Americans on the board...

Re: Americans on the board...

David I reread your acceptance of my challenge. Now I realise your bias. You are probably white, upper middle class, well educated and earn a high income. As a member of the (as yet unnamed position) government, you would be what most people define as the elite. I now understand how someone like you could be so detached from the common reality. Have you ever suffered harrasment from the police because of your race? Have you ever been denied a job, or a place to live for the same reason? Has your right to vote ever been denied? Have you ever been arrested falsely? Is your knowledge of ghetto life also vast?
 
Re: Americans on the board...

I have the right to vote, Roadking, and that's a personal freedom enjoyed on both sides of the border. If we can't at the very least accept that citizens in both countries enjoy wide personal freedoms, then you're so far out there that this is pointless.

Here, it’s legal for me to purchase, own, and sell an AR-15. While this may not interest you personally (as anything having to do with drugs doesn’t interest me), it’s something that I have the freedom to do that you don’t. From where I sit, so far, it’s a wash. One and one (without even weighting the value of the two). So, continue to demonstrate the “far more personal freedoms” you enjoy, if you please. Freedom “from” something (like fear, want, etc., all that Saturday Evening Post stuff) isn’t the same thing. Freedom to ACT is what’s in question, for what else can a “personal freedom” be? The things you list, even if 100% valid, are societal, not personal.

And yes, I have read the entire Patriot Act. I also have a basis for understanding it through the American legal tradition and history, as well as the Constitutional context under which it was enacted. I know how it works, what it does, what it’s for, and how it compares to earlier legislation and policy of a similar nature.

I would submit to you, who apparently thinks that such a thing, even if it lived down to the characterization you ascribe to it, can’t be passed in Canada, that your Bill of Rights is a piece of normal legislation, capable of being repealed by a mere majority vote of Parliament. Our Bill of Rights is entrenched in our Constitution itself and requires two-thirds votes from both Houses of Congress, the signature of the President, and the ratification of the legislatures of three-fifths of the States to be repealed or altered in any way. (OR call an Article V constitutional convention, which also requires three-fifths of the states.) And, in fact, in the Anglo legal tradition from which both the American and Canadian legal systems derive, any legislation passed which contradicts an earlier piece of legislation, unless it specifically says otherwise, is considered a pro tanto (or implied) repeal of the earlier legislation. You’re on much thinner ice than I am, my friend.

Which is not to disparage Canada in any way, a country which I happen to respect a great deal, not only for its fine history but for its beautiful scenery, friendly people, and the Mackenzie Brothers; it’s only by way of helping to demonstrate that the idea that you are somehow more free than we is preposterous.

But then, as I keep saying, it’s you who have to prove your statement, which you haven't done. In fact, you've only tried to steer the "debate" into many other areas.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

[quote author=David Jimerson link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=150#151 date=07/07/04 at 04:04:50]Not that Slapdragon needs the help defending himself, but he's married to a Brazilian marine biologist and (presumably) spends a goodly amount of time there.

Make sense?[/quote]

Thanks David! I also had a mentor that was Brazilian who taught me much of what I know, since I did not complete any formal education until a decade after I was already a successful director in the industry (although I took many courses).
 
Re: Americans on the board...

..i dont think david is left with the burden of proof here. i think thats your job. currently you failing.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

More freedoms:

Breathing clean air. Go ahead devalue that.

Not paying tolls on the highway.

I can walk through my inner city neighborhood at 2:00 am with no fear of harrassment.

My government doesn't monitor every electronic message I send and receive, though yours does. Do I really have to catalogue every abuse under Hoover's FBI, the CIA, NSA, etc. Don't you people have any education that isn't spoonfed to you by academics, politicians and other institutions that gain by maintaining the status quo? I honestly expected more from you than empty boasting David. You have a right to dissent, use it or lose it.

I have made several points and no one has refuted them. I don't have to go on proving facts that you cannot refute but refuse to accept.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

Look, now you’re not talking about personal freedom; you’re talking about relative social strife between two countries, one of which has 20 times the population of the other, and that other being about 80%+ ethnically homogeneous. If you had comparable population and demographics, you’d have exactly the same problems.

None of which has anything to do with me personally or my “bias.”

You wanna talk personal freedom? Then stay on topic.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

To which point do you refer by social strife? It seems that you are just trying to pidgeon-hole each point and deny it is a freedom. Why don't you name some freedoms, and back up your words with examples, so that I know what you are talking about. I have never strayed from the topic. I accept you knowledge of the Patriot Act as stated. I also concede your point about the military weapons. You cannot simply dismiss my other points with semantics. I don't have to prove the points I made unless you deny that they are indeed facts. Stop dancing around the issue. Do I have to prove that the earth is round, as well, or can we accept the facts as proven when they have indeed been proven in other more lofty forums?
 
Re: Americans on the board...

The only personal freedom you've listed is the freedom to sell a bong on the Internet. Everything else has been some vague freedom *from* something, most of which being bullshit if you think we don't have those same freedoms here. You obviously believe every inane conspiracy theory you can get your hands on re: the United States, and instead of attempting to prove any of them, you've only made comments about Americans' lack of knowledge of them -- and then demanded that I *disprove* them.

My statements have been largely substantive and geared toward the idea of personal freedom. Yours haven't.

(And if you think you don't pay tolls for your roads, think about that the next time you look at your taxes.)
 
Re: Americans on the board...

David, you just keep trying to redfine the debate, an old political trick if ever there was one. I don't buy your argument that freedom from something is not freedom. You define your freedom your way, and let me do the same. Also, the participants don't get to judge the debate, so please stop declaring yourself the winner. are you just going to keep saying prove it? An inane argument, a tactic I dropped in Elementary school.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#184 date=07/07/04 at 08:32:18]More freedoms:

Breathing clean air. Go ahead devalue that.

Not paying tolls on the highway.

I can walk through my inner city neighborhood at 2:00 am with no fear of harrassment.

My government doesn't monitor every electronic message I send and receive, though yours does. Do I really have to catalogue every abuse under Hoover's FBI, the CIA, NSA, etc. Don't you people have any education that isn't spoonfed to you by academics, politicians and other institutions that gain by maintaining the status quo? I honestly expected more from you than empty boasting David. You have a right to dissent, use it or lose it.

I have made several points and no one has refuted them. I don't have to go on proving facts that you cannot refute but refuse to accept.[/quote]

Roadking, so far in your penis measuring efforts, you are not presenting facts. You first used a bunch of conspiracy theories and howlers, now you present data without a presentation of evidence or an attempt to discuss the subjects, then claim everything he knows is wrong because of some massive conspiracy of "academics, politicians and other institutions". For example, in air quality you are wrong, Canada was a major polluter of the USA since air currents move from north to south. Parts of Canada do have better air quality, either because no one lives there (Prince Edward Island) or because the polution plume they create mostly moves into the United States (Toronto). In fact, the United States has struggled for years with Canada over its nickle production industry. That industry started, in the 1960s, to destroy American lakes / and the shared great lakes by raising the PH of the water, turning it acid, and started hurting US agriculture in the upper midwest. Canada, not wanting to loose this important industry and worried over its staggering economy, told the US to feck off for many years. That is, until 300,000 of her own lakes started to show the same signs of damage that US lakes had. It took longer, because the stuff went into the air in Canada but most did not land in canada, but it happened. In 1992 Canada went willingly into the Air Quality Accord, which was first proposed in a basic form in the 1970s when not only the effect of Canadian pollution on US lakes was noticed, but also the plumes of pollution created by US metropolitan areas.

The point is, you seem to be taking everything you read on conspiracy websites as gospel and are unwilling engage David in honest conversation, which is poisoning this conversation. In social terms, you are suffering from a huge dose of what is called "cognitive dissonance." Some of your arguments may even have a dose of truth in them, but by dredging up an endless parade of unsupported conspiracy craziness and then doing the victory chicken dance on your sofa, you take away your own credibility.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#188 date=07/07/04 at 08:56:16]David, you just keep trying to redfine the debate, an old political trick if ever ther was one. I don't buy your argument that freedom from something is not freedom. You define your freedom your way, and let me do the same. Also, the participants don't get to judge the debate, so please stop declaring yourself the winner. [/quote]

He is not trying to redefine it, he is trying to lock you into something, make you commit to a statement and show that statement is fact. This comment by you is a strawman.

So far, he has not needed to answer you on anything. In a debate you make a thesis statement, yours in unclear, and then support it with facts, you have failed to do this. As the person who is pushing the agenda, you have essentially failed in your basic task of "proving your point."

David, there is a certian point where the debate proves futile because the other person is interested in something other than intellectual discourse. Afterwards, all you accomplish is to poke the wallaby cage. As soon as someone starts claiming your country sucks because it allows black helicopters to kill its own president, you and everyone else pretty much has an answer about the quality of that person's position. This is the point that probably it is best to withdraw from the field of contest with your honor intact and let the other guy crow about his "victory."
 
Re: Americans on the board...

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#188 date=07/07/04 at 08:56:16]David, you just keep trying to redfine the debate, an old political trick if ever there was one. I don't buy your argument that freedom from something is not freedom. You define your freedom your way, and let me do the same. Also, the participants don't get to judge the debate, so please stop declaring yourself the winner. are you just going to keep saying prove it? An inane argument, a tactic I dropped in Elementary school.[/quote]

Nope -- I'm just asking you to prove what you say, and you have not.

I never said they weren't freedoms; I said they weren't "personal" freedoms. And besides, the way you termed them, you have to prove that they don't exist here, and that they're valid points, period, which you haven't done.

You who made the challenge has the burden of proof. You may not like it, but you do.

As for what I've written, I'm perfectly content to let independent observers read everything and decide for themselves who had the stronger statements. I gave you many opportunities to back up your case, but you dodged every one of them.

So, I'm happy to let it stand where it is.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

[quote author=Slapdragon link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#190 date=07/07/04 at 09:04:54]
David, there is a certian point where the debate proves futile because the other person is interested in something other than intellectual discourse.  Afterwards, all you accomplish is to poke the wallaby cage.  As soon as someone starts claiming your country sucks because it allows black helicopters to kill its own president, you and everyone else pretty much has an answer about the quality of that person's position.  This is the point that probably it is best to withdraw from the field of contest with your honor intact and let the other guy crow about his "victory." [/quote]

You read my mind. I was only making sure I gave him every possible opportunity to prove his case . . .
 
Re: Americans on the board...

Penis measuring? It didn't take you long to degenerate did it Professor? I will grant you that Canada pollutes too. Fact. You keep dismissing my points as paranoid and conspiracy minded? Do you actually insist that they are untrue? My point about Kennedy goes unchallenged. Do I have to prove that the FBI isnt investigating me?  How many books have been written about it? I guess you don't understand my reference here it is from Farenheit 911. Do you deny COINTELPRO? Will you not concede the point about the police? You cannot refute the election of 2000. if you do, see the doc.film Unprecedented. Hey were talking films again. I won't crow if you won't. I have tried to be patient but you people are in denial. Enjoy your magic bullet theory. I hope it keeps you warm at night. I don't know about black helis. Have you read any of the ARRB's files? I have, and I know that you are wrong and can never admit it. You have too much too lose by embracing the truth.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

I did lay down the challenge. ONly because you guys bullied the one voice of dissent. I am glad of this debate, as it has shown me that you folks are far worse off than I ever imagined. I truly feel sorry for you, that you have deluded yourselves into thinking that any dissentor is illogical and paranoid. If I were to mention the Holocaust, would you deny that? No, because it is a part of your self serving dogma. You cannot be reasoned with because you lie to yourselves, and therefore cannot understand yourselves. How could you possibly understand the truth?

Peace.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]Penis measuring?[/quote]

Yes, you flipped yours out and proclaimed it was longer than anyone elses.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]It didn't take you long to degenerate did it Professor?[/quote]

It never did on my part. I could go postal and start reaming Canada, but I have respect for Canadians and wont go down to your level.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]I will grant you that Canada pollutes too. Fact.[/quote]

Thank you. It even seems to do things you are accusing the US of in that category.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]You keep dismissing my points as paranoid and conspiracy minded?[/quote]

Either than or unsupported and biased, for example your claim that Canadians breath clear air and US do not is not support for your argument, Canadian pollution mostly goes to the US.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]Do you actually insist that they are untrue?[/quote]

Unsupported by any viable evidence, and usually pushed by conspiracy nuts, thus being poor points to use in a debate forum. "USA sucks >>> Proof: The Moon is made of green cheese" is hardly a compelling argument for your thesis that Canada is significantly more free that the USA.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]My point about Kennedy goes unchallenged.[/quote]

For that matter, in the same way, so does my point about the moon. But you failed to support your raving about the Kennedy assasination. Had you dredged up some fevered conspiracy theory, even one dreamed up by paranoid New Orleans prosecutors, I might have rebutted with "Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK" by Gerald Posner, the definitive restatement of contemporary research on the Kennedy assasination that pretty much kills all of the extant conspiracy theories except for the alien ray gun theory and the time traveller space warp theory, both of which researchers have been unable to rebut, but which are honestly not high on anyone's priority list. Because you failed to support your drive by mention of a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, I did not need to rebut. An intelligent reader of debate, will ignore your comment as unsupported and not include it in making up their minds, just like I would ignore your claims of being Napoleon or being 17 meters tall as so unlikely and definately unsupported as to not be a serious part of any conversation.


[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]Do I have to prove that the FBI isnt investigating me?[/quote]

No, but you have to prove that it is investigating you for fallious reasons or else you are presenting a red herring, and a paranoid one at that. Ultimate arch conspiracies of the big bad government to oppress little bitty you out of all the possible Canadians which could be oppressed requires a little more proof than paranoid ravings. 

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]

How many books have been written about it?[/quote]

To my knowledge, there have never been any books written about the FBI's extensive investigation of comments on forums, so I would guess no. If I am wrong, please advise.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]I guess you don't understand my reference here it is from Farenheit 911.[/quote]

Which one is that. I saw no valid quote or reference to F9/11. In any case, since Spinsanity sort of did in the credibility of that movie, it would have to be a very carefully chosen reference for it to be valid in this context.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]Do you deny COINTELPRO?[/quote]

Which portions and in one context. Do you deny the Tea Pot Dome scandal?

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]Will you not concede the point about the police?[/quote]

That you see black men shot every day in the streets by white police officers? I am not familiar enough with Canada to know if this is the truth, so I can neither refute or support the comment you made. I suspect that if enough black men were being gunned down in Canadian streets that the average Canadian poster to a film forum felt it was a common place occurance that it would make the media in a big way, so I suspect you are talking out your rear, but I have no way of refuting you because you present no facts to back up your generalist drive by comment. Nor, in a debate, you I have to comment on unsupported drivel.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#193 date=07/07/04 at 09:12:35]You cannot refute the election of 2000.[/quote]

No, there was an election in the year 2000, so I cannot refute one took place. Bush, our current president, won it based on the rules extant currently, as supported by two newspaper recounts and a supreme court ruling. So I assume what you are saying is that in Canada, an freedom means the right to steal an election and hand it to the other guy when the vote counts are close. In this case, I must agree that this did not happen in the US election, and that your definition of freedom is different than mine.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#194 date=07/07/04 at 09:32:15]I did lay down the challenge. ONly because you guys bullied the one voice of dissent.[/quote]

In a market place of ideas, which you do not understand and seemingly wish to suppress and destroy, the right to comment on another person's speech is equal to the right to make the speech. Of course, this is not a forum of free speech, it is a private forum and we are all here at the sufferance of the owners, but when one person decides to lie, another can tell the truth.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#194 date=07/07/04 at 09:32:15]I am glad of this debate, as it has shown me that you folks are far worse off than I ever imagined.[/quote]

Good. The worse we are, the more we care about the discovery of "truth" through intellectual discourse.


[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#194 date=07/07/04 at 09:32:15] I truly feel sorry for you, that you have deluded yourselves into thinking that any dissentor is illogical and paranoid.[/quote]

Not any dissentor. Illogical and paranoid dissenters are illogical and paranoid.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#194 date=07/07/04 at 09:32:15]If I were to mention the Holocaust, would you deny that?[/quote]

The holocaust is a fact, and only a racist pig would, after looking at the evidence, think it was not a fact set in history for all time. No fancy footwork or "my opinion counts" crapola can make it go away. Only a NAZI racist thug would attempt to claim it did not happen.

[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#194 date=07/07/04 at 09:32:15]No, because it is a part of your self serving dogma.[/quote]

Ohhh, a Holocaust denier! My favorite sport animal to humiliate in open debate. But -- I don't have to. By entering yourself in the category of people who deny the holocaust, most intelligent readers will quickly be able to figure you for who you truely are. No need for me to poke the wallaby cage.


[quote author=roadking67 link=board=Offtopic;num=1088947258;start=180#194 date=07/07/04 at 09:32:15]You cannot be reasoned with because you lie to yourselves, and therefore cannot understand yourselves. How could you possibly understand the truth?
[/quote]

Zero semantic content. A nice ending to your post.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

Anyway, I will withdraw from the den of holocaust deniers. As a moral human being, it goes far past the realm of poking the wallaby's to truck with NAZIs. They can have this thread.
 
Re: Americans on the board...

Love is in the air... can you feel it wohhhoooohhh ..... love is in the air...
 
Re: Americans on the board...

Hey Jarred...who sings that song?...let them! ::)


(... used with permission from Terry Lasater)


All this from a Happy July 4th statement??

For a second there I thought Matt McDermitt posted something again...
 
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