Exhaustion 2012 (or, It's Not Forcible Rape if the SuperPAC is Willing) - by june gloom
june gloom on 10/9/2012 at 02:31
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
But has it always been so frothingly conservative? This is as medieval as the Islamic practices I see criticised in the Western media.
And if it has, how are you only changing your mind only now?
Yes, and who says I've changed my mind recently? I've gradually shed the half-formed conservative ideas that my parents instilled in me over the course of years.
Vasquez on 10/9/2012 at 03:22
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
This is as medieval as the Islamic practices I see criticised in the Western media.
Oh no, it ain't the same at all! You see, them Muslims just wanna oppress their wimmin because they're Evil, whereas True Believers have a mission from God, protecting life and saving poor women's souls. As you know, women are fickle and witless like children - they need a man's firm hand to keep them in the Path.
scarykitties on 10/9/2012 at 03:25
You see your candidate as a wise leader who nevertheless is beyond his prime, teaching you to become your best but at the end of his time.
You see their candidate as a bad-ass blackguard who never quits even against the greatest odds. While his tactics are questionable, it's hard to not admire his resolve. Also, the more you learn about his backstory, the less you like him.
In reality, both of them are racist stereotypes.
Couldn't agree more, CCC! :thumb:
demagogue on 10/9/2012 at 08:33
I ran a debate in my class, and the topics they picked were capital punishment, abortion, and gay marriage. Pretty good debate all around... It reminded me how important open debate is to democracies (which Burma is still very new at), when people are really allowed to openly disagree & actually give *reasons* for what they really think you should give them the respect to hear them out & respond to. So I thought it was an important lesson just on that front.
But as expected the argument against gay marriage didn't really have a leg to stand on. I told them if they're going to argue "it's religious & cultural values", they still have to connect it to the state or why does the state have to care, especially binding people that have different values? The only argument I could even think of on that front would be the "democracy" argument (values of the law should reflect the social values of the people, all things else equal; because democracy means gov't in the service of the people & the people decide the values), but to be honest I don't really see that one flying either because it's a limitation of a fundamental right of a minority with a basis in discrimination, where we've always suspected democracy & the tyranny of the majority over the minority, exactly what Constitutions & "fundamental rights" were made to protect against, but they didn't even get to the democracy part and just settled with, it's religion & our culture...
I was thinking about not letting them pick that topic to not have to even pretend that arguments you know are going to have discriminatory premises are even valid, but now I think it was better in the end. This is *really* pushing the envelope from their culture to even debate the possibility gay marriage could be ok, and the side arguing in favor of gay marriage slam dunked it. So I think it was valuable for everyone to hear them give the case and not say that the "other side" didn't get a fair hearing.
Similar thing I could say about the abortion debate. But at least in that case, IMHO, the concept that a fetus has no life right at all isn't immediately obvious, at least if we're talking really late term -- you're starting to get a very "infant like" creature. Or flip the argument on its head into a reductio: the brain is still developing like a still-work-in-progress creature well after physical birth. So what's special about the "birth" line after all; we may as well terminate actually born children if we took the "fetus doesn't exhibit traits of persons" argument seriously -- neither do actual born infants -- which I don't think would ever fly. But anyway, even these arguments are still not suggessting a raped woman really has to bear an unwanted child; for one thing the arguments about the fetus being "like persons" gets weaker and weaker the earlier in term you go. Anyway, I thought both sides made pretty solid arguments that deserve serious responses on that one (putting my own position aside).
I'll save my thoughts on the capital punishment debate for another ocassion.
DDL on 10/9/2012 at 08:35
I would totally vote Vader, every time.
That dude gets shit done.
At the worst, you could argue that he'd waste like, half the budget on a ludicrous weapons platform...in which case he still wouldn't be terribly different from either current candidate.. :joke:
EDIT: regarding the whole right to life argument, I tend to adopt a sort of.."life experience"-based model: it's not 'destruction of life' so much as 'destruction of self-aware consciousness' that I dislike, hence death penalties are a no-no while abortion is ok.
And while I'm pretty sure that the ol' "hay let's just kill babbys" argument (i.e. if foetuses aren't conscious, neither are babies, for quite some time, so why distinguish them separately w.r.t. killing 'em) wouldn't fly in the western world, it's probably worth noting that infanticide is still not entirely uncommon, and historically was fairly widely practiced (mind you, so was the death penalty: in england at one point you could get hanged for 'associating with gypsies for a month or more', ffs)
Thirith on 10/9/2012 at 08:39
Quote Posted by DDL
I would totally vote Vader, every time.
That dude gets shit
done.
Yeah, but you also know that every time he's sandbagged by Congress, he'll fall onto his knees and go "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
DDL on 10/9/2012 at 08:53
Man, that's star wars AND politics ruined, now.
DAMN YOU GEORGE LUCAS
Maxmillion on 18/9/2012 at 17:07
Of course, what the Rom Bot doesn't say is the reason for comparatively low amounts of people not paying income taxes is
A. A depression
B. Tax polices voted in by Republican congress critters and signed by a Republican president.
And that's of course payroll, property, sales taxes etc. which for some reason don't count.
