"We can agree that social security is not indefinitely sustainable."
Actually no, SS is exactly indefinitely sustainable.
Indefinite, adj, lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time
You seem to not like it because its potentiality is indefinite. Going way back to the beginning you said this: "Oh 80 years? Then it will go on forever." If your standard for laws is that the must last "forever" then you are an anarchist because nothing lasts forever. I suspect you don't actually think that way, you're just full of it, trying to win an unwinnable argument. I know, empty rhetoric is fun on Slashdot, I just hope you don't actually think and vote this way.
Yep, they shot seven bullets and couldn't hit her tire? I think that's a good critique. It's time to go do some target practice, officers!
But pepper spray and tasers don't work through car windows. Bean bag gun? Maybe. Spike strips? That's a good option in certain rare situations, different than this one, when a car is driving on a long road with no other way to go except over them (specifically, highway chases where you can radio ahead, clear traffic, put down the strip).
"do you really think this was the best option?"
The best? Maybe, maybe not, but it was a good option given the circumstances. It's an option not worthy of dismissal.
You're talking about a moment when two plain-clothes cops are standing next to four uniformed cops while the entire scene is literally surrounded with marked police cars with lights flashing. I think it would be untenable to argue -- as you have -- that any conscious person could mistake this for a non-police interaction.
"Oh, sure, there's that cop car in my back window, that other cop car in my back window, that THIRD cop car in my right side-view mirror, that FOURTH cop car in my left side-view mirror -- plus there are those two uniformed officers pointing guns at me through my driver-side window, and two more uniformed officers pointing guns at me through my windshield -- but oh, I'm pretty sure this whole situation is not a police interaction because back there, standing behind those two uniformed police officers, I can see a guy with a gun wearing plaid shorts."
You are really really reaching for a way to blame the police for this and you didn't succeeded. Without video maybe we could speculate on how everything was different but with video we can see that the police did everything right and the woman did everything wrong.
If you're just dripping with desperation on how to find some way to criticize the police [why the heck do people do that? why not just criticize them when they do something wrong?] then criticize the inability of six officers to shoot seven bullets and fail to take out even one of her tires.
Just to be clear, (3) is wrong. See in this video that she is obviously completely surrounded by police, not one plain-clothes officer with a gun but more than a half-dozen of them, in uniforms (weird uniforms with shorts), plus marked police cars with lights and sirens going.
You conceded the point of sustainability by changing the subject. You didn't disagree that 100 years of sustainability is "enough" because it would be preposterous to do so. Obviously 100 years is more than enough. You changed the subject to some kind of slippery-slope-policy question and I responded to it directly. That's exactly the opposite of what you did.
I didn't evade your question I gave the obvious answer. "Well if you allow the government to do X then what stops Y?" The answer is "we don't like Y, so we don't do it". Duh. That's how policy is made, man. If we like socialism but don't like communism, then we have socialism and not communism. If we like Alaska and Hawaii but don't like Puerto Rico, then we admit Alaska and Hawaii as states and we don't admit Puerto Rico. If we like to allow 18 year olds to vote, but not 17 year olds, then we do that. If we want government-subsidized private insurance, but not "communist" government-run hospitals, then we do that. This isn't a mystery.
Blah blah blah freedom. That rhetoric is meaningless. Boil it down to specifics or it's just hot air. Who the heck do you think is "against freedom"? If you want to be left alone then move to a place with no other human beings like antarctica or the moon, but if you want to live in a society then society "forces" you to obey some rules. Lucky for you there is democracy where you get a little bit of a voice in how the rules are made. This isn't rocket science it's sixth-grade level civics.
I'll agree with you if it's clear that they made that choice. Usually situations like this don't provide a bunch of safe, effective alternatives. Usually it's a decision between (1) shoot the perp (2) have no control over the situation, in which case we have to go with #1.
I accept your concession on the point of the longevity of Social Security.
New questions: "Where does it stop? Why not go full communist?"
1. Wherever we decide to stop, as a democracy 2. Because that doesn't seem like the best possible social policy to me, as a voter
Does everything have to be Communism vs. Anarchy to you? Have you ever considered political moderation? Maybe you should consider it; moderation is nice.
Maybe. Or maybe they should use whatever good ideas are available to them, wherever they came from. I guess I prefer the latter option. (Personally I've never been to Digg so I don't know what it looks like.)
All in all I say I like it. It's fine but there is one really important thing missing which is the rounded corner at the top-left of sections. That is iconic Slashdot and they should retain it.
Right, okay. Sustainable. Sustainable for how long? Like, for as long as a Presidency (eight years)? As long as a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court (say about forty years)? For a century (the current estimate for Social Security solvency)? As long as the entire history of the USA (about 250 years)? As long as the longest ever human empire (about a thousand years)? As long as humans have been genetically modern (about one or two million years)? As long as the entire history of life on planet Earth? Until the heat death of the universe?
In my opinion the eighty year history of Social Security is way, way longer than whatever amount of time it had to survive to be regarded as a successful program. If we don't change it, it will be 100% solvent until its 100th birthday, and if we change it (which we will) then it will be solvent for however much longer.
You don't have to like it. As I said three posts ago, Social Security is the most contemptible program to people like you because it completely razes the political ideology which says government can never be successful doing anything but warfare. As it turns out, that ideology is wrong.
Yeah man, totally. My grandpa used to say that shit to me when I was a child in the 1970s. Someday, man, someday! It might be centuries from now, but eventually grandpa will be right.
The key that unlocks your dilemma there is "things change".
"Imagine if the Democrats actually did something other than scream about Republicans wanting to destroy the Federal government. A person would have to be completely batshit to believe any elected asshole wants that."
You think? Really? I think of today's Republican party as the inheritance of the anti-Federalist movement during our founding, which has propagated/festered through the centuries. I think it's perfectly reasonable and evidential to say that the right-wing of the Republican party wants to dismantle and disband the Federal government. I don't even think that would be denied by a large number of Republican representatives and constituents.
I don't understand your point. We should never do anything that won't last forever and ever? What's your time horizon, is it before the heat death of the universe? Is it before the sun swallows the Earth? Because in my opinion a social program that helps people for 80 years is a social program that outlived its critics nonsense rhetoric by 70 years. Once again I'll say "if Social Security ever became a problem then we could get rid of it" and in the mean time it would have made the world a better place.
The number of Congresspeople who need their paycheck to pay ongoing bills is substantially close to zero -- small enough as to be negligible. It need not even be mentioned. There might be one or two but I doubt it's that high.
I never understood the thing where people hate the federal government but somehow love lower levels of government. Why is the state the maximum allowable level of federalism?
House Democrats got a million more votes for House seats in 2012 than did House Republicans. Therefore, the House Dem caucus represents the will of the people, and the House Dem caucus does not want to repeal Obamacare. Therefore you are wrong.
That's not to say we shouldn't repeal the law, just that your argument is nonsense.
Yeah but the 10% rating is nonsense. America re-elected 91% of its House reps last year so I think the only fair poll is the election: Congress has a 91% approval rating.
I wish that were true but my guess is that the Republican party sustains the decade because they can't be beat in gerrymandered House districts, and continue to dominate State legislatures, while never retaking the Senate or Presidency. The Dems would have to get majorities in most state legislatures in 2020 to redraw districts in 2021, which is possible but not a safe bet, and only then would Republicans feel the pressure to be more moderate in 2022. That's a long, long time to wait.
The debt ceiling is a problem, it's true, but it won't be a sudden catastrophe on Oct 18. The government wouldn't have enough money to run everything but it would still have money to do a lot. One thing is certain which is that we would keep paying interest on the debt. The President would have to decide what spending to cut and he'd probably be forced to cut a lot of Social Security checks, perhaps with some sops by trimming a little military spending or something. It would become a catastrophe over the course of a month or two as the economy tanked because the poor wouldn't have any money to spend.
Oh okay how about this, we won't "ration" it in the sense that everybody gets some, but we'll "ration" it to *only* the poorest two-thirds of Americans, so the upper-middle-class folks and rich folks don't get any at all. Then that will be pretty much exactly like today in terms of amount-per-person, and if the way we currently do it is okay then that would be okay too I imagine.
I guess my point is, yeah, if you want to call it rationing then okay whatever yawn I'm fine with rationing. My guess however is that America is able to produce enough health care for everyone and the real problem is paying for it.
Social Security has been helping people for 80 years. You sound ridiculous saying "yeah, but any day now it could become a problem! Any... day..." Multiple generations of Americans have lived and died and that prediction was never true during their lifetimes and if Social Security ever became a problem then we could get rid of it. So far it's been wildly successful -- no wonder it so pisses off people who don't want government programs to work.
What you described isn't a free market, what you described is "perfect competition". A free market is a market without any regulations, where the state is involved only to enforce contracts.
Then we'll change the regulation, but all those scenarios are less likely than "Micro-USB continues to be a good choice of common charging cable and will make consumers much happier with their devices". I just wish we could get this kind of nanny stateism here in the US. We suffered with incompatible data cables for twenty years until South Korea mandated micro-USB a few years ago, and suddenly six months later the USA was all-micro-USB.
THANK YOU SOUTH KOREA! It's a beautiful illustration of how consumer needs are out of sync with the goals of corporations, so consumers get screwed until they use government to solve the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
"We can agree that social security is not indefinitely sustainable."
Actually no, SS is exactly indefinitely sustainable.
Indefinite, adj, lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time
You seem to not like it because its potentiality is indefinite. Going way back to the beginning you said this: "Oh 80 years? Then it will go on forever." If your standard for laws is that the must last "forever" then you are an anarchist because nothing lasts forever. I suspect you don't actually think that way, you're just full of it, trying to win an unwinnable argument. I know, empty rhetoric is fun on Slashdot, I just hope you don't actually think and vote this way.
Yep, they shot seven bullets and couldn't hit her tire? I think that's a good critique. It's time to go do some target practice, officers!
But pepper spray and tasers don't work through car windows. Bean bag gun? Maybe. Spike strips? That's a good option in certain rare situations, different than this one, when a car is driving on a long road with no other way to go except over them (specifically, highway chases where you can radio ahead, clear traffic, put down the strip).
"do you really think this was the best option?"
The best? Maybe, maybe not, but it was a good option given the circumstances. It's an option not worthy of dismissal.
You're talking about a moment when two plain-clothes cops are standing next to four uniformed cops while the entire scene is literally surrounded with marked police cars with lights flashing. I think it would be untenable to argue -- as you have -- that any conscious person could mistake this for a non-police interaction.
"Oh, sure, there's that cop car in my back window, that other cop car in my back window, that THIRD cop car in my right side-view mirror, that FOURTH cop car in my left side-view mirror -- plus there are those two uniformed officers pointing guns at me through my driver-side window, and two more uniformed officers pointing guns at me through my windshield -- but oh, I'm pretty sure this whole situation is not a police interaction because back there, standing behind those two uniformed police officers, I can see a guy with a gun wearing plaid shorts."
You are really really reaching for a way to blame the police for this and you didn't succeeded. Without video maybe we could speculate on how everything was different but with video we can see that the police did everything right and the woman did everything wrong.
If you're just dripping with desperation on how to find some way to criticize the police [why the heck do people do that? why not just criticize them when they do something wrong?] then criticize the inability of six officers to shoot seven bullets and fail to take out even one of her tires.
Just to be clear, (3) is wrong. See in this video that she is obviously completely surrounded by police, not one plain-clothes officer with a gun but more than a half-dozen of them, in uniforms (weird uniforms with shorts), plus marked police cars with lights and sirens going.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/03/228942517/watch-the-capitol-hill-car-chase?ft=1&f=1001
So it wasn't some kind of innocent mom who got killed over an understandable error.
You conceded the point of sustainability by changing the subject. You didn't disagree that 100 years of sustainability is "enough" because it would be preposterous to do so. Obviously 100 years is more than enough. You changed the subject to some kind of slippery-slope-policy question and I responded to it directly. That's exactly the opposite of what you did.
I didn't evade your question I gave the obvious answer. "Well if you allow the government to do X then what stops Y?" The answer is "we don't like Y, so we don't do it". Duh. That's how policy is made, man. If we like socialism but don't like communism, then we have socialism and not communism. If we like Alaska and Hawaii but don't like Puerto Rico, then we admit Alaska and Hawaii as states and we don't admit Puerto Rico. If we like to allow 18 year olds to vote, but not 17 year olds, then we do that. If we want government-subsidized private insurance, but not "communist" government-run hospitals, then we do that. This isn't a mystery.
Blah blah blah freedom. That rhetoric is meaningless. Boil it down to specifics or it's just hot air. Who the heck do you think is "against freedom"? If you want to be left alone then move to a place with no other human beings like antarctica or the moon, but if you want to live in a society then society "forces" you to obey some rules. Lucky for you there is democracy where you get a little bit of a voice in how the rules are made. This isn't rocket science it's sixth-grade level civics.
I'll agree with you if it's clear that they made that choice. Usually situations like this don't provide a bunch of safe, effective alternatives. Usually it's a decision between (1) shoot the perp (2) have no control over the situation, in which case we have to go with #1.
I accept your concession on the point of the longevity of Social Security.
New questions: "Where does it stop? Why not go full communist?"
1. Wherever we decide to stop, as a democracy
2. Because that doesn't seem like the best possible social policy to me, as a voter
Does everything have to be Communism vs. Anarchy to you? Have you ever considered political moderation? Maybe you should consider it; moderation is nice.
Really? I don't know, it looks pretty dated to me.
Maybe. Or maybe they should use whatever good ideas are available to them, wherever they came from. I guess I prefer the latter option. (Personally I've never been to Digg so I don't know what it looks like.)
All in all I say I like it. It's fine but there is one really important thing missing which is the rounded corner at the top-left of sections. That is iconic Slashdot and they should retain it.
Right, okay. Sustainable. Sustainable for how long? Like, for as long as a Presidency (eight years)? As long as a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court (say about forty years)? For a century (the current estimate for Social Security solvency)? As long as the entire history of the USA (about 250 years)? As long as the longest ever human empire (about a thousand years)? As long as humans have been genetically modern (about one or two million years)? As long as the entire history of life on planet Earth? Until the heat death of the universe?
In my opinion the eighty year history of Social Security is way, way longer than whatever amount of time it had to survive to be regarded as a successful program. If we don't change it, it will be 100% solvent until its 100th birthday, and if we change it (which we will) then it will be solvent for however much longer.
You don't have to like it. As I said three posts ago, Social Security is the most contemptible program to people like you because it completely razes the political ideology which says government can never be successful doing anything but warfare. As it turns out, that ideology is wrong.
Yeah man, totally. My grandpa used to say that shit to me when I was a child in the 1970s. Someday, man, someday! It might be centuries from now, but eventually grandpa will be right.
The key that unlocks your dilemma there is "things change".
"Imagine if the Democrats actually did something other than scream about Republicans wanting to destroy the Federal government. A person would have to be completely batshit to believe any elected asshole wants that."
You think? Really? I think of today's Republican party as the inheritance of the anti-Federalist movement during our founding, which has propagated/festered through the centuries. I think it's perfectly reasonable and evidential to say that the right-wing of the Republican party wants to dismantle and disband the Federal government. I don't even think that would be denied by a large number of Republican representatives and constituents.
"The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation."
Actually that's a pretty good, simple, useful amendment. Kudos, Australia.
I don't understand your point. We should never do anything that won't last forever and ever? What's your time horizon, is it before the heat death of the universe? Is it before the sun swallows the Earth? Because in my opinion a social program that helps people for 80 years is a social program that outlived its critics nonsense rhetoric by 70 years. Once again I'll say "if Social Security ever became a problem then we could get rid of it" and in the mean time it would have made the world a better place.
The number of Congresspeople who need their paycheck to pay ongoing bills is substantially close to zero -- small enough as to be negligible. It need not even be mentioned. There might be one or two but I doubt it's that high.
I never understood the thing where people hate the federal government but somehow love lower levels of government. Why is the state the maximum allowable level of federalism?
House Democrats got a million more votes for House seats in 2012 than did House Republicans. Therefore, the House Dem caucus represents the will of the people, and the House Dem caucus does not want to repeal Obamacare. Therefore you are wrong.
That's not to say we shouldn't repeal the law, just that your argument is nonsense.
Yeah but the 10% rating is nonsense. America re-elected 91% of its House reps last year so I think the only fair poll is the election: Congress has a 91% approval rating.
I wish that were true but my guess is that the Republican party sustains the decade because they can't be beat in gerrymandered House districts, and continue to dominate State legislatures, while never retaking the Senate or Presidency. The Dems would have to get majorities in most state legislatures in 2020 to redraw districts in 2021, which is possible but not a safe bet, and only then would Republicans feel the pressure to be more moderate in 2022. That's a long, long time to wait.
The debt ceiling is a problem, it's true, but it won't be a sudden catastrophe on Oct 18. The government wouldn't have enough money to run everything but it would still have money to do a lot. One thing is certain which is that we would keep paying interest on the debt. The President would have to decide what spending to cut and he'd probably be forced to cut a lot of Social Security checks, perhaps with some sops by trimming a little military spending or something. It would become a catastrophe over the course of a month or two as the economy tanked because the poor wouldn't have any money to spend.
I turned off after the "cold fusion bomb". I tried but was not able to forgive them for that.
Oh okay how about this, we won't "ration" it in the sense that everybody gets some, but we'll "ration" it to *only* the poorest two-thirds of Americans, so the upper-middle-class folks and rich folks don't get any at all. Then that will be pretty much exactly like today in terms of amount-per-person, and if the way we currently do it is okay then that would be okay too I imagine.
I guess my point is, yeah, if you want to call it rationing then okay whatever yawn I'm fine with rationing. My guess however is that America is able to produce enough health care for everyone and the real problem is paying for it.
Social Security has been helping people for 80 years. You sound ridiculous saying "yeah, but any day now it could become a problem! Any... day..." Multiple generations of Americans have lived and died and that prediction was never true during their lifetimes and if Social Security ever became a problem then we could get rid of it. So far it's been wildly successful -- no wonder it so pisses off people who don't want government programs to work.
What you described isn't a free market, what you described is "perfect competition". A free market is a market without any regulations, where the state is involved only to enforce contracts.
Then we'll change the regulation, but all those scenarios are less likely than "Micro-USB continues to be a good choice of common charging cable and will make consumers much happier with their devices". I just wish we could get this kind of nanny stateism here in the US. We suffered with incompatible data cables for twenty years until South Korea mandated micro-USB a few years ago, and suddenly six months later the USA was all-micro-USB.
THANK YOU SOUTH KOREA! It's a beautiful illustration of how consumer needs are out of sync with the goals of corporations, so consumers get screwed until they use government to solve the problem.