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Thailand Imposes Gamers Curfew
bg writes "How addicted can you be? According to this article, Thailand will install a curfew to "protect" their childern from the addiction from Gaming. "Game servers, both local and overseas, will be blocked from 10.00pm to 6.00am daily from July 15 to Sept 30, while Internet cafes will also have their hours curbed to those times". Under particular attack is Korean role-playing game Ragnarok, which was introduced to Thailand seven months ago."
Remember, this is Thailand. During the hours from 10:00 pm to 6:00, that is where they want the children working.
I don't know what it is with Korean games, but the sounds coming out of the character's mouths never sync with their lips. I must have a slow PC.
Once again I bring you this service announcement:
Parents, watch your kids. Don't make the government do it for you, you won't like it.
This is not specific to Thailand either.
Sent from your iPad.
That's horrible!! Those people may never know what it's like to do a 36 hour multiplayer marithon.
That certainly would be motivation to have a LAN installed and invite friends over for weeks at a time.
Maybe they should have a good read of the article about why games are good for you. Video games are good for your kids! (Oh, they're good for adults too....)
Most parents make their kids go to bed (or do homework) at those times anyway. This curfew just takes the argument out of it. There's no point in arguing, since even if you won you wouldn't be able to play the games. This sounds like a really good law that deals with the root of the problem instead of just addressing the symptoms.
I'd like to see how the plan to do this from a technical stand point. Blocking some well know servers shouldn't be all that hard. But blocking all gaming trafic.... I see this plan failing hard and fast.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
The government raising our kids and not us? Let the people make the decsion, not the government, but then again, I live in America and don't have the same cultural thoughts.
I dun think that this is really going to work... the kids are going to find new ways of getting to servers overseas, using proxies etc.. hmmm.... oh well sounds similar to the great firewall of china
What a bunch of fools. The article implies that most of the gaming is taking place in cafes, so these measures might actually have a chance of succeeding, but is that really a good thing? It's better to learn the dangers of MMORPG addiction when you're 12 than when you're 20.
Besides, I can't imagine that the number of "addicted" players is anything like what they're making it out to be.
Visit the
They should tell the government that it's their final battle and only a few will play after the game is done, none of them the truly hardcore.
... said the gaming industry as it faces hostile action from various quarters for the violence it 'promotes'.
I believe they have a new ratings system for video games. It rates the games on the basis of the level of violence in the game. e.g. cartoon violence, fantasy violence, intense violence and sexual violence. This will come into effect from Sept. 15.
I wonder why Thai authorities could not do the same instead of imposing curfew.
Anyways, I don't think the curfew is gonna work. It never does! After all, the forbidden fruit is always the most desirable... and the best way to ensure that children do something is to disallow it!
Hopefully it will prevent incidents like this, when gamers apparently don't know when to stop.
I wish they would come around to my apartment and *enforce* this curfew on me, personally.
Games should have a playing limit; If you play for more than 24 hours, it enforces you to shower, shave and eat something. You would have to present fresh evidence that these tasks have been done before unlocking the next level.
It would be for my own good :/
Do you ever know where such parental censorship has worked? I can name several where govt. censorhip has worked / is working well for all concerned. Pakistan, for instance, is developing a free porn-blocking s/w at the govt. level.
Never trust monopolists and capitalists to work for the good of you or your kids.The only values they understand are dollars and share-prices.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Linux doesn't have games?????
TUX RACER all the way baby... what could be more addicting that watching a little penguin fly down a snowy and icy course eating herring?!??!
OTOH, if people are playing games around the clock, that's not good either. It's like seatbelt laws or laws against selling alcohol on Sunday--it protects people from themselves. That's what government is all about and I support them.
In a related story the US desides to block all porn sites during working hours.
"My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality." - Muad'Dib
Couldn't people just play games on servers in other countries, or get a hosting plan from another country and run a server there?
Growing up, I grappled with a gaming addiction
Then you are mentally weak and you got what you deserved. The rest of us shouldn't have to suffer for your inabilities. I'm so fuckin sick and tired of the government stepping in whenever another weak or sick person has a little problem. I have tons of problems each year, but you don't see me crying to the government. Why not take a little personal responsibility for yourself??? Oh I seem to have forgotten, personal responsibility is an endangered species.
Maybe you don't understand what I am saying, so I'll break it down for you.
Suppose I have a kid. Suppose that child is playing games too much. Suppose I tell them to stop. Much easier than having a curfew and other governmental actions imposed right?
Or are you trying to state something else?
Sent from your iPad.
So people don't even have a right to play computer games if they want to? If they are shutting down servers, that means people can't even play from home. Isn't this a direct breach of their right to play games?
If they are really that worried about children getting addicted, why not restrict the cybercafes to adults? They do this routinely with adult bars/nightclubs and even R rated movies? Why should this be any different?
If people are afraid their children will get addicted to alcohol/tobacco or watch pr0n movies, they introduce some type of adult check, they don't just ban all these supposedly harmful and addictive things. Why should this be any different? Who is the government to tell me I should take 2 hour breaks and not play at night.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Just run a game server at port 80? Or if it requires more ports, tunnel them all through port 80 or use other common ports? (21, 23, 25, etc) This either renders the "curfew" useless or generates one helluva fun spastic reaction from Thai officials as they accidently ban the web.
Hate me!
first they come for your games, then they come for your IRC..
here in the USA, schoolyear nominally being Sept-June, it wouldn't make sense to have the servers blocked during the summer
(I realize many places within the CONUS have gone year round on a rotating schedule- but it's still weird that the dates are Jul to Sept)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
...and other people tell me I don't need to take care of my children when the goverment does it.
BTW.. does Ragnarok have a Linux port? It looks awesome.. reminds me of the good old Super Nintendo RPG's
Do you ever know where such parental censorship has worked? I can name several where govt. censorhip has worked / is working well for all concerned. Pakistan, for instance, is developing a free porn-blocking s/w at the govt. level.
OK, good... now name one that's actually a good idea and has worked. What if I lived in Pakistan and wasn't a Muslim (or Buddist, or whatever) and WANTED to look at porn, but couldn't because the government regulated my internet traffic?
Never trust monopolists and capitalists to work for the good of you or your kids.The only values they understand are dollars and share-prices.
And NEVER trust the government, because they're the only group that can legally kill you and everyone you ever met "for the common good". I'd rather trust people concerned with money than people that could kill me for not trusting them... and get away with it. At least I agree that money is good. I definitely don't agree with killing me.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Wait, corporations now own our children? Fuck, how long was I asleep for?
The United States government is ball-less in this respect.
So you're saying that a government which sticks to the principles of its constitution no matter what the circumstances is "ball-less" but a government which takes the easiest way out deserves our respect.
Interesting point of view.
Placebo? Is that the art of convincing your enemy you hit him really without actually touching him?
The alternative is not medication. The alternative to government regulation is self regulation.
Limit the use of Windows? Why not just limit the use of eye balls?
Make people smarter.
"Suppose I have a kid. Suppose that child is playing games too much. Suppose I tell them to stop. Much easier than having a curfew and other governmental actions imposed right?"
I really suppose you have a kid (I do, and can state my personal thoughts on this matter). There's very little chance of parental censorhip succeeding with kids - why? Bcos kids are kids, that's all. This is a matter where Western and Eastern thinking differs a lot - the value of state censorship.
Western societies are generally more tolerant - lax, according to the Earterners, and are driven by capitalism. They tend to focus on rights, rather than duties. This could explain the recent orders permitting gays and lesbians, as well as the inaction on spam.
Earterners generally focus on duties, role models, censorship and even punbishment for acts considered normal in the West. The internet brigs out this dichotomy bcos it's an open network. Thus govt. censorship is a preferred and better solution in Eastern societies - Thailand being one.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Curfew can be good, if enforced by parents, not by government. If parents aren't able to monitor their children and check for actual signs of game abuse they can always enforce a time limit policy (such as "no computer except between 4 and 10 pm"), and that doesn't take that much time and effort, unless the children is very motivated (you must do this before actual addiction developes).
If, on the other side, the policy is enforced by the government, you can't discriminate between children, who would benefit from a curfew, and a stricter one than the one of the article (6 am? way too early to begin playing!), and other adult or young adult gamers, who should be considered old enough to choose when they want to play and how much.
As for linux of MacOS, they do have games, and most of them are of the really addictive kind, even without fancy 3d graphics.
Malaysia has, like Thailand, what it perceives to be an increasing amount of youth addicted to gaming. What one has to understand is that the methods of parenting in many Asian countries are quite different from those employed here, as is the perceived role of law enforcement. Because parents feel that they cannot simply order their children to stay away from the arcades, they put their trust in the laws of the land to prevent their children from what is seen as an unproductive, unhealthy activity.
I've been to Malaysian Net Cafes. Part of the reason parents are so worried about these places is because they often are havens for youth gang members, and still more often serve as venues for recruiting impressionable youths into the gangs.
Gaming addiction, while not so prevalent here, is quite common in the Far East. Kuala Lumpur has Net Cafes on every block, and enough children skip school or sneak out at night to play there that parents groups have demanded that something be done.
Many asian societies value strict adherence to the wishes of one's parents. These curfews have probably been implemented because parents feel extremely concerned that their children are defying family values (by disobeying their parents and playing games at all hours).
That's Ragnarök, or more correctly "Ragnarokr" (original ancient spelling), not Ragnarok! ;)
Ragnarök is Ancient Nordic (sweden/norway/denmark/iceland - the language the Vikings were speaking) and is the name of "the end of the world" according to Aesir religion.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Now kids can go back out on the street and get mugged, do drugs and get trashed at parties! Just what every "normal" kid should be doing. If my kid has a tendancy to get addicted to things then I want him doing drugs and alchohol, not evil video games!
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Shouldn't you be out on a ledge somewhere?
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
A democratic government is "about" whatever the people vote for. The people have voted (indirectly) for government to protect them from themselves. If you want something different, you might try putting down your video game controller for a couple minutes and doing something about it.
When television first starting being broadcast in the UK, there was no transmission perhaps an hour in the evening so that parents could put there children to bed.
The article implies that they are somehow blocking access nationwide. Are they doing this for people in their homes with private access or does this just apply to children attending an internet cafe?
Why don't you join him? You sound pretty worthless, too.
Someone had just gotten F19 Stealth Fighter at the beginning of the semester and we installed it on my computer. Friends were constantly playing all day. I had to finally issue some flight restrictions so that I could sleep. Last flight had to take-off before 11:00. Each flight could last more than an hour when doing the "stealth" missions. (fly low and slow) Typically flights would start taking off early the next morning. Luckily once classes started, the problem disappeared.
Don't say the *nixen don't have addictive games...
" The alternative is medication (which is how I kicked the video game habit before I became the next Columbine), and that will just be more expensive to everyone in the long term. Curfews are cheap and effective. Another good approach might be to put a lower age limit on the use of Windows. So young children would have to use Linux or Mac OS, which don't have games. This has a side benefit of hurting Micro$oft, always a plus."
Come on now. Obviously, if you were so addicted to video games that you needed meds to get off of them, you have deeper issues that need to be dealt with. Just because Timmy cant control himself if he plays games till 10:15 (or 11, or 2) it doesnt mean that Billy or Bobby or Sally or Jane cant be responsible enough to know when enough is enough. Look at it this way, lets say you're sick (or have a broken leg or whatever) and are going to stay home from school the next day, and want to stay up and play games all night because you have nothing better to do, and now you cant (well, I guess you can play alone, although for some games, that sucks) because people like you cant be adult about your own addictions.
And your second statement makes no sense. "...put a lower age limit on the use of Windows. So young children would have to use Linux or Mac OS". Lower age limit? There is an age limit on using windows now? And we should LOWER it so that children should use something else? What children? Toddlers? People (not geeks) dont use Linux because *gasp* its a gigantic pain in the ass if turning ON the computer is a monumental task for you. Yes, there ARE people who can barely turn their machine on. Remember the old iMac commercial where they were like "just plug it in and its online"? Well, take someone who thought that was the greatest thing ever and give them Linux. Pray there is no baseball bat around.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
There is a middle ground, and it involves responsibility. As much as I like to tweak Euros, the areas outside of the UK tend to involve an expectation of parental and personal responsibility that goes far beyond the rest of us East or West -- and it works. Eastern governments enjoy imposing restrictions on activity, sometimes almost on what seems to be a whim, and our Western governments are coming around to their way of thinking.
I have to get the kids to sleep first!
"What if I lived in Pakistan and wasn't a Muslim (or Buddist, or whatever) and WANTED to look at porn, but couldn't because the government regulated my internet traffic?"
.adult domain? Simple - the firms making money over porn wouldn't stand for it.
You're precisely proving my point. The simple fact is that Pakistan (or for that matter Thailand, Singapore or India) treats it's citizens as just that - citizens. Their personal beliefs and values are respected within their homes and places of worship - society has a uniform set of values. (Okay - this is abused in a few countries, but generally this is the unwritten belief). To sum up, it least matters what your personal faith is, it's important that you're a Pakistani. And as they say, while in Rome, do as the Romans do.
" And NEVER trust the government, because they're the only group that can legally kill you and everyone you ever met "for the common good". I'd rather trust people concerned with money than people that could kill me for not trusting them... "
I didn't know killing was one of the rights of the govt. I'd imagine if they did it on a large scale, someone would stand up for them and put them in order (Iraq, for instance, assuming the horror stories were true). OTOH, what has Corporate America done to prevent spam and porn from reaching kids? Why can't there be a simple legislation requiring all adult content to be registered under a
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
+5 funny
..... but not surprising coming from the country where it is allegedly illegal to go commando!
..... it's part and parcel of what separates us from the animals.
But seriously. This sort of thing is serious, even although it is "only" happening in Thailand, because I can hear Blair, Bush et al having real live orgasms about the possibilities. You have to ask the question, "what next?" When they finally take the ashtrays off restaurant tables, the sugar bowl and the salt cellar will look furtuvely at one another and wonder how long they have left. Those in authority never stop with what they have. If they can successfully "solve" the "problem" of childhood addiction to computer games, then some new problem will take its place as "#1 menace to our youth" and will, in turn, be "solved" by an even more pointless and draconian law.
Since when has it become necessary to prevent adults from doing something that might be harmful for children just in case children might do it anyway? That is not the job of the government, it is the job of parents. The whole point of being an adult is that you alone are responsible for your actions and the consequences thereof. Since the dawn of time, the human race has practiced self-destructive behaviour
Governments have been nibbling away at our rights for a long time now. Every so often, though, they seem to bite off a huge chunk, chew it with their mouths open, and spit it in your face.
If we don't take up against this sort of thing right now it might be too late. The day is coming when every single decision that might have a hint of a consequence about it will have already been made for you. The world is turning evil, what with ID cards, CCTV cameras, embedded RFID chips, anonymous tip-off hotlines and suchlike. And you know what? Under that kind of a system, I really can't think of a single advantage to not being in prison.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I think singapore is similarly protecting their young by killing drug dealers on the spot... which has dropped drug sales by a significant amount in their country.
Anybody who thinks this is "protecting" ANY kids has obviously never heard of corrupt cops, or read any Philip K. Dick (who explored the ability of a gov't to use a "drug war" to eliminate political dissenters). Kids in Singapore are only "safe" now, as long as they don't disagree with the gov't or piss off the wrong policeman.
Interesting point about eliminating youth hangouts though. Think "skate parks".
Freedom: "I won't!"
It's a chronic problem.. bad translations lead me to drop the game. It was even worse when people raided the IRO server from the CRO one to avoid the fees....
How can you critize any other country when you are an American? Arn't you ashamed?
I suggest you people just keep your mouths should to save face.
It would be an accident.
I will probably get flamed for this, but I think this is a positive thing.
You're right. This is Flame Number One.
Growing up, I grappled with a gaming addiction. Going to school on three hours of sleep is not good for your education (despite what some articles might have you believe). In a perfect world, parents would be preventing their children from overloading on games. In reality, in these days of dual incomes and extracurricular activities, they aren't always able to, and it's a good thing that the government can step in and lend a hand.
I remember one time, back in the early 90's, I was playing too many video games and not doing my homework. I was still getting pretty good grades, mostly B's, but not the A's I was capable of. I was living only with my father, at the time, so there really wasn't anybody around for several hours a day to watch me (I was 12-13 at the time). My punishment was very limited video game access for 6 months, or until my grades improved. You know how my father accomplished that? He took my Super Nintendo to his workplace, put it in a box, and stuck it under his desk. It could have been in the car, at one of his friends' houses, or any number of a million other places. Was my father "special", or "lucky", or a "more talented" parent, or simply "more intelligent" than your parents? Probably. Maybe the easiest solution is for parents to be parents.
The alternative is medication (which is how I kicked the video game habit before I became the next Columbine), and that will just be more expensive to everyone in the long term.
Great idea. Let's just drug our children. After all, 6% of the children in this country actually have ADD, yet 17% (or more) are on Ritalin. We obviously need more drugs. While I'm on the subject, maybe you don't watch enough TV (because of your work schedule and all), but perhaps you've seen the commercials that try to drug all the adults now too? They're paid for by the company that produces Ritalin.
Curfews are cheap and effective.
What's cheap about it? Paying the government employees their union-decided wages to work minimal hours on doing the least-possible work? What's effective about a curfew? I was out all the time when I was a kid after the 10pm curfew that we had in our town. I walked past the police department at 2am, including officers and patrol cars (and I didn't look over the age of 12), and never once got taken home, or fined, or anything.
Another good approach might be to put a lower age limit on the use of Windows.
I'm not sticking up for Microsoft, but putting an age limit on software is insane. If my 3 year-old is intelligent enough to play Final Fantasy X, then damnit, he/she will play Final Fantasy X. Who's going to regulate and enforce that age? Microsoft? Then they'll be collecting more personal information about you, which I'm sure you'll love. The government? Oh wonderful. Another Total Information Awareness Act. Great idea.
You need to think out your arguments before you post... seriously. If your parents didn't want you playing games, they shouldn't have purchased the console for you. If you only had 3 hours of sleep every night, eventually, you'll fall over and sleep. It seems like it took you quite a few years, but you're mentally asleep now. Mission accomplished.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Quick comparison. "Kill" & "Die"
Kill
"One of the boys was seen on Chinese television telling police interrogators that he had started the fire in an act of revenge because staff at the cybercafe had refused to let him play computer games there."
Die
"A South Korean man died yesterday after playing computer games at an Internet cafe for 86 hours nonstop, reports the Associated Press."
I have no point, just an observation.
I seriously have to say: wtf?
[...] isn't afraid [...] ball-less in this respect.
So you'd even more appreciate a government that kills for even lesser crimes? Because they have balls and even less "fear" and accidents never happen, right?
I think you're a shame for a modern civilised country.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
The alternative is medication (which is how I kicked the video game habit before I became the next Columbine)
Yea! now THERE'S a solution. What were you on? Adderol? Genius. Give all of our children prescription speed. Hey, if that doesn't work we can always step it up a notch to Desoxyn... A little meth never hurt anyone!
Visualize the world of wine
And how would this curfew not "protect" adults in the same way? In fact, shouldn't kids be in bed by this time anyway, so won't this almost exclusively affect adults? It sounds like banning beer because a few minors get drunk.
Them foreigners sure do some crazy stuff.
I could never possibly get addicted to anything like they do. Crazy people.
Now where is my GameBoy Advance SP? I have some Zelda to play. Sure I'm at work, but I can lock myself in a stall in the bathroom or hide under my desk.
I could stop anytime I wanted to - not like those silly foreigners that have to have a curfew imposed on them.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Nothing like being called worthless by someone who won't even put his name on what he says.
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
You are kidding right? If the government of your country wants you dead, you can bet your ass you will be. You think the people can stop it? Hell no. You mentioned Iraq. If the rumors of tourture etc are indeed true, then what did it take to stop them? Just the most militarly powerful country in the freaking world. And what about all those other countires where human rights are non-existant? What about China? Forced abortions for all! Former Soviet Union? How many were executed before the government collapsed (not over-thrown)?
They should try the medication route in Thailand, hmm, nice Thai stick, a bandanna wearing dog, and some flying discs.
Isn't it the Koreans who always seem to be dying from 72 hours of non stop gaming, forgetting to eat sleep or drink. Try googling for korean+gamer+death - seems to happen quite a bit.
Thailand's national dish is sushi?
Also might I draw your attention to the thick nicotine cloud hovering above South-East Asia?
Police also tend to get weird ideas, like the undesirable person might not be dealing drugs, but we don't like his kind here anyway. Lets say he's a drug dealer (blam).
To me, this sounds like a human rights disaster waiting to happen, and I hope Singapore gets itself out of the mess before it blows up in their face. I don't think you'll find due process "ball-less" when you get wrongly accuesed by some overzealous cop listening to some guy pleading for his life and fingering everybody he knows as a drug dealer. Yes. The government knows the best forms of entertainment for you. Thinking for yourself is bad. Pick up government novel GN-23562 for your daily entertainment stipend today. Interestingly enough, a lot of those fast food places used to close between 10 and 12. Maybe the kids will turn to drugs once they take away the gaming? I don't know. I do know that the games weren't hurting anybody (the vast majority of the time at any rate), I don't know what they're going to do instead though. This is a bit of FUD, but it really does reflect my uncertainty about the upcoming situation.
I read the internet for the articles.
On matters like censorship, I generally agree with you - because kids might see something at a friend's house, school etc, when you're not present to see what they are up to.
But the simple act of not letting them play PC games after 10pm is another thing entirely. Thats as simple as not putting the machine in their bedroom.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
so that rutsy kid can fix that weblog, instead of playing games or riding his Vespa.
This doesn't suprise me at all. When I was teaching in rural Thailand (though close enough to an urban center to have net cafes), I would go there every day to check my email. Usually, most of the computers would be taken up by kids I recognized from my (elementary level) classes. At that point, the really popular game was Counterstrike. It was a strange experience to be writing home while the sound of gunfire came at me from a dozen directions ...
...
I have to admit wondering at the time what effect it would have for an entire nation to grow up playing a game like that. They would be well-versed in squad combat techniques, for a start
Other alternatives to medication might be uh... say, girls, or sports, or "outside" or even reading.
The only saving grace of this post is that it has to be a joke evidenced by the ending stuff.
Other than that, it should be taken out and shot.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Can you really imagine GW Bush getting on a podium and pointing at an initiative that came from Thailand as an example of a US initiative for children? Not only would it leave him open to attacks (Thai children's initiative? Is that something to do with the asian child sex trade?) but more importantly everyone should know by now that ALL GOOD THINGS COME FROM TEXAS. The moment Houston implements something like this (probably with a death sentence attached for violators) GW will round up Blair and hold a news conference. Besides, GW knows that only terrorists and file trading pedophiles use the internet, he's gotta wait until he gets the intel before he can try to have the marines land on the WWW
I don't know about you guys, but back in my gaming days (read: freshman year of college), those were the prime hours to be playing, when the real professionals came out. Might explain that 1.0 gpa my first semester ... nah.
After all it's all the same thing isn't it? When the government infringes on the rights of the people, by imposing rules governing what kind of information I have access to, or when I can access it, it is no longer a government, but an autocratic nightmare. If you disagree, get your ass over to china, or the congo, and stay there, then come back and tell us how great it is.
Maybe I find the Bible offensive? So no matter what religion you are, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, it's still banned material.
Wake up and smell the corruption.
What if I lived in Pakistan and wasn't a Muslim (or Buddist, or whatever) and WANTED to look at porn, but couldn't because the government regulated my internet traffic?
Move.
The government represents the people. If the government has decreed that "porn is bad, we must block it," then that is the equivalent of society saying that porn is bad. Over here, our government says "Marijuana is bad." To use your own analogy, what if you were a non-Christian living in the US and wanted to smoke Marijuana? What an outrage!
If you live in a culture, you play by their rules. If you don't like their rules, you leave, or try to work within the system in place to change the rules. It's as simple as that.
Well, at least, it should be as simple as that. If that country's values happen to conflict with the US's values, and if that country happens to be sitting atop a vast collection of hydrocarbons, then the US will come in and alter that country's values for you, and you may not have to leave in order to indulge in your vices. But that generally happens quite rarely, so I wouldn't count on that.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Your falling for a troll, Singapore is not like this, you'd have known if you knew any geography (Then again your an American.. ha!) or anything about world affairs. I live in Singapore btw.
You're precisely proving my point. The simple fact is that Pakistan (or for that matter Thailand, Singapore or India) treats it's citizens as just that - citizens. Their personal beliefs and values are respected within their homes and places of worship - society has a uniform set of values. (Okay - this is abused in a few countries, but generally this is the unwritten belief). To sum up, it least matters what your personal faith is, it's important that you're a Pakistani. And as they say, while in Rome, do as the Romans do.
.adult domain? Simple - the firms making money over porn wouldn't stand for it.
What? Society doesn't have uniform set of values! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If society had a uniform set of values, there would be no murder, rape, war, genocide, etc! Every person has a different set of values and morals, and should. That's where the freedom to do what you desire comes into play. I don't WANT to go to Rome and do as they do, because I WANT to do what _I_ want to do. THAT is what "Western" civilization is all about, and it's why the United States is the best damn country in the world.
I didn't know killing was one of the rights of the govt. I'd imagine if they did it on a large scale, someone would stand up for them and put them in order (Iraq, for instance, assuming the horror stories were true).
Try avoiding your taxes sometime. You'll soon find that the government will take everything you own to get their "fair share". They'll probably even throw you in prison for a good long while. Remember Al Capone... "Tax Evasion". I know he wasn't exactly a role model citizen, but the government still put him in prison because they couldn't prove he was breaking any real laws.
OTOH, what has Corporate America done to prevent spam and porn from reaching kids?
It's not their job to police the content YOU let YOUR children see. I can explain to my children what spam and porn are, but obviously I'm in the minority. I guess I'm just plain too intelligent for my own good, because I can explain what sex, drugs, and rock and roll are to my children. Maybe I should just sit back and let the government tell them about condoms when they reach the ripe old age of 9.
Why can't there be a simple legislation requiring all adult content to be registered under a
There's a fundamental difference here. You believe that the government is the source for all rights within a country. I believe the government is the source of removing those rights. Everyone has a right and freedom to do anything they want. The government prohibits them from doing several things (murder, rape, etc.). All legislation costs money... my money. I pay taxes (much to my dismay), and those taxes are used to pay other people's salaries, and to give handouts to other people. You believe that's fine because "it's for the common good". I believe that's a bunch of crap because I work for my money, and I want to keep it. The difference is that you're a socialist, and I'm a libertarian. Therefore, you believe that the government exists to provide you with freedoms and possessions. I believe the government exists to limit your God-given freedoms and possessions.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
"The alternative is medication (which is how I kicked the video game habitColumbine)."
I haven't seen those words strung together since the inimitable Jon Katz stopped posting.
Is it any wonder...that heart disease and lung cancer now claim 3 times the number of deaths than they did 2 hundred years ago.
That is a dumb statement. Since the US population is a LOT more than triple what it was 200 years ago, to only have 3x the deaths from those diseases is pretty good, I'd say!
Is it any wonder that...heart disease and lung cancer now claim 3 times the number of deaths than they did 2 hundred years ago.
Two hundred years ago, the US population was approximately 5 million. Now we have over 280 million people. We have about 55 times as many people, but only 3 times as many people die from cancer? That's an amazing accomplishment if your numbers are correct (which I doubt, but don't have the time to look up now).
Don't blow my covar.
"The alternative is medication (which is how I kicked the video game habit before I became the next Columbine)."
I haven't seen those words strung together since the inimitable Jon Katz stopped posting.
I wish that IRo had 600,000 users. They probably would have if they didn't screw up the release here.
The first thing they did to gain users was make an open beta period where it was open for free. this is good, but considering that it was only 1 month and there was still bugs when they went to pay, most users didn't have much time in it to stay with it, not to mention now it has no way of attracting new users since there is no 30 day trial period as far as I can see. From open beta to retail, it went from 20000 Users total (10000 Per Server) to around 8000 users.
Then The Fun Began. First off the price was too high to be competitive vs. EverQuest unless you paid 6 months in advance (which I did) and used a cryptic Credit card system that would produce Errors in Korean. Then They Rolled back accounts 7 days when they switched to pay, which Pissed off half the game. The Bugs were made much more obvious When it was hacked late last month. this resulted in a week of confusion while People were waiting for new passwords that never came because Gravity E-mails were being blocked as spam as a two day reimbursement period was going on. This also resulted in a rollback which again pissed off the userbase and changed people's minds when it came to renewing their 1 month accounts. Sites like ro.pak0.com close out of frustration, ETC.
Personally I like RO. It's the cloest MMORPG i've seen to a text based mud and it's fun to play and has a good player athmosphere. I just hope there will still be players on it 5 months from now.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Because parents feel that they cannot simply order their children to stay away from the arcades, they put their trust in the laws of the land to prevent their children from what is seen as an unproductive, unhealthy activity.
Well here in Canada (and the US) parents don't feel they can simply order their children around either. But rather then expect law enforcement to do anything about it, they whine and bitch about freedom and rights.
Then schools and law enforcement try to cover the gap left by bad parenting, constantly overstepping reasonable bounds and cause more trouble. (I actually had a principal that gloated about how he was more powerful then a court, he didn't even need evidence to punish students)
Bad parenting exists everywhere, you have busy hardworking overworked parents, lazy parents, non existant parents.
Making laws to compensate isn't going to help, we need parents to get back to work.
(No, I'm not a parent. Yes I know it's hard, which is why I'm not a parent yet, I'm not ready.)
Without any shread of evidence you believed the troll, then went onto FUD Singapore (a country that's much more developed than the United States -- in terms of technology, education, health and so on).
/.'ers who are Singaporian for making these inappriopiate comments and baseless FUDing against a good country.
Franly, people like you distrub me, you are the kind that take to heart that WMD's might exist in Iraq, then go onto writes newspaper articles in your school newspaper about how Iraq has been hiding these weapons and how huge stockpiles were found somewhere near Bagdad (when in fact this was all based on some guy's PhD disertion).
You should apologize to Singapore and any
And since you are American, I think it's best to not point fingers anywhere else. You should be ashamed. Really man. 4000 women and children killed in Iraq.
Why can't there be a .kid domain which could act as a playpen for the children of parents who don't want the responsibility of managing/supervising their 'own' children.
What about adult gamers?
How something can be rated as over-rated, before it's been modded is beyond me *sighs* Well at least I can sit back for the afternoon and watch the original modded up as the paragon of non-xenophobic wit that it is.
Why can't there be a simple legislation requiring all adult content to be registered under a .adult domain? Simple - the firms making money over porn wouldn't stand for it.
And no one can decide what is "adult" content or not. What I think it is might be different from what you think.
I understand your emotion and feelings on this matter. Rudyard Kipling said "East and West.. the twain shall never meet." I recommend his book Kim for your immense reading delight. I understand this book, written in 1904 is beyond copyright, and is avbl for free, over the web.
Good day.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm from Singapore, there is no such law. And btw, since your American (I guess) you did not understand that Singapore IS a developed nation and not to be compared against Thailand. Thailand does have a similar law, but anything to do with drugs in thailand is death (but it's a slow process.. no country has any lawys that says punishment without due process -- that's gainst International law (to which America is not a party to) -- ).
Then again you might be just flamebaiting.
It's called a girlfriend.
The government represents the people. If the government has decreed that "porn is bad, we must block it," then that is the equivalent of society saying that porn is bad.
You, my friend, are a democrat. I don't mean the political party. I mean the type of government. You believe that the majority of the people are right all of the time. I don't. Most of the people in this country think Hillary never knew of Bill's affairs. I'm more intelligent than that. People are stupid, and the government shouldn't represent their whims and desires on an immediate timeline. Gradual changes are fine, but banning 100% of something is too far, too quickly.
Over here, our government says "Marijuana is bad." To use your own analogy, what if you were a non-Christian living in the US and wanted to smoke Marijuana? What an outrage!
Exactly. If you want to smoke marijuana, go ahead. If you prefer to live your life on the dangerous edge, go for it. If you want to smoke and drive while talking on a cell phone, have fun, just don't hit anyone else. If you kill someone else, and you survive, I'll shoot you in the head myself. If you smoke marijuana in the privacy of your own home, while watching porn and jerking off with 100 of your closest personal friends, great. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope you can swim. The only law that's required for what I just said is "If you drive drunk or intoxicated in another fashion, due to mind-altering drugs, and kill someone else, you will be put to death immediately."
you don't like their rules, you leave, or try to work within the system in place to change the rules. It's as simple as that.
As an unpoliced system, the Internet is subject to no laws, and as such, I am free to speak my mind. Obviously, I AM working within the system to try to convince other people to change the rules in whatever country they live in (although I personally couldn't care less about Thailand).
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
You tell him, "Woy."
"And no one can decide what is "adult" content or not. What I think it is might be different from what you think."
In Eastern societies, this decision is left to the govt. And normally, they do a good job of deciding.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Why can't there be a .kid domain which could act as a playpen for the children of parents who don't want the responsibility of managing/supervising their 'own' children.
.kid domain... as long as the government doesn't have to form another agency (and raise my taxes to pay for it) to patrol and administer it.
I have no problem with a
I'd also recommend that if you don't want the responsibility of children, don't have them. Give them to someone who wants them.
What about adult gamers?
They're adults. Let them do as they wish.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Did you actually have a point before you started that rant?
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips
Wow..you're pretty confused there. Sushi's Japanese, not Thai. Having spent several months working in Japanese schools, and eating their school dinners, I can assure you that, while they are nutritious, the pupils don't get to eat sushi at school. We did get deep-fried whale a few months ago, though. Healthy? Not really, and definitely not healthy for the whales.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Which government would that be? The US government has been bending and breaking the constitution at the slightest (corporate sponsored) whim
In Eastern societies, this decision is left to the govt. And normally, they do a good job of deciding.
What if you lived in an Eastern society, and the government decided that since profanity, and "adult content" can be found on Slashdot, then Slashdot was banned? What would you do? Protest without guns, because they had been banned? Revolt against their cannons? Sounds kinda like Tienamen Square to me.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
And NEVER trust the government, because they're the only group that can legally kill you and everyone you ever met "for the common good".
I call BS.
First of all, you seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding that "The Government" and "The People" are one and the same. The Government isn't some mystical, magical group of people dropped off by aliens to govern us, THEY ARE US. They worked in bakeries before we elected them. They went to school with us. They live down the street from us. Government are people too! They work for us, they represent us. They're not some enemy force not to be trusted, they are simply the tangible entity that represents a populace on issue in which individual representation would be impractical.
And they most certainly CANNOT "legally kill you and everyone you ever met," for ANY reason. You seem to think that the government routinely operates outside the law and is unaccountable. While I concede that on some financial indiscretions, they may be getting off scot-free, they most definitely do not operate above the law when it comes to killing USAmerican citizens. "Enemy combatants," maybe (although I haven't heard of anyone in Guantanamo bay being executed, along with "everyone they ever met," yet). But we're talking about USAmerican citizens here.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
society has a uniform set of values
.adult domain? Simple - the firms making money over porn wouldn't stand for it
No actually it doesn't, we are not all mindless drones. That's what seperates largely tollerant societies (such as midly Christian, Catholic, Shinto, Hindu (etc) societies) from intollerant ones (such as extremist Muslim nations).
What part of the idea of 'serpation of church and state' do you not understand?
Pakistani does not equal 'muslim', just as American does not equal 'Christian'.
I didn't know killing was one of the rights of the govt.
Wow, then you *are* completely clueless.
I'm glad we don't have Capital Punishment here in the UK , but it is a right of the US government and many other governments (including Pakistan).
It's also still practiced in Afghanistan, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, China, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic), Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, North Korea, South Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, Saint Christopher & Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad And Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
OTOH, what has Corporate America done to prevent spam and porn from reaching kids?
Erm, lots actually, like MAPS, a myriad of other porn blocking tools, content filtering and huge time and effort spend at companies like AOL to stop this stuff. Not to mention lots of legislation. I work at network provider, and can tell you - you really really are clueless if don't reallise how many millions have been spent trying to stop people abusing the system.
Why can't there be a simple legislation requiring all adult content to be registered under a
Hell I wouldn't stand for it. You can't do it because there is no world government to enforce it and we (in the largely liberal, non vail wearing, not averse to porn countries - those which make up the majority of internet users) don't care enough about it to collaborate to achive it. But you don't like that answer I'll wager.
No good. They'd just get the munchies and eat the dog.
-BsoF
This is a bit of FUD, but it really does reflect my uncertainty about the upcoming situation.
It was infact FUD. There is no such law in Sinagpore and you were just FUDing about singapore for two full pages. I guess that's the quality we should expect from vt.edu.
Are you aware that all nationals are a party to International law (Execpt ofcourse United States), and due process is one of the main pillars of this law?
There is no country on earth (and given that Singaporians are more englightend) that would do such a thing. Think about COMMON SENSE. Did it ever occur to you to think what would happen if this type of shit happend, what about the media, what about the king/prime minster/preisdent who'd be hanged the next day? What about the BBC, the United Kingdom's ball lickers and so on, who'd be barking about banning that country. Well, the point is.. sir.. such a law doesn't exsit, no sane country has any law that goes around 'due process'. Even thailand (which does kill ppl found with drugs), gives them a lot of jail time before hanging, during which time, if you are rich and wealthy you can get the person out.
To sum it up. You Sir, are the worst type of people this country (United States) needs in a time like this. You people believe any thing a monkey says and takes it to your heart, then go around trying to convert fellow humans into your ape crap. I'm truly sick of this.
I hope in the future you would at least give 'due process' a chance before responding so un-intelligently, I do hope you'd verify a claim, specially one as ridiculas as this, before posting on slashdot again.
What does geography have to do with anything?
I did, "A.C."
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
In light of the recent stories about Estonia, I think the parent AC posting made perfect sense. I applaud such vibrant shows of nationalism and freedom. I hope and wish Americans would learn something out of this.
heh, i got modded as a troll - not what i was going for, but whatever. i suppose it might have been thailand; it was a while ago when i read the article - probably in february. thanks for clearing that up for me.
moox. for a new generation.
Umm.. you .. are.. aware .. that Singapore... is umm... not in Africa? Maybe, it's in the middle East.. those rag heads!! Bastards!! they must be terrorists blow em up... But sir.. um.. the nuke just blew up Sudan.. WTF? WTF? I said Singapore you jerk.. but sir.. Singapore is near Japan says the brition.. wtf? tell him to go back and sip his tea...
Americans are just so biased, and ignorant, I think that's what the parent AC wanted you to know.
HP backed off their cheap Linux offering and MS gives away Office and Windows for $36!.. too bad, His Billness apparently wants everyone to play games with their systems, and not learn/do anything worthwhile :-(
Huh??? I don't see how that logically follows. There is far, far more "educational software" available for Windows platforms than are available for Linux. Why did you presume that Microsoft giving away cheap Windows/Office licenses to undercut a Linux package equates to them promoting gaming? Linux is just an O/S, is it not? MS was giving away an O/S and an office productivity package, not to mention that the O/S in question has an extremely diverse array of educational titles available for it.
Are you sure you don't write the little 1-line blurbs for the Slashdot editors? Because your comment is nothing more than a baseless, irrational, and cheap (not to mention pathetic) Microsoft jab. It's comments like that that give the Linux community the reputation of being rabid, illogical Microsoft-bashers.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Try avoiding your taxes sometime. You'll soon find that the government will take everything you own to get their "fair share". They'll probably even throw you in prison for a good long while. Remember Al Capone... "Tax Evasion". I know he wasn't exactly a role model citizen, but the government still put him in prison because they couldn't prove he was breaking any real laws.
A standard libertarian talking point that is provably false. If you don't pay your taxes the government probably won't catch on for a few years. When they do, they'll insist you pay them. If you don't, they'll probably take legal action against you and try to seize your property. "Jail", despite what you libertarians believe, rarely enters the picture.
You believe that's fine because "it's for the common good". I believe that's a bunch of crap because I work for my money, and I want to keep it.
It's not your money. The government prints and regulates it. And if you want to avoid paying taxes? Barter your work for food and shelter.
Yeah gaming is SO bad for 12 year olds. It's MUCH worse than being confined to a room where you are sodomized 5 times a day by strange men old enough to be your grandfather. Gaming is certainly the biggest problem facing Thailand's children....
Eat at Joe's.
If Thailand is so much better at raising children, why are they so well known for child prostitution?
DeviantArt Page
NSFW"Move."
...
Possibly a nice friend abroad and a vpn with access to his gateway with a nice 1024bits encryption would help....better than moving anyhow.
" Over here, our government says "Marijuana is bad." "
Seems there is a loop here if you can get the government to recognize Rastafarii as a religion, then you should have the right to smoke pot.
"If you don't like their rules, you leave"
now you sound like me ol' teacher. If you don't like the rules, you cheat. just as everybody else is.
With one exception... a pot smoker will get arrested and harassed and prosecuted as the dirty scumbag the laws makes him. The Guy that steals 180Billions in fraud usually gets arrested by nice looking agents that won't hit him all the way into the private limo waiting for him.
Guess what... U live in the US. Too bad. Now, as you said your choices are adapt or move. Seeing where your country is going, you should better move
Retard American.
You people are so backward you can't even get countries straight.
Are you not aware that Singapore is a industrialized country and that Thailand is a 3rd world country?
I guess when you put the monkey on the throne.. anything goes.. anyway you trolled major, now go back and post an apology or retraction (do a BBC).
hell yeah...parent is right on the money, you're going on my friends list as soon as I get home and login (can't remember my password!)
Drugs do not generally cause a great deal of harm in and of themselves.
Unless you overdose.
Or are negligent becuase you're high or strung out (whilst driving, etc.)
Or have to steal to feed your habit.
Or are blackmailed by someone who threatens to tell your boss about your coke addiction.
Or get poisoned by a bad fix.
Or catch HIV or another nasty illness from sharing a dirty needle with another addict.
Or are ripped off by your dealer.
Or are hurt because you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time when you needed to get a fix badly.
Or lose your life, family, friends and material possessions because of your addiction.
Yep, having a hard drug habit never hurt anyone.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Singapore is a city nation that is technically more industralized than Japan (due to the small footprint). Japan in turn is 10x more than US. I don't even see how you could have missed this, and juding from your e-mail, you are in an University? I just can't believe any undergrad does not have information about the major ecnomic countries of the world.
Well I guess we all should go back to wearing mullets and welcoming Bush back now.
No actually it doesn't, we are not all mindless drones. That's what seperates largely tollerant societies (such as midly Christian, Catholic, Shinto, Hindu (etc) societies) from intollerant ones (such as extremist Muslim nations).
Just to nitpick: "extremist" Muslim nations equal "extremist" Catholic nations in intolerance. As a matter of fact Catholic countries and "mildly Christian" countries probably killed and destroyed more people and families than the Muslim ones. If my fears were to be bodycount driven I would fear Christian countries the most.
The only good thing is that nobody in a Western country would elect some religious fanatic, let's say someone connected to those right-wing "Christian" sects that frighten me more than the Muslims. Oh, wait...
Just to make my point clear, I'm just objecting to the way you put things... you could have easily attached the extremist adjective to any religion you mentioned. Historically Muslims have been much more tolerant regarding other religions that the Christians.
cheers,
fsmunoz
Hehe nice troll, very funny :)
- Toby
Would you cool off a bit? Okay.. good. I rather liked your rejoinders to my other posts in the same article. Thanks.
Okay now, what I'm hypothesising is this: Folks who get exposed to Linux generally think more, and better. Reasons:
1. GNU / Linux is more programmable, flexible and 'experimental'. It's what a kid likes - lots of things to learn, and lots to experiment.
2. MSware, OTOH is 'closed' proprietary and controlled. Kids hate all of the above. Some years back, I taught kids a few MSDOS commands - and they were very curious to learn commands, batch files, and a few even played with the serial ports using the built-in mode commands. Now, a kid needs Visual Studio.Net and WiXPPRO to get lesser freedom as compared to Linux.
3. There's immense variety in product offerings in Linux - browsers, file managers, games, etc. Kids like to play around with a many toys as possible - and they don't exactly want to download these toys - they like it in their distro CD.
Have a good day.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Obviously, you are not a "Westerner", so I'll have to do some education:
/ genassembly/a-52-482.htm), about 20% of the 150,000 to 200,000 prostitutes in Thailand are children. Child Prostitution is even worse, percentage-wise, in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, along with a quickly-growing Child Prostitution problem in Georgia (Eastern Europe). The sex trade in Japan is just as rampant as it has ever been, and the Japanese Government enacts useless laws to try to "manage" the sex industry instead of actually limiting it. "Eastern" values are a joke, because they try to make things look lovely and clean on the outside, while one looks deeper the depravety one finds in Eastern society's under-belly is more horrendous than anything found in the "West" - more magazines and films are made in Eastern countries that deal with bestiality, mutilation and other bizarre sexual practices (including "Snuff-films") than any other region in the world.
1) Recent laws were either passed or rescinded that allowed concenting people to engage in Sodomy - basically, it's the "What-goes-on-in-your-bedroom-is-your-business" attitude - in certain states. It had nothing to do with allowing homosexual people to exist. Your comment ("...recent orders permitting gays and lesbians...") sounded like the "West" didn't permit Homosexuals to exist.
2) Just because some people engage in stupid/insane/dangerous activities as part of their lifestyle doesn't make it the norm - it's just that those things get more press/media coverage because of the sensationalism angle.
I have 4 kids, and my wife and I have taught them how to judge the difference between right and wrong. They all have chores to do, they know that they're not permitted to watch R-rated movies and WHY they're not permitted to watch them. We teach our children by a simple addage: "Teach a child which way it should go, and it will not soon depart from that path". Parents have a sacred stewardship for their children, and any parent that is "permissive" and doesn't take the time to teach their children the clear-cut difference between right and wrong must be held responsible for what that child might do that is wrong. My kids don't take illicit drugs or drink alcohol, they don't swear, they don't sneak peeks at porn and they are very conscientious(sp) and considerate. They're not angels, but they know the difference between right and wrong, whereas "permissive" parents hardly give their children any direction or standards to uphold and they wonder why their 14-year-old is in Drug Rehab, their 16-year-old is pregnant and doesn't know who the father is, and their 12-year-old just killed the neighbor's cat by dowsing it with gasoline and setting it on fire.
As far as "Eastern" values and morality are concerned - Thailand, and Bangkok specifically, is guilty of being one of the largest Child Prostitution regions in the world. Government Censorship in Thailand is even a bigger joke than morals and responsibility in the Clinton Administration in the U.S.A. - they may say that they censor certain things in Thailand, but the government there nearly looks the other way when it comes to Child Prostitution. Per a UN Report, (http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord1997/documentation
Eastern values brought Opium dens and drug abuse to America in the 1920's and hasn't stopped pumping the world with Heroin and other drugs (remember, Afghanistan is technically an EASTERN nation and has Opium as it's most profitable export).
Radical elements in Eastern relgions (Radical Islamic Jihadists) brought death to over 5,000 innocent people from many nations in New York on Sept. 11th, 2001. Radical Islamic Jihadists want an Islamic World - if needed, by force or extermination of "infidels".
So much for "Eastern" values.
ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
"They're adults. Let them do as they wish."
I was refering to the Thailand article here. Not much an adult would be able to do if the actual servers and/or sites are closed down.(as in from 10p-6a)
It seems they wish to restrict "everyone", while saying it's for the "children".
Why can't there be a simple legislation requiring all adult content to be registered under a .adult domain?
The greasy haired, overweight 30 something, who has been living in his parents basement, slowly flips the page.
The first image that strikes his eyes is of a leggy blond, reclined on a lounger. Her hair glistens from a dip in the warm, inviting pool. Water droplets run down her long slim neck. Her hand rests casually on her supple thigh, mere inches away from that place to which he has never been. Her flat tummy begs to be caressed and anointed with oils.
She gazes out at the camera between long lashes. Her breasts, straining at the thin fabric, are calling out to him. "Take me!", they seem to say.
If only her left leg weren't so coyly positioned, he could get a glimpse of the promised land nestled between her silken thighs.
Her companion, a shorter brunette standing next to the lounger, is wearing a very skimpy 2-piece outfit. The curve of her breast begs to be traced with a gentle touch. Her hand rests on the back of the lounger, ready to slip down and playfully squeeze her friends firm breasts. You can see the joy, the naked anticipation in her eyes, as she knows what is about to happen.
All that smooth, smooth skin has gotten him all worked up. He must see more! He flips the next page.
Eh? What's this? A gas grill??!! WTF?
Oh...it was just a Sears ad for bikini's.
usually, it gets modded up, then another moderator mods it down. i've seen it happen to my posts, too and i agree, it looks weird.
ed
A standard libertarian talking point that is provably false. If you don't pay your taxes the government probably won't catch on for a few years. When they do, they'll insist you pay them. If you don't, they'll probably take legal action against you and try to seize your property. "Jail", despite what you libertarians believe, rarely enters the picture.
Al Capone was put in prison. Granted, that was 60-70 years ago, but it still happened. Can you find me someone who didn't pay their taxes and didn't go to jail?
It's not your money. The government prints and regulates it. And if you want to avoid paying taxes? Barter your work for food and shelter.
Technically, nothing I purchase with MY money is mine either. My computer was made by Dell, so that's not mine. My television was made by Panasonic, so that's not mine. Even my bread was made by D' Italiano, so even that's not mine. About the only thing that's mine, according to your definition, is the crap that comes out of my ass... which even then, since it's just a redefinition of the food I eat, should logically belong, by way of shares, to the companies that provided the food I ate. Even my body wouldn't be mind, since it largely consists of things I've ingested over the course of my lifetime. So what is mine? My ideas? I get those ideas because my brain is developed enough. My brain gets developed enough because I eat enough food to keep it going. According to your definition, and your questionable logic, nothing at all is mine, and nothing is yours either.
How about a new definition for "own"? Let's take Websters definition. Own (v): To have or hold as property. Possess. To have power over. Control. That seems pretty cut and dry. I have my money in my possession. I have power over it, and I control what I spend it on. While I'm looking things up, let's look up "earn". Earn (v): To receive as return for effort and especially for work done or services rendered. I've never seen a definition so clear. It even says "especially for work done or services rendered". So, I own my money because I work to earn it.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Welcome to lifestyles of the Rich and Famous "The Authoritarian Edition".
I really suppose you have a kid (I do, and can state my personal thoughts on this matter). There's very little chance of parental censorhip succeeding with kids - why? Bcos kids are kids, that's all. This is a matter where Western and Eastern thinking differs a lot - the value of state censorship.
I do have a kid, two in fact. And you can bet your dictator trodden ass that I MUCH prefer setting the limits for my children, than having my government do it for me. Where the system breaks down, is with poor parenting - NOT "kids being kids". Basically all you are saying to the world is, "I can't manage my own life - please mister government man can you take care of that for me?" Well I say, "FUCK THAT!"
And in regards to you other idiotic statements...
Western societies are generally more tolerant - lax, according to the Earterners, and are driven by capitalism. They tend to focus on rights, rather than duties. This could explain the recent orders permitting gays and lesbians, as well as the inaction on spam.
Yes, I suppose thats why most of the spam I receive come from relays in China, Indonesia, Thialand, etc... I will grant you that it is mostly Westerners using these open relays - but if these governments are so on the ball and looking out for their citizens seems to me this wouldn't be an issue. But hey, I live in one of the states with real anti-spam laws. You've got me totally baffled on the gay rights equates to spam thing though...
Earterners generally focus on duties, role models, censorship and even punbishment for acts considered normal in the West. The internet brigs out this dichotomy bcos it's an open network. Thus govt. censorship is a preferred and better solution in Eastern societies - Thailand being one.
You stick with your authoritarian view. Because really - your governement knows what is best for you and your ilk. "The value of state censorship"... yeah, you hang onto that it'll be worth a lot one day...
I usually don't add quotes to my posts. And god knows I'll catch major shit for posting an Ayn Rand one...
It is a sin to write this.
- Anthem
http://windows.scares.us
And why should the government have to regulate on this. Just buy a router/configure your linux box to block internet access for some PC's during specific hours, and you get the same result, without the government's 'help'. This way adults who want to play a game online are the victims too.
Nothing wrong with a good curfew, but don't let it be imposed by the government. Children need good parents...
Would you cool off a bit? Okay.. good.
:)
Sorry.
You made good points, but you seem to have restricted your idea of "learning" to "programming a computer." While I agree that Linux offers more/easier/cheaper opportunities to manipulate the computer itself than Windows does, I on the other hand believe that the vast majority of children "learning" on a computer will be doing so at a much higher level. That is, using Encarta to research book reports, or playing math games or a typing tutor. Very few kids are interested in actually learning how to make a computer do what they want, at that low of a level, in my opinion.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
As of yet, the US government hasn't... but who's going to stop them when they start executing people? Can't you see the timeline?
Step 1. Outlaw guns.
Step 2. Begin executions. Claim it's for "the common good".
Step 3. Outlaw elections.
Step 4. Kill anyone who opposes.
There are people that are working on Step 1 right now. God only knows what could happen between Steps 3 and 4, or afterwards. After they have your guns, there's not a damn thing you can do to stop them. You think you'll march on Washington DC? Right up against their tanks? Don't you remember Tienamen Square in China, or most of WW2, or Iraq even? If you don't own a gun, you can't protect yourself, and they will kill you. The government IS INHERENTLY the enemy, and they will kill you if you can't/don't protect yourself, and your rights.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
I was referring to the more general issue, which is whether the government should regulate internet usage.
It seems they wish to restrict "everyone", while saying it's for the "children".
Exactly. I was up last night until 11pm playing Star Wars: Galaxies, and I still got up and came to work. It's not my choice, exactly... I'd rather be sleeping, but I know that if I want to keep this job, and get paid, I had better show up.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
scottkin:
are you deliberately suggesting that asians are somehow morally deficient and that caucasians are somehow morally superior, or is that an unfortunate byproduct of your particular points?
ed
You might tell me that computer games aren't damaging--hell we've all been playing them for years, and they made us who we are today. But the kids in Pornvakia say the same thing about porn.
We all accept (well, sort of) those limitations the government put on us because we grew up with them, and it's just the way it is. Anyway, I know I wouldn't like to be told not to play computer games. But I don't think this is much different from what is accepted in other countries.
"I have never heard an argument against legalising drugs that wasn't based on the fact {or an assumption depending upon the fact} that drugs were already illegal."
:)), so it wasn't all bad.
And Singapore's wouldn't be any more convincing: I saw a TV show while I was there which was pushing their local anti-drug propaganda and it was just hilariously inept by Western standards... or would have been, if they weren't killing people over it.
Singapore has got to be one of the most boring places I've ever visited, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of kids turned to drugs to get away from that: lots of hot chicks around though (I was there visiting one of them
His books were written over 100 years ago. I'm sure the world has changed since the time 'the east' was under britain's slavery.
Thailand, and Bangkok specifically, is guilty of being one of the largest Child Prostitution regions in the world
Been to Bangkok recently? Things are changing very fast. Raids, arrests and trials are common place and the new mayor is doing a lot to clean the place up. Oh, and thinking about it, who are the customers? Mainly rich westerners who were brought up by good western parents with strict moral codes. And now they go off and exploit the worlds poor & young. Way to go.
more magazines and films are made in Eastern countries that deal with bestiality, mutilation and other bizarre sexual practices (including "Snuff-films") than any other region in the world.
Rubbish. Snuff films are a myth (whatever Nicholas Cage may have you believe), and everything else you mention there are both legal and common in most of europe. On a recent trip to Thailand I was surprised at how tame the visible material was compared to say, Holland or Germany. Neither of which qualify as "Eastern".
My kids don't take illicit drugs or drink alcohol, they don't swear, they don't sneak peeks at porn and they are very conscientious(sp) and considerate.
As far as you know. Tell me, when you were a kid, did you ever break the rules? Was there a time you did something you weren't supposed to and your parents never found out? Did your parents know where you were and what you were doing EVERY SECOND of the day? I certainly hope not, such a stifiling upbringing could do untold harm. But to be honest, it's patently impossible without locking the child in a cell. You don't do that, right?
and any parent that is "permissive" and doesn't take the time to teach their children the clear-cut difference between right and wrong must be held responsible for what that child might do that is wrong
I'd go further - any parent should be held responsible for the actions of their (minor) children, regardless of how "permissive" those parents are. You seem to have a great disdain for "permissivness", but the closest you get to a definition is "not teaching the difference between right and wrong". I don't think that's what you mean by that word, and I don't think that level of parental irresponsibility is particularly common anywhere. I think my own parents would fit your definition of "permissive" quite well. I was never physically punished, I was allowed to not go to school if I didn't want to, I was allowed to come and go as I pleased (provided they knew where I was), and I managed my own financial affairs from a young age (getting an allowance to cover clothing, travel etc). There were no overt strict "rules of the house" or anything like that, it was a pretty relaxed place. Result? Happy child, worked hard in school (because I wanted to, not because I was forced to), passed my exams, got a good degree from a top university, and then an excellent career and lots of money. Don't do drugs (hate them), don't break the law (apart from the occasional speeding ticket) and pay an awful lot of tax. I guess society needs less people like me huh?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I thought they all slept in one room? Seriously - how many thai children have bedrooms? How many are up playing games after 10PM? I suspect this is aimed more at adults than children but hidden behind that same tired refrain.
How about the "burning your brain" argument ? Potheads aren't the smartest I've seen. In fact they are the slowest I've seen. Cocaine and crack aren't good for your synapses and cause neural damages. I don't think heroine or exctasy is good for your health either.
The alternative is medication (which is how I kicked the video game habit before I became the next Columbine)
You know, I pretty much grew up on games. Heck, I still have my gaming addiction. I'm almost 33 now, and I haven't shot anyone. In fact, I don't even consider violence to be a solution to anything.
I also have a well paid job as a programmer. Somehow gaming didn't interfere with that education after all. (In fact, it was what got me interested in programming in the first place. And my father fully cooperated there, so by the time I was 14 I was already fluent in Z80 assembly.)
No medication was necessary, either. Go figure.
My father did insist though that I go to bed at 9 PM, no matter what. Maybe that's why I didn't go to school on 3 hours sleep.
If your parents just put you on drugs instead, well, no offense to you, but I hope your parents do take offense. Because they're retards. They're a prime example of what's wrong with society today, and what's the _real_ cause of stuff like Columbine happening.
The real problem is: people who don't want to deal with their kids. In some situations even to talk to them. They're so busy making a career and working 12 hour geek shifts to impress the PHB, that poor kids get at most 5 minutes a day of speaking to their parents.
And when said kids have a problem, the parent takes the easy way out. Just put the kid on drugs or insist that the government take care of that problem. Hey, it's easier than talking to the kid, right?
A lot of blowing stuff out of proportion is based on that lack of communication too. It's easier to make blanket statements about games, than to talk to the kid and find out exactly what games does he play.
It's downright retarded to put for example FPS gaming in the same pot as, for example, puzzle games. You tell me how some kid growing on logic games is going to be the next serial killer. No, really. I'm all ears. He's going to get the idea of shooting people with a shotgun... from a game which doesn't even have shotguns anywhere?
Yet people will still make these blanket statements anyway and expect the government to do their work for them. It's easier than actually talking to their children. Or than, you know, actually trying to influence the kid's choice of games.
So here's an idea: if you're going to put your carreer in first place, and the kids only in 10'th place (after watching football, beer, watching news, and everything else) on your list of priorities... you shouldn't have kids in the first place. Wear a condom. They're cheap. Or take a pill. Have an abortion. Whatever.
But don't just bring a poor kid into this world and then treat it like it's some unwanted rat in the basement.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I lived in Thailand for over a year. I had the only computer in the village where I stayed. While this decision might affect Bangkok, 95% of the country will never even notice. I could walk down the streets of the village at 9PM and hardly anyone would even have lights on. The majority of the country are sustenance farmers. The Bangkok Post had an article that I remember saying how the average worker would have to spend an entire years wages just to purchase a computer.
That said, even though it will really have minimal effect for the country at large, I do not want to see any kind of government mandated cyber curfew.
Considering the server program for Ragnarok is easily accessable on the net, there is probably much more people playing RO because people can host their private servers if they have the hardware and bandwidth.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Al Capone was put in prison. Granted, that was 60-70 years ago, but it still happened. Can you find me someone who didn't pay their taxes and didn't go to jail?
The only example you can think of is Al Capone? I think that tells us something. Also please note that they went after Capone for tax evasion because they were unable to try him for murder. Also keep in mind that Capone deliberately falsified his financial documents. There is a big difference between not paying your taxes and committing a felony to hide how much money you make and where it comes from.
Technically, nothing I purchase with MY money is mine either. My computer was made by Dell, so that's not mine. My television was made by Panasonic, so that's not mine. Even my bread was made by D' Italiano, so even that's not mine.
You've completely and utterly missed the point. Your computer, television, and bread are all yours completely, so you can burn, break, or spraypaint them. It is however against the law to render US currency unfit for circulation.
Hence, your declaration that "According to your definition, and your questionable logic, nothing at all is mine, and nothing is yours either." looks rather foolish in retrospect, no?
Um, no. Thailand is roughly at 15 degrees North latitude./ th.html
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
For when you get fragged:
Fucking stop camping or I'll call the cops on your ass!
He's probably talking about rates rather than numbers. Believe it or not, the currently rising cancer rates in places like Africa is not all bad. You know the easiest way to avoid cancer and heart disease? Die from an infectious disease at a young age. Developing countries' cancer rates shoot up when longevity rises, because they typically affect older people. More older people=longer lifetimes. As my grandfather says, getting old ain't wonderful but it beats the alternative.
Stopping kids playing online games, what do they do?
Maybe head for the amphetimine tablets over there which cost approx $1?
Id say thailand has a bigger problem to deal with than online gaming.
"OTOH, what has Corporate America done to prevent spam and porn from reaching kids?
.adult; people who violate these laws, including ads etc. will be jailed and fined $10,000 for each offence" This is the difference between the West and the East. Westerners are busy DEALING with problems, not solving them. Easterners generally LIVE with problems (often created by the Western counterparts - Freon, Ozone, GM foods, viruses, spam etc) or SOLVE them ruthlessly at little expense.
.adult domain? Simple - the firms making money over porn wouldn't stand for it
Erm, lots actually, like MAPS, a myriad of other porn blocking tools, content filtering and huge time and effort spend at companies like AOL to stop this stuff. Not to mention lots of legislation. I work at network provider, and can tell you - you really really are clueless if don't reallise how many millions have been spent trying to stop people abusing the system."
Just read what you've written- again. This time, think "Has the thing worked? Despite these dollars and efforts and legislation, do kids and adults still have access to porn and spam?".
Now, think what a simple legislation "All spam must be marked ADV:; and all porn must be registered under
"You can't do it because there is no world government to enforce it and we (in the largely liberal, non vail wearing, not averse to porn countries - those which make up the majority of internet users) don't care enough about it to collaborate to achive it"
I understood China imposed censorship within it's nteworks using technology from the US - this proves that the govt can actually prevail to a large extent if it does want to SOLVE a problem. Youseem to be happy with a govt that DEALS with problems for an indefinite length of time, and you seem to be happy with LipService. Good for you.
Why can't there be a simple legislation requiring all adult content to be registered under a
Hell I wouldn't stand for it. You can't do it because there is no world government to enforce it and we (in the largely liberal, non vail wearing, not averse to porn countries - those which make up the majority of internet users) don't care enough about it to collaborate to achive it. But you don't like that answer I'll wager.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Never mind the kids, maybe the curfew is to protect them from adults... Reuters reports:
Child Hurt as Man Lobs Computer from Apartment
Mon July 7, 2003
SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean man angry with his daughter's Web surfing faced possible charges on Monday after he threw a computer monitor out of his 12th-floor apartment, hitting a four-year-old girl below on the head, police said.
A police official said the man, 49-year-old Park Yong-ju, had got angry when he returned to his flat in Seoul on Saturday. His 20-year-old daughter was playing an online computer game and failed to greet him, as Korean custom requires.
When she declined to let him join the game, he grabbed the monitor and flung it through the balcony window, the official said by telephone.
The screen hit four-year-old Han Jung-in, causing severe facial injuries but no brain damage, a hospital official said.
"She was very lucky, considering the severity of the accident," the official said. The girl was in a stable condition.
About 55 percent of South Korean households have at least one computer, and the country has the largest number of high-speed broadband Internet connections per capita in the world.
Police said an arrest warrant had been issued and further investigations were under way. Under the South Korean legal system, police ask prosecutors to issue warrants.
[OK, so it's not Thailand, but still....]
"Eh? What's this? A gas grill??!! WTF?
Oh...it was just a Sears ad for bikini's."
If such an ad was indeed pornoraphic, the foll. would be fined, jailed and publicly rebuked:
The advertiser of said bikini.
The particular brand
The site carrying the ad
The product used to promote the ad.
Extreme maybe, but needed to stop extreme perverts.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
How about Leona Helmsley?
"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
'Helmsley attracted national attention in the early 1990s when she was convicted of mail fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to 18 months in prison. '
http://www.who2.com/leonahelmsley.html
Granted, I'm assuming there are others jailed for tax evasion as well, most don't usually make the news.
" And you can bet your dictator trodden ass ... Well I say, "FUCK THAT!""
For a responsible parent governed by a democracy, your language is too violent. something wrong with either you, or your government. Hypocrisy, maybe.
"And in regards to you other idiotic statements..."
See.. tolerance (even to contrary viewpoints) seems to be one of your lesser virtues.
"I suppose thats why most of the spam I receive come from relays in China, Indonesia, Thialand, etc... I will grant you that it is mostly Westerners using these open relays "
And yet you can't see that you're being a hypocrite?? The problem is not with open relays etc.. most Easterners are peace loving, and wouldn't resort to violence or guns despite rising costs, unemployment etc. By nature, most of them are peaceable. I was once amazed at the depth of knowledge exhibited by Slashdotters on an article on MP3 on rifle magazines - so many seemed to know about guns, rifles, magazines, pitch, bore, etc.. it was a scary thought.
"The value of state censorship"... yeah, you hang onto that it'll be worth a lot one day..."
And yet, brilliant thinkers, scientists, philosophers, politicians etc. have risen from the East. Why, every day in the US, there's some kind of revolt against Asians robbing 'intelligent' jobs from the West. Freedom is good in the hands of those who respect and value it - censorship tends to move people towards alternate avenues for enjoyment - and these are normally much better.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Having lived in Thailand for a long time and having seen that laws are enforced less-than-vigorously, I can't see this really changing anything.
Thailand is the kind of place where I can go to Pantip Plaza and have my choice of five floors of pirated software for $2.50US/CD. When the police come to crack down, you throw a sheet over your stall - if you can't see it, apparently it's not there (with the aid of a bit of a kickback, of course). Get pulled over? Shell out a few hundred baht to compensate the officer for his time, and you're on your way.
On the other hand, there was a crackdown on nightlife a year or two ago and they're forcing everyone to close their bars at 2am, this seems to be largely followed. But even if Internet Cafes are forced to close, I'm sure that today's enterprising young children will find some way around that, and they shouldn't be up that late, anyway. As for adults - they have better things to do between the hours of 10pm and 6am, believe you me.
> First of all, you seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding that "The Government" and "The People" are one and the same.
> And they most certainly CANNOT "legally kill you and everyone you ever met," for ANY reason.
You should learn some history, because you are so ignorant, it makes you dangerous.
According to you, anything a government decrees is okay, because the government is the people.
So, according to you:
- It was okay when the CIA did secret, involuntary drug testing on psychiatric patients in the 1960s(?), leaving many of those patients as mental vegetables.
- It was okay when the government and doctors performed an experiment on hundreds of black men (not volunteers, just randomly chosen members of the public), which involved leaving their Syphilis untreated, until most had died from the disease. Watch the true story in the movie "Miss Evers' Boys".
- It was okay with you when slavery was the law in the South, and it was not a crime to kill a black man.
- It was okay when the law made women second class citizens, who were not allowed to vote.
- It was okay with you when the government introduced alcohol prohibition, which helped no one (except organized crime), and killed thousands. It's okay that the government is doing it again with the War on Drugs, which is helping no one, is killing thousands, is pushing children into gangs, is filling the jails with drug users so that rapists and murderers have to be let out early, is corrupting the police, the courts, and foreign governments, and is costing billions of dollars -- money that could be spent on education, and helping people out of poverty.
And it will be okay with you when the government tells you what videogames you can play, what music you can hear, what books you can read, which speeches you can attend, and so on.
If enough people thought like you, then dictatorship in America would be just around the corner. In fact, the makority of American's already overlook so many wrongs by their elected officials that it frightens me.
Please educate yourself!
You need to learn the importance of freedom, and what it takes to defend it.
And while you are at it, learn what the Constitution and Bill of Rights are, and how they were created in order to LIMIT the powers of government.
"Americans are just so biased, and ignorant, I think that's what the parent AC wanted you to know."
Luckily, your responding post was made without the slightest bias or ignorance.
Just to nitpick: "extremist" Muslim nations equal "extremist" Catholic nations in intolerance
Oh I quite agree!
And obviously there are extremist Christians too and they are equally as problematic and dangerous (and worry me just as much), but I don't think in truth there is a real or large problem with extremist Christian countries (at least not at the moment....).
Christian and Catholic religions certainly have a much worse record historically in terms of invading butchering and looting. And - historically - Mulsims have been much more tollerant of science and the presuit of knowledge.
I think, however, in the world at present, predominatly 'Chistian' nations now are almost all very moderate and practice seperation of the church and state. Sadly (like the poster I was replying to) a lot of Muslim groups seem to be pressing for Irainian style Muslim-state, which I hope Iraq does not become, as I don't think that will bode well for it's citizens.
Don't want your kids on the computer all night long? Keep it in the parents' bedroom.
Hahaha jkrise is such a good troll....
Matrix 272 keeps on biting too!
Theres nothing special about people from Pakistan that makes them melt when they see naked bodies...
People from the East and people from the West arent really that different.
Im sure Pakistanis dig pr0n as much as anyone, and will be just as annoyed as anyone to see their government censoring them.
Germans however, are different. They really do need their censorship, that way the extremist groups can operate in secret, and not be exposed by being allowed to publish a website.
Indeed, we do agree. Religons must not be disconnected from their historical context, and as such Islamism, Christianism and all other religions present a different face in different time frames and in different regions. Who are the Christians, the one killed by the Lions or the ones burning the Cathars? Who are the Muslims, the ones that preserved classical knowledge and ciecne or the ones that kill civilians and ban technology?
I also agree that today Muslim Fundamentalism is a bigger threat nowadays, mainly because of the separation of Church and State you mention. But I'm still disturbed when I hear Christian Radicals on TV... it reminds me that with the proper ammount of support they might just elect someone sympathetic, and a whole nightmare starts again.
cheers,
fsmunoz
What kind of dream world are you living in?
... Well I say, "FUCK THAT!""
And yet, brilliant thinkers, scientists, philosophers, politicians etc. have risen from the East. Why, every day in the US, there's some kind of revolt against Asians robbing 'intelligent' jobs from the West. Freedom is good in the hands of those who respect and value it - censorship tends to move people towards alternate avenues for enjoyment - and these are normally much better.
Please cite for me one, just one, "revolt" over Easterns taking jobs from Westerns. Censorship does nothing more than restrict alternative viewpoints. Nothing. And brilliant thinkers arise from the entire world - no matter what harsh or lavish (perhaps arguable) conditions they live in.
" And you can bet your dictator trodden ass
See I take language for granted. I live in a society that generally gives me the liberty of expressing my viewpoints with whatever language I use. And the last time I checked "fucking" wasn't violent.
And yet you can't see that you're being a hypocrite?? The problem is not with open relays etc.. most Easterners are peace loving, and wouldn't resort to violence or guns despite rising costs, unemployment etc. By nature, most of them are peaceable. I was once amazed at the depth of knowledge exhibited by Slashdotters on an article on MP3 on rifle magazines - so many seemed to know about guns, rifles, magazines, pitch, bore, etc.. it was a scary thought.
In fact the problem is with open relays. Guess what pal - contrary to your jaded viewpoint - bad people exist everywhere. They exist in the USA, they exist in China, they exist in Russia, they exist in France, they exist in Pakistan, and they exist in Canada. Bad people (and stupid people, obviously) are everywhere. But by your logic, if you leave a bottle of cleaning fluid on your floor and your neighbors 3 year old feeds it to your 1 year old who dies - well shit... thats the governments fault! SMTP for all its done is a dangerous protocol if not properly secured and administered. You share an unwritten responsibility when you run an email server to run it properly. Take some responsibility for yourself! As for most Easterners being "peacable". History would prove that Easterners are no more "peacable" than westerners. Oddly enough, when it comes to Easterners-vs-Easterners, they might even be considered worse.
And I tolerate your viewpoints just fine. The difference is, where I come from I'm allowed think and say "they are idiotic".
http://windows.scares.us
The only example you can think of is Al Capone? I think that tells us something. Also please note that they went after Capone for tax evasion because they were unable to try him for murder. Also keep in mind that Capone deliberately falsified his financial documents. There is a big difference between not paying your taxes and committing a felony to hide how much money you make and where it comes from.
At least I named an example. You didn't even do that. You just gave a statement, and offered no supporting evidence. However, you asked for more examples, so here they are:
William F. Wadsworth of Ohio failed to file federal income tax for 1995, 1996, and 1997. He was sentenced to a number of things, including "three years probation, with the first six months in home confinement with electronic monitoring".
Karl F. Kleinpaste of Pennsylvaniv was convicted by a jury to 30 months in prison for "willful failure to file income tax returns, income tax evasion, and making false statements in loan or credit applications".
Here's a good one that just happened in October of 2002... "Edward Bruce Baker of Florida was sentenced to 24 months in prison on two counts of failure to file federal income tax returns and was remanded to the custody of the Marshals at that time."
Barry Eugene Brooks was sentenced to 21 months in prison after a jury found him guilty of failing to file his 1995, 1996, and 1997 tax returns.
"On October 3, 2002, Gregory Bruce Zolman of Lake Ann, Michigan, was sentenced to 12 months in prison followed by 12 months supervised release. Zolman was arrested without incident on April 23, 2002, following a Grand Jury indictment on four counts of willfully failing to file a 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998 federal tax return."
Samuel F. DuPont, of Georgetown, Maryland, was sentenced on September 27, 2002, to twelve months in prison and one year of supervised release after pleading guilty last June on two counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns.
On September 16, 2002, Paul Soyk, of Sterling Heights, Michigan, a CPA who also has a Master of Taxation degree, was sentenced to five-months in prison, followed by five-months home confinement and two-years supervised release. Soyk was earlier convicted after a three-day trial on four counts of tax evasion for the years 1996 through 1999.
Are you noticing a trend here? I'm only half-way down THE FIRST PAGE, and I'm not going to continue because I'm tired of typing all this.
You've completely and utterly missed the point.
No, you have missed the point. I earn my money, and I own it until I deem it necessary to part with it. The government is taking something by threat of force that I earned, and belongs to me. If I did that, I'd be put in jail.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
> If you live in a culture, you play by their rules. If you don't like their rules, you leave, or try to work within the system in place to change the rules. It's as simple as that.
You seem to be saying that it is the people who are answerable to the government, and not the other way around.
Let's see whose thinking is most like yours...
America's Founding Fathers:
"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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,..."
Germany's Nationlist Socialist (Nazi) Party:
"Du bist nichts - dein Volk ist alles!" ["You are nothing - your people are everything!"]
I think it's frighteningly clear whose message you are repeating.
So now let's look at your earlier statement...
> > What if I lived in Pakistan and wasn't a Muslim (or Buddist, or whatever) and WANTED to look at porn, but couldn't because the government regulated my internet traffic?
> Move.
> The government represents the people. If the government has decreed that "porn is bad, we must block it," then that is the equivalent of society saying that porn is bad.
So if anyone thinks their rights and freedoms have been attacked, they should simply leave???
You know, before the Nazis actually started killing the Jews, they simply passed a lot of laws -- laws that said that, for the benefit of society, the practise of the Jewish faith was, to use your words, bad.
But the German people failed to rise up and stop what was happening, because they had been taught the same lessons as you, namely, that it was not the individual that was important, rather, it was society that mattered, and it was the government's job to decide what was best for society.
Of course, during that early period, there were also a lot of Jewish people fleeing the country. I guess they were just taking your advice...
Yeah...
You ever notice how they never say "Please help me to stop, I am so weak!" ?
No, it's always "Let's stop all of them, because some of them are too weak."
It comes down to responsibility. If you have it, then these silly things won't bother you.
If you lack it, then you deserve what you get. Evolution in action.
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
Singapore may be industrialized. It also has less people than Bangkok alone. They may be retard Americans, but ignorance is everywhere.
Good grief, please learn to how to quote properly.
Did it escape your notice that everyone else uses itallics to mark sections of text appropriately?
It's just tedious chore to work through your insane retoric without it, in fact, I don't think I can be bothered.
You are in need of several very serious clues.
And erm, why do you seem to think I'm an American? *boggle*
Perhaps the people running the child brothels aren't the people raising children well? You know, as in "not the same people even though they share a nationality"?
Ed, your post,
are you deliberately suggesting that asians are somehow morally deficient and that caucasians are somehow morally superior, or is that an unfortunate byproduct of your particular points?
should win the award for most idiotic of the day. Scottkin didn't say anything about asians as a race nor did he say a word about caucasians and the west. Nor did it even suggest what you said. YOU SUGGESTED IT, thus revealing your paranoia on your own subject, and a predetermination to play a race card. Unfortunately for you Scottkin wasn't even playing cards.
FYI The 'west' is the most racially diverse area on the planet and your post is reactionary to your own concerns about how the world views you. ScottKin could be of any race...
TCP is not UDP. Games run on UDP. Blocking UDP port 80 will not interfere with TCP port 80.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Sorry troll, but language on its own hardly rises to the level of "too violent". Bashing in heads with a baseball bat? Yes, that'd be "too violent". Using profanity to express one's vehement disagreement with dictatorial government? That's hardly even revolutionary.
most Easterners are peace loving, and wouldn't resort to violence or guns despite rising costs, unemployment etc.
Most westerners don't resort to violence either. This is a characteristic of people, not cultures. Most people don't want to hurt others.
I was once amazed at the depth of knowledge exhibited by Slashdotters on an article on MP3 on rifle magazines - so many seemed to know about guns, rifles, magazines, pitch, bore, etc.. it was a scary thought.
What are you talking about? There are firearms enthusiasts in every country in the world. Did you know they have guns in Thailand too? Did you know that asians are sometimes violent as well [cough]Pol Pot[cough]? Holding up your unrealisticly idealized version of "eastern culture" as superior is absurd.
Why, every day in the US, there's some kind of revolt against Asians robbing 'intelligent' jobs from the West.
What are you talking about? There's no "revolt" against asians here! There are complaints from whiny unemployed tech monkeys on occasion, but for the most part immigrants are welcome here. The US is a country populated almost entirely by immigrants and descendants of immigrants. I suspect a european trying to find work in (say) Japan would have a lot more trouble than an asian trying to find work in the US.
Freedom is good in the hands of those who respect and value it - censorship tends to move people towards alternate avenues for enjoyment - and these are normally much better.
Who decides which of the "avenues of enjoyment" are to be censored? And on what criteria to you base your unilateral declaration that the uncensored options are "normally much better"? Your arguments make sense assuming you have a perfect, enlightened dictator guiding you. But such a creature doesn't exist. You say "Freedom is good in the hands of those who respect and value it", but then go off the track and talk about the value of censorship, which is a restriction of freedom. Are you saying that having freedom curtailed makes one respect and value it more? Your points don't make sense. Pardon the cliche, but they reek of Orwellian double-speak: "censorship ensures freedom!", "Ignorance is safety!", "debate is violence!"
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Also, I think sex is seen a little differently in their culture. It's not so "sinful" as it is here, some might see it as a means of making some money to feed the family. While it's degrading, it's not necessarily so horrific. Then again, you'd have to be open to the fact that some cultures out there are drastically different than ours.
Sorry, I should have made my point a little more clear. A country with such a serious problem should be working harder to close down child brothels instead of dealing with late night gaming.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWIt was the British who basically started the widespread distribution of opium in China. And again, who are the main customers in Thailand for the child brothels? That's right, slightly well off middle aged men from the US and UK. How the hell did the parent get modded "insightful"?
to study the ancient martial arts of Judo and Placebo and school
Judo is not an "ancient" martial art. It was created around 1908.
Speaking as someone who *has* a kid, I don't mind if he has a machine in his bedroom. But hell would break loose if I tell him to shut it down at 10pm and he doesn't. It's my home, anyway. All I need is wait till he's deep asleep to get drunk.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
The time conversion on that? I'll have to make sure that any Thai players are on the opposite team when I'm playing warcraft etc.
10:00pm rolls around...
Thaidude has left the game
Thaichick has left the game
Thaipl8r hs left the game
Heck, I could time this to make sure I get at least one win in a day.
Chances are, you went to public schools, drive on public roads with a car that pollutes the public's air, have water, electricity and the mail delivered to your house, every day. How do you think the (GD, tyranical, POS, worthless) government pays for all this, advertising? If you want to live like a libertarian, move to Afghanistan, dude.
actually, i rather thought his post was flamebait myself, to be honest, but that's neither here nor there.
but consider: western / eastern generally parses to caucasian / asian, does it not? so maybe i was being paranoid, maybe not. i won't rule it out.
and "racially diverse" is kinda misleading: that could in fact mean any number of things.
ed
Based on my experience, the main effect will will be making some coppers very rich. Kids who want to play will still generally be able to do so. They will pay higher prices at Internet Cafes that make payoffs to the friendly neighbourhood police force.
Most of old Thai people even love fascist regime. They keep talking about the ex-fascist regime. This gov 've come from the election but it is ok even they are not the regime. They have fascism policy so a lot of people love them. Where people who talk about liberty are the dreamer but fascist and capital are so real.
/. with the evidence that I play MUD at the midnight.
Dr.Fascist should be proud that he can sell a lot of govenment-made computers with cheap M$ softwares inside and his national firewall which could block any web he want(maybe his boss).
Slashdot should be block too because bad Thai people post bad opinion against the gov.
I don't care about blocking as long as fascist don't send a police to kill me in my fxxxing bed room because I post my opinion on
I live in Thailand...
One of the reasons this was put into effect is because broadband access is way too expensive for non-businesses to afford. Registered game shops and cybercafes get special discounts otherwise they also can't afford to get broadband. So people who play online games never play at home.
Hmm, come to think of it, I guess this is also the reason broadband prices suddenly dropped.
Chances are, you went to public schools...
...drive on public roads with a car that pollutes the public's air...
...have water, electricity...
... and the mail delivered to your house, every day.
Which should be funded by local funds, gotten by local taxes from local citizens. The federal government has no place in local education.
Which should be funded by way of tolls. Tolls should be stopped when the road has been paid for. As far as air, when did anyone lay claim to air? Did we suddenly move to Mars where air is a luxury? The air is fine. If it wasn't, our average lifespan wouldn't be twice as long as it was a couple hundred years ago.
Water isn't taxed. I pay for my water, depending on my usage. If I didn't use any water, I wouldn't get a bill. Same thing with the electricity.
Which can, should, and have been privately funded. Ever hear of the Pony Express? Privately funded, and was successful until the Civil War started.
How do you think the (GD, tyranical, POS, worthless) government pays for all this, advertising? If you want to live like a libertarian, move to Afghanistan, dude.
If you want to live in a government controlled nightmare, move to China. I'll stay here where we at least PRETEND to still be a free country.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
I actually checked many of those examples you linked to. Almost without exception they dealt with people who had consciously defrauded the government by hiding assets, etc. I'll state it again, there is a difference between not paying your taxes and filing false information.
If you as an individual just refuse to pay your taxes, the government will institute legal action against you. They will attempt to seize property and bank accounts to get the money. Only as a last ditch effort, when you have broken the law of the land, will they arrest you.
No, you have missed the point. I earn my money, and I own it until I deem it necessary to part with it. The government is taking something by threat of force that I earned, and belongs to me. If I did that, I'd be put in jail.
Well suck it up. You owe it. I know you don't want to owe it. Neither the government, nor I care.
a) should the state governments get most of the power?
b) should the federal government get most of the power?
Additionally, there is the question of how much control the collective government (local, state and federal) should have over its citizens and property. It is certainly possible to privatize roads (tollways) and even mail (FedEx, UPS, Airborne). Of course, in situations of unavoidable monopolies (such as utilities), the government must control and regulate them (which was also written into the original Constitution). Libertarians don't advocate the complete removal of government (see anarchists), they only want the government to revert back to the way the Constitution had perscribed it to be: as small as possible.
What's your point? That the Eastern-mind approach that values state cencorship may work in a Western world that doesn't value it?
Tip for spineless parents: if you have a kid, and you want to cut down the game playing? Shut the machine down: "It's my computer, and I'm shutting it down. Touch it and I will take away the game CD." Pretty easy if you're not a gutless weenie.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Game servers, both local and overseas, will be blocked from 10.00pm to 6.00am daily from July 15 to Sept 30,
Without the annoying game traffic, it means more bandwidth available for surfing pr0n sites.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
It's one of the rights it keeps for itself. A monopoly on the use of violence within a geographical area is a salient attribute of governments. What government doesn't have its own legal (by its own definition, mind you) agents of violence?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
You're wrong about "eastern values" bringing opium and drug abuse... what actually happened was that the British were the world's largest drug cartel at the time via their India Trading Company. They were exporting opium around the world, commercializing it.
Much of this opium was traded with China in return for silk, tea, and other such items, even after England made opium illegal, it was perfectly legal and encouraged for them to sell it to addicted Chinese.
Indeed, when the Chinese made opium illegal in 1839, the British went to war with them, defeating them badly and imposing humiliating conditions on the Chinese, and the opium started flowing again. Hong Kong became part of the British Empire as a direct result of this, the "Opium War" -- a very shameful part of British history.
Do a google search on "Opium War" or "history of China" and read about it for yourself.
Careful who you flame for morality reasons, the west has exploited the east for a very long time. Who do you think it is that goes to those sex cities in Bangkok, Pattaya, and Patong Beach? It isn't the locals, I'll tell you that, it's the farangs (westerners) on a sex vacation.
I've seen western men in their 60's walking hand in hand with Thai girls (and boys... and boy ladies) that could be their grandchildren, but I've never seen Thai's doing the same (there or here).
Sorry, the Constitution is a dead letter. Say it with me now: "The 10th Amendment is in the dustbin of history."
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Just check out "Death By Government" for a reality check (that is, some truth, not your cherished superstitions).
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Why did this post modded insightful when his argument is not based on accurate information?
Eastern values brought Opium dens and drug abuse to America in the 1920's and hasn't stopped pumping the world with Heroin and other drugs (remember, Afghanistan is technically an EASTERN nation and has Opium as it's most profitable export).
Opium was first brought to the East by Westerners. British people exchanged it with silk produced in China back in 19c despite the prohibition of opium trade by the Chinese government.
Radical elements in Eastern relgions (Radical Islamic Jihadists) brought death to over 5,000 innocent people from many nations in New York on Sept. 11th, 2001. Radical Islamic Jihadists want an Islamic World - if needed, by force or extermination of "infidels".
Well, Islam is considered as a Western religion by the academia, since it shares its root with the Judeo-Christian religions, or so I learned in a college religion course.
Please don't feed the trolls.
I actually checked many of those examples you linked to. Almost without exception they dealt with people who had consciously defrauded the government by hiding assets, etc. I'll state it again, there is a difference between not paying your taxes and filing false information.
You are lying. Those were DIRECT QUOTES FROM THE IRS, ON THE IRS.GOV WEBSITE. Not only that, the page title is "Significant Case Summaries: Nonfiler Enforcement". That doesn't say "Signicant Case Summaries: Fraud Enforcement". That page is here. Either you're lying, or you can't read. You want me to print the entire list?
Well suck it up. You owe it. I know you don't want to owe it. Neither the government, nor I care.
Quote from the Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: Clause 4: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. The 16th Amendment changed that to allow for a "graduated" income tax, that is CLEARLY UN-Constitutional. You obviously do NOT know what you're talking about because you give no examples, no evidence, and no intelligent points to discuss and argue in a civil manner. I gave you multiple examples from the IRS dictating their powers, by way of specific cases with dates, names, and time sentenced, and you say the equivalent of "nuh uh!".
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
That's ludicrous. You've obviously taken one too many American civics courses.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
So here I am presented with the notion that the Jews killed themselves! And that blacks discriminated against themselves!
No, the idea of "The People" as some abstract entity, embodied in "The State", is _evil_.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
You pick and choose whatever examples help you win your argument and disregard those that don't quite fit your theory.
Jesus, pal. You might as well paint a big bullseye right on your head and carry a sign that says "chump" on it. You're falling for an awful lot of trolls, here.
As someone with quite a bit of experience with Malaysia, I can tell you that parents by in large have no problem ordering their children to stay away. Indeed the families (Native Malay, Chinese, and Indian alike) are paid much more deference and are fair more overbearing in their children's lives than here in the West.
It is likely that relative smothering and rigid expectation that leads children in such countries to seek an unsupervised outlet such as gaming, in which they can do whatever they want.
Last time I was in KL, I saw an Indian father beat the piss out of his daughter on the street in front of hotel guards, a bus full of tourists, and any number of other people. Apparently he was pissed off that she was going away for the weekend with an Indian guy on our trip to a jungle park.
The daughter didn't cry (she seemed used to it), and the mother muttered "family business" in English as she walked passed... everyone was nonplussed, and no one interfered.
Certainly it isn't all this way, but in general, authoritarian parents (compared to what we're used to here) are the rule, and thus an outlet that allows full freedom is likely quite appealing, thus the popularity of such games in many parts of Asia.
That's the point. It isn't pornographic. The flowery description makes it appear so, but really it is just two girls in swim suits, sitting by a pool.
According to you, that makes the ad departments of every clothing seller 'extreme perverts'. Right.
Look through any clothing ad or website, and tell me how the swimsuit and underwear ads differ significantly from the opening pages of a porn website.
A girl or two in scanty clothing, smiling into the camera.
Without looking at each and every image, and the context that it is in, you cannot determine if it is porn or not. And even then, that only relies on the reviewers subjective thoughts.
A woman, laying topless on the beach.
Porn?
Or a simple vacation on the coast of Spain, and there happened to be a topless woman sitting behind you.
> There is no country on earth ([stupid trollish comment]) that would do such a thing.
No country would kill and massacre it's citizens like that? Could I move to this alternate dimension where you live, or is there only room for your ego?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Here's a very interesting paper on multiculturalism with an excellent bibliography should you want to look into it further.
You want stats about ethnic diversity? Compare China (.118), Japan(.01), and Korea (.004) to Canada (.75) and the USA (.50) (a higher number indicates greater diversity: it's the chance of two random people being of different ethnicity).
The point is that Canada and the US are very diverse because they're centres of ongoing immigration, even though they deal with it differently (mosaic VS melting pot: see the previous link on multiculturalism).
Ok, this is the last time I'll have to educate you in basic logic.
You are lying. Those were DIRECT QUOTES FROM THE IRS, ON THE IRS.GOV WEBSITE. Not only that, the page title is "Significant Case Summaries: Nonfiler Enforcement". That doesn't say "Signicant Case Summaries: Fraud Enforcement". That page is here. Either you're lying, or you can't read. You want me to print the entire list?
Obviously you're completely illiterate. I went to the EXACT PAGE you linked to. I looked at the examples you gave. I'm not going to waste time listing all of them, so let's look at the first two you cited.
You wrote:
William F. Wadsworth of Ohio failed to file federal income tax for 1995, 1996, and 1997. He was sentenced to a number of things, including "three years probation, with the first six months in home confinement with electronic monitoring".
Oooh, the big scary governments being all oppressive. What you cut out from your quote, however, is this:
The indictment further charges that he willfully attempted to evade his federal income taxes for 1996 and 1997 by engaging in additional affirmative conduct of: (1) cashing business receipt checks and not depositing receipts into bank accounts; (2) paying for business expenses by currency, or by money orders and cashier's checks purchased with currency, or by having customers send payments to business creditors; and (3) paying for personal expenses and assets with currency and with money orders and cashier's checks purchased with currency.
A bit fraudulent, wouldn't you say? Obviously at this point you feel a little foolish, so I'll only do one more to spare you some embarassment.
Your next example:
Karl F. Kleinpaste of Pennsylvaniv was convicted by a jury to 30 months in prison for "willful failure to file income tax returns, income tax evasion, and making false statements in loan or credit applications". [irs.gov]
I don't even need to quote more about that one, it says it right in that part YOU WROTE. Note the words "evasion" and "false". Sounds like it's more than simple nonpayment, eh?
Most of the others have some aspect of fraud involved. Even the one or two that don't don't really give much information, so there's a good chance some evasion was practiced there, otherwise the IRS could just seize assets.
So let's look back at what you wrote:
Not only that, the page title is "Significant Case Summaries: Nonfiler Enforcement". That doesn't say "Signicant Case Summaries: Fraud Enforcement".
Ohhh, I see now. As a slashdotter you make snap judgements based on titles rather than reading the rest.
That page is here. Either you're lying, or you can't read.
As I've already disproved your point (which wasn't hard to do, considering you yourself gave the link to the page yourself--it's there in black and white), we are left with two options; you're either a liar, or a fool. Or both.
Oooh, hit submit too fast, forgot to disprove your other idiotic contention:
Quote from the Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: Clause 4: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. [house.gov] The 16th Amendment changed that to allow for a "graduated" income tax, that is CLEARLY UN-Constitutional.
As you've obviously flunked 3rd grade let me explain it to you; Constitutional amendments are part of the Constitution. THEREFORE THEY CAN'T BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, CAN THEY?
You obviously do NOT know what you're talking about because you give no examples, no evidence, and no intelligent points to discuss and argue in a civil manner. I gave you multiple examples from the IRS dictating their powers, by way of specific cases with dates, names, and time sentenced, and you say the equivalent of "nuh uh!".
How embarassing for you, making a contention that your own source material disproves, then seeing your disproven words quoted again and again. Now why don't you go back and read it again; don't read through it too fast, give yourself a chance to absorb it. Sound out the large words, maybe then you'll understand them.
It's really very simple. The Government decides that I owe them money. They tell me how much money I owe them. If I refuse to pay this money, they will take it by force, one way or another. They will seize bank accounts, garnish wages, or come with guns and take my property directly from my posession. They are the only institution that can do that. If I sent you a letter saying I owed you x amount of money, you would laugh. If I attempted to collect that from you, by any means, you would vigorously defend it. The only difference is that the government decided it was legal for them to do it.
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" -- Kosh
thanks for the links; they look promising but i wanted to respond prior to examining them in greater detail.
i agree that canada and the US are necessarily more diverse as centers of immigration; heck, my own parents are immigrants.
one thing, though: we clearly disagree re: whether western/eastern can be parsed to caucasian/asian. that's fine. however, solely in the context of the parent post and its parent, that seemed to be implied. perhaps i was misreading, and i freely admit that may have been the case.
ed
You are certainly right on one count. I'm glad you brought up China, because I didn't want to be the first. There is definitely an example of an Eastern country willing to "SOLVE them (problems) ruthlessly at little expense. For instance, the problem with a large group of citizens expressing disagreement with government policies. Just shoot them or run over them with tanks, that'll solve that problem.
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" -- Kosh
Reminds me of the UK treatment of pubs during the second war. The government introduced 11pm closing time so that people wouldn't be too tired/hungover to work the next day.
I wonder how much this is about protection of children - and how much about productivity. There are few activities like multiplayer gaming to keep you up all night night after night...
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
Yeah, I thought he must be a troll, but when I checked his history, he had positive raitings on all his posts, and a number of 'friends' who seem normal, which lead me to assume he was just a moron.
/. should have a maxium number of allowed troll posts in a given period (to give an example, say 30 days). More than 5 troll posts in 30 days and your Karma get's taken down to -50 (no matter how many positive posts you've made).
It's hard to tell, either the normal seeming people who modded him as a friends are all morons, or the people who modded him previously are all morons, or he's a moron.
Fortunately his posts been modded down appropriately now in any case (this wasn't true when I was posting however).
I think
As you've obviously flunked 3rd grade let me explain it to you; Constitutional amendments are part of the Constitution. THEREFORE THEY CAN'T BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, CAN THEY?
ANY addition to the Constitution has to be approved by the legislature. The Legislature is SUPPOSED to review an Amendment to make sure it's Constitutional in its direct, and indirect consequences. I could almost understand if it was an addition that had indirect contradictions, but it has glaring ones. It was Unconstitutional when it was proposed, it was Unconstitutional when it was approved, and it remains Unconstitutional today. Period, end of story. You're pathetic whining about Constitutional Amendments not being Constitutional proves only that you're the idiot that doesn't know any history. Obviously you can drink alcohol, can't you? Yet that was an Amendment back in 1920's.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
well actually, a representitive government represents the people.
what makes you think that this government is representitive?
OK, we'll go through it step by step for you, and I'll even use different examples since you seem to have something against Mr. Wadsworth from Ohio, and Mr. Kleinpaste of Pennsylvania. I'll even use short examples that even your feeble brain MIGHT be able to comprehend.
On October 1, 2002, Edward Bruce Baker of Altamonte Springs, Florida was sentenced to 24 months in prison on two counts of failure to file federal income tax returns and was remanded to the custody of the Marshals at that time. During 1994, Baker received gross income of approximately $231,339 and in 1995 received approximately $281,824. For both of these years, Baker failed to file returns. Baker was found guilty by a Jury on July 22, 2002.
That is the entirety of the section devoted to Mr. Baker of Florida. No Fraud. No Laundering. Only failing to file income taxes, twice. One year in PRISON for each time he failed to file federal income taxes. Let me put it this way. Fail to file for 1 year = 1 year in prison.
On November 20, 2002, in the Eastern District of Texas, Barry Eugene Brooks was sentenced to 21 months in prison after a jury found him guilty of failing to file his 1995, 1996 and 1997 tax returns. According to the Indictment filed on December 4, 2001, Brooks was a self-employed with his principal place of business in Jacksonville, Cherokee County, Texas.
That again, is the entirety of his section. No Fraud. No laundering. No murder, rape, pillaging, or other idiocy. He was found guilty of "failing to file his 1995, 1996, and 1997 tax returns" and got "21 months in prison". An average of 7 months per year for not filing. Again, failing to file for 1 year = 7 months in prison.
On March 21, 2002, Dr. Joseph Fanfan, Jr., pled guilty to failing to file federal income tax returns for 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997. According to the indictment charged on October 11, 2001, Dr. Fanfan earned gross income of approximately $150,956, $199,306, $221,005 and $266,452 in 1994-1997, respectively. Dr. Fanfan was sentenced on July 26, 2002, receiving 60 months probation.
60 months probation isn't prison, but it's one step away from it. 4 years of failing to file = 60 months probation.
On April 29, 2002, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Ernest Clyde Swisher, a Missouri attorney, was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for failing to file federal income tax returns for 1995, 1996 and 1997. Swisher received nearly $1.4 million in the three year period.
In January 2002, a jury deliberated approximately one hour after four days of trial. During the trial, Swisher and his attorney argued numerous "tax-protest" defenses, including that there was no statutory requirement to file income taxes. During the sentencing hearing, the Judge expressed that it is important that the public recognize the failure of "tax-protester" arguments and that the maximum sentence that he imposed should reflect as much.
Just so you don't lose count, that's 36 months for failing to file for 3 years. Once again, 1 year of failing to file = 1 year in prison.
Maybe you'd be interested in this page. I summarise (it's a graph, few words for reading):
Fiscal Year 2003 (9 months) as of 6/30/2003
Prosecution Recommendations: 223
Indictments / Informations: 160
Convictions: 172
Incarceration Rate (may include prison time, halfway house, home confinement, or a combination thereof): 82.6%
Avg. Months to Serve in Prison: 45
Avg. Months to Serve (all sentences): 43
Fiscal Year 2002
Prosecution Recommendations: 269
Indictments / Informations: 233
Convictions: 227
Incarceration Rate (may include prison time, halfway house, home confinement, or a combination thereof): 88.1%
Avg. Months to Serve in Prison: 45
Avg. Months to Serve (all sentences): 49
Fiscal Year 2001
Prosecution Recommendations: 244
Indictments / Informations:
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Now if Internaiton Ragnarok wasn't such a fucking joke this story wouldn't piss me off.
the kRO server has all kinds of neat stuff and all we get here in the US is fucking table scraps. I would like to say Fuck iRO, no.. iRO.. the people there were ok.. no.. you know what.. Fuck gravity, fuck them hard and fuck them well.
They are such fucking rat bastards that the EULA says i can't speak poorly of iRO or Gravity or they will ban my acount, thus the anonymous post. Are all korean game company's such rat bastards? I mean fucking shit, the EULA on iRO makes M$ look like fucking saints!
ANY addition to the Constitution has to be approved by the legislature. The Legislature is SUPPOSED to review an Amendment to make sure it's Constitutional in its direct, and indirect consequences. I could almost understand if it was an addition that had indirect contradictions, but it has glaring ones. It was Unconstitutional when it was proposed, it was Unconstitutional when it was approved, and it remains Unconstitutional today.
Oh ye of little understanding. The section on Constitutional amendments is clear. Here it is, QUOTED IN ITS ENTIRETY:
Article V The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
Doesn't say anything about Constitutionality, does it? It's very vague, and intentionally so, so as to give the federal and state legislatures a degree of freedom. Damned inconvenient how many times I've disproved your contentions, isn't it?
You're pathetic whining about Constitutional Amendments not being Constitutional proves only that you're the idiot that doesn't know any history.
First of all, that's "your", not "you're". Secondly I'm the one who argued that Constitutional amendments ARE Constitutional. You're the one who said otherwise. Sure you want to throw words like "idiot" around when you make so many mistakes in one sentence?
> The government represents the people In Pakistan, it doesnt. The army seized power in '99..
> Placebo? Is that the art of convincing your enemy you hit him really without actually touching him?
No, no, that's aikido.
Virg
That's not how it works. An ammendment can reverse entirely what the constitution says. A good exampe is the 21st amendment, which repealed the 18th. Before the 18th, it was constitional for a state/county/municipality to allow alochol production/sale/transportation. Between the 18th and 21st it was unconstitutional for any state/county/municipality to allow alcohol production/sale/transportation. After the 21st, it was again constitutional to allow this.
-no broken link
I can't decide if you're amazingly intelligent, or obscenely stupid. Although it hurts my head to think of it, maybe both.
.'' If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them. ~ Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper #21
It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, ``in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four
In the end, it may not matter what you or I think about the 16th amendment and its Constitutionality (as relating to the intentions and purposes of the original Constitution and the Founding Fathers), because there's a movement now that's gaining quite a bit of steam to repeal it anyway. My question to you is simple. Why would the legislature ever want to repeal a Constitutional Amendment? Because it isn't consistent with the original meaning of the Constitution? Because it's simply too much trouble to enforce (like Prohibition)? Because it's just plain silly in these times? Just think about that for a minute, and ask yourself why Prohibition was passed in the first place, then ask yourself why the Income Tax amendment was passed, especially since it contradicted a previous article.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
"I'm the one who argued that Constitutional amendments ARE Constitutional."
Good, now that you've declared yourself as an idiot, we can save some less enduring readers the time and effort to deduce this on their own.
You have been given point and evidence on no less than a half dozen occasions, and the best rebuttal I've seen come from you is a spelling correction.
It's like talking to a brick wall.
That's my point. The 18th amendment was passed, even though it was stupid, and didn't make much sense... just like the 16th. My point is that a few of the amendments to the Constitution are stupid, ill-conceived, and are passed even though they make no sense. In the case of the 16th amendment, it was passed even though it contradicted Article I, section 9, clause 4.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Just one point:
> Substance abuse - regardless of whether or not that substance is legal or illegal - can and does destroy tens of thousands of lives every year.
The point I make is that the key in the term "substance abuse" is the word abuse, not substance. All of the problems you describe related to drugs stem from the abuse of drugs, not the drugs themselves. That's the first, last and only point. The original poster stated, "drugs do not generally cause a great deal of harm in and of themselves" and without the "abuse" part, he's correct. The problem isn't the drugs, it's the abusers.
Virg
You're missing the point. The fact that a demagogue government (they're all like that, but some pass laws that are worse than others) is making a universal judgement and applying it to everyone in the country indiscriminately of whether they want such "protection" or not. Now that's worth condemning.
And when something is worth comdemning, you use all the methods in the book. "Facts" are not very powerful instruments, they're too easy to demonstrate to be false. FUD and outright lies are much more powerful -- witness SCO and the RIAA.
So, are you just going to sit back and accept the oppression of a people, or do something about it? Well hopefully the latter, but each to his own method, and critical humour based upon threadbare "fact" is a good one.
To use your own analogy, what if you were a non-Christian living in the US and wanted to smoke Marijuana? What an outrage!
====================
Being Christian or not in the US is not relevant. Marijuana laws or for that matter ALL laws are not based on any religious doctrine. Religion has no legislative input. Europe spent a great deal of effort separating church and state over the last few hundred years specifically so that religious organizations could not dictate policy in their own interest.
if you want to argue for or against a law in the US, quoting religious commandments or passages will get you nowhere. Religion has no place in lawmaking.
I think to assume that eastern is asian is narrow minded and as racist as assuming western means US...The basis for western civ is in fact greco/roman, while I would conclude the eastern basis is actually mid-eastern and not asian in the least.
1) Waco Texas 1993.
2) Ruby Ridge Montana 1992.
3) BATF shoots collector on faulty tip 1971
4) BATF roughs-up pregnant lady during "questioning - she has a miscarriage - 1994
5) Numerous people on death row that were innocent or wrongly convicted...
There are many instances where the government has killed its citizens. Either deliberately or otherwise, and what happens? Is there a massive investigation where the culprits and or system that failed or enabled the occurrences are found and fixed? No.
Anyone here who blindly puts faith into anyone or anything else to keep them safe and watch out for them is an idiot. Period.
Its fine to have*hopes* that others will do the right thing with your best interest at heart - but the likelihood that this will happen is very slim.
*you* need to be responsible for *you* and all that you hold dear. You need to watch out for your rights, and ideally others as well.
As for the argument that the people in government *ARE US* - take a look more closely at who the "us" really is. Take a look at the financial requirements to get into a high level office.
Here are some questions that you might want to ask and look at the answers of, they are not rhetorical - and the truth about them will make you sick:
How many people in cabinet level position and above (including the presidential seat) previously or *currently* hold positions within oil companies?
How many people are married to oil company executives, or companies that directly benefit from government projects in the oil area (Bechtel anyone)?
How many people in congress ever worked in a normal job - like a "bakery" as opposed to how many people have never had any other job?
What about the "regular people" that are multi generational congress critters? (Gore family anyone?)
You really need to do some research on what you are talking about.
You are the EXACT little blind fool that our nifty democratic government likes to have as a constituent.
You have no idea what you're talking about - and have the mental fortitude and attention span of a flea, therefore you will conveniently forget the wrongs, and turn a blind eye to the corruption and the BS that comes out through the US propaganda machine daily.
What really needs to happen is more people need to get up off their ass, get out of the "Bakery" and run for office.
What am I doing? I am already working on my political career. I want to be elected into office not because I have millions of dollars to throw at a campaign - but because I have the interest of my country at heart. I intend to run for office - and I intend to be totally open with myself and every citizen around me. I intend to do my best to clean up the toilet of a government we currently live under.
My wife is from another country, and she is disgusted by how "not really free" the U.S. is. She was under the illusion that this was a free country - and she constantly is made aware of how limited and controlled our lives really are. "This isn't a free country - I come from a free country" is what she says.
I don't want anyone to think that this is not a free country - and I want to live in a world without fear.... but how can you control 400 million people unless you keep them fearful. Certainly you would not be able to rule over 400 million "Free" citizens.
Stupid != unconstitutional. What is so hard to understand about this?
My point is that a few of the amendments to the Constitution are stupid, ill-conceived, and are passed even though they make no sense. In the case of the 16th amendment, it was passed even though it contradicted Article I, section 9, clause 4.
Alright, you still don't quite get the point. It's called an amendment because it amends--it's an amendment precisely because an amendment is what's required to change some aspect of Constitutional law. Wherever did you get the idea that amendments aren't allowed to contradict anything in the main body of the document?
certain of the vices as they are often called, have an associated rise in crime in areas where these activities take place.
Take alchol for instance in many towns bar districts we have an increase in other sorts of crime associated with alchol, such as fighting, indecent exposure, vandalism, DUI, etc... other of the vice most likly would have similar negitive effects on the community, However I feel that these side effect crimes are less dangerous than the criminals that are created by prohibition of thes activities
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I'm not saying the guy who shot a person over counter-strike was driven mad by the game. He was clearly already an unbalanced individual, ready to kill. That doesn't mean all-night internet gaming centres are necessarily safe, though. Sick people are out there, and they do kill each other. In North America, cafes are a minority, so violence is rare. In a nation like Thailand where people aren't playing at home, across the safety of a phone line, it may be a social concern to have truly vast numbers of people pretending to kill and depriving themselves of sleep. Is the freedom to game in the middle of the night really worth lives? That's a question for a nation to answer, and answer early. Once the habit has been established it can't be undone.
As for the home ban, it's ridiculous to imagine that one could shut down all the all-night centres in a nation where internet access is rare and the cafe culture is desired without speakeasies sprouting up. If one decides to shut down the public centres, one must ban the service at night.
Since Counterstrike is by far the most popular game at Net Cafes and LAN arcades in Singapore, parents' groups here called on the Government to ban Half-Life sometime in the 90's. This was put into effect for a few days, before an outcry by gamers and the software industry brought the Government back to its senses. The ban was overturned.
Imagine that. A bad Government policy was reversed by public action. I love the smell of freedom in the morning. And that's the fresh ground real stuff, not the type you get from a Constitution that is being ignored. Yes, I am a Singaporean.
Seriously, knowing politics in Thailand, this is just grandstanding by one political faction or another. There will be some sturm und drang, and everything will return to normal. The American readers should be quite familiar with such maneuvers.
I notice there is a highly-moderated post about how drug offenders are shot on sight in Singapore. That is simply false, but it is interesting to me that it could even be considered plausible. However, death by hanging is mandatory for drug traffickers in Singapore once they are arrested and convicted in a court of law. Due process is not limited to any one country.
You'd be surprised about that. I lived in the Philippines a few years ago, when Counter-Strike was just gaining popularity. Most people can't afford a computer, much less an internet connection (much less broadband), and so they go to "internet cafes" which are basically 40 computers set up on a LAN with CS. The authorities had to patrol the internet cafes during school hours because kids wouldn't go to school, they'd just game all day. It's interesting in Thailand they're focusing on a different time to worry about.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Thailand does have an interesting situation. I, myself, lived in Thailand for many years. The gamming/plasy station cafe idea is extramly popular there with the youth. In 1/2 mile radios from my little apartment i KNEW of 4 internet/gaming cafe and 1 playstation cafe... and i didn't even live right in the city. Computer equipment is very cheap over there.. and all software can easily be bought pirated and exteremly cheap. If i ever had the need to send an email i had to make sure i was in and out before around 2:00pm when kids (between 9 and 15 usually) got out of school and filled the places. and the same children do this every day.. all day if there is no school.. in fact many parents will actually use these cafe's as a way to get rid of their children so they don't have to deal with them at home espcially if the child refuses to go to school.. i can see why the government is trying to do something, but i don't know if it will help or not.. the children might not be doing anything *usefull* but it's better than gang participation or drug use. In that 1/2 mile from my place i also knew of 3 places in which cocain was being sold and the police being bribed not to do anything about it. perhaps the issuse of parenting needs to be addressed more than the issue of too much gaming.
And NEVER trust the government, because they're the only group that can legally kill you and everyone you ever met "for the common good". I'd rather trust people concerned with money than people that could kill me for not trusting them... and get away with it. At least I agree that money is good. I definitely don't agree with killing me.
Not all governments can do this. In fact, most can't. Sure, they can break the law, but so can anyone else.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Step 1. Outlaw guns.
Saddam Hussein never outlawed guns. In fact, one of the last things his government did was encourage people to go out and buy guns.
It didn't seem to stop him. You gun nuts are idiots if you think the banning of guns or whatever is a necessary precursor to totalitarianism.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
No flame-bait, just cold, hard facts.
If you can't deal with them, that's your own problem, not mine.
"Eastern" includes Asia and a number of countries in the MIDDLE EAST. Get your facts correct.
It's a shame that people feel the need to retreat into their own onanistic shells when the obvious facts are pointed out to them under the guise of ethnicity.
ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
You know, this says something about the Thai government that they claim their reason for the curfew is "children play too many games", and then basically restrict everyone's access. Kinda sounds like they consider all citizens to be children. Typical military dictatorship nonsense.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Just check out "Death By Government" for a reality check (that is, some truth, not your cherished superstitions)
"Death by Government" deals with general genocide, wars, etc. We here were especially focusing in religion motivated persecutions. I wasn't even refering to religion based *wars*, but simply to persecution and murdering due to religious intolerance, with the appproaval of the Religious Leaders.
As for my cherished superstitions, I think that I'll hold to them, since they are based on reading and studying more than one best-seller book. I'm not denying the value of the book per se, but ti vuew it as the holder of truth if a bit naive.
cheers,
fsmunoz
Amendment != Revision. What's so hard to understand about this?
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
sorry about that; i was clearly in error.
ed
If you do, it would confirm my supposition. "For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." Nice posts my friend.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
> It's all very well saying it's about abuse but where does experimentation end and abuse start?
Answer that question about alcohol, and you'll get to my point. At what level of drinking does abuse start? You seem to imply that using a drug for pleasure necessarily develops into an addiction. Can one smoke pot, for example, without becoming addicted? Can one use cocaine socially? With current laws, no. In the absence of those laws? Who knows?
> After all, it's not like a crack addict is able to make rational choices is it?
Nor the alcoholic. See above.
Virg
It CAN equal a revision. Good God, read the freaking amendments, some of them DO contradict things that are in the main body of the Constitution.
But I guess all those lawyers and supreme court justices and presidents and legislators and law professors are wrong, and you're right.
> You keep making my point for me. Alcohol is legal yet does irrepairable damage to thousands every year. Other drugs, that are currently deemed illegal, do the same. So how would legalising or decriminalising them help?
How does this support your point? Your question is, how would decriminalizing currently illegal drugs help? My answer is that the vast majority of problems caused by drug use stem from its illegal nature. Of the seven bullet points that were presented in this thread, six are as a direct result of the illegality of the drug, so removing that criminality would, to a large extent, reduce the problems associated with using it.
> Put another way, I'm not saying that cocaine is bad so it should be illegal, I'm saying that it's negative aspects won't suddenly all fade away if it were a legal drug.
See above. The negative aspects of cocaine use are exactly the same as the negative aspects of alcohol use, in terms of inherent health risks and addictive nature. But cocaine has the added onus of illegality. When's the last time you read about someone dying from tainted alcohol? How many alcohol deals gone bad result in shootings? How many turf wars over alcohol distribution have you read about lately? How many casual alcohol users are currently spending time in prison? An awful lot of this very thing happened when alcohol was criminalized (Al Capone was a rum runner, remember?) and these problems just compounded the problems inherent in alcohol, and the number of alcoholics in the U.S. actually fell after Prohibition ended, because people could seek help without fear they'd wind up in the big house. I find little reason to believe that cocaine would be any different.
> Remember, I'm contesting the original poster's statement that "drugs do not generally cause a great deal of harm in and of themselves", which to me is patently not true.
Your statement has been and continues to be overbroad. There are large numbers of drugs in the world that can be (and are) abused, from diuretics to acetaminophen. I suspect you're singling out recreational use of intoxicants, although I'm not sure why, but even if I go along with that and narrow your statement to match, it's still misguided. The drugs themselves are habit forming, but as alcohol proves, that's not sufficient to ensure abuse, as there a more than a thousand non-addicted alcohol users for every alcoholic in the U.S. alone. The reason such a large number of illegal drug users are addicted is because one must have a compelling reason to use illegal drugs, or it's not worth the risk. It is my contention that these people will get hooked on drugs whether they're illegal or not, but (again, as Prohibition proved) decriminalizing currently illegal drugs will not cause everyone to run out and promptly get addicted, and it will reduce a large portion of the problems that drug abusers currently face, thereby reducing the chances that they'll get killed or incarcerated before they can get help.
Virg
It CAN equal a revision. Good God, read the freaking amendments, some of them DO contradict things that are in the main body of the Constitution.
Which ones contradict the main body of the constitution, and how?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
OMG.. lame moderation here. Where is the Flamebait response mod? I make a clear point about a FLAMEBAIT parent and this is what I get?
I come from a mixed family. My mother is ethnic Chinese from Malaysia, and was quite controlling for the duration of my childhood. I don't dispute that Asian children often yearn for more freedom, not do I dispute that Net Cafes and their ilk are an outlet for this yearning.
What I do take exception to is the chorus of 'tyranny!' and 'oppression!' from people who have neither been exposed to Asian society, nor known what goes on in the Net Cafes there. These rules, while they may seem draconian to some, are actually meant to protect children from what in Asia is an unregulated, often seedy business that draws the worst sorts of people for impressionable kids to consort with (gamblers, petty criminals, recruiters for organized crime, etc.)
I've taken my cousin to Net Cafes, and we've been allowed to light cigarettes, drink beer, and take narcotics. Not that we did any drugs, but the fact that such things were allowed, and in some cases PROVIDED by the establishments makes Net Cafes in Asian countries an entirely different animal than here. If these sorts of Cafes existed in Canada or the United States, parents' groups would be similarly outraged and there would be a massive cry for regulation or outright banning of the cafes.
It's not children's freedoms that are being shut down. The government of Thailand is trying to curtail a possible trouble-spot by imposing these curfews. I personally would opt for licensing of cafes, with regular inspections to ensure that a child-friendly environment was promoted (or that no individuals under the legal drinking/smoking age were allowed in cafes in which either are provided).