The US government has being doing that since it was first formed. Hell, the move to a massive consumption economy was one of the finest pieces of social engineering ever. Convincing an entire civilisation that buying cheap things that last a year > cheap things that last a century is impressive.

The government has being telling you to drink milk, eat fruit and veg, cut back on the McDonald's. This is because Americans are the most obese country in the world and, well, you need the help.

The government has been telling you who you can't marry (same-sex, monkeys, the USS Nimitz) since the dawn of time. This was sensible because children are important for growth (although that stress has been lifted now). This led to the current anti-gay-marriage thing where idiots think letting gays marry will send us all to a living hell. It's all tradition that's implanted itself with no relevance to the modern world.

The government tells you what drugs to do because drugs ruin lives and waste potential. Look at your average stoner. They insist vehemently that weed has no bad points, isn't addictive and would single-handedly save the economy- facts be damned. They usually say all this at 3pm on a Tuesday in their parents garage. Don't even start talking about Heroin, Cocaine et alii. If you were talking about prescription drugs then, well, yeah. Same thing except in certain cases it's ok because they have good qualities as well and have been through testing and safety controls to make sure they have as much good, and as little bad, as possible.

The government is not trying to take away your pickup, guns and moonshine still. It's because there's no such thing as "the government" in the way you are describing it. There's two main parties and some independents- all fighting for different things. There's the Legislative branch which comes down like a rock on the Exec if they encroach on you. And, on top of all this, increased government involvement is probably a good thing.

Compared to the US, on your scale, most European countries are police states on the verge of Jew-killin'. We get constant advice about things, have more restrictive laws and can't own guns. Yet we are richer (on average), safer, have free healthcare and higher quality of life.

Expanding government != Orwellian Police State.

[quote name='Oberon_Command' timestamp='1312776072' post='4846045']
[quote name='Jacob Jingle' timestamp='1312702308' post='4845698'] Didn't Obama's science czar call for the same thing?

No. IIRC he (we're talking about John Holdren, right?) wrote a paper which examined a variety of solutions to population problems and ultimately rejected forced sterilization and the like in favour of birth control and abortion.
[/quote]
He dropped it when he thought it was going to cost him his job in the Obama admin.
[/quote]


Source?

But in the same vain we don't give a neo-Nazi a pass because he didn't take part in the Holocaust, doesn't hate all the Jews, etc. We don't give a communist a pass for the 25 million that died in Russian gulags. If you call yourself a progressive, knowing what progressives did to this country(progressive era alone), knowing the people they hurt, knowing the people they killed, I mean my god, they did radiation test on babies.....I'm not going to give a progressive a pass for associating with a group that did horrible things(and plans on doing them again).

Emphasis mine, explained below.

I think you're reaching. First, neo-Nazis tend to be pretty pro-Holocaust and fervently anti-Jewish, in addition to other things. There are far more communists than Soviet Communists. You can be in favor of Communism and against Stalin and the Soviets and Mao and Guevara and Castro and all the others. The Communist Manifesto doesn't advocate an opaque, murderous regime that allocates capital and political influence in a decidedly unequal way as the ideal form of government, or even an acceptable form.

That Stalin or Mao or pick your favorite Communist-flavored dictator shouted "Yay Communism" while they crushed dissent with prison, torture, and murder doesn't insert such things there either. So if some college kid says "Capitalism is raping the world, a Communist system would be much better. That's why I'm a Communist, in the Marxist tradition.", I'm not inclined to saddle him with the blood of tens of millions of victims. Though I might discuss with him why I think that Communism is just not an effective form of government or social organization, or perhaps that there's an argument to be made that such an ideology will likely spiral into autocracy and repression.

Nazis, of course, don't have any such leeway. But if I met someone who told me that they were a Nazi, but that they believed in equality of all races and repudiated violence, my reaction would be that that person isn't a Nazi at all, that they chose a description that is incorrect. Probably that that person is foolish (at best) as well. Not that the description must be correct beyond all other considerations, and that no matter what they ever do or say they must be working to raise a new Reich and promote a master race.

Your assertion that progressives want to replay the worst actions of those who wore the title is probably the core of my disagreement with you on this. I see a lot of people, that call themselves progressives, who want things like marriage equality, equal opportunity for genders and races in employment and pay, and so forth. They also want government to enforce those ideas, insofar as they use the law to prevent people who would deny those things from doing so. I also see a lot of progressives who want new and/or more powerful government agencies in pursuit of those types of goals. Those are all things that can be discussed on their merits, and should be.

I do not, however, see progressives trying to overtly or covertly reinstate eugenics as mandatory social policy in the country. That's not to say that no one advocates that; you can find psychotics pretty much anyplace you care to look. But to suggest that that is their express agenda is an extraordinary claim. In the same way that I do not simply assume that wealthy, landed Southern conservatives are constantly agitating for the specific return of slavery because they happen to have the same political description as people who demanded slavery over a century ago, I do not level a similar accusation at a progressive. That's not to say that no such person does want that, just that I don't find the label to be specific enough necessitate that anyone who has it wants 100% of the same things with no exclusions.

But even if I did believe that...

No, I agreed they tried to change their label and become faux liberals...Because for some time the word progressive was akin to the word Nazi. Progressives still believe the same old crap about an all powerful government, purified of all dissenters, as being the key to advancing this country past all its ills(Constitution and natural rights be damned).

Example: didn't AL Gore just call for forced sterilizations of all women under 25 to save the planet? Didn't Obama's science czar call for the same thing? Etc. (The last time it was for the purity of the human race, this time it will be for the planet, mark my words, I've seen it before)

So you don't even care about the term "progressive" then? If the label is so descriptive, and someone chooses to use a different one, apparently that's no escape from your pronouncement that they are monsters. Progressives still believe in the betterment of society through government intervention, but in the sense that the government should protect individuals from having their rights (Constitutional and natural) from being violated by others. By law and statute, not by internments and forced sterilizations. I have never seen a progressive suggest that society should be purified of all dissenters through violence or any other coercive measure. I've seen very, very few people of any affiliation advocate such a thing in the United States. Again, that isn't to say that there aren't people of any given stripe who hold that opinion-- but I haven't seen such people make up anywhere near a large enough portion of groups the size of national political movements that I would tar them all with that brush.

Your example is pure BS. This is exactly why I am so against these incredibly narrow views that force people into the worst groups possible, for dubious connections. See here for a bit more information than a magazine that also carries headlines like this and this. But hey, maybe they just mis-attributed the quote. It does sound like something that WWN's favorite personality would say. Al Gore said that he was in favor of women having access to fertility management (birth control and education). Not that he was in favor of fertility annihilation (forced sterilizations).

That you instantly accepted something so unlikely and out of character for the alleged speaker, which even a shallow investigation reveals came from a source that would have had to have been markedly better to be deemed sh*t suggests very real danger to such positions. If a progressive says "Dow Chemical shouldn't dump toxic waste into the river near town, and I will work to give the government power to ensure that" and is met with "You're a eugenicist! How dare you try and ruin America with your evil!", political discourse will have a difficult time moving on to more important concerns. Namely, real ones that can be supported by reason.

Ontopic: Now that one (and only one) of the Credit Ratings board downgraded the US does that mean that Wall Street will panic and put us in an artificial recession?

The markets did take a pretty heavy dive today.

He dropped it when he thought it was going to cost him his job in the Obama admin. And we don't know that he actually dropped it in this little late term conversion, more then likely he dropped the radical pose for the radical ends and would have still pushed for the same crap once his position was secured.

People like this, who are far from a minority and whose arguments are starting to resonate with the GW crowd are going to pop up more and more as our government goes from being small with limited powers to being something like a parent/godhead that tells you what you can eat, who you can marry, how many kids you can have, what drugs you can do, etc. (Again, Constitution and natural rights be damned)

And here we are again. Even the specific rejection of a position only suggests to you that he is a worse person-- he's not only in favor of forced sterilization, but he's also super-cunning and ruthless to boot. Yeah, well maybe, I guess it's possible, but the evidence seems a bit thin to me to consign him to the ranks of Hitler, Mao, and Stalin: Have a read of the section. The most important portion, in my view, is excerpted below.

[font="Arial"]

A far better choice, in our view, is to expand the use of milder methods of influencing family size preferences, while redoubling efforts to ensure that the means of birth control, including abortion and sterilization are accessible to every human being on Earth within the shortest possible time.[/quote][/font]
[font="Arial"] [/font]
[font="Arial"]I'm not going to defend him, not just because he can and has defended himself, but also because I truly believe that you will not accept any possibility of a view contrary to the one you already hold.[/font]
[font="Arial"] [/font]
[font="Arial"]Offering people options or seeking to use the force of government to fight things like discrimination and corporate malfeasance is very different from using government marching people into the sterilization clinic at gunpoint, even if the government would be involved in both scenarios. I would encourage the former, and fight bitterly against the latter. But I will fight the ideas, not simply anyone that I can possibly include in a group that might maybe advocate those ideas, particularly if I define that group in such a way as to include the most people possible including by no reason other than my defining them into that group, despite the notable absence of any evidence that they hold such views.[/font]
[font="Arial"] [/font]
[font="Arial"]If it were the case that there was a high correlation between people I met in a certain group and the holding of an abhorrent view, I might associate the two. And I might be reasonable or unreasonable in doing so, and not necessarily relatedly I might or might not be accurate in doing so. But with progressives, your position simply hasn't been what I've observed, and I find your examples and exhortations to be unpersuasive.[/font]

The US government has being doing that since it was first formed. Hell, the move to a massive consumption economy was one of the finest pieces of social engineering ever. Convincing an entire civilisation that buying cheap things that last a year cheap things that last a century is impressive.

A) Maybe your government was, not mine. Declaration of Independence
B) Total bs.

The government has being telling you to drink milk, eat fruit and veg, cut back on the McDonald's. This is because Americans are the most obese country in the world and, well, you need the help.

A) Actually our government has been arresting people who sell milk.
B) America is the most obese country on the planet....According to some junk science study published by a tenured teacher or professor wasting government money which could have been used to teach our children, secure the future of social security or some other more important safety net, right? I wonder how people dealing with an endless rise in the cost of their education feel about this practice...
C) If your assertion is true, which I don't think it is, that would only mean that the money our government, in its countless campaigns, billboards, resolutions, etc has completely wasted the money it stole from the private sector. Our government(American) was never designed for this and it shows..

The government has been telling you who you can't marry (same-sex, monkeys, the USS Nimitz) since the dawn of time. This was sensible because children are important for growth (although that stress has been lifted now). This led to the current anti-gay-marriage thing where idiots think letting gays marry will send us all to a living hell. It's all tradition that's implanted itself with no relevance to the modern world.

Clearly this isn't the job of our(American) federal government and goes against separation of church and state and the priciples this country was founded on.

The government tells you what drugs to do because drugs ruin lives and waste potential. Look at your average stoner. They insist vehemently that weed has no bad points, isn't addictive and would single-handedly save the economy- facts be damned. They usually say all this at 3pm on a Tuesday in their parents garage. Don't even start talking about Heroin, Cocaine et alii. If you were talking about prescription drugs then, well, yeah. Same thing except in certain cases it's ok because they have good qualities as well and have been through testing and safety controls to make sure they have as much good, and as little bad, as possible.

A) I was talking about all drugs.
B) I know a lot of people who have done great things even know they used drugs. Look at Bill Gates who did both pot and LSD during his life. Steve Jobs raves about his LSD experiences. Says they were some of the most important events in his life. He says it made him a better person. (I could go on and on)
C) Just because something is legal doesn't mean that everyone is going to go out and do it or get addicted to it. Just because something is illigal doesn't mean people aren't going to use it. Taking drugs from a druggie doesn't mean they aren't still going to waste their potential on something else(alcohol, kids, hookers, etc). I would argue that if wasting their potential makes them happy then who are we to interfere?
D) What about people who have no potential(person has week left to live), don't you want them to be happy?
E) Our draconian drug laws have increased drug use, wasted trillions of dollars for nothing, locked up millions of people and destroyed their lives, decreased personal freedom on people that don't use, etc. They've done more harm than good.

Countries that have legalized drug use have seen a decline in overall use. Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies

The government is not trying to take away your pickup, guns and moonshine still. It's because there's no such thing as "the government" in the way you are describing it. There's two main parties and some independents- all fighting for different things. There's the Legislative branch which comes down like a rock on the Exec if they encroach on you. And, on top of all this, increased government involvement is probably a good thing.

Actually I live in a progressive state and they are taking away all the things you listed. Not that I want to, but I can't make moonshine to power my car. I can't use a gun to kill racoons for going after my dogs/kids. Etc

Note: Actually seeing racoons in real life(pack killing a good sized dog ) shocked the s@#t out of me. Made me wish I could punch the directors of all these nature shows and movies that show them as being small cute lovable animals. They're f@%king vicious, vicious animals.

Compared to the US, on your scale, most European countries are police states on the verge of Jew-killin'. We get constant advice about things, have more restrictive laws and can't own guns. Yet we are richer (on average), safer, have free healthcare and higher quality of life.

Yeah, the people of Greece are rolling in it....So much so that they can afford to burn down their infrastructure when the government talks about breaking up the taxi monopoly by issuing more cabbie licenses. Note: I'm not arguing Americans have a lot of freedoms...I'm arguing that, provided their not hurting anyone else, they should have more. It's what this country was founded on.

BTW, how would these gun free Eurabian countries be doing if they were forced to defend themselves against an invasion(see Russia/Georgia conflict)?

Clearly the US needs to stop the thankless job of being the world's protector/nation builder/body bag filler and needs to shut down all its bases and bring its troops home. The world can take care of itself and the money saved would allow us to pay off our debt and "roll in it." Let these gun free Eurabians pay for their own defense, let them handle their own conflicts, let them clean up their own genocides, their own despotic leaders. Let them pay their fair share of blood and treasure. No more leeching off the big guy on the block.

Expanding government != Orwellian Police State.

TSA Agents love the public and their job

Expanding government != good

A) Actually our government has been arresting people who sell milk.

That's fairly vague. What did they get arrested for? I mean, the government has arrested people who work at chocolate factories... also they were Jeffrey Dohmer.

That's fairly vague. What did they get arrested for?

Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally
Raw Food Co-op Is Raided in California
Etc.

More money wasted going after Vegans, Mennonites and family farmers. You really have to love the Obama admins priorities. (Let's just hope he gets two terms like his mentor Bush )

[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1312898002' post='4846674']That's fairly vague. What did they get arrested for?

Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally
Raw Food Co-op Is Raided in California
[/quote]
They didn't arrest either of them. o.O

[quote name='Jacob Jingle' timestamp='1312906041' post='4846752']
[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1312898002' post='4846674']That's fairly vague. What did they get arrested for?

Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally
Raw Food Co-op Is Raided in California
[/quote]
They didn't arrest either of them. o.O
[/quote]

Not to mention they were violating fairly basic, but extremely important, health and safety regulations.


Jacob, would you care to start presenting evidence of the US government's tyranny by posting lists of tickets handed out for speeding or failure to wear a seat belt?

Not to mention they were violating fairly basic, but extremely important, health and safety regulations.

A) Why, do you have evidence the Amish were selling bad milk? Does pasteurizing and putting a sticker on the milk mean that an agro-monopoly wont sell a bad load?
B) How is killing competition in a market where only a few companies control everything going to make people safer? If anything they will just pay the fines and cut the corners. Where else are people going to go?
C) How long is this family farm going to last with this loss of money and all the legal fees? (I would call a family losing everything, while doing nothing but providing good milk, a severe form of tyranny)

And these are not the only examples. These are just the first two from a Google search.

Jacob, would you care to start presenting evidence of the US government's tyranny by posting lists of tickets handed out for speeding or failure to wear a seat belt?

A) This is the FBI, not a road cop. These people are looking at serious bs for doing nothing but providing a good product.
B)
[quote name='The article']But this week, the police cleared the shelves of Rawesome, an establishment in Venice Beach, loading $70,000 of raw, organic produce and dairy products on the back of a flatbed truck [/quote]
This is the second time this co-op of family farmers has been raided. How long could you stay in business losing $70,000 worth of product a pop? I've actually ran a business, dealt with the fear of losing it all and I sure as hell wouldn't callously crack wise at their loss.

[quote name='Luckless' timestamp='1312916656' post='4846820']Not to mention they were violating fairly basic, but extremely important, health and safety regulations.

A) Why, do you have evidence the Amish were selling bad milk? Does pasteurizing and putting a sticker on the milk mean that an agro-monopoly wont sell a bad load?
[/quote]

The point is they were selling milk that wasn't pasteurized. Do you understand what that is, what it does, and what it actually means to the chances of having a 'bad load'? It has zero to do with what some other company may or may not be doing.


Would you want the chef at your favourite restaurant to be going to the bathroom, and not washing his hands before preparing your meal? How about not washing his hands after handling raw chicken, and right before he tosses you a nice salad? Do you have any evidence that your food might be unsafe to eat? Would you still eat it?



I grew up in a dairy town, and drank unpasteurized milk fairly often as a kid.

One time I spent half a week puking my guts out,... due to drinking unpasteurized milk that had been contaminated.