Pareene: GOP candidates have no time for your "science," scientists
It’s only remarkable that a well-educated prominent political figure believes in a nearly century-old scientific consensus because many other members of the political elite don’t.
9 months ago - 
6
6 Capitalism Magazine - If ObamaCare Is Unconstitutional, Then Why Isn't Medicare?
It’s important to understand that both Medicare and ObamaCare are fiscally bankrupt precisely because they’re morally bankrupt.
Some lower courts are ruling ObamaCare unconstitutional. The reason given is that it’s wrong to force the individual to buy a product or service, such as health insurance.
These decisions are all well and good. But the question remains: If it’s wrong for government to force people to buy health insurance, isn’t it equally wrong to force people to pay for others’ Medicaid and Medicare?
Why is force wrong in one situation, but not in another?
This is one of the most (characteristically) terrible arguments on the subject I’ve ever seen. Its only apparent value is the good chuckle one gets from the ad hominem action.
Gee, I don’t know. Why is force wrong? Why do we force taxpayers to pay for schools, roads, water, and emergency services, for example?
I personally am somewhat more concerned about how American taxpayers are forced to fund the ongoing Israeli re-enactment of the Book of Joshua, for instance, and American resource-grab warmongering on Judeo-Christian premises in general, while this impotent administration continues to stay the portfolio-fattening course established by its predecessors.
Apparently this “forcing” of healthcare access is morally bankrupting, but the ways in which healthcare providers and insurance companies routinely force struggling families to their knees are probably underpinned by sound ethical reasoning. It’s just that no one has been able to explain it yet without referring to stock dividends or “the American Dream.”
Fortunately, it seems that more and more Americans are slowly coming to understand that “forcing” equal access to healthcare and “forcing” insurers to operate according to the best interests of their clients rather than their shareholders—a novel and probably difficult concept for conservatives and libertarians—is not stealing from one to give to another any more than repairing an Interstate in California is stealing from Louisiana.
The rest of the socialist-fascist developed world (you can tell which countries they are by noticing how much more satisfied are their citizens with their healthcare, according to nearly every available metric, than Americans) has understood this for quite some time, and I’d love to give them a reason to stop chuckling.
(Source: primal-libertarian, via madamescherzo)
9 months ago - 5
5 
Gaza Strip - 8.19.2011.
“And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded…and all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe.” - Joshua 11
Good old-fashioned Israeli values.
![that-damned-elusive-pimpernel:
mistergrundy:
christinathena:
[Image description: Jon Stewart drinking some kind of rainbow-colored drink, with a quote next to it saying “I have to say, as someone who is not a Christian, it’s hard for me to believe Christians are a persecuted people in America. Godwilling, maybe one of you one day will even rise up and get to be president of this country — or maybe forty-four in a row. But that’s my point, is they’ve taken this idea of no establishment as persecution, because they feel entitled, not to equal status, but to greater status - Jon Stewart” End description]
This is a nice quote, I like very much.
Also I read ‘image description’ at first as ‘imagine’. Imagine! IF you will!
The funny thing is: a lot of people still believe Obama is a Muslim. So they feel more oppressed than ever, despite the fact he’s not.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq0mwkRaHA1qzq52eo1_250.png)
that-damned-elusive-pimpernel:
[Image description: Jon Stewart drinking some kind of rainbow-colored drink, with a quote next to it saying “I have to say, as someone who is not a Christian, it’s hard for me to believe Christians are a persecuted people in America. Godwilling, maybe one of you one day will even rise up and get to be president of this country — or maybe forty-four in a row. But that’s my point, is they’ve taken this idea of no establishment as persecution, because they feel entitled, not to equal status, but to greater status - Jon Stewart” End description]
This is a nice quote, I like very much.
Also I read ‘image description’ at first as ‘imagine’. Imagine! IF you will!
The funny thing is: a lot of people still believe Obama is a Muslim. So they feel more oppressed than ever, despite the fact he’s not.
(Source: bringtheruckuss, via sir-redcrosse)
World Enough & Time: On Patriotism
that-damned-elusive-pimpernel:
Many people are laboring under the delusion that patriotism is having a love for your country and standing by its every decision, no matter how insipid or foolish it may be. Some people think that “change” is a horrible, evil word that implies there’s something wrong with their country to begin…
(Source: sir-redcrosse)
9 months ago - 19
19 America in Decline - Noam Chomsky
Before the 2007 crash for which they were largely responsible, the new post-Golden Age financial institutions had gained startling economic power, more than tripling their share of corporate profits. After the crash, a number of economists began to inquire into their function in purely economic terms. Nobel laureate Robert Solow concludes that their general impact may be negative: “The successes probably add little or nothing to the efficiency of the real economy, while the disasters transfer wealth from taxpayers to financiers.”
By shredding the remnants of political democracy, the financial institutions lay the basis for carrying the lethal process forward – as long as their victims are willing to suffer in silence.
(Source: socialuprooting)
9 months ago - 22
22 
Passive acceptance of the teacher’s wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.
Bertrand Russell (via zeitgeistmovement)
(Source: philphys, via socialuprooting)
