ParanoiA

Ugh..worse than that, I even threw shiny silver out there too.

But that's not true. We lived in that particular balance of power prior to the existence of the federal reserve. It was hardly ideal. It was convoluted, unpredictable - uncontrollable and unable to be directed. It was the harsh reality of individual choice played out in dollars and cents - bank runs due to a rumor, calamities of currency. Lots of undesirable effects. But we were in charge. The people retained the power that they must have. To complain and change that fundamental structure, like we did, is akin to admitting that democracy doesn't work, and so we're going to a feudal system. We didn't choose a republican government because it was the most efficient form of governing. We didn't choose it because it outperforms other governments. We chose it because it established a foundation of principles that forced a balance of power that would prevent the consolidation of power to an oligarchy, or even a single man - the catastrophic consequences our history books outline. Same with the economy and central banking. Yes, establishing the federal reserve gave us unprecedented control over the economy making it peform more smoothly, consistently - and it came at the price of allowing unelected businessmen to create currency and at-will access to the people's revenues - our taxes. Our property. Our money. That goes against the whole point of being a republic. That goes against our initial intent to give reverence to balance of power OVER efficiency and performance . Private industry controls our dollar. Think about that. That is a fundamental problem that shakes the foundation of sovereignty. Think about how we the people were POWERLESS to stop the bailout, how we were ignored by our legislators. They are in servitude - prostrated to the Federal Reserve. It is not our government. I fear we are no longer a republic. I don't think we could take it back if we tried, and I don't think they fear us in the least.

Interesting. The federal reserve was in business over a decade before the depression. Any ideas why a depression like this occured after the Federal Reserve act, but not before? Oh that's right, you're all going to say that sliced bread was our most outstanding achievement, as proof capitulating the american dollar to private business was the key to the industrial revolution? Something along those lines? Well I'll tell ya'. If you all will give up more of your liberties I can gaurantee all kinds of economic security. I can guarantee a decrease in crime. I can gaurantee an end to practicing bigotry. I can gaurantee an end to war - just prostrate yourselves before me, like you did with the federal reserve act. Give me more and more of your sovereignty. Don't pay attention to my left hand, just watch me wave my right, err, uh your rights that is... If you all are more interested in system performance and efficiency than the balance of power, then you've already been conditioned properly for the machine. Nothing I say will sway you. They dangled something shiney and you're running over each other chasing it.

Not if you insist on a corporatized system that capitulates the people to the government rather than the other way around. Private bankers run our money. Period. Those who control the money, control the country, the world, the people. There is no excuse for fiat currency. It's exactly like George Bush saying the Patriot Act is necessary to protect our freedom, to protect us from terrorism. That's the federal reserve - an act supposedly necessary to protect us from financial insecurity; private bankers capitalizing on our fears to secure their control of currency and distribution of wealth. And just like with Bush, I'm sure it was done with the best of intentions. You all are forgetting the fundamentals of legitimate power structure. Nature will not let us forget, we will pay for it. We, the people, no longer reserve the power to create currency - it has been given to a quasi private-government structure that has assumed power over the people. Do you honestly think something the size of the US economy has to operate on fiat currency? Tell me why. Tell me why credit hacking and giving the power to create money to the private sector is necessary. This is a misinterpretation of Paul's views. Paul is not advocating a magical fix on anything, nor is he implying his views will make a perfect, smooth running economy - he has never said so. Listen carefully, he never claims such things at all. His views are about economic structure that returns power to the people, which will still have problems, just like there has always been, but problems that are dwarfed by the insane problems being dealt with today. Paul recognizes an imbalance of power, that no one wants to really deal with because they rationalize the necessity of such imbalance using the excuse that the global economy is huge and complex and couldn't work otherwise. This is a crucial transfer of power through ignorance and lack of give-a-shit by the people - you. The global economy should be shaped and built around the proper power structures of the world. Instead, we are changing and shaping our power structures to match the global economy - the tail wagging the dog. We are in the complex mess we're in because no one challenged the necessity of the federal reserve and the power it assumed, and now it has had almost a hundred years to soak in and network into every facet of our lives. So yeah, I certainly understand why you wouldn't want to shake that up, and why guys like me, ecoli, or Dr Paul are considered nutcases. We don't respect this imbalance of power, credit system worship, fiat runaway currency - none of it. The global economy and the US economy would run just fine without fiat currency and a central bank run by private bankers; it would be entirely different, it would evolve differently. It would still have problems, just like we'll always have problems under ANY system, you name it. The difference is, which system gives us the BEST SET of problems to deal with. I think the existence of the Federal Reserve and its obvious oligarchical design and nature gives us a worse set of problems than what we had before. For it's problems threaten the sovereignty of the people, it challenges the checks and balances of power built into the republic, as well as the business cycles and economic crises - the problems we had before were limited to economic crises only.

It only seems so since his long term solution is deeper and more fundamental. The Federal Reserve is on his hit list, and his economics depend on an asset based currency, preferably gold and silver, that even Greenspan admitted was the only way to protect the people's wealth - to protect our savings from being swallowed up by inflation. Remember, he's a Jeffersonian and has demonstrated and vocalized a contempt for corporatism, which some say is the more accurate term for fascism, and repeatedly warns against the marriage between the military complex and the business sector, so Laissez Faire would hardly seem accurate. You can disagree with it, but it's anything but myopic.

Have you even considered, and I mean seriously considered, the consequences of bailing these companies out? We're not just talking about the consistent devaluation of the dollar, we're talking about the "implied government safety net" that will now cause other markets to get even more bold, and push the limits of risky behavior due to this precedence. We may never see these markets behave naturally again. Big corporations are taking note, they don't live in a cave. I don't think that can even be measured, and it's effects will not be appreciated for awhile. Very dangerous willful ignorance it would seem. This is the kind of long term consequence that is overshadowed and dwarfed by near-sighted fears of financial problems. I think if you're not considering that, you're being quite myopic. And that's just one dynamic to the consequence of this bailout hard-on.

I haven't seen any of Expelled outside of the commercials and have no plans to. I can't imagine being bored enough to actually watch that voluntarily.

Saying they're horny for the end of the world is just like them saying that liberals like to kill unborn babies. They're both rhetorical misrepresentations that polarize your opponent - an utterly stupid tactic when you're trying to change hearts and minds; and pathetic coming from supposed "intellectually enlightened" people who place themselves above the traditional conservative kool-aid drinking religious superstitious. This is what has always rubbed me the wrong way about those who trash religion. For some reason, no one can do it without being an absolute hypocrite. They go on and on about how simple minded and silly it is to believe in god, while they demonstrate an atrocious level of oversimplification and total lack of depth in doing it. Maher suffers what all anti-religios suffer: emotive intellectual destruction. They let their emotions ruin their arguments and piss away opportunity after opportunity to actually make a thoughtful point and disarm the opposition.

That ought to be a sticky, that's funny as hell.

I think I'd rather just hang around the projected landing spot and take the gold off of your dead body.

Actually I had no desire to support Pangloss in this one, I was only concerned with seeming contradiction from you. Your reply is a perfect example of why I respect you, so be an ass, my friend. Lord knows, I feel like I'm being an ass in half of my posts and I'm thankful nobody calls me out on it.

And I would agree with that, to a certain extent. Stops thinking entirely? No. Filtered thinking? Yes. Some things are off limits to re-examine, in any religion, and that's the detriment to society.

Looks like this thread is a little dated, but I'll assume it's still a bit relevant. I love SFN just the way it is. No changes necessary. The staff is cool, the members are interesting, it's great. Of course, this is coming from a guy who could eat hamburger helper for 50 years and never get tired of it. I probably fall in that category of people who won't post if I feel like my question is "stupid". Sometimes I overcome this, as evidenced in the speculations forums. But mostly I just look around the threads and find my answer through someone else's question and reply and leave my actual posting in Politics and General. I'm not a scientist, just an interested observer of scientists and science so I'm glad you all don't mind guys like me on your site... <pause for awkward presumption>. Oh, and I like the blue. This the easiest forum on the eyes, that I've run into.

The thing is, totalitarianism isn't done overnight. I'm not even saying it's a "plan" by anyone - I doubt it's even consciously pondered by those who made the decision, as I believe the Katrina Criticism intent you shared. Just like the North American Union agenda isn't a "conspiracy" or a planned exercise, it's more of a natural progression that some see as eventually ending in this union. Conspiracy nutcases get ahold of these ideas and run like hell. To me, it's akin to the preemptive strike doctrine (maybe not the best example). It's a line we shouldn't cross because the consequences, though decades and perhaps centuries away, are too fatal to take the chance. I don't think we've reached that threshold where not crossing that line ends with a greater consequence. Just like we must afford due process with eradicating gang violence, and can't just arrest every idiot with a gang sign, we must afford the trouble to leave this with the national guard, even if they aren't as qualified at the moment. My two cents anyway. Also, I do appreciate the point about turning the guns in the other directon. It sure is a fine line between protecting us on our own soil, and oppressing us on our own soil in terms of tactic.

I would, though, appreciate a mechanism to allow the school to administer such punishment. There are plenty of forms of humility the teaching staff could use to stop my class clown challenge-everything-your-told teenager, but they all seem to create an escalation of rebellion rather than the cold reality physical dominance provides. It stopped me, and I didn't have to miss any school and I never plotted revenge.

Watched an interesting program on this last night. Some guy had a cardboard cut out of a blob looking object, and a cut out of a star looking object with sharp edges. He asked folks to assign the names "Buma" and "KiKi" to each shape, and overwhelmingly people chose the blob to be Buma and the sharp edged star was Kiki - something like greater than 90%. I too assigned those names with those particular shapes. Not the most impressive example I guess, but I found in fascinating. I can't really explain why Buma sounds dull and..well, blob-like and why Kiki sounds sharp, dagger-like. Very interesting.

I wonder if this is because of the suspicion of bias brought up before the debate. I'm betting she didn't want to appear unfair, even though it would have been perfectly fair to steer her back on subject. They don't even notice, and now it's habit. I grew up pronouncing it that way too - I guess it's fair to make fun of small town southerners in this regard. But it's certainly hilarious to hear it from a presidential candidate. Biden should have enunciated the word with emphasis to score the point without directly coming out and disparaging her with it. I think that would have been a cool way to capitalize off of it. You seem to be blatantly ignoring both context and history, but okay. Clearly I was completely off base by suggesting that Pangloss is far too often too quick to imply ideological bias where none may exist. Clearly, I just wasn't thinking rationally, and you're right to imply that my thoughts are irrational for even suggesting such a thing... Well roll your eyes at me as well then because I'm starting to see why you petulanty decry religion so much, since you seem to have that tendency in yourself. Damn dude, all they're saying is that they're watching for bias since there's a legitimate reason to suspect it. Just like you're watching for lies coming from McCain. Just like I'm watching for anything different at all to come from Obama. But, just like the religiously indoctrinated, you feel your side is impervious to criticism and you're apparently ultra sensitive to the most mild inquiry. Well, I looked for bias too, and I didn't see any. I don't guess Pangloss did either, nor ecoli. So maybe you should repeat that statement, only drop the rolling eyes since it's spot on. You know, I was expecting a more dirty fight. I don't know why. They're both professionals, but I really thought Biden would be rougher with her and really take her to task on her "proximity" based foreign relations experience, the inability to name a recent supreme court decision, what paper she reads...you know, how she's basically a blank slate ready for programming. I still like her on a personal level. She strikes me as quite down to earth and I'll bet she could be interesting to hang out with on the deck, cooking steaks on the grill while the kids play in the yard. I'll bet she can even run the country pretty decent, but "pretty decent" is not what we're paying for - in my mind she isn't appropriate for the job. And if I hear her say "Maverick", "Bipartisan", "ruffled feathers" one more time, I'm going to puke.

Yeah, Biden won, hands down. He was so much more interesting to listen to, and has obvious depth in every subject. He's the only one out of the four that doesn't irritate me with lethargic conversational momentum (not sure if that makes sense...). He spits out what he has to say without so much lag searching his thoughts to put it together. Anyway, Sarah didn't tank like I thought she would and she came out good on a couple of things, in my opinion, but Biden had me rewinding my DVR to catch what he said.

Maybe we're misinterpreting your jests then, because there have been many posts from you that I just shook my head and went on since they were too over-the-top, layer upon layer, one charged tongue-in-cheek poetic phrase after another. Personally, I like your inclusion on these threads because you've demonstrated a strong marxist quality, and that's an interesting extreme to play with. My favorite membership would include extreme right wingers, extreme left wingers, and bunch of poor folks in the middle to yank around.

Wouldn't they know it's a soft poison-stick friendly environment ahead of time? I mean, you wouldn't apply for a job as a tight rope walker and then complain that it's dangerous would you?

Sorry...

If you're referring to this: ...Yes, I did catch this answer, which is why I mentioned "training". It's a good point, but in my opinion not quite good enough not to go through more trouble to get the National Guard trained to do this instead, even if it doesn't add up to the quality the brigade possesses. That in mind, I actually responded a bit too quickly. I have some reading and pondering to do before I start running my mouth off, or my fingers as it may be.

D H, those are human nature things that will never change. That's why I used the dog analogy - we're essentially blaming a dog for being a dog when we accuse salesmen of chasing the bigger profit. They are definitely part of the cause, no doubt. Just not sure how productive it is to pretend like we couldn't see that coming when designing the system to begin with. Again, I blame the regulatory framework for not having the foresight to see the obvious. My wife was a real estate agent for awhile, and while we had previously always suspected the agent's interests could not possibly compliment the buyer's interests, we were validated once she got into the business. She started out getting people what they actually wanted, and was rewarded with lectures on how she's not going to get anywhere financially until she started "acting like a salesman". She wasn't particularly good at the sales angle, so it didn't hurt her feelings too much and redirected her efforts to house flipping, which she is excellent at. The moral being that what we merely suspected, was exactly the case and it's that way by design. Pay people proportional to their sale price and that's what you're going to get. Sure you can blame them for being assholes, but everybody who gets paid directly proportional to the amount of money their sales add up to can be expected to respond to that very temptation. That's why it's built that way. It just blows my mind that we set things up this way, and then act all surprised about choices and judgements that should have been obvious. The other causes? Not nearly so obvious, and so I guess I give them more credit.

Yeah, I don't like this at all. I understand the "training" of these 4700, but that doesn't trump the check that posse comitatus provides. There's a reason for that act, and it's just silly that we'd send the national gaurd to Iraq and send the Army to the homeland. WTF? Sure, I suppose you could make a case on cross training and flexibility, but this is too far in my opinion. This should be the national guard's jurisdiction. I'll be looking for sneaky legislation after the election, when we're looking in the wrong direction.