DaveDodo007... I mean... Rationalskepticism,lol.

[Seth]

As far as I can tell, he had established correlation without following through with causation.

Exactly.

Worse, even if it were true that banning guns in society is causally linked to reductions in mass killings, the fact remains that banning guns in society cannot ever hope to ELIMINATE mass shootings because gun ban laws are only obeyed by the law-abiding, and criminals will always find a way to get guns if they want guns.

Therefore it is a vain hope at best, and it's actually a great evil when government disarms law-abiding citizens, who are not the ones who cause a risk of criminal gun violence, as a sop to hoplophobes, which in fact does nothing but make the disarmed even more vulnerable to being victimized by armed criminals and does little or nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining and using deadly weapons.

In doing so the government bears the blame for every innocent who is harmed by a criminal if that person could even possibly have used a gun to protect themselves, had they been permitted to have one.

This is not, as I have often said, a statistical issue that turns the unalienable human right to life and personal safety into a morbid calculus of how many people have to be victimized and killed in order for the government to look like it's doing something positive to reduce criminal violence by regulating exactly the wrong group of people.

The individual right to personal safety is individual, absolute and complete in each and every person you see, not collective, and that right may not be assigned on a percentage basis based on some jackoff's notions of what the proper statistical distribution of rights happens to be.

[Pappa]

Seth wrote:

The problem is that you falsely assume that discussing racism or sexism in any context other than decrying it constitutes racism or sexism, which is not the case.

Would you count Tyrannical's posts on blacks as "discussing racism"?

Of course. He expresses a firm and negative opinion of blacks. He backs up some of what he says with facts that show that in some cases, blacks are responsible for more crime per-capita than other races. This happens to be true.

Whether he is ascribing these sort of facts to their race, or whether their race is merely the predominant and most obvious indicator of their cultural and social memes is open to discussion.

But saying "inner-city blacks commit more crimes than rural whites" happens to be a statement of fact. Saying that inner-city blacks should be extirpated for the betterment of society is an opinion that may or may not be a judgment on their racial proclivities towards crime, or it may or may not be an expression of disgust at the social, ethical, and moral practices of "inner-city blacks" as a class of people identified by their residence and tendency to live in substantially or completely black communities.

Using race simply as an identifier of a specific group is not per se racist if the shoe happens to fit. To say "all blacks act like thuggish inner-city animalistic blacks" is racist. Saying "thuggish inner-city blacks act animalisticallly" is not necessarily racist, it may merely be identification of a particular group of people who act in a particular manner.

But to the religious anti-racist, it's racist to state that certain segments of certain black communities are largely comprised of thuggish animals even when that is observably true. It is not their race per se that causes them to be thuggish animals, it is that they band together in acting thuggishly and animalistically based on THEIR OWN RACE.

In other words, these particular segments of society are self-identifying and grouping based on race, so it's not racist to point this fact out.

Its only racist if one imputes the negative characteristics of one particular group of race X to all other members of race X without any evidence that those characteristics in fact exist.

Seth, a few times Tyrannical's posted remarks along the lines of, "stupid Niggers", right off the bat with no discussion about race at all.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

The problem is that you falsely assume that discussing racism or sexism in any context other than decrying it constitutes racism or sexism, which is not the case.

Would you count Tyrannical's posts on blacks as "discussing racism"?

Of course. He expresses a firm and negative opinion of blacks. He backs up some of what he says with facts that show that in some cases, blacks are responsible for more crime per-capita than other races. This happens to be true.

Whether he is ascribing these sort of facts to their race, or whether their race is merely the predominant and most obvious indicator of their cultural and social memes is open to discussion.

But saying "inner-city blacks commit more crimes than rural whites" happens to be a statement of fact. Saying that inner-city blacks should be extirpated for the betterment of society is an opinion that may or may not be a judgment on their racial proclivities towards crime, or it may or may not be an expression of disgust at the social, ethical, and moral practices of "inner-city blacks" as a class of people identified by their residence and tendency to live in substantially or completely black communities.

Using race simply as an identifier of a specific group is not per se racist if the shoe happens to fit. To say "all blacks act like thuggish inner-city animalistic blacks" is racist. Saying "thuggish inner-city blacks act animalisticallly" is not necessarily racist, it may merely be identification of a particular group of people who act in a particular manner.

But to the religious anti-racist, it's racist to state that certain segments of certain black communities are largely comprised of thuggish animals even when that is observably true. It is not their race per se that causes them to be thuggish animals, it is that they band together in acting thuggishly and animalistically based on THEIR OWN RACE.

In other words, these particular segments of society are self-identifying and grouping based on race, so it's not racist to point this fact out.

Its only racist if one imputes the negative characteristics of one particular group of race X to all other members of race X without any evidence that those characteristics in fact exist.

Seth, a few times Tyrannical's posted remarks along the lines of, "stupid Niggers", right off the bat with no discussion about race at all.

Perhaps he was being deliberately provocative and outrageous. Perhaps he's a racist. It's still better to deconstruct a racist with logic and reason, and to identify them for all the world to see than it is to censor speech, even (especially) distasteful speech.

[pErvinalia]

As far as I can tell, he had established correlation without following through with causation.

Exactly.

Worse, even if it were true that banning guns in society is causally linked to reductions in mass killings, the fact remains that banning guns in society cannot ever hope to ELIMINATE mass shootings because gun ban laws are only obeyed by the law-abiding, and criminals will always find a way to get guns if they want guns.

Therefore it is a vain hope at best, and it's actually a great evil when government disarms law-abiding citizens, who are not the ones who cause a risk of criminal gun violence, as a sop to hoplophobes, which in fact does nothing but make the disarmed even more vulnerable to being victimized by armed criminals and does little or nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining and using deadly weapons.

In doing so the government bears the blame for every innocent who is harmed by a criminal if that person could even possibly have used a gun to protect themselves, had they been permitted to have one.

This is not, as I have often said, a statistical issue that turns the unalienable human right to life and personal safety into a morbid calculus of how many people have to be victimized and killed in order for the government to look like it's doing something positive to reduce criminal violence by regulating exactly the wrong group of people.

The individual right to personal safety is individual, absolute and complete in each and every person you see, not collective, and that right may not be assigned on a percentage basis based on some jackoff's notions of what the proper statistical distribution of rights happens to be.

Bahahah! Wrong thread, you clown.

[pErvinalia]

Seth wrote:

The problem is that you falsely assume that discussing racism or sexism in any context other than decrying it constitutes racism or sexism, which is not the case.

Would you count Tyrannical's posts on blacks as "discussing racism"?

Of course. He expresses a firm and negative opinion of blacks. He backs up some of what he says with facts that show that in some cases, blacks are responsible for more crime per-capita than other races. This happens to be true.

Whether he is ascribing these sort of facts to their race, or whether their race is merely the predominant and most obvious indicator of their cultural and social memes is open to discussion.

But saying "inner-city blacks commit more crimes than rural whites" happens to be a statement of fact. Saying that inner-city blacks should be extirpated for the betterment of society is an opinion that may or may not be a judgment on their racial proclivities towards crime, or it may or may not be an expression of disgust at the social, ethical, and moral practices of "inner-city blacks" as a class of people identified by their residence and tendency to live in substantially or completely black communities.

Using race simply as an identifier of a specific group is not per se racist if the shoe happens to fit. To say "all blacks act like thuggish inner-city animalistic blacks" is racist. Saying "thuggish inner-city blacks act animalisticallly" is not necessarily racist, it may merely be identification of a particular group of people who act in a particular manner.

But to the religious anti-racist, it's racist to state that certain segments of certain black communities are largely comprised of thuggish animals even when that is observably true. It is not their race per se that causes them to be thuggish animals, it is that they band together in acting thuggishly and animalistically based on THEIR OWN RACE.

In other words, these particular segments of society are self-identifying and grouping based on race, so it's not racist to point this fact out.

Its only racist if one imputes the negative characteristics of one particular group of race X to all other members of race X without any evidence that those characteristics in fact exist.

Seth, a few times Tyrannical's posted remarks along the lines of, "stupid Niggers", right off the bat with no discussion about race at all.

Perhaps he was being deliberately provocative and outrageous. Perhaps he's a racist. It's still better to deconstruct a racist with logic and reason, and to identify them for all the world to see than it is to censor speech, even (especially) distasteful speech.

You don't need to identify anything when someone is as obvious a racist as T is. You just need to eject them from civil society.

[FBM]

As far as I can tell, he had established correlation without following through with causation.

Exactly.

Worse, even if it were true that banning guns in society is causally linked to reductions in mass killings, the fact remains that banning guns in society cannot ever hope to ELIMINATE mass shootings because gun ban laws are only obeyed by the law-abiding, and criminals will always find a way to get guns if they want guns.

Therefore it is a vain hope at best, and it's actually a great evil when government disarms law-abiding citizens, who are not the ones who cause a risk of criminal gun violence, as a sop to hoplophobes, which in fact does nothing but make the disarmed even more vulnerable to being victimized by armed criminals and does little or nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining and using deadly weapons.

In doing so the government bears the blame for every innocent who is harmed by a criminal if that person could even possibly have used a gun to protect themselves, had they been permitted to have one.

This is not, as I have often said, a statistical issue that turns the unalienable human right to life and personal safety into a morbid calculus of how many people have to be victimized and killed in order for the government to look like it's doing something positive to reduce criminal violence by regulating exactly the wrong group of people.

The individual right to personal safety is individual, absolute and complete in each and every person you see, not collective, and that right may not be assigned on a percentage basis based on some jackoff's notions of what the proper statistical distribution of rights happens to be.

Bahahah! Wrong thread, you clown.

I was trying to figure out that seque, but gave up.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Perhaps he was being deliberately provocative and outrageous. Perhaps he's a racist. It's still better to deconstruct a racist with logic and reason, and to identify them for all the world to see than it is to censor speech, even (especially) distasteful speech.

As you well know, Rationalia has a deliberate policy of not censoring...

[Surendra Darathy]

The individual right to personal safety is individual, absolute and complete in each and every person you see, not collective, and that right may not be assigned on a percentage basis based on some jackoff's notions of what the proper statistical distribution of rights happens to be.

LOL, Tacticus! That's your axiom, but it's far from self-evident, and the reductio ad absurdum is arming oneself heavily to defend one's axioms against all comers. If you actually want to stop short of the reductio, and present your argument, please use axioms that are self-evident to someone besides you. Otherwise you're just engaging in cheap politicking, and hoping for mob rule.

The same goes for the business about racism, and treating 'for the good of society' as an axiom. The question at that point would be, whose society?

You're no better off than the theist who begins all his arguments for theism by assuming God. It's your society that defends your rights. Again, whose society are we talking about? The sort of people I'm usually arguing with about this take the next step of talking about Founders' intent, and they might as well be quoting from their Bibles for a literal interpretation. They're fricking texts, man.

If you had an argument, why would you need sock-puppets? Wait, don't tell me. Systematic moderation bias, FTW!

[Pappa]

Seth, a few times Tyrannical's posted remarks along the lines of, "stupid Niggers", right off the bat with no discussion about race at all.

Perhaps he was being deliberately provocative and outrageous. Perhaps he's a racist. It's still better to deconstruct a racist with logic and reason, and to identify them for all the world to see than it is to censor speech, even (especially) distasteful speech.

Initially, the response here was always to debate him intelligently, but after his tired arguments and crappy "evidence" got a bit boring, people mostly just ridiculed him. Still a valid way to criticise in my opinion. I think he touched a nerve with some when he stopped arguing about race and just started dropping racial slurs in random threads though.

[Seth]

You don't need to identify anything when someone is as obvious a racist as T is. You just need to eject them from civil society.

I'm sure that works fine right up until people decide that unemployed rural hermits who bloviate on the Internet need to be ejected from civil society.

Be careful what you wish for.

I'd rather convince a racist not to be a racist.

[Seth]

The individual right to personal safety is individual, absolute and complete in each and every person you see, not collective, and that right may not be assigned on a percentage basis based on some jackoff's notions of what the proper statistical distribution of rights happens to be.

LOL, Tacticus!

Tactiwho?

That's your axiom, but it's far from self-evident,

To you perhaps, but then that's understandable.

and the reductio ad absurdum is arming oneself heavily to defend one's axioms against all comers. If you actually want to stop short of the reductio, and present your argument, please use axioms that are self-evident to someone besides you. Otherwise you're just engaging in cheap politicking, and hoping for mob rule.

So, what you're saying is that the individual right to life is not in fact an individual right but is subject to statistical assignment by the government? "You are only worth 42.7% of your right to life sir..."

I'd like to see you try to tell me that as you try to take the other 57.3% of my life away from me. You're going to lose 100% of your life in the attempt.

The same goes for the business about racism, and treating 'for the good of society' as an axiom. The question at that point would be, whose society?

Well, yes, exactly.

You're no better off than the theist who begins all his arguments for theism by assuming God.

I'm far better off actually.

It's your society that defends your rights.

Not exactly. While my society may assist in defending my rights, the fundamental burden of defending my rights lies with me and me alone.

Again, whose society are we talking about?

Any society you care to name. No society can deny me my basic human rights, particularly the right to life and the right to be armed in defense of that right to life. It can try of course, and societies often do, but that makes them evil, it does not diminish my right to life or my right to defend it.

The sort of people I'm usually arguing with about this take the next step of talking about Founders' intent, and they might as well be quoting from their Bibles for a literal interpretation. They're fricking texts, man.

They are written expressions of philosophical and political beliefs and agreements upon which the US is founded and they form the basis of our system of law, so discussing the intent of the authors is entirely pertinent.

If you had an argument, why would you need sock-puppets? Wait, don't tell me. Systematic moderation bias, FTW!

What on earth are you talking about?

[Mr.Samsa]

The Al Capone analogy doesn't really fit as he wasn't arrested for being a mobster

It fits precisely because he was not arrested for being a mobster. He was arrested for tax evasion because no way was found to arrest him for being a mobster. Likewise, Tyrannical was banned for his racism, which was - like Capone's tax evasion - an easily proven offence of the rules. The real reason he got nailed, though, was that he did not fit in with the general leanings among those who run the joint. If rules were applied consistently, there'd be quite a few forum members banned permanently because they amassed sufficient infractions of the FUA to warrant such consequence. But they are still around. The infractions are either ignored, or if reported, rationalised away. Aren't you one of the suspended members who has previously pointed that out yourself?

What you've described isn't incompatible or mutually exclusive with what I'm saying. The point is that Tyrannical was banned for racist posting, not some other infraction like "misrepresentation" or an accumulation of personal attacks (as he would if the Al Capone comparison were valid). As far as I know, there was no other reason to ban Tyrannical except his racism and so the racism wasn't used as an excuse.

The thing you're describing, people who might cause similar or related problems getting away with it due to their stance in the community, is just a case of an underapplication of the rule. In the Al Capone case, it would be like arresting him because he's a mobster but ignoring the fact that there are a couple of mobsters in the police force as well and leaving them alone.

So he was racists so what. Can't you counter his racism in open debate? How does banning him show anything but cowardice. Free speech is having to hear view points you don't like, otherwise it is not free speech. If you cannot counter such obvious racism then are you the precious little flower. If you hear opinions you don't like then call them out on it, anything else is being a spineless wonder.

What does free speech have to do with banning certain things on an internet forum? RatSkep didn't get him arrested or enact laws that prevented him from speaking such things without criminal consequence, so free speech still stands uninterrupted. What you seem to be saying is that only assholes can have "free speech" where they're allowed to say whatever they want and people who own specific spaces aren't allowed the "free speech" to tell them to shut up and go elsewhere.

OK, fess up, who would you like to challenge at ratskep under Rationalia loose moderation rules. I'll go first as I'll like to call out that man hating piece of shit Rachel Bronwyn. She is a cunt sucking piece of misanstric low life panty waste. Ideologue retarded maggot who wouldn't know a good argument if it hit her in the face but hasn't been banned at ratskep because of the pussy pass that they give all retarded females. She is one sick motherfucker cum bucket and wouldn't be still posting there if she had different sexual organs.

At least she isn't as pathetic as those men who participate in MGTOW..

If you had an argument, why would you need sock-puppets? Wait, don't tell me. Systematic moderation bias, FTW!

What on earth are you talking about?

Honestly don't bother trying to understand him. He'll just complain that you, and everyone else in the world, just "pretends" not to understand him to prove some point that he thinks you hold and it's all a major conspiracy controlled by aliens or something.

[Seth]

What does free speech have to do with banning certain things on an internet forum? RatSkep didn't get him arrested or enact laws that prevented him from speaking such things without criminal consequence, so free speech still stands uninterrupted. What you seem to be saying is that only assholes can have "free speech" where they're allowed to say whatever they want and people who own specific spaces aren't allowed the "free speech" to tell them to shut up and go elsewhere.

It's the blatant hypocrisy of a site called "Rational Skepticism" that touts itself as "a lifeboat for the rational mind" choosing to close it's collective mind to anything that doesn't fit the Marxist-Atheist religious dogma that's at issue, not government-sponsored censorship. I excoriate RatSkep and RDF before it because despite all the high-sounding principles and snooty, nose-in-the-air supercilious attitudes of the pseudo-intellectual know-it-alls who infest the place, it's really just a giant circle jerk of politically left-wing wannabes who need one another to feel good about themselves and who can brook no dissent or critical examination of their often grossly irrational and illogical arguments, and who need to be poked and prodded so that others can watch with amusement as they throw feces at the glass.

Beyond that, nobody gives a rat's ass about the cesspool that is RatSkep or the people who infest it.

[Robert_S]

What does free speech have to do with banning certain things on an internet forum? RatSkep didn't get him arrested or enact laws that prevented him from speaking such things without criminal consequence, so free speech still stands uninterrupted. What you seem to be saying is that only assholes can have "free speech" where they're allowed to say whatever they want and people who own specific spaces aren't allowed the "free speech" to tell them to shut up and go elsewhere.

It's the blatant hypocrisy of a site called "Rational Skepticism" that touts itself as "a lifeboat for the rational mind" choosing to close it's collective mind to anything that doesn't fit the Marxist-Atheist religious dogma that's at issue, not government-sponsored censorship. I excoriate RatSkep and RDF before it because despite all the high-sounding principles and snooty, nose-in-the-air supercilious attitudes of the pseudo-intellectual know-it-alls who infest the place, it's really just a giant circle jerk of politically left-wing wannabes who need one another to feel good about themselves and who can brook no dissent or critical examination of their often grossly irrational and illogical arguments, and who need to be poked and prodded so that others can watch with amusement as they throw feces at the glass.

Beyond that, nobody gives a rat's ass about the cesspool that is RatSkep or the people who infest it.

Yes, outside the scope of the participants in this thread and outside the scope of banned trolls who create sock puppets and constantly think about RatSkep, nobody much cares.

LOL, You fucking lot of worthless trolls and butthurt crybabies.

You're parasites and a blight. People have fled this forum as they would flee a plague.

Me? I'm just dancing on the grave!

[Mr.Samsa]

What does free speech have to do with banning certain things on an internet forum? RatSkep didn't get him arrested or enact laws that prevented him from speaking such things without criminal consequence, so free speech still stands uninterrupted. What you seem to be saying is that only assholes can have "free speech" where they're allowed to say whatever they want and people who own specific spaces aren't allowed the "free speech" to tell them to shut up and go elsewhere.

It's the blatant hypocrisy of a site called "Rational Skepticism" that touts itself as "a lifeboat for the rational mind" choosing to close it's collective mind to anything that doesn't fit the Marxist-Atheist religious dogma that's at issue, not government-sponsored censorship. I excoriate RatSkep and RDF before it because despite all the high-sounding principles and snooty, nose-in-the-air supercilious attitudes of the pseudo-intellectual know-it-alls who infest the place, it's really just a giant circle jerk of politically left-wing wannabes who need one another to feel good about themselves and who can brook no dissent or critical examination of their often grossly irrational and illogical arguments, and who need to be poked and prodded so that others can watch with amusement as they throw feces at the glass.

Beyond that, nobody gives a rat's ass about the cesspool that is RatSkep or the people who infest it.

So basically it had nothing to do with free speech. As for everything else there, I'm not sure what "not accepting a scientific position without evidence" [i.e. "rational/scientific skepticism"] has to do with allowing racism or even allowing dissent...