starrymessenger

That's interesting. Happy to hear that many Southerners regarded slavery as a dying institution, it is after all an abomination. The Brits abolished it in 1833, though that did not stop them from buying the cotton they needed. I've often wondered whether and how long it would have taken before people came to their senses and slavery died out naturally in the South, thus avoiding the most painful and traumatic event in US history. So many brave and noble men dying under both flags. Virginia didn't grow cotton, unless I'm mistaken, and wasn't the election (or perhaps nomination) of Lincoln the catalyst for succession because that precluded the westward expansion of slavery? Cotton was big, big business given the needs of the industrial revolution and very profitable considering the insignificanf, ahem, production costs. I also wonder as a legal matter how the validity of succession is regarded given the second amendment. Did the South have an argument that holds water?

Thank you. I know about Ewell, just misspelled.Yeah, couldn't read between the lines when Generall Lee said "if practicable".

As I understand it he was probably not pro slavery as such, though of course he was not an abolitionist either. What we know for sure is that he was a brilliant blue-eyed killer who hated Yankees. Maybe for him the conflict was more about state rights than slavery with slavery itself a secondary or incidental issue. If so, he may have been mistaken in that belief. I don't think his involvement in the John Brown affair is evidence of anything in that regard. JMO but when Frederick Douglass later told people to "agitate" I don't think he had what John Brown did in mind. More like what Dr. King did a couple of generations later. Good thing for the Union he went down at Chancellorsville. Unlike General Ewing, himself a capable commander, there is little doubt General Jackson would have taken that hill on day 1 at Gettysburg.

This makes the most sense.

I'm sure there are always many things that stand to be improved and therefore should be improved. My comment was simply that the IRC and regulatons will in this day and age, and for the future, inevitably feature both volume and complexity and therefore that simplification and reduction in the burden of tax administration is not really an argument for the flat tax, whatever its merits or demerits may be. The real issue is a much more difficult and substantive one, namely what principles should govern and determine the right rate (or rates) of tax, as the pages of this thread indicate.

Hume would say that 51% is not mob rule but quite simply by definition the rule of the majority. But I know many if not most Americans feel differently about it. Seems to be in your national DNA viz the second amendment. Thou art a stiff-necked people.

When/if he's not concussed we have a very good power back. One that is a lot faster than Eddie ever was and costs a lot less.I like Eddie, especially because of what he did to the guy with the imaginary girlfriend in the championship game - hit him like a truck. Can't blame him if he doesn't really want to play football (there are only so many immortals) but he should look after himself regardless. If he dies of a heart attack (heaven forbid) at least no one will blame the game of football.

One argument would be that "punitive" rates of tax can be justfied only in times of legitimate national emergency. The government confiscates, expropriates and requisitions private property in time of war for example. The trick is arriving at a consensus on what constitutes a "punitive rate" and a "national emergency". I guess the politicians ultimately inform us. One characteristic of a national emergency is that it is by its nature temporary. Once it passes punitive taxes too should be in the rear view mirror. In Canada (and in other British dominions) the Income Tax Act was introduced in Parliament and passed in 1917 as a "temporary" war measure. Didn't quite work out that way tho.

Anything north of 50% and I start tearing up the cobblestones.

Wasn't saying Pres Obama had a good foreign policy. That's a different question and, well, kettle of fish. Only that from what little I know Saunders's foreign policy seems to = the vacuum nature abhors.

Re Wall Street and the big banks in particular I get the impression that candidates on both sides say things, just about anything, just to cater to certain constituencies. Makes it hard to know what they actually think or whether they think at all. Hillary brandished Volcker over and over to appeal to main street as a check against "big banks". But Volcker doesn't break up big banks, it just prevents them from persuing quantitative proprietary trading strategies. Its also is basically pointless legislation that fails to target the real problems that just about brought down the world financial order in 2008. Institutional prop trading was never a problem. The problem was bank ownership of securitized mortgages in a real estate bubble. Mortgages are typically not a "trading asset". They are the most conventional of retail banking assets. At first the banks were smart enough to sell them to suckers but then they started investing in them because the spreads or mark to market gains were attractive on paper. The real problem was the failure of bank risk managers and government regulators to identify the risk based on their naive willingness to accept the opinions on credit worthiness of the rating agencies. Breaking up big banks like Saunders would like to do isn't going to solve the problem either if lots of smaller banks are doing the same (wrong) things. So Hilary appeals to main street and associates herself with Obama's "legacy" except that Volcker was hardly a shining moment of his administration.

Naysayers can say what they like about him but there aren't many bald men who need a haircut. What I don't get is how a man for whom foreign policy is an empty space can be taken seriously as a presidential candidate.

Is sitting on a ball a turnover?

Why is that a touchback? Down at the 2?

I've got no dog in this fight but if he said that (whether he took it back or not) he is not a serious person and he deserves to be whipped. We don't live in Russia.

Gotcha.

Just for my information, has Bernie Saunders proposed a 90% net income tax?

No doubt I am oversimplifying things. But are we quibbling. Saudi Arabia is also home to it in its most primitive aspect and Saudi Arabians, like Bin Laden, amongst its principal exponents. My point was that the people who run the country are not to be confused with them. If they were one and the same there would be an official policy for the extermination of all Shia Moslems, even Saudi citizens, since fundamentalist Wahhabism regards non-conforming Moslems as more contemptible than infidels, and clearly they don't do that. Besides the extremists in Saudi Arabia are a threat to the Royal Family and their mortal enemy. Hardly surprising that "official" Wahhabism looks to distinguish itself from them. OTOH, note that the Saudis are in no hurry to eliminate ISIS because they are a Sunni bulwark against Shia Iran and therefore they serve their regional interests.

You are right of course. Thank you. Wasn't confusing datology, just forgot.

They are not absolved of course but the impetus comes from the clerics they likely regret being in partnership with, as well as the unwashed masses. Don't forget their rule is fragile and thats probably why the age old compact perists. Picture them trying to ride a two ton Bramah bull. No, the House of Saud allied itself with Mr Wahhabi himself in the early 14th century in order to consolidate their hold on theArabian Peninsula.

Sure, and the mini mo Quataris. But the bearded bosses try and keep it under control IMO. They like money as much as they hate the Shia. And they periodically crown the crazies with ashtrays whenever they jump up and down too much - just as the Turks used to do back in the good old days of the Ottoman empire.

Its not rocket surgery. Wasting money through administrative inefficiency and duplication is not good. Subsidizing a permanent sub population of morons living off the fat of the land is not good. Providing the underprivileged with assistance and opportunity is good - for everyone.

Shakespeare couldn't spell either. For sure they don't like Shias, but the crazies give them more trouble than they are worth these days. 700 years ago it was a deal the House of Saud had to make.

Pick six IMO

Phew...