Amazing Atheist vs. Southern Avenger

[Cryptic_Snow]

Wow sounds like a superhero battle of the ages in some comic book! Alas no, it was actually a debate over states rights and numerous other issues between two popular youtube channels. If you're not familiar with The Amazing Atheist, he's quite fowl mouthed and bombastic, The Southern Avenger is measured and well, southern. Interesting debate and concept. I very much enjoy seeing people having a dialogue with one another, even if they have radical different perspectives.


link to video.

Full length Debate


link to video.

[Ergo Sum]

Why do Southerners exist?

[civver_764]

Here's The Amazing Atheist's post-video.


link to video.

[useless]

The AA clearly won

[Cryptic_Snow]

Originally Posted by useless

The AA clearly won

So you support centralized state tyranny, thanks for your input.

[useless]

Where or when did I say that? Can you read minds? Can you teach us all your secret power?

[Lone Wolf]

This thread is going to be very intellectual and shock us all with its cautiously measured and balanced philosophical insights.

[Crezth]

Originally Posted by Cryptic_Snow

So you support centralized state tyranny, thanks for your input.

So you support decentralized state tyranny, thanks for your input.

[Cutlass]

Originally Posted by Cryptic_Snow

So you support centralized state tyranny, thanks for your input.

As a whole that is what the states rights people support. But as to you vids, I'm not watching an hour of vid to see the arguments. It would work better if you could summarize the arguments on both sides.

[Formaldehyde]

Originally Posted by Lone Wolf

This thread is going to be very intellectual and shock us all with its cautiously measured and balanced philosophical insights.

After the Southern Avenger and the Amazing Atheist set such a high level of debate, what can you expect would result?

The point that most states rights advocates don't seem to get is that the Constitution was a compromise. We have states rights because the states existed long before the federal government, and that was the only way that the Southern states in particular would ever join. It wasn't a clever means fashioned by our all-knowing founding fathers to protect us from becoming the next Nazi regime. It was a matter of political necessity given the circumstances at the time.

Nowadays, as the Amazing Atheist pointed out, the actual tyranny and discrimination occurs predominately at the state level. And this is what states rights have come to mean ever since the country finally became far more equal in terms of human rights. It had eventually become a handful of individual states which wanted to continue to persecute people for engaging in anal and even oral sex, for instance, again especially the Southern states.

What is ironic is that the Republican Party have traditionally been the federalists and the Democratic Party have not. That is, until the Civil Rights act came along and polarized and split the Democratic Party. It caused most of the bigots and racists to flee the Democratic Party and join the Republican Party where they were welcomed with open arms. Being lesser in numbers, the Republicans now also had a reason to push for states rights as well. It had become essentially the only way they could continue to push their own theocratic-based morality on others.

Ironically, states rights do not protect us from the tyranny of the federal government except in a few isolated cases like medicinal marijuana. They are predominately the generators of that continuing tyranny and have been ever since the Civil Rights era.

It is time to radically change the Constitution and our laws. It is insane that each state defines what is a crime and and what the punishments should be. It is insane that you can smoke medicinal marijuana in Californa, but that even the mere possession of marijuana in Florida is still a serious misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. And if you happen to have more than 20 grams in your possession, it is a felony. At least it is now a bit better than it was during the 60s when the punishment for mere possession in Texas was 5 years in prison.

Of course, this plan should also offer a means of opting out. But now, I don't think there will be as much reason to compromise with the more backward states anymore. They should be encouraged to form their own country or possibly join Mexico again.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by Cryptic_Snow

The Southern Avenger is measured and well, southern.

Originally Posted by Cryptic_Snow

So you support centralized state tyranny, thanks for your input.

From this we can safely conclude that Cryptic Snow is a grade-A Yankee.

[IdiotsOpposite]

Honestly, the blatant bias in the OP made me not even want to watch the videos.

[Synsensa]

Never bothered watching the debates, but judging by some of the comments it seems that the Southern Avenger clearly ignored most of AA's points and made up his own counter-arguments to things that were never said. Is this correct?

[civver_764]

The Southern Avenger isn't even that dumb, he just hadn't thought a lot of things through. I think that's shown very clearly during the first ten minutes of the debate with this exchange:

Spoiler:

TSA: "My understanding is that you think states' rights are a bad idea in general?"

TAA: "Yes."

TSA: "So you think that Obama and Eric Holder should go to California right now and enforce our Federal War on Drugs and take Medicinal Marijuana from all the people who are using it?"

TAA: "No."

TSA: "Ok, then you're for states' rights."

TAA: "No."

He's got this false dichotomy in his head for whatever reason that if people think the states' shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against their own citizens they support everything the Federal Government does. It's completely void of logic, but his whole ideology is based on it. He just hasn't thought these things through on a high enough level, which is the case with most of these "states' rights" libertarians. He's right on a lot of the issues but he's just got this fetish for the constitution as if its the only possible basis for an anti-authoritarian ideology(which is absurd) and it leads him to all sorts of weird conclusions that actual makes him support authoritarian and discriminatory measures as long as its done on a low enough level of government. That completely contradicts his "libertarian" ideology though. The question isn't one of "states' rights" vs. "federal government rights" but instead one of "states' rights" vs. "individual rights" and any real libertarian would definitely support individual rights.

Ok that rant's not going anywhere so I'll stop, just my thoughts on him.