Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RedKing]

I think I've come to the conclusion that a certain level of hypocrisy is unavoidable when trying to govern and safeguard a large country. Pragmatism trumps idealism, and most of the time that's for the greater good that it does. 

Do you actually mean hypocrisy, here?  As in doing one thing while saying another?  As in forcing other people to live to standards that you don't hold for yourself?  I doubt hypocrisy is what you actually mean here.

I think what you mean to say is that you don't believe in absolutes.  This is also where "idealism" is a horribly abused word.  Idealism isn't about denying reality, it's about working towards a better reality.  Someone who bases their decisions on the assumption that the world operates according to their ideals is simply an idiot, not an idealist.  An ideal isn't meant to be fully realized, or else it wouldn't be called an ideal.  An ideal is a conceptual model, and reality can never match the purity of an idea.  Nobody should expect an ideal to ever be fully realized, any more than an artist should expect to produce a work that cannot be improved on.

When pragmatism calls for action counter to ideals, reasonable people understand.  When you expect others to be tolerant of your own pragmatism but do not extend that tolerance to others, that is hypocrisy and I don't understand how it can be argued for.

What I'm saying is that I got into international relations because I saw decades of US foreign policy where we said we were all for freedom and democracy, even as we propped up Third World dictators. Blatantly hypocritical, and I'd long chalked it up to "Cold War mentality caused us to make a lot of bad decisions in the name of anti-Communism". But as I've delved into the history and seen modern-day analogues in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Libya and Egypt....it's become much harder for me to judge them.

Sometimes you have to support undemocratic options in the greater interest of democracy. And sometimes working for American interests means working against the interests of most of the rest of the world. I guess I've become something of a neorealist over time (though not of the Machivellian/neoconservative breed, more of a John Mearshimer bent).

[kaijyuu]

Re: Death taxes.

What's stopping these rich people from just handing their kids all their money in a truckload of large briefcases before they die?

[Nadaka]

The economy is crashing! what are we going to do!


We are going to renew the god damn warrantless wiretapping law!

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/12/28/1850240/senate-renews-warrantless-eavesdropping-act

Thank you senatorial fuckshits.

[RedKing]

The economy is crashing! what are we going to do!


We are going to renew the god damn warrantless wiretapping law!

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/12/28/1850240/senate-renews-warrantless-eavesdropping-act

Thank you senatorial fuckshits.

Admittedly, there isn't a hell of a lot else FOR them to do. The Senate already passed a bill to avert the fiscal cliff, with a balanced mix of cuts and letting the Bush tax cuts expire over $250,000. This was entirely too close to the realm of sanity, so of course the House refuses to pass anything close to it. Instead, Boehner (with Tea Party loons at his back with pitchforks) is offering their version, which reinstates ALL the tax cuts and makes up the difference by deeper cuts in social services. Which is DOA for the Senate.

[flameaway]

It's difficult, for me at least, to come to a balanced understanding of what's going in the USA right now.

We've always been considerably better at promoting human rights, than we've been at protecting them. But the torture talking point is frankly offensive when balanced against how we market ourselves.

Then again, there's the whole AGW political debate (science is clear at this point in my view), seems fairly clear that capitalism is on the way out, though it looks to go out with a fight so it may take awhile, but if average temps really rise 8 C in the next hundred years... well, how do you sustain economic growth when everything is dying?

So sometimes  it looks a lot to me like we need to rethink things or a whole big bunch of us are going to be lost.  You know like George Carlin and his conviction that we are circling the drain.

On the other hand, I just spent several months driving through the western half of the United States and it is really difficult to be pessimistic about our chances to overcome the hurdles we face when you are standing next to a man-made reservoir that is a couple of hundred miles long.

It does seem that we have a lot of problems that arise from our fundamental way of doing things.  So it's likely we are going through some sort of defining moment. 

We are living in interesting times. 

Bad karma I guess.

[PanH]

Re: Death taxes.

What's stopping these rich people from just handing their kids all their money in a truckload of large briefcases before they die?

In most countries, there's taxes if you give too much money at once (there's often a limit on the amount of money you can give without tax to someone for x years).

[misko27]

Then again, there's the whole AGW political debate (science is clear at this point in my view), seems fairly clear that capitalism is on the way out, though it looks to go out with a fight so it may take awhile, but if average temps really rise 8 C in the next hundred years... well, how do you sustain economic growth when everything is dying?

This sorta points out how much people tend to think iinside the box when regarding the future. Someone somewhere will figure it out. And he'll make a fortune.

[Pnx]

Then again, there's the whole AGW political debate (science is clear at this point in my view), seems fairly clear that capitalism is on the way out, though it looks to go out with a fight so it may take awhile, but if average temps really rise 8 C in the next hundred years... well, how do you sustain economic growth when everything is dying?

This sorta points out how much people tend to think iinside the box when regarding the future. Someone somewhere will figure it out. And he'll make a fortune.

They'll make a what from ousting capitalism?

[Descan]

that's the joke, PNX.

Perhaps he should have put it in quotes.

This sorta points out how much people tend to think iinside the box when regarding the future. "Someone somewhere will figure it out. And he'll make a fortune."

[Scoops Novel]

Or he's a realist. 

[palsch]

I know this is going back a bit, but family/holidays and stuff.

Does anyone else find those Westboro petitions a little offensive? I mean, they are asking things that are impossible while trying to deny a small group constitutional rights (freedom of association has long been read from the First Ammendment) purely by a majority (or simply larger group) expressing their displeasure with their actions. I know far too many other minority groups I like and support who garner similar disgust from the general population to think this is a good idea, even in extreme cases.

Note that the USA doesn't define or list hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center does, and already list the WBC. Their list has no force of law and is simply a list of groups made by a private organisation for the information of other citizens and organisations. It would be impossible for the USA to give such a list force of law without drastically reducing minority protections for all groups, making them provisional on fitting some narrower category of socially acceptable.

As for their tax exempt status, it's worth remembering that Phelps was a lawyer with a great deal of experience (mostly in protecting civil rights of racial minorities). The question of tax exemption is a simple question of law; if the church is run as a non-profit abiding by IRS regulations for a 501(c)(3) organisation (or at least those provisions as enforced; currently the provision banning political campaigning by churches isn't being enforced while new guidelines are drawn up, IIRC) then there is no legal way to deny them that status. While other charlatans like Kent Hovind have messed up the legal side to the tune of jail time, nothing I've seen suggests that Phelps ever breaks any laws or regulations, preferring to tempt those protesting him into doing so themselves.

Again, ignoring or changing current law to deny them such status by little more than popular opinion, executive fiat or any other arbitrary standard is likely to catch a whole mess of other minority non-profits who happen to fall out of favour with the majority or current administration.

On the tax exemption note, there are a few cases currently on the books from American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation challenging 501(c)(3) provisions that advantage religious organisations over other non-profits, as well as the current lack of enforcement of any standards at all when it comes to electioneering. I'd say that direct support to one of those two groups would be infinitely more beneficial than signing a petition, the only result of which is to make the administration look bad when they don't take the impossible/wrong-headed actions called for.

[Frumple]

It's... yeah, unintentional consequences may be an issue, but WBC itself is kinda', well. I don't think anyone has sympathy for those folks. They're bastards that are intentionally exploiting the limits of legality and targeting the emotionally distraught for more or less the sole purpose of being able to throw lawsuits at people. We have and do legally censor similar types of behavior (it's along the conceptual lines of fraud, I'd say). The petitions themselves are obviously not well thought out, yes, but finding some way to prevent the WBC from doing what it does would kinda' be a serious improvement, all around.

And... I don't actually know of any group I've heard of that garners similar disgust to what the WBC garners. They're a particular breed I don't exactly see much elsewhere, and the disgust aimed at them seems to be a bit different from what you get directed at most other "socially unacceptable" behaviors.

[palsch]

There have been attempts to limit their protests before. All of them have been struck down, and a lot of them were facially horrible laws. Any attempts to limit politically what people may protest is a flat out bad idea. I don't really see any legal approach to shutting them down that isn't worse than them existing. As for emotional damages, Snyder v. Phelps mostly blocked that path.

As for similar disgust, no-one garners such universal disgust, but that's a very recent thing. Only since they started protesting soldiers funerals post-9/11. When they focused on protesting against AIDS victims during the 90's they weren't really that far outside the mainstream. It's only when they tie other, popular groups and American institutions into their anti-gay rhetoric that they get mainstream pushback. You don't have to go back far to see a time when their targets were viewed in a similar light as WBC are today by a large percentage of the population.

Not to mention that that disgust means that they are the absolute worst group to use to make any sort of policy. Extreme cases make bad law. It's always tempting to use the law to reflect what all 'right thinking' persons know, especially when there is such widespread agreement, but giving any credence to that sort of call to ban Bad Thing Of The Day is a far worse idea.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

On the bright side, they've probably helped gay rights in trying to hurt it. When they protest the funerals of both soldiers and homosexuals with such vitriol, it opens the door for those who like soldiers but are prejudiced against homosexuals to re-examine exactly who's side they're on.

[Criptfeind]

Yeah. Too bad that doesn't actually happen.