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Thread: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

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    Default Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-bid...-opinion-poll/

    54% of those polled think "other people in America are the biggest threat to America's way of life".

    63% of Trump voters have an unfavorable view of Biden voters.
    79% of Biden voters have an unfavorable view of Trump voters.

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    The Boot Is Coming Down Hard And Fast

    Excerpt:

    Biden has announced plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot.
    “Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them,” Wall Street Journal reports.

    Did you know that Biden has often boasted about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?

    The first draft of the civil rights-eroding USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks. Legislators later admitted that they hadn’t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.

    This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following back in 2008:
    “Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of ‘terrorism’ that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode ‘constitutional and statutory due process protections’ and would ‘authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.’

    Biden’s bill was never put to a vote, but after 9/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.
    “Civil libertarians were opposed to it,” Biden said in 2002 of his bill. “Right after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, ‘Joe, I’m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.’”

    A recent Morning Joe appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America’s borders.

    “The post 9/11 era is over,” Slotkin tweeted while sharing a clip of her appearance. “The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.”

    “Before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,” tweeted journalist Whitney Webb in response. “What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the ‘War on [foreign] terror’ to the ‘War on domestic terror’.”

    In response to pressures from all directions including its own staff, Twitter has followed Facebook’s lead and removed Donald Trump’s account.

    And it wasn’t just Trump. Accounts are vanishing quickly, including some popular Trump supporter accounts. I myself have lost hundreds of followers on Twitter in the last few hours, and I’ve seen people saying they lost a lot more.

    It also wasn’t just Trump supporters; leftist accounts are getting suspended too. The online left is hopefully learning that cheering for Twitter “banning fascists” irrationally assumes that (A) their purges are only banning fascists and (B) they are limiting their bans to your personal definition of fascists. There is no basis whatsoever for either of these assumptions.

    --snip--

    The correct response to a huge section of the citizenry doubting an electoral system we’ve known for years is garbage would have been more transparency, not shoving the process through and silencing people who voice doubts and making that entire faction more paranoid and crazy.
    Last edited by dneal; January 18th, 2021 at 07:48 PM. Reason: formatting

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    The Cold Civil War - Statecraft in a divided country. A 2017 piece from the Claremont Review of Books

    Excerpt:

    Well-nigh the entire ruling class—government bureaucracies, the judiciary, academia, media, associated client groups, Democratic officials, and Democrat-controlled jurisdictions—have joined in “Resistance” to the 2016 elections: “You did not win this election,” declared Tom Perez recently, the Democratic National Committee’s chairman. This is not about Donald Trump’s alleged character defects. The Resistance would have arisen against whoever represented Americans who had voted not to be governed as they have been for the past quarter-century. It is a cold civil war against a majority of the American people and their way of life. The members of the Resistance mean to defend their power. Their practical objective is to hamper and otherwise delegitimize 2016’s winners. Their political objective is to browbeat Trump voters into believing they should repent and yield to their betters. This campaign might break the Trump presidency.

    In the meantime, however, it exacerbates the spirit of discontent in the land. In 2016 the electorate, following the pattern it had set in 2010 and 2014 (and even in 2012, except for the presidential election), voted Republican to show its desire to reduce government’s intrusion in American life, to get out from under the ruling class’s socio-economic agenda and political correctness. But the Republican leadership did not and does not share the electorate’s concerns. Cycle after cycle, Americans who vote to “throw the rascals out” get ever more unaccountable rules piled on by the same unelected bureaucrats; and even modest attempts to hold back capillary intrusion into their lives get invalidated by the same judges. They come to believe that the system is rigged. In short, they want to drain the swamp.

    Yet such revolutionary sentiments do not amount to a coherent program to reverse the past century’s course. Donald Trump’s promises with regard to the swamp and to restoring America’s greatness would be extraordinarily difficult to keep even were they matched with due understanding and forceful execution. But the ruling class is so big, so pervasive, and so committed to its ideas, that sidelining it, and even more so, undoing its work, would require at least matching its power, pretensions, and vehemence. In other words, it would take raising the temperature of our cold civil war’s right side to match or overmatch the temperature of its left side. Statesmanship’s task, however, is to maximize peace, not strife.

    American society has divided along unreconcilable visions of the good, held by countrymen who increasingly regard each other as enemies. Any attempt by either side to coerce the other into submission augurs only the fate that has befallen other peoples who let themselves slide into revolution. It follows that the path to peace must lie in each side’s contentment to have its own way—but only among those who consent to it. This implies limiting the U.S. government’s reach to what it can grasp without wrecking what remains of our national cohesion.

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    The media polls often gloss over "democracy". When someone asks, "Is U.S. Democracy Threatened" or permutations thereof, it sort of leaves the concept of "democracy" to the answering person. I suppose to many people "U.S. Democracy" is the system of government and the voting to fill the offices included in that government. To other people it's just a vague concept of "voting". It is unclear to me what "democracy" today actually means, mainly because if you ask 10 people, you might get 7 different definitions. Many of the founders were suspicious of "democracy", and they understood the term to mean the ancient assemblage of eligible voting persons in a room, or the mass jury of Athens, etc. These systems could degrade quickly into mob rule, and it was a form of "democracy" that undid Socrates, as many of the founders of the U.S. saw it.

    I dwelled on the phrase, "American society has divided along unreconcilable visions of the good, held by countrymen who increasingly regard each other as enemies." There's something pessimistic but not far off from reality in it. Perhaps "regard each other as enemies" is a little strong, maybe too cartoonish. But it is fair to say that people increasingly see their opponents as espousing values and ideas incompatible with the notion of "what is American".

    Local government, and federalism are strengths in America, not weaknesses. I think one of our failures as a whole, today at least, is that we fall into the trap of viewing the country as a top-down, nationalized thing. Each side resorts to federal power whenever within grasp, often with disasterous results. But our system is a federal, not a nationalist one. I think we need to try to get to know our neighbors better, rely on local problem-solving and resources, and do what we can "from the bottom-up", and not "from the top-down". I think we've made our system very rigid, very "all or nothing" for various interests by obsessing over federal power and the ability to dictate terms to over 300 million people across millions of square miles all at once. In a way, we've fallen short of our ancestors in our lack of seeing our neighbors and local communities face-to-face, and finding pragmatic solutions. Power and technology seem to be intoxicating to many of our politicians and it all stinks of hubris .

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...19d_story.html

    The latest arrests of the neo-Nazi / neo-Confederates who attacked the Capitol on January 6 in Trump's attempt to stop the ceremonial count of electoral votes.


    U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against an apparent leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an alleged Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.

    Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.

    A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.

    The Post obtained hours of video footage, some exclusively, and placed it within a digital 3-D model of the building. (TWP)
    Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday

    Brendan Hunt of Queens, N.Y., is described in the documents as a part time actor and full-time employee of the New York State Office of Court Administration. Authorities said Hunt was not at the Jan. 6 riot, but made threatening remarks about Democratic politicians beforehand that intensified in a video he posted two days later, titled, “KILL YOUR SENATORS.”

    “We need to go back to the U.S. Capitol,” Hunt said in the video, according to the FBI. “What you need to do is take up arms, get to D.C., probably the inauguration … put some bullets in their f----- heads. If anybody has a gun, give it to me, I’ll go there myself and shoot them and kill them.”

    The arrests are another indication how concerned law enforcement agencies are about threats to the inauguration, particularly since so many of the participants in the Jan. 6 chaos are still unidentified.

    In Caldwell’s charging papers, FBI agents wrote that they were reviewing communications between Caldwell “and other known and unknown Oath Keepers members.”

    Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., have charged more than 100 people in the two weeks following the riot. This weekend the FBI arrested several people with alleged ties to the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Three Percenters, which charging documents suggest were among the more prepared, organized and determined groups in the larger mass of rioters.

    The 15-page affidavit cited a Jan. 1 Facebook message in which Caldwell said he had scouted lodging for several others at a Comfort Inn in Ballston, Va., about eight miles from the Capitol that “would allow us to go hunting at night if we wanted to.”

    FBI probes possible connections between extremist groups at heart of Capitol violence

    Caldwell sent the message, the affidavit said, to Jessica Watkins, a 38-year-old U.S. Army veteran who was arrested late Sunday. Federal authorities accused her of breaching the Capitol with other members of the “Ohio State Regular Militia,” a group she founded in 2019.

    Information about an attorney for Caldwell was not immediately available. No one immediately responded to a message left with Caldwell’s phone number.

    In an apparent reference to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, the affidavit said, Caldwell goes on in the Jan. 1 post to say, “I don’t know if Stewie has even gotten out his call to arms, but it’s a little friggin late. This is one we are doing on our own. We will link up with the north carolina [sic] crew.”

    At 7:47 p.m. on Jan. 6, Caldwell allegedly sent a Facebook video taken from within the U.S. Capitol, and wrote, “Us storming the castle. Please share. Sharon was right with me! I am such an instigator! She was ready for it man! Didn’t even mind the tear gas.”

    Caldwell then added, according to the FBI: “Proud boys scuffled with cops and drove them inside to hide. Breached the doors. One guy made it all the way to the house floor, another to Pelosi’s office. A good time,” according to charging papers. Less than a minute later, Caldwell went on, “We need to do this at the local level. Lets [sic] storm the capitol in Ohio. Tell me when!”

    After Jan. 6, a witness identified in charging papers only as W-1 told the FBI that Watkins went to stay with Caldwell, a person she called “Commander T” or “Commander Tom,” leaving a phone number the FBI associated with Caldwell, the agent wrote.

    Watkins was taken into custody along with Donovan Crowl, 50, a former U.S. Marine and another member of the Ohio group, a subset of the Oath Keepers.

    Another of those newly charged this weekend was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Woodland Park, Colo. Charging documents and videos indicate he may have links to the three extremist groups that have drawn the most attention from the FBI: the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Some of the videos appear to include members who discussed storming the Capitol about an hour ahead of the riot.
    Meanwhile, even Mitch McConnell blames Trump for having launched the attack:

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday pointedly blamed Trump for having “provoked” the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

    Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell noted that the Senate was meeting for the first time since that day, when Congress ultimately finished counting the electoral votes that cemented Biden’s victory.

    “The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like. But we pressed on, we stood together and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation.”

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), among the lawmakers who led the challenge of electoral votes in states Biden won, was presiding as McConnell spoke.

    Speaking at a rally Jan. 6, Trump, who has refused to acknowledge his election loss, had implored a crowd to head to the Capitol shortly before security there was breached and the chambers were taken over.

    During his remarks Tuesday, McConnell said Biden enters office without “a mandate for sweeping ideological change,” calling him “a presidential candidate who said he’d represent everyone.”

    McConnell, soon to be the chamber’s minority leader, said Republicans will pursue bipartisan agreements where they can.

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    @ Ray-Vigo: Great post. You might enjoy the Eric Weinstein interview. He lays out a pretty good argument of how we got here, with some pretty salient points of the two "cults" he describes as "Wokestan" and "MAGAstan", bickering over insanity; while the majority of the country ignores geriatric kleptocrats continuing to line their pockets at our expense.

    @ welch: You exemplify the problem with the country (and the possibility of any real discussion in this section), and you're simply fixated on the partisan bickerings of the 24 hour news cycle. Stop being a parrot and expand your thinking.
    Last edited by dneal; January 19th, 2021 at 01:27 PM.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Senior Member Lloyd's Avatar
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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    None of us, including you, drneal, is above "being part of the problem". Heck (there's a word you don't read online often these days) , you're name calling welsh... Is that part of a solution?
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    None of us, including you, drneal, is above "being part of the problem". Heck (there's a word you don't read online often these days) , you're name calling welsh... Is that part of a solution?
    Please re-read my post, which I edited before you posted this. Yes, I initially used language that sounded somewhat as you describe; and edited it when I realized it wasn't what I intended.

    The point stands though. The vast majority of what welch has been posting recently is nothing but partisan bullshit. He's got TDS IMHO, and that's fine I suppose; but it's just noise at this point. It is part of the problem. If he's posting it, then "he's" part of the problem.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Senior Member Lloyd's Avatar
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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    And you shouting about it is also part of the problem.
    https://youtu.be/MFLtTK13G2w
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

  12. #10
    Senior Member dneal's Avatar
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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    And you shouting about it is also part of the problem.
    https://youtu.be/MFLtTK13G2w
    I'm not shouting.

    You're citing Bill Nye? Seriously? Ok. Here's the problem with the video. He starts with the assumption that a disputed issue is a conspiracy theory. That's inductive logic. If the assumption is false, the conclusion is false; regardless of the validity of the logic in between.

    That's the point of the parallel of the Wuhan lab. It was dismissed as a conspiracy out of hand. Turns out it's not, and it's simply something that should be considered.

    For the I-don't-know-how-many-times... There is evidence to support the stolen election hypothesis. That doesn't make it true. Calling it a conspiracy theory doesn't make that true. You think it has been examined sufficiently. Others do not. The question of the thread is not what you think. It's how you convince them otherwise. I'm really getting tired of making this point and you ignoring it.

    --edit--

    I just realized this isn't even the damn "how do you convince..." thread. Why are you posting a Bill Nye conspiracy video here?
    Last edited by dneal; January 19th, 2021 at 04:06 PM.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Senior Member Lloyd's Avatar
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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Ignore that it's Nye. It has to do with how to open someone who you believe isn't seeing things rationally to what you feel is rational. Shouting/bashing ain't one.
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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    Senior Member Lloyd's Avatar
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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    By the way, you keep saying that you're "so tired". Have you considered napping?
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    By the way, you keep saying that you're "so tired". Have you considered napping?
    You want to have an adult conversation or do you want to be a smart ass?
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    It was an attempt at politely (not my forte) having you realize that your not above the issue. If you're as intelligent as you believe (your own internal conspiracy?), why are you so misunderstood here? I think most see you as pro Trump's actions and trying to convince either yourself or others that he had the election stolen by some powerful liberal army.
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by dneal View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    By the way, you keep saying that you're "so tired". Have you considered napping?
    You want to have an adult conversation or do you want to be a smart ass?
    I read where you have asked the same question and both times it's when you ran out of something substantive to say. Most of the responses have been adult to which you have resorted to "whataboutthisisms" or resorted to personal insults.

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    It was an attempt at politely (not my forte) having you realize that your not above the issue. If you're as intelligent as you believe (your own internal conspiracy?), why are you so misunderstood here? I think most see you as pro Trump's actions and trying to convince either yourself or others that he had the election stolen by some powerful liberal army.
    You don't consider any of that text after the first sentence sarcastic or rude?
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Senior Member dneal's Avatar
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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by dneal View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    By the way, you keep saying that you're "so tired". Have you considered napping?
    You want to have an adult conversation or do you want to be a smart ass?
    I read where you have asked the same question and both times it's when you ran out of something substantive to say. Most of the responses have been adult to which you have resorted to "whataboutthisisms" or resorted to personal insults.
    Not sure why you're involving yourself in this...

    Yes, I have said it a few times. I've also said we're arguing in circles. Sphere says I'm beating a dead horse. Perhaps those are indicators that new entrants into the discussion should read the previous 20 or 30 pages of posts. They keep reframing the same questions, and I keep reframing the same answer.

    This thread was actually something substantive, but it's quickly about Trump and conspiracies. Don't we have enough threads on that?

    "Whataboutism" is the new rhetorical device for deflecting hypocrisy when you can't defend it.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    I never said I was above the cause...nor had many friends.
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

  22. #19
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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    I never said I was above the cause...nor had many friends.
    Ummmm, ok?
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Americans see democracy under threat — CBS News poll

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    ...why are you so misunderstood here? I think most see you as pro Trump's actions and trying to convince either yourself or others that he had the election stolen by some powerful liberal army.
    Saying "I think" doesn't immunize your comment's need of proof. If most see dneal as you claim then most don't see clearly. And that subject is one you might spend some time pondering.

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