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I think the main problem is if someone sensationalizes a story because their bias entices them to target that story... it's not very objective and not quality reporting, but it's still at least a crappy form of reporting. When someone gets people together for the express purpose of "asking a question" then go on to report "the question everybody is asking..." as if it's a national movement is a process of manufacturing. Of course there is always an observer effect when news is covered at any time - publicity changes public opinion, and public opinion effects politicians. However, when a news organization shifts it's primary focus from covering stories to maximizing the "observer effect" as a business model and then reports on the effects as if they were just making objective observations they have become a very different animal. Editorialists have done this to some degree for a long time, which is why editorials are viewed as separate from news in general. Fox News has intentionally built an entirely refined machine to maximize and exploit this effect. It really has become something else.

The example shows favor, but is not intrinsically unfair. The apple farmer did his market research, and realized there was enough demand that he could charge higher, and it's fair that the transaction favored him. Where it becomes unfair is when it is either an involuntary exchange or a voluntary exchange under duress. Selling life preservers to the drowning or the only source of food to the starving would constitute under duress. Even then, everything becomes muddy real fast and subjective: nothing is ever "the only source of food" but may be the only source close enough to be practical. Or the only source nearby for optimal growth in healthy children. If someone buys the local "good food farm" and starts extorting huge prices, we'd generally consider that pretty parasitic. What if they brought in that food, and the locals would not otherwise even have the opportunity to buy it? Does the fact that it reduces the infant mortality rate in that area mean he's morally obligated to give it away at near-nonprofit prices? Would he be morally wrong to decide against that venture because he needs to increase his savings faster than he could selling the food at "fair" prices? One problem is when we talk about "bad" people we often have to try and divine a person's intentions based solely on observing their actions. Maybe the apple farmer is a price gouging jerk. Maybe he saw an opportunity where he could make the two other parties happy, and still save enough money to get the medicine for his sick dying mom. Is it more fair to let his dear old mom die? Are you from one of Obama's death panels? The simple fact of human nature is the more people are under duress, the more they feel the need to exploit advantages for personal gain. It's why we would feel sorry for the guy when he's trying to save his mom, but not when he's complaining about how much it'll cost to get that gold plated hot tub. (Those gold-plated hot tub merchants are so exploitative ) We have a society that values individual freedoms, which includes the freedom to be a bit of a jerk. If the apple merchant is a jerk and charging a ton, he risks being put out of business by new apple farmers. Where we as a society need to intervene (which this thread is kinda about, albeit in a rather radical excess) is when something like monopolies exploit their position and create duress for the purpose of exploiting trade partners. To be more technical, intervention as enforcement occurs when consumer protections are violated, and intervention as reform occurs when existing consumer protections are inadequate to fulfill the spirit of the law. Of course there's always angry rhetoric and debate when reform occurs as no two people on this rock can seem to agree on what the spirit of the law is... but we mob it out and try some more and carry on. Considering how messy it all is though, we just can't legislate a person's intentions. For objectivity's sake, we have to stick to actions, even if a lot of jerks get away with more than we'd like.

I think people can spot it when they see it and challenge the bias within the content, or post alternative sources. If someone wants to start a serious discussion on a topic, and they know most people here do not find Fox News especially credible, it's in their interest (and really, it's in all our interests in general) to post multiple sources. If someone doesn't want to start a serious discussion but vent to a bunch of "liberals" using News Corp as the smoking gun for their diatribe then it's an issue that won't be solved very effectively by this solution. At the same time, I think we have discussions about the quality of the media and bias as their own threads often enough, and am more concerned with threads derailing into "Oh not FNC but why can you post TDS/CR/MSNBC/CNN/BBC/etc" territory. Overall we have a pretty good idea of how to source material in a manner that will be considered credible across the spectrum and how people here will feel about various sources, including where we tend to disagree. I think it would be more prone cause rehashing of old disagreements than progress on the merits and faults of any given topic at hand.

Would this world have active geology, could volcanic heat play a useful role in tool building?

Honestly I really find articles like that frustrating. First people try to solve a problem with a solution, and because it involves government some writer labels "socialist" followed by the inevitable "socialism fails as it inherently ignores human nature" with a few examples of bad government and hyperbole in solution scope, followed by how capitalism still has issues but is better because it's not socialism. All government is when you break it down is a series of rules we decide are important so we can cope with the abstract aspects of our community: civil and criminal law, national defense, disaster response, infrastructure, property rights from private to public including environmental regulations, etc. Whether those rules become cumbersome and or exploitative depends on the character of the people in the society. One of the major problems we are seeing today is a blurring of private interests and defacto national infrastructure - and it comes down to the old capitalist slogan "costs of a transaction are handled within the transaction, and not distributed to uninvolved third parties." If someone can sell goods cheaper by polluting the drinking water that others have to pay more to filter - that is anti-capitalistic. There is nothing intrinsically sinister about people deciding what can and can't be dumped to the drinking water owned in common. That decision results in a series of rules, ie government - and there's nothing wrong with that. So why is it such a big deal for people to decide that polluting the economic infrastructure in a way that cost people who were not party (at least willing) to it a bad thing? It's not like we are blaming these companies for "causing a natural drought" and just taking it out on them - they engaged in reckless actions, dumped toxic assets, made a fortune, and collapsed the national (and a big piece of the global) economic infrastructure. It hurt everyone involved or not. Blanket statements like "The 'reform' coming down the pike will put bureaucrats in charge of investors. If bureaucrats were better than investors, they wouldn’t be bureaucrats." are insultingly trite - a few paragraphs up he's talking about how the government should be the referee, then blurs the definition to being "in charge of investors" as if the 'reform' means anything other than getting the teams together to work out some issues on the rules. It's like some imaginary line is crossed an a magical switch in his brain is flipped, and suddenly his own very statements no longer apply. I understand what you mean, and it is not an easy issue to solve. I definitely have seen my share of "there but for the grace of god, go I" experiences. No idea what I got growing up but I sure am glad I did. That is a side tangent though to my real point on that topic: how is being aware of the fact that there are employers and organizations that will try to exploit anyone vulnerable (including the poor) somehow equate to having a "bad attitude" towards work? Whenever two people engage in a transaction, there is a good chance the person paying the wage will try to exploit what they can to get the best deal, including the level of desperation of the employee. Likewise, when trying to find a someone who can do a desperately needed job, there's a good chance the employee will exploit the employer's desperation to get the best deal. In many cases, neither care if the exchange results in animosity as long as the profit is there. They don't care if they mislead the other party into a deal they would not otherwise make as long as it doesn't cross the legal line. In this regard, either side can be exploitative and rationally called parasitic. To be aware and watchful of this, including how supply/demand in general effects the balance on the wider scale is not a bad thing. It's simply pragmatic and something to be watchful for. It's also why we have (as John Goldberg says) a "ref" on duty.

I understand your position and for the record, I am not denouncing wealthy people. I don't have any particular problem with Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Microsoft pushed a few unethical practices now and then, but I'd have to look deeper than the general complaints and they haven't worried me too much. It's also worth noting that the "poor man's burden" may reflect on a self-defeatist attitude, but it can also simply reflect reality. Is it a magical confluence that most people born into poverty remain there? We are all individuals, with free will and our unique makeup - are the middle class and up simply "getting lucky" with good hard working people? Did you get where you are today because of some natural spark you had to succeed, or did it have something to do with your parents and others' outlook impact on your youth? If you're parents were jaded and defeated by the time you were born, do you think your chances would have been so high? And yes, there are examples of people making it despite such obstacles, but then there are examples of people winning the lottery too. Don't get me wrong - I believe in being able to make it big through hard work. I went from being homeless to a desk job to breaking 6 figures without any college in under two years... I also feel very fortunate for the opportunities I've been given to prove my worth. None of that changes the fact though that we live in a free market society where market pressures drive the profit incentive. That's a good thing and a necessity, but it also applies pressure from management to reduce labor costs, with no regard for ethics. It's the same market pressures that drive companies to dump toxic waste in our rivers, which has been proven will happen unless we apply counter pressure. Why should it be different with labor? The "poor man" may be burdened but the person you describe as resenting you is not a poor man, but a broken one. I wouldn't want a broken person working for me either and I have no idea what gets people out of that state, but being aware that the poor are the least able to protect themselves from exploitation doesn't qualify as being broken, it's a pragmatic truth.

Sorry I didn't mean to misconstrue your assertion. If someone gets into a better college with help of a family that has above middle class assets, I wouldn't consider them "self made" regardless of how many billions they ended up with. They had to put in real effort to seize the opportunity, but they started out with opportunities most people don't have. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI think the real issue on the table is that while the very wealthy do contribute to society in exceptionally vital ways from which we all benefit, there is a suspicion (often warranted) as to how much of that wealth comes by twisting people up into lower quality lives. Walmart makes a ton of money and is an economic powerhouse, it also increases it's profits with the "two part-time vs. 1 full time" model that is literally designed to lower the quality of their employees' lives. They saw that they could not outright cut benefits and wages, but realized people are "used to" the caveats that come with part-time work: so they built a model around getting people to accept less. You wouldn't know on the surface that when you asked about full-time work that the answer "We don't have any right now" meant something different than any other place... but it does, because there you will not move up. We have lots of different ideas of what is "fair" and what is "cheating" an employer or employee. We often feel like unions are exploitative, or that employers are exploitative - usually centered around the idea of differing views of what's fair. When a union uses leverage to gain an unfair advantage, it's leeching. When employers do it, it's cheating. It all may be legal to the letter of the law but in both cases you can't help but to see the exploitative party as parasitic regardless of their other contributions. I think that is the genus from which this topic has sprung.

One thing that may help is to clearly separate your suspicions for motives or practices from evidence that leads you to those suspicions. You don't need to assert that global warming is a hoax to make governments money, just that the data reflects that the warming models are wrong. You can set the scope of your claims, and if someone says "Why would someone make up wrong numbers?" you can be entirely justified in saying "This analysis does not cover the human motivations, only an analysis of the models." If you "open the door" simply by implying potential motivations, you may be graded on how well you defend how data demonstrates those conclusions too. So in short, be sure to figure out how much you really have to bite off before you commit to chewing it. For the record, I don't ascribe to your hypothesis, but do wish you the best of luck in demonstrating your case. More scientific(emphasis on scientific) debate on both sides of any issue is always progress.

What makes you say that? It may be less common but I don't think there is any literal barrier, and I am sure survival itself has a component of luck, so naturally success of any kind would to, but I'm sure there's morally sound self made very wealthy people. I'm not sure how much help he had early in life, but I think Dean Kamen seems to be a good example of someone who has amassed a fortune with his moral integrity intact. I mean, unless of course there are dark secrets I don't know about.

Well, I am pretty skeptical of those figures. I would suspect most started out at the very least middle class (with parents that could at least help with college, etc) and a fair amount had significant advantages due to family assets and standing. Not that I think this is wrong - the world is a first come first serve kinda place. If 80% of the richest people today are self made (ie, from humble origins) than the number of wealthy families must have increased 5x, or a whole lot of old money collapsed in that time. That could be true - it just seems unlikely, do you have any figures on that?

Why would the money go back into the economy if the inheritor just keeps the financial portfolios "as is" instead of spending it? Also, a huge amount of money is tied up in corporations, that cannot be killed. To add to this, if people didn't know why these people were being killed, just that they were, it could lead to even more paranoia on the part of people who otherwise would invest in the economy. Just by killing a few of these people, you change the financial landscape, change usually means volatility and thus less money invested. So it could have the opposite effect. For fun though:

On the surface I really like this idea. The problem I see coming up though, is very large corporations and wealthy individuals can become a resident of a state like Wyoming, pay almost no taxes, and abandon states like California and New York to be supported by those who can't afford a tax-haven residence in a tiny state. Any thoughts on how to solve this? It does seem like an intriguing idea though.

Yes, but then so is multicellular life and everything that occurred as a result of natural selection. As a point of clarification, I wouldn't say there is no "beyond" or anything outside the material world - just that if we could sense it or perceive it, then it would be technically part of our material word and not be "beyond" anymore... and if we can't sense it or perceive it - what exactly can be explored about it and said about it? If you are talking about the "non-material world" in terms of the intangible thoughts in our minds - I'm definitely enjoy exploring that. For instance natural selection may have driven us towards seeking inner peace, but it is still a personal experience as to how one chooses to explore it and what meaning they may take from it. Science isn't really involved at that point. Science may tell me why genetically, I am predisposed to enjoy a beautiful landscape, but it doesn't diffuse the meaning of that experience. Well I've always used inductive reasoning to kick up various ideas that are then vetted with deductive logic, and I just kinda assumed everyone else did this to. I really don't see much use for inductive logic past that of a "first net" to catch patterns that are later vetted. Maybe you could explain how you feel it would play a bigger part in science. With regards to the instinctive process of differing to larger things, I did not mean to say it was an automatic instinctive process, just that the amount of time for which there has been the need to differ as a survival mechanism makes it likely that genes (and therefore instincts) would have been selected around this. (Actually, I think that's inductive logic there. ) I also agree society plays a big role in how it is amplified. Regardless of the origin, it still makes sense that it would play a role in how religions often include submission to an abstract ego, instead of solely the abandonment of one's own. Well, there's nihilism and then there's nihilism. I thought the main reason for coming up with the "Superman" was to counter the nihilism already emerging as "God was dying" so to speak. Essentially it was a philosophy that could be embraced despite nihilism, yet able to bring somebody out of the destructive trappings that nihilism can have for many people, especially when they have just "woken up" to a nihilistic view after a lifetime of other views. Reminded me of a quote I read a while back (apparently, from Joss Whedon, Buffy) "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do." A lot of the negativity around nihilism (and I am not even sure the definition really applies) is that it's easy to associate the feeling "that there is no greater meaning" with the feeling of "loss of one's birthright." We often come to the conclusion that there is no greater meaning only after having already believed we are part of a greater plan. It's like having something you never owned stolen from you. In that moment of being somewhat cheesed, it's easy to see someone taking nihilism to a pretty dark place - no morality, no one to catch you if you cause suffering... but the truth is you always still have what you have. The sun doesn't have to be divine to feel warm, and the chemical causes behind the sensation of pleasure doesn't make it feel any less nice on a spring day. Anyway, after writing that and then doing a little looking around, I found that naturally, Nietzsche stated his views on nihilism best, found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism#Nietzsche It's a good read, as he thought of nihilism as a very dangerous crisis, and one to be overcome. I'd say the Nazi's misappropriated the Nietzsche's message, as they did with countless things to ever increase their justifications for what they were doing and planning to do.

You are describing a high level discussion about the principles of the philosophy. Those responses come when people say things like "Government does a lousy job at taking care of things that the free market should" (rebuttal fire departments) "Individual liberties need to be respected and if someone isn't hurting anyone else..." (drugs) "The second amendment is important and these gun laws are affecting the legal gun owners who have never committed a crime..." (grenades) but how would they come up discussing a specific issue like catching Wallstreet crooks selling fraudulent packages before they explode? Or how to balance taxes to for the best revenue and grow the GDP? Those are problems of a mechanical nature and as long as your philosophy is good you really don't have to sell it - the solutions sell themselves because they make sense and work. Well, he doesn't address the most important factors in that video (getting dropped from insurance providers, line-item 'no coverage'), but it definitely is a bit of a side topic. Really it's the "supporting logic" that I'm going on about (and I can understand if he can't go into any of it in a short youtube video) and it's fine to criticize the current situation - it's what everyone does unless they think it's the pinnacle of perfection. No, that's exactly right. It's just when economic turbulence gets described as "it may be really rough sometimes, but that can't be helped in a free society" it only disrupts the discussion. Some analysis of the turbulence and what individuals will need to do to avoid it, and what to expect if they don't is more useful.

I'd like to read up on this if you have some links, it sounds interesting. Personally I've been aware of how some liberals may consider illegal immigration a lower priority issue or oppose conservative solutions but I've been unaware of people saying illegal immigration is a positive thing.

Wouldn't the market naturally work this out? Firms that are overly cautious would loose out on what are actually good investments and the firms that read the signals correctly would profit from it. Overnight loans aren't common because they altruistically help banks, but because they are profitable. Firms would learn to read the signs accordingly to exploit that profit. All the concern over the consequences of disclosure (which we are debating here) doesn't change the underlying problem: people are not willing to tolerate a system where they invest in a top rated company that sells them what they are told is a very good quality package, when it is in fact specifically designed to tank and screw them out of their money so said top rated company can make even more money. It is a situation that is not tolerable. If the system requires a level of deception and the hiding of relevant information that allows these frauds to occur on this insane scale, then something has to be changed about the system, period. Wouldn't you agree the current state of affairs is untenable?

I work from home, and we have a simple home network with a simple quest DSL modem and wireless router. I have an ethernet connection to the router, and generally get good speeds. Last time I ran a speakeasy test, it came back with: Download Speed: 5812 kbps (726.5 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 370 kbps (46.3 KB/sec transfer rate) Last night, it was looking more like: Download Speed: 799 kbps (99.9 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 45 kbps (5.6 KB/sec transfer rate) And was incredibly inconsistent. More than the speed issues though, I get "blinking" of the worst kind. I try to FTP and it's usually fine, then my connections will just fail. Other people accessing the same server do not report any trouble, but it will just not respond on a LIST command or some other command - it just fails. I'll get huge hang-times and "connection timed out" on viewing websites, and refreshing usually fixes this. I often get "no connection" popping up on my network status and the trouble shooter rarely finds a problem, but has reported "no DNS server" at least once. Calling Qwest Tech Sup, they make us do the download speed test and tell us everything is fine. I have no idea who needs to hold that stinking "hot potato" because either the network is misconfigured, the router is bad, or the internet is bad. Something is making it exceptionally difficult to get work done and I need some advice on how to solve it. Does anyone know where I can start? I've always had problems with home networks when more than one system is connected. I'm not even running the same OS anymore (from XP to Win7) or using the same provider or even in the same house. Other computers always have similar issues to some degree, but no one else uses FTP so they don't have the same degree of issues. Can anyone help suggest where I can start?

I can't speak for Nietzsche, but I would suspect the trend you are observing with regards to the elimination of the ego comes from the pursuit of inner peace. Unease is a feeling that applies pressure to us to act despite disagreeable sensory input, and the ego is an emergent effect of natural selection to promote the propagation of our individual genes. The analysis of suffering is a large component of many religions, and the source of this really is the unchecked ego and the desire to out compete and rise above (obtain the fittest mate(s) and have the most successful offspring) others, despite the pain and suffering endured or caused. If we wish to end suffering, we have to let go of the ego's desire for that which brings it. One trick to achieving this is to surrender to a greater, abstract ego (God, The Balance, etc), since it is in our instinctive memory to differ to stronger leaders within social collectives. Now, I don't know much about Nietzsche, but as I understand it the goal isn't to worship the ego, but transcend the state of acting and reacting to one's wants, and actively control and refine one's wants. The goal is unflinching self examination and manipulation of what is within us to produce the most effective and efficient capacity to examine and effect the world outside us. It's to not settle for changing the world but to change oneself first. The goal isn't to transcend "want" but to refine it and produce "second generation wants" by changing what we first want to change in ourselves. Then in our new found state, our wants have changed, and we can reassess and reconsider, and change ourselves further. There is no true "perfection" to seek, just a deliberate attempt to consciously self-optimize. In the interest of full disclosure most of my exposure to Nietzsche has been through philosophy majors while incredibly inebriated... so I could be very very far off the mark. Lastly: I don't see how any logic results in Aryan supermen, or how dominating anyone "lesser" or otherwise comes out of it. Domination is a dreadfully labor intensive task that really offers little rewards.

The premise is only viable if the calculation is occurring outside the universe where the data, processing, and results of that data could not impact the events in the universe being calculated. Of course, it would also require acquiring all the initial state data without impacting the state of that data so to literally set up such a condition is impossible. So even though it would be impossible to setup such an experiment, if the setup happened to pop into existence, there is no reason to believe it would not unfold as expected.

I'll try to respond to the whole post in a few short paragraphs, not to trivialize your thought out response but to try and avoid the "series of quotes" effect that often comes up in forums. On the points of free speech and abolition of slavery - yes, the consequences are not going to outweigh the moral imperatives. But when you say "Do we really care about the economic cost of freeing the slaves" I would argue we should try to understand the impact and and failure to do so can only cause those problems to be worse. No matter how morally imperative the task at hand may be we must always try to understand the shape of things our actions bring into being. In such an example the good can't help but to outweigh the bad but we should always strive to anticipate the bad because it's going to effect people's lives and the world we live in. On top of that, it allows us to discuss, debate, and refine the mechanisms, and even win people over. It's very hard to discuss a topic without a full picture. On the topic of drugs you hit the nail on the head. There is a tongue in cheek quote that seems to often follow people who take on and make great progress on moral initiatives "If I knew how much trouble it was going to be when I started I would have waited for someone else do it." It's tongue in cheek as I said, but I think there is a genuine fear that if we know the full scope of a problem we may be too timid to tackle it, and I think that works against us. We may find the war on drugs morally abhorrent, but less so than slavery, therefore we don't have to oppose it "damn the consequences" and can afford to extrapolate the possible costs and refine our approach. I'm just saying that should be the case regardless of the imperative. To use an example from the "Arizona's New ID (Immigration) Law" thread: As a civil libertarian, I find that law abhorrent, where they passed a law to address a real immigration problem at the cost of civil liberties. I could argue against it purely from principle (we must protect liberties, damn the consequences), but the core problem isn't one of civil liberties - it's illegal immigration. Restating well known principles does not address that issue. Instead, I considered the problem from my perspective as a civil libertarian... one of the corner stones being personal responsibility: You should be allowed to buy a gun but if you shoot yourself in the leg, you have to take responsibility for doing something careless and not blame the government for "letting someone as careless as me own a gun." Starting from the point of personal responsibility, my first consideration was to the reality check that we all benefit from low wages of illegal immigrants if we buy from companies that employ them, and it really is our problem even if we don't condone that behavior. The next thing is the employer - they create this issue, benefit from it, but don't want to be responsible for their employees as required by law and that cost gets pushed off to the public. My suggestion as a specific way to attack the problem was thus that we are responsible for passing laws that make employers responsible for hiring immigrants. If they hire illegal immigrants - okay then, they'll be responsible and get stuck with the bills and risks just like anyone else who sponsors an immigrant. I probably didn't need to go into that much detail here, but I just want to convey concisely how when an issue is encountered, and laws are passed that go against one's principles, that simply pointing out the moral imperative of the principles does not address the original problem. It says "that action is wrong" but leaves the problem that inspired it just as bad as before. By applying those principles, and attacking the problem from that perspective, one can then come up with possible solutions to that problem that are inline with one's principles. The costs can be weighed, the problems it may encounter, and it's merits debated. It may be a bad idea, or an idea that someone else improves upon greatly. But the important thing is it goes from advocating a direction to discussing solutions that move in that direction. I hope I didn't miss any key points, let me know if I did.

That makes more sense, thanks for clarifying.

Could you clarify what the hypocritical actions are of the left, and "which left" that is? I'm sure you have specific examples in mind I'm curious which ones they are though. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Isn't it really up to the employer to sink or swim? How is the financial difficulties of the company a defense for hiring illegals, where they can differ the costs from them to us all? Isn't that defense equally applicable to companies that "can't afford" to meet EPA environmental standards and illegally dump toxic chemicals? Fining them doesn't magically provide them with the funds to properly dispose of toxic waste, but we sure as heck expected them to find a way or sell out to a competitor that can.

We don't need a plan to entirely revolutionize the federal government, but for libertarian values to be applied to legislation, the legislation has to be thought out and planned out well with the impacts considered. By "considered" I don't mean "pacify big government liberals" but simply come out as expected. If it has an unpleasant side effect, then it was a planned unpleasant side effect or a flaw in the plan. I am not concerned whether this or that generates poorer performance, just that poorer performance is not unexpected. My main concern is that the positives and negatives are considered, estimations are made, and the theory's predictive qualities can be tested. Some things will be totally hard to predict, but they can be labeled as such going in, and the theory can be tuned as the unexpected creeps in. The important thing is to set up the plan and expectations in the first place so meaningful reflection and refinement can occur as it unfolds. Personally I don't see any differences between big government and big business, but that's an honest difference we have. The thing is you may be right and I may not like the side effects of the sort of government you would want, but the important thing is to be able to make that assessment based on a realistic model of what that society would look like. Then, if the model is implemented, it is done in a manner that can demonstrate if it's predictions are proving out or not as it's being implemented. We really should demand that of all political strategies... especially after how much we've been burned by the "try it and trust me" approach. That's fine and admirable, but it's also very absolute. If you are certain that "Individual freedom is the only way to get there." is an absolute, then you'll pursue it with a "hell or high water/do or die" level of commitment. What do the risks matter if there are no other options? It parallels "Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither" which is something I strongly agree with. I'd rather risk dying in a terrorist attack than sacrifice the civil liberties terrorists would exploit. If I am too cavalier with that attitude I may say "damn the consequences" instead of figuring out how to mitigate the risks in a manner that doesn't sacrifice civil liberties. The things I come up with may not produce numbers that would satisfy the "security at all cost" crowd, but that wouldn't be the purpose - the goal would be to model real world expectations of risk and lower it as much as possible given the need to preserve civil liberties, and try to propose those with the hope that they actually matter to most people too. However, even if civil liberties do matter to most people, simply saying "a free society is the only way" does not produce any tangible strategies or new information. Plans of action, whether minor or major need to be conceptualized and their impacts measured. That's my main beef with libertarian economics - it tends to fall back on the high level principles as "truths" that explains it'll all work itself out in the end, but doesn't offer anything than the belief the world works that way. All parties are guilty of this to some degree for sure, it just seems to come up more often with libertarians. BTW: Do you have any tax revenue vs. rate stats that support Hauser's Law? I find that pretty interesting and would love to dig into those numbers, see how dramatic the effect is. If it's pretty tight I'd have to reconsider a few thoughts on taxes.

I thought they discovered the link between cognitive dissonance and corporal punishment a long time ago, but supplementary evidence is always welcome.

This is largely true, but I believe the significant issue is "Certain people want said people to work for them for wages and under conditions that are illegal." Due to this factor, said employers don't care what happens to these guys - they use them as long as they can and when they don't show up because they got picked up by INS, they just grab fresh illegals to throw at their job. The sad part is we benefit as an economy from this, the employer benefits by chronically breaking the law, and the people they drag up get lucky for a little while, chewed up and spat out. Of course they are breaking the law by working illegally but you pretty much have to deport all of them continuously to have any impact on the key elements (employers) driving this cycle. I think the best solution is if you employ an illegal alien and that can be proven, you immediately and legally become their sponsor for citizenship - and right now that includes the right for the government to sue you for reimbursement for any publicly funded services they obtain. Their application may still be denied, given criminal background checks and all the other factors, but it won't get you off the hook for their debts. It would be messy, and employers would try to push it off in court saying they were unaware and their underling manager did all the naughty things... but no one would want to get stuck in that mess. As for the legality of this AZ law, it seems very dubious to me, because what exactly would constitute "suspicious activity suggesting illegal immigration status" to an officer? Short of dashing across the border, I can't think of anything that an illegal immigrant would do behaviorally that any law abiding citizen would not also do. By that measure, the only way for this law to have an impact is to consider lawful activity suspicious, and that applies an unfair burden on those lawful citizens just going about their day. Can anyone think of any? I'm happy to be proven wrong, I just can't think of anything that wouldn't count as some sort of profiling.