Look up what happened in Cuba when their trade collapsed. There was widespread famine, and a dramatic restructuring of society. They still use horsedrawn vehicles because petrol is so hard to come by. Their economy is still primarily agrarian. And that's coming down from a relatively modest economic height - the US economy is still one of the largest in the world, and for it to come down from that height would have a massive impact. Also, the American populace own far, far more guns than the Cubans did.
I think it's entirely possible that the US could up and say "Yeah, about that. Not gonna pay. All dents are zeroed. Sorry." The capability is objectively there. The will? Perhaps not. But it isn't inconceivable.
Ok, if that were to happen: Imports would abruptly stop as trade sanctions from pretty much everywhere are imposed. The worth of the dollar outside the US drops to zero. Wall Street is abandoned in favour of another market somewhere a bit more rational. Any company without a large infrastructure investment in the US - including pretty much all the tech companies - leave for a country which isn't trade sanctioned. Most of the educated class follow the jobs. The US' manufacturing capability is shot to hell, due to reliance on off-shore manufacturers, so all those resources you have would be sitting doing diddly. The price of oil would sky-rocket as supplies dwindled, and pretty soon, you'd run into power problems.
You can't import tech from anywhere, because nobody will trade with you, and you can't make it yourself because all your brains have run off to sensible countries that don't screw over the rest of the world. Pretty much the only alternatives for the US are to use their military to turn conquistador, or to revert to an agrarian economy, and suffer through the recession and inevitable riots and civil unrest long enough to reskill the populace and reboot its industrial capacity. Oh, and good luck finding anyone willing to invest large amounts of money in that reboot.
Also, during that time, your military will have mostly abandoned their posts as the government wouldn't be able to afford to pay them, and the units themselves would have had no maintenance (no parts), assuming they hadn't been all scavenged to hold the failing infrastructure up a bit longer. The US no longer has the capacity to fulfil their end of any of their military treaties, which collapse. Your military contractors have all abandoned a country that can no longer pay them, and probably gone to the only remaining power large enough to bankroll them.
Likewise, reducing taxes to zero obviously will result in zero government income.
Depending on what you mean by "taxes", not necessarily. Government can still get income from payment for services (don't know about the US, but here you have to pay when you renew your drivers license), and on customs and excise (which your may or may not count as a "tax").
Fine, people should help people in need with their own money, rather than using their government positions to take other people's money to do it for them.
The government isn't a magical socialist fairy. But it's not "the people" or "us" either. The government is a collection of individuals who have leveraged their connections, and often their pre-existing wealth to get into a position where they control all the lawyers, and all the guns.
No, what I'm saying is stop perpetuating the poor as a class by latching them firmly onto the assistance teat, and work at integrating them into society as contributing members. What you're saying is we'll rob from the rich to feed the poor - where "rich" is anyone richer than me.
Which is why I prefixed it with "ideologically". It's still the thing the Republican party says it stands for - especially in the minds of its long-term voters - even though its actions have pretty much made a mockery of it. But then, the Democrats actions haven't really reflected their ideology (well, their post-slavery ideology) lately either - drone strikes and kill lists, absue of due process, expansion of the TSA, etc.
You have it right there in your post - tax cuts vs tax increases. Ideologically, Republicans are for lower taxes, thus, less control of government over an individuals money. Of course, both parties have drifted pretty far from their ideological roots, and the Republicans are cutting taxes to please one group, while spending more to please others. Doesn't matter to many voters though, because they've self-identified as D or R, and the actual actions of those parties don't mean diddly.
What are you talking about? Both parties want to have it both ways. Republicans want to regulate morality, and free money, and Democrats want to regulate money, and free morality.
An operating system can't have a monopoly. Monopolies are things merchants (ie: corporations) have. No corporation can have a monopoly on the Android OS due to its licensing. If Google at some stage decided to close Android and make it proprietary, then they might be able to generate a monopoly - or someone could fork the last free release and run with that.
The issue with Windows wasn't that it was the de fact desktop OS worldwide; the issue was that it was controlled by a single corporation who abused its market position.
1. Kid injured or killed 2. Ban the product that did the killing 3. Parent learns that its not their responsibility to look after their kids - that's what the government is for 4. Kid #2 dies choking on a lego, which the parents lobby to get banned because, hey, it's not their job to look after their kids.
Fine. Just don't start bitching when your children are excluded from the internet.
Seriously, you expect every website to add the infrastructure for handling and verifying written permission before they record your child's IP address? Yeah right. They'll add a little tickbox to their signup page, requiring the user to confirm they're over the age of 13 before they can use the service. And if your children lie and do it anyway, hell, the way the US is going, that'll probably be a federal hacking offence and they'll get carted off to juvie for a spell.
I know you didn't say that. The OP did. And when someone argued against the OP, you criticized them for appealing to authority. So it looks like there's no way for a religious person to argue: either they sit in silence and are slandered, or they apply a perfectly logical argument (providing a specific example to counter a general statement) and are accused of fallacy.
What is logical response to "religious people are all fucking idiots" if you're not allowed to cite examples of well-known intellectuals who were also religious, without being accused of an appeal to authority?
And you were modded Insightful because your post aligned with the prevailing Slashdot opinion, while mine was modded Troll because it didn't.
OP: All religious people are fucking idiots GP: Here's an example of religious person who wasn't a fucking idiot* You: Look how all those religious people need constant confirmation of their beliefs by appealing to authority.
* Yeah, Einstein wasn't a good example, but there are plenty of people who are.
It's not an unreasonable model - it's essentially the same as all those "freemium" games. The problem is when you don't get enough "mium" to pay for the "free" - and obviously, people were willing to settle for the electronic books without the physical.
While It's kind of sad when some obnoxious jerk wants to poke religious folks in the eye, it's kind of amusing that the best the religious folks can come up with is an agnostic.
Who said that was the best? He was just the first off-the-top-of-the-head response from a particular person, not the best example the entirety of the religion could collectively come up with.
That said, as an atheist it seems that placing faith in a demonstrably false belief system (i.e., most religions) isn't the best way to find truth.
I always find the fetishism many atheists have towards rationality amusing, since atheism isn't a particularly rational belief (that would be agnosticism). It's very hard for a belief system to be "demonstrably false" when that system includes as a basic premise a conscious entity that can transcend the physical laws of the universe. Unprovable, yes, but not provably false. That's a distinction that many self-described paragons of rationality don't seem to be able to grasp.
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Look up what happened in Cuba when their trade collapsed. There was widespread famine, and a dramatic restructuring of society. They still use horsedrawn vehicles because petrol is so hard to come by. Their economy is still primarily agrarian. And that's coming down from a relatively modest economic height - the US economy is still one of the largest in the world, and for it to come down from that height would have a massive impact. Also, the American populace own far, far more guns than the Cubans did.
I think it's entirely possible that the US could up and say "Yeah, about that. Not gonna pay. All dents are zeroed. Sorry." The capability is objectively there. The will? Perhaps not. But it isn't inconceivable.
Ok, if that were to happen: Imports would abruptly stop as trade sanctions from pretty much everywhere are imposed. The worth of the dollar outside the US drops to zero. Wall Street is abandoned in favour of another market somewhere a bit more rational. Any company without a large infrastructure investment in the US - including pretty much all the tech companies - leave for a country which isn't trade sanctioned. Most of the educated class follow the jobs. The US' manufacturing capability is shot to hell, due to reliance on off-shore manufacturers, so all those resources you have would be sitting doing diddly. The price of oil would sky-rocket as supplies dwindled, and pretty soon, you'd run into power problems.
You can't import tech from anywhere, because nobody will trade with you, and you can't make it yourself because all your brains have run off to sensible countries that don't screw over the rest of the world. Pretty much the only alternatives for the US are to use their military to turn conquistador, or to revert to an agrarian economy, and suffer through the recession and inevitable riots and civil unrest long enough to reskill the populace and reboot its industrial capacity. Oh, and good luck finding anyone willing to invest large amounts of money in that reboot.
Also, during that time, your military will have mostly abandoned their posts as the government wouldn't be able to afford to pay them, and the units themselves would have had no maintenance (no parts), assuming they hadn't been all scavenged to hold the failing infrastructure up a bit longer. The US no longer has the capacity to fulfil their end of any of their military treaties, which collapse. Your military contractors have all abandoned a country that can no longer pay them, and probably gone to the only remaining power large enough to bankroll them.
The US would be post-apocalyptic within a decade.
No, that would be a charity. The government is a way some PEOPLE use force to extract money from other PEOPLE to help their friends.
The government serves the people and serves to create, coordinate and direct efforts and money to improve the lives of it s citizens.
Ahahah hahahah hahahah hahahahah hahahha *splat*
The "splat" was the sound of a drone strike splattering one of "we the people's" heads on the authorization of a single man, with no due process.
and decreasing all spending to 0 would allow for a tax rate of 0%
No it wouldn't. The US still needs to service its debt.
Likewise, reducing taxes to zero obviously will result in zero government income.
Depending on what you mean by "taxes", not necessarily. Government can still get income from payment for services (don't know about the US, but here you have to pay when you renew your drivers license), and on customs and excise (which your may or may not count as a "tax").
Where've you been the last 60 years?
Fine, people should help people in need with their own money, rather than using their government positions to take other people's money to do it for them.
Is that better, mr. nitpicker?
The government isn't a magical socialist fairy. But it's not "the people" or "us" either. The government is a collection of individuals who have leveraged their connections, and often their pre-existing wealth to get into a position where they control all the lawyers, and all the guns.
No, what I'm saying is stop perpetuating the poor as a class by latching them firmly onto the assistance teat, and work at integrating them into society as contributing members. What you're saying is we'll rob from the rich to feed the poor - where "rich" is anyone richer than me.
Which is why I prefixed it with "ideologically". It's still the thing the Republican party says it stands for - especially in the minds of its long-term voters - even though its actions have pretty much made a mockery of it. But then, the Democrats actions haven't really reflected their ideology (well, their post-slavery ideology) lately either - drone strikes and kill lists, absue of due process, expansion of the TSA, etc.
You have it right there in your post - tax cuts vs tax increases. Ideologically, Republicans are for lower taxes, thus, less control of government over an individuals money. Of course, both parties have drifted pretty far from their ideological roots, and the Republicans are cutting taxes to please one group, while spending more to please others. Doesn't matter to many voters though, because they've self-identified as D or R, and the actual actions of those parties don't mean diddly.
What are you talking about? Both parties want to have it both ways. Republicans want to regulate morality, and free money, and Democrats want to regulate money, and free morality.
Any actual statistics to back that up? Or are you just spinning what you think reality should be into "fact". Because when people actually try and measure it, it turns out they do, and you're wrong: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/who_gives_to_charity.html
Because they believe that PEOPLE should help people in need, rather than rely on the government to take other people's money to do it for them?
An operating system can't have a monopoly. Monopolies are things merchants (ie: corporations) have. No corporation can have a monopoly on the Android OS due to its licensing. If Google at some stage decided to close Android and make it proprietary, then they might be able to generate a monopoly - or someone could fork the last free release and run with that.
The issue with Windows wasn't that it was the de fact desktop OS worldwide; the issue was that it was controlled by a single corporation who abused its market position.
Guns, assault rifles, knives, mace spray, tazers, baseball bats, and realistic 3rd person shooters
One of these things is not like the other. Unless wherever you are puts their games in heavily reinforced boxes.
As opposed to:
1. Kid injured or killed
2. Ban the product that did the killing
3. Parent learns that its not their responsibility to look after their kids - that's what the government is for
4. Kid #2 dies choking on a lego, which the parents lobby to get banned because, hey, it's not their job to look after their kids.
And by your logic, anything can kill you, so ban it all!
No; two wrongs make it funny.
Fine. Just don't start bitching when your children are excluded from the internet.
Seriously, you expect every website to add the infrastructure for handling and verifying written permission before they record your child's IP address? Yeah right. They'll add a little tickbox to their signup page, requiring the user to confirm they're over the age of 13 before they can use the service. And if your children lie and do it anyway, hell, the way the US is going, that'll probably be a federal hacking offence and they'll get carted off to juvie for a spell.
I know you didn't say that. The OP did. And when someone argued against the OP, you criticized them for appealing to authority. So it looks like there's no way for a religious person to argue: either they sit in silence and are slandered, or they apply a perfectly logical argument (providing a specific example to counter a general statement) and are accused of fallacy.
What is logical response to "religious people are all fucking idiots" if you're not allowed to cite examples of well-known intellectuals who were also religious, without being accused of an appeal to authority?
And you were modded Insightful because your post aligned with the prevailing Slashdot opinion, while mine was modded Troll because it didn't.
OP: All religious people are fucking idiots
GP: Here's an example of religious person who wasn't a fucking idiot*
You: Look how all those religious people need constant confirmation of their beliefs by appealing to authority.
* Yeah, Einstein wasn't a good example, but there are plenty of people who are.
So whenever an atheist says all religious people are stupid, there is no defence, because any attempt to provide an example is a logical fallacy.
Viva la reason!
It's not an unreasonable model - it's essentially the same as all those "freemium" games. The problem is when you don't get enough "mium" to pay for the "free" - and obviously, people were willing to settle for the electronic books without the physical.
While It's kind of sad when some obnoxious jerk wants to poke religious folks in the eye, it's kind of amusing that the best the religious folks can come up with is an agnostic.
Who said that was the best? He was just the first off-the-top-of-the-head response from a particular person, not the best example the entirety of the religion could collectively come up with.
That said, as an atheist it seems that placing faith in a demonstrably false belief system (i.e., most religions) isn't the best way to find truth.
I always find the fetishism many atheists have towards rationality amusing, since atheism isn't a particularly rational belief (that would be agnosticism). It's very hard for a belief system to be "demonstrably false" when that system includes as a basic premise a conscious entity that can transcend the physical laws of the universe. Unprovable, yes, but not provably false. That's a distinction that many self-described paragons of rationality don't seem to be able to grasp.