Flying Dutchmen Fans

Agree in general, but you have a terrible false equivalency in there of an attempted coup on the US government to overturn an election, and property destruction/looting during protests. both totally and unacceptably wrong, but not close to similar.

Polito wrote: This goes back to my prior point, and I don't think this can be stated enough, and it applies to ALL sides: We are not asking people for their awareness anymore, we are now DEMANDING agreement. If there is anything that is unconstitutional and freedom infringing, it is that right there. To the Nth degree. And I'm not getting down with that, not now, not ever. It's wrong, no matter which way you lean.

When you say "demanding agreement," that can be viewed from both sides with respect to the original topic of kneeling.

On one side, I don't see kneeling as "demanding" awareness as I think you're alluding to. If someone doesn't want to see that, don't look, change the channel until the game starts, whatever. But for those with Cards' view on kneeling (perfectly fine, his opinion), to voice such outrage over others' right to kneel can be seen as "demanding" agreement on that view.

Polito wrote: But what we have today is in-fighting within our own 'family', killing each other, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes worse in reality. Instead I'm calling us to use outlandish things called empathy, intelligence, and respecting others. And if we could get people to do more of that, boy would this be a better time for us all.

This is exactly why I took that earlier turn from the kneeling topic to a discussion about facts and truth vs. unfounded opinion, sometimes born out of baseless conspiracy theories. If we're ever going to have unity the way we should and need to, we need to get back to a baseline of facts and truth because the good things you mention -- empathy, intelligence and respect for others -- have been severely undermined by widespread lying (and the support of that lying by those who know better) and misinformation age we're in today.

cactus wrote: Agree in general, but you have a terrible false equivalency in there of an attempted coup on the US government to overturn an election, and property destruction/looting during protests. both totally and unacceptably wrong, but not close to similar.

Well said, cactus, especially the last sentence.

It's a false equivalency in not just one but two ways:

1) As you're saying. Looting during protests (though terrible) doesn't equate on any level with an attempted coup on the Capitol to overthrow a free and fair election along with the brutalizing and killing of police officers and threats to assasinate the vice president and speaker of the house.

2) Those who looted (with some exceptions) were by and large opportunists who were not part of nor cared at all about the protesters' movement. It was largely akin to what we've seen with championship celebrations in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, etc. when the vast majority of fans celebrated in non-violent ways, but opportunists took advantage of that to cause destruction and help themselves to free stuff. Similarly, the majority of protestors were protesting peacefully and even in many cases, tried to form human chains to protect stores from opportunists so they and their movement wouldn't be blamed for the destruction and thefts.

Wags wrote:

cactus wrote: Agree in general, but you have a terrible false equivalency in there of an attempted coup on the US government to overturn an election, and property destruction/looting during protests. both totally and unacceptably wrong, but not close to similar.

Well said, cactus, especially the last sentence.

It's a false equivalency in not just one but two ways:

1) As you're saying. Looting during protests (though terrible) doesn't equate on any level with an attempted coup on the Capitol to overthrow a free and fair election along with the brutalizing and killing of police officers and threats to assasinate the vice president and speaker of the house.

2) Those who looted (with some exceptions) were by and large opportunists who were not part of nor cared at all about the protesters' movement. It was largely akin to what we've seen with championship celebrations in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, etc. when the vast majority of fans celebrated in non-violent ways, but opportunists took advantage of that to cause destruction and help themselves to free stuff. Similarly, the majority of protestors were protesting peacefully and even in many cases, tried to form human chains to protect stores from opportunists so they and their movement wouldn't be blamed for the destruction and thefts.

There were a number of police officers injured - THERE WERE ZERO POLICE OFFICERS KILLED. The one officer who died was probably from a stroke (not hit on head with a fire extinguisher as erroneously reported). He texted his brother and said he was OK - not injured. To this day his mother doesn't know how he died.
Better try looking at some videos with police stations being burned to the ground (Minneapolis) and nightly attacks on federal courthouse (Portland)
As far as a free and fair election - lol

ZMAN3 wrote:

Wags wrote:

cactus wrote: Agree in general, but you have a terrible false equivalency in there of an attempted coup on the US government to overturn an election, and property destruction/looting during protests. both totally and unacceptably wrong, but not close to similar.

Well said, cactus, especially the last sentence.

It's a false equivalency in not just one but two ways:

1) As you're saying. Looting during protests (though terrible) doesn't equate on any level with an attempted coup on the Capitol to overthrow a free and fair election along with the brutalizing and killing of police officers and threats to assasinate the vice president and speaker of the house.

2) Those who looted (with some exceptions) were by and large opportunists who were not part of nor cared at all about the protesters' movement. It was largely akin to what we've seen with championship celebrations in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, etc. when the vast majority of fans celebrated in non-violent ways, but opportunists took advantage of that to cause destruction and help themselves to free stuff. Similarly, the majority of protestors were protesting peacefully and even in many cases, tried to form human chains to protect stores from opportunists so they and their movement wouldn't be blamed for the destruction and thefts.

There were a number of police officers injured - THERE WERE ZERO POLICE OFFICERS KILLED. The one officer who died was probably from a stroke (not hit on head with a fire extinguisher as erroneously reported). He texted his brother and said he was OK - not injured. To this day his mother doesn't know how he died.
Better try looking at some videos with police stations being burned to the ground (Minneapolis) and nightly attacks on federal courthouse (Portland)
As far as a free and fair election - lol

ZMAN3 - How dare you bring some facts into the conversation We should also recall that tens of thousands of protesters marched on the Capitol, while only hundreds (and I'm not making light of it) broke laws at and in the building. So what happened to the "generally accepted" statement that the vast majority of marchers and protesters were generally peaceful. I recall hearing that night after night last summer (as killings DID happen, building burned, and many business owners lost everything).

As I've said before, there are always two sides. Just sayin.

ZMAN3 wrote:

Wags wrote:

cactus wrote: Agree in general, but you have a terrible false equivalency in there of an attempted coup on the US government to overturn an election, and property destruction/looting during protests. both totally and unacceptably wrong, but not close to similar.

Well said, cactus, especially the last sentence.

It's a false equivalency in not just one but two ways:

1) As you're saying. Looting during protests (though terrible) doesn't equate on any level with an attempted coup on the Capitol to overthrow a free and fair election along with the brutalizing and killing of police officers and threats to assasinate the vice president and speaker of the house.

2) Those who looted (with some exceptions) were by and large opportunists who were not part of nor cared at all about the protesters' movement. It was largely akin to what we've seen with championship celebrations in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, etc. when the vast majority of fans celebrated in non-violent ways, but opportunists took advantage of that to cause destruction and help themselves to free stuff. Similarly, the majority of protestors were protesting peacefully and even in many cases, tried to form human chains to protect stores from opportunists so they and their movement wouldn't be blamed for the destruction and thefts.

There were a number of police officers injured - THERE WERE ZERO POLICE OFFICERS KILLED. The one officer who died was probably from a stroke (not hit on head with a fire extinguisher as erroneously reported). He texted his brother and said he was OK - not injured. To this day his mother doesn't know how he died.
Better try looking at some videos with police stations being burned to the ground (Minneapolis) and nightly attacks on federal courthouse (Portland)
As far as a free and fair election - lol

If you have to go to the length of parsing reasons for Officer SIcknick's actual cause of death, that's a terribly weak argument. Bottom line, he'd believe today without the COUP ATTEMPT. He was not "OK" when he lay in state at the Capitol nor when they drove his ashes to Arlington National Cemetary. We all saw it - no need to twist yourself into a pretzel trying to defend the indefensible.

There were GALLOWS and a NOOSE for the vice president and loud chants by many to hang him. There was a voiced threat to "shoot Pelosi in the f*cking bran."
Do you have a technicality to try to excuse those too?

And yes, a free and fair election - 61 out of 62 losing court challenges (including those involving Trump-appointed judges overseeing some of those cases) backed that up, time and time again. Stop the with silly, unfounded conspiracy theories -- which, oh, by the way, is WHY we saw the COUP ATTEMPT on our government.

p.s. I've already seen the videos in Portland and Minneapolis. Have you seen the videos of police officers repeatedly stepping way over the line, beating the crap out of people who were doing nothing but peacefully protesting? Check them out - there are literally hundreds of them. If that type of thing doesn't happen for decades upon decades, violent, inexcusable opportunists mixed in with the peaceful protestors causing the damage in the videos you referenced doesn't happen more recently. Cause and effect. Cards - as cactus already pointed out, FAR different cause and effect with that vs. that of the Capitol coup attempt. Those two should not be disingenuously conflated just to make a point.

Wags wrote:And yes, a free and fair election - 61 out of 62 losing court challenges (including those involving Trump-appointed judges overseeing some of those cases) backed that up, time and time again. Stop the with silly, unfounded conspiracy theories -- which, oh, by the way, is WHY we saw the COUP ATTEMPT on our government.

As before, there are always two sides.
Anyone paying attention certainly knows that the vast majority of the challenges were not heard because of "standing or other procedural motions" and not because of the merits of the challenge, so quoting case numbers is quite misleading.
Anyone paying attention also knows that many state voting laws were not followed (some voting procedures were changed due to COVID, however those changed procedures were never brought by state legislative bodies nor were they ever voted on by anybody). Certainly that raises legitimate questions in close vote counts.

Cards wrote:

Wags wrote:And yes, a free and fair election - 61 out of 62 losing court challenges (including those involving Trump-appointed judges overseeing some of those cases) backed that up, time and time again. Stop the with silly, unfounded conspiracy theories -- which, oh, by the way, is WHY we saw the COUP ATTEMPT on our government.

As before, there are always two sides.
Anyone paying attention certainly knows that the vast majority of the challenges were not heard because of "standing or other procedural motions" and not because of the merits of the challenge, so quoting case numbers is quite misleading.
Anyone paying attention also knows that many state voting laws were not followed (some voting procedures were changed due to COVID, however those changed procedures were never brought by state legislative bodies nor were they ever voted on by anybody). Certainly that raises legitimate questions in close vote counts.

There are only two sides when the arugment of each side is based on facts and truth, not when one side's claims are founded on a baseless lie.

So no, it's not misleading at all. I'll trust our courts over people's baseless "opinions." Read the courts' opinions and how meritless they said all of the claims were, except for the one case out of 62 that was won, and that was due to a simple ballot curing issue, nothing nefarious. The rest were laughed out of court, over and over.

How many times did Giuliani scream, "I have proof!" at a rally, on TV or on Twitter only to never provide said proof in the COURTS? Why? Because he knew he'd be disbarred if he lied about that in court. Same with other lawyers who were involved. They wouldn't touch it and for good reason. None of them wanted to be disbarred either.

Regardless, we go by our courts. Not liking their decision doesn't give any so-called "patriot" a right to invade the Capitol building in an attempted government takeover. It's insane and it's not defensible in any possible way.

It is really amazing that the greatest and most massive election fraud just happened without leaving any evidence and only affected the top of the ballot. Republicans fared quite well down ballot. Our bipartisan election officials including Trump appointees Krebs and Ware called it the "most secure in American history". "We can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections and you should too". Facilitating mail in voting during a pandemic is democracy, suppressing it is autocracy and attempts to do so are rampant currently in red states. As Wags has said we have to agree on the facts in order to have fruitful discussions and make progress. Where we get our information from, largely determines what we believe. Those attuned to Fox, talk radio, social media and the like are far more apt to be misinformed and prone to conspiracy theories than those attuned to mainstream media.

fiftiespride wrote:As Wags has said we have to agree on the facts in order to have fruitful discussions and make progress. Where we get our information from, largely determines what we believe. Those attuned to Fox, talk radio, social media and the like are far more apt to be misinformed and prone to conspiracy theories than those attuned to mainstream media.

Well guys, I guess its a good thing we agree on most basketball topics, as it appears we do not nor will not agree on some of the topics in this thread. And thats OK.

Half the country agrees with Fiftiespride and Wags and the other half does not. Replace the media sources named above with CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Facebook/Twitter and half the country would agree with that statement.

So, we agree to disagree on opinions, and that's healthy. Unfortunately, we have to agree to disagree on sources of info and facts - but that is where we are. Still no reason we can't believe that we all want the best for our country (even with "best" meaning different things to different people), celebrate and be thankful for what we have, and love our families and neighbors.

Ditto Cards!

Cards wrote: Half the country agrees with Fiftiespride and Wags and the other half does not.

Half the country's delusional and can't accept defeat. If the so-called proof exists, let's see it. Until then, enough with the baseless conspiracy nonsense.

If Hofstra doesn't play well, loses by a dozen and goes 5/28 from 3, I'm not blaming the refs. I'm looking at what Hofstra could do better to win its next game.

So Wags do you mean those that believe the Portland riots and Seattle take over did exist and we believe the left did those things we are dilusional.

stuball888 wrote:So Wags do you mean those that believe the Portland riots and Seattle take over did exist and we believe the left did those things we are dilusional.

Cards and I were talking about the so-called election "fraud" of which no proof exists.

Oh ok

It's way overdue to put this to bed because we have better things to disagree about like whether We can defend out title and win another CAA championship assuming that the games will even be played. How about that guys!!

Cactus time to lock this thread

stuball888 wrote:Cactus time to lock this thread

Yes, that would be appropriate. Agreements and disagreements have been voiced. Further discussion here would not likely bear eatable fruit.

Thanks all for keeping it civil.