Matthews: Wouldn't it Be Scary to Have President That Doesn't Believe in Evolution or Climate Change?
Unemployment is at 9.1 percent, housing and stock prices are plummeting, national debt is exploding, and Medicare is going bankrupt.
Yet MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews' greatest fear is a president that doesn't believe in evolution or climate change (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Aren't you worried, though, that in a world where we have to compete with science, in science and technology with Chinese and Indian young geniuses, and some of them move here, and some that are still over in their countries around the world, we're competing in a world of science and technology to be a country that might be led by someone who doesn't believe in evolution? Who doesn't believe in climate change? Who doesn't believe in the scientific community of his own country, the National Academy of Science, for example, on climate change? Wouldn't that be kind of scary to have somebody who is so anti-intellectual as president?
If I could answer that question for Matthews' guest RNC chair Reince Priebus, the current White House resident believes in both of these theories, and the country is going to hell in a handbasket.
So how's that working for us?
It sure appears belief in these theories doesn't qualify one for the highest office in the land. As such, disbelief in them shouldn't be a disqualifier.
As it pertains to evolution, since the theory was first advanced in 1859, it's safe to say that some of this nation's greatest presidents didn't believe in it including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and likely Abraham Lincoln.
As for climate change, as this has only been advanced in the past 20 years or so, everyone prior to Bill Clinton likely didn't believe in it.
Are they all disqualified, too?
Taking this a step further, given jobs and the economy are now considered to be the number one priority facing the nation, shouldn't a better litmus test of beliefs be whether or not a candidate subscribes to Keynesian economics?
Since the '30s totally disproved this theory as have the past two and a half years, shouldn't anyone believing the government can spend our nation out of a recession be totally disqualified to be president?
That seems far more important at this point in history than one's position on evolution or climate change.
- Noel Sheppard's blog
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Comments
As opposed to . . .
Submitted by Lakewood Ed on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 7:42pm.
Wouldn't it be scary to have a President that doesn't believe in economics or constitutional law?
Never
Submitted by LionKing on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 8:28pm.
That could never happen.
Earth to Mathews, those young
Submitted by Reaver on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 7:43pm.
Earth to Mathews, those young geniuses in China and India don’t believe in your precious climate change either. They’re doing everything in their power to increase their carbon emissions. Seems their more worried about a little problem called poverty.
Priebus
Submitted by grammajane on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 7:45pm.
What did Priebus say for an answer? To me, what is scary is Comacast allowing Tingles to collect a pay-check
Funny, I've never heard Obama
Submitted by mang on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:01pm.
Funny, I've never heard Obama say he believes in evolution. I guess the liberal talking heads will just assume he's in their corner since he has a Harvard education.
With some changes
Submitted by Tjexcite on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:31pm.
That his Reverend of 20 years told him. Something on the line that the black man is more evolved than the white man. "I am still in the bible." but not Genesis bit.
Who doesn't believe in climate change?
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:03pm.
The climate changes all the time.
It's just not changing because of us.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Of course there is climate change.
Submitted by djwolf12 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:27pm.
It is called the changing of the seasons. Global Warming happens in the summertime. Yet dipsh*ts like the ones on MSLSD LOVE to pick the coldest days in THE WINTERTIME to b*tch about Global Warming. I swear, I would love for some rogue disgruntled at NBC to really spike everything in the Green Room (actually, at NBC it should be the RED room) with large amounts of LSD and see what actually happens.
wo-wo-wo dj!!! Hold on a
Submitted by killa37 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:47pm.
wo-wo-wo dj!!! Hold on a minute!!! I've taken 'large amounts of LSD'.............and look at me...............I'm about as straight and normal as they come!!!
ok I will elaborate.....
Submitted by djwolf12 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:04pm.
they should do it on live tv. Maybe then they might get a ratings spike from 10 people to 11 people.
We did.
Submitted by djwolf12 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:23pm.
His name was Ronald Wilson Reagan. PAP Matthews (full of smears) better lay off the sauce. His epic fail at revisionist history is not scoring any points with us ordinary John Q. Citizens.
I will post yet again, the
Submitted by Tomorama on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:29pm.
I will post yet again, the same geniuses said just as far back in those wacky 1970's that the earth was cooling and killer bees were going to be the end of us all.....
As for evolution and creationism, Texas teaches BOTH and the problem is what fat boy?
I may believe in evolution, but do I then have the right to not allow for someone to think something else?
HELL NO, not in MY Country.
At last check, I don't think there is proof that either side is 100 percent right, maybe we can ask Wilfred Brimley.
Can we all just eat our peas?
Submitted by Galvanic on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:40pm.
I think we're too wee-wee'ed up to feel the thrill up our legs -- when it comes -- someday.
Pathetic
Submitted by Moosebuster on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:52pm.
This poor guy is a pitiful, pathetic NUT, and should be an embarrassment to the network, if they had any standards at all. The posterchild for lefty, MSM lunacy.
I'm more afraid of the unicorns ...
Submitted by HelloDare on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 8:53pm.
in Obama's liberal land of make believe where the government takes care of everything, income is redistributed, personal responsibility means diddly-squat, and Iran never get nukes.
No answer
Submitted by creekrat on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 9:12pm.
Lately, when responding to a warming believers, I ask and insist on an answer to one question.....if g w is for real, why did Gore just purchase a very expensive home where he swears will soon be under water....................NO ANSWER !!!
I would amend that like so:
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:53am.
If Gore, the biggest popularizer of global warming, is sufficiently knowledgeable and believable on the subject of global warming....
That way it puts it all on Gore's understanding of global warming and his trustworthiness. Because Gore is not sufficiently authoritative on AGW to dismiss the whole body of theory on his actions. But he is a big enough spokesman that the movement could take some damage if he is found to be not believable on AGW.
However, that isolation points up something pertinent to what Matthews is saying here. Gore is a politician who "believes" in AGW, but his ability to transfer that into a proper pragmatic action is suspect, if he can buy a home that he might expect to be underwater.
Where The Buses Don't Run, As Brit Would Say
Submitted by rammingspeed on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 9:17pm.
Hard to believe that Chris Matthews guest hosted on Rush Limbaugh's radio show. I remember listening to him. He was coherent, reasonable, and many people actually mistook him for being right wing. What the HELL happened? This isn't just a guy settling into his deeper thoughts on politics, and moving more to one side. This is an example of a deeply disturbed human being. If he's just saying this crap to keep a job at a patently left wing TV station, he's WORSE than crazy. This is truly pathetic.
I'd Be Scared If Matthews Became President
Submitted by Blue Collar Todd on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 9:23pm.
Fear a President Matthews, or someone that gives him a thrill up his leg...
http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2011/08/wouldnt-it-be-scary-if-someo...
No
Submitted by John21 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 9:35pm.
No actually it would be refreshing to have someone with common sense, and more than 2 working brain cells. It would be nice to have a leader that would demand proof before wasting a couple billion dollars.
Poor Chris
Submitted by cayenne523 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 9:56pm.
Yes Chris it would be scary. For a liberal. Now Chris whistle your favorite song. "If I only had a brain."
Mr. Sheppard
Submitted by hayate1 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:29pm.
Commenting on one of your statements that you present as a fact, I would like to say that it is not. The efficacy of Keynesian economics in the form of government stimulus spending as a economic pump-priming measure has certainly not been proven ineffectual. It has been closely correlated, and almost certainly causal, in boosting economic growth and job creation. How can you state with any level of sincerity that it failed in the 30s? It clearly saved this country. The 30s and 40s economic problems were greatly exacerbated by the very activities you now advocate--budget cutting and tax reduction. I don't even need to show you the reams of data available proving these points bc common sense should suffice.
The mass market economy of the U.S. is driven by the interaction between supply and demand. When demand is low or declining as it is now, the market reacts by lowering supply. This in turn causes contraction in investment and job creation. When demand increases then businesses ramp up supply by making the necessary investments in capital and labor to meet the demand. Without demand, businesses simply do not invest. It is not a matter of tax rates or government debt or health care or available cash, as any business person will tell you. It is all about demand.
Demand is created by consumers buying goods and services with money. Doesn't matter how they get the money, if they spend it, demand happens. If they dont have it or spend it, demand declines. When it is happening there is a virtuous upward spiral of economic activity that feeds off of the same. When it declines, there is an equal and opposite spiral downward. The downward spiral can be stopped by a large, temporary injection of demand creating stimulus from the government, which is then paid off when the spiral turns upward. This ebb and flow of government borrowing has been the norm since the thirties.
The question I have for you is how do you perceive demand will be created by cutting government spending now? That is, cutting jobs, entitlement payments and programs affecting the mass market instead of adding jobs etc. Companies have record amounts of cash, most pay little or now federal taxes and many get government subsidies so why aren't they hiring?
Demand is weak. Don't support actions that make it weaker.
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
B.S.
Submitted by Blonde on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:35pm.
Fact is, Keynsian economics is smoking mirrors.
Toodles.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Clearly save the country?
Submitted by Radical1979 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:37pm.
No, WWII pulled this country out of the depression, NOT spending money we don't have.
Companies are not hiring because of the increasing uncertainty. The government is increasing regulations at an unprecedented pace, and you're advocating increasing taxes. For these reasons business's are conserving cash.
What was it about WWII
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:08am.
That pulled us out of the depression? Hint: it was something to do with government spending money. Another hint: It also has something to do with spending money they didn't have.
Uncertainty about what? Business is based on managing risk. There is always uncertainty about the future bc , well it is the future. That uncertainty argument is one made up by Fox or one of those libertarian funded 'think' tanks. It is not an argument business leaders make when asked why they are not hiring. They almost exclusively say the same thing; demand is weak. Business people are driven by shareholders to maximize profit and will per sure any opportunity possible to do so. They see demand for their widget, they will make more widgets. They absolutely, unequivocally will not stop making widgets bc taxes are high or regulations prevent them from doing bad things. If those things interfere with profits too much they will raise prices and cut other controllable costs.
No, the uncertainty argument is really about executive compensation which is driven by quarterly results and stock prices. That is the uncertainty they want to eliminate. In so doing they will avoid risk, cut costs, fire people, move overseas, avoid taxes etc all so that they can control the risk that they might not show qtr on qtr growth in profit. Profit which increases their compensation.
If Obama and his regulations and policies are so onerous then why are companies experiencing all time record profits?
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
Case closed
Submitted by MrLuigi on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 8:46am.
Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
FDR
Submitted by milootoole on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:25am.
Hoover promised "a chicken in every pot". Along came Black Tuesday, the market collapse--and no more chickens.
Along came FDR-- still no more chicken , but he took the pots back.
Yes, I absolutely believe that FDR's administration kept the recession around for years longer than need be. Yet, many good projects were completed by his socialist approach to employment, the WPA.
Outer Bridge Drive, Illinois
LaGuardia Airport, New York
Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York
Dealey Plaza, Texas
-- to name a few.
A few years back my BFF posted on , I believe, this site about how working families loved FDR. His family received flour, dried milk, and pasta from FDR welfare. They did not see the Keynesian system failures. They only saw food on the table.
Well, my family lived three doors up and we were in the same fix. My Dad had moved us to the city in search of work. It dried up and we got the same packages of flour, etc. as did my friend.
At the time, it was perceived to be FDR's generosity that let us eat.
Everything looks different when its your finger caught in the car door.
What does that remind me of?.....Hmmm
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 8:24pm.
At the time, it was perceived to be FDR's generosity that let us eat.
AH, Yes it reminds me of THIS.
We Are The 53%
hayate
Submitted by Radical1979 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 8:45pm.
Wow, drinking the kool aide I see. Yes, business is based on managing risk. The risk now is of increased taxes (which Obama is threatening constantly), the fallout of Obamacare and the nervousness about increased costs (don't even try to tell me it will decrease costs when so many companies are being given wavers because of the costs), and the new regulations constantly being applied that increase costs enormously. To manage these risks companies conserve capital so it's available when it's needed.
No one said business's aren't making things, I said they are conserving capital when possible. Business' can't simply raise prices without losing revenue, it's a careful balance. Basic economics.
Companies are experiencing all time record profits? What about Borders Books? Regarding regulations, take a look at this, http://www.protoolreviews.com/news/industry/epa-lead-paint-rules. Another reason business's have to conserve capital for increased regulation.
Hi Rad!
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 9:04pm.
But, but, but we don't have enough Federal Agencies!
My favorite argument from lefties. Those evil corporations are Hoarding money!! Oh the Gall!
We Are The 53%
Toney
Submitted by Radical1979 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 9:35pm.
Just wait till the liberals get the money away from the corporations, then they'll come after the evil people who heard their money! Oh wait, that's already being considered...http://www.infowars.com/government-to-confiscate-401ks-and-iras-for-mandatory-savings-tax/
Selective history befits your kind
Submitted by NL207 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 11:49am.
of ignorance.
WWII was simply a high fever that masked the underlying depression. Proof : the country sank back into recession as soon as the war came to an end. The recession of '45-'46 was a particualry nasty one which saw a drop of 11% in GDP in just 8 months.
The economy did not get far, sliding back into recession again in November 1948.
There were recessions in 1953, 1957 and 1960. This pattern of persistent recurring recession did not break until the income taxes were finally cut from their astronomical WWII rates by JFK. We saw a decade of uninterrupted growth after that. Oddly, this is very much like the results of Ronald Reagan's tax cuts, isn't it? I am sure you think this is purely coincidental.
This is the history, pal : 30 years of lacluster economic performance, war and misery. This is what the great Keynsian economic experiment of the 1930's delivered, and you want to repeat this. Isn't this the very definition of insane?
Regulations
Submitted by dennyf51 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:43am.
Amen, Rad, why is the truth you speak impossible for a liberal/progressive to understand. Regulations, oil permitting and drilling embargo, Obamacare and the uncertainty it creates for medium to large company hiring. Simple math, but hard for some to absorb.
I got as far as "tax reduction"
Submitted by bkeyser on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:44pm.
and had to stop. Tax reduction?
Yeah, I was dubious
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:23am.
about that as well. Especially since one of the Keynesian policies is tax reduction in times of recession. Seems like this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
Another asinine remark
Submitted by bkeyser on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:56pm.
It doesn't matter how they get the money? Yeah, it does. If they get the money from someone else who's earned it, they're taking production from the economy and not adding anything to it. You seem to think the economy is a finite system; that there's X amount of dollars, no more, no less. In fact, the economy grows and shrinks; it grows when people are productive and adding to it, it shrinks when people are not productive and not adding to it. In your world, people don't add to the the economy, they don't produce anything, they simply take money from those that do. Reagan would have reduced the burden on those that are still producing and created an environment for them to take risks and expand the economy, offering an opportunity for those currently unproductive to be productive and continue the expansion of the economy.
Keynesian economics merely drags out the status quo; those productive are able to remain productive but without the rewards for being so. Those rewards are distributed to those who remain unproductive. The economy stalls. It doesn't expand. Hence the length of the great depression and the anemic pace of this supposed recovery. Keynesian economics spends other people's money; it neither creates wealth nor opportunity. That is why unemployment remains stagnate. And that is why only the mass employment created by a World War was able to pull the US out of the FDR debacle.
Yes
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:50am.
You are correct, WWII did help pull us out by virtue of the government borrowing and spending tons of money . That borrow/spend created demand which in turn created investment and so on. Get it?
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
I'd like to know what you do,
Submitted by killa37 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:02pm.
I'd like to know what you do, hayate, because you sure as hell don't know a damn thing about private enterprise, or being self-employed, or having to go through all of the non-productive hoops and snarls and expenses that being in business for yourself entails. Reading your essays is like reading some college freshman writing a thesis out of some jaded, slanted socialist 'economic' textbook.....................lots of big words and smooth phrases, but totally unworkable and unrealistic out here in the 'real' world of the 'private sector'.
And if you don't think that taxes coming from all sides, government rules and regulations, state rules and regulations, insurance demands and complilances, anti-business legislation aimed at the private sector, OSHA, EPA, and a whole dirty laundry list of non-productive and non-sensical other criteria that we must deal with out here - have nothing to do with the way business invest or grow or expand, then you are more delusional, or brainwashed, than I've allready given you credit for. And to say that any of what I just mentioned has no effect on 'demand' is ludicrous............just like the rest of your little college thess.
Ok
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:34am.
Too much regulatory oversight is bad for businesses. I don't think that the last 10 years are ones characterized by an overweening regulatory burden. Just the opposite is actually the case. But lets not lose sight of what those regulations are for. they are there to protect the environment, people, the financial system and provide redress for damages done when they are violated. Regulations gave us safety glass, unleaded gas, lead free toys, sanitized facilities for food processing, cleaner waterways, emission controls, safe electrical products, elimination of dangerous substances in products, financial controls on banks and financial markets, food labeling and on and on. We are currently in this mess wee are in exactly because regulations were relaxed or not enforced on the financial sector.
I agree that some regs are bad, but some are good. The notion that it is an all or nothing battle here is a false dialectic. One of the big problems these days is that the regulatory agencies as well as the regulation writers are overseen and controlled by the industries they are there to regulate. that ensures that we will have more and more problems bc, given their druthers, businesses choose to operate without any regulation. Problem is when they do, they often go to extremes in one way or another and we have financial meltdowns or big oil spills or toxic swaths of land or employee injuries due to lack of safety measures etc.
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
Have you ever been 'visited'
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:51am.
Have you ever been 'visited' by OSHA??? Are you aware of the ever-intrusive reach of the current EPA??? Have you ever been forced to own about 5-6 various insurance policies in order to be in business.............NONE of which you would EVER want to use, since that would be the one and only time you could ever do it!!! And you think that a majority of these 'rules and regulations' actually make any sense??? Or do they just give more jobs and more power to the nanny state, which wants to micro-manage our lives. Do you actually think that the government makes things smoother, easier, or more productive for ANY business to survive???
What do you do?? Do you work for the government?? I can't imagine that you know anything about being in the private sector. Have you ever made payroll?? Have you ever had to pay all of the vendors, material houses, insurances, payroll burden, sub -contractors, state and government compliances, and bla bla bla bla - I could keep going with this crap, because I've DONE THEM ALL!!! And then..........after doing all of that...........have you ever made an EVIL 'profit'!!!
You're dealing with academic theory...................I've been dealing with the real deal.
I feel ya man.
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:01am.
Some of that stuff is overkill I know. When I ran a small business that had money I just hired someone to take care of most of that stuff. I also owned small companies and sometimes just ignored it and was lucky to go unnoticed.
What kind of business are you in?
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
'When you ran a small
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:30am.
'When you ran a small business that HAD money'??? I"m guessing that wasn't during the Barama REGIME, huh??? And you owned small companies and ignored a lot of this stuff, and managed to get away unnoticed??? But at the same time, right here on this thread, you're telling all of us that these things are good???
Man...........you're kind of schizophrenic............don't try and play both sides here with me. I KNOW what side I'm on...........
Nice catch Brah!
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:24am.
Dat one okole sniffa say dat duh regs iz good fo da peeps, an den he go say dat when he wuz one biznis ownah he go ignore da rulz. But you know he one lia anyway.
We Are The 53%
U no dat,
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:33am.
U no dat, bruddah.................I no how fo' re-ka-notice boolshet when I been hear'um...............and tha' buggah stay throwing da shibai all ovah da place!!! But.............you know..............whatevahs...............
Imua.....................Killa
killa---
Submitted by matthewdean on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:53pm.
what hayate meant by "I feel Ya, man", is that he felt you kicking his ass in the prior threads.
MD
OSHA
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:29am.
Have you ever been 'visited' by OSHA???
While I've never been a business owner "visited" by OSHA, I have been a worker whose life was potentially saved by the combined efforts of OSHA and a labor union. The effect on profits and business is one side of the regulation story, but it's not the whole story.
OSHA has, ---
Submitted by matthewdean on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:52pm.
in my opinion, been more trouble than it is worth.
Just another power group run by incompetents.
Typical government lunkheads.
MD
Mamabear...........when we
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:50pm.
Mamabear...........when we are working, safety is ALWAYS paramount - I don't need any OSHA edicts or fatwahs to tell me that. And if you've ever seen their guidelines, or gone to any of their meetings (which I have).........if you had one ounce of common sense, you'd be totally mystified by the layers and layers of idiotic and usless and time-consuming and money-wasting rules and regulations that they want to put businesses through - it's astonishing in it's stupidity!!!
And, mark my word - OSHA can put you out of business if they want to - I don't care how 'compliant' you are.
Personally, I've only had one encounter with OSHA in my career as an employer, and it wasn't major.........but I can tell you that it was totally unpleasant and excruciating to have to deal with the OSHA representative. But I know a lot of other people in the business, and I know what OSHA can do, if they want to. And, as usual, they 'work for us' (i.e. they are government employees, and are being paid by us), but they certainly don't operate that way..............and, believe me, I had to bite a hole in my tongue and my cheek to keep from saying that to the smarmy and condascending prick that I was talking to - because if I HAD said something, I KNOW that the guy would've tore my jobsite apart!!
Another point on this subject - since we are required to carry all sorts of insurance policies - including the very costly workman's comp - we have to answer to the insurance companies whenever there is some kind of an accident or safety issues. And the insurance companies have their own criteria that they want us to enforce.
I've never wanted to see anyone get hurt through an accident - that's why they are called accidents. And, since I started from the bottom of the food chain, I have been through just about every process involved in my trade, so I'm familiar with what goes on , every step of the way. And guess what - construction IS dangerous!!! We all know that.
Maybe OSHA should just expand into a massive army of inspectors, since there are so many dangerous things that go on every day in America............why limit them to businesses??? I say send them out to the malls, the beaches, the ballparks, the highways and biways............EVERYWHERE............and let them start writing up tickets and collecting fines. They do have a fee schedule for any kind of breach of compiance.............so, under the purported guise of being a safety organization, they are also another method of collecting money for the government............and I'm sure that these guys get paid on the 5th and 20th of every month, automatic, along with their benifits and paid days off and holidays and whatever the hell else they get.............NONE of which I could ever do.
Full compliance to OSHA
Submitted by bkeyser on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:07pm.
by the construction industry would render nearly all construction projects unaffordable- especially residential projects. New home costs would more than double. Renovation projects would be practically impossible as home owners would have to vacate for just about anything outside of changing a light bulb.
OSHA is a hazard.
BK....I was giving a little
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:32pm.
BK....I was giving a little more thought to Mamabear's statement about OSHA and the Union's possibly saving a guy's life - for which I am glad, if it's true. But you think about OSHA - which is paid by us to regulate us and to possibly fine us and put us out of business...........and then you think about the unions - who skim from the employers AND the employees in order to 'stay in business'............and the whole scenario is cynical and non-productive.
And, like you say.........it's a competitive business (especailly in these days of Obamaville and Barackistan), with minimal margins all the way around..........and these guys can ruin you very easily, and not even care that they did.
Oh, BK..........don't go changing those little curlie-Q lightbulbs yourself!!! You know what will happen if you break one!!! Call HAZMAT!!! Call OSHA!!! Call the unions - since they were made in China!! Call Barry!!!
Jeeeeeez..........I'm getting agitated allready, and it's still morningtime over here. I'd better go do something relaxing, like do my laundry or wash my dishes!!!
If everyone was like you
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:03pm.
and cared about the safety of their workers, then we wouldn't need to put up with the inanity of OSHA. And if everyone thought it was important to treat workers fairly, we would not ever have needed labor unions in this country.
But not every place of business is like that. I don't mind doing a dangerous job, although I'm very glad I don't anymore, but I want to know that if the worst happens I'll be treated right. I can personally attest that not all businesses treat their workers fairly, and not all workers can afford to pick and choose which jobs they take.
As far as I am concerned, headaches for business owners, lower profits, stupidity, redundancy, even corruption-- those are all evils that pale in comparison to the potential cost workers pay in an unsafe environment.
I don't disagree with your
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:22pm.
I don't disagree with your statement about safety and 'fairness' (with a 'fair' definition of the word), MB..........but you kind of nailed the crux of my own opinion when you mentioned the 'headaches, lower profits, stupidity, reduncancy, corruption' and other 'evils' that have come about because of this overgrowth and overreach of the government. My point is - why does it have to be this way??? Do WE have any say-so?? Does anybody ever ask US what we think?? Are these rules and regulations being written by people who actually KNOW our end of the equation??? Do these people have to justify their paychecks???
And, I'm no fan of dealing with insurance companies either, because if I had HALF the money that I've paid these leeches in my career, I'd be retired right now..........but all I have to show for it is a multi-figured file of cashed checks. And they have their own rules and regulations that we've had to follow - apart from OSHA or any other government set-up. And I'll tell you, I've had a false workman's comp claim filed against me - and the insurance company told me straight to my face that it was easier for them to pay it than to prove that it was fraud..........and then they sent me a $12,000 premium bill in order to stay insured!!!
As for the unions.............they aren't even close to what they were and why they started - you know that. My older son is in a union.....I've seen his checks...they do allright, making a living off of both sides. And I'm sure that the private sector employer wouldn't mind operating his business without having to deal with the unions...........and I'm sure that the employees would be making the same wages, and the customers would be getting better prices..........because there's a whole percentage of money that disappears into the union coffers.
Actually, I know one of his co-workers, who is very conservative and votes on the evil Republican side of elections - and he is a member's rep on the union board. He's a very smart guy, and also stands up for what he believes in. And this guy just rips the union guys a new one - in their public meetings - and there's not much that they can say back to him, either. Plus, he's tough enough to back it up, which only makes it more interesting - since these guys are all stevedors - which is what we call longshoremen over here.
I'm a big fan of that diminishing concept called 'common sense'..................and I'm NOT seeing it with regards to this topic that we are discussing.
I agree
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:30am.
It doesn't have to be like that. But I don't think that railing against the system in its entirety is the way to fix that. You sound like you want those regulations and government agencies to go away, not clean up their act. I think life would be worse for most people if they weren't there, so the solution is to work with the system to try and improve it.
Government is, at best, inefficient. There are things it can do that almost no one else can, because of scale, and there are things it does because no one else will. Until people find a solution to those things, and I can't see one that doesn't change the fundamental nature of human beings, we have to decide to put up with government or... well, I guess Somalia is a nice example of the alternative!
Somalia??? Jeez, mamabear -
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 3:53pm.
Somalia??? Jeez, mamabear - how did we get there??? Well, I guess Obama could take us there, if he has more time to do what he's trying to do..........
Actually, I want those regulations and government agencies to get a helluva lot SMALLER, and make a helluva lot MORE SENSE, and do their jobs as an interaction WITH the various industries and business', as opposed to AGAINST them.
Plus - like so many other things - I don't see where it's the Federal Government's damn business to tell everybody how to run their business, on ANY account. The Government is NO example of how to run anything - except waste, inefficiency (as you've admitted), loss of time and money, and finacial and power-grabbing incest. A lot of these various subjects should be addressed by the states, and they can implement their own standards, depending on the way things are going in their regions. And the Feds can have jurisdiction over their own projects.
And, as some of us here have allready pointed out, we have to deal with the insurance companies and all of their BS, as well as all of the different types of insurance policies that we are required to carry, as well as state and county guidelines. And, as was stated before - we can look around and find danger in EVERYTHING - so why not just have an army (where is Obama's homeland civilian corPs???) of official OSHA inspectors lurking around any and every public place, looking for non-compiance, and writing up fines???
I'll tell you something - workers on my jobsite are a lot safer than they were when they were DRIVING to the damn jobsite!!!
So, if government shouldn't tell anyone how to run their busines
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 2:45pm.
you wouldn't mind a company piping industrial runoff into your community's reservoir?
Somalia is what you get when you have no government. My point was simply that unless you want no government, like Somalia, you have to find ways to improve government functioning, not simply insist that it has no role to play.
mamabear
Submitted by Radical1979 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:34pm.
Killa said regulations should make more sense and be smaller, I assume he means not written in "legalese". That does not equate with Somalia.
I assume when killa says the government shouldn't tell business' how to run themselves, I would say he's referring to things like the government telling Boeing they can't build a factory where, in the 50 (or is it 57?) states of this country.
Killa I apologize if I misrepresented you, but since you are in a business similar to ours I think I get your complaints.
mamabear
Submitted by bkeyser on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:59pm.
You're confusing someone noting over-burdening government regulations with anarchism. Government certainly has a role to play and there is nothing wrong with common sense regulations. It's when the government bureaucracy machine begins in a reflexive act based upon minor or infrequent incidents and places undue regulations or restrictions on businesses. The reality is that OSHA is lobbied just as every other government regulation -mostly by the hated insurance industry.
I mentioned at one point in the OSHA discussion that they often put regulations in place that provide a false sense of security. You then accused me of not training my workers properly -but I digress. Here's an analogy:
The NFL has been placing a great deal of emphasis in recent years on the number of head injuries, especially concussions. But why do so many football players suffer concussions? Because they use their heads as weapons. They use their heads as weapons because they feel a false sense of security by wearing the helmet. The NFL is addressing this phenomenon by altering the rules -essentially, further regulating the game. For some, this is downgrading the level of play and could ultimately cost fans; some might equate that to "revenue", or say that it's becoming more costly to operate an NFL franchise. The quickest and least expensive way to cut down on the number of head injuries in football is to remove the helmet all-together. Players would no longer use their heads as weapons, and would learn to play the game safely in order to preserve themselves and their careers.
Now, this doesn't equate exactly to OSHA and the way they regulate, but it's close.
Smaller government is one thing...
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:39pm.
"Plus - like so many other things - I don't see where it's the Federal Government's damn business to tell everybody how to run their business, on ANY account."
That's what Killa said. On ANY account. If he didn't mean it, fine, he can tell me that!
I was speaking for me
Submitted by bkeyser on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 11:45am.
I don't speak for anyone else. And calm down there; you're sounding a little frustrated. We can have a civil discussion, can't we?
Sorry about that
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 6:39pm.
It's always hard to tell where to pitch your argument when multiple people chime in on a conversation, each saying something slightly different. It can be hard to switch gears when one person drops out and another takes over. And yes, I was getting a little frustrated last night, I apologize. We can totally have a civil conversation.
No problem mamabear
Submitted by bkeyser on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 6:46pm.
I jumped in at that point since it seemed that was the most current level of the conversation. I agree, it's often hard to follow and easy to miss comments on a thread that takes this tact.
That being said- did you understand what I was trying to say regarding the NFL and the helmet rules? You never directly commented. Just wondering.
No one in this country
Submitted by bkeyser on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 9:26pm.
is forced to work a job -any job- dangerous or not. And it doesn't behoove employers to put their employees at risk any more than necessary.
On top of that, many of the regulations OSHA puts in place, particularly in the construction industry (of which I've been a part for more than two decades) are not only production prohibitive, but put people in greater danger by asking them to do things that are unnatural. These regulations generate a false sense of security for workers and often times cause workplace accidents due to that very phenomenon.
What OSHA does is place an undue burden on small business- its rules generated by lobbyists for large firms. These rules, once enacted, make it impossible for a small business to compete; the costs of compliance are simply too high. OSHA is run by an old-boys network and is a direct result of crony capitalism.
That's easy to say when you're not an employer. So next time you see a commercial construction company closing down or only employing immigrant labor- remember that OSHA and unions are likely a significant reason.
By the way, we don't need unions any longer either; they're an impediment to production and are the main reason we've been shedding jobs overseas for decades. Some ideas just wear out over time. Unions and OSHA are two.
Seriously?
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:39am.
You expect me to look at a business closing on one hand, and my coworker with one less arm than the rest of us and think that the business is the greatest tragedy? That's... kind of abhorrent.
People do have to work dangerous jobs, and the rest of us have dangerous jobs that need doing. Sit down and watch Dirty Jobs sometime-- it's a fabulous show with a no-nonsense attitude towards work and business that, unlike you, also manages to value the people doing those jobs and ask the rest of us to respect them.
Also, if OSHA regulations are generating a false sense of security, then you aren't training your workers well enough.
Workplace amputations?
Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 12:37pm.
That's your argument for OSHA? Because these happen every day right? Big problem in the ... hmmmm ... what industry would that be now? Elementary school teaching? Straw man. This is the problem with the liberal mindset- you people still think we're living in the 1930's. There was a time and a place, but that time and place is long since expired.
And yes, people do have dangerous jobs; I never said anything to the contrary. But no one is forced to chose that job. Some do it because it is all that is available to them at the time, or all they're qualified for, but there are no labor camps in this country. Some do it for the extra pay that often comes with more dangerous jobs. But employers do not benefit by asking their employees to take unnecessary risks. It adds to their overall cost of doing business (insurance liability, recruitment costs, health insurance, etc.) even if they didn't care one iota for the employee. And OSHA does nothing but add to that cost.
Funny how you didn't address the crony-capitalism aspect. Seems you really don't know much about OSHA at all.
Nice ad hominem to close there. When you get out of the protective environment of a classroom of 8 year-olds, then come talk to me about training my workers.
The problem with OSHA and the mounds of regulations they heap on various industries is that they are completely reactionary. And to an exponential degree. Accidents happen; that's a fact of life. People get hurt walking down the street. If OSHA were in charge of public walkways after they're constructed, every time someone stepped of a curb and twisted their ankle, OSHA would redesign the curb. And then require all curbs to comply with the new design. Until someone hurt themselves as a result of that new curb design, at which time they would start the process over with another new and improved curb design. All the while, people would still get hurt walking down the street.
I haven't always been a professor
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 3:40pm.
You should read about the meat packing industry, if you think there aren't still places where people are treated badly.
Yes
Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 4:13pm.
typical. Evil corporations mistreating the proletariat. Maybe the UFCW isn't such a useful organization.
So, fill us in teach, what dangerous jobs have you held?
You mean the unions and OSHA
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 4:54pm.
You mean the unions and OSHA aren't making things safer and more user-friendly for the meat-cutters??? I would've liked to send the punk-ass OSHA inspector that I talked to back into the chill rooms.........they could have done anything that they wanted with him, as far as I'm concerned!!!
Yeah, because workers never, ever bring their troubles
Submitted by UpNorth on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 1:04am.
on themselves, right MB? I wonder how dangerous these good union workers made their workplace environment?
And they were fired
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:44am.
which is the right thing to do.
Complacency is normal, every one of us does it. You get in your car and think about your day, most people don't spend the whole drive thinking about how fast they are going, or what they would do if a kid stepped out into the street right NOW, or maybe NOW... Because we drive every day, and your brain habituates to it.
That's why the work environment is important. Employers can make it easier to be safe, or they can make it harder. When it is easy, some people still won't keep themselves safe, and behavior like that is easily dealt with-- fire people. But I've watched employers make it harder to stay safe, most of the time by understaffing so that everyone rushes, and then blame the workers who fall into the trap for not looking where they are going. That's what regulations are supposed to protect against.
Right 13 were fired.
Submitted by UpNorth on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:51pm.
Out of how many? And, were they fired because they got caught, or fired because they got caught on TV and forced the employer's, and union's, hand?
I've been in the parking lots of GM plants a lot, not to mention other manufacturers over the years. You'd be surprised how many people drink their lunch out of plain brown paper bags, and smoke things they don't want anyone seeing when they get hit with a spotlight.
Fire people?!
Submitted by Radical1979 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:00pm.
Suuurre that's easy, unless the person is a member of a union, or they are a member of ANY minority group who claim discrimination, or about a million other reasons.
You have no idea how difficult it is to manage employees, or how difficult it can be to fire them.
One of the bad effects of unions
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:42pm.
is protecting incompetence. I think it is a real problem, but I still think unions do good protecting workers who are exploited, and I'm not going to stop thinking that they do some good just because they also do some bad. Labor relations is a complicated issue-- I'm not the one trying to boil it down to "unions and regulations suck!"
protecting incompetence.
Submitted by Boudin on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:46pm.
Is what they are all about
protecting incompetence
Submitted by botg on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:53pm.
the mission of the whitehouse press corps since 2008
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” -- Chief Justice John Roberts
They are about protecting workers
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 6:45pm.
Most of the time, I think that's a good thing. Sometimes, it is misplaced and has a negative effect, but they are not ALL about protecting incompetence. I still don't understand the conservative tendency to not only hold an opinion, which is all fine and good, but to vehemently insist that the opposite opinion is entirely invalid in every sense. That unions at least occasionally do good is an obvious fact. You don't have to pretend it isn't true in order to think that overall they are a bad thing.
bk & killa
Submitted by Radical1979 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 9:52pm.
I don't know what kind of construction you guys are in, but my husband guts old ugly buildings, and rebuilds them. The new EPA regs on painting have cost him a lot of money and a lot of time. Are you familiar with those? You have to dress like the guys working at the CDC handling the ebola virus to strip paint. I'm not convinced that all the b.s. required by the EPA has much to do with safety, but a lot to do with payoffs to companies producing materials to meet requirements and a thirst for power by the EPA.
Sorry, had to vent. Now the EPA wants to regulate dust from farmers. Bizzaro world indeed.
Rad
Submitted by bkeyser on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 11:43pm.
Yep- lead paint. Hepa filters, tenting, etc. etc. It's a freakin mess. I know people that used to eat that stuff 40 years ago and they're still around; yet the EPA is worried about a little floating around in the air...
The last 10 years Ha ha try the last 2 years
Submitted by upcountrywater on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:40pm.
Coal plants go away soon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/getting-ready-for-a-...
Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs.
This is a lefty article and guess what it's supposed to save lives lots of lives. So they do some guessing, and shazam blah blah it will be cheaper to do this than leave the coal plants alone, which is total BS. The power companies are taken out of the decision process, kuz the all knowing,all seeing epa is on the case.
In the last two years the government has grown 22% while America private economy has grown 5%.
The insane government will not be happy until ALL business is run by them or tossed offshore.
You Didn't Build That.
As to what I do
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:49am.
It shouldn't matter as much as what I say about a given issue.
But, since you somewhat nastily accuse me of being naive and lacking in street smarts I'll summarize my background. I am not trying to sound arrogant or smug, just that I actually have a fairly deep and wide business background. I have a BA, an MBA and 3 certifications in technical areas. I have lived and worked in Europe and Japan, totally 4.5 years. I have worked in the U.S. State Department USAID Division under Reagan. I worked for a year on Wall Street as an analyst in an investment bank. I taught at a university for 2 years while in Japan, learned to speak Japanese and worked for a large Japanese manufacturer. After Japan I landed here in the Silicon Valley right at the start of the internet bubble. I worked for a large software company, several Internet driven start-ups, including a role as Chief Operating Officer of a small European based software company. I ran their U.S. operation--the company was a $40 million business. I started 4 companies with various groups of people, co-wrote a patent on interactive, web based picture sharing which we used to start a very early in the game(before Facebook) social sharing portal which we sold to a social networking company here in the valley. I was basically retired for 10 years but got fat and bored so i am now working with a handful of small companies in the f-commerce and consulting spaces. I'm married with a son.
How about you?
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
I could be wrong, but I believe
Submitted by Jer on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:35am.
killa was the co-owner of this small shop near Waikiki beach where he and a couple of surfing ex-hippies wove straw for over thirty years before they became basket cases and the inventory washed out to sea. However, in true American success story fashion, each sold his one-third interest in the underlying real estate to an adjacent upscale resort and are now fabulously wealthy.
Jer
You're wrong on all accounts,
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:15am.
You're wrong on all accounts, Jer. I stay the hell away from Waikiki, if I can help it. I don't even live on the same island, and I haven't lived on Oahu since the late 1960's..........and even then I lived on the north shore. Also, I was NEVER a hippie!!! I enjoyed the 'free love' that the hippie girls espoused.........but the hippie mentality was a little too 'kumbahya' and 'utopian' for me - remember, I was brought up in a military family. Plus..........I wasnt' anti-military, and I didn't get into that SDS crap and all of the protests that were going on at that time. Lilke I've said, I've seen Neil Uber-Commie running around the University of Hawaii - probably with Obama's father - back in those days...........rabblerousing.
The part about selling the real estate and being fabulously wealthy...........I wish!!! I'm still just a dumb-ass blue collar worker over here on an outer island, trying to claw my way through Barackistan.............but at least I get to go surfing and enjoy a little of our tropical beauty and island experience, even in the midst of this ongoing travesty.
I know, killa. I posted all
Submitted by Jer on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:39am.
I know, killa. I posted all of that in good fun. I hope you took it that way.
Aloha...
Jer
No el problemo,
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:20pm.
No el problemo, Jer...........I knew you were jivin' me.
HAHAHHAA
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:31am.
That has to be one of the funniest posts I have evah seen!
失敗
We Are The 53%
Gee, hayate.........that's a
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:32pm.
Gee, hayate.........that's a pretty good resume, to tell you the truth. So I'm having a hard time juxtaposing 'what you do' (or what you did) with 'what you say'........because they seem to go in opposite directions. You sound like you've done a lot more for the economy, and creating jobs, and so on........than our government has........and probably with your own (or company's) money.
Me?? I'm just a blue collar construction worker who got my contractor's license many years ago, and somehow have managed to barely stay in business building houses, doing remodels, add-ons, rennovations, or whatever (hopefully) pays the bills. And I've pumped a lot of the money I've generated into empoyees, subcontractors, vendors, material houses, and the rest of the expenses directly involved with the project.
Unfortunatly,MOST of the remaining money had to be paid to the myriad of required insurance policies, payroll burden, fees, excise taxes, state and federal taxes, and the rest of that list. And then I got to 'keep' whatever was left...........that was my 'evil' profit. The only thing evil about it was that it wasn't enough!!!
And I still haven't been able to figure out why I had to pay HALF of my employee's SS and medicare, plus ALL of the state and federal unemployment............but I had to pay ALL of my own 'obligation'............at the risk of using a favorite lib word - where is the 'fairness' in that???
Oh.........I see that the EPA has kicked it up a notch, and is following Boy Barry's threat to put coal-fired plants out of business and 'neccessarily increase the cost of power'..............
Any chance...
Submitted by ckc1227 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 2:58am.
I have a BA, an MBA and 3 certifications in technical areas. I have lived and worked in Europe and Japan, blah blah blah..."
Any chance you trained unicorns at some point along the way?
I did some Pony's in VA
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 3:02am.
But they acted just like goats?
Government Has NO Money to Spend.
Submitted by Comrade Jim on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:12pm.
The money that government spends is first removed from the economy which weakens the economy. Government spending the money back in the economy gains nothing. In fact it looses something because politicians put the money back into the economy for political purposes and with bureaucratic loss in the process. If government takes the money out of the economy by taxes that removes money from savings and investments which reduces economic activity. If the government raises money by selling bonds then bond buyers are investing in government bonds instead of investing in productive businesses. So no matter how the government gets the money to spend on stimulus it has to first remove it from productive economic activities. Putting it in failing economic activities such as "green" companies is just throwing the money away.
The fallacy of government stimulus spending was admitted long ago by FDR's economic advisers and more recently explained by Milton Friedman.
Fair argument
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:16am.
You are making. One that is based on the theory of 'crowding out'. Gov borrowing takes money away for more efficient , market driven allocations thus hurting growth. It is a problem, but one that should have been and will be dealt with when the economy is strong. Bush should have been paying down debt when things were better in the same manner Clinton did. Now is not the time to deal with the crowding problem for other reasons as well. First, much of the money comes from Asia and does not directly impact our capital markets. Second, there is actually no shortage of available capital as evidenced by interest rates and corporate treasuries. (if crowding out was happening in the private sector it would be evidenced by high and rising interest rates as the public and private sectors compete for the available capital) And (the need for capital in the private sector is obviated by the record levels of cash on company balance sheets--they don't need more money, they need more demand)
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
Keynes vs. Free market
Submitted by Comrade Jim on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:04pm.
This evidently boils down to a Keynes-vs.-Free market argument. You may call it a "crowding out theory", it seems to me simple arithmetic. Money removed from the economy reduces the the size of the economy. Probably the disagreement is reduced to whether the government can put the money back into the economy in a way that actually stimulates. If government officials had the information and knowledge of the needs, desires, choices etc. of all 300 million citizens and had the capacity to understand their actions and had the ability and wisdom to return the money into just the right places in the economy in order to make these 300 million people suddenly develop confidence in the economy so people would return to some sort of normal economic activities and end the recession - if all that were true then you (and Keynes) would have a point. But, I put that "IF" in the category of "IF elephants could fly." IF elephants could fly we would have cheap transportation. It is not in the nature (DNA) of elephants to fly. And it is not in the nature of politicians and bureaucrats to be so all-knowing, all-understanding, all-wise, and altruistic to spend money in the economy in just the right way. Quite the opposite, they spend money to enhance their own power, connections, prestige, and wealth at the expense of the rest of the 300 million. It is not to "blame' them. They can't help themselves; it is in their nature.
There are lots of "should haves" in history. Yes, Bush should have payed down the debt. But remember his worst time was 2007 - 2009 when he had Pelosi and Reid running Congress. He was too weak to say no.
Clinton was on an Obama-like path when he was saved by the Gingrich Congress and by the dot.com bubble. So I wouldn't give Clinton too much credit for the low spending and good times of the nineties. But it is an example of the benefits of controlling government spending.
Why is borrowing money from Asia a good thing? Borrowing money from Asians simply means that said Asians wouldn't be putting their money into productive enterprises. And future generations will owe the money to Asians rather than Americans.
On "shortage of capital:" corporations and entrepreneurs are not spending much money on research, development, and expansion because they have no confidence in the government policy and the economy. For example, future health mandates and costs are unknown. That and other regulations are big factors inhibiting hiring. Low interest rates do not necessarily stimulate the economy. The Fed may set interest rates low but if people don't have the confidence to borrow and to lend then it won't generate much economic activity.
Can the gov. create "demand"? There are 300 million people with 300 million different sets of demands for goods and services. Does the gov. know how to stimulate all these or replace them with better ones? Or will people acting freely do a better job of it?
Again it is free market vs. Keynes.
Also short circuits the economy
Submitted by clairesolt on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:33pm.
Tax cut arguments document that money paid in wages changes hands six times before it eventually ends up in Washingon where spending is likely to be bribery or boondoggle.
For a long time Big Gov types argued that only the Feds had access to enough money to fund really big things, but now they are too parochial and small minded for visionary projects. And that is the main thing that they missed about public works projects. Since the days of the pharoahs rulers have known that monmental projects are necessary. FDR's Hoover Dam and TVA were swarming with people and gave the impression that the gov was doing something. Not ony that, but FDR built lots of buildings that have testified to this day of the value of the New Deal. Read one of those bills and you will see how today's pols can spend billions in dribs and drabs that any community could and should be able to come up with on their own. WE got a million dollars for landscaping out of the last transportation bill. We could have gotten Trump to donate that, if we tried.
How do we know?
Submitted by CobraMan on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:23pm.
"How can you state with any level of sincerity that it failed in the 30s?"
Hoe do we know? Because the American economy didn't rebound until the 50's, after Keynesian economic policies were dropped by the Eisenhower administration.
"Doesn't matter how they get the money, if they spend it, demand happens."
That's not true, if that money leads to a reduction of wealth, like Keynesian economics always leads to. You see, that government supplied money has to come from someplace (like taxpayers who create the wealth which the government is now redistributing). It's not self-generating like it is in the private sector.
Every dollar that the government confiscates from the private sector reduces privately held wealth, even if a portion is redirected back into the private sector. It is that privately held wealth that creates demand. Privately held wealth is the only thing that fulfill that demand, and it's self-generating, as I said. As only privately held wealth can generate additional privately held wealth, which is the heart of Capitalism, the government can only diminish wealth, it can't create it. That's why every country that has tried to rely upon publicly created and controlled wealth has found itself with little to no wealth at all. Government consumes wealth, it doesn't create it. The best it can create is inflation. The worst it can create is universal poverty.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
Let's not forget that a
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:39am.
Let's not forget that a boatload of this so-called 'government money' is now the result of massive amounts of priniting and massive amounts of borrowing, since the taxpayer confiscation isn't keeping up with the never-ending demands of the bloated and flatulant government. So add that to the mix..........'monopoly money'???
I still want to know what this guy hayate does..........besides writing sophmoric psuedo-intellectual posts.
No
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:21am.
Might be true if we were on the gold standard where money supply is limited to the amount of gold held. And, private companies add value but they don't create actual money. The gov creates the money and not by confiscating it.
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
The government "creates" money, but not wealth
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:48pm.
The government "creates" money, but not wealth. The government prints the money, but the private sector is what generates the wealth that money represents. If the government actually created wealth, it wouldn't need to collect tax revenue. Tax collection, you know, is the government confiscation of privately held wealth.
And, as for the "gold standard," it's interesting to note that the government confiscated private gold and silver reserves during the 30's and 40's to "pay" for its economic policies. Yet another example as to how Keynesian economics forces government to confiscate wealth.
And let us not forget just how well WWII "helped" this economy. Food and material rationing due to massive exportation of supplies, which lead to massive shortages here in America. It took well over ten years for our economy to resupply itself and rebound, and that only occurred after we eliminated Keynesian type policies, removed government imposed production decisions of which goods and services to produce, and let the free market make it's own decisions as to what to produce and how much to charge for the products, as well as how much to pay the laborers, managers, engineers, and the like who produced the goods and services the economy, and not the government, demanded.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
You don't cover
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:42am.
what happened as a result of Keynesian fiscal policy throughout the time it was American policy. Just as Keynes was able to point out how classical economics had misjudged the response between investment and interest rate, economists in the 70s were able to observe Keynes' false analysis of the seesaw between unemployment and inflation. By trying to keep our hands ever on the taps of the economy, higher and higher unemployment was seen concurrently with higher and higher inflation. In the Keynesian model, this should not happen, because inflation was a response to an over-revved economy and unemployment was indicative of a down economy. But we managed to produce stagflation out of trying to micro-manage the curve.
By the Carter administration, savvy capitalists who yet did not have the capital to hire a battery of economists like the government had, used the government as the tell to judge whether to take their money out of the economy or not. Every time Carter increased spending because of a projected economic shortfall, more money was actually taken out by investors trying to read government cues. And when the administration would try to apply the brakes, they got more investors rushing in to more than fill the gap, to take advantage of the predicted up-tick, but driving inflation higher at its most vulnerable time.
This is why supply-side was developed, to stop from trying to fiddle around with only the demand curve all the time.
Hayate
Submitted by Noel Sheppard on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 9:29am.
Hayate,
From 1929 to 1939, government spending tripled from $3 billion a year to $9 billion. And yet unemployment at the end of 1939 was still 17.2 percent. Not a very good advertisement for Keynesian economics, is it?
Furthermore, the lasting stimulative quality of even the World War II spending is up for debate. The National Bureau of Economic Research lists a recession that began in February 1945 that lasted until October of that year. This recession happened despite the federal government spending almost ten times as much as it had only five years prior and 30 times more than in 1929.
Once again, not a very good advertisement for Keynesian economics.
But let's take this a step further, for NBER's recession numbers might be too conservative. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Gross Domestic Product shrank by 1.1 percent in 1945, a staggering 10.9 percent in 1946, and 0.9 percent in 1947. Again, this was after the largest explosion in federal spending in our nation's history.
You asked for proof Keynesian economics doesn't work? I just gave it to you in spades!
Next time you want to challenge me on such things, would you mind providing data like I did rather than just opinion? Thank you. ns
Mr. Sheppard
Submitted by hayate1 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 12:00am.
First of all, thank you for your reply. Good points, but selectively chosen to prove a point that is, as you say, debatable. I would add that it is certainly not conclusive one way or the other but the data are more supportive of my conclusion than yours. Let's look at some of those data points.
FDR became president on March 4, 1933, when unemployment was 25%, and immediately instituted the first New Deal. This was a comprehensive group of short-term recovery programs. It not only included economic aid and work assistance programs but also the end of the gold standard and of prohibition. This was then followed by the Second New Deal programs which included more long term assistance and safety measures such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Social Security System, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Fannie Mae, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). Unemployment steadily fell from it's high in 1933 to 14% in '37.
In 1938 the country then went into recession and unemployment rose for that year and the next before reversing again. People use this period as evidence that Keynesian economics was failing and ineffective. Actually the gov spending was working, until the opposition from the new Conservative Coalition caused a rollback of the New Deal policies in 1937, which caused a setback in the recovery as evidenced by the data. FDR gave into the conservative demands that he stop spending and borrowing and begin an austerity program. The economy almost immediately reversed course and after 2 years FDR re-started his New Deal programs and spending. Unemployment quickly dropped back to 14% and was falling. WWII finished the deal when the government spending on war materials added a huge burst of new stimulus spending(all borrowed) to the economy.
1930: 8.7 percent
1931: 15.9 percent
1932: 23.6 percent
1933: 24.9 percent
1934: 21.7 percent
1935: 20.1 percent
1936: 16.9 percent
1937: 14.3 percent
1938: 19.0 percent
1939: 17.2 percent
1940: 14.6 percent
1941: 9.9 percent
As I have said, I don't see that these facts, which are a matter of historical record, don't support the conclusion that government spending can pull the economy out of recession. Conversely, they are clearly at odds with your argument, although they don't conclusively disprove your position they certainly make it questionable.
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
By any measure
Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 12:42am.
FDR's record is a failure. As we're seeing again with Obama, whenever Keynesian economics are employed to effect recovery from a recession, the time it takes to emerge is staggeringly long. 25% unemployment to 14% before shooting back up to 19% constitutes success? More than a decade after the stock market crashed, FDR still hadn't lowered the unemployment rate below it's baseline. That's called abject failure! Were it not for the war and the employment that resulted, FDR's policies would probably have drug the country through another decade of staggeringly high employment levels and poverty.
Double dips are not worthy of praise.
Keynesian methods simply deter recovery.
Every. Single. Time. They've. Been. Tried.
A failure compared to what?
Submitted by Jer on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 2:23am.
Hoover's record? Please. You'll also note the spike in unemployment after steadily improving numbers came after FDR opted for budget balancing measures and reduced spending. Finally, your assertion that Keynesian methods simply deter recovery is...just...not...factually...correct. The economies of the 1930's where the Keynesian approach was implemented more aggressively recovered faster and more comprehensively than did that of the US
Jer.
Amusing, as much as folks brag
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 2:39am.
About your intellect, you cant grasp simple math? Comprehensibly=code for libs dont understand!
I guess I missed all the bragging...
Submitted by Jer on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 5:31pm.
but I can grasp simple math. How about filling me in on what I let slip through my fingers.
Jer
Hate to reiterate this, but...
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:19am.
Keynesian economics weren't followed. Only half of it was. One of the major tenets of Keynesian economics was major tax cuts during a recession.
BTW did Europe follow Keynesian theories? Did they recover faster or slower?
We Are The 53%
Denny...
Submitted by Jer on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 5:42pm.
Understood, but bk implied that Keynes economic models were employed in the US in the 30's--and to some extent they were--but were an unmitigated failure [which is a matter of endless dispute and debate].
Re your questions: Largely and faster.
Jer
Debateable, yes
Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 5:53pm.
I guess you could say that the prescribed tax cuts were not employed, though the tax hikes to pay for all the spending after the recovery most certainly were; the only problem was, there was no real recovery. And the tax hikes became almost a requirement to try to buy down the ballooning deficit from the failed spending programs.
This is not to say that some good things weren't purchased as a result of all the spending; certainly the nation was in need of infrastructure, but those make-work programs simply ended upon their completion. They didn't create lasting production or expansion of the economy. And therein lied the failure. And it's being extolled by Keynes disciples today- AgSec saying Food Stamps create jobs; Pelosi claiming unemployment benefits create jobs; NYT and CNN economists claiming that paying someone to dig a hole and fill it back in creates a job. It's nonsensical crazy-talk. All these ideas do is remove money from a productive source and give it to a non-productive source. The economy is weakened. This is what FDR did. This is what Obama believes. Except with Obama, I'm pretty sure a weakened electorate is in his best interest.
Really?
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:45pm.
Are you claiming that improved infrastructure doesn't have a lasting effect on the economy? How exactly do you support that view?
mamabear
Submitted by Radical1979 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:52pm.
BK said They didn't create lasting production or expansion of the economy. In other words, a new bridge, once completed, no longer causes the production of anything new. However, the invention of a new iPhone say, will cause consumer demand, which will lead to factory jobs, shipping jobs, sales jobs, etc. BK did not say these projects had NO effect on the economy.
Give it up, Rad
Submitted by Blonde on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:27pm.
mamabear loves taxpayer funded roads, which are paid for by someone other than herself, that pave her way (so to speak) so she doesn't have to be bothered or inconvenienced when she visits her mommy in Colorado. You know, by those pesky tolls and stuff. She finds them to be a bit creepy, though, because they're empty. And she HATES having to pay the tolls, on these roads to nowhere which no one wanted in the first place, but which the government so kindly provided to create jobs and stuff.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Hah!
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:57am.
You are hilarious ;)
They don't create lasting production
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:01am.
But they sure as heck facilitate it. Your new iPhone doesn't do anyone any good if it can't reach consumers. Maybe you are hoping we'll get to test the theory, when some Republican manages to stop renewal of the gas tax and we find out what happens to the economy when roads and bridges are no longer repaired at all.
I'd say that a large
Submitted by killa37 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 1:18pm.
I'd say that a large percentage of that gas-tax money is spent on things other than fixing the roads, highways, bridges, etc. And what gives the state and Federal government the right to take more off of each gallon of gas than the EVIL oil companies make as an EVIL profit???
As you know here in Hawaii, the gas tax, goes into the "general"
Submitted by upcountrywater on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 2:52pm.
fund...
Yippee!! Hawaii is Number one in the number of vehicles per highway mile in the country.
No, road surface heaving from freezing or pesky snow removal (they quit removing snow on Mauna Kea).
Still we have roads that conform to the Road codes built @ 1910. Ain't that quaint!
You Didn't Build That.
You'd say?
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 2:53pm.
It's not like you have to guess, you can look up exactly where it goes. And you are right, there is a small amount that goes to public transit and a fund to fix leaking underground fuel containers. I'm sure you think it would be smarter to pour our oil out onto the dirt than spend the taxpayers hard-earned money to fix some tanks!
Ma & Pa gas stations! REPLACE those Non leaking fuel tanks, or
Submitted by upcountrywater on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 4:27pm.
WERE FORCED OUT OF BUSINESS.
Lots of gas station owners closed up their businesses, because of your pals in the government.
It's one thing to replace a steel tank sitting in wet sand next to the ocean. To force a gas station owner to replace NON LEAKING, RUST FREE tanks that were replaced in the 70's, high up on a mountain is another.
Damn make work programs, rest assured MB the rust free, NON COMPLIANT leaking tanks were replaced, inspected cleaned and recycled.
Oops! The plastic tanks that replaced them are dissolving from the addition of ethanol!
Another story on another island:
The old Japanese couple that once owned the "Kona Hotel", also owned a gas station. Well the Government paper work showed up... so being in their 90's they were unable to pick up the paper work, finally recycled it in their ofuro .
They agreed and closed the gas station. Lucky for them it was located on a different property (paid for) across the highway.
Honey, it will be OK kuz we still have the Hotel.
Time moves on and new law is passed so they get another friendly packet from the Government:
Occupants: Guess what you have a high capacity cess pool.
Ta Da... a CRIME
The properly designed 'cess pool' was operating as designed, NOT LEAKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S PROPERTY! Oh really, in addition you get to pay for its destruction!
COMPLY OCCUPANT!! There is a Small issue: To install the new PLASTIC SEPTIC SYSTEM with required leach field (in a cinder zone!)... The Hotel needs to be removed.
That cute and lovely couple just said no.
I met them in that month of Hotel closure, best view from a roof top urinal on the planet. twenty bucks a night.
RIP...
You Didn't Build That.
Stream of consciousness is a little hard to follow
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 7:02pm.
But you seem to be claiming both that the federal government is paying for this replacement, thus calling it a make work program, and that gas station owners are paying for it, thus bankrupting them.
So I looked up EPA documents on the USP program. Government money is used to provide grants to states to clean up spills and monitor tanks. Since the program started (up to 2009) they've cleaned up 388,000 spills, and have about a 100,000 spill backlog of uncleaned sites. Maybe you don't believe the government should be in the business of cleaning our water supplies, but that's still not nothing. I'm sure some tanks are being replaced when still functioning, but the program has decreased the number of confirmed spills each year from 67,000 in 1990 to 7,000 in 2009. Again, you may have a negative opinion of environmental protection, but they aren't just doing nothing.
Good evening mamabear
Submitted by cocodrie on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 7:15pm.
You should have been down here to witness the non-working clean up people handsomely paid by the feds. You know, the ones that had their picture taken with Present Obabble wearing their brand new unstained white shrimp boots. They reportedly had worked cleaning up oil for many long hours but as good liberals managed to not get one spot of oil on their clothes or on their brand new pristine boots. Oh the marvels of liberalism.
Jesus Loves You so much He died for you
All tanks mentioned: Fuel and Poo tanks, were replaced by owners
Submitted by upcountrywater on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 2:18am.
The fuel tanks were not rusty and in the case of the cess pool were working as designed.
The EPA blanket rules applied to ALL tanks working or not.
The owners paid for all sorts of BS, some just closed up their doors... There are less gas stations in Hawaii than there were 20 years ago.
I do not know what spillage the EPA is yappin about. As if all tank owners had leaks and the Great and Powerful EPA sailed in and saved the day...Installing leak proof tanks (all tanks leak)....No checks and balances on the Government blessed program. EPA can spew whatever facts and BS they want.
EPA or ACORN, It's whatever they dictate. The EPA has the final say in all things environmental, whatever they do, to a business owner it's cool kuz they have their very own SWAT team.
The government is FORCING business owners to "upgrade".... that is a make work program. BTW it doesn't cost the government a dime.
Simple rule: Replace your functioning tank(s) or go out of business.
You Didn't Build That.
Right
Submitted by mamabear on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 7:20pm.
Replacing functioning but old tanks before they start leaking is how you reduce the number of new spills. Maybe you don't think petroleum in the ground water is a problem, but I like the idea of someone cleaning the stuff up.
But the Feds, as usual, will go too far, and---
Submitted by matthewdean on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 3:59am.
say that since "replacing functioning but old underground storage tanks is how to reduce the number of new spills", to reduce the number of new petro-chemical incidents aboveground we will now require the American driving public to replace all functioning but old vehicles with new ones.
MD
MB, Ahh Channeling algore, Republicans like dirty air and water.
Submitted by upcountrywater on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 4:50pm.
100% of all manufactured tanks leak.
All the plastic tanks FORCED down business owners by feel good liberals LEAK.
How much leaking?
EPA did not attach numbers to the AMOUNT of leaking over time.
Where does petroleum come from? Hummm the ground.
There is no such thing as 100% pure water, so all water sitting somewhere is polluted. The air you breathe is dirty too.
And no matter what the levels of pollution are, we are all going to die.
You Didn't Build That.
Libertarian paradise awaits...
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 9:38pm.
"Where does petroleum come from? Hummm the ground."
Hah! That made me laugh.
lol Good, who knows maybe draining oil is like planting seeds
Submitted by upcountrywater on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 11:34pm.
You fail to address the QUANTITY.
Nail this problem down with some numbers.
No way!
Name callin is the play here,eh MB, lol
You Didn't Build That.
mamabear
Submitted by Radical1979 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:52pm.
You are once again ignoring your own words, and Bk's. He was referring to lasting production and expansion of the economy. He admitted that the nation was in need of infrastructure, but that is NOT what creates lasting jobs or expansion of the economy as I informed you above.
You're snarky comment about me wanting to test the theory of a product not being able to reach consumers is why you are known on this site as the arrogant, pompous, preachy, elitist that you are.
The federal government does not have the responsibility to to repair the road in front of my house, or the bridges in my town. That is the responsibility of my local government.
You might try reading the Constitution before you tell us bridges will be collapsing due to the awful GOP.
Your local government,
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:54pm.
as it turns out, is still a government. YOU may be only complaining about the federal government, but plenty of other people on this thread are not putting any qualifiers in front of their complaints about "government" interference and incompetence.
If you never leave your town, or travel on an interstate, then you are right-- you don't need the federal government to repair anything. But if you intend to buy anything made outside of your town, you might want to think about the consequences of letting those roads fall apart.
That comment, by the way, was far milder than half the snark I listen to without complaint. If I am arrogant, pompous, preachy, and elitist because I say things like "maybe you are hoping to test that theory," then the conservatives on this site must be raging @$$holes based on the stuff they say to me! Just to be clear, this is not me complaining about nasty comments-- I don't mind them in the least. I do, however, find hypocrisy irritating.
mamabear
Submitted by Radical1979 on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 8:15pm.
Most of the complaints on this site are in regards to FEDERAL, not local or state issues. I do admit, the residents of Hawaii seem to have many state issues they are unhappy with. The closer the level of government is to the people, the more chance they have to influence it, and there is a lesser chance of lobbying to influence the decisions of government.
I didn't deny the federal government's responsibility to repair FEDERAL roads and bridges, but they are attempting to go way beyond that. And we know when any government exceeds it's limitations those in government will continue to due resulting in waste an corruption. I don't care what party you're talking about.
Furthermore, you haven't, and cannot, prove that improvement to infrastructure creates lasting production or expansion of the economy, because it doesn't.
Federal money, state programs
Submitted by mamabear on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 7:24pm.
The federal government affects state-level issues, like state highways, by giving money to state programs. That's what lots of the stimulus money was used for. What is your objection to that, if state governance is so much better and closely controlled by the people?
Also, I have said that infrastructure supports expansion and production, not creates it. I decline to prove something that I haven't claimed.
Really?
Submitted by Denny Crane on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 8:46pm.
That's what lots of the stimulus money was used for.
Out of the 800 or so Billion dollars of stimulus, less than 6% or 50 Billion was spent on infrastructure.
We Are The 53%
Not what I meant
Submitted by mamabear on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 7:01pm.
I meant that much of it was spent in grants to states. That wasn't just for infrastructure, but other state programs. This is my impression, but I didn't bother to look up hard numbers.
You should see some of the waste.
Submitted by Denny Crane on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 9:28pm.
It really is amazing.
One of the reasons that NJ was having so many problems was that Corzine spent ALL the money for education in one year. The following year Christie looked like the bad guy because he didn't have as much money, so he had to cut, cut, cut.
The other problem with a lot of these "grants" to the states is that they start new programs that all of a sudden the state is on the hook to continue.
We Are The 53%
That's always bothered me
Submitted by mamabear on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 10:18pm.
People in government should understand the difference between a one-time investment and a long-term change to the budget!
What happens when the gov doesn't repair roads?
Submitted by Denny Crane on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 11:00pm.
Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free.
You see, government regulation and bureaucracy slow things down so much that it's almost impossible to get anything done.
Hmmm, Let's build a free way!
Originally estimated to cost about 250 Million, the H-3 freeway came in at $1,300,000,000. That's 80Million PER MILE. Nothing like a little cost overrun.
We Are The 53%
That 6 lane highway,has less traffic than a 2 lane Hwy, on Maui.
Submitted by upcountrywater on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 2:16am.
That H-3 sucked up highway funds for years.
Now Oahu gots a lite-rail that needs funding...
You Didn't Build That.
Ho Brah
Submitted by Denny Crane on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 3:57am.
Don't get me started on that "Aircraft carriers in the sky mall choo choo"
We Are The 53%
I have just the place for you:
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 7:34am.
http://youtu.be/7QDv4sYwjO0
In all seriousness, it isn't that people can't band together to get stuff done, and it isn't that they aren't more efficient when they do. They are. But people don't always band together to get stuff done, and sometimes people disagree on what needs doing.
That's cute
Submitted by Denny Crane on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 9:20am.
And bookmarked.
But back to the seriousness of the matter.
I have absolutely no problem with government building and maintaining needed and necessary infrastructure. Most of which should be on local and state levels. Where the people can give their input and debate on the costs, benefits, and impact of the infrastructure.
I have a major objection to ANY project that is done for the reason of stimulating the economy. That stupid #$%@#$%#$%@$# mall train that they are building on Oahu is a perfect example of unnecessary expensive government stupidity. And it's being pushed along by the thought that the feds are going to help fund it.
Other examples, the big dig. John Murtha airport. the bridge to nowhere.
We Are The 53%
It's a pretty subtle distinction
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 7:20pm.
Infrastructure does support the economy. I understand only wanting the government to undertake projects that are absolutely necessary, but sometimes you have to be willing to take a step forward. It could be that rail is a waste. It could also turn out to be a real energy, and thus money, saver in the long run, and maybe 20 years from now we'll think about repairing those rail systems as being just as important as interstate highways, which were also a big government program.
It they were all cut-and-dried questions, like the silly bridge to nowhere, we wouldn't still be arguing about them!
It's not a valid reason.
Submitted by Denny Crane on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 8:52pm.
Infrastructure does support the economy.
Fine, but it should have absolutely no bearing on whether or not a project is valid. Infrastructure should be built on the sole basis of whether it is needed for that community.
Infrastructure spending because it is a stimulus is as stupid a reason as supporting abortion because it lowers crime.
We Are The 53%
Toney
Submitted by Radical1979 on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 8:54pm.
That was a three pointer!
Sounds like we mostly agree...
Submitted by mamabear on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 7:26pm.
Holy crap... did that just happen? I must be off my game ;)
mamabear
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 8:45pm.
Did you actually use the word "crap"?
:)
Not in my head...
Submitted by mamabear on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 7:02pm.
but I'm not THAT off my game ;)
Trouble reading?
Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:18pm.
The roads remained, the bridges remained - the workers went back to being unemployed. Are you really that ignorant of history?
Read the posts
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:02am.
we're talking about more than just unemployment.
Actually, I entered this particular discussion
Submitted by bkeyser on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 5:00pm.
here. I'm pretty sure this post was largely about unemployment. Besides the fact that unemployment was the driving factor in the depression and the driving factor in the most recent recession.
BK
Submitted by Radical1979 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:52pm.
When losing an argument mamabear changes the argument. Sigh. It gets tiresome.
Really, you get to "le sigh"
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:57pm.
and I'm the one who thinks she's superior to others?
mamabear
Submitted by Radical1979 on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 8:00pm.
I'll give you that one comment compared to just about every post you write on this site. Including the one to Liberal Lies in which you gave him the benefit of the doubt when it came to not understanding or purposely misreading your post. You refuse to even acknowledge the fact that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong.
For example, you totally changed the debate line with BK because you were wrong.
What he described as my stance was not my stance
Submitted by mamabear on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 7:28pm.
So either he misunderstood me, he was deliberately misrepresenting me, or I don't actually know what I think. The only way I am wrong about what I think is if I am some form of schizophrenic. If that is your contention, then maybe you should cut me some slack for being condescending! After all, I don't even know what I'm saying ;)
The discussion
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:59pm.
at least after Noel Sheppard entered it, was also about economic growth and GDP.
A failure compared to
Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 12:24pm.
Reagan.
Yes, yes. It's always that they didn't spend enough money. Can't prove a negative and all that. Maybe had an alien attack occurred, we could have pulled out sooner Krugman.
FDR failed. Obama is failing.
Jer failed as well.
And which economies might those be?
Submitted by NL207 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:42am.
"The economies of the 1930's where the Keynesian approach was implemented more aggressively recovered faster and more comprehensively than did that of the US"
List them. I think your readers will find this interesting.
Certainly. They would be those of
Submitted by Jer on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 2:59pm.
Liechtenstein, Malta, and Vatican City [although the Vatican tried but failed to go off the gold standard. There was just way too much of the stuff.] In the 30's these nations were sometimes referred to as the Keynesian "Miracle Three".
Jer
Great Britain, Sweden, Japan, and Germany are generally regarded as notable examples. Early shedding the gold standard is recognized as an important factor, and of course rearmament cannot be discounted because of its obvious positive effects on manufacturing, production and employment.
What, Jer,---
Submitted by matthewdean on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 3:20pm.
no links?
The horror.
MD
That links issue has really touched a nerve with you
Submitted by Jer on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 4:18pm.
hasn't it, Matthew?
Jer
~I thought you two
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 5:14pm.
would appreciate this. LOL
As long as I'm not the
Submitted by Jer on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 5:37pm.
cat-like creature.
:-)
Jer
BTW, Matthew...you open the link by clicking your mouse on the red-letter portion of Bru's post. No, not the headline. ;-)
No wonder I can't figure out what your posts mean, Jer---
Submitted by matthewdean on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 1:59am.
I've been clicking on the the headline.
Thanks.
And no, no touching of nerves; merely touching the humerus on occasion; and just another opportunity to rag on your Obama lovin' arse. :o)
MD
I want a link Jer
Submitted by Denny Crane on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 11:08pm.
I have asked many people in many forums to show me one place that Keynesian economics have worked, and have NEVER been shown anything.
So, will you please give me some links to study up on?
We Are The 53%
Denny...sorry for the delay.
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 3:06am.
There is no perfect model, and any one offered will generate vigorous challenges [note NL below]. But here's one you might take a look at.
Jer
Thanks Jer
Submitted by Denny Crane on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 9:50pm.
That is VERY thin.
All it says is "As in other Nordic countries, the central bank experimented with Keynesian demand-management policies."
It doesn't give any specifics or what the results were.
After reading through the entire essay and looking at some other parts of that report, it looks like some of the things that helped them weather the Great depression were policies and socialization of most of it's industry in the 20's.
But their macroeconomics hurt them more than other OECD countries, especially during the 60's 70's and 80's.
We Are The 53%
So you are endorsing the economic models
Submitted by NL207 on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 11:18pm.
employed by two brutal, militaristic, socialist regimes? Only an idiot would support that.
How much do you actually know about the Depression in Britain? Obviously not much, because their unemployment numbers track in lockstep with those in the US, once we crashed. They even had the slump in 1938 just as the US did in spite of their massive military program designed to meet Nazi Germany.
"Britain's Great Depression of the 1930's
Britain's GDP during the 1930's Great Depression fell by 10%, which on face value compares favourably against that of the United States that saw GDP contract by 30%. However unlike the United States, Britain did NOT boom during the 1920's on the contrary the 1920's was a period of stagnation that started out with the Depression of 1918 to 1921 that saw GDP fall by 25%. Therefore Britain's Great Depression in fact started in 1918 and did not end until 1937 and therefore lasted nearly 20 years. However in today's economy,"
Some think the above estimate that the Depression ended in Britain in 1937 is optimistic.
"From 1936 onwards, the National Government followed a policy of mass rearmament in the face of the rise of Nazi Germany. This provided an economic stimulus that helped end the depression. By 1937 unemployment had fallen to 1.5 million, but rose again to 1,810,000 by January 1938 suggesting that the recovery was to be short lived. The mobilisation of manpower following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 reduced unemployment considerably."
-- Nothing like a world war to reduce unemployment. So you want us to emulate the British model? I think not.
Sweden simply does not count. It is not a large enough sample. There are more people in NYC than there were in Sweden (about 6.1M) in 1930.
Look, NL...
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 3:01am.
The question of the impact of Keynesian policy on the 30's economies and beyond will still be raging long after you and I are gone. Did it help to end the Depression or extend it? Was there too much government intervention or not enough. Was war mobilization a function of Keynesian theory which vindicated it, or did it simply mask the effects of continuing contraction and general economic failure. It may sound trite, but it depends on whom you ask.
I noted rearmament as a recovery factor in the nations referenced in my original post. You ignore that, however, in an effort to discredit and rig the debate by framing and inflaming the issue as my idiotic "endorsement of the models employed by brutal, militarist, socialist regimes". That is the tactic of a true idiot but typical of your style.
Jer
Criticism, derision, and ridicule, Jer---
Submitted by matthewdean on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 4:12am.
should be more selectively employed, don't you think? :o)
MD
If you mean NL's initiation of the gratuitious
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 7:08pm.
name-calling, then I would agree with you Matthew. But, I've noticed your tendency to overlook the provocation and merely focus on the response.
Jer
Much as I have noticed, Jer,---
Submitted by matthewdean on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 7:25pm.
your predilection for being a liberal provocateur on a conservative site; who has perfected the art of shooting zingers and then giving an Oscar level performance in reacting drama queen fashion to most reply zingers as though they were undeserved, horrible diatribes against your august persona.
You crack me up.
MD
Well at least you didn't bust me for misspelling
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 8:52pm.
"gratuitous".
I just returned home and, still on this page, to my horror noticed the "tious". Scrambling to correct it, I got the dreaded "access denied" message meaning you had already replied and surely would point out my spelling gaffe. I would like to think you showed mercy, but I doubt it. :-)
Jer
You are right, Jer---
Submitted by matthewdean on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 2:56am.
I missed it.
Much as I hate to admit it, any misspelling by you is a typo, nothing more.
Yu ar a gud spellur.
MD
Unfortunately, not always, md...
Submitted by Jer on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 12:27pm.
Remember "humbrage" and of course "bankruptsy"?
Jer
Name calling?
Submitted by NL207 on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:19am.
And who did I call names? Certainly not you. I merely branded those who endorse the Nazi and Imperial Japanese economic programs as idiots. Now, YOU wouldn't endorse any of the works of these tyrannical regimes would you?
Oh please...
Submitted by Jer on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:40am.
Spare me the meticulously crafted dodge. It's disingenuous and unbecoming.
Jer
Meticulously crafted dodge ...
Submitted by NL207 on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 11:39pm.
Interesting. Isn't that the essence of your profession?
And then we have your avocation ... apologist, promoter and defender of statism.
Nevertheless ...
Submitted by NL207 on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 2:42pm.
when asked for examples of successful Keynsian economic programs, you provided Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as examples along with Britain and Sweden.
Neither of these paragons of social virtue were successful at anything except tyranny. I showed you that Keynesianism did not prevent the massive economic malaise that engulfed Britain. Indeed, their misery was even more protracted than that here in the US. In short, your proposition that Keynsianism is beneficial is rejected based on the evidence presented.
All I did here is show the models you were advancing as examplars on the scale of the United States were all failed . The only thing you actually hate about my debate tactics as that they so often take down your arguments, often in flames. Enjoy your smoking hole.
Speaking of flames...
Submitted by Jer on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:32am.
Once the air clears from the lingering smell of the charred ruins of your delusional "removal of Obama by military coup" scenario, maybe I'll attach a modicum of credibility to your debating skills. The last time I checked the staff was still poking through the ashes of that fiasco making sure there were no live embers which could flare up and incinerate the rest of the thread.
Jer
When have I ever advocated a
Submitted by NL207 on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 11:55pm.
When have I ever advocated a 'military coup'?
I HAVE argued that Obama should be disqualified from office by the Supreme Court because he is not a 'natural born citizen' as that term is understood by the Founders, the Constitution, the author of the 14th Amendment citizenship language, and US, as opposed to, British law. Simply put, one of his parents was not then nor ever, a US Citizen.
I have also argued that in failing the above, Congress should disqualify or impeach Obama both because he is unqualified for office and for his numerous violations of law and Constitution since assuming office.
How do either of these removal scenarios constitute a "military coup"? They don't and you know they don't. Once again we find fat, slow, bald, old NL, in possession of your sorry ass. If my debate skills are so poor, how is it our little discussions so often end with you swinging from your own petard??
I'll tell ya,
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 2:30am.
I'll tell ya, hayate............I'm STILL having trouble integrating your resume with the rest of your posts. You seem to be pushing this big government agenda really hard, even though you claim to have come from the private sector where you started companies and created jobs, as well as avoided some degree of government oversight and over-reach. The whole thing just isn't making any sense to a li'l ol' blue collar worker like me...............I don't have any degrees or titles or diplomas or letters behind my name, you know?? Maybe I'm not 'nuanced 'enough to understand all of this.
It would be hard for me - as a simple-minded self-employed blue-collar worker - to try and justify double-digit unemployment, massive debt and borrowing, historic money priniting, severe increases in government rules and regulations, insidious increases in any kind of taxes possible, take-over of 1/6 of the US economy (and losses of choice and freedoms) by an un-Constitutional and 'passed in the midnight hour without being read' healthcare program, as well as a long and repulsive dirty-laundry list of other things that Barama has done (or, more to your point - defending FDR) - to ANYONE who had a modicum of an IQ and common sense!!!
I can't believe that you would be pushing this agenda, given what you claim to have done in your life............can you honestly say that this is making things better for any of us???
Killa, It's all government grants.
Submitted by upcountrywater on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:20am.
Another one of hayate's jobs.
`````````````````````````````````
You Didn't Build That.
Yeah, no ka oi, I've seen
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 3:39pm.
Yeah, no ka oi, I've seen this jive-talkin' dork on TV many times - the guy has the inside scoop on 'free money' , right?? And he's here to make some dough off of you, while telling you how to find some 'free money' to go waste somewhere..........maybe the pot-smoking, menstruating monkey scientific study was funded through one of these government grants.
Hell, upcountry - you live here in Hawaii - I'm sure that you've actually MET pot-smoking menstruating monkeys!!!!!
yea Killa heards of nekked ones infesting the beaches
Submitted by upcountrywater on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 12:16pm.
Tis why I live upcountry...heh heh...;-)
You Didn't Build That.
Killa
Submitted by NL207 on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 10:34am.
I think this fellow, Hayate, is a crony capitalist. He says he retired 10 years ago. That would make it the very end of the DotCom bubble. The folks who made a bundle during that period on venture startups benefitted greatly from the billions the Feds flooded into the IT industry to combat the Y2K scare. In large part, this money is what distorted the IT sector and inflated the DotCom bubble. He sees the government as a benefactor, an investor, an entity that enabled his success.
More, his screen name is a clue. It's Japanese. Literally it means 'storm sqall' or 'gale'. The word connotes speed and power when used in other contexts.
I think everyone believes in evolution and climate change.
Submitted by Red Jeep on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:51pm.
God created the Heavens and the earth and then things evolved from there.
Where I live there are 4 climate changes a year. We are in summer now and soon it will be fall, then winter and spring. Happens every year.
Are you felling OK Chris? Got the diabetes under control?
3:20 mark
Submitted by GregE on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 10:52pm.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/chris-matthews-grills-reince-priebus-oba...
Note Chrissie going off........."Your party left the country in wreckage......blah blah blah.......and this president walked in the door.....blah blah blah"
Does Chris forget which party won both houses of Congress in November 2006? Or does he think the Presidency is a dictatorship and Congress has no role?
I'll bet if things were great, he'd make sure to say Congress had a role, starting January 2007.
Was Wasington scary? Was Linclon?
Submitted by CobraMan on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:09pm.
So, a President who doesn't believe in evolution, like the majority of the Presidents for the first 200 years of America, is scary? Only to the secularists.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
Yes
Submitted by hayate1 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:58am.
The point being that we have learned a few things since the days of Washington. I prefer to have leaders who look forward to learning more and not backwards to the days of ignorance and suffering. The whole reason this country was founded was to escape the theocracy of Europe and create a system that is ruled by the law, applied equally TO all, and built on a philosophy of enlightenment. That means that critical thinking, proving arguments with facts and letting the results of those arguments and the requisite facts be the determinants for actions. Not faith or fealty to a god or king. So yea, it would be scary to go back to the medieval mind set. A mind set where leaders do things bc it is so written by a scribe thousands of years ago or bc god told me to and if you protest too much off to jail you go.
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
Huh?
Submitted by mamabear on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:15pm.
"As it pertains to evolution, since the theory was first advanced in 1859, it's safe to say that some of this nation's greatest presidents didn't believe in it including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and likely Abraham Lincoln."
Wait... whether or not it is accepted on this website that either evolution or AGW are real, it seems odd to argue that it is okay not to believe in something as long as anyone smart or competent has ever not believed in it. I mean, if I tried to send you to a doctor who didn't believe in the existence of DNA, would you be okay with it because there were plenty of good doctors around before anyone knew about DNA?
Agree or disagree, the issue is not about whether the president of the United States has to make a lot of decisions about evolution. It is about attitudes towards science and research, willingness to listen to experts in scientific fields, etc. I would expect any 5th grader to know lots of scientific things that George Washington didn't-- like what DNA is, just as an example. And whether or not the president needs to think about DNA, I'd be pretty mistrustful of anyone with that important an office who tried to insist that there was no such thing as DNA. That's the sentiment that's being expressed here.
I know many conservatives don't think that evolution and AGW are facts of the world, but plenty of Americans do. I think everyone finds the idea of being lead by someone with a different conception of reality than your own disconcerting-- and I would think you guys would be able to relate right about now!
The President shouldn't be involved in matter of science
Submitted by CobraMan on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:50pm.
The president shouldn't be involved in matters of science, or religion, or any other matter other than administering the government. Those things should be left entirely to the private sector, where they're supposed to be. I don't want any president, no matter how smart, to be making decisions about which sciences should be promoted or not. It's not the President's job to decide things like "evolution." It's not the president's job to decide things like Global Warming.
The president shouldn't decide for us things like which fuel we should be burning, what sources of energy we should rely upon, where we should live, what we should eat, or how we should treat our own health care requirements.. Those are private decisions made by individuals, like the decision of whether evolution is real or not, and the nether the President, nor Congress, should be allowed to make those decisions for us. Those are OUR decisions to make, not the President's. The President should stick to his or her job, administering the government, and leave the rest to the citizens where it belongs.
You see, when I vote for a President, or a Congressman, I don't vote to abdicate decisions like that to someone else. I vote for them to continue to allow me to make those decisions for myself. Just as with your "if I send you to a doctor" statement, the President isn't supposed to "send" me anywhere. I am free to make those decisions for myself. Nether you, nor the President, nor Congress, is supposed to be involved in those type of decisions. That's what Individual Liberty is all about.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
That's beside the point
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:36am.
I tried to make this clear: it isn't that the president needs to make lots of decisions about science (although practically, he/she does). It is about what attitudes towards science reveal about the person. If I put a candidate before you who thought that aliens lived in a giant mountain in the middle of Montana and produced all of the cheese on the planet there, the problem wouldn't be that that specific belief had anything to do with being President. The problem would be what that belief said about the candidate's intelligence, savvy, and understanding of the world.
I'm willing to bet you'd have a hard time trusting that person with leadership of this country.
So, you peg religious beliefes to intelegence?
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:26pm.
So, you relate someone's religious believes to their intelligence level? You think that people who don't believe what you believe is not nearly as smart as you are? That tells me more about you than you realize. It tells me that your biased and sanctimonious and would make a terrible President.
I wouldn't care if the President believe that the Earth is only 8,000 years old, that a fat man who lived in a cave has discovered the path to enlightenment, or that they're reincarnated. It wouldn't make any difference in how they administer the government.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
You said that, not me!
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:05pm.
There are plenty of religious people who believe in evolution!
But aren't you doing the same thing in a way?
Submitted by stage9 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:13am.
You're making a logical fallacy as well by inserting "experts in scientific fields" as authorities who should be trusted aren't you? I may be reading your post wrong.
This faulty appeal to authority is always made by evolutionists to someone who is considered an expert on a particular topic—a scientist or expert. For example, “Dr. Bill has a PhD in biology, and he believes in evolution so therefore his views are true.”
Dr. Bill may indeed have a PhD in biology—and that qualifies him to say something about how organisms function today. But does knowledge of how things work today necessarily imply knowledge of how things came to be? This is a separate question. The experiments Dr. Bill has done and the observations he has made have all taken place in the present world. He has no more direct observations of the ancient past than anyone else today.
The fact that Dr. Bill believes in evolution means that he is predisposed to interpret the evidence in a particular way. So, while I may put confidence in what Dr. Bill says about the make-up of a particular protein that he has studied under the microscope, his bias against biblical creation means it would be unwise for me to trust his opinions on questions of origins.
Experts do not know everything. They can make mistakes. Some new discovery may cause a scientist to change his mind about something that he thought he knew. So, at best, relying on an expert only yields a probable conclusion.
Of course, if the expert had knowledge of everything and never lied, then there would be no problem accepting his statements as absolutely true. In fact, it would be absurd not to do so under those circumstances. The Bible claims to be such an infallible source—a revelation from the God who knows everything and cannot lie.
"If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner." — Malcolm Muggeridge
No, you're right
Submitted by bkeyser on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:18am.
mamabear believes that if you wear a white coat, you're 100% legitimate and where the money that funds your research comes from plays no bearing on your reported results. Science is inarguable, even when it's later proven wrong.
Really?
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:45am.
"Science is inarguable, even when it's later proven wrong."
Where have I said that exactly? I think what I've said is that part of the strength of science as a process for understanding the world is that it demands you change when something is proven wrong. Belief systems are not as goods at changing their minds about the world.
Science, by it's very nature
Submitted by bkeyser on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:04pm.
is almost always proven either wrong or incomplete and yet you place your entire belief system -it seems- on the findings of current scientific hypothesis. We've discussed this at length prior.
Right, my question remains...
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:08pm.
What is better to base your understanding on than something which will, at the very least, change when the facts do?
Also, there are plenty of established scientific theories that have not been proven wrong. Incomplete, yes, but reality is a complicated thing. Anyone who claims complete knowledge of the universe is either a liar, an idiot, or a god.
Wow
Submitted by bkeyser on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:47pm.
So someone who claims evolution is irrefutable is a god? Mindnumbing.
No one is claiming that evolution is irrefutable
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:48am.
We are claiming it hasn't been refuted. That is absolutely not the same thing.
Mamabear, Hmmm...last I
Submitted by Liberallies on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 5:22pm.
Mamabear,
Hmmm...last I checked, Al Gore and countless other Liberals have informed us that the debate is over. That Global Warming is irrefutable. We have been told that arguing against Global Warming is like arguing against flat Earthers.
Thus, thanks for admitting that Al Gore and the rest of the wacky Liberals who believe Global WArming is irrefutable are either liars, idiots or think of themselves as gods.
Additionally, do you honestly believe that where funding comes from does not affect the findings of your scientific research? If you believe that funding does not affect where you stand on an issue as a scientist I have a bridge to no where to sell you that will lead you to great places!
Of course there is also the whole thing about looking cool and in, and being part of the crowd. Or as someone I debate with informed me, "But Liberallies, I read in the news. If it is in the news it true!" Very nice young lady with a college education too. My mouth just dropped and I had to inform her, "T, not everything you see on television or read in a newspapers is true." This reality kind of shook her corer beliefs out of wack! Sadly, this is what ourcollege and universities are teaching and graduating.
As it was said above, it seems that today all one has to do to be credible on the Left is appeal to an authority with a Ph.d, MBA and boom, it must be true!
I have always said it, to Liberals, to secularists to Atheists, science is their religion, science books their Bible and scientists their priests!
Nothing is irrefutable
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 11:03pm.
but that's a phrase that's easy to use sloppily.
As for science funding, I've gotten funding, and I've done science. I'm telling you no one told me what conclusions I was supposed to reach with that money. How about, if I refrain from telling you how college admission REALLY works, and what a gullible idiot you are if you think differently, you refrain from telling me how science REALLY works, and what a gullible idiot I must be for thinking, based on direct experience, that you are wrong?
Mamabear, 1) I can't talk
Submitted by Liberallies on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 6:16am.
Mamabear,
1) I can't talk about how scientific world works because I am not a scientist? Geez, then please never talk about abortion because you aren't a doctor or homosexuality because you aren't a homosexual. Really mamabear?
2) You can tell me how college admissions really works. I wouldn't get offended!
3) I can tell you from the direct experience of family members how the scientific world really works. How too many scientists ARE influenced by the research money they receive, where it comes from, who gives it to them.
i can also tell you that there are countless of scientists and Liberals whose religion is science, Bible is the science books and scientists their priests.
Man, I remember a forum in which you said you had the right to speak as you wish and say what you wanted. Look at you now demanding that people refrain from speaking about what you believe they do not know anything about. LOL
Sorry mamabear, the scientific world is corrupt.
Put it this way, explain the countless of emails that came out of the university of london where professors were telling each other what to say about Global Warming and how to treat those who denied Global wamring. They were telling each other how to manipulate teh data so Global Warming was proved to be real.
Additionally, while you are at it, you may want to explain how the scientist who claimed that the polar bears were disappering has now been fired and is being investigated by the government. Along with his collegues for manipulating data. And as we all know, it was the disappering polar bears that consolidated the Global Warming movement. Now, it turns out, that it was all lies.
Or Al Gore's movie, praised and worshiped by the Global Warming crowd and found to be full of errors!
and if nothing is irrefutable, why do the members of the Global Warming religion inform us that the debate is over? that no one who denies Global Warming should be given credibility?
You said it Mamabear, not me. You said that anyone who claimed that something was irrefutable was either a liar, an idiot or a god. Your own words say that Al Gore and all the Global Warming believers who claim that GW is irrefutable, which are countless upon countless of Liberals, are liars, idiots or believe themselves to be gods.
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 6:02pm.
Can you give me an example of this corruption you mentioned within, say, the area of condensed matter physics? Can you tell me what theories or ideas in that area of research are considered OK to research and which are not and which will get funding and which will not?
How about in the areas of high energy physics or atomic physics or optics or plasma physics or relativistic physics or astrophysics?
I ask because you said "the scientific world is corrupt".
That's a pretty big world and certainly contains more than just the small subfield which deals with research into global warming. So I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for you to find specific examples (with links, of course) of this widespread corruption in these other areas of science.
Hydro, Really? that's like
Submitted by Liberallies on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 9:41pm.
Hydro,
Really? that's like the mechanic telling the owner of a car that while his car is beyond repair, the car still works because the wheels still work!
You have corruption throughout a field and still have some small areas that have not been touch by this corruption.
So, you are saying that if I find no corruption in the areas you mentioned, the scientific world is not corrupt? Somehow, I expected something much deeper from you.
The law is corrupt in the USA, does it mean that every single lawyer is corrupt? Of course not, but the field of law is corrupt, but since I will find good, honest, moral lawyers I guess it is not true.
You may not be corrupt and your collegues may not be, but this does not mean that the science fields are not corrupt. Influenced by money, influenced by "lobbiests"!
Money talks, prestige talks, yes, even in the science field. The problem is not science hydro, the problem is us humans.
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 9:56pm.
First, the areas I mentioned encompass the vast majority of research field in physics. Condensed matter physics alone accounts for about 60% of all research done in physics. And, of course, physics represents one of the major research areas of science.
Your suggestion that the areas I mentioned are "small areas" of science is stunningly ignorant. The issue with my post to you wasn't that it wasn't deep enough, it was that I actually assumed you know something about the fields of science and physics.
By contrast, the study of global warming - the only area of research which you have mentioned here and for which you might have a legitimate argument regarding corruption - is a small subfield of atmospheric physics which is, itself, a small subfield of physics.
If you don't believe me, go to the physics website of any college or university anywhere on the planet and see how many courses they offer on atmospheric physics versus how many they offer in any of the other fields I mentioned.
Now, maybe you are just expressing yourself in an unclear manner. When you say "the scientific world is corrupt" I - and I think most - would interpret that to mean that you saying that there is widespread corruption in most fields of science. And if that is what you mean, then I'm sure you can provide some evidence for that. Otherwise I would suggest - using your analogy - that's like a mechanic who tells an owner that his car is beyond repair because it has a scratch on it.
If, on the other hand, what you mean to say is that corruption exists in science, then I would agree with that. I do believe in one small subfield of physics there is evidence of corruption.
Hydro, Wait, wait...it is
Submitted by Liberallies on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 3:22pm.
Hydro,
Wait, wait...it is stunningly ignorant that I am not an expert in physics? really? or that I do not know the subfields of physics? I can use your logic and start naming subfields of admissions, of history, philosphy, political science, that you are not familiar with or not know that this how this part of politicla science, for example, is named, then use your statement "What, those fields make up a huge part of the larger fields. It is stunningly ignorant of you not to know those fields!" C'mon, get out of here with the "gotcha" silliness.
Second of all, while I would love to link up to the countless of articles I have read on how corrupt the science field is, including physics, I neither have the time, not the inclanation to do so.
However, if you really want to find out whether or not your important field of physics is corrupt or not, go type in google search, "Physics is corrupt" and vuala! you get 5,500,000 hits! ouch! I am sure not all of them are articles about corruption, but many are. Then if you type, "Corruption in the field of physics" you get 8,320,000 hits! ouch, yet again! Shall I continue Hydro? I hope these millions of hits keeps you busy enough to find out the truth which you seem to be quite oblivious to.
It is stunningly ignorant of you to not know that your field is so incredibly full of corruption.
Science is a corrupt field, full of individuals who, not all of them, but many, want to push their own personal agenda, who want money and prestige.
Obviously I have hit a nerve and a sacred cow with you, but it is not merely the Global Warming "scientist" who are corrupt.
By the way, I guess the Piltdown Man and the countless numbers of stupidities that biologists ahve done in order to "prove" that Evoluation is real doesn't count as corruption to you?
Like lawyers, there are countless of corrupt scientists out there who believe that since they have Ph.D after their name and not a JD, that they are above and beyond reproach and being called on their corruption.
Leave it to a physicists to claim that physics is not corrupt. That is like asking a Chicago Cop if the Chicago police department is corrupt. Yeap, a lot of objectivity there. LOL
I can tell you story after story of scientists who have worked with my father and friends who are not only corrupt, but individuals who should have never received a Ph.d next to their name. I can tell you stories of how scientists hired by the USA government have visted my brothers work, a mechanical engineer for an engine company, and has been told to make engines less safe in order to cut cost for the government. When my brother and his department refused to comply, the government scientists said that they would pull the funding!
I can tell you how my uncle, who use to work as an egineer at an oil company was once approached by scientists. The lead filled tanks had to be clean, he received protective gear, but the lower workers did not. When my uncle refused to send in workers without the same protective gear, the scientists he was working with, who were his supervisors threatened to fire him. Their excuse was that the money they were going to spend on protecting the workers would be better spent in research and salaries for scientists!. Of course, my uncle quit his job.
I can tell you the story of my cousin who works at a hospital as a pediatrician. When he refused to give contraceptives to under age kids, scientists (MDs) threaten to fire him since he was not "in" with the rest of the hospital staff and society. Of course my cousin claimed moral objection and while the MDs above him could not fire him, they made his life impossible for being a practicing Catholic.
These are just three stories. Come on over, bring a few beers, I will have mind and I will tell you along with my friends and family members who are scientists the amount of corruption that exists across ALL fields of science! And corruption, of course, is not merely limited to money.
Wow
Submitted by mamabear on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 7:44pm.
So... maybe this post explains the huge disconnect between the view from inside and outside scientific fields. None of the corrupt people you are describing sound like they were actually engaged in research. They sound like plant supervisors, regulators, inspectors, budget managers, and physicians. How does a researcher end up in charge of cost cutting for the government? How are they the supervisors of the cleaning crew? Why are they administering pharmacies?
Not every person with a PhD is a scientist, or a scientist for their entire career. You have yet to describe a single incident of corruption in research, and I suspect you have none in your arsenal. If your contention was that scientists make crappy administrators, you'd have no argument from me. Scientists tend to be pretty bad at anything that involves human communication! None of that seems to have anything to do with whether or not one can trust their research conclusions.
mamabear
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 10:11pm.
I have to agree.
I'm not sure what Liberallis thinks a research scientist is - but it sure as crap isn't what he's talking about.
Because really - I show up at construction sites all the time with my hard hat making sure that the Universal Gravitational Constants is what it should be.
Der.
So...
Submitted by mamabear on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 7:06pm.
... did you actually just use the word "crap?"
;)
mamabear
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 7:33pm.
I figured you would catch that :)
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 10:04pm.
You are the one who said that science was corrupt, right?
So by that I assumed that you meant that folks in some of the largest research fields in science where corrupt, right?
Like the areas I mentioned - the ones you laughably called "small" - right?
I'm sorry if me calling you ignorant about science hurt your feelings but you bringing up other areas of study (and if you want to get into philosophy, please, let me know) and your supposed knowledge about them doesn't erase the fact that you dismissed those other areas of study as inconsequential.
In other words, you made a mistake. Be a grown up and admit it.
As for your "google search" defense... let's go with that.
If I look up alien abduction I come up with ... 3,110,00 results.
If I look up big foot I come up with ... 19,800,00 results.
If I look up catholic torture I come up with ... 20,900,000 results.
Well, I guess all those things are true, right?
I will hold you to the same standard you held Wrathful Brunette... provide me with an "unbiased source to back up your point" that science is corrupt.
Can you?
The Piltdown Man was shown to be a hoax by... wait for it... scientists. Believe it or not, scientists are human. And some scientists have used their position to abuse science. Just as some people of faith have used theirs to abuse their position. But science marches on. It has its setbacks - and I can provide other examples of scientist who have purposefully introduced false data to further their own careers if you like - but in the end, lies are discovered and science marches on.
I'm sure you hate that fact since there in nothing like that in your faith.
(Yes, that was me being a jerk)
As for hitting a nerve, I would suggest you look at your own behavior during that conversation with Wrathful Brunette about the Inquisition before you start using that as a dismissive put down lest you be called a hypocrite.
Your suggestion that as a scientist I can't admit corruption in science would be like me suggestion that as a person of faith, you can't admit there is corruption in the church. Again, going back to your argument about the Inquisition, it would be like me saying that your opinion is suspect since you are a Catholic.
Your anecdotal stories are about engineers, not about research scientists. This is me about to call you ignorant again - so don't cry - but research scientists work at universities or college or large research facilities. They don't work for your dad. They publish papers based on work within labs in an academic environment or large research lab setting. The guys you mention are not that - despite whatever supposed PhDs they might have.
Your little stories sound like you and/or your family had issues with engineers working for the government or some company. Not the same thing.
And using them as an example of corruption in science is like me pointing out that I once heard a priest who tried to convince me that evolution is wrong because it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
I have more respect for people of faith than that and I know people of faith that are smarter than that.
I've worked in physics for two decades. I've never been coerced or bullied into finding a certain result. My funding has never been based on an assumption of what my results would be. I've never heard, from any of the people I've worked with or even anyone in any of the departments I've worked in, of such coercion happening.
Call me a liar if you want.
But I guess my anecdotal evidence of hundreds of people trumps your three stores of how evil and corrupt science is.
Hydro, amazing, look at you
Submitted by Liberallies on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 9:37pm.
Hydro,
amazing, look at you all up in arms...for years you have attacked religions and religious beliefs here at NB, now that your precious science, your religion, is attacked, look at you, all up in arms. Amazing the great hypocrisy of our "scientists" today.
Here, take a lead from a real scientists, Francis Collins, a genious, yes more than you believe yourself to be. http://atheism.about.com/b/2009/06/30/francis-collins-conversion-from-at...
of course this also proves the lie that individuals like Mamabear push, that we Christians some how do not believe in science. LOL a great lie perpetuated by Liberal "elites" to feel comfortable with their arrogant believe that they are smarter than those who disagree with them.
1) My father, a scientists, worked for a university and was involved in research. But heck, I should believe hydro over my father. LOL...But I guess my father's anecdotal evidence of thousands of collegues and their stories trump your hundreds of people. LOL
My mother, also a scientists, also worked for a university and was involved in research. But nah, my mother lied to me, hydro said it is not true. There is no corruption in science. LOL
Geez, is this how you teach your kids? "Be condescending my students. Ignore the facts, claim that you are right, do everything within your power to make fun of the other person. Play symantics with them and you will feel superior. It is this feeling of superiority alone that proves us scientists right!"
2) The reason I became upset at Brunette had nothing to do with her Inquisiton comments and 100% with her actions and how she acted.
3) Quite stunngly ignorant of you to assume what my father has done or not done in his life and equally ignorant of you to assume why I became upset at Brunette.
4) You know next to nothing about the Roman Catholic Church, Catholicism, my Faith. If you did, you would not have made the stunningly ignorant comment that there is nothing like that in my faith! You might want to do an indepth study of the Roman Catholic faith and you will realize that most times it was priests, nuns, and what is considered doctors of the Church who exposed, called out and fought corruption within the Church.
I know, I know, this goes against the Hollywood movies and the anti-Catholic propaganda out there which you so ignorantly have been easily led to believe.
5) Stop doing what you today's "scientists" do, take science as religion, attack anyone who dares to shine a light in the immnese corruption in your field and ignore the emperical data that proves your personally held beliefs wrong....
Countless more where the below came from! Now be a grown up and admit you made a mistake.
Yes, the fields of physics and the subfields that you named are by no means small in the physics field, I made a mistake. but you do realize that physics is only one of the many scientific fields out there, right?
and by all means, please point out where I have said that I am a physics expert? IN fact, as I recall very well, when we had our Moral absolute debate, I openly and quickly admitted upfront that I was no physics expert. But heck, you have to make yourself feel superior and pretend that people believe things they have never said they believe or know.
I stand by the FACT that science, physics, biology, archeology, engineering, computer science, climatology, psychiatry, medicine, chemistry, etc ARE corrupt.
Condescending, believes he knows everything Hydro is right, everyone else is wrong. Humilty, hydro, gets you a lot farther than your condescending tone.
Now, go ahead, do what you do best, ignore the facts.
and Yes, there has been great corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. It is a Godly institution run by mere humanbs with great weaknesses. I am not as arrogant as you to claim that the Church has not gone through its corruption. Now can you admit the same of science and scientists?
As far as philosophy, Hydro, hydro...I remember someone, who through logic, was forced to admit that there are Moral Absolutes. Yes, yes, you said that we do not know which are these Moral Absolutes, but you admitted such exist! and there are witnesses that saw you write this! Saw, if I were you, I woulnd't be bragging too much about your skills in philosophy.
Let's play your silly game...how stunningly ignorant of you to claim that there are no Moral Absolutes. LOL
It is your condescending tone and your feeling of superiority that belittles your arguments and who you are. I have seen you display it countless of times and it does you much more harm than good. Leave it at the door, like you did with the Moral Absolute debate and we'll get somewhere.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/233364-Corruption-in-Science-Fraud-and...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8490481.stm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091617/ (great place to start researching. Grab the name of the professors, why they were not given tenured, why the university took away their grants, etc and follow up, do your own research. You know, do what real scientists do. Not what you have done, make up your mind without doing real research)
http://www.realclearworld.com/2009/12/08/corrupt_scientists_behaving_bad...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2592299/
http://deadlinelive.info/2011/01/07/corrupt-scientist-who-lied-about-vac...
http://www.smokingaloud.com/corrupt.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3825996/Against-the-Tide-Book-about-Corruption...
http://blog.independent.org/2010/10/10/top-physicists-protest-the-corrup...
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/11677
http://www.aidstruth.org/documents/Harpers_Out-of-Control-Article_March-...
~Aha! I knew my ears were burning for a reason!
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 9:44pm.
I thought, "My name is being taken in vain somewhere on the internets" and followed the sound of screeching and flapping.
LL, I'm still waiting to finish our conversation on the Bozell thread, and any time you want to link to this mysterious statement of mine you kept invoking on the Infamous Inquisition Thread, feel free. I'd love to know what it is.
Brunette, Hydro, brought you
Submitted by Liberallies on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 10:02pm.
Brunette,
Hydro, brought you up. Not I! LOL
I thought Bozell's conversations was over. We are not going to see eye to eye on that. I respect your point of view and your strong held believe that he should have stayed quiet. I just disagree with it as much as I disagree with Bozell's believe that Christine made a fool of herself, but you as much as he, have a right to say it.
Methinks you misunderstood.
Submitted by Denny Crane on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 10:41pm.
Hydro never claimed that there isn't any corruption in science. In fact he stated just the opposite. "If, on the other hand, what you mean to say is that corruption exists in science, then I would agree with that. I do believe in one small subfield of physics there is evidence of corruption."
You are stating that science is corrupt. As in all science is corrupt. Hydro pointed out that there are large fields where there is little corruption and it is expelled by the non corrupt.
You using stories to back up your assertion that "science is corrupt" is no different than someone using a multitude of stories about corrupt priests to say the RCC is corrupt.
We Are The 53%
Denny Crane, Methinks you
Submitted by Liberallies on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 11:24pm.
Denny Crane,
Methinks you are sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, as always and sticking your foot in your mouth...as always. LOL
Nice of you to ignore the paragraph from Hydro's posts which you linked to. He also said, " Now, maybe you are just expressing yourself in an unclear manner. When you say "the scientific world is corrupt" I - and I think most - would interpret that to mean that you saying that there is widespread corruption in most fields of science. And if that is what you mean, then I'm sure you can provide some evidence for that."
He is claiming that there is no wide spread corruption in most fields of science. I not only disagree with him, I have provided evidence that proves him wrong.
Additionally, he agrees with Mamabear when she claims that I may not know what a research scientist is and that it leads to part of me confusing scientists with research scientists. I also prove this wrong by linking to research scientists corruption.
Furthermore, he attempts to claim that there is no corruption in his field, physics, because gosh darn it, he has never experienced it in the 20 years he has been around doing research. (and he calls himself a scientist, scary!). I guess since in my 20 years of driving i have never been in a car accident, darn it, car accidents do not happen. LOL
Now, I will hold Hydro to the standards he has held me to. He needs to provide countless upon countless of links proving that what I am saying is wrong, that there is no widespread corruption in most fields of science.
there is wide spread corruption in most if not all fields of science. Does it mean that every scientist is corrupt, of course not, never made such a claim. But from research scientist to field scientists to scientists working for the government and corporations there is wide spread corruption in science.
Of course, hydro will return and believe that his air of superiority and condescending tone will win the argument while he ignores the facts. Hydro is Exhibt A of what is wrong with scientists today, no matter the evidence that is in front of them, their personal hard held beliefs will not be "proven wrong" LOL
Thanks for your opinion.
Public board.
Submitted by Denny Crane on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 11:51pm.
I am free to comment on anything I feel like. And I have been posting on this thread for days. What makes you think that I am putting my nose where it doesn't belong? Because it disagrees with you? Keep trying.
I am only pointing out that Hydro never stated "hydro said it is not true. There is no corruption in science."
It may be semantics, but My opinion is that you are confusing "corruption in science" with "science is corrupt"
Like I said, you can find story after story about just about anything but that doesn't make the entire field or subject inclusive.
One of the problems with your assertions is that you tend to think in absolutes. "If you don't agree with A, then you must agree with B"
You also stated that "Furthermore, he attempts to claim that there is no corruption in his field, physics, because gosh darn it, he has never experienced it in the 20 years he has been around doing research." He claimed no such thing.
He said "But science marches on. It has its setbacks - and I can provide other examples of scientist who have purposefully introduced false data to further their own careers if you like - but in the end, lies are discovered and science marches on."
We Are The 53%
Denny Crane, who said you
Submitted by Liberallies on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 12:23pm.
Denny Crane,
who said you couldn't comment? LOL All I said is that you have stuck your nose where it doesn't belong and you have done it once again and once again...you have put your foot in your mouth! LOL or you purposely lied. Only you know.
Comment all you want. Just do not expect me to not call you on your half-truths, lies and silly "logic" of yours.
Hydro exact words were, "I've worked in physics for two decades. I've never been coerced or bullied into finding a certain result. My funding has never been based on an assumption of what my results would be. I've never heard, from any of the people I've worked with or even anyone in any of the departments I've worked in, of such coercion happening."
So, what were you saying he never said? LOL
Yes, Hydro believes because he has never experienced corruption in his twenty years(two decades, you know) that he has been involved in his field, it does not exist.
Again, Hydro is Exhibit A of what is wrong with our "Scientists" today. They are unwilling to see beyond their bias. They push their research to match their personal beliefs and after they do that they go around saying, "You see, I told you so. I am right!" LOL
My problem is that I think in absolutes? LOL, thanks for the complement. I never said that all scientists are corrupt, but I am saying that all fields of science are full of corruption.
I much rather be a Moral Absolutists than the wishy-washy moral relativists who flows where the wind blows and his/her morality is based on what is "in", cool at the moment!
I will give you this, you are a poor defender for lost causes. LOL
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 1:14pm.
As Denny pointed out - by quoting me directly - I have twice acknowledged that corruption exists, both in science and in physics in particular.
The thing you didn't seem to pick up on with regard to my comments about my own personal experience in physics is that I was using my own personal anecdotal evidence to counter your personal anecdotal evidence. In other words - and please do try to follow along here - I was making the point that you can't assert something about an entire field based on a few examples you happen to have firsthand knowledge of.
I thought when I wrote "But I guess my anecdotal evidence of hundreds of people trumps your three stores of how evil and corrupt science is." I was making this clear, particularly since the term "anecdotal evidence" is pretty much synonymous with "weak evidence". I guess I'll just have to draw you a picture next time.
It's obvious to anyone who isn't out to totally misinterpret what I'm saying that in bringing up my personal experience, I wasn't making an argument that there is no corruption in physics - otherwise how could I acknowledge, as I did, that there is corruption in the field of global warming (which is a part of physics, in case you need me to point that out to you).
So yet again, you misinterpret something I say and then use that as the basis for accusing me of saying something I didn't.
Good job, Einstein.
Dude, the LOL fairy said you have used too many LOLs.
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:19am.
You say "Hydro believes... it does not exist" This is you once again seeing something that isn't there.
We Are The 53%
Denny Crane
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:40am.
LOL
Hydro
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:46am.
Me too!
We Are The 53%
Denny Crane
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 1:20pm.
Thanks for trying to clarify I what I wrote to Liberallies. It's clear that you got my point about anecdotal evidence.
And it's also clear that Liberallies didn't - even after you explained it to him.
I swear, if I'm ever dumb enough to get into another actual discussion with this guy, I'll have to figure out how to incorporate online hand puppets into the conversation.
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 1:00pm.
I've "attacked" religion and religious belief on this website for years? Care to give me even a single example of me doing this?
Oh wait - maybe to you, have a disagreement about religion is the same as "attacking" religion - is that it?
The fact is that I have defended religious belief against trolls who have showed up here in the past who have tried to use science as a bludgeon against religion.
You are flat out lying about how I've treated people of faith on this website and I would challenge you to find a single member of this community who would agree with your description of me in that regard.
That aside, I've never claimed Christians don't believe in science. I've stated a number of times on this site over the years that there are a lot of people of faith in science. In fact I did it right here one day ago. Would that be one of your examples of me attacking religion?
And where exactly did I admit that Moral Absolutes exist back in that debate about moral relativism? Could you please provide me with a quote?
What I do recall is basically giving up on that conversation when you asserted - in all seriousness - that as a moral relativist, I'm obligated to believe in Santa Clause.
I suppose I could go on but why bother.
You accuse me of things which are not true. You accuse me of saying things I didn't say. I'm not sure what your issue is. Maybe you have trouble reading and comprehending English. Maybe you don't have the ability to distinguish between what a person actually says versus what you think they mean. Maybe you are unable to separating your opinions and preconceived notions about a person and their views from what they actually write. Or maybe you are just a disingenuous liar.
At this point, I don't really care.
I was tempted to say that I would ignore you from now on but you know what? You are just too much fun to ignore.
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 3:05pm.
OK, so I got around to looking at your links and I have two questions before I comment further...
1) Did you actually read the material in those links?
2) Please define for me what you mean by "corruption" and how it is that science is "corrupt"? I ask this because the various links you provided deal with at least three distinct ways in which the word "corrupt" might be used and at least one of them clearly has nothing to do with what you are talking about - which is why I asked question 1) above.
Once you do that, I'll comment on the links.
Everything does not have to be so dramatic!
Submitted by mamabear on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 10:49pm.
Seriously, every conversation you enter becomes more strident, more polarized, and less rational. You even made me sympathize with Brunette, for heaven's sake!
If you think this is the same as the attack on the Catholic Church of the earlier argument, then you need to own the charge of hypocrisy yourself, right? If it is hypocritical of scientists to complain about being attacked while attacking religion, then it is also hypocritical of you to attack science after complaining about your religion being attacked. It can't go one way without going the other!
But I don't think they are the same. You are saying "science is corrupt." You are not limiting your accusation to one group of scientists, a finite set of events in science, a historical happening, etc. You've been given plenty of opportunities to qualify or amend that statement, you stick to it. No one said that about your beloved church. People accused a specific group, in the past, of doing something bad. No one said "the Catholic Church is corrupt/evil/torture-happy." The reason these two are not the same, is that the attack on your Church was limited in scope, while your attack on science is not.
You reveal it yourself. Your "admission" that there has been corruption in the Church is worded very differently. You don't say "the Catholic Church is corrupt," which would be the same accusation you make against science. Instead you say "there has been corruption in the church." Very different. If you asked either Hydro or myself if there "has been corruption in science," I feel pretty confident that we would both readily admit that there was. If you ask us "is science corrupt," we are both answering no.
Would you admit that the Catholic Church is corrupt, because you admit that there has been corruption in the Catholic Church?
I can't tell if this is you using sloppy language, or if you really hold such a dramatic double standard without experiencing any cognitive dissonance. Everyone who attacks you is being unfair. Everyone who complains about your attacks is being childish. Assumptions that you make are just mistakes and shouldn't be harped on. Assumptions other people make are evidence of their condescension and elitism. Doesn't your logical brain rebel against the inconsistency?
I didn't think that religious people didn't believe in science until I came to NB. In many ways, my conversations here have given me a more positive impression of conservatives than I had in my little liberal bubble, but sadly, science literacy is not one of those ways. I honestly hadn't realized how hostile many religious people are to science until I came here and had it amply demonstrated to me. If it's a lie, I'd LOVE to see some evidence of that show up in these discussions we have. You really aren't helping with the whole "science is corrupt" thing!
Also, you might want to read the links you put up. That first one appears to be an article written by some random guy on About.com about how Francis Collins is not really all that impressive.
Hello, we're all about to die and you're droning on Catholics?
Submitted by SickofLibs on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 10:57pm.
Bottle it till Monday... it'll keep.
~We, who are about to die
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 11:32pm.
salute you!
Please give us a heads-up at the first Shep and Geraldo
Submitted by Jer on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 11:47pm.
sighting.
Jer
~Stop the presses!
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 11:30pm.
OMG, OMG, you sympathized with me?! Poor dear, did it give you a nose bleed? Did you throw up a little in your mouth? I think I just did.
*ahem* If you'll recall, you once accused me of thinking you were mean. I promptly informed you I'd eaten meaner people than you for breakfast, and been the delighted recipient of far more vitriol than you have ever seen on these boards. What you witnessed last week was Exhibit 193848723548-B of that.
LL is the Catholic version of an equally bugf*ck crazy Protestant we had around here, by the name of Acts 2:34. I used to ride him into the ground whenever he went on his "the RCC is the whore of Revelations" rants. He made LL look like a lightweight fruitcake.
I'm an Equal Opportunity bulldogger. Yee Hah! :-D
This may be wrong but
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:34am.
I think I'm in love!
We Are The 53%
Wrathful Brunette
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:45am.
bugf*ck?
Warning!!
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:51am.
Bugf*ck
See here for definition.
See here for visual definition.
We Are The 53%
Denny
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:37am.
I wish you hadn't included the visual definition.
Now my brain has a frowny face.
Don't say I didn't warn you!
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:44am.
8-o
We Are The 53%
Denny
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:48am.
You didn't, you bastard :{0
(that's me with my awesome mustache)
Brunette, As I informed
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 11:34am.
Brunette,
As I informed Hydro, who loves to assume, but goes crazy if he believes someone else assumes. I never became upset at you for what you said about the Roman Catholic Church. I became upset at your behavior.
That being said, I apologized to you and I do it again. Additionally, I think I was not alone in my poor behavior and I admitted and admit, yet again, that I do the Church no favors.
However, for whatever reason, you are someone who has a hard time accepting apologies. If you remember, and it is on that thread for everyone to read, it was your inability to accept my apology for calling you Candance that started it all.
~I didn't say a thing about the RCC
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:18pm.
And no, your "apology" doesn't mean shit to me. You threw out the most ridiculous lies, defamations, smears, and distortions I've seen in quite some time, all in an effort to assassinate the character of a woman who disagreed with you. All you managed to do was make yourself look like a crazed freak.
You lied about me and you haven't admitted it, therefore your apology rings hollow.
Go gnaw circles in a meadow.
Brunette, You aren't being
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:09pm.
Brunette,
You aren't being serious, right? Complaining about character assasination? from you? wow! It is so true, it is easier to point to the mistakes and errors of others before we can admit to our own. you can't even see what a hypocritical statement the above is coming from you.
As I went back and checked, that is the VERY FIRST thing you did to me the VERY FIRST time we exchanged posts when you claimed I had demeaned and attacked women. Remember? Of course not. You don't do anything wrong.
You have a persecussion complex and excuse your deplorable and disgusting behavior here on NB anyway you need to and must in order to feel comfortable with your less than Christian behavior. Of course since you have a few who agree with you, you think it is cool and "in" to do it here on NB. You put up a show for them.
All you do is take cheap shots at people whom you disagree with in order to assasinate their character and attempt to take any credibility from them. All you did from the beginning, before I acted like a child, until the end of that forum, when I was acting like a child, is make a silly attempt to assisinate my character.
I disagreed with you and because someone dared disagree with you, you started with all types of insults and demeaning comments. Yes, AFTER you did this to me, I lowered myself to your level, but not before. So look in the mirror before you complain about character assasination.
The only one who came out looking like a "crazed freak" it is you. Oh I know, I know since you had some people back you up you feel vindicated. As the old Spanish saying goes, "Consuelo de mucho, consuelo de tonto!" Just because a mob agrees with you, it does not mean you are right.
You came in there with the most despicable, disgusting, ridiculous character assasination attacks against me and the Roman Catholic Church from your very first post. and now you are going to complain when you feel someone treated you like you treat anyone whom you have a deep and huge disagreement with?
I apologize, and I apologize again for acting like a two year old. I should have controlled myself despite you egging me on. But you have proven in two ocassions that you are incapable of accepting apologies. I guess that when I sincerely apologized for calling you Candance I had also attempted to character assasinate you? right? what's your excuse for that one?
You need to find inner peace, you need to find God and start practicing what you love to preach all over these forums.
The sign of a true Christian is that we love with a deep passion and love those whom we have the deepest disagreements, and fights with. We love anyone and everyone we consider our enemy. We just don't preach it, but we act it too.
I told you, it is recorded in internet history how you were..
1) You were incapable of accepting my apology when I called you candance and I was informed you were not. Had I also attempted, as you claim, to assasinate your character at that point? Unless you call confusing you with Candance character assasination, no such thing had happened.
2) You called me a fruicake, a moron and ignorant long before I went on the same road of insulting you. and when I say long before, about an hour before. I even wrote a post letting you know that I was not looking for a fight and asked you why you were so angry at me. Your reply to my respectful posts? more insults.
3) You claimed that getting evidence from the Vatican about the Inquisition was like getting evidence about the Holocoust from the Nazis. Nah, but you did not compare the Church to the Nazis. You might want to take a few classes in rhetoric. I showed your posts to English majors, to professors and they all agreed with me. Yes, you compared the Church to the Nazis. But of course, since in your mind you never do anything wrong...you never did. Oh and of course since you have a mob supporting you, geez you must be right and you feel vindicated.
4) YOU attempted to ridicule me and attack me LONG before I went down the same path. And now you are crying over your feeling that someone attempted to character assasinate you?
Brunette, that is your weapon of choice for anyone who disagrees with you and your personal held beliefs. Look in the mirror before you complain about what you do.
Yes, I know, I will come back later and there will be a post from you full of insults and attempts to demean me. Go for it. Do what you must, but just because you are a Conservative like me, I will not do what others have done and take your side. Wrong is wrong.
I acted wrong in following you and insulting you like you had insulted me. but you were wrong for doing it first. Two wrongs do not make a right.
~Still waiting
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:15pm.
for the horrible statement you claim I made about the RCC.
Brunette, Dear Daughter of
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:25pm.
Brunette,
Dear Daughter of God. You know, you may be right. It is my opinion that you insulted the Roman Catholic Church. You believe whole heartly that you did not. Maybe you and others are right, I am too paranoid and too sensative to what I personally believe are attacks on the Church.
You are right, I 100% apologize for attacking you, for using demeaning and deplobrable words and attacks on you.
My behavior in that forum was not the behavior of a son of God who claims to love Him. I have no right to demean you, attack you and insult you.
I apologize for not acting like a son of God. You are a beautiful soul whom God loves deeply. We constantly sin against Him and He still loves us. Who am I to not follow his example when I felt that you had done me wrong.
I sincerely and whole heartly apologize. I had not right to go on countless of rants insulting you, attempting to assasinate your character. It was sinful and wrong of me to do this.
I love you as a daughter of God and I sincerely and deeply apologize. May God grant you countless graces to you and your family. May many wonderful and amazing and great things happen to you and your family.
I truly can't wait to meet you in Heaven and give you a big hug and share in God's love. It will be an amazing day the day we get to see our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I can't wait.
Please keep me in your prayers. I am a weak souls and I need all the prayers I can get.
~Too thin
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:31pm.
See below.
I tend to agree
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:34am.
Take it for what it's worth but I have to agree with mamabear about how some - emphasis on some - folks on this site view science. I know exactly what she is talking about. I have a friend that I've known since junior high who is a liberal and I've admitted to him - and believe me, I hated doing it - that I'm embarrassed by some of the crap I've seen on NB regarding science.
I've seen a number of articles posted on this site over the years which, as far as I can tell, have nothing to do with media bias and have everything to do with getting members of the NB community pissed off about scientific theories which seem to conflict with Christianity. In fact, there was an article a year or two ago which was so blatant in this that I seriously considered just going off on everyone and getting myself banned.
(I'm sure some folks on here wished I had)
On top of that, I've also seen some of the most vile anti-science views I've ever seen anywhere expressed by some members of this community.
But, having said all that, I've also met lots of folks on this site who, despite disagreeing with me about the merits of certain scientific theories, have been both fair and intelligent about arguing their standpoint. And in doing so, have helped me think about my own views of things.
Mamabear, 1) Who came into
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:24pm.
Mamabear,
1) Who came into this conversation calling people "stunningly ignorant" Hydro. I made a comment that he obviously took very, very personal and started to attack me.
I will repeat it, across the board, it is widespread, the fields of science are full of corrupt scientists. Hydro does not like this fact and he became angry.
2) You know, I find it amusing that Denny Crane and the likes of Hydro claim that I always put words into their posts that they never said. Have you been following this thread? It was HYDRO who brought up the Catholic Church by turning to the post of the other day where Brunette and i went at it. As i pointed out to Brunette, it was Hydro who brought her up, not I.
Hydro wrote and assumed why I became upset at Brunette. So, Hydro can make assumptions about me, long before I make any about him, but if he feels I did it after he did it, I am being childish? Hmmm....where is your post asking hydro to stop making assumptions about others, their feelings, why they get angry and what their father has done or not done for a living?
Additionally, Hydro made a stunningly ignorant comment by claiming that my Faith has nothing like science where scientists catch errors and corruption. HE took my attack on science personal and has done everything within his power to make his attacks on me personal, why? oh my goodness because I dared attack his sacred cow, his religion, science.
3) Hydro attacked me for making assumptions, yet he turned around and made a minimum of three assumptions. What my father does, why I became upset at Brunette and how my Faith works and does not work. So I ask you, why do you give a pass to hydro for making assumptions? I just point out his hypocrisy! which he can't stand.
4) I will do what neither you nor Hydro are capable of doing. Yes, at one point, and very sadly, there was widespread corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. It took Luther's attack on the Church to acknowledge and start fixing the problem. The Church was not always corrupt, just like science has not always been corrupt, but the Church has had very ugly periods where corruption has zipped in. There were 4 "popes" at one point in its history. etc, etc.
Anything run by human beings, sadly becomes corrupt and if the corruption is not admitted and fixed, it becomes a cancer that eats away at that institution. Science and scientists are no different. Sure Hydro admits that there is corruption, but his assertion is that it is localized and small. He is incapable of admitting that his sacred cow, his religion, science is as of right now full of corrupt scientists and these are widespread throughout every field of science.
but if scientists, like you and hydro claim to be, are unwilling to admitt to the current cancer that is widespread in science, the problem will never be fixed!
science is beautiful, it is amazing. I find it amazing how things work, how everything just works so perfectly. In my personal opinion science just proves that there is a God.
5) I had a very, very respectful debate with hydro over Relativism and Absolutism. He lied as to why he never came back to the debate, as I prove down below. So, go talk to him. He loves to claim others lie, but the man, for whatever reason is a person who loves to lie.
I have had many, many respectful and insightful debates with countless of Liberals and Conservsatives here on NB. But there are a handful of Conservatives and Liberals who believe that they are beyond and above reproach and who think too much of themselves. Their pride is their undoing.
By the way, I didn't need Liberal blogs to know how hostile and condescending Liberals are towards religions. Well religions that believe in God, since Liberals do have their own religions.
6) You and I had, yes at times a bit heated, but at the end a respectful exchange about homosexuality, right? So, we can do the same. I will admit, I am short tempered and way too emotional, freaking Latino blood...grrr...but even when Brunette was egging me on, it took about an hour before I finally blew up on her. Nope, nope, not excusing it. I should have controlled myself and not kept it going for a whole week like I did. I am ashamed to admit that I did no favors to the Roman Catholic Church with my behavior.
Nevermind: edit
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 10:10pm.
I was going to try and let you off the hook a little here, since you seem to be trying to take a step back. However, you are obviously going full tilt further down the thread, so it seems pointless.
You want to know why I'm not bothering Hydro about being mean to you? Because next to you he looks like the soul of calm, rational, respectful debate.
For our resident
Submitted by Liberallies on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 10:08pm.
For our resident "Scientists". How a real scientists behaves...
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 1:34pm.
And what exactly am I suppose to take away from Dr. Collins' article?
Hydro, The problem with you,
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:00pm.
Hydro,
The problem with you, hydro, is that you are not an honest individual. You love to feel superior and love to be a condescending. I call you on it and you do not like it!
1) You attacked my Faith by claiming that it does not have what you claim science has, right? YES! But nah, you do not attack religion. Nah, never. You are all up in arms because your sacred cow, your religion, science, has been attacked, but countless of people here can point at you and say YOU have attacked religion countless of times.
But that is typical of your type, you enjoy going after that which you absolutely do not understand, but my goodness, careful if anyone goes after your sacred cows, your religion, science. Sad Hydro, sad.
2) You attacked me by claiming it was stunningly ignorant of me not to be an expert in physics, which I have never once claimed to be. In fact, I clearly stated in our Moral Relativism debate that I was none. YOU were attempting to feel superior, as always, Mr. Phd. and since I took that away from you, you are angry. Sad.
You showed complete hypocrisy when I returned your stunningly ignorant comment to you and proved to you how stupid it was for you to call someone "stunningly ignorant" since all of us are not experts in all fields out there. Again, you could not stand I did this to you.
3) You assumed what my father does for a living. but holy cow, careful if anyone makes assumptions about hydro or words he uses, right?
4) You like Denny Crane and others here, love, love to interpret the words of others. You love to claim a person said something when it is not what they said and you and him have the audacity to get upset when you believe it is done to you? Shame of you, sir. Shame on you.
5) and finally, you lied, you bold faced lied about the reason why you have not returned to our Moral Relativism debate. You either lied when you wrote me a PM, back in late June, letting me know that you were out of it and needed some time, but you would return or you lied above when you claimed you never came back because of the reason you claim. So which time did you lie?
Below are our PMs...Now everyone can see that you are a liar. Don't bother replying or if you do, don't wait for an answer. I am done with you. You are the typical, run of the mill Phd who believes that they are superior to us poor little people. I have eaten for lunch much smarter and wiser Phds who are full of of themselves than you.
As I said, you ARE Exhibit A of what is wrong with the science world today. YOU give science a bad name and you are too blind to see it. Keep on believing that you are superior. You won, hydro, you won. Now go on telling yourself that you are having fun. it is about the only thing you have left going for yourself. Take care.
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Displaying messages 1 - 6 of 6Participants: Liberallies and hydrodynDM
hydrodynDM
05/12/2011 - 5:25pm Liberallies,
I'm currently on a three week vacation so I won't be on here as often as I normally am. Since it takes me a bit of time to put together my responses to your posts in the moral relativism forum, I will probably be a day or two (or three) before I reply to your two posts. But rest assured I will at some point.
hydro
Delete messageLiberallies
05/12/2011 - 11:21pm no problem Hydro....take your time. Vacation is more important than our debate Delete message hydrodynDM
06/20/2011 - 1:05pm Liberallies, I'm finally back from my extended vacation. I know it's been a while but I would like to continue out discussion on the topic of moral relativism, if that's cool with you. Let me know and I'll post a reply to your last couple of posts. hydro Delete messageLiberallies
06/20/2011 - 11:23pm hydro, alright! I thought I had lost you. Anyway, yes, go for it. However, I am the one now on vacation. I will read your replies, but will not answer until at least late next week. Hope you had a good vacation! Delete message hydrodynDM
06/20/2011 - 11:56pm Cool. Get back to it when you feel like and have a good vacation.
Delete message hydrodynDM
06/26/2011 - 7:10pm I just wanted to let you know that I haven't abandoned out morality discussion - I do plan to respond in the near future. I just haven't been in the right state of mind lately to delve back into it. But I will.
By the way, I hope your vacation is going well.
Delete messageDisplaying messages 1 - 6 of 6
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~LL
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:09pm.
Seriously? You flail all over the boards calling people 'kid', 'son', and 'little girl', and you have the unmitigated gall to accuse others of superiority and condescension? You accuse others of this..
"You love to claim a person said something when it is not what they said"
..when you demanded some two dozen times that I back up some nebulous claim I never made.
Go look at yourself in the mirror, dipshit.
Oh, and the copying PM's thing is incredibly base of you. Hydro was nothing but polite, which is far more than you deserve.
Brunette, Really? "dipshit"?
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:47pm.
Brunette,
Really? "dipshit"? is this how you teach your children to be respectful?
Hydro was respectful to me? how, by lying of why he had not come back to our debate? Is this what you call respect, lying?
Maybe you can tell me, since you have chosen to defend him, why he never came back to the debate of moral relativism. Here on this fourm he claimed it was because I honestly claimed something about Santa Clause which he did not like. In the private PMs he told me it was because he was out of it and he would come back. So which one its it? LOL
Yes, he was respectful to me in the PMs, just like I was to him. Thus, my surprise to see two different versions of why he never went back to our Moral Absolute vs. Moral Relativism debate. Go figure.
You call Hydro being respectful calling me "stunningly ignorant" and when I prove how silly it is to make such a comment to someone, he keeps on insulting?
You call Hydro being respectful calling me "stunningly ignorant" and then he makes assumptions about what my father does for a living, why I became upset at you and assumptions about my Faith?
you have an "interesting" concept of being respectful to others.
Brunette, let me clue you in. I am unsure if you have noticed or not. Your petty insults, your behavior here on NB, your condescending posts to me, since you first addressed me when you claimed that I had attacked women, do not bother me. So keep it coming.
I apologize for acting so dumb and stupid in that forum. You egged me on for one hour and I ended up acting like you for five days, Very childish and stupid of me.
YOU go all over this board insutling and attempting to demean people who you feel have done you wrong or whom with you disagree deeply. and you are going to complain to me about calling people "son", "child", etc? You are joking right? My "insults" of calling someone a "child" "son", etc pale in comparison to the horrific insults that you throw out here on NB, but don't worry, I know you will not admit it or accept it. For you, somehow it is ok to do it, but for me and others it is not. Hmmm...
Not very Christian of you to be so revengeful and hold such deep resentment and grudge towards those individuals who you feel have done you wrong. Yes, and it was not very Christian of me at all how I acted in that forum. Not holding you to any standards I would not hold myself.
but don't worry, I know what to expect from you. More insults, more posts where you believe you are putting me down. So go at it. It obviously makes you feel good.
I made a mistake on that thread, lowering myself to your level and for that, you will now stalk me relentlessly in order to get out of your system what ever it is that you feel against me. Again, not the Christian behavior from someone who loves to claim they are Christian.
Do what you must...
~LL
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:48pm.
1. I said "polite", not "respectful". If you're going to go on a rant--scratch that, when you go on a rant, try to at least quote me accurately.
2. If you strapped yourself to a rocketship with enough fuel to last a year, you still wouldn't be able to make it up to my "level". Or anyone else's around here.
Brunette, You are right. I
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:16pm.
Brunette,
You are right. I wouldn't be able to make it to anyone's level on my own. you are 100% right. Thank you for teaching me humility.
Only through the grace of God my Father and through Jesus Christ the Son of God who is God Himself and my Lord and Savior, would I be able to make it up to anyone's level.
May God love you and look after you and your wonderful family. I thank you for being so honest with me and reminding me that I am a wretched, weak and wicked soul without God.
May God give you countless of graces and look after you and your family.
~I'm going to take that as a
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:20pm.
"No".
Brunette, Dear daughter of
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:32pm.
Brunette,
Dear daughter of God, the answer is no. You are once again right.
May God grant you and your family countless graces and may He look after you and your family with loving eyes.
You are a beautiful soul and God loves you more than anyone else will ever be able to love you.
Again, thank you for being an instrument of God and and teaching me humility.
Stunningly Ignorant
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 10:14pm.
Incidentally, just in case words can still get through the fog and have an effect on your thinking-- Hydro didn't call you stunningly ignorant. He called the suggestion you made stunningly ignorant. That it was ignorant is not really up for debate. He was presumably stunned by it. He was not calling you names, and the level of outrage you are expressing over it seems entirely unnecessary.
You know what the "P" in PM means?
Submitted by SickofLibs on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:08pm.
It is very, very rare when even the worse NB trolls cross that line.
If I had a ban hammer, you'd be outta here on general principle. Very bad form.
SickofLibs, thus, I assume y
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:33pm.
SickofLibs,
thus, I assume y ou would ask that The Vet be banned since he has done it, right?
C'mon, hydro lied, I know he would not admit to his lie, thus the reason for posting the PMs.
The man attacked me, I will defend myself with the Truth. I assume that it is bad form of him to have lied, right?
~While we're talking about lies
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 1:50pm.
and you're posting people's PM's, why don't you go ahead and post those 50 PM's you said you got about me?
I don't read every single post here, Fut.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:18pm.
And I'm not passing judgement on who lied and who didn't in this instance. All I can say is I personally consider PMs sacrosanct. I wouldn't make them public under any circumstances, and I've been involved in more than a few libtroll wars here where PMs were exchanged that I could have used to my advantage, but didn't.
Not trying to come across as high and mighty, mind you.
Sickoflibs, thank you for
Submitted by Liberallies on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 2:41pm.
Sickoflibs,
thank you for your opinion. I had not thought about PMs this way. In my opinion, PMs are fair game when one person says something in public and something completely different in private. But that is just my humble opinion.
Not being condescending at all. Thank you for your input and I will think about it. It is just that hydro made such a blalante lie that I could easily prove wrong that I thought it needed to back it up well since he always claims I take everything he says out of context.
but anyway, may be in the future I will not use PMs.
thanks
Awwww. The "Veet did it too" defense.
Submitted by The Vet on Sun, 08/28/2011 - 11:12am.
I have posted the PM's of viscious trolls that thought they could use PM's as a way to insult others in ways they would never imagine using publicly. And I posted the PM's of another user when they mentioned what was said in said PM's in what I thought was not a very friendly way.
Shame on me.
Oh, and I would not rely too much on the "Veet did it too" defense. I have been known to cross the gray line between ethical behavior whilst pounding on trolls and trolling itself so many times they had to repaint it due to wear and tear.
But nice try LiberalLies. Not a common tactic in courts. A nice try anyway.
Sincerely,
A line crossing Veteran of a 1000 Psychic Wars that trollies try to emulate and look up to.
Hell, at least ya'll get PM's.
Submitted by RESTLESS 1 on Sun, 08/28/2011 - 12:59pm.
What are those anyway?
Sniff, nobody love poor ole Restless anymore. :(
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 5:06pm.
I'll address the points in your other post above later, but I first want to address this accusation of lying.
When I wrote those PM's to you, I had every intent of continuing the conversation.
However, when I did finally get around to reading your last replies to me - sometime after that last PM to you - I decided to abandon it. I became convinced at that point that, despite the time and effort I had put into trying to explain what moral relativism entailed, you simply were not getting it.
I suppose I should have PM'ed you to let you know, but I didn't. So you can call me rude or inconsiderate if you want - and given what you have already called me here, that would probably be a step up - but don't for a moment think that you are important enough for me to compromise my standards by lying.
Hell, even The Vet - who has no love for me - as acknowledged that I'm an honest man.
You could have asked me directly what happened with that discursion. And I would have told you exactly what I wrote above. But instead, you simply accuse me of doing something I didn't do and have accused me of being so petty that I would actually lie about something as fundamentally inconsequential as an online debate with someone I don't even know.
But since I'm already a liar in your book - I suppose you will just dismiss what I wrote above as another lie.
And should I bring up that discussion we had last year about time dilation - where you posted a response that was such a flat out lie that you decided to edit it out a few minutes later- but not before I made a copy of it. I still have those saved - I can post those if you'd like.
You have a lot of nerve accusing me of lying, you f'ing hypocrite.
Yes. It is true.
Submitted by The Vet on Sun, 08/28/2011 - 11:19am.
I have no love for hydrodynDM. Just kidding, he is an honest man.
And might I add - any one of us can walk away from any conversation here at any point for any reason. No one is getting paid for this and if you think you are not being heard in a conversation, you have the right to walk away. And you do not have to say you are done either. Trolls use that in some kind of twisted game as evidence they won the conversation when clearly it was not a game in the first place.
Hydro, You are the one who
Submitted by Liberallies on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 2:17pm.
Hydro,
You are the one who stated one thing in public and another one on private. If your intentions were to walk away, you should have stated as much in the PMs. I am sure you remember the rules we amicably agreed upon, right?
to be honest, only you and God know if you lied. To me, it just seems like a lie, but I can't assert it.
and for me just being a faceless person and you do not matter, you go throw great pains to answer.
as for your accusation that I also lied. Go for it, put up whatever you copied and saved. Again, WOW, for me not mattering to you, you certainly take great pains to save almost year old posts.
and by the way, if my intention was to lie....why did I edit the post? If my intention was to lie, would I have edited the post? Maybe I read the post, whatever you have saved, and then I decided to change it to represent the truth, right? Do you never edit posts after you read them? Of course you do.
I had ZERO problem with you when we debated Moral Relativism vs. Moral Absolutes. It was a good and respectable debate, thus my surprise at your attacks at me here. Obviously, you have a chip on your shoulder against me that you need to remove.
Liberallies
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 5:57pm.
1) I attacked you and your use of your religious beliefs - something that other folks on this site - who are people of faith - have done as well. Are you going to accuse them of countless attacks on people's religion? And really - countless people would agree with you? OK, find one. Or better yet, provide some actual examples of me attacking people's religion. That shouldn't be too tough since, according to you, there are countless examples of me doing it.
2) I don't begrudge people's ignorance. I'm ignorant of a ton of things. But who was it that claimed that science was corrupt? Who was it that stated that the research fields I brought up were small? That was you, moron. You chose to comment about a topic you didn't know about. And I called you on it. Here' a wacky idea - don't comment on things you're ignorant - or even stunningly ignorant - about.
3) Where exactly did I make some assumption about what your father does for a living? I just skimmed back through my posts and I honestly don't know where I did that. Can you provide a quote or a link?
4) Wow. So you are going with the "I know you are but what am I" defense?
5) See my comment above.
By the way, you have yet to comment to my post here.
Edit: Correction.
Hydro, 1) You attacked me
Submitted by Liberallies on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 2:58pm.
Hydro,
1) You attacked me and my use of religious beliefs? eh? My first post here I did not talk about any of my religious beliefs! YOU brought up the forum in which Brunette and I got into it. YOU brought up my religious beliefs to this forum, not I! Not only did you bring it up, you then decided to attack my religion and then, in the next post you claim that you never attack religions. You claimed that my Faith, my religion, does not have anything like science does, did you not claim this? Yes you did. Again, you are not being honest.
2) Yes, re-read your posts, you made an assumption of what my father does. Attempt to read before you post. You assumed my father, as an engineer, never worked in a university setting doing research.
YOU said, " Your anecdotal stories are about engineers, not about research scientists. This is me about to call you ignorant again - so don't cry - but research scientists work at universities or college or large research facilities. They don't work for your dad. They publish papers based on work within labs in an academic environment or large research lab setting. The guys you mention are not that - despite whatever supposed PhDs they might have."
How do you know who or who hasn't worked for my dad? You stated as a fact that "...they [research scientists] don't work for your dad..." Yes, you assumed what my father does or does not do.
You made the assumption, as an engineer, had never worked at a university doing research. Will you now admit that you assumed what my father does or does not do for a living?
Moreover, you further assumed that I do know the difference between a research scientist and scientists who work outside of universities not doing research. You once again felt like calling me ignorant. Yet, you get all offended if you even think that I thought of insulting you.
Again, you can make countless of assumptions, but how dare anyone make any assumptions about you, right?
Again, you and others failed to see how hypocritical it is of you to claim that I am making assumptions.
3) I could understand you calling me stunningly ignorant about physics if I had claimed that I was a physics major, had a physics degree, claimed to be a physics professor. But as I informed you in the absolute vs. relativism forum, I made the opposite claim more than once, correct?
You felt the need to make this personally and use a ridiculous and silly attack. Do you have it in your to apologize, admit your mistake and just move on? You made a very "stunningly ignorant" comment when you claimed that my Faith has no such thing as science.
Think about that before you continue to defend your disrespectful and condescending, "stunningly ignorant" personal attack.
ADDITIONALLY, if you bothered to read, you would see that I actually admit that I made a mistake about calling those fields in physics small. Did you read that part? or did you conveniently ignore it? Furthermore, just because I do not know the specifics of a field, it does not mean that I can't claim that a field is corrupt! and "moron", really? So, since I do not know all the fields and smaller fields of law, I can't claim that the law and lawyers are corrupt. since I do know all the smaller fields of government, I can't claim that government is corrupt, right? So, since I do not know all the departments of the Chicago police, no one can claim that the CPD is corrupt, right? Or since I do not know all the smaller departments of the Chicago Mayor's office, I could not claim that Mayor Daley's office was corrupt and so is the City of Chicago, right?
You are playing with semantics and you took my assertion and the fact that the fields of science are corrupt personal. Be man enough to admit it. You took my very first post on this forum personal and have decided to make a mountain out of a mole.
I have nothing against you hydro, but if you and I can't respect each other and if we aren't mature enough to refrain from silly insults, it is best that you and I avoid each other. I thought we had found mutual respect in the Absolute vs. Relativism exchange, but it looks like I am mistaken. and if you have the right to walk away from a respectful exchange and then claim two different things as to why you walked away, one in public and one in private to me, I do not see how you can demand that I answer any of your questions to me, right?
Either we respect each other or just move on.
Yawn
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:03pm.
Both hydro and I have repeatedly stated, in multiple arenas, that we don't think religion is incompatible with science. Once again, you have an idea about how scientists think, based on your own preconceptions, and rather than listen to the actual words we are saying, you steadfastly refuse to budge from that preconception.
As a liberal here, I recognize that I often become a stand-in for "all liberals." I presume that is how you are addressing NB's "resident scientists"-- since neither of us has ever expressed the views that article is meant to dissuade, you can't possibly be addressing it to us personally, right?
So how do you decide what to trust?
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:43am.
If you don't believe in evolution, you have simply decided to trust different experts than I have, but unless you are literally spending your life researching biology and paleontology yourself, you are still trusting someone to explain to you how the world works.
We trust experts and scientists every day in a million different fields that don't impinge on politics and religion, and it doesn't seem to bother us. Do you examine your own laboratory samples when you go to the doctor, or do you trust the expert who tells you what's wrong with you? Do you run your own load/strength computer simulations before you drive over a bridge, or do you trust the expert that built that bridge?
Of course experts can make mistakes, but so can anything. So if you are a regular person who has a job and a life and can't test all conclusions about the world yourself, the question becomes how do you reduce the chances that you are relying on bad information, right? I would submit that the best way, although it is not foolproof, is to go with what the most experts think. Sometimes they'll be wrong, but they'll be wrong a lot less often than any smaller group or less knowledgeable source of information will be.
That's kind of the best we can do.
Who to trust?
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:34pm.
You should trust yourself first. If you aren't comfortable enough about your own beliefs so that you have to vet the beliefs of other in order to trust them, if the believes of others threaten you so badly that you are frightened of them simply because those beliefs are not the same as yours, then you're the one who have trust issues, with yourself!
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
Well don't we have a high opinion of ourselves!
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:19pm.
Wow. You seem to be suggesting that you think you can answer all questions, in all fields of science, all on your own without relying on any ideas that have come previously, without using anyone else's information or data... all of those things involve trusting another source. Are you really suggesting you don't do that?
This isn't about philosophy or morality... this is about truth and fact. Evolution either happened and is happening, or it didn't and isn't. Same with global warming. If a doctor tells me that I have cancer, but I feel okay, I don't assume that my belief warrants ignoring his expert opinion. Doing so would be colossally arrogant.
So, you've never, ever heard
Submitted by UpNorth on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 1:13am.
that you should get a second opinion?
But, I will go along with one premise you advanced, global warming, as defined by algore and the enviro-nuts didn't happen and isn't.
Yes, you should get a second opinion
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:52am.
and probably a third, right, if the first two disagree. So, if you go to three doctors, two of them tell you you have cancer, and one tells you you don't, what do you do?
And yet people get laughed at here when they talk about a "scientific consensus." All it is is thousands of second opinions, and the weight of those opinions falls squarely on the side of evolution-- and AGW.
But, again, there is a political and religious aspect to this, so suddenly people throw out all of the logical rules they use to make decisions in the rest of their lives. Suddenly the tiny percentage of scientists who don't believe in evolution are more trustworthy than the millions who do. I don't get it.
Mamabear, Hmmm...when a
Submitted by Liberallies on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 5:28pm.
Mamabear,
Hmmm...when a doctor tells you, "you have cancer" he is basing it on hardcore scientific evidence he has infront of him. he is basing it on countless of tests that where done to you. When two or three tell you the same thing, same thing. It is NOT based on scientific consensus, it is based on scientific fact!!! two huge different things.
and of course, science is not infallibable since I know at least five people who were diagnose with cancer by three different doctors and it turned out at the end that they did not have it.
Scientific consensus is laughable and stupid. It is a code word used because there is not scientific law about Global Warming, just a bunch of mostly radical and Liberal scientist who have agreed, many through exchanges of emails, phone calls, as it was revealed at the university of London, that they had to agree and anyone who did not agree on Global Warming would pay a price!
and just because "millions" of scientists believe in evolution, it doesn't mean that they are right. At one point millions of germans believed in Hitler, did it make them right? you might want to rethikn how you come to believe in a scientific theory before you post it on NB!!!!
I'm not sure where to start with this one
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 7:37pm.
If someone has lead you to believe that medicine is based only on hard facts, with no interpretation of those facts required for a diagnosis, then you have been steered very wrong.
Climate scientists look at hard facts, facts like: the planet has gotten warmer, and there is more CO2 in the atmosphere. The climate scientist then takes those hard facts and makes an interpretation, draws a conclusion from them. That is an induction, and it is not a fact in and of itself. It is a hypothesis, in many cases.
This is very similar to what a doctor does when making a diagnosis. For instance, a doctor might see facts: there are elevated levels of waste products in your bloodstream as well as tumor markers like antibodies to cancer cells. Those are facts, but when the doctor diagnoses you with cancer, that is an interpretation, a hypothesis. Sometimes there are clear diagnostic tests for a medical condition. Many times, though, there aren't, and doctors are interpreting a constellation of symptoms as best they can.
Doctors can disagree with one another, and climate scientists can disagree with one another. Both can be wrong. This is why your friends can be diagnosed with cancer and, happily, be okay. Consensus, as I said before, is just playing probability. If each scientist is even just slightly more likely to be right than wrong, which I hope any of us would be when we put our brains to a question, then the safest bet is to go with the conclusion that the most scientists, or the most doctors, have come to.
As I said, in any other arena of life that didn't press political or religious buttons, this would be so common sense as to need no explanation. For some reason, AGW and evolution cause people to throw common sense right out the window and insist on the strangest twists of logic!
Where is
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:52am.
"believing in Evolution" required for "willingness to listen to experts in scientific fields". Where does "willingness to listen" imply "belief"?
You're equivocating. Name something that a president who "believes in Evolution" can do that a president who is "willing to listen" cannot--regarding executing the will of the people through the laws of Congress.
I'm not equivocating
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:47am.
I'm making the point that it isn't about the specific decisions that person has to make, it is about what their belief says about their attitude towards the world. You can disagree with me, but there's nothing invalid about the point.
You said
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:28pm.
Thus the issue of whether a president believes in Evolution is cast as whether or not he's willing to fund and listen to experts in the fields. It is more likely that someone supports propagating their own worldview, but sharing the same worldview is not a minimal requirement of agreeing to fund research and education. Simply realizing how mainstream it is, would be enough.
But that doesn't have a whole lot to do with how evolution informs the executive role. I predicted that someone would point up that these investigations have to funded and taught, and as I indicated that simply takes respect for another point of view; respect is not equivalent to capitulation.
I've never seen a proponent of evolution who's ever understood the necessity of repeatability for useful technology and the difference between that and non-repeatable theories about what might have been the case. And I don't ever think I've seen a liberal that can look the implications of evolution straight in the eyes. Evolution is simply a wedge issue between people and faith.
Natural selection implies survival advantages not evenly distributed throughout the species. This does not entail a definite scale of superior and inferior members, but the "success" of evolution does suggest that it is only the most pertinent survival dynamics that matter and secondary ones that might be useful in other situations do not. The liberal bugaboo death is the main feedback mechanism, the other is the amount of offspring you create, either by inequalities in social position and pecking order or by inequalities in attractiveness to the other sex.
There is no "equality" outside of undocumented agnostic attitude about human beings and the principle to agree to treat each other as equal regardless of whether that is "true" or not. Equality is faith, not documented by scientific discovery.
Possible
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:28pm.
Someone could be anti-evolution without being anti-science, but I have yet to encounter that particular combination of worldviews. Just read up the page a couple of posts-- everyone I've ever argued with about evolution has also had a "you think you are so much better than us, what the hell do you know" attitude towards science. It doesn't have to be that way, but as far as I can tell, it is.
So yes, I would expect a president who didn't believe in evolution to be less supportive of science funding than one who did. I could be wrong, but I think that would be the safe bet.
It sounds like in your encounters with "proponents of evolution" you have yet to talk with an actual evolutionary scientist. There is a reason it is still called a theory, because we cannot run the earth's history over and over again 50 times to confirm our conclusions. We can absolutely have repeatability in current experiments about small-scale evolution we can see today, and we do.
As for the implications of evolution, that's just the naturalist fallacy. Science doesn't tell us what should be, it just tells us what is. We decide if we want a society based on equality, and nothing about the fact that we evolved from those ancestors who did the least dying and the most reproducing stops us from deciding that.
'It sounds like in your encounters with
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 12:52am.
"proponents of evolution" you have yet to talk with an actual evolutionary scientist.'
Do you typically cut off your own nose to spite your face? Unless I'm planning on becoming an "evolutionary scientist", my status will be layman. The people who argue that I need to be the type of layman who "believes" in Evolution, put forward that there is an "informed" type of layman that I can be. And then when I have bad luck finding mostly laymen "who believe in Evolution" but lack analytical ability, despite that this is the type of layman prescribed for me, I can only be imparted this wisdom from a evolutionary scientist.
Besides, I have talked to evolutionary scientists more than once, and when backed against a wall they normally assume what I call "specialists privilege" where even if they cannot demonstrate the principle to me, I need to capitulate, because they are the experts and all their colleagues think the same way. They are allowed to read badly, because they are experts, they are allowed to mangle logic and misunderstand distributive implications because they are experts in the science.
And if you can find where I said something shouldn't be in that post, you get the brass ring. So I don't see how that sentence applied to what I wrote.
Yet it is curious that you would invoke this. Because if we do not have to live by just what nature presents, then Evolution as nature has even less to recommend itself to one of the chief conductors of human affairs. Thus if we can substitute observations on nature for agreed-upon principles, the president's job is no so much about understanding Evolution as a fact of nature, but understanding common agreements within the social compact. Cool with me, because I'm a big social compact guy.
Finally, you are most likely applying the normative assumption: I said that "Equality is faith", you conclude from that some sort of normative implication that you bring up naturalist fallacy.
Why is it when I argue with a "skeptic" that they tend to represent a blanket stance that we shouldn't believe in things that don't exist or have been "disproved" by Science, but I get "we can believe in Equality if we want" responses when I suggest the non-scientific nature of our policies of equality--And the suggestion that we're not bound to simply what Science models imply?
You and Mr. does-it-matter-if-it's-not-true Sam Harris need to have this discussion, not me.
"They are allowed to read
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:06am.
"They are allowed to read badly, because they are experts, they are allowed to mangle logic and misunderstand distributive implications because they are experts in the science."
Well then I'll amend my statement to say that you have yet to talk with a nice or reasonable evolutionary scientist. Scientists are no different than other people. Some of them are jerks, but most aren't. Honestly, though, given the number of times I've heard that sentiment expressed by conservatives, I have to think that the simplest explanation is that you don't like being disagreed with, and find people who try to tell you something you don't want to hear unpleasant. That seems like a more likely explanation than all evolutionary scientists are jerks. I have known a lot of evolutionary scientists, and they are generally intelligent, well-behaved people, like most people!
"And if you can find where I said something shouldn't be in that post, you get the brass ring."
What you said, paraphrased, was that death and inequality were an "implication" of evolution that liberals couldn't handle. I'm saying inequality is not an implication of evolution. Inequality is a fact of life, so is death. That doesn't stop us from trying to promote equality or delay death. We do it all the time, and nothing about believing in evolution prevents us from doing so.
"Why is it when I argue with a "skeptic" that they tend to represent a blanket stance that we shouldn't believe in things that don't exist or have been "disproved" by Science, but I get "we can believe in Equality if we want" responses when I suggest the non-scientific nature of our policies of equality--And the suggestion that we're not bound to simply what Science models imply?"
This is a very confused question. "Believing" in something that either is or isn't a fact, and "believing" in a moral precept are two different things. I think people shouldn't believe in facts about the world that have been disproven by science. I'm okay with them believing in facts about the world that science can neither prove or disprove-- I personally choose not to believe in those things. But a belief in equality is not about a factual matter. Equality clearly exists-- I can create situations in which things are functionally equal, this isn't a matter of believing in whether equality is possible. It is about believing in equality as something to strive for, a good in the world. That has almost nothing to do with science, and all science really has to tell us about equality is that we'll have to work hard if we want it.
Theory versus Fact
Submitted by LionKing on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 8:25pm.
When did the Theory of Evolution become fact?
Evolution...
Submitted by stage9 on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:53pm.
is the biggest punchline ever foisted upon humankind.
Well, outside of MSpiNBC of course.
"If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner." — Malcolm Muggeridge
Evolution has been blessed with the addition of Sustainability
Submitted by upcountrywater on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:32am.
The most high spoken lefty worship word....Do you believe in sustainability?
Green Sustainability, has nothing to do with the Sustainability of an oil based civilization.
When government "scientific" PhD's think Chemtrails are real, it's getting close to, " blood in the streets"
You Didn't Build That.
Getting a PhD
Submitted by mamabear on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:55am.
...does not make you immune to being an idiot. I'll be the first to admit that. There are scientists and doctors and plumbers and wall street tycoons and elementary school teachers who don't know what they're talking about. The idea that you can only trust a source if it is foolproof is bizarre-- such a thing doesn't exist. We all have to navigate a world of uncertainty. But if you put two people in front of me with different ideas and one of them has spent their whole life studying the question at hand and the other has an opinion they found on the internet, it doesn't seem like a hard choice to me whom to trust. If I'm capable of evaluating the question myself, great, I will. But how many of us understand everything about the world so well that we can evaluate the most complicated questions about it on our own with no outside help or information derived from any other source?
If you can, I have some questions I'd like answers to!
Whom do you trust?
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 8:43pm.
But if you put two people in front of me with different ideas and one of them has spent their whole life studying the question at hand and the other has an opinion they found on the internet, it doesn't seem like a hard choice to me whom to trust.
And if that person is getting huge amounts of money for saying a certain opinion, while other people that have spent their whole life studying the exact same thing have a different opinion routinely get denied grants, do you trust that opinion more? Enough to cripple an entire society over?
We Are The 53%
That is exactly why
Submitted by hayate1 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 2:56am.
one cannot trust anything coming out of Fox about climate change. They are all getting paid large sums of money by companies with the most to lose if laws are made to control pollutants in order to tow the line bu sowing seeds of doubt. Are you saying that a scientist who is applying for a$40k grant to do more studies must claim that there is a problem to study or lose the grant? You know that scientists publish their research for peer review before it moves into scientific debate, which is then even more rigorous, right?
The Exxon backed news commentators do not publish, research or otherwise do anything scientific to get their money. they need only say what they are told to say by the good folks at Exxon.
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
Hahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha OH no!!!!! FOX NEWS!!!
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:05am.
Gee where can I get a piece of that 40K? No? I can't?
How bout here?
Large U.S. foundations invested $436 million to address climate change in 2007
Of the $436 million, 41% was spent internationally, mostly in developing countries
Foundation giving for climate change has increased nearly 5-fold domestically since 1997 and nearly 8-fold internationally
No? I can't have any of that 40K? how bout this one?
The maximum grant amount is US$1.0 million.
Ah, nuts, that one is expired, how bout this one?
A)Funding Availability: In FY2012, approximately $15.5 million will be available for new awards pending budget appropriations. It is anticipated that most awards will be at a funding level between $50,000 and $200,000 per year, with some exceptions for larger awards; see information sheets for additional details.
B)Project/Award Period: Projects will be led by principal investigators over a period of one to three years, although this timeframe is program-specific; see information sheets for additional details.
C)Evaluation Criteria: Applications will be evaluated based upon:
(1) Importance/Relevance and Applicability to Program Goals;
(2) Technical/Scientific Merit;
(3) Overall Qualifications of the Applicant; and
(4) Project Cost. Information on programs that will be accepting individual applications in FY 2012 can be viewed at www.cpo.noaa.gov/opportunities.
Oh, gee, No? I don't have a Degree? I'm not eligible? Well, maybe I could just get a couple grand for filling out some paper work!!
Dang I missed the deadline to get this 200,000 over 5 years to help save coffee! (wait, doesn't coffee grow in warmer climates?)
I wish that I would have know how to make an easy grand!
Twenty groups received grants up to $1,000 each to move residents to take immediate actions to reduce their clime change footprint and sign folks up for the Minnesota Energy Challenge. The application was relatively short and easy to fill out.
Holy COW! That grant is growing faster than our fed government!
Oh No! It's the evil faux news and Exxon!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
Hey mister "I used to run million dollar companies" Please show me the young struggling professors that are just doing it for the science, and with just 40K in research grants!
We Are The 53%
Right, unlike those deniers
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:33am.
Who can't get any money at all.
Really, they have no chance.
Science takes money. Are you really going to try and demonstrate that there are no poor scientists by showing us a picture of Barbara Streisand's house? That's reaching! Climate is big money right now, but other things get more funding at other times. That's the way the world works. People who have spent their lives studying climate and are now getting money and attention aren't corrupt, they are benefiting from the current issue. Right now some kid who just got his PhD is struggling to find funding for his research into... I don't know, drug-resistant tuberculosis. Ten years down the road, maybe he'll reap a bonanza when we all start dying of superbugs. Maybe he won't.
Science is never pure, because it is human. Once again, this comes down to weighing the evidence on each side and deciding which is the most trustworthy-- the corporations with billions of dollars at stake, or those philanthropic foundations you seem to think are so sinister? What exactly is the prevailing conspiracy theory about what those foundations are REALLY up to?
HAHAHA mama bear
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 8:33pm.
Greenpeace writes a hit piece and you use it as an argument.
The Kochs have "funneled" 55 Million dollars into delaying harmful regulations that won't fix the non existent problem. Oh the horror! What about the over 79 Billion in wasted money that the government has spent?
Oh the horror of Exxon spending 15 Million! That is the same amount that 1 single professor has received.
We Are The 53%
Whether the amounts of money are equivalent
Submitted by mamabear on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:52pm.
is beside the point. There is money to be had for both sides. But if you want to think about how much an individual scientist is getting, you also have to take into account the amount of competition for that money. The vast majority of scientists think global warming is real, so there are far more people competing for those government grants than the tiny percentage of scientists looking to suck from the oil teat. Seems like being a denier should be a pretty good game, it's a wonder more of these corrupt scientists aren't going for it! (I'm being sarcastic, in case that isn't clear)
So you're argueing that scientists
Submitted by Radical1979 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:05pm.
already have their minds made up before they do the research? Interesting...It answers a lot of questions about the answers they are coming up with also.
I like the way you wriggled out of the argument when Denny showed that there is plenty of money on the Global warming side. As far as motivations for preaching Global warming, just look at the money involved in saving us from it. Al Gore is heavily invested and going to make a fortune. GE is doing well sucking from the government teat of global warming under obama. So please don't try to say there are only pure souls preaching global warming.
They have to
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:10am.
You have to decide what to research. I mean, do you think people start their careers by consulting a magic 8-ball, or picking a profession at random by flipping through the phone book? Of course you have to make decisions about what you will study! At this stage, based on how much work has already been done, someone going into climate science probably has to decide ahead of time how much of the knowledge other scientists have accumulated they are going to use to move forward. If you doubt that climate change is even happening, you will do very different research than someone who thinks it is and wants to study the details, or make predictions about mitigation or adaptation, or develop technologies to try and find a solution.
If everybody who entered a field started at square one like everyone before them, we might be a lot more certain about some natural phenomena, but science would never move forward beyond those most basic questions. At some point you have to take other people's work as the givens in your own, so that you learn something new.
I'm not dodging Denny if I've never denied that there is money to be had in studying climate change. He originally brought up money as "one of these experts is getting paid, and the other can't find grants." I've pointed out that there are grants on both sides, and anyone doing the actual work is getting paid for it. No one is a pure soul. So then, I contend, you are back to evaluating each person's position on the weight of evidence and the overwhelming majority conclusion.
Bogus mammabear
Submitted by Denny Crane on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 11:52pm.
I never said the other can't find grants.
The problem is that the government has turned AGW into a religion.
We Are The 53%
Really?
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 7:40pm.
"And if that person is getting huge amounts of money for saying a certain opinion, while other people that have spent their whole life studying the exact same thing have a different opinion routinely get denied grants, do you trust that opinion more?"
This really sounds like you are saying one side gets paid and the other can't find grants. You are going to need to explain that statement a little more clearly if that's not what you meant.
For a teacher your comprehension is pretty horrible.
Submitted by Denny Crane on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 9:03pm.
Routinely get denied grants is different from can't find grants.
As in the majority of government grants go to scientists and universities that continue to tell them what they want to here. But please show me how much money the evil oil companies have spent. And compare it to academia and government spending.
Then look at how often academia and government continually forget about certain things like the sun.
We Are The 53%
Okay...
Submitted by mamabear on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 7:48pm.
So if you are admitting they both get money one way or another, why would that affect how much you trusted either of them?
Who said I trust either of them?
Submitted by Denny Crane on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 9:00pm.
I don't trust the believers in AGW because they continually lie, continually misrepresent, continually leave out important data, and their conclusions could have a huge effect on our economy and way of life.
That and I find it very very very very difficult to believe that something as massive and complex as the worlds climate can be catastrophically changed by changing the amount of a TRACE minor GH gas from one really tiny part to a slightly larger tiny part. Common sense tells me that it is bogus.
Further more, implementing every single policy that they want to implement WONT reduce CO2 emissions on a world wide scale, so the only thing that is accomplished would be more government control, and a weak economy. The trillions that they have and will spend could be put to a much better use, either leaving the tax dollars in the market, or using them to combat the real pollutants in the environment.
We Are The 53%
And here's the rub
Submitted by mamabear on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 7:21pm.
I still contend that the majority of climate scientists are not trying to mislead anyone. You can claim that they are too caught up in group think to avoid it, but given the amount of dissent outside the scientific community, that still seems far-fetched to me. The physics of how greenhouse gases are expected to affect the climate is easily explained by someone more knowledgeable than myself-- essentially it involves positive feedback loops that magnify the effects of small changes. Common sense may tell you that's bogus, but we need science for precisely those times when common sense does not give us enough information about the world. I'm afraid those times do exist, and this seems to be one of them.
Your last point is the only one I find at all compelling, and it is a major argument even among people who believe climate change is happening. Can we even do anything to affect it at this point, or do we pack in the mitigation efforts and look to resilience and adaptation to save us?
That's the point
Submitted by Denny Crane on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 10:02pm.
Can we even do anything to affect it at this point, or do we pack in the mitigation efforts and look to resilience and adaptation to save us?
Even if it were true, No we couldn't mitigate it, not without causing major damage to the human species. We should always be looking at how to deal with catastrophes and disasters.
Extreme weather, hot and cold. Wet and dry, etc. The only one that can effect the weather on a global scale is GOD.
We Are The 53%
Whatever
Submitted by Denny Crane on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:33pm.
The vast majority of scientists think global warming is real, Really? I think global warming is real too! It happens every spring and summer! It happens when the Sun is producing more energy!
Questions.
The Big Oil Cigar chomping CEO's spending money investigating it only makes sense. When the Environmental movement has turned so radical and convinced entire governments to follow the AGW religion, and make it their top priority to put energy companies out of business, I would want to have some independent research done too. And I would make sure that the information was available to everyone.
Last question. If a scientist at a major University is studying AGW and they come to the conclusion that is much different than the sky is falling, how long do you think they are allowed to continue their research? What are the chances of them getting their grants renewed?
We Are The 53%
The first 2 yes, the last one not necessarily
Submitted by mamabear on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:22am.
You last question is based on an assumption that I find so strange-- that academia and the scientific community should be MORE corrupt than a business with direct financial interests. That either could be corrupt, I absolutely accept. But you don't ask the same question about the oil companies, right? If you are taking money directly from Exxon and your conclusions don't do them any favors, how long would you expect them to keep funding you? The believer in capitalism would say-- they shouldn't, and in fact, they should stop you from publishing the work you did that hurt them. They own it, right, so they should bury it. The corporation should be focused on profit first, and public good second. The pursuit of knowledge is only a means to an end.
Generally speaking, that is a power that a university doesn't have. Every university I've ever worked at has a statement of academic freedom-- that the pursuit of knowledge will not be constrained by the administration and people will not be punished for their views, no matter how outside the mainstream they may be, as long as they are arrived at by quality work and diligent study. People still get their grants denied, but generally it is because they are crappy scientists! Tenure is another place where scientists have to compete, and the bias there is for ambition and notoriety-- a lot of academics dislike the tenure system because it isn't always based on who is the best scientist, sometimes it is based on who is the most outspoken scientist.
Is that a perfect system? No. But if you look honestly at academia and a corporate research think tank, can you really say that you expect the corporation to make the most unbiased, purest exploration of the truth? I just don't see it. Corporations aren't evil, but they have a purpose, and expanding the realm of human knowledge isn't it.
Mamabear, WOW!!! just WOW!!!
Submitted by Liberallies on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 6:00pm.
Mamabear,
WOW!!! just WOW!!! did you just state as a matter of fact that universities, that tenure and research money are not given along party lines?!! you are beyond wrong.
Professors who do not agree with the party line, Global Warming, Homosexuality is ok, Evolution is a fact, etc, etc have an incredibly hard time getting tenure and the respect they deserve! There are well documented cases of professors taking whole departments and universities to court because they were denied tenure, research money and/or fired over their beliefs!
The academic freedom mantra that universities spew is for PR purposes, in the real world universities have zero acamdemic freedom as I have seen first hand as someone who works at a university.
Universities are NOT unbiased and they aren't these place of purity and freedom which you are attempting to claim they are.
The scientific world is known to be one full of big heads who tend to agree with each other so you get invited to the next cocktail party and so tha tyou are in. When you dare start disagreeing with the main stream of science down the toilet will your research go along with all the friends that you made.
I know pediatricians who refuse to give contraceptives to teenagers due to their Catholic upbringing and while the hospital could not fire them, all of their professional upwar mobility doors where shot to them in the hospital and all other hospitals that were affiliated.
Don't come in here claiming that there isn't a whole bunch of bias in the scientific or university fields. It is full, full of them!
You make it sound as if universities and scientist were as pure as undriven snow, but those corporation, man those corporations do not care about humanity.
Geez funny, I know countless of engineers, including my father, and two of my brothers who work for "evil" corporations whose whole purpose is to better humanity. Better engines, better computer programs, better computers, etc. so humanity has an easier time. But nah, since Mamabear said and believes that corporations do not care about the betterment of humanity, it must be true.
Mamabear, honestly, where do you get this immense and I hate to say it, but ridiculous propaganda from? It is like you live in an alternate world which is not based on reality.
You completely mis-read my post
Submitted by mamabear on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 7:53pm.
I'm going to be generous and assume you did so mistakenly, and are not purposefully misrepresenting my views.
I very specifically said that the universities are not pure. They are not perfect. They are potentially corrupted. You can go back and read my post more slowly, that's what I said. I also said that the tenure system was the place where that system usually goes wrong. You are right, rocking the boat can get you in trouble for getting tenure. Lots of academics, I said, object to the system because it does not just reward the best researchers (or, god forbid, teachers).
However, if you have done research, and the conclusions are not what an academic institution wants to hear, they cannot stop you from publishing it. They do have a philosophy of academic freedom, which, even if it is not followed well, is more than most corporations will have. All I am saying is that when you look at the protections for academic freedom that universities have in place, you can argue that they aren't sufficient, but I don't see how you can argue that corporations have better protections in place. Where? What are they?
I also did not in any way say that corporations cannot do good. They can. But in our system if doing good hurts the financial bottom line, corporations are punished for doing it. Their purpose is to make money for the people involved, and admirable social agendas are secondary. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just the way our system works. We have other entities for charity and good works, and corporations can be involved in that or they can ignore it entirely.
I'm really not making any black or white statements here. No one is pure, no one is purely evil. If you calmed down a little and thought about what I'm saying, I think that will become very clear!