EPTRepublican nominations - Page 359
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On January 25 2012 01:10 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: I have the belief that we should look out for ourselves 100x before others. As a president your job is to our people, you aren't some sort of worldly humanitarian. So in a scenario a president should value 1 of our lives to a 100 of theirs. That being said. I simply don't care if it causes instability, hell I don't even care if we are the cause of the instability in the first place. The point being it's way too expensive to have yourself entangled in overseas affairs and to what ends? It creates more enemies and builds more hate against us. It's straight arrogance. Anyway, I am open to being wrong and change. If you can show me how it would cause more harm than good to the USA, then I will concede you are right. Ron Paul put it best, Marijuana ain't going to kill you, and those who use Heroin would probably use it regardless of its legal status. I have never used Heroin/Cocaine and could never see myself using it regardless of legal status for the same reason I don't drink and I don't smoke. Will you have more people using these things if they are legal? Probably, but I doubt it would be a significant number and when you treat them as a health issue as opposed to a criminal issue they are less likely to become recidivist douches. Either way, no one was talking full legalization, but restrictions such that alcohol has. I found when I was younger it was easier to get weed then it was alcohol. In certain regards maybe you need a gray area, but any time you create a gray area it opens room for abuse towards some wrongful public opinion that disenfranchises an idea. An example I would use is harsher restrictions on the death penalty. Making it tougher to kill someone would never work because people don't look at how guilty someone is, but how heinous the crime is and its perceived need for punishment. I think with any controversial policy that you include too much of a gray area in is open to abuse. But if you give me more precise examples of what laws/policies need gray areas that you are thinking of it might make more sense. An example of foreign policy. In the 80s, we supported the Afghan people in a war against the Soviet Union. As the war ended in Afghanistan's favor, the U.S. declared the entire operation a success. We withdrew our support for a nation that was torn apart by a brutal war. When the fighting ended, the weapons we had given them were turned against their own people in brutal infighting. The end result was a country that had no sane civilian population left. Because of the poor nature of the country, it became a hotbed for terrorism in general. With all those local woes, they were bound to lash out at some point. Of course, you may argue that if the U.S. had left the region entirely, they would have picked some other unfortunate targets for their unrest. However, the symbol for western wealth and culture lies within our border, and I believe a stronger argument could be made that we would have faced a formidable level of terrorism due to that "capital" nature of our country. In this case, we are in Afghanistan today finishing what we started in the 80s. We are helping them rebuild a society people want to live in, instead of one that people want to avenge. For drugs, I don't have very many answers. I do believe a path to legalizing marijuana would be a rather innocuous, but there are still problems with DUIs in that case as well. With the CATO institute being thrown around as a "credible source" on the happenings of Portugal, I feel there isn't enough evidence to support (at the very least) adult legalization of "harder" drugs. Like I said earlier, though, the punishment for usage is something that should go under review, since it makes little sense that manslaughter will get you less time than 3 charges of possession of marijuana. For the grey area, I just think it is a philosophically better way to approach decisions. There are very few absolutes in this world, and none of them exist in the realm of politics. Every pure ideal put into practice hurts a large portion of the population in some way. Justifying them by their end goal is not a proper way to pursue them. This goes for things like government control of healthcare, government abandonment of education, abolishment of the Fed, and so on. These ideas were all bred from a need for what it accomplishes. Business in healthcare lends to innovation and investment. Government involvement in education ensures a minimal amount of education available to the population, making the workforce much more valuable as a whole. The Fed provides a stabilizing force to a system which is solely run by greed. These systems all work on some level, and may be argued to be expanded or contracted. However, any suggestion that they should be stripped of or given absolute power is a complete disregard of what people have learned in the past. | ||
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Haemonculus
United States6980 Posts
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On January 25 2012 06:06 Haemonculus wrote: Eh, if Cato's not credible, how about the EMCDDA? Linky. Much more credible. Thank you. Generally, it's not a good idea to post studies which are published by those which would champion the cause without said study. The exception being a very, very large source of studies which are verified by outside sources. | ||
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Haemonculus
United States6980 Posts
On January 25 2012 06:17 aksfjh wrote: Much more credible. Thank you. Generally, it's not a good idea to post studies which are published by those which would champion the cause without said study. The exception being a very, very large source of studies which are verified by outside sources. lol. Alright, w/e. I get you might not like the Cato institute, but to disregard their publishing on the basis that you don't think they did their research is absurd. Every source/study they reference is listed in their paper and available to individual scrutiny if you're up for it. | ||
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On January 25 2012 06:25 Haemonculus wrote: lol. Alright, w/e. I get you might not like the Cato institute, but to disregard their publishing on the basis that you don't think they did their research is absurd. Every source/study they reference is listed in their paper and available to individual scrutiny if you're up for it. Eh, it's just a general rule of thumb. When somebody has an agenda, they will shape the data that's available to fit that agenda. I very much doubt they would be willing to publish findings in Portugal if things had gone to crap. If the findings were mixed, we would likely see the same article come out of the works as well. | ||
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nam nam
Sweden4672 Posts
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BobTheBuilder1377
Somalia335 Posts
Article about the new service they were going to provide for up and coming artists: http://www.sickchirpse.com/2012/01/24/megaupload-the-truth/ | ||
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bOneSeven
Romania685 Posts
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gruff
Sweden2276 Posts
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AUGcodon
Canada536 Posts
On January 25 2012 08:04 bOneSeven wrote: Wow....the founders facing 55 years jail time for running a business where some people did some "unlawful" things without their endorsement. If any retards pops around here and says they did, you should think that millions of files are uploaded constantly. If that is not some terrible thing to happen in a democracy then what is ? Holy shit did nobody reading the indictment? Well here it is Summary:http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Welcome-to-the-United-States-Department-of-Justice.pdf Full version:http://static2.stuff.co.nz/files/MegaUpload.pdf Some choice quotes + Show Spoiler + The content available from Megaupload.com is not searchable on the website,which allows the Mega Conspiracy to conceal the scope of its infringement. ... Members of the Mega Conspiracy have knowingly interacted with users of linking sites and visited the sites (and associated online forums) themselves. Specifically, someof the defendants have instructed individual users how to locate links to infringing content on theMega Sites (including recommending specific linking websites). Several of the defendants havealso shared with each other comments from Mega Site users demonstrating that they have usedor are attempting to use the Mega Sites to get infringing copies of copyrighted content. ... In contrast to the public who is required to significantly rely on third partyindexes, members of the Conspiracy have full access to the listings of actual files that are storedon their servers (as well as the Megaupload.com- and Megavideo.com- and Megaporn.com-generated links to those files). Conspirators have searched the internal database for theirassociates and themselves so that they may directly access copyright-infringing content onservers leased by the Mega Conspiracy. ... Though the public-facing Megaupload.com website itself does not allow searches,it does list its “Top 100 files”, which includes motion picture trailers and software trials that arefreely available on the Internet. The Top 100 list, however, does not actually portray the most popular downloads on Megaupload.com, which makes the website appear more legitimate andhides the popular copyright-infringing content that drives its revenue. .. Megavideo.com does purport to provide both browse and search functions, but anyuser’s search on Megavideo.com for a full length copyrighted video (which can be downloadedfrom a Mega Conspiracy-controlled server somewhere in the world) will not produce any results. ... On or about June 24, 2010, members of the Mega Conspiracy were informed,pursuant to a criminal search warrant from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, that thirty-nine infringing copies of copyrighted motion pictures were present on theirleased servers at Carpathia Hosting, a hosting company headquartered in the Eastern District of Virginia. A member of the Mega Conspiracy informed several of his co-conspirators at that time that he located the named files using internal searches of their systems. As of November 18,2011, more than a year later, thirty-six of the thirty-nine infringing motion pictures were stillbeing stored on the servers controlled by the Mega Conspiracy. ... It goes on The thing is they are not even charged that heavily for pirating. Most of their jail sentence comes from credit card fraud and racketeering. If these guys were not founders of megaupload, nobody would bat an eye. Also we already have a megaupload getting shut down thread. | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On January 24 2012 16:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Also expect the old story of the McCain camp seeing 23 years of Romney's tax returns during their VP selection process. Needless to say they chose Sarah Palin. Source It was absolutely moronic for Romney to delay the way he did and provide ammunition for Gingrich. There was no way he was going to be able to delay it that long, and it's been costing him. On the other side, Gingrich's tax returns are legal but he is avoiding quite a bit through his s corporation, the same way John Edwards did. Legal, but I doubt anyone will draw attention to it like they did for Edwards. | ||
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Derez
Netherlands6068 Posts
On January 25 2012 08:59 Jibba wrote: It was absolutely moronic for Romney to delay the way he did and provide ammunition for Gingrich. There was no way he was going to be able to delay it that long, and it's been costing him. On the other side, Gingrich's tax returns are legal but he is avoiding quite a bit through his s corporation, the same way John Edwards did. Legal, but I doubt anyone will draw attention to it like they did for Edwards. I think that as a whole, the republican establishment (let's call it that) didn't want to release Romney's returns simply because the issue is a whole less impactful when its coming from Obama. If Obama goes after him on taxes, they can simply fold it into his plan to 'raise taxes'. Now that it's coming from other Republicans, the attack gains a lot more credibility. It's interesting to see Gingrich dance around not wanting to raise taxes and yet subtly imply that Mitt is out of touch because of how much money he makes. | ||
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RebirthOfLeGenD
USA5860 Posts
On January 25 2012 05:51 aksfjh wrote: An example of foreign policy. In the 80s, we supported the Afghan people in a war against the Soviet Union. As the war ended in Afghanistan's favor, the U.S. declared the entire operation a success. We withdrew our support for a nation that was torn apart by a brutal war. When the fighting ended, the weapons we had given them were turned against their own people in brutal infighting. The end result was a country that had no sane civilian population left. Because of the poor nature of the country, it became a hotbed for terrorism in general. With all those local woes, they were bound to lash out at some point. Of course, you may argue that if the U.S. had left the region entirely, they would have picked some other unfortunate targets for their unrest. However, the symbol for western wealth and culture lies within our border, and I believe a stronger argument could be made that we would have faced a formidable level of terrorism due to that "capital" nature of our country. In this case, we are in Afghanistan today finishing what we started in the 80s. We are helping them rebuild a society people want to live in, instead of one that people want to avenge. Forgive me if I am misreading this, but I don't think any culture would go out of there way to attack us just because we are a wealthy/successful nation. Seems silly. But even if we did I would never say not to retaliate against a threat or a first action, I don't think that's what was ever suggested. All that was said was don't be the first to act and try to maintain a distance from any sort of military conflict or anything that doesn't benefit us economically. An example of that is Iran sanctions and posturing against them. It is a waste. Why should we care if Iran gets nuclear weapons? They would be stupid to use them on us since it would mean they in turn get completely destroyed. Self preservation should be enough to ward people off, but more importantly if we don't give them a reason to hate us then they won't want to attack us. Furthermore, sanctioning Iran can't help us economically, it could only harm us. I am not an economics major by any sense but it seems fairly reasonable to state that refusing to trade with someone can only hurt the money we make, even if it hurts them more it still hurts us which to me, seems unnecessary. For drugs, I don't have very many answers. I do believe a path to legalizing marijuana would be a rather innocuous, but there are still problems with DUIs in that case as well. With the CATO institute being thrown around as a "credible source" on the happenings of Portugal, I feel there isn't enough evidence to support (at the very least) adult legalization of "harder" drugs. Like I said earlier, though, the punishment for usage is something that should go under review, since it makes little sense that manslaughter will get you less time than 3 charges of possession of marijuana. Well, I'd agree with the first part and I would say more research into the legalization of harder drugs couldn't hurt but still would need to be tried out. Even if its on a state by state basis, for example legalizing heroin/cocaine/ecstasy in Ohio or something and see how it works out. For the grey area, I just think it is a philosophically better way to approach decisions. There are very few absolutes in this world, and none of them exist in the realm of politics. Every pure ideal put into practice hurts a large portion of the population in some way. Justifying them by their end goal is not a proper way to pursue them. This goes for things like government control of healthcare, government abandonment of education, abolishment of the Fed, and so on. These ideas were all bred from a need for what it accomplishes. Business in healthcare lends to innovation and investment. Government involvement in education ensures a minimal amount of education available to the population, making the workforce much more valuable as a whole. The Fed provides a stabilizing force to a system which is solely run by greed. These systems all work on some level, and may be argued to be expanded or contracted. However, any suggestion that they should be stripped of or given absolute power is a complete disregard of what people have learned in the past. I agree mostly. Just for some reason every time the grey area thing comes up I always think of my arguments with my girlfriend about the death penalty where I am against it and she is for it. To keep it simple she argues there should just be a higher standard of proof to kill someone, while I argue that among other reasons that is irrelevant since people won't look at amount of proof in deciding death, but heinousness of the crime. I would say absolutely against the death penalty in all circumstances is totally fine, and I would extend the same "absolute" sentiment in gay rights. But there aren't many other issues where I would argue that. I think if there is any issue that has to do with fairness and equality then an absolute rule should be fine. To try to extend that to drugs, I don't think its a hard correlation to make that punishments for drug related crimes tend to effect the impoverished more than those who are more well off and those who drug related crimes don't effect as much will tend to be against it on a moral basis and want it criminalized which only hurts the users. I think a good first step would be to make possession with intent to use legal, but intent to sell illegal. But the more you look at it every extension still leaves holes that can hurt disenfranchised groups until you eventually get to legalization/regulation. Even if it's simply illegal to sell you still get tainted products peddled by criminals that are not regulated for health and isn't standardized across and industry. So if you leave it in states hands or don't make some sweeping laws pertaining to it, you just leave the area issue open for abuse in certain areas and I think it just causes problems. I hope that was clear, I was a bit distracted while writing. I could go on into a bit more detail but I wrote enough as is and I feel it's clear enough. | ||
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On January 25 2012 10:00 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Forgive me if I am misreading this, but I don't think any culture would go out of there way to attack us just because we are a wealthy/successful nation. Seems silly. But even if we did I would never say not to retaliate against a threat or a first action, I don't think that's what was ever suggested. All that was said was don't be the first to act and try to maintain a distance from any sort of military conflict or anything that doesn't benefit us economically. An example of that is Iran sanctions and posturing against them. It is a waste. Why should we care if Iran gets nuclear weapons? They would be stupid to use them on us since it would mean they in turn get completely destroyed. Self preservation should be enough to ward people off, but more importantly if we don't give them a reason to hate us then they won't want to attack us. Furthermore, sanctioning Iran can't help us economically, it could only harm us. I am not an economics major by any sense but it seems fairly reasonable to state that refusing to trade with someone can only hurt the money we make, even if it hurts them more it still hurts us which to me, seems unnecessary. + Show Spoiler + Well, I'd agree with the first part and I would say more research into the legalization of harder drugs couldn't hurt but still would need to be tried out. Even if its on a state by state basis, for example legalizing heroin/cocaine/ecstasy in Ohio or something and see how it works out. + Show Spoiler + I agree mostly. Just for some reason every time the grey area thing comes up I always think of my arguments with my girlfriend about the death penalty where I am against it and she is for it. To keep it simple she argues there should just be a higher standard of proof to kill someone, while I argue that among other reasons that is irrelevant since people won't look at amount of proof in deciding death, but heinousness of the crime. I would say absolutely against the death penalty in all circumstances is totally fine, and I would extend the same "absolute" sentiment in gay rights. But there aren't many other issues where I would argue that. I think if there is any issue that has to do with fairness and equality then an absolute rule should be fine. To try to extend that to drugs, I don't think its a hard correlation to make that punishments for drug related crimes tend to effect the impoverished more than those who are more well off and those who drug related crimes don't effect as much will tend to be against it on a moral basis and want it criminalized which only hurts the users. I think a good first step would be to make possession with intent to use legal, but intent to sell illegal. But the more you look at it every extension still leaves holes that can hurt disenfranchised groups until you eventually get to legalization/regulation. Even if it's simply illegal to sell you still get tainted products peddled by criminals that are not regulated for health and isn't standardized across and industry. So if you leave it in states hands or don't make some sweeping laws pertaining to it, you just leave the area issue open for abuse in certain areas and I think it just causes problems. I hope that was clear, I was a bit distracted while writing. I could go on into a bit more detail but I wrote enough as is and I feel it's clear enough. Well, it's not exactly that we're "rich and successful" that becomes the target of hate for some groups. It's the ideas our country represents and sells to the world. It's not even the governmental promotion, but the capitalist side of our culture which continues to do business and share ideas. Even if we kept our political hands to ourselves, we'd still have companies sending over representatives to do business in some form, sharing culture and ideas which are radically different than some local cultures. In this case, we could find U.S. companies as targets of radicals, which would then request the protection of the U.S. anyways. Bottom line, the dynamics are complicated, and without stability in that region, we risk losing valuable resources. The same goes for Iran. Them acquiring nuclear weapons poses a significant threat to an area of the world that is essentially a hub for cheap energy. Even if they would be wiped off the map after some nuclear action against us or anybody else, the damage would have already been done. All it takes is a single devastating bomb/missile from them to send the entire region into turmoil for what could be decades of fierce warfare that would likely drag the entire world into it as well. As for the grey area with drugs, you must also realize the problems with drugs being historical as well. Opium devastated the East in the 1700 and 1800s, as people essentially sacrificed their lives to a drug and distribution of that drug. It's more complicated than it seems. | ||
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BobTheBuilder1377
Somalia335 Posts
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FeUerFlieGe
United States1193 Posts
On January 25 2012 11:29 BobTheBuilder1377 wrote: Iran again? They wouldn't be a threat to us even if they acquired nuclear bombs. We have North Korean and Pakistan with nukes yet, we aren't running around scared shitless. This is what I call media sensationalism where they try and hype up something that isn't worth getting worked up about. Take for example also during the Cold war, the Russians had 60,000+ nukes yet we didn't bomb each other? We should work together and talk with one another instead of threatening smaller poorer countries. Iran is ignoring a non proliferation treaty. If the UN lets it slide then it undermines the power of the UN and the treaty and sets a precedent for other countries who seek to start nuclear programs. | ||
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BobTheBuilder1377
Somalia335 Posts
On January 25 2012 11:35 FeUerFlieGe wrote: Iran is ignoring a non proliferation treaty. If the UN lets it slide then it undermines the power of the UN and the treaty and sets a precedent for other countries who seek to start nuclear programs. And? Israel ignored JFK when he told them he wasn't going to support them if they went Nuclear. http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/jfk-threatened-to-abandon-israel-over-nukes.html Also, I see no problem in Iran trying to get Nuclear energy. So, why should we be the policeman of the world? | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On January 25 2012 12:57 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Romney is ducking pretty much every tax question on NBC. He also just said that Obama has stolen his ideas. How is that going to help connecting with conservative voters? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577178594236642420.html No a completely relevant article, but I liked it. Romney is, in simplest layman terms, a try-hard. But everything he can do, Obama does better. | ||
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