This is one of my best ‘gotcha moments’ with my companies extremely conservative accountant. She is well known in the company for broadcasting her conservatism.
She was going on almost exactly as elucidator above. After she went on for awhile I asked her if she believed in evolution. NO WAY! - she said…then the gotcha 
{If Darwinism/evolution/survival of the fittest is wrong…why would it apply to the market/economy?}
Obamacare is not universal single payer health care. It is like most state’s auto insurance programs: it requires people to get insurance and helps provide financing to only some of those who cannot finance it themselves. It requires insurers to accept everyone, not rescind and not have a lifetime cap (the equivalent of totaling out a car). It is hardly radical, it does qualify as incremental and a victory for individuals and small businesses. Under the common definition of radical, having what most wealthy democratic countries have, single payer universal, would still not qualify as radical.
Now as far as adding something snide to the Pitting of what is required to believe to be a modern conservative, there is no body that decides such a thing, other than perhaps Fox News deciding who is or is not a RINO. However, it requires intellectual flexibility to be a conservative: a conservative must be able to change his or her mind entirely on what is or is not a conservative policy based on who is controlling government (the only real modern conservative principle). When Republicans proposed their health care plan in 1993, they later should deride versions that highly similar if they are proposed by a Mormon as in Romneycare or a Democrat as in Obamacare. They support unappealable death panels of private insurers, but object to the imaginary death panels of Obamacare. They oppose deficits when Democrats are in power, but spend wildly when Republicans are in power because “deficits don’t matter” according to them. They say anyone who is has previously passed federal appointment is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court when they are nominating from the White House, but they might filibuster based on political “mainstream” views (i.e. agreeing with them) when the other party is nominating. They enter into a “gang of 14” arrangement to end judicial filibusters when they are nominating, it remains to be seen if the remaining members will honor that agreement. I think Snowe and Collins both were members of that arrangement.
In short, believing six different impossible things before breakfast is the standard Republican requirement, as long as it is blocking all of government’s business.
Nope. I feel pretty validated. Namecalling and bully tactics are what I expect in response from liberals who, as I’ve already mentioned, we feel are pretty much full of shit in the way they espouse their issues. So, your response was expected.
Since I already knew that… no, and since that’s a classical fallacy, the appeal to authority, which is another example of bullshit, still no. I feel doubly validated though.
I think you’re confused here. That’s you who believe the spoonfed bullshit by people who have a monetary stake (Al Gore sold carbon offsets, don’t you know?) Me? I’m not sure how much we put out or what the effect will be, so I’m simply skeptical about the whole thing.
No, but I was fucking a moron… last night… your mom… the Pele of anal.
You should read what I wrote a little more carefully. It’s not what I believe which is at issue, it’s simply that I think you are full of shit, employ fallacies, bully tactics and are unworthy of trust.
I’m not a bully. You’re an idiot.
An appeal to authority is how you have to present scientific understanding that are too complex for laypersons to grasp. Like climate science, nuclear physics, genetic recombination or whatever. You are doubting hundreds of thousands of peer reviewed scientists based on a bullshit hunch.
Bullshit. I am taking at face value the vast majority of climate scientists. You are believing 20 or so guys who work for Exxon.
You being skeptical is meaningless. You don’t have the understanding (and neither do I for that matter) to make a judgement. Science isn’t some do-it-yourself game. You go with the authorities, just like when you take medicine, trust a bridge to hold your car or whatever.
This morning she had little good to say about your performance. 
And I think you’re a loud, blustery coward who can’t think for himself. Does it really matter what we think of each other?
No. That’s how you do it. That’s one of the reasons I don’t trust you on the topic.
Hundreds of thousands? We can add exaggeration to the list of reasons not to trust what you say. But again, you did not read carefully what I said. I have no doubt that our species is effecting the climate, so I guess you can add me to the consensus.
Not really. I’m actually choosing to reserve judgement and think for myself.
Just because it’s beyond you to evaluate the evidence is hardly an argument that it’s beyond me.
I’m flattered that she even remembered me out of so many.
What you think really doesn’t matter, does it? You started this thread to ask what conservatives think, remember? You asked that we limit the discussion to that topic, yes?
I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking why you don’t trust 99+% of the people who are qualified to make a judgement.
Well I actually meant hundreds *or *thousands.
Glad to have you on board. I assume you’re totally behind cap-and-trade?
I assume you reserve judgement on brain surgery techniques as well? Do you scour over reams of particle-collider data before you *really *trust they’ve found a new particle?
It’s beyond both of us, I’m just the one sane enough to know it.
Well you really stood out in her memory when you started hysterically crying because all the condoms were too big.
I want to know factual things. I did ask that we cut out opinions, like stuff on abortion.
Oh, I’m sure the number of white racist Democrats is a lot higher than the number of Birther Democrats. (And many of those probably voted for Obama anyway, because some things are more important to them than race.)
Well, I don’t think it’s 99%, and I’m not sure how your defining scientists. There was that petition with 30K “scientists” saying global warming was b.s. but you’re definitions had to be pretty loose. In fact there are quite a few credible scientists who have their doubts. Nathan Myrhvold, Lowell Wood, and most notably Ken Caldeira (runs the ecology lab at Stanford, won the Nobel Peace Prize ) were interviewed for Superfreakonomics and were allowed to vet the article “What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in Common?” before publication to ensure that they were not misconstrued. In that article they explain why they doubt climate modelling, and think CO2 is getting a bad rap. One interesting point they mention is that the observed global warming seen recently might be partially explained by “Good custodianship.” The fear in the 1970s was global cooling, largely thought to be caused by particulate emmissions which they say blocked the atmosphere and surface temperatures. Cleaning up of particulate emmissions caused the the climate to warm. They talk a lot about the problems with what is actually believed by non climate scientists when they are talking about climate change. It’s a bit of an eye opener. You should read it.
Caldeira is about as respected as they get in the field, btw.
No problem. I can only go by what you say, though.
Not at all. Like I said earlier, I don’t trust liberals’ “solutions” to problems. I don’t think you know what you say you think you know, and I don’t think your solutions are effective or address the real issues. I think they are excuses to do what you want to do. For example, healthcare. In the liberal view the problem is something like: “Health care is very expensive. People need to have health insurance to cover the expense. We need to do something to make sure everybody is covered so we can pay for it.”
I think that’s a bad way of looking at the problem. I would look at the problem like “Healthcare for is very expensive, and becoming more so. Why is it so expensive and what can we do to make it less so?”
In point of fact, I have a functioning knee because I didn’t accept the consensus, which was to perform surgery to remove the injured cartilage in spite of what the doctors said. Back then, they didn’t such cartilage could heal. Now they know it can. It did. Had they removed it, it would not have had the opportunity, and I would have had bone on bone which would have provided a few years with a quick fix at the expense of being maimed for the rest of my life. So yes, I try to read and study everything I can as regards my health when there is an issue because I believe I am responsible for it, and myself. I don’t take the word of anybody. I believe in being an informed patient and participating in the decisions that effect my health. I think you have to be an idiot not to do your due diligence.
I trust you to describe your limitations. You know nothing about mine.
Oh really?
Anyone that says that in the 70’s scientists were predicting global cooling is not telling you the whole truth.
As a conservative:
The problem with Global Warming is that anyone who tries to look at it with healthy skepticism is put in the same category of a Holocaust denier. Do you care to discuss why in “An Inconvienent Truth”, Gore’s charts show CO2 lagging BEHIND temperature change or would you just rather accuse me of kidnapping the Lindburgh baby since 99.999999999999999999999999999999% of world scientists agree to GW (according to you).
And why should we believe it’s good? FDR tried it for 8 years and most people believe it was WW2 and not Keynes that ended the depression. How is taking from people who have no money as opposed to letting them spend it better at stimulating the economy?
No one I know seriously believed this. The issue was a leader that practiced genocide and ethnic cleansing against his own citizens (must … not … Godwinize). Then again, it you think we should have sat back and let him gas the Kurds into extinction let me know.
Similar to #3, let’s take the lunatic fringe on one side and ascribe their wackyness to everyone.
I think this is an interesting one. I’m sure a few fringe types (like #3 and #4) believe he was born in Kenya. Most conservatives like me were more bothered by the fact that there was no system in place that a presidential candidate had to PROVE that they met the eligibility requirements. Sec’ies of State said they assumed that the parties nominated eligible people. Congress only made sure the votes came from the proper electors. Courts said that ordinary people have no standing to ensure their President is eligible (while legally appropriate, it sounds REALLY bad). It’s not that we believe that Obama was not an NBC, but more of “what’s to stop a 13 year old from Lithuania from running for president? nothing really” sort of feeling.
The whole contraversy with the “long form” was just a clusterfuck, especially when people probably have birth cerificates (like mine) that list the hospital and doctor where as his was “filed” in Honolulu. But again, only the fringe element thought it was a coverup and that he really is a furriner.
Incidently, are you talking about a fiscal conservative, a social conservative, religious right conservative, teabagger or Glenn Beck?
Is there a Free Market (Blessings and peace be upon it!) solution to the problem? One that doesn’t require intervention and regulation? If you’re bleeding, is tourniquet a liberal solution or a conservative one?
If the AGW stuff is on the level, and I think it is, then we’ve got a lot to do and little time to do it. There ain’t no liberal dead, or conservative dead. There’s just dead.
Caldeira BTW has reported that he was misrepresented in Superfreakonomics:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/why_everything_in_superfreakon.php
That isn’t true. Those 30k names were largely collected off the internet and all were collected without verification. The vast majority of names are not climate scientists. Seriously, we’ve discussed this over and over again, no one thinks that list is credible.
Wrong.
From here: http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2201
So your sources are full of shit.
Global cooling was never a scientific consensus.
See above.
Meh.
They aren’t. However, as shown conclusively, you believe what you want to believe. You’re so full of shit there’s corn in your hair.
That’s your view of what Liberals are thinking. We’re actually thinking that the health insurance industry is making it impossible for a large portion of the population to get health insurance, at any cost. And we also think that every other nation on Earth with UHC does better for less money. That’s a fact, and you’re too stupid and ideological to admit it.
Good for you the HCR bill has cost control measures built it. Yay! You got what you wanted!
I honestly could not give one shit about your knee.
I know for a fact you are either a moron, or are pretending to be one. If you’re pretending, awesome job dude!
Unfortunately for you “denier” was invented in the 15th century.
What’s a crummy joint like this doing in a nice boy like you?
The problem is you are believing lies. Look, there are literally thousands of scientists who think AGW is happening. There are thousands of peer-reviewed articles in journals and millions of discrete pieces of evidence. That you are skeptical is a worthless fact. You are not qualified to judge it any more than you are qualified to weigh in on the best method for removing a brain tumor (assuming you aren’t a brain surgeon). There is no magic one chart that disproves AGW, if there was it would be disproven. You are a conspiracy theorist believing absolute rubbish.
You are misinformed about economics. FDR saved us with stimulating spending. When he stopped and tried to reduce the deficit during the depression it started getting worse immediately. And by the way, WWII was stimulus spending!!!
Seriously? How many Kurds was he gassing in 2003?
I’m willing to accept that many don’t believe this. However a scary amount seem to.
I believe I talked about this up a bit.
Yes.
I’ve seen that. It’s kind of interesting. Levitt and Dubner sent Caldeira the full text of the article to review it before publication to ensure that it was accurate and none of the scientists felt they had been misrepresented or taken out of context. Caldeira vetted the article as written. It was only when the reaction to it emerged that he changed his mind.
Why would he have vetted the article if it misrepresented to him?
That’s a leading question. Caldeira answers that too. He says he didn’t read it carefully. Not sure what to make of that.
