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It's difficult to imagine anyone who isn't either a member of Comcast's upper management, or a lobbyist dependent on Comcast for his livelihood, who thinks it would be a good idea to give Comcast, one of America's most legendarily lovely companies, more power over their customers. Net neutrality should be the easiest thing in the world to campaign for: "do you wish to be hosed harder by Comcast/Time Warner than you are currently y/n?"
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Feb 27, 2015 02:39
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Heavy neutrino posted:You really only need to read the first sentence; yeah, the problem that net neutrality prevents doesn't exist, because net neutrality has been the norm since forever and therefore the problem has not occurred. Moron. Look man, all I know is I'm not wet right now, so clearly umbrellas are a useless extravagance I'll never need.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:12
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Jack of Hearts posted:"do you wish to be hosed harder by Comcast/Time Warner than you are currently y/n?" They're libertarians, so yes they do? Ayn Rand wrote two ponderous tomes about how she fantasized about getting hosed harder by moneyed, steely-eyed, callous capitalists.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:13
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Look man, all I know is I'm not wet right now, so clearly umbrellas are a useless extravagance I'll never need. I'm a Randian heroine...I'm always wet.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:39
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Uroboros posted:Von Mises Institute is against something everyone thinks is good. Anyone care to savage this thing? I've heard Rush mention the thing about the FCC "hiding" the new regulations from the public. Is it that they're "hiding" it, or that they don't have everything formally written down yet?
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Feb 27, 2015 05:56
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Mr Interweb posted:I've heard Rush mention the thing about the FCC "hiding" the new regulations from the public. Is it that they're "hiding" it, or that they don't have everything formally written down yet? He's making it up out of whole cloth, dude.
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Feb 27, 2015 06:00
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Mr Interweb posted:I've heard Rush mention the thing about the FCC "hiding" the new regulations from the public. Is it that they're "hiding" it, or that they don't have everything formally written down yet? He just knows that the FCC is going to use any new regulations to destroy right wing media as we know it so obviously the FCC is a freedom-hating lieberal conspiracy that must be abolished for the good of
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Feb 27, 2015 06:02
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ToxicSlurpee posted:He just knows that the FCC is going to use any new regulations to destroy right wing media as we know it so obviously the FCC is a freedom-hating lieberal conspiracy that must be abolished for the good of "If I had that much power, I'd be hell-bent on turning America into a dystopian hellscape! Therefore, whoever DOES have that power must be hell-bent on turning America into a distopian hellscape, and must be stopped at all costs!!" —The American Right
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Feb 27, 2015 06:43
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Posted this in the Right-wing media thread, but it's also very appropriate here:quote:Former Arizona county sheriff Richard Mack, a fierce opponent of Obamacare and a leader in the "constitutional sheriff" movement, is struggling to pay his medical bills after he and his wife each faced serious illnesses. The former sheriff and his wife do not have health insurance and started a GoFundMe campaign to solicit donations from family and friends to cover the costs of their medical care. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sheriff-mack-gofundme-medical-bills See, LIEBRULS? Sheriff Mack didn't have to rely on the government after all. The free market works. 
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Mar 1, 2015 00:32
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Mr Interweb posted:Posted this in the Right-wing media thread, but it's also very appropriate here: But you see, private charity is the best way to help people who fall through the cracks. Why are you laughing?
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Mar 1, 2015 01:21
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With that out of the way, I want to talk about something else. I don't usually dwell on politics too much, but CPAC happened over the last couple of days. Predictably Rand Paul won the CPAC straw poll for the third year in a row. What this means is that the event usually draws younger, slightly more libertarian conservatives that the average GOP voter. Rand continues to disappoint most ideological libertarians. He is clearly a panderer and flip flopper. Say what you will about his father, but Ron Paul could be relied upon to give a pretty close approximation of the genuine principled libertarian position on pretty much every issue and he wouldn't back away. Us, the viewing public, could debate the merits of the libertarian argument knowing that it was being articulated and presented in full. Rand, on the other hand, will NOT give the principled position even if he believes it. Those of us who will reluctantly support him will do so under the impression that he really believes what his father does, but is hiding it and playing politics. I have no idea if I could even vote for Rand at this point. The best I could say at this point is that he is the best Republican candidate (not saying much) and that he is preferable to Hilary (still not saying much). One thing I don't like however, is the trend that will no doubt intensify about the media combing through Ron's statements, articles and opinions and using them to attack Rand. In the first place it is not because such questions are illegitimate, but because I know that Rand will run away from any statements his father makes. What Rand SHOULD do is stick up for his father and agree with his more radical views. Instead Ron will be trashed unfairly and Rand will throw him under the bus every time. I hope this isn't the case and he gets sick of it and eventually defends his father but I am fearing the worst. I want to talk about this latest "controversy" with something Ron Paul said that is being used to bash Rand. Ron apparently said (as he frequently does) that he always tried to form coalitions with different groups in Congress to oppose military action and war. Here is the offending quote: "I was always annoyed with it in Congress because we had an anti-war unofficial group, a few libertarian Republicans and generally the black caucus and others, they're really against war because they want all that money to go to food stamps for people here.....But when it came to sanctions, they just could never vote against sanctions because that would prevent war and they wanted to look tough and they'd go on with the sanctions but never get the results that they thought they were gonna get." People immediately jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the above statement was racist. But if you look at the context of the interview, and I suggest you watch it in full, the notion that there was any racial intent to these comments is absurd. What he was merely saying is that, while he found common ground with the Congressional Black Caucus on war issues, they were not principled non-interventionists. Rather, their focus on promoting social welfare programs domestically inadvertently led to them being anti-war more often than not. There was no political price to pay for the Congressional Black Caucus voting against a war resolution since their agenda was known. But the accusations came fast and furious with people acting like Ron just called all black people "welfare queens" or other such nonsense. He didn't say a thing about black people. He said Congressional Black Caucus, meaning politicians. If you look at the clear and objective evidence, the Congressional Black Caucus is focused extensively on promoting the expansion of social welfare programs to help black people. Those are the facts. Now, if someone said that leftists favor ending the war "so that we can have National healthcare domestically", no one would have a single problem with that statement. In fact, dozens of Congressional Democrats have said this exact thing over and over again. It is just the fact that Ron Paul used the word "food stamps" instead of some other social program that is making people apoplectic. This despite the fact that the politicians who make up the Congressional Black Caucus do objectively want to expand the food stamp program and most other social welfare programs. There is no judgment being rendered here, just a statement of fact. I understand you think Ron actually is a secret racist because of those twenty five year old newsletters and the fact that he knows Lew Rockwell and whatever. All the same, it is good practice to be fair in your attacks. I don't believe any reasonable person could listen to Ron's statement in context and think of it as racist. It is the emotional hypochondriacs in the media who are hypersensitive to ANY perceived offense to political correctness who relish the opportunity to berate and condemn any public figure who misspeaks or says any heretical thing whatsoever. It is rather ridiculous. It is the same thing with what Rand said about vaccines. People in public life misspeak. They are ineloquent at times. If you want to condemn someone you should criticize them for their ACTUAL position, not for some silly gaffe. I understand that is how politics works but we don't have to buy into it. The same would go for something Hilary Clinton said or Joe Biden (the king of gaffes). Find out what their ACTUAL position is and then critique it. Don't play these silly and stupid "gotcha" games. I hope you can join me and agree that Ron's statement was NOT racist in its proper context and that making political hay over this is desperate and stupid.
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Mar 1, 2015 02:53
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I've returned to discuss some more of these exciting issues with you fine gentlemen. I don't mean to write some stuff and just disappear but I do have an actual life outside of internet forums and I don't really have as much time as I might like to hash out every issue with the detail they deserve. Anyway I feel like our previous diversion into the vaccination debate was a bit pointless. It is not that it is unimportant, but there is a limited amount of time, and I feel it would be best used debating other subjects. Why? For one, vaccination is not a partisan issue. If you break down who is skeptical of vaccination and who isn't, you would find that they are across the political spectrum. And I don't feel like we have too much of a disagreement, since I have received vaccinations and I believe sincerely in the science and efficacy of inoculation. I am unbelievably grateful that we eradicated polio largely through vaccination. Yet I don't believe that everyone who is skeptical of the orthodoxy are automatically insane sociopaths who are endangering everyone through their own selfishness. I believe their is nuance to this debate but I'd rather leave this for another time. I actually support Walter Block's concept of the libertarian defense of mandatory vaccination, under specific circumstances. The case for mandatory vaccination would be first stipulating that the vaccination is completely safe. Second that an epidemic exists or a disease is contagious enough and deadly enough that merely co-mingling with the general population puts them in grave risk, akin to using aggression against them. There could never obviously be any sort of libertarian case for mandatory flu shots or mandatory inoculation against chicken pox, since those diseases are not very serious and/or the vaccine is not very effective (in the case of seasonal flu). I will admit that during this previous event I was speaking extemporaneously and was a little loose with certain facts that, while not discounting the argument I was making, nonetheless should be corrected. For example I said that seasonal flu vaccine effectiveness was in the high twenty percent range, when most statistics in fact put it in the high forty percent range. Still very low but I read a stat that was a small scale study of a certain type of flu vaccine and I didn't make that clear. I maintain that the human body is highly complex and, relatively speaking, science is not even scratched the surface in being able to understand the complexities of what causes illness and what promotes health. There is a great deal more to be done, but I can hardly think of any rationale for accusing someone of being an "anti-science" zealot for choosing to eat organic even though the scientific community (or much of it) claims no evidence of improved health from doing so. Yet common sense dictates that small elements of pesticides and chemical fertilizers can potentially be harmful to health and thus the health conscious person will want to be as picky about what he or she puts into their bodies as they can. There are a lot of health conditions that people get in large numbers today that were very uncommon in decades past. Many more children have asthma and allergies and there is a rise of neurological disorders such as autism and the comparatively less serious aspergers. What are the causes of all these conditions? There are no conclusive answers forthcoming from the scientific community as of yet. Much of it surely has to do with environmental problems and pollution. Heavy metal poisoning from different sources contributes significantly to the development of mental disorders. This is not my opinion but rather the result of scientific research. If you combine this was a distrust that is absolutely earned and deserved of the State and the pharmaceutical industry, many people will express distrust in the distribution of an increasing number of vaccines. It was conceded earlier that childhood vaccines used to contain significant quantities of Thimerisol, which contains Mercury, but in response to public concern childhood vaccines for the most part no longer contain the preservative. You can state over and over again that "there is no scientific evidence that Thimerosol causes health problems" but scientific knowledge is incomplete. Furthermore it has been proven that there was no medical need to have Thimerosol in vaccines, since they now produce the vaccines without it. If I offered you two IV medications to treat a health problem, one of which included trace quantities of a known carcinogen and neurotoxin and one that did NOT include those yet was equally effective, which would you choose? My assurance that there was no scientific evidence of health problems from small amounts of carcinogens or neurotoxins would be no consolation if you are health conscious. Simply because mainstream science has not YET identified health problems from smaller quantities of known neurotoxins and/or carcinogens doesn't mean that their aren't detrimental health effects. I inexplicably had mercury fillings put in my mouth as a child (non-toxic composite fillings were available my entire lifetime). Many healthcare professionals are concerned about cumulative health effects of mercury over years as it enters the bloodstream. Trace elements break off from the filings over time. Needless to say, I've since had them drilled out and replaced with non-toxic composite fillings. Am I being a zealous nut for having concern? No, I would say I'm being prudent and smart. Fillings exist WITHOUT known neurotoxins so why wouldn't I choose those will less potential for detrimental health effects? Similarly, if vaccines can be made without Thimerosol or other trace neurotoxins, then a prudent and cautious patient would opt for the "safer" alternative. Remember that scientific knowledge is incomplete. Assuming sufficient or exhaustive knowledge of the health effects of any medical procedure is presumptuous and arrogant. Lastly, if vaccines have the level of effectiveness claimed, then anti-vaxxers should pose no threat to you or those that vaccinate. Many of you seemed to acknowledge this but instead resorted to speaking about the poor infants or those extremely rare individuals who cannot get vaccinated for some unspecified medical reason. This strikes me as a case of special pleading based on extremely unlikely scenarios. Madating vaccinations or otherwise demonizing those who choose not to vaccinate (regardless of how ill informed and foolish their decision may be) requires that you demonstrate that people who DON'T vaccinate pose a reasonably substantial threat to the public at large. Yet if the public is medically able to be vaccinated, at say 99.7%, then an under-vaccinated person still should pose no statistically significant threat to you or those that, like myself, are vaccinated. The impulse is so strong to use the gestapo storm trooper State forces to crack some skulls that any excuse will do. I recognize peoples rights to make foolish choices. It is only under specific conditions, that an unvaccinated person could be compelled to receive inoculation under duress and there are VERY few scenarios where such a theoretical case could be conceived of given the current reality.
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Mar 1, 2015 02:54
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In case you didn't notice, my last two replies were posted in the opposite order that they were intended.
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Mar 1, 2015 02:55
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Lol, fuckin doesn't miss a beat Are you some kind of sophisticated Markov chain generator
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Mar 1, 2015 02:56
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Why the gently caress would you, firstly, say you don't want to talk about vaccines and then talk about vaccines at length and, secondly and far more tellingly, spout off bullshit hat was already disproved and addressed by multiple posters?! Answer me honestly, did you actually read a single reply to you that was longer than two sentences? Because I don't think you did, and while I'll grant you that your time isn't infinite it is still highly disingenuous to reply time and time again without taking a single second to actually read the discussion we're trying to have with you, you loving philistine.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:08
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I thought you didn't want to talk about racism. Now you're making a chain of long-rear end essays about racism totally unprompted. Hey if Rand Paul is a panderer or a flip-flopper like you say, then isn't it reasonable that his statements on vaccines were the pandering followed by flip-flopping that they appeared to be rather than some strange series of misstatements about a principled position coming from a generally unprincipled man?
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Mar 1, 2015 03:11
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jrodefeld posted:With that out of the way, I want to talk about something else. I don't usually dwell on politics too much, but CPAC happened over the last couple of days. Predictably Rand Paul won the CPAC straw poll for the third year in a row. What this means is that the event usually draws younger, slightly more libertarian conservatives that the average GOP voter. Rand continues to disappoint most ideological libertarians. He is clearly a panderer and flip flopper. Say what you will about his father, but Ron Paul could be relied upon to give a pretty close approximation of the genuine principled libertarian position on pretty much every issue and he wouldn't back away. Well, I disagree. He's racist as hell.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:15
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Guys, stop, we aren't discussing vaccination anymore
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Mar 1, 2015 03:15
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Guys, stop, we aren't discussing vaccination anymore Apparently jrod was getting lambasted so hard that he wants to go back to trying to pretend that when Ron Paul says obviously racist things he's only doing so ironically. Also lol at saying Ron Paul has any loving principals at all considering how much money he appropriates from federal budgets to his district.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:20
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jrodefeld posted:Simply because mainstream science has not YET identified health problems from smaller quantities of known neurotoxins and/or carcinogens doesn't mean that their aren't detrimental health effects. It's completely reasonable to be paranoid and wary about extremely unlikely scenarios because you never know so let's build policy around it. jrodefeld posted:Lastly, if vaccines have the level of effectiveness claimed, then anti-vaxxers should pose no threat to you or those that vaccinate. Many of you seemed to acknowledge this but instead resorted to speaking about the poor infants or those extremely rare individuals who cannot get vaccinated for some unspecified medical reason. This strikes me as a case of special pleading based on extremely unlikely scenarios. It's crazy to be worried about unlikely scenarios and these should never influence policy. Bonus round: which one of these "unlikely" scenarios actually exists: the existence of immunocompromised people and infants who cannot be vaccinated, or scientific evidence linking thimerosal to austism?
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Mar 1, 2015 03:21
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jrodefeld posted:You can state over and over again that "there is no scientific evidence that Thimerosol causes health problems" but scientific knowledge is incomplete. Furthermore it has been proven that there was no medical need to have Thimerosol in vaccines, since they now produce the vaccines without it. In some vaccines Thimerosal was replaced with an alternative antiseptic preservative agent at a higher per unit cost. In other instances, it was removed and not replaced with an alternative at great cost to shelf life. Unless you're a pharmacologist or a student studying to be a pharmacologist, please shut the gently caress up about pharmacology. You have no background in it and are totally without knowledge.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:23
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The point of effective herd immunity is 93% you loving ignorant motherfucker The antivaxxers are having an effect, THAT'S WHY WE'VE HAD OUTBREAKS JFC
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Mar 1, 2015 03:24
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President Kucinich posted:In some vaccines Thimerosal was replaced with an alternative antiseptic preservative agent at a higher per unit cost. In other instances, it was removed and not replaced with an alternative at great cost to shelf life. And also a lot of vaccines never had it at all to begin with.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:25
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jrodefeld posted:
http://www.ada.org/en/about-the-ada/ada-positions-policies-and-statements/statement-on-dental-amalgam Unless you're a dentist or a student studying to become a dentist, please shut the gently caress up about dentistry. You have no background and are completely without knowledge.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:26
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Nintendo Kid posted:And also a lot of vaccines never had it at all to begin with. That too. It's just really obvious Jrod knows quite literally gently caress all about anything outside of libertarian diatribes.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:27
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President Kucinich posted:That too. Chemistry in particular And yet he thinks he's the most logical one! 
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Mar 1, 2015 03:28
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quote:But the accusations came fast and furious with people acting like Ron just called all black people "welfare queens" or other such nonsense. Are you not aware of the negative connotation that food stamps have when associated with Black people?
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Mar 1, 2015 03:31
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Since we're worried about infinitesimal quantities of mercury being involuntarily introduced into our bodies, we're going to shut down the coal plants that are aggressing against me with their fiat decision to introduce mercury into the air I breathe and the soil I grow food in, right? I'd do it myself but they have men with guns who will shoot me for defending my life and property if I try turning off their plants.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:31
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Mr Interweb posted:Are you not aware of the negative connotation that food stamps have when associated with Black people? Cut him some slack, he can't help that he's ludicrously sheltered and tone deaf to his heroes' words 
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Mar 1, 2015 03:33
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jrodefeld posted:The impulse is so strong to use the gestapo storm trooper State forces to crack some skulls that any excuse will do. Shut the gently caress up with this disingenuous loving bullshit you naive, ignorant, loving know-nothing immoral hypocritical sniveling little rear end in a top hat. I have to say that this little song and dance you do with saying "Please just put down the guns you barbaric statists!" pisses me off the most out of all the things you do by far. You talk this big game about not throwing around emotionally charged words like "racist" or "sexist" and then you turn right around and try to implicitly accuse us of being nazis by saying we want to have the gestapo come and, what, immunize you against your will? No, gently caress you, that isn't flying, boyo. Not one single person here has ever advocated violence against you or anyone else despite how loving tempting you make it to advocate having you getting your teeth knocked in.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:33
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Big Chemo is in cahoots with your local dentist to fill your cavities with autism.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:36
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Nintendo Kid posted:And also a lot of vaccines never had it at all to begin with. And also removing it did gently caress-all to appease the anti-vaxxers because since their objections are not reasonable, no reasonable actions to address them can ever be sufficient.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:37
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VitalSigns posted:And also removing it did gently caress-all to appease the anti-vaxxers because since their objections are not reasonable, no reasonable actions to address them can ever be sufficient. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/01/27/mercury-in-vaccines-was-replaced-with-something-even-more-toxic.aspx There is no appeasing anti-science luddites with a vested financial interest in defrauding people with garbage.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:38
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VitalSigns posted:I thought you didn't want to talk about racism. Now you're making a chain of long-rear end essays about racism totally unprompted. You may be right about Rand. He is a panderer and flip flopper, but this is in relation to where I would prefer him to be, in relation to his father and other far more principled libertarians. As I said in my post, I would give Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden the benefit of the doubt when they misspeak and they are leagues worse than Rand when it comes to pandering and flip flopping. I still hope that Rand gets his act together and becomes more principled. I'm not writing him off as a lost cause. I don't want to speak about racism at any length, I just felt that this attack was particularly unwarranted and I wanted to see if you felt the same. It is not exactly the subject of race that I object to. Rather it is this game where you comb over every statement that some libertarian writer made and act as though I have to answer for every controversial statement. It is when I, in passing, mentioned Rothbard or Hoppe and you all bring up unrelated charges of bigotry. Race is not off the table as a subject. But there have to be some standards of decency and decorum that are observed. Discussions tend to devolve when someone is charged with wearing white hoods and burning crosses. You are entitled to believe anyone is racist that you want. I don't have any obligation to disabuse you of any erroneous notions. Nor do I want to speak for anyone else. We can touch on the subject of race if these basic rules are followed.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:39
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jrodefeld posted:You may be right about Rand. He is a panderer and flip flopper, but this is in relation to where I would prefer him to be, in relation to his father and other far more principled libertarians. As I said in my post, I would give Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden the benefit of the doubt when they misspeak and they are leagues worse than Rand when it comes to pandering and flip flopping. You sayyyyy that but: jrodefeld posted:The impulse is so strong to use the gestapo storm trooper State forces to crack some skulls that any excuse will do. Then you accuse anyone of supporting vaccination mandates of insincerely using it as an excuse to send storm troopers in to crack skulls for shits and giggles. Soooooooooooooooooo
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Mar 1, 2015 03:41
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Nintendo Kid posted:Well, I disagree. He's racist as hell. That wasn't the question. The question was whether this statement is racist and whether the "controversy" in the media is warranted. If you saw any racial intent in that statement, especially in context of the full discussion, then I would suggest you are projecting that intent and are not being objective.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:42
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Saying black people want the money for food stamps and that's why they are really against the war isn't even a dogwhistle, man. It's just openly racist.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:45
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jrodefeld posted:That wasn't the question. The question was whether this statement is racist and whether the "controversy" in the media is warranted. What about the context of Ron Paul's life and his numerous, numerous ties to very racist organisations? Or just the fact he said black people wanted more money in food stamps. Can you maybe, just maybe loving acknowledge that whatever his intent, that choice of words is extremely insensitive and tone deaf and laden with racist connotations
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Mar 1, 2015 03:45
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Jrod, can you explain why we shouldn't trust the private self policing professional dentistry organization that is the ADA with regards to dental amalgams? Who's buying their silence and why? How do you view this obvious corruption in light of allowing professional organizations to self police? Or is this an effective self policing entity and you're just wrong about the safety of dental amalgams?
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Mar 1, 2015 03:46
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President Kucinich posted:Jrod, can you explain why we shouldn't trust the private self policing professional dentistry organization that is the ADA with regards to dental amalgams? Big Dental has their claws in them, pushing their mercury cures. That's why I go to an unknown rebel dentist who defies Big Dental and has no financial incentives to lie to me, so when he tells me I need every one of my fillings drilled out and replaced at personal cost I know he has only my best interests in mind.
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Mar 1, 2015 03:49
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