Dude, stimulus does not immediately kick in. It takes time to take effect.

Yes - so far it has taken over 2 years and STILL hasn't 'taken effect'. (rimshot)

And considering the economic data that suggests that this was the worst economic downturn in since the Great Depression, where unemployment reached 25%, how is it "balderdash" unemployment would have climbed into the teens?

Where is the evidence that 'proves' unemployment WOULD HAVE reached 13% or 17% or 25%? Depends on who you are talking to of course. There are indicators that US unemployement is indeed more along the lines of 17% when you take away 'book cooking' techniques such as not counting people who aren't looking for jobs anymore, and so forth. Regardless, there is no substantive economic evidence that unemployment as traditionally measured was going to keep increasing beyond the plateau it reached.

You also failed in your economic analysis.

It isn't my economic analysis. It is the economic analysis of economists. Argue with them. Just because you disagree with them doesn't make you right. It just makes you one of millions of people with an uninformed opinion.

"...the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in August that said the stimulus bill has '[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points' and '[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.'"

I already talked about the CBO report - which is one of the most 'generous' interpretations possible and is based on fuzzy facts and a bunch of imagination. Other analysis is far more critical, and has a lot more concrete data to back it up.

"most economists believe"

Nope - you don't get to pull an Obama tactic here. When Obama says bullcrap like this he skates away because the media doesn't call him out. I'm different. I'm calling you out. Define your claim. "Most economists"... What economists? Name names. Name the organizations. Name the time. Name the place. Name the report. Name the data. Supply your proof to your claim that 'most economists' say the bill wasn't successful because it wasn't big enough. The only economnists who say that kind off garbage are prog-lib Keneysians - who aren't worth the powder to blow them up. There are HOSTS of economists who completely, unequivocally, and thoroughly disagree with that highly questionable position.

Again, I challenge you to show me a recession in modern times that was not ended after a period of deficit spending. You can't name one, can you?

Your position is spurious because for the past 70 years the US government has been on a constant deficit spending binge. I can with equal validity claim the following...

"I challenge you to show a recession in modern times that was not PRECEEDED by a period of deficit spending. You can't name one, can you?"

When the baseline of government is constant debt spending, for anyone you to claim that all 'positive' events are the result of deficit spending is nonsense. The chart proves nothing expect that the government has been debt spending 95% of its existence. It sort of also proves that that the recessions in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and this recession were preceeded by deficit spending.

there's no other way to explain it

Yes there is and I just showed it to you. Only people who are mired in a narrow, biased, bigoted, and blinkered Keneysian world-view can say there is 'only' one explanation. Reality and facts prove otherwise.

we've ALWAYS ended recessions with deficit spending

And this is why you are proven to be narrow-minded, biased, bigoted, and blinkered. Private sector growth is what ends recessions - not deficit spending. If deficit spending 'ended' recessions, then why are we still in a recession? Obama Jerkface the First has engaged in more deficit spending than any president in US history in raw terms. Why aren't we in an economic boom right now after 3 years on his debt steroids? If debt got rid of recessions, then we'd never go INTO a recession because we've been debt spending 95% of the time. Your analysis is so simplistic, so flawed, and so moronic that it begs the question whether you even think about what you write, or if you are just so steeped in leftist propoganda that you have abandoned free-thinking completely.

So what was WWII?! What were the 1980's?!

WW2 was a world war that was followed by a post-war private sector boom of increased private spending and greatly decreased government debt spending. The 1980s was a period of time when private businesses grew as a result of decreased government taxation - caused by a conservative president forcing a liberal congress to cut entitlements somewhat.

Explain how in the world deficits prolonged the Great Depression!

Like many prog-libs, you lack historical knowledge. FDR engaged in massive debt spending and public works long before WW2. The creation of public works based on deficits created an environment where government was a 'job creator', not the private sector. When the government is actively involved in setting wages, being the 'job creator', and otherwise setting a baseline of economic activity, then the private sector holds back its capital, jobs, and other activities. The reason is simple - the private sector cannot compete when the public sector is artificially manipulating costs and prices. It creates an atmosphere of massive economic uncertainty, and the private sector is unwilling to take risks, make bold moves, or otherwise do anything that might be jeopardized by a sudden decision by government to move in that direction.

So when government is subsidizing construction workers (such as with public make-work crap), it interferes with the private constriction industry. They are not going to hire workers at $20 an hour when government workers are getting tax-subsidized $30 jobs. They can't compete with that. So they don't hire anyone, and they fire people they already have, and they also have people quit because government is hiring at higher than market value wages. Then in a year when those jobs dry up, the private sector is flooded with workers who expect a 30 an hour job, but the job environment is full of employers who only pay 25 (or less), and who are scared to hire anyone because they have no idea if government is going to go on another bogus debt binge or not. The only time the private sector steps up in in periods of time when they know the government is NOT going to be rocking the boat with arbitrary decisions for a while. This is why there was a big boom AFTER the war (when government activity decreased) and in the 80s. Recessions are ended when the private sector has CONFIDENCE - and that only happens when government is NOT doing anything.

I could go on a long time, but I doubt you care to hear it. Prog-libs who believe only the Keneysian model don't care to hear how thier precious philosophy screws up the world market, prolongs economic downturns, and basically is the major cause of suffering, poverty, and economic unrest.

I don't for the life of me understand why people like you will literally argue the sky isn't blue if it fits your ideological narrative.

Pot - meet kettle. Your world view is 100% backwards. You are the one calling the sky green. You are the one saying the moon is made of cheese. We in the real world await your arrival some day when you're ready for it.

Trying futilely to fix this old dead vid and reread your comment. Hilarious.

In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:
Some highlights with translations:

"My degree is in enginering...that speaks to my practical and analytical side."

But my FROSTED side speaks to the deliciousness that is me! TENNIS anyone?

"When I'm not being my integrated self, I'm wallowing in the muck of my own secret hell just like everybody else."

I'm wallowing in the muck of my own secret hell for all to see online.

"But my parole office says I'm mostly done with that now."

I killed my parole officer.

"I'm a man with a big heart."

It's in a jar in my refrigerator labeled PAROEL OFFCER.

"I'm seeking a connection on many levels..."

Such as intercoursal, sexual and copulatical.

"Yeah baby."

Austin Powers and I own a timeshare in the 1990s.

"If you identify as a very good girl, then we would probably not be a very good fit."

If your remains can be identified, you're too risky to keep as a trophy.

"I'm a bit of a bad boy."

My mom thinks I'm cool.

"If we click, I'll probably challenge you and surprise you sexually."

I'm uncircumcised.

Dude, stimulus does not immediately kick in. It takes time to take effect. And considering the economic data that suggests that this was the worst economic downturn in since the Great Depression, where unemployment reached 25%, how is it "balderdash" unemployment would have climbed into the teens?

You also failed in your economic analysis. To say that the stimulus jobs created 1 job for every $200,000 is the most absurd thing I've ever read. First off, it assumes that the only jobs created are the jobs of people it directly contributed to hiring without taking into account the residual effects of said hiring, or the results of whatever goods and services produced from the work they did. How many jobs are created or preserved by building infrastructure? How many jobs were created or preserved by providing all workers hired through stimulus programs, which in turn spent that income on goods and services produced by private sector workers? What about workers producing goods and services necessary for these programs that wouldn't immediately show up?

"...the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in August that said the stimulus bill has '[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points' and '[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.'"

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/09/did-the-stimulus-create-jobs/

The economy is cyclical in nature. Stopping the bleeding is a big deal. And most economists believe the stimulus bill wasn't as successful as it should have been is because it wasn't big enough, not because it was too big or was done at all.

Again, I challenge you to show me a recession in modern times that was not ended after a period of deficit spending. You can't name one, can you?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/us_deficit_100.png

So there's completely DUH obvious undeniable, there's no other way to explain it, basic US historical fact that we've ALWAYS ended recessions with deficit spending. How can you possibly argue that "when government steps into the market, it creates an artificial bubble that PROLONGS an economic downturn." So what was WWII?! What were the 1980's?! You have no factual claims to stand on! Explain how in the world deficits prolonged the Great Depression! We deficit spent quite a bit leading up to WWII, still didn't get out of the Great Depression, massive record deficit spent, THEN got out of the Depression. It is undeniable that's what did the trick.

I don't for the life of me understand why people like you will literally argue the sky isn't blue if it fits your ideological narrative.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

You can't say it didn't work before because unemployment was skyrocketing and then stopped when the stimulus kicked in.
The facts...
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Unemployment started going up a bit in May of 2008 (5.4%). By February of 2009 (Stimulus bill passes) the rate was 8.2%. By October of 2009, unemployment was 10.1%. +2%. After. The. Stimulus. Unemployment hit 9%+ in May of 2009 and has stayed in that zone ever since.
Unemployment did spike a total of +4% between May of 2008 and May of 2009. 60% of that spike took place before the stimulus, and 40% of the spike took place AFTER the stimulus. In order for anyone to claim that the stimulus 'stopped' unemployement from rising, they would have to conclusively prove that unemployment WOULD HAVE RISEN to 13.4% by May of 2010, then to 17.4% by May of this year without the passage of the stimulus. Balderdash. Unemployment hit a natural free market peak in late 2009, and it was going to do that with our without the stimulus.
Let's assume the stimulus DID 'create jobs'. Is that backed up by facts?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/13/us-usa-campa
ign-stimulus-idUSTRE78C08R20110913
http://web.econ.ohio-state.edu/dupor/arra10_may11.pdf
Economic data is open to debate. On the one side here we have the CBO which gave the stimulus a very generous amount of credit (based on some very questionable interpretations of job 'creation') for 'creating or preserving' 3 million jobs. Then we have an OSU study which uses statistics to prove the stimulus 'created' 450,000 government jobs and KILLED a million private sector jobs.
I personally I think the OSU study hits the nail on the head. "ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than directly boost private sector employment." That is a statement that reflects reality. The stimulus mostly plugged up budgeting gaps that had nothing to do with employment. In fact, the CBO itself freely admitted, "it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.” QUOTE!
But let's be really nice and use the CBO's figures - even though they are highly questionable. 3 million jobs were 'created or preserved' by the stimulus bill. Even in this very rosy scenario, the stimulus made 1 job for every $200,000 dollars. It can be credibly argued that doing NOTHING would have generated a better result in an overall analysis compared to spending $200K for 1 job.
But for the sake of discussion let's take a good hard look at the jobs that were 'created'. After all, 200K a job might make sense if they were GOOD jobs...
http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/11/did-the-stimulus-create-jobs
They weren't. Most of the jobs were government jobs. And most of them were temporary construction jobs or other seasonal gigs for make-work projects scheduled to complete in a year or less (at which point they are fired). The private sector - where jobs are needed most - got virtually NO boost from the stimulus.
I could keep on going for hours, but suffice it to say that the stimulus didn't 'stop' unemployment. There is solid, real, credible evidence that the government's interference in the free market did far more harm than good. That's what happens. When government steps into the market, it creates an artificial bubble that PROLONGS an economic downturn.

@dystopianfuturetoday

1. "well, if everyone works hard enough, can everyone be rich?" Of course not. It's a pie in the sky.

One of the biggest differences between careerists and collectivists is that careerists view society as a multi-sum game rather than a zero-sum game. (In a multi-sum game, the more one person contributes, the more he and everyone else benefits. In a zero-sum game, if one person gains, another must lose, and the balance is always zero.) Steve Jobs revolutionizing technology 5 times didn't make everyone else poorer, it made them even more lucky than they already are.

Liberalism is created by a genetic 'yuck factor' against hierarchy, so liberals feel that we can only be happy if we're well-off relative to our neighbors, rather than well-off in more absolute terms --that is, relative to the 99.99% of humankind throughout human history that were poorer than us.



2. In places with stronger social democracies like Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, the UK (among others) you see happier, healthier people and far less suffering, poverty and unemployment.

Those places are wealthy because they're filled with white people and they inherited infrastructure from previous generations. They could run just about any government policies and they'd still have high academic test scores. Use the same measurement on the US (only count white people (or count Asian Americans also)) and the US performs even better than Europe on just about all metrics (crime rates, academic test scores, health and medicine, etc.)



3. "Still, these people are generally anti science"

As soon as liberals stop opposing the human sciences, they can criticize others for being anti-science. I left academia to become a capitalist because I realized liberals were always going to prioritize tribalism over science, so the professional pursuit of knowledge was useless unless it's for the purposes of making money. Indeed, they view it as bad faith to even bring up the human sciences, despite their importance to human knowledge.



4. "@chilaxe I challenge you to be more critical with your politics; to question what you've been taught, who taught it to you, and what these people stand to gain from your support?"

I accepted your challenge years ago and became critical of my liberal upbringing. My entire family's liberal, and 95% of the people I've ever met are liberal. (I grew up in northern Califiornia.) I began to question what I'd been taught by my teachers and professors, 100% of whom were liberal.

The problem with market libertarianism is that it is "liberty" only from a wealthy person's perspective. Unregulated markets do nothing to guard against chattel or wage slavery, labor abuse, environmental destruction, violence or other kinds of exploitation. The libertarian defense to this is usually 'if you work hard enough, you too can be rich', but this argument quickly falls apart when you ask yourself "well, if everyone works hard enough, can everyone be rich?" Of course not. It's a pie in the sky. The other defense is that 'the magic hand will make everything right', which, to me, is indistinguishable from religious faith.

Market libertarianism is the best attempt yet at a moral justification for plutocracy. This is why you see plutocrats like the Koch brothers and the Scaife Foundation spending so much money promoting libertarianism. Though these are generally dishonest people, I don't think they are dishonest in their support of market libertarianism, I think they are true believers every bit as much as you or blankfist.

However, if you look at places like Chad and Somalia that have free market principals in place (small governments, little regulation and low taxes), the quality of life is very low.

In places with stronger social democracies like Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, the UK (among others) you see happier, healthier people and far less suffering, poverty and unemployment.

If you looked a little deeper past the ego stroking rhetoric about 'individualism' and 'meritocracy' you will see there is no substance to market libertarianism. It's a racket used to sucker citizens into freely giving away democratic power.

I agree that right-libertarians are the most intellectual (and arguably the most pure) type of conservative. Still, these people are generally anti science and anti academia, so (IMO) I don't think they've earned the right to justify that title just yet.

@chilaxe I challenge you to be more critical with your politics; to question what you've been taught, who taught it to you, and what these people stand to gain from your support?

First, regular people aren't morally good and you know it.
And if christians condemn someone for a crime that really isn't a crime, well of course that's wrong.
As for God torturing and killing Jesus, that's applying human traits to God, which is generally ridiculous.

I challenge you to plainly state why christianity is amoral. If I can forgive spilt milk, then I can forgive something much greater. Doesn't make it amoral.

My example is false? Are you saying that I lied about my previous jobs?

You are now adding qualifiers to the hypothetical peasant analogy by claiming he is a servant. A servant to whom? You cannot assert that he is a servant of the king, because we have not established that the peasant cares one whit about the king. You say that the servant has to work, he has to produce results. Why? I clearly made the case that the peasant works in the fields not because he believes he will upset the king, but so that he can feed his family. In my job, I had to work and produce results, or I would have been fired. In both mine and the peasant's cases, we would find ourselves starving if we did not work. (Furthermore, you are wrong to assume, yet again, that the CEO of the organization I worked for would not care that I left. I did, and it turned out to be quite a problem for them, because I was the last competent programmer in my department.) You say that the peasant doesn't have the luxury of not working in the fields. Why not?

Now you claim the existence of god can be proven, when just a little ways back asserted that it is not possible. Which is it?

Pride of being uninformed? Uninformed about what? My generation? You swear ... really? I doubt that you have any clue as to my age or to which generation I belong. Quite honestly, I suspect I am older than you, but I certainly won't assert that without knowing your age. You assume (again!) facts about my life to fit your understanding of the world. You assume that I have not searched for god, that I have done no "impartial research". I submit to you that you are writing about things of which you have no knowledge. To put it more bluntly, you're talking out of your ass.


A few days ago, you proposed the following:

These are the only answers to the question [of] does God exist
Yes (Theist)
No (Atheist)
Don't know (Agnostic)

Your refusal to accept that other people can and do see things differently is blinding you to the fact that there are other answers. In my case, my short answer to the question is, "Don't care, it's not relevant." My long answer is quite long, indeed, but starts by pointing out the question itself is usually meaningless in the way most people ask it.

Lastly, I'm pretty sure I understand what you were getting at with the peasant and king analogy, but it's gotten quite muddled now that we've tried to dig into it. If you like, let's abandon that and deal directly with what (I think) you were trying to convey. I claim that it is not only possible, but preferable, to lead a moral and ethical life without ever considering the existence of a god or gods, and without recourse to an outside authority upon which to validate my ethics and morals.
>> ^shinyblurry:

Your example is false, jonny. The peasant is a servant, he has to work. He has to produce results. You don't. If you left the company, the CEO isn't going to care. You could go live out in the woods, the peasant doesn't have that luxury. A ceo or president does not own you. The King owns the peasant. The peasant is his property.
lol to being proud of being uninformed, by the way..your generation I swear..
The existence of God can be proven, that's my entire point. You can know Jesus Christ personally, today. When I was agnostic, I didn't believe that Jesus was real, so yes I have some empathy for you. However, neither did I seriously investigate it nor did I really understand what the facts were.
I had all the information I had heard from other people, or things I had read, that atheists and agnostics in general just assume..I had all the various talking points and examples of inconsistancies that atheists and agnostics use in their arguments, most of which are easily disproven even with some cursory research. It was obvious to me that the bible was made up. Yet, with all that I didn't know a damn thing. It was really my ignorance of what was in the bible, and my inherent prejudice against it, that kept me from uncovering the facts.
I'll submit to you that if you actually did do impartial research, that the facts about who Jesus is will hold up. I challenge you to read "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
See if what you think you know actually matches up to reality.

@jonny

Your example is false, jonny. The peasant is a servant, he has to work. He has to produce results. You don't. If you left the company, the CEO isn't going to care. You could go live out in the woods, the peasant doesn't have that luxury. A ceo or president does not own you. The King owns the peasant. The peasant is his property.

lol to being proud of being uninformed, by the way..your generation I swear..

The existence of God can be proven, that's my entire point. You can know Jesus Christ personally, today. When I was agnostic, I didn't believe that Jesus was real, so yes I have some empathy for you. However, neither did I seriously investigate it nor did I really understand what the facts were.

I had all the information I had heard from other people, or things I had read, that atheists and agnostics in general just assume..I had all the various talking points and examples of inconsistancies that atheists and agnostics use in their arguments, most of which are easily disproven even with some cursory research. It was obvious to me that the bible was made up. Yet, with all that I didn't know a damn thing. It was really my ignorance of what was in the bible, and my inherent prejudice against it, that kept me from uncovering the facts.

I'll submit to you that if you actually did do impartial research, that the facts about who Jesus is will hold up. I challenge you to read "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615

See if what you think you know actually matches up to reality.

Now we know why it's in their best interest to keep the majority of the public in the USofA uneducated.

Propagate religion, downplay education levels, keep the masses complaint. Let just enough people through the doors of higher education to keep the country running and let only a select few from the uppermost crust into the "inner circle". If any of "the educated" starts to rebel against the control too much, label him as a dissident and push them back to the bottom of the ranks where they can't challenge you.

And now you're not only running a country, you're Ruling a country and the people in it.
Let the public know only enough so that they think you are working for them. Most will never take the time to connect the dots further than the first two-to-three steps.

And lets face it most people don't want to look forward, they are comfortable with all that's been provided for them: DVDs, computers, iPhones, HDTV... (thank you to our keepers.)

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker I think I'm just about ready to write you off as someone worth replying to.

I asked how you thought what Beck said compared to blood libel, and you said:
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

The use of propoganda by a totalitarian government to inspire hatred and justify violence towards a genetic race is not comparable to a private citizen's non-violent opinions being presented in a public forum as opposition to a differing political philosophy that others accepted independantly. There is no equivalency.

When I challenge you on your assertion, you deny the assertion:

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

No - I described what Glenn Beck said, which was necessary because of the inaccurate, incomplete citation and the subsequent misinterpretations of others. I made no statement about it being 'violent, or non-violent'. If we are to talk of making assertions, I will kindly request that you cease making inaccurate assertions about what I say.

(emphasis in both is mine)

This is the fundamental problem I have with you. Whatever fact someone uses as the basis of a conclusion, you accuse the speaker of fabricating that fact, even if it's trivially and incontrovertibly validated.

It's just not conducive to civil discourse to casually accuse people of lying. Assume I misunderstood, and just try making your point more explicitly.

What did you mean by "non-violent opinion"? Were you talking about Glenn Beck there? After all, that was what I had asked you about.

A fair statement, and I understand and tend to agree with where you're coming from.. I chose to challenge you only because I am familiar with the work that IONS (the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which Mitchell founded based, partly, on this original seminal experience), and the research they do on the paraliminal levels of consciousness and the expanded ranges of human potential. I'm quite familiar with the scientific rigor with which they approach such research and the basis upon which they rely on multiple ways of "knowing," that does not simply base all knowledge on logic and reason, but also on phenomenal experience, qualitative understanding, and intuitive inquiry. There are multiple approaches to epistemology that include and extend beyond mere logic and reason -- and the scientific wisdom it yields just as valid, reliable, and valuable to attained human knowledge.

Personally, I understand Mitchell's quote as a form of "received" wisdom, not unlike Rene Descarte's vision of the "Angel of Truth" which ultimately gave rise to the cogito ergo sum, Archimedes' moment of Eureka which served as the basis fo displacement as a measurement of density, or Sir Isaac Newton's revelation of mathematics as encapsulating the laws of universal physics.


>> ^WKB:

>> ^Trancecoach:
And on which form of epistemology do you base that statement?
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
I think Mitchell's use of the term, "divinity" refers to the force or power inherent in humanity's reason and capacities to acquire knowledge, rather than in the "magic" of one's faith in a deity.
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
My sense is that a lot of our international issues can be resolved after a critical mass of people make it out of Earth's gravity and are able to look down on its fragile state from above...
Astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said about the experience of spaceflight, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly."

The first half of your statement I agree with in absolute completeness. Understanding our vulnerable situation is indeed reason to work together to ensure the survival of us all.
While I am no astronaut, I could not disagree more with the second half. I think that contemplating the fragile nature of life on this planet and the amazing accomplishments our species has accumulated is a reason to celebrate our knowledge, not our faith. Reason, evidence, and knowledge is what has allowed us to even contemplate this issue. Faith has done nothing to solve the problems of leaving the atmosphere, surviving the vacuum, achieving a stable orbit, or reentering the world safely. To suddenly take the amazement of life as we now understand it, thanks to science, and chalk it all up to some divine magic seems insulting to the knowledge, reason, and human intellect that has gotten us here.


I really doubt that based on the context of the statement. "Life wasn't an accident based on random processes," "the knowledge came to me directly,"... sounds like magic talk to me.


I had to look that word up to make sure I knew what the heck it means. I'm not sure where the nature of knowledge comes into it. I am simply pointing out that it seems to me that the ideas Mitchell brings up in the very sentence in which he uses the word divinity are evidence to support the idea that he is talking about a divine creator. (Which is what I meant by, 'magic,' no offense intended.) I see no evidence that he is using the word divinity to celebrate humanity's reason and capacity to acquire knowledge based on the provided quote. I have great admiration for Edgar Mitchel, and anyone who risks their life to help expand human understanding of the universe as he did, but that particular quote of his seemed to me to ring hollow.

I love some of Gilliam's work (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Time Bandits), like some of it (The Fisher King, Baron Munchausen) and really disliked one enough to stop watching it (Brothers Grimm).

I love some of Kubrik's work (Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange) like some of it (2001), hate others (Eye's Wide Shut)

I love some of Speilberg's work (Indiana Jones 1-3, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, Minority Report, Hook, 'Poltergeist' as he pretty much directed it), like some of it (Close Encounters, ET, Always), but there's nothing I have seen of his that I hate, in fact the closest I've got is with AI, even though I loved to death some of the decayed robot stuff. (Indiana Jones was close to me hating it, but really only the end really shits me)

I love Speilberg's work as he has quite the diverse catalogue and really hits it out of the park more often than not.

Maybe the fact that I don't really hate any of his work demonstrates that he is 'safe' and doesn't challenge you.

I have not seen the entire catalogue of any of these directors, but they are all superb, all different and all have made amazing contributions to the artform of cinema.

>> ^bmacs27:
... I would challenge you to express how the theory of evolution itself could be falsified? Here's Darwin's take from the Origin of Species: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." If you take the position that all claims of irreducible complexity are simply matters of the poverty of imagination, and as such it is not demonstrable, you open evolution up to the same criticism.

Evolution could be falsified by demonstrating that a lineage of reproducing organisms cannot develop new genetic traits over time, though that would be difficult considering we have multiple examples of new traits being formed under observation.

Darwin's quote is mainly pointless because Irreducible Complexity can't be tested. There is nothing even remotely scientific about a "theory" that relies on what we don't know for evidence. We can, however, demonstrate how the genetic traits of reproducing organisms change over time, and if nothing else that gives us avenues of further research regarding the origins of life.

>> ^bmacs27:

Well, then, I would challenge you to express how the theory of evolution itself could be falsified?


I'm not going to repeat all the arguments here, but talk origins has a pretty good page on the falsifiability of evolution.

My reply to gwiz dealt with your post as well. Really, I should have combined or separated them for more clarity. My bad, you're right, it does look like I was saying you agreed with the property rights thing, and the @ to you should have probably been in the second one along with the one for gwiz.

However, I stand by my opinion that voting needs to be easier instead of harder, and governments don't need more power to disenfranchise people. If we want better results, we need a more informed and educated public or a different form of governing ourselves. Like I said, I agree with the sentiment you and others are expressing, and restricting voting is a logical solution, but I think there are many unforeseeable and unintended consequences in implementing tests/classes/etc for voting. See my comments in that thread about corruption, etc.

Regarding birth in a country giving you specific rights, well, that's just how it happens to work culturally, right? I mean, if you look objectively at the concept of countries, they're automatically going to be fairly arbitrary simply due to the lack of choice in being born. Historically, it was and easy way of determining citizenship in a world where lines on a map could help you determine a lot. In today's world, those lines are all blurred, and technology gives us all sorts of options for keeping records, administering tests, etc. So, we have new options and there's nothing wrong with thinking out loud about that.

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
You obviously didn't read anything I wrote because I didn't agree with the prospect of land being the basis for voting. I spin your comment on critical thinking back at yourself and challenge you to read my comments for how they were intended. GWIZ has a comment right above yourself that mimics what I have said in a much better phrasing. Perhaps try and be a bit more transcendent yourself, sir.

In reply to this comment by mgittle:
@GeeSussFreeK @Winstonfield_Pennypacker

Let's do a fun critical thinking exercise! You guys really need it.

Say someone's company asks them to move to a different state or city and take a position for 2 years, after which they'll be asked to move again to a possibly more permanent position. That person looks at the local rental/housing market and decides it'll be cheaper to rent for those two years because the cost of the loan/interest and the potential hassle of selling the house (possibly at a loss) is really risky to deal with when you know you're going to move.

That person, who is capable of making an intelligent and informed decision, shouldn't be allowed to vote? Even using your "logic", I can see how someone could feel it prudent to prevent "temporary" residents from voting on local matters like millages, mayoral elections, etc, but state and national elections? Really?

This also doesn't consider college students, people who are living together but not married (such as with significant others or family members who own homes), or millions of other people who simply can't afford homes or don't want the lifestyle, maintenance costs, etc of owning a home.

I was really trying to avoid making any sort of personal attack with this...but I have to ask, did you even think about what you were saying before you typed it out?