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Reply to Socialism 101 in Democrat JoeUser Forums

[quote]Pinochet was about as bad as Castro and killed as many innocents as Che Guevara; but he is rarely displayed on t-shirts as a freedom fighting hero.[/quote] We could be cynical and say that Cuba hasn't produced as many good writers as Peru, but I suspect it's also because Pinochet's actions also coined a particularly despicable term for assassination - disappearing people is still used today to describe a secret, publicly denied murder. [quote]The latter seems like a com

Reply to Socialism 101 in Democrat JoeUser Forums

[quote]The only reason socialism might not require constant expansion is because it tends to kill the population it governs.[/quote] Do you mean in the sense that most contemporary socialist countries have a declining and ageing population? I'd argue it has more to do with women's liberation changing expectations of marriage and, much more importantly, the invention of cheap and effective birth control. If you mean in the sense that Communist and totalitarian socialist governm

Reply to In Bed For Peace 2009 in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I can kind of see where Nitro Cruiser is coming from here, but I don't agree that sit-ins are necessarily politically ineffectual. I think the key thing is that they have to be widespread to have a political effect. Hardly anyone notices if one person or even a score is missing on George Street on Saturday. But there's another side to spending the day in bed, and I'm not surprised Nitro didn't pick up on it. People don't spend nearly enough time thinking these days, but dyno took a da

Reply to Dear America: You get the government you deserve in Politics JoeUser Forums

You'll probably just end up passing the debt onto your children. Your kids will grow up in austerity, because your generation couldn't keep its wallet in its pants. It's the circle of life. The positive to come out of recession - for the conservative at least - is that women will start to dress more conservatively soon. There's an extremely strong correlation between skirt length and economic growth (google it! It's one of the few interesting things to come from an economist's mind).

Reply to Socialism 101 in Democrat JoeUser Forums

Being the hardened cynic that I am, I immediately turned to snopes for a thorough disbunking of the story. Unfortunately it looks like it's a new one and there's no answer as yet. Still, the thread on Snopes has a similarly ridiculous story coming from the opposite direction . In any case, if you're looking for examples of socialism in the classroom, and how it really works, you need look no

Reply to Diplomacy and Iran, recipe for disaster in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]Bush may believe in the second coming of Jesus, but Ahmadinejad has said openly in his speachs that the arrival of the Mahdi will soon be at hand.[/quote] Mahdi isn't the anti-Christ; I'm not sure why his arrival would necessarily lead to war. I wasn't aware that you associated Ahmadinejad's anti-US rants with Mahdi and believe that other people would do so too. If by Mahdi you were referring to the Iranian president's inflammatory statements, then yes, Bush has no

Reply to Diplomacy and Iran, recipe for disaster in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] It is hard to have an open dialog with a government hoping for the arrival of the Mahdi. It may sound silly, but the same question was raised in the Dark Knight movie. How to you reason with someone that their only goal is to instigate chaos in order to kill you? <s

Reply to How much of success is due to good health? in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Noumenon went for civil war, I'd point to the example of Augustus - notoriously poor health his whole life, and yet amazingly successful in extremely difficult circumstances. Health is a factor, sure, but beyond crippling illness it's not much of one. After all, Stephen Hawking is a success and he can't even move. I'm extremely jealous though of your rabid immune system.

Reply to It's Ok Not To Be Smart in Ethics JoeUser Forums

[quote]Hanger-on-ism is part of a vocabulary I do not recognize. Who talks about this?[/quote] I suppose you could more accurately call it dependency. Conventional aid - such as donations of technology and food - create cultures of dependency, as they provide an economic disincentive for the development of these industries in the targeted area. This is what I rather poorly expressed as hanger-on-ism. [quote]Anyway, I was talking about people not being able to succeed despite <

Reply to It's Ok Not To Be Smart in Ethics JoeUser Forums

[quote]It is a misconception that something important can actually be done for those people through political means. It requires too much cooperation. The tragedy of the commons prohibits this. Science, on the other hand, can be a way around that problem.[/quote] You can't save people. Or at least you shouldn't - once saved, people tend to stay saved, with all the negative hanger-on-ism that that tends to attract. The advantage of combatting illiteracy through education and la

Reply to It's Ok Not To Be Smart in Ethics JoeUser Forums

[quote]Why is the situation not important?[/quote] There are many people who suffer serious injustice in this world, largely through accident of birth. Why should I obsess about the terrible plight of the first-world mediocre when I can actually do something about, say, illiteracy, or the lack of credit in third-world countries? [quote]Unfortunately, even if such a drug were possible, it would undoubtably gain widespread popularity among people who want to do less work and sti

Reply to Change you can believe in: Let’s eliminate farmers markets… in Politics Stardock Forums

Anyone familiar with stuffwhitepeoplelike would know that no liberal worth their salt would ever outlaw farmers markets.

Reply to It's Ok Not To Be Smart in Ethics JoeUser Forums

[quote]But in the end, those gifted students do excel, and the worker will get left behind, forced to hear one of those smart kids say, "the reason I don't have to study and I beat you is that I'm smart and you are dumb". In such a situation, is natural selection ethical?[/quote] I'm with dynamaso. The world isn't ethical or unethical; it just is. [quote]After all, the gifted student probably thinks the situation is entirely fair, for some reason or another.[/quote] No

Reply to Dubai vs Sweden in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

[quote]Jews are harmless. Nobody fears a Jew on the same plane and no place has ever been attacked by Israel without attacking Israel first (or giving aid and support to such attackers as in the case of Uganda). Black Africans do not flee thousands of miles through the desert trying to reach an Islamic country hoping to escape a Jewish dictator. Some things simply don't happen and everybody knows it.[/quote] Palestinians and Lebanese people have fled Israel though - there's a small re

Reply to Dubai vs Sweden in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

[quote]And as for the relations with the occupying powers, in Arbil people sell souvenirs to each other (they don't have tourists), pins that show a Kurdish flag and a Korean flag (the occupying power in the Arbil region). I'll take a picture of one of them and upload it with a link here. It's quite interesting, I think.[/quote] Please do. Kurdistan is fascinating. If only the Turks could be persuaded to release their rebellious provinces so all Kurds could have their freedom. <p

Reply to Dubai vs Sweden in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

[quote]And before you tell me that occupation is the same as apartheid, let me tell you that I grew up in occupied territory and also didn't have the same rights as citizens of the occupying power. Nobody considered that apartheid.[/quote] And? Names are just names; occupiers are always treated with disrespect. Look at the US - it occupies Iraq and suddenly it's the Great Satan even to its own citizens. [quote]Grand. Jews are being slaughtered in Israel by Arabs and in Sweden

Reply to Dubai vs Sweden in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

[quote]Can a liberal explain to me exactly which rational criticism of Israel could be regarded by the police as so violent that a sports event had to take place without an audience and why Sweden is more anti-Semitic than Dubai?[/quote] The association of sporting teams with the political positions of their governments is hardly new. I suspect Israel gets criticised for the same reason that apartheid-era South African sides were banned from touring

Reply to Dawn of War II - An Exercise if Frustration in PC Gaming JoeUser Forums

[quote]All you have to do if you buy the retail version is put the disc in the drive, let it install the game, and enter its cd key as far as I know...only downloading involved is for the patches.[/quote] Those patches aren't a choice though - it won't let you run the game until you've downloaded the latest patches. Which for the small minority who still have dialup is probably a big problem. I just wish it was a better game - the campaign is good, sure, but the multiplayer is

Reply to Why conservatives worry in Politics JoeUser Forums

I wish he said something concrete too. All I've taken away from his lament is a general 'get-off-my-lawn' crotchettiness and that he had trouble returning to civilian life after military service. What did you get out of it, Brad? I'm curious because it all seems a bit vague and generic - with a few very minor changes he could have been complaining about almost anything - declining school standards, young people, popular music, tool manufacturing.

Reply to Should the feds open up benefits to married, gay couples? in Politics JoeUser Forums

I think the government should refuse to grant marriages, and instead grant only civil unions. If marriage is a social institution incorporating a clear and historically based discrimination, even if that is somehow considered to be a good thing, the government should have no part in it.

Reply to So just how well educated President Obama really is? in Current Events Stardock Forums

I'm with kingbee. If you're going to mock someone else's intelligence, at least show some yourself. It undermines you as a credible source when you show a terrible understanding of basic syntax in your accusations about someone else's syntax.

Reply to Should State Government be Able to Ban Smoking? in Politics JoeUser Forums

There's another angle on this smoking argument. You all seem to be focusing very heavily on the smoke angle. It's not just about smoke. First of all, all bars you'd want to go to allow smoking. Otherwise they won't get the young people who think it's cool. So there really isn't any choice for the non-smoker who wants to avoid smoke, you can just pick between levels of haze. Since smoking in bars was banned in my town a few years back, I've spent drastically less on dry-cleanin

Reply to I like Obama more than Bush, I just don’t agree with him in Politics JoeUser Forums

Infrastructure projects definitely have their place, especially high-speed internet, but I'm not sure how universally viable it is. Korea can make enormous gains from that kind of project but then again their country is highly concentrated. Big countries, like the US and especially Australia, suffer from the tyrannies of distance and isolation. You can give high-speed connections affordably to 90% of the population, but that last 10% is fiendishly expensive. That's not t

Reply to Is freedom of speech coming to Colleges and Universities? in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote] In the federal court suit filed last week, student Jonathan Lopez said that midway through his speech, when he quoted a dictionary definition of marriage and recited a pair of Bible verses, professor John Matteson cut him off and would not allow him to finish. He said Matteson also called him a "fascist bastard."[/quote] It's a shame they don't say what year this was. If I was a l

Reply to Why is it the most compassionate are the most stingy? in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]I don't understand. Don't churches charge membership fees AND collect money for charities? My synagogue has a yearly membership fee and collections (on holidays) for charities. Why should those charities be excluded?[/quote] Catholic churches have two donation plates - one for the parish, and one for the wider church. Neither is explicitly used for good works, although a component of both is. Determining how much can be very easy in some places, but fiendishly difficult in othe