I do not find it moral for people to starve or go without medical care.
To think that wealth is merely a matter of effort is either naive or inhumane.
I'm a libertarian, and I agree - which is why I donate money to the Red Cross, a local children's hospital, and other institutions. While I find Ayn Rand's "objectivism" interesting, objectivism and libertarianism are not the same.
If the government stopped taking so much of my income, I'd donate more. It's absurd you think anyone would want people to starve, go without necessary healthcare, or go without an education - the only difference is the means by which we accomplish these things. Just because you want to abolish the D.O. Education doesn't mean you don't want people to be educated, it means you think there's a better way.
Except that, like the other candidates, he can't act unilaterally in most of these cases - it's just an agenda, and I don't consider taking the government back to the ideals of when it was founded (no, not entirely) is "extremism." The government has so far exceeded it's constitutional boundaries it's ridiculous. The RIGHT way to accomplish the things you probably want to keep (things like the D.O. Education) is actually have a constitutional convention to make it actually be something the federal government is legally allowed to do. Abolish all these things, and see if the people actually want them through the process of constitutional conventions. Want single payer healthcare? The current constitution disallows it, have a constitutional convention. Want to ban firearms, or severely limit their availability? Constitutional convention.
I've never regretted my third party votes. I don't look at me as being the problem, I look at everyone else who is too "scared" to vote third party despite the fact they loathe both mainstream candidates. If the worse of two evils wins, it's not because of me - it's because people voted for an evil (lesser or otherwise) instead of someone they actually liked.
I don't know how they do it in France and Germany, but a voucher system for private schools would save the government a lot of money and give a lot of freedom back to the people. Annual tuition for a decent private school in my area is $6k to $8k, the city of Atlanta spends over $13k last I checked (which was some years ago), and the city of Atlanta is largely failing the people there.
The problem with the people you're arguing with is they are skipping over the 50th to 99th percentile of the people to complain about the 1% at the top - and they're willing to "punish" all the people in the middle just to get at that 1%. They say "look at Bill Gates" or "look at Paris Hilton," not look at the people making six figures that are having as much problem putting their kids through college because they're ineligible for ANYTHING because they make "too much." They get ZERO benefits because of their incomes, but are paying top or near top effective income tax rates. In the U.S. you are punished the most for making more up until you get that 1%, who only pay capital gains (if that) and have the means to avoid taxes. That's not how it should be, but god forbid Paris Hilton can flash her money around.
What if I'm not trying to be progressive? But, for the record, it does end up being progressive up to the poverty level, since people making less than that actually end up with more spending power than they would have had without it.
There's no "Fair Tax" style exemptions - that's why I support it. As soon as you start making exemptions and exceptions, everybody wants to be the exemption and the exception, and that's what fuels lobbyists. The only factor in the Fair Tax is what amount you base the "prebate" on, which is presumably the tax you'd pay on goods and services up to the "poverty level," and I agree that you are absolutely right - what's the "poverty level?" It's not the same in Kansas as it is in California; But really, if that's the big problem with the Fair Tax, then it's light years beyond any other system proposed (or implemented). Nothing will be perfect... you can't nit pick the alternatives without judging them versus the current system and the alternatives. It's not perfect, it's just, IMO, the best I've seen so far.
But most sports are referred to as "games." Soccer games, Basketball games.... you going to the game tonight?
I've recently started watching E-League, and my first instinct was that it's not really a "sport." After thinking about it for a while, it occurred to me that it's not just twitchy fingers - the hand-eye coordination and super fast reaction times are really impressive. That, and they train as a team, working out strategies for thousands of hours. E-League is doing Counter Strike... and unlike a football field or soccer pitch, the "fields", or maps, are infinitely more complex, and the game (sure, game) is completely different depending on which side you're playing.... that's like having to learn 14 really complex fields and come up with a handful of strategies for each of them.
Sport? I wouldn't argue with you about it, I'm still not so sure, but it does take a lot of skill, hard work, and hours of practice with a team to be successful at it. When I play it, it's definitely a game - no argument there.
Because, in the example I gave, you're not. If you don't understand the difference between the old testament (which introduced us to Satan and the garden of Eden) and the NEW testament (which introduced us to Christ), then I'm sorry, I can't explain how one can believe in God and Satan and NOT Christ.
I don't know why I'm responding to this, because the thread is already at a remarkable level of stupidity and off-topic-ness, but one doesn't need to believe in Christ to believe in God and Satan.... so Satanists might be Christian, but if they don't believe in the new testament, then they aren't.
I built my system with 8.1, and did the "free" upgrade to 10; I haven't regretted it. I still use LInux - the system is booted to Linux right now as I write this, but when I need to use Windows, I really like 10. Yes, I disabled a bunch (probably not all) of the BS - turning off cortana was one of the first things I did, many months ago.... and it hasn't magically come back all by itself. I have never seen a screen telling me about anything or asking me for money.
No, I didn't use the "no true Scotsman" argument; I gave a one liner - an accurate one - about the fundamental concept of libertiarianism. Just like other political parties, there's a wide variety of libertarians, but there is always the one fundamental concept that determines whether or not one is a libertarian: the belief in personal liberties and freedoms.
Being anti abortion (to an extent) is not anti-libertarian. Being against gay marriage certainly is. But if libertarians believe in personal liberties and freedoms - the rights of the individual, then it comes down to when you consider a fetus an individual. You can rail on about how it's not a "person" until it's born, but having the belief that a second or third trimester fetus (or, in extreme cases, at conception) deserves the same rights to life you have is certainly not against libertarian principles - abortion would be as big a debate inside the libertarian party is as it is outside, because it all comes down to when you believe a fetus has that right to life.
For the record, as a libertarian, I'm not against abortion, per se, but I wouldn't suggest someone couldn't be libertarian because they were.
Libertarian is the belief that I'm great, and fuck you. I'm goddamned glad that they have no chance to win, because if anything could be more terrifying than the current one-party system, it's some Randian libertarian seizing the reins and... who knows what they might do? Nothing sensible.
No. Despite the politically sophomoric typical slashdotter's opinion, libertarianism is about personal rights and freedoms. It's NOT objectivism. Libertarians don't believe in slavery, or subjugating people "below" them. The misconception about libertarians here is amazing... I realize a few tea partiers and "what's good for me" republicans have used the party name to misrepresent what they really are - the problem is that because you are "libertarian" on one topic doesn't make you a libertarian.
Who cares? Why would anyone that wants privacy distribute their terrorist plans on Twitter? And yes, for the record, people have tweeted dumb things and gotten visited by FBI and CIA.
Social Media is counted in Nielsen ratings now. Over the past few years you've seen more and more TV shows (including news and talk shows) flash hashtags and accounts to tweet at. I work in television, and while I hate social media the simple fact is that we have to deal with it and try to get the number of mentions up. So we show people's tweets and instagrams and vines on the air. So people will pay attention to detail in our show, and try to post witty things that might get them a mention on the air (it's a live sports show). Shows like "The Talking Dead" get a LOT of social media attention for the shows they are promoting. So that's what it's about now. We don't pay twitter to use tweets on the air. We do, however, pay companies that aggregate social media data. They, in turn, have professional accounts and pay the social media companies for expanded search access. I don't know if it's enough, but it's something.
That's why they're changing it, but now it breaks the lowest common denominator - some people still don't have smart phones, but get text messages on their older phones (which was the original point of twitter). I'm sure those people are few and far between - which is why they are changing it.
No, the actual idea behind twitter is that instead of texting a bunch of people the same thing and essentially forcing them to receive it, you post a tweet and "followers" can easily see it. It started off as a way for people to say "I'm headed to the night club if anyone wants to meet up there," and all their friends could see it. It's very different than texting possibly dozens or hundreds of people. It was a good idea. Now celebrities have millions of followers all waiting to hear what they had for lunch today, or people post some garbage with a hashtag flashed on the screen during The Walking Dead or some news show in some vain attempt at getting their tweet to be shown on the air. Want to know why all the shows are now flashing hashtags? Because Nielsen ratings now include social media mentions.
Of course, people can still use it to tell their friends the party's at Joe's.
If people are doing it because of the character limit, then it's better to just increase the character limit, but sometimes people do it because they don't want their words altered, or to be taken out of context. Of course, if that's the primary reason, then twitter is probably not the greatest medium.
I thought facebook was great, at first - reconnecting with all my old high school "friends" and having something to communicate with my family quickly and easily (long distance), but indeed it did devolve into people posting pictures of their lunch, bragging they were at some fancy restaurant or vacationing somewhere... and I realized I just didn't care - and I also realized why I drifted apart from those old high school "friends" to begin with.
I think twitter can still be about keeping touch over long distances, but really - instead of tweeting to mom, I can just send a text message if I'm not going to call. At least she figured out how to use that feature on her phone (she's in her eighties).
It shouldn't. Twitter is all about short messages that get the point across quickly... and it wasn't designed to be some sort of socio-political platform for people to "raise awareness" or convey essays; it was all about telling your friends that you were headed to Moe's Tavern at 8:00 tonight, or there's a party at Jane's house, so swing by!
I work in television, and social media has become a huge deal. We format our graphics to fit the limits of of what people can do. For twitter, I can tell you that if someone tweets a thousand character "essay," we won't be showing it on the air. And for the record, I hate social media with a passion... if anything, it makes people far less social than they used to be, but I guess it depends on your definition of what "being social" is.
It's really quite simple - your tangent on this thread is a moot point because if it costs too much, the franchise owners won't buy them. You think they buy things all willy nilly? No, they put thought into it and figure out how long it will take to come out ahead - and if it's not worth it, they don't buy it.
Except you're making the ridiculously absurd assumption that it's $10M... these probably wouldn't be more than a few thousand each, and would pay for themselves in a matter of a couple of months at $15 minimum wage.
Slashdot Mirror
I do not find it moral for people to starve or go without medical care.
To think that wealth is merely a matter of effort is either naive or inhumane.
I'm a libertarian, and I agree - which is why I donate money to the Red Cross, a local children's hospital, and other institutions. While I find Ayn Rand's "objectivism" interesting, objectivism and libertarianism are not the same.
If the government stopped taking so much of my income, I'd donate more. It's absurd you think anyone would want people to starve, go without necessary healthcare, or go without an education - the only difference is the means by which we accomplish these things. Just because you want to abolish the D.O. Education doesn't mean you don't want people to be educated, it means you think there's a better way.
Except that, like the other candidates, he can't act unilaterally in most of these cases - it's just an agenda, and I don't consider taking the government back to the ideals of when it was founded (no, not entirely) is "extremism." The government has so far exceeded it's constitutional boundaries it's ridiculous. The RIGHT way to accomplish the things you probably want to keep (things like the D.O. Education) is actually have a constitutional convention to make it actually be something the federal government is legally allowed to do. Abolish all these things, and see if the people actually want them through the process of constitutional conventions. Want single payer healthcare? The current constitution disallows it, have a constitutional convention. Want to ban firearms, or severely limit their availability? Constitutional convention.
I've never regretted my third party votes. I don't look at me as being the problem, I look at everyone else who is too "scared" to vote third party despite the fact they loathe both mainstream candidates. If the worse of two evils wins, it's not because of me - it's because people voted for an evil (lesser or otherwise) instead of someone they actually liked.
I don't know how they do it in France and Germany, but a voucher system for private schools would save the government a lot of money and give a lot of freedom back to the people. Annual tuition for a decent private school in my area is $6k to $8k, the city of Atlanta spends over $13k last I checked (which was some years ago), and the city of Atlanta is largely failing the people there.
The problem with the people you're arguing with is they are skipping over the 50th to 99th percentile of the people to complain about the 1% at the top - and they're willing to "punish" all the people in the middle just to get at that 1%. They say "look at Bill Gates" or "look at Paris Hilton," not look at the people making six figures that are having as much problem putting their kids through college because they're ineligible for ANYTHING because they make "too much." They get ZERO benefits because of their incomes, but are paying top or near top effective income tax rates. In the U.S. you are punished the most for making more up until you get that 1%, who only pay capital gains (if that) and have the means to avoid taxes. That's not how it should be, but god forbid Paris Hilton can flash her money around.
What if I'm not trying to be progressive? But, for the record, it does end up being progressive up to the poverty level, since people making less than that actually end up with more spending power than they would have had without it.
There's no "Fair Tax" style exemptions - that's why I support it. As soon as you start making exemptions and exceptions, everybody wants to be the exemption and the exception, and that's what fuels lobbyists. The only factor in the Fair Tax is what amount you base the "prebate" on, which is presumably the tax you'd pay on goods and services up to the "poverty level," and I agree that you are absolutely right - what's the "poverty level?" It's not the same in Kansas as it is in California; But really, if that's the big problem with the Fair Tax, then it's light years beyond any other system proposed (or implemented). Nothing will be perfect... you can't nit pick the alternatives without judging them versus the current system and the alternatives. It's not perfect, it's just, IMO, the best I've seen so far.
But most sports are referred to as "games." Soccer games, Basketball games.... you going to the game tonight?
I've recently started watching E-League, and my first instinct was that it's not really a "sport." After thinking about it for a while, it occurred to me that it's not just twitchy fingers - the hand-eye coordination and super fast reaction times are really impressive. That, and they train as a team, working out strategies for thousands of hours. E-League is doing Counter Strike... and unlike a football field or soccer pitch, the "fields", or maps, are infinitely more complex, and the game (sure, game) is completely different depending on which side you're playing.... that's like having to learn 14 really complex fields and come up with a handful of strategies for each of them.
Sport? I wouldn't argue with you about it, I'm still not so sure, but it does take a lot of skill, hard work, and hours of practice with a team to be successful at it. When I play it, it's definitely a game - no argument there.
Because, in the example I gave, you're not. If you don't understand the difference between the old testament (which introduced us to Satan and the garden of Eden) and the NEW testament (which introduced us to Christ), then I'm sorry, I can't explain how one can believe in God and Satan and NOT Christ.
Agreed. Choose one: false sense of security, or liberty.
I don't know why I'm responding to this, because the thread is already at a remarkable level of stupidity and off-topic-ness, but one doesn't need to believe in Christ to believe in God and Satan.... so Satanists might be Christian, but if they don't believe in the new testament, then they aren't.
Even Ayn Rand said libertarians AREN'T objectivists.
I built my system with 8.1, and did the "free" upgrade to 10; I haven't regretted it. I still use LInux - the system is booted to Linux right now as I write this, but when I need to use Windows, I really like 10. Yes, I disabled a bunch (probably not all) of the BS - turning off cortana was one of the first things I did, many months ago.... and it hasn't magically come back all by itself. I have never seen a screen telling me about anything or asking me for money.
No, I didn't use the "no true Scotsman" argument; I gave a one liner - an accurate one - about the fundamental concept of libertiarianism. Just like other political parties, there's a wide variety of libertarians, but there is always the one fundamental concept that determines whether or not one is a libertarian: the belief in personal liberties and freedoms.
Being anti abortion (to an extent) is not anti-libertarian. Being against gay marriage certainly is. But if libertarians believe in personal liberties and freedoms - the rights of the individual, then it comes down to when you consider a fetus an individual. You can rail on about how it's not a "person" until it's born, but having the belief that a second or third trimester fetus (or, in extreme cases, at conception) deserves the same rights to life you have is certainly not against libertarian principles - abortion would be as big a debate inside the libertarian party is as it is outside, because it all comes down to when you believe a fetus has that right to life.
For the record, as a libertarian, I'm not against abortion, per se, but I wouldn't suggest someone couldn't be libertarian because they were.
Libertarian is the belief that I'm great, and fuck you. I'm goddamned glad that they have no chance to win, because if anything could be more terrifying than the current one-party system, it's some Randian libertarian seizing the reins and... who knows what they might do? Nothing sensible.
No. Despite the politically sophomoric typical slashdotter's opinion, libertarianism is about personal rights and freedoms. It's NOT objectivism. Libertarians don't believe in slavery, or subjugating people "below" them. The misconception about libertarians here is amazing... I realize a few tea partiers and "what's good for me" republicans have used the party name to misrepresent what they really are - the problem is that because you are "libertarian" on one topic doesn't make you a libertarian.
Who cares? Why would anyone that wants privacy distribute their terrorist plans on Twitter? And yes, for the record, people have tweeted dumb things and gotten visited by FBI and CIA.
Social Media is counted in Nielsen ratings now. Over the past few years you've seen more and more TV shows (including news and talk shows) flash hashtags and accounts to tweet at. I work in television, and while I hate social media the simple fact is that we have to deal with it and try to get the number of mentions up. So we show people's tweets and instagrams and vines on the air. So people will pay attention to detail in our show, and try to post witty things that might get them a mention on the air (it's a live sports show). Shows like "The Talking Dead" get a LOT of social media attention for the shows they are promoting. So that's what it's about now. We don't pay twitter to use tweets on the air. We do, however, pay companies that aggregate social media data. They, in turn, have professional accounts and pay the social media companies for expanded search access. I don't know if it's enough, but it's something.
That's why they're changing it, but now it breaks the lowest common denominator - some people still don't have smart phones, but get text messages on their older phones (which was the original point of twitter). I'm sure those people are few and far between - which is why they are changing it.
If you didn't have one before, I don't see why you'd want one now.
No, the actual idea behind twitter is that instead of texting a bunch of people the same thing and essentially forcing them to receive it, you post a tweet and "followers" can easily see it. It started off as a way for people to say "I'm headed to the night club if anyone wants to meet up there," and all their friends could see it. It's very different than texting possibly dozens or hundreds of people. It was a good idea. Now celebrities have millions of followers all waiting to hear what they had for lunch today, or people post some garbage with a hashtag flashed on the screen during The Walking Dead or some news show in some vain attempt at getting their tweet to be shown on the air. Want to know why all the shows are now flashing hashtags? Because Nielsen ratings now include social media mentions.
Of course, people can still use it to tell their friends the party's at Joe's.
If people are doing it because of the character limit, then it's better to just increase the character limit, but sometimes people do it because they don't want their words altered, or to be taken out of context. Of course, if that's the primary reason, then twitter is probably not the greatest medium.
I thought facebook was great, at first - reconnecting with all my old high school "friends" and having something to communicate with my family quickly and easily (long distance), but indeed it did devolve into people posting pictures of their lunch, bragging they were at some fancy restaurant or vacationing somewhere... and I realized I just didn't care - and I also realized why I drifted apart from those old high school "friends" to begin with.
I think twitter can still be about keeping touch over long distances, but really - instead of tweeting to mom, I can just send a text message if I'm not going to call. At least she figured out how to use that feature on her phone (she's in her eighties).
It shouldn't. Twitter is all about short messages that get the point across quickly... and it wasn't designed to be some sort of socio-political platform for people to "raise awareness" or convey essays; it was all about telling your friends that you were headed to Moe's Tavern at 8:00 tonight, or there's a party at Jane's house, so swing by!
I work in television, and social media has become a huge deal. We format our graphics to fit the limits of of what people can do. For twitter, I can tell you that if someone tweets a thousand character "essay," we won't be showing it on the air. And for the record, I hate social media with a passion... if anything, it makes people far less social than they used to be, but I guess it depends on your definition of what "being social" is.
It's really quite simple - your tangent on this thread is a moot point because if it costs too much, the franchise owners won't buy them. You think they buy things all willy nilly? No, they put thought into it and figure out how long it will take to come out ahead - and if it's not worth it, they don't buy it.
Except you're making the ridiculously absurd assumption that it's $10M... these probably wouldn't be more than a few thousand each, and would pay for themselves in a matter of a couple of months at $15 minimum wage.