As I mentioned, I think they were watching <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV58D1H8fw8">this</a> instead.

The worst and most obvious was the official response from Mitch Daniels, who said something like "if the President said the state of the Union is anything but grave, he's lying." Now, if he'd watched the speech, he'd know exactly what Obama said about the state of the Union; Obama said it was "getting stronger", which does not contradict the idea that it's "grave". At the end, granted, Obama said "As long as we're joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.", but that doesn't contradict the idea that it's "grave" right now either, because we haven't been doing those things lately.

The other incredible thing Daniels said was things like "The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need", which is exactly what Obama said.

Now maybe I'm being naïve; maybe the responders never watch the speech; after all, they're busy preparing their own speech. But then can we stop calling it a "response", and just call it a "speech at the same time"? Alternatively, perhaps some people could be provided with the speech ahead of time.

But even that won't excuse Ari Fleischer, the other commentator I saw, who was watching with the rest of the CNN team. He said that Obama wanted to take the people's money and give it to his pet projects and causes. I'm sorry, but you couldn't come to that conclusion from actually listening to Obama's speech. Obama wanted to give tax breaks to companies that keep their jobs in the US. Can Fleischer really call that a "pet cause" with a straight face? Obviously, not unless he completely ignores the things Obama actually wants to fund.

Hi Daves, i didn't watch this SOTU or the response. The response must have to be "pre recorded" or somthing, it usualy is pretty low on specifics.... & boring. But you don't have to be specific I guess when one is responding to promises & platitudes... and the country is suffering in the Great Recession.

I personaly thought the "pre response" by Romney & Bohner was far more effective... & accurate!

Pretty mutch every thing Obama has done has been a payoff to his big campaign doners. Unions, wallstreet, Corporations.... ect. So Ari & mitches comments are accurate.

and here i thought you couldn't get any dumber.

i've never seen Citizin Kane. i personally thought "shrek" was a much more artistic and well-crafted film.

I didn't say I didn't listen to it.

DUHHHHHH!
Funny, I was just going to post more news about the Global Warming Doom scam Thos! Don't go far!

Whoa! thats kinda big!

Nice! Yep.



I'll agree with that. I think they should bite the bullet and actually *watch* the speech, and then do the response the next day or the next week and do a real response.



If you don't watch the speech, then how do you know what you're responding to?

So you did listen to the SOTU AND the response? Or you did listen to the SOTU, but didn't watch or listen to the response?

You're being a bit vague here. And after all, it's the listening that counts, so you might as well just mention what you *heard*.

As long as you did somehow consume the words of the SOTU, I hope you agree with me that none of the responses addressed what he said, whether you agree with what he did say or not.

he is saying he didn't see or listen to anything but agrees with the republicans anyway.

I did listen to some of it, but it's all so forgetable... does it matter?

Well this IS the politics forum.

One might think we'd be inclined to occasionally talk about politics.

I agree, dispite the retoric from both sided. There usualy is a msg that can be memorable. Like: the age of big govt is over" or "we are addicted to oil". I think obama will be remembered for his inaguration speach more than anything. Hope change, parting the sea waters, but his past 3 sotu have been true yawners. Oh yea. He did point fingers at the scotus that one time. & the "you lie guy"!

He must have forgotten how Republicans block anythinng they can just to make him look like a failure when he promised change

I doubt it, He made it clear that Reublicans didn't matter from day 1. He also promised to unify the country, but he is the most polarizing prez in history. btw: Dems ran the whole show for his first 2 years, & we are still in the Great Recession.

The good news is that most folks that voted for him regret it, prolly explains why Ron Paul is doing so well this year?

People may be polarized about him; that doesn't mean he did the polarizing.

And the polarizing is responsible for the fact that he couldn't get anything done the first 2 years. No supermajority, and no Republicans crossing aisles, equals nothing gets done.

And if you really think that last sentence is even a little bit statistically sane, then I can't wait to see the look on your face when... well, what was the look on your face when Ron Paul didn't win a single primary so far?

Actualy It's about his policies & his constant injection of Govt. into peoples personal lives & wallet. It's no suprise that his dividing of the nation is somewhat intentional. RP is winning many delegates & has a strong showing, many RP supporters are ex-Obama backers from what I've read & heard.

The voters have said repeatedly: they WANT government intervention when there's a crisis and the private sector, left to their own devices, will ruin everything. They said that when they repeatedly reelected FDR, they said that when they elected Clinton in the wake of the early 90s recession, etc. So Obama is nothing new there, except doing a lot LESS intervening than those guys, and nothing particularly devisive.

As for RP winning "many delegates", by third party standards maybe. But he hasn't WON any state's primary yet. And if so many ex-Obama supporters are supporting Paul, why aren't they helping him win any primaries?

Sure Dave, thats why "obama care" is so popular. & the tea party was so successfull in 2010, and Newts contract w/ america was forced onto Clinton. They wanted Bigger Govt!
Bush got away with big spending in his first term thx to 9-11, but Republicans paid the price in 06.
Like I said, this prez counts on dividing the nation to get more votes, the bigger the victim class the better for him. Class, Race, sex, ect... the only class he doesn't care to divide is the individual class.

Washington post:


It's sad, he could use a teleprompter so well.. but lead a country so badly.

"Obamacare" IS popular, although many don't think it goes far enough. The Tea Party was "so" successful for a number of reasons, partly that people are fed up with the economy, partly because they're fed up with the Republican establishment, or in some cases the Democratic legislators in question.

And yes, some people don't want government intervention, but by and large, it has a mandate and a precedent.

By the way, "big government" is a meaningless fucking phrase.



As I said, Obama is not the one who's been doing the dividing. And how exactly do you think that dividing would have gotten him more votes?

The bigger the fucking *victim* class? Have you *seen* how nice Obama is to rich people?



Not he who did the dividing.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, but the polls do confirm what I said. But it's good not to believe every poll one sees.

The same goes for the majority of programming on Faux News

Same w/ MSNBC & NPR.

Obamacare is REALY popular.

'Cause Catholics hate it? I don't know if you've noticed, but Catholics hate a lot of things that are popular.

Not just catholics, but many religions that dont like the Govt infringement on their beliefs. The big picture is that this adminisration is taking away our liberties big time. 1 group at a time. Obamacare is proving to be bad law, like roe v wade. Intentionaly divisive.

Well all you posted was about Catholics. You're free to post about other religious groups that mistakenly believe that Obama(care) is infringing on their beliefs. Even if you do find that, it wouldn't be the first time that the majority of the religious leaders were out of touch with what people in general want.

People like Fisty make me wish abortion was more widespread back in the day

Looks like manchild Obama is the one "out of touch" now eh? It's cute to see him try to squirm out of this one, but it's not over because he has no right to "accomodate" jack shit.

Actually, no. The Catholic leaders are the ones out of touch, even with their own people.

"Being in touch" = irrelevant.
Rule of law = relevant.

When the polity gerrymanders the law in order to satisfy the superstitious or otherwise culturally-atavistic proclivities of the various "religions", we embark on a slippery slope of eroding the separation between church and state. And here's why:

Whether proselytizing is a church's de jure (i.e., deliberate and enunciated) practice or not, it becomes its de facto practice once it insidiously co-opts other social, cultural and economic institutions (e.g., schools, colleges, hospitals, NGO's, etc.) to its bent. Thus, when a church demands exception to the prevailing rule of law as respects the conduct of said co-opted institutions, they insinuate their sectarian ideology into the institution's policy-and-public-interface-making processes. Hence, the otherwise secular power of said institutions becomes subverted or otherwise cannibalized for parochial purposes. Once thus suborned, otherwise secular power is transformed into both a means and a vehicle with which to market or otherwise impose the church's idiosyncratic and parochial predilections, prejudices and policy biases on those who are either subordinated thereto, or who are otherwise dependent thereupon.

The ultimate arbiter of public policy in a democracy can only be the government.

The folly of "religious exceptionalism" is to beget a religious "arms race" of sorts, whereby churches endeavor to garner power over people's lives by co-opting other institutions who are then free to ignore the rule of law as it applies to secular institutions, thus becoming an unelected theocratic arbiter of public policy. Why do you think there was such a hue and cry over the building of a mosque and a "community center" at Ground Zero in NYC? The mosque was never the problem. The appropriate concern (although bastardized with xenophobia and religious bigotry) was the export of Islamic policy preferences through control of a quasi-public institution.

Such a dysfunction is more aggravated when the churches themselves are often subordinate to a foreign sovereign; e.g., The Vatican. Not only is "religious exceptionalism" dangerous to democracy, but it is an invitation to insinuating religious bias, competition, and chaos into a fragile political system that is already on the brink of entropy. Such an abomination of otherwise impartial justice must not stand, and any fool/tool/shill/minion/handmaiden/marionette in government who would allow it betrays the very ideals upon which the U.S. Constitution, and hence, this country were founded, if not their very oaths of office themselves.

Equality cannot abide a degradation of liberty simply because the majority insists that its parochial sensibilities deserve superior countenance.

Our secular instincts are right. The uniquely American character longs for an infusion of resolute strength through a demonstration of unwavering commitment to its defining secular humanistic precepts. Therefore, we must defend both dispassionate reason and deference to the rule of law, and let liberty triumph over sectarian circumspection no matter whose feelings are hurt or whose ego is offended.

Rather than indulge our parochial proclivities, and the divisiveness and intolerance that identity politics begets, by impaling our own hearts on the searing lance of secular public policy, which can only be credibly administered by blind justice -- a self-sacrificing affirmation of our stated ideals -- we free ourselves from the emotional ensnarement of presumed superiority, self-affirming prejudice, exclusionary politics, and everything that keeps us from unifying as a class that identifies with a common plight and shared interests.

In choosing liberty for the unpopular few, delay not; lest we succumb to the spiritual enslavement of the many.

"[T]he time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always, right now!"

--"The Great Debaters" Script


We must rise to shoulder this most burdensome mantle of our professed heritage together, lest the weakness of self-serving bigotry and self-righteous intolerance plunges us back into the abyss of sectarian neobarbarism. For an improvident abandonment of blind justice in seeking to satisfy religious ethnocentrism leads to the historical ash heap upon which fallen civilizations are found. And this is where inalienable rights lie moldering in the grave of raped virtue, bludgeoned principles and lynch-mob morality. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who survived the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.' ... [W]e will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. ... When we let freedom ring, ... we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews[, Muslims] and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"

—Martin Luther King Jr., from his famous speech, “I Have a Dream”, August 28, 1963. Washington, D.C.

I agree, at least in this case. I was just responding to Fisty's claims about who was out of touch with who.

Being in touch *is* relevant when it's not a Constitutional issue. We are a democracy after all. But not when it is.

The Constitution is merely the framework of our democracy. The political processes by which public policy is engendered and promulgated through the operation of a freely-elected government is the bedrock of self-determined liberty.

Lobbying groups -- led by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- have claimed that the Administration's decision on employer-based healthcare funding of birth control prescriptions and devices violates their religious freedom. It doesn't. What they really want is to use religion to discriminate and deny millions of women access to comprehensive health care.

The current law does not require religious institutions like churches and synagogues to purchase birth control for their employees. Expanding this exemption to include hospitals, universities and other public institutions would greatly restrict access to needed healthcare services.

The Catholic Church's attempt to insinuate ecclesiastical doctrine into the issue of healthcare coverage for birth control follows the same ugly, hysterical, and oppressive fundamentalism applied to reproductive health care as it was formerly applied to same-sex marriage (infra).

Query: Should the Catholic Church, in its "official capacity" as both a source of religious authority and as an adjudicator of Canon Law, i.e., as the ostensible agent of a foreign sovereign (i.e., The Vatican), recuse itself from American "legal processes"?


I have every reason to believe that with regard to reproductive health care, the Roman Catholic Church will attempt to export to any venue, anywhere, the same strategy that the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, and the New York State Catholic Conference (NYSCC) (a cabal of bishops) used in attacking same-sex marriage; i.e., religiously condemning that which attempts to "presumptively and without authority, redefine the cornerstones of civilization in a radical experiment of social engineering", i.e., to enact either statutory or state constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage (SSM).

What's truly radical is that in this modern age, the Catholic Church would dare to substitute it's superstition-based, fundamentalistic religious ideology about the "morality" of contraception, for the science of reproductive healthcare management. It is beyond question that woman incur health risks from unwanted pregnancy.

More importantly, such intimidation, undue influence, unwarranted intermeddling as agents of a foreign sovereign, personal coercion, or mass spiritual subjugation constitutes an egregious and unconscionable interference in the peoples' relationship with their government, generally, and is therefore tantamount to the political oppression of a spiritual subordinate by a Prelate. No one would tolerate their psychologist or psychiatrist doing this, and such unethical conduct would likely result in reprobation, censure, and sanctions, including losing their license to practice.

THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO PERSONAL INTEGRITY
Religious dogma, and the institutional biases and cultural overlay emanating therefrom, must never be allowed to supersede or otherwise interfere with an individual's fundamental human right to control of one's body. Both this right, and others that derive from it, are guaranteed by both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Declaration of Independence (hereinafter, D.O.I.), a founding document of our great nation and a foundational statement of citizens rights, establishes (among other things) an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights necessarily assume a right to inviolable personal integrity. These same inalienable rights are incorporated within and are given the force of federal law by way of the U.S. Constitution, certain provisions of which specifically secure to the People, both in its Preamble (by way of Supreme Court holding (below)) and through its various Amendments, the affirmative purpose of the federal government to both support and effect the establishment of healthcare institutions, and public policies intended to enable same, as serving to "promote the general Welfare".* (See footnotes, infra.)

Furthermore, insofar as the federal government is affirmatively charged with both securing our inalienable rights and with facilitating "We the People" in availing ourselves of same, any barrier, regardless of either its force or significance, that stands between any person contemplated to be protected by the U.S. Constitution, and their right to avail themselves of any form of medically-recognized healthcare (whether it be either therapeutic or curative, or merely palliative), is an unwarranted intrusion into their inalienable right of personal integrity. These rights are secured both under the "life" and "liberty" references in the D.O.I., and within the meaning of the 4th Amendment's "The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures [made without either warrant or probable cause], shall not be violated, ..." clause (an argument more fully explicated below). The same could be said of every constitutionally-protected person's right to healthcare under any circumstances.

As an aside, therefore, it is the government's affirmative, constitutional duty to provide to all who fall within the protections of the U.S. Constitution, a single-payer, Medicare-for-all-styled, general-tax-revenue-funded, healthcare expense management system; i.e., an affirmative right to federal-government-paid healthcare, which is governed by the privileges and/or immunities clauses of both Article IV and the 14th Amendment, the due process clauses of both the 5th and the 14th Amendments, and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment .


FINANCIAL BARRIERS TO HEALTH CARE CONTRAVENE CONSTITUTIONAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS
The 4th Amendment defines the constitutional protections of the unalienable right to integrity of person. Any abridgement thereof without both due process and the equal protection of the law constitutes an unlawful seizure. And any barrier to the full and unfettered enjoyment of that right, whether it be pecuniary or procedural in nature, no matter how slight, infringes upon the protections afforded to a healthcare-services seeker under the 4th Amendment. Co-pays and insurance premiums, therefore, no matter how they are paid for, act as a financial barrier to a person's full and unfettered enjoyment of their right to personal integrity.

In effect, therefore, a person's body is involuntarily "repurposed" (i.e., "seized" within the meaning of the 4th Amendment) by the tacit yet nonetheless causally-effectual force of law, whenever private insurance companies or healthcare providers are allowed to either charge fees for services, or insurance premiums in lieu thereof, or to impose co-pays or co-insurance charges for any kind of health care whatsoever, including contraceptive healthcare, and when the government has failed to promulgate either the statutory or the common law protections that would invalidate all such personal affordability barriers.

Additionally, under constitutional due process and the equal protection of the laws, there is no valid, constitutionally contrary (i.e., a public policy exception to the inalienable right to personal integrity) and compelling state interest in a person's body that would justify such involuntary "repurposing", when its ultimate purpose is merely intended to satisfy what are essentially the personal and private religious proclivities of those who would seek to impose their moral standards upon others by erecting barriers to said full and unfettered enjoyment of that right.** (See footnotes, infra.)

UNWANTED PREGNANCY AS INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE
Yet even further, when acting as the direct and proximate result of any barrier that inhibits a woman in effectuating her right to avail herself of contraceptive healthcare, such a seizure within the meaning of the 4th Amendment also condemns the reluctant mother to a state of involuntary servitude within the meaning of the 13th Amendment, if and when she is forced at the moment of conception to become a biological host to a human life form, which, if unwanted, becomes essentially, parasitic.

Once public policy has been denigrated to serve a sectarian prejudice that has no medically or scientifically legitimate basis, such an unlawful subjugation constitutes a repugnantly profligate luxury that we can ill afford. And such indulgence is particularly reprehensible in this day of food scarcity and population explosion, when it's only ostensible purpose is to merely please the procreative sensibilities of the state. The inanity of such policy subordination becomes all the more poignant when its fallaciously guiding sentiments fail to address the reality of everyday survival in the world of the unemployed and the underemployed.

GOVERNMENT DUTIES AND CIVIL RIGHTS
Additionally, any passive, yet culpable nonfeasance perpetrated by any government official, i.e., by any officeholder who fails to uphold and enforce the efficacy of this inalienable right while under an affirmative duty to do so as contemplated by their oath of office, makes the state complicit in the infringement thereof for the purposes of civil rights violations occurring under color and authority, and for which such violations are duly recognized by 42 U.S.C. §1983.

_____________________________________________________

FOOTNOTES

* [Excerpted from Wikipedia.org.] An example of the way courts utilize the Preamble is Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids.[18] Substantively, the case was about eminent domain. The City of Grand Rapids wanted to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell property in the city identified as "blighted", and convey the property to owners that would develop it in ostensibly beneficial ways: in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic organization. This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use". In interpreting whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers".[19] "[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers, as a part of our nation's system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: '* * * promote the general Welfare.'"[20]

** Here is what the sanctimonious anti-contraception proponents need to get: Regardless of anyone's position on contraception, everyone should advocate for fundamental fairness in the legislation, application, and execution of law and public policy. Perhaps no where else is this caveat more important than in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness in matters that are both individual and private, and which affect no one else's interests; e.g. a woman's personal decision to prevent her own pregnancy.

Fairness overcomes the alienating aspects of political process as diverse interests compete for social recognition and institutionalization, sometimes to the exclusion of others. Fairness binds us and promotes a culture that both respects and values legitimate, civil authority. Civil order cannot obtain where disparately recognized interest groups assault, disrespect, or at least fail to benignly support each other's rights. Our own civil rights history bears this assertion out. Cooperation, not brute power plays, is what builds and encourages a flourishing society. Therefore, those who would deny equal protection to others can neither expect nor depend on the social and political stability necessary to secure their own interests.

Our very Declaration of Independence sets our national identity apart from bigotry and intolerance in matters that do not affect us and are not our business: Below, I have selectively quoted and annotated sections of the Declaration as they may pertain to our present situation:

... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [whom the neo-liberal globalist, foreign finance-influenced, multinational corporatists, and their stooge-marionettes in government office, appear to emulate] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations (e.g., Citizens United v. F.E.C., and several provisions of The Patriot Act of 2001, The Military Commissions Act of 2006, and select, recent amendments to The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as well as The National Defense Authorization Act,) all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Digest version dude. No one's gonna read that thing.

Nonsense. You mean no one who isn't a policy wonk or a student looking for some term paper fodder.

I mean no one among the people who read this forum in the first place. Do you actually know any of them?

i'm not gonna read it. aren't i pretty much the only one on here these days?

Lately it's just you, me, and Fisty. But Zom Zom, Ether, occasionally Rob, and some other people used to post. What happened to them?

I agree for the most part too. But our Manchild Prez apparently doesn't, actualy he thinks just the opposite. Appearence is paramount for his pop music MTV voters. And as far as "the rule of law" he stated what he thinks of that piece of crap called The Constitution, it "reflected fundamental flaws".
His push for Obamacare & is proof of this.



You are wrong Daves, we are a Representative Republic w/ States rights n' all that. This is what I mean by "bad law".

They can all be found on FB! Prolly posting pics of cats?

Well states' rights are a Constitutional issue, so they're included in what I said.

How can you possibly know who reads this forum given that anyone with a search engine can access it?

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Get out of school much?

i'm legally obligated to "get out of school."

It's pretty much people searching for "goth industrial twin cities politics".

How many people do you think are doing that that aren't, or weren't, active in the scene?

By the way, it doesn't come up on the first couple pages if you replace "twin cities" with "Minneapolis" or "Saint Paul". What's up with that?

Dude. Stop digging. This is what you originally said in pertinent part:
And now you're trying to backtrack by saying that the only people who "pretty much" are going to read my single, disputed post in this topic thread are people that are searching for "goth industrial twin cities politics", and who are actively "part of the scene"? That would be absolutely laughable if (XXXXX -removed by editing- XXXX).

What does "people searching for 'goth industrial twin cities politics'" have to do with topical searches regarding the issues discussed in my single, disputed post? And given that the people who are using a search engine to find web postings pertinent to the issues discussed in my single, disputed post, why would they constrain their search to the included terms, "twin cities", "Minneapolis" or "Saint Paul"?

Giving your intelligence the benefit of the doubt, are you trying to be deliberately obtuse, (XXXXX -removed by editing- XXXX) (or is your problem really that you enjoy some perverse gratification by instigating intellectual "dick-measuring contests" through being pointlessly argumentative)?

No valid argument, no matter how artful, can derive from a flawed or otherwise fallacious premise. And the effort used in propounding such an argument is destined for the ash heap of sophistry from which its flaws and deficits predestined it.

Well, I don't think it was backtracking, but it certainly seems to be true.

I did a search for a complete substring of your post: "the individual right to personal integrity", and even for that your post is way down the Google hit page, which makes it pretty unlikely that anyone's gonna read it *then*. Let alone the more typical search behavior, where people look for a set of unordered keywords, and where none of the keywords likely to bring up your post is likely to bring it up high in the search results unless accompanied by both "goth" and "twin cities".



In case it's not clear yet, people look for political topics related to your post are likely to get millions of other results from other venues, such as news editorials, dedicated political blogs, and the like, before they get to this post, *unless* they either a) also include something directly related to goth, twin cities, or more likely both, or b) have a fairly long complete substring of your post in their search. If it's a), then that's unlikely unless they're involved, or at least interested, in the twin cities goth scene; if it's b), then that's unlikely unless they've already seen your post before.



Well, since you ask, I'm just trying to get you to lighten up, and have conversations, not post essays, like the forum is designed for. You're the one who got all defensive as to who would read it.

I'm also trying to show by example that you are in desperate need of a sense of humor, but I can see now that you won't get that message unless I say it outright.



Yeah, case in point. But if you want to play the logical game, then I'll play: you're using the terms wrong. You mean to say "No sound argument can derive a true conclusion from a flawed or otherwise fallacious premise".

That's it DaveS, keep digging... keep backtracking, keep qualifying and excusing your de minimus arguments, and continue to move the measure of your credibility back with it.

You've backed so far away from your original allegation that you don't even recognize your fallacious reasoning.


And about humor: Like I said, your strained, tortuous, squirming equivocations "would be absolutely laughable if (XXXXX -removed by editing- XXXX)".

Well, like I said, I never admitted that I *was* doing any of those things.



That does not constitute a sense of humor.

Don't be so presumptuous as to believe that your "people [who are] searching for 'goth industrial twin cities politics'" aren't laughing at the ass you're making of yourself.

Well that would surprise me, since I doubt there are any.

Given your above assertion, the baseless conjecture upon which you predicate your response below would appear disingenuous at best, if not casually duplicitous as you attempt to dissemble:

This is exactly where a sense of humor would have helped you.

My assertion was that the people finding posts like yours via a search engine would be limited to those searching for those keywords. The assertion was sarcastic, as I thought it was evident that that set of keywords was an unlikely search. The implication is that few, if any, people are reading your post because of a search engine at all.

As hinted by my exchange with thosquanta (which you completely ignored), this was a further comment on how few people seem to be reading this forum in general. Those that do don't necessarily find it by a web search, but from actual involvement in the Twin Cities goth/industrial scene. Thus, the readership is small, and so I can make a confident generalization about what length of post would be read in total by this fairly small readership, most of whom know each other in some capacity.

Since you lack a sense of humor, you apparently took my comment to be a claim about an actual group of people who I think are actively searching the web for goth-tinged politics, or perhaps political goths. While I admit I am interested in meeting such people, I did not have in mind the existence of a large group of them, or people searching for them.

If you had a sense of humor, you would also know what a pain in the ass it is to have to explain it.

BIG
WORD
FIGHT
!!!
BIG
WORD
FIGHT
!!!

<--More dissembling and conjecture.

<--More dissembling and conjecture.

Really, DaveS, you didn't have that much credibility to bury to begin with. You continuously confuse both your levels and units of analysis, moving from the particular. i.e., my single disputed post, to the general, i.e., who's reading this forum, and you make profoundly unsupportable assertions of fact to buttress a flawed argument based on fallacious reasoning to begin with. YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW WHO READS THESE FORUMS BECAUSE NO ONE IS REQUIRED TO BOTH REGISTER AND LOG IN TO DO IT. In essence, you simply make BASELESS pronouncements of fact that you obviously fabricate to fix around your CONTRIVED (and mostly pointless) argumentation.

Just the ratio of posts to views on this forum would seem to dispute your unfounded claims about "how few people seem to be reading this forum in general": Example: Topic: "But... but... media bias is just a myth, right?"

posts 814 views 46283

Prove how many of the 46,283 views for this topic originated "from actual involvement in the Twin Cities goth/industrial scene", and that they are all the doing of an apparently obsessively dedicated few.

Well, I can admit when I've been beaten. Yes, I tried throughout this thread to convince you that I had definitive knowledge of exactly who reads these discussion boards, and how each of them finds out about it. I had no such knowledge, but I tried to blindside you with confident-sounding rhetoric, misleading analogies, and irrelevant data. This is actually a habit of mine, to convince people of things that aren't true using misleading and unsupported statements. The truth is, it works so well on so many people that I never thought it would fail to work on you as well.

But I hadn't been trying this on minds as well-informed and disciplined as yours. You were able to see my statements for the trickery that they were. Your combination of careful logical thinking and tenacity paid off. After my first attempts to fool you failed, I was hoping that if I kept at it, with more and more ridiculous deceptions, you would give up. But you stuck with it, kept knocking down attempt after attempt, and in the end I had no tricks left. I had to give up.

I lied about another thing too: I have read your posts, every last word. The depth and innovation of your analysis of political issues intimidated me; I felt threatened, and the only thing I could think to do is fool you into thinking I had information that I did not. Clearly you could have moved right on to another insightful analysis of political issues of our day, but instead you took the time to work with me on the issue of what knowledge is possible about who exactly reads these boards and who doesn't. That means a lot to me, and I am grateful.

Thank you.

WHO WANTS A FART JOKE A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR PPPPPBBBTHHH!

You're truly self-defeating, DaveS. If you would have stopped with your first sentence (quoted above), your concession would have garnered a modicum of plausibility. That in turn may well have earned you the respect of someone who was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, at the very least, as to your sense of integrity and sportsman-like fair play.

Unfortunately, however, you chose instead to patronize me; and for no apparent reason other than the ostensible purpose of attempting to save face. And the fact that you did so with such self-serving mea culpas, i.e., that your arguments were all part of an elaborate scheme of sophisticated deceit, should appear to be both transparently vain and vulgarly self-aggrandizing (if not pathetic) to anyone who can appreciate such chicanery.

I sincerely doubt that many people of discerning and critical mind would have found sufficient merit in any of the arguments that you proffered during our exchange, such that they could reasonably justify reposing any significant confidence in your garishly pretentious and frivolous story; your argumentation was just that poorly contrived. In essence, your gratuitous self-deprecation did itself smack of glib, adolescent, feckless, and supercilious pandering. Therefore, don't be surprised if when weighed in the balance, a healthy skepticism will find much of your discourse to be markedly wanting, as well as finding that your personal credibility is equally dubious.

Well, like I said, I *thought* they were elaborate schemes of sophisticated deceit, until I met the likes of you. I thought I had a good chance of convincing people that I had all-encompassing knowledge of who reads what on the internet, until your simple yet fiendishly clever argument showed me I was wrong.

You give yourself too little credit. Surely you believe that I would have never tried such a silly ruse unless it had worked before. I have indeed fooled people into thinking I had similar knowledge and powers; they just weren't, as you say, people of discerning and critical mind. Clearly I haven't been dealing with many such people until you came along; you may be one of the few left.

It may also have to do with your tenacity. I may not have actually been convincing people of my little lies, like that some dog breeds have stripes or that I know exactly how many bat species there are in Florida, but most people lack the endurance to stay with the topic long enough to get me to give up on my frivolous arguments. You, however, were willing to stay on this forum-reading topic till the end, and that's admirable.

Hi
I'm a douchey internet troll and I'm going to insert my lame-ass outdated meme into the argument so I can make myself look clever and not at all sad and pathetic while I paint you guys as losers
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/26 ... t.jpg/sr=1

The only sad and pathetic part of that was the use of the word "meme".

I know
How did they come up with that word anyways?
And
Fucking magnets
How do they work?

i can answer both of those.... one has to do with an adorable british atheist, the other with spin.