The invisible hand of free markets probably works as long as everyone does act in their own self-interest AND everyone has the same access to reasonably accurate and complete information.
Because why be accountable, transparent, honest, or accurate or even reasonable, if it's not in your best interest?
And the only way to **make** those things in your best interest, is to enforce them with the law - which means government regulation.
The "invisible hand of the Free Market" can't be trusted to run the free market, any more than people can be trusted to pay for all their groceries with an open basket at the register.
Yeah! I mean, we haven't had a really Free Market since Black Monday in 1929! And after that we got a great housing boom, too - Hoovervilles just started popping up everywhere.
Wrong. If it was a free market, banks would look at an individual's credit history, income, house location, etc, and approve or deny a loan based on whether it was a financially sound decision.
No, **because** it's a Free Market, way more lenders than Fannie Mae have been **hunting** for anyone they stuff into a house and sign up the next batch. It was stupid, but they didn't care, because they thought they could just offload a whole mess of the mortgages on to someone else.
When this pyramid scheme suddenly stopped working, it's because the Free Market worked exactly as it would without proper regulation.
Also, more importantly, **because** the Market was made more Free and Glass-Steagal was repealed, this crisis expanded out of mortgage banking and has come to threaten our entire world's economy. Before it would have been firewalled off, and the housing sector would have taken a hit but the rest of the economy would be able to shrug it off.
And I can guarantee you'll hear people other than "class-warfare liberals" complaining about Wall Street greed now. Just stick your head into a factory lunchroom where the workers are about to be outsourced.
That's why people don't want your "Freedom" and "Democracy" in their own nations. It's because they see what you have done to yourselves, and they don't want any part of it.
Ah, I wouldn't say that's the only reason.
I also bet they suspect that "Freedom" and "Democracy" are buzzwords to fig-leaf whatever puppet dictators we want to put over them, so they can squeeze their peasants dry and sell us the juice.
I don't know how they got that mistaken idea about us! Why, except for Battista, Ferdinand Marcos, almost every South American dictators in the 20th century, most of the Middle East dictators, the Shah, Saddam Hussein, the Saudi Royal Family, Suhuarto, that freak running Uzbekhistan who likes to boil his enemies alive, and every African nation that Britain or France didn't get to first - they're totally wrong! USA! USA!
The work you cite stops covering the Great Depression at at around 1933 - which is an interestingly short focus. That's right before FDR took office and steered American out of the Great Depression, with Government intervention in the economy.
Also, the poster you are responding to is quite correct - Herbert Hoover was ***not*** proactive. Proactive means acting **before** you need to. And that book you cite itself says that Hoover did a big bunch o' not-so-much before things totally hit the fan - because Hoover was a classic laissez-faire idealist. All that the rest of the book covers is Hoover's actions which were ***reactive*** - basically, trying to fix the barn after the horse got out.
Finally, that book you cite has some very clear right-wing conservative bias. As clearly revealed by quotes like this:
"If government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, its only valid course is laissez-faire-to leave the economy alone. "
Really? It's **only** valid course? That's a fact, like gravity and Angelina Jolie's hotness?
To state that as a definite fact is just ridiculous. Many strongly reasoned and well-documented views oppose this sort of flat statement. You would probably do well to review them - even if you still disagree.
You also left out John "Keating 5" McCain's lying (or to be charitable, not knowing - thought I hardly think that's much better) about his top aide being a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, up until the month they collapsed. Getting $10,000 checks a month for months while claiming there was NO connection. Not even a tiny connection - McCain said there was none.
And the guy's still working for McCain. Even tho he turned out to be a liar. Funny! I guess that's just mavericky goodness.
Oh, and you also left out why the mortgage situation is a crisis for the rest of the economy: deregulation. Otherwise the damage would be firewalled off from the rest of Wall Street - not hammering the world's economy and potentially nuking bank-to-bank credit.
Deregulation, which McCain has breathlessly campaigned for throughout his career. At least, until he started to taking a pounding 2 weeks ago.
Which party is he from? Isn't it the same party that's had the White House for the last 8 years, the Senate for 6 of those 8 years, and the House since 1994?
As for Obama making sure critics "can't speak out against him" - according to your link, it's because Obama's campaign asked their supporters to complain about a radio station, and asked the Justice Dep't. to prosecute an ad they consider to be slander.
Excuse me - is free speech too complicated for you? Doesn't **anyone** have the right to:
1 - complain to **any radio station** about something they don't like?
2 - take legal action if the think they have been libeled or slandered?
wtf. Talk about not letting truth get in the way of a good story.
I mean, sorry if reality might have a liberal bias. But you're gonna have to talk to God(s) if he/she/it/they exist and want to listen.
Thanks for proving my point, about being unable and unwilling to correct even the tiniest mistake of your own.
I can find a lot of flaws in all of the rest which you wrote - I just didn't want to expend all that time without being sure you could actually admit a mistake.
As I've said repeatedly, all you'd have to do to call my bluff would be to correct your mistaken sentence. If you're right and sure about all your positions, you'd have absolutely nothing to lose.
But whatev - didn't happen.
As a side note, non-partisan independents agree that Obama won that debate, and McCain was less honest in general.
Btw, if a sentence is incorrect within itself, that isn't overcome by context.
For example, if I start off a paragraph by saying "Only people drive cars." And then have a later sentence that says "Rover the dog drove my car yesterday", and then have the last sentence say "That's why only people can drive cars", guess what? The middle sentence is still wrong. And if you refuse to correct this - as you did - then that's your privilege. It just signals to me you aren't realyl interested in a discussion.
Now that I think I understand you a bit better, please disregard my previous reply.
I had actually thought you were the original poster, and trying to evade our original discussion; now that I look at your ID, it's clear you're a different person. My apologies for misunderstanding this.
I can understand your complaint about the metaphor used; it is not exact. Of course no metaphor can be exact, or it would be identical; but if it turns out we actually still have a disagreement, I will try to come up with a different metaphor that explains my stance while addressing your complaints.
First, perhaps we both just need to get clear on where we're discussing things from.
It appears to me that you're coming from the direction of "If that had unsafe sex, that guy should accept responsibility for how he got AIDS."
Now, as I've said, I actually don't have much of a problem with that, as far as it goes.
So, is that your argument? If it is, please let me know; if it is not, or if there is more to it, please feel free to correct me on that. I want to know where you're coming from, especially if I'm wrong.
As for me, I'm coming from the point of view of, "OK, yes, it is definitely that guy's responsibility. Now, what are we going to do about it, so his disease doesn't badly affect the rest of us?" Because it **does** affect the rest of us, even though we are probably making wiser choices.
Also, what you may not realize in **your** response to *my* original metaphor, is that I was responding to a discussion was about what should be done to **treat** AIDS. The original poster claimed that attempting to change behavior would be more affective in reducing the spread of AIDS, than actually investing in research to cure the disease.
So my metaphor was about how you can't just **convince** people out of a risky behavior. Even though it's horrible. Now, they bear their own responsibility for not taking charge of their lives, and exercising their free will **over** the hardware and software in their brains and bodies. I'm not a devotee of Skinner - I believe free will *does* exist, even though our inherited hardware and software may make it difficult.
Not all of the responsibility Mr. Straw Man, some. Some. Some as in, yes, on occasion, you can blme the victim.
OK. So it may actually be that we have no disagreement.
The worst part is that you called me an asshole,
I actually did no such thing, of course. But if I misunderstood where you were coming from, and you were only making the point that people who engage in risky behaviors and catch AIDS bear some responsibility for their choices - then that is something I have never disagreed with, from the beginning.
Cheers.:) Hopefully you will be able to someday understand that blaming some victims, and ignoring all the innocent victims because they're inconvenient, doesn't by itself actually solve any problems.
You're trying to exclude something from discussion, which invalidates your argument. But the fact that you want to exclude it, doesn't mean that others have to.
And if you are taking a stance of "if irresponsible people get AIDS, it's all their fault anyway", and the overall discussion is what works about stopping the spread of AIDS - this is a point that bears discussion.
To take on another metaphor: let's say we live an city, and one idiot falls asleep smoking in his bed. Should we put out the fire in his house?
Of course, he bears responsibility for being that stupid. BUT if we don't put out his fire, it could kill his family too, and then spread to others who just happen to live nearby.
Should we just tell everyone not to smoke in their beds? of course. But will that put out the fire once it's started, or keep it from spreading? No. We need a fire department for that.
There is no equivalent of prophyllactics for drug use.
Actually, there is. It's clean needles. And in fact, combating the spread of disease by giving away clean needles to addicts, has had a far better effect on reducing disease through drugs than the "Just Say No" solution.
Which applies back to combating the spread of AIDS by changing people's sexual behavior. It's far easier to convince someone to use a condom when they fuck, than to convince them not to fuck **and actually have them follow through on it**.
But just as clean needles don't cure drug addiction, only some harm from it - so condoms don't cure AIDS **or** the underlying behaviors that lead to the spread of AIDS. It just limits the damage.
Now, I totally agree you with you that those who engage in risky behaviors bear responsibility for the results. But even if you "don't want me to bother replying" with the point of innocent AIDS victims - that's the WHOLE point of why we try to stop the spread of AIDS! And why your stance of "it's their behavior, it's their fault, try to change the behavior rather than cure the disease" simply doesn't work.
Which doesn't even address other impacts of AIDS sickness. What happens to someone's family when a member gets AIDS? Even if it's "all his fault" - how does he support his family? What do they do? How do they pay their bills? If we can prevent him from dying of AIDS **even if** it's "all his fault", then we benefit our entire society - he can continue to have a healthy productive life. pay taxes. Contribute to resources. And if he was supporting a family, now they won't have to struggle to survive. Which means his kids can go to college, and grow up and better themselves - all of which benefits all of us.
So, besides the moral issue of wanting to help someone even if it's "all their fault", just because they're a fellow human being, there's a host of pragmatic reasons to help as well.
This is a disease that's in our society. It affects all of us. Sure, we can and should encourage condom use and less risky sexual behaviors. But that by itself will not solve the spread of the disease **to innocents** in our society - and all the secondary problems that it causes as well.
The article incorrectly states that this was as part of an eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.
If we're talking the NSA program to secretly mass-monitor electronic communications of US citizens **whether or not** they're guilty, and with no judicial oversight - this program was actually approved by Bush **right after he got into office in January 2001**.
This is an easy mistake to make - because whenever this program is mentioned, it's always deliberately mentioned in the context of 9/11, and mentions changes made after 9/11. But that is all spin.
It's a shame that we have to look that far into the details to find out when a program was started - but with this administration we apparently do.
And as a side note, it's important to know that this was started well before 9/11 - because it also proves it did nothing to stop the 9/11 attacks. This is more proof that this kind of mass warrantless eavesdropping with no oversight doesn't even make us safer from terrorists - it only puts us in more danger from our government.
Also the life expectancy was much lower, and people were dying for a lot of reasons which could camouflage AIDS symptoms - pneumonia, cholera, tuberculosis, yellow fever...
After all, these widespread epidemics could take out both those with relatively healthy immune system and those without. You'd both get flattened by the same tank, and not be around long enough to show any other symptoms.
It would be great if changing people's behaviors were anywhere near that easy. But changing peoples' behaviors is just about the most difficult thing you can try. And especially when you're talking about sex - it's wired directly into the brain, body and mind. So this whole notion of "stop fucking" is in direct conflict with millions of years of hardware **and** software.
For a similar situation, consider how harmful drug addiction is, and how "simple" it is to get off drugs: just stop buying them and taking them. But drugs plug into a lot of the exact same brain and body hardware and software as sex does. As a result, we've found, "Just Say No" doesn't really solve the problem.
I mean hell, a majority of us Americans can't even stop from eating too much. We all consciously know how to lose weight: eat less, exercise more. Doesn't mean we do it - because far more than our conscious mind is involved in that decision.
I think because there's a much higher proportion of religious conservatives in the US than in othe first-world nations - and our religious conservatives really can't stand to admit they even might be wrong.
George Lakoff attributes this underlying tendency to an overall patriarch-based family model, where the Dad sets the tone and family safety relies on not contradicting him even if he's wrong or crazy. I think there's something to that. But whatever the pychosocial roots, they have enough money and numbers to continue gumming up teaching.
So yes, it logically falls on it's face - but the struggle isn't really over logic. It fails on basic fairness, too - I can suggest to them: Do you want evolution taught in your church? No. Then why should we teach your religion in school? But that doesn't get anywhere, because it's not about fairness either.
It's about them wanting control over what's said, whether or not is has value to anyone else or not.
By Clarke's own account Bush increased CIA resouces for the purposes of anti-terrorism 5 fold.
Sure, OK. And?
If I pay my doctors more money but I don't ever even meet with them, bother to read their reports, or follow their or anyone else's plans for my health, then I'm not keeping a good eye on my health, am I?
But besides that point you are talking about one man, out of thousands, that are advising the President on all range of issues foreign and domestic every day.
Clinton also had thousands of people to meet with. He still met with Clarke, and still had an anti-terrorism plan in place.
Bush completely ignored Clarke and his plan, and didn't even have a *bad* plan in it's place. He didn't even **bother**to have a plan. !!!
Then, after 8 months of warnings, the worst terrorist attack in US history occurs.
If a place is robbed and the watchman is asleep, offsite or not even paying attention, I blame the watchman.
Many of his suggestions pre-9/11 were valuable, but many weren't (in early '99 he was one of the main proponents for a Bin Laden/Saddam connection).
Presuming you mean Clarke? Sure. He's not a god or even a genius. The problem is not just that Bush chose to ignore him - it's that Bush didn't even consider terrorism important enough to meet with anybody else either.
Even with all of Clarke's suggestions in place there was really nothing that would have uncovered or prevented the September 11 attacks.
You mean, besides Bush knowing that the CIA and the FBI were investigating the attackers? And pushing them to go further? Or, if nothing else, enabling Clarke or someone else in his position to do the same?
Or Bush perhaps even bothering to notify airlines that "Bin Laden was prepared to attack US", as his PDB warned him while he was clearing brush on his month-long vacation?
Or perhaps even holding one single meeting to figure out what they could do about it???
As I've said in another response, hindsight is 20/20. You can always use past event to pick out who was right or wrong for a specific situation but that doesn't necessarily help you with making decisions for the future.
Hindsight can also be 20/400, by creating excuses for actions that really have none. If we don't pay full attention to the past and assign accountability, we have no chance to learn from it.
As for the rest of your points, I'm thinking you are confusing the position of POTUS with Superman.
I think you are confusing being Superman, with simply paying attention.
Bush didn't have to be Superman to meet with Clarke OR find another terrorism expert to meet with. He didn't have to be Superman to either put Clarke's plan in place, OR make another plan he liked better. And he certainly didn't have to be Superman to hold one single meeting about terrorism of any kind.
I mean, that's just completely ridiculous. Honestly. That's simple dereliction of duty. There's no other accurate term for it.
In the case of Katrina, even with the declaration of the area as a national disaster, almost all legal power is still within the hands of the governor. And in New Orleans case Blanco did her very best to make matters bad as possible...
Let's say that all the worst you saying about Blanco is true.
How does that excuse the President of the country from completely ignoring the problem, as American citizens drown, **and not doing one thing about it**?
How does that excuse Bush from considering it a higher priority to fly out to California, and talk with Senior Citizens about Social Security? Have birthday cake with John McCain? Or get photographed playing a guitar? All of which he did that weekend, rather than even pay attention to the news! ****While Americans are drowning to death by the hundreds.****
And when I say even pay attention, I'm serious - his staff had to **Burn a freakin' DVD** of the Katr
Id say that overall, people are actually slightly more focused on the issues than they were in 2004. And definitely more than in 2000.
From what I recall of the 1992 and 1996 elections, they were actually well-focused on issues again. And independent candidate Perot did a great service in 1992, by offering a break from the stale "You're a liberal!" "You're a conservative!" school of cheerleading over policy.
In 2004, you'd think there would have been a lot more focus on policy, but Kerry really blew it by not strongly answering the Swift Boat Veterans for Rent right away. It made him look weak, after which less people could take him credibly. It was still one of the closest elections in history, it just shaved just enough points off for Kerry to lose...
Then give me the Clinton part of the Dark Side. At least then I can afford a landspeeder to get to work, even if the Emperor does get blown by his padawan.
Oh, and let's not forget GWB's cousin working for Fox who prematurely called the election for him, causing the other networks to join in...or the two SCOTUS judges who were involved with GWB's campaign and who should have recused themselves...or...
I certainly agree that the US is better for humanity than the USSR or China.
However, that said, we really have done a lot of awful things to an awful lot of people. That other countries would probably have been more brutal, doesn't mean we weren't.
What is most troubling to me is how we as a nation don't seem to recognize how our actions both fit a consistent pattern, and create future problems for us.
We intervened in Iran in the 50's, to put in a regime that would do what we want. He came to abuse his people, but we didn't care as long as he toed our line. Then the people overthrew him, and we put him back, and they overthrew him *again* and the Iranian then picked the only people they could be sure wouldn't sell them out to the US - a nutty theocracy.
But we then forget how **our guy** abused his people and caused them to hate us - and instead think it's all solely because "they hate our freedom".
We did this in Iraq - we just took out Saddam when he stopped toeing our line. We were just fine with him massacring, torturing and raping his own people, while he did what we said. We knew all about that while we were still allies with him.
We did this in Cuba with Battista - and then Fidel Castro comes in and it's a big mystery to us. This is how long we've been avoiding the learning of this lesson.
I'd love to see this actually answered in any substantive way.
For example, I think the current goalpost for victory in Iraq is "A solid stable government with free voting for it's people, that is relatively free of violence and strife."
Let's say that's so - and this new stable government of Iraq freely decides of it's own choosing that they're not going to sell us any of their oil.
Slashdot Mirror
The invisible hand of free markets probably works as long as everyone does act in their own self-interest AND everyone has the same access to reasonably accurate and complete information.
Because why be accountable, transparent, honest, or accurate or even reasonable, if it's not in your best interest?
And the only way to **make** those things in your best interest, is to enforce them with the law - which means government regulation.
The "invisible hand of the Free Market" can't be trusted to run the free market, any more than people can be trusted to pay for all their groceries with an open basket at the register.
Yeah! I mean, we haven't had a really Free Market since Black Monday in 1929! And after that we got a great housing boom, too - Hoovervilles just started popping up everywhere.
No, **because** it's a Free Market, way more lenders than Fannie Mae have been **hunting** for anyone they stuff into a house and sign up the next batch. It was stupid, but they didn't care, because they thought they could just offload a whole mess of the mortgages on to someone else.
When this pyramid scheme suddenly stopped working, it's because the Free Market worked exactly as it would without proper regulation.
Also, more importantly, **because** the Market was made more Free and Glass-Steagal was repealed, this crisis expanded out of mortgage banking and has come to threaten our entire world's economy. Before it would have been firewalled off, and the housing sector would have taken a hit but the rest of the economy would be able to shrug it off.
And I can guarantee you'll hear people other than "class-warfare liberals" complaining about Wall Street greed now. Just stick your head into a factory lunchroom where the workers are about to be outsourced.
Ah, I wouldn't say that's the only reason. I also bet they suspect that "Freedom" and "Democracy" are buzzwords to fig-leaf whatever puppet dictators we want to put over them, so they can squeeze their peasants dry and sell us the juice.
I don't know how they got that mistaken idea about us! Why, except for Battista, Ferdinand Marcos, almost every South American dictators in the 20th century, most of the Middle East dictators, the Shah, Saddam Hussein, the Saudi Royal Family, Suhuarto, that freak running Uzbekhistan who likes to boil his enemies alive, and every African nation that Britain or France didn't get to first - they're totally wrong! USA! USA!
Welfare for the rich, tough love for the masses.
Also, the poster you are responding to is quite correct - Herbert Hoover was ***not*** proactive. Proactive means acting **before** you need to. And that book you cite itself says that Hoover did a big bunch o' not-so-much before things totally hit the fan - because Hoover was a classic laissez-faire idealist. All that the rest of the book covers is Hoover's actions which were ***reactive*** - basically, trying to fix the barn after the horse got out.
Finally, that book you cite has some very clear right-wing conservative bias. As clearly revealed by quotes like this:
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/agd/chapter7.asp#7
"If government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, its only valid course is laissez-faire-to leave the economy alone. "
Really? It's **only** valid course? That's a fact, like gravity and Angelina Jolie's hotness?
To state that as a definite fact is just ridiculous. Many strongly reasoned and well-documented views oppose this sort of flat statement. You would probably do well to review them - even if you still disagree.
And the guy's still working for McCain. Even tho he turned out to be a liar. Funny! I guess that's just mavericky goodness.
Oh, and you also left out why the mortgage situation is a crisis for the rest of the economy: deregulation. Otherwise the damage would be firewalled off from the rest of Wall Street - not hammering the world's economy and potentially nuking bank-to-bank credit.
Deregulation, which McCain has breathlessly campaigned for throughout his career. At least, until he started to taking a pounding 2 weeks ago.
Which party is he from? Isn't it the same party that's had the White House for the last 8 years, the Senate for 6 of those 8 years, and the House since 1994?
As for Obama making sure critics "can't speak out against him" - according to your link, it's because Obama's campaign asked their supporters to complain about a radio station, and asked the Justice Dep't. to prosecute an ad they consider to be slander.
Excuse me - is free speech too complicated for you? Doesn't **anyone** have the right to:
1 - complain to **any radio station** about something they don't like?
2 - take legal action if the think they have been libeled or slandered?
wtf. Talk about not letting truth get in the way of a good story.
I mean, sorry if reality might have a liberal bias. But you're gonna have to talk to God(s) if he/she/it/they exist and want to listen.
I can find a lot of flaws in all of the rest which you wrote - I just didn't want to expend all that time without being sure you could actually admit a mistake.
As I've said repeatedly, all you'd have to do to call my bluff would be to correct your mistaken sentence. If you're right and sure about all your positions, you'd have absolutely nothing to lose.
But whatev - didn't happen.
As a side note, non-partisan independents agree that Obama won that debate, and McCain was less honest in general.
Btw, if a sentence is incorrect within itself, that isn't overcome by context.
For example, if I start off a paragraph by saying "Only people drive cars." And then have a later sentence that says "Rover the dog drove my car yesterday", and then have the last sentence say "That's why only people can drive cars", guess what? The middle sentence is still wrong. And if you refuse to correct this - as you did - then that's your privilege. It just signals to me you aren't realyl interested in a discussion.
But you know all this. Whatev - best of luck.
I had actually thought you were the original poster, and trying to evade our original discussion; now that I look at your ID, it's clear you're a different person. My apologies for misunderstanding this.
I can understand your complaint about the metaphor used; it is not exact. Of course no metaphor can be exact, or it would be identical; but if it turns out we actually still have a disagreement, I will try to come up with a different metaphor that explains my stance while addressing your complaints.
First, perhaps we both just need to get clear on where we're discussing things from.
It appears to me that you're coming from the direction of "If that had unsafe sex, that guy should accept responsibility for how he got AIDS." Now, as I've said, I actually don't have much of a problem with that, as far as it goes.
So, is that your argument? If it is, please let me know; if it is not, or if there is more to it, please feel free to correct me on that. I want to know where you're coming from, especially if I'm wrong.
As for me, I'm coming from the point of view of, "OK, yes, it is definitely that guy's responsibility. Now, what are we going to do about it, so his disease doesn't badly affect the rest of us?" Because it **does** affect the rest of us, even though we are probably making wiser choices.
Also, what you may not realize in **your** response to *my* original metaphor, is that I was responding to a discussion was about what should be done to **treat** AIDS. The original poster claimed that attempting to change behavior would be more affective in reducing the spread of AIDS, than actually investing in research to cure the disease.
So my metaphor was about how you can't just **convince** people out of a risky behavior. Even though it's horrible. Now, they bear their own responsibility for not taking charge of their lives, and exercising their free will **over** the hardware and software in their brains and bodies. I'm not a devotee of Skinner - I believe free will *does* exist, even though our inherited hardware and software may make it difficult.
Not all of the responsibility Mr. Straw Man, some. Some. Some as in, yes, on occasion, you can blme the victim.
OK. So it may actually be that we have no disagreement.
The worst part is that you called me an asshole,
I actually did no such thing, of course. But if I misunderstood where you were coming from, and you were only making the point that people who engage in risky behaviors and catch AIDS bear some responsibility for their choices - then that is something I have never disagreed with, from the beginning.
Cheers. :) Hopefully you will be able to someday understand that blaming some victims, and ignoring all the innocent victims because they're inconvenient, doesn't by itself actually solve any problems.
And if you are taking a stance of "if irresponsible people get AIDS, it's all their fault anyway", and the overall discussion is what works about stopping the spread of AIDS - this is a point that bears discussion.
To take on another metaphor: let's say we live an city, and one idiot falls asleep smoking in his bed. Should we put out the fire in his house?
Of course, he bears responsibility for being that stupid. BUT if we don't put out his fire, it could kill his family too, and then spread to others who just happen to live nearby.
Should we just tell everyone not to smoke in their beds? of course. But will that put out the fire once it's started, or keep it from spreading? No. We need a fire department for that.
Actually, there is. It's clean needles. And in fact, combating the spread of disease by giving away clean needles to addicts, has had a far better effect on reducing disease through drugs than the "Just Say No" solution.
Which applies back to combating the spread of AIDS by changing people's sexual behavior. It's far easier to convince someone to use a condom when they fuck, than to convince them not to fuck **and actually have them follow through on it**.
But just as clean needles don't cure drug addiction, only some harm from it - so condoms don't cure AIDS **or** the underlying behaviors that lead to the spread of AIDS. It just limits the damage.
Now, I totally agree you with you that those who engage in risky behaviors bear responsibility for the results. But even if you "don't want me to bother replying" with the point of innocent AIDS victims - that's the WHOLE point of why we try to stop the spread of AIDS! And why your stance of "it's their behavior, it's their fault, try to change the behavior rather than cure the disease" simply doesn't work.
Which doesn't even address other impacts of AIDS sickness. What happens to someone's family when a member gets AIDS? Even if it's "all his fault" - how does he support his family? What do they do? How do they pay their bills? If we can prevent him from dying of AIDS **even if** it's "all his fault", then we benefit our entire society - he can continue to have a healthy productive life. pay taxes. Contribute to resources. And if he was supporting a family, now they won't have to struggle to survive. Which means his kids can go to college, and grow up and better themselves - all of which benefits all of us.
So, besides the moral issue of wanting to help someone even if it's "all their fault", just because they're a fellow human being, there's a host of pragmatic reasons to help as well.
This is a disease that's in our society. It affects all of us. Sure, we can and should encourage condom use and less risky sexual behaviors. But that by itself will not solve the spread of the disease **to innocents** in our society - and all the secondary problems that it causes as well.
If we're talking the NSA program to secretly mass-monitor electronic communications of US citizens **whether or not** they're guilty, and with no judicial oversight - this program was actually approved by Bush **right after he got into office in January 2001**.
http://www.truthout.org/article/jason-leopold-bush-authorized-domestic-spying-before-911
Declassified doc showing that's the case, here: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa25.pdf
This is an easy mistake to make - because whenever this program is mentioned, it's always deliberately mentioned in the context of 9/11, and mentions changes made after 9/11. But that is all spin.
It's a shame that we have to look that far into the details to find out when a program was started - but with this administration we apparently do.
And as a side note, it's important to know that this was started well before 9/11 - because it also proves it did nothing to stop the 9/11 attacks. This is more proof that this kind of mass warrantless eavesdropping with no oversight doesn't even make us safer from terrorists - it only puts us in more danger from our government.
Posting this note to the original article also.
After all, these widespread epidemics could take out both those with relatively healthy immune system and those without. You'd both get flattened by the same tank, and not be around long enough to show any other symptoms.
For a similar situation, consider how harmful drug addiction is, and how "simple" it is to get off drugs: just stop buying them and taking them. But drugs plug into a lot of the exact same brain and body hardware and software as sex does. As a result, we've found, "Just Say No" doesn't really solve the problem.
I mean hell, a majority of us Americans can't even stop from eating too much. We all consciously know how to lose weight: eat less, exercise more. Doesn't mean we do it - because far more than our conscious mind is involved in that decision.
George Lakoff attributes this underlying tendency to an overall patriarch-based family model, where the Dad sets the tone and family safety relies on not contradicting him even if he's wrong or crazy. I think there's something to that. But whatever the pychosocial roots, they have enough money and numbers to continue gumming up teaching.
So yes, it logically falls on it's face - but the struggle isn't really over logic. It fails on basic fairness, too - I can suggest to them: Do you want evolution taught in your church? No. Then why should we teach your religion in school? But that doesn't get anywhere, because it's not about fairness either.
It's about them wanting control over what's said, whether or not is has value to anyone else or not.
Sure, OK. And?
If I pay my doctors more money but I don't ever even meet with them, bother to read their reports, or follow their or anyone else's plans for my health, then I'm not keeping a good eye on my health, am I?
But besides that point you are talking about one man, out of thousands, that are advising the President on all range of issues foreign and domestic every day.
Clinton also had thousands of people to meet with. He still met with Clarke, and still had an anti-terrorism plan in place.
Bush completely ignored Clarke and his plan, and didn't even have a *bad* plan in it's place. He didn't even **bother**to have a plan. !!!
Then, after 8 months of warnings, the worst terrorist attack in US history occurs.
If a place is robbed and the watchman is asleep, offsite or not even paying attention, I blame the watchman.
Many of his suggestions pre-9/11 were valuable, but many weren't (in early '99 he was one of the main proponents for a Bin Laden/Saddam connection).
Presuming you mean Clarke? Sure. He's not a god or even a genius. The problem is not just that Bush chose to ignore him - it's that Bush didn't even consider terrorism important enough to meet with anybody else either.
Even with all of Clarke's suggestions in place there was really nothing that would have uncovered or prevented the September 11 attacks.
You mean, besides Bush knowing that the CIA and the FBI were investigating the attackers? And pushing them to go further? Or, if nothing else, enabling Clarke or someone else in his position to do the same?
Or Bush perhaps even bothering to notify airlines that "Bin Laden was prepared to attack US", as his PDB warned him while he was clearing brush on his month-long vacation?
Or perhaps even holding one single meeting to figure out what they could do about it???
As I've said in another response, hindsight is 20/20. You can always use past event to pick out who was right or wrong for a specific situation but that doesn't necessarily help you with making decisions for the future.
Hindsight can also be 20/400, by creating excuses for actions that really have none. If we don't pay full attention to the past and assign accountability, we have no chance to learn from it.
As for the rest of your points, I'm thinking you are confusing the position of POTUS with Superman.
I think you are confusing being Superman, with simply paying attention.
Bush didn't have to be Superman to meet with Clarke OR find another terrorism expert to meet with. He didn't have to be Superman to either put Clarke's plan in place, OR make another plan he liked better. And he certainly didn't have to be Superman to hold one single meeting about terrorism of any kind.
I mean, that's just completely ridiculous. Honestly. That's simple dereliction of duty. There's no other accurate term for it.
In the case of Katrina, even with the declaration of the area as a national disaster, almost all legal power is still within the hands of the governor. And in New Orleans case Blanco did her very best to make matters bad as possible...
Let's say that all the worst you saying about Blanco is true.
How does that excuse the President of the country from completely ignoring the problem, as American citizens drown, **and not doing one thing about it**?
How does that excuse Bush from considering it a higher priority to fly out to California, and talk with Senior Citizens about Social Security? Have birthday cake with John McCain? Or get photographed playing a guitar? All of which he did that weekend, rather than even pay attention to the news! ****While Americans are drowning to death by the hundreds.****
And when I say even pay attention, I'm serious - his staff had to **Burn a freakin' DVD** of the Katr
Fair enough. :)
But I do wish the questions he's asking were more a part of the debate in general.
From what I recall of the 1992 and 1996 elections, they were actually well-focused on issues again. And independent candidate Perot did a great service in 1992, by offering a break from the stale "You're a liberal!" "You're a conservative!" school of cheerleading over policy.
In 2004, you'd think there would have been a lot more focus on policy, but Kerry really blew it by not strongly answering the Swift Boat Veterans for Rent right away. It made him look weak, after which less people could take him credibly. It was still one of the closest elections in history, it just shaved just enough points off for Kerry to lose...
Then give me the Clinton part of the Dark Side. At least then I can afford a landspeeder to get to work, even if the Emperor does get blown by his padawan.
Sigh.
Let this administration please leave.
However, that said, we really have done a lot of awful things to an awful lot of people. That other countries would probably have been more brutal, doesn't mean we weren't.
What is most troubling to me is how we as a nation don't seem to recognize how our actions both fit a consistent pattern, and create future problems for us.
We intervened in Iran in the 50's, to put in a regime that would do what we want. He came to abuse his people, but we didn't care as long as he toed our line. Then the people overthrew him, and we put him back, and they overthrew him *again* and the Iranian then picked the only people they could be sure wouldn't sell them out to the US - a nutty theocracy.
But we then forget how **our guy** abused his people and caused them to hate us - and instead think it's all solely because "they hate our freedom".
We did this in Iraq - we just took out Saddam when he stopped toeing our line. We were just fine with him massacring, torturing and raping his own people, while he did what we said. We knew all about that while we were still allies with him.
We did this in Cuba with Battista - and then Fidel Castro comes in and it's a big mystery to us. This is how long we've been avoiding the learning of this lesson.
For example, I think the current goalpost for victory in Iraq is "A solid stable government with free voting for it's people, that is relatively free of violence and strife."
Let's say that's so - and this new stable government of Iraq freely decides of it's own choosing that they're not going to sell us any of their oil.
Will that mean victory?