Yeah.... that works well in the middle of a big city. Do you know how much is actually eaten daily in a big city?
Which is EXACTLY why the GP's idiotic complaint about only being able to buy meat from one provider is so preposterous. When you have that much demand, you have many, many suppliers competing to provide products of every type, including ag stuff ranging from back-yard-raised to large scale organic to more moderately priced "conventional" goods. His entire point is just wrong on the face of it.
You can't solve bad places by just saying "move".
If EVERYONE in a place dislikes it so much that moving is tempting, that means that the place where they live is a prime target for political re-invention, and external investment. If nobody wants to invest any money in launching new businesses there, it's because the local population is doing it wrong. And there are places like that, which is why you do see exactly what you're saying more or less can't happen: abandonment of large swaths of crappy space (like, say, parts of Detroit) as people move to where governance and business is working correctly. That story is as old as civilization.
Which people? The people I was going to hire already started their own company. There aren't any employees any more in your utopia.
Offer them more money and a better gig. The GP's point is that he feels under-served by what his local market environment is offering him. So unless he's just making stuff up about there only being one meat packing plant supplying all the meat to his entire city (which is ridiculous), then he's probably (in his imaginary scenario) representative of a pent-up demand for a different looking market. And if there's demand, there's the willingness to pay more money for more options. And that means that the company offering a new and better option can afford to pay more for people because they can afford to charge more, given the pent-up demand.
Since the US claims the right to enforce its won stupid fucking laws globally, stop whining when other countries want to enforce their own stupid fucking rules globally...
Citations, please. Or do you mean "the US chooses to sign treaties with other nations so that all parties in the treaty can pursue the same law enforcement options, like extraditing criminals as appropriate." Because if actually meant the words you used, it means you're either deliberately lying or are yet another low-information ranter (in either case, please just go away).
The problem with your example is that the "right to be forgotten" thing doesn't actually expunge your name from public records. It allows you to request to have your name removed from certain indexes in search engines, but it doesn't remove those records from internet-facing servers. And in many cases, the search engine listings for some of those records are off-limits from such removal requests. If you get arrested and charged for even a fake rape (like in the Duke case you mentioned), sorry, your name is part of the public record, period. If you want to reduce the number of times that sort of thing happens, make draconian laws that send stupid, agenda-minded prosecutors to jail for supporting such baseless arrests and prosecutions in the first place.
If it is the only place you can get a job you have no choice.
Really? In a country of hundreds of millions of people with millions of businesses all across the country, there's only ONE place where you can get a job? You don't suppose that would have anything to do with you not lifting a finger to make yourself actually valuable to more than one single employer in one single town, do you? No, it must be that the Eeeeevil Corporations have gotten together to talk about you and make sure that you personally are blacklisted from working anywhere except that one place, where - according to your other post - they also force you to buy meat from one supplier, among other things.
There are cities where you MUST own a car and you MUST drive
And if you move away from these mythical cities, what happens... the Eeeeevil City Enforcers drag you back by your hair and force you to live there?
Or you MUST buy your meat from 1 regional meat packer.
Because you're not allowed to have things shipped to your address from somewhere else? UPS and FedEx are being kept at the border of your city, with their trucks being checked by Armed Meat Thugs working for that one meat packing company?
you MUST buy GMO vegetables because you have no way of knowing what you are actually buying
Because... you're convinced that your local farmer is lying to you?
Welcome to the jack boot of corporations on your neck.
Hold on a sec while I take some corporate-made pain killers to help with the headache I just got from rolling my eyes so hard.
Here's what you can do: butcher your own meat. People do it every day, though you sound much too lazy and entitled and whiny to do anything that might involved getting your hands dirty. Which probably also rules out you growing your own vegetables - you might have to clean your fingernails afterwards, so you won't soil your keyboard when typing your next woe-is-me rant.
Here's what you could do, if you weren't so lazy:
1) Move somewhere you like. There are towns all over the country where you can put on your Birkenstocks and hop on your bamboo bicycle for a ride to the local market where humanely raised tofurkeys are slaughtered only while they're in the middle of REM sleep, dreaming about a time when growing soy plants will somehow avoid the murder of earthworms.
2) Start your own company. Hire people, meet all sorts of endless and expensive regulations, and produce food or other services that you think people like you want and would be willing to pay for. But whatever you do, do not incorporate your business. You should be willing to put your personal assets entirely at risk so that if one of your employees accidentally has a delivery truck accident that kills a kid who fell into the street after passing out from lack of protein in his cruelty free diet, you will be personally wiped out, financially. That way you can no longer participate in the forming and running of exactly the sort of business activity you so would prefer to see, competing with other businesses. Because if you and a few people grow your business a bit and want to find a way to let it survive your personal death, or want to reach even more customers who would love your company's products and need to be able to show investors why you can't personally just pocket their money and walk away... you're going to want to form a formal entity. You know, an eeeevil incorporation with actual rules and structure. Can't have that! Because you would suddenly turn evil, right? Yeah.
Your entire rant is based on fantasy. You want to imagine that you're not allowed to buy a hamburger anywhere in your city from a company you might like, because that cartoon villainy fantasy scenario you've concocted excuses you from having to imagine yourself doing anything personally to bring to market the things you think should be there. Because you're lazy.
I didn't say you mentioned efficiency. What you did say was:
And yet a high-school student from the 1980's was able to engineer a system with off the shelf computers and a little ingenuity. And managed to build a system that has lasted for 25 years.
Which sounds like praise. But you don't know if you're praising something that was actually a long-term financial disaster, or merely serviceable, or what.
And yet a high-school student from the 1980's was able to engineer a system with off the shelf computers and a little ingenuity. And managed to build a system that has lasted for 25 years.
And for all we know, it could be so blindingly inefficient that it's cost the school system hundreds of thousands or millions in wasted energy over that quarter century. See how uninformed assertions work?
Right. Over the last several decades a handful of RC enthusiasts have suffered some pretty gruesome injuries. Not nearly as many, of course, as... rock climbers, scuba divers, joggers, avid gardeners, or casual hockey players. So that definitely means prop guards, no question.
It still amazes me to see folks still operating (let alone being allowed to sell) drones without any shielding around the prop perimeters. Yes, yes; weight and efficiency, but I don't think the bystander damage would be nearly as great when *when* they fall out of the sky.
I agree. Safety should be paramount. That's why I only buy kitchen knives that have their sharp edges hidden behind a shield in case I drop one on somebody's foot. And more importantly, I'm glad that we've finally got a market where we can only purchase 2,000-pound manually-operated motor vehicles that ride on inflated rubber balloons as people operate them over wet or icy pavement... but which we're no longer allowed to buy unless they are completely surrounded by huge foam cushions, and can't go more than 3mph. You know, to mitigate the damage when *when* somebody operating one happens to collide with another human being.
Oh, right. Untold hundreds of thousands of multirotors being flown by amateurs and professionals alike (most without any prop guards), and no deaths. Compared to, say, hundreds of thousands of preventable medical deaths or traffic deaths.
You can't even get American's to admit that hiring a man who never so much as managed a McDonalds to run the country was a bad idea.
I'm no fan of the current president - I think he's got some very mixed up priorities and comes to the job having led far too insular a life. But unlike you, I'll bet he never the less knows how to use an apostrophe. There, I finally said something nice about him. Mostly, I'd prefer that people who point out his unsuitability for the job sound, themselves, a little more put together.
Are you seriously suggesting that there are no armed guards on US military bases?
Are you seriously this uninformed about how large and compartmentalized a "military base" is? And so uninformed about the facts on the ground in a case like Ft. Hood? In both that case and the more recent Navy Yard killings - exactly. The killers sought out areas/victims where there was no immediate chance of someone simply shooting them down to stop them. Just read the accounts, and understand.
Do your homework. Crazies like the most recent 20-kids-killed school shooter were absolutely obsessive about studying and taking notes about the circumstances of other mass murders, and what would allow such an attack to proceed uninterrupted by someone able to stop him. Just because he was nuts (like the Colorado theater killer, or the Virginia Tech killer) doesn't mean they're unable assess the practicalities of the situation.
Recent attacks have been on military bases
Right. Specifically in places where the vast majority of the people walking around are not allowed to carry guns. The Islamist crazy who shot up a room full of people in Ft. Hood knew that room would be without armed people until they were called in (at which point he'd have had an uninterrupted opportunity to kill a bunch of people). The guy who wandered the Navy Yard office building knew that he only had to flash his ID and surprise a single guard in order to then have a "military base" to wander through where nobody would be armed.
he deterrent has already failed and as proof we can name every single mass shooting in the US.
What? Perpetrators of recent mass shootings have made it clear that they sought out targets where they knew there would be no deterrence. That's why they pick "gun free zones" when they do crap like that. Because of the lack of deterrence.
It's only a deterrence if it's credibly likely to happen. If you go somewhere that you know nobody is allowed to carry guns, and where there are no armed police and can't be for at least long enough to kill a bunch of people... there's no deterrence. On the other hand, you have things like the recent event in Texas, where two guys decided to risk the fact that there was a deterrence, but decided to Islamify the gathering anyway. They never made it into the building because an armed cop shut them down on the spot. Because he was there, to do exactly that.
No. There's no other thing he can mean. He starts by saying that we should govern by consensus, instead of what he perceives to be happening now (here, he means that he wants less division, and - given his posting history - less resistance from the party of which he disapproves, which is is to say, libertarian/conservative types). So he wants things like votes where more people agree. OK, so that means everyone will compromise, right? That he'll do things like vote for something I like, even though he doesn't, because he considers consensus to be an end in and of itself, rather than the expression of actual ideology based on specific values. He says he doesn't want an adversarial process in government. OK, so I ask if he's willing to not oppose something I want, in the name of being less adversarial. He says, no, because he doesn't like what I stand for. Do you see what we're dealing with? Simple, good old fashioned hypocrisy.
UGH! One word, banality, look it up... you just don't see yourself
Right, of course. Can't directly address the hypocrisy in your own position, so sling some more ad hominem. The first resort of people who know they're talking nonsense.
So, can't bring yourself to say what "consensus" means? Why not?
I know, another insult is easier than a bit of intellectual integrity.
Here, I'll help you with that level of effort you can't muster. Webster defines "consensus" as general agreement. As the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned.
That's exactly what we have right now - we make laws and elect people based on things like getting more/most of the votes. We don't, though, always get "general agreement." Only a most/more agreement on most of the things we debate as we approach legislation. Something like a constitutional amendment needs something a lot more like "general agreement" to pass.
So we you say we need to govern by consensus, you must mean by the first part of that definition - "general agreement." Leaving aside for the moment that we're governed by the constitution (which WAS formed in general agreement), what you mean is you want legislative process... without significant disagreement?
The problem is that there are large groups of people in this country with fundamentally different ideas about some pretty basic stuff. Why would you expect me to "generally agree" with (for example) you, if you're not willing to generally agree with me? I know, it's because yours is the superior intellect, always right, with your only flaw being an inability to say what you really mean because, like a guy with Tourette's, juvenile insults pop out first and throw you off balance.
Projection. You're the one who said "are you willing to go along with anything I[you] say"
Are you really that obtuse? I said that to point out that the GP was being completely disingenuous. He doesn't want an adversarial, debate-based government - he says he wants something else, and used the word "consensus." What he really means is that he wants things his way, and thinks that people who disagree with him ideologically should just do what he says anyway, because, you know, consensus.
It's nothing about liking you, or even 'liking' anybody. As usual you're making shit up, or just dredging up the usual trash from your favorite political rags.
Ah, anything to avoid the substance of the discussion. What does "by consensus" mean to you, precisely? Perhaps that a bunch of elected representatives get to together and discuss whether and how to do something, and then the prevailing (by way of votes) approach is the one that's selected? You know, as in... "elections matter?"
"Consensus" is not the same as "unanimity." Tell me how your idea of consensus works: should people opposed to a policy or law simply agree to it, despite their better judgement, in the name of "consensus?" You don't like, apparently, policies that "take care" of certain groups of people. But would you support those policies so that you could have the moral satisfaction of having been part of a consensus? If not, then what do you mean by the term? Be specific, instead of tossing out "trash," "rags" and other terms meant to distract from the fact that you don't really mean what you say.
No, of course not! You're too damn partisan, selective, looking after a specific group of people.
Hilarious.
So, you're all for consensus, except for with the people you don't like. Government by compromise! All they have to do is do it your way, right?
The point of having checks and balances, and of encouraging vigorous debate is so that you have to make a very strong case for how you want to exercise things like the power to take people's money and property away, or enable/prevent them from running a business, etc.
You say you don't want to do things I like, because I'm "looking after a specific group of people." So... your agenda is to specifically scorn that same (mysteriously unidentified) group of people? Or to look after everyone but that group of people? And you think I won't like that, but too bad for me, because you think you're operating on a rational consensus that doesn't have to include my input because you don't like me. That's fantastic!
Oh thank God we can make this a partisan issue, for a moment I thought I wouldn't have a scapegoat.
Well, which is it? If you don't like what the executive branch of the government is doing during this negotiating process, do you hold the current administration responsible for what you dislike, or not? Yes or no? You seem willing to stipulate there's an "issue," but you're disinclined to lay that at the feet of the one entity that has sole responsibility for the nature of the issue. The administration is highly partisan in all of its activities, which is no surprise. This activity is entirely in their lap. They are conducting it with politics alwyas in mind. Of course it's a partisan issue. Complaining about that is like complaining about the fact that different people have different ideas about labor unions, or taxes, or the relationship between the citizens and the government. Is that your real complaint - that some people have come to different conclusions than you have? Those different opinions tend to gather in groups and act in concert, and we call those political parties. Wishing away partisanship and complaints about it is wishing for a completely non-adversarial governing process - which would be truly frightening.
Dear sweet jeebus, can we please just dismantle the TSA and give security back to the airlines, now?
So your answer to the fact that 73 people were missed because the TSA wasn't allowed to see the information that would cause those people to be scrutinized by that agency is... to instead grant a lot of different airlines (including foreign ones operating in the US?) access to that sensitive information instead? Or would it be easier to instead remove the silo effect that allowed this to happen in the first place, over which the TSA had no control?
They (the federal government in general) were too busy watching the public to vet their own employees.
Kind of like you were too busy getting some snark together to bother reading even the summary, and finding that this wasn't about TSA employees? And that the issue here wasn't competence, but the fact that the agency wasn't allowed access to the data that would have identified the 73 people in question?
Damn, too much useful information. Please ignore so you can snark some more.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah.... that works well in the middle of a big city. Do you know how much is actually eaten daily in a big city?
Which is EXACTLY why the GP's idiotic complaint about only being able to buy meat from one provider is so preposterous. When you have that much demand, you have many, many suppliers competing to provide products of every type, including ag stuff ranging from back-yard-raised to large scale organic to more moderately priced "conventional" goods. His entire point is just wrong on the face of it.
You can't solve bad places by just saying "move".
If EVERYONE in a place dislikes it so much that moving is tempting, that means that the place where they live is a prime target for political re-invention, and external investment. If nobody wants to invest any money in launching new businesses there, it's because the local population is doing it wrong. And there are places like that, which is why you do see exactly what you're saying more or less can't happen: abandonment of large swaths of crappy space (like, say, parts of Detroit) as people move to where governance and business is working correctly. That story is as old as civilization.
Which people? The people I was going to hire already started their own company. There aren't any employees any more in your utopia.
Offer them more money and a better gig. The GP's point is that he feels under-served by what his local market environment is offering him. So unless he's just making stuff up about there only being one meat packing plant supplying all the meat to his entire city (which is ridiculous), then he's probably (in his imaginary scenario) representative of a pent-up demand for a different looking market. And if there's demand, there's the willingness to pay more money for more options. And that means that the company offering a new and better option can afford to pay more for people because they can afford to charge more, given the pent-up demand.
Since the US claims the right to enforce its won stupid fucking laws globally, stop whining when other countries want to enforce their own stupid fucking rules globally...
Citations, please. Or do you mean "the US chooses to sign treaties with other nations so that all parties in the treaty can pursue the same law enforcement options, like extraditing criminals as appropriate." Because if actually meant the words you used, it means you're either deliberately lying or are yet another low-information ranter (in either case, please just go away).
The problem with your example is that the "right to be forgotten" thing doesn't actually expunge your name from public records. It allows you to request to have your name removed from certain indexes in search engines, but it doesn't remove those records from internet-facing servers. And in many cases, the search engine listings for some of those records are off-limits from such removal requests. If you get arrested and charged for even a fake rape (like in the Duke case you mentioned), sorry, your name is part of the public record, period. If you want to reduce the number of times that sort of thing happens, make draconian laws that send stupid, agenda-minded prosecutors to jail for supporting such baseless arrests and prosecutions in the first place.
If it is the only place you can get a job you have no choice.
Really? In a country of hundreds of millions of people with millions of businesses all across the country, there's only ONE place where you can get a job? You don't suppose that would have anything to do with you not lifting a finger to make yourself actually valuable to more than one single employer in one single town, do you? No, it must be that the Eeeeevil Corporations have gotten together to talk about you and make sure that you personally are blacklisted from working anywhere except that one place, where - according to your other post - they also force you to buy meat from one supplier, among other things.
Do you even listen to yourself?
There are cities where you MUST own a car and you MUST drive
And if you move away from these mythical cities, what happens ... the Eeeeevil City Enforcers drag you back by your hair and force you to live there?
Or you MUST buy your meat from 1 regional meat packer.
Because you're not allowed to have things shipped to your address from somewhere else? UPS and FedEx are being kept at the border of your city, with their trucks being checked by Armed Meat Thugs working for that one meat packing company?
you MUST buy GMO vegetables because you have no way of knowing what you are actually buying
Because ... you're convinced that your local farmer is lying to you?
Welcome to the jack boot of corporations on your neck.
Hold on a sec while I take some corporate-made pain killers to help with the headache I just got from rolling my eyes so hard.
... you're going to want to form a formal entity. You know, an eeeevil incorporation with actual rules and structure. Can't have that! Because you would suddenly turn evil, right? Yeah.
Here's what you can do: butcher your own meat. People do it every day, though you sound much too lazy and entitled and whiny to do anything that might involved getting your hands dirty. Which probably also rules out you growing your own vegetables - you might have to clean your fingernails afterwards, so you won't soil your keyboard when typing your next woe-is-me rant.
Here's what you could do, if you weren't so lazy:
1) Move somewhere you like. There are towns all over the country where you can put on your Birkenstocks and hop on your bamboo bicycle for a ride to the local market where humanely raised tofurkeys are slaughtered only while they're in the middle of REM sleep, dreaming about a time when growing soy plants will somehow avoid the murder of earthworms.
2) Start your own company. Hire people, meet all sorts of endless and expensive regulations, and produce food or other services that you think people like you want and would be willing to pay for. But whatever you do, do not incorporate your business. You should be willing to put your personal assets entirely at risk so that if one of your employees accidentally has a delivery truck accident that kills a kid who fell into the street after passing out from lack of protein in his cruelty free diet, you will be personally wiped out, financially. That way you can no longer participate in the forming and running of exactly the sort of business activity you so would prefer to see, competing with other businesses. Because if you and a few people grow your business a bit and want to find a way to let it survive your personal death, or want to reach even more customers who would love your company's products and need to be able to show investors why you can't personally just pocket their money and walk away
Your entire rant is based on fantasy. You want to imagine that you're not allowed to buy a hamburger anywhere in your city from a company you might like, because that cartoon villainy fantasy scenario you've concocted excuses you from having to imagine yourself doing anything personally to bring to market the things you think should be there. Because you're lazy.
Maybe its your signature.
the most anti-american event in the history of this country was 2010's citizens united
Well, since you routinely explain how much you dislike the constitution, I suppose it makes sense you'd say something like that.
And yet a high-school student from the 1980's was able to engineer a system with off the shelf computers and a little ingenuity. And managed to build a system that has lasted for 25 years.
Which sounds like praise. But you don't know if you're praising something that was actually a long-term financial disaster, or merely serviceable, or what.
And yet a high-school student from the 1980's was able to engineer a system with off the shelf computers and a little ingenuity. And managed to build a system that has lasted for 25 years.
And for all we know, it could be so blindingly inefficient that it's cost the school system hundreds of thousands or millions in wasted energy over that quarter century. See how uninformed assertions work?
Right. Over the last several decades a handful of RC enthusiasts have suffered some pretty gruesome injuries. Not nearly as many, of course, as ... rock climbers, scuba divers, joggers, avid gardeners, or casual hockey players. So that definitely means prop guards, no question.
It still amazes me to see folks still operating (let alone being allowed to sell) drones without any shielding around the prop perimeters. Yes, yes; weight and efficiency, but I don't think the bystander damage would be nearly as great when *when* they fall out of the sky.
I agree. Safety should be paramount. That's why I only buy kitchen knives that have their sharp edges hidden behind a shield in case I drop one on somebody's foot. And more importantly, I'm glad that we've finally got a market where we can only purchase 2,000-pound manually-operated motor vehicles that ride on inflated rubber balloons as people operate them over wet or icy pavement ... but which we're no longer allowed to buy unless they are completely surrounded by huge foam cushions, and can't go more than 3mph. You know, to mitigate the damage when *when* somebody operating one happens to collide with another human being.
Oh, right. Untold hundreds of thousands of multirotors being flown by amateurs and professionals alike (most without any prop guards), and no deaths. Compared to, say, hundreds of thousands of preventable medical deaths or traffic deaths.
Some perspective, please.
You can't even get American's to admit that hiring a man who never so much as managed a McDonalds to run the country was a bad idea.
I'm no fan of the current president - I think he's got some very mixed up priorities and comes to the job having led far too insular a life. But unlike you, I'll bet he never the less knows how to use an apostrophe. There, I finally said something nice about him. Mostly, I'd prefer that people who point out his unsuitability for the job sound, themselves, a little more put together.
Are you seriously suggesting that there are no armed guards on US military bases?
Are you seriously this uninformed about how large and compartmentalized a "military base" is? And so uninformed about the facts on the ground in a case like Ft. Hood? In both that case and the more recent Navy Yard killings - exactly. The killers sought out areas/victims where there was no immediate chance of someone simply shooting them down to stop them. Just read the accounts, and understand.
Not a single perp has ever said that.
Do your homework. Crazies like the most recent 20-kids-killed school shooter were absolutely obsessive about studying and taking notes about the circumstances of other mass murders, and what would allow such an attack to proceed uninterrupted by someone able to stop him. Just because he was nuts (like the Colorado theater killer, or the Virginia Tech killer) doesn't mean they're unable assess the practicalities of the situation.
Recent attacks have been on military bases
Right. Specifically in places where the vast majority of the people walking around are not allowed to carry guns. The Islamist crazy who shot up a room full of people in Ft. Hood knew that room would be without armed people until they were called in (at which point he'd have had an uninterrupted opportunity to kill a bunch of people). The guy who wandered the Navy Yard office building knew that he only had to flash his ID and surprise a single guard in order to then have a "military base" to wander through where nobody would be armed.
he deterrent has already failed and as proof we can name every single mass shooting in the US.
What? Perpetrators of recent mass shootings have made it clear that they sought out targets where they knew there would be no deterrence. That's why they pick "gun free zones" when they do crap like that. Because of the lack of deterrence.
... there's no deterrence. On the other hand, you have things like the recent event in Texas, where two guys decided to risk the fact that there was a deterrence, but decided to Islamify the gathering anyway. They never made it into the building because an armed cop shut them down on the spot. Because he was there, to do exactly that.
It's only a deterrence if it's credibly likely to happen. If you go somewhere that you know nobody is allowed to carry guns, and where there are no armed police and can't be for at least long enough to kill a bunch of people
No. There's no other thing he can mean. He starts by saying that we should govern by consensus, instead of what he perceives to be happening now (here, he means that he wants less division, and - given his posting history - less resistance from the party of which he disapproves, which is is to say, libertarian/conservative types). So he wants things like votes where more people agree. OK, so that means everyone will compromise, right? That he'll do things like vote for something I like, even though he doesn't, because he considers consensus to be an end in and of itself, rather than the expression of actual ideology based on specific values. He says he doesn't want an adversarial process in government. OK, so I ask if he's willing to not oppose something I want, in the name of being less adversarial. He says, no, because he doesn't like what I stand for. Do you see what we're dealing with? Simple, good old fashioned hypocrisy.
UGH! One word, banality, look it up... you just don't see yourself
Right, of course. Can't directly address the hypocrisy in your own position, so sling some more ad hominem. The first resort of people who know they're talking nonsense.
... without significant disagreement?
So, can't bring yourself to say what "consensus" means? Why not?
I know, another insult is easier than a bit of intellectual integrity.
Here, I'll help you with that level of effort you can't muster. Webster defines "consensus" as general agreement. As the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned.
That's exactly what we have right now - we make laws and elect people based on things like getting more/most of the votes. We don't, though, always get "general agreement." Only a most/more agreement on most of the things we debate as we approach legislation. Something like a constitutional amendment needs something a lot more like "general agreement" to pass.
So we you say we need to govern by consensus, you must mean by the first part of that definition - "general agreement." Leaving aside for the moment that we're governed by the constitution (which WAS formed in general agreement), what you mean is you want legislative process
The problem is that there are large groups of people in this country with fundamentally different ideas about some pretty basic stuff. Why would you expect me to "generally agree" with (for example) you, if you're not willing to generally agree with me? I know, it's because yours is the superior intellect, always right, with your only flaw being an inability to say what you really mean because, like a guy with Tourette's, juvenile insults pop out first and throw you off balance.
Projection. You're the one who said "are you willing to go along with anything I[you] say"
Are you really that obtuse? I said that to point out that the GP was being completely disingenuous. He doesn't want an adversarial, debate-based government - he says he wants something else, and used the word "consensus." What he really means is that he wants things his way, and thinks that people who disagree with him ideologically should just do what he says anyway, because, you know, consensus.
It's nothing about liking you, or even 'liking' anybody. As usual you're making shit up, or just dredging up the usual trash from your favorite political rags.
Ah, anything to avoid the substance of the discussion. What does "by consensus" mean to you, precisely? Perhaps that a bunch of elected representatives get to together and discuss whether and how to do something, and then the prevailing (by way of votes) approach is the one that's selected? You know, as in ... "elections matter?"
"Consensus" is not the same as "unanimity." Tell me how your idea of consensus works: should people opposed to a policy or law simply agree to it, despite their better judgement, in the name of "consensus?" You don't like, apparently, policies that "take care" of certain groups of people. But would you support those policies so that you could have the moral satisfaction of having been part of a consensus? If not, then what do you mean by the term? Be specific, instead of tossing out "trash," "rags" and other terms meant to distract from the fact that you don't really mean what you say.
No, of course not! You're too damn partisan, selective, looking after a specific group of people.
Hilarious.
... your agenda is to specifically scorn that same (mysteriously unidentified) group of people? Or to look after everyone but that group of people? And you think I won't like that, but too bad for me, because you think you're operating on a rational consensus that doesn't have to include my input because you don't like me. That's fantastic!
So, you're all for consensus, except for with the people you don't like. Government by compromise! All they have to do is do it your way, right?
The point of having checks and balances, and of encouraging vigorous debate is so that you have to make a very strong case for how you want to exercise things like the power to take people's money and property away, or enable/prevent them from running a business, etc.
You say you don't want to do things I like, because I'm "looking after a specific group of people." So
Yes, heaven forbid we should govern by consensus.
I agree, we should have government by consensus. Are you willing to go along with anything I say, policy-wise? No? Why not? Please be specific.
Oh thank God we can make this a partisan issue, for a moment I thought I wouldn't have a scapegoat.
Well, which is it? If you don't like what the executive branch of the government is doing during this negotiating process, do you hold the current administration responsible for what you dislike, or not? Yes or no? You seem willing to stipulate there's an "issue," but you're disinclined to lay that at the feet of the one entity that has sole responsibility for the nature of the issue. The administration is highly partisan in all of its activities, which is no surprise. This activity is entirely in their lap. They are conducting it with politics alwyas in mind. Of course it's a partisan issue. Complaining about that is like complaining about the fact that different people have different ideas about labor unions, or taxes, or the relationship between the citizens and the government. Is that your real complaint - that some people have come to different conclusions than you have? Those different opinions tend to gather in groups and act in concert, and we call those political parties. Wishing away partisanship and complaints about it is wishing for a completely non-adversarial governing process - which would be truly frightening.
I think someone needs to have their blood pressure checked....
You don't personally know people who work for the EPA, do you? I can tell.
Dear sweet jeebus, can we please just dismantle the TSA and give security back to the airlines, now?
So your answer to the fact that 73 people were missed because the TSA wasn't allowed to see the information that would cause those people to be scrutinized by that agency is ... to instead grant a lot of different airlines (including foreign ones operating in the US?) access to that sensitive information instead? Or would it be easier to instead remove the silo effect that allowed this to happen in the first place, over which the TSA had no control?
They (the federal government in general) were too busy watching the public to vet their own employees.
Kind of like you were too busy getting some snark together to bother reading even the summary, and finding that this wasn't about TSA employees? And that the issue here wasn't competence, but the fact that the agency wasn't allowed access to the data that would have identified the 73 people in question?
Damn, too much useful information. Please ignore so you can snark some more.