The problem is that in this statement:

you are imaging that the US is the "bully country", and failing to imagine what most other countries would do with control over the internet. And actively ignoring what many other countries do with control over their piece of the internet.

The US bullies on plenty of issues. Control over the internet really isn't one of them.

I got the impression you were making the argument about the federal government specifically. Sometimes the federal/state government increases liberty by getting rid of a federal/state regulation. Sometimes abolishing a regulation leads to less liberty.

Neither I nor the Green Party believes government never does harm. I am certainly not claiming that federal, state, or local governments are free of corruption.

The core of the argument is that 1) government is not inherently bad and 2) we can substantially improve the quality of our government through 3) changes in electoral rules, campaign financing, and the revolving door. When a large voting bloc stops believing 1 and 2, we're basically doomed. I'd much rather argue over the best #3 and how to get them implemented.

Key part of your quote:

Universally high quality drinking water? That's "remarkably well". Yes, infrastructure needs work because nobody is willing to spend the money to do it. But, as of today, nearly everyone has potable water.

I'm sorry, but you are misinterpreting or misrepresenting Greens, at least in this paragraph:

The entire point of that line is that governments are not always bad, and they can lead to liberty. The rest of the platform is basically saying "we need all of these things to have a good government again".

I'd call the notion that government never leads to more liberty "cute", but it's ugly and overly cynical. Let me give you a few examples of the federal government creating more liberty:
* abolishment of slavery (Civil War will give you a lot of fun arguing points, I'm sure, but still true)
* abolishment of Jim Crow laws
* child labor laws
* Roe v Wade (trollbait, but millions of Americans have been grateful for this liberty)
* hopefully someday, breaking cable's blockade of good internet (I don't have the liberty to have fiber because a municipal official made a deal with a donor?)

I'm not a Green, but I'm with them on this. And I think any sane person should be. Government is not always bad.

I agree with your point. But to be fair, I have seen 'geniuses' use one formula to do things which could have been written in 50 columns. There are advantages to breaking up the formula and "showing your work" in hidden columns. I hate trying to debug or change formulas with a thousand parentheses. Now if we can only get people to make their excel formulas readable and then start documenting...

Freedom? You want the "free speech right" of a rapist to trump a rape victim's freedom to decide whether or not to be be in an adult video.

It's possible you're not trolling, but it's absolutely ridiculous that anyone would mod you up. So much for #NotAllMen and all those "slashdot isn't misogynist!" comments...

Insightful? Only on Slashdot.

I am glad we agree on the first point. I may have missed some of the context of your post, and I often get the impression that some on slashdot would not agree that targeted rate cuts are a subsidy.

On the latter, I suspect we disagree somewhat. But we don't have to argue that point. Over the last 14 years, I have seen an ugly cycle of: 1) cut taxes disproportionately for the wealthy and corporations; 2) increase defense spending; 3) cite new deficits as justification for cutting entitlements by an amount dwarfed by 1 and 2; 4) propose new tax cuts. The claim that "tax cuts [always] pay for themselves" concerns me greatly.

So, to be clear, if Obama got on TV and announced that no taxes would need to be paid on corporate or personal income from renewable energy sales, you would NOT consider that a form of subsidy? And he would get no resistance from the right, because it would just be "taking less of someone's money"?

I know it's broad, as are the definitions of combat zones. However, I think that's more reflective of America's extreme involvement across the globe, and doesn't necessarily diminish the value of a legitimate medal.

Now, the paperpushers who get bronze stars for their heroic hiring of contractors and writing of contracts...

I'd expect you to at least know the meaning of the first medal you got. Everyone currently in the military has it, yes, but that's not automatic or even upon enlisting. It's only during a time of war. I think that should be recognized.

No, but do you know how many (minor, major, and fatal) collisions there are per mile driven?

I know there are around 2 fatalities per 100m miles driven, but I can't find rates for minor and major accidents. I suspect the vast majority of collisions are non-fatal, so a human driver probably has good odds of being in a collision by 700k.

Do you have any evidence that self-driving cars are unsafe, or that human intervention has been necessary?

Afraid I'll get a woosh for this, but I'll respond...

As I understand it, they already are safer. Thus far, no moving violations and no accidents (to my knowledge). Google's car was in an accident while it was being manually driven. Google is touting 700,000+ accident-free miles now.

I'm sure they do, but seriously... fuck the cabbies. Their lobbying is the reason most Californians can't take the train all the way to the airport. Stops just far enough way that you have to call a taxi.

It would be great to see somebody take that from them.

That may be true for philosophy and ethics, but not as much for political science. There's a decent-sized job market in campaign work, government (esp. urban planning), and security. Security isn't academia per se, but it is borderline since a lot of the work is at think tanks and similar institutions. I'd also argue it's a useful background for business, and multinationals seem to recognize that value.

I believe these are the main reasons Political Science tends to be at the top of the salary rankings for social sciences, along with Urban Planning and International Relations, which often fall under the P.S. department or major.