Summations Only

Wrong, again, young FEY. Check your premise.

Yeah, I've noticed that you think that. I don't. I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

He lives in the sin capital of the world. The devils asshole, if you will.He's not from the UK, but Catholic Scientist is. Don't let him fool you. That guy's as gay and liberal and british as they come.- Oni

Can you name one current confiscatory tax rate? Note you did not address the point of conservatives seeking to impose their moral views on others. So apparently you think freedom is only the power to impose your moral views on others. Yes: the part where conservative philosophy is supposedly better for the economic health of nations. Again, note that you made no attempt to address the abject failure of conservative-driven austerity measures in Europe vs. the success of economic stimulus in the U.S. So was he forcing legislation down the throat of a hapless America or failing to use his power? I have difficulty keeping these conservative arguments straight.We would have had a surging recovery because that is the typical pattern for the U.S. economy when braced with stimulative measures. Unfortunately, the GOP prevented a stimulus strong enough to result in quick recovery.The notion that Obama had a supermajority in the Senate for two years and could pass anything he wanted is simply wrong. There were never 60 Democratic senators during that time.Don't try to make up your own facts. The GOP, rather than attempting to protect the country's interests, were ready to destroy the creditworthiness of the U.S. with legislative intransigence during the debt ceiling debacle. Never before had a political party done this--they only blinked when financial markets began marking down U.S. ratings, and polls showed the public held the GOP responsible. In every standard of measure: the lack of success of their economic prescriptions in Europe, the disdain with which the U.S. electorate treated their candidate. See all the above. Ah the media. That's too empty-set to merit a response.Never mind the ponies--but how can you be unable to make sense of that phrase if you follow political events in the U.S.? You do read news from multiple sources, I trust? Ever heard of a false dilemma? It is astonishing how powerfully the media were able to fool so many people for so long, according to you. Of course, it could be that the smaller set of conservative ideologues were instead misled by their own media--you might have noticed some of the effects of that on election night at Fox. A college graduate often writes no better than a college freshman.Congratulations on debating rather than merely jeering. That's great.On the other hand, replies like "liberal media...marry your brother...smoke a joint...liberal media..." aren't really substantive--why do all that work to quote-box my points and your responses if they aren't really refutations at all? The one matter of evidence you sought to address was the make-up of the Senate 2008-2010, and you were wrong about that.Try picking my two or three main arguments. Refute them by establishing a common theme to my errors (thesis), write a few well-organized paragraphs of evidence, and then synthesize a summary conclusion. It's actually easier than all that typography.It's what the article's author failed to do. That's why I said he writes like a college freshman--sound, fury, stilted diction, circular logic, zero evidence... He had it all.

Some have asked me about my definition of liberty. Some think that if you are not allowed to kill your unborn child or fornicate with a donkey or shoot heroin up your arm, that you basically don't have liberty at all. Here is my idea of liberty from another article in the american thinker. I read that website because it clearly articulates what I already believe. I just cannot put it in to words. That is part of what gets me frustrated on here. I cannot articulate in exactness what it is I believe. Troy Smith of American Thinker, though, has articulated the idea of liberty for me in his article "Van Jones and philosophical warfare". While I believe in liberty as defined here, I also believe in limits to liberty only in those cases where it is in the best interests of the majority of the population. Another caveat that I make is this: Liberty is absolutely worthless in the hands of an immoral population. Since american society is basically immoral, it does not want to impose limitations to liberty in the form of anti-abortion laws. Liberty is only a good force in society when the society as a whole uses it for good means. When all the society cares about is the liberty to fornicate at will and pharmacate itself at will, liberty is a force for evil.Edited by foreveryoung, : No reason given.

How about you start a topic instead of continuing to fuck with an existing one?Love to discuss this, but it ain't the topic.ABE
Two can play that game FEY
But your post is not worth another click of the mouseEdited by Theodoric, : response to his jeerEdited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

How am I wrong? The democrats held the majority in both houses of congress and the presidency.

Remember those classes I keep suggesting you take.PoliSci
The US political system and how it works 101Do you have any idea how the US Senate works?

So, basically, you support liberty for everyone who agrees with your views on sex and drugs?

The democrats did not have the votes to fight the republican filibuster in the senate, but for about 2 months when Kennedy was still alive & Franken had finally been seated.You should research this stuff before using it to bolster your argument. Makes you looks lazy when you don't.

If Jane Smith wants to marry her girlfriend, how does it affect the "best interests of the majority of the population?"How does a marriage affect anyone at all other than the people who marry?If Jane and Judy marry, it takes not one dollar from your wallet. It causes you not a single injury to your person or property. Your choices are not limited in any way.I understand the abortion argument from your perspective, and honestly the pro-life position is entirely reasonable - if you consider a clump of fetal cells to have the same moral weight and social interest as a toddler. That is where the contention lies, it's what the Supreme COurt decided against, yadda yadda....But when it comes to the "best interests of the majority of the population," there are some realities you need to consider that you might not realize, having never been alive when abortion was outlawed.When abortion is illegal, women still get abortions. They are simply forced to do so through alternate means - if you can''t go to a proper medical facility, you'll use a coat hangar, or pay a man with a knife, or beg your boyfriend/husband to brutally beat your abdomen, or drink poison.These are all real things that happened regularly prior to Roe v Wade. Society suffered, in the form of our mothers, our daughters, our sisters and our wives.Beyond that, there is the simple reality of unwanted children. A mother who is unprepared for raising children will often be forced to abandon dreams of college and success, and will require government aid to survive and feed the family she wasn't yet ready for. There are social costs to disallowing that choice; the issue of abortion is not only about whether you attach moral significance to a fetus. If you complain about welfare moms, ask yourself how many more there will be if women cannot choose abortion.Pregnancy itself is also a major biological event - it's not like a day at the gym. Pregnant women go through many physiological changes while pregnant, including all of the visible growth, but also hormonal changes. These have a lifetime effect on her body...and when complications arise, there is a chance of death.Is it right for the government to be able to force a woman to undergo a medical procedure? You have the right to refuse medical care - if a doctor says you need an amputation, you can say "no." But if abortion is illegal, you are forcing a percentage of women to undergo caesarian births - would you be able to forcibly restrain an unwilling woman so that a doctor can cut her open?This is a case where restricting liberty actually affects the "best interests of the majority of the population" negatively.The "personal responsibility" schtick doesn't really fly, either - yes, people should take responsibility for their children. But some, like me, never want to have any children. I and my partner use birth control, and I'm considering a vasectomy...but even when being responsible, birth control sometimes fails. Sex is a normal and healthy part of any committed relationship...and even behaving responsibly can result in an unwanted pregnancy through dumb luck. Should simple misfortune doom a couple's life plans, and condemn their child to being born to parents who never wanted a baby?Your arguments are short and simple - you're taking a stand on principle, and you aren't conveying any argument regarding the goal that you wish to serve with those principles. You're basically arguing via soundbyte.I'm a social libertarian, FEY. I believe that a capitalist society requires government regulation to protect the people from the amoral profit-centered actions of unrestrained corporate policy, and I believe that a strong social safety net is necessary to preserve the freedom of everyone and guarantee at minimum the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...but like you I also believe that the government should be strictly "hands off" when it comes to personal life. I don't want the government telling me I need to be a specific religion, or that I need to support a specific policy, or that I can't say something, or that I can't marry someone, or that I can't do something with my own body.

Hi foreveryoung, Just an observation: morality is defined by the population in general terms and by individuals in specific terms. Ergo, there is no such thing as an "immoral population" -- rather there is a population that behaves according to the population morals, whether those coincide with your personal morals or not.Liberty Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com While #1 is comparable to your definition, I would also include #2 and #3, especially where this involves a subset of a population wanting to impose conditions of specific behavior/s in a way that would limit choice for others of different beliefs.Of course this then gets to what freedom meansFreedom Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com So freedom is liberty and liberty is freedom ... both involve "exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc." and "the power to determine action without restraint."Problem is that humans are social animals, and as such there are social limits on behavior that is exempted from social control for the benefit of the society -- this is what we call morals so that we don't need to deal with the cognitive dissonance of limited liberty and freedom (morals are an internal control that everyone abides by ... in a perfect world).Enjoy.

If it's FOX News, then FEY is at a very distinct disadvantage. We had a topic here that dealt with a poll in which respondents were rated according to their knowledge of current events and they were also asked for their source for news. As I recall, the group that was the most ignorant about current events was the group whose source was FOX News. And, as I recall, that group rated even lower than those who pay absolutely no attention to the news at all.OTOH, as I recall, the best informed group got their news from NPR, which is indeed exemplary. I remember when I served in North Dakota in the late 1970's where I could rarely get any national news (an occasional article on the front and second page, maybe, if you were lucky), and yet NPR was reporting on the Soviet war in Afghanistan years before our own national news even started to pick it up -- granted, at the time their international news did come from the BBC. 'Nuff said. The Republican Party has been detached from reality for far too long. They need to reengage with reality.Or as W. Edwards Deming said:

quote:

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It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.

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The pre-election phase ended almost a month ago.Adminnemooseus

We Yanks did the right thing.As it turns out, that wasn't really a right or left thing--it was a centrist thing, fueled by independents turned off by the wackier excesses of the Tea Party-haunted GOP, by young people of all races both repulsed by the coded race-baiting of the GOP and the haughty contempt of the wealthy, and by women appalled at the casually expressed sexism and misogyny revealed by GOP candidates.The GOP held the house, but only due to the extreme gerrymandering that followed their 2010 reactionary surge: Democrat candidates for the House as a group "won" the popular vote nationally.It's apparent that GOP leadership have learned little to nothing from their defeat: at best, we hear, oh, let's just back off on immigration reform and that will appease the Hispanics, then we'll be fine. They won't be fine. The demographic history of voting patterns shows that political allegiances formed early in life are lasting ones, and GOP policies will continue pushing an increasingly secular and diverse young America into the Democratic camp. Any attempts to moderate GOP positions will founder on their red-meat base: live by the fanatic, die by the fanatic.Now the right thing is to prepare for 2014 while pushing Democrats away from the militarism ingrained in both parties. Dislodging the GOP from the House will be difficult, given the advantages of incumbency and 2010 gerrymandering, but I am confident we'll make at least some progress.The greatest obstacle will remain the GOP's intellectual bad faith: attack the legitimacy of global climate change science, then blame climate disasters on American sinners in the hands of a wrathful God; aggravate the racial fears of a relatively shrinking white population to attack a black president, then accuse him of being a divider; accuse Democrats of identity poliitics for building a diverse coaltion, then run a campaign explicity targeting only whites; typify Democratic cost savings measures in Medicare as "defunding" it, while seeking to destroy it altogether with vouchers worth less each year of the plan; try to cripple Social Security in the name of fiscal disciple and deficit while refusing to acknowledge it is self-funded and requires only minor tweaking...The bad news is that the list is as interminable as it is insidious; the good news is it didn't work.I know there will be setbacks, but for now, just for a while, I'm basking in the fact that the future is so bright I gotta wear shades. Edited by Omnivorous, : the usual suspects