Pangloss

Isn't that your addition to the subject in post #3, though? I see no mention of God in the opening post. I don't think that's really fair to needsimprovement. If he's okay with that, though, that's fine with me.

The problem I have with this discussion is the tacit (and sometimes specific) association of Western development with overpopulation. These are clearly two separate things. If you want to talk about birth rates in the third world, then let's talk about birth rates in the third world, not housing construction in West Virginia, construction in developed nations, or the evils of religion. The United States has a modest birth rate and a massive immigration rate. So if you want to focus this thread on birth rate, fine, but don't go telling me that I'm the problem. I'm not the one cranking out the kids. The irony is that I'm also constantly being told that it's so much more important to save lives in the third world, and cure aids, than it is to fix the political problems down there. It's like I'm being told that life is more important, except when it's MY life (white anglo-saxon protestant semi-prosperous American male*) we're talking about. So what is the subject of this thread, exactly? Sanctity of life, poverty, urban blight, suburban growth, or the ecosphere? *I just realized that acronym would be WASP-SPAM. (rofl)

Ok, just to expand the discussion a bit, this is what Main Street Americans are afraid will happen if this country if the progressive movement is allowed to control our direction for too long. The general sense, right or wrong (I'm just setting the ground work here), is that France has moved so far to the left that it has become an "entitlement society", used to its privileges and unwilling to face the reality that money doesn't grow on trees. When during a recession it becomes time to curtail some of those expensive a bit, they freak out. The fear is that the same thing will happen in the US if people become used to living in a nanny state. Now I deliberately put some Fox News-like phrasing in there just to express it as simply as possible, so please don't freak out on me. (grin) I generally do lean in that direction myself, but I try to take a more pragmatic and open-minded view of things than the above, and I'm posing this as a question for discussion. So there's the meme -- how is it right or wrong? What do you all think?

Moon is.

Good catch. Obviously that would not be a good risk for a brand new iPhone 4!

Well, if we go by the Clinton administration and the 1994 "revolution" as a guide, Clinton was forced to work with Republicans, producing true bipartisanship. The result? A surging economy and budget surplusses. Sounds like a winner to me. (I thought splitting the government between Democrats and Republicans was a good idea even BEFORE 1994.) Well that's not what happened in 1994, but certainly I agree that it could go down that way. In which case the American people will explain to the GOP the error of their ways (again). You're welcome to your opinion (I happen to disagree), but what matters at the moment is that as far as the general public can tell President Obama is NOT a compromiser, and has NOT compromised to a fault. And they're about to tell him so in no uncertain terms. As Obi-Wan might say, this is not the change we were looking for. (waves hand mysteriously, replacing one worthless, obstructionist party with another) Some things, sure, I think that's a fair statement. Like I said, turning out the Dems is a blunt instrument. Sadly it's the only tool in the shed. I agree. And I am increasingly of the opinion that even war would be preferable to giving in to polarizing extremism. It's about time the majority stood up and engaged. The extremes have pushed too hard, too long. And in a couple of weeks we're going to send them a message as well. They won't understand it, but that's okay -- we'll keep explaining it to them until they do, or until we restore enough sanity to stop the damage -- whichever comes first.

Cool stat in the OP. I'm surprised nobody picked up on the fact that that's only ground coverage. Stack people into a 100 story building and now you only need one one-hundredth of a "Texas" to give everyone 1100 feet. Myth indeed. Reminds me of the Bullsh*t episode on the myth of landfills. What is is with ostensibly scientific minds forgetting all about scale?

Interesting -- I'd not heard the word "subventions" before, and had to look it up. Apparently an alternate to the word "subsidy". Thanks!

Obama can't get anything done with the current Congress. And even if you maintain the majority in the House, it would take nothing short of a miracle of Biblical proportions to produce a 60th Senate vote out of this Iraqmire. So in effect you're arguing for the status quo, which we all agree isn't working. Losing Congress could be the best thing that could happen to both Obama and the Democratic Party. As happened in 1994, the upheaval may bring a Democratic president back to the middle, able to work with an opposition Congress to make great things happen and even contribute to Obama's re-election. That all sounds great to me, the independent voter. I'm having a hard time seeing the down side here.

I'm confused by the news stories out of France -- I don't understand why such a broad spectrum of people, including young people, are so concerned about the raising of the retirement age from 60-62(early)/65-67(full). Is this really just a general resistance to any pullback from an entitlement culture, or is it, for example, more of a broad attack on a distant ruling elite that's out of touch on many issues? I thought perhaps our international membership might be able to shed some light on this. Here's a story at the beeb for background: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11570828

Cool idea. These guys attached an iPhone to a balloon, along with a parachute for recovery, turned on the HD camera and let 'er rip. Some insulation and hand-warming wire kept it from freezing for almost the whole trip, and the built-in GPS function allowed them to quickly locate it after landing. One of the neatest DIY projects I've seen lately. Check it out, with video, here: http://www.i4u.com/41078/what-else-can-iphone-4-do-how-about-record-video-space

I'll take 2, 3, 4 and 5, with a side of onions, please! And super-size me! And they are receiving it. The only thing stranger than Democrats trying to blame everything on Republicans is the fact that Democrats don't think anybody knows that Bush and the Republicans rang up a massive debt and deficit. But assuming that Main Street America is unfathomably stupid is hardly new ground for Democrats. To each his own, I guess. THAT I agree with. Interestingly, the majority of federal elected officials are Democrats at the moment. Unfortunately the people have no other way to express their dissatisfaction than to vote against the people they voted for two years ago. It's a blunt instrument for sure, but it's the only one they have. But I wouldn't worry about it. Mark my words: Putting Republicans back in charge in 2010 will be the worst thing that has ever happened to the Republican party. You heard it here first. My favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote (from the intro to Mother Night): "We are what we pretend to be. So we should be careful what we pretend to be."

Great, maybe he'll have better luck at it. How does he plan to stop people from bringing them anyway? Strip searches every five yards around the perimeter? Snipers on top of the National Air and Space Museum might do the trick. That's like asking John Lennon what he would do if war ended -- it's perfectly fine that he hasn't looked past giving peace a chance. It really is. The movement is a cog in the wheel, nothing more. A manifestation of a symptom consistently ignored by the major parties. That's it. And that's awesome. People shouldn't fear it, they should cheer it. My two bits, anyway. --------- Excellent points, IMO. That's the best way to answer the tea party movement, really. Talk about the benefits from regulation. Acknowledge their concerns. Find common ground. Avoid demonizing. That's the way forward here. And Obama will probably "discover" this out right around, oh say two weeks from tomorrow. You're right of course, but surely this is at least part of why President Obama wants to extend the majority of the cuts. I get your point, but the political impact of a complete end to the tax cuts is pretty obvious. You can scream from the rooftops that it's not logical, but it won't matter. Incidentally, this seems a good point to insert something I ran across tonight while prepping a lecture for my game design course. I thought I'd talk to the students about the Myers-Briggs personality test, which I had them all do for homework (they'll be bringing in their 4-letter types and I'll split them into groups for little exercises to show the impact of psychology on game design). There's an interesting little tidbit of information I ran across on a slide that I got from someone at corporate (I have no reference on this) -- it said that in the second bracket, which pits "Intuition" against "Sensing" for decision-making, the breakdown of the adult US population is about 75-25 for "Sensing". It's the largest amount of separation of any of the key pairs. If that's true (and again, I have no source on this -- I just ran across it five minutes ago) then it's pretty staggering and perhaps says a lot about why Americans are so uninterested in following science or a scientific decision-making process to make their decisions. (I really need to dig up a source for this but it's just way too late and I got nothing from a quick google. Please take it with a grain of salt. If I can find a source on it I may start a thread -- seems like something the SFN community would find interesting.) I agree. But I also think the TPM has a valid point in questioning whether current political leadership -- in either party -- is capable of following through on that commitment. (to that whole paragraph) Could be. Vince Vaughn's new movie's trailer was pulled from theaters last week after complaints from special interest groups about the use of that phrase. That those special interest groups were liberal/progressive in their general bent is pretty obvious. Though I suppose it could have been the Log Cabin Republicans who complained. Good discussion -- please don't take the brevity of this reply as ignoring the rest of your post. It was really well done.

Heh, yeah, that's what Glenn Beck tried, with some success. What I don't understand is why you would think that the Stewart rally would be better, based (from what I can tell) on some nebulous feeling that liberals are more sensible than conservatives. I think your faith is misplaced, but I will admit that perhaps it's my faith in main street conservatives that is misplaced. IMO it's more like one group says "I want to fly" and the other group is throwing great, heaping gobs of money with only the barest hint that it might cause the airplane to fly. They have theories but none of them are proven, and so far the best they can say is that it hasn't run into the trees off the end of the runway. Yet. -------- Any people who believe that the government is a better source for decision-making that private individuals or industries. Europeans, for example, apparently. Has he? Doesn't matter. He and his party are in charge. If they allow the tax cuts for all voters to expire, they are the ones who are going to pay the price. This is not illogical or unreasonable, and were the shoe on the other foot the left would be saying the same thing that the right is saying now. Raising the deficit and debt is budget neutral? Okay, in fairness I agree that is the plan, but I don't think that plan is realistic and I don't think it will happen. And I'm hardly the only one who thinks so. I think I've just shown (above) the opposition rhetoric to be pretty coherent and even logical. Is it CORRECT? Who knows -- it's not demonstrably correct, but then it's not demonstrably wrong either. Therein lies the problem. Fair enough, I think questioning their plan is a valid point in opposition to the tea party movement. But I don't think their points are meaningless drivel, I think they're raising reasonable challenges that frankly nobody can answer, even with the best data and intentions. Because the actions of the Democrats (and Republicans during the Bush years) don't reflect an actual desire for smaller government. Their actions reflect a desire for bigger, more expensive, more intrusive government. I think that's a reasonable point in challenge as well. I don't think they happened as a deliberate act in composition of the movement, I think it happened because social conservatives lost their voice when John McCain was elected and those who didn't disengage completely (e.g. Focus on the Family) were looking around for a new outlet. But watch: If tea party conservatives come to power in November, and act like they have a mandate for social conservatism, they will quickly find that, just as happened under Bush, that's really not what the people want. And their turning-out will be even swifter than the one Democrats received when they thought they were given a progressive mandate. No. I think the polls show an increasingly socially moderate nation. But mind you there's absolutely nothign in those polls to suggest a socially progressive mandate either. IMO most Americans don't like being handed Kool-Aid and forced to drink it. By either conservatives or progressives. What they want is to be left alone to raise their kids and consume entertainments as they see fit. They don't want to be told they have to go to church on Sunday any more than they want to be told that they can no longer say "that's so gay" without being chastised (thank you, Vince F'ing Vaughn). A perfectly reasonable concern, IMO. I have that problem right now, following the candidacy of Marco Rubio for Florida senate. I *will not* vote for the far left Kendrick Meek, and Charlie Crist seems increasingly... (thanks for the word) unfocused. But Rubio, for all his talk about smaller government, is apparently in bed with the religious right. It's a problem for me as a voter. An interesting point. I think there's a lot to what you're saying there. Unfortunately all Democrats are doing right now is blaming Republicans. They seem convinced that main street America is too stupid to understand that Republicans were building the deficit and debt too. They're wrong -- main street America knows that fact all too well. IMO Democrats aren't scoring any points with that message, and it's actually *hurting* them. But if you watch the news, it's all about how Democrats have failed to inform the American people that Republicans are to blame. It's unnerving to see such an obvious disconnect on such a widespread scale. Yet it seems to happen more and more often with both parties. It's a good point. I do wonder sometimes if "taking it down a notch" is actually going to matter anymore, or if we've actually moved past that point. I don't mean to suggest a violent future, I just wonder if the concept Stewart's chasing has simply been obviated by the new political landscape. I think it's possible that the majority of Americans have already graduated from the school of insanity and are currently working on doctoral studies in serious political engagement. If that's true it may be there we're poised on the bring of political upheaval in the form of a new alignment of the parties or the creation of new parties. And it may happen so suddenly, and through such unexpected and unpredictable forms of communication, that even Jon Stewart won't know what to make of it. There has been a lot of talk recently of a kind of "political singularity" in our future. But it's all just speculation, of course. Lol, okay, that's getting nailed all right. --------------- Nothing about their response to those questions suggest racism or bigotry to me. I support gay marriage, but I don't buy the argument that opponents must be bigoted. There argument may not make a lot of logical sense, but that's simply an educational question. They've convinced themselves that it's perfectly acceptable to define marriage as male-female only, and that bestiality and pedophilia will immediately result from allowing gay marriage. But coming from having that same concern myself, in spite of having gay friends, I can tell you with some assurance that while it's dumb, it's not anti-gay bigotry.

I don't know why you'd think that, because the anti-Beck, anti-Palin and anti-tea-party signs are just as ugly and awful as the ones used by the crazier tea party attendees. Would you like me to ? (I liked "Hey teabaggers, don't defacate on the dream!" in that vid, though I suppose "Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are RACIST" makes the point better.) And there's that liberals-are-less-crazy-than-conservatives thing cropping up again. It's almost as if folks here wear blinders when it comes to Air America, MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, the NAACP, etc. Well just to find some common ground here, it sounds like you agree that the Democrats and Republicans also have the same lack of focus. Fair enough. I don't agree with your conclusion, but I do agree that both of the existing parties are certainly struggling to find their way in recent decades. I do think tea party members have more common ground than a hatred for Obama. And again I think your attempts to spin the data are inappropriate, and the researcher herself does not agree with your interpretation. Telling us that 25% is more than double 10%, while explicitly not saying that it's 25%, is spin. And if you combine it with a very large pool of unrelated numbers in order to make it look bad then you are just plain doing it wrong. ------- First, IMO their argument isn't incoherent, it's actually pretty clear: Smaller government, less taxes. Second, the reason it's undermining the Republican party (which is a good thing, IMO) because the Republican Party (like the Democratic Party) is not representative of the will of the majority of the American people. IMO, right now the tea party movement represents the majority better than either political party. And yes, that's admirable. It's admirable because I happen to have faith in the majority. I believe they're sensible, hard-working, and have a strong common sense. And I think the fact that so many left-of-center leaners today think otherwise is a reflection on the media and it's use of straw men as an educational tool. If they can't show us how Jane Doe, a single working mother of three, is being hurt by some issue, they don't think the issue is important. And I think they've convinced a couple of generations of liberals that they're right. Well they're NOT right, and they're not the majority, and the majority is in the process of explaining that fact to them. If the left is as smart as it thinks it is it'll take notes, because November is just the mid-term. The final exam is in 2012. I understand fear of mob mentality. I understand the dangers of lack of intelligence and education. But those things were present when the country was founded, too, and the result turned out pretty darn good. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that Maher pinned her down on what services she'd cut (as Colbert did with a different tea party leader last week), going on to suggest that everyone loves to say 'cut services' until it comes down to specifics. It's a valid question and I agree the tea party isn't very good at answering that question. But I think the fact that they struggle with that question is actually a positive sign -- it flies directly in the face of your assertion above that they'd "pull the plug". Look at Scott Brown -- I recognize that he lost their support at the first sign of compromise with Harry Reid, but he's still a product of that movement and yet he's actually all about compromise and common ground. I don't think the tea party candidates will force us into some sort of pure-capitalism nightmare. What I think their influence will produce is more recognition for the benefits of smaller government, and allowing that to be a bigger influence on budgets and spending than it has been (from EITHER party) in recent years. That's it. That's really all there is to it. My two bits, anyway.

Nice obit at the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/science-obituaries/8069558/Benoit-Mandelbrot.html "Benoit Mandelbrot, who died on October 14 aged 85, was largely responsible for developing the discipline of fractal geometry – the study of rough or fragmented geometric shapes or processes that have similar properties at all levels of magnification or across all times. "Before Mandelbrot, mathematicians believed that most of the patterns of nature were far too complex, irregular, fragmented and amorphous to be described mathematically. Euclidian geometry was concerned with abstract perfection almost non-existent in the real world. Mandelbrot's achievement was to conceive and develop a way of describing mathematically the most amorphous natural forms – such as the shape of clouds, mountains, coastlines or trees – and measuring them. His work has become the foundation of Chaos theory – the mathematics of non-linear, dynamic systems. "In the 1960s Mandelbrot, a research fellow with IBM, began a mathematical analysis of electronic "noise" which was sometimes interfering with IBM electronic transmissions, causing errors. Although the nature of these errors was not understood, IBM scientists noted that the blips occurred in clusters; a period of no errors would be followed by a period with many."

I'm not sure what we're being asked to comment on here.

It's pretty hard for me to imagine Christine O'Donnell being "in charge" of her own campaign finances, much less an entire grass-roots movement. Glenn Beck is certainly in charge of something, but I'm not sure even he's figured out what that is yet. Gold bullion sales, perhaps. But seriously, I get what you're saying, but if any of these three are formally in charge of any tea party organizations, I'm not aware of it. I think they glommed on to the idea of a grass-roots, mainly-conservative movement, and managed to push enough hot buttons with the majority of the members' opinions to end up being perceived as some sort of moral compass for the movement on some level. But I don't really see a problem with this. Everyone always thinks that people who don't agree with them are being led by the nose and automatically believe everything they're told by partisan demagogues. I don't think it's that simple. There's a reason the red states aren't purely red, but more a shade of purple. If the media stopped using tiny minorities as straw men to marginalize broad groups of people, then we also wouldn't have the problem of people like Beck, Palin, etc, being able to position themselves (or be perceived) as leaders. ------------ I'm going back to your earlier definition, "Anti-G8/911-conspiracy/NWO protesters", which is a bit wider and will make my following point more clear. On the individual level I have no beef with any "Anti-G8/911-conspiracy/NWO protester" per se. If people follow that path to political awareness, more power to them. Fine by me. The reason that I, personally, don't elevate that group, but do elevate the tea party movement to the level of "awesome" is that the tea party movement appears to consist of common, working adults. The silent, previously-unengaged majority who represent the real, hard-working, freedom-loving, open-minded but usually-too-busy-to-be-politically-aware America. As opposed to childish, single-issue barn burners and tree spikers incapable of anything other than hate. "Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." - Alfred In fact, I believe these are the same sort of people who will be attending Jon Stewart's rally. (Edit: I meant to say people like those who join the tea party movement, not crazy tree spikers!) Which is not to say that Stewart's attendees will be tea party members -- what I'm saying is that they'll have much the same sentiments and beliefs. The only difference is that the Stewart rally attendees will be a little left of center instead of a little right of center. ------------- The problem I had with your previous statement is that you combined smaller categories into much larger categories in order to suggest conclusions based on only the smaller categories. I didn't think that was appropriate. I have no problem with you focusing on the 25% anger-related signs and drawing a different conclusion from I regarding what that means. But here's another interpretation of the anger: It's a reaction in response to the President taking position after position that is other than their own positions. Is that lack of focus, or simply the gradual building of a personal opposition to a candidate? I don't see "unfocus" here in general, either. I see diversity in opinions, and I might even agree that there's a lack of consistency in what to do about each issue amongst the members. This is probably true of any sufficiently large political group, including both the Democratic and Republican Parties, which are called "big tents" for a reason. As for "crazies", the only data pertaining to something that you and I both might agree to categorize this way would be the 5% who "mentioned the president's race or religion", and/or the 1% who "questioned his American citizenship". At the outside that's 6%. Leaving 94% not demonstrated here to be either crazy or unfocused.

I don't know that they are.

I don't know how suspicious they could really be since they're participating in it. Cheap labor is the very thing that's bringing their citizens out of the stone age and into the 21st century. That doesn't necessarily mean no safety laws, or even unfair wages. And it doesn't mean they have to be paid $40/hour, free health care and two months paid vacation per year. Fair wage is clearly a politicized term, and very much a reflection on local cost of living. One problem comes when they get part way there and then the labor market moves to a more backward nation. But if the tweeners are smart and have been building their economy, perhaps they can make the same shift to service that we have. Still not seeing a problem.

I don't think that's what they are. I think that's what a fringe group on the periphery of the tea party movement are. And this study supports my opinion. Of course it's just one study, and as I said above, your mileage may vary, check your local listings, offer void where prohibited, not valid with any other coupon.

Because they're engaged, they're focused on key issues, and they're not distracted by bigotry, etc.

You just did the same thing that the researcher points out that the media has been doing. You lumped the highly objectionable word "race" (and statistically insignificant citizenship signs) together with a bunch of perfectly reasonable objections in order to associate perfectly reasonable objections with highly objectionable ones. IMO that kind of thing is why we're in this mess today. As far as opinions go, I think what we should be cheering here is the fact that it's not a lot worse. Look at how far Americans have come in terms of engaging on the most important aspects of the central issues of the day, and avoiding the traps and pitfalls of past discourse. These tea partiers aren't pathetic, they're awesome. The one bright spot on a bleak and desolate landscape. If they are being fringed and mis-associated, it's not because of them, it's because we Americans cannot celebrate anything good anymore without 50% of us deciding that it's actually bad.

I have a conservative friend who has taken to calling Obama a "liar" because he didn't live up to what he perceives as a campaign promise not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250k/yr. There's so much room for interpretation there that it doesn't even pass the stink test for proof of deception, but that's how he feels. I respect opinions, and I just ignore this stuff coming out of him out of friendship, but it seems clear to me that he has no idea that he's doing exactly the same thing that he ranted about "the liberals" doing to Bush. Around and around and around we go, where it stops nobody knows. Point being just that human nature is a random (or limited-predictable) variable. A small percentage of attendees at any rally will be doing something stupid, and I'm sure it will be no different at Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity". There will be some lesser pinhead there waving a banner that says "I'm pretty sure Bush is still an idiot" (tying a Stewart-ism with something Stewart would never say), and a whole plethora of greater pinheads ranging from marijuana fans to marxists.