Moonlight Graham

Isn't that highly unlikely the U.S. would go bankrupt? I'm no economics expert but even i can figure that out. If they threatened to default on all their loans, countries (most notably China or course) would go ape-crazy and do everything they could to prevent this because of the insane amount of money they'd lose that would never be payed back. China would restructure repayment terms for the U.S., cancel some of the debt, or even "bail out" the U.S. if they were teetering on collapse. If the U.S. economy were seriously near collapse, virtually every country in the world would do everything it could to prevent it also because the U.S. is such a massive consumer and producer of goods & spender of $$$ that greatly benefits the economies of so many other countries. The total collapse & bankruptcy of the U.S. economy just wouldn't happen with its current place in the world.

No, you actually answered my question. You clearly choose option 1), aka the status quo. That's a perfectly valid opinion. Theft involves breaking the law, Robin Hood-style. It's not theft if it is done through legal means with consent of "the people". I have built a small island in the mid-Atlantic where the currency is hugs, lollipops grow instead of grass, and unhappiness and depression don't exist because it's illegal. I invite you to join us!

Hmm maybe right. But this time the "victims" are doing it to themselves.

Sorry for not responding to this thread of mine earlier. My main purpose of this thread was to not propose some kind of new system of grander wealth redistribution. There are obviously many complexities that would come with doing such a thing, & in reality would have many repercussions such as driving businesses out of the country thus hurting said countries' economy, among others. The MAIN purpose of this thread was to ask WHY we (people in rich western nations) don't, or historically have chosen not to, force the most wealthy of people (ie: let's say people worth a billion dollars or more or maybe the top 1%) to give the average person much more of their wealth (through taxes or whatnot)? It's clear westerners living in liberal democracies value the basic tenets of capitalism & the freedom of being rewarded for smarts/ability/hard work. However, i would think that human nature being what it is (ie: people being ultimately self-regarding/selfish) that the majority of people in any "western" country - aka those making 5-figures or less - would much rather scrap such idealism in favour of forcing the extremely wealthy to transfer enough wealth to them to add maybe the equivalent of a year's income to each person's net worth. I mean, why do most people value the right of billionaires to keep such massive amounts of wealth over the chance to attain much more wealth for themselves? It just seems odd to me. So i also want to ask this question to everyone: Ignoring the possible economic consequences for a given country implementing high taxes to the rich etc., if you had to choose between 1) billionaires having the freedom of keeping their billions OR 2) enacting tax laws forcing billionaires to give up most of their wealth (yet still keeping hundreds of millions for themselves) and you personally receiving a cheque for, say, $100,000...which would you honestly choose? (BTW I'm not talking communism here, or even a hard "cap" on wealth. People would still all earn different wages & economic classes will still exist, & the very rich can still earn as much as they are able, but they will just be taxed much greater.)

wuss?

We should have met their ship at sea, given them all refugee application papers, then turned them around and waved goodbye and good luck. Heck maybe give them some food and med supplies just to be nice. This is a spit in the face to all the other people trying to get into Canada through the regular processes. What fools they are! They'll learn now that all they have to do is show up in a boat and we'll trot them in & stick a silver spoon in their mouths...even before the tongue-depressor. What a bunch of B.S. Also read on CBC.ca today that it costs taxpayers $4,100 to process a single refugee claim. That seems...excessive.

If you're worried about spreading homophobia and misogyny via mosques, you should also be concerned with Catholic churches being built. Women can't be priests cuz that would just be wrong! Oh, and also gotta watch out for those Catholic churches spreading pedophilia too. Seriously, what up with frickin' religions and their crazy rules?

I wouldn't say they are targeting "children". The average gamer is over the age of 30 now. Tons of people who play games like Call of Duty or Halo and read gaming magazines are around that perfect military target age of 18. I remember the game you speak of. "America's Army" i think you're referring to. It was a U.S. military training program that was tweaked and ported to consoles. Back around 2005/2006 I played Halo 2 online on xbox with a young guy in his early 20's who served in Iraq for the U.S. army, and when he was back in the U.S. he would played that game.

wow, what a beautiful poem. thanks for posting.

Let's look at the overall findings (based on the polls) reported by the study in your link: Obviously a lot more complex & sometimes conflicting issues here than your citing of only one of the polls shows. This study is pretty interesting.

Wouldn't blame it on Americans. Canadian Idol and Canada's Next Top Model hurray!!! Also know a bunch of Canadian peeps who tune into the evolutionary garbage can that is Jersey shore.

There's a also a reason why so many people seem to brush an entire religion with a broad stroke of "evil" when a small minority of extremists with perverted islamic interpretations go bonkers: they are ignorant.

Yes just plain damn ignorant. People fear what they do not understand. If anyone thinks that the group of idiots who flew planes into the WTC on 9/11 or the relatively small % of Muslims in extremist organizations like al-Qaeda planning to attack the west are any kind of representation of the 1.5 billion Muslims that inhabit this earth or are any kind of representation of what mainstream Islam actually stands for then they are ignorant morons. 25% of all humans on this earth are Muslims. Guess what? The vast majority do not want to ram planes into western buildings or kill westerners. People should maybe actually walk into a Mosque, actually learn a bit about the religion, or *gasp* strike up a few friendly conversations with Muslims before they make damning conclusions about them.

This is my personal opinion as well. Although i'm not intimately familiar with the entire complex situation that Truman faced at the time. But i have always thought that showing the power of the weapon by bombing a military facility or other non-dense civilian target (at least with the first attack), followed by bombing an urban city like Hiroshima may have been enough to force surrender. I don't understand why Truman bombed 2 urban civilian targets with the only 2 bombs he ordered dropped. Other options may have taken an extra bomb and a few more days to force surrender, but probably would be more ethically excusable.

stealing Bonam's setup... DVD player: eventually will go yes, but it has a few more good years left. Many people don't give a crap about the extra resolution blu-ray provides at the extra cost. Fax Machine: will linger around. we've had scanners and modems around for quite some time now and fax machines still remain. Faxing is more convenient than scan-email-print. Landline phones: agree with Bonam. Home landline phones will continue to dramatically decline though, especially in urban areas. Beepers: crap technology by todays standards. Film Projectors: will vanish in big mainstream theatres but will remain in many classic theatres showing old flicks. I'd compare the film projector to the turn-table, obsolete yet still has will always have uses. Mouse: i have yet to find an interface better than a mouse. It will be around for the foreseeable future. Cell Phone Chargers: who cares. Plasma TV: bye-bye. Too power-hungry. We're already seeing LCD/LED TV's take over. Credit Cards: sorry, here to stay for foreseeable future. Have seen nothing to challenge it. iPod: I see all virtually all cell phones eventually being iPhones, with enough memory to store a decent about of media. It makes little sense to carry around 2 similarly-sized devices like cell phones & iPods and not combining them.

I'm no expert on the exact situation Truman faced at the time he ordered the bombings. So i won't pretend to spout an informed opinion, though the civilian causalities were certainly horrific. The dropping of the 2 bombs certainly changed the world forever. It's unfortunate that since man has begun to harness the power of the atom we have used it mostly for military purposes and those of destruction or threat of destruction and less for positive/constructive purposes.

I must go to bed, but i will try to respond to most of these replies tomorrow. But Shady's is a short post and the easiest rebuttal, so i'll answer it: Not comparable at all. Also, if you kill all the poor people, they will be replaced with other poor people. If we killed all rich people, will rich people go away? No.

I'm talking very wealthy people by the way. IE: let's say people who have over 50 to 100 million in assets. It seems to me ridiculous that the vast majority of all people, aka those who are not insanely wealthy, do not force the wealthy to be taxed much more and have the extra wealth transferred to them. The non-wealthy majority (whom i assume includes virtually everyone on these forums) have the power to do it, so why don't we? Are we stupid? Does the average joe feel that somebody who is worth over a billion dollars legitimately deserves their riches due to their smarts and hard work? If anyone does believe this...WHY??? Who gives a crap about the rich? Give me most of your money, i'll let you keep about 100 million and you will still be laughing inside your 10 yachts and 5 mansions, and now maybe i can afford a mansion of my own and we'll all be laughing. So WHY? Why in the world do we let them keep their money? Do you think they deserve it? If people are ultimately self-regarding (which i believe), why do the masses deny themselves more money they can readily have? Personally, i'm inclined to say F the billionaires. Distribute most of these billions to the worker bees, many of whom work just as hard if not harder than the queen bees to keep the honey flowing. I'm not a communist, i'm simply asking questions & thinking aloud. Certainly Marx was a brilliant thinker, but had many flawed ideas as well. The revolution of the proletariat he predicted obviously never happened. Marx may not have underestimated the intelligence, greed, and manipulativeness of the elite, but rather overestimated the intelligence of the proletariat. Are we so apathetic, naive, and sedate to put up with getting rammed in the buttocks? Money is power. It controls the economic & political systems. I am absolutely tired of watching the little people, the many, get screwed by the wealthy/elites in infinite ways. Maybe if the elites had less money, and we had more, the power systems of the world would become a little more equal & "democratic".

Thought i read about something like this within the last year or something. Too bad its too late for my Nana, she's a frightened & confused veg in a long-term care home. What a incredibly horrific disease. Probably the very last way i'd choose to die. I love you Nana.

If you don't like google then vote with your finger and click on another search engine. But i don't know any other good ones, so i'd suggest googling it.

I agree. He doesn't sensationalize. It's just info, no trying to entertain short attention spans.

I think it would ease tensions obviously so i'd be in favour of it, but realistically i don't know how it can happen amicably. States aren't keen on giving up territory.

They should try to burn it away!

Excellent news.

In the ever globalizing world, i think this is one of the most fascinating debates & issues in political philosophy/ethics. I'm not talking about multiculturalism in our own western countries, i'm talking about where exactly do you think we should draw the line between "human rights" + our values of what is "right vs wrong" VS respecting the rights/practices of other cultures in their own sovereign countries. For example, many women in the middle-eastern countries are denied the right to vote. The West criticizes this, but should these countries have the right to determine their own laws no matter how "unjust" they may seem to us? Are we just to criticize this since it's been less than a century since women in Canada attained suffrage and weren't even legally defined as "persons" by the Supreme Court? Also read recently of a person in Iran who was to be executed by stoning, which caused international uproar. Most in the West think this is appalling, but do Iranians have the right to determine their own penalties of law? Do we have much right to criticize this since capital punishment in Canada was legal until the 1970's, and many U.S. states still execute people? This can obviously extend to many other countries and cultures besides the middle-east/Islam, including those in Africa & Asia. Just want to know where do you think the line is for us in the West determining what "universal human rights" should be? Is there such a thing? Do we have the right to determine what is right/wrong for other cultures? Should we intervene militarily over internal conflicts in countries like Sudan/Rwanda on the basis of "human rights"?