bleeding heart

This has been repeated many, times--by politicians and by the elite of the hawkish foreign policy commentators. The primary reason a nuclear Iran is an issue is because it would then have deterrence against aggression. How dare they! http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/02/iran-nukes-deterrence OK....so, predicting that some posters might consider this all pretty rational and justifiable...it nevertheless strongly suggests that the "threat of an Iranian nuclear attack" or "wiping out Israel" are not the prime motivators for the calls to military action. It's good to have clarity on what the debates are actually about: and an aggressive Iran is not what calls for military intervention are primarily about. It's a credibly defensive Iran that is making the war drums sound.

On the contrary, it is well-understood that psychological effects and indoctrination are crucial aspects of the child-soldier phenomenon; that is, we rationally understand that a child under duress and indoctrination cannot be expected to make adult choices. Now, if you wish to advocate for allowing all adult rights to fifteen-year-olds (buying and consuming alcohol, the right to vote, the right to make personal choices about getting married, going to school, and on and on) to correspond to their adult responsibilities...then you've got an argument.

Mea culpa it is, then.

I don't think that's good enough. Where and by whom is the "traditional" family being laughed at and ridiculed? Even as it's only an impression, there must be something concrete that allows such an impression to exist.

I agree. Thanks in part to the insufferable spamming, I've recently looked at many decade-old posts. And while I admit it's only my impression, they seemed every bit as caustic and silly and full of invective as they do now.

I don't know why critics of power are held to such higher standards than supporters of it. The religious belief that the Western nations, always with good motives, flit about the Earth trying to do good is not exactly....sober and objective political discourse. In terms of "feel good" methodology, no one, but no one, has the defenders of foreign interventions beat.

I'm inclined to agree.

But wouldn't it be worth it, given that you could rest safely knowing that teenagers and the mentally-challenged are being executed apace?

No...they were going to what they broadly viewed as an empty or practically-empty land, in which infrastructure and government would need to be set up...by definition. The current immigrants are not along these lines at all. They're entering a pre-existing, infrastructure-heavy, stable-governed society, heavy with laws and rules, and in which they wish to find their place.

That's because you're a more than usually-partisan hack.

Uh, no. For the record, I certainly concede that some people in that middle group may not think the problem to be serious; and further, I assume they hold to varying degrees of thought, from "not terribly serious" to "quite serious." (We can only speculate, based on profoundly inexact terms.) But why my concession (or lack thereof, were that the case) should affect your opinion on the facts of the matter is...a mystery, frankly. "Perhaps "winning" debate points is your only prerogative...which is your business, but not what I had assumed about you. In a similar vein, I'd also point out that you conveniently included the missing 2% as part of your argument, arriving at the (now abandoned) 59%. I also note that you made something of the "fact" that "a minority" of scientists thought the matter serious...where you now concede the possibility that it could well be a majority (needing only about 25% of the 44% to change your perspective dramatically).

You might want to look into the matter before determining that it's false. (Hint: it is legitimate, just so you know.)

This is some crazed, nationalist indoctrination to which you've been subjected. To whit: he couldn't have been a child soldier....because "child soldier" cannot be applied to anyone fighting Americans or Canadians. Since we're the Good Guys, anyone who fights us cannot be a victim in any way, shape or form. After all, it produces the wrong metrics.

Harper is not the rich daddy doling out money to his wayward children.

Then this is a clear step back from

Ha! It's even funnier than I remembered. Awesome stuff.

Bad analogy...Obama's gun control rhetoric is about identical to Romney's.

The Sandanista "terrorists and subversives are two days driving time from Arlington, Texas." --Ronald Reagan

Good stuff. This is the sane and decent way to proceed with any debate.

Oh god, let's not encourage the anti-vaccine crowd to advocate for explicitly irresponsible behaviours again.

Well, as you say, you're not a fanatic about it, you're not remonstrating with people to try to move them towards your own habits and activities...so there's obviously no problem.

??? Gay parents are normal people, trying to raise their children to be happy, healthy, moral individuals, just like everyone else. And their "lifestyles" tend to be just as boring and workaday as they are for their heterosexual counterparts. Did you honestly not know this?

Everybody is on the side of this innocent little girl. It doesn't then necessarily follow that everyone is on your side in the discussion, agreeing with every remark you make. For example, until I have more knowledge about poster g_bambino, I'm going to take it as a given that his "goal" is not to make honour killings "an accepted practice in this country." That seems unlikely, after all...donchathink?

As...someone...recently said, "why not move somewhere else where they think like you do?"

And those who think something is "moderately dangerous" are indeed positing it as "serious." (Again, they'd never use the qualifier for the word "dangerous" otherwise.) The only question, of course, is how serious...to that question, "moderately dangerous" gives us nothing much, either way. Which is why I find it odd that you have interpreted it as you have.