Gambit7

I like your line-in-the-sand analogy. But you have to then ask yourself which candidate gets us closer to it? It cant be McCain; logic says a smart and inexperienced president is actually good for us right now... both of which McCain isnt. McCain also much more represents a broken system IMO.

Saying "one side or the other" isnt a party system. That represents a dissolution of the party system, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

So even if you dont like either candidate, you still have to ask yourself which one gets you closer to your ideals... not further away. It cant be McCain. Sorry, it just cant. The obvious compromise is Obama. Just as in any paradigm shift in science or government, we often get people and ideas that really "grate" on us - that doesnt mean they make us worse off overall.

And a paradigm shift is what this world needs right now. (unless you're a selfishly well off individual. Obviously you'd want things to stay the same in this case.)

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Kerostasis

"Compromise means everyone agreeing with me", where have I heard that before? Oddly enough it sounds remarkably similar to the Democrats' calls for compromise for all of the years I've been paying attention to politics. Sorry, but to most people thats not what "compromise" means at all.

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Drizzid

Very well stated and you definitely give me something to think about. I do not agree with everything you say but I will definitely consider it

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sordavie

It pains me to hear the phrase 'paradigm shift' being used in this way. A few years ago, 'paradigm shift' became misappropriated and overused as a marketing buzzphrase. And, here you're essentially using it that way. The phrase is a technical phrase defined by Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and applies only to the hard sciences.

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Gambit7

Paradigm shifts are indeed relagated to the sciences. (you're preaching to the choir here) But, I could argue with you that indeed what we're talking about here is Science.

The crux of how and why a paradigm shift occurs also applies in this instance.

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leejo

We don't need a paradigm shift. What we need is strategic synergy.

sordavie

Ah, well neither Obaman nor McCain will cause a paradigm shift in the sciences. According to Kuhn, paradigm shifts don't occur until the prevalent science can no longer explain inconsistent observational data. (Consider the shift from Newtonian mechanics to quantum mechanics or from Newtonian gravity to general relativity. In both cases, the classical theories could no longer explain new experimental data.) But, at this point in time, there isn't any inconsistent observational data to the standard theory. This is what I meant when I said that both theories are superbly empirically tested in the other thread.

A paradigm shift won't occur until a revolution in our technology or our mathematical theories. The first is hard without better physical theories, on the assumption that reductionism is right and the standard theory is wrong, and the latter is just hard.

Anyway, carry on with discussion of the poorly stated, leading question.

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Gambit7

LoL
Is this not Political Science? And why can we not adopt the literal sense of the word "paradigm" towards government and economics? They're all inherently sciences.

Democracy itself was a grand theory and experiment. Now superbly tested, and woefully obsolete in its current state. There are a gaggle of theories on the direction politics, govt., and economies should take, enough to cause me to believe there's a fundamental paradigm shift that's about to, or should occur.

Just like there's about to be another paradigm shift in Physics.

The more people come to terms with this, the better. Otherwise the human experience is just a redux of crappy theories.

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sordavie

Maybe you should read Kuhn's book, since you're really interested in this subject. He's explicit that paradigm shifts can happen only in the hard sciences (i.e. physics, chemistry). There are good reasons why the phrase is not applicable in the soft sciences, such as political science, sociology, or even economics.

Moreover, I take it we're discussing what candidates we should vote for, and whether some kind of racial bias can possibly be justified. This is not a discussion of political science. We're not discussing some kind of study of governments or policy and we're not discussing the methodology of such studies.

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ScratchMonkey

We don't need to eliminate parties. We just need to stop subsidizing them with public money by paying for their elections and conventions and debates. (The debates are run by a coalition of Dems and Pubs, which is why the barrier to 3rd party participation is set so high.)

Remember that the one characteristic that distinguishes government from all other human organization is that government is granted the power to use deadly force to enforce its whims on its citizens. Changing how we pick a government is just moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. We need to drastically cut back on the scope of government power, so that the choice of who is in power isn't so important. My rule of thumb is that when you need bodyguards to protect you from assassination, you have too much power. Once you get government down to the size where bodyguards aren't needed, you're at about the right size.

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[tR]Greasy_mullet

My gosh you really nailed that one. This election would not, should not be so important if the size of government was within its Constitutional limits and was forced to follow the law. No matter who would win, they would be forced to work within those Constitutional limits which would be a huge sigh of relief.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. ~Barry Goldwater

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper. ~Larry Flynt

When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves. ~George Pataki

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July 25th, 2008 PoE2!!!

Switch

Careful gambit, didnt you see what happened to the last guy who debated sori?

I fear for your safety.

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|TG|Switch

Better known as:
That noob who crashed the chopper.
That noob who ran over the mine.
That noob who TK'd me with a sniper rifle.
That noob who hit that APC at 300m with light AT! Our APC...

Gambit7

I actually enjoy it. Sori knows this.

On the topic of drastically cutting back govt. power. Of this I completely agree. They should really only be there to enforce laws, enact and draft legislation, and that's it. BUT, this requires an educated public. A Public we do not have. FIRST we need to fix this problem, and THEN we can have a truly small, democratic government. All we'd accomplish right now (if someone waved a magic wand and gave conservatives their wish) would be a bunch of dumbasses being led around by another bunch of dumbasses with a lot of money. And it wouldnt be any better (probably worse) then where we are now.

Federalism, which is what this country was designed for, is an unfortunate fact. And needs to die a horrible death IMO if you want small govt. This requires ripping up the Constitution and starting anew. Now, which Conservative wants to do that???

Btw, can anyone tell me which candidate isn't taking public money?

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Switchcraft

The one who broke his promise to do so, why?

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---
Sources say the Dow Jones' decline is directly related to Dethklok front-man Nathan Explosion's constant deleting of potential new albums.

Delta*RandyShugart*

i think we should all resort to living without electricity and in nature, along with no running water. And there should be gov't whatsoever, only the strong survive, even then the hippy liberals would find something to complain about.

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