Comment Re:Cue the climate change deniers ... (Score 1) 684
A key indicator of a religion is its lack of falsifiability.
A key indicator of a religion is its lack of falsifiability.
Who are these "national economists" angels with our best interests in mind?
Well, by "conservative hack", JDG1980 means that Scalia decides issues based upon the agreed-upon principles and rules laid out in the Constitution rather than fabricating new legislation willy nilly to meet the demands of progressivism like Sotamayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan.
Yeah, but that's like me and my religious mother-in-law agreeing that Super Bowl Sunday is a great day to not spend any time working.
Sure, we'd agree on the day of the week - but not at all for the same reasons.
You owe everything to the society that provided you with a starting point.
Obviously you think this line of reasoning is hyperbole and bullshit or doesn't apply to you since you're spending time debating politics on Slashdot and probably surfing the internet rather than working to provide food, shelter, and clothing to others in need.
So let's try again. What do you mean by stating that I owe everything to society? What is this society you speak of? I owe everything to all of it? Throughout all time? To which structures of this society should all the fruits of my labor go? The parts that make war? The parts that feed hungry people? The parts that make the economy work? The parts that create life-saving medical products and techniques? If I owe everything, why don't you owe everything? You seem to make your own choices about how you spend your time, why can't I?
So basically, what you're saying is that because I was born into a society to which I owe everything, I should be thankful for anything that society lets met do. Welcome to abject tyranny. What a shitty philosophy you espouse.
Yes, because you purposely choose to ignore that only a small part of "the fruits of your labour" can enterily be attributed to your individual efforts.
So, 100% of the money you don't need to minimally feed, clothe, and house yourself, you send to various federal, state, and local governments? Obviously not, since you're here on Slashdot, arguing this subject. Obviously, you're selfish for spending time surfing the internet when you could be helping to build someone a house with Habitat for Humanity. You're selfish for having a personal computer and an internet connection. Maybe you have cable television, own your own car, or have taken a vacation by airplane. Those are all extremely selfish.
It is not tyranny when you understand, accept and respect the weight of your sourrounding society on what you want to call your "individual liberty".
Oh, so I owe something? Exactly to whom do I owe something? How much do I owe? By whose authority and under what logic do I owe?
But I suppouse you are in fact free to migrate to Haiti or Somalia any day you want: they certainly are more respectful of the "individual liberty" than any first world country (I'm not kidding: I really mean it).
That's a straw man. Those societies are not respectful of individual liberty for everyone. They believe in liberty for those with the most power. There is nothing in their societal framework that tries to maximize liberty for all. When I talk about Liberty, I mean as a fundamental and primary right for everyone. I mean it in the sense of the Declaration of Independence as (ostensibly) protected by the US Constitution.
Because, as Warren Buffet said, you grew up in a society which was the creation of others before you, and if you didn't have that society you and your parents wouldn't have had your own food, shelter and clothing.
Sure, I owe Society something for providing a starting point. I don't advocate anarchy. But what is this "society" you speak of and for so authoritatively? Further, what is the actual fabric of that society that has benefitted me and that I owe? Yet further, what parts of society actually hindered me? Certainly you realize that our society, like any framework, has its good parts and bad parts. Have you thought about that? Have you followed that thought to its logical conclusion in that some people succeed despite obstacles put forth by the society they live in? Think about what a woman who taught herself how to read in Afghanistan circa 1999. What did she owe the goals of the Taliban? Ooh, the government != society? Now you're really thinking... I like that.
I claim that the society that I owe my starting point to is one that encourages personal responsibility by letting the successful keep the lion's share of their rewards. The society that I owe is one that establishes fundamental primary value in personal liberty, unleashing the individual to reach whatever heights of success he or she is able to. The society that I owe is one that encourages free and open markets to allow individuals to create products and services that others in the society will want to pay for, thus vindicating the value of such products and services.
In short: Yes, I owe society -- but not the collectivist/socialist society you would like me to pay into. I owe the society built upon the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. All the obstacles that some have put in my way through tyrannical subjugation of the Individual by the State are to be battled and destroyed, not funded.
As biologists and anthropologists have now proven with pretty good scientific rigor, communities that survive are the ones in which people are cooperative and altruistic. The ones that aren't cooperative and altruistic don't survive.
Oh, hell... so from the biological perspective, maybe if we were all just mindless hive members listening to the commands of our leaders, we'd be more successful as a society? No thanks.
From an anthropological perspective, citation? Are you going to argue against the explosive societal growth that was the American experiment in individual liberty? Are you going to claim that America was founded as a non-cooperative society because we didn't guarantee free food, shelter, and clothing in the Constitution? If so, you may want to go Google the constitution of the failed Soviet State. They guaranteed a huge list of freebies. It looked like an OWSer's dream document. We all know what happened to the Soviets.
I just went through this argument again with a self-described conservative[...]
Dude, I can't be bothered to formulate arguments to defend the positions of so-called "conservatives" with whom you've argued who may or may not exist, who may have actually cleaned your clock logic-wise -- but you may not have understood what they were saying well enough to relate it here.
Your suggestion of where a Government CTO should start implies a misunderstanding of the motivation of the State and of this administration in particular.
There will be no concerted moves toward efficiency that might decrease a need for Government personnel and budget. No, this CTO will be suggesting new programs that require new expenditures. If anything, those new programs will degrade the performance of other parts of Government, requiring more budget dollars to correct.
The State is interested in its own growth. Low hanging fruit that gains efficiency, costs less, and gives more freedom to individuals will not be pursued.
Why should I have to work to provide you a minimum level of food, shelter, and clothing? Are you my master? Am I your slave? How many hours of my labor do you require to take care of you and the results of your breeding activities? At what point during the day can I take care of my own needs and pursue my own desires?
Am I selfish for choosing how to spend the fruits of my labor? Or are you selfish for wanting to take the fruits of my labor by force through government?
Maybe if giving people people minimum levels of food, shelter, and clothing didn't do anything besides create a culture of dependence, I might agree that the good of the results is worth the price of tyranny against individual liberty... but it just isn't.
All the CTO/CIO + tons of Czar appointments are an effort to legitimize more executive appointed bureaucrats, more staff to support them, more money, and more power for the government.
Over time, these appointments will get expanded into departments that will end up completely undermining the very thing they're supposed to be promoting - at the cost of billions to taxpayers. Take a look at the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. Horrible track records for accomplishing squat in their respective fields, yet they've bloated way beyond all usefulness and are tied into the political infrastructure like cancers that can never be removed.
What's wrong with the word "Obamacare". It's short and unambiguous. Is the guy supposed to say "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" instead?
It's like the "Bush Tax Cuts". We all know what someone is talking about when they bring it up. No need to site the HR and S bill numbers which no one knows anyway.
Sure, these terms tend to be used to in the pejorative sense; but that's the fault of the actual legislation, not the way their nicknames.
Since these are the appointments of one person - how is their race the sign of anything besides what that person believes?
Obviously, the President is from the political party that pushed the style over substance societal pressure that is "political correctness", so what would even lead you to search the space of "doing something right" while trying to understand the likely reason for a statistical aberration?
I'll never understand how criticism of Obama is somehow countered with criticism of George W.
That's politics, I guess, where which team you're on is always more important than the soundness of your logic or the value of your core principles.
Yeah, I found a browser add-on that makes reading Slashdot a lot more palatable. It works in Chrome and Firefox. I haven't tried it in IE.
This is the prime reason why I vote for smaller government. People are stupid. Our leaders are at best mediocre. Why should they have so much power to tell us what light bulbs to use, how many gallons we can flush, how we spend our healthcare dollars, etc. Most importantly, why should they be able to take such a large percentage of my labor through taxes to impose tyranny upon me?
The Constitution had more than enough power for these weasels that the dumb-ass masses keep electing.
BLISS is ignorance.
