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  • Posted by $ allosaur 1 year, 1 month ago
    First thing that popped into me dino's head is that the cartels could get anti-tank rocket launchers with a simple overseas phone call. Wouldn't be surprised if such a call stays in Mexico.
    Some Muslim country or terrorist organization (one in the same?) would just love to see cartel criminals take out American tanks and say, "Don't look at us. We didn't do it."
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    • Posted by $ blarman 1 year, 1 month ago
      True, but they'd also have to get in range to use them. And a tank has much longer range than personnel-based anti-tank weapons. Even that .50 cal on the turret can "reach out and touch someone" at nearly a mile...

      Of course that all depends on the rules of engagement as well... :S
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  • Posted by $ 1 year, 1 month ago
    I cried a bucket of tears and prayed to God I never would see such a thing again. N
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    • Posted by mshupe 1 year, 1 month ago
      And the prayers had what effect again?
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      • Posted by mhubb 1 year, 1 month ago
        3 answers to a Pray

        Yes
        No
        I have a different Plan

        no go away child, let the adults talk
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        • -1
          Posted by mshupe 1 year, 1 month ago
          To pray is to deny the Law of Identity, and its corollary, the Law of Causality. To you, Aristotle, Mark Twain, Ayn Rand, and Leornard Peikoff are childlike. To defend the integrity of the John Galt name and the purpose of the original Gulch, it is necessary to identify you as a scab whose cause is as primitive as any protest mob.
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          • Posted by $ blarman 1 year, 1 month ago
            Not sure how prayer "denies" the Law of Identity in the slightest. The Law of Identity simply says that something has to be equivalent to itself or "it is what it is." A = A.

            Similarly, I have no idea where you get the idea that the existence of God would somehow violate the Law of Causality, which is simply that action => reaction.

            I know that Rand took a fairly jaundiced view of organized religion such as the Roman Catholic Church or Russian Orthodox Church. I can understand that because the Russian Orthodox Church was a political organization probably more than a spiritual one and the same for the Roman Catholic Church. But I don't try to use the frailties of mankind as an excuse to eliminate possibilities.
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            • Posted by mshupe 1 year, 1 month ago
              Thanks for asking. The Law of Identity says that everything that exists has attributes that define it. For anything to exist, it must exist. It must have identifiable attributes. Existence is primary, existents retain their properties regardless of anyone's awareness or opinion. By definition, God is supernatural, of another dimension, exckusive of existence. As such, God is a purely mental construct, meaning subjective, a primacy of consciousness phenomenon. A is A and God are mutually exclusive. The Law of Causality is the Law of Identity in action. Prayer denies existence and causality associated with it. To be kind, prayer is delusional. To say that you have no idea how I came up with my comment is borderline insane.
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              • Posted by $ blarman 1 year, 1 month ago
                You've invented for yourself a definition of a god that is self-contradictory and thus fulfills your contrived conditions. It's the quintessential straw man argument.

                Plato in The Republic denounced the notion of the pantheon of Greek gods due to their capricious nature, arguing that because of the power attributed to such that the arbitrary and seemingly-reckless actions attributed to the gods would have caused their own destruction and therefore didn't fit logically. What was interesting, however, was that instead of positing atheism or a lack of any supreme being, he instead argued in favor of monotheism.

                "By definition, God is supernatural, of another dimension, exckusive of existence." (sic)

                More accurately, God - since he is the author of the universe - is possessed of intelligence and power so extraordinary that it is beyond our comprehension at this time. Nothing can exist "outside" of existence by definition - if something exists it is part of existence and vice versa. Supernatural is a misleading word because its original meaning denotes merely something above the ordinary or beyond common understanding. Many have instead taken it to an unwarranted extreme and equated it to mean "impossible."

                Up until little more than a century ago man had no idea about the atom. Bohr's theory was revolutionary. A century ago Einstein posited his theory of relativity and gave us tools to further measure the universe. We're still learning. To pronounce the knowledge of humanity complete enough to evict from possibility a higher power such as God is an act of sheer hubris.

                "Prayer denies existence and causality associated with it."

                Such a statement again is wholly dependent on constructing for yourself an invalid definition of god in the first place. There is a reason the Judeo-Christian ethos defines God as the Father of all mankind because it quantifies and identifies His relationship to us. Prayers can be wide and varied, but a prayer to ask for assistance beyond what one could perform himself/herself is an acknowledgement of personal limitation and an appeal for divine attention/intervention. If God acts to intervene in such a case, it would be at the behest of and incidentally attributed to that prayer, would it not? Cause = prayer -> effect = intervention. Seems pretty causal to me...

                "To be kind, prayer is delusional."

                Only if you know not to whom you pray.

                "To say that you have no idea how I came up with my comment is borderline insane."

                Your entire premise relies upon a straw man argument. If one starts with invalid assumptions one will come to invalid conclusions, don't you agree?
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                • Posted by mshupe 1 year, 1 month ago
                  Your ignorance seems to magnify itself as you become surer of yourself. The Judeo-Christian notion of God has no resemblance to Greek gods. If you refuse to inform yourself of the precepts of Objectivism, what are you doing here? For what it's worth, Jordan Peterson described your pathology quite accurately in an interview I listened to a few days ago, but I'm sure you'll come up with a lengthy and worthless analysis of Peterson too.
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                  • Posted by $ blarman 1 year, 1 month ago
                    "Your ignorance seems to magnify itself as you become surer of yourself."

                    When you start off with ad hominem and then go right to straw man, it doesn't really impress this State-certified debate judge. I mean you didn't even state your paradigm. Sheesh ;)

                    "...has no resemblance to Greek gods."

                    You were the one who appealed to Aristotle, intimating some appeal to authority. I countered with Plato - Aristotle's mentor. (Neither was Socrates an atheist. The sin they executed him for was none other than asserting a monotheistic alternative to their polytheistic belief system.)

                    "If you refuse to inform yourself of the precepts of Objectivism..."

                    Hehe. You might want to check my profile.

                    I've read Piekoff and - like Rand - found them both to be about 80% agreeable. I think Rand would have done better to adopt agnosticism and leave the matter open-ended. I'm not an Objectivist zealot. Shrugs. (hehe. Get my little joke there?)

                    "Jordan Peterson described your pathology quite accurately"

                    I like Peterson (in general) and I listened to that conversation (among others). What Peterson actually emphasized was that [the Bible] was a method of storytelling which emphasized the underlying morals. Peterson was quick to point out that the basic Judeo-Christian doctrines are sound however he might question the historical accuracy of the records. Peterson avoided, however, the theist vs atheist debate in that dialogue.

                    "I'm sure you'll come up with a lengthy and worthless analysis of Peterson too."

                    So far, you haven't put up an argument which withstands even the briefest scrutiny. If all you've got is derision for me because we disagree, you inherently concede for lack of a cogent argument.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 1 year, 1 month ago
    A nasty solution like that might work once word gets out, but I have a problem with killing unarmed civilians. The US is spending a fortune on this problem and the way it's being handled it is getting worse. Maybe try this:

    1) Finish the wall to limit points of entry.
    2) Round up the perpetrators same as now and place them in temporary border camps same as now.
    3) Instead of spending the money on transporting them to within the 48 states and all the other expenses, send them to another temporary holding facility at Guantanamo Bay.
    4) They are given the choice to go through a gate and emigrate to Cuba (if Cuba will take them) or after some time (10 days?) they are scheduled to be transported to their country of origin. Yes, costly, but not as costly as is going on now. I suspect attempts to jump the US border will slow to a trickle once word gets out a free ticket to Gitmo is waiting.
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  • -2
    Posted by mshupe 1 year, 1 month ago
    Who is we? Why halt immigration? When did the initiation of force become a rational action? How did centralized government power become so popular?
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    • Posted by mhubb 1 year, 1 month ago
      ???
      stopping invasions is one reason why the central government was created
      that whole Dec of Independence thing
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      • Posted by mshupe 1 year, 1 month ago
        Immigration is not invasion and invasion is not immigration. Tanks would do nothing to stop armed cartel thugs, violent criminals, or foreign agents. The Declaration has nothing to do with immigration. The role of the federal government, as specified in the Constitution is to protect rights within the borders of the US and Congress has the authority to legislate national border regulations. This post is riddled with arbitrary and uninformed comments. It would help to use accurate language, but that would require rational thought.
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        • Posted by $ 1 year, 1 month ago
          Well I can see you don't live on a ranch or farm near the Texas Border and are not stumbling over trash, and even dead bodies! Come on down for a visit! And if you think a tank can't stop a cartel load, you have got rocks in your head! I lived at Ft Hood for a period of time.
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          • -1
            Posted by mshupe 1 year, 1 month ago
            I can see you don't understand important concepts. To me, property rights are a primary element of a civilized culture and it is a primary role of government to protect property rights. I've said as much already in this thread. My criticism is the debasement of concepts (immigration vs. invasion) in this post and the arbitrary use of government force. To solve the mass immigration problem at the southern border, one must understand its cause. One of the big ones is the impossible bureaucracy of US Immigration and Naturalizatuon Dept and the web of complex and contradictory regulations.
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            • Posted by $ blarman 1 year, 1 month ago
              Not really. The problem is that our current administration is refusing to enforce the existing statutes and enabling these invaders (because they are not seeking legal immigration status) to come in.

              Mayorkas was questioned point blank by Ted Cruz and others about the publication of an app which allowed these invaders to skip right through the immigration process entirely and then disappear into America while they supposedly "wait" for their hearing. Even before this massive invasion the immigration judges' dockets were so drawn out it would take 2-3 years before a given case came before them. And the pretended "immigrants" are long gone before then and never show up.

              It's very easy to understand the "cause" and the cause is the Democrats. And it is NOT arbitrary use of government force to carry out the fundamental duty of protecting US citizens and their property from invasion but quite the opposite.

              Personally, I would fully support the use of National Guard and other forces along the border. They would first warn people attempting to cross ANYWHERE except a designated station, then shoot them. It seems harsh but at this point that's going to be the ONLY thing that re-establishes the rule of law there because the Mexicans are aiding and abetting the illegal behavior. That makes the Mexican government a supporter of invasion of the United States and justifies military action.
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              • Posted by j_IR1776wg 1 year, 1 month ago
                Seems that it would more humane for Biden to allow Trump's Wall to be finished.

                I don't know whether you served or not, but I never would have put down unarmed men, women, and children no matter who gave the order to fire.
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                • Posted by $ blarman 1 year, 1 month ago
                  Your choice. Personally, if they don't turn back after a warning shot, they are no longer innocent. If they refuse to come to this nation legally and lawfully, they are no longer innocent. It isn't whether or not they carry a weapon, but whether or not they respect the laws and the process.
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