Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on September 18, 2009, 11:54:07 am
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I am displeased with this. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/politics/23detain.html?_r=1)
There's a reason the approval rating of any president is expected to drop sharply with time: they can't please everyone, and displeasure is a lot louder than contentment. Nonetheless, I dislike this move.
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I am displeased with this. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/politics/23detain.html?_r=1)
There's a reason the approval rating of any president is expected to drop sharply with time: they can't please everyone, and displeasure is a lot louder than contentment. Nonetheless, I dislike this move.
No didn't you vote for "a change" and "yes we can"?
Both indefinite ideas with no real substance?
"Yes we can!" do what?
So Obama is moving quantanamo out of legal limbo and now wants to create a legal framework for it to be possible. Wow, great change.
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People voted for Obama not really knowing what they were doing. He's not a revolutionary, he's like any modern politician, a slightly different shade of grey. In the past there might have been (bigger) differences between parties and candidates but not anymoar.
Still better than Sarah Palin.
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I am displeased with this. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/politics/23detain.html?_r=1)
There's a reason the approval rating of any president is expected to drop sharply with time: they can't please everyone, and displeasure is a lot louder than contentment. Nonetheless, I dislike this move.
No didn't you vote for "a change" and "yes we can"?
Both indefinite ideas with no real substance?
"Yes we can!" do what?
So Obama is moving quantanamo out of legal limbo and now wants to create a legal framework for it to be possible. Wow, great change.
**** no. I voted for his policies, which I studied in detail, and many of which he has carried out to my satisfaction.
It amazes me that people are so simple that they can't understand that politicians are not 'good' or 'evil', and that people don't have to be die-hard supporters or loathsome opponents. You can be pleased with some decisions and displeased with others. :rolleyes: It's like you grew up in the Old Testament or something. And god forbid people actually elect a president they like.
You vote for a platform. Some planks of that platform are carried out. Others, inevitably, aren't. Obama was definitely the best choice, and given our system of checks and balances, there likely couldn't be a better one: any president is by nature limited in his powers and can only do so much.
People voted for Obama not really knowing what they were doing. He's not a revolutionary, he's like any modern politician, a slightly different shade of grey. In the past there might have been differences between parties and candidates but not anymoar.
Source please? Historical text to back up your latter statement?
What a stupid statement. Things are no different today than they ever have been, except that politicians are on average far more trustworthy.
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But some proponents of an indefinite detention system argue that Guantánamo’s remaining 240 detainees include cold-blooded jihadists and perhaps some so warped by their experience in custody that no president would be willing to free them. And among them, the proponents say, are some who cannot be tried, in part for lack of evidence or because of tainted evidence.
So we detain them forever?! That's the opposite of our legal system. >.<
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So we detain them forever?! That's the opposite of our legal system. >.<
To be honest, in the act of creating Gitmo we ensured that we would have to hold most of its inmates forever, because they will turn on us if we free them. This was a very predictable consequence, unfortunately.
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We should never have held people illegally in the first place. The least we can do is stop kidnapping people we don't have evidence against.
I wonder how reparations would go down. Probably not at all. We barely threw the Japanese-Americans we kidnapped and imprisoned a bone either.
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It amazes me that people are so simple that they can't understand that politicians are not 'good' or 'evil', and that people don't have to be die-hard supporters or loathsome opponents. You can be pleased with some decisions and displeased with others. :rolleyes: It's like you grew up in the Old Testament or something. And god forbid people actually elect a president they like.
I don't think he's evil. I just don't trust him. He's too much of a smooth talker. Nothing comes out of his mouth that isn't shaped and moulded for the viewer's ear. I'd rather have a bumbling politician, at least then you know he's honest.
Though mind you I'm not American anyway. But coming from Canada we hear about America all the time . . .
Oh I did hear a few honest words come out of Obama's mouth: "he's a jackass" (in reference to Kanye West)
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You can't please everybody. I'd rather have an intelligent, articulate man than another Bush.
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I think "indefinite detention" will turn out to have been a very bad idea. Now, we're stuck with a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario: keep holding them without charging them (which goes against some of the foundational protections of the legal system) or turn them loose to kill Americans?
On the balance, I think I'd rather turn them loose. Letting the government hold people indefinitely without giving them a day in court sets very scary precedents that I'd rather have as few of as possible.
If we're so terrified of the terrorists that we can't bring them to court, then they've won anyway.
[notserious]
There is, I suppose, another option. Let them challenge an American of their choice to mortal single combat!
[/notserious]
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Concur.
And yeah, they could totally hold a Trial of Grievance against the US government. Of course, the challenge-ee gets to pick the weapons used.
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Maybe, but we'd have to restrict to melee weapons only.
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am English and therefore have no interest / bearing on this topic :)
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am English and therefore have no interest / bearing on this topic :)
What's it like, living in the free world?
Seriously, though, this is one area where Barrack Obama has proven frighteningly disappointing. George W. Bush and the Republican Congress established the power to have the feds snatch someone off the street, detain him/her indefinately, and if he/she is lucky enough to get a trial date, the detainee can't mount a legal defense, as the prosecutor can withhold evidence from the accused on the basis of it being a "state secret." The only thing the new Congress and administration have done to change this blatant breach of civil liberties is to propose a change of the location where these people will be held. It's heinous and about the most unamerican policy I've ever seen enacted, but I suppose I'm going to be waiting an awfully long time before leadership emerges with the wisdom to reverse this course. Power is attractive, and once acquired is rarely renounced.
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I I'd rather have a bumbling politician, at least then you know he's honest.
So that's how Boris Johnson became mayor of London. :lol:
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He doesn't personify London..................................
Much :nervous:
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See, I was so happy when he closed down Guantanamo and now...
I am disappoint
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Can't we just, like, throw open the gate, let them walk out, and get the realistic equivalent of Sam Fisher to pick them off one by one as they do? We don't look like baddies for subverting the Constitution, they won't go off into the world and plot attacks against us, and no one is the wiser. :p
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I want them let go but I also know that they don't know anything about the US except for how they were treated in Guantanamo. Then again. we did stick them in Guantanamo so maybe their suppositions are entirely correct.
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How 'bout we just TRY them? I mean really, conviction or GTFO, and none of this BS about indefinite incarceration.
Though I do like that Trial of Grievance idea.
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Not sure why ye hearties are gettin' upset now anyway, this 'ere were bein' news like 2 months ago when he announced it in whatever room holds yer constitution.
EDIT - oh sorry, 4 months ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbslm1h8xjI (May 21st)
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Then we're annoyed cause he managed to keep it under the radar while idiots where going on about Death Panels instead. Not that the Republicans could raise a complaint about this without looking like hypocrites.
I'm hugely disappointed in Obama for this. But I suppose in a way this is good, we have proof that the problem the liberals had with Gitmo was Gitmo and not just that Bush did it. Cause when a Democrat does it everyone who complained about Gitmo raises exactly the same complaints.
am English and therefore have no interest / bearing on this topic :)
IIRC at least 3 people in Gitmo were British. So were several who were released after the Americans figured out that they weren't actually terrorists and they'd been imprisoning and torturing people who simply had the misfortune of being in Afghanistan at the wrong time.
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the conservative complaint would go something along the lines of "when we did this... and now..."
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People voted for Obama not really knowing what they were doing. He's not a revolutionary, he's like any modern politician, a slightly different shade of grey. In the past there might have been (bigger) differences between parties and candidates but not anymoar.
Still better than Sarah Palin.
/me riflebutts snail in the face ropes him it and drags him it from the back of the 4x4 with the 12 inch lift kit, big tires and confederate flag mudflaps while hunting for baby seals and drinking moonshine
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I'd rather have a bumbling politician, at least then you know he's honest.
No you don't. Bumbling and mendacity are hardly mutually exclusive. The Bush admin bumbled a lot, but it still managed to convince quite a few Americans that Iraq had some sort of role in the 9/11 attacks. Without ever, quite, explicitly saying so, too.
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I'd rather have a bumbling politician, at least then you know he's honest.
No you don't. Bumbling and mendacity are hardly mutually exclusive. The Bush admin bumbled a lot, but it still managed to convince quite a few Americans that Iraq had some sort of role in the 9/11 attacks. Without ever, quite, explicitly saying so, too.
I was thinking more of Jean Chretien. ;)
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the conservative complaint would go something along the lines of "when we did this... and now..."
And now we complain just as bitterly about Obama making the same dick move.
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IMO, stick the creeps in General Population at San Quentin...problem solved.
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IMO, stick the creeps in General Population at San Quentin...problem solved.
Yeah, let's not worry about a trial or any of that sort of thing. Let's just let them get murdered. I'm sure the founding fathers would have loved that.
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That's the thing, they're being held not because they might be innocent but because they're intelligence assets. Which exhausted of intel or not, they're too dangerous to let go free. They're captivity is NOT a law enforcement issue. Terrorism isn't a law enforcement issue either. In my world, we'd be down 2 fairly large countries with a 3rd be ground under the boot heel of every bomber I could muster for high altitude bombardment. But no, we're gonna be civilized and not blow them back into the stone age. The attitude of most of the worlds leaders concerning Iran and other nations who would make the world tremble reminds me of Chamberlain right before The Blitz. These are not people who will be swayed by a handshake and a smile or trade embargos.
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IMO, stick the creeps in General Population at San Quentin...problem solved.
Yeah, let's not worry about a trial or any of that sort of thing. Let's just let them get murdered. I'm sure the founding fathers would have loved that.
Heh! I thought he was saying, stick the politicians in San Quentin! LOL :lol:
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That's the thing, they're being held not because they might be innocent but because they're intelligence assets. Which exhausted of intel or not, they're too dangerous to let go free.
Clearly they're not, because otherwise the people who decided to intentionally and systematically start putting them in a situation where the right thing to do is to set them free wouldn't have done that. If anyone with half a brain knew that person x was too dangerous to let go free, they wouldn't make sure that person x ends up in a situation where the right thing to do is to have them set free, but instead would, for example, put them in a situation where the right thing to do is to have them be locked up.
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IMO, stick the creeps in General Population at San Quentin...problem solved.
Yeah, let's not worry about a trial or any of that sort of thing. Let's just let them get murdered. I'm sure the founding fathers would have loved that.
Heh! I thought he was saying, stick the politicians in San Quentin! LOL :lol:
That'd work to. It's really too bad we can't lock up Politicians for being greedy, self-serving scumbags. OH WAIT! Anti-Corruption laws!
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In my world, we'd be down 2 fairly large countries with a 3rd be ground under the boot heel of every bomber I could muster for high altitude bombardment. But no, we're gonna be civilized and not blow them back into the stone age.
Always nice to see a Christian attitude towards the mass slaughter of women and children. :yes:
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In my world, we'd be down 2 fairly large countries with a 3rd be ground under the boot heel of every bomber I could muster for high altitude bombardment. But no, we're gonna be civilized and not blow them back into the stone age.
Always nice to see a Christian attitude towards the mass slaughter of women and children. :yes:
Well we didn't do that... we instead tried to snag some of the more probable terrorists and remove them from causing harm. And we didn't just level Afghanistan, we tried to liberate it. Same in Iraq. Now Iran, who has the same nasty habits towards its citizens (sometimes), doesn't like the idea of dictatorships falling. Who knows, their people might get some rather uncomfortable ideas. So they support terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Simple self-preservation. Except I would rather just take the government of Iran out, too. xP People say we're not the police force of the world... well I for one think that if you make a consistent habit of torturing or killing your citizens without a way to remove the government responsible by the citizens' own hand, the neighborly thing to do would be to remove said government for the citizens. For obvious reasons, said governments are not very keen about that idea.
UN sanctions etc would work except those in power still have enough power and luxury that they just don't care and the only ones hurt by that are their citizens...
Well, thoughts?
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In my world, we'd be down 2 fairly large countries with a 3rd be ground under the boot heel of every bomber I could muster for high altitude bombardment. But no, we're gonna be civilized and not blow them back into the stone age.
Always nice to see a Christian attitude towards the mass slaughter of women and children. :yes:
Well we didn't do that... we instead tried to snag some of the more probable terrorists and remove them from causing harm. And we didn't just level Afghanistan, we tried to liberate it. Same in Iraq. Now Iran, who has the same nasty habits towards its citizens (sometimes), doesn't like the idea of dictatorships falling. Who knows, their people might get some rather uncomfortable ideas. So they support terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Simple self-preservation. Except I would rather just take the government of Iran out, too. xP People say we're not the police force of the world... well I for one think that if you make a consistent habit of torturing or killing your citizens without a way to remove the government responsible by the citizens' own hand, the neighborly thing to do would be to remove said government for the citizens. For obvious reasons, said governments are not very keen about that idea.
UN sanctions etc would work except those in power still have enough power and luxury that they just don't care and the only ones hurt by that are their citizens...
Well, thoughts?
Well, sure: that actually has nothing to do with what you wrote it as a reply to.
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People say, we don't want you to be the police of the world, then some problem comes up and it's "Oh, the US will handle it for us!"
Which is it people?
Also, how long do you turn the other cheek? Do you fight or run away before or after the assailant has taken the dagger he had behind his back and planted it firmly into your heart or your gut?
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People say, we don't want you to be the police of the world, then some problem comes up and it's "Oh, the US will handle it for us!"
Which is it people?
Also, how long do you turn the other cheek? Do you fight or run away before or after the assailant has taken the dagger he had behind his back and planted it firmly into your heart or your gut?
So you going to enlist in the Corps to carry out this massive campaign to crush other nations or is it somebody else's sons and daughters need to die for your blood lust?
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Well we didn't do that... we instead tried to snag some of the more probable terrorists and remove them from causing harm. And we didn't just level Afghanistan, we tried to liberate it.
From the people you spent years arming and supporting in the 80s.
Same in Iraq.
From the person you armed and supported in the 80s.
Now Iran
Fair enough, America didn't support them (and only moderately armed them) but the current Iranian government is in power following American meddling in the whole matter of the Shah.
Are you noticing a pattern yet?
who has the same nasty habits towards its citizens (sometimes), doesn't like the idea of dictatorships falling. Who knows, their people might get some rather uncomfortable ideas. So they support terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Simple self-preservation.
Sorry but there is nothing simple about it. You may wish to claim it is simple in order to justify sabre-rattling but that certainly doesn't make it so. And if you want to talk about supporting terrorism, try starting with America's long involvement with terrorists and terrorist organisations before you start pointing fingers.
Except I would rather just take the government of Iran out, too. xP People say we're not the police force of the world... well I for one think that if you make a consistent habit of torturing or killing your citizens without a way to remove the government responsible by the citizens' own hand, the neighborly thing to do would be to remove said government for the citizens. For obvious reasons, said governments are not very keen about that idea.
Fine. Start with Saudi Arabia though. Or Kuwait. Or any other country that tortures its citizens.
Why are we only hearing about Iran? Could it simply be that despite not being much worse than the other countries I mention Iran isn't an ally of America?
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People say, we don't want you to be the police of the world, then some problem comes up and it's "Oh, the US will handle it for us!"
Which is it people?
Also, how long do you turn the other cheek? Do you fight or run away before or after the assailant has taken the dagger he had behind his back and planted it firmly into your heart or your gut?
I don't understand who you're talking to and what concrete real-life situation this assailant metaphor is supposed to reflect. Please, could you clarify both points a bit?
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People say, we don't want you to be the police of the world, then some problem comes up and it's "Oh, the US will handle it for us!"
Which is it people?
Also, how long do you turn the other cheek? Do you fight or run away before or after the assailant has taken the dagger he had behind his back and planted it firmly into your heart or your gut?
Dude the US is not the world police. If they were the police they'd be serving the interests of the world, serve and protect and all that.
There's nothing the US does that isn't in its OWN interests.
And you need to grow up a bit when it comes to people in other countries. Wholesale slaughters of entire populations is something that quite honestly only an ignorant idiot would suggest. The US has already bombed enough weddings in Afghanistan as it is.
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Exactly. If we were really out to help people, we'd probably be doing something about the crises in sub-Saharan Africa other than throwing money at US-friendly dictatorships and telling them to use it to buy food instead of investing in infrastructure.
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The United States investing in infrastructure? :lol:
Good one. :P
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Yeah don't get me started on how badly the US is about handling infrastructure maintenance or upgrades/replacement.
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People say we're not the police force of the world... well I for one think that if you make a consistent habit of torturing or killing your citizens without a way to remove the government responsible by the citizens' own hand, the neighborly thing to do would be to remove said government for the citizens.
This sort of attitude is basically anathema to (what) conservative(s say their) values (are).
That reminds me of a time I encountered a libertarian who was of the opinion the Israelis should start indiscriminately killing Palestinians until the terrorism stopped. I guess he thought that government was only a problem when it wasn't committing mass murder. Of foreigners, of course.
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If they knew Israelis are just as brown as Palestinians, they'd probably say we should massacre both.
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If they knew Israelis are just as brown as Palestinians, they'd probably say we should massacre both.
That's crass to a new degree. And quite unfounded.
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Here's an idea for the detainees. Put some sort of tracker or tag in them all, and let them all go. Check on them every now and then.
It's a hell of a lot better for the detainees than spending their whole lives in confinement.
It's much safer for the US theoretically.
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Huh.
....
Well... er... you know (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgery). And, um (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=cattle+rfid&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=)....
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WHY CAN'T WE JUST BE THE GOOD GUYS AGAIN!? AAARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!
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I'd love to be the good guys again.
Makes me feel good when the brits or the french or whatever are like "BY GOD! IT'S THE AMERICANS!" in those old WW1 & 2 movies. Yea, I know they were propaganda-ish, but I still like to think we were more appreciated then. These days I feel like the unwanted guest no one wants around.
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WHY CAN'T WE JUST BE THE GOOD GUYS AGAIN!? AAARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!
WE NEVER WERE!
There's nothing worse than someone who thinks they have the moral high ground, and actually don't.
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WTF? Moral High Ground?
I think I know who you are comparing us to, but for those of us who are not bright, why don't you spell it out for us. Please?
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Lol, comparing us to us.
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People say we're not the police force of the world... well I for one think that if you make a consistent habit of torturing or killing your citizens without a way to remove the government responsible by the citizens' own hand, the neighborly thing to do would be to remove said government for the citizens.
This sort of attitude is basically anathema to (what) conservative(s say their) values (are).
There are limits to what should be allowed. e.g., allowing what we consider illegal drugs to be used by your citizens? Sure. Just don't sell them to us. Everyone has to bow to the king? Whatever. Your tax rates are through the roof? Don't care. If you piss off the dictator he'll send his death squads to rape your family in front of you and slowly torture them to death as an example to keep people in line? A bit different.
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So we detain them forever?! That's the opposite of our legal system. >.<
To be honest, in the act of creating Gitmo we ensured that we would have to hold most of its inmates forever, because they will turn on us if we free them. This was a very predictable consequence, unfortunately.
Sounds like we ended up creating our own future enemies (again).
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I'd love to be the good guys again.
Makes me feel good when the brits or the french or whatever are like "BY GOD! IT'S THE AMERICANS!" in those old WW1 & 2 movies. Yea, I know they were propaganda-ish, but I still like to think we were more appreciated then. These days I feel like the unwanted guest no one wants around.
Ah, right, back when we were detaining our own loyal citizens in concentration camps, curtailing civil liberties, giving more and more power to a socialist president, letting the FBI wiretap, arrest, and blackmail at will, and carpet-bombing cities. (Not to mention performing medical experiments on black people!)
The good old days.
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They don't put a lot of focus on McCarthyism and Japanese-American internment in schools in my experience. We just learn about the Holocaust in Germany and Pearl Harbor. Little mention of over 100,000 innocent Americans imprisoned for having slanty eyes, and no mention that not a single one was found to be a spy.
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Yeah. I met someone who was interned. Made me very sad.
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They don't put a lot of focus on McCarthyism and Japanese-American internment in schools in my experience. We just learn about the Holocaust in Germany and Pearl Harbor. Little mention of over 100,000 innocent Americans imprisoned for having slanty eyes, and no mention that not a single one was found to be a spy.
"Your experience," of course, being the one school you went to.
I remember both being covered pretty extensively in both Jr. High and High School.
My anecdote can beat up your anecdote! :p
Ah, right, back when we were detaining our own loyal citizens in concentration camps, curtailing civil liberties, giving more and more power to a socialist president, letting the FBI wiretap, arrest, and blackmail at will, and carpet-bombing cities. (Not to mention performing medical experiments on black people!)
The good old days.
Except we don't carpet-bomb these days... bring back carpet bombing! :D
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Sounds like we ended up creating our own future enemies (again).
Nature of the beast. You'll always do that no matter what you do.
Nations do not survive setting examples. They survive making examples.
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We learned about Japanese Interment as well as the United States' rather um awful 'Containment' foreign policy decisions during the Cold War in public school. Actually the only major thing we skipped, or at least didn't go into the depth it deserved was our genocide of the American Indians. It wasn't until my last year of college in a sociology course that I learned to fully appreciate the scope of that.
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yeah, the fact that our country was founded on genocide and that it actually worked is not something any of the major ideologies wants people to know about.
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Sad thing is... pretty much every nation is founded by killing the original inhabitants. There's really no exception anywhere.
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We probably would have covered the Japanese interment and McCarthyism in turn if my AP US History teacher hadn't been incompetent with time-management and only managed to get us to WWI or so before the year ended. :p
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The extent of learning about Japanese internment and McCarthyism in this district is only in English classes, where we read sugar-coated short stories about baseball in internment camps and The Crucible.
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The extent of learning about Japanese internment and McCarthyism in this district is only in English classes, where we read sugar-coated short stories about baseball in internment camps and The Crucible.
Read Obasan by Joy Kogawa.
It's probably pretty close, except the Japanese-Americans got their stuff back.
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Travesty is human nature. That you are aware of it gives you the potential to avert it... if only in a relative sense.
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If you piss off the dictator he'll send his death squads to rape your family in front of you and slowly torture them to death as an example to keep people in line? A bit different.
Well, okay. So we've liberated the country and killed some or many or most or all of the Bad Dudes (and a bunch of bystanders, but nevermind). Now what? Well, we can waltz back out, but that would, like, suck. I think I'd rather be in Saddam's Iraq or the PRC or whatever than, say, Somalia. Or we can stay, sure, and nation build. But then we're back to, "The most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'." How much scarier are those words when the speaker is from a foreign government? And is armed? And is telling you how it's going to be?
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"The most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'." How much scarier are those words when the speaker is from a foreign government? And is armed? And is telling you how it's going to be?
To be fair, those words built modern Germany, most of Western Europe, the Phillipines, Japan.
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If the government isn't there to help what the **** is it there for?
Really, if all governments were but burdens, there would be no point to having them.
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Sounds like we ended up creating our own future enemies (again).
Nature of the beast. You'll always do that no matter what you do.
Not totally true. Take for example Iran. We were the ones who overthrew their democractic government and installed a horrific dictatorship. Then that dictator got overthrown because he was so bad, and then what do we do? Say we're sorry for supporting a bloodthirsty regime? No, we encouraged their neighbor to attack them and did our best to isolate them, further driving them away from our values. Now imagine how things would be if Operation Ajax didn't happen......
Nations do not survive setting examples. They survive making examples.
We survived for a fair long time by setting an example. Germany tried twice to make examples of its neighbors, and both times it lost millions of people (and the second time the entire country was destroyed). Whenever you use force, you run the risk of being defeated by a force greater than yourself.
I'd love to be the good guys again.
You didn't seem to have a problem with being the bad guys just a few years ago. :p
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Not totally true. Take for example Iran. We were the ones who overthrew their democractic government and installed a horrific dictatorship. Then that dictator got overthrown because he was so bad, and then what do we do? Say we're sorry for supporting a bloodthirsty regime? No, we encouraged their neighbor to attack them and did our best to isolate them, further driving them away from our values. Now imagine how things would be if Operation Ajax didn't happen......
And if we hadn't we would have pissed off Iraq instead. Nature of the beast.
We survived for a fair long time by setting an example. Germany tried twice to make examples of its neighbors, and both times it lost millions of people (and the second time the entire country was destroyed). Whenever you use force, you run the risk of being defeated by a force greater than yourself.
Our survival was not at risk. Germany, on the other, got an example made of itself by the rest of the world. It's semantics, and still true.
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Our survival was not at risk.
True, but does it really help our cause? In the last 8 years anti-americanism world-wide exploded, and not surprisingly it happened when we started doing morally questionable things (openly). We won't be at the top forever, and it's important to realize this so that when we aren't we are not alone and friendless.
Germany, on the other, got an example made of itself by the rest of the world.
And that was something they didn't expect to happen. They went into world war one with the premier army, the largest economy in europe, and a growing naval armada. They expected the war to be quick and mostly painless, to give the French and the Russians a good bashing (again), and it didn't turn out that way, instead it turned into a meat grinder for both sides.
And if we hadn't we would have pissed off Iraq instead. Nature of the beast.
I somehow doubt that Iraq would have turned fundie and gone rogue on us. What happened with Iran was blowback from our meddling, plain and simple.
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"The most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'."
If that was true, wouldn't Ron Paul be President today?
Hell- Obama's campaign was basically 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help' and lots of people voted for it.
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I'd also like to share a comment written here (http://www.chinalawblog.com/2008/11/america_china_and_the_world_we.html#comment-202306) that I think is rather insightful (no, it wasn't written by me).
Dan, I'm afraid I can't agree with you on this. True, the majority of people who talk about US decline do so more out of hope than expectation, but the US quite clearly will not be the most politically or militarily dominant power on earth 30 years from now. This is not because of a US 'decline' but because of the rise of other states, China, India and a united Europe foremost among them. Even talk about being 'no. 1' begs the question - no.1 at what? The population and land area of the US is such that it may always expect to be a major power, and, barring some catastrophe, the level of economic development found in the US will always be among the top 10 nations on earth, but neither of these guarantees a top placing in anything.
Robert Kagan does not actually give good supporting evidence for what he says - the figures he gives do show an American which is in decline relative to the rest of the world, the US's military spending is now going mainly on covering the costs of two wars which do nothing to increase its long-term strength. He talks a lot about allies, contrasting those gained through recent conflicts (Iraq and Afghanistan) to those lost to Soviet influence during the seventies, but misses the point that these hapless allies do nothing to increase American strength, and in fact are as much a drag on US strength as the USSR's 'fraternal allies' were in the seventies and eighties.
At the end of the 1890s people in Britain were very much worried about their main competitors. Whilst Britain was at this stage still the world's most pre-eminent power they were confronted by two great challenges. On the European mainland they were faced by the Central Powers, and across the Atlantic the growing power of the United States. Their answer to this was to engage in wars which, whilst important at the time, are little remembered anywhere except in the countries in which they were fought ( such as South Africa and the Sudan), to create alliances of dubious virtue (such as the one with Japan), and to get mixed up in a dispute with the US over the Venezuelan borders. Twenty years later Britain found itself in a titanic war against the Central Powers in defence of its French allies with only minimal help from the Japanese and with the oft-snubbed Americans keeping a respectful distance until the Central Powers forced them into the fight. The United States seems to be equally frittering away its 'unipolar moment', whilst the loss of China to communism sparked a witch-hunt for the traitors that "lost China", the loss of Russia to dictatorship (as ephemeral as democracy was in Yeltsin's Russia) has happened without any great introspection as to whether policy-makers in the US could have done anything to prevent it. Saying that the last eight years have been disastrous for US-European relations would hardly be an exaggeration, put simply, a good half of Europe is convinced that there is a significant portion of the US establishment that sees them as quasi-enemies - and all of this damage done in the building of a coalition 'of the willing' which essentially gave the US nothing it did not already have. In short, the US has been offending those allies from which it had the most to gain through building strong relations, and this was done so that the US could gain a paltry handful of third-world dictatorial client-states. This is not a winning formula.
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Sad thing is... pretty much every nation is founded by killing the original inhabitants. There's really no exception anywhere.
Well techincly, a few countries got formed by simply settling and mixing with the locals. Outbreeding the locals as it is. No war, no bloodshed.
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If the government isn't there to help what the **** is it there for?
Really, if all governments were but burdens, there would be no point to having them.
Well there's the rub of human civilization. There can be no civilization without some government. The objective is that said government be as small as it can be and still accomplish what governments need to accomplish. In my book that includes the following in no particular order:
- maintaining a military to deal with threats from abroad
- act as a collective bargainer for it's citizens in situations where it is necessary such as development of treaties and agreements to make said military come into play as infrequently as possible
- the development, maintenance and upgrade of a basic infrastructure so as to facilitate the development of industrial and commercial economic growth which in turn increases the wealth of the citizens which in turn increases the available funds to government through a non-burdensome tax(non-burdensome means you don't soak the top 5% of income earners for 90% of they're income)
- the provision of a basic education in mathematics, grammar, history(an unbiased view if you please) and science, with secondary courses available in the arts, music and trade(a skilled tradesman is worth 3 scientists IMO) areas.
Of course this is perfect world. But a governments job is NOT to hand out check to people who won't work. Almost everyone can do something to make a living, even if it's selling hot dogs out of the back of your rusted out 1967 VW Bus.
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So you really do think only the wealthy deserve policemen and firemen and health care? I thought that was just a strawman. D:
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So you really do think only the wealthy deserve policemen and firemen and health care? I thought that was just a strawman. D:
/sigh
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I believe Liberator is primarily talking about the federal government, not state or local ones.
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If empirical evidence suggests that the government can do something better and cheaper than corporations than I see no reason why it shouldn't be done.
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If empirical evidence suggests that the government can do something better and cheaper than corporations than I see no reason why it shouldn't be done.
I do! :)
Think of Locke's "social contract" theory, which I think is pretty accurate: government works because we give up some of our freedom in exchange for increased security and prosperity. The more power we give government (in any form), the less we keep for ourselves... all but anarchists agree that it's worth giving up some personal freedom in order to have a stable and prosperous society. The rest of the arguing is about which freedoms/powers should be granted to the government (and to what degree). Libertarians favor granting as few powers as they can get away with, socialists tend toward giving the government more power. Elected Republicans and Democrats, IMHO, both tend to grab more power but disagree about which specific powers should be given to the government.
Based on this, one argument for keeping the government out of certain things is that the gains in efficiency/security are not worth the price in freedom. I'm not trying to make any specific case for keeping government in/out of something, just pointing out that there is room for such a case...and that before granting the government any power, people should take into account the cost in personal freedom as well. It can't, and shouldn't, be left out of the equation.
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There are negative freedoms, too: freedom from fear, freedom from illness. I would argue that the government is granting additional freedom and safeguarding these securities.
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By "freedom from illness" I assume you mean socialized health care? While that sounds nice, a problem that presents is that those who do use health care are subsidized by those that don't, which isn't fair to the non-consumers of care. You also end up in a situation where no-one knows or cares about the costs of health care because someone else is paying for it, and there is little incentive to keep costs down. Our current health care system is just like that, except instead of the government paying for everyone's health care its insurance companies. If the health care industry operated on the free-market principles of choice and competition with doctors forced to compete for patients, you would find costs would greatly decrease.
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Uhh.. no.
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By "freedom from illness" I assume you mean socialized health care? While that sounds nice, a problem that presents is that those who do use health care are subsidized by those that don't, which isn't fair to the non-consumers of care. You also end up in a situation where no-one knows or cares about the costs of health care because someone else is paying for it, and there is little incentive to keep costs down. Our current health care system is just like that, except instead of the government paying for everyone's health care its insurance companies. If the health care industry operated on the free-market principles of choice and competition with doctors forced to compete for patients, you would find costs would greatly decrease.
That hasn't been the case historically.
Instead you get a lot of witch-doctoring and snake oil types.
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Did you hear me say anything about eliminating licensing requirements or anything that would lead to a decrease in quality of doctors? No. All I said was if doctors had to compete for customers just like everyone else, prices would fall due to increased competition.
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Yeah, except doctors will never need to compete for customers. Consumers compete for doctors.
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Did you hear me say anything about eliminating licensing requirements or anything that would lead to a decrease in quality of doctors? No. All I said was if doctors had to compete for customers just like everyone else, prices would fall due to increased competition.
Not necessarily. People tend to be very resistant to change in this area, which means that they tend to stick with the same provider even when they could obtain cheaper or better quality care elsewhere. There are a lot of reasons for this, not least the fact that there's a lot of trust invested in the doctor-patient relationship and starting over with a stranger can be intimidating.
Competition is not an economic panacea. It works in ideal cases, when all parties are fully informed and making purely logical decisions, but in healthcare in particular I doubt that ideal case could ever be reached. Information imbalances are pervasive, people base their decisions on convenience or personal recommendations, and in the face of too much choice (as would be present in a totally free market) patients have been demonstrated to favor the simplest or most familiar option over the empirical best option. All of these factors tend to blunt the useful effects of competition.
All that aside, even in a perfectly competitive situation there's no guarantee that prices would fall far enough to be affordable. Healthcare is expensive, and there's no way to get around it. No matter how far prices fall, there will be people who cannot afford to pay. A sudden accident or cancer diagnosis can bankrupt a family overnight—even a relatively wealthy one with substantial savings, since cancer treatments can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars—and without health insurance to distribute risk this would happen even more frequently.
Finally, Britain, which has a universal healthcare system, spends less than half as much per capita as the US does. So does France. And Germany. And Canada. And the Netherlands. And so forth. Why not go with what works instead of putting our faith in abstract principles that have had no demonstrable success in this area?
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Did you hear me say anything about eliminating licensing requirements or anything that would lead to a decrease in quality of doctors? No. All I said was if doctors had to compete for customers just like everyone else, prices would fall due to increased competition.
Not necessarily. People tend to be very resistant to change in this area, which means that they tend to stick with the same provider even when they could obtain cheaper or better quality care elsewhere. There are a lot of reasons for this, not least the fact that there's a lot of trust invested in the doctor-patient relationship and starting over with a stranger can be intimidating.
Competition is not an economic panacea. It works in ideal cases, when all parties are fully informed and making purely logical decisions, but in healthcare in particular I doubt that ideal case could ever be reached. Information imbalances are pervasive, people base their decisions on convenience or personal recommendations, and in the face of too much choice (as would be present in a totally free market) patients have been demonstrated to favor the simplest or most familiar option over the empirical best option. All of these factors tend to blunt the useful effects of competition.
All that aside, even in a perfectly competitive situation there's no guarantee that prices would fall far enough to be affordable. Healthcare is expensive, and there's no way to get around it. No matter how far prices fall, there will be people who cannot afford to pay. A sudden accident or cancer diagnosis can bankrupt a family overnight—even a relatively wealthy one with substantial savings, since cancer treatments can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars—and without health insurance to distribute risk this would happen even more frequently.
Finally, Britain, which has a universal healthcare system, spends less than half as much per capita as the US does. So does France. And Germany. And Canada. And the Netherlands. And so forth. Why not go with what works instead of putting our faith in abstract principles that have had no demonstrable success in this area?
And to extrapolate on that, supply and demand economics assumes that the bargaining power lies with those who provide the demand. However, the supply of health care resources, especially human resources (that is, doctors, nurses, technicians, etc) is considerably less than the demand for them - so much so that even with true free-market competition, the health care sector can dictate prices and people will pay them.
True free market principles apply to very few things in life because some form of regulation is always necessary... which is precisely why the idea of true capitalism, and even of the United States as a capitalist republic, is a fallacy. The US Health Care is already partially socialist in nature - it actually encompasses the worst of both worlds, so much so that virtually anything would be an improvement. Conservatives, however, are unwilling to see that.
I will also take this opportunity to point out that while Canada's health care coverage is significantly better for everyone in the country than the American system, ours is an absolute joke compared to Europe, and Scandinavia in particular. North America should be looking at countries like Sweden and Norway as examples of how to run a health care system, instead of bickering over how much a failed ideology should be incorporated into health care.
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Oh they do look across the pond, though they are only looking for the biggest horror stories they can find.
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Well, here a rub that I heard today, that I found chuckle worthy.
You realize that without the US's current medical system that the UK, Germany, France, Canada, ect probably couldn't hand out free or almost free medical care of the class and quality that they do. America developed most of the technology the other countries use. So if America went to the same system as the UK, then who would pay for the development of new treatments or more efficient technologies?
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So what you're saying is, if people didn't have to compete for basic health care, medical innovations wouldn't happen?
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Same people, the treatments are produced by groups like Glaxo-Smith-Kline, not Medicare or Insurance groups, market values will still remain the same, the difference is in the profit margins being claimed by the middle-men.
The UK pays exactly the same for treatment as middle-men in the US, something which shows if you need medicines that are currently not available on the NHS (such as certain newer treatments for Alzheimers etc). If anything, the increase in competition will create an increase in the need to create more effective, less expensive techniques for producing medicine, which will lead to greater proliferation and availability for countries that would otherwise have no treatment for certain diseases available, which leads to a healthy level of competition, which is known as capitalism.
Edit: Let me put it like this, if a Pharmaceutical company stumbled on a cure for Diabetes, Epilepsy or even the common Cold etc, they would do everything in their power to destroy it, and to remove any evidence of its existence, because they make far more money in selling regular doses of treatment than a single cure. THAT is where the medical system shouldn't even really be getting involved with the 'free market'.
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Well, here a rub that I heard today, that I found chuckle worthy.
You realize that without the US's current medical system that the UK, Germany, France, Canada, ect probably couldn't hand out free or almost free medical care of the class and quality that they do. America developed most of the technology the other countries use. So if America went to the same system as the UK, then who would pay for the development of new treatments or more efficient technologies?
You know that non-US based pharmaceuticals also do research, right?
Bayer comes to mind fairly quickly, you know, the guys who invented the term aspirin!
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By "freedom from illness" I assume you mean socialized health care? While that sounds nice, a problem that presents is that those who do use health care are subsidized by those that don't, which isn't fair to the non-consumers of care. You also end up in a situation where no-one knows or cares about the costs of health care because someone else is paying for it, and there is little incentive to keep costs down. Our current health care system is just like that, except instead of the government paying for everyone's health care its insurance companies. If the health care industry operated on the free-market principles of choice and competition with doctors forced to compete for patients, you would find costs would greatly decrease.
Our healthcare does (in theory) operate on free market principles and our costs are sky high. Please explain this discrepency.
America developed most of the technology the other countries use.
Like what?
So if America went to the same system as the UK, then who would pay for the development of new treatments or more efficient technologies?
Why not paid researchers? Often these days corporations from many industries partner with university labs, so why not use the same principle but with a socialized setting?
Bayer comes to mind fairly quickly, you know, the guys who invented the term aspirin!
And they did it under Imperial Germany's *gasp* SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!! (another thing we can thank the Germans for)
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Uh, the folks defending America's existing healthcare system are aware that it's about as free as Nelson Mandela circa 1988, right? The present system only came into being as a result of price/wage fixing during WWII; employers couldn't compete with wages, so they offered benefits. And then started getting tax breaks for those benefits. Yes, tax breaks; the present system continues in part because of unbearably stupid government meddling. Only in part, of course.
Tying healthcare to employment is the worst idea ever, especially from a free market perspective (labor mobility, and the lack thereof. Also additional precariousness; not only do you lose your job, you lose your chemotherapy. Tough luck). So basically, if you're a free marketeer, you should hate the present system and want serious reform. If you're not, the same applies (though the reform you want would presumably be different).
And the idea that the for-profit model is super awesome...well, no. Read the New Yorker's (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande) article comparing the Mayo Clinic (nonprofit, awesome) with Texas (for profit...less awesome).
]If that was true, wouldn't Ron Paul be President today?
Hell- Obama's campaign was basically 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help' and lots of people voted for it.[/color]
I was quoting Reagan, who's basically the patron saint of the GOP. I think the statement's absurd, but I also think it's a decent, if hyperbolic, encapsulation of the conservative vision.
To be fair, those words built modern Germany, most of Western Europe, the Phillipines, Japan.
Meh. Without such a painfully short sighted treaty at Versailles, you don't get fascism/Hitler/WWII/50 million dead. Without Commodore Perry you don't get a century of imperial Japan. The Philippines were doing a pretty good job of kicking out the Spanish before the Spanish/American War.
If we're being fair :p
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Well, here a rub that I heard today, that I found chuckle worthy.
You realize that without the US's current medical system that the UK, Germany, France, Canada, ect probably couldn't hand out free or almost free medical care of the class and quality that they do. America developed most of the technology the other countries use. So if America went to the same system as the UK, then who would pay for the development of new treatments or more efficient technologies?
You know, whenever someone goes up and makes an outlandish claim of "WITHOUT AMERICA THE REST OF THE WORLD WOULD BE ****!!!1", they should have some sort of graphs and/or scientific evidence suggesting a link between regulation of health care, advancements in medical technology, and the development of government-funded health care in Europe and much of the British Commonwealth. They would also take into account certain demographic factors, such as population, the average citizen's immunity to certain diseases, and general political tides which fostered an environment for the development of universal healthcare.
But if you just want to take cute little one-liners from the Glenn Beck ultrarightwing playbook of "AMERICA ROXXXX EUROPE SUX AND IS SOCIALIST AND SOCIALISM = COMMUNISM AND COMMUNISM MEANS WE'RE GONNA BE RUSSIAN AND I DONT WANNA LEARN RUSKIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and provide zero evidence supporting your claims other than inflammatory statements you heard on the Rush Limbaugh show, then that's fine too!
You know, you can still be a loving, patriotic American and still admit we have room for improvement. There's no point in being the greatest country in the world when 40 million of our people are at risk of never being able to afford medicine or surgery, simply because we treat healthcare in the same way we treat plumbing or cell phone service, as automobiles or television--something that is really, really, really, really, really important to have in today's society, but if you can't afford it, you're SOL, don't expect anyone to help you out.
But thing is, it's entirely different. A person's health should not be at the mercy of their pocketbooks and their salary. It's not just an individual responsibility; it's individual responsibility combined with the responsibility of his neighbors and countrymen to ensure every man and woman is physically fit to provide a service or contribution to society. Someone in bed trying to cure his H1N1 by drinking broth, or someone convinced rubbing Copenhagen dip into his bee-sting wound will keep him from going into anaphylactic shock aren't going to be active innovators or lucrative tradsmen; in fact, nearly the opposite. It's only in society's best interests potentially-productive individuals are brought out of sickness to be an active member in achieving the society's end goals.
Even if not just that, on a more humane level, it should be among the most noble and valiant objectives of the self-proclaimed "greatest Christian nation on Earth" to have mercy on the sick and expect its citizens to show compassion for each other. You'd think the party which has been enforcing it's Christian policies on society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOP) for the last several years would be all for Americans putting off buying their next plasma TV or Corvette to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or show an ounce of human compassion. Instead, we live in a society where uncontrolled capitalism, which maximizes CEO profits by minimizing responsibility to the consumer, has been made inseparable from a religion which extols the weak and poor as "great" and "inheritors of the earth"; yet an economic system which would be prove fruitful to widespread healthcare coverage is demonized, made taboo, indeed, equated with "godlessness", "atheism", and America's greatest enemy of the 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR) (which, in itself, was a bastardization of the basic concepts of true socialism).
Yeah, American innovation and place in history has been part of the catalyst for the rapid development of some areas of the world, but it should be acknowledged that America wasn't the sole cause for all things praiseworthy; Americans didn't invent the wheel...it wasn't an American city which developed democracy, and it wasn't the AMA that wrote the Hippocratic Oath. We're extremely young as far as nations are concerned and we still have a whole lot to learn; right now, we have a tendency to act like a class of arrogant teenagers who think they know better than their parents...it's about time we realized that maybe the people who have been around longer than us have some ideas as well.
Alright, sorry, I've been doing that a lot recently. TLDR as necessary, I'm off my soapbox. I just don't know how many times I need to tell the extreme rightwing the same damned thing.
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Nuclear:
Sorry to say, but your post looks like this:
(http://www.tinamessinger.com/mt-static/blog_images/BrickWall.jpg)
:D
No worries, I think you had some good points in there somewhere, but my eyes glazed shut. :p
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Meh. Without such a painfully short sighted treaty at Versailles, you don't get fascism/Hitler/WWII/50 million dead.
The Depression would have happened with or without Hitler, so you probably just get a different guy to takeover. Mussolini would have still come to power too. Your other alternative is basically a different war against the USSR starting the same way when Poland gets screwed over again. (In which case I suppose said words actually would be frightening, coming from a Stalinist as they would have.)
Without Commodore Perry you don't get a century of imperial Japan.
Bull****. Somebody was going to shatter Japanese isolation. Imperial Japan was an inevitable consequence of that.
The Philippines were doing a pretty good job of kicking out the Spanish before the Spanish/American War.
Yes, I'm sure. That's why they'd mostly stopped fighting them except for the Moros.
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All of this has happened before...
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Yeah, you're right Sushi...it's just inevitable when I have to say the same thing over and over again. :p
And yeah, zack, this pretty makes up the last ~50 threads about anything political.
POLITICAL DISCUSSION --> SOME DEVOLUTION INTO ANOTHER TOPIC --> HOWTHEHELLDIDWESTARTTALKINGABOUTHEALTHCARE --> MORE HEALTHCARE DISCUSSION --> LIBERATOR/SPARDASON (HEY UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE WILL LEAD TO COMMUNISM AND THE MURDER OF CAPITALISM) --> EVERYONE ELSE (NO IT WONT JACKASS!) --> LOCK
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All of this has happened before...
You've actually managed to cite something insightful there...
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POLITICAL DISCUSSION --> SOME DEVOLUTION INTO ANOTHER TOPIC --> HOWTHEHELLDIDWESTARTTALKINGABOUTHEALTHCARE --> MORE HEALTHCARE DISCUSSION --> LIBERATOR/SPARDASON (HEY UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE WILL LEAD TO COMMUNISM AND THE MURDER OF CAPITALISM) --> EVERYONE ELSE (NO IT WONT JACKASS!) --> LOCK
Don't forget the "What if...?" debate over WWII history, which itself has an 80% chance of further devolving into a "Who knows more about military hardware" free-for-all.
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I enjoyed Nuclear1's summary.
On the original topic, looks like they've decided not to push for a new legal framework after all. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/us/politics/24detain.html)
Whatever they do, it's going to be on the same legal standing as when the last guys did it. Which is better than codifying human rights abuses in law. Still, would have been nice to see some progress here.
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(a skilled tradesman is worth 3 scientists IMO)
Do you therefore eschew modern technology in favour of products of tradesmen?
If empirical evidence suggests that the government can do something better and cheaper than corporations than I see no reason why it shouldn't be done.
I actually stumbled across an example of such evidence over here (http://www.dailytech.com/Time+Warner+Embarq+Fight+to+Outlaw+100+Mbps+Community+Broadband+in+Wilson+NC/article14934.htm). Of course the free market solved the problem by trying to have the competition that's better than them shut down.
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No worries, I think you had some good points in there somewhere, but my eyes glazed shut. :p
Maybe you should read them again, then, because, speaking as someone who considers himself an economic conservative in most respects, Nuclear's entirely right. I don't know whether public-option or co-ops or whatever is the best solution, but if we can't ensure that a massive chunk of our population has access to affordable healthcare, we don't have any business calling ourselves the best anything.
Seriously...there's something fundamentally ****ing wrong when I turn on the news and find myself getting pissed off at the asinine statements of people that I should at least nominally agree with. I'm sick and tired of the bull**** that people who slap the label "conservatives" on themselves are spewing, and I think the Republican Party has gone completely off its rocker in allowing this sort of stupidity to define it. **** Beck, **** Limbaugh, and give me a mother****ing conservative who actually has two goddamn neurons to fire together. Quit your *****ing and exhibit some ****ing intelligence. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm being lumped together with these cluster****s.
...yes, ever further off-topic, but **** it, I needed that. :p
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I'd be careful Mongoose, Nuclear1 started doing that sort of rant and now he's a liberal. :p
But seriously, I fully agree with you on that subject.
I tend to be in favour of big government while you're obviously in favour of small government. That's an argument I have little problem with. You can show that both have their place in certain areas and any argument I have with you is simply over where.
What you get in America though is "The party of big government" and "The party of big government that retards think is a party of small government"
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As I've said before, I'll never quite understand how a party that is in favour of small government can also be the party of religious values, because the two are mutually exclusive, if there's anything in the world that is famous for getting into people's lives and telling them how to live, it's religion, a true party for small government would be the one defending the rights of people to be homosexual, to have abortions etc, because each time the government starts to interfere with such things, it bloats, which, I would have thought, would be the last thing a true Republican would want.
As far as the size of Government is concerned, I believe in the right to privacy, in the right to live my life the way I choose as long as it harms no-one else, but I also believe in the Governments' responsibility to protect its people, not just from 'Terrism', but from illness, accidental injury and crime, and in return, the people should take responsiblity for making sure that such things do not put too much of a burden on everyone else. In many ways, there's too much sitting back expecting the Government to fix everything, and too much Government being more than willing to say, 'Why, thank you for giving us more power' instead of saying 'Well, don't be irresponsible!'
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a skilled tradesman is worth 3 scientists IMO
A single scientist can discover something that changes the course of entire civilizations (nuclear power.)
A single tradesman can....be a particularly good cog in the machine?
Your average scientist will do more for three tradesman than three tradesmen will do for your average scientist.
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a skilled tradesman is worth 3 scientists IMO
Mmmm nice to wake up in the morning and smell that conservative anti-intellectualism
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Liberator's Glorious Utopian Society needs no scientists!
(Because they'd set about proving it's a crock of ****.)
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Who's going to design the self forging cluster weapons and strike aerocraft for him to conduct unrestricted carpet bombing of other nations with?
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Well, I'm not a big fan of the idea of Patenting an idea, especially when the definitions are so vague in a lot of cases, Patent Trolls are a good example of this. I would like to see more of a re-connection between the science and the tradesman, in truth, they are both equally important, and the concept of seperating them is really a conceptual one rather than a physical one. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was as much a scientist as a tradesman, for example.
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Really? There is something to be said for abusing patent rights on the other hand protecting the inventor's intellectual property from being poached seems pretty damn important. Some little garage inventor busts his ass coming up with the next big thing and then some big conglomerate steals it what the hell is he going to do?
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When did I say that we don't need scientists. What I said was a skilled tradesman is worth AT LEAST as much as a scientist. If the entire world was scientists, who would build the houses, roads, cars, trains, airplanes, ect, so forth and so on. The problem with trades is that they are unglamourous and way under-appreciated. Seriously, try and build even a small structure and you'll realize how difficult it is to do it right without training.
As far as the comment Kara made aboutWhat you get in America though is "The party of big government" and "The party of big government that retards think is a party of small government"
I can't refute it. The primary difference between the Dems and Repups is the speed they're taking in getting to the same destination. Both parties are full of self-absorbed, machiavellian power-mongers who are in it more for they're own gratification than to actually serve the people that gave them that power(see Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, and others). My support for the Republicans extends only so far and if I am provided with a viable alternative candidate to what they can provide, it'll remain the lesser of two evils.
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Well, I'm not a big fan of the idea of Patenting an idea, especially when the definitions are so vague in a lot of cases, Patent Trolls are a good example of this. I would like to see more of a re-connection between the science and the tradesman, in truth, they are both equally important, and the concept of seperating them is really a conceptual one rather than a physical one. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was as much a scientist as a tradesman, for example.
In theory, to get a patent you need to prove that the invention is new, useful, and non-obvious, and they often get shot down in court if the definitions are too vague. Without patents there would be very little incentive for people to invest in making new things, since it would be very difficult to gain any profit from them. The alternative would be for people to keep their inventions secret, which I think would be even more detrimental to the free exchange of ideas. That said, I think you could certainly argue for stricter standards of novelty and obviousness, and perhaps for shortened patent life, depending on how much incentive people actually need.
Patent trolls are their own unique brand of evil, and I'm sure if Dante was alive today they'd have their own circle of hell. But I don't think the system is entirely without merit just because a certain subset of people may choose to exploit it. The challenge is to create a system that dissuades this kind of exploit while providing adequate protection to those who are actually making a meaningful contribution.
(How is it that this forum so frequently reflects what's going on in my academic program? I just got back from a lecture by a former patent examiner.)
When did I say that we don't need scientists. What I said was a skilled tradesman is worth AT LEAST as much as a scientist. If the entire world was scientists, who would build the houses, roads, cars, trains, airplanes, ect, so forth and so on. The problem with trades is that they are unglamourous and way under-appreciated. Seriously, try and build even a small structure and you'll realize how difficult it is to do it right without training.
I doubt anyone would argue that you don't need both. Tradespeople's skills are very localized, and their task is done if the house stands. The scientist works at a much higher level of abstraction, and discovers principles about how the world works that may someday lead to new and better building technologies. Engineers fall somewhere between the two, and help to translate abstract principles into practical applications. The world needs people functioning at every level of abstraction.
People's particular skillsets, circumstances, or educational opportunities may predispose them to excel at one level or another. And no, they don't all receive the same amount of respect or compensation, but there are some balances. Plumbers may not get a lot of glory, but most of them get better pay and benefits than the average high school teacher or lab monkey.
Now, it would be great if everyone could make a respectable living at his or her life's work. But I suspect that you and I would disagree as to how much intervention is needed to ensure equal opportunity for all.
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Really? There is something to be said for abusing patent rights on the other hand protecting the inventor's intellectual property from being poached seems pretty damn important. Some little garage inventor busts his ass coming up with the next big thing and then some big conglomerate steals it what the hell is he going to do?
But the fact is that the system is abused, frequently, that's an established fact. I'm not saying that it should be impossible to patent an idea, but the current method is flawed, look at the number of lawsuits currently out against Sony, Nintendo etc for controllers, communication technology etc that are largely the acts of patent trolls.
Similarly, it's far more common to see a little garage inventor bust his ass to come up with something new and then get pounced on because his idea is similar to some generalised patent, and, because he is in no position to defend himself against the funds of large patent troll companies, he loses the case due to being legally overpowered.
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Fair enough I see your objection is to the system as is rather then the general concept.
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When did I say that we don't need scientists. What I said was a skilled tradesman is worth AT LEAST as much as a scientist.
The former point was only asserted by NGTM-1R. The latter has been refuted now.
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I'd be careful Mongoose, Nuclear1 started doing that sort of rant and now he's a liberal. :p
Don't worry, I haven't become quite that disillusioned. At least not yet. :p
I do agree with your main assertion, though. No matter what lip service they may pay to "small government," the modern-day Republican party has practiced anything but over the past several years, and anyone who thinks otherwise really is self-delusional. If people would simply recognize a spade for a spade, and see that the two main parties are for the most part moving in the same general direction (albeit along different paths), we might actually have some sort of viable third-party as an alternative. Given what I've seen, though, I don't hold out any hope for spades to be called spades anytime soon.
As for the religious association with the Republican Party, it is a rather odd mixing of seemingly-contradictory factions at face value, though some differing aspects of the modern Democratic Party are perhaps not much less strange. It'd take someone far more familiar with American political history than I to explain how that sort of intermingling began to establish itself. I kind of wonder, though, if it isn't just an extension of the differing issues and bents that most of us amalgamate into our personal political views. I have a generally traditionally-conservative economic outlook, and there are a few small instances where I'd probably go so far as to say I'm somewhat libertarian, but there are other areas, particularly environmental issues, where I'd probably fall under the modern description of "liberal." As far as the common religious-associated issues go, there's one that I'm completely unwilling to compromise on, several that I'm far more open-minded about, and several more in which I'm in flat-out disagreement with the general vocal majority out there. Amalgamate all of that together, and you get me. I don't think I can be pigeon-holed into one particular narrow belief field any more than the rest of you, and maybe that's also the case for the large-scale institutions that our two major parties have become.
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When did I say that we don't need scientists. What I said was a skilled tradesman is worth AT LEAST as much as a scientist.
No you didn't.
The problem with trades is that they are unglamourous and way under-appreciated.
The same applies probably even more so to sciences, and to a lesser extent to engineering.
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I kinda agree with the sentiment that tradesmen are, on a practical level, more important than scientists. You need tradesmen first for scientists to really be of any use. But I don't think that lessens the importance of scientists or intellectualism. I just see it as a Maslow's hierarchy type of thing.
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Yeah, but without the scientists, all those necessary tradesmen would still be hauling pyramid chunks for the local Pharaoh.
One scientist can do a lot more good than one tradesman. A community of scientists even more so when compared to a community of tradesmen. But they're both valuable roles.
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This is silly-- we all know musicologists are more important than either one of those. :pimp:
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Just wait until scientists invent von Neumann Machines. Then we're all boned.
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When did I say that we don't need scientists. What I said was a skilled tradesman is worth AT LEAST as much as a scientist.
Without scientists, we would only have a bronze age ish level of technology for the tradesmen to work with. The transistor for example was invented by physicists.
Actually if we look at the list of nobel prize winners in physics from 1901 until the start of world war 2, Germany had 2.5 times as many as the US. If we look at the prizes for chemistry in the same time period Germany had 17 while the US only had 3. Why? Because the Imperial German government was heavily invested in basic scientific research linky (http://www.springerlink.com/content/r524562106196826/), while the US did not.
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Don't misunderstand me. :[ I don't argue the importance of scientists at all; I agree they are vital to the advancement of civilization. I only argue the relative importance of tradesmen. I just think we need the basics before we can even think beyond them. We don't have scientists without tradesmen. Thaz all.
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You don't get either unless your farmers can produce enough surplus to free up the population from subsistence farming :D To be honest only arrogant jack holes under appreciate the trades, at least until they need a pipe fixed. The fact that most folks have little to no trade skills means a skilled plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc. generally are doing quite well for themselves.
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Don't misunderstand me. :[ I don't argue the importance of scientists at all; I agree they are vital to the advancement of civilization. I only argue the relative importance of tradesmen. I just think we need the basics before we can even think beyond them. We don't have scientists without tradesmen. Thaz all.
Um, I'm pretty sure it was liberator who said that, not you........
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As far as the comment Kara made aboutWhat you get in America though is "The party of big government" and "The party of big government that retards think is a party of small government"
I can't refute it. The primary difference between the Dems and Repups is the speed they're taking in getting to the same destination.
No. The primary difference is the area that they meddle in that causes the most ire from the other side. The democrats like big social projects. The Republicans like curtailing personal freedoms. Personally I'd far rather have the former. You simply prefer the Republicans because for all your talk about wanting small government you actually want those personal freedoms curtailed.
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Or it could be that in the days of Reagan the Republican party actually stood for things like the rights of the individual and small government instead of Dubya's and McCain's big-government semi-fascism. I'm only a member of the Republican Party because I have hopes that one day they may rediscover their roots.
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I'd go for that. Socially liberal, but I'm all for a more fiscally restrained government (though mostly in the military and pork; I'd love to have more government spending on science, health care, and infrastructure.)
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I dunno why everybody looks to Reagan as pax Republicanism
I think these two are a much better examples worth emulating:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Abraham_Lincoln_head_on_shoulders_photo_portrait.jpg) (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/President_Theodore_Roosevelt,_1904.jpg)
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I dunno why everybody looks to Reagan as pax Republicanism
Neither of those two are acceptable to modern conservative morality.
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I propose we clone TR and bring him back to be the next president. We need some of his tough love on some big business around here.
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I propose we clone TR and bring him back to be the next president. We need some of his tough love on some big business around here.
:yes:
That, my friend, would be amazing.
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Or it could be that in the days of Reagan the Republican party actually stood for things like the rights of the individual and small government instead of Dubya's and McCain's big-government semi-fascism. I'm only a member of the Republican Party because I have hopes that one day they may rediscover their roots.
You've got to be kidding me. Reagan was when the Neo-cons first started getting into power. Maybe it wasn't quite as obvious back then but that is pretty much when it started.
You've got to go back a bit further to find the Republicans actually being conservative.
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I do agree with your main assertion, though. No matter what lip service they may pay to "small government," the modern-day Republican party has practiced anything but over the past several years, and anyone who thinks otherwise really is self-delusional. If people would simply recognize a spade for a spade, and see that the two main parties are for the most part moving in the same general direction (albeit along different paths), we might actually have some sort of viable third-party as an alternative. Given what I've seen, though, I don't hold out any hope for spades to be called spades anytime soon.
As for the religious association with the Republican Party, it is a rather odd mixing of seemingly-contradictory factions at face value, though some differing aspects of the modern Democratic Party are perhaps not much less strange. It'd take someone far more familiar with American political history than I to explain how that sort of intermingling began to establish itself.
What I totally fail to understand is why representatives gravitate toward two large parties with such a varied mix of views and policies. Most other democratic countries have started to see the emergency of new, more special-interest parties that force a coalition of interests to work together (hell, even Canada, which can almost be called US-Lite, is starting to see this). It baffles me why Americans put up with an absolutely broken two-party system In fact, I distinctly recall that one of the founders of the United States warned AGAINST a two-party system.
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George Washington warned against the development of political parties in general, actually...and as it turned out, he was the first and last president to not belong to one. As I've said before, I'd love to see what sort of ass he'd kick and gum he'd chew were he to wake up in the modern-day city that bears his name and see what's been going on.
As for why the US has almost always been a strictly two-party system...that's a very good question, actually, and probably one I may have heard answered in a past history or political science class, though I don't remember it if it was. I do know that the original two opposing political parties arose from two diametrically-opposed general viewpoints about the American system of government, most notably represented by the political philosophies of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson; in fact, the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson wound up evolving into the modern-day Democratic Party, even though its original views were far more in line with what we call "conservatism" today. The main opposition parties in each era of American government were primarily opposition parties to the Democrats, so I suspect that that philosophy simply gained momentum to the point that we have today's incredibly-well-established two-party system. Interestingly enough, the Republican Party started out as something of a "third party" itself, so it isn't as though there isn't precedent for that sort of thing in American politics; except for maybe someone like Ross Perot, though, third parties seem to have had significantly more impact in the past than they have over the past several decades. I'm no political history expert, though, so don't take any of that as gospel.
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George Washington warned against the development of political parties in general, actually...and as it turned out, he was the first and last president to not belong to one.
And he was dead on. For example, even after 8 years of Bush so many people still voted for McCain whose campaign platform was basically he would do what Bush was doing. Why? Because he had an "R" to the right of his name instead of a "D".
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I propose we clone TR and bring him back to be the next president. We need some of his tough love on some big business around here.
:yes:
That, my friend, would be amazing.
Thirded. And while you are at it, resurrect the Bull Moose party. :p
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Call it the GAR Party instead.
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In theory, to get a patent you need to prove that the invention is new, useful, and non-obvious, and they often get shot down in court if the definitions are too vague.
That's the European system, not the US system.
The US system doesn't have a requirement for it to be either useful or non-obvious.
In fact, the US system barely requires it to be new, because they define 'new' as being "Not on the market in the US before", rather than "Not made before".
It also relies on litigation to determine whether or not a given patent is for something "new", as almost every application is granted.
For example:
In 1997, Color Kinetics (now owned by Philips) applied for a US patent on the idea of Pulse-Width-Modulation dimming of LEDs for colour mixing (US patent number 6,016,038, filed in August 1997 and granted in January 2000). If PWM and using two different coloured lights is not incredibly obvious, I don't know what is.
In terms of prior art, I was doing that in school before they filed the patent - but I never sold a product in the US (on account of being in secondary school and living in a different country), so under their rules it doesn't count.
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Er, no. I'm taking a class on this, remember? And an actual US patent examiner came and talked to us?
From the US Patent and Trademark Office website (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html):
"The patent law specifies that the subject matter must be “useful.” The term “useful” in this connection refers to the condition that the subject matter has a useful purpose and also includes operativeness, that is, a machine which will not operate to perform the intended purpose would not be called useful, and therefore would not be granted a patent."
"...an invention cannot be patented if: '(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent,' or '(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United States . . .'"
"If the invention has been described in a printed publication anywhere in the world, or if it was known or used by others in this country before the date that the applicant made his/her invention, a patent cannot be obtained."
"Even if the subject matter sought to be patented is not exactly shown by the prior art, and involves one or more differences over the most nearly similar thing already known, a patent may still be refused if the differences would be obvious."
New, useful, nonobvious. It's right there, as is the provision for a product that is already known or patented internationally. Check your facts.
Now, it's often unclear where the boundaries lie, so a given examiner may err on the side of granting the patent. It's not a perfect system, to be sure. But in that case, the patent can be challenged in court and shot down if it fails to meet these standards.
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So how do so many US patents that are entirely obvious get granted? For example, the one above!
There is also a US patent for "Using more than four different colour LEDs" to make a colour mixing light. (Devices with 2, 3, and 4 different colour LEDs already existed, and are even referenced in that patent)
The list of patents that are extremely obvious purely in my field of expertise is incredibly long.
In IT, there's a patent on parsing XML that Microsoft is currently fighting. It even mentions SGML in the patent.
So the only possible reason would be that the patent examiners themselves are totally incompetent.
The way the US patent system appears to work in practice is "Grant everything and let the lawyers sort it out".
- Thus the guys with the most money win in almost every case.
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gene patents. :P
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GAR Party
This is what we need.
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GAR Party
This is what we need.
Statesmen capable of delivering two hour speeches after being shot need apply.
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Roosevelt? (http://www.cracked.com/article_15895_5-most-badass-presidents-all-time.html)
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So how do so many US patents that are entirely obvious get granted? For example, the one above!
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The way the US patent system appears to work in practice is "Grant everything and let the lawyers sort it out".
- Thus the guys with the most money win in almost every case.
I already addressed this.
...I think you could certainly argue for stricter standards of novelty and obviousness, and perhaps for shortened patent life, depending on how much incentive people actually need.
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The challenge is to create a system that dissuades this kind of exploit while providing adequate protection to those who are actually making a meaningful contribution.
There's room for improvement, to be sure. But it's demonstrably false to claim that the requirements aren't there at all. The problem is insufficiently stringent standards, not the lack of them.
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The Depression would have happened with or without Hitler, so you probably just get a different guy to takeover. Mussolini would have still come to power too. Your other alternative is basically a different war against the USSR starting the same way when Poland gets screwed over again. (In which case I suppose said words actually would be frightening, coming from a Stalinist as they would have.)
I'm not entirely sure what the last sentence here means, but that aside; maybe. Maybe. Maybe someone else takes power. Maybe you get a world war with the USSR in place of the Third Reich, and hell, maybe it's worse than the actual war was. I don't see that as a given by any means.
Bull****. Somebody was going to shatter Japanese isolation. Imperial Japan was an inevitable consequence of that.
Depends on how they go about shattering it, no? If you, say, emulate the British approach to China there won't be an Imperial Japan because there won't be any opportunity for them to develop a strong industrial base and military. Certainly not in time to sink the Russian fleet or annex Korea or invade Manchuria or attack the US and its holdings. At a minimum you push that sort of thing back several decades.
Not that I think the British approach to China should have been emulated, but that's just one fairly obvious example of how you don't get Imperial Japan, or at least not until much later than was actually the case.
Yes, I'm sure. That's why they'd mostly stopped fighting them except for the Moros.
In my judgment Spain's empire wasn't going to last much longer regardless, and while a somewhat lengthier Spanish occupation wouldn't have been desirable, it strikes me as preferable to the losses resulting from the American occupation and pacification. For that matter, it's not as though the Philippines has been wonderfully stable since the pacification.
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No. The primary difference is the area that they meddle in that causes the most ire from the other side. The democrats like big social projects. The Republicans like curtailing personal freedoms. Personally I'd far rather have the former. You simply prefer the Republicans because for all your talk about wanting small government you actually want those personal freedoms curtailed.
Oh, please :rolleyes:
That's such a load of bull****. You're description of the two parties is just as accurate as this one:
"Democrats like to sell fog to the people . The Republicans like moral values."
OR
"Democrats like chaos. The republican like order."
I can write a dozen differen variations and so can you. The thing is - those are pretty much only valid for you (or me). They are not facts or truth, but how you see and label things. The same actions can be interpreted differntly by different people.
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Except that kara's assertions can be backed up by evidence.
Dems like big social projects --> health insurance reform, public option, etc
Repubs like curtailing personal freedoms --> gay marriage, war on drugs, etc
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It's too late; TrashMan has already retreated into his shroud of epistemological anarchy. At this point it's like trying to track the mouse after it's escaped into the wall.
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I wonder what D&D alignment the two parties have.
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Both are Lawful Evil.
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Republicans are more lawful having-sex-with-young-boys.
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Oh yes, let's equate a political party to Paedophiles....
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It's too late; TrashMan has already retreated into his shroud of epistemological anarchy. At this point it's like trying to track the mouse after it's escaped into the wall.
Yep. That's why I'm not going to bother answering him.
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In theory, to get a patent you need to prove that the invention is new, useful, and non-obvious, and they often get shot down in court if the definitions are too vague.
In reality because of patent quota's you can get patents for almost anything if it already doesn't have a patent on it. There was a news story a while back about an American with the most patents (except Edison), and all of his patents were for flower pot designs.
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There's room for improvement, to be sure. But it's demonstrably false to claim that the requirements aren't there at all. The problem is insufficiently stringent standards, not the lack of them.
Actually, the problem is the system.
There are three key failures in the US system:
1) Patents in the US are filed in secret. Thus there is no way to challenge them until they have already been granted, and that requires very expensive lawsuits.
- The patent office are clearly unable to do any proper checking themselves, given the number of ludicrous patents issued.
Patents in the European Union are filed in public. Thus anyone can challenge them very cheaply by sending the prior art to the Patent Office.
2) Patents are permitted for software algorithms and business processes.
The former does not require patent protection - they have copyright.
The latter provides benefit to the inventing company by making them more efficient, and can be protected by NDAs, so they also do not require a patent.
3) Extremely broad patents are also permitted.
Right now, the US is in the position whereby a company could patent a way of answering the telephone!
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Actually, the problem is the system.
There are three key failures in the US system:
1) Patents in the US are filed in secret. Thus there is no way to challenge them until they have already been granted, and that requires very expensive lawsuits.
- The patent office are clearly unable to do any proper checking themselves, given the number of ludicrous patents issued. Patents in the European Union are filed in public. Thus anyone can challenge them very cheaply by sending the prior art to the Patent Office.
I agree with you. Currently patents are automatically published after eighteen months whether or not they've been approved yet, but it would be better if they were open from the beginning.
2) Patents are permitted for software algorithms and business processes.
The former does not require patent protection - they have copyright.
The latter provides benefit to the inventing company by making them more efficient, and can be protected by NDAs, so they also do not require a patent.
3) Extremely broad patents are also permitted.
I would argue that these points fall under insufficiently stringent standards.
I have no idea why you're trying to turn your beef with the US patent system into a fight with me. I do not and have never claimed that the US system is superior to Europe's or anyone else's. I provided evidence that a specific statement (that the US does not have a new/useful/obvious requirement at all) is false. This does not in any way imply that the system is above criticism, or that your other criticisms are invalid — in fact I agree with them.