TrueBeaver

Have to disagree with tax cuts. They depend heavily on what the tax cut is on and the situation. At least in the US, if we lowered the top tax rates and closed a lot of the tax deduction loopholes corporations would be paying a lot more in taxes with virtually no negative effects on the middle class or poor and it would be easier to file your taxes yourself. This idea has been around for awhile but has gotten a new head of steam after the GE debacle a couple weeks back. Also, lowering the VAT (I think Canada has one?) would help stimulate spending and would help the poor more than the rich. Also, tax cuts stimulate job growth more so than government spending. I'm not aware of the nuances of the Canadian tax system but south of the border this graph illustrates recoveries by recession. The 2001 and 1990 recessions came after bubbles burst and were slow, steady recessions. Bush 41 raised taxes and Bush 43 lowered taxes and neither helped their respective recessions. However, in recessions that start with the sharpest declines, the 1980, 1974, and 1960 recessions, all were combated with tax cuts and those are the three shortest recessions. As John F. Kennedy said, "A rising tide lifts all boats." Our current recession started out slow but quickly took a turn for the worse and while you can argue pumping money into the system has mitigated the recession, it certainly hasn't turned it around. tl;dr: sometimes tax cuts stimulate job growth, sometimes they don't. Might as well try them. Also privatized health care ftw.

Now please list to me all the reasons why the right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. -I see this right as a negative liberty. Why should the right to keep and bear arms be infringed? Some reasons for it: to protect yourself or your family, recreation, gathering food (hunting), and to annoy progressives. And here are some other questions i have, Do you think the constitution is always right, and that it applies to all situations even though the world we live in today is a world the writers of the constitution could never have imagined? -Yes. Do you think it is necessary for a civilian to own a gun? -I do. I don't believe in forcing anyone to own a gun but I do think it is necessary - which is why I own several. Do you think it's necessary for a civilian to own a ak47 or other automatic/semi-automatic guns? -Depends on circumstances. In most cases it's probably not necessary, but neither is owning a plasma screen television. Just because it's not necessary doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed. Do you think its necessary for a civilian to have armor piercing rounds? -Above. Would you consider a law outright prohibiting the buying or selling of armor piercing rounds or automatic/semi-automatic guns to a civilian reasonable? -No. Would you consider a law outright prohibiting the buying or selling of armor piercing rounds or automatic/semi-automatic guns to a civilian unconstitutional? -Yes. Are there situations that should prevent a person from purchasing a gun? -Absolutely. There are several requirements people should be forced to meet before being able to purchase a gun, including but not limited to: being proficient in gun use, having a clean criminal record, and being mentally stable. If the right to bear arms is so needed and protected that all people should be able to have guns, do insane people also have that right or should it be denied? -Denied. Should a felon be able to purchase a gun and if so would you consider a law preventing one from doing so unconstitutional? -No. If other means of self-defense (i.e tasers) can be used as well as guns in a self-defense situation would you support heightening gun control laws in order to promote greater use of such measures? -No. These are some other questions on a more personal note. Do you own a gun? (if not don't bother with the rest of these questions) -Several. Do you shoot targets with that gun? -Yes. Do you shoot live targets with that gun? (nonhuman of course) -No. If you do shoot live targets do you take pleasure in it? -No. If you take pleasure in it then you are saying that you enjoy hurting/killing weaker things, true or false? -N/A And if you do take please in hurting/killing weaker things is that something the constitution should protect? -Playing rhetoric games is cheap and that's a fallacious line of reasoning. "Do you engage in free speech? Do you say hurtful, condescending, or otherwise negative things about people? If you do then you are saying that you approve of bullying? If you do, should the constitution protect bullying?" You could continue down the line until you interpret the first amendment as supporting suicides. But yes, I do believe the constitution should protect "hurting/killing weaker things" as it pertains to hunting. The obvious disconnect in this thread is that some people view guns as just another item with its purpose, not inherently different from a television or a chair, while others seem to class guns as some sort of contraband, like uranium or something. They ask "Why do you need this?" rather than "Do you want this?" Personally, I prefer a society where I can own what I please, to a reasonable extent, without having to justify its use. And I include my guns in that "reasonable extent."

Congrats Canada, you've taken a big step in the right direction today from what I can tell.

Plato's Republic is by far the greatest work in the entire Platonic canon. Before I read it, I'd read the Timaeus and Protagoras dialogues, so I thought I knew what to expect from Plato... turns out it superseded everything I expected from it. I think that it is probably the book of political science. If you've read Aristotle's Politics, which is amazing, then Republic is better. Penguin do the best translation. I also used to own a version of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, originally printed at the turn of the 20th century, but I never read it before I lent it to my moronic cousin who dropped it in a bath 'without realising' (so she says) and completely ruined it. I'm not so interested in it as to buy a new version. If you're into politcal literature, I'd also recommend 'Hiero' by Xenophon (which can be bought in a wonderful book by Penguin called Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises), which is about the nature of tyranny (which is, of course, a Greek concept - tyrannos being the Greek term for a ruler who gains power illegaly. Interestingly, it wasn't originally a derogative term. The common behaviours of tyrants, discussed in the Hiero, are what gave the term its negative connotation. Tyrants also played a fascinating role in the political landscape of the polis' of classical Greece, in case you wanted to look at that aspect of it.), and a book from Oxford's World Classics called simply 'Political Speeches', by Cicero, irrevocably greatest orator of ancient Rome. Generally, the fractuous and unstable politics of the Roman Senate before its transition to Empire and of classical Greece before it was unified by the Macedonians make for fascinating reading, and any book on these topics by a contemporary historian would in all certainity be a brilliant read if you're not into older books. Personally, I haven't read any thought, so I'd have a little browse on Amazon to find the best in these categories. I hope my advice has been helpful. Please say if you want me to say more on Plato; it would make a long post and I have tried to be brief. I'm quite bit backed up on my reading. Up until about a year ago I read very little and as such I haven't read any Plato nor Aristotle. I'll definitely look into Politics, and luckily I have the Penguin translation for The Republic. Hiero and Political Speeches both also look good. I'm pretty interested in political science so I'm sure I'll enjoy them. My copy of Wealth of Nations is from 1904, but a friend of mine said it's incredibly boring. Though, as an economics major I feel like I should read it so I'll get around to it eventually. If you'd like to expand on Plato go for it. As one of the most influential thinkers of all-time I feel like everyone should have at least a basic understanding of his writings, which I currently lack. Thanks for your post, it was really informative.

Quoted for blatant hypocrisy. I'm interested in how the elections turn out although I have no vested interest in it. What are the main issues this election cycle? I assume the economy is the major domestic issue and the Middle East is the major foreign policy issue but beyond that? Took a "What party should you vote for?" thing on CBC awhile back and there were, what appeared to me, pretty random questions. I think there was one about oil in the sand in Alberta or something along those lines.

Glad to see him gone, even if it's a symbolic victory more than a tactical. He was a pretty good terrorist, even after he died he blew up my news feed on facebook.

Years ago I used to teleother bots in the chaos druid tower, botting there isn't anything new.

You would do fine in the wilderness even with your main, especially with 99 range. I'd go with that definitely.

Not a big fan of fiction or "classic literature" (ie books you read for english class), I prefer biographies, historical and political books. That said, I'm currently reading Atlas Shrugged. I wanted to finish it before the movie was released but failed. Before that I read None Left Behind by Charles Sasser which I would highly recommend (it's about 10th Mountain in one of the dangerous parts of Iraq). Runescape's backed me up on my reading, got so many books to read this summer. Bring it on. Probably going to read The Big Scrum by John Miller or Known and Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld next. If anyone's read those two or The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, The Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky, Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris, The Republic by Plato or The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and would recommend/not recommend any of those I'd appreciate it.

Magic; without binds you can't get kills on PK trips.

af·fect verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce a change in: Cold weather affected the crops. ef·fect noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence: Exposure to the sun had the effect of toughening his skin.

Don't know all that much about FPTP/AV and certainly didn't read all of the replies, but the implication that "one man, one vote" is violated by AV is silly, as many posters have pointed out. First round: A - 40%; B - 30%; C - 20%; D - 10% Essentially what happens is there is a new election but candidate D is not an option. If they literally physically held another election without candidate D everyone who voted A, B, and C the first time around would likely vote that way again. It's the D voters who would vote differently (or not at all). Having new elections after each round would be insanely costly so they bypass that by simulating it with preference rankings (1, 2, etc). This means that everyone gets two votes, if it goes two rounds, if you want to look at it that way. People who vote for the larger parties are simply voting for the same candidate twice. I don't think I explained that very well, but I hope it's understandable. As an outsider, I think I would support AV more. I don't like the idea of a candidate being elected with less than 50% of the vote. However, I don't know all the nuances of your system so my opinion is more of principle than knowledge.

Topic title: Should I feel creepy? Subtitle: Im kinda spying on my dad. Thread had so much potential. So much [bleep]ing potential. Squandering it on trivial [cabbage] like this is much more immoral than finding out what your dad listens to. The only way to save the thread is to set up hidden cameras in his bedroom and bathroom and continuously update us. Go.

After I posted that I got the finger from some chick last night. Loled and thought of this thread.

Doesn't bother me at all. I find the act in itself kind of amusing. The only time I've seen it recently was when a guidette and an old couple both tried to move into the middle lane at the same place at the same time. I'll give you a hint: It wasn't the old couple who flipped the bird.

While I was there I saw you guys ripping. Strong performance. Keep it up through the summer!

Day 1 - Favorite Song Easy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

ITT: People who need to chill out while scaping OP you're a nerd.

After a quick google search I'm unable to come up with the statistic, but a significant number of home defenses end without a shot being fired due to the sheer intimidation of a person with a firearm. Guns are not lethal all of the time, look at Gabby Giffords's miraculous recovery or the kid in Brazil who took 5 bullets through the chest like nothing happened. I agree with you, I don't like the idea of someone who is mentally unstable owning a firearm and certainly not a concealed carry license. I also skepticalhippo.jpg the idea that someone is walking down the street and suddenly is overcome with mental illness and kills random people. The issue should be beefing up background checks, not limiting the ability of mentally stable citizens with a squeaky clean record to own a weapon. Well, actually, all tools have a legitimate purpose other than killing. Guns are not a tool in that manner, they were created solely for killing and injuring living things. As such, they are a weapon that is dangerous and I support their control. For every statistic you can produce that shows that gun control does nothing, I can produce another that shows it's effective. It's a moot point. I agree that if the public was all mature and educated enough to use guns properly, there would be no issue with no gun control. However, if the public was all mature and educated enough to use guns properly, there would be no need for guns at all. I have fired lots and lots of rounds with various guns in my life. The only time I ever killed or injured a living thing was when I shot a chipmunk with a pellet gun and it ran away. Believe it or not, some people enjoy shooting a gun at non-living targets. I doubt that, but for the sake of argument I'll take it at face value. Let's say it is a moot point and there is no correlation at all between gun ownership levels and gun crime. What is the need for gun control then? Why not just beef up background checks and get rid of ridiculousness like the reporter in Michigan (I think) who obtained a concealed carry license on the internet without ever firing a gun? The immortal words of James Madison: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. It's unfortunate that our world is as [bleep]ed as it is.

Absolutely. Although, Jewish dragons aren't (I hope?) real while criminals are very real so it's a pretty stretched metaphor. No, because of two reasons: Firstly - knives are an important tool for non violent means. I already advocate the control of knives used specifically in human/human combat such as switchblades. Secondly - the chance of someone being able to kill 20+ people with a knife is minuscule compared to using a firearm. What about a hatchet? Where does that rank on the "Ability to Massacre" index? Should we set up a UN Committee to assign a value to all tools on how easily they could be used to massacre and ban all weapons above an arbitrary point on that index? Regardless, if more people had concealed carry licenses that would lower the ability for someone to use a firearm to massacre people. Criminals will obtain weapons regardless of whether the government says they can (see: gun crime rate in Britain increases 2 years after gun ban) so the best defense is a well-armed and competent public. No, because they're murderers and felons aren't allowed to carry weapons. Assuming of course it wasn't self defense. You make guns sound as if they just unholster and start slaying people as you're watching a movie or something. Hundreds of people walk around you each day with guns and their concealed carry license that you're not even aware of. For every one bullet used in an illegal manner literally trillions are fired in a safe manner. For every massacre there's a Pearl High, which I'm sure has been linked several times in this thread. Don't get me wrong, I wish I lived in a world where I didn't need a gun, but life being as it is I would much rather be able to defend myself in the extremely rare chance something happened than fumble for a really heavy book or something. "If you're afriad of getting robbed in your current house, then move." I seriously hope you don't think that's a good point to make.

Bump for response. I don't like TIF, too many people here share my stances on politics. On RSC I'm much more scandalous. I don't have much to add to what the fine gentlemen above have been saying except that when Britain essentially banned guns, nothing really changed. Considering this as well as the fact that Switzerland has essentially no gun crime, I think it's safe to say gun control is impractical at best and we should move onto something more pragmatic, such as gun education.

First of all, not sure it was pointed out, but that advertisement was from Citizens Against Government Waste, a conservative political group who wanted to highlight the ill effects of the high deficits of the Obama administration right before the mid-term elections last year. Hmm, unfortunately everything I was going to say was extensively covered. Just to summarize: China holding the US's debt gives them very little pragmatic power. Look at how easily we got them to change their undervalued currency a little while ago. As was stated, we could not pay our debts if they demanded them and would default which would devastate the United States but would shake China to its core. There are lots of emerging economies which would love to cut into China's market share, especially Southeast Asia. If the Chinese cut ties with us we would still receive cheap products from Wal Mart, et al. China could, feasibly, become a superpower. It's not likely to happen anytime soon, but it's feasible. As the linked wikipedia article makes clear, military might is a major part of being a superpower (obviously) and I recall recently reading that China's defense spending is increasing something fierce. This article gives an idea but as I recall, the one I read was much more alarming. China does not have a shortage of labor now, but it's very possible in the future. Further, a hundred-some odd years ago American workers were considered some of the most hard working in the world. Success means not having to do the dirty jobs any more. Rather than working 14 hour shifts at the textile factory, we're now working 8 hour shifts in an air-conditioned Wal-Mart. If you think this "Chinese enthusiasm" will last after they attain a comparable standard of living to the Western world, you're kidding yourself. A minor point a read in one of the posts and wanted to address: that the debt the US has is greater than any other nation. The only way you could spin that to make it true is if you don't take GDP into account, which is incredibly misleading. For example, if I make $10,000 per year and have a $100,000 debt I'm in a much worse situation than Johnny Coltrane who makes $1,000,000 a year and has a $500,000 debt, despite the fact that he has more debt. Public Debt as a Percentage of GDP and External Debt as a Percentage of GDP (you'll have to sort the column yourself). Finally, those people blindly dismissing anyone who dares disagree with their world view as blindly patriotic is amusing to say the least. Cliffs: China may become super power one day, America is still bossin' it up now, obvious troll thread is obvious. Edit: Almost forgot the "Buy Domestic" lollapalooza. I'll buy domestic when they create a product I like as much as the best foreign product. I'm all for buying American and all that, but at the end of the day I'm buying the best product for my dollar and as of last November when I bought a new car that was a Hyundai. There are several quality American cars, to say otherwise is just silly, but it's true that if you look at companies by fewest repairs over the x years following a purchase, American companies are put to shame. edit2: couldn't find the exact study I referred to but this is a pretty similar one.

No time to read all replies, but I'm hoping for a Jagex announcement on Sailing.

Get more votes than the other candidates. In my experience, it's nothing more than a popularity contest. Everyone is going to vote for their friend if they have one running and anyone who doesn't probably doesn't care. Make a couple jokes in your short speech, be charismatic, and make sure your speech is short.