Taxes!

[Marlin]

Marlin,
Sorry for the delayed response, but your factual distortions actually made my mouse freeze up this morning, heh.

I am aware of the ridiculous incarceration rate in this country, including that 14 percent of our prison population is in for non-violent drug offenses. I think the problem is vastly exacerbated by our useless, counterproductive war on drugs and the power of the prison unions and other "prison industrual complex" stakeholders. But more to the point, your suggestion that low crime rate is merely a function of high incarceration is not supported by the wider facts. Crime rates in other first world countries has also been falling along similar lines as ours, but without the vast increase in incarceration. Correlation-Causation fallacy.

As for the PC thing: no one here is censoring you or dismissing you from the conversation. Words mean things, and context matters, so if you make what appear to be broad generalizations and animal metaphors but only about certain groups, then some people are naturally going to make assumptions about your biases. Feel free to continue to use them, by all means. But pointing out that people will look askance at your word choice is hardly excessive PCness. And yes, this is a democratic republic, with a constitution and legal traditions that pretty clearly limit the "tyranny of the majority." I don't know what your democratic majority rule allusion has to do with this discussion. I don't recall anyone here advocating for a law saying you can't call the handicapped "retards" or whatever you like, and I will continue to interpret you words as seems appropriate to their meaning and usage.

Foreign aid outside of Afghanistan and Iraq represents less than 1% of our budget, about .6% iirc. It's not there just because we love them foreigners, but to provide us with access and influence over their policies. We do, in fact get such influence from it. I don't have some sort of gigantic opposition to reducing foreign aid as part of a larger economic strategy, but don't decieve yourself into thinking that it will make a big savings or that doing so will be without foriegn policy consequences.

Immigrants and taxes, interesting reading. http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1424.html

I keep hearing that same concept in budget cuts. "Its not a significant portion of the budget". How about if you add all those insignificant portions,they start adding up. My cable bill is a small part of my monthly budget. So is my cell,netflix, gamefly, going out to eat and so on. Add those all together, they start to become significant.

As for incarceration, I was being sarcastic, and I agree with you on the drug thing, as I have already pointed out. But it should come with a cost. If you go for government health care, but you are a smoker/crack head/heroin addict, and so on, then you get turned away. We will help you if you need it, but don't abuse it. That would be like free health care for the idiots on Jackass.

And for the PC thing, I repeatedly said all humans with reference to breeding. As my gay friends like to say, "there are white breeders too". That term actually came from the gay community as a slur toward heteros. I just don't care to tiptoe around other's feelings. Get over it, it makes me think of the cliche: "Its the thought that counts". No matter what word I use, you know what I mean.

[Osteomata]

I keep hearing that same concept in budget cuts. "Its not a significant portion of the budget". How about if you add all those insignificant portions,they start adding up. My cable bill is a small part of my monthly budget. So is my cell,netflix, gamefly, going out to eat and so on. Add those all together, they start to become significant.

I agree. My comment was merely to put the size of the foreign aid budget in perspective and mention that we do gain advantages from that investment. Reasonable people can disagree about whether those things are worth the money, and how big or small the amount should be.

As for incarceration, I was being sarcastic, and I agree with you on the drug thing, as I have already pointed out. But it should come with a cost. If you go for government health care, but you are a smoker/crack head/heroin addict, and so on, then you get turned away. We will help you if you need it, but don't abuse it. That would be like free health care for the idiots on Jackass.

No I could not tell that you were being sarcastic. It looked like you were pretty convinced that the crime rate reductions were a direct result of the prison population. Any hoo, I suspect we could take a tiny fraction of the money we flush down the toilet on the drug war and put that towards treatment and we would be way better off as a society.

And for the PC thing, I repeatedly said all humans with reference to breeding. As my gay friends like to say, "there are white breeders too". That term actually came from the gay community as a slur toward heteros. I just don't care to tiptoe around other's feelings. Get over it, it makes me think of the cliche: "Its the thought that counts". No matter what word I use, you know what I mean.

But I don't know what you mean, at least not all the time. I will simply take your word for it on the gay thing, with the caveat that having a friend in minority x does not in any way mean that you don't have irrational and unfair judgements about group x. As a comedic example, Archie Bunker was unquestionably a bigot, and he had minority friends. (No I am not calling you Archie Bunker or a bigot, just making a point about the way people try to inoculate themselves against criticism while simultaniously making outlandish statements). But for the ethnic minorities and the poor in general: no I am not at all convinced by your after the fact assertions on this matter. It really does seam like you think of them as slightly less than human.