America - The Official Thread

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Ok so we will use DC as an example,as this is were it happened.Again I will point to the law in DC.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (Washington, D.C.)
§ 22-3312.03. Wearing hoods or masks.
(a) No person or persons over 16 years of age, while wearing any mask, hood, or device whereby any portion of the face is hidden, concealed, or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer, shall:

(1) Enter upon, be, or appear upon any lane, walk, alley, street, road highway, or other public way in the District of Columbia;

(2) Enter upon, be, or appear upon or within the public property of the District of Columbia; or

(3) Hold any manner of meeting or demonstration.

(b) The provisions of subsection (a) of this section apply only if the person was wearing the hood, mask, or other device:

(1) With the intent to deprive any person or class of persons of equal protection of the law or of equal privileges and immunities under the law, or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of the United States or the District of Columbia from giving or securing for all persons within the District of Columbia equal protection of the law;

(2) With the intent, by force or threat of force, to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person because of his or her exercise of any right secured by federal or District of Columbia laws, or to intimidate any person or any class of persons from exercising any right secured by federal or District of Columbia laws;

(3) With the intent to intimidate, threaten, abuse, or harass any other person;

(4) With the intent to cause another person to fear for his or her personal safety, or, where it is probable that reasonable persons will be put in fear for their personal safety by the defendant's actions, with reckless disregard for that probability; or

(5) While engaged in conduct prohibited by civil or criminal law, with the intent of avoiding identification.

Still really not sure what your point is. It's illegal to wear a mask while committing a crime in DC. Ok... that's not a great law, but it's also illegal to commit that crime. They're just saying that the sentence is greater if you commit a crime while wearing a mask (it shows intent, after the fact).
 
Let's think about this?Do you think these militants/protesters were all unmasked? “By putting on our masks we reveal our unity; and by raising our voices in the street together, we speak our anger at the facelessness of power,” reads a popular anarchist credo that was printed on the inside of masks distributed at a violent anti-capitalist protest in London in 1999.http://news.nationalpost.com/news/w...-protest-group-has-resurged-for-the-trump-age

I don't know, in that article you linked there are people not wearing a mask in this picture...which is the lead photo:

yGJRMlG.jpg


**fixed broken link
 
I don't know, in that article you linked there are people not wearing a mask in this picture...which is the lead photo:

yGJRMlG.jpg


**fixed broken link
Who,the 1 person burning a Kill Nazi's sign or ones taking pictures and hands in their pockets. Or the other 6 in black wearing hoods to his right.Kind of hard to tell as their backs are showing.
 
Do you think these militants/protesters were all unmasked?
The thing with evidence is it doesn't matter what I think. Even more when it's not even my contention to defend and not my example.

In order for your point that people should be banned from wearing masks in public places on the grounds that it causes violence to be supported by your example, you have to show that a significant proportion of the 2,500 "militants" on this march were wearing masks and that the violence that resulted in 230 arrests could only have occurred because of the masks.

Can you do that?
 
The thing with evidence is it doesn't matter what I think. Even more when it's not even my contention to defend and not my example.

In order for your point that people should be banned from wearing masks in public places on the grounds that it causes violence to be supported by your example, you have to show that a significant proportion of the 2,500 "militants" on this march were wearing masks and that the violence that resulted in 230 arrests could only have occurred because of the masks.

Can you do that?
At the end of November, 1999, I attended the WTO at Seattle. I was there to march in the labor parade, but hung around to watch the demonstrations and riots. The protesters who shut down the major downtown intersections by numbers and force were unmasked, except when tear gas was dispensed, was was frequent. The anarchists, black uniformed and probably from Eugene, Oregon, who broke windows, slashed tires and spray painted "Pig" on police cars all wore masks. There were estimated to be 40,000 protesters, and at least dozens of violent anarchists. I took many pictures of them!
 
At the end of November, 1999, I attended the WTO at Seattle. I was there to march in the labor parade, but hung around to watch the demonstrations and riots. The protesters who shut down the major downtown intersections by numbers and force were unmasked, except when tear gas was dispensed, was was frequent. The anarchists, black uniformed and probably from Eugene, Oregon, who broke windows, slashed tires and spray painted "Pig" on police cars all wore masks. There were estimated to be 40,000 protesters, and at least dozens of violent anarchists. I took many pictures of them!

They also wore black, apparently. Let's ban wearing black in protests too, seems related.
 
The thing with evidence is it doesn't matter what I think. Even more when it's not even my contention to defend and not my example.

In order for your point that people should be banned from wearing masks in public places on the grounds that it causes violence to be supported by your example, you have to show that a significant proportion of the 2,500 "militants" on this march were wearing masks and that the violence that resulted in 230 arrests could only have occurred because of the masks.

Can you do that?
Here I'll use a more recent example,watch the videos listen to what actual protesters say.Actually only 1 arrest so yeah I'm pretty sure that the ones wearing the masks caused the arrest.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/02/02/what-black-bloc/97393870/
http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/02/ucpd-arrests-1-suspect-connection-protests/
 
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I'm pretty sure that the ones wearing the masks caused the arrest.
Before I even click on that, you're telling me it's not good enough... It either supports your point or it doesn't, and only being "pretty sure" is a strong clue that it doesn't. And, sure enough, there's absolutely no mention of any masks in your second link, the article which details where someone was actually arrested!

For your example to support what you're saying, you need to show that a significant proportion of the 'peaceful' protesters were not wearing masks and did not participate in violence, and that a significant proportion of the violent parties were wearing masks. Is that information in there, or does it just say: 'Black Bloc, is a tactic, not a group. Those who practice it often wear black and cover their face with masks. They usually leave a wake of destruction.'? Only 'often' and 'usually' don't cut it for your desire to ban mask-wearing in public on the grounds that masks cause violence. And as @Danoff points out, the wearing of black is given equal significant to the wearing of masks in that article.


I'm guessing from the speed with which you dropped the previous example that the answer was "No, I can't show that a significant proportion of the 2,500 "militants" on this march were wearing masks and that the violence that resulted in 230 arrests could only have occurred because of the masks."

Find something that shows that wearing a mask in public = violence in at least 66% of cases, and you've got a point.

Oh, and:

Here, I'll use a more recent example._Watch the videos,_listen to what actual protesters say._Actually only 1 arrest_so,_yeah,_I'm pretty sure that the ones wearing the masks caused the arrest.
 
Before I even click on that, you're telling me it's not good enough... It either supports your point or it doesn't, and only being "pretty sure" is a strong clue that it doesn't. And, sure enough, there's absolutely no mention of any masks in your second link, the article which details where someone was actually arrested!

For your example to support what you're saying, you need to show that a significant proportion of the 'peaceful' protesters were not wearing masks and did not participate in violence, and that a significant proportion of the violent parties were wearing masks. Is that information in there, or does it just say: 'Black Bloc, is a tactic, not a group. Those who practice it often wear black and cover their face with masks. They usually leave a wake of destruction.'? Only 'often' and 'usually' don't cut it for your desire to ban mask-wearing in public on the grounds that masks cause violence. And as @Danoff points out, the wearing of black is given equal significant to the wearing of masks in that article.


I'm guessing from the speed with which you dropped the previous example that the answer was "No, I can't show that a significant proportion of the 2,500 "militants" on this march were wearing masks and that the violence that resulted in 230 arrests could only have occurred because of the masks."

Find something that shows that wearing a mask in public = violence in at least 66% of cases, and you've got a point.

Oh, and:
Sorry I seem to fat finger my phone. I will try to make my fingers smaller. I hope you correct others grammatical errors , as you seem content to do with me. I will try to make them better in future conversations . Thank you!
 
I hope you correct others grammatical errors , as you seem content to do with me.
Yeah, we usually give out Warnings and Infractions for it.

My phone (Samsung/Android) automatically inserts a single space after every comma and full stop. It seems really weird that yours doesn't.
 
Yeah, we usually give out Warnings and Infractions for it.

My phone (Samsung/Android) automatically inserts a single space after every comma and full stop. It seems really weird that yours doesn't.
Sorry , I have big hands and fingers.
 

Facial recognition is real. But using CSI as an example is terrible. Almost none of the tech in CSI works nearly as well or as fast in the real world as it does in the show.

Take facial recognition. All the processing and recognition and image capture problems aside, it's largely defeated by a bit of clever makeup. You don't need a mask, just some makeup. Are you going to ban makeup as well? A significant proportion of the population tends to carry at least some makeup around with them. Do they not get to attend protests and rallys?

Why make a law for a problem that doesn't exist, wearing masks, when there are laws for the problems that do exist, namely people committing crimes?

Sorry , I have big hands and fingers.

ROFL.

"Phones automatically add spaces after punctuation"
"I have fat fingers"

Thanks for sharing? These things are not related. Unless you're fat fingering the backspace after every comma and full stop.

No wonder your logic seems flawed if that's the extent of what you consider to be a reasonable explanation.
 
Facial recognition is real. But using CSI as an example is terrible. Almost none of the tech in CSI works nearly as well or as fast in the real world as it does in the show.

Take facial recognition. All the processing and recognition and image capture problems aside, it's largely defeated by a bit of clever makeup. You don't need a mask, just some makeup. Are you going to ban makeup as well? A significant proportion of the population tends to carry at least some makeup around with them. Do they not get to attend protests and rallys?

Why make a law for a problem that doesn't exist, wearing masks, when there are laws for the problems that do exist, namely people committing crimes?



ROFL.

"Phones automatically add spaces after punctuation"
"I have fat fingers"

Thanks for sharing? These things are not related. Unless you're fat fingering the backspace after every comma and full stop.

No wonder your logic seems flawed if that's the extent of what you consider to be a reasonable explanation.
Comprehension and explanation don't seem to faze you do they. As well as posts showing that it works quite well actually. Makeup, never tried it . You wear it ? Well if you show up looking like Bozo the Clown, at a protest, I'm sure you'll get some laughs . Do people at protests wearing face coverings committ crimes? Do you need me to post more links, showing people at protests smashing stuff ?
 
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Comprehension and explanation don't seem to faze you do they. As well as posts showing that it works quite well actually . Makeup , never tried it . You wear it ? Well if you show up looking like Bozo the Clown , at a protest , I'm sure you'll get some laughs . Do people at protests wearing face coverings committ crimes ? Do you need me to post more links , showing people at protests smashing stuff ?
People wearing shoes commit crimes too. Shall we ban the wearing of shoes?
 
People wearing shoes commit crimes too. Shall we ban the wearing of shoes?
Yes people that wear socks commit crimes. People that wear false teeth commit crimes. This could be the start of a new Dr . Suess book! Hold on, I'll get back to you. Gotta figure the rest out !
 
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Comprehension and explanation don't seem to faze you do they.

Oh lord, the irony.

Your only problem with my comprehension is that I comprehend that your "explanations" are little more than fear mongering dribble.

As well as posts showing that it works quite well actually.

Do you read any of the links before you post them, or do you just assume based on the Google summary that they support you? Because even the links you posted about facial recognition are far more nuanced than "it works great!".

Makeup, never tried it . You wear it ?

Sometimes, yeah. It hardly seems like a problem unless you're an intolerant bigot. But I was talking in generalities, and half of the population is female. Which, thanks to culture, is largely expected to wear makeup. As such, a lot of them tend to carry makeup around with them.

Or did you forget that women go to protests as well?

Well if you show up looking like Bozo the Clown, at a protest, I'm sure you'll get some laughs .

Ah. Abuse. Or did you think that the only makeup a man would wear would be clown paint?

You'd fit right in the 1910s, where men were men, women stayed in the kitchen and all anyone had to worry about was giving the Hun a jolly good thrashing.

Do people at protests wearing face coverings committ crimes?

Many people at protests commit crimes. You're yet to show any correlation between masks and crime.

Do you need me to post more links, showing people at protests smashing stuff ?

No. I need you to post some evidence that people with masks commit more crimes than unmasked people. Or that there's some correlation. Or that banning masks would have some sort of positive effect on reducing crimes.

So far you've got nothing other than "some people in masks at protests commit crimes", which is pretty "well duh" on the spectrum of knowledge. You seem to have drawn some causal connection based on correlation, despite people pointing out all the other things that are correlated like socks.

You're not looking for something that's causal for crime. You've decided that masks are the thing and you're trying to justify your decision in retrospect. What's funnier is that you've somehow convinced yourself that this profoundly illogical chain of thoughts is logical and rational and that it's just the rest of us that can't keep up with your startlingly bright intellect.

When you've got a whole forum of people telling you you're wrong, perhaps try taking a second look. An unbiased look, if you can manage it. I know it's tough. But maybe not all people are wearing masks so that they can commit crimes. Maybe some are wearing masks to protect themselves from crimes that would be committed against them, by other citizens or companies or the state.
 
Meanwhile. The "Wiretap" (did that just for Donald) is now all the fault of GCHQ.

The response from them has been unprecedented, in that no matter have serious the allegation they normally just give a 'can't confirm or deny', however in this case it was a "nonsense, utterly ridiculous and should be ignored".

So far no evidence has been provided for this allegation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39300191
 
Changing topic again, but what happened to the whole put your business ventures into a blind trust debacle? Are Ivanka and Jr still heading that up or did they actually go into a blind trust?
 
Changing topic again, but what happened to the whole put your business ventures into a blind trust debacle? Are Ivanka and Jr still heading that up or did they actually go into a blind trust?
No blind trust that I am aware of, just 'assurances' that its been done with no evidence of it occurring.
 
Currently the biggest issue may be the budget.

f962452b619a195b8262f5c2feb71b22

The White House budget plan embodies the administration’s “America First” nationalism, hiking spending on defense and border security while slashing everything else.


President Donald Trump’s first budget proposal crystallizes the administration’s ideological priorities, calling for bolstering spending on the military and border security while gutting funding for diplomacy and foreign aid, scientific research, and most of the federal government.

The budget blueprint unveiled Thursday is short on details, and faces long odds in Congress, where Trump’s fellow Republicans expressed serious reservations about numerous funding cuts.

But as a political document, it reflects the White House’s preference for a narrow definition of U.S. interests not seen since before World War II. Titled “America First,” the Trump budget also reflects a deep skepticism of government programs meant to defuse conflicts, fight poverty abroad, or battle transnational challenges like climate change.

Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, described the blueprint for fiscal year 2018 as a “hard power budget.”

“The president wants to spend more money on defense, more money securing the border, more money enforcing the laws, and more money on school choice, without adding to the deficit,” Mulvaney told reporters.

The president’s plan would sharply boost defense spending by $54 billion, plus add another $2.8 billion for homeland security and $1.4 billion for maintaining the nuclear stockpile. To make the deficit math work, the White House wants offsetting cuts of more than 30 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency and about 28 percent at the State Department, as well as major cuts in the departments of Agriculture and Labor. But all those agencies have budgets just a fraction the size of the Pentagon.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-budget-blueprint-pulling-diplomatic-220632344.html
 
Trump claims that it's "Fox you need to talk to" about Spicer's wire-tapping comments, claims he won't go back there, repeats the comments in a world-feed press conference. BBC.

In the same story, Merkel asks him if he wants to shake hands, Trump just stares at the floor. Good to see that the premier of the self-styled greatest country in the world is such a poor diplomat that he can't even shake hands.
 
Trump claims that it's "Fox you need to talk to" about Spicer's wire-tapping comments, claims he won't go back there, repeats the comments in a world-feed press conference. BBC.

In the same story, Merkel asks him if he wants to shake hands, Trump just stares at the floor. Good to see that the premier of the self-styled greatest country in the world is such a poor diplomat that he can't even shake hands.

Trump is a self admitted Germaphobe with borderline untreated OCD and he has called the practice of shaking hands "barbaric" saying he fears the Flu and all sorts of other things. I'm fairly certain that Angela Merkel know this already and that is probably why she asked him if it was ok, which is very courteous of her.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...e-germaphobe-in-chief/?utm_term=.740169cf7d85
 
Oh purlease, that seems a proper crock. Are you sure he's not a German-phobe? :)

Not buying the Washington Post article? Lol, just because he shakes hands doesn't mean he likes it. I've seen Howie Mandel shake people's hands even though suffers from OCD (and usually just gives fist bumps to people instead). Maybe Trump just doesn't like Merkel, I don't believe she cares very much for him, but I do believe he does have some form of OCD. It's not the first time I've heard about his OCD, it's been out there for years.
 
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