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OOC - Beats the hell out of raising gas taxes.
OutofChaos wrote: Government bureaucracies, which are all that are created by increased taxes, don’t produce solutions. Free enterprise, innovative entrepreneurs, and encouraged individuals produce the technological change we need to address society’s problems.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Computer networking and information technology in general and the Internet in particular were direct results of DARPA. The U.S. part of the Human Genome Project is government run. Much of the cutting edge science such as biotech and nanotech are being devolped by U.S. govt. funded scientists and researchers. The trend seems to be that the U.S. govt. invests heavily in R&D because private companies aren't willing to take the risk. Then once the technology is developed it's handed off for free.
OutofChaos - Unlike Al Gore, I was there when the Internet came alive. It wasn’t the U.S. Government it was the encouraged individuals working in the universities across the country that built and grew the Internet. It wasn’t the U.S. Government that built the Web either. It was the U.S. Government that passed the federal mandate last week requiring all universities to upgrade their networks to allow for online government wiretapping. All at a cost to the universities of an estimated $7 billion dollars!
Fox - Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
bob - In any case OCC the science already exists to re-direct oil and gas revenues away from oil companies and middle east despots and into mass transit projects. Sorry if this is too clear and simple for you.
OutofChaos - bob, the only thing clear and simple, and unrefuted, is:
Quote:
So the premise is: If we raise taxes on gasoline, the oil company won’t get the money. If we raise taxes on gasoline the Arabs won’t get the money. If we raise taxes on gasoline WE get the money.
BLEEP! Wrong. Bad premise. I, and most others, am not buying this BIG LIE.
‘Big oil’ won’t cut their costs in the wake of higher taxes. The Arabs won’t charge less in the wake of higher taxes. All I get is much higher gasoline costs because the government is raising the price of gasoline.
The money is mine now; I don’t have to PAY me. I certainly don’t need you to charge me higher taxes to PAY me my money.
Your argument for higher gasoline taxes is ‘sound bite simple’ and fully flawed. That’s just one reason I don’t trust the ‘facts’ presented in the rest of your arguments.
When your economics, your history, and your rebuttals are all that bad, it's really quite simple to doubt your science.
fred smith - What makes you think that it is science with people like Bob? The true word here should be religion. We are being asked, no we are being forced to accept a lot of this on faith. This is not a new phenomenon. Like the pasturalists of the 18th century, the Luddites of the 19th and now the environmentalits, we have people who are foaming at the mouth about change and modernity and loss of innocence for which nasty consumers without the appropriate "sensitivities" simply do not understand. These immoral people with no sense of taste merely have higher consumption power which they waste on plastic!!! items at KMart! Have they no taste! and they live in tract housing! and go to shopping malls! and want food fast and cheap! and that is reprehensible and repulsive. These people should be sent with their credit cards to concentration camps and gassed or to re-education camps in the countryside until they learn. Get it? Until they "learn." Of course, the historical record of these kinds of prejudices and the disasters they led to is something that is not "learned" and that is what continually disappoints me about the human condition.
Mucha Man - Of course, there is the counterpart of people ignoring obvious threats, not preparing for them appropriately, and then suffering the consequences. Sometimes the apologists for the status quo really are out to lunch. Fred, are you part of the Orwells or the Chamberlains of our times?
BTW, I advocate more technology and better technology to make the world a cleaner, safer place? I'm certainly not a luddite. Don't take the easy way out and discredit a movement by isolating one extreme member.
In any case, even if environmentalism is a religion with some people, so what? You've taken plenty on faith yourself when it comes to supporting mid-east reforms. Cut bob some slack. Or do you feel that only the causes you believe in are worthy of respect?
Elegua - The religion argument cuts both ways. Conservatives who ignore negative externalities and refuse to believe that markets might not perform efficiently in all cases and ignore the lessons of the "commons" are right in the same boat as the carpet chewing and foaming-at-the-mouth environmentalists.
OutofChaos wrote: Government bureaucracies, which are all that are created by increased taxes, don’t produce solutions. Free enterprise, innovative entrepreneurs, and encouraged individuals produce the technological change we need to address society’s problems.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Computer networking and information technology in general and the Internet in particular were direct results of DARPA. The U.S. part of the Human Genome Project is government run. Much of the cutting edge science such as biotech and nanotech are being devolped by U.S. govt. funded scientists and researchers. The trend seems to be that the U.S. govt. invests heavily in R&D because private companies aren't willing to take the risk. Then once the technology is developed it's handed off for free.
OutofChaos - Unlike Al Gore, I was there when the Internet came alive. It wasn’t the U.S. Government it was the encouraged individuals working in the universities across the country that built and grew the Internet. It wasn’t the U.S. Government that built the Web either. It was the U.S. Government that passed the federal mandate last week requiring all universities to upgrade their networks to allow for online government wiretapping. All at a cost to the universities of an estimated $7 billion dollars!
Fox - Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
bob - In any case OCC the science already exists to re-direct oil and gas revenues away from oil companies and middle east despots and into mass transit projects. Sorry if this is too clear and simple for you.
OutofChaos - bob, the only thing clear and simple, and unrefuted, is:
Quote:
So the premise is: If we raise taxes on gasoline, the oil company won’t get the money. If we raise taxes on gasoline the Arabs won’t get the money. If we raise taxes on gasoline WE get the money.
BLEEP! Wrong. Bad premise. I, and most others, am not buying this BIG LIE.
‘Big oil’ won’t cut their costs in the wake of higher taxes. The Arabs won’t charge less in the wake of higher taxes. All I get is much higher gasoline costs because the government is raising the price of gasoline.
The money is mine now; I don’t have to PAY me. I certainly don’t need you to charge me higher taxes to PAY me my money.
Your argument for higher gasoline taxes is ‘sound bite simple’ and fully flawed. That’s just one reason I don’t trust the ‘facts’ presented in the rest of your arguments.
When your economics, your history, and your rebuttals are all that bad, it's really quite simple to doubt your science.
fred smith - What makes you think that it is science with people like Bob? The true word here should be religion. We are being asked, no we are being forced to accept a lot of this on faith. This is not a new phenomenon. Like the pasturalists of the 18th century, the Luddites of the 19th and now the environmentalits, we have people who are foaming at the mouth about change and modernity and loss of innocence for which nasty consumers without the appropriate "sensitivities" simply do not understand. These immoral people with no sense of taste merely have higher consumption power which they waste on plastic!!! items at KMart! Have they no taste! and they live in tract housing! and go to shopping malls! and want food fast and cheap! and that is reprehensible and repulsive. These people should be sent with their credit cards to concentration camps and gassed or to re-education camps in the countryside until they learn. Get it? Until they "learn." Of course, the historical record of these kinds of prejudices and the disasters they led to is something that is not "learned" and that is what continually disappoints me about the human condition.
Mucha Man - Of course, there is the counterpart of people ignoring obvious threats, not preparing for them appropriately, and then suffering the consequences. Sometimes the apologists for the status quo really are out to lunch. Fred, are you part of the Orwells or the Chamberlains of our times?
BTW, I advocate more technology and better technology to make the world a cleaner, safer place? I'm certainly not a luddite. Don't take the easy way out and discredit a movement by isolating one extreme member.
In any case, even if environmentalism is a religion with some people, so what? You've taken plenty on faith yourself when it comes to supporting mid-east reforms. Cut bob some slack. Or do you feel that only the causes you believe in are worthy of respect?
Elegua - The religion argument cuts both ways. Conservatives who ignore negative externalities and refuse to believe that markets might not perform efficiently in all cases and ignore the lessons of the "commons" are right in the same boat as the carpet chewing and foaming-at-the-mouth environmentalists.
posted by david at 5:43 AM
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