stem cells
 

It was an avowed liberal who did that editing, mirroring the reality that liberals have been responsible for so much more chilling of speech throughout history than any Ashcroftian crowd has ever dreamed of, despite the popular meme.

(Just kidding, RT.)

((Sort of.))

stem cells
 

I didn't see what wonk originally posted, so I can't speak for or against what RT did, but, behind my own personal veil of ignorance, I would be inclined not to edit posts in that way.

I would also be inclined to fund stem-cell research and agree to taxes establishing a safety net, FWIW.

Please note that the USA PATRIOT Act should appear in all caps because at the time its drafters did not have the cojones to actually call the thing the Patriot Act, and instead called it the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act," which itself should be some sort of federal misdemeanor.

stem cells
 

Overwrought hyperbole. Someone - someone we all know a little (at least) about, and have some respect for - made a judgment call. Maybe we disagree with it. Maybe not. Cut some slack, and move on.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

I think there is a discernible point of division for some where those who receive private, individual benefits receive the same merely as beneficiaries of a government-mandated insurance scheme are separated from those who receive the same based on a contractual give-and-take between government and the beneficiary.

Gov't employees, military etc., gov't contractors all are providing a service. The others merely benefit from a rigged insurance scheme (or lottery). Along this rather simplistic line of thinking, I'm having trouble characterizing school kids.

Hello

stem cells
 

Lord, you have been away for a while.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

this offends me. someone delete this. its like the Bob Hope comedy hour around here.

stem cells
 

True dat. It's proper form in Bush's Congress these days to create federal legislation with nifty acronyms that connote action! or patriotism! or mom-and-apple-pie! moments that simply must be a good thing, even if the act's substance has only a tenuous relationship to the image presented.

USA PATRIOT Act is one. CAN-SPAM is another that comes to mind, which ostensibly relates to either the further regulation of processed meat products, or the curtailing of unsolicited email, but in fact does neither.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

That's the real rub. There are plenty of public goods that we could generally agree upon fall within that category. Such goods have, generally, the following attributes, per tradition:

1) Non-excludability-- one can't provide the good to some without providing it to others, at least at reasonable expense. The military easily meets this; roads sort of (e.g., turnpikes); see the parable of the lighthouse for a Friedman rebuttal to this concept.

2) non-comsumptability. Use of the resource by one person does not diminish (or diminish greatly) its availability to others. (military yes; roads, perhaps not so much, although yes to stop signs)

Note that these categories do not necessarily include things that are for the "public good," such as schooling, subsidized health care, welfare benefits generally. There is no reason, from an economics standpoint, that schooling needs to be provided by government to cure a market failure: people will pay for schools if the government did not provide them. The reason the government pays for schools is because of a moral judgment that we ought to or a social(ist) judgment that society is better off if everyone has free schooling available to them. But at that point you're beyond a limited form of government with no particular bounds to its expansion short of communism.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

Don't worry. Churchill's dead, and british intelligence sucks. They'll never find Ty.

something new to fight about
 

From AG's favorite site, http:www.electoral-vote.com (internal links omitted):

stem cells
 

Whoa, there. At least some little part of his original post remains. When the stormtroopers from the right read my words of hope and recognized them as a beacon of hope and rally point for all oppressed persons of wit everywhere, the ENTIRE POST was deleted. Disappeared. Gone. Vanished. Except for the copy on slave's hard drive. RT gave wonk the kid-glove treatment by comparison (and I'm sure he enjoyed it).

stem cells
 

I missed it, but I'm guessing you said something along the lines of "Bush really isn't an evil madman."

And you expected such blasphemy to stay?

Naif.

stem cells
 

Hey bilmore, you had to be pretty bent out of shape last week when Bush floated the idea of switching from an income tax to a national sales tax. Here you've paid an income tax through your whole career, and now, on the eve of your golden years, as you and your geriatric pals get ready to spend the money you've amassed, you find out that he's planning to whack you again. That can't have gone down well.

stem cells
 

Only on LT can the unwritten word achieve such cult status. The dead post lives on.

¡Desea vivo el poste muerto!

¡Desea vivo el poste muerto!

stem cells
 

I made a judgment call, and I thought, given Wonk's subsquent amendment, that he agreed with it. I apologize if that's not what he meant, and he's free to switch it back if I erred.

stem cells
 

Not so much. My income keeps rising, and will likely continue to do so. I've already made enough property buys to keep me sheltered from the coming storms, and they are suitable such that I won't feel any huge need to buy more. I already own most of the big-ticket toys that I've wanted (discipline? we doan need no steenkin discipline!). The kinds of expenses I'm looking at in the near-to-mid future involve non-taxable things like colleges, criminal defense costs, and the like.

stem cells
 

BB-

Hi! Actually, the big debate is not over "fetal stem cells", its about "embryonic stem cells." i.e. the cells are harvested after the embryo has been alive for about 2 weeks (I think), before it gets to the fetus stage.

Moreover, the embryos involved in the research aren't taken from abortions. They are basically the leftovers/extras from the vast fertility industry we have in this country. Those "extras" are eventually destroyed if not used.

This may change the moral calculus a bit, although everyone should realize that this is one piece of a "slippery slope" issue with very serious moral implications.

A continuum of such issues which evolves as technology advances. See, e.g., The current practice where some parents have new children to create tissue, marrow or organ donors for existing ill children. One end of the continuum may one day be the possibility (seen only in SciFi now) of creating and raising human clones as new bodies for rich old people.

There is some line that our society should not cross, and as a general matter, it is indecent for any society to cannibalize its youngest members to prolong the lives or increase quality of life for its oldest. Where you draw the line all depends on your definitions.

S_A_M

stem cells
 

I don't know what was in ss's post to get it deleted, but big fucking deal. Spacefuck has over 3000 posts and, while he's funny on fashion, he never said one coherent thing here. I just flushed some toilet paper with shit on it. is that censorship?

stem cells
 

The dead post was from fashion. 49 - 38 (catching up!).

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

See my prior post. It was in part II

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

Do you not see a distinction between taxes spent on the military versus welfare?

stem cells
 

You provide a solution to your own dilemna...

If the stem cells we're talking about are not yet fetuses and are not from abortions, then there's no reason no to use them.

If something is going to be wasted anyway, why on Earth wouldn't we put it to good use, particularly for a cause as noble as saving people from disease? I'm sorry, but I don't think this wanders into the slippery slope. Perhaps its near the edge where the slope begins, but to a rational person, this ain't the slope.

The problem is that the pro and con sides to this issue have realized that they can only get what they want by playing it as a zero sum game. They've taken a page from the pro-choice and pro-life crowds. Pro-choicers don't really feel comfortable with partial birth abortion, but they know if they view it as a front line. If they fight there and lose, they've still got waht they really wanted. Pro-lifers don't feel comfortable with the idea of forcing raped women to give birth, but they know if they give an inch, they're ceding a the debate - the old slippery slope again.

Its really a shame - people are being denied a cure because neither side is willing to bridge their differences and talk honestly. My guess is that most people in America would honestly talk about abortion as a necessary evil and could probably come up with a compromise, and the same goes for stem cell research. unfortunately, the vehement minority fringe idiots lord over the organizations that control the debates and refuse to talk to the opponent.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

Certainly I do. Do you see the similarities?

They both simply represent some level of common effort for some agreed-upon social goal.

We may differ as to how much we should take from the private for public purpose, and we might also disagree as to whether certain expenditures actually serve a public purpose, but, again, those become arguments of scope, not of right. "Too much" necessarily admits that some amount is appropriate.

stem cells
 

No, people are being denied a cure because the President has made a moral decision in line with the religious views of a small but vocal minority. This is not about controlling the debate -- we have plenty of that -- it's about federal policy.

stem cells
 

But, as a point of consistency, he holds those views himself, so it's less of a pandering thing than it's being made out to be here.

stem cells
 

Bilmoure if you are defending the reds at the DU then I have truly lost all respect for you.......even more so than that time I accused you of being a misogynistic wife oppressor!

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

Sure I do. I support one and not the other.

You want the government to buy bombers; I want it to buy infant formula.

Oh wait. I guess that was Bilmore's point.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

A few weeks ago, you were suggesting that someone who was in a vegetative state had some sort of right to kept on life support. (Can't remember the details.) I remember thinking at the time, but not posting, that you clearly think there should be some sort of safety net, because you were saying that this person had the right to continuing medical treatment at other people's expense. (Effectively enslaving them, by your reasoning.) From there to welfare is only a question of degree (or, per Churchill, price), no?

stem cells
 

'
2. Even worse no one from lawtalkers has stepped up to the plate, npi, and taken responsibility for the breach of good faith.

stem cells
 

I will defend them to the death. They're better than a night of Monty Python reruns.

And how did you ever know that my wife was misogynistic?

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

I see the "both for the common good" argument, but find that unpursuasive because you can make that argument for nearly everything. Hell, it can be argued that the nazi experiments were for the common good.

I think the indirect/direct payment distinction is cleaner and far more defensible. You are "robbing" from on and giving directly to "others."

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

You have my point wrong. I said nothing about on someone else's dime. But I do think that I have a right to be kept in a vegetable state on my own (or my insurers) dime.

stem cells
 

I think that people believe the President to be pandering because (1) the moral calculus makes so little sense, and (2) his decision struck people as a political compromise -- an effort to have it both ways (as do Laura Bush's recent comments).

stem cells
 

I'm fairly geriatric in a preternaturally boyishly good looking sort of way and I'm all for the abolition of the income tax. Once we start down the road to the end to the oppressive progressive tax system its a slippery slope to a tax free society and eventually the anarchy of the personal arsenal and I am locked and loaded!

RedStatePatriot

eta: oops, blew another sock

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

RT surely knows better than I do, but I can't believe most insurance will pay for that for very long, and most people don't have that kind of money.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

My National Guard dollars are being spent on devastated Floridians as we speak. A direct transfer to them, basically.

My Border Patrol monies mostly protect residents of vulnerable border states.

My military expenditures in Afghanistan are primarily protecting people who live on the coasts, in big cities. Think Osama is ever going to target Minnesota?

I think you artifically make your distinction more . . . distinct.

stem cells
 

No dog in the fight, but if Bush did fund the research he'd have to cut something else, right? what other medical research should he cut?

stem cells
 

It's too bad your President, Senators and Representatives keep spending so much money, ensuring that we will all be paying high taxes well into bilmore's retirement, and longer.

Walter Williams on Taxes
 

You are making a distinction without meaning. Or alternatively, how is taking an additional dollar from me and spending it on a new plane that I think is unnecessary for my safety and defense, but which you believe is necessary for your safety and defense (because we evaluate and rank those risks differently) NOT robbing from me and giving directly to you?

stem cells
 

SS was posting about the love with Slave that dare not speaketh its name. A sad commentary to leagl's legacy here that such a progressive open statement of one poster's love for another was unceremoniously squashed. npi.