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(...) Theory is not fact. To extrapolate the worst possible scenario from a report and then state that "the UN has concluded ..." is a lie. (...) Bush is terrorizing the American public to further his personal political agenda. Sounds like (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) I can't believe that the originalral thread (about who to vote for and getting involved in politics in an effective way) seems to have spun off into some of the standard old directions. (the gay marriage direction, the "socialism works/no it (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Sure, but that's not the entirety of what I've outlined. My example is still a 93:7 ratio of government machinery:benefits delivered. (...) What happens when Badnarik gets in(1)? Will all taxes be wiped away with a stroke of his pen? Obviously (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) But there is. (...) Yes, there is, and I agree! (...) Yes. Ever heard of (URL) the United Way>? There are good charities and bad ones, like everything else. JOHN (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) I can't believe this conversation is staying on a 'well gee, wouldn't it be nice if...' level. In todays age, where there are pregnant teens, single moms, and 80 year old males getting married to 30 year old women and having kids, and all of (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Sure, but the obvious counter to that is that with charities, you can research them and only give to the ones that aren't so bloated. Chris (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) I don't think there's any reason to expect members of either party to deal with them in without those kinds of baggage. Why do you? Chris (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) This is a fairly typically cited flaw with communism. It presumes some stuff that don't jibe with my observations of the real world and I'd be interested to see how you explain them. (Perhaps as annecdotes that don't mean anything, but if so, (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) If ONLY we could get a 1:7 ratio between bureaucracy and benefits delivered, I'd put up with the siphoning. But it's hardly ever that good. Sometimes it's 1:7 the other way. Which was the point J was making with his silly made up numbers. Once (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) One issue at a time, John! If would-be polyandrists wish to marry in groups, let them plead their case. At present the issue pertains to two-party contracts. In any case, I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why multi-party marriages (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) And of that $93, $47 goes to big-corporate welfare, $45 goes to big-corporate military (and of that $45, $44 goes to the Friends-Of-Cheney corporate group), and $1 maintains the bureaucracy. Dave! (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Life is unfair (was Re: Preaching to the Choir)
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(...) Mmmmmm. Nary a truer word spoken, or written, or whatever. But that life is unfair is not the nub of it. The issue is 'am I fair?' Am I one who promotes fairness or unfairness? Do I, by action or inaction, seek to reduce the unfairness of life (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) …and I predict that in 20 years time the technology will be obligatory as it will be used for road pricing! Scott A PS Ubiquitous perhaps. I doubt GPS will ever be a "necessity" as long has humans still drive; I don't even normally carry a map (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) It is if there is no other way to get help to those who need it. Scott A PS Is there really so much bureaucracy in the USA? Bush has a lot to answer for. ;) PSS I'm sure I've heard of chartities with just as much bureaucracy? (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Yes, maybe deserve is better, although I really don't really know if that is right either. I'll have to think about that some more. (...) Well I would say that many men are very feminine and many women are very masculine, so specifying 1 man (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) "Deserve" a better word? What rights would you ascribe to children? (...) I'm not even sure by what criteria one could use to support or reject such a claim. I go by this: men and women are very different by nature; vastly more different than (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) (snip) (...) What's wrong with that? In theory he was correct. (...) So did he lie, or did he present a feasible worst-case scenario? (...) Again, in theory it could have been the case. We are talking about WMDs here. Would you want your (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) The right? I don't think children have any such right. (...) That may possibly be so, but I have seen no evidence to support it. (...) I for one would like to see your evidence to back up that claim. I'm not saying I disagree with you, I (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Not every time. But the alternative is for me to give $100 for charity to a government, and the government takes $93 of it to sustain its own bureaucracy and $7 gets to the people who will benefit from it. Not very efficient. JOHN (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Can I assume that the main knock on defining marriage as the union of 1 woman 1 man is that it discriminates (against gays). But doesn't your proposed definition discriminate against polyspousewanters? Why is your discriminating definition any (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) No, marriage is often used as a way to avoid deportation, which would be a non-issue if only citizens could get married. I don't believe either party has to be a citizen/national, so that a Canadian and a Mexican could meet up in Vegas on (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Well... If presently: "marriage is defined as the union of one consenting adult male and one consenting adult female" And proposed: "marriage is defined as the union of two consenting adults" (Assuming they're human, US citizens [is that (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Sure, sure... that's the free rider problem. The pat answer solution is to figure out how to price the task into the costs borne by those to whom it is essential. (note: government is the most common, but not only, mechanism for doing that (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Third time's the charm?
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First it was the crew of the aircraft carrier. Then it was Dubya's advisors. And (URL) now> apparently it's all the fault of Tommy "Abandon the Constitution" Franks: "That's my fault, that George W. Bush said what he said on the first of May of last (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) In a market-ruled society the same would be true of any essential task that no one wanted to perform. (...) Knowing your preference for "outcome" versus "intent," I would speculate that the years of training are, in the end, irrelevant to your (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) But suppose you're not? What I'm driving at here is that it is difficult to take worth as stated by the person doing the task... and that further, some activities are indeed worth less. It rather seems to me that even in Chris's scheme he's (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) This sounds to me like a strong statement in support of Chris' thesis that one person's workhour is not inherently worth more than another's. If my brain is working just fine (let's say that it is), and the brains of my friends and family (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Yet another argument in favor of privatized education
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(...) It is stories like this which undermine the argument in favour of state regulation of certain private industries. I was reminded of this: "Better to abolish all regulations, consider everything as property, and solve all controversy by civil (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) ...and the cute animal and children's charities win every time. (URL) An example>. Scott A (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Iraq, Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel may well be major foreign policy challenges over the next 4-8 years. Who do you trust most to deal with them without involving corporate handouts and religious ideology? Scott A (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Yet another argument in favor of privatized education
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(URL) A school> with lots of class. (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) This is hardly new ground, but alright, here are the specific cites: From George Bush's State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003: Lie #1: "The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) The "some animals are more equal than others" perversion. But that still is minor in relation to trying to enforce a taxi driver and brain surgeon making the same amount (and of course, with tips, the taxt driver won out over years of (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Do you want a more thorough and scholarly treatment of one particular aspect of this overall question (how best to organize societies), or a broader but less thorough treatment of many aspects? Road to Serfdom focuses on fewer aspects. (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) I haven't. If I was going to take the time to read this or Machinery of Freedom (which I've meant to read forever) which would you suggest? (...) But of course! (...) Digging holes (useful ones, that is) is perfectly honorable work and should (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) To the best of my knowledge -- limited as it is, no system of equitable socialism has been tried on this planet for 500 years since the peak of Hopi civilization. All of the modern communisims that I have read about (and talked to (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Seriously? Have you read "The Road to Serfdom"? I'm just curious. (...) OK, can I run a thought experiment here for a sec? Suppose I'm a brain surgeon and a darn good one. Save lots of lives every day I go in to work. But one day I decide my (...) (20 years ago, 9-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Hey Pyramid Guy!!!
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(...) I guess that's the question-- what does being 'on top of the pyramid' translate to? More valuable? More primary? More advanced? (...) I gots me some edgy-kay-shuns in philosophy-- and arguably dipping into psychology. I seem to recall that (...) (20 years ago, 9-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Well, Chris, that's life. Life is unfair. And no amount of social engineering is going to change that. The best we can do is assist our fellow men and they us, and together we will muddle through life the best we can. But what I don't (...) (20 years ago, 9-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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(...) Escape the situation if possible, or enumerate the differences if escape wasn't possible, with the proviso that I was being coerced into doing so, and you didn't have the sanction of the victim to do that to me... (...) No. I think the claim (...) (20 years ago, 9-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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