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Great critiques of leftist ideology - Syne - Dec 14, 2024
Great logical and empirical critiques of many leftist arguments.
Among them:
- How the media pushing oppression is a feedback loop with sociological self-reported surveys, that the media then uses to lend authority/credence to an ideology invented out of whole cloth.
- How "gun violence" statistics intentionally blur the line between gun crimes and self-defense to end up with immoral conclusions, like it being better for an abused wife to be beaten to death rather than use an "evil" gun in self-defense.
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - confused2 - Dec 14, 2024
Firearm homicides in the US..
In 2022 19,651 died by firearm homicide
In addition, an average of more than 200 Americans visit the emergency department for non-fatal firearm injuries each day (200*365=73,000)
See https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/research-reports/firearm-violence-in-the-united-states
Firearm homicides in the UK (England and Wales only) average about 30 a year (2010-2023)
See https://www.statista.com/statistics/1402232/england-and-wales-firearm-homicides/
If concealed carry became legal in the UK the 30 homicides could be reduced to .. just post the number that you think proves your point.
Is it better for an abused wife to be beaten to death rather than use an "evil" gun in self-defense? I guess it's an American tradition for the wife to be given time out to fetch a gun during a beating .. very civilized .. not normal practice in the UK though that might change if guns were more readily available .. what killer wouldn't want to miss out on a chance to be shot?
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - Syne - Dec 14, 2024
You're doing the exact same deceptive/ignorant shit with statistics I just mentioned. "Firearm homicide" includes self-defense. Otherwise it would be "firearm murders." Homicide is when one person intentionally kills another, and guess what, you can't "accidentally" defend yourself. It was either self-defense or an accident. It can't be both.
You're just a moron if you believe domestic violence immediately leads to murder. Most abuse occurs over a long period of time, and only increases incrementally... even within the same occurrence. Since you're ignorant of most domestic violence, you ignorantly want to keep women defenseless from it.
At what point does your ignorance become willfully evil?
And you trying to compare a country the size of Europe to an island the size of a single state is ridiculous on its face.
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - confused2 - Dec 14, 2024
Syne Wrote:And you trying to compare a country the size of Europe to an island the size of a single state is ridiculous on its face.Sorry, I assumed most folks would know the population of the UK is about 1/5 of the US .. (actually 60/330=1/5.5) so roughly multiplying a number by five or six .. obviously not easy.
Adjusting the 30 firearm homicides in the UK for population this would suggest about 30*5.5=165 compared with 19,651 in the US. All homicides in the UK (about 600) .. 600*5.5= 3,300 compared with .. 20,958 firearm in the US (2021). After adjusting for population .. killing by firearm in the US is 7.8 times more popular than all methods in the UK. I get the impression US killers prefer to use firearms so other methods are 'negligeable' (?).
Source.. "In 2021, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (26,328), while 43% were murders* (20,958),.."
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
If you approached the problem from the pov that the genie is out of the bottle I might be more persuaded that you aren't just saying "Guns are good .. more guns are better" without regard to the consequences.
Syne Wrote:.. better for an abused wife to be beaten to death
From that I assumed you were thinking of a kill or be killed situation not, as you later clarify, the sort of relationship that can be improved by either threatening to shoot or actually shooting the abusive partner. My guess is that pointing a gun at an abusive partner would almost certainly result in a kill or be killed confrontation .. shooting the guy while he sleeps would be much safer.
* Estimates of homicide in self-defence vary widely .. one is 2.2% .. if two guys have guns and one kills the other .. obviously self-defence.
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - C C - Dec 14, 2024
MentisWave: "Rationalist, right-leaning libertarian." ... Mainstream critics: "He's just another YouTube cringelord."
VIDEO EXCERPTS (maybe circa the 40-minute mark): . . . A better way to word it, is what has become more popularized within the left as of late. This merging of what you might call a Marxist interpretation of the problems in the world, combined with Marxist solutions -- we can call that radical egalitarianism combined with more of a postmodernist and deconstructionist philosophy.
And the reason why I think that is so critical and necessary to understand, is because if I've got a communist over here, and I've got a free market -- you know, Austrian school economist on this side -- and they both agree that the laws of logic apply... Well, then they can actually look at observable reality and hopefully come to some agreement about what works and what doesn't work, etc.
But if you apply a postmodernist approach, where now all of a sudden there's no such thing as objective truth -- then there's just your perspective, my perspective, and then you add on top of that critical theory -- which says that not only is there not objective truth, but the laws of logic are on some level a tool of the ruling or oppressor class.
[...] You've now created a world where your feet are planted firmly in midair, because now there is no mechanism to use to adjudicate differences, with respect to the data.
You have your perspective, I have my perspective, you have your data, I have my data, and we're going to come together, we're going to look all this utilizing these tools. But now what you've just said is, I don't want the tools anymore [because they're a product of the privileged oppressors]. Like, how do we peacefully adjudicate anything, then?
[...] The issue with radical postmodernism is that it's effectively just presuppositional apologetics for secular people. [...] That's why you laugh, because you know what I'm talking about.
It's effectively just circular logic in your favor. It's an attempt to logically destroy the idea of logic, but the problem is that by doing that you've admitted that you're wrong because you can't use logic to defeat logic. Because, by your accepting that logic is valid, in order to do that. With presuppositional apologetics-- I have nothing against the religious right -- I think they have a lot of good ideas, but I don't like it when people only give religious arguments in favor of ideas.
And that's actually why we need a more intellectual right-wing. That's one of the reasons why a lot of people laugh at the conservative concepts, is because the right kind of got hijacked by these type arguments. Instead of stating we should do _X_ because of time preferences, and these reasons, and this actual data -- that kind of got replaced by 'we should do _X_ because God says so'.
What people don't understand is that that's actually a bad argument. Even if it's true that God exists and God is telling you that you should do _X_, the problem is it's just not very convincing. It's not actually a good argument, it's really just an appeal to authority. It doesn't actually explain why it is true, and in presuppositional apologetics they're just justifying circular reasoning to use that kind of reasoning.
[...] I'm really glad you're saying this, because you're getting on to my next point. That not only is radical postmodernism effectively just presuppositional apologetics for secular people, it's actually worse. Because presuppositional apologetics at least tries to foot itself in the door. Saying, okay we can't use reason, but our God can. We get our source of reason from God.
But in the case of postmodernism and radical postmodernism, they get their source of reasoning from nowhere. So the religious argument of presuppositional apologetics at least has some kind of basis up high in the sky, whereas radical postmodernism has no basis whatsoever.
It completely is self-defeating -- they're [roundaboutly] admitting that they're wrong, but they're admitting that they're wrong in a way that's thousands and thousands of pages of word salad. You only realize why they're wrong when you take the whole thing in one gulp, and you realize -- wait a minute, this is just one big massive contradiction [using logic to dismiss logic]...
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - confused2 - Dec 14, 2024
Rhetoric..
the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.
As I understand it.. in competitive debates the participants are given a topic and instructed to be either for or against it. Sometimes it seems like the strategies that might be used to win a school debating competition have spilled over into the real world and nobody seems to have noticed.
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - Syne - Dec 14, 2024
^^IOW, C2 has no counter-arguments. Or can't even be bothered to try.
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - Syne - Dec 14, 2024
(Dec 14, 2024 06:50 PM)confused2 Wrote:You're just continuing to play games with statistics, without regard for what those statistics actually represent in the real world (e.g. political, geographical, population density, etc. differences).Syne Wrote:And you trying to compare a country the size of Europe to an island the size of a single state is ridiculous on its face.Sorry, I assumed most folks would know the population of the UK is about 1/5 of the US .. (actually 60/330=1/5.5) so roughly multiplying a number by five or six .. obviously not easy.
Quote:Still demonstrating your utter ignorance. Legally, shooting someone in their sleep is first degree murder, not self-defense.Syne Wrote:.. better for an abused wife to be beaten to death
From that I assumed you were thinking of a kill or be killed situation not, as you later clarify, the sort of relationship that can be improved by either threatening to shoot or actually shooting the abusive partner. My guess is that pointing a gun at an abusive partner would almost certainly result in a kill or be killed confrontation .. shooting the guy while he sleeps would be much safer.
* Estimates of homicide in self-defence vary widely .. one is 2.2% .. if two guys have guns and one kills the other .. obviously self-defence.
Two guys using guns can be during the commission of crimes by both parties, like gang and organized crime activities. Again, using a firearm during the commission of a crime is not self-defense.
*Merely showing a firearm can be enough and these are rarely, if ever, reported. Many democrat-run states have strict laws against brandishing a weapon, where self-defenders are often prosecuted at great personal legal expense.
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - confused2 - Dec 15, 2024
From 8:05 .. I'm looking at the transcript
Rhetoricist Wrote:..a young college age liberal might think oh yeah man end world hunger
What he imaginery liberal should be saying is "This should be on our 'to do' list".
BUT. This is really an excuse to launch into rhetoric
Rhetoricist Wrote:Communist dictatorships of the past what did the state always end up doing in those communist regimes well they all had goolag they all had forced labor camps it's all the same thing and when they say food should be a human right they don't realize that they're saying something that results in that.
In the real world items on a 'to do' list are given a priority .. some (most?) never get done - the intent of our imaginary liberal was to get it added to the list, the intent of our Rhetoricist was .. well .. something else.
RE: Great critiques of leftist ideology - Syne - Dec 15, 2024
Morons will always misunderstand arguments or simply arm-wave them off as rhetoric. They don't have the capacity to actually engage in the argument in any substantive way.
The entire context is one of leftist ideologies and methods (e.g. socialism, communism, Marxism, etc.). In this context, mutually consensual solutions, like free market capitalism, are not considered valid. That only leaves demand-side economics, where the only lever is government manipulation/coercion. If someone were intellectually honest enough to steel-man the argument, they wouldn't be cherry-picking the most extreme consequence as a reason to dismiss the entire argument.