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[penguinofhonor]

"I know I'm not supposed to like muscle cars, but I like muscle cars."
--Joe Biden

It's the newest iteration of the progressive rage thread! This is a place for people to discuss politics and recent events from a primarily liberal perspective, usually by explaining their problems with those things.

If you're new, you'll probably want to skip to near the end of the thread. The most recent and relevant stuff will be there.

Rules:

• The default view in this thread is liberal or progressive. Conservative opinions are welcome, but understand you'll likely be in the minority and under more scrutiny.
• No trolling or bigotry. Don't be dismissive or disrespectful of people's identities in this thread. This should not be a place where people feel the need to defend the legitimacy of their sexuality or gender.
• Do not gang up on people or shut them out of the discussion for having a conservative viewpoint or expressing one in the past.
• No semantics arguments. You can disagree with someone's definition, but drop it if it doesn't get resolved in a post or two.

[Epithemius]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/02/29/pol-robocalls-poor-losers.html
It seems the value of the vote has been furthermore diminished. If a party cannot play by the rules, why are they allowed in the game at all? This sickens me to see what our democracy has become: a party cheating in order to continue to be the government.

[Capntastic]

I was expecting someone would've held off for more than an hour to reboot this.  At least let the locked thread sink off the first page so people's tempers can cool!

(I had aims of reincarnating the thread as something different, mainly with views to keep the OP updated as a database of progressive articles and books, persons of interest, studies, and discussions.  A resource people could turn to for educating themselves and others, basically, with room for casual discussion.  I feel that a proper 'goal' would keep things from meandering into squabbles.  Regardless, I'm fine with giving this a chance~)

I'd like to discuss W.K. Clifford, who was a dude in the mid-1800s, a genius mathematician and philosopher, and defying all convention at the time, an atheist through and through.  What is most interesting to me about his stance on atheism is that he was not content to say "I see no evidence for God, and choose not to believe in it"- no, he went the extra step into asserting that it is unethical to live one's life predicated on a belief that is not proven.  His drive to put the nature of belief and truth under such scrutiny is what secures him as one of the greats.

It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

Here's his "Ethics of Belief", which is solid.

[Flying Dice]

Capn, there is probably enough room for you to create a thread like that, while this could be used more for moderated debate.

[penguinofhonor]

I was expecting someone would've held off for more than an hour to reboot this.  At least let the locked thread sink off the first page so people's tempers can cool!

... You know what, I just sort of assumed any interested person would have started a new thread before 1.5 hours. I didn't think about the active arguments that were caught up when the thread was closed, or that tempers might still be high after a relatively short time. My bad there.

Your idea still sounds like it'd be unique enough to warrant its own thread. I mean, if the progressive rage threads can coexist with the election thread, in turn coexisting with whatever random politics topics get created, yours seems to be the most unique.

[Capntastic]

There is, and while an extra thread probably wouldn't detract much from other threads, my own motivation to create a thread of that nature only passes the required threshold if such a thread is specifically required.

Edit:  If we're gonna aim for the moderated debate route, I suggest adding this to the OP.  Feel free to use that link specifically, it's my hosting.
 
Edit edit:  Also let's use this instead of Aqizzar's hound picture.   All in favor say aye.

[Frumple]

Love the chart (am keeping, by the way.)... but on the hound equivalent, nay. Too big. Something smaller would be nice though, maybe.

E: Incidentally, I've heard of that Clifford guy before, but blazes if I can remember precisely where. Definitely reading that as soon as I no longer have a splitting headache, so thanks for the link.

[penguinofhonor]

Good chart, definitely. It's in the OP now.

[Max White]

Good luck PoH, the fate of this thread lies in your mediation skills...
*popcorn*

[Gamerlord]

ptw

[Reelya]

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/01/26/13rd-of-women-in-us-military-raped/

Original NPR source :

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103844570

I mentioned this to some guys on a wargame site who were saying all non-USA nations soldiers were rapists (and agreeing without evidence), and they said "well, who can really define rape"

From NPR:

" 2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90 percent had been sexually harassed."

[Max White]

I will say that abuse against women is some what rampant in the Australian Military as well, if the news is any sort of an indicator.
Not all that long ago there was a case of a woman being raped in the armed services, and they basically did nothing to help her. I will see if I can find a link, give me a second.

[Reelya]

My point was these other guys we spreading around horror stories of "other" militaries raping and calling them "animals" (racism). Then i confronted them with some evidence their own soldiers do it and they weaseled about re-defining "rape", more or less saying these women who answered the survey don't know when it[s happened, they must've been 'lightly sexually harassed" or something.

[kaijyuu]

May I suggest an addendum to the part about ad hominem?


A lot of counter arguments, while directly attacking the argument rather than the person making it, leave subtle hints that "anyone who actually believes this garbage is an idiot." Most commonly seen with sarcasm and satire. This, to me, is no better than direct ad hominem.


So I would ask people in this thread when disagreeing with people to avoid implications about those who carry opinions you do not like. 



EDIT: Have your daily dose of social issues. On today's menu, glorifying douchebaggery with a large side of misogyny.

[Flying Dice]

Agreed. Dislike opinions, not people, if only for the sake of keeping the thread of being locked.