Iraq Situation is Bullshit
POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 10, 2024 22:11
VIEWED: 28270
PAGE 9 of 17
I would need a specific example of what you mean. From what I am seeing, the Fed still need a warrent, which means going in front of a judge. The new laws don't change the requirement for warrents and probable cause. And almost all of these powers were applicable before, in other areas of law enforcement.
There is an interesting debate over on the Reason magazine website. What I see as the most significant change is that the FBI can talk to itself about various aspects of terrorists investigations. As well as with other intelligence agencies. They can now go to public meetings for survellence, instead of being specifically excluded from such public meetings.
It is important to remember that everything costs. My respect for your rights comes at a cost to me. As long as the corresponding benefit is greater than my cost, I will continue. You pull a gun on me, my respect for your right to life goes out the window, since you are asking me to pay for your right, with my own life.
When the cost gets too high, people won't buy.
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"Generally speaking, the answer to your first question is yes, and the second is no. What wealth is, is capability, how easy it becomes to accomplish a greater and greater variety of tasks. A rich man can construct a factory, pay workers to build it for him. A rich man can start his own independent space agency, and get off this rock. Poor folks can't do that.
You worry about grunt labor, as in who will clean the latrines and cut sugarcane. As history has shown, when labor becomes too expensive for a given task, using automation or mechanical means to do the same job become more attractive. Automatic cane harvesting or self cleaning toilets. They may be more expensive, but if they become competitive with labor, people will start buying them.
Which means that those laborers can then do other jobs, like designing spaceships as one example. Granted it required more education to design a spacecraft than clean a toilet, but I am not one that sees education as a bad thing."
Drakon, you seem to be confusing 'individual wealth' with 'standard of living.' These are two very different concepts. Perhaps when you discuss 'wealth' you mean the wealth of a society as a whole.
In this case, you are not moving people up the economic ladder at all. You are merely gilding the ladder. Adding gold filigree and engraved scrollwork. I may have twenty vials of penecillin in my refrigerator, and the 15th century King of England may have no vials and no refrigerators, but it can't be logically argued that I am as wealthy as he.
Rather, some aspects of my standard of living have improved to be superior to his. I do not own thousands of acres of land. I do not have the ability to launch a hundred ships in a Naval campaign. I can not even fund a single exploratory expedition to the New World. But I can survive an infection.
That's standard of living, not wealth.
Essentially, it's technology.
At the inception of this country, poor people typically had several acres of land, a pony, and a cabin they built with their own two hands. They had wood burning stoves and chamber pots and windows. For entertainment they had the occasional fair and the local ho-down.
I have a used car, a rented parcel and house, and a microwave. I have a toilet and an air conditioner. For entertainment, I have Satellite TV, this computer, and the occasional movie.
My standard of living has increased, but my rung on the ladder hasn't moved an inch. Wealth is not standard of living. It is a concept in relativity. It is where YOU are relative to EVERYONE ELSE.
If we were all owners of spaceship companies, we wouldn't be able to get anything accomplished. Not without 'grunt labor.' The definition of 'grunt labor' may change with the times. It may be the farmer peasant of yesteryear or the tractor operator of today. It may be the toilet cleaner of today or the automatic toilet cleaner repairman of tomorrow. It may involve the 'less educated folks' of yesterday, or the 'less educated folks' of today. It's still the same rung. The same grunt. The standard of living changes, the position on the ladder stays the same.
I also think this is the only way a human society can work. I agree that human greed is the factor that makes society work. I don't believe that the economic ladder can be pushed over, to lay flat atop the ground. Too much motivation is lost when everyone shares the same standard of living, and no acquisition of wealth is possible or desirable.
If we lived in a socialist economy, I'd be quite content to go back to my job as a security guard, babysitting a room of goods for eight hours while daydreaming of what I'd like to do when I get off of work. Man, to do that and get the same buying power as a physician? An engineer? A pilot? That would be sweet.
And that is why I think we agree that capitalism works WITH the human psyche, and not against it. Our only sticking point is the definition of wealth.
--Anthony
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Sorry, that posted twice. Is there a way to delete a message?
On the issue of National Security...
I can now be arrested, and held, not be told why I have been arrested and held.
It is also, curiously, becoming more common to be tried in a private trial. It's happening right now. What is happening inside these private trials? I don't know. They're private for reasons of national security.
--Anthony
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I would have to see actual reports of this going on. Are we talking banning reporters or jsut cameras in the court room? However, I do understand the national security concerns here.
In intelligence, the highest classified material is that related to "sources and methods". Sources are essentially spies that work for us. Methods are means by which we listen in or observe the bad guys. These have to be protected, because otherwise we lose that source (i.e. our spy gets killed) or we lose that method, the bad guys find a way around it. Either way, we get blinded to the bad guys actions and that makes it harder to prevent another attack. Meaning a lot of folks die.
Like I said before, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If the choice is a private trial or another 9-11, sorry the cost is too great for an open trial. It is worrisome, I will agree, and its a bitch of a choice. But again, freedom don't mean a thing if you are dead.
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I see where you are coming from, but I don't agree it is gilding the ladder. The entire ladder is moving up.
You may not have the individual wealth, (and hence the capabilities) of say Bill Gates. You may not be able to fund an expedition to the New World, like our 15th century king. But the king can be felled with a sneeze. You, thanks to medical technology, are a lot tougher than that, have a longer life expectancy, and can still do a lot more than he could.
His options for entertainment were plays and music, all preformed live. You have 200 cable channels, the internet loaded with songs, and even entire television programs. DVDs and music CDs are sheer fantasy to that king.
Yes, the definition of an entry level job, or 'grunt labor', has and will change. There will always be rich folks and poor folks, just as their will always be engineers and actors. But that same grunt has more personal wealth today, than dreamed of by those 15th century kings. It might not apply to chartering privateers against the spainish crown, but then it does not need to. In other areas, and other capabilities, it exceeds those modest dreams.
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"Freedom don't mean a thing if you are dead."
I understand where you are coming from, Drakon. I do. This is the very philosophy that keeps society running smoothly.
And we both agree that there is a line. The line may differ from person to person. But it's there. (At least, I hope it is.)
This country was, after all, won by people who honestly did believe that Freedom is worth Dying for.
--Anthony
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On the other hand, it might be argued they felt Freedom was worth Killing for.
--Ant
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Hmmm, Anthony- do you every play chess against yourself? If you do, who wins? 
It's just that I noticed you on both sides of an argument several times. You must have a very flexible mind!
And now I'm going to have to jump in here real quick on my lunch half-hour!
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"The fundamental basic idea behind capitalism is that you own what you create" So- the employess of a bowling-ball factory own all of the bowling balls because they created them. Right?
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"How do you get the field hands up the economic ladder. I don't see theft as a viable solution, whether it is by the State or some other agency."
As you said, ownership works only because it's a concept we all buy into. Basically, it's an artificial construct that is defined and defended by the State. The clearest example of the artificiality of ownership is the concept of "intellectual property"- owning an idea. This "thing" which can not be felt, smelled, or tasted can somehow be bought and sold -usually, I might add, by corporations who make you sign your rights away if you do any sort of research or development whatsoever. (I have horror stories on the abuse of this, but I'll have to get into that later.)
So, if the laws governing "ownership" changes, is that theft?
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"As for his (Dean's) position on Iraq, I am unclear what he would have done. Would he have stopped at Afghanistan? Would he have gone after Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Syria? "
That's a little like asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?". That pre-supposes *something* had to be done with Hussein. If we had just let the UN do it's work, I'm sure that we would have reached the conclusion by now that no WMD existed.
OTOH, something clearly needs to be done about terrorism.
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"Is it bad to have people who are lower on the economic ladder? Is it bad to have people higher on the economic ladder?
Only if you can find some better, more universal motivation than earning money to buy goods and services.
If everyone owned a castle and 1000 acres of land, something BESIDES economic well being would have to be found to motivate them. The intrinsic goodness of mankind isn't sufficient to the task"
You obviously have not tapped into the Free Software movement. Right now, people have to perform stupid back-breaking danagerous work because that's what's available. But if all that was automated away, people would still be getting up in the ayem because they need to feel that they have some control over their lives and their environment, and one way to do that is to work.
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"The only way to prevent that, is to fix the rules such that the successful are penalized specifically for their success. This has a proven track record of not making more folks richer, but making everyone poorer. Why try if all you are gonna get is punished?"
Actually, money (or other tangible reward) is an extremely poor motivator. The astounding discoveries, the important breakthroughs, even the most successful businesses were not created due to tangible reward. To give you an example- a study of the extremely wealthy businessmen- the robber barons (including Bill Gates)- found that these men had certain persoanlity traits in common- they lacked empathy to a pathological degree, they were highly focused, and they played their markets as if it were a GAME. Money was only a marker. Similalry, the scientists who make the greatest breakthroughs are doing it because they have a deep desire to know.
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"I would need a specific example of what you mean. From what I am seeing, the Fed still need a warrent, which means going in front of a judge"
No, they don't. The Patriot Act eliminated the need for warrants for all kinds of searches, including electronic and "sneak and peek".
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"Hmmm, Anthony- do you every play chess against yourself? If you do, who wins? It's just that I noticed you on both sides of an argument several times. You must have a very flexible mind!"
LOL! I suppose I argue as often with the purpose of understanding a topic, as to defend a viewpoint. There are many things in my life that I've only been able to fully comprehend after a good argument. Sometimes arguing from both sides can be doubly enlightening. :-)
"Actually, money (or other tangible reward) is an extremely poor motivator. The astounding discoveries, the important breakthroughs, even the most successful businesses were not created due to tangible reward. To give you an example- a study of the extremely wealthy businessmen- the robber barons (including Bill Gates)- found that these men had certain persoanlity traits in common- they lacked empathy to a pathological degree, they were highly focused, and they played their markets as if it were a GAME. Money was only a marker. Similalry, the scientists who make the greatest breakthroughs are doing it because they have a deep desire to know."
It may be that scientists and engineers invent because that's what they enjoy doing. However, it is usually through financial contributions that these inventions are facilitated. To say that the pursuit of money plays no part in work seems erroneous to me.
I would love to have a job doing what I enjoy. However, unless there is money involved that can support me in my endeavor, I won't be doing it.
Thus, I do a job I don't enjoy. Why? Because of money. Not necessarily the lust for money itself, but because I need money to get the things I require and desire.
If I could have all the things I require and desire without working at a job I dislike... then I wouldn't do that job.
I would only have hobbies. Or sleeping in the shade.
Bill Gates probably isn't motivated by money, I agree. But money is the thing that gets him what he really wants. Be it power, or merely the sense that he is winning at life.
--Anthony
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"On the other hand, it might be argued they felt Freedom was worth Killing for."
I have to admit I wince every time someone talks about sacrificing their lives to help others, the whole 'greater love' stuff bothers me. There is a difference between risking death, and committing suicide, and the latter cases are pretty rare. There is also a difference between dying at the hands of others, and choosing one's own manner of death.
Flight 93. Need I say more.
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