We should all pick our most nonsensical bullet point. This is mine. I highlighted the stupidest part of it.
Zoning laws have severe drawbacks environmentally, aesthetically, and in terms of urban sprawl. New Urbanism.
I don't think New Urbanism is incompatible with the idea that restrictions can be placed on what you can build where (when those restrictions are in the interests of The People). I think the indictment is more on improper and or inefficient zoning, much of which has to do with NIMBYs.
Matt, I know you're a more moderate Libertarian, so I'm not directing this at you. But legal order is impossible to maintain if the population is not well educated and well compensated, unless the leader is a tyrant. Were we to abandon all of the "communist" zoning laws, workplace regulations, and public schools, as the quoted writer advocates, how long would it be before legal order slips away? My guess that the decline would start happening not long after the first generation of uneducated kids finds that they don't know how to read the labels on the products they're supposed to stock on store shelves. That's great! I can't get the BBC link to open for some reason, but I'm guessing that the growth is at least in part due to improved infrastructure. I'm basing my view on Galt's posts from a while back, which made it clear that the recent ruling was not likely to mean that I'd lose my house so that a developer could put in a strip mall--to use the example you used earlier.
What you said. Bad zoning laws are almost as worthless as a lack of zoning laws. FWIW, in Seattle, there has been a grassroots movement to change zoning laws to allow for increased urban density.
"Not in my back yard." It's used mostly to describe people who want, for example, increased prison space in their region, so long as the prison isn't built anywhere near where they live.
Dammit, you clearly missed the old thread (started by Mel, I think) in which all of the usual suspects here agreed that the US is actually practicing fascism. Search for a thread with "Dr. Britt" in it, and you'll see this one is just a mirror image of that silly thread. That one got alot more consensus, for obvious reasons.
Yes, America is fascist and communist, a combination of the worst of both. And lets not forget that Guantanamo is like a Siberian goolag and a Nazi concentration camp put together.
Following sd's lead here. The opposite of "fractional reserve banking" is a return to the gold standard, which we completely abandoned as a country some 70+ (?) years ago. Was this written by William Jennings Bryan?
Okay, NOW I understand what you were saying. (after I found the thread) Good post over on that thread by the way. Here's some rep from the past! I, on the other hand, posted something stupid and innane. (has anything changed?) That article, however, was just some guy rambling and bemoaning the "very existence" of Ann COulter... which was pretty funny stuff, but not very factual. THIS is the policy of the USA, bastion of freedom, moving towards compliance with the ten essential PLANKS of communism. I just expected a little more suprise or concern. I guess it's hard to suprise cynics. God love 'em.
I was puzzled by this, until I took my own advice and found out that the thread I was talking about is evidently now gone. In the original one, this article was referenced http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=britt_23_2 and all of the lefties here agreed that we're dangerously close to a fascist theocracy. I'll bet that they use alot of advil trying to figure out whether dubya is a chimp or Hitler. It's a fine line........
Fascism is a combination of Corporatism, Repression, Militarism, and Ultranationalism. I think these things are more evident in the current administration than others but on an absolute scale they're still fairly low.
You're looking for the Fascism thread. This is the communist thread which, fittingly, came after the fascist.
It's not laziness, its ignorance masquerading as authentic knowledge; people think that they understnad these "isms"...most people, for the most part, do not understnad them at all. What they "know" is what they've been told by sources both incredbile and un-credible. Ask anyone you know to differentiate, if they can and if it's appropriate, between communism and Communism. Ask them to define fascism, or praxis. Ask them to define socialism, or name a socialist thinker. Hell, ask them to define capitalism! They CANNOT. We don't possess concepts and knowledge; we don't even realize that we've allowed/helped manifest a society that has us so consumerist, and so media-imbibing, that we actually, in living the life reflected in our larger culture, don't have TIME to authentically know about much of anything, let alone anything that might provide us the tools to critically engage the way we construct society everyday... When then leads us to the question "Public education...toward what end(s), exactly?" What do we, as a nation, want our folks to be able to DO when they walk the stage and get that HS diploma? Fit in as cogs in the current institutional (I would say 'post-political corporate conglomeratocratic,' but that's me, I know) wheels and ways of being in the world, knowing just enough to operate those wheels for others/their 'betters?' Or do we want folks who can do that as a matter of real CHOICE? Who can choose the consumer/cog role, and/or a role that Socratically, prophetically, and democratically (small "d"; the party of the same name - actually the center, center-right wing of the singluar party known as the Financial Unicrats...the F.U.'s, has nothing to do with this notion of being democratic at all) engages what is and what might be in terms of dealing with all of this, local to global? Look at what our education (not just in school ,but everywhere; everything educates. Poverty educates. FNC educates. an SUV-culture educates...) has produced. For one, folks who don't know the above, really, at all. The results give some hints, at least, to the intent of such "education."
This is typical of the insightful ,questioning, if somewhat goal-oriented posts I come to BS political boards for. Good show.
bush isn't evil, hes just dumb. you can't have a facist theocracy if your leader can't spell facism. maybe its all an act though, who knows. if it is hes got me fooled. Im not concerned about that however, in three years he will be gone and there will be someone else to complain about
I dunno. The recent wiretapping BS I think qualifies as evil - especially since it so blatently ran an end-around on the law. It seems that nearly every day more and more becomes clear that solidifies the case for proto-fascism. Even last year I would have said that maybe 2/3rds of the characteristics could be legitimately said to exist in the US. Now I think a decent case could be made for 100%.