Economic Freedom & Quality of Life

[Poptech]

Nothing screams "traditional American values" like ruling bodies deviod of representatives of certain segments of the population.

Red Herring

Thanks, more for the list.

[Poptech]

Thats only logic if you are dumb. They do advocate extensively for the 'war' on drugs for example.

And how does this benefit Exxon?

Lets look at the Heritage Foundation Board of Directors:

http://www.heritage.org/about/board-of-trustees

Its a who is who of corporate elite.

Their economic chief is this guy: http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/a/david-addington

Addington has held senior posts in both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, as well as in the private sector. He served as chief of staff and counsel to Vice President Richard B. Cheney after having been a senior official in the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense and the White House.

The CIA and DOD are corporations?

There head legal counsel is http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/a/robert-alt

Alt has testified before Congress on the legality of the Terrorist Surveillance Program and proposed revisions to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and before the Federal Election Commission concerning issues of cons utional and administrative law.

That guy is a stooge for the Patriot and Surveillance Acts and argues on their behalf in front of congress for the Heritage foundation.

You claim to be a libertarian. I claim bull . Your just a corporate fanboy or shill. Lets not stop there though.

Strawman. Where exactly am I endorsing the Patriot Act? You seem rather confused with my endorsement of their "Index of Economic Freedom" with every position the Foundation holds.

Heritage does lobby especially campaign wise. But what they really do is control GOP policy. When there is a hearing, commission, advisory board etc in the lawmaking process, this is where the GOP goes to pull their 'experts.' They don't lobby for law, they write it as they are included in the decision making process. What you are citing for us is quite literally where the rubber meets the road in terms of elitist privilege in US government.

The Heritage Foundation is effectively prohibited from lobbying by law and completely prohibited from interfering in campaigns,


Lobbying Activity of Section 501(c)(3) Private Foundations (IRS)

Private foundations that spend money on lobbying activity will incur an excise tax on those expenditures; this tax is so significant that it generally acts as a lobbying prohibition.

In addition, a private foundation does not qualify for section 501(c) (3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly referred to as lobbying). Legislation includes action by Congress, any state legislature, any local council, or similar governing body with respect to acts, bills, resolutions, or similar items (such as legislative confirmation of appointive office), or by the public in referendum, ballot initiative, cons utional amendment, or similar procedure.

A foundation will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges members of the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the foundation advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation.

The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations (IRS)

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and cir stances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not cons ute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will cons ute prohibited participation or intervention.

The Internal Revenue Service provides resources to exempt organizations and the public to help them understand the prohibition. As part of its examination program, the IRS also monitors whether organizations are complying with the prohibition.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You quoted the beer tycoon. Think about it.

501(c)(4) not 501(c)(3)

The Heritage Foundation is set to launch a new 501(c)4 organization Thursday called Heritage Action for America.

Its an accounting distinction; not a control distinction.

The promotion of social welfare does not include participation in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any political candidate. Reg. 1.501(c)(4)–1(a)(2)(ii). An exempt IRC 501(c)(4) organization may intervene in political campaigns as long as its primary activity is the promotion of social welfare.

http://www.irs.gov/irm/part7/irm_07-025-004.html#d0e332

The rest is your typical dissembling. I am giving everyone a notion of the source not what your intentions were; that's your ego centering the argument about you once again. Quite frankly I don't really care about what you claim your intentions or stances are, monkey.

Any more Koch Foundation or Heritage Foundation commercials for us?

[Poptech]

You quoted the beer tycoon. Think about it.

Yes, I stated a corporate founder of the Heritage Foundation, Joseph Coors.

You said the Heritage Foundation are a "Washington corporate lobby group."

We have already established it is illegal for the Heritage Foundation to be a lobby group but say if they were though then using your logic they were formed to lobby for Coors Beers.

501(c)(4) not 501(c)(3)

Which one is the Heritage Foundation?

The rest is your typical dissembling.

Please define "dissembling" as you have used it.

Any more Koch Foundation or Heritage Foundation commercials for us?

What is the Koch Brother's position on the Patriot Act?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Coors owned a multibillion dollar beer empire.

The board of the Heritage Foundation has authoritative control over Heritage Action for America. They did create them:

The new project was "enthusiastically" approved Thursday by the think tank's board of trustees, who are meeting in Naples, Fla.

"Heritage has an obligation to do this," said Needham. "We have 633,000 donors who care about conservative politics and want to see good legislation get passed."

You can go ahead and act like they are autonomous if it makes you feel better.

So no more corporate political interest commercials?

[Poptech]

While comparing The UK and US as well as their primary trade hubs from the early 19th century til now to a bunch of third world post colonial states is certainly a study in irony, it doesn't really show much.

So,

Hong Kong
Singapore
New Zealand
Chile
United States
Canada
Australia
Mauritus

...are not post colonial states?

[Poptech]

Coors owned a multibillion dollar beer empire.

And he helped found the Heritage Foundation for what? To advocate for Coors Beers?

The board of the Heritage Foundation has authoritative control over Heritage Action for America. They did create them:

You can go ahead and act like they are autonomous if it makes you feel better.

They are an independent sister organization, which does not change the irrefutable fact that the Heritage Foundation is not a lobby group.

So no more corporate political interest commercials?

Ad hominem and incorrect as the videos were not made by any corporation.

Did you not like what you found about the Koch Brothers and the Patriot Act? Did it not fit in with your stereotype?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Well that last one was a nonsequitor off of a response to another nonsequitor.

If you want to shill for your corporate overlords then you go right ahead. I am not going to argue with you about labels and what you think intentions may or may not have been anymore.

Like I said, I just want to flesh out what you stand for and I think I have done a fairly decent job at that. Quite frankly, I don't care what you think or claim that your intentions anymore, monkey.

[RandomGuy]

Red Herring

Thanks, more for the list.

The following is list of RandomGuys' logical fallacies both implied and stated,

1. Argumentum ad populum

Well, since you have not bothered to ever try and prove this, I will do it for your lazy ass. I am going to keep adding personal attacks, so that you can make your list longer, as a favor to you, mostly because it will make you seem horrendously petty, as you keep cataloguing them, and because I find it deeply funny.

So let's examine your claim.

Rather than taking your butthurt word for it, let's see for ourselves.

Here is a good working definition of an "appeal to popularity", from our friends at a website that fights holocaust deniers. It is as good any for a place to start, and I like it because they lay it out very clearly.

Fallacy: Appeal to Popularity

Also Known as: Ad Populum

Description of Appeal to Popularity
The Appeal to Popularity has the following form:


1. Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
2. Therefore X is true.

The basic idea is that a claim is accepted as being true simply because most people are favorably inclined towards the claim. More formally, the fact that most people have favorable emotions associated with the claim is subs uted in place of actual evidence for the claim. A person falls prey to this fallacy if he accepts a claim as being true simply because most other people approve of the claim.

It is clearly fallacious to accept the approval of the majority as evidence for a claim. For example, suppose that a skilled speaker managed to get most people to absolutely love the claim that 1+1=3. It would still not be rational to accept this claim simply because most people approved of it. After all, mere approval is no subs ute for a mathematical proof. At one time people approved of claims such as "the world is flat", "humans cannot survive at speeds greater than 25 miles per hour", "the sun revolves around the earth" but all these claims turned out to be false.

This sort of "reasoning" is quite common and can be quite an effective persusasive device. Since most humans tend to conform with the views of the majority, convincing a person that the majority approves of a claim is often an effective way to get him to accept it. Advertisers often use this tactic when they attempt to sell products by claiming that everyone uses and loves their products. In such cases they hope that people will accept the (purported) approval of others as a good reason to buy the product.

Now that we have the structure, let's look at my question:

900 out of how many papers total?

If memory serves the body of work is on the order of 200,000 papers

900/200000= 0.45%

For this to be an appeal to popularity, you must somehow shoehorn this post into that form. If you can't reasonably do it, then the claim can be rejected.

To understand the claim PoopDeck has a list that is very near and dear to him of papers that, in his opinion, support skepticism of Global warming "alarmism", which he defines.

This list of acedemic papers, all genuine, peer-reviewed papers, has about 900, although it isn't numbered, so one would have to count them all to get an exact figure, but 900 will work as well as 950 or 901. These papers have been pulled from a larger body of work on climate science, i.e. it is a subset of that work. The ultimate size of that body of evidence is unknown to me. I don't read all the journals, nor would I bother to, if I had the time.

The easiest way to see if the claim stands up is to work backwards, I think.

Here is the fallacy:

1. Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
2. Therefore X is true.

Let's get to where PoopDeck wants this to go:

1. Most people approve of Global Warming Alarmism.
2. Therefore Global Warming Alarmism is true.

Next, we have to add in a little extra:

1. Most people approve of Global Warming Alarmism.
2. Therefore Global Warming Alarmism is true +, and therefore evidence skeptical of this is false.

Now, we are getting somewhere.

We have to start messing with things a bit further:

1. Most [scientific papers support] Global Warming Alarmism.
2. Therefore Global Warming Alarmism is true, and therefore [scientific papers that do not support this are false]

Another step

1. [199,100 out of 200,000] scientific papers support Global Warming Alarmism.
2. Therefore Global Warming Alarmism is true, and therefore scientific papers that do not support this are false.

This is, I believe, the "implied logical fallacy", according to PopTech. Remember, he has, despite being asked to repeatedly, chosen not to specifically spell this out, because it is, in essence, a strawman argument, i.e. not what I actually believe, and I am pretty sure he knows it.

Now, ask yourself the following critial thinking questions:

Did I directly state anything was true? If so, what was that?

There are two statements there.

1. "900/200000= 0.45%"

and

2. "If memory serves the body of work is on the order of 200,000 papers"


Kind of hard to get to:

1. [199,100 out of 200,000] scientific papers support Global Warming Alarmism.
2. Therefore Global Warming Alarmism is true, and therefore scientific papers that do not support this are false.

from:

"I don't really know how big the body of all scientific papers on the subject is, how big is it?"

If you can make the leap from the question, to the implied statement, then you can accept that it is an appeal to popularity.

Just one, small thing more, that PoopDeck left out:

The underlying validity of a position cannot be proven by the volume of published papers. That is not my argument.

(out of time, I will add in how distorting someone else's view's becomes a strawman logical fallacy later. For those who want to play the game:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html )

[RandomGuy]

And he helped found the Heritage Foundation for what? To advocate for Coors Beers?


They are an independent sister organization, which does not change the irrefutable fact that the Heritage Foundation is not a lobby group.


Ad hominem and incorrect as the videos were not made by any corporation.

Did you not like what you found about the Koch Brothers and the Patriot Act? Did it not fit in with your stereotype?

Dude, you would not know a real ad hominem if it came up and slapped you.

[Poptech]

If you want to shill for your corporate overlords then you go right ahead. I am not going to argue with you about labels and what you think intentions may or may not have been anymore.

Like I said, I just want to flesh out what you stand for and I think I have done a fairly decent job at that. Quite frankly, I don't care what you think or claim that your intentions anymore, monkey.

When your stereotyping fails, you resort to grasping at straws. When that does not work you just lie and run away.

[boutons_deux]

Heritage stink tank, one of many in the VRWC, exists on UCA/1% money to spew slander, lies, confusion, polarization.

All regulation and taxes are bad and must be reduced, esp on UCA, finance, and 1%.

The world is wonderful and getting much better, except for the nefarious government at all levels.

Tax cuts pay for themselves.

All govt is to be privatized and subsidized with taxpayer dollars, esp education, water, utilities.

The poor are to be criminalized.

[Poptech]

Heritage stink tank, one of many in the VRWC, exists on UCA/1% money to spew slander, lies, confusion, polarization.

Thank you for the logical argument.

All regulation and taxes are bad and must be reduced, esp on UCA, finance, and 1%.

All regulations and taxes are negative for economic growth and prosperity. They should not be reduced for some but for all. The Heritage Foundation actually promotes a Flat Tax.

Current Tax System vs. Flat Tax (Originally meant to be a simplified comparison)

$30,000 vs. $1,000,000 (1%)

Currently Tax System: 2012 federal income tax estimator + Single + No Exemptions
Someone making $30,000 pays 15% Federal Tax = $3,172 owed in taxes.
Someone $1,000,000 (1%) pays 35% Federal Tax = $324,678 owed in taxes.


Flat Tax:
Someone making $30,000 pays 0% Federal Tax = $0 owed in taxes.
Someone $1,000,000 (1%) pays 17% Federal Tax = $170,000 owed in taxes.

Tax cuts pay for themselves.

They can if the economy grows faster than the revenue lost from the tax cut. However I prefer cutting spending and cutting taxes.

All govt is to be privatized and subsidized with taxpayer dollars, esp education, water, utilities.

Government is subsidized with tax payer dollars how do you think it is paid for? Privatization costs less and is more efficient.

The poor are to be criminalized.

Only if they commit a crime. If you wish to see this go down then you should work to try and repeal most of the laws that have been created that can be used to convict them of a crime.

[boutons_deux]

PopTech is VRWC troll/shill, pimping every single VRWC lie.

[Poptech]

PopTech is VRWC troll/shill, pimping every single VRWC lie.

Is a libertarian right-wing?

[TeyshaBlue]

PopTech is VRWC troll/shill, pimping every single VRWC lie.

The irony burns bright.

[Spurminator]

Currently Tax System:
Someone $1,000,000 (1%) pays 35% Federal Tax = $350,000 owed in taxes.

Nope.

[Poptech]

Nope.

The Federal Tax bracket for those over $388,350 is not 35% on personal income? I know it is more if you factor in State (why do you think celebrities like to live in Florida), Social Security and Medicare taxes.

[Th'Pusher]

The Federal Tax bracket for those over $388,350 is not 35% on personal income? I know it is more if you factor in State (why do you think celebrities like to live in Florida), Social Security and Medicare taxes.

They would pay 35% on income over $388,350, so the $350k number is inaccurate. And the $1M must all be taxable earned income after deductions.

[Spurminator]

The Federal Tax bracket for those over $388,350 is not 35% on personal income? I know it is more if you factor in State (why do you think celebrities like to live in Florida), Social Security and Medicare taxes.

It's 35% on all income above $388,350. Not on all $1,000,000. Everyone pays the same amount of taxes on their first $30K.

This is a common misconception that results in people thinking you somehow get "punished" for crossing a tax threshold.

[Poptech]

They would pay 35% on income over $388,350, so the $350k number is inaccurate. And the $1M must all be taxable earned income after deductions.

Right, it is progressive but I stated I was not factoring in deductions.

[Th'Pusher]

Right, it is progressive but I stated I was not factoring in deductions.

But somebody who had reported $1M in earned income will not pay $350k in income tax. That was an inaccurate statement.

[clambake]

when has yoni ever been honest?

[Poptech]

But somebody who had reported $1M in earned income will not pay $350k in income tax. That was an inaccurate statement.

It was a meant to be a simplified comparison but if that is your big problem, I updated it using a tax calculator. It doesn't change my point.

[Poptech]

when has yoni ever been honest?

What?