It's not about not liking the distinction, it's about there really not being one at all, at least in terms of infringement upon liberty. I think it's being extremely literal to a ridiculous degree to say that Congress has the power to tax because it is explicitly given so, but that if a regulation acts for all practical purposes like a tax except for being much less restrictive of freedom than a tax, it's unconstitutional because it's not a tax. The fact that Congress is given the power to tax implies that any regulations less coercive than a tax are also acceptable to further the same goals, IMO.

The Civil Rights Act also comes to mind as another regulation that is at least as coercive as the ACA; it requires individuals to engage in commerce with people whom they would prefer not to.

What the hell? I just got 4 death points for making a thread, suggesting that it may be good idea to make Jmfcst a part of the moderation team, giving his interest in it, as well as already mentioned lack of Republican moderators.

I also suggested to make AndrewCT moderator, but obviously, this thread was fine. Am I just a collateral damage of moderators personal antipathy toward suggested person or there are some double standards, whom we can discuss as possible moderator?

You know I do not complain publicly about infractions, as I prefer to avoid the drama by simply contacting a moderator, but my recent infraction is just so sensless.

AndrewCT is a legitimate recommendation for moderator.  The suggestion of jmfcst becoming one is pure trollery.

Well, if a dude who put a picture of black penis in the (certainly) underage member's signature can be a moderator, why can't be jmfcst?

Dude... 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Well, Joe did cause this change and I still consider this as a great practical joke. And he's a fine moderator too, but he's not an example of a netiquette person either. While I don't agree with jmfcst on almost any issue and prefer Joe both politically and as a loveable asshole, he's not really that better than jmfcst in terms of acting onlike.

Look, if jmfcst's record of being a banned member is making it impossible for him to be even seriously considered as a moderator, I can only bow in front of this rule. But making a suggestion, even a silly one, doesn't justify an infraction.

I really hate to bring it up, but PMing Nym (I assume it was him, since Atlas board doesn't have it's own moderator) seems pointless. I bet I'd rather receive an answer from Raoul Wallenberg, than him.

Glad to see that I've mastered the intimidation factor.

Removing the two points and then readding them dropped Phil's total from 51 to 44; my guess is that there was some system glitch that was not causing the older points to drop off, or perhaps the 90 or 100 day threshold for those seven points was crossed within the amount of time since the two point infraction was originally imposed.

So Phil's back off double secret probation.

I don't see how the mandate can be considered an unconstitutional abridgement of liberty if the power to tax to raise funds for a single payer health care system isn't. The latter is clearly far more coercive. So in terms of a limiting principle, I don't see how this bill pushes the boundaries at all, unless the Court is prepared to declare Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security etc. unconstitutional as well as the law requiring hospitals to provide service, even if for free, to those whose lives are at risk.

As a matter of moral principle, why is it permissible to provide a good in the public sector and require it to be paid for via a tax, but improper to require it to be purchased in the private sector? As a matter of liberty, at least in the latter scenario you can choose who to acquire the service from.

Now, you may say that I am not making a legal argument, but I don't see this as a question of law. It is a question of proper policy and should be left to those intended to make policy decisions: Congress and the President.

The whole point of the individual mandate was as a compromise; achieve universal coverage through the private sector, instead of via the public sector as many progressives such as myself would've vastly preferred.

The idea that the mandate somehow fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizens and the government is bizarre to me; it certainly transforms it far less than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other multitude of federal programs.

The decision as to whether this bill represents a bridge too far is best left to elected officials who are ultimately responsible much more directly to the voters. If Americans really want this bill repealed, they are more than welcome to elect a Republican President and elect sufficient numbers of Republican Senators to achieve a 60 seat majority in the Senate this fall so that they can repeal it (a Democratic President and 60 Democratic seats in the Senate being how we got it in the first place, of course).

Another interesting question; if the whole bill is struck down, what happens to portions of the bill already implemented such as monies already allocated and doled out by the Feds? Would states be required to pay back the money or do they get to keep it?

Yet another reason why Congress should be the one to repeal this bill, so that these questions can be asked of them by the voters, and the decision of what to replace the bill with (if anything) made by the executive and legislative branches.

This request has been emailed to Dave.

Thanks Jmf. As this thread has no further purpose, it has been locked.

This user has been confirmed as Derek and rebanned.

Does anyone have the power to delete random sh!t (official term, I guess) posted there?

Dave, presumably, but I can't.

He's always responded promptly to my emails.

Dave was the one who created and is the only one who can thus change the profanity filter.

I can delete posts or threads for you if you'd like, also.

Personally, I think that all forums should have a minimum of two moderators assigned, just in case.

Technically they do since I can mod any board, but having three mods per board wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

Well, we have done temporary bans before; if you're saying we should use them more often as a compromise solution, I'm definitely open to that idea.

I agree that while the system was intended to create a systematic way of tracking violations and instill more objectivity to moderation, it hasn't really succeeded because the wide variety of the nature of the infractions makes it very difficult to have complete consistency in the points assigned, and thus we end up with "Poster Y got fewer points than I did for a post that was worse than mine, thus the mods hate me" type threads.

The other issue is that there are a massive number of posts made each day and neither the mods nor anyone else can possibly read all of them. So if for some reason certain types of posts or posts from certain posters are more likely to be reported than others, then we end up with "My posts always get reported and infracted but worse posts by poster x don't get reported or infracted, thus the mods hate me" threads.

The system does have the advantage of being a better way of communicating infractions than having to, say, manually PM members.

I think of it as a warning system more so than a punishment. It's a way of getting the point across that a particular post or posting style is out of bounds. The ultimate decision of whether to ban someone is always going to consider other factors as well such as length of tenure, "signal to noise" ratio (ratio of contributive to non contributive posts), perceived liklihood of the problematic behavior being corrected in the future, etc.

The thread explaining the system and Dave's logic behind creating it is stickied in this very board.

I have to agree with Inks. Unless the GOP decides to pull a Whig 1836, there will be the same candidate in all States.

I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned that as one possible solution if the GOP ends up with a brokered convention. They could put Romney, Santorum or Gingrich each on the ballot for the general election in the states that they won in the primaries, in the hopes that collectively they could achieve a majority of the electoral votes, throwing the election to what will probably still be a GOP majority in the House (or the GOP electors themselves could all agree to support one candidate when the Electoral College votes).

The risk would be that the public would frown on this strategy and punish the GOP for pursuing it, but there's no requirement whatsoever that a party have the same nominee in every state.

The Dems could have tried the same thing in 2008 with Clinton and Obama.

If one adopts a rule of never putting down another poster personally, as opposed to putting down the poster's ideas in one fashion or the other, I suspect the number of infraction points one gets would be a lot closer to my number than Phil's.  Just a thought for folks to think  about.

Very well said. Dave has always made it clear there's a big difference between criticizing an idea or position and criticizing the person making the argument.

All of the decisions regarding moderation of these posts are, as far as I can see, being made in accordance with the Terms of Service of the site.

If you feel the Terms should be changed, please contact Dave via the "email" link at the top of this page with your suggestions.

One of the fundamental principles that America was founded on was the idea that we all have equal opportunity to succeed; where success is determined by how hard we work and how creative we are in coming up with new ideas and concepts.

Unregulated and unbridled capitalism destroys that by giving a huge advantage to those with money and access to capital and making it nearly impossible for anyone who doesn't already have that to get ahead and succeed.

Our increased focus on individualism at the expense of community or any cause greater than ourselves is what is destroying the fabric of our nation. Ideas like "it's my money, I deserve to keep it", when you would never have earned even a tiny fraction of "your" money without the aid of countless others in ways that aren't even fully realized by the vast majority of people (I'm not just talking about government here, but the fact that our economy is vastly larger and more productive than it was 100 years ago and so is our government is not a coincidence).

"'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
- Reaganfan

Yeah, the Iraqis weren't big fans of us saying that when our government employees arrived over there, true enough.

This whole idea that Republicans are somehow the anti-government party is just plain wrong. Both parties support government intervention, just in different ways and different areas. And as you know, many people who love to hate "government" in the abstract are more than happy to reap the benefits of it when it comes to Social Security, Medicare, roads, schools, police protection, fire fighters, the military, etc.

You do realize that checking that box doesn't increase the amount of tax you owe, right? It's not a donation; checking the box simply means $3 of your taxes goes into the Presidential Election fund as opposed to the general fund.

I'm a strong supporter of public financing of campaigns--I honestly don't see how campaign donations aren't considered bribery, really--and thus I check the box.

Actually it was my email to Dave that got Sam removed.

I would recommend contacting Dave directly by clicking on the "Email" link at the top of this page.

Dave changed the color scheme for the results page once it became clearer who the leading contenders would truly be such that the main candidates had the primary colors; however, he said there is a lot of linkage in the database with predictions and so it wasn't so easy to change that color scheme.