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McCain Answers Science Policy Questionnaire
thebestsophist writes "A couple weeks ago, I reported that Barack Obama had answered a questionnaire by Scientists and Engineers for America. McCain has now answered that questionnaire as well. You can also compare their answers. Perhaps with help from the Slashdot community, we can get all the Congressional candidates as well?"
The problem is that the "public sector" is amazing, first and foremost, in funding research ... with specific outcomes. Confirming politician's views of things. There are actual Chinese papers, peer reviewed and everything, "proving" Tibet is not a country separate from China.
If you let public funding fund science, then you might as well kill the research in social studies, psychology, languages, ethnicities, and (soon to come) evolution, history ... it will merely parrot the popular talkpoints of the day instead of science.
I'd like to agree with you, because you're right, private sector money is scarce and hard to come by, especially for pure research (then again, public money is not doing anywhere near enough to fund the only really pure science there is ... mathematics), but really, public money is only useful in sciences were people are not involved at all. Stuff like particle physics (since no particles go on any type of jihad for any type of religion or poverty), astronomy or maths. Heck even chemistry is getting infected with politics (are drugs bad for you ? Do they badly affect others around drugged people ? have become politically incorrect questions, merely because the answer is yes).
While it is a common belief that voting third party is "throwing your vote away", it really isn't in the long term. The two big parties look closely at the candidates who received votes in every major election and then try to determine how to convince voters to vote for their candidates next time around, typically by modifying their platforms and including items that appear to be gathering steam with the populance. You can help steer the process a bit by voting for exactly for who you want to fill the position your voting on. Just because your guy didn't win doesn't mean your votes didn't matter.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
In the interests of giving McCain props where I think he should get them (even though I don't agree with him on most subjects):
Kudos to McCain for correctly identifying the glaring hole in the pro-life argument against embryonic stem cell research. The pro-life crowd will often argue that the embryos that stem cells are harvested from are humans and thus deserve a better fate than being used for research. They ignore the reality of the situation, however. Those frozen embryos are most likely going to be discarded/incinerated if they aren't used for stem cell research.
Which is a more dignified fate for the embryo? To be incinerated/tossed out like trashed? Or to be used in an attempt to save lives?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Rather, look at how they've voted. unfortunately, Obama's a first term Senator and hasn't cast enough votes to get a good picture of where he really stands.
Au contraire. I think we've been able to see exactly where he stands: in the same place as every other main party politician, when he went back on a very strong promise NOT to vote for any bill that included telco immunity.
And where is that? A little place I like to call "whateverwheneverwhereverwillgetmeelected."
http://clightnirish.wordpress.com/
Hm. Nothing immediately comes to light.
However, his Wikipedia Article makes it pretty clear that he's spent about half of his career leading crusades to repeal legislation that he drafted himself.
Even if I were a libertarian, I'd be apprehensive as hell about the guy.
And the GP is mostly correct. The Libertarian party has been increasingly used as a puppet party to mask the agendas of its members. Ron Paul's a huge states-rights advocate who runs with the Libertarians, because they share the common goal of reducing the size of the Federal government, even though his views on state government are borderline tyrannical.
Most of the "true" libertarians have already jumped ship, and are scrambling to form a new party (several have already been formed over the last few years). Their belief is generally that the government (at all levels) should only do things that individuals absolutely, positively cannot do for themselves. In many cases this actually does include civil rights and gun control to a certain extent.
Of course, I personally believe that humans are inherently social creatures, and that a libertarian government would be doomed to failure. Still, I don't like to see their core values distorted like this.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Does it also bother you that Europeans are supporting Obama almost unanimously?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
What? You clearly do not understand.
The reason Libertarians are moving away from the LP (Libertarian Party) is because like you, nobody knows what that word means anymore. I mean who can blame people for being confused when you have people like Glenn Beck and Bob Barr calling themselves Libertarian. Much less people like you describing it.
Ron Paul's a huge states-rights advocate who runs with the Libertarians, because they share the common goal of reducing the size of the Federal government, even though his views on state government are borderline tyrannical.
Ron Paul not being an anarchist supports the Constitution. You have heard him call himself a Constitutionalist before right? I think you misunderstand the 10th amendment but clearly Paul has the correct understanding of it. States really do have the freedom to enact a varying degree of laws you or I might call tyrannical, that does not mean they will, and even if they did local government is much easier to change than federal government, AND EVEN if you couldn't there are 49 other states to go to that compete with each other for your tax money. Your comments makes it sound like Ron Paul is only a libertarian because he is a closet authoritarian wanting to use the powers of the states, and that is absolutely wrong. If you read Paul's writing you will see that he absolutely understands the danger that government proposes to people, he is on the ball with some of the best libertarian minds that there ever was.. in fact.. many of his campaign positions are out of whack with what could only logically be his philosophy.. It is my believe he takes those positions because he is pandering to the right wing base.
Their belief is generally that the government (at all levels) should only do things that individuals absolutely, positively cannot do for themselves. In many cases this actually does include civil rights and gun control to a certain extent.
So, what you are basically saying is that Some "so called" Libertarians believe that people can not have "civil rights" or gun control without government.
If you believe that then you CAN NOT logically have a sound understanding of the nature and concept of rights.
The term "civil rights" is pleonastic description of rights. You have "rights" and they are all the same. You do not need to separate your rights into individually divided groups, such as "civil rights", "existing rights", "breathing rights", etc. Also "civil rights" implies that these are rights awarded to citizens, or that only citizens have rights. It is a ridiculous concept and I will explain why.
To have a right is to have the supreme authority over something. If you have a right to something you do not need to ask anyone for permission to do something with what you have a right to. The reason you have rights is because you own your body, you own your life and you own your liberty. No other person can claim ownership over you, just as you can not claim ownership over other peoples lives. Rights are supreme authority over some piece of property and they can not be given or taken away, they can be infringed upon but are never lost.
The opposite of a right is a privilege. This is where someone with supreme authority over something allows or grants you an ability to use it. To make this simple lets say you buy a pizza from someone else. You have justly acquired your property and now you can do whatever it is you like with it, even stuff it in your mouth, and you do not need to ask anyone for permission to do so. You have a right to this pizza. However if someone else owns this pizza you must ask if you may have some, they own it, and grant you a permission, or a privilege to have some.
So the distinction between rights and privileges is important. Privileges mean you have to ask someone of higher authority, rights means asking a higher authority is not necessary because there is no higher authority. Privileges are granted bu the higher authority
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/