VisorCentral.com - Inane ramblings

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VisorCentral.com (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/index.php)
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-- Inane ramblings (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=16736)

Posted by Toby on 01-28-2002 04:02 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn
Well, give me some credit I guess. It's possible to fully understand an argument yet reasonably reject it without being able to articulate it (in this format, at least).

Credit for what? That doesn't make much of any sense.

quote:
Well, I reject some of the ideals the gov't was founded on--we all do...

What ideals do 'we' reject? I think you're confusing the ideals that the government was founded upon with some of the behaviors which the founders practiced within the context of their time.

quote:
it's possible to do that without wanting to tear the whole goddamn thing down...

When you remove the foundation, the building doesn't have much to stand upon.

quote:
...and the **** it was more my inability to articulate a joke than the hiding of one...

The '**** it' wasn't the part I was referring to. The '...although...' was. I don't see what sort of joke could've fit there.

quote:
rah rah sis boom bah.

What the hell. why doesn't somebody just kidnap Marshall Faulk for the next week or so--don't hurt him, just put him up in a cozy little resort town and let the superbowl just pass him by. Might help even the score. I'm sick and tired of the Rams.

Why bother with that? Why not send him out to the same restaurant that Roberto Duran ate at the night before his fight with Sugar Ray?

Posted by septimus on 01-28-2002 05:03 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by volcanopele

Why? We all know the Rams are going to win the Super Bowl. I predict that the score will be 27-17 Rams.

And even if Marshall Faulk couldn't play, the Rams would still win.

Jason

that's the problem-they've been annointed from day one. ah, well.

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Posted by dick-richardson on 01-28-2002 05:07 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Why bother with that? Why not send him out to the same restaurant that Roberto Duran ate at the night before his fight with Sugar Ray?

Due to the glory that is capitalism. Maybe the restaurant, in order to draw more customers and make more money, cleaned the place up. But then again, in Socialist America, probably not. With so many gov't standards, a restaurant is lucky to be able to say it meets the nit-picky bullsh** imposed, let alone the promise of good, clean, disease-free food.

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by septimus on 01-28-2002 05:15 AM:

quote:
Credit for what? That doesn't make much of any sense.

Case In Point. *Sigh* Ok, look at the context: Allow that I "fully understand the argument." More metaphorically, it is not the case that your pearls of wisdom are being cast before swine, it's that I don't particularly like those pearls. It makes perfect sense if you just give me a little credit.

quote:
What ideals do 'we' reject? I think you're confusing the ideals that the government was founded upon with some of the behaviors which the founders practiced within the context of their time.

I think I'm tired of being told I'm confused when I'm not. I was referring to the fact that the founding fathers were not of one unified mind, and therefore you're not going to agree with all of them. Further, even if they were of one mind, I'm willing to bet that if you got into a debate with one of them, you'd find some little detail that bugged you and you'd rip into them.

the real point, of course, is that the constitution is a document of compromise, not--as we've discussed--the holy writ of god. Hence, all or nothing statements to the tune of "When you remove the foundation, the building doesn't have much to stand upon" simply confuse the issue.

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Posted by dick-richardson on 01-28-2002 05:31 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn
Hence, all or nothing statements to the tune of "When you remove the foundation, the building doesn't have much to stand upon" simply confuse the issue.

Not meaning to double up on you, but when the foundatiion of a gov't is based upon that compromise, and the actions of law enforcement are dictated by that compromise, you sure as **** better hope it's all or nothing. The Constitution never claimed to be infallible, but it must be unquestionably black and white.

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by Yorick on 01-28-2002 10:08 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
The Constitution never claimed to be infallible, but it must be unquestionably black and white.

Being it's often open to interpretation by the courts, I don't agree with that statement.

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Posted by Toby on 01-28-2002 02:26 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
Due to the glory that is capitalism. Maybe the restaurant, in order to draw more customers and make more money, cleaned the place up. But then again, in Socialist America, probably not. With so many gov't standards, a restaurant is lucky to be able to say it meets the nit-picky bullsh** imposed, let alone the promise of good, clean, disease-free food.

Actually, Duran's excuse was that the food was _too_ good. He claimed he wasn't used to such a Rich Diet.

Posted by Toby on 01-28-2002 02:48 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn
Case In Point. *Sigh* Ok, look at the context: Allow that I "fully understand the argument." More metaphorically, it is not the case that your pearls of wisdom are being cast before swine, it's that I don't particularly like those pearls. It makes perfect sense if you just give me a little credit.

No, it has nothing to do with pearls of wisdom. It's more along the lines of C. Thomas Howell never really knowing what it was like to be black in Soul Man. Or thinking that you fully understand what some other person's perception of God is.

quote:
I think I'm tired of being told I'm confused when I'm not.

Then maybe you should stop referring to 'we' when you mean 'me'.

quote:
I was referring to the fact that the founding fathers were not of one unified mind, and therefore you're not going to agree with all of them.

Pretty much irrelevant. The ideals which founded the government were not of a particular person. They were the distillation of the individuals' ideas.

quote:
Further, even if they were of one mind, I'm willing to bet that if you got into a debate with one of them, you'd find some little detail that bugged you and you'd rip into them.

Actually, I disagree with Hamilton on quite a lot of things. Ultimately, though, 'his' 'side' 'won'. The framework and foundations were decided upon. Hell, unlike most USians, my ancestors didn't choose to become U.S. citizens as much as their territory was bought from under them, and even I accept that.

quote:
the real point, of course, is that the constitution is a document of compromise, not--as we've discussed--the holy writ of god. Hence, all or nothing statements to the tune of "When you remove the foundation, the building doesn't have much to stand upon" simply confuse the issue.

Horse puckey. If anything, they make the issue crystal clear. This has nothing to do with being holy writ. It's more like a rule book. There's even a process for changing the rules. Hell, even I admit that your position is more possible to have the majority behind it (since it relies on a more base emotion). I still think it flies in the face of the original concepts which created those rules because it subverts the concept that we're supposed to be judged on things we've _done_ and not things we _might_do_ if 'given a chance'.

Posted by Toby on 01-28-2002 02:53 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
Not meaning to double up on you, but when the foundatiion of a gov't is based upon that compromise, and the actions of law enforcement are dictated by that compromise, you sure as **** better hope it's all or nothing. The Constitution never claimed to be infallible, but it must be unquestionably black and white.

Well, um, you're not doubling up, because I dispute that position too.

The Constitution is not what is unquestionable (otherwise there wouldn't be a procedure which was exercised 27 times to amend it, well actually less than that, but...). I'm speaking to a more fundamental level than that, that people are endowed by their very existence with certain rights which the government should not be able to touch.

Posted by septimus on 01-28-2002 03:36 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Actually, Duran's excuse was that the food was _too_ good. He claimed he wasn't used to such a Rich Diet.

HA!

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Posted by septimus on 01-28-2002 03:54 PM:

quote:
No, it has nothing to do with pearls of wisdom. It's more along the lines of C. Thomas Howell never really knowing what it was like to be black in Soul Man. Or thinking that you fully understand what some other person's perception of God is.

While I can't disagree that it's damn-near impossible to access another person's perceptions, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about accessing your arguments. I get them. I disagree with them. I reasonably disagree with them despite my inability to dispute the specific premises on this board (especially since they keep slipping around instead of just being put forth.). All I'm asking you to do is allow that I'm a rational, sane, decent, moral human being who understands your arguments on gun control, has an inkling as to their source, and simply thinks they're wrong.

quote:
I still think it flies in the face of the original concepts which created those rules because it subverts the concept that we're supposed to be judged on things we've _done_ and not things we _might_do_ if 'given a chance'.

Horse Puckey. There is no absolute morality--yet this doesn't mean there isn't morality.

More to the point, even if there were absolute morality, our government must not be beholden to it because whoever came up with it is fallible. Everything, even the holy concepts of the founding fathers, must be open to review, interpretation, and change. The rulebook has this built into it, as you right note, to take care of niggling details--but it also may need to be used for essentail problems.

Besides, the view that we must at all costs stay true to the "original concepts created by those rules" amounts to a religion. We don't have access to those original concepts directly (any more than I have access to your idea of god

), and even if we did, it's an abstract absolute demanding unquestioning faith. Sounds like religion to me. And we all know that the US gov't "shall make no law abridging the establishment of religion"

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Posted by Toby on 01-28-2002 04:32 PM:

Blech...this is all pointless. Dietrich, you want me to treat you as a sane, rational, moral, etc. person, and yet you try to paint me as a religious zealot? Regardless of your wanting to paint it as a religion to take on faith, it's not. We have the documents which were used as arguments both pro and con for the new government. We also have debate transcripts. Do I have unquestioning faith that these are accurate? Nope. Publius might have been made up by some newspaper editor in New York, but I've seen no reason to doubt them as of of yet. We're not talking about unquestioning faith in a person walking on water after all. We're talking about believing that a bunch of people decided they didn't like monarchies telling them what to do, so they formed a government where all the power is vested in the people and merely delegated to the government. If you want to classify that as a religion, go right ahead. I know the guys that founded this place weren't perfect as humans and hence certainly not deities, but to deny that there were certain fundamental concepts that are inseperable from the government they formed is ridiculous.

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn
[...] And we all know that the US gov't "shall make no law abridging the establishment of religion"

I do hope that's an intentional misquote.

edit: removed stuff that wasted my time

Posted by septimus on 01-28-2002 04:57 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Blech...this is all pointless. Dietrich, you want me to treat you as a sane, rational, moral, etc. person, and yet you try to paint me as a religious zealot?

Ach, I should have put more smilies in, that was a joke... looking again it does look blech--it was meant to be overstatement..

quote:
to deny that there were certain fundamental concepts that are inseperable from the government they formed is ridiculous. [/B]

I guess that the only fundamental concept I think is inseperable is the concept that there is no perfect gov't and all gov't occasionally needs to be revised. Hence checks and balances and the amendment system...

...*sigh*... you know, I still think that if were to both take a magic poll that gauges political thought, free of biases and language errors, we'd probably be pretty close to each other...

...now what we should do is find something that we agree on that everybody else disagrees with, then we would be a force unstoppable....

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Posted by septimus on 01-28-2002 04:58 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
I do hope that's an intentional misquote.

heh... got me

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Posted by Toby on 01-28-2002 05:52 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn
I guess that the only fundamental concept I think is inseperable is the concept that there is no perfect gov't and all gov't occasionally needs to be revised. Hence checks and balances and the amendment system...

We definitely disagree then.

quote:
...*sigh*... you know, I still think that if were to both take a magic poll that gauges political thought, free of biases and language errors, we'd probably be pretty close to each other...

I'm not so sure. FWIW, though, I think that trying to 'we' humans is just as flawed as always 'us and them'ing humans. Much like those SETI blokes always assuming aliens will be friendly benevolent beings if we find them. Maybe they're Klingon-types who don't want to be found and will destory us if/when we do.

quote:
...now what we should do is find something that we agree on that everybody else disagrees with, then we would be a force unstoppable....

*shrug* I would say that tech support across the electronics industry sucks, but I think I'd be hard pressed to find anything other than small pockets of disagreement.

Posted by GSR13 on 01-28-2002 06:17 PM:

We could always discuss which way Toilet Paper is supposed to go on the roller!

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Posted by septimus on 01-28-2002 06:58 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by GSR13
We could always discuss which way Toilet Paper is supposed to go on the roller!

It goes over the top, unless you have a cat that is obsessed with it, in which case under is acceptable.

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Posted by Toby on 01-28-2002 07:05 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn
It goes over the top, unless you have a cat that is obsessed with it, in which case under is acceptable.

Over the top regardless. If even my wife's mentally deficient cat can figure it out, under doesn't help.

Posted by dick-richardson on 01-28-2002 09:07 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Well, um, you're not doubling up, because I dispute that position too. The Constitution is not what is unquestionable (otherwise there wouldn't be a procedure which was exercised 27 times to amend it, well actually less than that, but...). I'm speaking to a more fundamental level than that, that people are endowed by their very existence with certain rights which the government should not be able to touch.

I did not say or imply that the constitution was unquestionable. Hence my comment regarding infallibility. I said the constitution needed to be black and white, or at least interpreted as such, if it is going to be useful as the basis for gov't. Either we have the right to bear arms or we don't. Regarding Yorick's comment, judicial interpretation is merely the process by which the constitution's intentions are set out in black and white in a case by case manner.

added: We could get into the basis for that judicial interpretation, should someone be interested. I say the basis should be the founding father's ideals, for what reason to follow their constitution would remain should the courts decide their philosophies outdated?

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by dick-richardson on 01-28-2002 09:14 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Over the top regardless. If even my wife's mentally deficient cat can figure it out, under doesn't help.

I cannot, in good conscience, take your zealot position seriously. Blindly following a maxim without consideration for the context is socially destructive. Therefore, the free end must go behind the roll regardless.

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

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