How did USA become such a messed up country?

[lastunicorn]

http://bit.ly/QWL17o

In all of the paragraphs containing the word ICBM in that wikipedia article I don't see a single citation.

[Bishop]

Make an effort to search yourself then maybe? That was literally the first link i got in my 2 seconds of looking. Why are people so damn lazy these days.

[John Snowstorm]

In all of the paragraphs containing the word ICBM in that wikipedia article I don't see a single citation.

are we being serious right now?

I already told you, the atlas-centaur rocket system was used for all the early moon missions and the damn thing was originally designed as an ICBM, the saturn V was its successor designed to be able to carry larger payloads. The titan rockets that launched the gemini missions and all the probes to saturn, mars etc were also ICBMs originally designed as a backup to the atlas program. The russians were using r-7 ICBMs to launch men into orbit. The rockets used for space flights are the same ones used for ICBMs, there is very little technological difference.

Fact of the matter is, the money went out of rockets as soon as they'd reached more or less maximum potential in terms of ICBM capabilities, the money then went into MIRV systems and ABM systems, neither of which can be demonstrated or furthered by space exploration.

[Maelor]

yea, we don't need laws about stealing or murder, pretty much everyone already agrees those are wrong, right?

You're arguing for populism, which is silly even without that obvious flaw, laws have to defend minority positions. If 99.5% of people think its ok to to beat up gingers, does that mean it should be OK?

Plenty of things throughout history have been done for more self serving reasons than you might like, going to the moon was basically just a prototype test for ICBMs, so what?

You are making a really ridiculous strawman. In one sense, we technically don't need laws for stealing/murder to reinforce the fact that they are bad. However, we still have laws anyway. Why? It's not really a statement of the society that it's bad. That's a given. The laws simply exist to dictate the punishments under various circumstances.

You keep confusing the particular laws of a certain organization/nation with actual morals. But laws =/= morals. If someone is morally affronted by your behavior, yet there is no law against what you have done, they will push for you to punished for something anyway and try to enact a law to do so in the future. Let's take pro-life people against a person having an abortion in a state where it is legal, for example. On the other hand, actions that are completely within the letter of the law are not necessarily seen as moral. Why don't we take all the loopholes and taxbreaks big banks and corporations weaseled into our laws with lobbyists, for instance?

But I suppose I'm straying from the point. What I was saying about what happens with laws and people's opinions... I was not necessarily saying either were one or the other were in the morally right. What I WAS saying, though, was that if the majority of people think X is bad, they would eventually pass a law to ban it. And eventually, if such an overwhelming majority of people thought X was bad, they wouldn't really need that law anymore... as its only purpose would be to define the punishment at that point. I was simply stating how things are.

Now let's look at your other strawman, lol. If 99.5% of people think its ok to to beat up gingers, does that mean it should be OK? Well... according to 99.5% of the people, yes, it would be!

[John Snowstorm]

Now let's look at your other strawman, lol. If 99.5% of people think its ok to to beat up gingers, does that mean it should be OK? Well... according to 99.5% of the people, yes, it would be!

Thank you for demonstrating so clearly that you have no idea what a strawman argument is. How is it a straw man if it represents your position correctly?

[Maelor]

Thank you for demonstrating so clearly that you have no idea what a strawman argument is. How is it a straw man if it represents your position correctly?

Whoops. I think what I meant was, it's a fallacy. I can't be assed to determine which one, as they're all named and categorized, but whatever. I suppose because of that little slip up my whole argument is rubbish and my credibility is ruined FOREVER!

[John Snowstorm]

A strawman isn't even a formal fallacy at all, and you haven't outlined how any of what I said was a fallacious in any way.

In fact all you did was assert that I said something (?) wrong and I "kept" confusing morals and laws which I'd be interested to learn how I "kept" doing anything since I only wrote two question sentences referring to your post both of which you responded to in the affirmative. In fact I didn't even mention morality, and only barely touched on it.

Formally speaking, I constructed a reductio ad absurdum and you replied agreeing with it, which I guess just makes you absurd.

[Maelor]

No, it's not a "reductio ad absurdum" because your implication that the result is absurd simply isn't! You've probably just committed a fallacy with a name twice as long. Sure, you can come up with an action that you, I, and many others are likely to disagree with, but you can't just switch the table and then hypothesize "what if everyone actually thought it was ok...". If so many people actually thought it was ok, there would be an extremely high chance in that, in reality, that your question would sound like, "If 99.5% of people thought jaywalking is OK, does that mean it should be ok?" to us.

And the answer to that would be... uh... probably? We all have different morals, but they may or may not be absolutely just. These morals are also most likely not perfectly in line with the society's... which may or may not be absolutely just.

[John Snowstorm]

yea, repealing murder laws because the majority agree that murder is bad already is pretty absurd.

and yea, making laws based solely on majority vote is tantamount to mob rule.

There isn't even a fallacy available for not making a reductio ad absurdum in this manner which isn't absurd enough for you as it isn't a formal logical (dis)proof, you don't have any idea how the rules of logic or debate work, so please stop trying to use them and just have a discussion with me.

Laws are also required to protect minorities from majorities, unless you endorse mob rule, which apparently you do based on your statements.

[Maelor]

I think you misread what I was trying to get at. I didn't say murder laws should be repealed. But what I am trying to say is, we most likely don't need them to stop MOST people from committing murder. Everyone already knows it is wrong. The law is only there to dictate punishment.

There is a difference between "we should repeal this law" and "people don't need this law to act justly anyway".

Yes, minorities need to be protected by laws... how do laws get passed though? Ironically, some majority vote is taken at some steps in the process anyway.

[John Snowstorm]

we most likely don't need them to stop MOST people from committing murder.

This inane argument breaks down when you get to popular crimes. The populous does not self regulate on every action which is detrimental to society.

Besides all a law really is is to say this is the penalty for action X, you are not the one assuming laws are moral functions, they are merely a system of rules and penalties devised for the smooth running conduct of a society.

In light of this what you are actually saying is "we don't actually needs laws except that we need laws"

how do laws get passed though? Ironically, some majority vote is taken at some steps in the process anyway.

HRMMMM. I wonder if there are any examples of laws that got enacted before the majority popular support was behind that cause. I wonder where I could find such an example!

Long story short, laws should not be based on mob sentiment, they should be based on careful, reasonable and conscientious analysis of the facts, the contingencies and the repercussions.

In the specific case of racism laws, you actually do have to legislate because base human instinct and nature is to be subliminally or consciously bigoted against those that look different from you, that's unfortunately just an irrational upshot of our biology, so you do need be careful to protect minorities within your societal structure.

[Maelor]

So what, are you saying that if we suddenly repealed all the laws against murder, people (not necessarily a large percentage) would go, "Oh, whew! Glad that's out of the way now!" and start killing whenever they fancied it? I wouldn't. Is the law dictating punishment for murder the only thing stopping you from killing someone? Would your parents be OK with killing someone? Your family? Any of your friends...?

Also, your sarcasm is cute, but you will NOT find an example... unless of course, we are talking about a dictatorship or monarchy government here. Going to pass a law, first the house and senate need to pass a MAJORITY VOTE. How is each congressman/woman selected? By majority vote. Then the bill has to be signed in by the president (or else a supermajority from congress is needed). The president is ideally selected by majority vote, or even if you are counting the electoral college, THEY take a majority vote. The presidential candidates from each party? They are selected by majority vote of their party's delegates. The delegates? Guess how people decide which delegates to pick.... etc, etc, ETC!

You might want to tout all the laws and system of the US as not a majority at all, and claim that laws somehow mystically came into being without taking a majority vote, but in reality... the whole system is ridden with it.

[John Snowstorm]

Are you seriously this dense?

So what, are you saying that if we suddenly repealed all the laws against murder, people (not necessarily a large percentage) would go, "Oh, whew! Glad that's out of the way now!" and start killing whenever they fancied it? I wouldn't. Is the law dictating punishment for murder the only thing stopping you from killing someone? Would your parents be OK with killing someone? Your family? Any of your friends...?

There are countries without laws, they tend to have a real f*ckin high murder rate. Not having a solid system of law order and justice in a society is typically very very bad for that society. Basic anthropology 101 should teach you that.

Also, your sarcasm is cute, but you will NOT find an example

so nothing ever passed congress without popular support? you're plain ignorant then. Maybe you should check polling on the stuff that congress passes. wow. just wow.

The NDAA bill this year had a 2% favorability rating on a poll from OpenCongress (granted, that poll isn't the most reliable, online etc, but most certainly a very unpopular bill), passed with bipartisan support.
Bailout of 2008, opposed by majority of electorate: passed, additional 300 odd billion in january also widespread unpopularity, passes congress.
nafta 1993, opposed by majority, passed.
Iraq war funding 2003, opposed by majority, passed.
terry shaivo legislation, passed
impeachment of clinton
how about bushes veto of stem cell research? also unpopular, but it got my sister a job working on it here, so thanks for that bush.

There's a whole bunch of unpopular presidential orders.

Hell the global gag rule switches depending on which party is in office, one of those positions is surely less popular than the other!

It's now popular to end oil subsidies, yet they endure. It is popular to decriminalise cannabis, no sign of that, it is popular to end bush tax cuts and yet congress seems resolute on keeping them. 75% of the popular vote think abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances but roe v wade is hanging on by a thread, if the republicans get to replace a liberal judge that thing is done son. I guarantee it.

[Bishop]

So what, are you saying that if we suddenly repealed all the laws against murder, people (not necessarily a large percentage) would go, "Oh, whew! Glad that's out of the way now!" and start killing whenever they fancied it?

Yes, this is exactly what would happen. Current edge cases where sympathy potentially lies with the killer would turn into cases where it is acceptable to kill without trial, vigilantism would grow exponentially. As would crime syndicates in fairness, being able to legally murder someone in full sight of potential squeezes would be great for business.

[Maelor]

I like how your initial view seems to be that the "populist view" to these laws is inherently ignorant and bad, then you list all your examples, and ALL these things that DIDN'T have the majority support of the American people turn out to be bad. While I concede that you HAVE given us examples of things that have gone into law without "popular support of American people" (despite all the different types of majority votes which had to happen), I don't think it means much when we are dealing with a corrupt government. Considering the congressmen are not voting on behalf of their constituents, but their corporate/banking masters... yes, technically they DID have a majority vote... from their special interests! (big banks, corporations, industrial military complex) ... probably covers it all.