FALSE. racial discrimination is ALWAYS wrong when done by the gov't, as explicitly stated by the 14th Amendment. go read the fucking Constitution before you spout more stupidity

2/17/2012 12:59:59 AM

AA is helping to grant our citizens equal rights. It's a fulfillment of the 14th Amendment. I know you're going to say that's crazy because you can't get out of the aaronburro microcosm but I'll just be content that sane people agree.

2/17/2012 1:04:28 AM

new budget has us on a course to bump against the debt limit again in october.

when you combine that with $5 gas i really dont understand why you people think hes got such an easy re-election coming up?

the quality of the republican field is irrelevant; their platform is simply "not obama."

2/17/2012 8:02:37 AM

Except anyone with a memory longer than 4 years knows Republican "small government" is horseshit and neither Republican nor Democrat policy has much chance of getting us out of our economic mess.

So the economy is probably fucked either way.

So we go with Obama and we get a fucked economy, socialized healthcare, maybe we don't go to war with Iran.

We go with Romney/Santorum and we get a fucked economy, war with Iran, no healthcare for poor people, and the workings of a theocracy.

I think you have to be really evil to like the second option over the first, myself.

Maybe if Ron Paul had a shot of winning he might be a better option, considering his economic policies have the same 100% chance of fucking us, and poor people will suffer, but at least we won't go to war with Iran.

2/17/2012 9:17:31 AM

Quote :

"AA is helping to grant our citizens equal rights. It's a fulfillment of the 14th Amendment"

how do you fulfill equal protection by fucking throwing it out the window? exactly.

2/17/2012 11:33:38 AM

Catch 22 really for you.. You choose to ignore all statistical realities in order to believe there are no inequities so of course you think anything designed to reign in those inequities is countering the 14th amendment. Those who do believe the disparities are real and observable probably feel that AA can exist per section five of the amendment..

2/17/2012 1:13:12 PM

Quote :

"You choose to ignore all statistical realities in order to believe there are no inequities"

false. try again


but, as long as we say we are trying to do something good, then we can ignore the rest of the amendment, especially the part where it says the gov't is supposed to treat people the same, regardless of skin color. makes perfect sense to me!

[Edited on February 17, 2012 at 1:15 PM. Reason : ]

2/17/2012 1:14:36 PM

obama supporter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE2M7g_IWSE

2/17/2012 1:53:17 PM

Quote :

"So we go with Obama and we get a fucked economy, socialized healthcare, maybe we don't go to war with Iran. We go with Romney/Santorum and we get a fucked economy, war with Iran, no healthcare for poor people, and the workings of a theocracy. I think you have to be really evil to like the second option over the first, myself."

Well, we probably won't even get socialized health care. We'll just get a slightly more fucked with health care insurance delivery system.

Anyone that considers themselves libertarian leaning or even fiscally conservative should absolutely not be voting for Santorum/Romney/Gingrich. We know what they will promise, and we know what they will actually do. If RP can't be elected, we have to deal with a second Obama term. It's bad, but the GOP needs to lose if we're going to shift the nature of the party.

2/17/2012 2:01:04 PM

Quote :

"Anyone that considers themselves libertarian leaning or even fiscally conservative should absolutely not be voting for Santorum/Romney/Gingrich. We know what they will promise, and we know what they will actually do. If RP can't be elected, we have to deal with a second Obama term. It's bad, but the GOP needs to lose if we're going to shift the nature of the party."

my thoughts exactly

2/17/2012 2:02:57 PM

Obama says obamacare health insurance mandate is not a tax.

When his admin goes to court to fight for this mandate, they say it is constitutional because it is a tax.


Obama says it's not right that those with insurance must bear the burden of those without insurance.

Obama says it's not right for those with money to not bear the burden of those without money.

2/17/2012 2:08:45 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woBC5b3Ti0M


People who voted for Obama are complete idiots

2/17/2012 2:22:55 PM

Complete idiots? The alternative was Sarah Palin one 72-year-old's death away from being President.

I'd take Karl Marx himself over that.

2/17/2012 2:29:51 PM

because there was only one other choice. false dilemma, what?

2/17/2012 2:41:02 PM

We are a two party system. I know thinking about the real world is difficult for you.

2/17/2012 2:55:26 PM

doesn;t matter. just because I'm not an Obama supporter does not automatically make me a John McCain supporter.

2/17/2012 3:09:59 PM

I was just responding to "people who voted for Obama are idiots" and pointing out a non-idiotic motivation for voting for him: "Not wanting Sarah Palin to have any chance whatsoever at being our next President."

2/17/2012 3:13:14 PM

Quote :

"but the GOP needs to lose if we're going to shift the nature of the party."

I really wish you, and other libertarians would realize that you will NEVER reform the Republican party. Ever. They've made it explicitly clear that they don't want you. They are not inclusive. Just fucking leave the party, already. They would change faster if they were forced to change from an outside force than from within. Same goes for the Democratic party, too. Liberals and Libertarians should both leave the Ds and Rs.

Both parties would change their ways if they sensed a threat to their established power sooner if people left rather than people steadily clinging to the false hope of them reforming their political and economic string-pullers from within.

[Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:06 PM. Reason : ]

2/17/2012 5:05:03 PM

I don't see any other option, unfortunately.

Ron Paul supporters are beginning to take over the Republican party. We've now got multiple state GOP leaders that are Ron Paul supporters. More are coming.

[Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:08 PM. Reason : ]

2/17/2012 5:07:50 PM

I think if people who were Obama supporters in 2008 looked closely at Obama vs. Paul, they would (like many have already) stop drinking the Flavor-Ade and support Paul heartily.

2/17/2012 5:21:11 PM

^^ No way. The fundamentalists have won the soul of the Republican Party. There is no saving it because as motivated as RP supporters are, the Christian Reich makes them look like amateurs. You will never get that party back, ever.

2/17/2012 10:12:55 PM

You don't know that.

2/17/2012 10:36:56 PM

Haha. C'mon, dude. Be real.


That party is firmly in the pocket of the super-rich, using the army of bible-thumpers to push their agenda.

2/17/2012 10:45:22 PM

There’s a reason theocracies are more prevalent than democracies throughout the world, and even history.

2/18/2012 1:37:59 AM

because religion has historically been more powerful than anything else?

2/18/2012 1:54:50 AM

This thread has slowed, I guess Cody and Aaron are out celebrating President's Day!

2/20/2012 3:51:25 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225493025537660.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

oh.my.god

i just completely loathe washington in general at this point; not only is our current administration completely absurd, but the GOP is offering up SANTORUM?

well just fuck us all in the goat ass!

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 9:58 AM. Reason : -]

2/22/2012 9:58:24 AM

Quote :

"I think if people who were Obama supporters in 2008 looked closely at Obama vs. Paul, they would (like many have already) stop drinking the Flavor-Ade and support Paul heartily."

i do

but if a Obama/Clinton ticket was to appear that would be me tough for me to pass up. even my dad loved bill clinton and he is as conservative as you can get.

2/22/2012 10:41:19 AM

$6 gas in areas of florida-

booyah

2/22/2012 12:52:47 PM

Quote :

""I think if people who were Obama supporters in 2008 looked closely at Obama vs. Paul, they would (like many have already) stop drinking the Flavor-Ade and support Paul heartily.""

Funny because I was a Paul supporter in '08 and am now a nose-holding-Obama supporter. I guess I put down the Gold-Ade?

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:14 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2012 1:14:29 PM

You're like one of those former atheists that claims to have converted to Christianity. Everyone assumes you're full of shit.

"HEY GUYS, I AGREE THAT WE SHOULD STOP KILLING PEOPLE AND PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL FOR VICTIMLESS CRIMES. BUT, THE GOLD STANDARD SUCKS, SO LET'S KEEP KILLING PEOPLE AND PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL FOR VICTIMLESS CRIMES."

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:18 PM. Reason : ]

2/22/2012 1:17:14 PM

You only assume I'm full of shit because your mind is so impossibly small you can't possibly imagine there being information and perspectives that might bring your current worldview into question. That's really all there is to it. I'm not sure how to "prove" to you that I was a libertarian in college, except by citing the fact that I was a young white male studying computer science. If I weren't a libertarian, I'd have been the exception. That was after growing up a "conservative" Republican via indoctrination.

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:22 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2012 1:19:59 PM

No, you're stupid!

2/22/2012 1:22:48 PM

No, really, you're the person who can't even imagine that somebody might change their views after holding ones similar to yours. I can't even imagine a more textbook example of small-mindedness and intellectual arrogance. Look at destroyer guys, he's reached the endpoint of intellectual development and reasoning, and he's not even 30 yet! We got us an Aristotle here.

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:24 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2012 1:23:56 PM

It's not just that you changed your mind. That happens. I've changed my mind on a lot of things over the past few years, and it will continue to happen.

This is a special case, though. You went from supporting an anti-war, anti-corporatist, anti-drug war candidate, to a overtly pro-war, pro-corporatist, pro-drug war candidate.

I don't know how to explain that shift from libertarianism to authoritarianism. Did you realize that you're a sociopath, and that you're not comfortable letting people be free?

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:33 PM. Reason : ]

2/22/2012 1:33:19 PM

Quote :

"This is a special case, though. You went from supporting an anti-war, anti-corporatist, anti-drug war candidate, to a overtly pro-war, pro-corporatist, pro-drug war candidate."

Obama was none of those when he was running. Just like Paul is none of those while running. Keep on believing he'll become dictator for life and keep all his promises like a good boy. Sweet, sweet Kool Aid.

Quote :

"I don't know how to explain that shift from libertarianism to authoritarianism. Did you realize that you're a sociopath, and that you're not comfortable letting people be free?"

Ron Paul doesn't give a shit if people are free or not. All he cares is that the Federal Government doesn't do the freedom-restricting. If a state, county, municipality, business, or economic system in general restricts their freedom, he does not give a shit, not one iota. That's not a belief in freedom, it's just an irrational paranoia of a single system at the cost of ignoring the effects of all the others.

Sorry but I actually value freedom *existing*, not being a theoretical possibility. And I believe freedom should be protected for everybody, not people lucky enough to live in the right state or be particularly prepared to move between states on whims.

Quote :

"I don't know how to explain that shift from libertarianism to authoritarianism."

It was a shift from delusion, idealism, and gullibility to pragmatism and realistic expectations. Also a realization that the assumptions that go into an ideal free market (information symmetry, equal opportunity, meritocracy, etc) do not exist in nature, unaided.

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:42 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2012 1:38:56 PM

Quote :

"Obama was none of those when he was running. Just like Paul is none of those while running. Keep on believing he'll become dictator for life and keep all his promises like a good boy."

Ron Paul has a track record of being principled. He probably won't be elected, but he has already governed while sticking to his guns. Obama had no real track record to go on, and you're an idiot for believing that he would change anything.

Quote :

"Ron Paul doesn't give a shit if people are free or not. All he cares is that the Federal Government doesn't do the freedom-restricting. If a state, county, municipality, business, or economic system in general restricts their freedom, he does not give a shit, not one iota. That's not a belief in freedom, it's just an irrational paranoia of a single system at the cost of ignoring the effects of all the others. Sorry but I actually value freedom *existing*, not being a theoretical possibility."

I don't know how to get decentralization through your thick head - you just don't want to accept it. In the words of Karl Hess (not the ref):

"Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany is a horror; Adolf Hitler at a town meeting would be an asshole.”

In your incredibly naive mind, you believe that the federal government can and will protect liberty. You're wrong. A government with that much power cannot be trusted, so we have to actively work to dismantle the federal government. That is the only solution.

Quote :

"It was a shift from delusion, idealism, and gullibility to pragmatism and realistic expectations. Also a realization that the assumptions that go into an ideal free market (information symmetry, equal opportunity, meritocracy, etc) do not exist in nature, unaided."

So your solution was to support full on authoritarian, state capitalism. Got it.

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:46 PM. Reason : ]

2/22/2012 1:45:46 PM

Quote :

"Ron Paul has a track record of being principled. He probably won't be elected, but he has already governed while sticking to his guns. Obama had no real track record to go on, and you're an idiot for believing that he would change anything."

Paul has a track record of getting votes by being a grandstanding ideologue, not by actually *doing* anything. His shtick is to be the guy who votes against everything, talks a lot, never actually gets his own measures through. He's a snake oil salesman who sells empty bottles.

Quote :

"In your incredibly naive mind, you believe that the federal government can and will protect liberty. "

A Democratic one sure can, particularly a constitutional democracy. Hitler dissolved all Democratic insitutions in Germany and nullified its constitution, backed by the wealthy industry players. The opposite perspective to yours would be that power and money correlate, and so allowing boundless wealth accumulation can only end in tyranny.

Quote :

"You're wrong. A government with that much power cannot be trusted, so we have to actively work to dismantle the federal government. That is the only solution."

Hey it's 17-year old me, waddaya know.

Quote :

"So your solution was to support full on authoritarian, state capitalism. Got it."

This is why you may never grow out of your current phase, you've completely internalized your political and economic ideology into absolutist, borderline-religious moral categories. Anyone who's against you must be a Stalinist, anything short of Anarcho Capitalism is total tyranny. It's a mirror image of a teenage Christian debating an atheist, but with secular ideologies in place of religious dogma. Seriously, grow the fuck up.
.

[Edited on February 22, 2012 at 1:57 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2012 1:55:08 PM

Addressing one thing you mentioned before:

Quote :

"an ideal free market (information symmetry, equal opportunity, meritocracy"

This is not an "ideal free market", proving once again that you have no idea what ideology you're arguing against.

Information is, by nature, asymmetrical. If I go to a car mechanic, or a doctor, or a home builder, they'll all give me some estimated cost and a summary of the services I'll receive. Being someone that is not a professional in those areas, I lack the knowledge that they have. They may be ripping me off. It is my responsible to shop around and do research. You assert that people will not shop around and get educated, which calls into question your claim that a truly democratic United States is possible. People can't visit a couple stores, but they can get informed enough to vote in adequate representatives?

Equal opportunity will never exist. A possibly noble (but lofty) goal. Meritocracy is kind of a vague term, but in a free market, merit matters. Your problem is that some people are privileged or underprivileged, and that doesn't strike you as "fair", so you want to use government guns to play Robin Hood.

Quote :

"Paul has a track record of getting votes by being a grandstanding ideologue, not by actually *doing* anything. His shtick is to be the guy who votes against everything, talks a lot, never actually gets his own measures through. He's a snake oil salesman who sells empty bottles. "

He votes as a representative, even when the vote could potentially make him look bad in a political context. Of course he doesn't get his own measures through. That doesn't make him a snake oil salesman.

Quote :

"A Democratic one sure can, particularly a constitutional democracy. Hitler dissolved all Democratic insitutions in Germany and nullified its constitution, backed by the wealthy industry players. The opposite perspective to yours would be that power and money correlate, and so allowing boundless wealth accumulation can only end in tyranny. "

So, you're saying that in the United States (a country of 300+ million), the voting majority will choose to make laws that protect liberty, and presumably, benefit the nation as a whole?

Quote :

"This is why you may never grow out of your current phase, you've completely internalized your political and economic ideology into absolutist, borderline-religious moral categories. Anyone who's against you must be a Stalinist, anything short of Anarcho Capitalism is total tyranny. It's a mirror image of a teenage Christian debating an atheist, but with secular ideologies in place of religious dogma. Seriously, grow the fuck up."

Political matters are moral matters when lives are on the line. No, I'm not willing to compromise on war and prohibition. I'm not willing to hold my nose while lives are ruined. You are, and that tells me something about you as a person.

You don't have to be an anarcho-capitalist. You don't even have to be a libertarian. I'm willing to work with anyone, but I strongly feel that many U.S. policies right now are wrong. We don't have to abolish taxation, throw out patent law, or go back to the gold standard (although we should), but my stated priority is to end the aggression. It's really that simple. I support the candidate that will take action on what I feel is the priority. You're so worked up about neo-feudalism popping up in the absence of a state (something that is a non-issue) that you'll vote for any idiot that pays lip service to "equal opportunity" and "fairness" while simultaneously greasing the cogs of a corporate-state machine.

And it's no fucking secret that your ideology is fueled, in large part, by deep-seated white guilt. It's obvious to every single person that has spent any time in TSB. Whenever we really dive into economic issues, the racist accusations start flying. Why don't you tell us what really happened in the past few years? What event drove you to this warped ideology?

2/22/2012 2:47:45 PM

Reading Rawls was the primary driver of my shift from libertarianism into democratic socialism. He made me realize that the idealized conditions that appear in most free market discussions do not exist in the default state of nature.

After this realization, basically the whole libertarian shebang started crumbling for me. Bakunin drew the line between nominal and effective rights in a way that was hard to deny. To this day I consider myself fiercely meritocratic, but have no faith in the supposed meritocracy of an unrestrained free market. So I came to favor government programs that attempted to create the ideal conditions (equal opportunity, information symmetry, etc) that most free market fanatics simply assume are the natural state of nature.

It didn't help my failing attachment to right wing ideals that the more I learned about feminism, abolitionism, and civil rights in general have been most loudly championed by the left and put down by the right for over a century. At this point I realized most of the right wing's talk of "liberty" was a shroud, mostly theoretical and hypothetical, rather than practical, real liberty in people's lives. The right, including libertarians, have been dragged along the entire time, and today only begrudgingly acknowledge that there are still very real issues with gender and race in this country. If they do acknowledge it, they don't really care if it happens as long as resolving it doesn't inconvenience them. As though their convenience is worth more than the practical liberty of other human beings. This went from being my own beliefs (I was anti-AA earlier in life, because I equated it with the racism that caused the inequalities to begin with) to being an attitude that deeply disgusted me.

Then I started reading more Democratic literature, including some Pannekoek (which solidified my interest in decentralized economic Democracy) and after finally reading Albert Einstein's "Why Socialism?" paper I finally decided to buy a subscription to the Monthly Review and have considered myself a card-carrying socialist since.

There you go, that's how I got from libertarianism to here. The whole process took about 3-4 years, treating the height as being a time when my general opposition to any and all welfare was a firm belief in an inherent autonomy of an individual, AKA "I don't owe anybody anything, especially not the so-called 'community'. "

Quote :

"He votes as a representative, even when the vote could potentially make him look bad in a political context."

He votes 100% in line with his shtick, that's not risky or dangerous in anyway, lol. He doesn't rely on acting moderate to get votes, in fact doing so would offend his constituency, so he perpetuates his position through a constant stream of protest votes and populist rhetoric. It's not a new strategy, in fact it's completely standard fare for Independents, he just takes it to an extreme.



[Edited on February 24, 2012 at 12:52 PM. Reason : /]

2/24/2012 12:42:18 PM

So in other words, there was no "event." It was a slow process of self-education that involved many more authors than the key influences I listed, and a long period of internal conflict during which I was switching between Cato journals and Clement Attlee on a daily basis during my bus commute. It hasn't stopped either, even today I'm truthfully still on the fence between very-obviously-Socialist options and simple Welfare State Capitalism. The former being often overly idealistic and impractical, while the latter is at least a feasible band-aid solution for exploitation.


edit: Oh yeah, I forgot Zizek (Though mostly for his amusing cultural critiques) and obviously Marx (Understanding historical materialism was a big "Ah ha!" moment, although it took Pannekoek's phrasing before it sunk in).

[Edited on February 24, 2012 at 3:21 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2012 3:09:54 PM

Quote :

"Reading Rawls was the primary driver of my shift from libertarianism into democratic socialism. He made me realize that the idealized conditions that appear in most free market discussions do not exist in the default state of nature. After this realization, basically the whole libertarian shebang started crumbling for me. Bakunin drew the line between nominal and effective rights in a way that was hard to deny. To this day I consider myself fiercely meritocratic, but have no faith in the supposed meritocracy of an unrestrained free market. So I came to favor government programs that attempted to create the ideal conditions (equal opportunity, information symmetry, etc) that most free market fanatics simply assume are the natural state of nature. "

Luckily, the modern libertarian movement doesn't want to return to the default state of nature. In a state of nature, it's kill or be killed with very little justice except for those that have weapons. The goal is actually to progress from our current system, which could be described as state capitalism or state monopolized capitalism.

Theories of social justify and positive liberty, at least in an ethical context, are not exempt from consideration. I frequent a blog at bleedingheartlibertarians.com, and about a week ago the example was used of a person that encounters a drowning child in a shallow pool. The cost and risk to save the child drowning in a shallow pool is presumably zero or close to zero, and the reward is saving a life. By using a strict "non aggression principle" axiom, there's no violation of rights if you choose to not save the child. But, I would wager that almost anyone here would say that it is wrong to not save the child, and that the individual has some duty here.

You can read the post here: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/02/what-we-can-learn-from-drowning-children/

The logical leap that you're willing to take, and that almost anyone is willing to take, is that a duty should be enforceable by the state. It's easy enough to do. The state has been around for most of human history, so our assumption naturally is, "Well, this is how it is, and this is how it should be."

Quote :

"It didn't help my failing attachment to right wing ideals that the more I learned about feminism, abolitionism, and civil rights in general have been most loudly championed by the left and put down by the right for over a century. At this point I realized most of the right wing's talk of "liberty" was a shroud, mostly theoretical and hypothetical, rather than practical, real liberty in people's lives. The right, including libertarians, have been dragged along the entire time, and today only begrudgingly acknowledge that there are still very real issues with gender and race in this country. If they do acknowledge it, they don't really care if it happens as long as resolving it doesn't inconvenience them. As though their convenience is worth more than the practical liberty of other human beings. This went from being my own beliefs (I was anti-AA earlier in life, because I equated it with the racism that caused the inequalities to begin with) to being an attitude that deeply disgusted me. "

The left right rhetoric is meaningless. You could try (and fail) to define left and right, but I don't even think it's worth getting into.

Again, you want the state to step in and remedy these cultural problems (racism etc), and you have no clear path for how it will happen or how it would be done fairly. To support your position, you claim that no one on "the right" actually cares, and it's all a front for the privileged to live on the backs of unprivileged minorities. And, even though many libertarians argue that their optimal system is not only moral but, from a utilitarian perspective, the best for most people, you say that this is all fake.

Quote :

"Then I started reading more Democratic literature, including some Pannekoek (which solidified my interest in decentralized economic Democracy) and after finally reading Albert Einstein's "Why Socialism?" paper I finally decided to buy a subscription to the Monthly Review and have considered myself a card-carrying socialist since."

I decided to read "Why Socialism?". If anything, at least based on this, he would have supported small scale socialism, certainly not socialism run by the U.S. government. In other writings, he seems to support a world state, I don't know. Nevertheless, his belief that production can be effectively planned shows that he should have stuck to what he knew. There are many reasons why this doesn't work, explained by Mises, Hayek, etc.

As I've said many, many times recently, I don't know why you're so stuck on the idea of a massive, centralized state. It doesn't work out well. You claim that there's no real difference between a large and small state, but that simply doesn't hold water. A government presiding over a high population territory is less likely to represent its constituents. It's also more likely to be able to amass resources and do bad things.

Quote :

"There you go, that's how I got from libertarianism to here. The whole process took about 3-4 years, treating the height as being a time when my general opposition to any and all welfare was a firm belief in an inherent autonomy of an individual, AKA "I don't owe anybody anything, especially not the so-called 'community'. ""

Looks like you didn't really delve into libertarian philosophy, especially if you were just reading Cato journals. You found out there were criticisms, believed them, and never bothered to read the rebuttals.

Of course, if you actually give a shit about the poor and underprivileged (I'm not talking about poor, uneducated Americans - I'm talking about the millions of victims of prohibition, the people that die at the hands of U.S. military forces, the people that pay the economic consequences of entitled American lifestyle), you couldn't even consider holding your nose and supporting Obama. So-called "leftists" like Chomsky sure as hell wouldn't.

[Edited on February 24, 2012 at 5:42 PM. Reason : ]

2/24/2012 5:41:27 PM

Probably slightly off topic but I just wanted to jump in and say that

Quote :

"In a state of nature, it's kill or be killed "

isn't necessarily true. Nature/Natural Selection/whatever has chosen symbiosis, mutual aid, teamwork etc almost as often as its chosen pure competition, and thats especially true of "higher order" animals (like almost all things its a spectrum and some balance between the two is usually the best option).

2/24/2012 6:26:21 PM

Quote :

"The U.S. government hasn’t decided yet whether or not to slap tariffs on Chinese solar panels imported into the U.S., but that outcome is looking more and more likely: On Monday, the U.S. Commerce Department announced it had found “reasonable basis to believe or suspect” that Chinese subsidies of solar panels imported to the U.S. were in violation of international trade agreements. Further, in an historic decision, the Commerce Department said that when it makes its final decision on March 2nd whether or not to enact tariffs on Chinese solar panel manufacturers, the tariffs will be retroactive for 90 days — requiring Chinese companies to pay drastically higher fees on all of the panels that they’ve imported to the U.S. since December 3, 2011. It’s the first time that the agency has rendered such a decision in advance of making a determination on the actual tariffs...."

YAY PRICES OF SOLAR PANELS WILL SKYROCKET YAY.

Alright guys, I need one of you Obama zealot suicide bombers to find a way to pin this on the Zionist republicans or disprove it

And get a move on it. I was planning on getting a pallet of panels this fall to get up to 6Kilowatts

2/24/2012 7:07:57 PM

Ask yourself why are the Chinese panels in such high demand? Could it be that on this issue, the Chinese gov. is doing the right thing by looking at where technology is headed, and promoting growth and development in that direction?

They've established themselves with the intention to be leaders in this industry through gov. investment in this technology.

If the Republicans didn't have their head in the sand, our gov. could be doing the same thing, and considering we have smarter more talented scientist and engineers, we could do a better job.

Instead, the Republicans are blocking these measures to satisfy the oil industry using the cries of "socialism", forcing the Obama admin to futilely embrace protectionism (which is almost always doomed to fail).

The Chinese will continue to advance on us, as long as the right keeps preventing the gov. from performing the will of the people, and push research and investment into modern technologies.

2/24/2012 7:32:49 PM

Wait. We have a D president. A D senate. A D judicial branch and you are pinning this on the repubs? Anyways I won't even try to go in that direction....

But can't Obama or Harry Reid do anything to help or bring down the price of solar in the US instead of jacking it through the stratosphere? (expecting a typical response about repubs blocking don't worry)

2/24/2012 8:24:06 PM

Judicial branch isn't D.

The president can do lots of things, but not without the right invoking the specter of socialism.

2/24/2012 8:39:06 PM

The Chinese have money to invest. We have a worse debt than Greece. Go tell them they just need to "invest" in unicorn farts and rainbows or whatever else makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

The private sector will develop the next step forward, just as it always has. Hopefully the govt wont push the market in ways that limit that development. ie Ethanol. Bravo

2/24/2012 8:41:47 PM

[Edited on February 24, 2012 at 9:00 PM. Reason : nm]

2/24/2012 8:49:14 PM

Hey moron, when your wish of death on all things republican comes true.... then how would we 'catch up' hypothetically to the Chinese. Help us out moron. Describe carefully and slowly for us how to get cheap solar around these parts...

2/24/2012 8:52:31 PM