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Actually 'pure' capitalism cannot exist without a large amount of regulation to keep capitalism on the tip of a needle.

Unregulated; Capitalism naturally decays toward monopolies.

Exactly, this is Macroeconomics 101, the US is not a free market economy nor is it a Command and Control economy, it is a mixed economy, blending aspects of both.

This is exactly why the low end model Republicans (Think late night Walmart shoppers in the deep south) look so misinformed when they tell you that the economic policies of the Obama administration are "Socialism". They demonstrate a lack of knowledge of economics in the US, a lack of knowledge of history and a lack of knowledge of what economics is like in the rest of the world. In short the Affordable Care Act, was an attempt at putting healthcare in the US on somewhat equal footing to how it is in the rest of the free world, but the high end Republicans (think Corporate CEO's and current members of Congress) scream loud that the US is:
1- A pure free market economy (which there is no example of a pure free market economy in the world today even in Communist China.)
2- Going down the tubes because Obama is basically trying to turn the US into something like Soviet Russia. (Do they really believe that the people of the USSR had good healthcare at all? really?)
3- That Obama is a secret muslim, and a communist and a nazi ( last I checked, Muslims hate both communists and Nazis hate muslims and communists.. thats like saying someone is a black Nazi Jew for christ, so many contradictions it would make any reasonable person's head spin.)
4- Important bit, Rich Republicans believe that people in the lower classes are pawns and basically stupid and worthless, and that they will believe anything if they scream it loud enough no matter how ridiculously contradictory it is. I used to think that the American people were generally smarter than that, and given recent events highlighting how the working class is treated, how minorities are treated, the outcome of the last mid-term election would have been very different, but it seems the American people have voted people into Congress and the Senate that are going to make the divide between the upper and lower class wider, not narrower. They are going to make the race relation situation worse and are dead focused on overturning the ACA even if they have to put everything else on hold for 2 years and they are dead focused on the Oil pipeline which tells me we have gotten nowhere since the Bush administration. OPEC still has a stranglehold on American politics.

I digress, It is still a fact, The US is a mixed economy and people who tell you otherwise should just be patted on the head and told that God will make sure it all works out for us, better than those godless communists taking over their precious "Murica" because they don't think for themselves, or more to the point, are incapable of thinking for themselves.

What such boycotts actually do is remove what remaining ability they had to feed and house themselves and their families.

Wouldn't say "actually" as always, but I would agree on it meaning "often". Or even "most of the time".

I've become deeply suspicious of those who try to hold up apparently righteous thinking in order to leverage commerce one way or another.

I mostly doubt their abilities to correctly asses the situation more than their motivation.
Incompetence trumps malice. And those willing to chance it on an alternative approach tend to be incompetent by definition.
Otherwise it wouldn't be an alternative approach but a tried and true strategy.
That, and that Niven law about fools and noble causes.

Even Hitler thought that he was doing the greatest thing ever for Germany and the human race.
Just like the Soviet block was later willing to sacrifice everything (that means personal freedoms and comfort too, comrade) in that last final decisive battle to unite humanity - it's right there in the song.
Or the way USA block was fine with whatever was needed to protect democracy and American way of life from godless communists. Even if that means a dictatorship or two, mister.

Idealism is a great starting point for any professional breaker of eggs. After all, that omelet is just within our reach... you can almost smell it.

"We came in peace for all mankind"

If you look closely, someone has scrawled 'except the godless commies' beneath it.

All religions do eugenics, including the godless religion of political correctness. The catholic church defines itself as a eugenic state. No scientist would claim they could create a better human than nature, but every priest, politician and witch doctor does just that. After 12,000 years of civilization guided by eugenics, the species has been devolved into a zombie state, already dead, and only awaiting the coup de grace.

Ok, ok. I don't have anything better to do right now anyway, I might as well.

The first divergence here is probably that the US, unlike the "evolutionists", didn't cause the problem in the first place. Afghanistan was just yet another one of the usual "one up" things between the US and Russia. Just like a lot of similar bickerings in the 80s, mostly in middle America. Some pro-Russian fighters against some pro-US fighters. The usual gambit was that some marxist government comes to power and some anti-marxists get armed and funded by the US to fight them. Similar in Afghanistan.

The Afghan war (let's call it "Russian Afghan war" to tell it apart from the current one) had a few differences to the other ones. Basically one could say it was the Russian version of Vietnam. This time they were the ones that send "advisers" to train the local sympathizers and, when this didn't suffice, soldiers, while the US were the ones that funded the guerrillas and let them do hit-and-run attacks from neighboring countries. But the main difference was that the US also funneled everyone who wanted to fight in this "holy war" against the "godless marxists" into the general area. It may surprise you, but few of the mujaheddin were actually natives of Afghanistan. The general promise was that they would get to have their very own Islamist paradise, all they had to do is fight the Russian devils for it.

That, together with the Stingers, really put a dent into the Russian war efforts. How do you fight someone who simply cannot lose, no matter what? If you know an answer, the US military might need that advice urgently. It's too late for the Russians, though.

To make a long story short, the US of course lost interest in the whole mess when Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, folded in the cold war poker. Why bother supporting a country somewhere in some godforsaken corner of the world when the enemy you wanted to fight by supporting them doesn't exist anymore?

Now, as one may assume, it doesn't sit well with people when you make them fight your war, promise them to aid them when they won it and then, when they finally do, you just shrug and walk away, telling them they can kiss your fat ass 'cause you don't give a shit about them anymore.

So. And now, to come back to our problem at hand, please show me how the parallel you drew does remotely fit. Did the "atheists" put the religious into that "prison"? Did they promise them anything? Did they pretend to be their allies only to sever the alliance when it was no longer convenient?

Does ANYTHING remotely fit in that parallel?

This is what happens when a country turns its back on Jesus.

Canada gave the vote to women. It lets gays marry. It allows Muslims in to spread their poisonous venom.

Turn to Jesus, he forgives!

camels. The idea that they should be allowed to do anything except drive people around (and by people I of coarse mean crackers) was seen as ridiculous. I mean if we can give equal rights to blacks why can't we give equal rights to camels. If we guys can marry homosexuals, why can't guys marry cars, or printers or goats or camels. Nothing like a little man on camel love. Also if we can freely kill dogs and cut off their balls because they are overpopulating because there are not enough responsible dog owners, why can't we do the same thing with blacks. You say oh oh, but dogs are not as smart as black people, well retards are not that smart, does that mean we can keep them on the farm and use them for free labor. I wan't to know. The conclusions that society draws about values seem completely arbitrary and change 180 degrees every 20 years or so. When I was growing up, conservatives USians supported muslims in their fight against the godless communist menace. Today conservatives want to attack muslims because they believe in guns and god. Also they love president putin. Fuck. Nothing makes any sense. I know one thing for certain. That is I must kill a camel, because if I don't they will start invading my country and stealing my women. I can't have that. Must kill camels and baby seals

Oh I still eat squid. Squid are godless killing machines. Spend five minutes googling Humboldt Squid, an absolutely horrifying part of evolution specifically adapted to the niche of "kill everything around you in an aquatic environment", who also have a taste for manflesh. And are, as a species, in the process of expanding their habitable zones of the ocean. Ethically speaking, "Well, it would have eaten me if it had the chance, and it could in certain circumstances be considered an invasive species" is pretty solid I think, especially for such a high-quality source of lean protein.

The theory behind Christianity is that everyone is a sinner and needs Jesus to redeem them lest they suffer some kind of punishment. Many Christians are flexible enough to believe that Jesus has appeared in many forms with many names, and as such, many other religions are also perfectly valid. If we generalize this, "original sin" is an abstraction, representing the idea that all sapient creatures have the ability to choose to do evil and need redemption. Extended to advanced alien civilizations, the assumption is that at some point in their evolution, they too will have developed the ability to choose to do wrong (harm others in some way, etc.) and therefore need a redeemer. If God has appeared on Earth in some form many times, logically, He will have appeared on every civilized planet many times, offering every advanced intelligent creature an opportunity to repent and ask for forgiveness.

On the other hand, this is probably an exceptional viewpoint, and many religious people who believe that believers in other religions (or none at all) are infidels will decide that this is an opportunity to either convert or kill off those evil godless aliens.

Incidentally, Thomas E. Hanna (http://tehanna.com) is one of the most intellectual Christians I've ever known. Although I don't necessarily agree with all of his beliefs, debating philosophy and religion with him is downright enjoyable, because he doesn't try to shove a set of rigid beliefs down your throat. He just reasons. I can't be offended by that. I'm not really into going to church, but if I lived in Lakeland, I'd go to his. His blog tackles a lot of concepts that may be esoteric to non-Christians, but for those who are, he pushes the envelope and as a result gets under the skin of many conservatives. I enjoy anything that challenges established idiologies even in small ways.

OK, that's it. Wind the Regime Change dial up to 11. We can't have Godless Commies (TM) stealing our God-given Oil.

I know, look at all of these godless communists, how dare they want to get to work, to take their children to the doctor. I mean, couldn't they just all stop being poor. Not being poor in the first place is key. It means they aren't people to begin with, something they really need to justify before they start trying exploiting a threatened group like an bank. I mean those banks, one step away from going out on the streets. Some people have no idea how hard a bank works just to provide for its famil*eh*stockholders.

I mean what kind of godless communists could say such a thing.

Next they are going to you know, they might want to let their women vote, or work 40 hour work weeks. We need to stop these communist shenanigans right now.

Ehrm... a godless atheist?

"What are you, some kind of godless communist? "

Of course not. I'm a godless anarchist.

What are you, some kind of godless communist? Next thing I suppose you'll expect is the right of free speech and free assembly. We spent decades fighting the Bolsheviks just to have a bunch of lilly livered liberals whining about human rights and personal liberty? What is this world coming to?

Anyone who believes the government shouldn't be tracking their every move is probably a godless communist and sympathetic with the former Soviet Union.

I work for a financial institution that rhymes with race, and im paid handsomly for nothing short of necromancy and time travel. my cobol applications interface with 50 year old cobol applications, which in turn interface with java, which runs in a godless vortex of jboss and tomcat. the accounts division I write for is beginning to suspect im some kind of evil witch that lives on the 5th floor and creates their reports over a fuming cauldron. I have in the past transferred money in my checking account using the original cobol-85 nested subprograms written to handle some of the first ATM's ever invented. Security has, on two separate occasions, mistaken me for a hobo trying to steal a laptop.

You are confusing the Republican voters, who will often just elect the person with the (R) next to their name, and their representatives, who will often do things that the voters do not want (but at least their not godless democrats!).

Permits, environmental impact statements, public hearings. And heaven help you if construction frightens a kangaroo rat. The entire project will have to be abandoned.

It's so sad that the godless commiunistas have destroyed everything we hold dear, eh?

And yet, in my little area of the country, we've had numerous incidents of god fearing right thinking Patriotic Amercans bitching the waterways up, destroying a fishing tourism industry, and making a fucking mess.

Some highlights:

A local chemical manufacturing company wanted to take a cheap way out with some settling ponds. The socilistas tried to stop them, but since that would have cost a little more, they were allowed to build the less expensive ponds. Part of their rationale was that it would cost jobs.

Oops. The storage ponds leaked (weird how the tree huggers were right) and allowed laege amounts of Kepone and Mirex to enter the local watershed, Destroyed a fishing tourism industry in the local river, and after moving downstream, in a lake some 30 miles away. Permanent no allowed eating of any fish you caught.

Other damage was to fish hatcheries - one had to completely shut down, as it was near the site, so a lot of people lost their jobs. The creek was at one time nationally known, now, the same, but for a different reason.

But hey, we got our own Superfun site!

And in the end, the Chemical company just closed down to avoid the liability. So more jobs lost, and going out of business hardly serves the stockholders.

But hey - it was gravy for a few years Just imagine if they would have built their settling ponds to proper standards. No jobs lost, No income sources lost, and happy stockholders..

Then there were the Gas tank leaks, one in a new station where they ended up spending a long time recovering from gasoline leaking into the local river. Then the one where a tank at the same elevation but separated by a hill started leaking. Problem was it was beside the Spring water source for most of the water in the area, including industry which could not handle gasoline in their water used for production. It was a full scal panic to find and remediate that one.

So yeah, maybe we need to take a long hard look at consequenses when we build these things.

If you like, I can send you a few jugs of water?

Finally, I remember that when I was younger (mind you, this was back in the 1970's), having to provide identification and being subjected to searches before being able to travel was the scope of godless Communists and tinpot dictators.

God, yes. I remember the tail end of the Cold War (born in '78) but the way Soviets did things were what I was raised to be against. Spying on your own citizens? Torture?!? Those are things evil people do! ...and now here we are.

Finally, I remember that when I was younger (mind you, this was back in the 1970's), having to provide identification and being subjected to searches before being able to travel was the scope of godless Communists and tinpot dictators.

THIS! A million times over.

I specifically remember my social studies teacher in elementary school telling us the U.S. is good and Russia is bad and then explaining why. One reason is because in Russia you had to show your papers just to travel. Another was that in Russia the KGB listened to your phone calls.

The commies didn't die out, they just took over the U.S.