Can you name a single hypocracy in the PATRIOT act? Just one. I've been waiting for someone, anyone, to tell me any violation of our freedoms by the PATRIOT act. All the so-called violations or hypocracies have been found lacking in substance.
Let me cite a few facts for you concerning human rights abuses.
(1) The terrorists are telling each other to make up wild claims about abuse in American prisons. This is a fact. You can read the terrorist training manuals yourself.
(2) The terrorists are making very wild and strange claims about our prison that just don't make any sense. Okay, we're supposed to believe that the U.S. Military found a woman in the middle of her period and had he stand over a prisoner to leak menstrual fluids onto his body? Unbelievable. If we wanted to offend them, we would feed them pork or something like that. But we wouldn't go to extremes like this. After all, name one woman in the military who would do that, even under threat of court martial. I can't imagine it happening.
(3) People who have actually been to the prisons to tour them comment that they are well-run and very, very humane.
(4) When Senator Durbin listed testimony from members of the military concerning abuses, he talked about cases where the air conditioner was left on and the prisoner was left in a room. He also talked about situations where there was no air conditioners and it was really hot. Oh yeah, and there was that one prisoner who was pulling out his hair. Is this torture? If so, I am being tortured every summer and winter.
(5) The practices that democrats have called torture have been carefully crafted so as not to be considered torture. For instance, waterboarding. In waterboarding, the subject is never actually threatened with death. However, he is given false information that he is being drowned or suffocated, when this is not so and he is perfectly safe. Is this torture? If so, how can we interrogate our prisoners? Do we just put them in front of a bright light for a long time? Or would that be considered torture as well? (For comparison, here are some examples of real torture: The Iron Maiden, the rack, maiming and dismemberment, live disembowelment, removing the fingernails, driving bamboo sticks under the fingernails, peeling off skin, burning, electrocution, beating, breaking of bones, etc...)
(6) The one example that we have of what can almost be called torture is at Abu Ghraib. What really happened here? Prisoners were subjected to humiliating photographs. Interestingly, all those involved, from the General that ran the base on down, have been tried and convicted of negligence or abuse. If the U.S. Military prohibits it and punishes those that do it, are they responsible for it?
(7) Other examples of torture that people give can be excused. In one case, an interrogator was given a prisoner that had bad internal wounds and needed immediate medical attention. Because the prisoner was wearing a black mask, no one could tell that he was on the brink of death. After a short period of interrogation, the prisoner died. Other examples include instances where people captured have been brutally beaten into submission or wounded. Guess what? If you find yourself on the wrong end of a Marine's rifle, you should consider yourself lucky that you survived! It's not torture to shoot and injure and beat up your enemy in the middle of combat.
Despite all the evidence and all the negative speech condemning the US for torture, no one has a real clear example of it, nowhere in the world. No one can really call what the US does torture, and keep a straight face. Real torture is serious business, a sick and twisted world you should one day look up to understand. The stuff our prisoners have been subjected to is patty-cake compared to that.
If you think the above comment is even slightly interesting or informative, you'll have to mod it up. There are a group of moderators who would rather silence me than see an opposing opinion. They can't tolerate healthy debate, and refuse to argue with someone they don't agree with. Everytime the post moves into positive territory, they'll hit it with "overrated" because that is not meta-moderated.
If you don't have mod-points, now is a good time to do some meta-moderation. Whenever you mark a bad moderation, it really affects the person who moderated in the first place.
I can't understand how a technical crowd such as this, when confronted with facts and rhetoric, abandon the facts and embrace the rhetoric. Thanks to the internet, we have the facts readily available, and we have the ability to read these things for ourselves. In technical issues, I would say the Slashdot crowd is better than most. But when it comes to politics, its as if they collectively turn off their brains and being spewing whatever lines have been fed to them by the media.
I also can't understand why we don't have more diversity of opinion. I know the side I am on embraces free speech and encourages new ideas and debate. We certainly don't want to shut anyone up. Even the worst abusers of free speech are doing us a favor by making their side look childish and silly. But the other side has elements that wish the other side would all go away. That bothers me.
Re "What if the other guy gets the White House? What then? How would YOU feel when they come for YOU!?!"
You know what? I'm not scared one whit. As long as a potential President H. Clinton follows the law and doesn't go beyond the powers granted by the constitution and congress, I'll be perfectly safe.
They CAN'T torture me, I'm a citizen of the U.S. and I haven't taken up arms against my country. If I did, I would make sure that I wore the uniform of the country I am fighting for and make sure the country was a signatory of the Geneva Convention. That way, the Geneva Convention would protect me.
They can't wiretap ME, but they can wiretap the enemy. If I receive a call from the enemy, guess what, I would HOPE a President H. Clinton was listening to the conversation! If I was stupid enough to place a call to the enemy, I would hope she would be listening to that as well. Of course, I don't want her to hear my private calls between me and people who haven't taken it upon themselves to kill as many Americans as possible, and there is nothing in the PATRIOT act that permits her to do so.
As for the conservative reaction to President Bush's behavior, you'll have to read very closely to what they say. They are upset with his ARROGANCE, not his behavior. They are upset that President Bush doesn't stoop down to the level of his moonbat attackers and address their issues. They want President Bush to come out and say, "I didn't cause Hurricane Katrina, nobody can cause a hurricane, and I didn't single out New Orleans because they were black. In fact I did everything in my power to try and help the people in New Orleans." Instead, like a king, President Bush is silent and expects people to follow his lead politcally without question.
No one is suggesting that the president is exceeding his constitutional limits. In fact, people are wondering why he isn't exercising his wartime powers and imprisoning those people in this country actively collaborating with our declared enemies, and shutting down the newspapers and TV shows that are demoralizing the troops and inspiring the enemy. We have historical precedence for President Bush doing far more than he is doing now, and frankly, I would like the president, of any party or gender, to act like a president during wartime. The faster this war gets over, the faster we can get back to normal life. But to pretend that we are at peace when we are at war is a formula for disaster.
I didn't say I was a member of the school board. I said I worked closely with the board.
I love how democrats try to defend their lies. "Everyone does it." I'm sorry, everyone doesn't lie. President Bush doesn't lie. Guess what? There were WMD in Iraq. There is new evidence from Iraqi officials that point to the WMD being in Syria and Iran. I don't lie. And even if everyone did lie, it is still not an excuse for lying.
I don't know why you will vote for the (D) this year. They haven't stood up for security ONCE for the past five years and beyond. They have only stood up for themselves, and acted in a calculated way to maximise their influence. The (D) don't care one whit about the people. If they stood for the people, why did they oppose the tax cut? If they stood for the people, why won't they work with the (R)'s to fix social security?
Why have every issue that the (D) gotten behind in the past few years been based on falsehoods and misrepresentations? The ports deal is an excellent example of this. Everything the Ds have said has been wrong. It was no secret. It was reviewed fully. The Coast Guard had some concerns but DPW was totally cooperative and the issues were resolved. DPW isn't buying ports, and they have nothing to do with security except to cooperate wherever possible with the Coast Guard and customs. DPW is from a country that has bent over backwards to support the US in the war on terror, has been westernized probably beyond any other Arab country, and wants to be more like us and less like the Saudis. Everything the democrats have said about the issue is totally and completely wrong!
The only people the (D)s stand up for nowadays are the union leaders, which don't even represent the union membership. They also stand up for cowards and traitors who smile a little when they see a Marine die and cringe when they see a terrorist get captured or a plot uncovered.
You can't name one freedom the PATRIOT act violates. No one can. That was my point. There's a whole bunch of sophistry arguing that it infringes on people's freedoms. But in reality, it doesn't. If it really did infringe upon our freedoms, then there would have been a successful court challenge or the Democrats would have taken the issue all the way to November of this year. But they didn't, and they won't. It must mean either they don't stand for civil liberties OR the act doesn't infringe upon civil liberties.
Where is your evidence that "the skies are not cleaner"? Where is your evidence that the "forests are less healthy?" That children are being left behind is true (after all, at least one child will be left behind until we reach 100%). But as I've invested myself in the school board in my community, I have seen absolute hard evidence that the children are doing better than they were 5 years ago, and only BECAUSE of the NCLB.
What happened on the floor of the senate was a whole lot of democrats talked the big talk but wouldn't back it up with the walk. They claimed the PATRIOT act was damaging our country and infringing on our constitutional freedoms. Guess what? DEMOCRATS LIE. When it came time to vote, they abandoned their base, they voted FOR the act, and they violated their so-called principles.
If the PATRIOT act is as bad as you and others say it is, wouldn't the Democrats have taken that to the carpet come elections this year? After all, with such obvious proof that Republicans are Nazis, it would ensure their sweep of the house and senate. Wouldn't they have stuck out their neck and give obvious examples of how the PATRIOT act has hurt, is hurting, or will hurt American freedoms? Why is it that after almost 5 years of passage, NO ONE CAN CITE ONE EXAMPLE OF ANYONE BEING INJURED UNJUSTLY BY THE PATRIOT ACT? Why is it that after being scrutinized by countless thousands of eyeballs, NO ONE CAN FIND ANYONE'S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS INFRINGED? I mean, there has been plenty of time for this act to be challenged in a court of law, right? WHERE'S THE CHALLENGE? WHERE'S THE ABUSE?
On the other side of the act, we see that maybe, just maybe, the PATRIOT act worked. With 0 successful terrorist attacks on US soil since the passage of the act, maybe, just maybe, President Bush was right about everything, and the democrats were wrong all along. Maybe invading Iraq cut off a major source of funding and training for the terrorists, including OBL. Maybe, by invading Afghanistan and destroying the Taliban, we have introduced a brand new concept--freedom--to a people who have lived for centuries under the veil of tyranny and religious oppression. But since this doesn't fit into your paranoid worldview where Karl Rove has supernatural powers to direct hurricanes to destroy black's homes and leave the white's untouched, you aren't going to accept the facts at face value, nor are you going to investigate the wild claims made by the far left in our country.
The reason why the democrats voted yes is because the facts support the republicans. The Act doesn't violate anyone's rights. The act doesn't hurt anyone but the bad guys. And it is helping to protect our country in exactly the way we WEREN'T protected before 9/11. And if they came out against the act, the republicans would've been able to use the facts to defeat the democrats. And facts are awfully expensive things to defend against in politics. There's just too many people out there nowadays more interested in the facts than their favorite political party.
I'm getting sick of the far left running around like a bunch of chicken littles. No, the sky isn't falling. No, President Bush is not simultaneously the dummest man on the face of the planet and yet so intelligent to manage a vast conspiracy involving all three branches of government, all four branched of the military. No, Dick Cheney is not Satan. No, we are not killing civilians at an unprecedented rate. No, Iraq is not going to have a civil war. No, we are not losing the war on terror, and yes, there are people out there with the desire and means to kill large portions of our population.
One thing to remember: If you really do belive the PATRIOT act is bad for your country, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you certainly can't mark "D" on your ballot and have a good conscience this November!
No, it's pointing out a double standard that seems to have its root in cronyism and personal financial interests.
Exactly, which is why the democrat legislators that started questioning the ports deal AFTER everything was finalized and not when it was first publically announced in October of 2005 should be held accountable for spreading false rumors and whipping up a political storm over nothing.
You are absolutely correct about the confusion of the word "outsourcing". The practice should probably be called "outsourcing through offshoring" or something like that, because it is both.
As for your blanket statement that offshoring is bad, let me rebut that by brining up several areas where offshoring is good.
(1) It provides high-paying technical jobs to countries that don't have a vibrant IT economy. This in turn will help bootstrap their IT economy, perhaps making them viable competitors with the US and Europe. Competition is always good because it drives product quality and quantity up while reducing price. Imagine a world where the Chinese and Indians were just as effective at producing software as the US and Europe. We'll have much better, much more, and cheaper software available for everyone. Sure, we won't have a monopoly on software development, but then again, aren't monopolies universally bad for everyone but the monopoly?
(2) It eliminates low-value, high-wage jobs from the US. If something can be done by a person in India for cheaper, it should be. The money saved can be used to buy resources and hire people to do tasks that can't be done in India, at the same time encouraging Americans to train for those jobs that Indians can't do. Hint: We don't hire Indian firms to innovate. If we were required to hire only Americans for these jobs, it would tie up valuable resources on both ends: the cash of the employer, and the employee's time, that could be spent in more effective, more profitable jobs.
Also, by keeping American's salaries in competition with India's and China's, we are driving the wages of this country down. Is this a bad thing? No. If we can keep salaries low, we can prevent inflation, which harms the economically illiterate the most. It also keeps the price of goods down, and in the long run, may increase the buying power of the average American. I know, as a wage-earner, that the concept that low-salaries are good isn't palatable. But that drives me to be more and more valuable for my company if I want a higher salary.
(3) It bonds the nations together in a brotherly pursuit of wealth through free trade, rather than an antagonistic pursuit of resources through warfare, economic or otherwise. As we convince more and more people that there is more good for them in trading freely with the US than in making threats and taking a militaristic stance against our country, it will reduce the requirement for a massive, global, mobile army. These dollars can be spent elsewhere---perhaps addressing other threats, or perhaps left in the taxpayer's wallets.
I personally see a future of world peace. But how can we have world peace? We can have world peace through world trade. If everyone relied on everyone else for their economic livelihood, what reason would there be to injure or kill one another? There would never be an economic incentive to behave badly in the international community. There would never be an economic incentive to preach hatred and violence. Instead, people, in their pursuit for their own happiness, would seek ways to make the world a better place.
There is a word for the philosophy that free trade with other countries is a bad thing: protectionism. The Republican party, pre-WWII, used to be the populist protectionist party. Today, all protectionist elements are gone from that party, because protectionism doesn't work in the long run. (Listen to Pat Buchanan for a taste of what protectionism turns you into.) The democrats have never been protectionist. If they want to adopt the failing political strategies of a long-dead republican generation, they are more than encouraged to do so. It would spell their ultimate doom.
I think that pollution was part of the considerations. If you have 500,000 machines dispersed over the massive land mass of Africa, it will cause localized pollution, but it is the kind of pollution that the earth can handle. It's not spewing toxic chemicals and dangerous bacteria.
His goal is to kickstart democracy and the economy of Africa. Once you have the model in place (find something people want but don't have, provide it to them, profit) then they will begin to build up their own industries. As pollution becomes more of a concern, they will have the economic power and natural initiative to solve it.
I think his idea connecting economic power with political power is absolutely correct. If our founding fathers weren't independently wealthy, they would've never been able to do what they did for their country. When Africa has a large wealthy class that made their wealth through honest means, then that class can carry the burden of reforming the economic and political system to favor entrepeneurs rather than despots.
People in poverty who cannot get by may be forced to do something amoral or illegal for survival. People in poverty who can barely get by but aren't properly education and don't have healthcare are less efficient workers and raise children that contribute less efficiently to the economy that supports you. Envy of people's "betters" and malaise lead to violent crime, drug use, social instability, and revolution.
Nobody is forced to do anything. If someone is going to blame their crimes on their poverty, they have more serious problems than their poverty. The law has no pity for poverty, as it shouldn't.
The economy doesn't support me, and it doesn't support anyone. The economy is the net sum of my actions and everyone elses. I can make money in a depression or lose money in a boom depending on which choices I make. Just because everyone else is doing well doesn't mean I am, and vice-versa.
A problem with pure capitalism is that it sets up a dynamic where one of the goals of all investors is to get as much work out of workers for as little pay as possible. This does not create a just and free society if class mobility becomes impossible and if workers cannot afford the downtime to switch jobs if their current job is unbearable. This is why we have minimum wage laws and laws about overtime. The alternative was that people were worked nearly to death (and to death before better safety regulations) for a pittance that was just enough to live a much shortened life on. We've seen what unfettered capitalism does to a society; it was the so-called "Gilded Age."
If you believe we shouldn't convince people to work as hard as possible for as little pay as possible, then you have no idea what it takes to create wealth. The US system has resulted in far greater efficiencies than any other economy in the world. Why? Because people bidding for employees are trying to get as much work as possible for as little pay as possible. The net result is that our workers produce more, are more valuable, and command higher real wages. (One of the problems with outsourcing is that despite the fact the foreign employees require less wages, they do not produce nearly at the same rate as their American counterparts. Japanese people, for instance, work "harder" but are less productive than Americans.)
There are two types of American workers: Those who get it, and those who are forming unions. What's happening to GM and Ford as the union demand the same or higher wages for the same or less amount of work? The companies are falling to pieces because they are no longer profitable. Critical rule #1: If something is not profitable, it is not done. That's just common sense. Critical rule #2: Only the most profitable actions should be done, the least profitable left alone.
Meanwhile, the rest of the American workforce is looking for ways to be more productive, to deliver more value to their employers so they can ask for a raise. They are going to school, getting educated, and spending their free time in educating themselves.
The result isn't a ball of oppression. The result is that I went to an average high school, got a pretty good education, commanded a pretty good wage at graduation, lost my job several times because the company couldn't afford my services, and now I am commanding a wage TWICE what I was earning just 5 years ago. At this rate of growth, I will be pulling in a million dollar salary in my 50's. That is, if I don't go and make my own work and jobs for others.
Immediately after I point a gun at you and say, "Your money or your life," we are now in a situation where the trade benefits both parties. However, many free market fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that life frequently puts you in situations where you must make less that maximally beneficial trades by saying that you wouldn't have made the trade if it didn't benefit you.
Probably in the short term I would have given the gunman my money. But in the longterm, I would've spent the required time and mone
You are sadly mistaken. Yes, boards and CEOs make decisions. But they are given the right to make that decision by the shareholders, and that right can be revoked. The boards and CEOs didn't intrude on a group of people, demand they be made CEO and board members, and granted a charter for life. No, they serve at the whim of the shareholders.
You'll not that unlike in politics, one bad decision means the downfall of an entire corporation. CEOs and board members lose BILLIONS of dollars if they make the wrong choice. Do you think they have a good incentive to make the right choice each time?
Consider what happened to the Communists after they starved MILLIONS of people to death in the Ukraine on purpose. Or what happened after China starved her people to death trying to make iron. Did they lose their power? No.
Who would you rather have run the government? A group of people accountable to the people, with a temporary grant of powers, or a group of people who siezed control and demands power for life?
You used the word "ideally" to start off your argument. That means, "in anywhere but real life". Because we do not live in an idyllic world, ideals are worth nothing unless they are practical.
Let me explain. There is an ideal that everyone should be nice to one another. But this is an ideal. Real life is not like this. Far better is the concept that you should treat others like you would like to be treated. In real life, if you behave this way, you generally get ahead because you make friends and people like to be around you. It doesn't rely on others being nice to you, it only requires you to be nice to other people. This is a practical principle that works. It is not an ideal.
Now, you have a problem. How do we efficiently distribute goods and services to maximize the happiness of everyone? That is, we want everyone to be as happy as possible, and leave no one unhappy. This is the real-world problem. And ideal about men who are well-educated and understand things us regular folks can't and who can make our decisions for us is an ideal. What happens when you get a bunch of know-it-alls together to make all the decisions for others is they make bad decisions. People end up dying and killing and wars are started.
The capitalist solution is, "Within a set of parameters (law & morality), you secure your own happiness." This has proven by experience and history to be a far better system than anything where you have smart people make decisions for others. Even though Aunt May is below average intelligence, even though she hasn't been to school but for three days in her life, and even though she is misinformed on a number of subjects, if she is able to make her own decisions, she will be happier. Experience shows us this.
Bottom line: Freedom works, every time.
Now, one more thing. When I hear of smart people gathering together to tell others what to do, I start reaching for my shotgun. This is the definition of a tyranny, and tyranny is the one thing our country does not stand for. I know we as a people have granted certain rights to the government to do things such as tax and order us to war, but we the people reserve those rights and we the people can take them back if we so desire.
You have made a classic mistake, claiming that wealth is measured in dollars. Let me put you through a short thought experiment.
* I have $100. I sit on it for a whole year. At the end of the year, I still have $100. Am I wealthy?
* I have $100. I spend that $100 for fuel to power my car so I can go to work each day and earn $1000. Then I reinvest some of that money into fuel, clothing, shelther, entertainment, etc. By the end of the year, I earned $60,000 and spent $59,900 on things I wanted and things I needed to earn the $60,000. Roughly $50,000 went into necessities to earn that $60,000 (costs) and the rest went into things I didn't really need but wanted anyway ($9,900). I have $100 on hand at the end of the year.
In which case am I wealthier? In the second example I am wealthier. I had things and experienced things I did not experience in the first instance, things that I wanted to do.
Based on my actions above, did I increase or decrease the money supply? In neither instance did I create or destroy dollars. So, I didn't incrase or decrease the number of dollars in the economy.
The bottom line: You cannot measure wealth with dollars, so don't bother trying. Wealth can be created (and destroyed) by my actions.
I cannot pinpoint the effects of another's poverty on my own situation. In fact, what you are and what you do do not affect me (unless you do something amoral or illegal.) I cannot pinpoint how my actions in creating wealth negatively affected anyone. In fact, when I engage in free trade, I notice that both parties are getting more than what they put in (otherwise, I or the other party wouldn't have done it.)
Your myths are based on superstitions passed on by Marx and his crew of communists. It is all lies, I'm afraid to tell you, without any factual or logical base.
I don't think our capital system would suffer if we had to move our coastlines back by a few meters. And that's all they are talking about if the ice caps melted. Sure, some unlucky souls would see their property---gradually---swept under ocean tides. But it wouldn't happen overnight, and they would have time to sell the property (at a depreciated value, to someone who is gambling the earth will cool) and find somewhere else to live. And if they lose their property? It's not the first time nature decided to wipe out perfectly good property, and it certainly won't be a disaster to the nation or the race.
We, as a planet, have seen, much, much warmer days. We're not talking a few degrees, we're talking a lot more. What was life like on the planet when it was warmer? Were we a desert planet unable to sustain any kind of life, and where civilization was unheard of?
No. The last major warming cycle saw the creation of several major civilizations. The population boom spread humanity all over the globe. Tools became more complicated. Writing was invented. And the first set of written laws was produced.
I find it silly to think that the earth is going to die if we change any of the parameters of its operation within the recorded physical evidence of past history.
Let's take a worst case scenario. Gradually, over hundreds of years, the entire earth warms a few degrees centigrade. Or let's suppose all of Europe goes under ice while the rest of the world (Canada perhaps?) warms up.
Why, over that time span, we could move entire civilizations for less than the cost in reducing CO2 emissions. We could transplace the entie English people into some man-made island that's an exact replica of England for less than the cost of reducing CO2 for hundreds of years in accordance with the Kyoto protocol.
People forget how expensive it is to "save the environment" when you look at the big picture. It's better to take a cut of the profits of that and rebuild whatever we destroy.
On a more serious note, there are people that think global warming is good. Receding ice caps leave minerals in the ocean that encourage sea life and will help feed the world's population. Receding glaciers will open up valuable, fertile ground that hasn't been farmed for nearly a thousand years. And the increase in temperature will raise the humidity world wide, perhaps turning the Sahara desert into the rain forest it used to be, and expanding the world's rainforests to new latitudes.
I could also see a future when there is no freezing winter, it's jus a year-round summer like on the tropical islands. Maybe then we won't be losing so many homeless to the random snowstorms of today.
I often wonder what the world would be like if every year the north and south poles melted. Would the entire world turn into a humid tropical paradise?
The problem isn't that the upper managers are misinformed. They are always misinformed. Any upper manager that thinks somehow they are impervious to lies and half-truths are fools.
At our company, we let people make their own decisions. If they need more hardware or money or resources, they have to go to their managers and get the required resources. But if its new and it doesn't cost any more than what we are already spending, then you get to try it out.
Let me put it this way. Who should decide what kind of car you drive: Your boss, your wife, or you? Who is best suited to make that decision?
Then try this one: Who decides which algorithm you implement to solve some of the engineering problems you encounter? Your boss, your wife, or you?
And let's go one step further: Who decides what language you should use or what OS you should run on?
This is just an example of how free markets create wealth.
What value did Second Life have before people moved in and started exercising their rights to engage in unrestricted trade? Absolutely nothing, except a bunch of promise.
But when people began exchanging goods and services without restriction, they begin to build something beautiful.
Imagine for a moment that the owners of Second Life tried something other than free market economics. What if they decided they would dictate the direction of growth? Or what if they controlled the money supply and gave it only to people they liked? Or what if they banned certain transactions? What if Second Life had a board of very smart and highly educated economists trying to create the ideal economy? What if they had onerous taxes and regulations?
If you think that anything but free markets work, you haven't had much experience in the real world.
I would hope that we can take some of the principles that makes Second Life so wonderful (IE, free trade) and bring it into our real world so that we can create even more wealth.
It's hard to argue that the nations involved in that war were real democracies. Most of them were closer to dictatorships. Plus, there were a lot of different nations conspiring to take over all of Europe. Hence, it was a war of aggression, not just of bad nerves. I don't think people had developed a sense at that time of the power of international trade either, to the degree we use it to pacify each other today.
Re: Iran's intentions.
Have you been reading the same speeches given by President Ahmedinajed? I am pretty certain he wants to usher in the Islam equivalent of the Second Coming, which means total destruction of all the other religions. He wants to go through the hell that precedes that, with the expectation that his religion will carry him and the other countries through it. All signs point to this guy wanting to lob nuclear warheads everywhere and us lobbing them back in his face. He is major crazy.
And the jury's still out on whether DPRK has nukes. Some people think they do, others say we should think they do because they say they do (and kick the crap out of them because Kim Jong Il is major crazy) and others think they are following their SOP of lying, lying, and lying. Regardless, having nukes did not increase our opinion or fear of them at all.
The case for Pakistani and India is that if you are a reasonably stable country, and if you are sly enough, you can develop nukes. However, neither Pakistan or India have any intentions on using nukes against anyone but India and Pakistan. They are not a threat to the US, and the Pakistanis have allowed us to inspect their facilities and help ensure no one steals their nukes. Should the political climate in India or Pakistan change (India-unlikely, Pakistan-likely), we'll move to disarm them just as we did Saddam. And remember under whose administration Pakistan got nukes! And also remember that the nukes in Pakistan are a bargaining chip that we use to make sure the Pakistani government cooperate.
This administration has been clear: If you want nukes to blow us up, we will kill you. If you want nukes to power your cities, that's fine, as long as we trust you won't try to blow us up.
RE: France, Germany, UK, Russian alliance
I can't find the article, so this is hearsay. France has been public about declaring their intention to use nukes against anyone that uses nukes against them. They have even said they will pre-empt if necessary. Germany has elected a pro-Bush government. I think we can assume they will follow Bush just like Australia has. And Russia doesn't want Iran to get nukes if there is a chance they will use them against the Russians. In this case, there is. Regardless, it's an issue in the security council, and the Bush administration wanted it there because they think they have a chance of getting something passed.
RE: Vietnam
The fact that the Vietcong were supplied with weapons, training, and leadership by neighboring communists and the Soviets meant they were connected. I know that people have tried to play down the "global communism war is fought in Vietnam" concept, but it doesn't mean that Pres. Kennedy thought it was, nor the fact that the Soviets thought it was as well.
You seem to misunderstand what the real cause of war is. If you've ever been to a school, you'll note that fights occur for a number of reasons:
(1) People get edgy with all those hormones and fight for no reason at all. (2) Someone is genuinely trying to hurt someone else or exert their will with physical force. The other party isn't going to take any more of it and decides to fight to protect themselves.
In international politics, (1) is only a problem if you have a single person or very small group of people that decides when to go to war. Democracies, by and large, don't have this kind of structure. Besides, it's always in everybodies' interests if the two people got along and got rich trading with one another.
(2) is far more common. This is the case when you have a corrupt government that seeks to either exploit its people or neighbors with physical force. War doesn't start when they decide to threaten force or use force to exert their will. War starts when somebody stands up to them.
It's often confusing to determine who "started" a war. Did Hitler start WWII, or did England when it decided to fight Germany's expansion policy?
It's nice to imagine some kind of conspiracy where the "military complex" determines when and how to go to war. I'll grant you one thing: Technology creates uncertainty, and uncertainty allows bad people to be more bold in their actions.
Here's a current modern day example. Iran has at its head a group of people whose purpose is to start a world war. They want a new piece of technology --- nuclear weapons --- because they think it will give them power enough to stand up to the US. It's really not certain if nuclear weapons are powerful enough to convince the American democracy to cower in fear. (They may well be!) So Iran is more bold in moving towards aggression and making threats.
When the US and its allies begin the invasion of Iran, likely, the blame for "starting" a war will go on the heads of President Bush and his friends. (Note: Already, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia have pledged to help with the invasion of Iran. There are several other smaller countries, including some Middle Eastern ones, who have pledged to help as well.) However, the true cause of this war should be Iran's aggression and threats to the annihilation of Israel and a nuclear attack on Europe and the US.
The Vietnam war, likewise, wasn't caused by a bunch of military industrialists. It was caused by communist aggression. They tried to turn a sovereign, democratic country into a wing of the Communist empire by force. The war really didn't start until the US decided to stop the aggression with force. Did the US start that war? No, but it was there to try and finish it.
There is an inferiority complex among the group who refers to others as "the man". They assume that "the man" is pulling strings behind the scenes and that there is no way that they could ever hope to beat "the man" except through violence or hatred campaigns.
Consider this. Just for a moment, clear your mind of all the hatred and pent up rage within your soul. Then let's think logically for a moment. Let's assume that votes really count, that politicians really do have to get elected, and that the government is really ultimately run by the politicians, when push comes to shove. Who is "the man" that is oppressing the people? It is the government. But the government is made up of politicians, or people accountable to politicians. And the politicians are elected by the people. So "the man" is really "the people". People are abusing themselves.
Let's look at it another way--"the man" being corporate suits. Where do they get their power? From their money. Where do they get their money? From the people. If the people stopped eating at McDonalds or buying Nike shoes, these companies really do go out of business. And the corporations really are held accountable to the politicians. When they really screw up they get thrown in jail for real, that is, when the politicians want them in jail. And who elects the politicians?
In both cases, the power ultimately rests with the people. There is no need to fight "the man" except by participating in politics and participating in business. In fact, you yourself can become "the man" if you figure out how to get elected or how to make a billions dollars a year. "The man" is a position that is held at the whim of the people. If they don't like you, you don't get elected. If they don't like your products, you don't get your money.
When you fight against "the man" you are really fighting against the people in this country. Keep that in mind.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you name a single hypocracy in the PATRIOT act? Just one. I've been waiting for someone, anyone, to tell me any violation of our freedoms by the PATRIOT act. All the so-called violations or hypocracies have been found lacking in substance.
Let me cite a few facts for you concerning human rights abuses.
(1) The terrorists are telling each other to make up wild claims about abuse in American prisons. This is a fact. You can read the terrorist training manuals yourself.
(2) The terrorists are making very wild and strange claims about our prison that just don't make any sense. Okay, we're supposed to believe that the U.S. Military found a woman in the middle of her period and had he stand over a prisoner to leak menstrual fluids onto his body? Unbelievable. If we wanted to offend them, we would feed them pork or something like that. But we wouldn't go to extremes like this. After all, name one woman in the military who would do that, even under threat of court martial. I can't imagine it happening.
(3) People who have actually been to the prisons to tour them comment that they are well-run and very, very humane.
(4) When Senator Durbin listed testimony from members of the military concerning abuses, he talked about cases where the air conditioner was left on and the prisoner was left in a room. He also talked about situations where there was no air conditioners and it was really hot. Oh yeah, and there was that one prisoner who was pulling out his hair. Is this torture? If so, I am being tortured every summer and winter.
(5) The practices that democrats have called torture have been carefully crafted so as not to be considered torture. For instance, waterboarding. In waterboarding, the subject is never actually threatened with death. However, he is given false information that he is being drowned or suffocated, when this is not so and he is perfectly safe. Is this torture? If so, how can we interrogate our prisoners? Do we just put them in front of a bright light for a long time? Or would that be considered torture as well? (For comparison, here are some examples of real torture: The Iron Maiden, the rack, maiming and dismemberment, live disembowelment, removing the fingernails, driving bamboo sticks under the fingernails, peeling off skin, burning, electrocution, beating, breaking of bones, etc...)
(6) The one example that we have of what can almost be called torture is at Abu Ghraib. What really happened here? Prisoners were subjected to humiliating photographs. Interestingly, all those involved, from the General that ran the base on down, have been tried and convicted of negligence or abuse. If the U.S. Military prohibits it and punishes those that do it, are they responsible for it?
(7) Other examples of torture that people give can be excused. In one case, an interrogator was given a prisoner that had bad internal wounds and needed immediate medical attention. Because the prisoner was wearing a black mask, no one could tell that he was on the brink of death. After a short period of interrogation, the prisoner died. Other examples include instances where people captured have been brutally beaten into submission or wounded. Guess what? If you find yourself on the wrong end of a Marine's rifle, you should consider yourself lucky that you survived! It's not torture to shoot and injure and beat up your enemy in the middle of combat.
Despite all the evidence and all the negative speech condemning the US for torture, no one has a real clear example of it, nowhere in the world. No one can really call what the US does torture, and keep a straight face. Real torture is serious business, a sick and twisted world you should one day look up to understand. The stuff our prisoners have been subjected to is patty-cake compared to that.
If you think the above comment is even slightly interesting or informative, you'll have to mod it up. There are a group of moderators who would rather silence me than see an opposing opinion. They can't tolerate healthy debate, and refuse to argue with someone they don't agree with. Everytime the post moves into positive territory, they'll hit it with "overrated" because that is not meta-moderated.
If you don't have mod-points, now is a good time to do some meta-moderation. Whenever you mark a bad moderation, it really affects the person who moderated in the first place.
I can't understand how a technical crowd such as this, when confronted with facts and rhetoric, abandon the facts and embrace the rhetoric. Thanks to the internet, we have the facts readily available, and we have the ability to read these things for ourselves. In technical issues, I would say the Slashdot crowd is better than most. But when it comes to politics, its as if they collectively turn off their brains and being spewing whatever lines have been fed to them by the media.
I also can't understand why we don't have more diversity of opinion. I know the side I am on embraces free speech and encourages new ideas and debate. We certainly don't want to shut anyone up. Even the worst abusers of free speech are doing us a favor by making their side look childish and silly. But the other side has elements that wish the other side would all go away. That bothers me.
Re "What if the other guy gets the White House? What then? How would YOU feel when they come for YOU!?!"
You know what? I'm not scared one whit. As long as a potential President H. Clinton follows the law and doesn't go beyond the powers granted by the constitution and congress, I'll be perfectly safe.
They CAN'T torture me, I'm a citizen of the U.S. and I haven't taken up arms against my country. If I did, I would make sure that I wore the uniform of the country I am fighting for and make sure the country was a signatory of the Geneva Convention. That way, the Geneva Convention would protect me.
They can't wiretap ME, but they can wiretap the enemy. If I receive a call from the enemy, guess what, I would HOPE a President H. Clinton was listening to the conversation! If I was stupid enough to place a call to the enemy, I would hope she would be listening to that as well. Of course, I don't want her to hear my private calls between me and people who haven't taken it upon themselves to kill as many Americans as possible, and there is nothing in the PATRIOT act that permits her to do so.
As for the conservative reaction to President Bush's behavior, you'll have to read very closely to what they say. They are upset with his ARROGANCE, not his behavior. They are upset that President Bush doesn't stoop down to the level of his moonbat attackers and address their issues. They want President Bush to come out and say, "I didn't cause Hurricane Katrina, nobody can cause a hurricane, and I didn't single out New Orleans because they were black. In fact I did everything in my power to try and help the people in New Orleans." Instead, like a king, President Bush is silent and expects people to follow his lead politcally without question.
No one is suggesting that the president is exceeding his constitutional limits. In fact, people are wondering why he isn't exercising his wartime powers and imprisoning those people in this country actively collaborating with our declared enemies, and shutting down the newspapers and TV shows that are demoralizing the troops and inspiring the enemy. We have historical precedence for President Bush doing far more than he is doing now, and frankly, I would like the president, of any party or gender, to act like a president during wartime. The faster this war gets over, the faster we can get back to normal life. But to pretend that we are at peace when we are at war is a formula for disaster.
I didn't say I was a member of the school board. I said I worked closely with the board.
I love how democrats try to defend their lies. "Everyone does it." I'm sorry, everyone doesn't lie. President Bush doesn't lie. Guess what? There were WMD in Iraq. There is new evidence from Iraqi officials that point to the WMD being in Syria and Iran. I don't lie. And even if everyone did lie, it is still not an excuse for lying.
I don't know why you will vote for the (D) this year. They haven't stood up for security ONCE for the past five years and beyond. They have only stood up for themselves, and acted in a calculated way to maximise their influence. The (D) don't care one whit about the people. If they stood for the people, why did they oppose the tax cut? If they stood for the people, why won't they work with the (R)'s to fix social security?
Why have every issue that the (D) gotten behind in the past few years been based on falsehoods and misrepresentations? The ports deal is an excellent example of this. Everything the Ds have said has been wrong. It was no secret. It was reviewed fully. The Coast Guard had some concerns but DPW was totally cooperative and the issues were resolved. DPW isn't buying ports, and they have nothing to do with security except to cooperate wherever possible with the Coast Guard and customs. DPW is from a country that has bent over backwards to support the US in the war on terror, has been westernized probably beyond any other Arab country, and wants to be more like us and less like the Saudis. Everything the democrats have said about the issue is totally and completely wrong!
The only people the (D)s stand up for nowadays are the union leaders, which don't even represent the union membership. They also stand up for cowards and traitors who smile a little when they see a Marine die and cringe when they see a terrorist get captured or a plot uncovered.
You can't name one freedom the PATRIOT act violates. No one can. That was my point. There's a whole bunch of sophistry arguing that it infringes on people's freedoms. But in reality, it doesn't. If it really did infringe upon our freedoms, then there would have been a successful court challenge or the Democrats would have taken the issue all the way to November of this year. But they didn't, and they won't. It must mean either they don't stand for civil liberties OR the act doesn't infringe upon civil liberties.
I call BS.
Where is your evidence that "the skies are not cleaner"? Where is your evidence that the "forests are less healthy?" That children are being left behind is true (after all, at least one child will be left behind until we reach 100%). But as I've invested myself in the school board in my community, I have seen absolute hard evidence that the children are doing better than they were 5 years ago, and only BECAUSE of the NCLB.
What happened on the floor of the senate was a whole lot of democrats talked the big talk but wouldn't back it up with the walk. They claimed the PATRIOT act was damaging our country and infringing on our constitutional freedoms. Guess what? DEMOCRATS LIE. When it came time to vote, they abandoned their base, they voted FOR the act, and they violated their so-called principles.
If the PATRIOT act is as bad as you and others say it is, wouldn't the Democrats have taken that to the carpet come elections this year? After all, with such obvious proof that Republicans are Nazis, it would ensure their sweep of the house and senate. Wouldn't they have stuck out their neck and give obvious examples of how the PATRIOT act has hurt, is hurting, or will hurt American freedoms? Why is it that after almost 5 years of passage, NO ONE CAN CITE ONE EXAMPLE OF ANYONE BEING INJURED UNJUSTLY BY THE PATRIOT ACT? Why is it that after being scrutinized by countless thousands of eyeballs, NO ONE CAN FIND ANYONE'S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS INFRINGED? I mean, there has been plenty of time for this act to be challenged in a court of law, right? WHERE'S THE CHALLENGE? WHERE'S THE ABUSE?
On the other side of the act, we see that maybe, just maybe, the PATRIOT act worked. With 0 successful terrorist attacks on US soil since the passage of the act, maybe, just maybe, President Bush was right about everything, and the democrats were wrong all along. Maybe invading Iraq cut off a major source of funding and training for the terrorists, including OBL. Maybe, by invading Afghanistan and destroying the Taliban, we have introduced a brand new concept--freedom--to a people who have lived for centuries under the veil of tyranny and religious oppression. But since this doesn't fit into your paranoid worldview where Karl Rove has supernatural powers to direct hurricanes to destroy black's homes and leave the white's untouched, you aren't going to accept the facts at face value, nor are you going to investigate the wild claims made by the far left in our country.
The reason why the democrats voted yes is because the facts support the republicans. The Act doesn't violate anyone's rights. The act doesn't hurt anyone but the bad guys. And it is helping to protect our country in exactly the way we WEREN'T protected before 9/11. And if they came out against the act, the republicans would've been able to use the facts to defeat the democrats. And facts are awfully expensive things to defend against in politics. There's just too many people out there nowadays more interested in the facts than their favorite political party.
I'm getting sick of the far left running around like a bunch of chicken littles. No, the sky isn't falling. No, President Bush is not simultaneously the dummest man on the face of the planet and yet so intelligent to manage a vast conspiracy involving all three branches of government, all four branched of the military. No, Dick Cheney is not Satan. No, we are not killing civilians at an unprecedented rate. No, Iraq is not going to have a civil war. No, we are not losing the war on terror, and yes, there are people out there with the desire and means to kill large portions of our population.
One thing to remember: If you really do belive the PATRIOT act is bad for your country, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you certainly can't mark "D" on your ballot and have a good conscience this November!
No, it's pointing out a double standard that seems to have its root in cronyism and personal financial interests.
Exactly, which is why the democrat legislators that started questioning the ports deal AFTER everything was finalized and not when it was first publically announced in October of 2005 should be held accountable for spreading false rumors and whipping up a political storm over nothing.
You are absolutely correct about the confusion of the word "outsourcing". The practice should probably be called "outsourcing through offshoring" or something like that, because it is both.
As for your blanket statement that offshoring is bad, let me rebut that by brining up several areas where offshoring is good.
(1) It provides high-paying technical jobs to countries that don't have a vibrant IT economy. This in turn will help bootstrap their IT economy, perhaps making them viable competitors with the US and Europe. Competition is always good because it drives product quality and quantity up while reducing price. Imagine a world where the Chinese and Indians were just as effective at producing software as the US and Europe. We'll have much better, much more, and cheaper software available for everyone. Sure, we won't have a monopoly on software development, but then again, aren't monopolies universally bad for everyone but the monopoly?
(2) It eliminates low-value, high-wage jobs from the US. If something can be done by a person in India for cheaper, it should be. The money saved can be used to buy resources and hire people to do tasks that can't be done in India, at the same time encouraging Americans to train for those jobs that Indians can't do. Hint: We don't hire Indian firms to innovate. If we were required to hire only Americans for these jobs, it would tie up valuable resources on both ends: the cash of the employer, and the employee's time, that could be spent in more effective, more profitable jobs.
Also, by keeping American's salaries in competition with India's and China's, we are driving the wages of this country down. Is this a bad thing? No. If we can keep salaries low, we can prevent inflation, which harms the economically illiterate the most. It also keeps the price of goods down, and in the long run, may increase the buying power of the average American. I know, as a wage-earner, that the concept that low-salaries are good isn't palatable. But that drives me to be more and more valuable for my company if I want a higher salary.
(3) It bonds the nations together in a brotherly pursuit of wealth through free trade, rather than an antagonistic pursuit of resources through warfare, economic or otherwise. As we convince more and more people that there is more good for them in trading freely with the US than in making threats and taking a militaristic stance against our country, it will reduce the requirement for a massive, global, mobile army. These dollars can be spent elsewhere---perhaps addressing other threats, or perhaps left in the taxpayer's wallets.
I personally see a future of world peace. But how can we have world peace? We can have world peace through world trade. If everyone relied on everyone else for their economic livelihood, what reason would there be to injure or kill one another? There would never be an economic incentive to behave badly in the international community. There would never be an economic incentive to preach hatred and violence. Instead, people, in their pursuit for their own happiness, would seek ways to make the world a better place.
There is a word for the philosophy that free trade with other countries is a bad thing: protectionism. The Republican party, pre-WWII, used to be the populist protectionist party. Today, all protectionist elements are gone from that party, because protectionism doesn't work in the long run. (Listen to Pat Buchanan for a taste of what protectionism turns you into.) The democrats have never been protectionist. If they want to adopt the failing political strategies of a long-dead republican generation, they are more than encouraged to do so. It would spell their ultimate doom.
I think that pollution was part of the considerations. If you have 500,000 machines dispersed over the massive land mass of Africa, it will cause localized pollution, but it is the kind of pollution that the earth can handle. It's not spewing toxic chemicals and dangerous bacteria.
His goal is to kickstart democracy and the economy of Africa. Once you have the model in place (find something people want but don't have, provide it to them, profit) then they will begin to build up their own industries. As pollution becomes more of a concern, they will have the economic power and natural initiative to solve it.
I think his idea connecting economic power with political power is absolutely correct. If our founding fathers weren't independently wealthy, they would've never been able to do what they did for their country. When Africa has a large wealthy class that made their wealth through honest means, then that class can carry the burden of reforming the economic and political system to favor entrepeneurs rather than despots.
People in poverty who cannot get by may be forced to do something amoral or illegal for survival. People in poverty who can barely get by but aren't properly education and don't have healthcare are less efficient workers and raise children that contribute less efficiently to the economy that supports you. Envy of people's "betters" and malaise lead to violent crime, drug use, social instability, and revolution.
Nobody is forced to do anything. If someone is going to blame their crimes on their poverty, they have more serious problems than their poverty. The law has no pity for poverty, as it shouldn't.
The economy doesn't support me, and it doesn't support anyone. The economy is the net sum of my actions and everyone elses. I can make money in a depression or lose money in a boom depending on which choices I make. Just because everyone else is doing well doesn't mean I am, and vice-versa.
A problem with pure capitalism is that it sets up a dynamic where one of the goals of all investors is to get as much work out of workers for as little pay as possible. This does not create a just and free society if class mobility becomes impossible and if workers cannot afford the downtime to switch jobs if their current job is unbearable. This is why we have minimum wage laws and laws about overtime. The alternative was that people were worked nearly to death (and to death before better safety regulations) for a pittance that was just enough to live a much shortened life on. We've seen what unfettered capitalism does to a society; it was the so-called "Gilded Age."
If you believe we shouldn't convince people to work as hard as possible for as little pay as possible, then you have no idea what it takes to create wealth. The US system has resulted in far greater efficiencies than any other economy in the world. Why? Because people bidding for employees are trying to get as much work as possible for as little pay as possible. The net result is that our workers produce more, are more valuable, and command higher real wages. (One of the problems with outsourcing is that despite the fact the foreign employees require less wages, they do not produce nearly at the same rate as their American counterparts. Japanese people, for instance, work "harder" but are less productive than Americans.)
There are two types of American workers: Those who get it, and those who are forming unions. What's happening to GM and Ford as the union demand the same or higher wages for the same or less amount of work? The companies are falling to pieces because they are no longer profitable. Critical rule #1: If something is not profitable, it is not done. That's just common sense. Critical rule #2: Only the most profitable actions should be done, the least profitable left alone.
Meanwhile, the rest of the American workforce is looking for ways to be more productive, to deliver more value to their employers so they can ask for a raise. They are going to school, getting educated, and spending their free time in educating themselves.
The result isn't a ball of oppression. The result is that I went to an average high school, got a pretty good education, commanded a pretty good wage at graduation, lost my job several times because the company couldn't afford my services, and now I am commanding a wage TWICE what I was earning just 5 years ago. At this rate of growth, I will be pulling in a million dollar salary in my 50's. That is, if I don't go and make my own work and jobs for others.
Immediately after I point a gun at you and say, "Your money or your life," we are now in a situation where the trade benefits both parties. However, many free market fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that life frequently puts you in situations where you must make less that maximally beneficial trades by saying that you wouldn't have made the trade if it didn't benefit you.
Probably in the short term I would have given the gunman my money. But in the longterm, I would've spent the required time and mone
Is Saturn warming up as well? Maybe the UN on Saturn should ban CO2 emissions.
You are sadly mistaken. Yes, boards and CEOs make decisions. But they are given the right to make that decision by the shareholders, and that right can be revoked. The boards and CEOs didn't intrude on a group of people, demand they be made CEO and board members, and granted a charter for life. No, they serve at the whim of the shareholders.
You'll not that unlike in politics, one bad decision means the downfall of an entire corporation. CEOs and board members lose BILLIONS of dollars if they make the wrong choice. Do you think they have a good incentive to make the right choice each time?
Consider what happened to the Communists after they starved MILLIONS of people to death in the Ukraine on purpose. Or what happened after China starved her people to death trying to make iron. Did they lose their power? No.
Who would you rather have run the government? A group of people accountable to the people, with a temporary grant of powers, or a group of people who siezed control and demands power for life?
You used the word "ideally" to start off your argument. That means, "in anywhere but real life". Because we do not live in an idyllic world, ideals are worth nothing unless they are practical.
Let me explain. There is an ideal that everyone should be nice to one another. But this is an ideal. Real life is not like this. Far better is the concept that you should treat others like you would like to be treated. In real life, if you behave this way, you generally get ahead because you make friends and people like to be around you. It doesn't rely on others being nice to you, it only requires you to be nice to other people. This is a practical principle that works. It is not an ideal.
Now, you have a problem. How do we efficiently distribute goods and services to maximize the happiness of everyone? That is, we want everyone to be as happy as possible, and leave no one unhappy. This is the real-world problem. And ideal about men who are well-educated and understand things us regular folks can't and who can make our decisions for us is an ideal. What happens when you get a bunch of know-it-alls together to make all the decisions for others is they make bad decisions. People end up dying and killing and wars are started.
The capitalist solution is, "Within a set of parameters (law & morality), you secure your own happiness." This has proven by experience and history to be a far better system than anything where you have smart people make decisions for others. Even though Aunt May is below average intelligence, even though she hasn't been to school but for three days in her life, and even though she is misinformed on a number of subjects, if she is able to make her own decisions, she will be happier. Experience shows us this.
Bottom line: Freedom works, every time.
Now, one more thing. When I hear of smart people gathering together to tell others what to do, I start reaching for my shotgun. This is the definition of a tyranny, and tyranny is the one thing our country does not stand for. I know we as a people have granted certain rights to the government to do things such as tax and order us to war, but we the people reserve those rights and we the people can take them back if we so desire.
You have made a classic mistake, claiming that wealth is measured in dollars. Let me put you through a short thought experiment.
* I have $100. I sit on it for a whole year. At the end of the year, I still have $100. Am I wealthy?
* I have $100. I spend that $100 for fuel to power my car so I can go to work each day and earn $1000. Then I reinvest some of that money into fuel, clothing, shelther, entertainment, etc. By the end of the year, I earned $60,000 and spent $59,900 on things I wanted and things I needed to earn the $60,000. Roughly $50,000 went into necessities to earn that $60,000 (costs) and the rest went into things I didn't really need but wanted anyway ($9,900). I have $100 on hand at the end of the year.
In which case am I wealthier? In the second example I am wealthier. I had things and experienced things I did not experience in the first instance, things that I wanted to do.
Based on my actions above, did I increase or decrease the money supply? In neither instance did I create or destroy dollars. So, I didn't incrase or decrease the number of dollars in the economy.
The bottom line: You cannot measure wealth with dollars, so don't bother trying. Wealth can be created (and destroyed) by my actions.
I cannot pinpoint the effects of another's poverty on my own situation. In fact, what you are and what you do do not affect me (unless you do something amoral or illegal.) I cannot pinpoint how my actions in creating wealth negatively affected anyone. In fact, when I engage in free trade, I notice that both parties are getting more than what they put in (otherwise, I or the other party wouldn't have done it.)
Your myths are based on superstitions passed on by Marx and his crew of communists. It is all lies, I'm afraid to tell you, without any factual or logical base.
I don't think our capital system would suffer if we had to move our coastlines back by a few meters. And that's all they are talking about if the ice caps melted. Sure, some unlucky souls would see their property---gradually---swept under ocean tides. But it wouldn't happen overnight, and they would have time to sell the property (at a depreciated value, to someone who is gambling the earth will cool) and find somewhere else to live. And if they lose their property? It's not the first time nature decided to wipe out perfectly good property, and it certainly won't be a disaster to the nation or the race.
We, as a planet, have seen, much, much warmer days. We're not talking a few degrees, we're talking a lot more. What was life like on the planet when it was warmer? Were we a desert planet unable to sustain any kind of life, and where civilization was unheard of?
No. The last major warming cycle saw the creation of several major civilizations. The population boom spread humanity all over the globe. Tools became more complicated. Writing was invented. And the first set of written laws was produced.
I find it silly to think that the earth is going to die if we change any of the parameters of its operation within the recorded physical evidence of past history.
Let's take a worst case scenario. Gradually, over hundreds of years, the entire earth warms a few degrees centigrade. Or let's suppose all of Europe goes under ice while the rest of the world (Canada perhaps?) warms up.
Why, over that time span, we could move entire civilizations for less than the cost in reducing CO2 emissions. We could transplace the entie English people into some man-made island that's an exact replica of England for less than the cost of reducing CO2 for hundreds of years in accordance with the Kyoto protocol.
People forget how expensive it is to "save the environment" when you look at the big picture. It's better to take a cut of the profits of that and rebuild whatever we destroy.
On a more serious note, there are people that think global warming is good. Receding ice caps leave minerals in the ocean that encourage sea life and will help feed the world's population. Receding glaciers will open up valuable, fertile ground that hasn't been farmed for nearly a thousand years. And the increase in temperature will raise the humidity world wide, perhaps turning the Sahara desert into the rain forest it used to be, and expanding the world's rainforests to new latitudes.
I could also see a future when there is no freezing winter, it's jus a year-round summer like on the tropical islands. Maybe then we won't be losing so many homeless to the random snowstorms of today.
I often wonder what the world would be like if every year the north and south poles melted. Would the entire world turn into a humid tropical paradise?
The problem isn't that the upper managers are misinformed. They are always misinformed. Any upper manager that thinks somehow they are impervious to lies and half-truths are fools.
At our company, we let people make their own decisions. If they need more hardware or money or resources, they have to go to their managers and get the required resources. But if its new and it doesn't cost any more than what we are already spending, then you get to try it out.
Let me put it this way. Who should decide what kind of car you drive: Your boss, your wife, or you? Who is best suited to make that decision?
Then try this one: Who decides which algorithm you implement to solve some of the engineering problems you encounter? Your boss, your wife, or you?
And let's go one step further: Who decides what language you should use or what OS you should run on?
This is just an example of how free markets create wealth.
What value did Second Life have before people moved in and started exercising their rights to engage in unrestricted trade? Absolutely nothing, except a bunch of promise.
But when people began exchanging goods and services without restriction, they begin to build something beautiful.
Imagine for a moment that the owners of Second Life tried something other than free market economics. What if they decided they would dictate the direction of growth? Or what if they controlled the money supply and gave it only to people they liked? Or what if they banned certain transactions? What if Second Life had a board of very smart and highly educated economists trying to create the ideal economy? What if they had onerous taxes and regulations?
If you think that anything but free markets work, you haven't had much experience in the real world.
I would hope that we can take some of the principles that makes Second Life so wonderful (IE, free trade) and bring it into our real world so that we can create even more wealth.
Re: WWI
It's hard to argue that the nations involved in that war were real democracies. Most of them were closer to dictatorships. Plus, there were a lot of different nations conspiring to take over all of Europe. Hence, it was a war of aggression, not just of bad nerves. I don't think people had developed a sense at that time of the power of international trade either, to the degree we use it to pacify each other today.
Re: Iran's intentions.
Have you been reading the same speeches given by President Ahmedinajed? I am pretty certain he wants to usher in the Islam equivalent of the Second Coming, which means total destruction of all the other religions. He wants to go through the hell that precedes that, with the expectation that his religion will carry him and the other countries through it. All signs point to this guy wanting to lob nuclear warheads everywhere and us lobbing them back in his face. He is major crazy.
And the jury's still out on whether DPRK has nukes. Some people think they do, others say we should think they do because they say they do (and kick the crap out of them because Kim Jong Il is major crazy) and others think they are following their SOP of lying, lying, and lying. Regardless, having nukes did not increase our opinion or fear of them at all.
The case for Pakistani and India is that if you are a reasonably stable country, and if you are sly enough, you can develop nukes. However, neither Pakistan or India have any intentions on using nukes against anyone but India and Pakistan. They are not a threat to the US, and the Pakistanis have allowed us to inspect their facilities and help ensure no one steals their nukes. Should the political climate in India or Pakistan change (India-unlikely, Pakistan-likely), we'll move to disarm them just as we did Saddam. And remember under whose administration Pakistan got nukes! And also remember that the nukes in Pakistan are a bargaining chip that we use to make sure the Pakistani government cooperate.
This administration has been clear: If you want nukes to blow us up, we will kill you. If you want nukes
to power your cities, that's fine, as long as we trust you won't try to blow us up.
RE: France, Germany, UK, Russian alliance
I can't find the article, so this is hearsay. France has been public about declaring their intention to use nukes against anyone that uses nukes against them. They have even said they will pre-empt if necessary. Germany has elected a pro-Bush government. I think we can assume they will follow Bush just like Australia has. And Russia doesn't want Iran to get nukes if there is a chance they will use them against the Russians. In this case, there is. Regardless, it's an issue in the security council, and the Bush administration wanted it there because they think they have a chance of getting something passed.
RE: Vietnam
The fact that the Vietcong were supplied with weapons, training, and leadership by neighboring communists and the Soviets meant they were connected. I know that people have tried to play down the "global communism war is fought in Vietnam" concept, but it doesn't mean that Pres. Kennedy thought it was, nor the fact that the Soviets thought it was as well.
You seem to misunderstand what the real cause of war is. If you've ever been to a school, you'll note that fights occur for a number of reasons:
(1) People get edgy with all those hormones and fight for no reason at all.
(2) Someone is genuinely trying to hurt someone else or exert their will with physical force. The other party isn't going to take any more of it and decides to fight to protect themselves.
In international politics, (1) is only a problem if you have a single person or very small group of people that decides when to go to war. Democracies, by and large, don't have this kind of structure. Besides, it's always in everybodies' interests if the two people got along and got rich trading with one another.
(2) is far more common. This is the case when you have a corrupt government that seeks to either exploit its people or neighbors with physical force. War doesn't start when they decide to threaten force or use force to exert their will. War starts when somebody stands up to them.
It's often confusing to determine who "started" a war. Did Hitler start WWII, or did England when it decided to fight Germany's expansion policy?
It's nice to imagine some kind of conspiracy where the "military complex" determines when and how to go to war. I'll grant you one thing: Technology creates uncertainty, and uncertainty allows bad people to be more bold in their actions.
Here's a current modern day example. Iran has at its head a group of people whose purpose is to start a world war. They want a new piece of technology --- nuclear weapons --- because they think it will give them power enough to stand up to the US. It's really not certain if nuclear weapons are powerful enough to convince the American democracy to cower in fear. (They may well be!) So Iran is more bold in moving towards aggression and making threats.
When the US and its allies begin the invasion of Iran, likely, the blame for "starting" a war will go on the heads of President Bush and his friends. (Note: Already, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia have pledged to help with the invasion of Iran. There are several other smaller countries, including some Middle Eastern ones, who have pledged to help as well.) However, the true cause of this war should be Iran's aggression and threats to the annihilation of Israel and a nuclear attack on Europe and the US.
The Vietnam war, likewise, wasn't caused by a bunch of military industrialists. It was caused by communist aggression. They tried to turn a sovereign, democratic country into a wing of the Communist empire by force. The war really didn't start until the US decided to stop the aggression with force. Did the US start that war? No, but it was there to try and finish it.
There is an inferiority complex among the group who refers to others as "the man". They assume that "the man" is pulling strings behind the scenes and that there is no way that they could ever hope to beat "the man" except through violence or hatred campaigns.
Consider this. Just for a moment, clear your mind of all the hatred and pent up rage within your soul. Then let's think logically for a moment. Let's assume that votes really count, that politicians really do have to get elected, and that the government is really ultimately run by the politicians, when push comes to shove. Who is "the man" that is oppressing the people? It is the government. But the government is made up of politicians, or people accountable to politicians. And the politicians are elected by the people. So "the man" is really "the people". People are abusing themselves.
Let's look at it another way--"the man" being corporate suits. Where do they get their power? From their money. Where do they get their money? From the people. If the people stopped eating at McDonalds or buying Nike shoes, these companies really do go out of business. And the corporations really are held accountable to the politicians. When they really screw up they get thrown in jail for real, that is, when the politicians want them in jail. And who elects the politicians?
In both cases, the power ultimately rests with the people. There is no need to fight "the man" except by participating in politics and participating in business. In fact, you yourself can become "the man" if you figure out how to get elected or how to make a billions dollars a year. "The man" is a position that is held at the whim of the people. If they don't like you, you don't get elected. If they don't like your products, you don't get your money.
When you fight against "the man" you are really fighting against the people in this country. Keep that in mind.