>> ^Porksandwich:

Authors who write stories that revolve around politics/war/etc probably spend more time thinking about the what if ramifications of policy and laws on society than most politicians. Most of them go back into history books to try to put believable governments in based on history and the technology at the times.
Historians would probably be a pretty interesting group to hear from in regards to how voting and disenfranchisement were controlled through policies/actions. If they had a speaker similar to DeGrasse who could speak on it and put some life into it.
unfortunately, history is subject to the whims of whoever wants to make it up. the net result is that everyone has no real credibility.

but i got degrees in hist, poli sci, and law, and i keep studying the shit... and i'll be happy to assert that the history of disenfranchisement is rich and deep, and the history of voter fraud is lean to non-existent.

and yeah, politicians have no foresight. of course, most of our politicians are lawyers - hired guns trained to fight and argue over petty shit, with no regard to anything but the win. really, the state of affairs isn't surprising.

Authors who write stories that revolve around politics/war/etc probably spend more time thinking about the what if ramifications of policy and laws on society than most politicians. Most of them go back into history books to try to put believable governments in based on history and the technology at the times.

Historians would probably be a pretty interesting group to hear from in regards to how voting and disenfranchisement were controlled through policies/actions. If they had a speaker similar to DeGrasse who could speak on it and put some life into it.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^spoco2:
Exactly... this is why 99.9999999999999999999% of all conspiracy theories are absolute bunk.
All this shit that people think they 'know' about 9/11, and how it MUST have been thermite, MUST have been re-rigged to demolish.
They really need to get their heads around the fact that what they've come up with is something that is maybe, possible plausible but in NO WAY the most likely, the most reasonable, or even probable... they just come up with convoluted ways that things could conceivably occur and then decide that that MUST be fact.

Speaking of the Kennedy assassination there was no reason to kill him. None. People think it's because he was going to pull the troops out of Vietnam but he was never going to do that, they took one quote and turned it into a promise of his to pull them out like he was fighting more powerful interests. He was a bastard like all the other bastards. His historian even had to rewrite the books to make it look like he was a big pacifist.


there has been various speculation that Kennedy wanted to shut down the fed.
if true, i imagine that would have gotten him rather unliked by essentially the most powerful people in the world.

>> ^spoco2:

Exactly... this is why 99.9999999999999999999% of all conspiracy theories are absolute bunk.
All this shit that people think they 'know' about 9/11, and how it MUST have been thermite, MUST have been re-rigged to demolish.
They really need to get their heads around the fact that what they've come up with is something that is maybe, possible plausible but in NO WAY the most likely, the most reasonable, or even probable... they just come up with convoluted ways that things could conceivably occur and then decide that that MUST be fact.


Speaking of the Kennedy assassination there was no reason to kill him. None. People think it's because he was going to pull the troops out of Vietnam but he was never going to do that, they took one quote and turned it into a promise of his to pull them out like he was fighting more powerful interests. He was a bastard like all the other bastards. His historian even had to rewrite the books to make it look like he was a big pacifist.

It started from the Longcat meme http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/longcat

The original was "longcat is long" as a response to something that was extraordinary. Its similar to the even older saying "it's xbox huge" in reference to the original Xbox being larger than any other game console prior.

For example if I posted an image of a stretch Hummer H2 limo someone would reply with "wow, longcat is long"

- I am an oldfag and have seen quite a few tubes in my day (adjusts onion on belt)

>> ^Auger8:

The title is in reference to a meme in which something is stated to be awesome followed by, is awesome.
ex. "Awesome title is awesome." I have seen this pop up around the web in various places likely thanks to 4-chan or reddit.
>> ^ulysses1904:
No doubt I'm showing my age with this but is there some mantra effect that results in using the word "awesome" so much? I'm referring to the title here, nothing to do with the video (although it's awesome how many levels of awesome they can pack into one pen).
I remember when little teen hipsters starting saying awesome around 1981 and it sounded stupid back then. Keep it up and future historians will use Moon Unit's "Valley Girl" as the Rosetta Stone to decipher modern American English.

The title is in reference to a meme in which something is stated to be awesome followed by, is awesome.
ex. "Awesome title is awesome." I have seen this pop up around the web in various places likely thanks to 4-chan or reddit.
>> ^ulysses1904:

No doubt I'm showing my age with this but is there some mantra effect that results in using the word "awesome" so much? I'm referring to the title here, nothing to do with the video (although it's awesome how many levels of awesome they can pack into one pen).
I remember when little teen hipsters starting saying awesome around 1981 and it sounded stupid back then. Keep it up and future historians will use Moon Unit's "Valley Girl" as the Rosetta Stone to decipher modern American English.

In principle, I agree; however, I am in awe of the penmanship. I wonder if this kind of thing will become the art that far eastern calligraphy has become. That would almost be a pity.
>> ^ulysses1904:

No doubt I'm showing my age with this but is there some mantra effect that results in using the word "awesome" so much? I'm referring to the title here, nothing to do with the video (although it's awesome how many levels of awesome they can pack into one pen).
I remember when little teen hipsters starting saying awesome around 1981 and it sounded stupid back then. Keep it up and future historians will use Moon Unit's "Valley Girl" as the Rosetta Stone to decipher modern American English.

No doubt I'm showing my age with this but is there some mantra effect that results in using the word "awesome" so much? I'm referring to the title here, nothing to do with the video (although it's awesome how many levels of awesome they can pack into one pen).

I remember when little teen hipsters starting saying awesome around 1981 and it sounded stupid back then. Keep it up and future historians will use Moon Unit's "Valley Girl" as the Rosetta Stone to decipher modern American English.

>> ^lantern53:

It wasn't a 'Christian' god? What is a 'generic' God?
Who was their God?
And our gov't is supposed to be Godless?
Santorum may believe that sex is supposed to be within marriage. That is the ideal, the one which causes the least grief.
If you don't know what grief sex causes outside of marriage, you never had sex outside marriage.


what lukinstone is referring to is that many of the original founders were deists and is not contended by historians.many writings of jefferson in particular... to be specific.

your final point is so chock full of WTF i wouldnt even know where to begin but i do heartily agree that santorum has the right to believe whatever he wishes to believe and also has the right to base those beliefs on his religious inclinations
BUT....
i have a serious problem with those who identify with being a conservative, who chant the mantra of freedom and liberty and who then turn around and find it totally acceptable to legislate MY freedom and MY liberty simply based on their religious convictions.

that, my friend..is the epitome of hypocrisy.

I can get behind that historian's way of describing it, and I agree with what you're saying about how the Civil War went down. I just disagree with your assessment of what Paul himself said -- he didn't just say "it's not the only issue" he later says "it wasn't the deciding issue" which is just...wrong.

The South seceded and fired the first shots because they wanted to keep their slaves so badly they'd rather leave the Union than give them up.

There was a confluence of other issues involved in the conflict, but "State's rights" was and always has been a euphemism for the bargain that was struck at the signing of the Constitution to let some states keep slavery, not some separate, lofty moral principle that has nothing to do with slavery.

>> ^Skeeve:

"While slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." - Elizabeth R. Varon, Bruce Levine, Marc Egnal, and Michael Holt at a plenary session of the organization of American Historians, March 17, 2011.
Most historical works I have read about the American Civil War explain that, from the North's perspective, the war wasn't to end slavery, but to preserve the union. That said, the South's reason for seceding was based more heavily on protecting their right to have slaves.
As with all wars, there wasn't just one cause and, as much as I dislike Ron Paul, I have to agree with his statement that slavery wasn't the only reason for the Civil War.>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^Kreegath:
However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?

"While slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." - Elizabeth R. Varon, Bruce Levine, Marc Egnal, and Michael Holt at a plenary session of the organization of American Historians, March 17, 2011.

Most historical works I have read about the American Civil War explain that, from the North's perspective, the war wasn't to end slavery, but to preserve the union. That said, the South's reason for seceding was based more heavily on protecting their right to have slaves.

As with all wars, there wasn't just one cause and, as much as I dislike Ron Paul, I have to agree with his statement that slavery wasn't the only reason for the Civil War.>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Kreegath:
However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?

I recently heard on the radio, there is more than enough food for everyone, distribution is the only problem, probably equity too. This is why I don't like historians that much, because while the past is important, the ethics of the now and future are what seem most important to me.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot." --Henry Morgenthau, Jr., U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt

The myth of FDR is the edifice on which the modern welfare state wobbles.




>> ^Yogi:

>> ^quantumushroom:
So what did FDR do, exactly? If big biz (that old reliable satan of the left) really "controlled" government then all FDR did was make government bigger and more tyrannical, and to this day the left claims big biz still runs it.
FDR's antics extended the Depression. "High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."
Obama's cut from the same fictive cloth, a dragon pretending to be dragonslayer.

These statements are from a reputable historian or economist I take it?

>> ^renatojj:

@.


Np, glad you liked them. I'm not saying there is only one account of what went down, I'm saying that it is fact that America was most prosperous when taxes were the highest. You don't need to be a historian or theorizer to use Google and check that for yourself.

Your quick Google search brung up an article that deals only in theory, and the argument they use is that people that are taxed 0% are more motivated than people that are taxed 100% - so that the imperitive becomes to cover Govt. expenses while keeping the taxes as low as possible to maintain motivation. That makes perfect logical sense and doesn't disagree with the facts I bought to the table, that America has been most prosperous during periods of high taxation, it simply proves that low is subjective. Taxing someone who earns $10,000 50% of their income means they take home a tiny amount of money, the same tax rate on a billionaire means they still take home five hundred million dollars, more than enough don't you think? If all income was related to productivity then my argument would be different, but quite simply it's not. Look at derivatives trading or inheritence funds as a couple of examples.

Fixing tax rates is also just the beginning, there needs to be a complete overhaul of your taxation system, there is plenty of information out there that details how dozens of your fortune 500 companies are paying no tax at all (e.g. GE and Boeing), Pepco Holdings Inc had a negative 57.6% tax rate for 2010 according to this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-usa-tax-corporate-idUSTRE7A261C20111103

So not only are the tax rates poorly thought out, the tax system allows companies that rake in billions in profits ways by which to avoid paying any tax at all (and even get refunds).

The same goes for individuals as well, Mitt Romney, who made over twenty million in 2010, and has at least thirty million stashed in over 138 investment funds in the Caimans paid close to 15% tax in that same year. That's the same tax rate that someone earning $10,000 would have to pay.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-parks-millions-offshore-tax-haven/story?id=15378566#.Tx-lKm_9PUd

Is he using this additional money he's making from not paying his taxes for productive purposes? It would appear not... His motive is profit, and to that end he's closed plants, cut employee wages, laid off American workers and outsourced their jobs to other countries, all while he and his partners have made tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, while the companies he's invested in have often ended up going bankrupt:
http://www.romneygekko.com/mitt/

So my point is that it's a pipedream to think that lower taxes on the rich has only one effect, to make them more productive, it also carries with it a myriad of negative consequences as I've illustrated, the worst one being lobbying, which is rampant in your country. In terms of Chile, you say that all education there is state funded? Have a look at this report and you will see that the total investment in tertiary education Chile makes is probably close to about half a percent of their GDP, which is indeed lower than any other country surveyed, they are also at the very bottom of the list when it comes to actual dollars invested in public education. Meanwhile the cost of education for students is the highest of any OECD country.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/48/37864432.pdf

The reasons for that come full circle back to your economic theories. Have you heard of Augusto Pinochet? America installed him as the dictator of Chile after the CIA organised a successful air strike on the palace of the existing democratically elected leader - Allende, which resulted in his death. It's well known that Pinochet relied on the Chicago boys for economic policy, who in turn were trained by Milton Friedman. Friedman was ... the major free-market economist of his time, and it's these exact same policies that still linger around today in the education system thanks to Patricio Aylwin and others. It's clear evidence that your model has flaws, and it's also clear who benefits the most from it.

>> ^quantumushroom:

So what did FDR do, exactly? If big biz (that old reliable satan of the left) really "controlled" government then all FDR did was make government bigger and more tyrannical, and to this day the left claims big biz still runs it.
FDR's antics extended the Depression. "High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."
Obama's cut from the same fictive cloth, a dragon pretending to be dragonslayer.


These statements are from a reputable historian or economist I take it?