Even assuming the passage is totally genuine, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents Tacitus had to work with and it is unlikely that he would sift through what he did have to find the record of an obscure crucifixion

Why? If it was a popular myth, why assume he wouldn’t try to confirm/deny it

According to Bart Ehrman, Josephus’ passage about Jesus was altered by a Christian scribe, including the reference to Jesus as the Messiah

So? I’m not presenting evidence for him being a Messiah. I am saying there is some independent evidence of him existing.

B. The second line in Tacitus that mentions Christ and his death was never noticed until after the mid-fourth century. So this second line is fake.

I agree that is bizarre, but not proof of it being fake. Though should be taken with a grain of salt.

This is why Bart Ehrman specifically dismisses Tacitus and Josephus. As do most other biblical scholars.

Who is Bart Ehrman and why relay his beliefs rather than speak for yourself?

And in the case of jesus, we have literally zero independent verification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of_Jesus

But DO NOT imagine chewing on a towel

Yeah, no. When you go to the grocery store to pick out the lettuce for dinner, did you specifically ask for the single use plastic it’s wrapped in, or was that the only option presented to you?

I chose to go to the grocery store rather than a farmers market.

you are not as free to think as much as you think you are

All of those things are things that are very easy to say no to? I swapped the battery on my phone, I don’t have a car but “my” car at my parents house is from '99. I eat food that I like. I’m not saying I’m impervious to bad decisions, or even that these are always bad decisions, but the people who buy a new phone or car every few years its because they like to.

You saved the day right? Oh no that is just the start, since the round fired was a 7.62x51mm NATO (there is no “rubber” round for this firearm) it went straight through the torso of that protester with a box knife and into and then back out of at least a few other people

High angle means it would likely go into the ground. Also could use hollow point though, I don’t know if police use hollow point on rifles.

Education went up in cost because nothing was stopping it from going up and everything else is so broken it took the place for it.

Well yeah, that’s my point? Why do you think their customers are able to pay any amount? Because they’re taking government loans.

Healthcare went up because insurance companies. They are a useless middlemen.

How did insurance companies increase the cost of healthcare when their goal is to decrease it so they can profit more?

Cars really haven’t gone up that much.

New and used cars definitely haven’t gone down in price despite increased mechanization, improved shipping, etc. But yeah out of these things they have the lowest infinite free money behind them.

I’m talking about inflation adjusted price

The AMA doesn’t directly control it, what it does do is lobby congress to limit it. The AMA actually is the reason the cap was put in place in 1997. Doctor administrators are also often AMA members/supporters/in some capacity bound to the AMA, so they often don’t explore other sources of funding than government for expanding residency capacity.

if it wasn’t for privatized insurance mucking the whole thing up

Insurance companies aren’t saints, but their whole goal is to keep costs for themselves low so they can pocket the premiums. A lot of factors go into driving up health care costs, this is nowhere near all of them but to name a few: AMA keeping residency slots low to control supply of doctors and keep wages high, high educational cost meaning doctors require higher pay, long education needed(high lead time on new medical staff, doctors have some of the longest educational time in the US of anywhere in the world), intellectual property law enforcing drug monopolies, extremely expensive FDA approval process, (?)expensive FDA certification of some equipment(this I’m not entirely sure about- but I suspect its the case), Certificate of Need laws restricting competition in some areas.

Everyone always jumps to defense spending which is not the problem. Defense spending creates hundreds of thousands of well paying jobs to American citizens. The large majority of the money used to produce military goods goes back into the economy.

Sorry to say Keynesian economics died.

Other than that, the first part of your comment is right.

Where this type of lending is less frequent, like mobile homes, prices haven’t risen as much. But as that lending has gotten more common, they’re starting to.

Well, why do you think the price of houses goes up while most other commodities go down. Except for… education, healthcare, and cars in the past 20 years. It feels a little like to me the government backed lending(among other things) has something to do with it. Something something- taking a low interest loan means you’re less concerned about a 20% higher price, and so is everyone else- or something.

no one person is single handedly making decisions for everyone else on a given subject.

No, as I said, the best you can get when you have a unrestricted democratic government is the majority making decisions for the minority. That’s still not good.

Yeahhh I definitely disagree this is a fundamental truth. Not because you’re necessarily wrong from your perspective, but because we have fundamentally different values.

being pro cop and antiprogressive is conservative.

I am neither of those things. And it’s very condescending to assume you know what I am. Well it depends what “anti progressive” means, I support some progressive stances but oppose others.

If you’re not applying pressure for reformation

Again, you don’t know me.

The rich aren’t progressive. Companies pandering to diverse customers aren’t progressive

They may or may not be. I think it’s wrong to assume companies aren’t just made of people, and people may make some logical oversights of their beliefs to keep their standard of living and job.

Social media companies don’t censor conservatives unfairly, instead they protect conservatives from the policies they implement to prevent brands from pulling advertising.

Why would brands pull their advertising? No person sees an Amazon ad on something dumb and thinks that means Amazon endorses that belief. There are however certain organizations such as the ADL that pressure companies into pulling their ads.

Accurate descriptions of reality in science and journalism tend to support progressives more than conservatives, with publications often introducing inaccuracies to prop up conservative positions.

This is true. Progressivism has a basic moral value of utilitarianism. Conservatism basic moral values are religion and tradition. Of course one of those has more evidence for it.

Many agents that I thought were left wing actually weren’t, instead only supporting left wing causes for personal gain.

Well isn’t that a lot of those out of power too? After all, one of the biggest criticism of poor Trump voters was that they were voting against their interest. They weren’t voting for personal gain. Which would imply that at least some less conservative voters were convinced by that argument. Maybe no one votes in their interest, but at least conventional wisdom was the two wolves and a sheep saying.

Empirical observations are almost always in opposition to right wing plans for improving society.

You know, how you define improving society depends on your values. We probably agree on some parts of the definition and disagree on others.

Exclusively right wing plans never make things better for the weak; never.

That’s not to mention the definitions of right and left wing tend to depend on the person.

Being effected doesn’t mean there is a “we” that is justified in making decisions for others

I appreciate you sharing, but I think you’re misunderstanding me and what I was saying. I am not conservative, nor am I progressive. My point was just that progressivism was the dominant ideology of authority in most of my upbringing. Being the authority ideology doesn’t inherently make it wrong, or its “designated opposition” right. I have a few fundamental values that are based(like I think deep down probably everyones) on my intuition and emotion. I then try to interpret how certain things align with those values. Its true that probably at least some of the basis for those values were initially rebelliousness- but that doesn’t exactly make them wrong. I also don’t know that I agree there is such a thing as a fundamental truth- but I’m curious what you are the likely answers to (and what are) humanity’s biggest questions?

Both migrant workers and those with Down Syndrome

Saying “no your insult of me is wrong” is totally useless. But apparently if I don’t explicitly say it you will then use that to attack me. So no, your insult of me is wrong. I was referring to civilizations that were built without oppression. I gave 1 example of oppression that led to the building of Iceland, and 2 examples of ongoing oppression. You decided to latch onto one because you interpreted it as me saying continuous oppression. I called out you not addressing the rest and you ignored it. So yeah no, I don’t really have an interest in talking to someone who seeks to maliciously interpret people.

What? Why would I say that unless that’s how I interpreted it. That’s obvious. You were the one arguing that’s not what I said.