TED Community » Daniel Gulley

Comments

• TEDCred score: +1.20 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Increasing voter turnout in primaries would dramatically improve the American system and result in more candidates with moderate positions.

  Dec 18 2012: I would not say that I have attacked anyone. Rather I was debating Mr. Gilbert i.e putting forth premises in support of a conclusion. I don't think demanding reason and logical consistency is an attack.
  
  I have not "made it clear where I stand" but I will. I am a registered Republican and have been since I registered to vote at age 18.
  
  However I am obviously not like the tea party types who have come to exert great influence within the GOP.
  
  I am a moderate Republican one of the last of a dying breed. The way in which I differ from many of my fellow republicans and really many democrats is that I let reason and knowledge guide my vote regardless if that means I break from the parties platform.
  
  I believe that the first Amendment means that we cannot canonize the bible in our legal code.
  
  I am pro-gun. If they banned guns I would follow the ban but to do so it can not be an ordinary act of congress they must amend the constitution as the constitution demands. This is why the Brady bill was considered unconstitutional. Amending the constitution can only be done with a super majority 66% of both houses or of the various state legislatures).
  
  I also believe the GOP is on the wrong side of reason on climate change. Did I mention I live in Kentucky (BIG BLUE NATION)? Today 12/17/2012. In Lexington there was a huge thunderstorm with a lot of hail. If we are getting any precipitation this time of year it should be cold rain or snow. There's a lot more evidence for climate change but I have ranted enough there is scientific consensus.
  
  The point the contemporary GOP is on the wrong side of reason. Some dare I say are anti-intellectual (tea party).
  
  The GOP in the past could enter the public forum with reason and work together for the common good.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Increasing voter turnout in primaries would dramatically improve the American system and result in more candidates with moderate positions.

  Dec 17 2012: Here is some statistical evidence for you....
  
  http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2010/02/17/federal-taxes-paidreceived-for-each-state
  
  If you compare the two figures for any given state you will either get a positive number (meaning that state pays in more in taxes than it gets back from the government in entitlements) or a negative number (meaning that the state gets more money from Washington than it pays in).
  
  Do the math... do you notice a pattern? Overwhelmingly the Red states receive more from government than they pay in, and overwhelmingly the Blue states pay more into the system than they receive in entitlements....
  
  Isn't this the opposite of your claim??
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Increasing voter turnout in primaries would dramatically improve the American system and result in more candidates with moderate positions.

  Dec 17 2012: I would not ignore any scholarly evidence that you could produce....
  
  If you don't care enough to back your claim with actual evidence why bother replying at all?
  
  Trolling perhaps?
• +4

  A reply on Conversation: Increasing voter turnout in primaries would dramatically improve the American system and result in more candidates with moderate positions.

  Dec 16 2012: "It is a known and accepted fact." By who Fox News?
  
  You can not make a claim and then when pressed for evidence support that claim in such a manner.
  
  It is logically fallacious.
  
  This type of reasoning is known as an Appeal to Belief "This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the fact that many people believe a claim does not, in general, serve as evidence that the claim is true." http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-belief.html
  
  Of course I reject the idea in it's entirety that "it is a known and accepted fact" but even if everyone believed it that alone is not evidence of its truthfulness. At one time everyone believed that the earth not the sun was the center of the galaxy and that the earth was flat.

• A reply on Conversation: Increasing voter turnout in primaries would dramatically improve the American system and result in more candidates with moderate positions.

  Dec 16 2012: My argument is logically valid (the conclusion follows from the premises) and it is deductive in nature, meaning that if you accept the premises then you must accept the conclusion. So to reject the conclusion is to reject 1 or more premises, so which premises do you reject?
  
  With all due respect your argument or more precisely your summation of Nightline's argument is what in logic is called a fallacy of composition.
  
  "This line of reasoning is fallacious because the mere fact that individuals (within a class) have certain characteristics does not, in itself, guarantee that the class (taken as a whole) has those characteristics." http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html
  
  A hidden premise in this argument is that all primary voters are passionate and educated on the issues, and anyone who does not vote in the primaries is not while this is most definitely true of some it can not on its own merit serve as a basis to make such a broad generalization about every primary voter or every general election voter who did not vote in the primaries.
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Increasing voter turnout in primaries would dramatically improve the American system and result in more candidates with moderate positions.

  Dec 16 2012: Do you have any evidence to support this conclusion? It seems to me if you are left wing then you care about left wing issues thus denoting an absence of "ennui".