Pangloss

I believe I read somewhere recently that something like 10 million children have been adopted into gay families.

Let's try this question another way: Since we know for a fact that spending money on the problem hasn't worked, because this country has spent more money on the poor and on entitlements in general in one year than Iraq will cost us in ten, and "poverty" (defined as people who own older cars and own homes that aren't quite as nice as others) still exists, what exactly should be done about this problem? Some further evidence that spending is out of hand and solving nothing exists in the budget, reported by the Congressional Budget Office: http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0 Year Mandatory Discretionary % GDP $B % GDP $B 1964 6.1 39 12.3 79 (67% of spending) 1968 6.9 60 13.6 118 1972 8.6 101 10.9 123 1976 10.9 190 10.1 176 1980 10.7 291 10.1 276 (49% of spending) 1984 10.5 406 9.9 379 1988 10.1 505 9.3 464 1992 11.5 716 8.6 534 1996 11.2 859 6.9 532 2000 10.6 1030 6.3 615 2004 11.6 1346 7.7 895 (40% of spending) In absolute terms, entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, any kind of "welfare") have grown by 3451%, or 12.5% per year, while discretionary spending (everything else, including Defense has grown 1133%, or 8.4% per year. Those figures don't include the interest on the debt. Hint, hint.

But as was pointed out in the Census Bureau statistics: - They are getting health care - They are making enough to meet basic family needs - They can buy entertainment appliances and other luxuries So why do you feel that the unemployment and part-time employment numbers of a tiny percentage of the population are more important than the above information? Put another way, if there are people starving out there, I can understand why they need my help. If their problem is not that they're starving, but rather than they aren't "keeping up with the Jonses", then I don't understand why money needs to be removed from my pocket at the point of a gun just to buy the "poor" a BMW instead of a 5-year-old Ford. Be honest: Is it the poor that concern you, or the fact that some people in this country earn more than others? Are you really concerned about employment, or the fact that jobs are earned rather than taken from one group at the point of a gun and handed to another?

Now that's an interesting way to put it. Why do you think those statistics are more important than the other ones we discussed earlier in the thread?

Quoth the SFN raven, Nevermore!

So your point is... what... that the picture is more mixed than the Census statistics suggest? I have no problem with that. Nobody is suggesting that two televisions and two cars equates to the same standard of living as anybody else. The point of the Census statistics is that it's misleading to say that every such person is "living below the poverty line". By all means, point out the weaknesses in the current economy. But you realize that every time you do that, every time you focus on those kinds of small-percentage problem areas, you're admitting that the vast majority of it is not only successful, but growing and even thriving. I didn't realize you were such a Bush fanboy! ;-> But sure, IMO that's a reasonable answer to the question of this thread, just as Bud's posts were.

"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power." "If George Bush truly listened to God and read the words of the Christ, Iraq and the devastation in New Orleans would have never happened." Who said it? You guessed it. Cindy Sheehan. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-sheehan/a-bright-spot-in-bush-wor_b_7433.html I guess that's, what, the fall-back position when the "we don't have any troops to send because they're all in Iraq" argument falls flat on its face?

That's your belief, and you're entitled to it. I recognize a lot of truth in what you're saying myself. The position of the American government, however, is that democritisation is necessary. Put another way, liberal (freedom-oriented) governance is not possible without democracy.

In fact the 9th ciruit didn't rule on constitutionality at all, if I remember correctly. They simply decided that the "under god" phrase was illegal due to a 2002 9th Circuit decision which was (pointedly) not overruled by the US Supreme Court (because the plaintiff lacked legal standing). In a sense, it basically amounts to a process ruling. Subject to a certain degree of interpretation, the judge can be said to have had no real choice in the matter, and this is just part of the process of sending the issue back to the Supreme Court. That process was initiated by the original plaintiff (Newdow) finding three other students and representing them as their lawyer instead of a litigant. Put another way, we've been unable to resolve this issue as a society to everyone's satisfaction. A legal position exists which is not acceptable to all citizens, and so we're going through a process by which the disatisfied citizens are following the last legal recourse available to them. The reason I put it that way is that it's important to place that contextual framework around any decision that the SCOTUS finally makes. They're not lawmakers. Any radical changes they cause to happen can ultimately be viewed as a failure by the other branches of government to come up with acceptable answers within the confines of their constitutional powers. In other words, if Congress passes a law that is clearly unconstitutional, the judicial branch has no choice but to reject it. That's a failure not of the judicial branch, but of the legislative one. Whether that is the case here is a matter of interpretation.

That crying indian spooked me good growing up.... (hehe)

You folks realize, don't you, that the very most radical change anyone can expect here is that the words "under God" will be removed from the Pledge, and that's all?

Well first of all, let's be clear about something: You can talk about wanting other countries to achieve freedom and democracy without meaning that those countries need to be conquered militarily. And anybody who knows Rice's history should know that she's a moderating force (like Colin Powell), not a war hawk. Reading between the lines is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's still reading between the lines. That aside, I have no problem with the issue you're raising in general, and I think you make some interesting points. This is something that I raised in 2003 as a political specter that would back to haunt us if we went into Iraq without the general consensus of the international community.

Yeah, he's being a jerk. I will say this, though: Why is it that that very same behavior is acceptable and even common practice when it's done in movie theaters?

Did you actually read this thread, Bascule, or just pop in to drop an ideological epithet and run away? Because what you just said is exactly the opposite of what the statistics posted above indicate. I have no doubt that there are people out there who need our help. But straw man arguments like that do not constitute a debate. A couple of guys standing on a streetcorner is not an "indication of a homeless problem in America".

I defended Carter against Reagan fans in a high school debate. Only thing I really remember was saying "He's just an actor!" and my opponents saying "Give him a chance!" (hehe) My worst vote was for Walter Mondale in, I believe, 1984. My excuse is that I was heavily influenced by my fellow college students at the time. That was my first presidential. IIRC, I voted for Bush in '88, Clinton in '92, Dole in '96, Bush in '00 and Kerry in '04. (Hmm, I think I'm spotting a trend here.) I also voted for Newt Gingrich (twice). He was my representative to Congress at several points in time when I was living in various places around Atlanta. But that was in the 1980s, long before he skewed right and made the political alliances that lead to him becoming Speaker. My votes for Newt were primarily based on the fact that he had showed up at a science fiction convention in 1984 that I attended, and sat on a fascinating panel on space exploration with Larry Niven. (No, really.)

I'm not real sympathetic to someone who loses a house over a single lost paycheck when the house in question is full of modern electronics for entertainment and convenience. They should have thought about that before whipping out the Visa at Best Buy. We've all had to eat Mac & Cheese at some point in our lives. You eat it and you move on. The sad thing is that the "poverty line" is so politically spun that we now have no idea how many Americans SERIOUSLY need our help, but we have an EXACT FIGURE on the number of households with two televisions, overweight children, and parents who can't seem to keep their jobs!

Yowsa, that's some set of stats in that article. All taken from the Census Bureau, it says. Man, those poor people. We clearly aren't throwing enough money at this problem.

My opinion is that our republic (speak of my country at the moment, the U.S.) is strong enough to endure "educational voting". And who amongst us who is of a reasonably mature age hasn't miscast their vote once or twice?

I have a word of caution to throw out here. These things were a great idea back when processors cranked out a dozen watts or so. But today's chips can easily crank out ten times that amount. With the rising price of energy you really have to pause and think about that electrical bill. A lot of folks don't realize how much power these newer CPUs actually consume. Would you be surprised if I told you that it's possible to spend $300+ per year on Folding without even realizing it? I don't mean to be a downer, but do you really want to spend $20-30/month helping some scientist score a Nobel Prize, for which you get nothing? I think the problem is that people see their computers as "sitting idle", and think that they're contributing something that they're not using. The computer is going to run its cycles anyway, so you might as well "donate" those "free cycles" to a worthy cause, right? But computers just don't work that way. When the CPU is idle it's not really using any power. Doing work consumes power. And you have to pay for that power. But hey, if that's what folks want to do, more power to 'em. It sounds like fun and I hope you get a lot of participation. I just think people need to remember the old TANSTAAFL rule. (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.)

Generally speaking I'm loathe to quote Bill O'Reilly, because he does tend to be a partisan, especially when it comes to the President. But he does make an effort to be objective, and most of the time that comes through pretty well. His biggest flaw really is that he's a populist, and forgets sometimes that we do have laws for a reason. (chuckle) Anyway, he made a point this week that I thought was interesting and perhaps worthy of further discussion. In 1996 (mid-Clinton) the budget allocated $191 billion specifically for poverty-related entitlements. In 2006 the projected budget will allocate a record $368 billion specifically for povery-related entitlements. (That's about twice what we have spent in Iraq since 2003, and about the same as what we spent on the military at the end of the Clinton administration.) In 1996, the poverty rate was 13.7%. In 2004, the povery rate was 12.7%. Now, mind you, these statistics come from Bill O'Reilly and his "crack research staff" (to steal one of David Letterman's favorite lines). I don't know if these numbers are accurate, or where they come from. Sources were not cited in the show, nor in the online version of the story, which may be found here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169347,00.html So if anybody has a problem with the numbers I'll be happy to try and dig deeper and see if they're bunk. But if they're true then I think it underscores the discussion we've been having in this country about whether or not the poor are being neglected. As I mentioned in another thread the other day, George Will's column this week claimed that we've spend $6.6 trillion fighting poverty since 1964. It's almost as if we're doing anything BUT ignore poverty. Thoughts?

Some of you may recall that the reason this issue is up again is because the Supreme Court basically dodged the issue, sending it back to the lower courts because they felt that the litigant lacked standing (because he's not his daughter's legal guardian). I still haven't heard how that aspect of the case was resolved, but this will surely come before the Supremes again, possibly in the coming term. My gut instinct is that it will be upheld in spite of the conservative bent of the court (i.e. the traditional reciting of the Pledge will become illegal). But I'm not a good predicter of such things.

Excellent movie. And a reasonable adaptation of an excellent, thought-provoking book by Carl Sagan. The book goes even further into the philosophical questions, and has an interesting twist at the end. (Which should not be revealed here!)

I think that's an interesting point. The general consensus these days is that it's the Democrats (as exemplified by John Kerry) who are standoffish and removed from "mainstream" America. But there is most definitely a conservative side to that coin. Perhaps another indicator that such stereotypes are never as useful as they seem came out a couple of days ago in the form of a study from Columbia University about the importance of the "family dinner" on a child's development, ability to score good grades, and not get into trouble*. Columbia, of course, is the home of the much feared and loathed Columbia School of Journalism, oft cited as a power base of liberalism by the far right, and yet here they are doing a study that supports families and traditional values. All of which, in my view, just underscores the important of keeping an open mind. * http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Health/story?id=1123055&page=1