ParanoiA

SkepticLance... Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that loosened gun control increases suicide rates big time. How is that more important than the fundamental check our political system requires? Freedom isn't free. Why should I put the structure of my entire country's political design in jeopardy because some people want to kill themselves, but they're not sure if they really mean it? That's ridiculous. This is the kind of thing I label as liberal babble. This is exactly the kind of thinking that's always disgusted me. I'm supposed to weaken the entire citizenry to defend themselves for a small pool of weaklings that aren't bright enough to guess that using a gun isn't the best method for attention therapy; that it might not give them a second chance? Cars are a far more frequent tool of accidental death and far more people die in them and are far less necessary than guns. Guns help me protect my home from invaders. Cars are a convenient way to travel and transport goods. I can live without cars long before I can protect my home successfully, consistently without guns. People kill themselves with cars who never meant to kill themselves - let alone meaning to "pretend" to kill themselves. Yet you have no issue with this. Weird. If you want to save people from needless death, there are heaps and mounds of more death from other things than guns. If you're prioritizing accidental suicidal gun death, then clearly you're more concerned with the agenda of gun control / banning than saving human life. I'm more concerned with saving human life that wants to be saved.

Oh, sorry about that. I think he mentioned the "clean coal" thing in the 5 minute version. I watched several of these last night and only tried to link it this morning. I can't watch 'youtube' from work, so I can't fix it until I get home tonight. And your second sentence is exactly what I was wondering about. I have a feeling it's a green name with no real green results. Kind of like natural gas burning "cleaner". Interesting angle there. So we get the crude and then keep it out of the hands of those who would burn it. Kind of reminds me of Ron Paul's historical critique on Lincoln and slavery - that we should have bought the slaves and then set them free. (as opposed to the civil war). It's not a bad plan for the environmentalist agenda.

This is the issue that kind of shocked me the most. I really didn't know China could drill 70 miles off the coast of Florida, while we, presumably, have restricted ourselves from it. I also didn't know we made it illegal to search for oil in some of our oceans. I don't know how extensive that is either. So there's a huge hole in my knowledge here. That in mind, I have to join the chorus that says WTF? We keep ourselves from doing it just so we can turn right around and pay someone else to do it instead? The end environmental damage result is the same - only we ensure that 1) we are damaged as well. 2) that we remain dependent on other countries 3) that we transfer our money to regimes that hate us and give even less of a crap about the environment than our corporations do. So far it seems like we're being naive and absolutely stupid. If the environment and resources are going to be inevitably raped and pillaged, then why not be the rapist and pillager? (that sounded better before I typed it out....) We're not sparing or saving the environment so why abdicate our independence, and help elevate those who hate us also?

This is a three and a half minute video of Newt's 3 way strategy to deal with energy. Well, I'm sure it doesn't belong to Newt, but you get the idea. He mentions we have enough coal to put Saudi Arabia to shame and talks about clean coal. I've never heard of this. Anybody have any info on it?? I found it sobering. The left won't like it because he doesn't believe alternative fuels can do anything in one decade. The right won't like it because he doesn't believe oil is the long term solution and he accepts global warming as an issue to be dealt with. In short, he's for releasing our reserves to punish speculators, drilling and searching for oil in the oceans and investing in Nuclear power for electrical generation (which he believes will initiate the hydrogen model since electrical usage goes down at night while nuclear plants are steady-state producers, leaving a window open for hydrogen production). While it's not exactly what I want to hear, I have to admit it's quite a rational, and realistic point of view. Particularly when you consider that the alternative is to give money to corrupt to regimes that make GWB look like mother Theresa - just to buy the oil being drilled 70 miles off the coast of Florida, or "finder's keeper's" wells in the atlantic. We pass laws to block ourselves from off-shore drilling or searching for oil, then pay China or Venezuela to do the exact same thing, only marked up and circumvented to ensure our dependency. That's really, really stupid on our part.

I know I made a big stink of this in the other thread, witch hunts and all, but immunity wasn't the answer. I hate to see bullshit lawsuites, but I really figured they'd suffer in public opinion while receiving little punishment in fines and so forth. Now we'll never know.

Absolutely. I would be the last person to rationalize around that principle. But it wasn't that straight forward at all. The big telecom companies have no shortage of snappy lawyers, yet they weren't sure they were breaking the law. The executive branch explicitly made the requests and was assured of its legality, so it had the good faith appearance of legal support and the exigency and yeoman nobility to drive it. I'm not advocating to ignore the law. The executive is not a monarchy and their "word" does not carry any legal authority. But the law wasn't exactly clear on the matter and still isn't. Remember, to some of us libertarians, it's not an invasion of privacy at all. That's a private network and privacy gaurantees should come from the telecoms to their customers as a service, not a law. Moreover, I just don't agree with witch hunts. Never have and never will. Witch hunts are usually headed by those that lack the balls to have done anything in an emergency, yet find nobility in the advantage of hindsight. I think it's chicken shit. You can package this with whatever rhetoric you like, but I'm never going to agree to punish people who took the initiative in good faith to the cause of protecting lives during an unprecedented crisis when the laws and consequences were not clear. That's not right. Do you also agree with punishing people who attempt to give CPR but end up killing the person? I think this is definitely that kind of morally twisted question. They knew they were pushing the limits, and they also thought they were doing the right thing and protecting the country from the unthinkable. Now that it's several years later and we're all calmed down - NOW it's time break out the whips and chains. Whatever... For the record, immunity is not the right message. No one should get that. Witch hunt is not the right message either. Currently I'm so averted to the witch hunt mentallity that I'm probably not giving the constitutional jeopardy a fair shake.

Hmmm...doesn't that make him oddly akin to GWB?

"...as long as everyone stays even remotely rational..." is the variable there. I'm not convinced that's the case with religious zealotry. I do not trust indoctrinated sheep, and many can be described in such terms. And I'm not necessarily excluding us. It's still a decent point, but I still don't see the sense in throwing our hands up in the air and restricting ourselves for a defeatist agenda. Go ahead and refrain from developing a missle defense system and China will do it instead. Or Iran. Or North Korea. And what do you think the odds are that they will announce it to the world like we did? Or will they play the game smarter and keep it secret? (We can't do that because we'll cry "conspiracy", or connect some developer with stock in defense company "A"... ) You are right though, it's not necessarily a defensive only weapon, since it enables the offense of our own warheads. But that also doesn't negate the necessity for it. It still matters. It's as important as any other defensive tool. Your original, very well laid out and thought out post does not change the basic requirement for any and all defense.

Yeah, I'm quite sure the initial results on Kevlar weren't too impressive either. Sorry, it's just meaningless. If missle defense were a static condition, then you'd have a point, but as long as humans can build tools and improve them, then none of the "failure" really means anything. Honestly, this thread feels like a room full of gothic teenagers. "Why even try man? Everything sucks. It will never work. Just a bunch of money for corporations." (try the voice of the south park goth kid). I could say the same thing about alternative fuels. No hydrogen cars. Electric cars are super expensive and can't compete with gas. It will never work. They've been trying solar panels for decades and decades and still they can't come anywhere near oil. But we don't say that about alternative fuels because that's stupid. That assumes a static nature with technology. And technology is not static. This is no different. We need to keep trying, full speed ahead, just like every other really cool idea that pushes human enginuity. Don't be a Negative Nancy. Ok, so don't call it a good defense then. Happy now? Seriously though, new stuff always sucks at first. What's new about that? It's easily evaded just like the first submarines were underwater portable graves for the poor suckers inside. Now look at them. I just don't think they should be rolling it out, like it's done. It's anything but done. I'll certainly give you that.

Depends. The standard British form is to leave out the comma before the 'and' whereas the standard American form includes the comma. Yeah, I totally agree your posts on this. I choose to assume that posts with poor spelling and punctuation are by folks that don't use English as their primary language, until proven otherwise. Text speak, though, is disgusting and immediately results in a loss of credibility. (Even though they very well could be a revolutionary genius...I'll take the chance)

Ok, so will he still support the bill even if this provision is not removed? I suspect he will. And I think that's incredibly important. Does he have principles that he will not cross? Or will he reason himself around those sticky concepts? I still don't agree with punishing telecoms for cooperating in good faith with the executive in a time of war. If I thought the telecoms were using good faith as a "front" for malicious behavior, then I'd be all for roasting them up nice. But I don't think it sets a good precedence, in fact I think it perilous actually, to punish retroactively for unprecedented threats and events. Seems to me to be more in the national interest to give reasonable benefit of the doubt to those who cooperate with their government during unforeseen crises. A mistake in judgement is not the same as an exploited opportunity. We may yet find ourselves again, someday, dealing with a crisis our constitution didn't prepare us for, something we should have foreseen, but didn't, and will need folks to step up. They will be far less likely to take initiative in the unprecedented when we have established the history of retroactive punishment. Of course, the best solution is to try them all, in order to find out if there was any malicious behavior - that's imperative to our liberty. The problem, of course, being that there's way too much partisanship and too many agendas and rhetoric to give anyone a fair shake in this. I'm not sure there's a good solution, and I blame it ALL on party politics at our nation's expense.

So why wear kevlar when they can shoot you in the head? Why bother with armor when they can use armor peircing rounds? Why protect yourself with a gas mask when they can set you on fire? We can do this all day long. All defense is good defense. Each defensive method adds to the total defense. That simple. Missle defense is absolutely awesome and necessary. Full speed ahead. Kevlar might appear fairly worthless absent all of the other defensive technologies with it - like tanks, armor and so forth. Missle defense is one kind of defense. Of course there's a hundred ways around it - as is with a tank or any other device outfitted with defensive tools. Nothing new, and we don't rationalize doing away with tanks because they're not 100%. I've not heard a good reason yet not to do this. I just keep hearing "it doesn't work now". Or, "it's a money pit". Hello...uh, I thought human lives were priceless. We should chase every defensive strategy out there and shooting bullets with other bullets does work. We'll just keep getting better and better at it too. I like it when my country blows military money on defensive stuff, rather than offensive stuff. That's more like it. That's exactly what I want to see. I don't know how absurd it is to sink money in it. Gorbachev admitted it broke their back in the arms race. And is it better to sink money into more machines they can use to invade other countries or to sink it in defensive machines? Maybe that's a false dichotomy, but I advocate total military hegemony, only I prefer a defensive focus.

I'm all for missle defense, any and all defense as long as it is actually defense and screw any country that doesn't like it. Would you respect another country's claims against using a scutum? This is as basic as recognized sovereignty. I would, however, much prefer a proven, working system that doesn't require distributing military infrastructure about the globe - that's military expansion, even though it's a defensive tool. It doesn't sound like a smart system to roll out. I have a strong feeling it's more about "perceived" defense. I conject it's about everyone knowing it's there, rather than actually working or relying on it.

Sounds funnier in his voice though.

I don't know why they did it, but I'm glad they did and I hope they keep doing it. As the safety net is removed bubbles may or may not burst, depending on whether or not we learn from those lessons. To ask me why that is better is like asking why freedom is better. You'd get the same result if you oppressed the citizenry and restricted our rights and liberties and then suddenly started removing those restrictions. You'd see people doing stupid things, making really stupid decisions with their new found freedoms as a result from being stifled for so long. Do those consequences make liberation NOT better? Come on. Freedom and liberty is a choice, and of course I'll gladly take the disadvantages associated with it as that's a fundamental choice I make from the very beginning. You just expect checks and balances to never exercise themselves. You also, apparently, don't see your government regulation as an unnatural interference in an otherwise fairly natural market. I'm not saying that there should be no regulation, rather that we recognize that regulation hurts the natural forces of market checks. Instead, we seem to prefer to inject unnatural forces everywhere we can in order to mold the economy like clay - where there are no losers. Where people can take "risk", without the "risk". Sweet. Well, if you're going to do that, then don't ***** foot around about it - control every single dynamic. Because to half-assed control it, yet unregulate it, is to create an unpredictable, cyclic mess of an economy. And that's what we have. An economy full of business cycles formed by unnatural free market forces.

Sure. Similar to Greenspan's argument Pangloss outlined above, I believe it is overregulation in general that creates the "legitimator" role of government. I believe that feeds the notion to the poor, which are generally uneducated as well, that "it wouldn't be legal" if it could hurt them. So they take every "predatory" loan as an opportunity. I can only offer anecdotal evidence, however it is many, many years in the gathering. I have lots of poor friends, and they just don't think deeply about financial matters, which is largely why they are poor. I believe this is a serious problem in this country - the promotion of ignorance in "boring" subject matter - like finances, politics, history and etc. So when you suddenly deregulate something, you're going to see that natural check get exercised. That's what the housing crisis is - the sting that's supposed to marginalize the risky practice of subprime loans. And don't forget the point made by someone here, I don't remember who, I apologize, but there's been a ton of pressure on mortgage companies to give the poor folks a chance to real home ownership and since this isn't a charity drive they must find a way to make money off of people that don't have any. More importantly, people need to stop shrugging at the closing table, start understanding the business they're conducting. I'm amazed at how funny some of them think it is to not know most of what they're signing. This is the most expensive debt they will likely ever live down, and most of them just figuratively nod along with what complete strangers tell them to do - is that not the proverbial wide open barn door?

Damn, I'm on vacation and just couldn't help stopping in... The housing crisis is the perfect example of coddling people along FAR TOO MUCH for FAR TOO LONG and then suddenly freeing them up, only to scratch our heads at how inept they appear to be at these decisions. The housing "crisis" isn't a crisis. It's a freaking lesson. Free market checks and balances by natural forces and when you over-regulate you circumvent that natural structure. These checks and balances will need to be exercised ever now and then when people forget they're there. Just like you have to whip your 3 year old's butt to remind him that it's STILL not okay to pull the curtains down at your neighbor's house. We need more and more deregulation, more and more self responsbility, more and more freedom and liberty. It is a recession of the human condition to invest coersive forces, which is what government is. Needing government is a reality, but our evolution only seems sensible to less and less government and regulation. I see no value in thinking FOR people, let them fall, roll around and get up. Help them, don't do it for them.

yeah, I thought you'd appreciate that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMIEW8Sg4b4&feature=related Since we're sharing...

What I don't understand is why this is always leveled at ourselves and not at the middle east. Like you say, it's common sense. You can't just go around toppling structures that sets records for terror death tolls in people's countries and expect that there will be no repercussions. It goes both ways Rev. It's human nature. Shake your finger at the west all you want, but there's two petulant children fighting here and you're only waving your finger at the rich kid. I guess he's supposed to grin and bear it since he has nice clothes? Yes, I do agree that the middle east is not rational to modern standards and does not merit interaction by the united states. However, I can't get anybody else on board to tell them to **** off. Also, our military presence is justifiably disturbing to them in that region, particularly considering our enthusiasm to interfere. So, I'm kind of torn between the reality that we are behaving as an imperial power and deserve the response we get, and the reality that even if we weren't, they would still treat us with hostility. I don't see any value in dealing with them. It's like insisting the asshole neighbors next door be our friends even though they call us names and hate our guts. I don't agree. I'm probably not the best guy to take your point since I barely agree with the notion of treaties written to last more than one generation. I'm not jumping into the insane inferno that Israel and Palenstine have where the past becomes relevant to the present even though all those people are dead. No, I don't accept that notion that I have to atone for the sins of my father. He can bother with that. I won't. Instead, I will learn from my father's sins, and atone for my own. My children don't answer for me either. Well, in the grand scheme of things how bad is it really? I mean, let's face it, Afghanistan is a mountainous desert of a place to live and the death toll is nothing compared to what they suffered by the Russians. Thought you might appreciate that kind of logic, though it made me sick typing it.

Absolutely. Definitely my all time favorite. Something about his voice...he could say just about anything mundane and make it sound funny. But he was also brilliant, so you add the two together and you have an unbeatable combination. Thank goodness there's plenty of material from over the years to enjoy. I'm convinced he's the best standup ever. He was alright in movies and stuff, but nothing compares to his stand up comedy, to me. Thanks, I haven't heard that material in a while. I always enjoyed the "legally drunk" bit. Too bad I didn't try that when I got arrested for public intoxication.

He's still a moderator here because he's got thicker skin than you, me or most of us on here and he lets you thrash him publicly over and over again for the most pedantic shit. That takes good character to leave those posts up when he could very easily, and very justifiably take them down. Technically, they're offenses. But I happen to know that he goes out of his way to be lax around here with the way we express ourselves and I personally, appreciate it. But it comes with a price. He gets to be pricky also. Sometimes I wonder if you're subconsciously confusing his moderation duties with his right to an opinion. We all practice rhetoric and we're all a bunch of opinionated pricks, yet you seem to have a hard-on for Pangloss about it. I hope this doesn't make you mad, you know I have a lot of respect for you. I agree with you here that he's being flippant and dismissive about someone closer to the administration that the rest of us.

I agree with this, but up to a point. Collateral damage is the despicable nature of war. If you aren't willing to kill babies, then you had better not go to war because you're just about gauranteed to do just that. This is why war is supposed to be terrifying and rare. This is also why many of us take it so seriously we kind of feel like congress ought to at least resemble putting their ass on the line and declare it. But I have to concede that some bombing campaigns were very much terrorism on our part. Carpet bombing militaries that hide amongst their civilians is a polemic issue that will be resolved about the same time we all agree on abortion, but some of this bombing was thinly justifiable. It did appear to be about revenge, and that's not necessarily a pejorative. I'm just a bit humbled to look back and pick out all the mistakes of previous generations, to judge them from my modern perspective, without the context of their exigencies. Particularly when we have learned from those mistakes. After all, we haven't nuked anyone since. We've gone to a lot of trouble to develop laser guided bombs and missles and have cut down on collateral damage quite impressively. The fact we don't really acknowledge that is more a statement of how much we expect from ourselves in this modern age. We've raised the bar.

Really? You think this was an 'activist' decision? Seriously, I can see how you may disagree with the interpretation, but it seems particularly clear after doG's post covering their opinions on the matter that Scalia and company were not advocating interpretation based on the result they'd like to see, but rather based on what they believe the intent of the constitution was. So are you saying they're lying? That really, they just made that shit up and they just want to see guns unrestricted?

You know how to create freedom-fighter/terrorist out of an american war machine? Kill their countrymen, their family or their friends. Both sides are guilty of this. And we're the bigger idiots because we've watched them drag down the west for decades before the war on terror was initiated and still we're going to be right in the middle of this whole stinking mess for decades and decades... But, I think you're taking the sins of the father angle a bit far. We have some measure of responsibility for our past, sure, but punishing our present selves for 60 year old decisions is flat out ridiculous. We need to answer for what we're doing today. That entire paragraph is an exercise in ignorance and should be insulting to any humanitarian. You're going to turn death tolls into a pity competition? What's this we? Don't you live in Canada? What we're mad about is this startling simultaneous attack, on citizens and government, that exploited our liberal way of life and shocked us that we would be hated so much to inspire it. I don't think anyone thought we were "untouchable". They bombed the same building 8 years before, in 1993. The Oklahoma City bombing 6 years before took a whole building out with cowshit. I don't think any of us were feeling "untouchable". We're still freaked. Half of us are following Bush's ridiculous notions that fighting wars over there keeps us from getting attacked here, but half of us, I think actually most of us, are not. I knew before and after 9/11 how easy it can be to terrorize america.