Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I suspect firearm prices wont change much, I might hope that certain NFA items will come down in price but I suspect theyre going to simply adjust to their new equilibrium and stay at their current insane highs forever. I suspect that most capacity changes have already been felt for generic title II stuff. At least thats my gut feeling, we didnt see price inflation like 2012 to draw back from.

Pence is more dangerous and worse than Trump. I think that says enough about him.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
They don't get to blame the liberals

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

My Facebook feed is full of #NeverTrump Republicans blaming the Democrats for Trump's soon-to-be Presidency.

They should have voted Clinton.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
What does this thread have to do with religion can we keep this out of it?

That's a very good point. It doesn't matter whether or not anti-LGBT bigots are correct in their interpretation of their religious texts, we are a secular nation and all that matters is the end result. And no matter how you interpret any religious text their beliefs are awful and their policy positions are awful.

You accidentally hit the answer: it shouldn't matter that the conscience rights are rooted in religion, all people should be entitled to freedom of conscience.

It is a mark of the creeping invasion of the state that we have been forced up against what should be a distant rearward bulwark. No citizen should be forced to provide a service, or be made to speak words they do not wish to. It is a shameful thing that atheists have been stripped of their conscience rights, and I do wish advocates like Pence would more forcefully make clear that their moral case is universal, not tied to any particular belief system.

Prestor Jon wrote:

I didn't forget I just discount it as a show vote. Every Republican got to go on record as voting to repeal the ACA when they knew that Obama would veto it and the Republicans didn't have the votes to overturn the veto. It was a completely safe vote. Repealing the ACA with Trump to sign off on it puts the Republicans on the hook for replacing it with Comprehensive Federally Controlled Health Insurance 2.0 and I have zero faith in Congress to come up with anything practical and workable that doesn't end up bankrupting itself and causing more harmful unintended consequences.

Here's the thing, the ACA is already well into the death spiral. The only people it works for are the chronically ill and low income; there is no incentive for a low-risk individual to enter the pool and pay outrageous amounts for terrible coverage with a low probability they will need it. When it was set up the ACA largely violated the premise of insurance, that individuals have similar risk profiles.

This isn't to say I think sick people should just die, but the ACA was a very cumbersome fix to a few very specific problem/small number of individuals and it is currently suffering from obvious design flaws that many people called it on in the early days.

The prudent thing would be to just leave the ACA as is and let it continue to implode. At this point it's on its last legs and in another year or so the endgame will play out without anyone having to do anything to it. I think a lot of policymakers know this which is why I'm curious to see if they slow play its repeal. It already did its damage to premiums for the average person, and provider liquidity has already been crushed.

 whembly wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
The Republicans won big....too big. Now they actually are stuck acting on their policies. They don't get to blame the liberals, they won't get rely on scare tactics about liberals. Even people in this forum will lose the ability to say "just as bad" as there is nobody to he as bad as. Republicans lost their get out of jail free card. For 4 years any failures are their fault. And IF they fail then the entire ideology will be a failure.

Should be interesting to say the least.

The ACA is going to be interesting to watch. They got 80 some votes to repeal, but what will they do when it actually has consequences?

They're not going to repeal it. If they repeal they have to replace it with something. They already backed off their repeal rhetoric years ago and switched to tweaking/"fixing" parts of it which is just going to make it more of a hodgepodge of contradictions, convoluted regulations and unintended consequences. Some aspects of the ACA might actually be improved but the general status of "Healthcare" in the US is still going to be a monumental snafu.

I disagree.

The ACA is going to be repealed (or at least gutted), with some stuff left in, such as:
-leaving the prohibition of using pre-existing condition criteria
-leaving the prohibition of having lifetime maximum coverage

They'll pass some sort of 'Medicaid' program targeting those remaining 20-30 million people w/o insurance.

I dunno, if you look at Ryan's language today he said "fixing" it. They could have been working on fixing it for the last six years though as opposed to holding endless posturing votes for repealing it that never had a shot to pass.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
You accidentally hit the answer: it shouldn't matter that the conscience rights are rooted in religion, all people should be entitled to freedom of conscience.

It is a mark of the creeping invasion of the state that we have been forced up against what should be a distant rearward bulwark. No citizen should be forced to provide a service, or be made to speak words they do not wish to. It is a shameful thing that atheists have been stripped of their conscience rights, and I do wish advocates like Pence would more forcefully make clear that their moral case is universal, not tied to any particular belief system.

So you support repealing the laws banning segregation and allowing businesses to have "whites only" policies?

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
What does this thread have to do with religion can we keep this out of it?

That's a very good point. It doesn't matter whether or not anti-LGBT bigots are correct in their interpretation of their religious texts, we are a secular nation and all that matters is the end result. And no matter how you interpret any religious text their beliefs are awful and their policy positions are awful.

You accidentally hit the answer: it shouldn't matter that the conscience rights are rooted in religion, all people should be entitled to freedom of conscience.

It is a mark of the creeping invasion of the state that we have been forced up against what should be a distant rearward bulwark. No citizen should be forced to provide a service, or be made to speak words they do not wish to. It is a shameful thing that atheists have been stripped of their conscience rights, and I do wish advocates like Pence would more forcefully make clear that their moral case is universal, not tied to any particular belief system.

Problem: I do not believe in their "morals". It conflicts with my belief system-that every person is equal under the law and should be afforded equal rights.

 Peregrine wrote:


So you support repealing the laws banning segregation and allowing businesses to have "whites only" policies?

Universities/student govs are already creating 'blacks only' areas for 'safe spaces' so are you a proponent of 'good' identity politics?

Get rid of all that gak.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
They don't get to blame the liberals

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

My Facebook feed is full of #NeverTrump Republicans blaming the Democrats for Trump's soon-to-be Presidency.

Again, supposedly Trump won with less votes than McCain achieved. So it really is the Democrats fault.

Thanks Obama!

 jreilly89 wrote:
Pence is more dangerous and worse than Trump. I think that says enough about him.

He is more dangerous because he knows what he is doing and how the system works. It's the very reason people were so afraid of Clinton-she would have been very effective at getting her ideas into law.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
You accidentally hit the answer: it shouldn't matter that the conscience rights are rooted in religion, all people should be entitled to freedom of conscience.

It is a mark of the creeping invasion of the state that we have been forced up against what should be a distant rearward bulwark. No citizen should be forced to provide a service, or be made to speak words they do not wish to. It is a shameful thing that atheists have been stripped of their conscience rights, and I do wish advocates like Pence would more forcefully make clear that their moral case is universal, not tied to any particular belief system.

So you support repealing the laws banning segregation and allowing businesses to have "whites only" policies?

You could do that and the number of "whites only" signs you might see would likely be far fewer than you expect since it's not the 1960s anymore. Here in NC, HB2 removed LGBT persons from being a protected class anywhere so technically business could discriminate against them yet in the months that have followed, amidst all of the cancelled concerts, athletic events, public outrage etc. we don't see any reports of businesses putting up signs of "heterosexuals only" or discriminating against homosexuals. Given the rhetoric surrounding HB2 (which is objectively a terrible piece of legislation) one would think that we should be seeing acts of homophobic discrimination occurring all over the state but we're not because regardless of the existence of HB2 there just aren't a lot of people or businesses that want to actively and overtly discriminate against people based on who they have consensual intercourse with in their private lives. There was no need to pass HB2 but the passage of it didn't suddenly create widespread acts of bigotry that weren't occurring beforehand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
What does this thread have to do with religion can we keep this out of it?

That's a very good point. It doesn't matter whether or not anti-LGBT bigots are correct in their interpretation of their religious texts, we are a secular nation and all that matters is the end result. And no matter how you interpret any religious text their beliefs are awful and their policy positions are awful.

You accidentally hit the answer: it shouldn't matter that the conscience rights are rooted in religion, all people should be entitled to freedom of conscience.

It is a mark of the creeping invasion of the state that we have been forced up against what should be a distant rearward bulwark. No citizen should be forced to provide a service, or be made to speak words they do not wish to. It is a shameful thing that atheists have been stripped of their conscience rights, and I do wish advocates like Pence would more forcefully make clear that their moral case is universal, not tied to any particular belief system.

Problem: I do not believe in their "morals". It conflicts with my belief system-that every person is equal under the law and should be afforded equal rights.

What right do you have to force another person to perform a service for you against their will?

What you say makes good sense, however if the ability to pass useless ineffective unjust laws was restored, would it be a good thing?

In one sense, to demonstrate the uselessness of such laws may be worth the effort of passing them.

 Frazzled wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
They don't get to blame the liberals

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

My Facebook feed is full of #NeverTrump Republicans blaming the Democrats for Trump's soon-to-be Presidency.

Again, supposedly Trump won with less votes than McCain achieved. So it really is the Democrats fault.

Thanks Obama!

Not even Democrats; young democrats. The demographic that was pivotal in putting Obama into office didn't turn out to (essentially cause this is really all it came down to on the left for lots of people) keep Trump out. Who knows how that might effect future voting patterns for that age group. People who don't vote are more likely to not vote again (vice versa).

Months ago it looked like the Republicans were facing a critical point, but instead it seems they will now rally around a new direction provided by Trump and it might be the Democrats actually facing a critical point. The party has sat in a center position on American politics for most of the last three decades, but after this (and with a proverbial "I'm in the political middle" candidate in HRC) is that really viable anymore? When the right equates anything left of itself as socialist and super liberal, maybe the Dems are better off just going far left. Anyone Dem who runs gets accused of it anyway and after Bernie Sanders it's pretty clear there is real enthusiasm for those politics in a major demographic.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
You accidentally hit the answer: it shouldn't matter that the conscience rights are rooted in religion, all people should be entitled to freedom of conscience.

It is a mark of the creeping invasion of the state that we have been forced up against what should be a distant rearward bulwark. No citizen should be forced to provide a service, or be made to speak words they do not wish to. It is a shameful thing that atheists have been stripped of their conscience rights, and I do wish advocates like Pence would more forcefully make clear that their moral case is universal, not tied to any particular belief system.

So you support repealing the laws banning segregation and allowing businesses to have "whites only" policies?

Strawman much?

RFRA laws are meant to restrict government intrusions.

 sourclams wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


So you support repealing the laws banning segregation and allowing businesses to have "whites only" policies?

Universities/student govs are already creating 'blacks only' areas for 'safe spaces' so are you a proponent of 'good' identity politics?

Get rid of all that gak.

I am a liberal college professor (yeah, I fit the stereotype) and I can tell you that those programs are student initiated and opposed at nearly every level of the faculty except for the extremely higher up admistration (who ironically, tend to be much more conservative than the teachers and Dept. heads). I oppose them adamantly. The presidents and deans are often looking at the bottom economic line, not what best serves for a vibrant debate and education so they do what their "customers" want.

@prestor Jon asked:' "What right do you have to force another person to perform a service for you against their will?"

Your rights end when they infringe upon another's rights in the public sphere. I have the right to carry a gun. I do not have the right to deny someone else the right to life.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What you say makes good sense, however if the ability to pass useless ineffective unjust laws was restored, would it be a good thing?

In one sense, to demonstrate the uselessness of such laws may be worth the effort of passing them.

That's a good point... if only those who favored such laws would be open to change their minds. That's the problem...

 Stevefamine wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 Stevefamine wrote:
A lot of hate ITT for our new President of the United States

Lets see what he can do January 20th and after. I'm excited to see what the future has in store with the red seats in house, a solid senate, and what Obama's leaving office procedure is.

Buzzsaw - opinions on the new VP Pence?

Pence is a piece of gak

POS? - I thought we had a mod just mention the swear filter.

That wasn't really an opinion. I assume you were behind another Republican Candidate and went third party/no vote? Which speech of his did you watch? I thought he was extremely solid in Kaine vs Pence. I know he had a solid speech in Iowa how was the Chicago speech?


eidt: Thanks Buzzsaw. Yeah I've watched him speak a dozen or so times now, he's much better than what I originally envisioned when he was picked. I had no prior knowledge of him and had to do some digging. Compared to the Don's debates, he looked great. All of my friends are gun-owners and like him a lot. I will be an owner shortly in PA - but as of now I do not own one or follow the NRA at all

Besides the fact that he believes in and funds gay conversion therapy that results in a high suicide rate amongst the people put through it.

Unless you like kids killing themselves that is

Obamacare: Kill it...kill it with fire.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And replace it with what? The policy alternatives from the Republicans and Trump are either nonexistent or are appear even less workable. The ACA has huge issues, but it cant just be "killed" either.

In a sense, yes it can. If it is no longer required for people to purchase coverage nor the insurers to maintain their insurance products on the exchanges, then those with the coverage are kept into a closed block of business and no new sales are made. The insurance company can continue to raise the rates on the block of business and the people will eventually filter out. This happens all the time on old insurance products (maybe no longer profitable) that are no longer marketed, as you cannot just cancel the policies. Whether or not the government keeps up the subsidies is an entirely different issue, as I am sure the 'tax' on not having qualifying coverage will be the first thing to go.

This will stop the insurance company hemorrhaging of total guaranteed issue cases and the subsequent high claims. However, the answer to guaranteed issue (no pre-existing condition limitations) medical coverage that is affordable will continue to be an enigma. The only logical conventional thought beyond national healthcare (like Canada, etc.) is to run all medical charges as limits, similar to the way the government sets payment levels for Medicare. But then, what doctors would agree to this?

Hey, maybe we can couple this with the civil suit limits that are always brought up? Doctors and Lawyers simply do not need to make multi-millions of dollars a year...

Oh, Mr. Trump - may I have a word with you...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What you say makes good sense, however if the ability to pass useless ineffective unjust laws was restored, would it be a good thing?

In one sense, to demonstrate the uselessness of such laws may be worth the effort of passing them.

When did we restrict the ability to pass useless ineffective unjust laws? We do that all the time at the local, state and federal level.

 whembly wrote:
Strawman much?

RFRA laws are meant to restrict government intrusions.

No, it's not a straw man at all. Laws banning anti-gay discrimination and laws banning racial discrimination are exactly the same in function, the only difference is which group is protected from discrimination.

 Ustrello wrote:
Besides the fact that he believes in and funds gay conversion therapy that results in a high suicide rate amongst the people put through it.

Unless you like kids killing themselves that is

Well Trump&Co only care about christian whites. Rest should just kneel and die.

Prestor Jon wrote:
You could do that and the number of "whites only" signs you might see would likely be far fewer than you expect since it's not the 1960s anymore. Here in NC, HB2 removed LGBT persons from being a protected class anywhere so technically business could discriminate against them yet in the months that have followed, amidst all of the cancelled concerts, athletic events, public outrage etc. we don't see any reports of businesses putting up signs of "heterosexuals only" or discriminating against homosexuals. Given the rhetoric surrounding HB2 (which is objectively a terrible piece of legislation) one would think that we should be seeing acts of homophobic discrimination occurring all over the state but we're not because regardless of the existence of HB2 there just aren't a lot of people or businesses that want to actively and overtly discriminate against people based on who they have consensual intercourse with in their private lives. There was no need to pass HB2 but the passage of it didn't suddenly create widespread acts of bigotry that weren't occurring beforehand.

If the law has no effect because nobody wants to discriminate then why was it so important to pass it, and why is it so important to defend it? If it was really a non-issue because nobody wanted to do anything horrible then the NC legislature would have repealed HB2 as soon as people started canceling stuff. The fact that the deplorables consider things like HB2 to be important is pretty clear evidence that it is not a non-issue, and that quite a few people do in fact want the ability to discriminate against LGBT people.

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Strawman much?

RFRA laws are meant to restrict government intrusions.

No, it's not a straw man at all. Laws banning anti-gay discrimination and laws banning racial discrimination are exactly the same in function, the only difference is which group is protected from discrimination.

We needed laws against racial discrimination to stop the state from practicing segregation. Racial segregation in the south was required by law, there was no way to remove state required segregation from society without making it illegal for states to do it. It's not as if the state wasn't discriminating and Jim Crow laws were just an invention by private business, it was literally illegal to integrate schools, businesses etc. We should absolutely continue to have laws that prohibit the State from discriminating against people as we are all equal in the eyes of the law but we should also allow people to make their own choices and be responsible for their own actions. You could revoke the civil rights act tomorrow and the university of Alabama isn't going to suddenly segregate itself into being whites only again just because it's not illegal anymore.

 Ustrello wrote:

 Stevefamine wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 Stevefamine wrote:
A lot of hate ITT for our new President of the United States

Lets see what he can do January 20th and after. I'm excited to see what the future has in store with the red seats in house, a solid senate, and what Obama's leaving office procedure is.

Buzzsaw - opinions on the new VP Pence?

Pence is a piece of gak

POS? - I thought we had a mod just mention the swear filter.

That wasn't really an opinion. I assume you were behind another Republican Candidate and went third party/no vote? Which speech of his did you watch? I thought he was extremely solid in Kaine vs Pence. I know he had a solid speech in Iowa how was the Chicago speech?


eidt: Thanks Buzzsaw. Yeah I've watched him speak a dozen or so times now, he's much better than what I originally envisioned when he was picked. I had no prior knowledge of him and had to do some digging. Compared to the Don's debates, he looked great. All of my friends are gun-owners and like him a lot. I will be an owner shortly in PA - but as of now I do not own one or follow the NRA at all

Besides the fact that he believes in and funds gay conversion therapy that results in a high suicide rate amongst the people put through it.

Unless you like kids killing themselves that is

You never mentioned that, you simply called him a POS.

Whats your opinion on our glorious Milo then?

 Stevefamine wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 Stevefamine wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 Stevefamine wrote:
A lot of hate ITT for our new President of the United States

Lets see what he can do January 20th and after. I'm excited to see what the future has in store with the red seats in house, a solid senate, and what Obama's leaving office procedure is.

Buzzsaw - opinions on the new VP Pence?

Pence is a piece of gak

POS? - I thought we had a mod just mention the swear filter.

That wasn't really an opinion. I assume you were behind another Republican Candidate and went third party/no vote? Which speech of his did you watch? I thought he was extremely solid in Kaine vs Pence. I know he had a solid speech in Iowa how was the Chicago speech?


eidt: Thanks Buzzsaw. Yeah I've watched him speak a dozen or so times now, he's much better than what I originally envisioned when he was picked. I had no prior knowledge of him and had to do some digging. Compared to the Don's debates, he looked great. All of my friends are gun-owners and like him a lot. I will be an owner shortly in PA - but as of now I do not own one or follow the NRA at all

Besides the fact that he believes in and funds gay conversion therapy that results in a high suicide rate amongst the people put through it.

Unless you like kids killing themselves that is

You never mentioned that, you simply called him a POS.

Whats your opinion on our glorious Milo then?

Because it is well known on this forum that he is a piece of gak and the reasons have been listed.

I don't care for milo either mainly because he doesn't know how to properly cite sources

Segregation was not the sole product of state laws, especially when even after passing the Civil Right's Act it persisted in some places well into the late 70s.

It is simultaneously foolish to regard Jim Crow as the product of public or private actions. Jim Crow needed both to exist. The private to produce the sentiment and the public to legitimize it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
You could do that and the number of "whites only" signs you might see would likely be far fewer than you expect since it's not the 1960s anymore. Here in NC, HB2 removed LGBT persons from being a protected class anywhere so technically business could discriminate against them yet in the months that have followed, amidst all of the cancelled concerts, athletic events, public outrage etc. we don't see any reports of businesses putting up signs of "heterosexuals only" or discriminating against homosexuals. Given the rhetoric surrounding HB2 (which is objectively a terrible piece of legislation) one would think that we should be seeing acts of homophobic discrimination occurring all over the state but we're not because regardless of the existence of HB2 there just aren't a lot of people or businesses that want to actively and overtly discriminate against people based on who they have consensual intercourse with in their private lives. There was no need to pass HB2 but the passage of it didn't suddenly create widespread acts of bigotry that weren't occurring beforehand.

If the law has no effect because nobody wants to discriminate then why was it so important to pass it, and why is it so important to defend it? If it was really a non-issue because nobody wanted to do anything horrible then the NC legislature would have repealed HB2 as soon as people started canceling stuff. The fact that the deplorables consider things like HB2 to be important is pretty clear evidence that it is not a non-issue, and that quite a few people do in fact want the ability to discriminate against LGBT people.

It wasn't important to pass it, unless you take the angle that it was important for Republicans in the state legislature to create a social wedge issue in an election year, and it isn't important to defend it. It's a terrible piece of legislation and I've stated it's terrible in every post in which I mention it. The whole bathroom issue is utter nonsense, anything that people are scared of transgendered people doing in a bathroom that's bad is already illegal and there's never been any mechanism in place to control which public bathroom people use and there still isn't. The point isn't that HB2 is good legislation, it isn't, the point is that removing protected class protection from LGBT people in NC didn't suddenly create acts of bigotry against LGBT people in NC where they didn't exist previously. Are there suddenly "Heterosexuals Only" signs up on businesses in Charlotte now that its not a violation of the protected class status of LGBT people whereas before it would have been? No, because businesses in Charlotte weren't clamoring for the right to discriminate against LGBT people.

You seem to be claiming that a primary factor in why we don't have segregated businesses anymore is because we passed a law against it and I'm countering that by saying that if that law went away tomorrow we wouldn't go back to segregation because times have changed, attitudes have shifted and society has evolved. Ergo we don't need laws forcing businesses not to commit acts of discrimination that businesses don't want to make because such acts of discrimination would be counter productive and not tolerated by society.

Silver lining time for those of you who are feeling depressed: Trump will be a one term president (I still have my doubts that he will ever actually serve as the CIA has a mandate to protect the country at all costs. (Can I get one last, "thanks, Obama"?). But if he does serve, his promises will prove hollow, his appeal will grow tiresome, and his voice will become intolerable.

The downside: the first midterms look abysmal for the Dems' chances for the senate, just looking at the map.

Caveat: my fear is the dems will do exactly what the GOP has been doing, tack to their extreme base. We do not need social economic ideals that have never worked in other countries. We do not need to tear down the barriers of justice. We do not need sanders voters shouting about conspiracy theories. We need a centrist left president to fix the crap again.

Prestor Jon wrote:
You seem to be claiming that a primary factor in why we don't have segregated businesses anymore is because we passed a law against it and I'm countering that by saying that if that law went away tomorrow we wouldn't go back to segregation because times have changed, attitudes have shifted and society has evolved. Ergo we don't need laws forcing businesses not to commit acts of discrimination that businesses don't want to make because such acts of discrimination would be counter productive and not tolerated by society.

If they don't do it after removing requirement then they have no problem with doing it and therefore no problem with law.

If they start discriminating just because of how the person was born then that's just sad state of law and should be illegal in the first place.

What next? Discriminating because you don't like green eyes?