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On July 26 2017 07:40 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:22 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 07:06 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 06:35 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 06:23 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 06:09 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:49 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 05:40 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:25 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 05:03 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
I'm sorry, perhaps I misunderstood the content of your post. It seemed to me that you were attempting to defend Trump's Russian meetings by pointing to the DNC and claiming that what other people who aren't President do somehow impacts whether what Trump did was ethical.
Was that not what you were doing? Apologies, I just rather assumed that you'd consider further investigations into malfeasance in office/campaigns to be welcome in the fight against unethical (or others would say criminal) behavior. Not that everything not TrumpRussia = distraction from Trump Russia, that it seems to me you insinuate regularly. I'm a big fan of blind justice that doesn't matter if you're named Clinton or Trump, you'll be investigated. Here you see new allegations from the chairman of the judiciary committee and his recommendations, and if you've had a chance to read them, maybe you'll comment on the literal content of my post. I'm certainly not arguing that Trump, and only Trump, should be investigated or prosecuted for wrongdoing for the next four years. If you thought that that was my stance then I'm happy to correct you. I think justice should be blind and that people who commit crimes should be prosecuted, even if they're not currently the president. I see now that you were confused and genuinely believed that the left thinks that for the next four years all the rapists and murderers etc are off the hook because only Trump matters. Obviously if that were the case it's important to remind us that other people who aren't Trump still do things wrong. However, now that you understand that nobody is saying that only Trump should be investigated, do you see the issue with your post? If not, I'll spell it out to you. 1) Claiming that Trump is being treated unfairly because other people commit crimes does not, in fact, absolve him of anything. There is no way of getting from "other people did things that were wrong" to "Trump did nothing wrong". 2) The crimes of others aren't actually being ignored. 3) There is no way of getting from "the people objecting to this are hypocrites" to "Trump did nothing wrong". 4) Even if Trump was being treated differently, that still doesn't get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Unfair treatment by the law does not absolve sins, if it did then we'd never lock up an African American. 5) The crimes of people who are not President, while still criminal, are not as important as the crimes of people who are President. Investigating the possible compromise of the President is a more pressing matter than investigating the possible compromise of someone without that kind of influence. Hopefully you'll read this and understand that "but Hillary" will never, ever get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Complaining that the world is unfair is the act of a child or an idiot. The argument "I shouldn't get punished because she wasn't" is not valid. The argument that "I shouldn't get punished because you're hypocrites" is not valid. To get to "Trump did nothing wrong" you have to talk about Trump and what he did. Not Hillary. Not the DNC. Now that you understand I'm more than just "but Hillary," would you mind commenting on the matter at hand. I see a lot of talk about issues I see resolved in the Mueller, House, and Senate investigations of Russian interference. My post was on new allegations from the chair of the senate judiciary committee. I saw some reason to hope people that want Trump held accountable for anything revealed from the investigations to cheer Grassley on in these new revelations. Show that the powerful are still subject to the rule of law. If you show by word that you're only interested in Trump, and I mean look at your post without a word of the two-page letter, we're at an impasse now for discussing a current event. Am I misunderstanding what you were trying to express by It should come as a welcome development for people that thought the Trump Tower meeting was absolutely unethical. because it seems an awful lot like you were trying to talk about the Trump Tower meeting? See, you thought discussions with Danglars was a loop, and got caught in his flow chart instead. You're currently at the "Discussion isn't going in the direction I want" step, which leads to the "Read better, it's your fault I'm not understood clearly" retort. How very meta of you. You're quite familiar with "ignore all that, what about this!!" But every time I think you're going to debate, I read another contrafactual "That's a...pretty dumb view of history you have there." But your claim to fame is hacking out summaries, like saying GH is "I know nothing about politics but I'm still better than all of you." Maybe one day you'll return to debating instead of wondering how you can butcher everybody's opinions and then attack the altered form of them. If you think my statement are counterfactual, you are more than welcome to dispute them. That would be how a debate starts. Like the bolded quote, which was questioned and responded to, and eventually reached a point of understanding, if not agreement. Almost like a discussion. I wasn't quite expecting such an unironic defense of "that's a pretty dumb view of history you have here" style of debating, but you do exceed expectations. Maybe you and I can take as our launch pad "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Anyways, next time you want to debate merits instead of these meta "I don't like how Dang writes stuff," I'm all ears. Maybe start with the actual quoted tweet that Kwark went off the rails on ... Grassley's letter. Well, how about some points that were already brought up but were never responded to: 1) What was the intended comparison between that letter and the Trump Tower meetings? 2) The letter is a Senate Committee request for an investigation into a person. Which of these questions have been substantiated, and which are being asked because there are no answers?
I didn't want to insult your intelligence by basically rereading the letter. But as you wish. The allegation is collusion between Clinton allies and foreign government officials, based on testimony given to various news outlets. Similar to other Trump aspects, a foreign agent working to undermine the Trump campaign did not register under the foreign agents registration act. Trump is accused of similar and this should be an easy corollary to people genuinely concerned with justice beyond just seeing Trump taken down a peg.
The letter itself contains Politico, the Financial times, and other outlets reporting, as well as connected groups forced to register under FARA by the Justice department. If you know how to google, you may find these references, many of which were originally footnotes in the letter, on the internet. Specifically, would you be concerned if Ukraine (instead of Russia in the case of Trump) colluded with the DNC and Clinton campaign to hurt the Trump campaign effort, or is this just normal oppo for you. I don't honestly recall how militant you were on the ethics of using foreign government officials for opposition research.
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On July 26 2017 07:51 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:47 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded. Extremely high valuation of religion in society, religion being required to hold public office, deep taboos about sexuality, valuing religion over facts, replacing science with religion in education (thanks Texas), politicians constantly paying lip service to religion, etc. Mostly in how religious the US is. See, you're missing the forest for the trees. Let me reorient you to the defining characteristics of Western culture that I laid out last week: Show nested quote +Let's start with a broad definition of Western culture, which would include traditions of individual liberty, inalienable rights, political plurality, rationalism, and the rule of law (I'd throw Christianity in there as well, but I'm not sure that we need to go down that rabbit hole yet). Which of those does Iran share?
Which of those are under attack by the left?
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On July 26 2017 07:47 Godwrath wrote:
Weird, to me it reads like it's talking about that christianity has been the engine that has shaped most of the good western cultural values. Specially since he mentions marxism, but nowadays you never know.
Christianity is inseparable from Western culture. What we now know as Western culture is the product of classical Greek culture, Roman culture, and Christianity. The Enlightenment didn't happen in a vacuum.
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United States42778 Posts
On July 26 2017 07:51 xDaunt wrote:See, you're missing the forest for the trees. Let me reorient you to the defining characteristics of Western culture that I laid out last week: Show nested quote +Let's start with a broad definition of Western culture, which would include traditions of individual liberty, inalienable rights, political plurality, rationalism, and the rule of law (I'd throw Christianity in there as well, but I'm not sure that we need to go down that rabbit hole yet). Which of those does Iran share?
Are you sure you can defend America's record on all of those? Because if not then you should be a little cautious about throwing stones at others. I think Jesus had something to say about that.
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On July 26 2017 07:57 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:51 xDaunt wrote:See, you're missing the forest for the trees. Let me reorient you to the defining characteristics of Western culture that I laid out last week: Let's start with a broad definition of Western culture, which would include traditions of individual liberty, inalienable rights, political plurality, rationalism, and the rule of law (I'd throw Christianity in there as well, but I'm not sure that we need to go down that rabbit hole yet). Which of those does Iran share? Are you sure you can defend America's record on all of those? Because if not then you should be a little cautious about throwing stones at others. I think Jesus had something to say about that.
I already addressed this in my first post to GH on this topic today.
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United States42778 Posts
On July 26 2017 07:57 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:47 Godwrath wrote:
Weird, to me it reads like it's talking about that christianity has been the engine that has shaped most of the good western cultural values. Specially since he mentions marxism, but nowadays you never know. Christianity is inseparable from Western culture. What we now know as Western culture is the product of classical Greek culture, Roman culture, and Christianity. The Enlightenment didn't happen in a vacuum.
Utter nonsense. You know nothing about Roman culture, less about Greek culture, and the enlightenment was the express rejection of the Christian divine hierarchy.
You know what, let's do this.
Define Roman culture.
Define Greek culture.
List the exclusively Roman elements of western culture (and don't do cop outs like "law" as if the Romans were the first people to write down a legal code).
List the exclusively Greek elements of western culture (and don't give me "asking questions like Socrates" as if nobody would have come up with the idea of asking questions without the Greeks).
Specifically I want some kind of causal line that shows the ideas being communicated "classical Greek culture" to western culture. Ideally it'll outweigh other cultural influences from other parts of the world because you didn't list, for example, Arabic mathematics.
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On July 26 2017 07:51 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:47 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded. Extremely high valuation of religion in society, religion being required to hold public office, deep taboos about sexuality, valuing religion over facts, replacing science with religion in education (thanks Texas), politicians constantly paying lip service to religion, etc. Mostly in how religious the US is. See, you're missing the forest for the trees. Let me reorient you to the defining characteristics of Western culture that I laid out last week: Show nested quote +Let's start with a broad definition of Western culture, which would include traditions of individual liberty, inalienable rights, political plurality, rationalism, and the rule of law (I'd throw Christianity in there as well, but I'm not sure that we need to go down that rabbit hole yet). Which of those does Iran share?
Not sure abut inalienable rights, but I highly question that the US has those either (see : forfeiture, for a recent example).
But they do make efforts towards the rest (you may need to define rationalism though). Pretty sure they have an alright political system, it's just extremely religious.
Iran is a weird country to pick for this, as they were a democracy until the US meddled and are still not as much of a bogeyman as the right likes to make out. I'm sure there's some awful Muslim countries, but Iran isn't high on the list to me.
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On July 26 2017 07:57 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:51 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:47 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded. Extremely high valuation of religion in society, religion being required to hold public office, deep taboos about sexuality, valuing religion over facts, replacing science with religion in education (thanks Texas), politicians constantly paying lip service to religion, etc. Mostly in how religious the US is. See, you're missing the forest for the trees. Let me reorient you to the defining characteristics of Western culture that I laid out last week: Let's start with a broad definition of Western culture, which would include traditions of individual liberty, inalienable rights, political plurality, rationalism, and the rule of law (I'd throw Christianity in there as well, but I'm not sure that we need to go down that rabbit hole yet). Which of those does Iran share? Which of those are under attack by the left?
I could make an argument that all of them are under attack by the Left to at least some degree. As a reminder (and as is demonstrated by the responses that we are seeing in this thread), it is the Left that has developed the nasty tendency to reject Western culture outright. But for discussion purposes, I think that the most egregious examples would concern political plurality and the rule of law.
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On July 26 2017 08:00 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:57 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:47 Godwrath wrote:
Weird, to me it reads like it's talking about that christianity has been the engine that has shaped most of the good western cultural values. Specially since he mentions marxism, but nowadays you never know. Christianity is inseparable from Western culture. What we now know as Western culture is the product of classical Greek culture, Roman culture, and Christianity. The Enlightenment didn't happen in a vacuum. Utter nonsense. You know nothing about Roman culture, less about Greek culture, and the enlightenment was the express rejection of the Christian divine hierarchy. You know what, let's do this. Define Roman culture. Define Greek culture. List the exclusively Roman elements of western culture (and don't do cop outs like "law" as if the Romans were the first people to write down a legal code). List the exclusively Greek elements of western culture (and don't give me "asking questions like Socrates" as if nobody would have come up with the idea of asking questions without the Greeks). Specifically I want some kind of causal line that shows the ideas being communicated "classical Greek culture" to western culture. Ideally it'll outweigh other cultural influences from other parts of the world because you didn't list, for example, Arabic mathematics.
If you think that this is all that the Enlightenment was about as it pertained to Christianity, then you really don't understand how the Enlightenment thinkers derived their philosophies. As just one example, go read about natural law, where it came from, and how it influenced Western thought, then we can try this again.
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On July 26 2017 07:55 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:40 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 07:22 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 07:06 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 06:35 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 06:23 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 06:09 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:49 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 05:40 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:25 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
Apologies, I just rather assumed that you'd consider further investigations into malfeasance in office/campaigns to be welcome in the fight against unethical (or others would say criminal) behavior. Not that everything not TrumpRussia = distraction from Trump Russia, that it seems to me you insinuate regularly. I'm a big fan of blind justice that doesn't matter if you're named Clinton or Trump, you'll be investigated. Here you see new allegations from the chairman of the judiciary committee and his recommendations, and if you've had a chance to read them, maybe you'll comment on the literal content of my post. I'm certainly not arguing that Trump, and only Trump, should be investigated or prosecuted for wrongdoing for the next four years. If you thought that that was my stance then I'm happy to correct you. I think justice should be blind and that people who commit crimes should be prosecuted, even if they're not currently the president. I see now that you were confused and genuinely believed that the left thinks that for the next four years all the rapists and murderers etc are off the hook because only Trump matters. Obviously if that were the case it's important to remind us that other people who aren't Trump still do things wrong. However, now that you understand that nobody is saying that only Trump should be investigated, do you see the issue with your post? If not, I'll spell it out to you. 1) Claiming that Trump is being treated unfairly because other people commit crimes does not, in fact, absolve him of anything. There is no way of getting from "other people did things that were wrong" to "Trump did nothing wrong". 2) The crimes of others aren't actually being ignored. 3) There is no way of getting from "the people objecting to this are hypocrites" to "Trump did nothing wrong". 4) Even if Trump was being treated differently, that still doesn't get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Unfair treatment by the law does not absolve sins, if it did then we'd never lock up an African American. 5) The crimes of people who are not President, while still criminal, are not as important as the crimes of people who are President. Investigating the possible compromise of the President is a more pressing matter than investigating the possible compromise of someone without that kind of influence. Hopefully you'll read this and understand that "but Hillary" will never, ever get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Complaining that the world is unfair is the act of a child or an idiot. The argument "I shouldn't get punished because she wasn't" is not valid. The argument that "I shouldn't get punished because you're hypocrites" is not valid. To get to "Trump did nothing wrong" you have to talk about Trump and what he did. Not Hillary. Not the DNC. Now that you understand I'm more than just "but Hillary," would you mind commenting on the matter at hand. I see a lot of talk about issues I see resolved in the Mueller, House, and Senate investigations of Russian interference. My post was on new allegations from the chair of the senate judiciary committee. I saw some reason to hope people that want Trump held accountable for anything revealed from the investigations to cheer Grassley on in these new revelations. Show that the powerful are still subject to the rule of law. If you show by word that you're only interested in Trump, and I mean look at your post without a word of the two-page letter, we're at an impasse now for discussing a current event. Am I misunderstanding what you were trying to express by It should come as a welcome development for people that thought the Trump Tower meeting was absolutely unethical. because it seems an awful lot like you were trying to talk about the Trump Tower meeting? See, you thought discussions with Danglars was a loop, and got caught in his flow chart instead. You're currently at the "Discussion isn't going in the direction I want" step, which leads to the "Read better, it's your fault I'm not understood clearly" retort. How very meta of you. You're quite familiar with "ignore all that, what about this!!" But every time I think you're going to debate, I read another contrafactual "That's a...pretty dumb view of history you have there." But your claim to fame is hacking out summaries, like saying GH is "I know nothing about politics but I'm still better than all of you." Maybe one day you'll return to debating instead of wondering how you can butcher everybody's opinions and then attack the altered form of them. If you think my statement are counterfactual, you are more than welcome to dispute them. That would be how a debate starts. Like the bolded quote, which was questioned and responded to, and eventually reached a point of understanding, if not agreement. Almost like a discussion. I wasn't quite expecting such an unironic defense of "that's a pretty dumb view of history you have here" style of debating, but you do exceed expectations. Maybe you and I can take as our launch pad "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Anyways, next time you want to debate merits instead of these meta "I don't like how Dang writes stuff," I'm all ears. Maybe start with the actual quoted tweet that Kwark went off the rails on ... Grassley's letter. Well, how about some points that were already brought up but were never responded to: 1) What was the intended comparison between that letter and the Trump Tower meetings? 2) The letter is a Senate Committee request for an investigation into a person. Which of these questions have been substantiated, and which are being asked because there are no answers? I didn't want to insult your intelligence by basically rereading the letter. But as you wish. The allegation is collusion between Clinton allies and foreign government officials, based on testimony given to various news outlets. Similar to other Trump aspects, a foreign agent working to undermine the Trump campaign did not register under the foreign agents registration act. Trump is accused of similar and this should be an easy corollary to people genuinely concerned with justice beyond just seeing Trump taken down a peg. The letter itself contains Politico, the Financial times, and other outlets reporting, as well as connected groups forced to register under FARA by the Justice department. If you know how to google, you may find these references, many of which were originally footnotes in the letter, on the internet. Specifically, would you be concerned if Ukraine (instead of Russia in the case of Trump) colluded with the DNC and Clinton campaign to hurt the Trump campaign effort, or is this just normal oppo for you. I don't honestly recall how militant you were on the ethics of using foreign government officials for opposition research.
So, this was whataboutism, because true or untrue, the allegations against Alexandra Chalupa, and collusion with the DNC, have no direct effect on the investigations into the Trump Tower meetings?
And regardless, again, this is a Senate Committee request for information on why the DOJ has not investigated or taken certain actions in regards to Alexandra Chalupa. So are you wanting to compare why there is an investigation into members of Trump's team, and not one for Chalupa and associated parties? Or is this is a hypothetical "if these allegations are true and an investigation begins"?
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United States42778 Posts
On July 26 2017 08:08 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 08:00 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 07:57 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:47 Godwrath wrote:
Weird, to me it reads like it's talking about that christianity has been the engine that has shaped most of the good western cultural values. Specially since he mentions marxism, but nowadays you never know. Christianity is inseparable from Western culture. What we now know as Western culture is the product of classical Greek culture, Roman culture, and Christianity. The Enlightenment didn't happen in a vacuum. Utter nonsense. You know nothing about Roman culture, less about Greek culture, and the enlightenment was the express rejection of the Christian divine hierarchy. You know what, let's do this. Define Roman culture. Define Greek culture. List the exclusively Roman elements of western culture (and don't do cop outs like "law" as if the Romans were the first people to write down a legal code). List the exclusively Greek elements of western culture (and don't give me "asking questions like Socrates" as if nobody would have come up with the idea of asking questions without the Greeks). Specifically I want some kind of causal line that shows the ideas being communicated "classical Greek culture" to western culture. Ideally it'll outweigh other cultural influences from other parts of the world because you didn't list, for example, Arabic mathematics. If you think that this is all that the Enlightenment was about as it pertained to Christianity, then you really don't understand how the Enlightenment thinkers derived their philosophies. As just one example, go read about natural law, where it came from, and how it influenced Western thought, then we can try this again.
Natural law is a rejection of divine law and is specifically at the heart of the rejection of the divine right of kings. Trying to make the argument that natural law is a Christian idea is pretty amusing. Presumably you're going to point out that some of the philosophers were Christians. Weird how that'd work out in a continent dominated by Christianity. They were men too. Perhaps natural law is a masculine idea. I think it's a far more interesting idea as a counterpush against religious despotism. In a world of divine right of kings natural law offers a rival source of rights. And if you're not a king it's quite an attractive idea.
I'm still eagerly awaiting your definitions of Greek and Roman culture. After seeing some of your past statements about the Roman Empire I'm sure it'll be fascinating.
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On July 26 2017 07:57 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:47 Godwrath wrote:
Weird, to me it reads like it's talking about that christianity has been the engine that has shaped most of the good western cultural values. Specially since he mentions marxism, but nowadays you never know. Christianity is inseparable from Western culture. What we now know as Western culture is the product of classical Greek culture, Roman culture, and Christianity. The Enlightenment didn't happen in a vacuum.
Uh no? How exactly is christianity inseperable to western culture? What is western culture? Which western culture? All the aspects of western culture? Which christianity? Christianity is present all around the world, with large populations in Africa and South America notably. Judging from past remarks, i suspect you would not regard them as western culture. Christianity originated and first spread across what would be called the muslim world today. Heck, in a lot of western countries, Christianity is no longer followed as a religion, but more of a social activity. The more I look at this statement the more nonsensical it becomes. A statement asserted as thus can only be a product of complete cultural insulation or deliberate ignorance. Actually scrap that. A quick google search of your statement seems to be connected to white supremecy groups.I am not sure those are the kind of statements you want to be associated with.
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On July 26 2017 08:13 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 08:08 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 08:00 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 07:57 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:47 Godwrath wrote:
Weird, to me it reads like it's talking about that christianity has been the engine that has shaped most of the good western cultural values. Specially since he mentions marxism, but nowadays you never know. Christianity is inseparable from Western culture. What we now know as Western culture is the product of classical Greek culture, Roman culture, and Christianity. The Enlightenment didn't happen in a vacuum. Utter nonsense. You know nothing about Roman culture, less about Greek culture, and the enlightenment was the express rejection of the Christian divine hierarchy. You know what, let's do this. Define Roman culture. Define Greek culture. List the exclusively Roman elements of western culture (and don't do cop outs like "law" as if the Romans were the first people to write down a legal code). List the exclusively Greek elements of western culture (and don't give me "asking questions like Socrates" as if nobody would have come up with the idea of asking questions without the Greeks). Specifically I want some kind of causal line that shows the ideas being communicated "classical Greek culture" to western culture. Ideally it'll outweigh other cultural influences from other parts of the world because you didn't list, for example, Arabic mathematics. If you think that this is all that the Enlightenment was about as it pertained to Christianity, then you really don't understand how the Enlightenment thinkers derived their philosophies. As just one example, go read about natural law, where it came from, and how it influenced Western thought, then we can try this again. Natural law is a rejection of divine law and is specifically at the heart of the rejection of the divine right of kings. Trying to make the argument that natural law is a Christian idea is pretty amusing. Presumably you're going to point out that some of the philosophers were Christians. Weird how that'd work out in a continent dominated by Christianity. They were men too. Perhaps natural law is a masculine idea. I think it's a far more interesting idea as a counterpush against religious despotism. In a world of divine right of kings natural law offers a rival source of rights. And if you're not a king it's quite an attractive idea. I'm still eagerly awaiting your definitions of Greek and Roman culture. After seeing some of your past statements about the Roman Empire I'm sure it'll be fascinating.
This is not the correct definition of natural law. And you have conveniently omitted (or maybe you are just oblivious to) the contributions to the Western understanding of natural law that are made by figures such as Augustine and Aquinas. Hell, you need look no further than the American Declaration of Independence to see how Christianity helped define modern Western notions of rights and liberties. You are badly off base here.
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On July 26 2017 06:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:43 mozoku wrote:On July 26 2017 06:06 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:53 mozoku wrote:
Don't something like 80% of Americans have employer-sponsored healthcare anyway?
As immeasurable as the effect can be on the other 20% (i.e. the individual market), I'm always a little amazed at how much people care about healthcare bills considering most people talking about the issue aren't even significantly affected by them.
That doesn't excuse the utter mess our healthcare system is, but Obamacare didn't do much to fix that except make the individual market less terrible.
I'm awaiting a real healthcare bill that actually tries to deal with the cost of healthcare in the US, instead of just bickering about who pays for it or about how much of it we pay for publicly. I'm not expecting it from either of the clown troupe factions in Congress though. Employer health insurance isn't special, unique or good. It's an employer provided benefit that can be great and can be awful. Literally the only thing that makes employer provided health insurance remotely good is that it has mandatory risk pools built into it which is, wait for it, SOCIALISM!!! If you get employer paid for insurance and you're young and healthy then you're getting mandatory deductions from your paycheck to help subsidize the old and sick people getting the same health insurance through your employer. Employers generally don't allow you to opt out of their health insurance and take the money instead, using that to either self insure or buy a health insurance contract customized to your needs. There's a reason for that. If they then all the people without preconditions would bail out of the risk pool, take the extra compensation as $ and then buy their own low risk individual health insurance contracts. That'd leave the employer unable to provide health insurance to the remaining uninsurables and the entire system would collapse. Effectively if you have employer provided health insurance then you're already getting all the things that people absolutely hated about the ACA. Only you're already used to it so you don't really think about it. Remote bureaucrats deciding what is and is not covered? Check. Paying for conditions you don't have? Check. Mandatory risk pooling? Check. No control over your own coverage? Check. Penalties? Check. Except you can choose to opt out of health insurance with your employer and not pay a premium (which almost all employers still require you to pay to opt-in). You can't do that with ACA. You pay for insurance or you pay a tax penalty. They're not the same at all. And I'm not sure if you really directed this specifically at me or not, but I've never said I preferred the old system over the ACA. I'm willing to pay some portion of my income to not have people dying on the street for lack of healthcare. In fact, as I noted above, I'm an extremely reluctant semi-supporter of single payer. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the ACA does impose some income redistribution, and I can understand people being philosophically opposed to that. And I definitely think in general, most people tend to err way more on the side "High earners, give me more stuff because I blame the system for my problems and that's why you're a high earner and I'm not" than caring about people getting what they're worth. It's human nature to blame others for things you're unhappy with. Thus why I can empathize with people having a natural weariness of income redistribution. My employer allows me to opt out of health insurance simply by forfeiting the benefit. That's not an opt out, it's still part of my total compensation, all I can do is choose to decline taking the compensation. You're still having your wealth redistributed. The ACA has more choice than employer health insurance. The employer takes money they would have paid you and spends it on health insurance either way, the option to buy health insurance or pay a fine is more of a choice.
I see what you're saying, but the redistribution is offset (for those disadvantaged by it) by the negotiating advantage that a large company has when dealing with insurance companies. When, say, Amazon brings 100,000 potential customers, insurance companies will be willing to take lower margins on each individual customer. In addition, the company gets a tax-break for sponsoring health insurance. You (as an individual) don't. The fact that there's redistribution going on doesn't meant that isn't a better deal for the healthy employee even if the employer was willing to refund their portion of the premium if they chose to decline health insurance.
Those who are employed by companies who offer insurance, but do not want insurance for themselves (a relatively small group), do get hosed by employer-sponsored healthcare. Guess what? That's the same group (those who don't want insurance) that gets hosed by Obamacare. The difference is that, in the employer group, that tends to be those who get insurance through their spouse and largely have a decent-paying job. In the Obamacare group (anyone who previously didn't have insurance), it's disproportionately those from whom it's the greatest financial burden to pay their monthly insurance premiums (i.e. the people who's companies didn't feel they were worth offering employer-sponsored healthcare or those who weren't employed at all). I can certainly empathize with them not wanting a nanny state telling them how to run their lives or handle their finances.
The ACA is no more income redistribution than employer based health insurance.
My BS-dar is going off here. I'm pretty sure that there's less redistribution going on within the employer-sponsored group (who largely have white collar or union jobs) between unhealthy/healthy (independent of income) then there is in the general population (where there's a lot more income inequality).
Where do you think all of the insurance subsidies come from? Any addition to the budget has to be financed with debt or taxed (ignoring inflation), and the tax code is progressive. Therefore, additional spending disproportionately falls on higher earners. There was also a direct tax on investments from the ACA for high earners.
You can definitely be on an employer-sponsored health plan and disapprove of the ACA without holding inconsistent views.
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See, I think what's disrupting the conversation is that xDaunt's definition of Western culture is "any positive thing Christians did, even if the Church at at the time was directly stifling it." Of course no non-Christians contribute.
At least he did admit it was just about being anti-Christian at some core level, which is more than most proponents of some vast Western cradle of liberty will do.
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United States42778 Posts
Oddly enough an insistence that modern western ideas are definitely actually classical ideas and that western Europe are totally the heirs of Athens and Rome is actually a part of western culture. Western culture isn't Greek, nor Roman, nor do such terms survive definition, but one thing that western culture absolutely is is eager to insist that it is both.
It's worth remembering that the Classical Greeks didn't see themselves as Greek and that the word Roman went from referring to a small group of citizens within a single city to the entire population of an empire. The way xDaunt uses these words betrays that he has absolutely no understanding of them, and yet he's very definite that western civilization has classical roots.
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It's more of case that he doesn't define western culture as anything, except perhaps that it is Christian. Which is utterly untrue as what defines western culture in comparison with any other culture is that it is secular. Secular rules, secular law, secular science.
Anyways, I've always find it amusing how some Americans seem to think Romans and Greeks are the birthplace of western civilisation or something. Meanwhile, across the pond, only Italians and Greeks out of nationalistic pride profess it so.
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On July 26 2017 08:13 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:55 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 07:40 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 07:22 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 07:06 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 06:35 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 06:23 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 06:09 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:49 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 05:40 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
I'm certainly not arguing that Trump, and only Trump, should be investigated or prosecuted for wrongdoing for the next four years. If you thought that that was my stance then I'm happy to correct you. I think justice should be blind and that people who commit crimes should be prosecuted, even if they're not currently the president. I see now that you were confused and genuinely believed that the left thinks that for the next four years all the rapists and murderers etc are off the hook because only Trump matters. Obviously if that were the case it's important to remind us that other people who aren't Trump still do things wrong.
However, now that you understand that nobody is saying that only Trump should be investigated, do you see the issue with your post? If not, I'll spell it out to you.
1) Claiming that Trump is being treated unfairly because other people commit crimes does not, in fact, absolve him of anything. There is no way of getting from "other people did things that were wrong" to "Trump did nothing wrong".
2) The crimes of others aren't actually being ignored.
3) There is no way of getting from "the people objecting to this are hypocrites" to "Trump did nothing wrong".
4) Even if Trump was being treated differently, that still doesn't get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Unfair treatment by the law does not absolve sins, if it did then we'd never lock up an African American.
5) The crimes of people who are not President, while still criminal, are not as important as the crimes of people who are President. Investigating the possible compromise of the President is a more pressing matter than investigating the possible compromise of someone without that kind of influence.
Hopefully you'll read this and understand that "but Hillary" will never, ever get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Complaining that the world is unfair is the act of a child or an idiot. The argument "I shouldn't get punished because she wasn't" is not valid. The argument that "I shouldn't get punished because you're hypocrites" is not valid. To get to "Trump did nothing wrong" you have to talk about Trump and what he did. Not Hillary. Not the DNC. Now that you understand I'm more than just "but Hillary," would you mind commenting on the matter at hand. I see a lot of talk about issues I see resolved in the Mueller, House, and Senate investigations of Russian interference. My post was on new allegations from the chair of the senate judiciary committee. I saw some reason to hope people that want Trump held accountable for anything revealed from the investigations to cheer Grassley on in these new revelations. Show that the powerful are still subject to the rule of law. If you show by word that you're only interested in Trump, and I mean look at your post without a word of the two-page letter, we're at an impasse now for discussing a current event. Am I misunderstanding what you were trying to express by It should come as a welcome development for people that thought the Trump Tower meeting was absolutely unethical. because it seems an awful lot like you were trying to talk about the Trump Tower meeting? See, you thought discussions with Danglars was a loop, and got caught in his flow chart instead. You're currently at the "Discussion isn't going in the direction I want" step, which leads to the "Read better, it's your fault I'm not understood clearly" retort. How very meta of you. You're quite familiar with "ignore all that, what about this!!" But every time I think you're going to debate, I read another contrafactual "That's a...pretty dumb view of history you have there." But your claim to fame is hacking out summaries, like saying GH is "I know nothing about politics but I'm still better than all of you." Maybe one day you'll return to debating instead of wondering how you can butcher everybody's opinions and then attack the altered form of them. If you think my statement are counterfactual, you are more than welcome to dispute them. That would be how a debate starts. Like the bolded quote, which was questioned and responded to, and eventually reached a point of understanding, if not agreement. Almost like a discussion. I wasn't quite expecting such an unironic defense of "that's a pretty dumb view of history you have here" style of debating, but you do exceed expectations. Maybe you and I can take as our launch pad "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Anyways, next time you want to debate merits instead of these meta "I don't like how Dang writes stuff," I'm all ears. Maybe start with the actual quoted tweet that Kwark went off the rails on ... Grassley's letter. Well, how about some points that were already brought up but were never responded to: 1) What was the intended comparison between that letter and the Trump Tower meetings? 2) The letter is a Senate Committee request for an investigation into a person. Which of these questions have been substantiated, and which are being asked because there are no answers? I didn't want to insult your intelligence by basically rereading the letter. But as you wish. The allegation is collusion between Clinton allies and foreign government officials, based on testimony given to various news outlets. Similar to other Trump aspects, a foreign agent working to undermine the Trump campaign did not register under the foreign agents registration act. Trump is accused of similar and this should be an easy corollary to people genuinely concerned with justice beyond just seeing Trump taken down a peg. The letter itself contains Politico, the Financial times, and other outlets reporting, as well as connected groups forced to register under FARA by the Justice department. If you know how to google, you may find these references, many of which were originally footnotes in the letter, on the internet. Specifically, would you be concerned if Ukraine (instead of Russia in the case of Trump) colluded with the DNC and Clinton campaign to hurt the Trump campaign effort, or is this just normal oppo for you. I don't honestly recall how militant you were on the ethics of using foreign government officials for opposition research. So, this was whataboutism, because true or untrue, the allegations against Alexandra Chalupa, and collusion with the DNC, have no direct effect on the investigations into the Trump Tower meetings? And regardless, again, this is a Senate Committee request for information on why the DOJ has not investigated or taken certain actions in regards to Alexandra Chalupa. So are you wanting to compare why there is an investigation into members of Trump's team, and not one for Chalupa and associated parties? Or is this is a hypothetical "if these allegations are true and an investigation begins"?
Nonsense; we should celebrate together that elites are being exposed. I'll bring the beer.
Second, why ask about the connection and proof if all this is just pretense to declare whataboutism? You could save me a lot of time debating merits if you see no reason to investigate other campaign misdeeds if they don't involve sinister dealings by Trump. Whataboutism is such a dodge and you're better than that (or ought to hold yourself to a higher standard). I stated and restate now that both investigations involving unethical oppo should continue apace. I don't see any obstruction of investigation yet, and if you'd like to see both found out, there's no logical inconsistencies in your argument.
It doesn't fit your narrative, but try to understand this is a net win for everyone. Trump doesn't get off, Clinton doesn't get off, so cool your head and remember that not all your political opponents need to be smeared to have a nice discussion.
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On July 26 2017 08:26 TheTenthDoc wrote:
See, I think what's disrupting the conversation is that xDaunt's definition of Western culture is "any positive thing Christians did, even if the Church at at the time was directly stifling it." Of course no non-Christians contribute.
At least he did admit it was just about being anti-Christian at some core level, which is more than most proponents of some vast Western cradle of liberty will do.
No, that isn't my definition of Western culture, but I find it amusing and telling that y'all are so hung up on the role Christianity plays.
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EPT
