Argue against your own position!

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But I suspect that you already occupy that "middle ground," so to argue against climate change you would pretty much have to go into crazy land and deny the evidence. While we're at it, why don't I argue for young-earth creationism?

It's hard to say. We don't know what Xenon's sources are, in large part because psychotic leftist sources are a bit more obscure than psychotic right-wing sources (where do you really find Beck's counterpart?) and for all we know, Xenon13 may be repeating talking points same as Inuyasha. But even if Xenon13 is more of an independent thinker, I get the impression that the extremism will still prevent him from engaging the other side effectively.


It's not just that. There is also the recognition that a significant number of people actually share Inuyasha's views, and even at his crazier moments there are easily drawn connections to what people I personally know believe. That makes Inuyasha's brand of extremism and polemics both more frightening and more grating- while Xenon13 can be written off as an obvious fringe-dweller who no one in the mainstream of politics takes seriously, Inuyasha's views are powerfully represented on primetime TV "news" and in the government.

Did you see his thread praising Alexander Lukashenko? Read his take on the man and his recent "reelection", then google him as well as the 2010 elections. I'd say that constitutes a pretty clear break with reality, or at the very least an extreme case of ideological blinkers.

Ok, I would like a request:
I request that a poster, particularly Orwell, argue for nihilism.

I actually had a counter to visagrunt's argument but my net crashed. Anyways, the problem is more of I have problems doing purely emotional arguments, which is all the single-payer platform has to go on. I'll retype it and repost it later.

You just keep proving my point, Inuyasha.

So is this your way of stating that any resemblance any argument you might make here has to the truth is purely coincidental?

Guns should be illegal. People say that criminals will get guns whether it's illegal or not, but if an alcoholic in your family is going to drink anyways then is that an excuse to enable that person? There's another argument that people are gonna find another means to kill a person if guns aren't available. Well at least stabbing doesn't have the problem of stray bullets killing innocent people. There is absolutely no reason for people to need guns since the police protect everyone. One can say well the police take 10 mins to arrive, but in the vast majority of incidents everyone's safety is insured by cooperating with the suspect.

Why should marijuana be legalized? It's bad for the lungs, has been proven to impair people while they're driving, and it doesn't really have much medical benefits other than pain relief, which can be accomplished with pharmaceuticals. Marijuana impairs people's ability to function and since there's relatively much less side effects than other intoxicants, it will encourage much more abuse of it. Since you don't get hungover from weed, what's stopping you from getting high all the time?

Whats up with everyone opposing big government? The government is responsible for the roads, electricity, water, etc. so if we can't trust the government on things other than our basic needs, then what else do we have? Right wingers say they want freedom over security, but the whole point of a society is to secure our needs. Because of society, we can conveniently get food from the grocery store rather than hunting under the threat of starvation. Would you take the freedom to starve over the security of having society provide for you?

lol I tried my best to actually play Devil's Advocate and not make a mockery out of this, but I still can't make it convincing to myself. I could still destroy these arguments easily.

When your opponent steadfastly refuses to accept that there is any rational basis for your position then you have already won. Any successful high-school debater could have risen to this challenge. Especially an American one, given their preference for forensics over rhetoric.

Ironically, I believe that Inuyasha actually has the intellectual capacity to rise to this challenge and that it is only an emotional, pig-headed attachment to partisanship that is the impediment.

Truly, the emperor has no clothes.

The issue is many of the traditional arguments I have seen to support single payer, I know off the top of my head how to completely destroy and what items to google to find sources that completely blow the arguments to pieces. There was an incident in Oregon for starters that shows how messed up Government Run healthcare can be.

@ visagrunt

Well, depending on how much you researched the side of the argument I usually take, really effects what arguments one could even make. I am aware you need to be able to see the opposite side, and quite honestly I do.

I know all I have to do is just dig any horror stories up concerning insurance or HMOs, and one has a collection of horror stories. The fact is though, if one does the research, that argument can be negated by horror stories from single payer.

The issue here is my stance is actually there needed to be some reform, but Obamacare was the wrong approach and single payer would make the issue worse.

Fun tidbit: There are over 1,000 health insurance companies in the US, yet only 3 are allowed to compete in California.

You clearly don't. Your miserable parody didn't even manage to get the stated justification for the individual mandate.

And for the record, I'm not a fan of the individual mandate. But I am at least capable of comprehending the reason why it was put into the bill.

Oh, and also:

I hereby nominate Skafather to argue in favor of drug prohibition.

Which is not the case.

ruveyn

Orwell, the individual mandate doesn't fly because it is Unconstitutional and if it isn't ruled that way the Government can do whatever the hell it wants. While I can see both sides of the issue, it is kinda difficult to argue something that is built on lies and flies in the face of the very founding documents of the United States of America. While you can get away with certain kinds of legislation in Europe and Canada; the United States is not those countries and thank god we're not.

I know the arguments for the individual mandate and I know the arguments for single payer; that said I'm not going to use arguments that I know can be easily disproven nor am I going to sit here and spew lies and bull. Every argument I have seen for single payer and the individual mandate can be easily debunked, disproven, or drawn out to show unintended consequences.

It is far easier to argue gun control, no drug enforcement, abortion, doing away with the death penalty, etc. than it is to argue for the single payer and the individual mandate, because there is actually a legitimate argument that can be made.

I continue to be amused by your utter failure to understand the point of the thread.

But I'll humor you. You say you could do a better job arguing against one of your other positions. Go ahead. You pick one on your own so you can make the strongest case possible.

Okay off the cuff Death Penalty is too prone of killing innocent people.

Too often capital punishment is used or nearly used on people that are actually innocent of the crime they are convicted of. I would post sources for specific examples on this but right now I'm having problems with getting a connection with google.

There have been people on death row for decades that are exonerated due to DNA evidence or other evidence which exonerates them. Heck there was an incident in Illinois in which it was discovered a cop had manipulated evidence (among other things) in order to get convictions of people that were actually innocent (can't remember all the details off the top of my head, but it is pretty scary). There is no way to know if someone you convicted is going to be later proven innocent, and killing an innocent person for a crime they didn't commit is morally wrong. Better for life in prison so one can still be in the land of the living when they are proven innocent.

I would add some additional examples but as I said I'm having problems accessing google at the moment.

Do we really want to see innocent people die because someone in the justice system screwed up?