Huh? Who did that? And should I assume your name is really Winstonfield Pennypacker?

Winstonfield !Q! Pennypacker, thanks.

Atheism is a rejection of theist beliefs. Period. We don't exercise faith in any way, Mr. Pennypacker.

Atheism itself ostensibly is a rejection of theism, but its primary rhetoric is faith based - and therefore there is no practical distinction between faith-based thiest rhetoric and faith-based atheist rhetoric. When the bulk of atheistic communication takes the form of faith-based rhetoric, it is difficult for a neutral 3rd party observer to divine (no pun intended) a distinction.

Theists make a positive claim which is extraordinary in nature, therefore, the burden of proof is on the theist to prove that there is a God.

The primary objective of philosophy is to lead individuals to greater understanding, more positive behavior, and a resulting improvement in the condition of mankind. Now - operating under that auspice - why is it necessary to 'prove' one philosophy more correct than some other one? Should not the standard be, "How well does the philosophy improve the condition of mankind?"

In that light, it cannot be argued that the philosophical teachings of thiesm improve mankind (love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, do not steal, do not kill, et al). The counterargument would be that religions (theism) also produce negative behaviors (violence, intolerance). However, an objective reviewer must conclude that the negative behaviors are not the result of religious philosophy. Religious philosophy teaches 'love thy neighbor'. Intolerance and violence go against that philosophy, and therefore the 'religion' is not to blame. Therefore whatever negatives take place that are blamed on 'religion' are in fact, erroneously applied. The blame for the negatives must then be shifted to individual practitioners who are failing to live up to the correct philosophy.

Atheism, by discouraging belief in a philosophy that (if followed) would improve mankind, is therefore a negative philosophy. Atheism does not propose positive behavior among its practicioners. It exists parasitically as a negative juxtaposition to a positive world view. Some atheists suggest that rejecting theism would result in a reduction of the negative behaviors of the theists. Such an argument ignores the fundamental reality that youd simply be replacing a jerk theist with a jerk atheist.

>> ^BansheeX:
Do you understand that in a libertarian society, it is illegal to infringe on a person's rights, whether you're a company or an individual? How do you interpret my post as wanting to let companies do ANYTHING they please?

Force of habit, I'm used to bumping heads with Republicans, and rarely do Libertarians preach about the need to restrict the power of corporations to infringe on people's individual rights. Most just talk about the tyranny of regulation, and often go so far as to debate the necessity of OSHA, USDA and even the FTC (which seems to have faded from existence in my lifetime).

"Economics" is too vague. There are many different branches, the dominant philosophy changes with time. Currently, it is neo-Keynesian, but that will change after its collapse. It matters not that 90% of current economics doctorates are in this manner of thinking. The Austrians were already proven right from the FIRST great depression, do we really need another one to figure out that the Federal Reserve is the equivalent of the benevolent dictator argument?

Not to lean too heavily on an appeal to authority, but are you saying there's something about Austria in the Great Depression that disproves the underpinnings of what 90% of economists believe? Shouldn't someone at Universities around the world be notified?

I'm just reacting to the insistence that there's something fundamentally flawed with liberal philosophy. Usually that "something flawed" is that "socialism doesn't work" or "the free market fixes everything" or some other nonsensical absolute assertion.

For example, you said I don't understand which powers of government are "justified" and which ones aren't. That's not true, we just have a different concept of what's justified.

You also questioned whether or not I'd go along with letting the government have and use a hypothetical mind control device -- and of course I'd be opposed to such a thing. I'm all for protecting individual rights, and limiting government's power over the individual, I just don't think free markets are always the best way to fulfill every need in society, merely most of them.

The market is millions of people making mutually agreeable transactions. The government is not the market, they're just suppose to protect people's property and settle disputes on a national and domestic level. And it isn't black and white anyway. For example, I disagree with fellow libertarians in that I want to keep the FDA for information, labelling, and enforcement of what constitutes terms like "organic" and "free range," but remove their ability to ban products. That power is currently used for collusive anti-competitive reasons. Go on wikipedia and look up Stevia for one example, the artificial sweetener lobby bribed officials to block its use in products because it was a natural, no-patent substitute to crap like "Aspartame" which would have cost them billions.

I agree on that issue, that there's abuse of the power that needs to stop, but I don't think the solution is to remove government power to ban products.

I'm not entirely sure what such a law would say, there are risks everywhere to everything.

That's easy: show a schedule of payments to potential purchasers, so they know what their obligations will be with regards to the loan.

There's differing opinions out there about who's at fault for the crisis, but part of the problem did start with predatory lending practices, motivated by the hunger for those mortgage backed securities.

Ultimately, though, their only loss will be their credit and the home they couldn't afford because they can walk away and leave their bank or lender with the unpaid loan and depreciating house. That's what the government is trying to bail out with honest taxpayer money.

Actually, since we're still under the auspices of the Bush administration, it's mostly going to help out banks who leveraged themselves to invest in mortgage backed securities. Regular people who got screwed by predatory lending are having to get by with the scraps the Democrats can attach to the legislation.

I know it's all socialism to you, but to me there's a vast difference in those things.

Instead of letting the chips fall where they may, we're trying to delay a necessary recession AGAIN with inflation. Prices want to come down from these artificial levels, and have those jobs reallocate to manufacturing exports because exports are the only thing a the weak dollar is good for.

I agree with the assessment of the current situation, it does seem like we're putting off the inevitable. I'm a cynic though, I think they want to make sure the next President gets the big market crash, and they're intentionally delaying things for that purpose, even at the risk of making that crash worse.

And it will be a replay of the FDR administration with Obama, but pretty effing bad under McCain [snip]

That's exactly how I see it too, and I couldn't be more happy at the thought of a new FDR-style administration, I just hope we don't have another Great Depression and World War to go with it.

Quite the discussion of economic philosophy, in the comments on a video of Obama talking about Republicans being pridefully ignorant on energy.

Of course he's liberal, but nothing he said in those links was wrong.

The 2nd link had it right...

"Bill Moyers is, as Dan Rather would say - a partisan political operative, cloaked in the auspices of a journalist taking tax money from the public against the will of the majority."

...my point all along.

And last time I checked, Fox news and the reactionary "new media" aren't taking over. Huffington Post, CrooksAndLiars.com, and Daily Kos each have more hits per day than Free Republic, National Review, or Michelle Malkin. Huffington Post gets more hits than MM, NR, and Freep combined times 3. Slate.com, which is definitely to the left of Fox, gets more hits than MM, NR, and Freep combined, but half as much as Huffington Post. TheDailyShow.com gets 10 times as many hits as billoreilly.com. This is all from Alexa.

The miracle is there's any center/right-of-center content at all. Coming full circle, 20 years ago Moyers wouldn't have to deal with any resistance. The ratings/numbers aren't a big deal, sensationalism versus truth.

Thanks for writing. I appreciate your willingness to debate and/or offer an alternative point of view to my alternative point of view. haha!

Think of it this way, if I torture and murder a member of a given group as a means to intimidate and coerce that group into a given behavior my crime is not just against the individual, but also the group. The crime against the group in this case is coercion, which is against the law. Hence, there are indeed two separate crimes being committed, which is why they are treated as such under the auspices of the law.

By your own words you would have committed multiple crimes (murder, assault, coercion) and would be punished for each. A hate crime law is not necessary for that to happen. Chief Justice William Rehnquist said "bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest." Translation: we pander to the victim's peers to keep them appeased by increasing the punishment over the norm.

Think of it this way, if I torture and murder a member of a given group as a means to intimidate and coerce that group into a given behavior my crime is not just against the individual, but also the group. The crime against the group in this case is coercion, which is against the law. Hence, there are indeed two separate crimes being committed, which is why they are treated as such under the auspices of the law.

If you think that there isn't a crime being committed against the group, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree. Currently, however, the legal consensus of the United States agrees with the perspective that I have attempted to frame.