"Crazy" has no intellectual boundaries

book smart and people stupid.

...wasn't disappointed.

he could be a force to be reckoned with in Washington, DC."

No, no he wont.

Because the right wing has slid into crazy land.

Not everyone in the TEA Party movement is what you appear to envision (appear, since all we have to go on is your posting). You might not want to be so bigoted in your beliefs.

Or you can stay in your happy bubble, pretend that everyone there is Them, and not have to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

Sounds like a Thomas Edison type of guy to me (Whiz kid? What, is he some kind of Tony Stark for "inventing" some interface device?). I'm intensely suspicious of anyone who supports religious beliefs. It demonstrates an error in logical thinking faculties.

Never trust an engineer that thinks the world is 6000 years old. And for the record, Edison was a douche bag.

"But he's smart... I think I'm smart. He should agree with meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Intelligent people disagree on stuff all the time. Especially when it's something as complicated and untestable as political hypothesis. Get over it.

An Indian (not Native American) friend of mine was telling me about the acts of racism she was facing from her boss at what may be the most well-known public university in the U.S. for its academics and research, and its very liberal politics and role in late 1960s culture. She eventually quit her job because it got so bad. And I'll admit I was shocked even more when she told me her boss that was doing these things was black. Lesson: smart people who should know better, often do not.

Sometimes. Not always.

For instance people who believe in a flat earth did not come to an alternative conclusion they are just wrong.

...sure it would make no sense to see an educated person associating themselves with what the major media outlets associate with them. After all, all tea party people are nazis and all democrats are communist sympathizers, right? right?

If, on the other hand, you intelligently realize that most American's are actually fairly close in terms of political view and the cartoons presented to you are false on their face, you might see that both sides have rational points that should be listened to, even fought for.

Speaking as a radical left wing family oriented gun loving software engineer, hell if I know.

Seriously? Anyone with an analytic mind and who has read both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would understand that the TEA party has a valid point, whether or not you agree with them politically. Ignorance is no excuse for an ad hominem attack.

He's bootstrappy, and probably short on empathy. Fits the profile just fine. Just because you can understand the intracacies of circuits doesn't mean you're really going to understand the social implications of inequality.

"When you live on cash, you understand the limits of the world around which you navigate each day. Credit leads into a desert with invisible boundaries."
---Anton Chekhov

I honestly don't give a crap what party he's in - if he can get at least some good tech/engineer representation in that parliament of whores that we call Congress, it's win-win as far as I'm concerned.

Again, I disagree. We can surely agree some viewpoints are not valid, for instance any that seeks to deprive someone of human rights, or authorizes war crimes as a matter of course. Also who think voluntary money paid to support society is theft, etc.

Echo chambers often look like agreement to those with a distorted worldview. Do you self-identify as a whiny liberal?

I disagree. Hopefully most people would agree until our debt situation looks better higher taxes are what we need. Our government does not need to be smaller in all areas, sure we can kill the TSA and end the foreign wars but the EPA and FDA should be given more power to do what they are supposed to do.

A rational person. You have no place on the US political spectrum.

You are in good company though.

Nope.

I thought they were more bootstrappy, less government healthcare?

Last I remember they want to old to die in the street rather than pay any taxes to prevent it.

My personal attitude is that you are a fine example of what is wrong with right wingers, instead of even asking to clarify anything you go beating up strawmen.

The last point is not begging the question at all. It is a simple statement that those who believe taxes are theft are simply wrong.

Simple principled answers would be nice. It's like when people want to throw out the old hairball code and write a 'clean' program from scratch; nothing maps so simply to reality.

What happens if your policies result in lots more people dying, getting seriously hurt, or going bankrupt?

What about illiterate people? People who don't read English? Confused elderly people? (Confused middle-aged and young people?). What about people who simply overlook the instructions? Is it ok for them to suffer injury or disfigurement?

Should a Wall Street con artist be able to push whatever he wants on your grandmother, as long as he sends her the prospectus to read? What about a contest where the fine print says losers forfeit their houses; would that be ok as long as there is a warning? Products that explode when left in the sun?

What, exactly, is their point? Complaining that their taxes are too high when their taxes are historically low?

Taxes are voluntary in the same way home rent is voluntary - you're free to not pay it, but you need to move out then.

Well, speaking as a left leaning person, I'd say nothing in that list pisses me off. What pisses me off is all the right wing social conservatism (often including a healthy dose of racism) and insane militarism that so often seems to go along with calls for "limited government" which, of course, isn't limited at all. Liberalism and libertarianism are both viewpoints that have a place in a sane political debate; what calls itself conservatism long ago went off into la-la land.

Your characterization of Occupy is about as accurate as the GP's characterization of the Tea Party.

I think you didn't quite get the point of my comparison. You are free to move to a different country and "rent" the government there; there are quite a few which are cheaper. Or you can try to set up a country of your own - except that all land is already taken up by someone else (but that is also true with my rent analogy - if all land everywhere is purchased, and they refuse to sell it to you, you can only rent; so free market does not offer any relief here, either).

The people who live in the country are not self sufficient. At the very minimum they enjoy the protection of the laws of that country - protection against both internal threats (i.e. the mob that would come and take away what's theirs), and external (a hostile country that would take over).

So if the government starts a tax on the air you breathe, you can free not to breathe?

Taxation is unjust. Forced taxation is unjust.

Let me put it another way:
If I walked over to your house and demanded $1,000, you said 'to hell with you', and then I shot your wife and burned your house to the ground...I'm a murderer and my actions are immoral, right?

If I walked over to your house and demanded $1,000, you said 'to hell with you', and then I hired a bunch of thugs to come over, shoot your wife, and burn your house to the ground...I'm a murderer and that's called a gang or mafia and our actions are immoral, right?

Lastly, If I walked over to your house and demanded $1,000, you said 'to hell with you', and a few hundred armed men showed up, shot your wife, and burned your house to the ground....I'm not a murderer. It's called 'government', and it's suddenly moral?

(If you've lived in a fog for a few decades and think the government doesn't do this, Google for things like 'Ruby Ridge', 'Branch Davidians', and 'Mountain Meadows Massacre'. Or replace the demand for $1,000 in taxes with a demand you stop smoking pot, a demand you stop drinking milk from a cow, or your stereo is 'too loud' and you tell the cops they need a warrant before coming on your property)

I'd at least like to have someone in government that understood the difference between statistics, studies, and facts. That won't get enraged over Dihydrogen Monoxide. Or will ask questions when presented with "studies" about EMF emitted by power lines, and compare them to all other sources of EMF. Or will stop second-guessing actual experts in a field when it comes to cost analysis. (Looking to trim 5-10% is one thing, but decrying it by an order of magnitude?)

Yes, I'm currently very frustrated with the local councillors for spending my tax dollars in fighting something that isn't even their jurisdiction, and basing their fight on non-science. I've been tempted to run, but trying to figure out how that would interfere with a much-higher-paying job ... but not so high paying that I have the independence to leave.

The difference in this case is that it's not "your house". It's everyone's country, and its citizens have have collectively decided that residents are to pay for the privilege of living here.

If you don't want to pay taxes, you're free to move out and buy an island somewhere in the Pacific with full transfer of sovereignty, from any country that is willing to sell you one on such terms.

Neat. But living on cash is hardly better in a society where wealth and productivity are completely divorced.

Gah - there's so much wrong with this post I don't know where to start.

Yes, the voting on this bill happened quite quickly after it was finalized. But A.) it's not like it wasn't being debated for six months prior, and B.) it's largely what Massachusetts has had for years prior (oh, and was originally created and promulgated by Republican think-tanks) and C.) it's not some massive dumping of cash into Obama's offshore account. Its transparent, you can read it, its complicated BECAUSE THE U.S. HEALTH SYSTEM IS COMPLICATED, it's a sincere effort to solve a big, complicated, longstanding problem.

Yes, Ben Nelson got a bribe. Congress took it back from him later, look at the Congressional Quarterly if you want the details. People have been trying to get similar legislation passed in America for nearly a hundred years, they were supposed to call the whole thing off because of one last-minute hold out? Is it not clear that Congressman Nelson simply wanted a bribe, rather than him having substantial issues with the legislation?

Yes the bottom-line price of this legislation and the system it creates kinda-sorta is an estimate. Given the size of the system, the vagaries of predicting medical advances, etc, there's absolutely no way to write laws for any system where the bottom-line cost were absolutely known in advance.

The Tea Party. Basically everybody slept through George W. Bush's two terms as he blew through tremendous chunks of taxpayer money - giving tax breaks up the wazoo, laying out a huge new medicare benefit, created the largest new bureaucracy in fifty years, entering us into a war just on his own whim, apparently. I didn't see a single tea party person throughout all of that. Suddenly a Democrat comes to office, and every dime his administration spends is an affront to LIBERTY! TO THE BARRICADES! BUT WAIT WHILE I STAPLE THESE TEA BAGS TO MY HAT!

I see. They are invalid because you have decided so. Also you appeal to the majority because, god knows, if most people say "X", it's probably right. Gotcha. Tell me why heredity based systems should be dismissed as invalid. Is this based on your world-view? Your personal morality of what is right or wrong. What if the democratic majority would result in disaster -- or a war. What if a dictator who suppresses the violent will of the masses is the only thing holding a country back from destruction.

Take Egypt for example. Now that the big bad evil dictator Mubarak is gone, the people by democratic will are going to vote in somebody who will throw the peace treaty with Israel out -- very likely leading to war. Over 70% see Saudi Arabia as a model for social policy (stoning, etc...) as opposed to 17% for the increasingly less moderate Turkish model. This is a situation where a dictator protected a population from it's own religious idiocy. It also protected minorities (Copts, for example) from the tyranny of the majority. Now that the dictator is gone, the Copts are being slaughtered. Your morality might say that the people, however wrong, should be allowed to be as self destructive as they choose. Others might argue that a stong central dictatorship progressively modernizing society and removing the destructive influences of religion might be a far more "Moral" choice in the long run. If there is a war with Israel and all hell breaks loose, it'll be hard to argue democracy was good thing for the region.

The point I'm trying to make is that not everything is so cut and dry when it comes to what is "valid" and what is not. Systems that are appropriate in one place might be totally disastrous in another. The idea that all cultures are equal or that all people want the same thing leads to nothing but disaster.

Nobody is entirely self-sufficient. Even the people who live out in the boonies, have their own well, their own power and their own food depend on living in an environment where thugs don't roam the area, looking for cheap thrills or money.

That's the problem with every single Libertarian/Tea Partier in the US. They think that a lack of government simply means that they get no medicare in exchange for no taxes. What they fail to understand is that the political and social stability of the US is built on taxes as well.

horrible analogy. Most people who want to buy a gun, buy one for control over their own lives (self defense). Most people who want political power, want it for control over others.

how many times has this been said and tried throughout history? No clue, but I'll be willing to be no matter what laws would get passed there will be plenty of loopholes.

More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than have died from guns I own.

As for your calls of censorship on top of that, fuck off.

This asshole has just made statements to remove both the first and second amendment from your list of freedoms. I'm not sure why it is insightful, dictatorships never are and that is what this is wanting.

Engineers can buy into all sorts of sheer bullshit. Look up the Salem Hypothesis. Being an engineer does not mean one has some special ability to evaluate studies or facts, though some engineers seem to believe they do.

As to this guy, he sounds like a bit of a nut. Just what the Tea Party seems to attract. Being an engineer doesn't mean one is sane either.

If you want me to think the Tea Party has smart people, the smart people in the party need to speak up, and call out the dumb asses in their ranks.

This is the absolute worst aspect of the American Dream, the great lie that somehow you alone are responsible for what you become. There is this huge society around you that as responsible as anything you may want, but it won't survive if everybody argues themselves into a sort of self-righteous sociopathy.

The Tea Party doesn't have a monopoly on being pissed off about that particular event. Most Tea Party claims ring hollow because they had 8 years of Bush to say something when all of these same types of things were happening, but conveniently waited until a Democrat took office before making any real noise.

--Jeremy

I'd at least like to have someone in government that understood the difference between statistics, studies, and facts. That won't get enraged over Dihydrogen Monoxide.

We already have people "in government" that fit the bill. They're just not legislators or executives. Being an engineer doesn't guarantee good judgement.

And we have had an engineer as president of the US during my lifetime, not that long ago. While he was a very decent person, he ended up getting chewed up and spit out by our political system. Because our political system does that to anyone who is decent or moral or reasonable.

It doesn't matter if someone is right about everything. What matters is that they try to educate themselves to figure out what's right. I think this quote is relevant, and I agree with it:

It's not only rare, it's even common. When I went to school, the Dean remarked to everyone that it was worrying that people studying engineering tend to become or stay conservative. Perhaps it was in relation to several of the mandated categories of classes for engineers all having a leftist political bent, which would tend to make the average person adopt leftist views. Perhaps the thinking went "Hey, we'll force them to take a 'choice' of several different classes of political indoctrination masquerading as learning, and then they'll think that their all-knowing professor is correct and then adopt his or her views. The same general idea has worked for the MSM for years, why not here?"

The problem they were facing is that they were attempting to modify the opinion of intelligent individuals who have firmly adopted the engineering mindset of rigorously seeking truth, and doing their research. If a political stream of thought does not benefit them they are not going to adopt it.

So because I want to hunt, enjoy target shooting, recognize the historical and engineering value of firearms, want to protect my/family/person, and (most importantly) want to exercise one of my Constitutionally guaranteed rights, I can't? What kind of logic is this?

Yeah, it's spelled 'harbour' :P

Amen! A good government is not a government that just slavishly follows an ideology, but rather a government that remains pragmatic, and is populated by people who realize there are shades of gray to be found, and that no one has some sort of automatic and permanent patent on the truth.

Or, as Isaac Asimov said; Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

That's my axiom. A lot of what you think to be the capital-T truth is just simply prejudices and unquestioned assumptions. I work my ass off never to simply believe something because it "makes sense". Always be ready to modify, and yes, sometimes, even drop a position. I remember for many years I was staunchly anti-homosexual. I even wrote and had printed a letter in a big city newspaper railing against gay rights; a letter written in the foolishness and delusion of youth and a letter I truly regret now. I realized at some point that it doesn't matter at all what I think of homosexuals; they're people, they have a right to pursue their life as they see fit, they're not hurting me, and any objection I have had to them is nothing more than the untested assumptions that came out of my youth being raised in a very religious home.

It extends even to economics. This idea that a purely centrally controlled command economy is the way to prosperity is just as absurd as the idea that castrating a government's ability to regulate commerce is equally the road to happiness. I don't even think finding a middle path and sticking to it is a good idea. A government has to be able to modify its strategy and policy, and thus has to have the power to do so. That power cannot be unlimited, but it cannot be rendered so insignificant that ultimately the government cannot act at all.

The single biggest problem I have with ideological purists is a total inability to modify position. It's one thing to define oneself as, say, a fiscal conservative, but quite another to say "I think the Federal Government should be cut to pre-Civil War levels!" I think ideological purism shows an intellectual rigidity and an emotional immaturity, and neither of these are particularly desirable character traits.

It's people like you that pervert the meaning of the Second Amendment. Let's break it down a little bit, shall we? "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The first part: "a well regulated militia". In this they are clearly calling for a militia that is controlled by the government. That cannot be argued. However, one must also look at the definition of a militia. Militia are historically made up of local citizens, generally of a town or group of towns, that will on occasion get together and drill and practice, so as to be available to be called up for local defense in case of a conflict. Militia played a huge role in the Revolutionary War, bolstering the ranks of the Continental Army for a battle. The key point of a militia is that it is not equipped by the government. Equipment is privately purchased or crafted, and weapons are supplied by each individual militiaman. In the case of the Revolutionary War, militiamen used their own muskets or rifles that they would use for hunting or protection (in the case of some frontier areas). These were privately owned weapons, not government issue. The government only supplied the regular troops with equipment and weapons.

Now the second part: "necessary to the security of a free state". This says that militia are necessary for security. Note that the 2nd Amendment never mentions an army (an army is specifically addressed outside the Bill of Rights). For them to leave out the word 'army", they are clearly saying that the ability of local citizens to arm themselves and defend their home (not their house, but their town, their state, their country), is vital to the security of a state.

The third and fourth parts are just as easy to understand: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". Look at the writings of the men that wrote the Constitution, the leading thinkers of that time. The phrase "the people" was always used as a stark contrast to the government. The phrase always meant the citizens, the common man, the farmer on his farm, and the merchant in the city. They are not talking about the governor, or the soldier, or elected representatives; these are all members or instruments of the government. Let's look at another famous phrase by these men for context: "a government of the people, by the people, for the people". This shows that the term "the people" is to be taken as distinct from "the government". And finally: "shall not be infringed". This means that this right, the right of the common man to possess and own firearms, should not be taken away without just cause (this right certainly can and at times should be forfeited, but that's another discussion).

Any logical, reasoned examination of the wording of the Second Amendment, especially when compared to contemporary writings of the writers of the Constitution and their peers, shows that they believed that gun ownership is extremely important. The fact that they chose to make it the second Amendment means that this right was held in their highest regards after the freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and religion. There is no need to try and interpret intent. Their intent is clearly spelled out.

Hate to break it to you, but while your employer may deduct it pre-tax, you're paying the full amount. You're just extraordinarily gullible and have been duped by a stupid accounting trick. Let me guess, you also think your employer pays your social security, right?

Here's how you know: when a business decides to hire a person, they write out two numbers:

A. salary + benefits + all the supposedly free stuff + all their "contributions"

B. total dollar value the employee will add to business operations

If A > B (or they're even close), that person does not get a job, no matter how much the government claims all that stuff is free.

So because I want to hunt, enjoy target shooting, recognize the historical and engineering value of firearms, want to protect my/family/person, and (most importantly) want to exercise one of my Constitutionally guaranteed rights, I can't?

I didn't say you "can't", I said you shouldn't.

Not because you want to target shoot, protect, historical blah blah, but because of that last part. Owning a gun because you "want to exercise one of my Constitutionally guaranteed rights" is exactly my point about how the very words of the Constitution are used to pervert its purpose and meaning.

There's a long list of things that you have the "right" to do that you should not do, including wearing stripes with polka dots, mixing the grain and the grape and bringing your clock radio into the bathtub.

The only problem with that is that he's with the Tea Party, which kind of blows a hole in your argument.

Our chance to do what? Become the world's largest economy? Get the world's largest army? Bring indoor plumbing and electricity to 99% of the population? Because we're 'winning' in all those things.

China is growing quickly, but it's because they have a lot of room to grow. Once you have a developed economy, it's hard to wring the same kind of growth out of it, because you're a lot closer to your potential.

That and the fact that he left all that behind to live an off the grid life, probably also means that his understanding of the world outside his little haven is probably a bit "off the grid" too.

Honestly, a gun-toting tea party supporting survivalist is probably the last sort of person I'd actually trust with anything, MIT or not.

Whilst I'm by no means suggesting this guy is a terrorist it's probably worth bearing in mind that a number of terrorist in recent years came from prestiguous universities. Clearly coming from a top university isn't exactly evidence that you're some super-trustworthy ultra-genius, but could equally just be an untrustworthy crackpot. My bet is this guy falls into the latter category.

Someone who joined the Tea Party at the start, when it seemed honest (Whether or not it actually was is another debate.) is entirely different from someone who still supports it.

The Tea Party, at this point, is 'the radical base of the Republican party', on pretty much every issue, from abortion to homosexuality to war-mongering to whatever. And home to every crazy Glenn-Beck conspiracy the very far right has been promoting.

In fact, it might be fun to actually ask members of the Tea Party why the Tea Party exists, and see how many of them can give an answer close to 'We don't want our taxes going to bail out banks and car companies.', which was the premise of it. (Which means it was pretty damn close to the OWS movement, although the OWS movement was more about money flowing the other way and buying the government...and in fact both of them got my respect at the start. One of them has kept on track, and kept my respect, and the other started ranting almost immediately about Obama's birth certificate and lost my respect.)

Of course, the Tea Party is a bunch of different organizations, but none of them are particularly any sort of 'free', 'non-crazy' organization. They're all either crazy, or, in a few cases, been captured by the Republican party. It's not like there's some reasonable independent Tea Party organization to point at.

It's a very interesting feature of the right, in fact. The issues constantly blur, where an group founded to push X, and only X, will end up supporting the entire agenda of the far-right. The Tea Party starts pushing social issues, churches end up pushing economic policies and being pro-war(!), everyone flirts with birtherism, etc, etc.

...something really fucked up is going on over there, and it seems very hard to find honestly 'single-policy' organization over there for people to join. I guess the NRA is still that, but that seems about it. (I know there are plenty of libertarian think tanks, and the party itself, but those aren't the sort of 'organizations to join' I'm talking about. You can't join AEI, and the party itself is ignored by the right.)

Over here on the left, if I join an environmental organization or a school reform organization or something, I know they're not going to start talking about gay adoption or 9/11 conspiracy nonsense or seizing the means of production or whatever. Organizations have missions, and stay on task, and there are large and angry debates when they try to act outside their scope, so the leader of the organizations are very careful about even personally expressing opinions outside that scope, just in case those positions are taken to represent the organization. And I'm talking about reasonable, left-ish positions, not crazy fringe ones.