H.R. 1207

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Wasn't sure what you meant by strawman, it's cool.

"You voters." You didn't vote, so you claim superiority?

Political ads are horrendous, I do research on the voting histories of the candidates on the issues critical to me.

Frankly, Obama's campaign was both intelligent and terrifying. A brilliant combination of playing on people's fears and offering "hope" and "change" at the same time.

Don't care to. It is a waste of time. Think about it, if the election fell down to one vote, the political nonsense would pop out so horrendously that it would really boil down to uncovering political manipulations and supreme court mechanations. In any case, I said what I did because of research on voter political biases and how they related to a public choice argument made by economist Bryan Caplan.


Some research argues that informed voters do worse.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/i ... oters.html

Transparency? I'm totally up for that. ;p

What that implies, as a general principle, is that previous legislators solved all problems and foresaw all difficulties. A faith like that in previous legislators seems to me surprising in anyone that has experienced the effects of any legislation.

Well, it seems more like a lack of faith in change and/or regulation.

For instance, imagine that most times that a legislator acted, it caused net damage, now imagine that the negative effects of this legislative action accumulate. If this is so, then favoring additional legislation would be foolish, as it will likely cause net damage and add onto other bad legislation to this effect.

Now imagine another idea: whatever past legislators did, people adapted to, and whatever current legislators do, people will have to adapt to, adaptation is costly. Also legislative action is usually not very effective at improving things. What this means is that legislative action will not be favored because it usually involves a cost(even a temporary one) but not much benefit.

Both ideas would favor a conservative approach to law without adding major assumptions(such as strongly favoring the ideology of past legislators or something), and thus are not anti-reasonable. The major issue is that opponents will mostly tend to disagree about the efficacy of legislators, not the other matters. In any case, I would think that zerooftheday had some libertarian-leaning and conservative-leaning ideological assumptions that could be seen in what he said, meaning that he would likely support both earlier ideas, and as well support the ideological assumptions of prior legislators.

Sand:

You might be missing my point. Which is that it seems politicians like to pass redundant laws rather than enforce the ones they have. When new problems arise, I don't mind a new law being passed.

AG:

I don't think most laws have caused damage, we seem to be pretty good where we are.

Pretty much nailed it at the end. If legislators pass a law is that doesn't work, by all means replace it with a better one, but only if a true attempt at enforcement was made. When they pass laws, neglect or fail to enforce them, then claim they need stricter ones, I start to have a problem. I think firearms laws are a great example of this, so are all the laws concerning illegal immigration.

Another major problem I have with legislators passing laws is that a minor law clarifying the definition of tofu would have a $100,000,000 in earmarks on it. It's obscene how they complain about wasteful spending on new defense projects and funding for faith-based charities, but tag millions for pet projects in neighborhoods that have key voting demographics.

Honestly, I don't idolize past legislators. I'm one of those weird freaks that would love to raise a family in the deep woods, growing and hunting his own food, without anyone bothering me, or me bothering anyone. My only problem is that I'd probably have to cut back on my internet usage, but I'm more and more willing to make that trade.