ParanoiA

Ok, so your point is that you don't agree with hard medicine. Cool. You seem to think that collapsing auto makers is really horrible. I don't. The same argument could be made for any business. Most have employees, with little kids, home mortgages, that depend on that business for survival. The obvious point should be: How does big business learn its lesson if you bail them out? Think a little further than the first obvious answer to that. You don't agree with the kinds of cars they're marketing. You don't agree with their business plan. You don't agree with some of the union behvaior ( I think anyway ). Yet, if you bail them out, how do the other companies get the motivation to change their business plan, to market cars you like, to stand up to the union enough to negotiate a fairer wage and competitive formulas? Over and over, we're meddling here and there, over managing this economy. I don't think we're on a plane about to hit the ground, our economy will weather all of this fine if we concentrate on shoring up the fundamentals. It's starts with ending the excuses to print more money. There's always a good reason to save someone's ass. But that doesn't equate to actually helping anything. Bad investment needs to be punished. That's fundamental. Next, we are going to be arguing about the cruel notion of natural selection. It has to happen. Why are we so intent on cheating well known systems? Watching a major auto maker fall, get bought out, or whatever, is going to re-establish and remind the business sector about the true cost of risk and the importance of pandering to market demand as opposed to guiding market demand - which is what they've been doing for years.

Right, and I care about your opinion. I care about what smart people think and why they think it. It may not alter my belief system at all, or just presently, but you wouldn't believe how much past conversations and debates impact future internal audits. Also, I'm sure there are others reading your comments that agree with you, so it's nice to have it out at this level so we "extremist idealists" have our chance. And no, I don't believe socialism was discarded for valid reasons. It's not discarded - maybe in this country, although we're still incrementally heading that way - but it's rolled out in other countries. It's mainstream for them. I look at libertarianism, Austrian economics - alleged "old ideas" as the center we've yet to reach. You know how the pendulum swings back and forth before resting in the center? Well, in my mind, the pendulum is still swinging to one extreme and then another. We're still trying to control all the variables - like little gods. If humans "ran" the planetary ecosystem, we would have stepped in long ago and intervened on virtually every extinction, and meddled into every subsystem we could rationalize "saving". That's what I see in government and the subsystems within it. We just can't let things alone and allow the natural processes to give us the benefit of autonomous, predictable results. Instead, as usual, we think we can circumvent the cost of risk - we think we can work around natural consequences of a given system. From what I understand, the business cycle, recession - are natural corrective processes that clean out bad debt. Trying to work around that by playing with the money supply, dreaming up arbitrary regulations and etc is trying to undermine the inherent risk in our system - and that has consequences. I don't think we, as a society nor as a government, is ready to accept that. We need to meddle and get burned some more. And the austrians, the CATO's, the Mises - will all be there when our country is ready to accept the nature of the system. If we ever are ready to accept the nature of the capitalist system, that is. To draw a comparison, think of our parent's approach to credit. My parents come from a comparatively frugile generation. They really only financed houses and cars and credit cards were few and religiously paid down. My generation saw credit as a chance to get everything the machine has convinced them they should have right now. Fresh out of high school and college, we're financing houses, cars, TV's, Furniture, multiple credit cards, second mortgages - you name it, we're making promises that impact our whole freaking future before we're old enough to truly understand the dynamics of those promises. And the cost of all that credit - ugh. We're pissing money away because we're idiots and we're drawn to those stupid commercials that convince us to buy a new SUV and finanace a house full of furniture we can't afford. Does that mean our parent's approach to credit has been discarded? Is a useless old idea that has no relevance today? Absolutely not. Many handle their finances more like my parents. They finance a bare minimum of necessities and practicalities, and do without or save for the goodies. That is essentially people who have accepted the nature of their income to debt ratio; have accepted the cost of the system. Not the best example, but it should illustrate the relevance of an old idea in the context of rejection based on immaturity - not a thoughtful rejection of the idea.

How do you know it was carefully and thoughtfully considered and discarded for valid reasons? That may be a bit too much trust in men. Obviously if it has been around for awhile, the it's still being carefully and thoughtfully considered. Among those who have discarded it are politicians and statesmen. And I'm not sure I can trust the motivation a politician could have for discarding economic systems that don't provide for their direct manipulation. (particularly ones trying to run a republic like a global empire). A "managed" economy sounds like a throwback to me. Like manual transmission. You only think you need to handle the intricacies. Perhaps one day we'll evolve into a more automated approach. Ok, I officially put this forward. Show me your counterpoint. I'm interested.

I support the concept of Unions faithfully, but not their practice. I'm all for leveraging full market value with organization, that's what business does and they usually have far more resources to work with. If the workers can organize and attempt to increase their compensation for their labor services, then they absolutely should. I don't agree with using that leverage to extort and encroach on the business objective of those who hold the capital in that business. It's sensible for the union to negotiate wages and represent the workers on serious legal and safety issues - but it's completely weird for them to coerce business practice and create a hierarchy of command with stewards spending half their days away from their work area dealing with grievances; handing out notices of what color of freaking shirt they want you to wear the next day; forcing everyone through a tenure system for every possible category you can imagine (hell, I've yet to discover a single perk based on performance or merit). It's stupid. They're undermining the demand for our services. Isn't that business and economy 101 - supply and demand? When we allow the union to take this kind of control and encourage them to treat our employers like this, then they - correction, we - are not wanted. That sucks and that's why they fight the unions so much. I don't believe it's actually about the money, I think it's about what they get for what they pay for. I think if unions operated more as a skilled labor business, we would be much stronger.

Well I hope you're wrong, man. It can take a lot of motivation to sit down and eat a whole bag of cookies; marijuana can save the day. I'm surprised how many are so worried and dreading legalizing marijuana. They won't notice much difference other than their neighbor smokes it on the porch now instead of on their couch in the basement. Hopefully the youth will gravitate to that instead, and get alcohol off of their short list. Personally, I'm wondering if I can raise my property value with a pot garden. Could make home buying a whole new experience.

You know, Skeptic's take on law and intent of the writing is entirely in line with the duty of the Judicial branch. Their duty, as has been noted as recently as the amendment 2 re-interpretation not too long ago, is to interpret the intent of the original verbiage, the intent of the law. Not to re-interpret it using changes in the lexicon. That's called legislating from the bench. I think he's absolutely spot on that we're in dire need here of new laws; not legislation from the bench in the form of applying modern day changes to the definition of "marriage" and pretend as if that was the intent of those that wrote that law. Even if their intent was malicious bigotry, such as the 3/5ths compromise, it is still the intent of the law. With that in mind, I think the argument has now shifted to the particulars of the structure of law. Sure we all agree that denying the right for homosexual unions is absolutely wrong and needs to be corrected, but that doesn't mean the detail of how law is written and applied is to be ignored. We are a constitutional republic and we are required to revere written law. We absolutely must be pedantic about the verbiage, the specific rights being afforded or restricted, whether we're granting new rights or restoring dated oppression. That's all just the particulars of how we negotiate setting this wrong, right, in our particular form of government. _______ Edit: Something else that's been bugging me about all this...don't hospitals choose visitation qualifications, over law? The marriage license serving as the "proxy" for the bedside spouse is a hospital initiated qualification isn't it? And tax laws that reward marriage...aren't those just as disproportionate as giving tax breaks to those with kids? "Discrimination" might be an effective argument against rewarding marriage, or to start rewarding other kinds of civil unions, which I would fully support, but nonetheless isn't that a tax law issue? It seems like what we have here is a moral conclusion (marriage), taken for granted, applied and ingrained into so many laws that we're basically stuck with a tough decision: Do we simply redefine the word "marriage" to include same-sex couples (which won't require massive law updates), or do we go back and rewrite all of those laws that discriminately reward marrige (as it's original meaning, between a man and a woman) and update them to grant the same reward to civil unions? I'm obviously for the latter. That way we can also do away with the concept of "marriage" and instead introduce the civil union for all american citizens. The word marriage should not even appear in the written law unless its cancelling the term.

Wow, I'm envious.

waitforufo totally gets it. Nice post man. As for Skeptic, it's seems obvious this particular exchange was about detail. And in a science forum that should have been reasonable to expect, no?

See, you're proving that you're lost here. We're not talking about the ability of homosexual unions. We're talking about valid arguments that you asked for. You then presumed those valid arguments were Sketpic's position on the matter, and further you then refuted those arguments in the face of ZERO opposition - NO ONE is advocating those arguments as good reasoning. The only thing we're accepting is that they're valid. In fact, most of the disagreements we have on this forum are valid disagreements. Actually, it is an academic exercise. This is a forum. Not the capital. We're not testifying in front of congress and nobody but us in this thread gives a rat's ass what we think. And further, this particular context is a battle about "valid" arguments, not what we all personally think on the matter. You'll find my comments quite in line with yours if you scroll back to the beginning. Except I'm even more liberal than you - I think incest and polygamy are fair unions too. Take that.

Don't we though? See, it's my contention that compromise is for politicians. My job is to be the force of intent that I believe in. And I try to persuade others to believe in it too, to wield a stronger force. But politicians, or statesmen rather, are to negotiate all of the various forces, coupled with their personal belief system and compromise as appropriate for whatever given issue is at hand. That's not for me to do. I'm going to follow my philosophical belief as purely as I can. All of us should.

If there is a difference between hetero and homo marriage, then his points are valid. Not supported with great logic, because that's irrelevant. They are merely, and only, valid. I love this academic exercise that most of you are failing on, miserably. Skeptic is making a terrific point here, and most of you have missed it by a country mile. Emotion sure does twist one's sensibilities. Come on, turn on your logic circuits and turn down that emotive potentiometer in your head. Ah, but who's arguing against the ability of homosexual unions? I certainly am not. I haven't seen that from Skeptic either. I know you think you've seen that from him, but you haven't. All he's been doing is providing valid arguments for the opposition, since you asked. Not good ones. Not ones we agree with. You know how Pangloss likes to say someone has a valid point, yet he disagrees with it? Think on that... ----- Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but to invalidate an argument would require that facts don't support the conclusions. Opinions, of course, are free from "validation" as they are just an assessment against one's value system. So, how are Sketpic's arguments "invalid"? Oh, and I, too, find homosexuality "icky". I'm quite sure many of them feel the same of my heterosexuality. That's called preference. I also find little kids with food all over their face kinda "icky" too. Oh, and peas and lima beans - yuck! Also overweight people kind of gross me out when they're eating. And yeah, I have no interest in passing legislative judgement on these things. Kinda weird to even suggest the connection actually.

KY comes in a gel?

It's not hard to believe that it helped, but it didn't pull us out. As I read, if it weren't for the New Deal, we may not have had much of an america to kick into gear for the war, so I do believe it helped. I'm not sure that anything Ron Paul would do would get us out of a depression. Ron Paul's strength is about ideological ends. I don't think he's particularly talented at telling us how to get there, or performing the same witch craft with the economy as the people he's criticizing for doing just that. No, I think he'd be cautious enough to roll out his agenda carefully enough not to cause catastrophe, like a depression, but not overly concerned about heartaches along the way either. He has that old fashioned grin-and-bear-it attitude.

Heh..the Ron Paul thread proves I'm not exempt to such things either.

No. Again, you're making an assumption that Ron Paul wants everything abolished tomorrow. Everytime this immediacy was charged to Dr Paul during an interview, he always replied about a "plan", or method to remove or change whatever entity he was implicating. Including Iraq, and he was the most vocal about immediate withdraw. On that, the federal reserve, the IRS, and other departmental slashes and overhauls, he always reminded the interviewer that these things take time to implement. Unless you have a quote, I doubt Dr Paul would propose to abolish the Federal Reserve and cease regulation on the economy tomorrow. I could however buy the idea he would want to abolish the Federal Reserve during the crisis if he had some reason to believe the timing was particularly right. He does serve on the financial committee, and economy is his thing.

The new deal didn't pull us out of the depression. It masked the poverty with government employment until the war pulled us out. How are you sure we'd suffer a despression? Just how much good do you think the bailout money is really doing? More importantly, is the country chaulk full of anarchists, because I seem to remember congresscritters getting slammed with calls to reject the bailout? I also remember poll after poll indicating the majority rejected the bailout. Which is weird, because the people have elected a democrat president running as a centrist for change. So are they anarchists that suddenly became rational? It almost sounds like rejecting the bailout was rather mainstream.

No, they're not similar at all. Alex Jones views the country as a corporatized slave state. Ron Paul views it as federalists monopolizing the republic. You imply one idea between Alex and Ron and that's supposed to be some kind of supporting evidence? Alex also fears for our civil liberties. That's just like the liberal agenda. So I guess we just elected an Alex Jones nutjob to the white house. The only thing missing is me wasting my time to nab a quote from Obama that talks about civil liberties, and then nab one from Alex that talks about civil liberties, and point out the similarity. Great scientific ethic you've got going here... Paul's position is the libertarian position - it is not owned by Alex Jones, nor does Alex have any claim to an idea that has been around for centuries. How ridiculous. Ron Paul's hands off approach appeals to libertarians, and free market proponents. Any ideology, including nutcase think tanks, that like pure free market principles are going to be attracted. Ron Paul supporters are not made up of a majority of Alex Jones fans. Try again. Hell, I'm not even sure Alex Jones has enough total fans to make up a majority of Ron Paul's total supporters. I can't find any numbers though. Nevertheless, the only time I heard the two names in the same sentence was here in your posts and on the Alex Jones show - that and Charlie Sheen, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr. And the only "solution" offered by your precious candidate of same ole same ole is to print even more money. I noticed you stopped bitching about the value of the dollar once Obama signed on to bailing out wall street. Yes, the best solution is to let it fall on its face. It's the check and balance that has been undermined with regulation and "nanny economics" so this needed to play out. To remind the market that natural forces are still relevant, even though they are obscured by unnatural forces. Kind of like always catching your child when he falls - eventually he forgets to worry about it, until one day you're not there and he falls on his ass. Let them fall on their ass. Same with the car makers. We're doing voodoo in the federal reserve and you're rationalizing it with appeals to the past - post federal reserve I might add.

Well damn Sisyphus, you're just solving all of my problems. From wood stoves to particle physics, you're apparently the go-to guy. Thanks.

Ok, so my co-worker asked what the temperature of a photon was. Obviously, I have no earthly idea and had never pondered that before. Do photons have a temperature? And does it change with the wave-length?

The problem is I separate my personal gain from my government positions. I don't take a position "x" because I personally would gain from it, or because my personal moral code agrees with it. This is why I get so frustrated with this tack that people's personal opinions on a subject should be mirrored in law. I personally would never smoke crack. But that has nothing to do with whether or not I think crack should be legal. I don't think the average person partitions that. If they would never do crack, then nobody else should be allowed to do crack. Weird. So, the bailout may be worthwhile to us, and would seem a more objective conclusion than it may at first appear, but I'm not sure how valuable that is to bat around.

My problem has always been the idea that drastic change to policy equals wingnut. Sweeping change on the order of pure restructure of government is not a nutcase position. I'm sure if we were a fascist dictatorship, we would not think it nutty to propose a constitutional republic. And the kind of change Paul proposes, doesn't touch that kind of dramatic change at all. It merely affects the fiscal structure within a government already established. And with so many fiscal problems right now, I find it suspicious that those in the financial business would be so offended by him...

Yeah, cuz everybody here knows how ecoli and I are Alex Jones fans...he's just speaking to the tin foil hat crowd. The federal reserve is great! People we didn't elect, rich bankers, get to run our currency, which is working out just terrific right now. Just look at the value of the dollar. And this fiat currency, what a god send that was. It's always splendid to detach the currency from static assets - that way you can inflate and prove to everyone that money is just paper after all - and we all know how good that is for economy. Yeah, what a nutcase. Well, in all actuality, those are the same points he's been repeating for years - particularly during this campaign. It's the same old spill. He doesn't get a license for rhetoric like everyone else since he criticizes their candidates with harsh realities. And of course, since he's a Jeffersonian, obviously there's no real difference between the federalists running for president. His written pieces always show a bit more intellect than oration, so I'm not surprised it appears more thought out.

I do appreciate the point you're making here, but doesn't this apply to everything we toss about here in the forums? Everything we bicker about boils down to my value system verses your value system, both of which were arbitrarily chosen, ultimately. So, we're basically just leveraging our value systems against each other, thread after thread. Why stop there now? Unless of course your only point was to answer iNow's charge on valid arguments. In that, you have succeeded, definitely. Outnumbered you are, since emotion is clouding their reception, but that point is made. You don't really get to invalidate someone's opinion. You can refute it, make a mockery of it, embarrass it, prove it to be hypocritical, prove it to be bigotry - but you can't invalidate it. If that's your point here, I'd say you've made it. Beyond that, yeah the arguments are all refutable and unacceptable conclusions to be made by the state.

I read about this a bit today and it just aggravated me so much I didn't even finish the article. I'll try again tomorrow.