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[Bellend Sebastian]

3 hours ago, Buce said:

 

 Sorry if I'm being thick; are you saying you voted for Brexit in order to facilitate immigration?

No, I was merely satirising, in a really smug and superior way, all the cretins that claimed they knew exactly what Brexit would be like and presumably had factored all this stuff in

[BKLFox]

Playing devils, surely taking back our borders refers thro legitimate channels ie we don’t let anyone stay that doesn’t meet the points or whatever criteria set ala Canada, Australia & not that we can now position machine gun nests along our coastline and blaze anything that touches the shore.

Refugees are in a completely different ball park to the day to day taking back of our borders.

The increase in the amount of refugees now coming through just goes to show the EU countries have been dicking us as we thought for years, these people have gone through multiple countries & have just been waved on to even try but should we be doing a EU/Poland to stop the digs & irony?

[Buce]

10 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

Playing devils, surely taking back our borders refers thro legitimate channels ie we don’t let anyone stay that doesn’t meet the points or whatever criteria set ala Canada, Australia & not that we can now position machine gun nests along our coastline and blaze anything that touches the shore.

Refugees are in a completely different ball park to the day to day taking back of our borders.

The increase in the amount of refugees now coming through just goes to show the EU countries have been dicking us as we thought for years, these people have gone through multiple countries & have just been waved on to even try but should we be doing a EU/Poland to stop the digs & irony?

 

Did you actually read the piece I posted?

 

"Previously, when the UK was part of the EU, under a mechanism known as Dublin, the UK could ask other EU countries to take back people they could prove had passed through safe European countries before reaching the UK.

The UK could make “take charge” requests and officials were often able to prove that asylum seekers had passed through other countries thanks to the Eurodac fingerprint database. But since Brexit, the UK no longer has access to that database so it is harder to prove definitively which other European countries small boat arrivals to the UK have previously passed through."

 

We could send them back before Brexit, now we can't.

[BKLFox]

1 minute ago, Buce said:

 

Did you actually read the piece I posted?

 

"Previously, when the UK was part of the EU, under a mechanism known as Dublin, the UK could ask other EU countries to take back people they could prove had passed through safe European countries before reaching the UK.

The UK could make “take charge” requests and officials were often able to prove that asylum seekers had passed through other countries thanks to the Eurodac fingerprint database. But since Brexit, the UK no longer has access to that database so it is harder to prove definitively which other European countries small boat arrivals to the UK have previously passed through."

 

We could send them back before Brexit, now we can't.

Did you

 

“Even before the UK left the EU, only a few hundred people were sent to other European countries in 2020”

 

We end up keeping most anyway or in holding establishments / prisons such as Morton Hall, keeping it local’ish, until processed and if agreed that their country of origin represented no threat to them they are escorted back with £2k in their pockets.

[Buce]

4 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

Did you

 

“Even before the UK left the EU, only a few hundred people were sent to other European countries in 2020”

 

We end up keeping most anyway or in holding establishments / prisons such as Morton Hall, keeping it local’ish, until processed and if agreed that their country of origin represented no threat to them they are escorted back with £2k in their pockets.

 

Actual numbers are irrelevant.

 

We had the option of doing so; now we don't.

[BKLFox]

4 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Actual numbers are irrelevant.

 

We had the option of doing so; now we don't.

😂 irrelevant of numbers

 

I would suggest the “option” of returning them wasn’t as simple as pointing to the Dublin agreement and quivering our bottom lips and squeaking but you have to take them back look it says so otherwise 100% would be returned no?

 

I’d also imagine like everything else post brexit the paperwork is still be being worked on which will address a Dublin style agreement between UK & the EU although even when this is drawn up I also suspect we would still do as per pre-brexit only a % will be passed back and the rest will stay or returned back to country of origin if safe to do so.

[Guest MarshallForEngland]

23 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

A very long winded way of saying "but I feel x is true so it is, because I just said so".

And this is your safety net, "what I argue can't be researched, you just have to know it", very theological.  It also means there's not much point engaging someone like you because there's never going to be any way to get you to accept contradictory evidence like the actual definition of words vs your straw man definition of them.  And you tell me I'm relying on logical fallacies...

It's fine to say remuneration, it's not the most commonly used word I'll grant you that, and maybe you think it sounds a bit posh, but your prejudices against it shouldn't and don't dictate whether other people can use it.  The Office example you bring up is a pun, a play on the word's multiple valid uses, it works because both uses are legitimate in their proper context.

No... you really didn't.  You're not going to like my point here because it relies on actual definitions of words, but what you did was give anecdotal evidence in keeping with your reliance on the "well I believe it to be true" defence, not cited examples. The burden still lies on you to show that insurrection can't be validly applied to the one that failed on Jan 6th.

cite

/sʌɪt/

Learn to pronounce

 

verb

past tense: cited; past participle: cited

1. 1.

   refer to (a passage, book, or author) as evidence for or justification of an argument or statement, especially in a scholarly work

"A very long winded way of saying "but I feel x is true so it is, because I just said so"."

 

This is a very uncharitable way to frame what I said and tells me you're not really seriously engaging with the points I'm making. Dictionaries are, generally speaking, descriptive, not prescriptive; they don't instruct speakers how to use the language in everyday speech, rather they provide some record of how words are used by the speakers of that language at some particular point in time. It can only ever be an incomplete approximation, because no single document could possibly contain an exhaustive list of every possible use of every possible word in every possible context.

 

"And this is your safety net, "what I argue can't be researched, you just have to know it", very theological. It also means there's not much point engaging someone like you because there's never going to be any way to get you to accept contradictory evidence like the actual definition of words vs your straw man definition of them.  And you tell me I'm relying on logical fallacies..."

 

I certainly did not say "it can't be researched". I specifically quoted some prominent researchers on the subject so please tell me where I said that. While you're at it, perhaps you could tell me exactly what your theory of language is? What I'm saying is generally accepted by linguists as pretty uncontroversial, and I quoted some of the major players in that field on the subject of appropriateness. I am genuinely interested in your rebuttal to Hymes' theory of Sociolinguistic Competence, i.e "the mastery of the cultural rules of use and rules of discourse that are at play". There is a reason why the communicative method, largely based on this very idea of competence, is now used in virtually all foreign language learning environments. You don't learn a language by reading a dictionary and applying the words therein accordingly. So the fact is that in everyday speech, you do "have to know it". I expect when you speak to somebody, you don't rely on dictionary definitions, rather you sense that a word is suitable in a particular context or not.

 

"It's fine to say remuneration, it's not the most commonly used word I'll grant you that, and maybe you think it sounds a bit posh, but your prejudices against it shouldn't and don't dictate whether other people can use it. "

 

Sorry but this is a spectacular own goal. What does "a bit posh" mean? You literally just explained a quality of the word which affects appropriateness. It's generally not a word for informal conversations, rather it's usually found in more formal settings. It's "fine" in the sense that it's not grammatically incorrect. It's also, as per the dictionary definition of the word, not semantically incorrect either. Yet it still manages to retain, by your own admission, the quality of "poshness". How is that possible? The dictionary says it means "money paid for work or a service", yet most of us probably don't use the word unless we are drafting contracts or speaking in a very form setting. In fact, I would bet that virtually nobody here has ever looked up the word (until yesterday I hadn't), yet they still know that "wages" or "salary" is probably the most appropriate word to use in most conversations. This is because words take on a character of their own in everyday speech and dictionaries try, with varying degrees of success, to summarise how people use it in the form of a very brief description. It's not the other way around. The nuances of a word's application are determined at the social level. If you disagree with this, please provide evidence that it's not true. 

 

"The Office example you bring up is a pun, a play on the word's multiple valid uses, it works because both uses are legitimate in their proper context."

 

You're making my arguments better than I am. What does "in their proper context" mean? How is it determined? The very example I gave you (travel: go from one place to another, typically over a distance of some length) fits the definition given in the dictionary, but still was not used in the proper context, a nuance of the word which the dictionary definition doesn't contain. The context was describing hobbies and interests for a dating website which would suggest "travel" meant seeing different countries and broadening your horizons, not business trips to Hull. We can sense that it's not an appropriate use of the word "travel" because it doesn't take into account the "proper context" (your words), even though it matches the dictionary definition perfectly. Again, I welcome any argument against this.

 

You're not going to like my point here because it relies on actual definitions of words, but what you did was give anecdotal evidence in keeping with your reliance on the "well I believe it to be true" defence, not cited examples. The burden still lies on you to show that insurrection can't be validly applied to the one that failed on Jan 6th.

 

I gave links in my original reply. You can find it here. I'm not sure how you establish a "burden of proof" here. I might just as well say that the burden lies on those insisting it must be used and no other word is appropriate. In any case, I think I have presented a reasonably good argument as to why I think it's not appropriate and have explain why I don't think the dictionary definition is especially useful here. As I said, I'm totally open and genuinely interested in seeing examples of "insurrection" being used for events similar to January 6. For example, perhaps is the incident in which some heavily armed Black Panthers occupied the Capitol in Sacramento generally referred to as an insurrection? Perhaps you know of other similar examples which were generally referred to as insurrections?

Edited 13 November 2021 by MarshallForEngland

[Buce]

6 hours ago, MarshallForEngland said:

 For example, perhaps is the incident in which some heavily armed Black Panthers occupied the Capitol in Sacramento generally referred to as an insurrection? Perhaps you know of other similar examples which were generally referred to as insurrections?

 

The Insurrection Act has been invoked 27 times since its inception in 1807, most recently during the Los Angeles riots in 1992; Trump himself considered invoking it during the Black Lives Matter protests.

 

Doesn't invoking the Act imply that US Law regards such acts as insurrection? And since we're discussing the implementation of US Law, isn't that the only definition that matters?

 

Edited 13 November 2021 by Buce

[Carl the Llama]

6 hours ago, MarshallForEngland said:

"A very long winded way of saying "but I feel x is true so it is, because I just said so"."

 

This is a very uncharitable way to frame what I said and tells me you're not really seriously engaging with the points I'm making. Dictionaries are, generally speaking, descriptive, not prescriptive; they don't instruct speakers how to use the language in everyday speech, rather they provide some record of how words are used by the speakers of that language at some particular point in time. It can only ever be an incomplete approximation, because no single document could possibly contain an exhaustive list of every possible use of every possible word in every possible context.

 

"And this is your safety net, "what I argue can't be researched, you just have to know it", very theological. It also means there's not much point engaging someone like you because there's never going to be any way to get you to accept contradictory evidence like the actual definition of words vs your straw man definition of them.  And you tell me I'm relying on logical fallacies..."

 

I certainly did not say "it can't be researched". I specifically quoted some prominent researchers on the subject so please tell me where I said that. While you're at it, perhaps you could tell me exactly what your theory of language is? What I'm saying is generally accepted by linguists as pretty uncontroversial, and I quoted some of the major players in that field on the subject of appropriateness. I am genuinely interested in your rebuttal to Hymes' theory of Sociolinguistic Competence, i.e "the mastery of the cultural rules of use and rules of discourse that are at play". There is a reason why the communicative method, largely based on this very idea of competence, is now used in virtually all foreign language learning environments. You don't learn a language by reading a dictionary and applying the words therein accordingly. So the fact is that in everyday speech, you do "have to know it". I expect when you speak to somebody, you don't rely on dictionary definitions, rather you sense that a word is suitable in a particular context or not.

 

"It's fine to say remuneration, it's not the most commonly used word I'll grant you that, and maybe you think it sounds a bit posh, but your prejudices against it shouldn't and don't dictate whether other people can use it. "

 

Sorry but this is a spectacular own goal. What does "a bit posh" mean? You literally just explained a quality of the word which affects appropriateness. It's generally not a word for informal conversations, rather it's usually found in more formal settings. It's "fine" in the sense that it's not grammatically incorrect. It's also, as per the dictionary definition of the word, not semantically incorrect either. Yet it still manages to retain, by your own admission, the quality of "poshness". How is that possible? The dictionary says it means "money paid for work or a service", yet most of us probably don't use the word unless we are drafting contracts or speaking in a very form setting. In fact, I would bet that virtually nobody here has ever looked up the word (until yesterday I hadn't), yet they still know that "wages" or "salary" is probably the most appropriate word to use in most conversations. This is because words take on a character of their own in everyday speech and dictionaries try, with varying degrees of success, to summarise how people use it in the form of a very brief description. It's not the other way around. The nuances of a word's application are determined at the social level. If you disagree with this, please provide evidence that it's not true. 

 

"The Office example you bring up is a pun, a play on the word's multiple valid uses, it works because both uses are legitimate in their proper context."

 

You're making my arguments better than I am. What does "in their proper context" mean? How is it determined? The very example I gave you (travel: go from one place to another, typically over a distance of some length) fits the definition given in the dictionary, but still was not used in the proper context, a nuance of the word which the dictionary definition doesn't contain. The context was describing hobbies and interests for a dating website which would suggest "travel" meant seeing different countries and broadening your horizons, not business trips to Hull. We can sense that it's not an appropriate use of the word "travel" because it doesn't take into account the "proper context" (your words), even though it matches the dictionary definition perfectly. Again, I welcome any argument against this.

 

You're not going to like my point here because it relies on actual definitions of words, but what you did was give anecdotal evidence in keeping with your reliance on the "well I believe it to be true" defence, not cited examples. The burden still lies on you to show that insurrection can't be validly applied to the one that failed on Jan 6th.

 

I gave links in my original reply. You can find it here. I'm not sure how you establish a "burden of proof" here. I might just as well say that the burden lies on those insisting it must be used and no other word is appropriate. In any case, I think I have presented a reasonably good argument as to why I think it's not appropriate and have explain why I don't think the dictionary definition is especially useful here. As I said, I'm totally open and genuinely interested in seeing examples of "insurrection" being used for events similar to January 6. For example, perhaps is the incident in which some heavily armed Black Panthers occupied the Capitol in Sacramento generally referred to as an insurrection? Perhaps you know of other similar examples which were generally referred to as insurrections?

Sorry if I give short shrift to the argument that claiming a word's definition to be what it means is a logical fallacy, but I'm not in the mood for entertaining fairy tale belief arguments so the shrift isn't going to get any longer no matter how many times you rephrase the same silly point using the same professors of casual linguistics.  (Am I allowed to use shrift thusly? Was it just appropriate to say thusly?)

 

And I'm sorry for failing to realise that your wikipedia list of "revolts" was meant as evidence that the word "insurrection" has only ever been used in the way you erroneously believe it has been.  What a fool I am. 

 

[Guest MarshallForEngland]

12 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Sorry if I give short shrift to the argument that claiming a word's definition to be what it means is a logical fallacy, but I'm not in the mood for entertaining fairy tale belief arguments so the shrift isn't going to get any longer no matter how many times you rephrase the same silly point using the same professors of casual linguistics.  (Am I allowed to use shrift thusly? Was it just appropriate to say thusly?)

 

And I'm sorry for failing to realise that your wikipedia list of "revolts" was meant as evidence that the word "insurrection" has only ever been used in the way you erroneously believe it has been.  What a fool I am. 

 

Have you ever tried to learn another language or teach your native tongue to somebody else?

[Carl the Llama]

2 hours ago, MarshallForEngland said:

Have you ever tried to learn another language or teach your native tongue to somebody else?

Plusiers fois.  Je constate que tu n'as rien à dire à l'interjection de Buce concernant la système légale des États-Unis. Mais vas-y, bouges les poteaux de nouveau, n'importe quoi pour éviter l'acceptence que c'est possible que t'as tort.

Edited 13 November 2021 by Carl the Llama

[Jattdogg]

https://www.tmz.com/2021/11/13/rock-band-frontwoman-pees-on-fan-face-show-apologizes/

 

[WigstonWanderer]

24 minutes ago, Jattdogg said:

https://www.tmz.com/2021/11/13/rock-band-frontwoman-pees-on-fan-face-show-apologizes/

 

That’s really taking the piss!

[Jattdogg]

33 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

That’s really taking the piss!

Wonder if R. Kelly is her mentor

Edited 13 November 2021 by Jattdogg

[leicsmac]

On 12/11/2021 at 20:12, MarshallForEngland said:

Very interesting direction to go in actually. Firstly, this is an Argument from Definition. That doesn't always constitute a fallacy but I believe here it is, because the entry you quoted does not refer to context or common usage, so it cannot be used to rebut my claim that it tended to be used in a particular way. Dictionary definitions generally don't contain the complete sociolinguistic profile of a word and may not fully capture its character and weight. This is why linguists like Chomsky and Hymes wrote so much about the idea of Competence in linguistics. For example, Hymes regarded Sociolinguistic Competence as the ability to intuit and reproduce "appropriateness... " or "...the mastery of the cultural rules of use and rules of discourse that are at play". This isn't derived from a dictionary, it is absorbed (usually over significant periods of time) by speakers/hearers of the language. It's why non-native speakers may progress to a very good level in the target language, developing a high degree of grammatical competence, but still fail to judge appropriateness correctly. It can't be "looked up" in the way you suggest. 

 

So I don't agree that it's simply my "personal belief", as you describe it, rather it's the sum total of my participation in and interaction with the language. All of us do this all the time. If we start talking about our jobs, for example, and I start referring to the "remuneration" I get instead of the "wages" or "salary", saying things like "yeah I like my job but the remuneration isn't great", it's going to feel weird even though it's grammatically fine. Would it matter if I cited the dictionary definition of "remuneration" as "money paid for work or a service"? Of course not, it's inappropriate in everyday speech to use that word, even though the dictionary definition on its own might imply that I can use it. Another good example of this is in Christmas Special of the Office where Brent says he travels a lot, claiming that his trips to Hull and back technically constitute travelling because he has to go there rather than Hull coming to him down the motorway in a car. The fact that Brent's trips to Hull might satisfy the definition "go from one place to another, typically over a distance of some length" (Reading and Hull are undoubtedly two different places "some distance" apart), it's still not appropriate to describe that as "travel" because of the character of that word in common usage, particularly in the context of describing your interests and hobbies.

 

I cited some sources which used "insurrection" in the way I remember it being used before January 6th. I am genuinely very interested in seeing similar examples which support your position that "insurrection" has a more general application than what I initially thought.

 

 

 

 

On 12/11/2021 at 20:26, leicsmac said:

Fair enough. I enjoy semantics so I'm glad someone else does too.

 

Let's go for another angle here, then; if the events of that day were not an insurrection and/or an attempt to disrupt or overthrow the government of the US, how would they be defined?

I wouldn't mind an answer to the above, if the time and the inclination is there.

[Guest MarshallForEngland]

5 hours ago, leicsmac said:

 

I wouldn't mind an answer to the above, if the time and the inclination is there.

My apologies, this thread is taking more of my time than I had hoped  I'm not sure a single word is capable of fully capturing what happened on January 6th. In the summer, NPR did an interesting breakdown of the criminal cases brought against individuals who were there (they call it both a siege and a riot at various stages):
 

Quote

 

"The Justice Department has created a kind of framework for prosecutions, dividing the Jan. 6 defendants into three categories. The first includes people such as Ianni who went inside the Capitol and allegedly walked around but aren't charged with property damage or assaulting police.

 

The shorthand used to describe these people (both among some Justice Department insiders and defense attorneys) is "the tourist cases" — a nickname derived from the words of Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who rather infamously said, "If you didn't know the TV footage was a video from Jan. 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit."

 

The second category of defendants includes those who broke into the Capitol, damaged property and attempted to stop the certification of the 2020 election. They are facing charges of civil disorder and assault and include people such as Tampa, Fla., crane operator Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38. He was seen carrying a red-and-white "Trump 2020" flag into the well of the Senate, while others stood over the vice president's abandoned chair.

 

Hodgkins pleaded guilty in June to one count of obstructing an official proceeding, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors asked for 18 months. This month, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss sentenced him to somewhat less than that: eight months because, the judge said, he pleaded guilty early and seemed remorseful about what he had done. Some two dozen others have also pleaded guilty in recent weeks.

 

And finally there is a category that prosecutors have yet to define precisely. These are the people investigators believe are connected to right-wing extremist groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Officials are investigating whether or not there is hard evidence that shows the assault was planned in advance. Illuminating that would go a long way toward clarifying what actually took place that day."

 

 

I'm not really sure about the ins and outs of those groups and what they claim to believe, but I am quite sure that they are not hugely subscribed to and are not capable of mobilising thousands of people to engage in a coup. Most of the people did not fit into the third category. The woman at the centre of that article says:

 

Quote

"This whole thing about insurrection is a bunch of BS," Ianni said. "There was no insurrection. It was an act of civil disobedience. It was a walk-through by people taking selfies. It was a symbolic- walk through. ... That was 97% of the people."

 

Now since that article was written, many more prosecutions have been brought against people who were there, over 650 in fact. 15% of them have already pled guilty to misdemeanour charges. This article has a lot to say:

 

 

Quote

According to the Justice Department, at least 260 defendants (about 40 percent of the total) have been charged with what has emerged as the go-to felony in these cases: “corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding” (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(3)), which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment. 

-----------

 

In charging documents, there are two dogs that conspicuously haven’t yet barked. No defendant, so far, has been indicted for either insurrection (18 U.S.C. § 2383) or seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 2384). 

Conviction under the criminal insurrection statute —which reaches “whoever incites ... assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the United States ... or gives aid or comfort thereto”—carries a 10-year prison term plus a mandatory bar from holding “any office under the United States.” 

 

Politically, insurrection is also an explosive term. If the riot was an insurrection, an argument might at least be made—depending on what evidence eventually emerges—that certain past or current federal or state legislators, military veterans, or conceivably former President Trump himself, could now be excluded from holding public office under the opaque, long-dormant terms of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. 

------------

At least 190 defendants—a group that largely overlaps with those charged with “corruptly obstructing”—have been charged with felonies against law enforcement officers. Sixty of these individuals have been accused of using a dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury—an aggravating factor.

 

 

The "obstructing" charge may not yield much fruit in the cases that go to trial as it's a complicated law which may not even apply in this cases given the context of the original legislation. But I'm not a lawyer so I have no idea what is likely to happen. I don't believe these numbers justify calling the event an "insurrection". Perhaps the larger maximum sentence is why prosecutors have opted not to go for insurrection and go for the "obstructing" charge instead. There were clearly some people there behaving violently towards police officers, and no doubt there were some who genuinely believed the election had been rigged and wanted to stop the certification. But here I think is the main problem with terminology in situations like this. If you support the perceived political leanings of the people there and their motives for being there (many claim they were trying to uphold the US Constitution because there was clear evidence of election rigging) then what they did is a justifiable act of civil disobedience against a corrupt and broken system. If you are fundamentally opposed to their political beliefs, then you will be tempted to use words such as "insurrection" because it conjures a very powerful image of various violent uprisings in history, and it also ends the debate - there's no need to prove anybody wrong or grapple with the claims they have made if they are treasonous criminals who should be locked up for their terrible misdeeds.

 

 

[Guest MarshallForEngland]

10 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

Plusiers fois.  Je constate que tu n'as rien à dire à l'interjection de Buce concernant la système légale des États-Unis. Mais vas-y, bouges les poteaux de nouveau, n'importe quoi pour éviter l'acceptence que c'est possible que t'as tort.

Interesting. What methods did you use to reach such a high level in French? Perhaps you lived in an environment in which French is the most commonly spoken language, or perhaps you had tuition? 

 

On the subject of Buce's post, I presume you've heard of Brandolini’s Law? Sometimes called "the bullsh*t asymmetry principle". It states that "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshi*t is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." Now I'm certainly not calling Buce's post bullsh*t, but I do think it is wrong about several things and writing thorough responses takes time. That said, at least it contains an actual point and some reasoning, even if I don't agree with the conclusion. Your arrogant dismissal of decades of language theory and refusal to accept the observable reality of how people actually speak a language is hard to argue against precisely because it contains almost no tangible claims against which an argument can be formed. You behave like a pigeon playing chess; your opponent may put you in check, but you'll just knock all the pieces over, sh*t on the board and then strut away like you've won something.

[leicsmac]

24 minutes ago, MarshallForEngland said:

My apologies, this thread is taking more of my time than I had hoped  I'm not sure a single word is capable of fully capturing what happened on January 6th. In the summer, NPR did an interesting breakdown of the criminal cases brought against individuals who were there (they call it both a siege and a riot at various stages):
 

 

I'm not really sure about the ins and outs of those groups and what they claim to believe, but I am quite sure that they are not hugely subscribed to and are not capable of mobilising thousands of people to engage in a coup. Most of the people did not fit into the third category. The woman at the centre of that article says:

 

 

Now since that article was written, many more prosecutions have been brought against people who were there, over 650 in fact. 15% of them have already pled guilty to misdemeanour charges. This article has a lot to say:

 

 

 

The "obstructing" charge may not yield much fruit in the cases that go to trial as it's a complicated law which may not even apply in this cases given the context of the original legislation. But I'm not a lawyer so I have no idea what is likely to happen. I don't believe these numbers justify calling the event an "insurrection". Perhaps the larger maximum sentence is why prosecutors have opted not to go for insurrection and go for the "obstructing" charge instead. There were clearly some people there behaving violently towards police officers, and no doubt there were some who genuinely believed the election had been rigged and wanted to stop the certification. But here I think is the main problem with terminology in situations like this. If you support the perceived political leanings of the people there and their motives for being there (many claim they were trying to uphold the US Constitution because there was clear evidence of election rigging) then what they did is a justifiable act of civil disobedience against a corrupt and broken system. If you are fundamentally opposed to their political beliefs, then you will be tempted to use words such as "insurrection" because it conjures a very powerful image of various violent uprisings in history, and it also ends the debate - there's no need to prove anybody wrong or grapple with the claims they have made if they are treasonous criminals who should be locked up for their terrible misdeeds.

 

 

I see - the seriousness of the attempt (in terms of numbers), rather than intent, is what matters in terms of terminology here, then? "A winner never commits treason" and all that?

I can see where you're coming from but I don't fully agree - criminal cases can and do take intent as well as deed in mind when prosecuting a crime.

 

With respect to polarisation leading people to define the events differently, of course that is a thing. It's also why we have rules regarding terminology and the criminal justice system to add definition in the first place. As I said earlier:

 

On 12/11/2021 at 21:06, leicsmac said:

An addendum to the above discussion:

 

Of course definitions of words and scientific laws come to that are all subjective because they are the direct invention of the human mind and agreed upon by the perception of a sufficient number of people.

 

However,  these definitions and laws exist for a reason in that if we don't use them, then everything becomes a giant talking shop and nothing actually gets done, which isn't a good survival strategy.

 

[Facecloth]

BBC News - The Queen to miss Remembrance Sunday service

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59280608

 

Is there more to this than they are letting on? Strained back seems an odd reason to pull out when she was apparently very keen to go and could have gone in a wheelchair if this was the case. Can't help feeling she's not well and they keeping the full story from the public.

[WigstonWanderer]

This is absolutely chilling.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/14/trump-president-2024-election-coup-republicans

 

Democracy in the US really is under threat.

[Carl the Llama]

2 hours ago, MarshallForEngland said:

Interesting. What methods did you use to reach such a high level in French? Perhaps you lived in an environment in which French is the most commonly spoken language, or perhaps you had tuition? 

 

On the subject of Buce's post, I presume you've heard of Brandolini’s Law? Sometimes called "the bullsh*t asymmetry principle". It states that "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshi*t is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." Now I'm certainly not calling Buce's post bullsh*t, but I do think it is wrong about several things and writing thorough responses takes time. That said, at least it contains an actual point and some reasoning, even if I don't agree with the conclusion. Your arrogant dismissal of decades of language theory and refusal to accept the observable reality of how people actually speak a language is hard to argue against precisely because it contains almost no tangible claims against which an argument can be formed. You behave like a pigeon playing chess; your opponent may put you in check, but you'll just knock all the pieces over, sh*t on the board and then strut away like you've won something.

The irony is just incredible.  Your use of language theory is insulting, I can agree that language evolves through use but it's just daft to keep claiming that because you understand a word one way, we all must accept that definition, that's what's arrogant. Has it not occurred to you that numerous people disputing your use of the word might point to the socially accepted use of it (and indeed the dictionary defined one) being different to yours?  Why do we even have dictionaries in your land of linguistic make-believe?  As to the claim that I've given you nothing tangible, just wow, this whole conversation started because I confronted your belief with the actual definition of the word, since then you've been shitting and strutting seven ways to Sunday.  

 

As I previously said, and should have listened to myself, there's no point engaging someone like you because you won't be reasoned with through the use of facts, just another soul lost to the war against information.  I think what's exhausting you is the mental gymnastics you're engaging in.

Edited 14 November 2021 by Carl the Llama

[Corky]

41 minutes ago, Facecloth said:

BBC News - The Queen to miss Remembrance Sunday service

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59280608

 

Is there more to this than they are letting on? Strained back seems an odd reason to pull out when she was apparently very keen to go and could have gone in a wheelchair if this was the case. Can't help feeling she's not well and they keeping the full story from the public.

Possibly but she's 95 and how many 95-year-olds are really active? She isn't a superhuman.

 

Maybe she's just done too much in the past and it is affecting her now?

[Facecloth]

6 minutes ago, Corky said:

Possibly but she's 95 and how many 95-year-olds are really active? She isn't a superhuman.

 

Maybe she's just done too much in the past and it is affecting her now?

Oh yeah I get she's very old. But she's been resting for weeks and was apparently extremely keen to go to this. All she would have done today would have been sat on the balcony and watched the proceedings, which I'm sure even a 95 with a bad back could manage in a wheelchair, especially if they were very keen to do it.

[Buce]

11 minutes ago, Corky said:

Possibly but she's 95 and how many 95-year-olds are really active? She isn't a superhuman.

 

Maybe she's just done too much in the past and it is affecting her now?

 

Yeah, all that waving must be exhausting.

 

It's amazing she's lived so long.

[leicsmac]

33 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

This is absolutely chilling.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/14/trump-president-2024-election-coup-republicans

 

Democracy in the US really is under threat.

It always has been.

 

The minority has always had an inordinate power over the majority over there, right from when there were slaveowners. Under even the standard process a vote in Wyoming is "worth" around 4x more in terms of voting "power" than one in Cali.