The person I replied to wanted to ban all political donations. Yes, you could ban corporations from giving political donations to candidates. However, if you ban corporations from running political ads, you do infringe on the rights of individuals. I cannot afford to take out a radio or tv ad on a political race or issue, but I could afford to band together with 20 or 30 or 500 other people who felt similarly to me on an issue or candidate to run an ad. That is actually what the Supreme Court case Citizens United vs the FEC was about. A group of people got together and formed a corporation in order to produce a movie about Hillary Clinton. The FEC (Federal Election Commission) said it was a violation of the McCain-Feingold Act and said that they could not run it within a certain time frame of the primaries. The Supreme Court ruled that that violated the First Amendment rights of the people who formed Citizens United.
As to primaries, I believe that they should not be funded with taxpayer dollars. The purpose of primaries is for a group of citizens (The members of the political parties) to decide who they want to back in the upcoming elections. It should be up to that group to come of with the money to hold the elections they use to choose their candidate.
I suppose you prefer Obama?
However, the article says it was found in the Netherlands in scrap metal that came from Jordan. There are several other sources besides the dealer who says that it comes from Iraq. Of course, you are welcome to suggest where a scrap metal dealer in Jordan got scrap metal that contained yellow cake uranium besides Iraq. Of course, perhaps you are suggesting that Jordan has a nuclear program?
First of all, that Snopes article again implies that Bush's statement about Iraq attempting to get yellowcake in some way implied that it was trying to get it from Niger and that it was already proved false. What Bush said was that British intelligence had recently discovered that Iraq was attempting to get uranium from Africa, a statement which the British government said was true after Joe Wilson published his article. Second, what exactly did Joe Wilson do to discover that Iraq had not attempted to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger? Well, he went to Niger and talked to some people over sweetened mint tea and they all told him that Iraq had not approached them to buy uranium. Why do we think they told Joe Wilson the truth?
Finally, I was not basing my statement on the uranium that was shipped to Canada (although, the Snopes article you link to does not actually make my statement false. It actually supports that statement by saying that, "Yes, yellowcake uranium was found in Iraq, but everyone knew about it long before 9/11."). My statement was based on a story about yellowcake uranium being found in a shipment of scrap metal sent to the Netherlands from Iraq after the war.
Preventing guns and munitions from flowing to Mexico would have a much more significant impact.
Actually, the U.S. government not actively encouraging the flow of guns and munitions to the Mexican cartels would be a good start. Google "Operation Fast & Furious" if you do not know what I am talking about.
Yeah, and Bush claimed Iraq was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Niger. Politicians don't always tell the truth. Sometimes their lies are pretty damn far out there.
No, Bush claimed that Iraq was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Africa. Interestingly enough, after the invasion it was discovered that Iraq had a small supply of yellow cake uranium.
The labor rights movement did not need to happen, because the forces that allowed it to succeed would have resulted in the same elimination of the abuses that the labor rights movement takes credit for.
No, that is the end goal of most people. The theory of capitalism merely recognizes that such is the case and bases its system on that fact. Socialism, on the other hand, tries to pretend that such is not the case and bases its system upon that falsehood.
No, capitalism is not "purely about getting more money" anymore than socialism is purely about getting something for nothing (although the Occupy crowd seems to think that is a viable economic model). Capitalism is about the voluntary exchange of goods and services.
Yeah, the fact that the government was pressuring them to give loans to uncreditworthy people had absolutely nothing to do with them giving loans to uncreditworthy people who later defaulted on them. This is only one element of what happened, but there are examples of government intervention in most of the others.
Yes and the court concluded that the FCC had no such authority. The FCC went back and diddled around a little and came out with this new rule, claiming to base it on a provision of the law that they failed to bring up in the previous case. Personally, this is starting to look like a pattern of contempt for Constitutional limits on the power of the President. The Obama Administration recently announced that they were going to offer states a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act if they met certain conditions. The problem is that there is no provision in the NCLB (or any other law) for the President to offer waivers from its requirements.
Actually, I just came across a column that discusses just that relative to environmental degradation earlier today: http://spectator.org/archives/2011/11/10/epa-jackboots. As for labor abuse, the actual "historic evidence" that without government intervention it will happen, the fact is that it only happened in circumstances where there was a surplus of labor and the "abuses" actually represented an improvement over the condition that many of those laborers would have been in were it not for the job offered under those conditions. Additionally, some of those labor abuses occurred because of government intervention that allowed a limited number of companies to be the only viable source of employment.
You mean more than the current system where they pollute for years, then when the EPA comes after them, they declare bankruptcy and leave the property for someone else to clean up?
That's not true. Planned Parenthood runs on the blood of dead babies and they are strongly opposed by Republicans and vehemently supported by Democrats.
I'll take net neutrality laws as they have been written any day over letting the ISPs just do as they please.
What laws are those? As far as I was aware Congress has passed no such laws. As far as the FCC regulations go, there is some question as to whether Congress has ever granted the FCC the power to impose such regulations. This really brings up the problem I have with our current governmental structure. A review of the law that FCC bases its claim to have the power to impose such regulation on seems to indicate that Congress never intended to give the FCC such power (even if they actually did so), since no one had even thought of such regulations being necessary when the law was passed. Too many laws are passed with vague provisions intended to be fleshed out by some faceless, practically unfireable bureaucrat at a later date.
That is my biggest problem with the alarmists, every couple of years they tell us we have 5 or 10 years to reduce CO2 emissions or it will be too late. Then when those years pass and we haven't given the government the authority to regulate all economic activity, they tell us we have only 5 or 10 years to take action or it will be too late. Well, according to them it is already too late, so I wish they would go away and stop telling me we must act soon.
Of course, if the Global Warming Alarmists would live as if they actually believed that CO2 was a problem, they might convince some people. I know someone who gets very angry with "denialists" and insists that CO2 is a problem that must be addressed. Yet, he flies across the country 5-10 times a year to visit family, go on vacation, meet with clients (I may actually be underestimating how much he flies). If he really believed that CO2 was the big problem he says it is, he would do much less flying. Either that or he wants other people to sacrifice so that he can go on living the lifestyle he wishes.
The reports I had seen did not include Roy Blunt. However, one out of 10 hardly makes this something proposed by conservatives. The poster I replied to said "conservatives love a good sales tax...", when in fact conservatives don't love any tax. Conservatives recognize that some taxes are necessary.
The depression and the current recession are both a result of government intervention in the economy encouraging market players to take ridiculous risks, not a failure of the government to control the economy. The problem is that you mistake a limited government for a weak government.
Generally, people use the term "capitalism" to refer to free market economics, not the caricature of the economic system existing at the time that Marx described as capitalism. When people are defending capitalism, they are almost uniformly referring to a free market similar to the economic theories of Adam Smith.
This of course is why many discussions of economics come apart, because people use differing definitions of words fundamental to the discussion.
Yes, I am going to tell you that gaining an advantage by bribing politicians is not a property of capitalism. In pure capitalism, politicians would not have enough control over the economic system to provide sufficient advantage to be worth the cost of bribing the politician.
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Right, you prefer a President who takes us to war for no reason whatsoever (Libya).
The person I replied to wanted to ban all political donations. Yes, you could ban corporations from giving political donations to candidates. However, if you ban corporations from running political ads, you do infringe on the rights of individuals. I cannot afford to take out a radio or tv ad on a political race or issue, but I could afford to band together with 20 or 30 or 500 other people who felt similarly to me on an issue or candidate to run an ad. That is actually what the Supreme Court case Citizens United vs the FEC was about. A group of people got together and formed a corporation in order to produce a movie about Hillary Clinton. The FEC (Federal Election Commission) said it was a violation of the McCain-Feingold Act and said that they could not run it within a certain time frame of the primaries. The Supreme Court ruled that that violated the First Amendment rights of the people who formed Citizens United.
As to primaries, I believe that they should not be funded with taxpayer dollars. The purpose of primaries is for a group of citizens (The members of the political parties) to decide who they want to back in the upcoming elections. It should be up to that group to come of with the money to hold the elections they use to choose their candidate.
I suppose you prefer Obama?
However, the article says it was found in the Netherlands in scrap metal that came from Jordan. There are several other sources besides the dealer who says that it comes from Iraq. Of course, you are welcome to suggest where a scrap metal dealer in Jordan got scrap metal that contained yellow cake uranium besides Iraq. Of course, perhaps you are suggesting that Jordan has a nuclear program?
First of all, that Snopes article again implies that Bush's statement about Iraq attempting to get yellowcake in some way implied that it was trying to get it from Niger and that it was already proved false. What Bush said was that British intelligence had recently discovered that Iraq was attempting to get uranium from Africa, a statement which the British government said was true after Joe Wilson published his article. Second, what exactly did Joe Wilson do to discover that Iraq had not attempted to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger? Well, he went to Niger and talked to some people over sweetened mint tea and they all told him that Iraq had not approached them to buy uranium. Why do we think they told Joe Wilson the truth?
Finally, I was not basing my statement on the uranium that was shipped to Canada (although, the Snopes article you link to does not actually make my statement false. It actually supports that statement by saying that, "Yes, yellowcake uranium was found in Iraq, but everyone knew about it long before 9/11."). My statement was based on a story about yellowcake uranium being found in a shipment of scrap metal sent to the Netherlands from Iraq after the war.
Preventing guns and munitions from flowing to Mexico would have a much more significant impact.
Actually, the U.S. government not actively encouraging the flow of guns and munitions to the Mexican cartels would be a good start. Google "Operation Fast & Furious" if you do not know what I am talking about.
Yeah, and Bush claimed Iraq was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Niger. Politicians don't always tell the truth. Sometimes their lies are pretty damn far out there.
No, Bush claimed that Iraq was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Africa. Interestingly enough, after the invasion it was discovered that Iraq had a small supply of yellow cake uranium.
The labor rights movement did not need to happen, because the forces that allowed it to succeed would have resulted in the same elimination of the abuses that the labor rights movement takes credit for.
No, that is the end goal of most people. The theory of capitalism merely recognizes that such is the case and bases its system on that fact. Socialism, on the other hand, tries to pretend that such is not the case and bases its system upon that falsehood.
So, basically you are one of those people who think that if we can't make things perfect, we shouldn't bother making them better.
No, capitalism is not "purely about getting more money" anymore than socialism is purely about getting something for nothing (although the Occupy crowd seems to think that is a viable economic model). Capitalism is about the voluntary exchange of goods and services.
Yeah, the fact that the government was pressuring them to give loans to uncreditworthy people had absolutely nothing to do with them giving loans to uncreditworthy people who later defaulted on them. This is only one element of what happened, but there are examples of government intervention in most of the others.
Yes and the court concluded that the FCC had no such authority. The FCC went back and diddled around a little and came out with this new rule, claiming to base it on a provision of the law that they failed to bring up in the previous case. Personally, this is starting to look like a pattern of contempt for Constitutional limits on the power of the President. The Obama Administration recently announced that they were going to offer states a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act if they met certain conditions. The problem is that there is no provision in the NCLB (or any other law) for the President to offer waivers from its requirements.
Actually, I just came across a column that discusses just that relative to environmental degradation earlier today: http://spectator.org/archives/2011/11/10/epa-jackboots. As for labor abuse, the actual "historic evidence" that without government intervention it will happen, the fact is that it only happened in circumstances where there was a surplus of labor and the "abuses" actually represented an improvement over the condition that many of those laborers would have been in were it not for the job offered under those conditions. Additionally, some of those labor abuses occurred because of government intervention that allowed a limited number of companies to be the only viable source of employment.
I think that the individual citizen has a greater chance of acting before the company has made enough return on the pollution to make it worth doing.
You mean more than the current system where they pollute for years, then when the EPA comes after them, they declare bankruptcy and leave the property for someone else to clean up?
That's not true. Planned Parenthood runs on the blood of dead babies and they are strongly opposed by Republicans and vehemently supported by Democrats.
I'll take net neutrality laws as they have been written any day over letting the ISPs just do as they please.
What laws are those? As far as I was aware Congress has passed no such laws. As far as the FCC regulations go, there is some question as to whether Congress has ever granted the FCC the power to impose such regulations. This really brings up the problem I have with our current governmental structure. A review of the law that FCC bases its claim to have the power to impose such regulation on seems to indicate that Congress never intended to give the FCC such power (even if they actually did so), since no one had even thought of such regulations being necessary when the law was passed. Too many laws are passed with vague provisions intended to be fleshed out by some faceless, practically unfireable bureaucrat at a later date.
I just read an article about how environmental issues were resolved before the EPA was created. I am not sure how accurate his portrayal is. However, it is actually a way that could work. So, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act may have actually allowed companies to get away with polluting where they would otherwise been sued to bankruptcy. Additionally, a man was sent to jail for cleaning up an illegal dump because it violated the Clean Water Act.
That is my biggest problem with the alarmists, every couple of years they tell us we have 5 or 10 years to reduce CO2 emissions or it will be too late. Then when those years pass and we haven't given the government the authority to regulate all economic activity, they tell us we have only 5 or 10 years to take action or it will be too late. Well, according to them it is already too late, so I wish they would go away and stop telling me we must act soon.
Of course, if the Global Warming Alarmists would live as if they actually believed that CO2 was a problem, they might convince some people. I know someone who gets very angry with "denialists" and insists that CO2 is a problem that must be addressed. Yet, he flies across the country 5-10 times a year to visit family, go on vacation, meet with clients (I may actually be underestimating how much he flies). If he really believed that CO2 was the big problem he says it is, he would do much less flying. Either that or he wants other people to sacrifice so that he can go on living the lifestyle he wishes.
That would make sense, except for the fact that the rich generally vote Democratic.
The reports I had seen did not include Roy Blunt. However, one out of 10 hardly makes this something proposed by conservatives. The poster I replied to said "conservatives love a good sales tax...", when in fact conservatives don't love any tax. Conservatives recognize that some taxes are necessary.
None of the Senators who proposed this are, by any stretch of the imagination, conservatives.
The depression and the current recession are both a result of government intervention in the economy encouraging market players to take ridiculous risks, not a failure of the government to control the economy. The problem is that you mistake a limited government for a weak government.
Generally, people use the term "capitalism" to refer to free market economics, not the caricature of the economic system existing at the time that Marx described as capitalism. When people are defending capitalism, they are almost uniformly referring to a free market similar to the economic theories of Adam Smith.
This of course is why many discussions of economics come apart, because people use differing definitions of words fundamental to the discussion.
Yes, I am going to tell you that gaining an advantage by bribing politicians is not a property of capitalism. In pure capitalism, politicians would not have enough control over the economic system to provide sufficient advantage to be worth the cost of bribing the politician.