It is amazing to me that you can, in the space of 24 hours or so, go from calling me complacent and ignorant, to a common cynic and still remain so confident in your assessment of others whom you do not know. Why not just admit you have no idea exactly what I think?
Your denial of engaging in ad hominem and especially straw man fallacies cannot be taken seriously.
common simple and easy cynicism is a poor replacement for true intelligence. your thinking is a dime a dozen, and just not very bright
Fallacious arguments (e.g. straw men and ad hominem) is no substitute for a real discussion. As far as I can tell, all you have really done in your responses is presume to know my positions (which I am virtually certain you do not) and to refuse an actual discussion. Perhaps I missed something though...
Maybe I said or did something to offend you if. If I did, I can assure you that it was not my intent but rather to have a vigorous discussion.
the false alarmist, and the false complacent, two types of fucking ignorant morons, one of which you are a shining example of
Actually, I believe that the U.S. is on the road to crumbling from within due in part to morale and cultural erosion and to a lesser extent corporatism. This is the way most empires crumble (from within) and I believe that will be the way the U.S. ultimately falls.
I'm far more pessimistic regarding America's future than almost everyone I know. I just disagree with you regarding what the major threat is.
I made no morale arguement about the Chinese autocracy, so about 2/3rds of your post is fallacious (i.e. straw man arguments). You didn't even bother trying to refute any of the points I made in my post.
A top down economy versus a more spontaneous and decentralized one is not even a fair fight to be honest. Saying I'm complacent does not even begin to understand my position regarding the U.S. economy. I am not afraid of a Chinese hegemony, it does not follow that I believe that the U.S. economy will remain preeminent. I simply believe that the Chinese economy will not dominate for a number of reasons (e.g. teetering mortgage sector, upcoming major structural transitions that will be required, etc.)
the greatest enemy capitalism has ever known throughout the history of economics is not communism or socialism, but corporatism. a corporation is a top down autocratic organization that seeks nothing but more profit, be damned any other concerns, like fairness or egaltarianism. when they get large enough, corporations dominate their marketplace by dirty tricks like undercutting competitors prices to destroy them, and rent seeking agreements once they own the whole marketplace by colluding with other large players.
Yours is a populist post full of fear mongering that will never come to pass. You presume bigger is better which is demonstrably true by the last economic collapse. The largest tier financial institutions were decimated and many smaller institutions.
The larger an entity becomes, it is more efficient, but it is also more susceptible it is to rare, dramatic events (e.g. the housing collapse). Taleb calls these Black Swan Events. This is due to complexity growing exponentially as size increases. At some point, like the dinosaurs, an unexpected event happens, and the smaller mammals who are better able to adapt end up feasting on your corpse. Top down run organizations, like the Chinese economy, are very vulnerable to this type of risk in addition to a number of other inefficiencies it suffers from.
Well this is the difference between a state that has long term goals of improving it countries vs. corporations that can't see beyond the next quarterly report.
This is exactly what was said about the Japanese economy (and business culture) when it was doing well. The Chinese also have to drag around the yoke of rampant government (in addition to the standard private) corruption.
And for how many non-Intel architectures has Microsoft provided versions of Microsoft Office? Oh that's right, none.
What about ARM on WinCE? There were Pocket versions of Office.
There is a metric ton of software available. Lots of web browsers, window managers, office suites etc. make for a nice experience. Windows will have many years worth of software ecosystem catch up to play. In the ballpark of a 500-800MHz or better processor and 192MBs RAM (256 is a lot nicer) is required for a pleasant user experience.
Israeli security scans passenger lists and pulls out very personal information to quiz you with. You're going where? With whom? How many Americans will think that that that is OK?
Approximately 100% since those are exactly the same kinds of questions you get when you cross the border into the US.
Regarding your objections to scale, most large airports have pretty long waits at the check-in counters, you could pretty easily check 100% of the people there. Also, you could randomly check people at kiosks, security checkpoints, and gates. You could get pretty close to 100% with minimal delays. At smaller airports, security checkpoints are usually pretty clear, so you could check most people there, at kiosks, or at the gate.
Finally, you make it sound like all the additional training is a bad thing. Scanner monkeys are completely inadequate. It's ime to try something new since what we're doing is obviously "stuck on stupid". I'd love to see the TSA have pilot programs to try out some new ideas (e.g. El Al techniques or similar), since our current approach is clearly not working.
You sure did your research. For the past 30 years every Republican president has increased the debt while every Democrat has decreased it. Damn those tax and spending Democrats and their lowering of the national debt. Here's a clue: stop repeating unfounded talking points.
The power of the purse is the domain of Congress and more specifically the House of Representatives. This turns your Democratic spend thrift thesis on it's head (excluding G.W. Bush).
Finally, the last Congress (or president if you insist) to lower the national debt was Truman coming out of WWII. Your post is provably false on all levels.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
However, the government have a legitimate right to prevent citizens from doing things that will be fatal to themselves or that might seriously harm other people or property.
If this is your premise, then government has a "right" (I'd love to see where that right is enshrined in Common Law) to monitor your caloric intake (eating too much is harmful), ensure you don't go to McDonald's too much, make sure you eat the right kinds of foods, make certain you don't drink "too much", don't take ANY risks our "good and wise" politicians and bureaucrats deem unnecessary. Your line of reasoning would almost undoubtedly lead to an overarching government that knows no boundaries to its "rights" since it is here to protect us from ourselves.
Also, you act as though government has the ability to keep people from buying and selling drugs, alcohol, or tobacco. I would have thought that the Prohibition Era and Mexican Drug Cartels would have taught prohibitionists like yourself that government is powerless to control such things. You only drive the activity underground, empower criminal organized crime and gangs, and turn people who would otherwise be considered law abiding citizens into criminals.
By the way, how's that War On Drugs going so far? Are drugs any less available to kids today than they were in the 60's when this never ending war began? We've spend hundreds of billions of dollars on this War On Drugs over the past 40 years. I'd like to know when I can expect for us to win.
I guess that makes the Bush administration and the Republicans more socialistic than the Democrats. After all "borrow and spend" imposes higher debt on the children than "tax and spend".
As much as I like to slag on Bush, Obama spends a lot more than he raises taxes which has resulted in record deficits. The red vs. blue trap you've apparently fallen into, still talking about Bush is kinda weak sauce though, don't you think?
If you want to annoy a right winger, ask them why we don't privatize the military. They'll go on at length about all the horrible things government does, and how much better it would be if they didn't---except for the military. Funny how the idea of government educating people, or healing people, or employing people, or connecting people to the internet (in this case) is evil and wrong and immoral, but paying and arming a huge body of men and women for the express purposes of maiming, killing and/or oppressing people is perfectly ok by them.
The military is the collective right of self defense. You have the right to defend your person, therefore people have the collective right to defend themselves which will be required to defend themselves and their families against others who would try to take their property or liberty by force. What I find interesting about socialists is that they believe they have the right to enforce their preferences on others and even impose debts on their children who may not have the same preferences who had no say in the matter.
Also, I found it ironic that you ask why defense hasn't been privatized when the Iraq War has largely fought using mercenaries.
" from households making more than $200,000 " - Two earners making a combined $200k in many urban areas where the car will be used are middle class. This might be hard for a writer for Slate to understand given what they pay professional writers at the moment.
Citation needed... Care to provide 10 U.S. cities where the median income approaches $200k? You can't.
Everyone likes to think they're middle class.
My wife and I make well into six figures in a very low cost of living area in case you care to try that salary envy canard again. That was a really disgraceful dig.
What is research but a blind date with knowledge? -- Will Harvey
