Maybe the problem is that "the left" isn't monolithic and you're talking to different members.

Or do you have evidence that the people posting here were out screaming "fascist!" earlier?

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Man up.

We ban for two reasons: trolling and personal attacks. Judging by your posting style, you're right: it might not be long before you're banned. You appear to be unable to debate without namecalling, not to mention the classic "acting as if you possess nearly omniscient knowledge of other posters' personal traits."

Consider this a warning. Our rules aren't hard to live by; if you want to stick around, heed them. If you're only here to heap abuse on people, don't unpack your bags.

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Man up.

Well, Ok I guess we can settle on that definition...

Can you site a specific case where someone has stood up against an unwarranted search? I can't imagine anyone being for executing searches where there was no valid reason to be searching. I suppose next you'll be telling me how you're for clean air and water and for the protection of babies against brutality... (unless they're still in their mother’s womb, then of course you're all for slicing them to bits and pouring their silent remains down the drain as quickly and as quietly as possible...) I don't see anything here which advocates for the ights of the individual. No one wants the government to be spying on them absent valid justification. By the same token, where someone has presented good reason to believe that they are proponents of mass murder, presently engaged or affiliated with those engaged in war with this nation; determined to murder, on mass, as many Americans as is within their means, then I believe it is the duty of our elected representatives to spy on those individuals, where they are in this nation or abroad and to do so with or without the approval of the judiciary, where it is reasonable for them to believe that to do otherwise would jeopardize innocent, individual life.

I see this position to be one wherein you are advocating for the usurpation of the individual's rights, by those intent on taking their life, absent valid moral justification; this on grounds which are often found under other specious leftwing collectivist advocacies, which inevitably lead towards undermining the individual right to life...

What or whose individual rights are you supporting over the collective by standing against Capital Punishment? Was there not a trial? Was the conviction not established upon a fair and impartial hearing of evidence by a jury of their peers? Were they not given an open and fair trial; were they not given opportunities to appeal their conviction, time and again; did they not strip another of their life, in a cold blooded attack on their person, stripping an innocent human being, an INDIVIDUAL of 100% their INDIVIDUAL HUMAN RIGHTS? Does the innocent that lost their rights, their LIFE mean anything to you? Do you not care about the next person this individual will strip of their life? Does it not concern you that money you spend to maintain their existence in incarceration could be used to better purpose than to maintain the life of a person who forfeited their own life, their own rights, when they stripped an INNOCENT INDIVIDUAL human being of their life, without valid justification; such as to repave an section of interstate, paint a bridge or perhaps buy a truck load of toilet cakes for federal public Men's Rooms, or maybe... and I know this is NUTS... but perhaps it could be used to cut the financial burden of state upon the INDIVIDUAL, through a cut in their individual income taxes?

I see you're argument here as more of the secular collective notion which advocates that one should be able to intentionally take the life of another without valid justification, without risk of forfeiting ones own life. It seems very similar to a notion which advocates that there is actually no right to one’s life, thus no responsibility to defend that right in ones neighbors... thus there can be no responsibility of the culture to strip the convicted capital murderer of their life, so as to prevent them from further infecting the culture with their stinkin' 'woe is me, momma didn't change my dirty diapers enough, I can do anything I want and I don't care who it hurts' thinkin'...

Here's a clue my little secular collectivist friend: one which has stripped another of their life, in the absence of valid moral justification has forfeited their rights in the process of taking the life of the other... It was his or her responsibility to not exercise their rights at the expense of another’s right; they ignored that responsibility. What you're doing here is promoting a defense of the collective; freeing the masses from their responsibility NOT to take another’s life without valid moral justification. You’re undermining the right to life, you’re thus infringing, by this very advocacy, my right to my life, by promoting the idea that those who intentionally take my life are entitled to their own, regardless… You see, you may not care how it effects your rights, but you have not right to undermine mine, or those of my family. This is an advocacy for the collective, directly in contest of individual rights…

What separation of church and state? What are you talking about? Be specific.

It seems to me that you're confusing an advocacy for individual rights over the collective with the common invalid atheist farce, wherein they take a specific constitutional limitation on government power to pass law which prohibits the free exercise of religion, with the slurry of irrational secular collectivist laws that expressly forbid the exercise of religion.

Is it your intention to promote a position commonly advanced to promote secular collectivism, which serve ONLY the collective, purely at the expense of the rights of the individual, as a stand for individual rights? If so, do you realize this strips you of any intellectual credibility?

I will not pass judgment at this point and will consider the issue a misunderstanding on your part where you thought I challenged you to advocate for the collective over the rights of the individual…

Wow. That was amazingly irrelevant.

I see you like to mix things up when it comes to debating. Like to keep 'em guessing. First it was irrelevant rambling, then completely ignoring the question. I can't wait to see what's next...



TADA!!!

A nice big thick slice of presumption added to more irrelevance and avoidance!

You're a natural born showman.


Aww, you had to spoil the fun. Still, I suppose unpredictability is part of your act. That's why I've become such a fan.



Since you still haven't even defined what you mean when you talk about 'liberalism', I'm not holding out much hope, but would you care to explain what you mean by 'leftist'? Are you referring to economics? Social policies? Ideological philosophy?

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It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

Are you serious? You go on the longest and most perplexing spin-a-thon I have ever seen... and I have seen many. Hell, I spin as a matter of mental exercise sometimes just to prove I can... I thought I'd seen the masters of spin... and then you came...

And you followed it up with...

Oh, for the love of all that is holy and most of which is not... please tell me you are an ironist.
Because anyone who can come up with this bizarre an interpretation of liberal ideas must be capable of understanding that... it's only your bizarre rationalization of other people's beliefs to help justify your own worldview.

I intended to avoid responding to you after tiring of your smugness and insulting manner... but I just couldn't believe my eyes reading this last post.
Ok. Now that that's out of the way, feel free to place your smug insulting response.
I'm actually hoping you actually use the phrase "liberal elitist" for maximimum ironic appeal... but somehow I'm convinced it will be something far longer winded.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

The fault here lies with me it seems. My use of the word 'unwarranted' is (unintentionally) ambiguous. I did not mean 'unwarranted' in the sense of being undeserved (that is far too subjective), I meant 'warrant-less', as in lacking an official warrant.

Separated by a common language and all that...

Setting aside all arguments for and against capital punishment (which was not meant to be under discussion) as well as the fact that I did not support or oppose the issue (though since you assume that I am a 'liberal', again something unsupported by anything I have written in this thread, you should also assume that I support capital punishment as I offered such support as an example of collectivist thinking, and you claim 'liberals' to be collectivist), capital punishment is collectivist in that it subverts the individual. The collective have ruled that the individual should be punished, and nothing the individual can do can stop that.

Again, I made no such argument. I merely stated that capital punishment is collectivist. It is the collective punishment of an individual for breaking the rules of the collective.

Which gives the power to remove rights to the collective, thereby making the collective supreme and negating the idea of inalienable rights (at least to life).

Responsibility to the collective. You are just going round in circles now.

Your logic makes no sense. If a person is not responsible for the well-being of anyone but themselves, how can that possibly be collectivist? It is pure individualism.

The general prevention of organised religion from gaining any official and/or significant power in the workings of the state, and the imposition of an 'official' religion and/or the limiting of the free exercise of religion.

Then you are mistaken. I made no comments on the specifics of the idea, or on the implementation of it.

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It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

Don't you get it? It's a post-modernist, ironic satire. Jeez, you Yanks have no sense of subtlety.

We are the foil for this brilliant work of comedy. Play along as if you are serious, but do it with a smug, knowing grin and wink to one another. It's what all us Europeans are doing thesedays.


- see?

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It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

sigh. did he say anything worth reading?

Where did I advance such a charge? Now you'll please be so kind as to either support this or retract it.

As to your assertion below, show where I've called anyone on this site a derogatory name and I'll donate $25 to this site. Fail to do so and I'll expect AT LEAST as much from YOU and at least a public an apology as that you used to advance the baseless charge.

The left is fairly monolithic. I reject in total this absurdity wherein you declare in effect, 'there is no left, so stop calling us leftists.'

If you feel you've been unfairly accused of something, site the accusation and I'll either support it or retract it. If you feel tender about a position I've advanced, wherein you feel I unfairly misrepresented the 'left' then post your grievance. But you can't come and threaten me with banishment for unspecified violations, citing your baseless inference that I "act as if [i] possess nearly omniscient knowledge of other posters personal traits," particularly given that I've absolutely nothing of the kind.

Any position of mine wherein I’ve noted given traits, I did so based upon the member’s own writing; no position of mine has been founded upon any innate sense beyond that of vision, which I used to read the words of the various members in question.

What you're trying to do is to redefine what being on the ideological left is, while maintaining what are in fact immutably left-think positions.

But I do think it's adorable how you run to advance highly subjective charges of rules violations and threats to ban me, for an inference on your part which is incontestably indicative of your political opposition to my stated position, in a post which implicitly rejects my stated experience wherein fascist site operators were, as a matter of routine, violently suppressing their political opposition through asserting vague but subjective rules violations, all because they were unable to advance a valid prevailing contest.

ROFL... Ya can't make this stuff up kids...

First: Yes, I'm serious...

Secondly: Yes, I just adore irony... for instance, this series of responses wherein you people avoid the argument in total... and do so through the lens of the erudite academics, smugly implying that you’ve certain knowledge which wholly contradicts my positions, while completely avoiding any argument where such knowledge might be exhibited... ROFL OH GOD! That's a smokin' hot irony right there... Ya can't make that up; so when ya go so far out of your way to fashion 'em, I just LOVE ya for it!

Oh and that little ditty where you condemn the length of the piece... BEAUTIFUL! I'll match it up some day, if you ever catch me in passing through a stoic phase, wherein you lament my ‘lack of depth...’

By the way, should you decide to wade in and actually offer an argument which shows the respondent's positions to actually be advocating individual rights, well, I want you to know I'll be here for ya... Unless the hammer falls before then and I'm dispatched to the ideological ether, cut loose to condemn the next den of the crimson menace that I run across.