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Thread: How To Win Any Argument With A "Theory Doubter" - Page 2







Post#26 at 07-11-2015 05:19 PM by Einzige [at Illinois joined Apr 2013 #posts 824]
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07-11-2015, 05:19 PM #26
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Quote Originally Posted by Kepi View Post
Am I the only one here who doesn't seem to think anything has changed.
Largely this is because of the MegaUnraveling nature of the era.

Imagine that John Kerry had won in 2004, that the financial crisis had occurred on his watch, and that we were in the middle of a Republican Obama's second term. My guess is that conservatives would currently be winning symbolic victories today - reinstating prayer in schools, for instance - which would also have absolutely no real broader impact on things. I believe history was pretty much always going to be deadlocked at this moment in time, for reasons predating September 11th.

Symbolic victories become important when real ones are impossible.
Things are gonna slide
Slide in all directions
Won't be nothin'
Nothin' you can measure anymore

The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned the order of the soul
When they said REPENT (repent), I wonder what they meant

I've seen the future, brother:
It is murder

- Leonard Cohen, "The Future" (1992)







Post#27 at 07-11-2015 09:59 PM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed View Post
The "cleansing of the culture" predicted for the 4T by S & H proceeds apace. It's really funny, though, that it came from the opposite end of the Culture Wars than what they seemed to be expecting.

As I've been saying for a while now, the cleansing of the culture would have occurred no matter who won the Culture Wars. That's all that this proves. The Left and Right just would have done so for different reasons.

~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#28 at 07-11-2015 10:05 PM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by Kepi View Post
Am I the only one here who doesn't seem to think anything has changed.
No, not at all. After all, on Friday, my a house in my hometown flew the Confederate flag in plain view. And I live in PA. ;-)

~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#29 at 07-11-2015 10:06 PM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by Einzige View Post
Symbolic victories become important when real ones are impossible.
Well put.

~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#30 at 07-12-2015 12:49 PM by Bronco80 [at Boise joined Nov 2013 #posts 964]
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Quote Originally Posted by TnT View Post
Quote Originally Posted by '58 Flat View Post
Just say this:

Twenty years ago, Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people, and it changed absolutely nothing.

Dylann Roof kills nine people, and it changes everything.
"Everything?" Well that might be a bit optimistic. It did, however, seem to change a lot. Be nice if it stayed changed for a while.
Additionally, I'd dispute that McVeigh changed nothing. In the early 90s there was a very serious right-wing anti-government sentiment that was on the rise thanks to conflicts like the Branch Davidians and Ruby Ridge. When McVeigh did what he did, it really quelled that movement down when more people started to realize exactly what it was leading to.







Post#31 at 07-12-2015 08:45 PM by TnT [at joined Feb 2005 #posts 2,005]
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What baffles the crap out of me is why Clive Bundy is simply being left alone to do what he pleases with public land!! I think if I were in charge I'd want to see how those lunatics would do against a decent-sized unit of Marine Recon. I'd interpret posse comitatus to not apply, that Bundy is basically a traitor that has seceded.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."







Post#32 at 07-12-2015 08:56 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by Einzige View Post
Largely this is because of the MegaUnraveling nature of the era.
No, it's because people don't ever change very quickly or easily, except perhaps for some folks during Awakenings of any saeculum.

Symbolic victories become important when real ones are impossible.
Yes indeed. Gun control, for example, is out of reach in today's GOP congress. The effects of racism and profiling, etc, are hard to eradicate after one tragic incident. But taking down the flag; that was possible. So, at least we got that.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#33 at 07-13-2015 01:53 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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Quote Originally Posted by TnT View Post
...I think if I were in charge I'd want to see how those lunatics would do against a decent-sized unit of Marine Recon. I'd interpret posse comitatus to not apply, that Bundy is basically a traitor that has seceded.
1) Well, that interpretation would be bogus. Posse comitatus does apply;

2) What makes you think Marine Recon wants anything to do with this?







Post#34 at 07-13-2015 04:15 PM by rds [at joined Jul 2015 #posts 19]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
2) What makes you think Marine Recon wants anything to do with this?
Why would anyone care what they want? They serve their Commander in Chief President Obama. Unless they were going to mutiny and join the rebels under Bundy? Or, is your argument, the military units currently follow anyone they feel like?
Idealistic and pessimistic a late Boomer. The '70s were good to me.







Post#35 at 07-14-2015 07:49 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Quote Originally Posted by TnT View Post
What baffles the crap out of me is why Clive Bundy is simply being left alone to do what he pleases with public land!! I think if I were in charge I'd want to see how those lunatics would do against a decent-sized unit of Marine Recon. I'd interpret posse comitatus to not apply, that Bundy is basically a traitor that has seceded.
Since 99% of the action is on Federal land, posse comitatus only applies loosely. I don't think that's the issue. I believe the thinking, and I'm being a bit generous even calling it 'thinking', is the lesser of evils. Leave him a lone as long as he doesn't create any REAL trouble, and that's less problematic than a confrontation. FWIW, I think that's a bizarre view, but it seems to be the one the DOI is using.

At some point, there will be a confrontation. When and to what degree is the real question. Like you, I think a serious though not excessive show of force will work best, but who knows what they try when the time comes.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#36 at 07-14-2015 08:01 AM by nihilist moron [at joined Jul 2014 #posts 1,230]
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Anyone paying attention to the mustang roundups in recent years knows that BLM exists to serve ranchers.
Nobody ever got to a single truth without talking nonsense fourteen times first.
- Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment







Post#37 at 07-14-2015 10:10 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Quote Originally Posted by nihilist moron View Post
Anyone paying attention to the mustang roundups in recent years knows that BLM exists to serve ranchers.
To a first order approximation, the entire government is focused on serving those most able to demand service, farmers and ranchers among them. The same group gets the subsidies and, with the exception of super-8A set-asides, almost all of the contracts. They also boo-hoo the loudest when they are inconvenienced in the slightest. Its the textbook definition of being entitled.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
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