Scott Freeman

1. 41 Responses to “Top 10 Tuesday: Things I Don’t Get”

2. By Greg Brooks on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   9. I read Spenser novels. I like how he beats guys up and shoots people. And I like the latent homosexual tension between Spenser and Hawk. Someday…

3. By Scott on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   Yikes.

   Don’t you find the dialogue somewhat lacking. I mean it’s just so bad.

4. By Jeff Slater on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   Re: #8 — NASCAR. Saying “it’s driving around in a circle at unsafe speeds” is like saying basketball is nothing but running up and down a wooden court sending your heart rate to an unsafe level.

   There’s a lot more to it, dude.

   But I’m with you on almost everything else.

5. By Tracy on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   I have found that I really enjoy Francine Rivers. She’s Christian chic lit. I know you won’t like her, wouldn’t even try. You’re not her audience. But she’s a great writer with great stories. And there’s a safety net with reading Christian fiction - I can feel more comfortable knowing that topics that I don’t like won’t come up. I like that.

   And you HAD to put Oprah in there somewhere, didn’t you? I’m surprised you didn’t put The Donald on here.

6. By Lane on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert once, not by choice really. I spent the entire night laughing at the grown drunk adults dressed in shark costumes, tree costumes, margarita costumes, and the like. Man, they were cool.

   And Dane Cook, I agree with you on him, except for the face he was excellent in “Dan In Real Life”. Wonderful flick.

   Nascar? That’s like calling driving to work exercise.

7. By terri on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   10 & 9 - I know nothing about - I don’t like being scared or hurt so there’s no draw for me.

   8 - like Jeff said, there is so much more. Really intelectual stuff like knowing the gear ratio for certain cars on certain tracks and what air pressure works best on which tire and which camber works best. I don’t like being scared or hurt but driving fast… LOVE IT!

   7 - don’t know him

   6 - It’s not really lust but those men have BEAUTIFUL arms and I’m just lookin’

   5 - I’m from his home state and I don’t get it either.

   4 - never seen an episode

   3 - read Left Behind series and enjoyed it but it was just reading for fun

   2 - Sure, but The Next Generation… I would love a weekend marathon

   1 - huh?

   I know I’ll be murdered for this but… I don’t like American Idol.

8. By Justin on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   I watched Dane Cook’s stand up special on comedy central last week at like 11 AM. I didn’t even think about laughing once.

   You don’t get Libertarianism. Please tell me what you don’t get, and I’d be glad to explain it to you as best I can. Suffice it to say, libertarians come to the conclusion that either by rational thought, or by God, all people have the right to life, liberty, and property. As long as what I’m doing with my life, liberty, and property doesn’t infringe on your right to life, liberty, or property, then I should be able to do it. And no collective force has any claim on that which is mine. Be it money, property, my life, my body, etc. Government should exist solely to protect peoples rights. Beyond that, any action, whether society deems it “moral” or not, will infringe on the rights of someone, which is unjust.

9. By Scott on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

   Jeff, they aren’t just running up and down the court, they are trying to put the ball in a basket. I hear what you are Terri are saying and it may just be me but I’m missing the appeal.

   Tracy, in my stints at trying Christian fiction I’ve found several themes that I don’t like. Then again, Left Behind was one long theme I didn’t like

   I’ve got Dan on my queue.

   Terri, I’m sure Justin will explain number one.

10. By Scott on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    “Suffice it to say, libertarians come to the conclusion that either by rational thought, or by God, all people have the right to life, liberty, and property.”

    That’s not novel, nor exclusive to Libertarians. I can be a Republican or a Democrat and believe that whole-heartedly.

    “And no collective force has any claim on that which is mine. Be it money, property, my life, my body, etc.”

    That’s what I don’t get. To me, in much of libertarianism there is enough of a sentiment of selfishness and individualism that denies the power of the collective and hence invites a level of anarchy that attempts to negate the positive that can exist in “collective forces.” Restrictions and sharing the wealth isn’t always a bad thing.

    But, and you have to recognize this, is that this discussion will be a non-starter for me and you. There isn’t any way we will come to agreement on this.

11. By Kevin Bussey on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Scott,

    You need to try one NASCAR race in person and you are hooked!

12. By Scott on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Now, I believe that. I would have to imagine that the atmosphere of the races would be great fun.

13. By Belinda on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Justin, should the government provide garbage pickup?

14. By Jenny P on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Scott,
    I’m with you on all of those! I may even be the only girl out there that doesn’t like Dancing with the Stars (or American Idol for that matter). However… the ones that “didn’t quite make the list”, I can’t back you on those. I like Oprah, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Grey’s Anatomy and I don’t find tattoos that offensive. Oh, and I’m about to send my 5 year old off to soccer practice tonight.

15. By Justin on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Belinda,

    No. Having been served by both private pick up and city pick up, I will have to say, service is much better with the private groups. Its more timely, and more flexible. When we first got married, we had lots of boxes to throw away from wedding gifts. When I noticed the garbage men were ignoring those boxes, I chased them down and asked why they didn’t pick them up. Because they weren’t in the trash can. Brilliant. Belinda, why did you choose trash pick up? I mean, of all the things, you threw me a softball. Interstates and roads is a little more difficult to defend, but still doable.

    Scott, I would suggest reading The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. She makes the point that a system of total altruism leads to death for everyone. One could make the point that joining God’s movement in the world is selfish to some degree. If I want abundant life, I have to follow Jesus. Is it not selfish to want something better for yourself?

    “life liberty…”

    All groups claim to believe that, but they make exceptions. You have the right to your property… unless you don’t pay property taxes, you have the right to property unless the government decides it wants more tax revenue from a mall and uses emminent domain to take your property. You have liberty… unless the government decides you’re liberty is socially unacceptable (gay marriage), or if they think your liberty is a bad decision (smoking marijuana, driving without a seat belt). Those are just a few small examples, but I think its pretty clear that the only party that makes its decisions by philosophy rather than trying to please everyone, or “take care” (read enslave) everyone is the Libertarian Party.

16. By Shane on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    I like the Sopranos and Harry Potter…a lot.

    I at least get Oprah and Libertarianism.

    I am with you on the rest.

    The main thing I don’t get is twitter updates!

17. By Scott on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Jenny, I don’t find Tattoos offensive. It just seems the longer you have them the less appealing they look.

    Shane, Twitter rocks. Join up and you can communicate with people throughout the day. I highly recommend it.

18. By marie on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Oh Scott … you had me all throughout your top 10, until you start knocking soccer and Jack Johnson, all in the same sentence. I’m just not sure how to respond.

19. By Scott on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Now, I didn’t knock soccer. I just don’t really get it. I know that is probably the most likely to change since my oldest is now playing. But, typically, it has bored me.

    Jack Johnson? Yeah, I can’t stand his music.

20. By Tracy on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    Phones are a good way to communicate with people too. Much more effective for that matter.

21. By JTB on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    I don’t think Ayn Rand would get the abundant life, follow Jesus connection.

    A lot of transhumanists are libertarians; this is disturbing enough to make me question it.

22. By John on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    On #9 the Spenser books have declined in overall quality from the earlier ones. It’s been nice to see the growth over time in the characters but that is balanced by the dialogue being forced.

    #5 is just a good time, forget the world for an hour or two. Just good pure escapism, or at least for me.

    #2 is about hope and a positive future. That said I don’t get the people who dress up and go to conventions.

    #1 or at least on the question of trash service, private is the way to go. The township I live in this is the only option and I would never want to suffer with a government service again.

23. By Justin on Mar 25, 2008 | Reply

    JTB, you are way smarter than am I, but there are some right minded christians that are staunch nonviolent, pro (true) free market libertarians.

    When was the last time you saw this kind of article at dailykos, the new republic, or the national review?

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/mccarthy8.html

    Lewrockwell’s blog is about as purely libertarian as you can get, and they are also about as anti violence and force as you can get, which explains their disdain for government.

    And BTW, Rand wasn’t a big fan of libertarianism. She was mad because the libertarians went further than her Objectivism flirting with, and even delving into anarchism, and also because they didn’t accept her ethics or metaphysical parts of her philosophy (namely, that there is no god).

    I think that Rand’s work is important in many ways. Her critique of the evils that befall a culture that operates on a false altruism being one of the most important, but I disagree with her assessment of faith. She is definitely a product of the modern era, and I think now, as we enter into the post modern, we are drawing some different conclusions. But, in my opinion, just because she was wrong in some areas, doesn’t mean that her voice is irrelevant.

24. By Belinda on Mar 26, 2008 | Reply

    I picked garbage pickup because it’s something so basic, but something we have to have. My garbage pickup is contracted out to a priviate company but it’s on my electric bill, lumping all these services together. It seems the majority of us want/need government “aid,” just to different extents.

25. By Justin on Mar 26, 2008 | Reply

    That is probably true Belinda. I think that two qualifications should be met for, especially for the federal government, to determine whether the government should spend our money on it. One is, is it something that benefits everyone equally. Two, is it something that the government can do more efficiently than the private sector. One thing that fits that criteria is interstate highways. The biggest problem we have in our country is that the top 50% of wage earneers in this country pay 96% of the income taxes. Its getting dangerously close to the point where those that shoulder the entirety of the tax burden do not have enough representation through their votes to be able to stop confiscatory actions of government, that is, taxes can be raised as high as the poorer half of the country want, and the richer half can do nothing about it. That, in my opinion, is not fair or just in any way.

26. By Jonathan on Mar 26, 2008 | Reply

    Justin said:

    The biggest problem we have in our country is that the top 50% of wage earneers in this country pay 96% of the income taxes.

    Ah, fun with statistics.

    First of all, that’s “the biggest problem we have”? Really?

    Secondly, what % of the total earned income do the “top 50% of wage earners” earn? I suspect that it is closer to 96 % than to 50 %. Or, at least, if we know what that number is then we will be better equipped to evaluate how fair your “biggest problem” stat is.

    I’m mostly ignorant on this issue, but my impression is that the % of income paid in taxes in the different tax brackets (say, between a middle income earner and an extremely high income earner) aren’t drastically different. Something like 25 % for someone earning $30,000 and 33 % for someone earning 10X that amount? Also, isn’t a significant fraction of the income of the most wealthy (capital gains) taxed at a relatively low rate?

27. By Jonathan on Mar 26, 2008 | Reply

    To put it another way, I suspect that the “biggest problem” stat says more about the disparity in income level between the upper income earners and lower income earners rather than something about unfair tax burdens on the upper earners…but please correct me if I’m missing something here.

28. By Justin on Mar 26, 2008 | Reply

    Jonathan,

    I’m sure that income disparity has something to do with that, but the main issue is that the backbone of our income tax system is paid by relatively few people, meaning, they have little control over their dollars, due to the tyranny of the majority that exists in democracies.

    I just checked wikipedia, so who knows how accurate this actually is, but the bottom 50% of wage earners (those making less than 50K a year) in the country earn appx 25% of total US household income. Their burden of the income tax is 4%. The top 50% of wage earners (those making more than 50K a year) earn appx 75% of total household income, and pay 96% of all income taxes.

    I don’t know if that changes your argument at all. But I thought I’d throw the info out there. I don’t think we should have any income taxes, but we’ve all ready had that discussion.

29. By Jonathan on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    If a relatively small percentage of the population earns much more income, it seems reasonable to me that they would also pay much more income tax.

    There is a certain amount of income that shouldn’t be taxed because it is the minimum amount necessary for survival, and then everyone should pay a reasonable percentage (open to interpretation) of everything above that. On the lower end, the untaxed portion is a significant fraction of the total income, so folks on the low end pay a bit less than their share, but that doesn’t bother me much either.

    Given how our democratic republic actually works, I think it’s also a bit weak to claim that the rich have little control due to the tyranny of the majority. With the government typically doing the bidding of the lobbyists and with the justice system and everything else so influenced by money and its associated power, I hardly see the upper crust as suffering under the tyranny of the rest of us.

    Ultimately, we do have a fundamental disagreement about whether we should have income tax and a fundamental agreement that taxes currently are wasted and spent in ways that they shouldn’t. But given my belief that we should have income taxes to pay for the many services that government provides and that we admittedly could use our resources more wisely than we do, I don’t really see a big problem with the current tax burden on the elite.

30. By Politics & Culture on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    This is from George Will’s column today (and is somewhat related to this discussion):

    Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.” The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.

    If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:

    * Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

    * Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.

    * Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.

    * Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.

    * In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

    People who reject the idea that “government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.
    ===============

    Heartless liberals.

31. By Scott on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    Many of the “facts” in Brooks’ book are spurious at best. In the General Social Surveys released in 2000, 20002, and 2004 “liberal” families made LESS than conservative families.

    I would imagine that both that survey and the one Brooks uses in incomplete and open to manipulation.

    In addition, the book focuses on stark polarities and does not account for the millions, nay majority, that fall somewhat between the two camps.

    I also know that he counted church contribution as well which might account for any differences in total amount given. Suffice it to say that the states that voted for Bush in 2004 there was a large number of voters that went to conservative evangelical churches.

    With that I quote the great economist Todd Snider:

    64 percent of all the world’s statistics are made up right there on the spot
    82.4 percent of people believe ‘em whether they’re accurate statistics or not

    

32. By Justin on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    statistics, even “accurate” ones, can be made to say anything.

    “certain amount of income shouldn’t be taxed at all…”

    If you’re going to have an income tax, I think you’re right there Jonathan. However, how does one define “survival”. There are a lot of luxuries that Americans would say they can’t survive without, that folks around the world live their whole lives without posessing.

    And that’s why so very few people in the bottom half of income earners in this country pay little to no taxes. I would say its impossible to live on some of the wages these people are getting, but when you add in section 8, medicaid, with whatever checks people get from the government, their incomes are not nearly as low as it would seem.

33. By Robin on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    Jonathan - since you don’t mind paying taxes can I send you my tax bill? And by the way, by democratic party definition I would suppose you are the elite.

34. By Jonathan on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    I don’t mind paying my share. I didn’t say I wanted to pay yours.

    It’s not just the Democratic party (BTW, you forgot to leave off the ic in contempt), pretty much everyone is falling all over themselves to tell me how elite I am.

35. By Scott on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    Oh, they get section 8 and medicaid so it isn’t that bad? Come on there is better reasoning than that? That’s Pat Buchanan thinking.

    Jonathan, how elite are you?

36. By justin on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    That’s not what I was saying. What I was saying is that when you’re paying no income tax, making 1200 a month, don’t have to pay full price (or in some cases anything) for your rent or your health care, you get 150 bucks a month per person for food… you aren’t nearly as bad off as many pols would have you think. Health care for a family costs what, 500 600 dollars a month? Rent for a decent house in the city with 3 bedrooms gonna run you 800-900 bucks a month, you have a family of four, so you get 600 bucks a month for food. That turns 1200 dollars a month into 3500 bucks a month, appx, pre tax. That gets you almost to median income in the US.

    I don’t claim to be an expert on anything, but these are just rough numbers to give one an idea of how much government help some of these people are getting.

    Thing is, and you see this if you live in the inner city, many young men don’t work. At all. The women, who take care of tons and tons of children may work a little, but they spend a lot of time walking or driving around looking at houses on the section 8 list trying to find the best one. Where I’m living right now used to be on section 8 (and hasn’t been taken off like it was supposed to be) and in the2 weeks we’ve lived here we’ve had 4 different “groups” of people come try to look at our house. Two of the groups I saw were driving a pimped out brand new jag, and caddy respectively. Carrie has talked to the other two groups of people when I wasn’t there, so I’m unsure what they are driving.

    There’s something wrong with the system.

37. By Scott on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    I admit that there is something wrong with the system but these numbers are largely anecdotal.
    I think we can all admit that our tax code is beyond messed up. The question is what do we do about it. I’m with Jonathan, I don’t mind paying my share (although in full disclosure I have it pretty cushy in that department).
    In my years of ministry I’ve encountered many people in inner cities or who are living paycheck to paycheck. They might take advantage of medicare or other government assistance programs but nowhere does it translate to 40,000 a year.

38. By Jonathan on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    You preacher-types do get a sweet deal when it comes to tax deductions.

39. By Scott on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    We really do.

40. By Justin on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    I wonder if you still get that deal if you start criticizing the empire

41. By len on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    You can have all the Democratic candidates you want speak in your congregation, just no Republicans.

42. By Scott on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks to Rick Warren we still get the deal even if we do criticize the empire.

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