this assumes a few things.
1.this is a game.
it is not.
2.that the person being engaged is a rational,reasonable human being.
they are not.
they are ideologues.
and ideologues only come from ONE,singlular perspective:
their own righteous certitude.

and any engagement with this ideologue only serves as a vehicle for them to prove how wrong you are,not to actually engage and come to a reasonable and mutual understanding.


you have the equation all wrong my friend.


the force is strong in me.

Lol. Know a lot of crack heads, do you? A piece of the puzzle falls into place.

It's telling that you equate accepting minimal increased risk of eating bacon daily with the across the board inescapable destruction caused by crack addiction....and exemplifies your penchant for hyperbole and exaggeration coupled with snide insults.

You love to deride anyone who disagrees with your unsupported extreme positions based on activist "doctors" intentional misinterpretations of studies as ignorant, dumb, incapable of understanding, and now a crackhead. It's sad you can't see how much damage you do your own cause with your constant exaggerations and tantrums when they're challenged.

I don't think you're changing minds the way you want.

Ok, my understanding of his comment was that these firefighters were in the wrong because they put themselves at (minimal) risk for an animal, which should never, under any circumstances, be done.
"NEVER ANY reason to RISK human life for an animal"....that's a huge leap from making an informed educated decision on how much risk is acceptable, and miles away from selflessly putting themselves in harm's way to save lives, which I think is how most people see and treat them. (Strictly read, he wouldn't cross the street to save a choking baby panda....I get he didn't mean to be so silly, but never any risk is NO risk. I'm sure glad the anti poachers in Africa don't share his sentiment.)

Had he said it's never acceptable to knowingly sacrifice human life to attempt to save animals, I would still disagree, but I could at least comprehend his point and argue each risk/benefit equation would be different. Accepting no risk whatsoever on behalf of animals' lives is inhumane, but is quite human.

Firefighters willingly risk their lives to save inanimate property daily, hearing one say they think living animals deserve less risk on their part than a lumber yard is infuriating and incredibly disappointing to me.

Not a smart move to put animals in there, since right wingers love to equate homosexuality with bestiality.

It doesn't take a miracle. Someone willing to sacrifice their life to remove Trump from the equation would do it. I'll even donate to their defense fund...which is a much more honest promise than Trump's promise to pay the legal fees for anyone assaulting a protester.

"I dream of a day where each waking day we rise equal".

You sure about that bro?

You're equating a cult with voting Republican. Not super helpful. But hey, anything to maintain partisanship, right?

Democrats followed the rule of law.
Republicans want a last minute FBI investigation, Democrats have wanted one for months.

No corroborating witnesses were allowed, that's different from there being none.

Flake and those with him, at least 3 at last count and growing.

Who told you it's a repressed memory? She's been talking about it for 6 years, which is documented, and there's no evidence she ever repressed it.

Ha! Instantly switching from 'didn't happen' to 'it's normal behavior' . No, I'm no saint, but I never forced myself on another person, and I don't lie about my past in order to get a lifetime job judging others.
Yes, sexual fumblings that equate to sexual attacks are disqualifying. If you think that's normal or proper, you likely are guilty. I do want to live in a society where sexual predators must answer for their misdeeds, not walk away without consequences. You have daughters, don't you? It's ok with you if some boys push them into a room and grope them forcefully, you'll just tell them those boys were immature, so the assault/ rape attempt doesn't count?

He isn't a justice yet, and this isn't a trial. It's a job interview. Not being advanced to the highest court is not losing his career. Having his past examined before a lifetime appointment is not a criminal trial. What BS.

Are you saying there aren't right wing candidates that don't have sexual assaults in their backgrounds? I guess we'll just have to put off filling the seat until a left leaning judge is nominated then....by the next president to follow precedent.

Kavanaugh's morality is being successfully questioned and so clearly is not above reproach. You're wrong on both counts.

While what she did was undeniably wrong, I don't think you can equate rape with a false accusation of rape.

Sorry, they are simply not equivalent, any more than scamming someone online is the same as an armed home invasion. Both are wrong, but one is much more serious.

Plus, there's a far more serious issue with what you're suggesting.

Rape is already one of the most under-reported and poorly prosecuted crimes in the country. So much so that many rape victims feel like they've been violated twice, once during the crime and then again trying to get a conviction.

It's a harrowing experience and adding the possibility of a criminal sentence if someone decides you're lying will only make it worse.

This woman definitely deserves a severe punishment (and more appropriately the guys she accused deserve some kind of compensation from her), but this is definitely an outlier case.

Rape is far more common than false rape accusation.

This is an issue because some people are trying to confuse the issue to trick other people into believing veganism is healthy by pretending it's the same as a plant based diet.....

veg·an- vēɡən
noun
1.a person who does not eat or use animal products.

plant based -
A plant-based diet is a diet based on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. ... In fact, almost 90% of Americans don't get their recommended intake of fruits and veggies. Eating more produce helps lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and even some cancers. (Note there's nothing about not eating meat or dairy)

Vegan is NOT just a plant based diet (that includes moderate meat and dairy), and is NOT what doctors mean when they say the words "plant based diet". Plant based diet means less processed food and sugar and more fruits and vegetables, not an exclusion of all meat and animal products.

Vegan doesn't equate to more natural or better for you, only lacking animal products.....E.g.. Oreos are vegan, but they are not part of a plant based diet.

Eating Vegan does NOT equate to eating healthy as this video of a bunch of "Doctors" would have you believe. People who push being vegan do it for animal welfare above all else, NOT for your health as they often pretend to care about. Go ask your doctor what the best thing you can do dietarily to becoming healthy. I'll bet you the first thing they say is cut out sugar (processed foods) and eat more fruits and vegetables. ALL of my doctors have, and i have a few

I assume Vegans find more success going on about your health and the environment now, as the animal cruelty aspect isn't tapping into as many people as they would like. That would be my guess when i see videos like this.

(edit) also "The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicines" tax filing shows its activities as "prevention of cruelty to animals." Nothing about human health. Just saying. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.irs&ein=521394893

Your assumption is incorrect. As I've stated repeatedly, I think people should be seen and assessed individually on the totality of their character. It's just that I see the inpracticality of that in institutional settings where a few people must assess tens of thousands of applicants in months. That necessitates putting people into groups and making assumptions, sometimes by necessity that's by race. Fund education better, they might screen better. Fund all education better, they might be able to abandon all criteria beyond past performance, but that just won't happen (but $12 billion for Trump's trade war's damage to soy bean farmers, no problem, who's next?).

Ahhh....but those discriminatory practices have, and still are encoded in the law against these groups in many forms. Some have been rectified, many not, and never has there been a reasonable attempt to make up the shortfalls/damages these policies have caused these groups over decades and centuries. If I beat you daily and take your lunch until 11th grade, then stop, it's still horrifically unfair of me to insist you meet weight requirements to be on my JV wrestling team and yet not offer you weight training and free lunch to help you get there. Same goes for groups, however you wish to divide them, that have been downtrodden.
Creating policies to address the damage done in order to get the long abused back to their natural ability level isn't bad unless they aren't ever modified once equality is reached. We aren't close yet.

Some won't, most do. You make a thousand little sacrifices for the greater good daily, one more won't hurt you. If your ability is actually equal to the poor kid trying to take your place, the advantages you have over them should make that point abundantly clear and your scores should be excessively higher. If they aren't, you just aren't taking advantage of your advantages, making them the better choice.

Time will tell, but I don't see this as political, I see it as rational realism vs irrational tribal wishful thinking.
My parents both worked at Stanford, and are Republicans, and both support giving less advantaged students more opportunities to excell, and both think diversity on campus benefits everyone to the extent that it merits using race and gender as points to consider during the application process if that's what it takes to get diversity.

Your main problem seems to be that it's decided purely by race. Let me again attempt dissuade you of that notion. Race is only one tiny part of the equation, and it's only part because they tried not including race and, for reasons I've been excessively sesquipedelien about, that left many races vastly underrepresented because they don't have the tools required to compete, be that education, finances, support of family, support of community, extra curricular opportunities, safety in their neighborhood, transportation, etc., much of which is caused by centuries of codified law that kept them poor, uneducated, and powerless to change that status. No white male with a 1600 and 4.0 is being turned away for a black woman with 1000 and 2.9, they might be turned away for a black woman with 1550 and 3.8 because she likely worked much harder to achieve those scores, indicating she'll do even better on a level field.

I don't see why Republicans care, they're now the proudly ignorant party of anti-intellectualism who claim all higher education is nothing but a bastion of liberal lefty PC thugs doin book lernin. Y'all don't want none of that no how. ;-)

Edit: note, according to reports I saw years ago, without racial preferencing FOR white kids, many universities would be nearly all Asian because their cultures value education above most other things so, in general, they test better than other groups.

1) Yes, but that's much more easily said than done, and many people disagree too. I feel that it's far cheaper to pay to educate other people's children (I have none) and have them become far more productive citizens than it is to insist (despite all evidence to the contrary) that hard work overcomes all obstacles, and everyone is capable of doing the work required for success. This theory removes responsibility to help others and puts blame squarely on those who've failed. Convenient, but just wrong.

2) In a vacuum, that makes sense, but not in real life. The refusal to acknowledge the disparities in opportunity to prepare for that singular performance is where the racism lies.
It's actually illegal to use just race over performance merit in most places as I understand it. Ethnicity/gender are usually only one small part of the equation. If they could be replaced with a numerical opportunity score, used to modify performance scores,
I would support that, but good luck figuring that one out to anyone's satisfaction.

3) Yes, people always resent being forced from a position of power. I do think it's important to constantly revisit the issue to insure policy doesn't foster inequities, particularly since that's the point of the policies, eradicating inequities.

4) Predicting the naive would be suckered by a professional con man telling them platitudes, sure, but predicting so many of the educated would go along for short sighted, purely tribal reasoning, that's tougher.

5) Certain groups of people have been claiming white men are the downtrodden powerless whipping boys since the 60's. It's getting closer to true, but we aren't near there yet, it just seems that way to those less socially powerful than their fathers. Sure, there are outliers where the white male gets the shaft due to race, but we still come out well ahead in the balance by any objective set of criteria..

You got it right, that's the agenda as I see it, make racism seem so outrageous and pervasive that people act....but only white on black racism exists or matters in that agenda. If you have such a biased, racist agenda, it detracts from the message that racism is bad and makes you sound ignorant.
Yeah....he argued once that he believes in racist faucets as a real issue of institutional racism, not a function of physics, even when it was explained scientifically....but I sound ignorant.
And through the filter of that agenda any white vs black interaction that's not the white person kissing ass is obviously pure racial malice and bias, and the only possible explanation is because all white people are overtly racist....and I sound ignorant.
And outright lies are fine with that agenda, including 100% bullshit stories like the one about racist gangs kidnapping a kid that obviously never happened, and dozens of others that are never corrected when debunked...and I sound ignorant.
I've posted dozens and dozens of videos about racism, but I do it because I think it's a real problem not dog poo I get to shove someone's nose in, so I'm careful to not equate bullshit, lies, exaggeration, hyperbole, and other falsehoods with it, because that gives racists ammunition to "prove" racism is dead and only alive in some people's minds and agendas, and a license to ignore true stories of real racism as more of the same. Doing THAT is ignorant and harmful.
That's true no matter what the agenda is, and is especially misguided and ill advised when it's about something important.
*facepalm

@Ickster
"That we're equating that with something like gay people being refused service because of who they are says a lot about how skewed our perception of balance is."

This is the fundamental point. I DON'T equate the two at all.

But as soon as we open this door, we have to deal with the permutations of it.

Let's say that for the sake of argument, gender identity and sexual orientation are now protected classes (legally, they're not, but let's assume they are).

Ok, you can't discriminate against someone for being LGBTQ. Great, that is obviously correct.

But we're making the argument here that you CAN discriminate against someone based on their political affiliation. Would you be ok with someone refusing service to Obama? Hillary? Bernie? What about an employer in a Republican town who finds out their employee is a prominent local democrat?

I get the argument and honestly, I agree with most of what you've said. If any of Trump's cronies had shown up in my (completely imaginary) restaurant, I'd probably have turfed them out with a lot less civility than SHS was shown.

But I'm just not sure that the world following my example is a good idea....

Until you've argued that black is white, the sun rises in the west, that we've always been at war with Eastasia, and are perfectly willing to fuck over most of the world for your own self-aggrandizement, you have come nowhere near to sinking to Trump's level.

SHS was politely asked to leave a restaurant because of her role as a willing and eager mouthpiece for policies that physically and emotionally have hurt (at a minimum) thousands of people. That we're equating that with something like gay people being refused service because of who they are says a lot about how skewed our perception of balance is.

People making the civility argument in good faith (i.e., not Fox talking heads) are making it because they actually have a moral compass and know that two wrongs don't make a right.

However, what was done to SHS isn't a wrong--no harm was done to her other than embarrassment, which is exactly what she should be feeling about her role in the world. When people are being terrible, whether it's a child, the president, or one of his enablers, they need to be told politely but firmly that it's not OK.

Think of this less as pouring gasoline on a fire and more like a controlled burn to help control the blaze.