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At 3/31/09 12:44 AM, burnoutfool wrote: exactly...if you take away the rights for homosexuals to get married, then you might as well take away the rights for heterosexuals to get married, as well as bisexuals...next on the list would be the all the rights that everyone fought for...

Slippery slope, etc.

every christian gay-marriage hating person needs to go see Milk.

Because, if there's one thing that Christians always listen to, it's Hollywood.

At 3/30/09 01:16 PM, Senri wrote: Should hard drugs be legalized?

I don't think so. While I do believe that the government should stay out of our lives as much as possible, part of the reason that governments exist in the first place is to ensure that the social order is maintained. Drug-addled citizens contribute less to a society than sober ones, produce a drag on the collective efforts of other citizens, and (in some cases) become unable to make clam, rational decisions. These drawbacks might be most immediately expressed in increased health care costs (treating overdoses and various other side-effects of drug use), reductions in worker productivity (it's a little hard to work heavy machinery safely when you think it's talking to you), and an increase in accidents that could have been avoided.

At 3/29/09 08:43 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 3/29/09 08:00 PM, Jon-86 wrote: Computers can be secured, its not impossible.

It is actually, quite impossible unless you choose to never plug your computer in to the internet.

This is one good reason I have an ethernet card with an on/off switch...

At 3/29/09 06:37 PM, Ericho wrote: shut down Gitmo.

Gitmo's still open, bro.

:The stimulus plan may not be going well, but he's competant in many areas at least.

Oh well, our grandparents' 401Ks may be tanking and our children may have to pay off a multi-trillion dollar debt to our Chinese overlords - but hey, at least you got your slice of the political pie, eh?

Getting back on topic, has anyone else noticed how little play this whole net neutrality thing is getting in the press these days? This was a big deal for them like a month ago, but now this forum is one of only a couple places I hear it being discussed.

At 3/29/09 02:19 PM, SimonIndigo wrote: If I was going to believe in a higher power, I would be forced to come to the conclusion that he was either evil or dead. I know about free-will and everything, but if my children were going around killing each other for no good reason I would step in and put them in time out.

Technically, wouldn't Hell and/or Purgatory be God's version of time out?

At 3/28/09 08:30 PM, Proteas wrote: So.... did anybody on here participate?

I had my TV, lights and computer on. Guess I'm for global warming, eh?

Not your blog, etc.

At 3/28/09 12:08 AM, Dawnslayer wrote: Regardless of the reality of global warming, I'd still rather breathe a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere than a nitrogen-carbon atmosphere. Thank you.

This is why we have a little thing called photosynthesis. Planting a tree would do more for the environment than turning off the light for an hour - it would last longer, absorb CO2, and stand as a permanent testament to what you were trying to accomplish.

At 3/27/09 01:26 PM, Cander1336 wrote: Do you care?

Nope.

You're satire powers are weak, OP.

This needs to be more topical and less obviously biased. Its almost like you wrote this four years ago from a bunker beneath the DNC headquarters.

At 3/26/09 05:18 PM, stafffighter wrote:

At 3/26/09 05:08 PM, aninjaman wrote: Is this just about aliens?

Unlikely.

What sepersates this argumnt from say, the existance of a God, is that space is proven to exist. That there is a great expanse out there with other stars and orbiting bodiesin it is a point of repeatedly substantiated fact. With that considered the mathmatical probability that through all this only one instance of intelligent life occured is almost unfathomable. It's like looking at a hospital and wondering if there's more than one sick person in it.
Note that I am not defending abduction stories, just the existance of other life.

Of course, one still has to wonder how any of that applies to politics. I mean, I can see straight-up religion threads simply by the virtue of the fact that religious issues frequently affect how people vote, but debating whether or not aliens exist as an extension of religious debates as an extension of political debates seems to be getting a bit far afield from what the politics forum is all about.

I'm not trying to troll here or play bench mod - just wondering if there's a current political event we can peg the subject to.

At 3/26/09 09:07 PM, ievi wrote: News should be the broadcasting of data, not stories manipulated to fit an agenda or to please a sponser. There is no journalistic integrity anymore, and it sickens me.

There was such a thing as "journalistic integrity" in the first place?

Frankly, I oppose card check rules on the grounds that secret ballots are more democratic and prevent either side from being able to coerce and/or mount reprisals against employees that refuse to tow the official line.

At 3/20/09 12:52 AM, Contipec wrote: World War III still has to happen, as its the only way to defeat Capitalism. I can't wait for the big war to start, I may yet see the fall of Capitalism within my lifetime.

...
Wow, those must be some really strong drugs you have down there.

Green New Deal?

It's like they're just throwing buzzwords together now, in the misplaced hope that people will vote for it without looking deeper than the name.

At 3/17/09 07:38 PM, Patton3 wrote: I'm not saying that past generations haven't had to put up with tough problems. But it's been a while since so many issues were coinciding and were so serious.

The folks who had to deal with WWII and the advent of nuclear warfare might disagree with that assessment.

Ah, sweet stoner tears. Every time someone complains about pot being illegal, I can't help but laugh - after all, for as much as a hooplah as people make of the situation, life goes on without hash.

Somehow I actually doubt that a lot of these will find resolution within our lifetimes. The political issues you listed have been around for decades already - what makes you think that a few more will do the trick? As for the environment, no matter what we do countries like China and India will burn coal and oil until it's all gone, rendering our policies nearly moot in the grand scheme of things.

At 3/15/09 10:10 PM, aninjaman wrote: How is any of that related to free will? Our bodies will go through chemical reaction based on the outside stimuli to create a "flight or fight" response and other emotions that will make you decide what to do in the situation.
No free will involved.

I disagree. I've been a martial artist my entire life, and one of the biggest things we're trained to do is control our responses to adrenaline. Even in the most dire of situations, a person in complete control of their emotions often finds themselves in control of the situation at hand - good examples of this in a non-combat capacity involve firemen and paramedics, were some modicum of emotional stability and detachment is essential to getting the job done. Even when your body is flooded with adrenaline and your mind is screaming at you to do something, you are still capable of controlling your actions if you focus.

At 3/15/09 11:35 AM, RippinCorpse wrote:

At 3/15/09 02:21 AM, dySWN wrote:

At 3/14/09 10:53 PM, RippinCorpse wrote: The eight year intellectual dry spell we had with that moron, combined with this tough shit will put America SO far behind. We already compete badly with Europe and Asia.

Bush really didn't hold back the sciences much. In fact, one could argue that he helped push it forward -

No. He didn't. Weather resistant material can be tested in any harsh environment. Either way, Iraq is a desert (mostly). Desert climate is more predictable than any in the world.

I take it you've never had to clean a firearm before.

Also, it's a matter of education with Georgey boy holding back science.

The first thing that comes to mind is the acceptance of "intelligent design" (which is creationism with a paper bag over its head) as science, which it is not.

Where in the public school system was this done without evolution being taught as well?

But let's go less controversial, with the No Child left Behind Act. With the stroke of his pen, the Shrub made standardized testing the beating heart of public education.

Our education system was shit before NCLB. The program did nothing to boost our education system, but I don't think it hurt it much either - it was all a wash in the end, IMHO.

Believe it or not, this is TERRIBLE for science. While Math or English is easily made bubble-in-the-answer friendly, the sciences cannot.

Clearly...

Science requires critical thinking in ways that other subjects do not, and therefore is not easily standardized, at least not up until higher levels in High School with the AP test and such, and even then, it's more a matter of preparation than talent.

From a grade school's perspective, why would you want to waste time learning about things like evolution, geology, and astronomy, when you could be doing Standardized Test practice to get better funding!!!

You say this as if that wasn't what teachers were doing before. Grade-stuffing has been a problem for longer than one administration's tenure; No Child Left Behind was simply a poorly thought out attempt to fix the problem, and wound up pushing the emphasis to artificially boosting test scores instead of grade point averages. Even then, though, the net result is that little changed, and it follows that the net result on the sciences overall was negligible as well.

but even that's offset by the fact that private entities can and do fund research in that direction.

They didn't, usually. Thank Odin that ban got overturned. Funding comes from Federal Grants.

You're the CEO of a major company, or something, and you have X dollars to sponsor shit.

If you decide to fund stem cells, you get either:

a) no publicity, and therefore wasted money.
b) publicize it and create controversy, and therefore lose more money than you wasted.

Personally, I'd just put up a banner at Yankee Stadium, wouldn't you?

That would depend. If I'm a pharmaceutical company, then I want to be ahead of the curve even if it causes controversy - worrying about short-term drops in revenue isn't really pertinent when the potential for long-lasting profits exists in the future from a given line of research. And, if it gets no publicity, then we don't have to worry about other companies trying to steal our research, and the future benefits are still there.

Additionally, unlike in politics, a company doesn't have to worry about its popularity very much if its products are so necessary as to be difficult to avoid using (e.g. medicines), because demand for the product is tied to need instead of want. Few people would be willing to die of AIDS if one company had the cure and was willing to sell it to them, even if said AIDS patients disagreed with the company's policies on a moral level.

Of course, it remains to be seen if any benefit will come from fetal stem cell research as opposed to research into other forms of stem cells, but that's not really the point of this argument.

tl;dr - It's time to get over the 2004 election, folks.

At 3/14/09 10:53 PM, RippinCorpse wrote: The eight year intellectual dry spell we had with that moron, combined with this tough shit will put America SO far behind. We already compete badly with Europe and Asia.

Bush really didn't hold back the sciences much. In fact, one could argue that he helped push it forward - after all, some of the greatest technological leaps in the history of mankind were the results of military research, and Iraq was the perfect testing ground for weather-resistant equipment and sensors. The only real place where he slowed down science was with stem cells, but even that's offset by the fact that private entities can and do fund research in that direction.

At 3/12/09 05:14 AM, Drakim wrote:

At 3/12/09 01:44 AM, dySWN wrote:

At 3/11/09 09:50 PM, poxpower wrote: I really don't see why this is hard to understand. If you believe that science is the best tool to understand the universe, then it's logical to assume you'll be atheist too since science doesn't support any religion or God or anything supernatural.

Actually, it would make the most sense to be an Agnostic. Scientists aren't supposed to take one position as truth without experimental verification; given by its very nature that God can't be proven or disproven, a truly unbiased scientist would have to admit that neither position suits his observations.

One doesn't have to be an anti-theist to be an atheist. Atheism isn't necessary just strict denial to the idea that there is a God. It can also be what's called "weak atheism", where one lacks belief in God without holding the belief that he doesn't exist.

I don't follow. I guess I've been given the impression that the definition of agnosticism is simply not professing to know one way or the other (which could encompass a weak predilection to one opinion).

At 3/11/09 09:50 PM, poxpower wrote: I really don't see why this is hard to understand. If you believe that science is the best tool to understand the universe, then it's logical to assume you'll be atheist too since science doesn't support any religion or God or anything supernatural.

Actually, it would make the most sense to be an Agnostic. Scientists aren't supposed to take one position as truth without experimental verification; given by its very nature that God can't be proven or disproven, a truly unbiased scientist would have to admit that neither position suits his observations.

At 3/12/09 01:34 AM, GrammerNaziElite wrote: You can explain the Universe with either science or religion. One or the other.

I disagree. There are religious scientists out there, you know. I just figure that science deals with the "how" and religion/philosophy with the "why".

Why so serious?

At 3/10/09 07:01 PM, KemCab wrote: Why do people have a marked mistrust for science?

I wouldn't necessarily say that it's mistrust in science in general as much as it is mistrust in the genetic sciences by the virtue of the fact that genetic issues have a tendency of persisting beyond one generation - and, probably, the belief that really dedicated scientists have a tendency to ignore ethical limitations in the name of knowledge and advancement. Especially cloning - the questions that it engenders about identity are far too heady for most folks to handle.

I'm not saying that those fears are always justified - just that they're there in the public conscience, probably from things like Frankenstein.

At 6/15/08 05:49 AM, Mjolnir-1 wrote: What gives you any right at all to say that women should not have an abortion?
What gives you the right to force others to do as you would?
You are no American, no patriot, no republican, no democrat. You're a tyrannical dick.

Translation: "You disagree with me, so you are not a good person."

At 6/17/08 05:27 PM, SasoriKun wrote: People who don't believe in abortion can choose not to get one and people who believe its okay may choose to get one, if people make abortion illegal then they are no better then tyrants because all that does is force one persons ideals on another person.

We force our ideals onto eachother all the time. How else do you explain Congress?

one of the most powerful reasons that i believe in America is because of my freedom to make choices, and if America becomes a country that forces its moral view on its citizens then why should i believe in it?

The problem with that argument is that, even in our free society, we still are not given the right to make a decision that ends in us infringing on the rights of others, and some would argue that abortion infringes on the rights of a fetus given, in this counter=argument, that the fetus is a person at a given point in the gestation process. The real crux is defining where that point is, not in who gets to make the choice.

At 3/10/09 10:58 PM, fli wrote: Why is this "politics"?
I'm sorry, but this sounds like nitpicking and looking at other things other than the bigger picture.

Because it involves prominent political figures and/or foreign policy.

Duh.

At 3/9/09 04:31 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: I think it would be extremly helpful if a couple people who could say theyre on "my side" try n help me out cuz this seems to be a pretty one sided debate, n that isn't very fair since its mostly been a flood of immature replies n personal insults.

It would help if your claims were actually believable. If you don't at least temper your arguments with reason, then how can you expect to be taken seriously? Back up your claims with reputable sources, and present a convincing argument for your side, and the we'll talk.

So if anyone here on my side (anyone who believes in a God er any sort of thing) feel free to join in, I'm taking a break.

It's not the belief part - plenty of us believe in God - but the other things that you're bringing to the table with it. It's hard to convince someone of your reputability when you use your primary argument (that a particular god exists) to field nearly untenable arguments (evolution not existing, young earth, etc.)