I had this forwarded to me yesterday. I proffer it as an example of why I often cannot stand the American Left. The author's name is omitted for a reason because I want to consider the words, not the mouth (or fingers, in this case) which they came from:
"Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country.
A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing -- in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It's how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.
Now, the hate mail all seemed to have a running theme: that I may live in a stupid country, but they lived in the greatest country on earth, and that perhaps I should move to another country, like Somalia. Well, the joke's on them because I happen to have a summer home in Somalia... and no I can't show you an original copy of my birth certificate because Woody Harrelson spilled bong water on it.
And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents". An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.
I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket. Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge".
People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%. And don't even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream. And last election, a full one-third of voters forgot why they were in the booth, handed out their pants, and asked, "Do you have these in a relaxed-fit?"
And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right; half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.
And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin. Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual". Then, in the 20 margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.
Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.” To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"
I generally agree with the sentiments, particularly about a small number making the decisions for the many. It's a dicey proposition as who those small number are can make a huge difference, but I don't think democracy works unless the general level of education is tremendously high AND the moral compass of a people is well-oiled, and I don't know of any society on Earth that fits that bill at the moment.
So the "smart people" get to distribute an email like this and laugh and feel superior about themselves...but here are the two problems I see with this liberal bs:
1) Laughing about the problem just makes you part of the problem. Talk about irony.
2) Who's to say that this is an American problem?
If you pay attention to the truly liberal media, there's a sleu of this tongue-in-cheek aristocratic humor...ha, ha, laugh at the peons...but so much of it seems to imply that Americans are somehow unique or worse in their general stupidity; and it isn't just a matter of American media reporting on American issues and thus the conversation being about Americans. The cues are often subtle, but among liberals there's always this undercurrent running that perhaps Europeans aren't as stupid as their American cousins.
I take a different tack...I think most everyone, everywhere, isn't all that bright or well-educated. It seems to be a natural function of life that the vast majority fall somewhere in the middle and you get exceptional over- and under-performance in very small percentages on the ends of the chart. So if you're on the one end you may think everyone is smart, and if you're on the other you may think everyone is stupid.
I think that what frustrates me the most is that for the people who think they're on the smart end, that many of them don't seem to feel the responsibility to use their gifts to try and help out everyone who isn't as lucky as they are. While dealing with non-digital natives at my job is often extremely frustrating, it's also the most rewarding part of my job when I see someone finally "get" something new, and they become a little less afraid of the digital daemons they've been confronting.
Anyway...I just felt like taking a swing at the liberals for a change. Arrogant c@cksmokers.
perhaps Europeans aren't as stupid as their American cousins.
...well...we don't like to go on and on about it, but.....
And we don't really think of you as cousins either, more like our lost children who will one day return.
Not like a noble, good looking, first born son who captains the cricket team and gets a first from Oxbridge type of offspring, obviously, more like some bastard, boss eyed, and lactose intolerant offspring from a drunken liaison whilst on shore leave in Shanghai many years ago who turns up at a family party 18 years later unexpectedly.
If you want to complain about smug lefties there's probably no better place to start than with Bill Maher.
Meanwhile, the people don't have to be brilliantly educated to have a decent democracy. Most politician's lies are quite transparent. When someone is saying that healthcare reform should be stopped because it'll result in death panels, it doesn't take too much education to know that's a very silly claim.
But people believe it, average ordinary citizens that are smart enough to hold down jobs, socially aware enough to have successful relationships... they believe these incredibly stupid things. It isn't a lack of intelligence or education, they believe it because they want to believe it, because they want to believe in a culture war, they want to believe that they're under siege from the left.
People believe transparent lies because they want to.
sebster wrote:If you want to complain about smug lefties there's probably no better place to start than with Bill Maher.
Meanwhile, the people don't have to be brilliantly educated to have a decent democracy. Most politician's lies are quite transparent. When someone is saying that healthcare reform should be stopped because it'll result in death panels, it doesn't take too much education to know that's a very silly claim.
But people believe it, average ordinary citizens that are smart enough to hold down jobs, socially aware enough to have successful relationships... they believe these incredibly stupid things. It isn't a lack of intelligence or education, they believe it because they want to believe it, because they want to believe in a culture war, they want to believe that they're under siege from the left.
People believe transparent lies because they want to.
No one can prove that, Fraz. For every set of numbers you toss around to "prove" that the budget will be blown, someone else can toss around a set of numbers to "prove" that your presented numbers are wrong and completely full of gak and that the proposed health care reform will actually save us money and cut down the deficit by huge margins.
End result = null result. The numbers can't be used to prove anything.
In the end, I think Obama's right and it may just come down to moral character. Either you think people should go bankrupt when they get sick or you don't. If you don't think so, then you support change.
Sometimes you just have to throw gak against the wall and see what sticks. Any reference to blowing budgets is kind of stupid at this point anyway...Bush blew the budget for eight years, so for anyone claiming aversion now to doing so I'd like to see what they've been saying about budgets and politics for eight years and see what their opinion was when their man was in the Oval Office.
$10 says they were fine with the Bush budgets...in which case I'm not listening to their claims about blown budgets.
Cairnius wrote:No one can prove that, Fraz. For every set of numbers you toss around to "prove" that the budget will be blown, someone else can toss around a set of numbers to "prove" that your presented numbers are wrong and completely full of gak and that the proposed health care reform will actually save us money and cut down the deficit by huge margins.
I call screaming BS on that. THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET CALLS SCREAMING BS ON THAT.
Sorry Obama can't lie and obfiscate his way out of it. There is no grey area here. The plans as proposed will add $900Bn to $1.3TN (House version) to the national debt. I know this is irrelevant to Obama and coincides with his budget plans of $1TN deficits annually for the next ten years, but this means something if you don't want to see what happened to Argentina writ massive.
America put a man on the moon from a standing start to done in under 10 years.
(Admittedly you had experience building ICBMs thanks to your captured WW2 German enigneers.)
Anyway, the point is it can't be beyond America's capability to make a health system which is more efficient than the one you have now, if you really want to.
Bill Maher is great, yes he is awful elitist (as he stated), but the people who tend to hate him are the ones who believe the gak blindly.
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Frazzled wrote:
I call screaming BS on that. THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET CALLS SCREAMING BS ON THAT.
QFT. The people that are saying that the budget for this will balance out are either flatout lying or have one hell of a trump card (a la pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan (actually, even ending the war won't pay for the health reform) or raising taxes by 30%)
If only those douchebags Rudolph, Patterson, Ellsworth, Sherman, and Johnson had been more specific in determining what the "general welfare" of America is then we could say that Congress doesn't have the power to touch health care.
Frazzled wrote:The plans as proposed will add $900Bn to $1.3TN (House version) to the national debt. I know this is irrelevant to Obama and coincides with his budget plans of $1TN deficits annually for the next ten years, but this means something if you don't want to see what happened to Argentina writ massive.
I could really care less about the short term, Fraz, and so should America. We are riddled with debt. DEAL WITH IT.
We're not getting rid of it anytime soon. Too late. Make sure you heap a nice steaming pile of blame on your last President and two wars we never should have fought, and will get zero return on.
What do analysts have to say about how much money the health care reform package will save us? What about the estimates that show the deficit being reduced by half by the early 2010's through the cost savings health care reform will generate? You conveniently ignore those numbers.
Also, if you can prove to me that the THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET is faultless, always correct, and a rock-solid metric for studying any and all economic programs and their costs I'll take this at face value. Otherwise, I call BS on your playing "the expert game." We've had that discussion elsewhere already recently.
I maintain that estimates are estimates and numbers can be used to prove almost anything. I won't even bother digging up the pro-health-care reform numbers because I intrinsically trust them as much as the anti-health-care reform numbers.
I'm more concerned with making sure that my sister, who has a "pre-existing condition" of a genetic prevalence for blood clotting, but who has NO history of blood clots, who is a private fething trainer for christs' sake and in better shape than 99% of us on here, can't get health care just because she has two genetic markers for blood clots.
There's a word for that: slowed.
There's another word for that: money grubbing.
Our health care system is fethed-up and needs fixing. In the absence of any other plans which address people like my sister and her issue, which no Republican plan I've heard reference to does by a long shot, I say try Obama's and see what happens.
If it doesn't work, try something else. You're not going to change anything by doing nothing, which is the Republican's best response to the problem. "Everything's fine, why change anything?"
The lack of perspective on the issue shouldn't be astounding, but it is.
youngblood wrote:Bill Maher is great, yes he is awful elitist (as he stated), but the people who tend to hate him are the ones who believe the gak blindly.
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Frazzled wrote:
I call screaming BS on that. THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET CALLS SCREAMING BS ON THAT.
QFT. The people that are saying that the budget for this will balance out are either flatout lying or have one hell of a trump card (a la pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan (actually, even ending the war won't pay for the health reform) or raising taxes by 30%)
If only those douchebags Rudolph, Patterson, Ellsworth, Sherman, and Johnson had been more specific in determining what the "general welfare" of America is then we could say that Congress doesn't have the power to touch health care.
Thats not an enumerated power. It will be interesting to say what happens when the inevitable lawsuits hit SCOTUS.
So see healthcare in the Constitutional grant of federal powers...
It's funny how people translate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to their own ends. The 2nd Amendment ties gun ownership to belonging to a regulated militia...no one chooses to read that part, though.
So, if we can read rights into the founding documents, we can read rights into the founding documents. I'd say "life" as in "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" certainly includes health care. Yeah it's in the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution, but the Declaration is pretty important, so I'd say that counts as a founding document of our government and statement of legal principles, too.
So people do have the right, and the Federal government does have the enumerated power to provide it.
You can thank the NRA, then, for laying the legal groundwork for the upcoming health care reform package. LOL
youngblood wrote:Bill Maher is great, yes he is awful elitist (as he stated), but the people who tend to hate him are the ones who believe the gak blindly.
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Frazzled wrote:
I call screaming BS on that. THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET CALLS SCREAMING BS ON THAT.
QFT. The people that are saying that the budget for this will balance out are either flatout lying or have one hell of a trump card (a la pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan (actually, even ending the war won't pay for the health reform) or raising taxes by 30%)
If only those douchebags Rudolph, Patterson, Ellsworth, Sherman, and Johnson had been more specific in determining what the "general welfare" of America is then we could say that Congress doesn't have the power to touch health care.
Thats not an enumerated power. It will be interesting to say what happens when the inevitable lawsuits hit SCOTUS.
So see healthcare in the Constitutional grant of federal powers...
Again, many argue that the whole providing for the "general welfare" includes health care reform. Pretty soon, it'll to alcohol and tobacco bans, firearms bans, and matching uniforms (keeps gang colors down you know?)
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Cairnius wrote:It's funny how people translate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to their own ends. The 2nd Amendment ties gun ownership to belonging to a regulated militia...no one chooses to read that part, though.
Cairnius wrote:
Bush blew the budget for eight years, so for anyone claiming aversion now to doing so I'd like to see what they've been saying about budgets and politics for eight years and see what their opinion was when their man was in the Oval Office.
$10 says they were fine with the Bush budgets...in which case I'm not listening to their claims about blown budgets.
I wholeheartedly agree with the above. I don't understand why it has been so easy to spend almost a trillion dollars for two wars, but as soon as the republicans lose majority they all of a sudden become concerned with fiscal responsibility. A republican president set the precedent for massive wall street bail outs, and yet only now voices are being raised opposing the ri-cockulousness of it. Think what you may about the necessity of going to war, and "saving/stimulating" the economy, the fact is that something must be done about health care, and political posturing to score points with Joe beer-gut constituent isn't actually helping anybody.
Besides, I don't see what the big deal is, our entire monetary system is a lie, and a joke, they're just going to print fresh million dollar bills soon anyhow. But that's an entirely different soapbox...
Cairnius wrote: We're not getting rid of it anytime soon. Too late. Make sure you heap a nice steaming pile of blame on your last President and two wars we never should have fought, and will get zero return on.
Bush didn't put in an 800Bn demo porkbarrel spending bill, and greatest federal budget in history of mankind. Bush didn't nationalize the car companies on the taxpayer dime, try to force through massive taxes via cap and trade, and try to nationalize 1 / 5 of the economy without debate.
What do analysts have to say about how much money the health care reform package will save us? What about the estimates that show the deficit being reduced by half by the early 2010's through the cost savings health care reform will generate? You conveniently ignore those numbers.
You mean where they say, er $0?
Also, if you can prove to me that the THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET is faultless, always correct, and a rock-solid metric for studying any and all economic programs and their costs I'll take this at face value. Otherwise, I call BS on your playing "the expert game." We've had that discussion elsewhere already recently.
THE OMB is a bipartisan entity specifically created to put numbers this stuff and be the bad guy vs. bills or the Pres albeit Repub or Demo. But I agree. the costs actually will be much higher.
I'm more concerned with making sure that my sister, who has a "pre-existing condition" of a genetic prevalence for blood clotting, but who has NO history of blood clots, who is a private fething trainer for christs' sake and in better shape than 99% of us on here, can't get health care just because she has two genetic markers for blood clots.
I agree and we are in the same boat with my kids boyo. Here's how you fix it that initially and then long term. 1. Pass a bill tomorrow: *insurance options are naitonwide *insurance is portable *insurance cannot be dropped for pre-existing *insurance has to cover catastrophic. *every employee has to have, either through themselves or spouse. Else fine against company.
2. Develop a long term series of entities to study the problem and look at what works and what doesn't worldwide. They develop alternatives in 1-2 year's time. Those can then be tested via pilot programs. Everything should be wrapped in-care for seniors, littleins, everyone.
I think that the government needs to be fiscally conservative. Neither war or this reform plan are fiscally responsible.
I agree with Fraz's opinions here. Regulate the industry more closely sure, but don't overhaul. Covering all American's isn't a realistic proposal, it never will be. Politicians know this. Instead they should be focusing on those that should qualify and pay for reasonable coverage.
I'm not defending Obama-care by making the war expense comparison, I'm just sick of the hypocrisy coming from the right. I want a viable alternative to be considered, but unfortunately the republicans in general are simply making this into a huge circus.
I'd like to point out there is a difference between debates about projected numbers (like the health care thing), and believing things like geo-centrism or that Bush knew about 9-11. That people think the future will go one way instead of another might be questionable, but it's not demonstrably wrong. The other thing can be proven empirically.
Lint wrote:I'm just sick of the hypocrisy coming from the right. I want a viable alternative to be considered, but unfortunately the republicans in general are simply making this into a huge circus.
There's massive hypocrisy on both sides, but I'm sick of it too. Both sides need a bit more compromise. It's sad because only the poles are getting any attention. You have one side saying that a complete government health care option is best and the other side saying that "government should stay out of my medicare". Where's the middle?
As for the actual health care thing, I blame the GOP for this bill. Rather than going to the mattresses and trying to fight any bill, knowing that the Democrats would unveil a massive spendy bill, they should have worked hard to get a compromise through that would, you know, help people.
The GOP's strategy seemed to be "Wait until kennedy dies and we can ride out a filibuster in the Senate." Which isn't exactly inspired leadership.
Don't get me wrong, I'm upset at the Democrats "spend as much as we can" policy, but honestly, being surprised or upset about that is like being surprised or upset when the sun sets.
Polonius wrote:As for the actual health care thing, I blame the GOP for this bill. Rather than going to the mattresses and trying to fight any bill, knowing that the Democrats would unveil a massive spendy bill, they should have worked hard to get a compromise through that would, you know, help people.
The GOP's strategy seemed to be "Wait until kennedy dies and we can ride out a filibuster in the Senate." Which isn't exactly inspired leadership.
Don't get me wrong, I'm upset at the Democrats "spend as much as we can" policy, but honestly, being surprised or upset about that is like being surprised or upset when the sun sets.
The GOP is acting ridiculous on this, but both sides are to blame for not compromising.
Frazzled wrote:Bush didn't put in an 800Bn demo porkbarrel spending bill, and greatest federal budget in history of mankind. Bush didn't nationalize the car companies on the taxpayer dime, try to force through massive taxes via cap and trade, and try to nationalize 1 / 5 of the economy without debate.
No, he just took advantage of typical American wartime hysteria to squash debate on what may have been the most important foreign policy decision we've ever made and spent, what, several trillion dollars and thousands of American lives on a war which didn't need to be fought, which provided recruitment fodder for terrorists for decades to come, and which ruined our standing in the world for seven years?
Get off the soapbox, Fraz. It ain't actually there to stand on.
Frazzled wrote:THE OMB is a bipartisan entity specifically created to put numbers this stuff and be the bad guy vs. bills or the Pres albeit Repub or Demo.
While I appreciate the Wikipedia Digest entry, this still doesn't tell me how accurate they are historically such that I should give a gak what they have to say.
Frazzled wrote:
I agree and we are in the same boat with my kids boyo. Here's how you fix it that initially and then long term.
1. Pass a bill tomorrow:
*insurance options are naitonwide
*insurance is portable
*insurance cannot be dropped for pre-existing
*insurance has to cover catastrophic.
*every employee has to have, either through themselves or spouse. Else fine against company.
2. Develop a long term series of entities to study the problem and look at what works and what doesn't worldwide. They develop alternatives in 1-2 year's time.
Those can then be tested via pilot programs. Everything should be wrapped in-care for seniors, littleins, everyone.
So, you espouse Federal intervention in availability and portability of health care, you espouse Federal regulation making dropping coverage for pre-existing conditions illegal and forcing insurance companies to cover catastrophic illness, and Federal law forcing every employer to pay for employees who don't have health care.
What, precisely, are you in disagreement with the President about?
In terms of studies...do you really pay so little attention to Washington, Frazz? Either something gets done in a relatively short time through the passage of law or NOTHING gets done. Bill Clinton tried to address this issue in the early '90's, and jack gak was done about the problem and STILL hasn't been done about the problem since then.
This is why the "too much too quick" people are full of gak. Too quick? It's been over a decade we've been discussing this! There are no new options, no new variables to calculate. We know what the options are, and we know what's not working.
There's no excuse not to act now other than "We don't want the other Party to get credit for fixing health care." That's what this comes down to. The weakened, less-relevant Republican Party is stark raving terrified that Obama's health care reform will pass and actually work, and then the Democrats can point to a major victory with positive outcomes for practically every American for decades.
Let's just call a spade a spade for once and be honest about it...your "studies" option is a formula for getting nothing done. For someone who has such little faith in the government you sure have a lot of faith in the government.
Cairnius wrote:It's funny how people translate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to their own ends.
Yes, it is.
Cairnius wrote:
The 2nd Amendment ties gun ownership to belonging to a regulated militia...no one chooses to read that part, though.
What were you saying? The 2nd amendment does not explicitly require that the ownership of a firearm be contingent upon membership in a militia. That's one potential reading of the document, but not the only one.
Cairnius wrote:
So, if we can read rights into the founding documents, we can read rights into the founding documents. I'd say "life" as in "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" certainly includes health care. Yeah it's in the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution, but the Declaration is pretty important, so I'd say that counts as a founding document of our government and statement of legal principles, too.
Except it doesn't. The Declaration has frequently been used as a kind of written moral compass, but its never been considered a legal text.
Cairnius wrote:
So people do have the right, and the Federal government does have the enumerated power to provide it.
You can thank the NRA, then, for laying the legal groundwork for the upcoming health care reform package. LOL
That's an unbelievably huge stretch. The Declaration is not a legal document. The Feds have the enumerated power to regulate healthcare (inter-state commerce), but there is no legal right to healthcare. Nor an explicit moral right.
Indeed, this entire debate is about two things:
1) Can we afford healthcare reform?
2) Do people have a moral right to healthcare?
The first question is unlikely to fully dealt with. Its simply a matter of which numbers people choose to believe. The second will not be dealt with. After all, one of the biggest sticking points in the nascent culture war is variance in group morality. A perfect healthcare bill isn't going to pass, because the general level of distrust with respect to the Feds is simply too high, and not without good reason. The last 10 years have done little to instill confidence in the public eye. A fact which is made even worse by the systemic nature of the problems which created the financial crisis; hearing that the government has been failing for 30 years, ill-conceived as that argument may be, is hardly going to generate confidence in the state. Healthcare is about trust with respect to the larger state. Its an amazing opportunity for the government to renew the clout it one had; something which may actually be the nexus of Republican resistance to the matter.
Polonius wrote:As for the actual health care thing, I blame the GOP for this bill. Rather than going to the mattresses and trying to fight any bill, knowing that the Democrats would unveil a massive spendy bill, they should have worked hard to get a compromise through that would, you know, help people.
The GOP's strategy seemed to be "Wait until kennedy dies and we can ride out a filibuster in the Senate." Which isn't exactly inspired leadership.
Don't get me wrong, I'm upset at the Democrats "spend as much as we can" policy, but honestly, being surprised or upset about that is like being surprised or upset when the sun sets.
The GOP is acting ridiculous on this, but both sides are to blame for not compromising.
The GOP was not invited into the negotiation. This is a Pelosi/Reid creation. Why on earth should they participate? Obama knew that when he gave it to them to run with and didn't do himself.
The GOP should participate because it's in their best interests to do so. I think they have an opportunity to show they care more about winning elections and actually do some leading, and in doing so, win more elections.
How on earth isn't health care reform a core GOP issue? It's got all the hot spots: government waste, the inability of US companies to compete evenly abroad due to health care spending, the drag on entrepreneurialism due to a worry about health care coverage, and the perverse fact that often it's better to be destitute and sick than to be middle class and sick.
The GOP could show that it's about more than tax cuts for the wealthy and appeasing the religious right (I know it's about more, but it's often hard to remember that), and actually wants to use the smallest possible government to allow people to succeed on their own.
Its not in their best interests to do so. In order to cooperate there has to be two parties to the negotiation. There isn't.
At this point current estimates are 25 or so seats back to the Republicans in the House in 2010. Thats without a double dip. If unemployment is still 9% in late 2010 the democrats can kiss the House and the open seats in the Senate goodbye.
Polonius wrote:As for the actual health care thing, I blame the GOP for this bill. Rather than going to the mattresses and trying to fight any bill, knowing that the Democrats would unveil a massive spendy bill, they should have worked hard to get a compromise through that would, you know, help people.
The GOP's strategy seemed to be "Wait until kennedy dies and we can ride out a filibuster in the Senate." Which isn't exactly inspired leadership.
Don't get me wrong, I'm upset at the Democrats "spend as much as we can" policy, but honestly, being surprised or upset about that is like being surprised or upset when the sun sets.
The GOP is acting ridiculous on this, but both sides are to blame for not compromising.
The GOP was not invited into the negotiation. This is a Pelosi/Reid creation. Why on earth should they participate? Obama knew that when he gave it to them to run with and didn't do himself.
Invitations are rarely extended, instead the reigning donkey-caves come up with a proposal and shout loud enough to pass it.
Frazzled wrote:Its not in their best interests to do so. In order to cooperate there has to be two parties to the negotiation. There isn't.
How can you argue that the Democrats are the intractable ones here? Even you agree that we need healthcare reform, which is a message the GOP has not exactly taken great pains to disseminate.
dogma wrote:
How can you argue that the Democrats are the intractable ones here? Even you agree that we need healthcare reform, which is a message the GOP has not exactly taken great pains to disseminate.
I'm about to split hairs here, but I don't really see the GOP being opposed to health reform, lots of republican reps want health reform. The issue is that Captain GOP (Michael Steele) is so far up his ass in rhetoric that he isn't even representing the majority of the party. The problem is that many people here Mr. Steele's stupid remarks then assume the whole party feels that way.
Frazzled wrote:Its not in their best interests to do so. In order to cooperate there has to be two parties to the negotiation. There isn't.
How can you argue that the Democrats are the intractable ones here? Even you agree that we need healthcare reform, which is a message the GOP has not exactly taken great pains to disseminate.
Thats acknowledged. Trying to ram through nationalizing 1 / 5 of the US economy however is no the way to go.
youngblood wrote:
I'm about to split hairs here, but I don't really see the GOP being opposed to health reform, lots of republican reps want health reform. The issue is that Captain GOP (Michael Steele) is so far up his ass in rhetoric that he isn't even representing the majority of the party. The problem is that many people here Mr. Steele's stupid remarks then assume the whole party feels that way.
I'll buy that. The GOP certainly hasn't been able to maintain its normally high level of partisan cohesion. I'd even believe that the lack of organization has directly lead to some of the more ridiculous blocking tactics (death panels, etc.). Since there's no real, contiguous message within the party everyone is simply going around flinging their gak at the wall in the hope that reform can be slowed by whatever happens to stick. Its all very Democrat, actually.
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Frazzled wrote:
Thats acknowledged. Trying to ram through nationalizing 1 / 5 of the US economy however is no the way to go.
That's only one of the plans (single-payer) on the table Fraz, and you know. It also happens to be the worst of the bunch. Instead of simply saying all Democrat plans are bad, the GOP could, you know, be constructive by pointing out which plans are bad.
dogma wrote:
ISince there's no real, contiguous message within the party everyone is simply going around flinging their gak at the wall in the hope that reform can be slowed by whatever happens to stick.
Cairnius wrote:It's funny how people translate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to their own ends. The 2nd Amendment ties gun ownership to belonging to a regulated militia...no one chooses to read that part, though.
Actually if you knew anything about Constitutional law you would know that the Supreme Court, which is the highest authority on interpreting the Constitution in the land, did in fact designate the 2nd Amendment as guaranteeing each citizen the right to own firearms...
Cairnius wrote:
So, if we can read rights into the founding documents, we can read rights into the founding documents. I'd say "life" as in "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" certainly includes health care. Yeah it's in the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution, but the Declaration is pretty important, so I'd say that counts as a founding document of our government and statement of legal principles, too.
So people do have the right, and the Federal government does have the enumerated power to provide it.
You can't use the Declaration of Independence, it isn't a legal document, not least of all because it precedes the US Constitution or the Articles of Confederation, but also because it is mainly a list of fabricated abuses by the British more than anything else.
JEB_Stuart wrote:Actually if you knew anything about Constitutional law you would know that the Supreme Court, which is the highest authority on interpreting the Constitution in the land, did in fact designate the 2nd Amendment as guaranteeing each citizen the right to own firearms...
Its also worth noting that the US militia is actually made up of every able-bodied man between 17 and 45, so the idea that you can't own a firearm without militia membership is a bit deceiving in terms of who it might exclude.
JEB_Stuart wrote:
You can't use the Declaration of Independence, it isn't a legal document, not least of all because it precedes the US Constitution or the Articles of Confederation, but also because it is mainly a list of fabricated abuses by the British more than anything else.
You can use it as the basis of a moral argument, as was done during the Civil Rights Movement, but you're right that it has no legal force.
dogma wrote:
Its also worth noting that the US militia is actually made up of every able-bodied man between 17 and 45, so the idea that you can't own a firearm without militia membership is a bit deceiving in terms of who it might exclude.
The idea that owning a firearm as being mutually exclusive to being an active member of the militia is asinine....
dogma wrote:
You can use it as the basis of a moral argument, as was done during the Civil Rights Movement, but you're right that it has no legal force.
I would go so far as to say that you can't use it as a moral standard, considering it was based on lies...lies wrapped in beautiful prose and noble ideas, but lies nonetheless...
JEB_Stuart wrote:The idea that owning a firearm as being mutually exclusive to being an active member of the militia is asinine....
I agree, I don't believe the 2nd amendment reads that way. I was merely pointing out that in the US the militia is composed of every man eligible for the draft. Thus, even if we take the 2nd as prohibiting gun ownership by those not in the militia all we're doing is establishing an age range for legal purchase. Not out and out banning weapons to those outside the military.
JEB_Stuart wrote:
I would go so far as to say that you can't use it as a moral standard, considering it was based on lies...lies wrapped in beautiful prose and noble ideas, but lies nonetheless...
That's the way of most rhetoric, no? As with most moral standards its primarily an appeal to romance. Not many people are willing to stomach speech based on Kantian ethics, and an even smaller number of them will find it motivating.
JEB, you're choosing to look at the founding documents as valid where it serves you, and invalid where it isn't.
Constitutional law is nothing if not interpretation, and it's almost always undertaken in complete and total ignorance as to who the Founders were, the philosophers they studied, and any attempt to dig deeply into what they meant...which IMHO is all absolutely necessary and pertinent information to interpret the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
The 2nd Amendment is crystal clear about gun ownership...but just dig into the time period and the culture. Colonists actually needed their guns for hunting, or for defense against Native Americans. When it came time to fight the British, without civilian-owned firearms they never would have been able to raise an army. This is why the 2nd Amendment was written.
The Founders said nothing about pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, or any of the refined weaponry designed explicitly for killing human beings that we have today, nor could they foresee any of their development...so saying that the 2nd Amendment covers these things is fething slowed. It makes no sense whatsoever...but of course common sense so rarely comes into 2nd Amendment debate at all...
Cairnius wrote:The Founders said nothing about pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, or any of the refined weaponry designed explicitly for killing human beings that we have today, nor could they foresee any of their development...so saying that the 2nd Amendment covers these things is fething slowed. It makes no sense whatsoever...but of course common sense so rarely comes into 2nd Amendment debate at all...
You were doing so well there for a minute but then you had to go a become a jackass at the end by contradicting your earlier argument and adding in a bit of ad hominem. Shame really.
Cairnius wrote:JEB, you're choosing to look at the founding documents as valid where it serves you, and invalid where it isn't.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
I'm not really seeing what part JEB is ignoring. Its quite clear that membership in the militia is not required in order for any given citizen to own a weapon.
Cairnius wrote:
Constitutional law is nothing if not interpretation, and it's almost always undertaken in complete and total ignorance as to who the Founders were, the philosophers they studied, and any attempt to dig deeply into what they meant...which IMHO is all absolutely necessary and pertinent information to interpret the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
That's probably because the intent of the Founders is no more relevant to the text of the Constitution than the intent of those interpreting it today. In fact, its probably even less relevant as they aren't alive to confirm or deny allegation we might make with respect to their personal views on the matter.
Cairnius wrote:
The 2nd Amendment is crystal clear about gun ownership...but just dig into the time period and the culture. Colonists actually needed their guns for hunting, or for defense against Native Americans. When it came time to fight the British, without civilian-owned firearms they never would have been able to raise an army. This is why the 2nd Amendment was written.
All of which has absolutely nothing to do with what the amendment actually says.
Cairnius wrote:
The Founders said nothing about pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, or any of the refined weaponry designed explicitly for killing human beings that we have today, nor could they foresee any of their development...so saying that the 2nd Amendment covers these things is fething slowed. It makes no sense whatsoever...but of course common sense so rarely comes into 2nd Amendment debate at all...
That's a potentially convincing argument for why the 2nd amendment should be revisited, but its really quite off base with respect to what it actually says. There's a reason that a formal process for amendment exists. You don't get to simply rescind the ones you don't like.
I've never heard the right to bear arms being interpreted as the right to bear any sort of armament conceivable at any rate.
Except by some fringe groups, maybe.
::EDIT:: Also, pistols existed in the 1700s. And I don't see why the founding fathers couldn't have conceived of advancements in firearms, they were progressing in sophistication during their own time.
Orkeosaurus wrote:I've never heard the right to bear arms being interpreted as the right to bear any sort of armament conceivable at any rate.
Except by some fringe groups, maybe.
There's probably a case to made on the distinction between 'arms', 'munitions', and 'materiel'. Basically any citizen can bear 'arms' (pistols, SMGS, assault rifles, etc.), but would be unable to bear 'munitions' (grenades, explosives, missiles, etc.) or 'materiel' (tanks, aircraft, etc.).
You could also do some good stuff with the word 'bear'. Effectively limiting legal weaponry to that which was man-portable. People don't 'bear' howitzers.
Orkeosaurus wrote:I've never heard the right to bear arms being interpreted as the right to bear any sort of armament conceivable at any rate.
Except by some fringe groups, maybe.
You could also do some good stuff with the word 'bear'. Effectively limiting legal weaponry to that which was man-portable. People don't 'bear' howitzers.
Dibs on the right to bear miniguns!
Come to think of it two governors came out of the above movie...wonder what that means
You already can, it is just expensive. Enjoy this video of the Knobb Creek Machine Gun Shoot. It is an annual gathering of machine gun owners, including Miniguns, and even a flamethrower or two!
Holy cow, better than any 4th of July I've seen. One of the great things about the miltiary are the live fire exercises at night..truly a spectacle to behold! Those civvies were probably ex-military and just couldn't keep a good weapon down.
If anyone's dumb enough to try and invade America without WMD's they're in a world of hurt! feth YEA!
The necessity of factionalizing rather than problem solving is amongst the top reasons why America is dumb.
Who fething cares your political affiliation? If you can't present a good reason if a person deserves medical coverage or not by sight then they deserve it.
Tackling healthcare is in essence a large public works project - like the TVA.
Jesse Ventura for president. I'd vote twice under 2 different ID's.
I remember how secure I felt in my old house. Tween my roommates and I we had enough pistols, rifles, automatics to keep the entire city at bay if we had to. Felt sorry for any dumbass trying to break into that house. LOL.
Frazzled wrote:Like it won't blow apart the budget right? right?
No, read what I said.
I said people believe obvious lies because they want to believe them. I gave the example of a silly claim about healthcare reform. I did not say that all arguments against healthcare were silly. For instance, it will cost more (actually covering people and making insurers cover people when they get costly illnesses costs money). In the long term you'd hope structural improvements in the system can bring costs closer in-line with other developed nations, but in the short to medium term it'll cost more.
But the point is people believing the stupid lies. There were plenty of reasons to vote against Obama, that he was a secret muslim who was really born in Kenya wasn't one of them. There were plenty of reasons to vote against McCain, that he was a dangerous and irrational man suffering from PTSD was not one of them.
There's nothing wrong with opposition, it's a healthy thing. But people need to be honest in assessing what they hear, and not believing stuff just because it helps their side. That only lowers the quality of debate, and the result of that is the woeful healthcare debate the US has had, and the result of poor debate has been a mediocre package that doesn't address the reasons US healthcare costs so much.
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Cairnius wrote:No one can prove that, Fraz. For every set of numbers you toss around to "prove" that the budget will be blown, someone else can toss around a set of numbers to "prove" that your presented numbers are wrong and completely full of gak and that the proposed health care reform will actually save us money and cut down the deficit by huge margins.
End result = null result. The numbers can't be used to prove anything.
No, that's the exact problem Maher was complaining about. It's easy to just say 'lah lah lah statistics' when the numbers are saying something you don't want to hear, but you don't really believe that people don't have pretty decent estimates of what this will cost and what it will save, do you?
Reality is that the plan under consideration will cost more money. There are plenty of ways of lowering health costs to something more consistent with the rest of the developed world, but that'd take far more substantial reform. Unfortunately, if you look at the right freak out over this, and couple it with the health insurers' influence over both parties, it's near impossible to address major reform.
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Frazzled wrote:Bush didn't put in an 800Bn demo porkbarrel spending bill, and greatest federal budget in history of mankind. Bush didn't nationalize the car companies on the taxpayer dime, try to force through massive taxes via cap and trade, and try to nationalize 1 / 5 of the economy without debate.
Bush didn't have a financial meltdown. When faced with the growing crisis in the last days of his term, he argued for a stimulus bill that was considerably greater than the $800bn eventually agreed to.
Arguing that 1/5 of the economy was being nationalised is silly. Just plan silly. It is not being nationalised. And the debate is what has been happening for the last couple of months, it was actually taken out to the general public for discussion before a bill was written. Pretending that is not having debate is basically lying.
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youngblood wrote:I think that the government needs to be fiscally conservative. Neither war or this reform plan are fiscally responsible.
I agree with Fraz's opinions here. Regulate the industry more closely sure, but don't overhaul. Covering all American's isn't a realistic proposal, it never will be. Politicians know this. Instead they should be focusing on those that should qualify and pay for reasonable coverage.
Why is the US so unique in being incapable of offering medical care to all its citizens? The rest of us can do it, and we're no smarter that you lot.
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youngblood wrote:Invitations are rarely extended, instead the reigning donkey-caves come up with a proposal and shout loud enough to pass it.
Except there were invitations offered to the Republicans in the early stages of drafting. The more centrist Republicans were chased about as hard as the blue dog Democrats.
The GOP smelled blood in the water at the time, and didn't consider involvement.
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youngblood wrote:I'm about to split hairs here, but I don't really see the GOP being opposed to health reform, lots of republican reps want health reform. The issue is that Captain GOP (Michael Steele) is so far up his ass in rhetoric that he isn't even representing the majority of the party. The problem is that many people here Mr. Steele's stupid remarks then assume the whole party feels that way.
In their rhetoric members of the GOP will generally accept the need for healthcare reform. The polling numbers overwhelmingly favour 'reform' of some form or another. But most people know this is just rhetoric.
The GOP had a majority in both houses for a long time. For most of the Bush admin they controlled the house, senate and executive, but they never bothered with healthcare reform. So when they reach opposition and the Democrats start attempting reform, most people know what 'we accept there needs to be reform but there needs to be more time to learn what works' actually means.
It means they're playing for time and looking to delay until they can get back into power, at which point they'll reform exactly nothing.
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dogma wrote:Its also worth noting that the US militia is actually made up of every able-bodied man between 17 and 45, so the idea that you can't own a firearm without militia membership is a bit deceiving in terms of who it might exclude.
Cairnius wrote:JEB, you're choosing to look at the founding documents as valid where it serves you, and invalid where it isn't.
Kind of how you enumerate powers to the Federal government through the Declaration of Independence right? Oh wait, I am interpreting a document that actually has legal relevance!
Cairnius wrote:Constitutional law is nothing if not interpretation, and it's almost always undertaken in complete and total ignorance as to who the Founders were, the philosophers they studied, and any attempt to dig deeply into what they meant...which IMHO is all absolutely necessary and pertinent information to interpret the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
So, when I quote the interpretation of SCOTUS you disregard it? The truly ironic thing about this post is that the leading member of SCOTUS who really led the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is Justice Antonin Scalia, to whom many scholars attribute the invention of "original intent" as a method for interpreting the Constitution. So, really, your "original intent" argument works in my favor. Thank you! I have studied the events, ideas, Founding Fathers, and the philosophers that influenced them. That's what you do as a Historian, and I almost decided to go into grad school to write my dissertation on them, but decided against that because I rejected many of the philosophies they embraced. So in short, yes I do know what I am talking about.
Cairnius wrote:The 2nd Amendment is crystal clear about gun ownership...but just dig into the time period and the culture. Colonists actually needed their guns for hunting, or for defense against Native Americans. When it came time to fight the British, without civilian-owned firearms they never would have been able to raise an army. This is why the 2nd Amendment was written.
So people don't hunt today? And they undoubtedly don't need their weapons for civil defense, that would be just foolish! Oh, BTW, were all those citizens who rebelled against the British already active in their colonial militia? I will go ahead and answer that for you: NO they weren't.
Cairnius wrote:The Founders said nothing about pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, or any of the refined weaponry designed explicitly for killing human beings that we have today, nor could they foresee any of their development...so saying that the 2nd Amendment covers these things is fething slowed. It makes no sense whatsoever...but of course common sense so rarely comes into 2nd Amendment debate at all...
They also didn't plan on having 50 states, counting black people as an actual person, freeing the slaves, spanning an entire continent, etc. So the "they didn't plan for it" argument is pretty useless...
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Ahtman wrote:
Cairnius wrote:The Founders said nothing about pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, or any of the refined weaponry designed explicitly for killing human beings that we have today, nor could they foresee any of their development...so saying that the 2nd Amendment covers these things is fething slowed. It makes no sense whatsoever...but of course common sense so rarely comes into 2nd Amendment debate at all...
Cairnius wrote:The Founders said nothing about pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, or any of the refined weaponry designed explicitly for killing human beings that we have today, nor could they foresee any of their development...so saying that the 2nd Amendment covers these things is fething slowed. It makes no sense whatsoever...but of course common sense so rarely comes into 2nd Amendment debate at all...
You were doing so well there for a minute but then you had to go a become a jackass at the end by contradicting your earlier argument and adding in a bit of ad hominem. Shame really.
There's no ad hom at all, Ahtman. Not one whit of it. My mother is the English teacher, not me, but look at the construction of this sentence:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Okay, so let's first consider that the English spoken in 1776 was not the English spoken today in 2009. Bearing that in mind, look at the sentence.
""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
Why does this come first?
These were not documents thrown together in a hurry so that everyone could sign them before the British came a'knockin'. They were SLAVED over, edited, edited again, edited AGAIN to make them as perfect as they could be made. The Founders knew how important these documents were, and they fought long and hard with each other over how to phrase them.
Why didn't they just say this?
"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Doesn't that suit the purposes to which modern Americans wish to bend the 2nd Amendment? Wouldn't this be a true statement of purpose? "We want the right to not have our arms taken from us by government the way the British attempted to take our arms and prevent us from defending our liberties."
That's not what they said.
""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
The Founders made it VERY clear why this portion of the Bill of Rights was necessary - because without the right to bear arms, they never would have been able to fight for their freedom.
Now follow along with the revolutionary philosophy of the time.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
This is a fair representation of the guiding principle behind American Revolutionary political thought. When a government becomes oppressive, the people have the right if not the responsibility to overthrow that government and reclaim their freedoms.
"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly." -- Thomas Paine
Freedom is something that had to be fought for to be appreciated.
But the Founders never meant to create a State where a bunch of citizens just ran around with concealed weapons and man-killing devices in their attics.
""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
How could this be any more clear to a neutral observer, who has no vested interest in gun ownership? The right to bear arms is CLEARLY couched by the need for regulation of those who own said firearms. The people who owned the firearms would be members of a well-regulated militia. They would be citizen-soldiers. Not sports enthusiasts, collectors, insane Midwestern Militiamen or conspiracy theorists...
Our gun regulation sucks. No private citizen needs a handgun, and anyone who wants one should be willing to pass psych evals and background checks to make sure they're the most stable of the most stable. A sociopath or narcissist personality disorder type might get through from time to time, but at least we'd be checking.
The existence of gun show purchases is an insult and an exercise in supreme stupidity.
No private citizen needs an M16 or an AK-47. "But I'm a collector!" you say. feth you. Go collect something else. Your right to frivolously spend money on items which are meant explicitly to kill human beings, and by support of your right to do so to allow those items to get in the hands of people who explicitly want to use them for their intended purpose, in any intelligent and educated society is superceded by my right not to ever, EVER, have to worry about these weapons ever, EVER, being pointed at me, my wife, my children, my friends, or anyone I care about.
Your rights end when they curtail mine. In this case, the right of security.
For every legitimate purpose you may attach to a MAC-10 or Steyr AUG I can point you at another weapon which does the job as well and which is much more reasonable for civilian ownership.
Hunting rifles and shotguns. That's as far as the 2nd Amendment should ever have been allowed to go. Anything you need to do with a gun, you can do with one of these two tools. And even this isn't foolproof against abuse. You STILL need regulation to make sure that the people who own these firearms, if they're not serving in a militia where they can be kept tabs on by the government, aren't mentally unstable.
Yet someone could walk into a sporting goods store in upstate New York, purchase a shotgun and a case of shells, walk outside, chamber a few rounds, and start blasting away.
There's a word for that: stupid.
Pointing out the lack of common sense in 2nd Amendment debate is no ad hom at all. It's the obvious fething truth which some people want to ignore because they're either ignorant of history and wish to remain that way, or there are people paying them heavy dues to keep the laws functioning the way they want them to function, or because common sense would get in the way of their enjoyment blasting the beejeezus out of gak for the hell of it.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Not a complicated sentence, not even a particularly nuanced sentence. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms - a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State - shall not be infringed.
The problem is that the Founding Fathers never, ever intended political power to fall into the hands of the uneducated and ignorant. That's why we're a Republic, and have Electors, to form a barrier around political power and to make sure it always remained in the hands of the better members of our society who could read, who owned land, who had a stake in things and could be trusted with the power to make law.
They didn't think they had to write out these laws the way one might explain things to a child...just the simple re-ordering of the words I did above would make the intended meaning of the 2nd Amendment more clear, and even that's not perfect.
The Founding Fathers made the mistake of thinking that educated, reasonable, and intelligent people like themselves would forever be calling the shots around here. They didn't realize just how much they would need to hold the hands of future generations of Americans.
Wrexasaur wrote:My brain... it hurts so much... the text wall... so much... information... brain hurts...
Not everything boils down to short sentences and simple truths, unfortunately. Especially not when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, which is precisely my point. If you're not able to back up your 2nd Amendment debate position using the language of the document coupled with knowledge of the time period in which it was written and the personas who wrote our founding documents, you're not entitled to an opinion because you don't know what the feth you're talking about.
So people have to present their bona fides. Someone may not agree with me, but I've studied my history. I know what I'm talking about. That doesn't make me right, it makes me able to present a cogent argument.
If only we, as a society, just first quizzed people on some basic, necessary facts before they opined on a subject, and immediately shut them up if they couldn't pass the test, things would be a lot smoother in America. Want an opinion? Earn it. Go learn something first, then come back to us. You'll be of much better use to everyone.
I understand that you know what you are talking about (at least in part) but your use of encyclopedic knowledge is absolutely and positively in "Brain shut-down" territory.
Format is important, but I am sure you could make your points much more concise. Maybe some enjoy the massive amount of information you pour onto the forums (not a bad thing mind you) but allowing for conversation is also nice .
I feel like I just got knocked out with an encyclopedia... I think I am going to be ready with a rocket piranha next time... just to be safe.
Our gun regulation sucks. No private citizen needs a handgun, and anyone who wants one should be willing to pass psych evals and background checks to make sure they're the most stable of the most stable. A sociopath or narcissist personality disorder type might get through from time to time, but at least we'd be checking.
The existence of gun show purchases is an insult and an exercise in supreme stupidity.
No private citizen needs an M16 or an AK-47. "But I'm a collector!" you say. feth you. Go collect something else. Your right to frivolously spend money on items which are meant explicitly to kill human beings, and by support of your right to do so to allow those items to get in the hands of people who explicitly want to use them for their intended purpose, in any intelligent and educated society is superceded by my right not to ever, EVER, have to worry about these weapons ever, EVER, being pointed at me, my wife, my children, my friends, or anyone I care about.
Your rights end when they curtail mine. In this case, the right of security.
For every legitimate purpose you may attach to a MAC-10 or Steyr AUG I can point you at another weapon which does the job as well and which is much more reasonable for civilian ownership.
Wow, I just lost all respect for anything you might have to say, even though I didn't agree with any of it to begin with.
Thinking like that is why people like that 24yo who got abducted and found in an abandoned warehouse 4 days before her wedding cannot fight back, or the kid whose house was burglarized by a man with 29 priors (sword was used but it's the same premise).
I'm sorry but criminals don't give a damn about gun laws so why should it be damn near impossible for a law abiding citizen like to obtain a handgun when a common thug can go buy one out of somebodies car trunk or pickup box?
It does not matter WHY the 2nd amendment was interpreted the way it was, it only matters that it WAS interpreted in such a manner to allow citizens to own them.
You do realize you can single shot an M16 and deer hunt with it don't you? But I guess that is irrelevant because apparently I don't need to own an M16 when a 30-06 will kill a deer just as well. To hell with the law saying I can blow $2k on an assault rifle as I don't NEED an assault rifle.
Roving death squads of 17 years old kids, with their freshly purchased assault rifles.
More seriously, that's one of the reasons no one take the 'militia' component of the 2nd amendment seriously. Well, that and the fact that it doesn't actually limit the bearing of arms to militia members.
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JEB_Stuart wrote:So people don't hunt today?
No silly, rednecks aren't people.
Sadly I'm pretty sure that's not too far from Cairnius' actual opinion.
We (Rednecks) are a people. We just aren't the type of people to let government run our lives to the point of expecting us to give up our Constitutional rights to make some tree hugger happy that there is one less gun on the street while overlooking the fact many more are purchased illegally.
Its sort of funny that I reply to all these posts, because I know he has me blocked, I just feel my lack of respect for his opinion is better off expressed than not.
Cairnius wrote:
There's no ad hom at all, Ahtman. Not one whit of it.
Just so you know, any time you invoke "common sense" or belittle your opponent through the derogation of his position you are making an ad hominem argument. Not all ad hominems are fallacious, though they frequently add little to the argument. That said, your inability to recognize them in your own posts points to the fact that your grasp of logic is nowhere near as solid as you believe it to be. Sorry.
Cairnius wrote:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
There's another version of that sentence. It was in the draft which was distributed to the states. It reads: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
A minor difference, but since we're breaking down sentences here...
Cairnius wrote:
Okay, so let's first consider that the English spoken in 1776 was not the English spoken today in 2009. Bearing that in mind, look at the sentence.
""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
Why does this come first?
These were not documents thrown together in a hurry so that everyone could sign them before the British came a'knockin'. They were SLAVED over, edited, edited again, edited AGAIN to make them as perfect as they could be made. The Founders knew how important these documents were, and they fought long and hard with each other over how to phrase them.
Why didn't they just say this?
"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Doesn't that suit the purposes to which modern Americans wish to bend the 2nd Amendment? Wouldn't this be a true statement of purpose? "We want the right to not have our arms taken from us by government the way the British attempted to take our arms and prevent us from defending our liberties."
That's not what they said.
""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
The Founders made it VERY clear why this portion of the Bill of Rights was necessary - because without the right to bear arms, they never would have been able to fight for their freedom.
Now follow along with the revolutionary philosophy of the time.
This whole section could have been omitted. It has absolutely nothing to say in support of any argument. All you do is raise a series of questions while failing to provide answers to them; ignoring the fundamental structure of the English language to boot.
You've said before that you're fond of Chomsky. Maybe you should read some of his real work, as opposed to his second-rate political pieces.
Cairnius wrote:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
This is a fair representation of the guiding principle behind American Revolutionary political thought. When a government becomes oppressive, the people have the right if not the responsibility to overthrow that government and reclaim their freedoms.
"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly." -- Thomas Paine
Freedom is something that had to be fought for to be appreciated.
But the Founders never meant to create a State where a bunch of citizens just ran around with concealed weapons and man-killing devices in their attics.
You're attaching that by addendum. It has absolutely nothing to do with any of the evidence you've offered; especially in light of widespread distribution of firearms during the Revolutionary period.
Cairnius wrote:
""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
How could this be any more clear to a neutral observer, who has no vested interest in gun ownership? The right to bear arms is CLEARLY couched by the need for regulation of those who own said firearms. The people who owned the firearms would be members of a well-regulated militia. They would be citizen-soldiers. Not sports enthusiasts, collectors, insane Midwestern Militiamen or conspiracy theorists...
The militia in the United States is every draft eligible male. The words well-regulated are subjective, so while you can go down that road it certainly isn't something which would ensure that a neutral observer would agree. That doesn't even get into the problems inherent in having a clearly biased person imagine the opinion of a theoretical neutral observer.
Either way, it isn't clear that 'well regulated' applies to the right of citizens to own firearms. Hence the part which directly references the bearing of arms featuring the clause 'shall not be infringed'. For example, it is possible to regulate the militia (through, say, the selective service) while not actively restricting the possession of firearms to those who are deemed 'worthy'.
Cairnius wrote:
Your rights end when they curtail mine. In this case, the right of security.
Oddly enough, your rights also end when they curtail those of others. In this case your refusal to allow citizens to own firearms is also curtailing their right to security.
Cairnius wrote:
Pointing out the lack of common sense in 2nd Amendment debate is no ad hom at all.
You really don't understand logic...
Cairnius wrote:
It's the obvious fething truth which some people want to ignore because they're either ignorant of history and wish to remain that way, or there are people paying them heavy dues to keep the laws functioning the way they want them to function, or because common sense would get in the way of their enjoyment blasting the beejeezus out of gak for the hell of it.
...because that entire passage was an ad hominem attack.
Cairnius wrote:
They didn't think they had to write out these laws the way one might explain things to a child...just the simple re-ordering of the words I did above would make the intended meaning of the 2nd Amendment more clear, and even that's not perfect.
Ad hominem.
Cairnius wrote:
And now the lunatics are running the asylum.
More ad hominem.
Anyway, to summarize for the people (Wrex) that don't want to suffer through an angry wall of text. Cairnius repeated the text of the second amendment while badgering the intelligence of anyone who might disagree with him, all while failing to present any form of argument that couldn't be classified as an ad hominem. Seriously, if you're going to create a 1-2 page forum post you should probably attempt to insert something more substantive than polemic.
If I were grading this as an essay, which is what it really is, I would give it a D; passing, but only because the teacher doesn't want you to repeat his course.
dogma wrote:If I were grading this as an essay, which is what it really is, I would give it a D; passing, but only because the teacher doesn't want you to repeat his course.
Isn't that a winning tactic though? Use the force dark one... use it with great intent and... lost my train of thought... anyone feel like getting a hoagie or something? It has been an awful long time since I went to... PARAKEET!!! RUN AWAY!!!
dogma wrote:
If I were grading this as an essay, which is what it really is, I would give it a D; passing, but only because the teacher doesn't want you to repeat his course.
HAHA! OMG Dogma FTW! Don't worry, I think he has me blocked too, or he really didn't like my response which poked a million holes in his argument.
If I am not blocked, I must ask this question then to Cairnius: Assuming you are correct, and you must be in the militia, wouldn't you then say that it would be ideal to have assault weapons and not .22s as your standard issue weapon? What about people in wheelchairs. They are obviously not battlefield worthy, so should they be told, "Tough Gak," and sent packing? And how do you define a militia? Is it a bunch of men with assault weapons marching around their local park, because that is what it was during the colonial era. Furthermore, do you have Gmen go knocking on doors once people are too old to serve and demand their personal firearm back? See how problematic it is to tie this right to something so constricting, not mentioning the logical fallacies committed trying to do so...
I understand that you know what you are talking about (at least in part) but your use of encyclopedic knowledge is absolutely and positively in "Brain shut-down" territory.
Format is important, but I am sure you could make your points much more concise. Maybe some enjoy the massive amount of information you pour onto the forums (not a bad thing mind you) but allowing for conversation is also nice .
I feel like I just got knocked out with an encyclopedia... I think I am going to be ready with a rocket piranha next time... just to be safe.
*shrug* I type 105 wpm and read extremely quickly...I'm not going to be able to share your perspective on this. That was a lightweight essay by my standards...and I hope that if and when anyone ever makes real decisions about issues like these in our government that they are able, in writing, to elucidate their thought process to justify what they did.
In the end, that's what I want from anyone who opines on anything...I want to know how they got to where they got. Justify it. Show me the logic of your argument in all its constituent parts, so that if I disagree I can start picking it apart to see if it falls apart.
If I can't, then I may learn to agree with you if I didn't from the beginning.
Fateweaver wrote:Thinking like that is why people like that 24yo who got abducted and found in an abandoned warehouse 4 days before her wedding cannot fight back, or the kid whose house was burglarized by a man with 29 priors (sword was used but it's the same premise).
I'm sorry but criminals don't give a damn about gun laws so why should it be damn near impossible for a law abiding citizen like to obtain a handgun when a common thug can go buy one out of somebodies car trunk or pickup box?
It does not matter WHY the 2nd amendment was interpreted the way it was, it only matters that it WAS interpreted in such a manner to allow citizens to own them.
You do realize you can single shot an M16 and deer hunt with it don't you? But I guess that is irrelevant because apparently I don't need to own an M16 when a 30-06 will kill a deer just as well. To hell with the law saying I can blow $2k on an assault rifle as I don't NEED an assault rifle.
Thinking like that is why the kids at Columbine got killed.
That's some of the most specious reasoning I've seen lately...so, you think that the 24 year-old who got abducted and found abandoned in a warehouse 4 dayas before her wedding wanted to own a concealed weapon, or have an open-carry permit, couldn't get one, and THAT is why she was killed?
You think the kid whose house was burglarized by a man with 29 priors wouldn't have been bulglarized had the kid in question owned a firearm? I suppose the criminal would have known through some sort of prescience that the kid owned a firearm and not robbed him that evening?
This is precisely the kind of "appeal to emotion" logical fallacy that is far too prevalent in politics everywhere. There should be no place for that sort of thing in the creation of law, but humans don't seem able, by and large, to cut their emotions off at the knees when it comes to law.
You're missing the point entirely - in a nation with proper gun control your hypothetical criminal wouldn't be purchasing handguns out of car trunks or pickup boxes! The guns wouldn't BE there to be purchased. They'd be regulated. Gun manufacturers would be responsible for weapon serial numbers. We'd actually take advantage of the power of computers to track individual weapons and hold people accountable for production and distribution of firearms and keeping them out of the hands of those who were unfit to own them. Gun sellers at any rung of the production/distribution ladder would be forcibly shut down the second there was any evidence that weapons sold to them were distributed to the mentally unfit or someone with a prior criminal record.
I refuse to believe that this is not within our power. As a society, we just don't see the value in it. There's no reason that we couldn't limit the types of weapons available to the public and still have plenty of room for responsible gun dealers to still make a very nice living selling weapons which were appropriate for civilian ownership to anyone who passed some basic psych evals such that we could trust them to own said weapons.
Why the 2nd Amendment was interpreted the way it was could not be MORE important. Someone's motivation for doing something is just as, and sometimes more, important than what they actually did. Seemingly innocent and beneficial actions can turn out to be nefarious, self-serving, and have negative far-reaching consequences if you're too lazy to examine someone's motivations in taking those actions.
Arguing that you can single shot a deer with an M16, which is an assault weapon which anyone competent in the mechanics of modern firearms could convert to a fully-automatic weapon, and that therefore you should have the right to own one, is also specious reasoning. That’s no justification for a military-grade weapon to be in the hands of a civilian.
JEB_Stuart wrote:Assuming you are correct, and you must be in the militia, wouldn't you then say that it would be ideal to have assault weapons and not .22s as your standard issue weapon? What about people in wheelchairs. They are obviously not battlefield worthy, so should they be told, "Tough Gak," and sent packing? And how do you define a militia? Is it a bunch of men with assault weapons marching around their local park, because that is what it was during the colonial era. Furthermore, do you have Gmen go knocking on doors once people are too old to serve and demand their personal firearm back? See how problematic it is to tie this right to something so constricting, not mentioning the logical fallacies committed trying to do so...
I am not in a militia.
I would define a “well-regulated militia” the way Article VI of the Articles of Confederation in 1777 defines it:
"...every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."
Someone has to be quite dense, or filled with such ideological fervor so as to ignore simple fact which stands opposed to their ideological beliefs, to ignore this history. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment could not be MORE clear to anyone who stops crying in hysterics and who looks at things unemotionally. The ownership of firearms in our laws was ALWAYS tied to service in an organized militia from the very beginning. Modern interpretation of law has stripped away this all-important basis for the law and turned it into an excuse for lunatics to own fully-automatic weapons if they choose to.
Militias during the colonial era started off as "all able-bodied males" who could be used to recruit into the Provincial Forces, who were paid and who also rarely actually saw combat (probably because the British Regulars did the fighting). These troops were of horrible quality. George Washington bitched about them in the mid 1750's while trying to fight against Indian raids. They were undisciplined and had no chain of command.
This is clearly not a blueprint for a "militia" as any of us would like to think of it, and it's also combat-ineffective...and this is where the Minutemen came from. Order from chaos. Now you saw the creation of companies, captains and lieutenants, and then battalions and field officers.
Again, this is what comes from people not bothering to learn their history. If the Founding Fathers didn't believe in unorganized, random civilian militias, then why should we?
Show me an armed force in the world who accept people bound in wheelchairs into front-line infantry units…then perhaps I’ll bother trying to make sense of what seems like a ridiculous line of argument for which I currently have no time. I also have no clue what the hell you are implying with your “assault rifle and not .22 as standard issue weapon.”
This is why we need to use more words, not less, class. Sometimes when you don’t use enough words no one knows what the hell you mean.
If I had my druthers, yes, I’d take firearms away from the senile and mentally infirm the same way I think old people should get re-tested for driving competency at some as-yet-undermined regular interval. Anytime anyone had any sort of capacity to kill someone else through extension of a privilege I would test them for the continued right to that privileges.
There’s nothing problematic here. Anything dangerous SHOULD be regulated and restricted. You must have a lot more faith in the average American citizen than I do, which is why you’re willing to allow anyone and everyone, it seems, to walk around packing.
I don’t trust the average to know how to drive properly or how to vote responsibly. I sure as hell don’t trust them to be packing a Desert Eagle under their trenchcoat...
perhaps Europeans aren't as stupid as their American cousins.
...well...we don't like to go on and on about it, but.....
And we don't really think of you as cousins either, more like our lost children who will one day return.
Not like a noble, good looking, first born son who captains the cricket team and gets a first from Oxbridge type of offspring, obviously, more like some bastard, boss eyed, and lactose intolerant offspring from a drunken liaison whilst on shore leave in Shanghai many years ago who turns up at a family party 18 years later unexpectedly.
Britain/Europe used to corner the market on enslaving and subjugating people in order to steal their land and resources. Are you guys getting back into the game and planning another go at the "New World'?
Personally I'd be a willing subject as long as I could still go to the dentist and not be forced to listen to euro-pop.
I assume you'd be too fat to fit into the dentists chair in the first place.
And don't put yourselves down ( that's our job) you were much better at the whole slavery and denial of basic rights due to skin colour than us for ages.
sebster wrote:
Why is the US so unique in being incapable of offering medical care to all its citizens? The rest of us can do it, and we're no smarter that you lot.
No you are smarter, just plain smarter. Actually, with enough money and cooperation, it could be done. Look at China. It has a massive population and its GDP is about 1/3 of the US'. If the US were truly serious about "universal" health care, put it on the state level with federal support. With that said, I have no idea how effective Chinese health care is.
youngblood wrote:
With that said, I have no idea how effective Chinese health care is.
probably at least slightly more effective then no health care...
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reds8n wrote:
And don't put yourselves down ( that's our job) you were much better at the whole slavery and denial of basic rights due to skin colour than us for ages.
Don't sell the misery and death that Europe was able to spread around the globe short. I think you had many a hundred years on America prior to the US even being a sovereign nation...
LoL at chineese health care, these are the same people who spread aids through several villages during a plasma drive..
Thats right sign up to give plasma for the needy and end up with aids because the Chinese didn't bother to clean the machines.
The HIV virus has been transmitted to tens of thousands of people through reckless blood collection methods in which blood was collected from many individuals and pooled together; plasma and other blood parts were extracted; and the serum with the remaining blood cells was re-injected into the donors so they could donate blood again in the near feature. Because the blood was pooled together and given back if one person carried the AIDS virus it was transmitted to all the other people in the group whose blood was pooled.
This is the never ending thread seeing as the current state of things is years in the making, not just the last 2 presidents. It's a tale of failing morals, a failure to listen, a failure to compromise, a failure to look past the term of service, greed( a biggie worth mentioning alone), etc. You can point fingers all you want but this has been an epic fail by the country many times over because of the inability to say wow we messed up. We all just get to reap the benefits. So truly instead of bad mouthing each other on here why not try to come up with solutions or ways to at least affect your local community. As far as individual issues to be discussed, well I really don't have all week to write so I'll leave it at that for now.
R3con wrote:LoL at chineese health care, these are the same people who spread aids through several villages during a plasma drive..
Thats right sign up to give plasma for the needy and end up with aids because the Chinese didn't bother to clean the machines.
The HIV virus has been transmitted to tens of thousands of people through reckless blood collection methods in which blood was collected from many individuals and pooled together; plasma and other blood parts were extracted; and the serum with the remaining blood cells was re-injected into the donors so they could donate blood again in the near feature. Because the blood was pooled together and given back if one person carried the AIDS virus it was transmitted to all the other people in the group whose blood was pooled.
for further reading google Henan Blood and AIDS Tragedy
Hey, I never said it would be good coverage. At least it would affordable to get aids. I wonder how much more it added to China's national debt per year...
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WarmasterScott wrote:This is the never ending thread seeing as the current state of things is years in the making, not just the last 2 presidents. It's a tale of failing morals, a failure to listen, a failure to compromise, a failure to look past the term of service, greed( a biggie worth mentioning alone), etc. You can point fingers all you want but this has been an epic fail by the country many times over because of the inability to say wow we messed up. We all just get to reap the benefits. So truly instead of bad mouthing each other on here why not try to come up with solutions or ways to at least affect your local community. As far as individual issues to be discussed, well I really don't have all week to write so I'll leave it at that for now.
ooooo, thank you sir for the insight. Sweet Jesus, how could we all be so ignorant and blind? Here we were talking details and you simplified it for us all...
CT GAMER wrote:
Don't sell the misery and death that Europe was able to spread around the globe short. I think you had many a hundred years on America prior to the US even being a sovereign nation...
We learned it from you dad...
Indeed we did.
It's a shame you don't seem to have learnt from those mistakes. Still no one said you were smart..oh... we're back at the beginning of the thread again.
reds8n wrote: I assume you'd be too fat to fit into the dentists chair in the first place.
I lol'd at this.
reds8n wrote:
And don't put yourselves down ( that's our job) you were much better at the whole slavery and denial of basic rights due to skin colour than us for ages.
Damn right. If you ain't first, you last.
Europop is a myth invented by the liberal media.
Having been to London once, and having watched a few minutes of the MTV Europe awards, I am kind of an expert. And in my expert opinion, with a few exceptions your music pretty much sucks.
BTW, how in the hell did we get into it about the second ammendment?
CT GAMER wrote:
Don't sell the misery and death that Europe was able to spread around the globe short. I think you had many a hundred years on America prior to the US even being a sovereign nation...
We learned it from you dad...
Indeed we did.
It's a shame you don't seem to have learnt from those mistakes. Still no one said you were smart..oh... we're back at the beginning of the thread again.
I'd blame the parents but ,,,,
Very witty. You have a way with comebacks, it must be said.
Lint wrote:BTW, how in the hell did we get into it about the second ammendment?
I think Fraz said something about how the Federal government is not enumerated with the powers to provide access to health care for everyone, and so I attempted to make a point about how statements like that were really based on interpretation of the founding documents, and then gave an example as to how they've been horrendously misinterpreted over time so as to completely distort their intent.
The point is: the Federal government not having specific, precise enumeration to provide health care to everyone is not an argument not to do so. Strict "constructionist" interpretation of law doesn't make any sense as a legal position, and never has. As soon as you remove the construction of a law from its original intent, which you can only really begin to understand if you comprehend the personalities of those who constructed the law, the circumstances in which the law was constructed, and what the law was intended to achieve, you can't possibly decide whether the law makes any sense of not further down the line when the society changes and the law is called into question a hundred years or more after it was written.
When it comes to health care, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights give us no guidance. We're on virgin ground...so any recourse to "enumeration of powers" is inappropriate.
Cairnius wrote:
When it comes to health care, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights give us no guidance. We're on virgin ground...so any recourse to "enumeration of powers" is inappropriate.
You are correct, although I think that Fraz leans more towards a lean government. The Founders appeared to imply that the government should be less responsible for people not more.
Lint wrote:BTW, how in the hell did we get into it about the second ammendment?
I think Fraz said something about how the Federal government is not enumerated with the powers to provide access to health care for everyone, and so I attempted to make a point about how statements like that were really based on interpretation of the founding documents, and then gave an example as to how they've been horrendously misinterpreted over time so as to completely distort their intent.
The point is: the Federal government not having specific, precise enumeration to provide health care to everyone is not an argument not to do so. Strict "constructionist" interpretation of law doesn't make any sense as a legal position, and never has. As soon as you remove the construction of a law from its original intent, which you can only really begin to understand if you comprehend the personalities of those who constructed the law, the circumstances in which the law was constructed, and what the law was intended to achieve, you can't possibly decide whether the law makes any sense of not further down the line when the society changes and the law is called into question a hundred years or more after it was written.
When it comes to health care, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights give us no guidance. We're on virgin ground...so any recourse to "enumeration of powers" is inappropriate.
Your statements lack merit based on facts and court interpretations. You're forgetting that whole Tenth Amendment thing. But never let the Constitution get in the way of a good federalization or nationalization...
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youngblood wrote:
Cairnius wrote:
When it comes to health care, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights give us no guidance. We're on virgin ground...so any recourse to "enumeration of powers" is inappropriate.
You are correct, although I think that Fraz leans more towards a lean government. The Founders appeared to imply that the government should be less responsible for people not more.
It wasn't an implication. What the hell do you think this means, eat at Luigi's?
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Frazzled wrote:The GOP was not invited into the negotiation. This is a Pelosi/Reid creation. Why on earth should they participate? Obama knew that when he gave it to them to run with and didn't do himself.
Frazz has pretty much summed up why this thing has been a disaster from the start. Like I said before, I was rooting for the President, but he (like Bush before him) dropped the ball, by allowing the extremists to "handle it".
Bush did it by letting the NeoCons run the war, and Obama did it by letting the Pelosi's run this healthcare reform proposal.
R3con wrote:LoL at chineese health care, these are the same people who spread aids through several villages during a plasma drive..
Thats right sign up to give plasma for the needy and end up with aids because the Chinese didn't bother to clean the machines.
The HIV virus has been transmitted to tens of thousands of people through reckless blood collection methods in which blood was collected from many individuals and pooled together; plasma and other blood parts were extracted; and the serum with the remaining blood cells was re-injected into the donors so they could donate blood again in the near feature. Because the blood was pooled together and given back if one person carried the AIDS virus it was transmitted to all the other people in the group whose blood was pooled.
for further reading google Henan Blood and AIDS Tragedy
Hey, I never said it would be good coverage. At least it would affordable to get aids. I wonder how much more it added to China's national debt per year...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
WarmasterScott wrote:This is the never ending thread seeing as the current state of things is years in the making, not just the last 2 presidents. It's a tale of failing morals, a failure to listen, a failure to compromise, a failure to look past the term of service, greed( a biggie worth mentioning alone), etc. You can point fingers all you want but this has been an epic fail by the country many times over because of the inability to say wow we messed up. We all just get to reap the benefits. So truly instead of bad mouthing each other on here why not try to come up with solutions or ways to at least affect your local community. As far as individual issues to be discussed, well I really don't have all week to write so I'll leave it at that for now.
ooooo, thank you sir for the insight. Sweet Jesus, how could we all be so ignorant and blind? Here we were talking details and you simplified it for us all...
Always have to have a confrontational one. I see so you just want people to point fingers and have a "no this kinda is a bigger "" Ok I'll bite. If you wanna trace the debt back that you all are so happy to blame on currents. Why not blame it on the ones who started it. After the depression the banks gave the people and government an almost unlimited credit source to rebuild the broken economy. Then they later decided it was time to collect cause they almost lost their ass to the overspending of the american people/government. Past presidents have repeatedly said the national bank has been one of our worst ideas. Ok another culprit of the debt is our need to always save everyone but our own. We hand out aid like no other with no real intention of recuperating any of it. While our people are in all sorts of bad situations(I mean the ones not created due to laziness and personal choices) we're handing money to everyone else. Then following presidents saying well we have always had debt lets go ahead and blow more by making new add ons to the white house, go to wars we have no part in, people not willing to help cover stuff like hurricanes, etc Again endless stuff to argue about.
generalgrog wrote:
Bush did it by letting the NeoCons run the war,
Do you think he A. Didn't intend to and/or B. Had any other way of running things ?
If so do you think things would have worked out differently than they have ?
Well I do think things were rushed into. I mean as soon as the towers fell people called for action with angry fervor. I mean it would be hard to say okay we need to run investigation that may take years but should be accurate. The people would say he was doing nothing and blah blah blah. Idk about later in the war but I can see his need to act(even if it was rash).
Mamzel Rice always seemed fairly level headed, as did Colin Powell ( sp ?).
Especially give Bush doesn't like Black peopl.. GET THE feth OUT OF HERE KANYE ...
where was I..
So why do you think the Neocons had/claimed so much influence. Internet rants and odd whackjobs aside your system has, generally, to an outsider generally seemed to be fairly middle of the road ( well..to the right compared to us but given where you and us drive...), it seemed odd that the..hmmm... far's not the correct word... the more extreme rightwing element grabbed as much power as they did ?
Mamzel Rice always seemed fairly level headed, as did Colin Powell ( sp ?).
Especially give Bush doesn't like Black peopl.. GET THE feth OUT OF HERE KANYE ...
where was I..
So why do you think the Neocons had/claimed so much influence. Internet rants and odd whackjobs aside your system has, generally, to an outsider generally seemed to be fairly middle of the road ( well..to the right compared to us but given where you and us drive...), it seemed odd that the..hmmm... far's not the correct word... the more extreme rightwing element grabbed as much power as they did ?
Just money or a swing after 2 terms of Clinton ?
I think it has a lot to do with Clinton's era. Over the last couple presidents we have made harsh swings back and forth. We have divided ourselves and have lost our sense of us as a nation that we once had. It's sad that it takes something like 9/11 to get us on the same page. On a side note, what is the west's infatuation with watching people falling and laughing. It doesn't matter if it's politicions(sp) or celebrities?
WarmasterScott wrote:
Always have to have a confrontational one. I see so you just want people to point fingers and have a "no this kinda is a bigger "" Ok I'll bite. If you wanna trace the debt back that you all are so happy to blame on currents. Why not blame it on the ones who started it. After the depression the banks gave the people and government an almost unlimited credit source to rebuild the broken economy. Then they later decided it was time to collect cause they almost lost their ass to the overspending of the american people/government. Past presidents have repeatedly said the national bank has been one of our worst ideas. Ok another culprit of the debt is our need to always save everyone but our own. We hand out aid like no other with no real intention of recuperating any of it. While our people are in all sorts of bad situations(I mean the ones not created due to laziness and personal choices) we're handing money to everyone else. Then following presidents saying well we have always had debt lets go ahead and blow more by making new add ons to the white house, go to wars we have no part in, people not willing to help cover stuff like hurricanes, etc Again endless stuff to argue about.
Ah, I was just bein an ass . I do like to argue though. Let me bite back. First, the government gave the banks money not the other way around, unless you are talking about the fed. The majority of banks have paid their loans back of their own accord (gives the appearance of them being "solid" i guess), there wasn't a "deadline" to pay the government back. Banks had incentive to pay back quickly due to the interest on the loans. As of the end of August, the US government had collected over $4B in profits from the interest and is still owed an approximate $6.2B. Foreign is a very small portion of the federal budget. Including food, it amounts to $36.7B for the 2010 budget. The total budget for the year is some $2.38T.
WarmasterScott wrote:
Always have to have a confrontational one. I see so you just want people to point fingers and have a "no this kinda is a bigger "" Ok I'll bite. If you wanna trace the debt back that you all are so happy to blame on currents. Why not blame it on the ones who started it. After the depression the banks gave the people and government an almost unlimited credit source to rebuild the broken economy. Then they later decided it was time to collect cause they almost lost their ass to the overspending of the american people/government. Past presidents have repeatedly said the national bank has been one of our worst ideas. Ok another culprit of the debt is our need to always save everyone but our own. We hand out aid like no other with no real intention of recuperating any of it. While our people are in all sorts of bad situations(I mean the ones not created due to laziness and personal choices) we're handing money to everyone else. Then following presidents saying well we have always had debt lets go ahead and blow more by making new add ons to the white house, go to wars we have no part in, people not willing to help cover stuff like hurricanes, etc Again endless stuff to argue about.
Ah, I was just bein an ass . I do like to argue though. Let me bite back. First, the government gave the banks money not the other way around, unless you are talking about the fed. The majority of banks have paid their loans back of their own accord (gives the appearance of them being "solid" i guess), there wasn't a "deadline" to pay the government back. Banks had incentive to pay back quickly due to the interest on the loans. As of the end of August, the US government had collected over $4B in profits from the interest and is still owed an approximate $6.2B. Foreign is a very small portion of the federal budget. Including food, it amounts to $36.7B for the 2010 budget. The total budget for the year is some $2.38T.
hey I was adding pieces. I don't claim to have the expertise, background knowledge to explain the whole debt or the time. Though you can never plan how much they'll spend when war or natural disasters occur..
WarmasterScott wrote:
hey I was adding pieces. I don't claim to have the expertise, background knowledge to explain the whole debt or the time. Though you can never plan how much they'll spend when war or natural disasters occur..
Ah I don't have any expertise either, I just read what I can when I can and I listen to that god Rush Limbaugh (j/k)
Frazzled wrote:The GOP was not invited into the negotiation. This is a Pelosi/Reid creation. Why on earth should they participate? Obama knew that when he gave it to them to run with and didn't do himself.
Frazz has pretty much summed up why this thing has been a disaster from the start. Like I said before, I was rooting for the President, but he (like Bush before him) dropped the ball, by allowing the extremists to "handle it".
Bush did it by letting the NeoCons run the war, and Obama did it by letting the Pelosi's run this healthcare reform proposal.
GG
Agreed on all counts. You don't farm major policy stuff out to the nattering nabobs of your party.
-Bush should have stuck with Afghanistan/Pakistan and hunting Osama until he was dead no matter the cost (I'll profit I thought Iraq was a springboard for reverse domino theory in bringing democracies into the ME and it was initially, but I have since learned my lesson on the efficacy of democracy in that region).
-Obama should not have given healthcare, the democratic porkbarrel bill, and Cap and Trade over to same. The fact he has repeatedly done so is a blinding error, unless he supported such in real life. His budget reveals where his heart lays however so it might not be far from that.
youngblood wrote:No you are smarter, just plain smarter. Actually, with enough money and cooperation, it could be done. Look at China. It has a massive population and its GDP is about 1/3 of the US'. If the US were truly serious about "universal" health care, put it on the state level with federal support. With that said, I have no idea how effective Chinese health care is.
Chinese healthcare isn't great. But even if it was, the Chinese economy is so different that it wouldn't be much of an indicator of what the US could achieve. Better to look at somewhere in Europe, who manage better healthcare at anywhere up to half the cost.
youngblood wrote:No you are smarter, just plain smarter. Actually, with enough money and cooperation, it could be done. Look at China. It has a massive population and its GDP is about 1/3 of the US'. If the US were truly serious about "universal" health care, put it on the state level with federal support. With that said, I have no idea how effective Chinese health care is.
Chinese healthcare isn't great. But even if it was, the Chinese economy is so different that it wouldn't be much of an indicator of what the US could achieve. Better to look at somewhere in Europe, who manage better healthcare at anywhere up to half the cost.
I was looking at a country who has large population. Although their GDP is 1/4 of ours.
If, as you claim, you're 35, then yes you are. Sorry.
Cairnius wrote:
I would define a “well-regulated militia” the way Article VI of the Articles of Confederation in 1777 defines it:
"...every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."
Clearly in this Constitutional clause the Founders were only referencing the arms available during their time. They never intended any militia to be equipped with modern assault weapons.
In any case, a militia is either a part of the organized armed forces that a nation is only able to call on in an emergency (this includes both the Selective Service, as it is an organization, and the National Guard), or all able bodied citizens eligible for military service. You're literally pretending that this word means whatever you want it to.
Cairnius wrote:
Someone has to be quite dense, or filled with such ideological fervor so as to ignore simple fact which stands opposed to their ideological beliefs, to ignore this history.
What a horribly unfortunate phrase for you to ever make use of.
Cairnius wrote:
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment could not be MORE clear to anyone who stops crying in hysterics and who looks at things unemotionally.
Yes, all that emotion that was clearly absent your earlier epithet laden diatribe.
Cairnius wrote:
The ownership of firearms in our laws was ALWAYS tied to service in an organized militia from the very beginning. Modern interpretation of law has stripped away this all-important basis for the law and turned it into an excuse for lunatics to own fully-automatic weapons if they choose to.
The individual right argument from the Second Amendment was first arose in Bliss v. Commonwealth in 1822. The first collective right interpretation was found in State v. Buzzard in 1842. Your claim that firearms ownership was always tied to militia membership is false. Both from a purely linguistic standpoint, and a purely legalistic one.
Cairnius wrote:
Militias during the colonial era started off as "all able-bodied males" who could be used to recruit into the Provincial Forces, who were paid and who also rarely actually saw combat (probably because the British Regulars did the fighting). These troops were of horrible quality. George Washington bitched about them in the mid 1750's while trying to fight against Indian raids. They were undisciplined and had no chain of command.
And they fought as auxiliaries, which was the role of conscripts in that era of warfare, throughout the entire conflict.
Cairnius wrote:
This is clearly not a blueprint for a "militia" as any of us would like to think of it, and it's also combat-ineffective...and this is where the Minutemen came from. Order from chaos. Now you saw the creation of companies, captains and lieutenants, and then battalions and field officers.
Again, this is what comes from people not bothering to learn their history. If the Founding Fathers didn't believe in unorganized, random civilian militias, then why should we?
The Minutemen were part of the militia, not the whole of it.
Incidentally, a militia does not have to engage in constant training to be considered a militia. Indeed, if they do engage in constant training there is a very solid case to be made that they aren't a militia at all, but regular forces.
Cairnius wrote:
Show me an armed force in the world who accept people bound in wheelchairs into front-line infantry units…then perhaps I’ll bother trying to make sense of what seems like a ridiculous line of argument for which I currently have no time. I also have no clue what the hell you are implying with your “assault rifle and not .22 as standard issue weapon.”
Ad hominem. Oh man, is that ever an ad hominem.
Cairnius wrote:
This is why we need to use more words, not less, class. Sometimes when you don’t use enough words no one knows what the hell you mean.
And sometimes when you use too many you sound like a pompous ass making a feeble attempt to obscure the feeble excuse for argument which is meant to substantiate his claims.
There's a happy medium here, dude. And it certainly isn't something you're approaching.
Cairnius wrote:
If I had my druthers, yes, I’d take firearms away from the senile and mentally infirm the same way I think old people should get re-tested for driving competency at some as-yet-undermined regular interval. Anytime anyone had any sort of capacity to kill someone else through extension of a privilege I would test them for the continued right to that privileges.
See, I believe rights are socially derived in all cases. Referring to them as natural rights is simply a nonsensical bit of sleight of hand. And even I think referencing the 2nd amendment as a privilege is nonsense.
You're simply engaging in the selective validation procedure you seem so quick to accuse others of.
Cairnius wrote:
There’s nothing problematic here. Anything dangerous SHOULD be regulated and restricted. You must have a lot more faith in the average American citizen than I do, which is why you’re willing to allow anyone and everyone, it seems, to walk around packing.
Firearms should be regulated, as the militia clause points out, but they cannot be out and out denied. Pretending that there is no sense in which the 2nd refers to individual rights is ideological stupidity.
As you said, the Constitution was poured over when it was created. The Founders were plainly aware of that interpretation. If they weren't, then you have no business worshiping them in the way you plainly do.
Cairnius wrote:
I don’t trust the average to know how to drive properly or how to vote responsibly. I sure as hell don’t trust them to be packing a Desert Eagle under their trenchcoat...
Frazzled wrote:You're forgetting that whole Tenth Amendment thing.
Section 8, Article 1 of the Constitution. From Wiki:
"This document lets the government create “necessary and proper” programs/laws and retain them, such as creating the Air Force. The Air Force is an implied power because the constitution did not give the power of the Air Force to the federal government, because airplanes didn’t even exist.
"Implied powers" are those powers authorized by a legal document which, while not stated, are deemed to be implied by powers expressly stated. When George Washington asked Alexander Hamilton to defend the constitutionality of the measure against the protests of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph, Hamilton produced what has now become the classic statement for implied powers. Hamilton argued that the sovereign duties of a government implied the right to use means adequate to its ends. Although the United States government was sovereign only as to certain objects, it was impossible to define all the means which it should use, because it was impossible for the founders to anticipate all future exigencies. Hamilton noted that the "general welfare clause" and the "necessary and proper" clause gave elasticity to the constitution. Hamilton won the argument with Washington, who signed his Bank Bill into law.
Even Hamilton's adversary, Thomas Jefferson, used the principle to justify his Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Later, directly borrowing from Hamilton, Chief Justice John Marshall invoked the implied powers of government in the court decision of McCulloch v. Maryland. This was used to justify the denial of the right of a state to tax a bank, the Second Bank of the United States, using the idea to argue the constitutionality of the United States Congress creating it in 1816.
In the case of the United States government, implied powers are the powers exercised by Congress which are not explicitly given by the constitution itself."
The 10th Amendment does not preclude Congress from passing Obama's health care reform. 'Nuff said.
Frazzled wrote:
Agreed on all counts. You don't farm major policy stuff out to the nattering nabobs of your party.
-Bush should have stuck with Afghanistan/Pakistan and hunting Osama until he was dead no matter the cost (I'll profit I thought Iraq was a springboard for reverse domino theory in bringing democracies into the ME and it was initially, but I have since learned my lesson on the efficacy of democracy in that region).
I think only time will tell if the Iraq war was an overall bad thing or good thing. (I mean war is never a good thing, but sometimes a necessary thing) The thing that bothers me the most about it, was the idiotic prosecution and arrogance of the "end of major conflict" stage. The scary thought that Iraq could sell/give nuclear weapons or other WMD's to terrorsists was THE selling point to the war. This is what made it "necessary" to most Americans. The interesting thing is that we also have Iran and N.Korea (All in the Axis of evil speech) that could possibly do this as well. All that stuff about establishing an Arab democracy in the ME was just smoke screen for "We don't want Saddam Hussein to be responsible for nuking NYC".
How is there any perspective from which the war in Iraq was a good thing? It didn't make us safer, it didn't give us unilateral control of the nation's resources, our military bases there will not be permanent, it has cost us around $680 billion dollars with no return on investment, it has led to the deaths of 4,000+ American soldiers and over 30,000 being wounded, and for no reason whatsoever as we've gained nothing by this.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, had no WMD's, and therefore there was no justification for any sort of pre-preemptive military action...therefore it also represents an overt abandonment of American principles which admittedly had been abandoned long ago through decades of proxy wars, but to just come out and piss on the principle with no subterfuge whatsoever, and thereby set a horrible precedent for the future, for THIS stupid war was inexcusable. The war in Afghanistan may have been prosecuted poorly but at least there was a reasonable justification for it...
There is nothing good about the war in Iraq. Not a damned thing.
Guys, we were effed as far as the middle east was concerned as soon as we sided with Jerusalem.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hell bin laden said he would talk to our leaders if we pulled our support. You heard it from the man himself that our ally in the Holy Land was the breaking point.
Every once in a while it is worth opening one of your posts, Dogma, beyond just checking in to see if you're still acting like someone who is clinically depressed...
dogma wrote:You're literally pretending that this word means whatever you want it to.
dogma wrote:Yes, all that emotion that was clearly absent your earlier epithet laden diatribe.
dogma wrote:Ad hominem. Oh man, is that ever an ad hominem.
dogma wrote:And sometimes when you use too many you sound like a pompous ass making a feeble attempt to obscure the feeble excuse for argument which is meant to substantiate his claims.
dogma wrote:You're simply engaging in the selective validation procedure you seem so quick to accuse others of.
dogma wrote:This is the very worst kind of elitism.
Dogma...meet Dogma.
dogma wrote:
Wrexasaur wrote:
Out of curiosity could Cairnius be a "Concern Troll" ?
He actually remind me of myself, to a disturbing extent. That's most likely the source of my hostility towards him.
Just going from your posts, even with the tone-neutrality the internet departs, the chief difference between the two of us is that I seem to be in a much better mood than you are most of the time...and I suspect I take myself a lot less seriously.
I know you like to knock the academy, and it always reads like jealousy to me. You say that your job is languishing behind a desk at a health club somewhere...maybe you tried to get into college and couldn't, I don't know, but for such an unabashed armchair intellectual as yourself, literally an armchair intellectual, to post the way you do here on Dakka Dakka while also lambasting the academy is quixotic in the extreme.
Perhaps you would be in a better mood if you got up from behind that desk and got yourself into school for Poli Sci or History or something similar? You might be a more self-satisfied and happy person.
That's my social work quota for the year, I think. Now you go back on ignore for a while.
Cairnius wrote: our military bases there will not be permanent,
I highly doubt that. The US isn't exactly known for its willingness to close foreign bases. Sure, we might shut down operations there after 10-15 years, but that's certainly not a temporary deployment by modern standards, so I'm not sure what you would called it except 'permanent'. Perhaps 'intermediary'?
Cairnius wrote:
it has cost us around $680 billion dollars with no return on investment, it has led to the deaths of 4,000+ American soldiers and over 30,000 being wounded, and for no reason whatsoever as we've gained nothing by this.
We've deposed a problematic regime, and avoided the need to invade after Saddam's death (essentially inevitable, given the problems inherent in having an unstable Iraqi government vis a vis oil supplies). You can claim that it wasn't the best means of approaching the scenarios proposed by PNAC (because it wasn't), but to say that no benefit can be derived from the conflict is deliberately obtuse.
Cairnius wrote:
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, had no WMD's, and therefore there was no justification for any sort of pre-preemptive military action...
That's not explicitly true. There was no justification for preemptive action as it was presented to Congress, but there was a justification for the action as described by PNAC. Specifically, "We need to do it now, because we might not be able to do so in the future, and this is necessary for the security of our foreign oil supply."
Cairnius wrote:
therefore it also represents an overt abandonment of American principles which admittedly had been abandoned long ago through decades of proxy wars, but to just come out and piss on the principle with no subterfuge whatsoever, and thereby set a horrible precedent for the future, for THIS stupid war was inexcusable.
What 'American principles' are you referring to?
Cairnius wrote:
The war in Afghanistan may have been prosecuted poorly but at least there was a reasonable justification for it...
There is nothing good about the war in Iraq. Not a damned thing.
Ideological nonsense. The fact is that as soon as we deployed troops to Iraq we shouldered the responsibility inherent in nation building activities. There is no reasonable case for immediate withdrawal. Now that we're there we are obligated to derive as much benefit from the invasion as possible, even if it was based upon an ill-conceived plan of action.
Also, Grog is right. You can't actually judge the overall quality of a conflict while still engaged in it. You can judge the pretense to instigate the conflict. You can judge the relative quality of the tactical choices made in the course of the conflict, but judging the conflict itself is impossible as you lack contextual evidence. Speculation as to the forthcoming affects of any given war grant no moral certitude.
Cairnius wrote:
Every once in a while it is worth opening one of your posts, Dogma, beyond just checking in to see if you're still acting like someone who is clinically depressed..
Psychoanalysis without ever having met me? That's an interesting bow to draw.
Either way, your allegations of my depression are entirely in your own mind. They also represent an ad hominem attacks. You should really learn to stop that.
dogma wrote:
He actually remind me of myself, to a disturbing extent. That's most likely the source of my hostility towards him.
Yeah, that was a poor judgment on my part. You're very little like me. I actually value logic, and understand how to use it. You claim to, but fail at doing so in a rather resounding fashion. A better statement would have been: "He actually reminds me of myself when I was in my later teens, to a disturbing extent. That's most likely the source of my hostility towards him."
Cairnius wrote:
Just going from your posts, even with the tone-neutrality the internet departs, the chief difference between the two of us is that I seem to be in a much better mood than you are most of the time...and I suspect I take myself a lot less seriously.
Better mood? All those epithets are indicative of a better mood? Really?
I'm also surprised that you consider profanity to be a sign of detachment. I've never really heard of that being presented as a reasonable behavioral argument. Not by anyone who understand profanity, anyway.
Either way, I've been no more hostile in the course of this thread than you have. By my judgment considerably less so. The fact that you have chosen to, yet again, resort to an ad hominem retort is evidence of that.
Cairnius wrote:
I know you like to knock the academy, and it always reads like jealousy to me.
I knock the academy because much of it is made up of those who use their degrees as a substitute for intellectual rigor in the course of public debate. This is something you've been guilty of in several threads here; including this one. However, I've only done this once in the sum of my time here, in maybe three posts which were specifically in reference to you as an example of the worst of the academy. That's hardly an insult to the whole of the institution. Though, given your obviously high opinion of yourself, I can see how you would construe it as such.
Cairnius wrote:
You say that your job is languishing behind a desk at a health club somewhere...maybe you tried to get into college and couldn't, I don't know, but for such an unabashed armchair intellectual as yourself, literally an armchair intellectual, to post the way you do here on Dakka Dakka while also lambasting the academy is quixotic in the extreme.
I tend to be more critical of those organizations of which I am a part, than those of which I am not. Is it quixotic? Perhaps, though I don't believe so. Certainly no more so than preaching the gospel with respect to the stupidity of Americans.
Cairnius wrote:
Perhaps you would be in a better mood if you got up from behind that desk and got yourself into school for Poli Sci or History or something similar? You might be a more self-satisfied and happy person.
I realize that you're incapable of doing anything beyond launching into polemical diatribes, but you should probably avoid making any attempt at personal suggestion via the internet. At least in any way which isn't directly connected to the posting style of the person to whom you're responding. Admittedly, I used to be fond of this method of posting as well, but it really reflects poorly on anything else you might have to say; especially if you're going to use it as a replacement for a proper rebuttal.
For someone so adamant about the maintenance of intellectual standards in public discourse you seem quite keen to discard them when they work against you.
Alright, flames off you guys. I swear you guys make Johnny Storm look like Iceman. Please keep comments less personal as I'd prefer this thread stay open.
Cairnius wrote:How is there any perspective from which the war in Iraq was a good thing? It didn't make us safer, it didn't give us unilateral control of the nation's resources, our military bases there will not be permanent, it has cost us around $680 billion dollars with no return on investment, it has led to the deaths of 4,000+ American soldiers and over 30,000 being wounded, and for no reason whatsoever as we've gained nothing by this.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, had no WMD's, and therefore there was no justification for any sort of pre-preemptive military action...therefore it also represents an overt abandonment of American principles which admittedly had been abandoned long ago through decades of proxy wars, but to just come out and piss on the principle with no subterfuge whatsoever, and thereby set a horrible precedent for the future, for THIS stupid war was inexcusable. The war in Afghanistan may have been prosecuted poorly but at least there was a reasonable justification for it...
There is nothing good about the war in Iraq. Not a damned thing.
Wow way to armchair general and kneejerk at the same time.
Dogma pretty much covered it, but I hate to let someone else do the talking for me.
It's a good thing that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.
Why would we want a "permanent" base in Iraq when we have them in other Mid east countries?
Unilateral control of Iraqs oil would be tantamount to Imperialism.
Like I said we really won't know what we have gained or lost until 10 to 20 years from now. Iraq may descend into chaos, they may join Iran, or they may actually become a form of democracy like India. It's too early to make sweeping kneejerk statements like, "There is nothing good about the war in Iraq".
The best things about the war in Iraq are that the free world is no longer at the threat either of WMDs in the region or of Al Qaeda inspired terrorism.
Cairnius wrote:
Every once in a while it is worth opening one of your posts, Dogma, beyond just checking in to see if you're still acting like someone who is clinically depressed..
Psychoanalysis without ever having met me? That's an interesting bow to draw.
Either way, your allegations of my depression are entirely in your own mind. They also represent an ad hominem attacks. You should really learn to stop that.
dogma wrote:
He actually remind me of myself, to a disturbing extent. That's most likely the source of my hostility towards him.
Yeah, that was a poor judgment on my part. You're very little like me. I actually value logic, and understand how to use it. You claim to, but fail at doing so in a rather resounding fashion. A better statement would have been: "He actually reminds me of myself when I was in my later teens, to a disturbing extent. That's most likely the source of my hostility towards him."
Cairnius wrote:
Just going from your posts, even with the tone-neutrality the internet departs, the chief difference between the two of us is that I seem to be in a much better mood than you are most of the time...and I suspect I take myself a lot less seriously.
Better mood? All those epithets are indicative of a better mood? Really?
I'm also surprised that you consider profanity to be a sign of detachment. I've never really heard of that being presented as a reasonable behavioral argument. Not by anyone who understand profanity, anyway.
Either way, I've been no more hostile in the course of this thread than you have. By my judgment considerably less so. The fact that you have chosen to, yet again, resort to an ad hominem retort is evidence of that.
Cairnius wrote:
I know you like to knock the academy, and it always reads like jealousy to me.
I knock the academy because much of it is made up of those who use their degrees as a substitute for intellectual rigor in the course of public debate. This is something you've been guilty of in several threads here; including this one. However, I've only done this once in the sum of my time here, in maybe three posts which were specifically in reference to you as an example of the worst of the academy. That's hardly an insult to the whole of the institution. Though, given your obviously high opinion of yourself, I can see how you would construe it as such.
Cairnius wrote:
You say that your job is languishing behind a desk at a health club somewhere...maybe you tried to get into college and couldn't, I don't know, but for such an unabashed armchair intellectual as yourself, literally an armchair intellectual, to post the way you do here on Dakka Dakka while also lambasting the academy is quixotic in the extreme.
I tend to be more critical of those organizations of which I am a part, than those of which I am not. Is it quixotic? Perhaps, though I don't believe so. Certainly no more so than preaching the gospel with respect to the stupidity of Americans.
Cairnius wrote:
Perhaps you would be in a better mood if you got up from behind that desk and got yourself into school for Poli Sci or History or something similar? You might be a more self-satisfied and happy person.
I realize that you're incapable of doing anything beyond launching into polemical diatribes, but you should probably avoid making any attempt at personal suggestion via the internet. At least in any way which isn't directly connected to the posting style of the person to whom you're responding. Admittedly, I used to be fond of this method of posting as well, but it really reflects poorly on anything else you might have to say; especially if you're going to use it as a replacement for a proper rebuttal.
For someone so adamant about the maintenance of intellectual standards in public discourse you seem quite keen to discard them when they work against you.
This screams Moderation but Dogma's retort has been both on point and polite. Impressive patience beyond mine. So lets call it even and move forward.
Moderation on:
From this point forward posts must follow Rule #1. Be polite. That means everyone, including myself. Slanting attacks on other posters will still be viewed as attacks.
Had to skip that post when I saw who you were quoting, Fraz. I've got him on ignore for a reason.
I have to say that reposting content you know one poster was avoiding in the interests of stopping a flame war before it started is an...interesting...moderation technique. I don't know what you said in there to justify doing it, but that's certainly an interesting choice.
generalgrog wrote:Wow way to armchair general and kneejerk at the same time.
Armchair general? Please. It doesn't take too much knowledge of the history of the region to know that going into Iraq was stupid on a strategic level in addition to all the other reasons it was bad...and kneejerk?
Seriously...sometimes I think some of you guys are automatons or something. You think *that* was kneejerk?
No. Kneejerk gets someone banned with no warnings.
Wrexasaur wrote:At this point your intent is quite clear Cairnius... thanks for the input though mate .
Fly out to New England and have a beer with me if you want to figure out my intentions, Wrex.
Don't push me today on the mod front Cairnie. I'm trying to avoid official warnings directed at certain parties and you might not want to tap dance in the minefield there.
Wrexasaur wrote:At this point your intent is quite clear Cairnius... thanks for the input though mate .
Cairnius wrote:Fly out to New England and have a beer with me if you want to figure out my intentions, Wrex.
OOOOH SEXY SEXY!!!
She has got to be a butter face... what are the odds of that then there with the thing?
As a betting man... the odds of a million to one (which is what they calculate precisely to be) are simply not founded on a reliable source of betting... or something with the words, yeah there you go, now it makes sense. Yeah... alrighty then
generalgrog wrote:So mods are supposed to be psychic now, and know who has who ignored?
GG
I'm pretty sure I said quite explicity in that post to Dogma that I was putting him back on ignore...and then he posted something to which someone else said to turn the flames off and I said "What flames? I don't hear anything" or words to that effect. I thought it was pretty clear.
Cairnius wrote:
I'm pretty sure I said quite explicity in that post to Dogma that I was putting him back on ignore...and then he posted something to which someone else said to turn the flames off and I said "What flames? I don't hear anything" or words to that effect. I thought it was pretty clear.
You were. I said it to hoping to pour some ice on both. Anyway, looks like its done. I don't think anything more needs to be said about now. (If I act like a mod do I eventually become one?)
No you have to have a startling lack of sobriety, years of pent up rage and knack for typing poorly, or incriminating photos of Yakface. Or be Alpharius.
I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.
Frazzled wrote:No you have to have a startling lack of sobriety, years of pent up rage and knack for typing poorly, or incriminating photos of Yakface. Or be Alpharius.
I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.
Mods also don't have time to read every word of post of every thread which is complained about. We do that in serious cases.
Public notices by mods are a way of giving broad, low level warnings -- almost a kind of public service announcement -- and also of avoiding the paperwork involved in giving an official warning by PM. Once an official warning is given, the perp is 'in the system' and can expect any future infractions to be regarded more seriously.
It's like the difference between a caution from the Police and being taken to magistrate's court.
Frazzled wrote:No you have to have a startling lack of sobriety, years of pent up rage and knack for typing poorly, or incriminating photos of Yakface. Or be Alpharius.
I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.
I'm guessing KK had the incriminating photos?
You're good, a little too good (pushes the RED button)...
Now the hard one. which mod is less sober than the other.
Actually the current working theory is that Killkrazy is really Gary Gygax, who faked his own death to escape the slobbering attentions of D&D geeks everywhere.
Look at his avatar: two legs and a tail. 2+1=3 equals 3 sided dice. If you divide a twelve sided dice by a 3 sided dice you get four. KK has stated he's married. So if you divide 4 by the number of people (2) you get 2. There are two D's in D&D. Its him. elementary.
I think we got here by people turning up late and not getting things.
EDIT : See !
That is ok, I know reading is hard, what with illiteracy rates documented as rising in many parts of Europe...
Where you lead, we follow !
We should follow the American educational model, it seems to work well !
Eh I pay 3k a semester to have my sons attend a private school. So yes I agree the US education system is horribly broken. Luckily I make enough to save my sons from that disaster.
I mean Detroit has a 25% graduation rate from high school....that means 75% of kids dont even have a high school education.
But that's an entirely different soapbox...
"" Ok I'll bite. If you wanna trace the debt back that you all are so happy to blame on currents. Why not blame it on the ones who started it. After the depression the banks gave the people and government an almost unlimited credit source to rebuild the broken economy. Then they later decided it was time to collect cause they almost lost their ass to the overspending of the american people/government. Past presidents have repeatedly said the national bank has been one of our worst ideas. Ok another culprit of the debt is our need to always save everyone but our own. We hand out aid like no other with no real intention of recuperating any of it. While our people are in all sorts of bad situations(I mean the ones not created due to laziness and personal choices) we're handing money to everyone else. Then following presidents saying well we have always had debt lets go ahead and blow more by making new add ons to the white house, go to wars we have no part in, people not willing to help cover stuff like hurricanes, etc Again endless stuff to argue about.
.
