Right wing disinformation mill in full swing

Thank you for establishing that you are UNABLE to substantiate the bovine excrement allegation that there are "god given rights".

 

Says the cherry picker.

 

My pleasure. Now do make sure you have a gun-free home.

 

Then we are in agreement that you are the cherry picker!

 

I've had guns and I've been gun free. My politics didn't change. It's a public health and criminology issue, rather than a left versus right. The spectrum really only comes into it when evidence is discussed. There is a whole sub forum on here bursting with right wingers religiously chanting that evidence does not matter. Researchers must be biased. Data must be corrupt. Ideology cannot be challenged. Evidence-based is replaced by group chirp.

 

LOL, whatever helps you sleep at night, that is if you do without dreaming about Trump.

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

Dead wrong of course.

 

Those are the OPINIONS of MEN, not "the word" of your god!

But thanks for establishing that you are UNABLE to provide any shred of FACTUAL EVIDENCE to support your bogus allegation about "god given rights".

 

I am not sure why you are trying yo make this about me. Are you that insecure in your own beliefs that you half to attack random people on the internet?

If this country was not formed for exactly the reasons explained in the Declaration of Independence, by all means feel free to enlighten us. I will gladly consider any rational argument you put forth.

Although I am not sure how you think you can win. Those guys have been dead along time, and their reasons are pretty well documented.

 

Well, we agree that evidence for one's beliefs is critical. And I hope we agree that, for any belief one has, one always applies the criterion, "What evidence would make me change my mind?"

And there's the rub: I changed my mind about the job-destroying effects of a sensible minimum wage, after reading a bunch of articles pro- and con- the minimum wage, but especially articles by economists actually measuring its effects: one on Seattle, the other comparing employment in two similar counties, separated only by a state line, where one state passed a minimum wage bill and the other state didn't.

But that was easy. I believe a lot of what drives people who want to be able to hold on to serious firepower, is anxiety about the future, in which either in their particular micro-situation, or more generally, the protection of the state breaks down. Now of course when I use the word 'anxiety' we all respond -- or all us males do anyway -- by laughing. Ha ha ha, little snowflakes, real men fear nothing, etc etc. This response can be dismissed with a wave of the hand.

No one knows the future. Conservatives, in particular, have always been prone to believe that America is somehow charmed, watched over by God, a special nation in the world, protected by its unique virtue. It's generally been on the Left that prophecies of doom have been found: growing inequality, climate change, over-population. But I believe that is changing, and I believe it's right to change. No one knows the future, but there are some very disturbing trends if we pay attention.

The violent crime rate in the US has been in decline. The 'Russian threat' is gone, or at least mitigated ... far less than it was when we were toe-to-toe over Cuba, or having our airplanes shot down by Soviet air defense. And yet ... anyone who predicts a lovely peaceful happy future for the USA risks sounding like those Soviet propagandists talking up the bright future of communism for their own people.

So the problem is, with respect to gun control, there really is no evidence that could be adduced to persuade people like me cheerfully to disarm, or to disarm back to single-shot bolt-action rifles. Because no one knows the future.

If anti-gun-control people were brutally honest, they would just say, these mass killings -- which could NOT be carried out with single-shot bolt-action rifles, or even handguns (which are low-powered even when they have a high magazine capacity) -- are just the price we have to pay for our inability to believe that we'll always be safe and sound, protected by our diligent and highly competent police. We are also skeptical that if we gave up our guns, everyone would. Our Islamist friends seem quite able to get ahold of AK47s in gun-unfriendly Europe whenever they feel the need to teach the infidels how to respect Mohammed. Why should it be any different here?

I could propose some possible approaches to a solution -- weapons with high-capacity magazines to be compulsorily stored in secured neighborhood depots, supervised by a locally-elected person with volunteer deputy sherrif training. (Something like how Switzerland deals with this problem.) But they are pretty radical and would probably be laughed out of court by all sides. We certainly ought to do something about the number of madmen allowed to wander around until God tells them to go thin out the local elementary school, but this isn't easy. Liberals wouldn't like the civil-liberties aspect and conservatives wouldn't like the higher taxes implied. And of course madmen of all political persuasions would be opposed on principle.

Finally, do note that serious Marxists will take on board Lenin's famous observation that an oppresed class which doesn't try to acquire arms, deserves to be treated as slaves.

 

I look forward to your campaigning as you educate your fellow right winger on the importance of an evidence-based approach.

We will certainly help in any way we can.

Good luck!

 

I'm afraid I have found that both leftwingers and rightwinger are far far too partisan to let 'evidence' get in the way of their beliefs.
Anyway, as a conservative trained in the school of Marxism, I believe that, when we're talking about large randomly selected numbers of people, perceived material interest, interpreted in the broad sense, determines belief. Base and superstructure and all that.

All you can do on a forum like this is to hope to come across the unusual individual who is willing to take account of evidence that runs counter to his emotionally-determined values (and all of our values are like that). Someone who was willing to consider the Austrians in their argument about the necessity of the market, for example, despite his being a socialist, and to incorporate this insight into his socialist beliefs. Very admirable. Wish there were more socialists like this.

 

God Given?...The same reason these Muslim Jihadists give when they distort the Koran and threatened the Non -Believers

 

Let's not allow any anti-left bias get in the way of your campaign.

We know there is a right wing problem, backed up by right wing authoritarianism analysis. Crikey, just a week ago I had a right winger suggest that the increase in right wing terrorism was just 'vandalism'.

Get saving them!

 

Even as a right leaning individual, I can't totally disagree with you. But have you considered that maybe some of what you may consider "anti-left" is being fuelled by the non stop rhetoric from the "anti-right"?

I am not trying to say either side is to blame more than the other. But this has been going on for a long time now, and everything that can be made into mud is being slung by both sides.

 

I'd say it's slightly different on the left. The mud slinging is often skewed towards centrists bogusly applying the progressive tag. They adopt the same consensus politics as the right wing (e.g. Hillary's support for the financial elite), so need to crow oh so louder to pretend moral superiority.

 

I've been thinking about what's going on in the US, and relationship between the gleefully-predicted (by the Left) end of white majority status in the US, and the rise of mass shootings. There are a lot of factors to sort out. There seem to have been a lot of mass shootings in the US -- maniacs going to schools and shooting kids regardless of color -- which are not related at all to Mr Trump and immigration. On the other hand, it's really just disingenuous to try to blame the El Paso killer's ramagage on his environmentalism. Anyway, I've not reached a conclusion on this yet, and if I do, you'll be among the first to know.

In the meantime, do consider a possible solution: peaceful separation of the US into two new countries, 'Blue' and 'Red'. Horribly complex, for sure, but not beyond the bounds of human ingenuity. And it would be a kind of fulfillment of Lenin's very good principle about the right of nations to self-determination.

 

Exactly. I think if we could just listen and not try to second guess what someone's motivation is or what they are really thinking, it would be better. For instance, if President Trump says he thinks illegals should go home, that doesn't mean he really said he wants them to be killed. Just listen. Also, if someone says they think a certain gun model ought to be banned, that doesn't mean he really said all guns should be confiscated. Although, it might be reasonable for someone to say that a ban could eventually lead to confiscation and discuss that. Just listen.

Another idea is for parents to do all they can to get their children off the internet as much as possible. Encourage outside activities, meeting people face-to-face, hobbies, sports, making friends. But parents need to get off internet too, because if the parents are constantly on their FB and limit their children's on-line time, it just makes them hypocrites and someone not to be listened to by the young.

 

You do have a habit of throwing in nonsense and dressing it up as something more coherent. Shouldn't you be off saving the right from their anti-evidence?

 

I don't think this would happen without a civil war. And we don't want that.

 

We certainly don't. But peaceful separations have happened in the past: Norway and Sweden, Slovakia and the Czechs. The British dominions did not have to follow the American example. Scotland will cut loose peacefully in a few years, and Quebec may as well.

I know the differences between our situation and any of these, which are in two areas: the chains of empire, which now burden us. And geographical intermixtures. Nonetheless, maybe we can do it. Let's start thinking about it, anyway. Never hurts to be prepared.

 

Why are you taking your failure to substantiate your own bogus allegations personally? Pointing out that you have NOT done what is standard practice in all debates is not personal, it is factual. Had you provided the substantiation I would have thanked you for doing so.!

As far as the DOI goes the OPINION of the FF's in the preamble has nothing whatsoever to do with the LIST OF OFFENCES against the colonists that followed. Conflating them is disingenuous because the DOI was NOT replicated in the Constitution. In FACT the Constitution makes NO REFERENCE to any deity whatsoever. There is no deity mentioned in the BOR either.

Anyone who has read the thoughts and comments of the FF's when it comes to RIGHTS knows that they understood that it was the task of the government OF the People and FOR the People to UPHOLD the INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS of We the People.

Also worth noting that the DOI was a direct OVERTURNING of the "Divine Right of Kings" and a POLITICAL act of UPHOLDING the Magna Carta's INDIVIDUAL RIGHT of "with the CONSENT" of We the People.

So what you are relying on has zero factual basis. There are no such things as "god given rights". That is just a MEANINGLESS political catchphrase to dupe people into voting for one political party over another.

 

Bridget, you are far too reasonable to be taking part in the food-fights that pass for political argument on this Forum.

 

The English did away with the concept of the "Divine Right of Kings" in 1688. As for the Magna Carta, few people who mention it have actually read it. It was more a charter of Baron's rights, at best of the rights of Englishmen, than an abstract assertion of individual rights. As Edmund Burke, a 'founding father' of conservatism (an incidentally a friend of America) put it, he cared nothing for the 'Rights of Man', but did care for the 'Rights of Englishmen'. The Americans took a step, but just a step, towards a more universal scope ... about as much as could be expected at that time.

But it's true that many of the Founders were not really religious. Some were Deists, some notional Christians ... few would today be found in Pat Robertson's congregations.

But ... they swam in a certain kind of sea, where Protestant Christianity was the default. An 'atheist' in those days was looked on with horror or extreme suspicion, even by those, like Napoleon, who had disdain for Christianity. This was because of the unanswerable accusation, as Dostoeyevsky put it, that "Without God, everything is permitted."

If you read Churchill's My Early Life, he describes his own youthful 'freethought', and how he then thought better of it -- not really on philosophical grounds, but on grounds of political realism, given his ambitions. I believe Abraham Lincoln had the same outlook. As the civilized world drifts away from belief in the supernatural, there will be more and more politicians with outlook, and if they're smart, they won't be too quick to broadcast it.

America owes everything to Protestant Christianity. Had we been settled by Roman Catholics, it would be a very different country indeed, more like Latin America. It's not necessary for non-believers today to stir up dissension over trivial issues.

Atheists and believers face a very uncertain and dangerous future and we've got far more important things to worry about than quarrels about how religious or otherwise the Founders were.