TakeYouToTasker

I'm not sure, though it appears many of you have abandoned trying to make correct arguments because you don't want to be "right".

Because fascism is a left leaning philosophy for starters.

Individual thought involves a direct respect for the individual, and their rights. Grant is a leftist who doesn't believe in the value of either of those things. Grant believes people should think, and do as they are told by the authority which governs their lives, and which just so happens to agree with him ideologically.

Yes, because he describes himself as being a member of a group fairly uniformly devout in their intellectual dishonesty.

He's not a liberal. He's a self-described leftist.

Today I learned that to be a man means to not be able to control your temper, and to burst out at inanimate objects in fits of rage.

Looks like I struck a nerve. This is the face of neo-Marxism. Grant lies, makes ugly baseless charges, engages in ad hom attacks in an effort not to have to be forthcoming about his actual agenda. Look at the lengths he's going to not to have to talk about the set of ideas he subscribes to, of which gun control is an inextricable part. He has, in fact, refused to engage about the arch of his ideology because he knows it is unpalatable, unpopular, and the antithesis of traditional American values, and is instead attempting to make an appeal to emotion in a vacuum, separate from ideological and philosophical underpinnings, despite the obvious reality that nothing exists in a vacuum. An honest participant, with no underlying agenda, would have no problem discussing these things as they would have the potential to strengthen their argument. Grant does not, because discussing these things is irreparably damaging to his argument. Watch now, as he again refuses to answer the questions posed, and becomes more belligerent and antagonistic in place of intellectual honesty.

See? The spiders don't like the sunlight. Let's talk about the underpinnings of your ideology, Grant. Or are you going to continue to engage in your brand of devout intellectual cowardice?

I disagree. He's pragmatic in pursuit of his value system. As a singular issue, in a vacuum, against the emotional backdrop of a school shooting, Grant's argument in favor of abolishing Second Amendment protections is appealing to people who are reflexively feeling rather than thinking. It's the reason he won't engage when posed direct questions about the underlying philosophy directly related to his stance, and the reason he is completely dismissive of arguments in favor of rights based philosophies. Because he doesn't want people to think. He wants them to make an emotional purchase decision, without giving people the opportunity to examine the totality of the ideas he is selling, which are logically inextricable from each other. People act irrational in the wake of tragedy, and can be sold on gun control. If he attempted to sell the encompassing ideology instead... well... Antifa doesn't poll particularly well.

If I don't post a picture, are you going to hit me in the head with a bike lock after you're done vandalizing Berkley? Or, Grant, if you don't like people using your exact style of argument against you, you could instead take a shot at intellectual honesty, engage people who are attempting to argue with you in good faith, answer questions posed to you, and have the totality of your ideas vetted through the rigors of debate. But you won't, because I'm right. I see who you are, Grant.

I'm not arguing with Grant. I'm dismantling his argument and exposing the underlying value system it's pinned to for the benefit of the board in general. Grant is a neo-Marxist. He is aligned ideologically with people like this: It's the reason he won't engage on the underpinning of his belief system, and is focusing exclusively on gun control.

Sounds like a domestic.

They take a more active personal role on campus.

It's funny how I've been accused of plagiarizing Wayne LaPierre, for making the standard counter argument against neo-Marxists espousing gun control, with the purpose of discrediting my argument because LaPierre made the same argument, as if the fact that the NRA making the same case was some sort of poison pill. The truth is that any support folks like me have for the NRA is because they take have taken a stance on this particular issue which mirrors my own. Like Levi, I'm a GOA man, as I don't thin the NRA typically does enough as an organization, and capitulates far too often to gun grabbers. If it weren't for Grant, I honestly would not have known how much the NRA deserved my support here.

Oh, I'm pretty sure he understood it quite well, Tom. It's the reason he won't answer questions related to his position. He's a neo-Marxist. He's advocating for undoing 250 years of US history and encoding a new value system into law. He's using this tragedy to market his value system, but he's treading very lightly in doing so because he doesn't want people to understand exactly what he's marketing. He is, instead, bludgeoning the argument with an emotional appeal to a single narrow issue, while being intentionally dismissive of all others that are necessarily related. It's why he won't answer the question related to priori, and why he has engaged in unprovoked ad homs and other various fallacious appeals in order to avoid engaging on those points. You'll note that in his most recent response to me he make a point to take the time to call me "sneaky and dishonest", which is a bald faced lie, as he knows I've been direct and engaging; as opposed to engaging the argument itself.

The argument that restrictions on the right to bear arm are the same as prohibitions against child porn have already been dissected in this thread. To rehash: We can understand their intentions surrounding each amendment and other Constitutional provision by revisiting the supporting documents directly related to the Constitution, the various State Constitutions, and the circumstances under which the Constitution was penned. The Constitution was necessitated because the men writing had just been required, due to the infringement of their rights by their government, to overthrow that government and institute a new one. In response to this necessity, and to the British Crown exacting a form of gun control on the colonists, they specifically enumerated an absolute protection by this new government of their right to possess arms sufficient to this task. This guarantee was built on the acknowledgement that this was a fundamental natural right of free people. It is also easy to see the intent of the Founders in regards to the protection of speech. As the Second Amendment was written in response to British gun control in order to make it harder for the colonists to resist their oppressors, the First Amendment was written in response to the Crown's restrictions on political speech. The Founders, if not Puritans themselves (many of the most prominent were not) came from Puritanical times, and lived in a society of Puritanical mores and culture. The Founders would not have considered inanimate objects with no political value depicting sexualized children to be speech. As such, the Federal government, with no role prescribed to it in regards to pornography, would have left the issue to the individual states, where the overwhelming majority of the law US citizens were expect to follow was intended to be implemented. And, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, I expect that by 2018 the several states all would have made child porn illegal at the insistence of their individual citizenry. The argument that the protections offered by the Second Amendment are invalid because we have no way of knowing if the Founders wanted people to have pictures of adults !@#$ing children is, itself, invalid.

Grant: You've stated, many times in this thread, that this thread is about your argument. That there is no other argument. That all other arguments have been thoroughly deconstructed. I'm willing to believe you. I'm simply asking that you demonstrate your claims. If they stand up to intellectual rigor, you'll have won the day, and have recruited many individuals who enjoy argument as sport to take up your argument as their own. This is your chance to make a difference in the world for your cause. In order that you demonstrate your claim, I am asking you a simple and direct question which requires answering: What priori are you appealing to when you declare slavery to be wrong? Or, if you'd prefer it, and want to stay narrowly focused on guns: I believe that both you and I agree that the murder of the students at Stoneman Douglas was wrong. What priori are you appealing to when you judge it's wrongness?

Grant: That's a cop out. There is no one here whose opinion matters to me who thinks I've been deceptive, or evasive, or have plagiarized anyone. Those intellectually honest posters, whom I have argued against before, have all seen me make that exact same argument on this board before. All you're doing is attempting to antagonize and discredit while awarding yourself victory, while saving yourself the trouble of having your ideas vetted for merit through argument and the process of logic. At this point you're refusing to answer a very direct question related directly to your argument, and you're denying even it's asking because you're terrified your ideas don't stand up to that process. Your style isn't impressive thus far. If an argument is worth making, then it's worth testing it's integrity. That you won't allow yours to be tested says everything I need to know about it. Or, you could simply answer the question.

The logic goes: I can break the law with impunity, and act like a self righteous jackass about it, if a police officer is overweight or not as in shape as they should be.

Grant: answer the question please. Assuming you believe slavery is wrong, to what priori are you appealing? And you're right, Grant. One does not need to believe that humans have natural rights, nor are they obligated to believe that the only just forms of government are those whose central and primary duty are to protect those rights. Might makes right philosophies have dominated humanity for the overwhelming majority of our existence. You're free to argue that the world was a better place before the concept of natural rights was conceived. Now, please answer my question.

I've never met anyone quite so oblivious to the world around them as you are. Governments around the world commit all manner of atrocity against their people. Americans are no better or different. The things that happen elsewhere can happen here. They haven't largely because our government is constrained by our Constitution, and because of the specific rights enumerated within, which it is chartered to protect. Logic and ethics protect nothing. Just law, and the willingness to use force to protect it, are what stands between man and chaos. Grant: I'm going to pose to you a question: I assume you believe slavery is wrong as a moral absolute? This is not a trick question. Assume I mean Southern chattel slavery. What priori are you appealing to when you declare slavery to be wrong?

Thank you. Incorrect. What I am advocating is that the concept of inalienable rights, which are the only thing standing between man and despotism, are more important than any individual life.

But you repeat yourself...

When do we simply stop indulging these morons.