mmm spice

Einstein,

"When Conservatives rise up Libertarians will be their first targets for smearing us with Liberals"

You're just upset that Libertarians actually support small government, whereas the Republicans you've supported are all socialists and have played you for a fool for decades.

Genesis,
"That would be a wonderful world if a person could simply "take his talent to a competitor", Beowolfe. However in the present market I really don't think someone working for McDonald's can simply tell his boss to treat him fairly or he'll be going to Burger King."

Why can't he? Government force exploding our cost of living is what's responsible for the "present market." You're calling for more government to solve the suffering of poor markets when it's the government which suppresses markets to begin with--all the while you're ignoring that all of this government very directly reduces standards of living through taxation and the inflation of our currency to finance our deficits. You think further taxation and inflation, reducing our standard of living even more, is good for our standard of living? You're going to have to explain that better for us.

"You need to realize the world, or even the US for that matter, is not entirely composed of self-made, accomplished and well established individuals "

You need to realize that most people with stuff earned it. If you think certain things should be illegal, why not advocate for that instead of vilifying hard work and productivity as if there's something inherently wrong with them?

The only fantasy about libertarianism is that human beings aren't too much of sheep to appreciate the freedom, fairness, and quality of life it offers.

Timmyville,

That it "has to do with EDUCATION" purely because it's in schools doesn't make it an educational program in which children actually learn about nutrition. How is it we keep glossing over this topic as if it does? Wishful thinking does not make it so.

Maybe the fact that it's not happening locally in your area is something you should fix, if you actually care. If you don't, I fail to see any legitimate reason for pushing for it federally.

What evidence do you have that forcing schools to offer only federally mandated foods is improving children's health or teaching them good eating habits? I'm pretty sure offering foods children don't want to eat, resulting in them bringing whatever they want to eat from home, isn't improving any children's health or teaching them good eating habits. Is there any evidence of success here, or is it again only wishful thinking?

Again, you completely ignore that mandating what foods are offered does not miraculously educate children about good eating habits. And, again, you completely ignore that the people you're entrusting to offer this education regularly offer us (and our children) carcinogens and other harmful chemicals. There's more to nutrition than low sodium and low calorie diets, yet that's all that your desired educators preach.

You're arguing that tax money should be spent forcing schools to only offer certain foods when the decisions regarding which foods are offered aren't even made on the nutritional value of those foods. Michelle Obama doesn't know any more about nutrition than Monsanto, and neither gives a damn about children.

Little Paul,

None of your crying makes EROEI relevant beyond its impact on oil industry ROI.

It's funny how you've repeatedly mentioned wikipedia; you're obviously familiar with its content on the topic. I am not.

Your bit on the percentage of oil used for consumer transportation is misleading. Every ounce of crude that can be used for fuel oil is; it's just that not all of the chemical compounds in oil can be used/converted for that product. You posted as if 100% of crude could be used for consumer transportation, but that's not the case. A more useful figure would be that 100% of the components of crude which can be used for fuel oil are, and a lot of that is used for transportation, and a good chunk of that is used for personal transportation.

Also I'd love a source of your "0,5% to 1,5%" claim.

"A trend that emerged since the 1950s concerns the growing share of transportation in the world's total oil consumption; transportation accounts for approximately 25% of world energy demand and for about 61.5% of all the oil used each year."
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/ch8c2en.html

"about one fourth of those cars are found on U.S. roads, where cars and light trucks account for 40 percent of the nation

Because you're being so ridiculously vague, I'm going to go with "no."

Limited government shouldn't make any edicts regarding vague academic BS.

With properly limited government, social norms are none of the government's business, and free markets handle unequal power relations just fine.

By your vague wording here, it sounds like you'd describe any/all employers as coercing their employees because of their "unequal power relations." Insofar as you've described all of capitalism and free markets as inherently coercive, because some have more/less than others, "no" to all of your inquiries. Freedom does not require government to save us from it. It serves us quite well. If productivity being rewarded is "coercion" by those who earn buying power, bring on the coercion. It benefits us all.

Regarding your response to Mr. Yell, the free market protects employees better than any government ever has/could/will. I'm sure you could think up some examples where reasonable laws wouldn't be a bad idea, but most of the time competing employers are forced to treat their employees well or lose them (along with productivity and training investment, and even brand equity in extreme cases involving publicity).

Freer markets inherently involve more opportunity than massive government debt, called "investment" by communists who don't understand that government consumes; it does not produce. Nothing is perfect, but freer markets provide for everyone better than a government with tens of trillions in debt (not officially acknowledged for propaganda purposes, but nonetheless owed) which will eventually crush our nation and its social services. We literally cannot afford all of this big government nonsense, and this fact will become undeniable in time.

I totally side with gays on this one. The English language is evil and war must be waged against its tyrannical words and their meanings. How dare marriage describe a certain type of relationship between opposite genders?

Next we'll sue God, because he discriminates against gay people and oppressively denies them the ability to create children!

"Clearly, too many American parents cannot control their children's feeding patterns. So someone else must take control."

Too many American parents are horrible parents, and this is contributed to by programs which encourage them to be lazy and comfort them with the knowledge that "someone else" will "take control."

Your solution worsens the problem. Government as mommy for all just produces more unfit parents.

"Do you have any idea how much obese people cost society in their medical care?"

Without socialized medicine and limits on the [government-welfare-funded] care provided to poor fatasses who obviously don't care about their own health anyway, not more than I'm willing to donate.

"They are the medical industry's 2nd favorite moneypig, right after smokers, arguably their favorite."

Send them the bill. It'll moderate the industry if they can only rob the fatasses with lung cancer of what they can afford.

"You're right, I have zero problem with the government stepping in and telling parents they're idiots and they have to do this for us."

Why do you need the federal government to do this, when you can already accomplish it on a local level without the bureaucracy, waste, and inflexibility of federal involvement?

Where does that reasoning stop? Where do you draw the line? When you shackle all of society with the costs of "providing" for them and force society to accept such "services," where does that stop?

In my opinion, taking control of feeding people's kids is waaaaaay across the line. But you accept it. What else do you accept? What don't you? Government can force you to buy specific health insurance? Damn options and free market competition providing better services, you accept the government "providing" things and accept that it must forcibly take more of your earnings away from you to finance it? Is there anything you don't think government should do for us all, since it can do it better with regulations making sure it does it right?

Fat people cost us all money. Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to eat certain things until they lose weight. It costs us all that they don't. It's for their own good anyway. Shouldn't government regulate what fat people eat? Isn't it clearly justified?

"I wish parents were smart enough to know how to take care of their own children, but the overwhelming amount of obese kids has become disgusting."

Alright, so you're advocating mandating the government take all those children away from their parents? Because this school lunch nonsense isn't going to help any of those children. They're still eating a majority of their meals elsewhere. And there's not enough time in the school day for enough exercise to burn that many calories. Current PE programs are already a joke and a complete waste of time, harming children's educations.

I wouldn't suggest that "nothing needs to change." But I find it terrifying that your first response is to plead for government involvement, despite the fact that this garbage produces no results and has real costs. Nevermind how ridiculous we look, having food police in our schools. Nevermind that it's unlawful.

I don't know how you judge this to be a "solution" at all. Give a fat kid with crappy parents a tofu snack with squid tentacles and he's just going to eat two more cheeseburgers later. Maybe this is just conjecture, but so is the notion that banning certain foods in school lunchrooms will help children's health.

Einstein,

At a legal level, no court would accept your nonexistent credentials as establishing you as an expert. At a legal level, you'd be forcibly removed from the courtroom and jailed.

I'm pretty sure there's a right argument here.

It involves government not having anything to [clucking] do with feeding my children.

The problem with shitty parents is shitty parents. You don't solve it by spending hundreds of billions on food police and forcing them on Americans. Those same parents will still encourage physically and psychologically unhealthy lifestyles and habits. Nanny-state style programs like Das Fuhrer's food police just contribute to the physical and psychological harm these children suffer by placing them in a nation where one is eternally treated like a baby throughout their adult life.

BTW, Michelle Obama doesn't care if your foods are GMO and covered in pesticides. Pay the man.

Timmyville,

"Simply that I think it's telling that (this is a vast generalization) the areas that vote lefty tend to be the areas with more people and better economy...."

Hahahaha! Oh my god, thank you. That was hilarious. Most people that vote "left" are poor, live in ghettos, and receive government assistance. Look at the electoral map of literally any state in the USA. It's even more glaring in "swing" states. 90% of support for the "left" is ghettos.

Most of the rest is middle class people with comfortable incomes who don't care about a few grand more in taxes; they just want to feel good about themselves without ever giving a damn or doing anything for their fellow man: They're happy to pay slightly more in taxes if it means they can pretend they've cared for the poor and needy. They can still buy their nice homes and cars; they just desire to pay a little more for their self-righteousness as well.

"Just a hunch, but I think the entire country would shift to the left."

Hahahahahahaaha! Yeah, when I see ghetto with my own eyes, I tend to want to think more like the people living there on government income (handouts)! They're certainly doing things right to live on welfare for generations. They're certainly doing things right to have 80% illegitimacy rates. They're certainly doing things right to have high crime and murder rates. They're certainly doing things right to have high gang activity.

Yeah, just a hunch, but I don't think witnessing ghettos would convince anybody that they're populated primarily by more intelligent, harder-working populations than suburbs and rural areas. I'm just venturing a wild guess here, but I don't think many people find political wisdom and virtues to be more prevalent than ghettos than outside of them.

"Why do the urban areas vote left, and what does this say about our society?"

It means that human nature isn't inherently foolproof, and if you breed dependents and offer them the most handouts, you'll always get their votes. I meant "breed" figuratively via policy decisions to push people into handouts with costs and then keep them receiving by incentivizing negative behavior with financial rewards. Funny enough, one of those policy decisions is to reward mothers both to have illegitimate children and to have many of them in order to receive more money. And they do, in fact, have more children than people not on government assistance (even though they can't afford them). So maybe it's not just figurative breeding after all.

Undeath,

"People talk about the whole, but their chief concern will always be the self."

Not everyone is this stupid and trashy. Some people have values and realize that all individuals in society benefit when they are shared values. Values prohibiting theft and violence are a simple example. Values espousing hard work and honesty are similar, though comprehension of these things is beyond some people.

I'm sure a lot of ghetto trash would agree with you that there's no set of values for everyone. They'd lie and cheat and steal to benefit themselves. But ultimately all individuals are harmed by this naive view of self-interest. It's not actually in their self-interest, they're just too lazy to work for better.

"There is no set of values that is right for everybody, and there never will be."

This is always the mantra of the trashy. Sometimes it's convenient to kill your kids. Sometimes it's convenient to use threat of force to steal. Sometimes it's convenient to kill tens of millions of undesirables. When there's "no set of values" that's more than pragmatic for a particular moment, literally anything can be justified for some claimed goal of a greater good.

You take issue with the US's Bill of Rights? If there's no set of values that's right for everybody, you don't support the USA's first amendment. The position of relativism champions oppression and slavery.

An argument for relativism in political philosophy is just an argument for being sheep, paying the man. Why all this "left" vs "right" nonsense? Both sides support expanding federal power. Both sides support foreign aggression (mass murder) for corporate profits and NWO interests (all recent presidents--from both parties--have directly stated their NWO desires). Both sides support cronyism and rewarding their friends with the taxed wealth of others. Both sides seek to squash economic freedom and control more wealth. Both sides steal via the Federal Reserve and use interest to keep the working working harder for all of their times to accumulate any wealth.

I'm not seeing the major differences people argue about between the "left" and the "right" in the USA. Most of the differences are just matters of which freedoms each side wants to squash the most. By passing power back-and-forth over the decades, both sides steadily erode our freedoms. Neither side repeals anything the other side's done; there're no real disagreements, just a collaborative enslavement of the American people.

Which side wants to end foreign aggression and world-policing? Neither. Which side wants to end the Federal Reserve's (private bankers'+politicians) stealing of wealth from the American people? Neither. Which side wants smaller government and lower taxes? Neither. Which side wants to honor the words and spirit of the Constitution and actually restrain government by those laws (which are currently openly ignored and even literally laughed at)? Neither.