From Yahoo News:
Obama proposals to cut defense spending, Ryan said, would scale back missile defense and directly cost Colorado almost 18,000 jobs.
My comment was:
I have a better solution. Why not find a dry place near a river in Arizona, Nevada or California and construct the largest pyramids in the world, then get the dudes who preserved Lenin or just use the old Egyptian methods and mummify the corpses of the last 20 or so dead presidents. That way we can waste all of the money, provide no extra security and create a tourist destination for people 1200 years from now.
or not so dead presidents.
I second this.
Very good plan. Muy bueno.
I reworded that part.
Would you like me to reword my post too? I'll do it if you prefer that.
Krugman would approve.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
Not to de-rail your thread but something bugs me. The picture of the Great Pyramids with the meme "slavery gets shit done"*. I'd like to make a meme saying "capitalism gets bigger shit done" with a picture of the Empire State Building. As far as I know it wasn't State financed** and was built in a little over a year. Amazing, considering a simple 50 foot bridge over a creek now takes 2 years to build. The pyramids took 20 years each to build IIRC. Though the times were obviously different, I think people would get the message that contractual, voluntary economies produce better than slave-based ones do. I guess you could say compare NE and SE US economies antebellum for this relation, but I just thought of that pyramid meme when I saw the title of this thread.
/thread de-railment
*Which is disputed, BTW.
**Though I wouldn't be surpised if he made much of his money from State subsidy of some sort or another.
I think the historical/archaeological evidence indicates that the Pyramids were built contractually. While there was slavery in Egypt, it is not likely that the Pharaoh himself kept battalions of slaves, as often depicted by Hollywood... it would be inefficient and an unnecessary headache.
Furthermore, I've always taken the meaning of that meme to be satirical, like, "Yeah, maybe you can build Pyramids with a bunch of slaves but what use are those, really, and isn't it kind of grotesque to enslave people just so you can build gigantic monuments to your supposed greatness?"
Clayton -
The vast majority of Egyptians were serfs and owed corvee labour to the state. The income of the state, of course, came from taxation (or rent on royal estates), so even where craftsmen were paid, the source of such payment came from forced expropriation. Thus I don't think it's inaccurate to say that the construction of the pyramids relied on slavery. Nozick's tale of the slave covers this.
Well you derailed it. Yes of course there was an ugly side to the construction of the useless Great Pyramids. There is also an ugly side to the US Federal Government just spending other peoples wealth on things that will never be used.
Pyramids aren't an American thing, though. We need a Shrine of American (would say "Temple of" but that would make it sound religious and then wouldn't get government funding). The entrance would be influenced by Buddhist temples, but instead of statues of two spirits standing on the sides of the door to scare off unwanted people, it'll be two huge bald eagles coming at you, 20 feet tall eagles here, not including their foundations. When you get through the actual door (which will be huge and American), you enter the next room, which again is 4 or statues of Americans. These statues will be 2 to a side, and facing one another, so as you're walking past you can feel the spirit of Washington and Jefferson looking down at you, judging your Americana levels. Could do as many as you want, and these will be like 20 to 30 feet tall, those involved of the birth of Americanism. You'll enter a circular room that leads to different hallways of various presidents. Each president gets their own tomb room, of course. I figure we could do 5 tombs a corridor, and of course extra corridors for extra presidents. The room will be oval, of course, and opposite wall you'll have stairs on both sides leading up to the middle, where again another American thing will be screaming/staring down at you in it's 20 foot marble form. There will be a second floor of Americana, where various historical and folk legends are then Americanized for the 21st century. A statue of Davy Crocket ripped like he did P90x before there was P90x standing on a foundation of dead animals and people who just weren't American enough for when America was just learning to walk.
Welcome to Amerika:
"That way we can waste all of the money, provide no extra security and create a tourist destination for people 1200 years from now."
This is exactly the problem with you selfish libertarians: you don't care about other people! Just think how nice it would be to have pyramid as a tourist destination near your own home. But instead of doing nice altruistic act like building those pyramids, you just want to use the money yourself.
Ok, I know I'm not very good when it comes to joking in English.
Don't worry, that was pretty good :)
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Our "pyramids" is known as the Moon Landing.