Your core values. These don't change that much, certainly not once you pass a certain age, but possibly never since they seem to be biologically determined for a good part. — ChatteringMonkey

By the objective standard of whether our behaviour helps towards the ultimate ethical goal. — gurugeorge

you already answered the question in (5) — csalisbury

How much should that "count"? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

That's no different in principle to saying if someone offers me 1000 bucks to call someone a nigger or to support someone else calling someone a nigger, do I do it because it's in my self-interest? No, I don't because a more important part of my self-interest than money is a basic level of moral integrity. I mean nothing angelic, just basic. If someone can't even get to that level, they're screwed. — Baden

Obama Care: To which our premium was $2,500 a month for a family of 4 with an annual deducible of $5,000 per person up to a total of $20,000 out of pocket before the policy were to cover 80% of any approved procedures. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

If someone votes for a candidate that is verified and unequivocally a racist or white nationalist or anti-semite or Nazi (or whatever), that makes them sympathetic to racism, white nationalism, anti-semitism or Naziism (or whatever). You might want to draw a distinction between being sympathetic to racism and being an actual racist. I take a more zero-tolerance view. So, yes, if 40% of Americans hypothetically voted for a hypothetical verified racist Trump (just as if they voted for David Duke) they would be sympathetic to racism and in my view racist to a degree (though not as racist as if they used the N-word themselves. There are levels of racism that start with thinking it's not such a bad thing and move all the way up to promoting it as an ideology). — Baden

Bunch of strawmans. I don't agree with your analysis therefore I don't think American's will vote for a verified racist therefore I don't think they're racist. Get it? — Baden

So... what? What do I care what a bunch of racists think? In any case, I've already dismissed your analysis as wrong. Because Hanover thinks you're right doesn't make you right. If the N-word tape comes out Trump won't be re-elected. — Baden

Anyone who would vote for a racist is a racist, and fuck them. I don't believe that's close to fifty percent of Americans. — Baden

I am able to love and support myself and others in the doing — Clay Stablein

I say verified N-word tape, and you say... well you haven't specified, but something more. What then? You tell me. — Baden

I don't care what he says, I care about what he does. The economy is my main concern.

No one with a brain gives a flyin' deuce what a man with 50 years of billionaire accomplishments has ever said, or will ever say. Actions have always trumped Trump's words. Always will.

They are doctoring a tape as we speak. They won't be able to produce it in enough time before the election to enable this 'tape' to be analysed and proven to be a fake !!!

No you're just taking things too far and applying stereotypes to the whole country. As If Trump could put on a KKK hat and declare Hitler's birthday a national holiday and everything would be fine because after all we were wrong about Bush and Trump's first election. No, there's a certain point where cynicism descends into parody. — Baden

But if he does, he is. America is not that racist and notthat tolerant of racism. It's not a different planet, Benkei. Give them some credit. — Baden

Well, seeing as neither of them is racist, I'm pretty sure if Trump is on tape proving himself a racist they would at the very least abstain or vote third party otherwise they would be supporting racism, but OK, they can speak for themselves. — Baden

If Trump is caught saying the N-word on tape, Americans will care (and there's little doubt he said it now. — Baden

You posit that we know only ourselves, — Hanover

My dear friend, I am not sure you realize just how dependent we have become on the communication through satellites. Here in the USA, many people, MANY people no longer have "land lines" because they have a cell phone. Most land line owners are people who work from home and those over 45+. It might be different over in the Netherlands but my Indian that was just in Europe said that the cell phone reception there was like two tin cans and a string between. Here? If the satellites were knocked out cell phones will be affected. Even if we were able to time stamp our transactions with the rest of the world via landline phones, there would be a huge lag which would halt any trading of stocks or monetary exchanges. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

The control over our power grid again I assert it would be a timing issue that would cause surges in power and rolling black outs. "If" that were to happen, the cascading affect or the secondary and tertiary impact on our hospitals, police stations, fire department would be crippling. All of our first responders are using GPS which is why they are able to communicate via truck to truck rather than to dispatch and back. Again, I am not saying it is impossible but it will slow down the warp speed in which we have become dependent on. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

GPS plays a crucial role our ability to control logistical control over the delievering of our food and fuel across America. I am not sure how it works in the Netherlands, if you are all still on street corners with your veggies and into the Butchers to get your meat but here in the USA, many of us get those items from one grocery store. Whether it comes in from the West Coast off a container ship or from Chicago out to the rest of the nation, most of it is delivered by train and then by truck. Yes, the trains, though they will not run on time, will run on a set track that does not depend upon GPS. But once those trains arrive at their distribution center, those products are loaded onto trucks that move out in every direction, across our nation. Those trucks will no longer have GPS and yes they will have maps but it is the slow down that is going to be our Achilles Heel. Puerto Rico was a recent example of how crippling the ability to move food and fuel to the needed areas was and how many folks died from the cascading affects of no AC and medications/medical care being able to move it out to remote areas. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Now Benkei, if you don't believe the affect that a loss of GPS will have on our planes in the air as well as on the ground, I am beginning to doubt your logic about this. Yes, it is true that commercial pilots are taught how to fly their planes via the control panel and by sight but the Tower would have to manually be keeping track of these planes and landing them visually but when they are landing every 60 seconds on a good day? Think of the back log, the circling, the major backup with plane loads of people trying to get clearance to land. I have been debating this here at the ranch and my youngest who is a Sophomore in College said that it wouldn't be the easiest thing to do but it has been done. To which I guessed he was referring to 9.11 which he was and I agreed with him. Sure we could get, along with other countries support, specifically Canada, ALL of our planes in the air, on the ground with a couple of hours but then what? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

All willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering. Fulfillment brings this to an end; yet for one wish that is fulfilled there remain at least ten that are denied. Further, desiring lasts a long time, demands and requests go on to infinity, fulfillment is short and meted out sparingly. But even the final satisfaction itself is only apparent; the wish fulfilled at once makes way for a new one; the former is a known delusion, the latter a delusion not as yet known. No attained object of willing can give a satisfaction that lasts and no longer declines; but it is always like the alms thrown to a beggar, which reprieves him today so that his misery may be prolonged till tomorrow. Therefore, so long as our consciousness is filled by our will [which is as long as we are will-filled living beings], so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never obtain lasting happiness or peace. Essentially, it is all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear harm or aspire to enjoyment; care for the constantly demanding will, no matter in what form, continually fills and moves consciousness; but without peace and calm, true well-being is absolutely impossible. — Schopenhauer (Die Welt, vol I, p 196)

We seem to hover around one of the two polar opposites that are optimism and pessimism. The reasoning goes, that some people are just born optimists or pessimists. But, then there are realists, that view the glass as both half empty and half full.

So, are you a pessimist or an optimist or a realist? Is there room for any more in that category? Maybe the fourth option is available here also? Such as a cynic who doesn't care or a stoic that also is indifferent? — Posty McPostface

Beloveds, these are some bad, ugly, angry times. And I am so freaked out. Hatred has stolen the conversation. The poor are now voting against themselves. But politics is not about left or right. It’s about up and down. The few screwing the many — Some play

If this DNC Russian hack narrative turns out to be false, based on proof given by Assange, the first of wave of DNC and swamp lies is exposed. — wellwisher

Every banking transaction.
The control over our power grid.
The logistical control over our delivering of food and fuel.
Our ability to control commercial air travel.
Battlefield operations. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

heard that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is going to break his silence and give an interview where he reveals his source of the DNC leaks. It may be in the next week or so.

If you recall, nobody ever denied anything that was revealed by Wikileaks, since it was all true. All the DNC did was try to divert attention by playing a blame game. Wikileaks showed how Hillary was willing to back stab a popular member of her own party to get ahead. Bernie Sanders was ripped off.

If someone is capable of that, one should then realize what she would be willing to do to someone who was not in her party who was seen as the enemy. She would pay and collude with foreign nationals to write a phony dossier to be used to set up fantasy collusion scenario designed to harm an elected President.

Assange is going to bring us back to the beginning, so we can have perspective and so the lies can start to unravel in the minds of the mindless. — wellwisher

In the very vast majority of cases, when a prosecutor receives material which would warrant the reopening of a case, we would want them to act on it rather than not. In this case it was not possible to act without influencing the elections. In a way, thats not so much on Comey as it is on the American political circus which allows both of the runners to campaign while being under federal investigation. — Akanthinos

The suspect claims it was accidental, the evidence at least dont contradict his account, and many who have interacted with him have testified that he has showed terrible regrets at the whole event.

Theres at least no reason yet to assume the guy likes to make skin suit out of people. — Akanthinos

Actually, the Cold War was a Deep State conspiracy to set the stage for Russia being the enemy which could then be used to fabricate a hoax implicating Trump in massive wrongdoing and have him removed from office and thrown in Guantanamo. — Michael