Yes, which is exactly why there are sooo many Native American suicide bombers.
You do realize that the vast majority of suicide bombings are in Islamic-majority, Islamic-controlled countries... right? Suicide bombing is not because of US domination, it's because of Islamic domination.
US loses essentially all political clout it had with "human rights issues" worldwide
That would be great. Maybe we could stop all the bitching and whining about China's "record" and get on to making money through profitable trade.
Company that owned the ship/its insurers and teary wives and children of killed seamen go to court against US and likely win huge damages, as potential ransom costs but a small fraction of ship and its cargo's value.
You're wrong there. In the hypothetical where our government orders the Air Force to indiscriminately bomb Somali pirates and the communities that harbor them, it's likely that our government would also "intercept" troublemaking Somali nationals who want to abuse our court system.
First of all, no one should shop at Walmart period. It is a soulless evil company at all respects that hurts all of us on a daily basis.
Yes, Walmart is so much more evil than all the small stores that 1) don't provide health insurance, 2) hire illegal immigrants at below minimum wage 3) charge higher prices and carry less selection.
Second of all, thanks to their tax cheating ways, no one lives down the street from a Walmart anyway.
The Walmart nearest to me (within biking distance) is, oh, 2 blocks away from a large neighborhood.
There are plenty of grocery stores in reasonably built areas that are walking distance.
Most of the grocery stores in this country are large national chains. How exactly are they different than Walmart, either economically or "morally"?
I don't know why we aren't using drones for this. A dozen drones should be able to patrol a 1200 mile long narrow strip of sea with a fairly quick response time.
If we don't want constant drone activity, which might be expensive, an easier option is to track pirates after they make an attack. Then we kill the pirates and economically harm their communities. For starters, sink every boat and burn every vehicle within 20 miles. Nobody needs to be killed if it can be avoided, but the idea is that the pirates won't/can't reimburse all the damage and eventually the communities stop supporting them, whether out of new moral understanding or fear.
The government spends more money building roads than it gets in gas taxes, so it's operating at a LOSS.
The government earns almost no money on its own. It forces people to give it money whether they want to or not. How can you make a sensible comparison between that and a profit-making company?
Since the oil companies can't make any money on gas unless the government builds and maintains roads, the government should increase gas taxes until road spending is paid for.
Doesn't that logic apply to EVERYTHING? Hey, IBM can't make money if Mexico sends soldiers to take them over, so clearly IBM owes 100% of their profit to the government.
You're being totally unreasonable. Our government exists (in theory) to serve us, not to make us into subjects with no rights or privacy.
The biggest culprit is allowing oil companies to take a capital depreciation expense on the value of the oil that they remove from the ground. That makes no sense at all. The way a capital expense is supposed to work is a business spends $1 million on capital and then gets to write off that $1 million over the lifetime of the equipment. If you allow that deduction to be accelerated, then the manufacturer might write off that $1 million in the first year. Either way, the manufacturer still actually paid $1 million for the asset.
You're right, that doesn't make sense. Are you sure that's exactly what happens? If they were able to depreciate the full value of all the oil they pump, they would pay no taxes at all on the oil they sell right? But oil companies pay some of the highest taxes of any company. Can you explain a bit more what you mean?
On the other hand we are spending around $684 BILLION on our overseas empire
A lot of people have been complaining that the politicians are fighting over scraps while the big budget items are being ignored. But that's BS. ANY huge conglomeration of programs, including defense, can be broken down into thousands of tiny insignificant programs. It's not "defense" it's a couple million bucks to upgrade body armor. It's a couple million bucks to add armor to vehicles.
It's not $100 billion for new fuel tankers. It's a couple million bucks for the wiring. It's a couple million bucks for this new plant in Ohio. It's a couple million bucks for a study to determine the best highway route to deliver parts.
Or from the other end, it's not a couple million bucks to Planned Parenthood, it's a cut to health care, one of the biggest parts of the budget.
If what you say about Planned Parenthood is true regarding sectioned off budgets, why doesn't the abortion segment of Planned Parenthood branch off into a separate organization? Then there would be no issue.
There must be some reason. If we assume they're fairly rational, we can assume the reason involves monetary benefit. The abortion segment of Planned Parenthood benefits monetarily from being part of the larger umbrella group. Maybe joint fundraising. Maybe the "sectioned off budget" isn't as sectioned off as you think, and stuff like building rent, receptionists, carpet cleaning, etc is shared. Who knows.
But really, the answer is split Planned Parenthood up and let the two sides raise their own money. Problem solved. And no shenanigans like sharing buildings.
If you induce yourself to believe some fairy tale about the afterlife, to the point that you are willing to kill people, you cannot be that rational.
The dangers are organizations like al Qaida, the Taliban, al Shabaab, etc. They have to be fairly rational to remain organized. You may see their motivations and ultimate goals as irrational but that has nothing to do with their plans and methods. I mean the summary says an al Qaida leader was urging him to use AES, but he's probably still a religious extremist.
Of course the government needs to be watching out for these people (since they are dangerous), but I do not believe it takes all the powers that have been given to the government to keep track and arrest these loonies.
When you start tracking certain groups of people then you get accused of profiling.
Are you saying that bullying someone because they do not meet your weight standard is OK?
No I don't know where you saw that.
Nowhere did I say anything about physically hurting a bully.
I didn't say that either!
I was talking about the school using the school's regular disciplinary measures. How does telling a child that their behaviour is unacceptable and there will be consequences hurt a child?
Well if one CHILD telling another CHILD that their weight is unacceptable is considered bad, it must be even more traumatic for an ADULT to tell a CHILD that their sense of good is bad.
Even if it doesn't seem so to you, bullies must have feelings just like other people. We're talking about hurting a child's feelings because that child hurt another child's feelings. What I'm saying is that the "system" hurting a child's feelings is more harmful than one child hurting another's feelings, if only because the system speaks with more authority and instills more fear.
I find it really weird that you are saying "How does telling a child..... hurt a child?" because that's exactly the type of bullying we are talking about. And you can't even say "Well in one case it's correct and in another it's a malicious lie" because the victim in your example may actually be overweight as well.
If the article is about bullies not being punished enough, then in a hypothetical future where more bullies are punished maybe you would start to read those stories as well.
I don't think kids commit suicide from bullying unless they already have severe psychological problems to begin with. It stands to reason that some bullies will also have severe psychological problems to begin with. Maybe a bully who is bullied by the system will react the same way, kill himself or bring a gun to school and shoot people.
For physical interaction you have a point about consent but there's no consent required when it comes to speech. If you stand up in the cafeteria and say "I revoke my consent for you all to talk in my presence" and people ignore you, well, that's still not bullying (on their part).
The bully is also a child, so what can you do to them that isn't as bad or worse than what the bully is doing to his victim?
Is it because you believe the bully is "wrong" so it's okay for you (or the principal or whatever), an adult, to hurt him?
I mean... maybe you're right that saying "get a thicker skin" doesn't solve anything. But if the cure is worse than the disease, maybe that's why we should just leave it alone and let them sort it out.
This doesn't apply to physical bullying and beating people up, but your example is of making fun of someone who is fat.
Are either of these things indicative of illegal behavior ?
Yes, that's the whole point of mentioning them...
If you think so, I sure hope you never get racially profiled in the same way.
What about gender profiling, isn't that just as evil? How about ageism? Here I am paying more for car insurance because I'm younger! The injustice of it all! And why oh why do I have to wait until 62 or whatever to get Social Security? Can you explain why I don't get 100% benefits right now? That's government class-based discrimination plain and simple.
Unless you want to do the same to people who send money to Sweden and a father with political connections in Sweden. Or Mexico. Or Belgium. Or Japan.
Wow, yes, you are right, an honest view of the world in 2010/2011 has strong evidence that money transfers to Japanese politicians are equally likely to end up funding terrorism when compared to money transfers to the Middle East.
Like in computer games ? Or as a hyperbolic way to point out the idiocy of security theatre ? Point out the idiocy of what the TSA is doing would be enough to get you "flagged" ?
I agree with you, but remember that's just one flag. If you make a post criticizing the TSA, then you convert to Islam, then you receive a wire transfer from Libya, then you take flying lessons, maybe someone should check up on you, even though none of those things are illegal. Would you agree that in such a situation, more investigation is warranted? Or because no actual crime has publicly taken place yet that's just dirty nasty racial profiling so we shouldn't even investigate?
Other than infringing on their civil liberties and rights, sure. In that case, let's record every phone call ever made and keep it archived for a couple of years.
Oh, yes, absolutely. Because my idea (and the way the real world works) of having indicators for suspicious activity and investigating further if enough indicators are present is JUST THE SAME as fully investigating everybody all the time.
Now an argument could be made that what they did here is reasonable. And if that argument can be made, why did they not make it to a judge and get a warrant ?
Well that is the question isn't it. Some judges have ruled, in fact, that adding a GPS tracker to the outside of the car is fine without a warrant. Does that make you feel better? Others have ruled that it's not legal. Are you worried again?
Notice it has nothing to do with racial profiling, Islamophobia, or whatever other red herrings you want to throw out there.
My sources indicate that we are projected to use 9.12 million barrels of gasoline per day in 2011, which is about 139 billion gallons per year.
In 2009 we produced 10.6 billion gallons of ethanol, mostly from corn (not sure exactly how much).
If we could suddenly produce 100 times that with this new biofuel, in what sense could we not replace all of our gasoline usage while using less farm land to do so?
the prime minister (who is pretty right wing by Canadian standards, but basically a flaming commie pinko by US standards)
Okay I looked it up.
* Supports free trade agreements * Criticizes terrorism in India (Mumbai attacks, etc) * Supports "plans to assert Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean waters with armed forces" * Supports Israel * Supports reducing public funding for political parties * Opposes same-sex marriage * Opposes protection for American Iraq war conscientious objectors * Excluded funding for abortion in the G8 health plan
I mean.. I just perused his page on Wikipedia and learned a bit. Can you elaborate on what makes him a flaming commie pinko by US standards? I'm not seeing it.
I read the article, I didn't see any talk about these massive job cuts. Did you post the right story? Was it part of the video in the side bar (which I didn't watch)?
I didn't say that everyone else in the western world was right and America is all wrong. What I said was that I don't think American's understand how foreign and odd American politics appears to others in the western world.
You may think you said that, but in reality you said "from the external point of view" and not "to others in the western world."
As an American, "external" doesn't mean "western world" it means the rest of the world.
I read news from sources in the Canada, the US, UK, and Germany. Somehow they all seem to make some level of sense, except for the American version.
So you can't "make some level of sense" of American news, but you feel qualified to judge American politics? I consider myself a conservative, but UK, Canadian, and German news sources still make sense to me...
And as a matter of fact, most of what he says is true, something you'd realize if you looked at the U.S. system objectively. Our politicians ARE all right-wing.
If ALL of our politicians are right wing, isn't it kind of meaningless? Is it so complex for people from other countries to understand that they don't get to define left right and center and then apply those relative definitions to others? I mean I don't go around calling Europeans right-wing lunatics because I personally define "center" to be a few blocks left of Hugo Chavez.
That's the only way that abortion of a "health care" plan could possibly have been passed last year. You know, the one that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to the insurance companies?
Since the financial crisis, the left-wing has been incompetently trying to sell a liberal agenda with conservative economic phrases to gain more broad appeal. They don't actually give a crap about the economy, making people and corporations wealthier, or any of that. But it's what people like to hear.
And how those in both parties are all too eager to cut spending on education.
America spends more on education than anybody in the world. Uh oh, does that make Europe right-wing?
Or how our "liberal" president is perpetuating the abomination that is Guantanamo?
What exactly does that have to do with conservative vs. liberal? Do you think liberals don't want to fight terrorism?
According to Securities & Exchange Commission filings, Exxon paid an effective tax rate of 34% to the U.S. government in 2007, or $5.12 billion. While cheaper than rates from some foreign governments, it's still a higher rate than many U.S. companies pay. A BusinessWeek collaboration with Capital IQ in December, 2007, found that the average percentage of earnings spent on taxes by companies that make up the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was 26%
What do you mean by them paying lower taxes?
Some distort the truth by bringing up laws that have not existed in 20 years. Such subjects are useful to consider as the repeal of such tax was a increase in subsidy
Really, you're counting the repeal of a tax as an increase in subsidy? So since the high water mark for income tax is right after WWII when the highest tax rate was over 90%, according to you the entire population, along with every single company, is being heavily subsidized? And since we no longer pay any taxes to Britain, but we used to, we're being subsidized by them too?
The real subsidy is that fuel, not a critical item like food, is not subject to sales tax.
I don't understand. You already mentioned that there are state and federal taxes on gasoline. Sales tax is just a state-level tax. Why do you care that it's called a gasoline tax and not a general sales tax?
This means that while in most states people pay tax on food but not fuel. This makes no sense that we would make food more expensive but not fuel.
My state has separate sales tax rates for different types of food. Basic food items have low taxes, or even no tax.
I am not sure how Oil is overly taxed. Exxon paid no income taxes in 2009.
Here's a better idea. Rather than track all the cars, let's track the cars of people with red flags like sending lots of money to the Middle East, having a father with political connections in the Middle East, and having friends who make online posts about bombing malls.
And as a result of having red flags, the FBI decides to get a little more information about these people, not harassing them, damaging their property, or interfering with their lives in any way.
Yeah, I really have no problem with that. Why are you making a false equivalence between that totally reasonable activity and putting trackers "on all cars in the country" -- suggesting the FBI is just fishing randomly and harassing anybody they see fit.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, which is exactly why there are sooo many Native American suicide bombers.
You do realize that the vast majority of suicide bombings are in Islamic-majority, Islamic-controlled countries... right? Suicide bombing is not because of US domination, it's because of Islamic domination.
Really, you would turn to a life of crime rather than become a good and productive citizen?
Or do you think that people in countries without abundant natural resources can never accomplish anything? Like Japan?
US loses essentially all political clout it had with "human rights issues" worldwide
That would be great. Maybe we could stop all the bitching and whining about China's "record" and get on to making money through profitable trade.
Company that owned the ship/its insurers and teary wives and children of killed seamen go to court against US and likely win huge damages, as potential ransom costs but a small fraction of ship and its cargo's value.
You're wrong there. In the hypothetical where our government orders the Air Force to indiscriminately bomb Somali pirates and the communities that harbor them, it's likely that our government would also "intercept" troublemaking Somali nationals who want to abuse our court system.
In some countries, like Pakistan, the government subsidizes the price of gas. There, it's artificially low.
In what sense is gas artificially low in America?
First of all, no one should shop at Walmart period. It is a soulless evil company at all respects that hurts all of us on a daily basis.
Yes, Walmart is so much more evil than all the small stores that 1) don't provide health insurance, 2) hire illegal immigrants at below minimum wage 3) charge higher prices and carry less selection.
Second of all, thanks to their tax cheating ways, no one lives down the street from a Walmart anyway.
The Walmart nearest to me (within biking distance) is, oh, 2 blocks away from a large neighborhood.
There are plenty of grocery stores in reasonably built areas that are walking distance.
Most of the grocery stores in this country are large national chains. How exactly are they different than Walmart, either economically or "morally"?
I don't know why we aren't using drones for this. A dozen drones should be able to patrol a 1200 mile long narrow strip of sea with a fairly quick response time.
If we don't want constant drone activity, which might be expensive, an easier option is to track pirates after they make an attack. Then we kill the pirates and economically harm their communities. For starters, sink every boat and burn every vehicle within 20 miles. Nobody needs to be killed if it can be avoided, but the idea is that the pirates won't/can't reimburse all the damage and eventually the communities stop supporting them, whether out of new moral understanding or fear.
The government spends more money building roads than it gets in gas taxes, so it's operating at a LOSS.
The government earns almost no money on its own. It forces people to give it money whether they want to or not. How can you make a sensible comparison between that and a profit-making company?
Since the oil companies can't make any money on gas unless the government builds and maintains roads, the government should increase gas taxes until road spending is paid for.
Doesn't that logic apply to EVERYTHING? Hey, IBM can't make money if Mexico sends soldiers to take them over, so clearly IBM owes 100% of their profit to the government.
You're being totally unreasonable. Our government exists (in theory) to serve us, not to make us into subjects with no rights or privacy.
The biggest culprit is allowing oil companies to take a capital depreciation expense on the value of the oil that they remove from the ground. That makes no sense at all. The way a capital expense is supposed to work is a business spends $1 million on capital and then gets to write off that $1 million over the lifetime of the equipment. If you allow that deduction to be accelerated, then the manufacturer might write off that $1 million in the first year. Either way, the manufacturer still actually paid $1 million for the asset.
You're right, that doesn't make sense. Are you sure that's exactly what happens? If they were able to depreciate the full value of all the oil they pump, they would pay no taxes at all on the oil they sell right? But oil companies pay some of the highest taxes of any company. Can you explain a bit more what you mean?
Whew, good thing you're not susceptible to "black and white" mindsets yourself.
On the other hand we are spending around $684 BILLION on our overseas empire
A lot of people have been complaining that the politicians are fighting over scraps while the big budget items are being ignored. But that's BS. ANY huge conglomeration of programs, including defense, can be broken down into thousands of tiny insignificant programs. It's not "defense" it's a couple million bucks to upgrade body armor. It's a couple million bucks to add armor to vehicles.
It's not $100 billion for new fuel tankers. It's a couple million bucks for the wiring. It's a couple million bucks for this new plant in Ohio. It's a couple million bucks for a study to determine the best highway route to deliver parts.
Or from the other end, it's not a couple million bucks to Planned Parenthood, it's a cut to health care, one of the biggest parts of the budget.
If what you say about Planned Parenthood is true regarding sectioned off budgets, why doesn't the abortion segment of Planned Parenthood branch off into a separate organization? Then there would be no issue.
There must be some reason. If we assume they're fairly rational, we can assume the reason involves monetary benefit. The abortion segment of Planned Parenthood benefits monetarily from being part of the larger umbrella group. Maybe joint fundraising. Maybe the "sectioned off budget" isn't as sectioned off as you think, and stuff like building rent, receptionists, carpet cleaning, etc is shared. Who knows.
But really, the answer is split Planned Parenthood up and let the two sides raise their own money. Problem solved. And no shenanigans like sharing buildings.
If you induce yourself to believe some fairy tale about the afterlife, to the point that you are willing to kill people, you cannot be that rational.
The dangers are organizations like al Qaida, the Taliban, al Shabaab, etc. They have to be fairly rational to remain organized. You may see their motivations and ultimate goals as irrational but that has nothing to do with their plans and methods. I mean the summary says an al Qaida leader was urging him to use AES, but he's probably still a religious extremist.
Of course the government needs to be watching out for these people (since they are dangerous), but I do not believe it takes all the powers that have been given to the government to keep track and arrest these loonies.
When you start tracking certain groups of people then you get accused of profiling.
Are you saying that bullying someone because they do not meet your weight standard is OK?
No I don't know where you saw that.
Nowhere did I say anything about physically hurting a bully.
I didn't say that either!
I was talking about the school using the school's regular disciplinary measures. How does telling a child that their behaviour is unacceptable and there will be consequences hurt a child?
Well if one CHILD telling another CHILD that their weight is unacceptable is considered bad, it must be even more traumatic for an ADULT to tell a CHILD that their sense of good is bad.
Even if it doesn't seem so to you, bullies must have feelings just like other people. We're talking about hurting a child's feelings because that child hurt another child's feelings. What I'm saying is that the "system" hurting a child's feelings is more harmful than one child hurting another's feelings, if only because the system speaks with more authority and instills more fear.
I find it really weird that you are saying "How does telling a child ..... hurt a child?" because that's exactly the type of bullying we are talking about. And you can't even say "Well in one case it's correct and in another it's a malicious lie" because the victim in your example may actually be overweight as well.
If the article is about bullies not being punished enough, then in a hypothetical future where more bullies are punished maybe you would start to read those stories as well.
I don't think kids commit suicide from bullying unless they already have severe psychological problems to begin with. It stands to reason that some bullies will also have severe psychological problems to begin with. Maybe a bully who is bullied by the system will react the same way, kill himself or bring a gun to school and shoot people.
I must have missed the original "Spaceballs 3 - The Search for Spaceballs"
For physical interaction you have a point about consent but there's no consent required when it comes to speech. If you stand up in the cafeteria and say "I revoke my consent for you all to talk in my presence" and people ignore you, well, that's still not bullying (on their part).
The bully is also a child, so what can you do to them that isn't as bad or worse than what the bully is doing to his victim?
Is it because you believe the bully is "wrong" so it's okay for you (or the principal or whatever), an adult, to hurt him?
I mean... maybe you're right that saying "get a thicker skin" doesn't solve anything. But if the cure is worse than the disease, maybe that's why we should just leave it alone and let them sort it out.
This doesn't apply to physical bullying and beating people up, but your example is of making fun of someone who is fat.
Are either of these things illegal ?
Was anybody put on trial?
Are either of these things indicative of illegal behavior ?
Yes, that's the whole point of mentioning them...
If you think so, I sure hope you never get racially profiled in the same way.
What about gender profiling, isn't that just as evil? How about ageism? Here I am paying more for car insurance because I'm younger! The injustice of it all! And why oh why do I have to wait until 62 or whatever to get Social Security? Can you explain why I don't get 100% benefits right now? That's government class-based discrimination plain and simple.
Unless you want to do the same to people who send money to Sweden and a father with political connections in Sweden. Or Mexico. Or Belgium. Or Japan.
Wow, yes, you are right, an honest view of the world in 2010/2011 has strong evidence that money transfers to Japanese politicians are equally likely to end up funding terrorism when compared to money transfers to the Middle East.
Like in computer games ? Or as a hyperbolic way to point out the idiocy of security theatre ? Point out the idiocy of what the TSA is doing would be enough to get you "flagged" ?
I agree with you, but remember that's just one flag. If you make a post criticizing the TSA, then you convert to Islam, then you receive a wire transfer from Libya, then you take flying lessons, maybe someone should check up on you, even though none of those things are illegal. Would you agree that in such a situation, more investigation is warranted? Or because no actual crime has publicly taken place yet that's just dirty nasty racial profiling so we shouldn't even investigate?
Other than infringing on their civil liberties and rights, sure. In that case, let's record every phone call ever made and keep it archived for a couple of years.
Oh, yes, absolutely. Because my idea (and the way the real world works) of having indicators for suspicious activity and investigating further if enough indicators are present is JUST THE SAME as fully investigating everybody all the time.
Now an argument could be made that what they did here is reasonable. And if that argument can be made, why did they not make it to a judge and get a warrant ?
Well that is the question isn't it. Some judges have ruled, in fact, that adding a GPS tracker to the outside of the car is fine without a warrant. Does that make you feel better? Others have ruled that it's not legal. Are you worried again?
Notice it has nothing to do with racial profiling, Islamophobia, or whatever other red herrings you want to throw out there.
My sources indicate that we are projected to use 9.12 million barrels of gasoline per day in 2011, which is about 139 billion gallons per year.
In 2009 we produced 10.6 billion gallons of ethanol, mostly from corn (not sure exactly how much).
If we could suddenly produce 100 times that with this new biofuel, in what sense could we not replace all of our gasoline usage while using less farm land to do so?
the prime minister (who is pretty right wing by Canadian standards, but basically a flaming commie pinko by US standards)
Okay I looked it up.
* Supports free trade agreements
* Criticizes terrorism in India (Mumbai attacks, etc)
* Supports "plans to assert Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean waters with armed forces"
* Supports Israel
* Supports reducing public funding for political parties
* Opposes same-sex marriage
* Opposes protection for American Iraq war conscientious objectors
* Excluded funding for abortion in the G8 health plan
I mean.. I just perused his page on Wikipedia and learned a bit. Can you elaborate on what makes him a flaming commie pinko by US standards? I'm not seeing it.
I read the article, I didn't see any talk about these massive job cuts. Did you post the right story? Was it part of the video in the side bar (which I didn't watch)?
I didn't say that everyone else in the western world was right and America is all wrong. What I said was that I don't think American's understand how foreign and odd American politics appears to others in the western world.
You may think you said that, but in reality you said "from the external point of view" and not "to others in the western world."
As an American, "external" doesn't mean "western world" it means the rest of the world.
I read news from sources in the Canada, the US, UK, and Germany. Somehow they all seem to make some level of sense, except for the American version.
So you can't "make some level of sense" of American news, but you feel qualified to judge American politics? I consider myself a conservative, but UK, Canadian, and German news sources still make sense to me...
And as a matter of fact, most of what he says is true, something you'd realize if you looked at the U.S. system objectively. Our politicians ARE all right-wing.
If ALL of our politicians are right wing, isn't it kind of meaningless? Is it so complex for people from other countries to understand that they don't get to define left right and center and then apply those relative definitions to others? I mean I don't go around calling Europeans right-wing lunatics because I personally define "center" to be a few blocks left of Hugo Chavez.
That's the only way that abortion of a "health care" plan could possibly have been passed last year. You know, the one that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to the insurance companies?
Since the financial crisis, the left-wing has been incompetently trying to sell a liberal agenda with conservative economic phrases to gain more broad appeal. They don't actually give a crap about the economy, making people and corporations wealthier, or any of that. But it's what people like to hear.
And how those in both parties are all too eager to cut spending on education.
America spends more on education than anybody in the world. Uh oh, does that make Europe right-wing?
Or how our "liberal" president is perpetuating the abomination that is Guantanamo?
What exactly does that have to do with conservative vs. liberal? Do you think liberals don't want to fight terrorism?
There are a few ways in which gasoline in subsidized in the US. First oil firms tend to pay a lower tax.
A lower tax than...? According to Business Week in 2008:
According to Securities & Exchange Commission filings, Exxon paid an effective tax rate of 34% to the U.S. government in 2007, or $5.12 billion. While cheaper than rates from some foreign governments, it's still a higher rate than many U.S. companies pay. A BusinessWeek collaboration with Capital IQ in December, 2007, found that the average percentage of earnings spent on taxes by companies that make up the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was 26%
What do you mean by them paying lower taxes?
Some distort the truth by bringing up laws that have not existed in 20 years. Such subjects are useful to consider as the repeal of such tax was a increase in subsidy
Really, you're counting the repeal of a tax as an increase in subsidy? So since the high water mark for income tax is right after WWII when the highest tax rate was over 90%, according to you the entire population, along with every single company, is being heavily subsidized? And since we no longer pay any taxes to Britain, but we used to, we're being subsidized by them too?
The real subsidy is that fuel, not a critical item like food, is not subject to sales tax.
I don't understand. You already mentioned that there are state and federal taxes on gasoline. Sales tax is just a state-level tax. Why do you care that it's called a gasoline tax and not a general sales tax?
This means that while in most states people pay tax on food but not fuel. This makes no sense that we would make food more expensive but not fuel.
My state has separate sales tax rates for different types of food. Basic food items have low taxes, or even no tax.
I am not sure how Oil is overly taxed. Exxon paid no income taxes in 2009.
I was curious about this bold claim so I looked it up. I'm assuming you read the ABC, Forbes, or Mother Jones article that whined about Exxon paying $0 income tax to the US in 2009. And then you failed to read the followup from the original journalist who started it all by misunderstanding a financial statement.
Here's a better idea. Rather than track all the cars, let's track the cars of people with red flags like sending lots of money to the Middle East, having a father with political connections in the Middle East, and having friends who make online posts about bombing malls.
And as a result of having red flags, the FBI decides to get a little more information about these people, not harassing them, damaging their property, or interfering with their lives in any way.
Yeah, I really have no problem with that. Why are you making a false equivalence between that totally reasonable activity and putting trackers "on all cars in the country" -- suggesting the FBI is just fishing randomly and harassing anybody they see fit.