You're asking the wrong guy. I believe in freedom. That includes freedom for people who work at corporations.
You want protection from climate-change harm, go to court and prove you've been harmed. Then prove the monetary amount you've been damaged.
There's no utopia. Government power doesn't deliver one. Bad things will happen no matter what. In a free society, there will be an opportunity to work hard and overcome setbacks. In a controlled society, the setbacks are for everyone except the governing class and there's no opportunity for the rest of the people to overcome anything.
Granting a special privilege to me because I have the utterly common human tendency to pair up with a member of the opposite sex is rather ridiculous, frankly.
There's a lot of ridiculous going around. If you want an even more general "privilege", look at your driver's license. "Everyone" knows "driving is a privilege". Why isn't the need to be licensed to simply drive a car a civil liberties issue? (I think it is.)
The point is that the government does this all the time and the majority picks and chooses who gets what. Gay marriage is no different, except there seem to be a lot of people who know they're for it and it's an absolute right, but they can't deal with the simplest counter-arguments.
If we're not going to have privileges based on physical traits, all those Handicapped Parking spaces are going to have to go.
That 96% used government to make "marriage" a special legal status. The instant they did that, they lost the right to discriminate.
Really? Then why doesn't this principle cover brother-sister marriage or polygamy or a father marrying his adult daughter? Why is discrimination OK in those instances, but not in others?
Or are you just making up a principle to fit your argument, only to discard the exact same principle when it becomes inconvenient?
And marriage is not a civil liberties issue. A special government privilege is not a civil liberty any more than a farm subsidy is a civil liberty. So this is beside the point of the original post anyway.
No, they're trying to change the very definition of marriage and force everyone else to agree or be arrested, fined, or sued for discrimination.
And they're not even being even-handed about it. Do you hear them sticking up for brother-sister marriage, or polygamous marriage, or a father marrying his daughter? No. Some marriages are more equal than others.
Being able to read what you want is a critical component of free speech, after all what good is freedom of speech if people are prohibited from listening to you? And you should be able to listen to speech with the assumption of privacy, especially when in a private place.
The FBI uses due process to find out what someone has been reading and that means there's no free speech? I disagree. Courts and prosecutors can subpoena your diary, for god's sake. They could do that before the PATRIOT Act. Your argument is a tremendous stretch of reality.
You're going to let the Democrats regulate your energy usage and every aspect of your health but it's the Republicans who are harming your civil liberties by using due process to investigate terrorism. Maybe you don't really understand what civil liberties are?
Its freedom.
And no one will be free to disagree that they're married. If you treat them differently because you disagree, be prepared to be fined or arrested (or at least sued) for discriminating. And if your religion says they're not married, well you can forget your freedom to act according to your conscience.
This is the problem with modern faux libertarians. You don't really believe in freedom. It's just a mask.
We don't need taxpayer-funded propaganda in the US. Our TV networks write it and air it themselves, at their own expense, because they're true believers. Also, some of them (NBC/GE) are in the green energy business so they have a financial interest in promoting the Climate Change agenda.
Of course we still have taxpayer-funded green indoctrination at the government schools.
But I'm sure RealClimate.org has reasons we don't need to think about these things.
No. The PATRIOT Act doesn't affect free speech. No laws were ever enacted to eliminate "anti-American" speech. Not in the last 40-50 years. You should focus on what's actually true.
As for marriage, why does 3-5% of the population get to decide for the other 96% what a marriage is? Republicans didn't show up and try to make changes to marriage. And marriage isn't a civil liberties issue anyway, unless you think the government is stomping on the civil liberties of brothers who can't marry their sisters or a guy who can't marry his second or third wife.
(I agree that the government should stay out of marriage, by the way. But that means stay out of it, not tell people that every relationship is the same as a marriage and you'll be fined or arrested if you disagree and decide to treat it differently. Fining and arresting people is a civil liberties issue, BTW.)
You have it backward on civil liberties. Republicans are pro-civil liberties and Democrats are against them. The "Republicans are anti-civil-liberties" stuff is from 40 or 50 years ago, and even then it was over-hyped to make political points.
The point still stands though. There's a lot of people who just don't understand the value of limited government. This is a huge piece of the value: What if they're all stupid and evil in the government? If they don't have any power, it really doesn't matter.
Once you give them power, you better be certain they're all infallible. If you can't be certain of that, then don't give them power.
You are incorrect. The treasury accepts donations. You just have to tell them it's a donation and not a mistake.
The folks who are "happy to pay" extra should just do it and leave the rest of us out of it. But they don't, because they're being fundamentally dishonest. They want other people to pay so they can spend.
Who wouldn't be "happy to pay" $10 in order to spend $10 million on your favorite priority? It's just a shallow way to justify taking $10 million from people.
Honestly, you can pay extra if you want, without anyone else having to pay extra. When you fill out your state income taxes, just write the check out for an extra $20,000. The treasury will be more than happy to accept the extra money you want to pay.
But, of course, you don't do that. Because, honestly, you really want other people to pay so you can direct the money to buy things you value.
Just think how much nicer NJ would be if people were valued for their humanity rather than just as sources of "income & property tax revenues". If these people needed a hint to avoid New Jersey, your post certainly provided it. Of course, they could have looked around to find that New Jersey has the worst business climate of any state in the US.
My state (Minnesota) isn't very good either, but it beats New Jersey. I hope to move to an even better state soon.
If you "should" give back, then it's not really free. If you're going to look down on people for not "giving back", then it wasn't really a gift freely given.
If you have to give back, then it's not "free software". A similar thing was seen in the whole "Linux" vs. "GNU/Linux" debate. If it's really "free", then why the demands for something in return? Why the demands for credit? Why the complaints about freeloaders? Freeloading is always the result of giving something away for free.
You're essentially asking computers to be perfect, coping with weather hazards that experienced pilots simply avoid. A skilled, responsible pilot will choose to simply not fly when the weather starts to get dangerous. He could choose otherwise and probably avoid crashing because of the weather. Probably. But that's not nearly good enough, so he stays on the ground.
What do you want your computerized flying car to do when it's probably safe to fly? And what about when it's completely safe to fly and the weather turns bad halfway there? You'd have to land somewhere and wait.
Flying cars are not really analogous to cars because flying is not like driving. Piloting an aircraft can't be done casually.
And if you're going to be relying completely on a computerized autopilot, that thing will have to be designed to avoid risks like commercial airline pilots avoid risks. It couldn't ever take any chances.
Surface cars are very efficient and increasingly much, much safer. Roads are not expensive to build in comparison to anything else. And much of the cost of roads is not road-building, it's all the fluff that's built into government projects: environmental impact studies, prevailing wage laws, endless legal fees and expert analysis, minority set-asides, political wrangling over routes, and on and on. Cars and roads are still by far the cheapest, most efficient, and most convenient mode of transportation of individuals.
They'll follow the same cost curve as automobiles did.
That's plausible. But they'll start out at a much, much higher price. Like $10-20 million each. For a car that refuses to function when it snows.
- they'll have to know how much fuel they have and refuse to go anywhere out of range of a filling station. - They'll have to know the weather everywhere along the route and refuse to fly in certain conditions, including many conditions you'd be OK to drive in. Any time it's near freezing or snowing, they'd have to know the temperature and humidity at all altitudes to be certain that ice buildup would not cause a crash. - Every active system and instrument would have to be electronically monitored somehow, and any warning would have to be an automatic no-fly. And the instruments would have to self-calibrate somehow. - And the car would also have to refuse to fly if regular maintenance hadn't been done on schedule.
. We're a long, long way from flying cars. And, when you consider how much they're going to cost, the real-world advantages of a flying car might not be worthwhile. Do I really need to be stuck at home every time it snows (or is forecast to maybe snow)? Or every time any little mechanical problem occurs? My current car has a lot of little tiny, non-critical mechanical issues because it has 100,000 miles on it. It's still a good reliable car that should last me another year or three. If it was a flying car, every single problem would have to be fixed and the systems overhauled.
It might be possible that the entire thought process of all the people in an entire (huge) industry can be summed up in a single word.
Or the other choice is that you're oversimplifying to the point that your statement is essentially false. It seems clear that this second choice is more likely correct.
Ethanol has less energy per volume than gasoline. That's why you get worse mileage. So you pay for a gallon, you get less energy than if it were gasoline. That's inferior.
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You're asking the wrong guy. I believe in freedom. That includes freedom for people who work at corporations.
You want protection from climate-change harm, go to court and prove you've been harmed. Then prove the monetary amount you've been damaged.
There's no utopia. Government power doesn't deliver one. Bad things will happen no matter what. In a free society, there will be an opportunity to work hard and overcome setbacks. In a controlled society, the setbacks are for everyone except the governing class and there's no opportunity for the rest of the people to overcome anything.
Granting a special privilege to me because I have the utterly common human tendency to pair up with a member of the opposite sex is rather ridiculous, frankly.
There's a lot of ridiculous going around. If you want an even more general "privilege", look at your driver's license. "Everyone" knows "driving is a privilege". Why isn't the need to be licensed to simply drive a car a civil liberties issue? (I think it is.)
The point is that the government does this all the time and the majority picks and chooses who gets what. Gay marriage is no different, except there seem to be a lot of people who know they're for it and it's an absolute right, but they can't deal with the simplest counter-arguments.
If we're not going to have privileges based on physical traits, all those Handicapped Parking spaces are going to have to go.
That 96% used government to make "marriage" a special legal status. The instant they did that, they lost the right to discriminate.
Really? Then why doesn't this principle cover brother-sister marriage or polygamy or a father marrying his adult daughter? Why is discrimination OK in those instances, but not in others?
Or are you just making up a principle to fit your argument, only to discard the exact same principle when it becomes inconvenient?
And marriage is not a civil liberties issue. A special government privilege is not a civil liberty any more than a farm subsidy is a civil liberty. So this is beside the point of the original post anyway.
No, they're trying to change the very definition of marriage and force everyone else to agree or be arrested, fined, or sued for discrimination.
And they're not even being even-handed about it. Do you hear them sticking up for brother-sister marriage, or polygamous marriage, or a father marrying his daughter? No. Some marriages are more equal than others.
Being able to read what you want is a critical component of free speech, after all what good is freedom of speech if people are prohibited from listening to you? And you should be able to listen to speech with the assumption of privacy, especially when in a private place.
The FBI uses due process to find out what someone has been reading and that means there's no free speech? I disagree. Courts and prosecutors can subpoena your diary, for god's sake. They could do that before the PATRIOT Act. Your argument is a tremendous stretch of reality.
You're going to let the Democrats regulate your energy usage and every aspect of your health but it's the Republicans who are harming your civil liberties by using due process to investigate terrorism. Maybe you don't really understand what civil liberties are?
Its freedom.
And no one will be free to disagree that they're married. If you treat them differently because you disagree, be prepared to be fined or arrested (or at least sued) for discriminating. And if your religion says they're not married, well you can forget your freedom to act according to your conscience.
This is the problem with modern faux libertarians. You don't really believe in freedom. It's just a mask.
We don't need taxpayer-funded propaganda in the US. Our TV networks write it and air it themselves, at their own expense, because they're true believers. Also, some of them (NBC/GE) are in the green energy business so they have a financial interest in promoting the Climate Change agenda.
Of course we still have taxpayer-funded green indoctrination at the government schools.
But I'm sure RealClimate.org has reasons we don't need to think about these things.
No. The PATRIOT Act doesn't affect free speech. No laws were ever enacted to eliminate "anti-American" speech. Not in the last 40-50 years. You should focus on what's actually true.
As for marriage, why does 3-5% of the population get to decide for the other 96% what a marriage is? Republicans didn't show up and try to make changes to marriage. And marriage isn't a civil liberties issue anyway, unless you think the government is stomping on the civil liberties of brothers who can't marry their sisters or a guy who can't marry his second or third wife.
(I agree that the government should stay out of marriage, by the way. But that means stay out of it, not tell people that every relationship is the same as a marriage and you'll be fined or arrested if you disagree and decide to treat it differently. Fining and arresting people is a civil liberties issue, BTW.)
You have it backward on civil liberties. Republicans are pro-civil liberties and Democrats are against them. The "Republicans are anti-civil-liberties" stuff is from 40 or 50 years ago, and even then it was over-hyped to make political points.
The point still stands though. There's a lot of people who just don't understand the value of limited government. This is a huge piece of the value: What if they're all stupid and evil in the government? If they don't have any power, it really doesn't matter.
Once you give them power, you better be certain they're all infallible. If you can't be certain of that, then don't give them power.
Listen up people! The talking-points are written. No need to think for yourself. Go read George Soros's RealClimate.org and repeat what it says there.
Whew!. That was close. Independent thought was only narrowly avoided.
Translation: It's OK to silence dissent when it's expedient.
Stop giving them power to take your money and make your choices for you. Then you don't care.
They told me if I voted for McCain that science would be subservient to policy goals. And they were right!
Thx Instapundit.
You are incorrect. The treasury accepts donations. You just have to tell them it's a donation and not a mistake.
The folks who are "happy to pay" extra should just do it and leave the rest of us out of it. But they don't, because they're being fundamentally dishonest. They want other people to pay so they can spend.
Who wouldn't be "happy to pay" $10 in order to spend $10 million on your favorite priority? It's just a shallow way to justify taking $10 million from people.
Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for ...
Honestly, you can pay extra if you want, without anyone else having to pay extra. When you fill out your state income taxes, just write the check out for an extra $20,000. The treasury will be more than happy to accept the extra money you want to pay.
But, of course, you don't do that. Because, honestly, you really want other people to pay so you can direct the money to buy things you value.
Just think how much nicer NJ would be if people were valued for their humanity rather than just as sources of "income & property tax revenues". If these people needed a hint to avoid New Jersey, your post certainly provided it. Of course, they could have looked around to find that New Jersey has the worst business climate of any state in the US.
My state (Minnesota) isn't very good either, but it beats New Jersey. I hope to move to an even better state soon.
I don't know about the others, but ProPublica is a left-wing propaganda organization. It was founded by Herbert and Marion Sandler, from Time's 25 people to blame for the financial crisis. It has provided propaganda stories to newspapers around the country disguised as news....
On second thought, that should fit right in with the rest of what the AP distributes.
If you "should" give back, then it's not really free. If you're going to look down on people for not "giving back", then it wasn't really a gift freely given.
If you have to give back, then it's not "free software". A similar thing was seen in the whole "Linux" vs. "GNU/Linux" debate. If it's really "free", then why the demands for something in return? Why the demands for credit? Why the complaints about freeloaders? Freeloading is always the result of giving something away for free.
Also, leave the evil spirits out. The evil spirits are possessing my food. Summon the medicine man to cast them out!
It's increasingly harder to get food that's free of imaginary dangers.
See the other comment about the ice buildup.
You're essentially asking computers to be perfect, coping with weather hazards that experienced pilots simply avoid. A skilled, responsible pilot will choose to simply not fly when the weather starts to get dangerous. He could choose otherwise and probably avoid crashing because of the weather. Probably. But that's not nearly good enough, so he stays on the ground.
What do you want your computerized flying car to do when it's probably safe to fly? And what about when it's completely safe to fly and the weather turns bad halfway there? You'd have to land somewhere and wait.
Flying cars are not really analogous to cars because flying is not like driving. Piloting an aircraft can't be done casually.
And if you're going to be relying completely on a computerized autopilot, that thing will have to be designed to avoid risks like commercial airline pilots avoid risks. It couldn't ever take any chances.
Surface cars are very efficient and increasingly much, much safer. Roads are not expensive to build in comparison to anything else. And much of the cost of roads is not road-building, it's all the fluff that's built into government projects: environmental impact studies, prevailing wage laws, endless legal fees and expert analysis, minority set-asides, political wrangling over routes, and on and on. Cars and roads are still by far the cheapest, most efficient, and most convenient mode of transportation of individuals.
They'll follow the same cost curve as automobiles did.
That's plausible. But they'll start out at a much, much higher price. Like $10-20 million each. For a car that refuses to function when it snows.
Additionally,
- they'll have to know how much fuel they have and refuse to go anywhere out of range of a filling station.
- They'll have to know the weather everywhere along the route and refuse to fly in certain conditions, including many conditions you'd be OK to drive in. Any time it's near freezing or snowing, they'd have to know the temperature and humidity at all altitudes to be certain that ice buildup would not cause a crash.
- Every active system and instrument would have to be electronically monitored somehow, and any warning would have to be an automatic no-fly. And the instruments would have to self-calibrate somehow.
- And the car would also have to refuse to fly if regular maintenance hadn't been done on schedule.
.
We're a long, long way from flying cars. And, when you consider how much they're going to cost, the real-world advantages of a flying car might not be worthwhile. Do I really need to be stuck at home every time it snows (or is forecast to maybe snow)? Or every time any little mechanical problem occurs? My current car has a lot of little tiny, non-critical mechanical issues because it has 100,000 miles on it. It's still a good reliable car that should last me another year or three. If it was a flying car, every single problem would have to be fixed and the systems overhauled.
It might be possible that the entire thought process of all the people in an entire (huge) industry can be summed up in a single word.
Or the other choice is that you're oversimplifying to the point that your statement is essentially false. It seems clear that this second choice is more likely correct.
Ethanol has less energy per volume than gasoline. That's why you get worse mileage. So you pay for a gallon, you get less energy than if it were gasoline. That's inferior.
Here's a condescending article to explain the misconception you have over "octane".