It's too bad that the unions ruined those hard-fought gains through their own greed and corruption. If they'd been more honest, frugal, and responsible, when the world started competing and the borders opened up, unions would've still had real clout.
Abortion: Romney would NOT outlaw it. He's not running on this at all. He doesn't support Roe V. Wade, but he's shown no interest in overturning it, just like Obama hasn't touched trying to ban assault weapons.
Gay rights: If you mean gay MARRIAGE, Romney wants nothing to do with this topic, politically. Besides, this is going to be resolved by the SCOTUS within a year or two thanks to the DOMA case coming before them, regardless of who is president. On other gay rights, Romney's not a radical preacher. He's a centrist. To say anything otherwise requires proof.
Taxes: Romney is cutting taxes. Obama is raising taxes. Anyone for MORE taxes on a small set of people while allowing almost half of Americans not pay a penny in federal income taxes (many of whom get freebie tax credits for simply not using birth control) needs their head examined. Corporate taxes DO need to be cut, so American companies will start actually paying taxes in the country.
Medicare: Romney has repeatedly said he will NOT end it. He would offer an alternative. Also, minor tweaks aren't going to keep it solvent.
Budget: (You forgot this one) - $5+ trillion in FOUR YEARS. How many liberal programs could've been funded by just the INTEREST ONLY PAYMENTS we'll be paying in perpetuity because the Obama administration (and Bush's before him) couldn't manage the economy? Again - $5,000,000,000,000+... just four years... I don't care if it's God running for president... That's an epic fiscal failure that will hurt for decades to come.
Maybe he needs to consider the lost opportunity cost of not taking a chemistry class when it's available to his children in school. How many people have a full-blown, school-level chemistry lab with cool chemicals and tools to work with in their homes (with hoods and acids that can eat your face off)? How much will it cost to do it in college, with textbook and lab costs along with tuition?
I'm not saying that CNN News or the networks are models of objectivity either, but MSNBC (or most of Fox News) programming are embarrassingly slanted. They're our modern Tokyo Rose or Pravda, which we snicker at in retrospect.
...I certainly don't think that they should get tax-exempt status.
If you kill that tax-exempt status, it would put a lot of religious organizations "out of business". That sounds great to some, until you realize that part of their business is caring for the poor with material wealth that is voluntarily given "to God". You'd have to replace that privately funded welfare system with a public, state-sponsored alternate to pick up the slack, which will require more taxes to pay for it. You're also then replacing a highly-motivated, volunteer workforce administering those church welfare programs ("I want to get into heaven, so I need to do my best...") with a bunch of bureaucrats and public workers motivated by less "divine" motivation, which would mean a LOT less efficiency in the system, leading to even more costs.
So... You kill churches and voluntary donations (and remove the sense of pride that gives people), replace them with a new tax on everyone (vs. just the voluntary tax on the religious), and run it with a less efficient and less motivated workforce - all to make religions as rare as "they deserve" to be?
For all of your intellect (and personal indoctrination you mock others for having), you should probably learn some basic economics as well.
Testifying to have simply seen a book made of gold (that's all 8 claimed to have seen - nothing "divine", just a book of golden "plates") isn't exactly on the same level as claiming to have seen a dead mean standing on a cloud, is it?
More importantly, if eleven people - all of which had good reason to lie about it out of spite but still didn't - testified of something in court today under oath that you're arguing against, and you had no physical proof to stand against it, you'd better have a REALLY good lawyer 'cause you're gonna lose.
...Joseph Smith's story about the golden plates that no-one ever saw...
Does that include the eleven men who saw them - most of which left the church completely within ten years but still never denied seeing them? That is undisputed, historical fact.
and his excuses for why he couldn't translate the same transcript the same way twice.
That's assuming that the people that took the 1st transcript had truly altruistic and pure motives, and weren't just out to debunk the "prophet" by dishonestly altering the 1st and saying, "See - you aren't a real prophet because they don't match," when the 2nd translation of the same work came out. "Religious" people have never used logic like, "The ends justify the means", right?
Live in Utah or Arizona for a big serving of anti-Mormons coming up with thinly veiled bigotry like this.
More often than not, they're just excuses for shifting blame from some problem they have in their own lives to some boogeyman (in this case, the LDS church, the "Mormon mafia", etc.). Here's a sample of the whining you'll hear:
Kids - "They won't be friends with me because I'm not Mormon."..."My parents said I couldn't play with Mormons because they're bad." (Yes, that level of bigotry still exists in 2012. I've seen it firsthand.)
Teenagers/young adults - "She won't date me because I'm not Mormon."... "Those f**king Mormons f**king think they're better than me because I (fill in the blank). F**k them all."
Adults - "I got fired because I'm not Mormon."... "Mormons are only nice neighbors with other Mormon neighbors... What are their names? Why should I know?"... "They didn't vote for me because I'm not Mormon."... "I didn't get the promotion because I'm not Mormon. I bet a MORMON got it, instead."... "They wouldn't listen to me because I'm not Mormon." "They didn't accept my offer because another offer was from a Mormon."
Yes, there are some Mormon jerks, but they aren't living the spirit of their own religion, and more importantly, there are jerks in EVERY religion.
Bottom line: People that play those whiny cards - especially those who live around a lot of Mormons and see the good they actually do in society (vs. just listening to secondhand hearsay - like the vague crap this parent post spewed) need to grow a pair and take responsibility for their own lives.
Why would they stop at that point? Pricing per individual would be the best optimization, based on how good their credit history, bank account balances,
etc.).
An automated system like this would be able to drive away "less than beautiful" customers. Cheaper alcohol for beautiful people, while pricing out the less-than-rich uglies (who cares if they're ugly if they can buy $20 beers?) The automatic pricing becomes the, "You don't meet our dress code," bouncer at the door. People would figure this out and many would actually WANT to go to places like that because of their reputation for rewarding beautiful people, feeding its well-to-do clientele's own vanity. A cheap beer would be a badge of honor.
It's pure genius if they can get the tech to work and market it right.
I will drive at a speed I deem safe, regardless of what the herd is doing.
Assuming this isn't flamebait and this commenter is real, then they have proven without a doubt that not all dangerous, selfish, control freak, asshole drivers are speeders.
Whether you're paying $6-7/hour or $60/hour, it's going to be a tough haul for some average jurors to stay interested enough to care, let alone keep it all straight in their heads.
Having served on a grand jury in my state for four months (reviewing case, after case, after case, after case... drool), I can attest to how hard it can be to stay focused. When we had a case come up with 30+ counts late in the day, half of the jury would completely zone out, relying on others to make the right choice.
I'm sure the lawyers on both sides are taking that all into account in their strategy sessions. Their arguments will probably have as many "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit" soundbytes as they can cram in...
But it's exactly like having twenty police officers on every single street corner hand writing voluminous logs of every plate they see, along with the current date and time.
Since that could be done without warrant, this is obviously perfectly fine, and not even worth thinking about.
This is the exact same argument that cops used for placing GPS trackers without warrants on suspect's vehicles. That argument was shot down 9-0 by the Supreme Court.
Some of the justices were upset that the other justices didn't widen that case's ruling to deal with this kind of tracking as well. They're going to have to deal with it ASAP, before every form of electronic tracking (facial recognition, LPR, photo radar, GPS in cars for "gas tax collection", etc.) all become socially unavoidable. (And you can bet that Congress - swamped with lobbyists - isn't going to directly deal with this, either.)
Bush Junior inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's term.
Along with that surplus, however, Bush Jr. also inherited an economy from Clinton that was fizzling at the very end of Clinton's administration in 2000 as the dot-com bubble popped and the economy was starting to slide downwards. By 2001, the country was primed for a recession, and the 9/11 attack - less than a year into his presidency - pushed the economy over the edge.
Also, the undoing of the Glass-Steagal Act - a major deregulation of the banking industry which directly led to the financial collapse in 2008 - was passed under Clinton's watch.
It's time the US started spending MORE money building a positive image, making new discoveries , and advancing human achievement......... and spend LESS money trying to become the policeman of the world.
We'll never really know what good those wars have done (vs. what would've happened with inaction), but in general I do agree that Bush's wars are a hard sell - especially the 2003 Iraq occupation. The price for forcibly putting a deomcracy up there was extremely high. And it is time to wind down the Afghanistan operations - that country's a mess. You can't force freedom and education on a people too afraid to stand up for themselves.
With that said, that excuse is several years old now. Look at now... 2012... and the balance sheet of the country. Regardless of the circumstances, the Obama administration has added $5,000,000,000,000 in debt in FOUR YEARS, and the economy - due to bad decisions by people over the last generation of business leaders and politicians - is as brittle and hollow as ever. When are people going to realize how much in perpetual debt service (i.e. interest-only payments FOREVER) was added during these four years that could've been going towards that "building a positive image, making new discoveries...", but will now going into international bankers' coffers? And what happens when those investors finally tire of the super-low interest rates government debt is currently paying out, and the rate HAS to go up? That's HUNDREDS of BILLIONS more... every year.
If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen, but his administration (and Congress) are not taking them seriously.
How many more years is this guy going to get a "it's Bush's fault" mulligan before just look at the budget numbers? They're unsustainable... If Obama is re-elected, and we go thorugh four more years of trillions more added to the debt, and still no long-term fixes to Social Security, Medicare, etc. is he going to still blame Bush and ask for a 3rd term - perhaps because that's what FDR needed? "Make no mistake... By 2020, I'll have the American economy evolving back into the superpower that it once was. China, India, and Brazil will once again fear our economic might... "
This alleged tax evasion charge was manufactured solely by Harry Reid, who said he was allegedly citing an unnamed "Bain investor". Not a Bain executive, or even a Bain employee - just an "investor". Think about that - How would THEY know what Romney paid in taxes? They wouldn't know any better than a big-time stock holder of Microsoft shares would know if Bill Gates had paid his taxes... Mitt Romney has asked him to cite his sources, and Reid has shrewdly said, "well, show us your tax returns." It's a 100% ridiculous and baseless accusation (that Sen. Reid shrewdly made on the Senate floor to protect him from libel/slander charges or lawsuits, BTW), but Harry has accomplished his goal as a Democrat: People are STILL talking about Romney's wealth and not other, more substantive issues.
Seriously... This tax evasion charge is on the level of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theories, and should be condemned as such. It's at least as laughable and unfounded. Yet it goes on and on, and the Obama administration is doing nothing to stop it, of course.
With that said, I absolutely agree with the rest of your post.
It seems Democrats got blocked every time they tried something similar even if both parties thought it was a good idea.
Both parties in the legislative branch have become political a-holes recently - stonewalling any progress that could be made. It's leading to cracks in the Constitutional foundation of our country in the form of an executive branch that is now just flat out to ignore standing laws signed by previous presidents - Dem or GOP:
Defense of Marriage Act - signed by Clinton
Welfare reform - signed by Clinton
Immigration laws - signed by Reagan
We're facing a real crisis in the federal government, and people are arguing about stupid crap like how much money Mitt Romney made or Obama's misquoted verbal gaffes. There's no unified leadership coming from anyone... the polarized media, the president, Congress, etc. By default, we're forced to rely upon the Supreme Court to solve issues now... We're slowly becoming a nation with a bought and paid for president and legislature that are ruled by nine supreme judges? What are we - Iran?
So, in a sense, they are burning in the Hell they themselves have created.
The "hell they themselves created"? I didn't know that the key "blue" states - New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, etc. - with their huge consuming populations and industrial centers, aren't burning nearly as much energy and creating CO2 as the "red", poorer southern states or the "red" farmlands of the midwest...
Everyone would have to make sacrifices across the entire country to make real change happen. We could set an example for the rest of the world to enviously follow - but neither side REALLY wants that. Both sides want their cake and to eat it too. GOP - "We're entitled to cheap energy, a big military, high paying jobs, and cheaper Chinese-made junk from Wal-Mart! Damn the consequences - just give it all to me!" Dem - "We're entitled to our food stamps, high paying union jobs in thousands of factories, our entitlements - and a clean environment! Give us what we deserve! Damn the consequences... just do it!"
It's not a "blue" or "red" problem. It's an American entitlement problem.
Republicans, on the other hand, love unwanted pregnancies. And STDs. They are God's punishments for having sex. That is why they hate both birth control and abortions. You are circumventing God's will that you be punished with a child. If you don't believe me, look up the controversy over the HPV vaccine.
I call "grizzled, partisan BS". I'm a religious Republican (attend church every week, etc.). My oldest son just got his first dose of the HPV vaccine, and my other son will get it when it's time. HPV is a part of life now, and you don't want it - so you'd better get innoculated.
I also believe that birth control should be made available to those who want it and is a personal decision. Religious types that refuse to dispense birth control are hurting others' ability to choose for themselves.
While abortions are truly sad and I have no problem with laws that educate potential mothers about the possible physical and psychological risks of aborting a fetus (which piss liberals off because they feel like unwanted peer pressure), banning abortions altogether in the 1st trimester isn't "fair and balanced" policy (apologies to Fox News), considering all things (especially your "who's going to take care of them?" argument). Some people who are against abortion at any point don't even realize that regular birth control pills can cause a fertilized embryo to not implant in the uterus - technically causing an abortion by "the pill"... I agree with the basic, compromising principle of, "Once the child becomes a viable life form of its own (roughly 20 weeks - or 1 lb.), the mother has vanquished all rights to kill the fetus."
My point isn't to list out every one of my beliefs, but rather to prove that not all GOPers are ignorant idiots incapable of compromise or common sense - just like all Democrats aren't superior, intellectual geniuses.
The ability to listen and consider the other side of an argument is like the Latin language. People know of it, but precious few actually use it.
class action seldom really benefits anyone but the law firms.
Wrong. While it's true that the cash payout isn't that great for individual plaintiffs (vs. the lawyers who make big-time dough), the THREAT of class action lawsuits keeps companies in line. Therefore, the consumer benefits.
OTOH, as other posters have already said, arbitration almost always settles in favor of the "rich". In many contracts/EULAs with binding arbitration, the arbitrators are selected by the companies, which means they are paid by the companies - a conflict of interest that leads to them favoring the companies (if they want to get hired again).
Our legal system may be flawed, but since the executive and legislative branches are now in the hands of big money, the judicial system is all the average Joe have left to truly protect our rights. Why give that last right up? (And even those rights are dwindling due to big money and corruption. While the federal level is still relatively clean, the state level judicial systems are being corroded by companies that are now trying to load various state supreme courts with hand-picked judges so they can appeal any losses to the top and get the judgments they want when a lower-level judge tries to do the right thing...)
Yes, that 17 year old is a total loser and should be punished - but not by the government. Instead, it should be by Twitter and his parents (though it seems that they've already failed, so I wouldn't count on them doing much.)
Maybe some public humiliation (like that brought on by this story) would work?
Ron Paul ran on a platform like this, but he was ahead of his time.
When world and domestic circumstances finally force the USA's hand into doing major things like what you're suggesting (probably due to unavoidable debt constraints), then your suggestions will be (involuntarily) implemented. Until then, your ideas are untouchable, politically because people don't want to give up the American cake while eating it too.
BTW - I'm for legalizing and taxing/regulating marijuana comparable to alcohol, but other drugs? Not so much. And the DEA/ATF will need to continue to function to control the flow of highly-addictive and more socially-damaging drugs like meth, heroin, cocaine, etc.
And my favorite - Bisphenol A (BPA). It'll probably be another generation before we can finally get that potentially toxic crap out of our food and drink containers.
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This is all true.
It's too bad that the unions ruined those hard-fought gains through their own greed and corruption. If they'd been more honest, frugal, and responsible, when the world started competing and the borders opened up, unions would've still had real clout.
Wrong:
Abortion: Romney would NOT outlaw it. He's not running on this at all. He doesn't support Roe V. Wade, but he's shown no interest in overturning it, just like Obama hasn't touched trying to ban assault weapons.
Gay rights: If you mean gay MARRIAGE, Romney wants nothing to do with this topic, politically. Besides, this is going to be resolved by the SCOTUS within a year or two thanks to the DOMA case coming before them, regardless of who is president. On other gay rights, Romney's not a radical preacher. He's a centrist. To say anything otherwise requires proof.
Taxes: Romney is cutting taxes. Obama is raising taxes. Anyone for MORE taxes on a small set of people while allowing almost half of Americans not pay a penny in federal income taxes (many of whom get freebie tax credits for simply not using birth control) needs their head examined. Corporate taxes DO need to be cut, so American companies will start actually paying taxes in the country.
Medicare: Romney has repeatedly said he will NOT end it. He would offer an alternative. Also, minor tweaks aren't going to keep it solvent.
Budget: (You forgot this one) - $5+ trillion in FOUR YEARS. How many liberal programs could've been funded by just the INTEREST ONLY PAYMENTS we'll be paying in perpetuity because the Obama administration (and Bush's before him) couldn't manage the economy? Again - $5,000,000,000,000+... just four years... I don't care if it's God running for president... That's an epic fiscal failure that will hurt for decades to come.
Maybe he needs to consider the lost opportunity cost of not taking a chemistry class when it's available to his children in school. How many people have a full-blown, school-level chemistry lab with cool chemicals and tools to work with in their homes (with hoods and acids that can eat your face off)? How much will it cost to do it in college, with textbook and lab costs along with tuition?
Or maybe they would rediscover objective thought?
I'm not saying that CNN News or the networks are models of objectivity either, but MSNBC (or most of Fox News) programming are embarrassingly slanted. They're our modern Tokyo Rose or Pravda, which we snicker at in retrospect.
If you kill that tax-exempt status, it would put a lot of religious organizations "out of business". That sounds great to some, until you realize that part of their business is caring for the poor with material wealth that is voluntarily given "to God". You'd have to replace that privately funded welfare system with a public, state-sponsored alternate to pick up the slack, which will require more taxes to pay for it. You're also then replacing a highly-motivated, volunteer workforce administering those church welfare programs ("I want to get into heaven, so I need to do my best...") with a bunch of bureaucrats and public workers motivated by less "divine" motivation, which would mean a LOT less efficiency in the system, leading to even more costs. So... You kill churches and voluntary donations (and remove the sense of pride that gives people), replace them with a new tax on everyone (vs. just the voluntary tax on the religious), and run it with a less efficient and less motivated workforce - all to make religions as rare as "they deserve" to be? For all of your intellect (and personal indoctrination you mock others for having), you should probably learn some basic economics as well.
Testifying to have simply seen a book made of gold (that's all 8 claimed to have seen - nothing "divine", just a book of golden "plates") isn't exactly on the same level as claiming to have seen a dead mean standing on a cloud, is it?
More importantly, if eleven people - all of which had good reason to lie about it out of spite but still didn't - testified of something in court today under oath that you're arguing against, and you had no physical proof to stand against it, you'd better have a REALLY good lawyer 'cause you're gonna lose.
Does that include the eleven men who saw them - most of which left the church completely within ten years but still never denied seeing them? That is undisputed, historical fact.
and his excuses for why he couldn't translate the same transcript the same way twice.
That's assuming that the people that took the 1st transcript had truly altruistic and pure motives, and weren't just out to debunk the "prophet" by dishonestly altering the 1st and saying, "See - you aren't a real prophet because they don't match," when the 2nd translation of the same work came out. "Religious" people have never used logic like, "The ends justify the means", right?
Live in Utah or Arizona for a big serving of anti-Mormons coming up with thinly veiled bigotry like this.
More often than not, they're just excuses for shifting blame from some problem they have in their own lives to some boogeyman (in this case, the LDS church, the "Mormon mafia", etc.). Here's a sample of the whining you'll hear:
Kids - "They won't be friends with me because I'm not Mormon."..."My parents said I couldn't play with Mormons because they're bad." (Yes, that level of bigotry still exists in 2012. I've seen it firsthand.)
Teenagers/young adults - "She won't date me because I'm not Mormon."... "Those f**king Mormons f**king think they're better than me because I (fill in the blank). F**k them all."
Adults - "I got fired because I'm not Mormon."... "Mormons are only nice neighbors with other Mormon neighbors... What are their names? Why should I know?"... "They didn't vote for me because I'm not Mormon."... "I didn't get the promotion because I'm not Mormon. I bet a MORMON got it, instead."... "They wouldn't listen to me because I'm not Mormon." "They didn't accept my offer because another offer was from a Mormon."
Yes, there are some Mormon jerks, but they aren't living the spirit of their own religion, and more importantly, there are jerks in EVERY religion.
Bottom line: People that play those whiny cards - especially those who live around a lot of Mormons and see the good they actually do in society (vs. just listening to secondhand hearsay - like the vague crap this parent post spewed) need to grow a pair and take responsibility for their own lives.
Why would they stop at that point? Pricing per individual would be the best optimization, based on how good their credit history, bank account balances, etc.).
An automated system like this would be able to drive away "less than beautiful" customers. Cheaper alcohol for beautiful people, while pricing out the less-than-rich uglies (who cares if they're ugly if they can buy $20 beers?) The automatic pricing becomes the, "You don't meet our dress code," bouncer at the door. People would figure this out and many would actually WANT to go to places like that because of their reputation for rewarding beautiful people, feeding its well-to-do clientele's own vanity. A cheap beer would be a badge of honor.
It's pure genius if they can get the tech to work and market it right.
I will drive at a speed I deem safe, regardless of what the herd is doing.
Assuming this isn't flamebait and this commenter is real, then they have proven without a doubt that not all dangerous, selfish, control freak, asshole drivers are speeders.
Whether you're paying $6-7/hour or $60/hour, it's going to be a tough haul for some average jurors to stay interested enough to care, let alone keep it all straight in their heads.
Having served on a grand jury in my state for four months (reviewing case, after case, after case, after case... drool), I can attest to how hard it can be to stay focused. When we had a case come up with 30+ counts late in the day, half of the jury would completely zone out, relying on others to make the right choice.
I'm sure the lawyers on both sides are taking that all into account in their strategy sessions. Their arguments will probably have as many "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit" soundbytes as they can cram in...
But it's exactly like having twenty police officers on every single street corner hand writing voluminous logs of every plate they see, along with the current date and time.
Since that could be done without warrant, this is obviously perfectly fine, and not even worth thinking about.
This is the exact same argument that cops used for placing GPS trackers without warrants on suspect's vehicles. That argument was shot down 9-0 by the Supreme Court.
Some of the justices were upset that the other justices didn't widen that case's ruling to deal with this kind of tracking as well. They're going to have to deal with it ASAP, before every form of electronic tracking (facial recognition, LPR, photo radar, GPS in cars for "gas tax collection", etc.) all become socially unavoidable. (And you can bet that Congress - swamped with lobbyists - isn't going to directly deal with this, either.)
Learn how to really piss off real developers in a day.
Bush Junior inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's term.
Along with that surplus, however, Bush Jr. also inherited an economy from Clinton that was fizzling at the very end of Clinton's administration in 2000 as the dot-com bubble popped and the economy was starting to slide downwards. By 2001, the country was primed for a recession, and the 9/11 attack - less than a year into his presidency - pushed the economy over the edge.
Also, the undoing of the Glass-Steagal Act - a major deregulation of the banking industry which directly led to the financial collapse in 2008 - was passed under Clinton's watch.
It's time the US started spending MORE money building a positive image, making new discoveries , and advancing human achievement ......... and spend LESS money trying to become the policeman of the world.
We'll never really know what good those wars have done (vs. what would've happened with inaction), but in general I do agree that Bush's wars are a hard sell - especially the 2003 Iraq occupation. The price for forcibly putting a deomcracy up there was extremely high. And it is time to wind down the Afghanistan operations - that country's a mess. You can't force freedom and education on a people too afraid to stand up for themselves.
With that said, that excuse is several years old now. Look at now... 2012... and the balance sheet of the country. Regardless of the circumstances, the Obama administration has added $5,000,000,000,000 in debt in FOUR YEARS, and the economy - due to bad decisions by people over the last generation of business leaders and politicians - is as brittle and hollow as ever. When are people going to realize how much in perpetual debt service (i.e. interest-only payments FOREVER) was added during these four years that could've been going towards that "building a positive image, making new discoveries...", but will now going into international bankers' coffers? And what happens when those investors finally tire of the super-low interest rates government debt is currently paying out, and the rate HAS to go up? That's HUNDREDS of BILLIONS more... every year.
If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen, but his administration (and Congress) are not taking them seriously.
How many more years is this guy going to get a "it's Bush's fault" mulligan before just look at the budget numbers? They're unsustainable... If Obama is re-elected, and we go thorugh four more years of trillions more added to the debt, and still no long-term fixes to Social Security, Medicare, etc. is he going to still blame Bush and ask for a 3rd term - perhaps because that's what FDR needed? "Make no mistake... By 2020, I'll have the American economy evolving back into the superpower that it once was. China, India, and Brazil will once again fear our economic might... "
Plot points based in hard science aren't exactly Michael Bay's MO...
This alleged tax evasion charge was manufactured solely by Harry Reid, who said he was allegedly citing an unnamed "Bain investor". Not a Bain executive, or even a Bain employee - just an "investor". Think about that - How would THEY know what Romney paid in taxes? They wouldn't know any better than a big-time stock holder of Microsoft shares would know if Bill Gates had paid his taxes... Mitt Romney has asked him to cite his sources, and Reid has shrewdly said, "well, show us your tax returns." It's a 100% ridiculous and baseless accusation (that Sen. Reid shrewdly made on the Senate floor to protect him from libel/slander charges or lawsuits, BTW), but Harry has accomplished his goal as a Democrat: People are STILL talking about Romney's wealth and not other, more substantive issues.
Seriously... This tax evasion charge is on the level of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theories, and should be condemned as such. It's at least as laughable and unfounded. Yet it goes on and on, and the Obama administration is doing nothing to stop it, of course.
With that said, I absolutely agree with the rest of your post.
It seems Democrats got blocked every time they tried something similar even if both parties thought it was a good idea.
Both parties in the legislative branch have become political a-holes recently - stonewalling any progress that could be made. It's leading to cracks in the Constitutional foundation of our country in the form of an executive branch that is now just flat out to ignore standing laws signed by previous presidents - Dem or GOP:
We're facing a real crisis in the federal government, and people are arguing about stupid crap like how much money Mitt Romney made or Obama's misquoted verbal gaffes. There's no unified leadership coming from anyone... the polarized media, the president, Congress, etc. By default, we're forced to rely upon the Supreme Court to solve issues now... We're slowly becoming a nation with a bought and paid for president and legislature that are ruled by nine supreme judges? What are we - Iran?
So, in a sense, they are burning in the Hell they themselves have created.
The "hell they themselves created"? I didn't know that the key "blue" states - New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, etc. - with their huge consuming populations and industrial centers, aren't burning nearly as much energy and creating CO2 as the "red", poorer southern states or the "red" farmlands of the midwest...
Everyone would have to make sacrifices across the entire country to make real change happen. We could set an example for the rest of the world to enviously follow - but neither side REALLY wants that. Both sides want their cake and to eat it too. GOP - "We're entitled to cheap energy, a big military, high paying jobs, and cheaper Chinese-made junk from Wal-Mart! Damn the consequences - just give it all to me!" Dem - "We're entitled to our food stamps, high paying union jobs in thousands of factories, our entitlements - and a clean environment! Give us what we deserve! Damn the consequences... just do it!"
It's not a "blue" or "red" problem. It's an American entitlement problem.
Republicans, on the other hand, love unwanted pregnancies. And STDs. They are God's punishments for having sex. That is why they hate both birth control and abortions. You are circumventing God's will that you be punished with a child. If you don't believe me, look up the controversy over the HPV vaccine.
I call "grizzled, partisan BS". I'm a religious Republican (attend church every week, etc.). My oldest son just got his first dose of the HPV vaccine, and my other son will get it when it's time. HPV is a part of life now, and you don't want it - so you'd better get innoculated.
I also believe that birth control should be made available to those who want it and is a personal decision. Religious types that refuse to dispense birth control are hurting others' ability to choose for themselves.
While abortions are truly sad and I have no problem with laws that educate potential mothers about the possible physical and psychological risks of aborting a fetus (which piss liberals off because they feel like unwanted peer pressure), banning abortions altogether in the 1st trimester isn't "fair and balanced" policy (apologies to Fox News), considering all things (especially your "who's going to take care of them?" argument). Some people who are against abortion at any point don't even realize that regular birth control pills can cause a fertilized embryo to not implant in the uterus - technically causing an abortion by "the pill"... I agree with the basic, compromising principle of, "Once the child becomes a viable life form of its own (roughly 20 weeks - or 1 lb.), the mother has vanquished all rights to kill the fetus."
My point isn't to list out every one of my beliefs, but rather to prove that not all GOPers are ignorant idiots incapable of compromise or common sense - just like all Democrats aren't superior, intellectual geniuses.
The ability to listen and consider the other side of an argument is like the Latin language. People know of it, but precious few actually use it.
Intelligence is knowing that someone posted something incorrect in an internet forum.
Wisdom is knowing whether or not to post the reply.
Don't forget your Charisma - 3
class action seldom really benefits anyone but the law firms.
Wrong. While it's true that the cash payout isn't that great for individual plaintiffs (vs. the lawyers who make big-time dough), the THREAT of class action lawsuits keeps companies in line. Therefore, the consumer benefits.
OTOH, as other posters have already said, arbitration almost always settles in favor of the "rich". In many contracts/EULAs with binding arbitration, the arbitrators are selected by the companies, which means they are paid by the companies - a conflict of interest that leads to them favoring the companies (if they want to get hired again).
Our legal system may be flawed, but since the executive and legislative branches are now in the hands of big money, the judicial system is all the average Joe have left to truly protect our rights. Why give that last right up? (And even those rights are dwindling due to big money and corruption. While the federal level is still relatively clean, the state level judicial systems are being corroded by companies that are now trying to load various state supreme courts with hand-picked judges so they can appeal any losses to the top and get the judgments they want when a lower-level judge tries to do the right thing...)
Yes, that 17 year old is a total loser and should be punished - but not by the government. Instead, it should be by Twitter and his parents (though it seems that they've already failed, so I wouldn't count on them doing much.)
Maybe some public humiliation (like that brought on by this story) would work?
Ron Paul ran on a platform like this, but he was ahead of his time.
When world and domestic circumstances finally force the USA's hand into doing major things like what you're suggesting (probably due to unavoidable debt constraints), then your suggestions will be (involuntarily) implemented. Until then, your ideas are untouchable, politically because people don't want to give up the American cake while eating it too.
BTW - I'm for legalizing and taxing/regulating marijuana comparable to alcohol, but other drugs? Not so much. And the DEA/ATF will need to continue to function to control the flow of highly-addictive and more socially-damaging drugs like meth, heroin, cocaine, etc.
And my favorite - Bisphenol A (BPA). It'll probably be another generation before we can finally get that potentially toxic crap out of our food and drink containers.