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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Travis_Bickle who wrote (129223)	1/25/2010 12:10:51 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541962

I can afford to take out a full page ad in the St. Pete Times, the homeless guy at the bus shelter can't ... so my freedom of speech should be curtailed until he is a little more flush? I read an interesting little book yesterday called "Crimes Against Logic." (It's a small book. It took only yesterday's two half-times to read.) It framed logical fallacies in a way that was new to me. It looked at responsiveness to the question rather than pure, logical reasoning. With that frame of reference, and given my inclination to try to understand as best I can all sides of an issue, I was looking for a legitimate rationalization of the underlying concern here which, if I read it correctly, is about fair fights. I could be wrong since no one has directly articulated the problem but that seems to be what is causing all the distress. Your response would be covered by the book's chapter entitled "Begging the Question." Your response implies that you don't think that a fair fight matters. It seems to me that a serious counter, then, would have to offer some rationale for it not mattering if there's a stacked deck or it mattering less than free speech. I am unable to imagine anything more useful to respond to those who are distressed than "shit happens" or "life isn't fair." So that's why I asked you. Thought you might have some insight that I can't conjure up on my own. I haven't taken a position on this development. I really am at a loss. My natural inclination is to blame the fact that there is so much booty available from Washington that powerful interests will find a way to get it no matter what we do rather like the way water always finds a way and that the only way to fix the problem is to reduce the booty. But liberals don't like to hear that so I'm looking for alternatives. Got any?

To: Travis_Bickle who wrote (129223)	1/25/2010 1:20:12 PM
From: Jeff Hayden	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541962

I can afford to take out a full page ad in the St. Pete Times, the homeless guy at the bus shelter can't ... so my freedom of speech should be curtailed until he is a little more flush? Interesting comment. Do you think we should abolish the Senate then? How can we justify 2 Senators for each state when states are so unequally divided in population. The little (less populated) states have extraordinary power in the Senate - they certainly bring in less tax money. Or for that matter, why do we have winner take all Electoral systems for the President in most states? Why do we have the electoral system anyway?