Phi for All

Clever rebuttal' date=' but I didn't say the poor needed the government to take care of them, I said they need the government to take care [i']of their interests[/i]. I'm not talking about welfare or "the dole", I'm talking about a retirement fund that working individuals paid into all their working lives to insure a modest income when they were too old to work. I look at the Social Security system as insurance that society isn't burdened by you when you retire. If the pay as you go system won't remain viable after the next forty years, then another mandatory system should be adopted. But Bush's Thrift Savings Program has major flaws when applied to Social Security. Republicans (who normally favor smaller government) should read this about the TSP. It seems like another neocon attempt to look Republican while simply being huge-government elitist.

I have no objections to people doing all in their power to secure their happiness, within the framework of society. But I see our government as a tool to help maintain cohesion in society, not a tool for those with power and money to get more power and money. A democracy or a republic is created to be of benefit to to its members, all its members, not just the ones with the most money or power. In fact, I see it as a true test of the success of a society if it can take care of it's least powerful members. I'm not sure if many rich and powerful people realize that they need all levels of society in order to even be rich. If everyone had Bill Gates' wealth, we'd all just be average earners. There is nothing wrong with being rich. But we adopted democracy, among other reasons, to end the tyranny of the feudal system and make a more representative government. And while the wealthy have the business savvy to invest their social security money shrewdly, the majority of Americans do not, and I think this will be used against them to the detriment of their retirement. The wealthy have the means to make more money without controlling the government, and the poor need the government to make sure they aren't abused again. It's all they've got.

I apologize if it seems like I was ignoring your post. I had been working on mine while you were working on yours, and then got sidetracked by another thread. There are current inequalities in job discrimination laws. It is not a perfect system by any means. Add in foreign competition that doesn't have to play by our rules and it really gets messed up. Perhaps, instead of some of us defending current circumstances, why don't those of you who are in favor of discrimination in employment for private businesses show us how it would improve things? Coquina, do you have some ideas on how it would help your business?

Are you suggesting that this unifying force called "pressure" is what ties together electromagnetic, gravitational, weak and strong nuclear forces? Does Mark say that EM force is not what holds certain atoms together to form a substance?

Might he be referring to your avatar? I am not receiving the GIF picture in your avatar, it just shows up as a blank called "Stephy's Avatar".

How is my response in this instance an abuse of my "power" as a moderator? I don't usually bring up other threads, it is true. I was not using an argument from that thread in this instance, I was using syntax's debate tactic, saying that as long as it is a law, we can't flout that law. Just because I think a separation of Church and State is laudable it doesn't relate well to violating anti-discrimination laws. I admit I was trying to prod syntax a bit for his use of the tactic in the other thread, and it was supposed to be a bit more good-natured than you're making it out to be. I try to balance his use of smiley's by not using any. Perhaps that is my mistake. Duly noted, and as I respect your opinion as well, I'm sure your disappointment in me will affect my future posts.

You're not alone. Which you proceeded to ignore as soon as they contradicted you. Some. It was an analogy. The library and voice references were analogous to coming to a science forum and proclaiming, "WTF? Everything's energy!" You went from too broad to too specific, I guess. You mentioned a study of past lives and reincarnation but mentioned nothing of a physics nature. Are you tying the two together? I love when science and spirituality overlap. Quoting yourself is like doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. No one dismissed you out of hand, with no explanation, and no one used an anti-Creationism argument. It hasn't disproven it in my mind, at least. Can we start again from here? Are you suggesting that our mental "energy" is released from our material body when we die? Where does that energy go, in your opinion?

The federal anti-discrimination laws usually apply to all public sector employers (government, publicly-held corporations, institutions, etc), and private sector employers of more than 15 people.

Just remember, Bubble Tags are ONLY for the General Discussion forum! (Belch!) Violate that rule and a notice will be sent to your parents instructing them to love you less!

I get the impression you think you are speaking over everyone's head here, Tully. The reason you're getting such uninformative posts is that you are aksing questions that are too broad to get definitive answers, in a thread you started without reading anything else that's already been posted. Please do yourself a favor and use the "Search" and "Search This Forum" tools at the top right and you will find that you are, in essence, walking into a library and asking, in a very loud voice, if they have any books on science.

Oh. Since I was addressing the concept of quotas and companies being forced to hire employees based on a broad spectrum of profiles other than capabilities, I assumed it was tacit that we were discussing large companies. Small companies are "under the radar" except for the most egregious infractions. I have read this part through six times and I fail to understand how it applies to what I posted. You are normally a great deal clearer in your arguments, Cadmus, though you do tend to introduce more red herrings than a canning factory. What does this have to do with whether fair hiring practices are more productive than welfare or prisons?

(Or 4th spatial) To get back to the original question, I have a total guess which allows me to imagine what a dimension I can't access might be like. Start with one dimension and you can move back and forth along an axis. Add a second and you can move in any direction on a plane. Add a third dimension and you can move in any direction you want. Add a fourth spatial dimension and you might be able to move from any one point to any other point in the universe, without the tremendous expenditure of energy it would take in just 3 dimensions. Ready, aim, flame.

I think a big part of the dilemma is that we tend to picture a business owner trying to succeed but being forced by the federal government to hire someone who is not capable of doing the job. This is rarely the case, but it's the one that sticks in our minds. Most people would agree that capability should set the standard when it comes to hiring an employee. But in cases where capability is maximized through experience and performance, how can an employer be certain that his racial, gender, age, national origin or religious preferences will gain him/her the best employee in the long run? I think it is part of the duty of the federal government, as a tool for maintaining order and fairness in our society, to make certain that all members of the workforce are given a decent amount of time to prove themselves on the job. Fair hiring practices are a far cheaper and more productive method of maintaining societal integrity than are the welfare, or worse, the prison system.

Here's some links to some of the federal anti-discrimination laws in the US: http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectID/A12C8632-3538-4497-AFB1D219C6FC732C/111/259/283/ART/ http://fatty.law.cornell.edu/topics/employment_discrimination.html http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html

I think Pseudoscience and Metaphysics is a better place than Biology or GD to get a helpful response.

I say no, since it wouldn't be fair to let employers discriminate if no one else could. Once you open the door to employers, you'd have to let apartment owners rent only to those they wanted to. And retailers shouldn't have to sell to a minority group they didn't feel comfortable with. And since it's a well known fact that the British use more shampoo than anyone else, they should get charged higher rates in hotels. And fat people take longer to eat in restaurants, so they should have to give up their seat to me if I'm thin. You are opening the door to the gaping pit of doom, do you hear me?!

I think it's more like there are no true 2D objects in our world, because even when you draw a seemingly 2D circle on a piece of paper, the pencil line has a very miniscule but measureable height, in addition to width and length. And of course there was the time it took to draw it. 3 spatial, 1 temporal dimension.

I see nothing at the present time that tells me the invasion of Iraq was worth all the lost lives, heightened animosity and billions of dollars that could have solved some of our own problems.

I guess it's always been the wish of wealthy conservatives to dismantle Social Security, since they view it as a compulsory waste of their money. Wealthy people probably could invest their money more wisely; in many cases that's what got them wealthy in the first place. Those same people also feel their tax dollars shouldn't go to help the needy either, since they've never been needy and would never be eligible for many liberal programs. I can even sympathize with them there since I've had opportunities to take advantage of unemployment and didn't out of pride. I feel I can make money without recourse to outside aid. But if I was desperate and my family was in jeopardy, you can bet I'd like a little government assistance. But trying to privatize Social Security (I know Aardvark, this initial reform isn't total privatzation, but that's really what the conservatives want, in the end) begins to look more like a scheme to rake in huge profits from misinformed taxpayers. I read the Cato Journal article by Stuart Butler from the Cato Institute and Peter Germanis from the Heritage Foundation from 1983 outlining a "Leninist Strategy" for reform and I was a bit shocked. They advocate a devious approach to fooling the most savvy, experienced sector of the populace, the elderly who are Social Security's recipients. I see more fear-mongering going on here, because it's been such a successful strategy. And not just lately. That was a quote from a speech by Republican presidential candidate Alf Landon in 1936, and words like it have been spoken by many other conservative leaders since that time.Cato-Heritage excerpt

I imagine it as a spatial dimension which gives perspective to the first three, accessible from anyplace in the universe, but since it's all curled up and hiding in a Calibi-Yau orbifold, we can't properly conceive of it without senses to detect it. I imagine it as a cheap and non-nutritive attempt to calm potentially hysterical passengers.

I think privatizing Social Security is another scheme to help the rich get richer. There are many flaws with Bush's plan, and I'm very leery this will turn out just like deregulation of energy utilities, where service stays the same but costs skyrocket since these new private companies take their profits from the equation. http://www.socsec.org/ http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=503 http://zfacts.com/p/486.html

I have to believe that the US intelligence community knows far more about this situation than they are telling. Since 9/11, the USAF has at least two RC-135 AWAC planes in the region capable of monitoring whether the Sudanese government was sending air strikes against ground targets before Janjawid raids occured. This info would tell us once and for all if Khartoum is involved with the Janjawid. I think the USAF knows but doesn't want to act on the info.