patrick.net

I think Dan has a point.

I think that Dan has a good point, and I think that, outside Google searches for posters, there is probably ample data that would support his claim that the Tea Party is more racist than the general population.

Fore example: we know that the south is probably the most racist area of the country (if anyone disagrees I would be interested to hear the reasoning). So, what area has the highest density of Tea Party Caucus members? That's right, the south!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_Caucus#Members.2C_112th_Congress

I bet if we kept digging a mountain of data would continue to pile up, and continue to point to a racist Tea Party.

Dan8267 says

The Southerns should try to make themselves look better by distinguishing themselves from their ancestors and renouncing all the old, stupid ideas. It would be a more effective strategy than white washing history.

Off topic, but the Turks have a similar problem. They ruthlessly exterminated their Armenian population out of fear it would side with the Russians in WWI. But they have not admitted it to this day. They would look better if they were honest about it.

The south is nowhere near the most racist part of the country. Boston is notoriously racist and is almost certainly as racist as the south (see the fairly recent ESPN article about athletes' perceptions of racism). Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in. Have you ever been to a city in the south? Memphis is half African-American, Atlanta is over a third African-American. Over forty percent of the African Americans in Congress represent southern states. I'm not sure what more the south should do to prove it is no longer the confederacy than electing African Americans to represent them in congress. Racial harmony in the south is better than it has ever been. Is it perfect? No, nowhere near it. But when you consider the rampant racism against Latinos in much of the southwest, or the racism of many in the northeast against Haitians, or even the racism against those of Asian descent that I saw all the time in Seattle, I think you are pushing it to make a claim that the south is currently more racist than anywhere else. Are there no racists in San Francisco? http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=b5df7611cb906045c8c64ab91b4fbcc2 If your claim of racism in the Tea Party is true, the Tea Party should be very popular in San Francisco.

So, does the new Be Nice or Leave policy apply to the use of teabagger or not? Because there is page after page of uses of that word if you search the forums. You were talking about people avoiding the forums because of ShrekGrinch, and I don't doubt it is true. I always felt he was more of a liability than a help when discussing issues. But the attitudes of many long-time posters here and the animosity towards the Tea Party is just as causeless as ShrekGrinch's view of Obama, with common accusations that the Tea Partiers are teabaggers and Fascists.

Patrick, I also don't really see how on the one hand you ask for donations to keep this site alive, while on the other you make blanket statements such as "The liberals try to talk about facts and the conservatives couldn't care less about facts." You also literally compared conservatives to dogs. Why should I open up my wallet to donate to your site when you make such statements?

I was saddened when you broadened the scope of this site from real estate to opinions on health care, but I understood that it was important to you, and that it is your site. But you long ago jumped the shark on the politics section, and have broadened it from just health care to posting articles dismissive of conservatives in general. Again, why should I donate money to a site that believes I am an idiot for my political beliefs, and shares links to reflect that belief on a near daily basis.

I also don't understand how you are capable of holding mutually contradictory thoughts. How is that conservatives have no interest in facts, but liberals do, yet of the links you post, the ones most interested in facts and mathematics rather than just conjecture are to opinion pieces written by non-liberals such as Karl Denninger and Mike Shedlock? For example, Denninger and Shedlock both believe that the healthcare law is terrible for the country and must be stopped. Are you arguing that both of these men, who provide far more facts to back up their conjectures than anyone on this site, don't care about facts?

In short, I believe that this site has become a haven of hypocrisy, and that saddens me. What was once a wonderful place to read about the housing bubble has become an echo chamber of liberal ideology, and the posters have convinced themselves that they are somehow a brilliant elite that can make blanket statements about conservatives without any attempt to back those statements up with facts, while simultaneously accusing the other side of not having any facts. And all the while, every time I try to have a political conversation I risk being called a teabagger or a Fascist because I interpret the constitution differently, and have different beliefs regarding entitlements.

Perhaps this is the nature of the internet itself, that everything good eventually devolves into a shouting match. And I am the first to admit that my side is equally at fault (as much as I dislike being called names, I dislike even more having my arguments hijacked by my supposed allies with hyperbolic arguments or character assassinations), but I don't see it getting any better. Starting to read this thread had given me some hope that an attempt was going to be made to police the forums, somewhat like Denninger's policy that any claim not backed by actual demonstrable facts is cause for banning (strange that a site frequented mostly by people of a more conservative persuasion actually requires fact despite your claim that only liberals are interested in facts), but by the end of the thread we are back to conjecture that the Tea Party is more racist than the general population with nothing to back the claim but potential google searches and a strange logical jump based on geographical racism from fifty years ago.

I meant that Dan's point was that Bap33's comments lacked specifics.

TeaBagger seems to have started as a self-descriptive term:

http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger

You're an unusual conservative -- lately. I think there used to be more of your kind.

ahasuerus99 says

And I am the first to admit that my side is equally at fault (as much as I dislike being called names, I dislike even more having my arguments hijacked by my supposed allies with hyperbolic arguments or character assassinations), but I don't see it getting any better.

Lately, it's not at all equal. Your supposed allies far outnumber you, or at least they are far louder, and they're not coherent or reasonable. They do indeed hear arguments very much like a dog does, seeming to hear only tone and never the content.

ahasuerus99 says

non-liberals such as Karl Denninger and Mike Shedlock

I doubt either one would describe themselves as a Tea Party member now that it's been taken over by the haters. Denniger said as much:

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2222649

You're very welcome to stay here because you're civil and reasonable. It would be nice to debate an actual conservative.

ahasuerus99 says

Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in

LOL, nice try I guess. The only problem with your argument is that racists are stupid, too.

Over forty percent of the African Americans in Congress represent southern states. I'm not sure what more the south should do to prove it is no longer the confederacy than electing African Americans to represent them in congress.

LOL. You *do* know that districts are gerrymandered, right? Yes, there are a lot of black people in the South, but they get lumped into a few districtis.

Alabama is over 25% black but only has 1 black representative out of 7.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=AL

Funny how that worked.

Southerners can win some anti-racist badges when they elect a black Senator, you dig?

The rest of your racist stuff is just trying to change the subject.

FYI, the three black Senators to win office since Reconstruction are from MA and two from IL, though Obama's win was something of an accident of history, and he's not that black if you ask me.

So, does the new Be Nice or Leave policy apply to the use of teabagger or not? Because there is page after page of uses of that word if you search the forums.

Teabaggers earned that name for themselves by their own actions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/tea-bag-terror-protests-c_n_186596.html

Tea baggers are profoundly stupid people who lack the self-awareness to not do and say stupid things.

How is that conservatives have no interest in facts, but liberals do, yet of the links you post, the ones most interested in facts and mathematics rather than just conjecture are to opinion pieces written by non-liberals such as Karl Denninger and Mike Shedlock?

KD and mish are ideological anti-government hacks talking their books.

Are you arguing that both of these men, who provide far more facts to back up their conjectures than anyone on this site, don't care about facts?

They marshal the facts they want. They ignore the facts that controvert their arguments.

n short, I believe that this site has become a haven of hypocrisy, and that saddens me.

Your sadness equally saddens me, too. This is supposed to be a happy place.

And all the while, every time I try to have a political conversation I risk being called a teabagger or a Fascist because I interpret the constitution differently, and have different beliefs regarding entitlements.

Make your arguments but try to leave the butt-hurt conservative act at the door.

but by the end of the thread we are back to conjecture that the Tea Party is more racist than the general population with nothing to back the claim but potential google searches and a strange logical jump based on geographical racism from fifty years ago.

fwiw I also try to defend the anti-Obama conservatives from unfounded allegations of racism.

You don't have to be racist to be an anti-government teabagger, but it helps.

Patrick,
I feel Dan told a fairy tale to support his anti-conservative, anti-God, anti-right postings. I say that due to the exact match his story had to every other libtopian story we get on here from posters such as Dan ... "I grew up super religous, nuns beat me, I got smarter by going to college, smart people know religion is crap, America sucks, smoking dope is great, my parents were right wing, and I'm not a lefty -- I'm an independant! And besides, all conservatives are racist bigot homophobe teabagger bastards!" (some paraphrasing).

So, based on the complete lack of originality, Dan COULD be a copy-cat and a liar. But, since Dan has no trouble suggesting that all TeaParty members ARE (not could be, but are) racists, then Dan can and shall be called a copy-cat liar for his fable.

Is that more detailed enough?

The only people that pay attention to race are those trying to gain power by choosing who wins and loses based on race. And that is 100% progressive/liberal/leftist/demoncrat racebaiting and class warfare - period.

ahasuerus99 says

Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in.

Isn't that akin to saying , "Why would black people live in the south, since there were so many lynchings there?"

Post Civil War, blacks continued to live in the south--their homes. Although many moved Northwards where they were treated on a more equal basis. Or at least, not killed for trying to vote.

Which, again, is why Reagan kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia and spoke of "State's rights". This, the site of the murder of the civil rights workers who were helping to register blacks to vote.

Bap33 says

ellie, please comment on Dan's last few posts of hate.

Wow, I have never seen such an unsophisticated and child-like attempt at manipulating people into thinking someone else has done something wrong. I can only image what went through your head when you wrote this post:

Man, I can't think of anything to counter Dan's arguments. He's just too good. If only I could get the community to turn against him. Hey, wait. Did Patrick just ban someone for being "hateful". Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll start a rumor that Dan is posting hateful messages. People will just read my message and be too lazy to read Dan's, so you'll be sure to conclude I'm right. Maybe even Patrick will ban him. Goodie, goodie, goodie!.

Seriously, your lame attempt to accuse me of hate speech is the conversational equivalent of a four-year-old throwing a tantrum when he doesn't get his way. And in case you haven't notice, I'm pretty good at spotting bullshit, calling people out on the bullshit, and explaining exactly why it's bullshit.

And quite frankly, if you ultra-cons can't get along with me, one of the most fiscally conservative people on this site, what chance to you have of getting along with everyone else?

Bap33 says

Dan8267 says

The posting is simply an assertion with no specifics

You are correct, your fairy tale post was that exactly. Maybe you didn't realize those same lame-o upbringing stories, that are text-book excuses for being anti-God, and anti-Conservative, have already been used on here by a few other self-proclaimed anti-right posters before you. Your side needs to figure out who gets to use that story and cut down on the copy-cat posters. Carry on.

This is another fine example of juvenile tactics. You deliberately misinterpret my statement to mean the exact opposite of what it does. This is the debating equivalent of Pee Wee Herman saying, "I know you are, but what am I." The problem with juvenile tactics is that they only work on juveniles. Most of the people on patrick.net are adults, and adults don't fall for such infantile displays because the adult thinking process is more sophisticated.

Seriously, Bap33, if you want to make a counter-point to any of my arguments, it would be far more productive to come up with a coherent idea backed by rational analysis and reputable references. Simply sticking out your tongue and saying "nah, nah, nah" doesn't work. I would be glad to debate you on any issue, if only you would say something intelligent.

As for me being "anti-god", that's ridiculous. I've made it well-known that I'm an atheist. I firmly believe, no, make that know that no god, as defined by any of the monotheistic or polytheistic religions in human history exists. Your god is a fictional character. As such I can no more be anti-god than you can be anti-Spiderman. What I am against is irrationality and the persistent and dangerous use of mysticism. And the reason I am against these things is that they have been causing death, destruction, and suffering throughout human history. And if you want examples of this, then watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It's on YouTube and is free.

As for me being "anti-conservative", I guess if your definition of "conservative" is "bat-shit crazy" then yes, I'm anti-conservative. I have seen little evidence from your postings or Shrek's that conservative means anything other than the delusional and persistent pursuit of failed philosophies, economic models, and ideas in face of overwhelming evidence that such pursuits inevitably end in further failure.

Of course, I don't think that conservative has to mean believing the Earth is 6000 years old and that Jesus would work for Goldman Sachs if given the chance. As I've said before in these forums, I think Eisenhower was a great president and I'd vote for him. I'd also would vote for Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Theodore Roosevelt (all Republicans).

The fact that in my lifetime the Republican party has fallen from every merit it ever had is the fault of the very extremists I have shown to be full of hatred and bigotry. It is those extremists who have redefined "conservative" in such a way that no rational human being could support it. Those extremists have forced out every clear minded Republican, or as they say "Rino", from the party, and in doing so have also made us independents recoil in shock. You are simply killing your own party.

ahasuerus99 says

The south is nowhere near the most racist part of the country. Boston is notoriously racist and is almost certainly as racist as the south (see the fairly recent ESPN article about athletes' perceptions of racism). Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in.

If I'm reading this correctly, you are saying that Boston is more racist than Alabama. Are you by any chance also a Slider like Tenouncetrout? Perhaps one where the south won the Civil War?

You're talking about Boston, right? The city with a Dunkin Donuts on every street corner. The city where the police can't tell the difference between a light-bright and a bomb. The city that's overflowing with MIT nerds dressed in Storm Trooper uniforms performing a musical (ok, maybe that's Cambridge)? That Boston? And you're saying that Boston is more racist than the South?

I don't know where the picture of the lynching I linked to was taken, but I know it wasn't Boston. In fact, I'm pretty sure it wasn't anywhere in New England.

ahasuerus99 says

You [Patrick] also literally compared conservatives to dogs.

Actually Patrick compared how conservatives hear liberal arguments to how dogs hear what humans say: they don't understand the language, but they perceive the tone.

Of course, comparing conservatives to dogs would be unfair. Dogs love unconditionally and bring joy to the world.

Also related to Patrick's point… There was a time when conservatives were intelligent and highly educated. Eisenhower was a very intelligent man. Unfortunately, he was the last Republican president with an I.Q. over 80, and this is precisely because today the Republican Party looks down on intelligence, education, science, and math. Republicans believe that thinking is "elitist". They even use the word "elite" as code for bad.

Bap33 says

I feel Dan told a fairy tale to support his anti-conservative, anti-God, anti-right postings.

You "feel" that I told a fairy tale? You need to stop feeling and start thinking. Thinking works better. It's more accurate, especially when it comes to facts. This is exactly what Colbert meant when he coined the term "truthiness", something that feels like it's the truth or that I wish to be the truth even though thinking doesn't support that. Use the frontal lobe part of your brain, not the reptilian core. Oh, Christ. You're not going to understand that because it is an evolutionary reference.

Bap33 says

I say that due to the exact match his story had to every other libtopian story we get on here from posters such as Dan

Exact match, eh? Well then, it should be easy for you to provide an example or two.

You see, when I disprove someone's incorrect assertion, I do so by giving a specific reason or counter-example. For example, when Tenouncetrout tried to make the point that the Obama as a witchdoctor picture I posted was never used by any Tea Party protester by saying

The OP posts that race baiting pic, then claims people are marching around holding signs with that pic. Well where's the picture of the tea party rally members holding the sign with that pic?

I simply posted a picture of a Tea Party protester holding up that exact sign. See, my counter-example clearly showed that the specific conjecture Tenouncetrout had just made was empirically wrong. That's how you prove a point. It's actually quite easy to do when you have the truth on your side. I suppose it's harder when you're just making shit up, but I've never tried that.

[Note to self… Hmmm. Proving the world is round: easy. Proving the world is flat: much harder. Then again, if I just repeat "The world is flat" over and over again, all the viewers of Fox News will believe it.]

Bap33 says

"I grew up super religous, nuns beat me, I got smarter by going to college, smart people know religion is crap, America sucks, smoking dope is great, my parents were right wing, and I'm not a lefty -- I'm an independant! And besides, all conservatives are racist bigot homophobe teabagger bastards!" (some paraphrasing).

> I grew up super religous

1. I did not grow up super-religious. I was raised Catholic. That does not mean super-religious.

> nuns beat me,

2. The nuns did not beat me. I said the nuns were strict and exercised full control over the behavior of the kids. You're misreading again.

> I got smarter by going to college

3. People are supposed to get smarter by going to college. That's kind of the point of college. However, my view of college is that it's nearly worthless. I learned a lot during college, but not from college. I taught myself how to program and was far more skilled in software development than any college professor before I ended my freshman year of high school.

So, actually, I don't have a particularly high opinion of college. It's a tax to get into the workforce (something I've written before on this site) and a sheepskin. A college degree and an education are two entirely different things.

Of course, if you would just start listening to people instead of forcing your prejudicial stereotypes on them than perhaps you would not have falsely assumed that I think college is great. However, your statement does lead me to believe that you did not attend college and given how low the standard for getting into college is nowadays (basically you just need a pulse), that does say something about your intellect.

> smart people know religion is crap

4. Yes, smart people do know that religion is crap.

People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study

More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

People who say they are "not at all religious" have about 6 IQ points more than those you say they are "very religious" and those who claim they are "very liberal" have an average of 12 IQ points over those who claim they are "very conservative". (Social Psychology Quarterly, Satoshi Kanazawa, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science) [Sorry, but occasionally I read print, too. Not everything is on the Internet.]

Professor Lynn, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the “intellectual elite” considered themselves atheists than the national average. A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.

atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%).

1997 Federal Bureau of Prisons Statistics reports prison population to be
o Catholic 29267 39.164%
o Protestant 26162 35.008%
o Muslim 5435 7.273%
o American Indian 2408 3.222%
o Nation 1734 2.320%
o Rasta 1485 1.987%
o Jewish 1325 1.773%
o Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
o Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
o Moorish 1066 1.426%
o Buddhist 882 1.180%
o Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
o Adventist 621 0.831%
o Orthodox 375 0.502%
o Mormon 298 0.399%
o Scientology 190 0.254%
o Atheist 156 0.209%
o Hindu 119 0.159%
o Santeria 117 0.157%
o Sikh 14 0.019%
o Bahai 9 0.012%
o Krishna 7 0.009%

"If all atheists left the USA it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than a quarter of 1% of the prison population." (Reddit)

I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point.

> America sucks

5. America does not suck. About one third of Americans suck because they believe in things like torture. Luckily, the intelligent, rational people in America keep the Internet running and nuclear reactors from melting down.

Again, you like other ultra-cons here have consistently tried to force words down other people's throats. Since you cannot address the arguments we actually made, you try to trick people into thinking we made weaker and dumber arguments. This not only shows disrespect for the person you are debating, but it also shows disrespect for all the readers as you are implying they are stupid enough to fall for such an obvious ruse.

> smoking dope is great

6. I have never smoked dope or cigarettes in my life. Nor do I have any desire to. At this point you are just being "libel" as lawyers would say. To make me out to be a druggie with no reason, nonetheless evidence, is just a stupid, stupid thing to do. It's so easy to call you out on this bullshit. I have an extremely non-addictive personality type. Oh, and I hate to break this to you, but many red necks smoke pot and Rush Limbaugh is a druggie hooked on Oxycontin.

> my parents were right wing
7. My parents most certainly are not right-wing. They consistently vote Democrat. In my father's words, "In this country, you vote for the lesser of the two evils." Hardly praise for the Democratic Party, but since they are consistently the lesser of the two evils, what does it say about the Republicans?

So not only do you not get anything right about me, you also fail to guess at my parent's political stances.

> I'm not a lefty -- I'm an independant

8. Republicans, too embarrassed of their own party, are more likely to call themselves independents. I call myself an independent because I haven't registered under either party. I did consider registering as a Republican just so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries -- Florida is a closed primary state, so you have to be a member of a party to vote in its primaries -- but I'm glad I didn't because in Florida they just throw, er misplace, the boxes containing votes for Ron Paul.

Not that I agree with everything Ron Paul believes, but I do like the fact that he is honest, upholds the Constitution, and is for smaller government. Yep, that makes me a liberal. Smaller government is what liberal Democrats are always asking for. [Note to ultra-cons: that was sarcasm.]

Of course, the Republicans today don't want smaller government either. The Bush/Cheney administration proved that.

> all conservatives are racist bigot homophobe teabagger bastards!

It was I who said, "Now I don't know what percentage of Republicans are racist. I suspect it's a minority, but the ones that are racist are the most vocal. They are the Tea Party members holding up signs like this…"

However, many of your (Bap33's) comments are making think I might have been wrong when I said that. Perhaps leoj707 was right. You're certainly providing ammo for leoj707. But then again, maybe you're a leftist plant trying to make the right look like a bunch of idiots. [That was also sarcasm, maybe.]

So basically, Bap33, every single assertion you made in the quoted block above was completely off base. With aim that bad, you should sign up for the Nicks!

[Note to sports fans: I actually don't know if the Nicks suck or not. I was just referencing a joke from the game Deus Ex. Don't get upset if you’re a Nicks fan. I may not be a pot-smoker like Bap33 claims, but I am a smart ass. And I like to use humor to break up the monotony of logical arguments and make them more fun to read. Although the ultra-cons seem incapable of distinguishing the gags from the real arguments, so maybe I shouldn't.]

Bap33 says

So, based on the complete lack of originality, Dan COULD be a copy-cat and a liar. But, since Dan has no trouble suggesting that all TeaParty members ARE (not could be, but are) racists, then Dan can and shall be called a copy-cat liar for his fable.

Lack of originality? Geeze, and I thought some of my jokes were funny. Ok, maybe the Sliders reference was a bit out-of-date and nerdy, but did you read my witty reply to Tenouncetrout's claim that Biden, Obama, and Pelosi run the Senate? Doesn't that count as original?

I mean, it's one thing to call me a pot-smoking pussy that gets beat up by old nuns, but to say I steal my jokes. That was uncalled for.

> Dan can and shall be called a copy-cat liar for his fable.

Um, could you quote the source I'm copying and provide a link?

Btw, there's nothing wrong with copying something in a quote and referencing it, if that's what you're referring to. That's called evidence. It's generally considered a good thing because it shows your not pulling things out of your ass.

Bap33 says

Is that more detailed enough?

No. Showing what I copied would be "more detailed enough". And yes, I am making fun of your grammar. Just because you're writing on the Internet doesn't mean you should write like a 12-year-old girl texting her friends about Twilight. Ok, maybe I'm being a bit of a "Grammar Nazi", but slopping writing is evidence of slopping thinking.

Bap33 says

The only people that pay attention to race are those trying to gain power by choosing who wins and loses based on race. And that is 100% progressive/liberal/leftist/demoncrat racebaiting and class warfare - period.

Oh, geeze. Ok, let me start by admitting that I was wrong about something. When Obama was running for the Democratic nomination for president, I thought the press would make a needlessly big deal that Obama might become our first black president. I figured the press would milk this up not realizing that the whole civil rights stuff was settled back in the 1960s and no one gave a damn about race anymore. Hell no one even thought about race anymore. I thought that if elected, Obama being the first black president would be a minor footnote in history of little concern to a population with much more pressing issues like a devastated economy, multiple wars, the loss of Habeas Corpus, and so much more.

It turns out that I was completely wrong. As soon as Obama got the presidential nomination, all the racists came out of the woodwork. I thought that perhaps some old people who grew up in the 1930s would still be prejudice, but most of the racists where middle age or even young Americans. Some of them were even in their twenties. This shocked me.

How could it be that any 20-something-year-old would compare Obama to a monkey or tell him to go back to Kenya? WTF? This is the 21st century, right?

It's not the Democrats, the liberals, or the progressives that were calling Obama a monkey. It was wackos from West Virginia and central Pennsylvania. The same people who held up signs saying "keep your government hands off my Medicare". In other words, stupid hicks. The fact that there were so many of them blew my mind. It's like they've been silent since the 1960s and have been breeding like crazy.

So I was wrong when I thought America had moved passed racial bigotry. But the bigots are not in the Democratic Party. They are not liberals. And they certainly are not progressives.

Btw, to insulate that progressives are bad is just plain evil. Progressives are the ones who got rid of child slave labor and unsafe working conditions. They got us the 40-hour work week -- in the 19th century people had to work "turns" or 36-hour shifts in dangerous factories -- and paid time off. Progressives are the reason the middle class came into existence in the 20th century. Before that there were only the poor and the rich, something that the Republicans want to return to. We owe a lot to progressives.

------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I've address most of the incorrect stuff posted by the ultra-cons. I skipped over some stuff that I thought was handled by others before me. My posting is already pretty big (9 pages so far), so I don't want to go on much further. I'll end with an anecdote that explains where these ultra-cons are going wrong with their communications.

Let's say someone asks a simple, non-controversial question like "Is the square root of two rational?". Being a bit of a math dude, I'd likely respond with something like this:

The square root of two is an irrational number as shown by the following proof…

12. We've concluded that both a and b are even, but this means they are not relatively prime. Therefore, we have violated our conditional premise stated in #1. Ergo, proof by contradiction, the square root of two is irrational.

Now, in a normal discussion, that would be it. Maybe someone would have a question about the proof or didn't understand a step. But when an ultra-con reads this post, he'll reply something like…

OH My God you are so stupid. Sorry, but you're just being full of shit. You say that the square root of two is irrational, but you use the number all the time. So that means you are irrational, too! You're such a hypocrite.

Hey Dan, how does it feel to have your ass handed back to you? Pawned!

So now it's 6:30 in the morning and I haven't gotten any sleep because I've been refuting ridiculous, unfounded, and ill-thought arguments from ultra-cons that sound like the one above. Oh, it's going to be a fun day at work getting the Python and Javascript to live together nicely in the same database record. Thanks a lot for keeping me up.

Hey ultra-cons, if you're going to make any more arguments, can you at least go through the minimum level of effort of having a sane human being read your words before you post them. And if they don't pass the laugh test, don't post them. I don't mind spending the time correcting an incorrect, but reasonable position. It's a learning experience for everyone. But I'm beginning to think it's a waste of time refuting all the ridiculous ones.

What you ultra-cons need to understand, is that people like me (INTJ rationalists) do not form opinions quickly. We argue every possible issue for and against a position before we decide. We relentlessly attack our own ideas with mathematical precision because we believe any idea worth having can withstand any such attack. We put considerable time and computational power into making sure our philosophies are without even the slightest flaw. Given all that, it is unlikely you will be able to find a fault with our logic unless you are highly intelligent and spend countless hours looking for one. For we are highly intelligent and have spent countless hours looking for faults in our beliefs.

And if by some miracle, you happen to find a flaw in our logic and demonstrate it, we are grateful for that correction for it allows us to perfect our worldview and gain greater understanding of the universe. However, we do not tolerate fools well. Finding faults where there are none because of incorrect facts, bad logic, or the complete lack of logic annoys us. It wastes our time, and it pollutes the knowledge space causing less adept minds to accept erroneous information and reasoning. This in turn diminishes our species and slows down progress. And that is why we spend time chlorinating the pools of knowledge.

God, I hope Patrick is using a varchar(max) for these posts.

Dan8267 says

but I was raised Catholic and taught by viscous Catholic nuns who would beat you with a ruler if you misbehaved

Dan8267 says

2. The nuns did not beat me. I said the nuns were strict and exercised full control over the behavior of the kids. You're misreading again.

Dan, you are a great writer and a bad liar.

You should take a job getting paid by the word ... like a lawyer. That fibbing ability and anti-God thing works well with lawyering too, don't it?

By the way, humilty is not your strong point is it?

Dan8267 says

God, I hope Patrick is using a varchar(max) for these posts.

I think you've beaten Shrek's record for longest post.

Also "viscous nuns", love 'em.

Dan8267 says

We put considerable time and computational power into making sure our philosophies are without even the slightest flaw.

wat

Damn Dan! That was an epic post.

Well, we INTPs know that precision is for self-delusion.

Dan, I am not a fan of the super long posts, but yours was well worth the read.

Thanks for staying up late.

Dan8267 says

God, I hope Patrick is using a varchar(max) for these posts.

No, it's just the MySQL "text" type. Don't even know how much that can hold.

Glad the site handled it. It was excellent, but of course it made not the slightest dent in Bap33's thought pattern or response!

He's arguing from an emotional level of dislike, where facts are irrelevant. Your confidence and coherent arguments don't make him feel any better about himself, it fact, they probably make him feel worse. But pissing you off does make him feel better about himself, so one point for Bap33. He did what he intended to do.

I'm going to the library now and I'm going to get "The Hidden Injuries of Class". I think that's where almost all the right-wing hate comes from.

I'm having Steve Jobs make me a seven foot long iPhone so I can read Dan's post while I poop.

Dan8267 says

I'd also would vote for Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Theodore Roosevelt (all Republicans).

Dear sir, do you have a gentleman consort? You had me at Teddy Roosevelt.

Hmmm...... putting up Dan's posts to show he's a liar took about 20 seconds and zero work..., whooowheee, I must be all emotionally tied up in this one!!

My responses are limited becasue I am trying to make my removal from PatNet more challenging than Shrek or ToT. So far, so good. Have a great day Patrick!

One small issue about believers in prison vs believers in great science jobs ...... could it be that folks that have had a bad life and hit bottom find God, where as elitists that have not had a tuff life think they are in that spot because they are super smart?

PersainCAT says

and frankly disagree becasue when i read Bap33's comments i see quite a bit of logic used in his posts toy disagree with Dan, i just dont see it as elegantly written.

for example
Dan8267 says

As for me being "anti-conservative", I guess if your definition of "conservative" is "bat-shit crazy" then yes, I'm anti-conservative. I have seen little evidence from your postings or Shrek's that conservative means anything other than the delusional and persistent pursuit of failed philosophies, economic models, and ideas in face of overwhelming evidence that such pursuits inevitably end in further failure.

is MORE insulting and filled with emotion than

Bap33 says

So, based on the complete lack of originality, Dan COULD be a copy-cat and a liar. But, since Dan has no trouble suggesting that all TeaParty members ARE (not could be, but are) racists, then Dan can and shall be called a copy-cat liar for his fable.

just better written and less obvious.

Hmmm... PersianCAT I don't see how you figure. When looking at the content of your examples I see.

Insults
from Dan
There are no direct insults, while he is says things like: bat-shit crazy, delusional, etc. It is all in reference to how Bap and Shrek's posts seem to define conservatives. He is not saying at all that those are the defining characteristics of actual conservatives, Bap, or Shrek.

from Bap
Calls Dan a copy-cat[unimaginative/plagiarist] and a liar. While at first Bap writes, "...Dan COULD be..." he then concludes, "...Dan can and shall be called..."

I think that ad hominem attacks is far more insulting and emotionally weighted than quibbling about the definition of the word "conservative". I just don't see how you feel Dan was more insulting. Perhaps I am missing something, could you clarify please why you feel that way?

Logic
from Dan
Claim: I am not an "anti-conservative"
Evidence: Bap/shrek's definition of conservative seems to be extreme right wing
[Based on their posting history I have to agree with this. There seems to be no "lunatic fringe" liberals that post here. For an example of a Bap/shrek liberal opposite please see: kpfa.org.]
Conclusion:Because the Bap/shrek's definition of conservative is so far off, I am not actually "anti-conservative"

from Bap
Claim: Dan is a liar
Evidence: Dan suggests that "all TeaParty members ARE (not could be, but are) racists". It is self evident that TeaParty members are in fact not racist.
[I have not seen Dan write anywhere that "all" TeaParty members are racist. He certainly has indicated that racist people are attracted to the tea party, but he even mentions that non-Republicans can be racist as well. So this supporting evidence appears to me to be a straw-man based on a lie miss-characterizing what Dan has posted]
Conclusion: Because Dan said "all" TeaParty members are racist he is a liar

To me Dan seems to follow better logic, and Bap's ad hominem and straw man are indicators of very poor logic. Why do you disagree with this?

Yes, I do agree that Dan's post is more elegantly written.

@Persian, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

PersainCAT says

In what i quoted...see other posts....he claims that you are bat-shit crazy to spout the "persistent pursuit of failed....".
The thing is i dont agree those are failed issues. i really think if we actually followed some of those basic philosophies, economic models, and ideas without bastardizing them so liberals will vote for them than we would have success as a country. Thus he is DIRECTLY is calling be batshit crazy becasue i can look at the same evidence he does and not agree with his point that those policies failed.

You guys may not be looking at the same evidence, or even specifically talking about the same issues. Dan is specifically talking about the "conservative" issues presented by shrek and Bap. Those may not be the same conservative issues that you believe in. I have Bap on ignore, so I only see Bap's posts in responses, and he is on ignore for a reason. I have gone round-and-round with Bap and found Bap to be less palatable than shrek (who I also have gone round with). Both are prone to illogical rants, and even if I believe in part of what they write it is not their argument that I find convincing, but outside knowledge of the issue. If they are representative of your views you might want to seriously reevaluate them.

I am not talking about religion here, just their political stances. Religion is an entirely different thing. Political programs, policies, etc. can be logically evaluated for effectiveness. Religion is inherently illogical, it can not be proven through logic. One must have faith in order to believe in a religion. Yes, I have heard all the "logical" arguments for religion, and their primary problem is that any argument "proving" religion A can also be used to "prove" religion B.

PersainCAT says

relgion:"4. Yes, smart people do know that religion is crap."
do i even need to discuss this, it could take pages but his logic is flawed, see my previous post of a general critique...edit*hes directly calling me dumb for my beliefs*edit.

Yes, Dan does make a blanket statement as a point, but in context when looking at his supporting info you can see that not ALL "smart" people are atheist, just a higher percentage of them. YOU could be smart, but still have faith in your chosen religion.

PersainCAT says

Not even considering the point that liberals also come from a culture (USA) where lynchings occur it is implied that the politics of the tea party would DESIRE lynching while other groups would not.

The south is where lynchings were "popular", and the south is where the TeaParty is most successful.

PersainCAT says

edit*
if thats not enough to see baps point, how about baps point in post
http://patrick.net/?p=1046641#comment-768508
*edit

OK, ok, I un-ignored bap for a moment to read that reference. Yes, Dan clearly contradicts himself. It is not even worth trying to defend by saying that Dan did not specifically state that nuns beat him.

However, Dan's hyperbole does not invalidate his representation of the tea party. Like it or not the tea party has done some racist stuff, and has gained that reputation.

I don't dislike the tea party members, I am disappointed in them. Dan's point about racism aside, the tea party also draws its supporters from people who in our countries history have risen up to make life better for the working man. They have let themselves get manipulated and used by the elite top .5%. Nothing that the tea party has done or is going to do looks like it is going to make things better for the middle class. Americans need the teabaggers to help oppose the rich elite that are currently running the country into the ground, but the tea party seems dead set on giving the rich more handouts. I do dislike the figureheads and leaders of the tea party.

Good book, "What's the Matter With Kansas" discusses how people get manipulated into voting against their own best interests.

leoj707 says

Religion is inherently illogical, it can not be proven through logic. One must have faith in order to believe in a religion.

same thing is true of atheism. sorry for hitting you with logic in less than 5,000 words.

Thank you PersianCAT for using your powers and abilities for good. Seriously, thank you.

leoj707 says

Like it or not the tea party has done some racist stuff, and has gained that reputation

not with me.

isn't it only going to be certian people that agree with your view?

isn't it racist for the NAACP, and other race-based pro-negro organizations to not support Judge Thomas? -- they should use him as a poster child in my opinion I love Judge Thomas. All TeaParty members I personally know love Judge Thomas and really liked Condi Rice. Many TeaParty members say this Herman Cain fellow running for Prez today looks really really good too. All three are Negro people, and all very much conservative, and all are very much Christian, and all very much supported by TeaParty members.

A few lines of truth. That's how easy it was to end the reign of Wordsmith Dan - The Logical Athiest (dude needs a cape and boots).

The racisim that progressive/liberal/leftists see and seek is born in the hearts of those looking for victims and power. IF not, please explain those three people and their Tea Party support. Thank you. Have a great day!

Bap33 says

leoj707 says

Religion is inherently illogical, it can not be proven through logic. One must have faith in order to believe in a religion.

same thing is true of atheism. sorry for hitting you with logic in less than 5,000 words.

Religion is illogical, because there is no evidence that it is true. In fact with most religions the evidence indicates that it is untrue. It is illogical to believe something without evidence, and more so to believe in-spite of the evidence to the contrary. If one has faith in their religion then logic should not matter, their faith should be enough.

Atheism is logical because it is the belief that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and that without evidence backing the claims of religions it is logical to not-believe in the god(s) of said religions.

The belief by some religious people that atheism is a religion is both untrue and illogical.

Agnosticism is, philosophically, the "best" position to take because there is no way that anyone can know fore sure if there are gods or not. Atheism and Agnosticism are not mutually exclusive, one can not know for sure, but believe that there are no gods. With some religions one can have faith, but still be not totally sure.

Sorry for hitting your response with more than 6 words.

Bap33 says

isn't it only going to be certian people that agree with your view?

Yes, isn't that always the case? Not sure what your point is here.

Bap33 says

isn't it racist for the NAACP, and other race-based pro-negro organizations to not support Judge Thomas?

No, it would be racist to support him just because of his race.

Bap33 says

All three are Negro people...

I am sure that you are, as a non-racist tea party member, aware that calling people "Negro people" is generally considered racist and offensive, so why do it?

Bap33 says

...I love Judge Thomas. All TeaParty members I personally know love Judge Thomas and really liked Condi Rice. Many TeaParty members say this Herman Cain fellow running for Prez today looks really really good too. All three are Negro people, and all very much conservative, and all are very much Christian, and all very much supported by TeaParty members.

While you might be convinced that all the tea party memebers you know constitute a representative sample the entire tea party, I am not so convinced. It would be nice if you had some actual evidence to support your claim. Something like polling numbers where tea party members were show to have as much (or perhaps) more of a favorable opinion, than the "average" republican, towards the "Negros" you list.

Bap33 says

The racisim that progressive/liberal/leftists see and seek is born in the hearts of those looking for victims and power. IF not, please explain those three people and their Tea Party support.

I don't understand how your unsubstantiated claim would even support this view, if you did in fact substantiate it.

Bap33 says

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bap33 says

Have a great day!

I will.

Bap33 says

ellie, please comment on Dan's last few posts of hate.

Sorry, been gone. I'll go back & read it and will post some ever-delightful, yet stupid, comment.

okay, I read them. It's Dan's opinion, and I can't agree that they're messages of hate.

Bap, I haven't read too much positive stuff about the tea party. I've met some t-baggers (Yep, that's what I call them, as they've called themselves the same) and they were fairly angry, extreme right wingers. I don't even think that they're republicans, more like republicans to the second power.

Of course, the only t-baggers I've met are from small Utah towns - and the state is run by the very republican conservative mormon church that was able to block gays from being married in California.

elliemae says

Of course, the only t-baggers I've met are from small Utah towns - and the state is run by the very republican conservative mormon church that was able to block gays from being married in California.

Didn't they do that in Hawaii also? So much for States rights.

Bap33 says

My responses are limited becasue I am trying to make my removal from PatNet more challenging than Shrek or ToT. So far, so good. Have a great day Patrick!

Bap,
I sincerely hope that you don't leave, and that your goal isn't to be removed. However, if you would like to be removed it's a simple process.

All you must do is post some personal attacks against another poster. Shrek did it constantly, and TPB/ToT did it at the end too.

Patnet is all about the talk. It's okay to feel passionately about something, but it must be discussed in a socially acceptable manner. Attack the post, not the poster.

I did enjoy Dan's post, although I also disagree about the religious thing. I know many super-intelligent people who are deeply religious - but I also live in the state of Denial (I mean the state of Utah).

Also - I smoked pot much of my life, don't now because of my work's policies, but it hasn't had any effect either way on my life. I view it like drinking, except less calories and a lot less puking.

Bap33 says

leoj707 says

Religion is inherently illogical, it can not be proven through logic. One must have faith in order to believe in a religion.

same thing is true of atheism. sorry for hitting you with logic in less than 5,000 words.

Thank you PersianCAT for using your powers and abilities for good. Seriously, thank you.

Yes and no. Religion is inherently not logical. Religion (in fact, nearly all published, discovered, widely embraced religion) turns logic on its head via paradox.

Logic doesn't support laying down one's life a la Christ, nor any of his maxims (the last will be first, the first will be last).

The whole point of religion is that logic fails you, and that faith of some kind is to replace it.

That's why so many take it up to abuse others. They've found an "in" to exploit---the adherents' abandonment of logic.

(I can speak to the other great faiths, but chose Christian thought since it's widely understood on this forum, and in America)

Atheism can be viewed as a faith as well, since one cannot disprove God's existence. Therefore, the only truly logical answer is to say "I don't know", or agnosticism.

Bap33 says

Dan, you are a great writer and a bad liar.

Once again, Bap33, you demonstrate a complete inability to follow even the simplest logical sequence. The statement "I was raised Catholic and taught by viscous Catholic nuns who would beat you with a ruler if you misbehaved" does not imply that I was beaten with a ruler. I could have been one of the boys who did behave after seeing someone else misbehave. We "elitist" can learn from other people's mistakes.

Are you trying to parody the square root of two example conversation?

Bap33 says

You should take a job getting paid by the word ... like a lawyer. That fibbing ability and anti-God thing works well with lawyering too, don't it?

INTJs do make great lawyers. However, many of us including myself are repulsed by the field because of all the scumbags in it.

I see you're still sticking with the whole "anti-god" thing. Was my post too long for your attention span? Did you stop reading when I started to use "big words"? Btw, spouting religious crap is more likely to help a lawyer than hurt him in our country. There's an old tale... A criminal standing trial tries to persuade the court to be lenient by claiming "I found Jesus." The judge asks the defendant, "when did you find Jesus?" He replies, "Right after the police found me!" [No one claims to be an atheist to garner sympathy from an American court or jury.]

I will concede that being able to lie convincingly is a trait well exercised by lawyers. Unfortunately, I never did develop that particular talent. As a result, I probably wouldn't make it in a legal, sales, or marketing position, and I certainly will never become a CEO of a major company. The good thing about being an engineer is that I don't have to lie to do my job. I talk to computers all day.

Bap33 says

By the way, humilty is not your strong point is it?

False humility is not. As an INTJ, I know exactly what fields I'm an expert in and which ones I am not. You touchy-feely types tend to think you're an expert in everything and so you express incorrect ideas in every field. INTJs tend to ask questions in fields in which they are not experts and share knowledge in the fields in which they are. INTJs love sharing knowledge and understanding.

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

Others may falsely perceive the INTJ as being rigid and set in their ways. Nothing could be further from the truth, because the INTJ is committed to always finding the objective best strategy to implement their ideas. The INTJ is usually quite open to hearing an alternative way of doing something.

By the way, spelling is not your strong point is it?

Well, I should be nice and thank you for the compliment "you are a great writer", assuming it was meant sincerely. It's the first correct thing you said. So as a peace offering, I'll give you a sincere and valuable piece of advice. The way to become a good writer is to become a good reader.

PersainCAT says

Though in the future u may want to avoid things like "they believe in things like torture. "

I really wish I could, but when the majority of Republicans believe in torture, I cannot. "A time comes when silence is betrayal." - MLK, Jr.

It's really sad that in the 21st century, we still use medieval justice.

PersainCAT says

when u say smart people know religion is crap u imply that the no intelligent person is religious

Ok, maybe I could phrase that better. Most intelligent people reach the conclusion that religion is crap. There is a strong correlation between atheism and intelligence and between atheism and education. Some highly intelligent are religious even today. I do not understand how. They must compartmentalize like crazy to hold two contradicting beliefs at once. Physics and biology leave no room for a god in nature.

Bellingham Bob says

Well, we INTPs know that precision is for self-delusion.

Luckily INTPs rarely become heart surgeons. Precision is what got us to moon. Precision is what allows us to run a world-wide banking system over the Internet that involves billions of dollars of transactions a second without losing a penny.

Lack of precision causes rovers to crash in to Mars, police to break into the wrong house using a search warrant with an incorrect address (which happens surprising often), the Pentagon to lose $2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

Meanwhile, online banking software handles far more money than that and keeps track of every penny. Precision is necessary for our modern society and economy to function. Aren't you glad that we programmers are precise?

Of course, none of this should be construed as a put down of INTPs. They make great scientists. Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin were INTPs.

thunderlips11 says

Damn Dan! That was an epic post.

Thanks. I'm no Charlie Sheen, but I like to think I have house-cat blood.

leoj707 says

Dan, I am not a fan of the super long posts, but yours was well worth the read.

Thanks for staying up late.

Also, thanks. It's nice to know that some people get what I'm saying. I usually only hear from the ultra-cons.

No, it's just the MySQL "text" type. Don't even know how much that can hold.

From Stackoverflow,

The VARCHAR(MAX) type is a replacement for TEXT. The basic difference is that a TEXT type will always store the data in a blob whereas the VARCHAR(MAX) type will attempt to store the data directly in the row unless it exceeds the 8k limitation and at that point it stores it in a blob.

Stackoverflow is great.

He's arguing from an emotional level of dislike, where facts are irrelevant... But pissing you off does make him feel better about himself, so one point for Bap33. He did what he intended to do.

True, but my goal is to demonstrate to everyone else that Bap33's position is wrong on many levels. I know that convincing him of the truth is a fool's errand, but the argument may convince others not to go down that path. I'd consider that a victory.

I'm going to the library now and I'm going to get "The Hidden Injuries of Class". I think that's where almost all the right-wing hate comes from.

What's a library? Some kind of brickware version of Google?

Bap33 says

elitists that have not had a tuff life think they are in that spot because they are super smart?

The correlation between education and atheism is because science provides answers to questions like where did human beings come from. Those who lack a scientific education often fill the void with mysticism. That's why most religions were started in antiquity. Gods were the only way to explain why things like earthquakes happen. Today we have Plate Tectonic Theory.

PersainCAT says

"However, my view of college is that it's nearly worthless."
He uses a personal example to back up the view

So I used a personal example to explain my personal view of college. Yeah, that makes no sense.

The point of my statement was that Bap33's assertions of my worldview were incorrect. I was not making the point that college is worthless to all people; that's why I said "my view of college" rather than "college is...". And I conclude with "I don't have a particularly high opinion of college", the keyword being "opinion". Once again, you are taking the things I say out of context.

I could go into more detail about who I think college is beneficial for and who it isn't, but there's no reason to discuss that here. The whole point of bringing up my views on college was to disprove Bap33's assertion of what those views were. If Bap33 claimed that I liked to kick puppies, I'd deny that too. I'm very anti-"kicking puppies".

PersainCAT says

ulta conservatives: after the talk about america sux... "Again, you like other ultra-cons here have consistently tried to force words down other people's throats. Since you cannot address the arguments we actually made, you try to trick people into thinking we made weaker and dumber arguments. "

here again he uses the logic that ALL conservatives who cant argue their point lie, manipulate and trick people to make the other person look bad. he implies that liberals would NEVER do that and are above such things.

1. No, I'm not arguing that all conservatives use that deceptive tactic. I'm implying that all you ultra-conservatives posting in this thread use that tactic, a case than seems well-supported by this thread. The half-dozen ultra-cons here hardly represent all of the 100 million or so conservatives in our country, although they may represent a lot of them. I'm not going to guess here how many conservatives are ultra-cons. I only hope that it's a minority.

2. Ironically, you have demonstrated the very use of this tactic in refuting the truthfulness of my accusation that you use this tactic. I'd like to make a real-world analogy that demonstrates how ridiculous this is, but I can't think of anything so ludicrous off the top of my head.

3. I have never implied that liberals never use this tactic, although I will go on record as stating it doesn't seem to be their go-to tool like it is for ultra-cons. Note "ultra-cons", not all conservatives.

4. When and if a liberal does use that tactic on someone (myself or anyone else) and I read it, I'll call that liberal out for it. Hell, I've called out people for flawed logic even when they are supporting my position. To me, it's not about being right, it's about being right for the right reasons. The thought process is more important than the actual conclusion.

5. Although left-wing politicians play many of the same political shenanigans as right-wing ones, the left-wing does not have an extremist subgroup that is anyway on par with the right-wing. MSNBC is not a liberal mirror image of Fox News as shown in the post Video demonstrates: Obama is Bush, But MSNBC is not Fox.

MSNBC certainly has a liberal bias, but it doesn't not make up falsehoods and spread them. Something like 50% of Republicans are Birthers! Here and here. This lie was made up on Fox News, and it has been a needless distraction from the real issues like the economy and all the wars we're fighting.

PersainCAT says

it ultimately comes down to Dan is able to write better and mask the insults why Bap just flat out states it.

Actually, the difference is that Bap33 tries to insult the messenger whereas I insult the message itself as being ridiculous. And then I show precisely why it is. I have no problem leaving the messenger go unscathed as long as he doesn't directly attack others.

leoj707 says

Both are direct insults on each other but to me calling one person a liar/copycat

I didn't take being called a copycat as an insult. Sure I joked about it, but that was clearly in jest.

As for being a liar... A liar is someone who deliberately states a falsehood as a truth when he knows it is not. I actually believe everything I'm saying. Sure, you could argue that I'm wrong -- and I may very well be -- although I have yet to read one rational argument to suggest that. However, if you did present a rational case for my conclusions being incorrect, as a cliché of an INTJ my anal retentive mind would force me to correct or abandon my conclusions no matter how emotionally attached to them I am, which is probably not at all.

For example, evolution... It is said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. When Darwin first presented the Theory of Evolution, it was indeed an extraordinary claim. What followed is a hundred and fifty years of extraordinary proof in the form of fossils, footprints, real-time observation of evolution in fast-reproducing microbes, and ultimately genetics. Given all of this, it is now an extraordinary claim that Evolution does NOT explain all of biology. Of course, you could in principle convince me that evolution is wrong, even fatally so. But in order to do so, you need to explain why the plethora of evidence supporting evolution is wrong, and that is not going to be an easy task.

Similarly, you could very well convince me that Einstein was off his rocker when he published the Theory of Relativity. However, you would have to explain why we have observed gravitational lensing and time dilation and why our GPS works far more precisely and accurately with Einstein's equations and not Newton's.

You could even convince me that your god exists. Just have him stop by my place for a cup of tea and a nice chit-chat. He seems to have chit-chatted with mortals a lot during the Bronze Age.

Btw, I can walk on water because I know how to turn it into a non-Newtonian fluid. Does that make me a god, too? I can also fly, but I don't like to because the TSA are a bunch of perverted assholes. Also, my voice can carry clear across the world, but sometimes I get charged for roaming. Now I can't raise people from the dead, but I really should learn to do this. I've just been too busy to take a class in CPR, although that's really not a good excuse.

PersainCAT says

Dan8267 says

And though most of the Tea Partiers have not lynched in their life, they come from the culture that did lynch, and it is that culture which drives their hate-filled politics.

flat out implies that MOST Tea Party members WOULD participate in a lunching if they could, as they are hate filled in their politics.

In absolutely no way does the statement "Tea Partiers come from a culture that lynched" imply the conclusion that "MOST Tea Party members WOULD participate in a lynching, nonetheless a lunching." That's just bad math, and I find bad math offensive. Also, I have no problems with the Tea Partiers lunching. I rather enjoy a picnic myself.

The correct conclusion is in my original statement. The culture that led to the lynching of African-Americans continues to drive its people to hateful and xenophobic politics. And this point is well-supported by the whole immigration debate. The Tea Party really doesn't like Mexicans.

Now I don't want to even open the whole can of worms that is immigration reform. That would just drive a further wedge between the left and right here. So let me nip this in the butt before Bapp33 or someone like him starts calling me "pro-illegal immigrant". I am NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT for high levels of immigration into the U.S. I want the population of the U.S. and the world to stop growing because I fear that the exponential explosion of the population that we are seeing will inevitably lead to a sudden decline, i.e., massive death on a level never before seen in human history, when we quickly run out of various resources. But that's a whole other issue we're not getting into here.

PersainCAT says

As Dan implies that, at best Dan isnt being truthful in his representation of the tea party, at worse he is a flat out liar who seeks to degrade the reputation of a whole group of people.

See, this is exactly why I hate English and other "natural" languages. You can get away with making statements that wouldn't even compile, nonetheless run without throwing an exception, in a real language like Java or C#. I've read more coherent statements in Perl, the only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.

I might have gotten a little too geeky on the last paragraph. My apologies.

leoj707 says

One must have faith in order to believe in a religion.

Faith is belief without proof. That's the problem I have with it. Belief without proof is not a good thing, especially when the thing being believed is something arbitrary that you just happened to be born into, and especially when that belief has been the basis for many wars and murders throughout history.

It is wrong to believe in anything that cannot in principle be proven because truth and provability are logically equivalent. I'm not even going to try to show why this is true because it is way over the level of logic that people would follow here. The logic that I've presented so far has been relatively easy stuff. The truth equals provability discussions get into Alan Turing and Kurt Gödel territory, and that is some really hard shit. I mean, these are people who make me look dumb. I'm smart enough to understand their work, but not smart enough to teach it.

PersainCAT says

alot of the subtly weaved into Dans writing that really are an attack on not only how i view things but me as a person for even viewing those things that way.

I may be good at writing, but I'm not that good. If I were, I'd make a lot of money writing Pulitzer Prize winning novels. I'm simply not talented enough in writing to pull that off.

Bap33 says

same thing is true of atheism. sorry for hitting you with logic in less than 5,000 words.

This is not logic. This is an assertion. Logic, whether correct or flawed, is a sequence of statements following a cause and effect pattern. A implies B, B implies C, therefore A implies C. There are actual rules of logic that are well known and can be easily looked up. But all logic is going to involve at least two statements. That's what logic does. It combines two statements known to be true by some rule known to be correct and results in a new statement known to be correct. Clearly an assertion, even if it were true, would not meet this description. I really don't understand why you are struggling with this concept. Did you hate your math classes growing up?

leoj707 says

Sorry for hitting your response with more than 6 words.

You should apologize to Bap33 for hitting his response with words that have more than 6 letters.

Ok, that was a direct insult. My bad, but I couldn't resist.

Dan8267 says

OMG! Shrek is dead!

This thread started out being about Shrek and ended up demonstrating the fundamental differences between the left and right wings. Now I didn't really want to bring out the big guns, because doing so is probably going to upset some people, but I see no way to resolve this thread other than to be painfully honest. [Yes, until now, I've been going easy on the ultra-cons.]

The fundamental difference between the left-wing and the far-right-wing (and no, I don't including all conservatives in that, just the extreme ones) is that the left-wing uses logic, facts, and empirical verification to determine whether or not something works, whereas the far-right-wing uses faith, emotions, and cultural beliefs. One side uses science, the other uses tradition. Science advances and constantly refines itself as it is a self-correcting mechanism. Tradition does not do either.

And although none of us wants to admit this, the fundamental difference is due to biological differences between the ultra-right-wing and the rest of humanity. You see, the ultra-right-wingers have a different brain than the rest of us. This has been scientifically proven.

MRI study suggests liberal brains understand complexity, conservative minds are associated with anxiety and fear:

Using data from MRI scans, researchers at the University College London found that self-described liberals have a larger anterior cingulate cortex–a gray matter of the brain associated with understanding complexity. Meanwhile, self-described conservatives are more likely to have a larger amygdala, an almond-shaped area that is associated with fear and anxiety.

Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain:

A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

If the study is confirmed, it could give us the first medical explanation for why conservatives tend to be more receptive to threats of terrorism, for example, than liberals. And it may help to explain why conservatives like to plan based on the worst-case scenario, while liberals tend towards rosier outlooks.

In summary, ultra-right-wingers are dumb cowards. There is no politically correct way to express this truth. We can explain why this is so, and we can try to help those people get over this defect, but only if those people want our help.

It makes sense that some people with have larger fear centers. It was an evolutionary advantage back in the Stone Age. It kept people from being eaten by lions and bitten by poisonous snakes. But we don't live in the Stone Age anymore. Those disproportional instinctive fears are now manifested as irrational fears about terrorism, Mexicans, gays, and other such conservative issues.

Having fear is a good thing. It's nature's way of making sure you don't do something stupid that gets you killed. However, in the modern world, a person must use frontal lobe thinking to distinguish rational fears from irrational ones. The fact is you are far more likely to be killed in an automobile accident than by a terrorist. You should fear Toyota more than Al Qaeda. But you don't because your Cro-Magnon 1.0 brain was evolved to deal with hunter-gather living and hostile neighboring tribes rather than the reality of modern living.

The good news is that you can override your base instincts with higher-level thinking. The bad news is that you have to want to.

CL says

Atheism can be viewed as a faith as well, since one cannot disprove God's existence. Therefore, the only truly logical answer is to say "I don't know", or agnosticism.

I am not sure if you are using faith as a synonym for religion here, but atheism is not a "faith" as religions are, in that regard it is a lack of faith. Calling atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair style.

I called agnosticism the "best" answer, but would hesitate to call it the "only logical answer".

Philosophically we can never "know" anything other than as an individual we are experiencing what appears to be a consciousness. Nothing can ever be "proven" in this frame work. What we do have is common experience. From this experience we can gather evidence on how the world around us appears to work. While philosophically we should remain agnostic we can use logic to examine this evidence and come to a conclusion.

In this pursuit we can never prove a negative. We can never prove with certainty that god(s), dragons, Russle's tea pot, etc. don't exist. There is always going to be the possibility that they are there, but this does not mean that they are likely to exist; or that they are even equally likely to to exist or not exist.

We can admit that gods might exist. Using logic we can examine the evidence and determine that the probability of gods existing is so very low that the logical position to take is atheism.

Humans are not always logical, we can be passionate emotional creatures, and probably should not base all their life choices on logic. Sometimes we need to take a leap of faith.

IMHO, people often need to believe that there's someone out there watching over us. That there's more than just "this life." Those beliefs can be comforting, and that's cool. Just because I don't believe the same way as someone else, doesn't make it right or wrong.

Organized religion is often about who is more reverent and believes the most. It's often about judging others who don't believe the same. I struggle with the organized religion thing. I also struggle with the belief that there is a God, and that anyone who doesn't believe in him is somehow bad.

I don't want to practice some religion all my life, believing that it's the "right" one, only to die and find out that God is a different religion and I blew it. I believe that if you're a good person all your life and try hard to be kind (knowing that you'll fail sometimes because you're human, after all), if there is a Heaven you'll get there. And if there isn't, oh well - you were a good person. You "win" either way.

I have to agree with CL that atheism for many is very much more or less a faith. Agnosticism is fairly neutral and I would agree again with CL that it's logical. Atheism takes the belief that God definitely does not exist on faith.

I have heard people on this cite literally strongly aguing with seriously flawed logic (that was copied from elsewhere), against agnosticism. That is arguing that since we can't prove God's existence, it is therefore false to say that God exists. This may be true if this were a boolean logic question, or if it were a binary operation were there are only two possibilities.

My point is, that anyone who feels the need to go further than saying "I don't know," and who needs to go the extra step of strongly believing that God does not exist, is a either a black and white thinker, who can not handle uncertainty or ambiguity, or it is someone who for other reasons has chosen to literally take it on faith that God does not exist.

One fascinating aspect of arguing with a hard core atheist, is that the argument is always against man made religion, proving why that can not be correct, when that wasn't the question at all. The question was does God (a relatively unknowable and not well defined concept) in any form exists.

If you wish to read some excellent logic on the subject, read Bertrand Russell.

Exactly, Marcus. Although I've taught them all, I have no horse in this race. Atheism is a belief, a belief that God does NOT exist, which cannot be known or proven, and is therefore an article of faith.

One can't "not believe" in something, really, can they?

leoj707 says

I was raised Catholic and taught by viscous Catholic nuns who would beat you with a ruler if you misbehaved" does not imply that I was beaten with a ruler

Vicious, not viscous. But English spelling is a whole other cause for bitterness. Chinese friend of mine once asked why we don't just use the pronunciation spellings as given in the dictionary right after the "proper" spelling. I don't have a good answer for that.

I was actually beaten with a yardstick. The nun (Sister Mary Evelyn, may she rot in purgatory for 1000 years) lost her watch, then demanded to know who stole it, then when no one confessed, she hit each of us on the knuckles with the yardstick, leaving a stripe of blue bruises across my hand. Then she found the watch, but did not apologize to us.

3rd grade. I'm still bitter. I never forgave the Catholic church.

Vicious, not viscous.

And here I was, ready to dislike liquid nuns.

CL says

Exactly, Marcus. Although I've taught them all, I have no horse in this race. Atheism is a belief, a belief that God does NOT exist, which cannot be known or proven, and is therefore an article of faith.

One can't "not believe" in something, really, can they?

Yes, but in that philosophical framework everything is a belief.

Can you "not believe" in Santa Clause, Thor, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, goblins, cigarettes are perfectly safe, etc.

I choose to "believe" that The Lord of the Rings is a work of fiction and not a historical document, but no one could ever prove that Tolkien was not writing a historically accurate facts. Some "beliefs" are more likely to be true, and others are less likely. In the end all facts are just beliefs.

marcus says

If you wish to read some excellent logic on the subject, read Bertrand Russell.

Yes, I have read Bertrand Russell on the subject of agnosticism and it is very enlightening. His belief in agnosticism is not mutually exclusive with any other belief.

marcus says

I have heard people on this cite literally strongly aguing with seriously flawed logic (that was copied from elsewhere), against agnosticism. That is arguing that since we can't prove God's existence, it is therefore false to say that God exists.

Yes, this is a very faulty argument. I have also head from Christians that god must exist because we can not prove that he doesn't. Equally ridiculous, we can never prove a negative, that does not mean that every negative probably exists.

marcus says

My point is, that anyone who feels the need to go further than saying "I don't know," and who needs to go the extra step of strongly believing that God does not exist, is a either a black and white thinker, who can not handle uncertainty or ambiguity, or it is someone who for other reasons has chosen to literally take it on faith that God does not exist.

Not caring if gods exists is all well and good until someone shows up at your door trying to get you to give them money, or in some cases in history worse. At some point with lots of beliefs, not just religious, one has to just say, "I don't believe what you are trying to sell me".

Then she found the watch, but did not apologize to us.

I hope you stole the watch after that, BTW that quote was not from me.

But I'm getting away from the main point, which I see as the fundamental lack of communication between left and right.

The left is trying to fix things, but the right takes the attempt to fix things as a personal insult. Discussion stops right there.

That is the best possible situation for the top 0.5%, which wants to continue redistributing wealth from the middle class to themselves.

You know, it reminds me of the situation described by "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", where men hear a woman complain and try to fix the problem, but women don't want it fixed, they want sympathy. The men just don't understand that. (Not PC I know, but that is the theme of the book.)