TheEncogitationer

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

One good thing: You won’t find the police departments of Battle Creek or Hamatramck, Michigan paying for a similar event with their Sha’ria enforcers. Most Muslims have a strong cultural aversion to dogs.

• This reply was modified 1 day, 4 hours ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Misspelled "Hamatramck". Will probably be renamed to "Halal-tramck"

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

No one is claiming it’s more than it is or was ever intended to be. As for ripping off future generations, that’s a bug not a feature. The mens rea you seem to be implying simply isn’t there.

When the American Association of Retired Pharts and Congresscritters in thrall to them endorse the system complete with the “bug,” there is the mens re.. And the Congressctitters have their own retirement plans, so they could care less about us plebs.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

World of Woo: RFK Jr.’s refusal to ‘give advice’ on vaccines is dangerous advice.

As strange as this sounds, he’s actually making sense, since he is not a Doctor and what medical pronouncements he has given are absurd. (I’ll even add his pronouncements against food coloring, because somewhere, somebody is going to use something really hazardous as a substitute like red ochre and Vermillion used in the Shroud of Turin.) He should also add that Trump shouldn’t have appointed me, I’m just here for the lulz.

• This reply was modified 1 day, 17 hours ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum on the hazards of Prohibition

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

A shaggy dog story from Ken Ham, the man behind the plan for the lark with the ark in the park.

Was Ken Ham trying to train police dogs to be like “Son of Sam”‘s dog and detect the Antichrist? The story is evidently a paywalled revelation.

I’m sure Ken Ham wouldn’t want dogs to be like George Carlin’s dog who ignores the TV and does what he can just because he can.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Robert,

If Social Security is so good, why do people have also private investments for their retirement? And do caring societies rip off future generations for the sake of the present?

And since you don’t understand what a Ponzi Scheme is, here is the definition. Clearly not all businesses meet that definition:

Ponzi Scheme–Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

And immigrants can only help prop up your Social Security Ponzi Scheme if they are legal and paid above board and are taxed on their wages. And yet generations of politicians have seen fit to have no consistency about enforcing immigration laws and have failed to grasp the insight of Economist Milton Friedman, to wit: You can have open borders or a Welfare State, but not both. And that would be true no matter what Nationality, “Race”, Color or Religion crosses the borders.

You and Unseen get back to your Strawman assembly line. After all, making Strawmen doesn’t require a box of hammers.

• This reply was modified 1 day, 18 hours ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling, which requires no Welfare State, Ponzi Scheme, or hired help foreign or domestic

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Robert,

Progressive God FDR and his Brains Trust were the ones who designed Social Security as a Ponzi scheme, where those who benfited depended upon a stream of new workers entering the workforce and taxed to pay into the system. They never reckoned on many people aging beyond 65 or on people having fewer children in response to increased wages and wealth. Part of what Hayek called The Fatal Conceit.

Also another Progressive God LBJ and supporters in Congress borrowed against Social Security and left a bunch of IOUs to bankroll the War On Poverty and the Southeast Asian Brushfire Wars.

Some “lock-box” huh?

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

You didn’t even read what I just wrote. Sorry, I’m not providing fuel and raw materials for a Strawman factory.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

Also, you could nationalize the wealth of every Billionaire and Millionaire in the nation to pay the National Debt, and as long as Washington keeps spending, it would be all for naught… not to mention the last time anyone would do it, because no one would ever want to accumulate any wealth.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

The biggest parts of the National Debt come from the enticements of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, plus interest on the National Debt. DOGE never even wanted to touch these, but to get rid of the National Debt, there is no avoiding these multiple “Third Rails.”

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

A new interview with Richard Dawkins on his new book, along with his thoughts on Postmiodernism, Transgenderism and the sexual binary, and questions from the audience.

I thought it went too soft on G.K. Chesterton’s alleged false binary of Theism vs. believing in everything. And it’s so easy to refute. Judging from the number of gods, religions, sects, denominations, schisms, and practices, believers in God have clearly believed in everything and everything.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

If the people want something bad enough, they will get it by using the tools of the constitutional republic or by rising up against the government.

So Argumentum Ad Bacculum (Appeal to Force) eh? Just like all the Antifa and Left Coast Secessionists? Why is this always proposed by the very people with the fewest guns to carry out their demented wishes?

What has our constitutional republic given us by ignoring the people is Donald Trump (by ignoring the public’s concern over immigration, distress over wokeism and the degradation of traditional values on gender and family structure, etc.)

That is a question for Democratic Socialists to answer while having it out with David Hogg. Woke vs. Woke.

and a Republican Congress that’s dead-set on an unpopular agenda of eliminating services the public relies on. I think most of us can see a reckoning coming in the midterm elections.

People can donate to their favorite global cause without USAID. NPR and CPB can support themselves if they become worth it. And there are other ways to solve problems without swamp creatures like Nancy Lugosi or creek creatures like RFKJR.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Robert,

At least those things help to equalize wealth imbalances. The government acts like a heat-sink absorbing each knee-jerk crisis as investors panic.

So you think government bailing out AIG and American auto manufacturers and Raytheon help the poor? Please tell that to the old Occupy crowd before they cannabalize you.

Why do you even automatically assume that inequality of wealth is a bad thing, or that equality of outcome is even possible? As long a there is equal freedom to move upward and as long as wealth depends on providing a better product or service inequality of outcome is not a problem.

Do explain why so-called “conservatives” on average, manage to increase the deficit more than us “socialists”? Maybe because they always reduce taxes for the wealthy? Maybe because “cost-cutting” root problem solutions ends up costing more because of the horrible after-effects?

Annual deficits and overall National Debt are both the result of government spending more than it takes in, something both “conservatives” and “progressives” have done for decades.

Proactive thoughts like that are beyond libertarian ideology, I know. They think we are not a society. Just independent individuals who can perform brain surgery on themselves.

Keep that assembly line of Strawmen coming!

Bezos doesn’t care if his thousands of trucks run over potholes. They clog our inadequate road systems with trucks full of Chinese made MAGA hats. Imagine if Biden accepted a gifted airplane from Hamas supporting Arabs?

And on whose watch did those roads deteriorate? And whose energy policies crippling U.S. production of fossil fuels enabled Qatar to have the wealth to bankroll Islamic terrorism and propaganda from Al-Jazeera?

This country is dumber than a box of hammers.

A box of hammers can at least be used to build something. All governments do is take and restrain building wealth.

• This reply was modified 4 days, 17 hours ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling. Something I do without a government bailout

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

And yet, in a democracy what the people want the people should get. Otherwise the demos (people) goes away leaving just the kratos (rule).

What if the People wanted to punish Atheism with death?
Or, more to the point, what if the People demanded that no one earn more wealth than anyone else?

Again, why the United States is not a Democracy but a Constitutional Republic.

Most of that is just more special treatment lopsidedly benefitting the rich because the system is set up to do that. And it’s set up that way because those at the bottom have little wealth or power.

Well, it is government spending that creates the National Debt, not people wanting to keep their own paychecks.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

I’m well aware of all of the arguments about disincentives and creating dependencies when it comes to taxation. I haven’t been living under a rock. I’m also aware of the “rising tide floats all boats” which can also be used in favor of taxing the rich, who would benefit from a society made more stable by reducing poverty with all of the attendant problems.

Decades of pampering the rich with what amounts to an embarrassment of loopholes, cutouts, incentives, etc., has resulted in putting the burden more and more on those who can least afford it.

Somehow, this never includes stopping bail-outs to Detroit, Investment Banking Firms, Saving & Loans, Big-Ag, no-bid Defense Contractors, NGOs, and other multi-billion Dollar benefactors of government spending. Why doesn’t so-called “Most Important Economist in the World” Jeffrey Sacks consider that as a part of the National Debt?

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

We embed this fallacy in our national, state, and local government’s various constitutions. I have taught logic. Verbal fallacies, unlike formal fallacies, do not imply false conclusions with necessity. They are inconclusive.

The very definition of any Fallacy, verbal or formal, is that the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. And wanting does not mean good (or getting, as Mick observed) no matter how many people want. Start again.

So, you’re saying one can’t argue that the will of the people means anything? Maybe Trump is right about elections. We don’t need them, we need a potentate at the top to run the show to the benefit of all.

I never made an Argument From Authority, so you just piled a Strawman Non Sequiteur onto the Argument From Popularity. Again, start again

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