@raphjd:

I don't need private fire or police insurance to get them to help when needed.

NHS systems are failing all over the world.  They are extreme money pits that bleed the tax payers dry.

Think about it.

Under the NHS, you pay extremely high taxes and you still need medical insurance.

Fair enough but the insurance system in the US was failing long before ObamaCare.  It's a money pit that bleeds the middle class dry. Think about it.  Under insurance you pay extremely high premiums and deductibles and we still have worse health outcomes than most other developed countries.

Group rights lead to special rights.

Race, religion, and all the other protected groups have special rights over non protected groups.

I can't discriminate against blacks or muslims (and many other groups) anywhere in the US, but they can discriminate against me in most of the US.

@raphjd:

Not surprisingly, the liberals still won't condemn their fellow liberals for telling lies about me, and others.

It says everything about liberals.

While my leanings are liberal (but not always)- I for one condemn personal attacks since they are pointless and accomplish nothing. I respect that you've got your views and the better you express them, the more respect I have.

For whichever side you're on- at least be well informed and more open minded. Otherwise there's no point in having a discussion. As for lies- the most frustrating thing is that these past months and years have seen the erosion of the line between lies and truth so much, it's always a struggle to tell them apart- but we should never stop trying.

The threads are still here for people to read.

The fact that you called me a racist for pointing out 2 proven lies a Congressman said, fit's in with this.

Businesses should be allowed to operate according to their own principles.  Isn't that what the "anti-LGBT" (poorly named) law says?

@Waltfore:

I usually don't post in these threads, but as a black male living in Detroit I can tell you all that Black on Black crime does exist (I'm not sure if that was a joke or not). We can't go one day here without hearing about how someone was shot on the news, and if it's not shooting it's people stealing from eachother. And a good amount of the time unfortunately it's bystanders and kids that are hurt and it's over stupid crap. There are people who are trying to help out in the community and church leaders and such, but ironically there was a BLM event here where someone started a fight.

For the record, I hate the term "Black Lives Matter.", especially when someone touting the mantra is going around killing anyone no matter what color. I also find it weird how some people jump on the "we need to come together as black people" bandwagon (not saying all do this) when if it's any other day of the week or any other situation they wouldn't really give a damn. As it is, I'm more cautious around people I don't know personally that share my skin color than anyone else, and I know people and unfortunately have family members that were killed by other black people for stupid reasons. I just thought I'd throw in my two cents. After thinking about it, maybe Black on Black isn't the right term after all. It seems like it's just crime in general. I don't know. In any case, I think all the violence needs to stop but unfortunately it's not going to happen.

I hope you know that most black people and all SJWs hate you.

@vaylon:

I cannot believe the pure ignorance and lack of education about history in this thread.
The KKK, as well as many other historical items, can not be associated with the two American political parties.

First of all Dems and Repubs have switched sides a couple of times over the centuries.
So instead of parties, you should think of ideologies.

For most of the republican parties existence, it was the home of progressives and socially active politicians. Its why Lincoln freed the slaves. It's how we got continental railway service and veteran affairs.
Democrats on the other hand, have just as much been the conservative party. For most of its existence, it was the party of the religious right and thats pretty much where it stayed till the civil rights movement of the 50 and 60's tore both parties apart. Southern conservative democrats, most of which were KKK , refused to abide by any civil rights laws. They accused the federal government of overstepping its authority. Then when they lost all those legal battles, they started doing really nasty things to black people at the state levels to make them unable to vote or even own property. So the federal government stepped in again and pissed a lot of politicians off. Republicans and democrats really didn't know how to handle the disintegration of the parties.
But after things started to cool down, conservatives went to the republican party, progressives went to the democratic party.

So the KKK was a religious group who sided with the democratic party till the 50's and early 60's. Then when democrats became the progressive party, republicans became home to conservatives and the KKK followed.

Parties aside, if it had not been for progressives? America would have fallen back into a monarchy roll a long time ago. Conservatives just do not like change. They fight every social change in American history by tooth and nail.   Civil rights of any kind, equall rights of any kind and gay rights. They just don't like change.
America likes to consider itself the home of the free. But if thats the case? Why has America always been one of the last countries to implement freedoms for people.
Some of you guys need to seriously quit getting your information from youtube and go read a real history book.

A history book? How about just going back to last year when the KKK announced that they supported Hillary and donated $20K to her campaign!? And the liberals were all shitting themselves over fake news that Trump took money from the KKK which was a complete fabrication! Like - OH Trump how dare you! When it was Hillary that took the money! And the KKK announced it! But NO coverage by CNN! Gosh dang! Get it straight!

And during the VP debate, Pence said to Kaine, "The Trump Organization gives 100% of its money to charity, the Clinton Foundation gives ten cents on the dollar." And Tim Kaine DIDN'T REFUTE IT AND INSTEAD CHANGED THE SUBJECT! It's TRUE people. Quit supporting these whores.

@MrMazda:

Let's be clear here… I have nothing good to say about our Liberal government. In fact, I have lots of nasty things to say about them...

For example, when Kathleen Wynne (the Ontario Premier) stepped in, the cost of a license plate renewal was $63/year. Since she's stepped into power, I'm now about to have to pay a whopping $120 to renew my license plates. To make matters worse, when Kathleen Wynne first came to power, I was paying an average of $75 every 2 months including taxes and delivery for my hydro (electricity) service. Of this rate, only about 20% of it was delivery fees. I have since upgraded all my lighting to LED, and made a number of energy efficient changes designed to reduce this cost, but it's of no use. Thanks to Kathleen Wynne, I now average about $180 PER MONTH in hydro (electricity) usage, about 65% of which is delivery fees. I almost had to declare bankruptcy this past winter because I have electric heat... Next thing I knew, when the cold weather came, BAM!!! Up went the hydro (electric) bill to an average of $900/month... That's more than most people pay for their bloody mortgage... And this is all thanks to our Liberal government being as corrupt as the day is long.

Also, Kathleen Wynne is also responsible for merging the 5% GST (federal tax) with the 8% PST (provincial tax) to create a 13% HST, which increased the cost of a number of things by 8%, including the price of gas and the labour that you pay your mechanic. To make matters worse, they then introduced the cap and trade, along with a carbon tax. Collectively, between all their fuckery, they raised the price of gasoline (among other things) from the average of $0.890/L ($3.364/gal) up to the whopping $1.219/L ($4.608/gal) that I had to pay yesterday to fill my gas tank. In short, our liberal government is driving us farther and farther into debt, with no regard for anything but their own pocket books... I have NOTHING nice to say about our Liberal government, and even more not nice things to say about our former conservative government.... Just sayin'

I'm sorry about what's happening in Ontario. Part of the blame for the green energy scam is on Gerald Butts who is now Trudeau's top senior advisor.

The only way you will ever see Oprah run is if she's chasing after an ice cream truck.

If anyone is going to make a political statement here, if you want to act like an adult, you are required to link to your source.  Your source must be a person or company in the news publishing business for at least 50 years.

LOL, dictating terms.

Anyway, you have to realize that mainstream media don't always report on events, especially if it makes their political side look bad.

The Chicago kidnapping, for the first few hours, was only news on "alt-news" sites.  The local FOX station picked it up when the press conference was called.  It took 3 days before the mainstream media fully picked it up.  The liberal media hoped the story would die.

Despite the kidnappers admitting they did it for hate reasons (which is why they were charged with several hate crimes, except anti white hate), the liberal media kept claiming that it was not a hate crime.

@bostonpolar:

@Dene:

As I said it was in response to your comment re: violence - you said a few men get hit and i said so that discounts women?? THAT was my point - I have said to you 100x - it was IN CONTEXT

_As a gay man who was physically and emotionally abused by his male partner for many years, I want to say I wish when it comes to domestic violence that raphjd would just shut the fuck-up with his utterly willful-Ignorance and Stupidity on this subject.

But he obviously lacks the empathy to do so.

And NO, I will not discuss this further._

. . .

How pathetic.  You flame me, then say you refuse to discuss the topic.  Technically, you are spamming based on your own words.

Hmm, so you must be a woman then, because my "willful-ignorance" on the subject is that domestic violence is not a gendered issue.      Only ignorant anti male sexist ass clowns say it is.

@aadam101:

This is America.  We don't follow what happens in the rest of the world.  I never heard of this.

Middle Americans and those who purport isolationism are usually willfully unaware of the outside world. Foreigners often find it shocking how little Americans know about the outside world and the US itself. A foreigner is more likely to understand the US better than an American. This has gotten so bad that schools are now teaching students how to pass an immigration exam since immigrants understand The basics of US government better than US citizens.

The whole THAAD thing is the Chinese trying to quell any possibility of deterrence to its claim to the waterways in the region. They see THAAD as a precursor to disrupting Chinese "Manifest Destiny". THAAD only shoots down medium range ballistic missiles and has become paramount with the increasing hostility of NK. You would think it would be an understood to place these kind of deterrents in place when your neighbor has lined your border with artillery. China will not directly stand against the US. The US and the Euro group are its primary trading partner and a weakening US economy weakens all other economies. Without those 2 groups China would fall into economic collapse. Obama devastated Russia economically with ease and with how unhinged Trump is, he could economically neuter China if they oppose him. They are trying to be careful but realize that The Euro group would have no  choice but to boycott China if Trump rails against them. With the rise of populism it isn't far fetched to think.

@mhorndisk:

Wow that's ridiculous that you can associate Trump with Satan and Pedophilia because they are headlines. WOW. Wow I can't believe you are basically insinuating that Trump is somehow raping babies. Don't try to act like that's not what you're saying. You're absolutely ridiculous.

Once again, the level of irony in your posts is through the roof,
And the level of introspection is non-existent.

Next, tell us all about how Hillary is running a child sex slave ring out of a pizza parlor.
Amazing.

Marriage:

A religious- or cultural-based union between two or more people for the purposes of creating a family unit.

A government- or society-sanctioned union between two or more people for the purposes of creating a family unit, where various rights and benefits are bestowed upon the party that would not otherwise be available to single people.

Gay marriage: Either of the above, where the parties involved are of the same gender.

Although for the purposes of the securing of rights, the second definition is the only one that's applicable. Due to the way that most mainstream religions systematically persecute LGBT people, basing marriage on religion is fundamentally problematic for us, and since atheism and agnosticism is much stronger among LGBT people than among heteros, we're only concerned about 1) the rights that are conferred to married couples and 2) the societal validation of LGBT relationships, both of which are extremely important to our moving forward as a socially accepted group.

@strangeloop:

Your degree in "debate judging" is absolutely irrelevant to the topic at hand.  You being a "debate judge" has less than zero bearing on your claim that Frederick's substitutes opinion for fact.  In fact, it makes your claim look weak as fuck, because it's a blatant and classic appeal to authority fallacy.  Surely as a "debate judge" you should know that.

I haven't claimed to have a degree in anything. My degrees are not germane to the topic, so I haven't discussed them. The fallacy is "appeal to inappropriate authority, like quoting Carl Sagan in his discussions on theology, when he was an astrophysicist, or claiming to understand how debate works, when your degree is in statistics.

Then you'd be a fool.  Anyone on the internet can claim to have a PhD.  I mean, I do, but you have no way of knowing that I'm telling the truth.  That is why credentials are completely irrelevant doubly so on the internet, even more than they already are in real life.  Accept an argument because it makes sense, not because someone claims to be an expert on it.

I prefer to go by the maxim, "trust, but verify." And which of us are you calling the liar? Me, in which case you're committing an ad hominem fallacy, or yourself, in which case, there's no further value in discussing this with you.

lol you must really be new to the internet.

More ad hominem attacks? Nope, there is no further value in discussing anything with you, as all you're going to do is troll. Good day.

@hornyeboy:

@beep:

Face it, we thought 45 was crazy LONG before the 3rd debate.

Well that's the understatement of the century. Most people have known he's an unhinged nutjob since the last millennia.

It was further solidified after 9/11 when he gloated that he had the tallest tower in New York again.

For every faus pax that Trump has made.. Hillary has made 100.

Old news… Clinton is a stupid cunt.

@Frederick:

I meant to reply to brianbozo's comment, but he got so off-topic that I started a new topic to keep things clear.

First of all, about General Flynn "resigning".  It is unclear whether he resigned or was fired.  If he had not resigned he would have been fired by Trump.  The reason was not that Flynn did anything wrong regarding Russia, but Flynn lied to vice-president Pence.  That is too much of a liability to worry about.  So.. it was "bye Felicia" for Flynn.    I'm not thrilled with Sessions nor Gorsuch either.

Regarding Hillary Clinton as being a criminal.  Slippery Hillary is the most hated woman in the world.  Yes, there are a lot of people who love her, but she is without a doubt the most hated woman.  She's had a lifetime of corruption in which she has skillfully slipped through the cracks much like her husband "Slick Willie".    However, if I ever committed  a major crime, I would love to have Hillary as my lawyer because she is an expert at evading justice.

"brianbozo"? Really.. c'mon - stop attacking the poster just because he isn't a carbon copy of you

Also - you stated you want to stick to a topic then derail your own in to another tangent attacking Hillary - kinda defeats the purpose. "most hated woman" "A lot of people love her" - same could be said for many people - including Obama.. including Trump.. they are polarising people like so few, in recent time..

Also - it seems a bit weird to me - If the republicans actually had solid evidence on Hillary you think she'd actually be free ?

@Frederick:

Trump's adversaries are happy to undermine and cripple the USA just so they can attack Trump

lmao what? where?

Imagine if the president was as conservative as Obama was liberal.  THAT would shake things up.

Except for the fact that Obama was objectively, mathematically, demonstrably, one of the most moderate presidents we've ever had.