my two cents

[Turquoise Dragon]

[Magyk]

debt star.jpg

It's Bush's fault, and you're a racist.


There, I think I pretty much covered everything for the lefties.

[Darth_Wayne]

And another insightful post by Magyk...

[Magyk]

Dude is jelly that I beat him to the punch.

[MajorMajor]

I want to apologize for not getting back to you in a timely manner Maximus. It does take a lot of time to write my posts and this may explain the wait. I'd also like to pause and remember our veterans who gave their lives at Pearl Harbor on this day many years ago.

That was written in 1958, so some of the statements there are no longer relevant.

I like to think those statements were as bad ideas then as they are now. They seem to have too much of a link with communist hysteria.

The fear and indeed reality that I am concerned about is that this arrangement of loyalty to Ceasar over God is both antithetical to what it means to be Christian, and the fact that it will become not only as it is now, common and voluntary, but actually mandatory, to the point that it excludes Christians from the political process altogether.

I think of it more as loyalty to a principle. Basically, I'll look after faith in my life you look after faith in yours. Essentially, the separation of Church and state is there to keep all the various rituals and belief systems from rubbing up against one another and interfering with each other through the yews of the legislature, judiciary, and executive branch. As far as Biden lying about what a bill will do, that is par for the course in politics, especially this season.

I do concern myself with the idea that government can mandate religious institutions to act contrary to their beliefs. I also recognize that those religious institutions might not be right and there may exist good reason to interfere with them.

Take for instance Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a belief of their religion that forces them to refrain from recieving or giving blood transfusions. Several members of their church have died who have refused transfusions. Courts have, in the past, ordered the will of the parents to be disregarded when the patient in question is a child.

If Aztecs were alive today and lived in the U.S. I'm sure they'd be really upset that they couldn't sacrafice people to their God either. Sometimes there is good reason for the state to intervene in religious practices. I draw your attention to the word practices. Because it is the practices the government interferes with not the belief. You can believe what you like but when your practices interfere with the wellbeing of others, of your faith or not, then that seems to be where the state draws the line.

I think the best way to view the new requirement that these institutions pay for insurance coverage of contraceptives etc. is the following. People are not supporting the yews of what they do not believe in until someone in the coverage group actually uses it. If everyone in the group is a believing Catholic who follows all of those rules then no one is paying for contraceptives they don't believe in. So it basically it comes down to the argument "We don't want to pay for anyone who doesn't believe like us".

That is a really extreme viewpoint to take. If one takes it then I guess one shouldn't hire or admit to one's educational institution anyone who doesn't believe in the exact same practices as dictated by the doctrine of the religion to which one belongs. Otherwise one might be financing sin through health insurance.

I think what is disturbing about this viewpoint is that it also says "We don't want to take a chance on people choosing to do the right thing. So let's not give them the chance."

Perhaps including all of PETA is an over-generalization. It's a large group which like most has its benign and radical elements.

I don't disagree with PETA having radical elements. Crazy women that strip naked in the middle of the street come to mind. But I do disagree with the idea that its goal is to undermine Christianity. I don't think even those ladies have that in mind when disrobing.

I disagree with anyone who believes in any kind of exceptionalism in general. Its just a bad idea. Another way of saying "We are better in some way than everyone else". It is perhaps the height of hubris.

Singer, takes morality to rather extreme lengths but he does raise interesting questions that are worth answering.

He believes that personhood, for the purposes of rights under the law, depends on the level of consciousness and higher mental functions.

Singer is dead wrong about intelligence determining an individual's personhood. To misquote a line from Star Trek IV "my compassion for someone is not based upon my estimate of their intellect". I do believe that a case can be made for an animal's life being of greater value than that of a human's. It is not due to them being able to read or write or even speak that we are people. It is in our compassion for a fellows. Some humans completely lack the caring for their own that Elephants show to their dead. Some humans torture and kill animals and other humans. Apes and other animals have looked after the well being of those who are not their own, humans and animals alike.

So when you say that you would value the life of Hitler, Stalin, or a local murderer/druglord over a dog who slept with a lost child in the woods to keep him warm or an ape at a zoo who looked after an injured child who fell into its pen, I must disagree. I must say that I would put a bullet through any one of those people's beady little eyes before I would let any harm come to those animals. And you know what? This world would be better for it.

There is a reason there are standards on lightbulbs and MPG for vehicles. I've said before and I'll say again. Capitalism sucks at doing the better thing when it can be doing the thing that is better for its pocketbook. Cars that can get 40 MPG are great unless you can sell more gas with everyone driving 20MPG vehicles. Lightbulbs that yews less electricity and last longer are great unless you can sell more lightbulbs and more electricity. Capitalism, completely freemarket capitalism has the problem of, for lack of a better term, appealing to special interests i.e. those that want to make money. Everything else takes a back seat.

On to the world being over populated...

We've had this discussion. You obviously don't believe we'll ever reach a point where there are so many of us we can't provide for ourselves. Which is just ridiculous since there are plenty regions of the world that can't provide for themselves now.

Forcibly aborting babies is pretty horrible. So is having a population that is starving to death. As for the woman not having a choice. Well, you're probably right. After all, she's probably poor and can't aford contraception so she's going to end up having kids over their population limit. If she did have a chance to yews contraception then I'd say she made her choice, or in the Catholic view I guess she could have chosen abstinence.

I'm very thankful I don't yet live in a country where I have to have only one child or risk all my children starving. This is the kind of situation where none of the alternatives are good you just have to pick the one you think is best with the best intentions and pray for forgiveness if you are wrong.

I'm out of time now so I'll be back with part 2.

[Maximus]

I'm not particularly interested in continuing a point-for-point discussion. The election is over, and you are not in the demographic of people that will be easily persuaded. Romney was right; about half the country believes one thing, half believes another, and there's a small percentage in the middle that makes the difference. Obama won Florida by less than 1%; last I checked, if all the third-party votes had gone to Romney, Romney would have won Florida. It is more useful for my time to seek out the independents/undecideds and discuss things with them.

Thus, mostly for my own edification, I will tell you what I heard this week.

Federal revenues are about 2.3T. Federal spending is about 3.8T. Thus we have a deficit of ~1.5T. Nearly 1T of this is “stimulus” spending. Most people don't realize the stimulus that was passed is on the books for every year going forward. Whether this money actually gets disbursed every year is an academic question; Congress has already authorized it, and it is available to the executive bureaucracy to utilize without further authorization.

Defense spending (DOD) is about $700B. You can throw in spending on veterans and debt on past wars and whatnot and make it look bigger if you like, but those aren't really new expenditures. 700/3800 = 18%. You can cut defense spending in half and reduce the deficit by 350B or 24% to $1.15T. Here's the question Mark Levin asked this week and no one could give an answer to: of the other 82% of our federal spending, which part should be cut to reduce the deficit? Most Democrats think every other federal expenditure is necessary; yet the expense most clearly defined in the Constitution as necessary, national defense, is the only one they are willing to consider cutting.

Furthermore, the “baseline” budgeting scheme adopted in the 70's means that there is a built in percentage increase in the federal budget every year. When Republicans (or anyone) try to change a spending bill to reduce or exclude the scheduled increase, the Democrats refer to this as a “cut in spending.” This defies all logic and common sense. My income doesn't go up every year automatically. If I do well at work I may get a small raise which these days may keep up with inflation at best, but is generally less. If my income were to go up through say a promotion, I would say I got a raise in income (accompanied by a raise in my spending after the fact, not before). I don't sit down and plan out my entire career with projected raises, and when I fail to get a raise call that a “cut in income.”

Here's another question he asks: Democrats say the “rich” aren't paying their fair share, and taxes should be higher. What is “rich”, and what is “fair share?” The definition of rich tends to creep down over time. The “rich” used to be “the 1%”; now I hear “the 2%” all the time. $250K a year used to be “rich”; now I'm hearing 200K or 150K.
The current proposal to allow the “Bush tax cuts” to expire would result in the top income tax bracket going from 35% to 39.6%. Sounds like a 4.6% increase. But let's look again. To make the numbers easy, let's say someone makes 1M a year. Currently he pays 350K in taxes. Under the higher rate he would pay 396K in taxes. The percent increase of 396/350 is 13%. Looking at the other side which is more practical, his take home after taxes goes from 650K to 604K which is a decrease of 7%. So the “tax rate” may go up 4.6%, but take home pay will decrease by 7% for the affected persons.

Furthermore, for the small businesses and self employed persons who report business income as personal income, there may be significant business expenses that must be paid. Let's say of the 1M in income, 500K goes to the expenses of running the business (inventory, office supplies, legal fees, salaries). Taking the percentage difference of 500K – 350K and 500K – 396K magnifies the impact of the tax rate increase on take home pay, and means a decrease in take home after taxes from 150K to 104K, which is a 31% decrease. On paper the man is a “millionaire”, but the rate rate hike would put him from upper middle class to more like middle middle class.
Obviously these calculations do not account for deductions. However the Democrats are in the process of changing the language to equate “deduction” with “loophole”, and would like to start eliminating as many of those as they can as well.

Of course these calculations are irrelevant to someone like Warren Buffet, since he makes 120K a year in salary. His other millions in income are from capital gains. Obamacare will indeed raise the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 20%. You cannot continue to raise the capital gains tax rate too high without undermining and destroying the entire engine of capitalism, which is private investment. So it's irrelevant when Buffet runs around saying “raise my taxes!” For the super wealthy, the top 0.1% and higher, you can raise their tax rate to 100% and it won't bother them much. Neither will it make a qualitative difference to the deficit, at current spending levels; you can confiscate all income above 250K and only reduce, but not eliminate, the deficit.

Here's the fundamental problem: socialism has no capability to create wealth. When “equality” is talked about, it's equality of outcomes, not equality of opportunity. The real producers are not motivated to work for the benefit of the consumers. This country became the greatest country on earth because people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, took risks, and were generally left alone to be successful. The closer we get to socalism eg redistribution, the slower our economy will get. I'm not sure what it will take to wake people up; VAT? Seizure of private retirement and transition to a “defined benefit” plan (like SS/Medicare)? Being denied lifesaving health care? The latter cuts both ways; neither the current system nor Obamacare prevents rationing of care; a better plan is needed.

Of course Obama wants to go off the fiscal cliff so he can blame Republicans for “protecting the rich”, then proposing the Bush tax cuts for the lower brackets so that taxes go right back where they were and he gets credit for “saving the middle class from the greedy Republicans who don't care about them.” It's ironic that most of the wealthiest Americans the average person can identify support Democrats, but yet the Republicans are still the party of “the rich.”

Last point: There is a common cause between what is happening on a national level, and what is happening on individual levels: lack of personal responsibility aka morality. Everybody wants to blame “the system”, socio-economic conditions, the Democrats, the Republicans, the rich, the poor, bad parenting, lack of education, religion, science, the church, the socialists, the unions, Big Oil, etc when the problem is really the cumulative effect of billions of individual choices to seek short term gain without concern for the long term consequences. Many people can't say NO to their own immediate selfish interests. If they have a buck they have to spend it. The idea of burdening future generations with massive debt that can never be paid doesn't really bother them. Obama said it best; we're taking out a credit card from the Bank of China (his words) in the name of our children and spending money we don't have; it's irresponsible and unpatriotic. He said that when the debt was $9T and it'll be double that if not more before the end of his second term. Real honest patriotism, the kind that made this country what it is, would place more concern on leaving this country a better place for the next generation than it was for us, instead of destroying the economy with debt and taxes.

[GUARD!AN]

Skimmed through the last post for a couple of seconds...saw something about third party voters, I doubt you would ever convince them to vote Republican/Democrat, most of them I know do it as a statement of protest of their feelings towards people viewing it as a two party system.

[Ramshi]

How long does it take to write a whole essay as decent as those?

[Turquoise Dragon]

How long does it take to write a whole essay as decent as those?

About 10 minutes.

[Maximus]

Composition takes several hours, depending mostly on how much I research the data or just pull from memory. For the longer posts I do the composition offline and paste it in.

I do concern myself with the idea that government can mandate religious institutions to act contrary to their beliefs. I also recognize that those religious institutions might not be right and there may exist good reason to interfere with them.

Take for instance Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a belief of their religion that forces them to refrain from receiving or giving blood transfusions. Several members of their church have died who have refused transfusions. Courts have, in the past, ordered the will of the parents to be disregarded when the patient in question is a child.

If Aztecs were alive today and lived in the U.S. I'm sure they'd be really upset that they couldn't sacrifice people to their manatee either. Sometimes there is good reason for the state to intervene in religious practices. I draw your attention to the word practices. Because it is the practices the government interferes with not the belief. You can believe what you like but when your practices interfere with the wellbeing of others, of your faith or not, then that seems to be where the state draws the line.

I think the best way to view the new requirement that these institutions pay for insurance coverage of contraceptives etc. is the following. People are not supporting the yews of what they do not believe in until someone in the coverage group actually uses it. If everyone in the group is a believing Catholic who follows all of those rules then no one is paying for contraceptives they don't believe in. So it basically it comes down to the argument "We don't want to pay for anyone who doesn't believe like us".

That is a really extreme viewpoint to take. If one takes it then I guess one shouldn't hire or admit to one's educational institution anyone who doesn't believe in the exact same practices as dictated by the doctrine of the religion to which one belongs. Otherwise one might be financing sin through health insurance.

I think what is disturbing about this viewpoint is that it also says "We don't want to take a chance on people choosing to do the right thing. So let's not give them the chance."

I said I wouldn't spend much time on point by point, but this one is probably the single most significant issue and uniquely modern, and cannot go unanswered (by society as a whole). SCOTUS will see it probably several more times before it's done.

Your analogy with the Aztecs is backwards, as is your analogy with the Jehovah's Witness, in relation to the current situation. By the law as written, Catholics are not being prevented from sacrificing people to a god (false or not), nor from administering lifesaving treatments. Catholics (and Jews, and Muslims, and for that matter any person, religious or otherwise, who has moral objections) are being REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE IN MURDER. The examples you used are government intervention to preserve lives that would otherwise be lost. The issue at hand is the government intervening to destroy lives that otherwise would continue, normally and in good health (don't waste my time with health exceptions; no serious abortion advocate argues just for the exceptions, and I don't believe the current law is restricted to those), and requiring the participation of people who DO NOT WANT.

This situation is in limited ways similar to conscientious objectors to fighting in a war, except that no argument can be made that there is a just war, nor does abortion contribute to defense, collective or individual. Only in exceptional cases can the argument be made that there is no alternative provider; I'm not aware of any serious lack in availability of abortion or birth control, though I do know some people have to drive to get it. I find it difficult to believe that forcing the minority of medical personnel who object to participate would do much to alleviate any scarcity.

I could go into a discussion of the philosophy of law, the origin of rights, natural law (eternal moral law) vs human laws, the requirements for just laws, etc, but it would be rather extensive and better learned from better writers. The short version is that no law that is contrary to Natural Law, that is the eternal moral law, which is universal to all times and places and independent of religion, is not valid and is not owed the obedience of the citizens. This is why the government intervening to restrict the religious activity of Aztecs is morally (and therefore legally) legitimate, while intervening to expand abortion funding, force religious institutions to pay for it, and force objecting medical practitioners to participate is not morally (and therefore legally, by the First Amendment) legitimate; because abortion itself is not morally acceptable in the first place. It is the legitimate purpose of government to protect rights, and foremost among rights is life; it is a perversion of government to yews its power to take lives, or permit third parties to do so. We're all aware of the personal and collective self defense exceptions, but that's not the question here.

With this law, the government has now violated the spirit of the First Amendment. They have placed the government (all three branches) in the business of deciding what the exercise of religion requires, and what it doesn't. Who is the government to tell me that my religion is confined strictly to the reading of the Bible and a service on Sunday morning? It has been the doctrine of my Church for 2,000 years that abortion is in no way permissible, under any circumstances, and material cooperation, certainly in any direct way, is among the gravest of sins, and invokes the most serious eternal and temporal consequences that the Church is capable of invoking (excommunication). The exercise of my religion requires the non-participation in various non-negotiable moral issues, (including abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia/assisted suicide, cloning or similar procedures interfering with normal fertilization and development, and marriage as anything but one man and one woman, among numerous others, but those are the political questions of the day), certainly directly, but also indirectly to the greatest extent reasonably possible. This is what my religion has defined. If the government attempts to force my participation in these activities by any means, then they have put me in the position of choosing to obey my religion or my country's laws, and violated my First Amendment right to freely exercise my religion. It doesn't really matter if the AMA, APA, HHS, FDA, and every other permutation of letters organization decides that contraceptives and abortion qualify as “preventative medicine”. The Constitution is the supreme law and overrides any other political authority, regardless of what “the experts” and the polls say.

Would you support a law requiring Jews and Muslims to buy pork, in order to prop up the pork industry? Some pig farmers are out of work, and we can't have people without jobs because that's just not compassionate, so we need to have everyone buy pork so that the pig farmers can have jobs. How about a law requiring Amish to buy Fords? The auto workers gotta eat you know, and they can't do that if everyone doesn't buy their cars. It's in the common interest of course, because fewer people out of work means fewer people on welfare and less deficit spending. I could find any number of other examples but you get the point.

You want to separate church from state. By that you mean, you want to exclude the influence of religion on any activity that affects more than one's own immediate person; I'm not sure if one's immediate family is even protected any more (if the UN gets their way, they will make decisions about the welfare of children, against the beliefs and wishes of their parents). Now that the government is getting more active in health care, you want to exclude religion from health care. Do you realize that historically quite a lot of health care was religious? The Knights Hospitallers didn't get their name by accident. There are dozens of religious orders dedicated to providing health care. Nearly every major city has a Catholic hospital, generally founded and operated by (used to be anyway) a Catholic religious order.

I find it funny (ignorant more accurately, which is not an insult; the average person just doesn't spend much time thinking logically about difficult questions) when people say “Don't force your morality on me” (usually in defense of abortion etc). All law is nothing but enforced morality. You can find societies in history where polygamy, cannibalism, slavery, eugenics, infanticide, rape and anything else you care to name were acceptable, or at least not considered terrible enough to warrant consistent punishment. The question is not whether we are going to enforce morality through law, but which morality we are going to enforce. Since the cultural background of our society is primarily European Judeo-Christian, our laws (at least historically) largely reflect Christian morality.

Our society is/will tear itself apart if it cannot answer basic questions as: What is human life? When does it begin? Who has rights? Where do rights come from, when do they begin, can they be taken away? When does life and rights end? What is marriage? What is man? What is woman? To think that we can kick the can down the road on these questions is just as stupid as thinking we can kick the national debt can down the road indefinitely; however these decisions have far more serious and lasting consequences, on individuals and society.

Another good question is What is health care? The doctor's oath is, or at least used to be, “Do no harm.” Abortion is the termination of a human life. A five year old can identify a 16 week fetus as a “baby”; I could post the pictures again, but it's pretty obvious that abortion causes harm to one person, and to varying degrees the mother as well. For the medical personnel, they are also being asked to violate the purpose of their profession. It's really quite the same as a law requiring firefighters to burn some houses down, or police to rob some banks. Much fear-mongering is made by the abortion advocates that an outlawing of abortion would lead to pro-lifers dragging women to jail for having miscarriages and such. Before abortion was legal, it was the doctor/performer that was prosecuted for abortion, not the mother. It was assumed that the woman was taking such a desperate measure was a result of desperate circumstances, and was as much a victim as the child (in many cases, still true today). This is precisely for the reason mentioned above; it is a betrayal of the doctor's oath, in the generic sense of the word a “sacred” trust, with the ability to give and take life.

We cannot live as schizophrenics and hypocrites (though many people do), mandated by law to be one person in public and allowed to be “ourselves” only in private. The vocation of a Christian is to be light to the world, salt to the earth; to change the world one person at a time, not to be changed by it. Romans 12:2, among others: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We are whole persons, and carry our personality and identity with us everywhere we go. A doctor is a doctor everywhere he goes, and will get asked medical questions and be expected to respond if someone is injured. Likewise a priest, police, and many other professions, are expected to act in certain ways, even if they are not in their normal workplace and “clocked in”. Likewise, being a Christian is not a part time job, but an identity that should be the most important factor in determining behavior in all places at all times. It cannot be set aside or put “on hold” any more than a man on a business trip can put his marital status “on hold” and be unfaithful with another woman; his status as a husband is an identity that he is everywhere he goes.

A quote from some people's hero, copied directly from whitehouse.gov, on the day after the shooting:

This is our first task -- caring for our children.  It’s our first job.  If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right.  That’s how, as a society, we will be judged. And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children -- all of them -- safe from harm? Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know that they are loved, and teaching them to love in return? Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?
I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer is no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change.

Damn straight Mr President. And this coming from the guy who voted against protecting infants born alive after failed abortions; I don't really care what his reasoning was. Granted the speech was probably written for him. I completely agree that deciding when life begins is above his pay grade; it's a matter of eternal truth, not a question for the law to decide at will. To think the latter goes against the philosophy recognized in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, that rights are something inherent in human nature.

Inevitably, as in so many cultures before, the Church (members) will wind up being subjected to the immoral dictates of a government unconcerned with the ultimate consequences of their decisions. It has been so throughout all of history, from the earliest persecutions of the Roman Empire, to the untold millions of martyrs in the 20th century under the regimes of the Communists et al. There is no reason that the United States is special. The Constitution is just paper; unless it is interpreted according to its original intent, made real through the thoughts and actions of those charged with its execution, respected with due honor, and if necessary modified through due process, it remains just another dead tree. The current regime, among a number of others, has shown clear intent to twist, avoid, and otherwise do what they damn well please, regardless of the Constitution. As the talk show hosts continually remind me, the reelection of Obama is not a mandate to throw the Constitution out and “fundamentally transform America”, though of course some people will take it as precisely that. It appears the majority of individuals are too weak, philosophically and morally, to be much concerned with political involvement beyond their own wallet and short term interests (most can't be bothered to be involved at all), which is the only reason such violations are permitted to exist. Such abuses could be stopped tomorrow if everyone who knew better would speak out and take a stand.