[NGTM-1R]

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.

[iamzack]

All of this has happened before...

[Nuclear1]

Yeah, you're right Sushi...it's just inevitable when I have to say the same thing over and over again.

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

[Thaeris]

All of this has happened before...

You've actually managed to cite something insightful there...

[Ford Prefect]

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.

[Rian]

I enjoyed Nuclear1's summary.

On the original topic, looks like they've decided not to push for a new legal framework after all.

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.

[Spicious]

(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. Of course the free market solved the problem by trying to have the competition that's better than them shut down.

[Mongoose]

No worries, I think you had some good points in there somewhere, but my eyes glazed shut.

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.

[karajorma]

I'd be careful Mongoose, Nuclear1 started doing that sort of rant and now he's a liberal.

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"

[Flipside]

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!'

[General Battuta]

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.

[Turambar]

a skilled tradesman is worth 3 scientists IMO

Mmmm nice to wake up in the morning and smell that conservative anti-intellectualism

[NGTM-1R]

Liberator's Glorious Utopian Society needs no scientists!

(Because they'd set about proving it's a crock of ****.)

[StarSlayer]

Who's going to design the self forging cluster weapons and strike aerocraft for him to conduct unrestricted carpet bombing of other nations with?

[Flipside]

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.

[StarSlayer]

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?

[Liberator]

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 about

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"

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.

[Rian]

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.

[Flipside]

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.

[StarSlayer]

Fair enough I see your objection is to the system as is rather then the general concept.