taks

the public needs to speak out on that one if this is truly the case. of course, given kelo, it is still difficult. the one bright spot of kelo is that it did leave the discretion up to states to decide, and many states have followed with legislation that restricts the term "public good" to true public benefit (not just a tax base increase, which is what kelo was about). taks

maybe that's already what's happening? wait, better for the religion thread... hehe. i miss 23, but i must say, other than the fact that my body doesn't work nearly as well as it did then, i much prefer life now over then. taks

yes, but imminent domain has strict rules for implementation, something the kelo decision apparently missed entirely. i agree, however, that even in our version of property rights there are no true property rights. it's a question of how much it takes to remove property between systems. ours was much more favorable to the property owner, prior to kelo, now it's a bit fuzzy. for the road example, i don't disagree with imminent domain. for a walmart, however, it is a travesty. taks

if you discuss religion long enough, the mayans are always in there... taks

nope. i haven't read too much about him, though from what i've read he has a few ideas i like, and a few i don't like. taks

you say tomayto, i say tomahto. you're still taking from the people (dis-proportionally), and giving back to someone, particularly those that aren't getting anything taken from them. at least with usage taxes you pay for the impact you have on society. the more you buy, the more "public" resources you use (via infrastructure in general) so the more you pay. in the end, certainly those that spend the most will pay the most, but at least they have a choice. i'm one of the spenders, for sure, so i'd have a high tax bill (overall) either way... taks

in a truly socialist society, the common man owns nothing. the variants, i.e. hybrids, pay lip service to property rights, and hence the concept of ownership, but even then, it is only lip service. the state always has the authority to take away whatever it is you have, which means you're really only borrowing it. i.e., your right to own your property is granted by the state, not considered inalienable. more true for real property than it is for a fruitbowl, but property is the only thing that ever matters in the long run (everything else is "in the noise" w.r.t. real value). taks

it would become a false hypothesis, actually... just a nit. i think the mayans also had a cyclical concept of existence. at least, i think they thought after the "end" there would be a new beginning (which was pegged for 2012, right?). taks

given that i've learned to ski within the past 4 years, and i can ski better than most on the mountain, i'm not too upset about being "old." as for the rest, yeah, my wife pays off her car next summer... we were planning on getting a pair of bikes to tool around in the mountains of CO. hehe... kwinkydink, i think not (she's 35 days older than me, btw... darn cradle robber). i didn't realize you were old, too, gfted1. cant becomes 39 soon as well. taks

thanks... just noticed you're member number 666... can't be a kwinkydink! taks

since it is not in my profile, well, not exactly, i should mention that today i became 39 years old. at least, 1:30 a.m. (central time, a couple minutes from now) is the cross-over. one more year till the 40th... ugh. taks

in a socialist model the disparity is even worse. at least in a capitalist model you have a possibility of being part of that 1%. some of it depends on luck, some on heritage, some on hard work and some simply on intelligence/education. in a socialist model, ultimately, only those that began with wealth can ever have it. the common man owns nothing, controls nothing, and has little if any incentive to strive towards anything other than nothing. this sounds like a variant of the chewbacca defense. i should plead no contest at this point, shouldn't i? taks

no, i don't generally consider taxes theft (though i do view income taxes as theft). neither do i view economic change bad, though i do view economic change towards socialist models as bad. your statement implied that it is OK for the government to take from the rich and give to the poor, which i do view as theft. socialist constructs are indeed theft, and in the corporate world they have a simple name: pyramid schemes. i never understood why it is people can justify pyramid schemes as legitimate when governments do them, yet greedy capitalist scandals when corporations do them... i think they should be illegal no matter who is on the implementation end of things. personally, i prefer usage taxes. i.e., taxes on goods and services, not income. local governments subsist quite well on these types of taxes. and, until the US federal government decided it needed to broadly expand its powers, it did fine on these as well. taks

some people repeatedly suffer from the inability to differentiate infrastructure needs that require everyone's input (because they all benefit equally), with individual needs in which everyone is capable of handling on their own. also, i should point out that fire fighting, police and many similar functions are handled at the local, not federal (usually not even state), level. oddly, st. louis' police department is actually a state run organization (but that's a remnant of a problem encountered during the civil war). taks

holy cow, it lives! taks

Oh yes, and Iraq is so going well. i.e., a strawman. taks

theft is theft, regardless of which layer the money is taken from. it is not "better" to take it from any layer, it is better to not take it. taks

two points... in reverse order. first, most religions are actually not much more than variations on the same theme. christianity, jewish, muslim, et. al. are all simply beliefs in god, and many others have an almighty as well. there are still many pantheistic religions, such as hindu, but even those tend to have one dude in charge (heck, even the early greek and roman religions had zeus and jupiter). second, original religions were contrived as a means of explaining the unknown, and giving their respective worshipers something in common to believe in. there are many intentional side effects as well, such as providing some moral basis for conducting their respective lives, which is not necessarily a bad thing (not to imply that these morals are always adhered to, however, but that's a problem with believers and non-believers alike). as man's knowledge of nature has progressed, many of the things originally attributed to divinity are now known to be natural occurrences, and as such, divine roles are similarly diminished to the point where we are today. i'm guessing that this will continue to the point that most of what is attributed to god is simply the beginning of everything (functionally), along with the moral guidance involved with faith. should it turn out there really is a god, perhaps that was his intention, eh? we are but a petri dish. taks

i've always been appalled by the flip-side where the atheists actually attempt to force their beliefs on the rest of the population, while condemning those of religion for (supposedly) doing the same. hypocrisy at its best. taks

i'll buy into most of what you've said. even still, however, some of what you mention could, and probably should, be implemented with much more success at the state and local level. one of the problems with a big federal government is that it ends up usurping the power that was (supposedly) left to the states. let states decide on all those safety nets... if you don't like your state's response: move. that intent, as purposeful as it was, has been largely ignored. taks

some functions of government are required, and i've never said anything to the contrary. particularly those related to the military and infrastructure. the federal reserve has done nothing to improve anyone's quality of life, and has merely shifted control of the US economy from itself, to a private entity. i'm not sure why you even mention that. day to day laws, including the clean water act, are also not related to the bureaucracies i've mentioned. any reasonable person can also see that many of the abuses and fraud would be immediately eliminated as soon as the government got its hand out of the cookie jar it was not intended to raid. and, there aren't many people with "sound economic credentials" that actually buy into the hard left version of fiscal policy. you'll also note that i did mention the fact that once one party is in control, either on the right or on the left, they tend to spend like there's no tomorrow, ignoring the advice of rational economists. ultimately, politicians only care about reelection and their own pet projects in the mean time. this latter problem is also why i favor a split executive and legislative branch. nothing gets done, except those things that must get done. taks

given that dawkins is an atheist, it is hardly a surprise he takes out issues on the big guy in the sky. an atheist cannot help but think that blind faith causes more problems than it solves. belief in god can also be seen as a construct of man, btw, particularly when viewed from the shoes of an atheist. i mean, realistically, how can you know the people claiming to have spoken with god, oh so many thousands of years ago, weren't just ancient versions of l. ron hubbard? hucksters with a message, and plenty of charisma to boot. all you have is their word, translated, retranslated, and mired in mystery over the times. in fact, pre-god, there were dozens of gods worshiped by many ancient kingdoms. those were all manifestations of their respective populations' inability to understand nature, clearly an invention of man, yet the current god is not, in spite of gaining popularity during the same times? i'm kinda wondering about the "alien" interpretation (i.e., moses followed a UFO around), or even some advanced civilization, with technology grand enough to hide themselves until our little petri dish matures. what the heck, there are indeed lots of oddities we cannot explain in the historical record. perhaps there's a lot of truth to the record, and the interpretation of the primitive peoples is simply flawed. anything significantly advanced w.r.t. your own knowledge seems as magic, which leads one to wonder if these things really happened, and the ancients simply did not have the wherewithal to understand it, hence god. i suppose we'll all find out when we die. taks

well thank you. i wouldn't say i have sound economic credentials, however. rather, i have a sound background analyzing what happens when those that do have sound economic credentials are ignored. when schwarzenegger hired that liberal economist to help out CA, i knew he was a kennedy underneath the veneer. as for small government... the oddity here is that every time government control is expanded, we lose liberty AND, the problem originally hoped to be solved by such expansion only seems to get worse. the bureaucracy grows and grows, with the left screaming "more money will solve the problem" and the tools on the right exclaiming "lets compromise!" in the end, the compromises eventually get to the point of the original desire for more money (and thus, bigger government). yet still problems don't get solved because the bigger the bureaucracy grows, the less efficient it becomes, and the more corrupt it becomes. it's a vicious cycle. actually, it's not even a cycle since cycles go the other way just as often; not so here. since all these expansions, and likewise losses of liberty, are typically executed under the guise of "compromise," the sheeple willingly comply thinking the compromises are a good thing and the quality of their lives should improve (never mind that it is already higher than all of history has ever seen). grrr... taks

a point i tried to make to sand in the religion thread. no matter how minuscule the probability, the likelihood of odd things occurring is actually (probably) rather large. me too. these constructs are the least scientific portion of the entire BB theory. in fact, they were merely "invented" as a way to explain gravitational anomalies, as well as the apparent discrepancy with the way the universe seems to be expanding. i.e., theory said that the mass of the universe had to be more than it was in order to exhibit the expansion in the manner it did. IMO, that means go back to the drawing board and revise the original hypothesis. instead, they created dark matter (and its cousin, dark energy). even more interestingly, in spite of the fact that hubble discovered the red-shift, and it is now dubbed "hubble's law," he did not believe it was due to a recession, or even an expanding universe. he felt that over such vast distances, photons actually lose energy, which would also create a red-shift. IMO, the jury is still out on this one, though the former explanation certainly has the majority of scientists on board. halton arp, hubble's primary student (a protege of sorts), speaks out against this regularly. he definitely sides with hubble. oh, note that there is a difference between what hubble believed and the so called "tired light" theory, though last time i checked, it was subtle. taks

you guys are funny. i certainly don't look presidential for that matter. i'd probably need to shave more than once a week and that's waaaay off of my things to do list. taks