Now after all the vitriol I would like to qualify some of the items on my little list: #14 Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program and #16 State Children's Insurance Programs: In the case of orphans, I do think the State should provide for them.
Oh fuck no, why should those unlucky little parasites get a dime of my precious money? Just because they're orphans? Tough shit on them, let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps like everyone else. Why should orphans get a break?
See, you have your favorite little exceptions for things that you think are "worthy", but how dare anyone else have a longer list, eh?
So are you saying that Federal oversight is what prevents a state from passing any law it wants? Because if that's so, then where does a state's right to pass laws start and stop?
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As you said basic human rights cannot be put to a vote.
Except this is exactly what they're doing in many of the Goober States by passing these transgender bathroom restriction laws and (still) trying to pass laws that prevent same-sex marriage. Those are just two examples. If states are allowed to do this kind of thing unfettered and with no oversight, what's to stop them from nibbling away at other human rights until we're right back where we started?
As I pointed out, in places like Mississippi they would vote to make interracial marriage illegal if they could...but the Federal government puts a stop to things like that. But they would if they could, and if they were autonomous in terms of state's rights we'd see anti-miscegenation laws being put in place in Mississippi tomorrow.
This doesn't mean that anything and everything that someone feels is important should be done by the government. People in states can decide what.
This would be great if people in large groups could be counted on to make rational decisions and not have an "I got mine" mentality. Or if there weren't those among us who would exploit every loophole to their own benefit to the detriment of others. But the sad, sorry fact is that people like this exist everywhere and it only takes a small number to fuck up the works for everyone else. It's the "tragedy of the commons" writ large. Sometimes an overriding authority is needed, and sometimes it's beneficial.
For 400 billion dollars they could have bought about 1,330 F-15 Strike Eagles.
Yes, yes, I know the F-35 is supposed to be more advanced, blah blah blah. Except it's a piece of shit that can't fly, can't turn, can't fight, and won't do half the shit it's supposed to do. It won't start in hot weather and apparently doesn't worko well in the rain either.
On the other hand, if you fill the sky with 1000 F-15 Strike Eagles, there ain't gonna be a goddamn thing that lives through that onslaught (and you'd still have 400 waiting in the hangars). Hell, probably just 100 F-15 Strike Eagles acting in concert would solve any conceivable airborne opposition, even today.
Shit, for 400 billion dollars you could buy 1000 F-15 Strike Eagles and the fucking airfield to launch them from, with enough left over for a few mil-spec hammers or toilet seats.
The F-35 has the distinction of being the most expensive boondoggle in recorded history. In comparison, Bernie Madoff only bilked his clients out of $65 billion or so.
If people in one state vote for more government aid in say health care. Fine. But if people in another state vote against it. It's also fine.
In theory this seems like a fair solution...but in practice I think it would lead to some states having populations that were highly benefited by virtue of their expanded services and freedoms, and other states would become 'ghettos' or severely marginalized. Once that cycle starts it's a downward spiral for the "have not" states. People will (if they can) move to a "have" state, further depleting the tax base and livability of the "have not" states.
And that's not just for taxes and services, that would inevitably apply to social freedoms and discrimination laws. Hell, there are quite a few Southern states that would like to make interracial marriage illegal and re-institute some forms of slavery (debtor's prisons as well as outright slavery).
These aren't my opinions, these are the result of polls taken in places like Mississippi, where they asked the state's GOP voters if "interracial marriage should be illegal".
46 percent of them said "yes", they would outlaw it. They'd outlaw interracial marriage. Think about that for a moment- that's almost half of the GOP voters in that state, and another 14 percent responded that they were "not sure." That means about 60 percent of these Southern Republicans would either do it or consider it doing it. That's insane. That's a recipe for widespread discrimination backed by state law.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of places where unfettered states rights would result in all sorts of abuses, and those abuses often trickle down to the poor and disadvantaged- including their children.
I'm not a huge fan of Federal oversight, but there are times and places it's needed. Just look at all the voter suppression abuse and sleazy tactics that immediately popped up after the Supreme Court invalidated key parts of the Voting Rights Act.
Basic human rights shouldn't be put to a vote, and one of the Federal government's jobs is to see that they aren't. The real problem with "state's rights" is that they're all too often used as a sword rather than a shield.
Yes, I know, probably more than you realize. Just because I won't march in lockstep with you doesn't mean I don't respect the Constitution and what it means.
I also believe that as humans and Americans we have a duty to help those less fortunate, and not through a lot of meaningless hand waving and lip service, but by actually doing something.
All that "rugged individualist" shit worked great when there weren't 295 million other people competing for the same resources and when there was no such thing as a global economy that could outsource your job overseas. That shit is done, those days are over, and if you think you can go it alone without the intimate involvement of the government then you haven't been keeping up with the news.
I don't like government interference any more than the next guy, but it's an unfortunate fact of life in a country of 300 million people who all have to live together.
Of course what you consider to be a good decision others may consider to be foolish. You want to live as a serf, a ward of a nanny-state. OK. I don't.
Then stop driving on my roads and drinking my water and using my streetlamps. Stop using the US Mail, and stop using the internet, because you're a rugged individualist who don't need no stinkin' gubment, right?
It would be far more rational to purchase Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance for the vets (as payment for services rendered) and let them go to the hospital of their choice. The cost savings in bureaucracy, maintenance, etc... would be tremendous. It would bet that the cost of hospital and mental health care would drop and the care would improve tremendously.
Sure, get them to put it on the ballot and I'll vote for it.
The best solution is to give these voters what they want.
If it was only them, sure, but why should their children suffer because their parents are idiots? These children will grow up to be our doctors, engineers (and yes, even politicians), and I for one want them healthy and well-educated. So no, you don't get to fuck over a generation of children because their parents, Mr and Mrs Goober, are too stupid to make good decisions.
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small-government, uneducated morons or fools (like me) would be relegated to the fringes of society and could safely be ignore.
I already ignore people like you for the most part.
Those things must not exist as government 'services', they are affront to individual rights, liberties and dignity.
[Citation needed]
Seriously though, the vast majority of the people in this country disagree with you on nearly every single one of those things. And that's why we have them- because people thought they were worth having. You're in the minority here, and not by just a little bit.
However, if you do not like having those things, you are free to move to a country where they don't exist and where you won't have to pay for them. But you won't do that, will you? Why not? Do you not have the courage of your convictions, or do you just want to have your cake and eat it too?
If you believe what you just wrote, why not move to Somalia or Nigeria? It would be your paradise on Earth. But you don't really believe a word of what you wrote, do you?
The problem most libertarians have is they never think that they'll be the ones getting fucked. It's never YOUR wife or YOUR child who'll die from some untested medication or contaminated food or unsafe electrical appliance. It'll always be the other guy whose wife or kid dies, and then the Magical Invisible Hand Of The Market will punish that company and force them out of business, so you'll be safe, right?
But it won't be your wife or your kid, no way. And if it IS your kid or your wife, well shucks, you can just take them to court for damages, right? Because that will bring your child or wife back to life, right?
Fuck you, I like the EPA and the FDA. I like public education and parks and recreation services. I like the idea of a School Breakfast Program for kids. I like all the things that make this a great country to live in. It's why people want to come here, fool. How many people in the US want to emigrate to Nigeria or Laos or Namibia or Somalia? NONE, that's how many.
My wife comes from a very poor country in SE Asia, and she's blown away by things like 911, public schools, food testing, public libraries, and all that stuff that you think is wasteful. She appreciates them and is more than happy to pay taxes. Unlike you, she realizes that these things are what make this country so great and why so many people want to come here, and not, for example, to emigrate to Somalia.
Her family had no money for schooling, so tough shit for her, is that it? Let the poor among us fail so that we may climb over their bodies on the way to our penthouses, right?
You selfish, ignorant fucks grow up swimming in these kinds of services and yet still find a way to complain about them. You'd likely be dead of a childhood disease if not for the publicly-funded health initiatives this country has. After all, what did this country ever do for you?
Are you actually defending Federal heath care with the VA system? You know... the one where people with terminal illness never get appointments and then *die* of treatable illnesses so that Federal officials can get bonuses?
Yes, because it is not perfect it should be scrapped. Great thinking.
The fact is the VA serves millions of people per year and the vast, vast majority of them them get quality care. FFS, people die in private hospitals from all sorts of shit (nosocomial infections, anyone?), but do we scream to shut those hospitals down?
In engineering space, a "catastrophic failure" is sometimes the terminology used to describe a single component failing.
Correct. It's a failure that may, but not always, lead to a more significant and more serious failure condition. You can, for example, have a "catastrophic failure" of an airplane landing gear tire but still be able to land the plane safely.
It's like when people say, "But evolution is just a theory!", not knowing that the word "theory" has a different meaning in a scientific context.
People who break into the restricted area should refrain from licking the ground for a few decades.
FTFY: "People who break into the restricted area should refrain from licking the ground for a few hundred decades."
As part of my on-site training there in the 80s/90s, I was warned not to eat any of the succulents or other vegetation that grows on the Hanford reservation (although to be fair there's not a lot that flourishes there that's edible).
I did a lot of service work in the 200 and 300 areas in Richland and at the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTR) at the Westinghouse-Hanford sites in the 80's and 90's.
One thing I learned was that the Hanford Patrol would go out weekly into the desert surrounding the 200/300 areas and shoot a few rabbits, which were then brought back for radiation testing. These were informally called "bunny hunts" and "RRT's" ("radioactive rabbit tests", lol).
It was (and still is) a viable way to find leaks of radioactive water from the storage tanks. The tank leaks, the water often pools in a gully or whatever, the rabbits drink the water, and the radioactive elements are easily detected in their blood and organs. If you start finding more than trace amounts then you've got a problem. They found problems more often than you might suspect.
It's the liberal BS that states that Blue States are supporting Red States.
Except those pesky numbers and facts disagree. Red states use more than they give back, and this is not hard to substantiate. Blue states produce more than they take, also not hard to substantiate.
Blue states generally higher per capita of people with college degrees, lower teen pregnancy rates, lower incarceration rates, higher per capita of home ownership, lower infant mortality, better "neighborhood advantage scores", higher personal incomes, and so on. Blue states invest much more in education, investments in education result in better educated kids, and better educated kids go further in school. Blue states, not surprisingly, also have higher graduation rates.
States that consistently vote Republican and against their own best interest suck more money from the federal government than Democratic states. Again, these figures are not hard to find.
American poverty is concentrated in the south, from Arizona all the way to the East Coast; additionally, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky are high-poverty states. With the exceptions of Michigan and New Mexico, these states are exclusively conservative-leaning. Conversely, on average, more progressive/Blue states, particularly in the northeast, tend to be the most well off states in our nation.
Income mobility and the ability to “work your way up” (or down) is closely tied to the state in which you are living. All but one (Utah) of the states which have higher than average upward income mobility rates lean progressive/Blue, while all of the states with low upward income mobility rates lean conservative/Red.
The right wing’s southern stronghold is composed of states that have, far and away, the worst life expectancies in the United States. This isn’t a purely a partisan issue, and involves a mixture of culture and bad policy.
The south is home to extreme poverty, a lack of accessible health care (ex. Texas leads the nation with 25% uninsurance), lax worker/environmental protections, and a culture that consumes massive amounts of fatty fried foods. These factors create a perfect storm of bad health that severely erodes the life expectancy of huge portions of the southern population. The health care systems of the Deep South and southwest are the worst in the nation, while those in the northeast and north-central regions are the best. This defies a purely partisan divide (ex. a lot of rural states suffer from low hospital accessibility), but the fact remains that the most conservative states in the nation tend to have the worst health care systems.
I could go on, but facts are facts, and the fact is that Red states do poorly in almost every quality-of-life metric when compared with Blue states.
This isn't my opinion- do some searches for "red state versus blue state" and you'll find plenty of studies that make this abundantly clear. When you look at all of these statistics in totality, you're left with the inescapable conclusion that Red states are correlated with a less developed society.
If you can find me stats which state the opposite, I'd be glad to look at them. But you won't, because they don't exist.
Putting everything through a large Federal government considerably increases the waste due to administrative costs and makes health care into a permanent Federal level hot button issue that we really shouldn't be having at that level.
You're right, we should disband the Veterans Administration immediately because clearly it doesn't work and it does not provide health care to millions of people every year. We must move to shut down all of the 1,700 VA sites of care across the country, as well as the VA medical centers, community outpatient clinics and Vet Centers. I mean, it's just a permanent Federal level health care system that OBVIOUSLY doesn't work, right?
That's why people can move. There are small Scandinavian countries that are "roll" models here in the states - so population isn't really the problem.
Maybe you missed the part where I said, "...that would work great in a country with a few million people...but not in one with 300 million. That "local safety net" concept just doesn't scale the way you think it does."
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Re the some places richer than others -- that's why people can and do move.
Some people cannot afford to move, or can't afford to move to where they'd like to. Will you give me the money so I can move to Beverly Hills or San Francisco and live there? Or is being too poor to move just tough shit for those who can't afford it?
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How about you let the states decide; then people will live in the states that best suit their personality.
How about "no"? Because some of those states if left to their own devices would happily make slavery legal again. Some would make interracial marriage illegal. Some would make child prostitution perfectly legal. Too bad you can't afford to move out of that state. Or maybe that state has decided you aren't allowed to move out, period. Yay for state's rights!
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Don't like the hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans? Don't send them your hard earned money.
Assuming I was a big enough dick to deny assistance to "hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans", just how would I go about denying them my hard earned money? Does that principle also work for blacks and Hispanics? If I don't like them, can I just say, "Fuck you, you ain't gitt'n none of mah money"? If I don't like people from Louisiana or Texas, for example, how do I "not send them" my money?
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And if they still prefer to live in their ignorance and squalor - well that's on them isn't it?
No, it's not always on them. Some of them might want to move but can't afford to do so. Then what?
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The new American liberal: scared of freedom. We go from home of the free to home of the serfs.
News Flash: I'm liberal. I'm probably way more liberal than you, and I'm not scared of freedom. I'm scared of those who work to take it away or deny it to others.
Another white "libertarian" who lives in the suburbs. Idiot.
Llibertarians are basically anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. I'm always amazed at their childlike gullibility as to how their libertarian society would function primarily to their benefit. Libertarianism just helps conservatives pass off a patently pro-business political agenda as a noble bid for human freedom.
“Libertarians are not the brightest lights in the candelabra, a fact that is evident from the alternatives they tend to offer to public prevention of private abuses. For example: if you don’t like working a hundred hours a week for twenty-five cents a day, then find another employer!” -- Michael Lind
You want a social safety net get it from local and state government.
Yeah, and that would work great in a country with a few million people...but not in one with 300 million. That "local safety net" concept just doesn't scale the way you think it does.
Some places are richer than others and need little or no safety net, other places aren't so lucky and need more help than they can generate. It has always been this way, and always will be this way. It's a simple fact of life.
Slashdot Mirror
Now after all the vitriol I would like to qualify some of the items on my little list:
#14 Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program and #16 State Children's Insurance Programs:
In the case of orphans, I do think the State should provide for them.
Oh fuck no, why should those unlucky little parasites get a dime of my precious money? Just because they're orphans? Tough shit on them, let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps like everyone else. Why should orphans get a break?
See, you have your favorite little exceptions for things that you think are "worthy", but how dare anyone else have a longer list, eh?
A state can't pass ANY law it wants.
So are you saying that Federal oversight is what prevents a state from passing any law it wants? Because if that's so, then where does a state's right to pass laws start and stop?
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As you said basic human rights cannot be put to a vote.
Except this is exactly what they're doing in many of the Goober States by passing these transgender bathroom restriction laws and (still) trying to pass laws that prevent same-sex marriage. Those are just two examples. If states are allowed to do this kind of thing unfettered and with no oversight, what's to stop them from nibbling away at other human rights until we're right back where we started?
As I pointed out, in places like Mississippi they would vote to make interracial marriage illegal if they could...but the Federal government puts a stop to things like that. But they would if they could, and if they were autonomous in terms of state's rights we'd see anti-miscegenation laws being put in place in Mississippi tomorrow.
This doesn't mean that anything and everything that someone feels is important should be done by the government. People in states can decide what.
This would be great if people in large groups could be counted on to make rational decisions and not have an "I got mine" mentality. Or if there weren't those among us who would exploit every loophole to their own benefit to the detriment of others. But the sad, sorry fact is that people like this exist everywhere and it only takes a small number to fuck up the works for everyone else. It's the "tragedy of the commons" writ large. Sometimes an overriding authority is needed, and sometimes it's beneficial.
Well, the "expensive" part is correct. But claiming it "can't fly, can't fight" is just not true.
A lot of people disagree:
Pentagon’s big budget F-35 fighter ‘can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’
http://blogs.reuters.com/great...
The F-35 may have big problems fighting at long range
http://www.businessinsider.com...
The $400 Billion Military Jet That Can't Fly in Cloudy Weather
http://www.alternet.org/fail-4...
RAND Corp: F35 Can’t Turn, Can’t Climb, Can’t Run
http://www.stopthef35.com/rand...
Air Force Admits: Our New Stealth Fighter Can’t Fight
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
The F-35 Can't Beat The Plane It's Replacing In A Dogfight: Report ...and so on.
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.c...
It's gotta be close to the point where pulling the plug is the better path.
Ha! My "sunk cost" fallacy beats your logic and rationality!
For 400 billion dollars they could have bought about 1,330 F-15 Strike Eagles.
Yes, yes, I know the F-35 is supposed to be more advanced, blah blah blah. Except it's a piece of shit that can't fly, can't turn, can't fight, and won't do half the shit it's supposed to do. It won't start in hot weather and apparently doesn't worko well in the rain either.
On the other hand, if you fill the sky with 1000 F-15 Strike Eagles, there ain't gonna be a goddamn thing that lives through that onslaught (and you'd still have 400 waiting in the hangars). Hell, probably just 100 F-15 Strike Eagles acting in concert would solve any conceivable airborne opposition, even today.
Shit, for 400 billion dollars you could buy 1000 F-15 Strike Eagles and the fucking airfield to launch them from, with enough left over for a few mil-spec hammers or toilet seats.
The F-35 has the distinction of being the most expensive boondoggle in recorded history. In comparison, Bernie Madoff only bilked his clients out of $65 billion or so.
If people in one state vote for more government aid in say health care. Fine. But if people in another state vote against it. It's also fine.
In theory this seems like a fair solution...but in practice I think it would lead to some states having populations that were highly benefited by virtue of their expanded services and freedoms, and other states would become 'ghettos' or severely marginalized. Once that cycle starts it's a downward spiral for the "have not" states. People will (if they can) move to a "have" state, further depleting the tax base and livability of the "have not" states.
And that's not just for taxes and services, that would inevitably apply to social freedoms and discrimination laws. Hell, there are quite a few Southern states that would like to make interracial marriage illegal and re-institute some forms of slavery (debtor's prisons as well as outright slavery).
These aren't my opinions, these are the result of polls taken in places like Mississippi, where they asked the state's GOP voters if "interracial marriage should be illegal".
46 percent of them said "yes", they would outlaw it. They'd outlaw interracial marriage. Think about that for a moment- that's almost half of the GOP voters in that state, and another 14 percent responded that they were "not sure." That means about 60 percent of these Southern Republicans would either do it or consider it doing it. That's insane. That's a recipe for widespread discrimination backed by state law.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of places where unfettered states rights would result in all sorts of abuses, and those abuses often trickle down to the poor and disadvantaged- including their children.
I'm not a huge fan of Federal oversight, but there are times and places it's needed. Just look at all the voter suppression abuse and sleazy tactics that immediately popped up after the Supreme Court invalidated key parts of the Voting Rights Act.
Basic human rights shouldn't be put to a vote, and one of the Federal government's jobs is to see that they aren't. The real problem with "state's rights" is that they're all too often used as a sword rather than a shield.
They'll allow us! Are they not merciful??
We are citizens. Not serfs.
Yes, I know, probably more than you realize. Just because I won't march in lockstep with you doesn't mean I don't respect the Constitution and what it means.
I also believe that as humans and Americans we have a duty to help those less fortunate, and not through a lot of meaningless hand waving and lip service, but by actually doing something.
All that "rugged individualist" shit worked great when there weren't 295 million other people competing for the same resources and when there was no such thing as a global economy that could outsource your job overseas. That shit is done, those days are over, and if you think you can go it alone without the intimate involvement of the government then you haven't been keeping up with the news.
I don't like government interference any more than the next guy, but it's an unfortunate fact of life in a country of 300 million people who all have to live together.
Awww, come on. Be a bit more subtle with setting up the Python skits. Even I could see that coming.
No you couldn't!
Of course what you consider to be a good decision others may consider to be foolish. You want to live as a serf, a ward of a nanny-state. OK. I don't.
Then stop driving on my roads and drinking my water and using my streetlamps. Stop using the US Mail, and stop using the internet, because you're a rugged individualist who don't need no stinkin' gubment, right?
It would be far more rational to purchase Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance for the vets (as payment for services rendered) and let them go to the hospital of their choice. The cost savings in bureaucracy, maintenance, etc... would be tremendous. It would bet that the cost of hospital and mental health care would drop and the care would improve tremendously.
Sure, get them to put it on the ballot and I'll vote for it.
The best solution is to give these voters what they want.
If it was only them, sure, but why should their children suffer because their parents are idiots? These children will grow up to be our doctors, engineers (and yes, even politicians), and I for one want them healthy and well-educated. So no, you don't get to fuck over a generation of children because their parents, Mr and Mrs Goober, are too stupid to make good decisions.
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small-government, uneducated morons or fools (like me) would be relegated to the fringes of society and could safely be ignore.
I already ignore people like you for the most part.
Those things must not exist as government 'services', they are affront to individual rights, liberties and dignity.
[Citation needed]
Seriously though, the vast majority of the people in this country disagree with you on nearly every single one of those things. And that's why we have them- because people thought they were worth having. You're in the minority here, and not by just a little bit.
However, if you do not like having those things, you are free to move to a country where they don't exist and where you won't have to pay for them. But you won't do that, will you? Why not? Do you not have the courage of your convictions, or do you just want to have your cake and eat it too?
If you believe what you just wrote, why not move to Somalia or Nigeria? It would be your paradise on Earth. But you don't really believe a word of what you wrote, do you?
The problem most libertarians have is they never think that they'll be the ones getting fucked. It's never YOUR wife or YOUR child who'll die from some untested medication or contaminated food or unsafe electrical appliance. It'll always be the other guy whose wife or kid dies, and then the Magical Invisible Hand Of The Market will punish that company and force them out of business, so you'll be safe, right?
But it won't be your wife or your kid, no way. And if it IS your kid or your wife, well shucks, you can just take them to court for damages, right? Because that will bring your child or wife back to life, right?
Fuck you, I like the EPA and the FDA. I like public education and parks and recreation services. I like the idea of a School Breakfast Program for kids. I like all the things that make this a great country to live in. It's why people want to come here, fool. How many people in the US want to emigrate to Nigeria or Laos or Namibia or Somalia? NONE, that's how many.
My wife comes from a very poor country in SE Asia, and she's blown away by things like 911, public schools, food testing, public libraries, and all that stuff that you think is wasteful. She appreciates them and is more than happy to pay taxes. Unlike you, she realizes that these things are what make this country so great and why so many people want to come here, and not, for example, to emigrate to Somalia.
Her family had no money for schooling, so tough shit for her, is that it? Let the poor among us fail so that we may climb over their bodies on the way to our penthouses, right?
You selfish, ignorant fucks grow up swimming in these kinds of services and yet still find a way to complain about them. You'd likely be dead of a childhood disease if not for the publicly-funded health initiatives this country has. After all, what did this country ever do for you?
Are you actually defending Federal heath care with the VA system? You know... the one where people with terminal illness never get appointments and then *die* of treatable illnesses so that Federal officials can get bonuses?
Yes, because it is not perfect it should be scrapped. Great thinking.
The fact is the VA serves millions of people per year and the vast, vast majority of them them get quality care. FFS, people die in private hospitals from all sorts of shit (nosocomial infections, anyone?), but do we scream to shut those hospitals down?
In engineering space, a "catastrophic failure" is sometimes the terminology used to describe a single component failing.
Correct. It's a failure that may, but not always, lead to a more significant and more serious failure condition. You can, for example, have a "catastrophic failure" of an airplane landing gear tire but still be able to land the plane safely.
It's like when people say, "But evolution is just a theory!", not knowing that the word "theory" has a different meaning in a scientific context.
People who break into the restricted area should refrain from licking the ground for a few decades.
FTFY: "People who break into the restricted area should refrain from licking the ground for a few hundred decades."
As part of my on-site training there in the 80s/90s, I was warned not to eat any of the succulents or other vegetation that grows on the Hanford reservation (although to be fair there's not a lot that flourishes there that's edible).
I did a lot of service work in the 200 and 300 areas in Richland and at the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTR) at the Westinghouse-Hanford sites in the 80's and 90's.
One thing I learned was that the Hanford Patrol would go out weekly into the desert surrounding the 200/300 areas and shoot a few rabbits, which were then brought back for radiation testing. These were informally called "bunny hunts" and "RRT's" ("radioactive rabbit tests", lol).
It was (and still is) a viable way to find leaks of radioactive water from the storage tanks. The tank leaks, the water often pools in a gully or whatever, the rabbits drink the water, and the radioactive elements are easily detected in their blood and organs. If you start finding more than trace amounts then you've got a problem. They found problems more often than you might suspect.
It's the liberal BS that states that Blue States are supporting Red States.
Except those pesky numbers and facts disagree. Red states use more than they give back, and this is not hard to substantiate. Blue states produce more than they take, also not hard to substantiate.
Blue states generally higher per capita of people with college degrees, lower teen pregnancy rates, lower incarceration rates, higher per capita of home ownership, lower infant mortality, better "neighborhood advantage scores", higher personal incomes, and so on. Blue states invest much more in education, investments in education result in better educated kids, and better educated kids go further in school. Blue states, not surprisingly, also have higher graduation rates.
States that consistently vote Republican and against their own best interest suck more money from the federal government than Democratic states. Again, these figures are not hard to find.
American poverty is concentrated in the south, from Arizona all the way to the East Coast; additionally, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky are high-poverty states. With the exceptions of Michigan and New Mexico, these states are exclusively conservative-leaning. Conversely, on average, more progressive/Blue states, particularly in the northeast, tend to be the most well off states in our nation.
Income mobility and the ability to “work your way up” (or down) is closely tied to the state in which you are living. All but one (Utah) of the states which have higher than average upward income mobility rates lean progressive/Blue, while all of the states with low upward income mobility rates lean conservative/Red.
The right wing’s southern stronghold is composed of states that have, far and away, the worst life expectancies in the United States. This isn’t a purely a partisan issue, and involves a mixture of culture and bad policy.
The south is home to extreme poverty, a lack of accessible health care (ex. Texas leads the nation with 25% uninsurance), lax worker/environmental protections, and a culture that consumes massive amounts of fatty fried foods. These factors create a perfect storm of bad health that severely erodes the life expectancy of huge portions of the southern population. The health care systems of the Deep South and southwest are the worst in the nation, while those in the northeast and north-central regions are the best. This defies a purely partisan divide (ex. a lot of rural states suffer from low hospital accessibility), but the fact remains that the most conservative states in the nation tend to have the worst health care systems.
I could go on, but facts are facts, and the fact is that Red states do poorly in almost every quality-of-life metric when compared with Blue states.
This isn't my opinion- do some searches for "red state versus blue state" and you'll find plenty of studies that make this abundantly clear. When you look at all of these statistics in totality, you're left with the inescapable conclusion that Red states are correlated with a less developed society.
If you can find me stats which state the opposite, I'd be glad to look at them. But you won't, because they don't exist.
Putting everything through a large Federal government considerably increases the waste due to administrative costs and makes health care into a permanent Federal level hot button issue that we really shouldn't be having at that level.
You're right, we should disband the Veterans Administration immediately because clearly it doesn't work and it does not provide health care to millions of people every year. We must move to shut down all of the 1,700 VA sites of care across the country, as well as the VA medical centers, community outpatient clinics and Vet Centers. I mean, it's just a permanent Federal level health care system that OBVIOUSLY doesn't work, right?
You damn NAZI!
Woo hoo! Twice in one day, I'm on a roll!! (And I think I get extra points for the capital letters, too!)
That's why people can move. There are small Scandinavian countries that are "roll" models here in the states - so population isn't really the problem.
Maybe you missed the part where I said, "...that would work great in a country with a few million people...but not in one with 300 million. That "local safety net" concept just doesn't scale the way you think it does."
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Re the some places richer than others -- that's why people can and do move.
Some people cannot afford to move, or can't afford to move to where they'd like to. Will you give me the money so I can move to Beverly Hills or San Francisco and live there? Or is being too poor to move just tough shit for those who can't afford it?
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How about you let the states decide; then people will live in the states that best suit their personality.
How about "no"? Because some of those states if left to their own devices would happily make slavery legal again. Some would make interracial marriage illegal. Some would make child prostitution perfectly legal. Too bad you can't afford to move out of that state. Or maybe that state has decided you aren't allowed to move out, period. Yay for state's rights!
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Don't like the hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans? Don't send them your hard earned money.
Assuming I was a big enough dick to deny assistance to "hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans", just how would I go about denying them my hard earned money? Does that principle also work for blacks and Hispanics? If I don't like them, can I just say, "Fuck you, you ain't gitt'n none of mah money"? If I don't like people from Louisiana or Texas, for example, how do I "not send them" my money?
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And if they still prefer to live in their ignorance and squalor - well that's on them isn't it?
No, it's not always on them. Some of them might want to move but can't afford to do so. Then what?
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The new American liberal: scared of freedom. We go from home of the free to home of the serfs.
News Flash: I'm liberal. I'm probably way more liberal than you, and I'm not scared of freedom. I'm scared of those who work to take it away or deny it to others.
My guess is that it's "down for maintenance" while the feds move the server(s) to their offices.
Once that's done it'll be back in business, with a little extra "oversight" *cough*.
Another white "libertarian" who lives in the suburbs. Idiot.
Llibertarians are basically anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. I'm always amazed at their childlike gullibility as to how their libertarian society would function primarily to their benefit. Libertarianism just helps conservatives pass off a patently pro-business political agenda as a noble bid for human freedom.
“Libertarians are not the brightest lights in the candelabra, a fact that is evident from the alternatives they tend to offer to public prevention of private abuses. For example: if you don’t like working a hundred hours a week for twenty-five cents a day, then find another employer!” -- Michael Lind
You want a social safety net get it from local and state government.
Yeah, and that would work great in a country with a few million people...but not in one with 300 million. That "local safety net" concept just doesn't scale the way you think it does.
Some places are richer than others and need little or no safety net, other places aren't so lucky and need more help than they can generate. It has always been this way, and always will be this way. It's a simple fact of life.