Newt has been intellectually neutered. That was really stupid.

I don't see how this double standard exists. At some point in history there was an agreement that these people would get their pensions due to their employment with the government entities.

The same goes for companies like GM, they made agreements to pay their employees.

It's not as if these two entities are some old senile man someone took advantage of, they are made up of many people who at the time thought it was a fair deal.

Now, we have discussions about how it's unfair to expect these companies to pay for agreements they made and are trying to pass things that not only absolve them of what they owe, but then also try to make it so in the future they don't have to negotiate.

On the other side of the coin, we have individuals who have lost their ability to pay and no one is saying that they shouldn't have to pay what they owe whether it's their fault or not they are in that circumstance. The vast majority of them are people who had no hand in creating the financial mess we are in except for maybe buying a house at a vastly inflated price.

So the individual is supposed to pay back their debts, but with companies and governments it's cool if we just vote away their obligations or bail them out.


And then we have the other hypocrisy where the guys elected into government, who are making good money with benefits and pretty much have job security for their term unless they really screw the pooch. They want to tell people who are hired and have to perform their job based on some sort of testing, performance, and other criteria that they can't negotiate. These same people are also held back in their pay rate by time served instead of performance based in some areas of government employment. For this they used to gain some job security (not really true anymore due to cost cutting), good benefits packages, and some retirement security.

We have these discussions about taking their benefits or making them pay more, removing retirement benefits for current and past employees (I don't agree with retro-active cancellation at all, they should pay retired employees, pay partially to current employed based on length of employment, and anyone with very short employment spans or signing on after the passing don't get anything), and keeping them on these neutered advancement ideas they have. There's also massive nepotism in government, which they are not trying to fix..because it allows them to influence business opportunities in their favor during and after their employment whether elected or hired.

Try any civilian work at a military base whether contracted or employed directly by the government, it's full of nepotism. New hires who know someone will hire in on unrelated departments and shoot right past you whether you're a long time employee or know more than them...because they know a guy. They are really blatant with the nepotism.

It's wrong how government operates, especially the higher you go. Negotiation makes it possible for the lower level guys to at least attempt to keep them honest. Instead of making deals and then retroactively changing the terms once they've also gotten rid of the ability to negotiate.

It's not the individuals fault that the government can no longer meet the obligations they made because they removed too many regulations and let the banks and lenders go hog wild for almost a decade. I'm sure if they looked around a bit, they might find some government officials who had a massively growing net worth to accompany that decade of uncontrolled growth. Excusing debts to fix problems they created should not even be up for discussion, it sets a precedent to make bad faith deals to get what they want. And would create the next "exploitable" avenue for all these nepotism filled departments.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Thanks to this vote, Ohioan taxpayers are now BACK on the hook for 66 billion dollars in government union pensions. That's JUST the pensions, nothing else.
Times will be tough, but it will be tougher on those who choose to take advantage of the working class.
This is how the people who control the emotional state of left-wingers fool you.
"We're losing a hand, but that's OK, because the Rich Guy is losing an arm!"

they use HIV viruses that have been "neutered" and will not infect you.

Also hundreds of studies and experiments show cannabis cures cancer but companies are truly not interested in cures they cannot patent. It is not a cynical viewpoint it is the truth. Even the pink ribbon organization has officially stated they do not wish to endorse or even mention a cure when asked about the studies that show that cannabis cures cancer. There is a cure that the AMA and american cancer society has acknowledged since the 1970's yet people continue to suffer through chemo and radiation therapy and continue to die simply because Nixon was so anti-cannabis and the corporations would loose money if people could be cheaply cured. I am the least cynical person you are likely to find, there is just tons of evidence I found and keep finding that is incredibly sad when it comes to this issue.

-Karl

ps. If you know about this stuff it is actually quite reassuring in a personal way since cancer, diabetes, nerve damage, etc. are successfully treated with cannabis but it is very sad to think of all the people suffering needlessly.

Quit starin and put some ice on it already!>> ^Chaucer:

poor thing probably just got neutered.

poor thing probably just got neutered.

and you wonder why men don't want to get married...

married men have been portrayed on television as doofuses since the early days of TV -- from Ralph Kramden to Cliff Huxtable to Dan Connor to Ray Barone to Homer Simpson... once they're married, they're effectively neutered and submissive to the exaggerated power of their wives... thus providing a facade to serve as a distraction from the unequal distribution of resources in public education.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

@Lawdeedaw - Individual members of the legislative branch don't have anything approximating the power of a president. It is true that idealists such as Kucinich, Wellstone, Weiner, Paul and Obama have managed to find a place in the legislative branch, but never have these idealists held the numbers to ever be a credible threat against corporate domination. (What's even more disheartening is the current epidemic of moronic idealists like Santorum, Bachman and Palin, who have been empowered by a decade of Republican campaigning that targets the lowest common denominator.)
Once the idealists enter the Presidential ring, all bets are off. McCain is a great example of a highly principled republican who was basically forced to renounce everything he ever believed in (most prominently campaign finance reform) to get a shot at the golden ring. Obama also broke his promise to only except public funding because he realized it would put him at a severe disadvantage. As long as our current system is in place, no presidential candidate (not even Saint Paul) has a chance of subverting it. This is not an insult against this man, whom I respect despite the fact that he holds some extremely naive economic views. This is just a frank assessment of how fucked up our campaign finance system is.
If you don't think Ron Paul plays the game too, then ask him about Texas pork barrel spending. There is a video on the sift where he freely admits to playing the pork barrel game. I don't blame him for it - you do what you have to do in a fucked up system.
I'm not here to bash Paul. My point is that our current system will not allow him to be what you want him to be, just as the system won't allow Obama to be the President I want him to be.
Speaking as someone who has already suffered through hopey-changey delusions, I'm just trying to save you some grief. Been there. Done that. I guess maybe you have to experience it first hand before you can truly accept this cruel reality on your own terms.
Until this system works for the voters rather than the funders, we are all destined for disappointment. I'd love to see a conservative-liberal truce until we can throw these money changers out of the temple.


You think Keynesian economics got us out of the Great Depression yet Paul's the naive one? Paul's been saying to get rid of the money changers his whole political career. If we had actually been following the Austrian school of economics, none of this would've happen. You can't give a select group of people total control of your economy and then not expect them to take advantage of it.

And Paul always voted against pork spending. That's hardly playing the game.

Obama hasn't been neutered, he was a fraud from the beginning. He's not bombing civilians and waging wars to secure campaign donations. He's been a puppet and PR salesman for Wall Street and their war machine from day one. He's not prosecuting white-collar fraud, he's prosecuting government whistleblowers. He's arming drug cartels in Mexico. He's using flying robots to rain down hellfire missiles in sovereign countries on the other side of the world. He's a neocolonialist. Not because someone is twisting his arm, but because that's what he signed up to be.
Obama can't be the President you want him to be because he's not that guy and never was.

And you would agree that we the people have created this lose-lose, toxic atmosphere?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Obama and Paul are both good guys. I give them both the benefit of the doubt that they'd like to kick some ass in Washington, but it's not possible with the way our elections are structured. In order to get elected, you not only need big business bucks, but you also need to reassure big business that their power will not be challenged, lest they tear you apart in the media. This creates an election to election cycle of dependency that nullifies not only the voice of the people, but also the vision of the politician.
For Ron Paul to get elected, he would need both the financial and moral support of multinational corporations, which leaves his supporters with 2 possible outcomes: a principled loser or a neutered winner.
Lessig talks about this cycle of dependency in the latter half of this video: http://videosift.com/video/Lawrence-Lessig-Your-Broadband
-Milked-For-Profit-Not-Speed
Until we sort out our campaign finance system, we will always have subservient leaders.

Obama and Paul are both good guys. I give them both the benefit of the doubt that they'd like to kick some ass in Washington, but it's not possible with the way our elections are structured. In order to get elected, you not only need big business bucks, but you also need to reassure big business that their power will not be challenged, lest they tear you apart in the media. This creates an election to election cycle of dependency that nullifies not only the voice of the people, but also the vision of the politician.

For Ron Paul to get elected, he would need both the financial and moral support of multinational corporations, which leaves his supporters with 2 possible outcomes: a principled loser or a neutered winner.

Lessig talks about this cycle of dependency in the latter half of this video: http://videosift.com/video/Lawrence-Lessig-Your-Broadband-Milked-For-Profit-Not-Speed

Until we sort out our campaign finance system, we will always have subservient leaders.

My parents adopted a German Sheppard that had spent the majority of 5 years chained up outside. They threw trash out in his area, cans, glass...he rarely had clean water and I think about as much of the food he ate was trash as it was actual dog food. This was down near my grandmother's property, they started giving him food and water and called the police/animal shelter. That went on for the better part of a year, and they eventually found out that they deemed the dogs living environment suitable because he had food and water every time they checked. Which my parents had been providing to him and they said it didn't matter who gave it to him as long as he had it.

Eventually they convinced someone at the property to give them the dog....and they hadn't had the dog for 2 days when the police showed up to take it back claiming the dog had been stolen. It took another day or so with police witnessing it that they were giving the dog to my parents and they've had him since. His collar had dug into his neck because he'd outgrown it, the tree had grown around his chain, he could barely move 5 feet in any direction. He's about 10 or 11 years old now. He had heart worms when they got him, bad joints although not nearly as bad as the dog in this video, fairly labored breathing due to the heart worms is the best guess, very afraid of lightning they couldn't put him in any sort of structure without him ruining it. He's gotten better about the lightning and behaving more like the other dog they have.

But before his previous owners lost/left their house in 2006-2008 range they had gotten another dog and had a bunch of cats. They of course didn't treat them well and when they lost the house they left most of the animals behind. So now that neighborhood has a huge stray cat problem, and my parents try to keep food and water out for them. I think there is one other person in that neighborhood that even bothers to try to make up for what those people did to those animals by feeding them and keeping water out, plus try to get them neutered so they can't keep breeding.

And I've seen a dog that I can't even guess how old it was chained outside a house, it had a little dog house but it's water bowl wasn't big enough to hold water all day on a hot day. It's horrible, but at some point you just can't call in on every animal problem you see because you'd spend all your time doing that....and the laws are so shitty when it comes to animal cruelty that the person just replaces the animal if someone were to take it.

The segue from Neuter to "lighter news" cracked me up.

Thank god for editing... this would be unwatchable otherwise.

for those who can't get behind a full blown legalization of hard drugs like heroin or meth, how about simply decriminalizing them? so, they won't be for sale at your local 7/11 but we don't waste anymore money prosecuting and jailing non-violent junkies either?

i won't call addiction a victimless crime. loving/living with/caring for/being the child of/having the children of/being the parent of an addict is one of the most destructive, life wrenching things ever. as an adult its your choice and you can just leave, but as a kid you can't and as the parent, you can't. and drugs fuck up little kids lives. its not at all victimless. but locking those family members up in jail or in rehab against their will never fixed anything. the family is still broken. the addict is still broken. and legal substances can have the same consequences.


bbbuuttt.....here are some things states could do to 1. alleviate the budget shortfalls without fucking the poor and 2. create jobs while expanding civil liberties and boosting moral

1. legalize marijuana and tax it... new source of revenue plus a new industry creates new jobs
2. legalize gambling and tax the casinos .... again, new source of revenue plus a new industry creates jobs
3. decriminalize possession of other drugs, quit spending the $$ arresting and prosecuting addicts and just write up a ticket with a fine attached (say $500) .... save money plus new source of revenue
4. legalize gay marriage ...... extra revenue collected from the sale of marriage licenses, a boom in the wedding industry


i would say legalize prostitution, but i have mixed feelings about it. if it's done wrong, you get a trafficking disaster. done right and highly regulated, great. i wont say decriminalize prostitution because that doesnt make anyone safer and kind of neuters our ability to break up exploitation rings.

QM,
To answer a few points of yours.

Here's the difference between you and I. I'm not a liberal. I'm not a conservative. I do not judge an idea's worth by its age. I determine its worth by rational thought. If you want to just be opposed to every new idea just because its new, and freeze your brain in the now, go ahead, but it's rationally absurd. The founding fathers you worship were considered RADICALS in their day by conventional thought. Some new ideas are good ideas. It makes no sense to say one idea is better because it's been around longer. If that were true, the world is flat instead of round.

I'm tired of conservatives acting as if the "will of the people" solely determines what is right and wrong, what should be legal and what shouldn't be. The founding fathers themselves did not believe in mob rule, never did. Legal implications of court decisions don't mean "legislating from the bench" automatically every time. Constitutional review was established for a reason. What do you want - courts to be completely neutered?!

The entire idea of inalienable rights implies that we, as a society, do NOT try to impose a unified moral code on everyone forcibly by law. We forcibly impose everyone to respect the rights of others. That's the entire point of a right. The US has never, EVER, had a unifying moral code. Most of us do share some of the same values, but those are generally vague, and when they conflict, people generally disagree about they believe is right or wrong. The point is the gov'ts job is not to impose the specific answers. Our gov't exists to solely protect rights, and to preserve a healthy society for everyone. That would include things like "you can't dump toxic sludge into land that you even own" kinds of questions.

To say that gay people cause more health problems is preposterous. So now we're gonna legislate that people can't have sex before marriage, or have unprotected sex?! It's ridiculous. You know what the unforeseen consequence is of gays being allowed to marry? More people who are gay will be honest about it, and have a chance at a happy existence instead of living a repressed miserable life. For states that allow gay marriage now, I haven't seen any significant unforeseen issue that has arisen they have to deal with. To suggest that infant mortality will rise, or suicide rates will mysteriously surge because gay marriage is now legal is absolutely preposterous.

Most families are composed of one main racial color. Does that mean interracial marriages are immoral? Most families believe in some religion. Does that make atheism immoral? Does that make the world's most predominant religion the only true one? Of course not.

And one last point - the 3% of the population is not telling the other 97% how they must define marriage. A bigoted portion of the 97% is imposing their definition of marriage on the 3% for no reason other than "we don't like your definition - we don't have a single rational reason that doesn't involve religion, which can't be used as a reason because of the 1st Amendment". If you think marrying someone from the same sex is wrong, then don't marry someone of the same sex.

I think Satanism is wrong, but I'm not out there trying to stop Satanists from worshiping. It's ridiculous!

Even if RoPaul is right on 90% (hell even 80%) of the issues, people hate real change and REALLY hate fast change. When Cankles Clinton tried to ram through the original socialist health care claptrap in the early 90s she was shut down by an animal reactionary resistance before the logical arguments from both sides arrived.

In 4 years there's no way RoPaul can dismantle the Fed, call all the troops home, legalize drugs, etc.

Even if he had a sensible, painless way to enact his reforms, liberty's many enemies on both sides of the aisle would fight him every step of the way. No sane politician will vote to eliminate Socialist Security and Medicrap "overnight". That's why all 'new' government nonsense should be ferociously fought against...once it's signed into law it's hell to repeal it. Look at the burst appendix that is obamacare.

Even a neutered President RoPaul who got only 10% of what he wanted would be baby steps in the right direction and a welcome change from the obama nightmare. But both sides of the aisle are against him for their own reasons, as well as the leftist lamestream media.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Oh please. You and others seem to want to make this an analog of Iraq. It isn't even close. This isn't some unilateral imperialistic crusade, it's limited strategic international aid to Libyan rebels, and an attempt to limit casualties by neutering the Libyan military's air force. There is plenty of room for criticism, and the wisdom of this action is yet to be determined, but let's try to separate self gratifying hyperbole from reality. >> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Roman Emperors needed to establish legitimacy of their claim to the throne via a initial, successful, millitary campaign. I see an unfortunate parallel in our own time.



I always hoped you'd be more of a peacenik.