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 Dreadwinter wrote:
Those "really bright people" who were so for freedom that they condoned slavery based on skin color, nationality, and sex?

Those bastions of virtue?

It was considered a battle that could not be won at the countries inception. You know full well that Thomas Jeffereson (who was once a slave owner) attempted to condeem slavery in the declaration of independence.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Slavery-1269536
here is a nice little artcle on that whole thing.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I'm a gun nut, and I would LOVE to see the following:

1. Fold the FBI and ATF into one agency. They have a lot of crossover anyway. When something goes wrong (Ruby Ridge, Waco) they all point the finger at the other. As a single agency the buck can't get passed as easy.

2. If you can prove habitual negligence when it comes to NOT entering NCIS data, that person and/or agency should be held liable for any illegal acts they allowed to happen.

3. Make background checks much easier to do, if you want to. FFL dealers should not have a monopoly on this.

4. More funding to making all the databases linked, computerized, and accurate.

5. Force ALL agencies that have info on those that are banned from owning guns to submit their data. Yes, this includes immigration.

#1 will never happen as long as the NRA exists IMO. Their best protection is an ineffective and crippled ATF, to be the poster child of everything that is wrong with government messing with the 2nd.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Those "really bright people" who were so for freedom that they condoned slavery based on skin color, nationality, and sex?

Those bastions of virtue?

It was considered a battle that could not be won at the countries inception. You know full well that Thomas Jeffereson (who was once a slave owner) attempted to condeem slavery in the declaration of independence.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Slavery-1269536
here is a nice little artcle on that whole thing.

The idea of having a country free of religion in the government was also thought to be a battle they could not win. But here we are, without slavery and religions attempting to sieze control of the government.

How times have changed! Its almost like that is a bullgak argument!

Georgia banned slavery from 1735 to 1750. By 1804 more than half the states had banned slavery.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Georgia banned slavery from 1735 to 1750. By 1804 more than half the states had banned slavery.

I mean you are talking pre-republic and the banning of the slave trade not slavery

 d-usa wrote:
It’s the face I make when people make stupid arguments that don’t even stand up to the arguments they previously made and which will go against the argument they make next.

But it’s like playing Calvinball, so the only way for me to not win is by playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Those "really bright people" who were so for freedom that they condoned slavery based on skin color, nationality, and sex?

Those bastions of virtue?

Also God is a poor word choice despite:

Declaration of Independence wrote:something something Nature's God something something their Creator something something Divine Providence something something

But I guess the tl;dr version of “freedom, feth yeah” is good enough.

For the time - A lot of these men were at the forfront on revolutionary ideas about the nature of the universe. These ideas spawned a secular government. At a time when your average person was deeply religious - this is an amazing feet IMO. I am an atheist BTW. If they had access to the knowledge that we know now - and in this kind of "more tollerant" religious atmosphere - I doubt "God" would have made it into the declaration of indepence. There is such a thing as playing to the crowd. This was politics so - that is entirely expected.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I'm a gun nut, and I would LOVE to see the following:

1. Fold the FBI and ATF into one agency. They have a lot of crossover anyway. When something goes wrong (Ruby Ridge, Waco) they all point the finger at the other. As a single agency the buck can't get passed as easy.

No, seperate agencies have niche abilities would allow for alot of experience. Its why we don't fold the CIA into the FBI, FBI handles instate threats, and the CIA handles foreign. Thats how it should be so that way there isn't a "I have a badge." mentality. ATF chasing after certain people is a great thing. Its niche.

2. If you can prove habitual negligence when it comes to NOT entering NCIS data, that person and/or agency should be held liable for any illegal acts they allowed to happen.

Sure I can agree with that

3. Make background checks much easier to do, if you want to. FFL dealers should not have a monopoly on this.

Sure I can agree with that

4. More funding to making all the databases linked, computerized, and accurate.

Won't happen but sure.

5. Force ALL agencies that have info on those that are banned from owning guns to submit their data. Yes, this includes immigration.

Sure I can agree with that

If anything we need to fold our intelligence appartuses we have too many currently in private hands.

Of course, if I make up secret motivations and hidden agendas rather than focus on their writings and statements I can drag down every argument as well.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Those "really bright people" who were so for freedom that they condoned slavery based on skin color, nationality, and sex?

Those bastions of virtue?

It was considered a battle that could not be won at the countries inception. You know full well that Thomas Jeffereson (who was once a slave owner) attempted to condeem slavery in the declaration of independence.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Slavery-1269536
here is a nice little artcle on that whole thing.

The idea of having a country free of religion in the government was also thought to be a battle they could not win. But here we are, without slavery and religions attempting to sieze control of the government.

How times have changed! Its almost like that is a bullgak argument!

I too find that appalling. It's funny how politics hasn't changed much in almost 300 years. I think we've had one admitted atheist in our countries entire history serve in congress. Atheism is considered political suicide - but we will see - we might have a transgendered governor in vermot soon - God forbid that was an atheist. More to the point though - a secular government is something they did fight for and achieve.

From the outside looking in, that’s just a weak excuse. They all believed in their *own* freedom, but were willing to accept that their slaves wouldn’t have it. Rich, white, land owners would get freedom (particularly, to vote) while everyone else could go screw.

Which seems unheroic to me.

 greatbigtree wrote:
From the outside looking in, that’s just a weak excuse. They all believed in their *own* freedom, but were willing to accept that their slaves wouldn’t have it. Rich, white, land owners would get freedom (particularly, to vote) while everyone else could go screw.

Which seems unheroic to me.

Would it have been more heroic to not unify as a nation against England and never had a chance? Absolutely not. A step forward is still a step forward. I too think slavery is extremely morally reprehensible. It didn't last long and they paid for their cowardice in blood. The populace still has not healed from that divide totally. Even Lincoln had to resort to trickery to get the nation on the right path and why I consider him to be the greatest president we have ever had. Even though I detest a lot of the manner in which he did it. He did what he had to do much like the founders before him.

greatbigtree wrote:Anarchism’s key feature is also right wing, in my opinion. Anarchism is every man for himself. This is opposed to the community pooling Resources, and instead allows petty tyrants to carve their own territory that they can then rule by strength.

From how I understand it anarchism is about abolishing as many hierarchies as possible and using small communal groups when needed. The "every man for himself" thing is a anarcho-capitalism thing and those people are universally despised by actual anarchists because they saw certain features they liked in anarchism and used the label while completely ignoring the other parts, like how having huge wealth inequality automatically creates/implies hierarchies. Anarchists are not fans of ether authoritarianism (including from the left, like tankies), anarcho-capitalism, or libertarianism.

 greatbigtree wrote:
From the outside looking in, that’s just a weak excuse. They all believed in their *own* freedom, but were willing to accept that their slaves wouldn’t have it. Rich, white, land owners would get freedom (particularly, to vote) while everyone else could go screw.

You do realize the concepts of slavery and only land-owners being part of a democratic process dates back to ancient Greece (and before), right?

 cuda1179 wrote:
I'm a gun nut, and I would LOVE to see the following:

1. Fold the FBI and ATF into one agency. They have a lot of crossover anyway. When something goes wrong (Ruby Ridge, Waco) they all point the finger at the other. As a single agency the buck can't get passed as easy.

2. If you can prove habitual negligence when it comes to NOT entering NCIS data, that person and/or agency should be held liable for any illegal acts they allowed to happen.

3. Make background checks much easier to do, if you want to. FFL dealers should not have a monopoly on this.

4. More funding to making all the databases linked, computerized, and accurate.

5. Force ALL agencies that have info on those that are banned from owning guns to submit their data. Yes, this includes immigration.

I'm on board for most of this, #1 I'm pretty ambivalent on, and can foresee some odd behavior resulting from liability issues on #2 though can appreciate the theory, but man would I *looooooooooooooove* to be able to do a transfer background check without having to drive halfway across town to pay someone else just to do data entry when it's convenient for them if they feel like it, in between selling to actual customers.

That said, background check fees are probably a critical part of many brick and mortar FFL's razor-thin profit margins these days.

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, background check fees are probably a critical part of many brick and mortar FFL's razor-thin profit margins these days.

As much as they seem to cost, you'd think that the internet down at the court house was powered by unicorn blood and cherub farts.

Mario wrote:

greatbigtree wrote:Anarchism’s key feature is also right wing, in my opinion. Anarchism is every man for himself. This is opposed to the community pooling Resources, and instead allows petty tyrants to carve their own territory that they can then rule by strength.

From how I understand it anarchism is about abolishing as many hierarchies as possible and using small communal groups when needed. The "every man for himself" thing is a anarcho-capitalism thing and those people are universally despised by actual anarchists because they saw certain features they liked in anarchism and used the label while completely ignoring the other parts, like how having huge wealth inequality automatically creates/implies hierarchies. Anarchists are not fans of ether authoritarianism (including from the left, like tankies), anarcho-capitalism, or libertarianism.

It’s impossible to abolish hierarchies that’s where systems that call for flattening or eliminating hierarchies fail. In anything that we do there will be a range of abilities, a bell curve, some will be better at it than others, be it painting miniatures or basketball or teaching elementary school students or yoga or being a real estate agent etc. therefore hierarchies will always exist. When systems of government try to eliminate naturally occurring hierarchies you get oppression, discontent and violence. The issue governments need to deal is how to regulate hierarchies so that those at the top don’t dominate and destabilize society and those at the bottom don’t become a disaffected underclass that destabilizes society. The disagreements on how best to regulate hierarchies are the crux of the left/right polarity in politics.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, background check fees are probably a critical part of many brick and mortar FFL's razor-thin profit margins these days.

As much as they seem to cost, you'd think that the internet down at the court house was powered by unicorn blood and cherub farts.

Yeah, the whole thing is a silly kind of rube-goldberg quadruple layer bureaucratic device.

The Greeks weren’t overthrowing “tyrants” that were oppressing them. For the Greeks, it was a step forward. For the US, they were just changing to whom the taxes were paid.

Which, for the record, the taxes were then paid to themselves, as the new governors. We declare ourselves independent of England. Hence forth, taxes shall be paid to us, and we shall create the laws you must abide by, instead of those guys. And while we do this so that we may consider ourselves free, we’re really only interested in making ourselves and people like us free. Slaves and anyone without property doesn’t get a say, and screw them.

Outside looking in. If these men were heroes, they would have sought freedom for all, not just themselves. Just my take.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, background check fees are probably a critical part of many brick and mortar FFL's razor-thin profit margins these days.

As much as they seem to cost, you'd think that the internet down at the court house was powered by unicorn blood and cherub farts.

Yeah, the whole thing is a silly kind of rube-goldberg quadruple layer bureaucratic device.

Of course it is it’s the government.

We can abolish the ATF and add a department to the FBI to run NICS and FFLs. The amount of horrific incompetence shown by the ATF in recent years should have that agency shuttered, we’d be better off without it.

@ Mario,

Fair enough. I guess I’m looking at what I’d call pragmatic Anarchism. Without the stabilizing effect of a governing body capable of resisting an individual from amassing personal force, all anarchistic “societies” will eventually give rise to Tyranny. If there is no law preventing me from doing so, I can amass weapons, and potentially followers, and force others to do as I say by virtue of force of arms.

Ultimately, I don’t think *ideal* anarchism is plausible any more than ideal communism or ideal pacifism. All it takes is one person willing to use force to compel others and the ideal fails.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, the whole thing is a silly kind of rube-goldberg quadruple layer bureaucratic device.

I know. We had to run checks for people hosting some game tournaments in an area away from the store, due to certain abrasive Youtube personalities calling out some of the 'concerns' with Tournament Judges, Staff, Hosts, etc.

...not cheap at all.

You're literally punching in a Social Security number and the screen shows you pretty blatantly who is a bad boy. It's not like you've got to decode something or read through a twenty-page essay. You can just look at the damned screen and be like, "lol nope" because if I remember correctly, it uses big bold red text to show you the naughty people.

$40.00 so some clerk can key in 9 digits and hand you a printout.

Prestor Jon wrote:
The amount of horrific incompetence shown by the ATF in recent years should have that agency shuttered, we’d be better off without it.

The best part of that sentence is it works equally well at any point in the last 3 decades.

 Ouze wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
The amount of horrific incompetence shown by the ATF in recent years should have that agency shuttered, we’d be better off without it.

The best part of that sentence is it works equally well at any point in the last 3 decades.

It honestly saddens me when I think about how the US government can have agencies that deliberately do horrible things to people (both US citizens and non) and because we have to view everything through a (R) or (D) lens half the people will find an excuse to rationalize it being ok. When half of us are willing to tolerate the intolerable we’re never going to be able to work together well enough to make things better.

greatbigtree wrote:Anarchism’s key feature is also right wing, in my opinion. Anarchism is every man for himself. This is opposed to the community pooling Resources, and instead allows petty tyrants to carve their own territory that they can then rule by strength.

Government size has little to do with left/right. Both left and right extremes require powerful governments to enforce the regime.

Anarchism most certainly is not "every man for himself". That is not what anarchism is about at all. On the contrary, anarchism is a highly collective ideology. Even the somewhat self-contradictory "individualist anarchists" (which is perhaps more a form of political nihilism rather than true anarchism) who believe that the ego (that is you) is all that matters and nobody has the right to tell you what to do, in practice end up with a highly collectivist system since all those egos need to work together on an equal, cooperative basis in order to survive and that cooperation needs to be enforced in some way to prevent anyone from endangering everyone else, so in the end even they end up 'shackling' the individual to the collective (or at least they would if they ever bothered to get out of their armchairs and try to actually implement their crazy ideas). Anarchism is a pretty diverse ideology. But it has the same roots as socialism/communism (more precisely, anarchism is variant of socialism), which puts it solidly in the left wing. Perhaps with the exception of ridiculous groups like the "anarcho-monarchists" (yeah, I am not kidding those guys really exist) who want to rule themselves and be ruled by a king at the same time. Wanting to be ruled by a king is pretty right-wing.

Xenomancers wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Xeno's definition makes absolute monarchy a far-left type of government. Let that sink in for a while.

A true American once said:
"'That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."
-Henry David Thoreau

This is how I view the spectrum.

Which, ironically, makes you a member of the far left, as that's anarchism.

AKA the best kind of left.

Wouldn't it make more sense to switch anarchy and fascism on the spectrum? If you do that you have a clear Left = more government Right = less government thing going.

No, the left-right axis is not about more or less government, that is the authoritarian-libertarian axis. Groups and individuals can move on that axis independently from the left-right axis. Therefore it is possible to have right-wing groups that are all about more government (like the Nazis) while simultaneously there are other right-wing groups that are all about less government. Same on the left. Some left-wing groups advocate more government (socialists), others advocate less government (anarchists). The left-right axis is about stuff like tradition vs progress, nationalism vs internationalism, rights vs duties, collectivism vs individualism etc. The left-right axis encompasses lots of issues, but big or small government is not one of those.

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
I just want to draw a point that it's not directly Trumps policy. It's been the United States policy for the last 20 years. Every administration has done that to date, it's just politically expedient to attack it now.

That being said, I do believe it deserves a hard look, and depended on the logistics of the nature, should be reversed.

Can you cite this? If you're talking about child seperation, I don't believe this is factually accurate. You can't tell me that if the Obama administration had been separating migrant children from their parents at the border, not one single media personality or element of the right wing wouldn't have made hay of it in the last 8 years.

And, in fact, this wasn't a problem for over an entire year of the Trump administration. So I definitely would like to see you show that this routine separation of children from their parents at the border was a common wide practice for 20 years, instead of about 2 months ago.

This is false. Observe the video. This is a flashback from 2014. President Obama is in office.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hillary+clinton+mexican+immigrants&&view=detail&mid=F8165C7E903FCBD76F13F8165C7E903FCBD76F13&&FORM=VDRVRV

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
I just want to draw a point that it's not directly Trumps policy. It's been the United States policy for the last 20 years. Every administration has done that to date, it's just politically expedient to attack it now.

That being said, I do believe it deserves a hard look, and depended on the logistics of the nature, should be reversed.

Can you cite this? If you're talking about child seperation, I don't believe this is factually accurate. You can't tell me that if the Obama administration had been separating migrant children from their parents at the border, not one single media personality or element of the right wing wouldn't have made hay of it in the last 8 years.

And, in fact, this wasn't a problem for over an entire year of the Trump administration. So I definitely would like to see you show that this routine separation of children from their parents at the border was a common wide practice for 20 years, instead of about 2 months ago.

This is false. Observe the video. This is a flashback from 2014. President Obama is in office.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hillary+clinton+mexican+immigrants&&view=detail&mid=F8165C7E903FCBD76F13F8165C7E903FCBD76F13&&FORM=VDRVRV

That video is discussing what to do with unaccompanied minors that get caught trying to illegally immigrate into the US. It is not discussing in any way the forced separation of minors accompanied by their parent(s) from their parent(s). At the time that Trump implemented the child separation policy the government already had about 7k unaccompanied minor illegal immigrants in detention and the new policy added over 3k more minors in detention because we were sepearating children from their parents. The policy shift caused a roughly 50% increase in detained minors with about one third of detained minors being children that were separated from their parents when they were caught attempting an illegal crossing.

*whispers* If you repeat it, it will be true...

I believe the seperation, while not handled in the most ideal way, is somehow related to a crackdown on human trafficking.

I could be wrong.

It is unpleasant and I would prefer a better method.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
I just want to draw a point that it's not directly Trumps policy. It's been the United States policy for the last 20 years. Every administration has done that to date, it's just politically expedient to attack it now.

That being said, I do believe it deserves a hard look, and depended on the logistics of the nature, should be reversed.

Can you cite this? If you're talking about child seperation, I don't believe this is factually accurate. You can't tell me that if the Obama administration had been separating migrant children from their parents at the border, not one single media personality or element of the right wing wouldn't have made hay of it in the last 8 years.

And, in fact, this wasn't a problem for over an entire year of the Trump administration. So I definitely would like to see you show that this routine separation of children from their parents at the border was a common wide practice for 20 years, instead of about 2 months ago.

This is false. Observe the video. This is a flashback from 2014. President Obama is in office.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hillary+clinton+mexican+immigrants&&view=detail&mid=F8165C7E903FCBD76F13F8165C7E903FCBD76F13&&FORM=VDRVRV

That video is discussing what to do with unaccompanied minors that get caught trying to illegally immigrate into the US. It is not discussing in any way the forced separation of minors accompanied by their parent(s) from their parent(s). At the time that Trump implemented the child separation policy the government already had about 7k unaccompanied minor illegal immigrants in detention and the new policy added over 3k more minors in detention because we were sepearating children from their parents. The policy shift caused a roughly 50% increase in detained minors with about one third of detained minors being children that were separated from their parents when they were caught attempting an illegal crossing.

Okay - that is interesting. It changes nothing though - it's literally the exact same problem. Families are only not released together when the identity of the children's parents can not be verified. In which HRC stated she has no solution to the problem.

If you are talking about a situation in which a large group of illegals were caught trying to cross the boarder and their children got put on a different bus and taken to a different location - that is obviously something I don't in any way support. Seems like a relatively simple fix too. Don't do that. I know that children are not housed in the same facilities as the adults - for very much the same reason we don't send children to adult jail. Is the policy everyone is referring to? Because that is an entirely different situation than verifiying a children's parents before they release them. That is a policy designed to protect children - not separate families.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
I just want to draw a point that it's not directly Trumps policy. It's been the United States policy for the last 20 years. Every administration has done that to date, it's just politically expedient to attack it now.

That being said, I do believe it deserves a hard look, and depended on the logistics of the nature, should be reversed.

Can you cite this? If you're talking about child seperation, I don't believe this is factually accurate. You can't tell me that if the Obama administration had been separating migrant children from their parents at the border, not one single media personality or element of the right wing wouldn't have made hay of it in the last 8 years.

And, in fact, this wasn't a problem for over an entire year of the Trump administration. So I definitely would like to see you show that this routine separation of children from their parents at the border was a common wide practice for 20 years, instead of about 2 months ago.

This is false. Observe the video. This is a flashback from 2014. President Obama is in office.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hillary+clinton+mexican+immigrants&&view=detail&mid=F8165C7E903FCBD76F13F8165C7E903FCBD76F13&&FORM=VDRVRV

That video is discussing what to do with unaccompanied minors that get caught trying to illegally immigrate into the US. It is not discussing in any way the forced separation of minors accompanied by their parent(s) from their parent(s). At the time that Trump implemented the child separation policy the government already had about 7k unaccompanied minor illegal immigrants in detention and the new policy added over 3k more minors in detention because we were sepearating children from their parents. The policy shift caused a roughly 50% increase in detained minors with about one third of detained minors being children that were separated from their parents when they were caught attempting an illegal crossing.

Okay - that is interesting. It changes nothing though - it's literally the exact same problem. Families are only not released together when the identity of the children's parents can not be verified. In which HRC stated she has no solution to the problem.

If you are talking about a situation in which a large group of illegals were caught trying to cross the boarder and their children got put on a different bus and taken to a different location - that is obviously something I don't in any way support. Seems like a relatively simple fix too. Don't do that. I know that children are not housed in the same facilities as the adults - for very much the same reason we don't send children to adult jail. Is the policy everyone is referring to? Because that is an entirely different situation than verifiying a children's parents before they release them. That is a policy designed to protect children - not separate families.

Separating children makes sense if were sending their parent(s) to a prison sentence for a crime but we don’t put illegal immigrants in prison. We put them in holding facilities until we figure out to which country we should deport them. In that scenario, holding people for a limited time and deporting them it makes more sense to keep a 3 year old child with his/her mother than to separate them. They’re being temporarily detained the parents aren’t being sent to prison for a decade.

His has been discussed/explained in the thread like over half a dozen times already.