I'm just basing this on lawn and front porch "flare", maybe Biden peeps are more low-key

"Morals shouldn't be anything the government has an opinion on, that's my opinon." That's the stupidest thing I've read all day. I get it - legalize drugs and prostitution, etc... but that doesn't give any government carte blanche to commit war crimes, for example. Ethics need to be considered in all decisions more complicated than math problems.

bowling_ball - what you quote was meant in the sense of "telling you how to live". War on the other hand, well now you're talking structure and systems, economy, standards of living, "freedom" depending who you talk to, etc...and its too complicated for any one human to have more than an opinion on it, moreover to even make a statement on it, hence all that yelling above by two dutch people (well one I gather is of dutch decent). Anyone can be against war, that's the easy part "ethically", but as I note to complicated to address or even bother addressing here...Now put that on some lawn "flare".

Pretty sure it's 'flair', my dude.

Love that lawn and front porch flare.  What could go wrong?

Wonder what gender the tablecloth will be.

More like a 100% chance of burning down the fucking neighborhood. And you still won't get the gender right. 

bruh - let's go with lawn "flare" and then make meme's, since you may know what movie I'm rolling with here, a Mike Judge classic....

what party is this guy (meme)

and what party is this lady (meme)

Richard Dawkins on the internet's hijacking of the word 'meme'  (in case you're into being educated about stuff)

One of the best movies there is. I've posted a meme (sorry!) or two from this cinema classic here over the years. Jennifer Aniston is a wonderful surprise in it.

^ I doubt many know the origins of the term. I came across it some 12-15ish years ago when I first started reading Dawkings.

yeah, I thought Aniston did real well in this one, but this dude was many of my studio mates in undergrad's hero, with one of the best lines ever -

and damn you NS for being so damn educate!

Even if it wasn't packed full of great scenes, this alone is worth the 90-minute run time:

I don't agree with your final sentence.

I don't like it either, but I'm not seeing convincing evidence to the contrary. I'll happily be proved wrong on Jan 20th.

We includes you when you say it and me when I say it. I don't deserve this fucking gas bag and neither do you.

tduds, be sure to wash your hands regularly now that you took your gloves off, and don’t touch your face!

Geez Louise, I was just kidding because tduds took his gloves off in the middle of a pandemic...lighten up b3tasneak!

hilarious

Thought so too!

Yep.

Concur, tduds. I'd just substitute "year" for "week."

Sorry for the triple post! It first didn’t show up twice so put it in TC, thought I lost posting privileges here or something. But later it showed a 502 Bad Gateway, I don’t know. It wasn’t my intention to, mods can kill these two in PC if they want.

I'll fix this for you

Never heard of opp infinite reach before but if I had to guess, I would have guess it was Bill's.

That was around the time Clinton lied in his Grand Jury testimony, I’m sure the timing was coincidental ;-)

Problems with the title & content of the poster aside, since when does not starting a war = nobel peace prize?

you really have nothing better to do with your time than troll american architects on an american architecture website about american politics? looks like a fetish at this point.

Babble, Trump is nominated for his work in the Middle East, bringing the UAE and Israel closer together...don’t you follow any news? But about the image, just a nice image to show his clean slate, it does not relate literally to his Nobel nomination, too much time on the golf course to be starting any wars probably!

"no square, i am simply trying to.. dumb americans.. imperialism.. mcdonalds... obama.... world order.... illuminati........"

rando: I'm fully abreast the news and my question still stands as I don't see "brining the UAE and Isreal closer together" as a qualifier.

Lastly, I'd like to nominate you for the Darwin Award.

What question still stands Babble? And you clearly don’t know what the Darwin Award is as I’m still alive and well. That picture is just a nice reminder of the peaceful nature of the current presidency, not following the orders of the Military Industrial Complex and such, does not directly relate to his nomination, but shows character.

square, or you could simply read what I wrote...you’re clearly out of your depth and grasping at straws here. Make a coffee and try again, I’m not going anywhere.

repeating the word "clearly" doesn't make your "argument" understandable.

I consider you and your arguments dead, rando.

Sorry for your loss!

Square, “clearly” not! Sorry, that you’re unable to understand what I am trying to say. What is it you don’t understand, perhaps I can rephrase.

They nominated Obama after two weeks in office, before all his bombings and killing of innocent civilians.

I don't agree with the NPP nomination or award of any US president as that individual cannot and does not operate within the framework of altruism, which I believe is to the the spirit of NPP.

Also, if anyone has any real understanding of the middle east it's obvious the potentially softened ties between the UAE and Israel doesn't guarantee shit.

How about we leave this thread to the two wankers and their consistent fluffers, as they don't have large enough minds to change.

Nominations are meaningless. 318 people were nominated this year. Past nominees include Adolph Hitler.

"Over time, many individuals have become known as "Nobel Peace Prize Nominees", but this designation has no official standing, and means only that one of the thousands of eligible nominators suggested the person's name for consideration." -Wikipedia, emphasis mine.

trump tried to bring peace to the middle east by keeping palestine out of the talks. seriously.

Tduds, that nomination of Hitler was done by an anti fascist activist as a kind of trolling, and it worked because no one got the prize for peace that year...obviously

Curt, you can make peace agreements with separate parties involved, one by one, saving the best for last...if all other countries in the Middle East reach agreements with Israel, that will put serious pressure on the Palestine authorities to soften up as well. I think it is a good first step, better than anything happening there under Obama and Bush...

“ How about we leave this thread to the two wankers and their consistent fluffers”

The floor is yours!

this is news. I come here to discuss kangaroos and cilantro chopping techniques.

I come here to post Urban Dance Squad https://youtu.be/QQZGINShLWI

Resetting the clock to zero. Challenge still stands.

Exaggerating the scale of the lies is also bad. Please provide sources for when it was claimed that covid isn't spread during protests. We can get into the masks thing later.

Meh, you're full of lies.

My god you're an idiot.

JLA: I could come out and make a statement that you all agree with, but instead I'll say it it as a double negative and then pivot to a wishy-washy statement that isn't provable (even though the initial statement I could have made is...) because God forbid I have a single fucking point of view that isn't full of crap.

The rest of us: *rolling eyes in back of skulls*

Hey JLA, you know what would make the media less annoying? Having less shit to report on from corrupt fucking fat cats in politics. Having less shit to report on from corrupt cops. Having less shit to report on due to the desperation resulting from poverty that leads to crime. Having less shit to report on from institutions who are supposed to HELP the common good but instead HURT it. If that shit wasn't common, incessant, and pervasive maybe the big bad CNNs of the world would have less to report on that you would need to turn a blind eye to in order to continue whipping the wrong culprit. But then I don't think you'd know what to do with yourself without your "MEDIA IS BAD" blanket.

3)they reported the story with the information they had (which you do not have)

jla, where do you get your information from? Is it the media? Or do you have a group of investigators reporting things directly to you?

Your armchair logic is worth about as much as the armchair. BLM protests in my town used masks. The beach-goers, political rally attendees, and motorcyle rally riders took pride in flaunting this universally agreed upon basic prevention method. This is one possible reason. Please do your best to sound completely idiotic while responding. Also I have reset the clock to zero. Challenge still stands.

So here's my issue with what you've posted re: protests, rallies, etc. At the time, as linked in the article you posted about protests, health officials were concerned about the virus spreading ... only after the fact that studies were showing that there wasn't a large spike of infections related to it do you see the article you posted. 

Note the timeline: June 1 article, concern about spike in protest-related cases. June 24 article, study showing protests not causing spike in cases. The study also cautions that there might be a rise in cases, but it just isn't showing, "The attendees may further be a selected subpopulation of younger individuals who if infected have less severe symptoms (Liao et al. 2020) and thus may never get tested and not show up in the official COVID-19 numbers." 

Now play this out over the other articles you posted. Burning Man celebration on the beach, written at the time of the gathering. Officials were responding with caution just like with the protests. Let's wait for the follow up. 

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, written at the time of the rally. There has been some follow up with explanations about why it has been different than the BLM protests (BLM protesters didn't gather indoors at bars and tattoo parlors). 

Now does all of this mean that the restrictions on beaches might be excessive or over reaching ... perhaps. But I don't think they are unwarranted; others can disagree. Most beach restrictions I've seen recently have still allowed people to go, just not large groups or overcrowding. Regardless the pattern has largely been the same for all of these. Specifically, concern and caution expressed, with the event happening, and then further study and analysis.

The only idiot positing a good guy bad guy narrative is you. I have not, and never will, posit a good guy as a savior. But I'm also not going to try and muddy the water (like you LOVE to try to do) so the worst of us seem less bad by comparison. And the day you have a point is the day Hell freezes over.

You realize you're the clown, right?

"we should be equally calling out all forms of misinformation and BS, not just when it fits a political narrative."

Irony alert.

x-jla, did you even read the articles or the research paper only one of them is referring to or do you have the same reading comprehension problems as ghwarton?

That's a real nice straw man, there. Too bad none of it is based on anything I said.

going to the bar or paying for the services of private businesses isn't protected in the constitution; free speech is.

damn that was easy.

You're a landscape designer, schools are outside your purview.

And instead of focusing on the problem, which is selfish people doing selfish things, you invent a reality where the media is the worst thing and, until you have actual information, it will remain a figment of the fantasy world you inhabit. You could use the brain in your head to provide insights into actual events actually happening, but you choose instead to ramble like a lunatic, tilting at windmills and saying little of consequence.

Two media articles reporting on the topic you have adamantly maintained the media won't discuss.

you're border line manic at this point. i'm worried.

also how old are you? "don’t make me school you" "toodles" i'm starting to think xlax is one of those teenagers masquerading as an adult landscape designer, which would explain a lot.

three other points for your thick binary skull- 1) protests were limited through curfews, and continue to be limited through police who dictate where, when, and how protests happen (only for those who don't agree with the pres, right wingers like you can march into state capitals with assault rifles and threaten governors without any recourse). 2) religious gatherings weren't really outright banned everywhere, mostly inside buildings. outdoor religious ceremonies could and do continue to happen. and virtual gatherings are happening as well. it's all about the spirit, right? 3) this is different in every state. stop pretending there's some left wing deep state controlling everyone nationwide. only your boy tRump is using the fed to bust into cities across the countries and arrest people without attending to their rights. the paranoia..

I don't know why I have to say this, but here I am. None of the articles you posted point to the media lying about the coronavirus not being spread by protests. They may point to some hypocrisy of elected individuals (golf clap), but they don't do what you are claiming they do, nor what I asked you to do in order to refute your statement, "They also lied that covid doesn’t spread during protests but spreads at beaches (makes zero sense)." 

Psst, it makes zero sense because it's all in your mind.

"We also knew covid obviously spread during protests and the dem politicians Were downplaying that." Sources please. I don't know of any politician that was downplaying that the protests could be potential spreaders. I'm not trying to stick up for Dems, btw, just trying to stick up for not exaggerating things to fit a narrative.

i'm not fan of the dnc. i understand the hatred of the political class. i'm there. i voted for bernie. but to say that trump's lying and downplaying the virus is equivalent to the "media" is asinine, and why no one takes you seriously on this site. you also qualify and bury every single thing you say with "but the left wing marxist media," rather than for once saying "you know, trump lying killed thousands of people."

nice editing. conveniently skipped the part about mentioning the media and WHO first; proving my point.

Good for you. Did you need a gold star? No one has any issue with you saying things like that. At issue for now is that you've exaggerated things (or fabricated them) to fit your narrative that both sides are equally bad. And that criticism of the republican party/conservatives/right wing/etc. must also be followed with criticism of the democratic party/liberals/progressives/antifa/etc. so as not to seem like you've gone left, but not the other way around.

"absolutely" "consistently" "clearly"

[citation needed]

Also, shameless plug for a blog post where I used that Princess Bride reference too: https://archinect.com/arch-ell...

Look I'll give you that there were people that avoided doctor's appointments due to fear of catching the virus. I cancelled and haven't reschedule my regular dentist appointment (I've missed what would have been two at this point). Not likely to be an issue for me in the long term luckily. 

What I don't get is why you think it is necessary to bring this up as some sort of statement that both sides are bad. Yes, there are likely issues related to cancellations or postponements of those appointments, but do you honestly think that the effect of those people not going to the doctor during this period has had the same effect as 6.4 million people catching COVID-19 (and all the potential future complications ... whatever they may be) and 190,000 people dead in the US?

Fair enough, but that's off-topic to the discussion I started at the beginning concerning the revelations of Trump's lies from the Woodward interview. If you'd rather not discuss the topic at hand, that's fine. Please comment somewhere else rather than derail the discussion. At this point we've had maybe a handful of comments that were about the topic, and we've spent the rest of the time discussing why you feel the need to be off topic. It's not conducive to any type of meaningful discussion. BTW, I'm including myself in that criticism. I responded. I didn't have to.

BTW, if a moderator wants to hide all the comments that aren't on topic, I'm cool with that.

You carry water for Trump. You make excuses for Trump. Example: "Trumps lies that downplayed the virus were a poor attempt to counter the media hysteria about the severity of the virus." This is not fact, yet you present it as one. You are not unbiased. You are not better than. You are delusional.

note that my response above was before I'd seen jla's comment attempting to tie it back to the topic

Please continue to set up weak assed straw men and weak assed statements designed to hide yourself from the fact that you are a right wing idealogue with delusions of neutrality. It would be amusing if it weren't so maddening.

jla, to respond to your question of whether or not the media is playing politics to hurt his campaign ... I'd refer you to the one like you've received so far in all of this back and forth. I don't like that it seems like they've held off on this until now and I agree that it seems like they are releasing it now in an attempt to persuade the electorate. But I'm also not going to let that distract me from what I see as the larger issue of keeping Trump out of the WH for 4 more years (per the postscript in my original post).

Wishful thinking is your bread and butter.

Did the media murder someone you love? Show me on this doll where the media touched you.

I don't recall anyone saying that if we remove Trump everything will be ok. I'm under no delusions that that would be the case, and I doubt a lot of people supporting Biden believe that too. I doubt Biden would miraculously turn everything around and do a whole lot better, but I'm fairly certain it would be better than Trump, and if not a step in the right direction it would at least be a good idea to get Trump out of the oval office. 

So while I applaud you for your lofty goals, no, we won't take care of the "much larger degenerative condition of the political class and media in this country" in one election ... but getting rid of Trump seems like a good place to start. Showing incumbent republicans that were silent or complicit to Trump's offenses in order to avoid getting "primary-ed" out of their seats that there are consequences for their complicity and tribalism would also be good. 

As for the dem's hypocrisy and the left-wing media conspiracies you like to complain about so much ... sure, let's get rid of that too, but it's like halfway down the list for me.

Man, this is so good.

If The Orange Shitgibbon had just done his job from day one, and not play 365 days of golf over the course of three years, none of this would be occurring.

End of fucking story.

jla, fair enough. I didn't think you'd agree and it makes sense you'd side with Trump over the Dems given your biases.

you just vote knowing full well it enables the republicans yet not caring about the consequences because it allows you to continue living the lie inside your head -all you truly care about- which is: "I'm always right."

I’ll concede that my comment for you siding with Trump was a false dichotomy. I’ll also point out that it’s not a false dichotomy that the political system is a two-party system which forces a dichotomy if you want to end up voting for the eventual president. So yes, you’re free to not side with him, but whether you like it or not, if your not voting for Biden, your vote will be counted as favorable to Trump given his advantage in the electoral college. I know you already understand that. I’m only pointing it out to indicate that while I agree with your comment about the point of voting, it doesn’t really work out that idealistically in reality. You only have to go back to the beginning of Politics Central to see that I’d favor changes made to get away from a two-party system and that you agree with me.

My turn: Trump constantly complained that Obama was abusing Executive Orders, yet now is using them to excess.

Adding in a rule that you need to cite sources too: Here's one for SP's issue. Also probably better to start a new comment for new issues rather than simply add to the replies. 

Prediction: He'll denounce it, but also make a comment about how the hyper-partisanship and dysfunction in congress has caused the chief executive to use them more or something like that.

You don't get to start.

It’s not like we are really talking about what we agree on, rather we are simply teasing out whether you can be critical of the right as much as you can be for the left. Also, I think seeing where we have common ground is helpful in combating partisanship.

“ Rather, access to contraceptives covered under the ACA, among other things, are more likely to have caused the decline.”

That’s very good news!

ummm, you're trampling dangerous territory Jla. Putting aside your silly personhood/constitution nonsense (it is), you assume most abortions are elective and late term while in reality, the vast majority of them are medical necessities or within the first trimester. What you're doing by adding all these inane stipulations is creating further hurdles to basic woman healthcare and preventing them from exercising their choice of their bodies.

so, we agree that it's a complicated thing... and certainly something well above the intellectual capacity of politicians and "public opinion". Important medical services should not be based on fluffy labels such as "personhood" in this case. Another low social evolutionary point by the good folks of M'urica.

Jla, it also teases out people who think they are smart on the subject but in reality, they fall flat on their ignorant faces very quickly. There is no debate here, only the illusion of one by those who simply cannot (or refuse to) understand the issues. I know which group you belong in.

I am not. Just like the person-hood term, inserted into this topic by idiot religious folks to fake a debate, you're missing the bigger pictures. The debate here is a false one and I equal it with the same intellectual level as flat earth or creationism. To debate your silly POV is to give your "points" ill-deserved sense of importance. Take the hint, you're drastically on the wrong side.

Instead of relying on the real issues, you're focused on a inane definition of term specifically inserted into this "debate" to steer the conversation in favor of the anti-crowd. Again, another example as to why M'erica is the shit show it is today. Don't confuse my avoidance of debate as sign that I am not informed. I am exceptionally well versed on this topic. I am simply not in the mood to educate someone who cares little about the issue.

Does this mean that randomised is next? He was the only one to submit a reply before jla ... just no predictions.

That should be good...

from EA's article, and part of the issues I insinuate above: 

"They say the increased harassment has coincided with newly enacted state laws restricting legal abortion and polarizing rhetoric surrounding the procedure." 

Nonsense term definition circle jerking and false "scientific appeals" like jla's lead to this type crap. Enjoy your flaming dumpster.

“ Does this mean that randomised is next? He was the only one to submit a reply before jla ... just no predictions.”

Next what ? Not following...

Reading comprehension has never been one of your strongest suits.

"Define something scientists can't agree on, then base all policy on my personal definition because you can't do what I demand" - X-Lax

"I'm a big tough guy in real life and therefore feel the need to brag about it on the internet to win internet points while accusing someone else of wanting to be an internet tough guy. The irony is totally invisible to me" - Also X-Lax

So help me out here oh mighty Sneak, what was meant by EA’s words.

Ask EA.

randomised, 

All this has given me a new idea. Someone posts something that points to Republican hypocrisy and we see if jla responds to denounce it, or to support it. 

 A few rules: Up until the point jla responds, people can place their predictions of whether he will support or denounce. You can't place a prediction on something you post. First to reply with the correct prediction gets to post next. 

Adding in a rule that you need to cite sources too. Also probably better to start a new comment for new issues rather than simply add to the replies.

While we wait for randomised ... I'll throw some fuel on the fire. 

Religious freedom is guaranteed by the first amendment from being infringed by any law that congress would pass, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." A person's freedom to exercise their religion freely, does not enable them to create law making other people adhere to their religious creed. So if a person's religion teaches that abortion is wrong and/or that contraception is wrong ... fine. It means that congress cannot pass a law requiring them to get an abortion or use contraception. Doesn't mean we need to have a law prohibiting those things. For any person so religiously inclined, they can freely exercise their religion and abstain from having an abortion or using contraception. 

Same goes for what a religion might teach as the beginning of life. If someone's religion teaches that life begins at conception, fine. If they also believe that taking a life is bad, I'd extrapolate that they would abstain from getting an abortion. And I know, jla, that you are not trying to use a religious argument to define "personhood." I'm not saying your motives are religious in nature and I'll be fine giving you the benefit of the doubt. However, I'd wager that the vast majority of people's interest in defining "personhood," even if using a scientific rationale, is religious in nature to support their religious beliefs. 

To preempt the argument that the ACA infringes on a persons religion by making them provide for contraception for their employers. I call BS. Religion is by and large a personal and individual matter. Providing for a woman's healthcare is not infringing on a person's religion. It's a slippery slope if you start to think that it is. Next I'll say that my religion teaches that adultery is wrong so I shouldn't have to pay taxes that support any roads that are used by adulterers as they travel to and from their adulterous rendezvous. 

Additionally, the Supreme Court ruling that supposedly supported the religious exemption for the contraceptive mandate wasn't really decided on the grounds of religious freedom. Rather it was decided on whether or not the ACA allowed the administration to carve out the exemptions based on religious or moral grounds. It does according to a 7-2 ruling. "The Supreme Court’s analysis was limited to whether HRSA had administrative authority under the statute to carve out exemptions, and did not look to whether the administration’s exemption was mandated by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Thus, a future administration could potentially reduce the scope of this exemption," (emphasis mine).

EA, your patience for addressing nonsensical POVs is admirable.

I'm not disagreeing that the employment arrangement is voluntary, but there are aspects of employment that are regulated by law. Providing for healthcare is regulated by the ACA. Providing for minimum wage and working conditions are also regulated by law, etc.

No one is regulating whether the muslim employer provides lunch. The ACA is regulating whether employers provide healthcare. I'm not aware of anyone challenging the ACA on the grounds of freedom of speech so ... what are you getting at?

x-lax, you're standing in a field of sand that used to be your house and yet still condemn others for throwing stones. You engage in every fallacy there is and still find the time to call out others.

jla, like I wrote earlier, I'm not addressing your loaded questions because they are shit and not an actually useful or intelligent pov. Utter ignorance on your part.

Yeah, I stopped playing made up games with children where the rules changed so the kid who was the biggest jerk would inevitably win when I stopped being a child. So until you stop being a disingenuous jerk I won't be entertaining your leading questions. You have fun, though.

My points stand even stronger now jla. You have quite a long road ahead if you think you're able to handle this "debate".

That's a pretty tortured hypothetical there, and I don't really see the point in engaging with it. We don't need a hypothetical. Substitute "healthcare" for "free lunch," and the ACA for AOC's hypothetical "fresh lunch new deal" to be passed in 2030, and we can just talk about the ACA. Oh wait, we have already been discussing it.

So the "progressive" idea that you're not accepting (I wasn't asking you to accept it, btw) is that the government is requiring employer-sponsored healthcare plans to meet certain criteria? Is that what you're afraid of because it sets a precedent for future abuse? Seems like the government requiring employers provide for safe working conditions and a minimum wage already set that precedent, no? What's the difference in mandating safe working conditions and mandating essential services are covered?

I've reset the clock to zero. Let me know when you feel like acting the mature adult for a while and taking up my challenge (the one from yesterday that you ripped off). I particularly enjoy that you're passing off my challenge as your own. Do you do this in meetings with colleagues, too?

Your attempts at "fairness" extend to literally everything, don't they? Smells a lot like failure to me, though.

Well per a lot of people's reasoning essential services includes care to prevent unwanted pregnancy. And as has been shown, preventing unwanted pregnancies is one of the best ways to prevent abortions. Simple reasoning there that eludes a lot of Republicans. No pregnancy = no abortion. They should be all over easy access to contraception. Their only complaint with it comes from a religious standpoint and as I stated earlier, I don't think they need to force their religious choices on others through legal mandates. That's not a constitutionally guaranteed right.

I'm starting to sense that your issue isn't whether contraception is considered essential though, it's whether employers should be mandated to provide plans that cover it. There's a solution to that too. Stop having employers provide healthcare ... problem solved. Then there is no issue if my employer is a religious organization or not. They don't need to be involved in my healthcare choices (just like they don't need to be involved in my lunch choices). If we learn anything from COVID-19 and the recession it has caused, I hope it is that we can separate healthcare from employment. Why is your employer paying for your healthcare if they can't be bothered to pay for your condoms?

What time is it in The Netherlands? Is randomised asleep? Should we just move on without him? Anyone else want to post the next Republican hypocrisy? Non ...? b3ta ...? You already mentioned Trump's golf habit ... I recall he had something to say about Pres. Obama playing the game too ...

Yeah, I'm not sure which either. Biden's plan isn't my favorite, but better, IMO, than the Republican's efforts to get rid of the ACA through repeal, court challenges, etc. and better than Trump's plan(?)

Thanks for the clarification

... so were you going to post something now that it has been clarified?

Don’t think so.

Good idea. Wouldn't want to participate in calling out someone you blindly follow.

Nah, just the digging through Balkinsian amounts of postings on my mobile is not something I look forward to...

I say NS gets to post the next. As a Canadian he's uniquely qualified to take an outside view of our political hypocrisy.

Thanks EA for the vote of confidence here, but I am honestly dumbfounded by almost everything I read about US politics that... certainly I'd be going purely off popular media than something I've spent time thinking about/researching.

good question. let me look into it. with TRUMP its obvious, it's his name. The story I heard, he put his name on everything including elementary school on his lunchbox. Biden and Harris have this three (3) red stripe thing going. but what's bothered me is, I was maybe an hour from his hometown in PA and watched an old man yell at the flag and I couldn't figure what the fuck he was yelling at. I figured - local politician flair, but when I looked closer it was Joe Biden's signature and 2020, not clear...I'll find. Then in upstate NY the Biden sign I saw was on a black background, something about being kind, three horiztonal red stripes, but again NOT CLEAR who the fuck was running. Again, I think as architects, if we're going to talk politics lets discuss flair design...I'll post images shortly of what I'm seeing.

what them graphics look like? I like Ike is too easy though. How do you roll with say Dukakis! (besides a fucking tank)

this shit is stupid -

this makes sense, but I have not seen it anywhere, can't get it to the printers?

can't even find half the stuff I find. lack or coordination...ok x-jla doing historic now

I see the three (3) red lines here

this one works, but haven't seen it like the TrUMp stuff

.

.

so democrats like horizontal redlines

too easy

see republicans do it right, just make your name in ALL CAPS

you'll never win this way with this media infested culture

.

.

.

.

it appears you have to put "flare" into it, whether it be red stripes or stars, you have to tag that with your name in all CAPS.

I saw this one for Biden on a walk in my neighborhood taped up on the side of a mailbox.

That’s the best sign ever! Can you imagine that as a banner on stage at a political rally or on a t-shirt?

The childlike enthusiasm and honesty of the simple pencil drawing just speak to me...it’s better than all those PR and advertising agencies have come up with!

EA it also tells the mail and delivery people who to vote for.

... and all the people going to the mailbox to pick up or drop off their mail-in ballots who to vote for. Location, location, location.

It has the red stripes and stars on it too. Just not the all caps.

None of these signs, including the child-drawn one, depicts the correct amount of stars. Such blatant oversight...

The individual accumulated knowledge of the human which created the Trump sign and the human who made the drawing on the side of the post box are roughly equal. I may be insulting the drawer.

Hunter Biden is a global capitalist. I thought Republicans liked that.

Trump is not a nationalist. Trump is a Trumpist. The idea that he gives a shit about the USA except as it benefits him is a lie, as exemplified by his consistent inconsistency regarding enemies of the US.

so, how long until we see a Trump/Trump sign? Certainly one of his wanker offspring will join the campaign.

SneakyPete, I think it's your turn. Lots of things to choose from.

I would like to yield my turn, I'm really trying to keep a positive attitude in meat space and this sort of thread hurts at a foundational level. I know that sort of admission is red meat for trolls, but I don't think I care any more. Troll away.

I won't troll you for trying to keep a positive attitude. Instead, I'd recommend you put jla, rando, and probably a handful of others you regularly but heads with on ignore until you feel ready to jump back in. I guarantee you won't miss anything important. That or just take some time away from the site.

Absolutely the right move.

To be honest, you'd say the same thing about carrots if carrots where fucking delicious.

Carrots are fucking delicious, just got to know how to cook them.

Pineapple is fucking delicious.

can't argue with that.

non, it's funny, and this sounds crazy, but i feel the same way about tofu (if done right). i used to not really like it, but after eating it enough and find out how to really cook it, i have cravings for it now, and the idea of a steak makes me queasy. it's hard to compete with our primitive evolutionary instincts that want more and more animal fat, which was necessary at one point, but we can see where that's taking us.. maybe it's time to move on to the next phase.

square, I make a killer tofu parm! It's simple, and awesome cold.

I am very much ignorant of tofu. Just not something I come across and certainly not something I've ever cooked with. Not dismissing it tho and might throw in a tofu option in our weekly meal kti/box thing next week.

i recommend eating it at several restaurants (like vegan chinese places, for example) first before you trying cooking it.. it takes some practice and can turn out not great.

texture, firmness and the flavors of the seasoning all matters in tofu.

Thanks for the recommendation but my dinner experimentation during this shutdown made us discover that my wife is severely allergic to shellfish. We're not going to chance it with places that fry-up shrimp and whatnot.

not if they're vegan!

^missed that point.

“ For me, food is not just a means of survival, but an important part of my culture and daily life. Asking humans to stop eating meat is just unreasonable.”

I personally disagree, killing animals is not culture to me, it’s a lack of being cultured, or at least something not worth clinging onto for dear life...we progressed as a species to a point where it is absolutely not necessary for our wellbeing or survival to be killing other living sentient beings just for our pleasure or our so-called culture.

Must be a blue moon cause I agree with jla on this one.

"While I’m as opposed to cruelty as ever, I no longer have a problem with death. Death is life, and nothing exists without it. The problem is scale, and the disconnection it confers. I also felt my previous, so-called vegan life wasn’t even vegan. Cars aren’t vegan. Phones aren’t vegan. Plastic isn’t vegan. Tubs of vitamins aren’t vegan. Protein bars, chickpeas, soya and hemp seeds – none of it is vegan, not really. It’s all the harvest of a political ideology that is causing the sixth mass extinction of species, one that is wiping out one habitat after the next and polluting the world around us, making the Earth uninhabitable for much of life – even ourselves." 

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/environment/not-so-simple

i understand the moral, philosophical debate here, but at the end of the day, there are always shades of gray. i can't stand this sort of binary thinking, and non-vegetarians are always trying to trap vegetarians/vegans with things like this. true, it's probably impossible to live completely vegan. but i would think not eating animals puts you more in-line with the goals of veganism than not.

the quote you posted is incredibly nihilistic in my mind, but echos the point that sure it's just easier at the end of the day to avoid the nuance and go all in. surprises me that jlaxax likes it because it affirms the notion that individual choices don't matter and that the system dictates everything. i tend to be somewhere in between: it's important to try to change this mass system perpetuating a mass extinction, but i better be damn sure i'm making individual choices that affirm that, or else i'm a hypocrit.

in regards to climate, eating less meat is better than eating more of it, and that's what i choose to do. arguing the labels is a distraction.

I know vegans, do work, and I'm on the board of for a vegan non-profit. Most non-militant vegans are asking us to do, is to consider consuming less meat, and use fewer products developed from animals. Most of us, can do that, most choose not to, and that's the problem. No consideration.

I agree with most of that, square. However I don't really find the sentiment nihilistic, just realistic. I think a bigger problem than people eating or not eating meat is people thinking a simple behavioral choice can solve structural / systemic problems. Not that the individual choices are bad, but they can lull one into a false sense of complacency by offering easy moral satisfaction (there's a very obvious fast food metaphor here). I know a lot of vegetarians & vegans whose lifestyle is worse both for the environment and for their bodies than my mostly-plant-based-and-obsessively-sourced diet. I don't think veganism is bad, but I also don't think eating meat is wrong. Like you said, grey areas. I generally reject prohibition. I opt for moderation.

Cooked was fantastic. My wife is a big Pollan fangirl. 'Botany of Desire' is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. We have Omnivore's Dillema on the bookshelf and I keep meaning to pick it up.

Omnivore's Dilemma was truly eye-opening, but it is dense af.  (Food Rules was a much more accessible read.) Also I found the chapters in OD to be pretty long; IMO it would've been more easily consumed (pun intended?) if the material was cut into more, shorter chapters or edited down a bit. There is only so much I want to know about corn! His overall message though is very consistent across how work, both written and tv, and I wish more people were attuned to his ideas.

It's been a while since I picked up Omnivore's Dilemma ... Food Rules too ... but I do recall liking both for different reasons. Where Food Rules favors brevity, simplicity, and common sense (all reasons I liked it), I also liked the depth in Omnivore's Dilemma. Like you say though, the overall message is consistent. I think his own summary from Food Rules is perfect, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." 

I haven't read Botany of Desire. I'll have to add it to my list.

so sad.

I made it 1 minute and 15 seconds. I tried, I really did. What a bunch of nonsense drivel. He doesn't even define his own terms and then he invents definitions of post-modernism that bear little resemblance to postmodern philosophy or art to justify his moral panic as some sort of defense of rational thought. Peterson is a hack. I'll be back with receipts.

"How about watch first, then comment?" 

The problem with that is I've been watching and reading and digesting Peterson, and watching and reading and digesting counterpoints to Peterson, and reading and deflecting the trollish rantings of his quasi-intellectual twitter minions for 5 or 6 years now so it's frankly impossible for me to jump into this video as if it exists in a vacuum, and it would be foolish to try.

CONSIDER THE LOBSTER THOUGH AMIRITE

I *could* watch it and I probably *could* deliver a line by line rebuttal using easily googleable sources and the first half of a first year philosophy / poli sci textbook, but then I'd have to do it again in like 3 months when some other Lobster Accolyte posts another video and insist I judge it outside of everything else he's ever said. It's exhausting. He's burned through the more than enough benefits-of-the-doubt I gave him and so I'll just snidely dismiss it and go enjoy my afternoon.

"People, over property."

ALWAYS

Sport Fishing Announcer: jla's got a bite, let's see if he can set the hook and reel him in.

I'm going right at the boat.

I tried watching this Canadian you speak of and for lack of intellectual intensity stopped watching, but what I don't get is why you lefties are so worked up, he's basically like a self-help guy for dudes. What's with the pschotic posting over like barely noticable commentary on life...it's def. not Nietzsche or anything radical. can someone explain why people get so emotional over this guy?

It is often about being confronted with some inconvenient truths that should force a person to change their views, yet the mind is actively resisting the process...or something, I don’t know.

can someone point me in the direction of these "inconvenient truths that should force a person to change their views", like text or videos? the hype would make you think this dudes got some radical perspectives. (Canadian and radical, can't be, haha)

Ah darn it DTL, my reply was erased as I went into a tunnel...but to kind of get back to that, I don’t think he’s that radical, the reactions he’s been getting have radicalised. He’s just a figurehead of people that have held on to some Classical Liberal (not sure how to describe or translate it) ideas and with the world around them going into a more polarised binary modus operandi, suddenly became the center of attention. And he’s taken advantage of that, surfing the waves of contempt and ridicule that come his way...perhaps.

Often conclusions are simplistic, regardless...but I have to say I didn’t get the urge to throw my computer out the window after watching me some Peterson, so that’s a plus, but maybe I just like the world mansplained to me by some middle aged white dude from Canada, feels comfy and familiair like a favourite t-shirt.

FWIW this post is the result of digging through some bookmarks and old posts for ~10 minutes. If I actually cared to do more research I probably could construct something more coherent but... meh. Naptime.

15 comments now trying to bait someone into a debate they don't want to have. You could try harder.

Once again we're at an impasse based on the simple fact that we have different definitions for almost every term, making short hand impossible and necessitating the construction-from-scratch of a shared reality before we can even begin to debate the principles. That's why I took a nap instead of researching. It's just not worth it. As for "you spend a lot of time telling Me that you don’t have the time." ..I know. It's one of my bigger character flaws. I have a hard time saying nothing. Rest assured, though, my glib retorts take me 30-40 seconds tops, while a full-throated rebuttal would consume an hour or two in order to be worth the effort.

Gonna go practice saying nothing.

"The rejection was to a law that made the use of prefered pronouns mandatory." It wasn't, though. Read the law.

I'd give you that 1 of the 15 was due to an itchy iPhone finger. Try calming down and using your thumbs instead.

any links on that or is all that in writing somewhere? I tried watching some youtube stuff....also, to ask again, but why all the emotional reaction? or is that just how people "discuss" these days on social media, all hyperbole and complete lack of understanding of the gravity of words (you know like throwing Nazi, Fascism, Marxism,etc...around like minor insults,  instead of just stating - I do not agree.)

DTL - pure and simple exasperation is all it is. The idea that anyone would take Peterson seriously after he's spent the better part of the last decade showing time and time again that he is not serious deserves, in my opinion, some scorn.

Serious academics still need to cite the not serious academics when they write serious papers to criticize the not serious viewpoints. The more not serious stuff you get published, the more seriously people criticize you and therefore cite you ... seriously.

I could see the exasperation bit I guess and I've heard what was written above (tduds breakdown), but I just don't get the reactions in general, but then again don't get half the reactions on social media anymore. ... Watched the bit where he was trying to explain stuff to a journalist with an English accent (she was just not listening to him and seemed to have her own agenda, therefore essentially appearing dumb and JP appearing very detailed, like lawyer), then the video about "how he became famous" which I could barely bare watching, again like an angry college kid or something and JP in some strange Canadian accent just talking calmly. It's almost like angry people talking to a computer. Then I tried a lecture or two...and well, low energy computer talking so I just couldn't keep watching. (oh, but I hate psychology, I think it's for stupid people, so maybe that's why I don't get it?) I'll stick with philosophy and I also didn't get the whole "dark web" thing either. Sam Harris is a very rational person and calls out an ass backwards religion for what it is and somehow people forget religion is a choice, even an architect on this website doesn't get that (I would expect that kind of stupid thinking from a flat earther or something). Eric Weinstein a little off and I think totally off on science, can barely watch him speak sometimes....on the Marxist bit, I don't think anyone gets that anyway. I really don't think social media discussions should attempt discussing deep thinking topics...lots of buzz words and stupid emotions and yelling over each other...meh, going to bed, going to read some philosophy.

that's the gist I got from the bit I watched between him and Rogan. also, isn't it the left's job to "rattle the foundations" and not the "rights", of have we mislabled ideologies now...to me the left was never an "ideology"...based on my nearly teenage daughters youtube/tiktok language I must be either completely out of touch now or NO ONE reads. lets see if I can find this often cited JP texts (something for the weekend), but as noted I don't like psychology and this would be why. the following - any and all problems posed and resolved in psychology can be resolved by thinking = philosophy and for the most part have been since the Greeks in the West and Hindus or Budhism (not same type of religions as the west). Lastly, the premise of psychology is there is always "a mental problem" with philosophy there is always "a thinking problem". In my world you're not insane, you don't suffer shit - you just haven't thought about it.

slogging through this as you were so kind to post. so far I see it nothing more then an opinion on human behavior and I guess the first bit that could be offensive or not exactly totally plausible with regard to proof - the daycare to paranoid mothers to child molestation accussations, I'll guess I'll wait and see how one proves such things...

here are my notes (this is still a simple lecture intellectually):

He is a psychologist that uses philosophical arguments or philosophers to talk about society in all its various classifications made up by people.

Psychologists assume you are not aware of your thinking nor conscious of it and accordingly you must have your life explained to you by them based on their assumptions and experiences.

He paints a narrative that is ultimately populous and within the discussions of populous thought - whether left or right, but is hardly deep thinking. Wrong about Heidegger. Totally misses Satre's thought and what Satre was trying to do towards the end.

I have no interest and I don't think he understands philosophy given how much of it he has read. I'm not saying he is wrong about Communism or about the prison test or whatever other academics he disagrees with (same people, different assumptions)..just wrong about his approach, mainly because he is a shrink and not a thinker or mathematician or an engineer or architect or someone developing artificial intelligence.

I actually think he is all over the place in this lecture.

Shrinks are stupid humans anyway, fun story:

I figured this out when I was 13 -

So in junior high I was one of the boys in a group of boys who insulted and bullied everyone and made them cry, quite often.

I was interested in this because it blew my mind words and concepts could cause such irrational behaviors in other humans.

My friends, some had issues with their mother others were just ego-centric kind of guys, but I was just interested in the thought-meaning-reaction process.

So I get called into the school counselors office. For about 2 hours, he and I go back and forth about thought and emotions. I'm mainly noting - it's your choice to be offended by words and I'm not responsible for how all those other kids felt.

He keeps trying to get me to call the girls mother (who was crying or whatever) and I keep asking him what is the purpose of that, her mother is not involved here.

The words and thoughts are between us and her, what is the purpose of the mother's involvement. Either way, he lost his mind at some point, calls the girl in.

The girl sits down and says - He's fine, he's actually quite nice, he stops when they go to far. The shrink totally pissed of kicks me out.

My buddies are in class, see me, minds blown I was in their for hours and asked what happened. I laughed, told them I convinced him he's an idiot and you know what the real assholes responses were "We just apologized to her mother and said we would never do it again."

Why is DSM-5 books sold like cigarettes behind a Barnes and Nobles counter?

Thanks x-jla, but no thanks, this guys a shrink (idiot).

As the saying goes, Psychology is the study of first-year Psychology Majors.

so you understand my skepticism. You can't use philosophy the way he does, that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying he is wrong on things, I just don't like the style.

so, I'll tell you how naive and ignorant I am, the right is what is established and the left is what challenges, but the problem in certain spheres of life (i.e. hollywood, twitter, academia) the left is established and the right is not. in other words I agree with many of your points x-jla and JP is a rarity, because in this forum, this form of media, the left is the established or in simpler terms, the "oppressor". again, I'm like full Jack Derridar! so I don't give a fuck.

bomb ass beats - a serious counter culture dude with loops from Johnny Mnuemonic and what not...

[poetry] yes I remember when the racist, fascist, nazis - we're not, well you know, that loser internet kid with an opinion. that fag pussy cheerleader was not the nazi...like, just, the white dude with normal haircuts were nazis...but now it appears the entitle affluent brat who takes black people movements as moments to resist their rich ass parents as a means to signify they have an opinion - well they be the fascist nazis
[poetry finished].

Punk has become Normalized as Massive Oppressor....but I just don't see Blink 182 being so hard core -

no. rbg, dead. trump wins.and whats my age again

dude, relax. don't analyize me or shit, that's when I lose trust.

here on the other side from my googling (apparently) and timely (last year covers the usual shit that blows up on twitter) around 14:30 min confirms I am indeed old and possibly.....the sniffling is terribly annoying, reading is always better.

New Justice. NO PEACE.

if you believe in God, he doesn't like you...

sorry, let me rephrase that...while you're yelling on social media, believing all the shit in the media, and angry about a strange man who calls all news fake, the most amazing thing may happen....so yes Sneaky if you believe in God, your God doesn't like you. I don't believe in anything, I'll go get my popcorn. Cheerio!

R.I.P. R.B.G.

I have a feeling I'm about to get very angry at Mitch and the rest of them.

Fuck your feelings, not you EA, fuck your property; you get NO PEACE.

Definitely fuck you, and your property.

well yeah, it sucks to be on the wrong side of history (where is my DAMN JACKY DERRIDAR POPCORN!)

I believe Quondam has a cameo in this one?  the architect on the fire escape at 2:28.

remember fools, it's all chaos, no one cares how you feel.

...back to zoning.

jla, I gave your post a thumbs up, but I’m not holding my breath. Could be a while waiting for Trump to show decency.

I’ll also note her wish was not to be replaced until a NEW president was installed, not simply until the next term.

EA, I've somehow known when some people will die (as an atheist its hard to explain) in my head (it's complicated)

RBG fought the force longer than I predicted (by 1 year for the record).

This is a one-off (in my head, you don't have to believe it, I don't either, but the last time I saw a psychic - she was uncomfortable!).

I like drawing plans.  ;)

she fought the coming storm...it's coming, wake-up and draw some plans ;)

come on people..what is the orange man about to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

read the wiki and listen! - the future  ;)

[but yes, just gloss over everything I write and delete. see you're normal, therefore you don't get it, no I get it, but do you?!?!?]

Xlax, yeah, I don't care what a monarchist thinks. Toodles.

One of my best buds, also an arch, is deep in the JP jive, gov agenticity everywhere, men are oppressed type popular sound bytes... yet that does not stop from our weekly beers. Also helps that I can crucify him on any of those subjects without breaking a sweat.

I’ve been thinking about this lately too. I’ve mentioned before that despite my issues with b3ta, if we met and talked in person, we’d probably get along just fine. I bring up b3ta only because we’ve had our moments here, but the same could be said for probably all of you. This was sort of my point in the “game” I had with jla earlier, to show that if we can cut through all the other stuff we probably agree on more than we disagree on. Adding to that, if we aren’t behaving like complete assholes from behind our screens and anonymity, we actually make more of an effort to get along than we do to continually fight. 

I also think it is encouraging to see people who are literally devoting their life and career to what they believe very deeply in, can find enough common ground with people who could be considered bitter rivals, to actually consider each other friends. You think RGB and Scalia didn’t think the stakes were high? No, they both knew, but they also respected each other and could manage to not just coexist, but to be friends.

i think a core piece of someone like RGB and Scalia being cordial with each other is that they have to be able to accept they won't always get their way. sometimes the vote goes her way, sometimes his way, then they move on. especially in architecture i see a lot of people who are unable to do that because of the over-inflated egos. it gets to a point that if they don't get their way and everyone gives them attention as the best person in the room they'll almost throw a tantrum or get passive aggressive in a way that sabotages the project.

There are core values, and things I'm willing to have conversation about; defund, looting, and 2nd amendment - while I am pro-control - I am willing to hear divergent thinking. But all of these issues, all, I'm willing to take the second chair, and listen to Black people on. As all of the most contentious issues are seemingly hitting Black Americans very, very differently. Entertaining trunts like JP, Alex, or any other fucking casual, intellectual racist; no.

yes in person, we'd all get along, we're fucking architects. we're only badass on paper. destroy your ego is always the first step but most architects are to passive to clearly show their ego, which is annoying, but here on the 'nect they appear aggressive.

Truth is, and I gather I'm not unique in this experience; we're all reluctant to have "hard" conversations with our friends, regardless of which side they're on. I have friends that are Cuban heritage, which they are more conservative, but they know how I feel, and I them. So, we play at the edges.

/\ the edges are crossed in social media. your thoughts are fully exposed. in general I would delete most of what I write, that option doesn't exist here on the 'nect, since to me - although we're writing stuff here, these are clearly NOT thought out posts nor books so accordingly they are conversations like in real life, which are always fleeting and only effect your development. "hard" conversations are "hard" for a couple reasons. first you and your friends have to agree they are "hard" conversations. once you do that, they can be "uncomfortable", but often you find you're the same and you realize its the "system" or body of thought you are discussing. it is and always is the "system", really and then you and your friends decide as humans why you would agree or not...that's what smart people and supreme court justices do.

what are you so afraid of?

Wasting time reading your BS?

will I be put on some watch list if I see what is going on on that side?

Dayumn! This second page was loooooooooooooooong!

Is that like, the kewl z0n3!

Anachrist?

Anna Christ.

Annanas?

Anal cyst?

I'm worried where this is heading . . .

aaaand scene

I saw them back in '85. During the show I lost two teeth and a pint of blood, but got a great t-shirt (see above) and a hemp codpiece. So it worked out.

It's all fun and games until federal political corruption and incompetence enable the feckless executive to cease all funding in your city.

It's funny how entitled and privileged the blue bubble elites act, that they think they can just ignore federal law at will and allow their paramilitaries to violate resident civil rights with impunity.

It's funny how entitled and privileged the federal thugs act, that they think they can just ignore civil rights law at will and violate resident civil rights with impunity.

Which federal law? Please be specific.

Also please provide examples of civil rights that have been violated and/or the existence of "paramilitaries"

maybe he's talking about that bundy family that took over a federal park? they're blue bubble elites right?

I think Judge Smails forgets about States Rights, or is it only when states start restricting the rights of others, then it's "Don't Tread On Me"?

How does zoning deal with Anarchist use groups?

Ammon Bundy did recently align with Black Lives Matter, so...

Hey b3ta, tell me more about this neoconfederate LARP thing you're into these days.

Still waiting on those examples...

Hold your breath. Pro-lifers will definitely want you to live, so examples will appear quickly.

you'll have to dig through the weeds here at archinect, but maybe randomised will remember at least, but I think this david walker hangs-out here, we already suggested such artwork...

there was commentary by the Revolutionary Poet that confirms this prediction and the Bundy note above....the workflow here is Archinect invents, people browse it, a certain dumpster fire guy translates all this onto some #chan site (translates because I read they speak a funny language) and then it ends up in the publics pyschy later...just a suggestion.

yes but then Ancient Shed noted the strange impression Italian Sci-Fi movie makers have of American culture...or wait IS THE USA THAT PREDICTABLE THAT AN ITALIAN WHO GOT OFF AT THE WRONG SUBWAY STOP IN THE BRONX COULD MAKE A MOVE ABOUT PRESENT DAY PORTLAND?!? (see Free Movies thread for this)

The dream of the 1860s is alive in Portland....

As the holy mother would say: god damn-it those are fucking great!

I remember...those were the days, good times! I even watched little mullet karate kid lookalike being a pseudo tough guy, great YT channel with all sorts of gems!

I think the modern day revolutions have accomplished quite a bit of positive change. I think you don't see it because it's not directly improving your lives . . .

Music is great right now. You just gotta look in the right places.

Equality for women, LGBTQ, races other than white, reproductive rights. There is still much work to be done but things are better than just five years ago.

on music and culture and stuff most of you will like, much deeper than JP....was going to post in music, but will do here -

where tduds? not on archinect!

Do anarchist tax? I mean if it's tax free like Florida, maybe it's worth planting a flag and a tent there?

Seattle has no income tax, and Portland has no sales tax.

No one has any thoughts, or no one has taken the time to read it?

Your intro made me want to avoid it. My vote, while guaranteed to be cast, matters little, so getting upset is bad for my general well-being.

"Facts Matter" - That's SOOOOOO 201X

Donna, the recent FiveThirtyEight podcast discussed the article for a bit. It was helpful as well. Still a little worried, but less so after listening.

You can listen to it here, or watch and listen to it below:

I posted the above last night. Then I read the NYT piece on The Donald's taxes, and I'm back to being worried again. Not sure if there is anything he won't try to get 4 more years to figure out a way to make more money off the presidency and get out of his debts.

It's all just media FUD. Complete bullshit from start to finish. Ignore it and you will be much happier with peace of mind.

I'll go. I already have the outfit.

I could see that backfiring like the erosion of the filibuster which is currently biting us in the ass.

What could possibly go wrong?

I think it's great idea; like Elie said, they could 100 on the court, it'll only make it more representative of the country. The number is arbitrary, and no document says it needs to be nine.

Until the Republicans take the Senate and the House and the Executive and pack it fullererer and then pass an amendment capping it at that number forevermore. Democrats only back down when going up against Republicans, remember. Their own caucus not so much, so they'll end up losing.

They'd never get an amendment to cap it. It would never be ratified be enough states (only need 13 blue states to block it). There are 15 states currently under complete Democratic Party control, 19 if you don't care about the Governor (only the legislatures need to ratify it, right?). 

Plus, if the Dems really wanted to play they'd figure out a way to give DC and Puerto Rico statehood, split California into two (or more) states, and combine the Dakotas and the Carolinas to ensure continued control in the Senate (add blue senators, take away red senators). At some point in the game of "judicial appointment" chicken someone will flinch. Until then, let's embrace the absurdity.

All that sounds like fun, and all, but what we need to make sure doesn't occur, is this. The last time we found ourselves after the election flat-footed was 2000; we can't let that happen this time. We need to make sure the Dems have a fucking spine.

/\ problem with being liberal (although beta I commend you for not being the stereotypical liberal, you have balls and a spine).

Funny, it was Biden that made those SCOTUS nominations political in ‘87 when he blocked the nomination by Reagan, making it about party politics...This shit show is all thanks to Biden, it will bite the Democrats in the ass, karma is a bitch...

Actually, 

"Within 45 minutes of Bork's nomination to the Court, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork in a nationally televised speech, declaring:

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens."

"At the close of the hearings, Biden won praise for conducting the proceedings fairly and with good humor and courage, as his 1988 presidential campaign collapsed in the middle of the hearings. Rejecting some of the arguments that other Bork opponents were making, Biden framed his discussion around the belief that the Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy that extend beyond those explicitly enumerated in the text, and that Bork's strong originalism was ideologically incompatible with that view."

Yep, and based on everything you said; get ready for 15 Supreme Court Justices.

Yeah. You forgot the part where he was running for president at the time, and when he dropped out, he moderated. My point, was to refute the idea that he had something to do with the "borking" of Bork. That was Kennedy. Not Biden. In fact, as you are all too well aware, he was also involved in Thomas as well, so let's ask how that went...

Wait, so "stacking" and adding justices is "Death To America", but subverting The Constitution, with some ham-fisted idiocy, doesn't? Did you even read the damn thing?

The dems with Biden “moderating” made the process political, so this is the result...

Nah. It's funny isn't it, how he was supposed to be a "conservative" and a "liberal" stooge, all within the span of three years...

again, rando, you know way too much about US politics to be just Dutch. I don't get it?

I don’t get it either...I wish I didn’t have to. But since the US is meddling in everything and everywhere I have to know what’s coming this way, the shit you flush ends up here sooner or later, better be prepared :-) I also lived and worked in New Amsterdam for a while and still have friends there.

Most people here only follow the narrative presented to them by the one direction they lean to, but I like to look at things from more than one angle. And about those stairs, they’re just steep and narrow to keep the Americans out! Kidding, they’re just like that to save space as those old houses like the Amsterdam centre used to be warehouses. Nice article on CityLab about those: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-15/the-history-of-amsterdam-s-canal-houses

Olaf Design Ninja actually, as a mod you should be able to figure that out, non? I googled, there is an architect by that name, does good work. Looks like in the real world rated quite well.

I now see why you're butt hurt. that one liner above based on populous culture. did you know most of america believes this? I'm in NYC area and am literally 1 click from that dead Epstein dude, did you know he was an asshole, a bad client, and had an island with young women and supposedly a democratic president went there a lot....I hope you understand why popular culture thinks my statement. now slap your head, dear, and understand i'm only reporting to you the cultural facts of your country, dear.

don't be an idiot. don't choose a side.

Olaf / whatever / Chris utilizes random noise and hubris on the level of Ricky B, but with less interest in learning anything.

correct. if it's not about architecture and is based on very limited real world knowledge, you can literally link all the laws everyone is discussing above, I've learned from the master, Ricky - Spam post.

Wait, I thought Olaf was Chris? Chris/metamechanic could be a huge pain in the ass but smart - but if Olaf/DWG aren't Chris I don't want to drag Chris into it. Since I'm supposedly an all-powerful mod I guess I *could* just hide all of DWG's posts until I figure it out but the truth is I have no way of finding out the real identities of anyone on here. Mods aren't all-powerful.

Not sure why one would post someone’s real name here if they never go by that name on the forum. Isn’t that like some kind of unwritten rule or archinect etiquette?

if his posts need to be hidden, hide them. if they don't, then don't. it doesn't matter if he has a different name offline does it?

but DWG likes belgian triples … so that counts right?

curt, that was not my point...

everyone relax. I haven't bothered reading the terms and conditions for posting on archinect. The mod's may very well be allowed to just put names on accounts and call them out, have you read it? let's say it's slander, spinning a one liner joke that has truth it (yes I know someone who went to Epstein's island a few times and I know high flying democrats, whatever)....point is this - reddit for architecture discussion sucks, twitter for architecture discussions sucks, one of my favorite people to discuss architecture is either banned from archinect or refuses to join, all other design sites are boring in discussion with limited freedoms, and in general left-wing(ish) leaning political sites are much more open to intellectual conversations, so yeah you're going to piss people off here occassionally...lastly, the young left has somehow become puritanical....anyway I'm only allowed Belgium Tripels these days and yes most of what I write here does not reflect it's author. sure I could figure out who everyone is, lives, etc... but who has time for that?

what?

I'm relaxed :-) just found it odd that a person's real name is being used when that person is not even using that name here any more. When Chad was using b3ta's real name at some point because b3ta was posting under his real name, some people were making a big deal about it. Just thought to bring it up, that's all...

Because b3ta couldn't keep track of his various accounts and posted in his real name thinking it was his anonymous account. If I recall correctly rando you where on of those who was upset . .

I was not upset, had a very entertaining and lively discussion about naming recipients of pro-bono design work for the entire world to see...to me it felt like publishing a list of recipients of food stamps, which is kind of degrading in my opinion, especially when gender and ethnicity are involved. Still, in my opinion ;-)

Naw, you got upset about it.

Ah yes, opinions, like there are One In A Million of those

yeah don't link that G'n'R song, that won't end well.

The first two lines of that spoken intro were my dad's voicemail message for years. He thought it was the funniest thing. He wasn't wrong.

guessing you dad got it from Cool Hand Luke and not G'n'R (where I first heard it).

Yep but he likes both.

The Comedy?

Ted Turner v. Rupert Murdoch

I'm going watch but turn it into a drinking game. . .

Eh I'd recommend the film instead.

biden will win in a landslide. the polls have been adjusted to reflect the shortcomings of the 2016 polls. if anything, they might be over compensating in the direction of trump, and everyone is afraid to call it like it is. if you stop going by media bs and look at all of the polls, aka data, across the board, it's very clear that trump is losing, and badly. the only way he will win is by pulling some illegal power grab or the rnc tossing ballots, which imo is all talk.

but you can keep believing the narrative the media is feeding you, which is surprising coming from you.

I'm old enough that I remember the polls in October 2016 saying Hillary was going to win by a landslide and Trump had almost no chance of winning at all.

and i'm old enough to remember that the 2012 election was supposed to be close, and obama won decisively. if you read my post, you would have seen that all the pollsters have heavily adjusted their methods based on 2016. you can choose to ignore the facts of the data, but you're choosing to fall in the same trap people fell for in 2016. seeing these things based on prior assumptions, aka the last election, is nearly certain to be incorrect. currently the narrative is heavily skewed based on the problems of 2016. the data say otherwise.

if you have data to refute this, would love to see it. but everything you're saying is anecdotal.

I'm honestly afraid to make predictions, but I'm getting the sense in this thread that jla is so skeptical of the "MSM" narrative that he's disregarding blatant truths because he heard it from them & not someone else (who is also saying it, because it's blatantly true). At some point skepticism becomes self-delusion. Verify information, don't dismiss it.

the irony is that he is buying into the "don't believe polls" narrative that is overwhelming popular in the msm. i being a little bullish here, but i think dismissing the polls today based on past errors, while ignoring that the polling being done today is both entirely different and painting a different picture, is ignorant.

Also invoking the 2016 election without also paying attention to the 2017, 2018, and 2019 elections is ignoring large trends in turnout & electorate. The president does not exist in a vacuum.

also, gwharton- the polls were not predicting a landslide win electorally in 2016, they were predicting that a clinton win overall was highly likely, which ended up being wrong. most polls from an electoral perspective painted a closer picture than 2012 (336-212 is closer to landslide territory than 302-235, which is roughly what was expected in 2016).

right tduds, people are choosing to ignore the negative partisanship of this election, which the midterms showed was heavily in favor of democrats. if there is any recent election that is the best to use as an interpretation, it's the closest one that just happened. not that it should decisively predict anything, but only using 2016 and conveniently ignoring 2018 is a fallacy.

‘don’t believe the polls’ is as msm as ‘don’t believe the msm that say ‘don’t believe the polls’’

What is that reason? Genuinely curious why you think they're bs.

x-jla, even if you reach those conclusions by yourself, it is still the MSM narrative of one half of the spectrum...just the other half. But what if all you heard and saw didn’t translate in a Trump win this coming November, what’d you do, accept it or reject it?

There are a few reasons the polls may not be that reliable, for the same reasons (only more so) that they were in 2016. High on that list is that most of the polls are weighting D+10 or more on assumptions of turnout that don't appear to have any basis in reality, when during the primary Trump saw unprecedented turnout for an incumbent President. The same thing happened in 2016. Actual results will likely be more like a dead heat or possibly D+1. So if you see a poll weighted more than that in either direction, it's bullshit.

what about 2018? the polls all underestimated that number of seats dems would pick up in the house.

2018 was somewhat similar, actually. The D+ weighted polls all significantly overshot. They were predicting a much bigger D majority in the House than actually materialized, and a D Senate, which didn't happen.

jla, biden is not hillary. there is much less visceral hatred for him, and much more so for trump this time around. trump is no longer an agent of change or a protest vote, he IS the establishment right now. that's what i mean by negative partisanship, and it's what will flip this election on him. thinking this election is exactly like 2016 is why pundits and the msm were so wrong about 2016.

not true gwarton. everyone was predicting 20-30 seats picked up, and they ended up picking up 41. 538 was actually pretty spot on with 39 (accurate polls!), just a few less. not sure where you're getting your data- again, would love to see it.

https://projects.fivethirtyeig...

538 changes their poll aggregates on a daily basis, derived from a black-box model they won't share with anyone. A month or more before the election, the D+ polls were predicting much bigger gains in both houses than materialized. 538 did the same thing with the 2016 election too. They do this constant revision thing ostensively so they can be "up to date", but really they are just obscuring the record of how wrong Silver has been when he gets outside of his sabermetrics specialty.

To be clear, I am not suggesting the polls are either right or wrong. I'm saying they are mostly bullshit and nobody really knows what's going to happen. Anybody who says otherwise is lying.

agreed- which is why i'm saying the media consensus that you shouldn't believe the polls and there is a secret trump vote should be treated with equal skepticism. i'm arguing it because it is the overwhelming consensus.

in terms of 538, they were pretty consistently calling for 239-244 for months?

I follow your line of conclusions but I don't agree & don't see anything beyond your internal conjectures to buttress any of what you've concluded. As they saying goes, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

my anecdotal friends and family, who are also diverse, and living in this real world, disagree. doesn't mean anything. what's telling is your opting out of voting, which speaks volumes.

fair enough x-jla, I personally wouldn't sail on the info coming from my bubble(s).

"what's telling is your opting out of voting" 

"I’m voting for Jorgensen" 

Potato, Potahto ;)

No it's not. Our system of first past the post voting got us there. The insistence on putting a disproportionate amount of effort into fielding a quixotic presidential candidate rather than building a robust party infrastructure is what's keeping us there. And even if they did that, the result would be a different two parties, not three or four.

In effect the place for this is the primaries. There are plenty of factions, caucuses and coalitions *within* the two major parties who are all vying for majority control of the party & therefore a greater say in the party platform and nominations. 

My opinion is that voting for president is, in essence, the single least important piece of political action in America. So many other things need to happen before the major party candidates get to the general election, and all of those are 1) easier to influence, and 2) more about promoting systems than individuals. The way I see it, voting for the "lesser evil" of the two major nominees and fighting like hell in local races, ballot initiatives, and constitutional changes does more to advance a third party agenda than putting a single iota of your limited time towards a 100% unwinnable protest candidacy. 

Just my 2 cents.

A competitive third party will never be voted into existence. A multi-party democracy can only be cultivated by changing the way we elect our government.

I can support that. I came up in a bizarre time when Ross Perot somehow managed to get into the debates and so my foundational early childhood idea of a "normal" Presidential Debate is one with 3 people. 

Conversely the recent new normal of like 25 candidates on the primary stage is also ridiculous. Give me 5, 6 tops.

i would love 4 parties: left, center left, center right, and right. but the reality isn't there, and voting for third party candidates without the infrastructure, like tduds says, is the same as throwing away your vote.

Given the way the US political system is structured, there is no way more than two parties at a time are ever going to be simultaneously viable. There have been a few periods in our history where there have been more than two major parties on the ballot. They don't last because that situation is not stable. So the extras all either merge or die.

And, in case you were wondering, Trump's takeover of the GOP in 2016 is exactly what the successful rise of a third party in the US political system looks like. The same thing is probably going to happen to the Democrats over the next four or so years, though they may fracture into two or more parties first.

right. have to dream sometimes. never say never! e.g. we might see some new states within the next 4 years..

"i would love 4 parties: left, center left, center right, and right." 

I'd contend that all 4, and more, exist within the larger two party structure we currently have.

If we're being hypothetical - eliminate the "presidency" altogether. Make Commander in Chief a cabinet level position, along with Senate President (aka VP in the current system) and make it part of an Executive Council along with the various Secretaries.

I'm glad I watched it after I had barbecue octopus.

i refuse to eat octopus, even though i eat other seafood. as said, they're too smart.

I'm sorry.

I watched it...not going to watch the next ones...what an embarrassment as an american

gonna sign up to do call lists in other states to encourage voters to use their right to vote

Watched it. I called Trump a runt but with a 'c'. I've never said that word before as it's the most vile insult I can think of. My wife just looked at me and said 'yeah he is'.

I watched it too, though delayed (I recorded it because ... kiddo's bedtime). I didn't even know there was an option to watch a debate. The debate is what I was hoping to watch, but apparently it got bumped from all the networks so they could air the shit show instead. Happiest point of the night was when I turned it off. No, I take that back. I was happier putting my kid to bed.

I liked it when Biden told Trump 'oh shut up, man'. :)

I liked it (at a visceral level that I am not proud of because it's why Trump is President) when he called Trump a clown.

I love that he called that fuck a clown.

Joe and Don, lol.

Those are all over my neighborhood.

some smaaht neighbors.

Weird Al, 2020.

Did you know Weird Al has an architecture degree? Probably the most successful Architecture grad in history...

Thought he dropped out?

We would need an entirely new Constitution and system of government. That's not going to happen without a civil war, and maybe not even then. It's partly a matter of structure, and partly a matter of scale. At this size and composition, our country is not governable by a democratic multi-polar party structure.

Plenty of countries form coalition governments. It wouldn't even be hard.

All ranked voting does is turn two-party contests into one-party states.

I'm not following that logic gwharton. Care to elaborate, or point to something that supports your statement?

The math of how RCV works guarantees two things: 1) there will never again be another majority-vote consensus winner in any election, and 2) the candidate who can mobilize a unified minority faction the most effectively will always win. This both dramatically increases partisan corruption, and special interest blocks will control our electoral process even more than they do now, to the point where there are never any alternatives allowed again. RCV is a terrible idea which has had bad results everywhere it has been put into practice in the USA. The only people advocating for it are those same minority special interest groups who stand most to gain total control over it.

As an example of what I mean by that, in a 2010 race for San Francisco Board of Supervisors (City Council), after 20 rounds of tabulation, among several candidates on the ballot, there were 9,608 exhausted (discarded) ballots (ballots where none of the marked choices were among the final two), whereas the winner garnered only 4,321 votes. The victor took fewer than 25% of the total votes cast, and a majority of the votes cast were not counted at all. This is a relatively common outcome with RCV.

In reality, the only way RCV would not regularly disenfranchise large numbers (and even majorities) of voters would be if, after ever round of votes was counted, the remaining candidates went back to the public for another vote rather than doing the ranked-choice virtual runoff which creates all these problems. But if we do that, we quickly run into massively-cumbersome voting process and voter fatique. We already have way too many elections to start adding more. Our current primary system is set up to deal with all of that on the front end rather than the back end.

sounds like they got the more moderate candidate that appealed to more people in San francisco. If we get rid of 2-party primaries and let people choose from a broader range of candidates that could help reduce the polarization we have now.

I love RCV. Works well in Minneapolis. Forces the candidates to actually work for my vote, and gives me a couple of options for who I'd prefer, and if my second winds up garnering more votes, I don't feel like my vote was wasted.

this is what a sane country looks like -

I assume your example is the 2010 election for SF District 10. It seems like an outlier rather than the norm, but probably an issue anytime you have 21 candidates on the ballot. Without RCV, on that particular election, you would have had the winner being a candidate with only 2,137 votes compared to a candidate that eventually got 4,321 votes. That candidate that was leading with the initial tally only ever got up to 3,201 before they were eliminated. So I don't know that you could make any type of claim that more people wanted that candidate over the eventual winner and it would have been better without RCV. 

Are there ways around that in a traditional system? Sure you could have a run off with the top two candidates or something like that, but isn't that essentially forcing people to pick a candidate they don't like, or sit out the election? 

The portrayal that an exhausted (discarded) ballot is a bug of RCV doesn't really hold up either. Voters could have included the eventual winner on their ballot but chose not to. Isn't that like if they had stayed home and not voted for that candidate anyway? In any given election only a fraction of all eligible voters participate. Those who don't participate have already exhausted their ballot. 

The same thing would happen in a run-off election of the top two. Those who don't like either candidate (presumably those who would leave them off their RCV ballot) would stay home and "exhaust" their ballot. In the 2010 election for SF District 10, the eventual winner wouldn't have even been in a run-off election among the top two. 

For some different context, the 2016 presidential election had roughly 138 million voters (58.1 percent of estimated eligible voters) show up and vote. Some quick and rough math indicates there were roughly 237.5 million eligible voters (138 is 58.1 percent of 237.5). Of those only 63 million (I'm rounding up for Trumps benefit) voted for the winner. Some more math: (63 / 237.5) * 100 = 26.5 percent of the vote. So really only around a quarter of people who could have voted for Trump, actually did vote for him. It's even worse if you consider the primary process and the smaller fraction of voters that help choose who is on the final ballot. 

While different scenarios, if your argument against RCV is that there might be cases where only a small portion of the electorate actually ends up voting for the winner ... I'd ask how is that different than the current system?

Portland has a pretty good system for their local elections. The primaries are nonpartisan, so anyone can vote for any candidate. If a candidate gets a clear majority in the primary, they win. If no single candidate gets >50% of the vote, the top two advance to a runoff on Election Day in November. So, sort of what gwharton suggested. It's not exactly ranked choice, but it's a huge improvement over enshrined partisanship.

tduds, it sounds like Portland has adopted a "top-two" nonpartisan blanket primary system for local elections that WA and CA use for most of their elections. The top-two primary election process is appealing, but I also think it can lead to a candidate winning even if a larger coalition could have formed around a third-party candidate. If a pair of extreme partisans, one D and one R, are in a primary a bunch of others where one is a generally well-liked (but only for second choice) centrist candidate, the centrist candidate could end up winning in RCV, but would probably be eliminated in a top-two system. Look at the results of the 2010 SF District 10 election. The candidate who won through RCV, and is (arguably) the most agreeable by the largest coalition of voters, wouldn't have made it to the general election in a top-two primary system.

Too slow on getting the link for the above. Should have been "top-two" nonpartisan blanket primary above.

That's certainly a possible hypothetical, depending on the voting demographic. Portland is famously a liberal bastion so what you end up with more often than not is two left-leaning candidates in the November runoff.

That is the more likely outcome, but not always the case depending on how many candidates there are that could split the left-leaning vote. There was an example in that link above where the 2016 race for state treasurer in WA state had 3 Democratic candidates splitting the primary vote which left the 2 Republican candidates at the top to run-off in the general election. Democratic candidates had a larger share of the total votes in the primary (by something like 40,000 votes), but couldn't put any one candidate in the top two to advance to the general election.

But she has three names and a womb. That means she may as well be RBG, right?

"Trump was impeached over digging into this..." 

He wasn't, though.

fake news? gop report = "no wrongdoing"

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gop-report-wrongdoing-biden-son-ties-ukraine-firm/story?id=73192146

next. if you want to talk about candidate's children's shady deals with foreign governments, there's plenty in the trump family to dig through. multiple kids, in fact! no one really cares though.

do you know americans really care about? the fact that over 200,000 people have died from a virus that the president intentionally downplayed and still has no plan for addressing.

"Possible"? Yes. 

"Probable"? Ehh. 

"Relevant"? Not really.

The battle royale going on in j-lax head must be amazing! Everyone seeing those emails from Dollar Store Nosferatu stated explicitly that they were fakes.

A pop tart is also a type of sandwich.

It is totally different when Trump hires his kids to work for him, all out in the open, as opposed to Biden pressuring others to hire his kid in secret...the one approach makes Trump a nepotist the other shows Biden's corruption. Really curious what the voters will say...

Don't get me started on sandwiches.

perhaps downplaying is the only way to reach herd immunity, maybe Trump is playing the long game here. Why'd you think he used his own backyard to spread the virus among his Republican friends?...Smart move I'd say, he's out of the basement but where's Joe?

randomised, your post below speaks volumes about your character, considering you think that an approach that would require 2millions deaths in the us is a smart move.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health...

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X/fulltext

(from https://twitter.com/dantoujours/)

So just so I follow this story:

Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, decides to fly 3000 miles across country, to drop off 3 MacBook Pros at a repair shop run by a blind guy who charges the insanely low price of $85. 

He gets off the plane and drunk drives to the repair shop (because there aren't repair shops in LA). He drops them off, signs a contract for repair and then disappears. The repair shop owner recovers and reads Hunter's *private* emails, a few of which mention a possible meeting with his dad and is so alarmed, he contacts the FBI.

The FBI arranges to pick up the hard drives, but the computer repair shop owner takes a totally normal step of copying them. Once he realizes the FBI isn't doing anything with them, he calls up the most credible ex-Mayor on Earth and hands them the contents of these drives.

That totally credible ex-Mayor sits on them for months, then chooses to release them 3 weeks before the election. The mainstream media asks to independently verify their validity but said ex-Mayor does what all people trying to prove facts do and ignores these requests.

Is this how stupid we are now?

For the billionth time I was *explaining* it, not *endorsing* it. Not everything is an editorial, my man.

You must be fun at parties.

"do you know americans really care about? the fact that over 200,000 people have died from a virus that the president intentionally downplayed and still has no plan for addressing."

perhaps downplaying is the only way to reach herd immunity, maybe Trump is playing the long game here. Why'd you think he used his own backyard to spread the virus among his Republican friends?...Smart move I'd say, he's out of the basement but where's Joe?

Sir this is a Wendys

Don't get the reference but I did post my reply to square. under the wrong post, my bad...

the threat of individualist-extremists isn't being talked about enough by the msm! these people are preaching self-centeredness, eroding the social fabric and poisoning the minds of this generation. it used to be that the family, or church, or union was important and provided places of solidarity and togetherness. now these isolated libertarians, with their completely wrong, poisonous ideology, are ruining the country, and probably the whole world. for ALL of human history, people worked together- whether hunting and gathering, farming, building towns. libertariansim has done more to destroy human relationships than any other philosophy, in the history of mankind, ever. now these egotistical, isolated individualist-extremists will ruin history forever unless we call attention to it in online forums.

here's a personal blog that i used to understand libertarians, that is totally unbiased and extremely simple. some might say dumbed-down, but in a good way. but it's definitely authoritative https://ockhamsbeard.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/redefining-the-political-spectrum-2-0/

dont even get me started on ronpaulism.

"Libertarianism is literally the opposite of authoritarianism." 

Yes and both are bad.

the new republic article/story tduds posted is more than enough real world evidence to put to bed any of your finest libertarian ideals.