jlc

I take a slightly different view on this. I am agnostic, but I term myself an 'anesthetist' sometimes. I find it personally more uplifting to scorn the carrot of heaven or the stick of hell ("tuber and truncheon" as a friend of mine puts it) and uphold positive values simply because it pleases me to have made the choice to do so.

My opinion: Individual rights are neither god given (there may be a god; probably not) nor innate (such rights are generally taken away). We create the concept of personal freedoms, the same way we create the concept of justice...and we have to fight for such concepts all the time, and every single step of the way. There is no 'give'; there is only 'do'.

Jan

I had to look that up via your link (thanks). Once I did, well then...yes, I have seen many of those on the road in Europe (mainly in the far right lane).

Jan

Thank you, JCL.

JLC

(Thank you, Herb. Giggle.)

Jan

And you should be!

"Whoop!" I have just delivered a comic-book punch to your nose.

Jan

We are never going to be the "conservative nation" that we once were. If you long for the world of Mayberry RFD, that train left the station 50 years ago.

We have a chance to make something that is better than our old culture - a society that is not hidebound by crippling social standards and which embraces free enterprise. I say this because I do not want to "throw out the baby with the bathwater". I want to retain the liberal social values, but I want to adopt the conservative economic platform...and then move forward from that point to a nation that has no property tax and only a standard flat rate income tax.

If we can get that far, we can decide where to go from there, but I think that is the first step.

Jan

I have no problem with Pope Francis promoting social freedom goals (most of which I agree with), as long as he stays away from economic theory. The idea of a pope supporting the freedom of women and homosexuals is...well, amusing. The problem is that he is endorsing the socialist endowment agenda and anti-capitalistic propaganda is where his view of the world breaks down.

He thinks that the road to prosperity is the redistribution of wealth from the evil people who have made themselves successful by their inspiration and hard work. He does not understand that pulling these people down will have us all living in Old East Germany before long.

Jan

Jan

Women politicians shall not be shamed? Tell that to Palin!

Perhaps you meant, "Lying liberal politicians who are actually socialists". Some of them happen to be women.

Jan

My sister sent, in an email to me, that 'we should vote for Hillary' because "she is the only strong woman candidate". I reacted rather strongly to this, as you may imagine.

I am submitting this because is shows what meme is being passed around about Hillary and how it is being generally accepted by people.

Jan
Edit punct

This is why a number of us who have not Gone Galt are nonetheless trying to establish precautionary backups so that we will be resilient in such a crisis.

That is all I can think of doing right now.

Jan

And I am not bored. Darn. I would have enjoyed reading/commenting on this thread but today was busy.

Jan

Yes, KhanQ -

Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World. The gov is not forcing us into its programs; people are running down the path into a Big Daddy communal future.

Jan

DrZ -
The other means of resistance is slow and will be painful to experience: the expenses involved in maintaining the Democratic policy of medical and welfare support is based on an economic fairytale. Eventually the fairy dust dissipates and the gold pieces turn back into leaves.

So there is a recourse that is past the ability of even Hillary to disregard - Reality.

Jan

That is fast. He is a couple of days post-op, then. Is his pain decreasing noticeably?

Jan

I hope your friend's pain index drops pretty soon! How many days post-surgery is he?

Jan

I liked your deadpan reply...

Jan

Awww, Mamaemma. You are being so rational! Here I was all ready to imagine johnpe dating one of his triplet sisters...

I have seen some long-time married couples who did a pretty good job of subliminal communication too.

Jan

Wow! Just what I wanted...how did you ever know???

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...

Jan, future is here

This is a crunch time for us. As a small (<50 emp) company, we were 'grandfathered' in on the ACA for a year; we were 'grandmothered' in for another year.

This year, the grand-x-ing runs out and we have to get an ACA compliant policy for our employees. We are trying to figure out how to still provide our people with good coverage - that we can afford to pay for.

I have been keeping my eyes open for any doctors in the area offering concierge medicine, but not found any yet. For those of you who are interested, concierge med is that you pay out-of-pocket a sum per month (~$50) to a doctor practice and in return you get individualized old-fashioned medical care by the doctor. A lot of doctors are leaving their CMS based practices and either retiring or going into some form of concierge medicine.

Jan

NASA is experimenting with White's permutation of the Alcubierre equation. We might be near effective FTL.

Jan

robgambril -

My first answer to the Fermi Paradox is the 'bongo drum' metaphor I explained above.

I doubt that alien civilizations have the Star Trek Prime Directive of non-interference (which never made sense to me, other than as a plot device). They may have policies against initiating contact with any civilization below a certain threshold. We don't know what that threshold might be, but if we flew up to their planet and knocked on their door, I suspect we would have made the grade.

Jan, liked the cat emo

I liked that post too.

Jan

My metaphor for SETI is 'a bunch of natives, paddling a canoe around coastlines, listening for bongo drums to determine if there is anyone there'. Space could be full of signals that we do not recognize as such because we are still transmitting - and looking for - the sound of 'bongo drums'.

We have been transmitting radio signals for about a century; I suspect that before another century is done we will have different methods of transmission and even we will not be transmitting bongo drum signals any more.

We don't know what an interstellar society uses for communication, because we are not there yet.

Jan

But they can make more deadly wars more frequently. Tribal and city-state societies had more frequent conflicts with higher death rates than current nations do (by orders of magnitude).

I have no problem with the US States having more independence and differentiation (though I pointed out that they did not seem to want to) but we have not had a war within the US in over a century. This cannot be said of the smaller nations of Europe. We do not need to change our current model in order to solve 'how to keep the States of the US from going to war with each other'.

Jan

If the States were more independent, then they might be able to serve as varied crucibles where different forms of government were experimented with. But I am not sure that would happen - even within the scope of current variability, most states deviate little.

I am more concerned with the stronger establishment of individual rights than I am in making the US a conglomeration of independent nations.

Jan