Because I’m Tired of the Child Accusation

I gotta be honest, I am glad that this thread is actually about, well, what it's actually about, rather than what I was AFRAID it MIGHT be about when I read the thread title...

How about this. I feel that government should step in and break up monopolies because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t have any data to back that up, I just feel it’s right. That’s not to say that competition in the market doesn’t prevent monopolies, but sometimes it doesn’t and that’s where the government can step in.

Actually, Joe did take dave Rubin down for claiming regulations are wrong and not needed at all. The boy should actually have paid attention to Joe as he clearly explained why regulations exist, and that without them your house would fall on you and kill you because all contractors cut corners when allowed to.

It was quite the funny video.

Of course, you'd expect the government to act based on data, right? Or should they just go on opinion?

Depends. If the public opinion is that Disney is too big and needs to be broken up and that is a majority opinion, then maybe the government should break them up. Public opinion matters. I’d expect that if public opinion is that police forces around the country should be reformed, then they should consider that opinion and act accordingly.

That could be interpreted as yielding to mob rule.

A lot of things could be, doesn’t make it necessary true.

It could also be interpreted as showing that you're not thinking a lot of this stuff through.

Or maybe I have and I still stand by my convictions.

In the absence of any prevailing moral authority, right and wrong are just words, they don’t mean anything.

Who are you to say I don’t have a prevailing moral authority? Here’s a clue, I do.

Well my God that I just made up says that your god is dumb and anyone who follows him is evil.
Do you see why words like right and wrong are troublesome when it comes to trying to create legislation?

It the right thing to do to abolish slavery. I don’t need empirical data to understand that l. I don’t care what your god has to say about it. Congress didn’t need data to decide that. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Abolishing slavery took legislation, yet it also took zero data. It was just the right thing to do.

No instead it took decades of deliberation and a civil war in which hundreds of thousands died. Don’t whitewash history by trying to make the decision appear to have been clear cut. The decision to abolish slavery was foisted upon the south.

A lot of Southernors knew that the right thing to do was to fight for their right to own other human beings.

A lot of aristocrats did, a lot of southerners did not. A lot southerners fought against northern aggression.

Northern aggression against slavery. You can tell a racist excuse when they leave out that last part.

Northern aggression against slavery. You can tell a racist excuse when they leave out that last part.

A lot of non-aristocratic Southerners did undoubtedly enlist in the Confederate armed forces to combat 'northern aggression' (otherwise known as, 'the duly elected federal government'). I wouldn't be surprised if the great majority of them believed they were simply rallying to the defense of their home state. Absolutely.

But was the defense of slavery on a lot of their minds? Of course it was. Why the hell do you think any of the Southern states seceded? The war was about slavery from the very beginning.

Yes, we all know that ending slavery wasn't on the US government's agenda in 1861; that's not up for debate. But the reason the South seceded was because they didn't feel the Lincoln administration would protect their agenda--the expansion of slavery. Because the Southern states didn't wish to respect the results of the 1860 election, they left the Union--and that's what sparked the war. The average soldier may have just been defending their home state, but what was the foundation of that home? What was the very cornerstone of this shared confederation of sovereign states? As explicitly stated at the time, it was slavery. Slavery now, and slavery forever. Believe in the nobility of the 'Lost Cause' if you must, but it was always first and foremost about slavery.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Slavery was the biggest issue of the day. Don't try and take it out of the equation.

As long as it's understood that the United States government was not fighting the war to end slavery until much later. It was very much about putting down the rebellion at first. Although there was considerable Northern sentiment to end the peculiar institution, it was not a war aim at the beginning of the conflict.

Still, the idea that your average Southerner wasn't even thinking about slavery because it was a 'rich man's issue' or something is ludicrous. Slavery was and forever will be the raison d'etre of the Southern Confederacy. After all, when the Union's war aims changed to include ending slavery, it's not like Southerners quit the armed forces en masse and went home because now it wasn't 'their war.'

Therefore you are — but can't swear to it!

They don't have to be.

Only informed ones do.

Wrong. Absolutely, totally wrong.

Study up on some history, here. The abolitionists fought tooth and nail for decades in the British Empire and over a century in the US to end slavery, and had to marshall huge amounts of data to swing public opinion and legislators (who are interested in public opinion to the extent that it affects elections) in order to do it.

If there hadn't been data, there would have been no reason to abolish slavery.

Trump doesn't need data.

So I take it you learned nothing from the advice everyone gave you in the first few pages of this thread.

So you’re telling me that I’m the only person on this board that’s ever backed an idea because they felt it’s the right thing to do and not because it was data driven? I mean I know that slavery is wrong, I don’t need data to back that up, but apparently everyone else does.

Wrong.

No. You're assuming that because you know now that slavery is wrong, that everyone else for all time should have known it.

1) You're continuing to argue against strawmen or otherwise put words in our mouths that we aren't saying. You are within your rights to back an incorrect idea or opinion, but we are more than justified in pointing out why you are wrong.
2) As @Asyncritus pointed out, abolition was in part data-driven. You think slavery is wrong because you have examined the data (i.e. history) and arrived at the conclusion that it was wrong.
3) As @The Exception pointed out, it's totally fine to hold an opinion not supported by data. But when the opposing opinion is supported by a mountain of data, you've reached an unsupported conclusion in spite of available data, which makes us not take your opinion seriously.

No. I do it all the time...but if the data (or other evidence) shows that the idea I'm backing might be wrong, I reconsider my backing of said idea.

You don't need to know that slaves are people, just like everyone else? (Hint: that's a datum.)

You don't need to know that slavery makes people miserable? (Hint: that's a datum.)

You don't need to know that slavery involves owning people? (Hint: that's a datum.)

You don't need to know that slavery makes people work without receiving just compensation for their work? (Hint: that's a datum.)

You don't need to know that slavery gives one class of people an unfair advantage over another class of people? (Hint: that's a datum.)

Need I go on?

The bottom line is that if you know slavery is wrong, it's because you have the data to back that up. Pretending otherwise is epistemological nonsense.