This question isn't directed at me, but I have a responding question, if I may.

Have we ever truly cared what crazy things that crazy people say if they hold no bearing or effect on anything of importance?

I don't know about caring.... I was just curious.

It seemed so odd to post an obvious truth containing both sides of the debate and then give no indication whatsoever to which side he may lean toward.

I believe myself to be very good at seeing both sides of something, and I think this is something scram is good at also. That's why he likes to participate in arguments so much, because he can argue either side if he wanted to.

That or he'll take my post as an attack and all of a sudden he'll blow up and then who knows what will happen.

I mean, given the positions scram has taken in the past, do you really think he'd rush in to coddle the guy sticking babies in microwaves? I thought it was pretty obvious, anyway.

As for the dude in question, I don't think he can be trusted with a second chance.

I've tended to stay out of threads that involve any kind of debate, so until I started one of those threads... I was unaware quite what scram was like.

I know he likes guns, which tends to mean he would favor the death penalty. That is a generalization, of course.

how do you know?

hmmmmmm

details, plz

I'm pro guns and anti death penalty.

Because in half your posts you bash liberals openly. And no you did not come out and say "liberals would do this" but come on, do you think everyone is that stupid?

Notice how I didn't take his bait...

Obviously he put that in there as an attempt to sucker someone in to one of his lame Socratic dialogs ( and it looks like he was able to suck JM) if he wants to be absurd and insist that he in no way was taking a liberal crack than fine, I guess I was wrong.. but what I'm not going to do is feed his need almost sadistic need to engage in ridiculous dialog.

Well, ya see, it all started when I got my DVD boxed set of "OZ"...

No.
The real answer is that you were the only one smart enough to realize the implications of viscerally associating liberals=softies as a defensive position to a comment that didn't make mention of "liberals", only "softies". They didn't, so they took the unfortunate walk down the garden path while you avoided it by creating the illusion of some sort of "high road"

You knew that by defending that position, it forced you to acknowledge an unflattering truism by making the connection between liberals=softies yourself.

No, the real answer is I have no intention of dignifying your pathetic baits and taunts.

Yea, as I said... it was a generalization.

I'm pro guns because I was raised that way. I grew up shooting and the sight of a gun meant nothing to me. I think alot of people grow up and the only visions of guns they have is the one hollywood presents them. So all of a sudden if they were to see a guy with a holster on, they would have fear wash over them.

Anyway.... I was raised pro death penalty also... but I've been thinking about it and at this point I'm not 100% sure either way. I'm not a big fan of life sentences and me supporting a prison system, so I don't have a solution. Since I don't have a solution, I don't argue one way or the other.

I think the danger of wrongful execution out weighs every other argument for it.. I think Penn and Teller's "bullsht" episode on the DP pretty much covers how I think of it.. yo ucant find it on one of the sites in the "awesomest website ever" therad

I agree, wrongful execution is the best argument against it. But what about when there are plenty of witnessess, when there is no doubt, whatsoever?

A man breaks into a house, kills half the family. The other half can positively identify him... I dunno, sounds like a good time to pop somebody.

On the other side, we lock him up for life and he lives better than a percentage of our citizens who have done no wrong.

Again, I'm not arguing either side here. This is an issue I'm torn on and I have no problem admitting that.

ive always like the idea, and cost effectiveness, of a single bullet to the skull

but that would just bring us down to their level and we would become as haneous as them

but you have to admit, its economical

a couple things A) Eye witness testimony is extremely overrated... the human mind does really strange things.... but, for the sake of arguement, we have a video tape.. it's hard to make laws that say " with no doubt what so ever" because all convictions are supposed to be beyond any reasonable doubt.. and yet, there still are wrongful convictions.. there's no magic way you can make it so th ere will never be any wrongful convictions.

beyond that, I don't think that revenge should be the basis of our legal system... I've been over that argement in other thread, and I don't want to re hash it..

c) the idea that inmates "live a better life than a percentage of our citizens" is patently absurd, unless that percentage is like .05 or something.


Also, there is nothing economical about the death penalty they way our system is now, someone who spends their whole life in jail costs much, much less than someone on death row... if we want to use the death penalty in an economical way, and in a way that it might actually work as a deterrent, we guarantee that there will be wrongful executions, by stripping off the layers of appeal. Perhaps you are okay with executing the innocent to save a couple extra bucks, but I am not.

1:

Am I reading this wrong? This story makes no sense. He put the baby in the microwave for 10-20 seconds and then called the cops on himself saying the baby was burned by water? If he was trying to kill the baby, why didn't he put it in for longer? Am I missing something? Is this guy just a total moron? Seriously, what's the deal?

2:

If he was putting a baby in a microwave with an intent to kill it, he deserves to go to jail for a long, long time. If he was putting the baby in the microwave with the intent to kill it and failed to do so, he deserves to be given a full frontal lobotomy for being the most stunningly stupid person on the planet today.

3:

Scram for no reason found a way to insult "softies." From Scram's previous posts, which are often provocative, somewhat intelligent, and filled with needless, lowbrow, and somewhat ignorant blanket statements bashing liberals, it is not difficult to guess that he believes most liberals to be the "softies" that he was bashing. I mean, we're not idiots.

4:

Being against the death penalty, along with being for gay marriage, is one of the most objective political positions today.

I have noticed this tends to be a pattern by the right in this country, to make take every opportunity to take low brow, needless cheap shots at liberals. I think this form of discourse one of the many legacies we have to thank talk radio for. This form of discussion was revolutionized by infotainment on the AM dial, and has infected our cable "news". It should be no surprise that this form is taken by the biggest consumers of talk radio and cable news, but it's no less disappointing and disgusting.


What else is disgusting, as I stated before, the first thing scram did when reading this story is to take that ridiculous, fallacious, divisive cheap shot.. then, to have the gall to claim innocence to take some further cheap shot, to make some further anti-liberal point, can only be described as ( and I wish I could come up with another word but this is the only one that comes to mind) douchebagery of the highest order... It's cheap, it's vile, and it's purely intended to stir people up...

Finally, my cavalry.. what took so long?!?!?!

I was busy at a rally attempting to Free Tibet and to create laws forcing the children of those who club baby seals to be aborted.

You win.

/endthread

It's interesting how you use the term "cheap shot" as if it somehow magically negates the truth.
Not much different than a lot of the dialog about race that goes on.
You can say something that is completely and demonstrably true in every way, yet some people think that by calling it "racist", that basically undoes reality.

I don't have cable television and I very rarely listen to the radio, so you really can't pigeonhole me into that box. Still, I think the left gives their opposition so much ammo to work with that it isn't anyones fault but their own. Between the causes they support, the ideas they get behind and things they openly say, they basically sink themselves, then try to re-buoy their stance by trotting out the old standbys- health care, racism, the enviroment and "big oil" (or a variant thereof).

Here lately, the right hasn't been a whole lot better (it doesn't take much of a communicator to criticize them just as sharply), but pound for pound, the basic philosophies of leftism are just so stupid and contrary to human nature (in most cases- not all) that you really can't dismiss the critics of the left as simply being talk radio types or Fox News watchers.

As an avowed Libertarian, I do have the luxury of being able to say that the motivations for a lot of lefty politics seems to be rooted in the failures and short-comings of certain types of people. Combine this with a few other fundamental leftist precepts (the complete lack of individual culpability in almost every area of human endeavor, blame blame blame, rationalization and a seemingly endless desire to promote what I can only describe as "weakness") and the left basically grows its critics in the most organic fashion possible (which is kinda ironic...)

I've always thought the whole free tibet thing to be one of the most absurd causes of the left, and when I saw the Penn and Tell Bullsht on Mother Theresa (which was shocking!), Gandhi and the Dali Lama, I feel even stronger about that issue.

you mean the truth that liberals believe that a man who puts his child into a mircowave "needs therapy, compassion and understanding" rather than jail? Because that is absurd.

Yeah, translation: It's an argument I can't win because I'm wrong, so I just won't argue.
(Insert some psuedo-dignified reasoning here)

Damn, this is the second time I've seen you predicate an entire position on having seen an episode of P&TBS.

I've been watching a ton of it lately, so it's salient... it's a fabulous show.

You seem angry. Not getting any?

more pathetic baits and taunts...

Meh... it's okay. It's somewhat overrated, and they can be as biased as the people they are arguing against.

Penn, however, does say the word Fuck better than any other person on the planet. So, I'll give them that.

oh, the show is bias'd as all hell.. but it's hilarious and entertaining.

No

Being a poker forum of discussion between (mostly) intelligent people... a.k.a. the freethinker type ... I think we, collectively, have a lot more Libertarian viewpoints then most.

I find it humorous that before Penn and Teller, I knew nothing about Mother Theresa until I watched that episode. Damn did I learn a thing or two. I had always just heard the term and thought of some completely selfless woman and never, actually, knew anything about her.

Edit: It's funny that we were taught about Gandhi in public school, but not her. I never really understood that.

Double Edit: The P&T BS show is very straight-forward about their bias. A good question is what can be said about most of their positions?

You sure use a lot of words to sum up that Scrams an asshole.

i started drinking , now

just puttin that out htere

Are you the guy that says he drank 10 when he really poured 6 on the ground when nobody was looking? Just asking.

about 6 months ago I watched the first 3 seasons, and obviously loved it. I didn't realize 'til now that there were two more seasons. I'd all over this...

who would waste beer like that?