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There are a lot of posts in this thread, friends.

SHUT IT DOWN

"We're not going to be disrespected," said Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN). "We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

Must find elaborate way to delete account and all related posts to quell the shame of high school JMHX's political views.

I'm consistently impressed with how many of my posts get deleted from my own thread. 8 of the last 11.

At 12/19/12 11:31 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 12/19/12 11:23 PM, JMHX wrote: As Emperor of this Lounge and Founding Father, I declare everyone sucks. Except Poxxy.

Well, merry christmas to you, too.

CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE.

As Emperor of this Lounge and Founding Father, I declare everyone sucks. Except Poxxy.

At 12/19/12 01:08 AM, brainface wrote: I don't know much or anything about gun control laws etc. etc. But I'll throw it out there based on what I HAVENT seen in the news like Ever.

When was the last time you heard about a justifiable homicide?? Ie. gun used to kill in self defense.

cause frankly I'm drawing a blank

I hear about it all the time when they cover the wars overseas, and living in D.C., whenever a cop guns down a black kid in Southeast.

At 12/18/12 04:24 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: To JMHX

The thing you seem to not realize about slavery is its definition. Slavery is the ownership of another person. That's it. It does not mention how the slave reacts to this nor how the master treats his slave. Your idea of resisting there master is meaningless. The master still owns that person making it slavery.

This is another example of being too concrete. A lot of the others have given great examples of conceptual slaves. Keep in mind that restricting a word to its present definition often misses the point of the thought experiment. And I don't put a thought on breaking free in a legal sense for that reason. The idea itself goes well beyond a single definition of owned persons.

At 12/18/12 12:32 AM, Jmayer20 wrote:

As far as the women not eating or drinking clearly you have not heard of intravenous feeding or force feeding.

See, this is what I mean. It's not really being honest to the spirit of the thought experiment. It's like someone responding to the old thought experiment of "If a cell of yours was replaced with a cell of an alien, one cell at a time, at what point do you become mostly alien?" with an answer of "Aliens don't exist."

Finally, what do you mean by "She can even mentally defy the captor by continuing to fight."? Does that mean that she yells at him or calls him names? If so then so what. It wont stop him from raping her and besides he can always gag her.

Refusing to be broken isn't the optimal, but it is indeed a choice.

As to if she was born into it with absolutely no concept or hearsay from the outside world then she probably wouldn't even know the concept of freedom.

Now see, there we go. I can work with that. "IF she was born into the world THEN she wouldn't know the concept of freedom." I want someone to tackle that part, I find it interesting.

But that's not what OP said. Also I really don't see your point.

Obviously I'm enslaving people and trying to find the best way to deny them a choice.

At 12/17/12 04:15 PM, adrshepard wrote:

At 12/17/12 10:59 AM, JMHX wrote: This is one of the direct causes of the wave of mentally disabled homeless we see on the streets, and one of the biggest contributing factors to the rise in undiagnosed and untreated mental illness among the poor or chronic wards of the state. You can bounce in and out of prison and hospital facilities DOZENS of times before you kill someone or end up dead on the street.

And yet none of these people have access to firearms or carry out mass killings, so I don't think we can blame school shootings on Reagan. Lanza's problem was not a lack of access to mental health services.

Look beyond just mass shootings, though I'll come back to that point in a second. You can't tell me, looking at DoJ and HHS data, that the number of criminally-charged incidents involving homeless who were found to have mental disabilities hasn't increased since Reagan's deinstitutionalization program concluded.

SIMILARLY, one of the ripple effects of the deinstitutionalization program was that states - especially state boards of education - lost significant funding for counseling and serious therapy services for students. This also extended beyond schools themselves into the public health system of states. I don't know if you've ever had the unfortunate situation of having to get a loved one committed, but it's nearly impossible due to the sheer lack of resources most states have on their mental health budgets. In most cases, social workers will tell you directly that the quickest way to get help for your loved one is to have them commit a crime. For most disabled after deinstitutionalization, jail is about the only place that provides even rudimentary mental health services.

Now I disagree with you entirely that Lanza wouldn't have gained from mental health services. Unfortunately it's a counterfactual we'll never know the answer to. But when I look at the cases of guys like Holmes, Lanza, and Loughner, and how slightly over half (I believe 38 out of 62, will have to dig it out) of the past mass shootings (counted as 4+ victims, as is common among law enforcement) have been at the hands of individuals who had pre-existing mental conditions or were found to have mental conditions upon arrest. There is absolutely a relationship, and the lack of available treatment is a major causative factor.

This leaves behind the earlier point I made, the "private seller" loophole, which I'm glad to see got some criticism from both sides of the aisle.

At 12/16/12 04:12 PM, Jmayer20 wrote:

At 12/16/12 03:24 AM, Austerity wrote: Anyone can fall into a subservient position or powerful position, depending on their spirit.

Was my post invisible? Clearly the girl who is a sex slave and is tide down to a bed can't help the fact that she is in a subservient position, regardless of her spirit.

Yeah, yours was a bit too concrete...I think you missed the point of the question. It's not to craft a scenario where you don't physically have a means of opposition, but to consider what is requisite for someone to feel slavery, whether that kind of feeling is a consensual relationship.

The woman on the bed has options - she can avoid eating or drinking so as to starve to death, ending the situation. She can empty her mind so that she denies her captor all but the physicality of her presence. She can even mentally defy the captor by continuing to fight.

But assume she had been born into it, with no awareness of anything else. What then?

Well, Sandy Hook and all, but you move right along.

Debt crisis talks again this morning!

At 12/17/12 05:09 AM, Thecrazyman wrote:
From what I also noticed on another interesting report is that many of the mentally ill end up getting there mental treatment in jails rather than in hospitals or treatment centers, leading to exposure of the mentally ill to hardened criminals witch in turn becomes an even bigger problem, a bigger problem that also must be solved and soon. Its a report I found on this Link.

Thank the Reagan Administration for the process of "deinstitutionalization." This is one of the direct causes of the wave of mentally disabled homeless we see on the streets, and one of the biggest contributing factors to the rise in undiagnosed and untreated mental illness among the poor or chronic wards of the state. You can bounce in and out of prison and hospital facilities DOZENS of times before you kill someone or end up dead on the street. There's no long-term solution currently available for indigent, mentally disabled people.

At 12/16/12 01:41 AM, Proteas wrote:

At 12/14/12 06:47 PM, JMHX wrote: In seriousness, can I get us to agree that the current lack of registration, mental health screening and background checking in the gun market now is a serious problem that needs to be fixed?

It was fixed. In the wake of the V-Tech shootings, a law was passed that mandated any information regarding a citizen's mental unsoundness be tied into their criminal background check. While a noble act that was supported by the NRA, this only works if the individual has ever been a legal reason for a person's sanity to be called into question.

Not entirely true. I can still go to a gun show here in Virginia, or to most of the states in the metro area, and purchase a gun from a "secondary seller" without any background check or valid identification. The gun costs more than it does from a licensed dealer, but hey, I didn't have to pony up ANY identification for the Smith & Wession K-body .38 special I picked up in Dale City.

At 12/14/12 10:10 PM, TheMason wrote:

At 12/14/12 04:55 PM, JMHX wrote: Britain's gun violence rate is 40 times less than America. Strong gun laws.
Japan's gun violence rate is 30 times less than America. Strong gun laws.
Germany's gun violence rate is 20 times less than America. Strong gun laws.
America's gun violence rate is equal to America's. Weak gun laws.

Sorry JMHX...but that's the kind of bullshit argument that I'm talking about.

Gish Galloping some unrelated data.

So let's get this straight, your logical train:

1. I present statistical cases where nations with gun controls have lower gun crime rates.
2. You respond with statistics showing national poverty levels
3. You blow past my point about gun controls
4. Make a point that isn't relevant to my gun control and crime statistics.
5. B-B-But Poverty!

Address the gun laws.

At 12/14/12 06:50 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 12/14/12 05:01 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

You are thinking to far into the extremes. If you quite your job or mess up you income you will starve and be homeless in time simple as that. You have no choice but to work a job or create if you are so lucky to be in that position to uphold the status quo which means in essence cyclical consumption of useless China made junk that you get ripped off on each and every day.

You could still oppose that system, but your option is limited and terrible by comparison. Systems and structures maintain themselves not by being absolutely good, but by being substantially better than alternatives. It's how a system with high economic growth and good social programs can also so effectively oppress civil liberties with minimal complaint. The alternative is too bad for individuals to revolt.

At 12/14/12 06:52 PM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote:
they do two background checks when you purchase a firearm by FFL dealers a State And FEDERAL background check. if anything comes up they will know about it EVEN PARKING TICKETS. mental health maybe but thats a social issue that cause gun violence not guns themselves.

As far as it goes. The majority of American guns are sold secondhand at gun shows. I have personally walked into gun shows in Virginia and walked out with a weapon without a background check or any questions about my background or mental history. This is a gigantic and unacknowledged loophole.

In seriousness, can I get us to agree that the current lack of registration, mental health screening and background checking in the gun market now is a serious problem that needs to be fixed? I'm not proposing any ban on guns, and as a gun owner myself I respect the ideals of the Second Amendment. But I'm certain the Founders never intended children to die because a lunatic purchased a weapon.

At 12/14/12 05:06 PM, Korriken wrote:

At 12/14/12 04:17 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Fuck me. Could this year be any worse?

Life: Challenge Accepted.

And even worse OBAMA GOT RE-ELECTED

Britain's gun violence rate is 40 times less than America. Strong gun laws.
Japan's gun violence rate is 30 times less than America. Strong gun laws.
Germany's gun violence rate is 20 times less than America. Strong gun laws.
America's gun violence rate is equal to America's. Weak gun laws.

The solution?

Outlaw countries with better gun laws.http://www.newgrounds.com/store/category/apparel

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.

At 12/14/12 04:09 PM, Feoric wrote: So, how many kindergartners need to be killed to be in favor of the pro-gun control side?

If those children had been armed, the crossfire would've been amazing.

At 12/14/12 03:55 PM, TheMason wrote:

At 12/14/12 01:35 PM, JMHX wrote:

But again...good job just blasting off without waiting for facts to come in! :)

I call this the "Benghazi Blitz."

At 12/14/12 01:19 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: Coercion is not by choice and that is kind of the idea behind Coercion to get people to do what they do not normally choose.

You just said coercion is not a choice by defining it as the most salient (by force) of other choices.

Sigh.

Now I am just shocked, shocked to hear that there has been yet another mass shooting. This time we had a 20-year-old gentleman and father targeting elementary school tykes with a semi-automatic. Didn't we just come off a mass shooting the other week?

Oh yeah, that shooting in the mall in Oregon.

And before that there was that Minneapolis workplace shooting a month ago.

And that one at the Islamic Center. And that one with the Arizona Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords. And that other one. And the other-other-one.

80% of the weapons used in these mass shootings were purchased legally. Most of them involved semi-automatic handguns. A few involved higher caliber weaponry. And since President Obama has done fuck all to control guns (despite the continued fears of the hard Right), there's no real reason to expect much of a change in ownership statistics. But let's ask, for the age-old sake of argument:

Why do gun advocates support murdering children?

When Homer described Ulysses as saying "All slaves are slaves by choice," you can be certain this was the impression he meant to make on the listener. Given the environment of the times, Homer could well have used any phrasing he'd wanted. But there remains the statement, picked up now and then throughout the centuries. Our civilization has carried the statement in the 1100s as defiantly Anglo peasants revolted against their French dominates, and again in the 1500s as global trade created amazing networks of subservience and dominance in trade. And again in the 1790s and 1800s when the voice of Socialism and representative government reared against the totalitarian nature of the dying feudal system on the European mainland.

All slaves are slaves by choice.

It's an interesting thought. All systems of influence are in some way consensual, either by mutual agreement or by force of arms. A slave has the option to rebel. This can be a terrible option, one with no viable chance of success, as is currently the case in places like North Korea. Rebellion means certain death. But the choice remains to break the bonds of subservience to totalitarian governments. The French at the dawn of the 19th Century made the conscious and bloody (and ultimately disillusioning) choice to abandon the position of slavery. Others, like those in Thailand and Burma and Vietnam, seem to go through cycles of different classes throwing off the bonds of slavery in order to exert their new class power by repressing and oppressing those who previously stood as the masters.

All slaves are slaves by choice.

But consider a few thoughts as you craft a response and share your thoughts. Take a system like North Korea, where state re-education from childhood is commonplace. The very idea of an alternative system of governance has been denied formation in the minds of so many North Koreans. If this is the case, and the very idea of revolt is stricken from collective consciousness, is slavery still a choice? Does choice depend on a knowledge of options, or merely their existence? And beyond that, if the state makes the exercise of a choice difficult to the point of ensuring death, have they effectively removed that choice and thus rendered an insurmountable slavery?

Consider a slave who, though in bondage, never has a desire to flee because the very awareness that there exists anything outside slavery has been erased by those in power. Can one still blame that slave for a failure to recognize his plight? Can we, standing here with the awareness we have, really blame the slave and not the slave master for his condition? Can we really expect every individual citizen, without support, to rise up and exert their tiny scraps of political force?

If not, then building structures becomes important, structures that reinforce ideals of independence and liberty. And who is going to build those structures? Certainly not the government or the slave master whose goal is to keep the slave dependent. Not the private sector, which has anyway quite a profitable engagement going on between the market and the slave owner. Not the public sector, which is made up mostly of those who benefit from the current system more than they might a more enlightened system.

To whom can we turn?

The rich are obvs. rich because their birthing eggs are of higher quality than you plebs.

At 12/5/12 12:02 PM, adrshepard wrote:

At 12/5/12 07:57 AM, theburningliberal wrote:

I think I get the picture: Obama was reelected because voters disapproved of Republicans' deficit reduction plan (even though nearly every poll showed Romney with an advantage on that particular issue), but the Republican House majority was reelected for some other reason that doesn't reflect any disagreement with Obama. Cute.

It's a mixture. If you take some time to look at the average percentage of victory in House races over the past few election cycles, you'd see the bulk of both Democratic AND Republican members are increasingly drawn into districts with lopsided partisan majorities in their favor.

One of the main reasons Democrats failed to win back the House even though they had a 4% margin in TOTAL votes cast for the House is because, unfortunately, Democrats tend to cluster in urban areas. This creates a large number of urban House districts where heavy Democratic majorities overlap each other. Compare this to the lightly-populated but well-spaced Republican rural districts, especially in the Midwest and the West. I'm not claiming any kind of fraud or cheating on Republicans' parts - even when districts are drawn by nonpartisan bodies, Democratic districts tend to cluster more than Republican ones. It's a major disadvantage for the Democrats, and a sign they need to start branching outside of urban areas.

Actually, if you think about it, Democrats in the House are suffering from the same problem as Republicans on the presidential level - they've pressed their advantages in areas of strength so much that they can no longer compete on broader levels. Republicans will have trouble winning the White House with their current rural white male turnout model, and Democrats will have trouble winning the House with their current urban, mostly minority-majority turnout model. Something to think about for the future.

Obama won the election. We get it. But it's stupid to believe that equates to an absolute endorsement of every one of his policies and a rejection of every one of Romney's.

I kind of wish Democrats had been as loud in proclaiming a mandate on the Obama victory as Republicans were in proclaiming a mandate in 2004, when both the Republican total electoral count and the percentage of victory were smaller. If you'd like to call bullshit on this in terms of the media, I've got some great side-by-side comparisons of outlets like FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, the New York Times and USA Today covering the election results of 2004 vs. 2012.

What's more troubling is the notion that wanting tax rates to stay the same is an inherently republican position. I was under the impression that taxation was a necessary evil and that if a deficit reduction solution could be reached without raising taxes, it was more preferable to one that was (after all, that's what Obama offered in 2011. By the way, the "unspecified deductions and loopholes" that would bring in $800 billion in revenue consist of a $50,000 cap on tax deductions, which incidently would almost exclusively affect higher-income earners.

That cap has changed quite a bit over time, from $100,000 to $70,000 to $25,000 to $40,000 to $60,000 to $50,000, with different factions within the Republican Party proposing different final numbers. It's not unreasonable for Democrats to be wary of that 'down the line' promise when it isn't apparent the Republican Party even knows which number it's going to pick from the hat.

And as for your statement about taxes -- I agree, wanting tax rates to stay the same isn't an inherently Republican position. Quite a few Republicans in the Senate and Republican thought leaders in the media have broken ranks to support a small increase in total taxes for the wealthy, most notably William Kristol who just about gave me a stroke when he pointed out that it wouldn't kill Republicans to budge on tax rates for the top tiers.

I'm also officially done with any historical references to 1907 because they obviously confuse and upset most of you, so let's just stick to the premise of the entire post:

Americans are paying less in total taxes than they were in 1980. This applies whether you are working class, upper class, or the top-tier of the investment class. You are paying exorbitantly less than in 1950 as well, by about 60 percentage points on top income tax brackets.

You are also getting a better deal on capital gains income, dividend investment income and earned income put towards a home than at ANY time in modern American history save a period when Andrew Mellon fucked with tax rates on stock market transactions in the 1920s.