yoink

I’ve still not seen anything of the Democrats that makes me believe this. Instead of capitalizing on the current train wreck all I’ve seen of the Dems is ‘look at this scandal!’ and nothing of why people should vote for them or what they’ve learnt from the last election. I’m sure it’s very satisfying to be the obstructionist party for a change, but relying on the Republicans losing seats rather than Democrats WINNING them is a poor strategy. Assumptions like that are how we’ve ended up with this Administration in a he first place.

Keep wriggling.

Good post and I have several thoughts for discussion but I don't think it should be done in private via individual PM. If this forum is an exception to the general rules that govern the site then I'd prefer to have a more transparent conversation about it so that we can all have input bounced off each other. Maybe start a moderated thread and I'll put my thoughts in there?

I love new information and revise my opinion as new, credible sources arise. Look back over this thread and see how often I've posted about this particular subject - It's not often and it's never been a 'destroy Trump' agenda for the Russiagate thing. Mostly my posts in here have been to point fingers at your posting behavior but once again facts don't seem to matter to you. You post on the world as you imagine it is. You're absolutely free to post your opinions and thoughts - but in general you don't. You post either single links with no original commentary attached, or single statements like 'no!' or 'wrong!', again, with no avenue for discourse. I don't think you should be banned for your opinions. I think you should be banned fort the WAY you post and use this forum and will continue to do call for it until you change the way you behave, NOT what you believe.

Persistent breaking of the dz.com rules is, and trolling is against those rules - in fact it's number 1 in the list. I'm sure I don't need to provide you a link. Trolling: Per his hotness: 'posting inflammatory material specifically to provoke a negative response'. Per you:'of course he's a troll'. Enforce the rules.

Nope! You have no understanding of his Constitutional Powers. And you just proved it here! Why don’t you educate us as to your understanding when you post something like this? Because it's not my job to to stop others from showing their ignorance! See - this is why I think you’re a troll and should be banned. You’re on a discussion board. Replying ‘no!’ Or ‘you’re wrong’ to a post without providing reasoning is a cowardly way of posting. You don’t have the courage or respect to put your reasoning up for analysis because you’re afraid you’ll get torn to pieces as usual... Once again you prove you have no interest in discussion and should be ignored.

Nope! You have no understanding of his Constitutional Powers. And you just proved it here! Why don’t you educate us as to your understanding when you post something like this?

I've got to disagree with a lot of what gets said about that. Michael Moore of course keeps saying that Clinton got a blow job, so what, Kennedy had sex with Marylin Monroe. Personally, I can see a difference between a successful man taking a successful wealthy woman within a few years of his age to a fancy resort and the two of them getting into bed and having sex, and on the other hand the Ultimate Boss of the United States having his 19 year old intern, who refers to him as The Creep, get on her knees behind the copy machine and put his dick in her mouth. Bob Church I don't get what the deal is with either, to be honest. No laws have been broken. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the president has to be faithful. Consensual sexual acts between adults are non of the people's business, IMO. UNTIL that business starts to affect the ability of said person to do their job. Personally, I don't believe either are worth of impeachment. Re: the age difference - if someone is over 18 it's their choice to get with someone much older and they have to live with the consequences. That some people (myself included) are grossed out by the idea has absolutely nothing to do with the application of the law.

People are moral or immoral - not geography. Like Wendy says, how you consider it depends on how you personally align with the current leadership of that country and its current culture. Take sex outside of marriage; some of the US consider that to be immoral. Personally, I don't. That doesn't make me immoral or them moral - it's just a personal opinion.

Well, yeah. Although I'd pick either of those for President before the one we've currently got!

You say that, but I don't think Bill Gates has been directly involved in a pure science field, has he? Technology, absolutely. And he's got the credentials for humanitarian and business advisory positions for sure. But a general science advisor? I'm not so sure he'd be my first pick. I think it's an example of President Trump believing that financial success means you can automatically be fantastic at everything. He certainly thinks that about himself.

I hate polls like this. Really hate them... In some circumstances I'm pretty liberal, in others quite conservative. I think the application of grossly simplified labels to complex humans is one of the contributing reasons that we have such a fucked up system at the moment. You're WITH US or AGAINST US. No grey areas!!! So where's my Boobies option? Don't you know how to create a proper poll?

I agree, and think it's a great discussion to have - like you say, not necessarily in here. I've just read this back to myself and realize that it doesn't come across as intended - Poor phrasing on my part. I think a lot of people are 'uneducated' when it comes to talking about mental illness. I'll go out on a limb and say that everyone here knows someone with some form of a mental illness - whether it's diagnosed or not.

Probably a topic for a new thread, but perhaps stress should be viewed as a mental illness. It's not a terribly unrealistic view, and it might positively influence society's understanding of mental illness if it included something analogous to the common cold. Maybe, although the danger of that is that while it would promote a wider awareness of mental illness it might degrade peoples appreciation of the severity of some of these conditions. We've all suffered stress at some point but I wouldn't say that it put me in the same 'mentally ill' bracket as someone with bipolar depression, for example. It would be doing their struggle a disservice and I could imagine some uneducated people going 'I've been mentally ill and just decided to get over it. I took a vacation. That's what X should have done'.

Murdering a dozen people might well be the result of a mental illness, but if that's what it takes to get a diagnosis then it doesn't help us very much to be proactive about stopping these events, does it? That aside, we actually need to be quite careful how mental illness is talked about in relation to this topic - TV pundits throw the term around in a similar way you just did: 'it's obvious that he had mental problems because of what he did', but that's really dangerous. It opens the door to non-specific, non-medical / professional application of what is actually a very specific term that has definable boundaries. Someone who kills a bunch of people is undeniably crazy at that point in time, but they're not necessarily mentally ill. Stress, for example might well be the cause of someone snapping and shooting up their workplace, but it's not considered a mental illness.

I'm sorry - but if someone doesn't have access to a vehicle then they can't mow people down. It's that simple. Please explain how civilian weapons are currently a necessary part of western civilization, without which society would collapse. Your access to guns is a right, but it's not a necessity - no matter how much you want it to be. The world would carry on as usual if all of the civilian guns around somehow magically disappeared overnight. The same is not true of vehicles. Huge numbers of people would starve and the economy would fail. While both can be used as implements of a mass killing, the two are not equivalent and this is a false comparison used to dodge tougher thinking.

An individual that needs medical attention, but isn’t receiving treatment and ends up going postal with either a pressure cooker, firearm, van, or other instrument? Derek V Possibly, although there was no definate indication that the Las Vegas shooter was mentally ill. A bunch of school shooters have been angry, but also have had no diagnosis of mental illness. But maybe you're right. Maybe every single one of these individuals is suffering from some form of mental incapacity that means that they should not have been able to procure or access firearms. Can you think of any screening process that would reveal these problems that wouldn't grossly violate not just the constitutional rights of the people, but basic human rights as well? You would have to screen every single person in the United States - can you imagine what you'd say if I suggested that to you? You'd be screaming about violation of rights before I'd finished typing. Mental illness is difficult to diagnose, is made up of a bunch of grey areas that aren't commonly agreed, and rely (mostly) on voluntary and self-initiated exams. Medical records aren't reliably linked across states and you've stated yourself that you wouldn't support any database that limited access to firearms in the way a mental health database would have to. If you honestly think that identifying mental illness is the best way to tackle this problem you're kidding yourself. It will almost always be reactionary because without enforced, compulsory and comprehensive screening of every individual in the country you might well miss the indications BEFORE an event takes place. I've had a couple of friends who have committed suicide over the years. I'm sure you can think of a couple of people on here... It's very easy in hindsight to say 'it's obvious they were struggling with X, Y or Z' but actually seeing that before a tragedy takes place is incredibly difficult. I'm sorry - but if someone doesn't have a gun then they can't shoot someone. It's that simple.

Move along. Thoughts and prayers here. Nothing to see. Huge props to the customer who grabbed the gun though. To be fair, I've actually eaten in a Waffle House in Tennessee and it was pretty much the worst food I've had anywhere in the world. Maybe the gunman didn't like his still frozen hash browns and coffee with fingernails in it. It's quite clear the Waffle House shooter has mental issues. He was arrested last year for trespassing on the white house grounds where he wasn't supposed to be. FBI investigated his background and took his guns away, as they should have. Eventually, they gave the guns to his father, with the caveat that he's not to give them back to his son. Well, he did anyway. I'm surprised the dude is still at large, as far as I know. But I fully expect the victims and their families to sue the father for everything he's got. Fucking dumb ass. There's always someone else to blame further down the line, isn't there? In skydiving we identify link in a chain of events that would have stopped an incident. Mass murders are no different. In this case, the FBI not giving the guns back to the family would probably have made a difference, but that doesn't solve most other events. What's the common factor in all of these types of even other than a body count?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43855097 Move along. Thoughts and prayers here. Nothing to see. Huge props to the customer who grabbed the gun though. To be fair, I've actually eaten in a Waffle House in Tennessee and it was pretty much the worst food I've had anywhere in the world. Maybe the gunman didn't like his still frozen hash browns and coffee with fingernails in it.

I think you'll change your tune when the roads become clogged with every green card holder, H1B visa holder, J1 visa holder, F1 visa holder, etc. driving impeccably at the listed speed limit or below. I chose my phrasing very carefully. It's easy to accidentally go over the speed limit. It's easy to miss a deadline on a parking ticket - those situations can be reasonably explained by accidents. Burglary? Not so much.

But that's not what the law says. Maybe it should, but it doesn't. The ruling today was that the law is unclear. And that it is important for everyone that it be clear. Absolutely. And my opinion is that the law needs to change to remove the ambiguity. For now SCOTUS made the correct decision - I simply don't agree with why they had to make it.

Yup. People dismiss stuff like this too easily, IMO. 'It's obviously fake!' or similar - but this is a Model T compared to the supercar of tomorrow. It WILL get better, fast and when we can't rely on our senses that have been honed over millennia to tell us the difference between reality and fiction we have a serious problem. When everything can be faked then no news can be trustworthy. Our personal spheres of reliable information will shrink to things we experience first hand and that is a massive step backwards for us as a civilization.

While it's politically amusing to see the situation, personally I think the guy should be deported and the vagueness of the law is hindering it and is a real problem. I agree - as long as you're a guest in someone's home your behavior needs to be impeccable. Get your feet off the couch and stop raiding the fridge! For me, any crime that cannot reasonably be committed accidentally is grounds for deportation for a non-citizen. You know the rules and if you choose to break them then we don't want you here - it's that simple.

22% markup?? I’m in the wrong job!

It really doesn't. Even people in here who agree with the broader idea of gun control differ on the extents and mechanisms of how to implement it. I'm sorry you see that type of discussion as a reacharound, but for me those discussions are far more valuable than responses that are half sentence throwaways with absolutely no substance to them. It's taken me a while but I've learnt that it's pointless to waste time reading or replying to some posters. Even more valuable are the genuine but civil disagreements on fundamental ideas. I've only seen a few on this board but those are fantastic.