Lurker > red sox 777

Andrew Johnson gave a blanket pardon to everyone who fought for the CSA. The precedent is it's legal, but only as to events that happened before the pardon. I.e. if Arpaio was still sheriff and continued to violate court orders he could be brought to Trial again for offenses after the date of the pardon.
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What would you guys think if Lincoln had issued a blanket pardon for all violations of the Fugitive Slave Act?
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Run that centrist unity ticket and get crushed. If you still have a Democratic candidate, you're going to get a lot more LFF among the non-Trump options. If not, much of the left will stay home or vote third party while Kasich/Dem will peel off very few Republican voters. Trump's argument that he is fighting the establishment will resonate more strongly than ever.
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UltiXX posted...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/08/24/election-hacking-lawsuit-over-heated-georgia-race-could-sign-whats-come/574313001/

Democrats are starting to sound like Board 8 contest casuals. They blame hacking for literally every single loss.

The United States Constitution

Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members

This is a silly lawsuit. A judge does not have the power to expel a member of Congress, even if he found that the hacking was real, illegal, and swung the election.
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I'm watching the MSNBC election night broadcast. "No candidate can win two thirds of the white vote."
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Jakyl25 posted...

Okay, as someone who doesn't know the intricacies of crafting the budget, how much leverage does the President actually have with regard to "shutting the government down?"

I had thought that was a legislative thing

It takes 2/3 of both houses to override his veto. Essentially, if Republicans and Democrats cooperate, it's easy. Otherwise, it's impossible.
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Oh wow, that 1771 act was made retroactive to 1770 too, so that the protesters in the previous year could be charged under it. Refusing to surrender within 60 days was grounds for being deemed guilty without trial and being made an outlaw, so that anyone could kill the person without legal consequence.
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From the North Carolina code quoted by Greg Doucette:

§ 14-288.2. Riot; inciting to riot; punishments.
(a) A riot is a public disturbance involving an assemblage of three or more persons which by disorderly and violent conduct, or the imminent threat of disorderly and violent conduct, results in injury or damage to persons or property or creates a clear and present danger of injury or damage to persons or property.
(b) Any person who willfully engages in a riot is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
(c) Any person who willfully engages in a riot is guilty of a Class H felony, if:
(1) In the course and as a result of the riot there is property damage in excess of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) or serious bodily injury; or
(2) Such participant in the riot has in his possession any dangerous weapon or substance.
(d) Any person who willfully incites or urges another to engage in a riot, so that as a result of such inciting or urging a riot occurs or a clear and present danger of a riot is created, is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
(e) Any person who willfully incites or urges another to engage in a riot, and such inciting or urging is a contributing cause of a riot in which there is property damage in excess of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) or serious bodily injury, shall be punished as a Class F felon.

I don't see "the police didn't stop it, it must not have been violent" as a very strong defense. Certainly the statute contemplates a riot (even a felonious riot) that does not result in physical injury to life. Failure of the police to do their job is not a defense, so you'd be arguing only that it must not have been violent because the police didn't think it was worthwhile to stop it. Which would ordinarily be fairly convincing, except for the direct video and the clear damage to the statue here. Unless there's some special meaning to the word "violent" in North Carolina law that I'm not aware of.

On the other hand, the fact that the DA charged it certainly doesn't mean there is strong evidence for it. if Corrik's friend actually follows that rule, I'd say that county is very very lucky to have a DA office that is doing what they are supposed to do.

As a practical matter, Durham is a pretty liberal place nowadays right? They might not be able to get a jury to convict there.

On a loosely related note, I searched for the North Carolina riot law in Google and the first thing that came up was a statute from 1771, under the British.....which prescribes a MANDATORY DEATH PENALTY for failing to disperse a protest after being ordered to by police, for one hour. I hadn't known the law was so harsh just for a protest in those times. The founders really did risk a lot.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

It's much easier to attack an old monument with no one to defend it. A current monument that you have to fight a war to take down doesn't trigger slippery slope because it's hard. You're can't move step by small step into a war, it's all or nothing.

You almost make it sound like the purpose of the war is to take down the monuments rather than it just being for emotional satisfaction.

And just because a war is waged and monuments destroyed after doesn't mean the monuments need to be new. Suppose you have a dynasty that lasted for over a century, monuments are erected, including at the founding of it. This dynasty is later defeated in a war and the victors tear down the statues, including those from the founding.

Also, because it occurred to me while writing that. Does it matter to you if the tearing down is done by an outside force (say the dynasty is defeated by a foreign power) or an inside one (it is defeated by an internal uprising)?

I think it only matters to me that the people tearing it down are different than the ones putting it up. So if it's 100 years later, there has been substantial cultural change and it's a different group of people even without a foreign invader.

And it's not common in history for victors of war (internal or external) to tear down monuments from the defeated country's history from BEFORE the conflict that led to the war. Such actions are usually remembered as barbaric... If it was customary, we would have no ancient structures left, as pretty much every scrap of land on earth has been conquered at some point.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

It's a good question and I'm not entirely sure why it's different.

It just seems weird to me, because if your concern isn't the actual monuments but the attitude behind taking them down - the desire to remove it from history (which again, I argue isn't really true but I digress), it seems like in the aftermath of a war is exactly that concern made manifest.

To me it seems like you're arguing a theoretical slippery slope-like concern in defending the older monuments but when that actual attitude is at its peak and in practice you're saying it's more acceptable. Just struck me as weird.

It's much easier to attack an old monument with no one to defend it. A current monument that you have to fight a war to take down doesn't trigger slippery slope because it's hard. You're can't move step by small step into a war, it's all or nothing.
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xp1337 posted...

red sox you still never answered when I asked why from your point of view it is more acceptable that monuments/statues be torn down if done so in the aftermath of a war. =(

But also more generally, I mean, I'd argue that a statue/monument itself being taken down speaks to the mindset of a society just as much as it having been built in the first place. Certainly it was built for a reason, but that it is allowed to remain also speaks to the society's mindset, as does its removal.

The history of the figures behind the statues will remain. The history of there being a statue will remain. And so will the history of the debate and removal of the statue.

It's a good question and I'm not entirely sure why it's different. I also felt a little weirded out when I was in Berlin, to see that they've tried hard to eradicate all trace of the fact that the city was divided for 45 years. There's a couple segments of the wall left and other than that, I'd have no way of telling if I was in former West Berlin or East Berlin.

But I guess, it's because current stuff (within living memory) isn't history yet. It can still change, can still talk back. The people who made the monuments are still around and can tell you themselves why they put them up. I feel differently about CS statues put up in the 20s and 50s. Not sure if the living memory distinction is enough to explain 100% of the difference between those two. My own personal bias might also contribute, because I see the 50/60s statues as mostly put up in the spirit of racial hate, while the 20s statues also carried a message of reconciliation (for example, read Congress' bill designating General Lee's house as a national memorial and explaining why).
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Yes, actually.

Were the people there calling for their removal?

And removing statues without going through the proper legal channels is destruction of property or vandalism. (Or maybe some other legal term.) I don't think that's the way to go about it.

The people in Afghanistan and Eastern Syria? Probably. By all indications, a majority of people there supported the Taliban/ISIS.
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xp1337 posted...

But do you think they were representative of the societies of the areas they controlled?

Within the context of the confederate statues, removing them is pursued through the legitimate levers of democratic government.

Yes, actually. The Buddha statues in Afghanistan were put up thousands of years ago. It has not been a Buddhist area since China lost a war to the Abbasid Caliphate in the 700s. Similarly, Palmyra has not been Roman or Palmyrene since the 600s. The people who built the monuments are long gone.

As for the CSA statues, it started that way. The one in Durham was not removed through the democratic process. If some right wing vigilantes take down the statue of Lenin in Seattle, that won't be through the democratic process either. I know they haven't done it yet, but I really don't put it past them.
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pjbasis posted...

I can't remember red sox's argument about statues and historical significance mentioning anything about human rights, but maybe I missed it.

One of my posts specifically said that the statues in themselves was not so concerning as the attitude that leads to destruction of them. All of my posts today have been about avoiding the horror of genocidal war or totalitarian states.
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Peace___Frog posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Should Italy and Egypt go ahead and knock them down then?

If it warrants a discussion, they can have it. If they do decide to do so, that's their conclusion and their right.

The Taliban and ISIS did so, and destroyed the historical monuments in the areas they ruled, which they didn't like. And were uniformly condemned by the world, which is quite right IMO.
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Jakyl25 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

And there's a huge difference between tearing things down right after a war and doing it 90 years after they were put up, when it's out of living memory

Is there?

If there isn't, what about bulldozing Roman monuments since they were big supporters of slavery and war? Or destroying the pyramids of Egypt (built with slave labor)?

I'm not sure where to draw the line exactly but living memory seems like a fairly good place.

I don't know if you know this but those aren't on American soil

Should Italy and Egypt go ahead and knock them down then?
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xp1337 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

And there's a huge difference between tearing things down right after a war and doing it 90 years after they were put up, when it's out of living memory

Is there?

If there isn't, what about bulldozing Roman monuments since they were big supporters of slavery and war? Or destroying the pyramids of Egypt (built with slave labor)?

I'm not sure where to draw the line exactly but living memory seems like a fairly good place.
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And there's a huge difference between tearing things down right after a war and doing it 90 years after they were put up, when it's out of living memory
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No original source can obliterate context. Its place in time provides the context. And it cannot reach out from the 1920s and suppress anything people in later times have to say.

It CAN destroy messages from earlier times....for example, the inscriptions in Egypt where the word "Amun" is chiseled out. But what do we learn from this? That Ahkenaten was intolerant to the old religion. We don't simply accept it at face value: that the Aten is worthy of worship and Amun is not.
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Jakyl25 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Dancedreamer posted...

I'm sure Robert E. Lee will be forgotten if we take down his statues. It's not like we learn about him in history class or anything.

And what will we learn about him in history classes? That he supported a slaveholding state? What will we learn about Lenin? That he founded a mass murdering state? This is not an accurate or insightful history. This is reducing people to their worst traits, while obliterating the context, thereby preventing any learning about how and why these things happened.

It is demonization, and it sets up a society in which people believe the other political faction is out to get them. Then there is a war, and then, horrors.

My fears might be overblown, but then, they might not.

What do we learn about him from statues? That he could ride a horse?

That many people in our community respected him. Not a theoretical community in some history book. Our community. Our ancestors. This forces people to honestly look at history instead of "othering" people.

Also, if it was just the statues, it wouldn't have a big effect, I think. But the same attitude that leads people to take down statues can lead to history books that replace history with packaged moral lessons.

If it's not scary to you, imagine a future where your side loses, and Jefferson Davis's history of the Civil War becomes the standard textbook in schools. That book has about 5 pages of poorly written argument about why the South was good and the North bad for every one historical fact it contains. He was evidently not a great propagandist. Imagine it rewritten, with the same message to fact ratio.
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Dancedreamer posted...

I'm sure Robert E. Lee will be forgotten if we take down his statues. It's not like we learn about him in history class or anything.

And what will we learn about him in history classes? That he supported a slaveholding state? What will we learn about Lenin? That he founded a mass murdering state? This is not an accurate or insightful history. This is reducing people to their worst traits, while obliterating the context, thereby preventing any learning about how and why these things happened.

It is demonization, and it sets up a society in which people believe the other political faction is out to get them. Then there is a war, and then, horrors.

My fears might be overblown, but then, they might not.
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Kenri posted...

red sox 777 posted...

But it's a real shame if we're really going to go on a national spree of tearing down statues.

I dunno, it sounds like a great idea to me.

And that is frightening to me. Smartmuffin's kill or be killed world is not impossible, it only needs enough mutual belief that it is what the other side is planning. People will accept pretty much anything if they believe it is to stop an existential threat to themselves.
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Jakyl25 posted...

...where do we have a Lenin statue, and why?

I know there's a pretty well known one in Seattle. But it's a real shame if we're really going to go on a national spree of tearing down statues.

I'd support a federal law banning the removal or vandalism of public monuments erected prior to.....2017, without either a court order finding the monument was illegal/unconstitutional in the first place, or the approval of Congress. Kind of hard to shoehorn it under the Commerce Clause but you can argue that all public monuments affect interstate tourism and therefore commerce.
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First the Nazis went for the Communists, who really were killing millions (in the USSR in the 30s). Then they went for lots of other people, who weren't killing anyone.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Jimmy Kimmel has a good idea

Let's negotiate with Trump. He likes that!

Let's cut him a deal where he gives up the Presidency and in exchange we crown him the first and only King of the United States of America

Give him a gold castle, and a bunch of fluff ceremonial powers, and we can all move on.

That sounds very risky. Powers have a way of expanding or contracting far beyond their original intention (see Commerce Clause).
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If Trump can succeed in restoring the economic prosperity of the working class, and foster a more open and tolerant society, I don't mind if he pays himself, say, $200 billion (the higher end estimate of Putin's net worth). If Putin gets that much for making Russia great again, I don't mind Trump paying himself a similar amount for succeeding here.
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Corrik posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Hmm that's kind of an interesting scenario actually. Kasich would LFF Trump obviously, but he would LFF the Democratic candidate substantially too. If Trump can dominate Kasich in the red states, he can probably hold onto their electoral votes. If he's getting 35% nationally, it's better if he drops to <10% in the deep blue states. Then it's hard to win the swing states with a leech obviously but Republican voters are pretty astute about falling in line so they may back Trump massively outside the blue states come election day.

If the national popular vote ended something like 45/35/20, Trump could win the election and beat Lincoln's record (39%) for Republican president with lowest popular vote percentage.

This is insane. Democrat is guaranteed California and New York Illinois Washington Seattle. Now you are splitting Republican vote in battlegrounds Ohio PA Wisconsin Minnesota North Carolina Etc.

A democrat could likely win all but like 8 states in that scenario.

That's more likely, yeah. But if Kasich is splitting those moderate voters, the ones the Democrats have tried so hard to win over in recent years, while Trump dominates the working class, it could happen.
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Hmm that's kind of an interesting scenario actually. Kasich would LFF Trump obviously, but he would LFF the Democratic candidate substantially too. If Trump can dominate Kasich in the red states, he can probably hold onto their electoral votes. If he's getting 35% nationally, it's better if he drops to <10% in the deep blue states. Then it's hard to win the swing states with a leech obviously but Republican voters are pretty astute about falling in line so they may back Trump massively outside the blue states come election day.

If the national popular vote ended something like 45/35/20, Trump could win the election and beat Lincoln's record (39%) for Republican president with lowest popular vote percentage.
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Republicans are not dumb enough to get rid of Trump in the primaries. And even if they did, he would still run as an independent and in all likelihood come in 2nd place while the GOP person got 3rd. It would be like 1912 with Kasich or whoever winning 1 or 2 states.
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Not_an_Owl posted...

Illinois State Senate passes resolution calling for neo nazis to be classified as terror groups.

Once again, a reminder that local and state politics can change far faster than federal.

Legit question for any legal-minded people here ( @Kinglicious ) ( @red_sox_777 )

What is the difference, legally, between a terrorist organization, a gang, and something like the KKK? Obviously it is perfectly legal to be and even march in the KKK. I am fairly certain that membership of the Bloods isn't inherently illegal, but affiliation can give police more probable cause for investigation than usual (right?). And as far as I know, if you are legitimately in ISIS, you are straight up getting arrested regardless of whether you're actively committing a crime.

Anyone?

I think the statutes vary by state, but generally, a criminal gang is a group of people (formal or informal) that has, as a primary/core purpose, committing crimes, and has repeatedly committed crimes. 60 years ago, the KKK committed lots of crimes and would likely have qualified as a criminal gang under modern statutes. Generally, it is not illegal in itself to be affiliated with a criminal gang, but doing anything to support them can lead to charges with gang enhancements.

For terrorism, the term under federal law seems to encompass only actions that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a population or government, and are also illegal under other laws. The KKK of 60 years ago probably also qualifies.

ISIS is a foreign state that has expressly declared war on the United States. As such, any member should be treated as an enemy combatant. At least, that's what I think should be done. I'm not aware of any ISIS people captured in the US yet, although there's been a lot of cases in Europe.
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Jakyl25 posted...

LordoftheMorons posted...

HaRRicH posted...

Like, I'm super-happy to see it down in general, but I do sincerely wish these kinds of monuments were kept to museums so in that sense it's not right. I'm not gonna mourn too much, but this appropriate movement to remove the honor of the Confederacy in public spaces does suck in the sense that these pieces should still be available for historical study in a dedicated private space elsewhere.

I agree with this

They should be put in their proper context (i.e. this was a "significant historical figure" instead of "this was a hero"), but destruction is taking it too far (not to dismiss the legitimate grievances people have regarding symbols of the Confederacy).

My one note on this is, how many Lee statues exist? This isn't like ISIS where they are destroying legitimate historical artifacts. It's a monument and could be easily remade.

From what I understand, a lot were built in the 1920s or thereabouts in a push for national reconciliation, since Lee was the one person both North and South could generally agree was a good person. That was when Congress made his house a national memorial.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Corrik posted...

Robert E Lee was by all accounts a stand up American

Corrik posted...

Sure he ultimately was a traitor to the country

Does anyone else see these quotes paired together as humorous as I do?

You should check out the website for his house, which is a FEDERAL national memorial. It says that the memorial honors his service to the United States before and after the Civil War (no mention of during).
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Peace___Frog posted...

Ugh. Some bad news.

https://twitter.com/AnneFrankCenter/status/897241196640206848

New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston has been vandalized. It's what happens, @POTUS, in the incubator of hate you've worked to create. https://t.co/nckefi7MTr

Now before wang, corrik, or red sox make some false equivalency of destruction of public property, note that the former was a glamorous celebration of a man and the latter is a memorial to millions of dead innocents. If you want to equate them, then you're implying that dead minorities are worth shunning.

You should let people speak for themselves.
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Jakyl25 posted...

MenuWars posted...

I mean Wang's point about the dehumanisation of the Jews is emblematic of what I'm arguing against. The same way immigrants are described as "tides, swarms, hordes" is what's happening via the left toward white people in general... and what's worse is that's absolutely not what they're about, but they use the same rhetoric.

I 100% agree with this.

As tempting as it is to call a Nazi a subhuman monster, they are human. They are broken humans. Some can be fixed, some can't, and once they act on their ideals they start forfeiting some of their basic human rights, but they bleed like you and me.

To anyone calling them subhuman, if you were part of an army that had one captured who had killed people, would you still feed him and offer him basic necessities? You would, because he's a human.

Think back to the Guantanamo Bay stuff and all the abuses on prisoners there. Set aside the idea that there had been no trial and no guilt determined; let's assume at least one person detained there was guilty. Is it cool that our guards did that to a guilty terrorist? No, it's not.

Thank you. You're a little more optimistic than me though. I don't put it past most people to just shoot others if they think those others are evil and dangerous. I am thankful we have the Bill of Rights here and that we won the war, yet neither of those means that it couldn't happen here.
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That said, we do have extremely broad laws for felony murder and conspiracy on the books.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Kinglicious posted...

That's a conversation worth having and I'll agree in part, sure. You've just gotta be specific here - how do you identify who they are? There's no real way to recognize at a glance or a clear group for the most part. I mean look, if you're suggesting the KKK should be considered a domestic terrorist group, that's got legs to it. But I don't think that covers everyone, nor do I think there's a way to really cover them all. But it's a convo worth talking about.

I was thinking to start with "The groups associated with the Unite the Right rally should no longer be granted the right to officially organize on public grounds, because their core message has proven to incite violence."

You'd need a lawyer probably to make the case that the car attack was not a perversion of their message but in fact an extension of it, otherwise anyone who killed someone at any rally could get that cause shuttered.

Yes it's very easy to subvert that but it's a start.

You'd need more than a lawyer, you'd need a Supreme Court willing to overturn a century of jurisprudence on the First Amendment. Or to repeal the First Amendment.
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It's 75% off because of overwhelming demand? Where do they think we learned economics, from speeches promoting Obamacare?
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charmander6000 posted...

Since we're discussing hypotheticals, does owning an apartment satisfy owning land? It's a place you own, but at the same time you don't own the land the building is on.

I think the answer is yes but I'm not sure. The old value test in England was that the property needed to be valuable enough to generate 40 shillings in rents per year. Not sure how much that is adjusted for inflation, but it would prevent someone from subdividing a piece of land into millions of tiny shares and giving each nonlandowner one so they could vote.
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Ashethan posted...

Pretty sure that the 14th amendment would prevent them from denying people the right to vote if they don't own land.

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Since this was (properly) applied to same sex marriage, I fail to see how it wouldn't be applied to voting as well.

Because precedent and law says that voting is not a privilege or immunity of US citizens, and courts basically never use the privileges and immunities clause anyway. As for the equal protection clause, non-landowners have never been recognized as a protected class.

You're right that they could probably shoehorn it in under equal protection if they wanted, but this Supreme Court might not choose to do so.
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xp1337 posted...

dowolf posted...

xp1337 posted...

He is the president who wasn't promised, and his is the song of fury and fire.

FTFY.

i thought about using that line but got lazy

red sox 777 posted...

Incidentally, is there anything in the Constitution that would stop a state from bringing back the rule that you can only vote if you own land?

I don't believe so. The strongest challenge I can think of is the 24th amendment's prohibition to deny the vote based on a failure to pay any kind of tax.

Edit: To clarify, I mean I don't think so in theory. In practice you'd have to separate owning land from any and all taxes to pass such a challenge, I think. And it would fall apart still if they existed at the federal level.

A federal land tax, that isn't apportioned among the states, is expressly prohibited by the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. The decision holding Obamacare actually restated the ban on federal land taxes, too. So I guess states would just have to abolish property tax to be safe.
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Incidentally, is there anything in the Constitution that would stop a state from bringing back the rule that you can only vote if you own land?
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Power. Pure, raw, power.
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Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

Roy Moore should have gone for a federal judgeship....that way he could only be removed by impeachment.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

Mr Lasastryke posted...

red sox 777 posted...

I kinda doubt anyone who responded has read Romer's paper yet. But uh, this is the great thing about the modern left I suppose. They see useful information as "bait" while being totally unable to stop themselves from taking the bait, every time. They judge people more on orthodoxy than the content of their argument. They ignored the people on the ground who said trouble was coming in the Midwest, and....

Yes, #This Is Why You Lost.

aren't you part of the left?

No, I'm not really on the right either though.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

LordoftheMorons posted...

red sox 777 posted...

I just saw that my health insurance company cancelled my plan for next year. The implosion plan appears to be working.

Are you blaming Trump or the Democrats?

I'm not blaming anyone. I'll switch to a different company. As for the premiums being so high, I blame Democrats for passing Obamacare and Republicans in the past for allowing the pre-Obamacare system to be so bad, as well as for coming up with the Obamacare concept.

As for Trump, I presume this "implosion" is part of his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and get us better healthcare for lower cost, by increasing his bargaining power. If it succeeds, it succeeds. If it fails.... I guess we'll apportion blame when and if that happens.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

I just saw that my health insurance company cancelled my plan for next year. The implosion plan appears to be working.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

Peace___Frog posted...

I've read that paper as part of my studies. You're talking to people here who don't hold mathematics or economics as hobbies, but as careers. You're misconstruing different aspects of the paper, first and foremost, and second you're complaining about a problem and then going "since we can't be perfect we might as well not try."

It's asinine to take any study as a proper representation of what it's trying to measure. The aim is to estimate a range. We can be fairly sure that a nonzero amount of republicans favor not having am election in 2020, and that's what the discuss here was revolving around before you brought your pseudo intellectual "devil's advocate" bullshit in.

No one said that zero Republicans hold that belief. The study said 52% and Corrik said that 20% would seem very high to him. That was the frame of the debate.

You are also misconstruing my posts if you think that I said that we should not even try.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

LapisLazuli posted...

Admitting something is bait would defeat the purpose.

No, it really wouldn't. It would be really interesting, actually, to test how far Democrats will go to take the bait.

Like, suppose DJT offered to resign in 6 months if fewer people criticized him on the internet than Hillary Clinton in that time. Would that get Democrats to stop criticizing him?

I'm thinking it wouldn't, at this point.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

That's kind of sad. My post was not bait at all . Nor is Paul Romer's paper, as far as I can tell.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!

I kinda doubt anyone who responded has read Romer's paper yet. But uh, this is the great thing about the modern left I suppose. They see useful information as "bait" while being totally unable to stop themselves from taking the bait, every time. They judge people more on orthodoxy than the content of their argument. They ignored the people on the ground who said trouble was coming in the Midwest, and....

Yes, #This Is Why You Lost.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
Congratulations to DP Oblivion in the Guru Contest!