Posts by MeanMrMustard

30

Do you enjoy critical research ?

by Introvert 2 in

question, are you open to and enjoy doing critical research ?.

as a trades person with little education other than being a high school vocational graduate in machine shop tech.

1980 and now a small business owner i find proper research to be essential.

MeanMrMustard

Conservatives always wish to control your social life, at the highest level, by law. Whom can you marry? Poor Ben Shapiro, still boycotts inter-religious marriages. You know, "the cool kids philosopher". It wasn't conservatives that wished for people the freedom to intermarry, whether that be race, religion, or sex. Conservatives have their divinely revealed morals and pass laws so that everyone else must live by their ideology.

I don’t think this is exactly accurate. Ben Shapiro may boycott a gay wedding, but he is definitely NOT attempting to stop the wedding by law. Being a Jew, he doesn’t agree with gay marriage, but he will sit down with a gay atheist like Dave Rubin (and even have dinner with Dave and his husband). The telltale attribute of the “right” is not disagreement with something like homosexuality - after all, you probably disagree with his lifestyle. The difference is keeping the government out of attempting to force conformity.

That being said. Marriage licenses were first created to put a barrier on interracial marriage. That is a “lefty” sort of thing to do. I do agree we have some highly religious people wanting to enforce social norms through law. This is an incredible mistake, because giving the government this power can have some serious blowback when the shoe is on the other foot. (The other party is in power).

The problem here is the government shouldn’t be involved with marriage AT ALL. It was an overreach to begin with.

Can you open a casino in Texas? Sorry, conservatives still have that outlawed. Can you buy beer on Sundays before noon in Texas? Sorry, conservatives still have that outlawed. Can you buy nails along with wood on Sundays in Texas? Conservatives finally let us do that in the 80s.

Yep. I agree here. In my mind “conservative” doesn’t mean “freedom loving” per-se. That is a spectrum too. You got some conservatives that think, in order to conserve the current order or what came before, it is appropriate to use the force of law to force people to do (or not do) things. These are “left” tendencies. It is, in my opinion, dangerous.

The reality is for American government, we have the Ds and Rs. And historically both parties suck. The rich buy off politicians in both parties.

I think one of the reasons why politics is so contentious these days is because there too much at stake. There’s too much power concentrated. The government is too big. Scale it back so that a political victory on either side won’t mean so much, and I think a lot of tension surrounding politics would ease.

30

Do you enjoy critical research ?

by Introvert 2 in

question, are you open to and enjoy doing critical research ?.

as a trades person with little education other than being a high school vocational graduate in machine shop tech.

1980 and now a small business owner i find proper research to be essential.

MeanMrMustard

A more useful model is from state control to libertarian as that groups the high-control ideologies all together as they work and act in the same way - fascism, islam, communism are really all the same, not "left" and "right". It's high control vs freedom. People equate "conservatism" with being "right" but it's not, it's just further away from the high control / big government (often viewed as "left").

Agree. Exactly. I’ve been confused for a while on this. We have a one dimensional left/right spectrum. There’s probably a good argument in there that trying to boil it down to one dimension is, in itself, inappropriate. But if we are to use a spectrum like this, it should work like a spectrum. I don’t understand how the far left is socialist, and as you move to the right, supposedly going away from socialism, you arrive on the far right to .... socialism again (national socialist). It’s like being a nationalist is enough to transport socialism to the other side. Makes no sense.

But to be honest, it does makes sense in the context of political parties like the Democrats attempting to make a historically horrible ideology “stick” to the more freedom loving side of the spectrum. (It’s politically convenient to label someone a Nazi)

When I was growing up, the left/right divide was defined in terms of *general* philosophical beliefs. The “left” was in favor more government control, and the “right” was for less. That’s in general. You couldn’t be sure what any one politician thought on a topic individually. But you had a general idea of how someone thought.

“Right” is generally more individualist, freedom oriented, and a traditional view of rights. “Left” is more collectivist, less individual freedom, and focuses on entitlements instead of rights.

In this way, Nazis are left (socialist, collectivist).

38

Does Today’s Comedy Offend You?

by minimus in

jw
friends

there was a time we could laugh about mindless silly things.

someone using an ethnic accent, making fun of their own race, making fun of someone’s intelligent, etc.

we could laugh without feeling constantly offended , upset or disturbed.

MeanMrMustard

No

60

Do You Think Trump Should Be Impeached?

by minimus in

jw
friends

some democrats are zealously pushing the impeachment route to get rid of trump.

even if you don’t like him, do you support impeachment proceedings?.

MeanMrMustard

I don’t know... they might actually do it. I mean, I honestly think these people have gone off the deep end.

I think Simon is right on Pelosi - she wants to make a big fuss and appear to be taking action, but she doesn’t really want to impeach. I also think JeffT is right - once Articles have been drawn up, and successfully passed, it all goes to the Senate, and the media will have a lot less choice in what they report. They will either have to black out some of the testimony, or face the possibility that the truth will get out on their network, to all 24 viewers.

As for me, he should NOT be impeached. Do I want him to get impeached? Hell yeah! It would represent the mother of all Democrat cluster forks. If you think for a moment on all the stuff that has backfired on the Democrats since Trump ... all child’s play compared to this. Oh it would be so much fun.

I mean, come on, can you just imagine the actual articles? You can’t tell me that they won’t list stuff like “He said he grabs women by the pussy.” Pfft lol, oh god. “He said he loves Nazis when speaking about Charlottesville.”

65

Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Alive and Well

by minimus in

jw
friends

i was on facebook and a person i have known for a long time posted how trump is mentally ill and is truly a psychopath.

a couple of her friends chimed in when i suggested that perhaps the fb friend was really the psychopath.

a couple of her friends began to defend her but i was surprised by how many people defended the president!

MeanMrMustard

Wake up and smell the covfefe.

MAGA

65

Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Alive and Well

by minimus in

jw
friends

i was on facebook and a person i have known for a long time posted how trump is mentally ill and is truly a psychopath.

a couple of her friends chimed in when i suggested that perhaps the fb friend was really the psychopath.

a couple of her friends began to defend her but i was surprised by how many people defended the president!

MeanMrMustard

If anyone is asserting that Hillary is ethically better than Trump, then they are wrong. I believe Trump doesn't like people dying, Hillary's a little more comfortable with killing people, a total war hawk, making her more evil than him in that regard. Trump pulled back a strike on Iran because of the body count, that never stopped Obama and wouldn't stop Hillary for damn sure.

Ok... sure.. but I don’t see how that relates to what I said.

It’s not about saying Trump is ethically better, or Hillary is ethically better. If anyone puts forth a criteria by which to judge Trump, but can’t put the shoe on the other foot so-to-speak, then it shows a bit of TDS breaking through.

30

Trump explains this generation

by eyeslice2 in

glad to see the president making good use of visual aids again after his hurricane debacle.. .

MeanMrMustard

Lol. Good one. Thumbs up!

65

Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Alive and Well

by minimus in

jw
friends

i was on facebook and a person i have known for a long time posted how trump is mentally ill and is truly a psychopath.

a couple of her friends chimed in when i suggested that perhaps the fb friend was really the psychopath.

a couple of her friends began to defend her but i was surprised by how many people defended the president!

MeanMrMustard

PeacefulPete - the problem with your checkbox is you can tick all the boxes for Hillary as well and probably write some extra ones on the back.

Whataboutism fallacy. Hillary sucks, I agree.

No, this is not correct. This line wasn’t a distraction or red herring. The point: If you can tick off all the criteria for “Malignant Narcissism” simultaneously for both Hillary and Trump (and probably a whole host of other politicians, if we want to be honest), and then assert Trump has the problem and Hillary does not, then it tends to show TDS is alive and well.

Notice: it is not agreeing with the assessment in any way for Trump or Hillary. It’s a test to see if his world view is internally consistent.

It wasn’t a fallacy.

31

Big Meat Eaters?

by peacefulpete in

i was wondering how many of us have switched to a vegetarian or vegan diet and why.

i'm not doing it but have friends who do.

lovely people and seem very healthy.

MeanMrMustard

Tasty, tasty murder.

150

Cause of Mass Shootings Mental Health?

by blondie in

jw
friends

i have been sad to see so many groups and individuals say that the cause of these events are the mental status of the shooters.

i have looked over the backgrounds of these shooters, and few had medically identified mental health issues.

it is too easy to think that people shoot or kill other people because they are mentally ill.. actually, many or most people with real mental illnesses are most likely to be the victims of others.. i have been a volunteer with the organization called nami (national alliance of mental lillness) for 25 years now.

MeanMrMustard

I follow a YouTuber named Tim Pool. If you don’t know him, I think he’s worth following. Politically, he sits left of center. At least that is how he describes himself. To me, he is more classical liberal than modern liberal. Anyway, he was putting on an event in support of free speech recently, and he started to get some threats (#Antifa). A man showed up at his house @ 4AM, and then returned the next day as he was filming a video. The call to the police was captured live.

Later, he said, the officers were very helpful, and very quick to come to his house. But Tim admits, due to the threats, the officers kindly suggested that he exercise his second amendment rights. Sometimes you can’t wait for the police to arrive.