coal

Do realize that no one, myself included, suggested there was any "crackdown" on anything. 

Data points.

At least four points of commonality, as opposed to one or two, would be a good start. 

I would encourage you to re-read what I wrote, before reacting to it...  Further, I would encourage you to re-read my PM before thinking that I was referring to you, when I clearly said "your opponent".  

To save yourself from the anxiety of overreacting in the future, if you feel yourself having a strong emotional reaction to anything I say, take a step back and re-read it.... I am almost certainly not talking about you.

No, this is what I said:

"I am not very supportive of the crackdown, but why wouldn't it be justified if the issue is one that can be difficult to solve with a very lenient agenda?"

I don't know what you're asking here.

I didn't say that no one was multi-accounting.  Zechien or whatever the latest incarnation of EmilRose was almost certainly was.  That doesn't change my point, however.  Nor does anything RM said change or undermine my point. 

TheHammer and REF are also my multis.

I have so many personalities. 

I have it on good faith that Mharman is my multiaccount, as are GrayParrot, Wylted, and Thett. 

It is illegal to record the police in some contexts (like, giving testimony before a grand jury), but in the context of a traffic stop there is nothing illegal about recording the police in North Carolina or anywhere else in the United States. 

The video linked by Wylted, which formerly went viral, depicts an "attorney" who was moonlighting as an Uber Driver in the context of a traffic stop.  The video does not show anything more than a rather awkward and tense exchange of words between an obviously frightened late-20 something or early-30 something attorney, related to whether police can be recorded in general (i.e., not *only* in that specific context) and what implications some "new law" invented by the cop who seemed to be in charge had to this situation.  The cops searched his car after bringing a dog who presumably gave an "alert" that there was something to be found in the car, found nothing, and the "attorney" was released. 

There are four issues, related to the video recording, at least two of which are not obvious.  The first issue is whether the police had a right to demand that the guy stop recording, which they did.  The second issue is whether the guy had to comply with that demand.  The third is whether the cop could actually make the guy stop recording.  The fourth regards the implications of the search, following the guy's refusal to stop recording. 

The cop could demand that the guy stop recording, but that's it.  The cop can't make the guy stop recording, because there is no legal justification for that.  After all, the guy was free to record whatever he wanted in the context of a traffic stop.  The post-refusal search feels retaliatory, and the cop likely knew it which is why he brought a dog rather than just saying that he observed something suspicious which would be recorded by the mic on his vest.  So, the cop knew he didn't have even reasonable suspicion, which is why he likely coached the dog to signal the presence of drugs. 

Side note:  dogs aim to please owners and are less precise at identifying drugs than the flip of a coin.  Dogs get it right about 35-40% of the time.  A coin would get it right about 50% of the time.  Was the guy's fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches violated?  Probably, but there are no damages.  It's not like he's going to file a lawsuit.  He might file a complaint, which will almost certainly be disregarded. 

Should the cops lie?  No, because lying is wrong.  This rule applies to cops as much as it applies to everyone else.  It's that simple. 

Is there anything even approaching a conceivable good faith attempt to enforce the law as it is written contained in the video?  No.  The cops were well over the line.  The standard they are and ought to be held to is one of a reasonable police officer, and a reasonable police officer doesn't make shit up when it suits him, as this cop did here.

Should we permit creative interpretations of the law, that approach outright lies?  No, because we are a country of laws and not one of men.

I believe the term "homosexual act" would refer to what two boys do when they love each other. 

"Basically" Hitler? as opposed to "literally" Hitler?  

Well, you never were one for overstatement or exaggeration.  lol

Given that bsh1 has posted a "come clean" thread, this leads me to believe he suspects multiple people of multi-accounting.  I have several theories on why this might be, though one common IP address across multiple IP addresses from various accounts is hardly an indicia of multi-accounting... it's not even plausible evidence of multi-accounting, given how IP addresses work -- especially given that many here likely post from their phones.

I think it's reasonably obvious now that philosophy is beyond the point of no return in its gradual progression into being an activist discipline, along the same lines as the rest of the humanities, the "studies" courses (gender studies, women's studies -- or worse, woymens studies,  "African American Studies") (read: fake social sciences), as well as the near comprehensive sum of all the real social sciences.  

To speak with your stereotypical philosophy undergraduate, you hear only of "debunking" things, and how "problematic" they are, for reasons that have to be "unpacked".  Even the shit that isn't per se political or ideological, like philosophy of mind, is still laden with the Derrida-esque trash language of the intellectually inebriated. 

Tell me my language is "problematic" or that an idea I have needs to be "debunked", or how you "debunked" the thoughts of someone else -- who was probably smarter than you, like Hegel -- and I already know you're a hack whose incapacity for original thought has predisposed you to the seeming psychological comfort from an ideologically driven understanding of the world.

It's all about power relations between classes of the oppressed and those who oppress, you say?  The details be damned, and if you bother to point them out you're one of more of these "problematic" classes of person: racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, and the list goes on.  Maybe you're even a xenophobe.  

The irony of course is that this new call-out ethics functions exactly the same way Nietzsche criticized dogmatic assertions of Christian morality.  As Foucault might say, the architecture of our systems of ostensible morality don't change... however variable the content may be in time or space.  (That's the reason you can't put Foucault in the same basket of imbeciles as Derrida or the Frankfurt School, btw.)  The irony of course is that this ship of fools (catch the Foucault reference? I know you didn't, because you never read Foucault, or if you did, you didn't understand it) will be the first to police language as if they were Chairman Mao's agents of the party's orthodoxy.  

Whenever I hear any person even use those words in conversation, it's like... ok, great... I can automatically predict at the very least your entire -- and unidimensional -- worldview.  How lovely.  How convenient for me, because I already know that THIS is the beginning and end of what you're capable of doing is reproducing.  Sadly, little more than an increasingly more hideous rhetorical replica of the postmodern garbage you were taught as if it were the veritably catechismal truth. 

And to someone outside of that matrix, that illusion of nonsense, what the conversation sounds like is a symphony of wild cats hissing at one another and all who have the misfortune of encountering them.  Indeed, there is more intellectual content to be had in a symphony of wild cats hissing at one another and all who have the misfortune to pass them by than there could ever be in the mind-numbing inanity that marks what passes for education these days.

(Anyone so educated should file a lawsuit against, if not burn down -- in metaphor -- the establishment which so indoctrinated them!)

Alas, this is the agony of conversations with philosophy students.  

Do you mean colleges, or high schools, or both?

Obama did not sell the same type of weapons to the Saudis that Trump did.  Nonetheless, I disapprove of any effort by any administration to give aid or comfort to the terrorist state of Saudi Arabia of any kind, including those done by the Obama administration. 

Your disinclination to acknowledge basic facts about Trump and Russia does not change what those facts are. 

Wrong thread.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm irrelevant here lol

However, one particularly evil "up and comer" in the Saudi Royal family offered what US policy makers, or, at least, some of them, thought might be a "reformer".  This person was Mohammed Bin Salam, referred to in the media as MBS.  The problem with MBS is that he is poorly educated, not especially bright, rash, arrogant, and entitled.  He may have influence in Saudi Arabia, but it's not likely to last because he's neither politically especially savvy, nor will anything he does prevent him from facing some unique challenges once Trump is out of office.  Kushner, however, is using MBS as a way in with the Saudis.  Recall that weapons package that MBS and Kushner brokered, in which US made cruise missiles were used to murder school children in Yemen.  The Saudis have wanted that technology since Bush was in office.  Bush wouldn't give it to them.  Obama wouldn't give it to them.  Trump did, and they murdered school children.  Their excuse?  "Oops!" 

Disgusting.  The the extent of Saudi filth does not end, sadly, with murdered school children.  The country is little more than an ISIS that had the wherewithal to maintain themselves as a state... for now.  Today, Syria approaches the status of being a failed state.  Expect that if MBS continues to draw closer with Russia, Riyadh will look like Aleppo.  This is especially lamentable given that Syria was, by any objective standard, a country that could have at one point been brought back from the dark side.  Now, that's not looking very likely.  While I have no problem with Assad using chemical weapons against ISIS, when he murdered women and children with chlorine gas, intervention was required.  

In any case, nothing would make me happier than to see the US hang the Saudi's out to dry.  Sadly, Trump is doing what he can to sabotage the Iran deal so that he can use that as a pretext to arm the Saudis, and they will give him a golden parachute out of the United States once the Muller Report is published. 

So, the stage was set for a geopolitical and strategic realignment of nearly everything at stake in the Middle East by the 1979 terrorism in Iran.  To even call it a "revolution" is an affront to the meaning of the word.  What happened was more fitting of Carlos the Jackal (who also had indirect ties to Soviet Intelligence) than anything approximating a "revolution" as the word is commonly understood.  No greater tragedy has occurred in the Middle East, short of perhaps the Ottoman Empire's creation in the first place, but I digress.

The oil market tumult between Ford, Carter and Reagan and growing antipathy for OPEC (a cartel that should have been decimated decades ago) prompted further American interest in alliance with Saudi Arabia.  At that time, things like "human rights" weren't really something anyone cared about beyond a passing rhetorical gesture.  So, the fact that Saudi Arabia stoned people to death, would not allow women to drive cars, and the like just wasn't a great concern for the Reagan Administration.  Oil mattered much, much more; American demand for it was insatiable. 

However, and not without irony, just as Islamic radicalism had been building -- after having been fomented by the soviets -- in Iran, so too was it building inside Saudi Arabia, and for the same reason.  The USSR went to spectacular efforts to further radicalize already radical Saudi Wahhabists, for the sole and express purpose of resisting the United States.  Initially, this continued without much success, though the dividends of their efforts paid off in unforeseen ways.  (That brand of radicalism was nearly identical to Bin Laden's radicalism, though Al Qaeda were schoolgirls compared to the yet-more radical Saudi offshoot of ISIS.)  Of course, wealthy Saudi Wahhabists have also funded terrorist efforts throughout the middle east and in particular against Israel... and we have pretended not to notice.  Pity.  Meanwhile, powerful elements within the Saudi royal family and among other influential persons have gone on to seek a more violent, evil, yet ideologically pure form of Islamic fundamentalism.  

Enter, the Iraq war.  This new species of Islam spread into Iraq, especially after the US overthrew Saddam -- who mostly kept that sort of terrorism in check, by killing everyone who happened to present even a potential challenge to his authority, and sometimes in relatively creative ways.  Barbaric and evil as it may have been, the US never really cared about Muslims killing other Muslims; or arabs killing other arabs... until Saddam became inconvenient, but thats another conversation for another day.  The point is that there's a direct line between Saudi islamic extremism and the rise of the so called "Islamic State" (which, again, was never a state... so much as a loose confederation of pathological lost Muslim boys and men whose rage at the world and their fellow Muslims was was wanton as it was ubiquitous).  

Obama, of course, knew all of this and our relationship with the Saudis strained considerably.  Members of the Royal Family who were once reliable seemed to be ceding power to more questionable forces within Saudi leadership, and their increasingly inexcusable record of human rights abuses (murdering gay men including several teenage boys, stoning rape victims, forcing underage rape victims to marry their rapists, flogging blasphemers if not murdering them, etc.) became increasingly more difficult for the West to reconcile -- in light of its invasions of, say, other countries under the pretext of human rights.  The Saudis also grew resentful over the fact that Obama used global oil prices to wage geopolitical warfare on Russia, which had the salutary effect of decimating global oil prices and placing oil at the lowest per-barrel prices it had seen in more than two decades.  

More to come... stay tuned. 

Saudi Arabia has been a historical ally of the United States since the late 1940s to early 1950s, and that alliance was not always what it is now.  Initially, during the Cold War Saudi Arabia was viewed by the CIA and American decision makers as a an ideological ally where "men of the book" were united in interests against the "godless" Soviets.  However, Saudi Wahhabism was widely regarded with an appropriate amount of skepticism who were reluctant to provide the kind of military aid to the Saudis for that reason.

The history of Saudi relations has to be read in the context of American interests in the Middle East, more generally, however.  During the Carter administration, it became glaringly obvious that the pro-Western Shah's tenure was not beyond  question.  Initial reports from reliable sources made it clear that revolution was fomenting inside Iran, though Carter neglected to take the necessary action to prevent this from metastasizing into something entirely worse and more violent.  

In his abject naivety (read: stupidity) Carter essentially disregarded the recommendations spoon fed to him by, among others, the CIA.  The Iranian revolution and subsequent hostage crisis ensued.  This single event forever changed the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia's relationship to the United States.  Before this great catastrophe, Iran was a reliable and stable ally to the West and to the United States, in particular.  The Shah's government was relatively democratic, and progressive.  

In this way, Iran represented one of the two pillars of American (and to a lesser degree, British) foreign policy triangulation between Iran, Israel, and the United States.  Iran's location was geostrategically vital to maintaining stable oil markets as well, and this played a huge role in the degree to which Western forces not only exercised influence in the region, but kept the Soviets out.  Iran is adjacent to Pakistan and Iraq, both then allies of the United Kingdom.  Nevertheless, Iran was regarded as a considerably more stable ally than Iraq, because of the differences in their culture and political climates.  Kuwait, after all, was cut out of Iran by the British to function as a chokepoint in Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf.  The French, at the same time, were closely allied with Syria as well.  

(Note: most of these alliances were the result of the Sykes-Picot treaty, in which France and England carved up the Ottoman Empire's corpse according to their economic interests.) 

A simple look at a map reveals why this was such a problem for the Soviet Union, who were already cut off from the Mediterranean sea by NATO Member Turkey, and whose sole barrier between US allies to the South was what is now Georgia and Azerbaijan.  Iran bing allied with the United States created a veritable threat to the Soviets' interests on the Caspian sea.  This, the KGB could not tolerate, and they had a solution.  The Soviet Solution, consistent with its KGB members' Sambo training, was to take advantage of forces in motion as they existed.  Sambo is the species of mixed martial arts taught in what is now Russia, but what was then the Soviet Union.  It's sort of like a mixture of Judo and Jujitsu.  Like many of the more sophisticated maneuvers in sambo, the Soviets' geopolitical strategy was to cultivate and channel the forces of Islamic radicalism within Iran which would lead to an Iranian revolution.  That is exactly what happened, and Carter in his inexcusable incompetence failed to prevent it.  In this way, the Iranian revolution shifted one of the dominoes from the US, to the USSR.  

Saudi Arabia, the only remaining wild card on the map, became the next best alternative.  By 1980, the Reagan administration did everything in their power to make nice with the Saudis who were themselves delighted to cooperate with the US to menace Iran -- their new joint enemy.  The soviets continued to fund the development of radical islamist cells within Iran, and played a key albeit plausibly deniable and indirect role in many of the Palestinian, Libyan, and other Islamic terrorist attacks that would strike Israel, the territory of Palestine, the Middle East in general, and Europe in the coming decade.  (Note: It was after having been bitten by the cobra of Islamic radicalism that the United States began to play the so called Northern Alliance against the Soviets in their woefully incompetent efforts to invade Afghanistan.  This later came to be known as "Charlie Wilson's War".)

More to come in a bit... 

Be that as it may, I didn't teach what I didn't think was worth being taught, and I spent all of 30 minutes in a 13 week lecture series on feminism. 

I taught a course on political theory, and never heard of her... odd. 

I would be shocked if this was the most visited thread.  

>How exactly are you irrelevant? 

I haven't read anything by Bell Hooks, or even heard of him/her.  However, I'll be happy to weigh in on some articles if you want. 

No, I mean the new one.  Red Dead Redemption.  

It's been... years on end since I played the first Red Dead. 

Red Dead is cool too, but not as much as John Wyck.  Have owned the game for a while now, but have not played because of COD.  Though now that the devs have seemingly fucked COD beyond repair, and BO4 looks... like Michael Condrey trash, I'll probably go to Red Dead and play it. 

omg a John Wyck fanboy... nice.

Loved the movies, and love Keanu Reeves. 

Will reply later... just wanted to address your profile pic.

Do you know why Sam was temp banned? Or why anyone was temp banned?

Ok, fine.  But, like... what was the supposed offense? 

Is this a thing now?  We celebrate 500 posts?  Please.  I had tens of thousands. 

Sadly we had to cancel the fox hunt.  The damned animal rights activists whined to the point that it wasn't even worth it.  We replaced it with more foreboding horizon-staring in abject silence.  Feel free to join.  There's some decent, but not excellent brandy in the parlor.  We'll be out on the upper terrace.  

Why is Sam being banned? 

That's what I thought.  And yeah, I like you a lot :)

There really isn't a "best way possible" to say anything; only subjectively different ways of saying the same idea.  But, I'm not opposed to "all" quoting.  Rather, I'm only opposed to BLOCK quoting.  

Quotes are fine.  Block quotes are not.  

I'd like to see debates that are grounded in fact but which do not rely on sources. 

Debates on what is morally right, ethically acceptable, or ought to be legally permitted or restricted -- read: normative debates -- are the ones I'd be most interested in having, as well.  The one caveat: all facts must be asserted in good faith (meaning, you can't make stuff up, but honest mistakes aren't penalized), and no sources.

The problem I see with most debates now is over-reliance on block quotes.  When a debater is relying on block quotes, they're usually an untalented debater and a poor communicator almost without exception.  So, rather than getting to the point they instead want to piece together a franken-case of mismatched and likely internally inconsistent parts of previously dissected writings from who knows where. 

Block quotes are like pull-ups, for the "debater" who never made it past the debate-equivilent of toilet training.  You're clever enough that you're not wetting yourself every single time you step up to have a debate, but you're not able to go without making a mess every now and then of someone else's ideas.  Then, once you go through a case of block quotes, the judge (who is often as scatter-brained and inept as the untalented debater who never made it past the communicative equivalent of toilet training) doesn't know how to weigh arguments because there weren't arguments made... just a bunch of sound and fury.  

Rebutting block quotes also takes too much time and character space.  For a modestly competent debater to have to parse through the conventional block-quoted franken-case is a waste of time and energy, because the best that the un-toilet trained debater is going to be able to do in the third or fourth round is claim that their opponent "dropped" any one of their internally inconsistent points.  So, then having wet himself the unhousebroken debater goes on to win a debate, judged by a fool as inept as he, without even realizing that he's wet himself before he even stood up to speak. 

That.  Nonsense.  Won't.  Do.

So, no sources.  No block quotes.  Just simple language.... by which I mean... something approximating an actual debate, rather than the illusion of a debate pieced together by fools no brighter than dark ships passing in the night.

Here are some potential topics:

1.  The president should have to publicly disclose all business interests and publish tax returns.

2.  An estate tax on assets taxed in life is morally wrong.

3.  Homosexuality is morally acceptable.

4.  Spanking as a form of parentally imposed discipline is morally acceptable in at least some circumstances.

5.  The state can have no more rights than those of the individual.

6.  Individual autonomy should take priority to the collective good.

7.  Rousseau's conception of human nature is misguided.

8.  Rousseau was a horrible person.

9.  The so called "patriarchy" is a delusion of the postmodern left.

10.  Gendered pronouns do not discriminate. 

11.  The progressive left's emphasis on identity politics has resulted in a net detriment to liberalism. 

12.  The evangelical right's emphasis on identity politics has resulted in a net detriment to conservatism. 

13.  No just government can criminalize homosexuality, or speech of any kind with regard to homosexuality.  

The list is obviously not exclusive, but those would be great topics. 

PM me if you are interested. 

>Do you still like the idea of UBI?

Yes.  

>Thoughts on Macron?

Not a fan.

>Also, if you remember me, honest opinon?

If you are who I think you are, I'm fond of you :p

Remind me again of your DDO username.  I remember that you at one point told me this, but I have since forgotten.  Sorry... it's not that you're not important, so much as it is that I have a lot of stuff on my mind like all the time. 

I don't really think there is an "elite" on DART.  It's not established enough as a site for an aristocracy to have emerged.

Thett and I are enjoying Windsor, though.  You can visit if you like.  

I am, thanks :)

(though, I am irrelevant now) 

Cheers.  Appreciate the explanation. 

What is a deputy mod?  Who were you on DDO?

Thanks... also, who are you?

So, why was Supa banned?  He's like the least troublesome kid on the site. 

This AMA will remain open indefinitely.  Political questions are always encouraged, but other questions are welcome too.  If you're on here and you were on DDO, please let me know who you were.  I'm sure you have many distinctive qualities, but I don't have time to sort out who everyone was. 

Thett and I will be spending the weekend at Windsor, contemplating the empire's having fallen. 

Who is Ref?

I may have been royalty on DDO, but here I am an increasingly obsolete power source.  I'm basically irrelevant.