"flipper" wrote in message
...
Although, there is the point that one cannot say with certainty what
they 'believe' by what they say. But, then, you argue below that one
should so, for the moment, we shall.

I believe that enough people "believe what they say" that it's usually best to
try to debate with/influence them based on those stated beliefs rather than
trying to figure out what their true agenda is -- the later is just too hard
to do well, at least for me... although other people will surely be better at
it.

Publicly broadcasting ads touting "Clean coal. Yes we can! Yes we
can!" is demonstrably a deception when, in private, the same speaker
assures left wing enviro fanatics his cap and trade program will put
anyone dumb enough to believe the ad out of business.

Just as I can view social security as both "insurance" and "taxes" (or
"transfer of wealth" if you like), I can view both parts of the coal situation
as reasonable as well: Sure, Obama and friends would like to get rid of it
completely, but recognizing that that isn't viable any time soon, he's at
least going to push for making it cleaner in the interim.

I admit that I find it difficult to know whether programs such as
cap-and-trade are more about "let's try to motivate researchers to find even
better alternatives to what we already have (but if nothing pans out -- which
is actually kinda likely -- we'll just modify the program later)" vs. "energy
consumption is really kinda evil and we'll run out of it any day now and hence
it needs very heavy regulation and pricing far in excess of the actual
production costs" -- I expect that of supporters of cap-and-trade, there's
plenty of people at both of those extremes and everywhere inbetween.

Don't be ridiculous. Assessing whether someone is truthful is not only
valid but crucial in deciding whether one wants to hand them the
reigns of power.

That I agree with -- just that, once they're in power, even if you are
convinced they're pathological liars, it's still best to try to deal with the
actual issues rather than directly accussing them of lying, as the later is
likely to remove any avenue you might have had of influencing policy change.
Of course, meanwhile you should be doing whatever you can to get them out of
power too. :-)

------
I'm against going to war.
Great, you get my vote.
Now, off to war we go.
-------

And you think this is not only perfectly fine but it would have been
of no value to asses whether there was any honesty in the claims made?

I think anybody that two-faced would be tossed out of office pretty quickly.
Heck, Clinton was impeached for lying about his affair with Lewinsky...

How the hell do you make any 'progress' by agreeing to, or
'compromising' with, a deceptive argument the person never intends to
adhere to?

Very few people are completely two-faced. Managing to get yourself elected to
public office requires at least some semblance of keeping your promises to
others, after all. I just don't view republicans vs. democrats or liberals
vs. conservatives as so far apart from one another as you seem to, I guess; a
lot of what you view as people lying I suspect I would view as someone
changing their opinion based on new information or a new context.

It's inevitable, IMO -- regardless of how "solid" a foundation for a
government or religion is, over time people will always start
re-interpreting
or just outright ignoring bits of it that no longer jive that well with
"popular culture."
That's the rapist's argument: might as well lay back and enjoy it.

Might be, but unfortunately for the rapist the vast majority of people will
never buy it. It can go both directions anyway: If anything, at the moment
the country seems to be more in the mood for longer mandatory sentences for
criminals rather than letting judges or juries decide.

The fact of the matter is, there's no point to a Constitution if
you're going to simply 'reinterpret' whenever it feels convenient and
"living document" is just another progressive-liberal-socialist canard
for "dead contract."

The Constitution's relevancy to this country is just as much as, e.g., the
Bible's relevancy to a Christian: There's a fundamental belief that "somewhere
in there" some absolute truths can be found, but since the original framers
died long ago and you're dealing with a finite amount of text, people are
constantly shifting a bit on the exact interpretation.

And the Constitution doesn't even have to resort to parables for its
teachings. :-)

---
I agree to buy your car at $200/month for 12 months, nothing down.

We write a contract, both sign, you give me the keys, and I proudly
drive off.

Later I decide to 'interpret' the contract as 'meaning' to pay you
$200 only on the months I have $200 to spare. That's still 12 payments
of $200 but it doesn't look like there's going to be a spare $200 for,
oh, maybe a few years. I'll decide later if another 'interpretation'
is needed. After all, it might be I'm descendent from a previously
persecuted class and you 'owe' me.
---
Don't be upset. It's a "living document."

If you can get a court to agree with you, more power to you. :-)

I think it's unlikely, though. The savvy businessman also gives some
consideration to how likely the contractee is to flake and only enters into
the contract if they figure -- on average -- it'll be beneficial to them.

And where did I say anything about 'one big vote" or 'returning' to a
particular date?

You didn't, but I was thinking it might make you a happy camper. :-)

And just how do you muster 'hope' that will ever happen when you argue
no one should be 'upset' about the usurpations?

There's no reason I can't hope for a better situation while simultaneously not
being too upset with the present one. I mean, I have a standard of living
that spectacularly exceeds anything a very large percentage of people in the
world could ever expect to obtain and hence -- while I have hope the U.S.
government has some pretty significant changes implemented in the near
future -- I can't be at all unhappy about my lot in life in the interim.

Government spends billions on 'research' but you only hear about it
when a lucky cherry pops up.

Not surprising: A lot of what government funds is "basic research" that is too
much of a long shot for corporations to be interested in; it's expected that a
lot of it is going to fizzle, even though of all the "good ideas" the funded
one are presumably the best.

The main issue for me is the amount of funding; in general I'm confident that
the funds are being distributed to reasonably worthy causes -- even though it
is worrisome that politics now seems to affect those distributions far more
than in decades past (see, e.g., global warming scandals). "Billions" may
very well be too much, but "thousands" would be too little.

Even the "let's soak the rich!" crowd doesn't really get ahead much because,
well, there just aren't that many rich to soak.
Of course not, but that doesn't stop it from being a perennial left
wing class warfare ploy.

Agreed, but is the right any better with immediately trumpeting the "Obama's
visit to Indian will cost $200M/day!" fiction? Both sides need to take a deep
breath and calm down... a lot. This is what Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore
Sanity and/or Fear" was all about...

No, it was your 'argument' that technology needed 'government
stimulus', apparently under the typically left wing notion that the
'poor' there were to damn stupid to grasp the utility of toilets.

They're not too stupid to grasp the utility of toilets, but if it comes down
to toilets vs. a cell phone, in many cases they'll chose the later... hence
the argument that sometimes it's best to have government step in build a bit
of the initial infrastructure.

Just 'unfortunate', I suppose, that your hand picked example is of
government *not* 'doing good' and failing to provide services.

It's often easier to show the utility of government by pointing out an
"obvious" failing of one (India's) than just pointing to, e.g., the roads in
the U.S. where one could argue that perhaps they could have all been toll
roads and it would have been quicker or cheaper or something to have gone that
route anyway; it's harder to argue a hypothetical.

Well, you can forget the 'agreement' because, according to the
progressive-liberal-socialist left, that 'constitution' is a "living
document" to be 'reinterpreted' by the government for the convenience
of the government.

"The government" is largely just a reflection of the will of the people.
Well, assuming you vote, at least. It's not perfect, but until corruption
comes into play, I believe that in democracies (and constitutional republics
:-) ) people really do get the government they want... and deserve.

I get the impression you think our government is currently rather more corrupt
already than I do...

---Joel