|
Locke Dunnegan posted:EDIT: This isn't an interesting topic to anyone else? What are the popular ideas for big-picture changes to improve the downward trend of personal freedoms post-911? Is there a reason to think the creep of executive power (and federal in general) will abate by itself? This is a bipartisan issue, both Obama and GWB have leveraged war and security to seriously erode personal freedoms. In addition to the Articles of Confederation being a disaster in 1780, and American history since then largely being a study in local law being used to oppress in the most granular possible fasion? In the 21st century when big states split into smaller, loosely affiliated states, the resulting chaos is called "Balkanization." It went bad in the Balkans, it went bad in the Middle East when regimes began cycling through despots and paramilitary militias faster than Spinal Tap goes through drummers, and it'd go far far worse in the USA where there are more guns than in either of those places and dumber motherfuckers to use them without thinking things through. You're being met glibly because this thread is a sort of gutfelt reckon based in no particular study and that is very funny on this, whats ultimately a political/current events subforum of a comedy forum.
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 01:29
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 12, 2024 04:25 |
|
|
Locke Dunnegan posted:The majority of the last 250 years of American history has been under a strong central national government, so Jim Crow, Japanese-American internment during WWII, fuckery of Native Americans, the drug war, the Great Depression, and others. "Strong" is a relative term, and relatively speaking no it has not had a strong central government. Jim Crow was state-level legislation and specifically outlawing it almost set the loving nation on fire, the Great Depression was a fault of unfettered capital which took federal intervention to ameliorate and only gave way to the Great Recession specifically because of a repeal of those protections and programs, and right there if I were really smart I'd just loving stop because its clear you have a tenuous grasp of history and economics. Internment was an atrocity, but are you even remotely familiar with what other states were doing at that time in world history? Again, "strong" is a relative term. quote:Yes there have been leaps and bounds in personal freedoms (some more than others), but there's still seemingly systemic problems that hold us back as a nation Individually these are all words in English, yes. Arranged like this, none of them have any meaning or describe any idea that can be conceived. Bob James posted:We should get rid of Wyoming. This is literally a better threadstarting proposal. My position: we should not because I didn't remember until just now that Wyoming existed.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 01:39
|
|
|
Wyoming: Giving Vermont a state to look down upon
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 01:40
|
|
|
Locke Dunnegan posted:Also, I am not libertarian or Republican or right-wing at all. Being that I didn't bring up any popular talking points (that I know of) aside from reducing the power of central government somewhat, especially considering the increase in central power in the last fifteen years or so, I don't understand how someone can argue that I seem to be a member of those parties. There is a particular "just-asking-(leading)-questions" tone which takes a cavalier and ahistorical view of factual reality whose conclusion is "we need More Freedoms and Less Government." Never mind that outside the urban coasts that would categorically result in less freedom and power primitively accumulating to the petty lords of local business which should scare the poo poo out of you if you are remotely familiar with, say, Texan drilling companies, Western ranchers or Appalachian mining concerns. I would politely describe those who take that tone as "Alex Jones enthusiasts." You sound a lot like that, which is probably setting people off and triggering a reaction that--to you--seems unfair and unwarranted but to forum regulars is some poo poo they got sick of reading 10 years ago. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Apr 14, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 01:45
|
|
|
computer parts posted:You mean other than the normal Yes.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 01:47
|
|
ness about the awesome
|
Guavanaut posted:Out of interest, how do you think it would have gone in Scotland, had the referendum passed? Or in Catalonia if the government even allowed them to have a referendum? In Scotland there would have been a week of the kind of euphoria that can only be brought about by self-determination followed by the kind of vertiginous terror that can only be brought about by self-determination as the bottom fell out of the oil market, skullfucking their national budget. In Catalonia I couldn't begin to hazard a guess. My gut feeling is that small rump states are less stable than larger, broadly diversified states, but my gut is the part of my body that makes and takes shits and it certainly hasn't been to Catalonia that I'm aware of. Locke Dunnegan posted:It should have been obvious by now but I meant the initial post to be taken as a straightforward request for information relating to the topic of discussion. I don't quite get how it could have been taken as a tongue-in-cheek "take that, atheists" type of post, but here we are. I'd like to assume you all are just raring for a good roast on a random dude you can make assumptions and stereotypes about as a retarded edgy echo chamber clusterfuck, but considering only a couple posters have deigned to give me anything resembling a proper response and the shitposterest of shitposts haven't been probated or anything, I think I just hosed up somewhere. It was a sloppy first post but it was meant to be in good faith, I'm sorry if I offended anyone or made people think I had ulterior motives. D&D is a better forum for having a certain intolerance for constantly returning to first principles, but sometimes first principles threads are fun. Sometimes. In the weird way that posting in D&D is ever fun. Yield and overcome, is my advice. Lean In, pivot, and refocus. Namaste. #notamod #plzdontban
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 02:04
|
|
|
Captain_Maclaine posted:Come to the libertarian thread, we have such wonders to show you. DONT LISTEN TO HIM, YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 02:19
|
|
|
My Imaginary GF posted:You identify power-sharing between branches as a problem, and not the core principle, of American democracy. You state you want a "decisive" and "technocratic" 'reform' of US governance. you got really loving weirder, happyelf
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 03:11
|
|
|
Locke, if you're still reading then this is a pretty good doc from Frontline (which is a program you should be watching very much of, IMHO) specifically pertaining to the consequences of the Citizen's United court decision insofar as it affects broad rural Western/Midwest states. Specifically, that it makes gaming elections on the state and local level in ways that are favorable to entrenched and wealthy concerns really fuckin' easy. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/big-sky-big-money/ It is a really good story which talks a lot about the interplay between Local, State, and Federal governments in the US and has a good central event where a lot of secret campaign finance documents proving Shady Dealings were found in a party house two states over under a wholesale quantity of crystal meth. Rump states are Real Bad Policy, homie. e; also Hitlers Gay Secret posted:Holy loving poo poo. Stop talking about yourself. This. Please. It's coming off real bad.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
Locke Dunnegan posted:EDIT: But lol, posters can poo poo on me and break the basic SA rules without punishment but I can't explain my viewpoint when I'm being strawmanned and/or misunderstood? Labeling me as a retard libertarian and everything else changes the discussion and makes it difficult to have a discussion on its own merits. You say tone arguments, I say ad hominem and straw manning. Obvious double standards. Without digging up Ancient Forums HistoryTM, you aren't even in the top 1000 Most-Set-Upon-Posters-in-D&D. Not even close. You started a thread spitballing and theorycrafting about dissolving the USA as a contiguous nation without knowing about the Articles of Confederation or how it turned out, or that Jim Crow was a collection of state laws repealed on the federal level. People are gonna make fun of that (though many of them are not funny b/c they are boring) and that's okay because your viewpoint which you hold so sacrosanct is missing some pretty clutch pieces of supporting information. That's not a double standard, that's a single standard. You're on the wrong side of the standard. Please get over yourself. This could be a pretty okay thread if you stopped talking about yourself and instead stepped back and used the gaps in your knowledge--which you admit!--as an initiating point for a low-key and breezy and chatty and fun conversation where people get to talking about stuff and you learn lots of cool things you didn't know before from people who have perspectives you didn't know existed! You don't need to read any textbooks or whatever, you don't need to request four thousand word essays on a subject, you just need to start a conversation and step back and let nerds talking to each other do the heavy lifting for you as they naturally talk about relevant things. This can still be the thread you wanted to make, but you need to stop being so wounded in your ego. People calling you a retarded libertarian actually does not change the discussion hugely, how you respond to it does. You've responded kinda clumsily, in my estimation. XyloJW posted:Locke Dungeon, reading through this thread when it was just one page I thought I should say "tone arguments are really way more trouble than they're worth, just ignore the sarcasm in a post and try to get what they're getting at, or ignore the post entirely. This is still a comedy forum, and D&D can have some humor in its rebuttals." But then I saw other people say it more succinctly and you say "Oh okay, my bad." Then I check back 7 pages later, and you're still doing tone arguments, people are still saying to ignore the tone, and you're still saying "Okay, I understand now." Please just ignore the tone of a post, there's no requirement that people be nice. like, i don't know who this rear end in a top hat nobody lurker is or why that red star's there or what it means or how those typeface changes snuck into the quote or what they could signify, but this is a pretty good post you should read and internalize what its saying and definitely, definitely not respond to it with a post of your own. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Apr 16, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2015 21:11
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 12, 2024 04:25 |
|
|
well duh
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2015 21:30
|
|