Just about everyone? No one likes the complexity of the tax system, but very very few people support the flat tax when they understand the ramifications.

What ramifications? Are you assuming that the only possible flat-tax that could pass is a vanilla regressive tax with no prebate? FairTax (which I believe is the most widely supported flat tax proposal) accounts for the regressive nature of flat taxes in its model.

Paul's belief in creationism I believe is also tied to his views on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion. If he is president when a bill comes across his desk to legislate things like that, I don't think he's going to represent my views.

Except that he already proved otherwise. In votes. For 30 years. He's going to leave it to the states, where it belongs, his own opinions on the issue be damned. Doesn't it mean anything to you that despite being staunchly pro-life and likely anti-same-sex-marriage as well, he won't actually support federal legislation to try to force those beliefs upon voters? That means a great deal to me and makes me respect him as a politician. I'm tired of people that try to legislate based on their view of what the world should be rather than based on what our system of governance is + what their constituents want.

I pointed out that Ron Paul is a creationist

How is that relevant? How he votes is all that matters. As politicians go, he was as consistent as they come from a libertarian standpoint. Neither religion nor Republican dogma drove his votes.

For example jumping to the instant assumption that the author is prophesying the end of the world is a classic denialist trick to distract from actual discussion, and to discredit the science by trying to discredit an unrelated argument.

Trick? What trick? Doom and gloom is the default case for these discussions (See IPCC report "2.2.4 Risk of catastrophic or abrupt change"). We're already moving in a renewables direction. Since 2007, renewables have slowly been eating into fossil fuels and becoming more cost-effective with every passing year. Of their own momentum. As are hybrid/electric vehicles. Which is why there needs not be a discussion, unless the adoption rate isn't occurring fast enough. That very concept of "not fast enough" implies urgency, which implies "end of the world/catastrophic" type scenarios. It's not like it's a huge derailment of logic. Between the dialogue and the agenda, in light of what's already occurring in the sector, it's a reasonable conclusion.

I see the opposite. Alot of conservative opinions are knee-jerk simplistic stances. To use your example, raising the minimum wage will cost jobs. Anyone can follow that "logic", unfortunately, it doesn't hold up in the real world.

And you see the same simplistic breakdown on the liberal side. The assumption is that that "minimum wage == more wealth for the poor person", as if money grows on trees. In reality, the additional expense has to be dealt with. A liberal just assumes the company owner is going to eat the loss out of their profits. In the real world, these expenses will either be pushed through to the consumer via increased product costs or pushed through to the workforce via reduced benefits or labor reductions. And that says nothing of the macro-level effects (such as inflation, or the ripple effect on other jobs). The end result of minimum wages is actually very heavily debated among economists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#Debate_over_consequences) and far from the "automatic win" advocates pretend it is.

Too many people either can't or won't analyze things, they are more interested in a catchy argument that "sounds" right, but breaks down in the real world.

That I'll fully agree with. I see it on both sides, quite frequently.

Or maybe they cheat 20 different ways, and they only got caught on one. Maybe they really suck when they stop cheating entirely.

There's some truth to that. For instance, the "grey territory" that is exploiting the wide receiver eligibility reporting is borderline cheating as well (http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Owners-Pass-Ban-On-Patriots-Ineligible-Receiver-Trick/aa52588d-47ff-4b0b-9bf5-65d759694c93). Although not explicitly illegal in 2014, it was shady enough to warrant a ban this year.

Keep up with the story. They've already released the type and size of the knife, and that knife is not illegal in Baltimore. The arrest was almost certainly illegal.

Not sure you've been following the story either, because the legality is still up in the air (http://www.wbaltv.com/news/officer-files-motion-contending-gray-arrest-was-legal/32824182). And "grey-zone" territory like this has come up before in Maryland, so this is nothing new:

http://www.mdshooters.com/show...
http://forums.officer.com/t513...

The difference is that there is well-documented evidence of climate change and its damage, and not of your made-up example.

Not true. None of the claimed very expensive fallouts of climate change have come to fruition. So they remain mere speculation. Even if you can prove global warming is occurring, you can't prove the damage. For all you know, the beneficial outcomes could outweigh the negatives. It's all speculation.

The thing is, people rarely identify themselves as SJWs. As a rule, it's a term used to define others as a way to shut down debate. You see this on ./ all the time - someone takes offence at some group of other that's trying to change the status quo, so they label them a SJW, implying negative connotations, and effectively shutting down debate. It's a shitty tactic.

Stop being a denialist. We have a consensus about SJWs already.

This means that your "nutritious" smoothie has the equivalent of 4 teaspoons of sugar, so I am not sure that you have a full grasp on the nutrition aspect.

To be fair, that smoothie is loaded with fiber, particularly from the banana. Sugar aside, having a stomach full of fiber goes a long way towards staving off hunger and ultimately cutting calories.

Eh, that's stretching it a bit, at least in the Senate. It's bipartisan in the sense that it got more than 0% of the Democrats to vote for it, but not much more: 20% of the D caucus voted for it, 80% against.

These days, 20% is incredibly bipartisan, if you go by typical voting percentages over the past decade or so (in our hyperpartisan era).

Nope. Capitalism and socialism are both incomplete. Calling one more important than the other is like suggesting that your car's axle is more important than its pistons -- both are needed for the car to work.

No, it's like comparing brake fluid and washer fluid. Without one, you're doomed to disaster. Without the other, you'll probably eventually get into trouble at some point when your windshield clouds up and you collide with some obstacle. In short, the unfettered version of socialism is by far way worse than the unfettered version of capitalism. And it's not even close.

But you are correct that some amount of both is the ideal.

No, your definition is not correct. Capital is only stuff that either *is* money or can be converted into money on a very short term basis.

I'm sorry, but no. His/Her definition is correct. ArmoredDragon specifically stated he was referring to economic capital, defined here, which is very different from what you're referring to. That's financial capital, defined here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

And the program he's referring to is "Cash for Clunkers"...it's in the original post you yourself responded to. It was a highly touted "green" incentive launched in the US during the recession to both grow the economy and help the environment. When in reality it likely did neither. The program quite literally spent taxpayer dollars to incentivize people to destroy their perfectly functional older vehicle and replace it with a newer one. There is no better example of the broken window fallacy than that program.

In short, you're arguing semantics, mainly because I suspect you lack an economics background.

The question is not who or what caused it. The question is whether it has some negative impact and if so, what we can do to counteract it.

Except that the people claiming that they know what caused it (CO2) have already assumed a substantial negative impact and have already announced a course of action (drastically reduce CO2 at any economic cost). That makes it hard to discuss any of those topics.

We are not yet in a single-payer system, which means the market remains in the driver's seat.

No. For the same reason the market isn't in the driver's seat when I mandate lightbulbs with technologically unreachable efficiency levels or coal scrubbers that jack the cost of energy by 20-30%. Don't claim a free market where a free market does not exist. It's like me tying one of your arms behind your back, bashing your knees, then handing you a sword and having you defend yourself against a trained swordsmen -- fate is entirely in your hands, right? Until the consumers of healthcare (aka the people getting the care) can see transparent prices PRIOR to the actual care given and can competitively bargain shop for doctors/hospitals/procedures, there is no market. Ask yourself how this kind of thing can happen and you'll very quickly understand why it's not a market: http://www.washingtonpost.com/... Note that in a free market, the consumers would flock to the cheaper option, with the "invisible hand" forcing the higher prices down through basic supply/demand. It doesn't happen in reality because healthcare is a shell game between a bunch of "price negotiators".

The market's treatment of pre-existing conditions is a known black mark against those that argue that free market forces will fix everything.

Again, no. You're conflating health insurance and healthcare, which are two entirely different things that this country insanely links. The _insurance companies_ are the ones who abuse pre-existing conditions. And that can be readily handled with legislation. You don't see life insurance companies dropping people when they get sick or old, do you? There's a reason it doesn't happen: because it's fraud.

Free market sees the uninsured being denied access to emergency rooms

EMTALA guarantees everyone access to emergency rooms. No one is denied.

You're going to need to explain the FU bit about cost controllers. It forced an administrative/medical care ratio on insurance companies. That means that insurance companies can't pile on administrative costs forever.

You seem to think that administrative costs are the primary drivers of rising healthcare costs. I suggest further research. And that clause is also irrelevant as it could just as easily exacerbate costs by having insurance companies push for useless tests to drive up the ratio.

It also increased the minimum requirements of insurance so that what "insruance" is isn't $25 a month feel-good, get-sick-and-die policy.

You think this is a cost control??? It's in fact the exact opposite. And that red herring of "insurance that isn't real insurance" is bullshit. Tons of people with perfectly valid non-garbage HDHP HSAs (myself included) had their costs skyrocket when all sorts of minimum standards they didn't want or require (ever) were forced into their plan (such as childless families and/or men in general paying for maternity care in their insurance costs)

We don't necessarily need more doctors (just allow nurses to practice within the scope of their training, that's one of several quick fixes) or more hospitals. Just because you cannot see or understand the difference doesn't mean the difference isn't there.

You are the one who doesn't understand the difference. And this should be dead obvious to you considering the fact costs (including premiums) are still rising even against the backdrop of this bill. Total healthcare costs haven't changed and the only reason health insurance _looks_ cheaper for poor people is because it's subsidized by the more wealthy who are now paying much more (both out of pocket and in premium hikes). I suggest you stop focusing on health insurance and look at what healthcare actually costs. What's the bill do to lower that cost? (you know, the one that matters...?)

The President and the Democrats and a couple Republicans actually -did- something. If its a buck passed, then its a buck that no one else has bothered or managed to pass in the history of the US.

Again, wrong. Medicare passed the buck from the elderly to everyone else. Medicaid passed the buck from poor people to everyone else. ACA further passed the buck from poor people to everyone else. NONE of these things addressed healthcare costs, which are exorbitantly high. All they did was make it somebody else's financial problem. Hell, if the government did nothing more than spend a trillion dollars a year building new hospitals, purchasing new MRI machines, and training more doctors, we'd probably be way better off than where the money has gone to date. And the healthcare per capita spending here (in the light of three massive government healthcare programs) should make that obvious.

This is part of being a community, and paying taxes sucks, but this is the least horrible option available that the government was actually able to pass.

Not even marginally true. There are a _zillion_ things that could have passed, many with bipartisan support. And those would have all been better than what did pass. What did pass solved one big problem (pre-existing conditions) in a very poor fashion (mandated health care) and solved some small problems (~5-10% of the populace without insurance) in a very expensive and reckless fashion (destroying the HDHP concept, cementing the existing system while redistributing costs, tacking on another mammoth unsustainable Mandatory budget item, etc).