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pyotr filipivich wrote: I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner Asch wrote on Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:41:20 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking : On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:27:58 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: Gunner wrote: On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:24:00 -0800, pyotr filipivich wrote: I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner wrote on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:55:28 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking : On Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:47:05 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote: tea per day. I wake up and am running at 90% by the time my feet hit the floor--without any damned drugs, TYVM. Oh..did I mention I was working at an altitude of 26 feet above floor level, just a couple feet below the (metal) roof, with an outside temp of around 99F all day? A two liter bottle of Mt. Dew, refilled once with water , refilled again, 2 bottles of Iced tea, 2 Monsters and Ive still not ****ed yet. But my clothes go crunch...crunch when I move Under similar conditions, the instructions were "Drink the cup of Gatorade. If it tastes good, keep drinking until it no longer does." You may substitute you preferred electrolyte rich fluid of choice. pyotr "Hydrate or Die!" - to use another old expression. Indeed. I had a couple in there as well. Survivalist, remember? Do you have any idea how many gators go into a gallon of Gatorade? 42 ... except in Pomona, where it is 47. Don't ask me, I didn't go there. Some were processed before they were full grown. -- http://improve-usenet.org/index.html If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm Sporadic E is the Earth's aluminum foil beanie for the 'global warming' sheep. |
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Ed Huntress wrote:
"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Hawke" wrote in message ... No it has been said that no alternatives have been proffered. Wrong. Ron Paul offered up some alternatives, granted not all would be acceptable or work, but he evened offered a method to fix that: Ron Paul is a half-baked crackpot who should stay in Arizona, where nothing destructive that he could do matters very much. If he goes out in the sun much, maybe he'll be fully baked some day. LMAO. You have your crack pots mixed up Ed. Paul is the Texican one. McCain is the Arizona crack pot. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
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Ed Huntress wrote:
"Hawke" wrote in message ... That's categorically different from the libertarian program as it stands today. Libertarianism, as an intellectual conservative would define it, is a form of radicalism (and intellectual conservatives recognize that their opposites are radicals, not liberals). When Stuart says you need an agreement on some fundamental principles to avoid chaos, he's surely talking about some things that are not part of the Libertarian platform, because those things aren't there. In fact, he's almost certainly talking about the kinds of principle upon which conservatism is founded, as explained in detail by Edmund Burke. I can tell that I don't have the historical or political depth of information that you do, Ed, so I'll just bow out here. I think I got carried away. I'll relax now. d8-) -- Ed Huntress Hey, way to go Ed. You sat on a Libertarian and made him give, you bully. I think that's a first. The fact that he agreed to bow to your logic was a real triumph. Usually when you give a Libertarian/Conservative a thumping by argument all they do is go away mad, start a fight, or call you some names, like Gunner would. You also nailed Libertarianism. It's not realistic. It's for complainers. They don't like the way things are now; with that we can all agree. But instead of coming up with real and feasible ways of making concrete changes all they can come up with is to throw out the baby with the bath water. But that explains why that party will never be anything more than a blip on the radar. As long as it can't come up with real alternatives to the status quo that might actually work it'll stay irrelevant. However, as Americans we all have at least some measure of Libertarian in us though it may be really, really small. Hawke Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Thoughtless impulse is an apt description of Libertarians. It also applies to teenagers. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
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Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message ... Ed Huntress wrote: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 12:37:39 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: That's categorically different from the libertarian program as it stands today. Libertarianism, as an intellectual conservative would define it, is a form of radicalism (and intellectual conservatives recognize that their opposites are radicals, not liberals). When Stuart says you need an agreement on some fundamental principles to avoid chaos, he's surely talking about some things that are not part of the Libertarian platform, because those things aren't there. In fact, he's almost certainly talking about the kinds of principle upon which conservatism is founded, as explained in detail by Edmund Burke. I can tell that I don't have the historical or political depth of information that you do, Ed, so I'll just bow out here. I think I got carried away. I'll relax now. d8-) Grab your copy of the Constitution, a couple gallons of ethanol and harass the neighborhood spouting the second amendment at 50 or 60 MPH in your go cart! You will feel better in no time Ed G "Stoichiometric", damned Ed, I worked that into so many conversations the day after seeing it and laughed so hard I can't believe it. What was really funny was the number of sage nods there were after weavung the word - completely senslessly mind you - into a technical discussion of the project I'm on right now. I'll surely catch hell shortly but it was worth it. Stoichiometric! A good word. Wait 'till you try it at a bar, when trying to describe to the bartender how to make the perfect Martini. I go with etropy and endothermic in that setting. Easier to pronounce dontcha' know. LOL -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
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I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner Asch
wrote on Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:41:20 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking : On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:27:58 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: Gunner wrote: On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:24:00 -0800, pyotr filipivich wrote: I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner wrote on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:55:28 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking : On Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:47:05 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote: tea per day. I wake up and am running at 90% by the time my feet hit the floor--without any damned drugs, TYVM. Oh..did I mention I was working at an altitude of 26 feet above floor level, just a couple feet below the (metal) roof, with an outside temp of around 99F all day? A two liter bottle of Mt. Dew, refilled once with water , refilled again, 2 bottles of Iced tea, 2 Monsters and Ive still not ****ed yet. But my clothes go crunch...crunch when I move Under similar conditions, the instructions were "Drink the cup of Gatorade. If it tastes good, keep drinking until it no longer does." You may substitute you preferred electrolyte rich fluid of choice. pyotr "Hydrate or Die!" - to use another old expression. Indeed. I had a couple in there as well. Survivalist, remember? Do you have any idea how many gators go into a gallon of Gatorade? 42 ... except in Pomona, where it is 47. Don't ask me, I didn't go there. -- pyotr filipivich "I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender whether they served zombies he said, ‘Sure, what'll you have?'" from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries |
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I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner
wrote on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:59:26 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking : On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:24:00 -0800, pyotr filipivich wrote: I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner wrote on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:55:28 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking : On Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:47:05 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote: tea per day. I wake up and am running at 90% by the time my feet hit the floor--without any damned drugs, TYVM. Oh..did I mention I was working at an altitude of 26 feet above floor level, just a couple feet below the (metal) roof, with an outside temp of around 99F all day? A two liter bottle of Mt. Dew, refilled once with water , refilled again, 2 bottles of Iced tea, 2 Monsters and Ive still not ****ed yet. But my clothes go crunch...crunch when I move Under similar conditions, the instructions were "Drink the cup of Gatorade. If it tastes good, keep drinking until it no longer does." You may substitute you preferred electrolyte rich fluid of choice. pyotr "Hydrate or Die!" - to use another old expression. Indeed. I had a couple in there as well. Survivalist, remember? G Yeah, I remember. Which doesn't mean I can't, err, "remind" you of that tidbit. Second hand war stories are told due to some "survival" lesson involved. Usually. Unlike the story about the time Oscar Mendoza broke his dick. tschus pyotr -- pyotr filipivich "I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender whether they served zombies he said, ‘Sure, what'll you have?'" from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries |
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Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message ... Ed Huntress wrote: "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Hawke" wrote in message ... No it has been said that no alternatives have been proffered. Wrong. Ron Paul offered up some alternatives, granted not all would be acceptable or work, but he evened offered a method to fix that: Ron Paul is a half-baked crackpot who should stay in Arizona, where nothing destructive that he could do matters very much. If he goes out in the sun much, maybe he'll be fully baked some day. LMAO. You have your crack pots mixed up Ed. Paul is the Texican one. McCain is the Arizona crack pot. Then let him bake in Texas. d8-) It must be something about too much sun... I was thinking Freud. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
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"John R. Carroll" wrote in message ... Ed Huntress wrote: "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Hawke" wrote in message ... No it has been said that no alternatives have been proffered. Wrong. Ron Paul offered up some alternatives, granted not all would be acceptable or work, but he evened offered a method to fix that: Ron Paul is a half-baked crackpot who should stay in Arizona, where nothing destructive that he could do matters very much. If he goes out in the sun much, maybe he'll be fully baked some day. LMAO. You have your crack pots mixed up Ed. Paul is the Texican one. McCain is the Arizona crack pot. Then let him bake in Texas. d8-) It must be something about too much sun... -- Ed Huntress |
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On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 13:49:17 -0700, "John R. Carroll"
wrote: Ed Huntress wrote: "Hawke" wrote in message ... That's categorically different from the libertarian program as it stands today. Libertarianism, as an intellectual conservative would define it, is a form of radicalism (and intellectual conservatives recognize that their opposites are radicals, not liberals). When Stuart says you need an agreement on some fundamental principles to avoid chaos, he's surely talking about some things that are not part of the Libertarian platform, because those things aren't there. In fact, he's almost certainly talking about the kinds of principle upon which conservatism is founded, as explained in detail by Edmund Burke. I can tell that I don't have the historical or political depth of information that you do, Ed, so I'll just bow out here. I think I got carried away. I'll relax now. d8-) -- Ed Huntress Hey, way to go Ed. You sat on a Libertarian and made him give, you bully. I think that's a first. The fact that he agreed to bow to your logic was a real triumph. Usually when you give a Libertarian/Conservative a thumping by argument all they do is go away mad, start a fight, or call you some names, like Gunner would. You also nailed Libertarianism. It's not realistic. It's for complainers. They don't like the way things are now; with that we can all agree. But instead of coming up with real and feasible ways of making concrete changes all they can come up with is to throw out the baby with the bath water. But that explains why that party will never be anything more than a blip on the radar. As long as it can't come up with real alternatives to the status quo that might actually work it'll stay irrelevant. However, as Americans we all have at least some measure of Libertarian in us though it may be really, really small. Hawke Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Thoughtless impulse is an apt description of Libertarians. It also applies to teenagers. And of course to the Masters of Thoughtless Impulse...Liberals Gunner Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. |
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"Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Hawke" wrote in message ... That's categorically different from the libertarian program as it stands today. Libertarianism, as an intellectual conservative would define it, is a form of radicalism (and intellectual conservatives recognize that their opposites are radicals, not liberals). When Stuart says you need an agreement on some fundamental principles to avoid chaos, he's surely talking about some things that are not part of the Libertarian platform, because those things aren't there. In fact, he's almost certainly talking about the kinds of principle upon which conservatism is founded, as explained in detail by Edmund Burke. I can tell that I don't have the historical or political depth of information that you do, Ed, so I'll just bow out here. I think I got carried away. I'll relax now. d8-) -- Ed Huntress Hey, way to go Ed. You sat on a Libertarian and made him give, you bully. I think that's a first. The fact that he agreed to bow to your logic was a real triumph. Usually when you give a Libertarian/Conservative a thumping by argument all they do is go away mad, start a fight, or call you some names, like Gunner would. You also nailed Libertarianism. It's not realistic. It's for complainers. They don't like the way things are now; with that we can all agree. But instead of coming up with real and feasible ways of making concrete changes all they can come up with is to throw out the baby with the bath water. But that explains why that party will never be anything more than a blip on the radar. As long as it can't come up with real alternatives to the status quo that might actually work it'll stay irrelevant. However, as Americans we all have at least some measure of Libertarian in us though it may be really, really small. Hawke Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Ed: You criticize the Libertarians for the lack of thinking thru their ideas. Where is there any evidence that the other parties have thought thru their ideas? Over 200 years of successful governance. And if you don't think it's been successful, compare our legal, economic, and other situations with those of almost any other country. Well lets see. I've heard that said before. Lets use some measures: The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index combining normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide. It is claimed as a standard means of measuring human development, a concept that, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) refers to the process of widening the options of persons, giving them greater opportunities for education, health care, income, employment, etc. The basic use of HDI is however to rank countries by level of "human development" which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. The US has been shown as a country that is expeirencing a decreasing HDI In fact since 1980 the US has never been ranked as the top Nation. Canada, Norway, Switzerland and even Japan has outranked us. We are sliding down a slippery slope. The present method of dealing with problems is called "Knee Jerk". I'll repeat what has been ignored: Get on the internet and look into the Democrat and Republican parties. Try to find a statement of philosophy. Thank God, they really don't have one, beyond a few things that might better be called attitudes. A better name is "Situational Ethics". Take our Bill Clinton and his sexual pecadillos. If I as a Civil Servan had engaged in sex with a subordinate I would have immediately lost my security clearance because of an increase in vulnerability to black mail and without the clearance my ability to perform my job would be severely curtailed and thence probably my career be ended. Bill as Commander in Chief of the Military allowed others in the Military to lose their careers for having sex with a subordinant. Yep we have attitudes. The Libertarian party is the only one willing to state theirs clearly. Deliver us from ideologues who have a philosophy. Philosophy is for college classes and books. When it comes to governance, it's a prescription for disaster. Every time. No exceptions. I'm not an registered Libertarian, but I'm sure a supporter of smaller less intrusive government. So is 90% of the US population -- until you try to make *their* favorite project smaller. Yes I agree here and as the guy said the death of democracy is assured as soon as the people find that they can vote themselve money. Again since we are not governed by principles, then the rule is grab what you can for yourself. Isn't this what you complain about in the big corporations?? Ed: You don't like monopolies. I agree they tend to run away with themselves in an unbridled manner. The Federal, State, County and to a lesser extent even City governments are simply monopolies. No, they're democratically elected governments. That's the exact opposite of a monopoly. You can get rid of them as easily as by voting them out. That's our job. Now this surprises me. It is as naive as a Junior High School student. It is one hell of a lot more difficult than "easily by voting them out" You have to compete with the two or is it one political parties who have the machinery and the money that I don't. The candidates that we get to vote for are pretty much selected by the parties. I watched Ron Paul get ignored when he wanted to discuss things like the legitimacy of the governments foreign policy. They have no competition. Of course they do -- every politician who wants their job is a competitor. They are not held accountable by any other than themselves for their actions. That's why we have a tripartite government with a distribution of powers and an institutionalized system of checks and balances. God I wish I could have the belief and faith that you apparently have inspite of all the fraud waste and abuse being done by the governments. I wish I could just ignore the insane laws and rule makings that I see everyday. I wish I had a job where I could vote myself pay raises and create my own retirement system that someone else pays for. So do I. d8-) No it has been said that no alternatives have been proffered. Wrong. Ron Paul offered up some alternatives, granted not all would be acceptable or work, but he evened offered a method to fix that: Ron Paul is a half-baked crackpot who should stay in Arizona, where nothing destructive that he could do matters very much. If he goes out in the sun much, maybe he'll be fully baked some day. Well your light bulb just dimmed. Ron Paul is a Representative from Texas not Arizona. Constitutional Amendment. His ideas of restricting the government to those powers granted by the Constitution would be a big step in the right direction to at least curtail some of the Federal Governements monopolistic behaviours presently viewed as the way of doing business. Bull. What do the Centrists offer... Government that works. ...to get us out of our current Morass? What morass? Are you starving? Are you threatened by some other country? Did you have to sell your children into slavery? What in the hell are you talking about, "morass"? I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. I'm talking about the 2 star general that changed a $750M contract scope of work to a cost + award fee effort to Raytheon in spite of an Army science board paper which stated unequivocally that the Army did not have anyone technicall qualified to perform an award fee determination for that effort. I'm talking about two people that I know who just obtained government funding to produce some three radars using contract supplied radar pedestals of quality much inferior to those setting right under their noses in the supply yard. I'm talking about FEMA spending over $1M producing houses for the Typhoon stricken Marshall Islands. The houses were fabricated with prest wood with absolutely no studs. With just a little removing of the blinders example after example of incompetent government rulings are just obvious. If this and the downward direction of measures like the HDI above as well as other measures that are readily available don't constitute a Morass I don't know what is required. It seems their technique is to wait and see what happens. Stu What are you, a radical who has a program for overturning tradition? g Of course it's to wait and see what happens. What is it you want, Stu? Is it 6,000-pound, 6-liter SUVs and pickup trucks forever? A McMansion for everyone, with a 40-mile commute? Didn't you realize 10 years ago, or even 20 years ago, that we were sliding downhill on a waterslide into a swamp? Is this the great society that you were talking about? Which is so much better than other countries? I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. We get caught by our own wretched excess from time to time. That's the product of a hot economy and an....uh, expansive attitude. That's the US. It means we'll swing up and down, and drive ourselves silly, probably forever. I happen to like the system, and the people in it, silly or not. I was told that the pendulum swings in the DoD service when I saw them removing work benches and putting desks in their place. This was in 1975. The pendulum is still swinging to the crazy extreme. The people that replaced me in the Navy R&D are all spending their days on airplanes going to meetings. Meetings that no one can detect the benefit or purpose. Their "smart buyer" status is being eroded at a fantastic rate. They have no hands on experience to support their college education. It doesn't take much listening to them to find the efficacy of the term Morass. But spare us the talk about "morass." There is no morass. There is only the roller coaster. Hang on tight. I wouldn't get on a roller coaster that had no tracks or some effort at purposeful design. I wouldn't get in an airplane when there was no statement of the purpose of the flight. I wouldn't get on an airplane where the pilot just said I'm here to see what is going to happen and our emergeny plan is based on the widely accepted Knee Jerk method. Yep we don't have an agreed to destination so where ever the Democrans or Republicrats are going to take us I guess we are just the kidnapped passengers and Take us they will. Stu -- Ed Huntress |
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Stuart & Kathryn Fields wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... SNIP ...to get us out of our current Morass? What morass? Are you starving? Are you threatened by some other country? Did you have to sell your children into slavery? What in the hell are you talking about, "morass"? I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. This sounds strange, are they telling you to move it, or that if you want to be covered by federal flood insurance, you need to move it? The gov't has never had a problem with people building in flood areas before... Maybe you just need to build a 2' high levee around it. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. Isn't that the libertarian Ideal? Sell himself to the highest bidder? are you against regulations or for them? I'm talking about the 2 star general that changed a $750M contract scope of work to a cost + award fee effort to Raytheon in spite of an Army science board paper which stated unequivocally that the Army did not have anyone technicall qualified to perform an award fee determination for that effort. I'm talking about two people that I know who just obtained government funding to produce some three radars using contract supplied radar pedestals of quality much inferior to those setting right under their noses in the supply yard. In a libertarian world, low quality means low cost right? Maximize profits, nobody HAS to stand under them, Freedom Right? I'm talking about FEMA spending over $1M producing houses for the Typhoon stricken Marshall Islands. The houses were fabricated with prest wood with absolutely no studs. So which great libertarian principle do you want applied here? More oversight of FEMA? What about the contractor who built the shoddy product? Why didn't that company, which arguably should know construction better than some Bush college buddy now running procurement for FEMA, why didn't they say, "Hey this won't do!, you gotta beef it up"? were they libertarians, just making what they were told for maximum profit? With just a little removing of the blinders example after example of incompetent government rulings are just obvious. I'm not seeing how adding greed and removing oversight will solve it though.... The other Stuart Glad to see somebody else who spells it properly! |
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On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:24:15 -0400, Stuart Wheaton
wrote: I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. Isn't that the libertarian Ideal? Sell himself to the highest bidder? are you against regulations or for them? So you think Libertarians are for breaking contracts when it suits them? The 3 star was under a contract. He broke it. I'm talking about the 2 star general that changed a $750M contract scope of work to a cost + award fee effort to Raytheon in spite of an Army science board paper which stated unequivocally that the Army did not have anyone technicall qualified to perform an award fee determination for that effort. I'm talking about two people that I know who just obtained government funding to produce some three radars using contract supplied radar pedestals of quality much inferior to those setting right under their noses in the supply yard. In a libertarian world, low quality means low cost right? Maximize profits, nobody HAS to stand under them, Freedom Right? Dumped on your head? Had to be to have typed that bit of dreck. I'm talking about FEMA spending over $1M producing houses for the Typhoon stricken Marshall Islands. The houses were fabricated with prest wood with absolutely no studs. So which great libertarian principle do you want applied here? More oversight of FEMA? What about the contractor who built the shoddy product? Why didn't that company, which arguably should know construction better than some Bush college buddy now running procurement for FEMA, why didn't they say, "Hey this won't do!, you gotta beef it up"? were they libertarians, just making what they were told for maximum profit? More likely it was some Democrat hold over from a previous administration They afterall, have no honor or pride. With just a little removing of the blinders example after example of incompetent government rulings are just obvious. I'm not seeing how adding greed and removing oversight will solve it though.... You are looking at things from a Democrat perspective, where everything revolves around greed and corruption, as witnessed by New Orleans and a host of other sad situations Say..;hows Chicago doing these days? Gunner Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. |
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"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... snip Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Ed: You criticize the Libertarians for the lack of thinking thru their ideas. Where is there any evidence that the other parties have thought thru their ideas? Over 200 years of successful governance. And if you don't think it's been successful, compare our legal, economic, and other situations with those of almost any other country. Well lets see. I've heard that said before. Lets use some measures: The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index combining normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide. It is claimed as a standard means of measuring human development, a concept that, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) refers to the process of widening the options of persons, giving them greater opportunities for education, health care, income, employment, etc. The basic use of HDI is however to rank countries by level of "human development" which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. HDI is another arbitrary UN project that consists of weightings pulled out of a hat. 'You want to boost the US HDI? Try universal healthcare. Whoops...that isn't part of the libertarian program, is it? You can give it another boost by shooting all the cows. But, if you *really * want to get us on top, the long-term solution is obvious: Bulldoze the inner cities flat. HDI is as much a measure of social and political choices as anything. Most of the things that would boost our HDI are the exact OPPOSITE of what a libertarian program would lead to: socialized healthcare, more government employment, etc. I'm surprised you would even bring it up in this context, Stu. It leads in a direction opposite to the one you're advocating. The US has been shown as a country that is expeirencing a decreasing HDI In fact since 1980 the US has never been ranked as the top Nation. The HDI has only been around since sometime in the early '90s. Canada, Norway, Switzerland and even Japan has outranked us. They all have universal healthcare. We are sliding down a slippery slope. If there's a slope, it leads in a direction opposite to the one you're suggesting. The present method of dealing with problems is called "Knee Jerk". I'll repeat what has been ignored: Get on the internet and look into the Democrat and Republican parties. Try to find a statement of philosophy. Thank God, they really don't have one, beyond a few things that might better be called attitudes. A better name is "Situational Ethics". Take our Bill Clinton and his sexual pecadillos. If I as a Civil Servan had engaged in sex with a subordinate I would have immediately lost my security clearance because of an increase in vulnerability to black mail and without the clearance my ability to perform my job would be severely curtailed and thence probably my career be ended. Bill as Commander in Chief of the Military allowed others in the Military to lose their careers for having sex with a subordinant. Yep we have attitudes. So what does that have to do with libertarians or Libertarians? Don't they have sex? The Libertarian party is the only one willing to state theirs clearly. Deliver us from ideologues who have a philosophy. Philosophy is for college classes and books. When it comes to governance, it's a prescription for disaster. Every time. No exceptions. I'm not an registered Libertarian, but I'm sure a supporter of smaller less intrusive government. So is 90% of the US population -- until you try to make *their* favorite project smaller. Yes I agree here and as the guy said the death of democracy is assured as soon as the people find that they can vote themselve money. They found that out 200 years ago, but there are still plenty of rich people around -- more than ever, in fact. I guess the "guy" was full of it, eh? Again since we are not governed by principles, then the rule is grab what you can for yourself. Isn't this what you complain about in the big corporations?? No. It's what I *expect* of greedy and overly ambitious people who are given the opportunity. My complaint is that we give them too many opportunities, thanks to our semi-libertarian approach to (de)regulation of business, and financial business in particular. Ed: You don't like monopolies. I agree they tend to run away with themselves in an unbridled manner. The Federal, State, County and to a lesser extent even City governments are simply monopolies. No, they're democratically elected governments. That's the exact opposite of a monopoly. You can get rid of them as easily as by voting them out. That's our job. Now this surprises me. It is as naive as a Junior High School student. It is one hell of a lot more difficult than "easily by voting them out" You have to compete with the two or is it one political parties who have the machinery and the money that I don't. If you want to exert leverage, you join the party you like better and work within it. I dabbled in that at the state level, becoming a Republican county delegate. You want to get into the game? You can. First off, you have to stop bellyaching and make some phone calls. This is a PARTICIPATORY democracy, not a stage show for critics. And it isn't a parliamentary system. It's a two-party system with a strong president. That keeps it a two-party system. The candidates that we get to vote for are pretty much selected by the parties. Then join a party. By the time the candidates are selected and you have to vote, 90% of the decision-making is done. You're getting into the game too late. That's why you don't have a hand in making the choices. I watched Ron Paul get ignored when he wanted to discuss things like the legitimacy of the governments foreign policy. As soon as he opened his mouth about "dietary supplements" as a model solution for our drug industry, I knew he was a crackpot. Then I read more. Paul is out of his tree. He's so far into the outfield that it's no surprise he's gotten ignored. There's a realm of political debate that gets attention. Then there are the nutballs around the fringes. Because we have free speech and open candidacies, the nutballs always show up. But we've learned to filter them out because they're a waste of time. That's why Ron Paul was marginalized. You may not like this because ideas you favor are among those that are marginalized. That's a shame. Either find a way to get them considered, or stand on the sidelines and watch the real game. They have no competition. Of course they do -- every politician who wants their job is a competitor. They are not held accountable by any other than themselves for their actions. That's why we have a tripartite government with a distribution of powers and an institutionalized system of checks and balances. God I wish I could have the belief and faith that you apparently have inspite of all the fraud waste and abuse being done by the governments. Fraud, waste, and abuse are endemic to large institutions, especially governments. Oversight helps. Turning your back on it, as Reagan and Bush have done, and as libertarians would do to an even greater degree, just makes it worse. I wish I could just ignore the insane laws and rule makings that I see everyday. Your complaints seem to be mostly technical, Stu, but your supposed solution is essentially to eliminate the problems by ignoring them. That's libertarianism. It offers a panacea in the form of a government that just ignores everything. It's like making the trains run on time by turning back the clocks. Larry even thinks that libertarians would be more honest. Talk about blind faith; I know of no reason to believe they would be any more honest. In my estimation, exactly the opposite would be true. By eliminating regulation and oversight, you'd may as well be offering the crooks and pirates an engraved invitation. I wish I had a job where I could vote myself pay raises and create my own retirement system that someone else pays for. So do I. d8-) No it has been said that no alternatives have been proffered. Wrong. Ron Paul offered up some alternatives, granted not all would be acceptable or work, but he evened offered a method to fix that: Ron Paul is a half-baked crackpot who should stay in Arizona, where nothing destructive that he could do matters very much. If he goes out in the sun much, maybe he'll be fully baked some day. Well your light bulb just dimmed. Ron Paul is a Representative from Texas not Arizona. One stinkindesert is as good as the next. d8-) Constitutional Amendment. His ideas of restricting the government to those powers granted by the Constitution would be a big step in the right direction to at least curtail some of the Federal Governements monopolistic behaviours presently viewed as the way of doing business. Bull. What do the Centrists offer... Government that works. ...to get us out of our current Morass? What morass? Are you starving? Are you threatened by some other country? Did you have to sell your children into slavery? What in the hell are you talking about, "morass"? I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. That sounds like your primary gripe. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. How would libertarianism fix that, or any of the other things you've listed? It all looks like some kind of blind faith. What kind, I have no idea. What are you, a radical who has a program for overturning tradition? g Of course it's to wait and see what happens. What is it you want, Stu? Is it 6,000-pound, 6-liter SUVs and pickup trucks forever? A McMansion for everyone, with a 40-mile commute? Didn't you realize 10 years ago, or even 20 years ago, that we were sliding downhill on a waterslide into a swamp? Is this the great society that you were talking about? Which is so much better than other countries? Even when you look at the biased, often silly, ratings systems from the UN and others, we're near the top. That, despite a heterogeneous society (note that the "leaders" in HDI are all homogeneous -- most of them even have the same hair color) that has much less government involvement in our lives than they do. The difference in HDI rating between the US and the "leader" (Iceland), on a 0-1 scale, is 0.017. I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. Talk to Larry. He has a 6,000-pound truck to haul 500 pounds of tools. g We get caught by our own wretched excess from time to time. That's the product of a hot economy and an....uh, expansive attitude. That's the US. It means we'll swing up and down, and drive ourselves silly, probably forever. I happen to like the system, and the people in it, silly or not. I was told that the pendulum swings in the DoD service when I saw them removing work benches and putting desks in their place. This was in 1975. The pendulum is still swinging to the crazy extreme. The people that replaced me in the Navy R&D are all spending their days on airplanes going to meetings. Meetings that no one can detect the benefit or purpose. Their "smart buyer" status is being eroded at a fantastic rate. They have no hands on experience to support their college education. It doesn't take much listening to them to find the efficacy of the term Morass. Your morass is not my idea of a morass. Even so, I hear nothing from you that suggests libertarianism would make your morass better. In fact, it sounds like you'd make it worse. What is it you want to eliminate here, Stuart? Airplane R&D? Or the Navy? What is it? But spare us the talk about "morass." There is no morass. There is only the roller coaster. Hang on tight. I wouldn't get on a roller coaster that had no tracks or some effort at purposeful design. I wouldn't get in an airplane when there was no statement of the purpose of the flight. I wouldn't get on an airplane where the pilot just said I'm here to see what is going to happen and our emergeny plan is based on the widely accepted Knee Jerk method. Yep we don't have an agreed to destination so where ever the Democrans or Republicrats are going to take us I guess we are just the kidnapped passengers and Take us they will. So, what is it, industrial planning? You want something like Japan's MITI? Just what is it that you think will cure these "ills"? -- Ed Huntress |
OT-143 days
"Stuart Wheaton" wrote in message ... Stuart & Kathryn Fields wrote: "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... SNIP ...to get us out of our current Morass? What morass? Are you starving? Are you threatened by some other country? Did you have to sell your children into slavery? What in the hell are you talking about, "morass"? I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. This sounds strange, are they telling you to move it, or that if you want to be covered by federal flood insurance, you need to move it? The gov't has never had a problem with people building in flood areas before... Maybe you just need to build a 2' high levee around it. Sounded even stranger to me when I asked just what hazard to the public we were addressing, they refused to answer. They just said that if my building extension cost were above some number, I would have to raise the existing structure 1.5'. There is no signs of any flooding ever occurring in the area of my house. We are over 6' higher than the local road which is 250' away. Discussions with local who have lived here 75 years cannot recall any flooding of any amount where we live. Our house has been here 35 years and hasn't seen anything other than a couple of puddles in the dirt road. FEMA has forced local builders to import soil and create areas of extreme dust storms when the winds blow. There have been hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in this hauling soil, creating dust storms which load the neighbors houses up with dirt. I do NOT want flood insurance. I'm not in any hazard from a flood unless half of California drops off into the Pacific. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. Isn't that the libertarian Ideal? Sell himself to the highest bidder? are you against regulations or for them? This is not the Libertarian Ideal. The Libertarians that I know believe that the federal government should be restricted to the powers granted to them by the Constitution. The existing laws should have taken care of the 3 star. Instead he was allowed to retire with full honors and as far as I know he is now a consultant for some "Beltway Bandit". No we are not insisting that the laws we already have be inforced. The "Powers that Be" are ignoring them. I'm talking about the 2 star general that changed a $750M contract scope of work to a cost + award fee effort to Raytheon in spite of an Army science board paper which stated unequivocally that the Army did not have anyone technicall qualified to perform an award fee determination for that effort. I'm talking about two people that I know who just obtained government funding to produce some three radars using contract supplied radar pedestals of quality much inferior to those setting right under their noses in the supply yard. In a libertarian world, low quality means low cost right? Maximize profits, nobody HAS to stand under them, Freedom Right? No at least my view of Libertarianism has a much higher demand on personal ethics. With higher demand on personal ethics, the need for government regulations decreases. The opportunity to create bureaucratic agencies that exist primarily for their own existence goes away. I'm talking about FEMA spending over $1M producing houses for the Typhoon stricken Marshall Islands. The houses were fabricated with prest wood with absolutely no studs. So which great libertarian principle do you want applied here? More oversight of FEMA? What about the contractor who built the shoddy product? Why didn't that company, which arguably should know construction better than some Bush college buddy now running procurement for FEMA, why didn't they say, "Hey this won't do!, you gotta beef it up"? were they libertarians, just making what they were told for maximum profit? Hey I screamed like a stuck pig. I went to San Francisco and complained about the incompetency being demonstrated by FEMA (one of their "architects" laid out a repair job for an existing structure and he laid out the studs on some multiple of 13". He also thought that 2x4s measured 2" x 4" With just a little removing of the blinders example after example of incompetent government rulings are just obvious. I'm not seeing how adding greed and removing oversight will solve it I don't think that the Libertarian principles that I know would generate greed. Among the principles for personal accountability and personal ethics that are necessary for the self regulations of the population, greed would be a deficiency. If our society as a whole took greed and the need to exert power over people to be a negative , a lot of what we now see in our non-libertarian environment would go away. But then that is acting on principles and not just attitudes and situational ethics. The other Stuart Glad to see somebody else who spells it properly! Those other Stewarts are just wannabees. |
OT-143 days
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... snip Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Ed: You criticize the Libertarians for the lack of thinking thru their ideas. Where is there any evidence that the other parties have thought thru their ideas? Over 200 years of successful governance. And if you don't think it's been successful, compare our legal, economic, and other situations with those of almost any other country. Well lets see. I've heard that said before. Lets use some measures: The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index combining normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide. It is claimed as a standard means of measuring human development, a concept that, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) refers to the process of widening the options of persons, giving them greater opportunities for education, health care, income, employment, etc. The basic use of HDI is however to rank countries by level of "human development" which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. HDI is another arbitrary UN project that consists of weightings pulled out of a hat. 'You want to boost the US HDI? Try universal healthcare. Whoops...that isn't part of the libertarian program, is it? You can give it another boost by shooting all the cows. But, if you *really * want to get us on top, the long-term solution is obvious: Bulldoze the inner cities flat. HDI is as much a measure of social and political choices as anything. Most of the things that would boost our HDI are the exact OPPOSITE of what a libertarian program would lead to: socialized healthcare, more government employment, etc. I'm surprised you would even bring it up in this context, Stu. It leads in a direction opposite to the one you're advocating. The US has been shown as a country that is expeirencing a decreasing HDI In fact since 1980 the US has never been ranked as the top Nation. The HDI has only been around since sometime in the early '90s. Canada, Norway, Switzerland and even Japan has outranked us. They all have universal healthcare. We are sliding down a slippery slope. If there's a slope, it leads in a direction opposite to the one you're suggesting. The present method of dealing with problems is called "Knee Jerk". I'll repeat what has been ignored: Get on the internet and look into the Democrat and Republican parties. Try to find a statement of philosophy. Thank God, they really don't have one, beyond a few things that might better be called attitudes. A better name is "Situational Ethics". Take our Bill Clinton and his sexual pecadillos. If I as a Civil Servan had engaged in sex with a subordinate I would have immediately lost my security clearance because of an increase in vulnerability to black mail and without the clearance my ability to perform my job would be severely curtailed and thence probably my career be ended. Bill as Commander in Chief of the Military allowed others in the Military to lose their careers for having sex with a subordinant. Yep we have attitudes. So what does that have to do with libertarians or Libertarians? Don't they have sex? The Libertarian party is the only one willing to state theirs clearly. Deliver us from ideologues who have a philosophy. Philosophy is for college classes and books. When it comes to governance, it's a prescription for disaster. Every time. No exceptions. I'm not an registered Libertarian, but I'm sure a supporter of smaller less intrusive government. So is 90% of the US population -- until you try to make *their* favorite project smaller. Yes I agree here and as the guy said the death of democracy is assured as soon as the people find that they can vote themselve money. They found that out 200 years ago, but there are still plenty of rich people around -- more than ever, in fact. I guess the "guy" was full of it, eh? Again since we are not governed by principles, then the rule is grab what you can for yourself. Isn't this what you complain about in the big corporations?? No. It's what I *expect* of greedy and overly ambitious people who are given the opportunity. My complaint is that we give them too many opportunities, thanks to our semi-libertarian approach to (de)regulation of business, and financial business in particular. Ed: You don't like monopolies. I agree they tend to run away with themselves in an unbridled manner. The Federal, State, County and to a lesser extent even City governments are simply monopolies. No, they're democratically elected governments. That's the exact opposite of a monopoly. You can get rid of them as easily as by voting them out. That's our job. Now this surprises me. It is as naive as a Junior High School student. It is one hell of a lot more difficult than "easily by voting them out" You have to compete with the two or is it one political parties who have the machinery and the money that I don't. If you want to exert leverage, you join the party you like better and work within it. I dabbled in that at the state level, becoming a Republican county delegate. You want to get into the game? You can. First off, you have to stop bellyaching and make some phone calls. This is a PARTICIPATORY democracy, not a stage show for critics. And it isn't a parliamentary system. It's a two-party system with a strong president. That keeps it a two-party system. The candidates that we get to vote for are pretty much selected by the parties. Then join a party. By the time the candidates are selected and you have to vote, 90% of the decision-making is done. You're getting into the game too late. That's why you don't have a hand in making the choices. I watched Ron Paul get ignored when he wanted to discuss things like the legitimacy of the governments foreign policy. As soon as he opened his mouth about "dietary supplements" as a model solution for our drug industry, I knew he was a crackpot. Then I read more. Paul is out of his tree. He's so far into the outfield that it's no surprise he's gotten ignored. There's a realm of political debate that gets attention. Then there are the nutballs around the fringes. Because we have free speech and open candidacies, the nutballs always show up. But we've learned to filter them out because they're a waste of time. That's why Ron Paul was marginalized. You may not like this because ideas you favor are among those that are marginalized. That's a shame. Either find a way to get them considered, or stand on the sidelines and watch the real game. They have no competition. Of course they do -- every politician who wants their job is a competitor. They are not held accountable by any other than themselves for their actions. That's why we have a tripartite government with a distribution of powers and an institutionalized system of checks and balances. God I wish I could have the belief and faith that you apparently have inspite of all the fraud waste and abuse being done by the governments. Fraud, waste, and abuse are endemic to large institutions, especially governments. Oversight helps. Turning your back on it, as Reagan and Bush have done, and as libertarians would do to an even greater degree, just makes it worse. I wish I could just ignore the insane laws and rule makings that I see everyday. Your complaints seem to be mostly technical, Stu, but your supposed solution is essentially to eliminate the problems by ignoring them. That's libertarianism. It offers a panacea in the form of a government that just ignores everything. It's like making the trains run on time by turning back the clocks. Larry even thinks that libertarians would be more honest. Talk about blind faith; I know of no reason to believe they would be any more honest. In my estimation, exactly the opposite would be true. By eliminating regulation and oversight, you'd may as well be offering the crooks and pirates an engraved invitation. I wish I had a job where I could vote myself pay raises and create my own retirement system that someone else pays for. So do I. d8-) No it has been said that no alternatives have been proffered. Wrong. Ron Paul offered up some alternatives, granted not all would be acceptable or work, but he evened offered a method to fix that: Ron Paul is a half-baked crackpot who should stay in Arizona, where nothing destructive that he could do matters very much. If he goes out in the sun much, maybe he'll be fully baked some day. Well your light bulb just dimmed. Ron Paul is a Representative from Texas not Arizona. One stinkindesert is as good as the next. d8-) Constitutional Amendment. His ideas of restricting the government to those powers granted by the Constitution would be a big step in the right direction to at least curtail some of the Federal Governements monopolistic behaviours presently viewed as the way of doing business. Bull. What do the Centrists offer... Government that works. ...to get us out of our current Morass? What morass? Are you starving? Are you threatened by some other country? Did you have to sell your children into slavery? What in the hell are you talking about, "morass"? I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. That sounds like your primary gripe. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. How would libertarianism fix that, or any of the other things you've listed? It all looks like some kind of blind faith. What kind, I have no idea. What are you, a radical who has a program for overturning tradition? g Of course it's to wait and see what happens. What is it you want, Stu? Is it 6,000-pound, 6-liter SUVs and pickup trucks forever? A McMansion for everyone, with a 40-mile commute? Didn't you realize 10 years ago, or even 20 years ago, that we were sliding downhill on a waterslide into a swamp? Is this the great society that you were talking about? Which is so much better than other countries? Even when you look at the biased, often silly, ratings systems from the UN and others, we're near the top. That, despite a heterogeneous society (note that the "leaders" in HDI are all homogeneous -- most of them even have the same hair color) that has much less government involvement in our lives than they do. The difference in HDI rating between the US and the "leader" (Iceland), on a 0-1 scale, is 0.017. I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. Talk to Larry. He has a 6,000-pound truck to haul 500 pounds of tools. g We get caught by our own wretched excess from time to time. That's the product of a hot economy and an....uh, expansive attitude. That's the US. It means we'll swing up and down, and drive ourselves silly, probably forever. I happen to like the system, and the people in it, silly or not. I was told that the pendulum swings in the DoD service when I saw them removing work benches and putting desks in their place. This was in 1975. The pendulum is still swinging to the crazy extreme. The people that replaced me in the Navy R&D are all spending their days on airplanes going to meetings. Meetings that no one can detect the benefit or purpose. Their "smart buyer" status is being eroded at a fantastic rate. They have no hands on experience to support their college education. It doesn't take much listening to them to find the efficacy of the term Morass. Your morass is not my idea of a morass. Even so, I hear nothing from you that suggests libertarianism would make your morass better. In fact, it sounds like you'd make it worse. What is it you want to eliminate here, Stuart? Airplane R&D? Or the Navy? What is it? But spare us the talk about "morass." There is no morass. There is only the roller coaster. Hang on tight. I wouldn't get on a roller coaster that had no tracks or some effort at purposeful design. I wouldn't get in an airplane when there was no statement of the purpose of the flight. I wouldn't get on an airplane where the pilot just said I'm here to see what is going to happen and our emergeny plan is based on the widely accepted Knee Jerk method. Yep we don't have an agreed to destination so where ever the Democrans or Republicrats are going to take us I guess we are just the kidnapped passengers and Take us they will. So, what is it, industrial planning? You want something like Japan's MITI? Just what is it that you think will cure these "ills"? -- Ed Huntress 1. Restrict the government to those powers specifically granted by the Constitution. 2. Regulate the regulators whos ear marks and pork barrels are blatant examples of abuse of power. 3. Hold an open discussion on our foreign policies. (which by the way have given us Korea, Viet Nam, the Panama canal farce, the delivering of our anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran (which we may have to face) the interference with other societies and attempting to force them to accept our ideas of how governments are supposed to run) If the American people could vote on whether the US should be the world policeman, what do think the outcome would be? I know, I know the people don't know enough to be judges of our foreign policy....Well after having some drinks with three different Ambassadors from the Marshal Islands and listening to their opinions of our foreign policies, we had to agree the Americans were running all around the world with their arrogance pushing their beliefs ignoring other cultures. Again force the Federal Government to abide by the Constitution. If the Constitutiont is dated and not presently affective then Amend it. But don't just slide into the way of doing business with only "attitudes" as a justification. Let the people know what the rules are that are to be followed. Don't have the President fail to obey the same rules that he enforces on his subordinants. You talk about regulation and control, we need some regulation and control of our government. That to me is what the Libertarian movement is about, not free reigning the corporations. Stu |
OT-143 days
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message ... Ed Huntress wrote: "Hawke" wrote in message ... That's categorically different from the libertarian program as it stands today. Libertarianism, as an intellectual conservative would define it, is a form of radicalism (and intellectual conservatives recognize that their opposites are radicals, not liberals). When Stuart says you need an agreement on some fundamental principles to avoid chaos, he's surely talking about some things that are not part of the Libertarian platform, because those things aren't there. In fact, he's almost certainly talking about the kinds of principle upon which conservatism is founded, as explained in detail by Edmund Burke. I can tell that I don't have the historical or political depth of information that you do, Ed, so I'll just bow out here. I think I got carried away. I'll relax now. d8-) -- Ed Huntress Hey, way to go Ed. You sat on a Libertarian and made him give, you bully. I think that's a first. The fact that he agreed to bow to your logic was a real triumph. Usually when you give a Libertarian/Conservative a thumping by argument all they do is go away mad, start a fight, or call you some names, like Gunner would. You also nailed Libertarianism. It's not realistic. It's for complainers. They don't like the way things are now; with that we can all agree. But instead of coming up with real and feasible ways of making concrete changes all they can come up with is to throw out the baby with the bath water. But that explains why that party will never be anything more than a blip on the radar. As long as it can't come up with real alternatives to the status quo that might actually work it'll stay irrelevant. However, as Americans we all have at least some measure of Libertarian in us though it may be really, really small. Hawke Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Thoughtless impulse is an apt description of Libertarians. It also applies to teenagers. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com Yes John it is the result of the careful thinking of the Republicans and Democrats that have led us to the world of deficit spending and debts to China we probably will never pay without devaluing the dollar. Yes the thoughtful thinking that had us in Viet Nam and now in Iraq and though we are setting on large oil reserves captives of OPEC. We have governmental incompetencies to rival just about anything I've ever heard of. Ed seems to favor the dictatorship where we don't use a code of ethics or are guided by principles or a working philosophy. He seems to prefer a government run on the basis of "Attitudes". I have a hard time deciding whether the current ill defined attitudes are something that I support. He also seems to think that we either are moving in a positive direction or that somehow magically we will return to some some more sensible, stable, and productivie society. This in spite of the downward spiral in our history. You would have thought that with this great group of thinkers that deny the libertarians membership, we could have avoided much of the current problems. The Iraq farce was forecast by a large number of "ignored" non-thinkers. Thoughtless impulse seems to describe one our Democrat Presidents as much as any Libertarian that I know of. Stu |
OT-143 days
On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:19:48 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth: HDI is another arbitrary UN project that consists of weightings pulled out of a hat. 'You want to boost the US HDI? Try universal healthcare. Whoops...that isn't part of the libertarian program, is it? Damned straight, it ain't. You can give it another boost by shooting all the cows. Hmm, is it milk or beef which is killing everyone, Ed? Or just the hormone and antibiotic overdoses? But, if you *really * want to get us on top, the long-term solution is obvious: Bulldoze the inner cities flat. And house the unwashed masses where? --snip of more HDI stuff because I'm not up on it-- So what does that have to do with libertarians or Libertarians? Don't they have sex? Evidently, most are hetero and have sex only with consenting partners only. Pretty wild, huh? They found that out 200 years ago, but there are still plenty of rich people around -- more than ever, in fact. I guess the "guy" was full of it, eh? Again since we are not governed by principles, then the rule is grab what you can for yourself. Isn't this what you complain about in the big corporations?? No. It's what I *expect* of greedy and overly ambitious people who are given the opportunity. My complaint is that we give them too many opportunities, thanks to our semi-libertarian approach to (de)regulation of business, and financial business in particular. The libertarian ethos says "do as you like as long as it doesn't screw with others." Lax Rep and Dem laws allowed the cluster**** that is our current economy, not libertarians. They're practically non-existent in the government so far. You can't blame this one on us, Ed. Yet, anyway. ;) This is a PARTICIPATORY democracy, not a stage show for critics. And it isn't a parliamentary system. It's a two-party system with a strong president. That keeps it a two-party system. Theoretically, anyway. Fraud, waste, and abuse are endemic to large institutions, especially governments. Oversight helps. Turning your back on it, as Reagan and Bush have done, and as libertarians would do to an even greater degree, just makes it worse. That's your theory, right, seeing as no libertarians have been in enough power to test it? Larry even thinks that libertarians would be more honest. Talk about blind faith; I know of no reason to believe they would be any more honest. In my estimation, exactly the opposite would be true. By eliminating regulation and oversight, you'd may as well be offering the crooks and pirates an engraved invitation. Well your light bulb just dimmed. Ron Paul is a Representative from Texas not Arizona. One stinkindesert is as good as the next. d8-) Two points! I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. That sounds like your primary gripe. Faulty gov't agencies get your attention pretty quickly when they enter your own life, Ed. Unfortunately, it usually comes in a negative way. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. How would libertarianism fix that, or any of the other things you've listed? It all looks like some kind of blind faith. What kind, I have no idea. Well, how many libertarians have been caught in frauds, sex scandals, or kickbacks? Gee, it all seems to be Reps and Dems, doesn't it? Or do excellent track records not figure into your theories against libertarians? You're awfully hot over this, Ed. Have you looked at what's affecting your perspective yet? Please do. I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. Talk to Larry. He has a 6,000-pound truck to haul 500 pounds of tools. g ....daily, and frequently hauling sheets of plywood, 8-20' lengths of tuba fore/six/eight/ten/twelve and 4xX posts, sacks of concrete, rolls of fencing, ladders, digging bars, table saws, miter saws, trailers, cement mixers, etc. Check your biases, bubba. P.S: My Tundra weighs only 4,850 lbs. and can tote an extra 1,750 lbs in the bed. The beefyness of the truck ensures that it can also haul more weight safely, 8,500 pounds worth. -- Jewish Zen: Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated, already? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ www.diversify.com - Uncomplicated Website Design, here and now. |
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"Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:19:48 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: HDI is another arbitrary UN project that consists of weightings pulled out of a hat. 'You want to boost the US HDI? Try universal healthcare. Whoops...that isn't part of the libertarian program, is it? Damned straight, it ain't. I notice that you snipped the part where I pointed out that EVERY country that ranks higher than us DOES have universal healthcare. So, you may not think much of the value of the HDI (I don't). But don't raise the point (Stuart) and then turn around and say that universal healthcare isn't a contibutor to the HDIs of those countries with higher rankings. You can give it another boost by shooting all the cows. Hmm, is it milk or beef which is killing everyone, Ed? Or just the hormone and antibiotic overdoses? Probably all of the above contribute to a reduced lifespan. This isn't an arguable point. The epidemiological studies, hundreds of which I've read and reported on, are unequivocal. But, if you *really * want to get us on top, the long-term solution is obvious: Bulldoze the inner cities flat. And house the unwashed masses where? That's your problem. d8-) My job is to raise our HDI. Stuart seems to think it's important. --snip of more HDI stuff because I'm not up on it-- So what does that have to do with libertarians or Libertarians? Don't they have sex? Evidently, most are hetero and have sex only with consenting partners only. Pretty wild, huh? What's your evidence for this? I've seen nothing to support your point. They found that out 200 years ago, but there are still plenty of rich people around -- more than ever, in fact. I guess the "guy" was full of it, eh? Again since we are not governed by principles, then the rule is grab what you can for yourself. Isn't this what you complain about in the big corporations?? No. It's what I *expect* of greedy and overly ambitious people who are given the opportunity. My complaint is that we give them too many opportunities, thanks to our semi-libertarian approach to (de)regulation of business, and financial business in particular. The libertarian ethos says "do as you like as long as it doesn't screw with others." Screw your "ethos." Remember when I said a couple of days ago that the libertarian program is a moralistic one, and you scoffed? Now you're proving my point. So-called libertarianism isn't a program, or a set of principles for running a government. It's a cry in the wilderness for people to be more moral. Good luck. Both religious and secular leaders have been trying to do that for thousands of years. By now it should be evident that people's morality isn't going to change much one way or the other. If you want to design a system of government that works with people as they really are, forget the looney-tune philosophies that count on making better people. The object is better government for the people as they are. Lax Rep and Dem laws allowed the cluster**** that is our current economy, not libertarians. They're practically non-existent in the government so far. You can't blame this one on us, Ed. Yet, anyway. ;) The "cluster****" is one of the strongest economies in the world that is on the downside of a business cycle. Every time the cycle swings down, out come the Chicken Littles screaming that the sky is falling. Here's an excercise. Step outdoors. See if the sky is really falling. Check your refrigerator. Is there food in it? Good. Are there clothes in your closet? Does your Internet connection still work? Good news. Welcome to the business cycle. The idiots who said it had been overcome and eliminated have just been proven to be idiots. That's all. This is a PARTICIPATORY democracy, not a stage show for critics. And it isn't a parliamentary system. It's a two-party system with a strong president. That keeps it a two-party system. Theoretically, anyway. Theoretically? Have you noticed how the system actually *works*, in practice? Screw the theory. It's the practice. Fraud, waste, and abuse are endemic to large institutions, especially governments. Oversight helps. Turning your back on it, as Reagan and Bush have done, and as libertarians would do to an even greater degree, just makes it worse. That's your theory, right, seeing as no libertarians have been in enough power to test it? There is plenty of evidence right now. Libertarians want to eliminate regulations on business, except for outright fraud. See how many mortgage lenders can be proven to have violated the law in the current subprime crises. They weren't violating the law. They were exploiting a libertarian program of deregulation that gave them holes big enough to drive a truck through. And they did. Larry even thinks that libertarians would be more honest. Talk about blind faith; I know of no reason to believe they would be any more honest. In my estimation, exactly the opposite would be true. By eliminating regulation and oversight, you'd may as well be offering the crooks and pirates an engraved invitation. Well your light bulb just dimmed. Ron Paul is a Representative from Texas not Arizona. One stinkindesert is as good as the next. d8-) Two points! I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. That sounds like your primary gripe. Faulty gov't agencies get your attention pretty quickly when they enter your own life, Ed. Unfortunately, it usually comes in a negative way. Then fix them. The libertarians sure as hell couldn't do it. They don't even want to regulate business, fer chrissake. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. How would libertarianism fix that, or any of the other things you've listed? It all looks like some kind of blind faith. What kind, I have no idea. Well, how many libertarians have been caught in frauds, sex scandals, or kickbacks? What libertarians have been in a position to do so? d8-) As I said, it's all blind faith. You seem to think that libertarians are a different species. Gee, it all seems to be Reps and Dems, doesn't it? Duh....they're the ones in power. It's whoever is in power. People being people, ambitious and greedy people like power. They get into positions of power if they have the ability. And then some of them exercise their tendencies to ignore the law and to acquire wealth. The problem is greed for power and wealth. It's always been a problem. But you need people who are willing to do the job. So you regulate them, and watch over them like a hawk, so they can't go on a rampage. You need more regulation, not less -- because libertarians haven't figured out how to breed a new species of people. Or do excellent track records not figure into your theories against libertarians? You're awfully hot over this, Ed. Have you looked at what's affecting your perspective yet? Please do. What in the hell is that statement supposed to mean? English, please. I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. Talk to Larry. He has a 6,000-pound truck to haul 500 pounds of tools. g ...daily, and frequently hauling sheets of plywood, 8-20' lengths of tuba fore/six/eight/ten/twelve and 4xX posts, sacks of concrete, rolls of fencing, ladders, digging bars, table saws, miter saws, trailers, cement mixers, etc. Check your biases, bubba. P.S: My Tundra weighs only 4,850 lbs.... Dry weight. You're 98% liquid, and so is your fuel and coolant. d8-) ... and can tote an extra 1,750 lbs in the bed. The beefyness of the truck ensures that it can also haul more weight safely, 8,500 pounds worth. And do you haul 8.500 pounds with it? I thought you said that the most you carry is 500 pounds of tools, right? -- Ed Huntress |
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"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... snip So, what is it, industrial planning? You want something like Japan's MITI? Just what is it that you think will cure these "ills"? -- Ed Huntress 1. Restrict the government to those powers specifically granted by the Constitution. Ha-ha! Everybody's "solution." The job is to get five people to agree on what those powers are, Stu. d8-) "To promote the public welfare," and "to provide for the common defense," cover a lot of territory in different peoples' minds. 2. Regulate the regulators whos ear marks and pork barrels are blatant examples of abuse of power. More government regulation? Of government regulators, no less? Are you sure you're a libertarian? 3. Hold an open discussion on our foreign policies. (which by the way have given us Korea, Viet Nam, the Panama canal farce, the delivering of our anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran (which we may have to face) the interference with other societies and attempting to force them to accept our ideas of how governments are supposed to run) If the American people could vote on whether the US should be the world policeman, what do think the outcome would be? I know, I know the people don't know enough to be judges of our foreign policy....Well after having some drinks with three different Ambassadors from the Marshal Islands and listening to their opinions of our foreign policies, we had to agree the Americans were running all around the world with their arrogance pushing their beliefs ignoring other cultures. Again force the Federal Government to abide by the Constitution. If the Constitutiont is dated and not presently affective then Amend it. But don't just slide into the way of doing business with only "attitudes" as a justification. Let the people know what the rules are that are to be followed. Don't have the President fail to obey the same rules that he enforces on his subordinants. You talk about regulation and control, we need some regulation and control of our government. That to me is what the Libertarian movement is about, not free reigning the corporations. With all due respect, Stu, you are no libertarian. That's the opposite of the entire thrust of libertarianism, with fewer "rules" that "are to be followed." I think we have come full circle to what I said in the beginning. Libertarianism is a system of moralism, not a set of organizational principles. You want less government and less regulation...except when you want the government watching the government, and more regulation. The fact that there are "rules...that are to be followed" tells me you have a moralistic, authoritarian bent. That's Burkean conservatism, not libertarianism. -- Ed Huntress |
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"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message ... "John R. Carroll" wrote in message ... Ed Huntress wrote: "Hawke" wrote in message ... That's categorically different from the libertarian program as it stands today. Libertarianism, as an intellectual conservative would define it, is a form of radicalism (and intellectual conservatives recognize that their opposites are radicals, not liberals). When Stuart says you need an agreement on some fundamental principles to avoid chaos, he's surely talking about some things that are not part of the Libertarian platform, because those things aren't there. In fact, he's almost certainly talking about the kinds of principle upon which conservatism is founded, as explained in detail by Edmund Burke. I can tell that I don't have the historical or political depth of information that you do, Ed, so I'll just bow out here. I think I got carried away. I'll relax now. d8-) -- Ed Huntress Hey, way to go Ed. You sat on a Libertarian and made him give, you bully. I think that's a first. The fact that he agreed to bow to your logic was a real triumph. Usually when you give a Libertarian/Conservative a thumping by argument all they do is go away mad, start a fight, or call you some names, like Gunner would. You also nailed Libertarianism. It's not realistic. It's for complainers. They don't like the way things are now; with that we can all agree. But instead of coming up with real and feasible ways of making concrete changes all they can come up with is to throw out the baby with the bath water. But that explains why that party will never be anything more than a blip on the radar. As long as it can't come up with real alternatives to the status quo that might actually work it'll stay irrelevant. However, as Americans we all have at least some measure of Libertarian in us though it may be really, really small. Hawke Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Thoughtless impulse is an apt description of Libertarians. It also applies to teenagers. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com Yes John it is the result of the careful thinking of the Republicans and Democrats that have led us to the world of deficit spending and debts to China we probably will never pay without devaluing the dollar. Deficit spending and "debts to China" are two separate issues. The first is the result of the "starve the beast" policies created by Reagan and his budget director Stockman, and of which Dick Cheney convinced George Bush. The debts to China are the result of free-trade globalization, promoted by Milton Friedman and practiced by conservative economists, who have had the ear of the last four presidents. Yes the thoughtful thinking that had us in Viet Nam and now in Iraq and though we are setting on large oil reserves captives of OPEC. We have governmental incompetencies to rival just about anything I've ever heard of. That's philosophy for you. They read too much Friedrich August von Hayek and too little John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith had a good eye for people who would screw you if given half a chance. Hayek was a philosopher. Enough said. Ed seems to favor the dictatorship where we don't use a code of ethics or are guided by principles or a working philosophy. What a nutty thing to say. What I favor is a government of, by, and for the people. So, we screw up sometimes. That's the cost of a democratic republic. At least it's *our* screw-ups. He seems to prefer a government run on the basis of "Attitudes". 'Beats the hell out of a government by philosophers. See Hayek, Friedrich, and Ancient Greece, Collapse of. When you're done, see _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, by Edmund Burke. I have a hard time deciding whether the current ill defined attitudes are something that I support. He also seems to think that we either are moving in a positive direction or that somehow magically we will return to some some more sensible, stable, and productivie society. Who said "sensible"? Who said "stable"? Those are the words of conservatives. I'm all for the messy, but generally effective way it actually works. This in spite of the downward spiral in our history. Jesus Christ, Stu. What "downward spiral"? Put some numbers on it. If you're going to tell me that it's not a question of numbers, then just come out with it and admit you're a moralist who doesn't like other peoples' moral judgments. You would have thought that with this great group of thinkers that deny the libertarians membership, we could have avoided much of the current problems. The question is, how would libertarians have improved the situation? With their position on less government regulation, it looks like they just would have made it worse. The Iraq farce was forecast by a large number of "ignored" non-thinkers. Thoughtless impulse seems to describe one our Democrat Presidents as much as any Libertarian that I know of. Well, here's a reality check for you. Go back in the Google archives a few years and see how many of the self-proclaimed libertarians here opposed the Iraq war. They were among its biggest supporters -- some of them still are. Then come back and we can talk seriously, OK? -- Ed Huntress |
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"Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... snip Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Ed: You criticize the Libertarians for the lack of thinking thru their ideas. Where is there any evidence that the other parties have thought thru their ideas? Over 200 years of successful governance. And if you don't think it's been successful, compare our legal, economic, and other situations with those of almost any other country. Well lets see. I've heard that said before. Lets use some measures: The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index combining normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide. It is claimed as a standard means of measuring human development, a concept that, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) refers to the process of widening the options of persons, giving them greater opportunities for education, health care, income, employment, etc. The basic use of HDI is however to rank countries by level of "human development" which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. HDI is another arbitrary UN project that consists of weightings pulled out of a hat. 'You want to boost the US HDI? Try universal healthcare. Whoops...that isn't part of the libertarian program, is it? You can give it another boost by shooting all the cows. But, if you *really * want to get us on top, the long-term solution is obvious: Bulldoze the inner cities flat. HDI is as much a measure of social and political choices as anything. Most of the things that would boost our HDI are the exact OPPOSITE of what a libertarian program would lead to: socialized healthcare, more government employment, etc. I'm surprised you would even bring it up in this context, Stu. It leads in a direction opposite to the one you're advocating. The US has been shown as a country that is expeirencing a decreasing HDI In fact since 1980 the US has never been ranked as the top Nation. The HDI has only been around since sometime in the early '90s. Canada, Norway, Switzerland and even Japan has outranked us. They all have universal healthcare. We are sliding down a slippery slope. If there's a slope, it leads in a direction opposite to the one you're suggesting. The present method of dealing with problems is called "Knee Jerk". I'll repeat what has been ignored: Get on the internet and look into the Democrat and Republican parties. Try to find a statement of philosophy. Thank God, they really don't have one, beyond a few things that might better be called attitudes. A better name is "Situational Ethics". Take our Bill Clinton and his sexual pecadillos. If I as a Civil Servan had engaged in sex with a subordinate I would have immediately lost my security clearance because of an increase in vulnerability to black mail and without the clearance my ability to perform my job would be severely curtailed and thence probably my career be ended. Bill as Commander in Chief of the Military allowed others in the Military to lose their careers for having sex with a subordinant. Yep we have attitudes. So what does that have to do with libertarians or Libertarians? Don't they have sex? The Libertarian party is the only one willing to state theirs clearly. Deliver us from ideologues who have a philosophy. Philosophy is for college classes and books. When it comes to governance, it's a prescription for disaster. Every time. No exceptions. I'm not an registered Libertarian, but I'm sure a supporter of smaller less intrusive government. So is 90% of the US population -- until you try to make *their* favorite project smaller. Yes I agree here and as the guy said the death of democracy is assured as soon as the people find that they can vote themselve money. They found that out 200 years ago, but there are still plenty of rich people around -- more than ever, in fact. I guess the "guy" was full of it, eh? Again since we are not governed by principles, then the rule is grab what you can for yourself. Isn't this what you complain about in the big corporations?? No. It's what I *expect* of greedy and overly ambitious people who are given the opportunity. My complaint is that we give them too many opportunities, thanks to our semi-libertarian approach to (de)regulation of business, and financial business in particular. Ed: You don't like monopolies. I agree they tend to run away with themselves in an unbridled manner. The Federal, State, County and to a lesser extent even City governments are simply monopolies. No, they're democratically elected governments. That's the exact opposite of a monopoly. You can get rid of them as easily as by voting them out. That's our job. Now this surprises me. It is as naive as a Junior High School student. It is one hell of a lot more difficult than "easily by voting them out" You have to compete with the two or is it one political parties who have the machinery and the money that I don't. If you want to exert leverage, you join the party you like better and work within it. I dabbled in that at the state level, becoming a Republican county delegate. You want to get into the game? You can. First off, you have to stop bellyaching and make some phone calls. This is a PARTICIPATORY democracy, not a stage show for critics. And it isn't a parliamentary system. It's a two-party system with a strong president. That keeps it a two-party system. The candidates that we get to vote for are pretty much selected by the parties. Then join a party. By the time the candidates are selected and you have to vote, 90% of the decision-making is done. You're getting into the game too late. That's why you don't have a hand in making the choices. I watched Ron Paul get ignored when he wanted to discuss things like the legitimacy of the governments foreign policy. As soon as he opened his mouth about "dietary supplements" as a model solution for our drug industry, I knew he was a crackpot. Then I read more. Paul is out of his tree. He's so far into the outfield that it's no surprise he's gotten ignored. There's a realm of political debate that gets attention. Then there are the nutballs around the fringes. Because we have free speech and open candidacies, the nutballs always show up. But we've learned to filter them out because they're a waste of time. That's why Ron Paul was marginalized. You may not like this because ideas you favor are among those that are marginalized. That's a shame. Either find a way to get them considered, or stand on the sidelines and watch the real game. They have no competition. Of course they do -- every politician who wants their job is a competitor. They are not held accountable by any other than themselves for their actions. That's why we have a tripartite government with a distribution of powers and an institutionalized system of checks and balances. God I wish I could have the belief and faith that you apparently have inspite of all the fraud waste and abuse being done by the governments. Fraud, waste, and abuse are endemic to large institutions, especially governments. Oversight helps. Turning your back on it, as Reagan and Bush have done, and as libertarians would do to an even greater degree, just makes it worse. I wish I could just ignore the insane laws and rule makings that I see everyday. Your complaints seem to be mostly technical, Stu, but your supposed solution is essentially to eliminate the problems by ignoring them. That's libertarianism. It offers a panacea in the form of a government that just ignores everything. It's like making the trains run on time by turning back the clocks. Larry even thinks that libertarians would be more honest. Talk about blind faith; I know of no reason to believe they would be any more honest. In my estimation, exactly the opposite would be true. By eliminating regulation and oversight, you'd may as well be offering the crooks and pirates an engraved invitation. I wish I had a job where I could vote myself pay raises and create my own retirement system that someone else pays for. So do I. d8-) No it has been said that no alternatives have been proffered. Wrong. Ron Paul offered up some alternatives, granted not all would be acceptable or work, but he evened offered a method to fix that: Ron Paul is a half-baked crackpot who should stay in Arizona, where nothing destructive that he could do matters very much. If he goes out in the sun much, maybe he'll be fully baked some day. Well your light bulb just dimmed. Ron Paul is a Representative from Texas not Arizona. One stinkindesert is as good as the next. d8-) Constitutional Amendment. His ideas of restricting the government to those powers granted by the Constitution would be a big step in the right direction to at least curtail some of the Federal Governements monopolistic behaviours presently viewed as the way of doing business. Bull. What do the Centrists offer... Government that works. ...to get us out of our current Morass? What morass? Are you starving? Are you threatened by some other country? Did you have to sell your children into slavery? What in the hell are you talking about, "morass"? I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. That sounds like your primary gripe. Ed: For a person of obvious articulatory skills you seem to have a problem identifying examples and choose to ignore the ramifications of a government agency enforcing entirely stupid rules. The FEMA thing is just a single concrete example of which I have written proof. I've already successfully ignored them. Their rules still exist and have no blockage for getting worse. I'm sure that if you were the victim of similar kinds of BS, your skills with the written word would come forth. However, you seem to be comfortable with the ramification of the examples that I have put forth that have come from my personal experience and I guess you seem to think that these examples are to be expected in the current non-libertarian government that we have. And even more comfortable forecasting what ifs that aren't based on actual fact but on your opinions and personal biases. Labels like Edwardian, Conservatives, Libertarian, Centrist etc. etc. I guess serve some purpose. However when the tire is flat, you can call it a chicken fart if you want to but the tire remains flat. We have a bunch of flat tires right now and our old ways of dealing with them by saying let the Federal Government solve them hasn't worked. Most of the flat tires have been caused by government getting involved, making thoughtless decisions that have created long lived agencies that are expensive and don't really provide much bang for the buck. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. How would libertarianism fix that, or any of the other things you've listed? To start with the laws and rules that already exist would be enforced. I was restricted to a certain time (IFIRC 2 years) from entering into employment with any contractor with whom I had business during my career. Those are being enforced at the lower levels but certainly not at the higher. It all looks like some kind of blind faith. What kind, I have no idea. What are you, a radical who has a program for overturning tradition? Of course not tradition should be worshiped and never examined for applicability. "Thats the way we've always done it" is just an outstanding justification for doing things. The traditional stuff I was told when I went to work for the Government turned out to be mainly eyewash. The real rules and values were involved in how to get your ass up the ladder and make as much as you could. Another personal example: High ranking DoD official told me that he needed a $450M project started next year. I asked him for some details, sinch as an engineer I might be able to help. His response was: "I don't know what it will be but that is the funding level of a project that I need under my control to get the Senior Executive Service position". This guy certainly did think his process thru. From my point of view looking into a non-libertarian run government, this kind of thing needs to be changed. Our current government service of just laying on another "watch dog" agency. Won't work. Hell here is another: GAO audited my group at the Kwajalein Missile Range. We were audited to determine whether we were providing a useful function. Sounds good doesn't it. They also audited another group where my wife worked. AAH!! The government is really accountable and taking care of business. There auditing technique for my branch consisted almost entirely of MEASURING THE VOLUME OF OUR FILE CABINETS. They could have been empty file cabinets. What we did and how many people were required to do it never entered into the questions. I even suggested that they ask us what our plans for the year were and what we expected to produce. I was ignored. Yes Ed the libertarians don't think their process thru like the current thoughtful government. These aren't opinions of what would happen if. They are factual experiences that I've had with the current operation of the Government. If changing to Libertarian would help correct some of these I'm all for it. I have absolutely no faith that either Obama or McCain are going to change any of the above. At least Ron Paul talked about reigning in the Feds and stopping the deficit spending. Ron Paul wanted to debate the foreign policy and the negative effects it was creating. Whether you agreed with his opinions or not it would have certainly put our policies out for a badly needed review. Stu Of course it's to wait and see what happens. What is it you want, Stu? Is it 6,000-pound, 6-liter SUVs and pickup trucks forever? A McMansion for everyone, with a 40-mile commute? Didn't you realize 10 years ago, or even 20 years ago, that we were sliding downhill on a waterslide into a swamp? Is this the great society that you were talking about? Which is so much better than other countries? Even when you look at the biased, often silly, ratings systems from the UN and others, we're near the top. That, despite a heterogeneous society (note that the "leaders" in HDI are all homogeneous -- most of them even have the same hair color) that has much less government involvement in our lives than they do. The difference in HDI rating between the US and the "leader" (Iceland), on a 0-1 scale, is 0.017. I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. Talk to Larry. He has a 6,000-pound truck to haul 500 pounds of tools. g We get caught by our own wretched excess from time to time. That's the product of a hot economy and an....uh, expansive attitude. That's the US. It means we'll swing up and down, and drive ourselves silly, probably forever. I happen to like the system, and the people in it, silly or not. I was told that the pendulum swings in the DoD service when I saw them removing work benches and putting desks in their place. This was in 1975. The pendulum is still swinging to the crazy extreme. The people that replaced me in the Navy R&D are all spending their days on airplanes going to meetings. Meetings that no one can detect the benefit or purpose. Their "smart buyer" status is being eroded at a fantastic rate. They have no hands on experience to support their college education. It doesn't take much listening to them to find the efficacy of the term Morass. Your morass is not my idea of a morass. Even so, I hear nothing from you that suggests libertarianism would make your morass better. In fact, it sounds like you'd make it worse. What is it you want to eliminate here, Stuart? Airplane R&D? Or the Navy? What is it? But spare us the talk about "morass." There is no morass. There is only the roller coaster. Hang on tight. I wouldn't get on a roller coaster that had no tracks or some effort at purposeful design. I wouldn't get in an airplane when there was no statement of the purpose of the flight. I wouldn't get on an airplane where the pilot just said I'm here to see what is going to happen and our emergeny plan is based on the widely accepted Knee Jerk method. Yep we don't have an agreed to destination so where ever the Democrans or Republicrats are going to take us I guess we are just the kidnapped passengers and Take us they will. So, what is it, industrial planning? You want something like Japan's MITI? Just what is it that you think will cure these "ills"? -- Ed Huntress |
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On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 09:39:05 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message .. . On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:19:48 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: HDI is another arbitrary UN project that consists of weightings pulled out of a hat. 'You want to boost the US HDI? Try universal healthcare. Whoops...that isn't part of the libertarian program, is it? Damned straight, it ain't. I notice that you snipped the part where I pointed out that EVERY country that ranks higher than us DOES have universal healthcare. So, you may not think much of the value of the HDI (I don't). But don't raise the point (Stuart) and then turn around and say that universal healthcare isn't a contibutor to the HDIs of those countries with higher rankings. I snipped a lot more than just that, as I did with this reply. g No, I don't think of the HDI as a handbook, just another guide to stats from what I've seen so far. You can give it another boost by shooting all the cows. Hmm, is it milk or beef which is killing everyone, Ed? Or just the hormone and antibiotic overdoses? Probably all of the above contribute to a reduced lifespan. This isn't an arguable point. The epidemiological studies, hundreds of which I've read and reported on, are unequivocal. Pardon me. I forgot the implications of cow farts and the ozone. I'm curious as to what the figures are, though. Does it contrast organic vs. commercial cattle products and lifespan? THAT could be an eye opener. But, if you *really * want to get us on top, the long-term solution is obvious: Bulldoze the inner cities flat. And house the unwashed masses where? That's your problem. d8-) My job is to raise our HDI. Stuart seems to think it's important. So we should fake more stats, right? --snip of more HDI stuff because I'm not up on it-- So what does that have to do with libertarians or Libertarians? Don't they have sex? Evidently, most are hetero and have sex only with consenting partners only. Pretty wild, huh? What's your evidence for this? I've seen nothing to support your point. The proof is self-evident. There are no criminal reports or scandals. This is a PARTICIPATORY democracy, not a stage show for critics. And it isn't a parliamentary system. It's a two-party system with a strong president. That keeps it a two-party system. Theoretically, anyway. Theoretically? Have you noticed how the system actually *works*, in practice? Screw the theory. It's the practice. Shrub is a strong President? Fraud, waste, and abuse are endemic to large institutions, especially governments. Oversight helps. Turning your back on it, as Reagan and Bush have done, and as libertarians would do to an even greater degree, just makes it worse. That's your theory, right, seeing as no libertarians have been in enough power to test it? There is plenty of evidence right now. Libertarians want to eliminate regulations on business, except for outright fraud. See how many mortgage lenders can be proven to have violated the law in the current subprime crises. They weren't violating the law. They were exploiting a libertarian program of deregulation that gave them holes big enough to drive a truck through. And they did. Which particular powerful Libertarian pushed through that loophole in the money game, Ed? Well, how many libertarians have been caught in frauds, sex scandals, or kickbacks? What libertarians have been in a position to do so? d8-) As I said, it's all blind faith. You seem to think that libertarians are a different species. I don't see any libertarian business owners, city councilors, mayors, or governors being indicted, Ed. Or do excellent track records not figure into your theories against libertarians? You're awfully hot over this, Ed. Have you looked at what's affecting your perspective yet? Please do. What in the hell is that statement supposed to mean? English, please. You seem to have a real "thing" against libertarians and you can't provide any hard evidence against them when I ask for your clarifications about your future predictions. So, what is it that is affecting your perspective? Did a Libertarian scare your mother when she was pregnant with you, or something? I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. Talk to Larry. He has a 6,000-pound truck to haul 500 pounds of tools. g ...daily, and frequently hauling sheets of plywood, 8-20' lengths of tuba fore/six/eight/ten/twelve and 4xX posts, sacks of concrete, rolls of fencing, ladders, digging bars, table saws, miter saws, trailers, cement mixers, etc. Check your biases, bubba. P.S: My Tundra weighs only 4,850 lbs.... Dry weight. You're 98% liquid, and so is your fuel and coolant. d8-) Yeah, I foud that out this morning when I took down my 9x9' boxwood tree/shrub. DAMN those things are heavy. My 6-ounce t-shirt weighed over two pounds with my externalized liquid during that hour of work. Now I have a bigass stump. I think I'll ask my neighbor if I can borrow his little trencher/backhoe for half an hour. I also have a holly tree whose stump/trunk was about a foot in diameter and whose rootball is over 2' in diameter. I've dug down a foot and a half, severed all side roots, and it still isn't budging. ... and can tote an extra 1,750 lbs in the bed. The beefyness of the truck ensures that it can also haul more weight safely, 8,500 pounds worth. And do you haul 8.500 pounds with it? I thought you said that the most you carry is 500 pounds of tools, right? No, I've hauled trailers, mixers, and welders with it and I use the receiver hitch for helping pull stumps, etc. What I said was that I always have 500 pounds of my tools with me. I add up to half a ton of lumber and extra power tools as each job demands. I'm USING my truck, though a Tacoma might have sufficed. -- Jewish Zen: Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated, already? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ www.diversify.com - Uncomplicated Website Design, here and now. |
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Stuart & Kathryn Fields wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... snip Yes Ed the libertarians don't think their process thru like the current thoughtful government. These aren't opinions of what would happen if. They are factual experiences that I've had with the current operation of the Government. If changing to Libertarian would help correct some of these I'm all for it. There will be about one hundred and fifty Libertarian candidates on the ballot here in California this November. I have absolutely no faith that either Obama or McCain are going to change any of the above. At least Ron Paul talked about reigning in the Feds and stopping the deficit spending. He did and when asked to explain himself sounded like a complete lunatic. Ron Paul wanted to debate the foreign policy and the negative effects it was creating. Whether you agreed with his opinions or not it would have certainly put our policies out for a badly needed review. Ron was a little behind the curve. The review he wanted has already been done and not in the Congress but by the public. We'll see what the result of that review is in November. Maybe Bob Barr will be our next President. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
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Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 09:39:05 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:19:48 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: There is plenty of evidence right now. Libertarians want to eliminate regulations on business, except for outright fraud. See how many mortgage lenders can be proven to have violated the law in the current subprime crises. They weren't violating the law. They were exploiting a libertarian program of deregulation that gave them holes big enough to drive a truck through. And they did. Which particular powerful Libertarian pushed through that loophole in the money game, Ed? Phil Graham. A guy who has always considered himself a libertarian, free market brand of Republican. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com |
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"Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 09:39:05 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message . .. On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:19:48 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: HDI is another arbitrary UN project that consists of weightings pulled out of a hat. 'You want to boost the US HDI? Try universal healthcare. Whoops...that isn't part of the libertarian program, is it? Damned straight, it ain't. I notice that you snipped the part where I pointed out that EVERY country that ranks higher than us DOES have universal healthcare. So, you may not think much of the value of the HDI (I don't). But don't raise the point (Stuart) and then turn around and say that universal healthcare isn't a contibutor to the HDIs of those countries with higher rankings. I snipped a lot more than just that, as I did with this reply. g No, I don't think of the HDI as a handbook, just another guide to stats from what I've seen so far. You can give it another boost by shooting all the cows. Hmm, is it milk or beef which is killing everyone, Ed? Or just the hormone and antibiotic overdoses? Probably all of the above contribute to a reduced lifespan. This isn't an arguable point. The epidemiological studies, hundreds of which I've read and reported on, are unequivocal. Pardon me. I forgot the implications of cow farts and the ozone. I'm curious as to what the figures are, though. Does it contrast organic vs. commercial cattle products and lifespan? THAT could be an eye opener. I doubt if there are any such studies. You have to coordinate studies that show triglycerides and other lipid levels that correspond to eating a lot of beef, and the cardio studies that coordinate those levels with mortality. It takes some work and some knowledge of stats, but it's there. Not that it keeps me from eating beef. But thanks to wonder drugs, my total cholesterol is 81. d8-) But, if you *really * want to get us on top, the long-term solution is obvious: Bulldoze the inner cities flat. And house the unwashed masses where? That's your problem. d8-) My job is to raise our HDI. Stuart seems to think it's important. So we should fake more stats, right? Stuart seems to like those HDI stats. I think they're pretty arbitrary and don't measure much that's useful in this context. --snip of more HDI stuff because I'm not up on it-- So what does that have to do with libertarians or Libertarians? Don't they have sex? Evidently, most are hetero and have sex only with consenting partners only. Pretty wild, huh? What's your evidence for this? I've seen nothing to support your point. The proof is self-evident. There are no criminal reports or scandals. Of what? How do you know if a criminal is a libertarian? If you're talking about Libertarian officials, there aren't enough to produce any statistics. This is a PARTICIPATORY democracy, not a stage show for critics. And it isn't a parliamentary system. It's a two-party system with a strong president. That keeps it a two-party system. Theoretically, anyway. Theoretically? Have you noticed how the system actually *works*, in practice? Screw the theory. It's the practice. Shrub is a strong President? He's a twit who currently holds a powerful office. That makes him something like a teenager with booze and the keys to your car. Fraud, waste, and abuse are endemic to large institutions, especially governments. Oversight helps. Turning your back on it, as Reagan and Bush have done, and as libertarians would do to an even greater degree, just makes it worse. That's your theory, right, seeing as no libertarians have been in enough power to test it? There is plenty of evidence right now. Libertarians want to eliminate regulations on business, except for outright fraud. See how many mortgage lenders can be proven to have violated the law in the current subprime crises. They weren't violating the law. They were exploiting a libertarian program of deregulation that gave them holes big enough to drive a truck through. And they did. Which particular powerful Libertarian pushed through that loophole in the money game, Ed? Dumb comeback, Larry. What additional regulations would a Libertarian have voted for? Since they oppose vitually all of them: "We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types," it appears they not only would have voted against new regulations, but they would have actively worked to strip those few regulations that exist. Well, how many libertarians have been caught in frauds, sex scandals, or kickbacks? What libertarians have been in a position to do so? d8-) As I said, it's all blind faith. You seem to think that libertarians are a different species. I don't see any libertarian business owners, city councilors, mayors, or governors being indicted, Ed. How do you know which business owners are libertarians? Is it something that comes up in court? g And how about those statistics on all those Libertarian government officials? Do you have percentages with meaningful stats? Or do excellent track records not figure into your theories against libertarians? You're awfully hot over this, Ed. Have you looked at what's affecting your perspective yet? Please do. What in the hell is that statement supposed to mean? English, please. You seem to have a real "thing" against libertarians and you can't provide any hard evidence against them when I ask for your clarifications about your future predictions. First off, some of my best friends are liberatarians. They aren't my smartest friends, but they're friends. Secondly, the evidence is what businesses like Enron and financial businesses like hedge funds have been doing to screw us in recent years. They can screw us because the lack of regulations allow them to. Libertarians want even fewer regulations: "The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society." If that isn't enough evidence for you of the "future predictions" that would come true if we had even FEWER regulations, then you truly are off in a cloud of wishful thinking. Thirdly, it's just fun to tweak your nose. d8-) So, what is it that is affecting your perspective? Did a Libertarian scare your mother when she was pregnant with you, or something? There aren't enough libertarians around to matter much regarding anything. There are people who call themselves libertarians, but, like Stuart, most of them turn out to be moralists with an authoritarian streak who just want people to behave better than they do. More wishful thinking. I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not own or think that an SUV is the car to own but based on statistics it seems that the majority of the people who are supporting the political parties running the US do. Another example of thinking things thru. Talk to Larry. He has a 6,000-pound truck to haul 500 pounds of tools. g ...daily, and frequently hauling sheets of plywood, 8-20' lengths of tuba fore/six/eight/ten/twelve and 4xX posts, sacks of concrete, rolls of fencing, ladders, digging bars, table saws, miter saws, trailers, cement mixers, etc. Check your biases, bubba. P.S: My Tundra weighs only 4,850 lbs.... Dry weight. You're 98% liquid, and so is your fuel and coolant. d8-) Yeah, I foud that out this morning when I took down my 9x9' boxwood tree/shrub. DAMN those things are heavy. My 6-ounce t-shirt weighed over two pounds with my externalized liquid during that hour of work. Now I have a bigass stump. I think I'll ask my neighbor if I can borrow his little trencher/backhoe for half an hour. Stump grinders do a good job with a hell of a lot less work. They'll grind it down a few inches below ground level and you can just cover them with dirt. As they rot out, you just top-dress the area with an inch or two of dirt every year. You can rent stump grinders at Home Depot and other tool rentals. Nobody digs out big stumps and roots anymore. I also have a holly tree whose stump/trunk was about a foot in diameter and whose rootball is over 2' in diameter. I've dug down a foot and a half, severed all side roots, and it still isn't budging. You're bringing back horrible memories from my youth. I HATE stumps. My grandfather used to dynamite them, but he had ten acres and it was a different time. His ten acres were inside the town limits. d8-) ... and can tote an extra 1,750 lbs in the bed. The beefyness of the truck ensures that it can also haul more weight safely, 8,500 pounds worth. And do you haul 8.500 pounds with it? I thought you said that the most you carry is 500 pounds of tools, right? No, I've hauled trailers, mixers, and welders with it and I use the receiver hitch for helping pull stumps, etc. Well, then, if you really need it, you're screwed. That is, unless you can raise your prices enough to pay for the fuel. -- Ed Huntress |
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On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 17:52:32 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth: I said: Pardon me. I forgot the implications of cow farts and the ozone. I'm curious as to what the figures are, though. Does it contrast organic vs. commercial cattle products and lifespan? THAT could be an eye opener. I doubt if there are any such studies. You have to coordinate studies that show triglycerides and other lipid levels that correspond to eating a lot of beef, and the cardio studies that coordinate those levels with mortality. It takes some work and some knowledge of stats, but it's there. Not that it keeps me from eating beef. But thanks to wonder drugs, my total cholesterol is 81. d8-) I had mine tested once. It was 231. I went on a "cholesterol-free" diet for six months and was retested at 219. I said "FTN" and stopped worrying. Evidently, most are hetero and have sex only with consenting partners only. Pretty wild, huh? What's your evidence for this? I've seen nothing to support your point. The proof is self-evident. There are no criminal reports or scandals. Of what? How do you know if a criminal is a libertarian? "Mr. X, libertarian councilman, was arrested today..." If you're talking about Libertarian officials, there aren't enough to produce any statistics. So WTF are you so terrified about? Shrub is a strong President? He's a twit who currently holds a powerful office. That makes him something like a teenager with booze and the keys to your car. Yeah, and we know what PJ O'Rourke said about that combination... Which particular powerful Libertarian pushed through that loophole in the money game, Ed? Dumb comeback, Larry. What additional regulations would a Libertarian have voted for? Since they oppose vitually all of them: "We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types," it appears they not only would have voted against new regulations, but they would have actively worked to strip those few regulations that exist. We don't see all regulation as bad, Ed. Just most. ;) I don't see any libertarian business owners, city councilors, mayors, or governors being indicted, Ed. How do you know which business owners are libertarians? Is it something that comes up in court? g And how about those statistics on all those Libertarian government officials? Do you have percentages with meaningful stats? According to you and our wonderful news media, being a libertarian is akin to being labeled a KKKer or radical Muslim. Every time one makes the news, which isn't very damned often (Even the arrest of a Presidential candidate at the debates didn't make the national news the same day in Badnarik's case) it's a miracle. Or do excellent track records not figure into your theories against libertarians? You're awfully hot over this, Ed. Have you looked at what's affecting your perspective yet? Please do. What in the hell is that statement supposed to mean? English, please. You seem to have a real "thing" against libertarians and you can't provide any hard evidence against them when I ask for your clarifications about your future predictions. First off, some of my best friends are liberatarians. They aren't my smartest friends, but they're friends. Asswipe. ;) Secondly, the evidence is what businesses like Enron and financial businesses like hedge funds have been doing to screw us in recent years. They can screw us because the lack of regulations allow them to. Libertarians want even fewer regulations: "The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society." If that isn't enough evidence for you of the "future predictions" that would come true if we had even FEWER regulations, then you truly are off in a cloud of wishful thinking. Thirdly, it's just fun to tweak your nose. d8-) AHA! The truth finally comes out. ;) So, what is it that is affecting your perspective? Did a Libertarian scare your mother when she was pregnant with you, or something? There aren't enough libertarians around to matter much regarding anything. There are people who call themselves libertarians, but, like Stuart, most of them turn out to be moralists with an authoritarian streak who just want people to behave better than they do. More wishful thinking. shrug P.S: My Tundra weighs only 4,850 lbs.... Dry weight. You're 98% liquid, and so is your fuel and coolant. d8-) Yeah, I foud that out this morning when I took down my 9x9' boxwood tree/shrub. DAMN those things are heavy. My 6-ounce t-shirt weighed over two pounds with my externalized liquid during that hour of work. Now I have a bigass stump. I think I'll ask my neighbor if I can borrow his little trencher/backhoe for half an hour. Stump grinders do a good job with a hell of a lot less work. They'll grind it down a few inches below ground level and you can just cover them with dirt. As they rot out, you just top-dress the area with an inch or two of dirt every year. I wish I'd thought of that. I haven't seen one in two decades. You can rent stump grinders at Home Depot and other tool rentals. Nobody digs out big stumps and roots anymore. The last time I had someone use one of those, it was in my yard in CA. They ground up 6 yucca stumps. Let me warn you that if you ever have a yucca stump ground in your yard, you'd better hold a freakin' shotgun to the guy's head until he has cleaned up every last ounce of chipped yucca from your yard and hauled it off. I was on the phone every day for two weeks to get the guy to come haul off what smelled like dead dog meat out there. It was absolutely ungodly. I also have a holly tree whose stump/trunk was about a foot in diameter and whose rootball is over 2' in diameter. I've dug down a foot and a half, severed all side roots, and it still isn't budging. You're bringing back horrible memories from my youth. I HATE stumps. My I don't mind small stumps and shrub rootball clusters, which is most of my work around here. But large tree roots like the two in my yard are proving to be a lot tougher. I'll see if my shop crane will hoist those stumps out, and if not, I'll see about that grinder. Good call. I forgot they existed, probably due to my last experience with one. I hate that MF to this day. grandfather used to dynamite them, but he had ten acres and it was a different time. His ten acres were inside the town limits. d8-) I'd love to use dynamite on these but I don't think that's in the cards. My water line from my pumphouse is about 3' away from the holly stump. The gas line feeding my house is about 4' away from the boxwood stump, too. g ... and can tote an extra 1,750 lbs in the bed. The beefyness of the truck ensures that it can also haul more weight safely, 8,500 pounds worth. And do you haul 8.500 pounds with it? I thought you said that the most you carry is 500 pounds of tools, right? No, I've hauled trailers, mixers, and welders with it and I use the receiver hitch for helping pull stumps, etc. Well, then, if you really need it, you're screwed. That is, unless you can raise your prices enough to pay for the fuel. Yeah. Wish me luck in that! -- Jewish Zen: Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated, already? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ www.diversify.com - Uncomplicated Website Design, here and now. |
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"Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message ... "John R. Carroll" wrote in message ... Ed Huntress wrote: "Hawke" wrote in message ... That's categorically different from the libertarian program as it stands today. Libertarianism, as an intellectual conservative would define it, is a form of radicalism (and intellectual conservatives recognize that their opposites are radicals, not liberals). When Stuart says you need an agreement on some fundamental principles to avoid chaos, he's surely talking about some things that are not part of the Libertarian platform, because those things aren't there. In fact, he's almost certainly talking about the kinds of principle upon which conservatism is founded, as explained in detail by Edmund Burke. I can tell that I don't have the historical or political depth of information that you do, Ed, so I'll just bow out here. I think I got carried away. I'll relax now. d8-) -- Ed Huntress Hey, way to go Ed. You sat on a Libertarian and made him give, you bully. I think that's a first. The fact that he agreed to bow to your logic was a real triumph. Usually when you give a Libertarian/Conservative a thumping by argument all they do is go away mad, start a fight, or call you some names, like Gunner would. You also nailed Libertarianism. It's not realistic. It's for complainers. They don't like the way things are now; with that we can all agree. But instead of coming up with real and feasible ways of making concrete changes all they can come up with is to throw out the baby with the bath water. But that explains why that party will never be anything more than a blip on the radar. As long as it can't come up with real alternatives to the status quo that might actually work it'll stay irrelevant. However, as Americans we all have at least some measure of Libertarian in us though it may be really, really small. Hawke Now, don't get carried away. The impulse behind libertarianism is a perfectly good one. It's the thought that's lacking. Thoughtless impulse is an apt description of Libertarians. It also applies to teenagers. -- John R. Carroll www.machiningsolution.com Yes John it is the result of the careful thinking of the Republicans and Democrats that have led us to the world of deficit spending and debts to China we probably will never pay without devaluing the dollar. Deficit spending and "debts to China" are two separate issues. The first is the result of the "starve the beast" policies created by Reagan and his budget director Stockman, and of which Dick Cheney convinced George Bush. The debts to China are the result of free-trade globalization, promoted by Milton Friedman and practiced by conservative economists, who have had the ear of the last four presidents. Yes the thoughtful thinking that had us in Viet Nam and now in Iraq and though we are setting on large oil reserves captives of OPEC. We have governmental incompetencies to rival just about anything I've ever heard of. That's philosophy for you. They read too much Friedrich August von Hayek and too little John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith had a good eye for people who would screw you if given half a chance. Hayek was a philosopher. Enough said. Ed seems to favor the dictatorship where we don't use a code of ethics or are guided by principles or a working philosophy. What a nutty thing to say. What I favor is a government of, by, and for the people. So, we screw up sometimes. That's the cost of a democratic republic. At least it's *our* screw-ups. He seems to prefer a government run on the basis of "Attitudes". 'Beats the hell out of a government by philosophers. See Hayek, Friedrich, and Ancient Greece, Collapse of. When you're done, see _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, by Edmund Burke. I have a hard time deciding whether the current ill defined attitudes are something that I support. He also seems to think that we either are moving in a positive direction or that somehow magically we will return to some some more sensible, stable, and productivie society. Who said "sensible"? Who said "stable"? Those are the words of conservatives. I'm all for the messy, but generally effective way it actually works. This in spite of the downward spiral in our history. Jesus Christ, Stu. What "downward spiral"? Put some numbers on it. If you're going to tell me that it's not a question of numbers, then just come out with it and admit you're a moralist who doesn't like other peoples' moral judgments. You would have thought that with this great group of thinkers that deny the libertarians membership, we could have avoided much of the current problems. The question is, how would libertarians have improved the situation? With their position on less government regulation, it looks like they just would have made it worse. The Iraq farce was forecast by a large number of "ignored" non-thinkers. Thoughtless impulse seems to describe one our Democrat Presidents as much as any Libertarian that I know of. Well, here's a reality check for you. Go back in the Google archives a few years and see how many of the self-proclaimed libertarians here opposed the Iraq war. They were among its biggest supporters -- some of them still are. Then come back and we can talk seriously, OK? -- Ed Huntress Naw This is just a waste of time and keystrokes. I haven't learned anything new and I would bet a bunch neither have you. All this energy with no yield is definitely a waste of time. Stu |
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On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:13:08 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote: I don't mind small stumps and shrub rootball clusters, which is most of my work around here. But large tree roots like the two in my yard are proving to be a lot tougher. I'll see if my shop crane will hoist those stumps out, and if not, I'll see about that grinder. Good call. I forgot they existed, probably due to my last experience with one. I hate that MF to this day. I pulled a peach stump last year with my forklift. Easy as can be. G Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. |
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"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message ... "Ed Huntress" wrote in message ... snip What morass? Are you starving? Are you threatened by some other country? Did you have to sell your children into slavery? What in the hell are you talking about, "morass"? I'm talking about the Morass of restrictive laws and rules such as the FEMA telling me that I might have to raise my entire 40X72 steel building because of some bureacratic derived flood plain that there exists no evidence, historically or otherwise to support. That sounds like your primary gripe. Ed: For a person of obvious articulatory skills you seem to have a problem identifying examples and choose to ignore the ramifications of a government agency enforcing entirely stupid rules. The FEMA thing is just a single concrete example of which I have written proof. I've already successfully ignored them. Their rules still exist and have no blockage for getting worse. I'm sure that if you were the victim of similar kinds of BS, your skills with the written word would come forth. However, you seem to be comfortable with the ramification of the examples that I have put forth that have come from my personal experience and I guess you seem to think that these examples are to be expected in the current non-libertarian government that we have. There always are some infuriating examples of bureaucracy, and nobody likes them. I don't think you'll ever eliminate them as long as you have government. I've had outrageous examples in dealing with police. Do you want to get rid of them, too? But thinking that libertarian policies will eliminate them, without simultaneously turning the dogs loose in finance and opening the door to collusion and monopoly in business is pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, Stu. We already know what happens when those excesses are unregulated. And even more comfortable forecasting what ifs that aren't based on actual fact but on your opinions and personal biases. No. Based on the only evidence that's available, and thousands of years of history. Libertarians see a panacea in just doing away with things, as if that alone will create a new kind of man. What lunacy! If it was 180 years ago, you guys would be the ones starting utopian communes in the wilderness. That's the same mentality -- and the same denial of human nature. It's something you share with communists, socialists, religious utopians and other philosophy-based movements. You seem to think that people will play nicer if you just change the rules. You're the one who has no supporting history or facts, Stu. You're off in cloud-cuckooland. Labels like Edwardian, Conservatives, Libertarian, Centrist etc. etc. I guess serve some purpose. However when the tire is flat, you can call it a chicken fart if you want to but the tire remains flat. We have a bunch of flat tires right now and our old ways of dealing with them by saying let the Federal Government solve them hasn't worked. Most of the flat tires have been caused by government getting involved, making thoughtless decisions that have created long lived agencies that are expensive and don't really provide much bang for the buck. Nonsense. That's your conclusion. And your solution is just to do away with them. Some solution! The problems are still there. Under your program, the difference is that they won't be dealt with at all. I'm talking about the 3 star general in charge of the Strategic Defense Command responsible for the Star Wars stuff getting his hand caught in the cooky jar setting himself up with BDC for a post retirement job. How would libertarianism fix that, or any of the other things you've listed? To start with the laws and rules that already exist would be enforced. I was restricted to a certain time (IFIRC 2 years) from entering into employment with any contractor with whom I had business during my career. Those are being enforced at the lower levels but certainly not at the higher. Wait a minute. I thought that libertarians wanted to *reduce* the laws and rules. Now you're talking about stricter enforcement. Is this just a call for stricter authoritarianism, after all? It sounds like it. It all looks like some kind of blind faith. What kind, I have no idea. What are you, a radical who has a program for overturning tradition? Of course not tradition should be worshiped and never examined for applicability. "Thats the way we've always done it" is just an outstanding justification for doing things. The traditional stuff I was told when I went to work for the Government turned out to be mainly eyewash. The real rules and values were involved in how to get your ass up the ladder and make as much as you could. Another personal example: High ranking DoD official told me that he needed a $450M project started next year. I asked him for some details, sinch as an engineer I might be able to help. His response was: "I don't know what it will be but that is the funding level of a project that I need under my control to get the Senior Executive Service position". This guy certainly did think his process thru. From my point of view looking into a non-libertarian run government, this kind of thing needs to be changed. Our current government service of just laying on another "watch dog" agency. Won't work. Hell here is another: GAO audited my group at the Kwajalein Missile Range. We were audited to determine whether we were providing a useful function. Sounds good doesn't it. They also audited another group where my wife worked. AAH!! The government is really accountable and taking care of business. There auditing technique for my branch consisted almost entirely of MEASURING THE VOLUME OF OUR FILE CABINETS. They could have been empty file cabinets. What we did and how many people were required to do it never entered into the questions. I even suggested that they ask us what our plans for the year were and what we expected to produce. I was ignored. Let me ask again: What is there about the libertarian program that would fix this problem? It sounds like you want better government. Libertarians want as little government as possible. Those aren't the same thing. In fact, they're close to being opposites. Yes Ed the libertarians don't think their process thru like the current thoughtful government. These aren't opinions of what would happen if. They are factual experiences that I've had with the current operation of the Government. If changing to Libertarian would help correct some of these I'm all for it. I would be, too. But there is nothing in the party platform, and nothing I've seen in the writings of Ron Paul and the other nutballs, that would do one damned thing to correct it. I have absolutely no faith that either Obama or McCain are going to change any of the above. At least Ron Paul talked about reigning in the Feds and stopping the deficit spending. Ron Paul wanted to debate the foreign policy and the negative effects it was creating. Whether you agreed with his opinions or not it would have certainly put our policies out for a badly needed review. His idea of "review" is to promote his wacky ideas. He wants to de-regulate pharmaceuticals. He wants to do away with the FDA. Does the man have no knowledge of history whatsoever? Doesn't he know what happened when drugs were unregulated? Have you ever seen the early trial results on new drugs, where they kill rats and dogs, and often a few humans, trying to figure out what is safe? He's a nut, Stu. And so is the whole libertatian program -- a nutty solution to complicated problems. It pretends that you can just make a problem go away by ignoring it. Nutty ideas for nutty people, like Ron Paul. -- Ed Huntress |
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"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message .. . snip Naw This is just a waste of time and keystrokes. I haven't learned anything new and I would bet a bunch neither have you. All this energy with no yield is definitely a waste of time. I'll go along with that, but what I take from this is that I've heard not one idea from you, Larry, or any other self-proclaimed libertarian that would solve a single problem you've brought up, except to ignore it and hope it goes away. I really don't get how grown people can swallow this nonsense. And it is nonsense -- a utopian idea that people will get better, and things will get better, if you just ignore them. And most people recognize it, Stu. That's why Ron Paul and the other crazies are going to be marginalized as long as they promote ideas that have no basis in history or experience, and no logic to support the idea that they will do something positive. It's all just an expression of frustration with the imperfection of people and the messiness of government in general. -- Ed Huntress |
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"Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 17:52:32 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: I said: Pardon me. I forgot the implications of cow farts and the ozone. I'm curious as to what the figures are, though. Does it contrast organic vs. commercial cattle products and lifespan? THAT could be an eye opener. I doubt if there are any such studies. You have to coordinate studies that show triglycerides and other lipid levels that correspond to eating a lot of beef, and the cardio studies that coordinate those levels with mortality. It takes some work and some knowledge of stats, but it's there. Not that it keeps me from eating beef. But thanks to wonder drugs, my total cholesterol is 81. d8-) I had mine tested once. It was 231. I went on a "cholesterol-free" diet for six months and was retested at 219. I said "FTN" and stopped worrying. I don't have a lot of choice, so I'm on the drugs. They dropped me from around 215 to 81. Yike. Evidently, most are hetero and have sex only with consenting partners only. Pretty wild, huh? What's your evidence for this? I've seen nothing to support your point. The proof is self-evident. There are no criminal reports or scandals. Of what? How do you know if a criminal is a libertarian? "Mr. X, libertarian councilman, was arrested today..." If you're talking about Libertarian officials, there aren't enough to produce any statistics. So WTF are you so terrified about? Who's terrified? I find libertarians annoying, but not terrifying. Shrub is a strong President? He's a twit who currently holds a powerful office. That makes him something like a teenager with booze and the keys to your car. Yeah, and we know what PJ O'Rourke said about that combination... Which particular powerful Libertarian pushed through that loophole in the money game, Ed? Dumb comeback, Larry. What additional regulations would a Libertarian have voted for? Since they oppose vitually all of them: "We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types," it appears they not only would have voted against new regulations, but they would have actively worked to strip those few regulations that exist. We don't see all regulation as bad, Ed. Just most. ;) And the ones out of favor seem to change, depending on whose ox is being gored. For example, who would have thought that FEMA's flood-plain building regulations are going to bring the United States to its knees? I don't see any libertarian business owners, city councilors, mayors, or governors being indicted, Ed. How do you know which business owners are libertarians? Is it something that comes up in court? g And how about those statistics on all those Libertarian government officials? Do you have percentages with meaningful stats? According to you and our wonderful news media, being a libertarian is akin to being labeled a KKKer or radical Muslim. Nonsense. It's more like being a hog farmer in Brooklyn. Every time one makes the news, which isn't very damned often (Even the arrest of a Presidential candidate at the debates didn't make the national news the same day in Badnarik's case) it's a miracle. Or do excellent track records not figure into your theories against libertarians? You're awfully hot over this, Ed. Have you looked at what's affecting your perspective yet? Please do. What in the hell is that statement supposed to mean? English, please. You seem to have a real "thing" against libertarians and you can't provide any hard evidence against them when I ask for your clarifications about your future predictions. First off, some of my best friends are liberatarians. They aren't my smartest friends, but they're friends. Asswipe. ;) Secondly, the evidence is what businesses like Enron and financial businesses like hedge funds have been doing to screw us in recent years. They can screw us because the lack of regulations allow them to. Libertarians want even fewer regulations: "The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society." If that isn't enough evidence for you of the "future predictions" that would come true if we had even FEWER regulations, then you truly are off in a cloud of wishful thinking. Thirdly, it's just fun to tweak your nose. d8-) AHA! The truth finally comes out. ;) So, what is it that is affecting your perspective? Did a Libertarian scare your mother when she was pregnant with you, or something? There aren't enough libertarians around to matter much regarding anything. There are people who call themselves libertarians, but, like Stuart, most of them turn out to be moralists with an authoritarian streak who just want people to behave better than they do. More wishful thinking. shrug P.S: My Tundra weighs only 4,850 lbs.... Dry weight. You're 98% liquid, and so is your fuel and coolant. d8-) Yeah, I foud that out this morning when I took down my 9x9' boxwood tree/shrub. DAMN those things are heavy. My 6-ounce t-shirt weighed over two pounds with my externalized liquid during that hour of work. Now I have a bigass stump. I think I'll ask my neighbor if I can borrow his little trencher/backhoe for half an hour. Stump grinders do a good job with a hell of a lot less work. They'll grind it down a few inches below ground level and you can just cover them with dirt. As they rot out, you just top-dress the area with an inch or two of dirt every year. I wish I'd thought of that. I haven't seen one in two decades. You can rent stump grinders at Home Depot and other tool rentals. Nobody digs out big stumps and roots anymore. The last time I had someone use one of those, it was in my yard in CA. They ground up 6 yucca stumps. Let me warn you that if you ever have a yucca stump ground in your yard, you'd better hold a freakin' shotgun to the guy's head until he has cleaned up every last ounce of chipped yucca from your yard and hauled it off. I was on the phone every day for two weeks to get the guy to come haul off what smelled like dead dog meat out there. It was absolutely ungodly. Yucc. I also have a holly tree whose stump/trunk was about a foot in diameter and whose rootball is over 2' in diameter. I've dug down a foot and a half, severed all side roots, and it still isn't budging. You're bringing back horrible memories from my youth. I HATE stumps. My I don't mind small stumps and shrub rootball clusters, which is most of my work around here. But large tree roots like the two in my yard are proving to be a lot tougher. I'll see if my shop crane will hoist those stumps out, and if not, I'll see about that grinder. Good call. I forgot they existed, probably due to my last experience with one. I hate that MF to this day. A wild cherry tree that was too close to my garage got cut down (sawing boards for boxes from it gave my bandsaw a workout -- after I split it two ways to get it on the saw) and stump-ground around 25 years ago. I had to top-dress for around six or seven years (it was one big mutha of a cherry) and then it stopped subsiding. Now the spot grows great hastas. We just ground down four maples on the property line with my neighbor, around a month ago. The new grass already looks great. And I may get a chance to try it on the maple in my front yard soon. I already got an estimate on the job. The maple is 84 years old and over three feet in diameter, but it's getting hollow inside and it's vulnerable -- and it could land right on my house. grandfather used to dynamite them, but he had ten acres and it was a different time. His ten acres were inside the town limits. d8-) I'd love to use dynamite on these but I don't think that's in the cards. My water line from my pumphouse is about 3' away from the holly stump. The gas line feeding my house is about 4' away from the boxwood stump, too. g At least the water would put the fire out. ... and can tote an extra 1,750 lbs in the bed. The beefyness of the truck ensures that it can also haul more weight safely, 8,500 pounds worth. And do you haul 8.500 pounds with it? I thought you said that the most you carry is 500 pounds of tools, right? No, I've hauled trailers, mixers, and welders with it and I use the receiver hitch for helping pull stumps, etc. Well, then, if you really need it, you're screwed. That is, unless you can raise your prices enough to pay for the fuel. Yeah. Wish me luck in that! Luck. -- Ed Huntress |
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On Mon, 7 Jul 2008 08:58:59 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth: "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message . .. snip Naw This is just a waste of time and keystrokes. I haven't learned anything new and I would bet a bunch neither have you. All this energy with no yield is definitely a waste of time. I'll go along with that, but what I take from this is that I've heard not one idea from you, Larry, or any other self-proclaimed libertarian that would solve a single problem you've brought up, except to ignore it and hope it goes away. I really don't get how grown people can swallow this nonsense. And it is nonsense -- a utopian idea that people will get better, and things will get better, if you just ignore them. And most people recognize it, Stu. That's why Ron Paul and the other crazies are going to be marginalized as long as they promote ideas that have no basis in history or experience, and no logic to support the idea that they will do something positive. It's all just an expression of frustration with the imperfection of people and the messiness of government in general. Ed, if we simply tossed out a few thousand of our superfluous laws (TBD) and enforced the truly valid ones, things would immediately improve. People would feel less abused, cops would get a helluva lot more respect, and courts might get the time they need to give proper handling to criminals. ---------------------------------- VIRTUE...is its own punishment ================================== |
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"Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... On Mon, 7 Jul 2008 08:58:59 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed Huntress" quickly quoth: "Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message ... snip Naw This is just a waste of time and keystrokes. I haven't learned anything new and I would bet a bunch neither have you. All this energy with no yield is definitely a waste of time. I'll go along with that, but what I take from this is that I've heard not one idea from you, Larry, or any other self-proclaimed libertarian that would solve a single problem you've brought up, except to ignore it and hope it goes away. I really don't get how grown people can swallow this nonsense. And it is nonsense -- a utopian idea that people will get better, and things will get better, if you just ignore them. And most people recognize it, Stu. That's why Ron Paul and the other crazies are going to be marginalized as long as they promote ideas that have no basis in history or experience, and no logic to support the idea that they will do something positive. It's all just an expression of frustration with the imperfection of people and the messiness of government in general. Ed, if we simply tossed out a few thousand of our superfluous laws (TBD) and enforced the truly valid ones, things would immediately improve. Is TBD something like "a player to be named later"? I assume you'd create a government agency to judge which laws are superfluous, right? g People would feel less abused, cops would get a helluva lot more respect, and courts might get the time they need to give proper handling to criminals. TBD, as you say. Remember the immortal words of Robert Bork (and the smartest thing he ever said) "All laws are legislation of morality." It's absolutely true, and the consequences of that simple statement are the root of every problem you have with the laws, and that Stuart has with the agencies -- and that all of us have with the financial-system meltdown. The laws are the result of political judgments about what people think is right and what they think is wrong, and that has no necessary connection to what works and what doesn't. Less ideology, more pragmatic centrism, and we'll all be a lot better off. We've had enough of government that makes us feel good about our moral theories. What we need is government that works to achieve our basic aspirations. -- Ed Huntress |
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On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 10:28:12 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message .. . Ed, if we simply tossed out a few thousand of our superfluous laws (TBD) and enforced the truly valid ones, things would immediately improve. Is TBD something like "a player to be named later"? I assume you'd create a government agency to judge which laws are superfluous, right? g Nah, I thought I'd simply tell the gov't what I thought should stay. wink People would feel less abused, cops would get a helluva lot more respect, and courts might get the time they need to give proper handling to criminals. TBD, as you say. Remember the immortal words of Robert Bork (and the smartest thing he ever said) "All laws are legislation of morality." It's absolutely true, and the consequences of that simple statement are the root of every problem you have with the laws, and that Stuart has with the agencies -- and that all of us have with the financial-system meltdown. The laws are the result of political judgments about what people think is right and what they think is wrong, and that has no necessary connection to what works and what doesn't. Less ideology, more pragmatic centrism, and we'll all be a lot better off. We've had enough of government that makes us feel good about our moral theories. What we need is government that works to achieve our basic aspirations. It's such a pity that those two things are so far apart in reality. Alas, I do agree that ideology ain't gonna cut it, but it sure feels good. EOF ---------------------------------- VIRTUE...is its own punishment ================================== |
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