Zarf,

My point exactly. That and selection criteria for immigration in Europe is too liberal and costly.

Eh,

Islam isn't a problem. It's uncontrolled immigration of parasitic underclass scum.

In other words, immigration needs to be carefully regulated to guarantee that people are admitted not on the basis of pity, but on their usefulness to the economy and ability to adapt within the society they are immigrating to.

For example, I don't mind if English-speaking doctors from Mexico want to immigrate and work in the US, what I do mind is immigration from underclass people from Mexico who end up being parasites to the tax payer.

The problem with Europe is a hypersensitive empathy. You guys want to go help people and save the world, and that is leading to your downfall.

Well Democrats and Republicans aren't much different any more, in practice.

Diplomacy can be a less costly alternative to military conflict, on condition that your motives aren't mutually exclusive with one another. For example, perhaps you have a big power emerging that threatens both of your interests, and as a result you ally yourselves to create a balance of power. Or perhaps you are facing an opponent who has equal power as you do, and an act of aggression would be a risky gamble for the both of you, and so you both agree to make concessions to please each other.

But say you have a small power with no allies and it borders a great power. Lets also say that small power is rich with natural resources. Sadly, that small power is getting owned. It has no bargaining power at all, which is necessary in diplomacy.

As for many diplomatic problems in the world that the US faces, it's in America's best interest to be aggressive.

But the left-wing idea of diplomacy goes something like this:

Leftwinger: Can't we all just get along? Come on guys, lets stop the violence.
Opponent: Sure. We'll stop *acts all friendly*
*Opponent takes advantage of the Leftwingers incompetence in order to acquire a gain at their expense.

So do a lot of things, but art does not necessarily have to imply a claim with truth-value. Religion asserts claims with truth value, and they are not all metaphysical. God, heaven and hell may be metaphysical, but the story of Jesus is meant to be a historical account. Miracles are also not strictly metaphysical, but a claim meant to describe the truth of real world events with divine intervention. Religion is thus subject to empirical criticism. So too are its metaphysical claims. Though the truth value of God can not be tested, someone using the empirical method can criticize it on the grounds of infinity of like theories. With that justification, why not believe that there are aliens on the moon or in the Spaghetti monster?

Soth, science has answers, and they're supported by evidence. Religion is only supported by very weak evidence, if at all.

Avo,

Ok, I suppose that in that sense science can be dangerous. An experiment gone wrong can lead to a cost of life or equipment, or new discoveries can lead to danger when in the wrong hands.

But these discoveries lead to theories that match our experiences, and I have to say that religion just does not match our body of evidence. It actually outright contradicts it, or simply can't be tested to suggest it does.

Yeah, but science is benign in its search for truth precisely because it's reliable.

Religious dude: X is true. God said so.
Scientist: No it isn't. If X was true, then the result of this experiment would be A. But it's B, and therefore X is false. Don't you see? Watch.

> Black_Wing wrote:

> Justinian.....seriously, why do you need to hedge vs. the Euro ?

Because it's one of the stronger currencies, and the dollar gonna dive.

So the question is how do I protect or increase the value of what I have?

1. As Acolyte said, Evolution is explains the diversity of species, not the origin of species.
2. Creationism and Evolution are not mutually exclusive.
3. Intelligent Design is not a science, because it can not be falsifiable. We can not go to a lab and demonstrate or suggest, directly or indirectly, that there was a designer.
4. Just because science can not show something, does not mean it does not exist. There well could be aliens on the moon with cloaking technology, or the experiences we have are masterminded by an illusionist etc. It's all possible, but sticking to the empirical method has a very pragmatic justification, and imo we should suspend judgment on questions that can not be empirically tested, such as God, the spaghetti monster, or an intelligent designer.

Michelle Bachmann? Ewwww. She's my representative and I absolutely hate her. She's an active member of the ideologically driven camp of the Republican party. Anyhow, that's awesome you went there and had a good time .

PS: I consider myself mostly Republican, but I'm in the pragmatic camp parse. I can't stand the ideologues though.

> Raif wrote:

> hmmm as an indoctrinated university student from a western university shouldnt i be all for the promotion of western values and ideals...not against them. it is the fault of the west to think that their values are universal and should be spread to all of the world, no matter what the costs to other cultures

perhaps i should have been more specific, i am interested in the enlightenment and the percieved cultural superiority of the western project of modernity, and why there is the assumption in the west that all countries going through modernity of some kind will inevitably end up just like us, because obviously we are teh bestest >>

In Universities, western values of modernity tend to not be typically espoused, rather the degenerate nonsense of post-modernism.  And you speak of post-modernism like you recited it from a textbook.

Post-modernism is degenerate because of the value it assigns to cultures.  What is culture?  It is a set of recipes or scripts by which a population lives by.  It's stupid to reinforce and celebrate recipes when they are maladaptive to the current conditions. Rather, culture should be naturally forced to adapt from external pressures, not preserved because it is somehow subjectively perceived valuable.  In this way, the superiority of culture can be measured by its yielding results.

The western project of modernity says that the universe has order, and this order can be discovered by empirical means.  Disregarding the philosophical problems of empiricism, you can not deny that it has brought untold power through science etc.  According to my culture meter, this makes modernity a superior project compares to the post-modern project of cementing and sheltering lesser cultures (measured by inferior results, and adapted to traditional economies).