>> ^Stormsinger:

Pardon me? You think the Republicans should win based on the economy that their platform was primarily responsible for crashing and keeping anemic? No. Not even a faint maybe, but hell no!
For nearly my entire life, the Republican party has preached one set of things (fiscal responsibility and smaller government), and done the exact opposite when in power (record deficits and increased government). The economy does significantly better under a Democratic administration. Everything they say is a lie. Or at least you'll be right more often than not if you assume it to be so.
WHY would anyone who actually looks at facts EVER vote Republican, unless they're rich enough to buy the candidates for their own personal benefit?
>> ^Xaielao:
I think after this election, if Obama wins, the republican party is going to think long and hard about their issues. By all rights they should be winning this thing simply based off the economy. However, the fringe of their party is ever-increasing and the number of growing voting blocks they shun and hate and try to repress is continuing to rise. I think that most won't ever accept that they are a fringe party, and that wing will become a minority party after a few more elections, which they may well lose as their voting block diminishes. I don't expect this to happen in the next four years however, and that their attempt to suppress the voting rights of the poor, minorities, the old and young will continue and become even more severe, as will their ever-growing hate against such groups. It is a vicious cycle that in the end might mean the death of the party. People scoff at this but it has happened before.
I personally put the blame on things like fox news, which has helped create the persistent bubble of misinformation and hate. As long as millions of republicans continue to watch it heavily and believe every word, including republicans holding office, and even the presidential candidate (as this clip so clearly shows).. that spiral will continue.



I of course, agree with you. It is all a grand masquerade that the republican party has dappled itself in fiscal responsibility when they never have backed up such claims. Perhaps I should have stated that. I meant more that with an economy like this, no president has ever won re-election (though it is improving quickly now) and that this should have been a much easier election for republicans based upon that, but that their crazy attitude and policies toward women, minorities, the poor, the old and the young has dwindled their voting block to such a point that they can no longer win a strait up election without doing the things Romney has done. Running to the middle while also denying everything you said during the primary, and the overwhelming voter ID laws, registration purges, laws against registration groups, etc in republican states, though thankfully every last one of them was shut down in the courts. I personally actually support voter ID, but not in the draconian sense the republicans are trying to instate them.

Ah, yeah, I guess that could be what he was implying. If so, I'd have to admit that stupidity has generally ruled in the last 200 years (or 2000, or probably 200000), that much is true.
>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^Stormsinger:
Pardon me? You think the Republicans should win based on the economy that their platform was primarily responsible for crashing and keeping anemic? No. Not even a faint maybe, but hell no!
For nearly my entire life, the Republican party has preached one set of things (fiscal responsibility and smaller government), and done the exact opposite when in power (record deficits and increased government). The economy does significantly better under a Democratic administration. Everything they say is a lie. Or at least you'll be right more often than not if you assume it to be so.
WHY would anyone who actually looks at facts EVER vote Republican, unless they're rich enough to buy the candidates for their own personal benefit?
>> ^Xaielao:
I think after this election, if Obama wins, the republican party is going to think long and hard about their issues. By all rights they should be winning this thing simply based off the economy. However, the fringe of their party is ever-increasing and the number of growing voting blocks they shun and hate and try to repress is continuing to rise. I think that most won't ever accept that they are a fringe party, and that wing will become a minority party after a few more elections, which they may well lose as their voting block diminishes. I don't expect this to happen in the next four years however, and that their attempt to suppress the voting rights of the poor, minorities, the old and young will continue and become even more severe, as will their ever-growing hate against such groups. It is a vicious cycle that in the end might mean the death of the party. People scoff at this but it has happened before.
I personally put the blame on things like fox news, which has helped create the persistent bubble of misinformation and hate. As long as millions of republicans continue to watch it heavily and believe every word, including republicans holding office, and even the presidential candidate (as this clip so clearly shows).. that spiral will continue.


I think what he means, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that historically speaking, in the US, any time there is a significant slump in the economy, regardless of who started it, whether or not the incumbent is fixing things, the incumbent typically loses. a knee jerk reaction if you will.

>> ^Stormsinger:

Pardon me? You think the Republicans should win based on the economy that their platform was primarily responsible for crashing and keeping anemic? No. Not even a faint maybe, but hell no!
For nearly my entire life, the Republican party has preached one set of things (fiscal responsibility and smaller government), and done the exact opposite when in power (record deficits and increased government). The economy does significantly better under a Democratic administration. Everything they say is a lie. Or at least you'll be right more often than not if you assume it to be so.
WHY would anyone who actually looks at facts EVER vote Republican, unless they're rich enough to buy the candidates for their own personal benefit?
>> ^Xaielao:
I think after this election, if Obama wins, the republican party is going to think long and hard about their issues. By all rights they should be winning this thing simply based off the economy. However, the fringe of their party is ever-increasing and the number of growing voting blocks they shun and hate and try to repress is continuing to rise. I think that most won't ever accept that they are a fringe party, and that wing will become a minority party after a few more elections, which they may well lose as their voting block diminishes. I don't expect this to happen in the next four years however, and that their attempt to suppress the voting rights of the poor, minorities, the old and young will continue and become even more severe, as will their ever-growing hate against such groups. It is a vicious cycle that in the end might mean the death of the party. People scoff at this but it has happened before.
I personally put the blame on things like fox news, which has helped create the persistent bubble of misinformation and hate. As long as millions of republicans continue to watch it heavily and believe every word, including republicans holding office, and even the presidential candidate (as this clip so clearly shows).. that spiral will continue.



I think what he means, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that historically speaking, in the US, any time there is a significant slump in the economy, regardless of who started it, whether or not the incumbent is fixing things, the incumbent typically loses. a knee jerk reaction if you will.

Pardon me? You think the Republicans should win based on the economy that their platform was primarily responsible for crashing and keeping anemic? No. Not even a faint maybe, but hell no!

For nearly my entire life, the Republican party has preached one set of things (fiscal responsibility and smaller government), and done the exact opposite when in power (record deficits and increased government). The economy does significantly better under a Democratic administration. Everything they say is a lie. Or at least you'll be right more often than not if you assume it to be so.

WHY would anyone who actually looks at facts EVER vote Republican, unless they're rich enough to buy the candidates for their own personal benefit?
>> ^Xaielao:

I think after this election, if Obama wins, the republican party is going to think long and hard about their issues. By all rights they should be winning this thing simply based off the economy. However, the fringe of their party is ever-increasing and the number of growing voting blocks they shun and hate and try to repress is continuing to rise. I think that most won't ever accept that they are a fringe party, and that wing will become a minority party after a few more elections, which they may well lose as their voting block diminishes. I don't expect this to happen in the next four years however, and that their attempt to suppress the voting rights of the poor, minorities, the old and young will continue and become even more severe, as will their ever-growing hate against such groups. It is a vicious cycle that in the end might mean the death of the party. People scoff at this but it has happened before.
I personally put the blame on things like fox news, which has helped create the persistent bubble of misinformation and hate. As long as millions of republicans continue to watch it heavily and believe every word, including republicans holding office, and even the presidential candidate (as this clip so clearly shows).. that spiral will continue.

I think after this election, if Obama wins, the republican party is going to think long and hard about their issues. By all rights they should be winning this thing simply based off the economy. However, the fringe of their party is ever-increasing and the number of growing voting blocks they shun and hate and try to repress is continuing to rise. I think that most won't ever accept that they are a fringe party, and that wing will become a minority party after a few more elections, which they may well lose as their voting block diminishes. I don't expect this to happen in the next four years however, and that their attempt to suppress the voting rights of the poor, minorities, the old and young will continue and become even more severe, as will their ever-growing hate against such groups. It is a vicious cycle that in the end might mean the death of the party. People scoff at this but it has happened before.

I personally put the blame on things like fox news, which has helped create the persistent bubble of misinformation and hate. As long as millions of republicans continue to watch it heavily and believe every word, including republicans holding office, and even the presidential candidate (as this clip so clearly shows).. that spiral will continue.

All presidential candidates are fucking liars, and Officer BarBrady says....

>> ^chingalera:

This guy's head shape scares me.


You know how the Mormons have their genealogy and dead-people-baptism projects? It's really a breeding program to create the perfect candidate.

He's got the hair. He's got the chin. He's got the money.

He IS the kwisatz haderach presidential candidate!

>> ^Januari:

He had to be saying this as kind of a joke... it just had to be.


For someone that's a US presidential candidate, you'd freaking hope so!

its nice hearing a presidential candidate simply state their position on so many important policies.
I think all of his positions are better for the country in the long run, except for going to a regressive tax structure. It'd be better just to lower income and corporate tax rates across the board, while removing all the loopholes.

hah, be honest bob....no presidential candidate can prevent offshoring of any and all jobs that can be offshored. A company can hire 3 chinamen for the cost of one american worker. It makes no business sense to keep your HR prices high when you dont have to. And there isnt a DAMN thing either political party can do about that.

@renatojj The distinction between no and bad choice or even good choice depends on the point of view and in that regard I agree with you, it is arbitrary in both directions. I argue that 0 or 1 choice (good or bad) = no choice. I argue that sometimes even more choices are no choice. Would the ability to vote for 3 presidential candidates be no choice, a choice or multiple choices if all 3 are extreme right and there is no other option? I argue that 3 x extreme right = same choice = 1 choice = no choice. Without any good choices, if all options are bad, there really isnt any choice, even if there are many bad choices. If employers were to offer 1 euro per hour in Spain to those unemployed, that is below the minimum required to live. You can say that is a good choice in economical terms as it is more than 0, but I doubt the employees would agree. It is the same as not offering salary so again not an option. Now the question is which viewpoint should you take? I would say the idea is to protect the less powerful against the more powerful and maximize the total amount of choices for the total group.

There is something interesting to note here: Where government makes laws protecting employees from certain hardships (against unfair dismissal, discrimination, too low pay etc) arguable limiting the choices of employers, it also makes laws that limit the employees (for instance setting higher pension ages.)

"When will that someone or a group ever be satisfied with their choices if we give them the choice of removing the choices of others forcefully? "
Exactly! In a world where the powerful can set their own rules with no one there to stop them, what incentive have they to do the right thing? That is exactly what we have seen go wrong time and again in fully free markets. There are so many examples of this. You believe government is the one removing choice? Look at monopoly markets and see what happens to prices there.
You believe government only sets rules one way, always against a group. That is not the case. The idea is that policy makers try to find a middle ground between the freedom of one group vs the freedom of another group. That is a fine line to walk and continually needs to be adjusted but it is a much more ethical line than simply giving a group with power full control in the hope that they will do well because of "the market".

"If you mess with the incentives for people to get out of their own undesirable situations, people end up imposing their costs on those who instead made an effort of having more choices, thus establishing a moral hazard (good being punished, evil being rewarded)."

Do you have an example? Maybe I am missing your point. In my mind, its not about the incentives as all people always want to improve themselves. Its about the amount of choices they can have. If you leave it to a part of the people who have reason to take control and coerce another group, they will.

"It's easy to see any economic problem being directly solved with laws, but not so easy to see the consequences. Even worse, the moral hazard leads to people misbehaving, and that ends up being invariably blamed on the concept of a free market, specially where there is no actual free market to speak of, like when you talk about Spain."

Spain is not a free market? In what way?

About the charity: No I dont think charity is pointless You cant compare charity to employment because in employment there is an exchange, hours work for pay, which creates mutual dependence and a relationship. In the case of charity there is none. Though the person in the unfortunate situation may depend on charity, he or she is not giving anything in return. Without this exchange, there is no relationship between giver and taker, which means no power over anything as there is no economic reason to give. If the giver demanded something for it, it is pay and not charity and a true mutual dependence with possible coercion would appear.

I always think they are playing some kind of game when they bring forward presidential candidates that seem more like whack jobs you read about on the internet than someone who'd be running your country. And then one who ends up being the best of the bunch is........basically the definition of a one percenter and is pretending he's not. Exactly the group most people in the country have a severe distrust of.....and they pick a guy whose company is the definition of "all short term profits" when it comes to make decisions for the "improving" of companies other than their own....than usually end up costing jobs, bringing on debt and later killing off the company they "improved" under said debt after being sold.

Seems kinda............the exact opposite of who and what should be getting put forth in front of the voters huh. Much like all the Copyright laws and other spying things that keep getting passed yet massive disapproval from the general population when they actually understand what is being voted on.

And very few in the media seems to notice how nuts all of this is. Insanity doesn't describe it properly.

Hey dumbass..

In April 2012, he became the first openly gay spokesman for a Republican presidential candidate, after being hired by Mitt Romney.[2] Less than one week later, on May 1, he resigned after pressure from anti-gay conservatives.[3][4]

It's called "lookin' shit up". Amazing, ain't it.

>> ^deedub81:

Who said he was fired for being gay? Sounds like TYT are just making stuff up.

>> ^shveddy:
@HadouKen24 - All that you say is very dandy and very well may be true, but you'd be shocked at how widespread it is to cling to 19th century literalist beliefs. I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in the US it's remarkably common and even presidential candidates manage to think it despite pursuing the most powerful office in the world. I grew up in a particular Christian denomination, one of hundreds, and we had an official statement of faith that stated the absolute, literal, inerrant nature of the bible. This particular flavor of Christianity has about 3 million adherants, and again, this is only one of hundreds - many of which are even more conservative in their biblical interpretation.
When you say that it has been common for some time to regard sacred texts in a metaphorical sense I think that's definitely true, especially in the case of liberal theologians. However, when you take away the literal interpretations and leave interpretative metaphor all that remains is an interesting and influential piece of literature that has no specific authority. And I think this is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that it lowers it to the same level as Moby Dick, Oedipus, Infinite Jest and Harry Potter - all of which are books that have interesting, moralistic metaphors just like the bible.
Let's face it, religion needs the teeth of absolute truth and the threat of moral superiority to have any privileged relevance over other interesting, moral works. I see neither in any of its texts.
@shinyblurry - Give me a non-macroevolutionary reason that junk mutations in Cytochrome C just happen follow a clear developing and branching pattern that just happens to coincide perfectly with those independently developed by scores of other disciplines (such as embryology, paleontology and so on) as well as those based on hundreds of other non-coding markers (such as viral DNA insertions and transposons, to name a few).
If you can give me an answer that can account for these coincidences, does so without macroevolution, and indicates that you actually took the time to understand the concepts I listed above, then I'll take the time to write a much more exhaustive response as to why you're wrong.


Hmm, your statement is littered with all sorts of inaccurate information.

Okay, first of all, this idea of "junk dna" is dying a slow death:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S24/28/32C04/

Contrary to your assertion, so-called junk dna is functional. And the idea of viral DNA insertions is completely ruled out when this "random" DNA turns out not to be so random after all, and serving very specific purposes. The idea, created in ignorance, exists mainly as a fudge factor for the evolutionary paradigm. The problem for evolutionists is that natural selection cannot produce enough mutations to account for the millions it needs in the 300,000 generations it took for humans to evolve. It's a lot easier to come up those numbers when 95 percent of the genome is "junk".

Second, molecular and morphological phylogenies are often wildly divergent. This is from an Article in nature magazine subtitled:

"Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology. Can the two ever be reconciled, asks Trisha Gura"

"When biologists talk of the ‘evolution wars’, they usually mean the ongoing battle for supremacy in American schoolrooms between Darwinists and their creationist opponents. But the phrase could also be applied to a debate that is raging within systematics. On one side stand traditionalists who have built evolutionary trees from decades of work on species' morphological characteristics. On the other lie molecular systematists, who are convinced that comparisons of DNA and other biological molecules are the best way to unravel the secrets of evolutionary history. . . .

Battles between molecules and morphology are being fought across the entire tree of life. Perhaps the most intense are in vertebrate systematics, where molecular biologists are challenging a tradition that relies on studies of fossil skeletons and the bones and soft tissue of living species. . . .

So can the disparities between molecular and morphological trees ever be resolved? Some proponents of the molecular approach claim there is no need. The solution, they say, is to throw out morphology, and accept their version of the truth. “Our method provides the final conclusion about phylogeny,” claims Okada. Shared ancestry means a genetic relationship, the molecular camp argues, so it must be better to analyse DNA and the proteins it encodes, rather than morphological characters that can end up looking similar as a result of convergent evolution in unrelated groups, rather than through common descent. But morphologists respond that convergence can also happen at the molecular level, and note there is a long history of systematists making large claims based on one new form of evidence, only to be proved wrong at a later date"

They are so divergent that two camps have emerged in systematics, each claiming their phylogenies are more accurate. So your claim that Cytochrome C matches "scores" of different phylogenies is patently false, since hardly any of them agree. If want to say that isn't true, please provide the evidence. Note that "scores" means at least 40.

Third, creation theory predicts a hierarchical pattern, so finding one isn't going to falsify creationism or prove common descent. Especially in the case of the phylogeny of Cytochrome C, which has no intermediates or transitionals to be found. You do also realize that a common design can be explained by a common designer? It could simply be the case that Cytochrome C was tailored for different groups according to individual specifications, which then diverged futher by mutations. If your response is that Cytochrome C functions the same way in all life, my response is that the differences could be for coding other proteins.

Before I go any further, I would ask you to support your claims. Show me the specific data you're talking about so I can rebut it.

Not only do I live in the US, but I live Oklahoma, one of the most religiously conservative states. I don't have a great deal of respect for that brand of religion, for sure. Which is precisely why it's so galling to see a video that suggests that's just what Christians have to be like--that Christians who reject the Bibliolatry and hermeneutic cutting and pasting of those idiots somehow aren't real Christians, that rejecting the sheep-like credulity of these so-called faithful means that the thoughtful ones haven't actually thought it through. And somehow it is averred that those who cling to the ancient traditions of Biblical understanding are inauthentically Christian, since they don't accept the quasi-heretical doctrines of 19th century upstarts.

Clearly false. Yet that's the whole thrust of the video!



With regard to your last two paragraphs, I think we're starting to move away from straightforward commentary on the video. But that's alright with me, if it's okay with you.

As far as dogmatic authority goes, I think that you're partly right about some religions. Specifically, the big Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's important to remember that this is not the entire world of religion (even if they are important), so there are a number of statements about them that will be incorrect about other religions--in fact, most other religions.

It's true that the Big Three do indeed seem to require acceding to the truth of certain propositions in order to remain in their historical form: e.g., that the Torah was revealed by God, that Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead, and that Mohammad received the Qur'an from Michael. (for each religion respectively) There is certainly an important sense in which certain very liberal theologians are still Christian, but this is something very different than historical Christianity.

Nonetheless, this is something separate from moral authority. One may deny that there is anything correct about the metaphysical pronouncements of the Bible, and still accept that its moral teachings are profoundly important. This is precisely what philosophy Slavoj Zizek has done.

For most other religions, the number of specific propositions that must be accepted is few to none. Pronouncements about gods or salvation are amenable to multiple interpretations. The ancient Greek philosophers, for instance, were quite religious on the whole. Yet read a book on Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Platonism, and tell me what proposition about the gods that they agree on. You'll find it quite difficult.

The same can be said of Shinto, Hinduism, Buddhism, Western Pagan revivals, etc.

Moreover, I myself don't think that moral authority is actually essential to religion. It's certainly related to religion, but as I'm sure you've observed--there's not much of a correlation between religious belief and moral behavior. Simple observation shows most Christians to be liars. Morality is not why they are Christian.

Instead, I think it's something else--transcendence, and the promise of new states of being. Morality has almost nothing to do with this. The same man can be capable of the most holy ecstasies and raptures before the beauty of the God or gods that he prays to, a writer of the most delicately beautiful hymns and homilies--and the worst bastard on earth outside of church. Cardinal Richilieu was just such a person.

This is why we'll never get rid of religion, of course. But it's also why the monotheistic religions can be so dangerous. They incorrectly tie the ecstasies of the spirit to crude and intolerant dogmas, then demand that all others agree or face the sword or the pyre.

>> ^shveddy:

@HadouKen24 - All that you say is very dandy and very well may be true, but you'd be shocked at how widespread it is to cling to 19th century literalist beliefs. I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in the US it's remarkably common and even presidential candidates manage to think it despite pursuing the most powerful office in the world. I grew up in a particular Christian denomination, one of hundreds, and we had an official statement of faith that stated the absolute, literal, inerrant nature of the bible. This particular flavor of Christianity has about 3 million adherants, and again, this is only one of hundreds - many of which are even more conservative in their biblical interpretation.
When you say that it has been common for some time to regard sacred texts in a metaphorical sense I think that's definitely true, especially in the case of liberal theologians. However, when you take away the literal interpretations and leave interpretative metaphor all that remains is an interesting and influential piece of literature that has no specific authority. And I think this is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that it lowers it to the same level as Moby Dick, Oedipus, Infinite Jest and Harry Potter - all of which are books that have interesting, moralistic metaphors just like the bible.
Let's face it, religion needs the teeth of absolute truth and the threat of moral superiority to have any privileged relevance over other interesting, moral works. I see neither in any of its texts.