BSWPaulsen
Member

Indeed.

Well, she certainly knows how to talk the talk. She already had my attention after she avoided shutting down her state. She has potential, and that is more than I can say for the vast majority of Republicans at this time.

It is notable that people are discussing the appropriateness of children taking hormones to alter their natural endocrinological state, but attempts by males to use anabolic steroids, something potentially useful to them for either improving athletic performance or maximizing quality of life, can get them thrown in prison. Clown world.

Given China recently anally swabbed US diplomats for COVID, it seems leftists just like having things inserted in their ass.

Thank you for pursuing this argument. I was not going to bother, but it did need doing.

I am aware of the argument. However, I believe it operates upon a grievous misunderstanding of humanity, hierarchies, and power if it is purported to simply be a self-correcting mechanism that solves all ills. Generally, a free market can be a boon to humanity, but even it is only as good as the people participating. A free market supported by a healthy culture will create a "shining city on a hill". A free market supported by a counterproductive culture will create misery. The concentration of power can and will occur regardless of the existence of a government due to the species always having members actively trying to concentrate it in their hands. That same concentration of power inevitably creates the capacity to force others to do as you wish both directly and indirectly, and the only variation at that point is in the presence of an axis between noblesse oblige and noblesse malice. Antitrust laws are a reaction to this phenomenon, and I do not share the belief that, absent a government, overcentralizing of resources in the hands of a few will not occur. At best, people opposed to the government can make the argument that it might happen less, but this does not make a convincing argument on account of a lack of data (stateless societies always being overrun by societies with states ruins any chance to test this on any large scale). Returning to my earlier statement, it is a fundamentally human problem that government will or will not exacerbate depending on the situation. I am of the position that corporations should not exist at all, being an embodiment of the "banality of evil" in a similar vein to governments, but that is born more of a distrust of anything being overcentralized. The more stratified a given hierarchy of humanity grows, the worse those at the bottom are treated. It may be somewhat parochial of me to prefer small businesses for this reason (due to many experiences working for small companies versus large, hiring people to do jobs directly versus when I hire someone to do something and they use someone else and so on), but I also extend this understanding to government as it is another form of hierarchy.

Antitrust laws are one of those things attempting to address a problem endemic to the hierarchical nature of the species. Basically, any system in existence will have some individuals gain a disproportionate amount of power they can use in unethical ways to bend society to their will if that is their desire. Ideally, those individuals that become powerful are animated by noblesse oblige and everyone benefits. More practically, power tends to corrupt those who come to possess it. Simply put, there is no good answer to what is simply a fundamentally human problem. For that reason, I am decidedly neutral on the subject as a concept. However, given current circumstances, I would love for some trust busting to be done. Obviously that will not happen given how useful massive corporations are to the government and vice versa.

I am glad that basic logic has served its purpose. Your definition of reasonable should be launched into the sun.

If it did not blanket the country, then it was not a Trump lockdown. All Trump lockdowns would blanket the entire country.

There is definitely a target on the back of anyone that does not blithely agree with whatever the left's current narrative is. Watching people attempt to equivocate Trump supporters/voters with leftists is beyond tedious. There is being ignorant and there is being willfully stupid, but at a certain point the distinction fails to matter.

There was no Trump lockdown. If there was a Trump lockdown, then it would have blanketed the entire country. What the administration did do, was provide some political cover and funding for the states that chose lockdowns. What the administration did not do is lock down any of the states.

South Dakota did not have a "Trump lockdown". Your entire premise remains demonstrably false. Every state had a lockdown (or lack thereof) unique to the priorities of their governor.

Pay attention to the bolded word in your quote. The issue never had anything to do with compliance or defiance, because Trump had no authority over the lockdowns. Every single one of the 50 states had full discretion to do as they pleased without fear of penalty. Absent a penalty, any notion of compliance or defiance is without merit.

Aye.

South Dakota makes it a lie.

I grasp the political side of explaining such a decision to constituents, but that does not necessarily stop elected officials from doing them. For that, CaptUSA has captured my interest. That aside, I do not believe Rand's speech changed anything within the GOP Senate. I do share your belief that some that voted it was constitutional will not vote to convict because it aids their future political ambitions. I say solely because the decision is theirs to make. I fully believe at least one Democrat governor would have locked down in the event that Trump never advised them to. However, we will never know as that situation will not be tested. There is no doubt Trump's general lack of governing principles helped to facilitate his poor handling of the event.

I know.

I did not ask you to apologize for your failure.

Trump was abysmal in his handling of SARS-Coronavirus-2. He does not get a pass from me for anything involving what you mentioned. As far as I am concerned, he would have been better served doing nothing about it. Ideally, he would have been more proactive in choosing better experts to guide policy. It does not change the fact that any blame or praise for the lockdowns solely belongs to the governors.

Indeed.

My initial reaction was that it should not be possible... Then it set in. If a person does not believe in nullification as a principle, then nothing stops them from voting for conviction despite acknowledgement that the event itself was unconstitutional. You have also made me curious in the outcome.

If you think the purpose of asking you for sources backing your assertion was for the purpose of some kind of conversation with you, then you are mistaken. No, it does not do that at all. Everything you wrote after this sentence has approximately nothing to do with his study and is just an assemblage of your finest guesswork. Underwhelming. Regardless, if you do come up with something demonstrating adherents to each ideology share an equivalency in understanding with each other, then feel free to post it.

I know this feeling well.

An absolute lie. They were absolutely possible without his guidance on the matter. The lockdowns or lack thereof are the sole domain of the governors involved.

You made a claim, and I asked you for sources defending your claim. You failed. That is not my problem. Feel free to trust your own observations. If your experience is an equivalency in understanding between the two ideologies, then I genuinely pity you for the company you keep.

I am quite aware of a study performed by Haidt that did not support your assertion. Is there another study performed by him that supported your assertion that the two competing ideologies had equivalent understanding of each other?

Defying or complying with him was not possible as the outcome had nothing to do with him either way, and viewing it that way demonstrates a grievously poor understanding of the issue. Trump could advise, but the action had nothing to do with him. Governors are solely responsible for the lockdowns or lack thereof.

Yes, it is. Discourse with him is for the audience and nothing else.

Modern is more relevant, but feel free to use any date you like for the studies supporting your assertion.

Do you have any studies affirming this assertion? There have been studies on exactly this subject, for what it is worth.