Yet you still come back because, at heart, you know I'm not the caricature you paint me to be.
I keep coming back in the hopes that some of what I'm saying is sinking in or, at least, making yout think more deeply about the subjects.
And the idea that overpopulation of anything other than gay bath houses gave rise to AIDS in the US is delusion
Overpopulation is what allows diseases to mutate quickly. If you have a million infected hosts rather than ten thousand, then the disease has one hundred times the opportunity to mutate, possibly becoming more deadly and infectious. Sure, a primary means of spread was through gay bath houses, but no one in those bath houses at the time had any knowledge of AIDS. It took the scientific community years to figure out what the disease was and how it was transmitted. I'm sure that you will tell me how the Bible condemns homosexuality, but that's the same Bible that says it's okay to have and beat slaves (Leviticus 25:44-46 and Exodus 21:20-21, respectively), so I don't put much "faith" into the Bible as a moral compass.
But you ignore that the US has more trees now than when the Indians had exclusive run of the place.
This message brought to you by Weyerhaeuser... You have fallen for the logging industry propaganda where they fell an old-growth forest and then count the saplings they planted. Ever wonder why they don't give meaningful numbers like standing board-feet of trees? You're talking to the wrong guy on this one. I worked on a satellite whose purpose was to measure the vegetation canopy and foliage density and I am well aware of the distortions perpetrated by the logging industry.
But you ignore that for the first time alternative energy in the form of hydrogen is starting to be an economically practical alternative in more and more cases.
It's not becoming practical for passenger cars any time soon. To use it in gaseous form safely requires tanks that are rated to 20,000psi, about three times what a scuba tank is rated for. To use it in liquid form requires keeping it chilled to -423 degrees Fahrenheit or lower at the pump and kept that way in the vehicle. The refrigeration requires a lot of energy, and insulating the tank makes it impractically large. Even with the best insulation, as much as 4 percent of the liquid evaporates daily, creating pressure that can only be relieved by bleeding off the vapor. Because of that, a car parked for two weeks would lose half its fuel. Fuel cell technology, in which the hydrogen is absorbed into solids, has its own problems. A lot of energy is required to imbue the fuel cell with hydrogen, and, in some cases, extremely high temperatures are required to get the hydrogen back out, exacting a huge toll in efficiency. Also, filling a fuel cell takes far more time than pumping gasoline -- so much so that consumers would not consider it a viable alternative. Bush is pushing hydrogen because he knows that it won't be a viable solution any time soon and, thus, will be no threat to the oil barons that helped fund his campaign.
Your fundamental unfairness is exposed when you tout Hitler's supposed Catholicism as a black mark on religion but claim it's unfair that Stalin's atheism should be marked against that system.
That was a false accusation. I was unaware the Hitler was Catholic and never suggested that his atrocities were a reflection on Catholicism. I pointed out the similarity of his beliefs on homosexuality to your own, but, at no point did I ever claim that Catholicism had anything to do with it. I challenge you to go back through the discussion and show me where I even so much as referred to Hitler as a Catholic. Had I indicted Catholicism by way of Hitler's actions, then I wold agree that your retort regarding Stalin was justified -- but I did not and it was not. Bringing up Stalin to denigrate atheists is an old trick of the religious right, and I was not about to set you up to pull it on
Duct tape is great stuff, if only because no othery type of tape is as strong
Huh? Have you ever seen fiber-reinforced packing tape? If you tried to tear that like duct tape, it would cut off your fingers. There are also tapes that includ carbon fiber, Kevlar, fiberglass, and polyester. Duct tape may be strong compared to masking tape or clear tape, but it's pretty-darned weak compared to many other types of tape.
I'm tired of dealing with you and your right-wing Christian ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry. It's been a complete waste of my time to try to debate with someone who has so little understanding of environmentalism, economics, and history. You have debated in an intellectually dishonest and vacuous manner throughout, ignoring points for which you lacked a glib retort and making broad generalizations based on prejudice. Your logic is flawed. Your debating tactics are reprehensible, and your anti-gay, anti-atheist, anti-government snipes are despicable.
Blaming atheism for Stalin's bloody reign is absurd and just makes your prejudice clear. There was no organized atheist movement advocating the killing of millions of people (it wasn't like the Christian Crusades). During World War II, when things were going poorly for the Russian armies, Stalin reinstated the Orthodox Church hierarchy to serve 'Mother Russia.' In fact, Stalin's tyranny was based on the totalitarian premises that he learned from religion: Unquestioning obedience, reverence for a deity-figure (in human form) as well as a pie-in-the-sky utopian vision.
Your apartment analogy is flawed because renters can't upgrade facilities, they can't open up the empty apartments next door, and they can't build a new, more adequate building. In the real world, people do this all the time.
So are you suggesting that, as overpopulation poisons the planet, that we just "build a new, more adequate" one? We are running out of oil, natural gas reserves, old-growth forests, and fish in the oceans. We have damaged the Earth's ozone layer. We have poisoned the air and water with pollution. Species like frogs, plentiful only a few decades ago, are now endangered. Asthma among children is reaching epidemic proportions. Overpopulation has given rise to the spread and mutation of diseases ranging from AIDS to SARS.
Congrats, you just failed ECO101.
You lack the knowledge and intelligence to judge that. What happens when, through overpopulation, global warming completely destabilizes the planet or an epidemic wipes out the human race? Oh, right, you'll die and go to "heaven." That's the one thing that sucks about being an atheist: I don't have some ignorant, primitive belief in an afterlife in which I will get to say "I told you so."
Yes. I've been very restrained in not pointing out how your social beliefs are in line with those of Hitler.
Some of them (certainly not Catholics exclusively) don't believe in birth control as a matter of doctrine. Orthodox Christians, for example, permit it only on the basis of a special pleading that it's just too hard. But you don't go after pro-life sentiment, you go after Catholics. What an ignorant bigot you are.
Go f*** yourself, you stupid, ignorant, bigoted, homophobic, right-wing zealot. The Catholics are the best known religious group that preaches birth control and, by way of effect, in favor of the spread of STDs. You may not like that because of your emotional crutch that religion provides to you, but that's fact.
Europe, not generally considered a hellhole of overpopulation has approximately 10x the population density of the US.
So if we breed until our population density matches that of Europe, how will that affect air pollution, water pollution, depletion of world oil reserves, and deforestation? You don't seem to get that the environment is global. Let's say that we could manage to cut energy consumption and pollution per person in half. If out population increased by a factor of ten, pollution would go up by a factor of five as would consumption of energy. The world needs forested areas. Cut down the forests and you cripple nature's ability to convert CO2 into oxygen. Mankind has depleted the edible species of fish in the ocean to the point that it is a crisis.
To put it into a more manageable scale for you, suppose that there was a two-bedroom apartment with 10 people living in it. Would you assume that the plumbing and hot water for the building could cope with ten people in every apartment? Would you think that the laundry facilities were up to the task? Would you assume that the dumpsters had adequate capacity to have 10 people in each apartment?
The only way out of imminent collapse was invasion and resource stripping.
So as long as we don't invade, resource stripping is okay? We sure don't have enough oil reserves in this country to sustain a population doubling every 54 years. So we strip the world's oil reserves. We strip the oceans. We strip the forests and import wood from all over the world. Depleting resources, whether through theft or through trade, is still a problem.
The heart of the problem was substituting government judgement for private judgement over what should be funded, what should not be.
That makes as much sense and condemning all forms of private investment because of the Great Depression of the 1930's.
But, again, you're just making a straw man argument. I never suggested that the government judgement about what should be funded. I suggested that the government allow private firms to invest Social Security. So that is not the government deciding what should be funded at all, in any way, shape, or form.
People have two hands as well as a mouth and in a free society produce more than they consume on average.
So why do we have to import oil? Why do we have to import lumber? Why do we have to import fish? The reason is because we can't produce oil reserves. We can't produce old-growth forests. We can't produce fish in the ocean. The only thing that I am convinced we will overproduce is pollution.
This is too serious to get wrong.
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You can't easily go deaf from loud bass.
Absolutely incorrect. Loud bass is, in fact, a sure-fire way of damaging your hearing. Read this information from an audiologist and come back when you finish.
Most noise-related deafness is from high frequencies.
Again, wrong. Hearing damage usually manifests itself as a degradation in the ability to hear high frequencies. But you are mistaking cause and effect. The hearing loss can be caused by excessive SPLs (sound pressure levels) at any audio, or even subsonic, frequency. If your hearing was damaged by 20hz bass at an excessive volume, the effect would probably be a loss of ability to hear high frequencies, but that does not mean that the high frequencies caused the hearing loss.
To get back to the ratio available when SS was founded, we'd need to have massive population growth, not piddly 1.3% growth.
Piddly? That's doubling the population every 54 years! Do you have any kind of idea of the type of strain that puts on the environment? The Catholic idea of encouraging breeding to the point of standing-room-only would lead to environmental disaster. We've already overfished the world's oceans, pumped much of the petroleum reserves out of the ground, and polluted the air, water, and land enough to affect the health of both man and animals. There are already children starving to death all over the world. Bring those kids here. The world would be a lot better off with people, whether straight or gay, adopting those children.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad that your best idea for reform is Hitler's failed economic program of private ownership and government control of companies.
Since I didn't mention Hitler or Nazis when you referred to the "morally corrosive" effect of homosexuality on society, you better back off.
If the government hands money to Fidelity to invest, then the government neither owns, nor controls, any private companies through the Social Security fund. It would be a simple matter for Congress to include a provision in the legislation which made the investment a blind trust and barred the voting on shares bought with government funds.
Meaningful reforms are not accomplished by simply adding dollars.
I did not say that was a reform. That is a separate action which would benefit the social programs.
The right's pushing for meaningful reforms while the left is pushing to halt reform or gut it if they can't halt it.
No, the right is pushing for a way to give tax dollars to religious organizations. They are trying to turn Soc. Sec. into a game where those who are good at playing the market will get significantly more from their Soc. Sec. dollars than the average person.
When work requirements were proposed, the left railed against them, then when they became inevitable, argued for keeping them weak, and when they were passed have consistently argued for not strengthening them or reducing them.
What the left rallied against was stupid Republican ideas like forcing single mothers to work while providing no child care. They rallied against forcing welfare recipients to work long hours with no time off to find a real, private-sector job. That fought against efforts to make mothers take minimum wage jobs with no healthcare for their children.
But, if you knew a little bit more about history, you would know that the most sweeping welfare reforms ever signed into law by any President were the ones that Clinton signed. Congress did not override his veto. He signed the bills into law. You would also know that the first state to ever put workfare into practice had a Democratic governor.
The current incarnation of this on social program reforms is to retain government control over investment decisions and unleash the SS trust fund et al from their current investment limitations imposed to try to ensure that we wouldn't have socialism via the back door of govt. buying up firms in the stock market.
Of course the government should retain control of money collected through taxes. Why collect the money if the government is just going to turn around and give it back, saying "invest it!" Talk about gross inefficiencies.
But the fact is that many people lack the knowledge, skills, and even time to effectively invest. It's an idea that sucks and one that does everything to make sure that the playing field is not level. Professionals working white-collar jobs that have experience investing have a big advantage over, for example, a widow working two low-paying jobs to support her and her kids. Sorry, but your investing skills don't mean that you should get a better ROI from a government retirement program.
Your observation on the US population is similar to your prior one on overcrowding. The US has a birthrate that hovers right around replacement level and only grows via immigration.
You said that the programs needed a growing working population to sustain them. I showed you clearly, and with graphics, that the population is growing and, in fact, I was the one that had to tell you that immigration was a factor. Your whole point was that we needed to encourage heterosexual breeding to increase the population. I proved you wrong. Get over it.
All of them pretty much require growing populations to manage things so x retirees are always supported by y workers where y is significantly larger than x.
Those projections are based on not having any meaningful reform of the programs. But all of those programs would be in substantially better shape had Bush put billions of dollars into them rather than spending that money killing people in Iraq (remember the imaginary "weapons of mass destruction" he used to justify the war?).
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953
Since we're at the leading edge of a world-wide population implosion (everybody's birth rates are dropping fast, including the 3rd world) This makes for big trouble.
Where do you get these notions? According to the Census, the U.S. population is growing at a rate of 1.3% per year. If it keeps steady at that rate, the population of the U.S. will double in 54 years. Here's map showing population growth rate by state for the years 1990 - 2000. You will note that every state had a population increase, with an average of 13.2% increase. Births are not the only measurement. You ignore the effects of immigration.
Modern society has been constructed to pack people tightly in order for them to travel less and have wide access to the specialized resources of the city.
Someone who sits in bumper to bumper, stop and go rush-hour traffic is not travelling "less." They may be travelling a shorter distance, but they are spending more time doing it. I've watched my commute over double in time over the last ten years. I don't have easier access to city resources. It's gotten far worse. I used to be able to easily drive anywhere in the DC metro area. Now I have to carefully plan to avoid rush-hour, look for alternate routes, and turn down jobs that I could have accepted were the traffic not so bad.
If people like you have their way and halt reform, they're likely to end up being proved right.
Even during this discussion, I have proposed meaningful reform to government programs. I specifically recommended that the government let contracts to private firms to invest the money in Social Security. You countered with "It's quite likely that the federal government would be unable to resist the temptation to throw its weight around and pressure firms not to invest in tobacco or other undesirable firms." That was quite ironic given that you favor the government throwing its weight around and witholding funds from any group that "promotes a morally corrosive message."
Maybe this is just a tangent to your point, but I like to point it out because it's one of my priorities.
I share that priority. My car is a VW Golf TDI diesel. It gets almost 50mpg while its CO2 emissions are about 20% less than a conventional gasoline engine. And the emission levels from diesel engines tend to remain more-or-less constant throughout the life of the engine (gasoline engines tend to have higher emissions as the engine gets older).
The Concorde was a design from the 60's. Look at how far conventional passenger jets have progressed in the years since the Concorde entered commercial service. Had the same level of effort been expended on passenger SSTs, who knows how far we might have come?
I was sorry that the SST became a status symbol for the rich rather than a way to shrink the globe for the normal traveler. I'd much rather see efforts expended at coming up with practical, efficient, and clean passenger SSTs than see huge sums of tax dollars put towards yet another killing machine.
The Concorde is not being retired by american companies.
Nor did I say that it was.
The retirement of the Concorde is leaving a hole and is a sad step backwards for mankind -- regardless of who built and flew it. I grew up when the Concorde was being developed. I remember the belief that we were entering a new phase of aviation, where travel between continents would become quick and convenient rather than a marathon test of one's ability to deal with discomfort, cramped seating, and claustrophobic surroundings. My point was that mankind would be much better off if we concentrated on the supersonic transport of passengers rather than bombs.
The Concorde was neither built by a US company nor operated by a US airline.
Nor did I say that it was. My point was that the only supersonic transport in the world is being retired (regardless of by who) and, rather than building a more modern and cost-efficient replacement for that, we are considering building a hypersonic bomber.
Bombers tend to operate from airfields where the neighbors (if there are any) really don't mind sonic booms.
SSTs weren't intended to fly people from North Carolina to South Carolina. Their routes are intercontinental and would typically be primarily over the ocean. Few fish are offended by sonic booms. When a flight from the U.S. to Australia is in the 20 hour timeframe, an SST would sure be welcome.
Delivering weapons quickly is more important than deivering people quickly.
No, it is not. Having enough firepower to wipe out all life on Earth and being able to destroy any village in the world within two hours is nothing to be proud of.
The act of delivering bombs is a life-and-death matter, not just death.
No, it is just a death matter. Delivering a bomb via hypersonic jet is just horrifying. As if ICBM's weren't bad enough... I'd rather have a less effective military and more effective means of getting people to other countries. We'd be a lot less hated if we delivered tourists and businessmen, rather than bombs, to foreign countries.
The only supersonic passenger plane (the Concorde) is being retired and DARPA wants to build a bomber that travels three times as fast. There's something screwed up in this country when we place a higher value on delivering bombs than people.
I think I spent enough time typing to get my point across.
As have I.
That's my position and you should be bright enough to apply it to all your other unanswered questions.
I didn't think you wanted to actually answer the tough questions.
I do find it funny that your last example implies that homosexual atheists have a special talent for clothing.
It doesn't imply anything of the type. It was just fitting two "conduct-based" groups (heterosexuals and Christians) to an existing example, that's all.
The lowest incidence of sexual disease transmission is among the celibate, then amongst the monogomous.
Actually, monogomous lesbians have a lower STD rate than monogomous heterosexual couples (Why? Suppose a partner contracts AIDS through tainted blood transfusion. A lesbian partner has much lower chance of contracting the disease than heterosexual partner.)
Somebody's got to repopulate the country as we all grow old and die. To ignore such basic facts of life is the sign of somebody quite young or in a very sheltered environment. You aren't, by chance, in academia are you?
I'm 42 years old and my life has not, in any way, been sheltered. Try again. There is no shortage of people in this country. In fact, as I sit in traffic that gets worse on a monthly basis, it's apparent that breeding is not something that needs to be encouraged. A few more couples that weren't producing children would ge a very good thing.
You did better at answering, but you still missed some:
Should a Wiccan group that runs a homeless shelter, which is replete with Wiccan literature and proselytizers, qualify for government funding?
-- and --
Since you advocate that the government attempt to influence sexual behavior to reduce the spread of AIDS, would you be in favor of school sex ed programs encouraging lesbianism? Lesbians have the lowest rate of sexually transmitted diseases of any identified sexual orientation.
I'll see your Madison and raise you a Washington.
The quote from Washington expressed his belief in God and his desire that all Americans share it. But he did not advocate government giving money to religious organizations. Also, since he had a much more minor role in writing the Constitution than did Madison, I cannot give his interpretation the same weight.
On the GMHC, they're fixated on condoms. As such, they're stuck on advocating the 3rd most effective anti-AIDS message (abstinence and monogomy being #1 and 2 respectively, see Uganda). They're a poor use of taxpayer's resources because of that.
They are fixated on providing a means of prevention that will be used and accepted. You can preach all you want about monogamy and abstinance, but if the audience doesn't accept those ideas, then you wasted your time, theirs, and maybe cost some of them their lives.
Now the response is that gays are born that way after all but heaven forbid that somebody try for a cure.
You act as if it's a disease or deformity. Some people are born with red hair. Should we seek a "cure" for that, too?
As to your last paragraph, asked and answered. I won't fall for your trick of mixing conduct groups with factors at birth and without control by the individual.
Just how did you answer the question about a Wiccan-run charity?
So I'll re-phrase the other question so as to use conduct-based discrimination: Suppose that the best available supplier of U.S. military uniforms openly refused to hire heterosexuals and Christians. Should the government give the contract to that firm?
Re:Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism)
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There's only one problem. It's quite likely that the federal government would be unable to resist the temptation to throw its weight around and pressure firms not to invest in tobacco or other undesirable firms.
That's fine. The feds should have banned tobacco sales years ago just as they did asbestos when they discovered its carcinogenic properties. Tobacco-related illnesses have cost taxpayers huge sums of money. Could you even imagine trying to bring a product as harmful as tobacco to market today?
So, it still sounds like my solution is a superb one.
Due to erroneous editing the following sentence from the parent message includes an additional word, shown in brackets:
"If you want the latest Goo Goo Dolls CD and find that it's copy-protected by Warner Brothers, you cannot buy a version that is [not] from some other label."
It makes much more sense without that word "not." Sorry.
You have no idea what I give in charity, how many people I help, and what impact my charitable actions have.
I may not be right, but I have a very good idea. When it comes to specifics like identifying what private sector charities could meet the needs of the poor served by government, you are suspiciously mum. And when you lack a coherent explanation for how private charities could step in and fill the needs of the poor, I can see no other exlanation than personal greed for advocating that government aid be terminated.
You would rather 10,000 people be helped with X dollars instead of 12,000 people be helped because the more efficient provider happens to be a christian organization.
Here are a couple of questions that I want answered in your reply. I'm serious. I want answers. Don't just pretend that you didn't read them: Suppose that a gay advocacy group provided meals to the poor while telling them about how wonderful the gay lifestyle was. Would you advocate government funds for that charity? Should a Wiccan group that runs a homeless shelter, which is replete with Wiccan literature and proselytizers, qualify for government funding?
As to numbers, the government should help all who need it. If they can't afford to without raising taxes, then raise the taxes of those most able to pay -- the wealthy. It seems only fair that those who have benefitted most from our society pay the most.
GMHC wouldn't be funded and there wouldn't be much of an AIDS epidemic in the US because we wouldn't have spent years worrying about homosexual feelings instead of taking standard anti-epidemic measures like closing down gay bath houses which served as transmission centers and cost so many people their lives.
Right. It's a gay problem. Isaac Asimov died of AIDS from a tainted blood transfusion during surgery. The vast majority of AIDS cases in Africa were brought on through heterosexual sex. Children are being born with AIDS. Those damned gay men. In the U.S., right-wing religious groups go into frenzied protests every time it is suggested that schools provide condoms or sex education -- both proven methods of reducing sexually transmitted diseases as well as unwanted pregnancies.
Since you advocate that the government attempt to influence sexual behavior to reduce the spread of AIDS, would you be in favor of school sex ed programs encouraging lesbianism? Lesbians have the lowest rate of sexually transmitted diseases of any identified sexual orientation.
But I recognize that we don't live in a perfect world and that when organizations that I disagree with fulfill a valid government purpose they deserve funding.
And here you go flip-flopping again. First you said that "the Gay Men's Health Crisis is a very poor use of taxpayer funds. It promotes a morally corrosive message and shouldn't be funded." Now you say that they "deserve funding." It's pointless to debate if you're going to flop sides in the middle.
Finally, there's a difference between discrimination based on behavior (pedophiles shouldn't be school employees) and based on their birth (gender, race, national origin). You seem to be incapable of drawing this, and other simple distinctions.
Homosexuality is not a "behavior." Gay men didn't just "decide" to be gay any more than you decided to be straight (assuming that you are). Trying to draw an analogy between adult consensual sex and someone molesting a child is reprehensible.
Ooooh, because he wrote the Declaration of Indpendence we should only listen to his opinions on the Constitution.
But you ignored the quote from James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution. So here are some more from Mr. Madison:
" [T]he number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestl
Re:Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism)
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What's the alternative for saving social security?
I advocate the government making contracts with private sector investment firms (e.g., Fidelity, Oppenheimer, etc.) to invest the Social Security fund. The GAO should review the performance of the investments on a semi-annual basis, making new contracts when a given firm underperforms.
That solves the problem. Social Security gets a good return on investment. Everyone who contributes benefits equally. Individuals who lack the time, knowledge, or intelligence are not forced to handle the investing. The government doesn't screw up the free market by putting stocks and mutual funds on and off of an "approved" list. The government does not directly make any investing decisions -- and given your disdain for government, that last one should be appealing to you.
No, I equate no government charity with inadequate charity. Private charities lack the manpower and funding to do the work that government social programs do. I have challenged you, repeatedly, to provide a list of private sector charities that would meet all of the needs of those now receiving benefits from government social programs. You have yet to provide any such list. I have challenged you to show how a reduction in taxes from decreased social spending would translate into adequate contributions for private sector charities. You have provided nothing.
You're a reactionary posing as a progressive. It's just sad.
You are a greedy, self-serving, miser posing as someone who gives a damn about the poor. You just want lower taxes. You don't care if it means poor kids go without food, families lose their homes, and homeless people freeze to death. That is evidenced by the fact that you keep pushing for the elimination of social programs based on nothing but vague, unproven assertions.
I'm willing to tolerate people who have a different ideology or philosophy than mine getting govt. funds for legitimate secular purposes and you don't but somehow I'm the bigot.
You sure didn't sound very tolerant when you wrote:
I think the Gay Men's Health Crisis is a very poor use of taxpayer funds. It promotes a morally corrosive message and shouldn't be funded.
Sounds like bigotry to me.
Separation of Church and State is a liberal shibbeloth that's never existed which is why we have century old laws suddenly discovered to be unconstitutional...Read some history and you might learn something.
I suggest that you read some history. In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists in which he argued that the Constitution created a "wall of separation between church and state." Jefferson was so concerned about the exact wording of that letter that he sent a working draft to at least two people, Gideon Granger, his Postmaster General, and Levi Lincoln, his Attorney General.
James Madison wrote: "Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together." (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).
I could go on and on, but you have shown your willingness to ignore any argument for which you don't have a simple, glib answer, so what's the point?
But, again, I pose these questions:
Suppose that the best available supplier of U.S. military uniforms openly refused to hire blacks, Jews, gays, and women. Should they get a contract? Suppose that the school with the best academic performance in your area was run by Wiccans who preached their religious beliefs to the students. Should that school get government funding?
Re:Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism)
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You are incredibly good at ignoring debating points. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at noticing.
1. Why would you trust the government to pick "safe" investments into which people could invest but don't trust government to invest?
2. Why should a government program provide more benefits to your neighbor than to you?
3. How do you justify the government tinkering with the free market by adding and removing funds and stocks from the "approved" investment list, which would, without doubt, have a tremendous effect on the value of the stocks or mutual funds in question?
Re:Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism)
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If you think that the rate of return on Social Security is inadequate, then push for the government to give contracts to financial firms like Fidelity Investments to better invest the money. Don't hand it back over to the public and turn it into a crap-shoot. If you and I each put the same amount of money into Social Security, we should get the same amount back.
He might be able to buy IBM, Microsoft, Coca Cola or any of a number of high quality stocks and bonds
So now we will have the federal government meddling in the stock market by deciding what stocks are "high quality" and which are not? Get on the list, and your company reaps huge rewards. Get dropped off and you're financially devastated. If you don't trust the feds to properly manage Social Security, why would you trust them to rate stocks?
That's just stupid and unworthy of a great nation.
What is stupid and unworthy of a great nation is to have two people contribute equally to Social Security and one to realize a much larger ROI than the other.
Stop being such a cruel and unfeeling reactionary. This is about doing our best as a society for the poor.
You are the one that wants to stop government social programs and let those who rely on them become homeless and starve. You know that would happen because you cannot identify any combination of private charities that meets the needs of all of those people.
I think the Gay Men's Health Crisis is a very poor use of taxpayer funds. It promotes a morally corrosive message and shouldn't be funded.
What is so "morally corrosive" about adult men engaging in the type of sexual relationship that they find fulfilling? It does not affect you in any way (unless it makes you uncomfortable because of your own sexual insecurity).
As long as both can demonstrate with objective evidence that they are accomplishing a secular purpose and helping to solve a problem that's a legitimate government expenditure, I think it's reasonable that both should get govt. contracts to do it as long as they are the best available for the particular job.
A gay men's health center is not a religious organization. The Salvation Army is. There is no gay men's health center I've ever heard of that wants exemption from federal anti-discrimination laws. The Salvation Army does. Separation of church and state and laws against discrimination are two very obvious reasons why the former should be entitled to government grants while the latter should not.
Suppose that the best available supplier of U.S. military uniforms openly refused to hire blacks, Jews, gays, and women. Should they get a contract? Suppose that the school with the best academic performance in your area was run by Wiccans who preached their religious beliefs to the students. Should that school get government funding? I think not.
Unless you want to argue that the best guy for the job shouldn't get hired because you don't like their motivating philosophy, you should too.
I believe in the separation of church and state and, if you were a true, red-blooded American, so would you. I don't want my money funding any group that preaches religion to the needy. We need poor people to take responsibility for their own lives and not be lead to believe that praying to "God" will somehow make everything right.
I said it before, and I'll say it again - there's nothing wrong with copy-protected CDs - as long as they're clearly labeled as such.
Though I see your point, I have several problems with your conclusion.
Through copyright, record companies have government-granted monopolies. The reason for this is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." If I cannot play the music, it is not useful. Record companies should have to choose between copyrighting music or releasing it in a copy-protected form. They should not be able to do both.
It's not like truthful labelling of a dishwasher. If the energy usage of a dishwasher you were considering was too high, you could just buy a different one. But music is personal. It stirs the soul. If the song that was playing when you and your wife met is only on a copy-protected CD, what do you do? Pretend you were listening to a different song? If you want the latest Goo Goo Dolls CD and find that it's copy-protected by Warner Brothers, you cannot buy a version that is not from some other label. Truth in advertising is only truly useful when the consumer has a reasonable alternative.
What if I buy a CD and the music falls into the public domain because the copyright expires (It's a theory because, by the time I die, copyright will probably be the life of the creator plus two millenia)? Does the copy protection magically disappear?
Discrimination. The record companies are actively preventing certain consumers from playing the CDs. What they are saying is "we think people with PCs computers steal music, so we will keep this from playing on PCs." It is analogous to deciding that blacks are more likely to shoplift CDs and then engineering the CDs so that they didn't play in a boom box or car stereo (because of the popularity of those devices within the black community).
Fair use. Why should a record company be able to employ a technology specifically to prevent fair use? What right do they have to prevent you, as a consumer, from compressing the music to MP3s, copying it to DAT, or making a copy on your hard drive?
Backup. A CD, like any media, is not impervious to damage. For that reason, people might wish to create backups. I play backups of irreplaceable CDs from my collection. If I cannot back up a CD and it is damaged, how do I replace it? If a sizeable percentage of the price I paid for the CDs paid for a license for me to listen to the music, why should the record company be able to charge me that same license fee again if the CD I originally bought becomes damaged?
I don't believe that this should be a simple truth-in-advertising case. Because of all of the above, it's far more complex than that.
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Yet you still come back because, at heart, you know I'm not the caricature you paint me to be.
I keep coming back in the hopes that some of what I'm saying is sinking in or, at least, making yout think more deeply about the subjects.
And the idea that overpopulation of anything other than gay bath houses gave rise to AIDS in the US is delusion
Overpopulation is what allows diseases to mutate quickly. If you have a million infected hosts rather than ten thousand, then the disease has one hundred times the opportunity to mutate, possibly becoming more deadly and infectious. Sure, a primary means of spread was through gay bath houses, but no one in those bath houses at the time had any knowledge of AIDS. It took the scientific community years to figure out what the disease was and how it was transmitted. I'm sure that you will tell me how the Bible condemns homosexuality, but that's the same Bible that says it's okay to have and beat slaves (Leviticus 25:44-46 and Exodus 21:20-21, respectively), so I don't put much "faith" into the Bible as a moral compass.
But you ignore that the US has more trees now than when the Indians had exclusive run of the place.
This message brought to you by Weyerhaeuser... You have fallen for the logging industry propaganda where they fell an old-growth forest and then count the saplings they planted. Ever wonder why they don't give meaningful numbers like standing board-feet of trees? You're talking to the wrong guy on this one. I worked on a satellite whose purpose was to measure the vegetation canopy and foliage density and I am well aware of the distortions perpetrated by the logging industry.
But you ignore that for the first time alternative energy in the form of hydrogen is starting to be an economically practical alternative in more and more cases.
It's not becoming practical for passenger cars any time soon. To use it in gaseous form safely requires tanks that are rated to 20,000psi, about three times what a scuba tank is rated for. To use it in liquid form requires keeping it chilled to -423 degrees Fahrenheit or lower at the pump and kept that way in the vehicle. The refrigeration requires a lot of energy, and insulating the tank makes it impractically large. Even with the best insulation, as much as 4 percent of the liquid evaporates daily, creating pressure that can only be relieved by bleeding off the vapor. Because of that, a car parked for two weeks would lose half its fuel. Fuel cell technology, in which the hydrogen is absorbed into solids, has its own problems. A lot of energy is required to imbue the fuel cell with hydrogen, and, in some cases, extremely high temperatures are required to get the hydrogen back out, exacting a huge toll in efficiency. Also, filling a fuel cell takes far more time than pumping gasoline -- so much so that consumers would not consider it a viable alternative. Bush is pushing hydrogen because he knows that it won't be a viable solution any time soon and, thus, will be no threat to the oil barons that helped fund his campaign.
Your fundamental unfairness is exposed when you tout Hitler's supposed Catholicism as a black mark on religion but claim it's unfair that Stalin's atheism should be marked against that system.
That was a false accusation. I was unaware the Hitler was Catholic and never suggested that his atrocities were a reflection on Catholicism. I pointed out the similarity of his beliefs on homosexuality to your own, but, at no point did I ever claim that Catholicism had anything to do with it. I challenge you to go back through the discussion and show me where I even so much as referred to Hitler as a Catholic. Had I indicted Catholicism by way of Hitler's actions, then I wold agree that your retort regarding Stalin was justified -- but I did not and it was not. Bringing up Stalin to denigrate atheists is an old trick of the religious right, and I was not about to set you up to pull it on
Duct tape is great stuff, if only because no othery type of tape is as strong
Huh? Have you ever seen fiber-reinforced packing tape? If you tried to tear that like duct tape, it would cut off your fingers. There are also tapes that includ carbon fiber, Kevlar, fiberglass, and polyester. Duct tape may be strong compared to masking tape or clear tape, but it's pretty-darned weak compared to many other types of tape.
I'm tired of dealing with you and your right-wing Christian ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry. It's been a complete waste of my time to try to debate with someone who has so little understanding of environmentalism, economics, and history. You have debated in an intellectually dishonest and vacuous manner throughout, ignoring points for which you lacked a glib retort and making broad generalizations based on prejudice. Your logic is flawed. Your debating tactics are reprehensible, and your anti-gay, anti-atheist, anti-government snipes are despicable.
Blaming atheism for Stalin's bloody reign is absurd and just makes your prejudice clear. There was no organized atheist movement advocating the killing of millions of people (it wasn't like the Christian Crusades). During World War II, when things were going poorly for the Russian armies, Stalin reinstated the Orthodox Church hierarchy to serve 'Mother Russia.' In fact, Stalin's tyranny was based on the totalitarian premises that he learned from religion: Unquestioning obedience, reverence for a deity-figure (in human form) as well as a pie-in-the-sky utopian vision.
Your apartment analogy is flawed because renters can't upgrade facilities, they can't open up the empty apartments next door, and they can't build a new, more adequate building. In the real world, people do this all the time.
So are you suggesting that, as overpopulation poisons the planet, that we just "build a new, more adequate" one? We are running out of oil, natural gas reserves, old-growth forests, and fish in the oceans. We have damaged the Earth's ozone layer. We have poisoned the air and water with pollution. Species like frogs, plentiful only a few decades ago, are now endangered. Asthma among children is reaching epidemic proportions. Overpopulation has given rise to the spread and mutation of diseases ranging from AIDS to SARS.
Congrats, you just failed ECO101.
You lack the knowledge and intelligence to judge that. What happens when, through overpopulation, global warming completely destabilizes the planet or an epidemic wipes out the human race? Oh, right, you'll die and go to "heaven." That's the one thing that sucks about being an atheist: I don't have some ignorant, primitive belief in an afterlife in which I will get to say "I told you so."
I better back off?
Yes. I've been very restrained in not pointing out how your social beliefs are in line with those of Hitler.
Some of them (certainly not Catholics exclusively) don't believe in birth control as a matter of doctrine. Orthodox Christians, for example, permit it only on the basis of a special pleading that it's just too hard. But you don't go after pro-life sentiment, you go after Catholics. What an ignorant bigot you are.
Go f*** yourself, you stupid, ignorant, bigoted, homophobic, right-wing zealot. The Catholics are the best known religious group that preaches birth control and, by way of effect, in favor of the spread of STDs. You may not like that because of your emotional crutch that religion provides to you, but that's fact.
Europe, not generally considered a hellhole of overpopulation has approximately 10x the population density of the US.
So if we breed until our population density matches that of Europe, how will that affect air pollution, water pollution, depletion of world oil reserves, and deforestation? You don't seem to get that the environment is global. Let's say that we could manage to cut energy consumption and pollution per person in half. If out population increased by a factor of ten, pollution would go up by a factor of five as would consumption of energy. The world needs forested areas. Cut down the forests and you cripple nature's ability to convert CO2 into oxygen. Mankind has depleted the edible species of fish in the ocean to the point that it is a crisis.
To put it into a more manageable scale for you, suppose that there was a two-bedroom apartment with 10 people living in it. Would you assume that the plumbing and hot water for the building could cope with ten people in every apartment? Would you think that the laundry facilities were up to the task? Would you assume that the dumpsters had adequate capacity to have 10 people in each apartment?
The only way out of imminent collapse was invasion and resource stripping.
So as long as we don't invade, resource stripping is okay? We sure don't have enough oil reserves in this country to sustain a population doubling every 54 years. So we strip the world's oil reserves. We strip the oceans. We strip the forests and import wood from all over the world. Depleting resources, whether through theft or through trade, is still a problem.
The heart of the problem was substituting government judgement for private judgement over what should be funded, what should not be.
That makes as much sense and condemning all forms of private investment because of the Great Depression of the 1930's.
But, again, you're just making a straw man argument. I never suggested that the government judgement about what should be funded. I suggested that the government allow private firms to invest Social Security. So that is not the government deciding what should be funded at all, in any way, shape, or form.
People have two hands as well as a mouth and in a free society produce more than they consume on average.
So why do we have to import oil? Why do we have to import lumber? Why do we have to import fish? The reason is because we can't produce oil reserves. We can't produce old-growth forests. We can't produce fish in the ocean. The only thing that I am convinced we will overproduce is pollution.
You can't easily go deaf from loud bass.
Absolutely incorrect. Loud bass is, in fact, a sure-fire way of damaging your hearing. Read this information from an audiologist and come back when you finish.
Most noise-related deafness is from high frequencies.
Again, wrong. Hearing damage usually manifests itself as a degradation in the ability to hear high frequencies. But you are mistaking cause and effect. The hearing loss can be caused by excessive SPLs (sound pressure levels) at any audio, or even subsonic, frequency. If your hearing was damaged by 20hz bass at an excessive volume, the effect would probably be a loss of ability to hear high frequencies, but that does not mean that the high frequencies caused the hearing loss.
To get back to the ratio available when SS was founded, we'd need to have massive population growth, not piddly 1.3% growth.
Piddly? That's doubling the population every 54 years! Do you have any kind of idea of the type of strain that puts on the environment? The Catholic idea of encouraging breeding to the point of standing-room-only would lead to environmental disaster. We've already overfished the world's oceans, pumped much of the petroleum reserves out of the ground, and polluted the air, water, and land enough to affect the health of both man and animals. There are already children starving to death all over the world. Bring those kids here. The world would be a lot better off with people, whether straight or gay, adopting those children.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad that your best idea for reform is Hitler's failed economic program of private ownership and government control of companies.
Since I didn't mention Hitler or Nazis when you referred to the "morally corrosive" effect of homosexuality on society, you better back off.
If the government hands money to Fidelity to invest, then the government neither owns, nor controls, any private companies through the Social Security fund. It would be a simple matter for Congress to include a provision in the legislation which made the investment a blind trust and barred the voting on shares bought with government funds.
Meaningful reforms are not accomplished by simply adding dollars.
I did not say that was a reform. That is a separate action which would benefit the social programs.
The right's pushing for meaningful reforms while the left is pushing to halt reform or gut it if they can't halt it.
No, the right is pushing for a way to give tax dollars to religious organizations. They are trying to turn Soc. Sec. into a game where those who are good at playing the market will get significantly more from their Soc. Sec. dollars than the average person.
When work requirements were proposed, the left railed against them, then when they became inevitable, argued for keeping them weak, and when they were passed have consistently argued for not strengthening them or reducing them.
What the left rallied against was stupid Republican ideas like forcing single mothers to work while providing no child care. They rallied against forcing welfare recipients to work long hours with no time off to find a real, private-sector job. That fought against efforts to make mothers take minimum wage jobs with no healthcare for their children.
But, if you knew a little bit more about history, you would know that the most sweeping welfare reforms ever signed into law by any President were the ones that Clinton signed. Congress did not override his veto. He signed the bills into law. You would also know that the first state to ever put workfare into practice had a Democratic governor.
The current incarnation of this on social program reforms is to retain government control over investment decisions and unleash the SS trust fund et al from their current investment limitations imposed to try to ensure that we wouldn't have socialism via the back door of govt. buying up firms in the stock market.
Of course the government should retain control of money collected through taxes. Why collect the money if the government is just going to turn around and give it back, saying "invest it!" Talk about gross inefficiencies.
But the fact is that many people lack the knowledge, skills, and even time to effectively invest. It's an idea that sucks and one that does everything to make sure that the playing field is not level. Professionals working white-collar jobs that have experience investing have a big advantage over, for example, a widow working two low-paying jobs to support her and her kids. Sorry, but your investing skills don't mean that you should get a better ROI from a government retirement program.
Your observation on the US population is similar to your prior one on overcrowding. The US has a birthrate that hovers right around replacement level and only grows via immigration.
You said that the programs needed a growing working population to sustain them. I showed you clearly, and with graphics, that the population is growing and, in fact, I was the one that had to tell you that immigration was a factor. Your whole point was that we needed to encourage heterosexual breeding to increase the population. I proved you wrong. Get over it.
Those projections are based on not having any meaningful reform of the programs. But all of those programs would be in substantially better shape had Bush put billions of dollars into them rather than spending that money killing people in Iraq (remember the imaginary "weapons of mass destruction" he used to justify the war?).
Since we're at the leading edge of a world-wide population implosion (everybody's birth rates are dropping fast, including the 3rd world) This makes for big trouble.
Where do you get these notions? According to the Census, the U.S. population is growing at a rate of 1.3% per year. If it keeps steady at that rate, the population of the U.S. will double in 54 years. Here's map showing population growth rate by state for the years 1990 - 2000. You will note that every state had a population increase, with an average of 13.2% increase. Births are not the only measurement. You ignore the effects of immigration.
Modern society has been constructed to pack people tightly in order for them to travel less and have wide access to the specialized resources of the city.
Someone who sits in bumper to bumper, stop and go rush-hour traffic is not travelling "less." They may be travelling a shorter distance, but they are spending more time doing it. I've watched my commute over double in time over the last ten years. I don't have easier access to city resources. It's gotten far worse. I used to be able to easily drive anywhere in the DC metro area. Now I have to carefully plan to avoid rush-hour, look for alternate routes, and turn down jobs that I could have accepted were the traffic not so bad.
If people like you have their way and halt reform, they're likely to end up being proved right.
Even during this discussion, I have proposed meaningful reform to government programs. I specifically recommended that the government let contracts to private firms to invest the money in Social Security. You countered with "It's quite likely that the federal government would be unable to resist the temptation to throw its weight around and pressure firms not to invest in tobacco or other undesirable firms." That was quite ironic given that you favor the government throwing its weight around and witholding funds from any group that "promotes a morally corrosive message."
Maybe this is just a tangent to your point, but I like to point it out because it's one of my priorities.
I share that priority. My car is a VW Golf TDI diesel. It gets almost 50mpg while its CO2 emissions are about 20% less than a conventional gasoline engine. And the emission levels from diesel engines tend to remain more-or-less constant throughout the life of the engine (gasoline engines tend to have higher emissions as the engine gets older).
The Concorde was a design from the 60's. Look at how far conventional passenger jets have progressed in the years since the Concorde entered commercial service. Had the same level of effort been expended on passenger SSTs, who knows how far we might have come?
I was sorry that the SST became a status symbol for the rich rather than a way to shrink the globe for the normal traveler. I'd much rather see efforts expended at coming up with practical, efficient, and clean passenger SSTs than see huge sums of tax dollars put towards yet another killing machine.
The Concorde is not being retired by american companies.
Nor did I say that it was.
The retirement of the Concorde is leaving a hole and is a sad step backwards for mankind -- regardless of who built and flew it. I grew up when the Concorde was being developed. I remember the belief that we were entering a new phase of aviation, where travel between continents would become quick and convenient rather than a marathon test of one's ability to deal with discomfort, cramped seating, and claustrophobic surroundings. My point was that mankind would be much better off if we concentrated on the supersonic transport of passengers rather than bombs.
The Concorde was neither built by a US company nor operated by a US airline.
Nor did I say that it was. My point was that the only supersonic transport in the world is being retired (regardless of by who) and, rather than building a more modern and cost-efficient replacement for that, we are considering building a hypersonic bomber.
Bombers tend to operate from airfields where the neighbors (if there are any) really don't mind sonic booms.
SSTs weren't intended to fly people from North Carolina to South Carolina. Their routes are intercontinental and would typically be primarily over the ocean. Few fish are offended by sonic booms. When a flight from the U.S. to Australia is in the 20 hour timeframe, an SST would sure be welcome.
Delivering weapons quickly is more important than deivering people quickly.
No, it is not. Having enough firepower to wipe out all life on Earth and being able to destroy any village in the world within two hours is nothing to be proud of.
The act of delivering bombs is a life-and-death matter, not just death.
No, it is just a death matter. Delivering a bomb via hypersonic jet is just horrifying. As if ICBM's weren't bad enough... I'd rather have a less effective military and more effective means of getting people to other countries. We'd be a lot less hated if we delivered tourists and businessmen, rather than bombs, to foreign countries.
The only supersonic passenger plane (the Concorde) is being retired and DARPA wants to build a bomber that travels three times as fast. There's something screwed up in this country when we place a higher value on delivering bombs than people.
I think I spent enough time typing to get my point across.
As have I.
That's my position and you should be bright enough to apply it to all your other unanswered questions.
I didn't think you wanted to actually answer the tough questions.
I do find it funny that your last example implies that homosexual atheists have a special talent for clothing.
It doesn't imply anything of the type. It was just fitting two "conduct-based" groups (heterosexuals and Christians) to an existing example, that's all.
The lowest incidence of sexual disease transmission is among the celibate, then amongst the monogomous.
Actually, monogomous lesbians have a lower STD rate than monogomous heterosexual couples (Why? Suppose a partner contracts AIDS through tainted blood transfusion. A lesbian partner has much lower chance of contracting the disease than heterosexual partner.)
Somebody's got to repopulate the country as we all grow old and die. To ignore such basic facts of life is the sign of somebody quite young or in a very sheltered environment. You aren't, by chance, in academia are you?
I'm 42 years old and my life has not, in any way, been sheltered. Try again. There is no shortage of people in this country. In fact, as I sit in traffic that gets worse on a monthly basis, it's apparent that breeding is not something that needs to be encouraged. A few more couples that weren't producing children would ge a very good thing.
I'll see your Madison and raise you a Washington.
The quote from Washington expressed his belief in God and his desire that all Americans share it. But he did not advocate government giving money to religious organizations. Also, since he had a much more minor role in writing the Constitution than did Madison, I cannot give his interpretation the same weight.
On the GMHC, they're fixated on condoms. As such, they're stuck on advocating the 3rd most effective anti-AIDS message (abstinence and monogomy being #1 and 2 respectively, see Uganda). They're a poor use of taxpayer's resources because of that.
They are fixated on providing a means of prevention that will be used and accepted. You can preach all you want about monogamy and abstinance, but if the audience doesn't accept those ideas, then you wasted your time, theirs, and maybe cost some of them their lives.
Now the response is that gays are born that way after all but heaven forbid that somebody try for a cure.
You act as if it's a disease or deformity. Some people are born with red hair. Should we seek a "cure" for that, too?
As to your last paragraph, asked and answered. I won't fall for your trick of mixing conduct groups with factors at birth and without control by the individual.
Just how did you answer the question about a Wiccan-run charity?
So I'll re-phrase the other question so as to use conduct-based discrimination: Suppose that the best available supplier of U.S. military uniforms openly refused to hire heterosexuals and Christians. Should the government give the contract to that firm?
There's only one problem. It's quite likely that the federal government would be unable to resist the temptation to throw its weight around and pressure firms not to invest in tobacco or other undesirable firms.
That's fine. The feds should have banned tobacco sales years ago just as they did asbestos when they discovered its carcinogenic properties. Tobacco-related illnesses have cost taxpayers huge sums of money. Could you even imagine trying to bring a product as harmful as tobacco to market today?
So, it still sounds like my solution is a superb one.
Due to erroneous editing the following sentence from the parent message includes an additional word, shown in brackets:
"If you want the latest Goo Goo Dolls CD and find that it's copy-protected by Warner Brothers, you cannot buy a version that is [not] from some other label."
It makes much more sense without that word "not." Sorry.
Yes, your false accusation did hit a nerve.
You have no idea what I give in charity, how many people I help, and what impact my charitable actions have.
I may not be right, but I have a very good idea. When it comes to specifics like identifying what private sector charities could meet the needs of the poor served by government, you are suspiciously mum. And when you lack a coherent explanation for how private charities could step in and fill the needs of the poor, I can see no other exlanation than personal greed for advocating that government aid be terminated.
You would rather 10,000 people be helped with X dollars instead of 12,000 people be helped because the more efficient provider happens to be a christian organization.
Here are a couple of questions that I want answered in your reply. I'm serious. I want answers. Don't just pretend that you didn't read them: Suppose that a gay advocacy group provided meals to the poor while telling them about how wonderful the gay lifestyle was. Would you advocate government funds for that charity? Should a Wiccan group that runs a homeless shelter, which is replete with Wiccan literature and proselytizers, qualify for government funding?
As to numbers, the government should help all who need it. If they can't afford to without raising taxes, then raise the taxes of those most able to pay -- the wealthy. It seems only fair that those who have benefitted most from our society pay the most.
GMHC wouldn't be funded and there wouldn't be much of an AIDS epidemic in the US because we wouldn't have spent years worrying about homosexual feelings instead of taking standard anti-epidemic measures like closing down gay bath houses which served as transmission centers and cost so many people their lives.
Right. It's a gay problem. Isaac Asimov died of AIDS from a tainted blood transfusion during surgery. The vast majority of AIDS cases in Africa were brought on through heterosexual sex. Children are being born with AIDS. Those damned gay men. In the U.S., right-wing religious groups go into frenzied protests every time it is suggested that schools provide condoms or sex education -- both proven methods of reducing sexually transmitted diseases as well as unwanted pregnancies.
Since you advocate that the government attempt to influence sexual behavior to reduce the spread of AIDS, would you be in favor of school sex ed programs encouraging lesbianism? Lesbians have the lowest rate of sexually transmitted diseases of any identified sexual orientation.
But I recognize that we don't live in a perfect world and that when organizations that I disagree with fulfill a valid government purpose they deserve funding.
And here you go flip-flopping again. First you said that "the Gay Men's Health Crisis is a very poor use of taxpayer funds. It promotes a morally corrosive message and shouldn't be funded." Now you say that they "deserve funding." It's pointless to debate if you're going to flop sides in the middle.
Finally, there's a difference between discrimination based on behavior (pedophiles shouldn't be school employees) and based on their birth (gender, race, national origin). You seem to be incapable of drawing this, and other simple distinctions.
Homosexuality is not a "behavior." Gay men didn't just "decide" to be gay any more than you decided to be straight (assuming that you are). Trying to draw an analogy between adult consensual sex and someone molesting a child is reprehensible.
Ooooh, because he wrote the Declaration of Indpendence we should only listen to his opinions on the Constitution.
But you ignored the quote from James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution. So here are some more from Mr. Madison:
What's the alternative for saving social security?
I advocate the government making contracts with private sector investment firms (e.g., Fidelity, Oppenheimer, etc.) to invest the Social Security fund. The GAO should review the performance of the investments on a semi-annual basis, making new contracts when a given firm underperforms.
That solves the problem. Social Security gets a good return on investment. Everyone who contributes benefits equally. Individuals who lack the time, knowledge, or intelligence are not forced to handle the investing. The government doesn't screw up the free market by putting stocks and mutual funds on and off of an "approved" list. The government does not directly make any investing decisions -- and given your disdain for government, that last one should be appealing to you.
Problem solved.
No, I equate no government charity with inadequate charity. Private charities lack the manpower and funding to do the work that government social programs do. I have challenged you, repeatedly, to provide a list of private sector charities that would meet all of the needs of those now receiving benefits from government social programs. You have yet to provide any such list. I have challenged you to show how a reduction in taxes from decreased social spending would translate into adequate contributions for private sector charities. You have provided nothing.
You're a reactionary posing as a progressive. It's just sad.
You are a greedy, self-serving, miser posing as someone who gives a damn about the poor. You just want lower taxes. You don't care if it means poor kids go without food, families lose their homes, and homeless people freeze to death. That is evidenced by the fact that you keep pushing for the elimination of social programs based on nothing but vague, unproven assertions.
I'm willing to tolerate people who have a different ideology or philosophy than mine getting govt. funds for legitimate secular purposes and you don't but somehow I'm the bigot.
You sure didn't sound very tolerant when you wrote:
I think the Gay Men's Health Crisis is a very poor use of taxpayer funds. It promotes a morally corrosive message and shouldn't be funded.
Sounds like bigotry to me.
Separation of Church and State is a liberal shibbeloth that's never existed which is why we have century old laws suddenly discovered to be unconstitutional...Read some history and you might learn something.
I suggest that you read some history. In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists in which he argued that the Constitution created a "wall of separation between church and state." Jefferson was so concerned about the exact wording of that letter that he sent a working draft to at least two people, Gideon Granger, his Postmaster General, and Levi Lincoln, his Attorney General.
James Madison wrote: "Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together." (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).
I could go on and on, but you have shown your willingness to ignore any argument for which you don't have a simple, glib answer, so what's the point?
But, again, I pose these questions:
You are incredibly good at ignoring debating points. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at noticing.
1. Why would you trust the government to pick "safe" investments into which people could invest but don't trust government to invest?
2. Why should a government program provide more benefits to your neighbor than to you?
3. How do you justify the government tinkering with the free market by adding and removing funds and stocks from the "approved" investment list, which would, without doubt, have a tremendous effect on the value of the stocks or mutual funds in question?
If you think that the rate of return on Social Security is inadequate, then push for the government to give contracts to financial firms like Fidelity Investments to better invest the money. Don't hand it back over to the public and turn it into a crap-shoot. If you and I each put the same amount of money into Social Security, we should get the same amount back.
He might be able to buy IBM, Microsoft, Coca Cola or any of a number of high quality stocks and bonds
So now we will have the federal government meddling in the stock market by deciding what stocks are "high quality" and which are not? Get on the list, and your company reaps huge rewards. Get dropped off and you're financially devastated. If you don't trust the feds to properly manage Social Security, why would you trust them to rate stocks?
That's just stupid and unworthy of a great nation.
What is stupid and unworthy of a great nation is to have two people contribute equally to Social Security and one to realize a much larger ROI than the other.
Stop being such a cruel and unfeeling reactionary. This is about doing our best as a society for the poor.
You are the one that wants to stop government social programs and let those who rely on them become homeless and starve. You know that would happen because you cannot identify any combination of private charities that meets the needs of all of those people.
I think the Gay Men's Health Crisis is a very poor use of taxpayer funds. It promotes a morally corrosive message and shouldn't be funded.
What is so "morally corrosive" about adult men engaging in the type of sexual relationship that they find fulfilling? It does not affect you in any way (unless it makes you uncomfortable because of your own sexual insecurity).
As long as both can demonstrate with objective evidence that they are accomplishing a secular purpose and helping to solve a problem that's a legitimate government expenditure, I think it's reasonable that both should get govt. contracts to do it as long as they are the best available for the particular job.
A gay men's health center is not a religious organization. The Salvation Army is. There is no gay men's health center I've ever heard of that wants exemption from federal anti-discrimination laws. The Salvation Army does. Separation of church and state and laws against discrimination are two very obvious reasons why the former should be entitled to government grants while the latter should not.
Suppose that the best available supplier of U.S. military uniforms openly refused to hire blacks, Jews, gays, and women. Should they get a contract? Suppose that the school with the best academic performance in your area was run by Wiccans who preached their religious beliefs to the students. Should that school get government funding? I think not.
Unless you want to argue that the best guy for the job shouldn't get hired because you don't like their motivating philosophy, you should too.
I believe in the separation of church and state and, if you were a true, red-blooded American, so would you. I don't want my money funding any group that preaches religion to the needy. We need poor people to take responsibility for their own lives and not be lead to believe that praying to "God" will somehow make everything right.
I said it before, and I'll say it again - there's nothing wrong with copy-protected CDs - as long as they're clearly labeled as such.
Though I see your point, I have several problems with your conclusion.
Through copyright, record companies have government-granted monopolies. The reason for this is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." If I cannot play the music, it is not useful. Record companies should have to choose between copyrighting music or releasing it in a copy-protected form. They should not be able to do both.
It's not like truthful labelling of a dishwasher. If the energy usage of a dishwasher you were considering was too high, you could just buy a different one. But music is personal. It stirs the soul. If the song that was playing when you and your wife met is only on a copy-protected CD, what do you do? Pretend you were listening to a different song? If you want the latest Goo Goo Dolls CD and find that it's copy-protected by Warner Brothers, you cannot buy a version that is not from some other label. Truth in advertising is only truly useful when the consumer has a reasonable alternative.
What if I buy a CD and the music falls into the public domain because the copyright expires (It's a theory because, by the time I die, copyright will probably be the life of the creator plus two millenia)? Does the copy protection magically disappear?
Discrimination. The record companies are actively preventing certain consumers from playing the CDs. What they are saying is "we think people with PCs computers steal music, so we will keep this from playing on PCs." It is analogous to deciding that blacks are more likely to shoplift CDs and then engineering the CDs so that they didn't play in a boom box or car stereo (because of the popularity of those devices within the black community).
Fair use. Why should a record company be able to employ a technology specifically to prevent fair use? What right do they have to prevent you, as a consumer, from compressing the music to MP3s, copying it to DAT, or making a copy on your hard drive?
Backup. A CD, like any media, is not impervious to damage. For that reason, people might wish to create backups. I play backups of irreplaceable CDs from my collection. If I cannot back up a CD and it is damaged, how do I replace it? If a sizeable percentage of the price I paid for the CDs paid for a license for me to listen to the music, why should the record company be able to charge me that same license fee again if the CD I originally bought becomes damaged?
I don't believe that this should be a simple truth-in-advertising case. Because of all of the above, it's far more complex than that.