Why do people focus on the crazy and ignore the general message? That's like people throwing "the 99%" under the bus because there's a few nazis and police car defilers in the group. Ron Paul's more extreme agendas would NEVER make it into policy, so they're irrelevant. Congress would balance Ron Paul nicely -- all putting him in office would do is shift the general agenda from "big government, corporate shills, warmongers" to "smaller government, state-focus, isolationists" -- yes, it's not ideal, but it's a FAR CRY better than any of the alternatives -- both Romney AND Obama and already bought and paid for.
OTOH, I sure don't trust him. And if I did I wouldn't want his proposals written into law.
None of his crazy would ever see the light of day -- you do realize we have checks and balances in a Congress? All putting Ron Paul into office would do is change the political focus from "bought politicians accepting handouts from corporations to do their bidding" to "shrinking government to a more sensible size". That is a win if I've ever heard of one -- maybe our government would finally work for us for once.
Libertarianism is basically a sociopathic belief system; it takes fundamentally sociopathic qualities such as lack of concern for other human beings and excessive regard for the self and then extols them as virtues.
Except you don't understand that socialism is just as much sociopathic (ifnot moreso) by saying all human beings are selfish assholes that won't lift a finger to help the less fortunate unless we take money from them at gunpoint and deliver it personally. In fact, even by the textbook definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder), sociopathic behavior deals with disregarding rights. -- in fact, DSM-IV #7 ("lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;") is an almost perfect characterization of people who rationalize sticking it to the rich in the form of taxes. As always, the only difference between what one views as evil and the other views as evil is perspective.
Even the most libertarian republicans (I'm looking at you, Ron Paul) support banning abortion.
I understand that Ron Paul's abortion stance stands somewhat in opposition to his libertarian ideals, but one or even two "case" contradictions is hardly enough for me to claim he's a hypocrite. Very few people (I'd maybe even go as far as to say nobody) is 100% consistent about any single belief. Because the world simply isn't that black and white. Ron Paul is definitely far more religious-influenced than I'd like, but as far as politicians go, he's damn close to one of the least influenced by dogma (pick your poison on dogma: religion, green, abortion, hatred of rich people, hatred of gay people, what-have-you) -- nobody's perfect.
Republicans happen to oppose Social Security programs but the fact that it would make the government smaller is the side product, not the other way around.
I don't necessarily agree with this this. Quite a few Republicans just want bang for their buck. You don't see many people attacking Welfare these days -- all the ire is against Social Security and Medicare (despite the fact all 3 are ideologically similar). The important difference is cost and bang for buck -- Welfare has been reformed already, and even if the Republicans hate poor people, they aren't targetting that program intensely because their concern is cost-cutting, and that isn't where we're spending all our money (there is definitely some hypocrisy here on defense spending support though).
The ability to use the government as a vehicle to achieve an agenda is then nullified. Keep in mind I'm not speaking of anarchy -- clearly things like antitrust and FDA and similar "core protection" mechanisms need to stay in place to guard against truly insidious things. But if you limit the government's ability to do things like say subsidizing one business over another by dumping a bunch of free money in their lap, corporations will realize that they can no lone profit as easily from government propositions and will back off the intense lobbying agenda -- the People will get their government back, working for us and not for corporate shills. So long as the amount of money that can be made from influencing the government exceeds the money it takes to perform that action, our government will be bought and paid for.
Summarizing republicans as "against big government" is a bit misleading. It's more of a "Against big government, except where it pleases us, our sponsors or enforces our belief system".
By "belief system", do you mean the Constitution? Because being "against big government" in the extreme is called Anarchy -- you have to be for something for it to be called government. Most libertarians I know (Republicans aside, since they're obviously less small government than Libs) are pretty "core functionality only", even believing religion/abortion/all-that-bullshit has no place in government either.
That cycle is broken by weakening government. So long as you continue to supply the government with an unconstrained role, those with money will continue to use that government as a puppet to achieve their own ends.
You might be forgetting half of the slogan... I think it was "No taxation without representation". A lot of the Tea Party people seem to forget the last two words.
Really? Since when have you ever felt our current government is representing the opinions of the populace? Hell, corproate-owned politicians are almost assumed at this point. Our government no longer represents "the people", so the Tea Party stance is quite valid.
I don't believe the OP meant his "eat rice" comment to be as superlative as you're making it out to be. By "Eat a carrot", I read that as "supplement with veggies" rather than "eat an occasional carrot". Regardless of what the intention was, it doesn't change the fact that the Japanese diet is an affordable diet -- by what claim do you believe they don't meet the yardstick? Mostly rice with veggies and a smattering of fish (when you can afford it) is a perfectly healthy diet. It may not be the healthiest diet, but it's certainly leagues better than mac-n-cheese and fast food, for pretty close to the same cost. Hell, if you factor in all the healthcare bills you'd be saving for not having obesity issues, I'd say it's far cheaper in the long run.
"Thanks to the relatively healthier Japanese diet and lifestyle, Japanese women and men live longer and healthier than everyone else on Earth," Moriyama tells WebMD. Not only can they expect to live 86 and 79 years respectively (compared to 80 and 75 years for Americans), but they can also anticipate an average of 75 years lived healthy and disability-free, the World Health Organization reports. On top of that, Japanese people enjoy the No. 1 lowest obesity rate in the developed world -- 3% -- versus 11% for the French and 32% for Americans, according to the International Obesity TaskForce. "You might think it's all in our genes," Moriyama says. "But when Japanese people adopt a Western-style diet, they put on weight quickly.""
"A rice foundation. The Japanese diet includes huge amounts of rice -- six times more per person than the average American's diet,"
"Veggie delight. " Japan is kind of a vegetable-crazed nation,"
"A good catch. Fish, especially fatty fish -- like Japanese favorites salmon and fresh tuna, mackerel, sardines, and herring -- are a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are known for their heart-health and mood-boosting benefits, Moriyama tells WebMD. And though Japan accounts for only 2% of the world's population, its people eat 10% of the world's fish. The flipside of Japan's fish craze means the Japanese eat less red meat, which contains artery-clogging saturated fat that, if eaten to excess, can lead to obesity and heart disease."
To sum up, the vast, vast majority of the Japanese diet is rice, and they're some of the healthiest people on the planet. They supplement with veggies and fish. The only debate remaining is how much the fish are attributable to their good health, because it's the only really "expensive" part of their diet. So I'd say the OP is at least partially onto something, however deeply you're concerned with harping on a singular mistake he made.
So I suppose you use "smooth scrolling" in browsers then? Since merely instantaneously showing a new page of data (by say, pushing page up or page down) would be confusing without a transition effect?
If one of the available investments includes very low risk but low yield (say treasuries) investments which seems entirely appropriate (esp. as one nears retirement), transferring funds into that investment surely would be allowed.
Why is this an assumption? As is, I can't choose to pre-emptively withdraw the Social Security money that is "owed to me" until I turn 62, regardless of fear of availability/insolvency. Why can't a replacement that invests safely long-term in the market have a similar stipulation? There's no reason to assume the panic reaction will be available.
I'm pretty sure the Fed would end up with little political choice but to do the same to Fed401(k) holders if they constrained investors choices such that investors unnecessarily lost a significant portion of their retirement savings.
Is that any different with the way Social Security is being handled now? There's no guarantee my benefits will be the same down the road when I can start drawing from it. The "minimum age" may go up -- the benefits may go down -- who knows -- I could very easily "lose a significant portion of my retirement savings" as is -- hell, it might not even be there when I retire. If anything, the Fed401(k) idea takes it one step closer to "reliable income".
Also, isn't participation in TSP voluntary?
It is. I was just using it as a comparative example of a constrained retirement savings plan (where people can't just throw all their money into the latest IPO and cross their fingers).
No, what is sad is that you lack reading comprehension or reasoning skills.
Wow, another assumption. Does your belittling of your opponent (assumption of inferiority) help you prop up your world beliefs? Or are you just an ass? I'll assume it's some combination of both.
Discretionary spending isn't total spending. It's a fictional line drawn in the budget so that lawmakers don't have to address where the bulk of our debt truly comes from (namely Mandatory Spending). Defense spending is 30% of total spending. If you don't believe this, show me where Medicare or Social Security is in that pie of yours.
. Social security or programs like that are actually how society to wants to do retirement. They're low gain because they're fucking low risk. That is how you should do your base retirement, so, you know, people don't lose all their money.
Who says that's what society wants? I'm part of society and I want bang for my buck. Never in the entire history of this country (depressions/recessions included) has a 30 year span seen a net loss in the market. Never. That tells me that investing _long-term_ in index funds is a very safe way to invest. The problem, as always, is that no one is thinking long term, they're all thinking short-term. They're the same people that still today thought the worth of their houses actually doubled in value and that they've lost money, when in truth the total value of their house is probably still worth more than it was two decades ago and all they truly lost was the artificial boom that wasn't real wealth in the first place.
While it's tempting to think that individuals would take "individual responsibility" for their retirement via a "Fed401(k)", it won't end up that way. Those that lose money or realize inadequate returns (due to bad investment decisions, being taken advantage of, or just bad luck)
That seems like an easy fix -- have a limited number of investment options, similar to the government's TSP program. Index funds only, and make it so you can't withdraw money prior to retirement. Those two things would fix the vast majority of situations in which people lose money in the stock market (risky investing, and getting scared and removing money during market drops). To me, this is a no-brainer, _especially_ because a Fed401(k) would at least mean the money is MINE, tangibly, in a bank account (rather than the "trust us. it'll be there when you need it" that Social Security is).
It's sad that you make as many assumptions as you do. You also appear to give voters enough credit to know what's going on (to hold politicians accountable) while in the same breath claiming they don't put in the time to understand the ideas.
so the woman has to interrupt, at which point she's "pushy" for interrupting.
Sometimes, it's the attitude that the woman brings to the table that is a turn-off. For many of the reasons you've mentioned, women frequently have a chip on their shoulder that leads to very over-assertive almost aggressive behavior.
This isn't some utopian ideal It happens in the socialist countries of Europe.
Which ones? The bankrupt ones? Greece is a wonderful model of superb vacation time and job security/pensions, right? As usual, the belief that we can simply wish all these wonderful things into being without any cost or detrimental effect to our economy/standard-of-living is disingenuous at best and outright delusion at worst.
Similarly who is paying for the "more vacation time" you speak of? And who is creating the jobs? You really do act as if there's some magic genie that could snap his fingers and make all this stuff appear. Right now our country is looking to CUT costs, because we SPEND TOO MUCH. And you want more handouts? How bout we start by finding what is actually causing our healthcare bills to be so high and address that (rather than handing out healthcare to everyone, no matter what the cost!)
Fact is, the US didn't join, Germany joined. Germany made a lot more progress than the US.
That's cherry picking at its finest. Germany is far and away the greenest country out there as it is in the process of converting 100% over to solar (a plan proceeding Kyoto). Why don't you look up any of the other countries that have joined Kyoto? What of the average between them?
Actually, it in fact is that hard. Centuries of economic evolution has shown that capitalism is the most robust system out there. Part of the reason for this is because it rewards greediness, as humans are inherently selfish. Therefore society is driven by our our selfish desires. Every single other alternate I've seen proposed ignores this basic precept and assumes quite a few things (like perfect governance, or an altruistic human being). If you can come up with a realistic economic system that works within the bounds of reality (i.e. with greedy human beings) that functions better than capitalism, go for it. No one has accomplished that task. The best system so far incorporates limited regulation with heavy antitrust, but in practically every other way is unrestricted capitalism.
It isn't as simple as that. Based on current technology we can improve on previous designs, but it is likely that there are problems we have not thought of which will come to light in the future.
Why do you believe this criticism is isolated to nuclear power and none of the alternate energy power systems?
Well nuclear hardly has a spotless record
Only if you're talking about the record of ~50 year old designs. Seeing as how the first nuclear plant came online in December of 1951, we're basically talking about gen 1 technology. Chernobyl was commissioned in 1977, 3 Mile Island in 1974, and Fukushima in 1971. Show me something built in the last couple decades that has imploded. Claiming nuclear has a poor track record because of accidents in early gen designs is like writing off modern automobiles because the Edsel sucked. We learn and adapt, as with all technologies.
Slashdot Mirror
It's funny you say that, because when I think of all the truly ludicrously broken spells, the source is invariably the PH2
Why do people focus on the crazy and ignore the general message? That's like people throwing "the 99%" under the bus because there's a few nazis and police car defilers in the group. Ron Paul's more extreme agendas would NEVER make it into policy, so they're irrelevant. Congress would balance Ron Paul nicely -- all putting him in office would do is shift the general agenda from "big government, corporate shills, warmongers" to "smaller government, state-focus, isolationists" -- yes, it's not ideal, but it's a FAR CRY better than any of the alternatives -- both Romney AND Obama and already bought and paid for.
None of his crazy would ever see the light of day -- you do realize we have checks and balances in a Congress? All putting Ron Paul into office would do is change the political focus from "bought politicians accepting handouts from corporations to do their bidding" to "shrinking government to a more sensible size". That is a win if I've ever heard of one -- maybe our government would finally work for us for once.
Except you don't understand that socialism is just as much sociopathic (ifnot moreso) by saying all human beings are selfish assholes that won't lift a finger to help the less fortunate unless we take money from them at gunpoint and deliver it personally. In fact, even by the textbook definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder), sociopathic behavior deals with disregarding rights. -- in fact, DSM-IV #7 ("lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;") is an almost perfect characterization of people who rationalize sticking it to the rich in the form of taxes. As always, the only difference between what one views as evil and the other views as evil is perspective.
I understand that Ron Paul's abortion stance stands somewhat in opposition to his libertarian ideals, but one or even two "case" contradictions is hardly enough for me to claim he's a hypocrite. Very few people (I'd maybe even go as far as to say nobody) is 100% consistent about any single belief. Because the world simply isn't that black and white. Ron Paul is definitely far more religious-influenced than I'd like, but as far as politicians go, he's damn close to one of the least influenced by dogma (pick your poison on dogma: religion, green, abortion, hatred of rich people, hatred of gay people, what-have-you) -- nobody's perfect.
I don't necessarily agree with this this. Quite a few Republicans just want bang for their buck. You don't see many people attacking Welfare these days -- all the ire is against Social Security and Medicare (despite the fact all 3 are ideologically similar). The important difference is cost and bang for buck -- Welfare has been reformed already, and even if the Republicans hate poor people, they aren't targetting that program intensely because their concern is cost-cutting, and that isn't where we're spending all our money (there is definitely some hypocrisy here on defense spending support though).
The ability to use the government as a vehicle to achieve an agenda is then nullified. Keep in mind I'm not speaking of anarchy -- clearly things like antitrust and FDA and similar "core protection" mechanisms need to stay in place to guard against truly insidious things. But if you limit the government's ability to do things like say subsidizing one business over another by dumping a bunch of free money in their lap, corporations will realize that they can no lone profit as easily from government propositions and will back off the intense lobbying agenda -- the People will get their government back, working for us and not for corporate shills. So long as the amount of money that can be made from influencing the government exceeds the money it takes to perform that action, our government will be bought and paid for.
By "belief system", do you mean the Constitution? Because being "against big government" in the extreme is called Anarchy -- you have to be for something for it to be called government. Most libertarians I know (Republicans aside, since they're obviously less small government than Libs) are pretty "core functionality only", even believing religion/abortion/all-that-bullshit has no place in government either.
That cycle is broken by weakening government. So long as you continue to supply the government with an unconstrained role, those with money will continue to use that government as a puppet to achieve their own ends.
Really? Since when have you ever felt our current government is representing the opinions of the populace? Hell, corproate-owned politicians are almost assumed at this point. Our government no longer represents "the people", so the Tea Party stance is quite valid.
I don't believe the OP meant his "eat rice" comment to be as superlative as you're making it out to be. By "Eat a carrot", I read that as "supplement with veggies" rather than "eat an occasional carrot". Regardless of what the intention was, it doesn't change the fact that the Japanese diet is an affordable diet -- by what claim do you believe they don't meet the yardstick? Mostly rice with veggies and a smattering of fish (when you can afford it) is a perfectly healthy diet. It may not be the healthiest diet, but it's certainly leagues better than mac-n-cheese and fast food, for pretty close to the same cost. Hell, if you factor in all the healthcare bills you'd be saving for not having obesity issues, I'd say it's far cheaper in the long run.
Japan. http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/diets-of-world-japanese-diet
Some choice quotes:
To sum up, the vast, vast majority of the Japanese diet is rice, and they're some of the healthiest people on the planet. They supplement with veggies and fish. The only debate remaining is how much the fish are attributable to their good health, because it's the only really "expensive" part of their diet. So I'd say the OP is at least partially onto something, however deeply you're concerned with harping on a singular mistake he made.
So I suppose you use "smooth scrolling" in browsers then? Since merely instantaneously showing a new page of data (by say, pushing page up or page down) would be confusing without a transition effect?
Why is this an assumption? As is, I can't choose to pre-emptively withdraw the Social Security money that is "owed to me" until I turn 62, regardless of fear of availability/insolvency. Why can't a replacement that invests safely long-term in the market have a similar stipulation? There's no reason to assume the panic reaction will be available.
Is that any different with the way Social Security is being handled now? There's no guarantee my benefits will be the same down the road when I can start drawing from it. The "minimum age" may go up -- the benefits may go down -- who knows -- I could very easily "lose a significant portion of my retirement savings" as is -- hell, it might not even be there when I retire. If anything, the Fed401(k) idea takes it one step closer to "reliable income".
It is. I was just using it as a comparative example of a constrained retirement savings plan (where people can't just throw all their money into the latest IPO and cross their fingers).
Wow, another assumption. Does your belittling of your opponent (assumption of inferiority) help you prop up your world beliefs? Or are you just an ass? I'll assume it's some combination of both.
Now they'll be forced to trim the fat in the budget. They can start by firing anyone who even thinks about trying to muck with the UI.
Discretionary spending isn't total spending. It's a fictional line drawn in the budget so that lawmakers don't have to address where the bulk of our debt truly comes from (namely Mandatory Spending). Defense spending is 30% of total spending. If you don't believe this, show me where Medicare or Social Security is in that pie of yours.
Who says that's what society wants? I'm part of society and I want bang for my buck. Never in the entire history of this country (depressions/recessions included) has a 30 year span seen a net loss in the market. Never. That tells me that investing _long-term_ in index funds is a very safe way to invest. The problem, as always, is that no one is thinking long term, they're all thinking short-term. They're the same people that still today thought the worth of their houses actually doubled in value and that they've lost money, when in truth the total value of their house is probably still worth more than it was two decades ago and all they truly lost was the artificial boom that wasn't real wealth in the first place.
That seems like an easy fix -- have a limited number of investment options, similar to the government's TSP program. Index funds only, and make it so you can't withdraw money prior to retirement. Those two things would fix the vast majority of situations in which people lose money in the stock market (risky investing, and getting scared and removing money during market drops). To me, this is a no-brainer, _especially_ because a Fed401(k) would at least mean the money is MINE, tangibly, in a bank account (rather than the "trust us. it'll be there when you need it" that Social Security is).
It's sad that you make as many assumptions as you do. You also appear to give voters enough credit to know what's going on (to hold politicians accountable) while in the same breath claiming they don't put in the time to understand the ideas.
Sometimes, it's the attitude that the woman brings to the table that is a turn-off. For many of the reasons you've mentioned, women frequently have a chip on their shoulder that leads to very over-assertive almost aggressive behavior.
Which ones? The bankrupt ones? Greece is a wonderful model of superb vacation time and job security/pensions, right? As usual, the belief that we can simply wish all these wonderful things into being without any cost or detrimental effect to our economy/standard-of-living is disingenuous at best and outright delusion at worst.
Maybe, just maybe, the healthcare equation isn't as simple as "implement universal healthcare, solve all problems". http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/09/where_are_healt.html
Similarly who is paying for the "more vacation time" you speak of? And who is creating the jobs? You really do act as if there's some magic genie that could snap his fingers and make all this stuff appear. Right now our country is looking to CUT costs, because we SPEND TOO MUCH. And you want more handouts? How bout we start by finding what is actually causing our healthcare bills to be so high and address that (rather than handing out healthcare to everyone, no matter what the cost!)
We call that robbery "Social Security"
That's cherry picking at its finest. Germany is far and away the greenest country out there as it is in the process of converting 100% over to solar (a plan proceeding Kyoto). Why don't you look up any of the other countries that have joined Kyoto? What of the average between them?
Actually, it in fact is that hard. Centuries of economic evolution has shown that capitalism is the most robust system out there. Part of the reason for this is because it rewards greediness, as humans are inherently selfish. Therefore society is driven by our our selfish desires. Every single other alternate I've seen proposed ignores this basic precept and assumes quite a few things (like perfect governance, or an altruistic human being). If you can come up with a realistic economic system that works within the bounds of reality (i.e. with greedy human beings) that functions better than capitalism, go for it. No one has accomplished that task. The best system so far incorporates limited regulation with heavy antitrust, but in practically every other way is unrestricted capitalism.
Why do you believe this criticism is isolated to nuclear power and none of the alternate energy power systems?
Only if you're talking about the record of ~50 year old designs. Seeing as how the first nuclear plant came online in December of 1951, we're basically talking about gen 1 technology. Chernobyl was commissioned in 1977, 3 Mile Island in 1974, and Fukushima in 1971. Show me something built in the last couple decades that has imploded. Claiming nuclear has a poor track record because of accidents in early gen designs is like writing off modern automobiles because the Edsel sucked. We learn and adapt, as with all technologies.