Slashdot Mirror

It is a much more complicated case than you let on.

No, it is not complicated at all. It's a simple 1st Amendment issue. But ever since 1798 free speech in the USA is quite dead.

Fought tooth and nail? The GOP practically abandoned the issue as soon as the election of 1876 came about, and half of them were only barely interested in it. I get it, I get it, you've always been told that the GOP was straight-up abolitionists, but nope, it had several factions, and in fact, Lincoln was chosen to run for office because of his moderate position.

And they did have other issues, including silver coinage, land grants, and building factories and railroads, among others.

You really don't know what you're talking about.

A quick lookup here shows slavery was abolished in 1865, 11 years before you say they gave up trying to abolish it.

Please, when a liberal posts a fact (or even a non-liberal) that seems funny, look it up. I've been amazed at what I have learned by doing so. I knew the 13th was passed while Lincoln was still alive and he was long dead by 1876, so I assumed his statement was false.

The people are already represented in the House of Representatives which makes a senate elected via the populace just redundant.

Actually, that's not true for the same reason the Electoral College being composed of a number of representatives based upon populace and a fixed additional 2 per State. Inherently this was struck as a compromise to the fundamental problem that many States are much more populace than the others. So as much as Florida, Ohio, etc are swing states today--as they're both populace enough and mixed enough in party affiliation--, a system of pure democracy would leave basically the East and West coasts in control of the whole US.

Having said that, I do tend to agree that direct election of the Senate does tend to create issues of State [Legislature] control of the US, but then I have to take a step back and ask the obvious question: why would it be that a State Legislature which are elected would have even marginal election differences than the people who vote for them? To me, it's clear the reason why: concerns of State Legislature corruption becoming from an endemic State-level problem to an entrenched Federal-level problem. There was also the issue of racially motivated suppression of democracy. In either case, the reason repeatedly we've had the Federal government either in Congress or the SCOTUS create or interpret law to expand rights has been precisely because State rights have often been "the right to oppress".

So, yes, we've seen a substantial erosion of State rights to the point that even an advocate of State rights doesn't capitalize State but does capitalize House of Representatives. Honestly, as much as I believe there needs to be a substantial reform of the Congress, I think the solution isn't to suddenly shift the power of the people back to States. As I see it, the fundamental issue is that those with the desire to exploit or abuse others will seek the position, State or Federal, to achieve those ends. So long as States were the bastions of power, that's where the money flowed and it was possible for those who were against such abuse to use the Federal government where corruption was (less widespread* merely because it was less economical use of money) to curtail those abuses, even though it's taken over a century to move anywhere near the ideals of the Progressive movements of equality.

Now, the Federal government is the seat of power, so money fundamental flows there. To simply shift power back to the States would undoubtedly give States the ability to end various Federally created oppression as well, but States have a pretty horrible track record of being the SOURCE of oppression--the very nature of the system basically means the Federal government's own abuses for a long time were State-backed and not self-enacted under direct populace demand. The sheer fact that the country as a whole is widely diverse increases the probability and reality that State-level oppression won't be indefinitely tolerated precisely because "bleeding-heart liberals" (aka pacifist Quakers) won't stand for abuse that doesn't happen in their State but does happen in their Country.

Put another way, I think a shift in power will at best curtail corruption for a while and perhaps in 100 years (personally, I imagine a lot less time) we'll be right back where we started with people demanding Federal power to overcome State abuses. The overall problem then is the corruption and abuse, where ever it originates. Figuring out how to deal with that seems a much more important issue than trying to figure out who is doing the corruption. Which is why so many people are disillusioned with Republicans and Democrats and why Congress is such an issue**.

*This is, btw, no rosy picture of the past. The Federal Government was and nearly has been corrupt from day one, but that's a problem of all Governments.

**Obviously, this is the point where I should state I

Oh please! Just stop...

I don't think it does, actually. (IANAL, but you can find the text online and see for yourself: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97&page=transcript)

The key to understanding is that it only forbids discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin". Which are not the same as, basically, "being a flaming asshole in the name of race, color, religion, or national origin". You can't deny someone service for being a white, but you can deny them service if they start harassing other customers with white supremacist crap. And more in line with TFA, you can't discriminate against someone for _being_ an evangelical Christian, but there's nothing to stop you from kicking them out if they start acting like a bigger asshole than Goatse on the premises in the name of their religion.

Basically just because they can't discriminate against you for (certain categories of) what you _are_, doesn't mean they can't discriminate against you based on what you _do_. There's a difference between "being X" and "being an asshole in the name of X".

In fact, the main rationale behind forbidding discrimination is that people have no influence and can't change their colour or national origin. It's not their fault that they were born in China, for example. Even if they wanted to change to be more acceptable, they can't change that, and it's stupid to expect them to or discriminate based on something that isn't their fault.

But all that doesn't apply to stuff you choose to actively do. If you get discriminated against for shouting "Islam Is Evil!!!" in a restaurant, well, you can choose to freaking stop doing it.

We have no such tradition of legal fiction.

Article 1:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.

Treaty of Paris, 1783

As occurs under some other political systems, I firmly believe the U.S. needs to have on every ballot "None of the above". In essence this would allow the citizens to issue a vote of "no confidence" in the candidates, and cause the system to "reboot" to provide more acceptable choices.

My own prediction is that given a "None of the above" option, a slim majority of all incumbents would find themselves out of work.

All to often, and I believe it is absolutely true in this case, the electorate is voting for the "lesser evil" among the AVAILABLE candidates. (In my opinion voting Libertarian doesn't accomplish the "None of the above" action, as it requires the voter to ignore the Libertarian candidates platform. It also raises the very real possibility that you end up with a candidate becoming elected, for whom no one REALLY voted FOR. This is not a solution.)

My children have hanging in their school halls George Washington's farewell address. I have pointed out the passage warning against parties more than once. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=15&page=transcript

My personal, and usually pessimistic, view is that neither of the current candidates can prevent our country from sliding into either a depression (deflation), or hyper-inflation. Either are equally economically devastating. I also hold the view the U.S. is in many ways already a "third world country", and this condition will only worsen.

Ultimately, and I hope I'm wrong, I believe I and or my children will experience a second American Revolution. I hope it's relatively bloodless for my children's sake, but I see little hope of avoiding such an event in my children's lifetime.

Oh, my prescription regardless of party is to excise the Corporatism from the current political establishment. NO Corporate influence, no lobbyist, nothing even remotely like the current afflictions of our existing system. One citizen, one vote, no recognition of other than citizens by any elected official for the simple reason that entities other than citizens are not represented by the Constitution.

The U.S government executive branch would disagree, they like reinterpreting laws to fit their goals.

As does the Judicial and legislative branches

my focus was on the word "illegal". used extensively throughout this discussion and, I thought, well understood as to its meaning and relevance.

Who's being smarmy now? Fact is is these laws making it immigration illegal is nothing more than racistic. European settlers invaded, conquered, and massacred the natives in the Americas and now set the rules. The only place American Indians have a strong say now are in Bolivia and Ecuador, but only because they've were successful in getting their own representatives or supporters elected in national elections. Racism in the USA has been going on almost it was founded. Benjamin Franklin proposed a law barring Germans from immigrating. In the 1850s it was the Know Nothings who wanted to bar some from immigrating. They opposed Irish and Roman Catholics from migrating to the US. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 restricted Chinese immigration. At other tymes Eastern and Southern Europeans were barred from immigration, the Immigration Act of 1924 for instance. Now it's Latin Americans, many of whom their ancesters inhabited the Americas before it was "discovered", who are being discriminated against.

You are mischaracterizing what I wrote. I said that the Administration promoted torture, which it did (although I probably should have linked to this Bybee memo to Gonzales instead of the other one, which was my error). As for Gonzales, you did not quote the full language; before the part about commissary privileges, he wrote, "The nature of the new war [on terrorism] places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians. In my judgment, this new paradign renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners...." What could that mean other than that he felt formerly prohibited methods of interrogation, meaning torture, were now allowable?

The need to absolutely renounce torture as a methodology is not grounded in law but in common sense. Not only doesn't it work as a means of getting reliable information (just ask Porter Goss), but it removes any moral arguments to having Americans (both soldiers and civilians) tortured in return. Even Gonzales' memo points out that "[t]he United States could not invoke the [Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war] if enemy forces threatened to mistreat or mistreated U.S. or colation [sic] forces captured during operations in Afghanistan, or if they denied Red Cross access or other POW privileges." For the White House counsel to advocate this is bad enough. When that same official becomes the Attorney General, the *symbol* of justice and respect for law, it goes beyond the pale.

As for Guantanamo, I don't think we should have a facility like that at all. If these people are criminals, try them with the full strictures of our military or civilian legal systems. If they are not, release them. If we think they're terrorists, release them and follow them. If they have been in our custody more than a few weeks or months, any information they have is stale and useless anyway.

Ours is a nation founded on principles of law rather than royal caprice, of fundamental rights of all people rather than those we like (or who are like us). Remember? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The rest of that Declaration is worth reading as well, particularly when it enumerates the offenses of the king. "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:" Warrantless wiretaps, anyone? "He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation." Hmm, contractors managing the interrogation at Abu Ghraib and serving among our troops in Iraq? And as for Guantanamo, how about this pair? "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences."

This is not America, or at least, not the America to which we should be aspiring. Secret prisons, indefinite confinement without trial or even charge, wiretapping citizens without warrants, finding "legal" justification for torture, invasions of non-belligerent nations? That's Stalin's U.S.S.R., not the country whose Constitution our president, vice president, attorney general and elected officials swear to uphold. {Prof. Jonathan}

I think it's time to apply this to our friendly ISPs. My how history repeats itself.

And in conclusion I say that if you do not truly understand the issues, have a good concept of how the government and the world works, and grasp the ideals and principles of what this government was founded on and it's history - then stay the hell out of the voting booth!

Using ignorance as an excuse to disenfranchise voters is an old idea that has been used quite effectively in the past by governments to keep ignorant people out of politics. Thank goodness more enlightened people enacted the 1965 Voting Rights Act:

"This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting."

So you want to give the government another tool it can use to maintain its grip? The idea really is an old one that has been used quite effectively in the past. There are about thirty-million Americans who would have no voice today if such discrimination weren't outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act

"This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting."

Once again, let me post our Constitution: Article 8, Section 8, Clause 8:

The Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

Our Constitution protects the authors and inventors from theft via the "exclusive right" clause. That means the authors and investors can say how much they will charge for their works, and how their works will be distributed.

I read over and over again how socialists try to justify "copying" files saying that nothing is really stolen. Wrong! The author's exclusive right is stolen. This all goes back to property rights - which is something socialists and communists do not understand. Property rights enables capitalism which is what makes America great.

It still surprises me how /.'s, a lot of whom do programming for a living, can support theft of digital media.

So if you're going to mod be down, you better have a good arguments against our Constitution and exclusive right.

Seems like transportation and its efficiency and costs directly impact lifestyle and societal structures. Now here is a lifestyle amish.net that is not impacted by high fuel costs. Grass for the horses, sweat and elbow grease for the humans. Basic input= food. Basic output= life. Suburbs and Exurbs, large urban areas, Freeways, etc. are all derived from the National Interstate and Defense Highway Act . We get what we pay for- tax dollars that created a system of life that made us dependent on a limited source of fuel. Thanks, Ike.

Edison didn't invent the lightbulb, but he did improve it, and applied for a patent...

As for the folks who respond "we're not a democracy, we're a republic," thanks very much for that insightful commentary; glad to see you paid attention in 9th grade civics class. You're missing the point.

Americans have ignored the problem that is the Electoral College for a very long time. We used to say, "sure, it COULD elect the guy who got fewer votes, but that'll never happen again." Then it happened again. And there was a bunch of high-minded talk about fixing the problem, but we did nothing. It's not like we haven't fixed the Constitution previously in order to remove encumbrances on our democracy (despite "being a republic"). We should have done so again after the 2000 debacle. Given that it can take as long as 203 years to pass an amendment, I'll not hold my breath waiting.