I think the guys who were there when it was penned probably are more suited to explain the spirit of the law than either of us?
I, of course, fully agree. Though I don't really see a large contradiction.
Also there is a a problem with citing a single drafter on Constitutional issues, since there was a fair amount of disagreement between them, with the actual drafted Constitution existing as a compromise between their views, sweetened up to be drafted by the individual states. This leads to a very decent ability to cherry pick quotes from individuals that support a single view, that necessarily wasn't supported in the end document.
Also, a lot of times people apply these quotes to concepts that the founders didn't really have a grasp of, since they didn't exist until much later in our countries history.
I'm not accusing you of either, btw. Just pointing out that generally some caution is needed.
One thing that does get me, and I will be flamed relentlessly for this, is that times have changed, and we no longer live in the same type of world as the founders of our country. Using their words (independent of the Constitution, and body of law) often ignores this, their view of the world is not the same world as ours, so some of their concepts will not map directly onto the current circumstance.
The Constitution allows itself to change with the time, and the nation it creates to be flexible. It allows this not only through amendment, and the tradition of common law, but also through some innate flexibility.
If we froze the state of Constitutional law at some point immediately after drafting, our country would have floundered.
Which doesn't recognize that the choices are not "equally good". This seems to be the concept with which you have trouble.
Don't have trouble with it, I just accept ambiguity and accept the fact that there is always a very strong probability that I (or any other person) might be wrong, no matter how convinced I am otherwise.
There is a difference between the ability to assign truth value to the statements; "Obama's healthcare plan is bad" and "the moon is made of cheese". On is a subjective value judgment whose truth depends on the speaker, and the second is empirical and can be independently evaluated and proven or disproven.
No. You're forgetting that there is objective reality. For instance, millions of people starving to death or losing their homes is "bad". The opposite is "good"
I agree with your statement, obviously, but it isn't that simple. There is no way to objectively prove that one is bad and the other is good. We can reduce these judgement down to first principles, but all of these principles are wholly subjective, in cases of bad and good. We, and most of the western world, share a lot of principles, and thus most people we talk to would agree with us that one case (starvation of millions) is bad, while the other (nonstarvation) is good, this still does not make it an objective statement. It is nothing but a sociologically informed moral judgement.
There have been people who have argued that mass starvation can be good, and who have managed to find millions of supporters who agree with them (Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and a whole slew of leaders from history).
I am not arguing relativism here. Most people would agree that enforcing mass starvation is a bad thing, and the first principles derived from the formulation are much stronger than others.
But when it comes to things like socialized health care, this gets shaky. You can cite x to the contrary, and I can point at Finland. Etc... There is no end to this debate. I can't disprove your position, nor you mine. This is where the line is, the solution is something that makes all of us slightly happy, but doesn't make a large portion of any camp unhappy. If you got your way, you would be imposing your view on a large portion of society, just like your complaining that the "other side" did to you.
For instance, if healthcare is in fact nationalized, it will drastically reduce the quality of healthcare in America.
But I can point to many countries where it hasn't. Actually I can point to more countries with better healthcare than us with a socialized aspect, than I can to ones with without.
See this chart from National Geographic for example.
Nice job missing the point. I was referring to the 'defend his country against his government' part. The (Federal) government is the issue, and the biggest danger to a sane existence.
Yes and no. Would you rather live in a place like Somalia where there is no government or regulations? Government exist to serve the people. It can reach into excess, but it also can be a great force of good. Often it is both. The roll of the vigilant patriot is to maximize the good aspects while minimalistic the bad.
I view state governments, and local governments as an equal threat to the federal government. The smaller the government, the more likely it is that crazed minorities will be over-represented. I don't agree with Reagan, obviously, some government is a good thing, no government is a very bad thing.
Government should provide benefit to the governed. We disagree on the scope.
To me the government disenfranchising the poor is as big of a plight as any other. Or letting corporation do what they want to harm others for profit. The government turning a blind eye on the suffering of its citizens is something that we should fight against.
You should pay more attention, that's not what they're doing. It's just that 0
Sure, when the decisions are actually good that's fine. On the other hand, when the decisions are as wrongheaded as many the current Congress and President favor, it's not so good.:-P
Define good. There are a lot of things you will probably think good, that I would think to be terrible mistakes, and, obviously, visa versa. This is well and fine, and there is room for both. When someone claims that there is only room for their version of "good" then I worry.
Good often follows subjective political ideologies.
You should meditate on your tagline for a while... LOL
I have. Country doesn't mean people who subscribe to the same line as I do. Country doesn't mean only people who agree with me. Country does not mean only the rich, or only the poor. Country does not mean only bankers, or overseers of the military-industrial complex. Country does not mean tea party folk or progressives. Nor republican or democrat. It does not mean socialist or sociopathic free marketeer. Country means ALL of these, and the land, and the people, and the various cultures contained therein, and all of the resulting conflicts.
This is as much my country, and its destiny is as much mine, as it is yours.
Country far transcends whether or whether not you want government controlled health care.
Anything done to restrain 0's out of control spending is "good for America". His fiscal policies are literally insane.
And who isn't? And no, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or biting off your nose to spite your face, is NOT good for America. The right wing of Congress sitting around with their fingers in their ears screaming "nyah nyah nyah can't hear you!" is not healthy for anything.
Perhaps the people on the Right could promote cutting some of the biggest bloat in the budget, military spending, or subsidies for agriculture and fossil fuels. Perhaps they would find that competitive tariffs would raise money and bring jobs... Perhaps they would realize that our two wars are really nothing but big bonfires for throwing money at. The republicans could do something USEFUL. Not doing anything isn't useful.
Oh, pork is only pork when it isn't our pork.
Your expectations vary quite a bit from mine.;-)
When was the last time a president (or congress critter) didn't go back on all their promises, or generally screw the American people for a handful of rich and powerful interests? Not in the last eight years, not in the last sixteen, not in the last... oh hell, Jimmy Carter? Ineffectual but at least he was the last uncorrupted president. Before him? FDR? Maybe Eisenhower.
Obama is a joke, but so was the contenders. Don't blame me, I voted for Kucinich (though I would have voted for Paul is I was a registered Republican, both actually believed in something).
It's sure not. "Reasoned debate" is about identifying good or bad ideas, and then calling a spade a spade, so to speak.
Good to whom, and bad for whom? I personally think that socialized health care would be really good for America. You don't. We could quibble all day over it, in fact, we as a people have been quibbling over it nonstop for years with no actual resolution in sight.
I think that redirecting 50% of miliary spending to social services and education would be the one of the greatest moves made in recent history. You might absolutely hate the idea. I think that corporations should be regulated to shit to keep them from harming real people (their only roll should be the total benefit of society, not just a handful of people at the detriment of society). I think we should abandon oil and coal as quick as possible. I think... etc... You get the idea, and you probably completely disagree with me on several, if not all, of these issues.
Who gets to say which is good or bad? These issues are not like those of math, logic, or physics where we can quickly disprove one through controlled experiment or
Democrats begin their long march towards socialism! [wikipedia.org]
You really don't know the definition of socialism, or how that term doesn't apply to Obama in the slightest, right? The healthcare bill was about as far from socialism as one can get. Its fascist, or purely corporatist, not socialist. If it was single payer and universal it would have been socialist, if it had the so-called "public option" it would have had socialist aspects. We got neither, therefore we did not get socialism. Obama is a very slightly left leaning centrist, in the grand scheme of things, who buys pretty much the Reagan trickle down line (which, IMO, is nothing but a post-hoc rationalization for corruption). Kuchinich is socialist, Feinstein is a socialist, Obama is not.
The actual left in America is pretty much non-existent, compared to the rest of the world. Obama would be a conservative in pretty much any other developed country, and our conservatives would be the lunatic fringe.
Now retirement and health care are a RIGHT [wikipedia.org] and the government is required to provide for the "happiness" of the people by collecting money from one group of people and giving it to another.
You realize that the Constitution points out that our Government, in part, exists to "promote the general welfare" of the people, right?
Further:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...
Means that taxation for the good of the People is NOT a bad thing, or a sin, or whatnot. I would consider trying to make the people "happy" is a good thing, and very well within the line of "general welfare". Its either that or a government that tries to make people unhappy.
Actually "small government" is not contained in the word "conservative", at least in the political sense. It basically means in favor of the status quo (as opposed to liberal's progressive tendencies), resistance to change. Some conservatives are small-government types, some are not (fiscal conservatives, versus neo-cons, family value types, etc...). Just because someone differs on bulk ideology with you, does not remove them from the field.
For example, I am a liberal, and I can't stand a large portion of people who share the same base ideology (Obama, for example), but that does not make them not a liberal anymore than it makes me not one since we share ideological ground, albeit in broad strokes and wildly varying degrees. My political philosophy is closer, say, to Obama than it is to Sarah Palin. This is where sub-classes come in handy. I'm a progressive (which is a subclass of liberal), and from the sounds of it you are rather libertarian (being a subclass of conservative). You have more in common with other subclasses of your ideology than I do with the same, and visa versa.
Also, all of these terms are made up sweeping generalizations, and somewhat false. There is probably one a few people who could be classified as truly conservative or liberal. One of my best friends is a die-hard republican hawk, who thinks Reagan was a god, and campaigned for McCain. She supports public health care and corporate regulations. I am a pretty die hard liberal (a freely admitted socialist), who supports our mis-handled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, strong border enforcement and deportation, I am mostly against abortion, and hold various social libertarian ideals. The label only means you are more in column A than column B, not that you are completely contained in the label.
People who claim to be truly liberal or truly conservative (meeting every single criteria of the label) scare me. They are zealots who operate in a purely "us or them" world. People who let mere fiction (all of our ideologies are in the end) rule over the real world. These are the people, the "true beleivers" who are responsible for every bad thing that mars our collective history. Anyone who claims to have access to a priori truth is nothing but a despot looking for a holocaust.
Also, as the previous person replies said, your also guilty of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Yup, a its about as clever as calling Obama "0". Pot meet kettle.
Your comprehension of English is abysmal. The "will of the people" is most directly what the majority of the people want. Of course, we don't live in a pure democracy, we live in a republic, but I'm sure you knew that. THAT is why our "elected representatives" have power instead of it being straight majority rule.
This isn't actually true. There was some among the Founders who obviously thought that requiring a simple majority of citizens to pass laws and bills was a bad idea. This is why we're a representative democracy and not a straight democracy. Often times the electorate isn't informed or educated enough to make some decisions (treaties, wars, and such), and sometimes elected representatives are forced to make unpopular decisions for the common good , our system allows for this.
At any rate, you are dead wrong once again. Check out this Gallup poll [newsweek.com], showing only 36% approve of 0's handling of healthcare. Even the most left leaning of "news" sources can't ignore the facts. Get yours straight next time.
I've seen several polls with widely varying numbers. I've seem single polls on the issue with wildly varing numbers depending on how the question is asked. Which poll do we go by? I know the answer, the one you like and that supports your political tilt. This is true for everyone. I haven't actually seen a well sampled bill (i.e. not on a blag, or news site) that has the opponents of the bill representing a meaningful majority over those that supported it. Generally the percentages work up around 42% in favor, and 46% against (which is about the same margin as most of our elections, incidentally). In these cases things become tricky, since can you really crap on the will of 42% of the electorate to make 46% happy? And of these, probably 90% of each camp don't care strongly, leaving 10% of the population who have very strong opinions and a deep love of waggling their tongues.
. I guess you forgot there was broad bipartisan support for both wars, and almost every country's intelligence agency thought Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. Apparently many have forgotten that UN inspectors actaully observed both chemical and biological agents in Iraq.
You managed to make a nice fallacy, and completely ignore the point. Just because something is bipartisan doesn't make it right. If I get some democrats, and some republicans, to agree that we should burn the Constitution does it make it more right than if I just had some democrats OR some republicans agree?
The republicans are just as apt to pass heinous laws as the Democrats. In fact, I'll take 10 crappy half-assed facist health care bills over half of a USA PATRIOT ACT. We also forgot that Bush did many illegal things on his own, with out the patina of bipartisanship, like warrantless wiretaps. As it stands, both parties are corrupt, backwards, and rather hostile to the American people.
Right now bipartisanship is part of the problem. If not for willy-nilly "reaching across the aisle" crap, we would have have actually reform, and not just another bill to force my money onto greedy antisocial corporations. Being that you love polls so much, most polls from the beginning of this healthcare debacle claimed that most Americans support reform with a socialized aspect (a "public option"). but Obama killed that by trying to get some contrarian Republican survivors to sign off just so he could claim the meaningless label of bipartisan. The Republicans are playing pure politics, and don't give one ass about the American people right now. They are out to win the next election, and "destroy" Obama. No matter how much you like the sentiment, this is NOT good practice, and not good for America as a whole.
And yes, Obama had a mandate for healthcare reform (which is now squandered), and popular support. He was elected with a fair majority, and pledged to
You live in a binary world that has nothing to do with reality.
I have stated many times that there is some degree of endemic social problems. We disagree on the extent and importance of them, not on their existence. I think they are overshadowed by individual freedom and responsibility, you think they are the catch-all, and massively overshadow the ability of an individual to choose their fate. Its a matter of degree, and our disagreement on which factor is more important, which contradicts any supposition that I am thinking in binary.
I have stated several times that we should approach the systemic problems. We should, but not at the expense of fostering responsibility for ones actions and life. You own your choices, this matters more than any systemic aspect. I would rather live in a world where people live responsibly, than one where one can blame all of their ills on others. In the former there is hope, in the latter world all you have is happy machines.
The people who signed those leases couldn't afford a lawyer to decode the hundreds of pages of documentation.
I'm not a lawyer, nor very experienced in the area, and I could see a bad mortgage when I saw it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that most of the ARM type mortgages were disasters waiting to happen. Nor does it take one to realize that someone making less than 40k shouldn't buy a 200k house.
They couldn't even afford the loan that was marketed to them, and they were targeted by companies who were reselling the toxic loans at huge commissions.
We're all targeted by various parties for services and things that we can't afford. I'm in the market for a new car and the other day my local Lexus dealer had an ad that I saw, it even offered super-duper financing! I didn't buy it because s Lexus is above my pay-grade, no matter how sexy the ad made it look, and realizing that no matter how much financial magic they perform a Lexus is still to expensive for my budget. I REALLY want it though, but know enough that it is a bad idea.
Me and my girlfriend just bought a house. There were plenty of very nice houses just above the amount of money we budgeted. If we would have went for an ARM or such we probably could have upgraded. But we decided that a house in our immediate budget, with a standard 30yr mortgage was best, along with the largest possible down payment we could muster. We also decided to leave a decent leeway between the amount of income we have, and the amount of payments we need, allowing for savings, job loss, and disaster. If we couldn't afford a house, we would keep renting. Neither of us are Realtors, or schooled in anything related. But we knew stupid when we saw it.
If we somehow still get in over our heads, it is still our fault. We signed the paper. If we can't understand the fine print, it doesn't shuffle the blame off our heads, we shouldn't have signed it then. If we get bit because we don't understand the consequences for our actions, then we are still at fault.
This isn't saying that the fine print is fare, or should be an accepted practice. It is still wrong. But the onus lies on us.
The world is awash in scams and marketing. But no one COMPELS you to fall for it. No one held a gun to these people's heads. No one NEEDS a house, either. If you go to the store and buy a luxury item and go deep into debt because of it, and find yourself in trouble because it killed your finances, would you blame the guy whose job is to sell you the item, the advertising you saw that lead you to the purchase? Or would you realize you made a stupid choice, and learn from it? Yes, the seller should have told you that it was a bad idea, you can't afford it. He gets a little blame for being sleezy. But in the end it was your decision, and a little thought and research would have saved everyone a mess, regardless of the morality of the seller.
This is exactly the absurdity that was decried by every socialist thinker I know when they
Head in sand? Check. Callous disregard for other humans? Check.
Now we're resorting to flames, joy. I don't disregard other humans, I just don't buy the whole "powerless" spiel. These do not amount to the same thing. People are in control of their own destiny. To claim otherwise further dehumanizes them, and makes them merely cogs in the system, completely at the whim of outside forces.
The more responsibility you hoist off onto society, the less responsibility you leave for individuals, and the less room you leave for people taking control of the reins and fixing their own problems. If people are led to believe that society is to blaim for all their problems, then you remove all ability for people to take charge of their destinies. Yes, in innercity ghettos it is harder to grab the reins (this is true of all poor communities, who have less individual resources) but it is not impossible But this "blame white people" line of reasoning hides the path to individual success.
I fully admit, though, that I am not politically correct. I have no problem with this. Groupthink is often false, even if it is comforting.
Don't call yourself a socialist. You're just a keynesian who pretends to be compassionate. You're more like a National Socialist who would wipe the ash off of his windshield, and then whistle on his way to work.
I will continue to call myself a socialist, thank you very much. As I stated several times, I think that it is our responsibility to lend a hand to those who need it. We should supply the tools to help the disenfranchised accend and step into the roll of masters of their fate. In practice this probably leads to the same social economic philosophy that you claim, even though the reasoning behind it diverges. The goal of society is to maximize the the well being of the people in it. This includes trying to stem racism and racial practices, and offering the tools and resources freely to those who wish to improve their lot. This does not, though, include turning a blind eye to personal culpability.
If I was arrested today, for whatever reason, and claimed as my defence that "society made me do it", I would be laughed out of court. People need to take some responsibility for where they are in life. Again, that does not preclude helping them, and trying to fix the problems that do lie in society as a whole that makes it a bit harder for some individuals to join the larger society.
I don't see how that isn't a socialist thought. Nor do I see how that makes me callous.
If you do something stupid and get injured as a result I will empathize for you, and try my damnest to assist you. But ultimately your circumstance is still your fault, and if you refuse to learn from it then all the assistance in the world is for naught since you will just do it again.
Think of the people with bad mortgages right now. Yes, they need help, and should receive it. But ultimately they signed a bad mortgage of their own free will, and should have known better. They brought the consequences upon themselves. A little research and restraint would have saved them. We should help them, but we should also educate them on what they, as individuals, could have done to avoid the whole mess.
You are not making any sense. There are 5 times more white drug users than black drug users, yet black users are sent to prison at 13x the rate of white users. Both are breaking the law, but only black drug users are incarcerated. I really can't understand why you refuse to see the double standard. That's not "some" enforcement bias. That's injustice.
I'm not sure where those statistics came from, so I ignored them. The article you cite lacked a source for that tidbit.
Have no fear, I ran out and Googled it a bit, and didn't find any substantiating data. All I found was this (cite number 2). which doesn't back up the claim that whites use more drugs than blacks. Though yes, blacks are incarcerated at a significantly higher rate than whites. Though there still is some gap here, since the study isn't clear at the other circumstances. Type of drugs, previous record, and activity leading to the arrest are also significant factors, and missing factors, in these statistics.
So why aren't the affluent neighborhoods patrolled with the same zeal? Because the affluent citizens, who have much more wealth and power, wouldn't tolerate it, and so they're allowed to play by different rules.
In part you are correct, though somewhat unnuanced. Enforcement patterns are dictated by more than race. Where there is more crime, especially the type that more effects the ghettos, there are more cops, and stricter enforcement. Having a gang task force operate a sting in the affluent neighborhoods would be a waste, but having them operate at a high level in poorer, gang infested neighborhoods makes sense, no matter the ethnic breakdown.
Also, discrepancies here are not necessarily racial, but rather based on socio-economic status. I live in an town where areas of the town are stricken with rampant meth-amphetamine usage. The areas where this is most concentrated are largely poor white neighborhoods (with some overlap with Hispanic neighborhoods, though it is still mostly a white problem in these too), in these neighborhoods you would not want to walk outside at night. These neighborhoods also have a large police presence. If you drive through, and are in a nasty looking car, you have a higher probability of being pulled over than if you were in a richer place.
The police look for drugs in x neighborhood because drugs are a problem in x neighborhood.
Yes, there is a bit of racial issues involved, but it isn't the whole story.
Why did you skip over the incarceration rates? Is it because they were detrimental to your argument?
I skipped over them because they are meaningless. All it says is that "x does more crime". Yes, there is some enforcement bias, but the margin is so high that there is an element of truth in it. Looking at crime rates of entrenched ghettos backs this up, there is more crime in minority neighborhoods than there are in affluent white neighborhoods, this is not because of white over-enforcement.
Why is there more incarcerated minorities? They do more crime. Why is there more crime, bringing us back to our original argument? A sick culture.
And so the kids who have drug addicts or dead parents or learning disabilites, just fuck'em, huh?
Read further down. I said I have nothing against helping those who need a hand. But even without help, you own a large portion of your destiny.
eople do not choose to be failures. They embrace the culture of failure only after they have given up.
There may be some truth in this, but it is overly simplistic. How many of these children who want to be rappers, or other crime roll models, already gave up? And how many of them are driven to this lifestyle because it is the local fad? Or, worse, all they know?
Most people, when young, aspire to be what is considered cool in their culture. If the "cool" thing is a gangster or street thug, then they will aspire to it as much as an affluent white kid will aspire to sports, or being a doctor or lawyer. Or whatever the hell cool kids want to be these days.
But instead of investing in poor communities, they are ignored, and then jailed after we criminalize their lifestyle.
This is a problem, I agree. Though people who engage in criminal behavior should be jailed, regardless of their racial background. I'm not sure what "lifestyle" has been criminalized recently, though. If it is slinging drugs, and stealing shit, then I see no problem. If it is reading books and generally trying to be successful, then there is a problem.
As for your cite, there is also some truth in this, though it is hard to say WHY it is so. Perhaps a lot of the black durg offenders have a record. Perhaps they try to enact their "lifestyle" in court, where it has no place. Regardless, there is a problem here that should be corrected. But even correcting it, I fear, there still will be a discrepancy between black and white rates, this discrepancy will be meaningful and wholly due to the effects of a poisonous culture.
You claim not to be a "randroid", but you seem to fully believe in the libertarian value of indifference to suffering and injustice.
Go back and read my previous post, and earlier in this one. I am not indifferent, and I believe in, again, helping those who need it. I even believe it is our collective responsibility to do so, whether some of us hate the idea or not.
I am very sympathetic to the problems. But I'm not going to let this short-circuit my reason. Reason often tells us things we don't want to believe, and only a fool discards reason for fantasy just because fantasy sounds better.
These problems will remain endemic until the people will the problems ALSO help to fix their end of them. While there is a greater societal problem leading to the disenfranchisement of minorities, is is naive to think that the minority cultures don't hold a bit of responsibility themselves.
In the end, if you are black, or white, and don't want to spend time in jail for drugs, you DON'T DO DRUGS. No matter how much the greater society wants to put you in jail, if you don't break the law then they can't. The real question that must be answered before we can attempt, as a whole, to fix their problems, if why they are more prone to crime than the society as a whole.
Perhaps I read to much continental philosophy in my government sponsored schooling to be a good liberal. I'm fine with this. People own their baggage, I don't. I cou
You don't have a clue what it's like to be born into and grow up in a ghetto. You can't even imagine waking yourself up to go to school, not having breakfast, being half asleep all day from the sirens and the gunfire and the fights from the night before, and then going back home straight into your room, because it's simply not safe to be outside.
White guy here; Yes, I do know what it is like. Not all white people are rich. I grew up poor, in a predominately Mexican and Black neighborhood.
White kids absolutely glorify the same things. They love violence committed by the army and the police. They love bling in the form of 3 series BMWs and high end clothing labels and watches. They glorify drugs and use them, too. But here's the difference:
Reverse racism for the win?
e.) How many times have you been stopped in your own neighborhood for walking? If the answer is never, you're probably white. If the answer is every week, you're probably black.
None, lately. But that was because I made use of existing resources (student aid) and went to college and got the hell out of the ghetto. But before that, I was stopped by the police several times a week. And while I never got collared for drugs, several of my friends were (about 50% of whom were white). I never got collared, not because of race, but because I was never dumb enough to carry illegal drugs about with me, knowing that there was a VERY high police presence in my neighborhood.
Oh, and these resources I mentioned are just as easy for minorities to make use of, as white folk. Easier actually.
Culture plays a VERY large roll in how you turn out. Culture permeates every aspect of your life, and pretty much everything you do is a reaction to the culture in which you were raised. My parents raised me to get above the street kid I was turning into, they taught me the value of learning and not being a tool. That was the only thing that saved me. My parents, judging from where we lived, were not privileged, either, they just had a good ethic. A lot of the kids (of all stripes) didn't have that, their parents sat around smoking pot (or worse) with their kids, didn't have a single book in the house, and didn't value education. These are cultural values, and not forced on high by some big evil racist regime.
Sitting around blaming "white folk" is part of the problem. The more you blame others the less responsibility you are willing to take.
In the end, ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS ARE YOUR FAULT. Sure, some people have a steeper hill to climb, but they still have legs. Yes, the cards might be stacked against some people, but they are still at fault for their ultimate failure.
I am not writing this as a wacko libertarian, randroid, social Darwinist. I am a proud socialist, and think that we should give a hand to those who need help. Ignoring culture to instead blame some nebulous evil empire conspiracy (the white patriarchy) is stupid. To some tribes in South America live in mud huts, near starvation, in the middle of a rain forest because of the evil white regime? Or do they live that way because that is how their culture set them up to be?
Examine the culture that members of cultural under-classes choose to consume, it reinforces the stereotypes which keep them from sharing equal spoils with the greater society. And no, these aren't forced on them by some evil souless white society, they CHOOSE to consume them.
Actually my mother was an enumerator in the 2000 census, and found that people writing in things such as "Irish-American" or "German-American" was pretty common. And this was far beyond the right wing took a huge nose-dive into the ocean on inchoate insanity. I am pretty far to the left (as in Obama is a right-leaning Centrist), and I put down Irish-American on my form. I find the whole _-American thing VERY stupid, so it was my silent protest. My relatives are much closer to Ireland than most Black people are to Africa, so why the hell can't I be Irish American until we all decide that Black people are just plain old Americans like the rest of us.
As stated before my racial labeling tangent, this is an old practice, and has been around much longer than any of the right wing talkshow morons. And no one rounded me up and threw me in a concentration camp for having a bit of fun at no-one's expense, and they have had a WHOLE TEN YEARS to lock me in the Gulag.
And who the hell is going to lock anyone up in concentration camps? Don't tell me you actually buy this whole FEMA is going to lock 50% of the population away crap. You were being ironic, right? Though I suppose builing a giant wall around Texas and the South would go a long way towards making America a safer place. (I kid. maybe.)
The government cannot be compassionate, period. The people can.
But the government is the people. They should match the character of society. So if we all vote for compassionate candidate, we get a compassionate government as a whole, which represents the compassionate majority of voters.
Remember, we get the government we deserve. Which reflects VERY badly on the American people, and has for time unmemorable.
See, you have the choice to move to a developed country with gov't provided health care. The US is the only developed, "free" country without gov't provided health care and I and the majority of Americans like it that way. I like my options. Many Americans like having the options that we have.
We still are the only developed, free (I don't understand your quotes, the people in the countries you dislike VOTED for health care, in the same way we tried to) without gov't provided healthcare. We are probably one of the few "free" countries with a gov't mandated revenue stream to insurance companies though. Also, one could say that the American people choose to have actual public health care when we voted for Obama. None of the people on the right seem to notice that a majority of people voted to get rid of their failing philosophies.
Another problem, yes, I agree states should have more power. But there is a limit to the choice one can have. Lets say you live in a backward state like Arizona, where conservative politics has basically destroyed the state economy, the State of Arizona decides to make a whole bunch of new laws that mutiliate the anyone in the population making less than 400,000/year, but thanks to politics killing the economy, and decimating the housing market, you can't afford to move. In your ideology, these people got what they deserve.
I would be a HUGE fan of actual socialized medicine, and if the voters put a proper progressive into office, I would see this as a mandate that people actually wanted it, even if libertarians and tea party folk hated it. Actually, right now, I hardly see a huge margin of people against even Obama's travesty, it generally is around 42 for, 45 against, rarely did I see a poll where the difference was greater than the margin of error. Yes, the opponents are very vocal, but that means nothing. I could turn around your logic and say that they want to impose their views on me, and on people who can't get insurance for whatever reasons.
And you really don't know why we are pissed off?
Because you think your opinion is more valid than someone else's?
Modern Americans are myopic, you forget. We are completely incapable of learning from our past mistakes, or the successes of our neighbors. This is in part because of what I call the American tautology, "America is #1, because we do everything better; we do everything better because America is #1". This line of thought completely blinds us to the fact that there are other countries doing MUCH better than us on every metric currently.
Also we have retroactively read Ayn Rand into our funding documents, so we can justify being as greedy and sociopathic as we want without any of the pesky guilt or empathy. We also decided that social darwinism is valid, for the same reasons.
Sorry for the bitter tone, I've pretty much given up having all hope for America, in a generation or two we will be a 3rd world country, sooner if we adopt libertarianism, or the prevalent hawkish, conservative, theology movement.
We just got much closer to a Communist Democracy today in fact. Hope you're all out there shopping for your now GOVERNMENT MANDATED health insurance - that or you can pay 2% of your annual income as a penalty.
Land of the Free indeed - land of the free lunch
Do you even know what communism is? Obama's health care isn't it, nor does it even come close to it. It is probably even the direct opposite of it, since it is mandating people to give money to insurance companies, meaning it is corporatist (or fascist), not communist. If we got the public option (or better, lined the insurance companies up against the wall, and ONLY had public health care) then we're coming closer to socialism, which, again, isn't communism.
Get off the "communism is bad, therefore everything I don't like is communism" vibe. It doesn't make you sound smart.
How do we define who's a slacker? Are you kidding me?
I notice that you did not supply a criteria to judge. This is either because you take it for granted, which doesn't help since you refuse to offer a definition to help along the discussion with those who don't hold the same definitions. Or you don't know, which is hardly creates a decent debate, or solution.
You really don't know what the principles are that this country was founded on? If you don't know you need to start studying the history of our government and country outside of the writings of Marxist and Socialist writers.
No, I don't know. And I don't think (barring time travelers and psychics) that anyone else can claim that they know either. The only thing I've got that I'm almost 100% sure the founders would agree with is that we are founded on debate and the raucous and contradictory will of the people.
So marxists and socialists don't have a say in the post-hoc interpretation of the founders? Who does? Only libertarian, or republican writers? Reading though the early history of the US, from the mouths of the people themselves, has only shown me that they were a VERY fractious bunch, and that there was barely a consensus on much of anything. See the battle between Franklin and Jefferson as an example.
You can't see anything to be proud of in our history?
Never said that, or hinted at it. There are plenty of things to be proud of, but we often are, and were, the bad guys as well. I don't see any point in painting America as the most glorious and perfect of nations since it belies the facts, and the potential for improvement. If someone is doing something better than us, with better results, we should learn from them. But saying the the US is the best at everything sort of short circuits this bit of common sense.
Hell, we refuse to even learn from our past. We didn't learn anything from the Great Depression, as evident from our current plight. A large portion of the country would love to see us devolve back into the land of robber barons and child labor, for the sake of some mythical freemarket ideal, completely ignoring that our previous experiments with an unregulated market lead to the hardship and pain of millions.
I don't see much to be proud of in a nation that cannot learn from its mistakes, and the mistakes of others, nor can learn from its past triumphs and the current triumphs of others.
We do have high points, and things to be proud of. I won't disagree with that. But they shouldn't hide our flaws either.
It means that even though not everyone in this nation is good, and in what nation that has ever existed has that been true, we have often stood for what is right, good, and true and have been willing to help others freely and without asking for recompense.
I agree 100%. No argument there.
Why does everyone bring up Ayn Rand on this site? Who the hell is she, and what does she have to do with our founding fathers?
Because she is the largest cheerleader for unmitigated greed and selfishness as a virtue, and is often used as a post-hoc rationalization for being a sociopath. Also, people like to back-write her "philosophy" onto the founding fathers, and the founding of this nation.
/b/ is pretty damn conformist. Go an objectively read the posts there, notice the common form of all the posts, the common language and use of symbols./b/ is just another cliche, it follows all the sociological rules defining such a group./B/ is an in group, just like any other, with a common culture, common rituals, common symbolism, etc... They are as rigidly conformist (to their own mores) as any other group or subculture.
Notice that you can always tell when confronted with any random b-tard that they are, in fact, a b-tard. If in doubt, wait for the "I see what you did there", or "am I doing it right", or some stupid reference to Pokemon. These are nothing but banal badges of identity. Like punk rockers in the late 70's wearing safety pins and anarchy signs, or people in the grunge subculture wearing ripped jeans and flannels, or metal heads in boots. There is a level of conformity in ALL groups.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that/b/ is some super special group that you are a member of. All groups are the same, and generally have the same "insider vs. outsider" philosophy that this line of reasoning exhibits.
Another line of proof, go scan/b/ once a day, reading it as an non-impassioned, objective, observer, and notice that the style, quality, and content really doesn't vary all that much from day to day. I tried to scan/b/, and got quickly bored since it really doesn't vary that much. If you scan/b/ once, you never really have to again, so rigid is the culture there.
I think entitlements for those who can help themselves are a waste of money, degrade the people who use them in the long run, and are dragging this country to financial ruin. I hate greed and corruption in all their forms.
So, how do we define those who are helpless, and those who can help themselves? This has always been the problem. There is no magic DNA marker saying one person is a slacker, and another person is helpless, while another person may just need a quick helping hand.
The educational system has taught the younger generations that the US is evil rather than educating them on why and how we became the greatest nation on earth and the principles of government and personal life that made our rise to power inevitable.
Either that or we were lying nationalist twits before. I'm a patriot (see below sig), but I have a hard time seeing the US as being the greatest national on earth. What are we greatest in? Healthcare? Education? Crime? Liberty and freedom? Even from a historical view we've been pretty bad, we've committed as many atrocities as anyone else, and currently demonstrate that we are just as capable of doing them.
Generally the whole "we're #1" sentiment is a bad tautology. "America is #1 because America is #1"; "We have the best healthcare system because We're #1, and We're #1 because we have the best health care/education/etc...". There is no figures to back this up, and most meaningful metrics tell us that Europe passed us by as #1 some time ago. I think even Italy and Spain have better health and eduction than us now.
I don't want "everything" that Obama does as President to fail, only those things that are contrary to the principles our nation was founded on
And what principles were those? Do you have the various signers of our various founding documents on the phone so you can ask them? I personally think that public healthcare fits fine within the intentions of the founders, being the "general welfare" and all. I also doubt that our founders read Ayn Rand, and wanted us to be a nation of freemarketeers no matter the human cost. I doubt our founders would be amicable to letting the poorest among us die in the streets for the benefit of the richest.
I know you see this as a natural consequence of the benevolence and wisdom and morality of public authority, and that I should bend over to take my punishment as the cost of saying my view, but I disagree, because I don't see your punishment system as worthy of any particularly higher respect or value than any others, i.e. very little. I would also allow people to sidetrack my views and dismiss them on the basis of the "pattern of views" that someone has told them about me, rather than on their own merit.
A bit of a strawman is in there. I don't see, and didn't state, anything as dependent on the mythical "benevolence and wisdom and morality of public authority". My point was that your putting something at stake, and thus your view is a bit stronger than those who don't. I fully acknowledge that this isn't always possible, or desirable. Life isn't black and white.
Though if one Chinese radical (for example) put his life on the line by visibly stating his resistance to the government, and another merely sniped at them via an anonymous chat room, it isn't hard to see which probably has the deeper seated of views.
Anonymity is obviously not wholly a bad thing, but neither is it wholly a good thing. And sometimes ridicule is a good thing, as well.
I apologize for over-simplifying this a bit. It isn't that a name automatically (by magic) adds credibility, it just allows for a much greater degree of it. If I attached my name to my unique theories on quantum physics, I would have roughly the same amount of credibility as I would if I submitted to the discussion anonymously (i.e. none). But on the other hand, I would show that I hold these views to the point of allowing them to reflect upon myself. There is an element of risk, on top of the ability for the reader to research me, and my credentials, further.
Also, on Slashdot, not many of us have very high expectations of the AC crowd. My automatic thought on AC's is GNAA, and Goatse trolls, and not valid opinions, I am pretty sure I am not alone on this. Yes, there is some AC comments that are insightful, but 99% of them are not. This trains the perceptions to glaze over most of their posts.
Anonymity is like alcohol, it lowers the inhibitions, and allows you to say things that you normally wouldn't. How often has a drunk said something insightful to you? Yes, it sometimes happens, but not often enough to be more than the exception to the rule.
Credentials and histories are among the best judges of ability to comment that we have. Yes, they are not the be-all-end-all of judgement, but they are much better than nothing. If I spout off something about quantum physics, and you know that I never completed high school, and spend my weekends pan handling for beer, you're pretty safe in disregarding me.
All of this is a rule of thumb sort of thing, mind. I fully admit that it is a flawed system, and often fails. I'm not the fan of having a unique, and singular identity at all times, I think it is a terrible idea (hence myself using a pseudonym). But we must realize that posting from one is a bit stronger than not.
Funny, I completely skip over comments that use 'your' where 'you're' should have been used. You may have had something insightful to say, but you lost me at that point.
Funny, I completely skip over grammar nazis. You didn't have anything insightful to say. I might have used bad grammar, but at least I added something substantive to the discussion.
I had an astounding track record not getting viruses while using Windows, without running any AV. Then I connected once to a college network, and had 3 infections, without me ever opening a browser or checking my mail. After that I keep some AV and Spyware software on my computer.
MSE is very good. Right now it is only logging around 880K, which isn't a big deal, and I have a decent multi-core processor so load isn't a big deal whatsoever. Also, it is always better to be safer than sorry. How much work/overhead does a light-weight AV program actually take, versus the amount of headache an infection causes?
Either that or they just completely skip over the comment because your AC. Is this probably true far more often than your scenario.
Posting AC basically means either; A) Your trolling, or B) You don't hold your views strong enough to actually link them to your name. Yes, there are other reasons to be AC, like C) I'm at work, or D) I'm too damn lazy to click a button. Or, in rare cases, E) I'm posting something that is insider knowledge, and it is too dangerous to link my name to my post. I really can't think of any other valid reasons off the top of my head.
Anonymity is an important option, but lets not fool ourselves and claim that it adds anything to the conversation itself. Anonymity is less credible than posting under an internet pseudonym, which is less credible than linking something to your actual name.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the guys who were there when it was penned probably are more suited to explain the spirit of the law than either of us?
I, of course, fully agree. Though I don't really see a large contradiction.
Also there is a a problem with citing a single drafter on Constitutional issues, since there was a fair amount of disagreement between them, with the actual drafted Constitution existing as a compromise between their views, sweetened up to be drafted by the individual states. This leads to a very decent ability to cherry pick quotes from individuals that support a single view, that necessarily wasn't supported in the end document.
Also, a lot of times people apply these quotes to concepts that the founders didn't really have a grasp of, since they didn't exist until much later in our countries history.
I'm not accusing you of either, btw. Just pointing out that generally some caution is needed.
One thing that does get me, and I will be flamed relentlessly for this, is that times have changed, and we no longer live in the same type of world as the founders of our country. Using their words (independent of the Constitution, and body of law) often ignores this, their view of the world is not the same world as ours, so some of their concepts will not map directly onto the current circumstance.
The Constitution allows itself to change with the time, and the nation it creates to be flexible. It allows this not only through amendment, and the tradition of common law, but also through some innate flexibility.
If we froze the state of Constitutional law at some point immediately after drafting, our country would have floundered.
Which doesn't recognize that the choices are not "equally good". This seems to be the concept with which you have trouble.
Don't have trouble with it, I just accept ambiguity and accept the fact that there is always a very strong probability that I (or any other person) might be wrong, no matter how convinced I am otherwise.
There is a difference between the ability to assign truth value to the statements; "Obama's healthcare plan is bad" and "the moon is made of cheese". On is a subjective value judgment whose truth depends on the speaker, and the second is empirical and can be independently evaluated and proven or disproven.
No. You're forgetting that there is objective reality. For instance, millions of people starving to death or losing their homes is "bad". The opposite is "good"
I agree with your statement, obviously, but it isn't that simple. There is no way to objectively prove that one is bad and the other is good. We can reduce these judgement down to first principles, but all of these principles are wholly subjective, in cases of bad and good. We, and most of the western world, share a lot of principles, and thus most people we talk to would agree with us that one case (starvation of millions) is bad, while the other (nonstarvation) is good, this still does not make it an objective statement. It is nothing but a sociologically informed moral judgement.
There have been people who have argued that mass starvation can be good, and who have managed to find millions of supporters who agree with them (Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and a whole slew of leaders from history).
I am not arguing relativism here. Most people would agree that enforcing mass starvation is a bad thing, and the first principles derived from the formulation are much stronger than others.
But when it comes to things like socialized health care, this gets shaky. You can cite x to the contrary, and I can point at Finland. Etc... There is no end to this debate. I can't disprove your position, nor you mine. This is where the line is, the solution is something that makes all of us slightly happy, but doesn't make a large portion of any camp unhappy. If you got your way, you would be imposing your view on a large portion of society, just like your complaining that the "other side" did to you.
For instance, if healthcare is in fact nationalized, it will drastically reduce the quality of healthcare in America.
But I can point to many countries where it hasn't. Actually I can point to more countries with better healthcare than us with a socialized aspect, than I can to ones with without.
See this chart from National Geographic for example.
Nice job missing the point. I was referring to the 'defend his country against his government' part. The (Federal) government is the issue, and the biggest danger to a sane existence.
Yes and no. Would you rather live in a place like Somalia where there is no government or regulations? Government exist to serve the people. It can reach into excess, but it also can be a great force of good. Often it is both. The roll of the vigilant patriot is to maximize the good aspects while minimalistic the bad.
I view state governments, and local governments as an equal threat to the federal government. The smaller the government, the more likely it is that crazed minorities will be over-represented. I don't agree with Reagan, obviously, some government is a good thing, no government is a very bad thing.
Government should provide benefit to the governed. We disagree on the scope.
To me the government disenfranchising the poor is as big of a plight as any other. Or letting corporation do what they want to harm others for profit. The government turning a blind eye on the suffering of its citizens is something that we should fight against.
You should pay more attention, that's not what they're doing. It's just that 0
Sure, when the decisions are actually good that's fine. On the other hand, when the decisions are as wrongheaded as many the current Congress and President favor, it's not so good. :-P
Define good. There are a lot of things you will probably think good, that I would think to be terrible mistakes, and, obviously, visa versa. This is well and fine, and there is room for both. When someone claims that there is only room for their version of "good" then I worry.
Good often follows subjective political ideologies.
You should meditate on your tagline for a while... LOL
I have. Country doesn't mean people who subscribe to the same line as I do. Country doesn't mean only people who agree with me. Country does not mean only the rich, or only the poor. Country does not mean only bankers, or overseers of the military-industrial complex. Country does not mean tea party folk or progressives. Nor republican or democrat. It does not mean socialist or sociopathic free marketeer. Country means ALL of these, and the land, and the people, and the various cultures contained therein, and all of the resulting conflicts.
This is as much my country, and its destiny is as much mine, as it is yours.
Country far transcends whether or whether not you want government controlled health care.
Anything done to restrain 0's out of control spending is "good for America". His fiscal policies are literally insane.
And who isn't? And no, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or biting off your nose to spite your face, is NOT good for America. The right wing of Congress sitting around with their fingers in their ears screaming "nyah nyah nyah can't hear you!" is not healthy for anything.
Perhaps the people on the Right could promote cutting some of the biggest bloat in the budget, military spending, or subsidies for agriculture and fossil fuels. Perhaps they would find that competitive tariffs would raise money and bring jobs... Perhaps they would realize that our two wars are really nothing but big bonfires for throwing money at. The republicans could do something USEFUL. Not doing anything isn't useful.
Oh, pork is only pork when it isn't our pork.
Your expectations vary quite a bit from mine. ;-)
When was the last time a president (or congress critter) didn't go back on all their promises, or generally screw the American people for a handful of rich and powerful interests? Not in the last eight years, not in the last sixteen, not in the last... oh hell, Jimmy Carter? Ineffectual but at least he was the last uncorrupted president. Before him? FDR? Maybe Eisenhower.
Obama is a joke, but so was the contenders. Don't blame me, I voted for Kucinich (though I would have voted for Paul is I was a registered Republican, both actually believed in something).
It's sure not. "Reasoned debate" is about identifying good or bad ideas, and then calling a spade a spade, so to speak.
Good to whom, and bad for whom? I personally think that socialized health care would be really good for America. You don't. We could quibble all day over it, in fact, we as a people have been quibbling over it nonstop for years with no actual resolution in sight.
I think that redirecting 50% of miliary spending to social services and education would be the one of the greatest moves made in recent history. You might absolutely hate the idea. I think that corporations should be regulated to shit to keep them from harming real people (their only roll should be the total benefit of society, not just a handful of people at the detriment of society). I think we should abandon oil and coal as quick as possible. I think... etc... You get the idea, and you probably completely disagree with me on several, if not all, of these issues.
Who gets to say which is good or bad? These issues are not like those of math, logic, or physics where we can quickly disprove one through controlled experiment or
Democrats begin their long march towards socialism! [wikipedia.org]
You really don't know the definition of socialism, or how that term doesn't apply to Obama in the slightest, right? The healthcare bill was about as far from socialism as one can get. Its fascist, or purely corporatist, not socialist. If it was single payer and universal it would have been socialist, if it had the so-called "public option" it would have had socialist aspects. We got neither, therefore we did not get socialism. Obama is a very slightly left leaning centrist, in the grand scheme of things, who buys pretty much the Reagan trickle down line (which, IMO, is nothing but a post-hoc rationalization for corruption). Kuchinich is socialist, Feinstein is a socialist, Obama is not.
The actual left in America is pretty much non-existent, compared to the rest of the world. Obama would be a conservative in pretty much any other developed country, and our conservatives would be the lunatic fringe.
Now retirement and health care are a RIGHT [wikipedia.org] and the government is required to provide for the "happiness" of the people by collecting money from one group of people and giving it to another.
You realize that the Constitution points out that our Government, in part, exists to "promote the general welfare" of the people, right?
Further:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...
Means that taxation for the good of the People is NOT a bad thing, or a sin, or whatnot. I would consider trying to make the people "happy" is a good thing, and very well within the line of "general welfare". Its either that or a government that tries to make people unhappy.
Big government convervatives are an oxymoron.
Actually "small government" is not contained in the word "conservative", at least in the political sense. It basically means in favor of the status quo (as opposed to liberal's progressive tendencies), resistance to change. Some conservatives are small-government types, some are not (fiscal conservatives, versus neo-cons, family value types, etc...). Just because someone differs on bulk ideology with you, does not remove them from the field.
For example, I am a liberal, and I can't stand a large portion of people who share the same base ideology (Obama, for example), but that does not make them not a liberal anymore than it makes me not one since we share ideological ground, albeit in broad strokes and wildly varying degrees. My political philosophy is closer, say, to Obama than it is to Sarah Palin. This is where sub-classes come in handy. I'm a progressive (which is a subclass of liberal), and from the sounds of it you are rather libertarian (being a subclass of conservative). You have more in common with other subclasses of your ideology than I do with the same, and visa versa.
Also, all of these terms are made up sweeping generalizations, and somewhat false. There is probably one a few people who could be classified as truly conservative or liberal. One of my best friends is a die-hard republican hawk, who thinks Reagan was a god, and campaigned for McCain. She supports public health care and corporate regulations. I am a pretty die hard liberal (a freely admitted socialist), who supports our mis-handled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, strong border enforcement and deportation, I am mostly against abortion, and hold various social libertarian ideals. The label only means you are more in column A than column B, not that you are completely contained in the label.
People who claim to be truly liberal or truly conservative (meeting every single criteria of the label) scare me. They are zealots who operate in a purely "us or them" world. People who let mere fiction (all of our ideologies are in the end) rule over the real world. These are the people, the "true beleivers" who are responsible for every bad thing that mars our collective history. Anyone who claims to have access to a priori truth is nothing but a despot looking for a holocaust.
Also, as the previous person replies said, your also guilty of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Not the AC.
"Rethugs", how clever.
Yup, a its about as clever as calling Obama "0". Pot meet kettle.
Your comprehension of English is abysmal. The "will of the people" is most directly what the majority of the people want. Of course, we don't live in a pure democracy, we live in a republic, but I'm sure you knew that. THAT is why our "elected representatives" have power instead of it being straight majority rule.
This isn't actually true. There was some among the Founders who obviously thought that requiring a simple majority of citizens to pass laws and bills was a bad idea. This is why we're a representative democracy and not a straight democracy. Often times the electorate isn't informed or educated enough to make some decisions (treaties, wars, and such), and sometimes elected representatives are forced to make unpopular decisions for the common good , our system allows for this.
At any rate, you are dead wrong once again. Check out this Gallup poll [newsweek.com], showing only 36% approve of 0's handling of healthcare. Even the most left leaning of "news" sources can't ignore the facts. Get yours straight next time.
I've seen several polls with widely varying numbers. I've seem single polls on the issue with wildly varing numbers depending on how the question is asked. Which poll do we go by? I know the answer, the one you like and that supports your political tilt. This is true for everyone. I haven't actually seen a well sampled bill (i.e. not on a blag, or news site) that has the opponents of the bill representing a meaningful majority over those that supported it. Generally the percentages work up around 42% in favor, and 46% against (which is about the same margin as most of our elections, incidentally). In these cases things become tricky, since can you really crap on the will of 42% of the electorate to make 46% happy? And of these, probably 90% of each camp don't care strongly, leaving 10% of the population who have very strong opinions and a deep love of waggling their tongues.
. I guess you forgot there was broad bipartisan support for both wars, and almost every country's intelligence agency thought Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. Apparently many have forgotten that UN inspectors actaully observed both chemical and biological agents in Iraq.
You managed to make a nice fallacy, and completely ignore the point. Just because something is bipartisan doesn't make it right. If I get some democrats, and some republicans, to agree that we should burn the Constitution does it make it more right than if I just had some democrats OR some republicans agree?
The republicans are just as apt to pass heinous laws as the Democrats. In fact, I'll take 10 crappy half-assed facist health care bills over half of a USA PATRIOT ACT. We also forgot that Bush did many illegal things on his own, with out the patina of bipartisanship, like warrantless wiretaps. As it stands, both parties are corrupt, backwards, and rather hostile to the American people.
Right now bipartisanship is part of the problem. If not for willy-nilly "reaching across the aisle" crap, we would have have actually reform, and not just another bill to force my money onto greedy antisocial corporations. Being that you love polls so much, most polls from the beginning of this healthcare debacle claimed that most Americans support reform with a socialized aspect (a "public option"). but Obama killed that by trying to get some contrarian Republican survivors to sign off just so he could claim the meaningless label of bipartisan. The Republicans are playing pure politics, and don't give one ass about the American people right now. They are out to win the next election, and "destroy" Obama. No matter how much you like the sentiment, this is NOT good practice, and not good for America as a whole.
And yes, Obama had a mandate for healthcare reform (which is now squandered), and popular support. He was elected with a fair majority, and pledged to
You live in a binary world that has nothing to do with reality.
I have stated many times that there is some degree of endemic social problems. We disagree on the extent and importance of them, not on their existence. I think they are overshadowed by individual freedom and responsibility, you think they are the catch-all, and massively overshadow the ability of an individual to choose their fate. Its a matter of degree, and our disagreement on which factor is more important, which contradicts any supposition that I am thinking in binary.
I have stated several times that we should approach the systemic problems. We should, but not at the expense of fostering responsibility for ones actions and life. You own your choices, this matters more than any systemic aspect. I would rather live in a world where people live responsibly, than one where one can blame all of their ills on others. In the former there is hope, in the latter world all you have is happy machines.
The people who signed those leases couldn't afford a lawyer to decode the hundreds of pages of documentation.
I'm not a lawyer, nor very experienced in the area, and I could see a bad mortgage when I saw it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that most of the ARM type mortgages were disasters waiting to happen. Nor does it take one to realize that someone making less than 40k shouldn't buy a 200k house.
They couldn't even afford the loan that was marketed to them, and they were targeted by companies who were reselling the toxic loans at huge commissions.
We're all targeted by various parties for services and things that we can't afford. I'm in the market for a new car and the other day my local Lexus dealer had an ad that I saw, it even offered super-duper financing! I didn't buy it because s Lexus is above my pay-grade, no matter how sexy the ad made it look, and realizing that no matter how much financial magic they perform a Lexus is still to expensive for my budget. I REALLY want it though, but know enough that it is a bad idea.
Me and my girlfriend just bought a house. There were plenty of very nice houses just above the amount of money we budgeted. If we would have went for an ARM or such we probably could have upgraded. But we decided that a house in our immediate budget, with a standard 30yr mortgage was best, along with the largest possible down payment we could muster. We also decided to leave a decent leeway between the amount of income we have, and the amount of payments we need, allowing for savings, job loss, and disaster. If we couldn't afford a house, we would keep renting. Neither of us are Realtors, or schooled in anything related. But we knew stupid when we saw it.
If we somehow still get in over our heads, it is still our fault. We signed the paper. If we can't understand the fine print, it doesn't shuffle the blame off our heads, we shouldn't have signed it then. If we get bit because we don't understand the consequences for our actions, then we are still at fault.
This isn't saying that the fine print is fare, or should be an accepted practice. It is still wrong. But the onus lies on us.
The world is awash in scams and marketing. But no one COMPELS you to fall for it. No one held a gun to these people's heads. No one NEEDS a house, either. If you go to the store and buy a luxury item and go deep into debt because of it, and find yourself in trouble because it killed your finances, would you blame the guy whose job is to sell you the item, the advertising you saw that lead you to the purchase? Or would you realize you made a stupid choice, and learn from it? Yes, the seller should have told you that it was a bad idea, you can't afford it. He gets a little blame for being sleezy. But in the end it was your decision, and a little thought and research would have saved everyone a mess, regardless of the morality of the seller.
This is exactly the absurdity that was decried by every socialist thinker I know when they
Head in sand? Check. Callous disregard for other humans? Check.
Now we're resorting to flames, joy. I don't disregard other humans, I just don't buy the whole "powerless" spiel. These do not amount to the same thing. People are in control of their own destiny. To claim otherwise further dehumanizes them, and makes them merely cogs in the system, completely at the whim of outside forces.
The more responsibility you hoist off onto society, the less responsibility you leave for individuals, and the less room you leave for people taking control of the reins and fixing their own problems. If people are led to believe that society is to blaim for all their problems, then you remove all ability for people to take charge of their destinies. Yes, in innercity ghettos it is harder to grab the reins (this is true of all poor communities, who have less individual resources) but it is not impossible But this "blame white people" line of reasoning hides the path to individual success.
I fully admit, though, that I am not politically correct. I have no problem with this. Groupthink is often false, even if it is comforting.
Don't call yourself a socialist. You're just a keynesian who pretends to be compassionate. You're more like a National Socialist who would wipe the ash off of his windshield, and then whistle on his way to work.
I will continue to call myself a socialist, thank you very much. As I stated several times, I think that it is our responsibility to lend a hand to those who need it. We should supply the tools to help the disenfranchised accend and step into the roll of masters of their fate. In practice this probably leads to the same social economic philosophy that you claim, even though the reasoning behind it diverges. The goal of society is to maximize the the well being of the people in it. This includes trying to stem racism and racial practices, and offering the tools and resources freely to those who wish to improve their lot. This does not, though, include turning a blind eye to personal culpability.
If I was arrested today, for whatever reason, and claimed as my defence that "society made me do it", I would be laughed out of court. People need to take some responsibility for where they are in life. Again, that does not preclude helping them, and trying to fix the problems that do lie in society as a whole that makes it a bit harder for some individuals to join the larger society.
I don't see how that isn't a socialist thought. Nor do I see how that makes me callous.
If you do something stupid and get injured as a result I will empathize for you, and try my damnest to assist you. But ultimately your circumstance is still your fault, and if you refuse to learn from it then all the assistance in the world is for naught since you will just do it again.
Think of the people with bad mortgages right now. Yes, they need help, and should receive it. But ultimately they signed a bad mortgage of their own free will, and should have known better. They brought the consequences upon themselves. A little research and restraint would have saved them. We should help them, but we should also educate them on what they, as individuals, could have done to avoid the whole mess.
You are not making any sense. There are 5 times more white drug users than black drug users, yet black users are sent to prison at 13x the rate of white users. Both are breaking the law, but only black drug users are incarcerated. I really can't understand why you refuse to see the double standard. That's not "some" enforcement bias. That's injustice.
I'm not sure where those statistics came from, so I ignored them. The article you cite lacked a source for that tidbit.
Have no fear, I ran out and Googled it a bit, and didn't find any substantiating data. All I found was this (cite number 2). which doesn't back up the claim that whites use more drugs than blacks. Though yes, blacks are incarcerated at a significantly higher rate than whites. Though there still is some gap here, since the study isn't clear at the other circumstances. Type of drugs, previous record, and activity leading to the arrest are also significant factors, and missing factors, in these statistics.
So why aren't the affluent neighborhoods patrolled with the same zeal? Because the affluent citizens, who have much more wealth and power, wouldn't tolerate it, and so they're allowed to play by different rules.
In part you are correct, though somewhat unnuanced. Enforcement patterns are dictated by more than race. Where there is more crime, especially the type that more effects the ghettos, there are more cops, and stricter enforcement. Having a gang task force operate a sting in the affluent neighborhoods would be a waste, but having them operate at a high level in poorer, gang infested neighborhoods makes sense, no matter the ethnic breakdown.
Also, discrepancies here are not necessarily racial, but rather based on socio-economic status. I live in an town where areas of the town are stricken with rampant meth-amphetamine usage. The areas where this is most concentrated are largely poor white neighborhoods (with some overlap with Hispanic neighborhoods, though it is still mostly a white problem in these too), in these neighborhoods you would not want to walk outside at night. These neighborhoods also have a large police presence. If you drive through, and are in a nasty looking car, you have a higher probability of being pulled over than if you were in a richer place.
The police look for drugs in x neighborhood because drugs are a problem in x neighborhood.
Yes, there is a bit of racial issues involved, but it isn't the whole story.
Why did you skip over the incarceration rates? Is it because they were detrimental to your argument?
I skipped over them because they are meaningless. All it says is that "x does more crime". Yes, there is some enforcement bias, but the margin is so high that there is an element of truth in it. Looking at crime rates of entrenched ghettos backs this up, there is more crime in minority neighborhoods than there are in affluent white neighborhoods, this is not because of white over-enforcement.
Why is there more incarcerated minorities? They do more crime. Why is there more crime, bringing us back to our original argument? A sick culture.
And so the kids who have drug addicts or dead parents or learning disabilites, just fuck'em, huh?
Read further down. I said I have nothing against helping those who need a hand. But even without help, you own a large portion of your destiny.
eople do not choose to be failures. They embrace the culture of failure only after they have given up.
There may be some truth in this, but it is overly simplistic. How many of these children who want to be rappers, or other crime roll models, already gave up? And how many of them are driven to this lifestyle because it is the local fad? Or, worse, all they know?
Most people, when young, aspire to be what is considered cool in their culture. If the "cool" thing is a gangster or street thug, then they will aspire to it as much as an affluent white kid will aspire to sports, or being a doctor or lawyer. Or whatever the hell cool kids want to be these days.
But instead of investing in poor communities, they are ignored, and then jailed after we criminalize their lifestyle.
This is a problem, I agree. Though people who engage in criminal behavior should be jailed, regardless of their racial background. I'm not sure what "lifestyle" has been criminalized recently, though. If it is slinging drugs, and stealing shit, then I see no problem. If it is reading books and generally trying to be successful, then there is a problem.
As for your cite, there is also some truth in this, though it is hard to say WHY it is so. Perhaps a lot of the black durg offenders have a record. Perhaps they try to enact their "lifestyle" in court, where it has no place. Regardless, there is a problem here that should be corrected. But even correcting it, I fear, there still will be a discrepancy between black and white rates, this discrepancy will be meaningful and wholly due to the effects of a poisonous culture.
You claim not to be a "randroid", but you seem to fully believe in the libertarian value of indifference to suffering and injustice.
Go back and read my previous post, and earlier in this one. I am not indifferent, and I believe in, again, helping those who need it. I even believe it is our collective responsibility to do so, whether some of us hate the idea or not.
I am very sympathetic to the problems. But I'm not going to let this short-circuit my reason. Reason often tells us things we don't want to believe, and only a fool discards reason for fantasy just because fantasy sounds better.
These problems will remain endemic until the people will the problems ALSO help to fix their end of them. While there is a greater societal problem leading to the disenfranchisement of minorities, is is naive to think that the minority cultures don't hold a bit of responsibility themselves.
In the end, if you are black, or white, and don't want to spend time in jail for drugs, you DON'T DO DRUGS. No matter how much the greater society wants to put you in jail, if you don't break the law then they can't. The real question that must be answered before we can attempt, as a whole, to fix their problems, if why they are more prone to crime than the society as a whole.
Perhaps I read to much continental philosophy in my government sponsored schooling to be a good liberal. I'm fine with this. People own their baggage, I don't. I cou
You don't have a clue what it's like to be born into and grow up in a ghetto. You can't even imagine waking yourself up to go to school, not having breakfast, being half asleep all day from the sirens and the gunfire and the fights from the night before, and then going back home straight into your room, because it's simply not safe to be outside.
White guy here; Yes, I do know what it is like. Not all white people are rich. I grew up poor, in a predominately Mexican and Black neighborhood.
White kids absolutely glorify the same things. They love violence committed by the army and the police. They love bling in the form of 3 series BMWs and high end clothing labels and watches. They glorify drugs and use them, too. But here's the difference:
Reverse racism for the win?
e.) How many times have you been stopped in your own neighborhood for walking? If the answer is never, you're probably white. If the answer is every week, you're probably black.
None, lately. But that was because I made use of existing resources (student aid) and went to college and got the hell out of the ghetto. But before that, I was stopped by the police several times a week. And while I never got collared for drugs, several of my friends were (about 50% of whom were white). I never got collared, not because of race, but because I was never dumb enough to carry illegal drugs about with me, knowing that there was a VERY high police presence in my neighborhood.
Oh, and these resources I mentioned are just as easy for minorities to make use of, as white folk. Easier actually.
Culture plays a VERY large roll in how you turn out. Culture permeates every aspect of your life, and pretty much everything you do is a reaction to the culture in which you were raised. My parents raised me to get above the street kid I was turning into, they taught me the value of learning and not being a tool. That was the only thing that saved me. My parents, judging from where we lived, were not privileged, either, they just had a good ethic. A lot of the kids (of all stripes) didn't have that, their parents sat around smoking pot (or worse) with their kids, didn't have a single book in the house, and didn't value education. These are cultural values, and not forced on high by some big evil racist regime.
Sitting around blaming "white folk" is part of the problem. The more you blame others the less responsibility you are willing to take.
In the end, ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS ARE YOUR FAULT. Sure, some people have a steeper hill to climb, but they still have legs. Yes, the cards might be stacked against some people, but they are still at fault for their ultimate failure.
I am not writing this as a wacko libertarian, randroid, social Darwinist. I am a proud socialist, and think that we should give a hand to those who need help. Ignoring culture to instead blame some nebulous evil empire conspiracy (the white patriarchy) is stupid. To some tribes in South America live in mud huts, near starvation, in the middle of a rain forest because of the evil white regime? Or do they live that way because that is how their culture set them up to be?
Examine the culture that members of cultural under-classes choose to consume, it reinforces the stereotypes which keep them from sharing equal spoils with the greater society. And no, these aren't forced on them by some evil souless white society, they CHOOSE to consume them.
Actually my mother was an enumerator in the 2000 census, and found that people writing in things such as "Irish-American" or "German-American" was pretty common. And this was far beyond the right wing took a huge nose-dive into the ocean on inchoate insanity. I am pretty far to the left (as in Obama is a right-leaning Centrist), and I put down Irish-American on my form. I find the whole _-American thing VERY stupid, so it was my silent protest. My relatives are much closer to Ireland than most Black people are to Africa, so why the hell can't I be Irish American until we all decide that Black people are just plain old Americans like the rest of us.
As stated before my racial labeling tangent, this is an old practice, and has been around much longer than any of the right wing talkshow morons. And no one rounded me up and threw me in a concentration camp for having a bit of fun at no-one's expense, and they have had a WHOLE TEN YEARS to lock me in the Gulag.
And who the hell is going to lock anyone up in concentration camps? Don't tell me you actually buy this whole FEMA is going to lock 50% of the population away crap. You were being ironic, right? Though I suppose builing a giant wall around Texas and the South would go a long way towards making America a safer place. (I kid. maybe.)
The government cannot be compassionate, period. The people can.
But the government is the people. They should match the character of society. So if we all vote for compassionate candidate, we get a compassionate government as a whole, which represents the compassionate majority of voters.
Remember, we get the government we deserve. Which reflects VERY badly on the American people, and has for time unmemorable.
See, you have the choice to move to a developed country with gov't provided health care. The US is the only developed, "free" country without gov't provided health care and I and the majority of Americans like it that way. I like my options. Many Americans like having the options that we have.
We still are the only developed, free (I don't understand your quotes, the people in the countries you dislike VOTED for health care, in the same way we tried to) without gov't provided healthcare. We are probably one of the few "free" countries with a gov't mandated revenue stream to insurance companies though. Also, one could say that the American people choose to have actual public health care when we voted for Obama. None of the people on the right seem to notice that a majority of people voted to get rid of their failing philosophies.
Another problem, yes, I agree states should have more power. But there is a limit to the choice one can have. Lets say you live in a backward state like Arizona, where conservative politics has basically destroyed the state economy, the State of Arizona decides to make a whole bunch of new laws that mutiliate the anyone in the population making less than 400,000/year, but thanks to politics killing the economy, and decimating the housing market, you can't afford to move. In your ideology, these people got what they deserve.
I would be a HUGE fan of actual socialized medicine, and if the voters put a proper progressive into office, I would see this as a mandate that people actually wanted it, even if libertarians and tea party folk hated it. Actually, right now, I hardly see a huge margin of people against even Obama's travesty, it generally is around 42 for, 45 against, rarely did I see a poll where the difference was greater than the margin of error. Yes, the opponents are very vocal, but that means nothing. I could turn around your logic and say that they want to impose their views on me, and on people who can't get insurance for whatever reasons.
And you really don't know why we are pissed off?
Because you think your opinion is more valid than someone else's?
Modern Americans are myopic, you forget. We are completely incapable of learning from our past mistakes, or the successes of our neighbors. This is in part because of what I call the American tautology, "America is #1, because we do everything better; we do everything better because America is #1". This line of thought completely blinds us to the fact that there are other countries doing MUCH better than us on every metric currently.
Also we have retroactively read Ayn Rand into our funding documents, so we can justify being as greedy and sociopathic as we want without any of the pesky guilt or empathy. We also decided that social darwinism is valid, for the same reasons.
Sorry for the bitter tone, I've pretty much given up having all hope for America, in a generation or two we will be a 3rd world country, sooner if we adopt libertarianism, or the prevalent hawkish, conservative, theology movement.
We just got much closer to a Communist Democracy today in fact.
Hope you're all out there shopping for your now GOVERNMENT MANDATED health insurance - that or you can pay 2% of your annual income as a penalty.
Land of the Free indeed - land of the free lunch
Do you even know what communism is? Obama's health care isn't it, nor does it even come close to it. It is probably even the direct opposite of it, since it is mandating people to give money to insurance companies, meaning it is corporatist (or fascist), not communist. If we got the public option (or better, lined the insurance companies up against the wall, and ONLY had public health care) then we're coming closer to socialism, which, again, isn't communism.
Get off the "communism is bad, therefore everything I don't like is communism" vibe. It doesn't make you sound smart.
How do we define who's a slacker? Are you kidding me?
I notice that you did not supply a criteria to judge. This is either because you take it for granted, which doesn't help since you refuse to offer a definition to help along the discussion with those who don't hold the same definitions. Or you don't know, which is hardly creates a decent debate, or solution.
You really don't know what the principles are that this country was founded on? If you don't know you need to start studying the history of our government and country outside of the writings of Marxist and Socialist writers.
No, I don't know. And I don't think (barring time travelers and psychics) that anyone else can claim that they know either. The only thing I've got that I'm almost 100% sure the founders would agree with is that we are founded on debate and the raucous and contradictory will of the people.
So marxists and socialists don't have a say in the post-hoc interpretation of the founders? Who does? Only libertarian, or republican writers? Reading though the early history of the US, from the mouths of the people themselves, has only shown me that they were a VERY fractious bunch, and that there was barely a consensus on much of anything. See the battle between Franklin and Jefferson as an example.
You can't see anything to be proud of in our history?
Never said that, or hinted at it. There are plenty of things to be proud of, but we often are, and were, the bad guys as well. I don't see any point in painting America as the most glorious and perfect of nations since it belies the facts, and the potential for improvement. If someone is doing something better than us, with better results, we should learn from them. But saying the the US is the best at everything sort of short circuits this bit of common sense.
Hell, we refuse to even learn from our past. We didn't learn anything from the Great Depression, as evident from our current plight. A large portion of the country would love to see us devolve back into the land of robber barons and child labor, for the sake of some mythical freemarket ideal, completely ignoring that our previous experiments with an unregulated market lead to the hardship and pain of millions.
I don't see much to be proud of in a nation that cannot learn from its mistakes, and the mistakes of others, nor can learn from its past triumphs and the current triumphs of others.
We do have high points, and things to be proud of. I won't disagree with that. But they shouldn't hide our flaws either.
It means that even though not everyone in this nation is good, and in what nation that has ever existed has that been true, we have often stood for what is right, good, and true and have been willing to help others freely and without asking for recompense.
I agree 100%. No argument there.
Why does everyone bring up Ayn Rand on this site? Who the hell is she, and what does she have to do with our founding fathers?
Because she is the largest cheerleader for unmitigated greed and selfishness as a virtue, and is often used as a post-hoc rationalization for being a sociopath. Also, people like to back-write her "philosophy" onto the founding fathers, and the founding of this nation.
/b/ is pretty damn conformist. Go an objectively read the posts there, notice the common form of all the posts, the common language and use of symbols. /b/ is just another cliche, it follows all the sociological rules defining such a group. /B/ is an in group, just like any other, with a common culture, common rituals, common symbolism, etc... They are as rigidly conformist (to their own mores) as any other group or subculture.
Notice that you can always tell when confronted with any random b-tard that they are, in fact, a b-tard. If in doubt, wait for the "I see what you did there", or "am I doing it right", or some stupid reference to Pokemon. These are nothing but banal badges of identity. Like punk rockers in the late 70's wearing safety pins and anarchy signs, or people in the grunge subculture wearing ripped jeans and flannels, or metal heads in boots. There is a level of conformity in ALL groups.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that /b/ is some super special group that you are a member of. All groups are the same, and generally have the same "insider vs. outsider" philosophy that this line of reasoning exhibits.
Another line of proof, go scan /b/ once a day, reading it as an non-impassioned, objective, observer, and notice that the style, quality, and content really doesn't vary all that much from day to day. I tried to scan /b/, and got quickly bored since it really doesn't vary that much. If you scan /b/ once, you never really have to again, so rigid is the culture there.
I think entitlements for those who can help themselves are a waste of money, degrade the people who use them in the long run, and are dragging this country to financial ruin. I hate greed and corruption in all their forms.
So, how do we define those who are helpless, and those who can help themselves? This has always been the problem. There is no magic DNA marker saying one person is a slacker, and another person is helpless, while another person may just need a quick helping hand.
The educational system has taught the younger generations that the US is evil rather than educating them on why and how we became the greatest nation on earth and the principles of government and personal life that made our rise to power inevitable.
Either that or we were lying nationalist twits before. I'm a patriot (see below sig), but I have a hard time seeing the US as being the greatest national on earth. What are we greatest in? Healthcare? Education? Crime? Liberty and freedom? Even from a historical view we've been pretty bad, we've committed as many atrocities as anyone else, and currently demonstrate that we are just as capable of doing them.
Generally the whole "we're #1" sentiment is a bad tautology. "America is #1 because America is #1"; "We have the best healthcare system because We're #1, and We're #1 because we have the best health care/education/etc...". There is no figures to back this up, and most meaningful metrics tell us that Europe passed us by as #1 some time ago. I think even Italy and Spain have better health and eduction than us now.
I don't want "everything" that Obama does as President to fail, only those things that are contrary to the principles our nation was founded on
And what principles were those? Do you have the various signers of our various founding documents on the phone so you can ask them? I personally think that public healthcare fits fine within the intentions of the founders, being the "general welfare" and all. I also doubt that our founders read Ayn Rand, and wanted us to be a nation of freemarketeers no matter the human cost. I doubt our founders would be amicable to letting the poorest among us die in the streets for the benefit of the richest.
I know you see this as a natural consequence of the benevolence and wisdom and morality of public authority, and that I should bend over to take my punishment as the cost of saying my view, but I disagree, because I don't see your punishment system as worthy of any particularly higher respect or value than any others, i.e. very little. I would also allow people to sidetrack my views and dismiss them on the basis of the "pattern of views" that someone has told them about me, rather than on their own merit.
A bit of a strawman is in there. I don't see, and didn't state, anything as dependent on the mythical "benevolence and wisdom and morality of public authority". My point was that your putting something at stake, and thus your view is a bit stronger than those who don't. I fully acknowledge that this isn't always possible, or desirable. Life isn't black and white.
Though if one Chinese radical (for example) put his life on the line by visibly stating his resistance to the government, and another merely sniped at them via an anonymous chat room, it isn't hard to see which probably has the deeper seated of views.
Anonymity is obviously not wholly a bad thing, but neither is it wholly a good thing. And sometimes ridicule is a good thing, as well.
I apologize for over-simplifying this a bit. It isn't that a name automatically (by magic) adds credibility, it just allows for a much greater degree of it. If I attached my name to my unique theories on quantum physics, I would have roughly the same amount of credibility as I would if I submitted to the discussion anonymously (i.e. none). But on the other hand, I would show that I hold these views to the point of allowing them to reflect upon myself. There is an element of risk, on top of the ability for the reader to research me, and my credentials, further.
Also, on Slashdot, not many of us have very high expectations of the AC crowd. My automatic thought on AC's is GNAA, and Goatse trolls, and not valid opinions, I am pretty sure I am not alone on this. Yes, there is some AC comments that are insightful, but 99% of them are not. This trains the perceptions to glaze over most of their posts.
Anonymity is like alcohol, it lowers the inhibitions, and allows you to say things that you normally wouldn't. How often has a drunk said something insightful to you? Yes, it sometimes happens, but not often enough to be more than the exception to the rule.
Credentials and histories are among the best judges of ability to comment that we have. Yes, they are not the be-all-end-all of judgement, but they are much better than nothing. If I spout off something about quantum physics, and you know that I never completed high school, and spend my weekends pan handling for beer, you're pretty safe in disregarding me.
All of this is a rule of thumb sort of thing, mind. I fully admit that it is a flawed system, and often fails. I'm not the fan of having a unique, and singular identity at all times, I think it is a terrible idea (hence myself using a pseudonym). But we must realize that posting from one is a bit stronger than not.
Funny, I completely skip over comments that use 'your' where 'you're' should have been used. You may have had something insightful to say, but you lost me at that point.
Funny, I completely skip over grammar nazis. You didn't have anything insightful to say. I might have used bad grammar, but at least I added something substantive to the discussion.
What did your comment add?
I had an astounding track record not getting viruses while using Windows, without running any AV. Then I connected once to a college network, and had 3 infections, without me ever opening a browser or checking my mail. After that I keep some AV and Spyware software on my computer.
MSE is very good. Right now it is only logging around 880K, which isn't a big deal, and I have a decent multi-core processor so load isn't a big deal whatsoever. Also, it is always better to be safer than sorry. How much work/overhead does a light-weight AV program actually take, versus the amount of headache an infection causes?
Hubris never ends well.
Either that or they just completely skip over the comment because your AC. Is this probably true far more often than your scenario.
Posting AC basically means either; A) Your trolling, or B) You don't hold your views strong enough to actually link them to your name. Yes, there are other reasons to be AC, like C) I'm at work, or D) I'm too damn lazy to click a button. Or, in rare cases, E) I'm posting something that is insider knowledge, and it is too dangerous to link my name to my post. I really can't think of any other valid reasons off the top of my head.
Anonymity is an important option, but lets not fool ourselves and claim that it adds anything to the conversation itself. Anonymity is less credible than posting under an internet pseudonym, which is less credible than linking something to your actual name.
You'll need to take the whole lump and apply it to wine. 2 Buck Chuck has long been 3 Buck Chuck, at least where I live.