Town Quixote's

[Eeset]

Are you going to welcome resodko back? Surely you must.

 

[resodko]

let me be the first to accept town's heartfelt "welcome back" and return it in the manner in which it was given! :wave2:

Spoiler

 

[Town Heretic]

Sorry about that, folks. Some people just can't help themselves.

The Monday Afternoon Gazette​

Had a conversation with al about faith...

...I think we have no reason to be here if we can somehow make ourselves believe something because it is personally beneficial and not because it is necessarily true.

When the negative which is no more or less certain than the better context a reasonable man chooses the better context. If we accept defeatism, nihilism, a pointless, happenstance existence then and only then do we have no reason to be here.

Atheists aren't typically attracted to nihilism or godlessness, atheism is merely a conclusion of disbelief made from a perceived lack of godly evidence. An atheist's position is typically provisional until something changes that perception.

In my less than narrow experience that often isn't the case. It's frequently as not rooted in a demand that is by its nature an impossibility, not because the thing considered is impossible, but because the request is [empirical proof of a question that cannot be answered by empirical proof].

Maybe, at the heart of it, what an atheist really hopes for is a miracle.

Then my friend from Ohio continued to instruct me on my heritage and the proper response to it...

...The Framers of our Government held with a state's right to secede

I'm pretty sure I only just finished writing that I agreed they had the legal right. But I'm glad that the Union was preserved and that right ended, effectively. It was a horrible idea and the war illustrated why.

I'm not so sure that the black community is interested in full equality in America.

lain: No idea what you mean by that and I'm not sure it's in your best interest to tell me.

Not exactly the statement of a son of the South any more than Jenny Horne's.

My lineage, heritage and affection regarding the South aren't in question by anyone with a rational bone in their body.

The Confederate Flag was never a symbol of hate

Not if you were on the white side of the color bar. Else, you're delusional.

For some reason fzap decided to show me a picture of the Pope getting a hammer and sickle crucifix and asking my opinion about it, which then led to...

Yes but you thought it inappropriate so ... shouldn't we do away with it? The offending symbol, that is.

With a reach like that you should have been a power forward. I said the two symbols struck me as incompatible.

Now, Mr. Verne, I tell you what, when someone tries to run the sickle up the flagpole in Texas you let me know and I'll write the op-ed piece denouncing it and what it stands for.

Then...

TH ... in all honesty, you've sidestepped most every salient point offered you in this thread

I can't imagine that's the case. List them if you believe that and I'll consider or point you to a different understanding.

Still waiting on that list. lain:


Then rpchk said of my response on Carson's inability to control his rhetorical rudder...

i read about this much...

And doubled your monthly average? oly:

but then i figured... Why read the posts of a maroon?

Given your grammar I always suspected you didn't.

better things to do...

That's not how you spell bitter either. lain:

And after mostly agreeing, I differed a little with bybee on a point or two...

...I am not into aggravating other peoples sensibilities. The Confederate flag means nothing to me. It neither aggravates nor inspires me. It is not worth a brouhaha.

There we'll separate a little. But I suppose it's to be understood. To me, on a personal level, that flag is like raising a website dedicated to a horse thief in the family tree who made a fortune doing it. I'd rather people not.

Beyond that and more importantly it is a reminder to a great many people of a great indignity done to their family tree and a second injury done as they moved from free to equal. The evil and enmity advanced under those colors toward blacks and this nation warrants recognition, but not honor.

While of chrys and in his plastic awards thread, Tot said...

You've been grumbling a wee bit of late

It's his job. lain:

Which is pretty good for a Catholic.

But you can fire him at will, because he's not unionized.

IMJ, after her long battle for state's rights read about the people of Memphis deciding to remove Confederate General Forrest from public lands and suddenly...

...This is an all time low for our nation!

Sherman and Grant had slaves that they didn't set free until after the war was over. Should we dig them up too? This is positively outrageous and an affront to decency! The city of Memphis needs to contract an artist to create a statue of hypocrisy and erect it!

If you disagree with the action of the Memphis City Council, I would go here, click on email the council members and give them a heads up.

Wait...so you want state's rights but feel obligated to butt into the business of the good people of Memphis, Tennessee.

:rotfl:

And I watched rainee pull a racist out of her hat...

Are you guys going to stay so stupid on this?

I don't see setting out the plain truth to people invested in transforming a political mechanism into the central issue as stupid, though most of the attempts to revise that history by them haven't exactly been on the sharp end of a pen.

...I do believe that laws and segregation in the South were to keep black males away from white women and girls.

They were about keeping the race in second class status, beholding to the white majority for whatever we wanted them to have while keeping a political and economic stranglehold on their impact in the culture. The white woman fear was mostly a motivational tool for motivating tools.

...Listen, please listen to this account, I'll try to be short:
I was tall in 8th grade. I hated PE. I wasn't thin. I would drum up reasons to be late, trying to be too late to dress out. Came late one day and I saw a very tall young black woman standing next to Coach... A white man should marry her, Town? Dilute the wonderful things God has given her?

The man she loves and who loves her should marry her...Dilute? That's just nonsense. That's the vague language of racism, elevating one above the other...though honestly I don't think for a moment you'd find that white man her inferior. So what do you want for them? For her and the white fellow to remain separate in their uniqueness but equal?

Should the black man who would make a good mate not marry her so he can marry some ditsy blonde for some imagined social reason?

Because that's why a black man would marry a white woman in your thinking?

That is better to you?

It's better to me that we date and marry the object of our interest and love.

That Sovereign State had the decision, they made it for the good of all because of people like you I guess.

I think better of them and their reasoning. Or, to put it in a way you'll likely appreciate, they're a credit to our races.

Wrapping up in the UFO/Alien thread with the question that had to be asked...

:think: This isn't another immigration thread in disguise is it?

Tomorrow? The Ghost of George Wallace gets a haircut. :think:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Hump Day Gazette​

A little lighter today, beginning with an idea Granite sparked in the UN thread...

Are you trolling, dim, or just nuts?

I sense a Poll of the Day in the making here. :thumb:

Then rpchk said...

you put Tn Heretic's words in with mine...
are you being dishonest or was it just a mistake?
]why do i tend to think the former?

Because left to choose between an innocent mistake you'd have to accept with a measure of grace or a veiled slap allowing you to vent you go with the latter every time?

...just a guess.

Presented a different scale for Horn...

Why is it that anti-choicers ,

Defenders of innocent life

who are so determined to stop all women from having abortions ,

who are determined to prevent murders in the name of personal liberty

suddenly lose all their "love" of fetuses as soon as a fetus grows up and turns out to be gay ?

often find the sexual act of a full grown adult objectionable?


See, how fairly you frame a thing can often determine how fairly the thing pans out.

Got down to brass facts with dr...

Your opinion noted. Do you repudiate the American flag for the attempted genocide of the American Indian?

...Let me cut through this: what I find objectionable is the thing itself [the Confederate flag] and what it represents, what it came into existence to defend and preserve. That some hate filled doofus acted in a way that stirred the national debate and consideration on the point I mark as a public good (to be pulled from a tragedy) and one overdue (the discussion).

Had a word on another symbol with Aaron...

The government should not be primarily concerned with giving its citizens what makes them happy.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of...stuff."

That more along the lines you'd prefer? But you see my point. Government is concerned with a number of things, including our happiness.

I don't know why you need governmental recognition in order to have a more stable relationship.

It's the way people are built. We like symbols. A contract is a symbol of our intent, like a ring and a ceremony.

...Heterosexual marriages are the only unions inherently capable of producing children - by nature.

Which would be relevant if we required fertility or intent to have children as a prerequisite to marriage. We don't even have a question on the application about it.

Shared a word with Granite about...

Southern whites aren't exempt from criticism. What is this, a joke?

Somebody needs to alert her conductor.

Else, I don't judge a man by the context of his geography, but by the content of his speech...and sometimes his headgear.

Summed by problem with conspiracy bias...

... Your interest in and beliefs concerning this subject are being used against you and pretty much everyone else who allows themselves to be led around by the nose by our bought of media.

See, this concerns me and speaks to a problem that should concern you. You'll concede my education and intelligence in one moment and then describe someone using neither in the next.

That's not reasonable. But it is how you hold onto a bias.

Tomorrow? Bridges, suicides and psychopathic ducks. :shocked:

 

[Town Heretic]

The TGIF Gazette​

So I thought fza was making charges through his hat and repeatedly offered to take on anything he felt I'd left on the vine if he put it to me directly. Naturally he did that...I'm kidding, he did this...

So you can avoid them again?

All I can do is tell you I don't believe the charge is sustainable, but that if you have issues you don't feel were addressed then set them out clearly and I'll do my best.

This sort of response just ends the point of conversation.

...Anyone who tries to convince you that a human and their concerns may be reduced to a symbol and then define that symbol will eventually have you killing them and feeling good about it for their own purposes.

I see it this way, the Confederate battle flag was a symbol of a national evil. It shouldn't be flown over a state capital. It doesn't reduce human beings to recognize it was a symbol for doing precisely that.

Quit worrying about flags and start worrying about people.

It isn't an either/or.

While in chrys thread...

town is doing his best to discredit my awards thread
...I had to fire him

You can't. I'm in a union. :reals:

And...

I thought we were having fun here?

That's how the terrorists win. :noid:

Then Eeset attempted to wax on a member predicting his banning...

This certainly proved true.

A suicide predicting his near demise isn't remarkable.

Which led to...

Is that clear?

Depends on the audience. Some to all, some to fewer.

Before long chrys was back at it...

maybe now you can appreciate how difficult my job is

That's not how you spell delusional.

...how can we make this more respectable?

Just keep polishing it (your act, an apple, whatever it is). Maybe it will shine at some point...Else, a discontinuance of the thread on its own principle? A demonstration of real humor, some of it aimed inward? But if that was going to happen I suppose this wouldn't.

So San said...

...No wonder America is falling so fast. We are a disgrace as a "Christian" nation.

And gct asked...

So what are you doing about it, beyond posting on a forum?

Then I said...

Apparently living abroad. lain: Which is one way to change things.

Answered thusly...

Why is it that so many here assume they know so much about people?

And so...

It's probably the "Location" designation you set out to locate you. Unless there's a Santiago, Georgia...which given how things go in Georgia is possible, I suppose..

Stripe made his way back into the flag discussion...

Outlawing a flag in response to a mass shooting shows how insane liberals are.

Calling the removal of a foreign flag from over a state capital "outlawing" shows how irresponsible some on the right can be with rhetoric.

What meaningful change are you hoping it will achieve?

It's symbolic, like a flag.

Before getting irked by people, like himself, talking about the flag instead of the murder...which everyone had talked about...

Nine people are murdered.

He's been caught. He'll be tried. I've noted he's crazy or evil. Maybe both. :idunno: What else is there to say about that? It's a tragedy.

Lawyer wants to argue about a flag

Said the guy who only just wrote about what, again?

and calls justice evil.

I never did. Though I have tried reasoning with you when you get your bumper sticker shtick going, so I can get a thing wrong.

In rpchk's Carson thread...

If it talks like a psychopath
acts like a psychopath...
quacks like a psychopath...

Stay away from that duck?

Tomorrow? More Stripes to heal by, how great is America? and I tell off a Yankee. :shocked:

Actually we recognize two sorts of Yankees in the South. One we like and invite into our homes and the other we usually combine with a descriptive that might be impolitic at present. lain: I tell off the second sort.

 

[Town Heretic]

Gazette bonus: thought for today...

Political correctness. The more I see it in action the more convinced I become that it's almost entirely a phrase used by those determined to blame the other guy for their manners.

And with that, the Gazette has crossed the 100k Rubicon.

 

[Town Heretic]

The Late Night Gazette​

So thomas said...

If you think that abortion clinics are the modern equivalent of the Belsen gas chambers, are you sure that 'calling attention' to something that is widely known about is a sufficient action for an ethical Christian? Why haven't got joined a militia and stormed the government buildings to remove the evil murderers?

Oh, you wrote a letter. My bad. Carry on.

In fairness, it was strongly worded. lain:

Differed with a half mast suggestion...

...Let's just pull all the flags down, considering what they could be symbolic of.

Doesn't work that way. Shouldn't. Our flag is a symbol of our nation. It's a nation with a great principle in play, flawed as we might be from time to time, established to forge among men a free people and a Republic of laws where all men find equality. That concept was too advanced even for the men who framed it.

I think that says something grand about the experiment in progress.

While fighting the good fight to assure IMJ that no actual Southerner declares himself a Confederate...

...Why?...because you say so?

Because unlike you I've spent a lifetime in the Deep South and I'm actually a Southerner, with long and lasting roots familial here and I've never heard the like. We are Southerners, my Yankee friend, not Confederates. Else, why not, it was good enough for you above.

They don't go around declaring what simply is, Town and if you are a son of the South, you know that.

WE don't go around declaring it because it isn't our identity, honor that war or not. No one here declares "The Confederacy Will Rise Again!" and you know why? Because we're not dad-blasted Confederates. We don't identify that way. Southern covers a great deal more than that C word ever will or ever did.

And you just proved my point with this statement. Only Confederates consider northerners Yankees.

No, just because we use the term and eat grits it doesn't follow that we're Confederates, unless you're desperate to make a case for a thing you can't produce and won't, which is the daft notion of most Southerners agreeing with you on the Confederate nonsense.

You're also incorrect as I am not a Yankee. My family wasn't even living in this country at the time of the Civil War. My husband's family is a whole different story.

Where were you born and where have you spent your life? It has nothing to do with how long your family has lived there. That's why no Southerner will ever stop and say, "Before I call y'all Yankees I should ask, how many generations of you are there in that northern state?"

And Stripe was back on due process...

...He is a murderer. Justice demands that he be executed.

No, you demand it. Justice will or won't, depending.

The longer that waits, the longer justice is denied.

Justice delayed? I'd rather have it than have injustice through hurrying.

And...

First, "understanding" should be no protection from justice.

Yes, it is. The law is subject to mitigation, which is why all killing isn't murder. Some killing is justified and some is, by mental defect, a process without a rational intent. Putting someone to death who doesn't understand the nature of his actions isn't justice, it's vengeance.

Second, the delay is a delay of justice — if justice is ever going to be served.

That's a version of a legal maxim misunderstood by nearly everyone who uses it. It relates to the right to a speedy trial, to prevent the government from abusing its power and holding those indefinitely that it cannot try and punish as it would.

It was never a call to grab a guy on the street that a few of you are sure was the killer and stringing him up then and there..

Then...

...To be on the safe side, any intentional killing of an innocent person should be called murder and the perpetrator should — generally speaking — be executed within a week of the event.

The problem is that's not on anything like a safe side. It invites miscarriage of justice. A week is just an arbitrary figure. If it doesn't bear a relation to the likelihood of getting it right then it's worse than arbitrary, it's irresponsible.

Before chrys opined...

they don't give me neg reps like town does

Yeah, I'm a regular fountain of them. How many do you think you've gotten from me over the years? Twelve? lain:

I may have had a bit of temper in wrapping up with...

...This situation with the Confederate flag is a ploy for the purpose of implementing a Liberal agenda.

Not in my house or any number. But if the liberal agenda is to remove a symbol of that South from seats of government then good on them. They're right and those of us outside that camp have been wrong on the point by allowing it and confusing that issue with some vague notion of honoring history and tradition. If you're of the mind there's a larger attempt under way it will depend on a case by case.

And when that Liberal agenda turns against Christians in America what will you have to say about our nation's great principle while you're turning your back on Yeshua much the same way as you've turned your back on Southerners who consider themselves sons and daughters of the Confederacy as well as the Native American?

I don't give a twisted fig about turning my back on people so either willfully ignorant of history that they advance an evil in the name of virtue or so indifferent to the truth in the service of their agenda that they'd cloud the issue willfully. The South I care about is a different one and most of the people in it, good, decent people, aren't the sort of yahoos who I have issue with. Either we live and grow and learn or we mistake every tradition with an unmeasured nobility that roots us in error and evil.

And you can stuff your sanctimonious "while you're turning your back on [Jesus]" comment in the piety hole you're running off at. But I thank you for providing a clear point to stop wasting time on a Yankee trying to tell me my culture or state my indifference to issues no one who wasn't in the throes of lunacy, essentially dishonest, or at least crippled by a deeply held confusion would have the audacity to advance.

So I said...

Apologetics is like anything else, there are two sorts of people interested, those who are curious on the point and those who want to sharpen their approach in assisting others who are searching or to defend the faith against anti-theist attempts to demean it.

And quip asked...

You mean like those guys on city street corners with three shells and a pea?

You must be talking about the anti theists, because no Christian is going to take a pea on a public street corner.

lain:

Wrapped up with Stripe for the day...

...Pretending you can determine that a guy did not understand he was shooting up a church is no excuse for murder.

I'm not pretending and wouldn't make the determination. Like you, I'm unqualified.

...I don't care about your willful and proud ignorance of the law

You're confused. Or you're sitting too close to your monitor.

I do care about justice. And mercy is forbidden in this case.

It may be necessary to shoot a mad dog. It isn't justice. In this case, if those qualified can determine his mental competence to stand trial he will. If he isn't competent he won't.

Tomorrow? Chrys sells shills by the seashore...

 

[IMJerusha]

Differed with a half mast suggestion...
While fighting the good fight to assure IMJ that no actual Southerner declares himself a Confederate...

You might ought to check with the Southern Legal Resource Center which has been working since 2010 to get "Confederate Southern American" placed on the US Census forms.

 

[Town Heretic]

You might ought to check with the Southern Legal Resource Center which has been working since 2010 to get "Confederate Southern American" placed on the US Census forms.

That "Center" is just a handful of lawyers in SC who are, as I noted in the thread where the argument is happening and you repeat here for no apparent reason, actually dense enough to try and get people to identify "Confederate Southern American" as their race.

It's not setting South Carolina, let alone the South on fire.

 

[Town Heretic]

The Friday Gazette​

So Eeset tried the old whine/newer whineskin approach...

...Knight established exemptions for lifetime members but sherman has revoked them

Knight has been clear enough for a long ago time now that no one has an absolute get out of bad conduct card, only a great deal of latitude. If you can't get along here without blasphemy, profanity or trolling then you should consider a blog or another address or medication.

Nicky can't safely name call anymore with impunity so he has gone mostly silent

...No one should name call with impunity. Especially not Christians.

...Even aCW has to be more polite which is a queer thing indeed

He's had one infraction this year. One.

This is what happens when a town experiences renovation. Urban flight.

No, this is what happens when someone like you doesn't let the facts get in the way of the narrative she has in mind.

GFR was trying to keep a straight face with this comment on the S.Ct. gay marriage ruling...

It was passed by a slim majority (instead of 7-2 or 9-0) and it in my opinion would have been better left to gradually win in a majority of states. :think:

Yes, I'm sure that's what you were rooting for, a slow win.

Elsewhere, in the murder turned Confederate flag thread, fza was leaning on the homespun inferential...

Well ... my father used to say that it takes some folks their whole life to overcome a college education ... I guess that would have included a law degree.

Whereas people without that particular education must frequently overcome their limitations from beyond the grave or by virtue of it.

That turned into a conversation of sorts...

It is difficult to get someone to change their beliefs ... it is next to impossible when they have paid money to be taught them.

I can't speak for every discipline, but the point of a legal education isn't to produce a particular opinion or belief, but to produce and then refine a process of consideration, a particular methodological engagement of claim brought under exhaustive analysis.

And...

...I respect and appreciate that. This said, I think that the "disciplines" that require rhetorical skills most often leave those not so equipped depending upon a champion that requires remuneration.

In this society you pay the worker his wages. It doesn't diminish the physician that he's paid or the priest.

...Lucky for us our final judge exacts no price other than faith and the fruits thereof.

Obedience is a sort of coin. Fealty. It will demand something of us, one way or the other.

Summed for the jury with Stripe leading the prosecution...

Nope.

Say "nope" a hundred times, but it won't get you out of a speeding ticket, even if you earnestly believe the state has no right to give it.

Being an expert in the regulations men make has all but eliminated you from being able to talk sensibly about what justice is.

...Justice, in the demonstrable sense, is a context. What you call broken is just another context. Short of God's certainty any attempt at justice will be...it is just that a man who has a thing to which he has a right should never be deprived of it. And when he is the law of men attempts to put him in as near proximity to that prior state as can be met, but it isn't really justice. Because no matter what the state does it cannot undo the deprivation. It is then, the nearest approximation to the thing we recognize. We serve justice, but we cannot render a ruling that does more than cast its shadow.

I'm talking justice, which would have seen the murderer executed already.

No, you're assuming that having that man "dead already" is just. Your comfort in that assumption is one reason I think you're unqualified to dispense actual justice.

Answered chrys' indirect attacks on a few others in his "Watch me get even with insulting fake awards" thread...

...consider a right winger christian who is pro life but calls someone a whore for supporting the republican party what can you conclude about them?

That he suddenly pluralized? :shocked: Or that he holds the party (accountable) that should be representing his goals (he believes) but instead mostly leans on rhetoric and routinely violates its own stated principles?

These are guesses, mind you.

Then Stripe was back with part of a point...

... To engage in rational debate, you have to show that your compact is necessarily an absolute standard of truth and justice.

Law is necessary for the functioning of any compact. But it doesn't have to make any claim about an absolute truth. The law is concerned with right and balance, with penalty and reward/incentive on some occasions. It isn't an arbiter of moral truth.

So you can't provide justice.

No one can in this life, as per my example.

How about you step aside and let someone who is willing to do so. :up:

How about you resize that hat. It's cutting off your blood flow.

That's because you hate the thought of justice.

That's a pointless, wrong headed and childish response. But given what preceded it, I can't say it surprises me...And won't isn't can't on calling someone a murderer. Due process will determine his competence and guilt.

Objected to the notion that elective surgery should be conflated with heroism...

...How is that not heroic?

How is being "honest" about your inclinations inherently heroic? Blacks who walked into the maw of a corrupt police in Selma were heroic. Indians who faced the clubs of the British police in India were heroic.

Having elective surgery to suit some inner sense of self then accepting accolade and award isn't. And Jenner didn't transform himself to save anyone. He did what he did for himself. That's not heroism. A speech isn't heroic either, unless you're standing below the hangman. Hoping to turn your own choices into someone else's support and victory, depending on the choices, could be described as service to a good, but that's about it...and in this case I think that good is arguable at best.

And added as an afterthought...

A sham reflective of the general moral vacuum. Having mostly won the field, secularism is discovering the problem of attempting to define without a dictionary. Anything can be noble and courageous...so ultimately nothing can be, meaningfully.

Then rainee started doing what for IMJ has become a near cottage industry...

...And Town was unimpressed that SC was unfairly blamed fort starting the war by booting them out - without shooting a one of them and that was at least a couple months AFTER they seceded.

I don't think I actually made a comment about it one way or the other.

By the way, did you catch that state's rights Klan group waving that flag at the S. Car. capital the other day?

They must be confused. You should go up or down there (depending on where you live) and set them straight on the honorable whatever that is the glorious rebel flag.

Tomorrow? It's duck season, so everyone should get down (either). lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Saturday Morning Gazette​

In the tide thread it was turning ugly, one way or the other...

When I was a kid I mooned a crowd of people....The gravitational pull attracted a Cop. lain:

I mooned over a girl once, but I don't think she found it attractive. lain:

I really cannot believe this thread actually exists.

We are all dumber for participating in it.

What you mean?

Differed with a friend on the value of a much debated symbol...

...One (the flag) has zero to do with the other (murder and racist against blacks).

Well, no. There's a history of violence and inhumanity, of racism and dehumanization associated with that flag. The flag itself was born of a violent effort to perpetuate a moral evil. To say it's just a piece of cloth is to invite "Why use it?" To suggest that as more than a piece of cloth it has value, outside of use as a cautionary tale, is to deny its actual history.

That would be like saying "That dog with the collar is mean, therefore all dogs with collars are mean".

No, it would be like saying, "That flag was made to represent a stab at a new nation formed in defense of a human evil and then resurrected by those opposing giving the descendants of its victims the rights they were entitled to."

That's exactly what it's like. And that's why it has no place over a seat of government. Though if someone wants to paint their house to look like one it's their business.

Then rainee said...

...Nothing more righteous than ex slave owners as the yanks frequently demonstrate.

Sure. Ex smokers too. And smoking? Horrible for you.

Are you saying their beliefs or thoughts back then infect us today - did the killer want slavery?
No.

So you're doing questions and answers too? I think that's a blog. lain:

...As I said humbly before and now I think He [God] stopped slavery.

Then, again, maybe you shouldn't defend a symbol of the thing He opposed.

So IMJ took another angle...

When one sees the photos of mass graves dug for Native Americans and considers the countless treaties broken by our government, it's kinda hard to ignore the similarities to the acts of Nazi Germany.

Similarity is a dangerously loose word. What isn't ambiguous is Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jew. You won't find a similar document of intent on the part of this nation, horrific treatment, abuse and indifference notwithstanding...

And then she just...

...You may wish to consult the Southern Legal Resource Center which finds that Southerners with pride in their Confederate ancestry are being persecuted. I would have to agree with their findings.

Good for you? Not sure how that was remotely responsive to the quote of mine that preceded it. Persecuted? :chuckle: The SLR is just a name slapped onto a thing created by a handful of S. Car. lawyers around twenty years ago to defend Confederate symbols, essentially.

These geniuses actually tried to get people to identify as "Confederate Southern Americans" on the 2010 United States Census form, under race. lain:

Translation: Southerners with pride in their Confederate ancestry are yahoos and all others are good and decent people.

Or, Southerners who take pride in a slave state that permitted dehumanizing and unspeakable acts of barbarism are yahoos, either ignorant of that history or, worse, indifferent to it. Sure, they're embarrassing hold overs from the asinine romanticism of the period.

...I've rarely run across someone so devoted to the Liberal agenda all the while in denial of same.

This is almost as funny as Pure calling me an apologist for the Christian right wing because I defended them from irrational attack. Or, zealots never do manage to see straight, so your above doesn't surprise me.

So dr stepped to the mound and made his pitch...

You have to get new stuff Town.

History remains static. It's the nature of facts. A nation founded to promote and continue the evil of slavery remains one such fact, year after year.

Yes some Southern politicians said white supremacy was a basis for their society, but so did Abraham Lincoln.

...I've also noted that Lincoln, by today's light, would be considered a racist, that he simply wasn't the sort of racist who would defend buying and selling people.

So in other words, cry me a river.

So it isn't only history you people can't get right. lain:

Before IMJ came back, spinning by in the orbit...

Meaning that Conservatives are pro-slavery?

Yes. That's obviously what it must mean. I literally think conservatives are pro slavery. Magnificent. You should be start a Mensa chapter...or at least try for an intelligent sentence.

What is demonstrable is that you can plainly state something without really stating it outright, a sad misuse of your training.

That you don't recognize the contradiction there is either very funny or very sad. But why choose?

...Now, I can go back and get the links and I have been known to do that in the past. Is that what you would like me to do?

I haven't been ambiguous. I've said if you're going to make a charge that I said something back it with a quote. Couldn't be clearer. But you'll never sustain your "evil state's rights" or disparaging of Native Americans by doing that so I don't expect you to.

And she never did. oly:



Then Eeset stopped by to show how it's done nakedly, which figures...

This thread has become another lengthy diatribe on the correctness of Town. He Trumped the conversation.

Just telling the truth. And the truth will set you free, or your hair on fire, depending on how close to it you get.

You would be safe draped in silk.

While in the old numbers thread...

only town will know where these numbers came from
all the rest
10 chrysostom 2 town
politics
2 chrysostom 0 town
religion
1 chrysostom 0 town
ect
1 chrysostom 0 town

I guess Chrys got lonesome and thought he'd ignore me over here.

And...

I took you off ignore

Okay.

I have been checking other numbers and found that all my award threads are in the top 50 including my latest plus six other threads of mine but you are the only one who might care about that

...If you're happy I'm happy for you.

But...

did you notice who started this thread? it is over two years old and it has not broke into the top 50

I never start a thread caring about whether it breaks a particular barrier, just as I never arrived at my rep number by courting favor or asking for it, that sort of thing. That likely won't make sense to you, but either they're organic or I don't care much. What I've hoped for over the years is that if I care enough to start a thread on a subject people find it entertaining or informative or interesting enough to spend a moment participating or considering.

I've had a pretty good track record on that. But numbers are only meaningful as reflections, not as goals. That's why I shut down Observations, which if numbers in and of mattered to me could have kept going and become the biggest thread in the joint in any meaningful particular.

I closed it.

With that attempt not doing well he tried a new one in his award thread...

but you are not a difference maker
anna, res, zoo, and meshak are

That fluttered a bit at the end, but wasn't a butterfly...

even zoo is wondering about that but our job is to make a difference and it better be on the positive side

Oh, so it didn't really mean anything objective, was only you doing your inferential nonsense again. Got it. You're like the girl who says to a guy, "You're better looking than your brother," not because she wants to compliment you, but because she wants to take your brother down a peg or two.

Tomorrow? Moon pies, solitude on the mountaintop and somebody gets a new award...maybe. :first:

 

[Tambora]

Differed with a friend on the value of a much debated symbol...

But we both agreed it's a pretty flag. Right?

 

[Town Heretic]

But we both agreed it's a pretty flag. Right?

It's undeniably snappy. lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Hump Day Gazette​

And that can only mean one thing...a boatload of chrys...

have you noticed how many check in to see what I am having for lunch?
I know you have nearly 50 times

actually top 40 views
and top 60 replies
you have to be impressed with those numbers
this is about my lunch!

I had this thread. Just a goof off thread...Chrys posted 152 times in it.
lain: Now what?

So...more chrys...irked by my not rating a list of irksome...

now this is really annoying
but I already have you on the list
so
could you just give us your top three?

Of course I could.

I just went higher on the list, didn't I? lain:

Before demonstrating adeft touch for political motivation...

it is demagoguery
we have a huge debt that cannot be sustained
we have islamic terrorism
we have nuclear proliferation
we have out of control healthcare costs
we have government unions with unfunded pensions
and you idiots are worried about poor people coming over the border to work for low wages
get smart soon
please!!!

Well, when you put it like that I'm amazed people aren't lining up to get behind you. Especially if there's a train coming. lain:

Chrys made a rare admission of sorts...

...my numbers would really be low
if town hadn't stopped by so often to talk about them

It's true. Before I got involved chrys was selling homeschool grammar textbooks door to door. Now just look at him...won't you? lain:

Before he upped the courage ante from behind the lines...

you are not really free
if you are not willing to die for it

No one knows what they are willing to die for until they see the gun.

And...

many know each time they vote

They hold guns on you where you vote??? You should move.

If they'll let you. :noid:

But then the fun went right out of it...

we were talking about principles that we are willing to die for they tell us how to vote like life, family, and religious freedom we think they are important

Well, you put the die for them part in, or I missed someone else doing it. I suppose my problem with this sort of approach is that we live in a country where you're not going to die for anything on principle, chances are. You'll die of crime or disease, but not likely as a result of having a notion that is meaningful to you. Mostly because the notions that are worth dying for tend to be the ones we all have in common.

So, to make a card game analogy, when someone advances their beliefs with a "courage of conviction" card and we all know they aren't going to be called, the hand feels a bit unnecessary, like a way of inferring that others with different cards/opinions on this or that may lack that particular courage/ace.

Otherwise, what's the point in putting in the ante?

fool had a notion to break up the string...

The lesson is clear.
Don't go to movie theaters.
Why would you when we have Amazon Prime and such.
Watch that stuff at home.

Sure, that sounds great...until you look at the FBI statistics and realize that most homicides, including multiple homicides, occur in the home.

:noid:

But undeterred I'll leave with my last on the length of a certain thread...

You're going to need a "Who Gives A Rip Van Winkle" award if you drag his out much longer... lain:

Tomorrow? Fried chicken, home-made sweat rolls, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and pie with ice cream to top it off...sweet tea with the whole shebang, of course. :chew:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Saturday Night Special Gazette​

Tried to help fza out...

I understand ... for some reason I have yet to fathom only certain folks opinions are valid on certain subjects in their own mind.

Happens all the time. Say, when a mathematician is arguing physics with a plumber, or a physician is arguing biology with a plumber. Or, basically anyone with an advanced understanding of a thing is arguing with a plumber. lain: Unless the subject is plumbing.

And then it's iffy.

And continuing the helpful mode regarding Tom Brady's bad move...

Why do you think he destroyed his cell phone?

Because he'd have to explain his posting to Patspulpit.com as Tom's#1fan?

Pointed out a problem with Guru's reading of the narrow way...

There is great disappointment and grinding of teeth for the billion strong traditional Christians. They all genuinely believe and hold that belief (i.e. 'they are on their way to heaven').

Like I said, I think some people (and you're qualifying at this point) have abused that scripture to no end to justify whatever near decoder ring exclusivity they believe their particular enlightenment entitles them to.

...It is even worse if you hold and share the same "Christian' ideas and beliefs as a million people. It is absolutely the worse if you hold and share the same 'Christian' ideas and beliefs as a billion strong.

By the light you're using to see it the more heretical and absurd the position the more likely it is to be correct, because so few will hold it.

...I certainly do not want to be among the hapless masses.

Every man is elite in the privacy of his thoughts. Some people just let the rest of us in on it. lain:

Put in my two cents on the lion killing...

...Look, when I was a young man my grandfather taught me to track and hunt, to field dress and respect the animal I hunted. What trophy hunters do isn't something I was brought up to respect and I don't.

And...

...I believe you have a point, but it isn't just amusement.

I think anyone who enjoys inflicting suffering is either ill or immature. The problem with young hunters who aren't taught respect is that they can bring the glee kids have for destruction into what they do and it mars and perverts the process. Show me a man who seems normal but enjoys killing and I'll show you someone who didn't have the right teacher and has a bit of that childhood immaturity bound up in his hunt and his personality.

Then read the new guy's curious take on dictionaries...

... Let's say that I decide to call a gorilla a fish, am I wrong for doing so?

Yes.

If so, why?

Because the point of a common language is first and foremost communication and what you're doing is contrary to that primary pursuit. Or, to put it another way, banana blue the up nostril feather.

But it may be said...that words can have double meanings; that 'gay' can mean both 'happy' and 'homosexual'. Not objectively they can't.

Yes, they objectively can. You do realize words often have primary, secondary and tertiary meanings...so it can be objectively true that the word bread is, within a context, either a food item or spendable currency, by way of. There is no objective truth in the sense that a series of sounds must have been assigned to a particular meaning, but when they are it becomes an objective fact.

Then he doubled down in the SC shooting thread...

I see this shooting as the wrath/judgment of God.

If you cut yourself shaving do you see it as the minor irritation of God?

Do tell me, pray, how it was idiotic, insulting and depraved? If it was those things, wouldn't it be right for you to let me know how, and why?

Do you know what Christ replied when the Pharisees suggested his miracles were of the devil? Apply it.

And in the bogus sex ed thread...

And for a brief moment I thought that you were siding with perverts who indoctrinate children.

Oh the joy that must have been yours for a moment.

I'm glad that you cleared that one up TH.

Man, for a second I thought you wrote that you were GLAAD. Good thing I gave that a second look for once. lain:

And ManO's was back with...

No, if I cut myself shaving, that's a result of my carelessness; or even the natural consequence of using a sharp blade on soft skin.

Well I'm glad to know there's a break in there somewhere...so it's mostly other people's suffering that has the hand of God in it?

Do tell me, pray, how it was idiotic, insulting and depraved? If it was those things, wouldn't it be right for you to let me know how, and why?

Well, there's:

...The shooter was an instrument used by God to deliver His judgment on sinners - in this case, those who take His name in vain. Is it any coincidence that the people who were killed were professing Christians...

That'll do, prig. That'll do.

Tomorrow? Lions on PETA bread and ManO combines fatalism with his definition difficulties to not so great effect... oly:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Monday Evening Gazette​

In the jungle...

...I can imagine it's be difficult to kill a lion over a deer because deer are nothing more than giant rabbits- they freeze up or run.

It's not difficult to kill anything if you have the right equipment, training and patience, but why you kill and how you kill is important.

A lion, however, is a much more sly creature who probably gets the drop on you before you do them by default, and isn't going to go down with a single shot unless it is perfectly aimed.

A lion who's baited into an area where you've set up a watch isn't much different from an elk unless you lack nerve, in terms of the killing at any rate. A lion who is driven into you isn't cunning at all, he's distracted. They do the same for deer. They're loud coming on. It's not much different from spooking quail except the quail can't eat you if you get it wrong.

Then Numbrod was back...

If the great white hunter knew anything about hunting

I think you're whistling through your hat. Let's begin. What's the longest shot you've ever taken in the deep woods and how long have you been in tracking, at the longest point? A good point to begin a conversation about hunting.

[A silence thereafter descended on the point]

he'd know that using things such as duck calls is a form of baiting.

So is fishing. Do you think most duck hunters are just in it for the thrill of the kill? lain: And unlike the obvious answer there, a duck hunter can and does assist with population control.

Is that unethical?

Inherently? Of course not. Now if you go out and shoot birds like skeet and just for the fun of it, the answer changes.

So ManO found a different definition...

What exactly is classified as suffering, and who defines it?

...you might struggle to define it, but trust me you'll know it when you experience it.

Is receiving a razor-blade scratch - as a natural consequence or as a result of carelessness - deemed as suffering?

Does it hurt? There's your answer. The rest is degree.

Is it a tragedy? Is it on par with being robbed, or being stabbed, or being shot and killed?

Of course not, which is why no one has suggested it. Are you suggesting it?

If you deem a razor scratch to be suffering, then I don't think you have known what true suffering is, my friend.

It's more that I own a dictionary and, also, that I know what a petard is, which is something I rarely find extremists tend to understand...though many are left dangling in that particular ignorance.

Besides, suffering is relative.

You get it from your kids? lain:

Then Chrys was after...

purex is not unique
he is a typical liberal

Is it that you don't understand the typical liberal or that you don't understand Pure?

treat everyone the same

And your neighbor as yourself?

and use government to do it

Oh. How many prisons have you personally visited this week? How many people in need have you fed, widows have you sat down with? How many kids have you taught, families have you personally pitched in and helped through disaster? That sort of thing. We tithe and we pay taxes because we realize it's the most effective way to do those things and because most of us spend our days providing for the immediate needs of our families.

don't allow for individual differences

Chrys, that's all relativists do...even when they do it badly. Or some relativists are a lot like a some Christians, often enough. They have the speech down pat, but fall apart when they start to apply it.

And ManO returned with...

...I do not think that suffering is simply defined only by time

It's not defined by time at all, except in the sense that it takes time (not your subjectively long period) to suffer.

...your dictionary doesn't provide a true, objective definition of suffering.

Yes, it does. It simply doesn't provide you with what you want it to mean.

Afterall, aren't supposdely objective dictionaries based on the subjective opinions of humans?

They're based on sustained popular usage, because the point of language is to communicate.

The way that a person died is telling; and indicative of that person's spiritual state. The people in the Dylan Roof shooting, died a tragic, violent, untimely death. This shows that they were unrepentant.

Good men die in the midst of war. Bad men sometimes die in bed. Your thinking here demonstrates an extraordinary lack of breadth in consideration.

But the timing and nature of our death says much about the life that we chose to lead.

Except when it doesn't, which is often.

The mother who purposely and wilfully drowned her children has committed murder, and she will reap what she has sown. And the children who died at her hands could have very well reaped what they sowed

That your worldview allows for that latter part is simply tragic.

You simply cannot recognise the wrath of God for what is - the wrath of God.

Or you're mistaken. And given how demonstrably often that's happened so far...

While in Chrys' award thread...

If this continues through Thanksgiving I want a leg. :chew:

Tomorrow? Good news.

 

[Town Heretic]

Moved.

 

[Eeset]

Aren't you going to comment on the great republican debate?

 

[Town Heretic]

Sorry folks, the woman who hates thinking about me can't leave me alone, apparently. I'll leave it closed for a day and open again later tomorrow.

The Thursday Afternoon Gazette​

So in the Obama/Nero thread...

I see a devastating comparison.
Addicted to spectacle with himself at the center?
Nero, Obama.

You know this is just setting up the inevitable, "Nero, please." So there. that's out of the way.

repchk started another thread, but...

I feel sorry for people clos...

Sorry, that's just as far as I could get. If that thing was a pencil you'd tear the paper to pieces trying for a thesis...Fell asleep so often making an attempt to get to the point I wondered if I had sudden onset narcolepsy...but no.

It's you then. lain:

That said I like some Catholics. Some I don't. Catholicism gave me Merton and Brother Lawrence. I'm grateful for that much...but then it also gave us you. :think: So the way I see it this Pope owes me.

Wagged a warning finger in the Favorite Song Versions thread...

You guys think you're having trouble now. Wait until someone drops "Happy Birthday To You" into the mix.

lain:

Before MO was back with his usual M.O...

...You may say to me, 'The answer I gave is sufficient and substantial'. But who is that determines if a substantial answer has been given - is it not the one who asks the question?

In an argument, no. Because anyone, regardless of their level of rationality, could simply (and some here will) declare a thing invalid or insufficient without having illustrated either an understanding of the answer or it's objective insufficiency, if you can imagine.

...It seems that you totally and completely missed the point(s) I was making - through the hypothetical scenarios that I gave.

This would be where someone who could sustain that point would illustrate it, set out what I missed and where someone who simply wanted to manufacture an appearance would declare it and then move on to the next declaration, which is what you're about to do.

...Who says they have to conform to those rules?

No one. Baby flew the happenstance to a gramophone hotel, by way of. Or, it's in our best interest to do so.

...Now the question is, whose statements up until this point have been right, and whose have been wrong? I think we will need to appeal to an objective judge, that is, God - for He, who knows all things, would be able to decide who is right, and who is wrong.

Okay. I'll wait a minute (clocking). No, it appears He is going to let us rely on the satisfying sources that are at our disposal. A look at a dictionary will, in short order, reject your premise that words can't objectively mean more than one particular thing. The rest of your error proceeds from that point.

You say 'meanings can change'. Well, let me ask you... can objective truth change?

This, as I see it, is your problem distilled. The truth that is unchanging is found in the thing described by language. The sun isn't made true because we call it "sun". It isn't made false if I change my name legally to "sun". Language is how we approach objects and ideas and states. The truth resides in the thing approached and the sound or symbol that we make to represent it is likewise a reflection of truth. So when I say bread and mean money the truth I approach isn't edible. Context is how we navigate that complexity.

Before things took a serious turn for the nurse with al...

I am encouraged by better minds than mine that say "if you think you understand quantum physics then you don't.".

Bought a Dodge Fermion last year. It had dents, but the price was good and you expect those things to have been leaped on.

Took it to a quantum mechanic for a service check. He found a dead cat in it. Got the bill yesterday but I don't know if I should open it.

Capping with...

Wait three days.....

(Was Schrodinger a religious man?)

I believe so. :angel:

If you don't open the bill you will not owe anything on it. :chuckle:

All I know for sure is that he can't sue me until I do.

Yes but if the condition of the cat had remained un-observed it would have been both alive and dead at the same time apparently, ...I'm really getting the hang of quantum physics now.

I thought about suing him for deciding the point, but it wasn't my cat.

Tomorrow? School related rushing about. :shocked:

 

[Town Heretic]

A friend shared this with me. I don't know the attribution and maybe some of you have read it...anyway, I thought it poignant enough to share.

As a guitarist, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost.

I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.

I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before and as I played ‘Amazing Grace,’ the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together.

When I finished I packed up my guitar and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full. As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”​