Russia Is Trying to Leave the Internet and Build Its Own

I was hoping to avoid getting deep enough into this that I have to break out the block quotes myself, but oh well.

Like I said, no one's twisting your arm here.

I don’t think I’ve been any less charitable than you and weirdwallace75, though.

I can't speak for anyone but myself but if you look at my posts and your posts, I think we can easily see this really isn't true at all.

You made a caricature of your opponents position - they don't like guns because "guns bad" when obviously there's a lot more nuance than that. I challenge you to link a case where I did anything similar. Just as an example. You've also made a bunch of quite uncharitable assumptions with little evidence, like the "talking points" thing.

See the definition of talking points.

By the definition you linked, your accusation is just plain factually wrong. Nothing was prepared in advance, I'm (obviously) not following a script.

Also, this looks like a contradiction:

Not necessarily mindless, but certainly low-effort and static.

I didn’t say that they were easily refuted. Just as I don’t find the talking points convincing

So they're low effort, static, you (and presumably others that agree with your position) have heard/seen them all before and yet they aren't easily refuted? That really doesn't make sense. I have my own pet cause and there are very common responses I've seen before too: as a result, I can crush them with almost no effort because I know exactly where the conversation is going.

If you're so familiar with the subject, have seen all the arguments before but can't muster strong counter arguments, link reputable neutral sources to support your position, etc then maybe you should reevaluate whether the ground you're on is actually solid. Lest you be tempted to turn that line of argument around on me: don't forget, I never claimed to be super well-informed and familiar with it.

You likened planning for fascist violence to planning for the rapture.

I likened a scenario where individual fascists are apparently wandering around randomly killing other citizens while the government/police don't do anything to the rapture, because this pretty much implies a complete breakdown of civilization or a situation where having a gun isn't going to help you anyway because the fascists have the might of the military on their side.

I didn't say something like fascists gaining political power was that level of implausible. Unfortunately, it actually seems all too plausible: although the killing random lefties/liberals en masse is very improbable. Like I already said, even if you look at one of the most extreme examples in history such as Nazi Germany it still didn't happen like that.

You’re not. I’m certain enough of it to bet money.

The point is that my position on this is completely independent of any politics. It's like if the question was "Is the best tool for slicing bread a spoon or a knife": would it matter if I'm politically left or right? No: there's a fact of the matter about what tool is effective for slicing bread, there's enough evidence to show knives are clearly more effective there and if my politics affect me accepting that and I argue the spoon side then I'm being irrational.

There are lots of subjects where politics do have an influence and philosophical points where there's a less clear answer but here we're talking about practical effects from taking a certain approach. Politics should have little bearing there.

I’m not really talking about utilitarianism vs egoism or whatever else,

Huh? I don't get your response. Perhaps you're not familiar with Utilitarianism? It's a moral philosophy based on maximizing utility which is usually defined as maximizing pleasure and/or minimizing suffering. This is in contrast to other moral philosophies that might say something like "lying to people is wrong", the Utilitarian would only look at it in terms of the actual effects and would have no problem accepting that lying was good if you could show that overall lying maximized utility.

So assuming the facts are on your side here, this actually makes convincing Utilitarians of stuff very easy. You just have to show taking a certain approach results in higher utility and the Utilitarian will be on your side and won't say anything like "It's just wrong to do that". So if you could show me evidence that arming citizens actually results in less suffering/more happiness overall (and we can safely assume fascists taking over and roaming around slaughtering liberals/left leaning people is going to increase suffering/decrease happiness) then I'll not only be able to accept it. I'll be in your pro-gun camp.