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Bay12 Presidential Focus Polling 2016

Ted Cruz
- 7 (6.5%)
Rick Santorum
- 16 (14.8%)
Michelle Bachmann
- 13 (12%)
Chris Christie
- 23 (21.3%)
Rand Paul
- 49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107


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Author Topic: Bay12 Election Night Watch Party  (Read 757275 times)

MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #165 on: February 14, 2013, 02:18:09 pm »

You forgot "opened dialogue with Mao Zedong". That alone would get him impeached these days.
Okay, they definitely would have accused him of being a communist infiltrator.

Thinking about it, the Soviet-Sino Split could have resulted in World War III if not for Nixon's actions. It's one thing for the Soviets to attack a China that is almost entirely without international allies, it is another to attack a China that is suddenly very friendly with the United States and thus the entire US power bloc.
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RedKing

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #166 on: February 14, 2013, 03:10:55 pm »

You forgot "opened dialogue with Mao Zedong". That alone would get him impeached these days.
Okay, they definitely would have accused him of being a communist infiltrator.

Thinking about it, the Soviet-Sino Split could have resulted in World War III if not for Nixon's actions. It's one thing for the Soviets to attack a China that is almost entirely without international allies, it is another to attack a China that is suddenly very friendly with the United States and thus the entire US power bloc.
Also ensured that Vietnam wouldn't become TOO cozy with the Soviets, which allowed us to get out of there without a strategic nightmare. Of course, they probably wouldn't have anyway (Ho Chi Minh was never a big fan of Moscow....hell, MOST Third World Communist revolutionaries weren't fond of Moscow), but that sealed the deal.

Teh Nixon is a pretty shrewd guy, he divides Comunists and doesnt afraid of anything
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GreatJustice

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #167 on: February 14, 2013, 03:21:09 pm »

Quite a lot of murders are drug related but it's nowhere near a majority.  I think the rate by assault weapon varies wildly according to what you count as an assault weapon.  The reason that legislation is restricted to "assault weapons" is probably due to the political difficulty in legislating against the guns that are used in most murders.

Yeah?

Well, yeah, if you actually take a second to look up the statistics, rather than "gut reaction".

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/the-single-best-anti-gun-death-policy-ending-the-drug-war/266505/
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Reliable statistics on the number of drug-related murders in the United States are hard to come by. A 1994 Department of Justice report suggested that between a third and a half of U.S. homicides were drug-related, while a recent Center for Disease Control study found that the rate varied between 5% and 25% (a 2002 Bureau of Justice report splits the difference).

If you don't believe the official estimates, you need a better reason than "coz i said so".

Whilst they're not the majority of gun murders, they're still a significant fraction, though. Mind you, the vast bulk of actual gun deaths in the USA are suicide. Leading to the question of whether guns in households make suicide too easy ... which is a whole other gun debate.

"A third to half" isn't really "nowhere near a majority", though. That's...pretty significant.
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RedKing

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #168 on: February 14, 2013, 03:25:12 pm »

Quite a lot of murders are drug related but it's nowhere near a majority.  I think the rate by assault weapon varies wildly according to what you count as an assault weapon.  The reason that legislation is restricted to "assault weapons" is probably due to the political difficulty in legislating against the guns that are used in most murders.

Yeah?

Well, yeah, if you actually take a second to look up the statistics, rather than "gut reaction".

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/the-single-best-anti-gun-death-policy-ending-the-drug-war/266505/
Quote
Reliable statistics on the number of drug-related murders in the United States are hard to come by. A 1994 Department of Justice report suggested that between a third and a half of U.S. homicides were drug-related, while a recent Center for Disease Control study found that the rate varied between 5% and 25% (a 2002 Bureau of Justice report splits the difference).

If you don't believe the official estimates, you need a better reason than "coz i said so".

Whilst they're not the majority of gun murders, they're still a significant fraction, though. Mind you, the vast bulk of actual gun deaths in the USA are suicide. Leading to the question of whether guns in households make suicide too easy ... which is a whole other gun debate.

"A third to half" isn't really "nowhere near a majority", though. That's...pretty significant.
That's also the high end of the three ranges given, and the oldest (back when the "war on crack" was still going strong).
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GreatJustice

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #169 on: February 14, 2013, 03:37:41 pm »

Quite a lot of murders are drug related but it's nowhere near a majority.  I think the rate by assault weapon varies wildly according to what you count as an assault weapon.  The reason that legislation is restricted to "assault weapons" is probably due to the political difficulty in legislating against the guns that are used in most murders.

Yeah?

Well, yeah, if you actually take a second to look up the statistics, rather than "gut reaction".

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/the-single-best-anti-gun-death-policy-ending-the-drug-war/266505/
Quote
Reliable statistics on the number of drug-related murders in the United States are hard to come by. A 1994 Department of Justice report suggested that between a third and a half of U.S. homicides were drug-related, while a recent Center for Disease Control study found that the rate varied between 5% and 25% (a 2002 Bureau of Justice report splits the difference).

If you don't believe the official estimates, you need a better reason than "coz i said so".

Whilst they're not the majority of gun murders, they're still a significant fraction, though. Mind you, the vast bulk of actual gun deaths in the USA are suicide. Leading to the question of whether guns in households make suicide too easy ... which is a whole other gun debate.

"A third to half" isn't really "nowhere near a majority", though. That's...pretty significant.
That's also the high end of the three ranges given, and the oldest (back when the "war on crack" was still going strong).

Okay, but it says the most recent report split it down the middle, so assuming my math is right, that ends up with... around 30%. Still very much significant, and not "nowhere near a majority".

But then, I'm not really seeing why there's any debate here, I was asking an honest question. Do we really want another gun control argument?
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Nadaka

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #170 on: February 14, 2013, 03:40:54 pm »

No, not really looking for a gun debate. But that did seem to be the focus of the state of the union address.
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GlyphGryph

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #171 on: February 14, 2013, 03:41:04 pm »

Uh... I would, personally, be very inclined to describe 30% as "nowhere near a majority". Significant, yes, but you don't need a majority, or even needing near a majority, to be significant. Where do you actually put your cutoff of "near a majority"?
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RedKing

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #172 on: February 14, 2013, 03:45:32 pm »

Uh... I would, personally, be very inclined to describe 30% as "nowhere near a majority". Significant, yes, but you don't need a majority, or even needing near a majority, to be significant. Where do you actually put your cutoff of "near a majority"?
I think the answer to that is "wherever is most expedient to my argument"  :P

Most ambiguous quantity terms work like that as rhetorical devices. (including the "most" I just used)
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Sirus

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #173 on: February 14, 2013, 03:51:42 pm »

50% exactly is near a majority. Once you get over that point, you have a majority.
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RedKing

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #174 on: February 14, 2013, 03:54:35 pm »

Yeah, but I think you could reasonably argue that 45% is "near a majority". Maybe even 40%. For me personally, get much harder to justify below that. 30% means 70% the OTHER way, or in other words "a significant majority of gun deaths are NOT drug-related", which was Leafsnail's original point.
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GreatJustice

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #175 on: February 14, 2013, 03:55:31 pm »

Uh... I would, personally, be very inclined to describe 30% as "nowhere near a majority". Significant, yes, but you don't need a majority, or even needing near a majority, to be significant. Where do you actually put your cutoff of "near a majority"?

If it's above 25% it's not "nowhere near" a majority. I'd say "nowhere near" implies 15% or below in particular. Over 30% would likely make it a "plurality", though, and that isn't considering indirect effects of the drug war (eg. poverty, etc making other types of crime like robbery more likely). Why are we having this argument again?
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GlyphGryph

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #176 on: February 14, 2013, 04:04:44 pm »

Because a conversation about communication is a lot more fun than another conversation about guns.

Personally, my breakdown would be "[49%..50%]: Almost a majority. [45%..49%): Somewhat close to a majority. [40%..45%) Not really close to a majority. <40%: Nowhere near a majority.:

15% is pretty much a straight minority. It means the VAST majority are opposed. That's going into "You should never use this number in the same sentence as 'Majority'" territory, imo. If you're more than 15% AWAY from a majority, you are nowhere near it. Just like how a 65% majority is nowhere near a minority, a 35% minority is nowhere near a majority.

At 30%, it means whatever metric you're using to track your majority status, 200% of that metric is opposed! o_o There's twice as many people against you! You are outnumbered 2-1. I would feel pretty darn safe calling that nowhere near a majority.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 04:09:11 pm by GlyphGryph »
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GreatJustice

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #177 on: February 14, 2013, 04:38:25 pm »

Because a conversation about communication is a lot more fun than another conversation about guns.

Personally, my breakdown would be "[49%..50%]: Almost a majority. [45%..49%): Somewhat close to a majority. [40%..45%) Not really close to a majority. <40%: Nowhere near a majority.:

15% is pretty much a straight minority. It means the VAST majority are opposed. That's going into "You should never use this number in the same sentence as 'Majority'" territory, imo. If you're more than 15% AWAY from a majority, you are nowhere near it. Just like how a 65% majority is nowhere near a minority, a 35% minority is nowhere near a majority.

At 30%, it means whatever metric you're using to track your majority status, 200% of that metric is opposed! o_o There's twice as many people against you! You are outnumbered 2-1. I would feel pretty darn safe calling that nowhere near a majority.

But we aren't dealing with "A" and "A's opposite, B", we're dealing with "A" "B" C" "D"...

For example, if we had a poll of, say, favourite bands, and it went something like 30%, 10%, 5%, 5%, 4%... then while 30% might not be the majority, it would be a significant plurality and wouldn't be described as "nowhere near" a majority. After all, if you have enough options on that list, that 30% might be so because there are people who are split between the 30% option and, say, a minor band getting 2%, so they aren't diametrically opposed. Similarly, when referring to the broad topic of "murder", what falls under "caused by drug war" and what doesn't isn't necessarily clear cut.
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The person supporting regenerating health, when asked why you can see when shot in the eye justified it as 'you put on an eyepatch'. When asked what happens when you are then shot in the other eye, he said that you put an eyepatch on that eye. When asked how you'd be able to see, he said that your first eye would have healed by then.

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GlyphGryph

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #178 on: February 14, 2013, 04:41:09 pm »

We'll have to be satisfied with agreeing to disagree. Any B where 70% of the set is not-B is nowhere close to a majority, even if it's significantly larger than all the other groups individually.
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Leafsnail

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Re: FearfulJesuit's American Politics Megathread Two: Election Boogaloo
« Reply #179 on: February 14, 2013, 04:57:43 pm »

But we aren't dealing with "A" and "A's opposite, B", we're dealing with "A" "B" C" "D"...
Good thing the word "majority" has nothing to do with that at all.  I don't even get how you can have a "plurality" of murders when it's not like there are political factions spanning different categories of crime.
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