Not Yours to Give - Page 2

On April 04 2009 11:26 ToTehEastSide wrote: fwiw I think that in an argument/debate, explaining what, why or where something is cool holds considerably more weight than just saying it's cool.

I didnt bother since the content of the constitution is more or less irrelevant for this discussion.

and you do not see why so many people in the United States are falling back on such a thing? L O L

Yes I can understand that but you have to understand how falling back on the constitution can sometimes be flawed logic. I dont even understand what you mean, nothing Ive said has been contradicting a discussion of the constitution. Again, I can understand from a rhetorical point of view how falling back on the constitution can be good, but that doesnt mean it has to be a valid argument.

Why can't you? The Constitution is open to interpretation. Do you think it is wrong somewhere? If you take a persons morals out then what should they be arguing about when translating law? "I think you should insert a comma here!!" ?

First of all, as I already stated I am not talking about "right" in a legal sense. Second of all, no you cant.

If constitution=/=morally right you cant stipulate arguments such as

A: everything constitutional=morally right
B: eating babies in costitutional

Conclusion: eating babies=right

How can you disagree with this?

What do you believe in SakiSaki? I look in your "arguments" and I see nothing. Do you believe in law and if so do you believe in Freedom? I see nothing towards that. Maybe you should point to me a better way of going about it in today's world since I keep seeing nothing. Do you think America should become a different entity? Say Sweden? Do you think being a patriot for your country is a good or bad thing? Do you think that believing in anything is a bad thing? All I do see from you so far is someone being on a high horse passing around his own moral judgments onto mine based on nothing from yourself.

Sigh... I dont know why I even bothered in writing a reply after reading this cause this just shows that you have been completely missunderstanding me all this time. It doesnt matter what I believe in cause that is not what we are discussion here, and I am not attacking the US or its constitution so dont worry. What I am opposing(and evidently failing to explain to you) is the way you and many others stipulate your arguments. Your logic and your method of building arguments is logicly unsound, that is what I am saying. Nothing more, nothing less. I guess you just assumed I attacked the "american way of life" because I am from communist sweden and then proceeded acordingly yes?

You cant base moral judgements on what is said in the constitution as the constitution has no moral authority as such

Meaning since the constitution is open for change and in no way represents any moral superiority in itself(this you have more or less admitted yourself) you cant build moral judgements with it as a base.

nice spelling of calling The Constitution unnecessary and rhetorical. I disagree with both of these assumptions.

Yeah, way to put words in my mouth. I say refering to the constitution when making value judgements is rhetorical and unnecessary, not the constitution itself.


And yeah, the text you posted is about exactly what I am talking about. Even though it takes sort of a consequential moral detour the main argument is that since giving 20k to victims of a fire is wrong since its uncostitutional and that isnt a good enough argument as I have showed time and time again.

Oh btw, I am sorry that my english isnt adequate enough for you, english isnt my first language. We can take this in swedish or german instead if you want to?


Anyways, I am done here. I have argued all my points to the best of my ability and if you cant understand what I mean theres no point in proceeding further.

Oh, looks like failsafe understood what I mean perfectly.

On April 03 2009 03:42 SakiSaki wrote: I dont understand this unconditional love some of you americans seem to have towards the constitution and/or freedom. I thought the value of both those came from the results when imposed/followed. You seem to read the constitution like you read the bible. Seperation of chuch and state anyone?

I just had to quote this. I live in the south, and am currently engaged in a long winded argument with "friends" of mine over the value of the constitution. These guys would literally take a bullet if it was aimed at the actual written constitution. I wont really talk much more about it, but they are so hardcore about 'the good ole days' and the constitution and all their right-wing media propaganda they are spoonfed its disgusting.

On April 04 2009 12:27 failsafe wrote: what the hell is wrong with you? no one is gonna wanna talk to you when you add a patronizing "LOL" after every post. saki is at least civil. anyway his point is pretty clear to me, and yes i'm an american, and yes i've read the constitution, and so forth. nstead of worrying about the education of others you should try harder to understand what they have to say. i've been able to understand everything saki has said the first time he's said it while you've been rambling on in a sort of unrelated, undisciplined fashion full of patronizing bullshit. saki is saying that americans (ron paul supporters specifically) use the constitution is a sort of ultimate source for whether a change is a good change or a bad change. for instance you are likely to hear someone say "well that's unconstitutional" as a way of implying that the idea is not only a bad idea but an absurd one. saki is arguing that this misses the point. and i'll add that i agree with him in at least one sense. many people confuse legal authority with moral authority, and i think that at least some ron paul supporters are guilty of that mistake. yes, the constitution is the ultimate legal authority in the USA, but what does that status mean? what exactly does legal authority have to do with right and wrong? if there were a law in place (hypothetically speaking) that allowed me to murder one person per day, would the law's legal authority mean that such behavior was good and justified? from this intuition we have that simply because the constitution says something, what is said is not necessarily right. what the constitution says may be right by coincidence, by agreeing with morality and ethics but it is not right simply because the constitution says so. this is what saki meant when he was referring to you sounding religious. the original form of this argument is the famous "euthyphro argument" between socrates and euthyphro and it was concerning religious topics (and it took exactly the same form as the one i've suggested here). what saki is saying is that legal authority is not moral / ethical authority and what makes a law a good or a bad law is that the law conforms to morality and ethics. in other words, the pressure is on the law to do good. the law is not simply good in itself. the constitution's status as the ultimate legal authority does not grant it ultimate moral authority. from this, saki extrapolated that we could also say that there are goods outside the constitution. in other words, the constitution does not represent all that is good. the implication is that it would be possible for someone to say: "well this is unconstitutional, but it is also good." supposedly we should do good things, so we might further add that "well this is unconstitutional and we should do it because it is good." thus the notion that we should not do something because it is unconstitutional is not necessarily sound. of course you might argue the particular role of legislative bodies / executive bodies / judicial bodies is to uphold and abide by the particular laws of the land. yet i think that you do not really believe this. because if the law of the land were wrong, surely you would not want your government officials to follow it? further, if the government officials could do good by going beyond the law of the land, would you say that they were wrong to have done good at the cost of illegality? does the legal status of an action ever outweigh the moral character of an action? the question boils down to the relationship between morality / ethics and legality. what force does legislation and law actually have if it is not good? what compels us to do capitulate to the law if it is not good? are undesirable consequences all that compel us to follow the law: a wish to avoid imprisonment or fines or some other punishment? if the only force the law has is the repercussions, if we could avoid the repercussions is the law totally negligible? essentially the bottomline of saki's point is that you're drawing the line way too high. you're saying that the pros and cons of an action are other than they actually are. i'm sure you won't actually understand what i've written here though i've tried to be as explicit as possible

golden =)

very well written. If someone can't understand what sakisaki was talking about after reading this then there's no hope, haha. and for the record, I understood sakisaki right away too, but never would have written such a great post explaining it =)

awww, I was expecting a bigger circle jerk than what I see here tonight
that's a shame
I have to quit laughing first so I will respond to the other crap I see and come back and reply here L O L

dammit
decisions decisions

go and finish the rest of my beer and have a good time or wrap this one up
today / tomorrow

reading alot of this was hella funny, but responding to it is nothing but work

and once I read that the choice is easily A so...



Before I leave however, I will post this first



"I dont understand this unconditional love some of you americans seem to have towards the constitution and/or freedom."

"You seem to read the constitution like you read the bible."

"Seperation of chuch and state anyone?"

"You should start a cult or something"

"I have an issue with you because you dismissed a perfectly legitimate question"

"you think the consitution is perfect and following it word for word will lead to prosperity and happiness for all"

"If we made an unconstitutional change that, with everything else being equal, made the world a better place all around, would that be wrong simply because its unconstitutional"

"so many ppl are refering to the constitution when making moral and/or political valuejudgements"

"It just seems like an unecessary rethorical detour when you should be arguing a point based on the pros and cons of doing something and not on how the act will relate to what is stated in the constitution"

"what the hell is wrong with you? no one is gonna wanna talk to you when you add a patronizing "LOL" after every post. saki is at least civil."

"i've been able to understand everything saki has said the first time he's said it while you've been rambling on in a sort of unrelated, undisciplined fashion full of patronizing bullshit"

"yes, the constitution is the ultimate legal authority in the USA, but what does that status mean? what exactly does legal authority have to do with right and wrong?"

"if there were a law in place (hypothetically speaking) that allowed me to murder one person per day, would the law's legal authority mean that such behavior was good and justified?"

"Sigh... I dont know why I even bothered in writing a reply after reading this cause this just shows that you have been completely missunderstanding me all this time"

"and for the record, I understood sakisaki right away too, but never would have written such a great post explaining it"



it has me rolling baby rolling

in 3 more and I will probably be able to speak with you in Japanese saki saki
l8r

"I didnt bother since the content of the constitution is more or less irrelevant for this discussion."
bullshit.
When your opening statement is, "I dont understand this unconditional love some of you americans seem to have towards the constitution and/or freedom." the content of The Constitution becomes extremely important.
Also, are you against freedom? This opening statement you make at the very least leans towards something that belittles it.


"Yes I can understand that but you have to understand how falling back on the constitution can sometimes be flawed logic."
If you are speaking generally then ok sure I can easily see this, but if you are referring to me or any posts I have made then you are going to have to back this up with something more then. I will help you decide.
When dealing with Congress, the President or the federal government in any way, falling back on The Constitution is not a flawed thing to do. Or are you trying to accuse me of doing something I haven't done.
All I have seen you do is try to devalue The Constitution and freedom as well as try to make your preconceived assumptions of me stick by talking about theory (and yes I'm playing ur silly little game because I said I would reply and I don't want you to bitch again when if I again say this conversation is going to be pointless - so don't go, let's run it into the ground)
Had I fallen back onto The Constitution in this incorrect manner somewhere before your first post?


"First of all, as I already stated I am not talking about "right" in a legal sense. Second of all, no you cant.

If constitution=/=morally right you cant stipulate arguments such as

A: everything constitutional=morally right
B: eating babies in costitutional

Conclusion: eating babies=right"
I guess you are going to have to reword this statement without a =/= because I am translating that into equals or "the same as"
Encase that is the correct translation of it, then your statement would read:

If constitution is the same as being right(im not talking about "right" in the legal sense here) then you cant make arguments about why something is right or wrong based on how it relates to what is stated in the constitution

And now you've added =/=morally right
Do you know what morals are? They are the distinction between right and wrong
Yes The Constitution is believed in by people because it is thought to be morally right and I ask again, do you think The Constitution is wrong somewhere?
This is the wonderful thing about America.
If enough people believe in something strong enough they can change any law
Take slavery for instance
When this country was founded slavery was a normality and it was considered morally right.
Eventually a war was fought over it and the exclusion of it was added into The Constitution.

The same thing could happen with eating babies if enough people thought it was right; it could be changed within The Constitution
Do you disagree with this?


"Sigh... I dont know why I even bothered in writing a reply after reading this cause this just shows that you have been completely missunderstanding me all this time."
I admit that the whole paragraph you quoted for this response is junk (except the last sentence) and was nothing more than mere bait to get more out of you towards your not understanding why people here love freedom; which I think is the best question for you to answer but you don't have to because honestly I don't care.

On April 03 2009 03:42 SakiSaki wrote: I dont understand this unconditional love some of you americans seem to have towards the constitution and/or freedom.

"It doesnt matter what I believe in cause that is not what we are discussion here, and I am not attacking the US or its constitution so dont worry"
Don't worry about me, I'm not. I do however think that what you believe in is in fact what we should be talking about as it would ultimately have much an interesting point to it if you really don't believe in freedom.


"What I am opposing(and evidently failing to explain to you) is the way you and many others stipulate your arguments"
Where have I done this thing you keep talking about? I have already said repeatedly that The Constitution equaling the bible is very dumb and pointless towards me, yet you seem so very persistent towards that. So please show me where I have done this or have been flawed or unsound before you made your first post here.


"I guess you just assumed I attacked the "american way of life" because I am from communist sweden and then proceeded acordingly yes?"
No, I guess you guess wayyy to much yes?


"You cant base moral judgements on what is said in the constitution as the constitution has no moral authority as such"
Meaning since the constitution is open for change and in no way represents any moral superiority in itself(this you have more or less admitted yourself) you cant build moral judgements with it as a base."
When dealing with Congressmen, The President of the United States, or the court systems etc then yes, you can.
Also, there are TWO types of law in the U.S.A.
state, and federal
most of the time everything that you will see me talk about, is going to be a federal issue
State laws do not apply to federal
The Constitution IS the defining document above all others that essentially provides the "framework" between the rights off the people, the rights of the STATES and the power of the Federal Government.

There is no other such document
If you do not understand this you can not proceed into my arguments.

For example, when Congress decides to bailout banks, The Constitution fundamentally plays a huge role as The Constitution is what gives Congress definition.


"And yeah, the text you posted is about exactly what I am talking about. Even though it takes sort of a consequential moral detour the main argument is that since giving 20k to victims of a fire is wrong since its uncostitutional and that isnt a good enough argument as I have showed time and time again."
and I will say it again, and again and again if I have to
READ IT AGAIN
Based on fundamental principles it is wrong for Congress to give appropriations worth 20k to victims of a fire.
I even underlined the word principle before when replying to you because it's so important. God, do you want me to just keep copy and pasting til the whole story gets recopied 2x?
This time the paste will start where I left off in the last reply.

In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be and the poorer he is, the more he pays in proportion to his means.

What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000.

If you had the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.

Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose.

"Oh btw, I am sorry that my english isnt adequate enough for you, english isnt my first language. We can take this in swedish or german instead if you want to?"
This is you. "If constitution=/=right(im not talking about "right" in the legal sense here) then you cant make arguments about why something is right or wrong based on how it relates to what is stated in the constitution. It just seems like an unecessary rethorical detour when you should be arguing a point based on the pros and cons of doing something and not on how the act will relate to what is stated in the constitution."
One of two things is happening here. Either I am not translating constitution=/=right correctly or you are calling The Constitution unnecessary and rhetorical without realizing it because you do not understand the structure of our system.

"Oh, looks like failsafe understood what I mean perfectly."
I won't be impressed until he can explain to you perfectly what I mean. Now I will read and retort to failsafe who in skimming just looked like a henchman trying to do your will to gain your love and approval and god how he made me laugh.
(I didn't even get halfway in reading his post before skipping it)

ya seriously this is as far as I can get atm

On April 04 2009 12:27 failsafe wrote: what the hell is wrong with you? no one is gonna wanna talk to you when you add a patronizing "LOL" after every post. saki is at least civil. anyway his point is pretty clear to me, and yes i'm an american, and yes i've read the constitution, and so forth. nstead of worrying about the education of others you should try harder to understand what they have to say. i've been able to understand everything saki has said the first time he's said it while you've been rambling on in a sort of unrelated, undisciplined fashion full of patronizing bullshit. saki is saying that americans (ron paul supporters specifically) use the constitution is a sort of ultimate source for whether a change is a good change or a bad change. for instance you are likely to hear someone say "well that's unconstitutional" as a way of implying that the idea is not only a bad idea but an absurd one.

my response to you is going to be me using your own post in k2's blog
I'm just going to switch my name with yours and "your" to "my" and "there" to "here"



failsafe I've posted in my blog on "not yours to give." hopefully you'll read what I've said, and hopefully you'll understand enough of another person's perspective to understand that content of what I've said here.

You just pour out random clichés that have nothing to do with what I am trying to say so it just shows that you

A: either dont really understand me, or

B: You simply think what I am discussing is uninteresting or unconfortable so you keep stearing the discussion into a field where you feel more at home.

1. I ask about love for the constitution -> you ask if im against freedom.

2. I say falling back on the constitution can sometimes be flawed logic -> you say sometimes falling back on the constitution is necessary (DUH?)

3. I say the constiution has no moral authority-> you say it has legal authority over congressmen.

4. I say the main argument in the original text is that giving money to fire victims is unconstitutional and thus wrong -> You say I am wrong and instead say that based on the constitution it is wrong for Congress to give appropriations worth 20k to victims of a fire. WHAT? We just said the exact same thing and yet you keep insisting on me being wrong.



In the end I guess it isnt my shortcomings in the english language that made all of this come to a halt, but rather you being completely oblivious when it comes to logic.

ToTehEastSide =/= communist

ToTehEastSide =/= ron paul hater

ToTehEastSide =/= smart

ToTehEastSide =/= makes a compelling argument

ToTehEastSide = arrogant anoying redneck


I hope this gives you a clue on what =/= means. Next time dont argue for 2 pages before you admit you dont know what something means ok? Might save you some time in the future.


Oh btw, I dont hate freedom, but I dont unconditionally love it either. I like freedom for the good consequenses that bringing it about presents the world with. I do think that from a theoretical standpoint(hang on here, I know this isnt your strong suite) there could be situations where freedom can be sacreficed to eachieve other, greater things.

Just something to think about, you shouldnt be quick to be offended and to go on the turbo defensive when someone questions the american way of life or w/e. After all, USA are running around the world killing people who disagree with it, with that much at stake you should atleast allow us to question for what these ppl are getting killed.

This is the last thing I write to you as it has become clear to me that you have no desire to argue and you prefer to attack people/preach instead. Ill leave you with a quote that I think is pretty fitting.


"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell"


Bye

BOOM, HEADSHOT

On April 06 2009 05:53 ToTehEastSide wrote: ya seriously this is as far as I can get atm Show nested quote + On April 04 2009 12:27 failsafe wrote: what the hell is wrong with you? no one is gonna wanna talk to you when you add a patronizing "LOL" after every post. saki is at least civil. anyway his point is pretty clear to me, and yes i'm an american, and yes i've read the constitution, and so forth. nstead of worrying about the education of others you should try harder to understand what they have to say. i've been able to understand everything saki has said the first time he's said it while you've been rambling on in a sort of unrelated, undisciplined fashion full of patronizing bullshit. saki is saying that americans (ron paul supporters specifically) use the constitution is a sort of ultimate source for whether a change is a good change or a bad change. for instance you are likely to hear someone say "well that's unconstitutional" as a way of implying that the idea is not only a bad idea but an absurd one. my response to you is going to be me using your own post in k2's blog I'm just going to switch my name with yours and "your" to "my" and "there" to "here" failsafe I've posted in my blog on "not yours to give." hopefully you'll read what I've said, and hopefully you'll understand enough of another person's perspective to understand that content of what I've said here.

anyway, saki's perspective is another person's perspective as it is not my perspective. the only irony is that you're too stupid to realize this

On April 06 2009 05:48 ToTehEastSide wrote: "Oh, looks like failsafe understood what I mean perfectly." I won't be impressed until he can explain to you perfectly what I mean. Now I will read and retort to failsafe who in skimming just looked like a henchman trying to do your will to gain your love and approval and god how he made me laugh. (I didn't even get halfway in reading his post before skipping it)

your "arguments" can't be understood as arguments because you're speaking a different language than anyone else. it's not that there are obvious logical problems in what you have to say, it's that we can't even evaluate the logical content of what you have to say because we have no idea what the fuck you mean. unfortunately, even if we wanted to understand your retardese we'd have no means of learning as whatever content floats around in your head is probably not the content in the minds of intelligent people. a funny consequence is that while everyone thinks you're confused, you think we're confused. (and being a self-righteous bitch you're unwilling to consider the possibility that everyone legitimately disagrees with you)

also, stop whining about getting gangbanged. everyone legitimately thinks you're a retard. this isn't some kind of LP.net conspiracy to gang up on the ron paul supporter. if we're intellectually honest with ourselves we can't just agree with you in order to be nice - and of course you're acting like a tool so there's no real appeal to being nice to you anyway. let me reiterate, it is possible that everyone reached the conclusion that you're an idiot, and that everyone did so independently. also that is not only possible, it's what happened. everyone read what you had to say, and thought "well what a dumb shit."

as for the english-retardese communication barrier, it's probably all but insurmountable, and i've got no desire to talk to retards, so i'll probably ignore you from now until you learn english.

On April 06 2009 17:45 failsafe wrote: Show nested quote + On April 06 2009 05:48 ToTehEastSide wrote: "Oh, looks like failsafe understood what I mean perfectly." I won't be impressed until he can explain to you perfectly what I mean. Now I will read and retort to failsafe who in skimming just looked like a henchman trying to do your will to gain your love and approval and god how he made me laugh. (I didn't even get halfway in reading his post before skipping it) your "arguments" can't be understood as arguments because you're speaking a different language than anyone else. it's not that there are obvious logical problems in what you have to say, it's that we can't even evaluate the logical content of what you have to say because we have no idea what the fuck you mean. unfortunately, even if we wanted to understand your retardese we'd have no means of learning as whatever content floats around in your head is probably not the content in the minds of intelligent people. a funny consequence is that while everyone thinks you're confused, you think we're confused. (and being a self-righteous bitch you're unwilling to consider the possibility that everyone legitimately disagrees with you) also, stop whining about getting gangbanged. everyone legitimately thinks you're a retard. this isn't some kind of LP.net conspiracy to gang up on the ron paul supporter. if we're intellectually honest with ourselves we can't just agree with you in order to be nice - and of course you're acting like a tool so there's no real appeal to being nice to you anyway. let me reiterate, it is possible that everyone reached the conclusion that you're an idiot, and that everyone did so independently. also that is not only possible, it's what happened. everyone read what you had to say, and thought "well what a dumb shit." as for the english-retardese communication barrier, it's probably all but insurmountable, and i've got no desire to talk to retards, so i'll probably ignore you from now until you learn english.

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Failsafe always manages to put into words things I was thinking but would only write in a poor, boring way. God that was so hilarious. But also so true.

eastside, just open your mind for 1 second and think that maybe everyone is against you because it's extremely obvious to all of us that you're completely wrong, full of shit, or retarded. If you check my blog you'll see that failsafe totally disagrees with me about Obama lots of times, but we're still friends and respect each other. Because he's not a moron.

It's like you're running around screaming that the sky is purple and the rest of us are looking up and saying "nope, that's blue" and you think it's some sorta coordinated assault against you. I'm happy for you because you found a leader you believe in. Now you can stop quadruple posting it down all of our throats, especially cause I think that you're falling into the category of Ron Paul supporter that Ron Paul would quickly say "he supports me but I don't support him" about.

now why would I waste anymore time here in trying to explain to people that show so obviously their opinions and assumptions are 110% correct

tho Saki did get a great win in getting public opinion against me (tho how hard could that really be? nice job) in actuality, the levels on you
I will give ya one last clue to how it really went; tho I doubt it will do anything but I don't wanna say I didn't try

On April 03 2009 06:55 ToTehEastSide wrote: lol what was ur point? that I love the Constitution more than the Bible? why the hell would I waste my time in something so dumb

I could continue but it's pretty much similar to this point now

oh and I gotta admit that my translating =/= into the same as is right up there in top2 of the gold found in this thread lol

even if against all assumptions I did say something as soon as I realized it, it's still hilarious