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PoliGAF 2015 |OT| Keep Calm and Diablos On

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E

Ecotic

Member
Trump's energy is amazing. He's on every morning show, hits 5 of the 6 Sunday shows every weekend, never turns down an interview, he just acts like he wants it more than anybody else. He could outlast the crowd.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
Brawndo Addict said:
I think the problem with these analogical devices (while interesting nonetheless) is that they don't map out very well to the actual real world. What does being responsible mean in the context of real life behavior and not just hypothetical binaries? If one takes precautions by using contraception but it fails, how do we map that over to these analogy scenarios? Do we try to fashion some type of assumption of the risk argument using expected probabilities (say a car accident caused by extremely unlikely but foreseeable mechanical failure)? At a certain point, getting the analogy to 'fit' ends up creating more complexity and confusion than simply addressing the points directly.
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Brawndo Addict said:
Well yes, I'm assuming that the purpose and benefit of using an analogical device is to help elucidate a point/argument that is not being understood in the context of the 'normal' arguments for whatever reason. My point is that with abortion analogies (and many analogies for that matter), the real world issue is so nuanced and complex that it just can't be broken down effectively without losing its import.
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I'm not sure these details are so important. I mean, most people aren't even responding directly to this sort of organ donation analogy - they're not even aware of it! What I was trying to say was that lots of people share the intuition that the violinist analogy is trying to pump - we generally think that people aren't obliged to go to heroic lengths to save someone else's life, even if that someone else is totally innocent. There's this obvious abortion as self-defense argument that looks really plausible on its face.

I'm saying that most pro-lifers get this - they mostly share the intuition too. That's part of why they support rape exemptions. And so they get that they need to explain why the abortions they oppose aren't justified self-defense. This is the rhetorical purpose of focusing on women who "use abortion as birth control", on women who get dozens of abortions, etc. And obviously many of them are happy to say that choosing to have sex is choosing to accept the risk of pregnancy. I don't think the analogy settles exactly where the line should be drawn assuming fetuses are persons, but it's very good at illustrating the basic ideas here - it makes the self-defense argument obvious and it makes it easy to see how responsibility can matter. People often aren't explicitly aware of these things.
 
Tarkus

Tarkus

Member
I don't agree with his abortion ideas or global warming among other things, but he is dead on with Iran. What a fucking bullshit deal we made.
 
Tarkus

Tarkus

Member
3748023.gif
 
R

RustyNails

Member
I think this Mobile rally was the first real political rally by Trump, and he hit it out of the park. I'm getting inclined to throw my hat for Trump grabbing the nomination.
 
B

Bowdz

Member
SourShoes said:
Describe the deal and enlighten me. I will humbly admit it if I'm wrong.
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Just like the rest of the deal, the media jumped on the headline of "UN to let Iran inspect alleged nuke work site" without reading the article. Per the AP article:

AP said:
The newly disclosed side agreement, for an investigation of the Parchin nuclear site by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, is linked to persistent allegations that Iran has worked on atomic weapons. That investigation is part of the overarching nuclear-limits deal.
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AP said:
Iran has refused access to Parchin for years and has denied any interest in — or work on — nuclear weapons. Based on U.S., Israeli and other intelligence and its own research, the IAEA suspects that the Islamic Republic may have experimented with high-explosive detonators for nuclear arms.

The IAEA has cited evidence, based on satellite images, of possible attempts to sanitize the site since the alleged work stopped more than a decade ago.
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AP said:
The main focus of the July 14 deal between Iran and six world powers is curbing Iran's present nuclear program that could be used to make weapons. But a subsidiary element obligates Tehran to cooperate with the IAEA in its probe of the past allegations.

The investigation has been essentially deadlocked for years, with Tehran asserting the allegations are based on false intelligence from the U.S., Israel and other adversaries. But Iran and the U.N. agency agreed last month to wrap up the investigation by December, when the IAEA plans to issue a final assessment.

That assessment is unlikely to be unequivocal. Still, it is expected to be approved by the IAEA's board, which includes the United States and the other nations that negotiated the July 14 agreement. They do not want to upend their broader deal, and will see the December report as closing the books on the issue.
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Basically, yes Iran will get to inspect their Parchin nuclear site, but it is with regards to past research and it is part of a previous IAEA inspection that had been stalled for years. This inspection is just intended to learn if Iran has worked on nuclear weapons in the past (they most likely have although the work stopped about a decade ago at this site). The rationale for this arrangement is that Iran claims there is sensitive military proceedings at the Parchin site.

It is important to note that this is not in relation to the full nuclear deal that the P5+1 negotiated with Iran. If, at any point in the future, we, or any nation, suspects Iran of engaging in suspicious behavior, the IAEA will be the ones investigating, not the Iranians.

Honestly, IMO, this is all just dealing with the past and not the future and as such, is not that big a deal. Has Iran been working on nuclear weapons in the past? Probably. Are they right now? No. Will the international inspections regime provide a better idea as to whether Iran is staying true to the terms of the agreement? Absolutely. Would fighting Iran on past inspections possibly upend the current Iranian deal? Most likely. Therefore, in the words of our illustrious leader, what difference, at this point, does it make?
 
S

sangreal

Member
RustyNails said:
I think this Mobile rally was the first real political rally by Trump, and he hit it out of the park. I'm getting inclined to throw my hat for Trump grabbing the nomination.
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As I watch him give all these speeches, it is turning more and more into a real stump speech instead of random ramblings
 
E

Ecotic

Member
redmetal86 said:
Wait, gene thing?
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I've known this about Trump for a long time. I'm going to out myself here, but Trump and I are both fanatics about human genetics, we love the aesthetics of beauty as it applies to the human body. There's large communities online of people who are like this, who love studying the diversity of human features and what genetic combinations make for aesthetically pleasing or functionally superior designs and combinations. Trump enjoys marveling at people's features in the same curious manner that people can admire art or architecture. This is why Trump owns Miss USA, it's why he routinely comments on people's beauty or lack thereof.

Accompanying this fascination is usually an intense analysis of one's own genetic line. Trump is a huge believer in social darwinism, a belief that people are based upon who they are (genetic composition and aesthetic features) and what success in the world they are able to achieve. Trump is fully aware he's nothing to look at, which is why he builds up vast business success partly in order to have his genetic line be seen as having something unique or extraordinary about it that leads to amazing success in creative human endeavors, and also to marry and procreate with extraordinarily beautiful women, in order to ensure he can offset his poor genetics and have more healthy and beautiful children. In interviews in the past Trump has admitted to being a huge believer in nepotism in order to provide for one's offspring and ensure his genetic line's future success. He dislikes the Bill Gates method of not giving your money to your children and considers it gravely antithetical to natural selection. You can see this bleed through in his political belief system, he admires countries that are doing everything competently and creatively to advance themselves despite their shortcomings, and intensely dislikes that America, a country endowed with tremendous resources and assets, is under performing so badly and allowing itself to be taken advantage of in trade or defense deals. Such altruism is deeply antithetical to social Darwinism, or acting in one's self interest and the interest of those who carry one's genetic line. Trump probably really gets off on watching nature shows about African Lions and Nile Crocodiles and how they behave. The alpha male reigns supreme and collects his dues, has sole mating privileges, and kills the offspring of vanquished rivals.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
SourShoes said:
Describe the deal and enlighten me. I will humbly admit it if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

The deal allows the IAEA to inspect any Iranian centrifuge site, as well as either of Iran's uranium mines or any of their uranium mills. For some sites they will require 24 days of notice. Because of the way nuclear research works (i.e., it spits out a lot of radioactivity all over the place, which takes a long time to dissipate), 24 days is nowhere near enough time to cover up uranium enrichment, so we will be able to identify any unauthorized uranium enrichment.

You're probably reacting to the AP story about the Parchin site. Bowds did a pretty solid roundup of that story, but just to recap:

* The Parchin site is not a current nuclear facility and won't be active in the future. In fact, it's been shut down since 2002, plenty of time for any evidence of nuclear research to be gone. Iran hadn't admitted this in the past, but just like Israel's nukes, everybody knows that Parchin was being used to work on nuclear weapons.
* The Parchin site IS, however, an Iranian military base, and probably contains Iranian military secrets.
* Before the Iran deal can go into effect, Iran has to be in compliance with the IAEA, meaning that they must disclose all of its past nuclear research and the IAEA has to verify it. That means that they have to admit they did nuclear research at Parchin and the IAEA has to verify that what they said they did is what they really did.
* Since Parchin is no longer an active nuclear research site, and everybody already knows what Iran did at Parchin, this is really mostly a formality and an opportunity for both sides to start getting to know each other. The only possibility that could actually affect anything is if it turns out Iran didn't do as much nuclear research as we thought they did, in which case we'd be happily surprised.
* Since Iran obviously is sensitive about its secret military bases, the IAEA's plan seems to be to negotiate a sequence of photographs, soil samples, etc. that will allow it to verify Iran's report about the research that happened at Parchin in the past. Again, this has no relation to any actual nuclear inspections in the future -- the only reason the IAEA is being hands-off about this particular base is that there's nothing to learn and this is mainly a formality.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Walker is already in the process of destroying himself.
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Yeah, I'm sort of shocked at how quickly Walker's disintegrated on the campaign trail. Like, I never really expected him to do well, but it seems like he's just totally falling apart. I expected him to at least make it until Super Tuesday, just by pointing at his (supposedly) winning record and otherwise keeping his mouth shut. Now? Not so sure.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Poodlestrike said:
Yeah, I'm sort of shocked at how quickly Walker's disintegrated on the campaign trail. Like, I never really expected him to do well, but it seems like he's just totally falling apart. I expected him to at least make it until Super Tuesday, just by pointing at his (supposedly) winning record and otherwise keeping his mouth shut. Now? Not so sure.
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I'm not shocked.

He's always been a fucking idiot. My state just sucks.
 
Tarkus

Tarkus

Member
And what about the sites that the IAEA doesn't know about? Do you think Iran is trustworthy and forthcoming with their nuclear ambitions?
 
B

Bowdz

Member
SourShoes said:
And what about the sites that the IAEA doesn't know about? Do you think Iran is trustworthy and forthcoming with their nuclear ambitions?
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As Pigeon stated, the non-declared will be have a 24 day waiting period before being inspected, but the very nature of the inspections regime will allow us to know whether or not there is some hidden research facility because:

- The IAEA will be monitoring the domestic uranium supply chains
- Iran will be greatly reducing their enriched stockpile
- We have military/intelligence assets capable of constant surveillance and detection.

Combine all of that and we will know if they have some hidden facility that is operating in opposition to the terms of the agreement.
 
M

Manmademan

Member
RustyNails said:
I'll cast my vote after the second debate.
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I'm not expecting any surprises out of that second debate.

Trump is going to cruise even easier than the first time around- CNN isn't dumb enough to try and attack him like Fox did.

Carson isn't going to magically learn to put a sentence together.
Huckabee isn't going to magically decide he's no longer a fundamentalist lunatic.
Christie won't even make it to this one.
Kasich will ignore the actual questions posed to him again and spout moderate talking points.
Paul, Walker, Rubio, and Cruz will avoid attacking Trump for obvious reasons and snipe at each other more than anything else. This won't end well.
Bush (or MAYBE Fiorina if she gets this far) will be the only one dumb enough to try to go after Trump and it won't go well. The man is out of his depth and will get annihilated.

I can't see any reason the debate will turn out any other way. There's too many people for it to be an ACTUAL debate, just a beauty pageant with a few insults here or there- and in this case, Trump wins.
 
I

ItWasMeantToBe19

Banned
Poodlestrike said:
Yeah, I'm sort of shocked at how quickly Walker's disintegrated on the campaign trail. Like, I never really expected him to do well, but it seems like he's just totally falling apart. I expected him to at least make it until Super Tuesday, just by pointing at his (supposedly) winning record and otherwise keeping his mouth shut. Now? Not so sure.
Click to expand...

Media member: "Mr. Walker, are you pro or anti slavery?"
Walker (sweating badly): "What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
 
U

User1608

Banned
Hi guys, a long time lurker (for real!), and always loved following Poligaf in particular, hah hah. In addition to following politics, I've admittedly got a lot to lose, depending on who gets elected next year which is why I'm introducing myself here as well! Just want to say Trump is an entertaining clown, but a total (if classy) racist too.:p I'll give him this though, very charismatic, and who knows what'll happen if he doesn't flame out anytime soon! Oh, and you're all pretty cool too! I think I'll enjoy it here.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
Manmademan said:
I'm not expecting any surprises out of that second debate.

Trump is going to cruise even easier than the first time around- CNN isn't dumb enough to try and attack him like Fox did.

Carson isn't going to magically going to learn to put a sentence together.
Huckabee isn't going to magically decide he's no longer a fundamentalist lunatic.
Christie won't even make it to this one.
Kasich will ignore the actual questions posed to him again and spout moderate talking points.
Paul, Walker, Rubio, and Cruz will avoid attacking Trump for obvious reasons and snipe at each other more than anything else. This won't end well.
Bush (or MAYBE Fiorina if she gets this far) will be the only one dumb enough to try to go after Trump and it won't go well. The man is out of his depth and will get annihilated.

I can't see any reason the debate will turn out any other way. There's too many people for it to be an ACTUAL debate, just a beauty pageant with a few insults here or there- and in this case, Trump wins.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't underestimate CNN's dumbness. They're very, very good at being very, very stupid. What if they pull in Don Lemon as a moderator? Who knows what he'll say? It could be anything.
 
R

Retromelon

Member
HylianHistorian said:
Hi guys, a long time lurker (for real!), and always loved following Poligaf in particular, hah hah. In addition to following politics, I've admittedly got a lot to lose, depending on who gets elected next year which is why I'm introducing myself here as well! Just want to say Trump is an entertaining clown, but a total (if classy) racist too.:p I'll give him this though, very charismatic, and who knows what'll happen if he doesn't flame out anytime soon! Oh, and you're all pretty cool too! I think I'll enjoy it here.
Click to expand...
Whats good bruh
 
I

ItWasMeantToBe19

Banned
Poodlestrike said:
I wouldn't underestimate CNN's dumbness. They're very, very good at being very, very stupid. What if they pull in Don Lemon as a moderator? Who knows what he'll say? It could be anything.
Click to expand...

Don: "A close family member with the name 'Totally Donald Trump's second cousin' says that you're actually a cannibal. How do you respond to these allegations?"
 
M

Manmademan

Member
Poodlestrike said:
I wouldn't underestimate CNN's dumbness. They're very, very good at being very, very stupid. What if they pull in Don Lemon as a moderator? Who knows what he'll say? It could be anything.
Click to expand...

I don't doubt there might be a tough or trick question thrown out there, but the moderator outright attacking the candidate, or trying to goad the other candidates into doing it FOR them was completely unprecedented and Fox was rightfully slapped around by it's constituents for it.

it won't be happening again.
 
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