Sam Levine

"Well, kind of. Many Republicans in office want to roll back what remains of the great society and much of the new deal. Democrats on the other hand are primarily engaged in maintaining the status quo. For example, when the goals of the two sides are ending medicare vs. ensuring that it doesn't bankrupt the country, there isn't much room for compromise. This is yet another reason why our presidential system with separation of powers is poorly matched to ideologically coherent parties and needs structural reform." - Sam Levine

"There is social media in the Star Trek universe, it's just that the Borg are the only ones on Facebook." - Sam Levine

"> Is there anything that should remain a government function? Libertarians aren't generally anarcho-capitalists or minarchists. They usually want the state to exist, just not the welfare state as we know it (corporate and individual), the police state as we know it and the military industrial complex. This isn't a straw man argument because it's in the form of a question, but it's not a great way to learn about what makes libertarians tick. [BHL](http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com) might be a good place to start." - Sam Levine

"> OWS doesnt compare to people fighting for the most basic human rights. Now we're starting to get to the heart of the disagreement. And I apologize for the fact that most folks on the left (I'm actually on the right, for what it's worth) aren't able to argue this point because lolhistorybooks. For a good idea of what this would look like you can look back to some of what didn't get into the [New Deal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...). The idea is that civil rights (rights granted by government, not by natural law, $deity, etc.) should include the right to housing, medical care, a job with a living wage, education, etc. Of the rights in this, only social security was implemented at a federal level, and of the items above implemented at a state or local level people have problems with the scope of positive rights afforded to people. This is the new civil rights movement, the rights people want just happen to be different. And many people are just as alienated by the..." - Sam Levine

"> But still illegal. Commiting one form of crime, to offset several other forms of crimes doesnt really fix the problem. [Sometimes it does](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...). The fact that we're talking about these issues at all is largely due to the fact that people are willing to take extraordinary measures to bring them to light and get arrested in the process. You don't have to like what some people do to express discontent about politics. You don't even need to like their politics. But we have a long tradition of peaceful civil disobedience and treating ordinary protesters like narco-terrorists neither solves the problems they seek to resolve nor is a means to maintain law and order." - Sam Levine

"> What are the odds that if they were given the building to do with what they please, they would end up using the space to throw raves? If you don't allow a market to fulfill demand (enough places where people can legally party at prices they can afford, in this case) people will create their own black market. Taller height restrictions, lower requirements for getting liquor licenses, allowing minors in places that serve alcohol and have amplified music and drug legalization largely help eliminate the need for the black market. > the occupants evicted because they could not police their own and created far more problems than it solved. I've spoken with a number of occupiers that share this view to some extent. It's much easier to occupy a building than it is to solve the problems associated with drug criminalization and the high costs of housing and medical care (and the crappy economy, etc.). But the problems they're trying to point out don't go away after you disperse them." - Sam Levine

"> She says that when she sees a homeless shelter or free childcare as a valid use of that building, all I hear is ideas. She's not putting up the money to make those ideas happen for that space. The presumption from people I spoke with at the event and afterwards was that the money would be put up by taxpayers. Keep in mind this woman was one of 16 people arrested by a SWAT team in the building for trying to use the space for that purpose sans tax dollars. I streamed the event, and I had some interesting conversations with folks there. Honestly I think that getting rid of high requirements would do a great deal to allow market rate, luxury and low income housing to occupy the same buildings. As is the only way to make a buck is to exclude large portions of the community from living within walking distance of where they work. tl;dr imho elevators are the solution to most of the complaints." - Sam Levine

"> She says that when she sees a homeless shelter or free childcare as a valid use of that building, all I hear is ideas. She's not putting up the money to make those ideas happen for that space. The presumption from people I spoke with at the event and afterwards was that the money would be put up by taxpayers. Keep in mind this woman was one of 16 people arrested by a SWAT team in the building for trying to use the space for that purpose sans tax dollars. I streamed the event, and I had some interesting conversations with folks there. Honestly I think that getting rid of high requirements would do a great deal to allow market rate, luxury and low income housing to occupy the same buildings. As is the only way to make a buck is to exclude large portions of the community from living within walking distance of where they work. tl;dr imho elevators are the solution to most of the complaints." - Sam Levine

"In case anyone wants video of the event: Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch... Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch... Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch... Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch..." - Sam Levine

"It's kind of like the difference between boycotting Walmart and shooting/arresting anyone that steps within 10' of the door of Walmart. One is the business of the people involved to chose not to buy from Walmart, the other is a use of force." - Sam Levine

"submitted by reddit to blog." - Sam Levine

">Why is it so hip to hate on Ron Paul? He takes a number of positions that put him close to paleoconservatism. This pits him against neoconservatives, progressives and many libertarians." - Sam Levine

"Think about it this way: When you look at something, your eyes are receiving way more information than your brain can store or process. What you actually perceive is different than what is happening and is influenced by your previous experiences, and this goes for all of your senses. Ok, so we've ruled out people as being completely unbiased. How about machines? Although cameras don't suffer from quite the same problem, where you are pointing the camera and what you edit out can vastly change what appears to be happening to the viewer. It's possible to try to be impartial and give both sides of the story, but what about when both sides are wrong? Or when one side is lying? Journalism isn't like science. Nor is history or any number of other squishy subjects." - Sam Levine

"You don't have to come to capitol hill. This city is big enough for everyone. ;)" - Sam Levine

"I reported on a previous eviction (http://www.youtube.com/watch... http://levinetech.net/node/88), and the police had a similar story (http://www.centraldistrictnews.com/2011...). The message I got from the police at the scene of the December 16th eviction was different from what was the official story that they gave to the press. In this case due diligence was actually done by the police, having previously served notice to the squatters to leave. 1 point for the police imho. As before the police used an absurd amount of resources in the middle of the night to do something that could be done easily during daylight hours with a handful of officers. -1 point for the police imho. Obviously none of this answers your questions, but I hope that it prompts more of them." - Sam Levine

"Big Science is why you can post that." - Sam Levine

"Ron Paul isn't very libertarian. He's a lot closer to paleoconservatism. Think Pat Buchanan minus the drug war." - Sam Levine

"Because we have a presidential system with first past the post voting. These tend to not work as well as parliamentary systems for people in smaller parties, even ones using FPP. When you do finally get to the point where you have more than two parties that are competitive you usually have parties collapse into other parties until you're back down to two, or your government collapses. Instead, people jockey to build coalitions within parties the way that parties do with other smaller parties in parliamentary systems. Voting for a third (or a fourth, or a seventh) party doesn't get you any more influence in most cases, and usually sets back your political goals. The end result is that typically in a presidential system like what the US has you end up with a center-right party that is a coalition of some business interests and some other group, and a coalition of "everyone else". Trying to balance the conflicting demands of labor, urban professionals, suburban families, feminists,..." - Sam Levine

"Someone that does something is something. Someone that owns something has something. If we define blogger as "people that have at one point posted to a blog but haven't touched it for months", then yes, most bloggers aren't journalists. But if we're talking about people who are going out into the field to find out what is going on, writing about it, and then publishing it to the entirety of planet earth that has Internet access, then we're talking about journalists regardless if they work for a company that makes fish wrapping paper or not." - Sam Levine

"The Internet lets you download free movies and music, as well as gossip about your friends behind their backs. Just what do you think colonizing mars will let people do that they can't already here? ;)" - Sam Levine

"It's always someone's parent, child or loved one that gets turned into "collateral damage". All caps doesn't convince people that are on the fence about the issue, no matter how much you love your family. In this case, rather than trying to convince people that people you love will be hurt by a military action, try pointing out the costs that the US has and will incur in occupying Iraq (trillions), talk about the spread out and dug in nature of Iran's nuclear program prevents success in a quick attack like what Israel did in Iraq and Syria, talk about what they're doing is basically what the Japanese have done, which is to produce (gasp) power, which could theoretically be turned into weapons if they were threatened with invasion and talk about how any attack would cause a large global recession due to transportation being shut down and oil production in Iran being stifled. Don't try to play to the good nature of people's hearts. People trying to do the right thing were why we killed..." - Sam Levine

"When you have lots of information that is easily available, the scarcity that becomes valuable is in editing, organizing and expanding upon that information. Which you can do in a word processor (I prefer a text editor for such tasks, but ymmv)." - Sam Levine

"You've likely met several adults that were homeschooled and were well socialized as children but find that it derails conversations when they bring it up and as such avoid talking about it. It's kind of like atheism in that regard." - Sam Levine