First problem..... they already have that policy. But the problem is that the components used for military and government applications have to be purchased from American companies. Then to save a buck, the companies sub-contract for components from places like China and "assemble" the equipment in friendly countries. That way, the product does not have a "made in China" sticker on them.
I wasn't clear, but I meant that there should be a strict policy that military parts have to be completely manufactured (including subparts) in friendly countries.
Also, the Scandinavian countries prove that highly socialized economies can exist in a political framework that, although not as free as the US, is vastly better than Chinese totalitarianism.
So why doesn't the PRC allow free elections? Likely, because they plan to fully return to their Maoist ways, and free elections wouldn't allow that.
Absolutely. The US military should have a strict policy of only buying military parts from sovereign, free, democratic countries with a long history of friendship, such as Israel, Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea.
And a preference should be given to American-made parts, since you need domestic factories to mobilise in times of war.
Yes...and no. The US government might not be able to put you in gaol but your US employer can fire you. My experience of living in the US was somewhat surprising. I certainly expected to find it as a place where people were far more free to express political ideas and beliefs.
If your boss fires you for being politically incorrect, you can still get another job. If the national government arrests you for being politically incorrect, you are hopeless.
Or maybe they just start paying their laborers more - enough to stop boycotting them?
I don't even know how many times I have written this, but here it goes: different countries have different attractiveness to investment. Two key characteristics are the availability of cheap labor and the productivity (which depends on good education, good public infrastructure and good capital) of said laborers. Americans are much more productive than Chinese, but many companies still find it economical to manufacture in China because the much lower wages compensate for lower productivity. And between United States/Western Europe/Japan on one side and the PRC/Vietnam on the other side, there is a continuum involving Taiwan, South Korea, Eastern Europe, Mexico, etc.
If consumers demand higher wages, then the company will think: "If I have to pay Mexico-level wages, then I might as well relocate to Mexico, so I can enjoy Mexico-level productivity" so the Chinese workers will be worse off.
If you want to help people, then donate to some trustworthy church/NGO that provides food/health care (to ease their suffering) or education/infrastructure (to increase their productivity).
Except the child's freedom to not be helpless when they turn 18 and haven't received a decent education. Children aren't humans until then (they are self-propelled dolls for their parents whims), so their freedoms don't matter.
If the point was to ensure a good education, the state would simply mandate periodic exams and send low-scoring kids to the regular school system.
There is absolutely no logical justification to forbid homeschooling, other than the totalitarian desire to ensure ideological uniformity.
States' rights are one of the most puzzling pieces of doublethink in American political thought.
You missed the point. It is not that states have more rights than their citizens, it is that states are better suited to protect their citizens rights than the federal government. Just like the U.N. should not intrude into the American sovereignty without strong reasons, the federal government shouldn't intrude in Texas or California without good reason. A local, smaller government is easier to check, and it better reflects its citizen's values. Compare the laws in Texas with those of California - the laws are different because Texans are different from Californians, and this is good.
If a state is upholding slavery, then we can argue that it is a human rights violation and a higher level of government can intervene. But if you don't like the fact that (say) marijuana is partially legal in California, you shouldn't ask for federal intrusion. People keep bringing slave-holding Confederate states, but they forget that many times, free states _resisted_ federal mandates to capture fugitive slaves and send them to slave-holder states. People also forget that the greatest atrocities in human History were perpetrated by uncheckable centralized governments - Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, etc.
As an aside, the federal government currently presses state governments to set the legal drinking age at 21. This is an example of absurd federal intrusion.
And it's a very big deal, because it's the essence of Marxist socialism: no private ownership of the means of production! China has private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, China is not Marxist.
In the Soviet Union under Lenin there was also private ownership of the means of production. To a lesser extent than in China, yes, but it existed. Also, you must remember that many essential industries such as banking are completely state-owned in China. Not even Scandinavian countries do that!
I suggest you read up on the history of eugenics, particularly its widespread adoption in democratic Western countries, both in Europe and in America, prior to WW2.
It was awful and shameful, yes, but it was less evil than forced abortion. And the West learned its lesson, while China continues to do it.
I have every right you have and quite a few you don't depending on which state you live in. That includes the right to homeschool my children.
At least in Germany, homeschooling is verboten. This happens in some other European countries as well.
I can protest without being placed in free-speach zones.
I remember seeing European anti-globalization protesters being kept away from the World Economic forum.
I can depend on a social safety net for me and my children should things go wrong. This allows me to experiment and try things I would never try if a string of bad luck would mean my family would not get cancer treatments.
Also exists in the USA. A bit smaller than in the EU, but poor Americans do have a lot of help.
If you seriously think that China is a totalitarian Marxist dictatorship, you're either deluded or just woke up from a 40 year coma. China has been a moderately authoritarian state capitalist society for decades now. It's not a shining beacon of freedom, but it's not particularly ideological these days, either,
Limited economic freedom also existed in the Soviet Union under Lenin. It is a strategic step. Meanwhile, the PRC government remains a fully totalitarian Marxist dictatorship. Chinese people lack political/philosophic/religious freedom, freedom of speech, and for God's sake, the government kills the unborn babies of women who have a second child!
and for the most part its citizens just go about their lives without worries of being oppressed.
Have you ever read the book 1984? In the book the government is fully totalitarian, but it cares little about dissent among the "proles". The "proles" are harmless because they have no intellect, due to extremely poor education. It is the party members who are dangerous, and for that reason they are strictly controlled by the Thought Police.
A similar thing happens in the PRC. After decades of mandatory Marxist indoctrination in all schools, of political/philosophical/religious censorship, and executing dissenters, the vast majority of Chinese people are harmless sheep - they are either Marxist or apolitical. The analogy with 1984 is imperfect, because Chinese proletarians are much more educated than 1984's "proles". But the fact that the proletarians are sheep holds both in the novel and in real life.
So capitalism is explicitly inferior, but you still like it best. Got it, just stop trying to sell it as objectively better, and you won't have a line of people pointing out that you are wrong.
No. The USA is a freer society, and I would rather have more freedom than live 0.5% more. By the way, I doubt that 0.5% is statistically significant, so the USA and the EU are actually tied. And in terms of HDI, the USA beats the vast majority of European countries.
(the US takes more immigrants than the rest of the world combined)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-born_population_in_2005 The US may be first, but no need to tell falsehoods. The US takes 20% (much less than 50%, since you are obviously slow on the math). Again, you could make your points sticking to facts (the correct ones), so why do you go out of your way push false statements?
In 2006 the United States accepted more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined.
So: 1) Please work in your reading comprehension, so you can grasp the difference between "takes more immigrants per year than the rest of the world combined" and "has more immigrants than the rest of the world combined" 2) Don't insult people. It just proves immaturity and lack of real arguments.
Why don't you read up how many death penalty convicts are sitting in jail in in the US? And why don't you check the colour of their skin?
What is your point? If the prison population is disproportionally black, that does not mean there is racism. Another explanation is that the crime rate is higher among blacks. You are accusing the USA of racism without any good evidence.
Medicare or other new health insurance programes are Obamas success... and "everyone" hates him for that.
I don't believe a sane person finds any difference in germany (or europe) to express their own ideas in relation to the USA. If you believe otherwise you are mistaken.
You have the freedom to get them there in a school bus but they have not the freedom to ride there with a bike.
That does not compare with freedom of expression/religion or political freedom.
You have the freedom to be poor and as a rich guy you have the freedom to not pay to health insurance, so the poor guys can not afford it.
Except that the USA has Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, so you are either bald-faced lying or extremely deluded.
You have the freedom if you are of the wrong colour someone may shoot you without trial. You have the freedom with the wrong colour you are convicted to death while a similar crime by a white would give him 5 or 7 years.
mm yes and Brazilian ranchers are saints and have never done anything naughty like have protesters killed by their private army's have they.
Boycotting Brazil because a tiny minority of the farmers are violent is like boycotting Mexico because a tiny percentage of their population are drug dealers. In both cases, you simply make the problem worse.
Those who make this kind of "arguments" are only protecting the subsidized American corn farmers.
Homeschooling is considered child abuse in Germany because it doesn't make sure that your child is getting a proper education and definitely prevents them from getting the necessary graduation certificates to enter higher education and have a shot at a good job. It destroys the career chances of your child for no good reason. Parents aren't qualified teachers and even if they are teachers by trade they will not be able to cover all the subjects that are part of the school curriculum up to eighth grade (which is the minimum school length and even that only qualifies you for jobs on the level of burger flipping).
If that was the reason, the authorities would simply mandate periodic exams, and low-scoring kids would be sent to the regular school system. But, as I said in two different posts elsewhere, the government persecutes homeschoolers because they don't want people holding wrong philosophical convictions. This is a totalitarian act.
I have never seen any real logical argument against homeschoolers.
Well, in germany we try to differentiate beetween prooven historic facts and freedom of speech.
First: many times in History scientists have been wrong. Forbidding the spread of ideas because they have been "proven wrong" is absurd. Also, forbidding Holocaust denial is stupid and counter-productive, as it allows the anti-semites to say "historians may largely agree about the Shoah, but only because dissent is forbidden". Note: I in no way dispute the Shoah.
Second: I was not thinking about German anti-Holocaust denial laws, I was thinking of "hate speech" legislation that exist in countries such as the UK (an possibly Germany, but I don't know). Censoring "hate speech" is a violation of human rights. You may think that it is awesome to censor a guy who says "sodomy is wrong", because he is such a moronic bigot, but how would you feel it the situation was reversed? How would you feel if conservative governments censored people for saying "abortion is OK", claiming that to be hate speech against unborn babies?
For example your "homeschoolers" and "rapists" that is a typically PI tactic for labelling one to be concived as the ill-prosecuted. Why not just write that "homeschoolers are prosecuted in Germany because in Germany there is a law which states every kid shall attend school to the age of at least 14 (Schulpflicht)" That would be just the facts, because in germany not only hoomschoolers and rapists are prosecuted so are thieves, fraudsters and even speeders.
Throwing people in jail and abducting their children because they disagree with the ideology taught in public schools is a totalitarian act. And it was in fact instituted by Hitler, because he wanted every kid to learn Nazism. Choosing the education of one's children is a human right according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Crusading was a great way to earn money, fame and reputation. Read about that stuff sometime.
This is very biased. Something that people forget is that the North of Africa and Asia Minor were originally Christian, before they were invaded by Muslims. After some time, Christians finally stroke back, recovering a small part of the territory that was originally theirs. In the end, the whole affair was a big victory for Muslims.
And some people manage to construe the whole story as a Christian aggression against Muslims, which is absurd.
As I wrote elsewhere, different countries have different attractiveness to investment. Two key characteristics are the availability of cheap labour, and the productivity of that labour. Chinese laborers are less productive than Americans (due to poorer education and poorer infrastructure), but many companies still find it economical to open factories in China because the low wages compensate for the poor productivity. If you demand these companies to pay higher wages, then it will no longer be economical for them to manufacture in China, so they will relocate to more developed countries (such as Taiwan or South Korea) where workers are more productive. This means that the Chinese laborers will be worse off.
If you want to help the poor, it would be wiser to donate money to some trustworthy church/NGO that provides health care or education.
(I'm sorry for any English errors, I typed this in a hurry)
Disclaimer1: I hit the 50 comment limit of users with Karma (yes, I have been much of an addict in the past two days) and, to continue the hot discussion, I created another account (Veritatis_splendor) with which I made 3 comments, but didn't think of disclosing this fact. On the other hand, I used the same verbiage in those 3 comments as I used with the other account, so no once can honestly accuse me of hiding. I since then updated both accounts to disclose it. And this was _after_ the abuses, so it cant be a justification.
Disclaimer2: I am half conservative and half libertarian, and I am pro-life, and I am aware of how much some people dislike pro-lifers. But I did try to make thoughtful, respectful posts.
Anyway, I thank you for your sympathy but you don't have to spend your mod points on me right now. I have plenty of Karma, and the dishonest mods happened very recently and haven't hurt my Karma yet. If I ever drop from Excellent I could ask your help.
Still lower than the socialists. If capitalism was so great, it wouldn't be a matter of the socialists beating us by a few months, but we should be beating them by years. Nope, the US is the loser.
And if I had to choose between living in a restrictive society where the lifespan is 78.82, versus living in a freer society where the lifespan is 78.37, I would choose the latter.
By the way, the enormous amount of immigration into the US (the US takes more immigrants than the rest of the world combined) is a huge testament to the fact that America is a nice place to live. Just like the fact that Marxist-Leninist governments often prohibit their citizens from leaving (see Berlin Wall, and the Castro regime punishing people who try to leave) pretty much proves that Marxist-Leninist societies are shitty places to live.
(Note, I am not saying that Scandinavian social democracy is as bad as Marxism-Leninism).
Slashdot Mirror
First problem..... they already have that policy. But the problem is that the components used for military and government applications have to be purchased from American companies. Then to save a buck, the companies sub-contract for components from places like China and "assemble" the equipment in friendly countries. That way, the product does not have a "made in China" sticker on them.
I wasn't clear, but I meant that there should be a strict policy that military parts have to be
completely manufactured (including subparts) in friendly countries.
Didn't the US and UK governments sell crypto equipment they knew they could break to their 'allies' during the Cold War?
Do you have sources for that?
Also, the Scandinavian countries prove that highly socialized
economies can exist in a political framework that, although
not as free as the US, is vastly better than Chinese totalitarianism.
So why doesn't the PRC allow free elections?
Likely, because they plan to fully return to their Maoist ways,
and free elections wouldn't allow that.
Absolutely.
The US military should have a strict policy of only buying military parts from sovereign, free, democratic countries with a long history of friendship, such as Israel, Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea.
And a preference should be given to American-made parts, since you need domestic factories to mobilise in times of war.
Yes...and no. The US government might not be able to put you in gaol but your US employer can fire you. My experience of living in the US was somewhat surprising. I certainly expected to find it as a place where people were far more free to express political ideas and beliefs.
If your boss fires you for being politically incorrect, you can still get another job.
If the national government arrests you for being politically incorrect, you are hopeless.
Or maybe they just start paying their laborers more - enough to stop boycotting them?
I don't even know how many times I have written this, but here it goes:
different countries have different attractiveness to investment. Two key characteristics
are the availability of cheap labor and the productivity (which depends on good education,
good public infrastructure and good capital) of said laborers.
Americans are much more productive than Chinese, but many companies still find it
economical to manufacture in China because the much lower wages compensate for
lower productivity. And between United States/Western Europe/Japan on one side and
the PRC/Vietnam on the other side, there is a continuum involving Taiwan, South Korea,
Eastern Europe, Mexico, etc.
If consumers demand higher wages, then the company will think: "If I have to pay
Mexico-level wages, then I might as well relocate to Mexico, so I can
enjoy Mexico-level productivity" so the Chinese workers will be worse off.
If you want to help people, then donate to some trustworthy church/NGO that provides
food/health care (to ease their suffering) or education/infrastructure (to increase their productivity).
Except the child's freedom to not be helpless when they turn 18 and haven't received a decent education. Children aren't humans until then (they are self-propelled dolls for their parents whims), so their freedoms don't matter.
If the point was to ensure a good education, the state would simply mandate periodic exams and send low-scoring kids
to the regular school system.
There is absolutely no logical justification to forbid homeschooling, other than the totalitarian desire to ensure ideological
uniformity.
slavery was justified not just with that century-old collection of mediocre fantasy novels known as the bible
And you conveniently forget that churches in free states were actively anti-slavery.
States' rights are one of the most puzzling pieces of doublethink in American political thought.
You missed the point. It is not that states have more rights than their citizens, it is that states are better suited to protect their citizens rights than the federal government. Just like the U.N. should not intrude into the American sovereignty without strong reasons, the federal government shouldn't intrude in Texas or California without good reason. A local, smaller government is easier to check, and it better reflects its citizen's values. Compare the laws in Texas with those of California - the laws are different because Texans are different from Californians, and this is good.
If a state is upholding slavery, then we can argue that it is a human rights violation and a higher level of government can intervene.
But if you don't like the fact that (say) marijuana is partially legal in California, you shouldn't ask for federal intrusion.
People keep bringing slave-holding Confederate states, but they forget that many times, free states _resisted_ federal mandates
to capture fugitive slaves and send them to slave-holder states. People also forget that the greatest atrocities in human History
were perpetrated by uncheckable centralized governments - Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, etc.
As an aside, the federal government currently presses state governments to set the legal drinking age at 21. This is an example of
absurd federal intrusion.
And it's a very big deal, because it's the essence of Marxist socialism: no private ownership of the means of production! China has private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, China is not Marxist.
In the Soviet Union under Lenin there was also private ownership of the means of production. To a lesser extent than in China, yes, but it existed.
Also, you must remember that many essential industries such as banking are completely state-owned in China. Not even Scandinavian countries do that!
I suggest you read up on the history of eugenics, particularly its widespread adoption in democratic Western countries, both in Europe and in America, prior to WW2.
It was awful and shameful, yes, but it was less evil than forced abortion. And the West learned its lesson, while China continues to do it.
I have every right you have and quite a few you don't depending on which state you live in. That includes the right to homeschool my children.
At least in Germany, homeschooling is verboten. This happens in some other European countries as well.
I can protest without being placed in free-speach zones.
I remember seeing European anti-globalization protesters being kept
away from the World Economic forum.
I can depend on a social safety net for me and my children should things go wrong. This allows me to experiment and try things I would never try if a string of bad luck would mean my family would not get cancer treatments.
Also exists in the USA. A bit smaller than in the EU, but poor Americans do have a lot of help.
If you seriously think that China is a totalitarian Marxist dictatorship, you're either deluded or just woke up from a 40 year coma.
China has been a moderately authoritarian state capitalist society for decades now. It's not a shining beacon of freedom, but it's not particularly ideological these days, either,
Limited economic freedom also existed in the Soviet Union under Lenin. It is a strategic step.
Meanwhile, the PRC government remains a fully totalitarian Marxist dictatorship. Chinese people
lack political/philosophic/religious freedom, freedom of speech, and for God's sake,
the government kills the unborn babies of women who have a second child!
and for the most part its citizens just go about their lives without worries of being oppressed.
Have you ever read the book 1984? In the book the government is fully totalitarian,
but it cares little about dissent among the "proles". The "proles" are harmless because
they have no intellect, due to extremely poor education.
It is the party members who are dangerous, and for that reason they are strictly
controlled by the Thought Police.
A similar thing happens in the PRC.
After decades of mandatory Marxist indoctrination in all schools, of political/philosophical/religious censorship,
and executing dissenters, the vast majority of Chinese people are harmless sheep - they are either Marxist or apolitical.
The analogy with 1984 is imperfect, because Chinese proletarians are much more educated than
1984's "proles". But the fact that the proletarians are sheep holds both in the novel and in real life.
Chinese people have no freedom.
So capitalism is explicitly inferior, but you still like it best. Got it, just stop trying to sell it as objectively better, and you won't have a line of people pointing out that you are wrong.
No. The USA is a freer society, and I would rather have more freedom than live 0.5% more.
By the way, I doubt that 0.5% is statistically significant, so the USA and the EU are actually tied.
And in terms of HDI, the USA beats the vast majority of European countries.
(the US takes more immigrants than the rest of the world combined)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-born_population_in_2005 The US may be first, but no need to tell falsehoods. The US takes 20% (much less than 50%, since you are obviously slow on the math). Again, you could make your points sticking to facts (the correct ones), so why do you go out of your way push false statements?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States
In 2006 the United States accepted more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined.
So:
1) Please work in your reading comprehension, so you can grasp the difference between "takes more immigrants per year than the rest of the world combined" and "has more immigrants than the rest of the world combined"
2) Don't insult people. It just proves immaturity and lack of real arguments.
Give current, objective sources for your allegations.
Why don't you read up how many death penalty convicts are sitting in jail in in the US?
And why don't you check the colour of their skin?
What is your point? If the prison population is disproportionally black, that does not
mean there is racism. Another explanation is that the crime rate is higher among blacks.
You are accusing the USA of racism without any good evidence.
Medicare or other new health insurance programes are Obamas success ... and "everyone" hates him for that.
No, these programs are old.
I don't believe a sane person finds any difference in germany (or europe) to express their own ideas in relation to the USA.
If you believe otherwise you are mistaken.
When complaining about European countries censorship, I was thinking about the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom
You have the freedom to get them there in a school bus but they have not the freedom to ride there with a bike.
That does not compare with freedom of expression/religion or political freedom.
You have the freedom to be poor and as a rich guy you have the freedom to not pay to health insurance, so the poor guys can not afford it.
Except that the USA has Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, so you are either bald-faced lying or extremely deluded.
You have the freedom if you are of the wrong colour someone may shoot you without trial.
You have the freedom with the wrong colour you are convicted to death while a similar crime by a white would give him 5 or 7 years.
In your wild imagination.
mm yes and Brazilian ranchers are saints and have never done anything naughty like have protesters killed by their private army's have they.
Boycotting Brazil because a tiny minority of the farmers are violent is like boycotting Mexico because a tiny percentage of their population
are drug dealers. In both cases, you simply make the problem worse.
Those who make this kind of "arguments" are only protecting the subsidized American corn farmers.
Homeschooling is considered child abuse in Germany because it doesn't make sure that your child is getting a proper education and definitely prevents them from getting the necessary graduation certificates to enter higher education and have a shot at a good job. It destroys the career chances of your child for no good reason. Parents aren't qualified teachers and even if they are teachers by trade they will not be able to cover all the subjects that are part of the school curriculum up to eighth grade (which is the minimum school length and even that only qualifies you for jobs on the level of burger flipping).
If that was the reason, the authorities would simply mandate periodic exams, and low-scoring kids would be sent to the regular school system.
But, as I said in two different posts elsewhere, the government persecutes homeschoolers because they don't want people holding wrong
philosophical convictions. This is a totalitarian act.
I have never seen any real logical argument against homeschoolers.
Well, in germany we try to differentiate beetween prooven historic facts and freedom of speech.
First: many times in History scientists have been wrong. Forbidding the spread of ideas because they
have been "proven wrong" is absurd. Also, forbidding Holocaust denial is stupid and counter-productive,
as it allows the anti-semites to say "historians may largely agree about the Shoah, but only because
dissent is forbidden". Note: I in no way dispute the Shoah.
Second: I was not thinking about German anti-Holocaust denial laws, I was thinking of "hate speech" legislation
that exist in countries such as the UK (an possibly Germany, but I don't know). Censoring "hate speech" is a violation
of human rights. You may think that it is awesome to censor a guy who says "sodomy is wrong", because he is such
a moronic bigot, but how would you feel it the situation was reversed? How would you feel if conservative governments
censored people for saying "abortion is OK", claiming that to be hate speech against unborn babies?
For example your "homeschoolers" and "rapists" that is a typically PI tactic for labelling one to be concived as the ill-prosecuted. Why not just write that "homeschoolers are prosecuted in Germany because in Germany there is a law which states every kid shall attend school to the age of at least 14 (Schulpflicht)"
That would be just the facts, because in germany not only hoomschoolers and rapists are prosecuted so are thieves, fraudsters and even speeders.
Throwing people in jail and abducting their children because they disagree with the ideology taught in public schools is a totalitarian act.
And it was in fact instituted by Hitler, because he wanted every kid to learn Nazism.
Choosing the education of one's children is a human right according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Crusading was a great way to earn money, fame and reputation. Read about that stuff sometime.
This is very biased. Something that people forget is that the North of Africa and Asia Minor were originally Christian, before they were invaded by Muslims.
After some time, Christians finally stroke back, recovering a small part of the territory that was originally theirs. In the end, the whole affair was a big victory
for Muslims.
And some people manage to construe the whole story as a Christian aggression against Muslims, which is absurd.
As I wrote elsewhere, different countries have different attractiveness to investment.
Two key characteristics are the availability of cheap labour, and the productivity
of that labour. Chinese laborers are less productive than Americans
(due to poorer education and poorer infrastructure), but many companies
still find it economical to open factories in China because the low wages compensate
for the poor productivity.
If you demand these companies to pay higher wages, then it will no longer be economical
for them to manufacture in China, so they will relocate to more developed countries (such as Taiwan or South Korea)
where workers are more productive. This means that the Chinese laborers will be worse off.
If you want to help the poor, it would be wiser to donate money to some trustworthy church/NGO
that provides health care or education.
(I'm sorry for any English errors, I typed this in a hurry)
Disclaimer1:
I hit the 50 comment limit of users with Karma (yes, I have been much of an addict in the past two days) and,
to continue the hot discussion, I created another account (Veritatis_splendor) with which I made 3 comments,
but didn't think of disclosing this fact. On the other hand, I used the same verbiage in those 3 comments as
I used with the other account, so no once can honestly accuse me of hiding. I since then updated both accounts
to disclose it. And this was _after_ the abuses, so it cant be a justification.
Disclaimer2: I am half conservative and half libertarian, and I am pro-life, and I am aware of how much some
people dislike pro-lifers. But I did try to make thoughtful, respectful posts.
Anyway, I thank you for your sympathy but you don't have to spend your mod points on me right now.
I have plenty of Karma, and the dishonest mods happened very recently and haven't hurt my Karma yet.
If I ever drop from Excellent I could ask your help.
Regards
I find it amusing that you think that the Persians living in Iran have any kind of ethnic kinship with Arabs
I never said that Iranians are Arabs. I merely theorise that Iran may fear the Arab backslash if they killed a million Arabs.
Still lower than the socialists. If capitalism was so great, it wouldn't be a matter of the socialists beating us by a few months, but we should be beating them by years. Nope, the US is the loser.
See what I wrote in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2876563&cid=40123989
And if I had to choose between living in a restrictive society where the lifespan is 78.82, versus living in a freer society where the lifespan is 78.37, I would choose the latter.
By the way, the enormous amount of immigration into the US (the US takes more immigrants than the rest of the world combined) is a huge testament to the fact that America is a nice place to live. Just like the fact that Marxist-Leninist governments often prohibit their citizens from leaving (see Berlin Wall, and the Castro regime punishing people who try to leave) pretty much proves that Marxist-Leninist societies are shitty places to live.
(Note, I am not saying that Scandinavian social democracy is as bad as Marxism-Leninism).