s spokesperson, Phil Bacharach, said.

17

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: October 06, 2024, 02:06:32 PM »

It makes sense to me why they would need a special Bible with the Constitution in it. They are attempting to bring Biblical study back into the school system. If they use a regular Bible then they can be accused of running afoul of their students' freedom of religion. They would get criticisms and questions like why not use the Quran or Torah?

If they integrate it into American and Constitutional history then they can use the Christian Bible. Thus, they have more a defense if they have a special Bible created with other documents integrated into it.

https://oklahomawatch.org/2024/10/03/state-education-department-seeks-bids-for-55000-classroom-bibles/

“We don’t want extra things in there; historical documents are fine,” Walters said. “If it’s the King James version and the Constitution, the Magna Carta, things like that, that are also in statute that can be used in the classroom, that’s fine. But we don’t want commentary around the Bible because this is to serve as a historical reference document.”

They want a specific version of the Bible used in early America, say that they are fine if documents like the Magna Carta are in it, and refer to the Bible as a 'historical reference document', which gives away what they are doing. While Trump's Bible probably sparked the idea, this appears to be more about skirting religious freedoms that created the separation of church and state in schools by combining religion with normal studies.

I suspect that they are at least 20 times more interested in using this as a mechanism for getting Bible study into schools than giving Trump money.

18

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: October 06, 2024, 04:47:08 AM »

The Oklahoma school system responded and defended their requirements:

https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4916077-oklahoma-trump-bibles-schools-ryan-walters/

Oklahoma defends Bibles-in-schools proposal after report that only Trump’s might qualify
...
“We are excited to bring back the Bible in its essential historical and literary context to Oklahoma classrooms. Superintendent Walters has committed the agency to an open and transparent RFP process, consistent with the norms for state procurement, that will be adequate to meet the needs of Oklahoma classrooms. There are hundreds of Bible publishers and we expect a robust competition for this proposal,” the spokesperson said.

They are saying that they are giving other Bible publishers a chance. I'm betting that other publishers can beat $60 for this unique project to bring Biblical study back into the school system under the context of American and constitutional history.

It is no longer the 1800's where custom stamped templates are created for every page of a book. It is not a labor intensive process to copy paste some freely available content into a word processor for book creation and get it printed. Books can be created on-demand now. It's more of a medium than a product. This situation is basically comparable to a school wanting a website which contains freely available versions of the Constitution and the Bible, with you guys here trying to convince me that only Trump can make such a website.

You would be better off arguing from the separation of church and state angle than this anti-competitive argument.

19

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: October 05, 2024, 11:20:38 PM »

A Bible that includes the US Pledge of Allegiance and the US Constitution is pretty much a 1950's-era conservative meme. This is likely why the Bible that Trump endorsed was created in the first place. Neither Trump or the Bible printing company originated the concept of merging US Constitution studies and Bible studies - that is an old 1950's Americana thing.

The claims that this requirement is anti-competitive are weak, even if Trump is the only person currently selling that Bible and gave schools the idea for the concept. None of it is copyrighted, and none of it is original. For it to be anti-competitive we would have to play dumb and pretend that this is hard to obtain or create, or that no publishing companies have ever produced special prints for schools, which is false.

If someone who is eligible to make a bid wants to create that meme Bible, they can throw it together and order prints within a day with various online services. Any major publishing house has the resources to bid for the requirements easily. The God Bless the USA Bible that Trump endorsed is also $60. If someone can beat that price in a government bid, they get the contract.

20

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Circumnavigation World Record Sailing Discrepancies

« on: October 04, 2024, 09:42:45 PM »

We know that hundreds of people are trying to beat world records, and there are even yearly races around Antarctica (which we are often pointed to, but the details are rarely discussed). This represents the best boat, so your arguments are pretty invalid.

Most of also know that many world records, including circumnavigation records, have any number of categories based on the particular type of craft and crew size, so context matters.  Picking one record and saying that the rest don't matter is nothing more than cherry picking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_world_sailing_record

Lisa Blair holds the generic record for fastest circumnavigation of Antarctica by sailboat.

If you are sure that there is a category where sailing boats have sailed around it in a faster time then I would suggest finding it and then contacting Guinness World Records to inform them that they are incorrect about Lisa Blair holding the record for fastest circumnavigation by sailboat.

Come on guys. Now we are accusing Guinness World Records of being incorrect about the records. How about a response with something more than "NoOoO it could be this!"