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I have a soft spot of admiration for free speech liberals and principled civil libertarians, the types that are likely to be ACLU supporters and volunteers. They are a welcome voice in these hyper-partisan times when personality and party so often trump principal. The ACLU has been around for...

This isn’t a left/right issue at least from my perspective. And it goes way beyond Alex Jones. As Apple, Google and Microsoft become ever more powerful we need to consider how this power will effect our lives, free speech included. In ten years all three will have 3 to 5 trillion dollar market...

It’s too easy an answer to say Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter are private platforms and can set their own standards and leave it at that. These giant corporations (Apple now has a trillion dollar valuation) are starting to monopolize the public sphere and that’s something free speech advocates...

He’s a conservative who had a crisis of faith and became a big Obama supporter in 2008. He was never an editor for the National Review. As far as I know Sullivan has never opposed gay marriage, in fact, he wrote a book supporting it decades ago and almost 30 years ago wrote an essay in The New...

Yes, that’s what I meant. It might be fine as an ideal but it’s not possible in practice. It suffers from what Marx liked to call an internal contradiction. In current discourse meritocracy is little more than a propaganda term used by and for the benefit of elites. “The equality of opportunity...

Interesting article on a book (Twilight of the Elites) that argues that a true meritocracy is a myth. "As America becomes more unequal, it’s ever harder to claim that it is a meritocratic country. It still looks like one to the people at the top, who continue to prosper. However, their view...

I’m interested in learning more about FDR’s New Deal. Not sure how much farther to the left Bernie is than the restructuring of capitalism that occurred under FDR. Bernie has said his version of socialism is more an updated version of the New Deal than anything truly far left such as state...

Many NBA players are more into wine than weed. Lebron, CP3, Melo, Wade, and many more are major connoisseurs. http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/22358028/the-nba-obsession-wine

Weird timing for a dumb thread. Wood's demise was due to back and knee issues. He is now relatively healthy and able to practice pain free as much as he wants for the first time in years, and as a result is now (even at age 42) a favorite to win next week at Augusta...

So much projection in this post it’s hard to know where to begin. Think back for a moment on just a fraction of the labels you’ve put on people: Marxist, socialist, fascist, moron, idiot, fool. But now a childish label like “turds" is somehow too much and worthy of moderation?

Just a couple of people? More accurate to say dozens with more every day. Here’s an article on whether this is the beginning of a permanent shift in the culture or something more fleeting: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-sexual-harassment-tipping-point-20171027-story.html

What’s happening is beyond politics and partisanship. It’s a culture shift. The end of ding dongs doing whatever they want whenever they want. Ray Moore, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Louis CK, Leon Wieseltier, Mark...

"This isn't a fishing expedition or a witch hunt — it's an investigation that's already born fruit with a grand jury of regular Americans finding probable cause that a crime was committed. . . (It’s) a watershed moment for the politics surrounding the investigation. In less than six months on...

At the risk of repeating myself, the shirt Kaepernick wore was not a Castro shirt or a shirt celebrating the life and career of Castro. It was a Malcolm X meets with Castro in Harlem shirt. The meeting was in 1960, shortly after the Cuban revolution and before Castro went on to commit the...

"To an extent, the United States of America held up surprisingly well from Inauguration Day until September 20th or so. The ongoing degradation of American civic institutions, at a minimum, did not have an immediate negative impact on the typical person’s life. But the world is beginning to draw...

Babe used to be a much more readable and reasonable poster. I think he’s just frustrated. Trump is the last gasp hope for the way we were crowd and to see that hope being put to flames by a lunatic president is all too much.

One or two names or links to the critics you have in mind would be appreciated.

There is value in posting useful links and thoughtful points of view, but I think the best way to respond to trolls is to never quote them directly. When they post misinformation you feel should not go unanswered, simply post with the reply to thread button, and the viewpoint you wish to present...

Ideas involve thought, understanding, awareness, and some kind of detectable coherence. Treating nonsense as ideas gives way too much credence to what are Mad Hatter levels of gibberish.

You stop at monuments honoring the Confederacy. It can and will stop there because outside of a few loons there is no equivalence between widely honored and beloved founders like Washington and Jefferson, flawed on slavery as they may have been, and traitors to their country like Lee, Jackson...