regime which can fairly be called more brutal than anything that happened under colonialism there.
That's an understatement. From Wikipedia:
Under British administration, Burma was the second-wealthiest country in South-East Asia. It had been the world's largest exporter of rice. During British administration, Burma supplied oil through the Burmah Oil Company. Burma also had a wealth of natural and labor resources. It produced 75% of the world's teak and had a highly literate population. The country was believed to be on the fast track to development. ... After a parliamentary government was formed in 1948, Prime Minister U Nu disastrously attempted to make Burma a welfare state and adopted central planning. Rice exports fell by two thirds and mineral exports by over 96%. Plans were partly financed by printing money, which led to inflation. The 1962 coup d'état was followed by an economic scheme called the Burmese Way to Socialism, a plan to nationalize all industries, with the exception of agriculture. The catastrophic program turned Burma into one of the world's most impoverished countries. Burma's admittance to Least Developed Country status by the UN in 1987 highlighted its economic bankruptcy. ... The economy is still rated as the least free in Asia (tied with North Korea). All fundamental market institutions are suppressed. Private enterprises are often co-owned or indirectly owned by state. The corruption watchdog organisation Transparency International in its 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index released on 26 September 2007 ranked Burma the most corrupt country in the world, tied with Somalia.
So you wouldn't mind if someone follows you around and stares at you all day, or even better records everything you do with a video camera? After all by being in a public place you have indicated that you want to be seen.
Come on, there is obviously a difference between intent to commit a crime and no intent. It is less easy to see a difference between murdering someone say to steal their money and murdering someone because they are homosexual.
So given the choice of living in a Nanny State vs a Police state, I'd rather put up with a Nanny state
Nanny state is also a police state in a sense that you are physically forced to work for the benefit of other people. That's what all taxation for the purposes of welfare boils down to. But what you are saying is not a fair representation of the two parties. Democrats do want a nanny state and make no secret of it. The Republicans place more emphasis on security than the Dems but it's a ridiculous exaggeration to say they want a police state.
Funny how the GP complains that hundreds of thousands of people died and your response is that (presumably to stop hundreds of thousands of people from continuing to die) will withdraw us from Iraq. Which in turn will cause far more deaths as the Iraq descends into civil war and chaos. Staying in Iraq and supporting the new government until the country is stable means saving lives, withdrawing will cost lives.
It's a bit more complicated than that and the fact you don't understand that is also why it shouldn't "surprise you when we're left with only lousy politicians". Are you aware that voting for Clinton caused hundreds of thousands of people to die too, through Iraq sanctions alone? Far greater number of people in Iraq died as a result of sanctions than from the war so an argument could be made that the war saved lives.
Well there is the Libertarian party but unfortunately still very marginal. For a fiscally conservative and socially liberal guy like myself there are no good options among the main two parties so we just have to hold our nose and pick what's more important. In my case fiscal responsibility trumps social liberalism if nothing else because there are plenty of constitutional protections of my personal liberty while unfortunately the commerce clause, as currently interpreted, allows the left to be as irresponsible with my money as they like.
The rating systems are different though. Most movies that in UK are rated 18 (over 18 only) are rated R (under 17 only with an adult) in the US and also widely available.
But of course somehow you do know what our entitlement/social program needs will be without any expert knowledge of societal dynamics, nor a big crystal ball to see what the future social demands will be
No, I just don't care about societal dynamics or the future social demands. I'm not playing Sim City here. It is simply not my right to physically force one person to work for the benefit of another (that is what all involuntary social welfare programs come down to), even if it may be beneficial to "society" (in the sense of fewer people in living poverty or some other statistic). That's what voluntary charity is for. Defense is different, because without liberty someone else will be making those decisions for us so all other discussion is moot. In other words, spending on defense increases liberty, spending on welfare programs decreases liberty.
You need to understand that the role of the US military is to defend not just the USA but dozens of other countries. Europe, Japan, S. Korea, S. Arabia and small gulf states, Israel, Australia, more or less entire S. America etc. All those countries depend and can count on US to come in on their side in case of any major conflict. What are the effects of this: a) all those countries have to side with us whenever we need them, politically and economically (think of the gulf oil) b) it prevents bigger conflicts that might end up costing us more. For example, what happens in the pacific if the US pulls out. Japan and probably South Korea go nuclear at once as a deterrent to China. China invades Taiwan. North Korea with Chinese help perhaps invades South. All this can lead to a global war, not to mention the economic chaos that will cost us far more than 4% of the GDP that we spend on our military. Let me not get started on what happens in the middle east. Not only would Israel be toast but any weaker oil rich country will be taken over and the oil industry that we built there will be used as a weapon against us. So, there is a lot more to the military than simply defending against a direct attack on the US.
You might be onto something there. Maybe the progressive agenda is to destroy cities' economies and cause all businesses to move elsewhere, with high taxes, building up unions and other anti-business policies and then once they are conveniently emptied of people, there will be no more pollution and the nature can take over again. Next on the list, New Jersey and Cleveland.
where is the tea party and the republicans complaining about uncontrolled government spending? Well I for one am for cutting defense as well as entitlements wherever possible. The problem with defense is that neither you nor I have any clue what number is actually appropriate to meet our defense needs without expert knowledge of international diplomacy, military strategy and a big crystal ball to see what the future threats will be. It is easy for the UK to slash their defense spending when their doctrine states that in every large conflict they will only take part with partners (translation: US will carry most of the burden). I personally suspect that the military could do the same with less if they had to, but every congress and president, R or D, have been throwing money at them so they never had to be particularly efficient with it.
None of what you said changes the fact that sanctions under Clinton killed more Iraqis than war under Bush. Pointing out that Saddam was culpable is the same as me pointing out that the insurgents are culpable in civilian deaths by a) not wearing uniforms b) deliberately mixing with civilians, c) killing hell out of of a lot Iraqi civilians themselves. Are you aware that by far most of the civilian deaths in Iraq have come from the insurgents, not from the US?
The video shows that the army has very low standard of proof in deciding whether someone might be a combatant, and that innocent people die because of it.
Spoken like someone who doesn't know anything about war. What kind of standard of proof would you expect? Land the helicopter and ask each person to show their terrorist ID card before they can be engaged? The US soldiers see a group of men on the street. They confirm that they are not US or friendly Iraqi personnel. They confirm that some of them are armed (lookup blown up stills from that video. AK47 and an RPG are clearly visible). They suspect hostile intent as some of the men are peering around the corner in the direction of US ground forces. They ask higher ups for the permission to engage and get it. The film and document every detail of the operation (though not necessarily release to the media). No other army does anything remotely close to that. Russians would have carpet bombed the entire city block like they did in Chechnya and nobody would have ever known anything about it. Same with Chinese. The most tragic part of it was the van but even that was not strictly speaking a violation of the rules of war. Anybody helping the enemy (while not clearly marked as a medic) is a fair target.
Actually all that video showed was the agenda (and the propaganda skills) of the persons who posted it. As a matter of fact the US soldiers acted correctly, according to the RoE which are about as restrictive and aimed towards avoiding collateral damage as any army has ever applied in any war. So the name "Collateral murder" is particularly inappropriate. "War is hell" would have been a better name, as that is all it shows.
Yes, China is growing quickly, but it still a developing country. Sorry, but I'll take UN statistics ahead of your anecdotal evidence. Certain areas have developed fast, others are still pretty grim. According to Human Development Index (these days the main gauge of how 'developed' a country is) China is 92nd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index My point was not to denigrate China but simply that when you have homegrown technology (actually the same applies to anything, movies, music etc) that the rest of the world wants to buy you tend to be more interested in protecting it than when you don't have any. China simply doesn't have much intellectual property worth protecting and until the day arrives when it does (which is not too far in the future) it is not in its interest to care about enforcing any IP laws.
In a sense you are right. Intellectual property is important to advanced economies which primarily rely on innovation in order to grow. It is less important to countries whose economy is based on plentiful supply of humans who can cheaply and mindlessly stamp out parts for products that other countries invent. China is still a primitive country by Western/Japanese standards with per capita GDP 1/13th that of the USA. It is still desperately trying to catch up. This is because being a production hub for foreign companies will only take you so far, the next step is for Chinese home-grown companies to begin to flourish and produce original innovative technology and that's when China will also start caring about intellectual property.
"Superiority of the Western Culture" is a terrible idea for an article.
Why? This is just an example of what is wrong with Wikipedia: I disagree with something, therefore it should be deleted. It is certainly a notable concept with plenty of references, and not just in neo-Nazi literature. Not so long ago such beliefs were considered perfectly acceptable and mainstream in many Western societies. Other civilizations, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese often considered themselves superior to others and there are plenty of references for that too. Would you also like to delete the articles on White Supremacy, Black Supremacy, Holocaust Denial etc because those concepts are not politically correct enough for you?
And why did Privacy International place Google dead last out of 23 companies examined and described its actions as "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy"? Please stop this automatic defense of Google. As far as I'm concerned, the company that has the most information about me is the one that presents the greatest threat to my privacy. Saying that you trust Google not to abuse it is like saying you trust gravity not to cause you to fall because it is not evil.This is a small exaggeration but what I'm getting at is that corporations of that size acquire a life of their own and there is only so much that mission statements written by their founders decades ago matter. Google will be as evil or not evil as the collective decisions of its shareholders, employees and customers are over the years and those are not any different special google kind of people. They are the same people and same market forces that that direct actions of any other corporation.
If you don't realize NPR is left biased I suggest you shake your head vigorously until that pea you call brain drops into its hole and then maybe you can start thinking again. Btw I doubt there is a clear cut policy that makes what Williams said a terminable offense. He was considered not liberal enough or a faux liberal as some of his NPR colleagues called him for appearing frequently on Fox News and I suspect this was just an excuse to get rid of him
As an exercise imagine what would happen if you confiscate all wealth from anybody who owns more than say $100K and THEN impose a 90% tax. Who would invest then? Where would these rich people come from when by definition nobody is allowed to get rich? Your scheme can only work for a while until the pre-existing wealth is exhausted. As Thatcher said, you end up running out of other people's money.
I don't see how anybody can support instant elimination of the payouts to people who paid into the system their entire life (with the explicit promise of getting paid once they retire). That's not a matter of big government or small government, that's a matter of honoring the contract. It can only be abolished for the new people entering the workforce, though the question then becomes where the funding will come from to pay out the current retirees. The reality will be a sort of a compromise: reduce the outflow (by cutting benefits, and increasing the retirement age) over a period of time, finding new sources of funding (by cutting fat out of the rest of government) while transitioning the new workers to a system of a interest baring retirement accounts. It's not as if we have a clean slate to work with, we have to meet obligations made by the previous governments too.
Slashdot Mirror
regime which can fairly be called more brutal than anything that happened under colonialism there.
That's an understatement. From Wikipedia:
Under British administration, Burma was the second-wealthiest country in South-East Asia. It had been the world's largest exporter of rice. During British administration, Burma supplied oil through the Burmah Oil Company. Burma also had a wealth of natural and labor resources. It produced 75% of the world's teak and had a highly literate population. The country was believed to be on the fast track to development.
...
After a parliamentary government was formed in 1948, Prime Minister U Nu disastrously attempted to make Burma a welfare state and adopted central planning. Rice exports fell by two thirds and mineral exports by over 96%. Plans were partly financed by printing money, which led to inflation. The 1962 coup d'état was followed by an economic scheme called the Burmese Way to Socialism, a plan to nationalize all industries, with the exception of agriculture. The catastrophic program turned Burma into one of the world's most impoverished countries. Burma's admittance to Least Developed Country status by the UN in 1987 highlighted its economic bankruptcy.
...
The economy is still rated as the least free in Asia (tied with North Korea). All fundamental market institutions are suppressed. Private enterprises are often co-owned or indirectly owned by state. The corruption watchdog organisation Transparency International in its 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index released on 26 September 2007 ranked Burma the most corrupt country in the world, tied with Somalia.
Why'd they change it? Did people just like it better that way?
I don't think people have much of a say when they live under a military dictatorship.
So you wouldn't mind if someone follows you around and stares at you all day, or even better records everything you do with a video camera? After all by being in a public place you have indicated that you want to be seen.
Come on, there is obviously a difference between intent to commit a crime and no intent. It is less easy to see a difference between murdering someone say to steal their money and murdering someone because they are homosexual.
So given the choice of living in a Nanny State vs a Police state, I'd rather put up with a Nanny state
Nanny state is also a police state in a sense that you are physically forced to work for the benefit of other people. That's what all taxation for the purposes of welfare boils down to. But what you are saying is not a fair representation of the two parties. Democrats do want a nanny state and make no secret of it. The Republicans place more emphasis on security than the Dems but it's a ridiculous exaggeration to say they want a police state.
Funny how the GP complains that hundreds of thousands of people died and your response is that (presumably to stop hundreds of thousands of people from continuing to die) will withdraw us from Iraq. Which in turn will cause far more deaths as the Iraq descends into civil war and chaos. Staying in Iraq and supporting the new government until the country is stable means saving lives, withdrawing will cost lives.
It's a bit more complicated than that and the fact you don't understand that is also why it shouldn't "surprise you when we're left with only lousy politicians". Are you aware that voting for Clinton caused hundreds of thousands of people to die too, through Iraq sanctions alone? Far greater number of people in Iraq died as a result of sanctions than from the war so an argument could be made that the war saved lives.
Well there is the Libertarian party but unfortunately still very marginal. For a fiscally conservative and socially liberal guy like myself there are no good options among the main two parties so we just have to hold our nose and pick what's more important. In my case fiscal responsibility trumps social liberalism if nothing else because there are plenty of constitutional protections of my personal liberty while unfortunately the commerce clause, as currently interpreted, allows the left to be as irresponsible with my money as they like.
The rating systems are different though. Most movies that in UK are rated 18 (over 18 only) are rated R (under 17 only with an adult) in the US and also widely available.
But of course somehow you do know what our entitlement/social program needs will be without any expert knowledge of societal dynamics, nor a big crystal ball to see what the future social demands will be
No, I just don't care about societal dynamics or the future social demands. I'm not playing Sim City here. It is simply not my right to physically force one person to work for the benefit of another (that is what all involuntary social welfare programs come down to), even if it may be beneficial to "society" (in the sense of fewer people in living poverty or some other statistic). That's what voluntary charity is for. Defense is different, because without liberty someone else will be making those decisions for us so all other discussion is moot. In other words, spending on defense increases liberty, spending on welfare programs decreases liberty.
You need to understand that the role of the US military is to defend not just the USA but dozens of other countries. Europe, Japan, S. Korea, S. Arabia and small gulf states, Israel, Australia, more or less entire S. America etc. All those countries depend and can count on US to come in on their side in case of any major conflict. What are the effects of this: a) all those countries have to side with us whenever we need them, politically and economically (think of the gulf oil) b) it prevents bigger conflicts that might end up costing us more. For example, what happens in the pacific if the US pulls out. Japan and probably South Korea go nuclear at once as a deterrent to China. China invades Taiwan. North Korea with Chinese help perhaps invades South. All this can lead to a global war, not to mention the economic chaos that will cost us far more than 4% of the GDP that we spend on our military. Let me not get started on what happens in the middle east. Not only would Israel be toast but any weaker oil rich country will be taken over and the oil industry that we built there will be used as a weapon against us. So, there is a lot more to the military than simply defending against a direct attack on the US.
You might be onto something there. Maybe the progressive agenda is to destroy cities' economies and cause all businesses to move elsewhere, with high taxes, building up unions and other anti-business policies and then once they are conveniently emptied of people, there will be no more pollution and the nature can take over again. Next on the list, New Jersey and Cleveland.
where is the tea party and the republicans complaining about uncontrolled government spending?
Well I for one am for cutting defense as well as entitlements wherever possible. The problem with defense is that neither you nor I have any clue what number is actually appropriate to meet our defense needs without expert knowledge of international diplomacy, military strategy and a big crystal ball to see what the future threats will be. It is easy for the UK to slash their defense spending when their doctrine states that in every large conflict they will only take part with partners (translation: US will carry most of the burden). I personally suspect that the military could do the same with less if they had to, but every congress and president, R or D, have been throwing money at them so they never had to be particularly efficient with it.
In the US, if it has a 1.2 liter engine with 60hp, it's a lawnmower not a car so that doesn't count.
None of what you said changes the fact that sanctions under Clinton killed more Iraqis than war under Bush. Pointing out that Saddam was culpable is the same as me pointing out that the insurgents are culpable in civilian deaths by a) not wearing uniforms b) deliberately mixing with civilians, c) killing hell out of of a lot Iraqi civilians themselves. Are you aware that by far most of the civilian deaths in Iraq have come from the insurgents, not from the US?
The video shows that the army has very low standard of proof in deciding whether someone might be a combatant, and that innocent people die because of it.
Spoken like someone who doesn't know anything about war. What kind of standard of proof would you expect? Land the helicopter and ask each person to show their terrorist ID card before they can be engaged? The US soldiers see a group of men on the street. They confirm that they are not US or friendly Iraqi personnel. They confirm that some of them are armed (lookup blown up stills from that video. AK47 and an RPG are clearly visible). They suspect hostile intent as some of the men are peering around the corner in the direction of US ground forces. They ask higher ups for the permission to engage and get it. The film and document every detail of the operation (though not necessarily release to the media). No other army does anything remotely close to that. Russians would have carpet bombed the entire city block like they did in Chechnya and nobody would have ever known anything about it. Same with Chinese. The most tragic part of it was the van but even that was not strictly speaking a violation of the rules of war. Anybody helping the enemy (while not clearly marked as a medic) is a fair target.
Actually all that video showed was the agenda (and the propaganda skills) of the persons who posted it. As a matter of fact the US soldiers acted correctly, according to the RoE which are about as restrictive and aimed towards avoiding collateral damage as any army has ever applied in any war. So the name "Collateral murder" is particularly inappropriate. "War is hell" would have been a better name, as that is all it shows.
Give me one fucking valid reason why you need your troops anywhere outside your own territory murdering people.
Give me one country where US troops are present where the local government doesn't want them there.
Yes, China is growing quickly, but it still a developing country. Sorry, but I'll take UN statistics ahead of your anecdotal evidence. Certain areas have developed fast, others are still pretty grim. According to Human Development Index (these days the main gauge of how 'developed' a country is) China is 92nd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index My point was not to denigrate China but simply that when you have homegrown technology (actually the same applies to anything, movies, music etc) that the rest of the world wants to buy you tend to be more interested in protecting it than when you don't have any. China simply doesn't have much intellectual property worth protecting and until the day arrives when it does (which is not too far in the future) it is not in its interest to care about enforcing any IP laws.
In a sense you are right. Intellectual property is important to advanced economies which primarily rely on innovation in order to grow. It is less important to countries whose economy is based on plentiful supply of humans who can cheaply and mindlessly stamp out parts for products that other countries invent. China is still a primitive country by Western/Japanese standards with per capita GDP 1/13th that of the USA. It is still desperately trying to catch up. This is because being a production hub for foreign companies will only take you so far, the next step is for Chinese home-grown companies to begin to flourish and produce original innovative technology and that's when China will also start caring about intellectual property.
"Superiority of the Western Culture" is a terrible idea for an article.
Why? This is just an example of what is wrong with Wikipedia: I disagree with something, therefore it should be deleted. It is certainly a notable concept with plenty of references, and not just in neo-Nazi literature. Not so long ago such beliefs were considered perfectly acceptable and mainstream in many Western societies. Other civilizations, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese often considered themselves superior to others and there are plenty of references for that too. Would you also like to delete the articles on White Supremacy, Black Supremacy, Holocaust Denial etc because those concepts are not politically correct enough for you?
And why did Privacy International place Google dead last out of 23 companies examined and described its actions as "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy"? Please stop this automatic defense of Google. As far as I'm concerned, the company that has the most information about me is the one that presents the greatest threat to my privacy. Saying that you trust Google not to abuse it is like saying you trust gravity not to cause you to fall because it is not evil.This is a small exaggeration but what I'm getting at is that corporations of that size acquire a life of their own and there is only so much that mission statements written by their founders decades ago matter. Google will be as evil or not evil as the collective decisions of its shareholders, employees and customers are over the years and those are not any different special google kind of people. They are the same people and same market forces that that direct actions of any other corporation.
If you don't realize NPR is left biased I suggest you shake your head vigorously until that pea you call brain drops into its hole and then maybe you can start thinking again. Btw I doubt there is a clear cut policy that makes what Williams said a terminable offense. He was considered not liberal enough or a faux liberal as some of his NPR colleagues called him for appearing frequently on Fox News and I suspect this was just an excuse to get rid of him
As an exercise imagine what would happen if you confiscate all wealth from anybody who owns more than say $100K and THEN impose a 90% tax. Who would invest then? Where would these rich people come from when by definition nobody is allowed to get rich? Your scheme can only work for a while until the pre-existing wealth is exhausted. As Thatcher said, you end up running out of other people's money.
I don't see how anybody can support instant elimination of the payouts to people who paid into the system their entire life (with the explicit promise of getting paid once they retire). That's not a matter of big government or small government, that's a matter of honoring the contract. It can only be abolished for the new people entering the workforce, though the question then becomes where the funding will come from to pay out the current retirees. The reality will be a sort of a compromise: reduce the outflow (by cutting benefits, and increasing the retirement age) over a period of time, finding new sources of funding (by cutting fat out of the rest of government) while transitioning the new workers to a system of a interest baring retirement accounts. It's not as if we have a clean slate to work with, we have to meet obligations made by the previous governments too.