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Senator Carper Calls for Tax on Online Porn
Better-living-thru-taxes writes "Senator Tom Carper (D-Del) is calling for a 25% tax on all internet pornograpy. The money is to help police fight online child pornographers. 'Carper says the bill will keep kids away from X-rated material.'"
What is the fixation with sex? Why would a child seeing two consenting adults having sex "corrupt" them. Sex is a natural thing that happens between two people who like each other a lot. It's nothing
to be shy about and really, rather than demonising it, we should be celebrating it. It's one of the activities that transcends all cultures on this planet and that is universally enjoyed.
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad and that pornography is somehow immoral. I don't know how they reached that conclusion, after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality.
I just think that Children are not as vulnerable as these people make out. As young as twelve or thirteen I was viewing pornography because I was curious and felt a drive to seek out such material. Far from damaging my psyche, it made me a lot less nervous about my sexuality. I look back and see that period of my life as an important part of my sexual development.
I'm sick of the "What about the children?" being used as a front to foist laws upon on us. This law isn't designed to protect our children, it's a law that takes the first bold step in pushing the Republican party's religious mantra on those who do not want and care about it.
Without wanting to be flame-bait, the Republican part engages in what I call "henry ford" freedom:
You can have any freedom you want, as long as it's Republican. The essence of freedom is about allowing people to do something you don't personally agree with. You may not agree with abortion or gay marriage but believing in freedom is about having the maturity to realize that the people who are gay or have abortions are consenting adults and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
Simon.
nice republican rant... although you failed to point out the basis of this article is that a democratic senator is pushing for this legislation. it seems the democratic party has been at the forefront of cencorship this past decade (ie clinton, lieberman, carter, etc), so blaming the republican party is not accurate.
Aren't there constitutional issues here? It seems odd to have a situation where the IRS decides what is and what isn't pornography.
They could tax Empornium for 100% and it will still be free!
He's just voting to increase his own taxes.
Sex! Minors interested in sex. Minors using someones credit card to pay for porn (ordo minors in the US actually get a credit card legally?) Pedophiles ...
Man, that sounds like just out of the "box of horrors" of contemporary politics. He forgot terrorists, tought...
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
If you oppose it, then you must be someone who preys on children, right?
Great tactics on the part of the Senator. Think of the children!
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Umm, a *DEMOCRAT* Senator is calling for this.
Another proof at how the left wing doesn't know what its extreme left wing is doing.
And another hint... you don't need to be Christian to be conservative. A lot of us just have some moral and ethical values.
Sex is bad because it gives christians something to control. The thing they fear most is loosing control and if people start to doubt the central beliefs they have harped about for centeries, like sex is bad, as wrong as the belief might be, they might start to doubt the rest of the fairy tail and the christians will loose control.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
generic porno relate to child-abuse anymore than indy-500 to bank robbery escape with a car?
A 25% tax on what the government calls pornography might impact sales. Be afraid, thinkgeek - you and your action shots.
hardcore porn gangbanging is not and creates a fake image of sex for children
one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality.
:)
Job's children died in the first chapter of Job when a wall fell on them. Perhaps you mean Lot's daughters? And the Bible called them evil. I don't get your statement.
Sorry for the off-topic post. I just like to make sure people who criticize the Bible at least get the stories right.
A lot of typical catalogs are porn for real perverts . Even diaper ads are porn for pedophiles.
For trisexuals, a car ad would be the ticket.
There's going to be a lot of tax revenue if this guy gets what he wants.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
And just who gets to decide what constitutes Pornography?
Are we going to tax web pages which talk about breast cancer, just because they contain the word breast?
And how would such taxes be collected, Especially if the server resides outside the US?
It's about time our elected officials started paying taxes.
Yet the senator who proposed the bill is a Democrat, who Christian groups rated as voting 16% pro-family...
Another proof at how the left wing doesn't know what its extreme left wing is doing.
Or rather, a proof that much of the left wing hasn't realized how many democrats have sold out to the right in the guise of being "centrist".
The twisted logic of this is that he claims either instituting a tax would enforce the laws, or porn sites somehow encourage child pornography.
In other words, he really wants censorship without saying the bad "C word".
If the porn people moved offshore, they'd avoid all sorts of irritating laws.
The US just changes its enforcement of the record keeping laws (2259 it is called, if I recall correctly). It is a sword of damocles hanging over porn webmasters. See fleshbot.com for more info.
The sooner the online porn stuff just moves offshore (ala the casinos), the better. Then they can tell the Govt. to find a new whipping boy.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Of course: Somebody has to scan it and post it to USENET.
Violence is OK but sex is bad. Or, how politicians can carp about something for free without someone demanding their head. Seriously, how many people are going to admit that they watch pornography but don't want to pay Uncle Sam for the privilige?
Not sex....
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Yep taxing easy-to-find in your face, perfectly legal pornography is the perfect approach to getting rid of them hidden secretive rings of shadey pedophilia dealers.
Children interested in sex doesn't correlate to children being groomed by pedophiles.
Get a friggin grip.
I don't think we pay enough taxes... we need to pay more taxes on everything!
There are gazillions of loopholes, that will needed to be plugged before they can see money flowing in.
hilarious
from TFA: the bill would require online pornographers to use age-verification software to block children's access.. Mostly this seems to be based on credit cards. How on earth can someone reliably "verify" the age of a person of the web? Any CC numbers, etc used will be traded and swapped around. And of course, what about overseas-based sites? For a saving of 25%, they'll all be in a short time.
Who decides what is "grossly immoral"? You, the government? Immorality (sin) is personal between you and your god(s). Crime is a social violation that harms others. The acts of consenting adults are not crimes.
It won't work. Add heavy taxation to the already stringent legal requirements, and the remaining US-based porn companies will simply take their operations offshore, to more amenable locations such as the Netherlands.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So maybe this is a good thing for the porn industry.
Some people have poked at a good point that needs threading.
How will this taxation work for free and amateur/voyeur (people exchanging footage via forums etc (I know of a few)) pornography?
How can the government stop people from putting up their own kinky videos for free?
Looks like some congressmen have finally figured out the modern universalism that porn kick starts all mediums. Looks like that might include online taxes too. Makrk my words, if this passes it's but the first step to a general internet sales tax.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Down with stealth taxes!!!
Umm, a *DEMOCRAT* Senator is calling for this.
Another proof at how the left wing doesn't know what its extreme left wing is doing.
This is the state of the Democratic party, sadly. They're trying to woo moderates back into the fold(Hillary Clinton etc) by imposing conservative morality. The lesson of the last 5 years is: the more people you threaten and alienate, the more popular you are to conservative voters. I hate seeing the Democrats give up like this, I wish they could find a smarter way to fight the insanity of the american voter.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Why would a child seeing two consenting adults having sex "corrupt" them.
As someone who was once addicted to porn, I can tell you that it can seriously screw up your notions about the realities of sex. Easy access to pornography on the internet during my single years definitely caused me some problems once I got into a real relationship. It's hard to settle down with one woman when you've been going through 20 different girls every night, even when that one woman has the advantage of being real and not just an image. I'm still trying to deal with the effects that such easy access to pornography has dealt to my psyche.
Granted, that's my problem and my responsibility, and no one else's, and I'm not advocating the nanny-state. But don't be so quick to think that porn never hurt anybody.
Although they *might* be immoral, it's none of the state's business. Morals and values, as long as no other persons freedom is harmed, are a personal matter for each and every adult. Churches may demand a special behavior, can compel its members to certain restrictions - but not on everyone. Every man and woman is free to accept the restrictions of their religion or to don't have a religion at all.
And we as a rather advanced society have finally separated church and state, thank God. We don't mandate morality, just non-freedom-hurting behavior. Two consenting adults doing horribly awful acts of sexuality to each other may be disgusting, but it's not anyones responsibility to "teach them morals". Government is not parenthood and the church can't call the police or the lynchmob. I hope it stays that way.
Pretty easy fix for this
Dear Customer, thank you for purchasing 200 mb's of storage on our systems. YOu price per month is $19.95. Feel free to browse our extensive collection of free materials and save them to your storage area.
(+1 Funny)
um RTFA will ya?
Senator Tom Carper (D-Del) is calling for a 25% tax on all internet pornograpy
So I guess we're suspose to take your whole rant and replace Republican with Democrat?
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
It's not so simple. Almost every type of porn degrades women in some fashion:
Either the woman is doing all the work;
She is being subjected to things the guy wouldn't be subjected to if he had the choice;
They are treated not as sub-human, but as objects of value -- value in the sense of sexual gratification;
Men get used to seeing the women do everything the man wants, on command, and this can carry over into their own sexual encounters, and;
Porn is traditionally the blond, busty female; how do redheads feel when they know their boyfriend is watching a stacked blond?
There's a lot more problems with pornography, but those came off the top of my head. Pornography is a dangerous road, especially for men who can become addicted to visuals.
I've been a pornography addict for almost ten years. Only in the last couple months have I really started to break free from it (and it feels damn good). I don't treat women like objects, I don't expect women to act like the women I see in porn, but I can admit I've asked for my girlfriend to do things I never would have thought of before.
Maybe I got off lucky, but I know for damn sure that I've been affected by all the porn I viewed. Simple images or not, it sticks with you, and blurs your interpretation of what sex should be, and how sacred a woman is.
Something that shouldn't be cencored is nudity. Something that should always be cencored is pornography.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Also, this is proposing some kind of direct link between adult porn and kiddie porn. The fact that there will be a bill linking it will be enough for a lot of people to see adult porn as causing kiddie porn...
Wait... people *pay* for online porn?
I propose we show kids goatse as young as possible to negate this effect.
Seriously if your kid is trying to get a hold of porn whether or not it's "violent sex, sex with animals, gang bangs, rapes, child pornography, etc." they've already past that supposed age anyway. Well, unless someones forcing them to watch it in which case you have a little more to worry about.
What age might this effect them at anyway? If someone showed me something like that at a real young age I'd have had no idea what it was. By the time I was 8 it would have just gotten an "eww" at the most.
require XXX domains? and what about all the other methods to get porn irrelevant to websites? If a kids looking for porn in the first place there's no point of trying to further censor sex from them, they're past that breaking point.
I swear if I see one more parent stuck in this whole "child innocence" delusion I'm going to go on a killing spree. Get over it, your kid will be the same dirty old sexual beast that you are one day.
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
Go ahead and get all you want. Just don't expect me to pay for your STD's and social programs. Oh, wait...
C|N>K
Sex feels good. Sex is free. Sex can relieve stress, let you express love and is one of the most intimate acts in the world.
It is because of this that profiteers hate it. Why? Because instead of buying products, people will have sex. This is bad for the economy.
Getting into Freudian philosophy and science, has it ever occured to you that perhaps large or covetted things like computers, cars, possessions like iPods or other things are just temporary mental replacements for the lack of sex drive or the lack of sex at all? Maybe that intimacy we experience with our toys is what replaces the intimacy between two people?
The control of sex is the control of basic human emotion and instinct. If you control sex or the sex drive, the base of all instinct in mammals, you control the person is belongs to. Don't have sex! Buy these indulgences and be saved from Satan! Having sex is a sin and will breed disease! Come to church more and fork over your money!
Not all churches are like that, or even the ones who used to do that stuff actively *coughcatholiccough*. But the fact remains, the meaning of life for a human being, at the base, is to reproduce, be happy, and keep yourself occupied.
Supression of instinct, especially sex, breeds a consumer - someone looking for something to fill the void. In a society where you can turn on the TV and see a child with all of his limbs amputated or a "precision" American bomber carpet bombing populated areas, I find it disgusting that this society bars SEX, SEX of all things, from television, but allows people to go on TV, preach about beating up prostitutes and being a "playa" or how various thousands of people are dying.
Neither should be barred. But the one you'd think wouldn't be, is.
and the government's debt was wiped out in 2 months.
OK...
I can do this. I am, after all,
a superhero!
"Personally, I think they should require the .xxx domain for any site above basic nudity, just to make things simple, but what do I know, I'm not a senator."
Who is "they"? Team America World Police?
If you don't like whats on the internet, don't give your child unmonitored access. What should really be policed is porn site squatters (and any other too) as that can easily be done by ICANN, no requirement to create some special govt entitity, just let the people responsible for dns take care of it and if another country doesnt like it, they can run their own roots. Even thats scary though, who decieds what constitutes removal, and how can we tell that it was rightful?
Or just do nothing, its worked fine for the rest of us. The type of people deliberately putting fucked-up-porn where someone would accidently find it (eg, typosquatters) are not the type that would comply with being forced into a tld that would become filtered by everyone cutting their profits. The type of site that would clearly label/not misadvertise their genre of porn is the type that your kid would have to actively look for, and if your kids trying to find pictures of a girl fucking a horse, actually seeing it isnt going to change anything.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Well, it's obvious you're not a senator - you just gave a simple, straightforward answer to a problem that won't go out of its way to hassle those who do not serve porn. I think that kind of a response is against a senate rule.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Aye. Dems, I know it's fun to hate Repulicans, and they do do some awfully stupid stuff, but let's not overlook it when our side does something this profoundly retarded. If you live in his state, please let Tommy know he's being a jackass and that you're just going to watch TV on election night if he doesn't cut it out.
You're forgetting that the Democrats have a patent on "unenforceable" or "pointless" laws. This is bipartisan legislation--it appeals to the right wing's morals and the left wing's pointlessness.
Let's tax bread. And sugar. And books. And trips. And cars. And computers. And drinks. And smokes. And CD's. And profits. And losses. And houses. And gas. And clothes. And jewelry. And business.
Let's tax life. And honor. And Commitment. And betrayal. And health. And happiness. And sadness. And depression. And intent. And thoughts. And air. And the sun. And the sky. And death.
Let's bloody tax everything!!
It is totally unenforceable and for that matter wou...
What? What do you mean I owe you $0.25? All I said was "bollo..."
Damn! $0.50!! For fuck's sake!
ARGH!!
Argh.
sometimes I think the only difference between democrats and republicans at this point in time are the responses they give to abortion and gay marriage questions.
Of course, that's just their reponses. Their actions seem about the same...
or, to quote myself "The only difference between democrats and republicans are the excuses they give when they don't keep their promises"
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Then we can enact a 25% tax on all food sold online to fight obesity! Next we can enact a 25% tax on gun-friendly sites to fight domestic violence. Oh yeah, and we can enact a 25% tax on government sites to fight monomaniacal presidents who want to conquer the world. And then we could enact a 25% tax on religious texts sold online to fight ignorance and superstitution. Wow, we could enact a 25% tax on video game sites to help fund education. I'm on a roll here, this is fun! And...and...we could enact a 25% tax on pay-per-view news sites to fight STUPID POLITICIANS who think their job is to pass idiotic laws that make them and their constituents feel good!
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Without wanting to be flame-bait, the Republican part engages in what I call "henry ford" freedom:
You can have any freedom you want, as long as it's Republican
oh no, the democrats dont do this at all **cough cough** gun ban **cough cough**
Or how does this strike you?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This isn't about child pornography or porn in general. This is about taxing the internet.
Anyone with at least half a mind can see that the Senator couldn't care less about pornography or child porn for that matter.
Taxing an industry does nothing to regulate said industry, all it does is take money from it. If he wanted to regulate it, and pay for the regulation, then he'd attach fines to the laws. But the truth is, what he wants is an easy way to "break into" the internet industries.
These people tax us in everything we do. We have ONE industry taht is currently not taxed to death and beyond and that is the internet.
This is an excuse. He and his friends have to be stopped cold right here and now. Don't think that it's just him either. I'll bet you anything a bunch of his buddies got together and thought this would be a great way to start a new "cause" and thus manage to rip us off in the process.
We have to stop this guy now. Unless of course, you like the idea of your local congressman and senator mucking about in even this part of our lives.
-ron
Carper says the bill will keep kids away from X-rated material.
No Carper, it may help keep kids away from X-rated material, but it won't put a chokehold on access to it.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad and that pornography is somehow immoral. I don't know how they reached that conclusion, after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality. Without wanting to be flame-bait, the Republican part engages in what I call "henry ford" freedom:
You can have any freedom you want, as long as it's Republican.
Do you Christian-bashers not even bother to read the summary now? This is a Democrat -- a northern Democrat, no less. I guess as soon as you hear the words "senator" and "pornography," it's like ringing a bell for Pavlov's dog.
Oh, and for the record, Job was never mentioned in Genesis. You're probably thinking of Lot's daughters, who got their father drunk and slept with him in a misguided attempt to preserve his lineage, and whose descendents were looked down upon for it. If you're going to play the "Christians don't even follow their own sacred texts" card, you probably ought to know what the hell you're talking about first.
What is the fixation with sex? Why would a child seeing two consenting adults having sex "corrupt" them. Sex is a natural thing that happens between two people who like each other a lot.
Actually, this is an incredibly simplistic view. The truth is, the easy availability of hardcore pornography on the interenet has caused some serious problems for children and their understandings (or more accurately, misunderstandings) of sexual relationships and love. It certainly hasn't reached epidemic proportions, but I for one, as a soon to be parent, am VERY concerned about how to prevent my child form having easy access to hardcore pornorgraphy in their early teens or younger, and I believe most parents who are aware of how easy it is to get are just as worried.
I agree this law will do nothing to protect children from online pornography. Most kids don't get on to pornography web sites that require a credit card. Hell, get eMule and you have access to all the pornography you could ever want. Or hell, just use Google.
The problem, from a parent's point of view, is that there is simply no way to block it all. There's just far too much for them to see. The only possible approach I see is to block what I can and to monitor where my children have been via my proxy logs, and then talk to them about it and try to dissuade them from doing it. I have serious doubts about how effective that will be, however.
I don't think you're speaking from the point of view of a parent. Most parents I know (and there are no Republicans among my friends and family) are pretty concerned about the easy availability of hardcore pornography.
I'm not talking looking through your dad's old Playboys and stuff that every kid has been doing since the first published nude photos. I'm talking about hardcore stuff where the men generally treat the women like crap (no point in providing sample phrases as I'm sure you're quite aware of the crap I'm talking about). The kind of stuff that's a very poor model for real relationships. This is the stuff children need to be protected from.
Sex attracts our attention. That generates headlines (if only to attract advertising). Headlines attract politicians.
'nuff said.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
"Bukkake is when a Mommy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy all decide that Mommy needs some special facial moisturiser" (from bash.org)
what? i LOVE redheads. screw the blondes
Does that mean P2P networks can be shut down on the base of tax evation?
Just another method to track and embarrass political enemies, since taxation leaves a giant paper trail. Nothing more than that.
I suggest you read Slashdot
They may take our pr0n, but they'll never take OUR FREEDOM! Oh wait...
I am not sure I see this so much as censorship as much as just a Dem who is doing what Dems do best. Creating new taxes.
And who the hell mod'ed a racist insightful?
Unless they tax 'per inch'. Expect rather more realistically endowed porn stars.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Your point is understood. However...
Watching porn does not significantly increase the likelihood of people being killed. Owning a gun *does*.
And yes, we do have laws which limit this sort of thing **cough cough** seat-belt laws *cough cough** helmet laws **cough cough** speed limits **cough cough**.
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
Simple.
Black dudes have cocks that are way too large, and would damage the self esteam of young white boys.
won't someone think of the children??
This is a prime example why the IRS needs to be demolished and replaced with a unified sales tax. That's it, pure and simple.
By letting our government tax every little nit-picking thing, they can shape society in the most mundane way. The power to tax at such a fine resolution provides the government with too much control. Seriously, that bothers me quite a bit!
Life is not for the lazy.
First of all you are what I considered a closed minded leftist bigot. And yes the left side and be just as closed minded as the right.
So why the fixation with sex and the Christians (In which is still predominately american) views. First off I would stop dissing the Christians there are such a wide range of Christian values out there that it is not fair to say blame them as christians, you have very Liberal Christians groups who accept abortions, Homosexuality, Stem Cells research, Evaluation, Harry Potter and just about most things except for 8 of out 10 commandment, support the death penalty vs. And they focus on being good to themselves and to the community. Then they are more moderate christians which are the bulk Like Catholic, Lutheran, etc. Who have some say against some of the more liberal ideas but other they are not focused on or approve. Then they are the very right wing catholics who figure everything is evil. And of course they are many many gray areas.
**Note this is not historical fact but a logical progression on how christian culture has the taboo on sex. AKA my own theory
But why the fixation. Well you probably will need to under stand history a bit. Back in the old times when culture was starting to grow men have wives and family lines were very important. Firstly you children can help with the farming and hunting for your family and secondly it is able to pass you culture and legacy, and ideals. So marriage was made to insure the proper line and ancestry and not have a non-blood child mess it up and make it confusing. So shortly after laws against adultery (Either by God, or Moses just came up with it, or someone just created the story) were made to prevent this problem which could lead to further violence and destabilize their culture. Later on they probably realized that premarital sex has caused children to be born without traceable fathers making the woman less desirable to an other man, so laws and tradition set up against premarital sex to help reduce the population of having, also I am sure they noticed that people who slept with other people may have gotten sick more often (Considered the wrath of God) so they made it immoral. To help prevent being attracted to an other woman and protection of accidental sex clothing was used to cover up the vital parts, combined with protecting them from getting scrapped and scratched which would hurt a lot. After a couple of generations wearing cloths become so customary that not wearing it became taboo. After a while it became immoral. Then with many generations of children growing up with being told you can only have children after marriage and the like, ment the concept of Sex is wrong for some groups, and some cultures extended it further and further to anything sexual in nature.
In short it was a sliding scale of reasonable choices when they started to get momentum they created a taboo and immoral label. Still sex is dangerous with the risk of STD and the like, so by breaking all conventions on sexuality that has been ingrained in our culture for thousands of years is dangerous to society it will need to be taken down gradually and stopping some people who try to push it to fast. Because we need time to realize what is actually good and moral vs. tradition and if we go to far we get rid of the good and moral with the tradition.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I don't think HE was being racist. Some porn is advertised as "interracial" catering to an existing fetish. It is not portrayed as normal in the porn, and is often shown as a bunch of "thugs" taking advantange of a woman.
Taxing churches for extermists who commit crimes in the name of God and Christianity?
By taxing online porn providers, it is inidicating that these providers are responsible for those perverts who traffic in child porn.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
That would be their problem, not mine. I am responsible only for my own actions, not even of actions of my mother or adult(!!!) daughter.
Dephine URL
This may be a bit off topic,, but the article is so vague and short almost anything will fit into this discussion.
Some slashdoters may have noticed that the church has become a major player in politics recently. Part of their tax exemption is based on staying out of politics. The Bush administration is going after many conservation groups with the IRS because they have broken the politics rule.
Churches own billions of $$$ worth of prime realestate in the heart of our cities tax free and thus are a burden on cash starved public schools that depend on real estate taxes for survival.
I don't really need to go into the occasional priest's daliance with young boys, that's just an anomily.
So why try and tax internet porn, most of which is offshore, difficult to track, etc.? Tax the churches which have been getting a free ride in this country for far too long.
Churches need to be placed under the same guidelines as other institutions. They should not get any special benefits just for being churches. If they want some kind of benefits for nonprofit stuff/community service, then they should be under some guidelines for all nonprofits/community servers.
Here are a couple links to taxing the churches...
http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/cal-tax-ex empt.htm
http://www.taxchurches.com/
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
It wouldn't be necessarily all that odd. We already live in a world where the IRS determines what is and what isn't marriage; in that regard, their defining of pornography isn't all that much of a stretch.
Volunteer tax preparers undergo about 20 hours of tax training, much of it from IRS trainers. One lesson they learn is how to determine if someone can file for Head of Household or if they must file Married Filing Seperately.
Sounds pretty straightforward, until they start throwing out examples where a couple might not be legally divorced, but have been living apart for more than a year. If they haven't had sex in the past 6 months, the person caring for the child can file as Head of Household, but if they get it on just one time with their separated spouse, they must file Married Filing Separately. Their sex life actually determines how much tax they will pay.
That is, of course, without even touching on the same sex marraige issue.
I'm just saying the IRS already cuts its policies on sex, and yes, that creeps me out.
Why on earth can't someone set up a large, offshore liner in international waters, right outside of US waters, and boat people out to it? Then they could provide drugs, prostitution, whatever, onboard without issues of legality.
As long as said activities don't happen within US jurisdiction, I don't see what the problem would be.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Well, you are flamebaiting. The Republican party calls itself Christian, but that doesn't mean it represents the whole Christian faith, or everyone who carries this faith. Aren't most Democrats Christians too? What about the Christians that give their last money, and work every day all day in poverty to help those in worse poverty? Can't you base your opinion on those? Or are they evil too, professing their faith and beliefs much like you are now?
If you had done a little research instead of jumping to conclusions, and read some Bible, you would certainly know better than what you say.
after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality
How did you reach that conclusion? The Bible speaks of many acts in detail, including murder, theft, rape, adultery. The Bible explains what Job's daughters did, and why they did it, much like the Bible explains how John was decapitated and why he was decapitated. Does the Bible suggest decapitation is right and we should go around decapitating people? Of course not!
Or is it that you just wanted to find something seemingly incorrect in the Bible so you could put your conscience to rest?
The Bible doesn't say sex is wrong, the Bible does say pornography is wrong, and lusting after another woman in your heart means you already comitted adultery. The Bible also says adulterers, fornicators, liars, thieves, murderers and drunks will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Lest they repent and abandon their ways.
Is pornography wrong? As a Christian, I obviously think so. I used to be addicted to it from an early age, but thanks to God I am free from it now.
Republican party's religious mantra on those who do not want and care about it.
You guys voted for him, now you'll have to sit it out. You can at least take some comfort in knowing that there are enough Christians who oppose Bush and his party.
I don't think you can effectively outlaw pornography, but to put a tax on it is a great idea I think. At least, if you have a responsible government, it would be a great idea.
For an interesting testimony on what pornography can do, read this interview with Ted Bundy; honor student, local hero, serial rapist and murderer. http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/deadly/intervie w.php
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
It's my experience that keeping kids away from anything is almost impossible. That said, I'd rather my kids (depending on age... 10 is too young, 18 and they are getting to be adults) get into porn than violence. Now, S&M, rape, and the other stuff that includes violence in the porn wouldn't be good, but just "normal" porn wouldn't bother me over much.
I kind of wish there was some porn out there about loving relationships. The "PIZZA BOY, AND HERE'S YOUR PEPIRONI!" type porn is just too corny to stand. Most porn is about the mechanics of power, not sex per-se. Almost all the porn I've seen is more about powertrips than sex, and it's about getting sex at any price rather than the relationship.
I'm not sure why we Americans are so obsessed with sex, though. It's pretty sick. I remember one righty wanted to punch me out because I told him that if he thought the human body was obsene, he should complain to the manufacturer.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I can say from personal experience that most of it isn't, just some of the gangbang stuff.
I'd just like to make the small point that morality does not require theology. There are lots of us atheists who have a very strong sense of morality which has nothing to do with illegality.
Your point is understood. However...
Did you even bother with the second part of my post or just take in what you felt you could easily "defeat" which is still bullshit either way you see it?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I would rather have my children watch hardcore porn than watch one human being kill another human being no matter the reason. Don't enforce your moral beliefs on me and I won't enforce them on you. The fact that kids can play online video games that emulate murder is disturbing the fact that kids find online porn and whack off to it is not.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
You can't regulate what's normal in those other cultures, sorry. This is the internet we are talking about, not the U.S.net. They can post things 'normal' for their culture on their websites.
You can, however, monitor what your kids access if you want to. And I suggest you do if you want to be a good parent.
In fact today http://userfriendly.org/ cartoon has something quite similar.
A picture is worth a thousand words!
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
> I can't speak for you, but I don't partake in interracial gangbangs, facials, or S&M.
/. doesn't participate in is going to be taxed.
Then it is lucky that the bill specifically states than only pornography depicting activities which "ChillyWillie" from
You spelled "far-left" and "left" wrong.
Or perhaps you spelled "left-authoritarian" and "right-authoritarian" wrong.
Dang spellcheckers.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
By using lines like "You are an idiot" and "You are what is wrong with this world." and "You belong in jail" and so forth you pretty much give up the right to call the post you are responding to "flamebait."
--MarkusQ
While I think the Senator is way off base with this proposal, he seems to be a level-headed guy.
A few years ago, at a Memorial Day festivity in Lewes, DE, I heard the Senator give this speech:
He got up, and after thanking the hosts and the veterans, he read the Bill of Rights, and sat back down. I have been a fan of his ever since.
Whew, with an "h" added, I'd be in big trouble. But I don't even know what "pornograpy" is, beyond a reason for a spell checker.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Sure, they always say "Where would technology be if there hadn't been a space program?" But where would we be without porn! Home video? Home internet? P2P streaming? The very entrepreneurial heart of America that any couple with a video camera can become famous. My gosh, why not just slap a 25% tax on all tech R&D!
Don't let the label of being a Democrat fool you. Many are more conservative than liberal. They are just less conservative than most Republicans.
The efforts of several sex-phobic senators notwithstanding, the US government has--for the past 15 years or more--been far more concerned with attempting to levy pornography than to level it. This has always included chasing tax-dodging porn barons and fining adult theatres as much as a million dollars for "obscenity".
I like how this time the claim is that the bill would simultaneously keep children from viewing pornography and to keep them out of it. Will it fend off the killer bees, too?
In the mid-80s, FBI pornoraphy specialist (yes, that's kinda funny) Bill Kelly reported to the Meese Commission that "Kiddie porn has never been more than 1% of the total problem; but it gets 99% of the grease." And so it goes...
assuming your post is serious, you make a few very silly assumptions.
first...no one said anything about "wanting children to watch porn" just that it's not the end of the world if they manage to come across some. Which is true, I've never seen a kid go into a mental break down because their friend sent them goatse. Not even children are that vulnerable. Get over your silly ideas of child innocence, children are going to be the same dirty sex beast you are one day, end of story.
Worst case scenario: young johnny asks mommy what those 5 guys are doing to the asian school girl. Reminds me of the lord of the rings south park episode, which highlights this very issue in a funny matter. Kids will learn about sex one way or another, if you happen to be there for them while they're learning about it, I'd say you're lucky they even consulted you. Don't give kids stupid ideas like "abstinence until marriage" unless you are prepared for the kid to do the exact opposite to spite you. Instead, tell them something which might actually be useful like use protection.
as for the "be nervous about sex so you can meet that special person" bullshit, well, you do realize monogamy is mostly a human thing, right? Most likely because the vast amount of resources that a human child consumes as compared to other animals means that having both parents there = more people to provide for said resources.
Unlike most animals we can't just have a baby and then leave it in the wild and have it fend for itself so ideas like that were created, however to completely abide by it like a religious idea is totally missing the point.
And the US is far from the most sexual country in the world, yet it always seem to be the one making a big fuss about it.
as for beastiality, well, I'm sure a lot of people don't agree with it, but to force that opinion on other people? Where do you draw the line? I'd draw it somewhere around animal abuse. If some dog is humping away on a girl and enjoying itself I can't exactly consider that animal abuse...whether or not I agree with it is another thing, but I'd prefer to take it from the abuse stand point. After all, we're trying to stop abuse, not your opinion, right?
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
Either the woman is doing all the work;
She is being subjected to things the guy wouldn't be subjected to if he had the choice;
Men get used to seeing the women do everything the man wants, on command, and this can carry over into their own sexual encounters, and;
Porn is traditionally the blond, busty female; how do redheads feel when they know their boyfriend is watching a stacked blond?
Depends upon the type of porn.
Most media that I can think of has very different roles for men and women; just about any action movie fits this point, but we provide action movies for children, so there is clearly some dividing line other than this. It can't be some helpless woman being grateful for Arnie clubbing the heck out of a bunch of guys.
One additional point WRT the stacked blond; would it bother you if your girlfriend was watching porn containing men that look different from you? I do agree that people should be willing to reverse the situation, and that it's hypocritical if they can't cope with the reverse.
I've been a pornography addict for almost ten years.
Okay, *that* can be an issue -- but addiction to *anything* is of concern. I was just reading an article about a woman who was addicted to buying baby clothes on some baby website. She spent huge amounts of money on it, and just couldn't stop. My thoughts would be that addiction is what we want to avoid, rather than pornography.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
True, however I think this bill is more about the tax revenue than it is about controlling sex (which this forum demonstrates daily is impossible).
"We don't mandate morality, just non-freedom-hurting behavior."
Like Alimony.
Blah blah, blah blah, fuckin blah...
When are these people ever gonna learn...
You cannot stop kids from viewing porn with a law.
Porn is not necessarily a bad thing.
You cannot tax free.
And for those people that think the question "what would you think if your daughter was a porn star? etc. etc is a valid question, Let me ask you a question of my own. Can't you just watch your own damn kids instead of having the gov't do it? If you are a good parent, spend time with your kids, and be exposed to the same things as them (you know, so you can explain things as they come along)... Do you honestly think your kid would become a porn star? I have four daughters. I try to be involved in their lives. I don't put viewing restrictions on them. The world is a big, scary place. And shielding them from it is only gonna make it worse for them when they "hit the streets" at 18 or whatever "magical age" you idiots put on adulthood. WE encounter things in our daily lives and WE discuss why it may be good or bad. I believe that I am having a positive effect on my daughters moral behavior.
And guess what... If, after all the things WE talk and learn about, they decide they want to be porn stars... then I stand behind them. They are my daughters. I believe in their right to choose as well. But at least it will be a choice that is based on knowledge, not ignorance.
And besides, how is putting a tax on porn gonna lessen it. If anything, it will make it bigger. Haven't you noticed when someone makes something forbidden, it makes it all that more appealing to others? Let me give you an example... There was a movie that came out (more than) a few years ago called "The Last Temptation of Christ". I was a teenager at the time and lived in the middle of the "bible belt". The churches were up in arms about the release of such filth. They threatened to burn down the theaters that played it. Does this sound like "good Christian behavior"? I had to see it while visiting in another state. And you know what? It sucked. I rented it a couple of years ago too, just to give it another chance from an adult point of view. It still sucked. If people would have just let it be, it would have gotten a shitty review and would have disappeared off the map. Instead, they gave it free publicity.
Now, I don't necessarily condone porn. I think it is an evil that will NEVER GO AWAY. I don't care how much you try to get rid of it, there are people all over the world that have "tits and ass" under their clothes. And some of those people are willing to share it with others. It is called "Freedom of Expression". Maybe you have heard of it... It is one of the things your religion is trying to take away from you.
User logging on... 300 baud... 300 BAUD?!? (Click!) NO CARRIER
No. He was being racist. Sometimes there is little or no ambiguity.
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
Porn is nothing like a loving relationship. And for you to say it is okay for a child to watch it, that makes you a pedophile
Wow. Just wow. Either you're a troll, or it's a joke. I dunno. But just how did this insane rant get mod'ed insightful?
I watched porn when I was little. Took a little more effort getting hold of it back then, but I still got my porn. And it didn't harm me one bit. Does taking that into account make me a pedophile?
I predict that 90% of the male population on this planet would be classified as pedophiles if you had it your way.
the person is free to make a choice, even if everyone else says it is wrong. That is what you are saying.
I believe that is the part about freedom that conservatives doesn't like. We'll remove all your freedom to ... um ... protect your freedom! Seriously though, what part about freedom is it that you don't understand?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Maybe sex is something that should be nervous and new and wonderful when you meet the one person who you want to be with forever.
You have got to be kidding right? From what I've heard of studies on this topic, those who approach sex from that point of view usually end up between no statisfaction and hurting their partner.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation." Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf
I hate quoting that asshole, but...
"And for you to say it is okay for a child to watch it, that makes you a pedophile."
Get your fucking terms straight. A pedophile is somebody who is sexually attracted to children. Thinking it's okay for them to see porn doesn't have anything to do with that.
"Maybe if sex is something sacred, then the divorce rate and infidelity would not be so high."
It's nothing 'sacred'. It's a natural bodily function, no more sacred than urinating is.
"And the next thing we will see is beastiality becomming normal."
So, killing them is okay, but having sex with them is pure EVIL!!! ?
should be imposed to shore up GDP due to productivity loss in information technology services market.
The morality tax should have different levels, and plugging of loopholes should attract a particularly high rate. Say, 100%.
K.
Let's tax legal porn to find illegal porn! Great idea!
This is almost as good an idea as one in my home town. The city is building a new convention center/hotel. The only problem is they don't have money for it. Great idea! Let's make a hotel tax for all the other hotels in the county to pay for this new hotel. I'm sure they'll love it. (The convention center is so far behind schedule due to the hotels boycotting the tax, and the citizens protesting it)
My Google-fu has failed me; I was hoping to find some data on the demand elasticity for porno but apparently nobodys ever studied this in a quantitative manner.
Anyhow, even if the demand for porno was very high (i.e., an increase in prices would cause a sharp fall in demand), porno is a very, very high margin business.
More than likely the industry would just reprice the porno so the consumer would pay the same as the pre-taxed price.
A message from our sponsor
Why would a child seeing two consenting adults having sex "corrupt" them.
That's not where the corruption occurs.
Sex is a natural thing that happens between two people who like each other a lot.
The corruption happens when an industry forces two people to have sex who do not know one another. Then the industry sells those photos. Millions of them. And anybody in that photograph who is unable to cope with the public exploitation of their personal self will be permanently scarred for the rest of their life. That's where the corruption begins.
Far from damaging my psyche, it made me a lot less nervous about my sexuality. I look back and see that period of my life as an important part of my sexual development.
Everything is exposed and nothing is forbidden when it comes to the pornography industry. Perhaps it doesn't damage your psyche, but it certainly damages the women who are used for your own entertainment.
Let me put it this way...tell me, how long is your erect penis? How many times do you mastrabate in a given week? How many times do you have sex each week? With a woman or a man? Do you have multiple partners at once? Do you like to receive anal stimulation or penetration? Have you ever had more than one partner at a given moment? Oh, and to top things off, could you include your real name and a picture of yourself, preferably naked, so that we all can see the complete you.
Are you comfortable with answering and doing all those things I asked you to do? I would hope not, but the problem far to often is that women who sign on into the industry have all these private details about themselves exposed for nothing more than male fantasy. While you were developing your sexual self, these women had it stripped from them and put into public view.
I highly recommend watching PBS's Frontline Documentary on the Pornography. It really gives a lot of insight about the emotional abuse women go through and the price they pay for the money they earn.
DOH! Yep. Sorry. My bad. I claim sleep deprivation. ;)
I guess it was that damn first amendment that the churches are taking advantage of as well. Maybe you should vent your anger at the loophole these Churches are using instead of the churches themselves.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
And the next thing we will see is beastiality becomming[sic] normal.
It is normal and accepted. In Sweden. And in fact its on the rise over there.
Maybe sex is a choice a 14 year old can not make, because they don't have the maturity to understand what it means.
A mere century ago, the usual age for marraige in most cultures was 12 to 16. Can you explain to me what has changed from that time, besides the views of society?
If you know anything, most catholics register as democrats
Most catholics aren't American.
Maybe if sex is something sacred, then the divorce rate and infidelity would not be so high.
Oh get over yourself. Sex is just a physical activity, the very same as sports. You can play in a team or by yourself, and it releases very much the same hormones. If you mean loving relationships, then yes, perhaps that should be seen as being important. But what would you have us do, codify what exactly qualifies as sex and when people are allowed to have it? One size fits all may be the mantra of the modern corporate, shiny, market-segment and demographically organised world, but believe me the truth isn't that simple. And as for porn, who cares? It's more okay to show a man getting torn limb from limb by explosions than to watch paid professionals do their dance? And if you are whining about impressionable young minds, I suggest that parents take some responsibility for what their children get to see and hear, and stop depending on legislation to do their damn jobs for them. Christ.
You are making out that your apparently severely stunted worldview is the definitive version, and backing up your perspective by hurling accusations of paedophilia, which should be added to the godwins law lexicon of failures in debate. What a boob. Just another troll that knows how to burble a bit of fire and brimstone and get the mob riled up.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
The thing is, police departments aren't even short on funds to fight child pornography. They don't need the money. He just wants to tax porn because he doesn't like it. (Or something. I find it hard to believe that anyone really doesn't like porn. I think this guy might have... issues.)
D... umb Politician?
As for the R... ich Politician.
As for a G... ay Politician.
As for an I... rregular Politician.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
1) small issue
2) add media hype
3) lawyers smell money
4) lobbyists are engaged by "action" committees
5) stupid law proposed
6) uproar over stupid law
7) more reasonable law drafted ( but still stupid at the core )
8) law added as a rider to another issue
9) government claims needs additonal money
10) TAXES
11) new organization created
12) GRAFT for new pile of money
13) public is still at risk and no real change on the original issue
Don't protect us from personal issues,
like porn, abortion, smoking, seat belts, helmet laws.
Protect us from groups too big for an individual,
like stock fraud, organized crime, lawyers, robber barrons,
war mongers, RIAA,.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Reuters reported on July 14 that the Working Group on Internet Governance, was unable to reach an agreement on who should manage the Internet and how the job should be done. They did, though, come up with four models for overseeing the Internet that ranged from maintaining the status quo of U.S. management with private sector involvement to putting the assignment of all Internet domains under the auspices of the UN. Reuters stated: "At issue for the world body is who runs the Internet and how it can better serve the world." See - UN panel fails to agree on how to govern Internet: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?t ype=internetNews&storyID=2005-07-14T221350Z_01_YUE 480002_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-TECH-INTERNET-UN.XML
The answer for the lazy politician is always to tax it.
Too many people smoke: tax it to discourage it.
Too many people drink: tax it to discourage it.
Hows about they tax the poor to discourage them from living in poverty.
threadeds blog
Hmm...
I like watching Porn.
I live in Delaware.
Carper doesn't like me watching Porn.
THEREFORE
I'm not voting for carper again. (assuming we actually have someone else who is running against him especially since Biden is doing his whole presidency run crap)
Does this mean Google images will now be a for-pay service, or will Google just go bankrupt?
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Republican=Fudd, Democrat=Duff
Lesbian porn.
Or are you attempting to imply the mere act of sex is somehow degrading to women, which is possible the most offensive thing I've ever heard spoke in 'defense' of women.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
lumping together a diverse group of ppl is what im sick of. and let me tell you someting else, you wan to talk about nanny-state BS, look to the dems too bro. bill clinton raising hell over the hot coffee mond on GTA. that fat pig tipper gore raising hell over explicit music. lieberman and mortal kombat. gun control. are these more up your alley for good governance? the truth is, unless youre some sort of bigoted political hack, youll realize everyones out to limit your freedom. and its not just a bunch of right leaning christians, such as myself. can we agree on this or what?
So, if you consent to it, should I be allowed to shoot you?
Exactly what do the races of the people involved have to do with it being 'wrong'?
One could argue that when porn is marketed specifically as being "interracial" then that creates the impression that the race of those involved somehow matters, and that could be wrong. But no, interracial sex in general isn't particularly right or wrong.
that being said, i dont think theres any possible way this is going to happen, and if it does, i find it laughable that that much money would be put to the intended use; i just cant see it happening
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
And for you to say it is okay for a child to watch it, that makes you a pedophile. ...boy, confusion about the phrase "pedophile" is almost as bad as "steal/infringe on copyright".
A pedophile is someone who is sexually attracted to children. That's it -- not someone who has abused children, who has committed sexual crimes, who has liberal sexual values, or anything else. There is certainly no need to be sexually attracted to children to feel that children should be able to watch porn.
You belong in jail, or at the very least, to be registered with a sex offender database. You want children to watch porn, how sick are you??
*I* happen to agree with the guy (and not even just with porn, but with censorship in general). I think that life would be a lot better if, instead of trying to censor content, parents just explained content and their feelings on it and *why* those feelings exist. Your kid is almost going to see porn, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. I think that inculcating an approach of "I have to hide this from my parents" is much more damaging than anything that the porn exposure is going to do. I always felt that I could always talk about *anything* with my parents, and I placed a great deal of value on the point.
That is B.S.. If you know anything, most catholics register as democrats. Maybe the baptists are more republican. But as a group, they don't vote for just one side or the other. Or are you talking about lutherans?
The real issue the guy has is with conservative social values, which *do* follow a "hiding this is the best idea" approach. He's just lumping together Republicans (which *do* tend to be more conservative) and Christians (there are decidedly liberal Christian faiths, but the ones that get the most political exposure, like Southern Baptists, have conservative social values). That isn't all that correct, no, but it's pretty hard to otherwise nail down exactly the amorphous blob of people who want to censor content that they consider immoral. FWIW, I suspect that Muslims would be even more opposed to pornography, in general, than would Christians.
Maybe sex is something that should be nervous and new and wonderful when you meet the one person who you want to be with forever.
Maybe. It's one possible approach. I don't see any particular argument for one way being definitely superior to the other -- both of you two are running on emotional arguments. He's gotten angry with and had bad experiences with conservatives, so he's raging on repressive types, and you've clearly been taught that a no-sex/sex with one person who you marry and never leave approach is the acceptable route, so you're raging on what you see as bad. Neither one of you have stated much by way of benefits.
I tend to think that having some sexual experience, assuming associated potholes (STDs, pregnancies, etc) are avoided (which is not necessarily a given assumption), is not necessarily a bad idea just on the same grounds that knowledge is generally a good thing to have. [shrug]
Maybe sex is a choice a 14 year old can not make, because they don't have the maturity to understand what it means. Maybe if sex is something sacred, then the divorce rate and infidelity would not be so high.
He was talking about porn, not having sex. There's quite a difference.
You are what is wrong with this world.
You *feel* he is because you've had so much negative stimuli associated with the ideas he's propagating. However, simply asserting this isn't going to do anything. If you are clearly correct, you should be able to make a supported argument in favor of what you're saying. I don't think that you can do this, given how much back-and-forth there is over the issue -- otherwise, this would have been settled a long time ago.
And the next thing we will see is beastiality becomming normal.
[shrug] Maybe. It is legal and practiced in some European countries, like Swe
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Funny, isn't it, that the Democrat politician proposing this can't seem to muster up specific distaste for the people who consume the legal material, but prefers to see them as a cash cow. Just like smokers. His approach to governing people means keeping them doing the things he doesn't like (smoking, viewing porn, being poor, etc) so that his little corner of the bureaucratic world has a reason to exist (and an opportunity for more tax revenue). How much do you want to bet that even if he could get such a measure passed, that the dollars pulled in would more or less never go straight to the law enforcement teams that actually do hunt down a bust the kidddie porn creeps. Nope, it's just more money in the pot to spend on pork.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Saying that the Republican party is a wing of any religion is an insult to that religion.
Republicans use religion as a stepping stone to gain office, but that ignores the commandment against using the Lord's name in vain, which seems to be the most misunderstood commandment. People seem to think it has somthing to do with not saying "goddamnit" which would have been relevant back when people thought that they could actually invoke the name of a god to curse other people.
In other words, you're breaking a commandment if you use the name of God to further your own selfish interests.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Personally, I think they should require the .xxx domain for any site above basic nudity, just to make things simple, but what do I know, I'm not a senator.
.xxx TLD is because it would be lucrative for the name registrars.
Bad technical solution. Imposes global ethical standard on Web (*this* is for adults, *this* isn't), whereas bare breasts are considered okay by the Brits, girls in bikinis considered okay in the US, and girls outside of a burkha considered obscene in Saudi Arabia.
The only reason there is any push for a
Nothing wrong with content rating, on the other hand, to indicate in a standard format that something contains bare breasts (and then let the client ISP/filtering software/whatever decide whether the content is acceptable). There are systems in place to do that today (and that provide better-than-domain-level-granuarity). They just don't get much press because the registrars *really* want the money from another TLD.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Taxing "luxuries" (a.k.a. "sin taxes") is preferable to taxing necessities. I smoke and drink alcohol, but have no gripe about taxes on tobacco and liquor because I can choose to pay or not pay the taxes by not buying those products. However, I have no choice when it comes to taxes on real property, automobiles, income, etc. Paying taxes on necessities is extortion, whereas paying taxes on luxuries is voluntary and the only fair form of taxation.
So, bring on the sin taxes!
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
What with so many state-mandated "vice" taxes covering alcohol and tobacco sales, I think a porn tax would be just fine. Generate extra state revenue for the purchase of completely non-essential goods. Since access to porn, just like with alcohol and tobacco, is age-limited, it makes an excellent target for taxes because, like the other items, it exists in the same space as a luxury tax of sorts.
As to whether this will limit access, I don't know. If it's a percentage tax it won't affect free porn, because a percent of free is still free. And most on-line vendors will then start putting more than just porn on their site and Adult Pass or whatever will become a general access pass to all sorts of things, and most of it will just happen to be free, but pass-restricted, porn.
Maybe someday public opinion will swing back to holding parents responsible for their own children. "Protecting" children is a dubious goal at best in today's political climate, particularly given the means and the subjects of this "protection," but we must persevere and make sure we retain our basic liberties.
Good luck democrats and republicans both. I will strive to oppose you at every turn on these issues.
On this issue, perhaps, as the radical feminists who make up a significant part of the hard left base of the Democratic Party are as anti-porn as Jerry Falwell. On the other hand, you are willfully deceiving yourself if you believe that President Gore would have reacted to 9/11 by having a useless penis size contest with Saddam Hussein or by sanctioning what is currently happening at Gitmo.
There is a difference, albeit smaller than most of us would like and Bush counts on the fact that many people will discount that and either not vote or vote for hopeless third parties as some kind of "statement" that in the end means nothing. Something to consider the next time the Naderites or the Libertarians come knocking with their trendy anger and poorly photocopied 'zines.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Here's a great example of the so called leftist Democrats at work again. The other side of the same coin so to speak.
The Republicons always seem to oppose new taxes, but will they oppose this bill? It sure would look bad if they were supporting porn wouldn't it? They "flipflop" quite a bit if you look closely at them. Remember their flipflop on "states rights" and medical marijuana.
Remember when Al Gores wife Tipper was the head of the PMRC and brought us the draconian rating systems on music? It led us down the road to Walmart having it's own version of supposedly bad music.
Remember President Clinton, under whose presidency we doubled our prison population and added 79 new federal death penalties?
This is just another example of Democrats in action. But the article failed to mention that the Democrats also want an "imposition of mandatory, "certified" age verification of adult website visitors" Just imagine the fun Tipper and her friends could have with this one...
AVN provides a much more comprehensive coverage of the new law at... http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Ar ticles&Action=View_Article&Content_ID=234443
So the next time you hear the some neocon pundit decrying liberal excess, remember they are just the other side of the same coin.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
Bringing forward the original source comment...
;)
"Perhaps it's because 3 black dudes doing an Asian chick at the same time and dropping their loads in her eye might give the wrong impression of what it's all about"
How can that be racist? He's just describing what he saw on DVD last night... Describing reality isn't racist. Walk over to the old Bukkake section in your porn store.. and you'll see he's describing about 70% of bukkake films.
I'm sure the poster was trying to illustrate how Bukkake is not a normal form of sex.. It had nothing to do with black dudes.. He is just describing the genre.
Damn people are sure quick to condemn porn, and even more likely to scream racist when the word Black is spoken... A symptom, perhaps, of the same under-laying mental flaw
My personal opinion: As long as everyone's having a good time, is old enough to give consent in the country of production and consumption, and no one is being hurt, I couldn't care what you watch on your TV/Computer in the privacy of your own home.
"Don't Tax the Wank!"
-=-Ze End-=-
He was, he was trying to make what he said as seedy as possible and in his mind those races doing that to each other was even further from the "right" kind of sex he has in his mind (missionary position, white christian man and wife).
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
But seeing Halle Berry in leather lingerie running around in the latest pop movie *is* what sex is all about?
but I don't partake in interracial gangbangs, facials, or S&M
Gangbangs may not be common, but many people *do* engage in oral sex or (especially light) BDSM. It's fine if *you* don't do so, but this is hardly criteria for something being censorable, in my mind.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I wholeheartedly agree with this comment, but I'm going to play devil's advocate anyway, because I think there might be a valid argument other than "God says this is wrong."
As a nation becomes more fragmented by differing moralities, it's harder for everybody to interact together in a peaceful manner. That's why there are some moral rules to keep people loosely in-line and on the same playing field, such as only being able to marry one person.
The more 'deviant' people are allowed to be in mainstream society, the more the 'moral' people will make noise and seclude themselves. There will be more hate and fragmentation of the society. Therefore, the government mustn't totally alienate either side of any particular issue.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
No offence to you personally, but people who don't understand the Domain Name System should *not* be allowed to cast down ex cathedra decisions like that. It's bad enough that we already have ill-devised crap like .jobs, .museum, .biz, .info, .travel and now .mob cluttering up the system.
Thank goodness we have a president who understands that increased taxes means decreased freedom. The Internet should be free from the IRS.
The senator must know this would never go anywhere, so I think he is just trying to get some brownie points from the anti-porn segment of the public.
-Andyman
You need to try and remember what you see in entertainment is not real and doesnt happen in the real world. If you were really expecting real women to act like porn stars then you are the one with a problem.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
Randy Marsh: You see, Token, when a man and a woman really love each other, the man puts his penis into the woman's vagina. It's called 'making love,' and its normal.
Token: And when the woman has 4 penises in her, and then stands above the guys and pees on them, is that love making? Five midgets beating a man covered in Thousand Island dressing. Is that love making?
j/k really. I agree with you completely, but the quotes occurred to me as fitting.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
i'm yet to be a parent, but i intend to raise my children, if i have some, to appreciate adult values as rapidly as possible. if they don't have a feeling for life and death, at least, by the age of 12, they won't be ready for what the world will teach them, by 17, 18, when they become responsible for themselves.
i see no option for parents of today, but to be the best educator the world can provide. clearly, the state is failing at its management of these issues, on all fronts, and todays parents should brook no control over the rights of family that doesn't support more than subtract.
nevertheless, i truly believe that todays and tomorrow children are in a fundamentally profound world. times, they are changing.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"...although you failed to point out the basis of this article is that a democratic senator is pushing for this..."
Oh, sheesh, thank god... at least it will never pass then.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Uh, if they put a 25% tax on porn, won't the porn vendors just move to countries where they don't tax you? There are other countries than the US.
Look at gambling. The biggest centres are offshore in countries with loose (or non-existent) tax and gambling laws. The same thing will happen with porn. The people who run these operations are not stupid guys with their dicks flapping in the wind. They're smart, they're business savvy,and they probably make more than the senator in question. (Funnily enough, for the same job - sticking your dick in places it may or may not belong.)
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Which you were pretty much stood with how much money you made -- if you are rich or expect to be rich, vote republican. If you are poor, liberal, or know you aren't going to be rich, vote dem. The problem at this time is, the Republicans aren't *ACTING* like Republicans anymore (they used to stand for less taxes through less government and less debt, "the market will provide a solution"). The republicans have been taken over by these leech christian neocons (the neocon philosophy in one sentence is, "Might makes right.") who have driven the republicans control of all 3 branches of government, but who have completely sold out the principles of less government in favor for democrat like handouts, except the handouts are going to corporations and the wealthy. At least the new deal arguably helped the poor?
So long story short, is, if you believe in true republican ideals, right now you need to vote democrat.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
The websites that have porn subscriptions tend not to have illegal child porn on them. They're pretty strict about it as they are frequently American companies that don't want to get busted, and there's enough money in doing it legit. I don't see what the "legal" porn has to do with child porn at all.
This is like putting a tax on Tylenol to help fight the cocaine trade.
rooooar
There are lots of us atheists who have a very strong sense of morality which has nothing to do with illegality.
I've always differentiated between morality and ethics as the former is based on theology, and the latter philosophy. That's not strictly the dictionary definition, but it works for me.
Most porn sites at least need a credit card number to prove that you're over 18, so I assume that in America, you can't get a credit card until you're 18 years of age.
Of course, that never stopped me from finding all the porn I wanted when I was a minor (and now, either); things like password sites, and P2P applications kept me fed with all the XXX goodness I ever wanted without having to pay a red cent.
This logic certainly seems flawed to me...
All male citizens please report to your next testicle measurement center, where it will be weighed and its volume measured by dipping it in a bowl of ice-cold water.
As a female citizen, it is you duty to record and report all your intercourse, so that male wankers cannot pretend to have had intercourse with you.
Thank you, citizen.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Perhaps it's because 3 black dudes doing an asian chick at the same time and dropping their loads in her eye might give the wrong impression of what it's all about. I can't speak for you, but I don't partake in interracial gangbangs, facials, or S&M. If you consider that "normal" maybe you should see a therapist.
I'd rather my 14-year-old granson look to those fine gentleman as role models, as opposed to the politicians running countries such as Britain and America. You know, the politicians who have instigated wars that have lead to the maiming and brutal murders of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At least the Asian woman in your example was partaking in the act with consent; unlike the thousands upon thousands of children who have had their limbs blown off without their consent, in the wars directly started by those politicians who you seem to think are extremely moral.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Any clue on how the hell to d/l those high-bandwidth versions with a proper URL (for feeding to wget, etc.)? I can't stand when sites embed media for use with a player, rather than a straight d/l.
Method of processing duck feet
Being a believer myself, in the Bible, it's not the life examples of the people you follow(except of course Christ), it's God's commandments. The Bible talks about many people who sin. It's using it to tell history and spread important messages one of them being that if you continue to go against God's word, there will be heavy judgement on you.
To also point out a correction, Job is not mentioned in Genesis. I'm not trying to flame-bait either just pointing out some corrections.
On that note I am mixed about this. On the one hand taxing these guy I hope would take some of the tax burdens off of us but on the other hand I'm afraid it'll be used as a stepping stone to further try to tax the internet until everything sold on it is taxed.
1) Sex and Religion. If Sex and Religion were, in fact, the issue here - here's your short answer. Religion actually has a lot of things to say about sex and rightfully so. It is a very short window of time that sex won't kill you. You know since say... the invention of Penicillin to now. Prior ro that VD killed. Now we giggle. AIDS will still kill you but you have to pretty much be TRYING to get AIDS to get it. Yeah yeah, blood transfusion, yadda yadda... to get AIDS you pretty much need to be shooting up or have relatively unsafe sex.
So Religion was right to warn/forbid against promiscuity... kills of the flock, less cash in the coffers.
2) It's not about sex it's about pr0n. No one is trying to take your pr0n away. They want to tax pr0n and use the money to help pay for Kiddie pr0n investigations, and prosecutions.
Look if you ever find yourself defending kiddie pr0n or kiddie pr0nographers just stop and admit you lost the debate. It's unwinnable. If Buscho said they were invading Canada tomorrow to rid the North America's from kiddie pr0n the World would jump right in line and scream KILL CANADA. It's just how repellent kiddie pr0n is. Deal.
3) As for the Christian Right -- they're not calling for this. Some Democrat is -- clearly in an attempt to make Democrats seem more Family Friendly. Whatever.
Now SlashDopes if you don't understand number one... I'm with ya. I'd love to bang the snot out of every thigh high booted, thong showing, belly button ring wearing cock tease I see on the E train. It's just a really bad idea.
If you think for a second number two will go down as advertised you must really buy in to this Government is there to help us bullshit. That money is going in the same BLACK HOLE the 2B USD the FCC was supposed to use to wire up all of our schools. The Government isn't evil, it's incompetent and bloated. Cut it down immediately.
As for number three if you need anymore proof that all the politicians are whores then you'll never get it.
Please return to your orgies at your places of worship you Baalist bastards!
This
Did you ever stop to think that perhaps finding it difficult to be monogamous is normal and natural for men?
The genetically successful male breeds with as many partners as he can, as often as he can.
But why is the vast majority of modern porn so extreme? Because society has been so successful at pushing the "porn is bad" meme, that the vast majority of people who don't feel shame about getting their rocks of to porn are the raincoater brigade. Remove the stigma porn has with the mainstream, and the porn studios will start producing more more mainstream porn for the sexually liberated man and woman in the street.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Do you really want the US government to be the largest producer of porn in the world?! When you're taking 25% of all the profits, that's exactly what you become: a stock holder.
And what happens when the government gets used to that money flowing in? As with any cash cow, laws will be implemented to keep it flowing. We'll end up with MORE porn. Not that it's really a bad thing, but I doubt if it's the good senator's ultimate goal.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm curious. I have never had a chance to speak to someone who was addicted to porn and I'd really like to ask you one thing if you don't mind.
Do you view porn as being addictive, or do you view yourself as having an addictive personality?
I have to admit, I'm a little defensive and biased since I run adult sites for a living. I've had easy access to porn for over 10 years online and I look at porn every day as part of my business.. and I've never had any problems with addiction, or my relationships etc.
I have suffered a serious drug addiction to speed in my past, and so I understand how powerful and devastating addiction can be. It caused me to steal from people I love, it kept me up all night on binges, it affected my work life and my social life etc. I had to go through rehab and group therapy etc. Yet I've never experienced any of the warning signs that might lead me to believe that I could be addicted to porn. I've never thought about porn (at least excessively) while away from it. I've never neglected any responsibilities so I could look at porn (never left work, never missed a bill so I could pay for porn etc.) I've never once gotten bored of my wife or turned her down for sex so that I could go jack off to 20 different girls instead etc.
I'm not trying to downplay your addiction. I am fully aware that there are people who suffer through addictions to porn. And, as someone who suffered drug addiction, I understand the power of addiction and I understand how serious it can be on ones life.
I'm just wondering, do you think porn is addictive ? Or are people who get addicted to porn the type of people who would also easily get addicted to gambling, video games, hookers etc. ?
like kids are going to be the ones paying for this stuff. This only would target adults and companies that sell to adults.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Horseshit, AC. All you're doing is espousing your particular superstitions about how people react to sex without any basis in reality. Where do you get your information?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Aside from the obvious (big brother, nanny state etc.), my problem with the tax is that it is punishing legitimite pornography businesses for child porn.
Most adult businesses already donate to organizations like ASACP annually to help fight child porn. It's already a huge offense that something so inhuman like child porn is given the name 'porn' to begin with, as it leads people to make connections between consentual, legal, adult porn and child porn.
This tax would help strengthen that connection and it would also punish legal business because of unrelated scum that prey on children.
Why should legal business be forced to give up 25% of their profits to compensate for a crime that's entirely unrelated ? It could end up taking away money from non-profit organizations that rely on donations to help protect children.
Plus, as someone else already mentioned, maybe they should start taxing gun manufacturers 25% for gun related murders. Tax the food industry 25% to help fight obesity etc.
We're talking about porn here. More like sex is a thing that happens between a pissa deliverygirl and a customer, when he opens the door. Ofcause there in lies a problem, because if oral services aren't sexual relations, then sex is what happens he's opened the door, she's striped and serviced his penis, and they then find the couch.
Sex may not be corrupting to children but to say that porno isn't is an Intirely different statement.
Some magical man in the sky does not decide who is going to be ethical and who is going to be unethical. ethics are learned/taught, not delivered from on high by an invisible sky daddy.
It's a byproduct of humans understanding causation.
Blar.
According to this site: http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/in ternet-pornography-statistics.html we're talking about a 12 billion dollar business in the US ($57 billion world wide). Assuming that the tax does not reduce subscripts, we're talking about $3 billion a year from this tax. I couldn't find anything specific on state or fedral online Pedifile tracking, but I'd guess the national and state budgets combined are under triple digit millions (ie: $1-99 mil).
So the question is, how is the law enforcement community going to deal with a YEARLY $2.9 billion dollar bonus for online kiddie porn tracking.
The answer is, they're not, that money will get siphoned off and the online police will get a small bonus, or a centralized office and campaign center. The rest will likely go into re-election campaigns. beh.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Mainstream democrats has realized the party will die unless they shift more to the right. They can no longer win national elections if they're perceived as a party of liberal minority causes and left wing nut cases. This is one move in many that will try to shift the party back the the middle. In a year it will be very difficult to tell the difference between the DNC and republican moderates.
"Getting into Freudian philosophy and science, has it ever occured to you that perhaps large or covetted things like computers, cars, possessions like iPods or other things are just temporary mental replacements for the lack of sex drive or the lack of sex at all?"
No. Why? Because the religious suppression of sex very much predates the consumerism you reference.
If he thinks the gubmint will be able to successfully tax PORN, one of the founding pillars of THE INTERNET, then the D stands for DUMBASS. :P
(D)umbass?
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love. ~Butch Hancock
If something exists that does not need a creator (god) then why must the cosmos need one?
The fundamental problem is the severe version of two-party politics you have over there. It is currently in Clinton's best interest to act like a right-wing conservative, because it appeals to the real right-wing conservatives, and if the 'true' Democrats get pissed off at it there's nowhere for them to go. They're hardly likely to vote Republican in protest, are they?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
No, absolutely not. They consider that sex other than for the purposes of procreation is a sin - a devout Catholic is not allowed to have sex except if trying to have kids. No contraception, no masturbation even, nothing.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
To echo somebody above, that would make you ethical, not moral. Have had this fight many times but there is a difference. You can not have Good / Evil without religion as Good / Evil imply a post existence accounting. Without religion, you can only have best / worse for me / society.
An example here (using Christianity and true Catholics, not the modern relativistic ones):
It is Good (tm) to deny abortion in all cases. It is unethical to deny abortions in all cases.
De Oppresso Liber
As a Democrat Christian, I have several(well two main ones) objections to your Republican rant.
First, as so many others have pointed out, the Senator mentioned in this piece is a Democrat.
Second, the Republican party is NOT the 'political' wing of the Christian faith (although there are many people on both sides who believe it to be). Yes, Republicans are mostly Christians and Christians are mostly Republicans, but there are many Christians who are Democrats, and most Democrats are Christians. Thus, there are many Christians who are not social conservatives with respect to government; they don't think the government should legislate controversial morality. They recognize the value of Separation of Church and State; they don't want government in religion or vice versa.
As an aside(my objections are now done, wrt your post), this law, if passed, is likely to have very little effect? Aren't many, if not most, online pornography site hosted overseas? Plus, even so, this wouldn't affect online pornography where no money is changing hands, your inbox will still be filled with pornographic spam that links to 'samples'.
well atleast you guys have a tax-system for "porno sites". In our country, anyone who's anyone who could put up a site even with a live cam could earn atleast $1m a week plus the govt still lacks law in restricting such sites/ business.
I agree with your confusion and frustration about the fixation with sex. Yet with all the talk about "naturalness" and "activities that transcends cultures" since the dawn of time itself, whip that thing out on a crowded bus and see what happens. ;)
Don't put this entirely on the Republican party, though...the senator introducing the bill is a Democrat and besides, the demographically defined minority-American Democrats are predominantly Christian, right? Additionaly, the "What about the children?" mantra stems from the Democrat as well (Katie Couric, Hillary, etc.). I do believe the official Republican view is to put the onus on the parents, not control or tax the shit out it.
Without wanting to be flame-bait, the Republican part engages in what I call "henry ford" freedom: You can have any freedom you want, as long as it's Republican.
Wow, in the same breath you taketh and giveth.
Meanwhile, I personally suspect alot of the "bibles" (New Testament, Ko-ran, and others) to be pre-selected collections designed to maintain control over mass populations (animals that require larger amounts of water to maintain classified as "dirty", "sex is evil" to maintain populations control, etc.). This falls in line (IMO) with recent 18-year old laws being created to prevent 16-yr old pregnancies...understandably because birth control wasn't invented yet, still fairly new, or extremely dependent on cycles. Since the invention of "The Pill" however, society itself has been given a new look at sexuality...like a kid in a candy store. The Internet now allows us to visit that candy store anytime we want to.
Two people having sex is natural (sanitation required), but sex with animals isn't and deserves serious debate on its continued allowance...in addition to pre-adolescent sex. This may indeed be the material the Senator is having a hard time coping with. The problem is that, feeling helpless to prevent it from being published, he decides to condone it himself and tax the entire "sin" instead.
Politicians (Dems included) in general will redefine and generalize anything enjoyable as sinful/taxable, as generating new taxes is a political requirement to guarantee support for their programs. Our job is to prevent new taxes until proper management of existing ones is obtained.
The geek shall inherit the earth.
Mod this guy it, the after effects on pornography are all too real. It's been over five years since I first got broadband and I'm still amidst a daily, seemingly never ending struggle.
/.ers and not this guy, I've never had a girlfriend, but he is right - this seemingly ubiquitous access to sex media has undoubtedly caused damage to my concept of male female unity. We must hope that as I combat this problem, the damage will prove reversible.
.xxx domain, or any non holistic countermeasures will do nothing but further the problem. The problem with porn is availability - the "you can't have it, but it's available" mentality. With this puritanical attitude we have artificially driven up demand by pseudo suppressing it - locking it up, instead acknowledging the problem dealing with it head on
For some people its alcohol, for others (including me) its sex or rather pornography. Alike most
Obviously a tax, a seclusion to the
Applying a blanket all tax is nothing but consumer gorging; it's akin to razing the price of cigarettes - after everyone's addicted. The increased economics required may cause a few to knock the habit, but that's a negligible statistic and their not taxing images.google.com. For everyone else, their now shelling out more for the substance they crave. This only serves to further the demand through increased pseudo scarcity.
The only way to effectively deal with this, is to stop the demand. Pornography is a drug, and we are currently dealing with it as such - by declaring war on it. Instead we must attempt to rectify the situation, same as we should the drug war, by opening up the problem to society. Instead of locking it up, they should be opening it up. Teaching people that it's okay if you have looked at pornography, ultimately it's your choice, but providing communication and help venues for people if they so desire. Making it okay to discuss addiction with friends - coworkers, instead of labeling them as pedo's and sex offenders. Increase communication with parents and teens; anything to raise awareness on the subject and the problems it poses. They should be working towards a society where families actually work through the problem, not just ground the kid and install NetNanny.
Pseudo locking up a problem, and negligibly reducing access to it - doesn't work. This is obviously a pork/cash grab. Now excuse me while my constituents and I go start our own child service "foundations".
As a member of the 'deviant' demographic of complete geeks, I'd like to point out that there is no right to never be offended. If there was then the 'moral' people would have problems of their own, what with the whole anti-gay thing.
I come from a country (Britain) that for centuries has taken pretty much all comers. We did bloody well out of it too. As long as people don't screw life up for the rest of us, penalising them for what they do in the comfort of their own homes doesn't do anyone any good. Monocultures are never healthy anyway. Alloys are stronger than pure metals.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Sure pure socialism or pure capitalism tends to fail, but nothing ever works out perfectly. I tend to be very left but that doesn't mean I expect some fantasy utopian society. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that statement is a little too broad to mean much of anything.
as for the thing about the rich voting republican and the poor voting democrat, yes, that was always the impression I had too.
however I don't like republican or democratic ideals, well not the ones that any of our recent presidential candidates spout out anyway. And I don't like the original intention of such ideas much better than I do the current intentions, at this point I don't think they could be of much use anyway.
I don't expect this country to adopt my ideals though, all I can hope for is to make money and live as well as I can, without giving up too much of my integrity. I'd probably move if I had the money, there's plenty of motivation, this article is proof of that.
Too much of the population is essentially brain dead at this point to even care. I think that's the saddest part of it all. They'll continue voting for their favored party, no matter how that said party has changed over the years....
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
The genetically successful male breeds with as many partners as he can, as often as he can.
... if he's a walrus. Other species, including human, find they get an advantage from staying mostly monogamus.
Absolutely!
Evolutionary advantages of monogamy include males that protect and teach offspring as well as allowing one of the sexes to search for food while the other sex watches out for the kids.
BTW, I did use the word 'mostly' up there. The human species has never been strictly monogamus that I can tell. But it also never mated like walruses.
TW
See, the religions don't change to meet the times. Hence Bush pushing for abstinance to be the only method taught to prevent AIDS. Why? Jebus said so. And it works...if you are abstinant. After all our time on the planet people have been having sex. It's why we are here.
Some stupid 2000 year old cult is not going to change opinions, and I am against having my tax money spent to further a dangerous idea.
Unless racist Bush just wants all the Africans to die so he can invade more easily.
Blar.
I think it's fair to say both the Democrats and the Republicans are at the forefront of censorship. Ashcroft had the Spirit of Justice statue covered up because of a boobie for example which also costed $8000 for the curtain at tax payers expense.
In my city the Chief of Police makes $151k USD and his lieutenants make at least $110k USD per year. I know primary care medical doctors that don't make that kind of money.
I say we tell the police to stop messing around with their "busy work" like arresting people for simple marijuana possession (the number one reason for criminal arrest in the US) that costs the taxpayer on average >$8k USD per arrest, cut back on the number of police officers, stop buying them a new >$30k USD cruiser every two years and do some real work.
While there are a lot of good cops out there, the system that governs them is corrupt and needs major overhaul. Sen. Carper's tax is just more pork (no pun intended) for Washington to give out.
Fuck that.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Hmm, sounds like an easy solution.
Oh uhh, now you're at it; please define "pornography".
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Take a look at Ckwop's posting history. He's a first post troll whore.
Clearly you have not been perusing online porn recently.
Normal sex between two consenting adults? HA.
Uh dude, this tax IS a sales tax. It has nothing to do with the IRS, it is Congress, your supposedly elected representatives that write the tax code. You could get completely rid of the IRS and politicians can keep writing tax codes whether they be income or sales tax. Only requirement is they have someone to enforce it and threaten you with jail, or to sieze your property, if you don't pay. ALL governments have some enforcement arm that will do that regardless of the tax system. If you switch to a sales tax there still has to be an enforcement arm its just aimed entirely at businesses instead of individuals.
The problem with switching to a sales tax is it totally hammers the poor who spend most of their income to survive and so are heavily taxed, while it results in a massive acceleration in the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich, since they don't spend most of their income, they reinvest it, and their investment profits would be untaxed. Thats why its no accident wealthy Republicans are the first to favor switching to a sales tax, because its a financial boon to them. It would probably be a boon to the economy, it would spur investment, until the adverse effects of wealth concentration really kick in. In particular there will be massive unrest as the poor get poorer and the rich get richer at breakneck speed. If you want to look back in history you saw the same effect in the late 19th and early 20th century when the robber barons reigned supreme. It led to the Progressive movement where little people banded together to fight the powers that be and wealth concentration in way largely unprecedented in U.S. history. It lead to progressive income tax and antitrust laws to try to place checks on wealth concentration and abusive monopolies. At the time railroad monopolies in particular where evit incarnate. The railroads were a monopoly in transportation then, and they were using that monopoly to bleed farmers and business white transporting their goods to markets). It was also an era of labor unrest and unionization as workers sought to put an end to 80 hour work weeks for bare subsistence wages.
You can give sale tax exemptions for food, and other essentials, but then you are back to a situation where the government is picking winners and losers, just the thing you are objecting to. Again this porn tax IS A SALES TAX. The fact is you are going to have to apply sales tax to something, and in a big way, to support a government as pork and spend happy as the U.S. government.
From what I saw on the news about this plan last week it is obviously and fatally flawed. It is being actively fought by civil rights groups because it is selective taxation of speech which is for all intents and purposes censorship, and obviously it wont even touch porn sites outside the U.S. The only way the U.S. could make this stick would be to create a great firewall, like China, which some in government would no doubt like to do as phase 2 of this plan, and of then start engaging in full fledged censorship of the Internet. Its a fact of life the U.S. government, using the threat of child porn and terrorism, is heading down a road that ends at oppressive police state.
The other insane part of the plan was they wanted to mandate age identification, for example using a credit card. Only people with no grip on reality would propose this. In an era of rampant identify theft, I assure you criminals will LOVE Congress if they make people type their credit card numbers, more than they already are, to get access to porn. It will be a bonanza for identity thieves. There will also no doubt be a boom in chat rooms and web sites that hand out other people's credit card numbers which kids and everyone else will seek out so they can look at porn without hinderance or risk.
There isn't anything about this plan that will work and its obvious that the people that wrote the bill have no clue or they have as the real ulterior motive eventual massive censorship just like China.
@de_machina
The genetically successful male breeds with as many partners as he can, as often as he can.
This it has in common with the female. The BBC has done their studies anonimously and there it showed that the same percentage of women and man commited adultery.
When asked personally, meaning asked by a person and not via an anonymous PC or the like, more men the women commited adultery. So what it shows is that either men brag and women lie about how often they do it, or both.
When I asked my (female-)friends they said women probably do more adultery then men. The difference is that they do not talk about it. The reasons is that a men is a stud and a women is a slut when they got found out.
Just look at the numbers. Either some women are extremely busy, or the numbers are incorrect. Say 20% of the commit adultery and 10% of the women. Who are they doing it with?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"I've been a pornography addict for almost ten years. Only in the last couple months have I really started to break free from it (and it feels damn good). I don't treat women like objects, I don't expect women to act like the women I see in porn, but I can admit I've asked for my girlfriend to do things I never would have thought of before."
Pornography shouldnt have to be something you "break free" from. Yes - if you over do it, and take it as something it is not (an example of all real life encounters) then your going to have some serious problems. But that's not prono's evil characteristic - all forms of entertainment can be the same. Ever see a news report where two young boys got seriously injured playing "backyard brawling" like they saw on T.V.? Does that mean that television violence is evil? Not in my opinion - its just entertaining. Anytime sombody takes entertainment into their lives as a piece of it, there is a risk involved - nothing is different with pornography.
So if you treat your girlfriend like an object, and make her act a certain way - she should dump you. The fact of the matter is thats your problem not porns problem - many of us have girlfriends who actually enjoy porn (on rare occasions) - does that make us/them sexual deviants? I dont think so, it just makes us all aware of our sexual drives - and willing to explore that drive.
You may not agree with abortion or gay marriage but believing in freedom is about having the maturity to realize that the people who are gay or have abortions are consenting adults and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
..). Now forget whether or not I am right or wrong about it actually being murder, and think about it for a second as if it were murder. Would it then be outside the government's purvue still, as you claim? Certainly not. NO, I am not advocating any form of prior restraint (IE, bedroom checks or spying on or monitoring of sexual activity), nor am I advocating in ANY sense a lessening of due process. And yes, I totally concede that if I did not see abortion as murder, and thus a major violation of someone's rights, the government would have no standing whatsoever to say anything about it.
..
There is a huge difference between abortion and gay marriage, though - at least from the POV of a pro-life person such as myself. If two guys want to get married, or two gals want to get married, I don't care. Who is it hurting? No one. Whose rights are being deprived or denied by their actions? No ones. That is what freedom is about to me - so long as you do not initiate force or fraud against a non consenting other, the government has no rightful say to tell you what to do or not do with your property.
But abortion is certainly not the same thing. I'm not out to start a flame fest, but yes I do believe abortion-on-demand is murder. That is, abortion "as birth control", as opposed to abortion to save the life of the mother (which is a rare necesity indeed
So please, don't lump all pro lifers in with the "Christian Right" because I am not Christian and I certainly am not part of today's right wing. The bottom line is, gay marriage and abortion are really to disparate to compare as directly as you did
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
It has lots of explicit sex in graphic detail. Lots of rape, even watersports. Pretty freaky shit.
Tax the bible? Fine by me.
As long as there is free porn and sex is still legal, if teens want to see pr0n they can. For example, anyone can find free pr0n on google and other search engines. There is also lots of pr0n on p2p networks. So the tax is just going to hurt the pr0nographers that make people pay with a credit card. Since most teens don't have a credit card or the money, they don't go to the pr0n paysites. So really this is just going to hurt the paysites and their customers, most of which are 18+. If anything, it'll encourage more p0rn sites to be free (so there's no tax), and allow more free pr0n sites and/or pr0n on p2p networks to teens and adults alike. Also, it doesn't make sense to force people to be 18 to visit pr0n sites while the age of consent is 16 in many states, and is the average age of consent worldwide. So if teens have to be 18 and have to pay lots of money, plus tax, to see pr0n, what's to stop people 16+ they from doing it with their girlfriend instead? You have to be at least 16 to have sex, and at least 18 to see sex. What if a 16-18 couple video tape themselves having sex. If they watch themselves is it illegal? The point is that laws just don't make sense there.
L... ooney Politician. (and I feel qualified to make that claim since I am one (a Libertarian, not a politician)
Share and Enjoy! (tm)
The funny thing about kids is that they grow up. Fast. And they remember shit like this for a very long time.
The kids you deny porn today grow up to be the voters that vote you (or your party, if you have long since been replaced) out of office tomorrow.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I think you're right. If kids didn't see that material eventually then they'd end up getting pregnant.
Let's not educate our kids about what the sexual body parts are, or tell them if they're going to have sex wear a condom. Lets let them learn this all on our own, and let some 12 year old boy come to our house and do it with out 11 year old girl who knows nothing about sex, let alone condoms. Then we have these insanely young girls getting pregnant. That is the problem when kids aren't sexually educated.
I fail to see how a person can have their basic view on reality changed by such things without already being easily influenced to an unnatural degree. I first saw porn when I was very young, and saw it from time to time thereafter. I know full well that it does not reflect reality in any but the most basic contexts. Men and Women have sex... that's about the end of the similarity. If you get a boner at work, your hot female boss is not going to come up and offer to "relieve that" for you. Sorry, not going to happen. Neither do the vast majority of women enjoy cum in their face. (As an aside, "money shots" suck. Stop doing them!)
You talk about a dangerous road, it doesn't get much worse than censorship.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Reminds me of The Stainless Steel Rat who said that he as an atheist had better morals, because he knew that this life was the only life and was therefore extremely precious, while people who believe think that there is a second life after this one.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This is not true. IANACLA (Catholic Legal Authority), but I believe that the actual Catholic position is a lot more complex than this. For example, a devout Catholic who is sterile, either due to age or other natural circumstances is not committing a sin when having sex with a partner to whom they are legally (in the eyes of the Church) married.
Furthermore, what is commonly known as the "Rhythm Method", a form of contraception that has recently been shown to be very effective, is allowed to devout Catholics.
Do you really think that the government is going to impose a flat sales tax of (for example) 6% on all goods? Please! The various US Governments (Federal, State, & Local) have already proven themselves adept at taxing cigarrettes at a much higher percentage than most other things (usually with the *stated* goal of getting less people to smoke), and I believe that such methods will only increase (frex., taxing condo purchases higher than home purchases, to encourage home ownership, taxing sex toys more highly due to "morality concerns", &c., &c....), not decrease. And yes, I believe the stated reason will often be to affect changes in society.
This sig space intentionally left blank.
Small point here...
Separation of church and state simply means that the state cannot promote/demote any belief over another. It does not mean you can't have religious people in power.
Just because the "American Voter" doesn't vote the way you do or believe the way you do doesn't mean they are insane.
That's the beauty of the voting system in America. You can vote however you wish. That isn't insane. That is freedom.
It's just too bad the people set up for us to choose from lately are of such low caliber.
Porn != Sex
Sex is a very natural thing. It's why were all around. Pronograpy OTOH is a buch of guys drueling over naked women. In my opinion it's similar to going to the zoo and watching the animals, except that zoo animals at least have some sense of dignity.
Apparently your castle isn't big enough.
Is it a coincidence that the sexually repressed countries of the world are also the most depressed and violent? Sex is probably THE most natural thing we have going for us. Humans have managed to breed a lot of natural instinct out of ourselves over the course of our evolution but the sex drive is something that still remains incredibly potent, despite centuries of trying to beat it back.
Love and monogamy is found nowhere else in nature... is it a coincidence that humans have historically been incredibly good at fooling ourselves (or to use an Orwellian concept: Doublethink)? We are quite adapt at doing one thing and thinking another. The staggering amount of sexually "deviant" priests is testament to this. It's so easy to call it a lack of willpower when really it's a much bigger issue: a problem with how we deal with sex in our lives.
And is it a coincidence that porn stars are usually the most happy, the most likeable, and the least self-conscious people you could ever meet? The people that make pornography, in reality, are a relatively small, tight-knit community of people built on trust, safety, and respect. Even the ones that make the hard-core gangbang porn. The people that call pornography "dirty" and "dangerous" are usually the ones that are completely jealous that they can't have it as often as they like.
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
I'd like to point out that this crap usually comes out of the Democratic Leadership Council, the socially conservative, pro-corporate freedom wing of the party. ...and they have been in control since Clinton. Their stratagy seems to be to out Republican the Republicans on just about everything but the military industrial complex. These guys are the reason that while I'm currently alienated from the Republican party, I still dispise the Democrat party. I'm leary about the fringe, too. But, that goes for both parties.
*To the general public:
And, dispite what the Rushes of country have been telling people, the "liberal" wing of the party has been busy scattered in 10,000 different directions for over a decade and couldn't find it's ass with 2 hands. The grassroots seem to be finally getting organized on it's own. But, It may be too late.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad and that pornography is somehow immoral. I don't know how they reached that conclusion, after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality.
Get you statement straight. The Christian faith does not believe that sex is bad. Some crazy Christians do, but the religion itself does not. If you don't believe me, read Song of Solomon - it's a whole book in the Bible about enjoying sex.
Most atheists are some of the most generally "nice" people around (except when you ask them about religion!). The reason, I think, because we prescribe to THIS life, not something beyond. We realize that we are all we have!
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
I'm with you, I'm agnostic and I don't expect an afterlife. If some day I find myself in heaven or hell, I guess I'll have a red face. Oh well. But besides that, I'm a good person. I do right even though I don't believe that it's going to earn me eternal life. I'm just compelled to; it's in my character.
I think that our notion of right and wrong are buried deep in our genes. Cooperation is what makes us more survivable than many other animals, and somewhere in that we've had to learn to get along. I'm suggesting that sociability, and the order from chaos that follows is what made us better and stronger than the rest.
I'm also suggesting that morality is completely arbitrary, but a certain set of conditions led humanity to our current point. If for some reason our ancestors were made stronger and more survivable by eating their young, or doing any of the myriad of things we consider to be amoral, that's what we'd be doing today.
I think that most of us have in our genetics the desire to do what's right, and that we're all basically good deep down inside. If you believe that God made you that way, that's cool too. Our conclusions are basically the same. Of course, there's some among us that are anti-social - raping, stealing, and otherwise being uncooperative. I think that somewhere down the line their ancestors were made survivable by deviating from the pack. They were stronger, they stole food, killed their own and spread their genes contrary to the established protocols--and here they are today following the lessons of their predecessors--being assholes.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Do you remember back in the 80s when Tipper Gore had her own little witch hunt to eradicate naughty language in music? The Democrats have been just as bad about censorship as Repoublicans. Let's face it, there are worse things out there than dirt pictures/books/songs, and I wish the government would concentrate on what they're constitutionally allowed to do rather than trying to save us from ourselves.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
Kids read these comics and movies. Yet I dont see anyone worrying that superhero comics or movies should be banned.
Copying this anti porn ideology one could claim that superhero comics make kids believe they can do what superheroes do in those comics. Sounds stupid? It is stupid and it is not happening (except in very few darwin award cases).
Movie companies make so fine special effects that they are completely believable, even for adults. Still, no kids are trying to mimic that behavior to the disastrous results. I believe that porn is treated likewise, we adults know that most of the porn is fiction. Porn doesnt display real sexual relationships, just like superhero comics and movies do not display real actions of men and women. Yet some people believe that porn fiction is damaging kids but violent superhero stories are not. Fiction is fiction and growing up while seeing it or reading it doesnt damage you.
Are there suckers that actually pay for internet porn?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Whoever modded the parent as flamebait needs to go and read their bible a bit more carefully, because there's a hell of a lot of sex, not to mention what it has to say about women . If you think porn is degrading to women, you REALLY need to read the Bible - y'know it tells us to check whether a woman is on her period before having any contact with her at all, as menstruating women are so filthy, dirty, and basically unclean that everything she so much as touches is unclean for a week!
Oh, and if family values is your thing - well, the Bible's got plenty to say about that too
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
Yes. Carper (and it's not just him - D Senators Landrieau and Almond are in on it, http://www.senate.gov/~landrieu/releases/05/200572 7713.html)
swore an oath to uphold the constitution.
Carper's been a congressman, governor, and now senator for years, and this is the first time i've seen him violate his oath. But it only takes once.
He should resign. If he doesn't, he should be encouraged, politely but unceasingly.
Senators are relatively immune when they get caught violating their oath of office.
One of the checks and balances of the system is that soldiers and veterans have taken an oath to oppose the enemies of the constitution, foreign and domestic. By continuing to claim the office of senator after violating his oath of office, I personally would consider Carper a domestic enemy of the constitution, who should be actively opposed veterans. For ethical reasons, such opposition should be nonviolent.
Perhaps a wave of free online carper-porn would make the point.
Perhaps picketing his house would be appropriate.
https://ssl.capwiz.com/usatoday/bio/?id=9482&congr ess=1091&lvl=C
He lives in wilmington, not sure exact address.
Perhaps a national boycott of the democratic party until carper resigns would be the way to go.
Each veteran could do something a little different. Realisticly, almost nobody will do anything, but ten people would enough to hound this usurper out of office if they were persistant and clever. Maybe we should just pray for him.
Perhaps he's educable.
You wanna fight obesity, LIFT a damn tax, sort of, and get high fructose corn syrup outa everything and real healthier sugar back in. Tastes better too.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Why does our government concern itself with upholding moral standards that they have nothing to do with anyway? It seems to me that it shouldn't be in their interests to do this. We have to make people more responsible for themselves, not have Big Brother take care of everything for us.
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
Vote for mr. Newcanditate, he lets you watch porn.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
If you actually read "The Selfish Gene", you'd see that there are two stability points:
1) The "conspiracy of the doves" (100% doves) -- the ideal case (no-one gets hurt), but rapidly deteriates if you have even one hawk
2) The point "60% dove, 40% hawk"
If the doves are taken as being purely ethical and the hawks as purely unethical, you can see that the ethics and morality are not eraticated, in fact they tend to outnumber the hawks. The exact ratio depends on how "unethical" the hawks are. The more damage they do, the more that being "ethical" pays off.
It's a good thing this is the case, otherwise there wouldn't be a place in the world where you could step outside even one instant without being mugged or turned into a slave.
On the whole, people *are* more ethical and moral than not and it's a way societies work best.
Also, the "conspiracy of the doves" ethical model also does work (see the GPL), but it relies on enforcement to ensure that there are no hawks.
The problem you're having is that the fundies try to move from "60% dove, 40% hawk" to "conspiracy of the doves" through less than "100% dove" means. If you believe the "Selfish Gene", that's doomed to failure since the fundies themselves are the hawks that drive things back to the "60% dove, 40% hawk" level.
You can only tax what is delivered. No taxes no delivery, simple as that.
By doing so all that US will get is the destruction of its online porn industry (if it can be called industry), all players will migrate to Canada and Mexico, or to some other country where they are not taxed.
Politicians are not worry about technical issues, all they want to do is pretend that they really worry about people.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
On the other hand, you are willfully deceiving yourself if you believe that President Gore would have reacted to 9/11 by having a useless penis size contest with Saddam Hussein
Serbia.
or by sanctioning what is currently happening at Gitmo
Waco.
There is a difference, albeit smaller than most of us would like and Bush counts on the fact that many people will discount that and either not vote or vote for hopeless third parties as some kind of "statement" that in the end means nothing.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
vote for hopeless third parties as some kind of "statement" that in the end means nothing.
The same could be said of any individual vote. Each one means nothing. Votes are only meaningful in aggregate.
Here's the difference:
A 12 year old kid knows he is incapable of flying, seeing through walls, or having lasers shoot from his fingertips.
The same 12 year old probably knows that he's perfectly capable of sexual intercourse.
All the presidents we've had for quite a while have been Christians. You simply can't get the job without at least pretending to be one, and you'll have a hard time if you're not Protestant. Kennedy had a problem with this.
Mostly what Bush is doing is just pandering to the hard right Christian fundamentalists - the "snake handlers", if you will.
There are lots of us atheists who have a very strong sense of morality which has nothing to do with illegality.
Amen to that brother!
...how about a 25% tax on automobiles to help fight drunk driving?
...how about a 25% tax on junk food to help fight obesity?
...how about a 25% tax on guns'n'ammo to help fight crime?
In fact, how about a 25% surtax on all taxes to help fight unnecessary taxation?
Wait.. doesn't the Catholic church frown upon the use of condoms? Is it a coincidence that Africa has one of the fastest-growing Catholic communities in the world, while also being plagued by an AIDS epidemic? Perhaps if the Church recognized that people are, *gasp*, having lots of sex, and instead spent more time promoting "safer sex," we would all be better off!
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
Heh, actually this is why Tom Delay is in hot water. He laundered in direct corporate money and managed to break Texas's 2 sentence election finance law in order to funnel millions into Republican candidates in the state. Then, after he bought enough wins they pushed to redistrict Texas 8 years too early. Then, when the remaining democrats refused to play ball and left the state, he used the Department of Homeland Security to track them down to a Denny's in Oklahoma.
Or, at least he was in hot water, before the Republican controlled US House decided the bi-partisan House Ethics Committee should be stacked with people that took money from Delay and should never be schedualed any time to meet.
Gotta round up dem terr'rists, right?
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
It seems odd to have a situation where the IRS decides what is and what isn't pornography.
I think looking at pricewatch.com is pornography.
Imagining buying 8 10KRPM SCSI drives with a decent scsi RAID card... ooooh. that gives me feelings inside that rivals large breasted women and shorn vaginas.
or even looking at what kind of rack servers are available. Beowulf clusters of multi-processor servers with RAM and storage totals calculated in Petabytes.
I'll be back in a minute. gotta get a tissue.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Umm, a *DEMOCRAT* Senator is calling for this.
No big deal...Democrats and Republicans are more a like than they are different - they are bound tightly by their common lust for money and control. Where it comes from, and however its acquisition is justified, is irrelevant.
Having an "explanation" for the sex drive and uncontrollable urges doesn't make it any easier to live with said urges, especially when we also have a conscience and a sense of morality fused into our own beings.
Should a man be happy that his body is telling him to screw any healthy female he comes across?
I'm fortunate enough to be tapped into my emotions and conscience more than I'm tapped into my biological urges. I don't like to cause other people psychological pain nor cause myself psychological pain. All I've ever gotten from promiscuity was pangs of guilt.
You can take your evolutionary biological explanation and smoke it, cause when it comes to living with emotions and having a conscience, the explanation doesn't tell you how to live your life.
pornography is not a drug. just because YOU display addictive behaviour does not mean that the thing is a drug. calling it one uneccesarily confuses the discussion.
sum.zero
By your "very effective" link, it states that this method produces pregnancy in 5% of the women that use it.
By comparison, the figure they give for birth control pills is 0.1% - 0.5%.
Hmm, a method that is 10x less effective and requires restricting sex to certain days? About the only thing it has going for it is that it's free (or at least a one-time cost for their beads, a calendar, whatever).
I can understand promoting this method when the population can't afford birth control pills. The study was done in "Bolivia, Peru and the Philippines", where I imagine there a quite a few users that could benefit. However, I don't see it as a replacement for birth control in populations that can afford birth control pills.
You make excellent points about the universal connection most of us have as regards to the pleasures of sex. It should be celebrated, enjoyed and shared. What you have failed to adress is the universal taboo most of us have with regards to adults having sex with pre-pubecent childeren. Children can grasp the notion of sex early, (as long as they don't think you are fighting), like everything that is presented as normal they will simply accept it as "common-sense". But that does not mean they understand or experience the same emotions as someone who is sexually mature. Yes, I think our culture should do a 180 degree turn on it's attitude to sex and violence in the media. But...
As someone who was married for 20years to a victim of drunken incest and violence for the first 16yrs of her life. I support a tax on sexual media that will assist in hunting down "rock spiders". These people are sick and there sickness can spread a cancer onto the "souls" of thier victims that lasts a lifetime.
Children should learn sex from playing "mum & dad" and asking questions not from a 200lb drunken slob drooling all over them. The internet has done more than anything else to flush out people who participate in this activity for profit or any other motive (eg:Demark, France). I say the taxation should stay and the "verifying of identity" crap should cease. Most of all, society needs to look deep into the motives behind those pushing and preserving "shameful-sex" attitudes toward humans, that IN THIER OWN MINDS AND BODY, are ready, willing and able to bonk thier brains out.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Let's tax gyms to help fight violence, banks to help fight forgery, and telemarketers to help create an anti-spam task force (or just fund carpet-bombing Florida, which could have pretty much the same result).
that is a quixotic quest.
sexually-oriented imagery and grafiti has existed as long as man has been able to leave a mark on a wall.
sum.zero
They should be paying *me* a tax for all of the crappy porn popups that occur.
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
The Bible doesn't say sex is wrong, the Bible does say pornography is wrong, and lusting after another woman in your heart means you already comitted adultery. The Bible also says adulterers, fornicators, liars, thieves, murderers and drunks will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Lest they repent and abandon their ways.
Is pornography wrong? As a Christian, I obviously think so. I used to be addicted to it from an early age, but thanks to God I am free from it now.
So you draw your morality from the bible?
Jolly good.
Do you have kids? A son, perhaps? Let's hope he never gets stubborn and rebellious, or you'll have to stone him to death
And if he manages to survive long enough to get through that phase, I sure hope he doesn't try to convert you to another religion, because you'll have to kill him for that, too
And he'd better not be gay either, because that's an abomination
Hey, you're quids in if you've got a daughter though, because it's A-OK to sell her into slavery... wonder if eBay allow that?
Before you do that though, you should check whether she's on her period before having any contact with her, as menstruating women are unclean, and contaminate anything they touch
Hope you don't like eating shellfish either, 'cuz those are an abomination too
Of course, you can make it real nice and easy by just sticking to the Ten Commandments, right? I mean, you can't go wrong there, surely. Except which of the three different sets should you use?
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
What is the fixation with sex?
The strongest drive (besides self-sustain) in a species - species-sustain.
Tell somebody from childhood on, it's bad you'll create an inner conflict i. e. strongest drive vs. something bad.
Somebody with an inner conflict like that is not rooted in him/herself and can be manipulated.
Develop solutions: Get saved, pray a lot follow this and that and you'll be ok which isn't true because the inner conflict isn't resoved.
*** Profit!
Side affect: fixation with the repressed (sex) and perversions like obsession with a-sexual bodies in child porn, anger with rape.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Well American politic aside I have to ask questions of how on earth this will be enforced. We already offshore labour to other countries willing to give breaks. How much easier is it to offshore servers serving up porn?
And stop kiddies downloading porn? How many kiddies do you think download prn from ligit porn sites using their dads credit cards. You guessed it... a big zip Id say. Much more likely its coming from P2P networks or irc or some such. I like pollies when they try to have ideas. They are so cute. I guess they sound like they are doing something to Mom and Pop in middle America or wherever.
BTW... Australia already tried to clamp down on porn. Guess what happened. Porn went offshore.
Support a different Democrat in that state's primaries, if you don't want to support a Republican. Of course, assuming he isn't a whore, too. Almost no one votes in primaries, your voice and vote would actually matter.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
The genetically successful male breeds with as many partners as he can, as often as he can.
This is bullshit. Evolutionary success depends upon producing the most children who go on to have more children, not to spread the most of your genetic material around. A well cared for child that receives proper parental attention, who grows into a stable adult, is a greater "success" and will likely breed more and better children than five kids who are malnourished and mentally underdeveloped without the interaction and protection of the father.
I'm not disagreeing with your first statement. Monogamy can be hard, but don't pull that "men are hardwired for infidelity" crap. The notion that women are "supposed" to try desperately to hold on to one man while men are "supposed" to want to spread their baby batter everywhere is a product of our culture, and is a cop-out for both sexes.
Seeing as I spent more than 8 hours of my developemental life in a state-run institution...
Seeing as I was born within the territory of the state and will grow up to be a citizen of the state...
Seeing as all my interaction with people nowadays has this or that a law pertaining to it...
Seeing as the biggest authority oustide myself in my non-religious life is a state of one form or another...
Shouldn't the state be concerned that I go through proper and healthy emotional and character developement?
I agree with separation of church and state.
I do not agree with separation of morality and character building from state. The state needs to foster good character in its citizens. That does not mean legislate a law requiring people to have good character, it means to put into place programs which help people develope good character throughout their lives.
That needs to happen at the level of the state. The state deals with people and an essential part of people is their emotional and character developement.
Do they have any idea how much money that is? I'm all for it - we could probably eliminate all other taxes the government collects and still double the budget.
11*43+456^2
It's addictive personality. Much the same way as alcohol and drugs can ruin a persons view on many things.
But to ban something because some people get addicted to it is nonsense. Some people are addicted to overeating, should we ban food next?
How about this, we all become responsible for our own behavior. The guy that you were responding to blames the porn for his addiction to it, instead of laying the blame on himself for no control. Moderation in all things is best, but some people have no control. So does that mean that since some peoples lives are ruined by alcohol, drugs, porn, gambling and food we should ban it all...you know...just in case?
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
For an interesting testimony on what pornography can do, read this interview with Ted Bundy
1. I somehow doubt Ted Bundy is representative of the average human being, or the average consumer of porn.
2. Given a choice between saying "I'm an evil scumbag" or "the porn made me do it", which do you think he'll pick?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I'd say, in terms of sex, there's a difference between your run of the mill movie where two adults consent to have sex is different than watching a movie of some college girl get something shoved up her privates while drunk at a party. Personally, I don't see the value in an 11 year old seeing that sort of thing.
Next - this has nothing to do with religion. And actually, there are more church-going religious folks registered as Democrats than Republicans. It's just that Republicans use religion as a political wedge issue.
Last, this has nothing with to with gay rights or abortions, as this affects taxation and children (who have no legal rights). While I agree, the Republicans believe in freedom so long as it aligns with their political interests (open markets... except the prescription drug market! for example) -- this isn't about freedom at all. Besides, it's a Democrat involved here, anyway.
And to say it doesn't protect children in any way -- when the tax money will go toward causes relating exactly to that -- is just an angry reaction.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
The evolutionary advantage for females is that they can have their children protected by a male, but breed with an evolutionary superior male. Why do you think we are one of the few species where a male can't tell if a female is ovulating.h tml
search for "Red Queen"
To learn more of evolutionary sexuality: use google, but here's one to start you of http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/sexualselection.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
You sure you do? What if said state happened to have a totally different type of morality than you? What if "good" character as seen by the state requires fighting other countries?
I seriously try to avoid be Nazi/Commie-argument, but with a statement like this, you pretty much asked for it. But myself, I prefer my children not to have their character and morality built by any kind of Mullah or Führer, so go figure...
Are you sure you remember the founding principles of your country? With freedom the highest goal in itself and such?
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
As someone who was once addicted to porn, I can tell you that it can seriously screw up your notions about the realities of sex. Easy access to pornography on the internet during my single years definitely caused me some problems
Hundreds of millions of people have "easy access to pornography" and no relationship problems. Obviously, your utilization of on-line pornography was a symptom, not a cause, of your problems.
If you don't want to have easy access to pornography on-line, you have many ways of putting yourself in a position that you don't: get rid of your home Internet connection, connect through a filter, or join a monastery.
Where do you get this stuff? By whose definition have you decided these things? You act like this is a long settled matter (and perhaps it is for you), but when I look up those two words - ethical, moral - they seem largely interchangable according to both definitions and modern usage.
I like the distinction you are trying to make. I think your distinction would be useful. I also think you are simply dead wrong.
As far as I can see, you are talking out your ass.
The genetically successful male breeds with as many partners as he can, as often as he can.
This statement is incomplete in that a genetically successful male will have a primary relationship where he invests resources in the upbringing of his offspring and then fucks around on the sly to play the odds of having successful children without investing in them himself.
OTOH, this investment has become less necessary as the modern welfare state has millions of anonymous strangers investing resources in everybody's offspring. Pair bonding in our species developed because the female didn't have the resources to raise children on her own, but nowadays with a slight stretch, she can. I wonder if evolution will catch up to the present circumstances.
How does that even make sense? Someone mentioned in the Bible does something unsavory, and that disqualifies the book from having any sort of authoritative message?
My way back has been erased.
A common political wisdom is the story of the two ice-cream sellers (political parties) that start selling ice-cream at opposite ends of the beach. The theory goes that after a while both sellers will have moved to the same spot in the middle of the beach in an attempt to get the majority of people to walk to thier stand to buy ice-cream.
What seperates theory from fact is motivation, agression, deception, cultral-reflexes and all the other things that make real people more than "consumers".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
We are now open for all your pornography creating and internet serving needs. Featuring the most reliable power system in the world and access to all major US backbones, Canada offers the ideal place to develope and distribute pornography. Our liberal media and gay-friendly politicians will ensure your company a long, hard, prosperous future in Canada.
Plus, you can recruit Montreal girls. wow, montreal girls.
What you are talking about is rape. Not "normal" legal pornography. Rape videos are just as illegal as kiddie porn.
As for people who take the money, turn a trick on tape and then get emotionally scarred, too bad. When faced with a decision you have to weigh the consequences with the rewards. That's life. How is this different than someone who decides to have unprotected sex and gets an untreatable STD? A bad choice was made and now you have to live with it.
There are adults who like to have sex publicly who will not be harmed by willfully being in a porn. Those people deserve the right to do so and other adults deserve the right to watch.
I personally won't answer some of your questions (and attachments aren't allowed...) but there is nothing wrong with answering them publicly. In fact, it shows a great deal of self confidence. Other than that, you are going back to sex with minors and rape again. That horse is dead, give it a rest. The world knows rape and underage sex is very bad.
The sooner anti-porn people get the message that legal porn itself doesn't hurt otherwise sane adults, the better.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
The problem with switching to a sales tax is it totally hammers the poor who spend most of their income to survive and so are heavily taxed
Every national sales tax proposal includes a universal rebate, where every taxpayer gets a check from the government every month which covers the tax on spending up to the poverty level or thereabouts. The poor would have a very low effective tax rate, often zero or negative. See the FairTax site for more details.
You can give sale tax exemptions for food, and other essentials, but then you are back to a situation where the government is picking winners and losers
Yes, government-granted exemptions would be a bad idea.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Yo, Senator!
How about a 25% tax increase on all the corporations who register in tiny dipshit Delaware in order to avoid paying taxes in their home areas?
Taxes that are supposed to go to pay for children's services like health care, security, and education?
Oh? No longer interested? Fuck you, shitheel politician whore!!!
There are lots of us atheists who have a very strong sense of morality which has nothing to do with illegality.
Likewise, there are lots of religions people who really have a limited sense of morality and just do or don't do whatever their church tells them. Morality is really an intellectual construct and a static "book" cannot cover every possible shade of gray.
I would hazard to guess that "athiests" are generally more intelligent than religious people, because at least they've thought about the plausibility of their beliefs and came to conclusions. Whereas, I would guess that most supposedly religious people are actually "athiestic" about religion (in the "not caring to ponder" meaning) because they have never invested much thought into either religion or morality and just believe and do what other people tell them.
https://ssl.capwiz.com/usatoday/mail/compose/?id=9 482&billid=6036236
send carper a thank you note.
(congressional staffers sort mail into "for and "against" buckets. at the end of the day the buckets are weighed. email doesn't weight much. a brick with a note, expressmailed, has more impact.)
That would be legislating what good character is and legislating what morality is. I do not agree with that. What I want to see are programs that will encourage kids to think for themselves and to challenge them to develope their own moral codes to live by.
I don't think it's the state's responsibility to tell it's constituents what the moral code is. I think it's the state's responsibility to encourage it's constituents to discover their own morality and to challenge them into thinking deeply and critically.
Telling me I have to want to go to war for the state is legislating morality. I already stated that I didn't agree with that. Morality, ethics and character are always personal and must come from within a person, not from without. I wish the state would encourage us to discover ourselves instead of telling us how we are or ought to be.
I wish they could find a smarter way to fight the insanity of the american voter.
Have you ever considered the notion that the Democrats are insane (or wrong, ignorant of history, economics, etc)? Maybe your hubris is unwarranted- just something to consider.
I'm not interested in debating any specific topic with you- just asking you to engage in some introspection.
They're trying to woo moderates back into the fold(Hillary Clinton etc) by imposing conservative morality It's also a problem for democrats that they don't fool many people when they try to move to the center to woo your average 'insane american voter', and instead are offended by insincerity.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
It's hard to settle down with one woman when you've been going through 20 different girls every night, even when that one woman has the advantage of being real and not just an image.
... Lightweight. :P
20?
400 Person LAN for Charity: Zion LAN 2005
is calling for a 25% tax on all internet pornograpy. The money is to help police fight online child pornographers.
Can't say that I see the connection here between adult porn and kiddie porn. An adult who wacks off to images of adults having sex does not exhibit any interest in sex with children.
I propose that there should be a 25% tax on the Catholic church because we definitely know that lots of its priests are active pedophiles and therefore contribute to the demand for kiddie porn.
The race of the participants matters because the audience believes it matters. Interracial porn with black men plays on an old and established belief prevalent in the USA that black men were sexual beasts with enormous penises who would rape and defile pure white southern women. It is based on this continuing belief that pornographers use black men on non-black women. Look around on the web and I suspect you will probably find most interracial porn being black men on white or asian women, and very little of white or asian men on black women. This is merely an artifact of the USA's racist past and it would be good for a parent to shield their child from it.
..things for you.
Really it is.
If she doesn't want to do it, she won't. Its ok to ask for head, to ask to cum on her face, to ask her to bend over and take it up the ass. A lot of women are into those things and don't wish to be insulted by being considered "degraded" by enjoying such acts.
Men are ALWAYS looking at other women. You don't need porn to find stacked blonds. You can see them outside in the street.
Your main problem isn't porn, your main problem is that you feel guilty that you like porn. You feel guilty about sex in general and you are taking it out on porn. The women aren't victims here, your psyche is.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Porn is harmless for most adults as long as you realize it is depicting a male fantasy, not a template for real relationships.
Anarchists never rule
What a waste. Not voting is no way to fight stupid politicians. Any vote that doesn't go against them, is a vote for them, they assume. Vote for a 3rd party, it isn't wasteful like sitting at home is, it shows that you're active in politics, but pissed off with the mainstream enough to vote for someone unlikely to gain power through democratic means.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The problem is, it's the internet. Somehow folks keep mistaking it for something that all falls under U.S. law. There are many countries out there with very different cultural sexual morays.
Ok, so far we've mentioned a lot of different sexual topics including gangbangs and bukkake. But seriously dude - EELS????
The genetically successful man also fits into his proper social surroundings, allowing him to attain the highest social standing and access to the "best" female(s). The two are contradictory, but hey, you can always go climb a tree.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
I think he was saying that acts that degrade women and men can be found on the internet and these images are not apprpriate for children. Violent sex acts also are not good.
Anarchists never rule
no, a good/evil soul implies a post-existence accounting. a good/evil person/place/thing implies judgement.
people can judge, we judged hitler evil and not just ethically challenged and I'm pretty sure some atheists would agree.
also, is it not good (at least for some people) to be ethical towards your fellow man?
even atheism is a religion.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
I'm sorry, but that's such a load of crap. If you can't seperate porn sex from real sex, it is your own damn fault. You say your problems were your own responsibility, but then go on to say that porn hurts people! Bullshit. Some guys have always had problems in relationships with women. Some guys who have trouble in relationships looked at lots of porn. Some frequented prostitutes. Some lived pure and chaste and by the bible, and still had issues. I'm sure it's easy for you to blame your difficulties with women on porn. So be it. Have fun crying about it with your shrink. But don't go spreading your passive-aggressive anti-porn crap around and giving ammunition to those who would prefer a nanny-state.
Anyone who *pays* for internet porn is so stupid that they *deserve* to pay taxes on it too.
The stuff is so widely available for free it is beyond my comprehension that people would pay for it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Are you sure about the degrading part? What if some females actually LIKE what they are doing? Are they degrading themselves and are we supposed to "help" them out of it?
If you look at the facts, women porn stars are multi-millionaries and the guys (with few exceptions) are just used and tossed out. So WHOM is getting degraded? And I don't see lots of women spending the $$$ to sign up/buy porn, it is 90% men.
Anything that should be censored is porn you say, well how about extreme violence, say someone getting beheaded or such...don't you think that should be censored too? Or does it have to involve nudity or partial nudity (no tits, or tits are OK just nothing lower?). It is a VERY slippery slope and that is why the Supreme Court has ruled it is a LOCAL issue to decide. This is just another attempt similar to that one pushed by Sen. Hatch which the SC struck down as unconstitutional. This one if it passes will be too.
Do You remember the hearing in which Sen. Boxer threatened a bill which would destroy p2p technology in order to "save the children from porn".
Right now it's all about shilling to campaign contributors, but with this "porn tax"... suddenly all p2p technology providers become tax evaders. Just you watch.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Job and his daughters are not mentioned in Genesis, RTFM.
-everphilski-
"Every national sales tax proposal includes a universal rebate, where every taxpayer gets a check from the government every month which covers the tax on spending up to the poverty level or thereabouts."
The fairness and feasibility of that sure is open to debate. If I'm a multimillionaire I get a check from Uncle Sam every month? If I don't buy anything I get a check from Uncle Sam?
"The poor would have a very low effective tax rate, often zero or negative"
Ok so you give the poor a free ride, at some point you are going to have to tax someone and the rich are going to get a free ride too unless they are lavish spenders, or you are going to do a luxury tax. A luxury tax is picking winners and losers too and it always gets overturned when the party of the rich is in power.
If you give the poor a free ride and the rich don't spend most of their income the lucky middle class is going to be the one taxed in to the ground like they already are only worse since the percentage of the tax burden on the rich is going to plunge. Not really sure what you are changing at this point other than individuals may not have to mess with tax returns. Anyone who sells anything will though.
All the sales tax does is pick new winners and losers. If your don't tweak it it hammers the poor and middle class. If you tweak it as proposed it totally hammers the middle class. No matter how you tweak it the rich make out like bandits. They aren't going to pay anything close to 30% of their income in taxes unless they are lavish spenders.
@de_machina
Combining Democratic taxation with Republican morality into a single bill.
People did want to ban comic books in the 50's.
English is easier said than done.
There are also a few of us who believe in god, but not in morality.
Abolish Copyright. Restore Freedom.
Come to think of it, instituting an import duty on foreign porn would probably be much more effective at combating child pornography, because most of it (at least the professionally produced stuff) is foreign. I might even e-mail the senator with the idea...
argumentum ad fallacium: Fallacy of defining a fallacy which allows one to dismiss the argument in question.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
If you care for the truth, and not just your truth, you will read the entire Bible and the law which Jesus preaches. You seem happy enough to believe a random sceptic website without doing any research, just so long as it "proves" the Bible wrong. Are you afraid of the Bible?
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
I'm definitely of the left, but we have to be precise about this: the democrats are quite often censorious and interventionist because they are opportunistically courting the "soccer mom" vote. This was their basic strategy under Clinton, and it was effective - it drains away much of the Republican base. And they can safely do this, because the Republicans are held immobile by their own right wing, who would never let them take a "free speech" line on something like pornography.
The problem is not the politicians. The problem is the populace: they value safety, security and middle-class family culture more than free speech and an open society. The politics are a reflection of these values.
Are you comfortable with answering and doing all those things I asked you to do?
Not unless you give me money. See how this works? People do things they normally wouldn't do for money. It's called a job.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Well, mmmm.....
Morality of the flesh, doesn't require a theology.
If you are going to talk about humanism, lets not dice words, shall we?
Quite simply, if you believe that science and technology can explain everything, so that your nice little 9-5 world isn't upset.
More power to you.
-Hackus
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Your reply makes little sense. Please read what you reply to.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
How the hemmoraging FUCK does a curtain cost $8000?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I understand what you mean about personal responsibility both I and the grandparent are supporters of taking ownership of own's own actions.
However, as a man who suffered from an addiction to porn for over a decade I can tell you that it is a lot like alcohol - harmless in someways and devastating in others. I drink socially but I've had friends go through long recovery processes facing their alcoholism. Both porn and alcohol should be legal but should be treated with care.
As for the hundreds of millions of people who have no relationship problems due to porn, I don't know 100mil people, but I've known twenty or thirty men very well. Once we're good enough friends and I bring up the story of my porn addition there is almost always a story from them to accompany it.
I believe porn addictions are more prevalent than
most of us would imagine.
Atheism is NOT a religion - it is the LACK thereof
It is the negative-assertion position in a debate. No BOP rests upon.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Real women are rarely into threesomes.
Haven't you ever seen Coupling?
We all know that, but you should NEVER EVER SAY IT.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
And how did I miss the point? Would you care to enlighten me instead of leaving me ignorant?
Or do you get your boost to your self-image from simply telling people they're misguided?
Not only that, but in a lot of cases, the healthiest environment for children isn't the traditional monogamous marriage, it's the group marriage, as in the south pacific islanders.
Forty or so folks do a lot better job raising any particular kid than two people do.
Think about the advantages: two or three people can look after the kids at any given point in time, while the rest are out being productive.
The kids have a variety of role models to follow after, and a variety of job skills taught to them.
There's nothing "wrong" with sex. That doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with pornography. Pornography desensitizes kids to sex and trivializes it, so that when they get the real thing it doesn't come with the love and affection that it should come with. It encourages random sexual encounters and inconsistency. The problem with modern society is that sex ISN'T always something that happens between two people who like each other a lot; it is often just a form of entertainment. Sex should be a bond that holds people together, and it instead is becoming a wedge that drives them apart.
"I don't know how they reached that conclusion, after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality."
This is definitely the worst argument I have ever seen. Obviously you have not read said portion of the Bible -- it talks about the daughters of Lot. The moral of the story is first that their descendants were the nations Amon and Moav, who were morally corrupt, and second that Lot should not have lived near the sexual corruption of Sodom for so long. The Bible certainly depicts sex, but does this to reinforce ideas about sexual morality.
In fact, the Bible was pretty ahead of its times on sexual morality. King David kills Batsheva's husband and takes her as a wife, a pretty normal thing for a king to do at the time. However, he is punished heavily for his actions.
Now I'm not saying that you have to agree with everything that the Bible says about sex, but I think it is pretty clear that casual sex and pornography is harmful to society. I think that the fact that people are having sex pretty early, and more indiscriminately, means that sex and love are now things with much less significance and permanence.
Did pornography really help you in your sexual development? In what way? Did it make you more loving, more passionate? Did it make you have greater pleasure?
Rather presumptious, don't you think?
Because I link to a website I must have not done any research, never read the bible, and believe whatever I read on the web?
The reason I'm an atheist is exactly because I've read the bible. Cover to cover. And thought about it. Long before the Skeptics Annotated Bible website even existed. So. Afraid? Hardly.
I link to the SAB as my preferred version because it's a useful resource. Also, it's not "some website" proving the bible wrong. It's the bible proving the bible wrong. The website simply points those contradictions out. I notice you don't refute any of the points I brought up.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
Tell you what, why not join my religion? It involves brushing your teeth with glue.
I know, I know! it sounds stupid.. but only because you're a non-believer, and you're going to perish in the fiery depths of hell. Once you believe it all makes perfect sense, and you'll see how foolish all the non believers really are.
Never mind though, after all, "The simple believeth every word" (Proverbs 14:15)
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
The reason the Democrats do this kind of stuff is because they know people like you will vote Democrat no matter what. You are never going to vote Republican. And you are never going to "throw your vote away" on a third party (in fact, Democrats activly tried suing, sabatoging, insulting and assaulting third partys, their candidates, and their supporters).
I have had Democrats outraged that I would "support the patriot act and Iraq war" by not supporting John Kerry (when, of course, Kerry supported the Iraq war, and Kerry supported the Patriot act and said it didn't go far enough... and my candidate opposed both the patroit act and the Iraq war).
Since the left in America are habitual Democrats for life, not only will you only vote for Democrats, but you will also have nothing but rage and spite for people who vote differently. All the Democrats really need to worry about are the middle of the road swing voters.
If the left wants to start being taken seriously, they have to be willing to turn against the Democratic party.
I believe St. Augustine is credited with being the first self loathing, sex-is-dirty type christian.
Unfortunately, he set the tone for all those that followed.
The problem isn't honest sites that have the 'click here if you're over 18' and make an effort to stop people from wandering in by mistake. The problem is typosquatters and keyword spammers who use junk like pokemon, nsync, or yugioh to lure people (mostly kids) to their sites where they try to infect their computers with spyware. I was absolutely appalled when I was tutoring a 10 yo. who loved pokemon (a few years back). The hardcore popups were everywhere. There's truly some slimy people actively trying to show porn to kids.
.xxx TLD. A foolproof system to mark the pages so that your computer can filter all compliant websites 100%. You could have a plugin for your browser that works like a popup blocker to prevent accidental exposure. The next level up would be password protection to stop your kids from hunting for the stuff. The top level would be ISP blocking that can't be overridden from home.
Porn sites should be required to add a tag like {adult} or {xxx} to their pages indicating that they are for adults only, or move all the domains to a
What this would do is to make it easy to block kids from accessing most adult material, while making it easy to show who is intentionally trying to make it accessible to kids by evading the law. It would also avoid the censorship issue of making adults identify themselves while viewing porn.
None of this changes the fact that unsupervised teens will find a way to get porn if they actually want it. E-mailing, trading burned DVDs or even making their own (I knew a 16 yo. guy who had several female classmates send him naked pics of themselves. It's a nasty legal liability for parents). Even way back when I was 16 (1991), I was able to walk into the bookstore at the nearby stripmall and buy whatever I wanted to off the shelf (not just playboy, hustler and penthouse), no ID check. All I had to do was go a few days without shaving.
Missing an H, article author.
When we just got over an attorney general who covered up the breasts of the Spirit of Justice, have congresscritters going after GTA and now The Sims 2, and where parents are separated from their baby for 6 mths because dad took a picture of him kissing the kid's chest after a bath, do you really think that the government WILL distinguish?
if you get a boner at work, your hot female boss is not going to come up and offer to "relieve that" for you. Sorry, not going to happen
Umm, well, it does happen SOMETIMES... Not a lot though.
You can not have Good / Evil without religion as Good / Evil imply a post existence accounting. Without religion, you can only have best / worse for me / society.
Wherever there are two deontic norms A and B, there is the theoretical possibility of a moral dilemma forcing one to weigh norms A and B and to decide which is the better one, or whether there is some middle road better than either following A or B. A deontic norm separates the good from the bad, but decisions are only better or worse when evaluated against a complex normative system. People who deny that are just hypocryts, and not necessarily Christian ones.
Religions, moral philosophies, and legal systems all posit deontic norms. The differences are in the claims to legitimacy of these norms, and whether the normative system itself posits norms (lex posterior, lex specialis etc) for resolving moral dilemmas.
The Bible is completely deficient in this respect. It only acknowledges the existence of the weighing problem (e.g. in the parable of the good Samaritan) without actually trying to resolve it in a systematic way.
There are very few facts.
But facing the alternative religious-based explanations...it makes alot more sense to me.
Blar.
Shouldn't the state be concerned that I go through proper and healthy emotional and character developement?
The state is here to serve us, not us the state. That means *I* get to decide what is proper and healthy.
The state needs to foster good character in its citizens.
Wrong, the citizens need to foster good character in the state. The state is ALWAYS more corrupt and evil than its citizenry. It is in no position to dictate morality.
That needs to happen at the level of the state. The state deals with people and an essential part of people is their emotional and character developement.
That is a complete non sequitur. To illustrate:
That needs to happen at the level of the bellhop. Bellhops deal with people, and an essential part of people is their emotional and character development.
Now I'll allow that society in general has a responsibility to remain healthy. But there's no need to bring the full coercive force of the state into it. For example the state extorts money from me, to make a school where it teaches my kids that I'm an evil person because I consume a plant the gov't disapproves of. This is so vicious and evil and wrong that it makes me want to cry just thinking about it.
Just remember that what makes a government a government is that it has a monopoly on the use of force. And so, whenever you use the state to do something (ANYTHING!) you are using violence. As such you are morally required to use EVERY OTHER OPTION FIRST.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Then why bring up their race? It's no more relevant than the bad acting and horrible writing involved in most of those films. He didn't mention that. He listed the races along with a list of the 'bad/wrong' things that occur in the films. It certainly implied that that was part of what was 'wrong' with those sexual acts.
and the porn studios will start producing more more mainstream porn for the sexually liberated man and woman in the street.
And, at least that keeps them off the streets.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
It's similarly effective to a lot of methods that you hear advocated widely, such as condoms and is allowed to devout Catholics. Also, women with certain health risks are advised against hormonal contraception.
If effectiveness, convenience and long-term costs are your only criteria, then sterilization might prove to be the best option. What? There are other considerations? OK, then...
In any case, I didn't want to get into a contraception debate, the link I provided called it 'effective' and I said it was 'very effective', you are free to quibble over what 'very' means here. I just wanted to point out the inaccuracy of the poster who said that the Catholic Church disallowed all contraception.
You oversimplify. You are presuming that the evolutionary pressure that shaped us and allowed us to live what is now considered a normal life. The reality is that over the period that evolution has shaped us life has on average been brutal and comparitively very short. This would strongly favour spreading your seed around. Stability is important but the degree of stability is relative and where lifespan is short it probably becomes less important. However in some circumstances stability would be highly favourable. The upshot of this is that what you would expect to see is a variety of different behaviours to fulfill different niches. Sure enough you will find that the degree of testosterone expression in both males and females variers hugely creating people who are comparitivly promiscuios and people who are aren't. Sadly many people think that everybody else is the same as them and should be able to see thing in the same way and behave in the same way as they do. They just totally miss the point that a large proportion of the population just have a different dominant forces in their brain chemisrty and that these difference are there for evolutionary reasons.
"The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad and that pornography is somehow immoral."
.agrippa.
but the article CLEARLY states
"Senator Tom Carper (D-Del) is calling for a 25% tax on all internet pornograpy"
Notice that D-Del? That means he's a Democrat. This isn't an attempt by the "Christian faith" (I like how you grouped them all into one category for your stereotype) to deal with online pornography. This is a pretty clear attempt to grab headlines and attack something very few people will come rush to defend in order to get airtime for political gain.
Don't let the label of being a Democrat fool you. Many are more conservative than liberal. They are just less conservative than most Republicans.
Though "neocons" arguably can't be called "conservative".
Ah, the proud tradition of the American 2-party Happy Time Switchup. Democrats become Republicans, Republicans become Crazy, and, as always, the people lose in the end.
Your argument seems to say that because a behavior is ingrained, that it is good. That it is actually detrimental and wrong to resist that within yourself. Not only that, but those who encourage others to resist are harming others.
There is plenty of research that indicates that a child raised in a stable, familial, man and wife environment is much more likely to be a productive member of society. Children who come from "broken" homes are affected by much more than poverty and a stigma. Raising a moral and intelligent person is possible in a single-parent environment, but less likely.
It is my contention that unlike my cat, people can transcend their ingrained behavior, and that's not a bad thing.
what utter bullshit
What for? I doubt you would accept any valid point I make. I doubt you brought up those points specifically for friendly debate or discussion, but instead to make a statement. Nor do I need to waste my time on it; if you really do want answers, Google will help you. Some of the world's most brilliant minds were Bible studying Christians, and all the points on the site will have been addressed at one time or another.
You say I'm presumptuous but you're the one giving my answers to your questions which you never asked, nor I ever answered.
I do see a strong dislike towards Christianity and the Bible in your post, almost bordering hatred. Why is that? Did we rape and murder your family?
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
If I had 14/15/16-year old daughters, they couldn't have credit card access unless I gave it to them. Therefore, they couldn't pay for porn (or much else) on the Internet. So, the argument is really quite irrelevant.
That said, you can either have an open communication and actually reinforce your kids with your values, take reasonable steps to block offensive material, or both. The onus of upholding your values among your wards should be up to you.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Right then. So you agree that the state shouldn't tax something and then spend the monies on mitigating the moral degredation caused by said thing. Because that would be legislating morality, which you disagree with.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
If I thought that the left, as you describe it, was a large enough segment of the American populace to create such a party, I would support that tactic.
It is not. This is simply a fairly conservative country, at least for now. We have to deal with it. Splintering will not help. Politics are about compromise, coalitions, and suasions.
See, the Republicans are largely being successful by keeping their wings together - the libertarianish one and the religious one. I would like nothing more than for one of those wings to completely drive out the other into another party. I'm sure that the Republicans feel the same way about the centrist/soccer-mom wing of the Democrats and the enviromentalist/anti-war/civil libertarian wing.
A true multi-party system, with coalitions and such, would require a radical reworking of the constitution, and there's virtually no interest in that.
Probably not just the curtain. That probably was a contract job, so it includes researching an attractive curtain (has to look good on camera, etc), delivery, and installation. It may also include a limited service contract (cleaning semi-annually, for example).
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Please, abortion is not between consenting adults, it's between a woman and the child that she could bring into this world. Ignoring how difficult a decision this is makes people like me worried that other "fully aware adults" could be using abortion as an irresponsible form of birth control.
My point being, abortion is controversial BECAUSE it does affect someone who is not participating in the decision.
Gay marriage you're spot on about.
Zz
"This is what happened to me, boo hoo hoo" is not a valid measure for anyone other than yourself.
Plenty of people are perfectly happy swinging or existing in polyamorous relationships, polygyny is a cultural norm in the majority of the world's human cultures throughout history, and our closest genetic cousins are *clearly* not monogamous.
Face it, your "living with emotions and having a conscience" are clearly centered on a cultural bias and on your own upbringing and have nothing to do with how healthy alternatives are for different people.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad and that pornography is somehow immoral.
Christians don't believe that sex is bad. If you for some reason actually believe this you've been talking to the wrong people. However, they do believe that pornography is wrong. Now, first off, by porn, I don't mean a short scene in a movie tastefully depicting sex. No. I mean stuff where the plot of the clip or movie is really just filler and the entire point is to watch other people having sex. Christians have a problem with this not because of the act, but because it treats the people like objects. They are attractive and the fuck each other, and you get to watch. That's the point. It treats sex like something you do only because it feels good, just like cocaine or heroin, and something that should only be done with supermodels. Christianity views sex as something that happens between two people who love each other. Porn completely takes out the love factor and reduces the other person to the level of a drug you get your jollies off. I think most people would agree that treating another person like an object is immoral.
Now I believe that trying to get the government to tax and regulate porn is ridiculous. In no way is taxing porn going to keep kids away from it. If you really don't want your kids watching porn, why not take a look at tv and movies. Some of what is shown really is almost on the level of softcore porn. And you wonder why kids are watching porn? Give me a break.
You may not agree with abortion or gay marriage but believing in freedom is about having the maturity to realize that the people who are gay or have abortions are consenting adults and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
Just to clear up one thing there. Christians view unborn children as human beings in their own right. They just haven't been born. So, for a Christian, abortion is akin to murder. People who are for abortions don't see unborn children as separate human beings. So it's not that Christians don't believe you have to right to do with your body what you wish, it's that they believe that it's not really your body you're dealing with. Hope this clears things up a bit.
Because that worked so well for Al Gore, didn't it?
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
There's actually little evidence to support that position. All evidence seems to suggest that people who have 'poorer' social outcomes are more likely to have children. Look at the number of children those living in poverty in this country have, versus the number of children the average phd has.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
>>> Which you were pretty much stood with how much money you made -- if you are rich or expect to be rich, vote republican. If you are poor, liberal, or know you aren't going to be rich, vote dem.
...
I hear that a lot, but I have a hard time reconciling it with the fact that the richest people in America overwhelmingly contributed to Kerry instead of Bush, who got a lot of his support from the working class
>>> So long story short, is, if you believe in true republican ideals, right now you need to vote democrat.
Or more accurately, the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party.
Because the sponsors of the bill are mainly Democrats, and the major effect of the bill would be to institute a new tax, I believe that 'The Internet Safety and Child Protection Act of 2005' will have a quick death at the hands of Republican spin doctors pressing the Big Government and (ironically) the Big Brother buttons.
My objection to the proposed bill has nothing to do with the standard American party lines. In fact, I have for you a solution which will be much more effective at eliminating profits from child porn (if not altogether ending the vice itself) while introducing a piece of legislation that will have a much better chance of building bipartisan support, especially given the current cultural climate.
The major oversight of the proposed bill is that it is completely incapable of effectively policing foreign pornographers who are selling child pornography. There is no shortage of legislation against child pornography inside the USA. It is illegal. The only problem (if any) that domestic enforcement faces is funding. This appears to be the purpose of the proposed bill. Rather than punishing law abiding domestic pornographers with a prohibitive (even punitive) tax burden will not curry their good favor (if that is something you care about). While I am not a fan of the pornography industry, it is clear to me as a reasonably well-informed Internet user that for-profit child pornography is primarily a foreign problem. I do not know the demographic details, but much of it comes from eastern Europe.
I propose that, instead of taxing the domestic pornography industry (and thus actually encouraging the foreign pornography industry - which engages in more child pornography), an import duty be imposed on all foreign pornography to fund the domestic fight against child pornography.
I believe that such a piece of legislation will have a much greater likelihood of being made law, and a greater likelihood of public support. The major reasons I see are (definitely not in order of importance!):
1) Those who spend money on pornography (and there are lots of voters in this category) will not be as deeply affected.
2) Domestic pornographers will likely support this measure, as it will give them a competitive advantage. (This is a point that won't appeal to a large part of the public...) Domestic pornographers will also likely support such a measure for the simple reason that it makes sense. They know where the kiddie porn is coming from and some of them actually do care about fighting it.
3) The largest enemies in the fight against child pornography really ARE (some of) the foreign pornographers. While it needs to be played carefully, this is an issue for which the current xenophobia brought on by the polarizing "terrorism" rhetoric could actually be used to aid the cause of common sense.
4) By imposing an import tariff instead of a sales tax, the current issues surrounding Internet taxation can be avoided. The questions of point of sale/point of purchase/tax jurisdiction, etc., that are now only just starting to be tackled by legislators can be avoided. An import duty can be independent of medium. The worsing of the legislation could be left purposefully vague, while leaving room for the enforcing body to focus on Internet traffic.
5) A piece of legislation which monitors foreign credit card transactions - especially to eastern European countries - would be a surefire way to build (preferably silent) support with major lobby groups. While I personally detest everything that the RIAA stands for, their support of such a bill would go a
argumentum ad fallacium: Fallacy of defining a fallacy which allows one to dismiss the argument in question.
I would agree that this is a stupid proposal. This has NOTHING to do with curbing child pornography. It's about money. A chance to tax and getting away with it under the guise of curbing child pornography. But your point of how this can harm children is way off. Kids who aren't developed sexually will begin to mimic what they see. Ever see a 9 year old girl acting coy and seductive? It's pretty sick shit. When they are molested, they very often have no sexual feelings at all. Yes they may feel pleasure but not orgasmic pleasure. They learn that to get what they want they can behave a certain way. They take this into their teens and often become prostitutes. There's a BIG difference between sneaking a peak at your Dad's Playboy collection and actively viewing or participating in sexual acts. Hollywood has been systematically sexing our kids younger and younger. It's all good to get kids having sex when they're not your kids. Have some of your own and the thought of some 50 year old man having "consentual" sex with your 15 year old daughter makes you want to grab a gun.
That would be legislating what good character is and legislating what morality is. I do not agree with that. What I want to see are programs that will encourage kids to think for themselves and to challenge them to develope their own moral codes to live by.
I don't even see how this is possible. How can you teach kids values in a value neutral environment?
Morality, ethics and character are always personal and must come from within a person, not from without. I wish the state would encourage us to discover ourselves instead of telling us how we are or ought to be.
Nice dream, but as I said in my other post. The essence of the state is coersion. If you're not using coersion to do something, you don't need the state to do it. It (whatever it might be) will be done better by people who act voluntarily, and are not corruped by the ability to use coersion.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Nothing religious about it. Simply a lack of belief.
Saying that atheism is a religion is precisely like saying a lack of belief in the healing power of pyramids is a religion.
It takes more than an atheist viewpoint to make a religion. Count on it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
"This isn't about child pornography or porn in general. This is about taxing the internet."
I totally agree. And this isn't really supprising coming from Sen. Carper because the Democratic party has been trying to get the internet taxed for some time now. And it isn't all that sinister or unrealistic - let me explain.
Most capitalists don't want to see it happen because the internet has lowered barriers to market entry for the entire global economy. Which basically means that when you are looking for the most value in a product, you now have access to the entire planet rather than your local community. This effects every level of the global economy, on the whole in a positive way.
Most social-policy makers realize that allowing the entire globe to connect to the global economy helps to lower the global poverty rate (assuming that local state policies do not hinder participation in global markets). This in turn drives up systemic stability and drives down systemic violence as the rule sets which govern independent states become more stable and interconnected because of the need to participate in global markets and the need to attract foreign direct investment. Global commerce is a large part of achieving global stability.
Yet eventually - as more and more commerce moves to the internet - governments will have to find a way to tax goods and services in order to continue to provide the local social programs for which capitalism has been inefficient in providing to date. If the vast majority of goods are sold in the ether, then that is where governments will eventually have to go to get tax revenue.
Basically I think internet taxation is a matter not of "if" but of "when" - a matter of timing and method rather than a question of whether or not it should be allowed. Do it too soon or too ineffectively, and you won't accomplish much and potentially damage your gains.
Right now is too soon IMHO. We don't have the global rule sets in place to allow a nation state to effectively tax the national consumption of a globally market (read: we don't have the means or authority to tax non-US, internet-delivered products in a meaningful way). And if you try without such rule sets in place, all you will do is drive affected businesses outside of your jurisdiction and control. The same goes for trying to segregate yourself from non-taxable content, it just doesn't work right now.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
..instead of buying products, people will have sex. This is bad for the economy.
Getting into Freudian philosophy and science, has it ever occured to you that perhaps large or covetted things like computers, cars, possessions like iPods or other things are just temporary mental replacements for the lack of sex drive or the lack of sex at all? Maybe that intimacy we experience with our toys is what replaces the intimacy between two people?
That's total bullshit. Married people, who one might assume get a lot of sex, if not as much as they want then nearly so, are generally still consumers.
The control of sex is the control of basic human emotion and instinct. If you control sex or the sex drive, the base of all instinct in mammals, you control the person is belongs to. Don't have sex! Buy these indulgences and be saved from Satan! Having sex is a sin and will breed disease! Come to church more and fork over your money!
Stable marital relationships are important in our society, and in almost every other society under the sun. Eastern societies do not have this Catholic prohibition, nor did the Greeks back in their day, but they too emphasize(d) stable marriages and fidelity. This is largely for genetic reasons: the man in the relationship can make sure the kids he feeds and raises are his, and the woman gets assurance of more protection and care for them.
Not all churches are like that, or even the ones who used to do that stuff actively *coughcatholiccough*. But the fact remains, the meaning of life for a human being, at the base, is to reproduce, be happy, and keep yourself occupied.
That is an opinion, not a fact. Biologically speaking, reproduction is rather important for human life to continue, but that doesn't mean it's the meaning or purpose. "The meaning of life" has been a classical unknown, nearly impossible question for thousands of years, don't pretend that it's obvious what it is, even "at the base".
Supression of instinct, especially sex, breeds a consumer - someone looking for something to fill the void.
Bullshit again. So how about those medieval peasants? Of course, the marriage age has gone up since then, so this isn't a perfect refutation, but still...
In a society where you can turn on the TV and see a child with all of his limbs amputated or a "precision" American bomber carpet bombing populated areas, I find it disgusting that this society bars SEX, SEX of all things, from television, but allows people to go on TV, preach about beating up prostitutes and being a "playa" or how various thousands of people are dying.
At least one point you make is good, and I totally agree with it. That violence is ok but sex is taboo is ridiculous.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
A mere century ago, the usual age for marraige in most cultures was 12 to 16. Can you explain to me what has changed from that time, besides the views of society?
Hate to nitpick, but I imagine that it's safer for a fully-developed (but less than over-the-hill) woman to have children than for a still-developing girl. Probably goes both for parent and child. Figuring that out might've changed things--I don't know.
What, precisely, is objectionable about BDSM?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Where do you work?? :)
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
So I should have all the sex I want, or only the kind you approve of? I needn't suppress my desire to have sex even if it's with your children? Just thought I'd ask.
I guess the issue is easy when your thoughts run right down the middle. I doubt many would enjoy the lifestyle of the sexual free-for-all that you endorse.
If there is open communication about sexuality with an adult who can explain that porn is very much theater and not necessarily what happens in real life, then I do not see there is a great deal of harm. But if kids have no guidance, pornography could easily lead to insecurities and unrealistic expectations.
All that said, most kids ARE going to be exposed to pornography. Ironic, isn't it, that the very kids who are most "protected" from porn are probably the ones who are not given any detailed information about sex. Then, when the enevitable exposure to porn occurs, they are the ones most likely to be negatively affected....
maybe next they will go for a 25% tax on churchs, putting the funds toward preventing child molestation in churchs.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
I haven't read through the PDF documents, but here is a link for some rebuttals. I will read them later when I'm off work. At any rate, you may very well be correct in that a national flat tax might be bad for the poor, but I can't say for sure. But given this is a rather basic concern, it might be found here.
t ml
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/rebuttals.h
Life is not for the lazy.
"So long story short, is, if you believe in true republican ideals, right now you need to vote democrat."
I used to vote democrat on occasion. I might again if they would stop trying to put me out of work. I used to have a good job in mining. The Democrats demonized that industry right out of the country, as far as I can tell, to provide high-quality low-cost vacations for the urban elite.
My current job depends on low-cost hydro-electric power, so what do the Democrats want now? To tear out the 4 dams on the lower Snake River and at least one on the Columbia, in order to "save the salmon" which are supposed to create a booming "eco-tourism industry". (Not just minimum wage, but seasonal minimum wage at that. Starve slowly for six months, quickly for the other six. What a deal!) That would raise electric rates enough to close down this job too. (Ironically, we make silicon for solar cells.)
So, once the democrats start saying people are more important than fish, trees,and so on, as well as stop nannying and otherwise trying to micromanage my life, I'll consider voting for them again.
Here's to Bill Proxmire, the last Democrat I voted for for a reason other than "lesser of two evils."
If you don't want to have easy access to pornography on-line, you have many ways of putting yourself in a position...
One approach is to literally put yourself in a position where either your house-mates or your nextdoor neighbors can see if you're browsing porn or not- but only if you have enough shame to care whether those people see you looking at porn. Otherwise please stay in your room with the blinds closed and the monitor facing the opposite direction what someone walking in the door will see, and lock your door and turn the music up for christ's sake I don't want to hear what you're doing in there, maybe a single bedroom apartment isn't that unaffordable...
That is similar to taxing those who create video game software to fight those who create viruses because you don't approve of video games. It is, quite simply, penalizing the law-abiding for the transgressions of the lawbreakers.
The senator is a moron. He is simply playing to the religious and stupid crowd; the one issue has nothing to do with the other. However, since the religious and stupid crowd make up, by far, the majority in the US, and both the house and the senate know exactly who the majority is, you can reasonably expect this to become law.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The Democrats in your country are further right-wing than the Conservative Party in my country (Canada). Your whole idea of left wing vs. right wing is quite, quite skewed. When the rest of the world looks at you, we see a very right wing country - with only two right wing parties.
And I don't know how you can say that Socialism doesn't work...Have you ever taken a look at Socialist countries? Canada, for one, Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries for other examples. Democratic Socialism works, and has always worked. The problem with alot of Americans, I find, is that they automatically associate Socialism or Communism with the Soviet Union or China. You have to realize that neither of these countries were Communist, except in name.
The Soviet Union's idealogy was a brand of Authoritarianism with Socialist leanings (everything was State owned), which could be called Stalinism. One of the reason's why it failed so badly was that it was opposed to change, and, when it finally realized that it needed to change it was too late for it to filter down from the beaurcracy to the people.
I don't exactly know how you could call China Communist - even during the height of the Cold War, they would not associate with Soviet Brand "Communism" (Sino-Soviet Split, everyone). During the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward the country was in chaos - no, not Communism, the country was literally falling apart. There was no central authority, only little regional warlord type people all fighting one another. I suppose you could all it a state of Civil War (which it was, I guess. Mao was trying to purge his opponents from the leadership position by mobilizing the students in urban centres).
Anyway, regardless of the chaos that happened during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward, one must merely look at the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. His economic reforms created "special economic zones", allowing foreign companies to invest in China and for factories to be built that weren't state owned. It also allowed for private ownership of business and other things such as property by private Citizens of China, even non-members of the Communist Party.
To go even further, look at the doctrine of One Country Two Governments - the official party and state line regarding the future of Hong Kong. For 50 years, there will be no change in the running of Hong Kong - the Chinese weren't stupid, Hong Kong has more money flowing through it everyday than most countries in Asia get in a month. Don't you think such a practise (allowing a special autonomous region of capitalism) would be counter-inuitive to Communism? Whether it be the "Communism" of Stalin, Maoism or just good ol' Marxism, spreading the Revolution and mobilizing the Proletariat is the most important thing.
Now, I digress from that tangent. However...
Unless you Americans want a neo-conservative government, headed by imperialists and neo-liberal economists, you must vote for someone other than the Republician party. The current dominant faction within the Republician party are the neo-cons (Paul Wolfowitz, anyone?) - since the 80's they have been trying to bring about their ultimate goal, the Pax Americana. The American Peace. Through funding secret wars in third world countries, and securing vital assets in various parts of the world, they are setting the board for the final showdown on the Eurasian Chessboard.
What is the Eurasian Chessboard, you ask? Well, like any good geopolitical scientist or aficionado knows, it's the continent of Eurasia, and, more specificially the most important part of that continent - the central Asian republics.
Now, Iraq was merely the first step. It allows for a foothold in the Middle East, in a strategic position next to Iran (I'm betting the second target) and basically sandwiches a whole bunch of enemies of Israel (a very important dwarf-super power).
I could go on and on about the whole apparent plan, but I'm not going to. I'm going to tell you where I got all o
I want a 25% tax on idiot congress members. Your tax goes up for every bill you voted for that is later found unconstitutional. The revenue goes to tax breaks for people who voted for the other guy (you can still vote in secret if you don't want the tax break).
Or rather, a proof that much of the left wing hasn't realized how many democrats have sold out to the right in the guise of being "centrist".
Let me see if I follow this discussion.
P: Aghh! It's censorship. Nasty censorship! Gah, evil Republican censorship!
Q: Um, actually it's evil Democrat censorship.
P: Well, the guy's obviously not a real Democrat.
Quite a brilliant argument -- your party is always right, because anything it does wrong doesn't really represent your party.
So, uh, are the Republicans also the people who've tried to ban Huck Finn from schools for "racist" content?
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Interesting viewpoint and question from an adult site operator. I'll see if I can answer from a Christian perspective. (I don't know if grandparent poster is a Christian, but he certainly has some similarities to what Christian men go through.)
There are many, many, MANY Christian men who struggle with addiction to pornography. I'm not one of them (thank God!) but the ones who are tell all kinds of stories about wanting to quit viewing it, but simply cannot. I can think of some reasons why this is a problem:
1. Christian women expect their Christian men to be monogomous and faithful to only them. Having their men look at porn is extremely offensive to them, it makes them feel inadequate.
2. Porn gives men unrealistic expectations of what sex should be like.
3. We believe that God created sex to be a PRIVATE expression of love between a MARRIED man and woman. Pornography violates and distorts this in the most complete manner imaginable.
Jesus said, (in Matthew 5:27-28) "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery;' but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." This is the problem for Christians -- it is IMPOSSIBLE to look at porn without violating this.
I can see why it is a bigger problem for Christians than non-Christians. Non-Christians are simply absorbed into the sex-focused culture of our day, and don't see anything wrong with it. And frankly, that is their problem. I am not going to preach to a non-Christian about proper sexual viewpoints -- if they reject God anyway, what is the point? They might as well live like they want.
Christians also must battle between what their flesh wants and what the spirit of God in them wants. Paul goes on a long lament in Romans 7 that he keeps doing the things he knows he should not do, and does not do the things he knows he should do. This is exactly what porn addicts experience.
I will also point out a great Christian ministry that helps men (and women) get out of this trip. Setting Captives Free. The site has a number of testimonies about how porn has wrecked their lives, and how they were able to find freedom.
Um. You mean Lot's Daughters in the book of Genesis. Job has his own book called "Job". Before you denounce something (and rest assured I agree with your sentiment) you should read up on it. Otherwise you look like Tom Cruise. You just sound glib, Matt.
Absolutely! ... if he's a walrus. Other species, including human, find they get an advantage from staying mostly monogamus.
Monogamy isn't actually that common at all. Especially amongst mammals, even more so amongst those closely related to humans. Which is probably why when people in the past looked for animal examples to show that monogamy was "natural" the results were avian...
Evolutionary advantages of monogamy include males that protect and teach offspring as well as allowing one of the sexes to search for food while the other sex watches out for the kids.
In quite a few bird species it turns out that the genetic father may not be the the mother's partner.
Anyway social animals, which includes humans, often live together in far larger groups...
The human species has never been strictly monogamus that I can tell.
There is the problem that there is a lot of social preasure, including blatant propaganda, pushing human monogamy. If humans were highly inclined to be monogamous this would be redundant.
But it also never mated like walruses.
But behaving like Bonobos (Pan paniscus) is a distinct possibility.
The sentence you quoted describes how it used to be; if it's true that Kerry was so well suppoorted by the rich, then that goes right along with what he's saying.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I can accept that. I was raised (and have redefined / streamlined) this belief since I was young. By definition I mean a common leay person belief in the meaning of the word, not Oxford. E.g. A or B means A XOR B, not A AND B (ala Give me your money or die means one or the other, not both).
:) ... besides /. has some smart folk on it, sure somebody can point out the roots here and either tell me I am dead wrong or at least barking up the right tree.
... evil being against God's will. Kind of hard to violate a greater supernatural mandate if these supernatural entities don't exist. I think folk in modern times (post 15th century) have redefined these two fields (e.g. decided Ethics means Moral Philosophy) as equals to make themselves feel good about breaking religous teachings. Nobody wants to be evil yet may be borderline atheist. Can sleep better believing Good and Ethical are the same as opposed to believing you are evil (not believing in God) why still acting in an ethical manner. Even the most devout Atheist has to have doubts similiarly to the most devout Christian periodically having a crisis of faith. Think of redefining Ethics to mean Morals as a sort of Pascals' Gambit for doubting philosphers.
As for useful distinction, I would wager my definition isn't new and is canon somewhere in our history. Not an etymologist. If it works for you, steal it
If you want to know my logic here, its very religous. Good, by def (or common western understanding historically), is God's will
De Oppresso Liber
As someone who was once addicted to porn,
You say addicted, I say weak-willed. De gustibus.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
I don't even see how this is possible. How can you teach kids values in a value neutral environment?
You are not teaching values. You would be asking the kid to start a practice of reflecting on their own experience and to reflect on what they sense is right and wrong for themselves. (Always tempered by "Where is your sense of right and wrong coming from?") Basically it get's very philosophical from that point on, something akin to Plato's ideas. Each individual kid is a conscious entity capable of forming judgements and will be making decisions based on those judgements. They really need to be asking themselves "How do I know?" and "How do I find out?" What's the right baseline for judgement? And how should I go about my own actions without said baseline.
I agree with you, it's virtually impossible to not have some value transferrence between student and teacher.
I'd rather I'd been born into a tribal society anyhow. But again that's me dreaming.
I would like to thank h4m0ny for the positive reference to my site DOMAI. As it happens, I had a pithy comment on this matter myself in our latest newsletter: http://domai.com/news/2005/07july-29/index.html (not work safe)
And if you're interested in what the Christian extremists think of sex and hotdogs, see http://www.starcantdead.com/sketches/kissinghanksa ss.html.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
It seems odd to have a situation where the IRS decides what is and what isn't pornography.
You will soon be able to detail your vast experience looking at porn in your resume when applying for a job at the IRS.
Saying that one set of morals is 'better' than another set of morals is a very stupid thing to do. You can say that one set of morals is 'better' for you than another set of morals, but you should not say that it is a de facto better set of morals.
I am not an antheist. I'm a Discordian Zen-Buddhist (Oh, go ahead and laugh, then keep reading), and I believe in the immortality of the soul. However, I also 'realise' that, since the body can perish but the soul cannot, the manner of death of the body will have an influence upon the soul. So, actually, how someone dies is very important. I also realise that some 'lives' have more 'worth' than another. If I had to choose between letting a fourty year old person fall off a cliff or a 10 year old person fall off a cliff, I would save the 10 year old.
The problem with religion, like anything else, is there are stupid people who don't think about the consequences of their actions. I particularly dis-like Christianity for this reason. In Christianity, all you have to do is accept Jesus as your personal savoiur, and then let the world goto shit! After all, it doesn't really matter to you, since you'll be in heaven soon enough. In religions like Buddhism, where there is a belief that the soul is constantly stuck in this world, and that it has to work hard to get out, there seems to me to be a great deal more thinking about the consequences of actions, and more care for the state of things in the world, since, though your goal is to leave this place, you also do not want to make it a worse place. You want to make it a better one, because a) you don't know when you will leave it, and b) it is a good thing to decrease the suffering of others.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
A choice between two fucking losers is not what I call "freedom". It appears a lot of people have low standards for what counts as freedom these days.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad and that pornography is somehow immoral. I don't know how they reached that conclusion, after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality. Bzzzt! Sorry but thank you for playing. The christian faith believes that sex is good, not bad. It was created by God, and thus is by definition good. However, abusing it is not, which is the same as most good things we receive. Wine, for example, is good, but when abused it is not. One of the manners in which sex is abused is through things like pornography and through sex outside of the covenant of marriage, yes. Not because there is something inherently bad about our bodies or about sex itself, but because such things are not sex, but an exploitation and abuse of it. The viewing of pornography, like many other things, objectifies women, and degrades them in the eyes of those who consume it. It produces Lust, which is also an excess, an "abuse" (if you will) of the proper desire God has given us for our wives. This is the actual Christian view. I admit there are many who turn this into "sex is bad" and try to make it what scripture teaches, but it is not. I'm also not saying you have to agree with it, nor am I saying I agree necessarly with this law (I haven't had time to look at it). I, like you, despise the 'won't someone please think of the children' mentality. If you want to think about the children then start by thinking of your own and taking responsibility for them. It is the parents responsibility to be involved and I'm sick of lazy people trying to offload their personal responsibility on others, especially the government. I do have to disagree with your definition of freedom. It is too broad. Freedom is allowing others to do whatever, regardless of your feelings on the matter, so long as their freedoms do not infringe on the freedoms of others. This is the real debate with abortion. The real core of this fight, as I see it, comes down to the issue of the child. Is it alive, a person with rights and freedoms of its own or is it not. If it is, then abortion is an initiation of force against that child which violates its right to live. ("right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). Last, but not least, your obtuse comment on the bible as an authority on sexual morality. The bible records (in some books) history, particularly the history of the hebrew people in the old testament. Yes, there is sexual immorality there. There's even incest there. What were you expecting? These people were not perfect. They are not our example or model of behavior, and scripture while recording it, condemns their actions. You speicifically mention job's daughters in Genesis, which I find rather amusing. Job's daughters are never even mentioned in Genesis, but only in Job, and the only thing mentioned about them is that they were killed. What sexual immorality are you inferring from this? Or are you perhaps referring to Noah's daughters? Who yes, sinned, and grievously. If this is your level of biblical knowledge then I think perhaps we should all pass on listening to you lecture on it.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
The government runs numbers (lottery). The government gets a piece of the alcohol pie. They're in the protection racket, requiring us to pay "taxes" for "defense". Porn just seems like a natural addition to the mafia...err... umm... government's line of business.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The democratic party is dead. They have no leadership at the moment so they flail about doing stupid shit like pretending they care about porn or violence in video games. They should self terminate and make room for a real party imo.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Why is it that, whenever I read arguments about "real" Democrats and "real" Republicans, I hear bagpipes in the background?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad and that pornography is somehow immoral. I don't know how they reached that conclusion, after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality.
Bzzzt! Sorry but thank you for playing.
The christian faith believes that sex is good, not bad. It was created by God, and thus is by definition good. However, abusing it is not, which is the same as most good things we receive. Wine, for example, is good, but when abused it is not.
One of the manners in which sex is abused is through things like pornography and through sex outside of the covenant of marriage, yes. Not because there is something inherently bad about our bodies or about sex itself, but because such things are not sex, but an exploitation and abuse of it.
The viewing of pornography, like many other things, objectifies women, and degrades them in the eyes of those who consume it. It produces Lust, which is also an excess, an "abuse" (if you will) of the proper desire God has given us for our wives.
This is the actual Christian view. I admit there are many who turn this into "sex is bad" and try to make it what scripture teaches, but it is not. I'm also not saying you have to agree with it, nor am I saying I agree necessarly with this law (I haven't had time to look at it).
I, like you, despise the 'won't someone please think of the children' mentality. If you want to think about the children then start by thinking of your own and taking responsibility for them. It is the parents responsibility to be involved and I'm sick of lazy people trying to offload their personal responsibility on others, especially the government.
I do have to disagree with your definition of freedom. It is too broad. Freedom is allowing others to do whatever, regardless of your feelings on the matter, so long as their freedoms do not infringe on the freedoms of others.
This is the real debate with abortion. The real core of this fight, as I see it, comes down to the issue of the child. Is it alive, a person with rights and freedoms of its own or is it not. If it is, then abortion is an initiation of force against that child which violates its right to live. ("right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).
Last, but not least, your obtuse comment on the bible as an authority on sexual morality. The bible records (in some books) history, particularly the history of the hebrew people in the old testament. Yes, there is sexual immorality there. There's even incest there. What were you expecting? These people were not perfect. They are not our example or model of behavior, and scripture while recording it, condemns their actions.
You speicifically mention job's daughters in Genesis, which I find rather amusing. Job's daughters are never even mentioned in Genesis, but only in Job, and the only thing mentioned about them is that they were killed. What sexual immorality are you inferring from this? Or are you perhaps referring to Noah's daughters? Who yes, sinned, and grievously. If this is your level of biblical knowledge then I think perhaps we should all pass on listening to you lecture on it.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
You're mostly right, but neocons are not necessarily Christian. Neocons are the ones that want to go fight in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Syria/the Moon, a departure from traditional isolationist Republican policy (which has sort of died out). The Christians are the Christians, period. It used to be (up until about 20 years ago) that the Republican party was dominated by business interests, but now with the influence of the evangelicals and the neocons that has fallen by the wayside and we can easily see what the Republicans stand for now.
Catholics? Anti-Sex? I was under the impression that they encouraged breeding like rabbits.
Thus against non procreational sex. Which includes porn as much as contraception.
The reason 'sex is bad' is the same reason that 'polygamy is bad.'
Apparently the people who were making the rules were not allowed to have sex and, for one reason or another, were not allowed to change that rule. So they simply said, "Sex is bad," and made sure that as little of it as possible could go on.
You destroy a competitor with a better way of doing things if you can't adopt that way of doing things, no matter how much you would like to.
Laws against Polygamy don't exist to protect the women in the marriages, or because they're 'wrong.' They exist to level the sexual playing field.
On a similiar note, did you never notice how adultery was a crime because it made it impossible for the husband to make sure he was raising his true children? Almost all the laws on sexuality we have today, whether descended from religion or not, are about stopping other people from doing things that a) give them more children (polygamy) or b) give them more power (marrying your cousin -- this would be in the form of land control, like in the 'old' South), and they're by and large made by men, for men, to protect the interests of men.
Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. It's all about power, and who controls it, and who controls the control of power.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
That's a bad analogy. Children being exposed to pornography is an unavoidable consequence of it being available; viruses are not an unavoidable consequence of computer games.
A better analogy is taxing gas to pay for highway maintenance. An even better analogy might be taxing gas to pay for environmental repair projects (especially since not everyone believes in Global Warming, just as not everyone believes porn harms children).
The fact is, excise tariffs are authorized explicitly by the Constitution (Art I, Sec 8). You may not like it, but it's a perfectly legitimate proposal. I hope it gets voted down.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
"And the next thing we will see is beastiality becomming normal." So, killing them is okay, but having sex with them is pure EVIL!!! ?
Mod parent up. We, as humans, can steal animal's children, rape them with machines for artificial insemination, force them to breed, keep them in intolerable conditions, squashed together in tiny cages-
But for someone, who truly loves an animal, to have sex with it is somehow wrong?
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
I think he meant on
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I guess the Democrats are trying to increase their "pro-family" ratings.
See Also: Hilary Clinton
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I believe he is referring to the classic movie Deep Throat...
http://torrentspy.com/download.asp?id=202679
The Supreme Court, despite Bush's attempt to pack it with conservative assholes, would just about have to slap this down as an infringement on the First Amendment.
Although you never know, since the Court let Bush get elected in the first place.
Besides, all it would do is move the porn offshore and make for a windfall profit for offshore site hosting companies and site operators.
Then what is this asshole Senator going to do - call for a bill to tax anyone CONSUMING porn?
This is just some Democrat trying to reach out to the Republican-controlled Christian idiots to bolster his re-election chances - or get a campaign contribution from the porn industry - or both.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
There is being spent a lot of money on porn and more of those money are moving to the internet because the internet is a good media for it.
If this gets through, you should try to pay attention where that tax money goes afterwards. I will bet on that those tax money will not get marked but just go into the pool.
Where I live, I have seen a lot of "enviromental" taxes which were introduced with the promise that those money would be used for enviromental good.
Of course that never happened.
At least there'd be a causal link between these industry's products and the crimes, and they are always whining and wasting taxpayer money enforcing their unsistainable business models.
Nick
Actually, as I understood it, taking God's name in vain was a reference to swearing to do something in God's name. (e.g. "I swear to God I'll ....") Making promises, ones you don't intend to keep, in God's name is what's forbidden.
A Democrat proposing to raise taxes? No .....
(The last point about Buddhism not strictly being a religion requires strictly definining religion as theism--I used a more reasonable definition that it is a system of beliefs held with faith.)
It does take "more than an atheist viewpoint to make a religion" but an atheistic viewpoint does not preclude being a religion.
Tired of free ipod spam sigs? Opt ou
They're trying to woo moderates back into the fold(Hillary Clinton etc)
Whoah there.... Hillary is FAR from a moderate. You do realize that she is just acting the way she is to improve here election odds in 2008. If she won, you'd see more social spending bills being pushed than ever before.
what is commonly known as the "Rhythm Method", a form of contraception that has recently been shown to be very effective
Did you actually read the whole article before you posted? 95% is not what I'd call "very effective". You do understand that, given the quoted success rate, if you had sex an average of once a week, for a whole year, it's pretty much guaranteed you'll get pregnant. That's not what I'd realistically call "contraception".
Q: What do you call a couple who use the rhythm method for birth control?
A: Parents.
Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
Please mod the parent up, this is a really well-written and informative response. The only thing I would add is that Democratic Socialism in a lot of countries has as many problems as the current economic-political system as the United States. Some countries, including to a certain extent the U.S., are being hammered by a social welfare system (or whatever you want to call it) that is too generous. Take a look at Germany a few years ago. Because the welfare system was so beneficial, some people could make almost as much money being unemployed as they could at a low-paying job. The system shouldn't protect a person that is lazy. It should encourage success for hard work and protect those who are unfortunate. The key, and the most difficult part, is to strike a balance between the two.
At heart, the systems we use are essentially just opposite sides of the median. The Socialist democracies have a more comprehensive social welfare system than the U.S., but both work equally well IMO. The difference in how conservative each country is doesn't lie in the system, but in the people who are in power. Unfortunately, the neo-cons have hijacked the Republican voter base and convinced people that they stand for the same Republican principles that people have been voting for their entire life, when really they have a whole separate ideology. And by and large, the Democrats have allowed themselves to be dragged into the "morals and values" debate, which is just ridiculous.
P.S. Everybody should check out that book. I haven't read the whole thing, but it's an interesting read even if you don't agree with him.
I think the author was referring to the great degree to which voters in the US are swayed by such intellectual arguments as illegal billboards (First expense in most campaigns), by their church leaders threatening to excommunicate them if they don't vote the "right" way, and in general not being able to recognize so much as the names of the candidate in any race less than the president, but responsible nonetheless for choosing the better of several choices.
I suggest that ballots ought to be blank and require the vote to write in the name of the candidate - until then its really just a monkey random typewriter contest.
AIK
Your comment gives new meaing to the phrase, "Hey, baby! Nice rack!"
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The problem with requiring the .xxx domain for pornographic sites would be that the U.S. still owns all TLDs, so they would still have control over censoring content from said domains if they desired.
.xxx domain. .xxx domain. .xxx domain (or allow censoring of sites in the .xxx domain).
1. Create the
2. Force all sites that host or provide pornographic content to transfer to the
3. Shut down remaining sites that don't transfer.
4. Tax the
5. Profit!
Hmm, Slashdot seems to be getting better at finding the missing "#. ???" step in these profit-making schemes. I do recall that getting bought by Google is an acceptable "#. ???" step for many lists out there.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Ashcroft had the Spirit of Justice statue covered up because of a boobie for example which also costed $8000 for the curtain at tax payers expense.
Surely there are better examples of censorship among Republicans. Maybe the flag-burning ammendment thing? Or maybe McCain's desire to censor the internet (as an Arizonan, I apologize for this man).
Democrats call themselves "the party of free speech," but they enact legislation like sexual harassment laws and the hate crimes law which effectively hinder free speech (whether you like it or not). Not to mention the grandfather post about video game and internet censorship brought to the forefront by Hillary and Joseph "Stalin" Leiberman.
I do agree with your premise though:
I think it's fair to say both the Democrats and the Republicans are at the forefront of censorship.
This is why I don't vote for either party.
Latewire
I spent a summer living in Bangkok ivestigating the sex trade as it catered to foreigners. I hear literally hundreds of stories of women who had been either kidnapped from their homes (rare), sold by their parents (not so rare), simply run out of other options (common) and there were one or two who were doing it just for the money.
Without exception the men felt flattered and manly because of the way the women treated them.
Also without exception the women hated the men, hated their jobs, felt dirty and cheap, and all they wanted was to get back home/raise their children in peace.
Even if porn isn't so bad for the people viewing it (up for debate), there is some truly evil stuff that's done in order to satisfy the needs of men.
World Changing - News for Humans, Stuff about our planet
I also saw "asian chick". I did read the post. It seemed racist, so I called you on it.
The replies to your flame all have valid points backing my point of view. You should read them if you didn't understand me correctly
Seeing that your post is currently rated at "0 Troll" and my reply is at "5 insightful", I think there are a lot of folks out there who agree with my assesment.
The vast majority of pornography freely available on the 'net has nothing to do with "two people who like each other a lot" doing "natural things". I may be wrong, but to give further examples of unnatural sex acts: drunken college chicks, beastiality, cheating housewives, and sticking it up a girl's ass for bragging rights are most definately not "normal behavior" of two consenting adults.
All of which has nothing to do with race. So why was that included in your description of 'wrong' acts?
Jackass.
Right back at ya bud.
Yes, and it used to be believed that if you knew the name of a God then you had power over them. i.e. Odin knew the name of all the Gods, which was significant in terms of power relationships.
The Jewish people refused to invoke God's name in this manner, and didn't speak it. Some orthodox Jews use the hebrew phrase "HaShem," literally "the name" to refer to God. Or they say "AdoShem" instead of "Adonoi." etc.
I was secularizing the principle a bit; i.e. you don't use the power of invoking God's name to gain temporal wealth, power, stature, etc.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Nice diversion of the parent post's point.
Your rationalization states some very obvious points, though I'd like to see your basis for statistics ("hundreds of millions have...no relationship problems"). Please define "relationship problems" for the rest of us.
Also, there's nothing "obvious" regarding the poster's utilization of on-line porn as a "symptom...of [his] problems." You have no familiarity with the poster, so please keep your supposition to yourself. You negate much of the positive that the post offered.
The poster presumably posted as an AC because of typical reactions such as yours. Too bad you couldn't allow their statement of personal responsibility to represent the courage the person faced in dealing with their own problems and/or symptoms.
I know, as a parent and as an adult who has viewed pornography in it's many forms, that an adolescent who views pornography before they are able to functionally integrate sexuality into their psyche (and spirit, if you will) can very well be traumatized whereupon their perspective of sexuality is skewed for the rest of their developmental years.
Consider the impact of being a celebrity on the psyche of Michael Jackson, and please consider it carefully before you reply. Regardless of issues with his sexuality, consider his difficulties with social behavior in general. Can you imagine that those issues were perhaps caused by an exorbitant and premature exposure to celebrity-dom? Moreso than his adolescent being could process in a healthy manner? Do you really think that you and the teeming millions would be immune to that level of stimulation?
Again, I use the example as an analogy. Adjust the elements as you like, but please consider the mechanism. Replace "celebrity" and/or "sexuality" with "alcohol" (or any narcotic), "theft", "deception", "gambling", etc...
The greatest hope for children is a healthy parental figure who is able to coach, guide, and protect children from being over-exposed to things in life before they are ready. And, if and when they are exposed, hopefully those same of similar guiding forces will assist in the development of that young person's psyche, character, and sexuality.
You, cahiha, seem to have been able to handle your exposure to porn. That's great for you. Please be open to the idea that there of others in this world who are different, who have different tolerances, different support, and different reactions.
That being said, in regards to the topic at hand, I sure would love to see more government sponsored education as opposed to censorship.
He's from Delaware, if I recall. What I know about Delaware is, I admit, taken entirely from Wayne's World, but I didn't imagine it having too many serious candidates from third parties. But even if they do, I'm not sure telling them you'll vote for a third party is more effective than telling them you won't vote. It makes you a "likely voter" on the cusp of not caring. If I were a senator, I'd be more worried about the silent droves of those people than the few who are smart enough to be able to figure out which third party they want to vote for. Also, it makes you a dissatisfied friend rather than an angry opponent.
But if there are non-crazy third-party candidates in Delaware, sure, that'll work, too.
That is insightful (assuming it is true, which I don't know for sure).
Not allowing pornography to be copyrighted. What defines pornography, I guess would be something sexually explicit that only adults should view, but I hope that isn't too broad of a definition.
Where in the Constitution does it give Congress to tax pornography anyways? And what kind of tax is it? I am against direct taxes on people. Taxes on businesses may be another thing. Maybe a flat excise tax or something on gross receipts from all revenue from the pornography business. If your business earns $100,000 in gross revenue (profits are less than $100k that is), maybe a flat 10% off the top?
Religion damages people far more than sex, let's tax it instead.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
That's simplistic nonsense. There is more to children accessing porn than its existence, just as there is more to children killing each other than the existence of weapons would account for.
Children are exposed to pornography because the parents are either irresponsible (they object but fail to perform the required duties to ensure that their children do not come in contact with it), or they're accepting of it in which case there is no problem. In other words, it's not the responsibility of the purveyors of porn, it's the parents responsibility.
As for legislative justification, that is not meaningful in and of itself. The legislature makes bad law and bad precedent on a regular basis. I could quote you such things for hours on end.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This is a tired argument. I leave it to you to google the real reasons for the AIDs epidemic. Men there have the belief (in some communities) that having sex with a virgin girl will cure them of AIDS, among other gems. Like the fact that (totally unrelated) warlords were telling their citizens that European/Americans were putting diseases in the Polio vaccines and such. Blaming the Catholic church (who incidentally is doing quite a bit to ease the suffering in AIDS stricken areas) is ludicrous.
Blaming Catholics is convenient... so I shouldn't be the one to burst your bubble...
Google it. You'll be surprised how your conclusions are those of what you heard on TV, rather than the facts.
and btw... I'm not Catholic. Just more informed.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
It makes my day to see you sitting at +5, Insightful.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
Hmph. Must have caused quite a referral spike to get the site's webmaster over here so fast.
I think the site is a very positive one in showing normal nudity and that a girl can be pretty without porn star sterotyping. It's reassuring to see that many men do like this more natural approach.
-H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
That's simplistic nonsense.
No, yuo!
Children are exposed to pornography because the parents are either irresponsible... or they're accepting of it
You're arguing from a formal logical fallacy there, bub. Children do not walk around all day in a protective bubble.
As for legislative justification, that is not meaningful in and of itself. The legislature makes bad law and bad precedent on a regular basis.
My god, man, get a sense of perspective! We're not talking about some obscure (or even not so obscure) precedent. We're talking about one of the few (18, to be specific) powers that is explicitly given to Congress by the original Constitution.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
"Hmph. Must have caused quite a referral spike to get the site's webmaster over here so fast." A good guess, but no. My members/readers/visitors at domai.com are educated folk with ecclectic interests, and I was alerted to this post. :)
> I particularly dis-like Christianity for this
> reason. In Christianity, all you have to do is
> accept Jesus as your personal savoiur,
No, that's TV preachers and whatnot. Catholicism, which is still 75% of all Christians or more, still expects good works out of you. Presumably most other denominations do, too.
After all, did not Jesus say a bad tree cannot bear fruit, but a good tree cannot fail to bear fruit?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I really wanted to mod you down as a troll, but I'll reply instead.
I don't know how they reached that conclusion, after all, one need only look as far as Job's daughters antics in the book of Genesis to see that the Bible is no authority on sexual morality.
1) Job isn't in the book of Genesis. If you want to use something as evidence, you should at least know what you're saying.
2) The Bible isn't a "how-to" book. Particularly in the Old Testament, it's a peoples' history. History with moral weight, both good and bad. Many bad things were recorded, and I'm sure many more happened that were not recorded.
In the same way, [white] American history involves many things we aren't exactly proud of today. For instance, the treatment of the native people is a source of shame. It's still in our history books, but it's NOT meant to be an example of what to do. It's more a record of a mistake we should learn from.
± 29 dB
I know a woman who is married, has a boyfriend lives with them both simultaneously along with her husband's boyfriend, and is dating another individual (the husband's girlfriend is also dating another individual). All parties know each other and are aware of the relationship dynamics involved. All parties are supportive of the other parties.
That isn't "cheating" and the focus isn't sex, but the relationships--however--sex is involved.
I know another couple who swings on the weekends. It is just good Friday night entertainment to them.
Sex may not be that way *to you*, but sex means different things to different people and people define their relationships in different ways.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I don't hate Christians, though some of them spread plenty of hate - see godhatesfags.com [warning: potentially offensive], and if your answer is "but that's not a true Christian", I suggest you google for "no true scotsman fallacy", and explain just what does constitute a true Christian.
As for the Bible, well, I do rather dislike it. it's a pretty nasty piece of work, on the whole - and hey, call me crazy, but I tend to be wary of anybody who bases their life and morality around a book which orders them to kill me for not believing as they do.
I'm not denying there's some good stuff in the Bible, and I've no problem with that - in fact, I'll even link to some of it. Heck, the BNP probably have some good stuff amongst all their twisted, hateful policies too. But the fact is the Bible tells you to follow it. All of it. To the letter. And it includes a lot of bad stuff. Put simply, the good stuff does not justify the bad stuff. To say otherwise is to argue that it's okay for me to rape and murder, because I also help old ladies cross the road, and rescue cats from trees.
Funny though. At the start of this you accused me of being afraid of the Bible. I hope I have demonstrated by now that I am very familiar and comfortable with it as a subject. I suspect, however, it is you who is afraid. After all, you dismiss any problems with a wave of the hand and an "Oh, I'm sure there's an answer somewhere. Probably. I hope"
Incidentally, I had a look at the link in your sig. I presume that it being in your sig indicates an endorsement of some kind by yourself. Aside from being generally hostile - and insulting - towards atheists, the first few paragraphs alone describing the book are so staggeringly flawed that I'd be here all day were I to go through them. Just one random example: Massive strawman on the nature of faith. I do not have faith when I turn on a lightswitch, eat cornflakes, drink coffee, or expect the sun to rise tomorrow. I have expectation based on previous experience. Faith would be believing something with no previous experience or evidence - for instance that when the sun rises tomorrow it will be green and square.
Anyway though, this is all way off topic, this is not the place, and I suspect this has run it's course anyway. If you're interested in persuing any of it further, you might want to head on over to www.infidelguy.com - don't let the name put you off, it's not a Christian bashing site - it's a place for people of all (and no) faith to discuss and debate religion in the light of critical analysis.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
I would hazard to guess that "athiests" are generally more intelligent than religious people, because at least they've thought about the plausibility of their beliefs and came to conclusions.
Oh, I've spent quite a bit of time amongst the sides, and I can easily say that there is intellectual laziness aplenty. There are a few C. S. Lewises out there, and many more who merely ponder, but for the most part religious belief is a cultural matter, like being a Republican or a Democrat.
Consider the number of people who, at 35, differ in belief or in political affiliation from their parents - not many.
Atheists are often so because they are rejecting the culture of Christianity (for which you can hardly blame them, having seen some shining examples), or because they consider the religion to be implausible, as you say.
Christians, on the other hand, are often so because they feel more comfortable in the culture of Christianity (having little to do with beliefs, honestly), or because they have "felt the call of the supernatural" - which I believe requires about as much thought as the plausibility test.
Personally, I believe it is equally possible for a man or woman of reason to believe or to reject. I just wish there were more men and women of reason.
Socialism works? What a laugh!
The Berlin Wall fell precisely because socialism is an abject, empirical failure in practice. No even remotely-credible economist in any western nation believes any longer that a relatively-socialist system works; they haven't for 16 years now.
The wall fell, get over it. That's why even one international socialism-advocacy group, almost immediately after the wall's fall, started calling themselves "market socialists" -- recognizing the failure of government to efficiently and effectively organize society (as if that were somehow consistent with the liberal idea that individuals ought to be free from manipulation and coercion by others).
Even historically democratic-socialist Sweden has elements of a market economy built into it (although it still has very hefty taxation and vast welfare systems, the similar likes of which are presently strangling Germany's economy).
Your only insight is that all of the so-called "communist" countries -- Russia, China, etc. -- were never communist in practice, only in ideology. That is quite true (and is one of my complaints too when people speak of "communism"; it smacks of economic ignorance); they were socialist in practice, but communist in ideology. Humongous governments attempting to be all things to all people all the time: this is the signature of socialism, whereas communism, ideally, would abolish such government, leaving all property to be owned equally (leaving no incentive for anybody to care about any property, b/c it is as much anybody else's as it is one's own).
All the more evidence then that socialism was a failure...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Children don't walk around in a world that dangles pornography in their faces, either. Porn is available in our society in only a few venues. Parents can easily control access to those venues (I did, and I know it can be done.) If a parent lets their kid onto the Internet unsupervised but desiring them to not be exposed to [insert favorite moral flogging horse here] then they have abdicated responsibility and I have zero respect for any whining they do about it. Likewise, if they don't lock up their guns, and their kids shoot each other or them or someone else, I blame the parents. The more "protection" you absolve yourself of by handing responsibility over to the state, the less freedom you, and your children, will have, and the more cookie-cutter the bunch of you will come out. Unfortunately, you won't have a choice as to what kind of cookie.
First of all, keep in mind he's your god, not my god.
Second of all, you are the one in a dual-level logical fallacy; just because something is written into the founding documents doesn't make it correct ("all men are created equal" -- a line more full of bullshit is unlikely to be written in a serious context.) Nor, when a founding document espouses a concept that is correct and reasonable, does that automatically make it applicable to something just because you (or whoever) is being a lazy parent. Taxing adult porn to pay for child porn is not, as you would have it, comparable to fuel taxes or road taxes. 99.x% of vehicles are in fact driven on the road; 99.x% of vehicles produce exhaust products; that is certainly the broad casual link that one is meant to resolve for such taxation. However, to tax an aircraft for a road is not reasonable, and to tax a bicyclist for fuel is also not reasonable. It is not reasonable to tax purveyors of legitimate adult products for the costs associated with dealing with the purveyors of illegitimate child pornography. They are not the same people, they are not doing the same things, they are not aiming at the same audiences, they are not even in the same legal domain (illicit as opposed to perfectly legal.)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
OK, I'm not reading the article, or even the comments attached. This is, pure and simple, an attempt to tax and spend more of our money. That's what taxes are always about, regardless of what their proponents tell us they are for.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
I'd be a lot more ok with everyone else doing whatever they wanted, if there was no chance I'd end up paying for it. Therefore I'd like to start the "I'll get the government out of your bedroom, when you get the government out of my wallet" campaign.
> When have men in power ever cared
> about "leveling the sexual playing field?"
Exactly. They get theirs because they have money and power. Cynical, but true. And they get power leading the common yokels on cruscades, and sadly sex is one of them.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Well he couldn't have wanted it that much or it wouldn't be so hard.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
> Surely there are better examples of censorship among Republicans.
Than covering a boob on a famous statue? Shirley, you jest. It seems to describe everything wrong with censorship and exposes small-mindedness and the evil hardcore Christians have in their hearts. By hardcore Christians, I mean those who would impose their will on us, rather than turn the other cheek.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
One should perhaps, note that the actual religion that is practiced often can differ a great deal from the teachings of the person venerated by that religion.
Did not Jesus also say, "Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone," and "Judge not, lest you be judged yourselves?"
The only brand of Modern-Day Christianity I know of that actually follows those two particular commands isn't really Christianity. It's called Unitarian-Universalism, and they haven't been a breed of Christianity for some time now.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Now I realize that I'd trade every scrap of porn I ever saw for a real woman, physical imperfections and all, who actually loved me. So I worry less about being "addicted to porn" and more about trying to not be a recluse spending all his time on Slashdot instead of dating (not very successful at this so far).
Freedom: "I won't!"
True, Catholicism does have a tradition of good works, but it does not teach that they are a prerequisite for salvation.
A latent existence
"I never said interracial sex was wrong. I said an interracial gang bang with a happy ending was unnatural."
I'd disagree that it's unnatural - if people can physically do it, it's technically "natural" even if most people wouldn't go for it. I think the point you should be emphasizing that porn often fetishizes race in a disturbing way, which should not be encouraged in a supposedly non-racist society.
Freedom: "I won't!"
And how exactly will the govt recognize which sites are which unless they are notified? Have 5,000 official porn-surfers hunting new porn?
Keep in mind that people pay with their credit cards every single day for illegal drugs, illegal software, and yes, illegal porn.
Just because a transaction takes place via credit card doesn't make it easy to trace. There are BILLIONS of cc transactions a day.
I'm sure my insurance premiums are impacted far less for treating porn addicts than the hundreds of ailments smokers need fixed.
Slight difference there, buddy.
That said, I don't think tobacco taxes are spent to offset public health issues (merely as a "deterrent"), so I object to them in practice.
Method of processing duck feet
So what you're saying is that sociopathic tendencies are genetically determined, and if we could just weed out those genetic lines, we could eliminate criminal and otherwise deviant behavior? Huh. This is sounding awfully familiar...
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
What's the difference between a Republicrat and a Demolican? Not much. Same shit, different bull.
Exactly! It's easy to avoid responsibility for one's actions by blaming them on external factors. The fact is that watching pornography is a choice, and all this bullshit about "porn addiction" is nothing more than a lousy cop-out.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Good thing 25% of $0 is still $0.
Thank God for USENET.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Both the Elephant and Donkey parties are actually right wing parties. Really, how different are their platforms? The "extreme" left wing parties don't have much say at all in US politics.
"Because that worked so well for Al Gore, didn't it?" Absolutely, look at the voting totals from that election for the proof.
require a radical reworking of the constitution
I wouldn't really call it radical. Pretty much all it requires is replacing the broken indirect plurality Presidential election system with a direct Condorcet voting system. This single change would indirectly trigger a multi-party make up of the House and Senate and some of their floor rules would need to be revised, but the Constituion is not involved there at all.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Sorry to tell you this but Job is never mentioned in the book of Genesis. Go back and check.
Also I think you are referring to Lot, and his daughters. Also if you take a look you will see that they are harshly criticized for what they did. The product of the relationship ends up being one of the biggest villains in the bible.
I'm not saying that I disagree with you ( or agree with you ), but if you want to use the bible as proof in your arguments be sure that you know what your talking about, other wise your argument has no foundation and is worthless.
Oh and by the way, don't feel bad, because most of the X-tian faith that you were talking about, doesn't know what they are talking about either.
The bible lays out its guidelines for moral behavior, it most certainly condones sex in the proper context.
If you want to watch pornography, in the US you have the right to do that, but other people also have the right to avoid it if they want to. For example I have a right to be able to sit in my house without my neighbor blasting adult videos so loud that the whole neighborhood can hear it. ( I think this applies to blasting any thing ) .
I think that the bottom line is that it is a big business and the government sees a way to make a buck. If it taxes a vice it knows you will pay it ( not you, but one who has that vice ).
Any way, just a friendly reminder to check your facts.
Who decides what is "grossly immoral"? You, the government? Immorality (sin) is personal between you and your god(s). Crime is a social violation that harms others. The acts of consenting adults are not crimes.
While I generally agree with your message, I would like to point out that mores (or mos majorum), from which the word morality is derived, is the wisdom of ancestors. It is akin to taboo and custom.
Immorality has nothing to do with sin, or religion in general. Most of our mores were invented long before Christianity, and attempts by Christian politicians to usurp the concept should be resisted vigorously.
Porn is as old as mankind. Mores tell us that it should be hidden fom plain view. The problem now is that it is no longer effectively taboo, because it is too easy to run into on the internet accidentally.
I do agree that problem exists, but taxing seems a completely ineffective way of restoring a taboo to me. It must be made invisible to the people who feel "harmed" by exposure to it. Think of an analogy of "indecent exposure" for web sites that attract "clicks" too aggressively.
Yes, more power to us. Like the computer we're typing these posts to /. on. Or the electricity from the power plants to run our computers. And everything else around us. More power to us.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
I think it could very well transcend porn. Granted, I don't, and haven't taken drugs. But I think a person could be addicted to many drugs, and taking any one of them may fulfill them for a time. It just depends of what's available.
Similarly, the Christian view would be that lusting after any woman that is not your wife is wrong. That is the basis of porn. It serves no other purpose that to help guys get off.
So a guy may very well be addicted to lust, and he uses porn as his 'drug-of-choice'. So yes, I think porn could be addictive given the proper circumstances (thats not to say extraordinary circumstances) but it is simply another indicator of our sex-saturated culture.
Ok just to point out, you are obviously reading a translation ( and a poor one ) . I'm not going to get into the specifics about how you misread what your quoting but, read it in to original language , or get a good english translation ( artsroll does a decent job ). The funny thing is that the X-tian faith basses a-lot of what it believes on these poor english translations.
how the hell is he going to collect it?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
They may or may not be, It's just a thought. I'm probably blowing all of it out of my ass, anyhow. Smarter people that I have pondered this crap longer than I care to.
However, there's no doubt in my mind that you could do much to influence the criminal element if you knew enough about the genome... But would doing so be a good thing? Almost certainly not.
A certain amount of deviation from the norm is required for advancement of the species; most of the great people in the history of world have been regarded as deviant in one way or the next... And well, damn, that's because they were. They stood up and were recognized, and even thousands of years later we know their names while most other people of their time were forgotten.
My main point was that our society's virtues aren't necessarily universal, and there may be certain evolutionary reasons we have the values we have-some of which seem to echo around the world in one form or another. Even if the deviants in the world exist solely to keep the rest of the herd on their toes and spur advancement then they have purpose.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I wasn't trying to imply that the Church is the CAUSE of the AIDS epidemic, just that they could be a large part of stopping it if they would just stop clinging to the "old ways" and start supporting contraception and birth control!
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
Check out this definition:
"Any specific system of belief about deity, often involving rituals, a code of ethics, and a philosophy of life." Thus we would include Agnosticism, Atheism, conservative Christianity, Humanism, Islam, Judaism, liberal Christianity, Native American Spirituality, Wicca and other Neopagan traditions as religions.
Just because our belief is based on *gasp* logic, doesn't exclude it from being a belief.
Really, I'm not trying to be clever with my signature.
The claim that "democratic socialism" works in Sweden was to an extent true because Swedes had an extraordinary work ethic. "Democratic socialism" has eroded that ethic and Sweden is eating its stored wealth. It no longer works.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
If they haven't had sex in the past 6 months, the person caring for the child can file as Head of Household, but if they get it on just one time with their separated spouse, they must file Married Filing Separately. Their sex life actually determines how much tax they will pay.
<Bill Clinton>
I have not had intimate relations with that woman.
(Whispers with lawyer)
Do blowjobs count?
</Bill Clinton>
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
congressional staffers sort mail into "for and "against" buckets. at the end of the day the buckets are weighed. email doesn't weight much. a brick with a note, expressmailed, has more impact.
Yeah, and that brick/note combo has even more impact if you "airmail" it. Chuckle.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
...is that you've used a noun to modify a noun when you should have used an adjective. It's Democratic party, regardless of the attempts of the Republicans to always say "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" so as to be able to use it as an epithet.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
A blob of cells, which is what most fetus's are when abortions are performed, can't be a victum of anything. Third trimester abortions are a different study, but good luck finding anyone who actually wants those to be performed.
>The Christian faith (who's political wing is the
>Republican party) for some reason believe that
>sex is bad and that pornography is somehow
>immoral.
I take issue with the generalization that the Christian faith has ANY political wing, much less the right wing.
Jesus advocated loving our neighbors as ourselves; I see very little love reflected in the right wing's policies.
Jesus said that the love of money is the root of all evil. From the right wing, I see ONLY a love of money.
Christianity says "Thou shallt not kill" and "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." -- yet the right wing rallied behind GW's unjustified war in Iraq.
Christianity says "Thou shallt not bear false witness" -- yet GW used false witness to JUSTIFY the war in iraq.
Christianity says "Thou shallt not steal" -- yet the right wing has been guilty of so much corporate welfare, and then asking us to look the other way.
Christianity carries the parable of the good samaritan who takes in an injured traveller who's been beaten by thugs, and tends to his wounds. Meanwhile GW has been fighting to justify torture in Guantanamo.
The contrast between true christian faith and right wing policy is indisputable. It's not the religion which was wrong; it's the party, and the self proclaimed Christians who don't practice what they've been preached.
Meanwhile, yes, Christianity does teach lessons and give instruction regarding sexual morality: The 10 Commandments, Noah's Ark, Sodom and Gomora. I know how I'll conduct myself, and I would not hesitate to tell a person what I believe is appropriate. That does NOT mean I hope to solve iniquity with a police state.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
1) then the women have a problem with their men. It is not my duty to subsidize their problem.
2) no, it doesn't. It only sets "unreasonable expectations" if you (or your partner) are too narrow minded to enjoy the activities you want to enjoy. The people in pornography are not cartoons - they are real people actually doing those things. Some of us do those things without a camera handy.
3) BFD. You have your beliefs and I have mine. You're free to your beliefs so long as you don't try to legislate them on me.
I am sick of living under the thumb of the american taliban. You fuckers have got to go.
Porn is available in our society in only a few venues. Parents can easily control access to those venues
/possibly/ prevent your children from seeing porno for 18 years without the help of the state unless you engage in some serious psychological abuse ("OK, Jimmy, time to go outside... put your blindfold on!")
/observed/. (Actually, the legal precedent is stronger -- that pornography harms by its very presense, whether it's directly observed or not -- which is the legal basis for those strict zoning laws I mentioned above.)
Not likely. If so, it's probably thanks only to strict zoning laws. The problem is those zoning laws are based on the very arguments you're railing against. In fact, I don't see how you could
I know for a fact that it is (or used to be) possible for children to surf porn from public library computers and school computers. You may argue that letting a child go to school is tantamount to abdicating parental responsibility; I'd respond by considering you a loonie and moving on.
Your comparison to guns is rhetorically admirable, but it's also ridiculously inappropriate. You cannot download a gun from the Internet. If it's taken as axiom that pornography harms children (which it must for this part of the conversation to make any sense whatsoever), it is significanlty different from the harm inflicted by a gun because the pornography potentially harms by merely being
First of all, keep in mind he's your god, not my god.
It's a turn of phrase. Take the stick out of your ass.
just because something is written into the founding documents doesn't make it correct
Don't put words in my mouth; I never said it was "correct". But it's there, whether we like it or not, and it's just as much a part of the law of the land as the First Amendement.
dual-level logical fallacy
Oh, great. I called you on a fallacy, so now you have to try to call me on one. How childish. What's a "dual-level logical fallacy" anyway?
"all men are created equal"
That's not in the Constitution nor in any document with any legal validity. Nice try, though.
It is not reasonable to tax purveyors of legitimate adult products for the costs associated with dealing with the purveyors of illegitimate child pornography.
My point here is that the whole argument over whether pornography harms children is completely immaterial. Congress can impose the tax for any reason because the power to do so is given to them by the Constitution. They could say they're doing it because porn turns the sky green and it wouldn't matter. The justification is just political posturing.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
So you don't appreciate America's God-given right to vote for the lesser of two weasels?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Do you have any idea how much that would cost me???
At age 20, being able to look forward beyond that pretty nude and plan for long term happiness provides the reason to break that addiction.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The Berlin Wall fell precisely because socialism is an abject, empirical failure in practice.
Um... you do know that the old West Germany was the socialist one, right? And the present-day Germany is still socialist.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Sex may not be that way *to you*, but sex means different things to different people and people define their relationships in different ways
I refer you to the movie Dangerous Liasons for a lesson in how dangerous sex can be for those who indulge in it wantanly. Your friends may think they are going along fine, but any one of those people could suddenly turn on their partners if slighted and make a real mess of things. I have seen this happen. Yes, anybody can hurt anybody, but when sex is involved, because of its great intimacy, the pain will be much greater.
Go ahead and stick to your opinions. But I hope nothing ill will come of them.
Your rationalization states some very obvious points,
What do you think I'm "rationalizing"?
You, cahiha, seem to have been able to handle your exposure to porn.
There is nothing to "handle"--I just don't buy the stuff.
The poster presumably posted as an AC because of typical reactions such as yours. Too bad you couldn't allow their statement of personal responsibility to represent the courage the person faced in dealing with their own problems and/or symptoms.
Oh, bullshit. The grandparent poster wasn't accepting responsibility, he was blaming the world for his problems, but then pulled back because he realized that didn't work. Face it: there are many things in this world that can hurt you if you make stupid choices. Porn just isn't very high on that list.
The greatest hope for children
"Hope" implies that there is some bad situation now that we can improve if we make an effort. There is not. There are good parents and there are bad parents, and that's not going to change.
a healthy parental figure who is able to coach, guide, and protect children from being over-exposed to things in life before they are ready
Well, if that's what you believe and if that's the way you want to raise your kids, that's your choice; you control what your kids can see. But don't try to impose your choices on everybody else. What you may consider an "over-exposure", I may consider ridiculously prudish behavior that does more harm than good.
You mean people actually pay for porn?
If you ask me, all a tax on porn is going to do is increase the quantity of porn that is already available for free.
Hmmm... now that I've typed that out loud, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Bring on the porn tax!
What are they going to do, impose tarrifs on foreign websites? So many sites are already hosted internationally, I wouldn't see this as having much of an effect at all. The only effect I could foresee is a dip in the webserver market within the US.
why on /. is it default for political crap to be the fault of the republicans/right wing/religious ???
Because they're the dominant party, and generally are the ones pushing this crap around. Duh. When the Democrats are back in power (assuming they ever develop a platform and spinal columns), it will be the same with them.
"2. Porn gives men unrealistic expectations of what sex should be like." I have to disagree. From my exerience with my wife and our girlfriend, I'd say most of the pornos aren't too far off... really. Together we are a happy polyamorous family and the sex is really hot. The fact of the matter is porn shows us exactly how most of us would really like our sex lives to be. But so many of us are such cowards and don't want to admit it to ourselves and, Goddess forbid, be bold enough to act it out.
I think you meant to say "The Christian Right", not "The Christian faith". Some liberal Protestant denominations are almost love-ins these days.
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Socialism works? What a laugh!
Yes, it does. If you think pure capitalism would be so much better, try Googling for the "Gilded Age" or "Standard Oil".
The wall fell, get over it.
You need to get over it, and your insecure need to demonize the "enemy".
Well, any percentage tax of zero is still zero. Tax all you want, and i'll still continue to not pay for porn.
Because of their reduced (but still steady) growth rate, these societies out-lasted and eventually displaced the other societies.
Societies that don't allow prostitution, contraceptives, porn, abortions, and other forms of sex than procreation sex grow faster than societies that do.
Christianity did not conquer a world of free-love small tribes. Societies grow because circumstances happen to allow growth; desirable growth rate depends on circumstances.
Polygamy is different. It is just to stop men killing each other over having sex with scarce women, which is counterproductive in a society for different reasons. If men do not get old for some reason, there are valid reasons for polygamy if the growth rate should be increased.
"If I must walk through the same guy's Marlboro cloud to get in/out of the building, he *is* harming me."
Rubbish.
The USA government always wants more money, so do state and local governments. Anything "sinful" is easy to tax. Because "HA - HA!" it only hurts the sinners, let them pay the bill.
Cigarettes and liquor are taxed up the wahzoo. It's easy money. So who would object to another tax that is aimed at saving the poor children. Won't somebody think of the children?
How is this tax supposed to save children anyway? Children aren't paying for porn - legally they can't. And what about foreign porn? Can the USA government tax foreign countries like that?
It's just another cash grab by our insatilby cash hungry government.
I'd like to take specific issue with your second quote. I see it quoted a lot, in what I think is out of context. Specifically, the context is: "Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you."
As far as I can tell, he's not saying "Don't judge at all" (for one thing, that would seem to be teaching against having any standards of right and wrong, which isn't something Jesus is known for), but rather he's saying "Be damn careful about the manner in which you judge. This is serious business." Which is a thought I can get behind 100%
Oh, please. Spare me your paranoia. Mags and videos with naked and/or busy folk are behind the counter or in adult-only access areas like adult bookstores. If you've got porn lying around at home where your kid can get at it and you don't want them to get at it, it's not the state's job to police you, even though you're an idiot. If your community allows that stuff to be placed commercially where 8-year olds can get at it, speak to your town fathers and deal with your commercial enterprises, don't blame the pornographers, that's just idiotic. The problem occurs locally, just as the problem is local to you if you let your kids on the 'net without you monitoring and/or narrow-minded software. If you're concerned about porn email, etc, get a Mac, problem solved. White list their email and you'll never have to worry about it. If you want to do such a thing. The parental controls on a Mac are outstanding. Don't blame the porn folk; the problem is yours, and it is well within your power to solve it.
I argue that letting your child go to school without the information that much of what the school teaches is wrong, and much of what their peers think is true is false, and much of what they learn is incomplete and misleading is tantamount to abdicating parental responsibility. Not quite the same thing. I'm not about sheltering my kids, I'm about educating them. My kids did real well, thanks. :-)
Your inability to generalize is no doubt what leads you down these bewildered mental paths. You can download how to make a home-made bomb. You can download how to make very, very heavy drugs. You can download how to create a man-trap. You can download how to pick a lock (real or virtual.) You can locate anarchists, atheists, communists, pedophiles, mormons, muslims, christians, and etc... someone who will be your worst nightmare, no matter who you are and what you think. The Internet, being a source of general knowledge and information, can be just as fruitful a source of truly dangerous knowledge (or bunkum posing as knowledge) as any "real" weapon. Is that the problem? No. The problem is when clueless, incompetent parents let their kids stumble into this stuff without any reasonable preparation or protection. Preparation and protection that does, and should, vary enormously depending on how the parenting is being pursued. For instance, I don't worry about my children seeing naked bodies. They know those are OK. I worry about them running into some charismatic, slick, lying son of a fundamentalist, because I consider religion the deepest, most dangerous shithole a child can fall into. And that's my right as a parent. You don't get to say what is OK for my kids. Because you have no idea what is OK for my kids, or a Muslim's kids, or a backwoods hunter's kids who have been carrying high powered rifles since they were four, or some pyramid-gazing parent's kids. You only know what's right for your kids. That's the problem.
Man, you walked right into that one, didn't you? Exactly. Your invocation of God is offensive. You think it's OK, I think it's stupid and lowers you approximately to the level of a farm animal. But you had no trouble throwing it right in there. Well, porn may offend someone, but that doesn't mean it offends the next person over. It's a state of presumptuous, idiotic, moral imperialism. Take the stick out of your ass.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Be mature about it and give tell him how you feel. He is my state senator and I will talk to him about this.. http://carper.senate.gov/email-form.html
Right out of the gate, you fail it. There is no system of belief. Furthermore, there is no deity. Atheism is a lack of belief, no more, no less. No deities involved. None. Get it now? Not "belief there is a god", but no belief in a god or gods.
Anything else is in addition to atheism; other positions are neither required nor expected as a consequence of a declaration of atheism, except by those who have pre-defined what atheist means and blanket labels every atheist that way, which is just plain ignorant. If you want to know what an atheist believes, ask them. Otherwise, you don't know -- because the declaration of atheism doesn't specify.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I see your confusion; you think I'm a Democrat. No; I simply think, as I said, that many Democrats have sold out to the right.
So instead of:
it's
Sorry to nitpick & go off on a tangent :-p It's more akin to Aristotle's view of how one acquires ethical understanding than Plato's. When Plato is dealing with the form of the Good, we see how the sun is used as a smile to represent the acquisition of knowledge of the forms, and consequently ethical understanding. The sun provides us with growth, heat and light, ultimately giving us the means to see. The Good affords us reality, truth & intelligibility which grant one knowledge - "As goodness stands in the intelligible realm to intelligence and the things we know, so in the visible realm, the sun stands to sight and the things we see." Just as we are dependant on the sun for our sight and growth, we are dependant on the Good for acquiring knowledge itself. It is the sun that gives the world growth, heat, and light and these things are like the sun, but do not constitute the sun itself. In a similar fashion the concepts of truth, intelligibility and reality are essential components of the Good but are not Goodness themselves. As the sun is responsible for the existence & sustenance of the sensible world, the Good is responsible for the same in the realm of the intelligible world.
... Those who have not the true philosophic temper, but a mere surface colouring of opinions penetrating, like sunburn, only skin deep, when they see how great the range of studies is, how much labour is involved in it, and how necessary to the pursuit it is to have an orderly regulation of the daily life, come to the conclusion that the thing is difficult and impossible for them, and are actually incapable of carrying out the course of study; while some of them persuade themselves that they have sufficiently studied the whole matter and have no need of any further effort."
Through the use of simile we see how one attains ethical knowledge in an abstract sense, but not in a very practical way. For Plato, the acquisition of knowledge (and consequently the ethical understanding inherent to this) was the occupation and responsibility of the guardian class to ensure that the good souls of the select few capable of perceiving the forms presided over the good republic itself. The acquisition of such understanding is a very formidable and demanding task for which a life times worth of dedication is prerequisite. Those who lack the capability, conditioning or innate desire to attain the knowledge will be incapable of attaining such understanding, as outlined in his Seventh Letter:
"One should show such men what philosophy is in all its extent; what their range of studies is by which it is approached, and how much labour it involves. For the man who has heard this, if he has the true philosophic spirit and that godlike temperament which makes him a kin to philosophy and worthy of it, thinks that he has been told of marvelousus road lying before him, that he must forthwith press on with all his strength, and that life is not worth living if he does anything else. After this he uses to the full his own powers and those of his guide in the path, and relaxes not his efforts, till he has either reached the end of the whole course of study or gained such power that he is not incapable of directing his steps without the aid of a guide
So we see that cultivating ethical understanding is quite the arduous task for those lucky (!) enough to possess the capability and opportunity to realise it. The example cited here is that of Dionysus, who Plato observes was indeed not "kindled with the fire of philosophy" as a result of the lifestyle of his city, where excess and vices was the norm rather than the exception: "For with these habits formed early in life, no man under heaven could possibly attain to wisdom - human nature is not capable of such an extraordinary combination."
For Aristotle, the objective of ethics is to guide one towards the ideal course of life, resulting in the realisation of eudaimonia ('a contented state of being happy
<The genetically successful male breeds with as many partners as he can, as often as he can.
This is bullshit. Evolutionary success depends upon producing the most children who go on to have more children, not to spread the most of your genetic material around.
Well, you're right with the second statement.
A well cared for child that receives proper parental attention, who grows into a stable adult, is a greater "success" and will likely breed more and better children than five kids who are malnourished and mentally underdeveloped without the interaction and protection of the father.
Here's a key point. You're ignoring that "the father" might not be the biological father. More on this below.
I'm not disagreeing with your first statement. Monogamy can be hard, but don't pull that "men are hardwired for infidelity" crap. The notion that women are "supposed" to try desperately to hold on to one man while men are "supposed" to want to spread their baby batter everywhere is a product of our culture, and is a cop-out for both sexes.
Okay, let's assume your argument is right. Men aren't hardwired for infidelity and woman aren't desperate to hold on to one man. So, those men who commit infidelities and women desperate to hold on a man then are acting out their culture. However, this means they're overriding their natural instincts.
But, there's somewhat of a contradiction. If one looks at the Bible, specifically the 10 Commandments, one will notice a peculiar thing about sex: there's only the mention of adultery in it. Rape, bestiality, and fornication? Not in the top ten of problems, but adultery is. Now, you could claim that fornication isn't in itself a breaking of a vow with God and hence it's okay, but why wasn't rape and bestiality listed? Certainly rape is a very destructive crime to a community. And rampant bestiality would at some point begin to diminish the population size (though admittedly it would do so in favor of the "good").
I propose that adultery was rampant to the extent that it was becoming very difficult to pass along heirs to a biological child, a cultural normal to advantage one's own lineage. It was so rampant in fact that it made the cut above all other sex crimes, in the big top ten list. Now as wicked of deeds that the people were doing at the time involving sex and seeing how ingrained adultery is as a sin, it seems a bit far stretch to claim that Christians or Christian-like individuals would ever commit adultery.
On a side note, I think it's been argued that women look for strong (physically and financially) and older men. Now, I'll admit that part of this is indeed a cultural norm, but seeing the infidelity that's being claimed, it seems that part of such a maneuvering is to be a position to have greater prospects for producing children while being financially stable enough to raise one's children.
None of the above, btw, is a cop-out. Just because one has an urge to do something, be it cultural training or natural instinct, doesn't mean doing the act itself is somehow justified. The whole concept of sin quite well revolves around this point. Simply admitting that man is a beast at heart means one knows the ground rules and works hard to overcome those weaknesses one sees in producing a monogamous relationship.
Oh, and obviously there's individual fluctuation upon how much culture overcomes one's natural tendendices to the extent one no longer likes what would come natural (look at how strongly groups can reject various food/drinks based on what they're composed of on religious grounds). So, even while the "norm" to want to commit infidelity combined with a lack of want to commit infidelity is abnormal, there's clearly cases where it's better for yourself to be abnormal. Accepting oneself is the most important thing.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
"Senator Tom Carper (D-Del) is calling for a 25% tax on all internet pornograpy. The money is to help police fight online child pornographers."
Why should geeks, and programmers be the ones paying for protecting children from child pornographers?
Mags and videos with naked and/or busy folk are behind the counter or in adult-only access areas like adult bookstores.
Why? Because it's the law. Why is it the law? Because the state believes porn is harmful. You're making my case for me!
The phrase forms the opening of the Declaration of Independence, in fact it may be the best-known phrase in any of America's political documents
Yes, indeed. And the Declaration has absolutely no legal weight whatsoever. It's not law, it's not legal precedent, and its words have no bearing in a court room any more than do the Articles of Confederation.
The feds (congress et al) were given very limited power to tax in the constitution
Dude... did you even bother to read what I wrote previously? Excise tariffs (which this would be) are explicitly authorized in (as I said earlier) Art I Sec 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises"
You quoted the section where direct taxes and duties on state exports are banned. An excise tax is not a direct tax -- income tax is a direct tax. Amendment 16 modified the Const to allow it -- nor is it a duty.
There are only 18 categories of actions Congress is explicitly authorized to take, and this tax falls under one of those categories.
You can download how to make a home-made bomb [and other bad things]
Yes, and none of those bad things are legally considered to be harmful just by reading them except in certain circumstances (incitement).
your property can be taken
Under the un-amended constitution, the state could have taken your property at will. The 4th Am. requires that the compensate you justly: "... nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
The power to tax "anything" is a power that was taken in direct opposition to what the constitution said
Sure, they can't tax anything. But excise taxes are fair game.
Maybe even go read the constitution.
I daresay it seems I know it a lot better than you.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
....The essence of freedom is about allowing people to do something you don't personally agree with.....
.....The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) for some reason believe that sex is bad......
I don't personally agree with murder, robbery, kidnaping, rape etc, so in your perverted picture of "freedom" it ought to be perfectly OK for anyone to do these and any other crimes as well!
That is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. Christians do not believe that sex is bad any more than they believe fire is bad. Fire in its proper place has long been useful to humanity, but when out of control and out of place is a dangerous and often deadly thing. Sex too, when done within the confines that God placed it in is a beautiful thing. Sex outside of those limits is like a fire out of control.
All theory is gray
Is it worth courting a few potential swing voters that normally vote for the other guys by default while alienating your base and many moderates as well into voting 3rd party or not at all?
I get the feeling that these guys took Clinton's success and decided more Republican-like = more votes, and eventually started even trying to outdue the Republicans on some issues like the recent emminent domain ruling and this "let's censor the intarweb" crap.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
This is just another way for them to make money.
The truth of the matter is that each person's definition of porn is likely completely different:
Why are there so many uninformed, ignorant idiots among us?! Anybody can see that one person's porn is another person's "ho-hum-drum". There are people who get off on seeing pain being inflicted, no nudity involved at all. There are people who get off on seeing nice automobiles. I am sure there are people who literally cream their jeans from smelling a sizzling steak or something equally "ordinary".
Gah - these people, who are either greedy, morally corrupt (while espousing otherwise, of course), or both - sicken me to no end. I am sick of it! I do nothing (but the more I see this kind of stuff happenning, the more I think about doing something) to go against their own perversions (and love of money and believing mythological fairy tales as an adult most certainly do qualify as perverse, more than anything else, in my book) - why can't they leave me and mine alone the same? WHY NOT?!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
....but the Constituion is not involved there at all....
I guess you don't know the American Constitution. The electoral college system is ordained therein. The Constitution does neither prescribe nor forbid any kind of political party system, so multiple parties are theoretically possible. However, the makeup of Congress by mutiple parties by itself would not make the US government like a parliamentary model. Both the electoral college and the way the US Senate are elected, prevents a tyranny of the majority in the highly populated parts of the nation against the large areas of the sparsely populated areas. Many of the state constitutions mirror this for the same reasons.
All theory is gray
While I respect your right to an opinion, I disagree...
:S
The poster you quoted sounds to me like he recognised that his addiction to pornography was a problem (speculation here). To preceive viewing pornography as an addiction, and addictions having a negative connotation, you must first percieve that viewing pornography is a bad thing (in which case, the pornography is bad). Your case was that (interpretation) viewing pornography isn't bad, only the addiction to it.
True, you mention that there are many ways of preventing (or at least making more difficult) yourself from viewing pornography - but have you ever tried to do so? Do you know how difficult it is to break such an entrenched (and pleasureable) addiction?
Alright, onto what I actually WANTED to say
I'd be curious as to see what your definition of "relationship problems" is (divorce? high numbers of arguments? verbal abuse? multiple partners?). I'd also be curious to find out the relationship between viewing pornography and relationship problems.
For the record, I have a great respect for the person who has the guts to come online and be honest about the fact that he runs several porn sites, and then to go on and try to find out if what he is providing has caused people to become addicted. While I disagree with what he does (I am a Bible-believing Christian), I have a deep respect for this person.
Cheers,
Sampizcat
Let me get this straight. Christians are told over and over to repress their sexual thoughts and behaviors, that it is shameful, sinful, and satanic to entertain these wicked desires. Then along come some pictures of gleeful naked people. The Christian finds something pleasant and enjoyable about viewing these pictures and thinking about sex. This pleasure becomes something sinister and shameful that they have to hide from their wives, their family, their friends.
Again, just so we're absolutely clear... it's the porn that's screwing these people up?
Back when I was a Christian (okay, technically Mormon, so you'll probably say it doesn't count), I thought I was "addicted" to porn. But when I finally realized that Big Daddy wasn't looking over my shoulder, ready to smite me, when I realized that there was nothing particularly shameful about enjoying porn, and that it was just a timesink that needed to be limited so I could do more productive things, my addiction ended.
You Christians have such problems with porn because you have to struggle alone with these deep-seated repressions. Get over them, come to terms with the idea that you're meant to enjoy these lascivious thoughts, and stop spoiling things for the rest of us.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Which one will grab the copyright to prayer?
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
>>You mean people actually pay for porn!?!?!?!
Of course *we* don't. But if the porn sites can't get any paying customers, then that will be end of the 10 second sample clips.
I agree that relatively-speaking, present-day Germany is still socialist (then again, so is the U.S., depending on how strict you wish to be with your definition of "socialist").
Although, having just traveled to both former West Germany and former East Germany in the last couple months, at least from a mere tourist's perspective, it clearly has significant helpings of a market economy, e.g. multiple privately-owned competitors. However, their labor markets are rather inflexible; I'm not familiar with what sort of price-controls, tariffs, subsidies, etc. they presently have.
But regarding the East/West Germany division, in actual structure, East Germany was the socialist, Soviet-controlled one. West Germany was the relatively-capitalistic (compared to East Germany) country. This is basic, indisputable world history...
Both had large, powerful governments, but East Germany's was *far* more controlling and commanding than the West's was; for example, imported automobiles were permitted -- as also was the case in Soviet Russia -- only for the wealthy party elite, not the regular citizens... Freedom of speech isn't even a fair comparison: East German tour guides of the time would tell you that all the run-down, bombed-out buildings from WWII (many of which *STILL* exist today, but in much fewer quantity than before) were to be rebuilt according to the "5 year plan" that had been put together, when the truth was obviously not in alignment with such a statement; in West Germany, people were much freer (as they are today) to criticize the government, rather than kiss its ass.
That the western parts of Germany today (in my travels) had *no* bombed-out buildings, while even in major cities of eastern Germany still do is a testament to the failure of the central planned -- i.e. socialist -- government.
Milton Friedman wrote in his classic Free to Choose in 1980 that difference between a capitalist and socialist economy was perhaps no more starkly illustrated, nor more scientifically-possible to observe, than in comparing East and West Germany. This makes sense: a nation of the same people, same culture, etc. were split up by force, and forced to live under 2 separate and very different economic systems. Hypothesis of the time: socialism is better than capitalism. Test of hypothesis: split up the populace. Conclusion of test?
One economy failed miserably, with its members often desperately seeking to escape to the other. It was so bad that East Germany had to build a wall to keep them in the country. And ultimately, that wall fell.
Some of us don't believe it is a coincidence that the socialist nation's economy effectively died on the vine, the wall holding in its citizens was torn down, and the people of the formerly-socialist economy desired to live under a capitalist one...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Whoah there.... Hillary is FAR from a moderate. You do realize that she is just acting the way she is to improve here election odds in 2008. If she won, you'd see more social spending bills being pushed than ever before.
We're on the same page, I just didn't type very clearly in my original posting.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
And wish to inflict their particular sense of same on everyone else.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
At least when I toss a few franks onto the Weber, I *choose* to do so.
Living within 20 miles of a coal-fired power plant may expose you to as much mercury over the course of a year as eating 20 cans of tuna over the same period, but only an idiot would argue the fact that it's *okay* for said plant to emit mercury. (The mercury numbers -- plausible though they may be -- were pulled from my ass to highlight the absurdity of the OP's argument.)
Method of processing duck feet
There is a difference between a society that is growing and a society that has a growing population. Bangladesh, Zaire, Madagascar, and Rwanda are all countries that have >2% annual increase in population. They aren't exactly making leaps and bounds into First World status. Whereas India and China are doing exactly that, and coincidentally enough, right after they managed to wrestle their population growth rates down to manageable levels.
Honestly, if you can make any argument about how population affects the ability to go out and kick ass (militarily, economically, whatever...), it would be this: You want a population density high enough to run the country, but not so high that, given your available technology/funds/infrastructure, there's no room to do anything but feed, clothe, and house them in abject poverty. And once you get there, drop down to replacement levels of growth ASAP.
Polygamy is problematic because, as you say, it's invariably beneficial only for some men, which is no good given the 50/50 gender split of human births. It usually ends up looking like the Mormons; some crufty 60-year old guy with another 14-year old wife. Ick. Even an equal treatment polygyny differs from, say, gay marriage in that so many fundamental legal notions (wills & last testaments, power of attorney, child care & visitation, etc, etc) assume that a civil union/marriage comprises only two people. E.g., a loan application probably doesn't have a checkbox for spouse gender, but it almost certainly only has _one_ field for spouse name.
Dyolf Knip
You make good points. I think the issue is more of a rhetorical one than anything. I would not call East Germany "socialist", I'd call it "communist". And I'd call West Germany "socialist", certainly compared to the US.
I think the "bombed-out building" metric isn't a good indicator of the success of East vs West Germany so much as US vs Russia. I was at Paulskirche in Frankfurt (the building that I udnerstand held the first united German government in 1848) a couple of days ago, reading the panels about its history. It was pretty much destroyed in the air raids, and then it was completely rebuilt by 1947. Now surely, that money didn't come from the German economy. No, it came from the Marshall plan.
A lot of people claim that the our winning the Cold War proved capitalism is better than communism, but I'm not so sure. We started off with an awefully large advantage -- 20 million dead Russians worth of an advantage.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Love and monogamy is found nowhere else in nature...
Actually, it is common. Wolves, for example, are monogamous...
My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
That's the way I generally take that quote, and it's part of the foundation of our system of criminal justice (or it's what our system of Criminal Justice in the United States is supposed to work like, which seems to be very different from how it actually works). It's the idea that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be convicted.
If you are not sure that you are judging correctly, in a right manner, then you should not judge at all. If you do not have all the facts, do not proceed until you do. Of course, this implies a perfect society and perfect people, neither of which we will ever have. That's not me being pessimistic, though, that's me being realistic.
And as a realist, I work hard towards being perfect in everything that I do, without dispairing in the knowledge that I will never achieve such perfection.
However, the point as I put it stands thusly: Alot of persons who practice the religion known today as Christianity simply disregard the vast majority of the teachings of the man they say they hold high. If it's hard to swallow, or makes you go out of your way, the vast majority of them tend not to do it.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
What's the difference between the ultra-rightist Taliban and the ultra-rightist Catholics and the ultra-rightist Protestants?
Obviously none.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
2 points:
1) I don't advocate *pure* capitalism (i.e., government exists solely to protect property and adjudicate violations of the law and of other peoples' property), but that's primarily because I don't believe our society can handle it, or wants to. Such a staunchly-libertarian position requires a different mindset and different culture from the one we have.
The social concerns aside, there are purely-economic considerations. I am quite cognizent of the limitations and occasional rare failures of capitalism and the extent to which government has a role in "filling in the cracks" of a capitalist economy; however, as an overall, general arrangement, capitalism is a far superior system to any other yet devised.
2) Standard Oil != capitalism. One is a business object; the other is an economic system which contains many business objects.
Now, you might be referring to its position as a monopoly provider. I have 2 takes on the issue of monopolies:
First, some monopolies will eventually lose their monopoly power due to their own weight. Consider Microsoft's slow death that Linux, etc. has been encouraging. It is a slow process, but nobody can deny that it clearly exists.
Second, despite my first point, I still consider monopolies to be a market failure to a certain -- albeit limited -- extent, which provides justification for anti-trust laws for businesses which *abuse* their monopoly position (but does not punish them for *being* a monopoly). However, whether they are really worthwhile to exercise depends entirely on the particular case, the length of the monopoly's existence, and its effect on the overall economy.
For instance, if Microsoft abuses its monopoly position, it's possible for people to go and write their own OS, their own office apps, etc.. It's been done regularly since the beginning of the computing timeline.
But in the case of Standard Oil, a fair argument could be made that because their oil powered the transportion systems which keep our economy fluid and operational -- that they play such a central (albeit not always very visible) role in the economy that to allow them to singlehandedly control the market would be too risky to the nation's security, its economic efficiency, and so on.
So long as there are ignoramuses advocating a system which the entire economically-educated world now acknowledges was an abject, empirical failure (it's about as obvious a conclusion as anything in economics ever gets), I feel duty-bound to point out their ignorance.
Show me a *credible* out-and-out socialist economist living today in a western nation. You'll have a very hard time, because nearly every socialist economist of the Cold War era either admitted they were wrong or else went into hiding after the wall's fall.
While you're at it, read this article.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
This is just a way for them to fund a porn police force that will no doubt sub departments such as gambling police force piracy force etc etc and they are using the children as a way of convincnig the American public it is needed because after all everything we do here is for the children. I hope the American public starts to see thru all this politics and calls there local Congressmen or Senator and tells them no on any type of internet tax. Because by using this excuse we need money to fight the bad guy so lets tax the little guy more is not right online indenty theft is number 1 online problem at the moment you dont see them trying a identy theft tax to ever web site that collects personal information, no and why would you? And what happens whena legit porn operater refuses topay the tax do they take him to jail? I thought we were trying to lock up the bad guy.
An Excise tax, as they wrote it into the constitution, isn't what you think it is at all:
Antithesis means the opposite of something's meaning, and as we see, the Excise tax was conceived as the opposite of the mechanism you think it is.
The excise power had nothing, and cannot be interpreted in context with the understandings of that day to have anything -- absolutely zero -- to do with taxing the manufacture of chairs, eyeglasses, or pornography.
Until the 1909 "amendment" (AKA rape of the US public and the constitution, sometimes vilified as "class warfare" and sometimes as a political trick that simply backfired), the feds had to be satisfied with taxing imports and exports. That was it. Period. Not taxing the pamphlets produced by whoever stating or showing whatever. There were no such taxes. Nor did the constitution contemplate any such taxes or in any way, directly or indirectly, provide for them.
You have to read it all if you want to understand it. The first thing you have to do is put yourself in their shoes. You remember the tea party, a tiny little tax revolt against the King? These people knew about taxation as bludgeon and control mechanism. They weren't having any.
Nor did they provide the mechanism of amendments to destroy everything they had worked out. It was supposed to be a fine-tuning tool, not high explosives and knives in the back. I'm the first to tell you they have the power to do what they're doing; but they do not have the right, and more importantly, they can never have the right because it is inherent in the foundation of the country. They can only steal, which puts them outside the pale. Your moron, Mr. Senator, is a thief and a criminal by the very definition of the word. But people are stupid, and they're going to think it's OK. "Won't someone think of the children?" Pah. If they were thinking of the children they wouldn't have this problem in the first place.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'd tend to say that the cousin part is more along the lines that the odds of producing healthy children are greatly increased if you don't marry your cousin. I mean, look at all the troubles the royalty suffered.
I don't read AC A human right
Hmmm...seems its just SOME of the profiteers, because as I recall the sex industry is a multi BILLION dollar industry and shows no sign of going away anytime soon
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Been saying that for years. The 'left' in the US is only left wing when you compare it to the right. On one hand you have the standard array right-wing nutjobs (massively jingoistic, 'with us or against us', deeply religious, totally in the corporate pocket, makes noises about stripping citizenship from whole demographics of Americans), who are unusual in that they are actually in power. But where are their left-wing nutjob countparts on the Democratic party? Ain't nobody advocating nationalization of major industries, government-provided universal health care, 90%+ taxes on things like capital gains, or massively expanded welfare programs. Heck, add in the top 4 minor parties (Green, Libertarian, Constitution, and Reform) and you still don't see anything really economically left wing.
... Michael Moore.
I asked a Republican friend of mine for the Democrat equivalent of Ann Coulter (wants Christian crusades in Muslim nations), Rush Limbaugh (wants an even higher per capita incarceration rate), and Pat Robertson (wants all gays and atheists 'removed' from the country). The best he could give me was
Dyolf Knip
I'm sorry, I guess I'm the only one who picked up on the 'sex is bad' theme of most of Christianity when I read Genesis and the Story of Adam and Eve. Though the apple was never explicitly equated with carnal knowledge, everyone from Aquinas to Milton seems to know it.
Also, unwanted pregnancies, VD, and AIDS are not consequences of sex. They're consequences of engaging in sex irresponsibly. If someone is skateboarding without pads and helmet and them come off of a pipe and crash and break their head open, they have very little reason to whine -- they chose to engage in an activity that could have grave consequences irresponsibly. Just because it "wasn't likely" doesn't matter. The chances of me knocking up a girl I sleep with are not extremely high. I still use a condom.
The same applies to sex. You can engage in it as willy-nilly as you would like. My various fornicating pagan deities know I do. But I engage in it responsibly. And that means taking all the precautions I can to ensure that I do not get the girl pregnant and I do not contract a STD.
The problem with sex, like much else in life, is stupidity, human stupidity.
Incest between first-degree relatives has never been fine for the 'common man.' It was only acceptable for royalty. Incest between cousins is actually okay from a genetic stand-point, because the chances of inheriting a bad gene that will express itself are outweighed by that chance of inheriting a good gene. If you look at when marrying your cousin started to become outlawed in the Western World in a big way, you will see it was by the Church, trying to stop the Nobility from keeping wealth closely concentrated. If you couldn't marry a close cousin that pretty much preculded anyone within several hundred miles. They also said you could not adopt, and they limited the days on which one could have sex on. If someone died childless, their lands and property could be siezed by the Church, to make it more powerful.
They never really have, much, but what they have cared a great deal about is stopping competitors from getting ahead.
Leaving the most descendants is all that really counts to your genes, and if you can stop someone from doing something that increase their number of descendants (like marrying many women, a genetic reason), or from keeping power in limited hands (by stopping people from marrying within the family, as in cousins), then they've done it, no matter how much they wanted to do it themselves.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
The left alternative to the Democrats is the Greens, and they have their own problems with civil liberties - a strong feminist contingent that has no qualms about legislating against pornography. So, for those on the left who are also committed to civil liberties, we don't have much of a choice.
Having every priest there claiming that condoms don't prevent AIDS and that they are actually laced with the virus as part of a western plot to kill africans doesn't help matters either.
Dyolf Knip
Only on the surface. Defects arising from marrying your cousin and having children with them are not terribly greater than from marrying a complete stranger, and far, far lower than from having a child with a first-degree relative. They also have the benefit of increasing the distribution of genes which provide a positive benefit to their possessor.
The trick with marrying a cousin, like with marrying anyone else, from a genetic standpoint, is to avoid marrying someone who has genes which, in combination with yours, would cause an undesired trait.
For example, I am a recessive carrier for Thalassemia Minor, which causes my red blood cells to not form entirely correctly. I am heterozygous for it. While this results in slight anemia and I tend to get fatigued more easily because my red blood cells are not quite as efficient at oxygen transport, I have an increased resistance to Malaria for this very reason.
Any woman I ever marry (which I never plan on doing, but we are speaking hypothetically,) would have to be tested for the disorder, for the reason being that if she was also heterozygous for Thalassemia Minor, there is a one-in-four chance that any child we had would be homozygous for it (they would bear two copies of the defective gene), and as such their red blood cells would be so severly damaged that the child would not live.
This is a reason to not marry your cousin, however, it is also a reason why marrying a cousin can be a good thing. If you are heterozygous for a gene that causes some improvement when only one copy is possessed and/or a great improvement when one is homozygous for it, and a cousin is also heterozygous, this gives you a 25% chance that any child you have will not have the benefical gene, 50% chance that any child will have one copy of the gene, and thus have the same increased ability in something that you and your spouse share, and a %25 percent chance that any child will be homozygous for (have two copies of) the gene, thus having a much better ability than either parent or the other siblings.
That is one way that benefical traits can be increased in the population at large.
However, I could never marry one of my cousins. Maybe the part of the human brain that stops you from being sexually attracted to people you knew during childhood is working, or maybe it's just that I find the idea unappealing for other reasons. For whatever reason, I don't fancy hooking up with one of my cousins.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
You sir, (or madam), have touched my soul, for I am stuck in both laziness and in pride.
Actually men and women both do porn except in different ways. While most men prefer visual stimulation in a very straightforward manner, women prefer a somewhat better backstory and can use their imagination.
It comes as no surprise therefore, that romance novels are big sellers. For those of us who don't like to go to the library, there's erotic fan fiction. There's lots of women who don't enjoy porn but, being just as sexual as men but in a different way, like to read these.
Being male, it's really hard to find decent pr0n. So much of it's...just so fake or uninteresting or gross (some men are actually turned off by anal (not that there's anything wrong with it; I just don't want to watch)). While the cinematography is horrible, amateur pr0n can often be the most erotic for me since they're not...actors.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Why is it that both parties always sell out for the worst aspects of the opposite party?
Well, the thing is, they don't. Plenty cross over, with politicians from the 'opposite' party voting for an issue you agree with.
How about this. The parties have become carticatures. Very few people are purely 'republican' or 'democrat', 'left' or 'right', 'conservative' or 'liberal'. They simply identify with the 'closest' party.
Heck, there's left/right ratings out there for senators. Some democrats are further 'right' than some republicans.
Texas's (D) Stenholm scored a 45, while Iowa's Leach(R), scored a 55 for their: ADA's rating(a blatently 'liberal' organization)
Method for score: 20 votes chosen as the 'most important'. If you voted their way, you got 5 points. If you didn't, you got 0(IE abstinations count as 0 points). I have some serious problems with their methodology.
Govtrack rates Miller(D,GA) as further right than many republicans. Meanwhile, Collins, Chafee, and Snowe could be called 'Rhinos'(Republicans in name only).
I don't read AC A human right
Thank you, thank you... :P
Well, in the strictly economic sense, this isn't quite right. A communist economy, as Marx envisioned, would not have a government. People would live on a communally-shared property, with no particular ownership for anybody, and people would work because work needs to be done, rather than because they have any particular incentive to do so.
Much like the native Americans, actually... That said, Chairman Mao tried real communism in China during his "Great Leap Forward", and he doomed millions to starvation as a result.
Socialism, by contrast, necessarily requires a large, powerful system of government, though whether it is democratically-controlled is a separate issue (they certainly were not under the Soviet-style socialism, but Swedish-style socialism is). Like communism, socialism requires that the "greater good" be served -- collective needs outweigh individual needs -- but the difference is that socialists don't believe that people will just necessarily co-operate, or are even capable of voluntarily co-operating with each other, as communism requires.
So, communism and socialism -- at least in their idealistic, theoeretical versions -- are differentiated by the existence of a government.
Since East Germany had a large government, it clearly cannot have been actually "communist" (despite claims by the U.S. and others); it was actually socialist in its economic structure. (Then again, the Soviet Union wasn't "communist" either, and even their name would tell you that: USSR = "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics").
It's common to refer to them as "communist", but in fact, there are very few real-world examples of communism in practice, because virtually every nation and the societies that comprise them has existed with some sort of government. Given that there exist really 3 major economic systems worth speaking of -- capitalism, socialism, and communism -- one is easily ruled-out...
I didn't get there myself (my only time in Frankfurt was to drive to the airport and get on a flight home to the U.S.), but I visited a church (I don't have my notes handy, but IIRC, it was in Nurnburg) which likewise was destroyed during WWII and rebuilt just afterwards. FWIW, we were told there that the church was rebuilt via donations by the German citizenry...
Sure, that does make a considerable difference. But those 20 million died in large part because the Russians couldn't supply their military with enough weapons. Soldiers didn't even get their own guns; they had to share one with another soldier! At one point, Stalin literally ran his people into the German opposition, because there was little else he could do -- this is where the term "cannon fodder" came from, BTW...
Stalin's totalitarian, socialist economy surely didn't help him boost production... (now, to be fair, they'd had the Bolshevik Revolution fairly-recently. Such social upheaval can't have boded well for building an economy which could withstand the demands of war.)
Besides Russia, the Cold War has yielded other "communist" (actually socialist) examples of failure:
* North Korea -- The last remaining Soviet-style holdout in the world one
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Um, radical position here, but I think that both parties are rather 'left'.
I think that most in Europe are outright socialists.
Aren't politics fun?
I don't read AC A human right
Are you familiar with Trusted Network Connect (TNC)?
It seems like you've honed your spiel, making it easier for us to discuss the underlying issues.
Several groups want/expect TNC to be mandatory somewhere between 2010 and 2015.
What makes you think that "several groups" will get their wish with respect to residential Internet connections, especially given that virtually no computers or routers sold in the third quarter of 2005 are "Trusted Computing Ready"?
What does prurient mean?
Your brain is the most important sex organ in your body. In the context of the U.S. definition of obscenity, "prurient interest" can be thought of as the part of the brain that processes sexual stimulation.
And wouldn't blocking a server outside the US be anti-constitutional?
"The Congress shall have Power... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States". Courts have already decided that obscene material is not protected "speech" or "press".
Actually there is only one ethical theory that states that morality has any bearing to do with a diety of any sort, the Devine Command Theory. The Devine Command Theory states that morality comes from God's or Gods' will, but it is easily debated against. Every other ethical theory is independant of a deity such as Deontology, Utilitarianism, Consequentialism, Virtue Ethical Theory or Egoism. All of these theories use an outside source for the basis of morality. Egoism = what ever is best for yourself, screw everyone else, Virtue = morality is what makes you the best person you want to be, Consequentialism = the ends justify the means, Utilitarianism = morality is what causes the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest amount of people, Deontology = it's moral only if you can will it to be a universal maxim, ie the Golden Rule. Ok so yeah, alittle off topic, but it's annoying when people attribute morality to God alone. Thats like saying it would be moral to boil babies if God willed it to be so.
Read your own sources. I re-quote: "... the manufacture, in intermediate sale, or in the ultimate sale commonly amounting to consumption."
In 1791, for example, an excise tax (and it was called so at the time) was levied on the sale of distilled spirits. There was a small uprising (the Whiskey Rebellion) over it.
the feds had to be satisfied with taxing imports and exports. That was it. Period
You're either incredibly ignorant or you're a liar. Read about the Whiskey Rebellion. Come back with a clue.
You remember the tea party, a tiny little tax revolt against the King? These people knew about taxation as bludgeon and control mechanism. They weren't having any.
Learn your history. They first drafted the Articles of Confederation, which didn't let the national government (it could hardly be called "federal") do anything more than ask the state governments to donate money. The US operated under this hairbrained scheme for years; they drafted up the Constitution because they realized that the AoC were a complete wash.
Contrary to your understanding, the last thing on their minds was not the oppressive tax regime of the British but the complete impotence of the AoC. The Constitution formed a strong central government in order to fix the problems. It was so strong that the only way the Federalists could get it adopted was by adding the Bill of Rights.
I'm sick of giving you lessons in history and reading comprehension. Respond if you like, but I doubt I'll reply.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Please read what you reply to.
Sorry, I did. After saying he doesn't blame porn for what he did, he proceeds to blame porn for what he did, with Dobson's encouragement. "It snatched me out of my home 20 or 30 years ago" - sure, Ted was perfectly normal and healthy until he saw boobies in Playboy. You may think it's a scourge on society, but hundreds of millions of people look at naked pictures on the Internet and do not subsequently commit rape and murder. There are much more serious threats than porn, such as government censorship and imposition of religous beliefs at gunpoint.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Atheism is a system of beliefs about a diety. Specifically, that there is no god. Not believing in god != having no beliefs in regard to god. A*theism (no belief in god) != A*religious (no specific system of belief about a diety. And yes, I know I made up the term). It's really semantics here, so I think at best we can get into a circular argument.
Really, I'm not trying to be clever with my signature.
Wendi Friesen (well-marketed internet hypnotist) has a program specifically for porn addiction. I've been there - found dad's playboy when I was
Learning self-control through self-hypnosis could very well be that "something else" you're looking for.
There's other options too - feel free to email me if you're interested. (Even though I only check the above-listed email address once a month or so, I'll get back to you eventually
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
It does. I can't remember exactly where, but it is explicitly stated in the Catechism that faith without good works is insuficient.
---
"I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing and it was everything that I thought it could be."
Unless I've got my words totally scrambled you don't know any polygamous relationships. But it sound like you know some cases of polyandry.
Polygamy is more than one wife, polyandry is more than one husband.
Just being pedantic, no offense intended.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
IIRC, the part of your brain that decides whether someone is so closely related as to be 'off limits' selects those you spent a lot of time with up to age six or so.
Mcyroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Everybody knows that the only way to keep kids away from porn is to neuter them to begin with. No gonads, no hormones = no interest in porn, eh? As a beneficial side-effect, it will help to control the population explosion.
On a less serious note, maybe the right approach is for parents, when their child reaches the dangerous age and they've taught them about the birds and the birds, to then rent the nastiest most exploitive porn video they can find and watch it TOGETHER with their child, and narrate and discuss what's wrong with it. Then rent the least nasty porn film they can find, or perhaps just a mainstream R or NC-17 film that depicts sex in a positive way, watch that together with their child, and contrast the two.
Prohibition didn't work with alcohol, but that doesn't seem to stop the misguided grandchildren of the misguided idiot legislators who tried it then from trying it again now, does it? Communication and education are the only way to "combat" porn. No children armed with the right knowledge and values need to be shielded from porn, because they can shield themselves.
You've confused polygamy with polygyny.
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
So, so-called children were engaging in sex well before what we consider the age of consent today. Not only that, they were marrying older men, or women, to consolidate property way back when. Weird world this. All of a sudden, in the industrial age, we consider people who were considered adults now children.
As for you flame-bait concerning abortion and gay marriage, well both were left out of the Constitution for a reason. First off, abortion has existed for thousands of years, not simple and frequently with health hazards. However the Founding Fathers didn't think it was the business of the Federal Government, leaving it to the states or the individuals (10th Amendment in case you don't remember that one). For gay marriage, well since marriage is about the preservation of property for your progeny, it didn't seem an issue in the time when gay couples could not have progeny. That has changed of course.
Frankly, I couldn't care less about what marriage laws are Constitutional since it has never been addressed. That sole right is reserved to the States and the People (again, 10th Amendment). What has munged the whole process is that each state has to recognize what another state has done judicially. Fix that and all will be bliss.
Just my $0.02.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Thanks for the reminder, Mike.
That would suggest, since my cousins (the female ones, atleast) were born after such an age, that the reason I cannot contemplate being involved with them in anything other than the normal "Oh, shit, you're my cousin, aren't you? What's your name again?" way is because I have been sucessfully conditioned by social taboo.
Yay, me!
/me wanders off to find a way involving an infintely long rotating cylinder of neutronium to go kill Frued, or atleast send Proxmire back in time with a syringe of a sulfa drug.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Most online (and offline) porn is anything but natural, and quite a bit of it is nonconsenting. And lets not forget that the Goatse Man would propably be classified as porn by Joe Average.
That said, the US does seem to have a fixation on sex, as shown by the rather absurd reaction to certain wardrobe malfunction seen in tv...
Every time a US politician makes a particularly stupid move, it gets blamed on Bible and christianity. Why ? Do americans have trouble admitting that they've voted in bad leaders, or is this just another example of atheists engaging in mudslinging ?
And why do you think that an United States politicial party represents christians or christianity ? They don't. They only represent their voters and the funders. The majority of those voters and funders may or may not be christians, but that does not make the US Republican party a representative of christians or christianity in general.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I was unaware certain types of content could be taxed at a higher rate than others. Doesn't this raise a freedom of speech issue, in that taxing information puts certain types of speech out of the reach of those who cannot afford to pay? Kind of like a poll tax, but more Orwellian.
I would be all in favor of this if it lead to taxes on political commentary on television. Especially if that tax was levied on consumers themselves, to make them pay for the point of view they are having shoved down their throat.
M
By your words religion has no value as a word in human languages, because everyone practices religion. I guess we're all IPUists (invisible pink unicornists) and leprechaunists too. Atheism only says that you lack a positive belief in a deity(s), not that you have a negative one (that you believe a deity(s) can't exist). Atheists don't waste their time creating a system regarding deities any more than people waste their time creating systems regarding "!s#$6^87=B&".
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
Yup, was worried I might get it wrong since I couldn't remember all three terms.
Polygyny: multiple wives.
Polyandry: multiple husbands.
Polygamy: Eigther of the above
Thanks for the correction.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
My grandparents had so many kids My cousins number in the dozens, the eldest is nearing retirement and the youngest is in highschool.
This isn't counting second or third cousins.
Good thing most of them live quite a distance away, it'd suck having to ask "am I related to you" before deciding whether to be attracted to a nice looking gal of the right age:)
I was under the impression the neutronium cyclynder didn't have to be of infinite length, shouldn't frame-dragging for temporal transit work as long as the mass and density are sufficient and spinning fast enough to create the desired distortion? The figure I remember is hight=10Km diameter=2Km and rotational speed such that surface velocity was 1/2c.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Atheism is a system of beliefs about a diety. Specifically, that there is no god. Not believing in god != having no beliefs in regard to god. A*theism (no belief in god) != A*religious (no specific system of belief about a diety. And yes, I know I made up the term).
So Atheism is a religion, but agnosticism is not? An agnositc may have no beliefs about a diety, one way or the other. But I guess there would be religious agnostics and non-religious agnositcs. Some firmly believe that one can't know for sure (which is a belief, even if wishy-washy). And others don't believe anything one way or the other. The Fence-Sitters would be non-religious, and the Can't-Knowers would be religious.
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Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
Yes, indeed, it does suck having to make sure you're not related to someone. However, if we go back about 2000 years (or about 67 generations), the number of direct ancestors who are getting it on for you and I to be here is 1.475 * 10^19, which is roughly 98 * 10^10 times as many people as were (estimated) to be alive then. So we're all the products of quite alot of incest, though at a some-what removed level.
However, since half my family comes from German Nobility, and my living relatives on that side (uncles, aunts, cousins, cousins twice and thrice and so-on removed) number less that three hundred, or so I've been told, I'm fairly certain I'll never bump into one of them (as long as I stay out of Germany.) However, the other half of my background is from Arkansas, so I'm afraid I'm worse off than most.
No, I believe you're right: The cylinder doesn't have to be infinitely long (which is not possible, anyway.) However, I believe (with what basic maths I know), that the longer the cylinder and the greater its diameter the lower a rotational speed one can use (as long as you porportionally increase the thickness of outer edge -- so really the outer diameter needs to increase, as opposed to the inner.
Unfortunately, I've only managed to create about a 10 meter diameter sphere of neutronium, and, since it was taken out of Slaver Stasis, it's now a 10 meter diameter sphere of neutronium with maybe a foot of normal and degenerate matter on top of it, and I do believe someone out there just claimed it was a tenth planet.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Now I am all for pornography, and personally, this can either be a horrible thing, or a good thing. On the negative side, this could lead to pay sites charging more....however, on a more positive note, if there were more free sites, then 25% of free is still free, and hell 100% of free is still free.... so if its more free porn then good, otherwise, death to to politicians who made this, it is almost as bad as in Massachusettes where they tax the hell out of cigarettes and barely use any of that money for what it was originally intended for...
Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who live by the gun...
I couldn't find any reference to that in my catechism, but a quick look in the bible turned up Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 - 9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no-one can boast."
Elsewhere in the bible paul writes that faith will produce good works, and James writes that faith without works is useless, but it is the faith that matters, not the works. If someone became a christian five minutes before they died they would have no time for works but would still be saved. Conversely if someone claimed faith but did no works then I would question their faith.
A latent existence
I agree that today population growth is counter-productive for large parts of the world, and that it is counter-productive for a small hunting & gathering tribe in the neolithic age.
Christian morality in Western Europe, however, mostly spread in a context of population booms following a regression of the sea and increased productivity in agriculture in the 10th century. At least where I come from. Christian kingdoms were apparently more able to take advantage of surplus land for population growth than non-Christian kingdoms for some reason. A universal Christian morality took root only very slowly; Note that only in the 15th/17th centuries Christians systematically started attacking 'witchcraft' i.a. for its abortion practices in Europe outside the core areas of the Roman empire (Including Brittania for unclear reasons). The power which Europe exercised over the rest of the world in the centuries following that is arguably based on high growth rates caused by its belief system (but only in circumstances where it is rewarded).
Even today, religious Christians enjoy a higher birth rate, as even the difference between the US - which has a higher birth rate and more Christians - and Europe testifies. The same is true for Muslims. Today's population growth-induced famines are generally in Christian and Muslim areas. Look at the highest population growth rates. Today borders are more or less fixed, and "pagans" are the minority. In the past Christians and Muslims have spread at the expense of pagans.
Even an equal treatment polygyny differs from, say, gay marriage in that so many fundamental legal notions (wills & last testaments, power of attorney, child care & visitation, etc, etc) assume that a civil union/marriage comprises only two people.
Wills are interesting as an instrument. Another succesful "sexual" innovation is primogeniture, independently discovered by different cultures. But when it served its purpose (establishing strong kingdoms that survive until today as states) it was eventually abandoned because it also caused abject poverty. The crusades, and mass migration to colonies, are both consequences of a high population growth combined with primogeniture.
The fact that a practice causes famine or poverty does not mean it cannot conquer the world. Succesful and good are not the same thing, as Darwinism teaches us.
My mom's familly is from south-eastern Missouri(bootheel area), fairly near the border, and can trace one line chunk of our back ancestry to Germany, the other lines almost all go back to Ireland(except the one native).
My Dad's side go back to california, but moved there when about time his dad died (when he was 14) but traces back to Ireland in just a couple generations. It's also possible 'Black Bart' was a relative ('amusingly eccentric' one at that google it and try to rember I'm several generations removed:) ) considering he was in the right places at the right times and a few other things.
Actually there's been two anouncements of planet candidates. The nearer one close to Pluto's size and the other comfortably larger. I forget which one, but one of them has a small moon (sound familiar?) both in the region of the Kuipier(sp?) belt.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Having Black Bart as a relative would be extremely cool. Wasn't he the one who wrote all the poetry and was rather gallant, even as he robbed people?
And in re: to Persephone, as long as they don't find traces of scoop-mining in its atmosphere (which they shouldn't. Thermofluid effects are a bitch. Trust me. I had to hide some.), I'm happy.
As long as they don't assume that ten meter shiny thing is an 'artifact' of the kind you want to 'bring aboard your ship.'
They not Trinocs, after all. If they were, I would have to have dealt with them.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
And please, use facts. Not some tinfoil hat bullshit conspiracy web sites in your argument. I no longer have time to deal with on line wackos while we have the real thing in the White House.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
He just robbed wells fargo coaches, 28 in all. He pointed a shotgun, but never fired it.
the poems:
He was a bit of an odd duck, but he did seem to have some outstanding characteristics.
you get several good reference, not all in complete agreement on details, from the first google page.
Anyone stupid enough to pull a 10meter chunk of mostly neutronium abord ship is stupid enough to need weeding from the gene pool. The first tug will show you it's got much more mas than the craft doing the tugging. there'd be a few other tell tales as well if they do any checking at all.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Atheism is not "no belief in a god or gods." It is a belief in no god or gods.
Having no belief in god or gods is agnosticism.
It is a pity really. You were making a seemingly good arguement and I was on my way to agreeing with you. Then you had to throw in The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party) which had absolutely NOTHING to do with your point. I suppose later in your post you tried to justify the inclusion of this statement. I wouldn't know because I chose to stop reading at that point. In fact, since your post was modded insightful, I chose to stop reading this entire thread. No good, reasonable conversations can possibly be forthcoming.
!hoD
Yes, that's it literally. "You don't take God's name for nothing." "Don't desecrate God's name."
My understanding is that the very idea of "using a name" or doing a thing in God's name was a bit more than what our secular society makes it today.
The people of that time believed that knowing the name of a thing gave you power over it, including gods, and that this didn't apply to the Hebrew.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
.. this didn't apply to the Jewish diety. Sorry. Didn't finish when I hit submit.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Atleast you're famous relative never killed anyone. I'm related to these guys:
Although, the last two weren't quite as bad as the others. And Heinrich was pretty cool. He's pretty much everything I hope to be: A moderately successful poet, unsuccessful in love, who kills himself.
Yeah. I mean, you think they would have noticed that the thing I left out there was a blob of Neutronium. And speaking of that blob of Neutronium I left out there, I wonder how it is that no one ever found it in the centuries afterwards. After all, you might have to pass very close to it, but it would still precipitate a ship out of Hyperspace, and it should damn well show on the Mass Detector.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Religion should cover set space. I.e. everyone is some religion, with the exception being people who have no beliefs about god whatsoever (either positive or negative). It is the same as sex: you are either male or female
Really, I'm not trying to be clever with my signature.
So long story short, is, if you believe in true republican ideals, right now you need to vote democrat.
No, if you believe in "true republican ideals" you need to vote Libertarian or Constitution (depending on what part of 'true republican' you more adhere too). The Republicans have become more like Democrats ('let the state take care of you') recently (in order to gain traditional Dem and swing voters). This has caused the Dems to go crazy trying to figure out if they should go more towards the right (copy what works for Republicans), or go to the Left (get their base energized and rebuild).
It has also left the more conservative voters wondering what happened to their party. Much like many Kennedy-era Democrats are wondering what has happened to theirs.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
Look at the number of children those living in poverty in this country have, versus the number of children the average phd has.
This is a rather modern phenomenon, which has come about due to the easy availability of effective contraception. Just about any historical situation where the majority of people who are wealthy have less children than those who are poor is due to human-induced artificial constructs. Don't look at our society and assume that the same pressures exist today that existed thousands of years ago (which any discussion of Evolutionary Psychology is discussing).
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
Porn is a billion dollar industry that millions of Americans indulge in. The huge majority have nothing to do with child porn. And those into child porn are heavy into adult porn, they like children, not adult porn. One is not tied to the other.
This is just a way for a politician to get more money somehow. Why should law abiding adults engaging in legal adult porn be responsible for child porn. Also how much money do they need anyway. The FBI is alreasy responsible for investigating that.
Euphemism, what is that a euphemism for something.
Zbigniew Brzezinski is one the few warhawks on the left side of things in America. If you want to read more on what the neocons are thinking, you should go to the Project for the New American Century, where they're quite open about their desires.
Brzezinski wrote in 2004 a book that heavily criticizes the approach of the current administration called, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership. If you liked reading The Grand Chessboard, pick this one up too.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I used to vote democrat on occasion. I might again if they would stop trying to put me out of work. I used to have a good job in mining.
To be fair, the repubs. haven't been all that good for the steel industry either (*cough* section 201 tarifs).
Weren't we supposed to have a fancy new energy bill creating large demand for power lines by now? Wasn't that one of Bush's big ticket items on the campaign? (the only reason to vote for him for economic reasons)
Funny. I've done pretty well in my life - married, successful at work with a good income, international recognition for some of my work, and so on - but when I look back I sometimes think I'd rather have spent my life making lesbian porn for a living.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Then under the doctrine of 'No taxation without representation' should the Senate be made up of 25% pornstars and retired hookers... or do they already meet that reqirement.
What's contained in the website is another matter, but as far as I'm concerned, the HTML code you download when browsing is protected under the 1st amendment
A textual description of sexual contact that lacks literary or scientific value is still obscene. It could also be argued that the URL of an obscene image, presented in such a way that the image is likely to be displayed (such as in the src attribute of an <img> element in an HTML page intended for rendering on a graphical web UA), is obscene.
In response, consider this post, by a different user.
I think your ire is misdirected at the Democratic Party. There are a host of reasons why jobs are difficult to come by. One of those is corporate profits.
The Republican Party encourages corporations to overcompensate their upper-level management. Where do you think that money is coming from? My pocket, and yours. Which party do you think supports the corporate elite more?
Another issue related to the dams being torn down: Their capacity to produce electricity is decreasing every year. Lower flow and sedimentation are slowly destroying the viability of the dams anyway -- why not bite the bullet and shift to a more sustainable economic model for the river?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Just look at the numbers. Either some women are extremely busy, or the numbers are incorrect. Say 20% of the commit adultery and 10% of the women. Who are they doing it with? Obviously, the women who commit adultery are doing it with two men at a time. Or the men are doing it with eachother.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Honestly ask yourself - which label seems more appropriate?
The notion that women are "supposed" to try desperately to hold on to one man while men are "supposed" to want to spread their baby batter everywhere is a product of our culture, and is a cop-out for both sexes.
I disagree. The evolutionary/genetic advantage is for both sexes to cheat. For males, the advantage is to propagate your genes as much as possible, and allow the mates of the females to raise your cuckold children. For females, the advantage lies in selecting an "inseminator" with better genes than your mate, so your children will have a better chance of survival.
So, I believe the answer is:
Men will cheat with anything with a pulse.
Women prefer to cheat with someone more attractive (read: genetically preferable) than their mate.
So, yes, it's a cop out, but I do believe the drive to cheat exists for both sexes.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
In the late 6th century, St. Gregory the Great listed the 7 deadly sins in decreasing severity:
pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. So lust is the least amont these, but why does it get so much attention ?
The modern capitalist economy is built upon "avarice", "envy", and "gluttony". All greater sins than lust. So where are the Christian ministry that helps us get out of THAT trap? Should we all become Amish farmers?
Perhaps you could show me where I indicated desire to limit your freedoms?
Well, I will believe the Bible over St. Gregory. The Bible does have quite a few negative things to say about sexual sin. Little things like "...the sexually immoral...will not inherit the Kingdom of God."
:)
However, you do have a point. There are plenty of things that could be changed about our culture. Actually, Setting Captives Free does also have a course on replacing gluttony with proper eating habbits.
>>> Well, gee that good and all but here's the question. What if there is no God? Now you just wasted your life believing in that BS.
My life is fine, thank you. And I'm not really concerned about that possibility. I think there are plenty of good reasons to believe in the God of the Bible.
And I didn't say you implied the church was the cause either. The local traditions are at work here... as evidenced by the virgin rape and failure to be vaccinated. Locals spreading nonsense because in the past Westerners and the like have done something insidious, or perhaps they're just stupid.
;) Simple as that... And I'd protect my daughters from roving bands of infected men looking for a "cure." (And you can bet your rosaries the Catholic Church didn't put THAT gem of an idea in their heads...)
Either way, the church can do little to stop it by saying "use condoms! You're gonna screw anyway!" Because they aren't even listening to "abstain... it's the only sure prevention!" You don't think, in a group of people where the infected population rises over 50%, they should practice a little abstinence or monogamy perhaps?
What makes you think changing their message will make them heeded any more than they are now? If all the people are waiting for is validation from the Catholic church about condom use, they're doomed anyway... Because they don't get any confirmation from secular institutions either. As I said, local traditions are completely hosing their worldview, and wrong as that may be, simply changing the message won't bring any less xenophobia to the African people.
I know I'd learn to love my hand in that situation.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
the first part of that might be an officially sanctioned Catholic position (and I seriously doubt every priest is saying the same thing...), but the second stems right from the same root that claimed vaccinations were actually sickness in the needles. Fear of western anything in Africa, and a distrust of anything westerners might do is more at work here than any anti-condom campaign.
One only needs to read about vaccinations and other aid being turned down, thrown out of the village, and ignored simply because someone who doesn't know any better (but is African) spreads vicious lies about it.
Africans are responsible for killing themselves when they allow their leaders to corrupt their thinking with superstitious nonsense. No message from the church, the pope, Jesus himself will change their minds, because they trust no one but themselves... right or wrong... they're destroying themselves from the inside through war, genocide, epidemics....etc.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Sure.
Here's why I don't think that's meaningful: States (in the sense of nationstates), absent catastrophe, and in general, slide toward authoritarianism. Authoritarianism of the right got an extremely bad name in the middle of the last century, such that there's an almost universal reflex away from it, but it's easier for politicians to "prove" they're not right-authoritarian by moving left than by moving in the direction of non-authoritarianism, due to systemic pressure toward authoritarianism. The main example of extreme left-authoritarianism self-destructed without a need for world-saving armies and propaganda machines, so it got less of a bad name, even while arguably causing more damage overall than right-authoritarianism managed before being put down.
So most of the world, including the US, has moved waaaaay left just to not be perceived as leaning right, although the US hasn't gone quite as quickly as most of Western Europe due in part to fear of being seen as "commie". This has resulted in a situation where there is no non-authoritarian position at all to speak of, and of large powers, even the right-most is way left compared to any of the major powers of 1900.
Anyway, I'm a non-authoritarian, rather than "right" or "left", but my comment was pointing out the ironic position I'm in, of being able to point out lots of things that are "far-left" or "far-right" about the US, because those things are really "far-authoritarian", and in general, these things are confused in discourse about them.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
"American Democracy is like asking for a cup of coffee and getting to choose between Coke or Pepsi" --Unknown
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
I'm sorry, but religion doesn't cover atheists:
i gion:
http://www.onelook.com/?w=religion&ls=a:
Quick definitions (Religion)
# noun: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
# noun: institution to express belief in a divine power
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=66&q=rel
1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
And no, atheism is not defined as being actively pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion. Some atheists may be that way, but not all, and it is not necessary to be a hardcore anti-theist to be an athiest; atheism is merely a lack of belief in a deity(s).
Atheists do not practice religion.
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
But thay had to consider the important topic of suggestive cheerleading (lol in Texas).
Anymore the whole state is all hat and no cattle.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
"I can see why it is a bigger problem for Christians than non-Christians. Non-Christians are simply absorbed into the sex-focused culture of our day, and don't see anything wrong with it. And frankly, that is their problem. I am not going to preach to a non-Christian about proper sexual viewpoints -- if they reject God anyway, what is the point? They might as well live like they want."
Sorry but this is total utter bullshit.
Plenty of non christians are just as monogmous and against the "sex culture" as you. But if it make you feel all superior go on telling yourself you are special.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Why were the descendents looked down on for it?
It's not like they chose to be created that way.
Wonderful hate and intolerance being heaped on to people over something they had no control over. Great thing that.
As for the "do as I say not as I do" card there are plenty of examples from people claiming to be Christian (I doubt they are) and the problem is people who really are or call themselves because they offer lip service will follow these people into the gates of hell because they think this evil personis in touch with god and they feel good about them.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
It's not our fault you are a deviant who frequents alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.animalsex.
It is entirely possible to seek and consume "normal" consenting sex via the internet.
The thing is most of us have kinks and fetishes that skew what we enjoy beyond "normal" sex.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
And geese as I remember.
Now drakes are some scary necropheliac rapists.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Most american christians seem to have the view that the bible is the perfect word of god and we should literally live by it. Then they go and pick and chose what parts they want others to be forced to live by because they wouldnt want anything to get inthe way of their personal persuit of pleasure.
As for our history with Native Americans we still ignore it to the best of our ability. We owe them billions and are breaking many treaties we had. The bureau of indian affairs is caught up in a lawsuit because they fucked over a lot of people and stole the money that was supposed to go to the people. These people ahve been suffereing due to not being able to pay bills or for lifes necessities.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
"Unlike most animals we can't just have a baby and then leave it in the wild and have it fend for itself so ideas like that were created, however to completely abide by it like a religious idea is totally missing the point."
Last I checked most animals don't "just have a baby and then leave it in the wild to fend for itself".
I'm sure the number of monogamous animal species is considerably lower then not, but I think it is not as rare as people make it out to be.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Assuming this was correct (it's not, neither in the etymological sense or the actuality of the range of atheist positions) I'm curious -- where does a person who does not believe there is a god stand? What are they? What would you call them, as distinct from someone who disbelieves? Or, is it your position that disbelief == lack of belief?
For instance, I do not believe that you (specifically you, the person I am replying to) can lift the bible using the power of your mind. That's an actual disbelief. I'm there right now, and I don't need any further evidence to get there. I bring numerous objective facts to my mental table that lead me to this disbelief; in other words, I have high confidence this disbelief agrees with objective reality. However, I do not have any such position with regard to theism. I have no contrary evidence (which is a data point of sorts, but one of quite a different nature than what I have gathered about the proposition of telekinesis to date.) Still, I have no more reason to believe in a theist proposition than I do in any other proposition offered without any visible means of objective support. They all go in the same box: Interesting. Come back when you can show me something concrete.
Just as an exercise: If we were to construct a word for a person who does not hold a belief in thiesm, we'd go for a prefix meaning without (that'd be "a") and then the thing that they are lacking (theism) and since we're talking about a personal outlook, we'd use "theist" instead. Having cojoined these, we'd have -- oh my gosh -- "atheist." :-)
On the other hand, if we were to construct a word for a person who holds a belief that thiesm is invalid, we'd go for a prefix meaning against (that'd most likely be "anti") and then the thing that they are lacking (theism) and since we're talking about a personal outlook, we'd use "theist" instead. Having cojoined these, we'd have antitheist. If you wanted to go there.
However, it is worth noting that the concept of an antitheist is subsumed in the word atheist; you can (a) not hold a belief in theism and (b) hold a belief that theism is invalid at the same time. This is the position of an atheist who has added some icing to the cake, as it were. That's why no one (well, very few) bandy words like "antitheist" around.
It is very convenient for theists to assume that atheists disbelieve, but the fact is, some do, some don't.
Personally, I think it's a waste of time to concern yourself with belief in or against something that has no evidence. But in the case of much theism, we have an added twist that says one cannot measure or apprehend the domain in which the proposal has validity. Now I really think it's a waste of time to worry about how accurate the various theist views might, or might not, be. :-)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I missed that, sorry -- I think I tuned it out as "signature space."
Agnosticism is generally -- by declared agnostics -- asserted to be the position that one cannot know if there is a god or gods, usually followed by a refusal to take a stand on belief.
Personally, I tend to view everyone as either in the atheist camp, or the theist camp. I've never met an agnostic to whom I couldn't legitimately say:
They can either fail to answer (which makes me laugh, usually to myself simply to be polite), or say no (the typically offered rationale being they don't know, so why hold a belief?) or say yes, perhaps a little -- or some other similarly lukewarm level of assertion.
Well, if they answer no, then they're squarely in the atheist camp. If they answer yes, they're squarely in the theist camp. If they waffle, they're either irresolute, confused, or outright lying. Also, irresolute or confused is where I place someone who goes so far as to interpret agnosticism as meaning to tell me that they don't know if they believe which is again quite a different proposition than not knowing if there is a god or gods. If you don't know what you think about a subject, you probably need to think a little harder. Unless you're simply too dim to achieve a reasonable and successful level of introspection (and then we're back to confused, though now we have a biological cause for it.)
Know why I take this approach? It's because knowledge is not even remotely close to the same class of mental function as belief is. If you ask for a metric of belief, and accept in return an answer that supplies a metric of knowledge, I have high confidence that you've been had.
Mind you, I understand that some people want to opt out of the whole question of theism vs. atheism. I don't blame them. Society, principally theists within society, makes it more difficult to be a declared atheist. Some of that is because the unwashed masses and their prominent and vocal theist members have done a very good job at attempting to lump all atheists into the "those folks who say god doesn't exist" barrel, as you are trying to do here. Well, it just isn't so. Some atheists take that position, some don't. All are, regardless, atheist.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Assuming you believe this and are not just making a smartass remark for the sake of seeing some pixels on your monitor change state, what you need to do is go look up what "god" means. I am atheist; yet I have no expectations of ever finding godlike qualities within myself. I am not omnipotent, omniscient, ineffible, omnipresent or inscrutable. Sorry.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
By hardcore Christians, I mean those who would impose their will on us, rather than turn the other cheek.
By which you mean, those who aren't actually Christian, but prefer to pick and choose which parts of the bible suit them.
Twenties Retirement
Let's take your statement for a ride in the country.
"Everyone breathes, even if they're dead"
"Everyone has a Porsche, even if they don't have a car"
"Everyone believes in killing for pleasure, even if they don't.
Thanks for the laugh. :-)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
People are the problem, stop procreation now!
People are the problem, stop procreation now!
Did you pay attention to what I said at all, or just cover your ears and sing at the top of your lungs?
± 29 dB
>...but the Constituion is not involved there at all....
I guess you don't know the American Constitution
What I wrote was correct. Look at the full sentence. In particular look at what the word "there" applied to. I said "This single change would indirectly trigger a multi-party make up of the House and Senate and some of their floor rules would need to be revised, but the Constituion is not involved there at all".
The proposed change in the presidential election process (which does involve a constitutional change) would allow more than two viable presidential candidates. This would result in more than two effective parties. This would result in lower office candidates and elections from more than two effective parties. This would require some revision of House and Senate floor rules, and those floor rules do not involve the Constitution at all.
The prior poster suggested the fix he wanted would "require a radical reworking of the constitution". My reply was that it would not require a radical change. I said "Pretty much all it requires is replacing the broken indirect plurality Presidential election system with a direct Condorcet voting system".
Condorcet voting is a system where you get to rank the candidates in order. For example you could rank the Libertarian first, rank the Republican second, rank the Green third, rank the Democrat fourth, and rank the Communist last.
Condorcet elects a centrist candidate with the broadest possible support. It encorages compromise and cooperation. You may not get your first choice candidate, but you'll probably get your second choice candidate from a much better candidate list. It also empowers minority groups to control which of the centrist/majority candidates is elected, to give the election to the one closest to their position or most responsive to their concerns. A candidate that is at least tolerable to both sides will beat a candidate from either side. A condorcet candidate needs to be at least tolerable across a broad range of minority groups and minority interests.
Condorcet elects a true uniter.
The Constitution does neither prescribe nor forbid any kind of political party system, so multiple parties are theoretically possible.
Only in the most abstract and most naive "theory". In practice, and in any reasonably insightfull theory, the plurality voting system prohibits more than two viable parties.
Under Plurality voting, if the Democratic party were to split into a left wing party and a centrist party they would split their voters and the single Republican candidate would automatically win. If the Republican party were to split into a right wing party and a centrist party they would split their voters and the Democrat candidate would automatically win. NEITHER party can viably split to resolve conflicts within itself and to more accurately represent the people. A huge problem is that you cannot get alliances between the moderate Democrats and the moderate Republicans. We are stuck with polarized opposites and two-sided hate-mongering. In a two party system we've got dysfunctional zero-sum-game dynamics, any good and beneficial thing one party achieves is a "loss" for the other party. We're stuck with two parties actively trying to SABOTAGE each other's proposals and initiatives and efforts. We also zig-zag between diametrically opposing agendas depending on which side wins.
Attempting to raise some "independant" third party just makes it even worse. Instead of simply throwing the election to the party that did not split as we saw above, the third-party spoiler effect inherently draws votes from which ever major party candidate that is closer to the third party candidate, it inherently pushes the election towards the major party candidate less similar to the third party candidate, it actively throws the election towards the major party candidate with LESS public support.
The electoral college system is ordained therein
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
.....I want to abolish our horribly divisive a destructive plurality system......
I can see some of the merits of what is essentially a proportional system. Since I live in a rural area, one of my concerns is that in such a system the rural population is always outvoted by the urban majority. We have seen this here in Oregon where the city dwellers are voting on issues that don't or barely affect them, such as some of the hunting laws that were ramroded through by certain lobbying groups expending considerable amounts of money to convince city voters on issues that those voter know next to nothing about. Because the Oregon Senate is set up on a geographical basis, just like the US Senate, the lobbying groups were never successful to get such laws through the Senate part of the legislature. So they made an end run around the legislature through the majority city vote. The reason the 1872 mining laws, that allow my friends to prospect for gold, have never been repealed in the US Congress is because the Senators of the sparsely populated west have successfully blocked the majority house of representatives. The reason Northern California water is not being shipped to Southern California is because the Senators of the thinly populated northern part of the state manged to block the majority legislative vote of the south.
Because of human nature, there can never be a perfect human government, but I think the founding fathers instituted a wise and equitable system by preventing the majority from tyrannizing the minority. What other country or countries can you name that have had the system you propose under the same government system as we have under our present constitution for over 200 years now?
All theory is gray
Well I've already made great headway on the middle of those three things your relative Heinrich did. My poetry is so-so on a good day. And despite a few years in my late teens where it seemed a serious option I've decided against the remaining feat.
Space is pretty big(well actually much much much much bigger than that, see it's entry in the hhgttg for a more impressive understatement that falls mindbogglingly short). Out that far I would think the odds so low that a mass detector with a few au range would likely never see Kobold's remains even if it spent a millineum cruising around the Kuipier belt.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
I would think the range for the psi-device used by a Hyperdrive ship to detect stars and planets would have more than a few AU range. Shaeffer talks about the Quantum 1 Hyperdrive only needing a peek at the psi-device they use to check for dangerous masses every 6 hours or so. Also, they cover 1 lightyear per 3 days, so, that's about 880 AU to the hour, if I can do math in my head.
That and it would be orbiting, so it would be strange if no one had noticed it via its effect on hyperdrive craft, or from its effects upon other bodies.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I can see some of the merits of what is essentially a proportional system.
There are probably some very good improvements to by had in adjusting the legislature to incorporate something like proportional representation, but I was not talking about that at all.
I was strictly discussing the presidential election. You get a list of the candidates and you rank them in order. The Condorcet system then tabluates those rankings.... it looks at each possible pairing of the candidates and runs a mock 1v1 contest between them. If you ranked Republican second and Communist last then Condorcet scores one vote for the Republican in the Republican vs Communist race. Condorcet then finds the candidate that is able beat every other candidate 1v1 and declares him the winner. There can be funky semi-tie-like cases where you need do some additional messy steps to get the final winner, but that's the general idea.
founding fathers instituted a wise and equitable system by preventing the majority from tyrannizing the minority. What other country or countries can you name that have had the system you propose under the same government system as we have under our present constitution for over 200 years now?
There's the old saying "If it ain't broke then don't fix it", but pretty much everyone agrees the US government is signifigantly broke. The Democrats and Republican parties are both currupt, corporate influence has run rampant, the politics of hate and Red vs Blue and the culture wars are tearing the country apart.
I'd say the founders did a pretty damn good job, but we are the oldest democracy. We are version 1.0 beta test democracy. We've learned a LOT in the last 200 years. Condorcet voting did not exist 200 years ago. There was no advanced mathematical analysis of the various possible voting systems. Over the last 200 years we've gotten to see many other countries testing many different systems and learned what works and what doesn't and what sort of bugs each system runs into.
Some (many?) of the founding fathers hoped there would be no political parties at all. We now know under the system they created that parties are inevitable, and that exactly two parties is inevitable. Any attempt to create a third party inherently throws the main race to the worse "major" candidate.
Under plurality voting for a third party is not just throwing your vote away, if you do not vote for the lesser-of-two-evils then you are effectively voting for the greater-of-two-evils. You're therefore unable to honestly vote for your preffered candidate. The third parties cannot grow towards a viable party. They do not become viable until they actually reach second place ranking, but no one would ever even know if they are genuinely in second place if everyone is stuck strategically voting for the lesser-of-two-evils.
Under Condorcet you can vote for RossPerot/RalphNader/whoever in the top slot and rank the lesser-of-two-evils second and the greater-of-two-evils last. Polarized politics will die almost immediately. A uniter centrist candidate can grab a few votes from the middle and sweep the second place votes of the left AND the right. Actually a candidate can win a Condorcet vote even if no one ranks him first. If the Democrats get 33% of the first place votes and Republicans get 33% of the first place votes and a Libertarian gets 34% of the first place votes, a Centrist who gets 100% of the second place votes still wins. In any 1v1 race he'd get about 67% of the first place votes and stomp each of the other candidates. He would have far broader support than any of the three radical candidates.
What I was saying about the House and Senate was that if there were more than two real and effective parties engaged in the presidential race then they would be be able to grow and field serious candidates in the lower races and we'd get a mix of parties in the House and Senate. That alone would not actually be any sort of "proportional" representation. That would still be the same old re
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I assume you only looked at the part about christianity and are not contesting the issues Native Americans face.
I was working from experiance.
What I hear preached by people in my community (priests and "normal" people)and on various local and world wide tv networks.
If these people are not representative of a majority of christians then you need to do something because they are poisoning the way people preceive your religion.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
I think part of the problem is that Christianity has been around a pretty long time. As much as it's troublesome, history can play a pretty mean game of "telephone," and matters get confused. They shouldn't, but people with their own agenda and too much power for their own good corrupt matters in ways both subtle and blatant. So, yes, you have a million people claiming that they are relaying exactly what God thinks. Half of said people contradict the second half. All are arguing that the differing group are a bunch of Satan-induced liars.
As you've seen, it's not the most productive way for things to be handled.
The problem then becomes what to do. Sometimes I figure the best bet is to let "those" Christians have the tattered name and organize a giant splinter group. Maybe the "Jesians." =)
± 29 dB
Christian (aka Catholic) teaching says nowhere that sex is wrong, but that it is good. It is abuse/perversion of it that is wrong.
Luke-Jr
Polygamy is not necessarily wrong, but it is impossible to really do-- how can you give yourself totally to two different people?
Luke-Jr
As I've pointed out in http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157050&c id=13182887
this is the right time to comphrensively *review and rewrite* our constitution within the context of current technological advancements for the prosperity of our future generations.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Hmm good point. 1/12 of a light year is a fairly good range.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Yes. We can only conclude that the ARM found it and used it for something. After all, a ball of neutronium that big is a dangerous thing.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Yes, that's certainly a good strategy when you've made your argument out of straw. Climb wobbling back to your feet, wipe the blood off your face, declare yourself the winner, and run away. I am so impressed with your approach, truly. :-)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But it doesn't matter because you didn't stick to that. So take your pick: are you really that ignorant, or are you just a liar?
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
You're arguing semantics and piddling nonsense like the Whiskey rebellion (a few farmers and an overkill-level passel of soldiers, the usual balance of stupidity from government); I'm arguing the constitution -- the law of the land. The one that says "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yeah I could imagine a small neutronium ball could be quite usefull to ARM. For example you could use it to ****BING***Sorry you have intruded on ARM bussiness and this post has been terminated, and ARM will reimburse you the $0.00 you have paid so far on this post. Thank you for your co-operation ****BING**** would make a pretty big bang though. Oh crap said the wrong thing.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Heh. Don't I know. Atleast out here in the Belt the Goldskins aren't so bad.
Just never try to make a run past them with a spent booster from an early mission strapped to your hull.
Tends to change your day.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I am just glad I don't pay for my online porn
Yep, if you want an actor goto hollywood, want a a scholar there's a few good institutions, want almost any kind of person there's a place to go, but if you want somone completely different get a belter.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Weirdest
Thread
Ever
How is this troll? How come jokes made against the Bush party are always labeled as troll?
The only reason to take a joke seriously would be if you feared it might be true.
Adultery is wrong. When someone commits adultery, they violate their marital vows. Divorce is impossible, by definition.
Sexual abuse is not a reflection of marriage, as your statements appear to assume it is.
If it "doesn't work" with someone, then you shouldn't have married them in the first place-- someone who did now has the responsibility to make the best of it.
Luke-Jr
You'd have to read the Right Niven stories ("Pack Protector" and others in his future history series) and Heinlein stories ("The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" mostly).
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
In your first post you pointed out "going after organizations like the Southern Baptists or the Christian Coalition could change the political landscape very quickly, even if they don't actually lose their tax-exempt status."
My anecdotes are examples of what they are already doing now, befor they are really stirred up. I don't want to go back to the days when teen girls use coathangers to preform abortions on themselves. If the church's agenda includes stopping stemcell research and Aids education, then the separation of church and state is gone. It is their religious beliefs that are taking away my freedoms. And there is a long list of things that have been taken away. Those are my anecdotes/points.
Let's stir them up, they are already doing as bad as they can do and the tax money is needed by the inner cities they fill up with their untaxable property.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
Can you really look at a seven-week fetus and call that just a "blob of cells"?
Considering a fetus isn't remotely viable until about 24 weeks, the answer would be "yes". And that's before looking at the picture. After looking at the picture, how could you *not* say that was a blob?