I am convinced.

Myrkul, that got me right in the feels.  I know exactly what you mean, so I won't say anything else about that.

Please do realize, though:

Yes, there exist people who want violence inflicted on others for their beliefs ("'cos my community / God / politician X said so, or plain 'cos bitch was asking for it").  Yes, it's an evil.  It afflicts most people in society.  You just saw someone admitting to being like that, openly.  Yes, it's no less shocking today than it was the first time I asked the "against me" question.  Yes, there's no real response to a man who wants you murdered or caged for what you believe / for what you are.

But this, too, shall pass.

gyverlb (and many other evil people) will eventually die / be killed.  They will be replaced by people who are being raised better, in a less anti-social environment.  In sum, they will be replaced by non-sociopathic people.  The nature of moral progress is such that it doesn't get settled by political debate -- it gets settled by generations dying, taking their malevolent beliefs with them.

And, hey, you and I may not live to see that.  But our grandchildren most likely will.

Myrkul, you should seriously stop discussing the topic with gyverlb.  He's already decided that he's willing to support violence against you, and he openly stated it not two comments ago.  The "conversation" was over when he admitted to his true wishes, which have nothing to do with persuading anyone with reason.

How does it make any sense to reason with a person who wants to assault you / wants you to get assaulted?  It does not.  Do you seriously think facts will change his mind?  They won't.  How do you figure that reasoning works on a man who considers that "or else" is a valid argument to get you to do what he says?  It doesn't.

Why do you even try?  I'm struggling to understand that, because you clearly are a smart person.  You're trying to prove him wrong?  On the topic of weapong-making, you can't prove him wronger than he already proved himself by admitting "Yes, I want your integrity to be violated for making a weapon".

You don't grovel to snakes for your life.  You don't reason with snakes to avoid getting bitten.  It's futile -- snakes will bite you either way.  You just keep your eyes peeled for snakes, pointing them out as you see them, so others don't get bitten by them.

Edited to remove me asking the question again, because the question was indeed answered, which I noticed on a second closer reading of gyverlb's post.

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I love when my comments get confirmed minutes after I've made them.

Here we go.


Ah.

So gyverlb stated, quite openly, that he supports me being violently punished, if "his community" (whatever that is) decides to order me not to make weapons, and I (in accordance with my beliefs) make a weapon anyway.

gyverlb supports violence against me.  And quite a few of you.

That was all you and I needed to know that this person is my enemy (and your enemy too) who wants me and others dead, brutalized, caged, or ruined for acting in accordance with our beliefs.

---------------------------

You now bore witness to conclusive proof that this whole conversation, allegedly about "pros and cons of guns", is actually about the or else threat, which gyverlb quite openly wielded here -- "If I get my way, you will be violently punished, and I will support that".  Straight from the horse's mouth, doesn't get any clearer than that.

This goes exactly to what Stef said a few days ago -- "How many people recoil in horror when they realize that they participate in evil, and how many do they stare at you, smiling wryly, licking the blood off their fingers?"

Remember how I said political conversations are mostly about using filler to hide the or else substance?  Yeah, I think I called it, only a few minutes ago.  Well, gyverlb just proved my point.  The rest in his very lengthy wall-of-text reply was but mealy-mouthed rationalizations.  Excuses to make his already-made decision (to use / support violence against me and others) sound less evil than it really is. the standard "bitch was asking for it" / "you didn't pay your protection money" / "we gave you an order" boilerplate that malevolent people tack onto their evil choices, to later say that their aggression against you was "your own damn fault".  Excuses as old as the roads themselves.

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Needless to say, gyverlb is now on my ignore list.  I prefer not to read what sociopaths write in my spare time.  I suggest you all do the same, but I guarantee you I won't use violence against you if you don't.

"The victim is to blame" is what evil people (rapists, murderers, supporters of murderous democide, supporters of organized thieves) tell themselves, so they don't feel like the shitheads they really are.

Instead of trying to persuade evil people -- like your interlocutor -- to realize that they are evil, I actually prefer to spend my time analyzing what sorts of mental / physical / sexual abuse lead people to become evil in that way.

Think about it: a person must be have been subject to a years-long, very prolonged and intense campaign of abuse-originated stress, to conclude that innocent children who got bombed "got what they deserve".  How many times was he beaten / yelled / punished / suppressed, and then told that his victimization was "his own damn fault"?  Probably quite a few times, enough so that his frontal neocortex was utterly ruined, now malfunctioning in this spectacularly catastrophic way.

Really, you're witnessing an extraordinary case of Stockholm Syndrome, dialed all the way up to 11.  Not unlike a squashed bug, his dysfunctional brain is hobbling him through his life, and you get to study this psychotic malfunction up close, even interact with it.  You get to learn exactly what mechanisms he uses to deny and distort reality, what things he says (ostensibly to you, but really to himself) in order to actively suppress his own conscious mental processing of facts.

Take the example of him telling you that "firebombed children deserved it, and you can't say otherwise, because there's no way you could possibly know everything".  Think about it: if you stabbed him in the eye, and you then told him "it's your fault" and "don't argue with me because you don't know everything", he will likely yell that you're crazy...  but he has no problem with himself making this very same irrational "argument" to excuse / apologize / minimize much, much worse evils.  What do we call this behavior of his?  Is this a symptom of a spectacular case of localized schizophrenia?

Of course, the problem is that lots and lots of people actually do behave in exactly this mentally disturbed way (didn't, like, 20% of people just vote to re-empower the murderer who orders firebombing of children?).  That's why this is a social problem that warrants study.  As long as millions and millions of potentially dangerous (but rather cowardly) brain-damaged political schizophrenics chip in with their implicit or explicit support for empowering mass murderers, this will continue to be a problem of enormous social significance.

Of course, I can't have pity for an anti-social monster who says that bombed children "got what they deserve", but I can try to understand the source of that monstrosity.  Explaining is not condoning.

Have you all noticed how political conversations sound a lot like "pros and cons of X"?  On the surface, all these conversations pose as exchanges between people of the form "<conclusion>, because <premises>".

Ahhh... If only that was true.

The reality is that "X is true", "X is false", "the pros and cons of X", all of that, is merely filler; "X" (the putative object of the conversation) is only a thick smokescreen to hide the unstated reality of the conversation.

In any political conversation, the issue is never about who's right about X.  It's about who gets punished for believing X and acting upon said belief.  Two or more groups vying to impose their beliefs on others, with the "winning" group exercising violence against the "losers" who resist.  The "reasons" often given to "persuade" the losers matter not, because the ultimate goal of the conversation is really "or else".  It doesn't matter how right you are, when someone is holding a gun to your temple.

Now you know why tempers flare hot whenever a political conversation happens.  Now you know why exchanging facts in a political conversation rarely, if ever, causes people to change their positions.  Now you know why you hate political conversations.  Now you know why political conversations accomplish absolutely nothing, other than endorsement of the malevolent dogma that using organized violence to get one's way is acceptable.

Want to defuse a political conversation?  Stop falling for the "pros and cons" nonsense.  Start pointing out the gun in the room.

Your superstitions aren't very convincing, because observable reality kind of smashes them.

I am now convinced that you can't actually think very well -- preferring to believe false stuff that comforts you -- so I won't be interacting with you anymore.  Welcome to my ignore list.  I hope you enjoy your stay.

FYI: foggyb is on my ignore list for fogging and irrational behavior, so I can't read his nonsense.

Wow.  I don't know how you could possibly interpret the video in that way.  But I'm pretty sure that's not correct.

Ohhh!  OK, let's "against me" this question real quick.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but you clearly don't believe in making weapons.  You don't want to make them, you don't see a use for a weapon in your hands, you feel like you do not need a weapon.

Well, this might be a shocker, but I actually fully support that preference of yours and I believe you should have the right to hold that preference.

Of course, supporting your preference means supporting you acting consistently with it.  It'd be irrational of me to say "Yeah, I support your belief, but you aren't allowed to act upon your belief", as irrational as saying "You can have any color Model T, as long as it's black", or "You may believe in any God you want, but you must pray to MY God, or else".

That means I wouldn't dream of using threats or physical violence -- caging, brutalizing, ruining, killing -- against you to force you to make guns, and I wouldn't support anyone using violence to force you to make guns either.

OK, are you still with me?  You are.  Good.  Great!

Now, I, on the other hand, believe that making a weapon is very practical and useful.  I believe that I can protect myself using weapons I made myself.  I like the idea and I'd like to make a weapon too.  That is my preference.

Do you afford me the same courtesy and consideration to me, my preference, and my desire to act upon it?  Do you respect me equally?  Do you reject the use of punishment (threats, violence) against me for acting consistent with my beliefs?

Or do you advocate violent punishment against me?

That is a serious yes/no question.  I expect your answer shortly.

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If everyone handled "X should be legal / illegal" discussions as outlined above, the sociopaths in society would be very quickly unmasked for what they are: blood-thirsty and violent people who want to punish anyone who thinks for himself.

OH, THE HORROR!  ANYTHING BUT THAT!

:-D

'Government' can't keep weapons or drugs out of the cages they built, what makes you think they can keep them out of the free-range pen where they farm you?

Schools  = prisons.

'Gun free zone' = invitation for mass murderers to succeed. Worked for Stalin, worked for the Columbine sociopaths. I wonder why that fat fuck who made that movie did not notice (ostrichism?).

Those are SA goons, and the person responding to the goons didn't know how to handle that (should have erased the defamatory content with the false/unsubstantiated child rape allegations).

I checked that other thread.  You vomited quite a lot of woo woo on that thread!

Yes.  Unfortunately, with the statist tendency to centralize businesses, it's very easy to ruin businesses nowadays by threatening their owners and employees with a cage.  Decentralization will, hopefully, increase the difficulty for such criminal actions by people posing as "the State".  This is, after all, why these criminals haven't been able to stamp out the competition that they claim to be at war with ("the drug cartels" is the cultural designation).

FYI: I have blatherblatherblather on ignore.

The rest of you -- that is, smart people, not idiots and sociopaths -- wise up and help by bringing both well-reasoned arguments (which won't matter at this stage, but will be highly valuable later in the process) and motions to fully-protect the page with the well-sourced content that saboteurs have been vandalizing.