|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On August 30 2013 03:33 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 03:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 30 2013 02:07 sam!zdat wrote:
the problem is that there actually is a horrible conspiracy, but we'll all be dead before the damage really kicks in, and so people feel they can be complacent about it and that means they are being all sophisticated and centrist and reasonable, as opposed to crazy old sam, who is just a stupid hippy who finds some sort of libidinal satisfaction in denouncing capitalism out of sheer spite. so that way you can do absolutely nothing and feeling superior about it. it's very easy to feel that you are performing an objective analysis of some situation when that analysis tells you "full steam ahead! busyness as usual!" you feel very smart but actually you've just avoided the problem. it's just yr ideology telling you to keep on keepin on, no problems here, nossir.
as philip dick said, "it is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane." To me "business as usual" means constantly questioning, adapting and changing. Perhaps that's one area where we fundamentally disagree? cui bono?
It depends.
|
On August 30 2013 03:13 farvacola wrote:
The War in Drugs has been about selective implementation since the very start, this is hardly unique to this administration.
I'm against the whole lot of it. If you don't like a law, you are obligated to enforce it until repeal. No executive orders, no cozying up to laws countermanding it. I don't oppose per se making it a low priority with funds investment, because it's important to have debates on spending (See: Immigration laws enforcement). Cooperating to that extent with regulatory structures made for participants breaking the law is a whole other thing entirely. That is not how a nation of laws operates.
|
In reality, the executive branch could almost ignore criminal/civil enforcement of any law they wanted. The issue is that it would be very very bad politically to ignore enforcement of laws for 2 main reasons unless you have a lot of support for it.
1. It sets bad prescient and will encourage the next guy to not enforce the laws you like.
2. People who support the laws can cause a lot of noise and potential backlash
Given those 2, I don't see a president deliberately deciding not to enforce laws very often. If they wanted, congress could prolly force enforcement if they wanted anyway with funding various departments, they just usually leave it to the president's judgement.
|
nobody wants to tell me the moral of the story boy who cried wolf? I'm disappointed
|
On August 30 2013 08:20 sam!zdat wrote:
nobody wants to tell me the moral of the story boy who cried wolf? I'm disappointed
Liars are not rewarded even if they tell the truth... meh.
What about trying to be the big bad wolf instead ?
|
wrong! The moral is 'sometimes there are wolves'
|
United States41979 Posts
On August 30 2013 10:56 sam!zdat wrote:
wrong! The moral is 'sometimes there are wolves'
It's not a real story though. I could equally use the story about the boy who cried dragon to prove the existence of dragons but even if the boy got eaten at the end of the story by a dragon that would not mean anything about real dragons. You can't go "I know a story about a boy who said something a bunch of times and then that thing happened therefore the thing I'm saying over and over will also happen". That is not how logic works.
|
On August 30 2013 10:56 sam!zdat wrote:
wrong! The moral is 'sometimes there are wolves'
And you are a sheep lol.
|
Well sometimes there are dragons too, ya know.
|
On August 30 2013 11:02 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 10:56 sam!zdat wrote:
wrong! The moral is 'sometimes there are wolves' It's not a real story though. I could equally use the story about the boy who cried dragon to prove the existence of dragons but even if the boy got eaten at the end of the story by a dragon that would not mean anything about real dragons. You can't go "I know a story about a boy who said something a bunch of times and then that thing happened therefore the thing I'm saying over and over will also happen". That is not how logic works.
this is precisely the backwards version of my point. My point is that just because something has been predicted before, and did not happen, you cannot conclude that a new prediction of the same thing is false. Also not how logic works  (not that we have any formal logic which really treats such matters, but w/e)
|
On August 30 2013 11:11 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 11:02 KwarK wrote:On August 30 2013 10:56 sam!zdat wrote:
wrong! The moral is 'sometimes there are wolves' It's not a real story though. I could equally use the story about the boy who cried dragon to prove the existence of dragons but even if the boy got eaten at the end of the story by a dragon that would not mean anything about real dragons. You can't go "I know a story about a boy who said something a bunch of times and then that thing happened therefore the thing I'm saying over and over will also happen". That is not how logic works. this is precisely the backwards version of my point. My point is that just because something has been predicted before, and did not happen, you cannot conclude that a new prediction of the same thing is false. Also not how logic works (not that we have any formal logic which really treats such matters, but w/e)
Your point is an interesting and poignant spin on the story, especially because it is basically one of the foundational principles of evidentiary law. We should should start a petition to get school teachers to teach your version of the moral of the story. It is never too early to start creating lawyers!
|
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
no idea what this argument is even about
|
|
|
it's about warnings and prophecies
|
The argument is in regards to the acceptability of the DoJ's new policy a la Washington and Colorado's marijuana legalization. Some are arguing that laws are there to be followed, and that to ignore some given certain conditions is tantamount to undermining the very basis of how law works. Others, myself included, are of the opinion that when a given law or set of laws is set up with selective enforcement (which, in the case of the War on Drugs, is unavoidable by definition) as basically part of the package, the decision to ignore or marginalize the enforcement of said laws is acceptable.
|
haha farv we're clearly talking about different things. I think he was asking about my little parable and what is the point of it
|
I feel like sam's presence makes threads go surreal very quickly.
|
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
neh. i was curious what actual issue prompted the whole thing.
about selective enforcement of laws, it's certainly common and it also runs counter to le principles that people hold dear. so the interseting question is why the co-existence of both the situation and also principles that supposedly are very opposed to the situation, yet these principles do not change anything, and people even lose patience over criticism.
that would go into intersting questions about how moral revolutions happen, when does an argument that everyone buys (selective enforcement is, if not always bad, then at least not ideal) do work to change things. and also, for the revolutionary, what kind of attitude is most effective?
taking the boy example, i think it would be obvious that totally shutting up about wolves is inferior to crying wolf all day, but that too does not seem optimal.
on sam's side i'll say that principled and unceasinig resistance against wolves is probably a requirement, though the boy should also do something more over and above merely crying wolf. maybe focus on the possibility of wolf, and make people realize that maybe they should get to fixing the fence(point to how the fence is broken).
|
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is not far enough to the right for some conservatives.
The five-term Kentucky lawmaker, who typically aces conservative scorecards on his legislative record, faces not only a primary challenger, businessman Matt Bevin, but also a growing lineup of outside conservative groups. Critics say McConnell is too willing to acquiesce to President Barack Obama on government spending, too eager to bail out Wall Street and too ready to grant amnesty to the 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
Never mind that McConnell opposed the Senate immigration bill with a path to citizenship this past June, voted against the president's nominees for the Pentagon, CIA and several federal courts and never misses an opportunity to skewer Obama's signature health care law. McConnell has even sidled up to the tea party's fair-haired senator, fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul.
"He is part of what I would call the French Republicans; he surrenders a lot," said Larry Forgy, a Lexington, Ky., Republican who unsuccessfully ran for governor twice in the 1990s.
McConnell was hardly waving the white flag recently at the Kentucky Farm Bureau's traditional ham-and-eggs breakfast for 1,500-plus, drawing loud applause from the crowd when he offered his vision for the health care law.
"What we need to do it pull it out root and branch," the senator said, arguing that it was driving up the cost of insurance premiums and forcing companies to turn full-time employees into part-timers because of the expense of health care coverage.
With Paul at his side, the taciturn McConnell told reporters, "This is one of the few issues, seems to me, that we've got 100 percent Republican unity."
Source
|
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
