Pangloss

Incidentally, I was just watching one of the weekend politics shows and they mentioned that Rosie O'Donnell made the claim on her daytime entertainment program that the British sailors were in Iranian waters and implied that this was done deliberately in order to incite war with Iran. She also promulgates 9/11 conspiracy theories on her show, which is broadcast to millions in a daily daytime audience aimed mostly at stay-at-home moms. One of her co-hosts is the much more famous Barbara Walters. Quite embarassing, really.

The last bit of the article with the political angle was interesting, regarding the search for the Higgs boson. Kinda hard to imagine Fermilab would do something like that on purpose, considering what this may cost them in the long run, but I'm sure there will be speculation to that effect around the community.

I'd try it!

Oops. I had a hunch you were going to range too far in your otherwise excellent refutation. You appear to have just used one of the same logical fallacies that you chastised him for using earlier! Anyway, in my opinion thechronic does have a valid point. There's nothing wrong with you pointing out that we don't have an inherent right to harm ourselves. And you were absolutely right to point out the logical flaw in interpreting that as meaning that we shouldn't be allowed to do anything that might harm us. But there is also a legitimate point to be made that that exact same reasoning could push society into an overprotective mode. And the law of unintended consequences also plays a recognized role here (side effects of prohibition and the war on drugs come to mind). You and I (and our friends in the forum here) think these things out carefully and take steps in our reasoning to make sure that we don't cross a certain line. But not everyone is capable of doing that -- in fact most people don't seem to WANT to do so. And history has shown that those who get a little taste of power are notoriously poor at using that kind of careful, thoughtful reasoning. (This is the point I was trying to get at in the other thread about how the "jobs are a right" issue is manipulated and misunderstood.) So I think thechronic has a legitimate point, however inadequately phrased. IMO, the trick is to find a nice balancing point between overprotection and underprotection. This gets back to something that I've harped on before here and I hope people will forgive me for harping on again, which is that if there's one thing we've learned in the last century of political experimency it's that ultimatums never work. It's never one thing or the other. It's the happy medium and the middle ground that win the day and move society forward. That's why I personally don't worry about drug legalization. Or any other single issue, for that matter. Some future society may condemn us for the number of babies we killed or the lack of freedoms we allowed. But I am content in my belief that that future society will not be AROUND to condemn us if they don't learn our most important lesson of all: How to compromise.

Three admins, for sufficiently large values of "three".

Dak I do appreciate the distinction you're making, and respect your opinion on it. I just don't think most of the "jobs are a right" demogogues are making the same distinction. On this we'd probably agree, if I'm reading you right. I just don't think most people want to spend the time considering the issues too carefully. They want the bling-bling (and in fairness many just want to get by and aren't actually concerned about keeping up with the Joneses). What "jobs are a right" means in practice is that companies lay people off because their income is insufficient to maintain payroll and then Jesse Jackson shows up to stage a protest rally, using the phrase "jobs are a right" to mean "this employer had no right to fire these employees under any circumstances". Don't get me wrong -- intelligent and experienced analysts who point out specific tactics used by publically-held corporations to increase profits at the expense of employees may well have perfectly legitimate complaints. But Jackson and his ilk aren't about that. They're about forcing one group of people to do something against their will for no other reason than the fact that it helps another group of people. That is the political reality of the "jobs are a right" issue in this country. I don't just mean that that's how the demogogues see it, either. That is the entire scope of the issue, as known to the public arena at this moment in time. That's how it is presented in the news media, debated by pundits, and understood by the people. The demogogues have completely defined this issue.

An interesting distinction, but one which I don't believe is recognized by the usual "jobs are a right" crowd, unfortunately. The hypocrisy lies in the area of allowing people to do whatever they want "because it's a free country", but then expanding that philosophy to remove rights based on safety concerns and economic issues. Rights have nothing to do with safety concerns or economic issues, and using them on that basis is a bastardization of meaning, and therefore an hypocrisy (or at least a contradiction of meaning for the purposes of political/ideological progress). Saying that jobs (or job "opportunities") are a right is a bit like saying that fair weather is a right. We have some control over the weather, but when we try to exert too much authority it just kinda laughs and does what it wants to do, ignoring us. If we force the issue we end up with unintended consequences (pollution, climate change, etc). Same deal with jobs. Nothing wrong with exerting a little pressure here and there, but it never ceases to amaze me that scientists and engineers can come to the conclusion that jobs should be a right, given their inate understanding of cause and effect. The fact that they do so just underscores the conviction I have that political correctness is rampant amongst scientists and engineers, and has affected their judgement and their work. But I digress. The reason most people won't find an hypocrisy here is because they can make a distinction between what's good for you and what's not good for you. That's fine, so long as you are willing to compromise freedom in that manner. So long as everyone takes their prescribed medications, consumes their prescribed entertainments, and attends their prescribed jobs, everything is fine. All hail the great and glorious state, which in its infinite wisdom has provided me with every freedom that I need, and kept from me the ones which are too dangerous to want.

Fido sez: Not bad! Woof!

I just thought it would be amusing to see if I could catch anyone in a rather obvious hypocrisy, given our current discussion about whether drug use should be legalized.

At one point in Deep Space Nine Captain Sisko mentions something about his having money from a Starfleet salary. I believe this was about the time that he purchased some land on Bajor. They ran into a lot of problems of this nature during DS9. The engineer and the doctor were always drinking pints at the bar as well, and having to pay for time in the holodeck. I think they just decided after Roddenberry died that they weren't going to be bound by that constraint anymore, but they didn't want to outright flaunt the issue.

I was a bit shocked that some British television analysts (according to a story I saw) were criticizing the captives for appearing on television in support of the Iranian government during their captivity. Do they just not realize that that's exactly what captives SHOULD do in that situation -- i.e. anything their captors tell them to do?

I think this has degenerated enough. This thread is on 24-hour closure notice. See if you can work out some final thoughts, and don't forget to kiss and make nicey-nicey.

John Spartan, you are fined five credits for repeated violations of the verbal morality statute.

The drop shadows are a nice touch.

Well one thing is for sure, it'll be a sad day for American libertarians and objectivists if we actually reach a point where Democrats are once again in power, jobs have been declared a right, but taking drugs remains firmly outlawed by popular consensus.

I feel a need to repeat Bettina's comment asking "what dignified history does Iran have". I think that's a legitimate question, and a missive about Persian history is really quite irrelevent. I can give lectures about Ancient Roman history in that region. Want me to talk about the eight legion standards Marcus Licinius Crassus lost (along with his head) to the Iranians, and how they were recovered Tony-Blair-style by Augustus? Does anybody here even know that Iran was once called "Parthia"? Does anyone care? What possible difference could this make? Do people just not realize how appalled a Persian or Parthian would be at the current state of their once-great country? Do people just not realize that this is a country that takes principles of knowledge and science and engineering and twists them for religious and domination purposes in ways that would absolutely floor any westerner were they to happen here? This is a nation that has existed for less than 30 years, after coming to existence through a violent coup. Its history is one of brutal repression, hardcore religious imposition and a singular lack of freedom. It just happens to inhabit a land area that has been civilized for 6,000+ years. That's all. There's nothing dignified or noble about Iran. Not one thing.

What about thalidomide?

That's not an appropriate response, Bombus. Bettina's observations are perfectly valid on the politics this situation. Please be more respectful of other opinions. I agree with your comment that "everyone wins". That includes Iran. They've won a major victory over moderate political forces in that country, which is (in my opinion) what this was actually about. At any rate, I am glad to see that my prediction about this event was proven false. Blair gave the Iranians little more than a few minor face-saving gestures, which in this case were sufficient.

Well perhaps. The real issue is that that's one possibility, and it's a possibility that can be avoided either (a) easily -- be solving the problem now, or (b) expensively -- by solving the problem later.

Let's keep this impersonal, please.

Well, that's another aspect of it, I agree, but that is real debt, so measurements that include those debts would seem to be relevent (real), at least to me. There's something to be said for what that kind of debt says about how comfortable people are with their situation, but in the end it still has to be paid back, and some percentage of it will not be.

Thread closed temporarily pending policy review.

Well again I'm not an expert here, but it's my understanding that the problem lies in two areas. First, the report doesn't show that the average American is spending more than he or she earns. It shows that the cumulative body of Americans is spending more than it earns. That means that by definition this number *must* be less than 100% accurate, because it doesn't include all manner of income that isn't reported as "earnings". (See next point below.) Second, not all incomes are reported as earnings (hehe, did you see that one coming? <grin>). Let's say you own a stock, and it rises in value, and you sell it. That's not income, it's "wealth", and it isn't counted as income. If you spend that money, however, it is very much counted as spending. And remember -- the number is cumulative, for the whole country. Even more revealing, this includes the housing market, which (although this is certainly not the case anymore) exploded over the last decade, causing a vast increase in personal wealth, at the very same time that there was very little change in income. Of course most people don't spend that money if they can help it, but some do, and we've all heard the stories about "real estate churning" -- that goes into the mix as well, on the negative side of the balance sheet. But again, none of the experts I've read say that we're doing WELL in this area. I don't know how they know that, but they're experts and they seem to agree that the numbers don't add up in a positive way -- the consensus is that personal savings is a serious problem in this country. But it appears that the way in which we (or at least the US Dept of Commerce) measure "savings rate" is somewhat flawed or misleading, at least to a small degree. It's not fully indicative of what's actually happening.

I'm not even sure if they measure the same things. Maybe someone can step in here and elucidate for us how these things are measured and tallied.

I was just watching the noon news today while I ate my lunch, and I almost lost that lunch when I heard a local reporter doing a story on the upcoming climate change report, which is due out tomorrow. The station had just done a report on the tsunami and was doing one of those after-story chat things with the local weather girl, and he actually suggested that the recent tsunamis may be the result of global warming. No. Really. Is it just me or are these people actually getting *dumber*?