Lord Ratner

You took them at their word? I remember making that mistake too.

She was also dead nuts on about Amazon. Conservatives really shit the bed on that one. If anybody thinks that the world's most powerful corporation running a beauty pageant for the cities of America, so they would turn over what is usually heavily guarded tax and policy information, so that company could pick the most tax advantaged location to open their next mega center, is somehow what capitalism is supposed to look like, then conservatives don't deserve to be the defenders of capitalism. She's just another liberal. Good at identifying problems, bad at identifying causes and solutions.

"They" didn't pick him, the democratic voters did. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were the undisputed chosen ones of the democratic complex. So much so that analysts and commentators on both sides believed Joe Biden didn't have a chance. But when the voters got their say, they overwhelmingly rejected the socialists. The Democratic machine, to include Joe biden, completely missed that message and gave him a hardcore progressive as a running mate. It looks like he's going to be president, but it would have been no contest if he had picked another moderate running mate, like klobuchar. This all goes to show that no one in Washington has learned anything. Hopefully the Republicans are a bit more studious, because they are poised for a huge victory in 2024 if they take the lessons of trump and apply them to someone who isn't a complete lunatic. And as for Texas turning blue, I talked to a lot of republicans, particularly women, who just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Trump no matter what. My wife is one of them. Put a sane conservative on the ballot and you'll see the Texas moderates hesitant to vote for someone who wants to take away their guns and raise taxes.

I had a captain who believes that. It was a wild conversation.

I think it's at least close. Policy, not philosophy. Regan spent a lot, like Trump, so that's a wash. Peace in the middle East and tough on China (compared to anyone else) is certainly a huge win. Tax reform. Massive deregulation, expansion of energy independence, reigning in title IX, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, three supreme court justices, all fairly strong conservatives, like 100 federal judges, enforcement of NATO contributions, the first real punches thrown at critical race theory, and at least the attempt at slowing illegal immigration. I think when you judge them as conservatives compared to their respective eras, Trump is up there. I credit his advisors, his son in law, Mitch Mcconnell, Stephen Miller, and many others, but it's still his administration, and he chose to empower those people.

Absolutely. The first pirate president, and someone who actually can explain their position. And a hero. Landslide victory.

I have to disagree with that one. Republicans have made winning elections the goal instead of conservative policy. They might get a big win in 2024 is Biden wins today, but for what? The hilarious irony is that Donald Trump, the great vulgarian, has accomplished more conservative policy goals than any Republican in the past 50 years. I really do wish there was a way to get that without the tweeting, the narcissism, or any of the other myriad character flaws he possesses. But there isn't. And Kamala, who has a decent chance at being president, publicly called for equality of outcome. No thanks.

Yes, though it's a bandaid on a compound fracture. We need to embrace forced treatment for those unable to maintain a household. This is a weak area for conservatives who have no concept of what a hardcore drug addiction does to your mind. We want people to pick themselves up by the bootstraps, great, we gotta get their mind clean enough to do so. For liberals this means they have to stop pretending like letting people "live themselves to death" on the streets is some sort of virtue. Homeless people go to jail, not because they are criminal (though many are), but because you have to confine the addict to treatment long enough for it to take effect. For conservatives, just locking people away won't work. It's going to take money to fix this; treatment is expensive. And providing the anti-addiction drugs for free (forever) will also sting. Tough.

Easy, dude. He's not Goldfein.

1-4) Yup. Though I'll add, we can't legalize all drugs. And we can't ignore the use of certain drugs, like meth. America's "homelessness" problem is actual a drug abuse problem, and we are seeing the effects of a laissez faire approach to drug use and addiction. For the best summation of the problem I recommend watching "Seattle is Dying" by KOMO on YouTube. Should be required viewing. 5) Agreed but with a caveat: the private interests, if they are permitted (most cities don't run their cameras) must have absolutely no compensation based on the volume of infractions. Secondly, cities must establish a formula for yellow-light duration that is applied to all intersections that matches or exceeds pre-camera duration. You commentary on police partners is pretty much inline with my point. More cops = less need for fatal force in a given interaction. One on one, the point-of-no-return for a fatal interaction is much sooner.

No rush. I know we're about 80%+ on the same page here.

I don't see how your view of systemic racism (which I disagree with as racism, but completely agree with IRT the societal trap that is keeping certain black communities stuck in a cycle of crime and violence) relates to the idea that police training is too quick to kill someone (regardless of skin color) who does not posses a firearm.

Are you implying that the shootings in referring to included aggressive behavior? Again, did you watch the video I posted? Is that "beyond retarded?" What about Philando Castille? How about the cop who shot someone because she walked into the wrong apartment? How about the 13 year old with autism? This one?: These aren't even impaired people. Our cops are too jumpy. That's not their fault, but it still needs to be fixed. These shootings do not represent the average cop, but they represent a problem none the less.

Source? Last I heard the DNI explicitly stated that nothing indicated the laptop was foreign disinformation. That's just one voice, but it's the most informed one. I think at this point we can disregard anything that comes from paid contributors (Dem and Rep) who once upon a time were in the bureaucracy. James Clapper alone has done more to discredit that demographic than any talking head in recent memory. Edit: For transparency, I believe the laptop is real. I do not believe Hunter Biden dropped it off at that repair shop.

I was with you until here, now I just think you're full of it. Maybe I was in a different Air Force, or maybe you're one of those Colonels who suddenly found the enlightenment of sobriety only after you had your fun and could keep a bottle of Scotch tucked away in the desk drawer while you counsel young pilots on a 0-0-1-3 drinking philosophy neither you nor your peers ever followed, but either way you're full of shit. Was the kid in that video threatening anyone? I get it, you're close to cops. Note that I haven't blamed cops for any of this. The entire enterprise needs to be demilitarized. Other countries have figured it out. If it means more cops (which it will), then good. Let's do it. We can take the money from SS, Medicare, anywhere really, I'm all for it. But there is a problem to solve. And it has nothing to do with the horseshit fantasy of "systemic racism." As usual, the politicians want something (law and order) without paying for it (training, adequate manning, expensive non-lethal equipment). The cops get to suffer for that, which means the citizens suffer too. Doesn't mean there isn't a problem to solve, and the outright denial from the right is causing the left to look for some reason for the denial of a clear problem. They have erroneously settled on hidden racism as the answer.

In general? Over all time maybe. Certainly compared to the Air Force. But the ground pounders were absolutely expected to get hurt. Doesn't mean you tried to, doesn't mean we wanted them to, but we all know it would happen. And they didn't get to unload on some Iraqi shop owner because he reached for something. That would protect them but damage the mission. Policing is the same. As I said, in a one on one engagement, the cop should shoot the guy with the knife. But are we going to pretend that the risk stays the same regardless of the number of cops going against one assailant? That's forced ignorance. If this guy had a knife, would these cops be in mortal danger?: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/police-shooting-video-arizona.html Sorry, but I don't believe in that vision of American policing. And if you think it's as simple as "just do what the cops say, you won't get shot," have you ever been drunk? Ever had a cop pointing a gun at your face? Hard to think clearly. Shouldn't be a death sentence. Sim's video is a great example of how, overwhelmingly, our cops do the right thing. And neither of those cops died. They should have tazed him from the start, and shot him once he charged. But let's not pretend like they're all like that. Reaching for something that might be a gun is not the same as having a gun. Not sure where you're coming from with the disability payments. I never made that argument, don't support it, so I'm not going to defend it.

We agree, but individualism is one of the key elements that made us (and thus the rest of the world) thrive. We do not believe in responsibility to the collective. That doesn't mean we don't cooperate, we just do it on our terms. Numb nuts on his 37 acres is just an isolationist. Glad he had the freedom to do it, but it doesn't push the society forward, and if everyone wanted that, we'd get nowhere.

I side with the cops, of course, as they are playing by the rules. But the rules are stupid. Two cops should be able to deal with a guy with a knife, unless it's a ninja. They might get hurt, but that's the job. Hell, this is actually a case where "shoot him in the leg" is a realistic COA. Or taze him. Or pepper spray. Or use a bolas. If he starts stabbing someone, then yeah, kill him. Michael Brown was a good shoot. And when it's an evenly matched fight, the cops should use their guns to make it uneven. But every time I see multiple cops drawing on one guy without a gun, it just seems wrong. Remember that kid in the hotel with nothing but basketball shorts and a T-shirt? Like six cops obliterated him because he was "reaching" for something. Absurd. When did the cops become such pussies? They aren't, of course, but the rules are sure making it look that way. The old men who got knocked over during the protests were disgusting too. Really couldn't think of a way to handle that? Throw him over your shoulder, drag him to the truck, but just knock him on his ass? Police departments with old MRAPs. Camouflage. It's just wrong. American policing does. not. have a racism problem. But it does have a brutality problem. Conservatives need to acknowledge that. But that's not going to happen while liberals misrepresent every infraction as racist. And so the dance continues.

Individualism, yes. It's why we are different from so many other civilizations. Isolation, no.

Fuck that, if they don't put it out, it doesn't exist. So far the only interesting part of the story is the dude who is publicly claiming that Joe Biden was aware and a part of Hunter's money-making schemes. That should be pursued. The sexting and other shit is just noise. There's no shortage of screwed up politicians' kids. However I personally think it stretches the imagination to claim that Joe didn't know his kid was using his name and position for personal gain. If there was ever an argument that Joe wasn't fully a swamp creature, and I don't think there was, it should be laid to rest.

I'm curious about that as well. I could use some feedback on this: I laughed a lot more at "Trump's" lines than "Biden's," but I want to believe it's because they are funnier and based on exaggerations of Biden's flaws, whereas the lines against Trump are more preachy and issue oriented, i.e. meant to have a political message as an undertone. I thought the Hillary vs Trump one was much better.

When I was at USAFA one of his POW mates told me that they don't talk to McCain, but he wouldn't say more than that. He was a terrible politician. Very similar to Biden IMO, cared more about being a deal maker than about the contents or quality of the deal.

Yeah that's exactly my point. He mentioned social vs biological monogamy, but I'm not sure what the distinction is. There are no species that are 100% monogamous. Mostly I was commenting on the idea that human monogamy isn't natural, which doesn't make much sense as it was presented.

Yeah that's social monogamy, though, right? I'm not sure what biological monogamy means. Even within those species there are instances of non-monogamy, so it isn't "biological."

There are no instances of "biological monogamy" that I'm aware of. Except perhaps a species where the male dies during mating? I don't think that's what we're talking about. The rest of your first paragraph isn't addressing the natural part of the claim. Just because something is rare does not mean it doesn't exist, or in this case isn't natural. I would argue that humans are pretty rare when compared to other species. You're also distinguishing between social and evolutionary benefit, which is not a particularly clear distinction. Sure we can point to being bipedal as an "evolutionary" benefit and forming tribes as a "social" benefit, but both are traits that manifested by chance and were screened against a harsh world to see which succeeded and procreated successfully. Monogamy is one such example. Being social does not make it unnatural, unless dolphin pods or lion prides are also unnatural. And in our case, the evolutionary benefits of monogamy are huge, on account of our massive development period. The biggest impact is on the survival of the offspring, and since we don't have litters, that's key. Just look at the rates of unwed childbirth and single parent households over the past 100 years. As you said, the social reinforcement of monogamy amps up in the 1700's, and accelerated (though the most prosperous period in the history of the species) through the mid 1900's. It is now in decline, and the social costs are rather obvious. Just look at the correlation between success of the child and the parents relationship. Many of the problems attributed to race by racists are better correlated with family decline, which has everything to do with well intentioned programs with unforeseen effects, as well as the criminal justice system. Another conversation. There are tons of instances of various degrees of polygamist societies, but the most prosperous and reproductive have been monogamist, which is exactly how natural evolutionary pressure expresses itself.