Politics

[AlphaTauri]

Explain why PATRIOT and Alien/Sedition acts are unconstitutional.

I actually did a school project on this and I said that the PATRIOT act, more specifically the National Security Letters, violate the First and Fourth Amendments. And I quote from my project "NSLs let federal agents get information from banks, hospitals, internet providers, and libraries without a warrant" and "the 2007 Protect America Act allowed officials to wiretap any conversation that was "reasonably believed" to have a participant outside the US". This is basically denying people's right to privacy (Amendment IV). Also, recipients of NSLs are not allowed to tell anyone that they have recieved an NSL, therefore violating peoples' right to free speech (Amendment I).

[blue cobra]

Looks like we're finished with health care; shall we move to the economy?

Looks like France's conservative president got them out of the recession already, and while spending $769,000,000,000 less.
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Also, I have a question for fmtiger: do you not want the government to be limited by the Constitution?

[andrewwski]

We are out of the recession as well.

[gyourkoshaven]

Also, I have a question for fmtiger: do you not want the government to be limited by the Constitution?

Well based on him being a strong liberal and a proud democrat, I would say that he does not.

[blue cobra]

I don't feel like talking about economics, and apparently no one does either, so please take this conversation wherever you want.

[AlphaTauri]

Oil drilling. ANWR. Our dependence on the Middle East for oil.

Discuss.

[ncha13]

I dont like obama thats final but if it wasnt for bush our economy wouldnt be in this position

[blue cobra]

I say drill here.

We shouldn't be dependent on any other country for anything. We have tons of oil, coal, and natural gas here. Wind and solar are good, but the technology isn't ready. The government should get off of the backs of fossil fuels and realize when it's ready, the best energy options will become widespread. Energy companies aren't going to run off a cliff, and when the time is right (which it will be soon) they'll go to renewable energy.

[andrewwski]

We don't have that much oil here. Some, yes, and quite a bit that is currently restricted to use, but not enough that it would be sustainable for any amount of time. We are dependent on foreign oil - if the supply of it is cut off, we're in big trouble. We simply do not have the resources here to meet our oil demands (if we did, we'd already be doing it).

We have more natural gas, and an ample supply of coal. Creating synthetic fuel from coal could definitely lower our dependence on foreign oil - and would be sustainable for a relatively long period of time - however it's still not good for the environment and is not renewable.

However, as long as oil continues to be cheap, and it still is, although no doubt we've reached peak oil or will be doing so very soon, there's no incentive to develop renewables commercially. You can see it with every fluctuation in the price of oil - industry only becomes interested in renewable sources when oil gets expensive - as the price declines, neither consumers nor manufacturers are that interested any more.

Thus it takes some sort of government subsidy to develop these technologies and make them sustainable. In terms of fuel, neither ethanol, biodiesel, nor hydrogen currently are sustainable or have the capacity to meet our needs. They can be used as supplements though.

In terms of electricity, renewable sources are ample but less efficient. We could certainly make much more use of them, but the investment is large.

Someday, possibly relatively soon, the oil supply will decline, and that will mean hardships across the board. We can overcome them, but if we don't start thinking about the future we're going to dig ourselves into a deeper hole.

[gyourkoshaven]

My only real problem with foreign oil is that we're funding terrorism. I mean our economic system has been fairly dependent on foreign oil over the last 40-50 years, and we're one of the richest countries on Earth. When we run out of oil we can just make fuel out of another abundant substance, such as shale, at a relatively cheap price.