US Politics

[TheMightyEthan]

I think the biggest practical problem with trying to determine what the "founding fathers" would have wanted is that it's like trying to determine what Congress wants: they were a diverse group of people who didn't have one singular will, and would disagree on a great many things.

 

Honestly though I think the Constitution is a pretty damn good document, and I don't think it needs to be done away with. Though I'm of the school of thought that when interpreting the provisions of the Constitution, specifically the parts guaranteeing rights and setting out grand principles, rather than focus on what the writers of the Constitution specifically meant or would have thought in a specific situation you should just try to figure out what the core idea they were trying to get at was, and give effect to that idea within a modern context.

 

For a retardedly obvious example, take the freedom of the press: at the time that referred to the literal freedom to disseminate ideas through printing-press produced media, but no one now would honestly argue that it shouldn't also apply to broadcast media or the internet.

[deanb]

I'd like to note that a very large percentage of every nation considers their nation the greatest.

 

Personally, I think that's hubris on a national scale.

*Cough* Great Britain stepping in here.

[Yantelope V2]

I will agree with you guys that it's almost impossible to determine how the founding fathers would have implemented their ideals (or principles if you will) today. That's what I'm saying though. Argue over implementation but don't throw away your principles when they've been what have gotten you where you are.

[TheMightyEthan]

America does need to get out of dept. It's liberal entitlements that are burying us.

 

That's just patently false. Social Security, for example, is running a profit.

 

Here's the Wikipedia article on the 2012 US budget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget#Total_revenues_and_spending

 

Looking at that you can make several arguments. I'd argue that what's killing us is too high defense spending combined with too low taxes on corporations and the wealthy (and I'm probably included in the number that's not being taxed highly enough).

[SixTwoSixFour]

America does need to get out of debt. It's liberal entitlements that are burying us.

 

An oversimplistic pile of shit and you know it. Entitlements (which I hope to god are not just liberal entitlements, unless you honestly don't believe in taking care of our veterans or people who have chronic, potentially lethal illness) are indeed costing us money. So are conservative tax cuts, the large military budgets you love so much, and military action overseas.

 

And when most of that debt was created by George W Bush, I have very little patience for your unfounded criticism.

 

I don't really think you can call our health care abysmal. Most people who want the best care (and can afford it) still come here for their care.

 

I didn't. I called our health abysmal. You know, obesity rates, diabetes, things like that. Quite different.

 

Oh yeah, and as far as "green" energy (which is a money pit anyway).

 

I don't really feel like arguing global warming, because that just ends up with us calling each other stupid, but don't be ridiculous here. Even IF global warming is not true, the worth of green energy is obvious- it's renewable. You know the oil you love so much? That's a limited resource. It's gonna run out. And if we don't know how to do effective green energy by then, we're completely fucked. I'm also not a big fan of our current gas prices anyway.

 

All of these issues are much more complex than you make them out to be, and on the budget one your answer is actually flat wrong. So hey.

[deanb]

[Mister Jack]

They're saying gas prices could hit four dollars this summer. Four fucking dollars. That might not be a big deal to some people in Europe who are used to it, but over here people would lose their shit. Hell yes I'm in favor of alternative energy.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Mister Jack

[TheMightyEthan]

Gas prices were over $4 last year.

 

Not that that's a good thing, just sayin.

[Mister Jack]

Must be a regional thing. Where I live this would be the first time it's been that high.

[Yantelope V2]

Clearly there is plenty of waste in military spending. I also don't defend the republican congress or GW and their wasteful spending. They spent way too much also. I'm not dumb enough to say that entitlements are the only wasteful spending but they're the spending that we aren't going to keep up with. What strikes me is the $800 billion in medicare and medicaid.

[Yantelope V2]

 

Green energy has a very real negative cost impact on the economy. If you had read the article I posted the gist of it was this "Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence."

 

The point is that green energy is extremely expensive. If everyone did have to pay $8 per gallon of gas we'd all have less money for food, electronics, videogames, health insurance or anything else. The spending on products like solar panels which cost exponentially more than other forms of energy is a major drain on the economy as was evidenced by spain's solar collapse.

 

The quotation should read "what if it's a big hoax and we're wasting billions of dollars that could be building a better world?"

Edited February 23, 2012 by Yantelope V2

[deanb]

"What if all our measurements are wrong and there's a magical infinite supply of oil, and it turns out fossil fuel burning is actually just making a black coloured water vapour?"

 

In the choice between: We spend a bit more money than normal or; we accelerate the climates deterioration(think to the depression dustbowls. Folks've done it before), and have no development into a viable alternative when fossil fuels run out, and spewing a bunch of harsh chemicals into the atmosphere.

 

It's a pretty simple choice as far as I'm concerned. You really wanting to gamble it all to save a few bucks now at the cost of billions, nay trillions, down the line?

 

In fact I don't even know your viewpoint on fossil fuels(since I don't know if you 'believe' in dinosaurs), which is probably a good grounding on your view of the eventual lack of.

 

As far as Spain is considered best I can tell they had aa pretty awesome subsidy, then with the wake of the global economic collapse they stopped these subsidies. Not exactly a "solar collapse" as a case of "not being able to afford shit any more, just like the rest of the world". "Oh no it's all a hoax cos Spain suddenly couldn't afford expenditures, just like the rest of the world". "American Space Collapse" "What if Space is all a big hoax?"

[Johnny]

4 dollars a gallon? Christ, that's nothing. Last I checked, it was roughly twice that much here.

[TheMightyEthan]

But I'm guessing that people don't have to drive everywhere there like they do here, and it's not as spread out. Where I live public transportation is entirely non-existent.

[Johnny]

I live in northern sweden, where everyone has a car and drives everywhere. We have public transportation in the form of buses, but most people don't use them because of inconvenience. Plus, it gets really cold during winter so everyone drives *everywhere* in the winter months. A five minute walk is far enough that they'd rather take the car.

[TheMightyEthan]

At least you could use the bus if you wanted to, we don't even have that option.

[Johnny]

That is true. Though it's a huge time-waster and especially during winter (-30C (-22F) temperatures wooo \o/) it's not even close to worth the money you save.

[Yantelope V2]

It's a pretty simple choice as far as I'm concerned. You really wanting to gamble it all to save a few bucks now at the cost of billions, nay trillions, down the line?

 

No, the choice is do you want to go on wasting billions or trillions now on a phenomenon that might not even be man made?

 

Oh, and as far as Spain goes, the subsidies were supposed to create jobs and get people working and boost the economy. They didn't. The green energy scam is that it creates jobs when really it's just a drain on the economy producing more expensive energy in less efficient ways.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Yantelope V2

[deanb]

You do realise that the move to renewable energy sources isn't just focused around the "if climate change is man made or not" right? We have a limited amount of fossil fuels, and it's running out. It's not a fucking scam, it is a fact of the world. But yes, let's just wait until the wells run dry, then kill each other over the last drops left, or a sudden scramble to find other solutions. Instead of that we are here and now building renewable energy sources, so that when the last well drips dry we go "oh well" and continue on our day, since we'd moved on from fossil fuel dependency decades before.

 

Yante are you ignoring the economic collapse of 08 on purpose? Loads of subsidy programs ended, off top of my head the UK gov't canned the film subsidies. Does that mean films are a scam? Films maybe don't exist? No it just means that there was a global economic crisis and many gov'ts had to clam up on what expenses they could afford.

[Yantelope V2]

Green energy is a scam because it's an unsustainable business propped up only by government subsidies. Capital investors, many of whom are politicians buy green energy companies, fund them with government money, pay themselves large bonuses and then let the company go bankrupt after they have made their money. The only people left holding the bag are the taxpayers. That's why it's a scam. Now you may be right, the price of oil may start going up and up as the wells run dry and things could get ugly if we're forced to pay $30 per gallon of gas. Nobody wants that. Except that's exactly what the government is trying to do now. They're litterally funding energy sources that cost 10x what conventional energy sources cost. Why bring on the coming economoic downturn early? It makes no sense to anyone who's not busy scamming the system for government funds.

 

Now to be clear, I'm all for research for alternative energy and you may be right that we might run out of oil eventually buy why bother putting in garbage technology now? Let's keep looking for better solutions rather than blowing billions of dollars that could be feeding and clothing people now.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Yantelope V2

[WTF]

I bet most corporations wouldn't mind a massive extinction of a said number of animals/people and do an experiment to decompose organic tissue into the same hydrocarbons as petroleum. I mean sure it's a fantasy for them but I bet they wouldn't mind it if it actually happened.

Also we do have fuel cells which are incredibly expensive and do serve as alternative fuel. It's just the technology isn't entirely feasible for the mass-market (as in it's still abit too expensive to be affordable for most people). Certain green energy schemes while being scams were done with good intentions. Anything that's good can be corrupted if people choose to do so.

We've been trying to find decent renewable resources for decades. It's just that easy to power entire civilisations with what we now know. Cold fusion was something that we sought for this back in the 90s (not that research still isn't going on, it's just something we're less focussed on today).

 

Sometimes science fiction doesn't seem to be too far from what we'd do. I think it's more likely that we'd attempt planet cracking on some asteroids when we run out of certain resources here. It's not entirely unfeasible. At the moment we're looking at multiple ways to generate energy - the thing is a lot of the early sources of renewable energy depended on things that existed in nature such as wind, light and such - nothing that we are in control of. Today we're looking at a process where we could power objects using energy created in the cells, electrostatic force and of course there's always the various Nuclear methods. We will find a very effective source of power, and when it happens it'll be a revolution. The most recent revolution we've honestly had is the information age. 25 years ago a personal computer was still somewhat of a luxury, today in most advanced nations it's impossible to function properly without a computer and/or the internet. We need one in the field of power soon.

 

Final Note on energy: The whole anti-climate change funding uncovering fiasco was an interesting read to say the least.

 

As for that quiz, I'd done it ages ago and while I always fall on the libertarian side (-6, -4 or something close to that), my personality makes it hard for me to be as far into the green as my personal beliefs go. Mostly because I have a fucking massive ego and believe that I'm best to rule this planet XD - but hey I'm honest about it. So some of my answers probably stem from when/if I get into power sort of thing.

 

Here's the truth about politics really. We do need an egocentric person in power but someone whose ego is centred towards the external rather than the internal. You know what? All the greatest statesmen/women, influential thinkers and philosophers - well most of the successful ones did have a pretty sizeable ego and personality. They just weren't that focussed on their personal interests but rather the interests of a group (they identified with the group and their ego was to protect the interests of the group). The issue with politics today be it US,EU,UK or most of the world is that there's barely any strife (which is good) but it's given rise to a bunch of ineffectual pseudo-academics who would much rather see themselves get stuff without seeing the big picture. Everyone wants possessions and things and politics is a career where it's just easy to get them. The focus isn't about leading people or a nation but on the fringe benefits of a career. If that's not the case we end up with a bunch of nutjobs who care about too tiny a group to lead a nation. To lead a nation one must truly care about the people and put aside friends, their personal circles and even sometimes their family aside. This is a much difficult sacrifice for most people today.

 

The world needs a reset button so that we can move to a more progressive state. Unfortunately that means a lot of people will suffer - there's not many ways about it (more so than at any previous given time in history). In most previous conflicts the human society was fortunate that most civilisations were disjoint enough that when one collapsed the others could still maintain and feed the scraps while one rebuilds. It's no longer that way. The depression showed what it could do when just the Western world was interconnected and so did the world wars. Following that we have had the cold war (which was more of the cold standoff to be fair), several economic crises and of course the 08 incident. We are aware at some point something's going to break but we try our best to fix it so that the status quo is maintained - it won't be this way forever. There will be some crap consequences to be paid by the 'lesser' citizens, I'm sure the Greek citizens will be feeling this soon, the longer we maintain this. When it breaks down finally we'll be in trouble. So far no one's trying to make the inevitable fallout easy. (BTW this can take longer than our lifetime even, it took nearly 3 centuries to castrate imperialism after all)

 

There is one question in that questionnaire which bothered me and that was the ownership of land. Every human being has the right to own some small speck of land by means of the state and when the state wants the land back, they can pay the individual. It's how it works and if you decide to give your land back to the state, that's again your choice. Getting rid of land ownership entirely is bad - it needs to exist regulated by the state with floors and ceilings.

 

P.S. I'm sorry if I derailed the discussion with this post as it's not specifically pertaining to US politics.

[deanb]

Yante how is sustainable energy an unsustainable business? It's not really the problem with renewable energy companies themselves if corrupt politicians abuse the system. I don't know how utilities are set up in the US, but in the UK most (if not all) renewable energy projects are done by the power companies themselves. Since they sell power, they kind of need more ways to make power as demand rises. And we've a fair amount of coast and tides to make use of. Solar not so much, 'tis a bit cloudy. There's also incentives for home owners to use small scale stuff like mini windmills and solar panels buy allowing them to sell excess to the national grid.

 

 

Now to be clear, I'm all for research for alternative energy and you may be right that we might run out of oil eventually buy why bother putting in garbage technology now? Let's keep looking for better solutions rather than blowing billions of dollars that could be feeding and clothing people now.

"may be right"? "may"?

Also I thought you weren't for social programs? And we are looking for solutions, and many solutions work(you guys in the US do well with hydro-electricity. Try telling the folks of Nevada that renewable energy is garbage). The problem seems to be that the incentives aren't always applied effectively. Yes pouring billions into companies to buy shares and bankrupt it does seem to be a scam, but the way you've described it makes it sound like one put in action by and for politicians, nothing at all to do with the particular industry of the company.

 

edit: Then WTF posts an essay.

I wouldn't bring up fusion. If Yante things the other renewable are expensive I'd hate to hear this thought on the research costs into that

[Mister Jack]

I read somewhere that the biggest users of energy are businesses. While its not a permanent solution, it would be a big help if more of them used solar panels on their roofs. I know of at least one major company that already does.

[TheMightyEthan]

I find fusion (not cold fusion, just regular fusion) to be the most exciting form of alternative energy. Right now no one's built a reactor that produces more power than it consumes, which is obviously a problem, but it's an engineering problem rather than a physics problem and is therefore solvable. It runs on deuterium which comes from heavy water. About 0.03% of the water on Earth is heavy water, which I once read (but can't remember where) is enough energy to power human civilization at present growth rates for the next approximately 4 billion years.

 

It's still a ways off though. The ITER reactor, expected to be the first fusion reactor to produce more energy than it consumes (500 MW output with 50 MW required to run the reactor) isn't anticipated to come online until 2019, and it's just a research reactor.

[Yantelope V2]

Well, I guess I'm not being clear. When I say renewable energy is expensive I mean the total costs it takes to produce one KW/hr or electricity for each type of power: Wind, solar, nuclear, coal, natural gas. Here's the chart on wikipedia anyway.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Levelized_energy_cost_chart_1,_2011_DOE_report.gif

 

The best to worst comparison in conventional natural gas to solar which is about 20% of the cost of generation. Also these numbers I believe are based on grid level transmission so the costs of smaller installations are not as effective I believe. Anyway, that's where you can see that the costs of renewable energy aren't even comparable to those of standard generation.

 

Wind is actually somewhat reasonable but the downside is that it's pretty limited by geography and the land investment is rather large.

 

Anyway, I've heard estimates that we've got at least 100 years of oil to run off of and it seems to me that's a fair amount of time to find better solutions to our energy problems without freaking out about it right now. The only reason to freak out is if you believe global warming poses a severe threat and that's the scam I believe to force federal money to companies that would otherwise be completely unprofitable. There's so many more useful things that money could be doing.