Does literally anyone care about the bolded?

Maybe we need a POG Conspiracy Theory thread.

This is it it's just titled politics.

Bloobird this wasn't meant to be rhetorical but a serious set of questions you were supposed to consider.

Where is the line between where politics ends and conspiracy begins?

Nice of you to admit that.

So can we send this nonsense over to House of Blogs and actually have a politics thread that the majority of people in POG actually want?

And would I be banned from posting in your new thread or just from driving the narrative?

It wouldn't be "my" new thread. It would be an actual POG politics thread.

You seem to think this is "your" thread. You have nearly half the posts here and probably another 25% are people responding to you. It's been like that for awhile.

It's getting tiresome and literally no one in POG outside of yourself wants that.

Eyebooger,

Bloobird has already started a capital gains discussion.

What do you want to discuss? I can sit back and let you have the floor.

I'll admit that I was really quite annoyed when I tried to start a discussion about the ramifications of the Nunes memo and before I had a chance to get a single serious reply you made it into a conversation of me explaining to you all of the things that you would have known about the memo had you been even minimally informed on the subject.

I bring up that incident because it's an example of bad posting that makes it hard for others to enjoy the thread even though it doesn't break any rules and doesn't even relate to conspiracy theories -- if anything, the common element is you posting a lot on topics where you can't justify the claims that you make. For example, you burn a lot of goodwill when you link to articles which are supposed to prove your case and then you confess that you didn't read past the headline when someone tells you the article is irrelevant.

So maybe the real solution here is just to ask you to put more effort into your posts, regardless of the topic. (Which I'll admit is a vague request which would be difficult to enforce as a moderator.)

All I know is that one way to silence my detractors is to ask them to post on whatever they want.

Nothing in particular. I (and I'm guessing a lot of others) are tired of conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory.

It's chasing away good posters.

Basically this. Slow down FFS.

We're still arguing about one post that I made to Ianaww who isn't even here and might not have even seen it.

Fwiw.

I will apologize for this although I would have to go look and see exactly how it went down. If I'm too wrong on something just link me a article and tell me to read it. You don't have to stop everything to explain. If you can't link an article on it I'm probably not too wrong. But apologies nonetheless.

Before starting this post I took a look to see the status of the Schiff memo and it appears to still be toiling away.

My issue with the conspiracy tripe is that it serves to divert discussion rather than to inform it.


Maybe the national review is a cia rag.

The point is that it is widely read by and influential for contemporary, voting conservatives, that it bears legitimacy, however contrived, for a significant and impactful population.


The important difference between politics and conspiracy is that the former has an actual impact on the world as we find it while the latter encourages retreat/abstention from it by promoting a surreal, evaporating spin up it.

You ask me what my solutions are to things and the answer that I always give is education. It's not a retreat. There isn't any other way. It's all likely moot anyway and whatever passes here for discussion is mostly mental masturbation with people only wanting to confirm their preconceived biases.

Rather than address the issue of gun control and gun violence in America, you post about the staging of gun massacres. That is a retreat from the issue.

You aren't actually asserting that there isn't an issue with gun violence. You don't touch the political topic. Instead you hijack the conversation to return to your nefarious bogeyman and its never ending quest to take limitless lengths to deceive everybody.

You're basically arguing the Sandy Hook question when you know that that has not yet been litigated in this thread.

These questions of gun violence do not come up when someone shoots their wife or there is drug violence. It comes up when there are mass shootings.

I am for stopping the mass shootings and stopping the wife shootings. But they are two different things that shouldn't be conflated.

I do not have a solution to get people to stop shooting their wives. I'll try to blame the media if I can but it's probably something that lies in the hearts of people.

But if your concern is actual gun violence, then you should focus on restricting handguns and don't worry about assault rifles so much.

Hand gun homicides far out number homicides caused by assault rifles.

Instead every time there is a shooting there is a knee-jerk response to go after the assault rifles, when those aren't used in the majority of crime.

But the issue is not about actually stopping crime. If it were there wouldn't be a black market for drugs.

Are they so different?

I suggested licensing with a mental health requirement and holding gun suppliers conditionally liable for the misuse of the guns they sell, not a ban on assault rifles.

The issue, this issue, is not about stopping crime, and nobody (else) is pretending that it is.

If it isn't about stopping homicides then I don't understand what your concern is.

I would have sworn that you were one of the people arguing the case that you can't cede any ground on the issue because once they've taken away assault weapons then they'll come for the handguns.

Assault weapons are the starting point because there's actually public support for it (yet it doesn't happen regardless).

stopping crime or stopping homicides?


also, are you suggesting that preventing some deaths is worthless if we can't prevent them all?

It's not an issue I'm super passionate about. I certainly want the right to have a gun for myself but I appreciate arguments that state that access to guns = senseless death.

But as far as slippery slopes--it is the case in Arizona and I think Hawaii and perhaps elsewhere that medical Marijuana carriers can't legally carry (whereas it's legal to carry concealed without a permit otherwise)

And you have to remember too that they already tried banning the assault weapons and it led to Newt Gingrich becoming speaker.

Bloo, the trick to effective estate taxation is penetrating intervivos transfers like living/springing trusts.

If you have an idea how to crack that nut, please share!