The part of fascism that survives to this day is a desire for totalitarian control of society. The term comes from the Italian Fascist party and use of the term has become to embrace other parties (most notably the German National Socialist Party).
You'll note that I use the term "neo" in front of "fascist" to describe both the religious-whack-jobs-right that wants to control how you live your life and the progressive-left-wing-whack-jobs that, amazingly, also want to control how you live your life.
The Progressive Party in the U.S. was responsible for that disaster known as Prohibition. These days Progressives and religious conservatives are in the fore-front of telling people how to live their lives. Both are totalitarian control freaks -- hence "neo-fascist".
If you look at their positions, its almost comical.
-- The progressives want you to be able to smoke marijuana, but not tobacco. The religious conservatives want you to be able to smoke tobacco, but not marijuana.
-- The progressives want you to be able to drink hard liquor, but not soda. The religious conservatives want you to be able to choose soda, but not liquor.
-- The progressives don't want you to eat junk food, but want you to be able to kill the unborn. Religious conservatives want you to be able to choose your own meal, but not choose if you become a parent.
You get the idea... each position seems staked out based on the opposite of what the other group has staked out with the only consistent thread is that they know better than you how to live your life.
That's because, shockingly, how you live your live affects OTHER PEOPLE. Crazy, eh?
In some cases yes, in some cases no. If I choose euthanasia, that should be no one's concern but mine. If I choose to grab a quick bite at McDonald's or drink an occasional soda, that has no impact on your life -- yet some neo-Fascist wants to tell me no.
Tell you what, how about you neo-Fascists on both the right and left pick one state and move there (pick a nice one, I don't care). You can then have the pleasure of telling each other how to live your lives to your hearts content. Every time that your neighbor decides that they know better than you how you should live your life, they win. We'll even use your yard-stick of "if it affects other people."
So, in your neo-Facist paradise, you and your girlfriend can't have abortions. Can't drive petro based vehicles. Can't have goldfish. And any other Fascist policy you want. And in the process, you can leave us adults alone.
Adding exceptions to a basic human right is extremely dangerous
If the charter tries to forbid the voluntary cessation of that right on the part of the individual (I don't know that it does, but I assume by context. Otherwise, why the hell bring it up) then it's pretty much a sham anyway.
Completely agree... otherwise my right to free speech would require me to never shut up (which would conflict with the 5th).
The situation in the USA is weirder, with religious whackos trying to write their gods words into law, kind of an "American Taliban" thing.
Unfortunately, it's not just the religious whackos that want to tell you how to live. The "progressives" do as well -- to the point that as a liberal, I can't tell the real difference between the neo-fascist, religious whackos on the right from the neo-fascist, Progressive control-freaks on the left.
Yes, sure, I know they have different positions, but they both want to tell me how to live my life.
My wife just bought a Kindle. Evidently you can manage up to 6 Kindles where (in theory) you can share eBooks between the managed devices. We (really she, I haven't used it) only have the one device and haven't tried this feature.
I admit that I'm in the same boat as you -- my favorite authors aren't ePublished and I will never trust the DRM.
I've known too many people who have committed suicide. Usually elderly (over 80), usually in great pain (terminal cancer or back injuries), usually with a gun, and usually they make a great mess of things. Most live between an hour and an hour and a half after pulling the trigger, squirming in pain with blood and brains splattered on the wall for their relatives to clean up.
At the core of each religion, neither promotes these tendencies or abuses.
Really? Have you read Qur'an 4:89
They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
Or Sahih Bukhari Volume 5, Book 58, Number 148:
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: Some people (i.e. the Jews of Bani bin Quraiza) agreed to accept the verdict of Sad bin Muadh so the Prophet sent for him (i.e. Sad bin Muadh). He came riding a donkey, and when he approached the Mosque, the Prophet said, "Get up for the best amongst you." or said, "Get up for your chief." Then the Prophet said, "O Sad! These people have agreed to accept your verdict." Sad said, "I judge that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as captives." The Prophet said, "You have given a judgment similar to Allah's Judgment (or the King's judgment)."
While the founder of one religion talked about "turn the other cheek" and having a "kingdom in heaven" the other took up the sword, preached violence and established a kingdom on earth.
And yet the development level of Saudi Arabia - one of the strictest practitioners of Sharia in its most extreme, literalist forms - is way above many Latin American countries
Amazing what oil money will buy, isn't it?
What's your tag line? Paraphrasing: I like money, with it I buy civilization.
"western values" dictate an implicit Judeo-Christian
Don't let ignorance destroy perfectly good terminology. Western values value the individual and have Greek origins that pre-date Christianity.
If you want to throw around terms like modern values you're going to have to define it in terms that declare it separate and distinct from the definition of western values.
there is no doubt in my mind she wouldn't fully back any kind of new mass surveillance initiative.
Forget the fact that on the surface, this sentence contradicts the rest of your post...
You do mean measures like the naked body scans at airports? The sexual assault by TSA officials against those who oppose naked body scans? Or are you referring to the same technology being put into vans roaming neighborhoods?
At least once Obama takes office these things won't happen. Oh, wait...
Yes, but if he accessed your account or my account no one would care. If he accessed Obama's account most people taking sides would flip their position.
2) Wind energy is discounted due to variability. Arguments against tactlessly ignore pumped hydro as a solution to the variability and availability problems.
One of the big obstacles to wind energy adoption is -- environmentalists. The environmental impact report for building transmission lines is running about $1,000,000 per mile. That's just for the report -- no power lines, no towers, just the report.
Unless you have the wind generation near existing distribution systems, environmental impact statements alone almost make it a non-starter.
You had a whole lot of upper-middle and upper class individuals with money to invest.
Sub-prime -- loaning below the prime interest rate (the rate banks charge other banks to borrow money) is never profitable -- even if 100% of the money is going to be returned. Factor in the risk of having the loan defaulted and sub-prime never makes sense.
I am sure majority of American voters (of the time) would have opposed civil rights law or abolishing slavery or vote/equality for women.
Actually, this is why you want constitutional republics, to protect the rights of the individual. (Yes, of course the original U.S. constitution lacked these safe guards -- given how narrowly it passed, they had to compromise with the [evils of the] status quo).
Is Wall St the center of liberterianism ?
Actually, it looks like Wall Street is where Obama goes shopping for advisers.
Here is some personal responsibility for you. You voted these assholes into office, you pay for their wars. Moreover, you send YOUR sons to die for this bullshit.
Cool. I voted against Bush and I voted against Obama. Does that mean I can be exempt from paying for the war? And exempt for paying for the GM-bailout, health care, and the (what is it now 5?) trillion dollar debt that Pelosi and other people I didn't vote for ran up?
Let me get this straight, I have to pay for it when I am not allowed to use it (and don't have a choice). As soon as I am allowed to use it I no longer have to pay for it, and I'm given the choice of just walking away.
And some how you're drawing from this that it is a positive endorsement that people are not walking away?
The new income tax wouldn't have come into being over night even if it did pass. By selling all the stock before January, even if the income tax measure passed, even if the capital gains were considered income, Ballmer would not have been taxed on the transaction because of the effective date on the law.
If the timing is politically motivated, it has to do with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.
I always like it when someone makes an appeal to authority and leaves it at that... it shows where they've stopped thinking for themselves.
Here, let me help you out, the argument that Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme -- despite that it relies on new people coming into the system to pay out the people currently in the system -- is that each generation of Americans has been more productive than the generation before.
Effectively instead of just relying on more people like a Ponzi scheme, the base is being widened because the new people coming into the scheme will be paying more due to higher productivity.
Of course, this begs the question of (a) can we keep the productivity curve going, (b) will the productivity curve be sufficient to overcome the baby boomer retirement?
Frankly, if anyone can sell the changes needed to the system to keep it going, it probably is Obama who successfully took $100 million out of Medicare and even had AARP cheering him on.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck -- it's probably a duck. Social Security took money from people that were still working and gave it to people who never put a dime into the system. That is the classic definition of a Ponzi scheme.
private companies have been funding plans like this for 150 years.
It would not be legal for a private company to do this in the United States. Company retirement accounts are required to have the cash separate from the company's money.
Ronald Reagan did break down the lockbox and mingled Social Security revenue with general revenue
If Reagan had done that, he had the Democratic congress as a willing accomplice. According to
http://www.justfacts.com/socialsecurity.asp the excess is made as loans to the Federal government. Whether the Feds will be solvent enough to pay it back is another question.
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The part of fascism that survives to this day is a desire for totalitarian control of society. The term comes from the Italian Fascist party and use of the term has become to embrace other parties (most notably the German National Socialist Party).
You'll note that I use the term "neo" in front of "fascist" to describe both the religious-whack-jobs-right that wants to control how you live your life and the progressive-left-wing-whack-jobs that, amazingly, also want to control how you live your life.
The Progressive Party in the U.S. was responsible for that disaster known as Prohibition. These days Progressives and religious conservatives are in the fore-front of telling people how to live their lives. Both are totalitarian control freaks -- hence "neo-fascist".
If you look at their positions, its almost comical.
You get the idea ... each position seems staked out based on the opposite of what the other group has staked out with the only consistent thread is that they know better than you how to live your life.
That's because, shockingly, how you live your live affects OTHER PEOPLE. Crazy, eh?
In some cases yes, in some cases no. If I choose euthanasia, that should be no one's concern but mine. If I choose to grab a quick bite at McDonald's or drink an occasional soda, that has no impact on your life -- yet some neo-Fascist wants to tell me no.
Tell you what, how about you neo-Fascists on both the right and left pick one state and move there (pick a nice one, I don't care). You can then have the pleasure of telling each other how to live your lives to your hearts content. Every time that your neighbor decides that they know better than you how you should live your life, they win. We'll even use your yard-stick of "if it affects other people."
So, in your neo-Facist paradise, you and your girlfriend can't have abortions. Can't drive petro based vehicles. Can't have goldfish. And any other Fascist policy you want. And in the process, you can leave us adults alone.
Adding exceptions to a basic human right is extremely dangerous
If the charter tries to forbid the voluntary cessation of that right on the part of the individual (I don't know that it does, but I assume by context. Otherwise, why the hell bring it up) then it's pretty much a sham anyway.
Completely agree ... otherwise my right to free speech would require me to never shut up (which would conflict with the 5th).
Unfortunately, it's not just the religious whackos that want to tell you how to live. The "progressives" do as well -- to the point that as a liberal, I can't tell the real difference between the neo-fascist, religious whackos on the right from the neo-fascist, Progressive control-freaks on the left.
Yes, sure, I know they have different positions, but they both want to tell me how to live my life.
And depressing how quickly it was renewed with so little hue and cry. Sigh.
Are you talking about the hackers or the senators?
My wife just bought a Kindle. Evidently you can manage up to 6 Kindles where (in theory) you can share eBooks between the managed devices. We (really she, I haven't used it) only have the one device and haven't tried this feature.
I admit that I'm in the same boat as you -- my favorite authors aren't ePublished and I will never trust the DRM.
I've known too many people who have committed suicide. Usually elderly (over 80), usually in great pain (terminal cancer or back injuries), usually with a gun, and usually they make a great mess of things. Most live between an hour and an hour and a half after pulling the trigger, squirming in pain with blood and brains splattered on the wall for their relatives to clean up.
The world needs Dr. Jack.
Really? Have you read Qur'an 4:89
Or Sahih Bukhari Volume 5, Book 58, Number 148:
While the founder of one religion talked about "turn the other cheek" and having a "kingdom in heaven" the other took up the sword, preached violence and established a kingdom on earth.
Amazing what oil money will buy, isn't it?
What's your tag line? Paraphrasing: I like money, with it I buy civilization.
Don't let ignorance destroy perfectly good terminology. Western values value the individual and have Greek origins that pre-date Christianity.
If you want to throw around terms like modern values you're going to have to define it in terms that declare it separate and distinct from the definition of western values.
Like I said, people taking sides would flip their positions.
Forget the fact that on the surface, this sentence contradicts the rest of your post ...
You do mean measures like the naked body scans at airports? The sexual assault by TSA officials against those who oppose naked body scans? Or are you referring to the same technology being put into vans roaming neighborhoods?
At least once Obama takes office these things won't happen. Oh, wait ...
Yes, but if he accessed your account or my account no one would care. If he accessed Obama's account most people taking sides would flip their position.
One of the big obstacles to wind energy adoption is -- environmentalists. The environmental impact report for building transmission lines is running about $1,000,000 per mile. That's just for the report -- no power lines, no towers, just the report.
Unless you have the wind generation near existing distribution systems, environmental impact statements alone almost make it a non-starter.
Sub-prime -- loaning below the prime interest rate (the rate banks charge other banks to borrow money) is never profitable -- even if 100% of the money is going to be returned. Factor in the risk of having the loan defaulted and sub-prime never makes sense.
A truly free market would never make such loans.
Actually, this is why you want constitutional republics, to protect the rights of the individual. (Yes, of course the original U.S. constitution lacked these safe guards -- given how narrowly it passed, they had to compromise with the [evils of the] status quo).
Actually, it looks like Wall Street is where Obama goes shopping for advisers.
Cool. I voted against Bush and I voted against Obama. Does that mean I can be exempt from paying for the war? And exempt for paying for the GM-bailout, health care, and the (what is it now 5?) trillion dollar debt that Pelosi and other people I didn't vote for ran up?
Right now the people wanting higher prices are the oil companies and the environmentalists.
Of course for the oil companies, if the price goes to high it will eventually lead to diminishing returns as people seek alternatives.
From an environmentalist's stand point, the price cannot ever go to high.
Mod parent up ... I'm finding Qt combined with boost to cover nearly all my cross-platform (Linux / Windows) needs.
Let me get this straight, I have to pay for it when I am not allowed to use it (and don't have a choice). As soon as I am allowed to use it I no longer have to pay for it, and I'm given the choice of just walking away.
And some how you're drawing from this that it is a positive endorsement that people are not walking away?
The new income tax wouldn't have come into being over night even if it did pass. By selling all the stock before January, even if the income tax measure passed, even if the capital gains were considered income, Ballmer would not have been taxed on the transaction because of the effective date on the law.
If the timing is politically motivated, it has to do with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.
I always like it when someone makes an appeal to authority and leaves it at that ... it shows where they've stopped thinking for themselves.
Here, let me help you out, the argument that Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme -- despite that it relies on new people coming into the system to pay out the people currently in the system -- is that each generation of Americans has been more productive than the generation before.
Effectively instead of just relying on more people like a Ponzi scheme, the base is being widened because the new people coming into the scheme will be paying more due to higher productivity.
Of course, this begs the question of (a) can we keep the productivity curve going, (b) will the productivity curve be sufficient to overcome the baby boomer retirement?
Frankly, if anyone can sell the changes needed to the system to keep it going, it probably is Obama who successfully took $100 million out of Medicare and even had AARP cheering him on.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck -- it's probably a duck. Social Security took money from people that were still working and gave it to people who never put a dime into the system. That is the classic definition of a Ponzi scheme.
It would not be legal for a private company to do this in the United States. Company retirement accounts are required to have the cash separate from the company's money.
If Reagan had done that, he had the Democratic congress as a willing accomplice. According to http://www.justfacts.com/socialsecurity.asp the excess is made as loans to the Federal government. Whether the Feds will be solvent enough to pay it back is another question.
No one is arguing what the number is -- which is the item peer reviewed. There is plenty room for debate about what the number means.
But thank you for mentioning right wing think tanks and ignoring left wing think tanks. It says more about your bias than theirs.