Pubbie v. left THUNDERDOME (apparently)

[Khendraja'aro]

So, the trust has to be absolute and unwavering? Weird world you're living in.

Because in such a world, you wouldn't need a police in the first place.

[Loki]

Erm, the trust is in the state, not in your fellow man. You could trust the former and not the latter.

[Khendraja'aro]

Erm, the trust is in the state, not in your fellow man. You could trust the former and not the latter.

Say, where can I find this state? Can I talk to it? Can I shake its hand?

And you just did make my point. Congratulations for recognizing it all by yourself.

[Loki]

And yet leftists like you want to make the state stronger and stronger...then you complain when that strength is used against you.

[Nessus]

Because it kind of goes against your whole spiel about empowering the government and letting it "take care" of the population. Why be fearful of the police in a socialist state?

If I take a picture of myself with the word "HYPOCRITE" written on my chest, and send it to you, can you stop this ridiculous baiting attempt campaign?

[Loki]

I'm just trying to understand how someone who wants to give ever greater power to the state would then be afraid of what the state would do with that power.

[Nessus]

I'm just trying to understand how someone who wants to give ever greater power to the state would then be afraid of what the state would do with that power.

Ostensibly one would not be stupid enough to think all states, and especially leaders of states, are created equal. Go on Good Morning America and compare Reagan to Stalin, see how well you do.

[Loki]

Ostensibly one would not be stupid enough to think all states, and especially leaders of states, are created equal. Go on Good Morning America and compare Reagan to Stalin, see how well you do.

But if the leaders of states can be expected to take advantage of the power at their disposal, why would you want to grant them a ridiculous amount of power in the first place?

[Nessus]

As opposed to...What? Nebulous corporations? A religious figure? True parliamentary democracy seems to work only in a very small sub-set of cultures. And libertarianism/anarchy leads to societies more concerned with basic survival rather than scientific inquiry or progress.

[Loki]

As opposed to...What? Nebulous corporations? A religious figure? True parliamentary democracy seems to work only in a very small sub-set of cultures. And libertarianism/anarchy leads to societies more concerned with basic survival rather than scientific inquiry or progress.

Why would a power-hungry socialist leader give a damn about scientific inquiry? It's private individuals who care about science, and the more power you give to the central government, the more it will use that power to restrict science, not promote it.

Liberalism leads to progress because power is defuse. No one has the ability to consistently coerce others. It also means that there will always be some individuals who are willing to engage in and fund science. In your socialist state, everything depends on the interests, mood, and personality of the leader.

[Nessus]

Why would a power-hungry socialist leader give a damn about scientific inquiry? It's private individuals who care about science, and the more power you give to the central government, the more it will use that power to restrict science, not promote it.

Citation needed.

Liberalism leads to progress because power is defuse. No one has the ability to consistently coerce others. It also means that there will always be some individuals who are willing to engage in and fund science. In your socialist state, everything depends on the interests, mood, and personality of the leader.

I'm not going to post an image of a straw man here, but instead suggest that perhaps this is your socialist state that you're asking me to defend.

[Loki]

Citation needed.

You want a citation for a hypothetical scenario? If you're willing to look at a proxy, you could look at the pattern of economic growth in centralized states. Hint: everything depends on the leader(s). If you get a benevolent one, you might end up with record growth. But all the incentives are in the opposite direction.

I'm not going to post an image of a straw man here, but instead suggest that perhaps this is your socialist state that you're asking me to defend.

Who provides resources for science in your socialist state? What is their interest in doing so?

[Nessus]

You want a citation for a hypothetical scenario?

The alternative is taking your word as gospel. Pardon me, but I am not comfortable with that.

Who provides resources for science in your socialist state? What is their interest in doing so?

Unicorns. They're jealous of the Pegasus ponies.

[Khendraja'aro]

And yet leftists like you want to make the state stronger and stronger...then you complain when that strength is used against you.

Ever heard of this nifty thing called "separation of power"? Obviously you did not understand what you yourself were talking about: A state consists of people. It does not exist on its own.

I also don't understand why you seem to think that all the power has to reside in the hands of a single Despot?

[GGT]

Funding, in this case, is ethics, GGT.

You're missing the elephant in the room. Daniels has been quoted saying, As soon as groups stop performing abortions, we'll gladly re-instate their funding for other types of care. Extortion of one ethic in favor of another ethic? Social conservative/pro-life groups have said it on tape and written it in print: their goal is to abolish abortion, state-by-state.

Picketing, stalking, zoning, funding, rules for physicians and pharmacists, hoops and barriers for women---any way they can find a back door to not just reduce but abolish abortions. Not through the judicial process to make abortion illegal, because they can't overturn Roe v Wade, but by exploiting local/state legislative powers. All the while claiming to be small gov't, non-intrusive gov't, champions of individual freeedoms, getting gov't out of private lives, etc. Hypocrisy.

Hard to believe you can't see what's happening, because you're focused solely on teh money. They won't stop this "crusade" even if only private clinics, non-profits or charities perform abortions, or any medication can terminate pregnancy. Evident by creating over-the-top clinic requirements, conditions for prescribing RU-486 or Plan B, restrictions on private insurance coverage....things having nothing to do with funding. (No mention of banning selective terminations for IVF multiples. Yet.) Same tactic was used for banning stem-cell research using fetal tissue.

Next up: prevention and birth control. Using "funding" as their first attack. It's already happening with Medicaid cuts ("Why should my tax dollars subsidize poor women getting birth control?" and at the same time "Why should my tax dollars subsidize poor women with children?") The gun metaphor fails because the "funding" issue isn't there, but if the far Left was whittling away access, availability, and use of firearms state-by-state, with the goal of abolishing guns....wouldn't you call foul?

[Dreadnaught]

They can't abolish abortion state-by-state. That's plainly not going to happen. Stem-cell research was never banned. The hyperbole is circa summer 2001.

[GGT]

They can't abolish abortion state-by-state. That's plainly not going to happen. Stem-cell research was never banned. The hyperbole is circa summer 2001.

That's the goal of the pro-lifers: abolish by default, or a ban by proxy. When women can only find three abortion providers in their state, and are forced to cross state lines, what else would you call it?

Stem cell research using fetal cells was prohibited under Bush. It's not hyperbole.

[Dreadnaught]

*facepalm* Once again, cutting federal funding != ban. Bush banned federal funding for projects that required the harvesting of embryonic stem cells. Projects with existing stem cell lines continued to receive federal funding. Private projects that used new stem cell lines continued.

[Aimless]

I forget, what was the effect on research...??

[EyeKhan]

Is a benevolent police state impossible? Is it a function human nature, size of the state, the underlying culture, the chip of freedom on everyone's shoulder? In China there is economic freedom without political freedom, is that workable long term? Will the people at some point rebel against the government, change it, or get massacred again? If they do, and its bloody and chaotic, what happens to China's prosperity? What happens to the factory for the world? What happens to all that debt the US owes? And for that matter, is the sort of democratic freedom you see in the US and the rest of the West workable long term? Its still a fairly recent phenomenon and when you mix in the growing power of technology, the sort of autonomy you see in the West might be dangerous. I think the only thing that prevents disaster today is that really dangerous technology is too expensive and too technical for the nutjob to develop. Will that buffer continue?

[EyeKhan]

*facepalm* Once again, cutting federal funding != ban. Bush banned federal funding for projects that required the harvesting of embryonic stem cells. Projects with existing stem cell lines continued to receive federal funding. Private projects that used new stem cell lines continued.

*Face Palm* --- the existing stem cell lines were inadequate for research going forward. The funding ban on new lines meant anything in a laboratory that would be used for new stem cell line work had to have been obtained sans federal funding, even existing equipment, meaning any lab that got any federal funding in the past would have to prove the equipment used on new stem cell line work was purchased with private funds which was impossible. Bush's ban on federal funding severely set back stem cell research no matter how you cut it. It was as stupid as the Bush Administration's decision that investment in network technology and infrastructure should be left entirely to the private sector. This is why the US has the worst internet connection rates in the developed world (and yet our telecom companies still make a ton of profit! Yay, the market worked!). Believe it or not, there IS a role for government in funding and encouraging technological research and development. The alternative is idiocy and a guaranteed decline in competitive status with the rest of the world, something the US does not need more of.

[Dreadnaught]

Yes, Bush singlehandedly broke our telecom system system.

Do you forget the whole thing about scientists finding clever ways to bypass the need for stem cells?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/science/21stem.html

It's not perfect, but ultimately this was a serious ethical issue and a decision that wasn't made lightly (Bush devotes the whole third chapter of his book to the issue). Ideally we could rise above the "Bush broke things because him stoopid and hates science" meme from 2001-4.

[EyeKhan]

Yes, Bush singlehandedly broke our telecom system system.

OMG! Is that a lokism? Why ask that question when it isn't what my post said?

Do you forget the whole thing about scientists finding clever ways to bypass the need for stem cells?

Wait, what about the embryonic ban didn't affect stem cell research in the US??? Why have you suddenly changed your argument?

I just read a paper in Science that discussed how the reprogrammed pluripotent cells were rejected in a recent therapy study in mice. Major set back for induced pluripotency. Think of the 'new research' like this - because the Bush Administration effectively banned embryonic stemcell research, the US scientific community spent tons of time and money on work-arounds to try and find a replacement for embryonic stem cells just so they could continue their research on therapies where they left off at the ban. Nice. Would you call that efficient? I would call it a wasteful - in time and money - reinvention of the wheel; one that still hasn't been perfected and may end up being an gigantic waste. Meanwhile our global economic competitors are zipping along at break-neck pace leaving us behind technologically and economically. Please defend that.

[Aimless]

Wow this is like applauding excessive regulation and taxation because they encourage businesses to find clever ways to move to China

[Aimless]

Oooh wait I've got another one... it's like applauding a crappy healthcare system because it encourages people to find clever ways to overuse emergency care and doctors to use defensive medicine.

[Aimless]

But I'm glad you feel this way Dread and that you support the coming healthcare reform in your country due to your optimism about coming up with clever ways to bypass the problems

[Dreadnaught]

Eh? I didn't and don't support Bush's policy on embryonic stem cells. But it wasn't the end of the world, and I understand his reasoning behind the decision (even though I disagree with it).

[Aimless]

Like I said, healthcare reform isn't the end of the world I just wish you'd spend some time defending/whitewashing that instead of going on and on about the inevitable impending doom.

[Dreadnaught]

Beyond the fact that both involve doctors as the end-users, the issues are completely separate. Socialized universal healthcare is a fiscal and competitive boondoggle that, like many open-ended entitlements, destroys the fiscal health of states.

None of this, BTW, has to do with the interesting question of whether there are times you can legitimately refuse entry to police.

[Aimless]

Correct, it's a side-discussion about why you want to whitewash some disasters while blasting others. The common link between the different disasters is your brain

Now, is Dreadnaught going to actually express a clear opinion on this issue?




It seems like the US is really growing fond of giving state entities excessive rights over individuals with the need for speed as justification. Like, what the hell, this is starting to sound less and less like the careful and considerate US for every year.