Bush's economic policies (tax cuts for the rich, getting our country attacked by not listening to the previous adminiatration or his own FBI agents), and starting two very expensive wars to nearly bankrupt us.
Tax cuts that Obama extended. And war costs that are far smaller than the legislation Obama passed (bailouts, stimulus, healthcare).
Bush went into office with a balanced budget and a booming economy
left it with the largest defecit in US history and the economy in ruins
A deficit that Obama continued to extend...
Unemployment is lower than when Obama took office
By.1%??? Man you have low standards for 4 years of action and trillions of dollars of deficit spending. 4 years! Hell, at some point you have to stop blaming Bush. Or will Obama get a free pass for the next four years of economic blundering as well? What are you going to blame it on this time? Europe? China?
Things are getting better, fool.
When the country is at rock bottom, it isn't very hard to see "improvement". I'm sorry, but I have higher standards. This recovery is the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression.
You are deliberately choosing data that supports your conclusion. For instance, the TARP program registered as a ~700 billion dollar expense under Bush, despite the fact it made a profit. Do you know where that windfall is chalked up? Under Obama's column. This is why "deficit" is a stupid comparison. I might also add that Obama didn't have to extend the Bush tax cuts -- he chose to. So all the debt racked up under those tax cuts during Obama's term is his alone. Finally, a good chunk of the debt Obama has created hasn't even been spoken for, because key provisions of Obamacare don't even kick in until down the road. The true cost of that program remains largely a question mark (as the CBO has continued to raise its estimate year to year).
Way to focus on a small piece of a larger picture. I'm not going to hunt out the dozens of other examples of partisan behavior -- just ask Olympia Snowe what Obama's idea of "working together" is. If Republicans weren't pitching Democratic stances, he didn't want to hear it. It's that simple.
We both want to lower the deficit, I want to increase taxes you want budget cuts. The simple answer really is to decide on the ratio. Anything else is being a petulant child.
That's easy to say when you just spent the past 4 years spending like a sailor on shore leave. Seriously, you blame the entirety of the deficit on Bush despite the fact Obama spent just as much in 4 years as Bush did in 8 -- and then you wonder why Republicans are only concerned with spending cuts? If the Dems wanted to increase taxes, perhaps they shouldn't have extended the payroll tax cut. Or the Bush tax cuts for that matter. In reality, they want to raise very specific taxes on very specific people, namely the rich people that they hate so very very much.
My point is that even people who dislike Obama don't think he's an idiot.
Really? I know a good many people that believe he's economically inept, both Republican and Democrat. Sadly, Romney isn't personable at all, so they don't like him either.
Since he's been in office, we've seen a slow but steady improvement in the economy and a decrease in unemployment rates.
The "recovery" has been completely anemic -- in fact, the slowest recovery since the great depression. The logic trap you seem to be falling into is the fact that things are "better" and that must mean he "succeeded". When in reality, the duration of the vast majority of recessions is less than 4 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
The man could have done nothing and (statistically) things would be better. Think of it this way. The recession technically ended in June 2009 -- peak unemployment was around 10% in October of 2009. THREE YEARS LATER, we're still at ~8% unemployment. I'm sorry, but I have higher standards for what I consider a "three year economic improvement".
As noted above, the law does reduce payments to insurers and to some health care providers -- by an estimated $716 billion over the coming decade
Done.
These are dollars removed from the program. If the "projected savings that are supposed to offset these reductions" do not materialize (which I suspect they will not...), this is a Medicare cut. It's like cutting taxes by 2 trillion dollars and calling it revenue neutral because it will grow our economy by 2 trillion dollars. The latter claim is a myth, a fiction, something that hasn't happened. The former is reality.
An airline going down the tubes is not the same thing as a major industrial manufacturing giant representing a significant fraction of the US's industrial capacity being allowed to collapse. And maybe any other Administration would have done the same, so at the very least Obama didn't bugger it up.
Debatable. Obama allowed them to go through a Chapter 11 the exact same they would have even if the government hadn't intervened. However, the government's intervention did have one substantial effect, namely a gigantic handout of taxpayer money to the UAW: http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-myth-of-auto-bailout-jobs/article/2512555
Much like the bank bailouts, this president believes in rewarding failure.
Ya, that guy isn't polarizing at all...totally "work across the aisle" mindset there...clearly begging Republicans to give him some good ideas. It takes alot of chutzpah to claim the other side of refusing to work together and obstructing everything while maintaining this kind of attitude. It honestly boggles me how anyone can vote for these people.
"Hope and Change" sound good to a lot of people and I suspect that more people know that their government is fucked up than many of us think. They just don't know what to do about it. Red or Blue, pick your poison. Neither party is offerring any real solutions
At least Romney is offering 4 years of something different. That's a far cry better than 4 more years of "More of the Same" (rather ironic given last election's slogan) -- nothing Obama has said to date (including in the debate) indicates he would act any different in office at all for a second term.
Which is a damned stupid assumption. You can invest all you want in starting new businesses. If people don't have money to purchase your goods and services that investment is worthless.
By the same logic, if people don't have jobs, they don't have money. How do you produce new jobs if not by starting new businesses? Right now we have a TON of people itching to have jobs. What we don't have are the actual slots to fill.
The problem is that very few people use $25k in deductions.
Have you seen the housing deduction? Interest alone on a ~250k house @ 4% a year is around 10k. While not 25k, deductions are quite high, even for the average American.
Well that's a bit of a problem because it's not infinite, and takes millions of years to form new supplies.
That's not true. The bulk of oil use is in transportation, which is not a "million year transition". It could fix itself in a decade or two. We could force it to happen in a few years if we really pushed (i.e. if it was a real emergency and the pricetag was worth it). And oil substitutes (namely "synthetic oil") already exists, has always existed, and can be produced in plentiful quantities. The hangup is that it is expensive to do so, very much like the OP said. Cheap crude is the reason we switched away from synthetics in the first place.
Canada fared well because its businesses/banks/consumers/government did not overleverage, whereas in the US, all 4 did.
It's also questionable to call modern Canadian policies "liberal" in the traditional sense (which means "federal social policy"). Canada is heavily province focused. The provinces collect more taxes than the federal government (the way it should be). In that aspect, the provinces choose to be liberal whereas the federal government remains conservative small government (exactly what many Republicans want in the US).
The other two are, and that's where your thinking falls off the cognitive cliff. The probability of "god" being real is exactly the same, and exactly as likely, as that unicorn, or anything else you, or anyone else makes up out of whole cloth. Exactly. And for precisely the same reasons. Which is to say, sitting right at zero.
The assertion god does not exist is based upon millennia of claimants producing no evidence of any kind, despite an almost infinite number of contexts within which such existence
Is this also true of "faster than light travel"?
Warp drives?
Cold fusion?
Or on a larger time scale of belief: Aliens? Time travel?
I imagine the same "claimants producing no evidence of any kind" should apply -- can you definitely say all the above have exactly zero percent chance of being real? Right up there with purple unicorns? Or is the belief perhaps a hair higher than zero, even if unlikely? You atheists really do the superlatives an injustice with the frequency in which you toss them around, especially being people who have (incorrectly) coined the term "skeptic" as a designated moniker. Lack of evidence does not make a thing 100% fake -- it merely makes it some degree of "unlikely".
Nope. Substitute something completely silly for "god" and it becomes clear.
I believe in an intergalatic immaterial invisible purple penis which brought forth all life.
There is no logical support for it. It is entirely a fabrication I made up literally moments ago. It requires no "faith" at all for you to reject this claim.
It's not that simple. 84% of the world believes in some religion of some kind. To equate religious belief with "belief in any ridiculous fabrication" is pretty much saying 84% of the population is clinically retarded. Clearly there's some level of evidence higher than "I just made up this fabrication moments ago" that has segmented cultures around the world developing spiritual belief. It may all be psychological, but there's a distinct difference in the level of evidence available. At the very least, it elevates it from "utterly ridiculous" to "probably ridiculous".
Did you know the relative positions of stocks in the stock market have little to do with corporate cash on hand and certainly has nothing to do with government budgets or deficits, which is what I meant when I was speaking of "money in the bank" (referring to sovereign spending capabilities).
but I'm just happy that he's pulling us out of the crap-hole Bush drove us into
Pulling us out? Dude, we're currently experiencing the longest period of ~8-9% unemployment since the Great Depression. And the debt has skyrocketed in the same period. By the same logic, any other president could have rolled into office and twiddled their thumbs for 4 years and right now we'd have similarly unemployment and a lot more money in the bank. Of course, if you believe in the theory of "tiger-repellant rock" stimulus, then no amount of convincing could get you to believe that Obama has failed.
What exactly is the threat to America that Obama's reelection presents?
Let's see -- in order of liklihood:
1) 4 more years of ideological stubbornness, resulting in even further gridlock (no legislation) or shitty bills (partisan legislation w/ bribes).
2) Continued failure to kickstart the economy through terrible stimulus ideas (with the added "bonus" of adding to the debt) or business-crippling legislation (like Obamacare), potentially pushing us into a second recession
3) 4 more years with no real Social Security/Medicare reform (ticking time bomb those programs are)
4) Out of control spending leading to sovereign insolvency (or to a lesser extent, devaluation of the dollar and a continued foreign push towards alternate competing global currencies).
5) Passage of further massively expense entitlements that will be politically impossible to repeal or reform (see Social Security/Medicare) -- this is unlikely with the given composition of Congress, but who knows what the election can bring (not to mention Congressional bullshit magic like reconciliation)
I mean seriously, we barely survived the past 4 years from an economic perspective (slowest recession recovery in history), and the debt skyrocketed (despite campaign promises that Obama was going to halve the national debt), and now we're laden with another massive entitlement program that is sure to spiral out of control in costs (Obamacare has already vastly exceeding the CBO-claimed cost estimates). I also see no reason why Obama's second term would be any different: he has already called for another massive stimulus expense.
1) Never even tried to bring single payer to the table as he promised he would. Obamacare is literally less progressive than Nixon's health care plan. Was Nixon a progressive?
4) Medicare, medicaid, etc have been increasing exponentially. But they've been increasing exponentially for decades. And hell, Bush passed Medicare part D. Was he progressive?
I think you underestimate the size and breadth of Obamacare -- it's a 2000 page bill -- it added another 10% of the country to the health insurance industry -- it makes vast sweeping changes to the entire healthcare segment (including literally dictating how insurance companies will do business (who they must add to their roles, who they can't drop drop their roles, how much profit they can make, etc). Comparing it to Medicare part D in entitlement scope is like comparing something the size of Texas to something the size of Rhode Island. It'd be like comparing "privatizing social security" to "raising the social security age by a few years". Obamacare is a substantial increase in entitlements, of the like we haven't seen in most of our lifetimes. A public option would have been even moreso an increase in entitlements, but the lack thereof doesn't suddenly make that existing clusterfuck of a bill any less massive.
I don't know why you are making this special exception for sodas and light bulbs
I don't
. Government regulates how fast you go on the highway because otherwise more people would become injured and die, which increases health care costs and reduces production.
Also poorly handled. There's a wide range of vehicle capabilities as well as driver capabilities out there. And I would far more trust a race car driver in a brand new M3 going 80 than I would a 70 year old grandma in a chevy that barely passes inspection going 50. Yet the government solution is apparently to cap everyone somewhere around the realm of the lowest common denominator, a tactic which is failing fantastically in our schools as well. That rant aside, road safety is a far cry different from micromanaging foods and product purchases.
They regulate how other products, such as cigarettes, are marketed so children aren't hooked to a habit that literally does nothing but kill people and suck money out of their pocket
And they shouldn't. Like I said over here (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3183545&cid=41661575), punishing everyone to protect a few ignorant people is stupid. Otherwise, you get into all manner of slippery slopes...do we allow people to participate in dangerous sports? Sky dive? Drink alcohol at all? All these things increase healthcare costs and are potentially negative externalities to society. But we don't outright ban any of it because we're a country of free individuals. Rather, we prevent it from harming other people (which is why things like drunk driving laws exist), but we otherwise let people do as they damn well please. Prohibition is a perfect example of
"shit that shouldn't happen", whatever the "good intentions". Soda size bans are right up there in the same category. So are TSA "nudie-scan-frisk-and-rape" procedures.
Do you want government to try and meaningfully reduce harmful habits in favor of investing that money in education or infrastructure, or do you want to watch your country eat and drink so much garbage pushed by corporations who make a living by exploiting addictive behaviors that it may literally bankrupt our healthcare system? There is a choice
No, in fact there is not. The government can educate as much as it damn well pleases without removing a single one of my freedoms.
. Pretending that curbing unhealthy behavior crosses the line in the same city where Stop and Frisk illegally detains hundreds of thousands of citizens every year is a pretty pathetic one
Did I ever say I supported Stop and Frisk? They BOTH cross the line and we react with rage to both.
You can't threaten a monopoly with a boycott or a vote
Monopolies and anti-competitive behavior are covered under antitrust laws. Think minimalist, not anarchist. Assuming companies are small enough to ensure that competition is possible (which is a known requirement of a functioning free market), the consumer should always have an option. I would have little issue with government stepping up their antitrust crackdowns if they laid off all the other bullshit. Basic antitrust and basic safety concerns (ala FDA) is fine. Handholding which light bulbs I use and what size cola I drink is out of line. This is why libertarianism is on the rise in this nation. We're fed up with the overreaches. I'll never know why people would choose large government over a multitude of medium-sized businesses.
My solution to a corrupt and tyrannical government is a more transparent and democratic government
And my solution to a corrupt and tyrannical corporation is a more transparent and consumer-caring corporation. I fail to see how one unreasonable standard is better than the other. Human beings will always be greedy and self-serving. Knowing this, I'd rather they be beholden to my wallet rather than me be beholden to their army/tanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Tax cuts that Obama extended. And war costs that are far smaller than the legislation Obama passed (bailouts, stimulus, healthcare).
Booming? Are you nuts? The 9/11 terrorist attacks sparked a mini recession in '01 at the start of Bush's term. In his second term, housing prices peaked in '06 and we were in a recession by late '07. At best, those 8 years were a period of mediocre economic activity (~2% average GDP growth per year, if that): http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+gdp+growth+chart#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:USA&ifdim=region&tstart=973573200000&tend=1320642000000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false
A deficit that Obama continued to extend...
By .1%??? Man you have low standards for 4 years of action and trillions of dollars of deficit spending. 4 years! Hell, at some point you have to stop blaming Bush. Or will Obama get a free pass for the next four years of economic blundering as well? What are you going to blame it on this time? Europe? China?
When the country is at rock bottom, it isn't very hard to see "improvement". I'm sorry, but I have higher standards. This recovery is the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression.
You are deliberately choosing data that supports your conclusion. For instance, the TARP program registered as a ~700 billion dollar expense under Bush, despite the fact it made a profit. Do you know where that windfall is chalked up? Under Obama's column. This is why "deficit" is a stupid comparison. I might also add that Obama didn't have to extend the Bush tax cuts -- he chose to. So all the debt racked up under those tax cuts during Obama's term is his alone. Finally, a good chunk of the debt Obama has created hasn't even been spoken for, because key provisions of Obamacare don't even kick in until down the road. The true cost of that program remains largely a question mark (as the CBO has continued to raise its estimate year to year).
Way to focus on a small piece of a larger picture. I'm not going to hunt out the dozens of other examples of partisan behavior -- just ask Olympia Snowe what Obama's idea of "working together" is. If Republicans weren't pitching Democratic stances, he didn't want to hear it. It's that simple.
That's easy to say when you just spent the past 4 years spending like a sailor on shore leave. Seriously, you blame the entirety of the deficit on Bush despite the fact Obama spent just as much in 4 years as Bush did in 8 -- and then you wonder why Republicans are only concerned with spending cuts? If the Dems wanted to increase taxes, perhaps they shouldn't have extended the payroll tax cut. Or the Bush tax cuts for that matter. In reality, they want to raise very specific taxes on very specific people, namely the rich people that they hate so very very much.
Really? I know a good many people that believe he's economically inept, both Republican and Democrat. Sadly, Romney isn't personable at all, so they don't like him either.
You'd be hostile too if you had to deal with this kind of smug, ideological stubbornness: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3231645&cid=41890361
I'm sorry you fell for the Democrat talking point: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/when-did-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/2012/09/24/79fd5cd8-0696-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html
Sorry, but no: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/02/dueling-debt-deceptions/
The "recovery" has been completely anemic -- in fact, the slowest recovery since the great depression. The logic trap you seem to be falling into is the fact that things are "better" and that must mean he "succeeded". When in reality, the duration of the vast majority of recessions is less than 4 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
The man could have done nothing and (statistically) things would be better. Think of it this way. The recession technically ended in June 2009 -- peak unemployment was around 10% in October of 2009. THREE YEARS LATER, we're still at ~8% unemployment. I'm sorry, but I have higher standards for what I consider a "three year economic improvement".
As noted above, the law does reduce payments to insurers and to some health care providers -- by an estimated $716 billion over the coming decade
Done.
These are dollars removed from the program. If the "projected savings that are supposed to offset these reductions" do not materialize (which I suspect they will not...), this is a Medicare cut. It's like cutting taxes by 2 trillion dollars and calling it revenue neutral because it will grow our economy by 2 trillion dollars. The latter claim is a myth, a fiction, something that hasn't happened. The former is reality.
Debatable. Obama allowed them to go through a Chapter 11 the exact same they would have even if the government hadn't intervened. However, the government's intervention did have one substantial effect, namely a gigantic handout of taxpayer money to the UAW: http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-myth-of-auto-bailout-jobs/article/2512555
Much like the bank bailouts, this president believes in rewarding failure.
Really? http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/11/president_obamas_i_won_to_repu.html
"The president added, "I won. So I think on that one, I trump you."
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdb11f_you-can-t-drive-says-obama_news
"No. You can't drive."
http://ponderingpenguin.blogspot.com/2010/10/obama-tell-gop-to-go-to-back-of-car.html
"They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back"
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/11/obama-i-shouldnt-have-used-the-word-enemies/1
'we're going to punish our enemies and we're going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us
Ya, that guy isn't polarizing at all...totally "work across the aisle" mindset there...clearly begging Republicans to give him some good ideas. It takes alot of chutzpah to claim the other side of refusing to work together and obstructing everything while maintaining this kind of attitude. It honestly boggles me how anyone can vote for these people.
At least Romney is offering 4 years of something different. That's a far cry better than 4 more years of "More of the Same" (rather ironic given last election's slogan) -- nothing Obama has said to date (including in the debate) indicates he would act any different in office at all for a second term.
By the same logic, if people don't have jobs, they don't have money. How do you produce new jobs if not by starting new businesses? Right now we have a TON of people itching to have jobs. What we don't have are the actual slots to fill.
Have you seen the housing deduction? Interest alone on a ~250k house @ 4% a year is around 10k. While not 25k, deductions are quite high, even for the average American.
That's not true. The bulk of oil use is in transportation, which is not a "million year transition". It could fix itself in a decade or two. We could force it to happen in a few years if we really pushed (i.e. if it was a real emergency and the pricetag was worth it). And oil substitutes (namely "synthetic oil") already exists, has always existed, and can be produced in plentiful quantities. The hangup is that it is expensive to do so, very much like the OP said. Cheap crude is the reason we switched away from synthetics in the first place.
Canada isn't heavily regulated at all, it's #6 in economic freedom: http://www.heritage.org/index/country/canada
Another cite: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/18/canada-rises-to-top-five-in-world-economic-freedom-ranking-as-u-s-plummets-to-18th/
Canada fared well because its businesses/banks/consumers/government did not overleverage, whereas in the US, all 4 did.
It's also questionable to call modern Canadian policies "liberal" in the traditional sense (which means "federal social policy"). Canada is heavily province focused. The provinces collect more taxes than the federal government (the way it should be). In that aspect, the provinces choose to be liberal whereas the federal government remains conservative small government (exactly what many Republicans want in the US).
Is this also true of "faster than light travel"?
Warp drives?
Cold fusion?
Or on a larger time scale of belief: Aliens? Time travel?
I imagine the same "claimants producing no evidence of any kind" should apply -- can you definitely say all the above have exactly zero percent chance of being real? Right up there with purple unicorns? Or is the belief perhaps a hair higher than zero, even if unlikely? You atheists really do the superlatives an injustice with the frequency in which you toss them around, especially being people who have (incorrectly) coined the term "skeptic" as a designated moniker. Lack of evidence does not make a thing 100% fake -- it merely makes it some degree of "unlikely".
It's not that simple. 84% of the world believes in some religion of some kind. To equate religious belief with "belief in any ridiculous fabrication" is pretty much saying 84% of the population is clinically retarded. Clearly there's some level of evidence higher than "I just made up this fabrication moments ago" that has segmented cultures around the world developing spiritual belief. It may all be psychological, but there's a distinct difference in the level of evidence available. At the very least, it elevates it from "utterly ridiculous" to "probably ridiculous".
Hell no, Bush added to the debt nearly as much as Obama. I'm talking about non-retards.
Did you know the relative positions of stocks in the stock market have little to do with corporate cash on hand and certainly has nothing to do with government budgets or deficits, which is what I meant when I was speaking of "money in the bank" (referring to sovereign spending capabilities).
Pulling us out? Dude, we're currently experiencing the longest period of ~8-9% unemployment since the Great Depression. And the debt has skyrocketed in the same period. By the same logic, any other president could have rolled into office and twiddled their thumbs for 4 years and right now we'd have similarly unemployment and a lot more money in the bank. Of course, if you believe in the theory of "tiger-repellant rock" stimulus, then no amount of convincing could get you to believe that Obama has failed.
Let's see -- in order of liklihood:
1) 4 more years of ideological stubbornness, resulting in even further gridlock (no legislation) or shitty bills (partisan legislation w/ bribes).
2) Continued failure to kickstart the economy through terrible stimulus ideas (with the added "bonus" of adding to the debt) or business-crippling legislation (like Obamacare), potentially pushing us into a second recession
3) 4 more years with no real Social Security/Medicare reform (ticking time bomb those programs are)
4) Out of control spending leading to sovereign insolvency (or to a lesser extent, devaluation of the dollar and a continued foreign push towards alternate competing global currencies).
5) Passage of further massively expense entitlements that will be politically impossible to repeal or reform (see Social Security/Medicare) -- this is unlikely with the given composition of Congress, but who knows what the election can bring (not to mention Congressional bullshit magic like reconciliation)
I mean seriously, we barely survived the past 4 years from an economic perspective (slowest recession recovery in history), and the debt skyrocketed (despite campaign promises that Obama was going to halve the national debt), and now we're laden with another massive entitlement program that is sure to spiral out of control in costs (Obamacare has already vastly exceeding the CBO-claimed cost estimates). I also see no reason why Obama's second term would be any different: he has already called for another massive stimulus expense.
He tried, but it was a non-starter with Blue Dog Democrats. (and Republicans as well, though that didn't matter at the time). Obama believed the total package of reforms was more important than a hard stance on the public option:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/health/policy/18talkshows.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/1092-Blue-Dogs-Don-t-Want-a-Public-Option-That-Works
I think you underestimate the size and breadth of Obamacare -- it's a 2000 page bill -- it added another 10% of the country to the health insurance industry -- it makes vast sweeping changes to the entire healthcare segment (including literally dictating how insurance companies will do business (who they must add to their roles, who they can't drop drop their roles, how much profit they can make, etc). Comparing it to Medicare part D in entitlement scope is like comparing something the size of Texas to something the size of Rhode Island. It'd be like comparing "privatizing social security" to "raising the social security age by a few years". Obamacare is a substantial increase in entitlements, of the like we haven't seen in most of our lifetimes. A public option would have been even moreso an increase in entitlements, but the lack thereof doesn't suddenly make that existing clusterfuck of a bill any less massive.
I don't
Also poorly handled. There's a wide range of vehicle capabilities as well as driver capabilities out there. And I would far more trust a race car driver in a brand new M3 going 80 than I would a 70 year old grandma in a chevy that barely passes inspection going 50. Yet the government solution is apparently to cap everyone somewhere around the realm of the lowest common denominator, a tactic which is failing fantastically in our schools as well. That rant aside, road safety is a far cry different from micromanaging foods and product purchases.
And they shouldn't. Like I said over here (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3183545&cid=41661575), punishing everyone to protect a few ignorant people is stupid. Otherwise, you get into all manner of slippery slopes...do we allow people to participate in dangerous sports? Sky dive? Drink alcohol at all? All these things increase healthcare costs and are potentially negative externalities to society. But we don't outright ban any of it because we're a country of free individuals. Rather, we prevent it from harming other people (which is why things like drunk driving laws exist), but we otherwise let people do as they damn well please. Prohibition is a perfect example of "shit that shouldn't happen", whatever the "good intentions". Soda size bans are right up there in the same category. So are TSA "nudie-scan-frisk-and-rape" procedures.
No, in fact there is not. The government can educate as much as it damn well pleases without removing a single one of my freedoms.
Did I ever say I supported Stop and Frisk? They BOTH cross the line and we react with rage to both.
Monopolies and anti-competitive behavior are covered under antitrust laws. Think minimalist, not anarchist. Assuming companies are small enough to ensure that competition is possible (which is a known requirement of a functioning free market), the consumer should always have an option. I would have little issue with government stepping up their antitrust crackdowns if they laid off all the other bullshit. Basic antitrust and basic safety concerns (ala FDA) is fine. Handholding which light bulbs I use and what size cola I drink is out of line. This is why libertarianism is on the rise in this nation. We're fed up with the overreaches. I'll never know why people would choose large government over a multitude of medium-sized businesses.
And my solution to a corrupt and tyrannical corporation is a more transparent and consumer-caring corporation. I fail to see how one unreasonable standard is better than the other. Human beings will always be greedy and self-serving. Knowing this, I'd rather they be beholden to my wallet rather than me be beholden to their army/tanks.