Are you for or against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency?

[KrazyHorse]

Ah, the place where everybody gets along by avoiding unpleasant disagreements?

[The Mad Monk]

Yeah, like that is going to happen in this country. Just look at how we can't even get people to pay for their carbon externalities.

How much is a carbon worth?

[KrazyHorse]

How much is a carbon worth?

Depending on the location and quality, 30-70 cents a pound or so

[-Jrabbit]

Are you drinking at home or at a bar?

[KrazyHorse]

home -> bar/gastropub -> home

ate earlier, but my wife had steak tartare and hush puppies while out

beers at home, rum drinks and rye drinks at bar, beers at home

pretty standard night so far. If I take it much further I will be hung over tomorrow, but I don't really care.

[-Jrabbit]

Laptop or smartphone posting?

[Aeson]

$0.70/lbs... **** DeBeers

[KrazyHorse]

Laptop or smartphone posting?

both, so far. laptop at home, phone at bar

[KrazyHorse]

$0.70/lbs... **** DeBeers

Seller has CTD option

[-Jrabbit]

both, so far. laptop at home, phone at bar

Does the wife think you're...
(a) working, (b) ignoring her, (c) both, or (d) neither

[KrazyHorse]

she is asleep now. she had two drinks and 1.5 glasses of wine. also, fyi I post on poly with only 1/3 of my attention. that is all that is necessary to defeat any of you in verbal combat

[-Jrabbit]

Just trying to paint a picture of your evening. Personally, I've never seen any value in verbal combat with you.

[SlowwHand]

Cap and ball at 10 paces is another thing.

[kentonio]

There's a difference between inconsistency of principles and inconsistency of positions. The members of the tea party are generally aligned with each other on their positions. They have some positions which are inconsistent with stated principles. The OWS weirdos don't share consistent positions, and a large minority (majority?) of them appear to not have any articulated position at all, other than anger at their own personal financial situation.

Although it makes them far harder to see as a coherent group, it also makes them a much more believable representation of the country at large. All politics is local, and for millions of people they see their personal finances and futures being smacked around by what they see as a priviliged upper class who are mostly immune from the law and who get bailed out by the country when they screw up. The lack of a coherent mission may mean they don't achieve anything, but the anger is real and goes far further than just a few hippies in a park.

1) What's "caused" OWS is the same thing which "caused" the anti-globalization protests of the 90s: soft-headed criticism of an existing way of doing things by those lacking either the capacity or the inclination for thinking beyond the sort of primitive moralisms you've been spouting in this thread.

It's anger at a system that appears to richly reward those at the top, carry no consequence for failure and hurt only those who see themselves as outside it. For a factory worker in Detroit the workings of the financial system are something 'other' and something that is an irrelevance usually to their everyday lives. When suddenly the goings on on wall street come crashing through the windows of their life in the form of stock crashes, job losses etc, expect furious anger.

2) No, it's not about employment. The fact that the conversation always turns to employment is a major failing of popular discourse

Of course its about employment, it's the one thing that can lift normal people out of their stupor and get them motivated. As long as people have a job and enough money to live, those at the top can do pretty much whatever they like. People will grumble and *****, but the motivation to do anything about it just isn't there. When vast numbers of people are unemployed and struggling to feed and house their families however, suddenly that motivation is there in spades, especially when they believe they got screwed.

3) Nobody here (so far as I can tell) has suggested that anybody be allowed to "do whatever they like". Pollution is one of the classic examples of a market failure (it is a negative externality). The question is one of implementation, you stupid ****, and the criticisms leveled have been about implementation.

No-one here has suggested that, the people who have suggested that are the GOP and a number of GOP presidential candidates who have called for abolishing or cutting the EPA. If you destroy or maim the organization responsible for enforcing regulation, then what does that leave? We trust business to do the right thing?

Ah, the place where everybody gets along by avoiding unpleasant disagreements?

Hardly.

[Jon Miller]

If loads of people are unemployed and struggling to get by, by definition they got screwed.

JM