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The Stock Market Thread: Where we blame everything we can except Trump. (Unless its going well)

Huffington Post isn't normal people news it's liberal slanted in its coverage but it doesn't make shit up.
^^^ You just lost me there

All news is getting pretty fake these days. Although I'll credit CNBC and Fox Business for trying to stay focused among the hoopla, when it comes to TV.
 
More of a stormfront guy?
I think @UCFKnight85 was trying to say that the HuffPost and DailyCaller are very equivalent. If that was his point, I utterly agree.

The HuffPost has become nationally popular because it has literally given into the sensationalism that drives clicks. People want to find things they agree with, much like the DailyCaller readers.

And they totally and utterly make stuff up. Sorry, but truth.
 
^^^ You just lost me there

All news is getting pretty fake these days. Although I'll credit CNBC and Fox Business for trying to stay focused among the hoopla, when it comes to TV.

They also have some pretty sharp minds contributing to their programming.
 
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Coming from a guy who touts his MBA in economics.

Argue? Meh. Educate? Yes. There are a lot of intelligent people out there who are capable of understanding the most complex aspects of economics if they are explained in a simple form, but have never been exposed to it. I could care less if you or anynody else likes me or finds me insufferable, but if there's an opportunity to continue that sort of conversation in going to do it.
MBA in economics? That's not a thing. I'll educate you like you do to everyone else.

1) an MBA is in business administration that's what the B and the A stand for. You can't get one in economics. My undergrad is in econ from the Harvard of the South UCF.

2) It's not "I could care less, it's I could not care less"

3) Your opinions are so strong on every subject that you don't even realize when you're agreeing with people and when you aren't. It's been 2 hours and you've posted 15 times. Every post has been "Well, actually..."

4) Women don't like that type of behavior. I want you to live a long and fulfilling life but you need to find a women who will tolerate you and it's going to be hard if you're always so condescending.
 
They also have some pretty sharp minds contributing to their programming.
I might be an idiot, but I really enjoy in-depth articles.

I really enjoy critically thinking Liberals the most. Sadly, The Atlantic -- who still has their share of Progressives who right short, shallow articles too -- is the one, remaining source where they can still write. Most of the others have been ejected from a lot of publications, let alone entirely from TV.

As I always say ... Juan Williams going to Fox News was the straw that broke the camel's back. NPR somewhat changed after that, but the mainstream media only went more Progressive.

Further points ...

I mean, it's amazing we're now reading near-Liberal articles like this from Fox News, and not the Progressive media: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/04/01/why-are-teachers-striking-answer-may-surprise.html

Most of Fox's TV analysts are still hardcore right-wingers, and their specials are painful to watch. But they are building an impressive number of classic liberal-leaning moderates in lower roles, and have even outed Republican politicians who do the wrong thing.

How? Because moderates and even some classic Liberals who question the Progressive agenda are being expelled.

I don't think these additions will ever net Fox enough money to go moderate. But if they can keep the right-wing mouthpieces bringing in the money, while they continue to hire some objective people covering 'everyday American' issues, they'll still produce some good stuff from time-to-time.

Just like Tapper on CNN sometimes reads the Progressives on his own network the riot act. I wish there were more of them at CNN.
 
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I think @UCFKnight85 was trying to say that the HuffPost and DailyCaller are very equivalent. If that was his point, I utterly agree.

The HuffPost has become nationally popular because it has literally given into the sensationalism that drives clicks. People want to find things they agree with, much like the DailyCaller readers.

And they totally and utterly make stuff up. Sorry, but truth.
https://m.huffpost.com
What's a lie on their site now?
 
I might be an idiot, but I really enjoy in-depth articles.

I really enjoy critically thinking Liberals the most. Sadly, The Atlantic -- who still has their share of Progressives who right short, shallow articles too -- is the one, remaining source where they can still write. Most of the others have been ejected from a lot of publications, let alone entirely from TV.

As I always say ... Juan Williams going to Fox News was the straw that broke the camel's back. NPR somewhat changed after that, but the mainstream media only went more Progressive.

Further points ...

I mean, it's amazing we're now reading near-Liberal articles like this from Fox News, and not the Progressive media: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/04/01/why-are-teachers-striking-answer-may-surprise.html

Most of Fox's TV analysts are still hardcore right-wingers, and their specials are painful to watch. But they are building an impressive number of classic liberal-leaning moderates in lower roles, and have even outed Republican politicians who do the wrong thing.

How? Because moderates and even some classic Liberals who question the Progressive agenda are being expelled.

I don't think these additions will ever net Fox enough money to go moderate. But if they can keep the right-wing mouthpieces bringing in the money, while they continue to hire some objective people covering 'everyday American' issues, they'll still produce some good stuff from time-to-time.

Just like Tapper on CNN sometimes reads the Progressives on his own network the riot act. I wish there were more of them at CNN.
I hate to ask but how is that article liberal? Unions and strikes are mechanisms in a free market, which should be something you support as an libertarian staple.
 
MBA in economics? That's not a thing. I'll educate you like you do to everyone else.

1) an MBA is in business administration that's what the B and the A stand for. You can't get one in economics. My undergrad is in econ from the Harvard of the South UCF.

2) It's not "I could care less, it's I could not care less"

3) Your opinions are so strong on every subject that you don't even realize when you're agreeing with people and when you aren't. It's been 2 hours and you've posted 15 times. Every post has been "Well, actually..."

4) Women don't like that type of behavior. I want you to live a long and fulfilling life but you need to find a women who will tolerate you and it's going to be hard if you're always so condescending.

My apologies. I misread one of your posts on the first page of this thread, thinking it read that you have a degree in economics, an MBA. That's how it reads and i was entertained by that assertion. Good to know it was a misinterpretation.
 
I might be an idiot, but I really enjoy in-depth articles.

I really enjoy critically thinking Liberals the most. Sadly, The Atlantic -- who still has their share of Progressives who right short, shallow articles too -- is the one, remaining source where they can still write. Most of the others have been ejected from a lot of publications, let alone entirely from TV.

As I always say ... Juan Williams going to Fox News was the straw that broke the camel's back. NPR somewhat changed after that, but the mainstream media only went more Progressive.

Further points ...

I mean, it's amazing we're now reading near-Liberal articles like this from Fox News, and not the Progressive media: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/04/01/why-are-teachers-striking-answer-may-surprise.html

Most of Fox's TV analysts are still hardcore right-wingers, and their specials are painful to watch. But they are building an impressive number of classic liberal-leaning moderates in lower roles, and have even outed Republican politicians who do the wrong thing.

How? Because moderates and even some classic Liberals who question the Progressive agenda are being expelled.

I don't think these additions will ever net Fox enough money to go moderate. But if they can keep the right-wing mouthpieces bringing in the money, while they continue to hire some objective people covering 'everyday American' issues, they'll still produce some good stuff from time-to-time.

Just like Tapper on CNN sometimes reads the Progressives on his own network the riot act. I wish there were more of them at CNN.

Agreed on the Atlantic.
 
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I hate to ask but how is that article liberal? Unions and strikes are mechanisms in a free market, which should be something you support as an libertarian staple.

At the core, yes they are mechanisms of a free market. That isn't what we are dealing with in today's world. The labor unions of America are essentially the "cartels" of Mussolinis fascist state, where they are just another arm of a totalitarian government.
 
Agreed on the Atlantic.
I really agree with true Liberals.

Now being a Liberal-Capitalist (American Libertarian), I don't agree with Liberal-Socialists on economics, but I can respect them, and would much rather they 'win' than the Progressives (Authoritarian-Equalists, not Socialists). Bernie Sanders, when he's not being misquoted or demonized, is on-point. We both hate the oligarchy that Progressives and Conservatives (especially Authoritarian-Monopolists, not Capitalists -- 'privitization' with taxpayer dollars is a form of monopolization, not free market) seem hell-bent on preserving.

fCNXRCc.jpg
 
At the core, yes they are mechanisms of a free market. That isn't what we are dealing with in today's world. The labor unions of America are essentially the "cartels" of Mussolinis fascist state, where they are just another arm of a totalitarian government.
They are striking against their government employer...
 
I really agree with true Liberals.

Now being a Liberal-Capitalist (American Libertarian), I don't agree with Liberal-Socialists on economics, but I can respect them, and would much rather they 'win' than the Progressives (Authoritarian-Equalists, not Socialists). Bernie Sanders, when he's not being misquoted or demonized, is on-point. We both hate the oligarchy that Progressives and Conservatives (especially Authoritarian-Monopolists, not Capitalists -- 'privitization' with taxpayer dollars is a form of monopolization, not free market) seem hell-bent on preserving.

fCNXRCc.jpg


I'm basically just opposite of you the same distance from the vertical line, only to the right.

The political spectrum to me , seems to be missing something and over the last couple of years I've been trying to figure out exactly how it should be platted. It seems like it should be 3 dimensional, with axis for conservative-liberal/ statist-populist, and authoritarian-libertarian, but I can't seem to figure out how that can be mapped out.
 
I'm basically just opposite of you the same distance from the vertical line, only to the right.

The political spectrum to me , seems to be missing something and over the last couple of years I've been trying to figure out exactly how it should be platted. It seems like it should be 3 dimensional, with axis for conservative-liberal/ statist-populist, and authoritarian-libertarian, but I can't seem to figure out how that can be mapped out.
It also seems like there should be an axis for ethics/morals. I don't think it's possible in 3 dimensions though.
 
I hate to ask but how is that article liberal? Unions and strikes are mechanisms in a free market, which should be something you support as an libertarian staple.
At the core, yes they are mechanisms of a free market. That isn't what we are dealing with in today's world. The labor unions of America are essentially the "cartels" of Mussolinis fascist state, where they are just another arm of a totalitarian government.
They are striking against their government employer...
They are striking because the government raises taxes and asks the people to pay more so they can pay teachers more, yet it's going to the administrators and non-teachers, not the teachers.

It's sad only the moderates in Fox News has the balls to expose this for the facts, because it doesn't fit the Progressive narrative of Republicans cutting school funding, which hasn't happened since before W. I'm tired of the Progressive media treating me like a 3rd grader. Schools districts are more well funded than ever, but teachers continue to get the shaft.

This is how Liberals used to think, before they were sidelined by the Progressives in the '90s, and totally killed by '06 when they started throwing reporters in jail, and going against the 1st Amendment.

Also, on @Crazyhole's point, understand labor unions worked when the state didn't control them, and employers weren't regulated to the point they are forced into collective bargaining. It was a natural balance, the worse the employer got, the more people joined unions. The better the employer got, the fewer people joined unions.

Once governments got involved, they were no longer individual assemblies of people by choice, but communist ideals of government controlled groups. That's where it always goes wrong, communism, forced group, forced assembly ... instead of community, by individual choice of assembly. It has to remain the individual.

Because the unions themselves became political entities, instead of trade ones.
 
It also seems like there should be an axis for ethics/morals. I don't think it's possible in 3 dimensions though.
^ The problem is that this is how a Progressive thinks, as much as a Religious Conservative. They think 'morality' (Conservative) and 'acceptance' (Progressive) can be legislated. Europe has already gone down that path, and it scares me to death.

We're headed that way.

I don't call it the 'war on religion' (Conservative argument) or the 'war on {insert women**, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans**, etc...}'. I call it the 'war on thought.' Any time anyone wants to legislate what others think, and what they must learn or accept, we've already lost as a society.


**NOTE: Women have already taken over middle management, and they are the next generation of C-levels by the time Millennials reach their prime income earning years by 2030+, despite being the privileged class in the legal system on many fronts. Hispanic-Americans are the new Irish-American, having placed themselves well into the key points of government, much like the Irish did in law enforcement, all while becoming the nation's majority ethnic group.
 
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I'm basically just opposite of you the same distance from the vertical line, only to the right.
I've also been farther to the left at times too. It really depends on the questions. I'm not anti-regulation, but I prefer capitalistic solutions -- e.g., the Swiss tax environmental impact, instead of regulating it. It's quite different than even portions of Europe.

The political spectrum to me , seems to be missing something and over the last couple of years I've been trying to figure out exactly how it should be platted. It seems like it should be 3 dimensional, with axis for conservative-liberal/ statist-populist, and authoritarian-libertarian, but I can't seem to figure out how that can be mapped out.
I have difficulty seeing a difference between statist and authoritarian.

Populist-Plurialist is probably the 3rd axis. The problem is that plurialism is long dead in the US. It's always been limited, and the US media has always called for Popularism since even the days of Washington who stuck to his non-interference policy. But since the '60s, the US media has been able to change Presidents into Popularists, increasingly so.

Plurialism is common in successful, early nations ...

Turkey's Ataturk (who was Authoritarian, make no mistake) and South Africa's Mandela (who was more Libertarian, within reason). I'm a huge fan of Plurialism leaders.

George Washington is who we strongly look at as Plurialism, Adams to a lesser extent. Like all early Americans, very Libertarian ... although Adams screwed up on that front later on. They were capitalists, but not to the extent Hamilton wanted them to be.

Jefferson was absolutely Populist, one would argue a man who really had his Capitalist-Socialist compass all over. He also fell into the trap Adams did on Libertarianism.

We really haven't had an abundant number of Pluralist.

In recent years, I'd say W. to a point (catered to the Religious-right, even though he wasn't really one), JFK to a point (catered to his party at times, although he sided with the Republicans at times) ... maybe even McKinley (who has been in the news recently) on African-Americans (while a popularist on Native-Americans).

Both Clintons, and Obama, were absolutely Popularists, and Trump as well.

Ironically, and sadly, Nixon might have been the most Plurialist. The whole '60s election was why he won not only in '68, but in a heavy landslide in '72 ... people were going against the US media and its popularism. Although that might count as popularist too.
 
I've also been farther to the left at times too. It really depends on the questions. I'm not anti-regulation, but I prefer capitalistic solutions -- e.g., the Swiss tax environmental impact, instead of regulating it. It's quite different than even portions of Europe.

I have difficulty seeing a difference between statist and authoritarian.

Populist-Plurialist is probably the 3rd axis. The problem is that plurialism is long dead in the US. It's always been limited, and the US media has always called for Popularism since even the days of Washington who stuck to his non-interference policy. But since the '60s, the US media has been able to change Presidents into Popularists, increasingly so.

Plurialism is common in successful, early nations ...

Turkey's Ataturk (who was Authoritarian, make no mistake) and South Africa's Mandela (who was more Libertarian, within reason). I'm a huge fan of Plurialism leaders.

George Washington is who we strongly look at as Plurialism, Adams to a lesser extent. Like all early Americans, very Libertarian ... although Adams screwed up on that front later on. They were capitalists, but not to the extent Hamilton wanted them to be.

Jefferson was absolutely Populist, one would argue a man who really had his Capitalist-Socialist compass all over. He also fell into the trap Adams did on Libertarianism.

We really haven't had an abundant number of Pluralist.

In recent years, I'd say W. to a point (catered to the Religious-right, even though he wasn't really one), JFK to a point (catered to his party at times, although he sided with the Republicans at times) ... maybe even McKinley (who has been in the news recently) on African-Americans (while a popularist on Native-Americans).

Both Clintons, and Obama, were absolutely Popularists, and Trump as well.

Ironically, and sadly, Nixon might have been the most Plurialist. The whole '60s election was why he won not only in '68, but in a heavy landslide in '72 ... people were going against the US media and its popularism. Although that might count as popularist too.

Nice. You appear to be very well read. I guess what I see as the difference between statism and authoritarianism is that a democracy can be both statist and authoritarianist, but not necessarily both. It just depends on who is doing the dictating. A country can have a select group of leaders dictating, or it can be done through the majority rules system i/e populism. The former would be a statist, authoritarian society, while the latter would be a populist statist society. To me, libertarian is opposite authoritarian and populist is opposite statist. To that end, you could have a populist libertarian society which is essentially anarchy, or a populist authoritarian society which is "majority rules" , a statist authoritarian system which is essentially what the kings had , or a statist libertarian system which is kind of what the founders established (the government protects your rights to do what you want). Beyond that, any populist or statist system can be either liberal or conservative, but can also derive the basis for their beliefs from either morals (God's code) or ethics (man's code)

It's too complex to chart. Maybe that's why the 2 dimensional or even 1 dimensional political spectrum charts are used. Ugh.
 
^ The problem is that this is how a Progressive thinks, as much as a Religious Conservative. They think 'morality' (Conservative) and 'acceptance' (Progressive) can be legislated. Europe has already gone down that path, and it scares me to death.

We're headed that way.

I don't call it the 'war on religion' (Conservative argument) or the 'war on {insert women**, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans**, etc...}'. I call it the 'war on thought.' Any time anyone wants to legislate what others think, and what they must learn or accept, we've already lost as a society.


**NOTE: Women have already taken over middle management, and they are the next generation of C-levels by the time Millennials reach their prime income earning years by 2030+, despite being the privileged class in the legal system on many fronts. Hispanic-Americans are the new Irish-American, having placed themselves well into the key points of government, much like the Irish did in law enforcement, all while becoming the nation's majority ethnic group.


I find this fascinating. Are you suggesting that a religious person of whatever stripe is akin to a progressive? I guess in a way that's sort of true of the Christian faith: taking small steps to convert everyone, as opposed to Islam which just uses a more direct approach. I guess I've never thought about it that way because Christians in general are apathetic in their evangelism, but it's probably true. Interesting.
 
I find this fascinating. Are you suggesting that a religious person of whatever stripe is akin to a progressive? I guess in a way that's sort of true of the Christian faith: taking small steps to convert everyone, as opposed to Islam which just uses a more direct approach. I guess I've never thought about it that way because Christians in general are apathetic in their evangelism, but it's probably true. Interesting.
There's a caveat ...

True Christians != Religious Conservatives

The former don't want to use government to enforce morality. They are also the ones that take and resettle in refugees, not the government** (too many Progressives think the government does). They live selflessly, and showcase their lives, reaching the individual, so the individual is moved. I have a real problem with the "fast food" Christian who takes the Gospel in ways I don't agree, and even more so take Paul's letters to mean everyone beyond the church. But that's another story.

Simply put, true Christians are Libertarians, and live the reality of helping people with their own time and money**. They are a beacon in the US, and used to be far more numerous. Unfortunately too many Christians have taken to the Conservative political approach. It's sad. They now label people and attempt to legislate morality. I have this argument regularly with many of my colleagues on what 'taking Jesus into your heart' really means. But, again, that's another story.

**
The only time faith-based charities, even non-Christian (although the majority are Christian), started barking back at the Obama administration was when he was sending too many Middle Eastern (including Libyan, they call them "Syrian" for a political reason) "refugees" to settle, especially single men and not entire families. There is a limit they can resettle, as the US found out during the Indochina Refugee crisis of the last quarter of the 20th century too. But the US is quite unlike Europe, short of the UK, in that it has a lot of private charities that settle refugees, which prevent the internment slums that most other Europeans have to deal with (don't get me started).

Same holds true for Progressives.

They've utterly lost their Liberal foundations. Liberals used to be about inclusion, and changing people with love and respect. That's how one defeats racists and the ignorant. You get to know them. You don't undermine them or destroy their careers. And you definitely don't go around labeling every moderate and even Liberals as right-wing, just because they disagree with you. That's why Trump won, more than anything. They've lost their 'faith' too, sorta-speak.

These days, Conservatives and Progressives only argue over "group rights," which is why I cannot stand both. If I get a true, Libertarian Christian and a true, Liberal-Socialist, I can deal with them. But they are few and far between.
 
We should probably start another thread, or take this to PM. I'll let you respond further, but I won't follow up in this thread. I might move some quotes to another I'll start.

Nice. You appear to be very well read.
I'm middle aged. I didn't have kids. It's afforded me a lot of time to read a lot. I only have an engineering degree and some post-grad in education and business, although we engineers do study more microeconomics and management (both with calculus) than a few, select business majors too (and definitely with more calculus, and theory/proofs while we're at it**), let alone virtually any other science degree.

**Backstory: As I always kid my colleague who was a finance major, "I had to prove those past/future-value money functions you learned to do on your calculator, hence why I understand them better." It's the one thing I'm a bit arrogant about, largely when some HR puke is telling me that he/she knows more what qualifications an IT professional needs than I do, the hiring lead, someone with an EE (computer option), and why he decided the company requires a college degree, let alone CS or engineering, to do IT (when a HS degree + relevant experience is more important to me). If I see an HP 12c on his desk, or an equivalent app on his computer or phone, that's where I start on, "Okay, since you know more than me on technology, let's see if I understand more than you in finance."

In the end, we really all rely on each other to be objective and experts in our own areas. If we are always second-guessing and not trusting one another, then we are screwed as a society. I'm all for challenging authority, but if you already entrust someone some a role, why does it have to be so confrontational with an expert, when you're not an expert in the same field? I say this to both pro-"abortion safety" Conservatives as well as pro-"gun safety" Progressives too.

I guess what I see as the difference between statism and authoritarianism is that a democracy can be both statist and authoritarianist, but not necessarily both. It just depends on who is doing the dictating. A country can have a select group of leaders dictating, or it can be done through the majority rules system i/e populism. The former would be a statist, authoritarian society, while the latter would be a populist statist society. To me, libertarian is opposite authoritarian and populist is opposite statist. To that end, you could have a populist libertarian society which is essentially anarchy, or a populist authoritarian society which is "majority rules" , a statist authoritarian system which is essentially what the kings had , or a statist libertarian system which is kind of what the founders established (the government protects your rights to do what you want).
Libertarianism is the opposite of Authoritarianism, but I see Statist intertwined with Authoritarianism, while Popularism is opposed by Pluralism.

The US has traditionally been a Pluralist Republic, heavily thanx to Washington (directly) and Jefferson (indirectly), with great exceptions. Starting in Washington's administration, and definitely during the Adams administration, Americans were pro-French and anti-British, which was incompatible with the Washington doctrine. Adams, still a Washington type Pluralist, made it worse by squeezing some Libertarianism, encroaching on Authoritative. Jefferson could be considered the biggest Populist of all-time in the US, with a massive bias in the US media. Unfortunately, his administration was exposed for what he was too.

The US media hated Washington, and were just as irresponsible then, as they are today -- so much so that we have the 1st Amendment because the British had enough of the US media by 1770. But I won't revisit that entire history of where the 1st and 2nd Amendments come from, and why they are written the way they are (individual right to assemble into something the crown can never be allowed to define).

Which brings me to Hillary Clinton. I would strongly argue there has never been a more biased US media than in 2015-2016. She was a massive populist.

The reason she lost, is because she was not the most popular candidate in the primary, Bernie Sanders was, by far 1) polled better against Trump than Hillary did, 2) won when the "superdelegates" were removed, and 3) overwhelmingly won primaries in "open record" states versus "closed record" states. But the DNC, unlike the GOP, has a system to maintain control over candidates via the superdelegate solution, whereas the GOP can have candidates they don't even want or fund still win their primary (Gary Johnson in New Mexico is probably the most famous in that state for completely by-passing the GOP's process and taking their primary for governor, Roy Moore in Alabama and well known thanx to the US media, among others, et al.). This is what the GOP was founded on in the mid-19th century too, ballot access, so they won't change, despite the Moores and others.

Hillary also lost because, unlike Adams with Jefferson (let alone the Electoral College wasn't decided by the people back then), Trump was a populist in reverse. In fact, as even Bernie Sanders points out, in 2016, Trump went from 4% (lower than even Gary Johnson in 2012, before the Republicans had CNN violate their own rules and kick him out of the debates, as they didn't want another New Mexico on their hands) to the White House. A lot of that was backlash in the US media, especially when there was a populist candidate.

I also mentioned Nixon earlier, who was more Pluralist, who suddenly found himself Populist 8-12 years later, because of the backlash against Populism too, especially the US media. Nixon is a bit of a misnomer though, because he was never popular as a person, and that kinda led him to pluralism. At the same time, his desire to win big in '72, really showed how much he valued popularism, at least by then.

Beyond that, any populist or statist system can be either liberal or conservative, but can also derive the basis for their beliefs from either morals (God's code) or ethics (man's code)
The problem with the "morals (God's code)" is that it's still really "man."

BTW, if you read the Supreme Court's dual-ruling on the Ten Commandments, it exposes this. The Anglo-American legal system is, indeed, a Judeo-based system which includes the adoption of the Ten Commandments as its foundation. So in a historical context, the Ten Commandments are valid, such as when displayed in a historical context with other documents. But in a religious context, it is not, which is why the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed on their own, or referred to them as 'God' (and exclusive) in the court, outside of the legal term of what 'God' is (inclusion of all, the all-seeing truth) from the eyes of the court, of course.

I try to explain this to anti-Christian, anti-religion people all-the-time, especially the "Freedom from Religion" Totalitarian 'cult.' They have utterly failed civics, and why clergy get a $50K exemption. They seem to be unable to differentiate everyday clergy from televangelists (don't get me started). The latter do pay taxes, and have gone to jail for not doing so as well. ;)

It's too complex to chart. Maybe that's why the 2 dimensional or even 1 dimensional political spectrum charts are used. Ugh.
I still stand by my view that statist and authoritarian is far more similar, and the 3rd dimension should be left to popularist v. plurialist. I'm a big time plurialist, and I see Washington, Ataturk and Mandela as major leaders who influenced countries early. The US would be very different without Washington, Turkey without Ataturk and South Africa without Mandela as their first leaders.

Unfortunately popularism seems to be undoing all three (3) as well.
 
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Far too many paragraphs here


Agreed, but it's all very interesting. I'm not terribly interested in politics any more but I enjoy political theory.

I see how you come up with pluralism being opposite populism, but I see it as being the center point between populism and statism. Populism being rule by the people at large (pure demoracy), statism being rule by a "ruling class", which would put pluralism directly in the middle. I know that doesn't follow the strict definition of the word, but the nature of it would typically be called centrist today. To that end, I suppose you could call the center point of all axis' coming together as pluralism.

Like most other terms in political theory, the application of each has changed over the centuries, which makes it difficult to pinpoint what exactly each one means in today's world as opposed to say, 1795. A good example of that is fascism, which is almost impossible to define because unless you just strictly say that mussolini's system IS fascism, what really is the definition of it? The south American ad central American "fascist" regimes weren't identical to the Italian version or each other. I've long said that America has actually been a fascist state since the 1930s and has evolved over the years. A more popular pejorative for it in America has been "crony capitalism", as the users of it love to only focus on the collaboration between the political class and the captains of industry, but that same cooperation or collusion exists between the labor unions and the political class as well.
 
Hahahahaha wow. Nobody wants to read ten pages of literal BS about how 9mm is deadlier than 5.56
 
Well if that's your position we should ban the ar platform but legalize the possession of an UZI

It's not my position, it is scientifically verifiable truth.

Also I have no interest in banning either one, I think the 1986 NFA bill should be repealed.
 
It's not my position, it is scientifically verifiable truth.

Also I have no interest in banning either one, I think the 1986 NFA bill should be repealed.


Well that was unexpected. I took you for a dyed in the wool gun control advocate.

As a point of agreement, clearly a 9mm isn't as lethal as a 5.56. It is just as deadly under the right circumstances but thats just semantics and not worthy of the time that either side puts into arguing.
 
WTF is this sh


He’s a f-ing cornhusker troll that’s been lurking on the free board for a while. I guess he’s made his way to the cooler.


Just STFU. This isn't a football board so why would you give a crap what team I root for on a political board?
 
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