You are ignoring the facts. Research shows that today, there is very little upward mobility in the US. For instance, if you are born poor, there is only a 1 percent chance you end up in the top 5% of incomes. For those born into wealth, it is a 22 percent chance. You cannot pin that difference on laziness.
Some other facts: - People who worked long hours were more upwardly mobile in 1990-91 and 1997-98 than households who worked fewer hours. Yet this was not true in 2003-04, suggesting that people who work long hours on a consistent basis no longer appear to be able to generate much upward mobility for their families. - Over the last decades, an increasing percentage of households had a large short-term reduction in income. It are these set-backs that make it very hard for hardworking poor people to advance. - The median household was no more upwardly mobile in 2003-04, a year when GDP grew strongly, than it was it was during the recession of 1990-91. This suggests that upward mobility has actually slowed a great deal, since you'd expect far more upward mobility during boom times. - There is far more upward (and downward) mobility in more socialist countries like Canada and Denmark, than in the US and the UK. This shows that the American Dream is a lie and that more capitalism doesn't necessarily mean that you get a merit-based society.
No, he's saying that with the same (or less) effort, privileged people will usually achieve success while non-privileged people won't. At the very least, that means that rich people shouldn't assume that poor/non-rich people are lazy and deserve their fate.
Your post is a great example of this 'you didn't deserve it, while I did'-mentality. You assume that the person you replied to is lazy, even though it is a fact that most people who work two jobs have a low income. In fact, one of the major issues that is keeping poor people down is that they don't have the time to get a better education, because they spend most of it working + taking care of their family.
Actually, there are many different variants of autism, which is why the term 'autism spectrum' is often used. Some variants do not have mental retardation as a symptom and the people who have those variants may be quite productive, within the confines of their abilities. In some cases, they may be more productive than 'normal' people. For example, tasks that are fairly repetitive, but require intense focus on details are much better suited to autists, who will not grow bored unlike 'normal' people.
Autism is diagnosed based on symptoms, not by testing for the causes (since they are unknown). One of the primary criteria for diagnosing someone as autistic is whether or not their symptoms are severe enough to affect their life (actually, that is the primary diagnotic criterium in all of medicine). That doesn't mean that people who do not meet the diagnostic criteria are not autistic. Frankly, we cannot tell, because we cannot test for the causes, so we do not know how many people have very mild autism that is not diagnosed. Personally I believe that autism is an (partial) lack of of certain abilities that all humans possess, sometimes combined with an excess in other abilities. For instance, we all have a limited ability for empathy. Most people can enjoy doing repetitive things for a while (video games!). When you take these to extremes, we call them symptoms of autism. In mild cases, we call them personality traits. So I feel that it is perfectly acceptable for people to identify themselves as mild autists when they have mild symptoms.
We know that there are many more diagnosed cases of autism in Silicon Valley than in other areas, so it appears that there is a correlation between the ability and/or choice to program and autism. One of the most common complaints about programmers is their inability to conform. In the anecdotes, the programmer usually hasn't got a clue that his behavior is unwanted, despite non-verbal hints. This matches up well with the lack of demonstrated empathy and inability to pick up on certain types of nuanced communication that is typical of autism. There is a very important rule that can prevent lots of pain and suffering when dealing with (mildly) autistic people, which is to be explicit. Tell the autistic person in simple direct messages what he needs to do. That will help him greatly to conform and to foster relationships. Unfortunately, as children we learn that it is rude to communicate this way. Supposedly, we should not embarrass people by telling them to shower more often. Instead, we should gossip about it and ostracize them. I prefer that mild autists understand their personality traits and mentor people on how they should be treated, so they can foster good relationships. If that requires people to self-diagnose themselves as autists, when the medical community doesn't agree, that's fine with me.
PS. I'm not saying that geeks do not have affectations, nor claiming that all geeks are so autistic that they cannot help but misbehave (most are not). However, the geeks that people complain about usually seem to be autistic. PS2. Be seeing you.
Maybe not, but my representative is much more accessible than the state senator or the US president. I can walk up to the guy (when he's home) and speak to him. He answers my letters at least somewhat thoughtfully. He's up for election every 2 years, so he's more afraid of local activism.
I understand the desire to hold a 'local' person accountable, but I think that you overvalue it greatly. If you manage to convert your representative to your cause, it is only one vote of 435, so he would have to convert many of his colleagues. I don't see that happening unless many of their constituents are also converted to your standpoint. So if you want to change something on the national level, local activism in one region is not sufficient. You need to convince people nationally. I don't see how that is much harder for the slightly more distant House of Reps that I propose (remember that you have 4 reps per state). If you can't even convince one of your reps to champion your cause, then what chance does your cause have in national politics?
The regional representation that you currently use for both Senate and the House means that it is very difficult for unclustered minority opinions to get any traction. This is far easier in a party system where even a 5% minority is heard and whose voting power can be significant. The way I see it, there is no real conflict between the Senate and Congress in the current system, which results in a lack of checks and balances. For instance, they both want as much pork as possible for their region and feel no responsibility to the overall budget. It is far easier to get non-regional politicians to commit to getting rid of pork.
I'm also not quite comfortable with your system since it further removes the significance of the separate states... I am a big proponent of returning more power to the states rather than marginalizing them further.
Currently both the Senate and the House of Reps do two things: 1. Consider issues based on their ideology 2. Wonder about the effect on their state & the limits of federal power
In practice, they implement 2 mostly by trying to get pork for their state. They pretty much ignore state rights and constitutional limits. During elections, Americans mostly vote based on ideology, so the politicians get away with it. My system would seperate these two responsibilities. The new Senate would be ideological and Americans vote for parties based on their opinion about abortion/gun rights/taxes/etc. The House of Reps would focus on the limits of federal power and the consequences to the states. Hopefully, Americans would understand the seperation and would vote for representatives that reflect their opinion on state rights and state issues, rather than ideology. If so, the power of the states could be greatly strenghtened.
I share his concerns, but saying that the media needs to be a watchdog over government and then funding it with the same government seems counterproductive.
Science research is funded by the government, but politicians do not determine what research is done by scientists. The supreme court is funded by the government, but politicians have no say in the rulings. Similarly, you could have a focused media organisation that is 100% aimed at researching and disseminating facts (the spin is for the networks). The leadership could be put in the hands of a small group selected by American newspapers.
It seems that some very clever Iraqis managed to hoodwink most of the US government, and the media. I'd like to fault the Times, but it's very hard to imagine how they would get high-quality information out of Iraq, which had no freedom of press to speak of.
I disagree with that, just as the Times did later on. Fact is that at the time, there was absolutely no solid evidence that Iraq still had WMDs. Good journalism (and good
This is an extremely tall order. I'm not sure how you could "force" the US system to become multi-party. I'd try a few thing... Get rid of "gerrymandering" completely. Congressional districts should be decided based on a simple algorithm with an emphasis on straight lines. This MIGHT encourage third-parties, since gerrymandered districts are set up to purposely be extremely Republican or Democrat. I'm not sure what else you can do without an amendment...
I'm not saying that you can change it by making one small tweak. That was my point actually, until now, all amendments were small tweaks, instead of the big change that is necessary. In the current system, gerrymandering is inevitable because each member of the House of Representatives has to represent just 700k people (on average), but with party politics, the parties simply want to win as many of these small districts as possible so they can implement their national agenda. So they tune the districts to get the required numbers. There is not much consideration of the different needs of different districts, so the House of Representatives doesn't really serve a purpose. So I would do away with it completely. The current Senate would become the new House of Representatives, but with one major change: 4 representatives per state. The new Senate would be fully party based, with national elections (instead of state elections). Then the president would have to find 50+% support in the Senate by getting support from several parties.
Advantages of this system: - Voting for a minority party for the Senate elections isn't useless (and to a lesser extent, the same goes for the House of Representatives) - Minorities that are not geographically clustered can still get representation - Influence in the new Senate is proportional with the number of votes, so minority parties actually have power - A very clear mandate for both houses: the Senate makes laws with support of 50+% of americans, while the House of Representatives makes sure that small states are not 'shouted down' by big states - Democrats and Republicans will have to work together. This will inevitably lead to more respectful and useful politics, instead of both parties shouting loudly and trying to increase the differences between them, instead of compromising. - 3+ parties will completely disrupt the binary mindset in the media. They might even get so confused that they start doing journalism again. - 4 representatives per state in the new House of Representatives means that the states have to change their voting system, hopefully to a system that gives third parties a chance. It also strongly reduces the incentive for pork. Currently, you can win the vote for a state by bribing one senator with pork. In the new system, there are four times as many people to bribe, which makes it a less feasible.
- Media reform (instead of dismissing lies they like to discuss the 'controversy')
Certainly it would help to undo some of the stuff Bush did regarding ownership limits, but I'm not sure how much you can do here. After all, the worst offenders are the cable networks, and it is tough to justify regulating a private network like cable.
I'm not sure either, but I think something drastic has to happen. Perhaps Dan Rather can come up with something:
I pretty much agree with your criticisms of our media (TV anyway). But I had to laugh that you quoted an American TV show to support your argument.:)
Newspapers can be just as bad. Even the NYT is infected. They let themselves be fooled by the WMD lies about Iraq for instance. Anyway, I'm not saying that it is hopeless and there are no sane people left in the media. They are just few and far between.
And this, my friends, is what inevitably occurs when a business with such huge startup costs tries to compete in a fixed-size market. There is truly no way to prevent this except to take the startup costs out of the picture, either by the government giving a colossal grant to the cable company to cover its infrastructure costs or by the government building the infrastructure to begin with and leasing it out to multiple competitors.
The only way telecom competition can work is if the infrastructure provider and the data provider are not the same company---if the infrastructure provider leases access to the data provider on a nondiscriminatory basis.
An alternative is to force the companies to lease their lines at a modest cost (where the price is set by a government agency). This has worked very well in some EU countries, where they wanted to convert government utilities to a free market.
I'm sorry, what was your point again? That there is corruption in the US? I didn't disagree. However, it is quite low when compared to the world...
I might have high standards. I consider Italy to be awfully corrupt and France to be fairly bad. If you compare the US with really shitty countries like Nigeria or Russia, it comes out fine. But then again, are those the countries that you want to compare yourself with?
Your examples are interesting because they demonstrate how corruption is actually dealt with, as opposed to tolerated.
True, but only because Abramoff went too far in his corruption. It is clear that he was at the center of US politics and many other lobbyists were doing the same things, in a slightly more modest fashion. I don't see any indication that most politicians want to deal with it. They just want to prevent excesses that will become public and will result in outrage.
That may be, but a bribe that is a promise is: (a) A pretty bad bribe... who says the promise keeper will keep their word? They've already demonstrated moral corruption by bribing you. (b) Almost impossible to detect or fight unless the parties are exceedingly stupid.
Not at all, a gentlemens agreement that is enforced by a group is extremely effective. What happens if a big company doesn't do this? They will quickly lose influence in DC, since the other politicians will stop listening to them. So they are forced to do it. It is very easy to detect as well, just look at the CV and donations list of a politician who becomes a lobbyist. A law could be made that disallows politicians from becoming lobbyists for the companies that they had contacts with while in office.
This is a very tough problem to solve... who gets to decide what can go on TV? The government? Won't they abuse this power to curtail legitimate criticism? Who decides what is "legitimate"?
You are right. But there are several solutions that can help: - Spread the power around by changing your system to be multi-party (it's harder to win with a negative PAC campaign when you have to discredit 5 opponents instead of 1) - Media reform (instead of dismissing lies they like to discuss the 'controversy') - Better defamation laws so lies can be countered effectively
Examples? Does this "independent media" have anywhere near the viewership of the US networks? In the US, the networks are pathetic... they simply go after a demographic, and their idea of "balance" is putting a useless right winger up against a useless left winger. US newspapers tend to be better though... at least until they all disappear.
UK, Germany, France, Holland and the Scandinavian countries all have way better media than the US. The problem with the US media is not that they go after a demographic. In fact, as long as the main biases are accounted for I like that far better than media that pretend to be impartial. The real problem is firstly that they have too much time to fill and want to fill it as cheaply as possible. So what do you get: sponsored and dumbass opinions, 'controversies', reading twitter messages and emails out loud on air, etc. What is rare: expert opinions, critical interviews, investigations and other forms of real journalism. The second problem is cultural. The media consider what happens in Washington DC to be normal. There is almost no criticism directed at the system. They only see fault in individuals (and those are always exceptions). Here is a nice quote:
BILL MOYERS: I think you wrote that "The media stars in Washington almost never understand that there's anything wrong with the establishment of which they're a part."
GLENN GREENWALD: That's right. I mean, if you were to say to normal Americans, and it's the reason why these issues resonated, and why Barack Obama made them a cente
I'm not sure what you are referring to. The amount that a lobbyist can give to a member of congress for their campaign is laughably small - in line with what an individual can give. In any event, it's not corruption if it is all out in the open and legal. You can see who a politician takes money from and vote accordingly.
Bob Ney, Michael Scanlon, Neil Volz, Mark Zachares, Italia Federici, Robert E. Coughlin, Ann Copland and John Albaugh have all pled guilty to taking money or gifts from Abramoff while they were in politics. Tom DeLay was involved in the scandal too and received gifts from Abramoff. There is a money trail going from Abramoff to a lobbying firm (ASG), to Christine DeLay (about $300,000 in total). Tom DeLay was majority whip of course, so this happened at the center of US politics.
Furthermore, there are scores of politicians who worked very closely with lobbyists and later were given higly paid jobs by the companies that sent the lobbyists. That is also a form of payment, IMO. Then there are donations to PACs, which can be spent on attack ads and such. Most politicians are pretty lazy, so they will often rely on a few lobbyists to tell them what to think. Then you buy legislation by buying the lobbyists that advise the politicians. That situation is just as bad for democracy as bribing the politicians directly, but it is completely legal.
Someone is going to always control the media, be it a multinational conglomerate, a rich guy, a government, or some combination.
That is just ignorance. There are civilized countries that have independent media that is not beholden to a small elite. Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the US is completely corrupt, since the majority of the US citizens do not seem to care and most politicians favor big business (no wonder, since those are the people who steer their votes).
The guy working two jobs or kneeling in the rice paddy is never going to have a big voice.
My point is that he could have much more influence, if the US political system was more democratic. Unfortunately, you seem to accept your broken system and don't actually care about democracy. Land of the brave? Land of the slaves is more like it.
It's a bit more complicated than that. IMHO, you are right that Americans feel like their vote is wasted, but not because of corruption. It's simply that the federal government is not that big of an issue in most people's lives.
Health care is not a big issue for Americans? Or the enormous national debt that will have to be paid back one day? What about the lack of banking regulations that costs you billions in Chinese debt while the bonusses keep getting paid? Iraq & Afghanistan?
If the American people feel that there are no major national issues that the federal government should address, they are dumbasses. Being disenfranchised is an decent reason not to vote. The national government not being important is not.
I know it sounds lame, but I even know people who won't vote so that they don't get stuck in the jury pool.
You are right, it sounds incredibly lame. Giving up your vote, so you won't have to do your duty to make sure that justice is served = Double-plus unpatriotic.
Also, our de-facto two-party system alienates a lot of people (myself included). I actually take the effort of voting for other parties, but few other people bother. Even I hesitate, as our "third parties" tend to be wackos.
So where is the party that wants to change the system? You could at least make an effort. Other countries do it. Your founding fathers told you to keep improving upon their work. Yet Americans keep pretending that their constition is perfect, while both parties and the supreme court 'interpret' the constitution to mean something completely different from what it clearly says and very few people actually want a two-party system.
The alternative is the "Silvio Berlusconi" model, where only the super-rich can afford to run. Limits to contributions and the wide-open nature of US campaign finance limits the corruption. The hardest part is the "soft money", which is constantly an issue here.
The majority of electoral democracies have government subsidies to pay for (some of) the campaign expenses and other costs. Combine that with a multi-party system, where power is spread among many political parties and it is far less likely for political parties to become dependent on donors. Italy is Western Europe's black sheep, so it's not fair to look at that country as the only alternative.
Rich people, in general, have more of everything than someone with a median income. Those are the breaks. Even in colonial days, a rich person could print up more pamphlets than a poor person. I suggest accepting this fact and working around it rather than fighting it.
There is a big difference between influencing voters by paying for ads and giving money to politicians in return for favorable legislation. In the US both seem to be called free speech, while in the rest of the world, the latter is called corruption.
Ultimately, the idea behind democracy is that everyone has an equal vote. A rich man's opinion as expressed through the ballot box is not worth more than the a poor man's opinion. Obviously that ideal is unreachable, but it should still be mostly true. If not, the government cannot be considered democratic and is illegitimate. The US is doing very badly in this respect, IMO, clearly evidenced by the small turnout, since many Americans feel that their vote is worthless (about half).
Having a gun makes no difference in those situations.
But it is much harder to kill someone with a club, knife or your bare hands than with a gun. In fact, that is a very common argument among gun-lovers: miss beanstalk can only defend herself from mister bodybuilder rapist if she has a gun. I can run away from someone with a contact weapon, strike at the weapon, take it away, etc. That is much harder when the opponent has a gun.
If you're so pissed off that you're going to kill someone, you're going to find a way to do it
Not if the anger subsides, the person becomes semi-rational again, the victim manages to escape/counterattack, someone helps the victim, etc. These are all more likely when the attacker does not have a gun.
There are many examples of people who survived an attack by someone who was determined to badly hurt them. You have to be pretty determined to kill someone with your bare hands. Most attackers give up when the victim is clearly beaten, but he is still alive. Similarly, knife attacks typically end after a few stabs. There is a good chance that you'll survive. A gun is much more effective.
If I'm a big guy and I figure that I could throttle you pretty easily, but I know that you carry a gun, that may dissuade me from assaulting you.
Not if you were carrying a gun. Then you only need to make sure that you pull out your gun first. If you were prone to getting into fights with people who might carry a gun, that would be a very good reason to carry a gun yourself (where there is a good chance that they would limit themselves to a knife in places where gun ownership is restricted).
Also Politics is two dimensional: Socialist (left), Capitalist (right) Authoritarian (up) and Liberal (down).
There are more dimensions than that, such as: - Environmentalism vs Cornucopia - Fiscal conservative vs Big spender - Multi-cultural vs Single-cultural - Populism vs Elitism - Small government vs Big government - Egalitarian vs Social hierarchy - Pacifism vs Warmongering - Isolationism vs Globalism
While certain combinations are much more likely, pretty much any combination is possible. For instance, there are capitalist environmentalists, socialists that are against a multi-cultural society, liberals who are elitist since they want strong limits on democracy (like a powerful constitution) to prevent authoritarians from making laws they don't like, people who want small government and big spending/tax cuts, etc.
Unfortunately, due to the archaic political system in the US, there are only two viable political parties and most combinations do not have a corresponding political party. The result is that many Americans are not even aware that there are more possibilities than those reflected by the Democratic and Republican party.
See, you just can't help but beat that dead horse, can you? Did I claim that the Republicans were any better?
Yes, when you said this: "I was specifically referring to was the spend spend spend attitude that is personified by the Democratic Party in the United States." This sentence only makes sense if you think the Republicans are better. If you think that both parties are bad, then say so. Don't whine when people judge you on the words you write instead of reading your mind (and I'm not the only one who read your words this way, so it's not me who is the problem).
Did I even claim to be a Republican or to sympathize with them on any particular issue? Why are you so bound and determined to change the topic of conversation to the party that isn't in power right now?
They have been out of power for a very short time, after 8 years of making policy. Obama has put Reps in his cabinet, so they share part of the responsibility. They are still a factor in congress (with the democrats having a very slim filibuster-proof majority). You can't just ignore them, especially since your criticisms of the Democrats might drive people to the Republicans, which won't solve anything.
Does it bother you when someone points out that the Democrats picking right up where GWB left off and driving our financial bus over the cliff?
Yes, because it is unfair. You cannot turn a supertanker on a dime. During a recession, the first priority for the government is to appear reliable and stable. You cannot simply change fiscal policy drastically, without risking major panic. Also, it diverts attention away from the bipartisan corruption and foolishness.
That only happened because he had a GOP Congress to contend with. I think I'd like Obama a lot more if the GOP had control of Congress. Divided Government seems to be the only thing that keeps spending in Washington under control.
Obama reached out to the GOP. Did they demand less spending? No. They wanted lowered taxes (a very ineffective way to combat a crisis, since many people will put the money in the bank). The consensus in Washington is that there needs to be spending to fight the recession (as has always been the case during a recession, since politicians started believing in Keynes after the Great Depression).
Bullshit. The vast majority of Obama's spending is not stimulative in any sense of the word. The "stimulus plan" was a bill loaded up with every bit of pork that the Democrats have been saving up over the years. With few exceptions (cash for clunkers being the one everybody is talking about today) most of his spending has zero to do with the economic recovery that is now under way. Hell most of the money hasn't even been spent yet. And now they are making rumblings about needing a second "stimulus"! Gotta love it.
No, it's not. A lot of money goes to tax cuts and the states, which are not pork. The rest of the bill does have some pork, but by Washington standards, it is very little. You are just parroting right-wing talking points. And of course the money cannot be spend immediately. It always takes time to start up projects, especially if the money is not earmarked.
Imagine that -- limiting my "world-view" to America during a discussion about American politics. Go figure!
But the discussion wasn't about American politics. It was about liberalism until your post where you started talking about the Democrats and the Republicans.
When those people are running for a seat in the US Congress then I'll care about the political platform they stand for. Until then it's just more redirection by someone who is unwilling to have a candid discussion about the US Democratic Party and American liberalism.
Why would I let you hijack this thread and reduce it to a
I'm pretty sure I addressed this, but thanks for the redirection. Apparently the fact that the GOP sucks is all the justification that the Democrats need to suck as well.
It's not redirection. You claimed that liberalism = Democrats = spend spend spend. But Bush Jr, Bush Sr and Reagan were big spenders. The most fiscally conservative president of the last few decades was Clinton. Arguably, Obama has had little choice but to continue spending to get out of the recession. Most fiscal conservatives are fine with running deficits in bad times, as long as there is a (larger) surplus in the good years. Obama could easily turn out to be a fiscal conservative, by cutting spending and raising taxes when the recession is over.
In short, your anger at the Democrats for being big spenders is not based on facts, since the GOP is way worse in that respect. Your anger at liberals is even more of a mystery, since your world-view seems to be limited to the US. Liberals exist all over the world and some are extremely fiscally conservative, while many conservatives want to spend like crazy. Break out of the stereotypes. They are what allows politicians to get away with the horrid behavior, while beating the pro/anti-gun, pro/anti-abortion, etc drums at election time. On those issues there haven't been major attempts to change the laws for a long time, but politicians pretend that they are major issues, so they don't have to talk about the real issues (like their awful spending & corruption).
Liberalism rarely survives ones first paycheck and the discovery of how much of your money the Government is taking from you. To borrow a quote, "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."
Except that there are many old liberals. That quote is really only enlightening to a selfish subset of the population who can't stand the thought of paying for the well-being of other people, at the expense of a little luxury.
Got a better suggestion? For all it's flaws our capitalist system has produced much of the wealth and technology that we take for granted. I've yet to see a system that I'd rather live under.
Anti-corporate and anti-business doesn't mean anti-capitalism. There are many people that want reforms. Banking reforms are especially popular right now. There is no reason why we have to accept the current crappy system that favors short term greed over long term sustainable growth.
Without government bailouts, the worst a private company can do is to piss away their own money (and that of their clients who have hopefully done their risk-management homework) and go out of business.
When the government screws up, you pay them a trillion dollars at gunpoint so they can try it again.
But the problem is that these private companies have huge debts with each other. So if a few big banks/insurers go, they all go. The regular economy is hugely dependent on the banks, so they will crash as well. We would lose much more money in the long run. Look at the Great Depression.
Your examples don't mean anything in either this discussion, or the ones that you are having with your American friends. That is, unless you wish to defend anarchy, the ultimate form of freedom, as a viable form of running a society.
So having more rights doesn't mean anything to you? I guess only the rights you have as an American (which I presume you are) actually count as freedom. Iran and North Korea use the same argument to claim that they are free countries. After all, the people of those countries can do anything they should want to do.
The parent didn't say that anything was allowed in Holland, but he gave some examples of rights that differ from the USA. Argue those rights instead of using the 'anarchy' argument (also known as the 'fingers in my ears' argument).
The freedom they talk about here is entirely different. E.g. try starting a small company in the Netherlands, and one in the US. Then you'll understand why they consider the US to be more "free" and the Netherlands to be almost Communist.
And yet, the ratio of small companies to big companies is higher in Holland. So seemingly it is easier to profitably run a small company in Holland, despite having more regulations. Anyway, IMHO civilization is about establishing rules that shape our interactions and limit our actions. For instance, food regulations + inspections allow us to visit a restaurant with some confidence that we will get served hygienically prepared food. That is a highly practical measure. There are also more moral measures, such as hate (speech) laws and laws against (non-hallucinogenic) drugs. Both the USA and Holland have both types of laws, but the exact laws are different. What I find interesting is that in my discussions with Americans, they often seem to regard their own choices in regulations to be completely sensible and the choices of other civilized countries to be completely alien; As if these regulations do not have any merit and prevent us from having a happy and quite free society (which is a pretty silly argument if you know a bit about Holland). As I see it, some Americans like the word Communism because it allows them to neatly file something in the 'evil file', without have to consider the actual pros and cons.
All in all, I think there is no point in discussing which of these two countries is more "free".
Why not? Are you not interested in improving your country? I am interested in improving mine.
Or we might have had a (limited) space war, filling Earth's orbit with debris, making it impossible to have any satellites for the next thousand years.
I am already going pretty slow at 25-30mph. However, if I come around the corner and there is a boulder, well, that is just shit luck. That's just it though, it's not reasonable to expect stationary objects or moving objects at less than half the speed of traffic under normal conditions.
If you cannot stop in time for a stationary object, you are speeding, regardless of the actual speed limit. There are many reasons why there could be a stationary object behind the corner: a traffic jam, accident, fallen boulder, someone with car trouble, etc. It's not 'shit luck' when you hit that object. It is the consequence of your decision to drive faster than is safe. That decision also happens to put cyclists in danger, the people who get in an accident in that spot, the cars in a traffic jam, etc. Essentially, you are gambling with the lives of others.
You are not entitled to go 25-30mph. You are allowed to drive up to the speed limit, if the conditions allow.
That is what the bike represents. It slows us all down to a point where somebody might not reasonably expect an car to be moving that slow.
Sometimes, the reasonable speed for a car is 0 mph. At a traffic light or in a traffic jam for example. Do you run the red light or drive on the shoulder along the congestion, since you are seemingly entitled to keep moving? If you don't, then why can't you accept that there are situations where you have to slow down because your fellow road users cannot go as fast. This can mean cyclists, trucks, tractors, horse and buggy (Amish), a herd of sheep being moved to greener pastures, etc.
That, along with frustrated drivers, is the real danger I speak of. If bikes should be on that road, then the only sane decision is to make the speed limit that of a bicycle, or warn cyclists to achieve higher speeds for the duration of the road.
Or perhaps drivers should just learn to obey the law. If there is something in your lane that is moving slowly or not at all, you are obligated not to pass until it is safe to do so. Regardless of whether that obstruction is someone who is breaking the law or who you think is inconsiderate. Drivers who get frustrated and perform dangerous maneuvers are breaking the law themselves. They are the real issue, not the cyclists. If the cyclists are banned, the agressive drivers will do the same thing to trucks, tractors and other slow traffic.
In the U.S, there are so many many roads that never took bicycle traffic into consideration for one second when designing them.... I have only been in Europe a few times in my life, and never Copenhagen. However, from what I remember, most places in the cities did not support very fast traffic anyways and the newer faster roads like our interstates were not designed for bicycle traffic exactly, but have more than enough space for it to be done quite safely. Most of your roads near your cities in Europe don't seem to have been designed for cars anyways. Not the older cities, from what I remember.
Just because the roads in Europe weren't designed for cars, doesn't mean that they are safe for cyclists. Since their introduction, cars have simply taken over these roads and forced alternative forms of transport off the road (it is simply not safe for 30+mph cars to mix with 15mph cyclists). In bicycle friendly parts of Europe, there have been a lot of investments in seperate bike lanes to allow cyclists to travel safely:
The French and British policies of appeasement, and their policy of rearming only in accordance with the provisions of Versailles while allowing the Germans to break that treaty at will without consequence, meant that before the war time was on the Germans' side. Had they waited until 1942 or 43 to attack Poland, as most of the Generals were suggesting, the outcome of the war might have been very different.
Only Germany could not rearm freely, according to the Treaty of Versailles. The French and British could invest as much as they wanted in their military. The major issue there was cost, but in the lead-up to the war, Britain was rearming at a decent rate. The French had asked the US to produce planes for them to buy and the US were ramping up their military industries. In 1942/43, France and the UK would have had a stronger military and the US would be way stronger.
Indeed. There is a huge difference between a CIA agent that meets with sources in dangerous locations and torturers who hurt unarmed men in a heavily guarded prison. The first group are to be applauded, the second group should be put in prison.
Actually, I already pointed out that electric cars also pollute the air, because tires and brakes produce small particles. So electric cars could not have worked without the invention of brakes and tires that do not wear. Battery technology in the early 19x0's sucked, which was one of the main reasons why the car makers chose to go with combustion engines. The quality of batteries has improved only slowly ever since, even in recent years, despite considerably pressure (laptop makers would kill for a 100% increase in wattage/weight or wattage/size). There is every reason to think that disallowing combustion engines in cars would have slowed the developed of cars down a great deal and would have preventing a lot of economic growth. Then I'm not even talking about planes. An electric plane is not seriously considered by anyone today, so how would it be feasible in the 1900's?
The economic benefits were obvious. I don't refute that. The point is that if the use of fuel combustion technology were impractical because of pollution to innocent 3rd party's property then productive efforts would have been spent trying to improve electric vehicles and alternative solutions instead.
The problem with your argument is that society decided, in a democratic manner, that the effort to develop these techniques was not worth it. In essence, your argument is that there should be a system to force people to accept limitations that they do not want. I am a 'green' person, but I believe in following the democratic process to reduce pollution with the support of 'the people'. This is difficult enough, since many people prefer to pollute (actually, pretty much no-one is willing to reduce their pollution to 0). Of course, those people would never accept a complete ban on air pollution, so your system would never be accepted in a democratic society. In this respect, Libertarianism and Marxism have the same problem. They go against people's nature, so they will never be willingly accepted. The only way to institute them is to corrupt them horribly (Communism corrupts Marxism by forcing people to share beyond what they consider reasonable and forcing people to meet quota's, while Marxism wants people to contribute to society as much as they can out of free will). The only way you can make Libertarianism work is by having a dictator government that ignores the desires of the majority, which doesn't seem very liberal to me (for the original meaning of 'liberal').
Lots of non-polluting technologies have been developed but there's no economic incentive to mass produce them.
Fact is that right now, we cannot even come close to a 100% non-polluting society. The best scrubbers we have are still imperfect and there are plenty of sources of pollution that we have no clean solution for. So how would we get to a libertarian society, without causing all polluting industries to disappear overnight (which would cause our society to collapse)?
Perhaps we need increasingly strict regulations (over time), so industries will have to adapt at a manageable rate. This is already being done for cars in the US and EU, but there is a global treaty that was intended to kick off such a system globally (the Kyoto treaty). Do you support the Kyoto treaty as a means of establishing Libertarianism?
There's other industries that produce waste but they don't pollute the air. Nuclear energy is one example.
If we ignore the pollution when building the power plant, mining and processing the uranium and transporting it then you are correct. However, nuclear plants need cooling water and are often situated next to a river. This causes the water to heat up, which can cause the fish to die, so there are currently government regulations to prevent this. How would libertarianism deal with this form of pollution?
You simply sidestepped my criticism of your utopia and let loose another vague lecture. Explain to me how you would travel 50 miles in your utopia? There have been thousands of different methods of transportation that have been invented, so I'm sure that you can come up with a semi-realistic one that doesn't pollute the air at all. I suspect you can't though, because it is virtually impossible. You prefer to engage in magical thinking, which is the only way to make your utopia work.
Only the production techniques that we take for granted today would never have been employed to such an extent. Meaning resources would have been diverted into developing and refining alternative production techniques.
Assuming those techniques exist, they are clearly much more difficult than the ones we use today (or we'd be using them). So at a minimum, many of the inventions we enjoy today would have been usable much later. Do you really think that most people would accept this? That the government would close cities for cars simply because a few people would not accept the air pollution in the 1900's when the cars were introduced? Or better yet, let me posit this: clearly people do not accept your theories or they would have created at least one government somewhere that follows them.
If by "extremist" you mean consistent then thank-you:)
It would only be consistent if you were living your life according to your ideals. I'm sure that you are not. What I actually meant was ignorant and dangerous. Ignorant since you suggest a major revolution even though there are basic criticisms that you cannot reasonably refute. Dangerous because extremists tend to commit the worst crimes, since they cannot compromise. When they encounter conflicts, they choose radical solutions. A dry region without enough water for everyone to drink, have swimming pools, etc, etc. Fine, the people with the most money buy the water and use it frivolously. The poor die. Problem solved.
Capitalism is a legal construct that refers to private ownership of property.
I was referring to the system of capitalism that we currently have. You know, the one that enables you to earn a living. Of course you prefer to 'discuss' capitalism in a purely philosophical manner, because in your capitalist utopia you will be rich. How? Magic. No need to get into the details of how people would live their lives. Let's just do it, what could go wrong? I mean, there never would be mass starvation like under communism. They had a flawed theory that clearly could never work. Unlike your theory, which is perfect.
The problem with that argument is that we would have almost none of our technology if we could simply sue people to get them to stop polluting: - Even electric cars cause air pollution (tire rubber and metal particles from the brakes). - All fossil-burning electro plants produce air pollution. - Pretty much all moving parts cause (trace amounts of) air pollution, so you'd better not mow the lawn, walk around, breathe or do any of the million other things that generate small amounts of air pollution. - Most industries cause at least some air pollution (including bakeries, although many people enjoy that smell). Even the best industrial filters will let trace amounts through.
Politicians are supposed to find compromises that allow for a safe level of pollution, while allowing our industries to function well. Ironically, your libertarian ideal is so extremist that it will destroy capitalism completely. You are a greater threat to capitalism than most communists.
Typical M-16 magazines hold 30 rounds. A trained user should be able to get at least five kills from that magazine, and reloading takes only a few seconds.
You do realize that both ships will be moving about quite a bit? I doubt that a once trained, but unpracticed shooter will be very effective with a rifle until the pirates are already on board (at which point you lose your greatest advantage).
Small arms are far more effective than the mad-scientist weapons mentioned, because they are much cheaper, far more reliable, easier to use, and have a deterrence factor: pirates will avoid ships they think involve a high risk of death, and dead (or wounded and captured) pirates don't get to raid again.
I don't see how guns are cheaper, more reliable and easier to use than a water cannon (which can also be used for fire fighting). You can easily guide the fairly wide, continuous water beam to your target. That is much easier than firing a gun accurately. You can train with a water cannon fairly often, but when are the crew members going to practice firing their guns? On the high seas there are no targets for target practice, so the crew will have no idea if they are shooting well. Near harbors, you aren't allowed to fire guns. So the guns will stay in storage until the pirates attack. Then they can only hope that the guns will actually work (after not having been cleaned for years) and that the crew can use them effectively.
Also, unlike the fixed position water cannons and sound cannons, small arms can be used more easily once the pirates have boarded.
That depends on the ship. If the cannon can reach the entire deck, it may well be more effective, especially since you can use the cannons by remote control. In a small arms fight on a ship, there is a pretty high chance of getting killed. I don't see why the crew would take that risk instead of simply surrendering. After all, the crew generally survives being taken hostage.
If the water cannon was a better weapon than a rifle, then military ships and land units (which, unlike commercial ships, do not have legal restrictions on what weapons they employ) would use them instead of rifles.
That is a pretty silly argument because military units have highly trained military units that are willing to kill. Their primary task is to fight other military units (99% of the weapons of a warship are hugely overpowered for dealing with pirates). Military warships would look completely different if they were designed for pirate hunting. This is a story about warships using water cannons as weapons, since their regular weaponry was hugely overpowered.
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You are ignoring the facts. Research shows that today, there is very little upward mobility in the US. For instance, if you are born poor, there is only a 1 percent chance you end up in the top 5% of incomes. For those born into wealth, it is a 22 percent chance. You cannot pin that difference on laziness.
Some other facts:
- People who worked long hours were more upwardly mobile in 1990-91 and 1997-98 than households who worked fewer hours. Yet this was not true in 2003-04, suggesting that people who work long hours on a consistent basis no longer appear to be able to generate much upward mobility for their families.
- Over the last decades, an increasing percentage of households had a large short-term reduction in income. It are these set-backs that make it very hard for hardworking poor people to advance.
- The median household was no more upwardly mobile in 2003-04, a year when GDP grew strongly, than it was it was during the recession of 1990-91. This suggests that upward mobility has actually slowed a great deal, since you'd expect far more upward mobility during boom times.
- There is far more upward (and downward) mobility in more socialist countries like Canada and Denmark, than in the US and the UK. This shows that the American Dream is a lie and that more capitalism doesn't necessarily mean that you get a merit-based society.
PS. See http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html
PS. And also http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E5D61238F934A35755C0A9639C8B63
No, he's saying that with the same (or less) effort, privileged people will usually achieve success while non-privileged people won't. At the very least, that means that rich people shouldn't assume that poor/non-rich people are lazy and deserve their fate.
Your post is a great example of this 'you didn't deserve it, while I did'-mentality. You assume that the person you replied to is lazy, even though it is a fact that most people who work two jobs have a low income. In fact, one of the major issues that is keeping poor people down is that they don't have the time to get a better education, because they spend most of it working + taking care of their family.
Actually, there are many different variants of autism, which is why the term 'autism spectrum' is often used. Some variants do not have mental retardation as a symptom and the people who have those variants may be quite productive, within the confines of their abilities. In some cases, they may be more productive than 'normal' people. For example, tasks that are fairly repetitive, but require intense focus on details are much better suited to autists, who will not grow bored unlike 'normal' people.
Autism is diagnosed based on symptoms, not by testing for the causes (since they are unknown). One of the primary criteria for diagnosing someone as autistic is whether or not their symptoms are severe enough to affect their life (actually, that is the primary diagnotic criterium in all of medicine). That doesn't mean that people who do not meet the diagnostic criteria are not autistic. Frankly, we cannot tell, because we cannot test for the causes, so we do not know how many people have very mild autism that is not diagnosed. Personally I believe that autism is an (partial) lack of of certain abilities that all humans possess, sometimes combined with an excess in other abilities. For instance, we all have a limited ability for empathy. Most people can enjoy doing repetitive things for a while (video games!). When you take these to extremes, we call them symptoms of autism. In mild cases, we call them personality traits. So I feel that it is perfectly acceptable for people to identify themselves as mild autists when they have mild symptoms.
We know that there are many more diagnosed cases of autism in Silicon Valley than in other areas, so it appears that there is a correlation between the ability and/or choice to program and autism. One of the most common complaints about programmers is their inability to conform. In the anecdotes, the programmer usually hasn't got a clue that his behavior is unwanted, despite non-verbal hints. This matches up well with the lack of demonstrated empathy and inability to pick up on certain types of nuanced communication that is typical of autism. There is a very important rule that can prevent lots of pain and suffering when dealing with (mildly) autistic people, which is to be explicit. Tell the autistic person in simple direct messages what he needs to do. That will help him greatly to conform and to foster relationships. Unfortunately, as children we learn that it is rude to communicate this way. Supposedly, we should not embarrass people by telling them to shower more often. Instead, we should gossip about it and ostracize them. I prefer that mild autists understand their personality traits and mentor people on how they should be treated, so they can foster good relationships. If that requires people to self-diagnose themselves as autists, when the medical community doesn't agree, that's fine with me.
PS. I'm not saying that geeks do not have affectations, nor claiming that all geeks are so autistic that they cannot help but misbehave (most are not). However, the geeks that people complain about usually seem to be autistic.
PS2. Be seeing you.
Maybe not, but my representative is much more accessible than the state senator or the US president. I can walk up to the guy (when he's home) and speak to him. He answers my letters at least somewhat thoughtfully. He's up for election every 2 years, so he's more afraid of local activism.
I understand the desire to hold a 'local' person accountable, but I think that you overvalue it greatly. If you manage to convert your representative to your cause, it is only one vote of 435, so he would have to convert many of his colleagues. I don't see that happening unless many of their constituents are also converted to your standpoint. So if you want to change something on the national level, local activism in one region is not sufficient. You need to convince people nationally. I don't see how that is much harder for the slightly more distant House of Reps that I propose (remember that you have 4 reps per state). If you can't even convince one of your reps to champion your cause, then what chance does your cause have in national politics?
The regional representation that you currently use for both Senate and the House means that it is very difficult for unclustered minority opinions to get any traction. This is far easier in a party system where even a 5% minority is heard and whose voting power can be significant. The way I see it, there is no real conflict between the Senate and Congress in the current system, which results in a lack of checks and balances. For instance, they both want as much pork as possible for their region and feel no responsibility to the overall budget. It is far easier to get non-regional politicians to commit to getting rid of pork.
I'm also not quite comfortable with your system since it further removes the significance of the separate states... I am a big proponent of returning more power to the states rather than marginalizing them further.
Currently both the Senate and the House of Reps do two things:
1. Consider issues based on their ideology
2. Wonder about the effect on their state & the limits of federal power
In practice, they implement 2 mostly by trying to get pork for their state. They pretty much ignore state rights and constitutional limits. During elections, Americans mostly vote based on ideology, so the politicians get away with it. My system would seperate these two responsibilities. The new Senate would be ideological and Americans vote for parties based on their opinion about abortion/gun rights/taxes/etc. The House of Reps would focus on the limits of federal power and the consequences to the states. Hopefully, Americans would understand the seperation and would vote for representatives that reflect their opinion on state rights and state issues, rather than ideology. If so, the power of the states could be greatly strenghtened.
I share his concerns, but saying that the media needs to be a watchdog over government and then funding it with the same government seems counterproductive.
Science research is funded by the government, but politicians do not determine what research is done by scientists. The supreme court is funded by the government, but politicians have no say in the rulings. Similarly, you could have a focused media organisation that is 100% aimed at researching and disseminating facts (the spin is for the networks). The leadership could be put in the hands of a small group selected by American newspapers.
It seems that some very clever Iraqis managed to hoodwink most of the US government, and the media. I'd like to fault the Times, but it's very hard to imagine how they would get high-quality information out of Iraq, which had no freedom of press to speak of.
I disagree with that, just as the Times did later on. Fact is that at the time, there was absolutely no solid evidence that Iraq still had WMDs. Good journalism (and good
This is an extremely tall order. I'm not sure how you could "force" the US system to become multi-party. I'd try a few thing... Get rid of "gerrymandering" completely. Congressional districts should be decided based on a simple algorithm with an emphasis on straight lines. This MIGHT encourage third-parties, since gerrymandered districts are set up to purposely be extremely Republican or Democrat. I'm not sure what else you can do without an amendment...
I'm not saying that you can change it by making one small tweak. That was my point actually, until now, all amendments were small tweaks, instead of the big change that is necessary. In the current system, gerrymandering is inevitable because each member of the House of Representatives has to represent just 700k people (on average), but with party politics, the parties simply want to win as many of these small districts as possible so they can implement their national agenda. So they tune the districts to get the required numbers. There is not much consideration of the different needs of different districts, so the House of Representatives doesn't really serve a purpose. So I would do away with it completely. The current Senate would become the new House of Representatives, but with one major change: 4 representatives per state. The new Senate would be fully party based, with national elections (instead of state elections). Then the president would have to find 50+% support in the Senate by getting support from several parties.
Advantages of this system:
- Voting for a minority party for the Senate elections isn't useless (and to a lesser extent, the same goes for the House of Representatives)
- Minorities that are not geographically clustered can still get representation
- Influence in the new Senate is proportional with the number of votes, so minority parties actually have power
- A very clear mandate for both houses: the Senate makes laws with support of 50+% of americans, while the House of Representatives makes sure that small states are not 'shouted down' by big states
- Democrats and Republicans will have to work together. This will inevitably lead to more respectful and useful politics, instead of both parties shouting loudly and trying to increase the differences between them, instead of compromising.
- 3+ parties will completely disrupt the binary mindset in the media. They might even get so confused that they start doing journalism again.
- 4 representatives per state in the new House of Representatives means that the states have to change their voting system, hopefully to a system that gives third parties a chance. It also strongly reduces the incentive for pork. Currently, you can win the vote for a state by bribing one senator with pork. In the new system, there are four times as many people to bribe, which makes it a less feasible.
- Media reform (instead of dismissing lies they like to discuss the 'controversy')
Certainly it would help to undo some of the stuff Bush did regarding ownership limits, but I'm not sure how much you can do here. After all, the worst offenders are the cable networks, and it is tough to justify regulating a private network like cable.
I'm not sure either, but I think something drastic has to happen. Perhaps Dan Rather can come up with something:
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/135834
I pretty much agree with your criticisms of our media (TV anyway). But I had to laugh that you quoted an American TV show to support your argument. :)
Newspapers can be just as bad. Even the NYT is infected. They let themselves be fooled by the WMD lies about Iraq for instance. Anyway, I'm not saying that it is hopeless and there are no sane people left in the media. They are just few and far between.
True, but Americans are pretty pro-corporate in
And this, my friends, is what inevitably occurs when a business with such huge startup costs tries to compete in a fixed-size market. There is truly no way to prevent this except to take the startup costs out of the picture, either by the government giving a colossal grant to the cable company to cover its infrastructure costs or by the government building the infrastructure to begin with and leasing it out to multiple competitors.
The only way telecom competition can work is if the infrastructure provider and the data provider are not the same company---if the infrastructure provider leases access to the data provider on a nondiscriminatory basis.
An alternative is to force the companies to lease their lines at a modest cost (where the price is set by a government agency). This has worked very well in some EU countries, where they wanted to convert government utilities to a free market.
I'm sorry, what was your point again? That there is corruption in the US? I didn't disagree. However, it is quite low when compared to the world...
I might have high standards. I consider Italy to be awfully corrupt and France to be fairly bad. If you compare the US with really shitty countries like Nigeria or Russia, it comes out fine. But then again, are those the countries that you want to compare yourself with?
Your examples are interesting because they demonstrate how corruption is actually dealt with, as opposed to tolerated.
True, but only because Abramoff went too far in his corruption. It is clear that he was at the center of US politics and many other lobbyists were doing the same things, in a slightly more modest fashion. I don't see any indication that most politicians want to deal with it. They just want to prevent excesses that will become public and will result in outrage.
That may be, but a bribe that is a promise is:
(a) A pretty bad bribe... who says the promise keeper will keep their word? They've already demonstrated moral corruption by bribing you.
(b) Almost impossible to detect or fight unless the parties are exceedingly stupid.
Not at all, a gentlemens agreement that is enforced by a group is extremely effective. What happens if a big company doesn't do this? They will quickly lose influence in DC, since the other politicians will stop listening to them. So they are forced to do it. It is very easy to detect as well, just look at the CV and donations list of a politician who becomes a lobbyist. A law could be made that disallows politicians from becoming lobbyists for the companies that they had contacts with while in office.
This is a very tough problem to solve... who gets to decide what can go on TV? The government? Won't they abuse this power to curtail legitimate criticism? Who decides what is "legitimate"?
You are right. But there are several solutions that can help:
- Spread the power around by changing your system to be multi-party (it's harder to win with a negative PAC campaign when you have to discredit 5 opponents instead of 1)
- Media reform (instead of dismissing lies they like to discuss the 'controversy')
- Better defamation laws so lies can be countered effectively
Examples? Does this "independent media" have anywhere near the viewership of the US networks? In the US, the networks are pathetic... they simply go after a demographic, and their idea of "balance" is putting a useless right winger up against a useless left winger. US newspapers tend to be better though... at least until they all disappear.
UK, Germany, France, Holland and the Scandinavian countries all have way better media than the US. The problem with the US media is not that they go after a demographic. In fact, as long as the main biases are accounted for I like that far better than media that pretend to be impartial. The real problem is firstly that they have too much time to fill and want to fill it as cheaply as possible. So what do you get: sponsored and dumbass opinions, 'controversies', reading twitter messages and emails out loud on air, etc. What is rare: expert opinions, critical interviews, investigations and other forms of real journalism. The second problem is cultural. The media consider what happens in Washington DC to be normal. There is almost no criticism directed at the system. They only see fault in individuals (and those are always exceptions). Here is a nice quote:
BILL MOYERS: I think you wrote that "The media stars in Washington almost never understand that there's anything wrong with the establishment of which they're a part."
GLENN GREENWALD: That's right. I mean, if you were to say to normal Americans, and it's the reason why these issues resonated, and why Barack Obama made them a cente
I'm not sure what you are referring to. The amount that a lobbyist can give to a member of congress for their campaign is laughably small - in line with what an individual can give. In any event, it's not corruption if it is all out in the open and legal. You can see who a politician takes money from and vote accordingly.
Bob Ney, Michael Scanlon, Neil Volz, Mark Zachares, Italia Federici, Robert E. Coughlin, Ann Copland and John Albaugh have all pled guilty to taking money or gifts from Abramoff while they were in politics. Tom DeLay was involved in the scandal too and received gifts from Abramoff. There is a money trail going from Abramoff to a lobbying firm (ASG), to Christine DeLay (about $300,000 in total). Tom DeLay was majority whip of course, so this happened at the center of US politics.
Furthermore, there are scores of politicians who worked very closely with lobbyists and later were given higly paid jobs by the companies that sent the lobbyists. That is also a form of payment, IMO. Then there are donations to PACs, which can be spent on attack ads and such. Most politicians are pretty lazy, so they will often rely on a few lobbyists to tell them what to think. Then you buy legislation by buying the lobbyists that advise the politicians. That situation is just as bad for democracy as bribing the politicians directly, but it is completely legal.
Someone is going to always control the media, be it a multinational conglomerate, a rich guy, a government, or some combination.
That is just ignorance. There are civilized countries that have independent media that is not beholden to a small elite. Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the US is completely corrupt, since the majority of the US citizens do not seem to care and most politicians favor big business (no wonder, since those are the people who steer their votes).
The guy working two jobs or kneeling in the rice paddy is never going to have a big voice.
My point is that he could have much more influence, if the US political system was more democratic. Unfortunately, you seem to accept your broken system and don't actually care about democracy. Land of the brave? Land of the slaves is more like it.
It's a bit more complicated than that. IMHO, you are right that Americans feel like their vote is wasted, but not because of corruption. It's simply that the federal government is not that big of an issue in most people's lives.
Health care is not a big issue for Americans? Or the enormous national debt that will have to be paid back one day? What about the lack of banking regulations that costs you billions in Chinese debt while the bonusses keep getting paid? Iraq & Afghanistan?
If the American people feel that there are no major national issues that the federal government should address, they are dumbasses. Being disenfranchised is an decent reason not to vote. The national government not being important is not.
I know it sounds lame, but I even know people who won't vote so that they don't get stuck in the jury pool.
You are right, it sounds incredibly lame. Giving up your vote, so you won't have to do your duty to make sure that justice is served = Double-plus unpatriotic.
Also, our de-facto two-party system alienates a lot of people (myself included). I actually take the effort of voting for other parties, but few other people bother. Even I hesitate, as our "third parties" tend to be wackos.
So where is the party that wants to change the system? You could at least make an effort. Other countries do it. Your founding fathers told you to keep improving upon their work. Yet Americans keep pretending that their constition is perfect, while both parties and the supreme court 'interpret' the constitution to mean something completely different from what it clearly says and very few people actually want a two-party system.
The alternative is the "Silvio Berlusconi" model, where only the super-rich can afford to run. Limits to contributions and the wide-open nature of US campaign finance limits the corruption. The hardest part is the "soft money", which is constantly an issue here.
The majority of electoral democracies have government subsidies to pay for (some of) the campaign expenses and other costs. Combine that with a multi-party system, where power is spread among many political parties and it is far less likely for political parties to become dependent on donors. Italy is Western Europe's black sheep, so it's not fair to look at that country as the only alternative.
Rich people, in general, have more of everything than someone with a median income. Those are the breaks. Even in colonial days, a rich person could print up more pamphlets than a poor person. I suggest accepting this fact and working around it rather than fighting it.
There is a big difference between influencing voters by paying for ads and giving money to politicians in return for favorable legislation. In the US both seem to be called free speech, while in the rest of the world, the latter is called corruption.
Ultimately, the idea behind democracy is that everyone has an equal vote. A rich man's opinion as expressed through the ballot box is not worth more than the a poor man's opinion. Obviously that ideal is unreachable, but it should still be mostly true. If not, the government cannot be considered democratic and is illegitimate. The US is doing very badly in this respect, IMO, clearly evidenced by the small turnout, since many Americans feel that their vote is worthless (about half).
Having a gun makes no difference in those situations.
But it is much harder to kill someone with a club, knife or your bare hands than with a gun. In fact, that is a very common argument among gun-lovers: miss beanstalk can only defend herself from mister bodybuilder rapist if she has a gun. I can run away from someone with a contact weapon, strike at the weapon, take it away, etc. That is much harder when the opponent has a gun.
If you're so pissed off that you're going to kill someone, you're going to find a way to do it
Not if the anger subsides, the person becomes semi-rational again, the victim manages to escape/counterattack, someone helps the victim, etc. These are all more likely when the attacker does not have a gun.
There are many examples of people who survived an attack by someone who was determined to badly hurt them. You have to be pretty determined to kill someone with your bare hands. Most attackers give up when the victim is clearly beaten, but he is still alive. Similarly, knife attacks typically end after a few stabs. There is a good chance that you'll survive. A gun is much more effective.
If I'm a big guy and I figure that I could throttle you pretty easily, but I know that you carry a gun, that may dissuade me from assaulting you.
Not if you were carrying a gun. Then you only need to make sure that you pull out your gun first. If you were prone to getting into fights with people who might carry a gun, that would be a very good reason to carry a gun yourself (where there is a good chance that they would limit themselves to a knife in places where gun ownership is restricted).
Also Politics is two dimensional: Socialist (left), Capitalist (right) Authoritarian (up) and Liberal (down).
There are more dimensions than that, such as:
- Environmentalism vs Cornucopia
- Fiscal conservative vs Big spender
- Multi-cultural vs Single-cultural
- Populism vs Elitism
- Small government vs Big government
- Egalitarian vs Social hierarchy
- Pacifism vs Warmongering
- Isolationism vs Globalism
While certain combinations are much more likely, pretty much any combination is possible. For instance, there are capitalist environmentalists, socialists that are against a multi-cultural society, liberals who are elitist since they want strong limits on democracy (like a powerful constitution) to prevent authoritarians from making laws they don't like, people who want small government and big spending/tax cuts, etc.
Unfortunately, due to the archaic political system in the US, there are only two viable political parties and most combinations do not have a corresponding political party. The result is that many Americans are not even aware that there are more possibilities than those reflected by the Democratic and Republican party.
See, you just can't help but beat that dead horse, can you? Did I claim that the Republicans were any better?
Yes, when you said this: "I was specifically referring to was the spend spend spend attitude that is personified by the Democratic Party in the United States." This sentence only makes sense if you think the Republicans are better. If you think that both parties are bad, then say so. Don't whine when people judge you on the words you write instead of reading your mind (and I'm not the only one who read your words this way, so it's not me who is the problem).
Did I even claim to be a Republican or to sympathize with them on any particular issue? Why are you so bound and determined to change the topic of conversation to the party that isn't in power right now?
They have been out of power for a very short time, after 8 years of making policy. Obama has put Reps in his cabinet, so they share part of the responsibility. They are still a factor in congress (with the democrats having a very slim filibuster-proof majority). You can't just ignore them, especially since your criticisms of the Democrats might drive people to the Republicans, which won't solve anything.
Does it bother you when someone points out that the Democrats picking right up where GWB left off and driving our financial bus over the cliff?
Yes, because it is unfair. You cannot turn a supertanker on a dime. During a recession, the first priority for the government is to appear reliable and stable. You cannot simply change fiscal policy drastically, without risking major panic. Also, it diverts attention away from the bipartisan corruption and foolishness.
That only happened because he had a GOP Congress to contend with. I think I'd like Obama a lot more if the GOP had control of Congress. Divided Government seems to be the only thing that keeps spending in Washington under control.
Obama reached out to the GOP. Did they demand less spending? No. They wanted lowered taxes (a very ineffective way to combat a crisis, since many people will put the money in the bank). The consensus in Washington is that there needs to be spending to fight the recession (as has always been the case during a recession, since politicians started believing in Keynes after the Great Depression).
Bullshit. The vast majority of Obama's spending is not stimulative in any sense of the word. The "stimulus plan" was a bill loaded up with every bit of pork that the Democrats have been saving up over the years. With few exceptions (cash for clunkers being the one everybody is talking about today) most of his spending has zero to do with the economic recovery that is now under way. Hell most of the money hasn't even been spent yet. And now they are making rumblings about needing a second "stimulus"! Gotta love it.
No, it's not. A lot of money goes to tax cuts and the states, which are not pork. The rest of the bill does have some pork, but by Washington standards, it is very little. You are just parroting right-wing talking points. And of course the money cannot be spend immediately. It always takes time to start up projects, especially if the money is not earmarked.
Imagine that -- limiting my "world-view" to America during a discussion about American politics. Go figure!
But the discussion wasn't about American politics. It was about liberalism until your post where you started talking about the Democrats and the Republicans.
When those people are running for a seat in the US Congress then I'll care about the political platform they stand for. Until then it's just more redirection by someone who is unwilling to have a candid discussion about the US Democratic Party and American liberalism.
Why would I let you hijack this thread and reduce it to a
I'm pretty sure I addressed this, but thanks for the redirection. Apparently the fact that the GOP sucks is all the justification that the Democrats need to suck as well.
It's not redirection. You claimed that liberalism = Democrats = spend spend spend. But Bush Jr, Bush Sr and Reagan were big spenders. The most fiscally conservative president of the last few decades was Clinton. Arguably, Obama has had little choice but to continue spending to get out of the recession. Most fiscal conservatives are fine with running deficits in bad times, as long as there is a (larger) surplus in the good years. Obama could easily turn out to be a fiscal conservative, by cutting spending and raising taxes when the recession is over.
In short, your anger at the Democrats for being big spenders is not based on facts, since the GOP is way worse in that respect. Your anger at liberals is even more of a mystery, since your world-view seems to be limited to the US. Liberals exist all over the world and some are extremely fiscally conservative, while many conservatives want to spend like crazy. Break out of the stereotypes. They are what allows politicians to get away with the horrid behavior, while beating the pro/anti-gun, pro/anti-abortion, etc drums at election time. On those issues there haven't been major attempts to change the laws for a long time, but politicians pretend that they are major issues, so they don't have to talk about the real issues (like their awful spending & corruption).
Liberalism rarely survives ones first paycheck and the discovery of how much of your money the Government is taking from you. To borrow a quote, "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."
Except that there are many old liberals. That quote is really only enlightening to a selfish subset of the population who can't stand the thought of paying for the well-being of other people, at the expense of a little luxury.
Got a better suggestion? For all it's flaws our capitalist system has produced much of the wealth and technology that we take for granted. I've yet to see a system that I'd rather live under.
Anti-corporate and anti-business doesn't mean anti-capitalism. There are many people that want reforms. Banking reforms are especially popular right now. There is no reason why we have to accept the current crappy system that favors short term greed over long term sustainable growth.
Without government bailouts, the worst a private company can do is to piss away their own money (and that of their clients who have hopefully done their risk-management homework) and go out of business.
When the government screws up, you pay them a trillion dollars at gunpoint so they can try it again.
But the problem is that these private companies have huge debts with each other. So if a few big banks/insurers go, they all go. The regular economy is hugely dependent on the banks, so they will crash as well. We would lose much more money in the long run. Look at the Great Depression.
Your examples don't mean anything in either this discussion, or the ones that you are having with your American friends. That is, unless you wish to defend anarchy, the ultimate form of freedom, as a viable form of running a society.
So having more rights doesn't mean anything to you? I guess only the rights you have as an American (which I presume you are) actually count as freedom. Iran and North Korea use the same argument to claim that they are free countries. After all, the people of those countries can do anything they should want to do.
The parent didn't say that anything was allowed in Holland, but he gave some examples of rights that differ from the USA. Argue those rights instead of using the 'anarchy' argument (also known as the 'fingers in my ears' argument).
The freedom they talk about here is entirely different. E.g. try starting a small company in the Netherlands, and one in the US. Then you'll understand why they consider the US to be more "free" and the Netherlands to be almost Communist.
And yet, the ratio of small companies to big companies is higher in Holland. So seemingly it is easier to profitably run a small company in Holland, despite having more regulations. Anyway, IMHO civilization is about establishing rules that shape our interactions and limit our actions. For instance, food regulations + inspections allow us to visit a restaurant with some confidence that we will get served hygienically prepared food. That is a highly practical measure. There are also more moral measures, such as hate (speech) laws and laws against (non-hallucinogenic) drugs. Both the USA and Holland have both types of laws, but the exact laws are different. What I find interesting is that in my discussions with Americans, they often seem to regard their own choices in regulations to be completely sensible and the choices of other civilized countries to be completely alien; As if these regulations do not have any merit and prevent us from having a happy and quite free society (which is a pretty silly argument if you know a bit about Holland). As I see it, some Americans like the word Communism because it allows them to neatly file something in the 'evil file', without have to consider the actual pros and cons.
All in all, I think there is no point in discussing which of these two countries is more "free".
Why not? Are you not interested in improving your country? I am interested in improving mine.
Or we might have had a (limited) space war, filling Earth's orbit with debris, making it impossible to have any satellites for the next thousand years.
I am already going pretty slow at 25-30mph. However, if I come around the corner and there is a boulder, well, that is just shit luck. That's just it though, it's not reasonable to expect stationary objects or moving objects at less than half the speed of traffic under normal conditions.
If you cannot stop in time for a stationary object, you are speeding, regardless of the actual speed limit. There are many reasons why there could be a stationary object behind the corner: a traffic jam, accident, fallen boulder, someone with car trouble, etc. It's not 'shit luck' when you hit that object. It is the consequence of your decision to drive faster than is safe. That decision also happens to put cyclists in danger, the people who get in an accident in that spot, the cars in a traffic jam, etc. Essentially, you are gambling with the lives of others.
You are not entitled to go 25-30mph. You are allowed to drive up to the speed limit, if the conditions allow.
That is what the bike represents. It slows us all down to a point where somebody might not reasonably expect an car to be moving that slow.
Sometimes, the reasonable speed for a car is 0 mph. At a traffic light or in a traffic jam for example. Do you run the red light or drive on the shoulder along the congestion, since you are seemingly entitled to keep moving? If you don't, then why can't you accept that there are situations where you have to slow down because your fellow road users cannot go as fast. This can mean cyclists, trucks, tractors, horse and buggy (Amish), a herd of sheep being moved to greener pastures, etc.
That, along with frustrated drivers, is the real danger I speak of. If bikes should be on that road, then the only sane decision is to make the speed limit that of a bicycle, or warn cyclists to achieve higher speeds for the duration of the road.
Or perhaps drivers should just learn to obey the law. If there is something in your lane that is moving slowly or not at all, you are obligated not to pass until it is safe to do so. Regardless of whether that obstruction is someone who is breaking the law or who you think is inconsiderate. Drivers who get frustrated and perform dangerous maneuvers are breaking the law themselves. They are the real issue, not the cyclists. If the cyclists are banned, the agressive drivers will do the same thing to trucks, tractors and other slow traffic.
In the U.S, there are so many many roads that never took bicycle traffic into consideration for one second when designing them. ... I have only been in Europe a few times in my life, and never Copenhagen. However, from what I remember, most places in the cities did not support very fast traffic anyways and the newer faster roads like our interstates were not designed for bicycle traffic exactly, but have more than enough space for it to be done quite safely. Most of your roads near your cities in Europe don't seem to have been designed for cars anyways. Not the older cities, from what I remember.
Just because the roads in Europe weren't designed for cars, doesn't mean that they are safe for cyclists. Since their introduction, cars have simply taken over these roads and forced alternative forms of transport off the road (it is simply not safe for 30+mph cars to mix with 15mph cyclists). In bicycle friendly parts of Europe, there have been a lot of investments in seperate bike lanes to allow cyclists to travel safely:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/10/04/notes-on-bicycling-in-copenhagen/
The USA could do the same. More cycling means less congestion, fewer parking problems, less obesity, less gas consumption and less pollution.
The French and British policies of appeasement, and their policy of rearming only in accordance with the provisions of Versailles while allowing the Germans to break that treaty at will without consequence, meant that before the war time was on the Germans' side. Had they waited until 1942 or 43 to attack Poland, as most of the Generals were suggesting, the outcome of the war might have been very different.
Only Germany could not rearm freely, according to the Treaty of Versailles. The French and British could invest as much as they wanted in their military. The major issue there was cost, but in the lead-up to the war, Britain was rearming at a decent rate. The French had asked the US to produce planes for them to buy and the US were ramping up their military industries. In 1942/43, France and the UK would have had a stronger military and the US would be way stronger.
Indeed. There is a huge difference between a CIA agent that meets with sources in dangerous locations and torturers who hurt unarmed men in a heavily guarded prison. The first group are to be applauded, the second group should be put in prison.
This is a working link:
http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673
And Snopes message board commentary:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/43/t/001054/p/1.html
Electric cars were around before fuel combustion.
Actually, I already pointed out that electric cars also pollute the air, because tires and brakes produce small particles. So electric cars could not have worked without the invention of brakes and tires that do not wear. Battery technology in the early 19x0's sucked, which was one of the main reasons why the car makers chose to go with combustion engines. The quality of batteries has improved only slowly ever since, even in recent years, despite considerably pressure (laptop makers would kill for a 100% increase in wattage/weight or wattage/size). There is every reason to think that disallowing combustion engines in cars would have slowed the developed of cars down a great deal and would have preventing a lot of economic growth. Then I'm not even talking about planes. An electric plane is not seriously considered by anyone today, so how would it be feasible in the 1900's?
The economic benefits were obvious. I don't refute that. The point is that if the use of fuel combustion technology were impractical because of pollution to innocent 3rd party's property then productive efforts would have been spent trying to improve electric vehicles and alternative solutions instead.
The problem with your argument is that society decided, in a democratic manner, that the effort to develop these techniques was not worth it. In essence, your argument is that there should be a system to force people to accept limitations that they do not want. I am a 'green' person, but I believe in following the democratic process to reduce pollution with the support of 'the people'. This is difficult enough, since many people prefer to pollute (actually, pretty much no-one is willing to reduce their pollution to 0). Of course, those people would never accept a complete ban on air pollution, so your system would never be accepted in a democratic society. In this respect, Libertarianism and Marxism have the same problem. They go against people's nature, so they will never be willingly accepted. The only way to institute them is to corrupt them horribly (Communism corrupts Marxism by forcing people to share beyond what they consider reasonable and forcing people to meet quota's, while Marxism wants people to contribute to society as much as they can out of free will). The only way you can make Libertarianism work is by having a dictator government that ignores the desires of the majority, which doesn't seem very liberal to me (for the original meaning of 'liberal').
Lots of non-polluting technologies have been developed but there's no economic incentive to mass produce them.
Fact is that right now, we cannot even come close to a 100% non-polluting society. The best scrubbers we have are still imperfect and there are plenty of sources of pollution that we have no clean solution for. So how would we get to a libertarian society, without causing all polluting industries to disappear overnight (which would cause our society to collapse)?
Perhaps we need increasingly strict regulations (over time), so industries will have to adapt at a manageable rate. This is already being done for cars in the US and EU, but there is a global treaty that was intended to kick off such a system globally (the Kyoto treaty). Do you support the Kyoto treaty as a means of establishing Libertarianism?
There's other industries that produce waste but they don't pollute the air. Nuclear energy is one example.
If we ignore the pollution when building the power plant, mining and processing the uranium and transporting it then you are correct. However, nuclear plants need cooling water and are often situated next to a river. This causes the water to heat up, which can cause the fish to die, so there are currently government regulations to prevent this. How would libertarianism deal with this form of pollution?
Libertarians have no problem with hazardo
You simply sidestepped my criticism of your utopia and let loose another vague lecture. Explain to me how you would travel 50 miles in your utopia? There have been thousands of different methods of transportation that have been invented, so I'm sure that you can come up with a semi-realistic one that doesn't pollute the air at all. I suspect you can't though, because it is virtually impossible. You prefer to engage in magical thinking, which is the only way to make your utopia work.
Only the production techniques that we take for granted today would never have been employed to such an extent. Meaning resources would have been diverted into developing and refining alternative production techniques.
Assuming those techniques exist, they are clearly much more difficult than the ones we use today (or we'd be using them). So at a minimum, many of the inventions we enjoy today would have been usable much later. Do you really think that most people would accept this? That the government would close cities for cars simply because a few people would not accept the air pollution in the 1900's when the cars were introduced? Or better yet, let me posit this: clearly people do not accept your theories or they would have created at least one government somewhere that follows them.
If by "extremist" you mean consistent then thank-you :)
It would only be consistent if you were living your life according to your ideals. I'm sure that you are not. What I actually meant was ignorant and dangerous. Ignorant since you suggest a major revolution even though there are basic criticisms that you cannot reasonably refute. Dangerous because extremists tend to commit the worst crimes, since they cannot compromise. When they encounter conflicts, they choose radical solutions. A dry region without enough water for everyone to drink, have swimming pools, etc, etc. Fine, the people with the most money buy the water and use it frivolously. The poor die. Problem solved.
Capitalism is a legal construct that refers to private ownership of property.
I was referring to the system of capitalism that we currently have. You know, the one that enables you to earn a living. Of course you prefer to 'discuss' capitalism in a purely philosophical manner, because in your capitalist utopia you will be rich. How? Magic. No need to get into the details of how people would live their lives. Let's just do it, what could go wrong? I mean, there never would be mass starvation like under communism. They had a flawed theory that clearly could never work. Unlike your theory, which is perfect.
The problem with that argument is that we would have almost none of our technology if we could simply sue people to get them to stop polluting:
- Even electric cars cause air pollution (tire rubber and metal particles from the brakes).
- All fossil-burning electro plants produce air pollution.
- Pretty much all moving parts cause (trace amounts of) air pollution, so you'd better not mow the lawn, walk around, breathe or do any of the million other things that generate small amounts of air pollution.
- Most industries cause at least some air pollution (including bakeries, although many people enjoy that smell). Even the best industrial filters will let trace amounts through.
Politicians are supposed to find compromises that allow for a safe level of pollution, while allowing our industries to function well. Ironically, your libertarian ideal is so extremist that it will destroy capitalism completely. You are a greater threat to capitalism than most communists.
Typical M-16 magazines hold 30 rounds. A trained user should be able to get at least five kills from that magazine, and reloading takes only a few seconds.
You do realize that both ships will be moving about quite a bit? I doubt that a once trained, but unpracticed shooter will be very effective with a rifle until the pirates are already on board (at which point you lose your greatest advantage).
Small arms are far more effective than the mad-scientist weapons mentioned, because they are much cheaper, far more reliable, easier to use, and have a deterrence factor: pirates will avoid ships they think involve a high risk of death, and dead (or wounded and captured) pirates don't get to raid again.
I don't see how guns are cheaper, more reliable and easier to use than a water cannon (which can also be used for fire fighting). You can easily guide the fairly wide, continuous water beam to your target. That is much easier than firing a gun accurately. You can train with a water cannon fairly often, but when are the crew members going to practice firing their guns? On the high seas there are no targets for target practice, so the crew will have no idea if they are shooting well. Near harbors, you aren't allowed to fire guns. So the guns will stay in storage until the pirates attack. Then they can only hope that the guns will actually work (after not having been cleaned for years) and that the crew can use them effectively.
Also, unlike the fixed position water cannons and sound cannons, small arms can be used more easily once the pirates have boarded.
That depends on the ship. If the cannon can reach the entire deck, it may well be more effective, especially since you can use the cannons by remote control. In a small arms fight on a ship, there is a pretty high chance of getting killed. I don't see why the crew would take that risk instead of simply surrendering. After all, the crew generally survives being taken hostage.
If the water cannon was a better weapon than a rifle, then military ships and land units (which, unlike commercial ships, do not have legal restrictions on what weapons they employ) would use them instead of rifles.
That is a pretty silly argument because military units have highly trained military units that are willing to kill. Their primary task is to fight other military units (99% of the weapons of a warship are hugely overpowered for dealing with pirates). Military warships would look completely different if they were designed for pirate hunting. This is a story about warships using water cannons as weapons, since their regular weaponry was hugely overpowered.