Skeptic Project

That site is quite useful. What bothers you about Paul in regards to how he votes, Matt?

I smell Libertardians....

Must destroy.....

>>Libertarianism- the only political philosophy that forgot the Great Depression happened.<<

Sarcasm I hope?

No, their entire understanding of the interaction between the government and its constituent units is remarkably misguided and overlooks the tremendous historical issues that lead to the Great Depression and then promptly tries to throw out any positive gain made by government institutions since then. Libertarianism does a really great job of holding up the Constitution and then turning the other way when ever they are faced with examples of how government regulation has been/ is useful.

Look, just smoke pot in private like the rest of us, vote Democratic and quit supporting kooks.

>>Look, just smoke pot in private like the rest of us, vote Democratic and quit supporting kooks.<<

lol I'd love to, but I just don't have any faith in government. Probably never will until we're no longer at war, and I'm certain my kids can have a better future. I've never voted in my life, and probably never will. I do like Ron Paul, but I even disagree with him on a lot of things, thus I wouldn't vote for him either.

Government to me is like common people, and to quote George Carlin, "Some winners, a whole lot of losers."

>>As soon as the prostitution laws are lifted by the Libertarian revolution, I'm going to hire 10,000 $1 hookers.<<

Shit, that's 10,000 smiles right there :)

He quoted Carlin, Matt.

http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/21/ron-paul-says-gop-will-be-more-open-to-libertarian-minded-nominee-in-2012/

Well, at least I got to see him perform live before he died.

I never read any Ayn Rand, and probably never will.

Now John Smith is insisting he's not a Truther. He snapped at me, "Don't call me a freaking Truther!" despite the fact that he posted on his own wall links to AE911Truth.org and a Richard Gage video. About the latter he says, "You can not watch this, understand it, and not be left with serious questions."

Why do Truthers vigorously deny being Truthers?

Now he's doing an about-face.

"I really wish people wouldn't use truther as an insult. What's wrong with the pursuit of truth? They've got it mixed up with the pursuit of a deeper investigation into 9/11 by our government. IT NEEDS TO STOP."

Hahaha, I love this guy. Endless entertainment!

" Conspiracy theories are important to society. If you think they ALL are crazy, you will most likely miss the potentially genuine. "

It's like that thing Michael Shermer was talking about, Type 1/Type 2 Errors. I guess this John Smith guy is just giving every conspiracy theory the benefit of the doubt just because he doesn't want to be someone who labels them wrong because they are conspiracy theories (which is what I think he thinks skeptics/debunkers do). When in reality, conspiracy theories aren't discredited by being conspiracy theories, but by their lack of supporting evidence and the lies and distortions used by those who promote them.

A conspiracy theory by definition IS an allegation of conspiratorial wrongdoing that has a lack of supporting evidence. If it didn't, it wouldn't be a conspiracy theory, but a factual conspiracy like Watergate or Enron.

I'm not aware of a single instance of a conspiracy theory that started out in the public consciousness without any supporting evidence and then which turned out to be true based on later-revealed evidence. Even Watergate--from the very night the burglars were arrested there was evidence tying them to the White House, even though the full extent of the facts was not known until later.

In Iran/Contra, nobody suspected the Reagan White House of diverting arms money to the Contras until evidence was unearthed to support it. That wasn't a conspiracy theory either, it was factually supported from the word go.

CT's have a bizarre notion that explanations behind historical events start out as wild theories that people discuss and bat around for a while, until eventually some "smoking gun" is unearthed that proves their baseless suppositions were in fact correct, thus transforming the conspiracy theory into fact. That's not how things work in the real world.

That's usually how CT's roll. Deny that you're a CT, use philosophical arguments to try to get CTs considered on the same level as real evidence, then when that fails start JAQ'ing off. Once that phase runs its course he'll start with the substantive arguments like "jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough" and "Hani Hanjour couldn't fly" and the usual tropes, spew some YouTube links, get flustered and call debunkers closed-minded idiots, then give up and leave the group.

I feel like I'm putting my head through a brick wall!

Still has yet to point out one example of any of his claims. Is one example really too much to ask?

"I thought I had fooled these pseudo-skeptic dupes with my brilliant alias of John Smith!"