historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:45 pm
historia wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 1:54 pm
My overarching point is that the approach you are advocating -- where we have to wait for "all the facts to come in" before drawing any conclusions -- is impractical. And your criticism of those who don't follow that approach as "jumping the gun" or somehow being "partisan" is completely misguided.
Ask yourself, what is "impractical" about waiting for a long standing agreed upon deadline for challenging the election?
Waiting for "all the facts to come in" before drawing any conclusion is impractical as a
general epistemology. That's not the standard we use in science, history, or our law courts. So insisting on it here is just special pleading.
You're building a strawman. I did state that I wanted to "wait for all facts to come in" but I meant that within the context of an investigation and the completion of that. I clearly brought up the investigation and the legal deadline for it in that same area where I talked about "all facts coming in".
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:45 pmWhy draw conclusions before that deadline?
Because that's simply how beliefs work. Once we have sufficient reason to draw a conclusion, we cannot help but do so. The conclusion just follows necessarily in our minds.
I know that's how belief works, but in a debate or any other intellectual context, I like to deal with knowledge, facts, verifiable evidence, etc. Until that is reached or presented, I remain an agnostic. Belief tends to not only lack good evidence, but it is often influenced by bias, political or otherwise.
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 amOnce the facts regarding Trump's legal challenges overwhelmingly pointed to one outcome -- which was obvious just a couple of weeks after the election -- there remained no compelling reason to refrain from reaching that conclusion.
Obvious to who? No compelling reason according to who? The judges? You brought up a court case that did not even involve showing that Trump's point about poll observers was wrong. Trump's point on that was correct, even if he lost the case, and he lost the case because the law wasn't on the side of allowing poll watchers to be able to see much. I question how many court cases were dismissed for similar reasons or just for simply lacking 'standing'.
I've offered logic and evidence that shows that we aren't in a position to know if cheating occurs and its frequency. I defended that point by pointing to the lack of security and/or oversight. However, unlike Trump I'm not using that to say that there is cheating but rather that we should investigate it, and one way to do that is to have RECOUNTs with better oversight. And unlike you, I'm not just going to say there is no cheating just because there's no evidence of it. I'd expect it to be hard to catch much evidence if there is a lack of oversight. When there are elections or even RECOUNTS with adequate oversight, then I can say with some reasonable confidence that our elections are fair.
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:45 pmBecause you made up your mind that he would've lost or had no evidence??? That's all I can see a lot of Democrats doing since some were drawing conclusions even before Trump's team had any court cases.
In contrast, as a non-partisan, I waited until the deadline. I not only did so because it was practical (and agreed upon) legal deadline, but I also thought it was possible for Trump's team to find evidence by looking into claims of voter fraud and irregularities. To draw conclusions before that process, and to not even consider that we can at least look into the matter, is not only partisan but also dismissive.
I think this is an extremely poor way to frame the issue.
First of all, for many decade now, news organizations and political leaders in both parties have acknowledged the winner of the presidential election once the states announce their results. So there is nothing "partisan" about doing that this time around.
They have but when there's a dispute, I don't remember them just brushing it off as if it's nothing. I can understand accepting state results that are not disputed, but that shouldn't be done when there's a dispute or even an investigation.
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
Second, you're setting out a false dichotomy here between reaching a conclusion before any lawsuits have been filed on the one hand and waiting until the electoral college vote on the other. It was also possible to conclude somewhere in the middle that Trump was not mounting a serious legal challenge to the election and so would almost certainly not overturn the results -- which even some conservative commentators recognized, again making this not a "partisan" conclusion.
That would depend on when Democrats were making up their mind. Some made up their minds even before any court cases. I only know that you made up your mind after court cases because you stated that. In my case, my arguments were not based just on Trump's arguments and that's why I say there's some partisanship involved here. You want to make this just about Trump, which I know a lot of Democrats love to hate him, but in reality, my arguments are valid irrespective of Trump.
Perhaps if it were a Democrat challenging the election, or if a Democrat lost, or even if Trump wasn't in the picture, then you can't fault me for considering that lots of Democrats would be taking my stance. Hypocrisy in politics is not unprecedented.
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:45 pm
I also thought it was possible for Trump's team to find evidence by looking into claims of voter fraud and irregularities.
The mere fact that an alternate outcome, or explanation, is
possible is the
weakest reason to refrain from reaching a conclusion.
We would
never use that as justification to refrain from reaching a conclusion in science or history, as there is almost always a
possible alternative explanation for everything. If that was the standard for not reaching a verdict in a court of law, no criminal would ever be convicted!
Again, insisting on that standard in this particular case amounts to special pleading.
Science offers tentative conclusions based on logic and scientific evidence. At best, all you've offered is historical evidence and some logic, logic that is flawed in some cases. You've argued as if your scenarios are the only possible ones. You've drawn conclusions on an investigation before it was over. I mean I can see someone having some justification to conclude that there was little to no fraud discovered based on reasons that Trump offered before the investigation was over or even started. That just amounts to saying that Trump has not offered any evidence at this point of time. But you're wanting to draw conclusions that would cover all points of time, as if the matter was completely settled, even before RECOUNTS were done. Fast forward to after the recounts, we now know that uncounted votes were discovered and that this would not have been discovered had there been no recount. If I were a scientist on this matter, I would be requesting empirical evidence in the form of RECOUNTS as opposed to just offering history or logic based on theoretical scenarios.
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:45 pm
When people argue their case as if it's absolute truth then they shouldn't expect me to believe that their conclusion is "tentative". Let me also say that tentative conclusions based on NON-scientific evidence should not be treated the same as scientific conclusions.
It's a good thing no one in this thread is doing that, then.
Well you have offered a lot of theoretical explanations as to why there wouldn't be cheating. When I suggested a more empirical route, such as RECOUNTS, which would involve verifying your claims since it involves actually looking for cheating, rather than just THEORIZING about cheating based on past cases, you seem to be against that. On a related point, you were drawing conclusions that Trump's investigation would find nothing BEFORe the investigation was over.
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:45 pm
Part of the problem is that you're mixing different issues together.
Simply asserting someone is wrong or mistaken without argument or explanation does not a debate make.
I was making points about two different standards. One point was made to address Tcg's unqualified claim that the election was fair which I took to mean perfect or with no fraud nor potential for it. The second point was made to address your scaled down standard of a "reasonable" election.
Here are statements where you distinguished between a perfect election and a reasonable one:
"I see. I can assure you that when people use the term "fair" they almost certainly don't mean perfect, as you have defined it here. To that end, it seems you have been attacking a straw man argument here." - Historia
post #18
"Good, then we should be able to draw reasonable conclusions about this election despite the fact that we can never be completely certain of all that took place and no election, including this one, is perfect." - Historia
post #18
Do you see that you made a distinction between a perfect election, which is what my first point addressed, and a reasonable one (my second point addresses that?)
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:45 pm
historia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:36 am
I also don't think we should refrain from calling our elections "fair" or "free" now just because they could be
marginally better in both respects.
When you have stronger standards for buying alcohol than you do voting, then I can never call such a system "fair". Forget the "free" part as well because you have to be a millionaire and lawyered up (in effect) to be able to run for president.
Again, it seems you are using unusual definitions for key terms.
Perhaps the
Civics Academy website, developed by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Hanns Seidel Foundation, can be useful here. It notes:
Civics Academy wrote:
An election is considered ‘free’ when you can decide whether or not to vote and vote freely for the candidate or party of your choice without fear or intimidation. A ‘free’ election is also one where you are confident that who you vote for remains your secret.
That description is not "free" enough. When you have people running for president that are not representative (socioeconomic-wise) of the people at large, then I don't consider that free. I'll consider it free once I start seeing a middle class person without political or power connections run for president. Otherwise, all I've seen are either rich guys or those who have connections to the rich and powerful.