Oh yeah, I know. I have a cousin who's transgender, and she openly calls herself an unapologetic Socialist. When we discuss LGBT rights, she and I are in complete and total agreement with each other. But when we discuss economics, we butt heads. I love her to death, but I do worry about her. Yet at the same time, I can also understand why she thinks the way she does. When you're a member of a persecuted minority, it's easy to buy into a philosophy that promises equality and social justice, and most young people aren't informed enough to realize that Socialism can't actually deliver on that promise.

Sometimes I wonder if people who engage in persecution and discrimination realize that in doing so, they're actually helping to create the exact type of situation which causes Socialism to have such widespread appeal in the first place. If everyone just treated everybody else fairly to begin with, nobody would feel the need to seek justice through social reform.

I'm just lucky that I happened to have the opportunity to actually study socialism and capitalism on my own before anyone had the chance to indoctrinate me, otherwise I may have fallen into the same trap as my cousin.

Why can't a government health inspector can inspect the kitchen of a home? Because he has no reason to. Food prepared in the home is unlikely to be served to anyone except the people who live there, and maybe occasionally some friends and neighbors. As such, there is very little potential risk, and therefore no need to regulate. The same is not true of a restaurant that serves hundreds of customers a day. When serving food to a large number of people, sanitary considerations suddenly become much more important, and the state has every right to protect citizens by ensuring that all businesses adhere to certain health and safety regulations.

Business owners are human beings. Human beings are inherently corrupt. You people worry so much about government corruption, you never give any thought to corruption from non-government entities. That view is incredibly foolish. A government regulator is certainly not incorruptible, but neither is a restaurant owner, and the regulator does serve a legitimate purpose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8-gjpv7s...

And I don't consider myself a collectivist. Rather I believe collectivism and individualism both have a legitimate place in society, and trying to eliminate either one will have dire consequences. It's like the right and left wings of an airplane: if you want to keep the plane flying straight, you need to keep both wings intact, and recognize that they're both necessary. The reason Communism failed is because they tried to cut off the right wing (individualism), and so their economy went into a tailspin and crashed. But taking the exact opposite view and saying that we should cut off the left wing (collectivism) instead will have the exact same consequences. The only difference is that we'll spin in the opposite direction.

For more about the problems of completely rejecting collectivism, please see this post:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/2c...

I don't feel like I've vilified business owners. >_>

Sure, I've opposed the idea of no regulations whatsoever, but I don't think that's necessarily anti-business.

I don't think getting two papers published WHILE STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL is a low bar at all. Seriously, how many men have achieved something like that at that age?

Well, depending on the nature of the condition, they might not need to be informed. They might be able to tell just by looking at the child. Of course that depends on the nature of the condition, but still...

We should form an LGBT Capitalist Society to spread fiscal responsibility and economic independence in the LGBT community! :D

Only question is how to get such an organization off the ground... >_>

Whenever Civil Unions have been allowed, they never had the same legal status as marriages. There were always more limited in scope. They are no substitute for true equal rights.

Horse hockey.

Apply that logic to a building. It has to be 15 stories tall. It has to have a base of 100'x100'. It has to contain 120 apartments with 1000 sq ft of living space. It has to withstand a 60mph wind and a 6.0 earthquake.

That's just six design objectives. Suppose the building only meets half of the design objectives. Would you pay for it? Would you live in it? Or would you consider it a FAILURE?

COBOL came out at the end of 1959. FORTRAN was available in 1957, and did a better job of meeting its design objectives than did the female-led COBOL project.

It seems that women need only be mediocre to gain more fame than men who do a better job. Reminds me of the old saw about the talking dog - It matters not that she's no master of elocution. The wonder is she can talk at all.

Hopper led a team and produced crap. What man led the FORTRAN team that developed a better language? No one remembers. Why is that? Could it be because men are expected to be able to do the job, and so when they do, it's not important? But women are expected to be failures and so any success at all (even if it's only a 78% failure) brings Hopper-level laurels?

Here's one for you: Who was the Navy's first carrier-based female fighter pilot and why doesn't she receive the same accolades as Hopper? Do YOU know her name (without looking it up)?

One question about the most famous female scientist, Curie… If she knew so much about radioactivity, why did she kill herself with it? Did she do it on purpose? Or out of ignorance?

Not taking anything away from her (co-) discovery of radiation (along with her husband and Becquerel), but it seems odd that one of the discoverers of radiation would accidentally poison herself… with radiation.

Yes. She was in high school.

So a high school student who gets two papers published is the bar for being a female scientist? Like I said: Low bar.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I like Natalie Portman. I thought she was cool in "The Professional" (BEFORE she became a "scientist"). I also enjoyed her in The Other Boleyn Girl and V for Vendetta. She was sort of furniture in the Star Wars movies. I REALLY liked her SNL interview. http://vimeo.com/51268555 But if two papers written in high school is all it takes to be a "scientist"...

I'll send you the bill for my dry cleaning.

At the same time the top private rate was 90%, the top corporate rate was 54%...

Doh...

Blazing Saddles reference, khalling....

Harvey Korman... "That's Hedley... Hedley Lamarr"

Is engineering a science?
Don't get me wrong, if I had it to do over again I'd get myself a degree in mechanical engineering. But I never thought of it as 'science'. More like applied science as opposed to theoretical, I guess.

If your definition of "marshmallow" is anything that's squishy on the inside... Here, have a raspberry jelly doughnut.

You should read what I said. I said you should have no trouble finding a totalitarian state that suits you. There are plenty of totalitarian states, and your rhetoric indicates that that is your preferred form of government.

Government by dictate, not consent.

Two sides:

I hear bigoted comments from people all the time who don't realize they're making bigoted comments... and that's from all races/both sexes.

I also hear what would be considered bigoted comments used by friends toward one another as a sort-of test of acceptance. "I can get away with this because you know I love you" kind of thing.

Why can't he?