>> ^Payback:
Franken could be House Speaker.


Huh, didn't know it wasn't a requirement, though I would think it'd be strange to have someone setting the legislative agenda for the House who wasn't actually a member of the body itself.

In any case, I'd be more inclined to replace Reid if we were going to replace either chamber's leader, and it also happens that Franken is part of the appropriate chamber to do so.

Not that there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening, but still.

I for one would welcome Al Franken as the next president of the USA.

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>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^NordlichReiter:I thought that common knowledge was no felony can be sent to arbitration.
Rapes in Iraq are not crimes in the US, so, you can't follow that chain of responsibility. As far as I'm aware Iraq provided full criminal immunity to contractors at the time, so it wasn't even a crime in Iraq.


It depends on the circumstances. I for example was born overseas on a US military base within another country. However as my father was in the US military, and I was born on a US base (legally considered US soil), then I am a natural born citizen, as if I was born within the border of the USA in any state. US diplomatic compounds are also considered US soil. As a result anyone on such grounds are subject to US law. When they step beyond those grounds, especially in wartime... they are in the employ of the US military and are bound by the same laws which govern the troops. Murder is murder. Rape is rape. This isn't the first time crimes have been prosecuted in US court that took place overseas.

With the same logic, a crime committed on the high seas beyond the borders of the US or any nation would not be prosecutable. This is not the case. The are a lot of complexities involved of course, but i can guarantee a gang rape or murder spree won't go unpunished in such a blatant rape case as this.

Why the Republicans are fighting it? Lobbying money. KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater (conveniently renamed for those with memory issues) may think they are immune from the law. Lawmakers may have told them they are immune. But that does not make it so.

A high ranking official may get away with it. But a bunch of raping low-levels will face a judge. The public won't allow for it.

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>> ^NordlichReiter:I thought that common knowledge was no felony can be sent to arbitration.

Rapes in Iraq are not crimes in the US, so, you can't follow that chain of responsibility. As far as I'm aware Iraq provided full criminal immunity to contractors at the time, so it wasn't even a crime in Iraq.

>> ^NetRunner:
^ I like the sentiment, but Pelosi is the leader of the House, and Franken is in the Senate.
What you really want to say is:
Kick out Harry Reid, and get Franken in.


According to the never-wrong wikipedia...

"The House of Representatives elects the Speaker of the House. Whoever receives a simple majority of the votes is elected and, after election, is sworn in by the Dean of the House, the chamber's longest-serving member. There is no requirement in the Constitution that the speaker must also be a current member of the House of Representatives to serve as speaker; however, every speaker elected has also been an elected representative.

In modern practice, the Speaker is chosen by the majority party in the House; it is usually obvious within two to three weeks of a House election who the new Speaker will be. It is expected that members of the House vote for their party's candidate. If they do not do so, they usually vote for someone else in their party or vote "present.""

Franken could be House Speaker.

I of course notice that every single NAY is a republican. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
FYI, even after this interview there were 30 votes against the bill.
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY)G raham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS)Sessions (R-AL)Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)
And here I kinda liked McCain.
http://senate.gov/legislativ
e/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00308

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I hope Al Franken makes it into the history books. He has entertained/taught/impressed me since day 1. I like where he's coming from. He's coming from a regular citizen asking an intelligent question just to make sure the government isn't fucking us over. That requires both balls and finesse. I do thank you sir Franken, and I hope you endure the blowjobs of a thousand tax-payer paid hookers

Al Franken is kicking ass here. "I know what that branch is, bitch."

>> ^chilaxe:
"You are telling me that all these little wars we have seen could not be solved with diplomacy?"
Yeah, maybe smarter politicians would help. I encourage my friends to consider a career in public service.


Nothing is more frustrating than public service! Ask Al Franken.

>> ^gtjwkq:
I'd be delighted to get into that subject...(loads of crap)


You must have played some serious dodgeball at recess eh?

>> ^bmacs27:
How exactly is force the exclusive domain of the government? What about the polluter that is forcing you to breath lower quality air? I can't do anything about that. I need a government to enforce my property rights over the air. Yes, the government employs force. It's our only recourse against the force employed by concentrated capital.

Everyone has access to some form of violence, and violent impulses are part of human nature. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the initiation of violence against another usually is. There are many ways to repress the initiation of violence, but the ultimate resource is violent retaliation. In a civilized society, a government should try to establish a monopoly over the use of force, so that private citizens can concentrate on more productive endeavours and not have to worry about coercion from fellow citizens.

The level by which an individual is free of coercion from others determines how civilized a society is.

So, I'm not saying government has actual exclusivity over violence, but the reason we have government is so that it creates a monopoly over violence, so that it can use violence itself to repress those who use violence against each other. That doesn't mean government is allowed to go nuts and use violence to plan our lives, redistribute wealth, establish monopolies, control the currency, etc.

Services that *require* violence should be done by government. You can't have a "wagging finger" police, they're law enforcers, you can't have courts that can't apply punishment or incarceration, a military that shoots flowers, etc. However, any other service that doesn't *require* the use of force to be performed (education, healthcare, housing, insurance, product safety, space exploration, research, etc.), should be done and will tend to be done better by the private sector.

Please explain to me the law of nature which prevents corporate oligarchy in the absence of government force. Collusion is the rational selection for a small number of powerful agents. They reap the return, prevent entry into marketplaces, and price gouge when privy to exclusive control over an inelastic market (such as healthcare). You've been reading Ludwig too much... I'd recommend reading more of his brother Richard's work. He actually contributed to knowledge.

Well, how would they prevent entry into marketplaces in a free market? Usually it's the collusion between govt + corporations that stops new players from getting in a market with legislation and subsidies. If that's out of the picture, what's left, price dumping? Dumping can push competitors away, but, while it lasts, it's good for consumers (lower prices) and a dumping company's profit takes a hit. No matter how wealthy a company is, it can't practice dumping forever.

If, through price gouging, a company tries to take advantage of its "monopoly" in a market, that creates demand for competition. No matter how inelastic a market is, that doesn't stop the dynamics of supply and demand.

If you're dismissive of Ludwig's contribution to economics, yeah, I hear ya. Whatever knowledge he contributed got pretty much diluted in the mess that economics currently is. If after years of study you were lead to believe you're an economist, I can only offer you my sincere condolences.

Like I stated, healthcare is an inelastic market like police, fire, and water. As such, it should be provided by the government because the status quo of a small number of profit-driven actors in the market leads to price gouging.

You're talking about a highly regulated market that is about 60% provided by government. Gee, I wonder why it's so inelastic.

I'm not saying people got greedy... (loads of crap) It was the banks writing a junk bond, and slapping a smily face on it.

Look into how low interest rates set by the Fed for so long encouraged people getting into debt, how government pursued policies to encourage home ownership (good intentions gone bad), how the subprime market was only possible because of government guaranteed loans.

I've said this before, but I always find it curious how creative interventionists become when they come up with all sorts of "unsolvable" problems that arise from a free market, yet can't use any of that imagination attributing bad consequences to government intervention in a regulated market. It's always the market who gets the blame.

Actually, they do. If our dollar were to suddenly become worthless, they would have no currency reserves. While I agree, they have the upper hand in this, they've already seen what a collapse of consumption on our soil does to their own economic growth. (...)

China along with many other countries were duped into using dollars as reserves, pieces of paper we can print as many as we like. For a while now they've been accumulating actual reserves, such as gold, in preparation for the "quantitative easing" we'll soon be indulging ourselves in.

Consumption isn't a huge favor the world needs from us. Anyone can consume, it's not that hard. what matters is that you pay for it and America hasn't been able to do that for a very long time now. Hell, China has many more consumers than us who can actually pay for stuff with real money. Why would they care to export to us when they can consume most of their goods themselves?

Do you think a chinese is thankful he works in a dishwasher factory so he can go home and wash his clothes by hand on a rock? Or making cars for us so he can ride his bicycle to work?

Their government is also being stupid because they're still trying to prop up the dollar and devaluing their currency by keeping it pegged. They'll wise up eventually.

I didn't say hyperinflation... I said inflation. Between 2 and 4% inflation is a good thing. If you disagree, you are beyond help.

That's kind of a silly statement. Governments like inflation, people who have to produce and earn money don't. That's like saying "low interest rates are good". Depends on who you ask, they're good for debters, but not good for lenders and savers.

As for the Austrian school, yes, it's BS. (BS)

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." -- Hayek. Not that a keynesian would care.

No force, but enforce contracts. Right.

Touché Señor Nitpicker I meant something along the lines of "don't allow use of force among citizens".

It's easy not to worry about how the rules are set up so long as they are benefitting you. Once you see that not everybody is getting a fair deal, you realize the moral, and even selfish reasons for entering a broader scoped social contract. In the end, we all benefit from a well educated, healthy society. We just need to put up the VC.

Unfairness is, most often than not, advanced by the use of force. Problems that don't involve force to begin with, don't require force to be solved. Violence is in a different domain. That's like bullying people into liking you.

Why aren't you questioning the selfishness of those who advocate the use of force? They want power over a whole domain of other people's lives. They say people are being wronged yet they propose using the most destructive tool, something that opens up so much potential for abuse, to solve everything.

Libertarians are always worried about individuals instead of this group, or that group, or whoever claims to be speaking for the interests of society, not out of blind selfishness, but because "individual" is a very cool concept with the following magic properties:

An individual is the smallest minority, so when you help the individual, you help the minority that needs the most protection from abuse (they're the smallest!). An individual is the most numerous minority, so you help the most minorities. An individual is the majority because everyone is an individual. So when you keeps things always at the level of individual, individual rights, individual liberties, etc. you're helping everybody and people tend not to be benefitted at the expense of others.

That sounds a lot more fair to me.

>> ^bmacs27:
Well, one could argue that government of any sort is government intervention in the economy. That's why anarchists and libertarians so often get confused. Think about it. There's a market for murder. There's a market for "protection". There's a market for "waste disposal". So really, the question always boils down to 'what specific government interventions into the marketplace are you for?'

Most of those activities you mentioned require the use of force, so they can't be done by private citizens, because the use of force is exclusive to government. Any other activity that doesn't *require* the use of force shouldn't be done by government because it can be done (and will tend to be done better) by the private sector.

To me, while anarchy seems like the end result of libertarian ideals... really it's rule by corporate oligarchy, with rampant exploitation of the commons.

If anarchy was the end result of libertarian ideals, they would be called anarchists. Corporate oligarchies are much more likely when government regulates the economy, and gets in bed with corporations. You have to realize that any "archy" requires government, force. It can't sprout out of markets where force is not allowed.

How about like this: Medicare operates with 3% overhead, non-profit insurance 16% overhead, and private (for-profit) insurance 26% overhead. Source: Journal of American Medicine 2007

Does that overhead in the private sector have anything to do with excessive government regulation of the healthcare insurance market? Maybe it would be less of a burden to compete in a market that is almost 60% provided by government?

I would disagree. We are currently in a financial crisis because an unbridled, short-term incentive laden banking industry leveraged itself into oblivion. Afterwards, they put a gun to our head and handed us the tab. In other words, print the dough, or the pitchforks and torches tear the whole joint down. The only reason their hustle didn't work indefinitely is because too many of US were spending money we didn't have. Changing that is going to take a cultural shift that is already beginning.

Government and the Fed created the moral hazards that led to what you're attributing as the cause. A lot of people acted stupidly, you're saying it's cultural, that people "got greedy", ignoring the incentives and government guarantees that led people to believe there weren't any risks.

Ever hear of buy low, sell high? No, I think China is more likely to just borrow against it, and start picking up their part of the consumption. They're already pulling the world out of this recession.

Ever hear of "cutting your losses"? There's no "sell high" here, the US can't pay back its lenders, not at the rate the US government is spending and willing to spend for the next few years, and not in a recession where government is ruining productivity. China will be part of the recovery effort alright, but they'll much rather do it without the US strapped to its back.

Think about it, if China lent the US more than a trillion dollars, it's better to lose that money than lend us 2 or 3 more trillions just to watch even more money go to waste. They don't need us.

Yes. Define excessive.

The Constitution is a good reference, most things the federal government does that are not expressly authorized in the Constitution are excesses.

Spending is serious business, it's inflation you all gotta relax about. Is it worth having the "why inflation is good for the economy" argument with you? Or would you rather go back to your non-mathematical Austrian school BS, and we can just agree to disagree?

NetRunner, is that you? I guess you think hyperinflation is a synonym for "awesome".

If you actually studied Austrian economics and you think it's "non-mathematical" and "BS", yes, we'll have to agree to disagree. You're beyond help.

I agree, it's difficult to write laws without unintended consequences. That is, you can always game the rules. One should not conclude from this, however, that you shouldn't try and write rules. Instead, you should just write them faster than the douche bags can game them. You always need more rules. Every time there is an advance in technology, you need more rules. Why? Technology makes it easier to game the rules, and exploit the commons, just like it makes it easier to do everything else.

Don't worry about that. Keep rules simple, no fraud, enforce contracts, no use of force. Everything else will tend to sort itself out. Also, don't be afraid of technology.