Kitteh Wrote:Well, it seems we've reached an impasse.
In any case, I was asking the question because it never seemed to bother you. It bothers me to know that it has happened, and that that power is held by the state, but that's just my personal view.
You honestly think I've never considered the other arguments? I didn't bring them up because they've been discussed to death, and it all just falls off into ideological divides anyways.
Anyways, reposting just because you haven't seen fit to address it yet.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/...fact_grann
If you know the other arguments, and have seriously considered them in the past, then why in God's name are you deliberately and repeatedly using the weakest one, to the point where you're not even logically arguing the blasted thing?
It's very rare that these types of arguments conclude with someone "changing their mind." On the major issues, I can only think of it happening with me a small handful of times in my 10 years on the internet. Debate is more of an intellectual exercise where leaders make logical arguments to support viewpoints which their supporters already believed. Your actual beliefs on stuff like this probably were shaped by the time you were 5. You don't hear of a 5 year old successfully defending/attacking the death penalty, but he may have an opinion on it already. More likely than not, the logic he learns later will act as reinforcement for the 5 year old belief. A particularly charismatic politician can use his personality to sway that belief, (Kennedy, FDR, Hitler, Mao, etc.) We believe things because we "feel" a certain way. That's why politicians lead us -- they appeal to our emotions with charisma, first, and then support that charisma with logic.
Edit: I read 2 out of 17 pages of that article, how is this different from waht I already refuted? New Yorker is finer media, but it's still media, and I have made my point about less 0.01% enough by now that I don't want to repeat it anymore.