That's a good quote Bob.

Also not that I want to turn this into a gay marriage debate but, I would just really like to object to this:
"I'm not opposed to gay marriage personally, but I think the left needs to come up with a better argument than "equal protection under the law" because that's an absurd argument."
I'm sorry, I just want to clarify something. Are you arguing that it's absurd to consider marriage a legal protection, are you arguing that the constitution does not promise everyone equal protection under the law, are you arguing that the equal protection under the law does not treat LGBT persons as a group which should be equally protected, or are you arguing that LGBT persons are already equally protected.
Before you answer bear in mind that I'm just going to say that whichever you come back with, it's demonstrably false.

"Wages are on the decline because of the recession. It's not because the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Everyone is losing money in this economy."

Demonstrably untrue. Feel free to look at the Gini index trends for the US. It's been increasing for quite a bit longer than the interval since Wall Street and their stooges in the regulatory agencies ran the world economy into a brick wall through their aggregated stupidity, greed, and arrogance back in 2007-2008.

Gunfighter confirms every bad stereotype about police officers. I mean if policemen like gunfighter think it's ok to torture, wiretap, and that leftists deserve whatever abuse they have coming to them (but rightwingers should feel free to buy guns at a dime a dozen), then that's a sad commentary about law enforcement in the US.

"GOA demonstrations"

GOA....seriously? You're one scary dude. The GOA is run by avowed white supremacists with militia ties. They make the NRA look like the Brady Campaign.

Hey, gunfighter didn't say it was ok to torture everybody, just terrorists. And we know that no one would ever be so intemperate as to allege that someone is a terrorist who actually isn't, or use tools crafted for a limited purpose to combat one category of problems for a whole spread of categories completely unrelated to the original problem. So it's all chill to torture or assassinate American citizens, bro.

"I think the left needs to come up with a better argument than "equal protection under the law" because that's an absurd argument"

No. The left doesn't. As long as you're not a morally and intellectually corrupt asshole, no argument needs to be made. The absurdity behind banning gay marriage is mind-boggling.

"Humans are more important than trees and fish" (Ok, I paraphrased a little).
It's not an us or them scenario and, in many cases, it's an us AND them scenario. Most environmentalists aim at protecting HUMAN quality of life, not the animals or the trees. The biosphere is a large and complex system that does effect humans.

"I would not be surprised if you and your red friends blew up a government building. You're a bad guy."
This is why people are afraid of torture, extorting information etc. Without proper judicial system and laws, anyone can be deemed a 'bad guy' or 'terrorist.' You know full well that the odds of Putin33 blowing up a building are slim. However, you can throw around slander like that for political means. This is when things get murky. Can the government torture Putin to make sure he isn't planning some Communist plot? I would hope not.

Apropos of an unregulated free market being the best way to distribute healthcare:
Suppose we had a direct, unregulated market, in which all consumers, advised by doctors, purchased their own healthcare out of pocket. Now (1) many vital procedures are very expensive, but even if you ignore that, you run into (2): sick people are not in a position to be discerning customers. They are SICK, and they want to get BETTER. They will do anything and everything to acheive this goal, hang the cost and hang effectiveness. Thus, a simple market leads to gross inefficiency.

For the market to work, you need a third party involved, with an interest in keeping costs down. Hence the current system of employer-based insurance. There's no real reason why employers should be in the business of provideing health insurance to their employees; futhermore, a government clearly should do all it can to ensure the health of its citizens. Thus: regulation.

The role of the government, economically speaking, should be to balance costs and benefits. Markets have great difficulty solving problems of free riders, commons, and externalities. Equitable solutions require government intervention.

Anybody else see the irony in Gunfighter's rant against the government? He is a policeman.... That means he gets paid by the government...

Is hypocrisy coequal with irony? Anyway, he's also probably unionized and solidly middle class because of it, with decent benefits, including a pension and paid vacation and reasonable insurance as well. Of course, this is assuming he is who he claims, anyway, and not some precocious 14 year old who just read the Fountainhead for the first time and has no conception of the many problems Objectivism faces when it's applied outside the universe of a novel, who's having a bit of fun by fucking with us all.

Well when I was fourteen I read atlas shrugged and fountainhead. The first is a great science fiction novel. The second an impractical story about an egotistical architect. if you separate Rand's metaphysical and philosophical claims about human action claims from the economics it, unlike people like Gunfighter or Tettletons Chew would say, is a story about fuck the big business exploiters and the fascistic right wing governments, and collectivism, and the dominating rule bourgeoisie status quo,and let's focus on individuals ability to achieve in the real world. But for some reason when people read the books they get, fuck all liberals ( not just collectivist liberals) , they ignore that big business exploit people everyday and assume they are angels ( because they are probably eating a grilled made out of wonder bread and Kraft pre sliced cheese, and drinking a coke), and it's all the left wings fault that I can't hope to become part of the bourgeoisie, oh and how dare you tax the the rich people to whom I'm a slave? And then they mix their version of what Ayn Rands economics are ( ignoring the other philosophical claims because they cannot hope to grasp the concept ) with right wing Christian nationalist bullshit. And in the end you get right wing slaves to the bourgeoisie status quo who care more about the hypothetical ability of individuals to achieve in their Christian nationalist wonderland.
PS I ignored the fact that if Ayn Rands economics were implemented, It would be complete shit for a long time until someone can build a Randian Utopia ( impossible ) All her books are about everything going to complete shit and then they end with the promise that everything will go as planned... I don't understand how someone can really want that kind of world.

Well when I was fourteen I read atlas shrugged and fountainhead. The first is a great science fiction novel. The second an impractical story about an egotistical architect. if you separate Rand's metaphysical and philosophical claims about human action claims from the economics it, unlike people like Gunfighter or Tettletons Chew would say, is a story about fuck the big business exploiters and the fascistic right wing governments, and collectivism, and the dominating rule bourgeoisie status quo,and let's focus on individuals ability to achieve in the real world. But for some reason when people read the books they get, fuck all liberals ( not just collectivist liberals) , they ignore that big business exploit people everyday and assume they are angels ( because they are probably eating a grilled made out of wonder bread and Kraft pre sliced cheese, and drinking a coke), and it's all the left wings fault that I can't hope to become part of the bourgeoisie, oh and how dare you tax the the rich people to whom I'm a slave? And then they mix their version of what Ayn Rands economics are ( ignoring the other philosophical claims because they cannot hope to grasp the concept ) with right wing Christian nationalist bullshit. And in the end you get right wing slaves to the bourgeoisie status quo who care more about the hypothetical ability of individuals to achieve in their Christian nationalist wonderland.
PS I ignored the fact that if Ayn Rands economics were implemented, It would be complete shit for a long time until someone can build a Randian Utopia ( impossible ) All her books are about everything going to complete shit and then they end with the promise that everything will go as planned... I don't understand how someone can really want that kind of world.

This always interested me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_and_production

LOL Wikipedia. But. Check out USA, the only one in triple digits. China's at 77k. Japan and Russia are the next closest with Russia at 30k, Japan 22k.

The USA consumes about 5 times as much energy as Japan, who is well-known for their technological doodads.

^List is not per capita (i think) making it rather meaningless.

Not meaningless. The USA's population is about a fifth of that of China, yet the USA consumes 24 trillion BTUs more.

And Japan has a little under half the population of the USA, but consumes a fifth.

Right and sorry. Not meaningless but misleading. I was actually using it to compare other countries (not the US) when it struck me.

Not sure why I even had to interject with that. Just an itchy computer finger I guess.

threadID=733336 Look similar? Yeah, this thread was aimed at Tettleton, but I imagine he realised and avoided it like the plague after the "Tettleton says..." tactic. Almost every logical fallacy I used and most topics I brought up are contained in this thread. Most of them are Tettleton's. I am quite surprised that only 2 people openly said this was a total troll.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What's with people putting words in my mouth?

A lot of you are saying the same things to me, so I'll just reply by subject and not necessarily by person.

I'm not against gay marriage at all. Personally, I think the federal government should stay out of the marriage issue. I'm just saying that the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution does not necessarily guarantee gay marriage rights. Everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite gender. In other words, everyone is equally protected.

I'm not a member of GOA. Myself and a few other officers were at the rally to make sure nothing went bad. It was a very small rally. I was simply saying that I did not feel endangered at said rally, which is true.

I'm not against government at all. I just think that the federal government should get smaller and the states should pick up the slack.

"Right, but I'm the "bad guy" who the government should be worried about, yet you're the guy who stockpiles weapons."

I don't stockpile weapons. I own two guns. I bought the most recent one 18 months ago. Even if I did, what's the problem? You said yourself that private citizens should not own weapons. As a police officer, I should be permitted to carry, no? Or would that be (as you said a while ago) "police militarization"?

"Gunfighter confirms every bad stereotype about police officers. I mean if policemen like gunfighter think it's ok to torture, wiretap, and that leftists deserve whatever abuse they have coming to them (but rightwingers should feel free to buy guns at a dime a dozen), then that's a sad commentary about law enforcement in the US."

I believe that torturing and wiretapping should be an absolute last resort in the event that conventional law enforcement fails. I also believe that only certain agencies should be able to torture and wiretap. Sometimes the only way to stop certain evildoers is to bend the rules. As you can see, I am NOT an antigovernment libertarian.

@ Bob

Our whole department is union, but you wouldn't know it at a glance. We never use our union muscle. The department has never gone on strike in recent memory. We're all solid middle class because we live in an area with a very low cost of living.

As I've said on other threads, I'm not anti-union. Unions are great when their demands are reasonable. The only time they don't work is when they demand more than the company has to give them.

I'm not a hypocrite. Please don't make this personal.
___________________________________

I think I covered most of the important points. Let me know if you want me to address a particular point that I missed.

You lost the chance to whine about this being "personal" when you called me a "bad guy", claimed that I'd be willing to engage in a terrorist attack, and said the police should rightfully monitor my communications, infiltrate my political organizations and harass me.

@Gunfighter06,
"Everyone has the right to marry someone of the [same race]. In other words, everyone is equally protected."
There, I fixed it for you.

"Unions are great when their demands are reasonable. The only time they don't work is when they demand more than the company has to give them."
So - the only good union is one that agrees to the lowest amount that the company can get away with offering?

"I believe that torturing and wiretapping should be an absolute last resort in the event that conventional law enforcement fails."
Torture of suspects is OK when doing things the right way doesn't turn out the way you'd like it to turn out? When mere evidence isn't enough to get the arrest/conviction that your gut tells you is right? You truly think that a suspect is by definition guilty, don't you. ...and you apparently believe, as medieval authorities believed, that torture renders truth. Tell that to the witches of Salem.

"I also believe that only certain agencies should be able to torture and wiretap. "
Those agencies we trust because they have white hats on? How exactly does that work?

@ Putin

I didn't say that the government should harass you. The government should never harass anyone. I wasn't bitching about you countering my initial personal attack with a personal attack of your own. I was asking Bob not to make it personal between myself and him.

@ dexter

"So - the only good union is one that agrees to the lowest amount that the company can get away with offering?"

I never said that.

Re: Torture/Wiretapping

The agency responsible for the wiretap or torture would be held accountable if the techniques did not work.

The problem With torture is that it is a uncredible way of obtaining evidence, thus the ends cannot justify the means. At least such evidence should not stand in court.

Torture should never be used in an ordinary criminal case. Torture should be reserved for terrorists and the like. Most criminals crack under intense nonviolent interrogation, and those that don't crack usually get convicted anyway on circumstantial evidence.

@Gunfighter, "The only time they don't work is when they demand more than the company has to give them." "I never said that. " I realized my likely mistake... double meaning for the words "has to"... I took it as meaning what they were required by law to give them - as in when you "have to" do something (minimal), you meant "has" as in what they have.

"Torture should be reserved for terrorists and the like. "
How do we determine if they are terrorists? So far, since 2001, it has been based on who confesses under torture... which is not a reliable method to determine guilt, to say the least. (see Salem witch trials or forced confessions under Stalin if you don't believe me) If evidence isn't doing the trick, I do not believe torture is ever justified (morally *or* pragmatically)... torture me and I guarantee I'll be confessing to whatever you want me to confess to just to get you to stop. I'll confess I personally put Jesus on the cross, started WWII and went to Mars, it doesn't matter... whatever will make you stop. Oh... you say the "truth" will make you stop? Well, I tell you I'm innocent and you don't believe me so you don't stop... therefore I go searching for what story you expect to hear so that you will stop. Torture is barbaric ...and ineffective.

I support torture as a last resort method of extracting information from terrorists....in theory. I just have these few questions that need to be answered, first:

1st Question: What is a terrorist? How do we define what kind of person deserves this brutal method of interrogation? The term "terrorist" can mean different things to different people, meaning that the definition of who "should" be tortured changes based upon who is in charge of the interrogations. Not really a good standard of judgement, in my opinion.

2nd Question: What is the downside of NOT getting the information that the terrorist is hiding? If the person being tortured is hiding the secret code to shut down a bomb that will destroy downtown NYC, does that make the torture OK, but if he's hiding the names of fellow terrorists, it's not OK? What if one of those fellow terrorists has the secret code?

3rd Question (and this one's the doozy): If someone is willing to lie about who they are, (ie, terrorists don't walk down the street proclaiming their hatred of [insert target people here] because otherwise THEY WOULD BE CAUGHT!) then what surety do we have that torturing them will produce true information? Hypothetically, let's assume that we have a terrorist in custody, he does have that secret code, and NYC is gonna go boom. Let's further assume that whoever makes the decisions decides that torture is right and necessary because there isn't enough time left to wait on other methods. What assurance do we have that once we start torturing the SOB he'll tell us the correct code to shut off the bomb? Since he's a terrorist who, presumably, wasn't walking down the street saying "Death to all [again insert target here]!", he (or she, I suppose - women can be terrorists too, but that's another thread), then he is already a documented LIAR. Who's to say that he won't tell us the first code that comes to mind DIFFERENT than the correct one, and then when we put it in, NYC goes boom. We know that people under torture lie. Not always, but it happens. How do we know if we are hearing the truth or not when the source is already certifiably FALSE. "Oh, he lied about anything and everything to get here and kill us, but now we know he's telling the truth."

The problem with torture is that we have no way to GUARANTEE that a) the subject is truly and OBJECTIVELY a terrorist, b) the information is worth the expense of deliberately causing pain to another human being (Because let's not forget - these are human beings, not some subhuman, alien, degenerate....thing. I'm sure none of us believes of ourselves that we would enjoy causing pain to another being, even if said being deserved it or it was TRULY, COMPLETELY necessary to prevent greater pain/suffering to other beings), and finally c) (the big one) we have no way of knowing until after the information is used whether the words of a KNOWN LIAR are the truth!

Torture is all well and good in the theoretical world of evil SOBs who want to kill us all, but in the real world, the ends do not justify the means because there is no way to know if the ends will really be what we think they are.

"The problem with torture is that we have no way to GUARANTEE that a) the subject is truly and OBJECTIVELY a terrorist, b) the information is worth the expense of deliberately causing pain to another human being"

That's why I think torture should be a last resort. Torture should only be used if the suspect in question is known to be lying or withholding information.

So if you know that they're lying, that implies that you know what the truth is, because if you did not, you would not know they were lying. If you know the truth already, why do you need to torture them to get it?

If you know they are lying, that doesn't mean that you know the truth.

How will you know the truth when you hear it? In the case of the run-up to the war in Iraq, the "truth" was that yellowcake Uranium was being purchased by Iraq from Niger... except that wasn't the truth. Never mind that, we started a war based on that truth.

We stop torturing when we hear what we think is the truth... the person being tortured knows this... and will provide what he thinks we want to hear. This is not information gathering, it is an exercise in appeasing/manipulating to get the desired result... the torturer's desired result is what he thinks is the truth, the torture victim's desired result is to provide what the torturer will think is the truth. Not the truth, but what is expected/requested.