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Am I A Egotistical Piece Of Crap?

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1 minute ago, dmslr said:

You're so bigoted, no better than trump cultists.

...Who are you talking to though?

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Just now, dmslr said:

The hateful person above my post.

Ah ok thanks.

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4 minutes ago, dmslr said:

You're so bigoted, no better than trump cultists. 

I get that you hate me, I saw your replies in other threads, but you need to do better than this. What part of my post(s) are you disagreeing with?

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34 minutes ago, dew said:

Republicans protecting free speech? They only care about the freedom to say the N word on Twitter - but they actively work to limit the most important freedom of expression: voting. American republicans are notoriously pushing all forms of active voter supression, particularly of the minority vote.

 

34 minutes ago, dew said:

They champion despicable lunatic shit like banning abortions, allowing gay conversion therapy and reversing state-religion secularization.

Be honest with yourself. This is bullshit. It's not happening at the legislative level. Calling the current republican party far-right is on a level with the statement that democratic party is communistic.

 

Edit: Not to mention you often get personal and start using insults towards the users.

Edited by dmslr

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1 minute ago, dmslr said:

Be honest with yourself. This is bullshit. It's not happening at the legislative level. Calling the current republican party far-right is on a level with the statement that democratic party is communistic.

I'm sorry, is this a parody?

 

You're calling me out on the republicans suppressing votes during their insane putch attempt in which they're literally asking judges in Pennsylvania, Nevada or Michigan to ignore the entire election and hand electors via court order or state legislation to Trump because "voter fraud". There are thousands upon thousands articles on Republican governors in Georgia or Texas using sneaky tactics like reducing voting stations in majority-black and/or metropolitan areas so people need to travel farther to reach them. They're suing to throw out tens of thousands of votes in Texas, because Houston allowed "drive through" voting from your car to limit the spread of covid, and that is somehow bad. They fight tooth-and-nail against every single day of extension for mail-in ballot reception in every state that allows them. They pass laws to require burdening identification when voting, in a country that famously rejects id cards and refuses to register gun owners for reverse reasons, very disproportionately disadvantaging minorities in the former case and advantaging whites in the latter case.

 

And are you seriously trying to claim that republicans aren't fighting against abortion? They're currently ramping up a massive push to repeal Roe v. Wade now that they secured a conservative 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. They can't ban abortion in... Oregon, but the next day Roe is repealed, Oklahoma is making sure not one fetus gets aborted. The appelate court for the 11th district controlled by Trump apointed judges JUST decided that banning gay conversion therapies is against the 1st amendment, because de-gaying your child is your religious expression (!!!!!!!!!). And Gorsuch, Kavanough and Barett were specifically picked for the SCOTUS because they champion desecularization, introduction of religion in education, projecting religious views into their opinions on minority rights, etc. That one is so obvious I won't even bother with links.

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@dew I appreciate your effort on gathering info even though if it's from the biased sources. I'll check them all.

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Reminder that the Republican party is nearly as far-right as actual fascist parties in Europe, while the Democratic party is center-left. 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

Why Poland is a shithole though? Explain. 

Poland is a holdout country massively influenced by their branch of Catholic church and their defacto leader Kaczynski is a staunch social conservative who led his party to first turn state media into propaganda tools, then control the judiciary branch by kicking out a large portion of the constitutional court members (through instituting an age restriction), then replacing them with loyalists. The new patsy constitutional court then went on to ban all abortions in Poland, leading to massive protests during the second wave of the pandemic (it's speculated the ruling was specifically targeted to hit when national quarantine was in place to suppress protests).

 

The country is blatantly violating its own constitution and thinly covering it with the absolute majority legislating whatever they want, so the EU seeks to penalize Poland and reduce the billions of euros they gain from the development funds under the rule of law provision. Poland (and Hungary) are fighting this by blocking the entire budget for the upcoming 7 years, against the will of the majority in both Hungary and Poland. Good for them, but it just makes the rest of Europe band together against the two holdouts?

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50 minutes ago, dmslr said:

Be honest with yourself. This is bullshit. It's not happening at the legislative level. Calling the current republican party far-right is on a level with the statement that democratic party is communistic.

This is such an important point to make, and this is one of the big reasons I encourage everyone to save their time and attention for serious, responsible scholars and journalists. The terms "freedom of speech" and "censorship", among others, are extensively used in a vague and dishonest way, both by people who consider themselves conservative and progressive.

 

Both sides engage in perpetual 'slippery slope' fallacies. Jordan Peterson is a particularly bad example of this, when he repeatedly equates something like positive depictions of women in Disney movies with Stalinist state repression and murder. But 'Leftists' are guilty of this too.

 

Many US state governments have laws requiring loyalty pledges to Israel. Look up Abby Martin on YouTube. She has a number of interviews discussing her suit against the State of Georgia for violating her first-amendment rights.

 

There may be similar cases involving democrat lawmakers, I don't know.

 

Again, this is why I don't have time for ill-informed, dishonest, irrational vloggers. I am way behind on all the real information I feel I need to be familiar with as a responsible member of society.

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13 minutes ago, dmslr said:

@dew I appreciate your effort on gathering info even though if it's from the biased sources. I'll check them all.

I specifically diversified my links as much as possible, picking top google results that I haven't hit yet... Reuters, Fox, Texas Tribune, CNN, Las Vegas Sun, NPR, NYT, BBC, Deutche Welle...

 

... And you immediatelly know I'm using biased sources. You're unmasking yourself more than you think, you just want this dragged down into "no sources can be believed, it's all up to the only credible source, Tucker Carlson".

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1 minute ago, dew said:

"no sources can be believed, it's all up to the only credible source, Tucker Carlson"

I don't even watch him or Fox in general. What do you mean? 

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1 minute ago, dmslr said:

I don't even watch him or Fox in general. What do you mean? 

You dismissed my wide array of sources as "biased" without even blinking. What do YOU mean? What are the sources I'm supposed to be using?

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8 minutes ago, dmslr said:

I don't even watch him or Fox in general. What do you mean? 

 

I'm gonna have to agree on this one with dew actually.

 

He took his time to give proof (or sources if you prefer) to support his claims, while all you have to say is that "they're all biased".

 

I am waiting for your counterargument. A proper counterargument, with reasons and evidence to support your claims, not pie-in-the-sky statements.

 

BTW, as a non-American, holy shit I didn't know Republicans are supposedly this bad, wtf.

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I'm not really liking how this seems to be heading towards a flame war, but I do agree with seed, I had no idea the Republicans were allegedly this awful too.

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Mind you, I'm not saying you need to become a leftist catgirl this afternoon. I don't expect anyone to adopt my positions in full either. I'm saying if you're serious about being independent, follow the holy mantra and actually search for the information. I'm going to agree with @Aaron Blain , don't base your worldview on, I dunno, whatever Tim Pool says, because it's the only political thing you watch and Tim Pool says he's independent. Spoilers: he's lying.

 

You cannot be an independent critical thinker by just accepting what another supposedly independent critical thinker tells you to think. It's harder to be independent than you think. Social media absolutely build an echo chamber around you despite your wishes. That also has a consequence: do not trust smart-asses telling you that you can't trust anything because everything is biased, blah blah blah, you gotta pick a side and stick with it. It is a spiel that tries to smear legit sources - go to the sources by yourself and take a sniff.

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@seedI didn't say they're all biased and nobody forced this on me. I definitely know that the hill, cnn, the guardian, nytimes and, especially, vox are often dishonest. For what it's worth, they really pushed the 2016 Russian interference crap so long. I also didn't say they are fully unreliable and said I'll look at all of the links.

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1 hour ago, dmslr said:

I didn't say they're all biased and nobody forced this on me. I definitely know that the hill, cnn, the guardian, nytimes and, especially, vox are often dishonest. For what it's worth, they really pushed the 2016 Russian interference crap so long. I also didn't say they are fully unreliable and said I'll look at all of the links.

Okay, we got a list of media you do not trust. Cool. Can we get an example of media you DO trust and consider unbiased? You somehow managed to dodge that part. Stop hiding, stop the vague game of delegitimizing the opposition while showing NOTHING for your side.

 

It's that simple: Where do you get your info from?

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5 hours ago, Matias said:

My point was to add to your comment about the parties being "center". Because it's more complicated than just saying the parties are more centrist than in the usa and saying just "your parties are actually pretty close to the center?" gives idealistic view on the european politics. I never meant it as disagreement that US parties might be more polarized. And i also wanted to add that there still is polarization and very much so. With the two party system in the US it's going to keep groups such as communists out of mainstream politics much longer than in the europe where people can start parties for that specific ideology and get validation for their ideas that way. Saying "those guys are the kooks that only gather fringe support" again makes a very idealistic claim. Just because some party would be smaller doesn't really mean it only gathers fringe support. In Finland our fastest growing political party is Right-Wing Populist party and it's currently looking that in the next election this party will be the biggest party(let's hope so atleast). Again i'm not going to make any claims about other european countries except that all around in europe Right-Wing Populism has been on the rise since like 2015 as far as i know.

Wasn't really trying to insinuate that, so if I came off as that way, my apologies.

 

My point is that while the European system definitely has flaws of its own (and obviously, some parties are bigger than others), in most European countries, to the best of my knowledge, it's more or less impossible to be so dominant that you and only one other party are the only two voices on a matter. A lot of coalition governments get formed, and this has the beneficial aspect of that you must focus on compromise and work on agreements to get anything done, because if you play hardball, the other parties can just take their ball and go home, and then your legislative push is sunk, even if you've got several times the members they do.

 

Here, there is no such choice. Whoever controls the Senate can effectively kill most legislation. Kavanaugh and Barrett might not have been elected to the Supreme Court, since there used to be a rule on requiring 60 votes approval (out of 100) for justices. The problem is, Republicans used this back in the Obama years to block Obama appointments, so the Democrats (then in power) did a procedural thing to reduce it to a simple majority. Mitch McConnell warned Democrats would regret the decision, and they most certainly do now - because Republicans just used it to push through two, possibly three, nominees that never would have gotten there had those rules held.

 

Basically, our government only works if enough people on both sides are willing to play ball. This is a lot harder to do when one party is quite far to the right, and any sort of concession or moderation will bring scathing rebukes from Trump - and any politician's worst fear, that standing for a more central position will be political suicide. For Exhibit A, see one "Flake, Jeff." When he got effectively destroyed by Trump, Republicans immediately began toeing the line - saving their ass (and their political careers) was more important than holding Trump to account, and the entire nation has paid the price ever since.

 

This sort of petty, partisan bullshit is precisely why the effectively two-party system in this country is just so baffling as to how it managed to hold up for so long, especially when the start of it overlapped with the worst political crisis this country has ever suffered. Basically for the last 25 or so years, the spirit of cooperation that used to exist has by and large been destroyed (a whole wave of "New Republicans" got swept in during the 1994 midterms; surprise - you'll see a lot of familiar names in there to this day, like Newt Gingrich); now both parties mostly try to play up to increasingly fringe members - Democrats are pressured by very liberal left-wing members who want action on stuff like climate change and reforms; Republicans are going to be beholden to Trump and everything Trumpism stands for for at least the next 10-20 years (and certainly while the man himself is alive - but that won't stop a few successors trying to channel him from trying).

 

5 hours ago, Matias said:

As for the Democrats vs Republicans thing, i think this nytimes piece and your comment really show the biggest issue with the two party system. Democrats are pretty much split by the progressives and establishment democrats. Establishment democrats bring the party as a whole closer to the center even tho lot of these progressives are "far-left". And who is the party leader far-left progressives or the establishment is always a question, this is why Republicans call democrats "far-left". This obviously would be solved by splitting the party in two different parties "Progressives" and "democrats". Even tho calling the entire party "far-left" is incorrect, there is a base for that claim, and with Democrats calling Republican "far-right" it's fair to fight fire with fire. I think if we would split both US political parties and we would get "Progressives", "Democrats", "Republicans" and "RightWing Populist party" we would see that progressives and the populists would be the biggest of the four.

Actually, the country as a whole is a lot closer to the center than most people think it is. There are some loud - VERY loud - voices on the extremes, but on the whole, a lot of the reason why people will lump in on one side or the other is simply because all their opposition is lumped into one side themselves.

 

If a four-party system emerged like you did, the Democrats and Republicans would still dominate. The difference is that the fringe elements would be cast aside - Republicans are no longer beholden to Trumpism or Populism, and the Democrats are no longer beholden to neo-progressivism.

 

That said, the one at worse risk here would definitely be the Republicans. The Democrats are inching towards a more progressive stance; the success of The Squad and picking Harris as VP are no small feats, and the party is definitely aging out and starting to be replaced with younger generations of leaders.

 

To be fair, this is happening on the Republican side too (very young Republicans actually have some pretty good ideas, IMO), but Mitt Romney warned the GOP that they needed to start doing some major shifts when he lost the 2012 race, and Trump just threw a whole bus into the works. Romney is, for what it's worth, also one of those rare Republicans who will willingly refute and rebuke Trump; he has managed to avoid the axe, unlike Flake.

 

Basically, it's a question of if the Republicans can hold on long enough to have generational change without Trumpism breaking their back. If they can, the party will survive on. If they can't, they're the most likely one to split. Democrats splitting like that would be pretty hard to believe.

 

5 hours ago, Matias said:

Republicans have protected free speech, 2A and many being anti-war etc. These are not Authotarian at all. Where as Progressive Democrats have pushed for limiting free speech and gun ownership and other more authotarian views. This alone makes me say that Nytimes piece is incorrect in putting Democrats closer to center and calling republicans "far-right" . Also with contents of this piece starting to be old and discussing 2016 i would be interested in how the parties sit in 2020, we can clearly see that 4years is plenty enough to move a party substantially toward either side.

Sorry man, I agree with @dew here.

 

Republicans are generally the party more likely to start (and favor) war intervention. That's not to say there aren't some hawkish Democrats, but Democrats tend to be focused on internal problems first and foremost - they're the ones who want revamped infrastructure, increased spending on social programs, and so on.

 

I don't know if I've heard of Democrats pushing for limiting free speech, but gun ownership reform is something this country badly, and I do mean BADLY, needs. There should be zero reason why you should need to possess military-grade automatic weaponry to defend yourself or go hunting. One of the worst massacres (in Las Vegas, where hundreds of people got injured and dozens killed) was perpetrated by a guy who was able to buy guns and parts under the table and effectively convert a semiautomatic rifle into a fully automatic one by usage of those parts (the term "bump stock" most definitely entered American consciousness then).

 

The problem is that Republicans would place initiatives like "Everyone who owns a gun should register it" or "Magazine sizes should be limited" as "THEY WILL TAKE YOUR GUNS." The NRA literally spent decades fearmongering on this basis, and now that Biden is going to become President, people are racing to buy guns, even though it's looking like unless Georgia gets VERY interesting, Republicans will be able to cling to power there and be able to stop an effectively unified government.

 

(Fun fact: Lots and lots and lots of people actually don't know what the Second Amendment was about, so here's the full text:

 

Quote

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

 

Everyone remembers the second half of that statement. The first is forgotten by virtually everyone who cries "They'll take our guns." The only Militias in existence right now are the National Guard, Naval Militia, and the Reserves. The Second Amendment has to do with the right to keep and bear arms for a specific reason, but it makes ZERO qualifications on what those arms are, or could be. And the Founding Fathers certainly had no idea that a mere 150 years later we'd have guns that could shoot 300+ bullets a minute. I'd imagine this amendment would be a little more strictly defined if they had, but we can't exactly fault them for this.)

 

5 hours ago, Matias said:

Some other issues in that piece are also how much weight you put on different things. I personally don't agree that mentioning God should push the party more towards right, or constitution. Also there is difference what is viewed "left" "right" or "center" by country or the person you ask and to add even more confusion is that there is even more of a difference in what is viewed "far-right" or "far-left" politics. So you just end up in a opinionated mess that is inaccurate and holds very little value.

While nominally America is free from an enforced religion (and in practical reality, we do enjoy this to a fair extent), let's be blunt: It's Christian, more specifically Protestant. Roman Catholics, despite also being Christian, were heavily maligned; JFK was the first one to be President, Biden will be the second. While other religions are free to exist, it's only relatively recently that those alternate religions have gained some power in seats of government. This, naturally, rubs some people the wrong way, because those values may not necessarily be their values.

 

In this country, conservative values are thus often tied to traditional, Christian religious moralism. This is where you find a lot of the arguments about stuff infringing on religious liberty, or abortion being so divisive. The party that just so happens to take stances on issues like this is the conservative party - you guessed it, Republicans. So while in generality mentioning God isn't immediately going to push you to the right, in a general sense the more you let your decisions be informed and affected by religious reasons, the more likely you are to be a Republican, pure and simple. Hence, why mentioning God (in this country) tends to push you to the right. This is especially true for anything where religious freedoms can infringe on personal rights (i.e; stuff like caterers refusing to service gay patrons, or businesses refusing to provide for contraceptive healthcare for their workers, because it would infringe on religious beliefs - cases that were both victorious, by the way).

 

Also, let's not forget - the "They're not one of us" dog whistle is alive and well. Trump used it for YEARS on Obama before finally conceding only a few years ago that Obama was indeed not a Muslim (which, even if he were, shouldn't have mattered - Freedom of Religion) and not born in Kenya (which actually WOULD have mattered as to be President you must be a natural-born citizen; i.e; born within US territory), and has continually used it against Muslim members of congress like Rashida Tlaib by telling them to "go back to their own country" (which, in Tlaib's case, is the USA - she was born in Detroit). And yet, John McCain never got that kind of grilling despite the fact he was born in Panama - because he was born more specifically inside the Panama Canal Zone, and at the time, that was US territory.

 

Also because McCain just so happened to be a white guy and a war hero (unless you're Trump).

Edited by Dark Pulse

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48 minutes ago, dew said:

Where do you get your info from?

If it's news, I watch videos from both left- and right-leaning media. I don't read any opinion articles. If I had to choose a concrete source, BBC is the most trustable for me.

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On 11/20/2020 at 6:54 AM, DSC said:

Allow me to explain myself... I was strongly anti-SJW a few years back, and even now I still from time to time watch some of that stuff... It just keeps pulling me in. However, there was a point where I started shifting directions and going towards the other side of the spectrum... I have watched at this this point many videos trying to debunk them too. And the thing is... Sometimes I just get really tired of the anti-SJW thing and start flocking again to the left... Does that make me a coward? Am I just going into my safe spaces and echo chambers because I can't handle the truth and the other side? Am I too narcissistic? Can't I handle other people's opinions?

Dude the anti-SJW cult is an ideological scam. I suggest you drop the two-party system goggles and give someone like David Pakman or Kyle Kulinski a watch, perhaps then you'll have a better understanding of what the left actually looks like, plus they also serve as a great example of not being the common sensationalist grifter that you'd find in the anti-SJW scene. The most ironic thing about the ant-SJW branding is that they are in fact the pinnacle of the mindless NPC archetype despite their constant projection of this idea onto the so-called "left". "The left", that they vaguely refer to, are mostly establishment neoliberals, which if you understand an inkling of politics outside the rigged two-party system, will know that most mainstream American democrats aren't what you'd really call left-wing in a grander sense (exceptions being people like Sanders, AOC, etc.). This of course means an endless rabbithole of strawmen and brainwashing nonsense. 

 

I think the fact that you're questioning these things is a very important part of your growth as a person. If you choose to stay in the rightist safe-space, then you are choosing to be a coward. I suggest you take my advice and start thinking about what you believe and how you perceive those who you disagree with.

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3 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Reminder that the Republican party is nearly as far-right as actual fascist parties in Europe, while the Democratic party is center-left. 

 

 

I can tell you right now the US democratic party is not that far left. Not since 1981.

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3 hours ago, DSC said:

I'm not really liking how this seems to be heading towards a flame war

 

3 hours later and it didn't turn into a nuclear shithole, so let's keep that up please, the discussions have been quite constructive thus far 👌.

 

Don't kill it now.

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In 1995, Terry Pratchett attempted to warn Bill Gates about the rise of fake news. He said that sources online would appear to have a 'parity of esteem'.

 

This is a slightly different point, but we have a similar problem with people who broadcast their views on social media. When the vlogger, or whomever, seems to have slightly more knowledge than the viewer, it's easy to assume they're an expert. It's great that people have the ability to express themselves, and if a following coalesces around this or that vlogger then fine. But most people are talking out of their asses most of the time. The web is mostly hot air. I think if you want to dip into this or that movement, it's ok so long as you keep that in mind. I'm not a Joe Rogan viewer (for example), but I will say he does seem grounded in the basic reality that he's just some dude rambling about whatever enters his mind. He's qualified to express an expert opinion on some things like MMA, but I think he knows he's not a leader, or a scholar, or a prophet. Most people who rant on YouTube see themselves as prophets.

 

Just because you can utter names like "Derrida" or "Trotsky" doesn't mean you're an expert on post-modernism or socialism. Just because one or a handful of doctors, scientists or other experts holds a view does not mean that view constitutes a scientific consensus.

 

BTW as you'll notice if you look up the names I listed previously, I lean toward a mix of anarcho-socialism and marxism (I share most of the leftist views others have expounded in this thread), but I try to avoid reductionism, and I don't embrace all the views of any of the intellectuals I listed. I'm something of a Chomskyite, but I completely disagree with him on a number of things. So, you know, if you're drawn to someone such as Jordan Peterson and you're able to take some things and reject others, rather than simply venerating or villifying each personality, I think that's healthy.

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@Dark Pulse I strongly disagree with your stance on the 2A. If the 2A was referring to the national guard as the militia, then how would they protect us from a tyrannical federal government when they answer to the president above their governor? That’s why they’re NOT the militia the 2A is referring to, that’s why it says the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed, because the militia is to be composed of the people, WE THE PEOPLE, not the national guard, police, or hunters.
 

The founding fathers were not dumb people. They saw innovation in firearms within their own lifetimes. There is absolutely no evidence to support that they had no idea that weapons would evolve beyond what they were at the time of writing the constitution, but there’s more historical evidence of weapon technology during the revolution that proves they probably knew it wasn’t just going to stay one way forever.
 

You’re entitled to your opinion on “people don’t need this or that to defend their homes” but we could go steps further and find a shit load of things people don’t “need” for their day to day lives, but they have them anyways, and no ban or reform is going to stop much of anything, just like it failed to do with the AWB of the 90s.
 

It’s also easy for someone to say what someone needs or doesn’t need for home defense and hunting if you’re not a hunter or gun owner, and if you are a gun owner, then you’d think you’d understand why people say things like “they’re coming for ALL of our guns”. Maybe not in one clean swipe, but when they keep changing the definition of assault weapon with each proposed gun control legislation, what would stop them from including whatever they wanted under that description? Eventually, they will get around to the gun you deem “acceptable” for home defense and hunting, and there will be nothing for you to do beyond be complacent at that point. 


Also, has nothing to do with right or left. Both sides are guilty of infringing on the 2A. 

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9 minutes ago, Gerolf said:

I strongly disagree

At no point you tried to integrate the words "well regulated" into your rant. And you know why, it doesn't suit your narrative.

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15 minutes ago, dew said:

At no point you tried to integrate the words "well regulated" into your rant. And you know why, it doesn't suit your narrative.

That’s because I didn’t have to, and I see that you missed the whole “being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” portion as well. You freely interpret that part as you see fit for your own argument by completely ignoring it, so don’t be a hypocrite. “Well regulated” doesn’t mean “government controlled”. 

Edited by Gerolf

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