No worries. Just confused! Didn't want anyone to feel bad or angry or anything lol

...who said you were supposed to be outraged...?

But I'm not just technically correct. All this anger and vitriol spewed here at me hasn't proved that there is any noteworthy proportion of the GOP who wants these extremes. Hence why they're called extremists. If y'all are going to blanket label the other party anything without truly paying attention, while shoving so much hate into their arguments where it just isn't, then I can't help you folks. Clearly, the reactionary and immature "everyone is Nazis" is going to win out with the Reddit crowd, and no matter how many times I ask for proof of the allegations, none is provided, only "you should know," and, "You're just blind/ignorant," etc. If the Right wing failed to provide evidence as much as the Left in this post, they'd be crucified by the Left. Someone tried to show me 1 article about DuPont being evil and man was it a long read, but all it showed is that Dupont is a big, rich scummy lobbying company. When I tried to analyze the article, no one wants to play ball because they can't have their positions challenged when the almighty Reddit up-vote count is egging them on.

When you say "the political party" is doing something that seems to imply an official party position or support from a significant proportion of the party.

Can you prove either of those things regarding these grooming laws?

If you have nothing to reply with except ad hom attacks, just save your time and effort.

Yes, I did write the above and I stand by it, but you have to take into consideration the entire block, not just cherry pick which parts you'd like to reply to.

In that entire reply, I was making several points that add up to my overall argument:

1. Democrat-run legislatures are trying everything they can to avoid simple compliance with the SCOTUS Bruen decision.

2. Gun owners see increasing regulatory hoops to jump through in acquiring firearms legally whilst criminals continue to ignore the laws to acquire their illegal weaponry... illegally.

3. The Constitution deals with "the right of the People to keep and bear arms." You can argue about to whom the right is granted if you don't like the Heller decision. But it does explicitly refer to a "right" and it grants it by saying "it shall not be infringed" (logically, it has to have been granted and exist as a right if it can be protected from infringement, right?).

4. a) There is no explicit mention of a "right" to abortion in the document, and so if that right does exist, it exists within something else that is explicit - i.e. the right to abortion exists in the penumbra, as SCOTUS has said. b) When gun owners are seeing their explicit right being infringed while Democrats demand their non-explicit right be upheld, it makes them feel just as angry as when women feel their rights are being infringed.

"And"

5. a) There really isn't a single time in history a government was taking gun rights from their people and the government turned out on the "right" side of history, for example b) King George was on the wrong side of history when, for example he started the American Revolution by sending troops to confiscate arms from the colonists.

AND SO.... all of that was to support my ORIGINAL argument, which is simply that the accusation of Nazi affiliation is being bandied about unnecessarily and ad nauseum. I was not attempting to boil down the entire revolution or even just the whole "taxation without representation" thing into my own gun rights argument. My bit at the end of that whole block about King George was merely one example to support the argument that governments restricting or taking firearms rights aren't ever "in the right," which itself was to support the larger argument at hand (about the over-use of "Nazi," to be perfectly clear. I'd hate to leave any bit of ambiguity for you to cling to.)

My communication skills have served me thus fine so far in life. I used to be a pre-law student. I was in my 7th undergrad semester before ditching the field for IT. I did crap tons of writing to get to that 7th semester, my friend, so if some guy on Reddit wants to critique my writing.... I have to critique your reading skills.

Also, "reasonable" doesn't mean you agree with it. You disagreeing with something doesn't make it unreasonable, irrational, illogical or anything at all. I'm sorry you've taken the position of disagreeing with me and yet not having anything to support your own position.

Okay, thank you for such a substantive reply. I see the errors of my thinking, and now I agree with everything you say. I have up-voted each of your comments to reflect that I have joined into the hive mind. Thank you for being so enlightening. ;)

Ohh my lord. I love when you guys take what I said word for word and act like it's in a vacuum, or even better put words in my mouth. I am not saying "the revolution boiled down to" a gun grab. My lord. I said the very specific battles of Lexington and Concord, the "shot heard round the world" and all that? Look up why the redcoats were marching on those towns. Did I say "the revolution?" I mentioned specific things. Please do not straw man me - where you make an argument that is easier for you to attack and "win" over. Thank you.

A straw man argument is one which you make up in order to attack it and "win" an easier battle. Yes, I do know, and I clearly demonstrated why the above is a straw man. You are pretending that these people hate something they never said they hate. You have put words in their mouths. You have created a straw man argument, which is that they hate minorities, so that you can see yourself as the victor. In fact, they do not hate minorities. You have created that position for them. Thus, the epitome of a straw man, but do go on. Tell me why that isn't a perfect example of such a logical fallacy.

I'm sorry you looked at a reasonable reply and decided to use an ad hom attack. That speaks boatloads about you. Please don't waste my time replying to me again.

They said, in reply to my statement about both the left and the right of the US political spectrum not really being "nazis":

>The people who hate immigrants, jews, brown people, and women are called nazis. They are a danger and a scourge. Just wait til they shoot out your local power station on a cold winter night.

Not sure what he's on about with the power station thing - perhaps I'm behind on current events - but let's look at the rest. Who "hates" those groups of people? Show me proof he isn't just making up a straw man. Show me proof that some noteworthy proportion of the "Right wing" or the GOP actually "hates" anyone. And not by your own subjective interpretation, I'm talking like I want to hear them saying who they hate and why - is it brown-skinned people because they're brown? Or are you just hearing about support for strong immigration policy and interpreting something you think is "hate"? Because otherwise, what they said is 100% straw man.

I appreciate the reasonable reply - it seems to be a diamond in the rough here.

Let's say, arguendo at least, I understand why "the Left" wants to label "the Right" (or at least some on the right) as fascists or Nazis. I try my best to understand the opposing argument as best I can before I dig in my heels on my own, and I can see at least some of what the Left feels is oppressive.

Can you try to cross the aisle and do the same for me? Here's some of what the Right is seeing, I think, when they say, as I've unfortunately heard, the Left are the New Nazis. There have been multiple pro-gun court rulings. There was the Heller decision and now the Bruen decision, both substantially supporting the individual right to keep and bear arms. Yet, despite the Bruen decision, has NY opened the way to legal concealed carry? Not as well as they'd have you believe. And other states have heavy restrictions on gun owners and gun ownership. Some cities have even more strict laws within their own confines. But while legal gun owners have continued to accept jumping through hoops to obtain legal firearms, criminals continue to ignore the ATF and obtain illegal weapons anyway. The Right essentially sees this as allowing criminals to be perpetually armed while restricting access to "law-abiding citizens." Meanwhile, we hear plenty about abortion and the "right" to abortion. There's no explicit grant of a right to obtain an abortion, yet I'd argue such an individual right falls to the People under the 10th Amendment. I believe Roe relied on the woman's 14th Amendment right to privacy.... itself a right that exists by interpretation of the court, not by explicit grant (remember that RBG herself didn't like Roe's reasoning, though I don't remember her specific grounds). All of this is to say, we argue all of this because there's no explicit grant of the right. But there is an explicit grant in the 2nd Amendment. And there really isn't a single time in history a government was taking gun rights from their people and the government turned out on the "right" side of history lol King George III had sent the redcoats to gather weapons, ammo and gunpowder from the colonists and that's how we got Lexington and Concord.

And guns are just the easiest example to thing of off the top of my head. I'll leave you with that for the moment. As far as disavowing, I've always sort of disagreed on how much a person is, themselves, incriminated by their failure to "disavow" someone else loudly enough to satisfy their opposition. FWIW, I think the smartest GOP have moved on from Trump, yet there's just enough of both sides still giving him attention to make it worth it for him.

Please show me any evidence you have of any noteworthy proportion of the GOP wanting to "kill" anyone? I'm interested in the heaps of evidence you must have. I will remain open-minded as I review whatever you choose to submit in support of what I can otherwise only conclude is a ridiculous straw man argument.

E: I love when people get to reply to me and don't have to remain open to any reply that might counter their position. Wow. But, in reply to u/jesterwords:

Interesting, I see the scumbags in your article employed a rather familiar technique some in this thread may recognize: baselessly accusing your opposition of being a Nazi. ;)

I read that article. It objectively paints a very damning picture of DuPont and many DuPont execs, but beyond that, the article's support for the argument, here, that the GOP wants to "kill" people (on the level of Nazis, who quite literally slaughtered millions of innocent people) is extremely weak. If you went to the effort of proving every legislator who fell for DuPont's lobbying was GOP, it still wouldn't make it reasonable to call the GOP Nazis or even say that they want to kill people. Falling for billions of dollars of industry lobbying happens to Democrats, too - and gun control is an incredibly easy example of that. And falling for lobbying and making policy based on lobbying is more of an argument against Capitalism as a system than it is an argument that the GOP wants to kill anyone.

Since Reddit likes to allow the BS replies but then blocks me from countering.... u/Patiod: I need proof that anyone, but especially any noteworthy proportion of the GOP, is in a "Save the children, literally kill Democrats" mentality. Otherwise I can't move forward in this discussion with you.

That's a lovely straw man you've made in order to argue against a simplistic generalization you've made in your head. Perhaps you're an intelligent person and your anger, coupled with encouragement from the up-votes of the Reddit hive mind, has simply prevented you from making a calm and reasonable argument. Try again! I'll wait.

I am happy about this ruling too, but calling the opposing party Nazis ad nauseum is kinda.... nauseating. Are they out slaughtering millions of innocent people? No. They're espousing political positions you disagree with. Here, they were arguing for something rather stupid - releasing voter personal information to some 3rd party. Still not genocide. Still not an attempt to topple the democratic governments of all of their geographic neighbors.

And they think the left is the Nazis. They look at how one right which is explicit in the Constitution can be broadly infringed by Democrat-led attacks while the Democrats demand recognition for a right which is not explicit in the document but exists in the penumbra.

So can we please temper the "Everyone but us is literally Hitler" nonsensical reaction crap?

Well, fuck. My second thought was going to be cost concerns. Guess I should've gone with that lol I just don't know which came first, chicken or egg.

I wonder if the use of lead died out due to environmental effects.

I think I will, and then I'mma buy even more stock in Kleenex. Does that sound like a reasonable plan to you?

Good for you, Olenna! Thanks for playing!

I mean, if, from your perspective, this particular example seems like a "particularly egregious and disgusting instance of the practice," can you understand that your political opposition has looked at other examples (I won't try to name a specific because then we risk getting into a pissing contest over which one is really worse from whose perspective, and I'm just talking about the concept here) and felt that some examples of the Democrat Party doing it were equally "egregious and disgusting instance[s] of the practice" from their perspective?

I think my point is ultimately about perspective. When Reddit is lighting torches and waving pitchforks about the GOP doing some ridiculous shit, some example can generally be readily provided of the other side doing ridiculous shit. But Reddit dismisses that viewpoint because they see it as something ridiculous, rather than as the viewpoint of another person.

Okay, kiddo. Well, I'm blocking you, because you're obviously not here in good faith lol I at least did you the courtesy of reading your BS and formulating an substantive reply to it. But you obviously have better things to do, so hopefully by blocking you, you'll not be distracted from those things.

>but you have to accept big-people words - I'm not in your safe zone!

What I meant by "accept big-people words" is to be able to have a conversation that might well involve a phrase such as, "Holy fuck that's dumb," so long as it's not just that but is followed with some logic and reasoning to support why the person saying that feels that way. Specifically, I meant not reacting exactly like you are to words. If you think I'm a troll based on the multiple substantive replies I've made now, I'm sorry you're incapable of being an adult.

If you want to dump the BS and have a real conversation, hit me up, but otherwise, I'm just glad I made you so angry you pissed away.... what... 5-10 seconds of your day ranting about Trumpists on my post lmao

I appreciate how rational your reply is; thank you for that.

The very fact that other people have those different stances on many issues is exactly why I came here in hopes of a discussion in the first place. I'm being told, pretty firmly on this post, that I'm the bad guy, but this started when I replied to a political post trying to make a point that both sides do silly shit. I absolutely do not want to re-hash those issues with you in this particular discussion, but suffice to point out that political post quite obviously leaned politically left - most "politically right" folks don't refer to people as "Pennsyltuckians" right? - and got a lot of positive feedback. Lots of support in the form of upvotes and comments generally bashing the MAGA dude for his bumper sticker. Many very original cracks about pretending the guy was buying not selling. So, I go on that post and make a comment suggesting some moderation (I pointed out that both sides can be shown to see the other as doing absolutely asinine things), and I get lots of quite obvious negative feedback, right away. Which is fine - I don't mind the downvotes, you know, it's Reddit. I think this post and my replies on it are proof positive I'm not here for the karma. But why wasn't anyone willing to reply and have a conversation with me? Perhaps they assumed that I would not change my views, yet they proved first that they would not change theirs by not even engaging in a discussion.

And you know what? I admit I am not an expert on all subjects, either, nor did I ever claim to be. But for things on which I am not an expert, I must form a reasonable viewpoint. I must attempt an understanding, at some level, such that I can make a decision. I am not an expert on CO2 emissions, yet I can understand what I have read about global warming, and I understand that clear facts indicate we have accelerated global warming with our human emissions. But you muddy the waters when you suggest that "while [you or I] may have opinions and reasons for certain views, they may not be correct..." Ah, but what is an opinion...? Can an opinion be "correct," as a fact can be? I guess I'm not sure I follow you in the transition from an opinion to a determination of "correctness."

No, I absolutely do not have the answers to everything. That's what I love about discussion. I was in the Navy quite a few years back now. One of the things I miss the most about my time in the military was how, no matter where I was.... if I was on shore at my home command, in the office, or if I was underway on a ship I was not a part of the main crew but merely a guest rider... it didn't matter where I was.... even members of other branches (I worked in one work center with Coasties, Airmen (both US and Canadian), Soldiers, and Marines).... we could always have discussions about shit. Sometimes you would hit someone with a bad temper (myself included), sometimes you'd hit someone who liked to drop F-bombs more than the rest of us combined..... But we could talk politics and philosophy and shit. And you know what I know you're already typing your reply, "This isn't the Navy dumbass!" And you're right. But, as I have said several times now, I didn't go out on the street and start begging random people to talk to me. I went to a political post on a subreddit dedicated to my state on a public forum website. I hoped for discussion and I got shut down by the echo chamber, up until I made this post, anyway lol

...

I made a post attempting to pick a fight...... politics are "inevitably going to creep into most discussions...." okay...... "but that's no reason to start that horse shit right out of the gate." My brother in Christ, this started because of comments on a post someone else made first that was entitled with the word "Pennsyltuckian" with a bumper sticker about vaccinations. And you're accusing me of coming out of the starting gate with political horse shit? I just don't want to straw man you before I say how absolutely asinine that position would be.