The anti-tobacco fight is just about over, as is the one over asbestos/mesothelioma. The new generation of lawyers will be getting obscenely rich fighting large investment funds over their investing in fuel companies.

There was once a time when most members of congress listened to scientists and other learned minds in their fields.

Yeah? When was that?

With scientists (and the lobbyists behind them) asking for taxpayers' money, it is only proper to be skeptical. Not distrustful, no, but skeptical nonetheless.

It is the right thing to do — not much different from you being skeptical, when the car-company or a cell-phone maker try to sell you some super-duper advance, that you probably don't need...

Oh, so that makes it ok then?

I didn't say so.

No, it doesn't.

Strawman much?

I don't usually moderate AC-posts for it does nothing to the authors' karma, but I would've done than had I had any points to spend.

I don't, so here it goes: thank you, sir, for raising awareness and letting the healing begin!

It's definitely become more right-wing and reactionary.

Indeed. So much so, arguing with your kind has become more like shooting fish in a barrel. Too easy.

I would've gone to a place like DailyKos or HaffPo to hunt you in your natural environment — with some equivalent of bright orange sign sport-hunters wear to make it harder for themselves — but those places tend to ban KKKonservatives under the bogus accusation of "trolling". So, here we are...

Please, don't hate.

What does "acceptable" mean to you?

To me? No, not to me — I was referring to the meaning OP attached to the word. When Illiberals declare something "unacceptable", their next move is to try to make it illegal...

Bush drafted the pullout plan...

Yes, the plan drafted by him years earlier — but it was Obama's execution, and his failure to make corrections when new developments made it obvious, the plan's original projections were too optimistic. Face it, Obama wanted to do it for political reasons — to look better...

You mean, like Reagan did with the USSR and Afghanistan invasion?

Hah! You lie, but that's a good example, thank you! USSR invaded Afghanistain in 1979, when Jimmy Carter was is office — another example of a weak "it is all America's fault" excuse for a President. But even he imposed sanctions against USSR. And the whole world boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Reagan assumed Presidency in 1981, with the invasion over a year-old, and proceeded to arm Russia's opponents in Afghanistan. He did not lift Carter-era sanctions — he expanded them. Obama, on the other hand, would not send Ukraine anything lethal, and even to get him to agree to supply blankets and body-armor took some arm-twisting and was delayed by months.

1) Gitmo is still open. 2) Drone strikes were started by Bush.

Yes, which is an embarrassment for Obama. To reduce the embarrassment, he is doing two things both of which are far worse: 1) he is releasing the current detainees — including bona-fide enemies of the US; 2) he vastly expanded the drone strikes "started by Bush". Bush used air-strikes to kill enemies, who could not be detained. Obama is using against all — such is his reluctance to increase the number of inconvenient detainees, he prefers to lose the intelligence value of interrogating them. That the remotely-killed people have no chance of clearing up any confusion makes Obama's policy even more immoral.

So far you've listed exactly the things that Republicans do.

Nonsense. You have no leg to stand on in this argument — the extrajudicial killing of bin Laden (ordered by Obama) defeats your point by itself... That you chose to ignore the earlier-raised point of Obama taking the drone-strikes to the whole new level, and his order to kill rather the detain bin Laden, shows your dishonesty.

On top of that you got Reagan's reaction to USSR's invasion exactly backwards, which demonstrates the level of ignorance so deep, I'm unlikely to respond again...

How could anyone, in 2014, have thought this was acceptable?

"Acceptable"? Was the First Amendment declared null and void, while I was sleeping? What do you mean by "acceptable", mister thought-policeman?

If burning American flag, calling for killing of the sitting President, or publicly defecating on a police car is acceptable, having a book with a hare-brained bimbo as one of the characters certainly is too.

I have a daughter like that myself.

Barbie teaches women to be stereotypes, dumb blondes, and how to fake your way through life.

She does not "teach" anybody to be like that — she just shows, such people exist. From what few Barbie-books I've seen (we seem to prefer the Berenstain Bears here, and Dora the Explorer is as boring as most government-sponsored things tend to be), I can not conclude, the books portray the character as the (or even a) role-model. In other words, whatever she is doing is not meant for the girls to emulate necessarily...

Some will, no doubt, and there is no helping that — some people think orcs of Mordor are cool... For another example, the adorable Vinnie the Pooh is not a good role model either.

unless the child is asking for Barbie, you can skip it altogether.

True that, yes...

"What's the problem with the book? It's just like real life!"

Tell me, that it is not... I dare you...

Now, maybe, the book should not be encouraging yet another generation of girls to act like that — but real-life it is nonetheless.

Please, don't hate.

Like making close to or less than the minimum wage. See a single parent struggle.

Thankfully, the vast majority of America's 18-year olds do not witness either of those things.

But what if they did? That'd only given them half of the story, making them fall for a smooth-talking politician promising to raise the minimum wage and to provide a respectful husband for every single mother. Both promises would be idiotic, of course, but one of them is continuously being made nonetheless...

Your opinion on when people can drink is irrelevant - we are discussing the laws of our land

You asked me, whether I'd suggest a change of drinking laws. Your question made my opinion relevant...

As for who is affected when someone enrolls [enlists in the military -mi] ... it would affect more people more certainly than one vote.

Those people — the military commanders — have decided, who they want to see enlisting. Indeed, it may affect them, but I am not qualified to question their judgement on enlistees. The soldiers' lack of life experience — their officers will be making most of the decisions anyway — may be compensated for by their energy and health, for example.

But there is no possible upside to expanding franchise to youngsters.

People used to be done with school by the age of thirteen and begun to support their family.

And today healthcare laws mandate they be treated as children until 26...

Life is full of wonderful, horrifying, and enlightening experiences even within an 18 year span!

Few of those have anything to improve one's ability to govern a country.

I find it completely absurd to argue that those who are eighteen should not be able to vote.

Well, it may or may not be a good idea, but it certainly is not "absurd". In fact, that's how this nation lived until the 26th Amendment (1971). How old were you then?

Nuclear power is bad. Exporting radioactive materials to a different country is worse — and a different celestial body is outright horrible.

Solar, on the other hand, is clean and wonderful...

Why can't we here in the US be more like the sophisticated Europe?

Please, don't hate.

A Republican by his actions and policies.

Oh, no you don't... You keep him. A Republican would not have withdrawn all troops from Iraq — allowing ISIS to bloom and necessitating a painful return.

A Republican would not have encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine by lifting all sanctions imposed over a similar invasion into Georgia.

A Republican would've continued to detain terrorist suspects — in Guantanamo or elsewhere — rather then order extrajudicial killings — most infamously one of Osama bin Laden himself.

No, Obama is an Illiberal Democrat through and through. But such people — yourself included — are famous for inability to recognize each other — so far are their deeds from their proclaimed ideals.

On the Democratic side, the argument is that a healthy nation is a better nation, and it is worth a very significant cost to achieve that. Argue that it isn't.

It is very easy to argue, actually. By demonstrating, what "healthy nation" means in the Democratic speak. It is not, where fewer people are sick — it is one, where everyone has health-insurance. Now, that I've rephrased their point closer to reality: "A nation, where everybody has a health-insurance is a better nation," — it is slightly less unassailable.

But they don't mean even that. As Obama and his kept saying, if he had a choice, he'd have a single-payer health-system — and that is very easy to attack. Especially for people like myself, who grew-up in such a "worker's paradise"...

And the more cynical among us (and you can't be too cynical discussing the government's intentions) would argue, that Obamacare was designed to fail to make the single-payer system more palatable to the tired electorate.