A lot of us ranted about the election being stolen because it clearly was. Is it illegal to acknowledge that an election is unfair now? Anyone who notices or dares to mention that we're cheating is going to jail. I could say that about our elections. Many of whom were held without bond, or otherwise threatened with drastic action unless they agreed to please guilty to a misdemeanor, or anything that would allow your role models in the Biden administration to claim that they admitted they were guilty. This included some who weren't even in Washington DC on January 6. Plead guilty and we'll let you go right now, otherwise, the rest of your life will be ruined. Others, who refused to do so, are still behind bars or in the process of having their lives ruined. If you moved to Mexico because you couldn't stand living in a country where people were free to say what they want, or where elections were fair, you can come back now. We're just another banana republic, minus the bananas.
For some reason Richard, I really didn’t take you for the kind of guy who gets belligerent when faced with the facts. If people keep “believing what they want” then we come to a point where facts are no longer pertinent. Everything becomes subjective and objectivity is thrown out the window all because people run their lives on “feelings” and opinions rather than the truth. Even now, some people believe that men have suddenly developed vaginas and women have penis’s and there are 77 or so genders. Most of us know that it’s total BS and could easily live with whatever they believe but nope, they just have to jam it down our throats as if their imaginings are fact. Now notably, as @Ken Anderson has written many times, there’s nothing wrong with writing one’s opinion(s) which I do whole heartily acknowledge and even at times pose my own. But facts are facts and no truth can be denied its position in life no matter how many opinions try to make events or statements Sound true. In my book, opinions are only valid when the truth cannot be found such as the Kennedy assassination but the facts about Bragg, Polk, the Russia hoax, Jan 6th, etc are out there to be easily discovered if one truly wishes to know them.
Believing what you want is better than believing what you're told to believe. There are plenty of credentialed experts who will have us believe that people with penises regularly get pregnant, and that it's insane to question this newly discovered scientific fact.
I had no intention of starting a fight. I just believe one thing while others believe something quite different. I don't/didn't think there was anything wrong with expressing an opinion. Sorry if I offended anyone.
To which I would answer that since psychology is not by any means an exact science, how can anything coming from that highly credentialed community be taken as absolute fact? I too have credentials but all that means is that I have proved that I love to study and seek the truth and as a bonus, chances are that I can use my highlighter pens better than most. What it doesn’t mean is that even in the confines of what those credentials indicate, I do not know nor ever will know everything there is to know ergo, if and when I say something is fact, it is still best to do your own research. After all, your afterlife doesn’t depend on my research, it depends on yours.
I doubt seriously if you offended anyone at all Richard and no, as I wrote in my last post, there is absolutely nothing wrong with expressing one’s opinion. In the realm of scientific research, it is the opinion that starts the experiment in order to find the fact. Speaking of opinions, it is my opinion that it is time for a cup of coffee.
Nobody's fighting. People are just pointing out that there's a lot to know beyond the sources you restrict yourself to.
One of the problems is knowing which source is the most truthful. What some people regard as a very truthful source, the next group believes it is extremely biased. In any event, actual witnesses to ANY event vary widely in what they say happened. If cops had 10 witnesses to a robbery , you would get 10 different descriptions of the robber. Does that mean some of them are lying ? No, of course not. They are merely mistaken. So, how are we to ever know facts from fiction ?
To my knowledge, there are no wholly unbiased sources of news. Despite a general feeling to the contrary, this is nothing new. At the time when most newspapers were being founded, they were known to be affiliated with a political party, which was often a part of the newspaper's name. It seems so much worse today because so many of them have been consolidated into large news corporations affiliated with Democrats or other liberal or progressive agendas. In the 1800s, a town might have had a newspaper affiliated with the Democrat Party, but there would be another newspaper in the same town representing the Republicans. Today, most of our news sources represent liberal progressive agendas. While there are some, like the Epoch Times, and, to a lesser extent, the New York Post, that have a conservative bent, only conservatives read them, while both conservatives and liberals read the New York Times and the Washington Post. The fact that conservatives are far less likely to boycott a newspaper or business for expressing a liberal agenda, the advantage goes to the liberals. A news source can have a liberal bias and still get readers and advertisers, but a conservative news source cannot; because liberals will boycott and even actively cancel conservative publications and their advertisers, conservatives are afraid to support conservative news media. In my opinion, to have a reasonable chance of getting the right information, you have to look around, and not be afraid to question the official word on something because, given the nature of government, the official word is likely to be propaganda. Ask yourself, "Does it make sense?" If it doesn't make sense, given other things that you know, then it's probably not true. Look at the source, and, by that, I don't mean only the publication but the people who are being quoted or interviewed as sources in the news story. From what I've seen, most liberal news sources, which include most of the mainstream media, will outright lie if they need to do that in order to advance their agenda, while conservative news sources will leave stuff out that doesn't advance their agenda. Of the US mainstream print news media, it seems to me that the Washington Times comes closest to being objective, but that doesn't mean that I'd accept everything they say as fact, either.
Now, see? This is a perfect example of the situation we find ourselves in. A society with so many people who know nothing about critical thinking. And we urge everyone who can vote to go to the polls! This is how we end up with the kind of representatives we end up with. You have some great statistics, Richard, but sadly they are incorrect. It appears that you get lost when information comes from anything other than American left-leaning sources, so I am going to impart to you what Time -- one of the former standard bearers -- published on May 26, 2023. According to Time: 1,033 people have been arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. The Washington DC Attorney's Office claimed that 277 defendants had been sentenced to "periods of incarceration, with longer prison terms for those who engaged in violence or threats. Note: Do you see what that means? That means that fewer than 277 of the 1,033 people arrested for the events of Jan 6 were accused of violence or threats of violence. That's roughly one quarter of the "suspects". More precisely, 26.8151%. You remember that someone -- I think it was @Bobby Cole -- pointed out that the vast majority of those at the Capitol that day were peaceful? Not only is that correct, but -- get your critical thinking cap on -- it indicates that a very small percentage of people that were there were allegedly involved in the so-called "insurrection" were convicted of threatening or committing violence. (A subjective condition, I think.) It also means that "a significant number of rioters" have not had anything resembling the rights granted to them by God and supposedly protected by the Constitution in the Sixth Amendment. Let's get back to Time's breakdown: Sadly, and unconstitutionally, a "significant number of those arrested are still awaiting disposition of the alleged charges. These people are awaiting trial or plea deals. Approximately 485 of them - 47% in fact -- have received criminal sentences. "An additional 113" of those convicted of being at the Capitol that day received house arrest and/or fines, probation, and/or community service. Mr. Hoover's FBI g-men are still seeking more than 220 people. Enough of Time. Let's talk for a moment, Richard. I do hope that you are overcome with a desire for truth in all matters as well as this one. I hope you start to read more than just headlines and first paragraphs. I do hope you will start to expand your horizons and look outside the comfort of those slanted news accounts -- both left and right -- and seek true information so you don't embarrass yourself when you make off-the-mark statements in public. If you need help in forging ahead in that manner, I would be happy to help. In the meantime, know that I will be praying for you and your discernment.
As I previously said, "I'm all done discussing this subject." There is nothing I could possibly say that would cause people to agree.
The actual idea of a discussion is not to make people agree with us, but to learn new facts and , if necessary, change our opinion about what is true or is not true. I have changed my mind a lot of times when someone pointed out information that was new to me. I would much rather learn truth than keep believing something that turned out to not be true because I didn’t want to change my mindset.
Some of the facts are that certain top leaders of the Jan 6th riot have been convicted of insurrection and sentenced to prison terms of 18, 14 and 10 years. That fact is indisputable. Hundreds more have been sentenced to lessor terms. What other "fact" do I need to know before I take sides with those felons ? Am I supposed to believe that the entire legal system of the United State is corrupt ?
I do find some of the sentences are Draconian. Jan. 6 Capitol Rioters Arrests and Sentences So Far | Time