Posted by doubletruck on 10/23/2014 1:34:00 AM (view original):
dahsdebater uses a classic debate tactic: Don't argue against the truth of the other person's statement, but attack the person himself.

You know very well that calling me a liberal has nothing to do with whether what I stated is true.

We should both live long enough to see whether the very rich ruin the country that I love. 

You didn't actually make any points in your response, what am I supposed to respond to, precisely?

You're too smart to play dumb.

Does a fiscal conservative, such as Warren Buffett, embrace traditional religious values and believe that the rich should pay their fair share? Or do you actually believe either that they are doing so now or that wealth disparity is meaningless? Is this whole matter a question of redistribution or really just a matter of fixing a broken system to remove mistakes that disproportionately favor the wealthy? 

GAME 1 HAD THE LOWEST WS RATINGS EVER?

"does the toll roads being "paid off" mean they no longer need to be maintained?  And does the wear and tear generated the vehicles of the rich cost more to repair than the wear and tear generated by the vehicles of the poor?"

I'll be fair and respond/answer this.   Of course not.

My point (though not very well put late last night) was just that toll roads greatly impact the middle-class and poor who use them much much more than the wealthy who travel them.  And as toll roads (when other possible routes are over-crowded or not as usable or convenient) that must be used for commutation to employment, etc. by the mass middle class and poor get far far heavier usage than the usage by the very well off (who may not NEED to commute for example) the reality is that it is the poor and middle class who are paying for the road and it's maintenance. The wealthy are getting (by and large) a pass.  While the rest of us pay for the road!!

AND what is happening with the fuel taxes???   They are designed to pay for the roads maintenance.  On EACH gallon of gas I purchased while traveling through Oklahoma recently I paid for Oklahoma's (and Kansas') road maintenance............ and they still took a toll from me!!  It is no secret to anyone that the middle class needs to use (and travels) roads at a higher rate than the wealthy.  This is a much different proposition than a park or some sort of other government funded entity wherein a usage fee would be appropriate.  I stand by my basic (and poorly written) premise that the wealthy are getting a (proportionate) pass on the super-highways called toll roads in both Kansas and Oklahoma.  The middle-class and poor are largely paying for them and (IMO) getting the shaft.

I, too, am a fiscal conservative.  Have been for many years (decades).  No-one (Government most definitely included) is able to spend more than they take in year after year after year.  I just believe that history itself demonstrates that the "right" (or Republican party and administrations) themselves have been the WORST at managing our national budget and running up debt that is passed on to future generations. Just look at the two timelines I mentioned earlier.  They just (as is their usual custom) just talk a big game of horse-pooey.  They don't actual practice fiscal restraint........ they're hypocrites........... just like on social issues.

And just what is conservative about attempting to use government to force (your own) moral codes on someone else???  Putting government in our bedrooms and homes is decidedly NOT a conservative ideology.  Neither is more and more restrictive laws attempting behaviour control through law enforcement at the expense of individual liberties GUARANTEED by our constitution. Empowering law enforcement agencies while eroding liberties is anything BUT conservative. If anything it's Nazi-ism!!  That same constitution that gives us all the right to be armed (2nd amendment) is the very same document that guarantees all (especially minority lifestyles. Like gay people for example) citizens the right to be legally wed.

The current crop of psuedo-conservatives are so far from actual conservative ideology it's sickening......... and terrifying IF they were ever to get control of our government at a huge or dominant level.  IF that happens wave bye-bye to your ability to live peacefully and as you see fit!!  Your OWN life will be completely controlled by that very same government you now rail about being so intrusive.  You think it's bad now???  You think (the federal) government is too controlling, too much in your lives???  Just wait until these morons masquerading as conservative (Cruz, McConnell, name your own right-winger, etc) do manage to get ahold of the power they seek.  These folks will inject government into EVERY aspect of our lives............... beginning with our bedrooms and continuing right on through dictating WHAT we smoke in our pipes.  Is that really what you want???

I live (have for many years) in the state of John McCain. And yes, he is a fool and a game player/politician of the highest order.  BUT, he's not half as bad as many of these current big name conservatives grasping for national power.  And no.............I'd never vote for him. The point I'm (likely poorly) trying to make is that the Republican party has been stolen by miscreants and nazis. Many of my kindred spirits who believe in "less government is best government" have been extremely slow to wake-up to this reality because of partisanship and an over-reaching hatred of the "liberal" left.  Partisanship, plain and simple.

I must remind everyone............Liberal is not an evil word.  This great country (that I too, love dearly) was FOUNDED on liberal principles!
We've got to stop letting fear blind us to reality.  IF you truly want freedom, you must give freedom to your neighbor..........even IF (and maybe especially if) you don't like his decisions and lifestyle. You just shouldn't have to subsidize that neighbor's poor decisions when those decisions negatively impact him.

Its high time we allowed everybody free choice BUT required them to pay their own way. Its called personal responsibility and it should definitely extend to finances and our national fiscal policy.  A hand up for those that need it........... You bet!!  But a hand-out to the irresponsible........... No f'ing way!!  We've done that for too long and have created a massive subservient underclass who take the "dole-out" and get progressively more and more dependant on others. THAT has to stop!

The two parties (EITHER of them) will never change the current system. They've established (and rigged) it to benefit them---------keep them in power.  Voting republican is JUST as ignorant as blindly supporting liberals/wealth redistribution.  Both paths are the ticket to total enslavement for the citizenry.

BTW---------I supported Ron Paul 30 years ago, when he was much much purer than he is now. That does NOT mean I buy the Libertarian philosophy hook, line, and sinker either!!  No ideology is perfect.  We (as citizens and voters) must grow up, get really informed (not just believe what we are told by talking heads and politicos---FOX news most definitely included), stop being guided by fear of the "different", and vote on the basis of REAL knowledge and REAL principle. Personal principle...guided by your own beliefs and experience. Until we quit voting for an evil "party-line" and start voting smartly (better yet---running for leadership positions OURSELVES----when was the last time you actually voted for a "normal" citizen, like your neighbor down the lane??) we will continue to be slaves to the oligarchy!!

Now, game 2 was a beaut!!  Looks like we might be in for a competitive series.  Who cares if the masses are too stupid to understand baseball's beauty and grace?  They're too stupid to even handle their own lives and finances. We already know that.......hence the debate.

Read!!   Study up!!!  and vote...................preferrably for anyone OTHER than a Dem. or a Republicrat.  When we finally break their stranglehold on the system we can then begin to find solutions to real problems and start living like the Constitution envisioned. FREE but RESPONSIBLE!!

Laramiebob

PS. Sorry for the long-winded rant. I couldn't help it this AM.  Now........... ask me about Obama-care............   LOL

I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree (though on many general points we seem to have basic agreement). But, rich people fly more---less driving for recreation.
Rich people don't commute.  The best way to pay for tolls is through an annual pass.  Most commuters probably can afford to do that (read that as the working folks). In fact, IF they work and can't budget well enough to buy an annual pass I have little pity for them.  However, the truly poor most likely can NOT afford the annual pass. Certainly not a problem for the advantaged!! 

(Where do you get the contention that our parks, etc are used mostly by the poor???  I see plenty of 100K+ motorhomes in our parks!!)

Admittedly I know little to nothing about the Bay area toll roads. Didn't even know there were any.  However, in Oklahoma--------(OK City to Tulsa) using toll roads to get around is nearly unavoidable.  This impacts the middle class and poor much more than the wealthy.  I don't get how you can't see this.

You never responded to my question about where the heck the gas taxes are going??  paid by the drivers using the most fuel, of course.  THAT is (perhaps) a proper usage fee for maintenance as you suggest is appropriate for our roads.  I'm not sure I agree with you (however) that basic mobility on our state and interstate highways should be entirely usage based.  That would be like eliminating (completely) sales tax on luxury items that only the wealthy purchase  (like yachts).  Our economic system is broken, in that the wealthy keep getting more---while the middle class keep struggling ever so much more mightily.  Year after year.  Trickle-down didn't work!!!  Greed is inherent.  To expect altruism among the wealthy is nonsense.  Read Ayn Rand. She was right about one thing (primarily). IF there isn't an inherent motive for the individual......the individual will NOT sacrifice for the whole of society.  That's not a wealth issue, that's human nature as an issue.

Here in the Phoenix metropolis, we have huge freeways, hugely crowded everyday from 3- 5 PM. many times completely stalled. bumper to bumper at 5 MPH with stops plenty.  Yet over 95% of the vehicles have exactly ONE occupant.  We have (mass) transit. Nobody uses it.  Government (STATE!) needs to act to create a personal incentive for car-pooling and mass transit usage.  Likely through a dis-incentive to drive solo!!  Again, human nature. We (myself included!) LOVE our automobiles.  We don't want to sacrifice for the global good. "Let somebody else do it" is the common concept.  We're (generally) a bunch of selfish a-holes (again myself included, though I do try in some areas, at least).

Until someone shows me that the Kansas turnpike (OR ANY of the others, like in Oklahoma) are NOT paid off, then I will continue to maintain that the toll is being used by the government (in BOTH of these examples---right wing Republican governments!) to just pad their general funds and is being used for other (largely inappropriate) uses.  NOT for the highway itself, OR its maintenance.

BTW, in Oklahoma the Turner turnpike is just as dilapidated and over-crowded as any other road.  But I still had to pay several tolls just to travel on it.  Not sure where all that revenue is going but based on the "pikes" condition it sure ain't going (primarily) into the road!  Also, even right-wing Oklahomans (by and large) complain about their toll roads being a government boondoggle/rip-off.

Last point. "Straight-forward Capitalism" is the term (I think) you used. I maintain we sure as heck don't want "straightforward capitalism".  Without some sort of government regulation over Capitalism we'd end up with one global corporation controlling every aspect of commerce. Capitalism is (by nature) cannibalistic. We have too little real competition already. We certainly don't want ever more powerful and larger global corporations.

It gets back to the very basic (and quite early in our democracy) argument between Hamilton and Jefferson. (Concentrated power in our big cities and industry) OR (as Jefferson believed) an agrarian (sp?) society based on land ownership for all (whites only, of course, at that time).  Which view is preferable?? The reality is (probably) somewhere in between. That is (likely) way beyond my pay-grade or intelligence. However, history clearly shows that Hamilton won that argument and we ended up with a Central bank (and system).  Anyone like that concept as embodied by the Federal Reserve???   Doubt it, IF you really understand what the Fed IS!!

Here's a real can of worms.  Because of the ACA (Obama-Care) I now have (for the 1st time in 2 decades) health coverage. I PAY for it!  Obamacare forced the Ins. corps to actually insure me.  Without it I wouldn't be able to even debate you as I'd be dead!!  3 weeks ago I had a heart attack. Because I had coverage I now have 2 stents and a future.................unlike my father (dead from heart attack at 46) , or Grandfather (same thing at 47) or Great Grandfather (again!!--46).

I got a second chance that they didn't get---because of a government that acted (no matter how flawed) to ATTEMPT to fix an acknowledged (by nearly EVERYONE) broken health care system in this country.  To castigate any President for attempting to solve such a serious deficiency within our society and actually hold insurance corporations accountable for their obligations within the concept of insurance that the government ALLOWS them to market for great profit????????????   WOW, what a concept!!  You might refrain from crucifying me for using the insurance because I have quite a story to tell as to why I hadn't been able to buy if for years!!  It wasn't for lack of effort, or money OR for a bad health history. Until 3 weeks ago I had never been hospitalized (or even suffered a broken bone) in 60 years.

I had hardly even used our medical system......out of choice and attempted healthy living and personal responsibility.  The carriers do their utmost to NOT actually cover anyone or anything their actuaries believe MIGHT cost them some of their massive profits. Read the fine print in your insurance policies, see for yourself (this applies to auto ins. life ins, etc---ALL insurance).  ALL you are actually paying for is a contract-----defined by the verbiage used within the contract---usually in fine print and hard to understand legal mumbo-jumbo.  The simple way of putting it is---that they are always only too happy to collect your premiums but VERY VERY reluctant to pay out any claim!!

Am I wrong??

LB

Bob lives! Preach it, Brother Bob!

   Well Steve, I come from a long line of evangelism and believers.  I may not preach the "gospel" but when I've learned a basic truth that others don't seem to get (know) I do my best to "eddicate" them----because sometime later on, their ignorance may impact me............ or my children........... or grandchildren.

Anybody actually delusional enough to think that Climate change is NOT real, or happening right this minute???   If so, then my response is---go buy some waterfront property------------live your belief!!   And no, any scientist will tell you, what's happening is NOT from "sunspots".

What a blatant lure..............    And I claim to hate fishing.       LOL.

LB

You state truth.  Very likely is likely an understatement.  Be back in a little while with one simple question related to this topic.  No time at the present.

OK I have a minute.  I first must apologize as I think my simple question is actually a "compounded one"........  likely will be a few questions.

First let me say I respect scientists immensely.  My daughter is one-- (at present pursuing her Doctorate at the U. of Illinois), her fiance is another (getting his doctorate in Analytical Chemistry--at the same University).  One of my better friends (and long-time debate partner) is a retired chemist.  IF we are to solve many of our problems, our scientist's will solve them----find answers, etc. Our future depends on good science and quality education!!!

Now----to the topic I fished you out on. Climate Change.  My simple question. It requires no real answer, just some pondering.

For how many 1000's of years did this planet (and it's related atmosphere) exist without combustible engines???
For how many years have we had combustible engines, and factories, spewing toxic (and non-toxic) smoke particles skyward?
How many combustible engines do you estimate exist on this planet today??   (Cars, trucks, diesel engines, factories, etc. all combined)
Each and every car/truck etc. spews Carbon particles, true???

Now the REAL question.  Don't you think that the millions and millions of "engines" spewing exhaust DAILY for only the last (what??) 120+/- years into our lower atmosphere has had an effect on the planet's atmosphere and therefore our climate??

To me, it doesn't take a trained and educated scientist to get my point.  It's simple common sense.  ONLY in the last (very) few years (planet-time wise) has all this exhaust been sent skyward. To believe that it hasn't mattered, and that it has no effect on our atmosphere stretches logic and credibility to the extreme.

Just like the framework you responded with, I can do the same.

ANY scientist who claims that any (perceived) climate changes are NOT exacerbated, or contributed to, by human activity (like engine exhausts) is whistling by the graveyard---and has demonstrated an extreme idealogical bias.  A bias that destroys his credibility and renders his scientific opinions worthless and in need of complete dismissal.

I don't need to be a scientist to conclude that.  I only have to possess a modicum of sense and USE IT!!!!

L.Bob

There is one rational reason to doubt that climate change is exacerbated (or caused) by human activity: The possibility that politicians will place increased regulations and taxes on the oil, gas and coal producers.

We need to offer the producers offsetting incentives for improvements in their technology and for new efforts they might make in producing alternative energy.

The orchestrated propaganda campaign we have seen against climate change acceptance is wasting money and energy that could instead be spent to prepare for coping with the future in a changing environment.

What puzzles me is that the producers and their supporters seem utterly unconcerned about the future. It seems that many of the very wealthy take "living in the moment" to mean "give me as much as I can accumulate right now."

I would love to see a study on "The Marginal Cost of Profit", that is what does the "last" dollar of profit cost society?

Wow! Been busy and did not check this thread regularly. Seems like I hit a nerve. 

People care about the fate of the Republic after all. 


Then you all realize - last night we dodged a bullet - had SF won (and I have nothing against them winning game 7 tonight) viewership would have crashed still farther. As it is, KC's win was too much of an early inning blowout. 

Our only hope now is that game 7 is one of the greatest in World Series history. 

The only way to save the world from economic collapse, world war 3 and global warming is to return America from a capitalist, finance-driven, globalizing empire beck to a republic concerned with building a city on a hill (not a "shining" city - that's Hollywood or Las Vegas, just a city), a better society for all. 

The American republic can't be restored without one of its historic pillars - that baseball be the national pasttime again. NOT frenetic-video-gamelike-played indoors in air condition in tight knit teams like corporate office work March Madness, NOT military-industrial complex football and definitely NOT soccer (no adjective needed). 

Restoring the national pasttime can only happen if another generation-changing Game 6 1975.like event occurs tonight. Had SF won last night it would have been off the table. KC's win gives us a shot, but only a shot. It matters not who wins tonight, only that the country remember its love of baseball and so of country, rather than being addicted to Middle East oil, and the geopolitics of pipelines and who runs obscure nations overseas. 

And if that happens it will remember, that America is not the free market system, or globalization, or corporations as people, or a bunch of banks (that's Switzerland), but a country as Bruce Willis said in "Live Fee or Die Hard". 

And they will remember: that we played baseball. that we had farms and farmers (not agribusiness that made seeds that don't reproduce), that we worked, in mines and mills, in factories and schools and everywhere and working, usually with our hands and our heads, we made the country rich, in places like Pittsburgh and Homestead and Detroit (40% of whose population is now denied water - only under capitalism could a city on the largest source of fresh water in the world go without drinking water and risk cholera). And we will say "Thank you Detroit - your work and workers and factories made us rich, and powerful and won us wars and saved freedom and civilization and we will not let you go down, for we are not a system but a country and we are all in this together and we will rebuild you and you will make, along with those other "rustbelt places" the trains that will link us coast to coast and enable us to traverse our great land in a few hours ans to see the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi "father of waters", the arch over St. Louis, and the Rocky Mountains where the fruited plains gives way at last along the way. And you will build our streetcars, so we can travel again in our great cities and towns without polluting the atmosphere and neighbors will see each other again and not just be "friends" on Faceboook and our republic will again be a living and breathing reality and made up of people and not corporate "persons" and people will say "nice to see you, see you tonight at the ballgame". 

And they will see each other at the ball game. And they will work again, with hand and head to make solar panels and harness the sun and when they sing "God shed his grace on thee" it will remind them that God's grace of sunshine powers the lights that light the alabaster cities that are undimmed by human tears. And they will make and put up as in an Amish barn-raising the windmill farms that will cover the same Great Plains (the "Persian Gulf of wind") and will power the continent for all time to come. 

And they will eat food made by farmers whose names they know and who knows perhaps milk deliverers (alas the milkman qua man will not survive equality - perhaps we can call them milkmen and milkmaids?) will bring fresh milk and butter each morning in glass (recyclcable) bottles to every home as they did when I was a child and we watched and played baseball and presidents did not break unions but helped build them, and we fought wars not because we could but because we had to. 

And we will teach our children not to be famous, or to be rich but to be good and to work hard and to fight for their rights and to live up to their responsibilities. And we will teach them that it was with honor that hundreds of thousands of men went down into the earth to mine coal before we knew to use the sun and the wind and that this sacrifice is to be honored, that men and women fought to build unions so we would not be nearly enslaved by employers and that many fought that no one would be a slave. And then we will teach them about Jackie Robinson. And they will not have contempt for those who work with hands and instead will have contempt for those who think themselves "masters of the universe" because they shift numbers around and break things into derivatives and securities and will ask "but what do those people DO all day?" while sitting with their friends and co-workers at the balll game eating a hot dog and drinking a beer or a coke.

And we will watch the great World Series games together with our kids ("Look at Willie Mays make that catch !" "Fisk did it ! It's finally over !") and say I hope that this is what tonight's game will be like and it will be. 

And we will read Whitman and watch and play baseball - our daughters alongside our sons - and they will all know they come from somewhere and do not just live in something called "the marketplace". 

Or tonight's game could just be a bloated boring blowout and many will yearn for Football Sunday, March Madness or turn to see how Manchester United is doing, and the Republic, and the world will go the way of the Pequod.