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The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics.
Dominoes fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Oct 22, 2011 |
# ? Oct 22, 2011 15:05 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 15:53 |
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Dominoes posted:The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics. If you have good articles/pieces that help some one frame an argument from an alternative perspective then I don't think any one in here would object to you including them. The thread's purpose is to help D&D d&d. Having fully fleshed out counter positions to ones common in D&D can only help anyone who visits this thread since there is a model example and blah blah blah.
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# ? Oct 22, 2011 18:37 |
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Waco Panty Raid posted:Oh yes, a "nitpick" to point out that the very law you cited for your Loughner fantasy doesn't even work the way you think it does, and you think that is telling on me? Maybe instead of attacking me for "nitpicking" you should rethink why you hold these opinions if all you are using as basis is some article you read that doesn't even get basic facts right. I don't think handguns or automatic rifles should be available on demand to regular citizens because they make it far too easy to commit the sorts of massacres that occured in Arizona and Norway this year. I'm not sure why you pointing out that the AWB was actually weaker than the article I read said it was doesn't strike me as a reason to change my opinions on gun control - it really just reflects that the AWB was a laughably weak piece of legislation. If you want to argue about why its important that citizens be allowed own dangerous killing machines then I'm happy to hear your arguments, but I really could care less about the details of the AWB. Interlude posted:Whether or not you consider gun ownership a "civil right" by the standards of your home country's law, it is here in America and thus your standard of judgment is inapplicable. We aren't in America, friend, we're on the internet.
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# ? Oct 22, 2011 19:33 |
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Helsing posted:I don't think handguns or automatic rifles should be available on demand to regular citizens because they make it far too easy to commit the sorts of massacres that occured in Arizona and Norway this year. I'm not sure why you pointing out that the AWB was actually weaker than the article I read said it was doesn't strike me as a reason to change my opinions on gun control - it really just reflects that the AWB was a laughably weak piece of legislation. Obviously this isn't meant to be a gun control thread, hell I don't know if gun control threads are even allowed anymore in D&D, so I'm not going to get into arguing against your vague opinion of what "on demand" might mean (I certainly wouldn't apply it to Norway's licensing/storage controls or the controls the US places on automatic rifles (assuming you mean full-autos and aren't referring to semi-autos, in which case it depends on the particular state)). Safe to say I disagree with your opinion that we should kneejerk ban firearms in response to extremely rare tragedies with understandably-high emotions and media coverage attached to them.
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# ? Oct 22, 2011 22:03 |
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Waco Panty Raid posted:I agree that the AWB was really just a nuissance to legal gun owners, which is why it is laughable that anyone still brings it up (especially in the US) and doubly laughable that someone would actually try to credit it with stopping/lessening a spree killing. I also live in a large urban centre that has a rising problem with gun related homicides, many of which come from America. There's also a lot of documentation about how American guns are flowing into Mexico and being used en masse by the cartels. We can agree to disagree, and I'm happy to stop derailing the thread, but my opinion isn't a knee jerk response. Either way, I think this debate serves to prove that there is no consensus here about "gun control being a red herring", which is the post I was originally disputing.
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# ? Oct 22, 2011 22:13 |
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Dominoes posted:The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics. I won't even disagree with this; please contribute radically-different articles or ones calling for new paradigms in political discussions. I think the most useful articles so far are those that specifically address the arguments and rhetorical bases of American conservatives. But I also wanted this thread to help posters with specific debates they're having elsewhere, be that with regular, "mainstream-thought" liberals, or crazy conservatives. Sometimes you can't even hope to convince someone they're entirely wrong: it suffices to disprove myths. So we should be seeking to think more critically about our own positions, and this thread can and ought to help with that. I invite you to contribute to that.
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# ? Oct 23, 2011 00:47 |
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EMA (essentially paying students to continue with higher education) still gets brought up in the UK a lot even though it's been scrapped. The normal arguement is something along the lines of 'you shouldn't get paid to go to college' (sixth form college, not uni) and 'why should my tax money go to a bunch of lazy students. From a purely economic point of view one good one way to counter these arguments is the following study by the IFS (The Institute For Fiscal Studies). Study - A cost-benefit analysis suggests that the costs of EMA are completely offset. I know this thread is mainly for the US but I'd appreciate it if we were able to have some UK specific stuff as well. Z-Magic fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Oct 23, 2011 |
# ? Oct 23, 2011 12:15 |
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Interlude posted:Whether or not you consider gun ownership a "civil right" by the standards of your home country's law, it is here in America and thus your standard of judgment is inapplicable. Except the point is that there are functioning, stable, democratic nations that don't have gun ownership as civil rights, which is an obvious refutation of the gun rights advocacy tropes that the 2nd Amendment is necessary to preserve order, keep crime low, and prevent government tyranny. I say this while being in favor of gun rights. It's just that I'm also in favor of not making up bullshit to support my positions and not ignoring inconvenient facts. Dominoes posted:The OP is a list of American Liberal talking points. It's a D&D groupthink-branded "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must):", with no regard for exploring new policy ideas or fairly evaluating effects of existing ones. It serves to reinforce existing biases, representing a fundamental problem with modern politics. Now you're just poo poo posting. You aren't bringing up specific, tangible problems with any of the sources being used, e.g. "those statistics are wrong," "the research methodology is flawed," "the underlying premises are wrong," "the logic is fallacious," etc., all you're doing is simply labeling it all as "liberal" and throwing your hands in the air as if something supporting a liberal argument necessarily means that it is wrong or bad. Why don't you either make some well-reasoned critiques of the sources already presented or present your own sources that refute them?
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# ? Oct 23, 2011 13:29 |
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How about an article or a graph about how raising the minimum wage is a good thing and won't raise prices too much?
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# ? Oct 23, 2011 17:56 |
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Only a moneyless society can allow mankind to dissolve capitalism and achieve equality, comrade. Why We Don't Need Money - A sane alternative way of allocating resources Enjoy fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Oct 23, 2011 |
# ? Oct 23, 2011 18:12 |
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GodlessCommie posted:How about an article or a graph about how raising the minimum wage is a good thing and won't raise prices too much? Minimum wage does not necessarily have negative consequences for economic growth and lowering minimum wage hurts agents in the economy Rise in minimum wage significantly increased teenage wages without impacting teen employment
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# ? Oct 23, 2011 18:51 |
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I've been having this discussion with my fiance for a while now, and I want DnD's take on this. We were talking about who we would vote for in the coming presidential election, and I said that I was planning on voting 3rd party (Green, socialist, whatever.) She was surprised, giving the standard reasoning that I would be throwing my vote away/might as well vote Republican then. We live in Missouri, which is usually a pretty close election, so she does have a point there. I explained that I see the Democratic party continually tracking right to gain more conservative voters under the assumption that as long as they stay slightly to the left of the GOP, they won't lose their leftist base. If I vote for a third party to the left of the Democrats, it won't get a candidate elected, but it will be a signal to the Democrats that they will lose voters as they move right. Besides, I said, the election is most likely going to be between Romney and Obama anyway, and those two are both center-right. If Obama loses and Romney wins, I can't see things changing, considering how lovely of a president Obama is anyway. She acknowledged the reasoning, but wasn't entirely convinced. She still thinks that Obama really is liberal, but he can't get anything done with a Republican Congress/is really politically inexperienced. I think that Obama is deliberately moving right, and all this talk of his incompetency is merely excuses meant to cover his rear end, but I didn't have any examples on hand to prove my point. Could you make a summary of truly terrible things Obama has done that could show he's not just incompetent but actively conservative? (Or, alternatively, prove me wrong and show that he is really trying.)
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# ? Oct 23, 2011 21:53 |
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Cantorsdust posted:I've been having this discussion with my fiance for a while now, and I want DnD's take on this. We were talking about who we would vote for in the coming presidential election, and I said that I was planning on voting 3rd party (Green, socialist, whatever.) She was surprised, giving the standard reasoning that I would be throwing my vote away/might as well vote Republican then. We live in Missouri, which is usually a pretty close election, so she does have a point there. With out even having to point out all the truly terrible rightist poo poo he has pushed the argument that he is a secret liberal being held back by the mean old Republicans falls flat. From 2008-2010 the Democrats had control of both the legislature and the executive. If Obama really wanted to get poo poo pushed through he could have. The likely response you'll hear is that Lieberman or some Blue Dog boogeyman held the entire party hostage but to that I'd say one: That means it wasn't Republicans holding things up, it was Democrats, and two, Obama could have tried a LBJ style approach to controlling his party. Obama might not have had the accumulated political favors to call in that LBJ had but Obama could have been much more proactive and aggressive than he was is the point. If that doesn't work for whatever reason you could point out Obama has cut more taxes than Bush Jr. did, he has created a funding shortage bubble inside SS via the payroll tax break he gave out. He has also raised taxes on the bottom fifth by letting certain tax breaks/subsidies expire and this is especially egregious since he has lowered the tax burden on the top fifth. Most recently and currently most rage inducing Obama is talking about gutting out Sarbanes-Oxley (sp?) to spur job growth. Sarbanes was passed after the whole Enron fiasco during Bush Jr. and required honest book keeping/reporting for businesses to their investors. There is a lot more and I'm sure more people can help with actual links but you can google the news stories about any of those pretty easily. Oh also, Obama takes the compromise position when dealing with Republicans now as the starting point for negotiations before he even meets them at the table. Basically he capitulates to their demands before he even begins to try and bargain with them.
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# ? Oct 23, 2011 22:17 |
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Bruce Leroy posted:Except the point is that there are functioning, stable, democratic nations that don't have gun ownership as civil rights, which is an obvious refutation of the gun rights advocacy tropes that the 2nd Amendment is necessary to preserve order, keep crime low, and prevent government tyranny.
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# ? Oct 24, 2011 03:34 |
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Interlude posted:That's nice that you think that, but it still can't be used to hand-wave away the 2nd Amendment. I mean I suppose you can just pretend it doesn't exist and debate the issues, but it's kind of the elephant in the room. Nice job quoting me out of context. The second part of my comment was that I'm still in favor of gun rights, so I was clearly not "hand-waving away the 2nd Amendment." My point was that those specific issues used by some groups to promote gun rights and reduce regulation (e.g. reducing crime, preventing government tyranny,etc.) are fallacious and just obscure more important arguments about civil liberties and real sociological issues, which I contend support the 2nd Amendment. It only hurts supporters of the 2nd Amendment to argue demonstrably false tropes that guns are necessary to solve certain problems, especially when other nations have shown that this is not the case. It's more productive to talk about things like (1) fearmongering from those in favor of very strict gun control, (2) false choice fallacies from idiots who frame the debate as either being against the 2nd Amendment entirely or in favor of completely unrestricted and unregulated weapon ownership, (3) that there are other, more important contributors to crime like poverty, so we should deal with those instead, (4) how other nations like Canada, Switzerland, and Finland have personal gun ownership, but do not have anything close to the crime and recidivism rates of the USA so it's not gun ownership in and of itself that causes crime and other problems.
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# ? Oct 24, 2011 07:05 |
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GodlessCommie posted:How about an article or a graph about how raising the minimum wage is a good thing and won't raise prices too much? Not trying to push an agenda here or anything, but the article mentioned in the OP - Davish Krail posted:Economists agree that stimulus helps the economy also finds a 79% consensus among economists that "A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers" So, ya know, don't throw that article around too much if the stimulus point is the only one you like.
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# ? Oct 24, 2011 12:58 |
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Reducing the welfare state in Germany has lead to economic growth and low unemployment. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67899/steven-rattner/the-secrets-of-germanys-success quote:The Secrets of Germany's Success
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# ? Oct 24, 2011 17:58 |
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cremnob posted:Reducing the welfare state in Germany has lead to economic growth and low unemployment. That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms, like an an undervalued Euro, the short work program, the good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government, and the highly competitive performance of Germany's manufacturing sector (which is heavily subsidized, by the by). There's literally nothing specific in that article about how welfare benefits were distributed before and after the reforms or about the specifics of how the reforms altered your eligibility by "paring unemployment benefits to encourage work". Hell, the article's author, Rattner, doesn't even cite the welfare reductions as being any more or less important than the numerous other factors he discusses, and to I think anyone with half a brain can probably see that the short work program is the leading factor in low unemployment. When your making a political economy argument you need to get a bit more sophisticated than "in 2005, German welfare was reformed. In 2011 German unemployment was 7.1%. Therefore welfare reform created created economic growth and employment."
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# ? Oct 24, 2011 18:53 |
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Bruce Leroy posted:Except the point is that there are functioning, stable, democratic nations that don't have gun ownership as civil rights, which is an obvious refutation of the gun rights advocacy tropes that the 2nd Amendment is necessary to preserve order, keep crime low, and prevent government tyranny. You can find examples of functioning, stable democratic nations that don't have pretty much anything as a civil right. Americans don't give civil rights to kids, so Europe should take away children's rights. Europe doesn't have free speech as a right. America doesn't think welfare (right to food/shelter) or healthcare is a right. And so on and so on. And your opinion that it shouldn't be doesn't change the fact that firearms ownership is a civil right here. It's a losing battle, one that has legitimate origins in the eyes of many Americans due to the American revolution, and it's simply not worth fighting again. e: What I am saying is, enjoy living in your first-world European democracies, and if you really want to help you should push for the things that create equality and raise standards of living so that crime is naturally reduced instead of trying to push measures that will create a backlash against those same policies. There's tens of millions of Americans living with disease, no access to dentistry, in food deserts, and so on. We even have Doctors without Borders-style organizations working here in the US. Education costs $25k a year. This should be a thousand times more important to you than whether someone gets to keep a gun. The best way to address crime (and the perceived need for gun ownership) is to make people feel safe and have a stake in society and we are massively falling down there. Besides, how did that nut who shot up the kids' camp get a gun in gun-free Europe anyway? Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Oct 24, 2011 |
# ? Oct 24, 2011 19:12 |
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Helsing posted:That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms, like an an undervalued Euro, the short work program, the good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government, and the highly competitive performance of Germany's manufacturing sector (which is heavily subsidized, by the by). I never actually said reducing the welfare state was the sole reason for economic growth and low unemployment, so I find it amusing how you're trying to minimize it. I realize it's uncomfortable because liberals in America often look to Germany as the Socialist Utopia, but saying "That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms" and then "I think anyone with half a brain can probably see that the short work program is the leading factor in low unemployment" is pretty rich considering that I "need to get a bit more sophisticated". But yes the short work program was apart of Agenda 2010 which was the government's way to ensure job security in return for holding wages down. That's what the "good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government" was about. e: And according to Goons in the German politics thread, Agenda 2010 was overall a necessary step. cremnob fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Oct 24, 2011 |
# ? Oct 24, 2011 19:33 |
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cremnob posted:I never actually said reducing the welfare state was the sole reason for economic growth and low unemployment, so I find it amusing how you're trying to minimize it. I strongly doubt that very many American conservatives would agree that having the state directly paying employee's wages to keep them employed is a good example of "reducing the welfare state". And given that German welfare benefits are still substantially higher than American benefits, I suspect that most Americans liberals (and I am emphatically neither American nor a liberal) would probably embrace a "reduction" of their welfare state that left their country more closely resembling the German system. quote:I realize it's uncomfortable because liberals in America often look to Germany as the Socialist Utopia, but saying "That article lists all kinds of factors that almost certainly had a much bigger impact than welfare reforms" and then "I think anyone with half a brain can probably see that the short work program is the leading factor in low unemployment" is pretty rich considering that I "need to get a bit more sophisticated". Why exactly do you think that its ridiculous to argue that a program in which the government literally steps in to start paying employees on behalf of their employers is the main reason that unemployment has dropped in Germany? On the face of it that is a much more plausible explanation than the idea than your rather vauge account of how unspecified welfare reforms five years ago suddenly caused unemployment rates to decrease last year. If you actually have specific evidence for the idea that German economic growth was improved by 'welfare reform' as opposed to the short work program, a devalued Euro and an internationally competitive manufacturing sector then please post it. In the article you posted so far only two sentences are devoted to the totally unspecified change in benefits, whereas your own article says that: "According to a 2009 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the program saved approximately 500,000 jobs during the recent economic recession." quote:But yes the short work program was apart of Agenda 2010 which was the government's way to ensure job security in return for holding wages down. That's what the "good working relationship between big unions, big business and the government" was about. But this still doesn't actually substantiate the idea that a change in how welfare compensation rates were determined had a positive impact on German economic growth and employment. Just because one specific part of a policy package had good effects doesn't mean we can simply assume that the entire package was equally effective or justified. quote:e: And according to Goons in the German politics thread, Agenda 2010 was overall a necessary step. Then why don't you repost the substance of their arguments, rather than making an extremely vague appeal to authority? Here's a much better article that gives a clearer picture of how the system works: quote:U.S. Should Try Germany's Unemployment Medicine If you want to argue that increasing labour market flexibility in Germany by reducing unemployment benefits resulted in higher GDP growth which resulted in a reduced unemployment rate in 2011 then I am sure there are interesting points to be made on both sides... But first you'd actually have to make that argument, and back it up with a coherent analysis and some evidence.
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# ? Oct 24, 2011 21:00 |
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Here's the conversation that just started on FB: (I'm Peter) This is a lost cause isn't it?
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 00:08 |
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Paul MaudDib posted:You can find examples of functioning, stable democratic nations that don't have pretty much anything as a civil right. Americans don't give civil rights to kids, so Europe should take away children's rights. Europe doesn't have free speech as a right. America doesn't think welfare (right to food/shelter) or healthcare is a right. And so on and so on. What the gently caress is with all of you taking my words out of context and selectively quoting my words? I clearly wrote that I'm in favor of the 2nd Amendment, so it's quite obvious that you are falsifying my "opinion" because you have an agenda and/or that you suck at reading. My point was that claims about guns reducing crime and preventing government tyranny are unfounded, especially because there are places with equal levels of civil rights, lower crime rates, and no government "tyranny" that also don't have personal gun ownership as a civil right. The US has far more guns per capita than any other nation in the world yet we have higher crime rates than other comparable first-world nations, so it should be obvious that more guns are not the answer to our crime problem. That said, my other comments pretty clearly outlined how we can have gun ownership and reduce crime and suffering by other, more important means, like reducing poverty and improving education. So what I was actually saying is that being restrictive or more permissive with gun laws is not actually going to do anything substantive about crime and other problems, other than maybe give people a false sense of security. Paul MaudDib posted:Besides, how did that nut who shot up the kids' camp get a gun in gun-free Europe anyway? Once again you are taking my words out of context, putting words in my mouth, and entirely ignoring the facts. I specifically cited Switzerland and Finland as two of many European nations who have lower crime rates than the US while also allowing for private gun ownership, so I was clearly not asserting that Europe is "gun-free." Norway, the site of Anders Breivik's terrorist acts, is another one of these nations that allows for private gun ownership, yet generally has significantly lower crime and recidivism rates than the US, but you're too busy arguing with straw men to actually notice important things like facts and context. Honestly, I'm not sure who you are exactly arguing with, but your use of strawmen and taking things out of context make it patently obvious that you're not arguing with me.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 01:31 |
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Bruce Leroy posted:Nice job quoting me out of context. quote:It only hurts supporters of the 2nd Amendment to argue demonstrably false tropes that guns are necessary to solve certain problems, especially when other nations have shown that this is not the case. It's more productive to talk about things like (1) fearmongering from those in favor of very strict gun control, (2) false choice fallacies from idiots who frame the debate as either being against the 2nd Amendment entirely or in favor of completely unrestricted and unregulated weapon ownership, (3) that there are other, more important contributors to crime like poverty, so we should deal with those instead, (4) how other nations like Canada, Switzerland, and Finland have personal gun ownership, but do not have anything close to the crime and recidivism rates of the USA so it's not gun ownership in and of itself that causes crime and other problems.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 01:46 |
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Interlude posted:You're over-analyzing this. I was simply saying that if we're discuss guns in America, its useless to bring up the fact that gun ownership is not a civil right in other countries. It's not entirely useless because it blatantly contradicts certain claims by pro-gun advocates that society would go to poo poo if guns were further restricted. The problem is that certain pro-gun people are muddying the waters and preventing real debate on the issue of sensible gun regulations (e.g. restricting access based on criminal history, mental health history, waiting periods, firearm registrations, etc.) by bringing up red herrings that fearmonger to prevent discussion of real issues. E.g. if you tell people that crime will skyrocket, causing their families to be raped and murdered, or claim that the government is going to start herding them into FEMA camps if they don't have guns to defend themselves, it prevents many people from rationally discussing the issues. Interlude posted:In case you haven't noticed, things are pretty bad in the US. We have awful socioeconomic mobility, a harmful war on drugs, vast swaths of people with little to no access to anything that will lift them out of a subsistence existence. That things are so much better in other first world countries has little to do with access to guns and more to do with the fact that are better places to live if you're poor, ergo less crime. That was kind of my point and the reason why I am still in favor of gun rights and the 2nd Amendment even though issues like crime are not positively affected by gun ownership. This again brings up my point about red herrings in gun rights debates, as conservative organizations will fearmonger about Democrats trying to confiscate their guns and allow them to be victimized by criminals or an oppressive government. Just look at any even moderately conservative website and you'll find many conservative commentors talking about how Obama is anti-gun and wants to take away their 2nd Amendment rights when he really hasn't even articulated a position on gun rights, let alone craft or sign any legislation further restricting 2nd Amendment rights. All of this distracts many people from real issues that would tangibly better their lives and actually reduce crime, like ending the drug war, reducing poverty, and improving education. If you're constantly worried about your 2nd Amendment rights and think that your very safety and liberties rely on you and your guns, then you are not very likely to calmly and rationally study the true issues.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 04:09 |
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I have an argument that comes up frequently and I am unaware of the eloquent way to defeat it- My coworkers (at any organization I've worked at in the past few years) are solely upper-middle class former military. I would say about a quarter of them routinely bring up "all the peopel doing nothing and receiving government handouts". Now, I can generally mitigate their point by talking about how it's a relatively small amount of the budget, how the education system in the United States works against them, etc. It is easy to explain that the underlcass has a much harder time moving up because of the way income and expenses work, access to schools, jobs, even good nutrition. What I can't defeat is the argument that the individual has no excuse for not moving up because anyone (which really means anyone not disabled) is able to join the military to start a better life for themselves. An argument of "well they shouldn't have to" isn't going to work, and to be honest, I don't really buy into that either. So, what are my options? How would you debate this?
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 10:29 |
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Rrail posted:What I can't defeat is the argument that the individual has no excuse for not moving up because anyone (which really means anyone not disabled) is able to join the military to start a better life for themselves. An argument of "well they shouldn't have to" isn't going to work, and to be honest, I don't really buy into that either. So, what are my options? How would you debate this? Dominoes fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Oct 25, 2011 |
# ? Oct 25, 2011 10:32 |
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The problem with using that argument is it still comes back to personal choice: "So don't get pregnant when you're young", for instance. I am having trouble comprehending how you can get to 18 years old as being incapable of military service that does not derive directly from personal choices (except for poor nutrition). I have never gone through this so I am very ignorant to it.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 11:51 |
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Asthma is a typical no-go. Bad eyesight. Colourblindness. Chronic illness of practically any kind. Usually, if there's something wrong with you, the military doesn't want you. At least, not over here in socialist nazi communist Norway. I imagine it's similar in the US these days, with the downscaling of the armed forces and everything. Also, joining the military of the USA is a pretty potent political statement that not everyone's willing to make. You should seriously not be forced to explicitly endorse American warfare in order to have a decent life. edit: And that's buying into the in my opinion flawed premise that all behaviour is a matter of personal choice, responsibility et cetera. Teenage pregnancies are more common among poors because, well, poors don't really have a lot else to do. The best way to decrease them, bar none, is to increase the standard of living among poor groups. V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Oct 25, 2011 |
# ? Oct 25, 2011 14:36 |
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Right, those with disabilities can't get in, that's fine. That doesn't account for 75% of the population. I agree completely with the last thing you said, but that won't work with a good portion of Americans as an argument.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 14:37 |
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V. Illych L. posted:Asthma is a typical no-go. Bad eyesight. Colourblindness. Chronic illness of practically any kind. Usually, if there's something wrong with you, the military doesn't want you. At least, not over here in socialist nazi communist Norway. I imagine it's similar in the US these days, with the downscaling of the armed forces and everything. Diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, severe dental problems, endocrine disorders, transgender disorders, etc. There are seriously a lot. http://www.military.com/Recruiting/Content/0,13898,rec_step07_DQ_medical,,00.html
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 14:39 |
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Rrail posted:Right, those with disabilities can't get in, that's fine. That doesn't account for 75% of the population. Really? People don't accept that people shouldn't be economically discriminated against on the basis of their political views? That's... certainly something. By the way, poors generally have worse health than wealthy people from a very early age, preventing more of them from choosing the military. Military culture is also modelled (again, Norway) mostly on middle-class white culture, which creates problems for poor people. Going through the military is practically problematic for women, blacks and latinos. It's ethically problematic for anyone left of the Republican party. It's impossible for the disabled or chronically ill. The military is not a good institution for climbing socially. It's just marginally more possible there than in the rest of American society - which honestly says more about American society at large than it does about the military.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 14:48 |
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Do you think this line of argument would resonate with them: the military is a volunteer force with a limited budget and limited scope. There is not enough jobs in the military for every potential candidate to join. There is even not enough jobs in the military for just the current eligible poor, which numbers in the low millions (without checking numbers yet). So without even getting to the military as bad avenue for career development argument clearly not everyone could just join the military. If not everyone can join then we need to do something else for the rest of the people. The way I would think of using this is to open with it to get them to admit that not literally everyone can join the military and then quickly transition to talk about what else can be done. If they wanted to, they could hang the discussion on, "well not everyone could but some can and if some can and they are not trying then all poor people are lazy, QED." Really the only way around that I see right now is to not let them have the chance to entrench themselves in that position during the conversation. This isn't watertight but it might help.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 15:02 |
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The argument generally boils down to the fact that not all poor people are lazy, but a lot of them are don't care to ever even have a job because welfare is easier.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 15:16 |
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Rrail posted:Right, those with disabilities can't get in, that's fine. That doesn't account for 75% of the population. How about it's loving dumb that the poor should be expected to join the armed forces, even if they could, in order to obtain a reasonable standard of living. It's just crab mentality (I had to join the armed forces in order to establish a career so they should have to as well) and is standard right wing authoritarian bullshit. And no, you're not really ever going to be able to convince him otherwise, especially as long as you agree with it(probably even if you didn't). Rrail posted:The argument generally boils down to the fact that not all poor people are lazy, but a lot of them are don't care to ever even have a job because welfare is easier. I would suggest doing some research on our social programs and actually learning whether or not "welfare is easier" because it isn't. It's a maze of bureaucratic poo poo for a paltry sum of money. a lovely poster fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Oct 25, 2011 |
# ? Oct 25, 2011 15:28 |
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a lovely poster posted:I would suggest doing some research on our social programs and actually learning whether or not "welfare is easier" because it isn't. It's a maze of bureaucratic poo poo for a paltry sum of money. I'm sorry, I meant that's what THEY are saying, I don't really believe that.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 15:47 |
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Rrail posted:I'm sorry, I meant that's what THEY are saying, I don't really believe that. That's where I would start. Look at your state's website and learn the payout amounts for "welfare" (you're probably going to need to explain the variety of social programs that people tend to lump into the term welfare here) and show him. No one is sitting pretty living off of money from welfare.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 15:53 |
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Rrail posted:I'm sorry, I meant that's what THEY are saying, I don't really believe that. Then just steer the argument to that point and bombard them with facts about welfare being more work then people seem to think.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 16:09 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 15:53 |
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Ridonkulous posted:Then just steer the argument to that point and bombard them with facts about welfare being more work then people seem to think. Facts never win an argument.
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# ? Oct 25, 2011 16:15 |