Great point. Consciousness would need to permeate through the entire organism, beginning and ending at the surface of the skin. I would argue “consciousness” is a direct one-to-one ratio with the entire body. If a man loses a finger, for instance, he is that much less conscious.

Parnas and Giuliani were the targets because they're central to the Ukraine quid pro quo allegations. The fact that Nunes, Solomon, and anyone were on those calls is because they happened to have called or been called by Parnas or Giuliani, so your criticism here is mistaken.

There they are in the report, in the public eye. None of that hand waving changes the fact that Schiff was using “secret subpoenas to obtain, and then release to the public, the call records of political opponents.”

Digging up dirt and investigating possible impeachment - or investigating anything - are different activities, wouldn't you say

I would say that. But I would argue investigating fellow members of the house, a journalist, and Trump’s personal attorney is a different activity than inquiring into the impeachment of the President.

The lack of outrage on Schiff’s subpoenaing the call records of the opposition, the president’s lawyer and a journalist is deafening, especially giving the accusations: that Trump was digging up dirt on his political opponents.

This is unprecedented and looks like an abuse of government surveillance authority for partisan gain. Democrats were caught using the Steele dossier to coax the FBI into snooping on the 2016 Trump campaign. Now we have elected members of Congress using secret subpoenas to obtain, and then release to the public, the call records of political opponents.

Schiff’s Surveillance State - WSJ

I’ll retract it then. Poor job.

There was no insulting language (vulgarity?) in my previous post. Nevertheless, I was ridiculing you.

Doing a poor job of it as well. No wonder you thought they were ridiculing Trump.

That’s diplomacy. Politicians lie in public because it serves some end. If you want to know the truth look at what they say and do when they don’t think anyone is watching.

I said there was no insult or mockery because I looked at what they said.

Must be that you’re so habituated to ridicule that you can’t even recognize it anymore. :razz:

Ha. Could be true. But the guilty party disputes the narrative and I cannot find any insulting language in the discussion, so...

Trudeau, Macron and Johnson caught on camera making fun of Trump

US congressman Brendan Boyle said of the video: “It’s not the least bit surprising. I’ve personally met with several high-ranking government officials from other countries who laugh about what it’s like to meet with Donald Trump.

“They’re quite open about what a complete joke they consider Trump.”

They weren’t making fun of Trump. No discernible insult or mockery was recorded. Another media plot to disrupt Trump, and thus America, on the world stage.

He was in Libya and Malta according to the suit, not Vienna as CNN reported. CNN reported that Parnas and Nunes were in contact around that time, which would be late 2018. Rather, call records (Schiff is investigating fellow house members and Trump’s personal lawyer now) show Parnas contact Nunes in April 2019. Either Parnas is lying or CNN is lying.

Personally I don’t think Nunes has a case for the reasons you mentioned.

It wasn't legal though. The State Department knew that which is why they started releasing it.

According to OMB lawyers, withholding aid was legal so long as it was temporary.

But Trump doesn't give Ukraine money, the U.S itself does (via congress in this case), so not only is Trump leveraging US property for his own gain, he is compromising the national interests of America and her allies to do so. On top of that, the favor Trump wanted amounts to interference in the 2020 election, which is yet another impeachable cherry on top of it all.

For his own gain? Another presumption. For the 2020 election? Fabricated from thin air.

Rather, Trump explicitly stated the reasons why he legally held back aid. Why are these reasons not taken into account?

How is Trump trotting Zelensky out like a leashed dog evidence that Trump isn't pressuring Zelensky? If anything it looks like Zelensky is just kowtowing to avoid a personal conflict with the most powerful man in the world.

This is like saying Trump exonerated himself by saying "no quid pro quo" after he learned of the whistle-blower report.

How stupid are we, really?

He didn’t trot out Zelensky. I’m pretty sure They’ve only met once. If your evidence of Trump pressuring Zelensky is Trump tweeting that Zelensky said no pressure, you might need something more substantial.

A favor? Oh my. Is it or is it not fair to ask a favor of someone you give weaponry and money to? Especially one of the most corrupt countries on the planet?

It does matter if Zelensky said it in Trump’s presence because it refutes your claim that Trump is “parading Zelensky around like a Stockholm syndrom'd toddler at their parents divorce hearing”. He’s not.

Yes, that’s the accusation based on the presumptions of a few bureaucrats who read too much New York Times.

An interview? Oh my. So what threat did Trump make?

I just wanted to take a moment to point out how silly it is to ask the person/nation being extorted whether or not they're being extorted, given that while Trump remains the president, he must still be worked with.

Perhaps, but it’s even more silly to pretend there was a crime when the alleged victim says there wasn’t one. Zelensky said there was no pressure on various occasions, only one of which was said in Trump’s presence.

Extortion? There was zero coercion or threats in the phone call. Rather, there was jokes and congratulations.

It’s interesting how everyone keeps pointing to the targeting of the Western capitalist economy as the solution. China has a Communist government and operates in a global economy and produces more co2 than any other nation is the world. Is there a reason for this focus?

Good question.
Socialist states and technocratic tinkering have been disastrous for the environment. Consider Chernobyl, the Aral Sea in the Soviet Union, pollution in China, or the desertification and pollution of Cuba.

I suspect there is little focus on socialist states for political reasons,

Yeah, you might be right.

Barr’s supposed uncertainty of Horowitz’s conclusions has already led some Trumpers such as Hannity to preemptively dismiss the coming IG report. We’ll see in another week when the report drops.

The entity is the self. The personality is the distinctive character of the self. Because of our first-person periphery most of the self lay hidden from view for most of our lives, and thus we are left to fill in the blanks of self-hood. But when others talk about us or consider us as selves they refer to the entity, giving us a more objective view that we should never forget.

Is that related to the lawyer who changed the wording in an email? I think I recall reading that Horowitz referred it to Durham as potentially criminal but concluded that the FISA warrant didn’t depend on it.

I’ll look for a source when I’m at a desktop.

According to the NYT, it has to do with the genesis of the investigation:

Attorney General William P. Barr has told Justice Department officials that he is skeptical of a conclusion by the department’s inspector general that the F.B.I. had sufficient information to open the investigation into whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential race, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/us/politics/barr-inspector-general-report-russia.html

The impeachment hearings will ramp up tomorrow after a brief rest. The hearing will be chaired by 14-term congressman Jerry Nadler. The White House is refusing to participate.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/it-s-nadler-s-turn-take-trump-again-n1091991

In other news, it has been reported that AG Bill Barr disagrees with some of the findings in the Horowitz report, specifically that the FBI had enough probable cause to investigate then-candidate donald Trump. According to a lawyer, this is because the Durham investigation has “unearthed some evidence that supports Mr. Barr’s uncertainty of the inspector general’s findings”.

Mr. Barr’s skepticism could place more pressure on John H. Durham — the federal prosecutor who is conducting a separate criminal inquiry into the roots of the Russia investigation — to find evidence backing Mr. Barr’s position. Mr. Durham has already unearthed some evidence that supports Mr. Barr’s uncertainty of the inspector general’s findings, according to a lawyer involved in the Durham inquiry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/us/politics/barr-inspector-general-report-russia.html

I think as a matter of course philosophers should be skeptical of anyone saying they can predict that far into the future with any accuracy, especially if these predictions are used to justify drastic changes.

As long as you don't destroy the last flower on earth, I don't see the problem.

The loss of that many flowers would be devastating.

I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes.

But by “seeing much more of the flower than he sees”, ie. dissecting it and examining its parts, you’ve destroyed the flower.

It is hard to see the free speech value of "kill all the $$$ (pick you favorite minority or ethnic group).
It is hard to see the free speech value of denial of the moon landing, the efficacy of vaccines or the reality of climate change. It may be necessary to impose some limits on speech to ensure a society cohesive enough and rational enough to function.

It is not the speech that is valuable; it is the freedom of speech that is valuable.

Both censorship and freedom of speech will be abused, but we must pick which abuse would be preferable. Freedom of speech allows for the distortion of truth, but censorship allows for the distortion of truth and its suppression.

I like it.

I would worry about equivocating between “true” and “the truth”. One is a description; the other is the nominalization of that description. One describes things (propositions), and the other is a thing.

Everybody does it.

Many once practiced slavery. But that everyone does it certainly isn’t an argument against its opposite.

If you oppose fascism or communism it would help if you refrained from adopting one of their most beloved tactics.

Lol, yeah, pretty much. Though if Hilary tweeted that I would like her a great deal more.

Have you ever heard of the Communist Party of China?

Drago was a fictional character hyped up full of propaganda... a fitting comparison.

No pro-democracy protester has ever held up an Ivan Drago picture while protesting communist totalitarianism.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/11/29/hong-kong-protestors-wave-swole-trump-posters-thanksgiving-rally/

This tweet coupled with Trump’s signing of the Hong Kong human rights bill could symbolize his coming fight with this generation’s Drago, the Chinese communist party.

The anthem and flag in Hong Kong. Freedom is alive.

oh so you mean mercenaries? So now we hire police based on what? What we want them to do for us? Not based on a lawful obligation, but an individual's ability to pay them? This clearly does not turn out ethical.

No I mean volunteer community members...or for those unwilling to fight, maybe a sort of hired bodyguard. It is entirely ethical for you and I to band together and defend our livelihood, property and community from those who would inflict harm.

with CBS radio's and billyclubs. Right. So a cop

They defend others from aggression and violence, and they are volunteers or privately payed. So, not a cop.

You are just saying police but with extra steps

More like a night-watchmen.

No, I think you’re right that anarchists would necessarily need to enforce some body of rules or principles, if not to maintain their anarchism, than at least to defend their lives and livelihood. But I don’t think these principles would be coercive in the sense that people would need to follow these rules or else be punished. They don’t enforce a moral code; they defend a moral code and the people who believe it.

So I agree with you but on whether anarchism is stupid I do not. Anarchism is noble on its premise of freedom and anti-authoritarianism alone. Whether an anarchist society is possible I am not too sure.

If we want to appeal to definitions, we can.

an·ar·chism
/ˈanərˌkizəm/
Learn to pronounce
noun
belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.

Who keeps the criminals from being criminals in a society with no authority? The criminal themselves? Isn't that counterintuitive to being a criminal?

I suppose it would have to be a force of volunteers.

but you are missing the point. Under anarchy there is no incentive not to litter other than the individual's own moral compass

There a plenty of incentives not to litter. For one, garbage is ugly and damaging to the surroundings.

What if human beings are the brick and mortar of said goal, for instance in the former Soviet Union? Mao’s China? The ends did justify the means but the end was never realized. Instead we get tyranny and corpses.

without law there is no incentive to "stay woke" if you will.
There are no guidelines for morality. It's left to the individual, and I agree we should try to convince humanity to uphold morals and standards that help the world sustain itself, but let's face it we just can't trust people to do it on their own.

Let's take something incredibly simple for example: go outside in any town or city and just look around on the ground. Covered in trash. People are legally obligated not to litter, yet they regularly do it anyway. If they weren't legally obligated it would happen more because there would be no repercussions for the action.

Because people would litter is not an indictment on anarchism, but an indictment on the morality of those who would litter. I know of many people, myself included, who refuse to litter because of many reasons that don’t involve its legality.

So we have a good reason not to trust the OMB spokeswoman.

I don't think we can trust any spokeswoman as a matter of principle, but I think that's a fair analysis.

My use of the quote regarding December 2018 was intended to show that this is something these agencies have been arguing over long before Ukraine.