Michael, I would disagree that my posts are getting more bizarre all the time, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. In any event, if you go back and reread your Feelings posts 11154, 11685, 11176, 11180, 11261,11293 and 11301, I think you will find that you have a very strong bias against liberals-- "Christine and her 'San Francisco Chronicle'"--to the extent that you are almost name calling when you talk about liberal newspapers. You go on and on and on trying to prove that the press has a liberal bias, in at least two posts, and you use this as a way to discredit the news. I don't think being liberal is negative, so I wanted to address the issue.
At the same time, you keep citing very radical libertarian and conservative and meat-lobby sources as if they are the gospel truth. I could take your latest url apart little piece by little piece, but I don't think it's worthwhile in a time sense. On one point in the latest one, I would definitely say that it is strict government regulation, with penalties attached, that makes companies be more interested in not polluting the environment. The competition of free markets is perhaps a very minor factor. We can see this playing out now, as the big three automakers are putting enormous pressure on Clinton's government to back off on the time deadlines for smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. The public usually likes really big powerful cars, so the free market certainly isn't going to create the demand for smaller one--only environmental protection goals, as the result of laws, will make cars less polluting.
When I did point out discrepancies in earlier url's, Father Terrence warned you not to respond--I think he said "It's a trap"--and I don't believe you did.
I hope you don't always believe what you read. I don't. But you do--you just referred to the latest url as a "factual link". I would say that probably the hard news is fairly accurate, at least more moderate and tending to be factual because of the very close scrutiny publications put on each other, and the code of ethics in journalism--than whatever is published by think tanks on any side, very liberal or very conservative or libertarian. But that's just my opinion.
Whenever the argument is not going your way, you throw something extraneous in, like insinuating that some children in Mongolia are going to die from lack of medicine because environmentalists take global warming seriously and are trying to take action. You never did explain your point there. So I would consider the way that various political factions deal with the rights of children to be very germane to this discussion.
I never implied you didn't care about children, at all. I think you care deeply about them, and your charity works and the way you parent are both examples of that. I think your primary agenda, politically, from reading a lot of your posts is that you want to abolish taxes. You seem very resentful when tax dollars don't go for exactly what you believe in. All of of feel this way to some extent, I guarantee you. I don't like the huge part of mine that go for new weapons systems, because I think they are a waste of money. So what, really? There are always going to be these sorts of disagreements, but some government and some taxes are needed or there is just anarchy. This is my primary complaint with pure libertarianism--I think it leads to chaos. That's why I am asking questions of people like Father Terrence as to how it would all work, because there are lots of libertarian philosophies that do appeal to me.
I brought up the issue of children also because I believe some of what I believe to be your philosophies--correct me if I'm wrong here--will eventually lead to extreme hardships for some of them in America. I see very little compassion in libertarian and rightist Republican platforms for children's rights, and I think this is worth discussing. There is so much hurting going on in parts of America society, that all the volunteers and do-gooders and churches and community organizations, although they can help immensely, cannot keep everything together on their own. At that point, government policy is also a factor. My own opinion is that we have moved so far away from compassion legislatively, in terms of the welfare rules, that there will be some moving back to the middle.
The actual sight of homeless children keeping warm huddled over street grates wrapped in dirty blankets is something I don't think most Americans will actually tolerate. And yet, when families' welfare benefits run out and they have used up their five-year or whatever maximum, this will start happening. I think when the pictures are published on the covers of magazines, the inherent best qualities in Americans will come out, and we won't be able to be that cruel. It is easy to legislate if you don't have to look at the result. And yet, compassion towards children will cost you tax dollars!!
The other thing we could do with children in these very sad families is make a rule that homelessness itself is enough justification to permanently remove children from their families. A lot of these children are going to be older, and not easily adoptable. These are not ALL families where the parents have otherwise been neglectful or abusive, and almost all parents love their children and are doing the best they can. The causes of poverty are very complex, and some of our poverty is due to racial prejudice in America. Are we really going to take these children away from their families under these circumstances?
Anyway, those are some of the things I think are interesting to discuss. They are not directly related to environmentalism, but I didn't realize we could only discuss one thing here. You brought up the rights of children. |
