Orton's Arm

I see you're back. On the one hand, you've repeatedly called me an idiot. Elsewhere, you wrote that I probably did well on a standardized aptitude test. Nobody likes being called an idiot. I responded to this by taking the liberty of pointing out a couple of grammatical errors you'd made in your posts. You felt I should have placed greater emphasis on your education and knowledge of the rules of grammar than on the fact you sometimes forget to use these rules. In other words, you felt I should have gone easy on you. This would have been a perfectly reasonable request, had you made any sort of effort at all to be reasonable towards me. Instead, you've gone out of your way to be a complete jerk. That's your right, but for you to expect me to be reasonable in return is absolutely mind-boggling. In the past you've tried to excuse or justify some of your behavior by saying something to the effect of, "I'm a cheap shot artist. That's part of what I do." I don't like using cheap shots myself, but I can see how under some circumstances there'd be a creative challenge in coming up with one. If the chance to do that is part of the reason you've come to these boards, fine. But there's no intellectual or creative challenge in repeatedly calling someone an idiot. The fact you've thrown that insult at me so many times isn't a result of some misplaced creative urge. You're annoyed by what you see as my personal vendetta against Losman. Has it occurred to you that your personal vendetta against me might be equally annoying--and not just to me? I doubt very many people enjoy watching us fight; and quite frankly it's a silly use of time. Let's put our personal differences behind us. Let's have normal conversations like adults, instead of bickering like five year olds.

That was uncalled-for.

I don't like the Youboty deal. Only four years. I'd hate to see the Bills use a first-day pick on a CB, have said CB make a name for himself here, only to move to greener pastures after just a few years. Not that this has ever happened before.

I'll agree the Kerry quotes were foolish, but not for the reasons you mentioned. When Kerry accused Bush of being absent on diplomacy when it came to the Middle East, he was probably thinkinging the U.S. should have built a broad coalition for situations like Iraq, instead of approaching them with few allies. When he said the U.S. should destroy Hizbollah, he may have been envisioning a broad coalition such as the one in Afghanistan. This leads to deeper questions about a Kerry-inspired foreign policy. If the U.S. should destroy Hizbollah (a terrorist organization targeting Israel), maybe it should also target the Chechneyan terrorist groups targeting Russia, Muslim organizations committing terrorist acts in Western China, various Latin American death squads or communist guerrilla organizations, and African governments or rebel groups which engage in tribally-based exterminations. There are so many governments and organizations which sponsor terrorist acts the U.S can't possibly deal with all of them. Apparently, Kerry doesn't see the wisdom in focusing only on those groups which are focused on us. Also, if Kerry insists on working through diplomacy and consensus, he may find it extremely difficult to destroy Hizbollah. It's nearly impossible to imagine Muslim nations cooperating with such a move, and I doubt we'd see much enthusiasm in Europe either.

The WSJ rhetoric may seem persuasive to anyone who hasn't thought deeply about the issue of immigration. As is generally the case with those who write for the WSJ, the author of that particular article apparently understood little beyond the field of economics. More specifically, the author understood very little even about economics, except the things which fit into his Milton Friedman-inspired framework. To someone wholly indoctrinated by this way of thinking, every problem is caused by needless government intervention, and every solution involves letting the market decide. Certainly, there have been many problems created by needless government interventions. But if one's framework allows one to only see this category of problem, it will be impossible to perceive problems or solutions that fail to fit this framework. The root cause of the immigration crisis is the Third World population boom. This population boom has caused many to be born into poverty, it's caused rainforests and other habitats to be destroyed, it's caused people to live in polluted and dingy cities. It's also responsible for the tidal wave of Third World immigrants flooding this country. The WSJ article suggests no solution to this problem because the author can't even see that there is a problem! The Third World population boom wasn't caused by misguided government regulation, so it's not the type of problem a Friedman-inspired author would see. Blind to the root cause of the immigration tidal wave, the author unwittingly suggests measures which would make it easier for Third World nations to continue to have high birthrates. Any nation foolish enough to implement a WSJ-inspired immigration policy would find itself overwhelmed by Third World immigrants, and would quickly become part of the Third World. It's imperative the U.S. do four things: 1. Make an actual effort at border security 2. Begin the long, slow process of deporting the illegals already here 3. Reform its immigration policy in light of the fact this country is no longer in a position to benefit from raw population growth 4. Provide Third World nations with birth control measures to help them deal with their population crisis. By implementing these four steps, we'd be protecting our own country from becoming a Third World nation, while at the same time we'd be helping Third World nations become wealthier, less polluted, and more pleasant places in which to live. As an added bonus, we'd be helping to save the planet from ecological catastrophe.

Sounds like you've got your mind made up. I suspect you won't rethink this until you lose a loved one to a murder or car accident or construction death. Personally, I think that a three year old child getting killed by a drunk driver is a greater tragedy than some career criminal being executed for a crime he didn't commit. But that's just my opinion, and it sounds like yours is very different.

I agree many Republicans can't be trusted with money. Traditionally, there's been a correlation between Democrats and liberalism; and between liberalism and waste. The first correlation is becoming weaker, because the Republican party is drifting away from its Calvin Coolidge tradition of small government. One need look no further than the current president to see a Republican spending money like a drunken sailor. But the fact the Republicans have lost legitimacy in recent years doesn't add an iota of credibility to Democrats. On the contrary, it seems most Democrat politicians are just as eager to spend other people's money as ever.

In our discussions, I didn't use any personal attacks against you. So I was disappointed by the last line of your post; as I'd thought you were better than that. I'm an "unarmed person" because it's not immediately obvious to me that two states with Democratic governors aren't being run by conservatives? I've lived in the South, and I've seen a lot more liberalism there than I'd expected. I'm not going to automatically assume Kentucky is conservative simply because of its location. If I see a Democratic governor taking pro-crime measures, I'm at least open to the idea this governor is a liberal. If you have substansive evidence this isn't the case, I'd like to hear it. If all you've got is more personal attacks, don't bother.

You asked me how I'd feel in a case involving my own brother. In general, do you feel it's a good idea for people to sit on juries when their siblings are the accused? Don't you feel this would create too much lenience towards criminals? If that's the case, I'm confused as to why you're participating in this discussion. The criminal justice system by its very nature decides people's fates all the time. If you convict an innocent man, that's an act of injustice. If you let a guilty man go, and if that guilty man kills again, that's an equally great act of injustice. Anyone who seeks to persuade others of his or her opinion about how the criminal justice system should work needs to take responsibility both for minimizing harm to the innocent and minimizing the harm criminals do.

Maybe I should have been more clear that while both kinds of states do this, liberal states are more egregious about it. As for the Kentucky article you provided, the most interesting part was this: The people of Kentucky elected a Democrat governor, only to find they got a politician who's soft on crime. What a surprise. Maine's governor is also a Democrat.

This portion of your post was of a significantly lower quality than the rest. I never stated nor implied that liberal states were the only ones to release criminals early. It's quite common for criminals to be released before they've served their full sentences. But I've heard of a few times when states faced with severe financial problems were contemplating dramatic reductions in their inmate populations, through wholesale releases. The states that contemplated such measures were invariably liberal. I did write that all liberal states tend to be in financial trouble. Maybe there's an exception to this somewhere, but as a general rule liberalism = lack of spending discipline = severe financial problems.

And I see you do have a problem with this, due to some warped idea that those guilty of heinous offenses still have the right to live. How would you feel about the concept of rising above thieves, by renouncing all fines? Or how about rising above kidnappers, by never forcibly constraining people in jail? The problem is this: the harder people like you try to be ethical, the closer to anarchy this country will get. Real ethics is to recognize that the government's duty is to deter future crimes by punishing past ones. Its duties have nothing to do with protecting criminals.

I see three benefits to executing criminals: - Deterrent. An economist used econometric tools to determine that each additional execution deters four murders. Presumably this effect would be even stronger if there was more quickness and certainty with respect to capital punishment. - Justice. Someone guilty of murder or another equally heinous offense deserves to be executed. - Permanence. Liberal states in financial trouble--a redundant phrase if ever there was one--have been known to try to save money by releasing people from jail early. Whichever criminals are dead can't be released due to such a lapse in discipline. - Human dignity. People don't belong in cages; locked away like animals in a zoo. If these four ends are to be achieved, it will sometimes happen that a person innocent of the crime they're accused of will be executed as well. As long as these people are guilty of some other serious crime, I don't see this as too serious an issue. In any case, DNA testing and other new forensic tools have significantly improved the criminal justice system.

I don't claim to be an expert on Tookie's case. From what I've read, it sounds like he's guilty of those murders. If so, I'm fine with his execution.

We have a highway system, even though we know tens of thousands of innocent people will be killed each year in car accidents. We have construction projects, even though this means construction workers getting killed. People are willing to pay this kind of price, because they see the benefits to highways, to construction projects, and to other dangerous things. But my experience has been that most opponents of the death penalty aren't interested in hearing about the benefits of executing criminals. They're willing to do a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to lives lost on highways or construction projects; but not when it comes to criminal executions. Hence my conclusion that many opponents of the death penalty are acting as though an incorrect execution is a greater tragedy than a highway death or murder or construction-related death.

I've heard of cases in which someone was sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit. However, in each of those cases, the person involved was in fact guilty of other heinous offenses. The system made the right decision--execution--but for the wrong reason. I can live with that. What I have a harder time accepting is the unstated assumption that a wrongful execution is somehow a greater tragedy than a highway fatality, or a murder, or a construction-related death.

It's a habit.

The root cause of the problem lies not with Congress, but with the American people. Until people learn to think critically instead of being led by emotionalism or demagoguery, until people learn objective truth is more important than people's feelings or shallow yet strongly held ideologies, we will continue to see present problems go unsolved.

As you obviously don't understand my posts, there's no point in you reading them.

For a guy with only 28 posts, your contribution here is absolutely amazing. Even if one of this group's "elite" had written that post, I'd still say it was one of their better ones. I won't argue about--or even let myself think about--the topic of whether the solid offensive line you're talking about is more important than a solid quarterback play. A question like that is like asking, "Is it more important to avoid constantly clinging to a woman, or to avoid telling her you still live with your mother at the age of 30"? If you make either mistake, odds are she's going to reject you. Likewise, a team which lacks either an offensive line or a quarterback is probably not going to win the Super Bowl. The Bills have lacked both these things ever since the days of Kent Hull and Jim Kelly.

If you're Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or one of the other really good quarterbacks, you're bringing home a larger paycheck than any player at any other position. Quarterback is the highest paid position because it produces the highest impact. The view you seem to be arguing against is that having a good QB is better than having good players at the other 21 positions. However, nobody on this thread actually believes that having a good quarterback is a sufficient condition to winning the Super Bowl. Dibs isn't even arguing that good quarterback play is a necessary condition to win. He's just saying that if you don't have a quarterback, it's really tough to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. Dibs' analysis of Super Bowl winners dovetails nicely with what Dwight Adams told us about how you build a team. "When you start a NFL team, start with a QB(we had one in Kelly), then build and keep your offensive line in contact" Dwight Adams Q&A Dwight Adams wasn't exactly some ignorant fan blinded by the glamor of the quarterback position. But unlike you, he's not trying so hard to avoid this error that he makes the opposite mistake. As a football man with deep insight into the game, Adams understands that you really make it tough on yourself if you don't have a quarterback. Sure, the Ravens won the game with Dilfer. But with the Ravens, Dilfer compiled a QB rating and yards per pass that were comparable to Bledsoe's work in 2003 - 2004. So Dilfer wasn't the disaster some people made him out to be. In addition to a Bledsoe-like quarterback, the Ravens had an absolutely dominant defense. To attain a Ravens-like defense, we'd have to upgrade both starters at DT. And both starters at DE. Fletcher is a good MLB, but he's not the same player Ray Lewis was in his prime. So he needs to be upgraded, as does Jeff Posey. Clements and McGee aren't as good as the Ravens' CBs were. Until Whitner proves himself, you could say the same about our safeties. Assuming Whitner works out, and assuming Spikes fully recovers from his injury, then that's just nine defensive positions the Bills will need to upgrade to have a defense as good as the Ravens of 2000. Yes, if the Bills do all that, and if we get Jonathan Ogden as our LT, and a 2000 yard rusher of a RB, then we could get away with having a Trent Dilfer at QB.

My response is, so what? Say that a guy like Warner has a brilliant year, and the very next year appears totally washed up. Is that washed-up year supposed to retroactively take away Warner's Super Bowl ring or something? Dibs' main point--which he's been presenting brilliantly by the way--is that outstanding play by your quarterback is (almost) a necessary condition to winning the Super Bowl. If Warner gives you one stellar year, and that same year his team wins the Super Bowl, then this supports Dibs' point. If Warner's play drops off, and if the Rams fail to return to the Super Bowl, then this supports Dibs' point even more. So how good was Warner the year the Rams won the Super Bowl? He threw for 4353 yards, averaging nearly 8.72 yards per pass attempt, with a QB rating of 109.2. This was one of the finest seasons any quarterback has ever had in NFL history. The fact his team ended the year with a Super Bowl ring is no coincidence. The stuff that happened later was, well, later. The fact Warner would struggle with injuries in 2002 didn't help any of the Rams' opponents in 1999.

Apparently, their goal is to do to San Francisco what countless misguided politicians have done to New York State. My gut tells me that $200 million figure is a gross underestimate of this plan's true cost. I strongly doubt it takes into account all the people who will move into the city to mooch off the system.

Ummm . . . how do I put this? A brief solution to the Middle East's problems may not be readily available. The root cause of these problems is an aspect of human nature. People, along with certain species of primates, are instinctively capable of getting themselves into tribal wars. Such wars have cropped up in Africa, in pre-Columbian North America, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, and in many other places. With most tribal wars, it's hard to figure out who's responsible for starting things; but it's easy to see that the conflict will go on indefinitely. The Arab-Israeli conflict is no different. The two sides have come to hate each other. This conflict need not concern the U.S., except inasmuch as our dependence on foreign oil has forced us to pay attention to the Middle East. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we eliminate this dependence, the better we'll be served. The U.S. chose to take the Israeli side in the tribal war between that nation and the Muslims. As a result of this decision, the tribal hatred the Muslims had for the Israelis spilled over onto America. This hatred has caused the U.S. considerable trouble. On the other hand, Israel has done little or nothing to advance America's interest in that region. Israel's government was elected to advance Israel's interests, not America's. As a general rule, it's naive to expect any nation's government to sacrifice its own interests to help ours. For this reason, the only truly helpful alliances are those in which the interests of the two nations are naturally aligned. For example, it was in the interest of the various NATO nations to band together to prevent a Soviet invasion. But the alliance between the U.S. and Israel doesn't fall into this category. The U.S. needs to buy oil from the Middle East. Israel needs to at least hold its own in the tribal war between itself and the Muslim world. There's no overlap between these two interests. The U.S. should cut itself off from the Middle East as much as possible. On the one hand, we should avoid trying to influence them; either through our military, our political ideas, or our materialistic mass media. On the other, we should reduce or eliminate ways in which Arab nations try to interact with us. Ending immigration from Middle Eastern countries would reduce the threat of domestic terrorism, while giving a boost to the American worker. Gradually eliminating our dependence on foreign oil would reduce the trade deficit, help the environment, and would allow us to further isolate ourselves from the Middle East and its problems.

Your original post made three points: - Reagan didn't build up the economy - Reagan created massive deficits - Reagan's message couldn't penetrate the censored Soviet realm I'll deal with these points: There are three ways in which the federal government can affect the economy: monetary policy, fiscal policy, and everything else. The Carter administration's monetary policy had largely been formed through misguided Keynesian theory. According to such theory, you're supposed to expand the nominal monetary supply whenever you want to give the economy a boost. The idea is that businesses will be surprised by your policy, and this element of surprise will actually help. This monetary policy didn't work, as shown by the stagflation of the Carter era. Reagan chose Alan Greenspan to head the Federal Reserve. Greenspan did such a good job that he continued to serve under Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. Greenspan chose to put a much higher priority on fighting inflation than Keynesian monetary theory would suggest; and Greenspan's policies worked out better in the long run. Reagan may only have had a bachelor's in economics, but his instinctive grasp of monetary policy proved better than a host of Keynesian PhD's. Then there was Reagan's fiscal policy. Or rather, there was the fiscal policy formed through the joint interaction between Reagan, the Democrat House, and a Senate taken over by Democrats in 1986. Democrats wanted high spending on wasteful social programs, discretionary spending (read: pork), and other forms of spending. Democrats also wanted high taxes to pay for their waste. Reagan wanted low taxes and low spending, except on the military. They compromised with low taxes and high spending. To blame Reagan alone for the deficit ignores the complete absence of any spending discipline whatsoever in the Democrat-dominated House. The reduction of tax burdens probably played a significant role in helping the economic recovery. Lower taxes mean you're putting fewer obstacles in the paths of those who seek to create economic value. The third way Reagan created economic value was to reduce regulatory burdens and other government obstructions to economic growth whenever possible. You'll recall that airline prices fell dramatically after that industry was deregulated. Unfortunately, Reagan's power to reduce the intrusiveness of the federal government was surprisingly limited, but he clearly did what he could. The actions he took yielded results. As for the question of how Reagan's message could penetrate the censored Soviet realm: a little probably trickled through because of Soviet visitors to the U.S., the Voice of America radio effort, things like that. But mostly it was because of the Soviet government summarizing Reagan's speeches in order to criticize or ridicule them. Pravda and other Soviet media outlets were certainly not afraid to distort Reagan's message. But by that point, cynical Soviet citizens had learned to see through most such distortions. Or they'd report his words honestly, but fail to get the expected reaction. The Soviet government apparently told its people about Reagan's Evil Empire remarks. The hope was to get people angry at Reagan. Instead, many apparently agreed with him. I agree with one of the implications you made in your post, which is that deficits are terrible and inexcusable, except in a time of war. The larger a nation's debt, the more of its tax revenues must be squandered on useless interest payments. Unfortunately, big government was far more important to Democrats, both politically and ideologically, than fiscal discipline was. Reagan knew he couldn't convince congressional Democrats to cut spending. But he also knew a tax cut in the short run could force spending cuts in the long run. Those spending cuts started appearing in 1994, when Republicans finally took control of the House.