Pukola!

My daughter had to do a parent interview tonight as part of her homework. The last question was - “What is the most important concern you have as a parent today?”. My answer: ENSURE ONLY SCIENCE IS TAUGHT IN SCIENCE CLASS! (yes I did yell)

This situation makes me sick! I guess I’ve been living with this illusion that Rationality has been making progress thru my nearly 5 decades. I’m now convinced it’s going to take a heck of a lot more evolution before we get there. 

Rats!

PS. Hi everybody, sorry I haven’t been around lately - been working 80 hour weeks for months now. Having said that - I’m still heavily addicted to StumbleUpon tho! 

I’ve missed you, Spocko!

Frankly, I would rather have intelligent design taught in schools than socialism and the governments role as the great provider.

Of course, intelligent design is almost as “good” as willful stupidity.

I forget where the following came from (might have been the daily show), but it was something like:

In the realm of science, when something is not understood, thoughts are put forth and tested. As more tests are subjected, understanding of the thing may eventually lead to a theory. If fault is found with such theory, it is revised as necessary and continues to be subjected to critical inquiry.

In the realm of intelligent design, when something is not understood, one simply gives up and decides that god must have designed it.

Sounds like intelligence to me…

Spocko:

Pukola!

My daughter had to do a parent interview tonight as part of her homework.

On the main page, looking at the recent comments list, I thought you had named your daughter “Pukola”. You know how the spaces get left out there.

I was gonna give you props for being so original (if not very nice).

This could go somewhere really interesting as a play, TheBo$$. Keep adding to it.

Do you all really think that the situation is all this bad?  Maybe as satire, but having sat through science courses that taught intelligent design in Christian schools, I can assure you the answer for “How does the heart pump blood?” would not be “It is very complicated.  It may have been designed.”

I am not saying ID should be taught in schools, that is silly.  But saying such things, and blowing things out of proportion in such a way makes you all sound just as silly.

While that scenario is parody, it is not out of proportion to say that allowing supernaturalism into science class cuts the heart out of science.

Slick is correct, but what gets me is that they want philisophical ideas given the same weight as scientific ones. That is certainly wrong!

Frankly, I would rather have intelligent design taught in schools than socialism and the governments role as the great provider.

What do you have against socialism?

Cheers BunBun

“What do you have against socialism?”

Boy, where to start…

Socialism is the taking, by force, from those who work to give to those who do not.

Put another way, it is the sacrifice of the individual for the good of society. Noble? Not when one considers what society is...a group of individuals.

Historically, socialism has led to such brilliant things as Nazi Germany, Facist Italy, and the U.S.S.R. Of course, instead of reading up on any of these countries before they became totalitarian, people just assume that because socialism sounds good that it must be able to lead to somewhere other than totalitarianism…

Here is a quick rundown on some of the top socialist programs in our government, what existed before them, and why I believe that we are much worse off now than we were before FDR and his Communist New Deal (yes, that is right...Communist...go look up the 10 planks of communism if you think I make this stuff up).

Welfare: Helping those who need it.

How? By taking the fruits of ones labor via force.
Why? Because people must be evil and unwilling to help others.

What if instead of the government stealing your money, people on welfare were given lists of people that they could go to and demand food and/or money from whenever they wanted it…

Would that be a good thing? If not, what makes it a good thing when the government acts as a middleman and pockets part of the money?

What existed before welfare?
Charity: Giving to those in need.
How? By giving what one can spare to those charities that one trusts to help people.
Why? Because it is wrong to take peoples property (including labor) by force.

What values does welfare reinforce? Laziness, irresponsibility, self-loathing, depression.

How? Because welfare promotes non-interaction with society to get a free ride for nothing. One simply gets a check from the government with no effort.

This supports those who grow up on welfare believing that having food and shelter is a right, not the result of hard work and effort...which often results in children of welfare being on welfare themselves.

What happened before welfare?
People who needed help had to ask for it. Those who had extra food/etc would give to those in need. This promotes community and helps to give those in need help by knowing that they are not alone and forgotten. In addition, this helps to keep the poor in the public eye. (Did you know that some cities now have policies of keeping the poor out of the city?)

Both systems allow some to slip through the cracks...but charity is the only one that offers a good chance of people getting back on their feet.

However...due to mis-application of the income tax laws, most people can barely afford to keep food on their own tables these days, much less help others out. (that is correct, income taxes are constitutional, but mis-applied by force, fear, and fraud. Do not take my word for it as it sounded just as crazy to me when I heard it as it probably does to you.)

There is no shame in asking for help from charities...so long as the intention is to get back on ones feet rather than continue to live off of such charity forever.

Maybe not the best way to state it, but welfare is one of the things tearing our country apart...and those like me who denounce it are demonized as uncaring...when nothing could be further from the truth.

A good example of how good charity can be as opposed to welfare...look at the support offerend (and denied in most cases by our government) to those struck by Katrina from charities.

Social Security
Touted as paying in today to get money when one retires or is hurt.

The truth that this is the taking of the fruits of ones labor by force...and the promise of repayment with massive negative interest down the road. Many people that must rely on social security find themselves terribly alone with barely enough money to live meagerly on. If they had been allowed to save (and taught how to do so), they would be living quite well.

The government cannot guarantee that your money will have the same buying power when you retire as it does today. In fact, anyone that knows about inflation can clearly see that this is a rotten deal. Nevermind the fact that the government “borrows” against the social security fund without authorization...and that social security is running on empty.

IF social security was explained to the general populace (who is taught nothing about money, the federal reserve, inflation, interest, etc) and was made optional (for those who felt that getting a guaranteed negative return on investment was a good thing), then it might be ok.

As it now, it is blatant robbery...helping everyone in this country to go bankrupt.

Other thoughts...
There is a reason that we have lack of available jobs, lack of skilled workers, lack of savings, abundance of debt, lack of education, etc.

That reason is the socialist policy pounded into the heads of the American people. Everything is blamed on the “evils of capitalism”...when the power behind the throne of the farce we call capitalism is the government.

The companies must obey the laws...and our government is selling them to the highest bidder and paying their customers back with both legal monopolies and subsidies (tax money).

We were once a great nation, but we are blind and lost and no longer understand what Liberty is.

Until we can make our government serve us once again (as it once did), we will not again be free.

Note: Before flaming me mercilessly for being a “traitor”, an “idiot”, etc, please go lookup the following:
Definition of Liberty
Definition of Freedom
Definition of Indentured Servitude
10 Planks of Communism
Classical Liberalism
Laissez Faire Capitalism
Socialism
Totalitarianism
Facism

If you get a chance, pick up R.A. Hayeks “The road to serfdom”. It is quite the eye opener for those willing to see. We are very close to the next logical stopping point for socialism…

Anywise, just some thoughts from a “lunatic fringe nutjob"…

Rather than lower our trade borders to gut the jobs available to our people, we should have an open market internally and use tarrifs and trade refusal as weapons against those that oppress their people. Instead, we opt for the socialist “New World Order” and servitude to the U.N. (free speach...so long as you agree with us) and sell our own people out.

whew...sorry for the light overview of what I believe are the evils of socialism...but it would take days to paint an accurate picture with support of proof.

Responsibility for ones self is the necessary price of Liberty. Those who will not be responsible are basically asking to become servants of a paternal police state government.

Political Compass (thanks Les!):
Economic Left/Right: 0.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.33
e.g. Economic Centrist, Social Libertarian

p.s. On solitions…

Social Security:
Keep paying out for those on it and who have paid into it, but cancel it otherwise.

Welfare:
Drop it over a period of a few years and publicly encourage establishment of shelters and foodbanks while educating those on welfare as to what they will need to do when welfare is gone.

I know that we cannot just drop such programs immediately, but there are humane solutions to getting rid of them that would be very good for us all in the long run.

A larger pending problem is the National Debt. If we want a future, we need to start demanding that the federal government cut excess, unneeded programs (forced foreign aid, forced government overthrows, etc); raise tarrifs on international trade; cut all subsidies; and start spending our tax monies on the national debt rather than printing new money and raising inflation.

Just as large will be peak oil. Our government needs to stop hiding this problem and start letting people know it is coming so that those who want to be responsible can start preparing properly.

Let those who want to donate money to different causes do so...but stop taking from everyone in this country by force.

This stuff is not rocket science...but those in power (Republicans and Democrats) are preparing a bleak future for both us and our children. If we want them to have a chance, we need to do something…

In that vein, rather than teaching such gibberish as ID in schools, maybe schools can teach financial responsibility, real history, philosphy, and real law (jury nullification, the absurdity of victimless crimes, etc).

Until people stop focusing on “the left” and “the right” and start deciding whether we want responsibility and liberty or priviledge and servitude we will continue like lemmings over the cliff of ignorance.

The truth is out there...but it is so opposed to what our society is taught that most can no more see it than religious zealots can believe that morality is not the strict domain of religion.

Damn, I wouldn’t want to debate Religion. I’d be annihilated!

Should we start lobbying for our nation to recognize our “Agnosto-Atheist heritage”?

Creepers!

My son would have loved it if I named my daughter Pukola! (wink hi brock).

Hey Bo$$ - I second that!

Permalink. Socialism didn`t lead to the regimes you describe, the national socialists in germany were never that and where did you get the idea Italian fascists were socialists. The USSR were, of course Communist, so no go there. They were all totalitarian regimes. The opposite of Socialism, so you don`t really have a clue (try reading a book on European history). I`d like to go back to the Nazi`s though. They, like you, thought that anyone who wasn`t European white didn`t deserve a look in. What you really mean is that black people shouldn`t be supported and here`s the question? Given that your country was built on the slave labour of those people and your quote “because it is wrong to take peoples property (including labor) by force.” I wonder what you think cognitive dissonance mean?

Should we start lobbying for our nation to recognize our “Agnosto-Atheist heritage�?

I wouldn’t favor that, either.  One of the dangers to any frame of reference is the claim that it encompasses all possible pictures.  Our nation has many (overlapping) heritages; political, religious, scientific, technological, artistic, literary…

Democracy is a political, not an economic system.  Science does not attempt to answer the question; “Why are we here?” Socialism is a good response to questions that the free market can’t answer, and capitalism a good answer to those questions to which socialism cannot constructively respond.

So when I see a bumper sticker that says, in sum; “The US is a Christian Nation” they are trying to stretch the frame of one part of our religious heritage around all possible pictures.  The same is true if we try to say; “The founding fathers were all deists” or some such.

Absolutism is always wrong!  NO exceptions! 

Did Dave here just address his comment to “Permalink?”

Did Dave here just address his comment to “Permalink?�

Probably because Permalink will always be around to talk to him.