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March 30, 2009 05:17 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 60 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.”

–Lao Tzu

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60 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  1. Homeowners vs Homebuiders in a major battle this week in the Colorado Senate.  SB 46, Homeowner’s Protection Act, sponsored by Senator John Morse, is facing a full-court press by the builders.  They have lined up over 20 lobbyists to fight it.  It is in committee this week.

    However, Morse has allies as well.  See two videos below: a commercial (there are similar ones for other legislators) and a piece laying out the problem for homeowners.

  2. 14 years after killing 168 humans, this guy has the right to sue because he can’t have raw veggies, because he is sinning without them? Some federal official should find a loophole and reassign this dickhead to the general population.

    Nichols Sues Prison Over Food Fight

    Nichols Wants Raw Vegetables, Fresh Fruit

    OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols is in a food fight with the federal prison in Colorado where he’s being housed.

    Nichols filed a 39-page handwritten lawsuit March 16, claiming the food he gets at the facility in Florence, Colo., violates his religious rights. He also alleges the “indifference” of prison officials to his medical needs is cruel and unusual punishment.

    According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, Nichols “is compelled to consume daily those unhealthy dead and refined foods that are abhorrent to plaintiff’s sincerely held religious beliefs causing him physical, mental and spiritual torment, and to sin against God.”

      1. That’s what blind ideological zealotry produces: Fools who contribute to human suffering in the name of dehumanized abstractions whose pursuit contributes nothing to human welfare. Both the Far Right and the Far Left have produced them, though in America today, as evidenced by those acts of domestic terrorism of the past few decades (since the mid-70s), it is our Far Right that is legitimate cause for present concern. I mean, what could be more logical than people who hate the over-reaching federal government expressing their righteous resistance by blowing up a federal building? The fact that children and scores of other innocent people were the only victims, and not the federal governmet at all, seems not to register. There are many similar forms of twisted reasoning, less transparent and more culturally “protected” from our perceptions, that deserve the same scrutiny that leads us to realize that Nichols was a dangerous fool rather than the righteous defender of liberty he believed himself to be.

        Let’s look at the real results of our policies, and not be blinded by the rhetoric which diminishes the impact of those results in our judgments, lest we collectively too closely resemble Nichols, and not closely enough resemble reasonable people seeking the best arrangements through which to facilitate human happiness and welfare.

        1. and “facilitate human happiness and welfare” without doing away with civil and individual liberties. We can do both.  Using Nichol to indirectly or directly argue your position to outlawing the public right to own guns and your belief that the 2nd amendment and other constitutional rights should be struck is clever but not “reasonable” or lawful. In fact, doing away with the right of public ownership of guns does not facilitate human happiness and would be detrimental to our welfare. There are laws on the books that prevent wife beaters and felons from carrying or owning guns already. You can’t walk into most municipal and state buildings with a gun. It’s healthy to debate and argue policy, but, your wrong on this one Harvey.

          Our government needs to focus on the economy and put in place measures that will prevent greedy corporations/CEO’s and greedy individuals on wall street and investment firms from stealing away our life savings and quality of life.

          1. but rather to a separate honestly held and perfectly rational, if culturally unpopular, position, stated and defended a week ago on a different thread, that you find so offensive that you feel obliged to hound me with your umbridge on a different thread and in response to a different topic.

            Second, I already addressed the fallacies in the positions you’ve stated above, and did so with clarity and precision:

            http://coloradopols.com/showCo…

            Or, for the complete transcript:

            http://coloradopols.com/showDi…

            As I mentioned at the time, John C. Calhoun argued in the 1830s that to deprive slave owners of their slaves would be an infringement on the liberties of the slave owners, and shop owners argued that laws against discrimination in their places of business was likewise an infringement on their liberty. The point is, everything that people want, including everything that is eventually outlawed or constrained to protect the rights of others, is a “liberty,” and its constraint is contested as an infringement on that liberty. But the real work involves drawing the line between one person’s liberty rights, and the rights of others not to suffer the negative externalities of those “liberties.”

            No sane person can argue that there are no negative externalities to wide spread private ownership of firearms, an obvious fact that the statistics amply bear out.

            These propositions are of general applicability: The definition of where your rights begin to infringe on mine is one of the underlying challenges of law and governance. To simply declare that private ownership of firearms, whose primary purpose is to destroy life, and which frequently end up destroying innocent life, at a far higher rate in this country (with the laxest gun ownership regulations of any developed nation) than in any other developed nation, does not involve any negative externalities, and does not implicate the challenge of drawing the line between where your liberties end and my right to safety begins, is an act of ignorance (in the literal meaning of the term) rather than well-considered reasonable argumentation.

            Now, I didn’t post anything about guns or gun ownership here, and I have no interest in rehashing that debate. Nor do I think it is appropriate on your part to consider my act of posting a general statement of general applicability an invitation to jump on me over a position about which you retain some festering anger, which is not the topic of my post or of this thread.

            I stated my postion on last Monday’s open thread, and you stated yours. Here, I am stating another position with broader implications. We all have the right to state our positions, but when you try to shout others down for stating theirs, you are doing a service to no one.

            I am sorry that my position offends you: That is not my purpose. But I am not sorry enough to silence myself when I have a well-considered point of view that I choose to express. Get over it.

            1. I am attempting to “shout others down” does not make it true. In fact, I made the point that to debate and argue policy is healthy. Obviously you are the one offended. In fact you state things like, “no sane person” could possibly deny the statistics that back up your point of view. By the tone of your post it is you that are shouting down. Your original post today was an obvious attempt to start this debate up again. I probably should not have taken the bait. It seems you are making the same old arguement and disguising it under positions with broader implications. Our first amendment, hopefully you will leave this amendment alone, protects your debated position and mine. Two good people can disagree.

              P.S. your rediculous comparison between slavery and private gun ownership is offensive Mr. Harvey. SLAVERY is obscene, unconstitutional and goes against everything decent in our society. Slavery is horrendous and a crime against humanity. How dare you imply that people in this country who own private guns are comparible to slave owners. Now I am offended.

               

              2. 1) I posted nothing about guns, and nothing that any observer would have thought was obliquely about guns had they not felt that it applied to something they had previously read that I had said about guns. You brought up guns, not me. No bait was dangled.

                2) But one week after my (offending you, arousing your ire, inspiring your righteous indignation, whatever term puts you most at ease), you respond to a post that has nothing to do with guns by insisting that I was wrong a week ago when I posted that I believe in strict gun control. Not only am I wrong, but I am violating the constitution, and possibly committing other unspeakable acts as well, by daring to argue such a position. But, no, of course, that is no way similar to shouting someone down. My mistake. Please accept my apology.

                3) What I actually said was that no sane person could argue that there are no negative externalities to the widespread private ownership of guns. I did not argue that no sane person could contest my statistical observation that there is a correlation between low national rates of deadly violence and strict national gun regulation (to argue that would simply be factually erroneous, not insane). I stand by my original statement: No sane person could deny that there are negative externalities to the widespread private ownership of firearms. I would even add “significant” externalities. Since sanity refers to a grasp of reality, and it would require the lack of such a grasp of reality to make such an argument (that no such externalities exist), it was a perfectly accurate statement.

                4) I made an argument today, relevant to the topic being discussed, that brought to readers’ attention the fact that people like Nichols are convinced that they are fighting for liberty, but are in reality only contributing to suffering, and that pursuing abstractions without consideration of their real effects contributes to such ill-conceived and odious commitments. If you saw a relation between that and other things I have said, that may be due to my analytical consistency.

                5) You state that two good people can disagree, but I have been “Harvey” and “Mr. Harvey” since your first response to my posts last week, and you have insisted that I have been insulting people and distorting the truth by drawing a relationship between devises designed to kill and human suffering, and that it is “offensive” of me to draw a connection between one instance of people arguing that their liberties are being infringed upon with another, for the precise and explicitly stated purpose of addressing your repeated insistence that it is inappropriate to challenge anything currently defined as a liberty interest (yes, it is offensive to draw such comparisons, when they do not favor your position). If you are committed to the notion that good people can disagree, why are you simultaneously committed to the attempt to signal that I am not a good person for the content of my disagreement with you?

                6) Slavery deprived people of their liberty; guns deprive them of their lives. The rate of death of innocent victims due to gun violence in the United States is obscenely high in comparison to the rate in other developed countries, and, coincidentally, we have the laxest gun regulations. You can be as offended as you want, but I remain adamant that people’s interest in continuing to live is not incomparable to their interest in living free, and the fact that our current polices regarding private ownership of guns deprives thousands of people per year of their lives is really incontravertable. It is not at all uncommon that people find themselves most particularly offended by the truth, because the truth is the most relentless and unforgiving of all adversaries.

          2. You said: “Using Nichol to … argue your position to outlawing the public right to own guns and your belief that the 2nd amendment and other constitutional rights should be struck is clever but not … lawful.”

            1) Making arguments that do not effectively incite people to commit imminent criminal acts is always lawful, and is the first of those Constitutional rights of which you speak.

            2) striking down a constitutional amendment can only be done lawfully, and is completely lawful to do.

            Arguing that, since it’s in the constitution, it can’t be debated, is clearly a fallacy. We have amended the constitution repeatedly, and generally for the better. The Constitution is a (brilliant) 200 year old governmental blueprint that was drafted by mere human beings in another time with other concerns. It is a valuable document, and one whose basic framework I would not want to undermine. But no provision in it is beyond rational debate, nor beyond reconsideration. Even the First Amendment has required enormous interpretation and, in that interpretation, careful delimitation. That is part of the project of which we are a part.

            3) As Thomas Jefferson said, “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat that fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimine of their barberous ancestors.”

            4) While I certainly appreciate your helpful clarification that, though “it’s healthy to debate and argue policy,” that observation doesn’t apply in this case because I’m “wrong on this one.” It’s good to know that debate is no longer healthy when, in your infinite wisdom, you judge your counterpart in the debate to “be wrong.” I’ll try to remember that next time I am tempted to express an opinion with which you disagree.

      1. he wants a vegan diet.

        I’m not vegan by choice, but even when forced you run into alot of… interesting people.  Like people who think milking hurts cows and that’s why you shouldn’t drink milk.

        Besides killing people, what did that bombing do to the environment?  All that dust and smoke went straight to farmland, into water, etc.  I know it sounds like I’m kidding, but a true vegan would never have hurt our mother like that.

            1. So sorry!  I will retract the ‘burger and send you a….a…..a…oh hell, how do I know if there’s gluten in it?  On the bright side, you must be thin and runway-ready.  🙂

    5. to eat them.  Don’t eat Terry–do us all a favor and starve yourself to death.

      I don’t claim to be a theologian, but something tells me that God as I understand him is going to have bigger fish to fry with Mr. Nichols when he gets to the pearly gates than eating refined foods.  

      How much is it costing taxpayers to respond to this assinine lawsuit?  Again, one more example of a reason I support electric bleachers.  Kill the bastards before they have a chance to complain…

      1. that this lawsuit wasn’t filed until Obama became president. I smell cause-effect.

        Bush would’ve just fed him Cheetos and Miracle Whip and told him to shut the hell up.

  3. But there’s just something kinda funny about a union picketing…uh…well…itself.

    Dozens of employees of the Service Employees International Union picketed their own union Friday over its decision to lay off about 75 workers.

    I’m sorry, but if the union you work for wants you gone, you’re up a bit of a creek…

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…

      1. The last one was from Josh Penry himself.

        And for you to accuse people of spinning things to fit their own agenda is just about the most disingenuous I’ve ever seen you post here. And that’s really saying something.

        You, Libertad, own the title of Mr. Spin. Pols could never hold a candle to you.

                1. Do you have more juicy facts, including late penalties and interest. You know, something like this…

                  JANUARY 14, 2009

                  Geithner’s Tax History Muddles Confirmation

                  By JONATHAN WEISMAN

                  WASHINGTON — Timothy Geithner didn’t pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for several years while he worked for the International Monetary Fund, and he employed an immigrant housekeeper who briefly lacked proper work papers.

                  Those issues, and a series of other tax matters, scuttled a tentatively scheduled confirmation hearing Tuesday for Mr. Geithner as Treasury secretary, Senate Finance Committee aides said. The tax matters were instead the subject of a closed-door meeting between the nominee, currently president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and members of the Senate Finance panel, in whose hands his confirmation lies.

                  …

                  Obama aides said they didn’t think these issues would present a problem, given what they characterized as the minor nature of the infractions and the gravity of the role Mr. Geithner has been nominated to take. Mr. Geithner’s “service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed,” Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

                  …

                  At the closed-door meeting, Mr. Geithner was contrite, several participants said. He told senators the mistakes weren’t intentional, but that he should have known better. The Internal Revenue Service makes up by far the largest piece of the Treasury’s budget.

                  …

                  The tax issue relates to Mr. Geithner’s work for the International Monetary Fund between 2001 and 2004. As an American citizen working for the IMF, Mr. Geithner was technically considered self-employed and was required to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for himself as both an employer and an employee.

                  ….

                  In 2006, the IRS audited Mr. Geithner’s 2003 and 2004 taxes and concluded he owed taxes and interest totaling $17,230, according to documents released by the Senate Finance Committee. The IRS waived the related penalties.

                  During the vetting of Mr. Geithner late last year, the Obama transition team discovered the nominee had failed to pay the same taxes for 2001 and 2002. “Upon learning of this error on Nov. 21, 2008, Mr. Geithner immediately submitted payment for tax that would have been due in those years, plus interest,” a transition aide said. The sum totaled $25,970.

                  …

          2. You just can’t get progressives to stand at attention, obey and repeat, en masse, whatever talking points are handed down every day the way the ditto head Libertads do.  Got to hand it to the right. They have great discipline and are so modest about their own opinions they’re perfectly willing to fall in line and accept unified  leadership.  

            We don’t have a lefty version of Rush or Fox News because Progressive talk radio and cable hosts, bloggers, etc. are apparently too egotistical to stop disagreeing with each other and pick a supreme leader so there is no individual or network as powerful as what Libertad’s righties have in Limbaugh and Fox.

            Then there’s the way we are said to be as tough to herd as cats and that makes for lousy ditto heads.  No problem there on the right either.  Even to say the right is way better at spin is an understatement.  It’s so beyond spin.  The right doesn’t just slant reality, it creates it out of whole cloth.

            Too bad all that discipline never translated into competence during the years the right was completely in charge of all branches of government. What’s up with that?  That kind of discipline is at least supposed to, you know, make the trains and stuff run on time.

            1. Say, how are all those newly minted unemployed people (and their friends and family), shoppers experiencing significant inflation at Safeway, etc… going to vote next season? I just don’t think that $13/month raise that POTUS gave us will contrast well with the bad.

              I just can’t see them lining up for more tax increases, fee increases, regulation, trial lawyers, more big government programs, etc…

              Its about jobs and the American way of life.

        1. There are always 2-5 choice stories … like:

          DPS 30% dropout rate (50% if you are a minority)

          Fired workers picketing union hall (Dabee you the man)

          Not one layoff or furlough at the state even though it is facing a series of $1B shortfalls in taxes/fees

          DPS students (including 3rd graders) being told next years class placements depend on how well they do on the CSAPs

          perfect example….

          AT&T donates $500,000 to aid Denver kids

          By Mike McPhee

          The Denver Post

          Posted: 02/13/2009 04:31:14 PM MST

          Updated: 02/13/2009 06:07:02 PM MST

          Joining the chorus of those concerned about the 49-percent dropout rate of Denver public high schools, the communications giant AT&T today gave $500,000 to two organizations focused on getting kids through high school.

          …

    2. to read all the newspapers today.  Has Penry screwed up yet again? Getting to be almost a daily occurrence for him.  Does MM know something which we do not?  Or is Penry just hiding in shame?

  5. Colorado severance taxes on natural-gas and oil production will plunge 84 percent to $40 million in fiscal year 2010 compared with the $250 million expected this fiscal year.

    http://durangoherald.com/secti…

    Whether you like it or not, our State’s going to feel the pinch without energy development.

    1. Our state has the lowest severance taxes in the region. the Republican (see: business friendly) strongholds of Wyoming, Utah, and Nebraska all have much higher rates than we do.

      The real reason, which you feel is somehow connected to this sweetheart deal of a severance tax rate, is because of the current oil bust–which is tied directly to the world financial crisis.

      Maybe we should just eliminate all forms of taxation, remove government entirely, and retreat to the mud huts to start all over again clean.

  6. find this from R Sen. Cornyn:

    “Texas Sen. John Cornyn is threatening ‘World War III’ if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case through the federal courts.

    Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges that a federal challenge to November’s elections could take ‘years’ to resolve. But he’s adamant that Coleman deserves that chance – even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration.”

    Wonder how the good people of Minnesota feel about being with only one Senator for “years”. Apparently even if Minnesota State Supremes rule in favor of Frankin, this TEXAN plans to fight it to the death.

    http://www.politico.com/news/s…

      1. is a Dem.  I guess the question would be would he certify the election after the State Supremes hand down their decision and if he does, wouldn’t Frankin have to be seated pending any further appeals?

        1. has ruled to only allow looking at 400 more ballots, a setback for Coleman.   Pretty sure next step, if Coleman takes it, is State Supremes.  

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