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I recommend reading this entire article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/iraq-war-wmds-an-intelligence-failure-or-white-house-spin/

..But in case you can't, here's their conclusion:

>The intelligence community’s assessments on Iraq’s WMD stockpiles and programs turned out to be woefully wrong, largely because analysts believed that Iraq had kept on a path of building its programs rather than largely abandoning them after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Thus the stockpiles theoretically got larger as time went on.

>But at the same time, the Senate report shows Bush administration officials often hyped the intelligence that supported their policy goals — while ignoring or playing down dissents or caveats from within the intelligence community. The intelligence was used for political purposes, to build public support for a war that might have been launched no matter what intelligence analysts had said about the prospect of finding WMDs in Iraq.

>(We do not know whether Bush read the dissents in the NIE. His memoir just says the NIE was based on “much of the same intelligence the CIA had been showing to me for the past eighteen months.” Then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice wrote in her memoir that "NSC Principals, all experienced people, read the NIE from cover to cover.” The National Security Council is chaired by the president, and regular attendees include the vice president, secretary of state, defense secretary, treasury secretary and national security adviser.)

>Fleischer says it is “a lie” that Bush lied. Regular readers know we generally do not use the word “lie." Fleischer is offering his opinion — one that conveniently ignores the Senate report that looked at this issue. His own deputy at the time certainly said the White House spun the intelligence for political purposes, while Fleischer still argues that White House was misled by the intelligence community.

Christianity wasn't legalized until 313 C.E. and it didn't become the State Religion until 380 C.E. we can reasonably declare 380 C.E. as the beginning of the Catholic church. Before 313 Christians were persecuted throughout the empire. Also, did you even read the second link?

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>Preface
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>The Short answer is no: Tacitus is not the only or main reason why modern historians (whether Atheist, Agnostic, or Christian) believe the historical Jesus existed. I am going to copy and paste my answer from a previous post and also suggest that if you want in depth answers into what evidence we have for the Historical Jesus to read one of these two books:
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>Ehrman, Bart: Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
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>Crossan, John Dominic: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant Ehrman is a very vocal Agnostic (borderline Atheist) and Crossan is a Christian, just to give you both sides of the coin. I recommend Ehrman because he's one of the most engaging historians on this topic, period.
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>Why do historians overwhelmingly agree that Jesus was historically a real person?
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>First, we need to address one key issue that most people don't understand, so people on both sides of this argument like to take certain things out of context. It needs to be known that we have practically no primary sources for many secondary (non-monarchs or major political figures) characters in antiquity. This is what the historical Jesus was (a secondary character in his day). If we simply say "we have no archeological evidence, so he doesn't exist" then we need to say that Aristotle and Socrates did not exist because, like Jesus' story, we are left with written accounts that have been repeatedly copied through various generations.
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>Now when it comes to the historical Jesus (and what we know of him) well it's simple in a few ways. The first, is that although the gospels and other New Testament books were all written decades after Jesus died (however Paul started writing between 45-49 CE), they are independently attested. Yes, from a historical perspective (and personally for myself since I am agnostic) the miracles and resurrection are considered embellishments to help encourage early people convert to this new Jewish sect.
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>What does this mean
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>Now although much of this information cannot be relied upon for historical purposes, some of it can pass the test of historical plausibility. What do I mean by that? Well, every historian, when examining evidence, has a set of criteria they must use when comparing written accounts of any event. Part of doing this, is taking these four accounts, and cross examining with each other and seeing if any of the minor details (things that lack religious implications that would be less likely for people to make up) correspond to most or all of the documents. What you'll find is that many of these minor details correspond consistently in ways that you wouldn't expect-- this is something you almost never see with mythical figures.
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>You'll also see that the early Gospel writers likely had to create explanations for certain things about Jesus because his name was likely somewhat known around the time of his death. I'll give a brief example:
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>Two of the gospels deal with the birth of Jesus. Without going into too much detail, it's easy to make the argument that both Matthew and Luke did not get their information for this narrative from the same source. They are constantly at odds with each other over many specific areas of this story (example: in Matthew, Mary and Joseph already lived in bethlehem and then had to move to Egypt and then, years later, move to Nazareth. In Luke, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, traveled to Bethlehem for a theoretical tax registration, waited there for 32 days after Jesus was born, and then returned immediately to Nazareth).
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>Most historians believe it is likely that both of them made up nearly all (if not all) of the parts to their stories because they were trying to fulfill the prophecies from the Old Testament. See, in the book of Micah, it was predicted that a savior would be born in the city of David (Bethlehem), so these writers wanted to make sure that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. But wait, they had a real issue to deal with. It was probably well-known that Jesus was from some small town called Nazareth, thus he didn't fulfill that part of the prophecy. So, to deal with this, early gospel writers created these narratives to explain how this person from Nazareth could have still been from the city of David.
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>If Jesus was a mythological figure that sprung up out of thin air, there would be no reason to say he was from Nazareth, they would have said he was from Bethlehem and just left it at that. This is what we typically see for made up figures. Keep in mind that this is one of dozens of examples where the writers did this to meet personal agendas of their time.
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>What historians also find is that it is nearly impossible for a sect or cult to immediately spring up without a founding figure. After Jesus' death, the remaining followers were probably a group of people of about 20-30 people, and it expanded rather quickly -- probably hitting the hundreds within the decade after his death and by 50 CE, they had spread throughout the Roman Empire. Most scholars believe that the book of Mark, written between 65-70 CE, was actually written in the city of Rome for a local church there. This type of growth and expansion is, by historical standards, incredibly fast. The rapid rate of growth suggests, for historians, that a real figure of Jesus existed, had a few followers who immediately disbanded after his death. Yet, for those whom remained, they started preaching about his life and resurrection, which was likely very enticing for their day.
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>I hope this gave you a glimpse into the answer for this. If you'd like more examples I can provide them.
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>Addendum I wanted to add one more thing that I forgot to mention in my original post, and it's something that I find to be extremely important but is often overlooked. Tacitus is often identified as the first Roman to discuss or mention the historical Jesus or his followers which is actually not correct. The first mention of Christians actually comes several years earlier, around the year 112 CE (although I've read one scholar claim it was maybe even during the decade before that) by a Roman governor. Here's an excerpt from another Ehrman book on the topic:
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>"The author, Pliny the Younger, was a governor of a Roman province. In a letter that he wrote to his emperor, Trajan, he indicates that there was a group of people called Christians who were meeting illegally; he wants to know how to handle the situation. These people, he tells the emperor, “worship Christ as a God.” That’s all he says about Jesus. It’s not much to go on if you want to know anything about the historical Jesus." -- Ehrman, Bart D Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) HarperCollins. (2009-02-20) pp. 149
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>As Ehrman points out, it's not much to go off of, but it is important that we have multiply attested sources talking about the rapidly growing Christian base at this time.

Why is it picking on women specifically? What about holding men accountable for their actions?

A sub like that is part of "how we police women, how we keep them in their place, in their designated lane", to quote Kate Manne, author of a book on misogyny.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1724941682/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1724941682&linkCode=as2&tag=dril0c-20&linkId=ee23336aaae3b442e3ea71e8a9664dd7

https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Comic-Book-Fascism-Movements/dp/1551527332&ved=2ahUKEwj4qM2DkK3jAhVFHc0KHcanBloQFjAOegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0N7fLOGFAHnEP4xGVQszp5

A Comicbook that simplifies antifa movements and explains what they have done for the past 100 years

The centrist manifesto already exists:

https://www.amazon.com/Centrist-Manifesto-Charles-Wheelan/dp/0393346870

Here.

Just because someone publishes something doesnt mean it's true, therefore verifiability on previously published information is still subjective. Plenty of published books have been written on how liberals are closely related to nazis and could be linked on that page like:

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767917189/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_uFDHDbZ6KJ4F4

It's something that can be backed up, as I've shown here liberal policies are related to that of nazi Germany.

And I mean if you're going to trust some liberal with a gender studies degree, over a quote directly from Hitler, then theres really no arguing here. You're wrong.

I mean, we've basically always been at war.

And I very much subscribe to Donald Kagan's views on the issue of war from On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, wherein he posits that peace is not the "default state" for countries and that the modern perception is very much not congruent with the pre-WWII understanding of war.

>I wouldn't say that, and ironically they have Trump to thank.

A tax policy that is bad across all age cohorts doesn't undo or make up for the last several decades of policy that is coming home to roost. Trump's tax policy, for example, blew the deficit way, way, way up in a time of economic growth so when we have our next recession we're basically fucked. And who is going to get fucked the most? Who do they expect to not get social security or Medicare?

> One of the benefits of being a large generation I guess.

A large generation that gives zero fucks about what happens next and creates a cult like culture to make it easier to avoid giving a fuck.

This book summed it up horrifically well: https://www.amazon.com/Theft-Decade-Boomers-Millennials-Economic/dp/1541742362

I think you mean Barry Scheck’s "bullshit" not Johnny Cochran’s, especially since Scheck was the attorney on Oj’s team in charge of dealing with the DNA and other scientific evidence. Unless, (as your previously racist insinuation that people of color were manipulated into voting for acquittal despite the white people on the jury indicated), you saw the word “Black” in my user name and assumed that I too suspend all faculties for critical thinking as soon as another black person mentions the word racism.

As to your false assertion that there was no EDTA in those samples, this is even disputed in Marcia Clark’s book Without a Doubt. The prosecution’s argument was that certain amounts of EDTA are found in human blood naturally, and that it was unclear where EDTA on the gate and sock came from.

>Challenged by Clark that humans can have more EDTA naturally in their blood than Rieders said his research suggested, the toxicologist thundered, "That's absurd!" He suggested that higher levels of EDTA would mean some people would be walking around with blood that would not clot.
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>Clark derided his testimony as "way off the deep end of speculation."
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>But Rieders's testimony contained some potentially powerful evidence. On the sock, EDTA was found only on the bloody part of the sock, not on the unsoiled fabric, suggesting the EDTA did not come from detergent. As for the swatch of blood taken from the smear on the back gate at the crime scene, the gate did not hold EDTA -- only the blood on the gate did.

Also, Detective Lang didn’t even mention the drop of blood on the back gate in his original notes.

>Furthermore, Det. Tom Lange did not include the drop in his detailed notes about the gate during his initial inspection of the crime scene, as he acknowledged in his deposition Monday. The defense’s implication: that a rogue officer daubed a drop on the back gate straight from the vial containing O.J. Simpson’s blood sample.

You can continue to pretend that Oj was acquitted because of stupid black people on the jury if you want to, but if you want to avoid sounding like a racist idiot, perhaps you should better familiarize yourself with the facts of the case.

> You are defending the Nazi event filled with Nazi's and Holocaust deniers.

The neo-Nazis came out way later in the evening. Did I oppose the removal of Robert E Lee’s statue by a bunch of butthurt Leftists who are in no-way affected by it? Absolutely. Not bc I’m fond of him as a historical figure but bc Lee was just the start. Nowadays, Leftists want to get rid of ANY statue, memorial, monument, namesake from Founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson bc they owned slaves at one point.

>Christian Picciolini, US author of Memoirs of a Skinhead and former neo-Nazi...

Oh honey, you think what he said/wrote is unique to Trump? As I’ve said many times before, this tactic of calling the sitting Republican president or presidential candidate (and/or their rhetoric) a Nazi, White Supremacist, KKK, racist, etc, is a tired old song.
Some poor loser wrote a whole academic paper on president Bush “white supremacist” rhetoric when he used the phrase “War on Terror” was just really a war on brown people. (1 2) and the same crap against John McCain (1 2 3) and even Mitt Romney, who was the mellowest candidate of the last 50 years (1).

So again, absolutely nothing of substance. Meanwhile, democrats continue to support racist policies like affirmative action and employment quotas which are disproportionately affecting Asians and Jews. But yeah, Trump bashing illegal immigrants of all races is worse 🤣.

>theres plenty to hit Obama on, but "he never tried to help" is a bullshit neocon talking point.

Did I ever say that Obama never tried to help? Obama obviously tried to help, but too little, and too late. Funny how he started ''fighting'' for the poor after the Democrats had lost their majority?

Read a single book about the financial crisis. Obama fucked the working class over on ideological grounds, you know ''moral hazard'' and all. Not because he ''couldn't''. But given how your knowledge comes from a reddit post on r/politics, it doesn't surprise me you are this misinformed on the issue.

Read

https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Wasted-Barack-Defining-Decisions/dp/1948122316

https://www.amazon.com/After-Music-Stopped-Financial-Response/dp/014312448X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=When+the+music+stopped&qid=1570719446&s=books&sr=1-1

If you are actually interested in Obama's presidency.

Also why are you claiming that I ignored racism? I never did, but pretending like race was the pimary reason Hillary Clinton lost has to be the most fucking MSNBC retarded take I have ever seen in my life. Black voters did not come out for Hillary like they had for Obama in 2008, and with good reason. Democratic policies had been disastrous for black Americans, who are disproportionately poor thanks to slavery and systemic racism in our society.

But keep throwing those bull shit Hillary shill straw-men out there. Anyone who criticizes Obama or the Democrats is a racist who falls for neo-con propaganda. Roflmao.

>Antifa is an organized group of people with a singular common purpose. Sure, they may claim that "they aren't an organization," but they literally are. They are a loosely governed organization, but still an organization, regardless.

Local antifa groups might be organized, but antifa as a whole is not. There is no consistent "antifa policy" on how to approach things like violence, protests, etc because antifa is not an organization. You could have a group of people calling themselves antifa in City A who do nothing but tear down fascist posters, and a group of people calling themselves antifa in City B who do nothing but milkshake fascists, and that isn't a contradiction because the groups are not part of any organized movement in any more specific sense than ideologically (people who dislike fascism and want to do something about it) and probably don't even talk to each other other than in the very vague sense that they may both use social media.

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What are all of these "authoritarian" and "dictatorial" things that antifa does which are so horrible?

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The rest of your post argues that since antifa is authoritarian and dictatorial (????????) it's somehow fascist by stubbornly refusing to use anything but a woefully inadequate dictionary definition that nobody actually takes seriously, as evidenced by the fact that nobody unironically calls most authoritarian countries in the world fascist. You should consider looking into some actual attempts to define fascism by credible people if you want to throw the term around.

> When I say that Antifa is fascist, I don't mean that they are literal fascists like Mussolini.

"When I say that antifa is fascist, I don't mean like, you know, fascist fascists. I mean the other kind of fascists: people I don't like."

>>Antifa is an organized group of people with a singular common purpose. Sure, they may claim that "they aren't an organization," but they literally are. They are a loosely governed organization, but still an organization, regardless.

>Local antifa groups might be organized, but antifa as a whole is not. There is no consistent "antifa policy" on how to approach things like violence, protests, etc because antifa is not an organization. You could have a group of people calling themselves antifa in City A who do nothing but tear down fascist posters, and a group of people calling themselves antifa in City B who do nothing but milkshake fascists, and that isn't a contradiction because the groups are not part of any organized movement in any more specific sense than ideologically (people who dislike fascism and want to do something about it) and probably don't even talk to each other other than in the very vague sense that they may both use social media.

They are still operating under the name of Antifa and so they are a part of Antifa. Also, Antifa groups usually tend to be radical so I highly doubt that most of them are just "milkshake and posters" Antifa protestors.
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>What are all of these "authoritarian" and "dictatorial" things that antifa does which are so horrible?

Destroying public property, assaulting people who haven't actually committed any violence against anyone (not all the people they attack, but good amount), forcibly censoring people that dont share their opinions and making threats to people that they consider their enemies.

There's literally footage of them doing this shit on the internet. They basically behave like a bunch of filthy anarchists under the guise of being "left wing."
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>woefully inadequate dictionary definition that nobody actually takes seriously,

Oh that's convenient that "nobody takes it seriously" when it disproves their argument. You're also not realizing that it's literally the definition by Merriam Webster, which is basically the definitive credible source for definitions of terms.

> as evidenced by the fact that nobody unironically calls most authoritarian countries in the world fascist.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they aren't engaging in fascist practices. You don't have to directly associate yourself with the fascist party to be a fascist. Just like you don't have to associate yourself with the Nazi party to be a Nazi.

>You should consider looking into some actual attempts to define fascism by credible people if you want to throw the term around.

What makes your definition more legitimate than mine other than the fact that it proves your argument? I also trust a definition that was determined by a group of scholars more than a definition by some random author on Amazon.

> When I say that Antifa is fascist, I don't mean that they are literal fascists like Mussolini.

>"When I say that antifa is fascist, I don't mean like, you know, fascist fascists. I mean the other kind of fascist, people I don't like."

Ummm no, I mean literally the other definition of fascist that I presented to you (Of course I know that doesn't mean anything to you since "nobody takes that seriously," conveniently enough) Like I said, you don't have to associate yourself with fascism to be a fascist. You just have to hold a very similar ideology to them.

OK, it looks like we're getting someplace and quite honestly, when we started this... I didn't have high hopes.

I think I can break down our areas of disagreement into several different points.

First, let's tackle Antifa and what they actually do. This is a ridiculous position and essentially it's a parroting of what right wingers used to do. You keep changing the goalposts. First its "this doesn't happen, bring me an example" then that happens so you switch to "that's one example, bring me many" so then that happens and you switch to "bring me enough examples to show that it happens 51 percent of the time" etc.

Google Antifa and Trump rallies for a history of Antifa showing up and attacking people at Trump rallies. Not KKK or Richard Spencer events, Trump rallies. The Washington post... a notoriously left leaning rag, even reported on it.

There is a history of violence from the left [and a narrative blaming Trump from the press] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVvb5_rMGyY) but it's clear who the aggressors were

Now it's important to note this is before the Black Bloc and Antifa stuff was in full swing. So while leftist terrorists organized against Trump supporters, eventually patriot prayer joins the fray in 2016, this is after Antifa began attacking Trump supporters, not before. Previously Antifa confronts Trump supporters without any protective groups.

They called Milo a white supremacist. Milo... a gay guy who expresses concern about Islam because of homosexuality being outlawed in the ME. Yes he uses examples of extremists throwing gays off of roofs, but he's not wrong. The treatment of homosexuals in Muslim countries isn't a radical thing, it's an every day Muslim thing. Attitudes on wife beating are not held by "just a handful of extremists", and if you don't believe me, listen to them

So it seems to me that you've been fed a series of lies about Islam, and about Antifa. If you defend Islam, then you're a bad guy, period. If you defend some perverted peaceful, progressive, gay accepting, women's rights having version of Islam... OK, but that's really unpopular. Read the Pew poll on Islam world wide, and if you're not familiar, this is what governments and lawyers and political scientists use for data. Pew is the gold standard in polling research.

So, in short, Antifa bad... even though it may have attracted people with good intentions, you're really short on actual white supremacists so their targets have largely been just Trump supporters. Now that there are alt right hate groups out there, and I freely admit there are... I don't give a shit about clashes between those two groups. I think on that we can agree.

But this narrative that they're "emboldened by Trump" is obvious bullshit. They were a reaction to left wing violence. White supremacists were attracted to these groups by the prospect of fighting against socialists. This is a tactic to start a war, by dragging in already polarized and militarized groups.

I'm sorry you can't see the connection between previous leftist groups in the US and the ones here now. I've provided the information, at some point you'll accept that information and we can move on. If you want to tell yourself that these groups disappeared into thin air and were forged again from nothing, go ahead. But it isn't true. If you don't believe me, look at Antifa world wide and explain to me why there are so many Antifa cells in countries without a Trump. Where did they come from? How are they so well organized for such a decentralized movement? The answer has already been provided. Because these socialist groups change names, but not missions.

On to law. I think I can see some common ground in that we both agree that drug laws are stupid. Vice laws, entirely in my view, are stupid. If I'm not hurting anyone, you don't have a right to regulate it.

But a system of law and law enforcement can't be selective about how laws are enforced any more than we already have done so. Civil suits and criminal law are already separated in terms of enforcement. If you violate copywrite law, the swat team doesn't knock in your door. Well, not initially. But at some point in order to enforce laws, you must use force.

There is a process to determine what laws we will use force to enforce and which ones we will just whine about and maybe garnish your paycheck over. If you don't like that system, welcome to the much larger group of people who don't like that system. I'd gladly engage in a planning session to change that system and am all kinds of open to suggestions.

That said, your "laws are subjective" argument is ridiculous. Notice I say that the argument is ridiculous. Which brings me to my next subject.

I didn't say you were a psychopath, that's a question only you can answer... or you know.. a trained professional. But there are tonnes of books on the subject. here's one it's only $34 and is I think it's still covered under text subsidies at some colleges. Dunno, I'm old so.

What I said was that the things you were saying sounded psychotic. That you should be able to kill police officers because you don't agree with drug laws. That police officers should be subject to violence because arresting dangerous criminals and non dangerous ones who resist sometimes requires violence. That's psychotic. Saying that laws shouldn't apply to you if you don't agree with them is psychotic. Just saying.

I never said YOU were. Just some of your statements.

As to western imperialism, again you paint this picture of these countries being these peaceful, prosperous countries prior to US and ONLY US involvement in them. Or UK and ONLY UK involvement in them. This isn't truth. Most of these countries were shit holes run by despots and the concept that the citizens there were "doing just fine" before western influence is ridiculous. In most cases there was desperate poverty, no electricity, poor sanitation and no access to communication or medicine prior to western influence.

I'm not saying these places are a paradise now, I'm saying you're blaming it all on the western imperialists is just a completely ignorant take on history and current events.

The war in Iraq was started when a country invaded another country. We didn't just ship a bunch of Oil to the US so we could have 50 cent gas again. Do you see 50 cent gas? I don't see 50 cent gas. After Iraq 1, we were in a defacto shooting war with them for like 11 years. They starved their people, hoarded medical supplies and then decried that the sanctions were stifling them. A cry that many leftists believed despite the fact that they were not true.

So, I don't know what to tell you, man. But this anti western imperialism shtick is literally arguing in favor of despots, murderers and rapists being in charge. Never has the common man been so empowered than in the western world.