TomAiello

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I'm not saying it's not natural; it's just wrong.

Anything that consenting adults choose to do between themselves can't be wrong. It's their choice to live as they wish.

Anything? What if they decide to throw a dice with the results being death? Evens, guy kills girl, Odds, girl kills guy?

If they are all consenting? Sure, have at it. That's none of my business.

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What's up with that Galt dude, anyway?

Who is he?

At the rate we're going, I think he's going to be my roommate in a couple years.

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In terms of civil law, if someone gets hurt or their property is damaged as a predictable result of such conduct, it would constitute an actionable tort for which the "shouter" could be sued for damages.

I took the hypothetical situation presented (no one runs out) as meaning that there was no damage to persons or property.

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I'm not saying it's not natural; it's just wrong.

Anything that consenting adults choose to do between themselves can't be wrong. It's their choice to live as they wish.

The reason the politicians set it up this way is obvious. If you can give free stuff to 51% of the people, and make them like you, you'll keep getting elected. If you can set it up so that you only take from a quarter of the voters, to give free stuff to three quarters, you're always going to have a bunch of people voting for you to keep giving them stuff. And who cares about that other quarter? Sure, they'll never vote for you, but as long as you keep your 51% happy, that doesn't matter much.

It's interesting to me that the US has the most progressive taxation in the the industrialized world. We have a far more slanted tax burden than any of the supposedly more "socialist" nations in Europe. At least there they've figured out that if you want people to feel some sense of responsibility, then everyone has to pay something into the system.

I'm going to be very curious to see if this continues. What will we do when 85% of Americans pay no federal income tax? At some point the system will collapse, because the tax rates on the actual taxpayers will become too onerous.

What's up with that Galt dude, anyway?

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when you get something for free, you're not that intested in how it runs.

Utter nonsense.

You certainly don't care much about what it costs (someone else), though.

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Your PERSONAL issues Score is 100%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 100%.

According to your answers, the political group that agrees with you most is...

LIBERTARIAN

Ditto.

Hardly a surprise, in my case. I first took that quiz when I was in college.

I'm confused as to why we need the government's permission to marry in the first place. Wouldn't this be easier if the government just got out of the marriage business altogether?

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Falsely shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre is still illegal regardless of weather anyone runs out screaming. Same shit.

It is?

Do you have a reference to the law about that?

Thanks!

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I believe you've misinterpreted the statement.

no, I stand by my position on kitten jugglers - they are dispicable

You just don't understand. Kitten jugglers actually follow a higher moral code.

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I can read French pretty well and read road signs in Spanish. I had no problem driving in either country. But if a cop pulled me over in Spain I would not have been able to follow his questions.

That's because they speak Mexican over there (insert Bush voice).

I thought they spoke Latin? Isn't that the main language in Latin America?

The right to raise your children in the manner you see fit is a fundamental human right. I don't believe we have the moral authority to remove a child from their parents' care simply because we disagree with the manner in which the parent is raising them.

Take fat kids away from their parents and what's next? Taking away kids whose parents let them watch too much TV? Taking away kids whose parents let them eat junk food? Taking away kids whose parents let them go to bed at night without saying their prayers?

Where does it end?

Oooh, this will be fun.

What caused the Great Depression?

The Civil War?

The Bubonic Plague?


I bet it was those evil tax cuts that did those things, too.

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The true and ultimate catylist were the low int rates; w/o those there would be no mortgage mess.

What factors led to the low interest rates?

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The government is the lender, and the company is the borrower. Mind you, nobody forced the bailed-out companies to borrow this money; they requested it when they couldn't get that level of financing elsewhere.

There is actually some debate about that. I've seen several bank CEO's on the news saying that they felt pressured (by the treasury department) into taking the bailout (and also pressured to absorb the banks that were failing).

If you don't let them speak, how can you argue against them? Better to have the debate openly than let it fester in the dark.

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Great use of tax dollars there.

like the $923,053,000,000.00 (923 Billion, 53 million) we have spent on Iraq and Afghanistan? I think that works out to $7,100 for every man, woman and child in America.

For a family of 5, thats $35,502 in tax dollars, just to pay for "the war on terror".

And what have we accomplished? Bin Laden is still trolling around...

Oh yeah and another 110,000,000,000 requested for FY 2010.

Great use of tax dollars there...

Yes We Can! Keep those wars going strong, and even escalate them!

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But NPR and other outlets are not promoting themselves with the tagline "Fair and balanced."

My local NPR outlet uses the tagline "fair and unbiased."

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Repubs better figure it out, once HC is here, there will be a real fear that ANY R president would slash it, so there will be a reluctance to ever elect one again.

Right. Any time you create a massive new entitlement, you've created a bunch of beneficiaries who will fight to keep their "free" handouts.

Statements like yours are exactly why some people would rather dig in their heels and just vote 'no,' rather than discussing alternatives.

Here is the GOP's web page on their various ideas.

I can't find it right now, but the McCain campaign website had a pretty detailed plan on it last year. Obviously McCain didn't even read the thing, as he couldn't explain it in the debates, but it was a pretty good plan, and was mostly based on the Friedman article I've linked several times.

As I recall, Obama refused to discuss specifics on it, and simply derided it as a "trillion dollar tax increase" without ever actually discussing it. It was pretty reminiscent of the "death panel" comments, actually--a lot of over the top mischaracterization and very little discussion of the underlying substance.

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Which headline have you seen more often? Even on FOX?

"Republicans criticize Obama's health care plan"
"Republicans propose bipartisan alternative for public option"

I don't watch (or read) FOX news.

However, the GOP has been proposing various healthcare reform packages for at least 3 years. The fact that the media isn't reporting them would tend to indicate some bias, wouldn't it?

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> But someone is going to have to buy me some cans to try to convince me.

What sort of beer do you prefer? Maui Coconut Porter is pretty interesting.

That does look interesting. I've found it in several places on-line, but can't seem to locate it in stock. Is it a seasonal, or something, or is it just that on-line beer sales aren't really all that?

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The truth is that the GOP has plenty of alternative ideas, and only a very little crazy (kind of like the dems). But the current dem strategy is to hold up the crazy bits and scream loudly about how all republicans are just like that.

Just looking on the forum here I see exactly the opposite picture - a lot of "a very little crazy", and only few reasonable.

Dude, you're reading an internet forum and thinking it represents a cross section of the real population?

Now, that's crazy.

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Unfortunately, the reality is that governments cost money to run.

They cost a lot less to run if they're not busily engaged in shoveling trillions of dollars into military adventurism in remote corners of the world.

Cutting our insanely out of control military spending is a much more logical step than trying to support it further by jacking up our top tax rates further, especially given that we have the most progressive taxation in the world already.

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> If it comes in a can, I'm pretty much not going to be drinking it.

You may want to think about that. Oskar Blues, Maui Brewing, Butternuts, New Belgium and Sly Fox are all canning now. Canning can offer better protection from sunlight and air (both deadly to beer) and it's cheaper.

I might think about it. But someone is going to have to buy me some cans to try to convince me. If you want, I can PM you my shipping address.