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Author | Topic: Down To The Wire 2012 >>POLITICS<< | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3
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Mittens also came across as an idiot, thanks to some actual zingers from Obama:
"This isn't a game of battleship.""We also have fewer horses and bayonets." "We have aircraft carriers, which actually have airplanes land on them, and ships that go underwater called nuclear submarines." Romney came across as absolutely clueless with regard to the military - his version of "STRONG MILITARY, RAR" is apparently "THROW MONEY AT IT," which is particularly ironic from the asshat who tries to center his campaign around lowering the national debt.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds ofvariously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3
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Looking at the polls, it seems quite probable that Obama will win the electoral college vote by a landslide and also lose the popular vote. What would be your opinions under those circumstances? As long as Obama wins, I don't particularly care. I don't have a lot of faith in democracy - wolf/sheep metaphors aside, my opinion of the intelligence or ethical quality of by far the vast majority of Americans is piss poor. Democracy is a useful tool to limit violent revolution by emphasizing a system for popular change and gaining public "buy-in" through voting, but I'm unconvinced as to its qualities as a system of government. America has not prospered because it is a democracy - it has prospered because it happens to sit on top of ample natural resources and is bordered by oceans and friendly/impotent neighbors. I'm not terribly excited about Obama, I certainly don't like all of his policies. But I like him a hell of a lot better than Mitt Money, er, Romney. I don't want Romney to have a chance at nominating Supreme Court justices. And Romney's "budget" plan ("lower taxes" and then "close loopholes" to make the whole thing "budget neutral?" If it doesn't do anything to the budget then why bother enacting it?) only works for people who aren't paying attention, or who have an IQ below room temperature.The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds ofvariously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3
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Well we've had the civil rights movement, and the anti-discrimination laws. That's seemed to work due to majority rule. Not quite. Civil rights have had to go through the court system against popular public opinion before becoming endorsed by the majority. Miscegenation laws were not eliminated due to majority rule - they were ruled unconstitutional by the courts. Anti-homosexuality laws and anti-sodomy laws were not eliminated due to majority rule - they were ruled unconstitutional by the courts. School segregation...well, you get the picture.
Sometimes majority rule works - but the "two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner" metaphor is accurate: majority rule leads to the persecution of minorities. That's why the US system isn't a straight democracy, and also why it's not just a representative republic - it's a constitutional representative republic, which means that there is a mechanism by which an oppressed minority can circumvent majority rule to force equal treatment.
overall progress has been made and it's been mostly due to majority rule, or rather the eventual lead up to majority rule. The key word being eventual. Only after the majority is first forced to give way to the oppressed minority, and then gets to stew for a while and notices that not only did the sky not fall, but those minority folks aren't so bad. The pattern is that the courts force the majority to bend knee...and the forced equal treatment, over a generation or two, causes a greater social integration whereby the newer generations have grown up thinking that equality is the natural order (which it should have been all along), and become the majority as their bigot elders die off. Forgive me if this does not cause me to cheer the glories of democracy.The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds ofvariously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
I'm not saying that businesses cannot succeed with high taxes. I'm saying that a reduction in these taxes could help small to medium sized business grow by reducing their cost to operate. That depends entirely on the taxes. A tax increase on profits over $100 million will not affect a new start-up business, for instance. Not even a little. Not all tax policy changes are equal. It's rather difficult to talk about "higher taxes" as a generalized entity when modern tax policy is clearly separated into income brackets and various targeted subsidies and incentives.The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds ofvariously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Do you see why someone might think that the bugetly neutral lowering of taxes and closing of loopholes could be worthwhile? It could...but I don't think that lowering taxes is particularly appropriate anyway, even if closing loopholes would be worthwhile. If we're talking about lowering the deficit, we don't need budget-neutral, we need budget-positive.The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds ofvariously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
But it was endorced by the majority. In fact, those opposed to ending segregation were in the absolute minority. So much so that the military was sent into the south to take action against this small minority of racist that tried their best to hold on to their views. Was it? Do you have data to support that? I'm asking because this challenges my existing understanding of popular opinion at that time, and that keeping races segregated was not something the majority endorsed. Remember that sending in the National Guard was simply the result of enforcing the ruling of the court - you don't vote on where to send the Guard; they go to enforce the law, protect public order, and to reinforce the mainline military.
You're only stating a natural human response to culture clashes. It wasn't just held for blacks or what you're calling "minorities". Many European cultures were not well received in the US when they first arrived. Forcing them to live together brought the worst in people, but then lead up to the eventual acceptance of those immigrants. It's happened for everyone, "minorities" are not special in that sense. Apologies for any misunderstanding, but when I use the term "minorities," I am in fact referring to any subgroup distinct from the "majority," particularly when persecuted by the majority. This at various points in time would apply to the Irish, to Jews, to blacks, to Catholics, to Atheists, to Scientologists, and so on.
You're only stating a natural human response to culture clashes. Indeed...but the fact that it is "natural" does not make it ethically acceptable. The pack will always instinctively try to identify and exclude the "other," but if establishing a just and fair society is actually as important to us as we collectively tend to say that it is, there is no place for acting upon that instinct.The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds ofvariously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3
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I guess I'm having trouble with what you're calling a majority rule and what I'm thinking about. I may be wrong but, if the Supreme Court of the US and the president of the US are in favor of integration, isn't that in the political democratic sense the majority? ...no. The "majority" when we're talking about things like "majority rule" and "democracy" is popular opinion. Average guy on the street. The President and Supreme Court go against popular opinion all the time.
I wasn't talking about each individual opinion, as widely different as that may be. I'm talking about court rulings and political majority rule. I think you're refering to majority opinion at the individual level. In which case we may agree. As I said in a previous post, this is why the US is not a pure democracy, or even a pure representative republic - because true "majority rule" results in tyranny.
Being that there is no one particular culture or ethnicity ever truly in charge of the whole US - Go to Miami and white people are not in the majority. Here in NY either, and I'm sure in many parts of the US latinos and blacks are the major majority - There's no point in distinguishing "majorities" by their color or ethnicity. Indeed...but opinions can still define a majority or minority, and color/ethnicity is one of the possible targets of an unjust majority. Minorities don't stay separate. They overlap. When enough people of groups x y and z get together and decide they don't like group c, we have a case of persecution of the minority, even if groups x y and z are themselves different minorities. Combined, they can still constitute a plurality or majority. That's what tends to happen in real life - popular opinion is a series of layers of Venn diagrams, and sometimes one group (which inevitably encompasses many smaller groups) gangs up on a single small group that's outside of their majority group.
There is no way to stop normal human behavior in the same sense as abstinance only programs don't stop teenagers from fucking. That depends. Some base urges are easily curtailed - most people, for example, are not violent felons, rapists, thieves, etc. Racism and other forms of bigotry are diminishing, slowly - progress has been made on multiple civil rights fronts over the past several decades that would suggest that we can learn to accept the "other" as part of the greater whole.
Everyone segregates everyone for a while when the new culture is introduced to the old culture. I see it here in NY where white hipsters are moving into black neighborhoods. There is an initial culture clash, then an inevitable acceptance. People seem to always behave the same as far as I've seen. Not all of those clashes are the same. Nobody is suggesting that we all need to hold hands and sing under a rainbow, but modern "culture clashes" involve lynch mobs a lot less frequently than they did a few decades ago. Edited by Rahvin, : Spelling...The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds ofvariously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
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