I didn't dismiss it. I stated what he provided and implied it was inadequate.

I literally just wrote that there are opposing papers. I hope you don't think putting opposing papers up is some sort of "gotcha" moment.

"Are you calling them liars?"

No. Are you calling the authors of the papers I've put up liars? I'm sure you can see how silly a question that is now it's put back at you.

"We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%"

I haven't been talking about suicide - but if you must then yes, it dropped the suicide by firearm rate. I never contended otherwise.

"The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise [somewhere between 35% and 50%]"

43% variance is large. The reality is the data isn't very good (as multiple studies have pointed out) and it makes it very hard to measure, analyse, and draw appropriate conclusions.

"NFA seems to have been incredibly successful in terms of lives saved."

Note the language, "seems to have". They aren't affirming that it has because they probably can't back it up with solid data.

"The NFA also seems to have reduced firearm homicide outside of mass shootings"

Again, non-concrete affirmations. The same data sets as analysed by multiple other studies points to no change in the rate. Are any of them liars? I doubt it.

I believe the McPhedron paper is one of the most important, illustrating that some of the key legislative changes had no effect when comparing it to our closest cultural neighbour who didn't legislate the same changes (and maintained a lower overall average homicide rate and lower average homicide by firearm rate for the last 20 years).

As I already wrote, it's a contentious issue and there are opposing papers on this topic.

1) The resurrection is absolutely not historical. Jesus the man MIGHT be.

There is a lot of scholarly research that says it is historical, especially in the last 80 years or so. There are volumes upon volumes of work, and there are a lot of things that deserve an honest and indepth discussion.

Almost all skeptical scholars affirm that Jesus was a historical person and that His disciples had an experience which convinced them that He was raised from the dead. Many agree that a group of women discovered the empty tomb. The origin of Christianity is something which must be accounted for, historically. You can't just wave your hand over it and say its all nonsense.

2) I know Christianity is a joke religion invented for political control by Constantine. That is a verifiable, historical fact.

On what do you base that conclusion?

3) mythos cannot verify mythos. You say Satan created other religions (many before Chritianity existed) to trick them out of worshiping Yahweh....why isn't that likely true of Christianity?

Because of the person of Jesus Christ, who is verified to be the Messiah from many lines of evidence. Some of these would include the fulfillment of dozens of prophecies, His life and ministry, and His resurrection from the dead.

4) not true. Verified truth can be proven and defended against being twisted with fact and evidence, at least to those willing to examine actual evidence and not rely on only propaganda and myth. God (if he existed) should have more backbone, and a clear, unambiguous word/voice. ( Your position seems to be he's not willing to stand behind his word and prefers most people burn in hell for their God given inability to distinguish which is which.)
How is it different from politicians? They aren't empowered by all powerful, vengeful gods....clearly neither are clergy.

I'm not sure why you think you are holding the keys of facts and evidence in your hand, first of all. Can your worldview account for these things? You would need to establish that before we can talk about what "verified truth" is. What is your worldview, by the way? I am assuming it is scientific materialism. Have you ever looked into whether it is correct or not?

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-scientific-materialism-almost-certainly-false/

5) ...you shall stone them to death.....thou shalt not kill. Not so clear.

I think that is easily explained. The laws you are looking at were civil laws which governed the nation of Israel. Consider that our society has a law against murder, yet we execute criminals. Same concept.

6) only those who believe are saved...so clearly the sin of disbelief is not erased and is worse than all others. If it's not automatic, he didn't die for MY sins or yours, he's trading being saved (from something he told you exists with zero evidence) for belief and obedience.

None of your sins would be erased if you reject Christ. You would be paying not only for unbelief, but for all of the other ones too. Unbelief is like any other sin execept that the consequence of the sin prevents you from receiving forgiveness. It is exactly like expecting your cancer to be cured without taking the cure.

Jesus died for the sins of the world, including mine and yours, but you cannot partake of the atonement unless you receive Him as Lord and Savior.

My evidence is not just what we are discussing. Jesus Christ is alive and He is with me every single day of my life. He comforts me in my distress. He encourages me when I feel stuck. He gives me strength to overcome things I otherwise couldn't. He gives me wisdom for every problem and situation. He gives me love for those I find difficult to love. He fills my heart with generosity when I want to be stringy. He helps me do the right thing when I am going to fall short. This is not abstract, but a living reality in my life that grows more and more. He has utterly changed me and made me into a completely different person just like He said He would.

7) things that only work if you believe are hokum or placebo, things that only exist if you believe enough are pure fantasy.

Without buying your system, I have no sin to repent so I should go straight to heaven and collect my $200.

That's kind of like saying you don't believe in the law so you think you won't be punished when you break it. You have to account for your sin whatever you believe you have any or not. Your conscience, however, tells you that you have done wrong things.

9) You have cancer and some guy tells you God sent a car (he just needs $50 for telling you about it), it's invisible, and will take you to the cure, but you must believe the car exists, and when you die sitting in the freezing street he says it's your fault for not believing enough in God's magic cars. Duh. I'll buy my own plane ticket and get myself there, not wait for ethereal magic cars.

Let's say that you got a sign that the car was legitimate, but you still stubbornly chose not to go. For instance, you had a dream that a green car with a florida license plate drove up to your house, and a middle age woman got out and came up to your door and told you she was sent by God to take you to the cancer cure, and then it really happened. Does that change anything for you?

Mostly the questions are for you, in hope you might see the contradiction and self reinforcing mythos, but your answers do offer insight to your (and other people's) intractable mindsets. Thanks

God had revealed Himself to me, personally, and verified the scripture in my as true. I know that He loves me, personally, and I know that He loves you too. My hearts desire is that you would know that love. That is my mindset, primarily.

If you would ever advocate for a man's rights or against a woman's privilege, no, you would fail the feminist purity test, imo.

Absolutely, the label we use is less important than the actions we perform, but it's not meaningless.
Feminism is exactly as sexist as masculinism....but point taken.

Please note that affirmative action absolutely is racist, though. It divides people into races then treats the different races differently...the very definition of racism. I don't see how denying that fact accomplishes anything, it just sets up a future problem that mirrors the one you're working to solve. Ignoring that means you likely won't stop the pendulum swing at the center and we'll be right back where we started eventually.

So I'm not a true feminist? I mean, I confess I wasn't born in Scotland but...

Semantics. I've argued them before.

I guess yes, feminism is as sexist as, say, affirmative action is racist. Making allowances for a disability, is, I suppose, a sort of discrimination too.

Anyway. What we call ourselves on the internet probably doesn't matter very much.

It's easy to agree with you, because your not wrong.

I would add the caution though that oversimplifying things risks underestimating this threat to us all. This level of hatred, division, anger and violence doesn't cease to exist if we could go back and make Clinton president. It might move it down a notch, but just as good of odds it would have set it off sooner and stronger.

The threat from identity politics, nationalism and hatred is much worse than just Trumps failures as a president. The divide between people has been growing for long before even Obama was in office. It used to be that a push from the extreme left or extreme right was met by a push to more centrist ideas. Lately though the political parties and media have started taking the opposite approach and it's destroying our society.

The Republicans pushed in the direction of the extreme right with the tea party. The left push back though wasn't to woo moderate right-leaning folks, but instead pushed out to the extreme left with SJW movements like BLM. The right then pushed back again not wooing the moderate left, but doubling down the tea partiers. Then the pinnacle of this insanity was Hillary Clinton's campaign arrogantly believing she could win without wooing the moderates because who in their right minds would follow the extreme right leanings that Trump represented?

The end result has become not only less choice for all us moderates on election dates. The sinister part is it has bled off the number of moderates and made them more extreme.

The Nazi's used the brutal reparations against Germany to rise to power. The Neo-Nazi's and nationalists in america are able to similarly use the SJW policies of the left, even affirmative action, to similarly expand their base. A former coal mining town filled with young, unemployed white people that start feeling like affirmative action is making them second pick for what few jobs remain is BAD.

The situation is MUCH worse than anybody is giving credit to. The problem isn't this crowd of neo-nazis that we can outnumber, push into a corner and beat up or throw behind bars. The real threat is the tipping point were a dangerously meaningful number of folks decide joining the likes of them is in their own self interest. It ALREADY went as far as that number voting Trump. The fact the democratic party and members still don't see this threat and still don't realise they need to stop chasing this base of people away and start trying to reach out and appeal to them is baffling, and terrifying.

And it's well known that there's no other western power ready to step in.

Which is why this commentary affirms that the US is ceding power to Russia and China.

In the US, the central government cedes power to the States. In the world, there are other strong central governments who will step into the power vacuum. The weaker European states will be forced to react to the paradigm shift.

Funny, I was just thinking of this movie not long ago and thinking "Man. If he had shown just ONE goddamn thing to Herod, Pilate, basically, anyone that could.. you know, do something. He would've converted all of the Romans, Jews, and non-believers on the spot.

He wouldn't have ruined his life, Judas' life, and Pilates life (The latter two going down in history for basically being the ones who betrayed Jesus, even though Pilate basically does nothing but try to help him, and Judas just wanted them to help out more goddamn poor people)

..Basically, if this was all part of 'Gods plan', he planned that REALLY fucking poorly."

It's funny that a kind of religious movie is the thing to re-affirm my Atheism.

1. I *AM* an LGBTQ person, I don't speak for them, but I am one voice.
I tend to avoid harassing people.

2. No.

3. a) Both. They aren't mutually exclusive. I want women to be equal and I want legal protections in place to maintain this. This is not secret information.
b) They do.

4. Question 3b) suggests women should be responsible for their safety. Question 4 seems to criticize the notion of being responsible for your own safety. Glad to see unified thought in this. The answer is I expected random bouts of mockery, judgement, and violence. You know, the other 95% of my life.

5. Because shitting on a group that seeks to change culture to react similarly to loss of black life as it does for white lives, while pointing out where society fails to meet this standard is pretty charactersticly racist.
Also I don't say that "Kill all white people" is not racist.

6. Yes. Did you know that the permanence of objects, the transmission of ideas and culture and systems of law are based on events in the past? That by studying history we can understand how humans work in a unique way, that knowing that say, there was a WWI may help us understand the conditions under which WWII occurred and that this knowledge may help us decide what to do in the aftermath of WWII to avoid a recurrence?
That if a group has historically had problems, many of those problems have probably been inherited along with consequences of the problems (such as poverty, strongly inherited social trait). Yes. Linear time,human affairs, culture. They are all things that exist.

7. Yes, I have many examples of people doing this. Mostly this is due to short lifespan. But there are many manchildren in our culture, who seem to think that other people asserting boundaries is immature.

8. There are programs designed to help boost male education dropout rate. If you 'fight' for 'improvements in the fairness of social order ' to help achieve this, you are a Social Justice Warrior, and so you could just have asked yourself.
Also, American bias? Pretty sure this is not a global stat...

9. Because one focusses on correcting the inequalities between the sexes and was born at a time when women didn't have proper property rights, voting rights etc etc, and so it was primarily focussed on uplifting women and so the name 'feminism'. Egalitarianism on the other hand, is the general pursuit. Many feminists are egalitarian, but not all. Hence different words. English, motherfucker....

10. Nothing, as I am not.

11. No, my grandparents were being enslaved in eastern Europe by the far left and right (but more the right, let's be honest).

Seriously though, I don't remember the liberal protests of "Not all ISIS".

12. Ingroup outgroup hatred and distrust is a universal human trait. Race seems to provoke instinctive group psychology in humans, presumably from evolving in racially separate groups.

13. The phrase is intended to deflate 'Black Lives Matter' whose point is that society seems to disagree, in practice, with this. There's only one realistic motivation to undermining the attempts to equalize how the lives of different races are treated socially.
It's also designed to be perfectly innocuous outside of this context so that white people can totally believe they aren't being dicks by saying it.

14. My social justice fighting is almost always done in secret. I hate the limelight, and I hate endlessly seeking credit for doing the right thing. So I try to keep it to a minimum while also raising consciousness about issues where I can.
Hey wait, did you fall for the bias that the big public figures are representative in all ways of the group? HAHAHAHA! Noob.
Wait, did a man voicing a cartoon kangaroo wearing an Islamic headdress, superimposed on video footage of a woman in a gym grinding her hips tell me to stop trying show off how awesome I am and and to get real?

15. No, they are both not capable of giving consent. Sounds like you have had a bitter experience. Sorry to hear that.

16. I spent two decades trying to change myself. I tortured myself into a deep suicidal insanity. When I stopped that, and when society had changed in response to my and others plights being publicised sympathetically I felt happy and comfortable with myself.
You would prefer millions in silent minorities living through personal hells if the alternative means you have to learn better manners? What a dick.

17. Sure. It's also OK if you say 'nigga' in the context of asking this question. But I'm white and English. You should ask some black Americans if your usage causes unintended messages to be sent. I'd certainly avoid placing joyful emphasis, especially through increased volume, on the word.

18. Ah, you've confused a mixture of ideas and notions within a group as a contradiction of group idealogy. Whoops. I don't understand gender identity. I get gender, but I never felt membership in any group. That's how I feel, and have since the 1990s. The internet has allowed disparate and rare individuals to form groups, and some of these groups are people with different opinions about how they feel about gender and they are very excited to meet people other people with idiosyncratic views as they had previously been alone with their eccentric perspective.

19. If white men are too privileged then the society is not my notion of equal.

20. After rejecting the premise as nonsensical. In as much as I want rules to govern social interactions that take into consideration the diversity of humanity as best as possible, I recognize those same rules will govern my behaviour.

21. Women can choose how to present themselves. Video Game creators choose how to present women in their art. I can suggest that the art routinely portrays women as helpless sex devices, while supporting women who wish to do so for themselves.

22. You DO that? I've never even had the notion. I just sort of listen and digest and try to see if gaps can reasonably be filled with pre-existent knowledge or logical inferrences and then I compare and contrast that with my own differring opinion and I consider why someone might have come to their ideas. Assuming they aren't stupid I try to understand as best I can and present to them my perspective from their perspective. I don't sing, or plug in headphones or have an imaginary rock concert.

23. I have done no such thing. Look, here I am listening to you. You have all been asking questions that have easy answers to if you looked outside your bubble of fighting a handful of twitter and youtube users thinking these people represent the entirety of things and seeking only to destroy them with your arguments rather than understanding the ideas themselves.

24. Reverse Racism is where white guys are systematically (and often deliberately) disadvantaged - such as the complaints against Affirmative Action. I'm sure your buddies can fill you in on the details. The liberal SJWs you hate tend to roll their eyes when they hear it too. Strange you should ask.

25. No. I've never seen the list. I just use whatever pronouns people feel comfortable with. Typically I only need to know three to get by in life, same as most other English speakers.

26. I'm the audience motherfucker, and so are you. That's how it works.

27. I don't do those things, but yes, I have considered the notion of concept saturation in discourse. Have you considered the idea that people vary in their identification of problems, based on a number of factors. Some people are trigger happy and this may be a legitimate problem. Since you are aware of this, you also have a duty to try to overcome the saturation biases.
Similarly, if you keep using the word 'fucking', motherfucker, you'll find it loses its impact quite quickly. See this post motherfucker. Probably why you needed to add the crash zoom for impact. You could have achieved more impact with less sarcasm and and a more surprising fuck.

Here's a breakdown that shows my train of thought :



The 2nd amendment limits the authority of 'specifically the government'.

It is not an affirmative right to individuals, it is a denial of rights to the government.
It in theory prevents the government from taking any actions that would infringe on bearing arms.




So, let's look at scope.


If bearing arms is for government regulated militias :

Let's assume that 'well regulated' means 'well government regulated'. (i.e. Merely government regulated in practice.)

- A militia that uses arms as per the government's regulation, would be operating as the government wishes - it would *be* an extension of the government, and the government would not need to seize its arms. The 2nd amendment is moot.

- A militia that doesn't use arms as per the government's regulation, is not government regulated, and has no protection from government arms seizure. The government is free to deny this militia arms at the government's discretion. The 2nd amendment is moot.


In order for the 2nd amendment to not be moot, you would need to protect an entity that the government would *not* wish to be armed.

Since we're still talking militias, that leaves only "non-government-regulated militias" as a protected class of entities.
Hence, this would preclude "government regulated" as a possible definition of "well regulated", in regards to "well regulated militia".

So, we've established that for the 2nd to not be moot, only "non-government-regulated militias" can be in the set of 'well regulated militia'.




So, following on the idea of the 2nd amendment scope being for "well [non-government] regulated militias".

The government can then circumvent 2nd amendment protection by making illegal any 'non-government-regulated militias'. This would eliminate the entire category of arms protected entities. The 2nd amendment is moot.

Hence, for the 2nd amendment to not be moot via this path, that means that "well [non-government] regulated militias" must also be protected under the 2nd amendment.




So, without government regulation, a well regulated militia is subject to the regulation of its members.

As there is no government regulation on militia, there is also no government regulation regarding the quantity of militia members. You are then left with the ability of a single individual to incorporate a militia, and decide on his own regulations.

Which decomposes into de-facto individual rights





This is why the only consequential meaning of the 2nd amendment is one which includes these aspects :
A) Does not define 'well regulated" as "government regulated".
B) Does not restrict the individual.
C) Protects militias.

Any other meaning for the 2nd amendment would result in an emergent status quo that would produce the same circumstances as if there was no 2nd amendment in the first place. This would erase any purpose in having a 2nd amendment.





But sure, maybe the 2nd amendment is moot.
Maybe it was written out of sheer boredom, just to have something inconsequential to do with one's time.
Maybe it was a farce designed to fool people into thinking that it means something, while it is actually pointless and ineffectual - like saying the sky is up.




In any case, I think we can agree that, if the 2nd means anything, it is intended for facilitating the defense of the state against invading armies.

The fallout of that is that if the 2nd particularly protects any given category of arms, it protects specifically those that are meant for use in military combat. Not hunting, not self defense, etc.

A pistol ban would be of little military detriment for open combat, but would be the greatest harm to people's capacity for insurgency (because pistols can be hidden on a person).

A hunting rifle ban would also be of modest military detriment for open combat (can serve DMR role), but probably the least meaningful.

Arms with particular military applicability would be large capacity+select fire (prototypical infantry arms), or accurized of any capacity (dmr/sniper).
Basically, the arms of greatest consequence to the 2nd amendment are precisely the ones most targeted for regulation.

-scheherazade

You probably don't realise that that's what you said, but it is. After all, it sounds ridiculous when put explicitly.

Nevertheless, that is the undeniable implication of the claim that my negative opinion of others is false because these others may hold a similar opinion about me. It's the condition of the world that everyone thinks themselves righteous. The difference isn't made up by pretending therefore that everyone's the same. A distinction is drawn on a foundation of solid argument.

Here's some more things you've said:

1. Islam is immoral.
2. Muslims are just as good as anybody else.

I'm in a position to correct that contradiction in your thinking, but to do so you'll remember there's an affirmation I need you to make.

You claim that everyone in the world is exactly as moral as everyone else? That all opinions are identically valid? I don't believe that that you do, just that you fear some terrible trap will be sprung if you simply admit that there is such a thing as right and wrong.

That's not the end of my argument; I'm not going to flounce off singing of my victory if you do - it's just an absolute prerequisite to any discussion of ethics that the participants affirm that one set of values may be preferable to another, and that individuals are in some way accountable for themselves.

This is the affirmation that so many are now afraid to make, because it opens them up to suasion and debate where they were previously so much happier wallowing in sloshy relativism.

"Claiming to be at the top of the food chain has become a popular justification for eating animal products and an affirmation of our ability to violently dominate everything and everyone. Yet justifications for needless violence that draw on notions of power and supremacy are based on the philosophy of “Might makes right” — the principle behind the worst atrocities and crimes of human history."

"We humans are not at the top of anything. We are merely part of an interdependent web of life that forms complex yet fragile ecosystems. We choose to either participate in the protection of these natural systems, or to destroy them at our own peril. The concept of a food chain is a human construct that imposes a rigid and competitive hierarchy among species, rather than a good faith understanding of the complexity of the ecosystems to which we belong. Selectively appealing to biological determinism also ignores the fact that we are moral agents. By choosing plant foods, we can get our nutrients through primary sources of nourishment, in the most environmentally friendly and resource-efficient way possible, minimizing our harm to other animals, humans and the planet."

http://freefromharm.org/common-justifications-for-eating-animals/breaking-food-chain-myth/

Uh, isn't the song an homage to the first film when Kirk steals the car and drives it off a cliff (pretty sure this was the song playing in the background)?

Look, this is the 3rd movie in the rebooted franchise. Do people really not get the idea of a "reboot"? They're not re-making Star Trek, they're taking it in an entirely different direction. The first one clearly showed they wanted to go in the blockbuster action film direction and the second one re-affirmed that. So, it completely baffles me as to why anyone at this point would still think the rebooted franchise is going to be anything like the original Star Trek movies (let alone the TV series, which had far more time to build the characters and establish the universe than the movies do).

Now, as to the particulars of this trailer... they're going to blow up the Enterprise, again?!? We haven't "been there, done that" enough yet? And so much for their 5-year mission--looks like that is going to get cut a little short.

Still the idea of the main cast members getting stranded on a hostile planet is pretty good for allowing some cool between-character interaction and does in fact harken back to all of the TV series versions (where it seemed to happen on a fairly regular basis).

Will wait and see. Probably will be a good action popcorn flick (which is clearly what they want the series to be).

Capitalism is a guideline or system of how to organise aspects of society (trade, labour and services for example), nothing more. How you use it defines its effect on us. I could sell you my child explicitly for the purpose of you raping it and it would show how evil capitalism is. Or I sell you my children's book explicitly for the purpose of you entertaining your own children and that would be quite nice.
The problem starts if you think everything needs to be a for profit business as capitalism should be unlimited. Then you live in a country that makes prisons privately owned businesses and thinks it's ok to bankrupt sick people and their families with medical bills.
Capitalism is as evil as the people controling it. Who allows these people to be evil? Who cares? Apparently not the majority.
However, all that is not the problem of this ad. The capitalism works to nobodies disadvantege here. Edeka tries to brand itself as family-friendly and established part of homelife. That is quite normal and acceptable for a grocery store. It is not like as if VW would be putting out ads on how honest they are.
The version of the ad I described as being better is as manipulative as this one with the exception that it doesn't make everyone look like assholes upon closer inspection.
Nobody nailed grandpa's door shut, he's allowed to step into the world and make new friends and other aquaintances. His isolation is understandable but mostly his own fault. I witnessed stuff like that myself, I have grandparents too.
On the other hand you bemoan the smombies of today. Do you see the irony of complaining about the screen-fixed stare of todays youth (and society in general) on an internet forum?
We created a distraction-addicted, short-term attention-spanned and self-affirming society on our own by willingly swallowing all the crap the distraction industry throws at us.
I don't have a twitter account because nothing I can say in 140 characters without established context is worth saying. That gotta mean something coming from me of all people.
I'm not on Facebook because I know what the 'StaSi' was and see no reason to do their work on my own person for Mr. Zuckerberg and his shareholders.
I have no internet connection on my cellphone because I prefer to know stuff instead of just looking it up. I don't write text messages all the time because I prefer spoken words with their complexity that simplifies communication instead of emojis that emulate things my face did since before cellphones stopped being science-fiction.
I choose not to stare at the palm of my hand and what's lying in it every 5 minutes because I can. Most of our modern society chooses differently. They chose poorly, as the real oldtimers would say.
And here we are, yet again, ranting about the evils of enticing screens in our lives, live on the internet. You know, we would not be this absurd joke if we'd sat at a dinnertable right now. With food and drink from Edeka.

I understand that but people are very bad at doing chest compressions and often because they are too gentle - which this video re-affirms. if it was a few years ago since you did your course this advert might make you worse at your technique.
These events don't time themselves 2 weeks after you had a CPR refresher course.

The lady on the right in this photo is a bit rusty!
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-illvh8YyI8A/UfiiMTwYD9I/AAAAAAAAWrQ/pID8Iw9kbKw/s1600/cpr+with+two+women+doing+it+right+dr+heckle+funny+wtf+pictures.jpg