Politics

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  • deathboy0

    http://reason.com/archives/2012/…

    interesting insight into how and why judges might decide

    • From the perspective of the right-wing.IRNlun6
    • what exactly are you calling rightwing? judicial modesty and Stare decisis? Seemed unbiased and interesting to me.deathboy
    • The article is a right-wing perspective. Using the terms "Obamacare", or refereing to the healthcare bill as being "rammed down our throats".IRNlun6
    • ..."rammed down our throats". These are not reasonable perspectives, which is contrary to the sites false branding.IRNlun6
    • well it did pretty much get forced. and even obama has accepted the term obamacaredeathboy
    • i dont see that as being rightwing and more importantly it is correct. Shouldnt focus on how words are said but the value and meaning.deathboy
    • meaning in them, outside what ever emotion u attach to them. sure the writer didnt haev the same emotional attachmentsdeathboy
    • and not to mention usually rightwing pubs would say shove down our throat without explaining how or intention, jsut riling emotion.deathboy
    • It was debated for a YEAR, with multiple votes and multiple filibusters from the right.IRNlun6
    • It's not Obamacare which implies it was solely created and directed by the President which it was not.IRNlun6
    • So yes, the use of those two terms which is frequently used on the right, is a ring wing perspective.IRNlun6
    • And a year of debate would hardly constitute it being rammed down our throats.IRNlun6
  • drgs0

    http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5728
    http://www.newscientist.com/arti…

    First investigation of the architecture of international ownership network, which finds that the entire corporate property belongs to the same oligarchic group

    As I was saying, the theory of free market and competition belongs in a museum, together with gramophones, video casettes, bloodletting and phlogiston theory, hehe

    • nice findbliznutty
    • good insight into why these networks are so powerful and immutablebliznutty
  • bliznutty0

    how can you rationally justify government mandated health insurance? where does it stop?!

    "The justices' questions in Tuesday's hearing carried deeply serious implications but were sometimes flavored with fanciful suggestions. If the government can force people to buy health insurance, justices wanted to know, can it require people to by burial insurance? Cellphones? Broccoli?"

    http://www.google.com/hostednews…

    • I can't defend it. I support a single payer healthcare system.IRNlun6
    • To me this was clearly a concession to bring Republicans to the table. Especially since it was never proposed by Dems in the past.IRNlun6
    • ...supported or recommend by Dems in the past. I just tired of all this useless political posturing while the problem still remains.IRNlun6
    • .. exists. Perhaps it should be repealed, but it sets the precedent that relentless opposition with no compromise...IRNlun6
    • ...compromise is a winning strategy.IRNlun6
    • Although not as intelligent and eloquent as TBO, I'm with him on being fucking tired of this politics shit and absolutely nothing being done.IRNlun6
    • ...nothing being done.IRNlun6
  • deathboy0

    IRN

    http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-br…

    Democrats fully supporting the term obamacare. Perhaps in the past it was used it was used by many as a sort of derogatory party terminology. But hey to each their own on what they think it conveys. I think its mor recognizable than the affordable care act or whatever the generic terminology is.

    i mean this http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-a…

    thing about wether obamacare should be banned is just playground whining. they should grow up.

    And as far as shoved down throats...
    "But the problem with Obamacare is not that it represents the illicit wishes of a majority — it’s that it doesn’t represent majority wishes at all. According to recent polls, two-thirds of Americans want the individual mandate repealed. Indeed, the law has never enjoyed majority support. Still, the Democrat-controlled Congress shoved it down the public’s throat through wildly unorthodox methods.

    To overcome resistance within its own party, it used horse-trading so brazen that horse traders would be embarrassed. Remember the Louisiana Purchase? This deal bought Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s support by cleverly writing disaster relief rules so that only the Bayou State qualified for $100 million in aid. Then there was the Cornhusker Kickback. Public outrage forced Democrats to withdraw this deal. Otherwise, federal taxpayers would have been on the hook, forever, for the entire tab for Nebraska’s Medicaid program in exchange for Sen. Ben Nelson’s “yes” vote.

    Despite all this, Democrats could not pass the law through normal parliamentary procedures. The election of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts to the seat left vacant by Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death ensured that. Brown explicitly ran on a platform of stopping the Obamacare train wreck, and his election gave Senate Republicans the 41 votes they needed to filibuster the law.

    The only way for Democrats to avoid the filibuster was for the House to pass the Senate version exactly as written to avoid another Senate vote. However, opposition to the Senate version ran so deep in the House that Democrats had to cut an eleventh-hour deal promising pro-life Democrats that the law’s abortion-related provisions would be eliminated through a procedure called reconciliation. Under it, the House appended the pro-life revisions to an unrelated bill the Senate had already passed — one it could approve by a simple majority vote."

    I think it was justified in the writers explanation. Made decent arguments in methods used to push it through. Or shove it down our throats. Shove is more violent of an expression and id stop reading if the whole article was written in that kind of language without explanation. That kind of writing is better left the becks and think progress types.

    But i was more interested in the judicial modesty and stare decisis stuff. I was unaware of those terms. figured supreme court would look more along the lines of consitutional or not. I didnt know there was a couple other ways with terms theyd could look at it. Words are symbols used to help clarify thoughts or confuse. And If they only look along those 2 terms instead of pure constitutional oversteppin on federal powers its interesting.

    • Didn't see your wrote this. Dude, all I'm saying it's a clear right wing slant and even you can't deny that.IRNlun6
    • That article makes it seem as if the Dems are notorious for doing this when both sides have been doing this shit for decades.IRNlun6
    • ... decades.IRNlun6
    • If there' anything new about these procedures to pass a bill it's labeling it as being shoved down our throats.IRNlun6
    • I'll agree to disagree. Perhaps it came more hard on left from a neutral postion. Which doesnt mean its from the right becuase it was negativedeathboy
    • it seemed opposed to lefts tactics in this particular situation. fully agree both aprties do the same shitdeathboy
    • i jsut dont see it as right wing. jsut neutral callign out the left and you feel the need to outcry its racist/bias or whatverdeathboy
    • you shoudl see the cover shot with romney recently on the home page. If theyre more right wing id ask why for thatdeathboy
    • but right wing left wing jsut generalities. I dont see a right bias. I see a logic bias and stating what is what isdeathboy
  • ukit20

    The irony of all this is that Obama campaigned against a mandate and even attacked Hillary Clinton for advocating one.

    http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/con…

    He never really explained, or was asked to explain by the media, why he changed his position on this.

  • fooler0

    Did Santorum almost call Obama the N word?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?fea…

    • YesKnuckleberry
    • Yup.74LEO
    • wowIRNlun6
    • oh come on, he was not. "government nigger" doesn't even make sense.locustsloth
    • the guy is horrible, but let's not be silly herelocustsloth
    • I'll give him the benefit of the doubt but what word was he about to sat and stopped himself?IRNlun6
    • i think he may have flubbed the intended word, realized what it sounded like and quickly moved onlocustsloth
    • he absolutely did. there's nothing else that starts with nig that makes sense.johnny_wobble
    • and if it was something else, you'd definitely make sure you corrected it and finished the thought.johnny_wobble
  • albums0

  • fooler0

    I guess he's been working on his comedy act since he's clearly speaking at the Improv

  • deathboy0

    What Foxconn Changes Mean for Workers, the Industry and You

    http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2…

    This bugs me a bit. Creating rules and regulations for workers who would prefer to work and earn money. Some people say well theyre slaves and its the only jobs they can get without any competing companies or labor suppliers. If thats the case it only hurts them that much more. It doesnt give them options or competition it just hurts their ability to make a living while barely hurting the "Corporations" profit margins. If thats the job they choose over other options than its really their own decision and agreements with the company they work for. If the ends was to hurt corporate america than it failed especially in comparison to the workers livelihood it effected.

    And in the end it was probably a larger protectionism mechanism of corporations who werent using that labor force to profit from. What should be promoted for real equality and options is to get competing companies to compete who want a cheaper labor force. Than the workers would have more choices to choose form and drive livelihood up. Might sound insane to promote companies to take adavantage of cheap labor but it seems the best outcome for workers with choice and options. Cheap labor shouldnt be frowned upon. It should be seeked and used regularly. It might hurt others making more money but thats competition. And competition with multiple companies benefits everyone with lower prices. If pussy ass bitches who feel guilty they make more for working less should be appreciative and not force policies that hurt the people they think theyre protecting. They should enjoy it while it lasts and abstain from the basic protectionism mechanisms of human emotions. Or at least be honest about their protectionsim desires. Its a selfish act of trying to wash away their own guilt and other emotions. Their best measure of protest should lie solely in consuming the product or not... which if not it could eventually lead to less consumerism of the product which would hurt workers finances but it would make them work less overtime too... It would be fair and just and would satsify peoples desire for others to work less hours in a more honest manner addressing what a loss of income means for them at the sake of their beliefs and values.

    • You should really educate yourself on the term "structural violence."TheBlueOne
    • so your saying the way we view life and expect work conditions like hours and such and force on other is structural violence?deathboy
    • The term seems more political unless it is true that gov are doing structural violence by limiting working hours.deathboy
  • deathboy0

    Structural violence also seems like a political term used to call for more equality while ignoring the idea that inequality is natural. And it seems to generally be used when ignoring the causes of greater unnatural inequality and that many are created by good intentions and aid trying to create equality.

    Huxley wrote this...
    For example, we go to a tropical island and with the aid of DDT we stamp out malaria and, in two or three years, save hundreds of thousands of lives. This is obviously good. But the hundreds of thousands of human beings thus saved, and the millions whom they beget and bring to birth, cannot be adequately clothed, housed, educated or even fed out of the island's available resources. Quick death by malaria has been abolished; but life made miserable by undernourishment and over-crowding is now the rule, and slow death by outright starvation threatens ever greater numbers.

    And what about the congenitally insufficient organisms, whom our medicine and our social services now preserve so that they may propagate their kind? To help the unfortunate is obviously good. But the wholesale transmission to our descendants of the results of unfavorable mutations, and the progressive contamination of the genetic pool from which the members of our species will have to draw, are no less obviously bad. We are on the horns of an ethical dilemma, and to find the middle way will require all our intelligence and all our good will.

    I think he is spot on. After all if we try to create more working equality for the foxconn people we really only hurt their ability to make enough money to survive. And there will be enough labor supply to justify no need to increase wages. Those working will just find a way to get by on less. Perhaps even offer more people just enough money to get by by picking up the hours workers arnt allowed to work. Thus creating a larger poorer population of people getting by enough to procreate and thus furthering the growth of so called structural violence inequalities. Its all cause and effect and people usually never analyze either one. They see something they dont liek and offer the first idea they have to create equality (usually give more work less) and completely space the effects of such decisions. And when things get worse they still never look at what the causes were and just employ new directives that are filled with good intentions.

    But than again i didn't completely read any books describing the idea of structural violence. I jsut got the cliff notes from wikipedia and noticed it didn't address pertinent details for evaluation and seemed to be more focused on quickly labeling inequalities. And i can see it being used in more of the pot calling the kettle black scenarios.

  • DrBombay0

    China has increased their minimum wage by 22% in recent years and are set to increase it 13% per year for the next 5 years.

    • because they own America! If everything for china and america is made in china74LEO
  • DrBombay0

    That above is just an FYI, I am not defending anything China does. But I was in Shenzhen (where Foxconn is) about 10 days ago and it isn't all peasants there.

  • 74LEO0

    :(
    :)

  • 74LEO0

    Tibet Self-Immolation Wave Among History's Biggest


    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/20…

  • ukit20

    The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

    Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs, but also public health and information about gang affiliations.

    “Every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed,” Justice Kennedy wrote, adding that about 13 million people are admitted each year to the nation’s jails.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/0…

    That offhand statement Kennedy made is almost more shocking than the ruling itself...13 million people (almost 5% of the population) are admitted EACH YEAR to American prisons.

  • drgs0

    Pirates are winning in Germany

    http://globalspin.blogs.time.com…
    http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/25/…
    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/…
    http://blog.ksnh.eu/en/2012/03/2…

    "The party’s leading candidate, Jasmin Maurer, is 22 years old and known mainly for her animal rights activities."

    "•On January 26, 2012, the Parliament (Landtag) of the German State of Saarland took a decision to dissolve after the Saarland Government, a so-called Jamaika-Coalition made up of Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), and the Greens (Bündnis90/Die Grünen), failed to carry on due to severe internal disputes."

    Awesome, true political freedom right there

  • 74LEO0

    Our Nation - News and Analysis on the State of Tibet (2012 Episode-01):

    via @youtube

  • 74LEO0
  • teh0
  • ukit20