BREAKING: NCAA says state of North Carolina will again be considered for championship hosting....

[vamosjackets]

"Thanks for responding. I think you make some good points. My main reaction to the main question (which you addressed in your first paragraph) is: If they're really female, then why are they keeping their male parts? I still think it should be based on anatomy. If you're a female, that's a commitment, and if you want others to be committed to your femaleness then you have to be committed to it. If you're not committed to it, then you can't expect society to respect that."

Jeez Louise, you are really fixated on this. I'm at a lose to to see how keeping your sex organs shows a "lack of commitment" in this case. What, taking female hormones until you are pretty much completely transformed both physically and mentally to the gender identity you were - usually - born with isn't commitment enough for you? I think you are grasping at straws here.

"Second, if there is no law, then what is the deterrent, what is the logic, what is the law that would facilitate just plain males, dressed as males not going to female facilities whenever the feel like it? The choice, the law can't be based on feelings, can it? I think you want to say, "Well, this doesn't happen." It does. It happens more often than you think. In my time in teaching/coaching, I actually saw this as a pervasive problem. And, with the way the law is headed, it will now be legal."

I think, from my experience at Grant Field, that the opposite is the big problem. But you're right: I don't see this as a major problem. There are plenty of ways that guys who do this can be pranged by existing laws without adding an unenforceable new one to them.

"Yadda, yadda,yadda … If you don't believe me, then try to answer this question. To what can a secular person appeal to demonstrate the existence of human rights? It can't be proven empirically. If you look at nature with the secularist lens, the most fundamental thing is that it's a competition where the strong eat the weak and and there is no such thing as fundamental rights to live and pursue happiness, no such thing as equal opportunity. I'm not saying the secularist can't believe in human rights. I'm saying that the secularist has to simply declare that human rights are true based on ... faith. Human rights in the secular world is nothing more than the remnants of Biblical Christianity over the last several thousand years."

Nope. Human rights are justified on the basis of human rationality. Everything you say about the "state of nature" is true. That's why, as the classic liberal thinkers pointed out, it makes sense for us to set up governments to place limits on our behavior that we call human rights. It doesn't have anything to do with faith at all. It's a simple matter of self-interest. And a classic liberal would say - I would, for instance - that the "remnants of Biblical Christianity" are a simpler age's attempt to justify what most of us think are bad things that governments should protect us from - robbery, murder, perjury, ect. No need to bring God into this at all to make it work. Besides, I doubt He's too impressed with our attempts to find religious justifications for breaking the Commandments right and left in His name.

Now, can we leave this alone and get back to football?

"Jeez Louise, you are really fixated on this. I'm at a lose to to see how keeping your sex organs shows a "lack of commitment" in this case. What, taking female hormones until you are pretty much completely transformed both physically and mentally to the gender identity you were - usually - born with isn't commitment enough for you? I think you are grasping at straws here."
If I were Louise, then I'd probably be on your side ... unless I was French - but then I'd probably still be on your side.
You really seem to be condescending here. You condemn me for being "fixated on it". I thought I was discussing it with you who is also discussing it with the same amount of convincedness. So, are you also "fixated on this"? Maybe you're just tired of spending time on it, which is understandable. If so, just say so and we'll just drop it. But, as long as you are going to come at it with such gusto, I may also feel inclined to respond. You asked a question: "What, taking female hormones until you are 'pretty much' completely transformed both physically and mentally to the gender identity you were - usually - born with isn't commitment enough for you?" No, it's not, and you were honest enough to state the reason in your question: "'pretty much' transformed". Which brings me back to the question I posed for you, which you didn't answer. If they are truly female, then why are they keeping their male parts? I'm not grasping at straws, I'm grasping at something else, which is ironically similarly shaped whose definition is: the male reproductive organ.
It seems like you just want this to go away, for people to just get out of the way who don't agree with you, and you are aggravated about engaging with hard questions for your side.


"Nope. Human rights are justified on the basis of human rationality. Everything you say about the "state of nature" is true. That's why, as the classic liberal thinkers pointed out, it makes sense for us to set up governments to place limits on our behavior that we call human rights. It doesn't have anything to do with faith at all. It's a simple matter of self-interest. And a classic liberal would say - I would, for instance - that the "remnants of Biblical Christianity" are a simpler age's attempt to justify what most of us think are bad things that governments should protect us from - robbery, murder, perjury, ect. No need to bring God into this at all to make it work. Besides, I doubt He's too impressed with our attempts to find religious justifications for breaking the Commandments right and left in His name."
This sounds a whole lot like an assertion rather than a justification ... it's a faith position. And, worse than that, it's a wholly subjective set of morals. So, killing people is not wrong. It really isn't. What Hitler did is not evil nor even wrong. It's just pragmatically disadvantageous. It's pragmatic ... until it isn't. It's not hard to imagine a scenario where killing someone else would work to your own advantage (for survival, security, or comfort) and being the most pragmatic thing to do, especially if you can get away with it. It's not hard to imagine.

Also, you want to justify human rights on human rationality. It seems that our own conversation would point to human rationality being totally subjective. Whose rationality wins? Which one is truly rational? How do you even explain the existence of rationality, and on what objective basis do you measure it? How do you explain human rationality without human rationality? You're going to get into a viciously circular argument which will again humble you to a position of faith. You can't account for anything your saying without human rationality which is something you must presuppose without the ability to account for it. The least you can do is recognize that.

For fair discourse to take place, both sides must be willing to admit their presuppositions. I'm willing to admit mine. Are you?


"No need to bring God into this at all to make it work. Besides, I doubt He's too impressed with our attempts to find religious justifications for breaking the Commandments right and left in His name."
I'm very intrigued by this statement, but I don't think I understand it. If you care to elaborate, I'd be appreciative.


"Now, can we leave this alone and get back to football?"
If that's what you want to do, I understand, and will be willing to oblige. Time is valuable. I'm appreciative of your engagement so far.

 

[vamosjackets]

@dressedcheeseside

To get the thread "back on track"......the NCAA still sucks.

Yeah, it may have been more profitable to stay on that subject. Who knows?
But, to get back to it. Bud Peterson said that the biggest reason the ACC decided to move championships out of North Carolina was because governors of other states in the ACC (New York and maybe one more) decreed that their citizens not travel to North Carolina and refused state funding for any state-related-entity travel to North Carolina. The irony of "tolerance", huh?
So, instead of letting democracy and law run its course, Bud Peterson and the ACC decided to side with the "intolerant" crowd and ban games in North Carolina. He said it was in the best interest of "the student athletes" from those states. These people are supposed to be the academics, the intellectual, the scientifically driven purveyors of truth?

Can you imagine the reverse of this? Imagine the governors of Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, and others banning travel to a liberal state for some liberal decision, like gay marriage for instance. Would the ACC have sided with them? Would the interest of the "student athletes" from those states have been the primary concern of Bud and the ACC and the NCAA? Can you imagine what the governors of these states would've been called? Now, you tell me, who is tolerant/intolerant again? The irony, the inability to recognize it, and the refusal to even talk about it is truly amazing to me.

And, to repeat my final question to those governors, Bud, Swofford, the ACC, the NCAA, and anybody else on that side of the issue: How in the world do you justify removing games from North Carolina while enthusiastically pursuing opportunities to play in China? It's a prime exhibit in the case against Human Rationality.

 

[Squints]

I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. I KNOW what I am saying contradicts what they are stating in their conclusion. That is part of my point - you can see from the data they are ignoring right in front of them. Happens all the time in 'studies' when people know what the purpose of the study is, have a vested interest in its outcome, and it colors everything they do.

It's not that what you're saying contradicts their conclusion. It's that what you're saying doesn't have anything to do with their conclusion. And to be clear, are you accusing the authors of having some kind of agenda here to the point they are basically committed academic fraud and misrepresenting their findings? That's a pretty big accusation. If so, why do you think that?

In terms of speculating about the public perception - again - go google the announcements and read it for yourself. All I am doing is reiterating what THEY are saying. Their announcements said literally NOTHING about the pathology or science. They spoke at great length about easing the public perception, stygma, and access to care.

Ok I'll admit I'm going to be lazy here because I don't feel like trawling around the internet at the moment. Can you tell me specifically which announcements you've taken issue with.

So where do we go from here? Well, you can actually disagree with the data I posted my conclusions from or the statements I quoted about intentions. I gave you the links. You are welcome to disagree on substance on any of that and then we can go from there.

I don't disagree with the data or the conclusions of the study. I've got no reason to. I do disagree with some of the opinions you've expressed on the topic but that's whatever. I'm not trying to be a crusader here. You believe what you want to believe. My beef is with you trying to co-opt the study and wave it around as validation for some of those opinions when it isn't. It just shows you don't know how to interpret academic research in the social sciences.

 

[Skeptic]

I don't know what you mean by "earth advocates."

If you meant rejection of flat-earth advocacy, then the answer is no, and the same goes for rejection of young earth creationism.

Your suggestion that these issues fall into the same category as those I listed suggests that you don't understand the science--more's the pity--and are yourself a Liberal Fundamentalist.

Liberal, yes. Fundamentalist by any definition, no. And your question referred to my omission of the word "flat" as you indeed inferred.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

It's not that what you're saying contradicts their conclusion. It's that what you're saying doesn't have anything to do with their conclusion. And to be clear, are you accusing the authors of having some kind of agenda here to the point they are basically committed academic fraud and misrepresenting their findings?

Ok I'll admit I'm going to be lazy here because I don't feel like trawling around the internet at the moment. Can you tell me specifically which announcements you've taken issue with.



I don't disagree with the data or the conclusions of the study. I've got no reason to. I do disagree with some of the opinions you've expressed on the topic but that's whatever. I'm not trying to be a crusader here. You believe what you want to believe. My beef is with you trying to co-opt the study and wave it around as validation for some of those opinions when it isn't. It just shows you don't know how to interpret academic research in the social sciences.

I'm not accusing them of academic fraud or misrepresenting their findings. All I'm doing is looking at their data (there is a chart that shows [going from memory] suicide/mortality of transgender people post surgery versus the regular population over time, and pointing out there is no difference. In other words, if the narrative was that bullying and ostracizing these people is what lead to suicide attempts, then this survey completely contradicts that. These are people that definitively look like the other gender, even naked. So if these folks still have much much worse mortality rates than the general population, there is something more damaging emotionally and mentally. The study agrees with that insofar as saying much more psychiatric treatment is needed. I worded that as assistance with identity reality. To me, all the data is right there that we're "doing this wrong".

In terms of me not knowing how to interpret academic research, that's a little presumptuous. For example, you still haven't rebutted anything I've said with the actual data in the study. I'm always happy to be proven wrong - there is nothing worse than going through life incorrect.

In terms of the articles I googled that you don't want to spend time looking for, all I literally did was google 'WHO removes disorder from transgenderism' and 'American Psychiatric Association removes disorder from transgenderism' and then went to their public announcements. They may very well have science and data behind them, but they provided none of it in the releases, nor did they even reference it. They only mentioned the goals of removing stygmas and improving access to care.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

It's not that what you're saying contradicts their conclusion. It's that what you're saying doesn't have anything to do with their conclusion. And to be clear, are you accusing the authors of having some kind of agenda here to the point they are basically committed academic fraud and misrepresenting their findings? That's a pretty big accusation. If so, why do you think that?



Ok I'll admit I'm going to be lazy here because I don't feel like trawling around the internet at the moment. Can you tell me specifically which announcements you've taken issue with.



I don't disagree with the data or the conclusions of the study. I've got no reason to. I do disagree with some of the opinions you've expressed on the topic but that's whatever. I'm not trying to be a crusader here. You believe what you want to believe. My beef is with you trying to co-opt the study and wave it around as validation for some of those opinions when it isn't. It just shows you don't know how to interpret academic research in the social sciences.

So what you are suggesting is basically...that an author.... providing data and conclusions about same....can't be questioned or debated about the data or their conclusions?

 

[AE 87]

Liberal, yes. Fundamentalist by any definition, no. And your question referred to my omission of the word "flat" as you indeed inferred.

LOL. Your posting history begs to differ. No worries. Enjoy.

 

[takethepoints]

"You asked a question: "What, taking female hormones until you are 'pretty much' completely transformed both physically and mentally to the gender identity you were - usually - born with isn't commitment enough for you?" No, it's not, and you were honest enough to state the reason in your question: "'pretty much' transformed". Which brings me back to the question I posed for you, which you didn't answer. If they are truly female, then why are they keeping their male parts? I'm not grasping at straws, I'm grasping at something else, which is ironically similarly shaped whose definition is: the male reproductive organ."

I kept this short in the interest of saving time. Let's see what trans people are giving up: their station in life (careers often have to start over), their place in a society that structures virtually all its informal and most of its formal activities on gendered differences and, in addition, choosing the gender that usually gets the short end of the stick, most of their old friends and acquaintances, and, in many instances, their families and relationships. That's in addition to what I said before. The procedures also require literally years of hormone replacement and more surgeries then reassignment. And, again, after all this you demand more evidence of commitment to their gender identity? Yep, you are grasping at straws here.

"It seems like you just want this to go away, for people to just get out of the way who don't agree with you, and you are aggravated about engaging with hard questions for your side."

Well, I do want to have to quit writing posts to what seems a candidate to rival the Dennis Robertson thread, but, no, I'm not aggravated. What you saw was my true reaction to your post; I literally couldn't believe what you wrote. Should have included the rest to make that evident.

"This sounds a whole lot like an assertion rather than a justification ... it's a faith position. And, worse than that, it's a wholly subjective set of morals. So, killing people is not wrong. It really isn't. What Hitler did is not evil nor even wrong. It's just pragmatically disadvantageous. It's pragmatic ... until it isn't. It's not hard to imagine a scenario where killing someone else would work to your own advantage (for survival, security, or comfort) and being the most pragmatic thing to do, especially if you can get away with it. It's not hard to imagine."

Do you or anyone else want to live in a society where there is open, lawless killing as in Nazi Germany? Do you have to consult a faith of any sort to reach that conclusion? I sure hope not. You would be concerned for your own skin instead. That, again, was why classic and modern liberals turn to self-interest as the justification for limits on governments and individuals. And, yes, the standard for that is utilitarian. We work from our experience to determine what our rights should be. What other standard works, unless you foist the whole business off on God? Problem = a lot of people either don't believe in Him or have different ideas of what He wants. Most of us - the nut jobs don't count - have a pretty good idea of what kinds of limits we want on our fellows and our governments, however. Means are another story, but the basics aren't in much dispute.

"Also, you want to justify human rights on human rationality. It seems that our own conversation would point to human rationality being totally subjective. Whose rationality wins? Which one is truly rational? How do you even explain the existence of rationality, and on what objective basis do you measure it? How do you explain human rationality without human rationality? You're going to get into a viciously circular argument which will again humble you to a position of faith. You can't account for anything your saying without human rationality which is something you must presuppose without the ability to account for it. The least you can do is recognize that."

I'm answering the first part of the question since I can't make any sense out of the last part.
.
Rationality isn't subjective. It is dependent on empirical test and to democratic decision-making. Admittedly, when we say we are being rational we often aren't; we act in our own self-interest. That's why classic and modern liberals are democrats. How do we know that our decisions are rational? We subject them to scientific or logical tests in open debate. We subject them to the body politic for approval. The process does mean that we often screw up; the barriers to rational thinking are well understood, but not commonly recognized or acted on by mass publics. But there's where the essentially evolutionary nature of policy comes in. We can see the results of what we have done and recognize them, especially over time. Example: there wasn't much public discussion of economic inequality until recently. Why now? Because Thomas Piketty wrote a massively influential book on the subject based on equally massive datasets that showed how it develops over time and why capitalist societies can be subject to it to their detriment unless they're careful. This has been followed up by even more research showing the effects of the development of economic inequality since 1980 (yep) on a wide variety of topics: rural employment, education, career opportunities … the list is almost endless. And now there's considerable discussion - in both parties, I might add - about what needs to be done.
That's what I (should have said we; this is mainstream analysis) mean when I say rationality. Piet Hein put it best:

The road to wisdom? … Well, it's plain
And simple to express:
Err
And err
And err again
But less
And less
And less

Yep. That's it. It's uncertain and takes time and effort. It's also "The road to wisdom". Too bad we don't follow it more often.

Btw, if you want to read a good book on this try: Duncan Watts. 2011. Everything Is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails Us. New York: Crown Business. Everybody should read this one. Twice.

"For fair discourse to take place, both sides must be willing to admit their presuppositions. I'm willing to admit mine. Are you?"

See the above.

"'No need to bring God into this at all to make it work. Besides, I doubt He's too impressed with our attempts to find religious justifications for breaking the Commandments right and left in His name.'
I'm very intrigued by this statement, but I don't think I understand it. If you care to elaborate, I'd be appreciative."

Again, see above. On religious justifications for breaking commandments, look at the wikipedia entry for "just war theory", then recall the 5th (or 6th; your choice) commandment.

"'Now, can we leave this alone and get back to football?'
If that's what you want to do, I understand, and will be willing to oblige. Time is valuable. I'm appreciative of your engagement so far."

Good. Let's do what I said. This really is my last word.

 

[AE 87]

LOL. @takethepoints just said, "We subject them to scientific or logical tests in open debate" after just refusing to do that very thing when I invited the opportunity.

If there were no connection between gender and biological sex then there would be no need for hormone treatments or surgery. These attempts to achieve objective simmilitude undermines subhective genderism.

Also classical liberalism favored the rule of law typically on the basis of natural rights and natural law to protect those rights. This position is based on a Duty ethic, not an Ends ethic such as utilitarianism.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

@takethepoints

Never heard of Watts before. Quick search led to a review and some cited text. Interesting quote cited follows....

"The spread of an idea or taste depended not only on such individuals (popular influencers), but also on “a critical mass of easily influenced people who influence other easy-to-influence people. When this critical mass existed, even an average individual was capable of triggering a large cascade.”

Kinda fits the Global Warming Alarmism doesn't it?

 

[Squints]

So what you are suggesting is basically...that an author.... providing data and conclusions about same....can't be questioned or debated about the data or their conclusions?

Nope. Not what I'm suggesting.

 

[Squints]

I'm not accusing them of academic fraud or misrepresenting their findings.

Are you saying they have an agenda then? I'm sorry I'm just trying to nail down by what you mean by statements like "you can see from the data they are ignoring right in front of them" and "it colors everything they do." It comes off as very accusatory to me.

All I'm doing is looking at their data (there is a chart that shows [going from memory] suicide/mortality of transgender people post surgery versus the regular population over time, and pointing out there is no difference. In other words, if the narrative was that bullying and ostracizing these people is what lead to suicide attempts, then this survey completely contradicts that. These are people that definitively look like the other gender, even naked. So if these folks still have much much worse mortality rates than the general population, there is something more damaging emotionally and mentally.The study agrees with that insofar as saying much more psychiatric treatment is needed. I worded that as assistance with identity reality. To me, all the data is right there that we're "doing this wrong".

It doesn't support or contradict that narrative. There is zero examination of causation here. All it says is that post-SRS individuals are a risk group. No more, no less. Sure the increased suicide attempts (and other issues) could be from some sort of deeper damage as a result of being transgender that SRS doesn't address. But they could also be a result of emotional and mental damage these people have endured via external factors pre-SRS and the surgery alone was not enough to overcome it. We can't know from the data here. We can agree in that the study says more post-surgery treatment is needed. That's obvious. But it doesn't say why nor does it attempt to. It also doesn't necessarily imply "doing it wrong." It could mean "not effective enough." That would take another study from within the population. Anything beyond that is speculation which anyone is free to do but like I said before don't hold up a study and claim its saying what it isn't. Which is what it looks like you're doing. If not, my bad.

I guess the one sentence of what I'm saying is that the data in the study doesn't say you're wrong but it doesn't say you're right either.

In terms of me not knowing how to interpret academic research, that's a little presumptuous. For example, you still haven't rebutted anything I've said with the actual data in the study. I'm always happy to be proven wrong - there is nothing worse than going through life incorrect.

Yes, that's because there is nothing in the actual data that addresses what you're talking about.

In terms of the articles I googled that you don't want to spend time looking for, all I literally did was google 'WHO removes disorder from transgenderism' and 'American Psychiatric Association removes disorder from transgenderism' and then went to their public announcements. They may very well have science and data behind them, but they provided none of it in the releases, nor did they even reference it. They only mentioned the goals of removing stygmas and improving access to care.

It's possible our search results are different because I just googled both of those exact quotes and no public announcements from either organization were on the first two pages of my results. I'll take your word for it though.

 

[Squints]

@takethepoints

Never heard of Watts before. Quick search led to a review and some cited text. Interesting quote cited follows....

"The spread of an idea or taste depended not only on such individuals (popular influencers), but also on “a critical mass of easily influenced people who influence other easy-to-influence people. When this critical mass existed, even an average individual was capable of triggering a large cascade.”

Kinda fits the Global Warming Alarmism doesn't it?

And the idea of a Kenyan born Muslim being President too.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Liberals following science isn't any more true than Conservstives following science. We are on a thread where one side thinks a triangle is a circle because the triangle says it's a circle. One side thinks a live unborn baby is not a live unborn baby even though we can extract the baby st various points up to halfway along gestation and it can live outside the womb. One side pushes for strong use of green energy to stop global warming even though even hitting 25% reduction of carbon emissions would only reduce temperatures by 0.03 degrees. One side pushes a widely refuted economic analysis by a known Socialist Economist pushing Socialist Exonomic policies (he ignored all kinds of tax and income sources just to name a few).

Saying one side has a stronger adherence to science than the other is just plain false. It's just a marketing line to try and claim a more correct position.

 

[vamosjackets]

Do you or anyone else want to live in a society where there is open, lawless killing as in Nazi Germany? Do you have to consult a faith of any sort to reach that conclusion? I sure hope not. You would be concerned for your own skin instead. That, again, was why classic and modern liberals turn to self-interest as the justification for limits on governments and individuals. And, yes, the standard for that is utilitarian. We work from our experience to determine what our rights should be. What other standard works, unless you foist the whole business off on God? Problem = a lot of people either don't believe in Him or have different ideas of what He wants. Most of us - the nut jobs don't count - have a pretty good idea of what kinds of limits we want on our fellows and our governments, however. Means are another story, but the basics aren't in much dispute.

"Also, you want to justify human rights on human rationality. It seems that our own conversation would point to human rationality being totally subjective. Whose rationality wins? Which one is truly rational? How do you even explain the existence of rationality, and on what objective basis do you measure it? How do you explain human rationality without human rationality? You're going to get into a viciously circular argument which will again humble you to a position of faith. You can't account for anything your saying without human rationality which is something you must presuppose without the ability to account for it. The least you can do is recognize that."

I'm answering the first part of the question since I can't make any sense out of the last part.
.
Rationality isn't subjective. It is dependent on empirical test and to democratic decision-making. Admittedly, when we say we are being rational we often aren't; we act in our own self-interest. That's why classic and modern liberals are democrats. How do we know that our decisions are rational? We subject them to scientific or logical tests in open debate. We subject them to the body politic for approval. The process does mean that we often screw up; the barriers to rational thinking are well understood, but not commonly recognized or acted on by mass publics. But there's where the essentially evolutionary nature of policy comes in. We can see the results of what we have done and recognize them, especially over time. Example: there wasn't much public discussion of economic inequality until recently. Why now? Because Thomas Piketty wrote a massively influential book on the subject based on equally massive datasets that showed how it develops over time and why capitalist societies can be subject to it to their detriment unless they're careful. This has been followed up by even more research showing the effects of the development of economic inequality since 1980 (yep) on a wide variety of topics: rural employment, education, career opportunities … the list is almost endless. And now there's considerable discussion - in both parties, I might add - about what needs to be done.
That's what I (should have said we; this is mainstream analysis) mean when I say rationality. Piet Hein put it best:

The road to wisdom? … Well, it's plain
And simple to express:
Err
And err
And err again
But less
And less
And less

Yep. That's it. It's uncertain and takes time and effort. It's also "The road to wisdom". Too bad we don't follow it more often.

Btw, if you want to read a good book on this try: Duncan Watts. 2011. Everything Is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails Us. New York: Crown Business. Everybody should read this one. Twice.

"For fair discourse to take place, both sides must be willing to admit their presuppositions. I'm willing to admit mine. Are you?"

See the above.

"'No need to bring God into this at all to make it work. Besides, I doubt He's too impressed with our attempts to find religious justifications for breaking the Commandments right and left in His name.'
I'm very intrigued by this statement, but I don't think I understand it. If you care to elaborate, I'd be appreciative."

Again, see above. On religious justifications for breaking commandments, look at the wikipedia entry for "just war theory", then recall the 5th (or 6th; your choice) commandment.

"'Now, can we leave this alone and get back to football?'
If that's what you want to do, I understand, and will be willing to oblige. Time is valuable. I'm appreciative of your engagement so far."

Good. Let's do what I said. This really is my last word.

First, thanks for the seemingly slightly less aggravated response.

Second, do you not believe that your entire discourse here presupposes human rationality without being able to prove it without an appeal to ... wait for it ... human rationality? You say human rationality isn't subjective ... we can judge it by ... wait for it again ... more human rationality. This is called a first-order faith position. You must have a starting point. Everyone must have a place from which they begin that cannot be proven. Yours is human rationality. That is your ultimate authority, and you cannot prove it nor account for it. In fact to even speak of it or argue for it, you're having to use it and thus presuppose it. Naturalism cannot account for its existence and there is much evidence that it is perhaps the most flawed fundamental of all (see the 5th post in this thread for exhibit A: https://gtswarm.com/threads/uga-wr-riley-ridley-arrested-blue-badged-bagmen-to-the-rescue.11854/ ). People do not act in their own self-interest and destroy themselves and others on a regular basis ... in fact, I would say more often than not. And, your apologetic for this is "if we mess up enough, we'll eventually get it right???" Is that not an extremely large leap of faith? History certainly does not point to the likelihood of that conclusion. Let's imagine this utopia you're selling that we're going to get to by continually making mistakes: How will we judge the value, the beauty, the goodness, the justice of this utopia built by human rationality? ... one last time, everybody now ... human rationality.

Third, you ask if I or anyone else would want to live "in a society where there is open, lawless killing as in Nazi Germany? Do you have to consult a faith of any sort to reach that conclusion? I sure hope not. " Nazi German was not lawless killing. It was lawful killing. And, if they had won, what kind of world would we be living in? Whose rationality would we be using? What would be the working definitions of good, evil, justice, human rights, equality?
Here's the thing my man. We live in a society that's just as bad. The problem is you and I and everyone else are masters of self-justification and do not see our own flaws (unless something outside of us shows it to us - like God, scripture). We kill multitudes of millions more than Nazi Germany and have written it in as legally protected under the law. We have even sought to publicly fund it. And, it's taking human life, the most vulnerable form of it. Abortion kills more than Nazi Germany every year ... EVERY YEAR! Why doesn't it matter to you??? Because it's F'N pragmatic, that's why. It's in your self-interest. You can't hear them cry. You don't have to watch them get torn apart and yanked from the womb. You don't want to have to take any responsibility for their existence. And, because none of this registers, you feel perfectly justified. How can it ever be justified to take one life for the convenience of another? Because, they're not as human as you. They're not as valuable as you. Their existence would be miserable anyway and be an extra burden on society. It sounds JUST LIKE Nazi Germany. Murder of innocent life isn't wrong, it's just not pragmatic ... unless it is. Do we need a holy book, an appeal to God to teach us about the evil inside ourselves and call us back from the abyss of self-interest? Only if we're realists. Only if we want (NEED) a critique of human rationality from outside of human rationality. The problem is and always has been ... we don't want that critique.

Fourth, thanks for the book recommendation. I will try to look into that, seriously.

Fifth, if you have time, give the Veritas Forum YouTube video I posted earlier a chance. I think you'll find it to be fair (much better than me) and provide very relevant insight into what our country needs most right now from both sides. I probably need to re-watch it myself.

Sixth, I respect your wishes to stop the conversation and don't expect a response. If you want to give one, all the better, but I will certainly not take your silence as though you had nothing to say or conceding anything.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

And the idea of a Kenyan born Muslim being President too.

LOL. I readily state there is no evidence, anywhere that I have seen, Obama was not born in the US. Even if so his mother was American and he would be provided citenship through her even if born in Kenya. Few I know or know of believe otherwise...outside of Trump

Liberals, almost to an individual, believe in AGW and believe it to soon be a catastrophic problem for humanity.

 

[alentrekin]

What do you consider as evidence for absence of mods?

See below.
See also above.

 

[takethepoints]

@takethepoints

Never heard of Watts before. Quick search led to a review and some cited text. Interesting quote cited follows....

"The spread of an idea or taste depended not only on such individuals (popular influencers), but also on “a critical mass of easily influenced people who influence other easy-to-influence people. When this critical mass existed, even an average individual was capable of triggering a large cascade.”

Kinda fits the Global Warming Alarmism doesn't it?

Read the book. This is out of context.

 

[jzgt22]

how is this thread still in the GT Football forum?...

 

[jzgt22]

oh its not. thank God!