Ssssssh! Shut up, the global warming mob might hear you.
Yes, it would be horrible to have all those people who have noticed that global temperature is increasing also notice that you are skeptical that the oceans will run out of sea life just because the living things in the sea are dying off faster than their numbers are being replenished. Those people are so weird, with their fact-based reality and belief that life on this planet matters. I'm glad you're too much of an independent thinker to fall for their soft-headed ruses.
"Resources are being used faster than they are being replenished, and the supply is finite" doesn't logically, inescapably lead to "we'll run out". Well, unless you use logic. See, this type of argument doesn't require that we just trust all these scientists. They aren't standing there saying "well, we're pretty smart, so you should believe us, with no evidence offered, and change everything you're doing." If these two conditions are correct:
Sea life is dying faster than it is being replenished
The supply is finite
Wouldn't it seem painfully obvious that we'll run out? Do you think they're really relying on the "argument from authority" fallacy? Do you think that more sea life will just magically appear? Or do you just not care? People with your worldview really confuse me. I can't figure out if it's science you distrust, or statistics, or what. "Scientists are fallible" doesn't refute any single conclusion, much less one that you can figure out for yourself to be true. This isn't quantum mechanics or some other obscure field that requires a lot of expertise. If you cut down trees faster than trees grow, you'll end up with zero trees. Change trees to fish, and what do you get? How can you manage to have such scorn for something with such serious consequences?
CEO is actively involved in Bush re-election campaign
CEO's company makes voting machine with no paper trail, no audit capability, no way at all to verify that the numbers being spit out are related to actual votes.
Company's voting machines are used in states with close outcomes
Company's voting machines are used in states whose election outcomes were starkly different from the straw polls, but the difference was not randomly distributed--the variation benefited only one political party, the very one the CEO promised to keep in office. Straw polls are mathematically reliable enough to be use to spot actual election fraud on other nations. Even if you don't consider them reliable, they are still used to spot election fraud, meaning statisticians do consider them reliable enough to analyze election results.
People get suspicious
People like you are suddenly mystified why the hell anyone would be skeptical. You can't think of any reason, any reason at all, why someone would be less than credulous about Diebold election machines.
It must be liberal bias, you say. Yep, liberal bias. Nothing to see here. Did you strike your head? I'm not calling you a flame or a troll--I'm calling you deliberately obtuse. Even if Diebold is in actuality as pure as the driven snow, even if in actuality their voting machines are not crooked, it still stinks to high heaven. There is EVERY reason to be skeptical. You have proven, admitted bias, plus a black-box voting scheme where it is (by design) possible to steal an election and not get caught, and then the results don't match the straw polls, the very polls that were considered reliable BEFORE your vote tallies didn't match them. Are you serious?
I don't think relativist means what you think it means. I take the position that torture is wrong. Absolutely wrong, for everyone, all the time. If you approve of torture, or look the other way while thinking of yourself as moral because you're deeply outraged about a consensual sexual act between two adults, then you're a morally contempible person. A "standard relativist diatribe" might let you off the hook by saying "I can't really judge whether or not torture is wrong," or "consensual sex may be objected to by some" but I'm not saying that--I do believe in absolute values. You seem to have a different moral compass, where you consider "he had sex!" to be worse than "our government is torturing people to death!" That seems sick to me.
What's interesting about your use of that word is that the current administration is deeply relativist, while pretending not to be. If you think you can just re-define words like torture because what we're doing would have qualified as torture last week but now that we're doing it it isn't torture anymore, that makes you a relativist. We didn't invent waterboarding, for example--people did it in WWII, and it was considered a war crime then. By us. Is it still a war crime? It is, unless you think the ones we convicted of it after WWII were innocent, or you think that "everything has changed". If you think there is actually such a thing as a post-9/11 morality, that what was immoral before is okay after, then you are a relativist. If you think 9/11 changed whether or not torture, or imprisonment without trial, is immoral, then you are a relativist. I am not one of those. Are you?
Back to the original issue of Clinton's infidelity, I also believe in a public and private sphere of life. If you have an affair, that's wrong, and it would still be tacky of me to talk about it in open company. To spend my time talking about a man's infidelity, to let that subject dominate my conversation, my attention span, would be, well, silly. If someone is fixated on the extramarital affair of the guy down the hallway, down the street, or in the White House, then that person is either small-minded and petty, or is just faking his outrage as a means to an end. Considering the number of Republian politicians who have had admitted, known affairs, yet suffer none of the contumely that Clinton faced, I can guess which side most Republicans are on, meaning that they're faking it. In other words, they're lying, acting more outraged that they really are, as a means to a political end. I actually find that less depressing than the alternative.
Slick Willy did the office of President great damage and tarnished his own legacy with his disgusting acts and subsequent coverup. Indeed the old media failed to protect their darling, as new media outlets (Fox News, conservative talk radio) kept America informed. The event was certainly newsworthy.
I continue to find this attitude just bizarre. A blowjob (from a consenting adult), in or out of wedlock, is trivial to me, especially in the context of this man being President of the most powerful nation on the planet. If my boss, or co-worker, or the guy down the street, or you, or my dad, gets a blowjob from a consenting woman, and then fibs about it because it's embarassing, I just don't care. It's trivial in context, and even if infidelity is involved, that is between the man and his wife. Even if I disapprove, it's just none of my business.
Amplifying its significance into a 24/7 "news event" shows evidence either of a sick fixation on something that should remain private, or just political opportunism. I was arguing about this with a co-worker just a few days ago. He was complaining about the morality of kids today (something no previous generation has ever had cause to do, I'm sure) and (of course) it was all Clinton's fault. It was that damned blowjob that sent western civilization into a downward spiral. Bullshit. Men like women, and women often like men, but Bill Clinton, even if he diddled around, was not the one who made his BJ into part of the national consciousness. Republicans did that, by fixating for years on an essentially private matter. They made talking about oral sex more acceptable, even glib, than Oprah could do in 20 years of trash TV. Republicans pushed it to the forefront and kept it there, and they are why it was on the news every single day. It was NOT important, not nearly as important as redefining torture and habeus corpus, which is what our current President has done. I don't find any Republican protestations of superior morality persuasive, or even entertaining.
If you really think that Clinton sullied the nation by getting a blowjob, but you don't bat an eyelash over Bush waffling over us torturing people do death, then you're about the worst possible source of moral guidance I could ask for. Either you're just a political hack, or there's something wrong with your priorities as a human being. It's pretty sad when the best-case scenario is that you just have no integrity. I find myself hoping that you're just a liar, because that's the less bleak of the alternatives. What kind of people are deeply disturbed by oral sex but is okay with people being tortured to death? Is that even possible? Where do these people come from? And I'm supposed to accept that moral outrage as authentic and even (I laugh!) deserving of respect?
Let me clarify something--if Bush were caught in flagrante dilecto 25 minutes from now, flagrantly lied about it under warrant, and got impeached--I'd still find it trivial, and I'd be pissed that he was impeached (successfully or otherwise) over something so unimportant, after authorizing torture, warrantless surveillance, ignoring written law at will, and so on. I'd be embarrassed as an American if we impeached Bush for oral sex (or any sex) with a consenting adult, because that would be petty and small-minded. Putting that on the news every day for months would make us as a nation look like fools, and even though I oppose many of his policies, I would not want to embarrass my nation by something so, well, tacky.
Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to idiocy, carelessness, ignorance, stupidity, incompetence, or laziness; particularly in combination with each other.
Normally I would agree with you. But raw stupidity/incompetence would distribute the errors on both sides of the political spectrum. Incompetence would generate random errors and vote miscounts.
But if the errors disproportionately benefit one political party, then that alone is evidence of malfeasance. If all the "random" numbers benefit my candidate, then the numbers aren't random.
Sheesh, read what I wrote. If money is spent to rebuild infrastructure stateside, then those goods and services are still being provided, no? Even with government-financed health care, or universal internet access, or any such service, goods and services are still being provided. Yet critics wail "that isn't the job of government--you're making government too big!" even though they'll support the same purchases for Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The only difference I can see between building infrastructure in Iraq and building it stateside is that if you build it overseas the contracts are funnelled to a few big-ticket companies, all of which have ties to the White House and Dept of Defense. If you spend the money stateside, more people benefit, but then you don't have high-paid lobbyists clamoring for infrastructure dollars anymore.
Yes, I'm aware of the textbook definition of socialism, thanks, but I was referring to the seemingly obvious fact that if you want to fund infrastructure (water plants, hospitals, power plants) with public funds, the same people who have no problem rebuilding Iraq will complain about encroaching socialism. If you're so concerned about it being a "handout" to give a poor single parent money to live, then institute work programs, and then you'll have the goods and services you care about. But no one is interested in any programs whose main beneficiaries are poor people.
Of course, $100 given to a poor single mother will be pushed right back into the economy, creating just as many jobs as $100 given to Raytheon or some other weapons manufacturer. But everyone acts as if poor people burn their money in little bonfires, forgetting that a dollar spent by a bum is just as good at creating jobs as a dollar spent by a CEO. We basically just worship success, so we funnel money to big corporations as if we need more weapons. Hell, Congress just reauthorized weapons that the DoD said they didn't even need! So yes, the weapons companies are providing goods and services, but if we're buying goods and services we don't really need, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, then that's morally no different than paying poor people $2000 a month to pick up litter. It's just a wealth redistribution program, only one that gets the nod from the "I love the free market" types, while the other is labeled as "big government." Give me a break.
Government helping people in the US is socialism. In fact, any social spending or infrastructure spending in the US is socialism. Paying for grandma's health care is socialism.
Paying Haliburton and other US contractors to rebuild Iraq--that's not socialism. The discriminator is this--who makes the money? If money is being spread among a bunch of little people, then that's socialism. If money is poured into a few large corporations whose executives make tens or hundreds of millions, then that's the free market. If it's profitable for the rich, it's the free market, but if you're giving money to a single mother of 2, then that's socialism. If you're helping the working poor pay their medical bills, that's socialism, and probably creeping totalitarianism.
But we can brag on TV about building schools for Iraqis, and that's NOT socialism. But--you guess it--large American corporations have won contracts to rebuild those schools, along with those huge military bases over there. What is an what is not socialism has more to do with who gets to pocket the money than it does with any fidelity to Karl Marx. Care to look into how much federal money was spent rebuilding New Orleans, compared to how much is spent on rebuilding Iraq? If you spend money in New Orleans, then small local firms may get some of the contracts, and the money may be spent, and most importantly earned, locally. If you spend in Iraq, all of the money goes into the coffers of large companies with sweetheart deals, such as Haliburton.
Small mom-and-pop contractors don't have contacts in the Department of Defense and White House. But if you get big enough, you get to engage in nation-building as part of someone's "vision," like PNAC, and then that isn't socialism, even if you're building the very things that WOULD be socialism if you were building it for Americans back home.
it simply is not true that every Good Christian is a fundamentalist zombie right-wing foot solider.
I didn't say "every" and I wasn't painting with that broad a brush. Obviously some Christians are scientists, many reject Biblical literalism, etc etc. You are taking all of my arguments to an absurd degree, rather than listening to the points I am trying to make. Enthusiasm can lead to hyperbole, which I may be a bit guilty of, but I think it's obvious that I'm not saying "every one of these, everwhere, without exception, all the time, is exactly like this." If someone connects liberals with support of affirmative action, you don't leap out and say "Aha! Not ALL of them do! so there! You're stereotyping!" That's just dumb.
Please point to something that indicates a "religious obsession." Have you dealt at all with the creationist movement? What I said really does apply to a wide swath of Americans. Follow the attacks against evolutionary theory, and you find many people arguing about the "limitations of materialistic thinking." They are trying to redefine science. I routinely read essays and blog posts bemoaning the blinkered worldview foisted upon us by methodological materialism--i.e. they want "evidence of things not seen" (i.e. faith) to qualify as science. This is true (or false, as the case may be), and you can attack me on the accuracy or even honesty of what I'm saying, but it's silly to throw out an accusation that I have a religious obsession, that I'm tryin to paint ALL Christians as, as you say, "zombies." Me objecting to fundamentalists being hostile to rationalism isn't the same thing as me being a religious bigot.
Myself, I think it's because we have no good system of evaluation of experts.
But we do have a system. Scientific articles are peer-reviewed, plus you can look at the consensus of the scientific community. This doesn't preclude error (nothing does, I fear) but if we can agree that, a) science generally works, and b) science's best answer right now on a given subject is such-and-such, I think we can trust the best science has at a give time to be the best WE have at a given time. Science of course addresses the physical world, and doesn't tell you why you should be a good person or whether or not you'll meet your loved ones in the afterlife, but when it comes to things like, say, the causes and impacts of climate change, the causes of genetic diversity (as in evolution), etc, I think we can trust that, at least better than we can trust anything else offered to us.
On other issues, like whether or not Iraq had WMD or Saddam supported Al Quaida, well, we do employ experts. The state department, CIA, DoD, etc all studied the questions--what did they say? If the National Intelligence Estimate, the sum total end analysis of all the expertise owned by the entire US intelligence apparatuss, came to a conclusion about the effects of the Iraq occupation, and then a few campaiging politicians came out and say "no, I don't believe that, we're doing great, and we're helping the situation," then I still think it's clear that the experts are who wrote the NIE, not the professional politician. Critical thinking is not fool-proof, and the human condition always entails the possibility of error, but we do have ways of assessing credibility. You can't institutionalize that and prevent people from trusting whoever they damned well please, but I'm not saying we should make people do anything. I was just dismayed (and I still am) that people believe things so readily, not just when they're absurd, but when known, verifiable facts exist that disprove the very thing they believe.
I have seen cases presented, with facts, logic, everything in line, and the other person just says, "no, I disagree," and that's it. It's not that they should be made to agree (even if that were possible) just that they don't consider counter-arguments, alternative
The reason everyone's opinion is important is because everyone has an agenda, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
If I say that pink unicorns orbit venus and send me messages, and you point out the seemingly obvious fact that there is no evidence to support my assertion, the truth isn't "somewhere in the middle." You can't average an accurate, true-to-facts depiction with someone's gut feeling and come out with the truth. Either a link was found between Saddam and 9-11 or it hasn't--which is it? The 9/11 Commission said no, even President Bush admitted no, but VP Cheney says yes--is the truth in the middle? I don't think so. Cheney is saying something that has no factual support, though his gut feeling may be speaking very loudly, and I have little doubt that he's sincere.
There is such a thing as critical reading and listening. Even though we can be deceived with selective evidence, there can still be an effort. Though I recognize the limits of the human situation, I refuse to retreat into the "we can't know anything" solipsism. If you and I disagree on the speed of light, or how a particular congressman voted on a particular bill, we can look that up--there are facts to be assessed. It's true that much of what you seen on TV actually undermines critical thought, but the answer is--stop watching TV. O'Reilley et al (and I mean all political TV, not all conservative political TV) undermines the capacity for critical thought because they rely so heavily on glittering generalities and ad hominem attacks, not to mention stacking the evidence. I can hardly blame them, since there is so little time to present a reasoned, developed argument, and the audience is so fickle that they'll change the channel before you can explain a reasoned, balanced position.
But much of the problem I see around me stems not from our inability to check things for ourselves. People just don't care to. For example, the evolution debate fascinates me, consequently I read about it. I read books, articles, talk.origins, etc. I'm no expert, but I make an effort to learn something about the terms of the debate. But I find myself arguing with people who make the most childish, ignorant arguments, arguments that have been refuted (or even abandoned) decades ago, but they just haven't read anything on the subject, so they wouldn't know. They're not only poorly-read on evolution, but even in ID or creationism, which they're ostensibly convinced of. And this is a subject they're passionate about, one they think matters in the world. People just don't think facts, research, or well-reasoned arguments are important--they just believe what they believe, and that's it.
Firstly, the fact that terrorists and insurgents can make stuff up faster than we
Well, you don't need to make up "the Marines bombed your house and killed your sister, father, and daughter. Join us in fighting them!" People aren't swarming to fight the US so much because of made-up stuff, but because there are about 150,000 armed-to-the-teeth foreign military, and a few tens of thousands of foreign paramilitary, killing their fellow Iraqis every day, with complete immunity from Iraqi law. It's true that if all Iraqis laid down their arms and did exactly what the foreign occupiers told them to, without hesitation or complaint, with averted eyes and a cowed demeanor, no one would be shot, but there's that pesky "pride" thing that, though a virtue in Americans, is a character flaw in everyone else on the planet.
it's easier to hate wealthy nations than it is to reform a poor government run by corrupt theologues.
Well, to be fair, the West has financed and armed many of the corrupt dictators that kept their economies in a state of, well, shit. It's not as if they were free nations that decided to hate us because we were free. Saddam was put in charge by Britain. Other examples abound. No, I'm not saying "the west is evil," only that part of their list of grievances against us is that we have supported dictators in their countries, and actually impeded democracy. See Iran as an example. We overthrew their democracy and installed a dictator--somehow, though they hate us, I don't think it's because of our freedom. No, I don't think their nations would blossom into post-Enlightenment bliss if we pulled our money and influence out, but we have been a very prominent part of the problem for about a century. Even if the problem would have existed without us (as it probably would have), that doesn't negate the fact that we have dirt up to the elbow.
There really isn't any truth anymore, only "truth". The Left fell first, as we know from the Sokal hoax. Foucault and other intellectuals undermined the idea of an objective, verifiable reality on which to base belief. The Right has now fallen as well. Religious faith, that hallmark of the modern American Right, dovetails very well with Foucaultish solipsism, because of their overt rejection of the objective world in favor of an ostensibly "Godly" one populated by "gut thinkers" like Bush. Cementing these two ostensible opposites together is our optimimistic, populist belief that all ideas are valid, a democractic principle that allows everyone to bring something to the table. We listen to and respect just about everyone, the side effect being the schmuck in the street who has never read one book, or even one page, on a subject gets as much time and space as the guy with the dual doctoral degree in the field.
Much of that is just arrogance--we like to think that our gut-feeling assessment of climate change, international relations, biological evolution, or whatever, is spot-on, even if a flat-out expert contravenes our superficial assessment. Not knowing what the hell you're talking about, even if you consciously know that you don't know, just isn't seen as an impediment to not only having an opinion, but to having an opinion that we feel warrants respect--equal respect, no less, with that of the expert.
It's inevitable, starting from there, that we reach a point where there is just no such thing as truth. Even fact is optional, because which facts you point out is itself a process of selection. I'm not shocked so much by the fact that the Pentagon wants to control its message, because that's how they bolster support for military budgets, etc. But I am perpetually shocked and disgusted by people's lack of skepticism at what comes out of the Pentagon. Pat Tillman, anyone? Jessica Lynch? Manufactured story after manufactured story? Is anyone out there? I support the right of used car salesmen to say just about anything they want, but sometimes, yes, Virginia, you're an idiot for believing them. But I don't think it's because of stupidity, so much as an innate cultural bias that, facts aside, what they say is just as valid as what the other person says. How can you have a conversation when facts just don't matter? It makes for a rather surreal day-to-day existence.
I like your hemp idea. I read quite a bit about hemp when I was going through my libertarian phase enroute to my epiphany that we will never cooperate, never be rational when it really matters, and ultimately we're doomed. Not that this lessens the validity of your ideas. There are so many good ideas, like yours, that would really work, but we'll never know because so few people care. Even when it gets much, much worse, the "debate" will still be the same. You can't get past the idea that it's more comforting and convenient to do what we're doing now--if it weren't, we'd be doing something else. I recycle and stuff, and sometimes try to consume less, and I'd vote for an environmental candidate like Gore, but I would do so with the certainty that all of these are feel-good gestures and we are still, as I said, doomed. Have a nice day.
For starters: to acknowledge that there is a war, to identify who/what the enemy is, and to agree that something must be done.
But a war with whom? Muslims? Religious fundamentalists? It's not so much that I don't think there's a war, but that we disagree on how clear it is who we're fighting against. "Terrorism" is a tactic more than a specific enemy. We can say that we're fighting against people who are fighting against us, but that's somewhat circular argument.
Someone who placates an enemy. while incorrectly hoping that said placation will remove the source of enmity.
If your tactics aren't working, changing them isn't "placating" an enemy. What we're doing is worsening the situation in Iraq, and helping out the terrorist recruitment process. You are still begging the question. I'm not trying to "placate" or "appease," but reduce the amount of world terrorism.
And why is this a bad thing?
Because if there are more terrorists now than when you started, and more terrorist attacks wnow than when you started, and you turned an entire country into a reruiting ground and training camp for terrorists, then perhaps your tactics are wrong. "Flypaper works for flys" sounds jaunty, but there is zero evidence, beyond it's bumper-sticker catchiness, to indicate that it works. All of the evidence we have indicates that our tactics are accomplishing the polar opposite of what we're claiming to want. I'm not asking you to trust me--the Pentagon has come to the same conclusion, as have other government studies on the issue. It's not unanimous, but it might be significant that the terrorists like what we're doing--http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1006/p01s04-w oiq.html. We are helping them by creating converts. It also might be significant that the National Intelligence Assessment also indicates that the Iraq war is making terrorism worse.
I was largely criticizing your tone, which I admit is always risky because miscommunication on the internet is so easy. Frequently anyone who doesn't support the war in Iraq is characterized as an "appeaser" or "weak on terror," and the speaker doens't even address (much less refute) the contention that the war in Iraq is making the situation worse. It's just an assumption that the Iraq war is helping us, and thus anyone opposing the Iraq war must want the terrorists to win. If you aren't one of those stupid people who are unable to make that distinction, then I misjudged you and I apologize.
Give me a fiscally responsible, small government, pro-life candidate who supports the war on terror (appeasers need not apply) and I'll consider voting for them.
What does it mean to support the "war on terror"? What the hell is an appeaser You're using a loaded term, and I have no idea what you're saying. Are you referring to the war in Iraq? If so, you are begging the question, because you refuse to acknowledge than people can disagree with you on whether or not a particular strategy will help or hurt the efforts against terrorism. Ispo facto, anyone who disagrees with the policies you believe in must be an "appeaser." Bullshit. Many, many people have seen the obvious, and acknowledge that our occupation of Iraq is a galvanizing force that draws people INTO the war against us. Our actions in Iraq are helping recruit people for a long war against us. Several government-funded studies have already arrived at this conclusion.
Don't fall for the talking-head BS that tells you that anyone who opposes the war in Iraq must be a terrorist appeaser. The idea that "liberals" are sitting around saying "how can we help the terrorists" may sell for Coulter, but it's stupid on its face. I can disagree with you on whether or not we should be in Iraq, just as I opposed our coddling and financing of Saddam in the 80s, without it meaning that I hate America. I realize that talking heads like Coulter and O'Reilly entertain their audiences with grossly oversimplified worldviews like that, but in reality hardly anyone who disagrees with you on something as complex as the occupation of a country is trying to "appease" the opponent.
You could get Michael Moore, Babs Streisand, and whichever of those Baldwin brothers O'Reilly hates so much together, and I promise you, sincerely, that not one of them actually want to help the terrorists kill Americans. Really. People who tell you that are simpletons if they believe it and manipulative demagogues if they're just saying it to entertain their audience. They are doing a disservice to their country, either way.
The need for paperwork only comes with oversight. That is tied in with probable cause, the legislated, mandatory need to justify your actions, and basically the tacit assumption that your position puts you in a position where you can abuse your power, so you should be watched closely. Take away the probable cause, shield everything behind a wall of secrecy that you can't breach because "that might help the terrorists" and you have people who a) can take stuff, b) without having to justify it to anyone outside their office. How would complaints be filed, and to whom?
The approach the White House is taking to, well, everything, is bound to trickle down, because everyone in the world would find it convenient to be free of oversight and accountability. If the position of the upper government is "trust us, and no, you can't check, because that would help the terrorists," then that incredibly convenient pretext for hiding everything they do will trickle down the ladder.
THAT, not an irrational hatred of Bush, was why the civil libertarians yelled so loudly about the White House redefining torture, due process, habeus corpus, and everything else. If one government agency can just sign a document to lock you up for as long as they want, exempting themselves from judicial or legislative oversight, redefining or ignoring laws they don't like, then well, hell, EVERYONE wants to do that, and it will trickle down to your local police department eventually. It happened with the war on drugs, and the war on terrorism is a lot more useful. Ever hear of civil asset forfeiture? Ostensibly, it was a critical tool to go after the drug dealers, but over 80% of people whose assets (cars, houses, boats, even cash) were seized WERE NEVER CHARGED. This happened under Clinton, too. Government abuses power. That is a truism, and it doesn't stop being a truism just because you voted for a particular administration. The "conservatives" have gotten so excited about being able to remake the world however they wanted that they have become the very totalitarians they claimed to fear from liberalism.
But back to the police and those laptops. You seem to think that there is some independent life-force or truth-force in existence that will spontaneously, without any legislative mandates, cause the police departments across the country to do the right thing even when no one is watching over their shoulder. That is naive to the point of hilarity. People don't handle power well. Would you like to give high school teachers the ability to strip-search any student at will, with no legislative oversight, and just assume that they won't abuse that? Do you hate teachers? No, and I don't hate cops either, but if you remove oversight that was provided by due process and probable cause, and excuse them from having to justify their actions before a judge and risk censure, then their authority will be abused for gain. It's just human nature.
Could you give me the names of a few "real conservatives," so I have a basis for comparison? Most of the Republican leadership in power now criticized Clinton heavily when he tried to kill Bin Laden. They said it was a case of "wag the dog," and that he was doing it just for political reasons. Our nation was even then fighting against terrorists, and congressional Republicans, and down to talking heads like Coulter and Rush Limbaugh failed to support the sitting president.
You can go as far back as McCarthy, and he openly undermined President Truman, flouting his authority on multiple occasions while troops were dying in Korea. So, since Republicans believe that Democrats are traitors, and Republicans aren't "real" conservatives because they don't support the President if he isn't from their party, who are the conservatives?
I've never heard, seen, or read your definition before, actually. I've always heard conservatism grouped with skepticism of government power, concern for fiscal responsibility, and things like that. How long have you had this definition of "real" conservatism? Does it extend to the last President, or did you come up with this only recently? Words sometimes do change meaning and usage over time, but rarely does the shift in meaning coincide so neatly with one politician's term of office.
Did you support the last President? Would you support a President Hillary Clinton, or a President Obama, or would you undermine them at every turn like the Republicans did to Bill Clinton during his tenure? Are YOU a "real" conservative by your own definition? Or are you a political shill? I really am curious.
Secondarily, are you saying that conservatives would always support the sitting President in time of war, even if they thought he or she was wrong?
Since the government doesn't need warrants/probable cause/oversight anymore, it would be easy to set up a business to sell "confiscated" laptops second-hand. With no oversight, there is no need for record-keeping, no way to see if someone is abusing their power, etc. Just yell "You hate America!" at anyone who questions how you bought your new house. It's worked so far. The only people who believe in old-fashioned due process are apparently terrorist appeasers, if you believe the dominant Republicans and Fox News. Can anyone think of an argument FOR government oversight, warrants, and due process that would be considered persuasive in the current political environment? We seem to have given up altogether on the idea that government is dangerous to freedom.
What happened to all the "conservatives"? Am I the only conservative who actually believes in limited government? That may be the most tangible benefit of a Democratic victory in an (any) election--the conservatives would be (ostensibly, if dishonestly) anti-government again. Right now we're stuck with the dichotomy that government-funded healthcare is creeping totalitarianism, but government torture is innocuous. Strange world we live in.
No, your digression introduces the subject of stealing, which has nothing to do with elections and Diebold and, well, Diebold, elections, and stealing just do not belong in the same sentence. The juxtaposition is stupid to even contemplate. The analogy even gets worse when you realize that with BT, your contribution makes a difference.
A better parallel would be to pass the value of $vote to/dev/null, then return the value of $Repubs_win.
Or am I missing something? (Rhetorical question, btw)
Yeah I'm sure you're right; I'm a horrible, touchy person for being offended that people would look askance at me for saying "torture is wrong." I'm sooooo thin-skinned about that. I really admire that you aren't going to address whether I'm right or not, only that you think I threw a "hissy fit" via my, well, utter horror that those around me are indifferent to people being tortured to death.
I'm appalled that when I say "torture is wrong," these ostensibly upstanding, moral human beings, largely the same ones who thought that Clinton's BJ threatened our entire nation's moral fabric, will joke and laugh about it. Yeah, wow, I see your point--it's not whether I'm right or wrong about torture being immoral, but whether I have a "chip on my shoulder." Don't actually address my point--dont' go on record saying whether you think my moral judgement on torture is right or wrong. Just keep implying that I'm being a crybaby, throwing a "hissy fit" with a "chip on my shoulder." Way to prove yourself. Color me impressed. I now respect your viewpoint. Okay, I'm lying about that last bit. You didn't actually make an argument to respect. You just tried the normal smear-tactic of ignoring what I said while pretending to address my character. I didn't realize I was running for office, Mr. Rove.
Darwin shares the common thread with these dictators a self-defined system of right and wrong.
Find me an evolutionary biologist who advocates an amoral worldview. And since Hitler and Stalin both banned Darwin's books, it's a bit difficult to make the connection, unless of course you just don't mention that they banned his books. Did you just not know that Stalin and Hitler both banned Darwin's books, or did you not mention it because it would flat-out 100% refute every single point you're trying to make? Let me say that again--the facts, which are easily looked up, refute what you're saying. Not my opinion or my way of looking at things or my "worldly" values, but the objective fact that Stalin and Hitler both banned Darwin's books because they found his ideas so objectionable..
What's more, the only people who think that Darwinism leads to immorality (other than Stalin and Hitler, who are dead) are fundamentalist, biblical literalists. No one else believes that, and from the fact that people who believe in evolution don't act any less morally than people who don't, it's pretty obvious that you're wrong. I know you'd like to be right, but pointing to a few dictators that you consider Darwinists, even though they banned Darwin's books and their motivating philosophies had nothing to do with the topics he touched on, doesn't convince anyone who isn't in your church. I mean, look at the scientific community--is that community marked by a high percentage of pedophiles or murderers? Does any data at all bear out what you're saying?
I know that you think that his ideas devalue life, but I don't find my life devalued, nor do I find morality any less compelling. Maybe your ideas say more about what kind of person you are than about what kind of person Darwin was. I don't need to believe that God created me and that there's a hell waiting for the wicked to be moral--I can be moral because that's the kind of world I want to live in. I'm getting the idea that what you're saying is that you would be a bad person if you didn't believe that God created you. Would you?
I believe in Darwinian evolution (and relativity, and atoms, and the germ theory, and plate tectonics, etc) and I believe, for example that torture is wrong and that the President can't justly re-define it now that our government is doing it. Do you think torture is wrong? It's gut-check time. Is it wrong? I'm calling you out. I believe that it's absolutely wrong. What do you think?
how do you get to be wrong on EVERYTHING?
on
Charles Darwin Online
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
Don't act like the title is a hush-hush secret, because that title is printed in the Penguin edition I bought from Amazon a month ago. And by "races," he meant what we call species. This is obvious to anyone who reads the first few pages of the book, which tells me you didn't read the book. Let me be more clear by quoting from the book you denigrate, but never read:
Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil... The Origin of Species, Chapter 1
Oh my, Darwin was a cabbage racist! Stop the presses! Oh wait, that's stupid. You saw the word "races," thought "aha, ammunition" and went running. Here's a hint--don't trust creationist web-pages, because they'll give you a misleading, caricatured idea of what Darwinism means. They'll make you look like an idiot because you'll run around calling him a racist, when anyone who even reads chapter 1 of the book knows he was talking about varieties, or species, not races like the KKK gets hung up on.
I'm not clear why I would credit Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot et al to Darwin since all of these dictators were motivated by a lust for power, not because they were convinced of common descent. Are you calling everyone who believes in common descent a Nazi? "Those murderous dictators" weren't perfect Darwinists, because nothing they did was "Darwinian." Darwinism is based on variation in the gene pool, acted upon by a selective force, leading to diversity. Oppose that to Hitler, whose philosophy was based on the idea of a "pure race." It's obvious that Hitler's views were not based on Darwin's ideas. In fact, both Stalin and Hitler actually banned Darwin's works. Stalin banned the teaching of Darwinian evolution. So by what stretch of the imagination were they "perfect Darwinists"? If a political leader banned the bible, would you infer from that that he was a perfect Christian?
"a person is known by the friends they keep."
Since Darwin died long before Hitler or Stalin came to power, how could he keep their company? Even if they based their policies on his ideas, which they clearly didn't since they banned his works, what control does a naturalist have over a wacko who kills people 70 years later?
I don't ask that you suddenly change your mind. I do ask, however, that you stop being an idiot, and make an effort to think your arguments through. It takes one Google search and 30 seconds of reading to refute every single point you made. It's not that I think I'm smart, only that your arguments are so embarrassingly bad that people will inevitably conclude that you're stupid. If you aren't stupid, then stop being intellectually lazy.
"It's" means "it is." That aside, which herd are you herding me into? Accusing me of hyperbole might have been warranted, but I'm honestly puzzled at your assessment of herd mentality. I actually do get shunned and ridiculed for saying "torture is wrong." Or is that very sentiment the "herd" mentality to which you object? I'm unclear on whether you're objecting to my opposition to torture, or to my perception that such opposition puts me in a rather unpopular (in certain circles) minority.
I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but you could have the common decency to say something. Your post is just contempt, but with no content to give me a reason to consider your viewpoint. You don't even present an argument, a premise, an allegation of fact, nothing. You haven't said anything. This is actually the very thing I referred to earlier in the thread. You seem to consider contempt and derision to be valid arguments. You are a strange creature.
No, I think you have it backwards. Women do have that certain something that men want, but that isn't the reason they aren't penalized for being smart. That's why they aren't penalized for being stupid. A smart, articulate woman has overcome not a conspiracy to keep her dumb, but a collective willingness to let her get away with being less smart than a man, because of that thing she has that the guys are after. It works against her in the long run, because expecting less of you is holding you down, but they can still get away with more if they happen to fill a sweater niceley.
An attractive woman can be a dunce and someone will still laugh at her jokes, hang on her every word, carry her luggage, and give her a job. For the wrong reasons? Absolutely. I sometimes think that's part of the reason that some men do find intelligent women frightening. Add the power they already have via their sex to their intelligence, and it can be daunting. The guy can be left wondering if she's thinking "I could sleep my way to the top and beat you anyway, but I'll play it your way just because I find this way more amusing for now." Even when a person has too much character to win that way, the fact that they have the option can be irritating.
Slashdot Mirror
- Sea life is dying faster than it is being replenished
- The supply is finite
Wouldn't it seem painfully obvious that we'll run out? Do you think they're really relying on the "argument from authority" fallacy? Do you think that more sea life will just magically appear? Or do you just not care? People with your worldview really confuse me. I can't figure out if it's science you distrust, or statistics, or what. "Scientists are fallible" doesn't refute any single conclusion, much less one that you can figure out for yourself to be true. This isn't quantum mechanics or some other obscure field that requires a lot of expertise. If you cut down trees faster than trees grow, you'll end up with zero trees. Change trees to fish, and what do you get? How can you manage to have such scorn for something with such serious consequences?- CEO promises to help Republicans win the vote
- CEO is actively involved in Bush re-election campaign
- CEO's company makes voting machine with no paper trail, no audit capability, no way at all to verify that the numbers being spit out are related to actual votes.
- Company's voting machines are used in states with close outcomes
- Company's voting machines are used in states whose election outcomes were starkly different from the straw polls, but the difference was not randomly distributed--the variation benefited only one political party, the very one the CEO promised to keep in office. Straw polls are mathematically reliable enough to be use to spot actual election fraud on other nations. Even if you don't consider them reliable, they are still used to spot election fraud, meaning statisticians do consider them reliable enough to analyze election results.
- People get suspicious
- People like you are suddenly mystified why the hell anyone would be skeptical. You can't think of any reason, any reason at all, why someone would be less than credulous about Diebold election machines.
It must be liberal bias, you say. Yep, liberal bias. Nothing to see here. Did you strike your head? I'm not calling you a flame or a troll--I'm calling you deliberately obtuse. Even if Diebold is in actuality as pure as the driven snow, even if in actuality their voting machines are not crooked, it still stinks to high heaven. There is EVERY reason to be skeptical. You have proven, admitted bias, plus a black-box voting scheme where it is (by design) possible to steal an election and not get caught, and then the results don't match the straw polls, the very polls that were considered reliable BEFORE your vote tallies didn't match them. Are you serious?What's interesting about your use of that word is that the current administration is deeply relativist, while pretending not to be. If you think you can just re-define words like torture because what we're doing would have qualified as torture last week but now that we're doing it it isn't torture anymore, that makes you a relativist. We didn't invent waterboarding, for example--people did it in WWII, and it was considered a war crime then. By us. Is it still a war crime? It is, unless you think the ones we convicted of it after WWII were innocent, or you think that "everything has changed". If you think there is actually such a thing as a post-9/11 morality, that what was immoral before is okay after, then you are a relativist. If you think 9/11 changed whether or not torture, or imprisonment without trial, is immoral, then you are a relativist. I am not one of those. Are you?
Back to the original issue of Clinton's infidelity, I also believe in a public and private sphere of life. If you have an affair, that's wrong, and it would still be tacky of me to talk about it in open company. To spend my time talking about a man's infidelity, to let that subject dominate my conversation, my attention span, would be, well, silly. If someone is fixated on the extramarital affair of the guy down the hallway, down the street, or in the White House, then that person is either small-minded and petty, or is just faking his outrage as a means to an end. Considering the number of Republian politicians who have had admitted, known affairs, yet suffer none of the contumely that Clinton faced, I can guess which side most Republicans are on, meaning that they're faking it. In other words, they're lying, acting more outraged that they really are, as a means to a political end. I actually find that less depressing than the alternative.
Amplifying its significance into a 24/7 "news event" shows evidence either of a sick fixation on something that should remain private, or just political opportunism. I was arguing about this with a co-worker just a few days ago. He was complaining about the morality of kids today (something no previous generation has ever had cause to do, I'm sure) and (of course) it was all Clinton's fault. It was that damned blowjob that sent western civilization into a downward spiral. Bullshit. Men like women, and women often like men, but Bill Clinton, even if he diddled around, was not the one who made his BJ into part of the national consciousness. Republicans did that, by fixating for years on an essentially private matter. They made talking about oral sex more acceptable, even glib, than Oprah could do in 20 years of trash TV. Republicans pushed it to the forefront and kept it there, and they are why it was on the news every single day. It was NOT important, not nearly as important as redefining torture and habeus corpus, which is what our current President has done. I don't find any Republican protestations of superior morality persuasive, or even entertaining.
If you really think that Clinton sullied the nation by getting a blowjob, but you don't bat an eyelash over Bush waffling over us torturing people do death, then you're about the worst possible source of moral guidance I could ask for. Either you're just a political hack, or there's something wrong with your priorities as a human being. It's pretty sad when the best-case scenario is that you just have no integrity. I find myself hoping that you're just a liar, because that's the less bleak of the alternatives. What kind of people are deeply disturbed by oral sex but is okay with people being tortured to death? Is that even possible? Where do these people come from? And I'm supposed to accept that moral outrage as authentic and even (I laugh!) deserving of respect?
Let me clarify something--if Bush were caught in flagrante dilecto 25 minutes from now, flagrantly lied about it under warrant, and got impeached--I'd still find it trivial, and I'd be pissed that he was impeached (successfully or otherwise) over something so unimportant, after authorizing torture, warrantless surveillance, ignoring written law at will, and so on. I'd be embarrassed as an American if we impeached Bush for oral sex (or any sex) with a consenting adult, because that would be petty and small-minded. Putting that on the news every day for months would make us as a nation look like fools, and even though I oppose many of his policies, I would not want to embarrass my nation by something so, well, tacky.
But if the errors disproportionately benefit one political party, then that alone is evidence of malfeasance. If all the "random" numbers benefit my candidate, then the numbers aren't random.
Sheesh, read what I wrote. If money is spent to rebuild infrastructure stateside, then those goods and services are still being provided, no? Even with government-financed health care, or universal internet access, or any such service, goods and services are still being provided. Yet critics wail "that isn't the job of government--you're making government too big!" even though they'll support the same purchases for Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The only difference I can see between building infrastructure in Iraq and building it stateside is that if you build it overseas the contracts are funnelled to a few big-ticket companies, all of which have ties to the White House and Dept of Defense. If you spend the money stateside, more people benefit, but then you don't have high-paid lobbyists clamoring for infrastructure dollars anymore.
Yes, I'm aware of the textbook definition of socialism, thanks, but I was referring to the seemingly obvious fact that if you want to fund infrastructure (water plants, hospitals, power plants) with public funds, the same people who have no problem rebuilding Iraq will complain about encroaching socialism. If you're so concerned about it being a "handout" to give a poor single parent money to live, then institute work programs, and then you'll have the goods and services you care about. But no one is interested in any programs whose main beneficiaries are poor people.
Of course, $100 given to a poor single mother will be pushed right back into the economy, creating just as many jobs as $100 given to Raytheon or some other weapons manufacturer. But everyone acts as if poor people burn their money in little bonfires, forgetting that a dollar spent by a bum is just as good at creating jobs as a dollar spent by a CEO. We basically just worship success, so we funnel money to big corporations as if we need more weapons. Hell, Congress just reauthorized weapons that the DoD said they didn't even need! So yes, the weapons companies are providing goods and services, but if we're buying goods and services we don't really need, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, then that's morally no different than paying poor people $2000 a month to pick up litter. It's just a wealth redistribution program, only one that gets the nod from the "I love the free market" types, while the other is labeled as "big government." Give me a break.
Government helping people in the US is socialism. In fact, any social spending or infrastructure spending in the US is socialism. Paying for grandma's health care is socialism.
Paying Haliburton and other US contractors to rebuild Iraq--that's not socialism. The discriminator is this--who makes the money? If money is being spread among a bunch of little people, then that's socialism. If money is poured into a few large corporations whose executives make tens or hundreds of millions, then that's the free market. If it's profitable for the rich, it's the free market, but if you're giving money to a single mother of 2, then that's socialism. If you're helping the working poor pay their medical bills, that's socialism, and probably creeping totalitarianism.
But we can brag on TV about building schools for Iraqis, and that's NOT socialism. But--you guess it--large American corporations have won contracts to rebuild those schools, along with those huge military bases over there. What is an what is not socialism has more to do with who gets to pocket the money than it does with any fidelity to Karl Marx. Care to look into how much federal money was spent rebuilding New Orleans, compared to how much is spent on rebuilding Iraq? If you spend money in New Orleans, then small local firms may get some of the contracts, and the money may be spent, and most importantly earned, locally. If you spend in Iraq, all of the money goes into the coffers of large companies with sweetheart deals, such as Haliburton.
Small mom-and-pop contractors don't have contacts in the Department of Defense and White House. But if you get big enough, you get to engage in nation-building as part of someone's "vision," like PNAC, and then that isn't socialism, even if you're building the very things that WOULD be socialism if you were building it for Americans back home.
I didn't say "every" and I wasn't painting with that broad a brush. Obviously some Christians are scientists, many reject Biblical literalism, etc etc. You are taking all of my arguments to an absurd degree, rather than listening to the points I am trying to make. Enthusiasm can lead to hyperbole, which I may be a bit guilty of, but I think it's obvious that I'm not saying "every one of these, everwhere, without exception, all the time, is exactly like this." If someone connects liberals with support of affirmative action, you don't leap out and say "Aha! Not ALL of them do! so there! You're stereotyping!" That's just dumb.
Please point to something that indicates a "religious obsession." Have you dealt at all with the creationist movement? What I said really does apply to a wide swath of Americans. Follow the attacks against evolutionary theory, and you find many people arguing about the "limitations of materialistic thinking." They are trying to redefine science. I routinely read essays and blog posts bemoaning the blinkered worldview foisted upon us by methodological materialism--i.e. they want "evidence of things not seen" (i.e. faith) to qualify as science. This is true (or false, as the case may be), and you can attack me on the accuracy or even honesty of what I'm saying, but it's silly to throw out an accusation that I have a religious obsession, that I'm tryin to paint ALL Christians as, as you say, "zombies." Me objecting to fundamentalists being hostile to rationalism isn't the same thing as me being a religious bigot.
But we do have a system. Scientific articles are peer-reviewed, plus you can look at the consensus of the scientific community. This doesn't preclude error (nothing does, I fear) but if we can agree that, a) science generally works, and b) science's best answer right now on a given subject is such-and-such, I think we can trust the best science has at a give time to be the best WE have at a given time. Science of course addresses the physical world, and doesn't tell you why you should be a good person or whether or not you'll meet your loved ones in the afterlife, but when it comes to things like, say, the causes and impacts of climate change, the causes of genetic diversity (as in evolution), etc, I think we can trust that, at least better than we can trust anything else offered to us.
On other issues, like whether or not Iraq had WMD or Saddam supported Al Quaida, well, we do employ experts. The state department, CIA, DoD, etc all studied the questions--what did they say? If the National Intelligence Estimate, the sum total end analysis of all the expertise owned by the entire US intelligence apparatuss, came to a conclusion about the effects of the Iraq occupation, and then a few campaiging politicians came out and say "no, I don't believe that, we're doing great, and we're helping the situation," then I still think it's clear that the experts are who wrote the NIE, not the professional politician. Critical thinking is not fool-proof, and the human condition always entails the possibility of error, but we do have ways of assessing credibility. You can't institutionalize that and prevent people from trusting whoever they damned well please, but I'm not saying we should make people do anything. I was just dismayed (and I still am) that people believe things so readily, not just when they're absurd, but when known, verifiable facts exist that disprove the very thing they believe.
I have seen cases presented, with facts, logic, everything in line, and the other person just says, "no, I disagree," and that's it. It's not that they should be made to agree (even if that were possible) just that they don't consider counter-arguments, alternative
There is such a thing as critical reading and listening. Even though we can be deceived with selective evidence, there can still be an effort. Though I recognize the limits of the human situation, I refuse to retreat into the "we can't know anything" solipsism. If you and I disagree on the speed of light, or how a particular congressman voted on a particular bill, we can look that up--there are facts to be assessed. It's true that much of what you seen on TV actually undermines critical thought, but the answer is--stop watching TV. O'Reilley et al (and I mean all political TV, not all conservative political TV) undermines the capacity for critical thought because they rely so heavily on glittering generalities and ad hominem attacks, not to mention stacking the evidence. I can hardly blame them, since there is so little time to present a reasoned, developed argument, and the audience is so fickle that they'll change the channel before you can explain a reasoned, balanced position.
But much of the problem I see around me stems not from our inability to check things for ourselves. People just don't care to. For example, the evolution debate fascinates me, consequently I read about it. I read books, articles, talk.origins, etc. I'm no expert, but I make an effort to learn something about the terms of the debate. But I find myself arguing with people who make the most childish, ignorant arguments, arguments that have been refuted (or even abandoned) decades ago, but they just haven't read anything on the subject, so they wouldn't know. They're not only poorly-read on evolution, but even in ID or creationism, which they're ostensibly convinced of. And this is a subject they're passionate about, one they think matters in the world. People just don't think facts, research, or well-reasoned arguments are important--they just believe what they believe, and that's it.
Well, you don't need to make up "the Marines bombed your house and killed your sister, father, and daughter. Join us in fighting them!" People aren't swarming to fight the US so much because of made-up stuff, but because there are about 150,000 armed-to-the-teeth foreign military, and a few tens of thousands of foreign paramilitary, killing their fellow Iraqis every day, with complete immunity from Iraqi law. It's true that if all Iraqis laid down their arms and did exactly what the foreign occupiers told them to, without hesitation or complaint, with averted eyes and a cowed demeanor, no one would be shot, but there's that pesky "pride" thing that, though a virtue in Americans, is a character flaw in everyone else on the planet.
Well, to be fair, the West has financed and armed many of the corrupt dictators that kept their economies in a state of, well, shit. It's not as if they were free nations that decided to hate us because we were free. Saddam was put in charge by Britain. Other examples abound. No, I'm not saying "the west is evil," only that part of their list of grievances against us is that we have supported dictators in their countries, and actually impeded democracy. See Iran as an example. We overthrew their democracy and installed a dictator--somehow, though they hate us, I don't think it's because of our freedom. No, I don't think their nations would blossom into post-Enlightenment bliss if we pulled our money and influence out, but we have been a very prominent part of the problem for about a century. Even if the problem would have existed without us (as it probably would have), that doesn't negate the fact that we have dirt up to the elbow.
Much of that is just arrogance--we like to think that our gut-feeling assessment of climate change, international relations, biological evolution, or whatever, is spot-on, even if a flat-out expert contravenes our superficial assessment. Not knowing what the hell you're talking about, even if you consciously know that you don't know, just isn't seen as an impediment to not only having an opinion, but to having an opinion that we feel warrants respect--equal respect, no less, with that of the expert.
It's inevitable, starting from there, that we reach a point where there is just no such thing as truth. Even fact is optional, because which facts you point out is itself a process of selection. I'm not shocked so much by the fact that the Pentagon wants to control its message, because that's how they bolster support for military budgets, etc. But I am perpetually shocked and disgusted by people's lack of skepticism at what comes out of the Pentagon. Pat Tillman, anyone? Jessica Lynch? Manufactured story after manufactured story? Is anyone out there? I support the right of used car salesmen to say just about anything they want, but sometimes, yes, Virginia, you're an idiot for believing them. But I don't think it's because of stupidity, so much as an innate cultural bias that, facts aside, what they say is just as valid as what the other person says. How can you have a conversation when facts just don't matter? It makes for a rather surreal day-to-day existence.
I like your hemp idea. I read quite a bit about hemp when I was going through my libertarian phase enroute to my epiphany that we will never cooperate, never be rational when it really matters, and ultimately we're doomed. Not that this lessens the validity of your ideas. There are so many good ideas, like yours, that would really work, but we'll never know because so few people care. Even when it gets much, much worse, the "debate" will still be the same. You can't get past the idea that it's more comforting and convenient to do what we're doing now--if it weren't, we'd be doing something else. I recycle and stuff, and sometimes try to consume less, and I'd vote for an environmental candidate like Gore, but I would do so with the certainty that all of these are feel-good gestures and we are still, as I said, doomed. Have a nice day.
Well, was He risen? I keep hearing yes, but I've always been too shy to check.
But a war with whom? Muslims? Religious fundamentalists? It's not so much that I don't think there's a war, but that we disagree on how clear it is who we're fighting against. "Terrorism" is a tactic more than a specific enemy. We can say that we're fighting against people who are fighting against us, but that's somewhat circular argument.
If your tactics aren't working, changing them isn't "placating" an enemy. What we're doing is worsening the situation in Iraq, and helping out the terrorist recruitment process. You are still begging the question. I'm not trying to "placate" or "appease," but reduce the amount of world terrorism.
Because if there are more terrorists now than when you started, and more terrorist attacks wnow than when you started, and you turned an entire country into a reruiting ground and training camp for terrorists, then perhaps your tactics are wrong. "Flypaper works for flys" sounds jaunty, but there is zero evidence, beyond it's bumper-sticker catchiness, to indicate that it works. All of the evidence we have indicates that our tactics are accomplishing the polar opposite of what we're claiming to want. I'm not asking you to trust me--the Pentagon has come to the same conclusion, as have other government studies on the issue. It's not unanimous, but it might be significant that the terrorists like what we're doing--http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1006/p01s04-w oiq.html. We are helping them by creating converts. It also might be significant that the National Intelligence Assessment also indicates that the Iraq war is making terrorism worse.
I was largely criticizing your tone, which I admit is always risky because miscommunication on the internet is so easy. Frequently anyone who doesn't support the war in Iraq is characterized as an "appeaser" or "weak on terror," and the speaker doens't even address (much less refute) the contention that the war in Iraq is making the situation worse. It's just an assumption that the Iraq war is helping us, and thus anyone opposing the Iraq war must want the terrorists to win. If you aren't one of those stupid people who are unable to make that distinction, then I misjudged you and I apologize.
What does it mean to support the "war on terror"? What the hell is an appeaser You're using a loaded term, and I have no idea what you're saying. Are you referring to the war in Iraq? If so, you are begging the question, because you refuse to acknowledge than people can disagree with you on whether or not a particular strategy will help or hurt the efforts against terrorism. Ispo facto, anyone who disagrees with the policies you believe in must be an "appeaser." Bullshit. Many, many people have seen the obvious, and acknowledge that our occupation of Iraq is a galvanizing force that draws people INTO the war against us. Our actions in Iraq are helping recruit people for a long war against us. Several government-funded studies have already arrived at this conclusion.
Don't fall for the talking-head BS that tells you that anyone who opposes the war in Iraq must be a terrorist appeaser. The idea that "liberals" are sitting around saying "how can we help the terrorists" may sell for Coulter, but it's stupid on its face. I can disagree with you on whether or not we should be in Iraq, just as I opposed our coddling and financing of Saddam in the 80s, without it meaning that I hate America. I realize that talking heads like Coulter and O'Reilly entertain their audiences with grossly oversimplified worldviews like that, but in reality hardly anyone who disagrees with you on something as complex as the occupation of a country is trying to "appease" the opponent.
You could get Michael Moore, Babs Streisand, and whichever of those Baldwin brothers O'Reilly hates so much together, and I promise you, sincerely, that not one of them actually want to help the terrorists kill Americans. Really. People who tell you that are simpletons if they believe it and manipulative demagogues if they're just saying it to entertain their audience. They are doing a disservice to their country, either way.
The approach the White House is taking to, well, everything, is bound to trickle down, because everyone in the world would find it convenient to be free of oversight and accountability. If the position of the upper government is "trust us, and no, you can't check, because that would help the terrorists," then that incredibly convenient pretext for hiding everything they do will trickle down the ladder.
THAT, not an irrational hatred of Bush, was why the civil libertarians yelled so loudly about the White House redefining torture, due process, habeus corpus, and everything else. If one government agency can just sign a document to lock you up for as long as they want, exempting themselves from judicial or legislative oversight, redefining or ignoring laws they don't like, then well, hell, EVERYONE wants to do that, and it will trickle down to your local police department eventually. It happened with the war on drugs, and the war on terrorism is a lot more useful. Ever hear of civil asset forfeiture? Ostensibly, it was a critical tool to go after the drug dealers, but over 80% of people whose assets (cars, houses, boats, even cash) were seized WERE NEVER CHARGED. This happened under Clinton, too. Government abuses power. That is a truism, and it doesn't stop being a truism just because you voted for a particular administration. The "conservatives" have gotten so excited about being able to remake the world however they wanted that they have become the very totalitarians they claimed to fear from liberalism.
But back to the police and those laptops. You seem to think that there is some independent life-force or truth-force in existence that will spontaneously, without any legislative mandates, cause the police departments across the country to do the right thing even when no one is watching over their shoulder. That is naive to the point of hilarity. People don't handle power well. Would you like to give high school teachers the ability to strip-search any student at will, with no legislative oversight, and just assume that they won't abuse that? Do you hate teachers? No, and I don't hate cops either, but if you remove oversight that was provided by due process and probable cause, and excuse them from having to justify their actions before a judge and risk censure, then their authority will be abused for gain. It's just human nature.
You can go as far back as McCarthy, and he openly undermined President Truman, flouting his authority on multiple occasions while troops were dying in Korea. So, since Republicans believe that Democrats are traitors, and Republicans aren't "real" conservatives because they don't support the President if he isn't from their party, who are the conservatives?
I've never heard, seen, or read your definition before, actually. I've always heard conservatism grouped with skepticism of government power, concern for fiscal responsibility, and things like that. How long have you had this definition of "real" conservatism? Does it extend to the last President, or did you come up with this only recently? Words sometimes do change meaning and usage over time, but rarely does the shift in meaning coincide so neatly with one politician's term of office.
Did you support the last President? Would you support a President Hillary Clinton, or a President Obama, or would you undermine them at every turn like the Republicans did to Bill Clinton during his tenure? Are YOU a "real" conservative by your own definition? Or are you a political shill? I really am curious.
Secondarily, are you saying that conservatives would always support the sitting President in time of war, even if they thought he or she was wrong?
What happened to all the "conservatives"? Am I the only conservative who actually believes in limited government? That may be the most tangible benefit of a Democratic victory in an (any) election--the conservatives would be (ostensibly, if dishonestly) anti-government again. Right now we're stuck with the dichotomy that government-funded healthcare is creeping totalitarianism, but government torture is innocuous. Strange world we live in.
No, your digression introduces the subject of stealing, which has nothing to do with elections and Diebold and, well, Diebold, elections, and stealing just do not belong in the same sentence. The juxtaposition is stupid to even contemplate. The analogy even gets worse when you realize that with BT, your contribution makes a difference.
A better parallel would be to pass the value of $vote to /dev/null, then return the value of $Repubs_win.
Or am I missing something? (Rhetorical question, btw)
I'm appalled that when I say "torture is wrong," these ostensibly upstanding, moral human beings, largely the same ones who thought that Clinton's BJ threatened our entire nation's moral fabric, will joke and laugh about it. Yeah, wow, I see your point--it's not whether I'm right or wrong about torture being immoral, but whether I have a "chip on my shoulder." Don't actually address my point--dont' go on record saying whether you think my moral judgement on torture is right or wrong. Just keep implying that I'm being a crybaby, throwing a "hissy fit" with a "chip on my shoulder." Way to prove yourself. Color me impressed. I now respect your viewpoint. Okay, I'm lying about that last bit. You didn't actually make an argument to respect. You just tried the normal smear-tactic of ignoring what I said while pretending to address my character. I didn't realize I was running for office, Mr. Rove.
What's more, the only people who think that Darwinism leads to immorality (other than Stalin and Hitler, who are dead) are fundamentalist, biblical literalists. No one else believes that, and from the fact that people who believe in evolution don't act any less morally than people who don't, it's pretty obvious that you're wrong. I know you'd like to be right, but pointing to a few dictators that you consider Darwinists, even though they banned Darwin's books and their motivating philosophies had nothing to do with the topics he touched on, doesn't convince anyone who isn't in your church. I mean, look at the scientific community--is that community marked by a high percentage of pedophiles or murderers? Does any data at all bear out what you're saying?
I know that you think that his ideas devalue life, but I don't find my life devalued, nor do I find morality any less compelling. Maybe your ideas say more about what kind of person you are than about what kind of person Darwin was. I don't need to believe that God created me and that there's a hell waiting for the wicked to be moral--I can be moral because that's the kind of world I want to live in. I'm getting the idea that what you're saying is that you would be a bad person if you didn't believe that God created you. Would you?
I believe in Darwinian evolution (and relativity, and atoms, and the germ theory, and plate tectonics, etc) and I believe, for example that torture is wrong and that the President can't justly re-define it now that our government is doing it. Do you think torture is wrong? It's gut-check time. Is it wrong? I'm calling you out. I believe that it's absolutely wrong. What do you think?
Don't act like the title is a hush-hush secret, because that title is printed in the Penguin edition I bought from Amazon a month ago. And by "races," he meant what we call species. This is obvious to anyone who reads the first few pages of the book, which tells me you didn't read the book. Let me be more clear by quoting from the book you denigrate, but never read:
Oh my, Darwin was a cabbage racist! Stop the presses! Oh wait, that's stupid. You saw the word "races," thought "aha, ammunition" and went running. Here's a hint--don't trust creationist web-pages, because they'll give you a misleading, caricatured idea of what Darwinism means. They'll make you look like an idiot because you'll run around calling him a racist, when anyone who even reads chapter 1 of the book knows he was talking about varieties, or species, not races like the KKK gets hung up on.
I'm not clear why I would credit Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot et al to Darwin since all of these dictators were motivated by a lust for power, not because they were convinced of common descent. Are you calling everyone who believes in common descent a Nazi? "Those murderous dictators" weren't perfect Darwinists, because nothing they did was "Darwinian." Darwinism is based on variation in the gene pool, acted upon by a selective force, leading to diversity. Oppose that to Hitler, whose philosophy was based on the idea of a "pure race." It's obvious that Hitler's views were not based on Darwin's ideas. In fact, both Stalin and Hitler actually banned Darwin's works. Stalin banned the teaching of Darwinian evolution. So by what stretch of the imagination were they "perfect Darwinists"? If a political leader banned the bible, would you infer from that that he was a perfect Christian?
Since Darwin died long before Hitler or Stalin came to power, how could he keep their company? Even if they based their policies on his ideas, which they clearly didn't since they banned his works, what control does a naturalist have over a wacko who kills people 70 years later?I don't ask that you suddenly change your mind. I do ask, however, that you stop being an idiot, and make an effort to think your arguments through. It takes one Google search and 30 seconds of reading to refute every single point you made. It's not that I think I'm smart, only that your arguments are so embarrassingly bad that people will inevitably conclude that you're stupid. If you aren't stupid, then stop being intellectually lazy.
"It's" means "it is." That aside, which herd are you herding me into? Accusing me of hyperbole might have been warranted, but I'm honestly puzzled at your assessment of herd mentality. I actually do get shunned and ridiculed for saying "torture is wrong." Or is that very sentiment the "herd" mentality to which you object? I'm unclear on whether you're objecting to my opposition to torture, or to my perception that such opposition puts me in a rather unpopular (in certain circles) minority.
I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but you could have the common decency to say something. Your post is just contempt, but with no content to give me a reason to consider your viewpoint. You don't even present an argument, a premise, an allegation of fact, nothing. You haven't said anything. This is actually the very thing I referred to earlier in the thread. You seem to consider contempt and derision to be valid arguments. You are a strange creature.
An attractive woman can be a dunce and someone will still laugh at her jokes, hang on her every word, carry her luggage, and give her a job. For the wrong reasons? Absolutely. I sometimes think that's part of the reason that some men do find intelligent women frightening. Add the power they already have via their sex to their intelligence, and it can be daunting. The guy can be left wondering if she's thinking "I could sleep my way to the top and beat you anyway, but I'll play it your way just because I find this way more amusing for now." Even when a person has too much character to win that way, the fact that they have the option can be irritating.