Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: T Wake on 10 Nov 2006 15:24 <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message news:ej211j$8qk_003(a)s995.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com... > In article <455485EB.84F083F4(a)hotmail.com>, > Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >> >> >>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >> >>> Raising the minimum wage is stupid and insane. >> >>Why ? > > It causes all other prices to eventually go up, especially housing. > It eliminates wage competition. People's real productivity is > no longer measured nor rewarded with wage. It also creates more disposable income so more things are bought, increasing profits and allowing more money to be spent on staff. Can I assume you have a good background in economics here? I have read papers by respected economists which state that national minimum wages are a great benefit to societies. Minimum wage does not eliminate wage competition. Companies can still pay more than the minimum wage. It does, however, prevent slavery. >> >>I saw it can be a slow as $5 an hour. >> >>Can anyone actually live on that ? > > $10k/year? Yes. Blimey. Where in the US can you live (housing, food, fuel, clothing, transport) on $10k per year? I would love to know. I assume this does not include health care though.... In the UK I would be amazed if _anyone_, even in council housing, could live on ?10k per year, let alone $10k.
From: Jonathan Kirwan on 10 Nov 2006 15:39 On Fri, 10 Nov 06 14:01:28 GMT, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: ><snip> >In this medium, the only way to figure out if I'm wrong is >to say something and let people stomp all over it. I do >not know of any other way to learn. Passive doesn't work >in newsgroups. My style for firguring things out >is definitely not passive; I am not patient enough to wait >for the divine to hand me answers. I go looking for them. I read the entire reply, but don't feel motivated to respond to each part individually. You seem to keep bringing up _your_ idea (and it is NOT supportable by records of the discussions of the time) that this was about people with superior abilities to get things done (my paraphrasing, not your words.) You point out "the way new people got to learn," and so on, and that's how it comes across -- that this was a necessary approach to an almost 'parent/child' kind of relationship between those with wealth and those without. I think that argument can be made, of course. Those with wealth had access to education and a breadth of view simply unavailable to those born without ready access to resources and the time to think deeply. (This very discussion here is evidence of your point and that this continues today, as I'm lucky enough to have been born in the US and have an education and can spend some of my time thinking about and worrying over various ideals about how we may improve our society; whereas there are many people in the world who cannot afford this luxury and must simply focus on staying alive for a time.) But again, although I understand how you might argue that this _may_ have been a motivation (because there is logic to your argument), it is the case that this was not the argument being made, even if it was an underlying assumption made as part of it. However, their argumetns went further than this, and frankly I'm not inclined to believe that the arguments they did make were insincere or disingenuous. George Mason's, "The true idea is that every man having evidence of attachment to the society, and permanent common interest with it, ought to share in all its rights and privileges," pretty much spells out clearly the rest of what I've read them saying. Although I suspect they many of them may have shared the idea that wealth and education put them in better stead (Franklin did NOT share this idea, nor did Butler, nor did Rutledge, to name three), they were more concerned and focused upon the idea Mason expressed clearly and directly. Mason had earlier initiated a discussion on the narrow point of suffrage, saying, "Eight or nine states have extended the right of suffrage beyond the freeholders. What will the people there say if any should be disfranchised?" It was his opinion that some of these people _should_ perhaps become disenfranchised and he was worried about how those people in those states would react to a federal constitution that _might_ serve to undo what had already been done for them. In the end, this was left up to the states to avoid the conflict, allowing the states to select the means by which representatives would be selected for congress. But it was already the case that those without wealth and the pinnacle of education were already enjoying the right of suffrage in some of the states. So this wasn't a new discussion and at least to some of the states, it had already been decided in favor of all and not just a few. So there is also experience with broader suffrage. I don't mean to conflate the two ideas: that of a right to suffrage to select representatives and that of a right to _be_ a representative who votes in congress. They are distinct ideas, but related. Which is why all this came up in the span of a week or two in the federal convention. There were other parts of these discussions I've studied but didn't include here for brevity. I'm not basing my opinion upon just those quotes I've selected for you. But from many, many hours of reading their own words in context. For example, foreigners was a concern brought up in this context, because again they do not have permanent common interests they share. It really was about the level of common interest, personal motivation, and not so much about being a better or wiser "parent," so to speak. (Though that may have been underneath some of what was said, as an unstated assumption.) By the way, when the prior articles of confederation were framed and the idea of intercitizenship first developed for it, it included most everyone who was a part of the overall community, but specifically excluded paupers, vagabonds, fugitives, and slaves. Combined with the fact of many states including specific suffrage for more than a wealthy few (under This was the setting leading into the federal convention. My point is simple, your comments seem based on your reasoning about what _may_ have been, not about what actually _was_. I recommend that the latter takes precedence over the earlier. I don't often get a chance to apply what I'm learning as a hobbyist on this period of time, though, so I thank you for the excuse to write a little about it. Jon
From: lucasea on 10 Nov 2006 15:49 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:c3094$4554d332$4fe7132$32504(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... >T Wake wrote: > >> I am considered vermin in certain interpretations of the Bible. Does this >> mean we need to wage a War on Christianity? > > You don't need to, but you do nonetheless. The rhetoric has now raised the stakes, to where disagreeing with the US government's foreign policies has gone from "anti-American" to "treason", and is now has reached the pinnacle of being a "War on Christianity". Is anybody else getting a sense of what we *really* need to start being afraid of? In my best upstate New York accent: "We have nothing to fe-ah....but jingoistic rhetoric itself." Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 10 Nov 2006 15:50 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:b7a54$4554d360$4fe7132$32504(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... >T Wake wrote: > >> <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message >> news:ej1t38$8qk_002(a)s995.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com... >> >>>In article <45535C91.5F6C3E61(a)hotmail.com>, >>> Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>unsettled wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>Lloyd Parker wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>>>Yeah, like a few million more Kurds is just what Turkey needs. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>I don't know what Turkey will do. I am the messenger. >>>>>> >>>>>>Turkey will do what they're told to do or lose out big time. >>>>> >>>>>Oh, the irony. >>>> >>>>The EU has a very big carrot and a very big stick. >>> >>>The carrot has worms and the stick has termites. >> >> >> Really? How do you come to this conclusion? >> >> >>>That makes them useless to be used for their original purpose. >> >> >> Which was? > > You've learned the donkey lessons well. What's that, asking people that parrot emotional rhetoric to justify their assumptions? Eric Lucas
From: T Wake on 10 Nov 2006 15:51
"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:45547270.C0E4E290(a)hotmail.com... > > > unsettled wrote: > >> Take a look at the Brit directed "peace treaties" at >> the end of WW1 and WW2. They gladly handed over all of >> Eastern Europe to Soviet slavery in order to have the >> wherewithall to continue playing with their empire. > > Your own government is complicit in that. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_conference > > In nay case we weren't in aposition to hand over any countries. The Soviet > Army > was already there ! > > >> WW1 was just as bad. > > Utter nonsense. > Unsettled has a poor understanding of history which he compounds by making crazy assumptions for the sole purpose of trying to support his unsupportable position. Even *if* everything he said was true, so what? Because the UK did a Bad Thing in 1945 regarding the Empire, does that justify the US doing the same Bad Thing sixty years later? Oddly, this line of argument even carries the implicit admission that the US _is_ doing a Bad Thing today... |