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Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V

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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#961 » by dobrojim » Tue Feb 5, 2013 7:23 pm

can even be a US citizen
edit to add - even if the person is guilty, it's still wrong to summarily
execute them.

what happens when say Iran develops this technology?

on what piece of moral high ground can we claim to speak from?
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#962 » by Chocolate City Jordanaire » Tue Feb 5, 2013 7:40 pm

I've met someone who claims to have served as a sniper. I've spoken to guys who claimed to be Navy Seals. An acquaintance who was an infantry troop told me of how pulling the trigger (and you don't unless you're following rules of engagement, and when you generally have a target) didn't phase him any more. This guy is someone I would call a good family man.

I bring that up in the wake of Chris Kyle, a man who professed to have killed 160 people was himself killed.

Ron Paul, himself a Vietnam era veteran, and the only Congressman who opposed invading Iraq back in 2003, made some very unkind statements. He said treating a man with PTSD by taking him to the firing range is dumb. He also said something scathing, that a man who lived by the sword died by the sword.

My first thoughts are there is a time and a place to speak, and that's not the time. Ron Paul's comments were unnecessary, harsh, insensitive, and put the spotlight on himself and his unsolicited opinion. That said, a part of me wonders how many of those 160 people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time? I wonder if the PTSD guy had guilt over killing innocents? Did he merely do it out of psychosis and a desire to steal a truck? Why was there no range official with a weapon behind the shooter? How did Chris Kyle let that happen to him? There is a such thing as too much trust!

Last, does Paul have any moral ground to justify what he has said? I think the man has hated the US wars abroad and that he is privy to a lot of information the average citizen doesn't know. There are soldiers who will kill anything that moves. (I have heard some real horror stories). Chris Kyle was proud of his service but others would never brag about killing. I wonder if that is what set Paul off, or is he just older and crankier than most?
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#963 » by dobrojim » Tue Feb 5, 2013 7:49 pm

while there might be a part of me that understands where RP is coming from,
he clearly should have kept his mouth shut. This is one big reason why he will
never be POTUS. A time and a place indeed.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#964 » by montestewart » Tue Feb 5, 2013 8:28 pm

CCJ, I guess it depends how you define "opposed invading Iraq back in 2003," but I don't think Ron Paul was the only opponent in Congress. From Wikipedia: "The October 11, 2002 resolution that authorized President Bush to use force in Iraq passed the Senate by a vote of 77 to 23, and the House by 296 to 133."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition ... opposition

Paul's comments may have been impolitic, but he's made his reputation partially by openly stating what he and other, more politic people are thinking, while others perhaps may just avoid the subject. He's got nothing to lose with his comments at this point. That one scathing comment ties in nicely with yours and others comments about the US use of drones, etc. and what happens when others get that capability.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#965 » by popper » Tue Feb 5, 2013 9:34 pm

Our drone policy bothers me and particularly the killing of American citizens without due process. Isn't that unconstitutional?
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#966 » by montestewart » Tue Feb 5, 2013 9:39 pm

popper wrote:Our drone policy bothers me and particularly the killing of American citizens without due process. Isn't that unconstitutional?

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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#967 » by Zonkerbl » Tue Feb 5, 2013 9:39 pm

Only a little.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#968 » by hands11 » Wed Feb 6, 2013 6:50 am

Seems the R is in full on re-branding ( propaganda ) mode.

Frank Luntz coming up with a whole not list of more palatable words to describe their same ol crappy ideas. Good idea. That's much easier to do then actually coming up with better ideas.

Seems they haven't learned that doesn't work the way it used to now that they went as far as to actually tell us the truth about what they are thinking. But it should be funny then try the same old trick again.

Rack up another lost election while they figure this out.

The new messages.

Language error that need adjusted instead of new policies. Its just language error. :roll:

Public option is now the government option
Smaller government is now more effective and efficient government
Controlling the growth of medicare and SS is now save and strengthen entitlements

All right from Frank Luntz's month via the fair and balanced broadcasting at Fox.

Seems the party of the mega rich 1% and international corporations thinks they simply have a PR issue instead of a policy issue. Me thinks they are wrong.

I wonder what they will come up with as a new message for forcibly making women have a vaginal probe.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#969 » by hands11 » Wed Feb 6, 2013 7:26 am

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:
hands11 wrote:I think the problem is people try to make things this or that why they are both.

Sure there are gay people that are just born that way. There are also people that had gay experiences that are caused by other people taking advantage of them. I doubt all those kids in the churches were gay and just waiting for a priest to make their move. No.

People are a product of their environment and they are a product of their nature. Its not nature vs Nurture. Its both.

Being gay does not make you a bad person that would take advantage of someone to young to make their own decisions but to CCJs point, young people are easily influenced and adolescence is a very confusing time for a young person. Who you allow your kids to be exposed to is pretty important. And in the case of something like the boyscotts, I believe part of the idea there is to get them involved with people that you see as mentors. If he choose to not want his boy mentored by a gay man, that is his choice.

No doubt some young people would experiment with different identities as they are trying to figure out who they are. That is what young people do. But if you have a strong relationship with your children such that they feel loved, respected, and protected, they will model themselves after you more then others. And there in is where CCJ is stepping in. He is the one responsible to building their foundation and determining what they are exposed to and at what age. Just like you don't allow your children to watch curtain movies before a curtain age. I would not worry so much about a kid that has a strong foundation. Specially if that father has explained to them what is appropriate and how to react if someone approaches them in an inappropriate way.

He can teach his child about sexuality and the different forms of it when he feels the time it right. There is no debate that explaining gay love or gay sex is a little more complicated then a man and a women. But like I said, good thing you don't have girls. Because if the fear is sexual abuse, I would think it is far more common that a young female is abused by a male then that a young boy is abused by a male.

I see this a two issues. One is who do you want your children exposed to that are in mentoring roles. The other is how to protect your child male or female against those who would sexual abuse them. That is the bare basics.


hands, I have an adult daughter. I was divorced from her mother when she was 1 year old. She is 19 years old and extremely bitter toward me. She is a fan of Megan Rapinoe and all girl bands. My daughter, who called me dude last time we spoke, looks like a dude. I don't have a problem with her sexuality but I have come to accept her mother raised her and allowed her to be exposed to whatever.

I think the one thing she would have different if I raised her was self respect and love for her father, but I don't know that she doesn't have self respect or that this isn't just some phase of loathing me based on what she's heard.

My opinion is that my first ex-wife did a fine job messing her head up big time. I think the same man who I very strongly suspect molested her mother might have molested her. Good ole Uncle Eric. I think maybe the best thing of all is I didn't end up taking someone out over something I couldn't prevent.

hands, I didn't raise that child but I am raising two more and have a step who is currently in Florida but who is closest to me. They need to be loved, protected, respected for whatever they are but not left to find love from whoever pretends to give a damn.


This is what I was getting at. Children who have full hearts because they have the love, caring, protection, respect, etc of their parents are less likely to get drawn in to bad situations. Be it from an opposite sex person or taken advantage of by someone older.

That's the important point. Gay or not really isn't the issue. Its much broader then that. There are lots of things that you don't expose young people to because it is not age appropriate. But of all those things, nothing has more of an influence on them then what they see in their own home. That is what they are most exposed to. Modeling has a good bit to do with who we are. At least when we are younger adults.

Again. Its nature and nurture. Both are important.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#970 » by hands11 » Wed Feb 6, 2013 7:39 am

nate33 wrote:For the record, it wouldn't bother me a bit if my son's scout leader was gay. But it also doesn't bother me if the Boy Scout organization sought to prevent gay people from being scout leaders. If you don't like the policy, don't join the Boy Scouts.

Nivek wrote:One of the lines of argument on homosexuals being scout leaders (or teachers or whatever) is this idea of keeping gay men away from boys. The problem with this line of argument, however, is that homosexuality does not equal pedophilia. There are gay pedophiles, of course, just as there are heterosexual pedophiles. Married, heterosexual pedophiles who have children of their own.

I would like to know what kind of data there is on this. Are pedophiles more likely to be gay? Is the proportion of gay people who are pedophiles significantly higher than the proportion of heterosexual men who are pedophiles? I don't know the answers to these questions. I wonder if anyone does.

One additional point, however. I think lots of parents would be uncomfortable with their daughters being on a Girl Scout troop that is led by a male if there was extensive time with scout and leader together in an unsupervised fashion. This isn't because all men are pedophiles, it's just that people don't particularly trust that all adult men can control their sexual urges when around people who are helpless to resist. Does that analogy hold when we are talking about a gay male adult around young Boy Scouts in unsupervised conditions?

Nivek wrote:The issue for organizations such as scouts, churches, schools, and/or sports teams should be finding ways to screen out pedophiles, not exclude a broad group such as gay, black, Jewish, etc.

Agreed.


That is an important component of the conversation.

You also hit the other important topic.

I would feel equally uncomfortable leaving a daughter with a male, or a son with a gay male or daughter with a gay female. Some how the issue of leaving a son with a straight female seems less an issue.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#971 » by montestewart » Wed Feb 6, 2013 6:00 pm

hands11 wrote:I would feel equally uncomfortable leaving a daughter with a male, or a son with a gay male or daughter with a gay female. Some how the issue of leaving a son with a straight female seems less an issue.

How about leaving a son with a lesbian? In your personal model, gay men should never be alone with boys or girls. You don't trust gay men alone with any children?
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#972 » by nate33 » Wed Feb 6, 2013 6:16 pm

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:I've met someone who claims to have served as a sniper. I've spoken to guys who claimed to be Navy Seals. An acquaintance who was an infantry troop told me of how pulling the trigger (and you don't unless you're following rules of engagement, and when you generally have a target) didn't phase him any more. This guy is someone I would call a good family man.

I bring that up in the wake of Chris Kyle, a man who professed to have killed 160 people was himself killed.

Ron Paul, himself a Vietnam era veteran, and the only Congressman who opposed invading Iraq back in 2003, made some very unkind statements. He said treating a man with PTSD by taking him to the firing range is dumb. He also said something scathing, that a man who lived by the sword died by the sword.

My first thoughts are there is a time and a place to speak, and that's not the time. Ron Paul's comments were unnecessary, harsh, insensitive, and put the spotlight on himself and his unsolicited opinion. That said, a part of me wonders how many of those 160 people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time? I wonder if the PTSD guy had guilt over killing innocents? Did he merely do it out of psychosis and a desire to steal a truck? Why was there no range official with a weapon behind the shooter? How did Chris Kyle let that happen to him? There is a such thing as too much trust!

Last, does Paul have any moral ground to justify what he has said? I think the man has hated the US wars abroad and that he is privy to a lot of information the average citizen doesn't know. There are soldiers who will kill anything that moves. (I have heard some real horror stories). Chris Kyle was proud of his service but others would never brag about killing. I wonder if that is what set Paul off, or is he just older and crankier than most?

I really like Ron Paul and almost every position that he holds, but I've always had a problem with his anti-war rhetoric. While I agree with him in principle that we are engaged in way too many conflicts overseas, I never liked the way he attacked our policies as blatantly evil, immoral and intentional. It's not like we have soldiers who are shooting innocent civilians indiscriminately just for the fun of it.

I always though Ron Paul would have had a much broader appeal within the Republican base if he stuck with attacking our war policies on economic and Constitutional principles, rather than moral ones. Whether true or not, Americans don't want to be told that they are evil or immoral.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#973 » by dobrojim » Wed Feb 6, 2013 6:21 pm

nate33 wrote:I really like Ron Paul and almost every position that he holds, but I've always had a problem with his anti-war rhetoric. While I agree with him in principle that we are engaged in way too many conflicts overseas, I never liked the way he attacked our policies as blatantly evil, immoral and intentional. It's not like we have soldiers who are shooting innocent civilians indiscriminately just for the fun of it.

I always though Ron Paul would have had a much broader appeal within the Republican base if he stuck with attacking our war policies on economic and Constitutional principles, rather than moral ones. Whether true or not, Americans don't want to be told that they are evil or immoral.


Except for when we do have cases where that happens. Well maybe they're not
necessarily shooting 'for the fun of it' most of the time. No it's not part of a planned
strategy on the part of our decision makers, but rather the inevitable by-product
of thinking the cure for almost every overseas problem is the insertion of the US
military into the situation.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#974 » by Zonkerbl » Wed Feb 6, 2013 6:31 pm

Well, to put it differently... soldiers are trained to kill. That's what they do professionally and to be honest they do it rather well.

They're not diplomats, so they're not going to convince anyone that Americans are nice people who you should not blow up. They're not police officers. They're not social workers or peace corps volunteers. They are what they are, and they are not any of these other things that we ask them to do. Send a bunch of trained killers into a country to do their job -- kill people -- and the resulting dislike of all things American is rather predictable.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#975 » by Chocolate City Jordanaire » Wed Feb 6, 2013 10:31 pm

hands11 wrote:That is an important component of the conversation.

You also hit the other important topic.

I would feel equally uncomfortable leaving a daughter with a male, or a son with a gay male or daughter with a gay female. Some how the issue of leaving a son with a straight female seems less an issue.


Not necessarily …

My son is 12-years old, 180 pounds, and is built like he has been lifting weights for some time. (He also does a perfect imitation of Ray Lewis' squirrel dance.) One of his female teachers told me, "Your son has guns". This was a grown woman, hands. :(

I almost said something to a lady that was talking to him at McTeacher's night. Turned out it was his counselor, but reading that body language I didn't like the way home girl crossed her legs on that very high chair, short skirt and all. This boy is 12. He cannot help his DNA but I'll be damned if I trust his female teachers any more than I would a gay male.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#976 » by Induveca » Wed Feb 6, 2013 11:32 pm

For what it's worth I was sitting today with one of the foremost investment bankers in the world. He happens to be my partner in a US based business.

He has zero faith in the US economy, and predicts a major collapse later this year due to the social spending policies and yet another major real estate bubble beginning to form.

This is not a man of small stature in economics, I'd say top 3 worldwide.

His logic was "Politicians in DC can't just keep printing money. The 2013 collapse won't allow it...."

His suggestion? Hard currency until this all sorts itself out....and cut pointless social spending such as obamacare. Medicare/Medicaid will already bring down the US as it stands.
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#977 » by dobrojim » Thu Feb 7, 2013 3:42 am

I'm betting he's wrong. Sounds like he's letting his political biases affect his better judgement.
Real estate bubble? Really? Does this guy think the answer to our current situation ought
to be austerity? Alan Greenspan used to be considered a top 3 worldwide econ figure.
Now not so much (see Matt Taibi's Griftopia).

And a lot of people around the world, not just in the US (prob fewer in the US) don't
view health care as "pointless'. What could be more important than the health of
your citizens?
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#978 » by nate33 » Thu Feb 7, 2013 3:51 am

dobrojim wrote:I'm betting he's wrong. Sounds like he's letting his political biases affect his better judgement.
Real estate bubble? Really? Does this guy think the answer to our current situation ought
to be austerity? Alan Greenspan used to be considered a top 3 worldwide econ figure.
Now not so much (see Matt Taibi's Griftopia).

And a lot of people around the world, not just in the US (prob fewer in the US) don't
view health care as "pointless'. What could be more important than the health of
your citizens?

dobrojim, Keynesian stimulus can only work if the government has money or at least can some day hope to pay off their debts. That's not going to happen here. The debt will continue to grow until the market finally concludes that the government won't honor their debt. Then all hell will break loose.

We will have austerity whether you like it or not. It is inevitable. There is no Other Option. The welfare state as we know it is fundamentally unsustainable. It's only a question of how to handle the austerity. Do we do it now in a controlled fashion, or do wait for a systemic collapse and endure the social unrest that is sure to follow?
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#979 » by DCZards » Thu Feb 7, 2013 6:55 am

dobrojim wrote:I'm betting he's wrong. Sounds like he's letting his political biases affect his better judgement.
Real estate bubble? Really? Does this guy think the answer to our current situation ought
to be austerity? Alan Greenspan used to be considered a top 3 worldwide econ figure.
Now not so much (see Matt Taibi's Griftopia).

And a lot of people around the world, not just in the US (prob fewer in the US) don't
view health care as "pointless'. What could be more important than the health of
your citizens?


+1

Judging by his posts, I'm convinced that the political bias/anti-US sentiment belongs to Indu rather than some so-called "foremost investment banker." I bet that banker doesn't consider his personal health care "pointless."
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Re: Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V 

Post#980 » by popper » Thu Feb 7, 2013 3:06 pm

The healthcare debate is settled for now but in a fashion that will never work as intended. As I've mentioned before, any policy that takes 2700 pages of lawyerese and another 15.000 pages of clarifying statues to implement has zero chance of success.

This is what happens when you have politicians vs. experienced business professionals designing policy. We could achieve much better results with a fifteen or twenty page policy that simply provides a supplement for private insurance to those that can't afford it. The govt. would establish a definition for minimum coverage and insurance companies would compete on that basis.

Our govt. reps design policies that are so complicated that they have no chance of working in the real world, or, if they do work, they cost ten times as much as they should.

Edit - Office of Mgmt. and Budget and the IRS conclude that Obamacare will require an additional 127 Million Hours annually to comply. This is a crushing burden on small business and is destined to failure.

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