Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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First of all, because a rich person does use those services more. They access the legal system more, they have bigger homes, more threats to their security, especially if they're very rich or very public.
Those are all poor examples -- legal costs are private expenses (court costs and lawyers are not floated by taxpayers). Bigger homes are already handled proportionate by property tax value. And are you really going to tell me a guy living in Richville 90210 has more to fear from a security threat standpoint than someone living in Gangtown, Slumsville USA? If anything, the rich exert LESS on the services of the police because robbers pick on easy unsuspecting targets instead of on millionaires with insanely expensive security systems.
They also benefit more from the system. By a lot. It really is the overly technical stuff you tried to gloss over. Their workers benefit from better public eduction, which means they benefit from pubic education because they get a cut of everything their workers do
Well that's one hell of a slippery slope right there. It's the exact same "passive benefit" argument the rich try to use when they speak of "trickle down effects".
They benefit from public healthcare because it's money they don't need to spend.
How are they benefiting more than anyone else in this case? (since that's what you were claiming) The poor are getting the exact same subsidized healthcare in this case.
They benefit more from public insurance (old age security for example) because by collectivizing the risk they don't have to negotiate that with individual employees.
Once again, how is this a "more"? If everyone is in the same collective pool, it's the same for everyone. If there's a "millionaire pool", I guarantee it isn't very large, and therefore not very advantageous.
. they benefit from better infrastructure because it gives their products more mobility,
Probably the only place I agree with you, and only partially, since they're going to be paying a larger share of gas taxes and tolls. This is why taxing at the point of consumption is a good thing. If you use more gas, you're taxed more. It's simple, efficient, and requires little bookkeeping. If you want to solve the regression problem, give the poor a tax credit refund. (or perhaps even prebate, ala FairTax).
Even if you look at mitt romney's 15% tax rate discussed below by someone else. That's higher than someone making 35k a year
And I agree with you -- so why, knowing this (and knowing that raising income taxes affects naught someone like Romney), WHY are Democrats so insistent on raising taxes on INCOME? If they have an axe to grind with the uberrich, why not focus on capital gains taxes, or tax loopholes, or foreign tax shelters, or tariffs? Instead, they propose jackass solutions like dicking with the tax brackets or hiking taxes on people jointly making 250k a year or nixing the mortgage tax deduction -- shit like that won't affect the top.01% at ALL. All you're doing is dicking over the upper middle class and the "affluent".
That's a fallacy. We've been looking into alternative energy sources, we've never stopped. That's why we've invented solar and geothermal and wind, etc, etc. What we're talking about now is the amount of money to spend addressing what many deem an issue of "near-term cataclysmic iireversible magnitude". Hence you see the problem. If the issue is so dire and so short-term that ignoring it will end the world, and we're SURE of that, it's worth spending trillions upon trillions addressing it. If on the other hand there's a bunch of people claiming the sky is falling and the true scope of the problem is complete opinion or weak science, it makes more sense to continue our current existing pace of green energy research and implementation.
So what word would you suggest using to describe the group of people in question?
Seeing as how the "other" side is referred to as "AGW proponents" or "global warming proponents", I believe changing the word "proponents" to "opponents" would accomplish an accurate description. It's especially relevant since the AGW crowd likes to lump "anyone who disagrees with them" into the "denier" category at the onset of any GW argument, without even trying to gauge their actual position first. For instance, the people who believe warming is occuring but the threats are exaggerated is a sizable crowd (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/11/americans-climate-change-threat), yet if any of them speak up, they're frequently labeled "deniers".
That's my point - people talk about the "supermajority" as if it was something Obama had and wasted, but it was only so if all of the Dems (and "dems" who are just not republicans) voted in lockstep and on a large, complex bill such as healthcare or changing the tax code, it's not a guarantee.
But he did by definition have a supermajority. If he had passed something less extreme, his party would have been lockstep behind it, just like they were with the stimulus bill and the minimum wage bill and all the other garbage that got jammed through during his presidency. The point is that he forced through a very unpopular and extreme bill that even his own party was opposed to -- that's why he is attacked for it. No one was compromising and working to come up with something sensible -- instead they were tacking on riders to buy votes to force that terrible legislation to pass as quickly as possible. And that's Obama's fault. The fact Republicans were summarily ignored and not even included in the bill design process is Obama's fault. The fact he pushed a bill that even his own party could not support is Obama's fault.
The President is not an emperor, even with a majority.
Yet even in this country, the President has a considerable amount of sway in pushing agenda.
The republicans *were* invited to the table on healthcare. More than invited in fact
since they spent their entire time just saying "no" to everything
The reason they were saying "no" was because by the time they were invited to the table, the Democrats had already written like 90+% of the bill and were essentially looking for a rubber stamp -- they didn't want significant or radical changes to the hundreds of pages that had already been penned. They also wanted the bill to pass quickly for political reasons.
he probably should have decided to cut out the Republicans more than he did and attempt to force things through. As it turns out, going the bipartisan route just allowed the repubs to gut everything and still say no at every turn.
*rolls eyes* You libs believe whatever you want to believe, despite what the facts show -- Obama made no attempt to work with Republicans until he absolutely needed them (after he lost the supermajority) -- and Blue Dog Democrats (which even you admit to) were the ones forcing him to gut the bill to change things (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-10/politics/house.health.care_1_blue-dogs-public-option-medicare-rates?_s=PM:POLITICS). You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too -- you claim Obama didn't have a supermajority because his own party was obstructing the passage of the bill, yet you blame Republicans for obstructing the bill instead. Heck, it's the Blue Dogs to blame for the stripping of the "public option" provision: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Tell me, what chance do you think he'd have had with healthcare (you remember how that went) if he went against the repubs with his supermajority on their other sacred cow (tax cuts)?
Clearly you are the one not remembering how that went, because it wasn't Republicans he was trying to convince to get behind the bill -- it was Blue Dog Democrats (http://newsone.com/nation/associated-press/obama-visits-senate-to-push-health-care-bill/). The Republicans weren't even invited to the discussion.
The "supermajority" also lasted for a shot time and included people who were not automatic lockstep supporters.
4+ months is not a short time. Hell, just look at all the crap Obama passed in his first month of office. And by you saying "included people who were not automatic lockstep supporters", you're just supporting my previous argument that the Republicans were a non-issue -- Obama was at odds with his own party trying to pass that monstrous bill.
what can you do?
There are many things that could be done -- for instance, vote third party instead of voting for the lesser evil. Or start up protests to demand a change in the voting system (why doesn't Occupy demand runoff voting or something? you know, something actually useful for once)
Ah, the staple call of the apologist.
He didn't fuck it up - he inherited the mess!
He didn't fail to pass his bill w/ a supermajority in Congress - the Republicans obstructed it
He didn't want to pass the bill, so he strongly objected and then passed it anyways
He's not really a liberal, he's a conservative!
Ya know, fuck that -- I'm getting behind someone with some fucking principles and political integrity, Ron Paul. Go ahead and continue making excuses for your ineffective president -- he's just another member of the status quo.
And I think we can surmize, given the US's current level of social-capitalist involvement, as compared to the rest of the modern world (G7 and BRIC), that we are not anywhere remotely close to the excessively socialist side.
The US government spends over 40% of the GDP each year on an increasingly upward trend
We're #11 in the world in total social expenditure with 23.4% of our GDP going to that purpose, yet somehow people still feel we aren't socialist enough. Moreover, they have the gall to claim we're a "pure free-market driven" country. It disgusts me.
I could point to many of the Scandinavian countries as counter-counter examples of Democratic Socialism succeeding.
Scale matters -- every "successful" Scandivanian Social Democracy is a tiny microcosm of a country with a small population, in essence a small group of people in a relatively similar area. Taken Sweden for instance: "Sweden, with a surface area similar to California, has a population of 9 million, with about 85% living in the southern half of the country." -- the Nordic countries are akin to STATES here in the US, where I would agree that Democratic Socialism would probably succeed. However, at the 300+ million population point across a land area of the size of the United States, it does not and can not.
So you're OK with Socialism, just not the US Federal governments involvement in socialism? If so, you should really make that more clear.
Really? Why is it relevant when discussing what the federal government should have the power to do? When people rant against our President or federal Congress trying to pass socialist bills, WHY should people have to make it clear they're cool with state level programs in the same breath?
Yeah, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-left_politics), it's these screwballs: "In the USA, John George and Laird Wilcox have identified the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party (United States), Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society and Progressive Labor Party (United States) as some of the groups active on what he refers to as the "far-left".[6]"
I agree, but you have the other extreme (Paul, Gingrich, etc) that want to get rid of the FAA and the EPA and the highway administration and the FCC and the FAA.
I'll agree that's extreme, and also why I don't fully support such stances. But it also would never happen -- I support Ron Paul because his focus and his message and his integrity are solid. Congress would tame his more extreme wackier ideas. I also believe the "Extreme" element of libertarianism is the exception not the norm -- most people in that camp just want smaller government.
And I wonder why they had to amend the Constitution to outlaw alcohol, but didn't have to for other drugs?
Well that should be obvious -- we're no longer a country governed by the Constitution -- they just do whatever the hell they want.
We have a nation 4000 miles wide and 3000 miles tall. Neither pollution, commerce, water, oil pipelines, gas pipelines, radio waves, the list goes on, stay within state boundaries. With a huge country to govern, a small government simply will not work.
Imagine how expensive your natural gas would be if you were taxed for every state it passed through.
I imagine this is the reason our founders included "interstate commerce" within the powers delegated to the federal government through our great Constitution. Do you guys even attempt to understand that thing before you start your diatribes about the horrors of small government? The other funny attack often seen is when "state functions" like cops and firefighters are brought up to attack people clamoring for a smaller federal government -- I feel like a Civics class should be mandatory for all citizens.
While I applaud Rand Paul on this issue and some others, I find his boilerplate conservative stance on cutting taxes, instituting austerity measures, and curtailing the social safety net offensive. Don't be a single issue voter. His stance on many civil liberties issues may be inspiring, but his other views will make our issues with wealth inequality and poverty much, much worse.
I have to disagree with you -- in this case, it isn't a matter of voting on issues, it's voting on character. There are very few politicians that aren't "bought", particularly with the voting record to back up their proposed actions. Integrity here wins out for me. If we're going to see any substantial real change (like perhaps a trickle-down voting push), we'll never see it under one of our usual partisan politicians -- we need a Ron Paul in office. The Congress will balance out his more kooky ideas, but we need someone willing to do something other than status quo Cronyism.
Do you really think that the MPAA's power is going to -- *poof* -- disappear, just because you've reduced the concentration of power in DC?
Yes
Even if you did reduce DC's power, do you have any idea how much easier it would be to bribe state and local officials, many of whom aren't even paid?
Yeah, local officials with about as much influence as a school principal. Something like SOPA is _impossible_ to implement on the state level and also equally impossible to pressure foreign countries into implementing similar schemes from a state seat. Take all the bribes they want, they wouldn't have the authority to implement the whim of the MPAA.
Public campaign financing, a constitutional amendment removing, once and for all, the horrific notion of "corporate personhood" from our system of law and government, and instant runoff elections are the things we need in order to return control of our government to the citizens it was created to serve.
And you intend to get these things from bought-and-paid-for "mainstream" candidates that get the bulk of their funding from their corporate overlords? You'd have a FAR more successful time achieving almost any of the above under a Paul presidency. But go ahead and believe what the media tells you to believe about a Paul presidency -- change is the last thing our partisan politicians and their media puppets want to happen.
Unfortunately I too find the bad outweighs the good with Ron Paul. I think a lot of his ideas are like spice. We need a dash of Ron Paul in the system; but I can't stomach a plate full of pepper.
That's what Congress is for. To keep it to a dash. I don't know why people believe a Ron Paul presidency would suddenly have gobs of success and have the government turning on a dime or something, especially when bitching in the same breath about the degree of obstructionism there is right now with our current President/Congress/government.
Economic studies have found that to respond to the global warming threat would cost 2-3% of GDP.
And you're the ones asking for proof? How in the world do you substantiate that claim? Where are these "studies"? And how do you define "respond"? Does "respond" mean "permanently solve and turn into a non-issue"?
Yes, you may have to make some adjustment's to your lifestyle but that doesn't necessarily mean it's worse, just different.
2-3% of GDP isn't a lifestyle change, it's between 292 and 437 billion dollars (based on US GDP of 14.58 trillion). We spent more than that on the bailouts, on the Iraq War, on Medicare, on Social Security, on tax cuts, etc, etc, etc -- and my lifestyle hasn't changed. I might also add you're freakin loony if you think we can "solve" global warming with a few hundred billion dollars. As an example, _conservative_ estimates say Germany would have to spend 340 billion alone to replace its nuclear industry with renewable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany), and they're maybe 25% the size of the US (oh, and 2-3% of Germany's GDP is 66-110 billion) Even if all things were equal and our energy usage was similar (which it isn't), we'd be looking at over a trillion to do the same. And of course that ignore all the other costs (cost of converting industry, transportation infrastructure, etc, etc). And this says nothing about addressing a country like India, with far larger populations and far smaller GDP. Seriously, show me this study of 2-3% GDP, because I'd be very surprised if it was truly "scientific"
You're making a political argument, not a scientific one. The fact is that solar PV power is on its way to being less expensive that coal power before 2020 so I'm not sure that Obama's statement in accurate any more.
How is that a scientific stance? By simple logic, if we had 1 trillion in "expendable dollars" lying around in 2008, we would have been far better off investing that money, letting it grow and then buying twice or three times as much solar infrastructure today with the same money. But in 2008, anyone with that kind of mindset would be labeled a denier and a planet hater. Bang for buck is a perfectly valid _and_ scientific argument -- it's the broken window fallacy. When we have a finite sum of money, there's some ideal way to spend it, and THAT is what climate skeptics focus on. AGW believers would have us spend an infinite amount of money attempting to solve something we may not even be a significant cause of, whether its an effective solution or not, simply because "its good for the planet!" (big smile, eyes closed, thumbs up). And the reality of it is that if we want _substantial short-term_ emissions change with the technology we have at our disposal, it WILL be costly -- and we want proof that this cost is justified.
If you've decided models are now invalid theoretical tools, then everything from quantum mechanics to biology just got thrown out the window.
It's funny you mention quantum, because that's a fantastic example of exactly why skeptics take such a hard line on climate models. Even quantum experts barely understand their field -- many times they have some hypothesis (like a Higgs Boson) that they have no idea if its going to happen or not, so they run tests and then adjust based on observations. That whole field is one of speculation and uncertainty. I would believe "definitely modeling the climate behavior of an entire planet -- past, present, and future" belongs in the same level of credulity. Instead, "climate scientists" somehow get a pass, where their testing and definitiveness of their conclusions is more on par with mostly proven and well understood concepts like "simple newtonian physics" and "chemistry". The fervor and decisiveness that I hear from people on the AGW train, scientist or not, is mind-boggling. It's as if the models they invented are the hand-passed testament of some divine entity, rather than the guesses of a bunch of people who have a vague idea of the total picture. So that's my question: why does climate science get treated like a "Scientific Law" rather than the "Theory" or most likely "Hypothesis" that it really is?
If they're so certain, why can't they quantify man's exact degree of impact? Why can't they say "this is how much we have to change to fix things"? Why are they always vague with quantification while being extreme and specific about how soon and drastic changes need to be?
Your "side" never publishes facts, just conjecture that will support your view [1]. Yet, your "side" is always claiming to be scientific in approach, and claiming that those who accept the evidence at hand it is happening are somehow the ones who are faith based in their outlook.
We do use science, but why should the burden of proof be on us? We're not the ones claiming the sky is falling. When you can define and prove that "reducing mankind's emissions by X will definitively reduce global temperature by Y over time period Z whereas if we do nothing, the world will end by time period Z'", then the burden of counter-proof will shift to me. Until then, you at BEST have "the world is warming, man is somehow involved, we should do some degree of 'green' things to mediate". Pardon me if I don't have alot of faith in that "conclusion" -- it certainly doesn't seem fully fleshed out to me, especially when the main question to be answered is "how much do we do to make any impactful difference?". And once again, that's not a question _I_ should have to answer with thorough details, as I am not the one who made the claim.
Taking resources away from the economy can only have a detrimental effect upon it, even if that resource is capital.
Only? You should avoid superlatives. Ever heard of the Broken Window Fallacy? How bout waste? Corruption? Inefficiency? Handouts to rich people? There's TONS of places money can go that don't impact the economy.
It's rather sad actually -- if the GOP's primary concern is ousting Obama, Ron Paul is the candidate to go with. He has an unshakable base and is very strong on both sides of the aisle. But since he doesn't stand for corporate handouts and unending wars, the GOP is trying their best to crush him.
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Those are all poor examples -- legal costs are private expenses (court costs and lawyers are not floated by taxpayers). Bigger homes are already handled proportionate by property tax value. And are you really going to tell me a guy living in Richville 90210 has more to fear from a security threat standpoint than someone living in Gangtown, Slumsville USA? If anything, the rich exert LESS on the services of the police because robbers pick on easy unsuspecting targets instead of on millionaires with insanely expensive security systems.
Well that's one hell of a slippery slope right there. It's the exact same "passive benefit" argument the rich try to use when they speak of "trickle down effects".
How are they benefiting more than anyone else in this case? (since that's what you were claiming) The poor are getting the exact same subsidized healthcare in this case.
Once again, how is this a "more"? If everyone is in the same collective pool, it's the same for everyone. If there's a "millionaire pool", I guarantee it isn't very large, and therefore not very advantageous.
Probably the only place I agree with you, and only partially, since they're going to be paying a larger share of gas taxes and tolls. This is why taxing at the point of consumption is a good thing. If you use more gas, you're taxed more. It's simple, efficient, and requires little bookkeeping. If you want to solve the regression problem, give the poor a tax credit refund. (or perhaps even prebate, ala FairTax).
And I agree with you -- so why, knowing this (and knowing that raising income taxes affects naught someone like Romney), WHY are Democrats so insistent on raising taxes on INCOME? If they have an axe to grind with the uberrich, why not focus on capital gains taxes, or tax loopholes, or foreign tax shelters, or tariffs? Instead, they propose jackass solutions like dicking with the tax brackets or hiking taxes on people jointly making 250k a year or nixing the mortgage tax deduction -- shit like that won't affect the top .01% at ALL. All you're doing is dicking over the upper middle class and the "affluent".
That's a fallacy. We've been looking into alternative energy sources, we've never stopped. That's why we've invented solar and geothermal and wind, etc, etc. What we're talking about now is the amount of money to spend addressing what many deem an issue of "near-term cataclysmic iireversible magnitude". Hence you see the problem. If the issue is so dire and so short-term that ignoring it will end the world, and we're SURE of that, it's worth spending trillions upon trillions addressing it. If on the other hand there's a bunch of people claiming the sky is falling and the true scope of the problem is complete opinion or weak science, it makes more sense to continue our current existing pace of green energy research and implementation.
Seeing as how the "other" side is referred to as "AGW proponents" or "global warming proponents", I believe changing the word "proponents" to "opponents" would accomplish an accurate description. It's especially relevant since the AGW crowd likes to lump "anyone who disagrees with them" into the "denier" category at the onset of any GW argument, without even trying to gauge their actual position first. For instance, the people who believe warming is occuring but the threats are exaggerated is a sizable crowd (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/11/americans-climate-change-threat), yet if any of them speak up, they're frequently labeled "deniers".
But he did by definition have a supermajority. If he had passed something less extreme, his party would have been lockstep behind it, just like they were with the stimulus bill and the minimum wage bill and all the other garbage that got jammed through during his presidency. The point is that he forced through a very unpopular and extreme bill that even his own party was opposed to -- that's why he is attacked for it. No one was compromising and working to come up with something sensible -- instead they were tacking on riders to buy votes to force that terrible legislation to pass as quickly as possible. And that's Obama's fault. The fact Republicans were summarily ignored and not even included in the bill design process is Obama's fault. The fact he pushed a bill that even his own party could not support is Obama's fault.
Yet even in this country, the President has a considerable amount of sway in pushing agenda.
What kind of revisionist history in this? Look for yourself: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3590 THREE of the 40 original co-sponsors are Republicans. And the final bill was intentionally shut off from Republican dialogue: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/01/04/democratic-leaders-plan-secret-health-reform-deliberations In fact, the only time Obama seriously took into account inviting Republicans to the dialogue was when he lost his supermajority and he suddenly needed a Republican vote: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-02-07-obama-health-care_N.htm
The reason they were saying "no" was because by the time they were invited to the table, the Democrats had already written like 90+% of the bill and were essentially looking for a rubber stamp -- they didn't want significant or radical changes to the hundreds of pages that had already been penned. They also wanted the bill to pass quickly for political reasons.
*rolls eyes* You libs believe whatever you want to believe, despite what the facts show -- Obama made no attempt to work with Republicans until he absolutely needed them (after he lost the supermajority) -- and Blue Dog Democrats (which even you admit to) were the ones forcing him to gut the bill to change things (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-10/politics/house.health.care_1_blue-dogs-public-option-medicare-rates?_s=PM:POLITICS). You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too -- you claim Obama didn't have a supermajority because his own party was obstructing the passage of the bill, yet you blame Republicans for obstructing the bill instead. Heck, it's the Blue Dogs to blame for the stripping of the "public option" provision: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Clearly you are the one not remembering how that went, because it wasn't Republicans he was trying to convince to get behind the bill -- it was Blue Dog Democrats (http://newsone.com/nation/associated-press/obama-visits-senate-to-push-health-care-bill/). The Republicans weren't even invited to the discussion.
4+ months is not a short time. Hell, just look at all the crap Obama passed in his first month of office. And by you saying "included people who were not automatic lockstep supporters", you're just supporting my previous argument that the Republicans were a non-issue -- Obama was at odds with his own party trying to pass that monstrous bill.
There are many things that could be done -- for instance, vote third party instead of voting for the lesser evil. Or start up protests to demand a change in the voting system (why doesn't Occupy demand runoff voting or something? you know, something actually useful for once)
Ah, the staple call of the apologist.
He didn't fuck it up - he inherited the mess!
He didn't fail to pass his bill w/ a supermajority in Congress - the Republicans obstructed it
He didn't want to pass the bill, so he strongly objected and then passed it anyways
He's not really a liberal, he's a conservative!
Ya know, fuck that -- I'm getting behind someone with some fucking principles and political integrity, Ron Paul. Go ahead and continue making excuses for your ineffective president -- he's just another member of the status quo.
This is a better chart: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_net_soc_exp_of_gdp-economy-net-social-expenditure-gdp
We're #11 in the world in total social expenditure with 23.4% of our GDP going to that purpose, yet somehow people still feel we aren't socialist enough. Moreover, they have the gall to claim we're a "pure free-market driven" country. It disgusts me.
Interstate commerce, covered by the Constitution
Except that they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_Amendment
Scale matters -- every "successful" Scandivanian Social Democracy is a tiny microcosm of a country with a small population, in essence a small group of people in a relatively similar area. Taken Sweden for instance: "Sweden, with a surface area similar to California, has a population of 9 million, with about 85% living in the southern half of the country." -- the Nordic countries are akin to STATES here in the US, where I would agree that Democratic Socialism would probably succeed. However, at the 300+ million population point across a land area of the size of the United States, it does not and can not.
Really? Why is it relevant when discussing what the federal government should have the power to do? When people rant against our President or federal Congress trying to pass socialist bills, WHY should people have to make it clear they're cool with state level programs in the same breath?
Yeah, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-left_politics), it's these screwballs: "In the USA, John George and Laird Wilcox have identified the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party (United States), Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society and Progressive Labor Party (United States) as some of the groups active on what he refers to as the "far-left".[6]"
I'll agree that's extreme, and also why I don't fully support such stances. But it also would never happen -- I support Ron Paul because his focus and his message and his integrity are solid. Congress would tame his more extreme wackier ideas. I also believe the "Extreme" element of libertarianism is the exception not the norm -- most people in that camp just want smaller government.
Well that should be obvious -- we're no longer a country governed by the Constitution -- they just do whatever the hell they want.
I imagine this is the reason our founders included "interstate commerce" within the powers delegated to the federal government through our great Constitution. Do you guys even attempt to understand that thing before you start your diatribes about the horrors of small government? The other funny attack often seen is when "state functions" like cops and firefighters are brought up to attack people clamoring for a smaller federal government -- I feel like a Civics class should be mandatory for all citizens.
I have to disagree with you -- in this case, it isn't a matter of voting on issues, it's voting on character. There are very few politicians that aren't "bought", particularly with the voting record to back up their proposed actions. Integrity here wins out for me. If we're going to see any substantial real change (like perhaps a trickle-down voting push), we'll never see it under one of our usual partisan politicians -- we need a Ron Paul in office. The Congress will balance out his more kooky ideas, but we need someone willing to do something other than status quo Cronyism.
Yes
Yeah, local officials with about as much influence as a school principal. Something like SOPA is _impossible_ to implement on the state level and also equally impossible to pressure foreign countries into implementing similar schemes from a state seat. Take all the bribes they want, they wouldn't have the authority to implement the whim of the MPAA.
And you intend to get these things from bought-and-paid-for "mainstream" candidates that get the bulk of their funding from their corporate overlords? You'd have a FAR more successful time achieving almost any of the above under a Paul presidency. But go ahead and believe what the media tells you to believe about a Paul presidency -- change is the last thing our partisan politicians and their media puppets want to happen.
That's what Congress is for. To keep it to a dash. I don't know why people believe a Ron Paul presidency would suddenly have gobs of success and have the government turning on a dime or something, especially when bitching in the same breath about the degree of obstructionism there is right now with our current President/Congress/government.
And you're the ones asking for proof? How in the world do you substantiate that claim? Where are these "studies"? And how do you define "respond"? Does "respond" mean "permanently solve and turn into a non-issue"?
2-3% of GDP isn't a lifestyle change, it's between 292 and 437 billion dollars (based on US GDP of 14.58 trillion). We spent more than that on the bailouts, on the Iraq War, on Medicare, on Social Security, on tax cuts, etc, etc, etc -- and my lifestyle hasn't changed. I might also add you're freakin loony if you think we can "solve" global warming with a few hundred billion dollars. As an example, _conservative_ estimates say Germany would have to spend 340 billion alone to replace its nuclear industry with renewable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany), and they're maybe 25% the size of the US (oh, and 2-3% of Germany's GDP is 66-110 billion) Even if all things were equal and our energy usage was similar (which it isn't), we'd be looking at over a trillion to do the same. And of course that ignore all the other costs (cost of converting industry, transportation infrastructure, etc, etc). And this says nothing about addressing a country like India, with far larger populations and far smaller GDP. Seriously, show me this study of 2-3% GDP, because I'd be very surprised if it was truly "scientific"
How is that a scientific stance? By simple logic, if we had 1 trillion in "expendable dollars" lying around in 2008, we would have been far better off investing that money, letting it grow and then buying twice or three times as much solar infrastructure today with the same money. But in 2008, anyone with that kind of mindset would be labeled a denier and a planet hater. Bang for buck is a perfectly valid _and_ scientific argument -- it's the broken window fallacy. When we have a finite sum of money, there's some ideal way to spend it, and THAT is what climate skeptics focus on. AGW believers would have us spend an infinite amount of money attempting to solve something we may not even be a significant cause of, whether its an effective solution or not, simply because "its good for the planet!" (big smile, eyes closed, thumbs up). And the reality of it is that if we want _substantial short-term_ emissions change with the technology we have at our disposal, it WILL be costly -- and we want proof that this cost is justified.
It's funny you mention quantum, because that's a fantastic example of exactly why skeptics take such a hard line on climate models. Even quantum experts barely understand their field -- many times they have some hypothesis (like a Higgs Boson) that they have no idea if its going to happen or not, so they run tests and then adjust based on observations. That whole field is one of speculation and uncertainty. I would believe "definitely modeling the climate behavior of an entire planet -- past, present, and future" belongs in the same level of credulity. Instead, "climate scientists" somehow get a pass, where their testing and definitiveness of their conclusions is more on par with mostly proven and well understood concepts like "simple newtonian physics" and "chemistry". The fervor and decisiveness that I hear from people on the AGW train, scientist or not, is mind-boggling. It's as if the models they invented are the hand-passed testament of some divine entity, rather than the guesses of a bunch of people who have a vague idea of the total picture. So that's my question: why does climate science get treated like a "Scientific Law" rather than the "Theory" or most likely "Hypothesis" that it really is?
If they're so certain, why can't they quantify man's exact degree of impact? Why can't they say "this is how much we have to change to fix things"? Why are they always vague with quantification while being extreme and specific about how soon and drastic changes need to be?
We do use science, but why should the burden of proof be on us? We're not the ones claiming the sky is falling. When you can define and prove that "reducing mankind's emissions by X will definitively reduce global temperature by Y over time period Z whereas if we do nothing, the world will end by time period Z'", then the burden of counter-proof will shift to me. Until then, you at BEST have "the world is warming, man is somehow involved, we should do some degree of 'green' things to mediate". Pardon me if I don't have alot of faith in that "conclusion" -- it certainly doesn't seem fully fleshed out to me, especially when the main question to be answered is "how much do we do to make any impactful difference?". And once again, that's not a question _I_ should have to answer with thorough details, as I am not the one who made the claim.
Uh, just a shot in the dark here, but how about "small, restricted, constitutional federal government"?
Only? You should avoid superlatives. Ever heard of the Broken Window Fallacy? How bout waste? Corruption? Inefficiency? Handouts to rich people? There's TONS of places money can go that don't impact the economy.
Quite good actually. He scores the most independents and has more democratic sway than any of the republican candidates. He's 2nd in the Republican field in any competition vs Obama. And the really funny thing is that he would be first in the field vs Obama if his own Republican constituents were willing to vote for him: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57355518-503544/poll-among-gop-hopefuls-romney-fares-best-against-obama/
It's rather sad actually -- if the GOP's primary concern is ousting Obama, Ron Paul is the candidate to go with. He has an unshakable base and is very strong on both sides of the aisle. But since he doesn't stand for corporate handouts and unending wars, the GOP is trying their best to crush him.
Is 2nd place with 23% good enough for ya?