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"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Malcolm Teas) wrote:

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office. (Source: Appendix F of the CBO publication The
Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005-2014.)

which brings to mind that saying about the rooster thinking
the sun rises because he crows...

No matter what you think of Clinton, neither of the Bush presidents,
nor Ford, nor Reagan managed that. In fact, the deficit climbed
significantly in the Reagan and first Bush terms. First time over one
trillion. two trillion, and three trillion in those years.

So, high time to adjust our view to reality.

it's high time people learned which branch of the Federal
Government is responsible for appropriation.


And time that people learned the difference between CORRELATION and
CAUSATION.

Also, it's time they learned to dig in and get economic data that explains
such things as tax revenue during boom years, the y2K run-up, that the boom
90's were mostly attributable to Bill GATES, not Bill CLINTON. That the
ground work and foundation for the 90's were laid in the Reagan 80's...

Savvy? My sweaty behind!!

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Matt Barrow wrote:

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...

These people all had religious beliefs.

Not in the sense that CJ was using the term.

I disagree. C.J. has consistently argued that freedom of religion is right
and
proper. That implies a recognition that worship of gods other than the
Judaen/Christian tradition are religions.

And that has...what?, to do with this?

Perhaps he draws the line at the Hindu
pantheon, but he has not implied that he feels that way, AFAIK.

The Greeks and Romans, had legends, but they were not based in
superstition. The Hindu's are primarily philosophic, not religious.

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you don't
hold that belief.


If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what is
it?

After all, if we are nothing but sacks of chemicals, doomed in the end to
become nothing but waste heat, why should we care what happens to us or to
anything else? Nothing we do makes any difference at all if we eventually
just become random ergs scattered throughout the universe.

There aren't any. Allowing gays to marry would harm no one.

That said, from Jay you'll probably "find out" that you can't trust gay
people around children of the same sex. He has a very distorted view of
the consequences of homosexuality, and may very well believe that allowing
gays to marry might hurt someone.

Thanks, Pete, for filling in for me.

However, your distorted view of my point (from way back when we were
discussing the problems that come along with allowing a homosexual Boy Scout
leader to take boys on overnight camping trips) doesn't cast any light on
the question this gentleman is trying to answer.

CJ did a pretty good job of answering the question, however. It's not a
matter of denying homosexuals the right to marry -- it's a matter of
distorting the definition of "marriage" to fit your agenda.

"Marriage" is the union of a man and a woman. There are no laws (to my
knowledge) forbidding homosexuals from engaging in this practice.
Therefore, no discrimination exists.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Matt Barrow wrote:

The Greeks and Romans, had legends, but they were not based in
superstition.

They had religions and worshipped various Gods.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you
don't
hold that belief.


If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what
is
it?

Not a religious belief. You should not be trying to redefine religion,
which is based on a god or gods and is best acknowledged as founded on the
gullibility of the many and the calculations of the few.

After all, if we are nothing but sacks of chemicals, doomed in the end to
become nothing but waste heat, why should we care what happens to us or to
anything else? Nothing we do makes any difference at all if we eventually
just become random ergs scattered throughout the universe.

Not random, my moorman friend. You can leave footprints in the sands of
time, or be a lasting legacy like Charles Dickens or Henry Ford, sire
children who will in turn sire children, perhaps even contribute to the
fossil record --- like the missing link between Neanderthal and human
recently discovered, or the subhumanoid bones recently unearthed in
Indonesia.

Having read some of your scribblings, however, I am not encouraged that your
legacy will be anything more than dust.

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
not for the children killed during the abortion.

"Children" who in large numbers were dying anyway (making abortion illegal
doesn't get rid of abortion), or who if born would have suffered their
entire short life in many cases.

Ignoring for the moment the huge chasm between people like you who claim
that it's a "child" the moment the egg is fertilized and a larger group of
people who don't feel that way, of course

In any case, since you're clearly "anti-choice", you should know as well as
anyone that no thread about abortion is going to get anywhere, not even on
an abortion newsgroup, nevermind a piloting one.

Pete

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:coMkd.327130$wV.310368@attbi_s54...
[...]
"Marriage" is the union of a man and a woman. There are no laws (to my
knowledge) forbidding homosexuals from engaging in this practice.
Therefore, no discrimination exists.

I'm not sure why you have your head stuck in the sand, but you do.

Your "definition" of marriage is hardly shared by everyone. It used to be
that the word "person" did not include black people. You can't go running
to the dictionary every time someone has a view you don't hold to. The fact
is that civil marriage grants numerous benefits to those married, and those
benefits are illegally being withheld from homosexuals.

There are plenty of people (perhaps including yourself) that say "so what?
I don't care whether homosexuals are treated equally". Some people even say
"so what? they chose to be homosexuals, if they want the benefits, they can
choose to be heterosexual" (maybe you say this too). But the latter is not
supported by scientific evidence, and neither is a particularly open-minded,
loving attitude.

"No discrimination exists"? Oh well...you're just proving my point about
how huge portions of the electorate simply believe whatever they want to
believe, regardless of the facts.

Pete

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what
is
it?

It's an innate desire, not a religious belief. It's basic biology. We come
pre-wired to desire happiness.

(Malcolm Teas) wrote in message . com...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
"Cecil Chapman" wrote in message
m...
P.S. You're right, we should all thank Mr. Bush for turning a hard-earned
surplus budget (earned under Clinton's rule) into a 4.3 trillion dollar
DEFICIT.

That is really funny coming from a Democrat. Here we have Democrats accusing
Bush of behaving too much like a Democrat. ROFL.

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office. (Source: Appendix F of the CBO publication The
Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005-2014.)

No matter what you think of Clinton, neither of the Bush presidents,
nor Ford, nor Reagan managed that. In fact, the deficit climbed
significantly in the Reagan and first Bush terms. First time over one
trillion. two trillion, and three trillion in those years.

So, high time to adjust our view to reality.

-Malcolm Teas

Matt Barrow says:
And his role in those surpluses was...?

Well, looking at the data, he proposed and succeeded in passing a
budget that reduced the overall deficit for the country.

If you're talking about how the surpluses came about, he took
advantage of the boom to propose budgets - and get them passed - that
created the surpluses.

Matt Whiting:
Luck. He was lucky to be following George Bush the First

Huh? Perhaps that was luck, perhaps not. I don't, for example,
remember any effort under Bush senior to, for example, make
governement more cost efficient. There was that under Clinton. But,
all presidents have some good luck and some bad. But not all
presidents use the good luck effectively.

John Theune:
I think a more balanced view might be the relative growth of the budget
vs inflation during various administrations. The main reason Clinton got
to run a surplus was a huge increase in income due to the internet bubble
and the capital gains taxes it generated. While a surplus is a good
thing, it must also be viewed against spending as I certainly don't want
a budget surplus if it means they take all my money!

Inflation fell during the Clinton years. It was higher, often
significantly higher in the Bush (senior) and Reagan years. Sure,
there was a boom or bubble. There were booms and bubbles in years
past. Several times in the 60's and 70's too. However, those
presidents didn't take advantage of it to lower our deficit then.

Bob Noel:
it's high time people learned which branch of the Federal
Government is responsible for appropriation.

Well, the president proposes the budget, Congress passes it. But,
it's also high time we recognize how these things get done too.
There's plenty of negotiation between the two branches on what gets in
and what doesn't. A successful president knows how to negotiate as
well as propose a budget.

Matt Barrow:
And time that people learned the difference between CORRELATION and
CAUSATION.

Also, it's time they learned to dig in and get economic data that
explains
such things as tax revenue during boom years, the y2K run-up, that
the boom
90's were mostly attributable to Bill GATES, not Bill CLINTON. That
the
ground work and foundation for the 90's were laid in the Reagan
80's...

Well, there's something interesting in that Clinton was the ONLY
president that had a budget with a surplus since 1962 (possibly
earlier, that's how early the data I looked as was). This was across
both parties, across differing Congresses, and across boom and bust
cycles. Sounds like correlation to me.

Bill Gates was not personally responsible for the boom. If any single
person was it's Tim Berners-Lee who came up with HTML, HTTP, and the
initial versions of web technology. But, it's not just one person.
It's many people in many areas expanding into the potential of
internet technology. Some of us succeeded wildly, some didn't, some
of us crashed and burned. Actually, Microsoft is more a marketing
driven company than a tech company. Like many large companies they're
more of a follower in technology than a leader. (I write software for
a living and have been involved in computers for a number of years,
seen 'em come and seen 'em go.)

As far as Reagan laying the groundwork, well, he was the one who
proposed & got passed the budgets that caused the significant deficit
in the first place. All prior deficits pale to his. Deficits raise
interest rates and slow investments.

In any case, that's it for me on this debate. Believe what you want.
I enjoy a good debate as a way of better understanding of what each
other thinks. But this isn't it. Back to aviation for me.

-Malcolm Teas