Pope Proposes Making ‘Acts Against The Environment’ A Sin – Summit News

govols comments on Nov 21, 2019:

Who died and made the Pope God?

As an American I probably have no business in this group.

govols comments on Nov 21, 2019:

It's not the parliamentary system causing the conflict.

Historic moment for personal freedom or just another tax scheme?

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

Given the source, tax scheme.

The dangerous toys list came out.

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

Many officers seem unable to process the phone/gun dichotomy in a stressful and necessarily instantaneous decision making circumstance. At 14 and up the kid should already be familiar with real guns, gun safety, and the hazards of playing with cops.

Does God Ever Need to be Forgiven?

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

My relationship with God is complicated enough without throwing blame into it.

The raycis OK hand sign on my phone now come in raycis skin tones. Wow. Just, wow.

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

Thumbs up doesn't.

"Let's look at Marx as a thinker (i.e., not as the father of communism)." I like this professor.

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

If I set aside my prejudice (to the extent that's possible) I look at Marx as a step that was later taken as Truth. His was an "Enlightenment" criticism of previous theory. Like, he was a materialist, and on some level thought science and reason could explain society, culture, history, economics...everything. He saw flaws in "capitalism," flaws he understood to be fatal, and made a cut at what would follow. Empirically, capitalism IS flawed. It does cause stratification, and the losers DO GET PISSED about it. Damn...rabbit holes... His idea of a peasant revolution was off because the vast majority of workers were empirically better off than they had been as serfs. Still, when is the last time YOU consumed something that you created through your job? His description of alienation was pretty close. The notion that arose later that that his was mostly a classification error, that the wealth stratification wasn't the issue so much as power/oppression dynamics is a decent synthesis between prosperity lifting all boats and modern uber-wealth. What seems to screw it up is the complexity of production, distribution, and disparate demands and supplies across all markets and eras. His idea of a social organization to manage the complexities involved simply don't compare to the massive super-computer that the invisible hand of the market manages to be. Supply and demand actually works, to a decent degree, but every effort to centrally manage complex human economic and social systems from the top down have failed where ever and when ever tried.

"Let's look at Marx as a thinker (i.e., not as the father of communism)." I like this professor.

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

He does a good job. I'm glad you're spending time with the topics.

So overt racism is ok on this IDW site, as well as holocaust denial and anti-semitism.

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

I'm of the opinion that, yes, overt racism, expressed merely through words is better allowed than forbidden.

Tim Pool, David Pakman, Paul Joseph Watson, Sam Seder, Sargon of Akkad, Black Pigeon.

govols comments on Nov 20, 2019:

On some level, all information is curated by its funding sources.

New "breeds" join the herd every day

govols comments on Nov 19, 2019:

Wait, ALLIES get a letter?

New "breeds" join the herd every day

govols comments on Nov 19, 2019:

I think we might ought to just return to queer, maybe queerx?

How we did things before Monsanto and Dupont.

govols comments on Nov 19, 2019:

Great story.

Chick Fil A Bends The Knee To The Leftist Outrage Mob, The Right Faces MASSIVE Cultural Disadvantage...

govols comments on Nov 19, 2019:

https://thechickenwire.chick-fil-a.com/News/Chick-fil-A-Foundation-Announces-2020-Priorities https://www.chick-fil-afoundation.org/

Milton Friedman takes Q & A at Stanford University.

govols comments on Nov 18, 2019:

Wait...That WAS today, wasn't it?

Ever get the impression that people posting Greta memes and videos are simply assholes?

govols comments on Nov 18, 2019:

Some, yes. Others I think are simply frustrated.

The Antifederalists Were Eerily Prophetic What the Antifederalists predicted would be the results...

govols comments on Nov 18, 2019:

Good post. I read both essay collections in my late 20s, early 30s, during Clinton's presidency. Everyone at the time knew a monster was in the works, and it would be up to a well-informed and distrustful citizenry to ride herd over the beast. MANY doubted the experiment would last. A problem, to my mind, is that that might very well be the best cut we could make of it. I'm certain we couldn't assemble a convention even near the equal of the one that negotiated the constitution those generations ago. When our "union" finally shatters it will not be reconstituted as a single entity.

NewsMax: Chief Justice blocks order forcing Trump to provide tax returns [newsmax.com]

govols comments on Nov 18, 2019:

This one really does need a ruling from SCotUS.

NYT: "Corporate America promised an investment surge after President Donald J.

govols comments on Nov 17, 2019:

It looks like a significant overall increase, doesn't it? Does the NYT offer a chart in dollars, of total capital investments by year?

Discussions and arguments about who is a real conservative invites me to ask what is conservatism?

govols comments on Nov 17, 2019:

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. G.K. Chesterton

TownHall: None Dare Call It Sedition [townhall.com]

govols comments on Nov 17, 2019:

Pretty much...

Americans of European descent: Do you find yourself influenced by the values your ancestors took ...

govols comments on Nov 17, 2019:

I'm a child of Greater Appalachia, and yes, I'm quite aware of it.

Not only did the first two days of of the Impeachment Inquiry hearing offer the Democrats' best ...

govols comments on Nov 17, 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=179&v=QX7MQl2jtCo=emb_title

Like Dr. Frankenstein, Republicans Now Face the Monster They Created | The Nation

govols comments on Nov 16, 2019:

The left thinks Conservative, Inc. is "the Right," and its fairly mainstream critics are the Far-Right. Conservative, Inc. thinks its fairly mainstream critics are the Far-Right. All three are ignorant as fuck as to the identity and nature of the New Right and the Dissident Right. Not a fucking clue. The "right-wing" criticizing Conservative, Inc. for its utter failure to conserve even the Lady's Room isn't the ones to worry about or get to know about. Closed minded, self centered, the whole freaking establishment...so full of themselves they fail to even explore the real beast. It ain't "groyper."

A Day in the Life of Jordan Peterson (Fan Parody) - YouTube

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

Too much. No. Just right...........

Breitbart. "Barack Obama Fired All G W Bush Appointed Ambassadors in 2008."

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

2009, maybe?

Six Trump associates convicted in Mueller-related investigations. Total fake news witch hunt?

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

Nope, not fake, but REAL witch hunt, arising from FAKE charges of campaign collusion with Russia.

Roger Stone found guilty on all counts. [washingtonpost.com]

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

The irony of being found guilty on accusations of lying to a congress of liars. Congress has about 10% approval; most of us hold its members in contempt.

Heritage: Margaret Thatcher was indeed a "gutsy woman" [heritage.org]

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

I'm reminded of a story of an old guard kinda figure in a movement coming under assault from a younger, and a medium stepping in to say, "Back off. [S]he did enough."

Big Physics

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

I hated lab.

It's sad to see Jordan Peterson like this...

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

I think that interview was just before he broke. I imagine he's working on himself and his house in private the last few weeks and if they gets through it the whole family will come out stronger for it.

I'd like to hear what members of this community think about the importance and value of certain ...

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

Okay, screw it. I'll kick it off... 1. Paine was probably as critical to public sentiment in support for independence as the behavior of the King, and as important to morale during the slog of war as field rations. Beyond that, very little influence in early America. 2. The U & U was a natural step for theology toward secular humanism. 3. If the Republican party had been held at bay for a generation the whole slavery thing, the reconstruction thing, the Jim Crow thing--all of it would have been resolved in the social rather than political realm. Slaves in America were but a very few years from being obsolete as farm equipment. If the Abolitionists had worked first on labor organization a shit ton of national resentment might have been avoided. 4 & 5. The progressive ideas that lead to the deconstruction of the constitution, an ever growing general government, private banks in control of monetary policy, income tax, prohibition, organized crime, war on poverty, war on drugs...so much misery might have been avoided. 6. The whole civil rights movement should have been limited to STATE actors--government discrimination--and never allowed to intrude into the freedom of individuals to for associations or to disassociate from those with whom they hold dissimilar beliefs. There. Something to chew on.

Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian by George Reisman

govols comments on Nov 15, 2019:

It can be read here for free. https://mises.org/library/why-nazism-was-socialism-and-why-socialism-totalitarian

Democrats renew efforts to expand list of prohibited people... [bearingarms.com]

govols comments on Nov 14, 2019:

I don't comment on these posts, but thought stop in to say thanks for putting them up. It's a topic I care about but really don't follow as closely as I ought to.

I don't think I can put this right, but I'm gonna try, anyway.

govols comments on Nov 14, 2019:

Ideas are dangerous. It's cooked into the very notions of free speech and press. And just about everything else. One of the reasons that science hits walls is that we "know" too much about stuff except how much we don't know. A new idea, an new way of explaining something that's foundational to a bunch of stuff built atop it threatens to undo the esteem of some of the scientists who had previously gotten things wrong. Random mutation and natural selection might very well not be the engine of evolution, but that conclusion--along with common ancestry--are built into every model used in the sciences associated with it.

Swedish government funds drag queen story hour for kids - Voice of Europe

govols comments on Nov 14, 2019:

That makes me consider the merits of going out carrying enough debt to consume any assets I might have.

The lost of masculinity.....Wow [youtu.be]

govols comments on Nov 14, 2019:

I'm gonna step out onto an ethical limb and say, if this were proven true, the ensuing war would be a just one.

All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names...so he killed them; killed them all.

govols comments on Nov 14, 2019:

That's SOOOO wrong!!!!!

Inner strength: Malawi chief ends child marriages [innerstrengthzone.com]

govols comments on Nov 14, 2019:

That's a great story. Thanks for the link. it lead me to this one: https://innerstrengthzone.com/funny/man-get-unusual-proposition-from-his-friends-wife-and-follows-through-in-style/

BREAKING! Ruth Bader Ginsburg TOO SICK to Attend Supreme Court!!! Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s days on ...

govols comments on Nov 13, 2019:

There's a certain elegance to silence.

"In the late 500s BC, the military dictator Aristodemus took over the Greek colony of Cumae.

govols comments on Nov 13, 2019:

It seems like, aside from technology, there's almost NOTHING one can't learn about humanity by simply studying what was left behind by the ancients.

Presidential Authority There is a story about Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.

govols comments on Nov 13, 2019:

Just about all he's done has been well within precedent; they're just pissed that he's president.

Philip Cross, a Wikipedia "Narrative" Editor - I always thought Wikipedia was a bad idea...

govols comments on Nov 13, 2019:

Welcome to my world. I have almost given up trying to figure out what's current, real, and true, so much so that I don't even trust online versions of pre-modern texts...much less today's media reports.

2020: a Libertarian President? Voters want a third party- [thelibertarianrepublic.com]

govols comments on Nov 12, 2019:

I've never voted for a democrat or a republican nominee for president, but I've voted for a candidate in every election since 1988. One of them was a boxing promoter and sports bookie. My Dem/Rep alternative, all of which sucked... Bush-Dukakis Bush-Clinton Clinton-Dole Gore-Bush Bush-Kerry McCain-Obama Obama-Romney Clinton-Trump In what reality were we invited to chose from among good, very good, outstanding, or even barely acceptable options? Each and every Dem/Rep candidate sucked ass. Seriously. I don't know about you, but I know people at my local bar that I would rather have as the PotUS than any of the above.

A different take on postmodernism. [vox.com]

govols comments on Nov 12, 2019:

If one is willing to open minded and generous with the literature, understanding postmodernism requires an understanding of the phrase "meta-narrative" that seems to be dissimilar to the one most readily brought to mind among the critics. "Meta-narrative" seems to be used in the sense of "How the West Was Won," or "The Shining City on the Hill;" it isn't so much "THE TRUTH about All Things," but the unconscious collective story we all carry around about "The Days of Our Lives" and the epochs of our forebears. In the U.S.--largely--the South had one (or more), and the North, and the West, etc., but we also all *shared* one *among* us. That's why, de Tocqueville, say, could explore America and find a dozen different cultures, but recognize them all as "*America*." When the postmodernists first said "the world can no longer sustain meta-narratives, it wasn't a statement of fact, or a prediction, or a prescription; it was an observation of a reality that was then developing before their eyes. Have any of you read Ted Kaczynski's manifesto? That was postmodernism. It's the idea that technology cuts society into its atomic parts, individuals, and worse, it cuts individuals into each one's own distinct personas. We, each and all, become roles played out according to the expectations of the present simulated society of our current given circumstance. In current year anywhere, technoly allows and demands a near infinite number of distinct and separate "realities," and we each have to assume a different character depending on which is our present frame of reference. None (few?) of us are able to maintain a consistent, integrated "self" anymore. That's what postmodernists were observing, in real time, early into the program. They were developing the "theory" now often called "The Meaning Crisis."

This must be peak neoliberalism.

govols comments on Nov 12, 2019:

What's the difference between neoliberalism and basic liberalism?

Counterpoint: Jeffrey Epstein Almost Certainly Committed Suicide. | Human Events

govols comments on Nov 10, 2019:

I swear to god, I fully expected the last sentence to be, "Epstein did not commit suicide."

If Elizabeth Warren really believes this, she's delusional.

govols comments on Nov 10, 2019:

The *backbone* of democracy? Really?

Do you think susceptibility to indoctrination is tied to IQ?

govols comments on Nov 9, 2019:

IQ is meaningless to those of average IQ. One must be intimate with profound cognition, positive or negative, to even be aware of what a difference IQ can have on how the perceptual world is revealed to individuals The really bright and the really dim KNOW we're all profoundly different in our perceptions of reality. Only midwits think we all share a reality.

[youtu.be] "Climate Warriors Want to Cancel Thanksgiving." Tucker Carlson.

govols comments on Nov 8, 2019:

Him mentioning black friday there at the end kinda make one wonder if that's raycis....

Trump's "abandonment" of Syrian Kurds.

govols comments on Nov 8, 2019:

I was early to criticize, but if it does work out that Kurds wind up self-governing a stable territory I'll be pleased.

Many people still argue with me and call me a conspiracy spreader when I present them the evidence ...

govols comments on Nov 8, 2019:

Another way of looking at it is through the eyes of Athens. The sophists where paid teachers among the ancient Greeks who specialized in rhetoric, clever argumentation with little regard for Truth but only for winning the position for which they profit. Socrates spent his life seeking truth by questioning the expert class and thoroughly demonstrating that the experts basically didn't know their butts from their rhetoric. But, in the end, the sophists won the case at trial and Socrates drank his medicine. Advertising, propaganda, controlling narrative: all of that stuff is real. Reason and empiricism work great in science, but not so much in shaping public opinion.

Many people still argue with me and call me a conspiracy spreader when I present them the evidence ...

govols comments on Nov 8, 2019:

Jonathan Haidt and Scott Adams, from totally different directions, have similar conclusions. People defend at any cost their deeply held beliefs and no amount of evidence will change them, but instead entrench them more deeply. UNTIL you touch them with an emotional connection with your perspective, or an emotional splinter of doubt within their own perceptual framework. Which UN agendas most trouble you?

To swear or not to swear... Cut the fucks or fuck the cuts?

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

I tend to appreciate seasoning in appropriate amounts.

Come legally, they said.

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

Temporary Protected Status. Temporary.

Remember when Trump skipped that debate to raise money for vets?

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

The story you link doesn't say what you say it does.

I'm 23 and have made the choice to almost entirely detatch from my siblings due to a plethera of ...

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

Keep your ties as tightly as they'll allow.

Dan Crenshaw throws the First Amendment under the bus. [youtube.com]

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

Are the various Civil Rights laws that prohibit free association and dis-association equally violations of the first amendment?

Or we could turn that table around.

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

I use the SPLC, ADL, Angry White Men, etc., for suggestions of blogs, podcasts, and youtube channels that might be amusing.

Is all fair in love and war?

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

It just got me watch it.

SHOULD ANTIFA BE CLASSED AS TERRORISTS Oxford defines the word terrorist as follows: Noun: 1.

govols comments on Nov 7, 2019:

It seems to me they're not only terrorists, they're interstate and international. They're organized. They certainly actively and intentionally work together to violate and deny the civil rights of people with whom they disagree. If law mattered at all they could be charged under conspiracy and civil rights laws even--even those not engaged in violence. BUT that would mean digging into social media accounts, all sorts of deep doo-doo that most people are still pretty uncomfortable with.

Um... Nope? Going up the stairs at Ambuluwawa Tower, Sri Lanka - YouTube

govols comments on Nov 6, 2019:

I'd do it in a heartbeat, but only if I get to use his selfie-stick.

Maps of Meaning Free! [archive.org] JordanPeterson

govols comments on Nov 6, 2019:

Thanks for posting this. I couldn't finish it; I got tired of his writing style. It was totally comprehensible, but terribly tedious.

Agenda: Bigotry campaign is seriously flawed | HeraldScotland

govols comments on Nov 6, 2019:

We are, ourselves, the apparatus of the totalitarian surveillance state.

It's getting worse. [youtu.be]

govols comments on Nov 5, 2019:

It has to hit rock bottom before it will admit it's problem.

Reading of Dr. Theodore Kaczynski's (The Unabomber's) Manifesto [youtube.com]

govols comments on Nov 4, 2019:

He had a lot going on for the time.

Hello.

govols comments on Nov 4, 2019:

It's a nightmare. Here's a very good basic summation from Stanford: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

[youtu.

govols comments on Nov 3, 2019:

I get new content by taking note of names listed in articles about hate groups and alt-right or far-right radicalization. I especially enjoy trolling the ADL and SPLC for those worth speaking out against, and then just highlight and search in a new tab; presto! new content. A hack exists for every problematic if one will just knock the blocks over.

Not sure if you get it...

govols comments on Nov 3, 2019:

Like the Drive-in with the whole neighborhood locked in the trunk...back when cars were tanks and trunks weren't hatches or lift gates.

Hello.

govols comments on Nov 2, 2019:

I make no attempt to master the animal I am. I focus instead on becoming the person I might be. Suppression is impossible, for me, but practicing at virtue seems to work.

Let's go to college for Halloween. Bouaaaaaahhahahhaha [youtu.be]

govols comments on Oct 31, 2019:

White face? Oh, heck yeah.

Materialist Determinism and Free Will

govols comments on Oct 31, 2019:

I'm pretty familiar with the science that the determinists are coming up with about brain development, chemical responses to environmental stimuli, how neurotransmitter production is turned on and then the chemicals caused to or prevented from being reuptaken(?), a lot of that stuff. They make a hell of a case that we're biological machines running environmentally induced programming routines. But, the question is a good one; how do we reconcile the science with free will and personal responsibility? One thing we need to investigate further is "free won't." I've read articles that haven't really been so much falsified as dismissed, suggesting the decisions *not* to act on an impulse often are made with no measurable physiological precursor. The suggestion is that the impulse is determined, but that a "will" exists that can resist "temptation." I've read of--sorry, I don't have the words to avoid the base language--water-heads born with brain mass down in the 20-50% of normal range developing into almost indistinguishable from normal cognitive function. Sometimes the literature carries anomalies that tend to be left little investigated because any validation would turn the main body of work on its head. Better to ignore, or flat ostracize, any reports that don't fit the knowledge base than to disrupt aspects that would force whole understandings to be reevaluated. In the end, though, the fact is we experience the world through free will, and are held by society responsible, so we might as well work within that framework until it no longer best describes the reality in which we exist. We might very well be biological automatons but we still have a future to build. It won't be done just following our meat sacks around where ever their chemistries takes them. I think the Greeks were onto something. We're animals, just like the rest of them, unless we practice being more. Skin suits or not, your tomorrow will certainly suck ass more than it needs to if you don't *choose* to work on it and yourself today. We all experience how much easier it is not to, and how much we regret when we fail to. Maybe that's chemistry, but that ain't the experience; the experience is miserable remorse. That's what it feels like to deny your will.

The Rider & the Elephant - Jonathan Haidt on Persuasion and Moral Humility - YouTube

govols comments on Oct 31, 2019:

He has some good work going on. He (with others) has a web site that's trying to mass gather data on morals and politics. You have to register, and they encourage people to take as many of the surveys as willing. https://www.yourmorals.org/explore.php

On what basis do you decide whether you like someone or not?

govols comments on Oct 30, 2019:

I DON'T decide whether I like someone.

My favourite teacups. :)

govols comments on Oct 29, 2019:

Are those inspired from well known paintings? The ones at 2, 8, and ten really look familiar. Lovely, all of them.

I always said that if I hit a big lottery jackpot there would be two things I would definitely do.

govols comments on Oct 29, 2019:

If She ever hits big we're buying a new RV and checking out all over North America.

Do you buy lottery tickets?

govols comments on Oct 29, 2019:

I buy, my wife scratches and claims any prizes.

Jordan Peterson is strongly against Donald Trump, and describes himself as a Classical British ...

govols comments on Oct 29, 2019:

I think a lot of people currently being called conservative Trump supporters--and even possibly many who self-identify as such--are actually just anti-globalist, -evangelical leftist, -splintering identitarian, fuck the establishment Alt-Left reactionaries who play pro-Trump as a role required of them to continue the tossing of grenades. Most of the people now called far-right conservatives are actually pretty damed classically liberal, but also remain traditionalist nationalists in an era of globalism, corporatism, and the strange hyperreal effort they're making through media and information manipulation to disassociate the Peoples of the (western, especially) world from their cultural heritages and to replace the very notion of international cultural variety with globalist multi-cult. Peterson is glommed upon by some who might not be expected to simply because he seems to understand, and speaks on the idea, that most Peoples exist in cultures that were built from the heroic tales of where they came from, and need such narratives to help make meaning of Being and Becoming given the awareness we share of the horror that reality so frequently manifests.

Regarding quantum mechanics and the double slit experiment, does anyone know if the results remain ...

govols comments on Oct 26, 2019:

Unknowable? I don't think such an environment exists. Even iobjects in ntergalactic space would experience the gravitational effects of galaxies themselves.

If you believe that America is on the brink of a civil war, how do you envisage it?

govols comments on Oct 25, 2019:

I can't decide. I think it would mostly be just growing public violence escalating into near chaos. I think it would eventually come down to normies exasperated with woke justice against basically any and every radical who is coming to think that the only way for "progress" to move forward is to go ahead and kill off old right white men.

Thoughts?..............Black Pigeon Speaks. [bitchute.com]

govols comments on Oct 25, 2019:

I have a love/hate relationship with Enlightenment ideas. I buy into radical individualism, to a point, but I think most of the thinkers of the age assumed a shared moral framework instilled into all levels of a similarly socialized People. Peterson has a way of knowing this an some level but rejecting it on another. He seems to feel like moral meaning can be discovered and understood intellectually--and that might be true for many--but most of us are either literally too intellectually deficient to manage the task or too freaking busy or distracted to bother. The common stories a culture raises its children on are the means that humans developed to build a common morality right into the structure of society. Black Pigeon is right about the global experiment: if you rearrange enough of the individuals from the world's various cultures, you scramble the foundations of the cultures themselves. We simply don't all share the same morality dramas. If I move to France I might eventually become a citizen of France, but nothing will ever make me a Frenchman. There are cultures in this world, even in America, that who simply DO NOT raise children to see the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as self-evident Truths--and those children will never be my countrymen. They don't share my culture. Identity Politics is human nature, but we used to identify with our cultural heritage rather than the identities that activists use to undermine that heritage.

Watch A Sun-Sized Star Ripped Apart By A Supermassive Black Hole

govols comments on Oct 24, 2019:

I can't help but wonder if the simulation isn't the result of "begging the question." What are the chances that observations are being "fitted" to the prevailing consensus...that the current "settled science" is PRE-supposed and programed into the explanations being constructed by the "scientific community?" In the current era, "science" seems to be always looking for the explanation that "best fits" prevailing theory, rather than using current data to poke into the flaws the data might expose.

Even though I am a citizen of the U.

govols comments on Oct 24, 2019:

Not a Canadian. My understanding is that nobody runs for Prime Minister, but instead, the Leader of whichever Party wins the most seats in Parliament gets the job. The Parties have elections to pick their leaders from time to time, and if they win the most seats: PM to them. Many parliamentary systems require the winning party's leader to win support from minority parties, usually by granting them some cabinet seats, in order to actually form a coalition majority government in which the minority MPs pledge to vote with the "ruling" party. From what I understand, Canada has no such rule. The parliamentary systems tend to ensure that ultra-minority "third" parties have some voice in governing because their willingness to "caucus" with a plurality (but not majority) winning Party allows a winning minority to decide majority votes on legislation. They get a voice in the shaping of the bills, and if the "ruling party" wants their votes the bills must be shaped in ways that hold the coalition together. You should look into parliamentary systems on whole, as such articles often cast outlines that are, at least in part, based on a basic summary and then a compare and contrast of the similarities and differences among the major powers. Now, I'm sure some Canadian can and will come along to give you a correct answer.

This is hysterical - “Leftist” version of classic era Colbert 😂 [youtu.be]

govols comments on Oct 24, 2019:

It's cute, but to annoying to sit all of the way through.

Edward Snowdon in his own words. [youtu.be]

govols comments on Oct 24, 2019:

I have mixed feelings, but he's largely right. The government was--IS--up to no good, knew it, intended to keep right on doing it, and filing whistleblower reports to the government wouldn't have done *anything* to make the people aware of it.

Updated.....Discuss.....

govols comments on Oct 21, 2019:

The topic as charted is so vague and undefined. The BoR and Libertarian isn't "right," and "communism" is traditionalist if you model it back enough. Anarchy is the "state of nature," but anthropology suggests that the earliest states of nature were clannish communitarian social groups. Merchantilism was a feudal affair, not totalitarian, but oligarchical--and democratic, if granting that, like in Athens, only some were of the polis. I like what you're trying to do, but I don't thing left and right is a correct frame, and I think a first step to the project is an effort to establish terms--a clearly defined vocabulary. Individualism and personal liberty is opposed by nationalism, socialism, statism, but is compatible with communitarianism to a degree. Money and wealth is ancient, and drives both capitalism and totalitarian oligarchical mercantilism, but is also the wages of labor and small business. Family, clan, community, tribe, society, nation, culture, State. State is "modern," and most of the rest of that is traditionalist. I'll step away for a bit.....

Updated.....Discuss.....

govols comments on Oct 21, 2019:

Also, it has a nice slow pace that will keep the topic accessibly near the top of a page for a while.

Updated.....Discuss.....

govols comments on Oct 21, 2019:

I nominate this one forum to be the best place for discussion because it really has to do with socio-cultural economic and political...evolution. Any seconds?

A second thought, this one on Post-modern Christianity.

govols comments on Oct 21, 2019:

I have to push back on the idea that pre-supposition is post modern. It's more pre-modern; it's traditionalist. Postmodern "thought" is that no pre-supposition can possibly exist as an unquestionable Truth.

Well... I voted... For Maxime

govols comments on Oct 21, 2019:

When do polls close, and when do results usually start coming in?

It's the weekend.

govols comments on Oct 19, 2019:

I don't think this is the video you intended, but it's pretty damned good.

The essence of the modern Republican Party on display in Bill Barr's Bircheresque speech at Notre ...

govols comments on Oct 16, 2019:

So, what do you disagree with? What are your specific criticisms?

What news are you consuming?

govols comments on Oct 14, 2019:

I'm really not doing news at the moment. I can't find any. Every story I open at almost every source demonstrates clear bias within a few sentences. I got tired of trying to read multiple sources from various biases and trying to interpret them into something like reality. I've been reading classical philosophy and literature, ancient history, modern non-fiction, and revolutionary, reactionary and doomsday post-apocalypse fiction. Screw it.

Wow...two members, beside me, who won't write anything. Well, why start a group then?

govols comments on Oct 10, 2019:

4. Something written to follow...sometime.

"...and the Pursuit of Happiness." What does that mean?

govols comments on Oct 10, 2019:

I think Jefferson's TURN of phrase was as brilliant as any in history. His tiny tweak expressed the need for a meaningful manner of being as far more important, to both a good people and a good individual life, than a wealth of neat stuff.

Here’s a story published yesterday in a French newspaper about an 18-year old Norwegian girl whose...

govols comments on Oct 10, 2019:

Okay, that screws with me. I swear, as I was reading your summary, my thought was "that's kind of a nice tribute..." At the exact same time, my stomach turned, and I got a faint taste of vomit saliva in my mouth.

If you’re in Washington state, make sure to VOTE NO on Referendum Measure No.

govols comments on Oct 10, 2019:

The ballot measure is written at a reading level above an associate degree, and the ballot summary publication at a level above a bachelor.

Couldn't stop laughing. But I'm ok now.

govols comments on Oct 9, 2019:

Beth is Italian, too?

What are they doing...? Drugs?

govols comments on Oct 9, 2019:

As children we used to tear a match from a matchbook, put it between the striker strip and a forefinger, and flick the little fiery strip of chemicals and paper toward each other and all manner of hard come by cultural artifacts. These people are as children, playing with matches, flicking them toward the lovingly crafted strips of veneer that long dead ancestors used to fashion the structures of civilization that shelter them from the chaos of reality. God, love them.

What concerns me is the unholy alliance between the Democratic Party and all that is UNholy.

govols comments on Oct 9, 2019:

We haven't grown too rich or fat of comfortable to fight for what's right--we've forgotten how to teach children to seek it.