Peace would be nice, for certain.

But given that from the perspective of many countries that are other than the USA or Russia, both are complete and utter nation-state *ssholes, an alliance is frightening as all heck.

The fact that Canadian right wing propaganda outlet and hub of agnotology Rebel Media recently was in Russia filming ri-Putin segments should have everyone from the left, through what remains of the centrists, and even people on the moderate Right on their guard.

"The sole purpose of the meeting would be to trap Trump into statements that may be technically inaccurate, setting him up for a charge of lying to the FBI."

Why not just cut to the chase, declare Trump non compos mentis, and let him speak?

"Technically inaccurate"???

Is that slang for "minimally truthy"?

Stick up for him all that you want, if you sustitute the Trump for Washington in the story of the cherry tree, he would somehow assert that the tree not only cut itself down, but that it was actually a Basset Hound.

Not a good experiment to ever follow up on.

Regardless of it's credibility as a defense for an officer accused of needlessly gunning down a person with an edged weapon, there is a core of validity to the original "Twenty-One Foot" or "Tueller's" rule.

If you are holstered and someone with a sheathed katana is within about 10 to 15 feet, both beginning at the same time, you are in trouble.

Assuming that you have trained in quick draw, while the katana wielder has not, you might be alright.

If you are both ready with arms at your side, you have a decent chance if you do not mess up your first shot.

One a person with a blade is within close quarters, your firearm has one trajectory of lethality or potential wounding power, other than in situ use as a blunt object or discharge for use of powder flare or sonic damage/distraction, while a short blade can be cutting you with each and every movement.

Most realistically, if you are in a showdown between a firearm and a traditional Japanese nobleman's sword, one or both of the people engaged has serious f*cked things up, and hopefully an amicable agreement can be reached.

The survivor, if any, will likely be looking at at least a court date.

I prefer to not engage in this type of debate, but can't leave this one alone.

However, before anything else I will state that I am a centrist who surprises people across the political spectrum with my more strongly held opinions, and that I was shooting my first handgun with my card carrying NRA member gunsmith father when I was 6.

Here goes:

HOLY CRAP MAN!!!

You come out with something like this, talking about a populist uprising against 2 million of your fellow citizens, and the SEVEN BILLION AMERICANS who will be hanging people from frickin' light posts?

Dude, I live in another country, and am scared of the idea of you having access to firearms.

If you aren't certain why that would be exactly, there are three separate points in my first sentence after the one in all capitals, and there are a hell of a lot more than 2 million people in each and every country on the face of the planet who would be antsy about you having any kind of long range killing implement based on any one of those three points.

Choose books over gunpowder for a few days each week, watch less youtube, and stay away from anything published that claims to have any secret "truths" to share, try that for a month or two, and see how you feel.

This is exactly why we "can't all get along".

Unfortunately the collective mental illness that is US two party politics has infiltrated Canada, so that instead of three or more parties circling around a reasonable center and forming coalitions if one began to dominate too radically, we now have GOP style reactionary conservatives either tearing apart systems that took decades or longer to build, with media backing by the corporations that want further deregulation in favour of quicker profits and strangleholds over essential resources that should remain in the Commons in trust for future generations, accusing all other parties of being "Leftist".

Thanks a lot, America, you are successfully exporting your problems to countries that never had them.

You really should have done a better job of cleaning out members of the American Nazi Party after WWII, and definitely should have limited Operation Paperclip to the scientists who belonged to the party, instead you picked up the figurative "Ring of Sauron" and have given it two generations to work on you.

"Oh, say can you see, by the Dawn's early...Gollum! Where is my Preciou..democracy? You stole it's from us, stupid fats socialists, gives it to ussss!"

Jerks.

(sits back and waits for the hatred)

You are brave to try and get a direct answer to that one in a forum dedicated to the Dexter point of view ('Dexter' is the correct term for modern right-of-center conservatives because it is unhealthy for any mind-set to be always called "Right", particularly if they are already reactionary and nationalistic).

It would be best if you did not hold your breath waiting for a direct and truthful answer however, right from the get-go you are dealing with the modern breed of entitled conservatives who believe that "truthy" is acceptable, that nations should be run like psychopathic corporations, that charity is self-theft and ethics is PR, and that uncomfortable questions mean "Attack!".

Integrity is not good business, and Trump is just the latest in a progression of liars, once he has run his course without any decisive action being taken against him, the lies will be normalized and people will either consciously decide that lying, bullying, and a lack of the qualities once called "decent" are commendable traits in a leader, or they will contort their realities to accommodate massive cognitive dissonances.

I have been wondering for years why immediately after the truth about the Nayirah testimony came out there was not a movement nor even outcry, but then someone made me watch US news and mainstream televised programming for a few hours.

The Declaration of Independence was a nice bit of creative writing, but I don't know if it actually was still relevant even at the dawn of the 20th century, the Truths behind it were possibly still thrashing against the hands that were squeezing the life out of them when the writer of these words was born:

"If you go to any high school today you will a lot of language that is way worst then what Trump said. The fact is there are lots of shit hole counties, that is a true fact.

I tolerated a lot worst for 8 years with the negro trying to kill my country with his immoral schemes to corrupt us. And it still goes on."

There is HOPE, however. If you look closely you can see the TRUTH wriggling through:

" . . . there are lots of shit hole counties, that is a true fact."

(Yep, and some of them had/have horrible educational standards, and require a distinction between "true facts" and the rest)

" . . . with the negro trying to kill my country with his immoral schemes to corrupt us . . . "

(Because the MAN's skin colour is relevant, possibly even being the reason that he couldn't stick to moral schemes to corrupt the US, not like that truthy boy, Trump)

More seriously, Tgards19, if you are going to find whatever was once good and noble about the US, you won't be likely to find it in forums dedicated to either the Dexter or those Sinister Lefties, because self-declared members of either group most likely lost their sense of Union long ago.

Yep, lot's of fun, it is almost as fun as a barrel of monkeys.
Sedated monkeys.
Encased in concrete.

Oh, wait, that is actually just a barrel of concrete.

That's ok, I don't really hate monkeys, but wouldn't want to be around a bunch of them.

Dang, the chirping of crickets around here is sure loud, I guess insults get folks engaged, but questions that are both serious and direct scare them off.

I will have to remember that for future reference.

It is always interesting to consider how much of the list of grievances come down to two things:

I) The problems inherent in maintaining empirical control over colonies with a significant time lag in communication and transport, a phenomena that was observed by Ghengis Khan.

Without a means to interact promptly, from the first unacceptable grievance onwards discontent increases at an exponential rate, with no likely means by which to ameliorate them, and unfortunately Britain was hard up for coin and too distanced to have proper sympathy for the colonies.

ii) The Royal Proclamation of 1763 didn't sit too well with the land hungry colonists, although it is fairly certain that the indigenous peoples of the inner and Western portions of the continent would have appreciated it being respected.

It is always a tricky situation when your armed invasion force rebels because they don't want to stop.

Human beings make up 38.5% of the mammalian biomass on the planet.

The Bible having an directive to "go forth and multiply" and us getting out of control isn't prophecy, it's human beings predictably being ruled by their ground and indulging individual entitlement like any other self-centered apes.

We could easily have gotten past that point long ago, but almost everybody of every nation, creed, or ethnicity blindly obeys the urge to procreate as much as they can, in someway or another feed on more than they need, and without any need for the supernatural to be involved someone worthy of respect tried to tell people how to be more than animals that look and act like real human beings, rather than revelling in "The Beast".

Someone reputed to be a humble carpenter who would probably not be impressed with almost the entire political spectrum, and appalled by our banking and religious institutions, was apparently big on the concept of "being in this world, but not of it".

Point missed, along with the first man being a gardener and taxonomer, oops, gonna be a fun century.

Human beings make up 38.5% of the mammalian biomass on the planet.

The Bible having an directive to "go forth and multiply" and us getting out of control isn't prophecy, it's human beings predictably being ruled by their ground and indulging individual entitlement like any other self-centered apes.

How does this reconcile with:


"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.". ?

Hello, new person ( to me at least).

It seems that you are respected for your clear logic here, so maybe you might be willing to actually give some useful feedback, these other folks seem very good at sage head nodding, but not at offering anything to make me rethink my first impressions of them.

My first post in this comment section is pretty much what I would offer to your post quoted above, with the added question of whether by "staying out" you would include export control laws on arms shipments to the region, and adjacent nations that could not provide credible assurances that the product would not find itself in the hands of other nations or "NGO"s in that area?

If you could reply to that and offer a refutation of my points, I would be very grateful, likewise if you could answer any of the three questions in my second post.

Thank you for your time.

Yeah, yeah, "MY ego was bigger than YOURS, and I conquered it BETTER too!"

I would still maintain that twice in a row you made incorrect assertions about my motives behind my posts, that your add-on snippet about colleges validates Dr Asimov's quote (even though there are actually a fair number of pretentious fools with many words in colleges, they are matched by smug idiots without any education, "moron" does not require vocational training) and considering the behemoth of an article that this all sprouted from, it is bizarre that I've gotten busted for being too verbose.

I'm waiting my breath breath here, I'm going to go shout at a dog and then try to teach it classic Greek philosophy.

That would probably be more fruitful, at the very least the canine would already understand the principles of Diogenes the Cynic, and would not have much of a use for rhetorical games.

Who knows, maybe there might be a civilized exchange at some point?

". . . there are some who wish to impress some feelings of superiority upon others rather than to simply communicate."

So, will you be asserting that:
i) You wish to impress some feelings of superiority upon others;

ii) You are not trying to simply communicate, or;

iii) You do not believe that either effort is more commendable than the other, thus having equal validity and worth of regard, ie "status"?

I might be mistaken, but in the company of your statement about college populations it sort of seems as though you fell prey to some cultist indoctrination at some point (through no fault of your own, of course).

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." - Isaac Asimov

But fear not, my poor, brainwashed friend, there is hope!

A cure has been found for this ailment that has reached epidemic proportions in recent years, a simple and humble folk remedy from days long past:

Enroll in night classes in a college, maybe take some critical thinking or logic (but stay away from rhetoric, you might relapse and at your age that could be terminal).


BTW If you want to get technical that statement would mean that someone wanted to make others feel superior, but I understand what you meant (unless you are actually Alex Jones. You aren't Alex Jones, are you?)

So, having determined an "in-group" and a consensus on one of the boundaries for that group, what is your intention behind dismissing a large number of educated people as being lower than yourself for their communication style?

Is it possible that for some (not all) that they are simply communicating the way that is natural for them, rather than playing the hierarchy games that are instinctual for the majority of people?

That set of primary instincts is as variable as the size of someone's vocabulary, or their height, eye colour, or colour of their socks.

You might want to watch out for generalizations like that, they can be accurate to a degree, but the exceptions do not always "prove the rule".