On a lighter note, Al Franken for Senate

I am not much help other than money for my fav canidate for Senate, but if you can vote for him I recommend checking him out. He kicks more ass than Zidane in an ass kicking contest.

We need more funny happy nice MORAL politicians.

https://secure.alfranken.com/page/contribute

Scratch that, more non-assclown politicians.

How about Zidane in a head butting contest?

Awwwh, my friend has come to poke at me. Seriously. Do you like al franken and know anything about him. Because if you do, the whole halliburton thing should make even less sense. I am a total libertarian. Just so you know.

Favorite Canidates of the year:

Al Franken: If I could sneak into the state for a couple months to vote for him, I would.

Kinky Friedman: I just moved from Austin, TX to Bakersfield less than a year ago. Kinky would have been the best thing that has ever happened to TX. I think even his run for governor opened the minds of true Texans.

Oh, and Zidane could do both?

If i were a Socialist, i'd probably vote for Franken. Instead, I think i'll cling to hope that Ron Paul runs. We need LESS big government politicians, not more!

Why?

Considering you use the word socialist in pretty much all your current events comments, you might want to learn what it means.

And unless you're planning to vote for Senate in Minnesota, you probably won't have to make that crucial Franken/Paul decision.

double post

No. But then bigger government isn't necessarily about control over people's personal lives. I'd just as soon the government stay as far out of personal lives as possible. On the other hand, I'd really, really like to see them exercising more control over the business world as without that control, there's a marked tendency to fuck people over. And there's other functions they serve much better than the alternatives. Things that are necessary or useful. and improve life all around, but don't generate a profit. Libraries, for example. And the current crop of morons is all about expanding the former and reducing the latter. Libertarianism, on the other hand, seems to me to throw out baby, bathwater, and indeed bathroom.

So it's perfectly fine for the government to ban guns and trans fats, but they should stay out of the abortion debate? The whole problem is government is not designed to take care of everyone, it has two responsibilities: protect it's citizens, and make sure that your personal liberties aren't violated. Once the government is granted power like it has been lately, it only gets worse, freedom decreases, and yes, you will eventually get a totalitarian state. I can't see how you trust the government to have control over anything, inevitably, bigger government leads to loss of freedom. If you want to be taken care of like that, you might as well go to prison; the perfect model of socialist society.

False analogy.

Government restrictions on gun ownership and use of trans-fats in foods are restrictions on property rights. A government restriction on abortion is a restriction of the rights of life and liberty. In order to equate the two, you have to make the assertion that property rights are as equally as important as the rights to life and liberty.

Who, exactly, "designed" the government to your specifications?

Also, wouldn't restricting gun ownership and banning trans-fats fall under the category of "protecting it's citizens"?

So you think granting government the power to regulate only what you feel should be regulated will not decrease freedom, but anything other than that will inherently lead to totalitarianism. Gotcha.

Hyperbolic comparison of "socialist" societies aside (since gosh, the Netherlands is just as prison-like as Cambodia was under the Khmer Rouge), you also want the government to have control over things, mainly the defining and protecting of fundamental human rights, the protection of property, and the punishment of rights violations. Why exactly does "the government" merit your level of trust, but not any higher level of trust?

See, I consider myself a liberal, but I found the transfat thing troubling. I think what foods or substances we take into our bodies is, at its core, about the sovereignty we hold over our own bodies. Transfats are poison; granted. I just feel that it should more be the role of government to educate about that fact, and compel corporations to be explicit and throrough in their explanation of ingerdients. Warning labels, fine. Don't make the decision for me.

Shouldn't we be demanding that our citizens put in the work to make informed choices about their bodies? We trust our citizenry to make informed choices about governance (albeit with middling success), so can't that extend to making informed choices about lunch?

Adam Smith and John Locke both listed "property" along with "life and liberty" as inalienable rights. It was politics that got it changed to "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence.

"Also, wouldn't restricting gun ownership and banning trans-fats fall under the category of "protecting it's citizens"?"
To protect the people from a foriegn invasion force and from others imposing their will on them, not from themselves. Banning trans fats and smoking assumes that people are too stupid to make these decisions for themselves, and that the government has to come in and protect you from yourself.

"Who, exactly, "designed" the government to your specifications?"
That's how the founding fathers intended this country to be run, hence the Constitution.

"Hyperbolic comparison of "socialist" societies aside (since gosh, the Netherlands is just as prison-like as Cambodia was under the Khmer Rouge), you also want the government to have control over things, mainly the defining and protecting of fundamental human rights, the protection of property, and the punishment of rights violations. Why exactly does "the government" merit your level of trust, but not any higher level of trust?"

The government merits very little trust in all cases, an entity with that much power should be held in check. If you want to see what total power leads to, i'll get you a first class ticket so you can visit my family in Camagüey, maybe you will see why i am a bit more sensitive to this than most Americans.

I'm on the fence myself about things like trans-fat regulations, but to compare them to restrictions on reproductive rights, as the previous poster did, is ridiculous hyperbole.

Also, there are certain ingredients that are harmful enough to warrant exclusion from consumer products. Regulations that keep lead out of household paint, for example, is a really good trade-off between the presumed property rights of both paint manufacturers and consumers, and the well-proven negative health impact of lead paint poisoning on children.

That's all well and good, but again, since property rights have repeatedly come into conflict with the rights of life and liberty, to me any compromises between the three should come at the expense of property rights.

Republicans like to use the "for the children" argument too. Liberals and Neocons are two of the same people, they want to control you, just in different ways. Neocons want to ban pornography, abortion, ect, in the name of protecting the children, and liberals want to ban trans fats and smoking because of children. Maybe they should start their own country, where liberty can be disposed of in the name of saftey and security?

Explain to me why the "liberty" of allowing paint companies to manufacture and sell lead-based paint outweighs the proven negative medical impact that exposure to lead-based paint has on children.

Oh, and bonus points for the inaccurate use of "neocon", too.

Yeah, dead Brits made lousy debaters during the drafting.

I don't think it's hyperbole at all - I'm not trying to scare monger or anything, and I'll happily concede that there is a dramatic difference in scale, here. My point was that I think the two issues share an ideological base argument - that we should have sovereignty over our own bodies.

I'll also never protest publicly over my right to ingest toxic nonfoods like transfats. I would rather see, however, a government m.o. that pushed for truly informed choices, instead of nanny state regulation. Transfats aren't an appropriate battleground, but I'd like to see us stay ideologically consistent.

You might get kicked out of the Liberal club for making that much sense, my friend.

So you are saying if the public found out about the dangers of lead paint, that say, DuPont, would keep manufacturing it? People can make informed decisions and stop buying their product, in which said company would make the changes it needs to keep the public and the shareholders happy. People can make an informed decision without the government telling them what they can and cannot eat, I avoid trans fats by not eating shitty fast food, not by the government forbidding me to eat them. Same with cigarettes, while i do not smoke, i did oppose the recently proposed tax hike on cigarettes in California. It's not the governments job to punish people for their vices.