Must... post...

By: Unknown

Is it just me, or has absolutely nothing important happened recently? You know, other than Kerry being... you know... a member of the risen dead, but that's beside the point.

However, I'm tired of Ed's sniveling whiny post, so I have to occlude it.

Lessee...

Something in an abstract sense.

I've done race...

Ooh!

---

Competition

Smith and I started talking today about monopolies (in this case, government-sponsored monopolies, which I actually agree with him on).

Competition is a strange beast. It seems so two-faced, so fickle. People see that a company that owns a huge portion of a market causes other companies to close. This is "bad" to most people. It makes people lose jobs (technically true, but hold on), and seems to "hinder competition" (this is the basis for antitrust laws).

However, this is not truly the case. Monopolies are in fact the children of competition. They can only exist because of strong competition, or government sponsorship. When born of competition, it's because they are merely much, much better than the competitors at providing their product or service. This serves to logic: how else would someone become superior to someone except by being better (aside from the government)? However, here's the rub: people then believe that monopolies can become (or unconditionally do become) extortionary and that they prevent other companies from getting their good products out (the infamous buy-out).

Not the case. The monopoly must maintain the high level of quality and service, and low prices that brought them to the top. A myriad of people wait in the wings for an opportune moment to slip their product in and get a following (welcome to America). In fact, a monopoly can prime the market for innovative new products that wouldn't exist without the firm and broad foundation created by the original monopoly.

Let's take Microsoft as an example (everyone's favorite monopoly). I invite you to ask anyone who was actually around and active with computers during the days of DOS. I assure you, DOS is completely illogical and anti-user (it could be less user-friendly, but then it'd be packaged with a pipe bomb. Ha ha! I made a funny). Windows was the first OS that made computers accessible to the large majority of people. People snatched up Windows as quickly as possible. Then came Mac. Mac sucked. A lot. Windows still entirely conquered the OS market.

Then they began packaging IE in with Windows. IE was, again, user-friendly, readily available, and the most compatible with websites. Netscape complained that they couldn't make a dent in the market. Well, they couldn't... and they shouldn't have. It was slower than IE, less intuitive than IE, and less compatible than IE. The competitors were not blocked by Microsoft. They merely had low-quality products.

Of course, Windows had its issues. It was slow in certain applications, and didn't work too well for hardcore gamers. It was relatively unstable when pushing it hard. All of these problems were merely results of making the OS user-friendly. The self-install programs, automatic setup programs, automatic driver controls, etc. that people needed because they couldn't do these things themselves were not entirely reliable all the time (it's a computer, not God). Drivers were messily installed, programs left scraps behind, drivers weren't run as efficiently as possible. This was fine, for most people. But most people weren't the ones complaining about it. Nerds were.

The nerds began a quasi-phenomenon of Microsoft mockery. They pointed out those things that had never bothered, and still don't bother, most people, and people began to notice. This is when it was complained of as a monopoly with a poor product. And to me, it does have a poor product. But for most, it's the easiest and most effective OS.

Microsoft opened the way for other Windows-like OS's. Mac got a lot better at making their OS, and became the media editing platform. It was a very specific niche, but they have become successful at it. Hardcore gamers and computer users wanted a fast, stable OS that they could modify to their liking. Along came Linux, which was free and fast and reliable, but very very very hard to use (it's getting easier now).

So, Microsoft was not a bad product, nor a bad company. The market needed it, and other companies couldn't match it. But now the market is maturing past the user-friendly stage, and they need more specialization.

Then there's government-sponsored monopolies. Government-sponsored monopolies do not generally start with a good product, a good service, nor a good price. They have no motivation for good products or services, because they are naturally immune to any threat. The consumer cannot choose the better price or quality, and the company is free to raise the former while lowering the latter. For instance, the school cafeteria is this kind of monopoly. The food (obviously) is nothing to write home about, and the prices seem to keep rising, with ever more restrictions. They are free to promise things without carrying them out, and provide low quality food, because they can't lose. I've even considered the possibility of boycott, but this would be pointless. The company would merely be reimbursed by the government.

So, monopolies are a natural and even beneficial result of capitalism, and government-sponsored monopolies are wasteful, almost invariably corrupt children of socialism.

~Michael,
..."anyone who laughs is a Communist" ~Fry, Futurama...

OK. This really is stupid.

By: Anonymous

The path to hell is paved with good intentions, as the saying goes. Most supporters of President Bush's proposal to grant illegal aliens the right to work are now on that path and taking the country with them.

These supporters cannot be entirely to blame as the proposals principles look good on paper and appeal to the basic human emotion of compassion, which as many know, overrides reason. Unfortunately, the plan is lacking. It is full of holes and without an explanation as to how its objectives are to be carried out.

Under the proposal, legal and illegal aliens, for a small fee of course, could obtain the right to work legally for three years. This right can be renewed, but the limits are yet to be determined. This would allow us to document the illegal aliens in the country and have them pay taxes.

Only a limited number of immigrants will be given this privilege. Bush says that an employer must make every attempt to allow a US citizen to be hired first and if none can be found, the job goes to a non-citizen in the program.

This plan allows non-citizens to do our minimum-wage, dirty work. With this new ability to quickly gain a legal job, immigrants will send in applications by the gross. Turning into what workers unions call scabs, it would be fairly easy to threaten your higher paid workers with newly legal immigrants more than willing to work for minimum wage. The company needs only to announce that the job doesn't pay what the workers want and so must have immigrant workers.

Once these newly legal aliens are in the country, the problem of removing them after there work time expires presents itself. After all, the illegal aliens of the present have already proven that they are willing to break the law and risk national security to stay in the country for less than minimum wage and poor working conditions. Bush is proposing that the social security collected be set aside and paid to those in the program after they return to their country. This provides a monetary incentive for their homecoming.

Minimum wage in North Carolina is $5.15 per hour. This is about what an immigrant can expect doing the jobs nobody else wants. Working 40 hours a week, every week, for three years provides about $2,400 for social security. This is hardly enough to make a worker want to return home when they can stay illegally, after gaining easy entrance, and continue working and sending the money back home. Money sent back to Mexico from the United States accounts for Mexico's second largest source of foreign income. If the workers do decide to go back to their homeland, the taxes gained from their work are only given back to them in the form of a pitiful pay-off to leave.

President Bush says that rewarding illegal aliens for breaking the law is not his goal and this plan would not influence the decision for their Green card or citizenship. He also insists that this is not amnesty, but allowing illegal aliens to work legally without the consequences of their previous actions is amnesty. Allowing those who broke the law to work is also a slap in the face to everyone who spent years applying and paying expensive legal fees to obtain a Green card legally.

The country receives little to no taxes while allowing an easy access to our country for immigrants that probably won't leave, causing a strain on the economy. Our country does not stand to gain much with this new proposal, but Bush does. According to the 2000 census, persons of Hispanic or Latino origin make up about 12.5 percent of our countries 284,796,887 population. This means there are about 35,599,610 votes that traditionally go toward Democratic candidates and could now be swayed to vote Bush this fall. There is the true reason.

Thought patterns normal, Captain.

By: Unknown

I believed I've derived three basic types of thought and memory that determine a person's ability in certain fields.

The concrete thought pattern is the historical mind. Facts are easily memorized, and with real examples, or constant exposure to some intellectual stimulus, the workings of a process can be derived. These people are best at history, second best at English (of the core classes).

The abstract thought pattern is the mathematical mind. How processes and ideas work can be comprehended easily, even without real examples. The abstractions and idealisms of math work very well for these people, and science is relatively easy for them.

Then there's what I like to call "philotic" thought patterns, named because it's correlated to the ideas in my theory of energy, which is loosely based on Orson Scott Card's philotic physics in the Ender's Game series. I may post the theory later. This people fall in the middle, but generally to one side. They grasp the abstract workings of systems more easily than concrete thinkers, but can apply these workings easily to the real world, and learn facts and formulae relatively easily. This is a sliding spectrum of ability; for instance, I am about 70% abstract, 30% concrete. This means I am exceptional at science, very good at math, good at english, and bad at history (relative to my base academic skill, which is rather high, so "bad" at history isn't necessarily actually bad at history). If someone was good at English, they would likely be, relative to their base skill, exceptional at English, very good at history, good at science, and bad at math.

Of course, there are always exceptions, and this is only the crude outline of a theory. I just felt like posting something tonight.

~Michael,
...I'm tired of doing stuff. Stuff should stop needing to be done...

New column

By: UnrepentantNewDealer

New Column
Inspired (maybe that isn't the right word) by Michael Akerman's recent addition to the blog of a Thoughts in Brief column, I have decided to embark upon the uncertain prospect of a semi-regular brief column of my own which I hereby christen Random Ramblings. Let the good times roll!


So, How 'Bout Those Panthers?

No really, how 'bout 'em. I am about as far from a sports fanatic as you could get, but even I am getting somewhat excited about this year's Super Bowl (as opposed to the commercials--check out last week's Foxtrot in the comics when Peter asks Jason who he thinks will win).

For a team that was really bad until this year, the Panthers have really turned things around. Now, surprisingly, I really want them to win. Perhaps that's because of my innate sympathy with the underdog, or perhaps it could be chalked up to state loyalty. After all, I'm going off to college next year and I don't want new acquaintances to say "You're from North Carolina? You're football team sucks." So to the Panthers, I say "Don't screw up, don't make North Carolina the punchline of every joke in the nation--again..."


Ah, Politics Is Such Sweet Sorrow...

"Howeird" Dean has done it again. The pundits tell us that his infamous post-Iowa "Dean Scream" combined with John Kerry's first place performance (and Dean's third-place finish) in Iowa narrowed Dean's more than 25-point lead over Kerry in New Hampshire to a loss to Kerry yesterday by more than 10 percentage points. But Dean's loss in Iowa though cannot be neatly explained by his post-Iowa speech. Dean was the front-runner by a wide margin in Iowa and in national polls. The hoarse speech Dean gave in Iowa hurt his image, but that was not the nail in his coffin. The bane of Howard Dean has always been one thing: Electabilty.

Dean was able to convince himself that Democratic primary voters would back him because he was the most liberal candidate. He swung to the left early, because Democratic primary voters are always more liberal than ordinary voters that tip the balance in the general election (vice-versa for the GOP). Dean probably planned to swing back to the center for the general election against Bush. It was the tried and true strategy. But it failed this time because Dean swung so far to the left, he couldn't come back. He played the extreme liberal role to the hilt, so that was the angle taken by the major media and adroitly exploited by his primary opponents: Dean is extremely liberal, Americans have never elected anyone this liberal, therefore Bush will inevitably win if Dean gets the nomination.

The one thing Dean forgot was the very thing that made him the front-runner: anger at Bush. Dean was the angry candidate and that appealed to all true Democrats who are furious at Bush. But Democrats are not just idealists, we are in John Kennedy's praise "Practical Idealists". Democratic voters despise Bush so much that they will vote for the candidate most able to defeat him in November. That is all that matters to the average Democratic voter: "Which candidate is most likely to sweep this crook and his cronies and fellow parasites from the White House?" In this case, Dean came up short, and Kerry was the big winner.

After all, who would you bet on: the Vietnam War veteran with a Purple Heart and years of experience in national security issues or the guy who hid in the Texas Air National Guard rather than be drafted to go to Vietnam, a guy who went AWOL from his Guard unit for two years and has yet to offer an explanation for his unauthorized absence? As Kerry said in a recent speech (this is paraphrased)," If George Bush wants to make this election a debate on national security, I have three words for him that I know he understands: Bring It On!"

It looks like the Democrats might actually choose a candidate who could compete on an even playing field with Bush. I recently overheard a Republican classmate at school worry "I don't know. They're [Democrats] getting smarter. They picked Kerry in Iowa." I don't imagine Karl Rove's been getting much sleep lately....

Whew! I guess I'll stop there for now. What's that you say? I promised a "brief column"? Didn't the word Ramblings in the title tip you off? Well, now you know better than to trust a stream-of-consciousness-style writer to ever be brief.

Until the next "brief" post,

~Michael Smith

The Run Down

By: Unknown

I figured I should do a quick run down of some recent news items that warrant opinions, but since I don't have anything amazingly revealing to add to discussions, I'll just make a post of

Thoughts in Brief

---

The Dean Dance


As we all know, Dean made a fool of himself at the Iowa caucuses, committing primary election suicide by alienating the elite primary voters by revealing himself as immature and lacking self control.

I personally think this is a large part of why he's losing in the primaries and caucuses, where the voters are party elites who want a serious candidate with an actual campaign, rather than Dean's "campaign" of "Young People R0X0R."

---

Spaced Out


Now, I'm a big fan of space exploration. The space program literally pulled America to the forefront of science and technology, energizing research into polymers, food, sleep surfaces, powdered drinks, duct tape, aluminum foil, and countless other modern conveniences. Also, space is really cool (not just temperature-wise) and it's a great thing to learn more about. So, when there were rumors of a new Bush space initiative, I was excited. I looked forward to media coverage of physical testing of today's astronauts, amazing discoveries in science and technology, and pictures from orbit.

Yet Bush sorely disappointed me. The plan, it turns out, calls for a new space vehicle in ten years, and calls to land on the moon in 15 years. Allow me to reiterate: 15 years. Almost as long as my entire life so far. Let me point out that the original space program under Kennedy, started in 1960, took only 9 years to reach the moon... in the 1960s. With 40 years of advancement under our belt, we should be able to reach the moon next week. Then there's the 10 year span until we get new space vehicles. Prototypes for the "Next Space Shuttle" have been around since before the First Space Shuttle, and the current fleet of space shuttles is getting extremely old, as space vessels go. It's no wonder that people worry about safety on the shuttle.

Also, the Hubble telescope is going to be shut down in (IIRC) about 5 years, two years before the next telescope goes up. This stuff really shouldn't take that long.

---

MyDoom is YourDoom


Another virus is traversing the net with astounding speed, called by most "MyDoom," but officially titled W32.Novarg.A@mm (MyDoom is catchy and short). I think this worm is hilarious, because, as one news site said, it really was made by "some disgruntled Linux user." Linux users are, frankly, pissed at some company named SCO (I have no clue why), and one of them made the MyDoom virus to target them.

MyDoom comes in your email inbox (by the way, when did it change from e-mail to email?) looking like a bounce-back from your email server, as in, one of those EMAIL ADDRESS NOT FOUND emails. But it comes with an attachment (I got two today. Mine were error.txt, I think, as the attachment) that people keep opening. I have to say, these internet users are... dumb. Seriously, why would you care what the error log says on an ADDRESS NOT FOUND error? People need to learn to think.

---

And you thought your cell reception was bad...


Several days ago (weeks now?) the Mars rover Spirit lost contact with Houston. The control center was trying to contact it, but the only response they got were acknowledgement beeps, saying the rover got the messages. No images. No data on environmental surroundings. The media was abuzz.

Apparently, though, they think they've solved the problem. I was watching CNN, and they said that NASA scientists think that the rovers hard drive became overloaded. It essentially ran out of the free space necessary to create messages and carry out orders. You'd think a Mars rover would have terabytes of hard drive space to store all the highly detailed information. High quality technology there...

---

Happy Birthday to Me


Yep, I'm now 18, and as a birthday gift, God gave me nearly a week off from school (could be a whole week. Need to see what happens today and tomorrow.), because He loves me more than the rest of humanity. That's right, I said it.

Anyways, this year I get to vote (important year, too. Presidential elections and all) and... smoke cigarettes and... go to... strip clubs and.......... 18 is more boring than I expected. I even get to sign up for the draft (Stupid Uncle Sam, always sticking it to the little guy).

---

So, those are the things I think are most important about the last couple of weeks, except the Guilford County School Board removal of Indian mascots. For in depth opinions on subjects like this, see my post on the Race Card.

~Michael,
...also, Guilford County Educational Television (Channel 2 on Time Warner Cable) plays some really good music...

Magic Web Site Transformation!

By: Unknown

Now that I'm hosting the blog on my webspace (technically, RoadRunner's webspace, but it's rented by my family) I'm thinking about making the blog into a multi-page web site, with seperate sections for each regular contributor.

I figure I'll present it professionally in a kind of newpaper/forum style, and add a TrackBack link at the bottom of each post to allow easy responses to posts by different authors. I think I'll also figure out a way to maintain links to responses on original posts (i.e., I write a post, Smith responds using my TrackBack URL, I add a link to his post on my original post). I also plan on having a Reader's Contributions section and a Webmaster's Log, tracking the developments of the website itself.

Each regular contributor will be a Staff Writer, and I'll put those neat little black and white pictures of each staff writer on his section. I will be the Webmaster.

All I need now is a title. I'm leaning toward "The Learned Weasel" (Learned pronounced ler-ned), but feel free to give suggestions. I will also need artwork matching the title. If I go with The Learned Weasel, I'm thinking a weasel in a purple velvet robe (the fancy rich type) sitting on a beanbag wearing a monocle and smoking a pipe while holding an open newspaper and looking at the viewer. If you can draw, by all means send your work for this to me. I'll cite you as the artist right next to the art, if I use it. Send contributions to InnerVistas@hotmail.com.

~Michael,
...or the Learned Gecko, or Learned Monkey, or Learned Ferret...

Happy New Year

By: Unknown

Editor's Edit: Dateline 1-5-04: There's an actual issue post below this one. Read it.

---

Should old acquaintances... and old people... and babies... and champagne.

Yeah...

May your year be blessed with all that you wish, even if you trod on others' toes to get it. May my life be blessed, and may I be blissfully unaware of the suffering of others.

It's what we all really want right?

(That seems like it should be tongue-in-cheek, but it's not.)

~Michael,
...I didn't actually post exactly at 12:00:02. I just changed the time stamp...

"Come! Bathe with me!"

By: Unknown

Inspiration struck last night when I was thinking about making a new blog post, but didn't know what to write, and I came up with a nifty analogy that happens to revolve around an SNL line. Thus, it must be a perfect blog post, because:

1.) It's political in nature.
2.) It involves a nifty analogy.
3.) It revolves around an SNL line.

---

Before I move on, I wanted to say that I've moved to a private server, can host images and such on it, and will probably eventually expand to a multiple page blog/home page thing.

So, update your bookmarks, even though my blogspot site will redirect you to this site.

And I can verify that my easter egg works on Mozilla Firebird every time I load the site, but I can't verify anything on MSIE.

---

Multilateralism

I think one of my big quips about the modern political system is that even the conservatives are fundamentally liberal, in the vaguest sense of the word. The Bush administration pushed for multilateralism in the war with Iraq (sorry, "war in Iraq"), Clinton with health care, every modern President (after Nixon, at least) with any important social or military reform. But this is bad politics.

Seeking multilateralism is fine and dandy, and could be useful, but Communism never works. Asking both parties to agree on the neccessity of legislation for political reasons creates a hypocritical situation. Before the War in Iraq, the Republicans pushed for multilateralism, starting a movement among the populace for multilateralism. The Democrats appeared to be left with only one politically sound choice: support the war in Iraq. This made it hard to raise opposition, and created bad policies. Competition is the only way to make truly beneficial legislation.

For instance, competition between the two parties before the War in Iraq would have allowed concerns to be raised and arguments to be addressed. Democrats could have spoken out for post-war policy, moderates would have been swayed slightly, and Republicans would have had to bow to these concerns to allow the war. Oil factories would probably be up and running, a political system would be taking root, and Halliburton would not be milking the US budget for all it's worth.

In short, multilateralism is like the Republican party and the Democratic party taking a bath together. They bathe together with the intention of finishing their baths quicker and more efficiently, but in the end they simply splash around the issue, make a big mess, and they have to spend a long time cleaning up afterward.

~Michael,
...feel free to comment on which Republican and which Democrat you pictured bathing together in the bathtub analogy...

Liberals "Blowing smoke" and Conservatives "Full of Hot Air"

By: Unknown

Now for my scathing rebuttal:

---

Well, Smith, I must say, I actually do partially agree with you. It is not true that Liberals base all of their decisions on emotion. Nor is it true that Conservatives base all of our decisions on logic and fact. Nor is it true that Liberals base all of their decisions on logic and fact. Nor is it true that Conservatives base all of our decisions on emotion.

My belief is that the actual reasons (on both sides) and the stated reasons (on both sides) are entirely different. The leaders of both parties base their decisions on highly logical principles, such as "appealing to the emotions of the public will get me reelected." Luckily, this demagoguery appeals to about equal portions of voters on both sides, and has little impact on actual voting (Special Note: This does not mean politicians can stop appealing to emotion, because competition dictates that if both sides stop doing something beneficial, one side will start again, and then both will). So both sides must also appeal to logic. Objective observation will reveal that both sides, in fact, use their logic to make decisions, with little or no emotion involved (in my opinion, of course, liberals' logic is wrong, but that's just me).

Now, let's take the death penalty again as our example. The Conservative logic is that the death penalty decreases capital crimes, is thorough and precise in its application, and allows few enough mistakes that it is justified in its use. The Liberal logic is that the death penalty does not decrease capital crimes enough (they'll never say "enough." It's always left unqualified. Demagoguery, remember?), is not applied precisely, and executing even one innocent is worse than a vague possibility of a few other innocents being murdered.

Most of this is hard to prove or based on morals (note: not necessarily emotions. Morals are more logical and rigid), but there are some facts that have been distorted by www.deathpenaltyinfo.org that can be put in a more proper light. First, the statement that the death penalty has not benefited the South: frankly, this is crock. While the South's murder rate is higher than the national average, this has always been this way, especially after the migration to the Sun Belt. The South has a younger, more minority-based population than the North, as well as lower education on average, and a greater level of poverty. Of course the murder rate is higher. Statistics don't lie, and all major studies have shown that these demographics exhibit higher murder rates.

The true question in this case is not the level of capital crimes, but the effect of the death penalty on that level. Since the early 1990s, when Bush really kicked capital punishment up a notch in Texas, Texas' murder rate has dropped 66%, compared to a national 33%. In that time, the difference in minority population between the South and North has, in fact, increased. Difference in poverty and education is essentially unchanged. The only reason for the large decrease is the death penalty.

Turning to statistics again, it has been proven that minorities are executed at a higher rate than whites, compared to their populations. However, minorities also commit capital crimes at much higher rate than whites, compared to their population. Why? I have theories, but that would be another post. Regardless, the disproportionate executions are the result of... well... disproportionate crimes.

Regarding executing innocents, there has never been a case in which someone who was executed was later proven innocent. I can't say anything justifying the possibility of this happening. All things have risks that must be taken.

My personal opinion has little to do with emotions. The death penalty is alright in my eyes because the felon has not only stopped contributing to society, he has been detrimental. I believe in second chances for everyone, but on the second capital conviction, the murderer is a waste of resources. His death is fully justified.

My reason would never appeal to the masses, and this explains the "emotion" theory on political ideals. If I were a politician, I would say that the felon has hurt people and that he has played God. This is how it works on most, if not all, political ideals.

My death penalty reaffirmations (I had assumed they were true, but I checked) are from Sam Francis' article at TownHall.com

~Michael,
...you have to appeal to the gun-totin', hootin'-hollerin' rednecks...

"Bleeding-heart liberals" and "Compassionless conservatives"

By: UnrepentantNewDealer

This post will serve the purpose of debunking one of the most common misconceptions that characterize the vast majority of discussions about politics, an untruth that has been repeated by those on the Right (and to some extent, on the Left) for so long, that most people have accepted it as fact. The misconception: that the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that the positions of liberals are always based on emotion, rather than reason, and that the positions of conservatives are always based on reason, not emotion. Many intelligent people have fallen prey to this mythThis hypothesis is favored by conservatives, who want to believe that their positions are the only logical ones to take and that the positions of liberals can be dismissed as the illogical rantings of the "bleeding-hearts" and thus irrelevant; those few liberals who actually do base their opinions solely on emotion also favor this hypothesis because it allows them to claim that conservatives don't even have a heart.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since the best defense is a good offense, I will first eviscerate the conservatives' claims to basing all their positions on reason. Take the death penalty, for example. Conservatives claim that they support the death penalty because it reduces crime; that is to say that the everpresent possibility of exucution by the state discourages criminals from committing capital offenses. Until 1976, the death penalty was outlawed as unconstitutional; in that year it reversed itself. Logically, if the conservatives are right, it stands to reason that the rate of capital crimes should have decreased since 1976, at least in states with the death penalty. Instead, according to the FBI, in Texas, which executes more than three times as many inmates annually as any other state, the crime rate is nearly five times the national average. The South as a region accounts for 82% of executions since 1976, yet has long had the highest murder rate in the nation. The Northeast, by contrast, makes up less than 1% of the execution total, yet has the lowest murder rate in the country. (All these irrefutable facts and more can be found at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org; type death penalty into Google and click "I'm feeling lucky) This of course makes a mockery of their only "rational" reason to support the death penalty.

But of course, deterrence isn't their real reason, it's vengeance. Support the death penalty to punish these sick inhuman SOBS and make sure they don't kill again! This is obviously not a logical reason to support the death penalty; it is in fact based on nothing but EMOTION, the same thing they claim liberals' arguments are based on. Those BLEEDING-HEART CONSERVATIVES!!!:)

As a moderate liberal, I oppose the death penalty not just on moral (emotional) grounds but also because it is so inhumane it has been banned by all other true Western democracies, it is irreversible and there is no possibility of restitution (if later evidence would prove your innocense, you can be freed from a jail cell; dead inmates can't be brought back to life, obviously), its unsettling habit of sending minority inmates to death row far out of proportion to the rate of crimes committed by minorites, and the aforementioned fact that it doesn't deter capital crimes. Unlike conservatives, liberals have a position based on fact.

This is a trend that you see whenever you take a "fair and balanced" (Fox News copywrite lawyers: in the words of our Dear Leader, "Bring em on!") look at the positions of liberals and conservatives. Abortion, affirmative action, environmental protection, government regulation of the economy, school prayer, foreign policy, civil rights and civil liberties, social service programs--the list goes on and on; on all of these issues the conservative positions are illogical and fly in face of common sence, reason, and established scientific facts. I don't worry about the hearts of most conservatives, I worry about their heads. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that, on any given issue, conservatives tend to choose the position that makes the least, not the most, sense. Reliance on either logic or emotion alone can lead to tragedy. The great strength of liberalism is that it has both Reason and Emotion on its side on most issues.

See Michael, I told you this would be an inflammatory post!:)

Until next time,

~Michael Smith

...don't even try to resist the urge to comment...