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ducttape posted:Think about the past 60 years. Can you imagine that America of that era would have not ended up starting WWIII without the CIA constantly reminding anyone with any budgetary power 'the Soviets have a shitton of Nukes'? Also, that the Soviets did NOT have a shitton of nukes, and in fact had barely any nukes at all, for the first decades of the Cold War. Also very few bombers capable of dropping nukes. The 'missile gap' and 'bomber gap' myths were widely believed and led to paranoia and extreme spending by the US, even though the US was WAY WAY ahead in nuke production for a long time. Making it became clear that the Soviets weren't really as much of a threat (until later in the Cold War, when they became a very serious threat indeed, but at which point we also had a much better idea of the nature of the threat) meant that even hawks could relax somewhat and not jump for the big red button at the first threat from Stalin or his successors.
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Apr 3, 2014 23:33
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I really do love this country.quote:"But it's interesting when you look at cockfighting and dogfighting as well," [US Senate candidate Matt] Bevin said in an interview on the Terry Meiners Show on Louisville's WHAS on Thursday. "This isn't something new, it wasn't invented in Kentucky for example. I mean the Founding Fathers were all many of them very involved in this and always have been [sic.]"
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Apr 3, 2014 23:40
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If we're going to continue disparaging the gambling habits of the poor, minorities and (especially) poor minorities, we should really have a separate thread so we can really feel morally superior to those cockfighting mudpeople.
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Apr 3, 2014 23:51
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Cockfighting is a really silly thing to wring your hands about. It really shows how little perspective people have.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:07
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enbot posted:Cockfighting is a really silly thing to wring your hands about. It really shows how little perspective people have.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:19
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loquacius posted:A Tea Party dude on my Facebook feed once threw a poll like that at me, except he wasn't accounting for the something like 15% of respondents that said they didn't like it because it didn't go far enough (probably because they wanted single-payer). It is worth noting that this NPR poll puts that figure at 7%. Why does he have to account for it? Just because you don't like the poll result doesn't mean you can start rolling in the other percentages to bring the one you want over 50.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:23
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Nessus posted:I think the comedy value coming from this is the existence of not one, but two cockfighting trade groups, as well as the existence of "chicken boxing" being raised as a serious counterproposal to a minor issue regarding animal cruelty And also the really bad spin the Bevin campaign is putting out, first saying that he had no idea the Gamefowl Defense Network was a cockfighting group and now the pivot to "James Madison: probable cockfighting enthusiast".
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Apr 4, 2014 00:24
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Shbobdb posted:If we're going to continue disparaging the gambling habits of the poor, minorities and (especially) poor minorities, we should really have a separate thread so we can really feel morally superior to those cockfighting mudpeople.  That's really what people don't like here, the poor minorities, not the insanity of forcing animals to kill one another to death
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Apr 4, 2014 00:27
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tbp posted:
Bro you don't get it, we EAT animals. No difference. Cockfighting being no worse than eating meat is an insane PETA argument except it's being used here to reach the opposite conclusion. All animal suffering is horrible, but animal suffering that produces human benefit can be morally justified. And I say this as someone who has been a vegetarian for ethical reasons for 21 years. Killing animals for food or even animal testing are absolutely not comparable to trained animal fighting in any way.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:38
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Joementum posted:"James Madison: probable cockfighting enthusiast". HBO's new prestige drama is really stretching the history this time. Pirate Radar fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 00:43
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enbot posted:Why does he have to account for it? Just because you don't like the poll result doesn't mean you can start rolling in the other percentages to bring the one you want over 50. I guess I should mention the context -- it was during the government shutdown and he was using it as evidence that the Republican party was justified in causing it because the majority of Americans didn't want healthcare reform, giving them a public mandate to stop it by whatever means necessary. I rolled it in to put the percentage over 50 because if you think the ACA isn't liberal enough you probably don't want to shut down the government in order to maintain the status quo which was worse. 
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Apr 4, 2014 00:45
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Joementum posted:And also the really bad spin the Bevin campaign is putting out, first saying that he had no idea the Gamefowl Defense Network was a cockfighting group and now the pivot to "James Madison: probable cockfighting enthusiast". Here's a sentence I would never have thought I'd see in total seriousness. Hopefully this is just the tip of the ice berg for crazy poo poo this year.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:47
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Hey, quote isn't edit.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:49
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I represented a poor person who owed the IRS a nice chunk of change and blew a $25,000 windfall gambling on cock fights anyway. Got him "currently not collectible" status with the IRS. "Starve the beast" trumped "THOSE PEOPLE are the REAL ones not paying their fair share" on my mental right-wing moral compass bullet point list.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:50
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Chantilly Say posted:HBO's new prestige drama is really stretching the history this time. That's okay, I initially read it as James Madison: probable cockring enthusiast.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:52
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DemeaninDemon posted:Here's a sentence I would never have thought I'd see in total seriousness. Hopefully this is just the tip of the ice berg for crazy poo poo this year. There was also the story about Senate candidate Chris McDaniel deciding to quit his speaking spot at the neo-confederate gun show in Guntown, Mississippi today. He's the one who earlier this year couldn't remember how many League of the South rallies he'd spoken at.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:59
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Bro you don't get it, we EAT animals. No difference. The argument is: if we already torture animals to death, what is the difference between torturing an animal to death for my amusement and torturing an animal to death for my amusement?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:06
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Shbobdb posted:The argument is: if we already torture animals to death, what is the difference between torturing an animal to death for my amusement and torturing an animal to death for my amusement?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:14
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JT Jag posted:The one is a lot quicker than the other One has a lot more benefits than the other. Prize cocks lead a pretty sweet life outside the ring. It's like bloodsports for humans, but with animals. And that's assuming that "dying quick and early" is a better state than "dying slowly and older" is better. Even heavily anthropomorphized gerontological arguments don't make sense since these ain't old folks. They still die in their prime or after they've been put out to stud (which isn't a bad ending).
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Apr 4, 2014 01:22
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Perry might have upcoming troubles because he cut off funding when a D politician caught on DWI wouldn't resign and allow him to appoint whatever R he wanted to oversee Austin(sorry for the paywall)quote:Stopping short of saying he thinks a crime was committed, a special prosecutor said he is troubled by the actions of Gov. Rick Perry in carrying out a threat last year to withhold state funding from Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg’s office unless she resigned after a DWI charge.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:23
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Thomas Jefferson definitely owned slaves and also probably might have been a cockfighting enthusiast. Now, which one of these is worse? Tell me! Therefore, cockfighting is good and we should allow it to continue. My name is Swan Oat and I approve this message.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:28
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Shbobdb posted:The argument is: if we already torture animals to death, what is the difference between torturing an animal to death for my amusement and torturing an animal to death for my amusement? One is for sustenance. Even if that doesn't phaze you for whatever reason, and we accept that both are morally bad, don't you think it's possible to work on both problems at the same time? Like, okay we can be against eating meat or whatever in your logic but the existence of that practice doesn't mean we have to be cool with making animals literally kill one another for gambling
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Apr 4, 2014 01:30
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Swan Oat posted:Thomas Jefferson definitely owned slaves and also probably might have been a cockfighting enthusiast. Now, which one of these is worse? Tell me! Therefore, cockfighting is good and we should allow it to continue. My name is Swan Oat and I approve this message. If we are going to equate animals with people, as you have done, then shouldn't we be much, much more concerned with incredibly widespread abuses that affect millions of animals in the service of the financial elite and damned near every other American as opposed to incredibly small-scale abuses involving the poor, minorities and poor minorities? It's a feel good move that targets the weak while giving us a sense of moral superiority. It's a "good thing" but it is being used to ignore far more serious problems.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:33
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See, Bevin? See what you've done to the thread?!?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:35
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Tons of animals are eaten without being tortured, cockfighting is torture. QED.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:35
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I was ragging on Bevin's appeal to the founding fathers, not trying to make an argument that cockfighting is worse than industrial chicken farming v v
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Apr 4, 2014 01:36
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tbp posted:One is for sustenance. Except that it isn't for sustenance. They are both for enjoyment. What makes one form of enjoyment better than another? And we could work against both problems but as others have pointed out, that is unfeasible. So the only reason we focus on one and not the other is cowardice. It makes us feel good while ignoring a much, much larger issue. And that's the sort of smoke-and-mirrors that causes problems in the US. Rather than use our righteousness to fight the hard fight, we ignore the hard fight and use our righteousness to fight the easy fight. And then we pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves the good guys. If comedy is funny when it punches up, politics is effective when it punches down. That should be a cause for concern.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:36
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Install Windows posted:Tons of animals are eaten without being tortured, cockfighting is torture. QED. If by "tons" you mean "such a small percentage that it effectively rounds down to zero" then yes, you are right.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:37
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Shbobdb posted:The argument is: if we already torture animals to death, what is the difference between torturing an animal to death for my amusement and torturing an animal to death for my amusement? One has the torment as an inherent part of it (the cockfighting). The other can be done much more humanely, and does not require the suffering (raising animals for food). Plus at some point in the future the latter can hopefully be replaced with giant vats of meat culture.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:39
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Joementum posted:There was also the story about Senate candidate Chris McDaniel deciding to quit his speaking spot at the neo-confederate gun show in Guntown, Mississippi today. See, that's something I expected to see. Using the 'founding fathers did it!' defense for cockfighting on the other hand...
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Apr 4, 2014 01:40
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Shbobdb posted:The argument is: if we already torture animals to death, what is the difference between torturing an animal to death for my amusement and torturing an animal to death for my amusement? Because one is only done for amusement under a very loose and subjective version of the word that you have custom tailored in bad faith for this one specific argument because you know your premise is abstract and absurd.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:41
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An Angry Bug posted:One has the torment as an inherent part of it (the cockfighting). The other can be done much more humanely, and does not require the suffering (raising animals for food). Plus at some point in the future the latter can hopefully be replaced with giant vats of meat culture. Except that it isn't. Who cares about potentiality? I'm talking about reality. I mean, really? Argument from potentiality? Did D&D go pro-life all of a sudden?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:42
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Am I a bad progressive if I say that I don't really give that much of a poo poo about animals? Y'know who's absolutely fine with killing animals for food? Animals. Humans aren't even the only omnivores. Bears could subsist entirely on berries if they wanted, but it amuses them to eat meat too. Things eat other things. It's how the world works.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:44
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Shifty Pony posted:Perry might have upcoming troubles because he cut off funding when a D politician caught on DWI wouldn't resign and allow him to appoint whatever R he wanted to oversee Austin(sorry for the paywall) Little context here, the Travis Co DA is responsible for prosecuting any ethics complaints against state lawmakers. The last guy to hold the office, Ronnie Earle, went after the GOP establishment in the statehouse with religious fanaticism, so there is a lot of bad blood between the Governor's office and the DA. The funding he is withholding (to greatly simplify it) pays for the Public Integrity Unit, which is the mechanism by which the DA investigates complaints against state legislatures. The state tried to get a San Antonio District Judge to remove Lehmberg, but he said, nah. All this poo poo went down last year so I'm not sure why it's just now coming out. I imagine this will hive him about as much trouble as the fact that he used his power to gently caress with the commission charged with considering death row appeals to have an innocent man killed, which is to say, none. loquacius posted:Am I a bad progressive if I say that I don't really give that much of a poo poo about animals? Y'know who's absolutely fine with killing animals for food? Animals. Humans aren't even the only omnivores. Bears could subsist entirely on berries if they wanted, but it amuses them to eat meat too. Things eat other things. It's how the world works. I think eating meat is fine but at the same time I also think we should hold ourselves to higher standards than bears. Nature is red in tooth and claw so I don't think we should look to it for moral guidance. zoux fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 01:46
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loquacius posted:Am I a bad progressive if I say that I don't really give that much of a poo poo about animals? Y'know who's absolutely fine with killing animals for food? Animals. Humans aren't even the only omnivores. Bears could subsist entirely on berries if they wanted, but it amuses them to eat meat too. Things eat other things. It's how the world works. My cat is pretty good at torturing birds; is it too late to enter the GOP Kentucky senate primary?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:48
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Shbobdb posted:If by "tons" you mean "such a small percentage that it effectively rounds down to zero" then yes, you are right. Congrats on being wrong I guess. zoux posted:Little context here, the Travis Co DA is responsible for prosecuting any ethics complaints against state lawmakers. The last guy to hold the office, Ronnie Earle, went after the GOP establishment in the statehouse with religious fanaticism, so there is a lot of bad blood between the Governor's office and the DA. The funding he is withholding (to greatly simplify it) pays for the Public Integrity Unit, which is the mechanism by which the DA investigates complaints against state legislatures. Is that really true? Has it always been that way? It seems really weird to assign the responsibility to the county DA for where the capital happens to be located.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:49
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Install Windows posted:Congrats on being wrong I guess. I have no idea how it works in other states, but it makes sense from the standpoint that any state commission to investigate official wrong doing would be appointed by the Governor or some state body that was appointed by the governor.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:51
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zoux posted:I have no idea how it works in other states, but it makes sense from the standpoint that any state commission to investigate official wrong doing would be appointed by the Governor or some state body that was appointed by the governor. Yeah but you should also be able to have DAs from other counties participate, especially in a state like Texas where cities are already free to sprawl across multiple counties without having area annexed to the original county.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:55
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First Continental Congress, Articles of Association, October 20, 1774, which among other things began a boycott of British tea in the colonies in response to the Intolerable Acts: quote:To obtain redress of these grievances, which threaten destruction to the lives liberty, and property of his majesty's subjects, in North-America, we are of opinion, that a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement, faithfully adhered to, will prove the most speedy, effectual, and peaceable measure: And, therefore, we do, for ourselves, and the inhabitants of the several colonies, whom we represent, firmly agree and associate, under the sacred ties of virtue, honour and love of our country, as follows: A who's who of founding fathers signed on to this, including John Adams and George Washington. They weren't big fans.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:57
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zoux posted:Little context here, the Travis Co DA is responsible for prosecuting any ethics complaints against state lawmakers. The last guy to hold the office, Ronnie Earle, went after the GOP establishment in the statehouse with religious fanaticism, so there is a lot of bad blood between the Governor's office and the DA. The funding he is withholding (to greatly simplify it) pays for the Public Integrity Unit, which is the mechanism by which the DA investigates complaints against state legislatures. Also, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (stacked with Perry appointees like every other board in this state, I'm assuming) refused to issue a posthumous pardon to said innocent man murdered by the State of Texas. http://www.texastribune.org/2014/04/03/citing-new-evidence-innocence-project-calls-pardon/
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Apr 4, 2014 01:57
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