I've been writing a lot of clojure (for no profitable purpose) and actually find it very difficult to maintain. Common refactorings like moving functions from one package to another can be a headache and keeping track of types and keyword names in my head can also make a project's complexity get quickly out of hand. Mind you, I'm still a beginner to lisp (maybe 1-2 yrs experience), but with a statically-typed language and a good IDE, I'm a much faster developer and can easily do major refactorings to code I'm not all that familiar with.

That said, I'd still take a pay cut if I could develop in clojure all day )

I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but I'd be surprised if anyone has ever deemed all their government expeditures acceptable to them. It's just a type of social contract and you have to trust your representatives to listen to YOU and not to lobbyists who get them reelected or who get them seven-figure salary jobs after they retire. Legislators will not be trying to get rich and they'll concentrate on making government efficient and serving people, because then they can brag about it in their next election.

I'm criticizing the rationale of one group of people. I have empathy for those who are anti-tax as a form of protest, but to be anti-tax because you think the economy can function well without redistribution of wealth is just incorrect. You can't just give money to 'job creators' and expect them to create jobs when there's no new demand, whether through investment or by actually hiring people off the streets. It's THAT logic that's short-sighted. The actual problems with the government can mostly be fixed by removing the influence of money from politics. It's these efforts that the anti-tax crowd ought to be directing their energy towards. Being anti-tax, even for protest purposes, is not really fixing anything.

It's not a question of altruism. You can be selfish in the Ayn Rand sense and still arrive at the logical conclusion that paying taxes is good. Since I wasn't born rich and i'm not that lucky, then I have to find good work to become successful. In order to find this work, I need to live in a healthy economy, which comes from consumer spending, which comes from a more even distribution of wealth than what we have now. Taxes are a way of redistributing wealth and propping up the economy for the future. QED, unless your already wealthy or you're old, then you should want to pay taxes. The anti-tax people are just short-sighted.

The right to be protected from the u.s. gov't by a non-national-government militia, I assume. No I'm not an expert on the constitution, but in these days of 'originalism' and tenthers and so forth by the some sects of the right wing, it's interesting to point out that their cherished second amendment rights are not actually guaranteed by the second amendment at all from an originalist perspective.

Politicians and judges may try to play word games with the constitution to suit their agenda, and they often do, but it clearly says 'well-regulated militia'. There existed words when the 2nd amendment was drafted to specify a single person. They could have replaced one of those words with militia, but they instead chose to use the term 'militia', telling me they didn't intend the 2nd amendment to apply to any random individual. Furthermore, the courts have the right to determine what constitutes a 'well-regulated' militia. I understand the different sense of the term at the time, but again, they could have left the term out if they meant that anyone and everyone has the right to bear arms. The products of this amendment are the state National Guards.

Fair enough, so some sort of government training or certification ought to be required. So, then, did militia mean 'individual'?

I don't care if people have guns because I realize a lot of people are scared/paranoid and think that when the black helicopters swarm in, they'll just shoot their way out. So, I don't care, let them get whatever helps them sleep at night. But this argument makes me cringe. There are many very 'free societies' which make owning firearms illegal or at least highly-regulated. So what you're really saying is 'the price we pay for living in a society where guns are legal', which is a circular argument, which is stupid.

The second amendment has nothing to do with an individual's right to carry weapons. It only applies to 'well-regulated militias'. It couldn't be clearer.

Funny that the one thing that IS specifically mentioned, 'A well-regulated militia', is completely ignored. The 2nd amendment has nothing to do with an individual's right to carry weapons of any sort.

They won't even pass background checks for the mentally-deranged. I think you'll be safe to wait as long as you want.

No, the original poster wasn't talking about 'news' as such, but about where people get their information.

This quote (from here) kind of backs up both our points on occupy vs. tea party:

According to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Tea Party at its height of news attention (as of October 21, when the study was released) filled 7 percent of the newshole, during the week of April 13-19, 2009. That week, the young Tea Party engaged in major national protests marking Tax Day. Since then, the group has popped up again and again in news covered, albeit while garnering less attention.

Occupy, meanwhile, increasingly occupied the media's time during its first three weeks of existence, peaking at 10 percent of the newshole during the week of October 10-16. Since then, it has remained a major storyline in the media, but coverage has fallen off. Still, it has remained in the spotlight relatively consistently since its birth.

The point is it took 3 weeks for news coverage of occupy (anti-corporate) to take off, while the tea party (pro-corporate) was covered immediately. All the while, the occupy protests were much, much larger. You're right, occupy eventually 'won' the most media coverage, but rightfully so, it was larger and generated more interest nationwide.

by 'from a distance' I think I mean the same thing as you mean by 'quite openly' : ) Santorum can say racist stuff all day, but didn't get in trouble until that one time where he explicitly said 'black people' then tried to cover it up by claiming he said 'blah people'. Gingrich and Trump never used the 'N' word, so they're okay too. The birther thing was of course mired in racism. If John McCain was latino and democrat, there certainly would've been more questions about his being born in Panama. This was blanketed as a concern for upholding the constitution, which is why I say 'at a distance'.

Point of view journalism is incredibly common and profitable, and sometimes very good. For example the Daily Show, Rachel Maddow, the Young Turks and Democracy Now all struggle to be factually accurate and have a definite point of view. I just don't like Rachel Maddow because I don't like her tone of voice and attitude. And you don't think the network stations have a point of view? They're pro-establishment, which is why something like Occupy Wall Street can go on for weeks without media coverage, while a random, small pro-Corporate Tea Party rally gets instant coverage.

No what products to offer, but how to offer them, inasmuch as it's meant to protect consumers. In this case, I'm not sure it's protecting anyone but the established channels and forcing consumers to pay more for the ones they want.