X is not a fixed number. There's all sorts of feedbacks your simple equation doesn't take into account that blow it to hell. Given a certain level of current unemployment, potential employees need to compete. That reduces the compensation employer's must offer. Those additional resources get saved (worst choice) or spent directly on new employees OR spent on goods, which increases X. Wages don't shift instantaneously, and given things like a minimum wage may never shift low enough to spur economic growth. It's not even clear that "number of jobs" is a useful metric.
No, they don't drain money and time from society. Society drains it from itself to pay for their healthcare. Society would be free to cut them off, although that would eliminate their only justification for taxing them pay for those programs.
Taking advantage of help you offer does not harm you. Any costs you incur for that help are voluntary. At worst, you have harmed yourself.
I did NOT ask for a safety net. Since I'm forced to pay for it, I will damn well make use of it when appropriate though. If you choose to provide a saftey net, that's your choice. You'd be free to cut me off IF you also let me be free from paying for the damn thing. At no point am I harming you by using the service you provided.
Problem: Occasionally drinking an extra large soda harms no one. You don't ban driving just because some drivers kill people, and you don't ban a food because some people overindulge causing minor inconvenience to other people.
Having a 51% majority on your side doesn't automagically make whatever you want to do legitimate. If I don't choose to go along with the majority, what gives you the right to force me to move out of the community?
Drinking more tequila to delay a hangover just makes the eventual hangover worse. Or leads to alcohol poisoning...
The fact that there is a cost to trying to fix the issue by not overspending doesn't mean it's wise to use methods to reduce that cost that will make the overall situation worse.
It's worth remembering that Reagan was on net a tax reducer, even if he did raise taxes at one point. And by the end of his term, per capita tax revenue adjusted for inflation was higher than it was at the start of it, despite an overall lower tax rate.
That's a serious misreading of that study. In general, both groups had a broad trend. The rate of change for individualists was much greater as more literacy was gained, so conservatives are clearly more open to adjusting their thinking as facts are gained. A little spin here, but it's still more accurate than your description of the paper.
To give him the benefit of the doubt, I wasn't 100% sure you were joking. It was plausible you really felt the way your wording indicated about both gun rights and gay marriage, although I've not seen someone with both of those belief sets in the past.
Unfortunately, I've seen multiple people on this page seriously suggest that reality actual has a liberal bias, so I couldn't trust that it was a joke. For the record "FTFY" is not trolling, it's a slightly amusing way to indicate disagreement with the quoted comment. It only seems like trolling if you can't stand having the flaws in the original comment pointed out because of your own bias.
http://current.com/news-and-politics/89142818_bush-to-attack-iran-suspend-elections-and-declare-martial-law.htm supposedly quotes a named congress critter. That one source was referenced by a fair number of sources. That's a cut above an unamed DHS whistleblower. Frankly, I find all such claims place the person making the claim dangerously close to timecube guy. I've been hearing wingnut/moonbat claims to that sort of thing about every president since I started paying attention to politics.
No, a vote for a third party is NOT a vote for either major party. Not voting at all is ALSO not voting for most distasteful of the 2 major parties, for the same reason. If you prefer D to R, not voting for D reduces their count by one. Actually voting for R would do that AND increase R's total. An actual vote for the opposition party is equivalent to a 2 vote change in relative position... not voting is only equivalent to 1.
A better resolution is approval voting. Given any number candidates, vote yea or nay on each candidate. Candidate with the most votes wins. Everyone would cast one yea for one of the 2 major parties at least at first, but are free to vote for any third party they wish, without costing them their vote for a major candidate.
That was non-reponsive. You were the one who said "If a few unelected SCOTUS judges had happened to be appointed by different presidents back in 2000", which indicated you thought it was a party line vote.
For the record, I have read the decision. It's been long enough that I am not going to make specific claims about it, but much like Citizens United it's been misrepresented in all sorts of ways. Among others, even if the recounts had gone through in any way being requested by any of the parties at the time, Bush still would have won. IIRC, there were so many specific details involved that they couldn't agree on a general rule to apply which is why it was declared not to be binding precedent.
I have no faith in the claim that gore would have been deliberately better about the debt, but I would be open to a claim that congress wouldn't have rolled over for a Democrat president. You didn't state why you thought the debt would have been lower.
You do realize that Bush V. Gore was NOT a perfect split based on the party who selected the judges, right? The mere fact that you described it that way indicates you've never actually read the decision.
How, precisely, does the existence of people who lack empathy and benevolence prove that we need laws to force compliance? What principle gives you the right to compel them to do what you want? Spending someone else's money to do what you want is not benevolence.
As far as I can tell, all you have is an emotional appeal without any logic. You want everyone to act a certain way, so it's fine and dandy to compel them to do so any way possible.
Saying "the only reason the science is being constested is because some people have agendas that don't care about facts" implies that every skeptic doesn't care about the facts. Accusing your opponents of acting in bad faith, which is what not caring about facts would be in a scientific discussion, is demonizing them. He didn't limit himself to whether or not the planet is warming at all, but included all components of the science.
Note that your example would also incompatible with his statement. He spoke in absolutes. And for the record, Richard Muller has always been a believer in global warming. You might want to check out Judith Curry's take on that same report, given that she was one of the co-authors.
They held an estimated 1/3 of the non-government held supply of silver. That's a long, long ways from 100%. You ignored completely my second paragraph, which stipulated that your though experiment example was true, but pointed out how the facts given still didn't lead to the conclusions you were making. Step back, think about it for a minute, and decide if you really want to hold on to that argument in the face of actual libertarian ideas and real world limits.
The thought experiment of one person or group freely purchasing 100% of any commodity that isn't naturally tied to that person or group is nonsense. It doesn't happen in the real world, ever, without overt coercion. Because the larger a monopoly you have, the more you have to pay to acquire ownership of the next bit freely.
Even accepting your thought example, the only reason trespass might justify force is if it reasonably indicates a threat to use force itself. Which in that scenario is not a reasonable assumption. The only justified response to failure to respect property rights by someone is to cease respecting their property rights in turn. Which is a null threat in that scenario.
And nothing in your example ties rights to the land in particular. Logic fail. Your conclusions do not follow from your premises.
Slashdot Mirror
X is not a fixed number. There's all sorts of feedbacks your simple equation doesn't take into account that blow it to hell. Given a certain level of current unemployment, potential employees need to compete. That reduces the compensation employer's must offer. Those additional resources get saved (worst choice) or spent directly on new employees OR spent on goods, which increases X. Wages don't shift instantaneously, and given things like a minimum wage may never shift low enough to spur economic growth. It's not even clear that "number of jobs" is a useful metric.
No, they don't drain money and time from society. Society drains it from itself to pay for their healthcare. Society would be free to cut them off, although that would eliminate their only justification for taxing them pay for those programs.
Taking advantage of help you offer does not harm you. Any costs you incur for that help are voluntary. At worst, you have harmed yourself.
I did NOT ask for a safety net. Since I'm forced to pay for it, I will damn well make use of it when appropriate though. If you choose to provide a saftey net, that's your choice. You'd be free to cut me off IF you also let me be free from paying for the damn thing. At no point am I harming you by using the service you provided.
Problem: Occasionally drinking an extra large soda harms no one. You don't ban driving just because some drivers kill people, and you don't ban a food because some people overindulge causing minor inconvenience to other people.
Having a 51% majority on your side doesn't automagically make whatever you want to do legitimate. If I don't choose to go along with the majority, what gives you the right to force me to move out of the community?
Note that this one of the reasons some of us oppose UHC too, because it would be used to justify taking control of other people's lives.
What, precisely, is your evidence that modified Keynesian theory actually works? It certainly hasn't been demonstrated by the most recent recession.
Drinking more tequila to delay a hangover just makes the eventual hangover worse. Or leads to alcohol poisoning...
The fact that there is a cost to trying to fix the issue by not overspending doesn't mean it's wise to use methods to reduce that cost that will make the overall situation worse.
It's worth remembering that Reagan was on net a tax reducer, even if he did raise taxes at one point. And by the end of his term, per capita tax revenue adjusted for inflation was higher than it was at the start of it, despite an overall lower tax rate.
That's a serious misreading of that study. In general, both groups had a broad trend. The rate of change for individualists was much greater as more literacy was gained, so conservatives are clearly more open to adjusting their thinking as facts are gained. A little spin here, but it's still more accurate than your description of the paper.
It's don't buy stuff you can't afford on the national level...
To give him the benefit of the doubt, I wasn't 100% sure you were joking. It was plausible you really felt the way your wording indicated about both gun rights and gay marriage, although I've not seen someone with both of those belief sets in the past.
Unfortunately, I've seen multiple people on this page seriously suggest that reality actual has a liberal bias, so I couldn't trust that it was a joke. For the record "FTFY" is not trolling, it's a slightly amusing way to indicate disagreement with the quoted comment. It only seems like trolling if you can't stand having the flaws in the original comment pointed out because of your own bias.
"And given that it is a well known [opinion among liberals] that reality has a liberal bias..." FTFY.
I may have missed a joke here depending on why you italicized, but since I've frequently see that actual sentiment, I can't assume so.
And 2000... probably sooner too, but I wasn't paying attention to politics that far back.
http://current.com/news-and-politics/89142818_bush-to-attack-iran-suspend-elections-and-declare-martial-law.htm supposedly quotes a named congress critter. That one source was referenced by a fair number of sources. That's a cut above an unamed DHS whistleblower. Frankly, I find all such claims place the person making the claim dangerously close to timecube guy. I've been hearing wingnut/moonbat claims to that sort of thing about every president since I started paying attention to politics.
Not helping someone do X is not the same thing as keeping them from doing X.
Buffers are so large that A never receives an ACK from the destination, and resends anyways.
Obligatory SNL link.
No, a vote for a third party is NOT a vote for either major party. Not voting at all is ALSO not voting for most distasteful of the 2 major parties, for the same reason. If you prefer D to R, not voting for D reduces their count by one. Actually voting for R would do that AND increase R's total. An actual vote for the opposition party is equivalent to a 2 vote change in relative position... not voting is only equivalent to 1.
A better resolution is approval voting. Given any number candidates, vote yea or nay on each candidate. Candidate with the most votes wins. Everyone would cast one yea for one of the 2 major parties at least at first, but are free to vote for any third party they wish, without costing them their vote for a major candidate.
That was non-reponsive. You were the one who said "If a few unelected SCOTUS judges had happened to be appointed by different presidents back in 2000", which indicated you thought it was a party line vote.
For the record, I have read the decision. It's been long enough that I am not going to make specific claims about it, but much like Citizens United it's been misrepresented in all sorts of ways. Among others, even if the recounts had gone through in any way being requested by any of the parties at the time, Bush still would have won. IIRC, there were so many specific details involved that they couldn't agree on a general rule to apply which is why it was declared not to be binding precedent.
I have no faith in the claim that gore would have been deliberately better about the debt, but I would be open to a claim that congress wouldn't have rolled over for a Democrat president. You didn't state why you thought the debt would have been lower.
You do realize that Bush V. Gore was NOT a perfect split based on the party who selected the judges, right? The mere fact that you described it that way indicates you've never actually read the decision.
How, precisely, does the existence of people who lack empathy and benevolence prove that we need laws to force compliance? What principle gives you the right to compel them to do what you want? Spending someone else's money to do what you want is not benevolence.
As far as I can tell, all you have is an emotional appeal without any logic. You want everyone to act a certain way, so it's fine and dandy to compel them to do so any way possible.
Saying "the only reason the science is being constested is because some people have agendas that don't care about facts" implies that every skeptic doesn't care about the facts. Accusing your opponents of acting in bad faith, which is what not caring about facts would be in a scientific discussion, is demonizing them. He didn't limit himself to whether or not the planet is warming at all, but included all components of the science.
Note that your example would also incompatible with his statement. He spoke in absolutes. And for the record, Richard Muller has always been a believer in global warming. You might want to check out Judith Curry's take on that same report, given that she was one of the co-authors.
They held an estimated 1/3 of the non-government held supply of silver. That's a long, long ways from 100%. You ignored completely my second paragraph, which stipulated that your though experiment example was true, but pointed out how the facts given still didn't lead to the conclusions you were making. Step back, think about it for a minute, and decide if you really want to hold on to that argument in the face of actual libertarian ideas and real world limits.
The thought experiment of one person or group freely purchasing 100% of any commodity that isn't naturally tied to that person or group is nonsense. It doesn't happen in the real world, ever, without overt coercion. Because the larger a monopoly you have, the more you have to pay to acquire ownership of the next bit freely.
Even accepting your thought example, the only reason trespass might justify force is if it reasonably indicates a threat to use force itself. Which in that scenario is not a reasonable assumption. The only justified response to failure to respect property rights by someone is to cease respecting their property rights in turn. Which is a null threat in that scenario.
And nothing in your example ties rights to the land in particular. Logic fail. Your conclusions do not follow from your premises.
If the other magician was just using the trick, it likely wouldn't be an issue. However, he was selling a kit and instructions for it.