Ok, so if we don't have an income tax, and we don't tax essentials, how would we pay for govt? (and yes I'm aware this would shrink gov and that is probably a feature and not a bug, however, not sure how you could even afford essential govt functions this way)
whatever crosses his mind at the time. it should be obvious by now that WC's ethic is a reactionary one and has no real wordlview. thats why you see him parrot what he fed by his 'trusted' sources.
Its why you can literally tell he is going off to wikipedia to form any opinion as he goes along.
he does not even know why he thinks what he thinks. its quite amusing.
he is a minion. a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power.
The dissonance is only apparent. Fair enuf.
only apparent if you have no idea of the context of the material or who Russell is or how he came to his conclusions.
basically absent of any logical construct that holds true. ie at the basest perception. once you have a framework it becomes different.
essentially its how he presented his rectification of the classical dispute between Hume and Kant but what you are claiming is that the quote would tend towards the notion that God must exist because you 'feel' he exists.
thus the end of the statement, 'there is nothing left.'
in this case there is a whole bunch of left.
I have some idea who Russell is but little idea how he reached his conclusions. Fortunately we have you to lecture us on that. Thanks for sharing.
I saw an apparent conflict; it vanished on closer inspection. I didn't claim anything. You're just inferring I did.
Have fun!
(molehill --> mountain)
I had it in my sig because I find the discussion fascinating. Sorry if my explanation was too much but quite frankly in a political forum i do not see how that is possible.
Also attributing the conclusion to you was unfair. i was not trying to denigrate you. i was just trying to point out that the logical conclusion from the apparent dissonance is that.
I was just thinking to myself that the quote in and of itself draws no conclusions beyond to say that there is no conclusion.
whatevs sorry for being a pedantic . i cannot help it. i do try though.
Eh, no biggie. I'm not sore, I'm just not sure I have anything meaningful to add. My hunch was, after all, wrong.
@Fuzzy:
fwiw I like/welcome your contributions to this forum, infrequent as they are. My thanks to you upstream was about as sincere as it was facetious.
BTW, what I meant by oxymoron is that if the economic crisis came about because of a halt in consumption, taxing consumption would be exactly the contrary of what you would want to do to stimulate it.
Plus it's not like we don't tax consumption already... I believe most States charge sales tax already in the vast majority of goods sold? (the biggest exception seems to be the internet these days)
This might be an opportune time for Governor Walker to push for voucher legislation in Wisconsin. After he fires about 15,000 teachers, kids are going to be needing an education...those tax dollars could be diverted to a comprehensive voucher program.
Awesome pic fraga.
Man i hope this catches on.
How humane of you, Yoni,those tax dollars could be diverted to a comprehensive voucher program.
If I were a Wisconsin parent, I would want my child back in school. The sooner Governor Walker fires the crybaby teachers and figures out how to get the education system rolling again, the better.
Or, the picketers could accept the Governor's reasonable terms and go back to work.
Here's what that cartoonist had to say...
Yeah, I bet this doesn't end well for the unions.This debate over Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill has been difficult for me. I have progressive values. I believe in gay marriage, I believe in mass transit, I believe in global climate change, I believe in abortion rights, I believe in urban planning and I believe in a single payer health care system. But on the issue of public employee compensation and the role that their unions play in our government, I find myself siding with conservatives.
To me, it's unfortunate that these days we can't seem to be able to find a middle ground on a lot of this stuff. It has to be all or nothing. Walker said he didn't want to spend 15 months talking to the unions to reach an agreement, but his proposal shows that he doesn't want to talk to the unions at all. It's also two-faced to talk about this kind of reform but leave out other public service unions like police or firefighters...
I don't know if the 15 months number is a real figure, but I can see where that's inordinate and simply bad. I also have no problem with the workers paying part of their retirement/health coverage. The question to me is why not attempt to forth a proposal that meets everyone somewhat in the middle of the road?
@Yoni:
It was never going to end well for the unions, but yeah, you could be totally right in spite of your horrible record of predicting things here.
Walker's program is political bull , haivng nothign to do with budgeting, which is used dishonestly as bludgeon the unions
================
Here's the problem, according to Walker's release:
The state of Wisconsin is facing an immediate deficit of $137 million for the current fiscal year which ends July 1. In addition, bill collectors are waiting to collect over $225 million for a prior raid of the Patients’ Compensation Fund.
There is a $137 million shortfall for this year. Regarding the Patients' Compensation Fund, Politifact reports that "a court ruling is pending in that matter, so the money might not have to be transferred until next budget year."
But here are three important points from the governor's release that show quite clearly that this bill has nothing at all to do with closing Wisconsin's budget gap in the near-term -- as an emergency measure that wasn't even subject to public debate.
1. "The budget repair will also restructure the state debt, lowering the state’s interest rate, saving the state $165 million." That's right, restructuring the state's outstanding debt yields more savings than the projected shortfall, and nobody is objecting to that provision.
2. "It will require state employees to pay about 5.8% toward their pension (about the private sector national average) and about 12% of their healthcare benefits (about half the private sector national average). These changes will help the state save $30 million in the last three months of the current fiscal year." Yes, those give-backs would yield less than 20 percent of what the debt restructuring would bring in. And, as I mentioned earlier, the public employees' unions offered to make those concessions in exchange for losing the provision that would bar them from negotiating their benefits package in the future, and the GOP flatly refused the offer.
3. The collective bargaining provision wouldn't kick in until after the current contracts expire, meaning that the measure would yield exactly zero savings in the current budget.
Random Lengths News' Paul Rosenberg caught this, and adds that Walker is also sitting on an "unused cache of $73 million" in the state's economic development fund -- "more than twice what’s being sought from public sector workers.”
Samuel Smith at Scholars and Rogues has more detail.
AlterNet also reported over the weekend that while far too many pundits continue to buy Scott Walker's spin that the Wisconsin uprising is a response to the state's public employees being asked to shoulder more of the burden for their health-care and pension costs, the reality is that it's really all about the union-busting.
According to the Milwaukee Business Times, the unions have in fact agreed to all of the GOP's demands on wages and benefits, in exchange for Republicans dropping the provision that would strip them of the right to negotiate in the future:
Although union leaders and Wisconsin Democratic Senators are offering to accept the wage and benefit concessions Gov. Scott Walker is demanding, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said today a bill taking away collective bargaining rights from public employees is not negotiable.
Democrats and union leaders said they're willing to agree to the parts of Walker's budget repair bill that would double their health insurance contributions and require them to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary to their pensions. However, the union leaders want to keep their collective bargaining rights.
"I have been informed that all state and local public employees – including teachers - have agreed to the financial aspects of Governor Walker's request," Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Waunakee) said. "This includes Walker's requested concessions on public employee health care and pension. In return they ask only that the provisions that deny their right to collectively bargain are removed. This will solve the budget challenge. This is a real opportunity for us to come together and resolve the issue and move on. It is in bent upon Governor Walker to seriously consider and hopefully accept this offer as soon as possible."
However, Fitzgerald said the terms of the bill are not negotiable, and he called upon Democrats who left the state this week to stall a vote on the bill to return to the Capitol.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149986
What do you mean?
There would be a tax on items like TV's, VCR's, etc. Change from no income tax, and to a sales type tax on all non essentials.
It just comes to what is classed as an essential and what isn't. The money would still be there. I'm all for "The Fair tax" with very minor changes.
You obviously miss the point of the sign.
No, actually they wouldn't. The US military trained and indoctrinated the Egyptian military.
Kent state aside, I don't see that happening unless things really really started coming apart at the seams.
The military would face an extremely well-armed uprising, and would be sorely outnumbered were that to happen.
"Kent state aside"
Kent State is not the best example. Much more indicative of law enforcment, now much more militarized, is the shooting of blacks in the Watts riots. Bull Connor is another example.
I have no doubt that, now with the highly inflamed, polarized environment, that the police, National Guard, and mercernaries would/will fire on US citizens.
There are Nazi SS Troops/blackshirt/jackboot/Vichy types in every society, ready to start killing fellow citizens when the authorities give the sign. And there are also the millions, like Germans, who would keep their heads down, keep quiet, rather than be "resistance" fighters.
Leader Of Egyptian Unions To Wisconsin Protesters: ‘We Stand With You As You Stood With Us’
One of the most underreported stories about the pro-democracy movement in Egypt was the role of labor unions in the demonstrations, many of which were protesting against neoliberal right-wing economic policies just as much as they were protesting against the Mubarak dictatorship. During the uprising in that country, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka praised the role of organized labor, saying, “The people’s movement for democracy in Egypt and the role unions are playing for freedom and worker rights inspires us and will not be forgotten.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/21/...ons-wisconsin/
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