Life

"Say that..." - How about we don't say that and create a hypothetical that isn't grounded in reality?As for your last paragraph, I agree completely. And I've already stated that Islam is an ideology with a God and a Prophet as opposed to a faith-based religion. Since it is not based on faith (since the general idea is either conversion or death in the fundamental sense), freedom of religion doesn't apply and Islam doesn't get a free pass.

Belief against war is not a "God-given right". It is an opinion and malleable. If the USA was attacked, I believe that for the sake of your own livelihood, you'd be happy that the military was funded so well.The right to freedom of religion is about freedom. If you don't believe in religion, that is fine. But you have no right to curtail someone else's belief by attempting to pass laws that would force someone to do something against their religion. Here's a hypothetical example. Would you pass a law saying that every single citizen must eat bacon? It's not "morally just" but imposing the government's will on the business against religious beliefs is a form of tyranny.In your example, the coffee shop would eventually go out of business because eclipse already brought forth evidence showing that businesses that discriminate usually fail. Even if it the only coffee shop around, coffee is not a fundamental need. Now if you were talking about a fundamental need like food, electricity or hydro, you'd have a point. But since you decided to use the example of a luxury, it seems that you simply do not value the idea of religious freedom. Phillius already said it. Where's the connection?Rape culture doesn't exist. In Western civilization, men hate rapists just as much (if not more) than women. Men do not go around and advicate for rape (which is against the fucking law). The thing is, "rape culture" is this term that spawned from a few evil women (Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer are two of them) and the confusion between sexual harrassment and abuse. It is a lie that is designed to belittle men and nothing more. Let's be honest here. The vast majority of rape stories that have gone to news outlets have been false. Mattress Girl? False. Duke Lacrosse? False. Lena Dunham? False (she actually should be in jail for sexually abusing her sister). Brian Banks? False. Does rape happen? Yes. But it isn't 1 in 5. Rape in the USA by FBI statistics is exceedingly rare. Congo doesn't have 1 in 5. Eritrea doesn't have 1 in 5. As I said earlier, to justify rape culture, you first need to prove that rape is an epidemic if you're going to argue that men are being taught that rape is acceptable.

Of course not all.But the vast majority of abortions are done on the poorer class who cannot afford to raise a child. I get that. It's why I say that abortion has to be legal. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. Criminalizing abortion will not remove it entirely. It will simply make it unsafe and dangerous. Again, Gosnell is your proof. He killed a woman. The number of babies that he kills may have been in the thousands. Baby Boy A was 30.5 weeks old. That shit was evil and criminalizing abortion will lead to more Kermit Gosnells. There is also another factor at play. According to Abby Johnson (a director at Planned Parenthood for 8 years and she wrote a book about it), PP apparently would deliberately give women a form of contraceptive that would lead to failure and pregnancy, thus requiring an abortion. According to her, over 90% of pregnant women walking into PP would end up getting an abortion. If that is true, that is shady as shit. I know that you hate Crowder but I think he has excellent guests on his show (and I agree with most of his opinions). And this video literally made my blood run cold. Every word that Ann McElhinney says here is 100% true. The first two lines of the grand jury's report are as follows: It's not an argument against abortion but rather an argument against criminalizing abortion because this will happen as a result.The argument on abortion needs to be "when is the cut-off date". That number needs to sit between 11 and 23 weeks (babies born at 23 weeks are 25~30% viable). And that's a hard debate. I lean more towards 21/22 (5 months in) because it's very unlikely that the baby is viable at that point but 11 is an accept position to hold if someone wants to argue that the killing of a fetus is already infanticide.

I have already stated that I don't believe in welfare.

The alternative is to not be socially irresponsible.Why should my hard earned tax dollars pay for someone else's promiscuity and mistake? Note: I am arguing for abortion to not be publically funded. Even if Roe v. Wade never happened, I'd still say abortion has to be legal.

Abortion has to be legal but it doesn't mean that it should be legal past 24 weeks (where it is possible that fetuses can actually live).Abortion has to be legal because making it illegal will not stop abortion. It'll simply make it unsafe and dangerous. That's a simple notion. It also should not be publically funded because that is a violation of someone's right to religious beliefs. You are forcing someone who does not agree to the concept on the basis of a religious belief to fund it. That is a violation of rights. Really, the whole thing comes down to social responsibility. Maybe promiscuity isn't the smartest thing.

Past 24 weeks has to be illegal. Period. End stop. I'll simply point to Kermit Gosnell and say "that's why".What Gosnell did to babies was first degree murder. The only difference between that and a late term abortion is that Elizabeth Warren says that as long as the fetus is still in the womb, it's legal. Outside the womb? It's probably a crime worse than rape and I abhor rape more anything.

After re-evaluating my argument on education, I've come to conclusion that Raven is correct when he accuses me of the "correlation equals causation" logical fallecy. Back to the drawing board with proving my argument. Might take a lot of time. In the meantime, I think I'm going to start supporting the Gosnell Movie with a donation. I don't care what your stance on abortion is; the grand jury report chilled me to the bone. I really hope Elizabeth Warren isn't re-elected for Senate based solely on her stance on abortion (you can be pro-choice and that's fine but I draw the line when you also want "no restrictions").

Since this is going to be long, I'm spoilering it with regards to certain people placed together. [spoiler=Pheonix and Raven] Ok. Let me revise my premise.When Democrats are in power, black education stagnates at best. When Republicans are in power, it begins to increase. Therefore, Denocrats are not good for black education. Of course, this only deals with education and not other factors like crime or general poverty. But blacks have been voting Democrat for years and there have been no serious measures to curb gang violence in metropolitan areas such as NYC or Chicago by the Democrats. Maybe the Democrats aren't looking out for the blacks but want the blacks to know that they sympathize in order to rack up votes. It's basically saying that if you extrapolate current trends, areas that have high concentration of black communities aren't being enrolled in school.There are only two ways to eliminate general black poverty: Education and eradication of gang violence. Neither have happened during Obama's term but honestly, the verdict is still out on his educational reform. Well, the trend is steady. For someone who claims to be dedicated to the black community, he certainly hasn't made their lives easier. But it isn't a significant increase. It's now barely at 50% rather than 47.5%. Over 22 years. Let's split the difference and blame both sides because there were 8 years of Republican rule there.I might not be an expert in education but the figures seem pretty straightforward. Feel free to come to your own conclusion but I'm simply pointing out that there has been virtually no change since Clinton was in office. Why would I do that?I haven't once said that. Bush is far from blameless. But attrition rates began to fall under Bush from the start of his presidency when they were constant during Clinton's. It may have something to do with NCLB getting signed into law in 2002. That trend continued under Obama who didn't put in a new educational reform until 2015. I know you think I'm dogpiling on Obama but in the same vein, you're refusing to credit Bush for addressing education. Again, it's time to split the difference. Good. It SHOULD be debatable.As I said, I had a negative view of NCLB before I looked into the numbers and now I'm not so sure. Like it or not, Bush had some sort of a positive effect on education if we evaluate the statistics. So let's look into it. Once upon a time, yes. Now? By the way, I watched this debate in its entirety. Sure, Ben absolutely destroys any racism argument thrown his way but this woman (Monica Velasquez Trudonowski) was amazing. I urge you to watch it simply for her. There was another video that I was looking for but this one is much better. I can work with that for now but leaving AA as it is is detrimental.At this point, there's no lost opportunity. It's about fixing education to make sure that these kids are actually able to succeed. We're not still in post segregation days. But at the end of the day, if you do not have thr skills adequate for the course, you should not be put into a position where you are doomed to fail. First point, I agree entirely.But when you have a case like Sweet Cakes, that's also an issue because it encroaches on Christian beliefs. The owner should not have to pay $136,000 just because she doesn't want to cater a gay wedding due to it being against her beliefs. The couple could have literally gone to a different bakery. When the government compels me or someone else to do something against their religious beliefs and pretends that we are evil people for saying "hey, I don't sanction it", that is a violation of the right to freedom of religion. First off, I'm now neither pro or anti-NCLB. I need to re-evaluate. When Bush was President, I was a "dirty dirty liberal" so I thought anything he did was terrible without any fact checking. I was also a teenager and had no idea what I was talking about.Here's the thing. The argument "well the Senate/Congress were against me" doesn't fly in my book because that's a coward's way of looking at it. You want to pass legislation in a hostile environment? Get them to agree by proving that it is for the benefit for everyone. Take Obamacare as an example. Obama has largely been inept at doing so because the right believes that public health care is a bad idea. I've only lived in countries with public health care and I will swear by private health care up and down. Public health care is great in theory but taxes and waiting times go up while quality of both health care and doctors go down. Canada has a shortage of doctors because nobody wants to work long hours without serious compensation. We call it the "brain drain". And yet, he still got it through. Watered down but it passed. You can't blame Obama's inadequecy on "well the system was rigged against him". That's a silly argument because he still got major legislation through both Congress and Senate. Covered welfare above. I already explained why AA doesn't work and that it was a simple idea. You actually quoted it next. So why have you reversed my position? You do know that you're making my argument for me, right? Great.What I have said is that AA doesn't work because it sets a lower standard for blacks because they are black. Which is inherently racist. Of course there are reasons why blacks are unprepared for those courses. And what you've listed are valid cases that I don't disagree with. So where's the argument here? I think Pheonix has a good temporary fix for AA but I still think it should be abolished entirely. Yes. It does.According to FBI statistics, rape is exceedingly rare. If you want to believe a bogus study that claims that more women than the entire population of Canada are raped in their life, then sure. In fact, that number is just about the same number of women in the Congo. According to that logic, America is no better than a third world country that has seen numerous wars less than 15 years ago. I had this argument with someone yesterday and I asked her if she knew the legal difference between sexual assault and sexual harrassment. She replied "what does it matter?". Well, it matters a lot if you consult the US Penal code. If I slap a woman on the ass, that is harrassment, not assault. But that is beginning to be considered sexual assault according to 3rd wave feminists. So yes. You need a high figure of rapes before there is a rape culture. [spoiler=Crysta, Tryhard and Enigmar] First, Enigmar. As I pointed out, the Pope has apologized. That's what you wanted, correct? Perfect. Will you allow Christians to now say "hey, you can do what you want but I want no part of it"? Because I get the feeling that you don't want that to happen. Great, that's out of the way. Now understand that religious freedom does not say "make laws against homosexuals and transexuals and whateversexuals (too many to count now)". I am on board with you 100% on that. Discrimination is bad. End of story. But why do you need opinions outlawed too? I have an opinion that is contrary to yours and it's not lovey-dovey. Let me be honest. If a FtM transexual walked into a public bathroom while I was there, I would feel absolutely uncomfortable. Nothing you say is going to convince me that that is a man. I don't understand why you are forcing me to accepy this as normal. Ben Shapiro mentioned a case where a school board how now decided to be more inclusive to transexuals. And if a boy who thinks he's a girl wants to sleep in the girl's quarters during an overnight trip, the school's policy is officially now to "not tell the parents". I'll look for an article but it's in the Wed Aug 24th podcast of The Ben Shapiro Show. I'm sorry. That's not acceptable. If I was a father, I would like to know why I am not being told that a boy is sleeping in close proximinty of my daughter because "he feels like a girl". Is this a soapbox? No, it's not. These are issues in American politics that you guys bring up and I have a contrary opinion. You're also preaching the virtues of transexuals and why I must like them so if I'm on a soapbox, so are you. I think I'm good.

That's not a sentence I hear from the mouths of many liberals these days.

Dana? Oh, she's Tea Party. I don't personally agree but she's very articulate when it comes to gun control or stupidity. I'll look at the links later when I'm typing a proper response to Pheonix and Raven.

Well, we had a big tent and we fucked up due to the regressive left pushing part of us to go alt-right.I liked Carly Fiorina (said that multiple times) but just look at the diversity of opinion we had on the right: Carson, Rubio, Cruz, Trump, Fiorina, Bush, Christie... the list just goes on. Did we choose the wrong person. Yeah, I sincerely think so. But are we traitors to conservatism because we're on the fence about actually voting for Trump to be president? No. Why should we be? Dana Loesch has a great rant on the matter. It's flat out entertaining. And understand that she is rightfully mad because she's been called a traitor to her own kind. Again, we should be better than this in-fighting.

I'm the Jew and I've had family gassed to death in the gas chambers. And I don't think it's hate speech.I classify hate speech as "a direct incitement to violence or other form of discrimination against an entity". That way, there is no slippery slope that leads us to ban opinions (because jail time for "being mean" will eventually lead to jail time for criticism). I'll get to the rest later but for now I want to mention this.When conservative media stops to talk about Trump hiring a campaign manager and everyone says "hey, I know Steve Bannon, he's the worst human being in the world", there's a serious division in the conservative camp. Shapiro's said it, Dana Loesch has said it and I'll probably find a lot more right wing political commentors who have turned around and said something like "if Steve Bannon gets Trump elected, I may have to legitimately go into hiding for fear of my life". In this election cycle, we're screwed.

Are people not entitled to freedom of religion? If Christian doctrines teach that homosexuality is immoral, why are your feelings valued more than their freedoms on which the USA was based? They're not trying to have you burned at the stake. They just think that it's wrong for two dudes to sleep with each other because it goes against their teachings.You like to mentiom transexuals a lot so I have a question for you. Why should the country change all of its policies to cater to 0.4% of its population? And furthermore, the way you said it was implying that you want Christian communities to be treated with utter disrespect at the very least. If you want an apology, pretty sure the Pope already apologized on behalf of Christians everywhere. If you don't accept it, then I don't think you just wanted an apology. Raven, I'll hit your stuff later. Bed time.

Hold the fucking phone.Are you advocating for discrimination against Christians? Did I just read that right? "Hey Kettle!" "What is it, Pot?" "You're black!" Isn't that exactly what you're supposed to be fighting against?

There is no rape culture?I mean, women don't get sexually assaulted in numbers like they do in Eritrea or Congo? Where rape is a tool of war, mind you. I don't like using personal anecdotes but I've actually been in a war. We weren't raping 1 in 4 women we saw in Gaza. I don't think that happens on American universities.

Did you look at the PDF study itself or just the article about it?

They're Pakistani gangs for the most part. We are talking about Rotherham, right?

Of course.But the arguments are shouted down and stifled. They are quite literally ad hominems. "How dare you, you racist pig!" That is the knee-jerk reaction from the left. And it is not acceptable from the perspective of an informed person. I really don't think you get it.These are things that people actually get arrested for in Canada. http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/18/canada-prepares-nationwide-ban-on-anti-transgender-propaganda/ I mean, never mind THIS study that came out today. http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/22/journal-transgenderism-not-supported-by-scientific-evidence/ Or never mind that diversity of ideas is now a rarity. How dare I have a different opinion on transexuals! I can be jailed for it in Canada! Now I have an issue. And child grooming gangs? Try Google; this shit goes on in refugee canps across Europe, especially in the UK. http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/3576/full

Really? So why am I a racist when I criticise Affirmative Action? How am I Islamophobic when I say that "hey, people are yelling Allahu Akbar before shooting up nightclubs and that's an issue"?Why am I not allowed to criticize these issues?

So let me get this straight.Bush should also get blamed for any immediate drops in educational standards while Obama was in power because Congress or the Senate prevented Obama from doing anything? Dude, seriously? The Democrats had a majority in both the Senate and Congress from 2009 to the end of 2010, not to mention a Democrat president. I just went through the entire list of public acts that were signed in during the 111th Congress. Not a single one had to do with education. So OK. Was NCLB a steamy pile of crap? Always thought "yes" but things were picking up near the end of Bush's presidency. Unless we're going to also attribute that to Clinton's presidency and so on and so forth (which is stupid). But whatever the case, even if NCLB sucked, Obama and the Democratic party clearly didn't think so because they didn'tattempt to repeal it during the time when they had completely control. And as I mentioned, trends were going upwards right through Bush's presidency while stagnating or decreasing during Clinton's. Are you actually implying that even trends that continue through Bush's 8th year are all thanks to Clinton? NCLB was signed in 2002 and trends were climbing. Correlation: NCLB signed at start of GWB presidency and noticable upwards trends (such as the decrease in attrition rate during elementary schooling and average test scores in mathematics and reading) begin at that time. Conclusion: NCLB (the first education reform in 40 years) had something to do with rising education scores and falling attrition rates. Draw your own conclusion. I'll look into it more myself but Obama and the Democrats had 2 full years where they could have done nearly anything they wanted and they didn't even address anything regarding education. Meanwhile, NCLB was drawn up and signed into law in a year. http://dailysignal.com/2011/07/09/president-obama-admits-welfare-encourages-dependency/ Here's a case study of someone who actually succeeded. You want examples of the opposite, just look at freshman and sophomore attrition rates in the US by race.http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-cal-freshmen-20130816-dto-htmlstory.html That analogy is actually a very accurate one. Race is not this deep subject where we need to start delving into hypotheticals and theories. Occam's Razor; The simplest explaination is usually the best.AA sets a lower standard for black students to get into college. Black students then fail out of college due to not being sufficiently prepared. Hmm, I wonder why. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/ The rest of my comments were just jokes and musings but I want to bring up your response to my off-hand "war for my soul". The issue isn't the left. We can handle you fuckers because facts trump feelings (get the joke?). It's the alt-right that bothers us. We don't just have to fight against our usual enemies but we've also been backstabbed. I don't see that on the left. Anyone who couldn't stand Hillary in the primaries has now just thrown in the towel and begun to defend her whole-heartedly with regards to her corruption. That doesn't happen with us. We call our candidates out if we don't like their stances (not Fox News or Breitbart but smaller sources). I always thought the right was better than that. And it hurts that we've sunk to your level. Quick thing to add: Any criticism of Islam, women, LGBT, any race (aside from whites) or any other minority is considered bigotry in the eyes of PC culture. What's not are: - Males - Whites - Christians - Jews (because somehow, Israel is evil in the eyes of the left) If you're any of those four, you're fair game. Edit: Thanks for mention welfare now, assholes. Now this is an edit. I posted the article where Obama flat out admitted that welfare is the equivalent of putting a band-aid on an infected limb but let me explain why Romney and Carson don't like welfare. It's about respecting hard work. If I work hard to make a living, my money shouldn't go to Joe Schmo who lives on government money. That's a socialist idea that says "from each his ability, to each his need" or something like that. Basically, Joe never has to work to live. Sure, he'll live in poverty but BIG GOVERNMENT is looking out for him on the back of my tax dollar. As someone who purposely moved from a priviledged lifestyle to one where I am living under the poverty level in Israel, I see Joe as a freeloader. It's cold and callous but it's also true. If you prefer someone else living off of your dime without doing anything, don't complain if it becomes more difficult for you to provide for your family. You decided that Joe is just as entitled to some of your money as your wife and children are. Obviously it's not a 50/50 split (because I know someone is going to claim that that is what I believe) but I don't think he should see a dime of my taxpayer dollars if he's not willing to work.

Fair point.Here's my 2020 dream team: Carly Fiorina/Ben Shapiro for PotUS/VP Ben Carson for SoS Milo Yiannopoulos (if he and Ben will even talk again because Ben just accused Milo of taking money from Trump) for Press Secretary Yep, conservatives are sexist, racist and homophobic. Edit: I take that back. No chance Ben and Milo ever work together ever again.

Couple of ways to answer this.1) Welfare makes people dependent on welfare. There's no incentive to escape. 2) Affirmative Action and other programs like it are inherently racist in today's society because they say that even 46 years after the law was signed into effect, blacks still require a lower standard to compete with everyone else. That's the racism angle. The fiscal angle says that Affirmative Action is actually detrimental both to the black community and society as a whole. It sets up a system where the under-prepared black man fails and it denies someone that spot to succeed since the black man gets first crack due to being a minority. In FE terms, think of it as unit selection in an efficiency run. Unit X is not as good as Unit Y and will more likely than not cause us to take extra turns. But Unit X should be fielded rather than Unit Y because we are discriminatory against Unit X if we don't. Those are more specific examples that Conservatives believe but the general idea is that big government should not impose on freedoms (I'm loathe to use the term "god-given" unlike people like Crowder or Dana Loesch because I'm not religious). It's also why there are so many right wingers that wake up wondering if they should vote Trump or stay at home. I feel like conservatives are fighting a war over possession for our souls. We have the left on one side who want to crucify us and the alt-right on the other who claim that we're traitors to our own kind when they hijacked the party.

Certainly.https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://nces.ed.gov/pubs95/95765.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiN9o6wjtjOAhWGOsAKHXO5BZsQFgg6MAA&usg=AFQjCNEg5IeK06EVyboNKzTN2Cb3a4Snzw I hope that links to the government PDF that I'm looking at but if not, Google search "black education rates 1994 usa". Really that easy. The report (issued in May of 1995) shows that blacks are enrolling in school, attrition rates are dropping and other trends that indicate positive results. Two things do jump out. First of all, white students were doing better than blacks but we can blame segregation for that because these statistics start from 1970 (just after segregation formally ended). The second thing is that the increase during the Reagan and H.W. Bush years are not as significant as the increases before them but they are still increases. In summary, black educational standards was on the rise even through the "War on Drugs" which was supposedly aimed at marginalizing black communities (again, the statistics do not reflect this). Now compare to the 2014 report. https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014083.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjnpd_LltjOAhVJWhQKHfLMB4oQFggdMAE&usg=AFQjCNE5526QURNzJIMyY8xJbW2NgxKmXA Graph on page 23 clearly indicates that the high school diploma completion for blacks has completely stagnated but white education completion has started to drop. Thanks Democrats (and Bush)! An interesting point (has nothing to do with my comments before) is how the Native American population generally lives in more poverty than Blacks. But then again, they don't make up about 15% of the total population. Again, nothing to do with my original point but definitely interesting to note. Those charts are around page 44 or so. Page 57 has another interesting chart; The projected percentage of elementary public school education through the next 10 years. Aside from the deep South outliar, check out the states that are slated to decrease. That includes Illinois and New York. That means that cities like Chicago and NYC have education on the down. Page 79 shows that black enrollment in public school is decreasing, either at a steady rate or a significant one in about 2010. That's not necessarily bad but I don't think that drop-off is because they're suddenly getting into private schools. Page 89 starts the good stuff. More and more kids live in increasing poverty. These are numbers measured after 8 years of Bush and 4 years of Obama. Again, Bush might have fucked it up for us Conservatives but Obama wasn't making the situation any better. In fact, I'd love to see 2016 results. Page 118 shows that reading education has barely budged for blacks, starting with Clinton's administration. In 22 years (on a scale of up to 500), black reading comprehension at Grade 8 has risen only by 13 points. That's 2.5%. If blacks complain about their schooling now, it isn't significantly better than it was 22 years ago under Clinton. In fact, it was worse. Page 134 shows that average black scores in reading dropped (or stagnated) under Clinton and Obama while rising under George W. Bush. Oops, maybe No Child Left Behind wasn't such a colossal failure? Next page is Mathematics and more of the same. As per page 159, 68% of blacks are graduating Grade 12. That's tied with Native Americans for the lowest ethnicity. Page 163 has attrition rates. Notice that the black attrition rate between 1992 and 2000 are virtually the same (13% and under Clinton). George W. Bush brought that down to under 10%. Sure, the rates dropped under Obama but Bush laid the groundwork. Page 170 shows how terrible Clinton really was for education and that Bush was far and away better. I won't even spoil it; go look for yourself. When Trump tells the Black community that the Democrats have failed them, he's not blowing smoke. Even George W. Bush did more good for education than both Clinton and Obama. Thank you for making me fact check that statement, Phoenix. You may have just convinced me to reverse my opinion on No Child Left Behind (that maybe it wasn't a steaming pile of crap). So thank you very much. Again, wasn't Bush villified by the media for NOT going to New Orleans immediately?

- All the songs in the Man Machine Poem album (The Tragically Hip) - Heart Is Full Remix (Miike Snow + Run The Jewels)