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EDIT:
And no tax increases to the industries I like (agriculture, oil production, my income) and no tax cuts to the ones I don't (solar power).
Why compromise? We have conflicting ideas about the role of government. If you believe that doing X is wrong, why is doing half of X wise or noble? The system is working exactly as it was designed to work, and sooner or later it'll sort itself out. I'll never understand this liberal notion that disagreement is failure (on the part of the other guy obviously).
I see what you did there.
Because that's how the nation runs without descending into Civil War.
Right, but the compromise between increasing gov't size 30% and cutting it 30% isn't to increase it 15%.
The current state of affairs is a compromise. Just b/c Republicans won't go further in the Democrats preferred direction is not an indictment of Republicans. It's their job.
You only say that because your side would lose.
I have a conservative friend who rails against high taxes but I can't get him to identify specific. He'll rail against the EPA, but if I ask him, "Do you think the EPA should be eliminated? Do you think we should just let businesses decide what clean water and air is?" he'll say we need some regulation.
Do conservatives think we should have taxes to pay for schools? What's a reasonable salary for a teacher? How many students should a teacher be in charge of?
What about roads? Should they be maintained? At what level?
Police and firemen? Several towns have nearly eliminated them to save money: see Vallejo, CA. Crime has skyrocketed in that town. And in several other wealthy towns that scaled back on police, criminals have been robbing people at gunpoint in broad daylight. One woman on This American Life a few weeks ago told how criminals stole her brass downspouts off her house in the middle of the day, while she was home. She yelled at them to stop, but they didn't. What's an acceptable level of policing?
Most conservatives, I think, support a strong military. At what level though? There seems to me to be enormous waste, and a ton that could be cut.
What about Social Security? And Medicare? I'm a very liberal liberal, and I think there's a lot of waste in Medicare.
What about unemployment benefits? Should we have them at all? What do you do with all those people who don't have jobs? (And remember that the system in place needs to have about 5% unemployment in order to work. If you go above that you start to have problems.)
I guess what I don't get is that the money that the government spends goes to real people with real jobs. Even if it's blown on crazy conference things, real Americans get that money and then presumably spend it in the economy. I'd like to hear specifics.
As to taxes, is it fair that a company like GE gets billions of dollars in refunds and doesn't pay taxes? What do you say to Warren Buffet's claim that taxes actually spur growth? Would you be in favor of amending the tax code to eliminate loopholes, as President Obama has advocated? If you do, that would effectively raise tax revenue without raising taxes. Would you be for that?
I'd also like to go on record as saying that I'd like to eliminate waste. There's enough of it to make me think that there needs to be something done.
Primey. I believe it might be the shortest civil war on record. You've got every combat branch of the military dominated by conservatives, plus all the gun nuts on one side.
I don't know if this is a joke or not, but the government side wins, hands down. There might be defections from the military to the seceding side, but the vast majority of the military will always be on the side of the government in Washington, DC. Luckily we probably won't ever have to find out because Americans are an undemonstrative bunch. They rarely take to the streets even when doing so would undeniably be in their interest to do so, and when push comes to shove, as after 9/11, people just overwhelmingly support their government in whatever it decides to do.
The discussion at hand, I believe, is about paying debt that is *already acquired,* no?
I don't have a complete manifesto on hand, but I'd say maybe 30% of GDP is appropriate vs. the 40%+ we spend now.
A lot of Conservative objections also have to do with how badly the money is wasted, and regulation and other interference that don't show up in spending totals.
Do conservatives think we should have taxes to pay for schools? What's a reasonable salary for a teacher? How many students should a teacher be in charge of?
To take that specific, yes, I believe we should have public funding of K-12 education, I just don't think gov't is any good at running schools.
I'd want a fully voucherized system. Each parent gets a check from the gov't for each kid (adjusted for local cost of living, and disabilities where relevent) and spends it at whatever private school they want.
Let teachers make whatever the market dictates, and let good teachers get more and bad teachers less (or get fired).
The only man who frequented this board who might have had a chance against me is currently rehabbing in his Milwaukee area home. But keep telling yourselves stories, man. I particularly like the one where you think you know what "side" I'm on, despite hours and hours of evidence to the contrary.
This is an empty statement. You have to define what "waste" is.
In the combat arms (infantry, armor, artillery, engineers, special forces) they are. Look at the recruiting patterns; dominated by the South, Midwest and rural areas in general. The guys in those branches don't join to gain career skills; they want to serve.
I don't know if this is a joke or not, but the government side wins, hands down. There might be defections from the military to the seceding side, but the vast majority of the military will always be on the side of the government in Washington, DC.
Civil war kind of presupposes that "the government" no longer has legitimacy.
You'd never ever see secession, b/c the issues aren't regional. You'd have a military backed coup instead.
I'd be on board with this, but only if the system is entirely non-profit.
FTFY.
Your just showing ignorance of our military. These people actually believe in serving their country.
If you wanted a job, you become a technician or a nurse, a marketable skill post-military. You go Infantry for other reasons.
I think that's a dictinction w/o a difference. Non-profits reap huge profits (look at Universities), they just spend it on adding bureaucracy rather than dividends.
I'd leave the market open to everyone, religious and secular, non-profit and for profit. If for profit companies gain market power and try to exploit it, you can always add controls later. If each state is the "single payer" there's little chance of anyone gaining monopoly power to rival it.
With 6 cousins (2nd and closer) and several friends currently serving, I wouldn't be too quick with that statement.
The fact is, while they are proud to serve and eager to do their duty, the areas of the country in which they grew up have little in the way of job opportunity. The military was the best option for them at the time.
To give an example, where I worked last year there was a job opening for "Programmer Analyst." This person was supposed to be able to do, you know, actual programming for a program that recorded professors' lectures for over-enrolled courses. But the person they hired couldn't actually do any programming. He just didn't know how. So they had to hire a second person to fill the original position. But he couldn't program either. So they promoted both out of their positions and created a 3rd position: "Programmer." The guy they hired for that could actually program. But now they needed two people to do the work that the other guys that they had promoted had taken on.
This is one example I've seen numerous times. I'm all for employing people, but in this particular example 5 people were hired for 1 position. That's ridiculous. What tends to happen in government is that any new alteration to its structure tends to calcify rather quickly. When once someone is doing a job, its very hard to eliminate that job. And despite what they say, you'll NEVER find an elected official who actually wants to eliminate jobs.
I've seen this happen in government. I once worked on a project for the land records office in a county in New York. I was part of a team implementing a Y2K upgrade. Part of that Y2K upgrade meant trying to figure out what people actually did for their jobs and then modeling that in a new software workflow. What we found was that you could actually eliminate 30% of the staff, including one person who entered specific information into a ledger that was hundreds of years old. No one knew why that person entered that information into the ledger, and as far as we could find out, ONLY that person used that ledger. The information it contained was already being captured in multiple places elsewhere. When we told the elected officials and appointees, all Republicans, that we could eliminate 30% of the staff, they MADE US remodel the workflow so that it could accommodate all of the staff.
That's waste.
So do. Some want a job. Some believe in serving their country and want a job. Some people in combat arms from rural areas are conservative, some are not. Military culture is not monolithic.
Which is why it's so odd that the right wing nutters here think they would casually commit treason and break their oaths without a second thought, no?
Sure. Anecdotal, but sure.
That #### happens in the private sector all the time, too.
The losing side of course.
It's not public money that's paying for it, though. I actually will accept a LOT of waste because I think money spent on jobs is money spent IN the economy. That's just good for people. Debt is good because it creates trust and opportunities for trust. You need debt and trust to create wealth.
The problem is a lot of waste creates distrust. Take for example Medicare. It pays for those stupid scooters that fat people ride. Congratulations! You're fat! You win a scooter! They should be walking MORE not less. Because of that kind of thing, now people think ALL of Medicare is a waste. Medicare needs to be more selective about what kinds of things it pays for. And pay MORE for the things people really need. Wouldn't it be great if medicare could pay entirely for really expensive things, like cancer treatment? I'd rather have a bunch of people getting free or greatly reduced-cost cancer treatment than a bunch of fat people riding scooters.
I don't think we need a reduction in funding or taxes. What I'd rather see is funneling that waste into areas where it's actually needed: shoring up Social Security & Medicare, etc. I'm prepared, however, unlike many of the conservative ilk, to accept a certain amount of waste. As long as the vast majority of taxpayer money is not spent on waste.
He has lost a lot of the speed that let him patrol the gaps at a premium level so he's not really a starting centerfielder anymore. But, he doesn't have to be one and he is solid in right field. Decent arm (15 assists last year) good hands- not someone you have to worry about.
He probably won't hit well enough to be an everyday rightfielder, but after this year, I could see him being a good platoon player or fourth outfielder for a couple of years if he's interested in going that route. He has hit lefties really well the last few years (except 2010) and he could fill in at any of the OF spots for short stretches. With a reduced role, he could provide some good value for a couple more seasons.
His signing has gone just about as well as could have been reasonably expected when it was made.
Employing people to design an iPhone app so that people with $500 iPhones can find out where to go to get their taxpayer-funded condoms.
And then having taxpayers pay for condoms for the people with the $500 iPhones.
Let me know if you need help with any other basic questions.
Judging by their actions, I think it's fair to say that both conservatives and liberals in the US think there's "too much" government when the government is doing stuff they don't like. Conversely, both conservatives and liberals love "big government" when the government is doing stuff they do like.
DB
You're dead if you waste too much money as a commercial entity. I see it go on in an endless stream in the fed gov't every day.
By the way, speaking of racism, no outrage for Marion Barry last night?
Flat out racist.
I discovered that leftists and civil rights leaders in particular are incapable of being racist back when Jesse was complaining to a reporter about Hymietown.
Thankfully, the media saw through his charade and we haven't heard from him since.
It'll probably end up getting thousands of posts, like all the pointless threads around here do.
When I was 5 or 6, I got into a huge argument with my brother about who would win in a fight between He-Man and Superman. These threads always remind me of that.
So what's the over/under on how many posts this thread reaches before it's closed down due to excessive name calling? I'm guessing 1000...
WHAT?!!! You're as delusional as my brother! :)
He-Man would totally win. I once saw him lift Castle Greyskull over his head!
But that was just silly. If Superman can turn back time like that, why doesn't he just keep doing it whenever something bad happens?
1. Surprise fight - neither one knows they have to fight but are thrown in a steel cage and forced to fight to the death. Superman wins easily. Though the scenario is silly - how can you force Superman to do anything, or keep him in a steel cage?
2. They both know about the fight in advance and have time to prepare. Batman secures some kryptonite and prepares a devious trap, but Superman knows he'd do this, picks up a mountain, and throws it on top of Batman's general vicinity to remove the threat.
3. Batman surprises an unaware Superman with a Kryptonite weapon and finishes him off. His only chance is to start with an advantage.
Batman keeps a supply of Kryptonite just in case Superman ever turns evil, gets mind controlled, etc.
Exactly. If we're talking about the Adam West Batman, there's no doubt he'd already have some liquid kryptonite spray tucked away in that handy belt of his just in case.
Do you think reversing the Earth's rotation might have some unforseen butterfly effect type consequences?
If yes, then Superman is a very selfish person.
I think we should increase waste!
(Peter Griffin is imagining himself in Hell, sees Superman playing cards at a table with Hitler, Al Capone, and John Wilkes Boothe)
Peter: Hey, what are you doing here?
Superman: I killed a hooker. She made a crack about me being faster than a speeding bullet, so I ripped her in half like a phone book.
This is sort of the premise in Mark Waid's Irredeemable.
Is time in the physical sense local? Because Superman's trick leaves aside the problem of the earth's orbit around the sun, the sun's orbit around the center of the galaxy and the rest of the ####### movement in the universe (which means also Superman's movement, thus we've reached paradox). If you want to roll back time, don't you have to roll back the entire universe?
Tell that to Superman's face.
Seems like a lot of possible negative fallout just to bring one chick back to life that wasn't even hot...
It's crazy how much waste there is in Medicare. Just in Miami, the estimates are between $5 million and $10 million per day. When they can't even narrow down the fraud estimate in a single city to within a billion dollars, that might be the sign of a serious problem.
source: Medicare fraud rampant in South Florida
Also I would imagine that the force necessary to reverse the Earth's rotation and then re-reverse it would have a lot of negative physical consequences on the Earth itself.
On that note, perhaps Superman would make some tactical blunder, and Batman would take advantage? Of course, without Kryptonite, he couldn't kill Superman...
Superman was never one of my faves because of this invincibility. It's just not suspenseful to be shot at when you know the bullets are just gonna bounce off if you get hit. Yawn...
Edit: But yeah, I think the writers always made him struggle with enemies just cuz it would've been really boring and predictable if he always did take full advantage of his superiority. It'd be like watching Pujols play against Little Leaguers (on second thought, that at least might be funny...)
But they sure came up with some crazy ways to make this "struggle" happen.
Anybody else remember the bad guy whose superpower was that he could make other people do his will, simply by saying "[do whatever], PLEASE"?
I never actually read the comics; all my opinions are based on the movies. But yeah, that's pretty dumb.
He-Man once threw castle grayskull out of a white hole into another dimension! Skeltor on white holes: "it's like a black hole, only not as dense!"
However apparently He-Man and Superman have fought before, from some website I found:
Of course this also means Superman was dumb enough to get mind-controlled by Skeletor.
And does Calcaterra mean land of lime or heel land?
What has puzzled me all these years is that the film makes a big deal out of his father saying not to interfere that way. Then Superman does interfere and there are zero consequences.
Dammit! Almost 30 years later, and I find out my brother won the argument after all. You just ruined my day. :(
A couple of He-Man related questions:
Why is only Skeletor's face devoid of skin, rather than his entire body like the Grim Reaper?
And why is He-Man so much stronger than everyone else when they all have the same identical overly muscled physique? It seemed like they made the bodies for all the toys with the same mold and just changed the skin and underpants color for different characters. Even Man-At-Arms, who was supposed to be old was just as buff as He-Man!
Did you see what Lois Lane looked and sounded like?
By the power of Grayskull, silly.
consequences.
Wait, what? How do you know that?
Awesome! And thank you!
The government is not going to be the single payer. The government is going to pay a flat fee, and the schools are going to charge the parents on top of that. It's a crappy system, it's the same bad system that we're using for healthcare and college education.
Your top-tier privates are going to be voucher + whatever the people pay to go there now. If everyone has a voucher, then the voucher is worthless in bidding. Everyone just slaps a voucher on top of the money they already pay, the same people go, and the private school gets a windfall. And maybe the K-12 education gets a little more gold-plated than it needs to be.
The voucher + zero is going to be a babysitter period, or a kickback scheme, or both. Whatever you think you are getting with our current system, you are going to be getting less with the voucher. Where they gonna go? In all of the places where schools are having problems now, some private enterprise is going to come in on its white horse? A lot of those places don't have a lot of private enterprise, either.
With the current system you do have controls. School referenda get voted up and down all the time. People pay their taxes and at the end of the day there are in fact schools. With vouchers people pay their taxes, and then they pay some more, what are ya gonna do, have your kid fall behind?
Occam's Razor. As everyone has pointed out in this thread, the alternative is massively stupid and full of logic holes. It's the only thing that makes sense, and to be honest, it's the only thing I ever thought until discussions like these many years later.
Nothing else makes sense.
I looked it up after I read it here and others seem to have come to the same conclusion as you in almost exactly the same way. So, kudos! One guy had a really great question about the problem of time travel:
There is such vast potential in solar power, and such a wonderfully positive decentralizing effect for independent-minded conservative sorts, that it needs to be a part of the solution going forward.
I wish the conservative point of view on global warming was correct. I really do. Wish casting turns out not to be the best way to approach our future.
And if you are from some other galaxy, why the interest in fighting crime? and if you are so super, why is there still so much if it?
It has nothing to do with wishcasting; it has to do with the foolishness of unilateral disarmament. It simply makes no sense for the U.S. to spend a staggering amount of money and to roll back its standard of living when we know, in advance, that China, India, Brazil, and a slew of other developing countries have no interest in doing similarly.
And if Earth's climate gets too damaged, we could all just go live on Eternia. That place seems a lot more interesting than Earth anyway.
Maybe you should spend five minutes thinking about this one.
And pay MORE for the things people really need
You know what people who have a great deal of trouble walking really need?
Is there any more egregious example of waste than our huge stockpiles of cold war era weapons? I'm reminded of this line from The Hurt Locker:
"Spc. Owen Eldridge: Aren't you glad the Army has all these tanks parked here? Just in case the Russians come and we have to have a big tank battle?"
I'm curious what percentage of the fighting vehicles this country builds go their entire length of service without firing a single round in combat.
Yes. Do people think the US = the world, or something? What we do is only a fraction of what the world does. Even if this gargantuanly silly idea that we could alter the climate were valid, we'd need the world on board. And, unlike in Superman II where the president of the US surrenders to Zod on behalf of the entire world, Obama is not president of the world.
High-five!
Hmmmmm, maybe that explains the gender gap.
People without tanks tend to have tanks used on them.
The funny (ha-ha) thing about (in particular) Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) is that there was significantly more wear and tear on the various fighting vehicles than had been planned for. (In don't mean in the war itself, but in terms of the army's long term budgeting process) Quite expensive. The rebuilding program saw much more use than had been planned for.
In a very real sense they're built to be shown but not used hard.
The underpants over your clothes look isn't sexy? Damn...
And if you are from some other galaxy, why the interest in fighting crime? and if you are so super, why is there still so much if it?
I always wondered this too. I know I'd be on my best behavior if I knew that Superman/Batman/Spiderman were watching over me. Why wouldn't all these crime organizations just relocate to another city?
Well, in Superman IV, Superman flies all around the world and it's daytime everywhere. So in the world of Superman something's clearly amiss. Maybe the rest of the world is OK with the US ruling and even went so far as to change their daylight hours to match.
Oh, and that scene where he flies around the world he shows off a never before seen ability. He uses his wall-building vision to rebuild the Great Wall of China. I mean, I guess it's probably literally never come up before that he's been in a situation where he had to rebuild a wall with his vision. So that's probably why we haven't seen that power before.
This fight has happened. Batman wins. Then he has a heart attack and dies.
Well, not really.
It ain't over till it's over, phredbird.
That said, the time travel thing had never occurred to me, and it does make a lot more sense.
Yeah, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjgsnWtBQm0
ZiPS projects Trout to hit 340/415 with a pile of steals, and Harper to hit 315/405 with only a handful of steals. As of the end of last season, Trout was pretty clearly the more advanced, more MLB-ready prospect of the two.
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