There's an extra white space in there that shouldn't be.
Search Posts
I should have probably mentioned or stressed a couple of things. Dragon Warrior Infinity is not an actual RPG like Pathfinder or D&D. It plays more like the CRPG it was derived from. There's no Game Master or storyteller; it's just you against the game (multi-player is co-op). All you need to play is 3d6, a pencil, a print-out of the character sheet and of course the game. It's pretty tablet-friendly as well. I tried to keep page flipping down to a minimum. Additional 6 siders, while not required, make the game faster and easier when your character(s) gain in power.
The Short: I created a homebrew pen and paper game based on the CRPG Dragon Warrior. You will also find plenty of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder as well as elements from many other games, books, movies and mythology mixed in here too. It was designed and created for my son to enjoy and as a way for him to play Dragon Warrior even when he’s out of “screen time”. I also consider it an educational resource for any child who is learning basic math skills. Don’t let that discourage you, though, as the game should be fun for anyone (not just kids). Dragon Warrior Infinity is fully playable and, for the most part, a complete game. It can be played solo or multi-player. Enjoy. I’m looking for:
The Long: I’ve been working on this game for over a year now and have most of the aspects fleshed out to my liking. Since you all are well known for your beta-testing chops and your eagerness to contribute, I figured that I’d hit you guys up and see if you could help me out with a few things. The two big things I’d much appreciate from you are additional content and beta testing. Additional content would help me make this game live up to its name. The Infinity in its title is supposed to represent the idea that it can be played over and over and not feel like you’re just playing the same exact game. While I believe that I’ve done that to some extent, having more Classes, Villains & Storylines, Items, Powers and Side Quests would certainly allow for more re-playability. Please submit any additions you like to these categories in this thread. Provide as much detail as possible. The following is just a suggestion of what I believe would make it easiest for you to provide and me to add new content to the game. It doesn’t need to be taken as gospel. I’m lazy and like to copy and paste when I can. When you review and [hopefully] play the game, you’ll see how these entries fit the format, what the abbreviations mean and how they relate to game play. Example - Knight Class:
Class Name: Knight Type: Multi-play Desc: The Knight is a noble warrior, fighting for honor and glory. They can hold the best weapons and armor in the game. They are very strong and defensive but gain very few powers. A Knight will often sacrifice their own safety to protect others. Att: Fast Dam: Fast Pow: Slow Res: Medium Speed: Slow Powers: 1-Guard, 3-Inspire, 6-Multi-attack, 9-Die Hard Weapons: All but Iron and Golden Claw Armors: All Power
Etc.
I reserve the right to make tweaks to your suggestions but will try to keep the spirit of your ideas intact. While strict balance is not a goal, I obviously don’t want any elements of the game to be too weak or overpowered. Also, I may get too many suggestions for say, CR 3 Side Quests and may need to adjust it a little and make it CR 4 to fill a void there. I’ll do my best to not make changes to your ideas but I can’t promise anything. I provided a bunch of templates that you can copy/paste to submit new content if you’d like. You don’t need to; just trying to make it as easy as possible for everyone. Templates for Additional Content:
Class Name: Type: Desc: Att: Dam: Pow: Res: Speed: Powers: Weapons: Armors: Villain
Minion:
Artifact:
Location:
Power
Monster
Side Quest
Mini-Boss/Monster
The other big thing that I’d be very grateful for is play testing and feedback. While my son and I have played through a few times, there are still many aspects of the game that haven’t been tried out yet. Also, my son is only six years old so he doesn't quite understand the concept of game balance. If you believe that a statistic should be higher or lower, let me know and I’ll consider adjusting it. If I decide not to, I’ll explain my logic and reasoning behind the decision. Feel free to suggest anything, though. If you feel a different monster would work better in a specific region, don’t hesitate to throw it out there. Not everything in this game was carefully planned and calculated. I put in a decent amount of filler to get the ball rolling and I’m sure there’s plenty still hanging around. I am open to suggestions for improvement to already existing elements of the game. I’d love to hear about your (or your kid’s) experience with the game in general terms. I’m open to praise and criticism. Don’t worry; you won’t hurt my feelings even if you think the game totally sucks. I’m an adult and these things don’t bother me. If it’s constructive criticism, I might be able to use it to make improvements. Super Bonus Points: The world map that I created and included in the game is terribly crude. If you can do better (which shouldn’t be too difficult) and want to take on the task, please do. You rock! If you provide play-testing feedback, additional content and/or suggestions to help make Dragon Warrior Infinity a better game, I’ll add your name to it as a contributor on page 2. If you want your real name added, you’ll need to tell me what that is. Otherwise, I’ll have to use your Paizo handle. None of this is a requirement and I’m not expecting or demanding anything. If you don’t want or end up with anything to contribute, that’s perfectly fine. I’d still like you to enjoy the game. If you have little ones, maybe this can serve them as a gateway into full-fledged roleplaying.
A lot of times, new players don't really know or have any ideas about what they want to play. My first character was a Cleric and was suggested to me much like you describe. I enjoyed and still remember that character though and had a good time with it. Got my feet wet. And like others have mentioned, there's nothing worse than playing a character that has the same skills (but isn't as good) as someone else in the group. I may be misinterpreting what you mean by "new players" though.
If you are curious at all, here is a LINK to the reference document I use for what I had dubbed Heroes & Monsters. Some of it is completed, but mostly not. Looks like it's off to a good start. I like it.
Dictum? ... nearly killed 'em.
I actually saw a friend roll 4 natural 20s in a row. At the time, we played that two natties in a row was an instant death. He wasplaying a Monk and instant killed two demons in one flurry. It was a sight to behold.
Does that graph adjust for the real value of the dollars spent, or is it just flat numbers? I'm assuming it's just flat numbers but that's half of the point. The dollars we hold in our hands continue to lose value. Government inflates so that they can spend brand new money that they just created out of thin air while the value is still high. By the time we get our paychecks, the buying power of our hard earned work now buys us less. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? Yes, blame and villainize the responsible people. It's all their fault. That seems to be a growing trend in the Western world. And people wonder why society is degrading. Responsible as in the opposite of irresponsible. The northern European countries are at no fault and are in no way responsible for the PIIGS reckless spending. Why the heck should they have to foot the bill or debase their currency to bail them out? When the government does it, it's not stealing. Libertarians hold everyone, government included, to the same standards. Stealing is stealing; murder is murder; fraud is fraud etc. It makes no difference whether it's the government or a local street thug committing the crime. We aren't collectivists. We don't have different sets of rules for every group. Except that charity didn't fix things before governments stepped in to fix them. It was called the Gilded Age, it kind of sucked unless you were one of the super-rich. Yanno, Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift, Upton Sinclair? That's what they were writing about. You may have learned about these authors in your publicly-funded, publicly-regulated schooling. You can't compare early America to modern America. That's not even close to a fair comparison. Yes, life back then kind of sucked ... but life in many if not most other places in the world sucked a lot worse. We weren't known as the Land of Opportunity for nothing.
Again, you're comparing it to modern times. 80 hour work weeks were much better then the 0 hour work weeks which is what a lot of other countries had to offer their poor. People eventually formed unions. They fought for better working conditions. They fought for more reasonable hours and hourly wages. Of course, maybe they didn't even have to. The "evil corporations" eventually realized that working people for more than 40 hours per week reduced productivity. They may have even figured out that paying people more money increased productivity as well.
Unions are fine. Free people have a right to form unions or to congregate in virtually any fashion they want. As nice as social safety nets sound, the negative side of government getting into this area is, unfortunately, devastating. The biggest problem is something that the Framers warned us about. "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." ~Benjamin Franklin When government starts handing out favors, the poor will always lose. That's a battle we aren't going to win. The government hands out more money now than ever in order to help people and the poverty level keeps growing higher and higher. Why is that? And don't forget the regular "Panics". People are obviously fine with risking their money by letting banks make investments with it. If they weren't, there would be a market for banks which hold and protect your money for a fee. There would be no risk with such a service. If you risk your money and lose it, then you lose it. You took the risk and lost. The problem is that people didn't (and may still not) understand how banking works and that there was risk involved.
Austrian economics are rejected by basically everyone, because Austrian economic thought is explicitly nonscientific. They split from the entirety of neoclassical thought because they reject the idea that economics can be falsifiable. So, when Austrian economists predict things, I rate it right up there with homeopaths predicting things. Sometimes they're right, I guess, but their entire methodology rejects the idea that you can make predictive hypotheses so it's all meaningless babble. Because you can't easily predict human behavior! We can find a planet light years away by using the scientific method because the properties stay consistent. There are laws of physics that are absolute. You cannot predict the future of human action with pretty graphs and charts or with statistics. You're trying to tell me that our method is bunk because yours is built on a false assumption assumption. That's rich. The ironic thing is that even though Austrians reject the notion that you can predict human behavior, they actually have a much better track record of doing just that. It's fitting that you mention the Weimar Republic, because German fear of any inflation at all is a large part of what's driving the EU into a dead end. It's forcing the periphery nations to run their budgets like businesses or else, and it's only making the situation worse. Yes, blame and villainize the responsible people. It's all their fault. That seems to be a growing trend in the Western world. And people wonder why society is degrading. Controlled inflation is not evil or destructive. Stealing is not evil or destructive. There, I fixed that for you. That's the central myth of libertarianism, right there: that, given the opportunity, people will naturally provide for their society as a whole in a manner that is better than anything a government could do. Yes, losing all faith in humanity will produce much better results. We gave the system you talked about a chance, and it nearly tanked our economy. When did we try the system I talked about and how did it tank the economy? I have no idea what you're talking about. No matter how many times we are forced to learn the lesson of what happens when cries of, "Shrink our government!" are actually listened to by otherwise sane people, we still come back to it after a few years. When was the last time the government cut spending?
It worked well for a long time. We didn't just all of a sudden become a rich and powerful nation right before WWII. We built that. On the one hand, I'd like to see 3rd parties in the debates. I'd like to see the debate broaden and they would bring up more interesting ideas. On the other hand, I know they're just a distraction. Any time they take up is time we don't get to hear the two who might actually be leading the country soon. On the gripping hand, the debates are largely a waste of air time anyway. God forbid they take time from Obama and Romney. They detailed so much during the debate. It took them an hour and a half to say that we're going to keep doing the same thing we've been doing except Romney thinks he can do it better. So Ross Perot pulling in 20% of the vote and leading in the polls for some time was a distraction.
This doesn't make it right or fair. It only restricts our choices. Why would anyone want this?
Easy. Austrian economists have predicted 1000 of the last 1 economic collapses. In fact, your very next reply has a hilariously overblown reason.com article predicting hyperinflation. Hey, when you have bad policies that are likely going to muck up the economy, some people are going to think the end of the world is coming. It doesn't mean that the bad policies are actually good. Many Austrians call these things too short. It's amazing how long the government can keep a bad thing going. But when you have the reach that they do, it's not exactly surprising either. It doesn't mean that it won't eventually happen, though. If the world moves away from the dollar and loses faith in it, there's a chance that this could happen although there are other options that are more likely to occur. Our dollar is propped up by force at the moment but that isn't going to last forever.
Look how times the word "Expand", "Increase" or "Fully Fund" are used in his list of achievements. Now, I realize that I over-exaggerated when using the term "All". I do the same when I say "free market" as well. I believe in equality which literally means equal treatment by the government. Also, the government doesn't earn this money that it spends. It takes it from its citizens. Let people keep their money and spend it on the things they want. Will some people need help without government programs? Yes. You'd be surprised at how generous the American people can be. Now double their income. You'd also be surprise at how much more efficient most private charities are let alone compared to the monstrous government bureaucracy. Less people would need help and I don't believe that we would let the rest suffer. If we do then it's our own fault and we will have that weighing on our conscience. We won't have the government to blame and scapegoat when things aren't getting done. I don't want big government. I don't want an authoritarian government. I don't want the things that Obama is pushing for or doing because I believe that free people can do it better. Just like the free market, equality isn't all rainbows and unicorns either. Treating everyone the same sounds great until you realize that that means no special treatment for anyone. It's easy to champion equality when you recognize a person or group of people who are being denied the same rights as the rest of us. Gays and lesbians, like everyone else, should be treated equal. But when you get into special favors, perks and privileges to special interest groups, you've just killed equality. Now you're just re-branding inequality as equality and even if you're trying to do good with policies like this, there are always negative effects that occur. One of the biggest ones is that as soon as you open the government up to handing out special favors, the rich are going to collect and come out a lot further ahead than the poor ever will. Just take drugs as a small example. Compare and contrast the treatment of drug addicts that are very rich to those that are very poor. Inequality is a very dangerous thing.
This is true. And why would banks make loans that were so high risk? 1. The Clinton administration threatened lawsuits against lenders if they didn't. 2. When banks know that they will get bailed out if the SHTF, hey, why not? Risk has been brought down to zero.
So Feudalism had a free market? Seriously? Lehman collapses because they took risks that failed. It mattered because Lehman was allowed to become so large that their bankruptcy was untenable for the financial system as a whole. We don't have a free market. Too big to fail is not a free market idea. In fact, these huge mega-corporations could not get as large as they've gotten without government coercion. Our market is very mixed and it's getting less and less "free" everyday. It's a sliding scale and we've gone way too far the wrong way. There's a reason that all of these storefronts are empty these days.
You're not going to find too many government wanting to give economic power back to the its citizens. There are places that you can look if you want to see how a free market functions. The internet is a fine example. Everyone plays on an even field. Anyone with knowledge about web development can create a website and draw in traffic. Virtually anyone can start an e-commerce site and try to sell things to make a living (or even just to make some extra income). The internet brings us unparalleled consumer choice. If you can't find what you're looking for there, good luck finding it anywhere else. Yes, there are some websites that pretty much monopolize certain "industries". Facebook is a good example of this. They pretty much have the whole social networking gig wrapped up. But even as huge as they are, they aren't really a monopoly. Twitter is another choice that everyone knows about. MySpace is still out there although they haven't been very competitive is years. At one time though, MySpace had the choke-hold on social networking and lost it to Facebook so monopolies aren't permanent and are still subject to consumer approval. Only an efficiency monopoly can survive for any extended period of time. If Facebook screws it up too bad, don't be surprised to see Google+ take the torch. Now, a free market isn't all rainbows and unicorns. There are indeed negative aspects to it as well. The internet is largely unregulated and that offers up an extra helping of risk. A heavily regulated internet would make it so that we wouldn't have to worry as much about getting a virus. These sites have all been verified by the government so chances are, they're clean. There are some [often times fake] businesses that will steal your money and not deliver the product you purchased. Usually there are warning signs that you have to ignore to fall for these but people still do it and they usually have no recourse. They're out that money. There are also people who want to trick you into giving them your personal information so that they can rip you off. You will also find a lot more websites out there that are of lower quality than what you'd see if government stepped in and regulated the crap out of it. It's less polished. I believe that the benefits of a mostly unregulated internet far outweigh the negatives. A heavily regulated internet would still be good but I would not want to move to that. Having the government make decisions about what websites we are allowed or not allowed to go to would serious impact our choices and our freedom. It would also almost definitely make the cost of using and operating on the web more expensive for all of us. Everyone seems to think that in a free market, companies consolidate until there is no competition left. And then said companies raise their prices to astronomic levels and we have no choice but to pay it. If you want to know how bogus this theory is, go to Chinatown. These places operate completely off the grid. They are, in fact, a small free market. No government regulations what so ever. Is there one mega-corporation that controls all of the commerce with prices jacked up to the moon? No. There are countless small businesses, many of which sell the exact same stuff, and they aggressively compete with each other. Yes, there's some shady stuff that goes on there. Intellectual property is not protected in the least. The restaurants you go to probably don't have a government stamp of approval so there's some risk there. They may even skirt child labor laws. I doubt even the most hardcore free market advocates would want to drop this much regulation ... regulation that protects people from fraud and exploitation. But the heavier the regulations are, the more impact it'll have on economic freedom. There's a balance but it's on the lower end of the scale.
Libertarians are dumb because they think removing government won't lead to centralized monopolistic corporate entities that look out only for the interest of the company while functionally acting just as disruptively to the magically "Free" market as any government force, despite all evidence of history showing this is exactly what occurs. Left unchecked, power consolodates and seeks to remain in power by crushing competition. Government is the arbitor and equalizer that prevents the consolidation of the free market, not the other way around. This is [mostly] false. I hear it a lot from progressives but it's essentially a myth. The best way to prevent monopolies is to limit the government to avoid crony capitalism. The only kind of monopoly that can exist in a free market is an efficiency monopoly. This is when a company produces a product or service that is so superior (and continues to remain so) that no one else feels that they can compete in the same market. This isn't a bad thing. A coercive monopoly is what we normally think of when we use the term monopoly. These can only exist [for long] when they use government to crush competition by creating rules and regulations that prevent competition and often extract subsidies or special tax breaks that other businesses don't receive. A free market provides an even playing field, maximum economic freedom, creates lots of competition and brings down the prices. Coercive monopolies can not exist in this environment. If free markets would benefit large, mega-corporations then why don't large, mega-corporations support free markets?
Uhg! Another progressive fallacy. Austrian economists are totally in favor of free markets and deregulation yet were also the ones who were warning everyone that a housing bubble was forming and would wreak havoc on the economy. How do you explain this paradox? Four years later, 3 and a half after Obama took office, if you don't think we are better off than when we weren't sure if the entire financial system would collapse you are full of crap. I am actually about the same. I was the only person in my company besides my boss who hasn't lost his job since the financial meltdown. I was one of the lucky ones. This doesn't mean that the White House's policies have been very stellar since the crash or have been good for the economy. We continue to slowly claw and drag our way out of this recession while, if handled properly, would likely be be a fading memory. And now their great idea to rescue the economy is to create another housing bubble.
This is likely true. Even though Republicans champion free markets and small government, it's nothing but rhetoric for all but the truly conservative.
He has gone back on virtually all of the ones that I care about and may vote for him had he kept. The promises that he has kept are either minor or just plain bad policies that will likely fail to make any kind of meaningful impact.
Unfortunately, the whole "any male we happen to kill in the the Middle East that is old enough to hold a gun is a terrorist" policy weighs on my conscious even more. Also, not only is Gary Johnson for gay marriage (and even said this in the Republican primaries) supporting him and convincing others to support him will likely help Obama get reelected more than it'll help Romney. But the win for us libertarians will hopefully be the public awareness that hopefully ensues about the candidate that they never even heard of that still somehow grabbed 5%-10% of the popular vote.
Actually, I don't think many people favored Obama for his positions on civil liberties. That is, frankly, not high on lists of voter priorities. That said, Obama has done more to advance homosexual rights than any President in history, so even after one term history will likely remember him as making at least some strides in the realm of civil rights. And he was opposed to gay marriage when he was elected. He's not causing change. Change is altering his policy. If you don't have the slightest clue what either will do, you haven't done enough research. Obama's second term will look fairly similar to his first in terms of executive action. Romney is harder to predict because of his rampant duplicity, but you can be relatively assured of him comporting himself as a model Republican President, because if he's elected he will have re-election in mind. What research will tell me if Mitt Romney will go back on most of his campaign promises the same way Obama did ... the same way the fiscally responsible George W. Bush did etc, etc? I haven't been able to reach Ms. Cleo for a while now. You aren't assumed to be a criminal without cause. You aren't assumed to be poor without cause. People assume you speak English (or whatever language, if you're not American). People assuming that minorities don't speak English or are poor is what's holding them back? People don't discriminate against you. You don't ever have to worry about race or racists if you don't want to. I grew up in city that is a 50-50 mix of black and white. I have been jumped before and there is a very good chance that my skin color (and attire) was the deciding factor in their decision to pick me. Trust me, I had much more to fear at school than they did especially since I rarely ever went out of my way to fit into social norms. I never let that hold me back. I don't even know how that could hold me back. People can be mean to each other for lots of different reasons. It happens to all of us. It doesn't matter who you are, everyone is going to grow up with challenges to face and obstacles to overcome. Geeks, in particular, almost always face many social challenges growing up and typically do quite well for themselves later in life. There has to be more to it than this. It's not 50-100 years ago any longer. Now if African Americans are being turned down for jobs that they are more than qualified for or loan applications that their credit score is more than acceptable for then you might have something. But it seems to me that businesses go out of their way to make sure they don't even give the perception of racial bigotry because the hammer comes down pretty hard and the negative publicity is very damaging. Also, any time anyone mentions "reverse racism", I'm going to link this. Cute comic ... but very misleading. I've spent my entire life believing in equality so I don't see how this could be relevant to me. I certainly didn't step on anyone's back to get where I am today. If I am supposed to pay for the sin of my race, well, that kind of sounds a lot like reverse racism. Well, let's be honest. There's no such thing. There's only racism and equality. I started my life at the bottom just like most other people. I was out on my own before I started my senior year of high school. There was no welfare or government assistance for me. There weren't many people to fall back on except for a couple friends that would let me crash. If I had some special privilege or advantage, I honestly didn't see it. In fact, every black person that I knew growing up that followed the well-known guide of what you need to do live a more comfortable life (do decent in school, go to college or pick up a trade, stay out of trouble) have all moved on and have done well for themselves. Many of them are doing financially better than I.
Yeah, I'm not really interested in getting into this. Just put this in the back of your mind. Any time and for any reason if all men and women are not treated equally (particularly by the government) the overall outcome will be bad. Total equality, not collectivism, will always produce the best possible result in the long run which is what we all desire, right? You don't have to believe me but maybe, just maybe, someday you'll see it too. The GOP didn't want Mitt Romney. I'm not sure if you've noticed but until he got the nomination and the party machine got behind him (or else they'd just lose the election), everyone was clamoring for Anyone But Romney. The... The conservative base didn't want Romney, true. But I'm talking about the party itself had him picked out from the beginning. I'm talking about the people who really run the show here. It's really easy to spot because they apparently own or at least control the major media outlets. One candidate becomes the golden boy in the media and the rest are demonized. Did you follow Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries? And hell, who's this Barack Obama character, here? Why have I never heard of him before? Oh, okay. He's been a Senator for like two weeks or something. No wonder. Romney was the golden boy in the media all the way up until they started pitting him against Obama and just as I predicted, he became the new Sarah Palin, the target of ridicule to guide the masses to candidate that's been already handpicked to be our leader for the next four years.
Even though I don't agree, I get your point. I'll argue that anyone who voted for Nader knew that he couldn't win but was unwilling to throw a vote for Gore. They obviously didn't see Gore as being any better than Bush. You can't blame them for not knowing the future and that something like 9/11 would happen but we also can't say with any certainty that Gore would have been any different on the war front after an event like that. Johnson and the Libertarian vote is a completely different situation, though. We are voting for liberty as opposed to authoritarianism. There is no "lesser of two evils" when what you oppose is statism and that will never change if we keep voting for it. We, in essence, are doing what you're suggesting. The only problem is that neither of the two major parties even come close to matching what we desire so we have to fall to the third option. Some of us may ideologically prefer the Constitution party but they don't appear to have enough support to make it on the ballot in enough states to be relevant.
I agree. It's a reflection of a turning point in American history. It marks an era when popular opinion finally changed to what it should have been all along. A similar thing is happening now with the gay rights movement. The government still discriminates against gays and lesbians and it just shows you how behind the times they really are. It doesn't mean that the passage of whatever law that Obama will almost assuredly enact will be the government valiantly coming to the rescue of the citizens civil rights. It's another reflection of time when popular opinion finally shifted to where it should have been ages ago. If government stood against popular opinion and pushed gay rights through 10 years ago or more, maybe I'd have a different view on this. Fact of the matter is, they only "evolove" when they see an opportunity gain votes from it. Granted, our politicians did have a little more honor 50 years ago but not all that much more. What I don't accept is the idea that there are lots of people out there for whom choosing either Romney or Obama is equally bad. That's nonsense, repeated most often by those with much less political awareness than they think they have. Maybe you can help me decide which one is worse than the other. The problem is that the major parties spew lies and empty campaign promises throughout the entire process. I honestly have no idea what will happen if Obama gets reelected. Many people voted for Obama because he was going to be great for civil liberties. He's been a disaster in that area ... virtually the exact opposite of what most people wanted. So maybe Romney it is. But what is he all about? He didn't even have a platform until he picked up Paul Ryan. He's also pretending to be this representative of the right after a stint as governor where he was left of Obama. Dude is literally whatever he needs to be which means that if he wins, he'll need to be the guy paying back hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions. So how the heck am I supposed to choose which one is better if I have not even the slightest clue what either one will do. Sounds more like Russian Roulette to me. I'd rather not play. Romney would have to show some evidence that trickle down economics works, and that he's NOT just getting himself a giant tax cut for him and his friends. I don't see that happening. Trickle-down doesn't work when big government keeps getting bigger and grinding the economy to a halt. It requires two things. 1. Cut taxes.
This would allow the economy to really get going again but unfortunately, Republicans are apparently incapable of doing #2, and for the most part, #3. It doesn't work if all you do is cut taxes.
I know. They won't stop bleating about it every chance they get. Furthermore, you can't just handwave away 1776-1865. I suspect you already knew this, but you really can't. Jefferson et.al had a chance to do the right thing re: all men created equal. They did not. He [the king of Britain] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. [From Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 1:426.] You had a shot to get Ron Paul on the ballot. You failed. Move on to who is left and make a choice. Not true. There was never "a shot". The GOP is a closed organization who can and does nominate whoever it wants as its candidate. They had Romney picked out from the beginning and it was painfully obvious. Now this is fine if that's the way they want to operate (and it is) but let's not pretend that it's something that it's not. Romney and the GOP screwed Ron Paul over royally during the primaries. The sad thing is that I doubt that they really even needed to. Mitt probably would have won being the media darling (up till the point where he got the nomination, at least). AMiB already called me out on the Republicans, and, yeah, he's right about the tariffs and stuff, but I'm pretty sure (could be wrong) that there have never actually been any totally free markets in world history. No, there never has been a pure free market because there has never been pure freedom and liberty which would be a prerequisite. The goal is to get as close as possible.
Nader was just some dude. Johnson is part of a quickly growing movement of libertarianism going on in the United States. It doesn't matter if he only gets 5% of the vote. This will one of two outcomes. Either he or someone else runs in 2016 and maybe collects 10%-15% of the vote or the Republicans become much more libertarian in order to bring us back into the fold. This is changing politics from the inside. Third parties have a long history of influencing the two dominant parties. If they fail to adapt, they become obsolete almost overnight. If neoconservatism continues to lose popularity, who knows? Maybe the Libertarian party all of a sudden takes its place much like the Republican party did in the mid 1800's.
Edit: I can't think of a way to really make you feel your privilege through a message board. The medium and it's effects are just too limited. I guess I can try music. Listen to that song. Read up on lynchings in this country. So what exactly is my "privilege"? That I'm of European decent? What special advantages do I realistically get, as the term privilege implies, for being a white male in the year 2012? Maybe I'm missing out on something here. /s Than come back and tell me that hanging n*****s from trees was acceptable in a society, but somehow the free market was going to fix that. People fix societal problems such as racism, sexism and bigotry. Government can do little about it and a free market's purpose isn't to stamp these things out. It is an unintended consequence but only if everyone is treated equally. If it's any consolation, I personally don't have any issues with the Civil Rights Act and I doubt that many other libertarians do as well. The few problems with it are of minor importance. Look, the way we go about enforcing "equality" in this country does more harm than good. We have double standards that don't help those that we are intending to help. We could solve/limit this problem much faster without the government trying to help. This isn't so much a knock on the Civil Rights Act as it is on the almost 50 years of bad policy that followed. The parents of the idyllic 1950's grew up in a world like this. WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGE All of these people should have been arrested. This is clearly criminal. Any law enforcement officer who failed to arrest these people should have also been arrested (if they aren't already in the picture). Allowing people to get away with murder is clearly not equality and grossly violates the non-aggression principle that is the prime directive of libertarians. The problem was that criminal offenses went unpunished (and were often encouraged) by those in charge of enforcing the law. This is not acceptable. But we can wait for the free market, right? You suggest that the government provides faster results. If only that were true. The problem is that interventionism usually makes things worse and slows progress. Please note that the author of this link is African American and not just spewing racial bigotry. The free market is racist if people in the free market are choosing to do racist things at personal expense. For example, fleeing communities and moving at great personal expense and inconvenience. Or rather, it is not a free market, and indeed the "free market" is a a myth. The free market can't fix racism, because it's predicated on people being profit-maximizers, and racism (and tribalism is general) is a motivation that conflicts with profit maximization. People will do things which are self-detrimental because those actions hurt Them, regardless of whether They are another race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, whatever. If you need evidence of this, Irontruth linked you plenty. This is mostly accurate. It's why slavery was likely a necessity for a business to compete in the Old South. But as I argued before, government did nothing about it until popular support changed to an anti-slavery mentality. Also note that this wasn't even a local shift in thinking. Slavery in many parts of the world began to lose favor around this time. America was actually a little slow to react on this one due to the South's reliance on it although the industrial revolution weakened this considerably. I still don't think you're a straight up racist, but these sorts of problems go straight to the heart of libertarianism. This is why libertarians tend to be well-off white guys. That does seem to be the stereotype. I can't say that I'm well-off, though, and I spent most of my life dirt poor. The reason that I support it because I believe that will produce much better results than progressivism which appears to be the only other choice available. It also fits my way of thinking a lot better. It makes rational sense to me and follows principles that are important to me (anti-aggression, equality, etc.).
Well, I'll admit that I am white and I'm not old enough to have been alive during the Civil Rights era. I have lived most of my life in areas that are roughly 50-50 black-white. I'm not isolated from other races and cultures. Racially motivated hatred is a very ugly thing and some of that still does exist today (despite government decree). But the only reason that the law passed in the first place was because it had popular support and collective thought was and is ever moving in that direction. How often does government make a bold move and support something that's way before its time? Why does everyone believe that America would be this cesspool of racial turmoil if the government didn't make a law that said racism is illegal? The government makes a lot of laws and for the most part, people follow the ones they agree with and tend to break the ones that they don't. Prohibition from drugs doesn't stop people from doing drugs; Prohibition from underage sex doesn't stop teenagers from engaging in it; and prohibition from racism doesn't stop people from being racist. There are many ways to circumvent the law other than putting up a "Whites Only" sign on your front window. If someone wont take money from a paying customer because they're a particular race or demographic, they can (and will) find a way.
I'm interested. Prove me wrong. Feel free to support bigotry, but know this, that is EXACTLY what you are doing, whether you intend it or not. Equality is not bigotry. This doesn't make any logical sense to me. Let me state this again. I believe that every man, woman and child should be treated equally, all have to follow the same rules (maybe a few extra for children to protect their well being) and not receive any special benefits or disadvantages based on race, sex, religion, wealth, political affiliation, profession or any other way that we group people into collectives. This is equality. It may not be what you've been taught is equality or you may feel that our current system of inequality is preferable but that's not what I believe and you can't rationally believe that I am a racist or a bigot for believing this. Yeah, it's basically RomneyCare, which Romney has denounced and promised to repeal. Please tell me that you don't actually believe this. The biggest campaign lies that every (D or R) candidate tells is that they are going to repeal the most controversial law passed under the previous administration. Obama did it to with the Patriot Act. Not only did he turned around and resign it, he passed the just as bad if not worse NDAA (and several other unsavory laws). Not only did Obama expand Pell Grants and loans, against Republican pressure, but he also took the money used to guarantee student loans and loaned it directly to students, cutting out the middleman and saving students a nice penny in the process. Sounds nice ... but Obama isn't saving anyone any money. The market sets the price of college tuition and when the government subsidizes it, it only makes the price go up. And we shouldn't blame libertarians for the lack of progress on social issues, except when they vote Republican because tax cuts are more important than any other issues. At least Republicans make good on their desire to cut taxes. That's more than I can say for Democrats and civil liberties. But no, you won't see many libertarians voting Republican this time around. We've realized that we aren't going to get what we want through them (this time around at least). I've personally never voted Republican but I'm glad many others are doing the same.
Then you were on an island when Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. You were on an island when Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act into law. You were on an island when Obama expanded Pell Grants and student loan protections. And these are just a few of the things you missed. Maybe you missed RomneyCare. It's basically the same thing as the PPACA. DADT? Like I said before, the majority of the population is warming up to gay rights so is it really so surprising that this happened now? DADT was so blatantly discriminatory that I'm actually shocked that it took that long. Don't blame libertarians though. We've been fighting for gay rights way before it was socially acceptable.
The free market didn't make slavery legal. The government did that. Of course the market is going to adjust to it though. Any southern business that didn't buy slaves was at a major disadvantage and probably went under. When every person is treated equally, a free market reward those who hire the best people for the job.
So not selling things was a selling point? And other businesses who sell to everyone are at a disadvantage how exactly? Plus, it's not 50 years ago. Doing this now would be a death sentence for any business. Sorry, but as someone who grew up in the district and zoning system attending public school, I don't buy this in the slightest. As I have said in other threads, people who are seriously racist rely upon the blithe acceptance of such things as zoning and districts by people who aren't racist to keep very visible lines between those of different backgrounds. I know this is true because if not for actions taken on the part of my cousin when I was a lad to get me into the high school I went to, we would probably not be having this conversation. If people really spread out as much as you are implying then there would be no way to segregate the population through zoning. Plus, people do move.
You're telling me that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 has worsened equality in this country? Considering the FBI had been compiling lynching statistics until 1959, I disagree. Based on the photos and videos of police officers turning dogs and hoses on protesters, I disagree. Based on voting rights abuses before 1964, I disagree. Libertarians believe that force should only be used in as a defensive last resort. It should never be used to attempt to sculpt change. You cannot use immoral acts to achieve moral outcomes. You might disagree about how equality was attempted, but don't try to cover my eyes in b!@~$~!!. The free market had already made it's decision on racism prior to that in the South, it had chosen to segregate, and if we had really let it have it's way, it would have kept slavery as well. The free market is not racist in the least. Any business that denies employment to minorities risks two things. They become less competitive in the market because they are arbitrarily limiting their pool of employees and therefor not hiring the best people. They also risk a public backlash and boycott of their product for choosing such practices. Both of these can and will hurt your business in the long run and give your competitors the upper hand to push you out of the market. The reason people segregate is because people often choose to. Look at our communities and our school districts. No one is forcing this. It's what we as a people freely choose to do (for better or worse). I completely agree that the government should strictly ban racist practices within their ranks and policies. If you believe in freedom and liberty, our leaders must treat everyone equally. Otherwise, they're either discriminating or reverse discriminating (which is no better and just as immoral). One thing that everyone has to consider is that change doesn't happen within the government. The government mostly reacts to change that is happening within society and just playing off of it to gain support. If the Civil Rights were not becoming popular opinion at the time, the government would not have seized upon it just like gay marriage was completely ignored until just recently. You don't really believe that Obama just happen to have a change of heart about gay marriage just as popular support shifted from negative to positive, do you? Again, you have no idea what you're talking about. Unrestricted campaign finance MASSIVELY favors Republican fundraising. Democrats have tidal waves of small-donor support. The Democratic party really does want to stamp out unrestricted campaign finance. Do you have any proof of this or just Democratic rhetoric? If I'm not mistaken, Obama massively out-raised and out-spent McCain during last election cycle and I haven't seen anything to suggest that the Romney is raising all that much more this time around. When you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, does it really matter if one side raises 50 or 100 million more than the other. There is a law of diminishing returns here. Minimum wage doesn't matter because raising it just raises prices once the market corrects. Is that what you actually think? I mean it. Do you actually believe that's how economics works? Yes, I most certainly do. It's more complicated than that. Some people lose their jobs because of minimum wage increases. Fact is that costs for businesses go up so several negative effects can happen. If you operate on thin margins, you either have to cut costs or raise prices. It's basic economics. Not one of the things you mentioned is going to change in any significant way no matter who gets elected.You would have said that four years ago, and you would have been brutally wrong. Really? I haven't noticed. All I see is Obama continuing and expanding the worst policies of George W. Bush ... who I saw expaning the worst policies of Clinton ... who I saw expanding ... When you look beyond the rhetoric, there's little difference. Remember, the competition was John McCain, the most liberal Republican they could find.
See, heres the thing: we all know that we arent a democracyThat is false. This is yet another fashionably cynical viewpoint held by those with little or no knowledge of actual political thought. The United States is a representative democracy. Technically yes but we all do know that the system is rigged. I could never vote for Ron Paul, because someone who would vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1965 will never have my vote. He would vote against it because libertarians believe in equality. You can't have equality if you give out special favors to one group at the expense of other. This is, by definition, inequality.
I'm voting for Gary Johnson. He's left of Obama on civil liberties and right of Romney on fiscal responsibility. So again, which one of these guys is entitled to my vote?
See in my opinion, you are throwing your vote away. Anyone who supports our fake democracy run by the [essentially] one-party system we have in place today and actually believes things will improve under it is just fooling themselves, IMO.
These are all non-issues that both parties use to try to drum up support. Abortion isn't going to become illegal even if the Republicans win the election. If it were, why is it still legal? Neither party is going to give up the ungodly amounts of money that they can now raise. Minimum wage doesn't matter because raising it just raises prices once the market corrects. Not one of the things you mentioned is going to change in any significant way no matter who gets elected. Um. The 16 year old you speak of wasn't the target. But don't let me stop you from lying. This is better how, exactly?
^^ This ^^ Another reason why I can't possibly support either candidate. Doubt you'll hear anything about the negative effects of sanctioning during the staged debates coming up.
The point isn't that the deck is stacked in the major parties' favor, and thus your vote won't matter. It's that you effectively are stripping a vote from one of the two candidates that stands a chance of being elected, making the actual outcome of the election worse for yourself than if you had just voted for a major party in the first place. I have never in my life supported a Democrat or Republican for president of the United States. So how could my vote possibly strip away a vote for one of them? And which one entitled to my vote? That's not the entire point of voting. The entire point of voting is to exercise the political muscle allotted you by the U.S. and state constitutions in order to produce the most desirable outcome possible. You absolutely should be using game theory when casting your vote, because this is a democracy and a democracy is not about you trying to get exactly what you want; it's about compromise with everyone else. If you try to get exactly what you want, but go about it blindly, you will end up worse off than if you had compromised. What happens when neither option would produce a more desirable outcome? All of the things that I care about are opposed by both major parties. I know Orthos here is probably beyond help at this point, since he won't be reading anything else, but for anyone else under the mistaken impression that both parties are the same, please please please take a look at this side-by-side comparison of the two party platforms, in their own words. It makes it very clear that there are major differences between the two parties in terms of proposed action and political philosophy. I still don't see much of a difference there. And anyone who pays attention knows that 90% of that is nothing but political rhetoric. Every person who voted in the 2000 and 2004 elections are collectively responsible for the country electing George W. Bush.Well, no, not every person. The ones who voted for Gore (or Kerry) aren't. You really believe that Gore wouldn't have gone to war after 9/11? Clinton had already been bombing Iraq and Afghanistan for years and they are just going to back out after the WTCs fell? Maybe we should have just listened to Ron Paul.
Crap! I think I actually am a sock puppet!
Thank you. I was just about to post [essentially] this. According to this, Aurora has a concealed carry ban. Other great targets for spree killers include Boulder, Broomfield, Colorado Springs, Denver, Englewood, Lakewood, Littleton, Longmont, Northglenn, Pueblo, Thornton, Westminster and Wheat Ridge.
Lax gun control laws stripped away all ability to stop this before it happened; there's no reason anyone should have been able to buy those guns at all. You guys can argue all day long about how that may not have changed he outcome but you don't know that. Strict gun control have been proven to do two things: Prevent some of accidental shootings and raise crime rates. The logic behind both of these effects is pretty simple. Now, I don't really believe that, but do you see how specious that argument is? If you're going to make a claim, you need to offer something other than "This is how it might have gone differently in the fantasy world in my head." I don't think that it's too much of a stretch of the imagination to say that if Aurora allowed concealed carry that someone could have stopped the massacre before the shooter got bored, ran of ammo or whatever it was that made him walk out of the theater and voluntarily surrender to the police. Obviously there is no way to know exactly how it would have turned out but at least these people could have had a chance to defend themselves. Isn't that better than just, well, dying. Is lack of "personal responsibility" in the populace the cause of being poor (libertarian view), or a symptom thereof (progressive view)? Or are they intertwined in a vicous circle, and therefore harder to break (realistic view)? Being poor has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of personal responsibility. I think Mother Teresa and Charlie Sheen prove this. You will see a disproportionate amount of poor people mainly because wealth can be easily squandered (or never obtained) by those who are irresponsible with money. But people can be irresponsible in many ways, not just with money. The lack of personal responsibility of the populous is the unintended consequence of 100 years of progressive policy. As government grows larger and larger and take away more and more of our freedoms (i.e. choices), it's only natural that the citizens become less responsible about the choices that they make. Just like children, adult will also ignore any rules that they feel are obnoxious. When you discipline your child, you have two choices: violence or knowledge. Violence is easier and in the short term may seem to work better but we all know that down the road, it leads to many negative physical and emotional side effects. It's why it's frowned upon now-a-days. Imparting knowledge to your child as to why they shouldn't be engaging in whatever harmful behavior they are being disciplined for is much more difficult but they will be better off in the long run. Progressivism is largely the use of force, coercion and violence against the people to mold them into "good citizens". Think about all of the things in our daily lives that forced to do whether we agree with it or not. This causes society to degrade, especially since we can blame "society" for all of our problems and go about our daily lives as if there's nothing we can do about it (which for the most part, there isn't). The responsibility doesn't fall on us directly so less people have incentive to have it. Progressivism is essentially beating your child, except on a national level. Libertarianism is the other end of the scale. It places freedom and responsibility and eschews violence and submission. This requires more personal responsibility but as we know with our children, responsibility is learned not forced and society as a whole will be better in the long run using the same principles that most of us use to raise our children. Libertarianism allows people to make their own mistakes as long as they aren't harming another person or their property.
Never said that he didn't give himself advantages. He certainly did. Still, a chance at defending yourself is better than dying ... or waiting for the police to arrive which is pretty much the same thing in situations like this.
Wow. I've heard people go back to early America to try to disprove libertarian ideology. This is the first time that I've seen someone go all the way back to the Stone Age. Please tell me more about how progressivism is working out for us when it comes to teaching personal responsibility to the populous.
You're right. Excessive gun control stripped away the right of all of those victims to defend themselves. You guys can argue all day long about how that may not have changed the outcome but you don't know that. It just as easily could have ended with few or no innocent lives taken. Gun laws don't stop criminals from committing crimes (by definition).
Thanks for the input guys. Sorry, I kind of lost track of this thread. After a few days it looked like it was going to sink into obscurity. I'm only four months late so ... um ... yeah.
But yeah, thanks again. I'll check out the links. I'm not really interested in using anything copyrighted for obvious reasons and so far, I'm just stating on the site that you have to plug in your own campaign world of preference. If I find something that fits with the rules well, I just plan on linking to it or referring to the book as a suggestion.
I haven't played it yet but the combat system in Anima: Beyond Fantasy looks fairly in-depth once you throw in Ki maneuvers. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to try it out some day.
I have a fantasy RPG that I will be publishing online relatively soon but I have no campaign setting to accompany it as of yet. I was kind of wondering if there was anything out there like this that I could use (or more likely recommend)?
I just saw this on The Verge. Looks pretty sweet. Can't wait to see what the open source community does with this.
To be honest, just about every mythological creature is disappointing in Pathfinder and/or D&D these days. I think that it's a product of escalation. Trolls and Hydras use to scare the living crap out of us. Now they are used as cannon fodder for creatures that don't even have a basis in mythology (that I am aware of). I think they are just made up monsters to fill the void of CR 12+ that we used to only require of handful of creatures since few every actually reached that level before 3E.
Frogboy is the only nickname I've ever had so I've used it as my online handle everywhere I could. I've never thought of anything better. The image was chosen because only 2 other people had it at the time and it's easily identifiable. Most people choose a knight, dragon or demon. No one wants a goofy-looking ooze (or whatever this thing is supposed to be) as their avatar.
I'm thinking level 2 Witch with the Fortune and Charm Hexes. ;)
I don't know about that. I think being a "real*" christian would help, not not nearly as much as being a real conservative. Honestly, his plea to doing something differently than obama is "Its ok if the state government makes you do this , but i would never do it at the federal level" is pathetic. Government is government. To be fair, only a tiny handful of these politicians are real Christians. Christ was a pacifist who said things like "love thy enemy" and "turn the other cheek". He would not have condoned the current actions of our leaders. We've pretty much become the modern-day version of Ancient Rome. Kind of ironic, I suppose.
Because as we all know, if you are poor, it's because God hates your guts.
Odds are long that he'll actually get the nomination but I'd love it if he did. I would actually be able to vote for someone I truly support and who has a chance to win an election. That would be a first.
Disinformation is awesome. Thanks for that one.
My family and I have both a Roku and a Roku 2. They are very good devices, so much so that we were able to cut the cable because of them. We save $80/month on TV also with the help of an HTPC to stream Hulu but an antenna would probably serve us just as well if we had one. This isn't a solution for everyone. We don't really care if we can't see everything that's on TV but there's more than enough content for the amount of time we have to watch to make it worth our while. I'd suggest the $99 Roku 2 XS mainly for the remote. It's Bluetooth and works so much better than the regular one. Angry Birds is also much more fun on the big screen than on my phone (and I have a Dell Streak 5). It's easy to set up and use. My 4 year old has no problem with it. There's also a lot of other good, free content that you can stream through your Roku that goes beyond Netflix. If you have [paid] Amazon Prime, you get that Netflix-like service as well. Hulu Plus is okay although I dropped it in favor of regular Hulu like I mentioned before. Crackle has free movies (ad-based). Pandora gets a lot of play on mine. Pub-D-Hub has got a lot of good public domain content. My son likes the classic cartoons. There are tons of podcasts that can be streamed to the TV. There's a ton of channels for it although, as you might expect, many of them do suck. Full YouTube is about the only thing that's missing but it's supposed to be coming. That's really its only major flaw. Make sure you check out the private channels as well. Here's a link to the unofficial Roku Channel Guide. Enjoy your new Roku.
AMiB, I present to you, you're non-existent welfare queen. Lol!
Oh, you mean like they did in order to get the Patriot Act in the first place? ;)
I think your basic desires and the direction you want these laws to go is good. Thank you.
I agree that we don't need to tear down every broken system in order to fix it. I just don't personally agree with our one-size-fits-all education structure. It's acceptable but could be much more effective, IMO. @Frogboy--Just kidding. Just making sure that no one here confuses me with a right-winger.
I feel this is aimed at me since I did invoke the newly minted term funemployment. Don't take this the wrong way. The poor and single income middle-class are/were in no way enjoying this. The only people who may have enjoyed not having the responsibility of working are double income middle-class and the younger generation who had the support or means to get by on whatever unemployment paid out. And we can't even pigeonhole all such cases because plenty of them are/were still feverishly looking for work. But the term exists. Maybe it's an urban legend, I don't know. Where I'm from, jobs are horribly scarce to begin with so virtually no one is enjoying it here. The problem, obviously, is the result of the worst economy that I've ever seen in my lifetime (and the early 80's sucked balls). My biggest fear is that our government, in their greed and increasing lust for power, have made such horrible choices that we aren't just in some short term dip or recession (yes, I know we're not technically in a recession anymore). I pray that we aren't approaching another stagflation with the potential to start sliding. Of course if we are, it could be an opportunity to usher in some real political change or reformation and get some people in office that actually do want to make life better for someone other than themselves. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
... Considering we already have a system that is already set up to deal with each district's individual issues, I don't see why we need to scrap that system for an entirely different system that would have the same problems ... The system is what I have a problem with. Sure, it's less complicated but it doesn't provide an environment that maximizes each students potential. No matter what district you live in, you set the level of advancement based on the average student's learning potential. You'll have an advanced level and a retracted level that's mostly based on that average. Any child that could be accelerated more or should be brought along at a slower pace to make sure they understand the fundamentals clearly are either held back or left behind. Even certain schools in poor districts could teach accelerated learning for those students that are capable of it. Being poor doesn't make you stupid and being rich doesn't make you smart. Some schools could specialize in deviant children and could concentrate more efforts on discipline than any standard public school ever possibly could (if there is actually a market for such a school). I went to a school that is roughly 50% African American yet because of government standardization, still only teaches Black History for one month out of the year (and it's the shortest month, no less). I believe that many African American and biracial parents would like to send their children to a school that would put a much greater focus on their culture and their needs. Note: Don't confuse or purposely twist this as forced segregation. I'm in no way saying that there shouldn't or wouldn't be other options. Remember, this all hinges on my utopia where the government actually gives a $h!t about the common person so I'm making more of a philosophical argument here, not a real world one. You stated, as we all know, that small classrooms and a more personal teaching experience is one of the components that would increase the education level. Wouldn't smaller, more personal schools be of great help. We certainly seem to be moving further and further away from this as time goes by. The district I grew up in had a dozen elementary schools, three middle schools and two high schools is down to one middle/high school and only two or three elementary schools. Of course, the population has take a hit but it certainly not proportional. It's obnoxious to call people out for saying ignorant or self-entitled things, but it's necessary, or nobody will ever stop doing it. * shakes head and sighs *
... two or three posts full of very reasonable and intelligent discourse ... Am I still talking to the same A Man in Black? Seriously, I feel like I'm talking to a completely different person than I was before? :) Way to go, Team Left! I hope you don't consider me Team Right because I'm not even close. And don't ever expect Team Right to admit defeat no matter how sensible the opposition is. You can call me ... Team South by South West. ;)
More on this in a little bit.
You win. I accept defeat in this debate. You've made me realize that I based a lot of my premises on one fatal flaw. Most of what I have been arguing is based on the false assumption that the government would set the rules and guidelines to ensure fair competition for private industry. Unfortunately, our leaders have already sold us out to huge mega-corporations. You guys are absolutely right. If the school system were turned into or faced competition with privatized schools on a balanced scale, it would only be a matter of time until the corporations, with the help of our elected officials, would end up having an immensely negative impact on our future children (or at the very best, no positive impact). Tort reform, whether it's saving 2% or 25%, isn't going to solve anything until our government creates an environment within the health insurance industry and pharmaceutical industry where fair and just business practices are enacted, spurring real competition to bring costs down. Until then, big industry (along with big government) will just end up keeping all of the profits for themselves as they do today. Our leaders have not only sold out to the 1%, they are the 1%. Until this changes, I have to agree; most of my ideas won't work. I do hold belief in a lot of these ideas, given the proper circumstances. I do still believe that they would work and work well if we had a political body that we could trust to make the right decisions for the good of the citizens. For some strange reason, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.
I see a lot of contradiction while researching this subject. Analysts and opponents of tort reform claim 2% for malpractice. Yet quotes from doctors seem to be around 50%. I wouldn't be surprised if the truth lay somewhere in between. My biggest problem with trusting the analysts is that I can't find any of them that will tell me exactly why health insurance costs are so high. At least malpractice insurance and the extra unneeded tests required to rule out that last 1% chance you missed something excuses provided by actual doctors is a reason. It's better than saying, I don't know but it's not what the other guy is saying. Insurance costs haven't been effected which suggests that there is another problem somewhere. Someone, likely the insurance companies, are keeping this extra moneyGasp. Shock. Surprise. You mean we gave the people at the top more money and it DIDN"T trickle down to the consumer?!? More on this in a little bit.
Businesses become more efficient because the inefficient businesses can't compete and are forced out of business by the efficient businesses, not that competition somehow makes existing entities more efficient simply because other entities exist. I heartily disagree with this. I contract for a business that went through chapter 11 after occurring losses for years. After an extensive reorganization, they are now a very profitable company again. Businesses can adjust against growing competition, in fact, they are forced to. Some will; some won't.
Sorry, this came way too late in the game for anyone to not have been exposed to the dangers of smoking. If this lawsuit hit in the 70's or 80's, sure, I could understand that. This was a cash grab against the tobacco industry because, well, no one actually likes the tobacco industry. This would be like suing a paint company for lead paint 30 years after it became common knowledge that there were risks involved. The students who could flee in your system are doing fine under the current system we're using in 2011. They're upper-and middle-class students who are actually getting a decent education right now. Isn't the object to try to improve everyone's education level, the rich, poor and middle class included? And wouldn't the poor benefit from an environment that takes into considerations the additional troubles that are more likely to hold back the learning process of children from these areas? The only entity with any hope to change this in a holistic way is the federal government, but that's not going to happen, because it's unconstitutional. This isn't criticism, it's a legitimate question. What's unconstitutional about this? Maybe I'm just not accurately picturing what you have in mind.
Agreed. If you wanted to couple otherwise free-market capitalism with AGGRESSIVE anti-trust policy, then we might be able to find middle-ground. As it sits the less regulation and thus more "competition" we have, the bigger the big companies are going to get until there are only a few companies left. Is it dystopian paranoia? Perhaps, but it's also happening right in front of our eyes. This is exactly what I see as the #1 responsibility of the government and why I often say things like, "they sold us out". There are inherent problems with pure free market capitalism and it's exactly what you described above. The government has to ensure a fair playing field, something they are doing a very poor job of. Part of this is also the people side of "regulation" to ensure our safety and the ability to prosper. They are doing a poor job in this area as well.
Also, Frogboy, can you please cite where you heard that medical insurance costs are down 74% in Texas from before tort reform was put in place? Not insurance costs, the cost of malpractice damages is down 74% in Texas. Insurance costs haven't been effected which suggests that there is another problem somewhere. Someone, likely the insurance companies, are keeping this extra money. They are saving 74% in claims. Maybe they are using it to supplement what they now see as loss in other states where they provide insurance and don't have tort reform. Many insurance companies are nationwide. Maybe it's the doctors that are keeping this extra money and not lowering the cost of their service to their patients and/or still charging the insurance companies the same high rate even though they are less liable now. This information I don't have. Tort reform in Texas only puts caps on pain and suffering. It does not affect expenses or compensation in any way. Wrongful death penalties exist because people are wage-earners. If I die because of someone else's negligence, my wife is pretty much forced to sue whoever's responsible or else she's looking at dire straits. She's not trying to make a profit. I'm sorry but $80 to someone who chose to ignore the risks of smoking seems a bit over the top. This is the kind of thing that I am attacking, not what you're talking about. CITATION NEEDED. Here's a graph. I wish I could find the original articles that I found. Just so you know, both of them were arguing against tort reform because it didn't bring down the cost of insurance. They weren't biased in the opposite direction. Despite the disappoint of tort reform in Texas not bringing down the cost of medical insurance, there are those who believe that it did improve medical coverage. I have changed my original stance that tort reform would be enough on it's own. Even if it has the desired effect nationwide, it does appear that there is more that needs to be done to bring costs down to the level that we probably want it at. This is gonna be even more of a threadnaught if I quote your posts entire. If I quote the thesis of a paragraph, I'm replying to the entire paragraph. The entire paragraph about throwing money at a problem is a strawman. No plan is throwing money at a problem. Every plan is implementing some sort of strategy to solve a perceived problem. It may be a poor or useless or even counterproductive strategy, but nobody just spends money randomly and thinks it will solve a problem. Would you prefer I call it a glib, meaningless idiom? Empty rhetoric? Because those are true, too. All I ask is that you provide meaning information instead of pointless insults. I'm willing to change my mind on issues, in fact, that the whole reason that I engage in open debate. I like to learn and want to come away with a better understanding of things. If you make a better argument that makes more sense to me, I will change my opinion.
I'm well aware of this case. I agree that she should've been compensated. $3 million is overkill whether she asked for it or not. I'll give you this one, though. I didn't realize how ungodly hot the coffe was that McDonalds was serving at the time. She did spill it on herself but holy crap, a little more heat and it would've boiled out of the pot. The courts were likely making an example out of McDonalds for blatant stupidity. I have no problem with that in this case.
See, this is kind of meaningful dialog that I would like to glean from you. I agree, we should seek these things. We will definitely need to lower the cost of medical care for this to be feasible though. Creating employment opportunities are obviously hugely paramount for cost reasons as well. Decriminalization of non-violent drug offenders while proving rehabilitation for those in need sounds like a good solution (one I've argued before). Any ideas for the mental health problem? Yes. The money is the charge for living in a society where (nearly) everyone has a decent education, and you pay it whether you have kids or not. You pay for roads even if you don't drive on them. You pay for fire protection and police. It is a universal public service, one that everyone benefits from. If you let people opt out, you are letting them seek their own benefit to the detriment of the common whole. That is a prisoner's dilemma constructed such that betraying is a winning play if you're rich, and colluding is a winning play if you're poor. Again, monstrous consequences. Best answer you've given me to date on this. Even though I don't agree that the consequences would be as bad as you fear (competition is always a good thing), I at least understand your position better. How would you, while keeping the public education system in place, change things to improve the overall education level of the country? Nobody here (except maybe Anklebiter?) is suggesting that all commerce be government run, but few services with a mandate to serve everyone or everywhere have ever benefited from being privately run. CITATION NEEDED ... just kidding! Fair enough. You've given me some more things to consider. See how much more you can accomplish when your not just throwing insults at people? You've made some really good points on a lot of things here.
|