All good points mr Dee! :afrog:
Printable View
All good points mr Dee! :afrog:
You don't get to say "that's a Bush thing, not a Republican thing" when we've had to suffer through 8 years of destructive Republican policies. If his policies were so contrary to Republican ideals why did he get their nomination in 2004?
I thought of a couple more that I don't particularly care about since they don't apply to me, but the lack of these things offends me as a thoughtful person. They make me ashamed of my country, or at very least its leadership.As to your "rebuttals", you have got to be kidding me. You seem to agree that the war on drugs is at best ineffective. As stated, I'm a guy who very much wants it abandoned. Be honest: If I were to cast a strictly one-issue vote on this, given two unknown candidates, which party would I do better to cast my vote for? Same question for stem cell research.
- Actual sex education, as opposed to the current "abstinence-only or you lose your funding" fundy approach.
- Gay marriage should be legal.
Please cite or retract your claim that Obama wants to "restrict abortion." Note that if you link to a quote where he talks about some specific type of abortion -- say, late-term partial birth abortion for example -- then you have committed the worst kind of disingenuous douchebaggery that unfortunately pervades most political discussions. Your wording deliberately implied that Obama wants to restrict all abortion. Don't be deceitful like that.
The fact that you can dig up at least one representative from both parties that are on any given side of any given issue is irrelevant. It is an obvious attempt at obfuscation in order to support your false premise that both parties are the same. They are demonstrably NOT the same. Under democratic presidencies, schools can teach about contraception without losing their funding. There is no debate about whether the joke that is creationism gets taught alongside science as "the other side of the debate."
Under democratic presidencies, the country doesn't wallow in and take pride from their willful ignorance. Our science community doesn't fall behind the rest of the world; we become the mecca of scientific research. Our economy doesn't crumble during wartime, which I would have previously thought impossible. Yet the ineptitude of republican leadership managed to pull even that off. Bravo.
And if you honestly believe that consulting psychics and astrologers isn't a dopey woo-woo belief -- you're aware I was referencing Nancy Reagan, right? -- then you are beyond hope. And Obama is not a creationist like Bush, so don't say they have the same beliefs. Bush thinks the world is 6000 years old. Yeah, I'm comfortable calling that a dopey woo-woo belief as well.
(Btw, I hate multiple-quotebox point-by-point replies. Please don't do that. Assume I know what I wrote and just put together a cohesive narrative addressing the points you want to address.)
This deserves its own reply.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasracer
You may not be aware of this, but there are different christian denominations. Some are more "hard core" than others. For example, some are bible literalists who believe the grand canyon was caused by noah's flood. These are known as evangelicals. The vast majority of evangelicals make up the base of the republican party.
Other christians believe in god, but not the literal word of the bible. Some are democrats, some are republicans. These reasonable, not idiotic people make up the majority of christian democrats but only a minority of christian republicans.
So saying that both sides are christians is either naive in the extreme or another attempt at being intentionally disingenuous.
I had to quote this because of the second quote (there couldn't be only one).Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Dee
Nyah, nyah!Quote:
(Btw, I hate multiple-quotebox point-by-point replies. Please don't do that. Assume I know what I wrote and just put together a cohesive narrative addressing the points you want to address.)
Of course, as probably the most liberal American on this forum, I agree with what you have said, but I agree with lots of the arguments that Kas put forward as well, especially the war on drugs. I feel that the only solution that has a real prayer is heavy education, but I recognize that it has no chance of solving the problem. After decades of strong and multi-faceted attempts to stop drunk driving, having surrendered on the question of stopping drinking entirely, we have not solved the problem.
The impact of alcohol on human societies is greater and more negative than all other drugs combined, yet we have given up prohibiting it, and are fighting a constant and unwinable battle to limit the damage. The other drugs will be no easier to deal with.
As for R vs D. There lines between the two have wandered back and forth over the decades. The south was staunchly democratic until the 60's because Lincoln was a Republican. When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he stated that he did so though he realized that it would cost the Democratic party the south for at least the next generation. He was right. The southern vote followed the party of segregation. Other segments have followed evangelical leanings of one party or another (the first born-again evangelical president was Carter). Other groups have wandered around based on fiscal policy. The rhetoric and party platforms seem to have lagged behind the membership, though.
I supported conservative fiscal values back in the early 90's when the deficit hawks in Congress were R (like Warren Rudman and Ernest Hollings). At the time, the Rs labeled the Ds as "tax and spend". They still use the line, even though the party of deficit hawks is more the democrats than the republicans. The Ds should be labeling the Rs as "borrow and spend" conservatives, just for the contrast with "tax and spend". Ultimately, I believe that the Rs will regain the mantle as deficit hawks, but not for several more years.
I think I'm not communicating my position properly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
My position is that the war on drugs is both ineffective and destructive, and as such it should be shelved. I would recommend shifting some of those reclaimed resources to the treatment of drug abuse as a health issue, but that's mostly irrelevant to my point. Regardless of what is done in place of the war on drugs -- a large scale education & treament initiative, complete decriminalization, whatever -- the main point is that the war on drugs must go.
Anything -- and I mean anything -- would be better. So when you guys say "yeah, treatment won't work either", you are implying that you want to stick with the war on drugs. I don't care a whit if the alternative doesn't work; I want the draconian, life-destroying punishment system we currently offer drug addicts to end.
To be clear, arguing that alternatives would be no better is neither compelling nor relevant to my position. "No good" is better than "actively bad."
You clearly haven't a clue. A good example is the following:Quote:
Originally Posted by kasracer
Quote:
Originally Posted by Me
Try reading for comprehension next time. Of course schools can teach about contraception. If they decide to do that, however, they will lose out on federal funding. Just like I said in a very short, clearly stated sentence.Quote:
Originally Posted by You
'Abstinence Only' Policy Puts Teens at RiskQuote:
Yet, instead of promoting comprehensive sex education, the federal government aggressively funds "abstinence-only until marriage" programs that fail teenagers by withholding information they need to make healthy, mature decisions about sex.
To receive federal funding, abstinence-only programs must have the "exclusive purpose" of teaching the benefits of abstinence. They may not advocate contraceptive use or teach contraceptive methods except to emphasize their failure rates.
Thus, recipients of federal abstinence-only-until-marriage funds operate under a gag rule that censors vitally needed information. Grantees are forced to omit any mention of topics such as contraception, abortion and AIDS or to present them in an incomplete and therefore inaccurate fashion.
In fiscal year 2006, the federal government lavished $3.6 million in grants on New Jersey organizations to deliver abstinence-only programs to students and young people. Nationwide, some $87.5 million is spent annually on abstinence- only programs, most of it taxpayers' dollars.
Is this some kind of parody? If you're serious with this, I can't possibly take you seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasracer
Have I ever seen a person on drugs? Let me guess; you helped organize a Scared Straight intervention for your Up With People group.
The scary drug users! So intense! Clearly, throwing them in jail is the best way to go. How could I possibly be expected to cope with scary and intense?
And just how old are you that you think a person on drugs can be "scary and intense"? 18? Most adults would describe a person on drugs as sad or depressing. Scary and intense? It's like you're describing going on safari, where you came frighteningly close to the animals.
This from the guy chastising me for generalizing a specific. Way to preach it, brother. Hypocrisy lives. What the **** does your school have to do with the inarguable fact that there are such things as schools who DO need federal funding? Those schools who need the funds are not allowed to teach about contraception.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasracer
Once you graduate from your pampered, sheltered, upper middle class high school -- I'm guessing that'll be this coming June -- then maybe you'll have an opinion worth listening to. Until then, keep your naivety to yourself.
As for the hostility, here's a friendly tip: When you open with "You are a dick", don't be surprised when rudeness is returned to you.
Oh please. You didn't even understand what I was saying, as evidenced by your later agreement that what I was calling dopey woo-woo beliefs you would also call dopey woo-woo beliefs.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasracer
Then you personalized your misunderstanding of what I said and lashed out in anger, calling me a dick. And I'm the one who started it by being "biased"? Grow a thicker skin. Or just grow up. Either way works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Dee
It's hardly worth replying, since all of Kas's posts are gone, making this thread so disjointed I actually have no idea whether you were really talking to me or responding to something else. If that was directed at me, you either didn't read what I wrote or I didn't write clearly.
In fairness, I think both users posts should all be gone. Just because one didn't resort to name calling, they're still condescending and contain personal attacks.
It was ambiguous:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
When I first read that, I inferred your meaning to be that because the act of "giving up prohibiting" alcohol has led to a situation "more negative than all other drugs combined", giving up prohibiting drugs would cause worse problems so we should stick with the war on drugs.Quote:
The impact of alcohol on human societies is greater and more negative than all other drugs combined, yet we have given up prohibiting it, and are fighting a constant and unwinable battle to limit the damage. The other drugs will be no easier to deal with.
There is another way to read it, so apologies for the misinterpretation.
In his very first reply to me he called me dick -- "You are a dick." -- so I treated him as a hostile opponent from then on.Quote:
Originally Posted by demotivater
Not all of us have the patience of a saint.
My point was that we tried a war on alcohol, and when that failed we tried education, which has also failed. The war on drugs is an expensive failure, but no other solution will actually work, either, so what we need to do is manage for the situation using the most cost effective solution available, which appears to be education and treatment.
Solution to war on drugs: death penalty for possession or use of drugs.
Don't turn hostile in return. If you get insulted, report it instead. If you turn hostile as well, then you'll be part of the problem too, from a moderator's/admin's point of view.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Dee
Looks like NASDAQ is down by 4.34% :D
Ellis, I agree with most of what you've put (not too keen on the tone but I didn't see Kasracer's posts so, <shrug>, who am I to judge) but I do want to pick you up on a couple of points:-
I disagree with this. The evidence from the Netherlands (the most licentious state in Europe) is that an increased tolerance to canabis has led to increased usage of harder drugs and all the problems assosciated with that. We've seen similar results in the UK as a result of downgrading it to a class C (a decision which is now being reversed). The clear implication is that a tougher aproach does have some deterring effect. Whether a limited pool of funding is better spent on deterance or treatment I really don't know as I don't think a truly impartial study has ever been done. What I'd like to see is a policy based some truly objective research rather than some focused research undertaken to support whichever policy the current government feels will be easiest to sell to the public. I suspect the most effective policy will actually be a combination of deterrence and treatment.Quote:
Anything -- and I mean anything -- would be better.
I also disagree with treating drug abuse as a health issue. Drug abuse contains an element of choice. Certainly in the early, pre-addiction stages and, I would argue, in the addicted stages as well. Contracting cancer, for example, contains no such element of choice. Deterrents will have some effect and, while they should not replace treatment, I believe it's sensible to keep as many tools in your arsenal as possible.
Finally, on drug abuser being scary or sad, it depends on the drug user and, to a large extent, the drug in question. A guy whose whose taken canabis is unlikely to be a threat, they're also not particularly sad. A guy on Heroin is generally sadder than they are scary. Coke, on the other hand, does tend to make people arrogant and aggressive. Someone on PCP can be downright terrifying.
Ok alot has gone on since I last looked in this thread.
Good point mendhak.
Ok, more to the topic...
World President Obama?
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11...esident-world/
Is that good news? Why the smiley? :ehh:Quote:
Originally Posted by allankevin
If Obama is supossed to be for change then why is the stock market lacking confidence in him? It has fallen almost 1,000 points this week since he has won the vote?
As if the stock market reacted rationally to ANYTHING. It collapsed before the bailout, and dove again right after it. Unemployment is at a 14 year high, GM stated that they will run out of money by the end of the year, and the banks STILL aren't loosening credit. The market is sinking because the market is ruled by only two emotions: Greed and Fear. Right now, there isn't much greed, but there's a HUGE amount of fear. No election that will change the leadership three months from now, is going to change the facts.
This is a poor argument. One of the biggest strains on the healthcare system right now is morbid obesity. Eating could be argued to be a choice.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
As for cancer not having any element of choice, I smoke cigarettes.
Do you have any cites for your argument that decriminalization has led to higher drug use in those countries? I'm not saying you're wrong -- it certainly sounds plausible -- but I'm also not going to just take your word for it.
Assuming there is a higher incidence of drug use, that's mostly irrelevant. Up until the Bush administration, one of the primary ideals of the American justice system was that it is far better to let 100 criminals go free than to lock up one innocent man. This principle would seem to suggest that a higher incidence of drug use is preferable to having fewer drug users with some behind bars.
Hey Ellis, why don't you provide "cites" for your drivel? You seem to thrive on demanding cites, how about backing up your own liberal rhetoric? Provide a cite or retract your statement that Bush thinks the world is 6000 years old. Pull your head out of your rear end and quit trying to stun everyone with your oh so grown up words. Falling prey to your left wing "woo woo" blogs and coming here to show how enlightened you are is, frankly, laughable. Pomposity and substance are two different things.
All the analysts were watching the market the next day, as you say, there were fears that if McCain won the market would cash and if Obama won that it would have some kind of gain. The market reacts to many influences and presidential elections are just one of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
All the analysts? Every single one? Doggone, and here I follow the financial news every single day and had never heard even one person suggest that the market was going to go one way or the other due to the election. I guess it wasn't "all" the analysts.Quote:
Originally Posted by RobDog888
When I listen to market analysts, I feel greater disgust than I do listening to political rhetoric. When they state that the direction of the market today was due to X (not you Xanith, I'm not blaming you for anything), it's so absurd I tend to make sarcastic comments at the radio, even though there's nobody around to hear me. Nobody could explain what happened for the last few weeks, and finally gave up trying. They should do that more often.
Nobody can tell what is going to happen on any given day in the market. That has never been more true than it is today. There are any number of computer driven buying and selling that is utterly devoid of emotion, yet can drive the market in the first or last hours of the day (perhaps throughout). There are also fund managers doing things for reasons that don't have anything to do with the immediate news. Look at trends rather than single day moves, unless you are doing some kind of day trading.
The general trend has been down, which is a reasonable reaction to the plethora of negative news that is hitting us day after day. The bottom is coming, but why does anybody think that electing a person who will not have any policy impact for three more months will cause some kind of dramatic change. I expected a minor bump from either election (because human traders will hope for something good from the election), but overall I think we'll end up with a DOW in the 7000s, hopefully the upper 7000s. Since we aren't there, then a further decline was reasonable to me.
All analysts <> mean they are all thinking it will go up, only they are all apying attention to it etc.
Well I can see you are passionate about the topic but lets get carried away here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Dee
As to your first cited article, it seems that it all might hinge on a single, extremely politic, statement:
Although I am a republican, and I spent my first 8 years in a catholic school, I am not a supporter of "creationism" as a field of science. However, I certainly think there is room in the sciences for students to be introduced to creationism. Perhaps for five or ten minutes.Quote:
''I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. ''You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."
...
Your second article seems to be a rehash of the first.
...
Your third article, although most distressing, did not point out the following {Found Here }:
If I were to stumble across this book, I would certainly put little merit in something that might be sitting right next to "navel gazing for dummies".Quote:
in 2004, the Grand Canyon National Park bookstore moved the book from the natural science section to the inspirational section as requested by the scientific organizations
Don't be so harsh, I know some navels that are well worth the gazing, whether by dummies...or anyone else.
pfft who cares, we all know the LaLiLuLeLo run the US and is it true that vault tech have floated on the stock market?
Sorry, I should have said provide some credible cites. Fail.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Dee
I'd be interested in seeing a poll as to whether or not anybody actually understood any part of this. I understand most of the words, and it appears to be grammaticly correct. I can also see that there are two parts joined with an AND, yet I can't make sense out of either part.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeanMc
I knew that response was coming, I just didn't know the actual words that would be used. Therefore, as I raked up the bazillion leaves that one tree dumped onto my lawn (it must have had a good year, as there was a layer over six inches thick in some places), I pondered whether or not it would be possible to have a discussion of any political point based on some kind of common truth. My conclusion was that it wasn't possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by demotivater
In science, the only truly valid citations are peer reviewed papers. Even books are considered gray literature. Peer reviewed papers are generally considered to include discreet studies coupled with sufficient methodology information that the study could be independently reproduced. Many studies ARE independently reproduced.
The debates in this forum rarely stray into anything other than fairly recent history (with occasional forays into moden, yet not recent, history). History cannot be reproduced. Worse, every observer filters history to fit into their own particular narrative. No two people can construct events of only a few minutes past in identical fashions. Further, with the avalanche of information available at our fingertips, consuming ALL of the information available on ANY subject is beyond the abilities of any one person. Even if it were possible, the person consuming the information would filter the information based on their own biases and preconceptions. After all, the brain is only good at one task: The recognition of patterns. As a result of this, if we have a pattern that we expect to be true, the brain will amplify signal that matches the pattern, and supress signal that contradicts the pattern. We like to believe that what we perceive is actually truth, but it is nothing more than a version of truth distorted by our filters.
In this case, filtering can happen at the highest level. We can consciously decide that those sources of information that do not conform to our expectations of the world around us are simply false, while those that DO conform to our expectations, even if they do so by saying nothing at all about a subject, are valid. The absence of signal on any given subject in conforming sources is seen as proof of the fallacy of said signal in other sources. This is an utterly absurd, but self-serving, indeed self-supporting, convention.
So how are we able to deal with this? How can we live in a world where half of a population believes one set of truths are valid, while the other half believes that a different set of truths are valid. As far as I can tell, the reason this is functional is that the truths don't really impact the immediate well-being of either side. People are worried that taxes will go up, or that Palin will become president and remove all our personal freedoms, or whatever doom you so choose. None of those actually matter, though, because your cable company is going to raise your rates tomorrow and drive you into bankruptcy, or a bread truck is going to run over your car, while you're driving it, causing you to incurr huge medical bills, or perhaps your weiner dog will choke on a weiner, knock over his water bowl, and simultaneously stick his nose in the socket, causing a fire that burns down your house. The everyday disasters (and successes) that really steer our lives totally dwarf the everyday impact of most political decisions.
We simply can't prove that Trickle Down economics works. We can't prove that a different foreign policy would have prevented 9/11. We can't even prove that there is bias in the press (I recently read an article discussing the attempts at answering this empirically, how and why they have all failed so far, and what attempts are being tried at this time), though various groups have always claimed that the press favored the other side (that particular phenomenon, that pretty nearly every group sees the press as being opposed to them, HAS been studied, and even has a name, though I have forgotten what it is).
With the inability to prove these things, we are free to make up our own opinions, safe in the assurance that we can never be proven wrong. With the inability of these issues to have direct and immediate impact on us, any opinion we form on these subjects will not impact us substantially whether right or wrong, which differentiates these mental models from things like being able to predict the trajectory of a projectile headed in our direction. So there is no penalty for being wrong, nor any substantial reward for being right, and therefore we can argue back and forth over these things incessantly.
Worse, since there is no substantial cost or benefit, the perceived benefit of being RIGHT!!!! is sufficient justification to discount data that doesn't fit the model. When it comes to driving a car, discounting data that doesn't fit the model would be downright tragic. When it comes to politics, discounting data means not needing to admit that you're wrong on ANYTHING. You aren't wrong, the data is.
So what should we do? Figure out what the basis of our opinions are, and explain that basis. If people feel that your basis is correct, they will agree with your opinions. If people feel that your basis is base-less, then they will not agree with you. Nothing more can be achieved than that. However, the basis of your opinion is not so much external facts as it is personal views and experiences. After all, if you are discarding data that doesn't fit your model, external facts are pure garbage, because only the facts that fit the model are included, which is inherently biased. Therefore, the question has to be: What is your model, and how did you come by it? In many cases, people don't even want to know the answer to that. If you were opposed to Obama simply because of his race, would you admit it, or would you find something else you didn't like, and put forward that item? Nobody is the bad guy in their own narrative. So even understanding our own model is a huge hurdle. Forming a model that you can articulate to the world, is higher still.
Thus, I concluded that this debate can never be resolved, nor will any debate on politics. We can't find a common base of truth, and nobody really wants to address their own personal models.
By the way, there is a solution to the previous dissertation which I think is possibly viable, but it would take considerable effort: Accept ALL data as fact until it can be conclusively dismissed. This would necessarily leave most questions unanswered.
More people than you would think shaggy. LaLiLuLeLo
I knew that somebody would understand you, but that person certainly wasn't me, so I decided to say it with hyperbole.
Actually I you had a pretty witty statement there and you know know who the LALILULELO are.