When we realized we could build a better society through love and co-operation (as Darwin pointed out),

If that's what the boomers were trying to do, then they failed to realize that a society like that would only work well if almost everyone were on board with the ideas. And that seems contradictory to human nature. Cooperation on a grand scale I mean. Cooperation tends to break down a lot once you get past the family or tribal level. An entire nation of 300 million people cooperating freely and acting on love of each other? Perhaps I am a little jaded, but that really does sound like a pipe dream. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most people only pay taxes because it's taken from them automatically, not out of love or cooperation.

I wish we could do an experiment to see if your system would work. Just for one week, stop automatic sales and income taxes. Tell people they need to write a check for their sales and income taxes at the end of the week, out of love and cooperation. Let's see how that goes.

Thank you. I just checked it out. It looks like the purpose of the bill was to make it easier for unions to win the right to represent workers, if 50% of the workers signed on? So then an existing union, like the SEIU, would come in and see how many signatures they could get to represent the workers of a company?

Not sure how I feel about that. Every now and then, we get solicitors in our neighborhood who want us to sign petitions to get certain people on the ballot or to support this or that cause. That always makes me uncomfortable, because if you say no, they know where you live and that you don't support them. That could lead to trouble. I can see card check going a similar way. Once you're outed as being someone who didn't support it, they could make your work life hell.

And when it comes to chain stores, would the card check rules apply to each individual store, or to the whole chain? If, for example, a McDonalds with 30 employees signed on with a union, don't you think McDonalds, or the franchisee, would just close that one to set an example? One or two closed stores wouldn't hurt them at all, and people would get the message.

First Bundy and his followers refused to respect public land, next was sacred land. They still believe that might makes right and land is there for the taking. While they are petty and selfish and threaten violence, they are not much different from land-greedy groups elsewhere in America, everywhere on the planet, and all through human history.

While they are in the wrong, part of the blame falls on conventional society for not making clear the nature of property. Land becomes property only when the occupant or wannabe owner compensates those whom he excludes — his nearby neighbors. All of us have an equal right to life, none of us can live without land, so we all have an equal right to Earth.

Bundy, his followers, and many others despise this notion of paying rent to their community. But they shouldn’t. Not just because morally we all are obliged to compensate those whom we exclude from a part of Earth. But also because, bottom line, they can’t lose. As members of the community, they’ll be getting compensated, too. Everybody would pay land dues into the public treasury and get rent dividends back. Owners of land of average value or less — as are most of Bundy’s followers — would get back more than they pay. With a happy wallet, all they’d have to mollify is their egos about being renters to their neighbors. More at Progress.org.

Just goes to show how all those farting dinosaurs can wreck a whole utopia. Now we have cows and cars and fuel oil powered power plants to do what the dinosaurs once did. It's mother earth's way of self preservation...the extinction of the major polluters whether they are dinosaurs or man. Save the earth! Don't eat meat and ride bikes and go solar! Yes, I know that some people still believe that man rode dinosaurs once upon a time....makes one wonder how all that oil and gas got buried several miles below the surface if dinosaurs and man coexisted sometime shortly after the earth was "created" some...what?....5000 years ago? Ha!

Quote chuckle8:DAM -- Before I go to the link can you give me the cliff notes on why burning hemp produces less greenhouse gas?

chuckle8 ~ As it states on the webpage, because of photosynthesis and the growth cycle of plants while our hemp biomass is being grown it sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere and replaces it with Oxygen. When burned it produces the same amount of CO2 as any other fuel, however, this is offset by the amount of oxygen it produces when grown as well as the amount of CO2 it removes from the air when grown.

If we used hemp not only for fuel, but for raw material for non combustible products like plastic, paper, fabric, etc, the overall cumulative effect of the growth cycle and photosynthesis would reverse the greenhouse effect by slowly cleaning the air.

DAM -- Before I go to the link can you give me the cliff notes on why burning hemp produces less greenhouse gas?

Aliceinwonderland ~ Thanks for one of the best posts I've ever read. Please allow me to tip my hat. Also thanks for making me roll on the floor and laugh my a$$ off. Shear brilliance and said so very, very, VERY WELL!! Take a bow!

ChicagoMatt ~ I remember once my father telling me, "You live under my roof, you obey my rules." I didn't like it; however, I couldn't do anything about it till I moved out. The same is true of Mississippi. If they want to be a part of this union and accept our tax dollars they damn well are going to live by our rules. Until they can successfully "move out" (succeed) they simply cannot talk back without expecting a smack in the mouth. That goes for every other state of the union as well.

Also, I don't give a damn about what happens anywhere outside our borders. "Leave those people the hell alone!"

Cutting carbon with HEMP could renew our economy and job market while cleaning the air at the same time. The side effect of transferring our economy from a Gesellschaft (industrialized) to a Gemeinschaft (agricultural) base could also repair most, or all, of our social ills. It certainly is an idea worth considering.

http://thehempsolution.blogspot.com/

AIW -- Do not forget that it was the 1% of the south that was for slavery. The number of abolitionists in the south was 2.5 times of those in the north. Of course, every one of those southern abolitionists was white. I wonder how much the soulth feels the way Matt describes it. Please remember if you want the red states to secede, there is a lot of people in the south like us that you are letting the 1% devour.

Me too, Chuck. That word, "individualism", is just another word the conservatives have ruined. Like the word "liberal". - AIW

Chi Matt -- Regarding social security, I read in the LA Times something very interesting by M Hiltzik. When Abby Hoffman on MSNBC was saying the social security reserve fund was running out the lefties became defensive. Also, she said the old were competing against the young. Thom and Bernie were describing to us that was the way it was supposed to be. With a plan designed by raygun and greenspan, baby boomers had to pay twice as much. The original social security (the 1930's) was designed so current workers were paying for current retirees. Due to the rapid increase in population (baby boom) the raygun admin was afraid the plan would fall apart and thus they created the double payment scheme.

The problem with all of this discussion is that the social security reserve fund is increasing per M Hiltzik. Chi Matt due to the collectivity thought of the baby boomers you may have no worry in your later years.