Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 June 1

= June 1 =

How to institute a mandatory fiduciary duty to support macroeconomic growth?
Most U.S. economists know that returning to the high effective corporate tax rates of more prosperous times would cause companies to invest in labor and production, creating consumer demand and growth, instead of paying the less risky small tax of recent decades to bank their record profits, which leads to stagnation and widespread unemployment.

The problem is that raising corporate taxes is politically unpalatable to those with the most money (corporate officers) so with their powerful lobby, very few voters know about the macroeconomic effect of all corporations facing the same decision to either spend to hire and produce, or bank their profits, and many elected officials dependent on campaign contributions are actively hostile to the concept. But that is the whole reason companies are charged "income" taxes on profits instead of receipts, so they can dodge taxes by growing. And it's how the U.S. paid off the World War II debt, which was three times today's relative to GDP -- by growing instead of running a surplus.

The way to solve this is to institute a mandatory corporate fiduciary duty to seek prosperous economic conditions, including advocacy of effective corporate income tax rates which make hoarding profits idle cost more than labor, production, and growth. How do we achieve that? 71.212.251.217 (talk) 00:25, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Who is "we"? And what's to stop those targeted companies from responding by moving offshore? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * We are those of us who would like to see economic growth return to postwar levels. While some capital flight is likely, the US is simply to large and too important for more than a very small fraction of its companies to relocate. 71.212.251.217 (talk) 15:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Establishing mandatory corporate fiduciary duties is an element of the establishment and control of corporations. You would wish to modify various corporations acts.  IIRC, the US establishes corporations at the state level primarily.  To modify US laws at the state level, you can lobby current parties with (or who could) achieve suitable power, modify the platform of such parties, or establish such a party that could achieve suitable power.  Social constructions of how and why such power comes to be exercised tend to focus on (no surprise here) the state of the class war.  As there currently isn't an equivalent to the success of organised labour in the 1930s that established the context for the reinvestment of profits, and as neo-liberalism (including the generalised reinvestment of profits on the market) has been ascendant within US bourgeois ideology since the early 1980s, there is little to no chance that political parties will change the corporations acts, or be willing to be lobbied to do so, without a major political reconfiguration.  Inspect your premises, and your theory of power—your reading of the post-war compromise is incredibly voluntarist and fails to account for institutional and system wide factors. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:45, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * If we want them to hire more people, we should make it cheaper to do that, and more expensive to do anything else with their money. How about a relatively high corporate tax rate coupled with low-cost or free employees ? (The government would pay for those employees, their training, health care, retirement, etc., with those taxes.)  If it's designed to be revenue neutral, businesses won't object too much, as the lower labor costs would make up for the higher business tax.  StuRat (talk) 02:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The Australian government attempted to achieve this in the 1980s, by channelling incomes into tax, and thereby into improved quality of labour (and social programmes with indirect improvements in labour quality, such as child health, education, etc.). This was called the Wages and Prices Accord.  Many of these programs were costed through direct pricing on items that had previously been entirely state funded.  Employers still wound back the scope of their employment and engaged in capital flight away from fixed capital and labour, and into diversified international instruments.  Australian capital sought to realise profits as revenue or international expansion of capacity in the 1980s: not to expand productive capacity out of profit.  As Bugs points out: capital controls are required to inflict policy on capital. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Most U.S. economists would probably disagree with your basic premises. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:03, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Is there any evidence in support of your opinion? There is abundant evidence opposed to it. 71.212.251.217 (talk) 16:02, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an economist, so I'd like to understand the question. Why would greatly raising the taxes on companies make them invest in labour? Surely it'd make them either reduce their labour costs to repair their profitability, or sack absolutely everyone and move somewhere else where the tax regime is less oppressive? --Dweller (talk) 09:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Given a state of low capital mobility, as in the post-1940 situation in the United States, increasing taxes on unreinvested profits should encourage capital entities to direct potential profits towards forced capitalisation, expanding the number of jobs and the wages of jobs, thus expanding the effective demand of the consumer market. This is very similar to the forced reinvestment in Department I in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, except there Department IIa's consumption was held down creating an even greater reinvestment.  Mandel discusses this in the introduction to Capital II (Penguin) in the form of a truism, and I believe that there are similar analyses from outside of Marxist political economy. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:06, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I understand what you're saying. But this isn't the 1940s any more. If you massively increased the unreinvested taxes on the Foo Beer Company because you hope they'll hire another 100 workers, don't you run a serious risk that they may choose to upsticks and move their brewing operation to Singapore, with the loss of 1,000 jobs? --Dweller (talk) 10:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Brewing is a bad example actually due to the logistics and preference structure of beer. Cars, preserved food (including prepared preserved foods), white goods, energy, some network delivered services.  But consider the converse: New York and Los Angeles still produce large volumes of video, despite the cheapness of producing video in, for example, New Zealand or Ireland.  Some countries have cultural structures that prevent capital flight in this way, others have strict capital controls.  (Yet others, even Go8 nations, have such appalling labour standards that capital flight is much reduced). Fifelfoo (talk) 12:09, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Under Delaware corporate law, this fiduciary duty already exists. In fact, breach of fiduciary duty is cause of action in shareholder derivative suits. Shareholders can force the hand of directors to declare dividends, sale of assets etc. The company is beholden to shareholders.  Read the works of Richard Posner to see how law and economics intersect.  As far as requiring corporations and their officers to advocate a particular political tax policy, you are forcing their hand as to their political beliefs.  This would be unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  You can't force people to adopt policies or politics you believe are correct.  I take it you haven't thought this theory of yours all the way through. Gx872op (talk) 13:38, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * So to what extent can one avoid a mandatory duty simply by saying that one is politically opposed to it? 71.212.251.217 (talk) 16:03, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Drawing of Pōmare II
Who was the original artist behind this File:PomareII.jpg (it is an reproduction, I think)? And when was it made?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * If you're just looking for something to put in the "Author" field of the image description, I think "Engraved by R. Hicks" will do. That's what the uploader of this image went with, and these folks selling prints of the engraving don't seem to know more than that. It's possible that the drawing on which the engraving was based was the work of the Captain R. Elliot, R.N., whom Ellis acknowledges at the end of his preface; but I can find no clear statement of that anywhere, and to say so would be a mere guess. (The date of the engraving, by the way, should be 1831—see p. 197 of this thesis.) Deor (talk) 04:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What did the R stand for?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:23, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Robert, apparently. Deor (talk) 13:16, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Charity in the United States
Why do people in the United States donate so much money to charities compared to people from other rich countries? --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 11:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Please can you point us to the stats your question is based on. --Dweller (talk) 12:09, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * If it is this one the gap is not large. It also looks like a function of total dollar amount, which would be a function both of the US being a rich country and it having a large population. The article says the country with the highest percentage of the population that gives to charity is Thailand, at 85%. It's statistics, which you can slice many ways, so clarification of the question would indeed help. 184.147.121.151 (talk) 12:25, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * To add, now I've looked at the original study, there is a fair bit of variability - the US was fifth in 2010 and 1st in 2011. So it's not that there is a very large or perhaps even really meaningful difference between the US and other countries at the top of the rankings, such as Australia and Ireland. 184.147.121.151 (talk) 12:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * @Dweller: sorry if what I'm assuming to be true is not but I've seen several lower middle-class people in the US donate hundreds of dollars to charities regularly. I can only admire the generosity of such people... --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 14:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The USA is commonly reckoned, at least by people in the UK, to have a strong culture of philanthropy, particularly among the super-rich. I don't know the reason for this; it's partly explained by cultural tradition (although in the 19th century Britain had a strong tradition), and maybe because the US has more really rich Americans who want to leave a legacy in their community, while the really rich people in the UK are almost all foreigners so they're less likely to feel an inclination to give money (not being British and not being necessarily attached to their homelands). --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:06, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * There is also a difference in what the state provides - Europe is much more socialist than the US (with a lot of variation within Europe too, but almost all more than the US), so the state provides a lot of what charities provide in the US. --Tango (talk) 13:22, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually it's the public in those more-socialist countries who are providing involuntary donations through taxation. And the USA has some of that too, of course. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * But those countries are democratic and the voters tend to like their welfare systems and vote for parties supporting them. Who is more charitable? An American giving 5% of their income to charity or a European giving 2% directly and supporting a system where another 5% via taxes (made up numbers) go to purposes which would have required private charity in USA? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:33, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That only makes sense when the individual and the state have the exact same goals. Assuming they don't, then in a centralized system individuals have less control over where that money goes. In a less centralized system, an individual has more latitude to donate to causes that may not necessarily be supported by the government. Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 21:38, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't deny that the citizens give implicit support to such laws, since they elect the legislatures. But then things become political footballs. An obvious case is any kind of government support for Planned Parenthood. If the government won't fund them, I can give them money directly, and it's tax-deductible. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Two small points: a huge amount (about a third) of the regular charitable giving that takes place in the US is religious related, and the US has very high levels of religiosity compared to most developed countries;[ one of the major reasons people give to charities (and "charities" might be put in quotes here — many of them are doing things other than feeding the poor or things like that) is because it lessens their tax burdens. The connections between the US tax system and US charitable giving are very deep. (I'm not knocking charitable giving, but keep in mind that plenty of people are happier to have money that would otherwise go to taxes supporting pet interests of theirs instead. Sometimes literally pet interests; I give to a local dog park, for example.) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It should be noted though that the "tax benefit" is always less in net dollars than the amount given away to charity. I'm sure you can find an apocryphal story somewhere of an exception, but that's quite the exception. Shadowjams (talk) 19:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You're allowed to deduct charitable contributions from your taxable income on federal income taxes; for example, if you have $100,000 taxable income and donate $1, your taxable income drops to $99,999. This is partly important because federal income taxes are graduated; there are several income brackets (for the purpose of argument, let's say that they're $0 to $9,999, $10,000 to $99,999, and $100,000 and higher), each of which are taxed at different rates; the higher the bracket, the higher your tax rate.  If you did it just right with charitable contributions and other deductions, you might be able to drop from one bracket to another.  Back to the guy who donates $1; by donating $1 and dropping his taxable income from $100,000 to $99,999, he's gone into a lower tax bracket and will thus have to pay a smaller percentage of his $99,999.  Due to the complexity of the US tax code and the improbability of a small charitable contribution dropping you into a lower bracket (and the small chance that a large donation would save you money), the chances of a donation saving you money are actually quite small, but it's possible.  Nyttend (talk) 20:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * If I'm reading your explanation correctly, that's not actually true. In the US, the thing commonly called the tax bracket is the highest percentage of tax paid on any of your income, not all of your income. In your example, let's say that the first bracket ($0 - $9999) is taxed at 10%, the second ($10,000-$99,999) at 20%, and $100,000+ at 30%. If my income is exactly $100,000, then I am not paying 30% on all $100,000 (which would be $30,000). Instead, I am paying 10% on $9999 (=$999.9 rounded up to $1000), 20% on $90,000 (=$18,000), and 30% on $1 (=$0.30, which all adds up to $19,000.30 which is rounded down to $19,000). If I then donate $1 to charity, then I no longer have to pay $0.30 on that last dollar, which means that my tax is now exactly $19,000. In this example, the net tax benefit of donating $1 is so small as to be literally lost to rounding. Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 21:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly, what Sofa said. Nyttend, you're making the common mistake about the tax code... the tax brackets are graduated. Even Bill Gates pays 17% or whatever on the first $17k of his income... then the next $x he pays x%, etc. There is no "dropped to a lower tax bracket." Shadowjams (talk) 01:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Is this not called a marginal tax rate system? --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:11, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Shadowjams (talk) 03:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Shadowjams, although it's true that the tax benefit is always less than the amount given away to charity, there were times in the past when it was more advantageous to give highly appreciated property to charity than to sell it and pay taxes on the gain. Due to changes in the tax rules and the much lower tax rates that prevail today in the United States, this is no longer true.  John M Baker (talk) 23:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Give me an example of when it was possible to get more back by giving away less, under the tax code. Shadowjams (talk) 04:03, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * and much lower since when? Since the federal income tax was established? Shadowjams (talk) 04:05, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * At times in the past, a donor could deduct the fair market value of appreciated property without taking appreciation into income (which I believe is still the case under some circumstances, but subject to limitations) and the marginal tax rate was in excess of 50%. Suppose that, at such a time, you own an asset with a basis of $1,000 and a fair market value of $100,000, and you are subject to a 70% marginal tax rate.  If you sell the asset for fair market value, you will receive $100,000, of which $99,000 is gain.  After paying tax at a 70% rate, you are left with $30,700.  Suppose instead you give the property to a qualified charity and take a $100,000 tax deduction, which will reduce the taxes you would otherwise have to pay by $70,000.  Obviously you are far better off contributing than selling the asset.  John M Baker (talk) 20:22, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Except that you've given away $100,000 worth of assets you previously owned. And in most instances that's a capital gain that's not typically taxed as earned income, but rather at the much lower capital gains rates (unless it's short-term). But even without the rates working out, your net worth is lower. I understand the principle and I suppose there are instances where it could work out from a cash flow perspective, but on a net worth basis, it's not advantageous. Shadowjams (talk) 05:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, clearly it's never advantageous from a net worth perspective. It's only once the decision has been made to dispose of the asset that, historically, it was sometimes more advantageous to give the asset to charity.  John M Baker (talk) 13:44, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Neon lights and advertisements of NYC's Times Square vs. of areas in some Asian cities
Asian cities such as Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong are, as many of you might know, renowned for having large areas with bright neon light and advertisement displays that resemble like and would remind someone of NYC's Times Square, but they are not nearly as famous as NYC's Times Square. So, other than the fact that Times Square is in NYC, why would the neon lights and neon advertisements of Times Square be treated as more special than those Times Square-like areas, which are more in number, larger in size, and a more common feature to the lives of the people, in many Asian cities? What exactly sets the neon lights and advertisements of Times Square apart from other similar areas and neighborhoods in some cities in Asia and even around the world? Willminator (talk) 15:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * New York's was already known as The Great White Way at a time when there was very little electricity at all in Asia. (NYC's bright-light district was actually a little south of Times Square then...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * By the way, during the 1940's and 1950's one of the notable non-bright-light attractions of Times Square was the famous puffing billboard, though there's pretty much nothing on it on Wikipedia... AnonMoos (talk) 16:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * As noted by AnonMoos, history is the main reason. The Edison Illuminating Company had a great deal to do with it from the 1880s, and the powerplants at Niagara Falls did their bit later on.  New York had a huge head start on Asia. Neither Hong Kong nor Tokyo nor in particular Seoul were brightly lighted until after the Second World War, and they used Times Square as inspiration.   Acroterion   (talk)   17:03, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * American media tends to be more interested in the USA. A lot of American TV, particularly in the past, was shot in NYC, as were a lot of movies.  How many US films are shot in Seoul?  Lots of Japanese movies feature Tokyo by night. --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The place in London that is noted for its neon light displays is Piccadilly Circus, which Londoners like to think is rather well known. Alansplodge (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

National cemeteries
Most of us are aware of Arlington or other places that have been designated United States National Cemeteries. Do other countries designate national cemeteries? Palm Grove Cemetery was once the Liberian national cemetery, but I don't know of any cemeteries in any other countries that have been designated "the national cemetery" or "a national cemetery" by their governments. Please note that national cemetery redirects to the article about US national cemeteries. Nyttend (talk) 17:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * In the UK, we don't have such a thing. Many famous people are commemorated at Westminster Abbey, but that's more like the use of the Pantheon in Paris as a national memorial. We have not historically brought our war dead home for burial, so the diverse services of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission serve the role of providing burial for military casualties. AlexTiefling (talk) 18:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Because the UK doesn't have a national cemetery as such, we now have the National Memorial Arboretum, which is a place where monuments to the dead and survivors of conflicts are erected. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:29, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is a close equivalent. Australia has the Office of Australian War Graves, Canada has the Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission. While privately operated, the Douaumont ossuary is maintained as a French "public utility." Their website is well worth a look . It contains the remains of about 130,000 French and German soldiers. I know of no exactly equivalent "national cemetery" structure, though.  Acroterion   (talk)   18:20, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Japan apparently has one cemetery designated as "national"—Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery. Deor (talk) 19:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * And South Korea has two; see the first paragraph of Seoul National Cemetery. Deor (talk) 20:01, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * There's also the National Cemetery in Martin (Slovakia) and the Turkish State Cemetery. We have a not-very-satisfactory List of national cemeteries by country, but many of the entries don't seem to be officially designated as national cemeteries. Deor (talk) 21:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Category:Military cemeteries is worth checking out. Many or most of those will be government-controlled or -associated.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  19:59, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Do the cemeteries at Normandy qualify? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The thing with the cemeteries at Normandy and many other military cemeteries is that they're not actually designated "national" as far as I can see. I'm looking for cemeteries officially designated as "National" (or other forms of the same word) in English or officially designated with a term in another language that would translate as "national".  Nyttend (talk) 20:45, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I have perceived what seems to be a cultural difference in this area between the USA and other countries. All countries naturally honour their war dead, but the US, much more than anywhere else, chooses to "bring home" its dead to stick them all in one place. It seems to be much less of an issue for other countries. Australians tend to do pilgrimages to cemeteries in other countries where Australians who died in wars are buried. SO the idea of a national cemetery doesn't have as much significance for countries apart from the US. HiLo48 (talk) 21:37, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Just to try it, I googled [france national cemetery], and here's one item that came up. If there's no list on wikipedia, as such, maybe the OP could start one. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That's part of the reason I was asking — I wanted a category or list into which I could put Palm Grove, because Category:Cemeteries and Category:Monrovia (and no lists) just aren't enough. Some of these are obviously military cemeteries, but at least Martin and Palm Grove seem to have a wider scope than just military.  Consequently, the cultural difference noted by HiLo48 isn't 100% relevant to what I'm seeking.  Nyttend (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * One reason that the UK (and many Commonwealth countries) don't have national cemetries is that traditionally, British soldiers are buried on the field of battle. Thus, soldiers that fell in the Falklands War in 1982 are buried in the Falkland Islands. An exception was made for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, because of recent vandalism of British war graves there from previous conflicts. It's really the first time that British soldiers' bodies have been flown back to the UK in wartime. They are generally buried in their home communities. Sailors are buried at sea. Alansplodge (talk) 00:52, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's actually true about the Falklands - I think they were temporarily buried there, but after the fighting was over at least some of them were brought back, by ship in a container as I recall. Certainly the older brother of a school classmate of mine, who was in the Welsh Guards and killed at San Carlos, was brought back. But this was the first time this was done for British casualties. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 14:32, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You're quite right - our article says the fallen were "...buried in mass graves. After the war the bodies were recovered; 14 were reburied at Blue Beach Military Cemetery at San Carlos and 64 were returned to Britain." Alansplodge (talk) 17:44, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * There's Heroes Acre in Zimbabwe, set up after independence. I attended an interesting talk by an anthropologist who described how the attitude towards death had been changing in Zimbabwe since independence (and before, but especially after independence) - a much greater emphasis is now placed on the physical remains of the deceased, where before they were not so much. Buddy431 (talk) 02:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Mitt Romney's position on war
What is his position? I understand that being a practicing Mormon could make him a kind of a pacifist, but he's also Republican, and his conservative electorate expects being tough, at least as long the war on terror lasts. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Is the LDS Church pacifistic? I'm unaware of them having a pacifistic stance.  Nyttend (talk) 23:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, they are Christians after all, which could put them on the right track. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it could, but then again, all the warmongering Presidents claimed to be Christian too. HiLo48 (talk) 00:07, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The LDS Church is pretty specifically not pacifist, as far as I know. Also, it's only recently that the LDS Church has even wanted to be considered Christian, since they taught that "Christendom" was all evil corruption and wanted nothing to do with it. Most other Christian groups tend to consider Mormonism to be a religion based on Christianity, rather than actually Christian, but that says nothing to whether or not they are pacifist. 86.167.12.64 (talk) 10:45, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The most recent president from one of the traditional peace churches was Richard Nixon, a Quaker. --Trovatore (talk) 00:09, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Precisely: most self-identifying Christian groups are not peace churches and therefore don't stand for pacifism. Nyttend (talk) 02:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That wasn't really my point. My point was more that belonging to such a church doesn't appear to be strongly predictive of presidential choices. --Trovatore (talk) 07:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Which way is the wind blowing today? According to an April 17, 2012 New York Times article, Romney stated, "We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban", just as long as it's done before his timeline of withdrawing completely by the end of 2014. Political positions of Mitt Romney states he wants to increase the military by "at least 100,000 troops." Clarityfiend (talk) 00:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This is where personal convictions and official duties can sometimes conflict. For example, Bill Clinton might have personally not liked the death penalty, but while governing Arkansas he signed a number of death warrants, because it was his job. Generally speaking, if your job conflicts with your personal convictions, you have to decide which is more important. As regards Romney, or for that matter any presidential candidate, they can't really take the "pacifist" approach, or they would be compromising their primary constitutional duty; namely, to defend the USA against all enemies - which necessarily could involve warfare. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc?
 * The Gov. Clinton case is not accurate. As governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton had the power to pardon or commute the sentence of any and all death row inmates. There was no necessary conflict between his putative convictions and the duties of his office. There was possibly a conflict between his convictions and the politics of the office, but that is a different matter. D Monack (talk) 19:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

carrots→ 00:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup... it can be all but impossible to "turn the other cheek" when you are personally responsible for defending the lives of several million people. Blueboar (talk) 00:53, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * And we'd need a solid source for the idea that he holds this interpretation of 5:38-40&version=NIV the passage, which most Christians throughout history have interpreted as referring to personal insults, not warfare. Nyttend (talk) 02:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * That link doesn't take us to the relevant passages, so here they are:

Eye for Eye

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’

39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.

42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Love for Enemies

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.


 * And I can't omit the passage just before that, where we are all instructed to use binary numbers:

37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. StuRat (talk) 03:34, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I think of Mitt Romney as a "business conservative". This arm of the Republican Party doesn't care about anything besides business.  Therefore, the decision about whether to go to war would solely be based upon business reasons.  For example, genocide, support for terrorism, etc., wouldn't be a reason to declare war on a nation, unless it negatively affected US businesses. StuRat (talk) 03:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * You must have missed the campaign ad where he shut down his business to go search for the missing daughter of his co-religionist employee. Rmhermen (talk) 13:14, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Not at all. Him helping his friends, while abandoning those he doesn't know personally, is exactly what I would expect. (Helping your friends out has benefits later, like when you need help from them later, such as a loan.) StuRat (talk) 19:03, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Or as fodder for a campaign ad. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:50, 3 June 2012 (UTC)