ParanoiA

From what I've read the people of Germany were good folk, yet Hitler was their leader. Being nice didn't exactly work out for Europe did it? Maybe they should have demonized him from the start, since that would have been accurate. As is the case with Ahmadinejad. Who's demonizing the Iranian people? We're demonizing a government that regularly calls for the wholesale destruction of millions of people...over a label. Remember how ridiculous labels are? No, they're not "suggesting" or "implying" or anything remotely cryptic about it - Ahmadinajad is coming right out and saying it, calling for the destruction of Israel. Why is it that the Bush administration can get "demonized", compared to Hitler and fascism, calls for impeachment and neverending liberal TV bashing for wire-tapping international calls into the US without a warrant, yet Ahmadinejad can call for a wholesale slaughter of millions of human beings, all while using religion to control, oppress and contain his own people - and we can't even "demonize" him? Please. If that isn't partisan... This guy is Bush 2.0. He's Bush on Meth. He should be getting twice the negative treatment Bush is getting. I didn't know their plight was particularly...uh..plightful. I mean, they elected him and they like him. And this wasn't a Saddam election either. From what I've seen, and I admit it hasn't been much, they're doing fine as far as religiously brainwashed, oppressed people can be. Because humans multi-task? Not sure why we would need to stop any of these other debates... Oh and tax cuts are always good.

According to the article, New Hampshire is included in being penalized. What I find interesting is that it was a unanimous vote to exercise the penalties, so apparently there's no representation for them in the RNC. Maybe that's to be expected, but I think a showdown is in order.

Well it's only a state law. Kinda silly really.

I would like the offending states to continue with their plans. I realize it's silly to keep incrementally pushing up the primary dates, but until New Hampshire and Iowa are "shown up", they're never going to stop determining our candidates for us. Well, and even then, they still might.

Fair enough, I see your point now. Well, I don't view disagreements in this forum as "real" disagreements, and PM's don't do anything for anybody else in the forum. I appreciate your attempt at diplomacy here, but it's really not necessary. These discussions are driven by disagreements really, so it isn't much of a critical thinking exercise unless we're at odds to some extent. So, don't sweat it. I'm kind of picking on you because I was such a vocal opponent of religion and christianity, in particular, for much of my adult life until recently. I realized that my bias is not rooted in logic like I had allowed myself to believe, but rather I was pissed at "Hypochristians" and allowing them to spoil the pot. Truth is, I do despise religion. But I can't trust that because it is an emotion - not a logical conclusion. Based on the facts, I can't justify my aversion to religion. And I refuse to jump on any bandwagon that can't either.

Great post sweatersdoct. It made me want to score some acid...just kidding.

I didn't take the time to write that so you could reply back with a flippant dismissal. I held you above that. I thought, you wanted to engage and support your statement. I see you'd rather just stick with tried and true rhetoric. I just did. And you answered back with an appeal to forum rules. There is value in belief in nonsense, and you don't appear to want to deal with that. It would be ok in any class as long as it's between the students and isn't taught by the instructor as fact, when it's not. When is it ok to spread lies about the validity of deity and faith? God is not disproven, so why would you advocate teaching it as if it was? The disparity between the bible and other sources of history is quite objective, and belief is not relevant to discuss it and teach it. To teach that the bible is a fairy tale is like teaching tachyons is sci-fi fiction. Not to mention there's tens of methods of interpretation, ranging from literal to pure symbolism and poetry. There's no place for the instructor to get in that mess. Stick with the facts and leave the agenda at the door please.

Ah, propoganda. Nice. You've been watching the Bush administration carefully huh? So, I guess you've selected to toss out all of those memories of devout religious folk feeding the homeless, helping poor families with food (they were there for my family when we were hungry, down, and all I got from the government was an application for emergency food stamps...to be available in 3 weeks ). I could go on, but you already know all this - you just built a wall around it because it's inconvenient when you're trying to pit the world's problems on it. It's easy to blame religion. But use your critical thinking skills. It's not religion - it's the manipulation of grouped up people. That exists on many levels in a variety of capacities. Religion is just scarier to us because it has the power to cause someone to supplant fact for fiction. I understand that. But it also gives people peace. Mental health. Who says it's unhealthy to believe in things that aren't real? We always concentrate on the crazies and the war rhetoric, but we forget the troubled souls that found something in god and religion. Who are you to decide that people shouldn't believe in bullshit? Have you thought about the number of people that will lose all sense of morality without reverence to a higher order? Do you think that everyone in the country is like us here on SFN? You think these people can take the shock? I think religion was invented by man because it is necessary for man. All over the world man has done it and it's been used to build empires and slaughter civilizations. It's been used to bring the best out of a man, give him purpose and peace with his losses, just as it's been used to perverse a culture and enslave humans for centuries. Your statement implies that truth is the meaning of life, or the ultimate goal. That's your opinion. Some would say happiness and joy is the meaning of life, the ultimate goal. Truth isn't all that relevant in that case. Bullshit would be convenient to compliment happiness. And that's an individual decision. I'm like you, I want truth over fiction. But I don't presume that to be everyone's objective. Your beef is with Humans. Not religion.

So, when Ron Paul vocalizes his pro-life position, yet argues that reverence for this flavor of morality should be left to the states, then is he being anti-pro-life? Maybe a bad example, but you can draw a line between your personal beliefs and absolve yourself from the authority of pushing that belief on others. Reasonable - humbled - people do that. Only the idealistic would not see the sense in that position. The existence of the spaghetti monster, also, not a historic necessity to validate or invalidate that. Neither are fairies, unicorns..etc. Why do you think it's your place to correct anyone? And why do you think you're correct? Because that's the implication when you agrue that validation of a faith is necessary in higher education.

Tell me about it. The idiots on local talk radio over here call him a quack, and an idiot. Even though I've heard more "theory" and straight talk from Dr. Paul than any of these talk show geeks. You can disagree with Dr. Paul, I get that, but to call him an "idiot", immediately discredits you in my book. But that's the climate we're in. Like you say, nobody is really insterested in the truth. They're averted to the implications of truth. Admitting 70% of americans want out of Iraq means they have to face the fact that this war is unjustified by the people.

Same here actually. I'm going to vote for him in the republican primaries, for whatever good that will do. But I really wish he'd run as a Libertarian. Of course, I realize he has better access to the televised debates and so forth running as he is now. He has said - like a careful lawyer - that he "has no plans" to run on any 3rd party ticket. Hmmm..."no plans" doesn't mean it's not going to happen.

I don't know about that. I think it has more to do with the flawed, but popular mentallity that a 3rd party president can't unite and couldn't get anything done. I've always held the opposite perspective. A 3rd party guy doesn't belong to either camp, so both parties can pursue those interests that do happen to jive with him, without "caving" to the other side. I've always suspected a 3rd party president would be excellent for the bi-partisan intent. Perhaps that's what you're seeing here, even though they have a full playing field to deal with yet. They're focusing on his character, while recognizing the common ground between them. Perhaps you're still right as well.

Ok, but you just blasted off to Pangloss that you "don't see that happening, and find your perception of this a sign of your own bias" when he brought it up here: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Look, belief systems are just that - belief systems. God is not a disproven concept and science is of no help with the quandary man is obsessed with. People need religion. There's no useful purpose to remotely discuss validity of any belief systems in a history class. There are places where religion and science and education will ultimately clash, and this is not it.

1) Helping or Hurting? Hard to say since a party is essentially made up of people who have grouped together, found common ground between themselves individually up to a point where a line is drawn - their ideology, so to speak, their core lines in the sand - down to two major distinctions. Common ground between two parties becomes quite the surrender in that light. The problem with today's "partisan" despite is not partisanship, it's the class of leadership we have put in office. They put power before people. War is serious and people die while they play games with the government. Modern politicians are more self interested and party driven, when the people are supposed to come first - and this a personal shortcoming, lack of ethical character. 2) Probably as bad as it's going to get for now. It will get worse over time if we let it. 3) Well sure, if that's as high as we're going to set the bar. I don't know that common ground should be found on most issues; it would never be my goal. My goal would be to find solutions and legislate by the principles agreed on. Common ground and compromise is valuable within these principles, but is not acceptable to breach them.

Same here. Particularly given the agnostic nature of science to begin with, with respect to god. Well, here's an example right on this page: Upon hearing something that contradicts his beliefs? I thought we weren't talking about validating beliefs...? Because it is not remotely relevant to history. It's impact would be quite relevant to history.

Yeah, no kidding. I saw a post of his in politics that's apparently been deleted, but I don't know what happened to him.

Well I suppose we could screw the rich a little bit more. I mean, we outnumber them right? http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/021307TaxPermanenceSN.pdf - page 6. According to that, those greedy rich bastards are still making the bottom 50% cover 3% of the personal income tax bill - I guess the good ole boy network is alive and well... At some point, we're going to actually have to live within our means...kinda like the rest of us do individually. I can't keep augmenting my credit card collection indefinitely. Sooner or later, I have to start actually forking over money for the stuff I want. Geez...you'd think "grown-up" legislators would know this...

Yep. He doesn't get the brownie points that Reagan gets from me. Reagan outspent the russians to win a war without blood. He levied our economy against there's. So I can at least understand that reality. But Bush, on the other hand, seems to be competing with Reagan here, only we have blood loss to go with our empty purse. We're spending...correction, we're printing more and more money to fight with a ridiculously inferior opponent, at least in terms of equipment and sophistication. One thing I would note, however, is that per your graph the two republican big deficit spenders did so at a time of war and I would add because of those wars. Only one of which, was necessary, in my opinion. Yes, it's always bad. Just like cutting off your leg is always bad, even though it may have been done to prevent the spread of infection. There are times it may be necessary, but it's always bad and it almost never needs to happen. Saving up to buy things is an old school concept here in the states. Waiting until you can afford something before you buy it? Are you nuts? I want it now! I don't want to wait! Charge everything, credit me to hell and back until I'm drowning in debt, then I can turn around and blame my problems on the same capitalists I borrowed from. Yeah, they tricked me into it, took advantage of me... Is it really any surprise our government behaves the same way? I was thinking about this on the way home last night. That our generation, my generation, has taken apathy another step. That each generation, since and including the baby boomers, we dumb ourselves down a little more. We become a little more detached and disinterested in economics, business, currency, and so forth and little more focused on "fun". Pop culture indulgence. Which is why I think we're having these problems. I don't think the masses really understand money. I know that most of the people I work with that criticize capitalism, the rich, corporations - the more pretentious types, don't understand how currency works. Many of them still believed our money was backed by gold. And they couldn't tell me what inflation was - the best answer I got was some drivel about how rich people weren't rich enough and slowly, constantly raised prices. They don't understand the essentials of economy, yet they have an opinion about all of it - a militant opinion layered with pejoratives and accusations. And because of all that, and because politicians say what we want to hear and fill the role we want them to fill, no one makes our money situation a priority. Any politician who does make it a priority is considered a kook or a bore.

See, he didn't say equal in worth or value, he said specifically intelligence. This is what I mean by charging into value judgements and downstream implications over objectivity. That's suspicious to me. Why not just immediately rebutt with the facts that debunk this "testing"? Isn't that how you'd rebutt a flat earther? The Bell Curve; that was proven wrong wasn't it? Any others?

Well, there's his little blurb here: Not exactly the scientific answer I was looking for, but he seems to suggest that something he's interpreting as evidence backs his claim. I'm wondering what that is.

Understandable presumption, but no actually, I didn't hear it from Rush. I saw it on Fox news and then looked to see if it was on the other network sites. I don't know, I guess I thought politics sounded close enough.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/18/science.race/index.html Just wondering what you all thought of this guy. I don't know anything about him, really. Is this race remark a big deal in Europe? Seems like the comments I've read debunking his comments aren't really substantive - rather sound more like people who are concerned with the downstream implications rather than the accuracy of his statement. But is it really irrational? How is he wrong? Don't misunderstand, I don't think he's right. I just want the meat and potatoes that proves him wrong. Anyone?

Do they really though? I absolutely love my dogs, I talk to them like family and give them more attention than my human pack members many days - but I've always wondered if these attributes were accurate or if they're far more self-interest driven and just patronize me to get food and shelter.

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. What about if this employee doesn't state where they work, but one of your customers recognizes them? Even brings it up to them? Should they be obligated to remove anything you feel is offensive to your brand? I don't think so. The fact they're recognized is incidental, perhaps unfortunate, but not their fault nonetheless.

Yeah, I agree with all that. Funny you should mention SFN posts in this context. A co-worker was telling me that someone here got fired for saying dispairaging things about our company on a forum. And supposedly, it wasn't posted during work hours nor with company equipment. Now, I'm always suspicious of stories like that without any evidence or whatnot. But considering our company has us sign a code of business conduct each year which includes verbiage like "No employee shall engage in any activity that creates a conflict of interest or even the appearance of one", I'm inclined to suspect it's true. I'm still trying to figure out how they could really terminate or punish someone for doing something that "appeared" like a conflict of interest, but wasn't. Sometimes I wonder if it's just over extended groundless bluff techniques - like hanging a sign in your store that says "we reserve the right to shoot anyone we want for any reason". Just because you have it in a document or post a sign doesn't make it legal nor enforceable.