October 30, 2023

We already ARE "beautiful variations on the colour of coffee"

That is the only unifying way to look at race and "color" or colour.

The more we ARE the change the more the change happens.

We already are coffee because COFFEE IS PREPARED SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS.

October 30, 2023

My simplest view is: Parents don't have rights, children do, but all rights are shared

(simplest view, because I have many views and gradations of views)

Parent rights do not trump full and proper care for children. Hence we ban "conversion therapy", for example.

Children have rights, for example, to read any book a librarian puts in their library, and many more than just those books. All the same, children are not fully formed or fully equipped to deal with some kinds of unforgiving realities (think bad judgement driving automobiles), so their rights are limited.

In Canada, the phrase "All children matter" is given greatest use and poignancy with reference to indigenous people and peoples. They have suffered so much at the hands of Residential Schools and other crimes.

Rights are shared, in that there has to be give and take. The right to expression is limited by consideration of harmful untruths (example vax lies) and exploitative production (example historical black musician royalties). The right to tax must respect the right of taxpayers to have their money spent responsibly and carefully for objectives that they collectively endorse.

The biggest "share" is that the majority -- of anything, in any form, at any time, in daily action not just voting -- must respect minorities. The tyranny of a majority can be a terrible thing.

So any supposed right of parents to bring up their children in any damn way they see fit is far away from the rights of children.

October 30, 2023

Example whereof I speak, obvious, but for analysis

(Even if we for the moment treat the given data as fact, ...) The error that is completely ignored and glossed over is that if you truly implemented the premise, the outcome would be very different from the map. If voting were one single day in person only then almost all mailing in ballots would vote in person and vote the same way they would otherwise. The false premise is that large numbers of people would hold to "mail-in or nothing".

But of course such bogosity in the structure of the argument completely demolishes any trust in the data that might have been briefly entertained.

Naturally, we dismiss the whole thing pretty much at the beginning when we read the contrafactual characterization "Marxist Criminals".

However, that kind of argument (map) is frequently just accepted and nodded at.

October 30, 2023

If you meet the buddha on the road, kill him

Fundamentally, if you wanna believe a factoid, try to explode it. If it survives attempts to find it false, then it is probably true or nearly true or mostly true or usually true.

What I see commonly in reich wing and magat cult posts is a search for confirmation. For example skating over or ignoring contradictory facts and details. Or cherry picking. Or completely misinterpreting statistics (most commonly taking a percentage of one thing and inappropriately applying it in calculations over different sets).

Disproof is the fundamental principle of science, since science admits its knowledge is and always will be incomplete and imperfect. Many people think science is all about proving things. Nope, that's mathematics. Science tries to disprove theories. What remains standing after multiple attempts is pretty good.

So it is similarly with our navigation of a bountiful infosphere that we imperfectly understand and apply against imperfect knowledge of history and any given current situation. We should subject anything we'd like to believe is true to a battery of tests to try to eliminate it for bad source, internal contradictions, use of propaganda techniques, cherry picking, contrafactual claims, distortion, slant, assumptions, ....

I am reminded of the famous koan: "If you meet the buddha while travelling on the road, kill him!" Being a koan it has multiple meanings and contexts and flexibilties, but one simple prominent one is the idea that if you think you have actually found the truth, put it to the test.

October 27, 2023

SOTH Johnson is so extreme, call him Mad Maga Mike

He's a very extreme denier: evolution denier, Covid denier, science denier, J6 denier, climate denier, LGBTQ2 denier, women's rights denier, ....

He's a christianist Dominionist.
He claims tRump was elected in 2020 except for massive election fraud.



Henceforth, we should call him Mad Maga Mike. I submit it to you for your approval.

October 26, 2023

Thoughtful DU posters save reader time/effort by taking a little time

... to post links and carefully selected key excerpts.

One minute (60 seconds) taken by a poster frequently saves 20 seconds effort by a couple hundred readers, maybe over a thousand.

20 x 200 = 4000 seconds = over one hour

Giving one minute of poster's time saves DU members an hour. One minute for an hour is a good tradeoff, such an easy thing to do, giving back to DU.

October 25, 2023

Evolution denier, climate denier, covid denier, Jan6 denier, SocSec denier, Medicare denier

Young Earth Creationist (Earth about 6,000 years old). Reference (contains credible links): https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/25/do-you-want-a-creationist-for-speaker-of-the-house/

October 20, 2023

They say covered faces antifa. Then we ask why so many magats convicted. They will say "corruption"

The next counter the magats will offer is that those pleading guilty were pressured by corrupt prosecutors and the others were convicted by corrupt judges. There is always a chain of malfeasance leading ultimately to dark, powerful, evil forces.

When anything goes against magats, they never consider the possibility they were wrong. They are like two-year-olds that way.

They are forever and only victims.

There is always a powerful bogeyman to invoke, whether it is the catholic pope, or socialist FDR, or fluoridation of drinking water, or satan, or Illuminati, or Rothschilds, or Soros (proxy targets for anti-semitism), or Deep State, or Obama running Biden's Presidency, or GloboHomo, or FemiNazis, or econuts, or Diversity/Equity/Inclusion advocacy, or WEF, or pedophile sex rings, or .... It never ends. There is always a bogeyman to blame, never themselves, never their policies, never their leaders.

October 9, 2023

Russia & Iran have huge incentive to disrupt SArabia peace deal & block Biden diplomatic win

Putin's methods and goals thrive in a chaotic environment.

Blocking Biden in anyway helps Putin screw the Ukrainian people.

Blocking Biden helps Putin's useful idiot tRump in his bid for Authoritarian rule.

October 8, 2023

I wonder if Putin has been inciting Hamas to torpedo Israel-SArabia deal & torpedo Biden vs tRump

Putin's methods and goals thrive in chaos.

Putin and Iran are quasi-allied. Iran and Saudi Arabia hate each other. Iran subsidizes and promotes and influences Hamas. Putin and Iran hate the US. Putin views tRump as a useful idiot, a chaos agent even if not nominated / elected.