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[BGuttman]

...  And there are some here who don't understand or choose not to acknowledge statistics and trends who will say that if there is one contradiction to a statement, it is automatically false.

It's just like the Global Climate Change deniers.  Climate scientists split 99-1 that global climate change is real and is caused by human activity.  But since there is 1% that don't agree, the deniers will claim that it's all baloney and they can go on doing what they have forever.  Unfortunately it's not us that will be the victims, but several generations down the road

[Russ White]

An 'open and inquisitive mind' should describe both parties in the discussion, does it not?

something that is sorely missing in about 70% of the population, across the political spectrum.

I believe that is what I said.

[Russ White]

...  And there are some here who don't understand or choose not to acknowledge statistics and trends who will say that if there is one contradiction to a statement, it is automatically false.

It's just like the Global Climate Change deniers.  Climate scientists split 99-1 that global climate change is real and is caused by human activity.  But since there is 1% that don't agree, the deniers will claim that it's all baloney and they can go on doing what they have forever.  Unfortunately it's not us that will be the victims, but several generations down the road

C'mon Bruce, 99% os scientists denied the Sun was the center of the solar system when Copernicus said it was, and they were wrong. It could happen!! Right......

[actikid]

Unfortunately it's not us that will be the victims, but several generations down the road

That depends on who is "us".

If you are a polar bear or harp seal, it has already been devastating.

If you own a ski resort in a borderline area, you are probably out of business.

If you live in Venice or the Netherlands, you are already having to pay a lot of taxes for public works to protect your cities from a rising sea level.

If you live in Kirbati, your country is vanishing and will be completely underwater in 50 years.

As with all things liberal versus conservative, the conservative only cares about things that affect him personally.  The liberal has empathy for things that affect others.  It is the clearest dividing line between liberal and conservative.

And just for the record, I care a whole lot more about harp seals and polar bears than zygotes because I am pro life, not pro-potential-life.

[Russ White]

As with all things liberal versus conservative, the conservative only cares about things that affect him personally.  The liberal has empathy for things that affect others.  It is the clearest dividing line between liberal and conservative.

THe party of ME,ME,ME, vs. the party of WE.

[Russ White]

Cheap Labor, the Sequel:

I am going to continue a theme today. Last week I pointed out the fact that cheap labor is the core value of a large segment of those who pull the strings in the GOP. In truth cheap labor was not an element of the capitalist ideal as defined by Adam Smith and Abraham Lincoln.

According to Smith, considered the Father of Capitalism for his work “On the Wealth of Nations”, “Labour was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.”

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.”

“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters.”

“Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

In those four paragraphs he provides an amazingly prescient view of where we find ourselves today. A nation where the haves are gaining an ever larger portion of the GDP, while their “counselors”, the lobbyists and GOP members of Congress, seek to destroy the last vestiges of the Labor Movement, which has, since the Great Depression, been the scourge of the “Cheap Labor Conservatives”.

This is a modern perversion of the founding precepts of the GOP. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President said, “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

As late as the 1950’s, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower stated “Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.”

Even Ronald Reagan, the President most responsible for initiating the anti-union fervor which exists in today’s GOP knew “where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”

The anti-union sentiment so prevalent in today’s GOP is anti-capitalist, anti-middle class, and anti – American.

Wake up America!

[actikid]

Good citations from the original intent of Adam Smith.  Today's vulture capitalists have that turned on its head.  They are all Ayn Randers, which is to say they have no concern what happens to anybody else.  They are driven by pure greed.

And what is really peculiar is that most of the people that defend them have absolutely no possibility of sharing in that bounty.  They have been duped by the "lotto effect".  Mitch Daniels laid out that con a few weeks back.  How did he put it?  "We are not a nation of 'haves' and 'have nots'.  We are a nation of 'haves' and 'soon to haves'."

There are roughly 40,000,000 in each election cycle who will never partake in any of that, but still cast their vote in favor of these conmen.  Like any good con, you have to make it seem like there is a good chance of winning.  So they celebrate the one case out of a million where somebody does join the club.  It is just like the Lotto.  As Letterman says, your odds of winning are exactly the same whether you buy a ticket or not.

The odds in Vegas are a whole lot better.  You still lost, but only 48% of the time.  In Vegas, it is a rigged game, designed to take your money slowly, and in the process give you a great entertainment experience.  I get that.  It isn't how I spend my vacation dollars, but I can see why others go for that.

What I don't get is why people throw away their vote to the guys who are offering odds of 0.0000001% -- and you don't even get a nice buffet out of the deal.

[Russ White]

THis one will undoubtedly open a can of worms and  generate some response here in podunk. 500 words is just not enough to deal with some issues!


This is not going to be an easy column to write. I am going to address some issues that pit the interests of two segments of our society against each other, and I am a member of neither. I am not a woman, nor am I a fundamentalist Christian.

I have absolute respect for the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Every single American has an absolute right to worship in any manner he or she deems fit. However, the right to freedom “of” religion is also a right to freedom “from” religion. Your right to worship as you please ends at my front door, and at the door to the legislative bodies we elect to make the rules by which our society operates.

Which brings us to women, and their rights to “freedom from religion”. According to the Guttmacher Institute: “In the first six months of 2011, states enacted 162 new provisions related to reproductive health and rights. Fully 49% of these new laws seek to restrict access to abortion services, a sharp increase from 2010, when 26% of new laws restricted abortion. The 80 abortion restrictions enacted this year are more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005—and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. All of these new provisions were enacted in just 19 states.”

This represents an unprecedented effort to use the apparatus of the State to force a very specific, religious based concept of morality onto the rest of us. It is not a morality shared by a majority of Americans, and as that majority is, finally, starting to pay attention, many of those, mostly Republicans, pushing this agenda are being forced to back off. Do not expect it to last without constant awareness and vigilance from the rest of us.

With over 200 such new provisions, some have been especially egregious. One requirement would mandate an unnecessary procedure that would be considered rape at the hands of the state by any definition of the word I have ever seen. Those enacting these laws call it “informed consent”. They do not believe women are smart enough to understand the ramifications of their own decisions. That is the worst of many really ugly, onerous laws which include, but are not limited to, requiring doctors to read scripts full of misinformation written by non-doctors, allowing doctors to lie to their patients with no recourse, and attempts to shame women for exercising their rights.

To those pushing this agenda, I say, I absolutely respect and support your right to worship and live by any moral code you desire. Now, grant me that same respect and support. You may believe I am destined for hell, but that is my right. Keep your nose and your laws out of the uterus of my wife, my daughter, my cousin, my mother, my sister, my unborn grand daughter, my neighbor, and any one else who does not subscribe to your personal morality.

Wake Up, America!

[ronkny]

THis one will undoubtedly open a can of worms and  generate some response here in podunk. 500 words is just not enough to deal with some issues!


This is not going to be an easy column to write. I am going to address some issues that pit the interests of two segments of our society against each other, and I am a member of neither. I am not a woman, nor am I a fundamentalist Christian.

I have absolute respect for the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Every single American has an absolute right to worship in any manner he or she deems fit. However, the right to freedom “of” religion is also a right to freedom “from” religion. Your right to worship as you please ends at my front door, and at the door to the legislative bodies we elect to make the rules by which our society operates.

Which brings us to women, and their rights to “freedom from religion”. According to the Guttmacher Institute: “In the first six months of 2011, states enacted 162 new provisions related to reproductive health and rights. Fully 49% of these new laws seek to restrict access to abortion services, a sharp increase from 2010, when 26% of new laws restricted abortion. The 80 abortion restrictions enacted this year are more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005—and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. All of these new provisions were enacted in just 19 states.”

This represents an unprecedented effort to use the apparatus of the State to force a very specific, religious based concept of morality onto the rest of us. It is not a morality shared by a majority of Americans, and as that majority is, finally, starting to pay attention, many of those, mostly Republicans, pushing this agenda are being forced to back off. Do not expect it to last without constant awareness and vigilance from the rest of us.

With over 200 such new provisions, some have been especially egregious. One requirement would mandate an unnecessary procedure that would be considered rape at the hands of the state by any definition of the word I have ever seen. Those enacting these laws call it “informed consent”. They do not believe women are smart enough to understand the ramifications of their own decisions. That is the worst of many really ugly, onerous laws which include, but are not limited to, requiring doctors to read scripts full of misinformation written by non-doctors, allowing doctors to lie to their patients with no recourse, and attempts to shame women for exercising their rights.

To those pushing this agenda, I say, I absolutely respect and support your right to worship and live by any moral code you desire. Now, grant me that same respect and support. You may believe I am destined for hell, but that is my right. Keep your nose and your laws out of the uterus of my wife, my daughter, my cousin, my mother, my sister, my unborn grand daughter, my neighbor, and any one else who does not subscribe to your personal morality.

Wake Up, America!

There is no right to "freedom from religion". 
Since when is morality religious based?  The atheist nuts have been saying that we can have morality without religion. Is killing innocent people OK with non religious but  not religious? Morality is morality.

[TillerTrom]

Mr. White,
I disagree with just about everything you write. However I am impressed with your passion and enthusiasm for your convictions. I do have one question though. What is the intended tone of your opinion pieces? Your passion comes though clearly, but you tone seems bitter and angry. Is that your intention?

You seem to try and rally support for your positions by talking bad about Republicans and the conservative right instead of describing what you consider good about the left and the Democrats. When I am asked why I hold the beliefs I do, I will explain my positions on freedom, liberty, and inaliable rights first. You seem to come out swinging for the bleachers by attacking the opposition.

I think you may not come across so bitter if you word your positions by telling us what you are for before telling us why the other guys are evil. You may not change anyone's mind, but a positive tone will always garner more sympathetic reactions and initiate dialogue. It is your article and you can do with it what you like. I just wanted to share my thoughts

[actikid]

There is no right to "freedom from religion". 

Actually, the Constitution (Bill of Rights) only talks about what religion cannot be.  There is no explicit granting of special privileges for religions.  

[actikid]

Mr. White,
I disagree with just about everything you write. However I am impressed with your passion and enthusiasm for your convictions. I do have one question though. What is the intended tone of your opinion pieces? Your passion comes though clearly, but you tone seems bitter and angry. Is that your intention?

You seem to try and rally support for your positions by talking bad about Republicans and the conservative right instead of describing what you consider good about the left and the Democrats. When I am asked why I hold the beliefs I do, I will explain my positions on freedom, liberty, and inaliable rights first. You seem to come out swinging for the bleachers by attacking the opposition.

I think you may not come across so bitter if you word your positions by telling us what you are for before telling us why the other guys are evil. You may not change anyone's mind, but a positive tone will always garner more sympathetic reactions and initiate dialogue. It is your article and you can do with it what you like. I just wanted to share my thoughts

That's an interesting observation.  For years, people on the left have worked really hard to have a civil discourse.  What that meant, in practice, was that the left became seen as patsies, pushovers, people without convictions.

I realize that reading an opposing view, presented in very clear, stark, non-wishy-washy terms might come as a bit of a shock after decades of the spineless rhetoric heard from the left.  But to me, this falls in the category of standing one's ground.  And Russ does live in Florida, after all, so that's allowed.  In fact, I think in Florida he would be within his rights to walk up to strangers on the street, holding them at gunpoint until they read his article out loud. 

[ronkny]

Actually, the Constitution (Bill of Rights) only talks about what religion cannot be.  There is no explicit granting of special privileges for religions.  

This is all it says.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

[actikid]

This is all it says.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Exactly.  To paraphrase, "Freedom from religion and freedom of religion."

[TillerTrom]

If in your opinion morality should not be forced on those who are not religious, where do we derive our society's sense of right and wrong? Does this mean I should be allowed to pick and choose which laws I want to follow based on my declared religious convictions? Even if it atheist passes a law, is he supporting it based on some kind sense of morality? Does morality only apply when it comes to give a Democrat supported bill? I remember being told that Obamacare should be past because it was the moral thing to do. Democrats tell us all the time they pay more taxes is the moral thing to do . Where is your consistency?

Is if a two way street? Does this mean you would not support atheist to politicians that pass law affecting religious people?

[jbayes]

"If in your opinion morality should not be forced on those who are not religious, where do we derive our society's sense of right and wrong? Does this mean I should be allowed to pick and choose which laws I want to follow based on my declared religious convictions? Even if it atheist passes a law, is it he supporting it based on some kind sense of morality? Does morality only apply when it comes to give a Democrat supported bill? I remember being told that Obamacare should be past because it was the moral thing to do. Democrats tell us all the time they pay more taxes is the moral thing to do . Where is your consistency?"

Please, be aware that morality, sense of right and wrong, ethical tenets ad infinitum, were around LONG before the religious leaders of the day put together the writings and letters that we acknowledge today as the bible. If you think that one learns all morality at sunday school you are quite mistaken. Profoundly mistaken. Absolutely mistaken.

Jack

[ronkny]

Exactly.  To paraphrase, "Freedom from religion and freedom of religion."

Except you are paraphrasing incompletely.  Freedom from a religion that Congress establishes.

[TillerTrom]

Please, be aware that morality, sense of right and wrong, ethical tenets ad infinitum, were around LONG before the religious leaders of the day put together the writings and letters that we acknowledge today as the bible. If you think that one learns all morality at sunday school you are quite mistaken. Profoundly mistaken. Absolutely mistaken.

Jack

I agree and you make an excellent point. However if we are too survive as a society and culture, shouldn't we be able to agree on the source of our morality?

If is wrong for a religious politician to ban atheist organizations from handing out free contraception, isn't wrong for the same reason for and atheist politician to force religious organizations to hand out free contraception?

[BGuttman]

If in your opinion morality should not be forced on those who are not religious, where do we derive our society's sense of right and wrong? Does this mean I should be allowed to pick and choose which laws I want to follow based on my declared religious convictions? Even if it atheist passes a law, is he supporting it based on some kind sense of morality? Does morality only apply when it comes to give a Democrat supported bill? I remember being told that Obamacare should be past because it was the moral thing to do. Democrats tell us all the time they pay more taxes is the moral thing to do . Where is your consistency?

Is if a two way street? Does this mean you would not support atheist to politicians that pass law affecting religious people?

Laws are passed by legislatures to help us live together in a society.  We have laws that mandate that you show some proficiency before you are allowed to operate an automobile.  We have laws that mandate that you not walk around in the street picking fights with everyone you meet.  We have laws that say if businesses create a public health hazard in their operations they must remove it.

We all have to obey all the laws.  It's that or leave.  In the 1960s we had a draft for young men to serve in the Armed Forces.  At that time most young men were sent to a war in Viet-Nam.  This war was unpopular because most people didn't feel that America was threatened if the Viet Cong took Saigon or any other city in Viet-Nam.  Many young people felt that the war was immoral and should be stopped.  Many who were drafted chose to leave the country rather than obey the law.  That's your option: obey ALL the laws or leave the country.

Sometimes we wind up with two laws that contradict each other.  This is where the courts have to determine which law controls.  There is a hierarchy of laws in this country and you can't enact a law that countermands one of the basic principles.  So you have to learn what constitutes a proper law and what doesn't.  Sometimes logic is strained as the boundaries are tested.  Sometimes a decision is sent down that you don't like.

We elect representatives to enact laws.  These representatives need to work together to craft regulations that address a problem and make sense.  You can't just say to the people who are getting sick from leaking Fracking chemicals that they should stop whining.  You can't just say to the people doing the Fracking that they have to stop.  You need to find a way so that the Fracking people can continue to release energy without harming the people next door.  If they can't (or won't), THEN you tell them to stop.

Legislation has to be a two-way street.  I give a little and you give a little; then we all benefit.

[Baron von Bone]

If in your opinion morality should not be forced on those who are not religious, where do we derive our society's sense of right and wrong?

Just as all social species do. Cooperative characteristics predominate probably mostly through selective breeding. But it's quite clear that people don't derive their sense of morality or ethics or even general right and wrong from their church or their religion, they choose a church and a religious franchise based upon their existing character. That's why good people find churches that manifest their generally good values, and nasty bashtards find churches that cater to nasty bashtards.
 
But you seem to be talking about "morality" as a complete package deal, as if either one adheres to Morality™, or one is amoral. I'm not sure if that's the way you were trying to present that or not though.
 

Does this mean I should be allowed to pick and choose which laws I want to follow based on my declared religious convictions?

Do you really believe that logically follows?
 

Even if it atheist passes a law, is he supporting it based on some kind sense of morality?

Or ethics ... yeah.
 

Does morality only apply when it comes to give a Democrat supported bill? I remember being told that Obamacare should be past because it was the moral thing to do. Democrats tell us all the time they pay more taxes is the moral thing to do . Where is your consistency?
 
Is if a two way street? Does this mean you would not support atheist to politicians that pass law affecting religious people?

Seriously?
 
Do you really think any of that tracks with reason--this line of questioning--the chain of logic you're following in order to come up with these questions? Do you think maybe you've gotten off track there ... just a bit, perhaps?