One wheel is a spare?

Why do you guys waste your time slamming each other? Do you really experience life as a tag-team wrestling event?

The bill was rescheduled yesterday, with enough votes to reopen debate but not enough to pass it (that is a guess!)

What is clear is that people are polarizing around this and that both sides are escalating the issue. It is hard to know whether this will diminish or increase the odds that something will pass. Sometimes escalated demands can make it easier to find a compromise, sometimes compromise becomes harder.

My own view is that we are asking the wrong questions about illegal immigration, and I think that our discussions here tend to focus on the wrong questions.

But have the emotions and the rhetoric escalated to the point where constructive discussion have become impossible?

As in Washington, people who become uncivil do their causes no good, as all they do is isolate themselves and provoke their opponents to similar incivility and isolation. And lurking not much beyond incivility is the emergence of anger and bigotry....

Just wondering whether a useful discourse might be possible?

Oceans

Hippie!

Sandy, Fallen, Tiger, Whisper! Good morning!

Slowly waking up, here...

Hi, Dana!

All happiness and success to you both....



Oceans

Good morning everyone!

The question isn't, What is August 18?
It is, When is August 18?



Oceans

Hmmmmm....Seems to me that it would be better to enter into a communication with this guy and trap them, no?

Why ignore him until he finds a victim who is not able to deal with him?

Oceans

OK, smo. Stop teasing!

WHO?

Well, hah! I....I...um... Got it!!! I and myself won't read your posts
if you leave!!! So there.

Go suck on a piece of bark and know that it is worse than a bite.


Oceans

Hello, everyone,

I posted this in the thread on WEAPONS, but just realized thatit belongs
in AB's thread here, where we weigh whether weapons have made war
obsolete. There is a new generation of weapons looming that makes the
question all the more critical AND practical....

I explained:

This [WEAPONS] thread began with a probing question from Alex: if there
were no guns, would people find other weapons?

In the last weeks I was asked to think a bit about a parallel question:
given the emergence of a new generation of weaponry, what political and
cultural shifts will be required to avoid the massive and unstoppable
destruction that these weapons will be able to inflict?

The traditional answers have been:
1. I'll build even better weapons
2. I will annihilate you if you attack me
3. I will annihilate you before you can annihilate me

In the face of the next generation of weapons, none of these strategies
will work. The next generation will be cheap, easy-to-hide, and mobile.

Some of the weapons will be technically difficult, some
not-so-difficult, and not-so-expensive.

In other words, anyone can have them, and anyone can use them, against
any target they wish.

So what kind of world do we need to create to respond to the challenges
posed by these weapons?

Oceans

You are right -- the labels that served 20-30 years ago have long since
become useless. They are relics of now-obsolete political models.

The terms 'Democrats' and 'Republicans' and 'Independants' still have
some use when it comes to discussing Congressional manoeuvers and voting
alliances and committee chairmanships, but that is about it.

The voters who determine the outcome of elections are no longer those
who identify themselves as members of a party, but those who vote for
individuals regardless of which party they are nominated by.

For example, I am registered as a member of a party because it allows me
to vote in the primaries, but this will have nothing to do with my vote
in the general election.

And at the Senate level, for example, Senator Lugar, a leading
Republican and senior Republican foreign policy official yesterday came
out aginst Pres. Bush's Iraq war. He follows in the footsteps of several
other prominent Republicans.

All but a few Congressmen routinely switch 'party-lines' when it comes
to issues.

The 'good' thing about labels is that it gives us the feeling of dealing
with a simpler world. The 'problem' with labels is that the world not in
reality even close to being so simple.


Oceans

'Armydoc'

The definition of neocon from "SourceWatch" is probably accurate for a
couple of decades ago: it describes well people like Scoop Jackson and
Arnold Wohlstetter. The neocons have evolved in important ways since
those times, however. Yes, some of them are social or domestic
'liberals', if that label means anything.

But they are much, much more than that today, and it is this evolution
that is particularly worrisome to anybody involved in analyzing and
designing US foreign policy and the well-being and security of the US.

Again, if you run down my past postings on this you will see what the
term neocon refers to today.

Great one, Puffins! But why did you post it in the Jokes category?
Wouldn't Current Events have been more appropriate?


Oceans

Jeez you guys. You are going to have Carbear hauling his whole damn
house there....



Oceans

Good morning (sort of!) Duncan, Alex, JJ


What do the "†††" mean, Alex?

Hi, Gypsy. You are getting hit on by a few ranters, too
Just read your recent thread postings in Current Events --
with enjoyment.

Our top personal income tax rate, btw, is, I think 32% -- not 46% if I
read what you posted properly. But that is just the marginal rate -- the
rate paid on those dollars that take a person into that highest bracket.
Taxes start at 17%, so no one pays the 32% on all their income, but
something substantially under it.

These numbners are approximate; a CPA does my taxes and just tells me
where to sign and how much to pay.



Oceans

Duncan, what is a QC? "Queen's Counsel"???



Oceans

Thanks for the BBC reference, daVinci. Can you check this out and tell
me if this documentary is what you are thinking of?
http://www.archive.org/details/BBCBBCpresentsNeoConDocumentaryPartII

I'll check it out tomorrow and give you some feedback.


Army"doc" -- I've defined "neocon" many times in the past on several
threads, and provided goals, names, positions and actions.

Oceans

Thanks for the compliment, Walker

Oceans