Krazikarl

I think that you are unlikely to see that as it is extremely meta dependent and has very large balancing issues. The most likely change that we will see is the one they've already mentioned - something with ward restrictions. Basically, they'll try and enforce something where no specific champion can be forced to be the designated warder. Supports wouldn't get substantially more gold, but they would be "allowed" to spend it on things other than wards. Som

[quote who="Chibiabos" reply="58" id="3404196"]40s, 14th amendment ... do you make yourself take drug tests, Frogboy? Federal laws have always superceded state laws, from the very founding of the nation, long before the 40s (presuming you mean the 1940s). There were fights regarding this throughout the 1700s when we first founded to the 1800s.[/quote] His post is admittedly somewhat awkwardly phrased, but you are off base here. I suggest that you go plug "Incorpora

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="2" id="3403079"]The states, theoretically, could establish their own religion. In theory.[/quote] No they can't. You really have to be aware of case law. In this case the relevant case is this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everson_v._Board_of_Education Its been in the news lately: <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/08/can-u-s-states-have-

Until recently, there was a fairly substantial line of thought that guns could be banned from the general public by reading the 2nd Amendment such that the whole "A well regulated Militia..." part meant that only organized groups (and not individuals) were guaranteed guns. Under this reasoning, a number of laws outright banning guns were passed. The Supreme Court tossed that out in the rulings that I cited above. Neither the feds nor lower level governments can ban guns

[quote who="gmc2" reply="45" id="3403637"]I always thought the point of the constitution was to protect the people and define the role of government. I think the feds should establish national standards. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness should be that same throughout the nation. Not just here or there but fair across the board for all.[/quote] He is going for a classic libertarian interpretation of the Constitution, which calls for very narrow interpretations of the Commerce and

[quote who="psychoak" reply="33" id="3403442"]Right now, the Supreme Court could outlaw buttsex because they say so, require a surveillance camera in your bedroom to make sure you're following the law, and decide it was treason to break it, qualifying you for an execution. The only thing to prevent it would be an amendment specifically allowing the actions, and they can damn well ignore that too and say it still is. The only thing preventing them from it is their own opinions.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="39" id="3403620"]Re 2nd amendment: Even without the second amendment, the federal government has very little to do with what guns are allowed or not.[/quote] Except that there are a pretty large number of directly counter examples to this. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapons_ban http://en.w

You are welcome to whatever idiosyncratic interpretation of the Constitution you want. However, in the real world, what the Federal government can do boils down to what the Supreme Court says the federal government can do. And the real sticking point is the Elastic Clause that I mentioned in the thread you forked this one from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_clause In practice, this clause gives the fe

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="641" id="3403398"]I don't see France, UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, topping those lists. So can you be a bit more specific? Which country did you have in mind that could be honestly compared to the United States in terms of raw demographics? I.e. a country that isn't essentially a city state.[/quote] I already said progressive northern European countries, which would be stuff like Norway, Sweden, etc. [quote who="Frogboy" reply="630" id=

[quote who="Kantok" reply="599" id="3403071"]As for the "many of which earn more" nonsense, a 30 second Google search revealed a whole host of sources that show you're wrong. [/quote] Man, you do like your cherry picking. There are a lot of ways of measuring things like "per capita income". I used a pretty imprecise term. You, not surprisingly, picked out the on method that works for your argument, but generally, the US doesn't rate as highly. Taking

I think that the point was that everybody was playing pretty badly. I don't think that anybody was concentrating all that hard and everybody was making lots of bad plays. BUT, most people were going with it and having a few laughs all in all. You were being fairly negative about it despite making silly plays all over the place just like the rest of us. So yeah, we were all bad, but I think that you were being a bit of a hypocrite about it.

[quote who="Kantok" reply="591" id="3403019"]Taxes are always just taxes. The problem lies in the fact that "tax more and throw money at the problem" is ALWAYS the solution. Always, always, ALWAYS. And if you happen to think that it isn't always the solution the you are evil or cruel or greedy or some other nonsense argument. [/quote] Nope. I think that a HELL of a lot of progressives want to cut spending to stuff like defense and use that money elsewhere. P

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="589" id="3403000"]That's a pretty easy answer: Money is exchanged for goods and services. That's what my taxes should be doing for me and my family. If my taxes are being given to someone else that is not providing me with a good or service then I object to that.[/quote] You are welcome to believe that, but you will probably have to move to another country. And, as far as I'm aware of, none of those other countries will be

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="580" id="3402775"]Er. That's not actually how the constitution works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers People don't just get to vote themselves whatever they like. It's a government, not a wishing well. [/quote] I was speaking in terms of both federal and more local governments, not just federal laws. Also, given how broadly the Elastic Clause has been interpreted, its more or less how the f

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="573" id="3402742"]Sure. But where do you want to draw the line?[/quote] I think that this was determined a bit over 200 years ago. Its the Constitution. If you can get enough votes, you can get the government to do what you want. Unless its prohibited by the Constitution. Forcing people to buy Start8 would probably be ruled unconstitutional, electric car subsidies are generally not. [quote who="Frogboy" reply="574" id="340274

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="564" id="3402727"]However, they are expensive compared to...what? [/quote] "However, in a paper published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers found that trying to scrub the air is much more expensive than keeping it from getting dirty in the first place. " [quote who="Frogboy" reply="564" id="3402727"]Since you are familiar with the serious economi

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="559" id="3402717"] Money is taken from one person to give to another because society decides it NEEDS it. I'm not griping about the concept of welfare. But yea, the idea of voters deciding that we all *need* something and therefore other people should pay for that is pretty clear cut. Can you name any other products that are subsidized based on NEED? Even food isn't. We have welfare but that's not the same here. That&#3

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="541" id="3402685"]How often do you hear about proposals to build CO2 scrubbers? Or if global warming is the problem, why not solutions that involve releasing something else into the atmosphere to counter it? Where are those proposals from the AGW alarmists? Why does every problem - EVERY - problem always have the same solution - taking more money from other people to give to themselves?[/quote] This isn't about wealth distribution. Its about

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="548" id="3402697"]That society is known as communism. Seriously. You just defined communism.[/quote] As somebody is already pointing out, no. Just no. I'll quote wikipedia again: " Communism (from Latin communis – common, universal) is a <a title="Revolutionary socialism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="538" id="3402677"]Congratulations. You win this link: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority Seriously though, I have no doubt you can come up with examples of where a government research project has netted some good. However, that has very little to do with the macroscopic issue at hand.[/quote] Um, what. I'm using disproof by counterexample. You claim that that the government has made no significant co

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="527" id="3402626"]Bob: Global warming is going to kill us all! We need to do something! We're destroying the planet! Brad: Ok. What do you think we should do? Bob: We need to switch to renewables right now! Brad: That's not really practical though. Bob: Yes it is! It's affordable now! Brad: Have you switched to renewables? Bob: What? No! I can't afford it! Brad: But you jus

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="528" id="3402627"]I think I used the CFCs example earlier as an example of WHEN it's good to have government intervention. It demonstrates that people of all ideologies will come together when the science is really there. We didn't need a "consensus" on CFCs. It was a demonstrable fact.[/quote] Except it was really controversial at the time. Read the controversy section here: http

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="525" id="3402619"]@Krazil, I'm not going to spend more effort refuting what should be obvious. If you really think the government is responsible for a significant amount of our food production or energy production progress over the past two centuries then I'll let you to that.[/quote] I've linked to a government scientist who won a Nobel Prize for his work in drought resistant crops and is generally credited with saving a billion lives thr

[quote who="Jafo" reply="523" id="3402612"]Brad...it's not about having a Govt 'mandate' change....it's about having the 'something' done on a significant scale, not the noble actions of people with options.[/quote] You actually bring up an excellent example. One of the major crises of the past (that is somewhat similar to climate change) was the holes in the ozone layer. It was a global problem. And how was it solved? Not by the actio

[quote who="psychoak" reply="522" id="3402604"]http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/31/news/economy/federal_worker_pay/index.htm Not that I want to contradict your statement that idealists and slackers work for the government. Seriously, stick with it. Then you can explain why I should be listening to a bunch of well paid slackers and idealists that are telling me I have to live a different way to save the planet from their mythical disaster.[/quote] If you are talking