Let's pool our knowledge: D&D helps D&D Debate and Discuss

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Mo_Steel: Mar 7, 2008; Let's Clock Into The Sunset Together; Fun Shoe

Tab8715 posted:

What's the response to?

John Metz, Denny's Franchisee And Hurricane Grill & Wings Owner, Imposes Surcharge For Obamacare

Specifically, the section were he states that

Part of me, thinks it's bullshit but on the other hand isn't it just merely a yet another rich guy complaining about taxes?

The best response is that we should untangle insurance from employment entirely by implementing a single-payer system that can provide universal coverage for less cost per person than our current insurance setup. You can also argue that he's just exploiting the situation he disagrees with as an excuse to shaft his employees; from a business sense if he can afford to reduce front end workers to 30 hours under Obamacare as an excuse for covering health care, then he could also afford to reduce their hours without Obamacare just to line his pockets.

Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Nov 16, 2012

# ? Nov 16, 2012 17:06

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:47

the2ndgenesis: Mar 18, 2009; You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. We both know this.

Golbez posted:

Did anything like this whining happen in Massachusetts after they instituted Romneycare?

Not really. There was some token griping from local conservatives/libertarians on the subject of handouts but the healthcare reform passed rather smoothly. Nowadays most people in Mass are of the opinion that the reform plan was unequivocally a good thing.

Though I suppose that some people still get angry about the fact that poor Latino kids from Lawrence are able to get reasonable healthcare. gently caress those people in my opinion.

# ? Nov 16, 2012 17:15

tangy yet delightful: Sep 13, 2005

Mo_Steel posted:

The best response is that we should untangle insurance from employment entirely by implementing a single-payer system that can provide universal coverage for less cost per person than our current insurance setup. You can also argue that he's just exploiting the situation he disagrees with as an excuse to shaft his employees; from a business sense if he can afford to reduce front end workers to 30 hours under Obamacare as an excuse for covering health care, then he could also afford to reduce their hours without Obamacare just to line his pockets.

This ignores hiring more part time workers to cover the lower hours from the loss of hours from the current employees.

Also whoever it was doing horrific profit math you aren't considering margins at all. Obamacare will hurt businesses with low margins by further reducing or eliminating those margins in some instances. Essentially it raises the marginal cost of each employee without an equal raise in marginal revenue.*

I'm all for UHC and nationally run healthcare but unfortunately Obamacare is not perfect in this regard. Which is why Mo_steel is right that insurance needs to be separate from employers.

*a healthy employee should be more productive but it won't fully offset the healthcare cost in most cases. I'd like to look at some literature on this however.**

**phone posting

# ? Nov 16, 2012 18:56

Pillowpants: Aug 5, 2006

the2ndgenesis posted:

Not really. There was some token griping from local conservatives/libertarians on the subject of handouts but the healthcare reform passed rather smoothly. Nowadays most people in Mass are of the opinion that the reform plan was unequivocally a good thing.

Though I suppose that some people still get angry about the fact that poor Latino kids from Lawrence are able to get reasonable healthcare. gently caress those people in my opinion.

Poor Latino Kids in Lawrence and health care? I haven't actually heard anyone complain about this and I LIVE in Lawrence.

# ? Nov 18, 2012 12:55

the2ndgenesis: Mar 18, 2009; You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. We both know this.

Pillowpants posted:

Poor Latino Kids in Lawrence and health care? I haven't actually heard anyone complain about this and I LIVE in Lawrence.

I live in suburban metro Lowell. There's the difference, I think. :smith:

# ? Nov 18, 2012 14:08

Burnsaber: Jan 16, 2011; I'm a wizard and
I don't pee.
I'm a videogame

So, abortion. I'm currently arguing with my devotely christian friend on abortion. His "pro-life" stance kind of stumped me because he is internally consistent. He passed the "should organ donating be mandatory?" test on "bodily autonomity vs. life of a person test" and even the violinist thought experiment. He's also very anti-war and anti-violence, so I can't debunk him like the stereotypical american pro-lifers. His "life is a life" rhetoric is pretty strong and I got kinda trampled over in our first discussion. I think it was because I kind of bought into his stance embryos as life for the organ donating and violinist examples which undermined my position.

I kind of got him on the logistics of miscarriage being possible murder and the investigations and stuff that would result from that. I think I might have opened his eyes on the societal upheaval that embryo rights might bring along. I can easily argue to him why abortion should be legal. But I kind want to try get him on the morality department. I don't kind like of him thinking abortion havers as being somehow immoral. He is a swell guy and I've kind of gotten him into the pro-feminist side, for example (the abortion thing is where we hit the brick wall).

I guess with him it comes to definition of life (his is on conception). We both agree on that murder is bad. Ergo, I need arguments why abortion is not murder and why the embryo is not a life. I've heard that there are tons of different schools on when life begins with tons of arguments against and for each one. Never heard of these arguments on more detail though. Is there an external resource on these arguments? I'd probably draw the line on when the fetus is able to (realistically) survive outside the womb but my arguments on that are kind of based on gut feeling and the following analogy: "the embryo/fetus might die but the mother will survive, but vice versa is not true, ergo the fetus/embryo is not a life on its own but a part of the mothers life"

But I'd really like to stand on more solid footing when we will inevitably discuss this again.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 19:17

PokeJoe: Aug 24, 2004; hail cgatan

Wikipedia has a nice biological definition of life that you could use to make your point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions

This thing from the OP is really nice too:

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-personhood.htm

# ? Nov 19, 2012 19:26

Burnsaber: Jan 16, 2011; I'm a wizard and
I don't pee.
I'm a videogame

PokeJoe posted:

Wikipedia has a nice biological definition of life that you could use to make your point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions

This thing from the OP is really nice too:

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-personhood.htm

Thanks, that was exactly what I needed. I read the OP but missed the "liberal" FAQ.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 20:25

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!; Nap Ghost

You may get some benefit from this thing I found, an argument from a former Pro-Lifer, about what may be the mindset to approach the issue.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html

# ? Nov 19, 2012 20:27

Serene Dragon: Mar 31, 2011

My brother is currently debating a guy on facebook over Thatcher and her impact on Britain and the guy is basically talking a load of crap about it, saying that most of Britain regards her positively and that it wasn't her or bankers or corporations that have hosed us over, it's the "baby-boom generation".

So, what we'd really like is some facts and hard information on the real damage Thatcher did and how she is regarded by the people, middle and working class in particular. Can anyone help?

# ? Nov 19, 2012 21:10

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Burnsaber posted:

Thanks, that was exactly what I needed. I read the OP but missed the "liberal" FAQ.

Does he think abortions should be outlawed or just believe that they are immoral? If the former, that's actually counterproductive. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/abortion-rates-higher-countries-illegal-study_n_1215045.html

If the latter, there's a word for people who are personally opposed to abortion but want it to be legal, and that is "Pro-choice."

Also, considering he thinks both the fetus and the mother are lives, you could try asking him which is better: killing one of them or having both of them die/killing one of them or ruining both their lives. And a lot of the time, lives do get ruined: http://io9.com/5958187/what-happens-to-women-denied-abortions-this-is-the-first-scientific-study-to-find-out

# ? Nov 19, 2012 21:11

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Burnsaber posted:

So, abortion. I'm currently arguing with my devotely christian friend on abortion. His "pro-life" stance kind of stumped me because he is internally consistent. He passed the "should organ donating be mandatory?" test on "bodily autonomity vs. life of a person test" and even the violinist thought experiment. He's also very anti-war and anti-violence, so I can't debunk him like the stereotypical american pro-lifers. His "life is a life" rhetoric is pretty strong and I got kinda trampled over in our first discussion. I think it was because I kind of bought into his stance embryos as life for the organ donating and violinist examples which undermined my position.

I kind of got him on the logistics of miscarriage being possible murder and the investigations and stuff that would result from that. I think I might have opened his eyes on the societal upheaval that embryo rights might bring along. I can easily argue to him why abortion should be legal. But I kind want to try get him on the morality department. I don't kind like of him thinking abortion havers as being somehow immoral. He is a swell guy and I've kind of gotten him into the pro-feminist side, for example (the abortion thing is where we hit the brick wall).

I guess with him it comes to definition of life (his is on conception). We both agree on that murder is bad. Ergo, I need arguments why abortion is not murder and why the embryo is not a life. I've heard that there are tons of different schools on when life begins with tons of arguments against and for each one. Never heard of these arguments on more detail though. Is there an external resource on these arguments? I'd probably draw the line on when the fetus is able to (realistically) survive outside the womb but my arguments on that are kind of based on gut feeling and the following analogy: "the embryo/fetus might die but the mother will survive, but vice versa is not true, ergo the fetus/embryo is not a life on its own but a part of the mothers life"

But I'd really like to stand on more solid footing when we will inevitably discuss this again.

Not all questions can be settled by a rational discussion. I recognize that its very tempting to assume that if everyone had the exact same information, they'd reach the same conclusions, but in real life it seems that two people can see the same facts and draw starkly different implications from them. When it comes to abortion too much of the argument rests on metaphysical or moral assumptions that aren't reducible in the way that a lot of positions about, say, welfare, are.

Is your a friend a single issue voter? You might have better luck trying to point out that pro-life politicians tend to use the issue to put bodies into polling booths, and then proceed to start wars and do all kinds of other mischief while never really addressing the abortion issue.

As far as actually convincing him that abortion is wrong, you might as well be trying to tell him God doesn't exist.

Personally I'd focus on how he enacts his philosophy in the real world, rather than trying to undermine what is probably a pretty fundamental moral position for him.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:06

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

Serene Dragon posted:

My brother is currently debating a guy on facebook over Thatcher and her impact on Britain and the guy is basically talking a load of crap about it, saying that most of Britain regards her positively and that it wasn't her or bankers or corporations that have hosed us over, it's the "baby-boom generation".

So, what we'd really like is some facts and hard information on the real damage Thatcher did and how she is regarded by the people, middle and working class in particular. Can anyone help?

General opinion of Thatcher outside of London: http://youtu.be/xmmomV-ax-s

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:08

baw: Nov 5, 2008; RESIDENT: LAISSEZ FAIR-SNEZHNEVSKY INSTITUTE FOR FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY

Burnsaber posted:

So, abortion. I'm currently arguing with my devotely christian friend on abortion. His "pro-life" stance kind of stumped me because he is internally consistent. He passed the "should organ donating be mandatory?" test on "bodily autonomity vs. life of a person test" and even the violinist thought experiment. He's also very anti-war and anti-violence, so I can't debunk him like the stereotypical american pro-lifers. His "life is a life" rhetoric is pretty strong and I got kinda trampled over in our first discussion. I think it was because I kind of bought into his stance embryos as life for the organ donating and violinist examples which undermined my position.

I kind of got him on the logistics of miscarriage being possible murder and the investigations and stuff that would result from that. I think I might have opened his eyes on the societal upheaval that embryo rights might bring along. I can easily argue to him why abortion should be legal. But I kind want to try get him on the morality department. I don't kind like of him thinking abortion havers as being somehow immoral. He is a swell guy and I've kind of gotten him into the pro-feminist side, for example (the abortion thing is where we hit the brick wall).

I guess with him it comes to definition of life (his is on conception). We both agree on that murder is bad. Ergo, I need arguments why abortion is not murder and why the embryo is not a life. I've heard that there are tons of different schools on when life begins with tons of arguments against and for each one. Never heard of these arguments on more detail though. Is there an external resource on these arguments? I'd probably draw the line on when the fetus is able to (realistically) survive outside the womb but my arguments on that are kind of based on gut feeling and the following analogy: "the embryo/fetus might die but the mother will survive, but vice versa is not true, ergo the fetus/embryo is not a life on its own but a part of the mothers life"

But I'd really like to stand on more solid footing when we will inevitably discuss this again.

Abortion is easy as poo poo to argue. Ask him if he considers an embryo a person. Then, ask him if he considers abortion the killing of an innocent person.

Then ask him why, in the face of millions of innocent people being murdered with government complicity, the only action he takes is to vote republican when election season comes around.

You'll quickly find they don't even believe their own bullshit.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:12

Serene Dragon: Mar 31, 2011

namesake posted:

General opinion of Thatcher outside of London: http://youtu.be/xmmomV-ax-s

I'm Scottish, so I automatically despise her. Unfortunately this guy thinks that she benefited many and only disadvantaged a "vocal minority". And calling him a loving idiot isn't helping, apparently.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:14

Burnsaber: Jan 16, 2011; I'm a wizard and
I don't pee.
I'm a videogame

HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:

Does he think abortions should be outlawed or just believe that they are immoral? If the former, that's actually counterproductive. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/abortion-rates-higher-countries-illegal-study_n_1215045.html

If the latter, there's a word for people who are personally opposed to abortion but want it to be legal, and that is "Pro-choice."

Also, considering he thinks both the fetus and the mother are lives, you could try asking him which is better: killing one of them or having both of them die/killing one of them or ruining both their lives. And a lot of the time, lives do get ruined: http://io9.com/5958187/what-happens-to-women-denied-abortions-this-is-the-first-scientific-study-to-find-out

Thanks, but I was already familiar with those. I have no troble arguing why abortion should be legal, the arguments for the morality of it was lost on me because I never had to really think of it.

I have one more question thought, I recall him saying that there was some thing about some scientists saying that killing even 1 years olds is okay because they're not "persons". Is this an actual thing? I assume it's some sort of misquote akin to the "all sex is rape" line. I think it might come up in our next discussion.

Helsing posted:

Is your a friend a single issue voter? You might have better luck trying to point out that pro-life politicians tend to use the issue to put bodies into polling booths, and then proceed to start wars and do all kinds of other mischief while never really addressing the abortion issue.

There was no way for you to know this, but we are in Finland. The political athmosphere is pretty different in here. Pretty much no one is trying ride the abortion issue to anywhere politically. The is christian democrats party, but they're really in the sideline with <5% of political seats.

Helsing posted:

As far as actually convincing him that abortion is wrong, you might as well be trying to tell him God doesn't exist.

Personally I'd focus on how he enacts his philosophy in the real world, rather than trying to undermine what is probably a pretty fundamental moral position for him.

He is pretty rational christian apogoletic. I'll ask him about the arguments in this: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-bibleforbids.htm , I'm not really going to press the issue now that I have a reasonable biblical defence for my position. He's an awesome guy, so I'm not going to try to sabotage our friendship by pushing this if it becomes a sore issue. It would be just is nice to reach a position where I can kind of go "let's agree to disagree and move on" without seeming like a immoral murdering monster if needed.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:23

Mo_Steel: Mar 7, 2008; Let's Clock Into The Sunset Together; Fun Shoe

Burnsaber posted:

So, abortion. I'm currently arguing with my devotely christian friend on abortion. His "pro-life" stance kind of stumped me because he is internally consistent. He passed the "should organ donating be mandatory?" test on "bodily autonomity vs. life of a person test" and even the violinist thought experiment. He's also very anti-war and anti-violence, so I can't debunk him like the stereotypical american pro-lifers. His "life is a life" rhetoric is pretty strong and I got kinda trampled over in our first discussion. I think it was because I kind of bought into his stance embryos as life for the organ donating and violinist examples which undermined my position.

I kind of got him on the logistics of miscarriage being possible murder and the investigations and stuff that would result from that. I think I might have opened his eyes on the societal upheaval that embryo rights might bring along. I can easily argue to him why abortion should be legal. But I kind want to try get him on the morality department. I don't kind like of him thinking abortion havers as being somehow immoral. He is a swell guy and I've kind of gotten him into the pro-feminist side, for example (the abortion thing is where we hit the brick wall).

I guess with him it comes to definition of life (his is on conception). We both agree on that murder is bad. Ergo, I need arguments why abortion is not murder and why the embryo is not a life. I've heard that there are tons of different schools on when life begins with tons of arguments against and for each one. Never heard of these arguments on more detail though. Is there an external resource on these arguments? I'd probably draw the line on when the fetus is able to (realistically) survive outside the womb but my arguments on that are kind of based on gut feeling and the following analogy: "the embryo/fetus might die but the mother will survive, but vice versa is not true, ergo the fetus/embryo is not a life on its own but a part of the mothers life"

But I'd really like to stand on more solid footing when we will inevitably discuss this again.

A while back someone linked a video about a hypothetical situation: if you were a firefighter and your team was dispatched to a blaze that started at a fertility clinic, and you entered to find a 7 year old with a broken ankle and a refrigeration unit of roughly equal weight storing a few hundred embryos, would you save the child or the refrigerator full of embryos? If life is life and embryos are life, the moral option seems to suggest that saving as many lives as possible ought to be your priority.

If the hypothetical seems contrived that's only because the purpose behind a hypothetical is to isolate the core issues that need to be addressed. In this case the core issue is valuation of human life; I think most people would suggest saving the child is the right decision because while the fetuses may be alive they aren't regarded with the same importance a person is.

My personal view is that abortion should be legal up to survivability outside the womb, and after that point abortion should only be legal in cases where the mother's health is at grave risk. I don't believe life begins at that point, I believe personhood begins at that point. As far as I'm concerned there wasn't a point along the continuum that is definable for life to "begin"; the sperm was alive, the egg was alive, the blastocyst was alive, the embryo was alive, the fetus was alive, and the newborn was alive.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:25

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!; Nap Ghost

Mo_Steel posted:

My personal view is that abortion should be legal up to survivability outside the womb, and after that point abortion should only be legal in cases where the mother's health is at grave risk. I don't believe life begins at that point, I believe personhood begins at that point. As far as I'm concerned there wasn't a point along the continuum that is definable for life to "begin"; the sperm was alive, the egg was alive, the blastocyst was alive, the embryo was alive, the fetus was alive, and the newborn was alive.

That's a good distinction to make. Plants are alive, lizards are alive, and dogs are alive, and toddlers are alive; most people do not assign equal values to those lives, of course, and in fact usually rank them all differently in importance. While life should not be treated callously, assigning the value of an adult person to a fertilized egg is creating a false equivalence and greatly endangers the one that can be proven and demonstrated to have personhood. That's just my personal opinion, of course.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:39

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

Serene Dragon posted:

I'm Scottish, so I automatically despise her. Unfortunately this guy thinks that she benefited many and only disadvantaged a "vocal minority". And calling him a loving idiot isn't helping, apparently.

Lack of affording or social housing? Thatcher:

Lack of industrial jobs? Thatcher:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/16/why-britain-doesnt-make-things-manufacturing

Total reliance on financial services to have an economy? Thatcher:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_%28financial_markets%29

These demolished any power that 'Baby boomers' as a bloc would have had.

# ? Nov 19, 2012 22:51

Captain Rehab: Jul 8, 2005

Burnsaber posted:

I have one more question thought, I recall him saying that there was some thing about some scientists saying that killing even 1 years olds is okay because they're not "persons". Is this an actual thing? I assume it's some sort of misquote akin to the "all sex is rape" line. I think it might come up in our next discussion.

This sounds like something Peter Singer may have said, coming from the utilitarian perspective. I may be wrong in that, simply because it's the first thing that rang a bell (and to be honest I'm not particularly familiar with Singer's work) - but hopefully that gives you a starting point.

# ? Nov 20, 2012 01:40

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

baw posted:

Abortion is easy as poo poo to argue. Ask him if he considers an embryo a person. Then, ask him if he considers abortion the killing of an innocent person.

Then ask him why, in the face of millions of innocent people being murdered with government complicity, the only action he takes is to vote republican when election season comes around.

You'll quickly find they don't even believe their own bullshit.

What is that you would expect them to do other than vote? "millions of innocent people being murdered" is a pretty accurate description of my views on the US military, but I haven't started a guerrilla war campaign against the US military, largely because it wouldn't be very effective.

# ? Nov 20, 2012 01:59

baw: Nov 5, 2008; RESIDENT: LAISSEZ FAIR-SNEZHNEVSKY INSTITUTE FOR FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY

twodot posted:

What is that you would expect them to do other than vote? "millions of innocent people being murdered" is a pretty accurate description of my views on the US military, but I haven't started a guerrilla war campaign against the US military, largely because it wouldn't be very effective.

I don't think "millions of innocent people being murdered every year" is an accurate description of the military.

If abortion is murder, then there is a government-mandated holocaust and any person whose sole action against that is to vote for a certain party then their hearts really aren't into it. At least the people who bomb abortion clinics are consistent.

# ? Nov 20, 2012 07:31

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

baw posted:

I don't think "millions of innocent people being murdered every year" is an accurate description of the military.

If abortion is murder, then there is a government-mandated holocaust and any person whose sole action against that is to vote for a certain party then their hearts really aren't into it. At least the people who bomb abortion clinics are consistent.

I asked you a direct question, would you care to answer it? I don't think your argument holds up if you can't supply the one true minimum moral response to a government mandated holocaust. As a thought exercise, I might consider the moral responsibilities of everyone during World War 2, if you don't find our current wars compelling.

# ? Nov 20, 2012 09:03

dorkasaurus_rex: Jun 10, 2005; gawrsh do you think any women will be there

So I'm seeing a lot of this kinda stuff floating around my Facebook lately. Trying to put the I/P conflict in a broader context really sets some people off. But yeah, some people just refuse to believe that the way Israel treats Gazans is actually really bad, and I'm having trouble finding the right mix of evidence to disprove them. Any suggestions? Some links from Human Rights Watch were shrugged off with ease.

# ? Nov 20, 2012 10:13

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

The Telegraph posted:

Israeli minister vows Palestinian 'holocaust'

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem2:25PM GMT 29 Feb 2008

A senior Israeli politician provoked controversy today when he warned that Palestinians firing rockets from Gaza would be punished with a "bigger holocaust" from Israeli armed forces.

The use of the Hebrew word for holocaust, "shoah", tends to be used exclusively in Israel to describe the Nazi persecution of Jews.

Palestinian activists routinely claim to be suffering a "shoah" at the hands of Israel, but the Jewish state normally denies any moral equivalence between the suffering of Palestinians today and European jewry under the Nazis.

Matan Vilnai, deputy defence minister, broke that taboo when he used the term "shoah" during interview on Army Radio.

"The more qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," he said.

His use of the term reflects the febrile atmosphere in Israel where public opinion demands the government does something decisive to stop the daily barrage of rockets fired from Gaza over the border into Israel.

The issue dominates the media, sparking angry protests from Israelis who live within rocket range of Gaza and prompting an intense national debate about whether to negotiate with the Hamas authorities in Gaza.

Associated Press posted:

JERUSALEM (AP) � Israeli authorities blockading the Gaza Strip in 2008 went so far as to calculate how many calories would be needed to avert a humanitarian disaster in the impoverished Palestinian territory, according to a newly declassified military document.

The military said Wednesday the guidelines were never implemented. However critics rejected the claim, saying the document was new evidence that Israel used food as a pressure tactic to try to force Gaza's Hamas rulers from power � a strategy that ultimately failed.

Israel maintained a strict blockade over Gaza from 2007-2010. During that time, Israel limited food supplies entering Gaza and maintained a baffling list of items that were banned or permitted as part of a broader effort to topple the violently anti-Israel Hamas by squeezing the economy.

In the January 2008 document, Israel determined how to ensure that Gazans eat 2,279 calories of food each day, a figure in line with World Health Organization guidelines.

It broke down the calorie allocation by various food groups, and in minute details. It said that males aged 11 to 50 required 316.05 grams of meat per day, and women in the same age group needed 190.47 grams of flour. The analysis also included adjustments for locally grown farm products as well as an assessment of the kinds of food imports that would be needed to sustain the population.

Israeli military spokesman Maj. Guy Inbar said these calculations were not meant to punish the people of Gaza. Instead, he described them as safeguards that helped to identify when goods were in short supply and a humanitarian crisis might be nearing.

"A mathematical formula was devised to identify food needs and avert a humanitarian crisis in Gaza," he said. Israel never used the calculation to restrict the flow of food to Gaza, he added.

Israel's Defense Ministry resisted years of attempts to release the guidelines, and consented only after an Israeli advocacy group, Gisha, won a Supreme Court order.

Gisha contends that Israel calculated the calorie needs for Gaza's population in order to restrict the quantities of goods and basic products it allowed in during the first three years after Hamas violently overran the territory.

The Israeli government imposed the blockade on Gaza after identifying it as a "hostile territory" in September 2007, three months after the takeover by Hamas, an armed, Iranian-backed group committed to Israel's destruction. Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks and both Israel and the U.S. consider it a terrorist group.

In a government resolution on the blockade, Israel called for restrictions on the movement of civilians and goods in and out of the territory and to reduce the supply of fuel and electricity. The resolution, which noted repeated rocket attacks launched from Gaza, said Israel would strive "to avoid a humanitarian crisis."

Critics say the policy amounted to collective punishment of Gaza's already impoverished population of more than 1.5 million.

"The official goal of the policy was to wage 'economic warfare' which would paralyze Gaza's economy and, according to the Defense Ministry, create pressure on the Hamas government," Gisha said in a release Wednesday.

Israel controls the only official cargo crossings into Gaza, and greatly limited the flow of goods into the territory following the Hamas takeover. Israeli officials have said the flow of goods was often limited because of frequent Palestinian attacks on the crossings.

As part of its policy, Israel used odd, secret guidelines to differentiate between humanitarian necessities and nonessential luxuries. The result was that military bureaucrats enforcing the blockade allowed frozen salmon and low-fat yogurt into the Hamas-ruled territory, but not cilantro or instant coffee.

Gisha's director, Sari Bashi, said official military documents from that period indicate that the Israeli guidelines on calorie intake were in fact the basis of policy.

For example, the guidelines recommend allowing 300 calves into Gaza each week to fulfill the territory's meat needs. In a September 2008 court case, the government rejected a request by an importer to bring more calves into Gaza, saying 300 animals were sufficient, using an identical figure from the guidelines.

"Whether or not the document was a draft, it reflects the calculations that were used to set the policy," Bashi said. "The policy clearly restricted food."

In a U.S. diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks last year, American diplomats quoted their Israeli colleagues as saying the blockade was meant to push the area's economy "to the brink of collapse."

The embargo crippled Gaza's economy and wiped out tens of thousands of jobs by banning raw materials and suffocating trade. Gaza also frequently suffered from shortages of basic consumer goods.

Hamas mitigated ithe blockade's effect by building a network of underground tunnels to bring in food, weapons and other contraband from Egypt, at inflated prices.

Despite the shortages and hardship, at no point did observers identify a nutritional crisis developing in the territory, whose residents rely overwhelmingly on international food aid. Hamas remains firmly in control of Gaza.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the document was "evidence that the Gaza blockade was planned and the target was not Hamas or the government as the occupation always claimed. This blockade targeted all human beings. ... This document should be used to try the occupation for their crimes against the humanity in Gaza."

Israel's blockade was suddenly forced into the international spotlight after Israeli naval commandoes carried out a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound international flotilla that sought to breach the embargo in May 2010.

Under heavy international pressure, Israel significantly eased the land blockade, allowing consumer goods to move into Gaza freely.

Construction materials are still largely barred from entering, on the ground that Gaza militants could use items such as pipes and concrete to attack Israel. A naval blockade also remains in effect, which Israel says is necessary to prevent weapons smuggling at sea. Exports remain heavily restricted.

"Israel never saw the people of Gaza as our enemy," said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev. "On the contrary, we saw them as victims of the extremist Hamas regime, a regime that places its very radical agenda above and beyond the interest of the people of Gaza."

Business Insider posted:

ISRAELI ACTIVIST: There Was A Deal On The Table Before Hamas Leader Was Assassinated

Hours before Israel assassinated top Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari, he had received a draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which "included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip," according to a prominent Israeli peace activist.

Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit � the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas �told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that "this blood could have been spared. Those who made the decision must be judged by the voters, but to my regret they will get more votes because of this."
From Haaretz:

Haaretz posted:
"He was in line to die, not an angel and not a righteous man of peace,� Baskin said of Jabari and of his feelings in the wake of the killing, �but his assassination also killed the possibility of achieving a truce and also the Egyptian mediators� ability to function. After the assassination I spoke to the people in Israel angrily and they said to me: We�ve heard you and we are calling to ask if you have heard anything form the Egyptians or from Gaza.�

# ? Nov 20, 2012 17:50

Kudaros: Jun 23, 2006

In a similar vein, I've (with extreme kid gloves) argued with a fellow on the issue. He began by saying he "hopes for a quick resolution, but cannot sympathise with hamas members" which on its own is not terrible...but given context of other posts he is basically using Hamas as an out for Israeli violence. Also, he considers himself a centrist and apparently finds that "the stereotype of the political Left that I have found most accurate is a naivete of authoritarian regimes [Hamas in this case -my note]." I pointed out that the situation is complex and Hamas, while terrible, was democratically elected by a group of people in a desperate situation.

I almost never get involved in these things with people I know and I immediately regretted it. He immediately points to their charter. So Hamas is a one-dimensional entity, basically. Then I get this: "How about the Jews who are not immigrants or descendants of them? There have been Jews living in that territory continuously for thousands of years. What should their status be? Who should control the land and why? Who had rightful authority over the land before the British? Or do you even think the Brits ever had a right to control Palestine?" And I don't even know what the gently caress. None of that is at issue here. There are some rather... urgent crises to solve first.

I responded with basically what Helsing just posted. But without my own commentary because this fellow is typically a reasonable person. Then I made a joke response to a separate post he makes in which he "is constantly amazed by how many people don't realize (or pretend not to realize) that there have been Jews living in Palestine continuously since before it was called Palestine and that not every person in Israel is the descendant of an immigrant from Europe." I simply posted the "This land is mine" cartoon video. To which he responds "The Levant has indeed had many occupiers but very few sovereign states. Since 1500 BC, there have been three independent rulers of what is now called Palestine: the first state of Israel, the second state of Israel, and the modern state of Israel."

I have already disengaged from this conversation. I only indulged engagement in the first place because this person is typically reasonable. I am posting this partially to vent and also because these concerns crop up so often in similar I/P discussions. So my concern is this: Why the emphasis on 'sovereign' states? Why does it matter that the land was under empire? What basis does that form for a modern nation?

My attempts at communicating the central theses of Helsing's sources were not responded to so I disengaged from the conversation.

I don't know if all I/P stuff is restricted to the thread, I just posted this because I saw the subject brought up - Ill edit out if necessary.

# ? Nov 21, 2012 03:03

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

The Israeli government doesn't want a peace settlement, because from their perspective the current situation has allowed them to move huge numbers of settlers onto occupied land. I mean sure they don't like the rockets, but so far three Israeli's have died from the current barrages so you can understand why its a price they're willing to tolerate. I mean just look at the long term results:

The Isreali government undermines literally any prospect of a moderate Palestinian government through their actions. That news story about them assasinating a leader who was in the process of finalizing a peace treaty is only the latest example of this.

Back in the 1970s the Palestinian independence movement was mostly secular. The Israelis actively encouraged the rise of religious groups like Hamas and Fatah because they wanted to undermine the PLO (note that undermining the PLO didn't actually have anything to do with stopping the conflict, just deactivating what was then the most effective organization at advocating for Palestine). Then when Hamas got too strong they supported Fatah. In all likelihood a decade from now they will be supporting Hamas against some supposedly even worse group.

This is a song and dance that the Israeli government plays and somehow people are stupid enough to fall for it.

Wall Street Journal posted:

How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas

By ANDREW HIGGINS

Moshav Tekuma, Israel

Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.

"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.

Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a "determined and successful military operation." More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.

Hamas responded the next day by lobbing five rockets towards the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles down the road from Moshav Tekuma, the farming village where Mr. Cohen lives. Hamas then announced its own cease-fire.

Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm "requires more than a long cease-fire" and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state "living side by side in peace and security."

A look at Israel's decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals -- including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists -- reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel's efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people.

Israel's experience echoes that of the U.S., which, during the Cold War, looked to Islamists as a useful ally against communism. Anti-Soviet forces backed by America after Moscow's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan later mutated into al Qaeda.

At stake is the future of what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine, the biblical lands now comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1948, when the state of Israel was established, Israelis and Palestinians have each asserted claims over the same territory.

The Palestinian cause was for decades led by the PLO, which Israel regarded as a terrorist outfit and sought to crush until the 1990s, when the PLO dropped its vow to destroy the Jewish state. The PLO's Palestinian rival, Hamas, led by Islamist militants, refused to recognize Israel and vowed to continue "resistance." Hamas now controls Gaza, a crowded, impoverished sliver of land on the Mediterranean from which Israel pulled out troops and settlers in 2005.

When Israel first encountered Islamists in Gaza in the 1970s and '80s, they seemed focused on studying the Quran, not on confrontation with Israel. The Israeli government officially recognized a precursor to Hamas called Mujama Al-Islamiya, registering the group as a charity. It allowed Mujama members to set up an Islamic university and build mosques, clubs and schools. Crucially, Israel often stood aside when the Islamists and their secular left-wing Palestinian rivals battled, sometimes violently, for influence in both Gaza and the West Bank.

"When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake," says David Hacham, who worked in Gaza in the late 1980s and early '90s as an Arab-affairs expert in the Israeli military. "But at the time nobody thought about the possible results."

Israeli officials who served in Gaza disagree on how much their own actions may have contributed to the rise of Hamas. They blame the group's recent ascent on outsiders, primarily Iran. This view is shared by the Israeli government. "Hamas in Gaza was built by Iran as a foundation for power, and is backed through funding, through training and through the provision of advanced weapons," Mr. Olmert said last Saturday. Hamas has denied receiving military assistance from Iran.

Arieh Spitzen, the former head of the Israeli military's Department of Palestinian Affairs, says that even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement that was spreading across the Muslim world. He says attempts to stop it are akin to trying to change the internal rhythms of nature: "It is like saying: 'I will kill all the mosquitoes.' But then you get even worse insects that will kill you...You break the balance. You kill Hamas you might get al Qaeda."

When it became clear in the early 1990s that Gaza's Islamists had mutated from a religious group into a fighting force aimed at Israel -- particularly after they turned to suicide bombings in 1994 -- Israel cracked down with ferocious force. But each military assault only increased Hamas's appeal to ordinary Palestinians. The group ultimately trounced secular rivals, notably Fatah, in a 2006 election supported by Israel's main ally, the U.S.

Now, one big fear in Israel and elsewhere is that while Hamas has been hammered hard, the war might have boosted the group's popular appeal. Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, came out of hiding last Sunday to declare that "God has granted us a great victory."

Most damaged from the war, say many Palestinians, is Fatah, now Israel's principal negotiating partner. "Everyone is praising the resistance and thinks that Fatah is not part of it," says Baker Abu-Baker, a longtime Fatah supporter and author of a book on Hamas.

A Lack of Devotion
Hamas traces its roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group set up in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood believed that the woes of the Arab world spring from a lack of Islamic devotion. Its slogan: "Islam is the solution. The Quran is our constitution." Its philosophy today underpins modern, and often militantly intolerant, political Islam from Algeria to Indonesia.

After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement.

At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt. The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood. In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war. Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank.

"We were all stunned," says Palestinian writer and Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi. He was at school at the time in Kuwait and says he became close to a classmate named Khaled Mashaal, now Hamas's Damascus-based political chief. "The Arab defeat provided the Brotherhood with a big opportunity," says Mr. Tamimi.

In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers. Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel. Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide.

The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly. In addition to launching various charity projects, Sheikh Yassin collected money to reprint the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Brotherhood who, before his execution by President Nasser, advocated global jihad. He is now seen as one of the founding ideologues of militant political Islam.

Mr. Cohen, who worked at the time for the Israeli government's religious affairs department in Gaza, says he began to hear disturbing reports in the mid-1970s about Sheikh Yassin from traditional Islamic clerics. He says they warned that the sheikh had no formal Islamic training and was ultimately more interested in politics than faith. "They said, 'Keep away from Yassin. He is a big danger,'" recalls Mr. Cohen.

Instead, Israel's military-led administration in Gaza looked favorably on the paraplegic cleric, who set up a wide network of schools, clinics, a library and kindergartens. Sheikh Yassin formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, which was officially recognized by Israel as a charity and then, in 1979, as an association. Israel also endorsed the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza, which it now regards as a hotbed of militancy. The university was one of the first targets hit by Israeli warplanes in the recent war.

Brig. General Yosef Kastel, Gaza's Israeli governor at the time, is too ill to comment, says his wife. But Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who took over as governor in Gaza in late 1979, says he had no illusions about Sheikh Yassin's long-term intentions or the perils of political Islam. As Israel's former military attache in Iran, he'd watched Islamic fervor topple the Shah. However, in Gaza, says Mr. Segev, "our main enemy was Fatah," and the cleric "was still 100% peaceful" towards Israel. Former officials say Israel was also at the time wary of being viewed as an enemy of Islam.

Mr. Segev says he had regular contact with Sheikh Yassin, in part to keep an eye on him. He visited his mosque and met the cleric around a dozen times. It was illegal at the time for Israelis to meet anyone from the PLO. Mr. Segev later arranged for the cleric to be taken to Israel for hospital treatment. "We had no problems with him," he says.

In fact, the cleric and Israel had a shared enemy: secular Palestinian activists. After a failed attempt in Gaza to oust secularists from leadership of the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Muslim version of the Red Cross, Mujama staged a violent demonstration, storming the Red Crescent building. Islamists also attacked shops selling liquor and cinemas. The Israeli military mostly stood on the sidelines.

Mr. Segev says the army didn't want to get involved in Palestinian quarrels but did send soldiers to prevent Islamists from burning down the house of the Red Crescent's secular chief, a socialist who supported the PLO.

'An Alternative to the PLO'
Clashes between Islamists and secular nationalists spread to the West Bank and escalated during the early 1980s, convulsing college campuses, particularly Birzeit University, a center of political activism.

As the fighting between rival student factions at Birzeit grew more violent, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, then a military intelligence officer in Gaza, says he received a call from Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint on the road out of Gaza. They had stopped a bus carrying Islamic activists who wanted to join the battle against Fatah at Birzeit. "I said: 'If they want to burn each other let them go,'" recalls Mr. Harari.

A leader of Birzeit's Islamist faction at the time was Mahmoud Musleh, now a pro-Hamas member of a Palestinian legislature elected in 2006. He recalls how usually aggressive Israeli security forces stood back and let conflagration develop. He denies any collusion between his own camp and the Israelis, but says "they hoped we would become an alternative to the PLO."

A year later, in 1984, the Israeli military received a tip-off from Fatah supporters that Sheikh Yassin's Gaza Islamists were collecting arms, according to Israeli officials in Gaza at the time. Israeli troops raided a mosque and found a cache of weapons. Sheikh Yassin was jailed. He told Israeli interrogators the weapons were for use against rival Palestinians, not Israel, according to Mr. Hacham, the military affairs expert who says he spoke frequently with jailed Islamists. The cleric was released after a year and continued to expand Mujama's reach across Gaza.

Around the time of Sheikh Yassin's arrest, Mr. Cohen, the religious affairs official, sent a report to senior Israeli military and civilian officials in Gaza. Describing the cleric as a "diabolical" figure, he warned that Israel's policy towards the Islamists was allowing Mujama to develop into a dangerous force.

"I believe that by continuing to turn away our eyes, our lenient approach to Mujama will in the future harm us. I therefore suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," Mr. Cohen wrote.

Mr. Harari, the military intelligence officer, says this and other warnings were ignored. But, he says, the reason for this was neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."

Roni Shaked, a former officer of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and author of a book on Hamas, says Sheikh Yassin and his followers had a long-term perspective whose dangers were not understood at the time. "They worked slowly, slowly, step by step according to the Muslim Brotherhood plan."

Declaring Jihad

In 1987, several Palestinians were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli driver, triggering a wave of protests that became known as the first Intifada, Mr. Yassin and six other Mujama Islamists launched Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas's charter, released a year later, is studded with anti-Semitism and declares "jihad its path and death for the cause of Allah its most sublime belief."

Israeli officials, still focused on Fatah and initially unaware of the Hamas charter, continued to maintain contacts with the Gaza Islamists. Mr. Hacham, the military Arab affairs expert, remembers taking one of Hamas's founders, Mahmoud Zahar, to meet Israel's then defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, as part of regular consultations between Israeli officials and Palestinians not linked to the PLO. Mr. Zahar, the only Hamas founder known to be alive today, is now the group's senior political leader in Gaza.

In 1989, Hamas carried out its first attack on Israel, abducting and killing two soldiers. Israel arrested Sheikh Yassin and sentenced him to life. It later rounded up more than 400 suspected Hamas activists, including Mr. Zahar, and deported them to southern Lebanon. There, they hooked up with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed A-Team of anti-Israeli militancy.

Many of the deportees later returned to Gaza. Hamas built up its arsenal and escalated its attacks, while all along maintaining the social network that underpinned its support in Gaza.

Meanwhile, its enemy, the PLO, dropped its commitment to Israel's destruction and started negotiating a two-state settlement. Hamas accused it of treachery. This accusation found increasing resonance as Israel kept developing settlements on occupied Palestinian land, particularly the West Bank. Though the West Bank had passed to the nominal control of a new Palestinian Authority, it was still dotted with Israeli military checkpoints and a growing number of Israeli settlers.

Unable to uproot a now entrenched Islamist network that had suddenly replaced the PLO as its main foe, Israel tried to decapitate it. It started targeting Hamas leaders. This, too, made no dent in Hamas's support, and sometimes even helped the group. In 1997, for example, Israel's Mossad spy agency tried to poison Hamas's exiled political leader Mr. Mashaal, who was then living in Jordan.

The agents got caught and, to get them out of a Jordanian jail, Israel agreed to release Sheikh Yassin. The cleric set off on a tour of the Islamic world to raise support and money. He returned to Gaza to a hero's welcome.

Efraim Halevy, a veteran Mossad officer who negotiated the deal that released Sheikh Yassin, says the cleric's freedom was hard to swallow, but Israel had no choice. After the fiasco in Jordan, Mr. Halevy was named director of Mossad, a position he held until 2002. Two years later, Sheikh Yassin was killed by an Israeli air strike.

Mr. Halevy has in recent years urged Israel to negotiate with Hamas. He says that "Hamas can be crushed," but he believes that "the price of crushing Hamas is a price that Israel would prefer not to pay." When Israel's authoritarian secular neighbor, Syria, launched a campaign to wipe out Muslim Brotherhood militants in the early 1980s it killed more than 20,000 people, many of them civilians.

In its recent war in Gaza, Israel didn't set the destruction of Hamas as its goal. It limited its stated objectives to halting the Islamists' rocket fire and battering their overall military capacity. At the start of the Israeli operation in December, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that the goal was "to deal Hamas a severe blow, a blow that will cause it to stop its hostile actions from Gaza at Israeli citizens and soldiers."

Walking back to his house from the rubble of his neighbor's home, Mr. Cohen, the former religious affairs official in Gaza, curses Hamas and also what he sees as missteps that allowed Islamists to put down deep roots in Gaza.

He recalls a 1970s meeting with a traditional Islamic cleric who wanted Israel to stop cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood followers of Sheikh Yassin: "He told me: 'You are going to have big regrets in 20 or 30 years.' He was right."

# ? Nov 21, 2012 18:51

the2ndgenesis: Mar 18, 2009; You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. We both know this.

Helsing posted:

Back in the 1970s the Palestinian independence movement was mostly secular. The Israelis actively encouraged the rise of religious groups like Hamas and Fatah because they wanted to undermine the PLO (note that undermining the PLO didn't actually have anything to do with stopping the conflict, just deactivating what was then the most effective organization at advocating for Palestine). Then when Hamas got too strong they supported Fatah. In all likelihood a decade from now they will be supporting Hamas against some supposedly even worse group.

This is a song and dance that the Israeli government plays and somehow people are stupid enough to fall for it.

Thank you for this, Helsing. I've been longing for a concise article on how the cause of Palestinian nationalism was co-opted by Hamas and Islamists in general, and this is exactly what I was looking for.

Time to see if it gets any interesting responses from the token Israel apologists on my Facebook.

# ? Nov 21, 2012 19:22

King Zog: Apr 9, 2009

I'm going to write an article about social mobility in the US for a hand-in, but I'm really unsure on where to start looking for dependable sources(like articles, reports, statistics, whatever) except for the one listed in the OP about intergenerational social mobility.

I hate to be the one begging, but I really need some help here

# ? Nov 22, 2012 19:01

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

If you're more specific about the topic of the hand in then people will be able to give you better help, but here are some starting sources:

Income inequality in the United States, 1913-1998, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2003.

Top Incomes in the Long Run of History, Athony B. Atkinson, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, January 2010

A Theory of Optimal Capital Taxation, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, April 4, 2012

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class - Hour long video talk by Elizabeth Warren outlining major contributors to middle class stagnation in America (also check out the book 'The Two-Income Trap')

The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (review),

Historical data sets on GDP, GNP, government outlays, etc. are easily found on google, and the world bank and OECD keeps datasets that make it very easy for you to go online and compare various economic statistics of the US vs. other countries over time. You can easily plot this information out using google spreadsheet if you're so inclined.

If you have the ability to range slightly further afield in your topic I'd highly recommend the book Oligarchy by Jeffrey A. Winters. He attempts to provide a sort of taxonomy of oligarchic societies through history, looking at comparisons as diverse as frontier Appalachia, ancient Athens, the Roman Empire and the contemporary United States. His chapter on America and the role of American oligarchs in practising what he terms 'income defence' is fascinating and well worth the read assuming you have a mandate to actually discuss the underlying causes of inequality.

David Harvey's book "A History of Neoliberalism" is rather over rated in my opinion, the scholarship is not as tight as it should be, the conclusions are lazily drawn, the sourcing is abysmal. That having been said, his first couple of chapters outlining the history and nature of neoliberalism are an acceptable baseline account of how the upper classes organized in reaction to declining profit rates in the 1970s. Arguably the political reorganization and economic transition that began in the 1970s and that we now loosely think of as 'neoliberalism' is the main driver of inequality, at least according to the left.

On the other hand, there is a counter argument that sees inequality as emerging primarily from what economists call Skill Biased Technical Change (SBTC). Here's an article that discusses SBTC from a critical perspective:

Skill-Biased Technological Change and Rising Wage Inequality: Some Problems and Puzzles, David Card and John E. DiNardo

Paul Krugman's book 'Conscience of a Liberal' gives a reasonable overview of the rise of inequality and its possible causes in one of its middle chapters, though I can't remember which one off hand. It can't be emphasized enough, however, that this is a work of intellignet punditry rather than scholarship. Krugman is not a historian or a political scientist and sometimes it shows, but all the same he makes a pretty good case and the book is exceptionally easy to read compared to more scholarly works.

Just googling "income inequality" or "skill biased technical change" or searching the names of any of these listed scholars on google will yield plenty more PDFs. I also highly recommend using google books.

# ? Nov 22, 2012 19:27

Aeolius: Jul 16, 2003; Simon Templeman Fanclub

Are you in college? Either your university or local public library can help you access academic journals. Definitely spend some time learning how to take advantage of libraries — pepper librarians with any question you can think of.

As far as at-home research is concerned, google search arguments like "filetype:pdf" or "site:edu" can often lend more clout to your search terms.

Here's some other stuff I was able to pick up just using that technique:

EPI: U.S. lags behind peer countries in mobility (EPI "economic mobility" category)
Wikipedia: Socio-economic mobility in the United States — Obviously, Wikipedia is not fit for citation, but it can provide an overview and direct you to other sources, i.e., the References section.
Long & Ferrie: A Tale of Two Labor Markets: Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850 (working paper, forthcoming publication in American Economic Review)
OECD: Intergenerational Social Mobility across OECD Countries
Kopczuk, Saez, & Song: Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States

I haven't really vetted these articles, so Helsing's stuff is probably a safer bet. But the most important thing is to start learning how to fish, so to speak. So, for example, if any of them (including the one from the OP) prove unusable, you can always dig through their reference sections to find peer-reviewed items that perhaps you can use.

Good luck!

# ? Nov 22, 2012 19:54

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Would anyone mind critiquing my performance in this thread? I made what I thought to be good points, and the people who really disagreed with me on abortion (I'm not counting the people I disagreed with about the personhood debate specifically) just ignored me. I've lurked for a long time but this is my first time actually posting in D&D, and I'm kind of frustrated that I made what I thought were good points that nobody listened to. Am I in the wrong here?

If this is inappropriate, I'm sorry and I won't pursue it.

# ? Nov 23, 2012 04:27

Boing: Jul 12, 2005; trapped in custom title factory, send help

I have a friend who I regularly meet with to argue about economics and politics. We always meet in the same pub at the same time and sit in the same seats, drink ale and talk poo poo. It's great. He's a Bulgarian-born right-wing free market libertarian and I'm a Russian-born left-wing Keynesian socialist (I think?). Apart from that we agree on a lot of things, there's no weird religious poo poo because we're in the UK and everyone's chill about that. But because he's a lawyer and I'm a psychologist, he's better educated than I am about these kinds of economic issues and puts up a very strong front. I'd like to be able to better argue my side of the debate. Our talk yesterday went something like:

Me: We know that the marginal utility of wealth drops off very sharply. Rich people do not derive any benefit from their paycheques above �100,000 and probably even less than that.

Him: Yes they do. If I'm a rich business owner and I want to expand my business, I can employ more workers and sell my product to more customers with my excess profits. Everybody benefits.

Me: But if we had a viciously progressive tax system, with capital gains and inheritance tax and everything, we could afford better welfare programs that gives poorer people more financial security and allows for better social mobility. You're all about people lifting themselves out of poverty.

Him: But then there's no incentive to grow businesses.

Me: But after the point of financial security, money doesn't motivate people. People will put effort into things if it gives them autonomy, mastery, purpose and so on.

Him: It doesn't matter. Money isn't necessarily motivating me as a business owner, but without the profits I literally cannot afford to expand my business.

Me: On the other hand, all of the poor and working class who are given food security by my progressive tax system can now pursue their own careers without being stuck working for you at minimum wage. They will already have had incentives to make money the way they want to make money, and now they have the opportunity.
(I think this was a misstep?)

Him: I don't think you understand how poor people live. In the neighbourhood in Bulgaria where I grew up we had welfare queens yadda yadda

How do I argue for progressive taxes and social welfare against a libertarian? I know there's more to my argument but I haven't had as much exposure to the issues as he has.

# ? Nov 23, 2012 16:37

NatasDog: Feb 9, 2009

I'm not sure how it is on your side of the pond, but actual welfare fraud is really miniscule according to almost every study I've seen in America, like single digits percentage wise. By and large, the amount of actual money being paid out for welfare is so low that even a minimum wage job would pay twice as much as what they'd get for sitting on their rear end; and you can barely even afford rent, food, and any utilities on what welfare pays as is.

Just tell your friend that just because he knows a bunch of terrible people (according to his anecdote) it doesn't mean everyone on welfare is a terrible person; and he shouldn't judge an entire system based purely on his admittedly subjective experience.

# ? Nov 23, 2012 18:45

Dr. Arbitrary: Mar 15, 2006; Bleak Gremlin

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if he reinvests revenue back into the business its considered an expense, not profit.

Taxes are levied against profits.

# ? Nov 23, 2012 19:01

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Profits are typically taxed, reinvesting money in the firm however is often a write-off. Also outside of a homeless guy saving up the money from his recycled bottles to buy a cart for more bottles, I really cannot think of any good contemporary examples of a business that finances itself through retained earnings. Typically a businessman finances an expansion through loans (unless stuff works really differently in Europe). Hell even basic payroll obligations are often met through the commercial paper market.

# ? Nov 23, 2012 19:27

Zuhzuhzombie!!: Apr 17, 2008; FACTS ARE A CONSPIRACY BY THE CAPITALIST OPRESSOR

Boing posted:

I have a friend who I regularly meet with to argue about economics and politics. We always meet in the same pub at the same time and sit in the same seats, drink ale and talk poo poo. It's great. He's a Bulgarian-born right-wing free market libertarian and I'm a Russian-born left-wing Keynesian socialist (I think?). Apart from that we agree on a lot of things, there's no weird religious poo poo because we're in the UK and everyone's chill about that. But because he's a lawyer and I'm a psychologist, he's better educated than I am about these kinds of economic issues and puts up a very strong front. I'd like to be able to better argue my side of the debate. Our talk yesterday went something like:

Me: We know that the marginal utility of wealth drops off very sharply. Rich people do not derive any benefit from their paycheques above �100,000 and probably even less than that.

Him: Yes they do. If I'm a rich business owner and I want to expand my business, I can employ more workers and sell my product to more customers with my excess profits. Everybody benefits.

Me: But if we had a viciously progressive tax system, with capital gains and inheritance tax and everything, we could afford better welfare programs that gives poorer people more financial security and allows for better social mobility. You're all about people lifting themselves out of poverty.

Him: But then there's no incentive to grow businesses.

Me: But after the point of financial security, money doesn't motivate people. People will put effort into things if it gives them autonomy, mastery, purpose and so on.

Him: It doesn't matter. Money isn't necessarily motivating me as a business owner, but without the profits I literally cannot afford to expand my business.

Me: On the other hand, all of the poor and working class who are given food security by my progressive tax system can now pursue their own careers without being stuck working for you at minimum wage. They will already have had incentives to make money the way they want to make money, and now they have the opportunity.
(I think this was a misstep?)

Him: I don't think you understand how poor people live. In the neighbourhood in Bulgaria where I grew up we had welfare queens yadda yadda

How do I argue for progressive taxes and social welfare against a libertarian? I know there's more to my argument but I haven't had as much exposure to the issues as he has.

Welfare queens are basically one run above Godwin's Law in an argument. Usually when that comes out, you're on the up and up.

# ? Nov 23, 2012 20:38

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:

Would anyone mind critiquing my performance in this thread? I made what I thought to be good points, and the people who really disagreed with me on abortion (I'm not counting the people I disagreed with about the personhood debate specifically) just ignored me. I've lurked for a long time but this is my first time actually posting in D&D, and I'm kind of frustrated that I made what I thought were good points that nobody listened to. Am I in the wrong here?

If this is inappropriate, I'm sorry and I won't pursue it.

I'm not sure which posts you felt were ignored, and in the spirit of this thread, I'm limiting this to posts where I think you failed to actually debate something and ignoring posts that I just disagreed with (but on that subject, argument by analogy is pretty much always terrible).

HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:

The pro-lifers itt seem very sloppy on the subject of rights in general, like when I said that fetuses do not have rights and Saeix said "No, they're alive," as though that was what I had said.

Edit: rights are established by means of contracts, which do not exist in a state of nature or among beings who do not think, hth.

Edit 2: Hobbes? I thought he didn't believe in natural rights, since there is no law in the state of nature. As I remember, all he said was that everyone has the natural right to preserve their own life by any means necessary. Am I remembering wrong?

This is not an argument, this is just you demanding that everyone recognize you as the one true arbiter of what the definition of the word "rights" is. The proper definition of rights is totally irrelevant to the discussion and even if you are correct about the definition of this word, you should be able to imagine the pro-lifers are saying "blorgon" instead "rights" and continue the conversation on topic. Further if the pro-lifers are being sloppy on the subject of rights, why aren't you quoting those posts and explaining the error they are making instead of cheerleading?

HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:

Saeix and his girlfriend had an abortion due to birth control failure. They went to Planned Parenthood, a federally funded institution of the kind that Saeix, as a libertarian, opposes in all other instances. This was OK though because reasons.

There is nothing inconsistent in being opposed to a program's existence, and realizing benefits from that program. This just looks like cheerleading to me.

HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:

The fetal personhood crowd isn't saying they're people, it's saying they're persons in the legal or philosophical sense. And I think there is something dangerous here, even if you plug that notion into a progressive worldview. In the first place, if you attribute rights to an entity which cannot exercise those rights (or interact with anyone else), those rights are exercised not by the fetus but by those who claim to speak on its behalf--not necessarily the mother. Secondly, if two rights-bearing individuals are occupying the same body, if one of them is growing out of the other, when things go south their rights will come into conflict.

You posted this in response to someone asking you to explain why fetal personhood is logically incoherent, but you failed to make a logical argument here. You've pointed out why adopting this stance might be morally ambiguous (without clarification), but did not point out any logical contradiction.

twodot fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Nov 23, 2012

# ? Nov 23, 2012 20:50

Oh dear me: Aug 14, 2012; I have burned numerous saucepans, sometimes right through the metal

Boing posted:

Him: It doesn't matter. Money isn't necessarily motivating me as a business owner, but without the profits I literally cannot afford to expand my business.

And why exactly should his business be expanded? He is basically arguing that he and he alone should have the right to decide how that capital should be invested. I don't see why any of the rest of us should agree.

He might go in two ways. He could make the consequentialist neoliberal argument that it will benefit us all to let business owners have the capital, because they are dynamic go-getting Men of Vision, etc. This can be attacked by pointing out that only the rich have been benefiting of late, and that being economically coerced into working for him is a very great disbenefit. (I think this is part of the argument you made.)

Or he could go for a deontological libertarian argument about his right to 'his' money. Then I would say that that money is not his at all, but money he owes the rest of us. Even if he doesn't accept a general duty of benevolence to others, and even if he discounts any possibility that his employees are entitled to a larger share, he still owes us for three things, without which he could not make anything: 1) stuff we've all made and paid for from which he benefits, like infrastructure, education, money, et cetera; 2) our agreement to observe laws from which he benefits, possibly much more than we do ourselves; especially 3) our allowing him exclusive control over some of the planet's resources, possibly a greater share than we have ourselves. In the last two matters it is especially the poor he owes money to, for willingly observing property laws which benefit him at their expense.

# ? Nov 23, 2012 21:53

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:47

Accretionist: Nov 7, 2012; I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Edit: Moved post to book thread!

Accretionist fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Nov 26, 2012

# ? Nov 23, 2012 23:27

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