Christie not interested in making up with Rand Paul

[FrancisMarion]

I just realized that this thread is on a tangent from its title. Christie is still a baby, though.

 

[cajuncocoa]

You are in favor of gross restrictions on a freedom of individual, because of a belief that every zygote is worth protecting, even though it is not conscious, not self-aware, not intelligent, and doesn't feel anything. It's not a person...yet. It's a thing.

That's YOUR belief...my belief, based on science, is that "it" is a human life.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

I don't think that is quite accurate. Ron believes life begins at conception; BUT said it would not be consistent to ban those devices as you cant scientifically prove that conception has occurred. I don't believe he actually "accepts" as in endorses their use.

He equated them with birth control pills, and said he's prescribed birth control pills.

Draw your own conclusions, everybody.

 

[Reece]

I pretty much agree with this, although I think foreign policy at least sort of has to be the exception. If your one "blind spot" is that you want to bomb Iran, I don't think you'd qualify as being a libertarian.

Yeah, I'll agree there.

 

[Anti-Neocon]

Yes, I'm also seriously troubled by his virulent anti-semitism. We get enough people falsely accusing Ron/Rand Paul and their supporters of that without having to deal with someone for whom the accusation is actually true.

I have never seen him make an untrue comment about Zionist Jews. If telling the truth is "anti-Semitic" then I guess it's a good thing to sometimes be "anti-Semitic". I would hope that open discussion about important issues will not be hampered by political correctness in forums dedicated to liberty.

 

[neoreactionary]

I pretty much agree with this, although I think foreign policy at least sort of has to be the exception. If your one "blind spot" is that you want to bomb Iran, I don't think you'd qualify as being a libertarian.

lol

So by "I pretty much agree with this," you mean, "I do not agree with this"?

There are plenty of libertarian hawks. You don't encounter them much in Ron/Rand Paul circles, but they definitely exist, and it is certainly debatable whether they are any less libertarian than those with more non-interventionist leanings. The urge to issue blanket pronouncements ex-communicating people for holding various views should be resisted.

Just remember that for almost any widely-debated issue you can imagine, there exists at least one person who is much smarter than you, has thought about the issue more than you, and has reached a different conclusion. Have a little humility, for God's sake.

 

[Anti-Neocon]

The urge to issue blanket pronouncements ex-communicating people for holding various views...

Says the guy who screams "anti-Semite" when someone opposes Zionism, and more specifically the stranglehold that Zionist interests have over our country.

 

[neoreactionary]

I have never seen him make an untrue comment about Zionist Jews. If telling the truth is "anti-Semitic" then I guess it's a good thing to sometimes be "anti-Semitic". I would hope that open discussion about important issues will not be hampered by political correctness in forums dedicated to liberty.

A claim needn't be untrue in order to anti-Semitic, and I strongly disagree that it is always a good thing to tell the truth, regardless of consideration for political correctness.

Suppose I spent a large fraction of my posts pointing out that black people have an average IQ that is 15 points lower than white people and that this difference is largely due to genetic factors, that black people commit many orders of magnitude more violent crimes on a per-capita basis than white people, that we have actually found the gene that accounts for elevated aggression and hostility in black people, and that social science research shows that racially integrated communities have less social capital, more stress, less cohesion and tolerance, and overall less happy people than do racially homogenous ones.

All of these claims are true, but I would say that they are also racist and that people shouldn't go out of their way to point them out. Would you disagree?

 

[neoreactionary]

Says the guy who screams "anti-Semite" when someone opposes Zionism, and more specifically the stranglehold that Zionist interests have over our country.

I don't scream "anti-Semite" when someone opposes Zionism or the stranglehold that Zionist interests have over our country. You are either confusing me with someone else, mentally incompetent, or purposely lying for some reason I don't understand.

Also note that I complained in this very thread about the fact that people often falsely accuse Ron/Rand Paul and their supporters of anti-semitism. So it seems a little ridiculous to then turn around and accuse me of screaming "anti-Semite."

We get enough people falsely accusing Ron/Rand Paul and their supporters of [anti-Semitism] without having to deal with someone for whom the accusation is actually true.

 

[Anti-Neocon]

Suppose I spent a large fraction of my posts pointing out that black people have an average IQ that is 15 points lower than white people and that this difference is largely due to genetic factors, that black people commit many orders of magnitude more violent crimes on a per-capita basis than white people, that we have actually found the gene that accounts for elevated aggression and hostility in black people, and that social science research shows that racially integrated communities have less social capital, more stress, less cohesion and tolerance, and overall less happy people than do racially homogenous ones.

All of these claims are true, but I would say that they are also racist and that people shouldn't go out of their way to point them out. Would you disagree?

I think people should definitely point these kind of things out if they are relevant to the discussion.

Fear of political incorrectness shrouds the truth more often than not. In your specific example, I don't see anything wrong at all with making those points, although IQ is a pseudoscience which shouldn't be used to judge anything, much less entire groups of people.

 

[Anti-Neocon]

I don't scream "anti-Semite" when someone opposes Zionism or the stranglehold that Zionist interests have over our country. You are either confusing me with someone else, mentally incompetent, or purposely lying for some reason I don't understand.

Also note that I complained in this very thread about the fact that people often falsely accuse Ron/Rand Paul and their supporters of anti-semitism. So it seems a little ridiculous to then turn around and accuse me of screaming "anti-Semite."

You talked about JCDenton's "virulent anti-semitism". Those are your own words. Explain his "virulent anti-semitism". Have at it.

 

[cajuncocoa]

So let's see: we have Howard Dean using abortion as a wedge issue from the Left and Chris Christie using 9/11 as a wedge from Dunkin' Donuts. Now we just need some knee-jerk neocon to drive the foreign policy wedge and we'll have our trifecta.

 

[neoreactionary]

I think people should definitely point these kind of things out if they are relevant to the discussion.

There is no objective metric by which "relevance" can be determined, though. Were I so motivated, I assure you that I could shoehorn these facts into a discussion of virtually any subject I chose. If I made the decision to do so, would you not suspect my motives of being somewhat impure?

Fear of political incorrectness shrouds the truth more often than not. In your specific example, I don't see anything wrong at all with making those points, although IQ is a pseudoscience which shouldn't be used to judge anything, much less entire groups of people.

I agree with your general point about political correctness. The ironic thing is that your dismissal of the correlation between IQ scores and important life outcomes as "pseudoscience" is a pillar of the PC police, and you wouldn't be so wrong about the issue if you hadn't imbibed a buttload of PC propaganda. And the idea that we shouldn't "judge . . . entire groups of people" is another prominent tenet of PC dogma.

In fact, I think it is entirely appropriate to make judgments on the basis of data rather than fairy tales about universal human equality. Are you opposed to allowing the police or TSA agents to use profiling tactics, racial or otherwise, to decide whom to target for investigation?

 

[neoreactionary]

You talked about JCDenton's "virulent anti-semitism". Those are your own words. Explain his "virulent anti-semitism". Have at it.

I really don't care to. Everyone who reads this forum regularly and has a decent memory recognizes a few things about JCDenton0451: He's extremely anti-Semitic, he loves abortion, and he hates Christians and social conservatives. It doesn't matter to me whether you agree or not - a brief perusal of his posting history would confirm my claim.

 

[neoreactionary]

So let's see: we have Howard Dean using abortion as a wedge issue from the Left and Chris Christie using 9/11 as a wedge from Dunkin' Donuts. Now we just need some knee-jerk neocon to drive the foreign policy wedge and we'll have our trifecta.

I think Peter King already laid claim to the third leg of that tripod. Says a lot about how what an unimportant little troll he is that you didn't even remember though.

 

[SchleckBros]

The evidence is overwhelming: "pro-life" movement is rooted in the Evangelical community. The atheists and Jews are the most pro-choice groups in the US. Most people don't realise the extent to which their religion influences their entire worldview.

 

[Reece]

There are plenty of libertarian hawks. You don't encounter them much in Ron/Rand Paul circles, but they definitely exist, and it is certainly debatable whether they are any less libertarian than those with more non-interventionist leanings. The urge to issue blanket pronouncements ex-communicating people for holding various views should be resisted.

If someone is advocating bombing Iran (assuming they're talking about a place where more than a few innocent people are going to be killed) I don't think that I would consider them a libertarian, even an inconsistent one. I don't see how it could possibly be excused along libertarian lines. This doesn't mean that there can't be interventionist libertarians. I would consider someone who wanted to "pinpoint" targets (like the Iranian leaders) libertarian if they held almost everything else along libertarian lines. Mass-killing innocent people is going too far for me; I wouldn't consider them libertarian, although I wouldn't likely argue with them if they said they were one (there isn't much point in arguing too much over a definition).

At some point the word "libertarian" just becomes useless if the definition is expanded too much.

 

[neoreactionary]

If someone is advocating bombing Iran (assuming they're talking about a place where more than a few innocent people are going to be killed) I don't think that I would consider them a libertarian, even an inconsistent one. I don't see how it could possibly be excused along libertarian lines. This doesn't mean that there can't be interventionist libertarians. I would consider someone who wanted to "pinpoint" targets (like the Iranian leaders) libertarian if they held almost everything else along libertarian lines. Mass-killing innocent people is going too far for me; I wouldn't consider them libertarian, although I wouldn't likely argue with them if they said they were one (there isn't much point in arguing too much over a definition).

At some point the word "libertarian" just becomes useless if the definition is expanded too much.

Suppose someone advocated bombing Iran and killing more than a few innocent people because they believed that doing so would result in more freedom and less innocent death in the long term than would refraining from bombing Iran and killing those innocent people. This seems to me like an excuse along libertarian lines - what say you? Hopefully the parallels between this hypothetical and the trolley problem are plain; if not, please say so.

I fear what you are doing without realizing it is assuming that all libertarians must be deontologists. I agree that there's little point in arguing too much over a definition, and so we can certainly drop the issue if you'd like, but I would dispute this assumption. However, if we do in fact take this for granted, then by my reckoning "libertarian" should be considered a derogatory slur. Virtually everything wrong with the world is a result of deontological ethics; if being a libertarian requires adherence to such a doctrine, then I want no part of it, and neither should anyone else.

 

[Anti-Neocon]

I agree with your general point about political correctness. The ironic thing is that your dismissal of the correlation between IQ scores and important life outcomes as "pseudoscience" is a pillar of the PC police, and you wouldn't be so wrong about the issue if you hadn't imbibed a buttload of PC propaganda. And the idea that we shouldn't "judge . . . entire groups of people" is another prominent tenet of PC dogma.

I don't dismiss the correlation between IQ scores and important life outcomes. I dismiss the concept of IQ scores being a stationary quality and not themselves influenced by many factors. If one can improve one's IQ score simply by playing a lot of Tetris (which has been shown in scientific studies if I recall), the idea of using test scores to judge the innate capability of an entire race of people is, to say the least, a bit unfair, especially given the vastly different environmental factors experienced by people of different races, even those living in the same country. This has nothing to do with "PC dogma", but rather that IQ is simply a shaky foundation to build any argument on, as you don't "have an IQ", but rather the ability to score a certain distribution of IQ scores at a particular point in time.

In fact, I think it is entirely appropriate to make judgments on the basis of data rather than fairy tales about universal human equality.

As I said, there's nothing wrong with this. It's just wise to not prematurely jump to conclusions.

Are you opposed to allowing the police or TSA agents to use profiling tactics, racial or otherwise, to decide whom to target for investigation?

And I'm not opposed at all to profiling tactics, as long as stubborn committal to them doesn't lead to a security breach in the long term. Simplified example: if we only check guys who appear "Islamic" in the airports, Islamic terrorist organizations will catch on and only get people who don't look "Islamic" to carry out their attacks.

 

[jtstellar]

i think richer neighborhoods/more successful people will naturally have fewer incidents of abortion and have a very natural inclination to place value in their heirs..

the only solvable way i see this is really just the cliche solution repeated a thousand times over--let localities decide. seems to me more successful people will be the ones tending to leave more offspring and it will be a natural crowding out and natural selection against those who don't. the low expectation and low outlook on life that enables killing off their own offspring, whether it be the causation or aftermath of poor economic productivity and lack of success, in either case it will have higher correlation with people who should be natural selected out of human progress in any event, it would seem