Strophie

You do understand that the issue is not that a contract exists regarding the secret service renting golf carts, right?

Did Obama own the golf carts being rented in prior contracts, and hence financially benefit from them?

quote:

---

Says it's not relevant... in an impeachment inquiry allegedly launched on actions brought to light by... the whistleblower.

---

You do realize that it is quite literally irrelevant, on top of being a terrible precedent to set (with regard to future whistleblowers)?

Why the hang up on who the whistleblower is? If someone calls the police to report a robbery, and the police show up and find a robbery in process, do the defense attorneys spend their entire time grandstanding about who the caller was?

If the whistleblower was hypothetically a major democratic donor who had pictures of Hillary and Obama all over his walls, how would that have any merit with regard to the testimonies of all the other witnesses? Why would it matter? Does it change their testimony?

quote:

---

That certification was for FY 2016

---

Yeah. And it was sent to lawmakers by the Pentagon in May of this year, one month prior to the announcement of the intent to provide the $250MM in aid to Ukraine. Do you know the law? Does it require a restatement every year?

quote:

---

Please link to this. I want to grasp it.

---

Here you go.

To whit:

quote:

---

Earlier this week, President Trump cited concerns about corruption as his rationale for blocking security assistance to Ukraine. But in a letter sent to four congressional committees in May of this year and obtained by NPR, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood informed lawmakers that he "certified that the Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption [and] increasing accountability."

The certification was required by law for the release of $250 million in security assistance for Ukraine. That aid was blocked by the White House until Sept. 11 and has since been released.

---

quote:

---

Because that what you reduce morality to: a preference without an ultimate standard to judge it by.

---

Yes, that's correct. This is what I keep saying to you, and you seem to keep thinking I'm denying or dancing around this point. This is literally my position; there is no "ultimate standard."

quote:

---

If your personal moral preference happens to align with the personal moral preferences of the majority in a society you happen to live within, that doesn't mean you have any more basis to condemn anyone whose personal moral preference is different from your own. You can join a group of others whose favorite flavor of ice cream is rocky road but that doesn't mean you have gained any objective ground to stand on to judge those who like vanilla better.

---

Again, you are reaffirming the exact position I'm taking. I can make judgements, and do, but I have no objective ground that I'm claiming to be standing on. As I said, however, that doesn't preclude me from making those judgements. To expound on your analogy, me joining a community of Rocky Road lovers who find chocolate lovers abhorant doesn't mean we hold some moral ultimate truth about the qualities of the two flavors. But it does mean that, in our society, the generally accepted moral framework dictates that a preference for chocolate is morally repugnant. That may not be the case in a different society - and there is literally nothing inherently "wrong" with that on some fundamental, base level.

quote:

---

What you've just described is arbitrariness

---

Yup. And morality is arbitrary, so that squares with my argument.

quote:

---

Altruism and Natural Selection (survival of the fittest, the strong outcompete the weak for resources) are mutually exclusive.

---

They absolutely are not.

quote:

---

Are you another worthless Libertarian ?

---

Nope, just a interested lurker. The shift in acceptability on those (and many other) topics by the members of this board has been pretty staggering post-Trump, though.

quote:

---

Lol, GOP morons complain for years that the clinton foundation is corrupt, now this story breaks and it doesn't matter to them. Classic.

---

That's okay though, because at least they're consistent with regard to their opinions on the deficit, the executive branch taking meetings with authoritarian leaders, presidential golfing habits, activist judges, foot-dragging by the minority party in congress, administrating via executive actions, and countless other topics on which their mindset hasn't changed at all from when a democrat was holding the presidency.

Oh wait.

quote:

---

FIFY

---

So, case in point.

quote:

---

Behavior, feelings, and principles are three of the biggest things that rationalize why people end up on the Left or the Right.

The Left is very much a "by any means necessary" mentality, while the Right simply isn't.

---

I would love to see any backing of this.

All of the data show that emotional intelligence, empathy, and reasoning skills correlate with left-leaning views, which seems to be antithetical to your assertion here.

quote:

---

They are. They devalued their currency to PAY for the tariffs so businesses would stay. Result, they are paying for the tariffs to maintain business.

---

This is not China writing a check to the United States.

quote:

---

This is ignorance too as explain with a washing machine being $1 cheaper this year than the year prior to Trump getting elected.

---

This is also not China writing a check to the United States.

So again, please explain to me how we are using China's money to pay for these things? You are factually wrong. Tariffs are paid for by Americans, full stop.