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Post by Amadan on Nov 19, 2018 17:00:55 GMT -5
From Mark: “So, Tuesday he gets his briefing. No doubt by the end of the day he will have taken stern measures against those responsible. Right?” Yes. Maybe not by the end of the day, but In addition to the cancellation of visas, and the monetary sanctions against most of those involved, the Trump Admin will ensure there are further repercussions to Saudi Arabia and MBS, keeping in mind the balance of power in the ME, and the danger of Iran, and the issue of Israel. The U.S. isn’t going to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, but I do sincerely think there will be more repercussions. Will they be enough for Trump critics who will never be happy or satisfied with anything Trump does? No, of course not. But I do not believe the U.S. will just let this go. That's a very vague and highly qualified assertion, that sounds like if Trump so much as wags his finger in their direction, you can say he "did something."
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Post by Amadan on Nov 19, 2018 15:50:01 GMT -5
I did think rob officially stepping in to correct you as a mod was excessive.
That said, there's a difference between "This is my area of expertise, so I probably know more about this than you, and here's why you're wrong" and "You aren't a professional and I am so your opinion is worthless." I don't think you were trying to "silence" celaw, but you certainly were making an Appeal to Authority (your own). We all have opinions about the law, which is not, in theory, meant to be opaque to an educated layperson, and I'm sure I don't need to tell a lawyer that the law is subjective and it is not Holy Writ that can only be correctly interpreted by those who've been inducted into the priesthood. In other words, yes, I will certainly cede to your legal expertise if you say I'm factually wrong on a point of law, but when we are prognisticating on the likely success of a lawsuit, I certainly put more value in your opinion than mine or celaw's, but that doesn't mean your opinion is objectively correct and I think falling back on "Respect muh authoriteee!" was an overreach, in a moment of frustration, on your part.
I hope you will not depart for good. I know politics is a shitshow right now, but honestly, this all seems like a rehash of the bitterest years of the Bush administration. People were polarized, losing their shit, and swearing it was the Death of the Republic from both sides of the aisle then too.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 19, 2018 9:34:50 GMT -5
Well, how many people, especially in the US, would disagree with any of that? I mean, nowadays, even actual communists don't defend Stalin, aside from the fringe "tankie" crowd. So writing an article that says "The USSR really sucked at managing their economy" is hardly controversial to anyone. I imagine an actual socialist would argue that the failure of the USSR does not mean that socialism is doomed to failure, any more than the USA being infested with socialism and crony capitalism (according to Don) means that capitalism is doomed to failure.
But really, I am not sure where you were looking for disagreement from.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 19, 2018 9:16:38 GMT -5
I like this board, mostly because I know you all from elsewhere. I am on a number of other boards that are basically tiny water coolers set up for people who knew each other for a long time on some other site, which then got shut down, and they wanted to stay in touch. Such boards will inevitably become tiny little cliques that nowadays would probably work better as Discord channels or the like, and it's very hard to bring new people to a place that was basically set up for a clique to shoot the breeze with each other. I never really thought TCG had much hope of growing beyond a scattered band of AW refugees. Will we still be around in 10 years? Eh, who knows? One of the boards I mentioned is still around after over 15 years. I check in there every now and then.
I do not think shutting down moderation (almost) entirely is a good idea. I've seen that before. Everything will go to shit. Online moderation is no-win: no one ever thinks they were modded fairly, and no one with a grievance ever thinks you're modding enough.
I'm sorry Cass got so upset by that thread that she stepped down as a mod. Fwiw, the "you don't have the legal expertise to comment on this" also rubbed me the wrong way, but I think maybe rob telling her privately to dial it back (or else disagreeing with her as rob instead of as CG Admin) might have looked less like a public spanking.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 17, 2018 12:23:36 GMT -5
Agree with all of the above. I'll add one more radical idea: stop spending money on fucking computers, laptops, tablets, etc.
Yeah, kids should be tech-literate and there is a place for computers in schools. Namely, a computer lab.
But everything that kids need to learn that is foundational can still be taught without the aid of computers, and what we are creating is generations that are lost if they can't Google something and whose idea of research is finding a Wikipedia article. Additionally, the money I've seen wasted on IT at schools, or "giving every student an iPad," that could have gone to textbooks, other infrastructure, etc., is terrible.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 17, 2018 11:41:13 GMT -5
This has been all over social media, and the condemnation of the drivers in the comments is blistering. Educational campaigns and public shunning are two effective yet non-coercive ways society can address problems. This ticks both boxes. I like it.
But it's the tickets they received that actually imposed consequences. Do you think without cops stopping the drivers and ticketing them, "education and public shunning" would have the same effect?
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Post by Amadan on Nov 7, 2018 10:15:10 GMT -5
I think the Dems performed about as well as is typical for a midterm. It wasn't a "Blue Wave" - it didn't outperform historical expectations, and it came nowhere near some of the more exuberant predictions by optimists expecting a wholesale repudiation of Trump and everything he stands for.
So, it was not a bad night. Losing the House would have been a bad night. But it wasn't great, either. It was just, basically, the next battle in a long war.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 6, 2018 20:01:23 GMT -5
I'm not. I'm going to try to write tonight, and then check the results tomorrow morning.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 6, 2018 19:37:35 GMT -5
Yeah, it's clear that she's mentally ill, and been mentally ill for a long time, and unfortunately, mentally ill celebrities rarely get appropriate treatment because they can afford to pay people to cater to their derangements.
But it's more than a little ironic that the woman who once tore up a picture of the Pope because Catholicism is so patriarchal is now calling herself a Muslim. But can't distinguish between "white person" and "non-Muslim."
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Post by Amadan on Nov 6, 2018 15:52:05 GMT -5
I am actually an elitist - I think most people are too ignorant and uninformed to vote, and I wish they wouldn't.
But, I support everyone's right to vote for the same reason I support free speech, even though I wish Neo-Nazis and the KKK would crawl into a hole and die.
I don't agree that "more people voting" is objectively a good thing, though (unless it translates to "more people becoming educated about the issues," which we all know it does not). If you're being honest, you want more people on your side to vote. Nobody is going to cheer if a surge in voter participation results in their side being crushed.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 6, 2018 9:27:14 GMT -5
Can somebody please explain this to me? Last night I watched a clip on CNN where voters in Wisconsin were complaining that the new ID requirements made it impossible for them to go and vote. One woman said that it was unfair that she had to go and get new ID (she didn't have a driver's license) and that she hadn't applied in time, so now she couldn't vote. Another person said that she liked it better when you didn't need ID. Huh? In the U.S. you can vote without showing proper ID??? Is that true? How can you prevent voter fraud if there isn't system that prevents the same person voting multiple times? Or did it just look like that on the CNN clip? It's understandable that being outside the U.S., this seems strange to you. In principle, I agree with you that showing an ID to vote seems fairly sensible. The problem, and the reason why it's such a hot-button topic here, is that historically, "voter id" is linked to a whole range of tactics that have been used to suppress the vote, primarily of African-Americans and other minorities. People who are pushing for voter ID requirements typically claim they are concerned about voter fraud, but coincidentally tend to be Republicans in states with large, rural African-American populations who frequently don't have driver's licenses or other official ID. Yes, you might say, it's not that hard to get an ID, and it seems like a minor effort if you want to vote, but it's kind of like closing rural polling places (which requires a lot of poor people without cars to find their way into the nearest city) - it can be argued as a cost-saving measure, but when coincidentally it always seems to affect one particular demographic, it becomes highly suspect. Then you have our national distrust of the whole idea of "documents, please" - Don is the most extreme example of distrust for the gummint, but most Americans have some level of aversion to allowing the government to tag and track us stamped into our psyches.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 6, 2018 9:20:11 GMT -5
I empathize with your personal situation, Don, and like rob, I have said repeatedly that I agree the situation is fucked up and you and your wife should be able to make use of cannabis, recreationally or medicinally, in peace. And I understand why this is so personal and emotive to you. But even if you and your wife were put in jail for the rest of your lives (which would be terrible and wrong) - even with all the people who have been put in jail (which is terrible and wrong) - it's still not a fucking Holocaust, and painting things in such hyperbolic terms because they affect you deeply and personally does not enhance your persuasiveness.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 5, 2018 10:50:14 GMT -5
One of the reasons I don't register with a party (though the downside of that is that in the recent preliminaries the only office I got to vote for was a school board seat).
I don't like the playing gotcha with people, though, not even Ocasio-Cortez - just because you missed a ballot last time doesn't mean you forsake your right to ever say anything about voting again.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 5, 2018 10:43:50 GMT -5
If it's hyperbolic to introduce the H-word in a debate about drugs, it's equally hyperbolic to assert certain words and phrases belong to one specific group and no one else should ever try to use it to describe any other group or occurrence. Words have power and words have meaning and certain words have more meaning to some than it does to others. I am not objecting to the "H-word" or saying that only Jews are allowed to use it. It isn't the word "Holocaust" that made me think he's gone off the rails, it's the actions associated with that word, which he thinks are reasonable to compare with making pot illegal. If he'd said criminalizing cannabis was a crime on the same scale as the institution of slavery, or wiping out Native American tribes, I've have said the same thing about it being a ridiculous comparison.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 5, 2018 8:45:29 GMT -5
Your chain of reasoning is entirely speculative. Sure, it is possible Anslinger was a Lex Luthor-like strategist deliberating creating a criminal empire for the purpose of subjugating black people.
I think my theory is equally (actually, more) viable - he was a narcissistic, maybe even sociopathic bureaucrat who wanted to expand his power, and didn't look nearly as far into the future as you credit him.
Either way, he was a villain, but only using your far-fetched scenario of a purely evil supervillain do you get to get away with saying that passing laws against pot is just like herding people into gas chambers.
And you still haven't addressed my point that you could draw such speculative cause-and-effect chains to immense damage from pretty much everything the government does. So why don't you just suggest we kill everyone who works for the government, since they're all the equivalent of Auschwitz guards? Am I being too far-fetched and speculative to suggest you want to commit mass murder?
This is the same kind of reasoning you are using.
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