The Bloomberg snippet was brought up as what I felt was a humorous sidebar to the notion that court decisions can't be wrong. No more, no less. I'm not responding to any more asinine questions about why I brought it up.

The Bloomberg snippet was brought up as what I felt was a humorous sidebar to the notion that court decisions can't be wrong. No more, no less. I'm not responding to any more asinine questions about why I brought it up.

11. SugarBear Blanks Posted: May 30, 2012 at 06:00 PM (#4143400)

Absent some technical issues with servers and the like, there's simply no need to Balkanize the site in this fashion. None, zero, zip, nada. (Not to mention that baseball is the sport of wordsmiths and intellectuals precisely because of the breathing space it provides to contemplate other disciplines.)

"Politics" threads grow organically from baseball-related stories and topics. There won't be any interest in a "Hey, let's talk politics!!" kiddie's table thread.

Yes. And, with any luck, you'll see what they are in November.

e gets to do this? How does anything become law if process is to have no effect?

The Bloomberg snippet was brought up as what I felt was a humorous sidebar to the notion that court decisions can't be wrong. No more, no less. I'm not responding to any more asinine questions about why I brought it up.

the person arguing long and hard for the position that his money was his and he shouldn't have to pay for the health care of some lazy weed-smoking Burger King worker who doesn't deserve health care was about 20 years old

Again, what's fascinating to me about this rhetoric is that somehow the 20-year-old has imbibed the notion that the ACA is some vast wealth-redistribution plan.

What's funny about the Bloomberg thing is that liberals in NYC have been complaining about stop-and-frisks forever, and, as Rickey points out, Ray apparently lives in a universe where Bloomberg's a flaming liberal, and not an Obama-esque centrist technocrat.

. A plurality of 30 year olds are too.

The problem, as I see it, is that liberals vastly overestimate the power of business compared to (a) government, and (b) workers.

I myself am mighty torn between my civil-liberties instincts and my memory of what it was like to live in NYC pre-Giuliani. Even if contemporaneousness does not equal causation, the city became an infinitely safer and hugely more pleasant place at about the time the cops started suggesting that people straighten up and fly right not be black, poor, homeless, etc.

*Yes, I think it's reasonable to say 20 year olds in today's society are still adolescents. A plurality of 30 year olds are too.

the city became an infinitely safer and hugely more pleasant place at about the time the cops started suggesting that people straighten up and fly right not be black, poor, homeless, etc.

Want to see an overweight bald man arguing with a Sandra Fluke puppet? You got it, America. How about some toothless guy sitting on the curb talking about what’s wrong with Hillary Clinton? That can be arranged. Animated Ronald Reagan berating Barack Obama about wealth redistribution? You bet. Dinosaurs who lay red, white and blue eggs in “the greatest country of all”? Get the kids. Metaphors involving sheep and firearms? Coming right up. “Gunless Moments In History” — a feature that equates gun control with the Holocaust? We thought you’d never ask. And of course, “lots of Cain”? Oh hell to the yes. It’s like going down a beautiful rabbit hole of inspirational, patriotic paranoia.

I don't think it matters what narrative Obama pushes of Romney, it's pretty clear that at this point, the media sees his negative narrative as "Etch-a-Sketch." I think Obama should start embracing that, and highlight how that impacts trust, etc.

I guess I don't think people are ever really free without law and order. But law and order are very easily abused, and make wonderful rhetoric shields for abuses. It's a moral quandary.

...if the economy is tolerable (who knows) then he will win.

IMO a good part of the solution lies in giving a much more thorough vetting of new hires, and testing them to screen out the ones with negative attitudes towards minorities.

Testing them to screen out the ones with the negative attitudes towards minorities? How is that going to work, exactly? By asking the candidate if he is a racist and expecting to get an honest answer?

...if the economy is tolerable (who knows) then he will win.

Everything you wrote is irrelevant except for this.

Do voters blame Obama for tepid growth, or do they think they dodged a bullet?

b: The mentally ill/substance abusers- this is the persistent problem- these are the people out on the streets seemingly irrespective of the state of the economy, availability of government assistance, etc...

what do yo do about b? (not being snarky I honestly don't know)

In contrast to this, you have John Locke, whose vision of the state of nature is more aligned with traditional religious notions of "man before the Fall." Locke's state of nature assumes a pristine, Edenic beginning where men cooperated with men in freedom without the nefarious influences of unnecessary governance, and the long march of history has been one of warlords and strongmen taking over more and more of the natural freedoms of men placing it beneath the jackboots of their "states." It's a long, regressive "Fall" narrative. Libertarians love them some Locke. Their desire to remove "government" and "let the market decide" is another in a long line of dreams about returning to the Garden.

In 2012, the Romney agenda is (1) I'm Not Obama; and (2) let's cut taxes even more.

You seem to have created some sort of mutant hybrid of Locke and Rousseau here.

There are several tests that measure unconscious racial bias on the part of all races, not just whites. Here's a report on one of them.

Basically every person benefits from society by several orders of magnitude more than they benefit society. Because of economy of scale (more or less), the amount of work we get out of society is immeasurably large compared to the work we put into society. Drop a man in a field, say "Okay, you're on your own" - he might survive, but his life will be much worse. Maybe not immeasurably worse, since we can try and estimate the cost of things (e.g., http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toaster_from_scratch.html )

Yes, his life will be worse; indeed, that's the whole point of trade. But please don't conflate 'society' and government in this context.

but when that picture is so uncertain, you've got to make sure that that "Obamacare steals my freedom" BS doesn't go unanswered,

Obama is pretty likable

Do voters blame Obama for tepid growth, or do they think they dodged a bullet?

But please don't conflate 'society' and government in this context.

Yes, his life will be worse; indeed, that's the whole point of trade. But please don't conflate 'society' and government in this context.

I guess I don't think people are ever really free without law and order. But law and order are very easily abused, and make wonderful rhetoric shields for abuses. It's a moral quandary.

Obama is pretty likable

he is? I don't find him particularly likable

Of course right now you need the permission of countless corporate bureaucracies to function in the 21st century world, and opting out of them is no more of a real alternative than opting out of the government. Their constraints are every bit as inhibiting, and often far more inhibiting, as a requirement to buy health insurance, or a mandate not to practice racial discrimination in your private business. Forcing a poor person to forego needed medical treatment because he doesn't have the money to pay for it

consigns that person to a far worse fate than that of some Joe the Healthy Plumber, who can afford to buy health insurance but for whatever reason doesn't want to. Playing games with language and pretending that this poor person has any "choice" in the matter

is little more than a transparent rhetorical dodge, and to tell that poor person that he should ask for voluntary contributions to pay for his medical care is such a complete non-starter on a societal scale that it's not even worth the dignity of a response.

And David, since you're not a complete coward like Ray, maybe you'll tell us if you think that an Iraq war opponent should have been compelled to pay taxes for that war, when he had no interest at all in its outcome, or thought that Bush's policies were only going to make things much worse. Why shouldn't the Pentagon have relied on voluntary contributions from hawks and defense contractors to finance their adventure?

Obama is going to have to make a much more forceful defense of the social compact that's behind the ACA, with videos using specific cases of people who were out in the cold before the ACA but now will be covered.

Never mind that the Supreme Court upheld the law---tell me how you knew anything about the constitutionality of the mandate, or whether it qualified as a tax, prior to the Supreme Court decision, considering that the mandate's constitutionality had been upheld by several lower courts.

I didn't use the term choice; I used the term liberty. The shipwrecked man stranded on a deserted island has liberty, even if he doesn't have much in the way of choice.

Yes, his life will be worse; indeed, that's the whole point of trade. But please don't conflate 'society' and government in this context.

First, its constitutionality was also rejected by lower courts.

Maybe I should be the first to come out and say "I like paying taxes."

Berlin supported the presidential candidacy of General Dwight Eisenhower, and his song "I Like Ike" featured prominently in the Eisenhower campaign. In his later years he also became more conservative in his views on music. According to his daughter, "He was consumed by patriotism." He often said, "I owe all my success to my adopted country" and once rejected his lawyers' advice to invest in tax shelters, insisting, "I want to pay taxes. I love this country.

See above. Quit saying "the will of the people" when it's the will of some people who lost in the process. If you don't have rules that lead to a result, how do you arrive at a result? Just talking about merits forever? The big problem with this country is there is too much talk and deliberation and too little action.

I would argue that independent/swing voters are portrayed as liking Obama personally more than they like his policies or style of governing. Romney is best off IMO to paint Obama as a well-meaning guy who is out of his depth and who has underperformed the expectations he campaigned on in 2008, whether in terms of economic outcomes or process.

Romney is best off IMO to paint Obama as a well-meaning guy who is out of his depth and who has underperformed the expectations he campaigned on in 2008, whether in terms of economic outcomes or process.

You've been making very good sense throughout this entire thread, but I'd add just one thing: Obama is going to have to make a much more forceful defense of the social compact that's behind the ACA, with videos using specific cases of people who were out in the cold before the ACA but now will be covered.

But it seems every few months we see signs of hope, only to have the economy sink back, so who knows.

Maybe I should be the first to come out and say "I like paying taxes."

Of course it was, which is why unlike you and Ray, I wasn't issuing claims of its constitutionality one way or the other prior to last Thursday. Like you, I had my preferences, but neither of our preferences meant squat until the Supreme Court's decision.

Have you ever written a check to the government to pay more taxes than you owe?

I ask this seriously.

Because the Supreme Court determines the law, in the real world if not in the Galtian world that you and your fellow libertarians seem to occupy. If Supreme Court decisions could be overridden by my mere personal preferences, G.W. Bush never would have made it out of Texas, and all political campaigns would be financed with contributions limited to $2,000 with no loopholes. Anyone can play that silly game.

Have you ever written a check to the government to pay more taxes than you owe?

I ask this seriously.

No. The Supreme Court makes decisions. Those decisions have legal effect. But it does not determine reality

I like going to see the NY Philharmonic, but I don't pay $55 for my $35 ticket. If you're asking this seriously, you sound about 15 years old.

Have you ever written a check to the government to pay more taxes than you owe?

I ask this seriously.

I like going to see the NY Philharmonic, but I don't pay $55 for my $35 ticket. If you're asking this seriously, you sound about 15 years old.

This is absurd. He said he likes paying taxes.

“Oh, what a contrast, my friends, between these two men who would be president! President Obama is betting on America and American workers, and Mitt Romney is betting his resources in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Switzerland and God only knows where else he is putting his resources.”

I really thought you meant Santiago when I first read this.

Perhaps a better way of saying it is that he likes what taxes buy, so he pays them willingly.

---Pinning the Bain / outsourcing tail on the Romney donkey, and reminding those rust belt voters that Romney would have let the automakers fend for themselves in 2008-09. Romney is inherently disliked by a majority of independent voters for reasons largely stemming from his well-deserved reputation for cluelessness about the concerns of the average non-rich American, and Obama should never let Romney escape from that trap----Keep demanding to see Romney's prior tax returns and let Romney show the world how they demonstrate his fine business acumen.

Perhaps a better way of saying it is that he is full of it.

Christ on a bicycle, you guys both need to re-take Kaplan or Princeton or something.

I cannot believe my eyes. Do you really think this makes sense? Look at what you just wrote. Do you pay more for your baseball tickets than is required of you?

“Oh, what a contrast, my friends, between these two men who would be president! President Obama is betting on America and American workers, and Mitt Romney is betting his resources in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Switzerland and God only knows where else he is putting his resources.”

Key word: his resources. Obama isn't betting anything at all; he's got none of his own skin in the game. He's just handing out American taxpayers' money to his favored special interests.

You are no better on these scores than me, who you've spent hundreds of posts now railing against since Thursday. And I suspect that if we were to look at charitable contributions, you'd pretty easily fall behind me.

You are no better on these scores than me, who you've spent hundreds of posts now railing against since Thursday. And I suspect that if we were to look at charitable contributions, you'd pretty easily fall behind me. But whatever.

More importantly, people just don't want to live in a "well, that's tough" society a la DNP

You are no better on these scores than me, who you've spent hundreds of posts now railing against since Thursday. And I suspect that if we were to look at charitable contributions, you'd pretty easily fall behind me. But whatever. You're the compassionate ones. Or so you like to tell yourselves, and anyone who will listen.

It makes sense to me. Ray didn't say that he likes paying for baseball tickets, he said he likes going to ballgames.

2) I don't really understand why you're so defensive about this "compassion" thing. Geez, grow up already. Part of the reason you get trolled so much is that you can be counted on for these kinds of snit fits ... I take it you didn't grow up with younger siblings. For some reason, Sam seems to have taken it on himself to act as your and Nieporent's bratty younger brother here at BTF - it's not the debate that he enjoys, but your reactions to it.