First we were discussing puberty blockers for kids. At first none of you were understanding my point of view, reacting as if I was proposing to make it mandatory. Some of you came back with incorrect information about it having permanent physical effects. Certainly a kid should not be allowed to use a drug with permanent harmful physical effects, however, puberty blockers are not in that category. Some of you came back with arguments against the emotional harm, which is real of course, but besides the point if the kid, the doctor, and the parents are choosing it. By this point it should have been clear to most of you that I was actually making a limited government argument, not a pro-promiscuity or pro-gender-fluidity argument.
I think the only person who actually digested enough of the argument to understand it was L2L, who unfortunately is of the belief that small government would be nice but big government is needed to fight the big bad cultural Marxists. Then the big guns came out and he said that puberty blockers were just part of a big conspiracy to undermine everything about culture today and make the US ripe for a Marxist revolution. A lot of things are in this category for L2L, not just puberty blockers of course. Every time he invokes this, we have to realize (1) it's not about puberty blockers or whatever anymore. He genuinely does not care that lives may be saved by accepting an idea, if that idea is in this category for him. (2) it's a slippery slope argument. Slippery slope arguments ignore human agency when they assume that if A is permitted to happen, B is inevitable. The argument is sometimes valid. For instance, it is true that if you make marijuana more available, it is inevitable that more teens will have access to it and use it, even if it's only legal for ages 21 and up. The argument is valid because ultimately each teen gets to decide if they will seek out marijuana, and if they will use it. It's not inevitable that all of them will use it, but it's probably inevitable that more of them will. But slippery slope arguments are almost always invalid for things that we vote on or Congress votes on. When the Florida Constitution was amended to guarantee minimum crate space for pregnant pigs, it didn't suddenly become inevitable that the Constitution would also mandate hens be kept cage free. Obviously we would have to do another signature gathering and vote on the hen issue. If there are people who support pig rights but not hen rights, they could break the supposed slippery slope right there. And that it why I ignore most of L2L's slippery slope arguments. Most of them require a vote to be taken at each step along the slope. We can get off the train at any time.

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(05-20-2022, 07:24 PM)flsprtsgod Wrote:

(05-20-2022, 10:01 AM)mikesez Wrote: And you're a terrible moderator.  You've been that way since I got here.

I wasn't a Moderator when you got here, so another half brained distortion of reality to suit your delusions. And I'm a great moderator, you should be grateful; if I weren't you'd be long banished for your amateur attempts at trolling. Anyway, you can get back to your breezy demonstrations of your inanity now.

Moderators aren't supposed to take sides in a conversation or debate unless one side is violating the code of conduct. And even if they feel they must, they certainly shouldn't reply with personal attacks.
I am not pretending to be anything. I have been a registered Republican for as long as I've been a user here. I've been a Burkean conservative in favor of restoring the original constitutional order by increasing the power of Congress and decreasing the power of the Executive. This was never a problem for anyone here until Trump came along.
Anyhow I was here before you.

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