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No. You wanted to be able to attack my explanation without subjecting an explanation of your own to similar attack. A somewhat chickenshit tactic IMO. There has to be an explanation, you reject mine, but refuse to put an alternative on the table and subject it to the same scrutiny? Cheap...




Which only indicates that they'll support the party which isn't actively trying to ***** them Joph. I thought we were looking for causative factors here, not reactive ones. That's like arguing that the purchase of home security systems increases crime by showing statistics that people who were burglarized were more likely to buy them after the fact.

It's absurd logic, and I'm not sure what you think you were proving.



I was talking about "government", not a single party Joph. Good job completely missing the point though...

But.. but... only a few minutes ago, the reason was because they gave to the party in power! OMG what changed since five minutes ago!?!


Oh, I think the point's been made pretty well. The GOP denies ACC because they can't risk someone turning off the tap to all that beautiful energy industry cash. Just shake your head, say "Lies!!" over and over and rake in the dough. Easy!

Yeah, except... umm... for the past nine years it's been pretty obvious who was on the "We need to regulate this to prevent global warming" side and there hasn't exactly been a rush to shove cash at them.

Steadfast denial is still a pretty solid moneymaker, though!


Right. That and the piles of cash. But I guess "We love cash" doesn't play as well with the base.

Hey, remember when you linked that laughable "report" by ACC Denier Standardbearer Senator Inhofe proving that ACC was "moronic" and it was full of errors and outright lies? Boy, that was good times. How much money do you suppose he's gotten from the energy folks in the past ten years?

Hrm. Looks like $550,000 since 2005 from Gas & Oil (his #1 contribution source) and another $390,000 from Electric Companies (his #2 source). Yeah, his "reports" might be full of shit but that $940,000 sure was real, huh?

Edit: I had underestimated Inhofe's numbers by clicking the wrong tabs. Shame on me. I had originally said his total from those two sectors was only $630k when it should have been closer to that cool million. and that's only since 2005 -- this guy's been in office since 1995.

Hehehehe... "moronic". Yeah, that's it. God, do you actually believe this stuff?


Edited, Dec 15th 2009 4:21pm by Jophiel

Absent regulation, how much total donations (to either/both parties) would they give?

Eliminating all regulation would only be likely to reduce donations by virtue of it destroying the overall economy. Do you really not understand this, yet? Interest groups don't donate money to political parties in the hopes of throwing off the yoke of government taxation and regulation. That's an absurd fantasy worthy of a Riefenstahl film plot. Interest groups give money to further their, hold on here it comes, are you ready? They give money to further their...........INTERESTS! Removing all regulation would lead them to lobby for laws that guaranteed their profit margin, or that funneled government dollars to them, whatever.

I thought the incentive was to save the planet.

That not enough for most people?



Edited, Dec 16th 2009 12:08am by paulsol

Recycling centres are all well and good to help make the individual feel that they are doing their 'bit' to save the world, and to make it seem that the govt who funded it 'cares', but its not the recycling of some of our detritus that is going to improve our environment in any meaningful way.

To really become a sustainable presence on this planet, We consumers need to stop infinitely consuming our finite resources.

Until that happens, every thing else we do is a waste. (see what i did thar?)

I've always found this "infinitely consuming" thing to be sort of awry, since it really fails to grasp the nature of the beast. First off, we aren't infinitely consuming, and even if we changed the rate at which we did so, we'd sill be in the same predicament, just moved further away. Not saying that avoidance until tech moves to the appropriate point isn't a useful tool.

The key here is those recycling programs and re-harvesting mechanisms. It's creating an economic approach which encourages such systems that is the point.

Those crickets are with you because they have faith in your retarded plan.

The default disagreement is based on the reality that ACC is overblown and the proposed changes are draconian in proportion. What any individual politician is motivated by is another matter entirely.

What you're doing is another variation on the "If I can find someone who opposes gay marriage because homosexuality is a sin, it invalidates any and all arguments against any gay marriage legislation" argument. It's a bad argument Joph.

The ACC proposals are moronic. The fact that some GOP members who understand this also receive funding from people who would most suffer if said moronic legislation were enacted isn't exactly shocking. It's a chicken and egg issue Joph. Does the politician oppose Global Warming proposals because he's being supported by the oil companies? Or do the oil companies support him because he opposes Global Warming proposals?


Any rational person's answer would be "a little of both".




That applying cap and trade rules to our industries wont have any significant impact over global temperatures over the next 50 to 100 years? Absolutely. That the ACC impact predictions are massively exaggerated? Absolutely. I've been saying this all along Joph. Why are you surprised?


Do I "believe" in the strawman you're creating that all politician act for purely ideological reasons? Um... No. And I've stated this clearly several times already. What part of this is confusing to you?


But here's the funny thing Joph. And it's something I've stated repeatedly over the years, but you keep failing to get. Just because someone does something for the wrong reasons does not make the thing they are doing "wrong", and it does not make the opposite thing "right". And just because you label something "evil" does not mean that things it supports are "evil". It's funny because your entire argument rests on an assumption that the oil companies are evil, so anything they want must be evil, therefore any position taken by someone they support must also be evil.


Silly me. I'll look at the actual issue, not at who is supporting it, or who's funded by whom. That would seem to be a better way to make a decision. Don't you agree?

Edited, Dec 15th 2009 5:32pm by gbaji

According to the doctrine you're espousing, you don't want anyone to be with you. You are advocating personal responsibility, but collectively. It's a walking contradiction.

I don't have any idea why you've conflated social and personal responsibility with one another, or agency, or actions, but stop it.

Ah. So it's only because of government regulation that any business can thrive? Really? That seems like a pretty hard position to defend Smash. Government funding of things they want would be impacted, but the free market would do just fine with a whole hell of a lot less regulation.

I'm not saying "zero regulation". I'm saying that the more we regulate the more valuable lobbying becomes to those industries which are regulated. It's kinda silly to blame the private industries for this.



That depends on the interest group. It's interesting that you changed the phrase from "industry" to "interest groups". Interest groups is a larger category which includes those which exist solely because of government funding. Obviously, they don't want to end that gravy train...

Most private industries absolutely would like less taxation and regulation. I think it's silly to even suggest that they don't. But absent being able to do that, they'll settle for minor changes to the regulation and tax rules to include loopholes which will benefit their bottom lines. And if they can do this in a way which helps them while not helping their competitor, that's even better.


But that's just more examples of how government involvement creates opportunities for corruption and ever expanding government involvement. And like most things, a little bit is a good thing, but a lot is usually bad.



And if their interest is to make as much money as possible, one could argue that reducing the taxes and regulation on them would be something pretty high on their wish list. Do you think the oil industry wants to spend money to get government to not tax them as much? Or do you think they would prefer to just not get taxed as much in the first place?


The government is the bully. The politician is the bully's friend. And he's willing to take some money on the side to get the bully not to beat you up as often. That's the relationship most private industries have with the government. Getting beat up less is an improvement over getting beat up more, and they're willing to pay a bit to gain that improvement. That does not mean that this is the way things should work. It's just the way they inevitably do. It is the nature of governments to involve themselves in this manner.


So yeah. It's in the nature of government to encourage anything which makes it easier for it to impose yet more taxes and regulations. It's about power.





Lol. That's how Liberal interest groups work Smash. Free market institutions mostly just want to be left alone. They realize that they make more money on their own than they can if government gets involved in their business. It's only interest groups that don't actually produce anything of value on the open market which want and need government. Not surprisingly, those are mostly the organizations on your side of the political fence...

Paulsol what you're suggesting is prayer, pure and simple. That if people sit on their butt and hope the world spontenously changes then the situation will improve. Why do you even bothering pretending to be a cynic, so distrustful or government and policy, when clearly you're the most optimistic person in the world.