You must mean the new sense of 'fascism', which is "things I don't like." Clearly you can't mean it in the traditional sense, because you'd know that 'brave dissidents' such as yourself would have been hauled off to concentration camps or simply executed in a truly fascist regime. You must also mean the new sense of 'progressive', which means not an advocate of progress, but someone trying to implement ideas that have brought much of Europe to it's knees. (Real fascists did that by spilling blood.) The 'progressives' there have run out of other people's money to hand out that decent standard of living you're so keen on.

Really, it must be fun to re-assign words like fascist and progress to suit your political agenda, and be largely unchallenged on your mauling of the language.

But hey, I could be wrong. That next knock on the door could be the Neo-SS come to haul you off to a concentration camp for daring to criticize those in power. Good luck in there.

So, I assume you've got a list of actual tax dodging right wing political advocacy groups to back up your profiling comparison to Muslim radicals with a very real body count. No? Because a quick search (starting with Former Head Tax Collector & Tax dodger Timothy Geitner) will yield plenty of tax delinquents in, or on good terms with, the current administration.

The people you're trying to 'profile' still believe in the rule of law, even if the current law sucks. The people you defend don't; they believe in exercising power for the benefit of their team. Your comparison cannot be substantiated. Your defense is rationalization for your tribe, nothing more.

I welcome your actual proof to the contrary; that is, examples of tax dodging by the sort of groups in question that would justify profiling.

Yeah, those tax-evading tea partiers like Timothy Geitner and a good portion of the white house staff. It's about power, and exercising power to the detriment of your enemies and the benefit of your friends. The Rule of Law is not the point. It's Chicago style politics writ large. There will always be people, like you, who will rationalize and defend the behavior as a method of servicing their ideological tribesmen. In generating excuses and furthering the degrade of the rule of law, you are a retrograde, who pushes humanity towards baser tribal behavior, and away from enlightenment values. But f*ck it, they're on your team, so it's all good, right?

Thus one learns the need to delegate tasks, respect folks in their field of expertise (though perhaps not further), and do your own research when you have a need for specific knowledge on something.It strikes me as a rather adult thing to learn and accept your limitations, and how to accomplish what needs doing despite your limited capacity and knowledge.

Here one should learn history to gain some perspective. Currently, I'm reading a biography of Winston Churchill, and I find myself astounded at how duplicitous, weak, and downright willfully ignorant Chamberlain's government was in the run up to World War 2. I think little of our current political leaders; it's heartening to know the free world has lived through worse. This, of course, applies to any human field one might become despondent about.

You're here. If you're not gonna put that pistol in your mouth and pull the trigger, you might as well do something with your time here. Get moving.

In any standardized intelligence test, I always scored north of the 95% percentile. In my travels, I've learned that intelligence alone accounts for little- your attitudes, habits, moral standards, and fortitude count tremendously, and your intellect might be best applied to improving your character in those other fields.

You, I think, have reinforced that point. You're smart. So what? Take that as a challenge, not a sarcastic dismissal, and you'll do better.

First, you're conflating weapons production (The Hanford mess) with electrical power generation. I imagine that's purposeful on your part, because you wouldn't have as much to talk about if you focused on electrical power production.

Now, I'd like to point out that this mess was created when the science involved was new, and there were a million unknown factors about the entire nuclear business- weapons and power production- that were completely unknown at the time. The science and processes became known through the work folks today degrade as 'nutty' and 'screw ups', though if we hadn't done that work, we wouldn't know anything. The discovery of new knowledge can be a messy business, but the acquisition of that knowledge allows us to be more sensible later on. You don't know what you don't know.

Further, the worst and greatest volume of the waste comes from plutonium production, not the refinement of uranium, which is what electricity-producing nuclear reactors use.

I don't, but I'm under the impression that major sports programs often bring in surplus funds to the university, such that they wouldn't have an adverse affect on tuition rates.

There isn't, hence the need to revamp the whole system. Texas is moving towards the $10,000 bachelors degree on this basis.

This is why Education should be funded by The People. If we took the profit motive out of education we wouldn't have to worry about the "administration" making several times what the instructors do for not even teaching.

Our public universities don't have a profit motive, but they're the worst offenders. They consume all the resources they can- state subsidies aren't used to lower tuition, but hire more administration, build fancy new facilities (that don't add to the instructional value.), or just have fun with the college kids at taxpayer's expense. You essentially propose throwing more taxpayer money at the problem, but that hasn't helped the student so far, why would it now? The entire system- public universities especially- needs to be revamped.

Somethin' like a government body. And that'd be socialism (cue dramatic music).

The more powerful the regulators become, the more it is in the interest of those regulated to control or influence the regulators.

The incumbent regulated then use the regulators they influence or control to exclude competitors, fatten their profit margins, or extract subsidies.

Obviously some regulation and the accompanying trade offs are necessary for a well-functioning society, but the abuse I just described happens every single day in the United States.

I find it appalling that you wish to expand the corrupt system.

You say that like it's not feasible, from a religious perspective, that the concepts behind the Star Wars universe were divine inspiration bestowed upon mankind by some supernatural Force.
That is, after all, no different to the root source of religious "knowledge" quoted by most (if not all) religions. The only difference is that other religions generally started with oral traditions and writing books, rather than going straight to cinema.

The Judeo-Christian tradition has shaped, and been shaped by, successful societies for two to six millennial.
The Jedi religion is 'practiced' and supported by smarmists who, enamored with their cleverness in making superficial comparisons (as you have just done) are completely ignorant of what they've gained from the traditions they mock.
It's easy and juvenile to mock religions as superstition and a cynical method of controlling the masses. I know because I've done it myself.

In time I've gained a bit of a better perspective on the matter by comparing our history (the Christian-based west) with the real alternatives out there.

One can imagine a utopia of enlightened atheists who practice pure rationality in all things regarding humanity. One cannot show this in practice or in history as any sort of enduring force for good. And no, the last 50 years of declining belief in western countries doesn't count as 'enduring' in the historical sense, especially as the demographic trend of newly secular western societies begins to circle the drain.
Perhaps the next few hundred years will show the atheist's utopia is possible. Until then, conceit is unwarranted.

There are more sadistic SWAT teams that go by the motto 'Always shoot the dog' simply because they can get away with it.
Wouldn't it be great if we could staff SWAT teams solely with officers who would never volunteer for it? We'd have a higher chance of getting officers who will do their duty, and a lower chance of getting sadistic assholes who want to play soldier-at-war in the homes of our fellow citizens.

To be fair, Michael Moore's shenanigans are juvenile and transparent.
Noam Chomsky- let's just say there's a reason his fan base is perpetually 23 years old.

I'm not familiar with the work of Goodman and Greenwald.

I bet you would volunteer to be on the board that determined and regulated all that. Wouldn't you love to have that kind of power over people?

Conservatives don't value freedom. During the Bush administration, we lost a ton of freedom, especially during the period where the GOP controlled everything. The only thing that temporarily arrested the slide was that Bush managed to piss off SCOTUS enough that they started to say no.

Conservatives value certain freedoms like the 2nd amendment, but are pretty hostile towards the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments.

And how's Obama doing with all that stuff? Seems to me he's continued all of Bush's most hated policies.

Anything that can be bartered for a fiver isn't special, and wishing it so isn't going to change a damned thing.

Treating it as special, however, is one of the many things that separates us from the animals, and allows societies to advance beyond the primitive.

Much of that 'Holier than thou' stuff you dismiss outright serves an actual purpose, a purpose I don't expect to explain sufficiently in a slashdot comment. I only suggest that perhaps some reflection on the development of civilizations is in order; if you can get past your adolescent reflexive hatred of your forebears.