We aren’t exercising law and order on the violent bunch. And we are on those exercising their freedoms. Let’s not call this small

> Sin is a nonsense word.
@Malachi

As a general excuse for felony civil rights crimes, by nutcases who read bibles to claim Jeezus sez "get out of your closets and prey", it's far worse than that. But, for some, it's part of personal rituals to spend some time thinking about life choices, goals, or ethics, and so it can have positive meaning.

When it's used as an excuse for passive-aggressive predation on society and others in it, it's a bit like a drunk driver terrorizing all around him, and often an artifact of mental masturbation tricks that self-induce natural drugs, just like an addict. The dry drunk style of religion also carries the denial and dishonesty traits of addictions, abusive to oneself and others.

Why does anyone think the Declaration of Independence has any legal bearing on society, any time since the Articles of Confederation predating the US Constitution, other than as a historic artifact? DOI was an inducement to start a bloody and very costly revolution, by pushing buttons that in many cases, weren't even the political or economic interests of actual primary concern to all Founding Fathers.

Modern civil or human rights impress me as high level social contracts, with competing philosophical notions as to natural existence or human creation or recognition. If they were as clear and specific as some people pretend, the US Constitution wouldn't have had political deals to exclude the original 12 from its body and only adopt 10 of those, nor to limit their scope to Federal government only until 14th Amendment "Incorporation", a process also codified in Am's 13, 15, and 19. Neither would we have an Amendment process, nor the abuses of Prohibition 1 w/ an on/off flip-flop, Prohibition 2 aka "War on Drugs" sans amendment enabler, nor tolerate Philander Knox's certification fraud for what became the IRS, after SCOTUS rejected a far smaller scale but legally equivalent tax scam used to pay Civil War debt in 1895.

Because it helps put the constitution in context

Actually, redact my response. I read your vomit above, we are no longer having conversation you and I.

> 1A: "Peaceably to assemble"
@drenath
And when soap, ballot and jury boxes fail,
2A, cartridge box, against whatever "all enemies, foreign and domestic", may mean.
Note 1A has 5-7 elements, depending on how they're categorized, including that soap box, a press power tool version of it, and religious neutrality and free exercise, which at times includes freedom from abuse based on dogmatic drivel from others, essential especially for equal protections of those who avoid public spectacle religions themselves.

> Actually, redact my response. I read your vomit above, we are no longer having conversation you and I.
@JPMcGlone

Cancel whomever you may want. You are the one stopping the conversation.

So we have a functional issue here. The rhetoric seems to be. Resist tyranny, resist oppression, but use your guns, peaceably, then vote, unless shit gets too liberal, then get angry and get guns again.

What a shit show.

It’s my right. Nobody is cancelled.

> So we have a functional issue here. The rhetoric seems to be. Resist tyranny, resist oppression, but use your guns, peaceably, then vote, unless shit gets too liberal, then get angry and get guns again.
>
> What a shit show.
@Malachi

Our society does lots of things that offer good reason to be outraged, not just angry, but anger is usually not a good place from which to judge when violent responses may be justified, or even then, if they're wise or even capable of desired results. I was watching Noam Chomsky earlier from 4 years ago with Larry Krouch, and is he ever skilled in presenting why and how Cuba had good cause to send missiles into the US for some of our war crimes and genocides conspiracies, including with Israel or several African conflicts. But, talking about 2nd Amendment justifications is tricky, as for some it's advocacy of criminal violence, and in other cases discussion of benchmarks for when our government has gone out of bounds into some rather deep shit, even if RTKBA may be dysfunctional as a legally designated remedy.

This morning a well drafted 6 page open letter showed up in my Medscape professionals feed, from their Editor in Chief, to the head of the FDA. It clearly took many man-hours of production and revisions, as well as clear and easy formatting, but between content and length, was something most voters would never try reading. The obvious subtext was that the world would be a healthier place if scammers like you, and Trump who appointed you, tried Die In A Fire.

Of course it said nothing like that, overtly. It suggested the guy had a personal and professional obligation to apologize for some dangerous lies, proactively inform the public he'd perpetrated those frauds, and after laying out the legal charge for the FDA's existence and duties, that if he couldn't or wouldn't obey that, resign. That had little difference from ad hominem, other than use of professional standards, and a lot of man-hours.

No. The idea is that government is instituted to@protect rights. If a government becomes destructive to that end, then revolt is appropriate. The things BLM and Antifa are rioting over are not rights violations, most of them just want to be given things

Prove that please.

There were a few claims in there

Specify?

They’re rioting over “systemic racism” which has never been proven to exist. And they can’t point to a specifically racist law either. Rioting for social change they want to see, not due to any actual rights violations

Is "police reform" not ringing clear enough for you?
I agree that they have some real messaging issues. But you'd have to be actively ignoring them to dismiss the nuggets they do have

Why have governments at all, if their only purpose is to protect rights, but rights are generally restrictions on abuses of governments? That seems circular, and nonsensical.

That's the weird part. This is al predicated on Consent! Which comes from voting. Which means you consent to following g the laws of your government.

I can't explain this thoroughly enough to some folks 😆 😆

Police reform is fine. There are bills being pushed for that right now

That does not legitimize violating the rights of others

The Fellowship for Intentional Communities (www.IC.org) has interesting workshops on governance options in smaller voluntary communities, generally from 30-1500 people. Those usually need infrastructure to ensure food, housing, etc, and as size grows just in that range, procedures as interpersonal communication is less practical, and needs for specialization for scale and economy grows. Unlike larger societies people are born into and so get stuck with existing rules (not consent based), few besides a few kids become part of those communities who don't actively seek to do so.

In larger society, voting is often an artifical process to give a feeling of investment, but what does it accomplish if the only choices are onerous crooks, while issues are decided that are too complex or pervasive for most people to engage intelligently?

I didn't say it does.

Voting provides legitimacy.

Was it Everett Dirksen, or another long deceased Senator I'm not recalling, who said, "If I can control the rules or the vote, I'd take the rules every time"?

Voting is often intended to provide legitimacy, but for lack of legitimate candidates, or procedural obstacles or manipulations, it often doesn't.

Jimmy Crow is back in today's Sunday Doonesbury, with but one simpler and common example.

totally agree with what you're saying. and it is a huge problem.
I honestly think we are witnessing the slow end of an empire. the only chance we had to get out of this was Bernie Sanders, and his movement. But he used large words and Republitards got scared.

There’s a big jump between “not infringing on” your rights and “protecting” your rights.

And Malachi, that’s not why we don’t like Bernie.

Straw men are fun though. They’re easy to set on fire.

I believe some people, usually the incompetent, find it advantageous to assume the reason they aren’t higher in the hierarchy of their choice is because EVERYONE else is cheating.

Surely some people are. But all? Bernie wants to lower the ceiling to raise the floor.

“Republitards” want to raise the ceiling to raise the floor.

Some idiots want to lower the ceiling and the floor, so we can all be equal in the rubble, and that’s just stupid.

But it’s also where Bernie would likely (if accidentally) take us.

All US Presidential candidates are 74+ C'mon.... That's hillarious 😂

Trump - 74 / Biden - 77 / Bernie 79... Jeeze

> I honestly think we are witnessing the slow end of an empire. the only chance we had to get out of this was Bernie Sanders, and his movement. But he used large words and Republitards got scared.
@Malachi

It's not unreasonable to be apprehensive toward policies that could massively inflate government/taxes/deficit. Conservatives view those types of policies as "speeding us toward the end".

That said, the Republican party has a major identity crisis. "Left is bad, we're not that" isn't what I'd call exciting policymaking. Hence the entire party open for hijacking by someone like Orange Man.

Ultimately I'd like to see GOP move in a more centrist-libertarian direction, representing something like what Bret Weinstein talks about in a video I'll link. I think he's correct that the two major parties are succeeding in a sort of gerrymandering of the public.
https://youtu.be/bz0oxIZ3xIg?t=3731
If the deep link doesn't work, start around the 1hr 2m mark.

> Ultimately I'd like to see GOP move in a more centrist-libertarian direction, representing something like what Bret Weinstein talks about in a video I'll link. I think he's correct that the two major parties are succeeding in a sort of gerrymandering of the public.
> https://youtu.be/bz0oxIZ3xIg?t=3731
> If the deep link doesn't work the description I'm draw attention to starts around the 1hr 2m mark.
@drenath

Where do you get that Bret's talking about the GOP heading near center?
They've moved from right wing fascist, to the extremist corner of same, while Hillary took the Dem's more right wing into extremist region, and more fascist, than the GOP used to occupy.

Sanders was called far leftist, but really, he came out near zero as to statist/libertarian, and very mildly barely left. (Unfortunately, whether via staff or his own ideas, they used a $15 wage in ways that demonstrated how to scam treacherous fraud shell games, and set up robocall businesses that pretended they weren't that if they had human sequencers push buttons 4 times a second with no bathroom or water breaks allowed for 2 hour straight sessions, then off the clock rather than paid recovery time breaks. -- Not suggesting I agree with that wage model; just that they proved how to scam their own ideal. I see anything over $2/hour making more US-ians unemployable and driving away major classes of jobs, while helping retail and service workers in certain local markets, creating major racial and SES divisions it worsens, not solves. Both our country and the world have some very hard challenges to find workable models there.)

> Where do you get that Bret's talking about the GOP heading near center?
@LokiV
I didn't suggest that he was. I think he's talking about more of a 3rd party model, it was my proposal that the GOP moves in that direction.

I would prefer the GOP moving away from the cliff as well. If only to have better conversations with them.
But like I said. We have stepped off of a precipice. I don't think we can Wiley Coyote our way back.

To be very blunt. Everyone should vote dem. Why? Because climate change is the biggest threat facing us, and the right wing won't even recognize it exists.

> To be very blunt. Everyone should vote dem. Why? Because climate change is the biggest threat facing us, and the right wing won't even recognize it exists.
@Malachi

I don't disagree that Climate Change is an existential threat, but policies that commit fiscal suicide won't save the planet.