$7billion on potato chips?! Psssh, and you made fun of my mere 8 bags in the cupboard! =]
@StupidSystemus - I can’t access that file. Is your evernote account password protected?
it’s unfathomable to me that there are people who get behind any war yet whine about tiny percentages of our military expenditure being put toward science and exploration. one only has to look around to see everything we take for granted from home to work and back represents scientific discovery and invention and if not for science and exploration those of us who live in the United States wouldn’t be. we’d be sitting in the old country still steeped in the belief the world is flat and if we sail far enough and are lucky enough to not be eaten by giant serpents we’ll fall off the edge of the Earth. and frankly conservatives have no place telling anyone about the economy after filibustering every jobs bill they had the option to allow to the floor of Congress for a vote.
Who gives a shit where the money gets spent? It’s still getting spent regardless, and as a result, no matter where the money spending falls, our economy is still in a big fucking shithole.
That being said, NASA’s achievement of the Curiosity landing is incredible. It’ll be a huge step in science and space exploration as well as engineering, and depending on what is found, that may translate into what future generations start learning in school. I’d say the positives far outweigh the negatives here. But our economy is still shit, so…idkmybffjill
The NASA rover cost everyone in the US $7 each. That’s a small price to pay for keeping science and technology moving forward!
There are many ways to improve the economy. I don’t think cutting NASA will help more than it will hurt, though.
@GodlessLiberal – hmmm. It was accessible earlier in public. That stinks. The study deduced that drunk people have more conservative views while drunk, requiring less thought process. The same was found among many conservatives.
@StupidSystemus - Ah yes, I’ve read that study. Interesting, but not as interesting as some of the studies I’ll be posting in the next week on this topic.
It is all in the prices.
Tell me, what should it cost to send a rover to Mars?
When they bring back the marshmallow you’ll change your tune!
So are you being anti-science now?
All the money spent on welfare, social spending in general, and foreign aid to countries that hate us and the end result is a progressively worse economy. Better to cut social spending and invest the money into things which produce tangible results.
@StupidSystemus - Or, it might be more accurate to say that when people are drunk they have less inhabitions so their true opinions come out more. Anyways, I’m not impressed with the thought process of liberals, which seems to be based more on regurgitating the talking points of liberal politicians rather than independant reflection.
@TheSutraDude - Where do you get off saying that conservatives are anti-science? You will find a lot more proponents of the space program on the right than on the left. It was your man Obama who canceled the Constellation program, which would have been the greatest human endeavor in recorded history, and more of a leap forward in science and exploration than the discover of the New World.
Anti-science conservatives vehemently defend the Mars landing because they can latch onto it as a sign of American exceptionalism. That being said, it’s difficult to calculate what the “value” or “return” on the landing will be to the American people. The most direct value of previous space exploration missions has been the technology they produced, which have bettered everything from medicine to air plane travel.
Alright, so, these are the things that have been accomplished by Obama or the federal government since Bush left office: (1) stabilized the economy; (2) killed Bin Laden (which most conservatives would have heralded as an affirmation of Bush’s presidency in and of itself had it happened under his watch); (3) health care reform; (4) the mars landing; (5) completely reconstructed the student loan system (demonstrably better than what it once was); (6) legalized and promoted stem cell research; (7) created regulations that allow EPA to issue climate change rules; (8) passed a stimulus package that is unprecedented in the last 100 years; etc. This has all occurred despite having the most obstructionist Congress in the history of American politics.
Obviously, conservatives don’t like Obama or his agenda, but I find the reticent liberals who pretend Obama is some kind of lame duck or presidential dud to be pretty puzzling at this point. What he has managed to accomplish under the circumstances is pretty impressive. Regardless, everyone who objectively looks at what he’s done should be able to agree that he has done more in 4 years than Bush accomplished in 8 (whether you find what he has done good or bad is another question).
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - Because the vast majority of climate change deniers, anti-evolutionists, vaccine conspiracists, old Earth deniers, moon-landing deniers, flat earth proponents, and general skeptics of the modern scientific method are right-wing conservatives. This really isn’t surprising because many right-wing Christians view modern science as a direct threat to their religious world view (hence, their hatred of metaphysical naturalism, a foundational pillar of modern science). For example, you don’t see xangans like Soccerdadforlife or (the late) Interstellarmachine on the left. They just don’t exist.
Liberals generally don’t deny the benefits (or existence) of space exploration, as conservatives deny the scientific evidence on any number of issues. Liberals simply tend to think that in today’s economy, space exploration shouldn’t be as high a priority as it has been.
It’s also $2.5 billion dollars that’s been spent over the course of several years, if not a decade.
Yet JPMorgan Chase can “lose” $4+billion dollars and no-one bats an eyelid. hmmm. Priorities straight much?
I generally don’t dispute the value of space exploration. What we lost sight of among the news headlines is that we already found life on Mars. We found a meteorite from Mars in Antarctica about ten years ago that contains fossil microbes. Case closed.
Not just the money spent but you have to look at the advances made over time when we as humans explored and took on greater challenges.
@cmdr_keen - liberals didn’t “bat an eye” when Morgan Chase tanked? Do you not read mainstream news or something?
@UTRow1 - First of all, I don’t see what basis you have for calling us “anti-science” when we are the only ones who support government spending on scientific endeavors. By that I am of course talking about military tech and space exploration, which are two fields that you liberals are always wanting to axe in favor of social spending, which produces a good deal of debt and no tangible fruits. As a conservative I disagree sharply that the primary reason behind wanting to see science progress is for American exceptionalism, although even if it were I see nothing wrong with that. If it produces good results then it’s a good thing, regardless of the motivations behind it. That being said, I could say in return that the primary reason why the left hates space exploration is because they hate the idea of American exceptionalism. It’s not hard to find plenty of speakers on the left who openly admit to hating America and want to see it fail. Similarly, I believe that many of the policies of the left wing politicians are to drag the US down to the level of less advanced countries in order to ‘level the playing’ field as it were. The left has a long and grisly history of punishing achievment.
Here are some very direct benifits will come out of space missions of things are done properly: Better computers, better sensors, better means of propulsion, finding and/or creating new places to live, harvesting new resources, and last but not least, knowing more about the universe.
I agree with you part way, he has done more damage in 4 years than Bush has in 8. For example, Obama’s NDAA is a good deal more draconian than the much criticized Patriot Act which Bush passed. In any case, they were both terrible presidents. Bush was a neo-con who undermined the Republican party while eroding American freedoms on the homefront, and Obama has continued all of the worst Bush ideas and added other calamities to them. We have Obungle to thank for quadrupeling the national debt, and I hold his economic policies to blame for my not being able to get a job in my field. Even though I have been through college twice, have a 4.0 average, academic honors EACH year, and positive professional reccomendation letters from previous employers and university professors. It’s bunk to say Obama has done any good for the economy. He has most likely put us into a permanent rut.
Also, it is dubious whether or not Obungle killed Bin Laden, or whether or not Bin Laden was even killed. We have nothing to go on for that but his word. Normally I don’t care for Bollywood, but there is a humorous movie that came out about a scenario like that when Bush was president. They were joking about staging a fake killing of Bin Laden so that the US could sell it as a victory and go home, and at the time I thought “this is so stupid, no one would ever believe that, and it would never work.” Then out comes the news that Bin Laden was supposedly killed, but the body was conveniently dumped in the ocean (why?), there are no photos, and of course no video footage. What rubbish is that? Showing the footage or at least the body would have been great PR for Obama if he and his people actually had anything to do with it. I would have shown them if I were president, and it would have guaranteed my reelection. We can find videos and photos of Saddam being excecuted, and he was not as much of an enemy for us as Bin Laden.
As for the Mars probe curiosity. What is your basis for giving credit to Obama for that other than the fact that he was occupying the white house at the time. Was he part of the planning team? Did he order them to do that specifically? Even if he did that does not excuse him from cancelling the Constellation program, and because of that I will always associate him with a curse in my mind.
@UTRow1 - You cannot call us anti-science just for not sharing your belief that the universe is self existing. If you are going to that then you may as well call us anti-science for also denying Hinduism, or the belief that Gaia was boffed by Oronos. We do not have a problem with the scientific method, in fact it is partly because of the scientific method that we do not accept much of what evolutionists have to say regarding the origin of the universe. If you want to believe that the universe is eternal, or that it came from nothing completely on it’s own then you are free to do so. I do not support forcing people to believe in anything, however, you know full well that along with that you have to accept other notions, such as the laws of physics not being constants. Actually it was Christians who founded every branch of modern science. Metaphysical naturalism is your a priori assumption, not ours, and the foundation of your belief system, not science. Science is restricted to empirical observable things, and your origin beliefs operate outside of what can be observed and tested. Evolutionism is nothing but a pseudo-scientific rehashing of pantheism, because you don’t want to be held accountable for your actions by a higher being.
@UTRow1 - it was announced, people responded, it was forgotten about with nothing coming out of it. It certainly didn’t hit the popular media as much as Curiosity has.
There certainly wasn’t the hand-wringing about “wasted money” as in this case.
@cmdr_keen - The left is blatantly anti-progress. Which is ironic considering how they have duped some people into calling them “progressives.”
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - [Also, it is dubious whether or not Obungle killed Bin Laden, or whether or not Bin Laden was even killed. We have nothing to go on for that but his word.] His word, and the word of hundreds of military personnel, politicians and state department officials who were shown the photographic evidence.
[The left is blatantly anti-progress. Which is ironic considering how they have duped some people into calling them "progressives."] The progress that progressives try to make happens to be for personal well-being. You know, like giving equal rights to people that don’t currently have it. Silly little progress things like that. Sorry we aren’t as keen on creating an atomic bomb with a couple extra megatons of yield as you’d like us to be.
@GodlessLiberal - Again, I haven’t seen any concrete evidence. This is like me saying that you should believe in Jesus because there were many people in the early Church who claimed to have seen him resurrected. I know you would say “where’s the proof?” And that’s all I’m saying here.
Maybe you think that you are for equality, and maybe you as an individual actually are, but in general that’s not what I’m seeing from the left. Tell me what you think of this if you get some time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSvV9RhX7eI&feature=plcp
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - (1) I am not calling all conservatives anti-science, I am describing a group of conservatives: anti-science conservatives (which include the Xangans I named). “Anti-science” is a qualifier.
I’m sorry if it offends you, but my analysis of this group of people is entirely accurate. Furthermore, anti-science conservatives are more numerous and ignorant than their liberal counter-parts. Again, the liberals you mention can be distinguished from the conservatives I name because they don’t deny the science behind space exploration or gun technology like anti-science conservatives. They just tend to not believe they benefit society or don’t believe their benefits outweigh the costs, so they would rather have the government invest federal funds in other endeavors. Anti-science conservatives, however, remain willfully ignorant of science in order to deny evolution, global warming, vaccine efficacy, etc. The later is patently more “anti-science” than the former. It would be more apt to classify the liberals you mention as disliking the application of certain science/technology rather than the science itself.
(2) “social spending, which produces a good deal of debt and no tangible fruits.”
Provide evidence for this claim. For example: I am pretty sure the veterans who receive veteran’s benefits from the federal government, including the best veteran’s health care in the world, would disagree. “Social spending” produces a great deal of “tangible fruits” to a great number of people. Whether you believe there are more efficient/better alternatives is another matter, but arguing it provides “no tangible fruits” is factually wrong. Not wrong as a matter of my personal opinion, but wrong as a matter of fact.
(3) “As a conservative I disagree sharply that the primary reason behind wanting to see science progress is for American exceptionalism”
I never claimed it was the primary reason why Americans want to see scientific progress. I stated it’s the reason why many anti-science conservatives (e.g., evolution deniers) are so fanatically pro-space exploration despite generally being ignorantly skeptical about other scientific issues.
(4) “That being said, I could say in return that the primary reason why the left hates space exploration is because they hate the idea of American exceptionalism.”
The left doesn’t hate space exploration. There is no evidence for this. Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and Project Apollo all occurred/were launched during JFK’s presidency. There really is no disputing that he, a notoriously liberal president, prioritized space exploration more than any other president any American history. Similarly, NASA’s scientists are pretty notoriously liberal within the scientific community, particularly their xenobiologists. Furthermore, as I have already stated, believing that we shouldn’t be spending billions of dollars on space exploration when the economy is stagnant is a completely defensible position. I don’t personally believe it, but insinuating that the people who do take that position (including many conservative libertarians) hate American exceptionalism (regardless of how it is defined) is beyond dubious. What most liberals hate is detrimental American exceptionalism, which is prominent on the right on numerous issues (like health care reform).
(5) “It’s not hard to find plenty of speakers on the left who openly admit to hating America and want to see it fail.”
Give me a list of 10 prominent left intellectuals who have explicitly done so, including a source, please. If it’s not hard to find these individuals, you should be able to accomplish this pretty easily.
(6) “The left has a long and grisly history of punishing achievment [sic].”
This is just a mush-headed conservative talking point based on the false premise that rich people are entitled to certain benefits of their labor and/or the labor of others. There’s really no basis for it in reality, but if you can find some meta-studies substantiating that claim, I would be glad to see them.
(7) “Here are some very direct benifits will come out of space missions of things are done properly . . .”
Did you not read my comment? I explicitly stated that “That being said, it’s difficult to calculate what the “value” or “return” on the landing will be to the American people. The most direct value of previous space exploration missions has been the technology they produced, which have bettered everything from medicine to air plane travel.”
(9) “I agree with you part way, he has done more damage in 4 years than Bush has in 8. . .”
Actually, you agreed with 100% of what I wrote. I explicitly stated that Obama accomplished more than Bush in 4 years, but it was up for debate as to whether all of it was good (but I would argue he has done more good than Bush, which is a pretty easy argument to win).
(10) “Also, it is dubious whether or not Obungle killed Bin Laden, or whether or not Bin Laden was even killed.”
Actually, only fringe conspiracists deny Bin Laden was killed. And yeah, Obama didn’t pull the trigger, but nobody can possibly deny that he didn’t play a direct role in Bin Laden’s death.
(11) “What is your basis for giving credit to Obama for that other than the fact that he was occupying the white house at the time.”
What I said was that it occurred during Obama’s tenure. I didn’t give him sole credit. The POTUS is an executive, not a scientist. He did what an effective president does: appoint qualified agency members, provide appropriate funding, educate the public, etc. That’s all he can do, and that’s what he did.
There’s more, but it would just be more of the same.
@cmdr_keen - Are you really not capable of discerning a distinction between the two to account for the difference in public opinion (and it’s not just among liberals, it’s among virtually everyone)?
NASA is a federal agency that is almost entirely funded by money from the federal government. People, obviously, get upset when the federal government spends billions of dollars on a programs that they believe do not feel directly benefit them because much of that money comes from taxes. Congress and the president are directly accountable for how they spend federal money to the American people (or at least indirectly accountable through the political process). This is the way government works.
Conversely, Morgan Chase is a private entity. The vast majority of its money does not come from taxpayers, nor are they accountable to the general public for how they spend their money. They are accountable to clients, not constituents, tax payers, etc.
Companies misuse or mismanage money all the time, but the general public tends not to get as upset as when the federal government does the same because the obvious differences in the nature of the relationships between people and government/private entities. Private entities are supposed to promote their own interests or the interests of share holders or clients. The government is supposed to pursue the general welfare. This isn’t difficult shit, brah. The two aren’t equivalent and the discrepancies create the different expectations, which are quite obvious.
@GodlessLiberal - “His word, and the word of hundreds of military personnel, politicians and state department officials who were shown the photographic evidence.”
No man, it’s a world-wide conspiracy. Obama, the entire federal government (including the military), and the government/military officials throughout the world who have confirmed Bin Laden’s death are all in on it! It’s so obvious because I was thinking to myself last month how convenient it would be for Obama if Bin Laden died, and then he did! Case closed. It’s called evidence, you faggot liberal.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - You’re really submitting a slideshow of memes to the song of Nyan Cat as evidence? I give up, you’re just a troll.
@GodlessLiberal - I didn’t make that, I just wanted to see what you thought about it.
@UTRow1 - That’s right, all we have is their word to take for it. If anyone was shown photographic evidence then it should still be there. So let’s see it. That’s all I’m saying.
As for conspiracy… Well, I don’t take those people at their word on anything. At best they are an opportunistic parasite class. I don’t understand why you trust them so implicity, but it’s interesting because it seems like you have more faith in them than most Christians do in God.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - “Their word”? As in “everyone’s” word? You are actually arguing “yeah, everyone with any insight into the matter–including every nation’s military personnel and every reliable news entity–thinks he’s dead, but they are a parasite class”? Haw.
I trust every credible person as opposed to no credible people because I am not stupid and/or insane.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - I think it’s worthless garbage that is coated with obnoxious music and has about a one in seven rate for the meme to hold any sort of water.
@UTRow1 - Again, your only basis for calling us anti-science is that most of us deny evolutionism, which is just your belief system, not an empirically corroborated fact. If you want to believe that everything popped in from nothing completely on it’s own, or the steady state theory, or whatever psuedo-scientific rehashing of pantheism you want, but it’s only science if you have observation and repeatability.
We are distrustful of global warming as well as some types of vaccines for a few reasons, but one of them has to do with what globalists are saying about those things and how they are using them:
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 LA Riot]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond [i.e., an "extraterrestrial" invasion], whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
“Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.”
Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1953) p. 5
Global warming is a scare they are generating to make people more open to a totalitarian solution.
I can provide more quotes if necessary, but I think you get the point. Maybe.
What I meant by tangible fruits was quantifiable progress, or a definite step forward. I have no objection to pension plans and retirement plans for veterans, and good employer should provide these things. But the benifits of social security and welfare are dubious at best. Something that would benifit everyone is a new technological advance, a new resource to harvest, or a new place to live. Handing money to people benifits those recipients directly, but it harms the people who the money is taken from. Again, talking about welfare here.
Origins is a philosophical and religious issue not a scientific one. What I don’t understand is why more evolutionists are not pro-science, by that I refer to scientific advancements (besides just spreading your belief system). You should be in favor of anything that accelerates the ascent of man. You should also be eugenicists, all of you, or at least those of you who care. But the truth is that most of you just want your evolutionism to deny God, and don’t really apply your beliefs to real life situations or social planning very often.
JFK was not even as far left as Bush. Yes he was a Democrat but that doesn’t automatically make him a leftist. Back then the Democrat party wasnt the sad seditious treasonous joke that it is today. You and I have different ideas about what is detrimental, and there are many liberals who think that the US should be accountable to foreign powers, such as the UN, or that we owe other countries aid, or should apologize for our actions abroad, etc.
You said 10 prominant intellectuals because you know full well that there are scores of left wing followers who spout anti-American hate on a daily basis. Of course leaders have to be more shrewd with what they say, but even so, here you are:
No no, you all live by the statement “take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his need.” “False premise”? There is nothing false about the premise that people are entitled to the fruits of their own labors, and own the rights to their own accomplishments, and not just rich people but everyone. Of course, given that you have no objective source of morality I can understand how you might be willing to do anything and subject anyone to any kind of depredation as long as it suits your own desires and needs.
I agree with you part way on Obama having done more than Bush, but I consider all of it to be bad. Therein lies the difference.
I am curious, have you read Saul Alinsky’s rules for radicals?
I call the politicians, especially the Democrats, a parasite class because they live off of tax money and produce nothing in return. They generate no wealth but they drain a good deal of it, and the catastrophic economic policies of the Obungle administration have quadrupled the national debt, which is going to cause all of us to suffer. They perpetuate the myth that we need a huge bureaucracy (spelling?) because without us (the citizens and producers) they would not be able to live. As for the issue of Bin Laden being killed, again, I’m skeptical. I’m sure you have met Christians who have tried to convince you of the resurrection of Jesus based on how many witnesses there were back in the day. Some of them may even have given you a number, and an argument for the historical veracity of the gospels. My guess is that you blew it all out your ear, because 1) you don’t know those people, 2) you cannot independantly verify what they said, you cannot go and see Jesus yourself or look at photos or video footage and 3) all the people making the argument and the alleged witnesses are all of the same ideological persuasion.
That’s how it is for me and the Bin Laden killing. I want to see some evidence. I don’t trust these guys and I have no reason to. What reason would they have for hiding the body and the photos? Tell me that. It would be really great PR for Obama to show those things, and yet he didn’t. To me the reason is obvious, the annoucement was just a political ploy, and either Bin Laden is still alive, or he died much earlier through no efforts of Obama or the US forces and the body was burried by his own people.
@UTRow1 - I never said you were stupid or insane, in fact, I am not closed to the possibility that you have a higher IQ than I do (mine is 135). BUT, after having debated with you on multiple occasions I have noticed one very serious flaw in your thought process. You don’t take agenda or motive into account when assessing a situation or position. You tend to think that those who disagree with you are either stupid or ignorant, and those with whom you agree are intelligent or have superior knowledge. Unfortunately it is never that simple. Everyone who does something does it for a reason, most of the time.
Look at your politicians. What do you think their motives are? Do you really think that the Democrats are altruistic and care about helping anyone? They are all elitists. They make a forced medical plan for everyone in the country and exempt themselves. They talk about sharing the wealth and helping the poor, but in the meantime they have huge salaries well above the national average, and they give themselves frequent raises. You know that we have to pay for their salaries. If they really believe in what they preached then they would cut their own salaries down to minimum wage, or at least $10/hour, and have the rest of the money go to helping the poor or to education. They are the most blatant hypocrites.
@GodlessLiberal - Fair enough. But let me ask you this, I already know how you feel about spending money on developing better nukes, but how would you feel about spending money on developing defenses against nuclear weapons? I remember reading something in Popular Mechanics when I was in my teens about a defense system that would automatically take down incoming nukes, but it was still in the planning stage at the time. Wouldn’t that be a practical application of technology and much more pragmatic than trying to get rid of all the world’s nukes through talks?
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - I believe (depending on how old you are) that you’re talking about Reagan’s Star Wars system, which was shown to be extremely expensive and totally unreliable. If there were a way to reliably prevent nuclear weapons from going off, I would be all for it. At the moment, however, there is no such system, and Star Wars (even if it had worked) would only protect us from ICBMs, which means suitcase nukes, dirty bombs and any bombs dropped from traditional aircraft would be immune. And those are the types that America needs to worry about right now.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - (1) Depending on how you define fact, evolution is a scientific fact. Regardless of you how you define fact, evolution is not a belief system. It is “empirically corroborated” beyond a reasonable doubt. Its mechanisms have been observed time and time again, its mechanisms have” repeatability,” and these results have been independently corroborated by dozens of scientific fields, including biogeography, biochemistry, ecology, paleontology, geology, physics (half-life decay, radioisotope dating), etc. These fields often arrived at consistent results using different and independent methodologies. We use evolutionary biology principles to develop many of the drugs we use, the modified foods we eat, the animals we own, etc. This reflects the fact that 99.9% of life scientists (biologists, chemists, etc.) accept evolution. I’m sorry, but the scientists are correct the science that is the subject of their expertise; the interpretations of non-scientists are not correct. Who would have thought?
Look, I have a degree in biochemistry, and I assure you that you don’t know the first thing about evolution. For instance, evolution doesn’t posit “everything popped up on its own”. Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the origins of life. Evolutionary mechanisms could have only taken place once the first applicable cellular organisms came into being. That is the beginning of the scope of evolution. It has nothing to do with the beginning of the universe or the processes by which cellular organisms were created (abiogenesis).
Similarly, evolution also has nothing to do with the Steady State Theory or pantheism. They are irrelevant to its discussion.
Sorry, but these points have been addressed on this very site dozens of times. I am not interested in rehashing them with someone telling me about science who clearly doesn’t know the first thing on the subject, certainly doesn’t know more than I do, and certainly hasn’t researched the issues from scientific sources at all.
(2) Politics are irrelevant to the veracity of science. You allow the former to guide your views on the later, which is backwards. The fact that there are “globalists” (a curious claim) is irrelevant to the veracity of the science behind global warming or evolution.
One of the things that distinguishes you from me is that I am aware of various influences that may or may not impact someone’s motives, but I do not simply assume that the corrupt the science because it suits my political worldview. I understand that if I cannot find fault with the methodologies or the interpretation of them, I do not have a rational basis for rejecting those findings. Furthermore, if I do not have any evidence that there actually were (a) such motives or (b) those motives actually impacted the results, then I have no rational basis to make the assumption that the motives either exist or contaminated the results. In that case, which is the case of global warming skeptics, I do not have a rational basis to suspect corrupting motives or corrupted results. Lastly, the peer-review process and publication of data and studies for critique eliminate your concern. If the evidence and studies aren’t reliable, skeptics should be able to impeach them. They haven’t.
The bottom line is that there is a firm scientific consensus behind AGW (anthropogenic climate change) is overwhelming and the the hundreds of independent studies investigating its causes are virtually unimpeachable (or at least the skeptics have failed to cast doubt on them). There are virtually no credible scientists who deny AGW any more. With the conversion of Richard Muller, the debate is effectively over. Virtually all of the world’s experts believe in AGW with scientific certainty, and most of them I know cannot be fairly described as “globalists” or liberal shills. It’s not like it’s just the UN or IPCC. It’s virtually all respected climatologists, some of which are conservatives and/or Christians.
(3) “What I meant by tangible fruits was quantifiable progress, or a definite step forward.”
First, different people have different definitions of “progress” or what is “forward”. For instance, many social conservatives would view outlawing abortion as “a step forward,” but liberals would view it as a step “backwards” because, historically, it used to be outlawed before it was made illegal and it would almost certainly have a negative impact on women’s reproductive health.
Second, to me and most liberals, the creation of social security and welfare was “progress” in every meaning of the word. The inception of both are directly tied to the increase in personal wealth, increased life expectancy (was about 40 years before them), etc. that occurred during and after the New Deal era. The bottom line is that the nation experienced unparalleled growth in these areas in the mid-20th century, and there’s absolutely no valid argument that these programs had nothing to do with them. Now, if you believe the programs need to be reformed, or are no longer the most efficient alternative, that’s a separate matter for debate.
Lastly, you seem to not understand the scope of “social programs”, which is why I brought up veterans’ care. There are literally hundreds of “social programs” that demonstrably do have “tangible benefits” and, in my mind and the minds of most, represent “progress.”
(4) “I have no objection to pension plans and retirement plans for veterans, and good employer should provide these things.”
You want employers to provide veterans benefits? That doesn’t address the issue. If soldiers come home from war with debilitating injuries, they need health care upon arrival. Many veterans come home with injuries that require care, physical therapy, etc. before they have a job. Many of these injuries take years to address and make them unemployable or at least severely limit their employment (many veterans have little formal education and tend to seek employment in retail, the service industry, or physical labor). Private insurers will not cover many of these veterans if their federal coverage is dropped because they have pre-existing conditions. Similarly, employers won’t cover these men because their care is incredibly expensive (PTSD, prosthetics, etc.) out of the goodness of their hearts because they are businesses. They can almost certainly hire someone else who can do the job as well or nearly as well as the verteran and does not have significant health care issues.
Like most governmental programs, veterans’ health care exists for a reason. It didn’t just spring up by itself with broad political support among liberals and conservatives for no reason. It addresses a need that the market and private entities couldn’t address adequately on their own in the past. Go up to your local Veterans’ Hospital and see for yourself. They’re filled with veterans’ who simply wouldn’t be alive without these programs.
(5) The rest of what you write either is irrelevant to what I have written, or relates to something I have already addressed. I am not interested in re-rebutting the same, unaltered arguments, or arguments based on the same poor evidence.
@UTRow1 - I tend to go with the traditional definition of a fact. But let’s talk about evolution. I think I do know quite a bit about evolution in spite of my not having a scientific degree, just like I know quite a bit about the Bible in spite of not having a theological degree. In any case, I have most likely had more scientific education than Darwin, who was the founder of modern evolutionism. That being said, in one way you are partly correct when you say that the mechanism behind evolution have been observed, at least one of them has. By that I am of course referring to natural selection. Of course the only reason I am saying you are correct in regards to that particular mechanism is because that natural mechanism was trumped up as a mechanism for evolution, but unjustly so. The fact is natural selection does occur, but it can only select from that which is in the gene pool. No amount of natural selection is ever going to get a bird from a lizard, which is what evolutionism teaches happened in spite of a complete lack of empirical data to corroborate that. Natural selection is a thinning process rather than an enriching process. You still have to have a mechanism for adding new genetic information, and there is none. The things you mention, breeding animals, genetically engineering foods, etc., are all examples of artificially selecting for traits which are already in the gene pool, or adding synthetic traits created in a lab. No amount of genetic engineering can ever corroborate evolution, and I have to say, the benifits of genetic engineering are dubious at best. Although that could change in the future.
It does not matter if 100% scientists believe in evolution. Consensus, even among experts, does not make something correct. The majority of scientists believed in the Ptolomaic cosmology for a good deal longer than they believed in evolution, and that was not correct either. The fact is that evolution is the official position of the establishment, which is why so many scientists adhere to it.
Since you are a scientist I’m not going to beat around the bush too much because you are already in the know, and one thing you know is that all the radiometric dating methods are calibrated based on assumptions of the age of the Earth and the universe. You also know that the data is interpreted in light of the geologic column. You also know that evolutionists operate under the a-priori assumption that the universe and everything in it has to be a product of itself. I believe you call it naturalism. I don’t see how you can separate biological evolution from geologic, stellar, and cosmic evolution. Before you have life to evolve you have to have life, and the same people who believe in biological evolution also believe that the universe itself evolved, and that prior to that it appeared from nothing. So when I say “evolution” I tend to use it as a loose catch all for all the stages of the origin of the universe. Believing in biological evolution without believing in cosmic evolution would be like me believing in Deuteronomy without believing in Exodus. Perhaps you wish to throw a bone to the theistic evolutionists, but admitting a deity at any stage of the origin process makes all the other stages unnecessary.
2) I disagree, motivations are never irrelevant when credibility is at stake, and in my eyes they have low credibility. Did you read the page I linked you to? It’s really quite heinous what they are saying. The person making the positive claim bears the burden of proof, and they have yet to sell me on global warming. Even if there were not so many shady persons and motives involved in this scare, anyone who wants to sell it to me would be hard pressed given the cool and relatively mild summer my state has experienced this year.
3) Whether or not social security security is tied to an increase in life expectency is dubious at best. We have longer lifespans because medical science and sanitation practices are better now. SS is in a sorry state. You know you will never get back any of what you pay into SS. It all goes to older people who are already retired because the government is way behind on their payments. If they cancel SS then you will not even get SS benefits from the next generation or so, and they will have to cancel it because of our declining population. Welfare is a huge drain, and does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of poverty and dependence on government. I don’t see how having increasing numbers of people dependant on the government is progress. But yes, I know liberals consider these things progress. But we can have these things until the cows come home, and it won’t get us better technology or cleaner cities, and it won’t get us colonies on other worlds. Better to invest in technology and exploration, which produces tangible benifits for everyone. That’s what I call progress.
4) No, what I meant was that the military should pay their pensions and I have no problem with that. Which is why I said “like any good employer.”
5) OK
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - (1) I am not going to argue evolution in depth with someone who doesn’t even know what it’s basic definition is. Sorry, I have better things to do with my time, and every single one of your arguments have been rebutted time and time and time again on this blog and elsewhere. For instance, your arguments about radiometric have been addressed on at least three separate posts on this blog I have participated in. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of radiometric dating, as it is not “calibrated” based on “assumptions of the age of the Earth.” Radiometric dating is based on half-life decay rates of certain elements, which are inherent properties of matter. In fact, we calculate the age of the Earth based on radiometric dating techniques; we don’t “calibrate” radiometric dating techniques based on the age of the Earth. You have it backwards. I am telling you this as someone who really knows his shit.
I will also add citing Ptolomaic cosmology doesn’t support your position at all. It’s like me arguing the Bible is false because I discovered that the first spiritual man to have existed worshipped a rock because he incorrectly thought it was God, or had a mental illness — that proto-Christian person was wrong, and therefore, the claims of the Bible can’t be trusted. Obviously, this argument isn’t compelling because of the differences between the evidentiary support and credibility of the proponents of each belief system. Similarly, the proponents of Ptolomaic cosmology were not “scientists” in the modern sense and were not applying the modern scientific approach or modern scientific principles. Therefore, it’s irrelevant to the veracity of evolution, which is based on principles that have been independently verified using modern scientific principles we know with scientific certainty are valid. Furthermore, Ptolomaic cosmology was not verifiable because of its archaic mechanisms of inquiry. What ultimately supplanted it were the results of the modern scientific approach, which is what also led to the theory of evolution, climate change, etc.
I’m not trying to be an asshole about this, but it’s just not possible for me to teach you something online that took me over a decade of education at some of the best schools in the world to learn.
The bottom line is that evolution is one of the most complicated scientific theories ever devised, and it is many times more complicated than the Bible. My ecology textbook in grad school was 2,400 pages alone. Evolution synthesizes that information plus the information of dozens of other scientific disciplines.The Bible is a single book that is generally accessible literally and figuratively because it is available online and in every bookstore and was written by relatively primitive men. It can have deep meanings or inspire profound insights, but it’s pretty straight forward. Evolutionary biology takes decades of formal education for some of the brightest scientists on the planet to begin to/fully understand. Tens of thousands of technical peer-reviewed articles are written about it or its mechanisms every year. Most of these articles are only accessible to the general public through public/college libraries. It’s literally impossible for a single person to keep up with new science, let alone understand all of it. So your personal aptitude with the Bible doesn’t reflect, in any way, your personal aptitude with evolutionary biology.
(2) I didn’t say motivations were irrelevant. I said your speculation about the motivations of all scientists who disagree with you is weak evidence compared to the evidence supporting the opposing views (those of the scientific experts who are more likely to be correct). The evidence speaks for itself, which is why there are basically no credible skeptics any more. If we lived in a world where scientists all had uniform views, there was no peer-review process, and we couldn’t verify the accuracy of the results to ensure against bias, your evidence would have more weight. Fortunately, we don’t live in that world. We can verify that the alleged bias of a few didn’t contaminate the results of the entire scientific community.
(3) The federal government and its social programs have been major contributors to scientific advancement over the last 100 years. Federal hospitals and their outreach programs are among the best in the world, including our veterans hospitals, and the federal government is the largest provider of funding for academic, scientific research. This is how it has been since people began tracking scientific funding, and it has certainly been true in modern years. That’s not to say that private companies don’t contribute to scientific advancement, they just haven’t traditionally been the catalyst that the federal government in many scientific areas, including biomedical research, which have directly and substantially contributed to the wellbeing of the American people.
(4) That still doesn’t really address my argument. Furthermore, SS will never be “cancelled”. Ever. I am for reforming it (it doesn’t work largely because conservatives have butted it for the last 40 years), but it’s not going any where. That bill would never get through Congress. That’s an anarcho-capitalist fever dream.
Also, you keep asserting that welfare provides absolutely no benefit (“nothing”) to society. I have said this once, but I will say it again: that argument is nonsense. There is no support for it, and it is factually incorrect. I personally know at least 4 people who were on welfare for a period of time before pulling themselves together and becoming successful. One of them was a friend of mine from high school who is now a very successful dentist. This person alone disproves your argument that welfare “does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of poverty and dependence on government.” Again, the idea that social programs do “nothing” but harm is simply wrong. They help many people. You may personally believe that their costs outweigh their benefits, or that we could implement better alternatives in a hypothetical alternative world, but your claims, as are, are completely indefensible.
I am sure you have a zealous fan stalking out there. living social
Comments (46)
But I LOVE potato chips!!
Science proves Conservatives (albeit extreme ones) hate thinking
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s12/sh/25b88c91-94e8-4729-a548-f5b463bb66ce/4be5d6f6e205896490f7c75aa398ca34/res/016c5f91-5e9e-4411-8305-585bdf2a612c/Pers%20Soc%20Psychol%20Bull-2012-Eidelman-0146167212439213.pdf
$7billion on potato chips?! Psssh, and you made fun of my mere 8 bags in the cupboard! =]
@StupidSystemus - I can’t access that file. Is your evernote account password protected?
it’s unfathomable to me that there are people who get behind any war yet whine about tiny percentages of our military expenditure being put toward science and exploration. one only has to look around to see everything we take for granted from home to work and back represents scientific discovery and invention and if not for science and exploration those of us who live in the United States wouldn’t be. we’d be sitting in the old country still steeped in the belief the world is flat and if we sail far enough and are lucky enough to not be eaten by giant serpents we’ll fall off the edge of the Earth. and frankly conservatives have no place telling anyone about the economy after filibustering every jobs bill they had the option to allow to the floor of Congress for a vote.
Who gives a shit where the money gets spent? It’s still getting spent regardless, and as a result, no matter where the money spending falls, our economy is still in a big fucking shithole.
That being said, NASA’s achievement of the Curiosity landing is incredible. It’ll be a huge step in science and space exploration as well as engineering, and depending on what is found, that may translate into what future generations start learning in school. I’d say the positives far outweigh the negatives here.
But our economy is still shit, so…idkmybffjill
The NASA rover cost everyone in the US $7 each. That’s a small price to pay for keeping science and technology moving forward!
There are many ways to improve the economy. I don’t think cutting NASA will help more than it will hurt, though.
@GodlessLiberal – hmmm. It was accessible earlier in public. That stinks. The study deduced that drunk people have more conservative views while drunk, requiring less thought process. The same was found among many conservatives.
@StupidSystemus - Ah yes, I’ve read that study. Interesting, but not as interesting as some of the studies I’ll be posting in the next week on this topic.
It is all in the prices.
Tell me, what should it cost to send a rover to Mars?
When they bring back the marshmallow you’ll change your tune!
So are you being anti-science now?
All the money spent on welfare, social spending in general, and foreign aid to countries that hate us and the end result is a progressively worse economy. Better to cut social spending and invest the money into things which produce tangible results.
@StupidSystemus - Or, it might be more accurate to say that when people are drunk they have less inhabitions so their true opinions come out more. Anyways, I’m not impressed with the thought process of liberals, which seems to be based more on regurgitating the talking points of liberal politicians rather than independant reflection.
@TheSutraDude - Where do you get off saying that conservatives are anti-science? You will find a lot more proponents of the space program on the right than on the left. It was your man Obama who canceled the Constellation program, which would have been the greatest human endeavor in recorded history, and more of a leap forward in science and exploration than the discover of the New World.
Anti-science conservatives vehemently defend the Mars landing because they can latch onto it as a sign of American exceptionalism. That being said, it’s difficult to calculate what the “value” or “return” on the landing will be to the American people. The most direct value of previous space exploration missions has been the technology they produced, which have bettered everything from medicine to air plane travel.
Alright, so, these are the things that have been accomplished by Obama or the federal government since Bush left office: (1) stabilized the economy; (2) killed Bin Laden (which most conservatives would have heralded as an affirmation of Bush’s presidency in and of itself had it happened under his watch); (3) health care reform; (4) the mars landing; (5) completely reconstructed the student loan system (demonstrably better than what it once was); (6) legalized and promoted stem cell research; (7) created regulations that allow EPA to issue climate change rules; (8) passed a stimulus package that is unprecedented in the last 100 years; etc. This has all occurred despite having the most obstructionist Congress in the history of American politics.
Obviously, conservatives don’t like Obama or his agenda, but I find the reticent liberals who pretend Obama is some kind of lame duck or presidential dud to be pretty puzzling at this point. What he has managed to accomplish under the circumstances is pretty impressive. Regardless, everyone who objectively looks at what he’s done should be able to agree that he has done more in 4 years than Bush accomplished in 8 (whether you find what he has done good or bad is another question).
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - Because the vast majority of climate change deniers, anti-evolutionists, vaccine conspiracists, old Earth deniers, moon-landing deniers, flat earth proponents, and general skeptics of the modern scientific method are right-wing conservatives. This really isn’t surprising because many right-wing Christians view modern science as a direct threat to their religious world view (hence, their hatred of metaphysical naturalism, a foundational pillar of modern science). For example, you don’t see xangans like Soccerdadforlife or (the late) Interstellarmachine on the left. They just don’t exist.
Liberals generally don’t deny the benefits (or existence) of space exploration, as conservatives deny the scientific evidence on any number of issues. Liberals simply tend to think that in today’s economy, space exploration shouldn’t be as high a priority as it has been.
It’s also $2.5 billion dollars that’s been spent over the course of several years, if not a decade.
Yet JPMorgan Chase can “lose” $4+billion dollars and no-one bats an eyelid.
hmmm.
Priorities straight much?
I generally don’t dispute the value of space exploration. What we lost sight of among the news headlines is that we already found life on Mars. We found a meteorite from Mars in Antarctica about ten years ago that contains fossil microbes. Case closed.
Not just the money spent but you have to look at the advances made over time when we as humans explored and took on greater challenges.
@cmdr_keen - liberals didn’t “bat an eye” when Morgan Chase tanked? Do you not read mainstream news or something?
@UTRow1 - First of all, I don’t see what basis you have for calling us “anti-science” when we are the only ones who support government spending on scientific endeavors. By that I am of course talking about military tech and space exploration, which are two fields that you liberals are always wanting to axe in favor of social spending, which produces a good deal of debt and no tangible fruits. As a conservative I disagree sharply that the primary reason behind wanting to see science progress is for American exceptionalism, although even if it were I see nothing wrong with that. If it produces good results then it’s a good thing, regardless of the motivations behind it. That being said, I could say in return that the primary reason why the left hates space exploration is because they hate the idea of American exceptionalism. It’s not hard to find plenty of speakers on the left who openly admit to hating America and want to see it fail. Similarly, I believe that many of the policies of the left wing politicians are to drag the US down to the level of less advanced countries in order to ‘level the playing’ field as it were. The left has a long and grisly history of punishing achievment.
Here are some very direct benifits will come out of space missions of things are done properly: Better computers, better sensors, better means of propulsion, finding and/or creating new places to live, harvesting new resources, and last but not least, knowing more about the universe.
I agree with you part way, he has done more damage in 4 years than Bush has in 8. For example, Obama’s NDAA is a good deal more draconian than the much criticized Patriot Act which Bush passed. In any case, they were both terrible presidents. Bush was a neo-con who undermined the Republican party while eroding American freedoms on the homefront, and Obama has continued all of the worst Bush ideas and added other calamities to them. We have Obungle to thank for quadrupeling the national debt, and I hold his economic policies to blame for my not being able to get a job in my field. Even though I have been through college twice, have a 4.0 average, academic honors EACH year, and positive professional reccomendation letters from previous employers and university professors. It’s bunk to say Obama has done any good for the economy. He has most likely put us into a permanent rut.
Also, it is dubious whether or not Obungle killed Bin Laden, or whether or not Bin Laden was even killed. We have nothing to go on for that but his word. Normally I don’t care for Bollywood, but there is a humorous movie that came out about a scenario like that when Bush was president. They were joking about staging a fake killing of Bin Laden so that the US could sell it as a victory and go home, and at the time I thought “this is so stupid, no one would ever believe that, and it would never work.” Then out comes the news that Bin Laden was supposedly killed, but the body was conveniently dumped in the ocean (why?), there are no photos, and of course no video footage. What rubbish is that? Showing the footage or at least the body would have been great PR for Obama if he and his people actually had anything to do with it. I would have shown them if I were president, and it would have guaranteed my reelection. We can find videos and photos of Saddam being excecuted, and he was not as much of an enemy for us as Bin Laden.
As for the Mars probe curiosity. What is your basis for giving credit to Obama for that other than the fact that he was occupying the white house at the time. Was he part of the planning team? Did he order them to do that specifically? Even if he did that does not excuse him from cancelling the Constellation program, and because of that I will always associate him with a curse in my mind.
@UTRow1 - You cannot call us anti-science just for not sharing your belief that the universe is self existing. If you are going to that then you may as well call us anti-science for also denying Hinduism, or the belief that Gaia was boffed by Oronos. We do not have a problem with the scientific method, in fact it is partly because of the scientific method that we do not accept much of what evolutionists have to say regarding the origin of the universe. If you want to believe that the universe is eternal, or that it came from nothing completely on it’s own then you are free to do so. I do not support forcing people to believe in anything, however, you know full well that along with that you have to accept other notions, such as the laws of physics not being constants. Actually it was Christians who founded every branch of modern science. Metaphysical naturalism is your a priori assumption, not ours, and the foundation of your belief system, not science. Science is restricted to empirical observable things, and your origin beliefs operate outside of what can be observed and tested. Evolutionism is nothing but a pseudo-scientific rehashing of pantheism, because you don’t want to be held accountable for your actions by a higher being.
@UTRow1 - it was announced, people responded, it was forgotten about with nothing coming out of it. It certainly didn’t hit the popular media as much as Curiosity has.
There certainly wasn’t the hand-wringing about “wasted money” as in this case.
@cmdr_keen - The left is blatantly anti-progress. Which is ironic considering how they have duped some people into calling them “progressives.”
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - [Also, it is dubious whether or not Obungle
killed Bin Laden, or whether or not Bin Laden was even killed. We have
nothing to go on for that but his word.]
His word, and the word of hundreds of military personnel, politicians and state department officials who were shown the photographic evidence.
[The left is blatantly anti-progress. Which
is ironic considering how they have duped some people into calling them
"progressives."]
The progress that progressives try to make happens to be for personal well-being. You know, like giving equal rights to people that don’t currently have it. Silly little progress things like that. Sorry we aren’t as keen on creating an atomic bomb with a couple extra megatons of yield as you’d like us to be.
@GodlessLiberal - Again, I haven’t seen any concrete evidence. This is like me saying that you should believe in Jesus because there were many people in the early Church who claimed to have seen him resurrected. I know you would say “where’s the proof?” And that’s all I’m saying here.
Maybe you think that you are for equality, and maybe you as an individual actually are, but in general that’s not what I’m seeing from the left. Tell me what you think of this if you get some time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSvV9RhX7eI&feature=plcp
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - (1) I am not calling all conservatives anti-science, I am describing a group of conservatives: anti-science conservatives (which include the Xangans I named). “Anti-science” is a qualifier.
I’m sorry if it offends you, but my analysis of this group of people is entirely accurate. Furthermore, anti-science conservatives are more numerous and ignorant than their liberal counter-parts. Again, the liberals you mention can be distinguished from the conservatives I name because they don’t deny the science behind space exploration or gun technology like anti-science conservatives. They just tend to not believe they benefit society or don’t believe their benefits outweigh the costs, so they would rather have the government invest federal funds in other endeavors. Anti-science conservatives, however, remain willfully ignorant of science in order to deny evolution, global warming, vaccine efficacy, etc. The later is patently more “anti-science” than the former. It would be more apt to classify the liberals you mention as disliking the application of certain science/technology rather than the science itself.
(2) “social spending, which produces a good deal of debt and no tangible fruits.”
Provide evidence for this claim. For example: I am pretty sure the veterans who receive veteran’s benefits from the federal government, including the best veteran’s health care in the world, would disagree. “Social spending” produces a great deal of “tangible fruits” to a great number of people. Whether you believe there are more efficient/better alternatives is another matter, but arguing it provides “no tangible fruits” is factually wrong. Not wrong as a matter of my personal opinion, but wrong as a matter of fact.
(3) “As a conservative I disagree sharply that the primary reason behind wanting to see science progress is for American exceptionalism”
I never claimed it was the primary reason why Americans want to see scientific progress. I stated it’s the reason why many anti-science conservatives (e.g., evolution deniers) are so fanatically pro-space exploration despite generally being ignorantly skeptical about other scientific issues.
(4) “That being said, I could say in return that the primary reason why the left hates space exploration is because they hate the idea of American exceptionalism.”
The left doesn’t hate space exploration. There is no evidence for this. Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and Project Apollo all occurred/were launched during JFK’s presidency. There really is no disputing that he, a notoriously liberal president, prioritized space exploration more than any other president any American history.
Similarly, NASA’s scientists are pretty notoriously liberal within the scientific community, particularly their xenobiologists. Furthermore, as I have already stated, believing that we shouldn’t be spending billions of dollars on space exploration when the economy is stagnant is a completely defensible position. I don’t personally believe it, but insinuating that the people who do take that position (including many conservative libertarians) hate American exceptionalism (regardless of how it is defined) is beyond dubious. What most liberals hate is detrimental American exceptionalism, which is prominent on the right on numerous issues (like health care reform).
(5) “It’s not hard to find plenty of speakers on the left who openly admit to hating America and want to see it fail.”
Give me a list of 10 prominent left intellectuals who have explicitly done so, including a source, please. If it’s not hard to find these individuals, you should be able to accomplish this pretty easily.
(6) “The left has a long and grisly history of punishing achievment [sic].”
This is just a mush-headed conservative talking point based on the false premise that rich people are entitled to certain benefits of their labor and/or the labor of others. There’s really no basis for it in reality, but if you can find some meta-studies substantiating that claim, I would be glad to see them.
(7) “Here are some very direct benifits will come out of space missions of things are done properly . . .”
Did you not read my comment? I explicitly stated that “That being said, it’s difficult to calculate what the “value” or “return” on the landing will be to the American people. The most direct value of previous space exploration missions has been the technology they produced, which have bettered everything from medicine to air plane travel.”
(9) “I agree with you part way, he has done more damage in 4 years than Bush has in 8. . .”
Actually, you agreed with 100% of what I wrote. I explicitly stated that Obama accomplished more than Bush in 4 years, but it was up for debate as to whether all of it was good (but I would argue he has done more good than Bush, which is a pretty easy argument to win).
(10) “Also, it is dubious whether or not Obungle killed Bin Laden, or whether or not Bin Laden was even killed.”
Actually, only fringe conspiracists deny Bin Laden was killed. And yeah, Obama didn’t pull the trigger, but nobody can possibly deny that he didn’t play a direct role in Bin Laden’s death.
(11) “What is your basis for giving credit to Obama for that other than the fact that he was occupying the white house at the time.”
What I said was that it occurred during Obama’s tenure. I didn’t give him sole credit. The POTUS is an executive, not a scientist. He did what an effective president does: appoint qualified agency members, provide appropriate funding, educate the public, etc. That’s all he can do, and that’s what he did.
There’s more, but it would just be more of the same.
@cmdr_keen - Are you really not capable of discerning a distinction between the two to account for the difference in public opinion (and it’s not just among liberals, it’s among virtually everyone)?
NASA is a federal agency that is almost entirely funded by money from the federal government. People, obviously, get upset when the federal government spends billions of dollars on a programs that they believe do not feel directly benefit them because much of that money comes from taxes. Congress and the president are directly accountable for how they spend federal money to the American people (or at least indirectly accountable through the political process). This is the way government works.
Conversely, Morgan Chase is a private entity. The vast majority of its money does not come from taxpayers, nor are they accountable to the general public for how they spend their money. They are accountable to clients, not constituents, tax payers, etc.
Companies misuse or mismanage money all the time, but the general public tends not to get as upset as when the federal government does the same because the obvious differences in the nature of the relationships between people and government/private entities. Private entities are supposed to promote their own interests or the interests of share holders or clients. The government is supposed to pursue the general welfare. This isn’t difficult shit, brah. The two aren’t equivalent and the discrepancies create the different expectations, which are quite obvious.
@GodlessLiberal - “His word, and the word of hundreds of military personnel, politicians and state department officials who were shown the photographic evidence.”
No man, it’s a world-wide conspiracy. Obama, the entire federal government (including the military), and the government/military officials throughout the world who have confirmed Bin Laden’s death are all in on it! It’s so obvious because I was thinking to myself last month how convenient it would be for Obama if Bin Laden died, and then he did! Case closed. It’s called evidence, you faggot liberal.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - You’re really submitting a slideshow of memes to the song of Nyan Cat as evidence? I give up, you’re just a troll.
@GodlessLiberal - I didn’t make that, I just wanted to see what you thought about it.
@UTRow1 - That’s right, all we have is their word to take for it. If anyone was shown photographic evidence then it should still be there. So let’s see it. That’s all I’m saying.
As for conspiracy… Well, I don’t take those people at their word on anything. At best they are an opportunistic parasite class. I don’t understand why you trust them so implicity, but it’s interesting because it seems like you have more faith in them than most Christians do in God.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - “Their word”? As in “everyone’s” word? You are actually arguing “yeah, everyone with any insight into the matter–including every nation’s military personnel and every reliable news entity–thinks he’s dead, but they are a parasite class”? Haw.
I trust every credible person as opposed to no credible people because I am not stupid and/or insane.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - I think it’s worthless garbage that is coated with obnoxious music and has about a one in seven rate for the meme to hold any sort of water.
@UTRow1 - Again, your only basis for calling us anti-science is that most of us deny evolutionism, which is just your belief system, not an empirically corroborated fact. If you want to believe that everything popped in from nothing completely on it’s own, or the steady state theory, or whatever psuedo-scientific rehashing of pantheism you want, but it’s only science if you have observation and repeatability.
We are distrustful of global warming as well as some types of vaccines for a few reasons, but one of them has to do with what globalists are saying about those things and how they are using them:
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 LA Riot]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond [i.e., an "extraterrestrial" invasion], whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
“Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.”
Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1953) p. 5
More on Global Warming: http://okavangochallenge.com/sustainability-report/quotes-from-global-warming-globalist-must-read
Global warming is a scare they are generating to make people more open to a totalitarian solution.
I can provide more quotes if necessary, but I think you get the point. Maybe.
What I meant by tangible fruits was quantifiable progress, or a definite step forward. I have no objection to pension plans and retirement plans for veterans, and good employer should provide these things. But the benifits of social security and welfare are dubious at best. Something that would benifit everyone is a new technological advance, a new resource to harvest, or a new place to live. Handing money to people benifits those recipients directly, but it harms the people who the money is taken from. Again, talking about welfare here.
Origins is a philosophical and religious issue not a scientific one. What I don’t understand is why more evolutionists are not pro-science, by that I refer to scientific advancements (besides just spreading your belief system). You should be in favor of anything that accelerates the ascent of man. You should also be eugenicists, all of you, or at least those of you who care. But the truth is that most of you just want your evolutionism to deny God, and don’t really apply your beliefs to real life situations or social planning very often.
JFK was not even as far left as Bush. Yes he was a Democrat but that doesn’t automatically make him a leftist. Back then the Democrat party wasnt the sad seditious treasonous joke that it is today. You and I have different ideas about what is detrimental, and there are many liberals who think that the US should be accountable to foreign powers, such as the UN, or that we owe other countries aid, or should apologize for our actions abroad, etc.
You said 10 prominant intellectuals because you know full well that there are scores of left wing followers who spout anti-American hate on a daily basis. Of course leaders have to be more shrewd with what they say, but even so, here you are:
Walter Cronkite (anti-American, pro-UN): http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-terrible-truth-about-walter-cronkite/
Michelle Obama (ashamed to be American): http://www.bloggernews.net/113935
Dr. Henry Kissinger : http://globalistagenda.org/quotes.htm
Reverend Jeremiah Wright (Obama’s pastor): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY2_2D0ANEA&feature=related
Obama (calls for world government, disdainful of traditional society): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKb2TBUqpCQ&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhB8Mz7i9hQ&feature=fvwrel
http://citizenandsoldier.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-quote-bitter-cling-to-religion-or.html
Nancy Pelosi (working toward world government): http://marionvalentine66.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/agenda-21-one-world-government/
Rosie O’Donall (sympathizes with terrorists): http://voices.yahoo.com/video/rosie-rabble-rosie-odonnell-her-recent-anti-american-289490.html
Michael Moore: http://akijikan.chattablogs.com/archives/025471.html
George McGovern (world government): http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/george_mcgovern_quote_d0bc
Hillary Clinton (support of world government): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrhHRC9XWMQ
No no, you all live by the statement “take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his need.” “False premise”? There is nothing false about the premise that people are entitled to the fruits of their own labors, and own the rights to their own accomplishments, and not just rich people but everyone. Of course, given that you have no objective source of morality I can understand how you might be willing to do anything and subject anyone to any kind of depredation as long as it suits your own desires and needs.
I agree with you part way on Obama having done more than Bush, but I consider all of it to be bad. Therein lies the difference.
I am curious, have you read Saul Alinsky’s rules for radicals?
I call the politicians, especially the Democrats, a parasite class because they live off of tax money and produce nothing in return. They generate no wealth but they drain a good deal of it, and the catastrophic economic policies of the Obungle administration have quadrupled the national debt, which is going to cause all of us to suffer. They perpetuate the myth that we need a huge bureaucracy (spelling?) because without us (the citizens and producers) they would not be able to live. As for the issue of Bin Laden being killed, again, I’m skeptical. I’m sure you have met Christians who have tried to convince you of the resurrection of Jesus based on how many witnesses there were back in the day. Some of them may even have given you a number, and an argument for the historical veracity of the gospels. My guess is that you blew it all out your ear, because 1) you don’t know those people, 2) you cannot independantly verify what they said, you cannot go and see Jesus yourself or look at photos or video footage and 3) all the people making the argument and the alleged witnesses are all of the same ideological persuasion.
That’s how it is for me and the Bin Laden killing. I want to see some evidence. I don’t trust these guys and I have no reason to. What reason would they have for hiding the body and the photos? Tell me that. It would be really great PR for Obama to show those things, and yet he didn’t. To me the reason is obvious, the annoucement was just a political ploy, and either Bin Laden is still alive, or he died much earlier through no efforts of Obama or the US forces and the body was burried by his own people.
@UTRow1 - I never said you were stupid or insane, in fact, I am not closed to the possibility that you have a higher IQ than I do (mine is 135). BUT, after having debated with you on multiple occasions I have noticed one very serious flaw in your thought process. You don’t take agenda or motive into account when assessing a situation or position. You tend to think that those who disagree with you are either stupid or ignorant, and those with whom you agree are intelligent or have superior knowledge. Unfortunately it is never that simple. Everyone who does something does it for a reason, most of the time.
Look at your politicians. What do you think their motives are? Do you really think that the Democrats are altruistic and care about helping anyone? They are all elitists. They make a forced medical plan for everyone in the country and exempt themselves. They talk about sharing the wealth and helping the poor, but in the meantime they have huge salaries well above the national average, and they give themselves frequent raises. You know that we have to pay for their salaries. If they really believe in what they preached then they would cut their own salaries down to minimum wage, or at least $10/hour, and have the rest of the money go to helping the poor or to education. They are the most blatant hypocrites.
@GodlessLiberal - Fair enough. But let me ask you this, I already know how you feel about spending money on developing better nukes, but how would you feel about spending money on developing defenses against nuclear weapons? I remember reading something in Popular Mechanics when I was in my teens about a defense system that would automatically take down incoming nukes, but it was still in the planning stage at the time. Wouldn’t that be a practical application of technology and much more pragmatic than trying to get rid of all the world’s nukes through talks?
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - I believe (depending on how old you are) that you’re talking about Reagan’s Star Wars system, which was shown to be extremely expensive and totally unreliable. If there were a way to reliably prevent nuclear weapons from going off, I would be all for it. At the moment, however, there is no such system, and Star Wars (even if it had worked) would only protect us from ICBMs, which means suitcase nukes, dirty bombs and any bombs dropped from traditional aircraft would be immune. And those are the types that America needs to worry about right now.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - (1) Depending on how you define fact, evolution is a scientific fact. Regardless of you how you define fact, evolution is not a belief system. It is “empirically corroborated” beyond a reasonable doubt. Its mechanisms have been observed time and time again, its mechanisms have” repeatability,” and these results have been independently corroborated by dozens of scientific fields, including biogeography, biochemistry, ecology, paleontology, geology, physics (half-life decay, radioisotope dating), etc. These fields often arrived at consistent results using different and independent methodologies. We use evolutionary biology principles to develop many of the drugs we use, the modified foods we eat, the animals we own, etc. This reflects the fact that 99.9% of life scientists (biologists, chemists, etc.) accept evolution. I’m sorry, but the scientists are correct the science that is the subject of their expertise; the interpretations of non-scientists are not correct. Who would have thought?
Look, I have a degree in biochemistry, and I assure you that you don’t know the first thing about evolution. For instance, evolution doesn’t posit “everything popped up on its own”. Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the origins of life. Evolutionary mechanisms could have only taken place once the first applicable cellular organisms came into being. That is the beginning of the scope of evolution. It has nothing to do with the beginning of the universe or the processes by which cellular organisms were created (abiogenesis).
Similarly, evolution also has nothing to do with the Steady State Theory or pantheism. They are irrelevant to its discussion.
Sorry, but these points have been addressed on this very site dozens of times. I am not interested in rehashing them with someone telling me about science who clearly doesn’t know the first thing on the subject, certainly doesn’t know more than I do, and certainly hasn’t researched the issues from scientific sources at all.
(2) Politics are irrelevant to the veracity of science. You allow the former to guide your views on the later, which is backwards. The fact that there are “globalists” (a curious claim) is irrelevant to the veracity of the science behind global warming or evolution.
One of the things that distinguishes you from me is that I am aware of various influences that may or may not impact someone’s motives, but I do not simply assume that the corrupt the science because it suits my political worldview. I understand that if I cannot find fault with the methodologies or the interpretation of them, I do not have a rational basis for rejecting those findings. Furthermore, if I do not have any evidence that there actually were (a) such motives or (b) those motives actually impacted the results, then I have no rational basis to make the assumption that the motives either exist or contaminated the results. In that case, which is the case of global warming skeptics, I do not have a rational basis to suspect corrupting motives or corrupted results. Lastly, the peer-review process and publication of data and studies for critique eliminate your concern. If the evidence and studies aren’t reliable, skeptics should be able to impeach them. They haven’t.
The bottom line is that there is a firm scientific consensus behind AGW (anthropogenic climate change) is overwhelming and the the hundreds of independent studies investigating its causes are virtually unimpeachable (or at least the skeptics have failed to cast doubt on them). There are virtually no credible scientists who deny AGW any more. With the conversion of Richard Muller, the debate is effectively over. Virtually all of the world’s experts believe in AGW with scientific certainty, and most of them I know cannot be fairly described as “globalists” or liberal shills. It’s not like it’s just the UN or IPCC. It’s virtually all respected climatologists, some of which are conservatives and/or Christians.
(3) “What I meant by tangible fruits was quantifiable progress, or a definite step forward.”
First, different people have different definitions of “progress” or what is “forward”. For instance, many social conservatives would view outlawing abortion as “a step forward,” but liberals would view it as a step “backwards” because, historically, it used to be outlawed before it was made illegal and it would almost certainly have a negative impact on women’s reproductive health.
Second, to me and most liberals, the creation of social security and welfare was “progress” in every meaning of the word. The inception of both are directly tied to the increase in personal wealth, increased life expectancy (was about 40 years before them), etc. that occurred during and after the New Deal era. The bottom line is that the nation experienced unparalleled growth in these areas in the mid-20th century, and there’s absolutely no valid argument that these programs had nothing to do with them.
Now, if you believe the programs need to be reformed, or are no longer the most efficient alternative, that’s a separate matter for debate.
Lastly, you seem to not understand the scope of “social programs”, which is why I brought up veterans’ care. There are literally hundreds of “social programs” that demonstrably do have “tangible benefits” and, in my mind and the minds of most, represent “progress.”
(4) “I have no objection to pension plans and retirement plans for veterans, and good employer should provide these things.”
You want employers to provide veterans benefits? That doesn’t address the issue. If soldiers come home from war with debilitating injuries, they need health care upon arrival. Many veterans come home with injuries that require care, physical therapy, etc. before they have a job. Many of these injuries take years to address and make them unemployable or at least severely limit their employment (many veterans have little formal education and tend to seek employment in retail, the service industry, or physical labor). Private insurers will not cover many of these veterans if their federal coverage is dropped because they have pre-existing conditions. Similarly, employers won’t cover these men because their care is incredibly expensive (PTSD, prosthetics, etc.) out of the goodness of their hearts because they are businesses. They can almost certainly hire someone else who can do the job as well or nearly as well as the verteran and does not have significant health care issues.
Like most governmental programs, veterans’ health care exists for a reason. It didn’t just spring up by itself with broad political support among liberals and conservatives for no reason. It addresses a need that the market and private entities couldn’t address adequately on their own in the past. Go up to your local Veterans’ Hospital and see for yourself. They’re filled with veterans’ who simply wouldn’t be alive without these programs.
(5) The rest of what you write either is irrelevant to what I have written, or relates to something I have already addressed. I am not interested in re-rebutting the same, unaltered arguments, or arguments based on the same poor evidence.
@UTRow1 - I tend to go with the traditional definition of a fact. But let’s talk about evolution. I think I do know quite a bit about evolution in spite of my not having a scientific degree, just like I know quite a bit about the Bible in spite of not having a theological degree. In any case, I have most likely had more scientific education than Darwin, who was the founder of modern evolutionism. That being said, in one way you are partly correct when you say that the mechanism behind evolution have been observed, at least one of them has. By that I am of course referring to natural selection. Of course the only reason I am saying you are correct in regards to that particular mechanism is because that natural mechanism was trumped up as a mechanism for evolution, but unjustly so. The fact is natural selection does occur, but it can only select from that which is in the gene pool. No amount of natural selection is ever going to get a bird from a lizard, which is what evolutionism teaches happened in spite of a complete lack of empirical data to corroborate that. Natural selection is a thinning process rather than an enriching process. You still have to have a mechanism for adding new genetic information, and there is none. The things you mention, breeding animals, genetically engineering foods, etc., are all examples of artificially selecting for traits which are already in the gene pool, or adding synthetic traits created in a lab. No amount of genetic engineering can ever corroborate evolution, and I have to say, the benifits of genetic engineering are dubious at best. Although that could change in the future.
It does not matter if 100% scientists believe in evolution. Consensus, even among experts, does not make something correct. The majority of scientists believed in the Ptolomaic cosmology for a good deal longer than they believed in evolution, and that was not correct either. The fact is that evolution is the official position of the establishment, which is why so many scientists adhere to it.
Since you are a scientist I’m not going to beat around the bush too much because you are already in the know, and one thing you know is that all the radiometric dating methods are calibrated based on assumptions of the age of the Earth and the universe. You also know that the data is interpreted in light of the geologic column. You also know that evolutionists operate under the a-priori assumption that the universe and everything in it has to be a product of itself. I believe you call it naturalism. I don’t see how you can separate biological evolution from geologic, stellar, and cosmic evolution. Before you have life to evolve you have to have life, and the same people who believe in biological evolution also believe that the universe itself evolved, and that prior to that it appeared from nothing. So when I say “evolution” I tend to use it as a loose catch all for all the stages of the origin of the universe. Believing in biological evolution without believing in cosmic evolution would be like me believing in Deuteronomy without believing in Exodus. Perhaps you wish to throw a bone to the theistic evolutionists, but admitting a deity at any stage of the origin process makes all the other stages unnecessary.
2) I disagree, motivations are never irrelevant when credibility is at stake, and in my eyes they have low credibility. Did you read the page I linked you to? It’s really quite heinous what they are saying. The person making the positive claim bears the burden of proof, and they have yet to sell me on global warming. Even if there were not so many shady persons and motives involved in this scare, anyone who wants to sell it to me would be hard pressed given the cool and relatively mild summer my state has experienced this year.
3) Whether or not social security security is tied to an increase in life expectency is dubious at best. We have longer lifespans because medical science and sanitation practices are better now. SS is in a sorry state. You know you will never get back any of what you pay into SS. It all goes to older people who are already retired because the government is way behind on their payments. If they cancel SS then you will not even get SS benefits from the next generation or so, and they will have to cancel it because of our declining population. Welfare is a huge drain, and does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of poverty and dependence on government. I don’t see how having increasing numbers of people dependant on the government is progress. But yes, I know liberals consider these things progress. But we can have these things until the cows come home, and it won’t get us better technology or cleaner cities, and it won’t get us colonies on other worlds. Better to invest in technology and exploration, which produces tangible benifits for everyone. That’s what I call progress.
4) No, what I meant was that the military should pay their pensions and I have no problem with that. Which is why I said “like any good employer.”
5) OK
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - (1) I am not going to argue evolution in depth with someone who doesn’t even know what it’s basic definition is. Sorry, I have better things to do with my time, and every single one of your arguments have been rebutted time and time and time again on this blog and elsewhere. For instance, your arguments about radiometric have been addressed on at least three separate posts on this blog I have participated in. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of radiometric dating, as it is not “calibrated” based on “assumptions of the age of the Earth.” Radiometric dating is based on half-life decay rates of certain elements, which are inherent properties of matter. In fact, we calculate the age of the Earth based on radiometric dating techniques; we don’t “calibrate” radiometric dating techniques based on the age of the Earth. You have it backwards. I am telling you this as someone who really knows his shit.
I will also add citing Ptolomaic cosmology doesn’t support your position at all. It’s like me arguing the Bible is false because I discovered that the first spiritual man to have existed worshipped a rock because he incorrectly thought it was God, or had a mental illness — that proto-Christian person was wrong, and therefore, the claims of the Bible can’t be trusted. Obviously, this argument isn’t compelling because of the differences between the evidentiary support and credibility of the proponents of each belief system. Similarly, the proponents of Ptolomaic cosmology were not “scientists” in the modern sense and were not applying the modern scientific approach or modern scientific principles. Therefore, it’s irrelevant to the veracity of evolution, which is based on principles that have been independently verified using modern scientific principles we know with scientific certainty are valid. Furthermore, Ptolomaic cosmology was not verifiable because of its archaic mechanisms of inquiry. What ultimately supplanted it were the results of the modern scientific approach, which is what also led to the theory of evolution, climate change, etc.
I’m not trying to be an asshole about this, but it’s just not possible for me to teach you something online that took me over a decade of education at some of the best schools in the world to learn.
The bottom line is that evolution is one of the most complicated scientific theories ever devised, and it is many times more complicated than the Bible. My ecology textbook in grad school was 2,400 pages alone. Evolution synthesizes that information plus the information of dozens of other scientific disciplines.The Bible is a single book that is generally accessible literally and figuratively because it is available online and in every bookstore and was written by relatively primitive men. It can have deep meanings or inspire profound insights, but it’s pretty straight forward. Evolutionary biology takes decades of formal education for some of the brightest scientists on the planet to begin to/fully understand. Tens of thousands of technical peer-reviewed articles are written about it or its mechanisms every year. Most of these articles are only accessible to the general public through public/college libraries. It’s literally impossible for a single person to keep up with new science, let alone understand all of it. So your personal aptitude with the Bible doesn’t reflect, in any way, your personal aptitude with evolutionary biology.
(2) I didn’t say motivations were irrelevant. I said your speculation about the motivations of all scientists who disagree with you is weak evidence compared to the evidence supporting the opposing views (those of the scientific experts who are more likely to be correct). The evidence speaks for itself, which is why there are basically no credible skeptics any more. If we lived in a world where scientists all had uniform views, there was no peer-review process, and we couldn’t verify the accuracy of the results to ensure against bias, your evidence would have more weight. Fortunately, we don’t live in that world. We can verify that the alleged bias of a few didn’t contaminate the results of the entire scientific community.
(3) The federal government and its social programs have been major contributors to scientific advancement over the last 100 years. Federal hospitals and their outreach programs are among the best in the world, including our veterans hospitals, and the federal government is the largest provider of funding for academic, scientific research. This is how it has been since people began tracking scientific funding, and it has certainly been true in modern years. That’s not to say that private companies don’t contribute to scientific advancement, they just haven’t traditionally been the catalyst that the federal government in many scientific areas, including biomedical research, which have directly and substantially contributed to the wellbeing of the American people.
(4) That still doesn’t really address my argument. Furthermore, SS will never be “cancelled”. Ever. I am for reforming it (it doesn’t work largely because conservatives have butted it for the last 40 years), but it’s not going any where. That bill would never get through Congress. That’s an anarcho-capitalist fever dream.
Also, you keep asserting that welfare provides absolutely no benefit (“nothing”) to society. I have said this once, but I will say it again: that argument is nonsense. There is no support for it, and it is factually incorrect. I personally know at least 4 people who were on welfare for a period of time before pulling themselves together and becoming successful. One of them was a friend of mine from high school who is now a very successful dentist. This person alone disproves your argument that welfare “does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of poverty and dependence on government.” Again, the idea that social programs do “nothing” but harm is simply wrong. They help many people. You may personally believe that their costs outweigh their benefits, or that we could implement better alternatives in a hypothetical alternative world, but your claims, as are, are completely indefensible.
I am sure you have a zealous fan stalking out there.
living social
I’m planar for your article writings and contents fortunately.
online cash advance loans
Im inspired with the exceptional and instructive contents that you provide in such short timing.
payday loan lenders
These blogs are valuable because these are providing such informative information for all the people.http://lainaa2.fi/lainaa-heti/