Trump keeps Christmas promise

[Cow Poke]

That's not what you said. That's your disingenuous and unprincipled attempt to weasel out of what you said.

And I already answered your goofy question in my post to Star. Try to keep up.

[Starlight]

So, Tassy, the guy who actually argued with me that Rosendall was a member of NAMBLA, and was defending NAMBLA -- when I was presenting proof he was a gay man representing gay/lesbian organizations promoting NAMBLA's expulsion from ILGA ---- then Tassy produces a bio of Rosendall that does nothing to agree with his position, and doubles down on Rosendall being a NAMBLA defender, when it was demonstrably not true.... and then NEVER admits he was wrong, but simply tries to turn the tables by demanding answers to goofy questions.....

TWeb needs an official equivalent of Godwin's law but for NAMBLA rather than Hitler:
- Anyone who brings up NAMBLA instantly loses all credibility and any arguments they are participating in and may simply be laughed-at for the remainder of the discussion.
- Repeat offences should probably earn infraction points from mods.

You're using Tassy - a demonstrably disingenuous and unprincipled poster - to back up your allegation that I'm disingenuous and unprincipled.....

Tass is quite a tenacious poster and gets a bit like a dog with a bone at times (like Seer does), as we regularly see from him going 50 pages with seer on morality. But that is because he has strongly held principles that he will argue about and defend until the cows come home. He does occasionally make mistakes, like all of us. I will concede to you that he doesn't like to admit his mistakes when he's made them (I mean, nobody does, but I self-consciously immediately force myself to write a post agreeing I was wrong if I spot a mistake of my own).

And I will grant you that his comment that you are whining endlessly about in this thread was a bit ambiguous and can be easily interpreted in a way that makes it false: i.e. was there a point in time at which every person in the US stopped saying Merry Christmas? Obviously not, which was Tass' point. But was there a time at which people deliberately began to say it less? Yes. Which is why you are arguing Tass' statement can be interpreted in a way that makes it false. I will say it was an unhelpful contribution on his part because it was obviously ambiguous and allows disingenuous actors like yourself an easy way to interpret it in a way that makes it false. But it's certainly a waste of time to argue about that ambiguous comment made in passing.

And Jaecp?

Jaecp commented regarding you, that a year ago he'd have agreed with my initial assessment of you that you would be a nice guy to sit down with for a coffee and a chat, but that more recently Sea of Red asked him which poster he would most prefer to meet in real life for the purposes of punching in the face. He eventually decided it was you. You should be honored.

[Cow Poke]

OK, let's look what you are NOW claiming you said....

As opposed to what you ACTUALLY said in post #2 - not in response to ME, as you falsely claimed, but as a response to Demi-Conservative....

Absolutely NOTHING in there about "except within the constraints of the workplace...."

You added that later when you were proven wrong, and have been trying to weasel out of it ever since.

Why don't you just man up and admit you were wrong? I'm beginning to think that's physically impossible for you, or you just enjoy being disingenuous and unprincipled because that's who you are!

But, hey, Starlight's got your back!

[Starlight]

CP, if there are two ways to interpret someone's words, one which makes them obviously false, and the other of which makes them true, it's charitable to assume they meant the one that is true. That's how you like us atheists to interpret bible passages. Give Tass the same courtesy for his posts. It was obvious he meant that at no point in time did everyone stop saying Merry Christmas in the US. You're making yourself look sillier than usual by willfully misinterpreting him even after being repeatedly corrected.

[Cow Poke]

TWeb needs an official equivalent of Godwin's law but for NAMBLA rather than Hitler

Ah, so Tassy gets a pass for making ignorant and false statements because... yeah, I see how that works.

He does occasionally make mistakes, like all of us. I will concede to you that he doesn't like to admit his mistakes when he's made them

Wow, an understatement if ever there was one!

And I will grant you that his comment you are whining endlessly about in this thread was a bit ambiguous and can be easily interpreted in a way that makes it false:

Translation: "yeah, he screwed up, but he's my buddy, so I have to defend him an any cost, because I'm NOT disingenuous and unprincipled!"

I will say it was an unhelpful contribution on his part because it was obviously ambiguous and allows disingenuous actors like yourself an easy way to interpret it in a way that makes it false.

Translation: "yeah, it was his screwup, but I gotta blame you for making him look bad".



I won't comment on Jaecp since he's not here to speak for himself.

[Tassman]

[rogue06]

Actually - they are - and they are leveraging the same tactics that ISIL/DASH/ISIS is using. Their growth in numbers has been tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of an overall growth in hate groups in general (https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-h...te-nationalist, https://www.splcenter.org/news/2017/...-radical-right), and even Fox has noted the increase in activity by these groups (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/15...s-on-rise.html).

The SPLC essentially calls everybody to the right of them a hate group making them useless for this sort of thing. There is a reason that they were summarily dropped by the FBI's Hate Crime Web page as a source.

[simplicio]

The SPLC essentially calls everybody to the right of them a hate group making them useless for this sort of thing. There is a reason that they were summarily dropped by the FBI's Hate Crime Web page as a source.

While I agree that the SPLC is pretty quick to label anything conservative as a hate group, the assertion was made earlier that the white supremacists did not exist, and that the current increase in activity is a reaction to antiwhite rhetoric of the left.

Fox news was also given as a source, which is generally seen as friendly to the right. From that article:


While I cannot demonstrate that the white supremacists is a viable mass movement within US politics, I think that it is a movement which has grown over that last few decades, one which has not been expunged from Christian right, and finds cover within the Christian right (both evangelical and the catholic side of things). The number of fellow travelers for the white supremacists is uncomfortably large.

A point needs to be reinforced, the fellow traveler is not a direct supporter of the goals of the political movement, does not work to achieve its ends; the overlap is philosophy is recognized and used by the movement.

[Mountain Man]

Umm... at no point did I deny Christmas was a Christian holiday - nor have I ever seen anyone do so, so you appear to be arguing against a position I have not taken. If we're going to discuss an issue, it might be helpful if you actually represent what I have said correctly.

That's essentially what you're arguing when you and other liberals complain that promoting the Christian message behind Christmas is somehow offensive and not "inclusive" enough. Well of course it's not inclusive! The holiday wouldn't even exist except as a celebration of Christianity!

[Mountain Man]

I have nothing against celebrating the birth of Jesus - the guy was so far to the political left that he makes Karl Marx look like Ayn Rand by comparison.

[Cow Poke]

Even Walmart admitted they were wrong, and reversed policy.

Then, quite obviously, that's what you should have said. But TWO MILLION Walmart employees - in one company alone - proves you wrong.

What has changed is that many business organizations have instructed their employees not to say it in the workplace.

And the biggest - Walmart - admitted it was bad policy.

But this then becomes a different argument, namely, do employers have this right?

No, that's what you would LIKE the argument to be because you're too pigheaded to simply admit you were wrong.

I would say yes and so, apparently, you would too.

Ah, so you retract your false accusations against me?

So, as Star rightly said, you too have become part on the so-called war on Christmas.

That's about as dumb as your accusation that Rosendal was a member of NAMBLA. How you can come to THAT conclusion is just pure stupidity.

[Cerebrum123]

Umm...the fact that us heathens have appropriated the holiday as a good opportunity for a party and peppered it with secular themes (like Santa) does not alter it's essential root: it is the Christian celebration of the person the believe to be their divine savior. It's roots are actually in a more pagan holiday that the early church was seeking to displace so they appropriated the day and declared it a celebration of the nativity.

The December 24th date comes from an early Jewish belief that righteous men, like the prophets and patriarchs, died on the very day they were born. He was crucified on March 25th IIRC, and a simple nine months from then gets us to December 25th. Sol Invictus had no specific date specified for celebration in the earliest sources, and stuff like Saturnalia wasn't celebrated on December 25th.

Not all Christians, nowever. There is a Jehovah's Witness that visits me every Friday, and he very much wants me to convert. Bless the man - he sure does try hard - but I think he doesn't know what he's up against. I just learned from him that JWs don't celebrate Xmas. They see it as a largely secular holiday made so by the corporate world. They believe they were mandated by Jesus to remember his death and alleged resurrection, so that is what they celebrate.

Been debating a JW on the topic of Christmas in another thread on TWeb. The thread started a long time ago, and has gone pretty thoroughly through the "pagan origins" that some say Christmas has. It's really just a lot of misinformation being spread.

[carpedm9587]

So do I. To my own loss that was mainly why it took me so long to eventually form such a low opinion of the conservatives in this forum.

Well, you at least seem to be getting a few brownie points in their eyes by trying extra hard to be nice to them. Hopefully you can convince some of them to mellow their positions slightly to something a little bit more centrist and to something a little less off-the-charts-insane. I'm skeptical of whether it will work though. That was Jaecp's attempted methodology when he was here, and the conservatives here didn't respond well to it. He ended up getting arguably even more jaded than me:

Jaecp:
Also, stop posting on Tweb, those idiots are beyond redemption. They deserve scorn and ridicule and a more decisive drubbing. They think they're winning no matter how smart you are.

But perhaps he just didn't have the right personality, or wasn't quite good enough at trying to make friends. Perhaps you'll do better. I'll remain skeptical and keep the popcorn handy. But I've been enjoying the high factual content of your posting, it's a nice change around here.

I don't "try extra hard to be nice" to anyone, Star. If you think that, you simply don't know me. My basic philosophy around interactions is built around two observations:

1. I cannot control what someone else says or does, only what I say or do
2. What someone else says about me does not change who I am - only what I say or do can accomplish that

I try to govern all my exchanges by these two principles. So when someone gets insulting, I'll probably challenge them on it once or twice, or ask them if we can perhaps keep the conversation positive. Most people do. Some people don't. When the latter happens, I then have to decide if I want to keep conversing with the person. Whether or not I do depends on how acerbic the person is, and how tedious I find the discussion. Some people do nothing but insult post after post, which provides no value, so I just move on. Some people even defend insults as a good way of communicating, which always makes me scratch my head. Some people do debate, but do so with a somewhat acerbic twist to it. If their points are good ones I want to explore, I'll ignore the acerbic and focus on the point.

But the moment I engage in the acerbic - in the insulting - I am becoming someone I don't want to be. If it is pointed out - hopefully I have the maturity to acknowledge the slip and move on. I don't think I do that perfectly - but I keep trying.

I HAVE noticed something interesting over the years. When I hold my ground and refuse to descend into the muck, the conversation tends to climb out of the muck and I make friends. When I descend into the muck, it doesn't. I don't particularly enjoy the muck, so there is an obvious lesson governing my choices.

I've been accused of being a brown-noser, and a goody-two-shoes (old one) and a suck-up. See point #2 above.

P.S. I also did not come here to change other people's views. Maybe that's part of your frustration. I came here to understand them. When asked, I will explain mine. I'm also not shy about voicing an opinion. But I have enough to do to keep my own views straight. I'm not going to take on the job of convincing everyone else that I'm right and they're wrong.

[Cow Poke]

I don't "try extra hard to be nice" to anyone, Star. If you think that, you simply don't know me. My basic philosophy around interactions is built around two observations:

1. I cannot control what someone else says or does, only what I say or do
2. What someone else says about me does not change who I am - only what I say or do can accomplish that

I try to govern all my exchanges by these two principles. So when someone gets insulting, I'll probably challenge them on it once or twice, or ask them if we can perhaps keep the conversation positive. Most people do. Some people don't. When the latter happens, I then have to decide if I want to keep conversing with the person. Whether or not I do depends on how acerbic the person is, and how tedious I find the discussion. Some people do nothing but insult post after post, which provides no value, so I just move on. Some people do debate, but do so with a somewhat acerbic twist to it. If their points are good ones I want to explore, I'll ignore the acerbic and focus on the point.

But the moment I engage in the acerbic - I am becoming someone I don't want to be. If it is pointed out - hopefully I have the maturity to acknowledge the slip and move on. I don't think I do that perfectly - but I keep trying.

I HAVE noticed something interesting over the years. When I hold my ground and refuse to descend into the muck, the conversation tends to climb out of the muck and I make friends. When I descend into the muck, it doesn't. I don't particularly enjoy the muck, so there is an obvious lesson governing my choices.

I've been accused of being a brown-noser, and a goody-two-shoes (old one) and a suck-up. See point #2 above.

My perception is simply that you're not here primarily to do battle with Christians and to be, generally, a pain in the butt. I've actually learned some things from you, and when I ask for backup for something, you actually produce backup, not just evasion, excuses, insults, etc...

[carpedm9587]

The SPLC essentially calls everybody to the right of them a hate group making them useless for this sort of thing. There is a reason that they were summarily dropped by the FBI's Hate Crime Web page as a source.

So if you ignore their data - who's DO you accept?

The Antidefamation league? (https://www.adl.org/education/resour...hite-supremacy)

The BBC? (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40915356)

ABC News? (http://abcnews.go.com/US/state-white...ry?id=49205764)

CNN? (http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/politi...ups/index.html) (probably not, given the general feeling about CNN and NYT by the right)

CBS news? (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hate-ri...on-assignment/)

Al Jazeera? (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/int...085001012.html)

Maybe Fox News? (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/15...s-on-rise.html)

Rogue - when we elected our first (partially) African American president, there was a notable reaction from white supremacist organizations. They began reorganizing, new ones emerged, and they began taking to the Internet to promote their cause and recruit. That was documented beginning in 2009, when Obama took office. The Secret Service is on record tracking this because they are charged with defending the president. That process has not abated with Trump, largely because he has legitimized them (in their eyes). They have told us as much. Trump has frequently been slow to reject these people and their causes, and often makes statements they (and many others) interpret as supporting them. Given the vast number of people who have gone on the record reporting Trump's racist and misogynistic language over his 40+ years of public life, his public behavior since the start of his campaign, and the cadre of people he chooses to surround himself with, I have no trouble believing that Trump is, at heart, a racist and a misogynist. IMO, his presidency is exacerbating the problem of white supremacy in our country. Obama's did too - but for different reasons.