Tell me, based on a the following verse, do you support raping a kidnapped woman after you've killed her family?
When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her. - Deut 21:10
Despite all of your attempts to contextualize the ridiculous lies and claims therein, the immorality of the bible cannot be covered up. Rape is, and always has been, immoral. Slavery is, and always has been, immoral. But that's hardly an insight you can expect from illiterate peasants from the ancient Levant.
This is where I have to leave it. Do yourself a favor: read the bible, cover to cover, and see for yourself. I consider that the best cure for Christianity (just as a good read through of the Qu'ran is the best cure for malady of being a muslim.) It worked for me, anyhow.
The problem is that the market is a form of democracy, albeit a little bit hacky one. The market tells us that most people want to drive cars, not sit around in trains and buses, riding bicycles all day.
Come on, now. People choose cars over mass transit and self-locomotion when they have no other choice. Look at any well-served mass transit city, anywhere in the world. The people who want the prestige of the car and want to spend the extra money make that choice, but nearly everyone else ignores it. The dominance of cars in the US is due to a number of factors, not the least of which is poor zoning and the intentional destruction of mass transit systems in the 50s across America.
As far as democracy is concerned, you seem to miss the point of voting entirely. If you believe in dollar votes, then where is the equality when a few hundred people are born with billions of votes and millions of others with none? Who do you think the outcome of the vote will tend to favor? Do you really think there's a difference between a Marquis and a Duke and a Carnegie?
The answer is to use the vote to get infrastructure funds spent in the interest of the people it serves rather than the interest of real estate developers and road contractors. If we spent 40 billion a year on rail and buses instead of highways, we'd have a rail system just as good as in other places in the world. If I started a business that wasn't public, there's very little chance I could raise the capital to unseat any of the businesses in place. If I went public, I could raise the funds, but then I'd be back to the problem of divestment if I ever did anything that didn't increase short term profits for shareholders.
Remember, there's no money in efficiency on a societal level. That's why the business leaders and their lobbyists are terrified of single payer health care, mass transit, and direct college loans.
Community colleges are filled with people who choose to be there. This is an entirely different environment from American high schools, where attendance is compulsory, backed by the full force of truancy laws.
Trying to get everyone a good basic education has its merits, but in some other countries you choose at 16 whether you want to go to college or receive vocational training or leave school altogether. This seems to work out well for everyone.
And as someone who absolutely despised high school, I know I would have done much better mentally and academically, even at the worst community colleges. I doubt any university would have penalized me for attending college courses (even if poor by their standards) before I hit 18.
I guess the embarrassing parts are embarrassing for you. Well, get ready for some more because I seriously do not know why you would think that just because a book says one person who has supernatural powers did something and had a specific outcome, that we should think that regular people doing it would have the same outcome.
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. -Mark 16:17-18
My dear boy, it's obvious who has not read the Bible. I don't doubt you have some bit of mental gymnastics ready to try and wriggle out of this fantastic claim, and I also have no doubt that I will find it both hilarious and sad.
Across every industry I've been involved in, a good piece of advice from an old business mentor has held true:
When you pay an expert $100 an hour, you're not paying them for the hour. You're paying them for the years of experience they have plus an hour of their time.
This also dovetailed well with what a mechanic told me when I was trying to lowball him: "When you pay peanuts, all you get is monkey business."
Again, skipping your embarrassing bits: (that's not just a clever nickname, is it?)
quote passages of the bible with no understanding of their meaning or intent
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
You are welcome to explain why, based on this verse, we should not teach medical students to put their fingers in the ears of the deaf or spit and touch the tongues of the mute. If we can discard this sad excuse for a miracle, then why can't Genesis be an allegory? And if Genesis can be an allegory, why must this allegory be presented next to evolution?
[nor] can you claim any religion is not true because you simply cannot scientifically test divine intervention
If something cannot be tested with the scientific method, then it cannot be a scientific conclusion. This means that if no experiment can be proposed to falsify Creationism, there is currently no scientific reason to believe it occurred.
Evolutionary theory perfectly fits with radiometric dating. Evolutionary theory perfectly fits with the fossil record. Evolutionary theory perfectly fits with the biology of isolated islands, observed experiments with fruit flies, bacteria, and other organisms with short life spans. Nothing has been found which contradict the central, testable laws of evolution:
1. Life changes genetically over time. 2. Speciation occurs. 3. Natural selection occurs. 4. Evolution is gradual. 5. All life descended from a single ancestor.
You can perform experiments which could disprove any one of these laws. The same cannot be said about any myth, no matter how popular or how ancient.
I'm terribly sorry you've made the first step on the path to emancipation - that everyone believes in different interpretations of a multitude of bad translations of the same religious texts - without realizing why that means there's no point in teaching any part of it as science. There is no scientific value which can be derived from these interpretations, unless they make specific claims that can be falsified with the scientific method.
I've grown weary of the tedium. As I have stated, and will state again, if you wish to drown in the ignorance of desert tribes who were afraid of spirits, menstruation, and pigs, don't let me spoil it for you. Just keep your religious nonsense away from science education, and teach your offspring at home. At least your genetic material will have a hell of a poor start compared with mine, and with God's Good Grace, fail where you succeeded.
Since there's never been anything beyond hearsay supporting the super-naturalist delusions out there, I highly doubt it. I've skipped over many things you said not because you were accurate, but because the truth was embarrassingly obvious to point out.
I won't coddle you like your church elders - you can find many instances of traced evolution, predicted missing links, and much more on talkorigins.org, and you're more than capable of reading about them yourself. I have already read the bible and many of it's famous apologists, and I remain convinced of the evidence, or lack thereof.
Let me offer a few points. Again, I've skipped over your embarrassing assertions.
You said earlier: The conclusion was that we would classify breeds of the same species as a separate species altogether and in some cases classify the same breeds as different species altogether based around the difference in appearances. then We do however have transitional fossils on record but nothing outside of theory connects them as separate species.
It is true that the definition of a species is complicated, but usually it means that members of the same species do breed or are capable of breeding. Canines are a ring species, meaning that adjacent populations can breed and others cannot. However, you have painted yourself into a corner here: if Great Danes cannot successfully breed - even with artificial means of insemination - with a Chihuahua, then we have evidence of observed speciation, which is evidence of evolution. If they can interbreed in such a way, then your argument has been invalidated.
If the majority of the population thought chickens were evil, you could probably see bans on chickens in government run organizations... DO not confuse something that is so easily refuted with how you want things to be
You're saying that as long a majority of the population believes something that isn't true, then it should be taught in school. I do not think this is a wise idea.
. Making exaggerations while at the same time demonizing other exaggerations or embellishments of word is not a strong indicator of intelligence. Perhaps this is a problem in why you seem to be so upset with so many religious groups, your position isn't as strong as you had thought when it come time to defend it.
No, I am irritated at your lack of standards. We don't have to have a debate about whether human sacrifice causes the sun to rise, or whether a child can be stoned to death for cursing their parents, or whether a person can be put to death for blasphemy. Yet you continue to assert your beliefs as if they had some scientific reasoning behind them.
And no, the stories are not about men living in whales, or all staffs turning into snakes, or whatever, they are about specific instances and make non claim to their abilities to happen to anyone else.
Very well then. There are no two ways to slice this: either the miracles claimed in the bible all happened, or the bible is not wholly true and cannot be taken literally. If you're reading a Protestant bible, then you've already taken some parts of the Bible out of the original, so I would consider that evidence that God is fallible, if he can't even get his holy book released properly in the first place.
The main point is that the Bible has no merit over the Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran, or Dianetics, or the Yasna, or the Tao Te Ching, or the oral traditions of countless tribes, or my belief that these texts are all interesting, but false. Across the world -- across cultures and religions and nationalities and languages and class -- the scientific method has produced more useful knowledge than all religions combined. The scientific method has also produced the theory of evolution, which is as solidly grounded as the theory of gravity and the theory of relativity.
If you wish to continue living in the dark ages, please localize them to your home. Stop childishly pretending that Intelligent Design is anything but what it is: gold spray paint on the turd of Creationism.
It can all be traced back to defense spending. I assure you, none of it is as altruistic as you'd like to believe it is.
I know it wasn't altruistic. But Keynesian spending has enormous benefits, especially when it's invested in pure science, and states seem to be the only entities capable or interested in massive investments in such ventures - even for the wrong reasons.
Our GDP per capita is still #9. Not bad, given the fact that NAFTA is sucking our manufacturing sector dry. Socialist policy on an international level. Fuck NAFTA, we need to look out for #1. The US is sinking precisely because we aren't doing that any more.
NAFTA is a big-business policy masquerading as something else. It allows the manufacturing sector to drive down wages in the US while simultaneously profiting off of cheap labor in "free trade zones" throughout the world. Often the FTZs do not have to obey local tax rules, labor policies, or environmental standards. Socialism, at least the democratic type I prefer, does mean protectionism, and labor rules, and regulations that prevent abuse from large monopolies. If you're against NAFTA, then you'll find yourself at odds with libertarians, not socialists.
Total GDP, the US is #1, end of story, your own wikipedia will confirm it.
You'll say this until China overtakes us in 2020. Then GDP per capita will magically be the important metric.
We could be beating everyone in the other two but our government policy is fucking us. Last I checked, the libertarians are not in charge. That means that republicans and democrats are the problem. So take your socialist bullshit and shove it up your ass where it belongs. You are the idealists and your utopia doesn't work. The current state of the country is the proof. The way I see it you are holding us back and we'd be better off if you moved to France or some other socialist place, especially since you obviously don't want to be here. Go away.
That's sweet. I am currently de-locating myself from the US, to move somewhere with a better surf break and a more literate democracy. You'll find that both democrats and republicans are members of the well-run business party, and trust me, if the regulations are ever swept away to allow them to run free, you'll be kicking yourself to thoughtlessly attaching yourself to a non-value system like American libertarianism.
I've concentrated on your major lies just to keep this concise.
Evolution for instance, is only observable in the minor detail and has never been observed in the way necessary for species to branch off into other species without changing or ignoring certain definitions
There are hundreds of millions of years of fossils that have been found all over the world. "Missing link" animals have been predicted and then found. If you have a better theory for the diversification of species that doesn't involve a supernatural being who refuses to reveal themselves, please let me know.
This means that no government organization, which a school science class is, can tell any student who is required and compelled by law to attend, that their religion is real of fake.
You've just developed a blind spot for your own religion. Remember, religions are nothing more than large, popular cults. If I was an animist and I believed that all animals had spirits, and that chickens were Gods, would you ban chicken in the lunch room to accommodate me? If I believed that teaching women was a sin against my God, should we ban girls from public education? It's not the fault of the government if reality is in conflict with your belief system. If the best explanation we have for the way the world operates conflicts with a book you want to be accepted by everyone, who wins?
If the choice between accommodating all religions means there is no educational system, and accommodating no religions means that there is, please forgive me for not giving a damn about your hurt feelings.
If there was some universal way of teaching science to where the answers to questions about conflicts with religion would simply be "science does it this way and you will be tested on how science does it" instead of having the personal opinions about religions being true or false, the entire problem would be solved
More nonsense. No teachers make any statements about religion when they teach evolution, any more than that conflict with the Bible when it says that the earth is spherical. There are no "four corners," and Jesus could not have physically been shown the kingdoms of the world from the top of the highest mountain. People were not distributed around the world by God directly - they migrated and developed their own languages. I'm sure those ideas were heresy to the oxygen deprived religious minds of the past, but reality has a funny way of winning in the end.
Now I do not know why you're asking about going to a doctor verses a church, I have not indicated in any way I would be inclined to do so.
I'm sorry. I made the mistake of reading the Bible, which says:
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.--James 5:13
Hell, you even attempted to lay claim that no one has ever said science is right and religion is wrong yet you later wished that every religious person gave up anything science because they don't believe in it. Maybe you should do a reality check before continuing. Life is not the way you think it is, science isn't anti religion, religion is not anti science, and all but 1% or less of science is completely compatible with most major religions.
I was referring to the commonly-understood definition, which is a group of kleptocrats who obtain a disproportionate ability to use force against other people with few if any repercussions.
You baffle me, sir. I thought that was the definition of a huge multi-national corporation. I guess in your imagination, when the kleptocrats have no reason to fear legal repercussions, they behave better?
Now there's a fascinatingly indefensible position. Please explore this in the context of the extra-governmental mafia, or for bonus laughter points, the pirates of the 19th century.
Haven't you heard? Prisons are the latest fashion in government subsidized private profiteering. You get your congressmen to pass laws to throw non-violent drug users away for life, get them to then open private prisons in their district which receive government money, and then turn the prisoners into indentured factory workers.
They've even shut down small factories to move the labor inside of a prison, throwing people out of work and then forcing them to compete with slave labor. It's a win-win for business though - you get to drive down wages and have access to cheaper manufacturing facilities at the same time. The following snip is from the 90s... I'm not sure if they're still brazenly pulling the same stunts.
Lockhart Technologies. Lockhart Technologies, Inc. closed its Austin, Texas, branch, laid off 150 workers and moved its operations into a state prison located in Lockhart, Texas, that is operated by Wackenhut Corporation. The prisoners are paid the federal minimum wage to assemble circuit boards, provided no health or other benefits (they have them already) and allowed to keep 20 percent of their wages. The products go to computer industry giants like IBM, Compaq and Dell. Joe Gunn, president of the Texas AFL-CIO, complained that Wackenhut violated federal law by not consulting with organized labor and declared this kind of prison labor "absolute indentured slavery. [Wackenhut] puts people to work under conditions that we criticize China for." The Texas Employment Commission, on the other hand, said that the only economic impact was in largely rural Caldwell County, where the prison is located and where there were no unions to be considered.
Governments kill people by the millions. Want to tell me how "civilized" that is?
We may have different definitions of what civilized is. I'd say that that any group of people that shares resources constitutes some form of government.
Now, if you have something against jingoism, I agree. I am all for a real examination of one's society, and not just pledging one's fealty based on the incidental place of their birth.
But if you think that not having a state government will stop people from being evil, I seriously doubt you've read a paragraph of any tribal history. Men are animals and sometimes inclined to animalistic behavior. The establishment of a rule of law, periodically revised by the population that is subject to it, is so far the best solution.
Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. -Churchill
Yes, please ignore the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war industry.
And hey, let's throw out every social service program and see how our society looks when kids are starving in the streets. I get fucking ill every time some blowhard claims to be patriotic while they lobby to throw their countrymen in the street so they can continue to have their war toys.
How about we just return tax levels - literally 4 to 5 points higher at incomes above 90,000 a year - to the Clinton days, and balance the budget that way? Or, end the war tourism programs that are actually draining the treasury, and have been for fifty years.
There were lots of private companies trying to privately spend a small portion of US GDP for private research in order to get to space. And since we didn't need NASA for anything, it's amazing that the technology developed at NASA appeared worldwide in the same time frame without the subsidization of any other government.
Consider the history of flight
Indeed! The technology required to fly 200 feet and put a human on the moon are shockingly similar.
Ahhh, I'm just kidding. You know you're full of shit. And so do I.
Libertarians are often ignorant of the fact that they effectively lobby against civilization. In terms of GDP per capita, life expectancy, innovation, and quality of life, the middle of the road socialist countries dominate worldwide. That's because if you shackle your society with continuous relearning of generational lessons, you can never move beyond basic progress.
If you'd like to refute the massive progress introduced by the Apollo program in the sixties, go ahead and make your case for a private corporation in the same time frame spending a good portion of the US GDP for pure research. Bell Labs is the only thing that even comes close.
A world of self regulation is just as absurd as a world with complete government control of production. Use the market for easily duplicated services that are not necessary. For everything else, try and use your brain. Mindless idealism nets nothing of value.
Summarized in economic terms by Adam Smith:
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Who also believed
The legal rate... ought not be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent, the greater part of the money which was to be lent would be lent to prodigals and projectors [promoters of fraudulent schemes], who alone would be willing to give this high interest.A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it.
When the legal rate of interest, on the contrary is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown in the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.
2) Net taxes paid OUT to the federal gov. are staggering, and California is the gross highest - in 2001, their "balance of payments" figure was 58 BILLION dollars.
Wait, doesn't that mean that the bread and circuses/Keynesian method, high immigration numbers, and social service spending is working? If they finally legalize marijuana and reform their enormous prison system, looks like they'll continue to be the top performing state economy in the US.
Science is antithetical to religion, because science is based on observable, measurable, and repeatable experiment, and religion depends on individual conviction and faith.
it's taught as the absolute undying fact of life which makes your religion some fairy tale or superstition.
Yes, evolution, just like a spherical earth orbiting a star, is the best theory we have to explain why the world is the way it is. If you choose to go to a bible study after a science class and try to empty your head of the facts you just learned, that's your business, but don't call it science.
there does come an issue of balance when you have a government institution telling people god is make believe and your stupid for believing in one.
I've never seen anyone claim that science class teaches you that God doesn't exist. In fact, the Catholic Church has already accepted science as the "how" and God as the "why." You choose to interpret whatever holy text you're attached to in a certain way that conflicts with evolutionary science. And I'm sorry to say that however many pages it is, your holy text doesn't hold a candle to the depth and breadth of congruent scientific theory on matters such as the age of the universe, the age of the earth, and evolution.
which is one of the few places the bible comes into conflict with science
Ahh. So, do you think sacrificing a bird in a certain way cures leprosy? Do you think Jesus drove "demons" out of a person into a flock of pigs, who then threw themselves off of a cliff? Do you believe in germ theory at all? After an accident has cost you the facility to walk, do you head to a physical therapist or your church leader?
This really is a bunch of nonsense. If the creationist crowd were willing to give up the modern miracles of science in order to have their iron age mystical wish thinking peddled in the public square, I could imagine being able to tolerate it. At this point, the sheer simple mindedness of the entire Evangelical movement is threatening the viability of the American scientific community to continue to lead the world in many important areas. If you arrive at MIT thinking the world is a few thousand years old, or that the migration of humans and development of language was due to direct divine intervention after the tower of Babel was completed (incidentally, the bible isn't skeptical that a person could build a structure to "heaven") then just how long until you give up in frustration at all the "lies" being told by your professor?
It's up to the rest of society to fight their corner equally well, in the interests of balance; unfortunately only the fanatics seem to have the energy to do this...
Only the fanatics have ideas small enough to fit into thirty second sound bites. When you've been raised to believe that your parents passed the One And Only Truth to you, and someone says, "God is great!", it's not going to matter what the other person says, unless you say "Allahu akbar" instead. You can't even bother your average American to vote once a year, much less examine an issue as complex as the relationship between education, religion, and government. It's not that the the other side lacks the energy, but they have to fight dogma and the establishment hierarchies (corporations, churches, and some parts of government) who are benefiting from this self imposed ignorance.
America is hit particularly hard by this phenomenon because it's historically anti-intellectual. In fact, the only semi-modern country I'm aware of that shares in the same amount of religious hysteria is Iran.
I'm all for allowing Texas to turn into a theocracy, and leaving individual states to decide their own education. Texans could then serve as a reminder that marrying religion and state is still an enormously stupid idea.
(sorry, but he does exist and only a fool would attempt to "prove" otherwise)
Alright, I'll accept that he exists. Now, what does he want? When does he want it? How do you know this? Why should I trust your hearsay over the hearsay of others?
The existence of God is the beginning of your problems, not the end. Now you have to prove that he approves of you, and the only thing separating you from a lunatic on the street is hygiene, and the willingness to keep your unfounded beliefs to yourself, at least for most of the time.
Unless we all want to be assaulted with the crackpot theories of every personal delusion, from believing you're a reincarnated Roman Emperor to believing that a burning bush just talked to you, or that ants can talk, or that the Infinite and All Knowing God is terrified of menstruating women and big penises, I'd say why don't you keep your beliefs to yourself. Only a fool is really convinced that he knows the will of God better than another.
Ezekiel 23:19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
The Cow 2:222 They question thee (O Muhammad) concerning menstruation. Say: It is an illness, so let women alone at such times and go not in unto them till they are cleansed. And when they have purified themselves, then go in unto them as Allah hath enjoined upon you. Truly Allah loveth those who turn unto Him, and loveth those who have a care for cleanness.
The problem with putting all the socialists in one country is they don't have enough to share...they eventually run out of other people's money
Hi. I'm the nuance and complexity of reality. Have we met?
Or are you affiliated only with the maxims of old women who are "greatly saddened" when murderous dictators meet their maker?
You're the least entertaining single trick troll I've encountered. But now I have a new blog to read, besting Glenn Beck in the "miserably uninformed" category. My favorite quote of yours - gleefully not even a page deep - is:
Imagine how demeaning it must be to be Obama's secret service detail. I'd rather be a dung beetle. They work with a much higher class of material.
Oh, Fate! Your will has articulated this conversation into the most insufferable arc...
It's a "truism." Much as in Animal Farm, the party leaders are "more equal" than the rest. It's an anti-political sentiment, trying to snidely imply that there is no "good" government, which is somewhat true.
I'd amend the statement to say: "In capitalist societies, man exploits man. In communist societies, it's the other way around. In social democracies, the benefits of sharing resources are balanced with individual freedoms and market competitiveness, but this would require some nuanced approaches to the way you view the world, so please continue living by simplistic aphorisms so you aren't forced to consider making informed decisions."
they were jailed for being anti-social by the factory political minder. They went to a hospital for treatment, and walked out a month later with tuberculosis. This destroyed their ability to work further, so they were unable to get a decent apartment assigned by the local Party housing authority. After struggling for years for the collective, the beetles wondered... if I speak out will I be sent to Siberia or run over by a tank?
Amazing. I had no idea socialist democracies like France or the UK or any other large economy in Europe had suddenly turned into Stalinist Russia.
Hey fuckstick! In Capitalism, man exploits man. In Communism, it's the exact opposite. The difference is liberty. And I choose liberty. You want to be taken care of by your benevolent dictator?
Damn! I can't believe there are only two systems of government that have ever been imagined! I've been misled!
You and Noam wouldn't be missed.
But then who will you use as an enemy image to propagandize against?
Slashdot Mirror
Tell me, based on a the following verse, do you support raping a kidnapped woman after you've killed her family?
When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her. - Deut 21:10
Despite all of your attempts to contextualize the ridiculous lies and claims therein, the immorality of the bible cannot be covered up. Rape is, and always has been, immoral. Slavery is, and always has been, immoral. But that's hardly an insight you can expect from illiterate peasants from the ancient Levant.
This is where I have to leave it. Do yourself a favor: read the bible, cover to cover, and see for yourself. I consider that the best cure for Christianity (just as a good read through of the Qu'ran is the best cure for malady of being a muslim.) It worked for me, anyhow.
The problem is that the market is a form of democracy, albeit a little bit hacky one. The market tells us that most people want to drive cars, not sit around in trains and buses, riding bicycles all day.
Come on, now. People choose cars over mass transit and self-locomotion when they have no other choice. Look at any well-served mass transit city, anywhere in the world. The people who want the prestige of the car and want to spend the extra money make that choice, but nearly everyone else ignores it. The dominance of cars in the US is due to a number of factors, not the least of which is poor zoning and the intentional destruction of mass transit systems in the 50s across America.
As far as democracy is concerned, you seem to miss the point of voting entirely. If you believe in dollar votes, then where is the equality when a few hundred people are born with billions of votes and millions of others with none? Who do you think the outcome of the vote will tend to favor? Do you really think there's a difference between a Marquis and a Duke and a Carnegie?
The answer is to use the vote to get infrastructure funds spent in the interest of the people it serves rather than the interest of real estate developers and road contractors. If we spent 40 billion a year on rail and buses instead of highways, we'd have a rail system just as good as in other places in the world. If I started a business that wasn't public, there's very little chance I could raise the capital to unseat any of the businesses in place. If I went public, I could raise the funds, but then I'd be back to the problem of divestment if I ever did anything that didn't increase short term profits for shareholders.
Remember, there's no money in efficiency on a societal level. That's why the business leaders and their lobbyists are terrified of single payer health care, mass transit, and direct college loans.
Community colleges are filled with people who choose to be there. This is an entirely different environment from American high schools, where attendance is compulsory, backed by the full force of truancy laws.
Trying to get everyone a good basic education has its merits, but in some other countries you choose at 16 whether you want to go to college or receive vocational training or leave school altogether. This seems to work out well for everyone.
And as someone who absolutely despised high school, I know I would have done much better mentally and academically, even at the worst community colleges. I doubt any university would have penalized me for attending college courses (even if poor by their standards) before I hit 18.
I guess the embarrassing parts are embarrassing for you. Well, get ready for some more because I seriously do not know why you would think that just because a book says one person who has supernatural powers did something and had a specific outcome, that we should think that regular people doing it would have the same outcome.
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. -Mark 16:17-18
My dear boy, it's obvious who has not read the Bible. I don't doubt you have some bit of mental gymnastics ready to try and wriggle out of this fantastic claim, and I also have no doubt that I will find it both hilarious and sad.
Across every industry I've been involved in, a good piece of advice from an old business mentor has held true:
When you pay an expert $100 an hour, you're not paying them for the hour. You're paying them for the years of experience they have plus an hour of their time.
This also dovetailed well with what a mechanic told me when I was trying to lowball him: "When you pay peanuts, all you get is monkey business."
Again, skipping your embarrassing bits: (that's not just a clever nickname, is it?)
quote passages of the bible with no understanding of their meaning or intent
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
You are welcome to explain why, based on this verse, we should not teach medical students to put their fingers in the ears of the deaf or spit and touch the tongues of the mute. If we can discard this sad excuse for a miracle, then why can't Genesis be an allegory? And if Genesis can be an allegory, why must this allegory be presented next to evolution?
[nor] can you claim any religion is not true because you simply cannot scientifically test divine intervention
If something cannot be tested with the scientific method, then it cannot be a scientific conclusion. This means that if no experiment can be proposed to falsify Creationism, there is currently no scientific reason to believe it occurred.
Evolutionary theory perfectly fits with radiometric dating. Evolutionary theory perfectly fits with the fossil record. Evolutionary theory perfectly fits with the biology of isolated islands, observed experiments with fruit flies, bacteria, and other organisms with short life spans. Nothing has been found which contradict the central, testable laws of evolution:
1. Life changes genetically over time.
2. Speciation occurs.
3. Natural selection occurs.
4. Evolution is gradual.
5. All life descended from a single ancestor.
You can perform experiments which could disprove any one of these laws. The same cannot be said about any myth, no matter how popular or how ancient.
I'm terribly sorry you've made the first step on the path to emancipation - that everyone believes in different interpretations of a multitude of bad translations of the same religious texts - without realizing why that means there's no point in teaching any part of it as science. There is no scientific value which can be derived from these interpretations, unless they make specific claims that can be falsified with the scientific method.
I've grown weary of the tedium. As I have stated, and will state again, if you wish to drown in the ignorance of desert tribes who were afraid of spirits, menstruation, and pigs, don't let me spoil it for you. Just keep your religious nonsense away from science education, and teach your offspring at home. At least your genetic material will have a hell of a poor start compared with mine, and with God's Good Grace, fail where you succeeded.
The market cannot answer your question.
Did you ask, "How can I increase short term profit for my shareholder?"
If you asked a different question, please try again.
Well, it's certain that filling their tanks with Arabs hasn't upset them at all in the last hundred years.
That means there is some hope for you yet.
Since there's never been anything beyond hearsay supporting the super-naturalist delusions out there, I highly doubt it. I've skipped over many things you said not because you were accurate, but because the truth was embarrassingly obvious to point out.
I won't coddle you like your church elders - you can find many instances of traced evolution, predicted missing links, and much more on talkorigins.org, and you're more than capable of reading about them yourself. I have already read the bible and many of it's famous apologists, and I remain convinced of the evidence, or lack thereof.
Let me offer a few points. Again, I've skipped over your embarrassing assertions.
You said earlier: The conclusion was that we would classify breeds of the same species as a separate species altogether and in some cases classify the same breeds as different species altogether based around the difference in appearances. then We do however have transitional fossils on record but nothing outside of theory connects them as separate species.
It is true that the definition of a species is complicated, but usually it means that members of the same species do breed or are capable of breeding. Canines are a ring species, meaning that adjacent populations can breed and others cannot. However, you have painted yourself into a corner here: if Great Danes cannot successfully breed - even with artificial means of insemination - with a Chihuahua, then we have evidence of observed speciation, which is evidence of evolution. If they can interbreed in such a way, then your argument has been invalidated.
If the majority of the population thought chickens were evil, you could probably see bans on chickens in government run organizations... DO not confuse something that is so easily refuted with how you want things to be
You're saying that as long a majority of the population believes something that isn't true, then it should be taught in school. I do not think this is a wise idea.
. Making exaggerations while at the same time demonizing other exaggerations or embellishments of word is not a strong indicator of intelligence. Perhaps this is a problem in why you seem to be so upset with so many religious groups, your position isn't as strong as you had thought when it come time to defend it.
No, I am irritated at your lack of standards. We don't have to have a debate about whether human sacrifice causes the sun to rise, or whether a child can be stoned to death for cursing their parents, or whether a person can be put to death for blasphemy. Yet you continue to assert your beliefs as if they had some scientific reasoning behind them.
And no, the stories are not about men living in whales, or all staffs turning into snakes, or whatever, they are about specific instances and make non claim to their abilities to happen to anyone else.
Very well then. There are no two ways to slice this: either the miracles claimed in the bible all happened, or the bible is not wholly true and cannot be taken literally. If you're reading a Protestant bible, then you've already taken some parts of the Bible out of the original, so I would consider that evidence that God is fallible, if he can't even get his holy book released properly in the first place.
The main point is that the Bible has no merit over the Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran, or Dianetics, or the Yasna, or the Tao Te Ching, or the oral traditions of countless tribes, or my belief that these texts are all interesting, but false. Across the world -- across cultures and religions and nationalities and languages and class -- the scientific method has produced more useful knowledge than all religions combined. The scientific method has also produced the theory of evolution, which is as solidly grounded as the theory of gravity and the theory of relativity.
If you wish to continue living in the dark ages, please localize them to your home. Stop childishly pretending that Intelligent Design is anything but what it is: gold spray paint on the turd of Creationism.
It can all be traced back to defense spending. I assure you, none of it is as altruistic as you'd like to believe it is.
I know it wasn't altruistic. But Keynesian spending has enormous benefits, especially when it's invested in pure science, and states seem to be the only entities capable or interested in massive investments in such ventures - even for the wrong reasons.
Our GDP per capita is still #9. Not bad, given the fact that NAFTA is sucking our manufacturing sector dry. Socialist policy on an international level. Fuck NAFTA, we need to look out for #1. The US is sinking precisely because we aren't doing that any more.
NAFTA is a big-business policy masquerading as something else. It allows the manufacturing sector to drive down wages in the US while simultaneously profiting off of cheap labor in "free trade zones" throughout the world. Often the FTZs do not have to obey local tax rules, labor policies, or environmental standards. Socialism, at least the democratic type I prefer, does mean protectionism, and labor rules, and regulations that prevent abuse from large monopolies. If you're against NAFTA, then you'll find yourself at odds with libertarians, not socialists.
Total GDP, the US is #1, end of story, your own wikipedia will confirm it.
You'll say this until China overtakes us in 2020. Then GDP per capita will magically be the important metric.
We could be beating everyone in the other two but our government policy is fucking us. Last I checked, the libertarians are not in charge. That means that republicans and democrats are the problem. So take your socialist bullshit and shove it up your ass where it belongs. You are the idealists and your utopia doesn't work. The current state of the country is the proof. The way I see it you are holding us back and we'd be better off if you moved to France or some other socialist place, especially since you obviously don't want to be here. Go away.
That's sweet. I am currently de-locating myself from the US, to move somewhere with a better surf break and a more literate democracy. You'll find that both democrats and republicans are members of the well-run business party, and trust me, if the regulations are ever swept away to allow them to run free, you'll be kicking yourself to thoughtlessly attaching yourself to a non-value system like American libertarianism.
I've concentrated on your major lies just to keep this concise.
Evolution for instance, is only observable in the minor detail and has never been observed in the way necessary for species to branch off into other species without changing or ignoring certain definitions
There are hundreds of millions of years of fossils that have been found all over the world. "Missing link" animals have been predicted and then found. If you have a better theory for the diversification of species that doesn't involve a supernatural being who refuses to reveal themselves, please let me know.
This means that no government organization, which a school science class is, can tell any student who is required and compelled by law to attend, that their religion is real of fake.
You've just developed a blind spot for your own religion. Remember, religions are nothing more than large, popular cults. If I was an animist and I believed that all animals had spirits, and that chickens were Gods, would you ban chicken in the lunch room to accommodate me? If I believed that teaching women was a sin against my God, should we ban girls from public education? It's not the fault of the government if reality is in conflict with your belief system. If the best explanation we have for the way the world operates conflicts with a book you want to be accepted by everyone, who wins?
If the choice between accommodating all religions means there is no educational system, and accommodating no religions means that there is, please forgive me for not giving a damn about your hurt feelings.
If there was some universal way of teaching science to where the answers to questions about conflicts with religion would simply be "science does it this way and you will be tested on how science does it" instead of having the personal opinions about religions being true or false, the entire problem would be solved
More nonsense. No teachers make any statements about religion when they teach evolution, any more than that conflict with the Bible when it says that the earth is spherical. There are no "four corners," and Jesus could not have physically been shown the kingdoms of the world from the top of the highest mountain. People were not distributed around the world by God directly - they migrated and developed their own languages. I'm sure those ideas were heresy to the oxygen deprived religious minds of the past, but reality has a funny way of winning in the end.
Now I do not know why you're asking about going to a doctor verses a church, I have not indicated in any way I would be inclined to do so.
I'm sorry. I made the mistake of reading the Bible, which says:
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.--James 5:13
Hell, you even attempted to lay claim that no one has ever said science is right and religion is wrong yet you later wished that every religious person gave up anything science because they don't believe in it. Maybe you should do a reality check before continuing. Life is not the way you think it is, science isn't anti religion, religion is not anti science, and all but 1% or less of science is completely compatible with most major religions.
Religion requir
I was referring to the commonly-understood definition, which is a group of kleptocrats who obtain a disproportionate ability to use force against other people with few if any repercussions.
You baffle me, sir. I thought that was the definition of a huge multi-national corporation. I guess in your imagination, when the kleptocrats have no reason to fear legal repercussions, they behave better?
Now there's a fascinatingly indefensible position. Please explore this in the context of the extra-governmental mafia, or for bonus laughter points, the pirates of the 19th century.
Haven't you heard? Prisons are the latest fashion in government subsidized private profiteering. You get your congressmen to pass laws to throw non-violent drug users away for life, get them to then open private prisons in their district which receive government money, and then turn the prisoners into indentured factory workers.
They've even shut down small factories to move the labor inside of a prison, throwing people out of work and then forcing them to compete with slave labor. It's a win-win for business though - you get to drive down wages and have access to cheaper manufacturing facilities at the same time. The following snip is from the 90s... I'm not sure if they're still brazenly pulling the same stunts.
Lockhart Technologies. Lockhart Technologies, Inc. closed its Austin, Texas, branch, laid off 150 workers and moved its operations into a state prison located in Lockhart, Texas, that is operated by Wackenhut Corporation. The prisoners are paid the federal minimum wage to assemble circuit boards, provided no health or other benefits (they have them already) and allowed to keep 20 percent of their wages. The products go to computer industry giants like IBM, Compaq and Dell. Joe Gunn, president of the Texas AFL-CIO, complained that Wackenhut violated federal law by not consulting with organized labor and declared this kind of prison labor "absolute indentured slavery. [Wackenhut] puts people to work under conditions that we criticize China for." The Texas Employment Commission, on the other hand, said that the only economic impact was in largely rural Caldwell County, where the prison is located and where there were no unions to be considered.
Governments kill people by the millions. Want to tell me how "civilized" that is?
We may have different definitions of what civilized is. I'd say that that any group of people that shares resources constitutes some form of government.
Now, if you have something against jingoism, I agree. I am all for a real examination of one's society, and not just pledging one's fealty based on the incidental place of their birth.
But if you think that not having a state government will stop people from being evil, I seriously doubt you've read a paragraph of any tribal history. Men are animals and sometimes inclined to animalistic behavior. The establishment of a rule of law, periodically revised by the population that is subject to it, is so far the best solution.
Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. -Churchill
Yes, please ignore the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war industry.
And hey, let's throw out every social service program and see how our society looks when kids are starving in the streets. I get fucking ill every time some blowhard claims to be patriotic while they lobby to throw their countrymen in the street so they can continue to have their war toys.
How about we just return tax levels - literally 4 to 5 points higher at incomes above 90,000 a year - to the Clinton days, and balance the budget that way? Or, end the war tourism programs that are actually draining the treasury, and have been for fifty years.
There were lots of private companies trying to privately spend a small portion of US GDP for private research in order to get to space. And since we didn't need NASA for anything, it's amazing that the technology developed at NASA appeared worldwide in the same time frame without the subsidization of any other government.
Consider the history of flight
Indeed! The technology required to fly 200 feet and put a human on the moon are shockingly similar.
Ahhh, I'm just kidding. You know you're full of shit. And so do I.
Libertarians are often ignorant of the fact that they effectively lobby against civilization. In terms of GDP per capita, life expectancy, innovation, and quality of life, the middle of the road socialist countries dominate worldwide. That's because if you shackle your society with continuous relearning of generational lessons, you can never move beyond basic progress.
If you'd like to refute the massive progress introduced by the Apollo program in the sixties, go ahead and make your case for a private corporation in the same time frame spending a good portion of the US GDP for pure research. Bell Labs is the only thing that even comes close.
A world of self regulation is just as absurd as a world with complete government control of production. Use the market for easily duplicated services that are not necessary. For everything else, try and use your brain. Mindless idealism nets nothing of value.
Summarized in economic terms by Adam Smith:
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Who also believed
The legal rate... ought not be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent, the greater part of the money which was to be lent would be lent to prodigals and projectors [promoters of fraudulent schemes], who alone would be willing to give this high interest.A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it.
When the legal rate of interest, on the contrary is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown in the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.
(from naked capitalism)
GDP Per Capita
Life Expectancy
Quality of Life
2) Net taxes paid OUT to the federal gov. are staggering, and California is the gross highest - in 2001, their "balance of payments" figure was 58 BILLION dollars.
Wait, doesn't that mean that the bread and circuses/Keynesian method, high immigration numbers, and social service spending is working? If they finally legalize marijuana and reform their enormous prison system, looks like they'll continue to be the top performing state economy in the US.
Science is antithetical to religion, because science is based on observable, measurable, and repeatable experiment, and religion depends on individual conviction and faith.
it's taught as the absolute undying fact of life which makes your religion some fairy tale or superstition.
Yes, evolution, just like a spherical earth orbiting a star, is the best theory we have to explain why the world is the way it is. If you choose to go to a bible study after a science class and try to empty your head of the facts you just learned, that's your business, but don't call it science.
there does come an issue of balance when you have a government institution telling people god is make believe and your stupid for believing in one.
I've never seen anyone claim that science class teaches you that God doesn't exist. In fact, the Catholic Church has already accepted science as the "how" and God as the "why." You choose to interpret whatever holy text you're attached to in a certain way that conflicts with evolutionary science. And I'm sorry to say that however many pages it is, your holy text doesn't hold a candle to the depth and breadth of congruent scientific theory on matters such as the age of the universe, the age of the earth, and evolution.
which is one of the few places the bible comes into conflict with science
Ahh. So, do you think sacrificing a bird in a certain way cures leprosy? Do you think Jesus drove "demons" out of a person into a flock of pigs, who then threw themselves off of a cliff? Do you believe in germ theory at all? After an accident has cost you the facility to walk, do you head to a physical therapist or your church leader?
This really is a bunch of nonsense. If the creationist crowd were willing to give up the modern miracles of science in order to have their iron age mystical wish thinking peddled in the public square, I could imagine being able to tolerate it. At this point, the sheer simple mindedness of the entire Evangelical movement is threatening the viability of the American scientific community to continue to lead the world in many important areas. If you arrive at MIT thinking the world is a few thousand years old, or that the migration of humans and development of language was due to direct divine intervention after the tower of Babel was completed (incidentally, the bible isn't skeptical that a person could build a structure to "heaven") then just how long until you give up in frustration at all the "lies" being told by your professor?
It's up to the rest of society to fight their corner equally well, in the interests of balance; unfortunately only the fanatics seem to have the energy to do this...
Only the fanatics have ideas small enough to fit into thirty second sound bites. When you've been raised to believe that your parents passed the One And Only Truth to you, and someone says, "God is great!", it's not going to matter what the other person says, unless you say "Allahu akbar" instead. You can't even bother your average American to vote once a year, much less examine an issue as complex as the relationship between education, religion, and government. It's not that the the other side lacks the energy, but they have to fight dogma and the establishment hierarchies (corporations, churches, and some parts of government) who are benefiting from this self imposed ignorance.
America is hit particularly hard by this phenomenon because it's historically anti-intellectual. In fact, the only semi-modern country I'm aware of that shares in the same amount of religious hysteria is Iran.
I'm all for allowing Texas to turn into a theocracy, and leaving individual states to decide their own education. Texans could then serve as a reminder that marrying religion and state is still an enormously stupid idea.
Of course, I'm a little worried about the day that religious nuts can literally over dose on god.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STFT0C5Hu8M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2STDH14aJVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjMRgT5o-Ig
(sorry, but he does exist and only a fool would attempt to "prove" otherwise)
Alright, I'll accept that he exists. Now, what does he want? When does he want it? How do you know this? Why should I trust your hearsay over the hearsay of others?
The existence of God is the beginning of your problems, not the end. Now you have to prove that he approves of you, and the only thing separating you from a lunatic on the street is hygiene, and the willingness to keep your unfounded beliefs to yourself, at least for most of the time.
Unless we all want to be assaulted with the crackpot theories of every personal delusion, from believing you're a reincarnated Roman Emperor to believing that a burning bush just talked to you, or that ants can talk, or that the Infinite and All Knowing God is terrified of menstruating women and big penises, I'd say why don't you keep your beliefs to yourself. Only a fool is really convinced that he knows the will of God better than another.
Ezekiel 23:19
Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
The Cow 2:222
They question thee (O Muhammad) concerning menstruation. Say: It is an illness, so let women alone at such times and go not in unto them till they are cleansed. And when they have purified themselves, then go in unto them as Allah hath enjoined upon you. Truly Allah loveth those who turn unto Him, and loveth those who have a care for cleanness.
The problem with putting all the socialists in one country is they don't have enough to share...they eventually run out of other people's money
Hi. I'm the nuance and complexity of reality. Have we met?
Or are you affiliated only with the maxims of old women who are "greatly saddened" when murderous dictators meet their maker?
You're the least entertaining single trick troll I've encountered. But now I have a new blog to read, besting Glenn Beck in the "miserably uninformed" category. My favorite quote of yours - gleefully not even a page deep - is:
Imagine how demeaning it must be to be Obama's secret service detail.
I'd rather be a dung beetle. They work with a much higher class of material.
Oh, Fate! Your will has articulated this conversation into the most insufferable arc...
It's a "truism." Much as in Animal Farm, the party leaders are "more equal" than the rest. It's an anti-political sentiment, trying to snidely imply that there is no "good" government, which is somewhat true.
I'd amend the statement to say: "In capitalist societies, man exploits man. In communist societies, it's the other way around. In social democracies, the benefits of sharing resources are balanced with individual freedoms and market competitiveness, but this would require some nuanced approaches to the way you view the world, so please continue living by simplistic aphorisms so you aren't forced to consider making informed decisions."
they were jailed for being anti-social by the factory political minder. They went to a hospital for treatment, and walked out a month later with tuberculosis. This destroyed their ability to work further, so they were unable to get a decent apartment assigned by the local Party housing authority. After struggling for years for the collective, the beetles wondered... if I speak out will I be sent to Siberia or run over by a tank?
Amazing. I had no idea socialist democracies like France or the UK or any other large economy in Europe had suddenly turned into Stalinist Russia.
Hey fuckstick! In Capitalism, man exploits man. In Communism, it's the exact opposite. The difference is liberty. And I choose liberty. You want to be taken care of by your benevolent dictator?
Damn! I can't believe there are only two systems of government that have ever been imagined! I've been misled!
You and Noam wouldn't be missed.
But then who will you use as an enemy image to propagandize against?