The freakish size of Nancy Reagan's head.

[BeefotronX]

Bob you are arguing with a guy who once told me he didn't understand what was wrong with cutting down the rainforest.

I don't remember that.

I did once say I had no problems cutting down old-growth forests, to replace with planting new trees, which grow faster and thus absorb more CO2, which seems trendy these days.

[MixedMyth]

Umm...old growth forests DO SO absorb CO2. And getting rid of them would release a HELL of a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since they serve as a sort of storage. So yes....you could destroy a system that takes care of CO2 AND release a whole bunch of harmful gases into the atmosphere all in one fell swoop. Brilliant.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 361938.htm

Edit: Aditionally, destroying entire balanced ecosystems to set up immature ones? Not a good idea. At. All.

[Killbert-Robby]

*stuff*

Look I'm no Bob so I'm not going to make a page long rebuttal, but I am going to pick up on specific points.

First off, the Weathermen are still an antiwar group, it doesn't matter if "America was well on its way out". America's been "well on its way out" of Iraq for years now. But then again, I guess in Vietnam they said it was mission accomplished so they MUST have been on their way out.... *headsmack* OH WAIT. I guess that sometimes you can't take your government for their word and so if you're an anti-war group, its kind of weak to, you know, not oppose your country being at war.
But that of course totally fails to address the issue that you think Obama is a terrorist because he knows a guy who once (Before he met Obama) was a Weatherman? Thats a little... sketchy at best.
Also, I don't see the big deal with being a murder suspect. The very country you want to defend by not letting Obama into office works on an innocent til proven guilty system.
You've also totally failed to address Bob's line :

These guys endorsed or work for JOHN MCCAIN! They’re OBVIOUSLY not terrorists! John McCain is a war hero he’d never be associated with people associated with terrorists! Never mind that. My mistake.

Which I think is rather important here.
But this is all very tiring. You have very little to go on here, and we're just going to be running in circles arguing this, so, to TLDR : Obama knows a guy who was once involved in an anti-war terrorist group that believed violence was fought with violence and not sitting on your ass smoking pot with a billboard. And this apparently makes Obama a terrorist by proxy. Which just doesn't work.

So I'm going to jump to false voting

Lets see, you think that someone turning around and getting in line again with a pretty piece of paper over and over is enough to account for what could be maybe 10-15% of the country's votes? 10% of the voting public is a pretty large number, and short of /b/ deciding to do it for the lulz, I don't see it actually changing who becomes president.

And saying you hate democracy and then saying you're going to vote against Obama is just.... stupid. Its like saying "I *HATE* SODA, but I'm gonna drink all the Coke so you dont get any, BLEHHHHHHH "

And I think arguing Michelle running is really grabbing at straws at this point. Who *cares*? She won't be the first person associated with a president to then run for presidency herself. It doesn't mean she'll BECOME PRESIDENT. In case you've forgotten, there's a certain process to this. So if she wants to run, LET HER, its still up to the people.

As for the politically shallow stuff, you're of course just as shallow for thinking it'll never change and be exactly the same next time. Using stubbornness to dispute a point is a VERY poor stance for you to be taking.

So, in closing : http://i37.tinypic.com/dqfy2f.jpg

[McDuffies]

It's difficult to argue against trickle down economics to me, because:

I get up every weekday morning and go to work for a cleaning company, and half my paycheck comes from working for a rich family.
They throw parties from time to time. Some charity, some political fundraisers, and a frivolous extravagant Christmas cocktail party. Every one of these parties translates to about an extra half to one hour of work a day for the two weeks preceding, which translates to more money for me. Not to mention the extra business for the caterers and babysitters. And they're already planning to cut back for next year. It's the economy this time but I don't see why raised taxes (plus the expiration of tax cuts which don't count as tax raises, apparently, to the factcheck.org geniuses) would not have the same consequences....

I'll tell you how it would not have the same consequences:
Recession means less money for everyone, both rich family and you.
Increased taxes mean equal amount of money, only differently arranged by state. And since you're the poor one, this arrangement would be in your favour.

This, however, is not communism, and it's socialism only in loose sence of the word. If it was communism, then all the money would be taken from the rich family, split in half, and half would be given to you. So unless taxes are something like 50%, this ain't communism.

You seem to get your picture of McCarthyism from hippie propaganda.

I have the picture that about 99% of sources available will tell me. You got me interested to hear your actual interpretation of macCarthyism, I'd really like to hear it.

Not that it has any significance for this discussion. You've only heard of macCarthyism from your grandfather, and of hippi movement from your father. I, however, have lived under communism personally, and while I can't say that I'd go back there, when you're giving me a picture of communism/socialism that's simply not true, I can call BS on you from a first hand experience. Not some half-remembered accounts rewritten for ideological purposes.

I wouldn't call them liberal. I'm a liberal.

You are by far the most conservative guy in this place. You are more conservative than majority of people I meet, online or in life. You are not liberal. At first I thought you are moderately right wing, but with every new post you're sounding more extreme.
Perhaps you're not, perhaps you're carried away. But liberal, you are not.

You're so politically shallow that you think it's different because it'll really work next time.

Way to read someone's words in a manner that suits you, but deep down you know that's not what he said.

I hate democracy. I believe that human rights are too important to subject to a vote. That's why I only want the minimum amount of democracy necessary to make sure that the people who run things have to check in with the rest of us from time to time, and do their best to leave me alone the rest of the time.

If you have voted the officials - that's democracy. Nowhere in the world do people vote on every little decision. Everywhere, they just vote people who will represent them in government. Which is what you call "minimum amount of democracy", but the larger amount of democracy simply doesn't exist.
However, if that's too much democracy for your liking, there's a lot of countries out there where officials won't even bother you to reelect them every four years. I've heard they're not very high standard, though.

[McDuffies]

Socialism is not inherenantly evil. In fact, no government type is, even dictatorship. They can all work exactly in the perfect utopian ways the theories behind them says they should.

The problem is that they're all run by people. If we had an AI running a socialist or a communist country, it'd be fantastic. I wrote a story exactly about that once, actually, and I did all the research. In theory, these government types are all brilliant. It's the execution that sucks.

Pretty much. The system is as bad as it's open to abuse. And whether it's open to abuse or not, is not a matter of ideology, it's a matter of how strong institutions that prevent this abuse are.

I haven't done much research, but I've lived under at least three different ideologies. The one that functioned the best was, ironically, communism. Ironically, because this ideology was at the time crushing the rest of eastern Europe with it's inneficiency. Difference was that institutions in ex-Yu worked better than they do now, as during the war they were systematically destroyed, and even in today's democratic regime (which, in stereotype, should work best) we can't get our heads together because institutions haven't recovered.
But if you ask me personally, I'd rather live in a democratic regime, even if life standard is lower. I'm just too opinionated not to be allowed to criticize government.

The difference from other eastern-Europe countries at the time was that in them, Stalinism was destroying institutions in favour of cult of personality: one person to replace all institutions and to be able to make decisions that, otherwise, police, governments, social services or sindicates would be doing.
In most of countries that recovered from that period, there was a strong leader personality who played the role of ultimate leader (the most well known was perhaps Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia), but who worked on reestablishing institutions instead of strengthening his own power. A sort of like German Konrad Adenauer who (Kwill will correct me if I'm wrong) rebuilt Germany after WWII and apparently did a solid job. We had a similar figure, Djindjic, but he was assasinated, and his successors did just the oposite, tried to strengthen their own power, though Djindjic's legacy is still strong.

[MixedMyth]

I'm not convinced an AI would govern any better, actually. Anything short of full AI is programed by people and therefore fallable, and a full blown AI would surely not necessarily be 'perfect.' Poor judgement seems to come with sentience. Data helps mitigate that, but I'm not sure it'd eliminate it. Still, an interesting premise for a story. All hypothetical anyhow.

And Beef, you're not a liberal.

[Turnsky]

I'm not convinced an AI would govern any better, actually. Anything short of full AI is programed by people and therefore fallable, and a full blown AI would surely not necessarily be 'perfect.' Poor judgement seems to come with sentience. Data helps mitigate that, but I'm not sure it'd eliminate it. Still, an interesting premise for a story. All hypothetical anyhow.

And Beef, you're not a liberal.

vOTe fOR glADoS, tHEre wILl bE cAkE..



oh man... imagine the victory speech...

"This was a Triumph...."

[McDuffies]

I'm not convinced an AI would govern any better, actually. Anything short of full AI is programed by people and therefore fallable, and a full blown AI would surely not necessarily be 'perfect.' Poor judgement seems to come with sentience. Data helps mitigate that, but I'm not sure it'd eliminate it. Still, an interesting premise for a story. All hypothetical anyhow.

And Beef, you're not a liberal.

A thing that looks more promising to me is the machine that determines exactly how honest someone is. So then only people with moral so strong that they'd be completely imune to corruption, would have right to work in politics.
Of course, they'd have to be not very judgemental, cause they might end up banning premarital hanky-panky and that kind of stuff.

[KWill]

It's difficult to argue against trickle down economics to me, because:

I get up every weekday morning and go to work for a cleaning company, and half my paycheck comes from working for a rich family.
They throw parties from time to time. Some charity, some political fundraisers, and a frivolous extravagant Christmas cocktail party. Every one of these parties translates to about an extra half to one hour of work a day for the two weeks preceding, which translates to more money for me. Not to mention the extra business for the caterers and babysitters. And they're already planning to cut back for next year. It's the economy this time but I don't see why raised taxes (plus the expiration of tax cuts which don't count as tax raises, apparently, to the factcheck.org geniuses) would not have the same consequences.
So it would be complete nonsense to attempt to persuade me that, somehow, that which I observe constantly, is not so.

Fun fact: You're not the economy, nor are you overly representative of it. You're in the service sector, not in the industrial or agricultural sector, in which "trickles" will have the strongest impact. However, for trickle down economics to work, those rich people and all others have to be spending the majority of their paychecks on services from locals (likely) as well as locally produced goods (unlikely). Rich people buy a lot of luxury goods, since they're rich and can afford it. Quite a bunch of these won't be produced by locals or the not-already-wealthy, and get imported instead. And this is talking about the US, which produces some luxury goods. The application of trickle down is even less appropriate in countries that end up importing most of their agricultural products.

There can be endless quibbling over what qualifies as a socialist. As far as I'm concerned, it starts as soon as someone decides that people have a right to something that requires other people to do something for them at the expense of whoever appears to have something to spare. That's what I find so toxic about the heath care issue. It seems good on paper, it feels good, but then people actually try it and stupid things like economic practicality start getting in the way.

That's a stupid definition, because it makes Louis XIV and Nero socialists.

For example, in the medical world socialized medicine (so long as it is well funded [yeah, there's the catch -Beef]) by far works better then the US's current system. It's amazing what collective buying power and negotiation can do.

You don't need a government to achieve a massive level of buying and negotiating power. See Walmart.

Meaningless. Walmart isn't subject to elections, and hence has no incentive for looking out for my best interest.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if, in some highly improbable (probably impossible) scenerio, libraries did not exist until now and some guy tried proposing the idea for the first time. "It's this place where people can borrow books! No...they don't have to pay for them. It's a community thing." People would so call him a socialist.

It wouldn't be socialistic (or if you want to quibble, social-democratic) unless the guy proposing the idea says "Hey, let's call for a vote and if a majority says it's cool, the 10 richest guys in town all have to chip in for the building." There's nothing evil about supporting that kind of thing with voluntary contributions, because that would be the correct way to provide such a service.

All that proves is you wouldn't be one of those people.

You seem to get your picture of socialism either from macCarthian propaganda,

You seem to get your picture of McCarthyism from hippie propaganda.

What, pray tell, does McCarthyism look like then?

words words

Believe me, I'm distressed by the fact that the Republican Party is a bit socialist itself these days, but that doesn't invalidate my position as a classical liberal settling for the lesser of two evils.

Whoah! We actually agree on something! =O

"Democracy is unable to do any great good or any great evil." - Plato

Is that quote from before or after Democracy killed his mentor?

And Beef, you're not a liberal.

Debateable, but that's not what he said. He said "classic liberal", and that's pretty well defined.

A sort of like German Konrad Adenauer who (Kwill will correct me if I'm wrong) rebuilt Germany after WWII and apparently did a solid job.

Nyeh. His administration, yes. The man who gets the most credit for the Economic Miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) is his Economic Minister Ludwig Erhard.

Umm...old growth forests DO SO absorb CO2. And getting rid of them would release a HELL of a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since they serve as a sort of storage. So yes....you could destroy a system that takes care of CO2 AND release a whole bunch of harmful gases into the atmosphere all in one fell swoop. Brilliant.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 361938.htm

Edit: Aditionally, destroying entire balanced ecosystems to set up immature ones? Not a good idea. At. All.

Interesting.

[War]

There can be endless quibbling over what qualifies as a socialist. As far as I'm concerned, it starts as soon as someone decides that people have a right to something that requires other people to do something for them at the expense of whoever appears to have something to spare. That's what I find so toxic about the heath care issue. It seems good on paper, it feels good, but then people actually try it and stupid things like economic practicality start getting in the way.

So BeefotronX, did you go to public school?

[ShineDog]

It's kind of cool how he just deletes entirely valid sections of criticism and analogy and puts STRAWMAN in its place. Quite often getting it wrong.

Just because you dont like it, doesnt mean its a strawman. It's particularly obnoxious when you then go and use the strawman argument yourself.


You are obnoxious, but keep arguing, its all good fun.




(Didn't the weathermen call ahead when Ayers was in them? that means its not attempted murder, no matter how distasteful.)

[Rkolter]

Some things on Acorn -

They turned themselves in upon finding that some of their employees had filled out fraudulent voter registration cards. They were't turned in; they found out, and did the right thing.

A fraudulent voter registration card does not turn into a fraudulent vote. In fact, despite voter fraud popping up each election as an issue, no actual cases of a fraudulent vote being cast have been found. And case in point, since these were brought forward by Acorn, they certainly aren't going to become votes.

We're not talking about evil Acorn trying to fix a close election. We're talking about Acorn identifying fraud, bringing it forward on their own, and the fraud not being likely to generate any fraudulent votes.

As for Obama giving free lawyering away; most people would agree that giving lawyer services away free to a charity organization that is trying to get people registered to vote, would be a good thing.

[Paul Escobar]

I hate democracy.

This really says it all.

Increased taxes mean equal amount of money, only differently arranged by state. And since you're the poor one, this arrangement would be in your favour.

This, however, is not communism, and it's socialism only in loose sence of the word. If it was communism, then all the money would be taken from the rich family, split in half, and half would be given to you. So unless taxes are something like 50%, this ain't communism.

That sounds more like a parody of communism. Taxation isn't about taking money from some and giving it to others; it's about financing public services for all citizens. Generally, the really rich get rich from owning the means of production. In socialist and communist economies, the state owns or controls the means of production, thereby eliminating the possibility of individuals getting really rich. A high taxation rate (such as in the Scandinavian countries) does not make a market economy communist.

Anyway, even with progressive taxation the rich aren't paying their share today. Progressive taxation only applies to income tax, and most of the money rich people make are capital gains, which are routinely taxed at much lower rates than "normal" personal income. Measured as a percentage of all income paid in taxes, the filthy rich get off paying much less than the middle class.

[McDuffies]

That sounds more like a parody of communism. Taxation isn't about taking money from some and giving it to others; it's about financing public services for all citizens. Generally, the really rich get rich from owning the means of production. In socialist and communist economies, the state owns or controls the means of production, thereby eliminating the possibility of individuals getting really rich. A high taxation rate (such as in the Scandinavian countries) does not make a market economy communist.

It's really a caricature, since Beef already believes that different tax policy makes someone a "radical socialist".

[Dotty]

I realize now why I ignored this thread. I mean the last little bit has had me at the edge of my seat chewing popcorn interested, but yowza. Hardcore politics and hardcore misinterpretation. This is why I've always hated talking about politics with beef in chat; he just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, like he's got things all twisted up. Like he doesn't entirely understand American politics as well as I do, which bugs the hell out of me, since I live IN CANADA. But I digress, I'm holding up decent conversation.

I heard Reagan was hospitalized with a broken pelvis, came to check the thread, then remembered what it was aboot. Carry on!

*continues chewing*

[Paul Escobar]

It's really a caricature, since Beef already believes that different tax policy makes someone a "radical socialist".

Hehe. An American friend of mine insists that we Danes are all communists because we have a public, tax-financed health care system.

[Jesusabdullah]

Americans as a whole are incredibly suspicious of public health care. Just sayin'.

[McDuffies]

It's really a caricature, since Beef already believes that different tax policy makes someone a "radical socialist".

Hehe. An American friend of mine insists that we Danes are all communists because we have a public, tax-financed health care system.

Heh. You could easily twist his arm into admitting that "communism" works then.

[War]

It's really a caricature, since Beef already believes that different tax policy makes someone a "radical socialist".

Hehe. An American friend of mine insists that we Danes are all communists because we have a public, tax-financed health care system.

But don't mind their public, tax-financed school system, police forces, libraries, road networks, etc.

[Levi-chan]

haha, Beef.

John McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America in the 1980s. As the head of the IRI, he helped finance coups against democratic governments in Haiti and Venezuela. Were those governments fairly elected? The 1984 elections were perhaps the freest and fairest in Nicaraguan history.

Oh wait. You hate democracy.

Oh hey, what's this? McCain also worked with YOUR DREADED ACORN in 2006. Here, have a snap:



Oh, and speaking of weird associations, how about a CNN clip of Palin's associations with the AIP? ta-da! http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wAm-Nvk3FAw

I admit it, I prefer right-leaning blogs because even when I watch CBS I still form conclusions that are more similar to what comes out of my preferred information channels, so usually I figure I should just stick with what gives me a better signal-noise ratio. It's not as though, as some are sure to fantasize, I was on my way to being a good kid until those sketchy people down the street showed me some FOX News and brainwashed me. I think in a certain way and I interpret the information I receive in a certain way that is not particularly dependent on who is giving it to me. When I doubt my sanity, I can and do check other mainstream news sources. When I have more important things to do, like get dressed and go to work, I prefer to go straight to the sources that deliver the news in a way that isn't garbled to me. And there's no such thing as truly impartial unbiased reporting. All reporters, and their editors, are human beings. Everyone has biases. Even a list of pure facts can be arranged in a misleading format.

I like how you said that all media outlets are flawed and biased, while your whole mental framework remains unscathed. Because I'm sure having sources that focus on one ideological framework would /never/ alter your worldview. LOL

Talk about unhealthy. The world is not a checkerboard, filled with blacks and whites, where you can pick who the fucking good guys are. It's a shitload of grays, and you always, always need to ask yourself if you're right, if you've got all the facts, if you can trust where you are getting your facts from. So fucking what if no media outlet is unbiased? Either way, you make the effort to find alternate viewpoints and try to sift the facts from them, and maybe from time to time, question parts of your ideological framework. You make the effort. You don't get to pick what's easy, what's comfortable, what takes less effort to parse. Trapping yourself in right-wing websites, holding a singular worldview is NOT a fucking solution. That makes you no different from the fundamentalists, the fanatics, and the fucking stupid.

EDIT: I like how there's this dreaded fear of a socialist government, while ignoring the fact that should McCain-Palin be elected, you're looking at a fucking THEOCRACY.