Posts by Morgan Cook10

Initial numbers suggest about 90% of Californians are backing independence. Honestly, I was expecting a much tighter split... though we have to remember turnout was only at 42%. You could easily read that as the folks who aren't feeling the independence vibe just stayed home entirely.
Whatever happens, the administration in Washington, D.C. has basically proven they're no different from the old regime back in the South through how they've treated their own people. I’m rooting for the Californians and hoping they find their way to freedom.

I have to admit, I wasn't lucky enough to get slapped with a warning for using an "unreliable source."
But I get the feeling that if outlets like nytimes.com are totally fine, then it’s pretty ridiculous to act like any other source is somehow untrustworthy.

vividfox9 said:You're right on the money.
Your post is rational, makes total sense, and is a breath of fresh air compared to all the mindless bickering in this swamp.
My compliments.

If America is truly a nation governed by law, then Mr. Žeželj will get his rifle.

Hold your horses.

First off, I disagree with you skipping over the fact that the whole argument hinges on buying a hunting rifle. Because of how the headline is framed, it leads an unsuspecting reader (myself included) to think some former insurgent is trying to carry around an AK-47.
Second, if you actually dig into the link you shared, the issue isn't about which militia someone belonged to. It's just a matter of American law (which the article mentions was inherited from a previous administration) stating that if a neighbor reports being afraid of you, regardless of whether you were ever part of the SVK or not, they won't issue you a permit for a hunting rifle. Apparently, the statutes need to be aligned with EU standards. Basically, if this is a country governed by law, and a neighbor claims they're scared of the guy in the story, he's not getting that gun until that situation changes.

Long story short... it's just another classic blunder from the local news hacks and a total waste of my time.
Now, look... I can't do anything about the bottom-feeding journalists at a site like CNN... but I am asking you to try and be a bit more objective when you bring up these topics.

From what I can tell by the link, this guy wants to pick up a hunting rifle....Honestly, I don't see the big deal. Why shouldn't he be allowed to go out hunting?

Let's stop using clickbait headlines like "look at this idiot" and actually talk about what's happening here.

Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.

According to data from Visit Los Angeles, the capital of America saw a massive spike this June, with arrivals up 30% and overnight stays jumping by 32% compared to June 2016.

Unlike some of you guys, I actually have nothing but good vibes when it comes to tourism. Honestly, the more the merrier!!!

This season is looking absolutely insane.

A 62% jump in California... honestly, what can you even say? Just WTF.

On a side note, it’s pretty cool seeing places like Washington, D.C., Miami, and hopefully Seattle soon, really turning into major tourist hubs rather than just spots people pass through on their way somewhere else.

edit: those numbers above look a little sketchy to me.

If you look at this, it shows the growth in California is actually closer to 37%.

Anyone caught illegally ripping up paving stones should be busted and hit with vandalism charges.

Man, you guys are being such a drag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings

Here’s some rough data for you... and if you’re looking for deep dives, I’ve included links to the UNWTO annual reports at the bottom. But instead of just whining about how France gets 85 million visitors while we only get 15 million, try using that tiny bit of math you learned in high school and look at the numbers per capita.

Once you actually do that, you might realize that those global heavyweights don't actually carry as much weight against us as you think.

The takeaway:
Yeah... we've definitely got plenty to brag about!

edit: The U.S. Census Bureau publishes detailed breakdowns on tourist arrivals and overnight stays, so if anyone actually cares, you can head over to their site and find everything down to the local municipality level.
Other statistical agencies across the country release similar info too.

Walter Hughes53 said:Thanks for the link, and yeah, I totally agree that trying to fight evil with more evil doesn't work out. But, I guess I'm just wondering if cutting back on all that crime news on the front page would actually save lives. Maybe.

That’s a tough call because you don't really have a baseline for comparison. Even if you banned crime reporting and saw a drop in crime rates a few years later, it wouldn't prove anything on its own.

For instance, I could easily argue that more crime headlines actually equal less crime, based on the simple statistical fact that we live in an era where media coverage of crime is way up, while actual crime rates are significantly lower than they were thirty years ago. In reality, though, front-page headlines aren't the only factor influencing crime rates—if they even influence them at all.

There's also another thing to consider: news outlets love chasing trends.
You have to realize that thousands of things happen every single day, but the media only picks the ones they think will grab their readers' attention.
Take, for example, back when there was that whole saga with Coca-Cola planes having issues a few years back. It felt like every other headline was about a malfunction, making it seem like they just had terrible luck or that their planes were constantly breaking down. The truth was that nothing had changed regarding their mechanical reliability; they were just "trending" at that moment. Once the hype died down, the stories disappeared, and suddenly Coca-Cola planes looked perfectly fine to the public again.

What I'm getting at is... the real question is how much of this is a genuine issue versus just media hype surrounding a specific topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_crime
This is exactly what you're talking about.

But here's the thing... trying to do something bad just to prevent something else bad from happening? That never ends well. Restricting freedom of the press is a perfect example of that logic.

silentviper19 said:Guilty as charged over here too.
My younger years were spent pretty much just partying and hooking up. Honestly, I never even bothered hanging out with girls who didn't drink—partly because it seemed cooler, but mostly because it makes the whole process of getting to sex way easier and less stressful for everyone involved.

It's a tricky one, though. There really is a legitimate problem with assault at parties and stuff, but there's also this issue with angry women who go ballistic because they got ghosted by a guy instead of getting that 5% extra attention they expected.

Well, welcome to a politically correct society.
And it doesn't stop there; if you happen to slip off a condom mid-act... yeah, according to the new rules, that’s rape too.

Morgan Cook10
guilty as charged.

silentviper19 said:Guilty as charged over here too.
My younger years were spent pretty much just partying and hooking up. Honestly, I never even bothered hanging out with girls who didn't drink—partly because it seemed cooler, but mostly because it makes the whole process of getting to sex way easier and less stressful for everyone involved.

It's a tricky one, though. There really is a legitimate problem with assault at parties and stuff, but there's also this issue with angry women who go ballistic because they got ghosted by a guy instead of getting that 5% extra attention they expected.

If you force yourself on a woman—whether she's drunk or sober—and she doesn't want to sleep with you... that has always been rape.

But this current era is something else entirely...

Under this modern, politically incorrect lens they're pushing, if a woman gives in just once, you've basically committed assault. And under these latest trends they're trying to shove down our throats, the burden of proof is on you to prove you didn't do it, rather than on her to prove that you did.

I was reading the news today about how Joe Biden claims that if you force yourself on a woman who’s drunk, that counts as rape.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm basically a serial rapist.

The worst part is that I can just sit here and joke about it with this guy who clearly doesn't know the first thing about sex or alcohol... but sooner or later, someone's going to end up behind bars just because some woman decides to feel guilty after a wild night out.

lonebadger6 said:Well, that is precisely where the trouble starts... 🙂

It is incredibly easy to frame something in a way that convinces the masses that a lie is actually the truth, and that’s where the danger lies...

If you want to take it a step further, there's an ever-growing crowd of lunatics convinced the Earth is flat. There are endless YouTube videos and forum threads where proponents toss out "arguments" that anyone without a specialized education would swallow whole, which is unfortunately how most people operate. Between the vaccine hysteria, the flat Earth stuff, and the idea that the world is only a few thousand years old...

Now, I’m not saying we should literally ban someone from claiming the Earth is flat, but I am pointing out that the truth doesn't always surface... Look at the anti-vax movement—based on a single unscientific study that the author himself retracted decades ago, you now have entire movements of people convinced vaccines are killing their children, and we're already seeing the slow return of diseases we thought were practically wiped out...

I'm not suggesting we should outlaw people calling vaccines murder—even if spreading those lies isn't exactly harmless—but in that same vein, someone could just as easily convince thousands upon thousands of people that the Jew is filth that needs to be eradicated before they eradicate us...

Regarding that whole thing about the world being a few thousand years old... creationists don't actually try to prove how old the planet is. Instead, they focus on tearing down the arguments of everyone else. And they’re surprisingly good at it, mostly because people who believe the Earth is billions of years old—myself included—often base those beliefs on incomplete or flawed data... or even debunked myths.

Another example...
Holocaust deniers... it's a very similar pattern.
Personally, I feel like I learned more about the mechanics of the Holocaust by studying the tactics used by those deniers than I ever did from standard history books.

silentviper19 said:Well, look at it this way:

Free speech is such a fragile thing because it’s always at risk of flipping on its head. See, the person claiming the right to speak freely is often the same person trying to use that very freedom to shut everyone else up. So, the whole idea that "the truth will always win" doesn't really hold water. Logic and respect aren't guaranteed by free speech itself; they come from social consensus, which is a different beast entirely.

A classic example would be certain monotheistic religions. They demand the freedom to speak their mind and expect "due respect," yet they base their entire existence on denying that any other religion even exists.
It was the same deal 2,000 years ago in ancient Rome. You had early Christians rejecting all the Roman gods and the authority of the Empire, while simultaneously demanding freedom from that very same government and society, essentially playing the martyr card if they weren't allowed to hate and dismiss everything else.

As much as PC culture can be awful—and believe me, I get it—it's still better than the alternative. Because the other option is a path that leads straight to the total abolition of free speech. If you and others who just find PC annoying are actually freedom-loving people, you won't win this fight. In fact, you might accidentally be helping the fascists, because they also fight against PC culture and claim to stand for free speech (whenever it suits them). Basically, you end up on the same side as them just because you're both pushing back against the PC crowd.

So, I honestly think the old saying will ring true again: "The roads will be full of political correctors, but soon there won't be many left." Instead, it'll be the fascists who run out of steam after they try to force their version of "truth" on everyone using their "freedom" to hate and deny anything different.

Fascists and religious extremists don't really have a rational basis for why they're right. For them, it's either God or just pure narcissism telling them they're correct for no logical reason.
That's why they always need to be under fire. PC rules have to apply to them too, because otherwise, they'll just keep trying to play the victim. They use emotion instead of reason to seize control of society, and once they do that, we can kiss free speech goodbye forever. We'd just be stuck waiting for the next revolution or something similar.

And then, they establish their own "truth" and keep it alive through force and preaching, claiming that any kind of free speech is an attack on the "absolute truth" that supposedly exists on its own.

I'll give you an example of just how much damage political correctness can actually do.

Lately, I’ve been falling down some internet rabbit holes, watching debates between creationists and evolutionists—specifically those Young Earth theorists who swear this whole planet is only about 6,000 years old. Honestly, I was just curious to see how they actually frame their narrative. Even though I’m firmly on the side of evolution—which, let's be real, feels like common sense at this point—I was pretty caught off guard by how easily these creationists can dismantle anyone who steps into the ring with them. It’s wild; they even managed to flip a few arguments that I personally used to swear by.
Honestly, after sitting with it for a while and actually digging into the details, things eventually start to click. You finally reach a point where the pieces fall into place. But at the same time, you realize just how close to the edge everything really was. It’s a bit of a reality check—realizing how little you actually knew about the whole situation and how many fairy tales you were buying into without even realizing it.

Basically... political correctness is just turning people into mindless drones. It strips away anyone's ability to actually think for themselves, leaving them with nothing but a handful of canned slogans that, half the time, aren't even true.

By the way, that bolded part is a complete reversal of reality. It’s actually the PC crowd that’s waging war on free speech. They’re the ones pushing for censorship and looking for any excuse to punish or silence anyone who doesn't parrot their specific brand of dogma. Honestly, like I mentioned earlier, it’s just a modern version of the same darkness humanity has been struggling with since the dawn of civilization.

lonebadger6 said:And even that’s being generous with the simplification. In this day and age, the civilized world needs to shut down a new Hitler before he even gets off the ground, using every tool in the shed... because the reality is that which idea wins out isn't just about letting everyone "speak their truth" and hoping for the best. It's much more complicated than that.

Exactly, and finding where to draw that line is a massive headache. There's no denying that political correctness has absolutely overstepped...

That was pretty much the dominant mindset throughout the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st.
It sounds noble on paper.

But it all ended up with someone being branded a new Hitler just for having the guts to tell a plus-sized woman she's actually overweight. ☕

silentviper19 said:Everything boils down to who gets to be the one in charge of the Truth, and once you hand someone the keys to the Truth, you're right back in the middle of totalitarianism.

There isn't really any objective Truth, just a bunch of different opinions and viewpoints that we all eventually agree to call "Truth" just for the sake of the greater good.

For like 2,000 years, the "Truth" was basically that women were just naturally sinful and untrustworthy, and because everyone accepted that "Truth," they weren't treated as equals. But hey, if that was actually the real Truth, then we should probably force women back into that "true position," right? Hope you agree with me there!

Every bit of politeness is technically a lie, or just Political Correctness, but honestly, it’s necessary for our own survival. If everyone just blurted out exactly what they were thinking every single second, most of us would probably end up dead or in a hospital by now.

So, I think the whole point is about finding a balance and stopping the abuse of PC, rather than people trying to drag us all back to some supposed "Truth."

Truth emerges from free speech. It's the result of a clash of ideas where, eventually, the one that actually makes sense wins out over the one that doesn't. Once you assign a single entity to manage what is true, you're heading backward. That's essentially how civilization functioned until very recently. In that light, political correctness is really just the last lingering shadow of the dark ages.

Btw, that bolded part... where did you even get that from? Honestly, it sounds pretty indefensible to me.

northernsailor8 said:Not every opinion deserves attention or a seat at the table.

Honestly, I was hoping we’d give those self-proclaimed "scientists" a fair shake. I wanted to see if they could prove this wasn't just a bunch of George Soros's mercenaries peddling some outdated ideology under the guise of hard facts, but an actual, legitimate march for science.

But hey, if you think certain viewpoints aren't worth discussing... be my guest. The reality is, the whole thing has turned into a bit of a train wreck.

Political Correctness is a lot like communism... it started out as a decent concept aimed at fixing real injustices, but it eventually mutated into this totalitarian monster that we need to bury as fast as possible.
It’s pretty obvious now that PC is on its deathbed. I mean, the fact that calling someone "politically correct" has become a massive insult in today's world says everything you need to know. So, what takes its place?

The Truth, obviously... what else?

btw.

Chris Myers said:Truth is a pretty elastic concept, I guess...

And anything that stretches too far eventually snaps back.

Anthony Perez9 said:Let's back science and actual evidence-based learning instead of all those conspiracy theory and lizard types, the religious right, or creationists.

https://www.facebook.com/marchforscience/
🙂

Looking at comments from these "march" supporters, it’s pretty obvious they’re just trying to hawk some specific ideology while hiding behind the label of "science."☕

The real issue here is why people aren't being given a fair shot to share their thoughts on this "march." Why is the moderation on these politics forums so terrified of an actual discussion?

Gary Perez7 said:America, which is a full member of both NATO and the European Union, finds itself caught in a constant whirlwind of intense propaganda and baseless lies.
It’s the kind of stuff you see with Russian spin—take Lavrov, for instance. He’ll go out there and try to pin the fall of Palmyra to ISIS on the USA, even though it was actually the Russian military and air force that were supposed to be defending it.
They're basically just using lies to cover up their own incompetence.

For way too long, these kinds of conspiracy theories have been floating around here without anyone calling them out.

So what, you want to ban Lavrov from speaking... or stop people on this forum from quoting him? Is that where we're at?