If that was one of your points it didn't get that meaning on the first review. When I read it over the I saw you identify the poll, describe it and the results and then light into liberals and the respondants in general. I wouldn't describe it as a diatribe but it reads as very... exercised. I am missing the part where you cast doubt onto whether the poll was a good one or whether we should take the results very seriously. But I've misread many a post before so I could easily be missing something?
I feel your pain. I typo and misdeliver so much that I think I have my own personal typo-fairy assigned to sprinkle her evil sparkly dust on my keyboard.
Eliminate envy? And they say libertarians aren't utopianists.
Seriously though James, I was defending my original assertion that Jason was over reading into the poll in question. Not making some paen to the wisdom of the unwashed masses.
And ya gotta admit that the economic leaders haven't been covering themselves with glory the last few years. I mean I know, it's all statist interventions fault I don't find it surprising that the vox populi is feelin sour.
Combine the first half of my comment with the second and your average low info poll respondent can be expected to interpret that poll question very differently than you do. You see a poll asking if there should be more rich and think that more rich people means more production, more wealth and more economic activity which means everyone's better off and earning more. Your average low info respondent on the other hand probably thinks more rich means more poor, more parasites and more crooks wrecking the economy and driving the country into a ditch which means everyone's worse off and earning less.
I'm not saying that the low info respondant is correct, I'm simply saying you're failing to consider other less well informed views than yours.
It seems to me that there may be a growing disconnect in public perception between wealthy people and activities that benefit society. When a lot of people think new rich now days they don't think about entrepreneurs who invent new services or goods that make people better off nor do they think industrialist who employs thousands. A lot of them probably think of a well networked executive who shuffles money back and forth with other well networked executives producing no benefit that they can understand when they think of the rich. They may think of an executive who's appointed to head a corporation, pays himself a massive salary, flies the company into a mountain and golden parachutes out at the last moment when they're thinking about the rich.
I don't assert those perceptions as being true but the wealthy perhaps have a branding problem right now.
Also, you are deriving a lot of meaning from what is, on it's face, a pretty odd sort of question that'd be very easy to give a knee jerk answer to without considering it very much.
I'm sympathetic to the sentiment but can't help but observe that if student loans become dischargable through bankruptcy then pretty much all private forms of student loans can be expected to become extremely expensive and scarce with government provided student loans following relatively quickly after.
Ward, straight up Monarchies were mightily corrupt. On the other hand the track record of constitutional Monarchies is pretty decent. You get to seperate out an impartially selected Monarch as a symbolic head of state(but functionally near empty) and an object of national reverence and that leaves the functional head of state (typically a Prime Minister) free to be reviled as the scheming crawling politician they all inevitably are.
Now some states accomplish the same with an appointed or elected symbolic head of state but why leave such numnums to politicians? I'm biased of course but I think the British Commonwealth has got it pretty well set up.
I'm gonna make a point to stomp on some bug in the next little while that is looking uppity. *stomp*stomp* Take that, don't you go gettin any big ideas. There ain't no asteroid falling yet.
That segways well with another post he had talking about whether, from a long astrobiological view, civilization was a good thing or would things be better off (astrobiologically) if humans had never progressed beyond hunter/gatherer. To wit civilization is in great danger of destroying much of the life on Earth long before it would otherwise have been wiped out (by an asteroid strike or by the Sun dying).
My own answer: it's a gamble but I'd say that astrobiologically Civilization is the better bet. If civilization identifies and deflects a single asteroid then the world would get a massive boost in biological survival and if civilization succeeds in bridging the world gap and colonizing another world(s) then our worlds biology would have hit the equivalent of the Powerball since earths biology would then be extended beyond the hard limit for hunter/gatherers (the lifespan of the sun). The possability of civilization exterminating all earth life on the other hand is far from a certainty so I'd say on balance even on the long view civilization is the winning bet.
It seems to me Tom that Obama's done what he can to keep the comittee on task. His promise to veto any attempts to wriggle out of the sequestration consequences of a logjam are far from weak tea.
Is it egocentric of me to note that every one of the Leagues major breakups or cataclysm's occurred while I was on various vacations and thus was not on the net much? Yes I think it is. Honestly, I can't take my eyes (or monocle) off you people for even a second.
What I fail to see Roger is where they make the connection. How does someone else being able to get gay married or have gay sex condemn a righteous person's soul to hell?
So the social right believes gays are condemned to hell? Clearly gays do not believe that. So why do the social right spend so much time trying to make life in this world a hell for gays as well? I mean they've got an infinity in the lake of fire ahead of them. Based on that, everything social cons do to make their limited time in this life more miserable is a hugely harmful and malicious act (and this is without even broaching the question as to whether the social right is correct or whether a God who set things up this way is worthy of adoration).
Rufus, I'd submit that what we're seeing is just a natural conclusion of a social flood. Social conservatives had a dam against divorce, the dam broke, there was a flood of divorce. The built up pressure has normalized and divorce is dropping to what would have been its natural level if it hadn't been prohibited in the first place.
Always good for a smirk. Have any Mallard Fillmore?
When was the last time the Dems pushed a bill on the fairness doctrine, have they ever? I'm spacing. Gun control... on the state level must have been one pushed relatively recently. Acorn? Err what? When's this cartoon from?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Pray That All Their Pain Be Champagne”
Roger, you can sell that all you want but it's still a mostly market economy; I don't have to buy and neither does anyone else.
On “Theocratic Quips Less Scary Than Advertised”
Gingrich marginalized? Aren't we talking about the current GOP front runner (Cain's successor it seems).
On “Pray That All Their Pain Be Champagne”
It's a hard tightrope to walk, covering all your points and bases and also being concise. I fail it regularily and I'm only a commenter!
"
If that was one of your points it didn't get that meaning on the first review. When I read it over the I saw you identify the poll, describe it and the results and then light into liberals and the respondants in general. I wouldn't describe it as a diatribe but it reads as very... exercised. I am missing the part where you cast doubt onto whether the poll was a good one or whether we should take the results very seriously. But I've misread many a post before so I could easily be missing something?
"
I feel your pain. I typo and misdeliver so much that I think I have my own personal typo-fairy assigned to sprinkle her evil sparkly dust on my keyboard.
"
Eliminate envy? And they say libertarians aren't utopianists.
Seriously though James, I was defending my original assertion that Jason was over reading into the poll in question. Not making some paen to the wisdom of the unwashed masses.
And ya gotta admit that the economic leaders haven't been covering themselves with glory the last few years. I mean I know, it's all statist interventions fault I don't find it surprising that the vox populi is feelin sour.
"
Combine the first half of my comment with the second and your average low info poll respondent can be expected to interpret that poll question very differently than you do. You see a poll asking if there should be more rich and think that more rich people means more production, more wealth and more economic activity which means everyone's better off and earning more. Your average low info respondent on the other hand probably thinks more rich means more poor, more parasites and more crooks wrecking the economy and driving the country into a ditch which means everyone's worse off and earning less.
I'm not saying that the low info respondant is correct, I'm simply saying you're failing to consider other less well informed views than yours.
"
It seems to me that there may be a growing disconnect in public perception between wealthy people and activities that benefit society. When a lot of people think new rich now days they don't think about entrepreneurs who invent new services or goods that make people better off nor do they think industrialist who employs thousands. A lot of them probably think of a well networked executive who shuffles money back and forth with other well networked executives producing no benefit that they can understand when they think of the rich. They may think of an executive who's appointed to head a corporation, pays himself a massive salary, flies the company into a mountain and golden parachutes out at the last moment when they're thinking about the rich.
I don't assert those perceptions as being true but the wealthy perhaps have a branding problem right now.
Also, you are deriving a lot of meaning from what is, on it's face, a pretty odd sort of question that'd be very easy to give a knee jerk answer to without considering it very much.
On “Help Wanted”
That there is one sweet lookin lady.
On “We’re Asking the Wrong Hiring Questions”
Word James. *commonwealth fistbump*
On “The short and sweet life of Community”
I only watched one episode (the D&D one) but oh my goodness, what an episode it was!
On “On Student Debt and Youth Unemployment”
I'm sympathetic to the sentiment but can't help but observe that if student loans become dischargable through bankruptcy then pretty much all private forms of student loans can be expected to become extremely expensive and scarce with government provided student loans following relatively quickly after.
On “We’re Asking the Wrong Hiring Questions”
Ward, straight up Monarchies were mightily corrupt. On the other hand the track record of constitutional Monarchies is pretty decent. You get to seperate out an impartially selected Monarch as a symbolic head of state(but functionally near empty) and an object of national reverence and that leaves the functional head of state (typically a Prime Minister) free to be reviled as the scheming crawling politician they all inevitably are.
Now some states accomplish the same with an appointed or elected symbolic head of state but why leave such numnums to politicians? I'm biased of course but I think the British Commonwealth has got it pretty well set up.
On “To Whom?”
I'm gonna make a point to stomp on some bug in the next little while that is looking uppity. *stomp*stomp* Take that, don't you go gettin any big ideas. There ain't no asteroid falling yet.
"
That segways well with another post he had talking about whether, from a long astrobiological view, civilization was a good thing or would things be better off (astrobiologically) if humans had never progressed beyond hunter/gatherer. To wit civilization is in great danger of destroying much of the life on Earth long before it would otherwise have been wiped out (by an asteroid strike or by the Sun dying).
My own answer: it's a gamble but I'd say that astrobiologically Civilization is the better bet. If civilization identifies and deflects a single asteroid then the world would get a massive boost in biological survival and if civilization succeeds in bridging the world gap and colonizing another world(s) then our worlds biology would have hit the equivalent of the Powerball since earths biology would then be extended beyond the hard limit for hunter/gatherers (the lifespan of the sun). The possability of civilization exterminating all earth life on the other hand is far from a certainty so I'd say on balance even on the long view civilization is the winning bet.
On “We’re Asking the Wrong Hiring Questions”
It seems to me Tom that Obama's done what he can to keep the comittee on task. His promise to veto any attempts to wriggle out of the sequestration consequences of a logjam are far from weak tea.
"
A depressingly good post.
On “A Blogosphere Built for Two (or Three or Four or Five…)”
Is it egocentric of me to note that every one of the Leagues major breakups or cataclysm's occurred while I was on various vacations and thus was not on the net much? Yes I think it is. Honestly, I can't take my eyes (or monocle) off you people for even a second.
"
I'm like that, I worm my way in and people just assume I had always been around.
On “In which the rogue becomes in officer and a gentleman.”
Welcome!
On “What do you mean “What does it all mean”?”
Heck, you could toss that one off every morning when you got up from bed and otherwise lead a life indistinguishable from your standard athiest.
"
If it were that uncomplicated who wouldn't?
On “A Response to ‘Democracy, Coercion, and Liberty’”
What I fail to see Roger is where they make the connection. How does someone else being able to get gay married or have gay sex condemn a righteous person's soul to hell?
So the social right believes gays are condemned to hell? Clearly gays do not believe that. So why do the social right spend so much time trying to make life in this world a hell for gays as well? I mean they've got an infinity in the lake of fire ahead of them. Based on that, everything social cons do to make their limited time in this life more miserable is a hugely harmful and malicious act (and this is without even broaching the question as to whether the social right is correct or whether a God who set things up this way is worthy of adoration).
"
Rufus, I'd submit that what we're seeing is just a natural conclusion of a social flood. Social conservatives had a dam against divorce, the dam broke, there was a flood of divorce. The built up pressure has normalized and divorce is dropping to what would have been its natural level if it hadn't been prohibited in the first place.
On “Train Wreck Returning To The Echo Chamber”
Always good for a smirk. Have any Mallard Fillmore?
When was the last time the Dems pushed a bill on the fairness doctrine, have they ever? I'm spacing. Gun control... on the state level must have been one pushed relatively recently. Acorn? Err what? When's this cartoon from?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.