The family is the basic unit of government. Destroy the traditional definition of marriage, and you destroy the traditional family, and the nation will crumble within four generations. Strong families build a strong nation. The extremely high infidelity rates among homosexuals shows that any "marriage" between them wouldn't be as strong.
FWIW, many of the current laws that seem to restrict third parties have their origins in the election of 1912. It was pretty obvious that Roosevelt (Bull Moose) and Taft (Republican) had the clear majority (~51%) of the vote between them, and their positions differed relatively little. But, as we know, they split the "conservative" vote and the Democrat, who differed more substantially from both, won (with only 42%).
But, as anyone here should be able to recognize, the problem isn't third parties. Everybody has a right to stand up for what they believe and try to convince people to follow them. We should have more diversity of opinion involved in the political process! The problem is that the voting system doesn't support more than two parties. It creates a false dichotomy, because a single vote can only express a preference between two options. After all, Taft supporters would have been more happy with Roosevelt than Wilson, and likewise Roosevelt's backers would be more happy with Taft than Wilson. Even though the largest single block got their first choice, the average voter satisfaction would have been higher with either Roosevelt or Taft.
Agreed. Our school systems are not trade programs. ("School To Work", "Goals 2000" and similar initiatives notwithstanding.) Schools are supposed to provide a liberal arts foundation for later life. The kids (and their parents) that will whine that "this isn't what I/they learned in school" are the ones that never really learned how to think, regardless what Johnny's grades were.
Great to hear about your program, btw. Kudos to you!
You can learn concepts of point-and-click, copy-and-paste, desktop metaphor, and most importantly how to use a help system on any OS. Schools that take the perspective of "we have to teach them system X because that's what they'll use in the 'real world'" are thinking wrong. Teach kids how to think not just which widgets to click.
And if they weren't screwing around in HyperCard on a Mac they'd be screwing around in Solitaire on in Windows. HyperCard may not be an application used in business today, but the kids learned some skills that can be applied elsewhere. If the teachers stressed that aspect of it, the kids will be OK.
Generalize that to "a coalition of the parties who do not control the legislature" and I'd be on board. Destroy "two-party" thinking. It would be fun to see the Libertarians and Greens drawing the district lines that the Duopoly has to live with during the next race.
Many states have laws that require geographically simple districts, like your latter suggestions. Look at the districting in IA or MN. Why couldn't that be done everywhere? It's not a difficult concept.
Throw out your misconceptions about IRV, it only disguises the same problem we already have without solving it. We need Condorcet's method so that all preferences are counted. Throwing away someone's first preference (as in a run-off system) just because enough other people didn't share it is not indicative of their true vote any longer! All preferences must be evaluated simultaneously, not sequentually. The definition of winner is not "who has more votes than anyone else" but the more generalized "who could beat all the other candidates in head-to-head races".
Why is it important that your president represent the minority in your country and not the majority?
The US is a federal government, made up (in theory) of several sovereign states. The USA was formed by actions of the state governments. The President must not only be the leader of the people, but the leader of the states - and in many ways being the leader of the state federation (having a majority of states supporting him) is more important than capturing a majority of the popular vote.
This is why there is an EC, whose votes reflect the total of the representation in the House and the Sentate. The Senate is the chamber of the states, remember. The EC is an attempt at having both views of representation, popular and state, affect a singular office.
Regarding 2 and 3, they are a property of winner-takes-all elections in the EC, and Duverger's Law. This is not an inherent part of the design, but left up to the states to decide. Maine and Nebraska use a different system to allocate the votes. Duverger's Law can be eliminated by using Condorcet's method instead of plurality voting. That's two ways in which people feel their vote doesn't really matter. First they are lumped together with everyone in their entire state, which ignores regional effects. Second, and more importantly IMO, is that the voting system itself encourages voters to dismiss all but two candidates as being worthwhile. So you get two guys that play to the middle when campaigning (not a dime's worth of difference) and you don't have much chance of making a difference between even those two. It's understandable why many stay home. But note that the voting system is the larger problem, not the EC. The EC only affects one election out of the ~20 that would be on a typical ballot. The EC as an institution makes sense, its just the current implementation that's a little whacked.
If the black voters want to be heard in an american election they all have to go live in the same place, otherwise their vote is unimportant.
This makes the rather racist assumption that all blacks thing alike, at least enough alike to vote the same way. America was built on the idea of individual freedom. It's only the past 75 years or so that politicians began pandering to blocs and special interest groups.
Dude. Chill. Your zealotry is showing. If I really wanted to bash Enterprise, it wouldn't be a mere parenthetical comment, and it wouldn't be mindless.
I've noticed that these two stars are conspicuously absent from Celestia. Conspicuous because B is the closest white dwarf star IIRC - it should definitely be included. So much for learning what the sky looks like from Vulcan!
"Yes, that's what I said." No, you are ignoring what I said. "It is throwing in the towel on governemnt. Not trying to improve the government or society, but realizing something has been done wrong not trying to fix it" You fail to grasp the fundamental distinction between advocating smaller government as a valid option in itself, as opposed to keep-doing-the-same-thing-just-a-little-differentl y-than-before. Of course something was done wrong: government got involved. Advocating less gov't is not the same as abolishing gov't altogether.
Your sig "Want to get modded OT and flamebait? Mention religion, even if on topic" shows that you've decided a priori that certain views will be deemed irrelevant/offensive by you, regardless of how relevant they actually are.
Therefore, discussing this topic further with you will likely only result in more intellectual stonewalling on your part, and I have better things to do than waste my time.
Are you arguing for not taxing any food, clothing, or medicine at all for anyone? I wonder how much the sales tax on the remaining items would have to be adjusted to keep it revenue-neutral. Probably not much. Sounds interesting, and it would do away with the residual bureaucracy in the prebate system.
That's precisely what I'm saying. No bureaucracy at all. We're not just reducing it, we're eliminating it. No prebate/rebate - nobody's getting anything "for free" from the other party. You don't even spend megabucks on postage for the checks. Tax rates are still arbitrary (well hopefully it's set just high enough to pay for legitimate necessary functions), but at least the arbitrariness of "poverty level" (or however you determine the [p]rebate) is removed. And like I said, this exemption plan is based on a sound freedom principle - not interfering with an individual's right to life (which is maintained by food/clothing/medicine).
Ever stop to think that coverage is more expensive because medicine is improving?
As things improve, they're supposed to get cheaper.
Where in universal health care does it require single-payer?
That's the way the plan is typically floated here. But I suppose it's not necessary. Any gov't-mandated, gov't-controlled (i.e. socialist) plan would be just as bad.
the practical reality is that most people don't adequately prepare for future expendatures. Debt, poor retirement planning, and other fiscal errors are common.
So we can't be bothered to plan these things individually, but we'll make a good plan if we all work together? Yeah, that makes sense.
And what about the 1% that does plan wisely and well...they get penalized because their neighbors are morons that can't get their acts together? That doesn't sound like freedom. Life is risk, freedom is risk. I may fall flat on my face, but I'd rather be free than living the way some politician thinks I should.
When health care is universal, and coverage independent of how much you pay for it, people will try to take advantage of it - living in a way that abuses their bodies (all those "fun" things like smoking, drinking hard, overeating, risky sex) then expecting the health care system to "fix" them. (We already see this, with the lawsuits against fast food for "making them fat".) It's the tragedy of the commons - to take more from a shared pool than you're putting in. Obviously a system can't work like that for long, so our lifestyles will have to be regulated, else we can't be covered. I don't want bureaucrats micromanaging my life.
I guess Libertarian is the art of saying "it could be done wrong by the government, so lets not try."
Libertarian is the observation that it usually has been done wrong by government and most likely will continue to be done wrong by government, so governments should be limited in scope of authority. Giving money and power to government is like giving booze and cars to teenagers.
I also don't think that the american government functions as you describe it. It would seems more like an organization controlling the collective people of your country, rather than people as a collective acting.
You're probably right. But I'm an idealist, and it's my country. The bumper sticker "I love my country but fear my government" has truth behind it. I want gov't to act the way I describe, which I believe is the proper Constitutional functioning that was intended.
Wonderful system we have, where those that actually educate themselves have to be pulled down into mediocrity by the masses or risk damaging their own cause. Can there be any better reason to enact a fundamental reform in the voting system? We need Condorcet voting!
As a friend from England said, 'you keep saying you have a liberal and conservative party. We see it as you have a conservative and a more-conservative party.'
Given that conservatives are for smaller government, I'll never understand this sentiment.
Right. We have a not-quite-as-liberal-as-Europe party, and a not-even-quite-that-liberal party. Both are headed in the liberal direction. The Democrats want to drive over the cliff at 90 mph, the Republicans will stay under the speed limit. That's the only difference.
Then take those organizations to court when they do actual damages to you. Don't squelch everyone's freedom in the meantime on "mights" and "maybes". The government does have a role as impartial adjudicator of justice.
Giving gov't too much power to shape policies does not hinder powerful organizations. It just gives them a single entity to pay off to enact policies favorable to said powerful orgs. If gov't doesn't set the policies, it has no stake in preserving that status quo when you come before the court seeking justice. OTOH, every policy enacted will have unintended consequences that impinge on someone's freedom somewhere.
Refunds still imply someone to administer them. Thus you still have the overhead of a bureaucracy.
Refunds still imply that the government gets to hold your money, interest free, before giving it back to you.
Refunds still imply an arbitrariness to how much the gov't is going to give back.
Why not simply not tax this amount in the first place? As a bonus, we can do this in a principled (non-arbitrary) manner. Exempt food/clothes/medicine (the things most necessary to provide for our guaranteed right to life) from tax, and the things that "the poor" most need, and spend most of their money on, are more affordable. One simple universal rule based on principles of liberty, no bureaucracy needed, no waiting to get your own money back and you get to use it in the meantime.
I'd really like to be able to do this with my G5, so my wife and I could use it at the same time. It's got the power and the ability to have multiple users simultaneously logged in - all I need is two physical consoles.
Life/liberty/property are co-equal. You own yourself; you are your own property. Freedom is that no one can tell you what to do with your own property. That liberty represents your life's future direction. Your material wealth represents your past life and the choices you made, which likewise no one can take from you. Directing your choices or stealing your wealth amounts to snatching a portion of your life. So any of these three can be seen in terms of the others.
That being the case, you are free to whatever health care you can provide for yourself. You have no claim to what is mine to try to provide for yourself. I can ask my neighbor to help me out of a jam, and he can choose to or not, but I have no right to stick a gun to his head and demand money, no matter how badly I need it or however noble the cause I need it for. If you can't steal from your neighbor, neither can you have the gov't steal on your behalf.
Ever stop to think that the reason health care is getting more expensive, causing many healthy people to bail out of the system, which causes it to get even more expensive yet - is precisely because the gov't is regulating it and mandating coverage? The problem of the third-party payer is well-known. If costs are not coming out of your own pocket, you'll use the service frivolously, which drives up the cost for everyone else. Tragedy of the commons, my friend - "things are getting bad, so I better get my cut while I can!" And you accelerate the death spiral.
We don't need socialized single-payer health care. When gov't pays, gov't decides. That's why Canadians wait 4-5 weeks to get approved for the kind of surgery that Clinton just had scheduled and performed in less than 4 days. (He probably missed the irony.) What we need is a way for individuals to be able to afford to pay for their own. This means putting their own money (important, so that they will be wise and frugal in its use) into a pre-tax (important, so that return on the money is maximized) savings account of some sort.
Slashdot Mirror
The family is the basic unit of government. Destroy the traditional definition of marriage, and you destroy the traditional family, and the nation will crumble within four generations. Strong families build a strong nation. The extremely high infidelity rates among homosexuals shows that any "marriage" between them wouldn't be as strong.
FWIW, many of the current laws that seem to restrict third parties have their origins in the election of 1912. It was pretty obvious that Roosevelt (Bull Moose) and Taft (Republican) had the clear majority (~51%) of the vote between them, and their positions differed relatively little. But, as we know, they split the "conservative" vote and the Democrat, who differed more substantially from both, won (with only 42%).
But, as anyone here should be able to recognize, the problem isn't third parties. Everybody has a right to stand up for what they believe and try to convince people to follow them. We should have more diversity of opinion involved in the political process! The problem is that the voting system doesn't support more than two parties. It creates a false dichotomy, because a single vote can only express a preference between two options. After all, Taft supporters would have been more happy with Roosevelt than Wilson, and likewise Roosevelt's backers would be more happy with Taft than Wilson. Even though the largest single block got their first choice, the average voter satisfaction would have been higher with either Roosevelt or Taft.
We need Condorcet voting.
Give them a hint.
"No, I will not set your watch."
Agreed. Our school systems are not trade programs. ("School To Work", "Goals 2000" and similar initiatives notwithstanding.) Schools are supposed to provide a liberal arts foundation for later life. The kids (and their parents) that will whine that "this isn't what I/they learned in school" are the ones that never really learned how to think, regardless what Johnny's grades were.
Great to hear about your program, btw. Kudos to you!
You can learn concepts of point-and-click, copy-and-paste, desktop metaphor, and most importantly how to use a help system on any OS. Schools that take the perspective of "we have to teach them system X because that's what they'll use in the 'real world'" are thinking wrong. Teach kids how to think not just which widgets to click.
And if they weren't screwing around in HyperCard on a Mac they'd be screwing around in Solitaire on in Windows. HyperCard may not be an application used in business today, but the kids learned some skills that can be applied elsewhere. If the teachers stressed that aspect of it, the kids will be OK.
Generalize that to "a coalition of the parties who do not control the legislature" and I'd be on board. Destroy "two-party" thinking. It would be fun to see the Libertarians and Greens drawing the district lines that the Duopoly has to live with during the next race.
Many states have laws that require geographically simple districts, like your latter suggestions. Look at the districting in IA or MN. Why couldn't that be done everywhere? It's not a difficult concept.
Throw out your misconceptions about IRV, it only disguises the same problem we already have without solving it. We need Condorcet's method so that all preferences are counted. Throwing away someone's first preference (as in a run-off system) just because enough other people didn't share it is not indicative of their true vote any longer! All preferences must be evaluated simultaneously, not sequentually. The definition of winner is not "who has more votes than anyone else" but the more generalized "who could beat all the other candidates in head-to-head races".
Anybody want to rip the laserdisc and burn some DVDs? I bet you could make a pretty penny doing that.
Not that I'm advocating anything illegal. I was just curious. No, really!
The US is a federal government, made up (in theory) of several sovereign states. The USA was formed by actions of the state governments. The President must not only be the leader of the people, but the leader of the states - and in many ways being the leader of the state federation (having a majority of states supporting him) is more important than capturing a majority of the popular vote.
This is why there is an EC, whose votes reflect the total of the representation in the House and the Sentate. The Senate is the chamber of the states, remember. The EC is an attempt at having both views of representation, popular and state, affect a singular office.
Regarding 2 and 3, they are a property of winner-takes-all elections in the EC, and Duverger's Law. This is not an inherent part of the design, but left up to the states to decide. Maine and Nebraska use a different system to allocate the votes. Duverger's Law can be eliminated by using Condorcet's method instead of plurality voting. That's two ways in which people feel their vote doesn't really matter. First they are lumped together with everyone in their entire state, which ignores regional effects. Second, and more importantly IMO, is that the voting system itself encourages voters to dismiss all but two candidates as being worthwhile. So you get two guys that play to the middle when campaigning (not a dime's worth of difference) and you don't have much chance of making a difference between even those two. It's understandable why many stay home. But note that the voting system is the larger problem, not the EC. The EC only affects one election out of the ~20 that would be on a typical ballot. The EC as an institution makes sense, its just the current implementation that's a little whacked.
This makes the rather racist assumption that all blacks thing alike, at least enough alike to vote the same way. America was built on the idea of individual freedom. It's only the past 75 years or so that politicians began pandering to blocs and special interest groups.
Dude. Chill. Your zealotry is showing. If I really wanted to bash Enterprise, it wouldn't be a mere parenthetical comment, and it wouldn't be mindless.
I've noticed that these two stars are conspicuously absent from Celestia. Conspicuous because B is the closest white dwarf star IIRC - it should definitely be included. So much for learning what the sky looks like from Vulcan!
Ah, my apologies. I've read too many sigs of people saying they moderate this way or that way.
Two things:
Therefore, discussing this topic further with you will likely only result in more intellectual stonewalling on your part, and I have better things to do than waste my time.
That's precisely what I'm saying. No bureaucracy at all. We're not just reducing it, we're eliminating it. No prebate/rebate - nobody's getting anything "for free" from the other party. You don't even spend megabucks on postage for the checks. Tax rates are still arbitrary (well hopefully it's set just high enough to pay for legitimate necessary functions), but at least the arbitrariness of "poverty level" (or however you determine the [p]rebate) is removed. And like I said, this exemption plan is based on a sound freedom principle - not interfering with an individual's right to life (which is maintained by food/clothing/medicine).
As things improve, they're supposed to get cheaper.
That's the way the plan is typically floated here. But I suppose it's not necessary. Any gov't-mandated, gov't-controlled (i.e. socialist) plan would be just as bad.
So we can't be bothered to plan these things individually, but we'll make a good plan if we all work together? Yeah, that makes sense.
And what about the 1% that does plan wisely and well...they get penalized because their neighbors are morons that can't get their acts together? That doesn't sound like freedom. Life is risk, freedom is risk. I may fall flat on my face, but I'd rather be free than living the way some politician thinks I should.
When health care is universal, and coverage independent of how much you pay for it, people will try to take advantage of it - living in a way that abuses their bodies (all those "fun" things like smoking, drinking hard, overeating, risky sex) then expecting the health care system to "fix" them. (We already see this, with the lawsuits against fast food for "making them fat".) It's the tragedy of the commons - to take more from a shared pool than you're putting in. Obviously a system can't work like that for long, so our lifestyles will have to be regulated, else we can't be covered. I don't want bureaucrats micromanaging my life.
Libertarian is the observation that it usually has been done wrong by government and most likely will continue to be done wrong by government, so governments should be limited in scope of authority. Giving money and power to government is like giving booze and cars to teenagers.
You're probably right. But I'm an idealist, and it's my country. The bumper sticker "I love my country but fear my government" has truth behind it. I want gov't to act the way I describe, which I believe is the proper Constitutional functioning that was intended.
Wonderful system we have, where those that actually educate themselves have to be pulled down into mediocrity by the masses or risk damaging their own cause. Can there be any better reason to enact a fundamental reform in the voting system? We need Condorcet voting!
Right. We have a not-quite-as-liberal-as-Europe party, and a not-even-quite-that-liberal party. Both are headed in the liberal direction. The Democrats want to drive over the cliff at 90 mph, the Republicans will stay under the speed limit. That's the only difference.
Then take those organizations to court when they do actual damages to you. Don't squelch everyone's freedom in the meantime on "mights" and "maybes". The government does have a role as impartial adjudicator of justice.
Giving gov't too much power to shape policies does not hinder powerful organizations. It just gives them a single entity to pay off to enact policies favorable to said powerful orgs. If gov't doesn't set the policies, it has no stake in preserving that status quo when you come before the court seeking justice. OTOH, every policy enacted will have unintended consequences that impinge on someone's freedom somewhere.
Refunds still imply someone to administer them. Thus you still have the overhead of a bureaucracy.
Refunds still imply that the government gets to hold your money, interest free, before giving it back to you.
Refunds still imply an arbitrariness to how much the gov't is going to give back.
Why not simply not tax this amount in the first place? As a bonus, we can do this in a principled (non-arbitrary) manner. Exempt food/clothes/medicine (the things most necessary to provide for our guaranteed right to life) from tax, and the things that "the poor" most need, and spend most of their money on, are more affordable. One simple universal rule based on principles of liberty, no bureaucracy needed, no waiting to get your own money back and you get to use it in the meantime.
If only Quartz were network transparent like X, that would get a pretty good idea idea.
I'd really like to be able to do this with my G5, so my wife and I could use it at the same time. It's got the power and the ability to have multiple users simultaneously logged in - all I need is two physical consoles.
They can bounce a microwave beam off a tiny little probe at that distance and measure the response? Man, that's impressive!
It's a great lunchtime diversion. I love to fly from one Jovian satellite to another.
What it really needs, though, is a "warp factor" display. Geeks have no clue how fast "1.104 AU/sec" is, but say "warp 8.2" and we get it.
Life/liberty/property are co-equal. You own yourself; you are your own property. Freedom is that no one can tell you what to do with your own property. That liberty represents your life's future direction. Your material wealth represents your past life and the choices you made, which likewise no one can take from you. Directing your choices or stealing your wealth amounts to snatching a portion of your life. So any of these three can be seen in terms of the others.
That being the case, you are free to whatever health care you can provide for yourself. You have no claim to what is mine to try to provide for yourself. I can ask my neighbor to help me out of a jam, and he can choose to or not, but I have no right to stick a gun to his head and demand money, no matter how badly I need it or however noble the cause I need it for. If you can't steal from your neighbor, neither can you have the gov't steal on your behalf.
Ever stop to think that the reason health care is getting more expensive, causing many healthy people to bail out of the system, which causes it to get even more expensive yet - is precisely because the gov't is regulating it and mandating coverage? The problem of the third-party payer is well-known. If costs are not coming out of your own pocket, you'll use the service frivolously, which drives up the cost for everyone else. Tragedy of the commons, my friend - "things are getting bad, so I better get my cut while I can!" And you accelerate the death spiral.
We don't need socialized single-payer health care. When gov't pays, gov't decides. That's why Canadians wait 4-5 weeks to get approved for the kind of surgery that Clinton just had scheduled and performed in less than 4 days. (He probably missed the irony.) What we need is a way for individuals to be able to afford to pay for their own. This means putting their own money (important, so that they will be wise and frugal in its use) into a pre-tax (important, so that return on the money is maximized) savings account of some sort.