TakeYouToTasker

I retract this then. Just know you're behind the 8 ball.

I vote for FireChan, if only because Boyst posted his response in the wrong !@#$ing thread.

Hence the reason for my strategy. I wanted to pull out who he was as a poster to get a feel for him, and then "PPP" him for the remainder. To his great credit richstadiumowner seems to be a genuinely funny guy.

I was really hoping to get to go all four quarters. For my money the best strategy in round 1 is to make a strong, clear, and coherent argument in the first round; and then slap my opponent around like a cat toy in round 2-4

Now back to this. Magox, you are conflating morality with opinion. Not all opinions hold equal weight on a moral scale, and many of the opinions you seem to be validating are immoral. Seeking either to steal an individuals money, or subvert him into slavery by asserting that he doesn't own the fruits of his own labor cannot have their objective immorality washed away via utilitarianism. One man's assertion that slavery is preferable, or even acceptable, does not inherently validates that man's views. Even if the majority of men hold that same view, this is still the case. The natural state of man is freedom, and to these ends, freedom leads to increased expression of creativity and original thought which has pulled the world from the darkness, and led to a drastically increased quality of life. The freest nations in the world have the highest rates of happiness and the highest quality of life on the planet. Your position is one that seems to believe that freedom is unimportant, as it seeks to eliminate the freedom of association, property rights, the right to individual self-determination, and the general rights of man. This is not pragmatic, this is destructive behavior.

You shouldn't, unless you're comfortable doing so out of context.

Half the post was sources, which can be ignored unless someone feels like fact checking.

This is America, so yes, people are still free to be wrong and hold bad opinions.

New thread posted.

FIRST QUARTER --------------------------------------------- TL:DR version: Yes, yes it is you stupid mother!@#$er. --------------------------------------------- As individuals, we are only capable of seeing the world through our own eyes, regardless of how objective we are trying to be. As such, all individuals have their own biases. The media, comprised of individuals, will be no different, and their world view will be broadcast, intentionally or not, through their reporting, either by directly editorializing in place of informing as the most egregious example of bias, or by presentation or omission. This bias presents itself from all sides of the political spectrum, and from a nearly limitless individual advocacy positions and interest groups. Outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, HuffPo, Vox, Mother Jones, DailyKoS, Slate, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic skew strongly to the left in their reporting; while outlets like The Economist, The Hill, FoxNews, RedState and The Blaze skew strongly towards conservative views. Still other outlets such as Brietbart, Info Wars, David Wolfe, and Occupy Democrats sell their services to the confirmation biases on the fringes. Even "centrist outlets" like Reuters and the AP routinely title lead, inconsistently report, or omit. In truth, most media bias manifests itself in this way, with essential facts being omitted in order to support a pre-conceived narrative beneficial towards a preferred outcome, policy, or candidate. The authors of results of a comprehensive study of media behavior conducted by UCLA, Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo , conclude: "For every sin of commission … we believe that there are hundreds, and maybe thousands, of sins of omission – cases where a journalist chose facts or stories that only one side of the political spectrum is likely to mention.” As far as determining what general direction this inherent bias leans towards, one need look not much further than the statistics: - A 2008 Investors Business Daily (pay wall) study put the campaign donation ratio at 11.5-to-1, in favor of Democrats. In terms of total dollars given, the ratio was 15-to-1. - In a 2001 Kaiser Family Foundation poll (pg. 27), media professionals were nearly 7 times likelier to call themselves Democrats rather than Republicans. And more recently, A 2014 study by Indiana University's School of Journalism found that just 7.1% of all journalists identified themselves as Republicans, vs, 28.1% who self-identified as Democrats and 50.2% who said they were Independents. In summary, all media, as are all individuals are biased.

I choose to argue the pro: Mainstream media bias exists.

"Does mainstream media bias exist?" is not a pro-or-con question. You need to phrase it as "Mainstream media bias exists." or "Mainstream media bias does not exist.", and then ask me to argue for or against the assumption.

If he follows through on his promises, and otherwise performs competently in the role, he will begin to pick up many "never Trump" conservatives and libertarians.

This is exactly the response one usually gets when their opponent realizes his argument is poor, and he has neither the capacity to improve his argument, nor the intellectual honesty to admit that he's been wrong.

Shifting the goal posts. Do you make any arguments that aren't built on the back of fallacy?

Again, you're engaging in special pleading. Either murder is wrong, or it isn't. Either slavery is wrong, or it isn't. Either theft is wrong or it isn't. Your argument is that any of those things can be moral if they are politically expedient is bankrupt. Stealing from you, or making a slave of you isn't magically moral if it helps achieve what some individuals decide to be a desirable outcome. Process matters. The desire to help the poor is a moral positive, but that desire does not magically invalidate the immorality of engaging in theft or slavery in working towards that goal. Under your argument, Southern chattel slavery was a moral positive, as it achieved a desirable outcome for the majority of individuals in the South. Under your argument, the 3/5th compromise, rather than being a black stain on our nation's history, was desirable as pragmatic. It also makes way for the positive morality of jingoistic white nationalism. You can't have it both ways.

They were rented properties.

Two separate residences on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, his Chicago residence, and a property in Hawaii.

This sort of extra-judicial over-reach is absolutely terrifying.

It's main stream libertarian philosophy. It's not my fault that you used language easily framed as dismissive through source. It is common, I'm sure you know, for individuals who have trouble confronting logical inconsistencies in their own arguments, to attempt to diminish the libertarian argument of their opponent in this way. A few key planks of Rand's philosophy that I reject are her selfishness principle in regards to charitable giving and love; and her rejection of faith. Rand despised libertarians.

There is no such thing as "Randian logic", there is only logic. If you think I'm an objectivist, you don't know much about objectivism, and if you think I'm quoting Rand, you've never read Rand. Fantastic attempt at poisoning the well though. I've observed that when you don't have a strong material argument against something you usually resort to strawmanning, which you've done here, but it's nice to see you expanding on your base of fallacies.

Brilliant

Are you lacking the intellectual integrity to answer the very straight forward question posed to you?

That's not what was done for President Obama. Why should President Trump not be extended the same protections that his predecessor was, and still is, even though he is no longer in office?

Every recent President with a private residence has had that residence not only protected at tax payer expense, but modified such that it has the capacity for all Presidential duties to be administered from. So again, your position is that we shouldn't protect this President the same as we have protected prior Presidents?