Dav, I will get to the response! I just haven't had a large enough block of time to put together. Been a bus week. They should be posted over the weekend.

Keep guessing....

Wrong again. Keep guessing. Where did I state I actually employ any violent force of martial arts? Where did I state I would order the dogs to attack? Where did I state I wouldn't restrain the dogs?

Wrong...nice effort though. Where have I stated that I am better than someone who would respond with violent force in self-defense. Prove it. Good luck accomplishing the impossible.

If you search these forums long and hard enough you will find a discussion a while back where I stated that being a total pacifist is not easy given natural insticts and social conditioning. I do not think it is better or worse nor do I have some pipedream expectation that everyone should do it just because I do.

Hypocrite, fake pacifist, intellectually dishonest. You have made these judgements about me, with very little information and only by filling in the blanks and twisting my words to suit you own perspective. Sorry but your wrong again.

So you have never been on the recieving end of a violent robbery...You have never had a gun pointed at your head or have never had to face down a gang of violent bigots looking to do a back-alley stomp. I have expirienced both and needed no act of violence to escape either event unscathed with my wallet. My way is tested and proven, yours is mere theory and yet you belittle my way. HA! It is now clear who is all talk and who has walked the walk.

At what? I've isolated the point quite effectively. Faith on its own is a wildcard, like so many other things. With the help of intelligence or stupidity, or rational or irrational context application, one can quite easily swing that wildcard the right way or the wrong way. Also, you want REAL proof faith can be bad for you?

The Solar Temple
The Creativity Movement
The House of Yahweh
Heaven's Gate

Blinded by faith, these people comitted murder, killed themselves, robbed themselves blind. I won't stab at Scientology, they've only been suspected. While I think Hubbard was a lousy writer and a nut, I'm going to say it's indeed possible most of what's brought against them may just be the same anti-cult movement fluff matter. However, the fact that L. Ron Hubbard was in effect banned from two continents says something...

[quote]Wrong again. Keep guessing. Where did I state I actually employ any violent force of martial arts? Where did I state I would order the dogs to attack? Where did I state I wouldn't restrain the dogs?/QUOTE]

"I may be a pacifist, but my dogs aren't" Also the mentioning of the Dog taking a bite out of the robber so you could really plot your course. If you actually restrained the dogs, then I suppose said statements are meaningless. Also, you said you would employ the martial arts.

Your argument inferred it. The statements alluded to it. You view that all who act in violence are somehow inferior to you, and it's alluded to. I'd pull the sentences together, but that's not something high on my list of priorities. Your posts are right here in the last two pages...

Being a total pacifist isn't just difficult, it's IMPOSSIBLE. You as a human have a living undercurrent of violence. The colloquialism "The Lizard Brain" is a simpler way of reflecting the violent nature of our evolutionary ancestors. It's in your genes, dammit! It's good you don't demand others to become pacifists, I'm not saying it because of what I think, but because it's the tolerant perception. A genuine understanding of how humans are different from one another.

Let's see, if I passingly called you all those things, then sure, I suppose it would be insulting. But you put it all out there man. I haven't twisted a word, you're really conjuring up stuff at random now.

Does diplomacy count? I talked an angry man down more than once. I'm polite to those around me. However, I'm willing to lay a venture on the table that you may infact be lying about your encounters. It seems very possible that you would in fact concoct such arguments for the simple purpose of lending some kind of credibility to your argument. I could have done the same, and maybe you're telling the truth. But I don't trust human beings, so I'll assume you're lying and walk away happier and with fewer stirrings of my ulcer (one reason I avoid conflict, my ulcer acts up and it sets me off). Take no offense. I'm a petty, arrogant and quite simply cold-hearted bastard. I'll admit it. Also, my way being 'more theory' is quite preposterous. Take a look at states with concealed carry and their violent crime rates, if I were able to, I'd contact certain people who are also willing to use force to defend themselves, and they would soundly pound your argument to crap. However, I cannot contact them.

Besides, I believe the term for the logical fallacy you have constructed and utilized as argument in this case is called ad hominem tu quoque. Don't do it again, it's wrong like 2+2=3 is wrong.

[ 03-05-2004, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: Oblivion437 ]

Actually that describes your style to a T. You have made the ad hom attacks with your personal insults and you have commited the logical fallacies by drawing conclusions based on subjective interpretation (ie.allusions) and with-out all or even most of the facts.

I thought Bowling for Columbine was about the "Columbine" shootings...

Well said. Hear hear! PREACH IT brother. [img]smile.gif[/img] :D

Yeah, some real proof would be awesome man!
And hey, wait, you give it to us right here:

You take it on faith that Chewbacca is lying. You can't cope with the potential scenario that his pasifism actually works for him, so you retreat into the baseless belief that he is lying. But be careful man, "faith can be bad for you" :rolleyes:

Since two pages have popped up since I'll just start anew ....

When the Founders wrote "A well regulated militia being essential to the preservation of Liberty, the Right to Bare Arms shall not be impinged." They were writing a safe guard into the system they were in the process of creating. Though they were in the process of creating a government, the majority of them looked at government as an evil that was not to be trusted. They were all well versed in the writings of John Locke, Volaire, the Greeks, and others. They were aware of the corrupting nature of power. A great majority of the Constitution is written with the underlying concept of fear. Fear that Old Europe would come in and try to subjugate this flegling nation. Fear that one brach of government would grow too powerful. Fear that The People, despite having spent more than a decade of fighting to separate from England and keeping separate from Europe, would popularly vote out of "ignorance" to reassociate themselves with the old Nobility. The entire Constituion is written in such a way as to limit those fears from becoming a reality. On a side note Thomas Jefferson fully believed that a revolution was required every twenty years to break down and rebuild the system from the ground up as a generation was long enough for the system to become thoroughly corrupt and entrenched. By his standard, America is late by about 208 years.

Anyway, they wrote a government "Of the People, by the People, for the People" following the concept that "government rules only by the concent of the governed." The Second Ammendment was their provision to The People to revoke that concent. They understood the potential, despite all the checks and ballances they provided to keep Government in check, that one day the "Government of the People, by the People, for the People" could still break away from the People, and become a self serving self feeding entity. They also understood the number two rule to conquest: Disarm the populas. So the final Ace against the tyrranny of government was a well armed and well trained population that could take back consent by force if necessary should the democratic process fail.

Back then, that meant people armed with muskets and train in smooth bore artillery. Today that means pistols, assault rifles, tanks, artillery, heavy machine guns, computer experts, communications experts, crypto experts, and demolition experts.

Could I forsee such circumstances where the populas gets tired of the abuses and excesses that even an "advanced democracy" (which the American system of rule is not) might take against the intrests of it's people? Yes. You will have to forgive me if I don't go into detail beyond history or a vague opinion though. ;)

First, I never said anything about a dictatorial coup. I am talking about The People revoking consent to be ruled by a corrupted governmental system. Secondly, two party politics has nothing to with republican (not the RNP, note the lower case ;) ) or democratic government. The only time politicians under a party system with n>1 pay any attention to their constituents is when an elections comes around. In this country at least they can bet on voter apathy and target their campains to only those that they fear will vote. After election day it's politics as usual each party trying to obtain one upmanship on the other(s) in their eternal power jockeying.

As for the question of possibility or effectiveness .... I presume you understand chess? Some pieces are more effective and valuable than others, but with proper strategy, and capitalization on opportunities, even a pawn may capture the king. As effective as our military is, a few guerrillas are tying us up in Iraq and Afghanistan. As lethal as our military is, it's greatest stregnths, on American soil, become weaknesses. For if a grand scale military retaliation of a rebellion were to take place on American soil, fewer and fewer Americans would support the current power structure as the death toll rose. Small groups of cultists and crazies, like Ruby Ridge or Waco, are fine to eliminate. But, everyday American Joe is totally different. Even when we secured our country from England, only about 1/3 of the Colonists supported it, 1/3 were loyal to England, and the rest where undecided or didn't care. Even of those that supported it, their numbers started out very small and only grew as the injustices of the Crown increased. Most of the Continental Congress initially preferred peacefull resolution with the King.

I think I've shown already that an N Party system is a subversion of republican and democratic process. Thomas Jefferson lamented that political parties would destroy the system he helped create as he left the White House and saw James Madison and Alexander Hamilton power jockeying (the Whigs and Federalists respectively). One check they left out of was the check on money. Whether that was an oversight due to ideology or a forced compromise, I do not know. Some may try to claim that money is "free speach" when offered to political causes and to any that try to claim that, I say BULL! Money is a commodity, and commodities are exchanged for other commodities or servies. When money is exchanged in political offerings, there are only two possible return deals that I can envision - an exchange for votes on favorable legislation or private money in exchange for public money (wellfare - corporate or otherwise). Should governmental bodies (the world over mind you, The EU is even more comlicated than our system and more bloated with pork in my opinion) continue to placate special interests instead of representing their constituancy I feel those system must be torn down and reborn from the ashes, in the preservation of Liberty, Free Trade, and Human Rights. An armed populas facilitates that as a final resort.

As I have only visited Canada, and French Canada at that, I really can't base my experiences on other nations. See, I wasn't exactly walking straight you see ... [img]tongue.gif[/img] As for the escalating violence in America, there are many many factors for that. A growing victim/slave mentality in America leaves the populas suseptable to predation. Couple with the growing need for "security" and turning both capability and responsibility over to governmental institutions and the population becomes increasingly weaker. As the taded for security doesn't work, the population then trades more and more away in the hopes that the bigger the system is eventually it will provide what they want. That is one factor. Also, as more and more common life activities are criminalized, more and more burdens are placed on the corrections system. So what we have is a detering correctional system that is not enough of a deterant and a judicial system that is overloaded with common citizens that the true criminals get marginalized in the process. A great amount of crime and violence in this country is drug related. Yet, despite the new snazzy name, the out of touch politicans refuse to admit that Prohibittion does not work. It's not about getting criminals off the streets (well not entirely at least) it's removing the revenue streams that criminals find proffitable. Plus, if we cut the exhorbitant amounts of money spent on the "War", taxes could be reduced or diverted into support programs to deal with addiction, like is already in place for alcohol.

And for the record, I hate the term "civilized" for one culture's civilization is another's barbarism.

The reason I said I don't feel safer, is that I am not seeking safety. I recognize that life will deal me whatever hand it will, and that I have to play it out. Life is risky, even though there are things to minimize risk. I do not view any weapon as inherrently dangerous, they are just tools. It is the hand that wields them that is dangerous. And it not whether has a higher body count potential than other weapons, for I can put together highly destructive weapons from everyday common supplies. People cry for safety from guns, or anything from that matter out of fear. The problem with safety that is provided by someone else, and I have no means of supplimenting it myself, is that I am at the complete mercy of those providing that safety. So I do not seek safety, I seek Liberty, and that is on the opposite side of the Security/Liberty axis, the more of one you have, the less you have of the other.

Compulsory NRA membership? No, that won't help. I do think that compulsory civil service would help increase the quality of life in this country, though. Not military service, thouh that could be one option. I feel that this country's citizens are all to willing to take out of this society with out returning anything back. IF people were required to serve society for a brief time I feel they would respect it's benefits more. But, if more people were educated in responsible handling of firearms and other methods of defense, there would be less fear of crime, guns, ect.

As for solving the violent injury issue, there are many many things that need addressing. I don't know all the answers, but I do know that when they are, war, government, weapons, ect will no longer be needed.

Yes it was, but can you tell the difference between an ICBM or an Orbital Rocket? I can't.

Have at it now! Have fun! ;)

[ 03-06-2004, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: Night Stalker ]

Do cults not count as solid examples of misdirection of faith? Come now, don't be so childish...

It's not 'taking it on faith' to assume something isn't what it seems. That's called skepticism. I can cope quite easily, maybe I was demonstrating a contradiction through example. Maybe my point is just too damned elaborate for you. Historically, those who beat their swords into plowshares ended up plowing for those who didn't. To assume I'm faithful in thinking he's lying is a preposterous contradiction of logic. I'd be faithful in assuming he were telling the truth, and given what I do know about him, it's a reasonable venture either way. I'll lay the odds on the table at 50/50. Assuming he's lying happens to be the more likeable of two very evened out options, thusly, I go with it. As paralleled as they are, it's really unimportant how I make the decision.

I see you don't know a damn thing about said logical fallacy (ad Hominem tu quoque) it's attacking someone's actions or person rather than their argument. Calling you a hypocrite and thusly stating that you have no argument is no such thing. Calling you a hypocrite isn't calling you an asshole, a bastard, a liar, a scumbag or any other low-down-dirty names that have no place in the debate. You make a hypocritical statement. What's more, you do exactly what Michael Moore does, responding only to the criticisms that you can respond to, and you're wrong anyways.

Shall we dispense this circular argument for something more logical, like how this whole 2-pager of a tangent actually applies to the rammifications of Bowling For Columbine's anti-American, anti-gun message?

The ox is slow but the earth is patient [img]smile.gif[/img] - and so am I NS. I will refrain from posting until your answers are completed (per your request on the previous page).

Cheers
Davros