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"The political philosophy of America's Founding Fathers is so thoroughly buried under decades of statist... " - Ayn Rand

Posted by awebb 10 years ago to Pics
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Quote of the day:

"The political philosophy of America's Founding Fathers is so thoroughly buried under decades of statist misrepresentation on one side and empty lip-service on the other, that it has to be re-discovered, not ritualistically repeated." - Ayn Rand


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  • Posted by ewv 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    All sentences, including complex ones like "Huuuh?" are to include a warmup preamble filler while searching for the complex thought about to be expressed, and concluded with a trailing filler to wind down, rest your brain, and cool off. E.g.:

    "Here's the thing. Huuuh?, y'know?"
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  • Posted by $ jdg 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Not even. Checks bouncing would simply cause the feds to print even more money, giving us the economy of a banana republic, followed shortly by the huge inflation, corruption, unfriendly police, and mostly-off-the-books economy that you can see now in countries from Guatemala to Argentina. A country that goes that route will probably never recover, even if some foreign foe doesn't take that situation as an opportunity to invade.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I would love it if we could point to even one of the Founders and say he was that ideologically pure. But I doubt that any of them was.

    About the best thing I can say about the Founders as a group, especially the writers of the Constitution, is that given the knowledge available, they did about the best possible job of designing a system that would last a long time before abuses crept in. But it's way past its sell-by date now.

    I'd like to start or join an effort to do a good, scholarly job of improving on that design, even though it will take a miracle -- or at least very good luck -- for anyone to get a chance to put the result into practice, here or anywhere else.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Ivory Tower? Time and gumption are related limitations, the people who don't recognize them are simply always late.

    There is a big list of things to learn that will help one succeed and be happy. Grammar, literature, mathematics, history in context, music, art, foreign language, finance, law, sports, firearm safety, driving, bike riding, music theory, an instrument, typing, programming, public speaking...growing plants...cooking...cleaning house...carpentry...wiring, automechanics...1000 more...cursive is way down the list, not irrelevant, but not a priority.

    And I stand by: it essentially teaches 99% of the people to have some illegible, mixed type of handwriting, while even poor printing is clear. It is a net negative form of communication, unless a nun stands over you with a ruler and make you a calligrapher. As practiced by most, it is the written equivalent of the Tower of Babel. Good riddance to cursive and slide rules.
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  • Posted by Technocracy 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Interesting that you try to play the Luddite card in an online forum.

    Learning and knowledge is not a game with built in limitations. One can learn as much as they are willing or able to learn. If you don't want your kids to learn cursive, your call. Argue for limitations and soon enough they are yours.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Should we all learn Greek and Latin too then?

    I'd be much happier if they really taught grammar (my kids don't really know what a preposition or gerund are).

    There is limited time to learn things. Cursive is a dead art form, and wholly unnecessary today. In addition, teaching it ends up with 99% of the population writing is some stupid 1/2 cursive, 1/2 printing mess. Reading the Constitution or the Bill of Rights as it was originally written is a weak excuse to waste peoples time learning this writing style when a vast majority of the written communication today is typed.
    My kids can't write cursive, but I just had my daughter recite the Constitution to me from the original. Separately from this, it just isn't that hard if it is written well. We seem to have backward-compatible reading.

    This is a Luddite's argument.
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  • Posted by VetteGuy 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I'm another Dino who is somewhat jealous of your drafting table. I wanted one, but could never find the space in my small house. Many years ago I found something called a "Pretty Neat Board" that allows use of a triangle with an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. The last time I used it was to "sketch out" a piping isometric for a drafter to turn into an official CAD drawing. Sadly, the hand sketch ended up being better than the CAD drawing I got back. *sigh* It's hard to get good help sometimes.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I can play a piano, but I can't type worth a damn. My cursive, however, is beautiful if I take the time to make it so.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I still have a nice drafting table with a string parallel bar and several triangles in my office. Today they are like antiques gathering dust... showpieces from a bygone era. My printing was exquisite. I could draw by hand letters and numerals that looked as if typed. I haven't used a slide rule in 30 years. Now all of my design work is done on a computer using CAD-CAM software. I miss the old days. I guess I am a dino too. One good thing about that though is that I can still make things without these modern tools and customers occasionally bring me old school jobs to build or repair because there are so few of us left. I have to show my employees how it was once done. Just give me an old fashioned Bridgeport, pencil, paper, a machinist handbook with sin, cos, and tan tables and look out! :)
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  • Posted by $ winterwind 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I can draw a measured [correct] drawing, on a drafting board or on my knees on the floor, and I can use a triangle. can I join the dino clan?
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  • Posted by RonC 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Checks bouncing would cause the mooches to begin to solve their own problems, rather than wait for the government cheese to be redistributed every month. The way I look at it, even if the mooches stole enough to eat, it would add to the productivity somewhere to make up the loss. The government dole creates nothing and is actually a grander theft, because the overhead and salaries of the government system are also stolen from the productive class. Regardless, when the gov't can no longer pay people to sit at home, a lot less people will be sitting at home.
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  • Posted by XenokRoy 10 years ago
    It is more burred now but luckily there are some great books that one can read to remove much of the fog and get an understanding of the time period. I am particularly fond of these:

    #1 best book: "Making of America" it is excellent and comprehensive but reads like a text book for a college course.

    A few others

    "Washington a Life" and "Hamilton"
    1776 and "John Adams"

    and although its a slightly later time period i would "The First Tycoon" which is about Vanderbilt but he is in some part responsible for the country not spinning back to government contracts and due to him beating repeatedly competitors who had government funding causing a great reduction in government funding of private industry. I would bet with him we would not have had the industrial revolution that followed.
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