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Barack Obama Sworn In As 44th President of the US
Just before noon today, Eastern time, Barack Obama was sworn in before the US Capitol building as the 44th President of the United States (Whitehouse.gov has already been updated to reflect the new President), and offered an inaugural address which outlined some of the challenges that the country currently faces, both within the country's borders and abroad. Obama's election has been called "a civil rights triumph," and his candidacy has inspired perhaps the most visible political involvement of young voters of any candidate since John Kennedy. Here's your chance to discuss the newest occupant of the White House and what you'd like to see happen over the course of his presidency.
He was actually sworn in shortly after noon, although he was President at exactly noon anyway.
FUCK YEAH!
...not going to happen, under this or any administration I fear.
Well, yes, it was on TV... Now what? ...
1) Obama president
n) ???
n+1) profit
I myself, don't think so. He seems just as religious and heavy handed as all your other presidents.
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
Here's to a new age of respect and mutual understanding with the rest of the world. May we all wake up quickly from the numbed daze of the past eight years and move forward.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
but lol to every major service that promised streaming coverage. Unfortunately you had to wait in line at every major news outlet, and any that offered it without a line was like watching a 2 hour slideshow that only had 4 slides.
Guess I will just have to watch it later tonight when its on youtube.
Crackin' Wise - Blogging about whatever we want
Woke up this morning and a high school classmate is President. I'm thankful I'm an underachiever, there's no way I could top that at next year's 30th reunion.
Hear hear!
Black people have too long been denied the disappointment white people have known for decades.
How soon are you going to see it?
... but when you're talking about a journey (of a committee, mind you, since it's not just the president running the country), it's going to be so easy for steps in the wrong direction to occur.
... what, really, can he do? What will he do? And in the end, will most of us be happier about it?
What exactly do you think is going to change?
For better or for worse?
I don't know. I'm just suddenly very pessimistic about the whole thing. Guantanamo is probably a step in the right direction
Don't get me wrong. I'm an American. Proudly so. I voted for Obama. But I just wonder
I talk about stuff.
You cn haz it.
As the media orgasms all over itself.
After first cutting off Obama, he forgets to say "faithfully" in the pledge, then tacks it onto the end of the clause. Obama clearly recognizes the screwup and pauses where "faithfully" is supposed to go, letting Roberts correct himself. Roberts stumbles, realizing his mistake. Corrects it, sort of. Then Obama continues with Roberts' original phrasing.
To anyone not overly familiar with Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution, it looked like Obama was confused- or stumbled, but he was just in shock to hear Roberts put things out of order.
Nice one there, Roberts.
"After a time, you may find that 'having' is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as 'wanting.' It is not logical, but it is often true."
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
welcome our new African American overlords.
We have about 3000 users. Not all of them streamed the inauguration, but of the ones who did they downloaded just about 5 gigabytes of data. Does anyone have any other numbers they could share? I posted a similar question to the firehose, but I doubt the submission will make it very far.
Otherwise, he's a party to discarding the rule of law.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You know, as a geek and an American who's concerned with his personal privacy, there was a single issue which I really took to heart during GWB's presidency and that was telecom immunity (a retroactive law mind you). When Obama went back and ended up supporting it and then continued to support it even into his presidency, I really had to take the whole "Change" mantra with a big grain of salt.
While I have been watching my Twitter log scroll by with people saying they are in tears over this historic moment and the supposed changing of the guard as President Bush left office, I just have to wonder how much really will "Change". And obviously, at least one very important issue, which should be a priority of all Americans, is being overlooked because someone is promising a whole bunch of shit which probably doesn't matter much.
Yet, something which goes against the Constitution is going to be swept under the rug as not all that important because we have a great speaker who appeals to the masses with his great voice, speeches that blow the out-going fool's away, and his supposed "fit" chest as was shown round the world via the media's obsession with the man.
I'm all for a new leader, God knows we needed someone better than GWB 4+ years ago. But man, "Change" is relative I guess. YMMV.
obama is a secret communist muslim!
(nevermind the contradiction of terms in the idiotic propaganda some people believe)
i like that even in heavily republican places in the country, like oklahoma, since the election, approval and support for obama has swelled:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20tulsa.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
now that obama has a strong mandate, even a begruding one in republican strongholds, please, let him deliver
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Finally someone with a fricken brain!!!
We The People have pretty much the size of Government We The People want doing pretty much the tasks We The People believe to be Constitutional else We The People would have chosen other leaders.
FreeSpeech.org
A friend was posting on Facebook about how Obama is just another politician and nothing's going to change and that those who are getting caught up in the hype are just slaves to the American propaganda and prone to idealism and naivete.
I disagree.
Here's my response to him.
"Let us believe the world just might become a better place. Let us believe that people can be better - that people _want_ to be better. The world will only become better if people believe. Once people stop believing then they stop trying. I know it sounds fortune-cookie naive pie-in-the-sky but the only way for things to get better is for people to want things to get better and believe they can. Obama is a lightning rod symbol of that desire for Americans (and many around the world). He may be just another politician but he's also a symbol. Like Kennedy, like King, like so many others - he's just a man who's human in all the same ways we're human but he's also a symbol of so much more."
Yes, I know it's a bold thing to liken Obama to Kennedy and King but, I'm sorry, I get flashes of both great men when I watch Obama speak. He possesses an enormous amount of charisma and motivates people and fills them with hope. Yes, I know he's a politician. Yes, I know he's just another man - he's just human. Yes, I know he'll be a politician in every sense of the word. But I also know what he's done to people. He's filled people with hope at a time when hope is a very rare commodity. He's invigorated a nation. He's made everyone believe that the world will be a slightly better place and helped them look forward to the future rather than dread it.
If you believe he's just another politician; if you believe he's going to be a big flop and disappoint and all that garbage, do yourself a favour and, more importantly, do everyone around you a favour and shut up. Keep your thoughts to yourself. You're allowed to have them and I won't take that away from you but, at a time when people are filled with hope and idealism, let them be. Don't try to shatter that hope. Don't try to wave away that idealism. Let the world be a slightly better place for those thoughts and emotions. It may be naive. Whatever. That's not a bad thing though. A bad thing is shitting on everyone else's parade.
Today, the world becomes a slightly better place. Be happy. be hopeful. Or shut up and let the rest of us be happy and hopeful.
I'd like to see BHO abandon his socialist line of thought and grow a pair.
He used the words "data" and "statistics" in his inaugural address in a positive tone, without being the slightest bit derisive. He said that he would, "restore science to its rightful place." There is hope for the US.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
He acknowledged that nonbelievers are American citizens, and reaffirmed the separation of church/state and science.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Did you have something in particular in mind? I ask because a lot of "limit the government" types have curious ideas about what the constitution authorizes and forbids.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
We can't have a perfect union. But we can still try to make it a more perfect one, right?
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
da weed!
#1 voted change.gov issue
I'll take those, thank you very much.
My blog
May we once again live in a nation we can be proud of. A nation that follows the law. A nation that cares for its people.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
...has been made and I am so glad I was alive to see it. I wish him the all the best as he tries to clear up almost a decade of shit and overt neo-conservative crap. Let us all hope, myself from the UK and billions of others around the planet, that he stays true to his vision and gives us all a safer and better world in which we all can live.
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
Will this affect the date of Singularity? Is Obama pro-singularity? Anybody see him with a bluetooth headset :) ?
Long live the Anointed One. Too bad the whole inauguration pomp is coming to a close soon...I was just about to have an Obamagasm.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 â" more than 7 years after the war began.
He better have a really good reason for not starting to redeploy brigades from Iraq with an end goal of 16 months. A really good reason.
For us tech minded geeks, his fact sheet--including:
Protect the Openness of the Internet
And if I don't see him take the steps he talks about in that plan, I'm going to quickly realize he's just another lying politician. Here's another point that needs to be reprinted all over:
Open Up Government to its Citizens: The Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history. Our nation's progress has been stifled by a system corrupted by millions of lobbying dollars contributed to political campaigns, the revolving door between government and industry, and privileged access to inside information--all of which have led to policies that favor the few against the public interest. An Obama presidency will use cutting-edge technologies to reverse this dynamic, creating a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America's citizens. Technology-enabled citizen participation has already produced ideas driving Obama's campaign and its vision for how technology can help connect government to its citizens and engage citizens in a democracy. Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making. Obama will integrate citizens into the actual business of government by:
My work here is dung.
...is available here (unlike the odd "preview" of the speech noted in the /. text).
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
I'm excited about Obama's promise to issue free handguns with every tax refund check for year-2008 tax returns. He said he would just go ahead and mail them right to the tax-paying citizens. He also hinted that he would probably also include a copy of Aaron Russo's "America: Freedom to Fascism" with each check, as anyone paying a federal income tax is obviously ignorant to the fact that the tax is purely optional and actually supports terrorism.
I'm glad we have someone like Obama, who will fight for our gun rights, eliminate the federal reserve bank, and re-open the investigation on 9/11. Obama, you ROCK!
... Since everyone is treating the new president as the a new King.
Jack Kennedy's inauguration heralded the previous era of politics and with Bush Jr. leaving, we say goodbye to that era and begin a new.
How do I know this? He said the one word that pisses off Randian libertarians and thus struck a huge contrast to the previous administration.
GREED.
After he rebuked greed he then articulated the argument for a regulated market.
Let's hope he means it.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I am gladdened the sad epoch of George W Bush and his particular brand of wanton cronyism, prideful ignorance and blind ineptitude is at an end. However, I am not at all giving Obama any slack on his bigotry about gay marriage and his choice of Rick Warren as a pastor during the inauguration. Obama and anyone else who thinks they can praise the civil rights accomplishments of gay couples while at the same time denying them the right to a state and federally recognized union for all intents and purposes is as much a bigot as those who denied interracial couples the right to marry. Not only is it a civil rights issue but a public health one as well. The hedonism in the gay community that leads to unsafe sex, rampant drug use and the like is exacerbated if not caused in part by denying them the right to unite as a family of their own choosing under the social contract. Marriage and the family unit is the bedrock of civil society to deny anyone the benefit is abhorrent. Shame on you Barrack Obama, shame on you.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Sounds like the Bush Doctrine applied to the new dissenters.
Change we can believe in.
The first thing our new Prez changed was the party. Not the Dem party, the inaugural party.
While GW spent $40M on his, OHB is spending $170M on his inauguration. He could have so easily claimed the country was in economic trouble and scaled back, but no, he quadrupled the spending for himself.
And you thought change was going to benefit you? Ha!
Most of We The People wouldn't know the Constitution from the holes in their asses, pick and choose the parts of it they want to pay attention to and modify the meaning of other parts to their liking, or simply don't care what it has to say in the first place.
This is my signature.
soid st egr.hyTa rsiugm usnin
Any questions?
...not going to happen, under this or any administration I fear.
I infer you mean Federal government shrunk to its constitutional tasks only. Then there's the government of the states, and local governments. Consider, for example, the scope of the Texas constitution, which is or would become more than enough to make up for any efficiencies one might hope to achieve at a federal level.
It appears that a lot of people want a lot of stuff, and they don't want to know how it's paid for. You're fighting not only the institutional tendency for continuity, but also the people who want stuff that isn't readily available in the market. (Relative lack of "free market" and reasons for that discussion not included here, though that may be a requirement for an in-depth discussion of more efficient and on-task government.)
Do you believe that there is any difference between the best Presidents we've had and the worst?
If you say "yes", then change is possible.
If you say "no", then change is not possible.
I say that there is a HUGE difference between the best and the worst. But the problem is not just the Presidency. The best President can be hampered by the worst Congress. Obama may be a good President. He may even be a great President. But he's hampered by Congress. And I believe that this Congress is one of the worst.
YES WE CAN!
If you want real change in the way governments work, please join the Metagovernment open source governance project.
... of hearing "black this" and "Afro-American that" and he just became President. I just hope that the media (and America) can finally get over this whole "race" thing and let the guy do his job. For an election that wasn't supposed to be about race, we sure do hear a lot about it. To Obama: America and the world is watching - MAKE US PROUD!
This heralds the coming of the U.S.S.A.
Check your rights in for privileges. The corporate globalists will soon take your sovereignty.
Embrace the coming Changeâ by your New Saviorâ.
Sounds rather like "You're either with us or against us... "
Meet the new boss.
Same as the old boss.
A Human Right
Obama voted for the bailout. He's bought and paid for, like anyone else who ever emerged from Chicago machine politics.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Removing "dont ask don't tell" and changing it to "tell, who cares". Obama is pro-gay, but he isn't beholden to just the gay community either. He is beholden to every citizen in the country, regardless if they voted for him. If he picked some openly gay pastor, you'd be happy but Obama would have pissed off another segment of our country.
But seriously, I might not agree with Mr. Warren's views and I might not be of the same faith as he, but you have to admit he gave a hell of a prayer.
I think the thing I'd most like to see is a tempering of the utter insanity that is the TSA. We aren't safer because we have to take off our shoes to board an airplane. We aren't safer because we make pilots go through metal detectors. We aren't safer because we're now required to having a driver's license to fly. We aren't safer because we aren't allowed to take our toothpaste (except in teeny tiny tubes) with us. The TSA spends so much time and energy policing our shampoo container size that it can't help but detract from their ability to actually catch potential bombs. Obama has spoken about changing our foreign response to September 11th, but I'd like to see a change in our domestic response as well. I'd like to see more common sense.
Obama's reply to that was to state that he doesn't favor legalization. Don't count on the War on Drugs to end anytime soon.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I, for one, welcome our new Obamalord.
Dinomite.net
and I thought on Slashdot we were smart enough that speeches were nothing more than that. Promises of politicians are nothing, it is what goes on behind the scenes that matters. Until they I am not going to be one declaring he walked on water or cured me.
As for the separation of church and state being reaffirmed? Really? So that is written in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence? Do someone you just wallow so much in ignorance you don't read between the lines and only see flowers and unicorns now?
Mod me to hell, but the type of tripe being passed for insightful here is downright insulting.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Hundreds of thousands of miscreants, bums, welfare recipents and guilt ridden rich people enganged in mass mastrubation.
That's what I want to see. Too long has the government attempted to fight the free market by throwing money at enforcement. We've spent too many billions on punishing otherwise nonviolent, law-abiding taxpayers. For all the time and treasure we've spent, is there any end in sight? Is there anyone who believes that drug enforcement is reducing the demand for drugs?
In Mexico right now, we've got drug cartels fighting a paramilitary war with the police and Mexican army; that's ongoing. In California, we have national parks and public water supplies being polluted by unregulated growing operations.
We have an out of control national debt, and an opportunity to create a domestic industry, tax it, and stop spending the billions on enforcing these out of date laws. Pretending what we're doing is working, or pretending the problem doesn't exist, doesn't change the facts of the situation. The longer we wait, the more powerful the organized crime syndicates get (just like the mob during alcohol prohibition).
Tax it, regulate it, don't sell it to minors, and bust people for driving under the influence of it. Just stop pretending you can beat it by cracking down on suppliers or users; supply exists where demand exists, and demand will always exist, because people are human.
Don't forget industrial hemp, too, because there's a lot that could be done with it. That would be a huge boon to the country, especially considering that we need new energy mediums and materials for various applications; hemp has one of the longest track records in human civilization as a useful industrial material, and prohibiting it because of marijuana is simply pointless.
That's why I want to see Prohibition 2.0 (hemp/marijuana) ended. I'd also like to see a complete end to the War on Drugs, because like the War on Terror, it's not a war we can ever win. But, that's another post for another time.
Unfortunately, the constitution is VAGUE.
It doesn't even outline what the supreme court is supposed to do. What strict constitutionalists fail to realize is that the constitution is not a document written by a group of well meaning men with no political bias or agenda. Quite the opposite, it's the product of intense political bargaining. the 3/5ths Majority, the Missouri compromise, the commerce compromise... This document that we are governed by is meant to try to appease both federalists(with clauses stating that Congress has the power to provide for "general welfare" as well to do everything "necessary and proper" to do that. This is balanced by the 10th amendment placating antifederalists. The founding fathers did not have you in mind when they wrote the Constitution, they had their own interests and agendas in mind.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
We know what the constitution, read literally, says. We just disagree what it actually *means*.
My interpretation? The constitution is the framework in which we have debates in this country. It defines *how* we deal things, not *what* those things we deal with should be.
There is nothing in the constitution about stem cell research, but the constitution will tell us the proper way to resolve the controversies brought forward by its advances. The constitution tells us the president cannot write a law that bans it, the congress writes said law and passes it to the president for approval. The constitution doesn't say "no stem cell research". Same with gay marriage. Same with giving blacks and women the right to vote. The constitution only provides us a process to follow, not the solution.
Did you have something in particular in mind? I ask because a lot of "limit the government" types have curious ideas about what the constitution authorizes and forbids.
Watch this: Michael Badnarik's Constitution Class. That's several hours long, but very informative. I would like a government that actually follows it.
BTW, Badnarik was the 2004 Libertarian Presidential Candidate.
... the cult of personality was known since 1930s. Welcome, our American comrades! You are about to experience something you are not familiar with. And you are not going to like it.
Hi,
I and a lot of my european friends think that one of the main contentious issues between the US and the EU, in terms of mindsets is not
- health care
- capitalism vs. socialism
- or your 'too-low' gasoline prices
It is the death penalty.
All the other issues listed above will give fruitful discussions with a lot of middle ground over here. But this is the issue where most liberal europeans really fail to follow your arguments. Not to say that there are some pro-death-penalty people here, too.
So, of course no one here from wants to prescibe you US guys anything, but I think that would really rise symphathy for Obama (which, of course, is already quite high).
It would probably make EU people accept a lot of thinks from your new president which they otherwise won't accept. And it would make the US believable in their support for human rights and the ideas of personal freedom and democracy in general.
The man with the most liberal voting record in the Senate since taking his seat has convinced America to listen to his voice rather than watching his actions.
I hope Obama follows what he says rather than continuing his divisive stances. You don't have to look hard to find some simple research on his past votes.
His thoughts on personal responsibility as the solution to our economic troubles are very conservative, even Reaganesque. He then hints at socializing healthcare.
Living in Illinois I cannot trust any politician from this state, but I hope he proves me wrong.
Looks like they've already got a Technology Agenda posted. This is change I can stand behind. Believe in? When I see it in action. Don't let this make us any less vigilant in protecting our freedom to share information in an open and uninhibited manner.
Mod +1 Inspirational
Mod +4 Correct
That is how our system is supposed to work. We may never get perfection but we can always strive for it.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Stop trolling. We're all lawyers here.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
It really depends if you what view of the commerce and general welfare clauses, as well as the enumerated powers being exhaustive.
"Curious" isn't the view. They limited-government types are interested in a limited government. Too often, when society changed to the point that some people view government powers need expansion, necessitating a Constitutional amendment, they opt instead to ignore/reinterpret the founding document. This has two effect: that part of the document is neutered by the rerouting and the document becomes more distant to current realities instead of being amended in a sufficient manner - so that once it's proposed to follow it, the old interpretation seems "quaint" and out-of-touch.
I'm not sure about you, but I think government running a trillion dollar deficit, bailing out businesses/people left and right is hardly limited.
just about all the things you absolutely have to do to keep your nation viable won't be accomplished by markets alone, the sunk costs are too high and the payback period too long.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
*MKII voice*
/MKII voice
Barack Wins, flawless victory
Monstar L
Your state, via whatever initiative process is in place, will do the work for them. Every year, some new state initiative chips away at the drug war. Many now have medical marijuana laws. What is next?
All President Obama has to do is shut the hell up and let the states do his work. The minute he opens his big fat mouth about what the states are doing, even if in praise, the gig is up and it will become used as a "family values" wedge issue.
Most people, I believe, are okay with legalization. But they'll only admit in the voting booth when you give them an initiative to approve.
But he did not use the word "Banana". According to some recent newspaper articles, bookmakers had a 1:1000 pay-out on bets that his speech would include the word Banana... Darn, lost again.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Most of We The People wouldn't know the Constitution from the holes in their asses, pick and choose the parts of it they want to pay attention to and modify the meaning of other parts to their liking, or simply don't care what it has to say in the first place.
Coincidentally, you could say the exact same thing about the Bible. Of course, many people seem to think the Bible is also a governing document of this nation, so I suppose it's fitting that they would treat the two the same way.
Almost two hours into the Obama presidency...
Still waiting for all that change...
Liberty in your lifetime
I am so sick of everyone talking about President-Elect Obama is doing this, that and everything. It'll be nice now that he finally has the job that we can simply call him President Obama.
How long till someone slips and calls him Mr. Obama, Senator Obama, or PE Obama again?
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
I found the religious overtones of the ceremony quite disturbing. If he really wanted to reaffirm the separation of church and state he could have started there and then by doing away with the bibles, the preachers and the 'so help me Gods'.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Ohhhh you mean like with the bible, I get it.
Whatever, this event had to be a blowout. There's an unprecidented turnout. Most of the costs are security, and port-o-potty rentals. You don't want everyone shitting all over the nation mall now do you?
LOL hold on your expect goverment not to spend??? Again the elites will always say you need conserve money and other items when they don't. You want to see the biggest cheats and liers just look up on capital hill doesn't matter what party they say they are its all the same, spend all the cash you want and when it runs out just raise taxes to you have more, that's what all those in office do.
We The People have pretty much the size of Government We The People want doing pretty much the tasks We The People believe to be Constitutional else We The People would have chosen other leaders.
Tee hee. Don't know if you're that naive or just plain stupid, but you seem to be making the fairly large assumption that our leaders do what we elect them to do. Like this here 44th president. Is he going to do *half* of the shit he's promised? No...probably not. So does that mean that everything he *does* do is what the people who elected him wanted? Um...no, no likely.
You'll have that sometimes...
Why is this story tagged "Ronpaul?" Is it maybe because Ron Paul still has just as much of a chance of getting the presidency now as he ever did?
(Paulites note that I'm just teasing because you make it so easy)
Barack Obama is probably the best person for the job at this point in our country's history.
That said, unless we quickly transition from a military-based empire to a leaner and more economically competitive country then things will go badly for us.
The economic crash is a world-wide phenomenon and basically everyone needs to consume a little less than they produce. A pay as we go plan is needed. The current bailouts are intended to extend the status-quo a little longer - probably not what we need!
the internet really is mostly a sea of mindless negativity, so it is everyone's job #1 to ignore most of what they see on it. i suppose if all i got was vitriole and random ratings and aggressive replies i would balk. but there's always someone worthwhile who responds to me, or someone worthwhile to respond to myself
besides, i have no stake in slashdot that feeds or houses me. this is all just completely pointless in the end. which is quite a liberating feeling, to be able to speak one's mind freely with no consideration as to consequences, since there are none
but that just makes me speak too freely, i wind up being strongly opinionated. as such, i become a target for the puerile and pedantic
whatever
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You do realize that the inauguration parties are funded by donations, right? Still insanely over the top, but at least it's paid for by tax dollars. Having said that Obama could have scored some points early on by asking that donations be redirected to more important issues, but that would decrease the intensity of the spotlight on Big O, and we can't have that, can we?
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Don't forget to bring your LED throwies!
The uncritical adoration of Obama reminds me of this from 1984: "But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandyhaired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like 'My Saviour!' she extended her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a prayer. "At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of 'B-B! ...B-B!' -- over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'B' and the second-a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise. Winston's entrails seemed to grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he could not help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chanting of 'B-B! ...B-B!' always filled him with horror. Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction. "
Which is the greater benefit: saving 340 homes at $500,000 each, or giving 2 million attendees hope for the future with a big ceremony? Given the degree to which consumer spending props up American GDP, the inauguration may actually MAKE money.
You know, that's one of the funny things I see when looking at America from some thousands of kilometres away.
So supposedly, the sacred right to bear arms is there to keep the government in line, in case it oversteps its constitutional bounds. Lemme see, the Bushies did:
- effectively suspending habeas corpus,
- used torture,
- starting a war of aggression, and justified it by
- outright lying about the evidence, (plus, see two paragraphs above, it turns out that all the "witnesses" they had, had been waterboarded until they said what the Bushies wanted to hear,)
- massive surveillace of its own citizens, down to data-mining grocery bills,
- politicizing every branch of the government they could lay their hands on,
- trying to keep official emails from the _legal_ mandated openness, by using private accounts for government business, or by just making excuses (apparently they didn't make backups, ya know)
- saying out loud that the constitution is just a piece of paper and doesn't apply to them,
Etc.
Did I see the gun-loving right at least hinting about the possibility of a revolt over it? (Yes, at the end of the series of other boxes, but still.) Nah, they voted for him again.
But here comes a president which at least promises to undo some of that evil, and restore at least _some_ of those constitutional rights. (Whether he'll keep that promise, remains to be seen.) What does the gun-loving right immediately fear? "OMG, he might take our guns away."
It seems to me that the gun lovers care _only_ about exactly _one_ piece of the constitution: the second amendment. No more, no less. Wipe your ass with the rest constitution if you will, they sure won't mind it. So exactly how does that work as a constitutional safeguard, then?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
sorry, at least it's *not* paid for by tax dollars.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
...in the truck that says "to Africa". Don't spec any diamonds tough.
That sounds more like the Bush era than anything we're seeing right now.
This is pure bullshit.
The mechanisms of the US federal government *do not* result in outcomes representing the "will of the people". First, we're a republic; if the "will of the people" changes between elections that doesn't change who's in office. But elections don't represent the will of the people either. This can be easily show mathematically just by considering the difference in outcome between the first-past-the-post voting system we use and a Condorcet method.
And that's not even getting into the fact that the "will of the people" is disrupted and confused by a centrally owned media that has been clearly shown to be biased towards certain perspectives.
And even if you were right, that would still be missing the point of the constitution. It's intended to prevent certain things from happening without the completion of a difficult amendment process first - especially if the current leaders or even the current the majority wants it immediately.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
on the inside. some of us are grown ups,, some of us....
Why should he be denied what the previous guy in office, who helped get us to this mess, got?
It's also paid for by private funds - not tax dollars.
It also generates revenue (tourism dollars, media ad buys, etc)
It also makes people happy to see the president they elect take the oath
It also lets the world know there is a new sheriff in town.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
What was up with the second guy, after Obama?
I resent the quote "when white will do right". That guy can go f$#%* himself with that nonsense. This isn't 1960... I voted for Obama. Would he consider that "right"?
I sincerely hope Obama shows better judgment governing than he did in choosing his follow up speaker.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
(and a healthy one too). My opinion? We simply cannot be competitive as a nation with a "weak" federal government in concert with "strong" state governments. There has to be a balance, yes. But one must realize that our competition doesn't want to negotiate with 50 little states, they want to negotiate with a single big one. I suppose, though cannot back it up, that this was the logic behind the formation of the EU--each country just couln't compete in a modern global market so they had to unite.
The wording of this amendment is intentionally vague. If it was overly strict, the constitution would quickly become irrelevant as the times changed. For example, what if the constitution was formed when people thought radio was a novelty and they included "the federal government should not regulate radio". You and I might not agree with everything about the FCC, but you have to admit that it would be a mess if every state had it's one mini-FCC regulating our radio spectrum. And if the language in the constitution was as strong and strictly worded as "no radio", you'd need to re-amend the constitution to overturn such a ill-thought piece of legislation.
Hell, what if that amendment said "The federal government should not create nor regulate the roads used by horseless carriages"? No highway system would have been built.
The constitution is vague for a reason. Democrats vs Republicans vs Libertarians are not debates about "are you loyal to the constitution", but really debates carried out under the constitution about how to deal with modern issues. The constitution is what gives us the ability *to* debate the issues.
Aside from the fact that it's paid for with private donations, dumbfuck, millions of people didn't show up because the inauguration was a big event. It was a big event because millions of people wanted to show up. You know, Constitutional rights and all (freedom of assembly).
And even then the $170 figure isn't based on fact, but guestimations. There's also the fact that the cost of this inauguration, with security, is being fallaciously compared to the cost of Bush's inaguration, without security.
I am not going to argue tautologies with you because I find people who argue in such a manner usually irrational. The statement I made that you refer to does have some shades of gray and if I had time I would attempt to source some material to back up my hypothesis but unfortunately there has not been enough data collected on differing rates of STDs, drug overdoses and the like in the gay community before and after marriage laws yet. My hypothesis stands though and I will not proffer a new one because of your objections. However, there is a number of well-established studies showing that the more conservative one is the more likely they will get divorced. So the question is should we legislate against Evangelical Christians getting married because they have the highest divorce rates in the country? It would better protect the sanctity of marriage than preventing two random homosexual folk from marrying.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
What's so vague about this? If it ain't in the Constitution, the government has no right to do it.
That seems to be especially true of those who want to limit government to its "Constitutional tasks". Make you should take a gander at Article I, Section 8 which, like most of the Constitution, is masterful in both its simplicity and flexibility.
FreeSpeech.org
This has two effect: that part of the document is neutered by the rerouting and the document becomes more distant to current realities instead of being amended in a sufficient manner - so that once it's proposed to follow it, the old interpretation seems "quaint" and out-of-touch.
Spot on. Have you noticed how no one even bothers mentioning Constitutional amendments anymore? They don't have to. No one cares on either side.
Which is exactly why, as a true believer in freedom, I have completely and absolutely given up on government. I don't vote -- and get ready for this -- I'm proud of it. I'm extremely proud that I refuse to be part of what I consider an immoral practice.
You tell me what to do, not the other way around. You (the voters) are the ones who want to control me -- tell me how to spend my money, how to behave, what to think -- not the other way around. Isn't that why you vote?
You've already won, and there's nothing I can do about it.
You mean, like the Bible?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
But the constitution did not explicitly say "whether you're a man or woman, black or white, gay or straight", did it? I mean, even read literally, it doesn't matter what the constitution says if you don't consider blacks to be humans.
The fourteen amendment was only created after the civil war, don't forget. We fought a war with ourselves to resolve that issue.
What the heck is with this 'poem'? Seriously, No Seriously....
What's with the signature, dude?
Damn, I missed it.
I wish there had been some mention of it in the media lately so I would have know it was about to happen.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
He is not as much a bigot as the ever benighted Bush but he is not as enlightened as some would believe. I would rather we strip him of his saintliness in public now than later. Some people are completely crazed about this man have such expectations that could not be realized without revolution.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Either the NRA or Fox News Headquarters, those being the only organizations in the entire world who might have told you the Second Amendment is no longer valid.
I read that this inauguration is being run on the cheap compared to past ones.
Sounds quite a bit like any given religion to me... perhaps it's the nature of man that is the problem.
You're nothing; like me.
Well, just because a majority believe them to be constutitional does not make it so. Also, we're not a direct democracy (which is what you're talking about) for a reason... out founders rightfully thought that would be a really bad idea. And it is.
Who was that announcer? He sounded like the "Let's Get Ready To Rumble" guy. I half expected him to announce "In this corner, President Elect Barack H. Obama. In that corner, Chief Justice Roberts. Let's get ready to INAUGURAAAAAAAATE!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
True. As long as people keep voting for politicians who promise to give them free stuff, the nanny state will continue to get bigger and more oppressive.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Maybe this article can provide a balance to your $170M dollar talking point.
Also, who calls Barack Obama B. Hussein Obama except right wing talkshow hosts? Do you guys just like the name Hussein for some reason?
I wish I could feel good about this, I really do. I want a ray of sunshine as badly as everyone else.
However:
Obama has selected a Monsanto fanboy as head of the Department of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. If you don't know Monsanto's transgressions, check out "The World According to Monsanto", a great documentary, that only illuminates A SMALL FRACTION of why they are such an evil corporation.
Obama's incoming Attorney General, Eric Holden, has already stated that the telcom immunity still stands, and I would assume that means warrant-less wire-tapping still stands.
Obama has selected an RIAA lawyer to be a copy copyright and IP judge.
Obama has selected THE SAME defense secretary as GW Bush.
I don't think Obama represents Hope or Change in any way. He's corporate status quo, here to fuck the American people like every president since they shot JFK in the head.
Who DID shoot JFK in the head, by the way? The mob? Aliens? I think the fact that we don't know STILL means it was obviously a government operation, and therefore our government has been TAKEN from the American people, and that was a coup, not an assassination, which means we don't live in a constitutional democracy, and that only violent revolution will restore any freedoms to the people.
Sorry to ruin the parade on day one. But I don't believe in fairy tales or wishful thinking. Let's see what Obama does about "Free Speech Zones". I seriously doubt it will be anything more than the evil, corporate status quo.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
It's pretty simply; its only authorized to do what is spelt out in the constitution. Anything else is forbidden.
If you want to argue over what is MEANT by some phrases... we fortunately have various letters, journal entries, records of debate over what was included and why (or not included and why not).
There really is only a narrow way in which to interperate the Constitution; unfortunately it requires a lot more reading that most anyone does.
And that's not even getting into the fact that the "will of the people" is disrupted and confused by a centrally owned media that has been clearly shown to be biased towards certain perspectives.
Are you claiming the "clearly shown" liberal commie bias that conservatives have "proven"(just look at Dan Rather and Keith Olbermann) or the "clearly shown" fascist bias that liberals have "proven" (just look at the Fox Noise channel)?
FreeSpeech.org
What's so vague about this? If it ain't in the Constitution, the government has no right to do it.
Unfortunately, there is also that pesky Ninth amendment that Libertarian types love to ignore:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
In other words, if the government decides the people have the right to universal health care, it's right there in the constitution.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Am I the only one wondering what this story is about? Who is this guy, and why should we care? Everywhere I go on the net, I see references to him, and now it has invaded the geek sites I live on. SIGH.
Can we get back to cat pictures and things labeled fail again so I can feel secure?
-Charlie
(Note: The new /. engine strips out HTML sarcasm tags. Please imagine they are there.)
Yes, but there are those of us who believe the majority of We the People have been duped by this nice fuzzy little bear called change. Unfortunately, most people who voted for him did so because of what that change meant to them rather than what it meant to him. It's a minor detail, but I'm sure it will become clear in the days ahead.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
"B. Hussein Obama?" Seriously? You guys are still doing that?
Now get to work, sucker.
You spelled peace wrong, you illiterate twit.
Of all the things the government has spent money on lately, this is a long ways down on the list of disappointments. When was the last time the government did something that put you in a better mood?
You know, that's one of the funny things I see when looking at America from some thousands of kilometres away.
So supposedly, the sacred right to bear arms is there to keep the government in line, in case it oversteps its constitutional bounds. Lemme see, the Bushies did:
- effectively suspending habeas corpus,
- used torture,
- starting a war of aggression, and justified it by
- outright lying about the evidence, (plus, see two paragraphs above, it turns out that all the "witnesses" they had, had been waterboarded until they said what the Bushies wanted to hear,)
- massive surveillace of its own citizens, down to data-mining grocery bills,
- politicizing every branch of the government they could lay their hands on,
- trying to keep official emails from the _legal_ mandated openness, by using private accounts for government business, or by just making excuses (apparently they didn't make backups, ya know)
- saying out loud that the constitution is just a piece of paper and doesn't apply to them,
Etc.
Did I see the gun-loving right at least hinting about the possibility of a revolt over it? (Yes, at the end of the series of other boxes, but still.) Nah, they voted for him again.
But here comes a president which at least promises to undo some of that evil, and restore at least _some_ of those constitutional rights. (Whether he'll keep that promise, remains to be seen.) What does the gun-loving right immediately fear? "OMG, he might take our guns away."
It seems to me that the gun lovers care _only_ about exactly _one_ piece of the constitution: the second amendment. No more, no less. Wipe your ass with the rest constitution if you will, they sure won't mind it. So exactly how does that work as a constitutional safeguard, then?
As long as they still have their guns, wave their bibles everything else is okay.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Obama voted for the bailout. He's got the opportunity to demonstrate how a competent administration deals with such a powerful piece of legislation.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
I really couldn't agree more.
I would also like to point out that the government isn't autonomous in creating headache and heartache. The Federal Reserve can take quite a load of that blame. The power to expand or contract the money supply is probably the most awesome power any organization can have and it comes with an incredible responsibility.
You're nothing; like me.
Looking at whitehouse.gov, I am not sure he realizes he is President yet. It seems like he is still campaigning...
Enough with the rhetoric already.
It all feels like a damned "Who" song.
I remember a European journalist describing the population's reaction to corruption in government. He said, (and I'm paraphrasing because I cannot find the quote), "People know the government is putting on a facade, that beneath it lies fascism. But they allow this, because they've seen what overt fascism looks like, they've lived through it, and they cry, 'No, anything but that! Anything but that!'"
-FL
I, for one, welcome our jug-eared overlord.
If it's not Consolidated Lint, it's just fuzz!
Eliminate the BCS and have a College Football playoff system as one of your answers during the Presidential debate.
When this happens, you will have a new believer in your administration.
Do you consider it immoral, too, to take advantage of the results of what you consider immoral? I suppose you refuse to use velcro, drive through the wilderness avoiding all routes, simply refuse all foods marked with the evil FDA mark and so on, right?
"Hey Obama, your so fine, your so fine, you blow my mind....hey OBAMA!...hey OBAMA!"
-Randy
"Engineering. Where the noble, semi-skilled laborers execute the vision of those who think and dream." -Sheldon
I also know who to read between the lines. Calling someone like reverend Lowery a "racist asshole" tells me all I need to know about where you're coming from... So does someone saying they know what Dr. King would say, and it would be to speak out against black people voting for Obama because he's black... It's not too hard to figure out. It's not rocket science.
Sure it does. Where does it say "gays cannot marry" in the constitution? In fact, I could (rightly, I believe) argue that until gays can marry, the government is currently out of line with the constitution. However, I agree with what you had in parenthesis... that gays cannot marry is a symptom of a larger problem--government has no business in the marriage business regardless of who is marrying what.
Well, some argue that stem cell research is essentially murdering unborn children. Murder is something the federal government deals with, no?
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States".
The mistake you make is thinking I'm being "anti constitution". I'm not. All the debates you quote are debates about modern issues that get resolved using the process created by the constitution.
That's all well and good, but what about the new flag, the one that is just a white flag with a picture of a burning American flag on it?
---don't make me break out my red pen.
Most of these donations came from Wall Street. I don't know if you noticed, but today that means it was all tax dollars. Well, National Debt dollars anyway. Tax dollars ran out in July.
The latter, but your phrasing is set up to dismiss me without considering the facts. And no, it's not about Fox News.
Read this Wikipedia article and then carefully consider the issue of sourcing. What would happen to a news firm if they got on the Pentagon's bad side and couldn't go to Pentagon press conferences?
No, don't respond to my question now. Actually go and read the link.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
We missed you.
Love,
The Rest of The Modern World.
ps. Any chance you could have a word with Australia about internet censorship? That'd be swell.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
Suicide by voter.
MTV arrested for manslaughter.
Most of We The People wouldn't know the Constitution from the holes in their asses, pick and choose the parts of it they want to pay attention to and modify the meaning of other parts to their liking, or simply don't care what it has to say in the first place.
It's the American bible.
Is Slashdot filtering out long passages talking about Ron Paul now? Because the above post appears to be missing one.
Why would the OP call him "B. Hussein Obama"? Is that supposed to mean something?
Perhaps much of the 170 Million went to the enormous security efforts, to keep the enormous crowds safe.
Perhaps because swearing a president in for a second time lacks the historicity of the nation's first black president.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
G. Walker Bush, final impressions: "competence? in MY government? It's more likely than you'd think!"
Seriously, the election's over now ... can all you fearmongering nitwits please finally stop highlighting the man's middle name? Yes OOOOH his middle name is the same as the last name of a dude who was a bad guy.
What is your point, exactly?
That we should be afraid of him, because of his middle name? What? REALLY? That's the best you've got?
That, and the cost of his privately funded shin-dig could fund the war in Iraq for like 5 minutes?
weak sauce, dude.
It works as a constitutional safeguard against them taking the guns away.
But, yeah. It's amazing how people who were convinced that FEMA had been given the power, under Clinton, to declare an emergency and detain people without habeas corpus sure started singing a different tune under Bush.
What they were talking was it's ability to quarantine people, which is a perfectly reasonable function of the government, and has never, in the entire history of this country, been abused. The government has the right to detain various people outside the criminal justice system, like suicidal people and mentally incapacitated people and infectious people, but the right made out like this was some huge constitutional violation.
That power has existed as an inherent power of the government so long that it's not even in the Constitution, and just sorta assumed. Just like the right of habeas corpus is assumed. Like I said, there's no documented cases of this power ever being abused. (There are documented cases of 'mentally ill' people being detained to shut them up, but not of people being being quarantined maliciously.)
What has always been frowned on, however, and subject to strict regulation, is any attempt to lock 'lawbreakers' up outside of the criminal justice system. Which Bush just decided to do without any Congressional authorization. (Which they couldn't have give anyway, but whatever.)
And the right, the 'you'll never take us alive because we have guns' right just bent over and took it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I've heard this idiotic argument before. What you fail to realize is that all these bad actions by Bush didn't affect gun owners. How many rural American gun owners were imprisoned in Guantanamo? Or were illegally surveilled upon? Many of them, unfortunately, bought into the war, thinking it really was necessary to protect us. Gun owners don't have guns to protect against the government taking away other peoples' rights; they have them to protect themselves.
Remember also, taking up arms against the government is a very serious step, and makes you either a traitor or a freedom-fighter, depending on whether you're successful. You're not going to be successful if a LOT of other gun owners don't take up your cause; you'll just be a lone freak. So the government has to be something completely blatant, worthy of violent overthrow, rather than peaceful elections. Nothing Bush did is worthy of violent overthrow; he didn't declare martial law, try to take away peoples' guns, send people to death camps, quarter soldiers in peoples' homes, institute a government with absolutely no representation, or anything of the sort. In fact, Americans overall weren't very happy with Bush, or his chosen successor McCain, and elected someone else. That's actually the way it's supposed to work. Violent overthrow is for when the situation is completely out of control and there's no alternative. We haven't reached that point yet, and we won't, until we reach some point where we all decide elections are a sham and we believe that we're not actually allowed to vote for our government (sorta like Iraq under Saddam).
As for the rest of the Constitution, true patriots sway towards libertarianism, and believe in the whole Constitution, not just the 2nd Amendment (which is equally important however). Right-wing extremists who believe in a "Christian nation" etc. aren't true patriots, since they ignore the 1st Amendment. Of course, the Constitution isn't perfect, and needs some amending, because some politicians got in there in the early 20th century and mucked around with it by adding other Amendments, namely the 16th, 17th, and 18th. The 18th was finally repealed by the 21st after they saw what a disaster Prohibition was (though we still haven't really learned, as we keep spending trillions on the Drug War), but the 16th and 17th still should be repealed.
It's fun to paint a caricature, isn't it? So much easier to argue against.
The fact is there are assholes on both sides, but they don't matter. The second amendment clearly gives me the right to own guns. Not guns I can "hunt" with. Guns I just want.
I don't care about hunting. We're not going to have an armed revolution in this country almost no matter what. Who cares? Do people "need" 65" TV's? Do they "need" 500hp cars? No. Fuck need - I
want
an AK47.
You're kidding, right? The fact that Obama was just sworn in means nothing is wrong with the current state of the U.S.?
Okay...
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
The real one seems lame. Now the Lego one though was what should have made slashdot.
Lego Obama Presidential Inauguration Brings Hope to Bricks Too
http://i.gizmodo.com/photogallery/legoobamainauguration/1006247332
Privately funded. Got a problem with that?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
define "defense and general welfare."
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Well I don't know about you, but I, personally, ANAL.
Who was the guy on the VIP podium wearing the red fedora?
Yea it's supposed to liken him more towards Saddam Hussain and/or Muslims...specifically Muslim extremists.
The OP poster is racist and stupid. Being Muslim does not mean you are an extremist. Though the name Barak is also a name that Jewish folk used. Think Ehud Barak (former prime minister of israel).
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
You left out the 'X' at the end of his name.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Noam Chomsky has proposed many interesting hypotheses in his career, but he hasn't proven anything in his career ever.
FreeSpeech.org
Please, the GOP still goes after Bill Clinton like it will never go out of style. "Get stale" my ass.
2 million people showed up. Someone has to pay for porta potties, police, private security, all the big screen tv's so people a mile back on the mall could see. It's not like the inauguration was handing out cigars and caviar.
I find it really funny how all the news media (especially NPR) goes out of their way to pronounce things correctly, yet they freely interchange the use of "Washington" and "Washington, DC". These are not the same place!
I liked how on NPR they were pointing out a factual error in Obama's speech, yet the host kept jumping between "Washington DC" and "Washington"
Godwined.
Sorry about that. Whatever was I thinking of?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Got this of of Fox
"The president-elect is stimulating an unexpected segment of the economy: the firearms industry. The Web site Hot Air notes that Obama's consistent votes against the right to bear arms as well as his steadfast support for anti-gun groups seems to have spurred consumers to action.
Directly following Mr. Obama's election in November of last year, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported an astonishing 48 percent increase in the background checks required to purchase a firearm.
For this mean feat, The Outdoor Wire â€" the nation's largest daily electronic news service for the outdoor industry â€" has named the president-elect its gun salesman of the year. And for that, we extend our deep congratulations. "
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Too often, when society changed to the point that some people view government powers need expansion, necessitating a Constitutional amendment, they opt instead to ignore/reinterpret the founding document.
Other Constitutional Law scholars would point out that the Founding Fathers certainly did not expect that their 12-page document would be exclusive and exhaustive, but should rather be interpreted as rough guidelines with a few explicit points, and that the evidence for this lies within the open-endedness of phrases like "necessary and proper" and "the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people". Strict originalists are worse than Fundamentalists, because they can't make a religious word-of-God argument while still claiming the same inalterability.
Wow. Way to take that WAY out of context.
To make that fit your mold, you would have to argue that universal health care is some sort of right inherent in man's existence.
The Constitution says:
1 - These are a list of areas that the FEDERAL government is allowed jurisdiction
2 - Anything not mentioned as a role of the FEDERAL government is a role of the STATE
3 - Just because it's not listed doesn't necessarily mean it's not a right of the people
So, yes, you could argue that universal health care is a right of the people but you still have to stretch to enumerate it as a role of the FEDERAL government.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
That quote comes from a saturday night live skit
hmm, what else gets read that way? oh yes, religious ones.
funny tho, there is a high probability that religious texts started out as legal ones, and spiraled from there...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I'm not sure about you, but I think government running a trillion dollar deficit, bailing out businesses/people left and right is hardly limited.
Would you prefer a completely unregulated economy? Let me tell you, that didn't work out so well last time we tried. And more recent history has shown that half-assed fiscal policy isn't much better than none at all. So, what's wrong with the idea of the government trying to provide some economic stability? It would certainly seem to fit into the commerce clause much more easily than most of the things done in the name of regulating interstate commerce.
So supposedly, the sacred right to bear arms is there to keep the government in line
Not supposedly. See Iraq, where recently a group of well-armed citizens made life miserable for an occupying power.
Lemme see, the Bushies did:
I would remind you that many of those things (e.g., the Iraq war and the Patriot Act) were backed by bipartisan legislation, and that we've had a Democratic House and Senate since 2006.
If you think only Republicans want and do all of the things in your laundry list, you're dangerously naive.
I like how you wrote his middle name like it means something scary to you. Dick.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The founding fathers did not have you in mind when they wrote the Constitution, they had their own interests and agendas in mind.
Government - If you think the problems we create are bad, you should see our solutions!
It reminded me of when you are at a wedding and either the bride or groom forgets part of their vows or the pastor stumbles on a line. Big woop. Laugh about it (Obama did, Roberts did) and move on.
I think the operative word here should be "smile" possibly coupled with "laugh". Of course, this is the internet we are talking about, so obviously "conspiracy" is the actual operative word.
That's a lot of words without answering the question. Yes, I understand that's your feeling, in general. But what's the specific power you think the government doesn't have?
The bailout, while foolish, is clearly an interstate commerce issue, dealing with corporations throughout the US.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
If it did mean "Do whatever the hell you want", then why have 17 follow-up paragraphs detailing exactly what congress can do? Why even give the illusion of states' rights if "General Welfare" means what you say it means?
Idiots like you are what ruin this nation. Go fuck up some other country.
Unfortunately, there is also that pesky Ninth amendment that Libertarian types love to ignore:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
In other words, if the government decides the people have the right to universal health care, it's right there in the constitution.
Actually, Libertarian types are quite fond of the 9th Amendment. However, you're getting the completely wrong meaning out of it, twisting it to mean the opposite of what was intended.
The government doesn't grant rights, and the federal government doesn't have the power to do anything that isn't spelled out in the Constitution.
Obama has many admirable qualities, which I hope are the reasons many voted for him, rather than voting for him *because* he is African-American.
I think you basically restated what I was attempting to say, only way better. Just because a right isn't listed as explicitly applied to you doesn't mean it shouldn't be. It is kind of the magic of the document.
And animals as people? Naw.. Wait until intelligent robots seek constitutional rights. Good times. Good times.
IDLE THIS SHIT!!! This is not a slashdot political forum sponsored by Fox or KPFK
How many handguns could have been given away for 170M?
Please, someone think of the unarmed Americans!
You miss the point: the bailout is a massive round of inflation, passed in hopes of delaying the effects of previous inflation. Whatever Obama spends it on, whether it's trying to keep failed banks from being liquidated, or paying people to dig ditches and fill them in again, the damage is a foregone conclusion.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And newspapers and churches only care about the first amendment. Or maybe you're stereotyping.
So if you're so concerned about revolting against Bush, why didn't you? _You_ obviously thought Bush's evil didn't justify armed rebellion, since you didn't do it- why are you complaining that other people agree with you on the subject?
I think something that has fallen from focus is that the constitution doesn't grant or give anyone rights. As you mentioned, it spells out what the federal government can do but it also stops them from impeding on certain rights we already have. The 9th amendment was instituted to ensure that with the passage of the constitution, any other right not mentioned or protected by the constitution wouldn't magically disappear.
It's like your right to reproduce, that's a natural right not specifically mentioned in the constitution and the 9th makes it clear that even though it isn't mentioned, it doesn't disappear when it was ratified. The op is attempting to make the constitution out to be something that doles out rights when all it does is stops the government from treading on certain rights.
Those "Clinton Staffers trashed the White House" were lies then ands are lies now..
The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative agency, "had found no damage to the offices of the White House's East or West Wings or EOB" and that Bush's own representatives had reported "there is no record of damage that may have been deliberately caused by the employees of the Clinton administration."
Given the degree to which consumer spending props up American GDP, the inauguration may actually MAKE money.
By spending what money? Given that the American consumer got into this problem by overspending in the first place, is that a good thing? I'm not saying that we don't need an increase in consumer spending or anything like that, but the American consumer has demonstrated they are not financially responsible. During Obama's campaign, he even stressed the point that consumers have to be more financially responsible...
saving 340 homes at $500,000 each
Yea, I'd be pretty ticked if they bailed out the folks with half-million dollar homes.
Agreed.
But I believe that given the proper role model even this "worst of the worst" Congress can do better. Is Obama such a role model? I think he is or has the potential to be that good. Will every one of these Congressmen sit up and take notice, look inside themselves and vow to become the best Congressman they can be? Certainly not, but some will.
What profit was there in being virtuous and intelligent when we were led by the righteously ignorant whose sole objective was to line the pockets of friends? There is a slight possibility that these jokers will surprise us.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
is vague? The Clause you're referring to allows the Federal government to tax the hell out of you, not anything else.
Dunno about that. Some of his linguistics results look a lot like math - it seems entirely likely that there could be a mathematical proof in one of his papers.
But that's irrelevant to the issue at hand. We're talking about politics, and there aren't proofs in politics.
The propaganda model proposed by Herman and Chomsky provides a good explanation for observable phenomena and makes accurate predictions about the future. In a field that isn't hard science, that's really pretty amazing; it's certainly a higher standard for "truth" than you'd expect to see.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I'm not picking up what you're laying down. When *do* we turn in our guns?
Blacklash
I think King would be immensely proud that Obama was able to become the 44th President of the United States without his skin color STOPPING him from being elected.
That's the point.
And, you have no way of knowing why each and every voter who chose Obama did so. Try to be more empathetic, and understand why it was so important for, yes, 'minority' voters to not only choose whom they felt was the best candidate, but that felt especially proud that said candidate was an African American.
Would you say the same thing about Robert & John F. Kennedy's or Bill Clinton's supporters?
Don't try to take that away from them with statements like what you and the OP posted. I don't know what you look like, or what your background is, but it's apparent to me that you and the OP can easily just wave away anything to do with race, whereas some people have to live with what they look like every waking moment for the rest of their lives. It's easy for some people to just wave things away and say 'oh, it's over with; everything's fine, now.' I assure you, from personal experience, I've witnessed the fact that America (and a few other nations) have a ways to go before your so-called 'minorities' can JOIN YOU, waving away the race issue.
And about that term 'minority' - that's going to get old within the next decade or so, as it would be factually incorrect, demographically-speaking.
That seems to be especially true of those who want to limit government to its "Constitutional tasks". Make you should take a gander at Article I, Section 8 which, like most of the Constitution, is masterful in both its simplicity and flexibility.
Also, every time someone claims to respect the Constitution while claiming the courts should not be upholding some right because the Constitution does not mention it specifically, kindly point them towards the 9th Amendment. It also helps to understand the history of the Bill of Rights, in which many argued against it not because they opposed the rights there but were afraid that by naming the specific ones there, they would cause people down the road to interpret that as meaning the rights were limited to those. The whole purpose of the 9th Amendment is to affirm that this is a wrong interpretation.
I find it highly amusing that almost every time I see someone arguing for a "strict interpretation" of the Constitution, they're usually arguing that we should pretend the 9th Amendment is meaningless -- that the Constitution would have the exact same meaning regardless of whether it was there or not, that's it's a "silent amendment". It is not silent, it speaks volumes, but of course they don't want to hear it.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
time to put 2 more convicts to prison
Most of We The People wouldn't know the Constitution from the holes in their asses, pick and choose the parts of it they want to pay attention to and modify the meaning of other parts to their liking, or simply don't care what it has to say in the first place.
This is too sadly true. My third-year college students may know what the First Amendment is, but are utterly lost on the rest. Only the foreign-born students have a clue.
How fscking sad is that?
If that is true, God save America...
Yeah Clinton's adminstration did start the credit crisses with the subprime lending in credit cards which opened the flood gates to subprime lending on houses, and then to our current situation
Except that "perfect" doesn't mean flawless, but rather it means complete. It's not about a union without flaws, it's about a union without state-by-state insurgence.
And it should be clear *why* taking office should be time-based, not oath-based when you consider what might happen during wartime. Like, what if serious military shit was hitting the fan on the day of the inauguration? Under an oath-based system, the incoming president would probably have more pressing things to do then swear an oath on a bible. With a time-based system like we now have, it is very clear who is in power at all times. Oath-based, not so much.
Before that amendment was passed, the incoming president would have to drop everything and get sworn in before deal with whatever. Lets not even forget that if he or she did something requiring executive privilege and wasn't technically sworn in. During the aftermath, without the amendment, everything the new president did prior to taking the oath would fall into question (i.e. were they technically president)?
No, taking the the oath is more for show then a requirement. As it should be.
Video of the speech:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/28738177#28738177
And a transcript:
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/01/20/barack-obama-speech/first-black-president-historic-inaugural-address.html
It'd be unprecedented, unless someone can point out to me a presidential administration under whose leadership the federal government relinquished any substantial powers.
except that all those vandalism claims were debunked barely a few months after Bush II took office...
as title
Gov't run health care? No thanks. I hate the DMV enough to have an idea of what that will be like.
Works well enough in the UK. But if you'd rather be shafted by insurance companies, middle men, and family doctors on commission from the big pharma, I guess that's your prerogative.
Gov't run energy? No thanks. I like my lights on, not freezing to death while those clowns debate in committee what energy bracket I'm in to determine how much I'm allowed to heat my home.
Has any politician in the USA been able to seriously propose the privatization of the TVA, and have a political career ?
That's the question I'm asking. What the hell does it *exactly* mean in this age of constitutional scholarship? In light of 2 centuries of judicial interpretation?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Air Force One should drop that Obama nut in Cuba or North Korea where he and his ideas belong!
Yes, what does the common "Defence" and "general Welfare" mean exactly? Does it mean that the Federal Government can tax whatever the hell it feels like to provide services to the states and to the people to enhance their daily quality of life?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Would you prefer a completely unregulated economy? Let me tell you, that didn't work out so well last time we tried
When did we last try a completely unregulated economy? And the choice isn't either/or as you suggest either. The choice is maintaining freedom of choice (no monopolies or force) and letting cycles take their course.
I only heard them correctly mention this once, but Barrack Obama is the 43rd person to hold the job of President. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, and is considered both the 22nd and 24th President of the US.
I am a foreigner in this country. Why exactly is there such an hype about Obama's swearing in?
Anyone that would accuse "white" people of making black people "sit in the back", or call Asians "yellow" in 2009 is either completely stupid or racist or both. I'm sure you don't like it when someone goes against your ideology, but as they say, tough shit. This guy is a racist.
As far as the King thing, I'm pretty confident that knowing what King said, and what he stood for, that he would find Jackson, et al to be charlatans at best.
You like to generalize, that's apparent. I call one guy our for exhibiting overt racism, and somehow that translates to "Civil rights activists of the 60's are now "racist assholes" " No. MLK was not an asshole. Lowery is. Get it? MLK != Lowery. I, unlike yourself, have the ability to apply reason and judgment on a more granular level, and frankly I am offended by your assertion that somehow I am a racist because I called this prick out. Grow up.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Putting every failure in a nation of 300 million on the shoulders of one man isn't a very progressive way of thinking.
No one who has a brain puts the blame solely at the feet of George Bush. The president is powerful and influential but not THAT powerful or THAT influential and he certainly doesn't act alone. His advisers and staff carry a significant measure of responsibility as does anyone who carried out US policy under his administration.
On the other hand the President is the leader; he hired his staff, he sets the direction on policy and he signed off on the behavior of those who ostensibly worked for him. A leader is responsible for those who work for him and what they do - good, bad or indifferent. George Bush IS more responsible for what happened on his watch than anyone else just as Barack Obama will be responsible for what happens during his term. Any pretense that they aren't is just excusing unacceptable behavior.
"... Washington came first, and he was perfect..."
Tonight's Special: Leg of Salmon
Obama seems okay, but his no Socrates Let this philosophers rule! I didn't do my BA(Phil) for nothing did i?
The GDP and employment figures had more than recovered by 1937. If it weren't for Republicans getting FDR to back away from the New Deal, the recovery would have continued more quickly, but by the time of Pearl Harbor, our economy was stronger than it was before the depression. Our industrial capacity WAS being used, so the broken window fallacy applies.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I have to agree actually. It used to be a PITA like you say, but when I moved here to Columbus OH, it was about as painless and efficient as can be. And the process was exactly as you described.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
You are correct, "gay marriage" is redefining a word with thousands of years of history behind it. I can certainly respect those who take issue with that.
While what I'm going to suggest is politically impossible, it would be far better to remove the use of the word "marriage" from all law and replace it with civil union. As far as the government should be concerned, "marriage," "civil unions" or whatever you call them are nothing more then a legal construct for tax, "rights" (hospital visitation, hippa, etc), and property law (inheritance, "divorce").
One way or the other, gays partnerships will be afforded the same rights as traditional ones. The question boils down to what you call "gay partnerships" and I'd bet good money on it being far more feasible to cast it under marriage than to cast all partnerships, gay or straight, under the term "civil union". What you cannot have is where straight partnerships are legally defined as "marriage" and gay partnerships are legally defined as something else, even if they are granted the same legal rights.
Obama says he is for "civil unions", and I take him at his word he'll make sure gay partnerships are granted the same legal rights as straight couples. I believe he takes this stance because of his pragmatism--it would be virtually impossible to go whole-hog, he'd never get it passed. I also believe he wouldn't lift a political finger if some states wanted to take the idea of "civil unions" and rename them "marriage". Eventually, enough states will do this that the feds will be forced to rename "civil union" to "Marriage".
Baby steps.
And I'm certainly not proposing to forbid you to own an AK, or whatever else. I'm just amused at the argument about it being some kind of constitutional safeguard. At least "because I want guns" it's an honest answer. I can respect that. But what I see overused is convoluted lies about how it's what guards the rights and constitution... except those people sure don't seem to even hint at protecting any other right.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
To make that fit your mold, you would have to argue that universal health care is some sort of right inherent in man's existence.
Yes. As an example of one right that has been "invented", the right to privacy is a right that is inherent in man's existence. It's a natural corollary to owning property (if you can "own" something, yet retain no control over it, you can't own it). So, being able to own property necessitates that I have the ability to close my door and do whatever I want behind that closed foor without people watching and (as long as done alone or between consulting adults) do whatever I want. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are thrown about too. And in the right to life, there is the necessity that one be able to care for ones health. To that end, I would say that all patents, rules against practicing medicine without a license, and such are unconstitutional. If I want my sister to perform my appendectomy, I have that right, don't I? But to do so now is quite illegal. So, given that getting desired care from anyone you want is illegal, then getting it from the government approved care-givers should be free. If I have the right to life, then I have the right to health care (not universal, yet). When the government steps in and decides who you can and can't get care from (for your protection), then they must also provide you the care for the same cost that my sister would charge me for my appendectomy. To do otherwise would be denying my right to life.
Now, you may speak up about the AMA being an illegal crime syndicate, but as long as it exists, I assert that the government is constitutionally bound to provide me health care for free.
Learn to love Alaska
... thy name is hit whore.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
Do you think it would have been sensible, given the state of affairs, for the people to have mounted an armed revolt? The courts operated as they should, and several times halted the Bush administration where it overstepped. The military remained under civilian control. It's the end of Bush's term, and he surrendered his authority peacefully and with respect. And here you are, calling people who believe in the purpose of the Second Amendment hypocrites for not mounting a revolt against this tyranny. I'd say you're a sloppy debater, but since I wager you believe this claptrap, let's skip right to it: you're an idiot. You evidence no capability for critical thinking.
With regard to the single-minded support you see in "gun lovers" (do you talk about "printing press lovers"?), I'll leave you with this quote from former congresswoman Suzanna Hupp, whose parents were killed in the infamous Luby's Massacre, leading to her strong support for concealed carry laws: "How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."
but some guy named Werner Faymann keeps telling us we have the wrong number.
Sincerely,
Your Average Uneducated American
But he did not even get to say, "excuse me why I whip this out!"
It also lets the world know there is a new sheriff in town.
New sheriff in town? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvZdVK913I
"It worked in Blazing Saddles."
I suspect the ability to make people cum in their pants when you talk is a vote winner.
""Having" Bush as ex-president is quite a pleasing thing."
I bet people said that about Carter too and then he powered up into Uber-Carter and still refuses to shut up.
I'm not sure what American newspapers believe in any more... the right to redefine reality to whatever pleases their billionaire owner? I suppose first amendment _would_ describe that, if it weren't for the fact that they routinely participate in slinging mud at whoever says otherwise. I guess they don't care about free speech that much when it applies to someone else.
American Churches (and the bible-thumpers even more) seem to be all about free speech, as long as you don't talk about stuff like evolution, other religions, abortion, equality for homosexuals, and so on. Then they'd want the government to stop you. Funny how free speech doesn't seem to apply any more. Freedom of press either, if someone's press is, say, for homosexual rights.
(As a sidenote: Funny how many of the same people justify being right-wing as some way to stop government from interfering in everyone's life. But it's ok to want it to interfere with the guys you don't like. If it's about telling Johnny to pray in school, or Jane that she can't abort after she was raped, or Jack that he's an abomination for liking other guys... well, then by all means, the government should interfere more.)
Because I'm not an American? If all the foreigners who don't like your government's policies came over to shoot at your government, I think the word you're looking for is "invasion" rather than "rebellion". And that went out of style a century ago, you know?
And in the end, isn't that why we're all disgusted at the Iraq fiasco? Well, other than it being based on lies. Invading to "bring democracy" to someone is, in the end, still an aggression and rarely ends up being about democracy.
At any rate, it's up to you to fix your own country. Or not. Won't stop me from chuckling at some of the right wing stuff I hear from that side of the pond, but in the end it's like watching a soap opera. I'm not going to attack the studio to fix the plot either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Actually, all kidding aside, he's the first President not named Clinton or Bush in 20 years.... Oh, and he's the first African-American too, that's kind of important.
Why all this hate on the DMV? I renewed my drivers license today. I walked and the person at the front desk asked what I was there for (renew license), checked to make sure I had the right documents with me before I got in line and then handed me a ticket with a number so I could see when my turn was coming up. I waited 2 minutes, my number was called, I had my picture taken, and was out the door less than 10 minutes after I arrived. Everyone I dealt with was friendly, polite and efficient. If your DMV isn't like this why do you put up with it?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
I've never had nearly as bad an experience with the DMV as I have had with the US healthcare "system".
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
US Constitution is a pretty strange document. It appears to be simple and very clear - but it has never been.
The constitution that spells out universal suffrage and equality allowed slaves to be kept/ Blacks to be segregated and prevented women from voting. But at some point of time the interpretation of the same lines of text changed and the world changed drastically.
So while I agree with your point in general and agree that the Federal government should concern itself mainly with economy and the military, using constitution as a line in the sand does not help. You need to convince the other side about the benefits of limited interpretation of "general welfare" - and statements like Idiots like you are what ruin this nation. do not really help.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
Anyone else get a kick out of the Obama Zealots out there? All this flowing worship over him.. kinda sickening and scary.
I fell like saying.. "Psst! He's a politician.. he is either lying, doesn't actually mean it, or he's incapable of doing it. Get over it."
I feel people are going to be seriously let down when Obama..
Doesn't fix the economy. ..and doesn't hold the neo-con's responsible at all.
Doesn't end the war on terror.
Doesn't abolish the Department of Homeland Security.
The problem is deeper than just one man or one office.. it's the problem man has always had with governments and I'm pretty sure people won't see it this time until it's too late.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
...of needing a pilots license to drive!
And me me tell you something bucko, I also like knowing who uses deodorant BEFORE boarding, thank you very much.
Not that this will help if flying Air France.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The founding fathers did not have you in mind when they wrote the Constitution, they had their own interests and agendas in mind.
Pretty much like every government before, and every government since...
Quite true - anyone that doubts that this is explicitly true should read the comments posted at a discussion over the "In God We Trust" removal attempt. Probably a good 70% of the anti-removal comments are of the form "Fuck liberal hippies, this is a Christian country and the government should not take away our right to have Christianity in the government, if you don't like it MOVE TO CHINA." Er...well, kind of like that, except with more spelling errors.
I particularly like the implication that it's only the liberals that want the government to remain as secular as possible; apparently the so-called "conservatives" making these arguments have forgotten what the tradition really stands for...
Uhmm, just to point out, the Missouri Compromise was in 1820(roughly) and it was a compromise on the slavery issue. I think that what you were thinking of was the Connecticut compromise, which created a bicameral legislature - one elected by the people and one elected by the state legislatures (later changed in a constitutional amendment)
It's well-understood that the scenarios people perceive as likely are vastly out of touch with reality. The human brain lacks a competent statistical analysis apparatus.
This is seen across the political spectrum. Left-wingers might have an irrational fear that a police officer will shoot them dead, and right-wingers might have an irrational fear that someone will break into their house and shoot them dead. Neither is based on statistics, but rather on sensational media reports of the small number of such incidents. Both of these viewpoints can cause behaviors that really increase overall risk rather than reducing it.
So nightmare fantasies, like an oppressive government that would need to be violently overthrown, have more to do with the person being a gun lover, exposed to other gun lovers' views, etc than reality. People love guns because they are gun lovers, and they want to keep their guns because they like guns.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
"I mean should we be thankful we have the Afghan and Iraq war?"
Well... do you think that the idea that Afghanistan and Iraq would require a massive amount of military spending was overlooked by the powers that be?
It effectively dropped an trillion dollar stimulus program on the post internet-bubble economy, and while it was not THE reason to go to war... it certainly was one of them.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Gov't run health care? No thanks. I hate the DMV enough to have an idea of what that will be like
I lived in NY, VA and MA and in all three places the DMV was quite efficient, especially when compared to Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I wish the DMV ran my health care program. It would not be ideal but it would be an improvement.
"You can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them." [Condoleezza Rice]
errp
thanks for pointing that out. I was just reaching back for various compromises through out US history and that came to mind. Oops.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Do you consider it immoral, too, to take advantage of the results of what you consider immoral? I suppose you refuse to use velcro, drive through the wilderness avoiding all routes, simply refuse all foods marked with the evil FDA mark and so on, right?
It's not immoral to eat the meals served to you in the prison where you were unjustly imprisoned. The situation is analogous. I would eat non-FDA approved processed foods, drive on only privately built and maintained roads, and use only the Velcro that comes from the alternate universe where it was invented by a Swiss guy in his garage and not from a NASA lab*.... but it's not fucking possible because the system has monopolized these product spaces with its regulations.
* oh wait... Velcro was invented by a Swiss guy in 1941 and not NASA. Research your examples better, dumbass.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
While I see your point, I simply don't think it is possible for health care to be run worse than what the for profits have done. It is a travesty and atleast we would have some control if it were govt run. Talk to the uninsureable, I bet you change your mind. I'm with you on airlines though, but I think the problem is less the unions, and more they CEO's who ask for bailouts and pocket it. It alwasy strikes me as odd when people blame the workers, and not the people running the ship.
"to form a more perfect union" was a reference to the failure of the Articles of Confederation, and the need for the (at the time) new federal agreement. It's a great idea, and has become an enduring mandate, but I don't think it was meant that way.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I was watching on CNN at work and they had people sending in cellphone photos of the inaugural speech that they were then stitching together to provide a rather awesome panorama. It seems that it can zoom to varying levels of detail (kinda like google earth's zoom levels for the satellite images) and they were panning around and zooming in with their touch screen interface. I was quite impressed, but then, I've wanted my very own Situation Room for a year or so now.
I can't wait to get home where I might get to play with the panoramas a bit, though.
So replace the DMV with SSA. You walk in, click a number on a keypad (0 if you have an appointment, 1 if you do not). Get a number and wait. Then there's two separate number systems. The appointment people get a number like Z483, while the walk-ins get a regular number like 46. I haven't yet how they come up with those yet. Then they call out, 41, 42, Z478, Z479, 43, 44, 45, Z480, Z481, Z482, Z483, and finally you at 46. So you don't necessarily know how far in line you are (unless you cheat and take one of each number, I suppose). Then, while you wait, you cannot use anything electronic (Nintendo DS, cell phone, Ipod, etc). So you're left just staring at the other people, listening in when they are at the counter reciting their social security number, etc.
So, in conclusion, I don't want my doctor visit to become like the Social Security Administration.
Barack me Obameus!
I am thrilled to see the renewed interest in politics. I remember on the night he won the election seeing some potentially drunk guys in the street gathered in a horseshoe pattern around a poster on a wall. The poster was that of Barack Obama. The group was of course chanting "Obama" to the poster. I've heard of more extreme celebrations such as the potential of many Obama babies. Bear in mind, I am in Canada and the election garnered such a reaction.
Gov't run health care? No thanks. I hate the DMV enough to have an idea of what that will be like.
I'm not saying that government run health care would save billions of dollars or be a paragon of efficiency - I don't know enough to comment. But, as someone who is cautiously in favor of nationalized health care, I'm curious what you suggest people who can't afford health care, or who aren't insurable, do.
That is, I am on a COBRA extension of the insurance I received as a dependent of my parents. When the extension runs out in 2010, I will either need to find a job with a group insurance plan or go without insurance. (I have enough medical conditions that when I did search for insurance last year, no one would take me. Not, "They would take me for more money than I wanted to spend." They simply wouldn't give me insurance.) Should I go without insurance, and go into debt for the medication I need? Or am I obligated to quit the job I like, that pays me enough to cover my expenses and put some money aside to savings, to find one I may like less with a group insurance plan? Conversely, are you in favor of the uninsured simply getting sick and dying?
Please note, I'm honestly not trying to attack you. I disagree with you, but I'd much rather have a discussion or a dialogue than a fight. I just don't see how the free market, where only the healthy can find insurance, works better than a national system, even with the flaws of government bureaucracy.
Thoughts?
-Trillian
"It doesn't even outline what the supreme court is supposed to do."
Incorrect. Article III "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court..." So, judicial power rests with the court. Those who wrote the document knew exactly what that meant. It explicitly puts judicial power in the Court, not in the Legislature or the Executive (unless otherwise clearly stated. Included in this is the implicit exclusion if political authority, which is vested in the Executive and Legislative. Marbury v. Madison was pretty clear on this. The Court is not granted the ability to enact legislation, but to interpret legislation passed in accordance with the Constitution.
"What strict constitutionalists fail to realize is that the constitution is not a document written by a group of well meaning men with no political bias or agenda."
Again, incorrect. Just read what Scalia, the arch-strictarian has to say on the matter. All law is compromise, anybody who thinks differently is ignorant. Or do you prefer to make uninformed generalizations? I'll likely be modded down here because of what I say is controversial to those who refuse to be informed.
What strict constitutionalists generally assert is what is clearly stated in Article VI, "This Constitution...shall be the supreme Law of the Land." That is, that the written constitution is a law, and shall be interpreted as such. Importantly, not enact law, nor make assessments in which policies to apply to the Constitution that are not clearly stated.
What the Court has done over the past 50 years is exert political authority, in violation of its mandate, by making policy decisions. One example is the assertion of when somebody has reached an age of majority for execution, or the policy decision that the Eighth Amendment should be viewed in a "deterrence" or "punishment" capacity. Those are policy, and therefore political, decisions. This has led to categorical bars to entire classes of legislation, not based on a legitimate interpretation of the Constitution, but on the viewpoint of a few who prefer to ignore the legitimate role of the Constitution.
In truth, the Constitution has rules for changing its meaning, rules that have been successfully employed dozens of times, with legitimate changes occurring only about 29 times. The "living constitutional" camp decry the written meaning as being etched in stone--which it should be. If you don't like it change it. What those who prefer the written constitution acknowledge is their views are not truely majoritarian enough, which makes them anti-democratic.
The fact that the Court is embroiled in politics demonstrates is its violation of its Constitutional mandate; brought on by living constitutionalists.
What is sad about this is the rise of the Conservatives is anchored in the politization of the Courts. If the Courts would return to legitimate authority, then the Conservative movement would whither.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
And let's not forget that from a "free market" point of view, companies themselves, may, in fact, disrupt markets by acting as micro-governments, any time they interfere with the process by which a group of self-interested people acting as a group turns into a self-interested group (which, if you haven't considered this before, is a pre-requisite to being able to talk about a large scale free market, since otherwise you can no longer consider companies to be rational entities).
The key example of this is when banks offered traders year end performance based bonus packages, which skewed the payoffs for the traders so that they had unlimited upside and finite downside, thus providing an incentive for the individual traders to take on ungodly amounts of risk that threatened the survival of the companies that they worked for - that the traders did this was not stupid, it was entirely rational from an individual point of view (I encourage you to work out the expected payoffs if you doubt this, every time I've done it I come the the inevitable conclusion that as a trader you should take on as much risk in fairly "safe" bets as possible (you want fairly safe bets so that you're allowed to take on a ton of them without hurting your individually measured risk profile)...turns out, a great way to do this is by dipping into the CDO market like CRAZY!). That is a free-market violation, which ironically enough emerged through free market negotiations.
A perfectly free market is a wonderful theoretical entity; so is a perfectly benevolent and prescient dictator. Unfortunately neither one tends to be sustainable in practice, so we have to do our best to maintain a productive balance between the two extremes. Such is the fundamental problem of governance, and the reason that extremists of any stripe are always wrong.
What's next, Google AdSense? (Buy two presidents, get one free!)
Netcraft site report
On the upside, they dumped Solaris for Linux, but is there anything left that your government has *not* outsourced to the private sector, yet?
Oh, I don't know.... He's pretty effectively proven that skill in the field of linguistics doesn't automatically translate to political or economic brilliance. Fairly good illustration of the dangers of combining extreme specialization with a sense of personal infallibility.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Sarah Palin
I called him out because he is a constitutional lawyer and he knows that civil unions will not stand the equal protection and separate but equal decisions by the supreme court; so is he lying to get gay marriage enacted and to get elected or is he telling the truth and he believes that homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as he does? So he is either a liar or a bigot. I would rather a politician be a liar I suppose. Do you prefer liars?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Torture is not outlawed.
The Geneva Convention is an agreement between nations. The terrorists are not *bound* to *any* nation, and thus the convention does not apply to them as they have no part in the agreement.
The war of aggression was duly allowed by congress. In reference to Iraq, Saddam himself had used such weapons in the past and made no pretense of *not* currently having them, going so far as to disallow any way to possibly prove he did not.
The media did more politicizing than anyone in office did. Stop watching the news.
The constitution does not apply to citizens of other nations, or non-nationalized individuals. it helps to have context, doesn't it?
I'm not even asking for an outright rebellion. But it would be nice to see the same people who rant about protecting the constitution, actually give a damn about the constitution in the first place. Like not re-electing him in 2004, you know? Or actually having more important issues to care about and/or question about Obama than directly launching into "OMG, he's gonna make us turn guns in" strawmen. That that's their top concern about a president or government, tells me what their priorities are.
Yes, I know the dictum, "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." I'm not proposing that you skip the first 3. But I'd have thought that people who care that much about their democracy would go at least up to the second. And from what I see, the right used even the first box more to fling mud at anyone opposing Bush, than to actually defend liberty.
_That_ is what confuses me. You'd think that people who proclaim themselves so ready to even die for their rights, would actually give a flying fuck about those rights in the first place.
Hey, since supposedly you're the one with the critical thinking, why don't you enlighten me there?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I agree that his social science hypothesis testing approach is interesting, but unfortunately he also is subject to great bias in his selection of data to test his hypotheses.
R.e. your sig: years ago, I got into an argument with a Sandanista supporter over Sandinista censorship of the opposition newspaper. She claimed that it was OK (wartime and all that) while I tried to argue that it was never OK for a gov't to censor speach. Given the Wiki article you pointed me to which used NYTimes reporting on the Sandinistas as an example that proves his point, I wonder if Chomsky would agree that his thesis applies, too, when his cause celebre is the power structure (e.g. consider self-censorship of Chinese reporters in the PRC or perhaps the reporting of Palestinian journalists who write articles decrying the behavior of Israel without ever having interviewed an Israeli)?
FreeSpeech.org
Silly troll...you really don't understand how much has already been spent by the prior 8 years on frivolity?
Keep looking into it...right through the energy contracts, wars, the military contracts, the bailout, the tax cuts and finally, the reduction in domestic services. All the way back to 2000's inauguration...
You'll find 176m on small side of waste. Pick yer battles more wisely.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution...
People always confuse 'delegated' with 'enumerated'. What's funny is that by the time that he wrote that amendment, Madison was well aware of what many saw of over reaching of the 'general welfare' clause, yet the ninth amendment uses 'enumerated' and the Tenth 'delegated'. There are many ways to delegate something, including a general welfare mandate.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
... it looks like Ted Stevens' (widely-theorized) strategy of "Hurry up and get convicted before Bush leaves, then hope for a pardon" didn't pan out.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm still looking around for that Time magazine feature I stashed in a box somewhere, the one that had three articles covering the three main Fundamentalist movements: Christianity, Islam, and Capitalism. For real! A rare glimpse behind the curtain. It was about 10 years ago.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Check this out: "Millions of Americans have powered President Obama's journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the internet to play a role in shaping our country's future." [a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/change_has_come_to_whitehouse-gov/">source].
It's official—it's no longer necessary to capitalize the word internet.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
The government runs the Fire Departments and yet I don't think there's anybody who speaks ill of Fire Departments (especially in a post-9/11 world).
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
How ironic, the first ad i see is 'free government money'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well before you were born.
The thing most anti-business-regulation folks seem to be passing over is that the regulations were not created in a vacuum. They were explicitly created due to specific malfeasance.
Example: the financial reporting rules for public corporations were created due to public corporations lying about their finances...in the 1800s.
Another Example: Financial regulations that restricted how banks could lend, and restricted how non-banks could lend. We created them during and after the great depression upon seeing how bad-acting banks caused a great deal of financial trouble for the country as a whole. Those restrictions were eased in 1998, 2001 and 2003, due to pressure of anti-regulation folks. Bad-acting banks and now bank-like-entities repeated the same abuses from the 1920s & 30s, and we get another bust.
Randian libertarian utopia sounds great on paper, but in practice it ends up working as all other utopian philosophies. Not at all.
Why would the OP call him "B. Hussein Obama"? Is that supposed to mean something?
It means the OP is an ignorant idiot who doesn't know a damn thing about names in use for humans on planet Earth. The name "Hussein" means something like "handsome" if I recall and it's usually a surname. It also happens to be the family name of the Jordanian royal family.
Making a big deal out of his name is rather 3rd grade if you ask me.
Gov't run health care? No thanks.
You must have the luxury of health care. There are tens of millions of people who would be happy to have ANY health care.
paintball
Why should he be denied what the previous guy in office, who helped get us to this mess, got?
It's also paid for by private funds - not tax dollars.
It also generates revenue (tourism dollars, media ad buys, etc)
It also makes people happy to see the president they elect take the oath
It also lets the world know there is a new sheriff in town.
Wrong, it is only PARTLY paid for by private funds,MOST is from public.
This inauguration is 100+ MILLION more than any other. Obama is hardly getting less than the previous guy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/14/barack-obama-inauguration-cost
It's disappointing that Slashdot mods rated GP as a flamebait. I think the point is right. This country is in an awful state and $160 million is ridiculous.
You're so busy looking at the bill of rights that you seem to have forgotten what's in the main body of the constitution.
If it's for the "general welfare", and not barred anywhere else in the constitution, the government has the right to do it. It's right in Article I. And it's up at the top of the heap of vague phrases.
Other Constitutional Law scholars would point out that the Founding Fathers certainly did not expect that their 12-page document would be exclusive and exhaustive, but should rather be interpreted as rough guidelines with a few explicit points
Unfortunately, much of the federal government is run by the extreme end of that camp, which takes "interpretation" to include everything from ignoring context to leveraging semantic drift. It's not even limited to particular political polarizations. Lefty-libs like to turn a blind eye to the 2nd Amd, while Law-n-order-Righties see the 4th Amd as a perforated screen with more exceptions than rules. The stricties are unfortunately more correct than not--- their only real sin being the mistaken belief that the Constitution does not allow for the "fabrication" of unenumerated rights, which the 9th Amd clearly covers.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
That's a nice position. You hold certain ideas, but because the universe is set in such a way that they are completely impracticable, well, you get to hold the high moral ground and suffer, because well, the universe is apparently against you. The well-known "if things were my way I would do everything myself but since they are not, well, I might just as well enjoy it" position, with a pinch of ennobling martyrdom.
Yes, but it doesn't establish how the court is supposed to effect legislative law and whether or not said laws are even allowable via the constitution. Constitutionality of law is a byproduct of Marbury versus Madison, which established judicial review.
The concept of judicial powers IS *beyond* vague. WAY beyond vague. Strict constitutionalism will run into a huge constitutional crisis the second that the supreme court does something way beyond crazy like strike down entire articles of the constitution because they feel that it's within "Judicial powers." Powers that aren't really outlined or enumerated within the constitution itself, but do have weight within the system.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Yes, because an anecdote proves that.
Your observation is born out of either sheer dishonesty, or plain stupidity...
see Ford, Carter.
i hope he can make a win-win solution in paletine
This poster has obviously never dealt with a large insurance company. They make your worst possible day at the DMV seem like a lovely way to spend a week and a half.
Competition? Hah. I looked into buying my own insurance. They only wanted to charge me 3x my mortgage (and it was a 20% down loan, so we're not talking about a dinky mortgage)
I think a lot of the anti-universal healthcare folks really haven't spent much time dealing with the horrible private system we currently have.
I'll leave you with this quote from former congresswoman Suzanna Hupp, whose parents were killed in the infamous Luby's Massacre, leading to her strong support for concealed carry laws: "How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."
You could say the same about drug laws.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Left-wingers might have an irrational fear that a police officer will shoot them dead
There are more arrests for marijuana possession in this country than there are arrests for violent crimes. It is a fact that the police victimize more people than they protect. Fearing the police is not irrational at all.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Despite your claims, govt run health care in Australia is excellent, and we have the option of private care too if you want it.
We had govt run energy too, and selling it to private industry has made for more expensive, less reliable power supplies.
Its intersting you can judge a system without ever seeing it in action.
Posting AC to not undo mods.
Falconhell
And I'd like to see the same thing. But I don't hold much hope for such a thing to happen. The only route I can see happening is to just redefine marriage to mean gay or straight and be done with it. I'll settle for that.
define "defense and general welfare."
At the time of writing, "provide for the common defense" was funding to maintain the Army and Navy to whatever degree necessary to defend the country from (say) British invasion. "Promote the general welfare" meant exercising their specific enumerated powers such that the situation of the nation improved, i.e. negotiating favorable trade treaties, building useful postal roads, setting copyright and patent terms such that both the public domain and the creators benefit*. The notion that "welfare" == "government handout" is a direct outgrowth of LBJ's Great Society programs. It was never intended to mean anything of the kind.
*they screwed the pooch on this one pretty badly right off the bat with the 1831 copyright act.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I'm sure this varies by state but your blanket statement rings hollow to me in NY.
California is the same. Used to be "line up and pray your papers were in order", and now it's the "take a number" system. Works quite well.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The constitution that spells out universal suffrage and equality allowed slaves to be kept/ Blacks to be segregated and prevented women from voting. But at some point of time the interpretation of the same lines of text changed and the world changed drastically.
I would argue that most of these things you mention were changed by amending the constitution, rather than the interpretation changing.
statements like Idiots like you are what ruin this nation. do not really help.
Agreed.
Firefox with Firebug reveals that jQuery is part of the JavaScript used for the new whitehouse.gov site
He started off with "Almighty God, our Father, everything we see and everything we can't see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory."
That's just creepy.
Then he invokes Jesus which is simply rude. Not everyone is a Christian.
Was watching NBC's coverage and hearing Brian Williams liken Dick Cheney in his wheelchair to Dr. Strangelove.
This sig is false.
America has actually been dead for decades.
Richard Nixon bludgeoned it over the head, and Carter let it bleed to death. Then Reagen re-animated its corpse, giving it an insatiable hunger for human brains. America has been a flesh-eating zombie ever since.
As a registered republican and McCain voter, I have to say I'm incredibly proud of our country for, in my lifetime, going from a racially divided country struggling with civil rights to a country that is color-blind enough to elect Barak Obama.
Racism is cheap and shallow.
...on what ails this nation and what corrective measures should be taken (not that I agreed with McCain either). However, I respect the fact he is our nation's President and I sincerely wish him much success for everyone's sake. The stakes are too high and the consequences too grave for our leaders to continue their pattern of failed leadership.
*Not the original poster*
Perhaps you had forgotten, in 2004, America hadn't completely forgotten that some dudes flew a bunch of planes into some buildings or something like that. Easy for you to criticize, "some thousands of kilometres away", but you should at at least know that the U. S. of ADHD hadn't completely forgotten about the attacks until 2006.
So between having someone who was standing up to the threat and the other names on the ticket, who the fuck would have voted him out? How's that for enlightenment? You don't need critical thinking to reason that out...
News for Nerds from the Obama speech:
- Restoration of science to its proper place (a cheer went up in the crowd here at UC Berkeley)
- "Non-believers" given equal mention in the laundry list of religions.
It seems to me that the gun lovers care _only_ about exactly _one_ piece of the constitution: the second amendment.
They aren't even that fussed about the "well regulated militia" part...
The 20th Amendment makes it clear that the outgoing president's term ends at 12:00 noon. The oath is required at some point, but no political scientist in the country would say that we had no president at the stroke of 12.
And nice nitpick on Roberts. The guy is running late so all of a sudden he is a judicial activist. Uh, OK.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
you've inaugurated your first *nearly* black president
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Ah. So this time you had the choice of a candidate that even approximately claimed to represent your views.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It seems to me that the gun lovers care _only_ about exactly _one_ piece of the constitution: the second amendment.
They aren't even that fussed about the "well regulated militia" part...
Of course they aren't fussed about it. Why aren't they fussed about it? Because they understand it.
Whereas those who keep bringing up "well regulated militia" don't have the slightest clue about the meaning of "well regulated" or "militia."
Can you describe specifically which substantial powers each of those relinquished? I appreciate the history lesson.
I am continually amazed at the staying power of right wing nutbar myths.
Right, and "Bush lied", rather than operated in good faith on bad intelligence, or Bush "stole the election" (even though not a single recount by the media has ever shown Gore, even with his cherry-picking of votes, would have been the winner), the latter being repeated by Bob Shrum two days ago. Or that firing US Attorneys is something that only Bush did and it is unprecedented.
Glad those left-wing myths have no staying power!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Indeed. I renewed my license last year. I got an email telling me I was due. I logged in to the Nevada DMV's website, gave them the necessary information. A few weeks later, a sticker showed up, which I stuck to the back of my license. I didn't even have to go into the DMV to renew my license.
Rhapsody in Numbers
"Change has (already) come to America."
That was fast! I was skeptical at this change business, but now that it has happened, I have to admit I was wrong, and now I am a believer.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
O. I've mentioned that bit about declarations of war requiring the approval of 2/3 of the Senate a few times. But you're right. Nobody declares war anymore, they just start fighting.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This is slightly offtopic, but Lysander Spooner produced a pretty good argument that slavery was unconstitutional. Basically an argument based on original meaning.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
I had a clever retort to that, but I completely forgot about it now that my wife is trying to get me to make her more pregnant...
Are you adequate?
Yeah, I've noticed. But unlike you, I actually have a working knowledge of history...
In the first place, ignoring/reinterpreting the Constitution has been going on since about the time the ink was dry on it. In the second place, it's *hard* (deliberately so) to amend the Constitution.
The Constitution is neither distant nor routed around - it's working as designed.
Actually, we're getting offtopic, but the 9/11 hysteria is another... interesting thing.
See, the USA had _one_ such incident in _years_. If you look at the number of terrorist attacks in the USA, say, the year _before_ that, you'll notice there were exactly zero. In fact, I can't remember any major act of terrorism there before 9/11 all the way to the Unabomber.
After that, also zero. Now you could justify the ones after that as being because of increased security (theatre), but it's hard not to notice that there were exactly zero without that security theatre too, and before giving up any liberties.
So America agreed to have its liberties trampled over... a one-off (if spectacular) act of terrorism.
By comparison, the Brits didn't suspend their liberties over _decades_ of shelling and bombing by the IRA. (And those guys knew how to bomb. There were attacks with batteries of improvised mortars mounted in a van even on the PM's residence.) Admittedly, recently they seem to have imported the USA idea that they can turn more totalitarian over even more ridiculous "bombing attempts", like some guy loading a sack of nails in his car and setting it on fire. (It just burned, btw.)
Spain didn't suspend its liberties over some pretty spectacular bombings, some pretty recent. Japan didn't move towards totalitarianism after, say, the Tokyo poison gas attacks in the subway. Etc.
Heck, Israel is bombed _daily_ by various radical Islamist groups. If they had moved towards authoritarianism for each major incident as much as the USA did for 9/11, they'd be a complete dictatorship by now. AFAIK, they aren't.
But in the USA you (at least as in, "you the poster I answer to") seem to think that _one_ terror incident warrants re-electing a guy who's just about wiped his arse with the constitution in the name of that one attack. Interesting.
So, no, I had not forgotten. I was genuinely surprised that _that_ lame excuse worked. Again.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sounds quite a bit like any given religion to me... perhaps it's the nature of man that is the problem.
Ding ding ding! No more calls. We have a winner.
"I think the war on drugs has been a utter failure, and I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQr9ezr8UeA
I'd like to see the first presidential address start out with:
"Well, I guess you elected me thinking I was yet another big government fascist, here to collect everyone's money and nationalize industries. Unfortunately for the lazy, the jealous, and bailout whores, I am a strict Constitutionalist and it's time to start letting people keep what they earn and give them their freedoms back."
Yeah, I know - but you asked what I HOPED for, not what I expected.
I expect BIGGER government, because the answer to failed big government is always, necessarily, more big government. I think Hayek predicted this in Road to Serfdom.
We'll watch government collect lots of money from the productive, and divert it to politically motivated government projects, and we'll call it "progress"
We'll repeat the mistakes that create the Great Depression. We'll continue massively inflating the money supply, creating government programs to compete with private industry by (laugh) "creating" jobs.
We'll rip some freedoms away from some people that don't need them, like those pesky gun owners.
When it fails, we'll grand speeches about how it failed because we simply didn't spend ENOUGH of taxpayer's trillions, we didn't have ENOUGH bureaucrats, and we need MORE big government programs - because that's why government always fails, there's just not enough of it.
Oh, and we'll buy it, too - hook, line, and sinker - and we'll vote for "more of the same", just like we did this time. Hope for change my ass, same establishment is running the show, folks - nothing new to see here.
News Flash: The "Gun-Loving right" hated Bush too. And by "right", I mean the actual, political right. Not the southern whackjob that is the republican party.
I hope you'll forgive me for replying a second time to your post, but there is more I want to say. I am 30 years old, British, and not so well off. The fact that i can see properly to type this message is thanks to our national health service.
Count all the inoculations I've had free of charge against numerous diseases that could have ruined my life, and for all I know I may even owe that life to free, socialised healthcare. I might resent my tax bill but I wouldn't change our system for any reason.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
We the people have discovered we can just vote ourselves money - usually the best way to end a republic.
I suspect anyone posting what you said probably isn't all too familiar with said Constitution.
do you talk about "printing press lovers"
I've also used such terms before as "cat lovers", "dog lovers", "FPS lovers" and a few others. I'll often even describe myself in terms of being a lover of this or that. I often joke about being in love with my computer.
It's only the gun crowd that instantly throws a fit if you as much as hint at them even liking guns, much less loving them. In fact, I've had people throw tantrums even at mentioning the NRA and owners of assault-rifles (converted to semi-automatic, to be sure) in a thread about what weapons would be available in a post-nuclear Fallout-type world. It seems to me weird to see the same people who obviously like guns, take it automatically as a grievous insult if you even hint at it. You don't see cat lovers throw a tantrum if you call them that.
It seems to me like if I really wanted that particular designation to be an insult by itself, I could have phrased it as an actual insult, no? From something moderately insulting like "gun fetishists" to something really insulting like calling that gun a penis size compensator. I didn't and I don't. Didn't seem to me like "gun loving" would offer much insult by itself.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I can summarize. Don't really want to take the time to look up the specific acts of Congress.
Nixon seized a great deal of executive power. It's where the "unitary executive" theory got it's first real attempt. (And his aides became W's aids, hence the return of the unitary executive)
During Ford, and mostly Carter, much of Nixon's power grabs were taken back by Congress and the Judiciary. Ford and Carter signed the legislation (example: the War Powers Act)
actually, from abc news : "The federal government estimates that it will spend roughly $49 million on the inaugural weekend. Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland have requested another $75 million from the federal government to help pay for their share of police, fire and medical services."
so it is paid for in tax dollars with a ton of hidden costs. you're fucking wrong, you made shit up. you're no different than obama. a fucking liar making up lies. what's good for the goose is good for the gander, motherfucker. get use to it, this is just the beginning of what you lying bitches are going to get. a big old foot up your ass.
My current provider is BCBS, and they're terrible. I had insurance through the university I worked for, and while it wasn't great, it was better than this BS. I *think* a lot of that has to do with the fact that it was a very large university, with a very large hospital system itself - so they kind of had a clue.
I'm with you on airlines though, but I think the problem is less the unions, and more they CEO's who ask for bailouts and pocket it. It alwasy strikes me as odd when people blame the workers, and not the people running the ship.
You've got a good point. Both are fault, I'd say. Pilots in general are severely underpaid for what they do and the responsibility they have. No, flying a plane isn't rocket science, but if you F it up good enough you're going to kill a couple of hundred people at least. That should be worth something. However, it seems relevant to point out that the only modern airline to ever turn a profit is Southwest - IIRC the only unionized folks are some of the ground people - machinists, etc. I think SWA recently had their first quarter where they were in the red. They're doing something right - probably several things. I'll also point out that I've never once had a problem with SWA that couldn't be worked out. The people have always treated me very well, and I can't recall any of them ever being nasty even when things got a little bit crazy.
We looked at this situation a little bit in an aviation survey course, and talked about why the legacy (Delta, United, etc) carriers have such a hard time - and it is basically because they still haven't figured out how to operate in a market where the price isn't controlled by the government. Their pay structure favors, as you mentioned, executives and middle managers and they've been unable to wrench themselves from the old business models.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
Not as direct as a Kurzweil, but good to hear. Thanks, by the way, for the only non-facetious reply.
Heterosexual people have the right to marry whoever they chose.
Homosexual people don't.
Homosexual people find themselves in exactly the same position "interracial" marriages found themselves decades ago: with state governments curtailing their freedoms to pursue happiness as they see fit.
The time will come when people will not understand how such barbaric impositions were in place.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The decision to go to a war based on lies is the responsibility of a single man.
The decision to allow torture and illegal detention of people without trial was the decision of a single man.
I could carry on, it should be clear that many decisions that affected (fatally in many cases) the lives of thousands (perhaps millions) of people where the legal and moral responsibility of one single person.
I hope that individual never finds any peace.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Advisers advice.
Rulers take decisions and should be held accountable for them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You always come closest to unattainable things while you're still striving to reach them.
Property is theft.
I'd also like to offer our apologies to our neighbors to the north (I think you call yourselves canadians, or is it citizens of the commonwealth)
I'm sorry your government transition is such a mess. What's that weird thing Prime Minister Stephen Harper has going with Governer General Michaëlle Jean to circumvent the government? I guess that whole commonwealth thing isn't working out very well for you. After all it's not like you actually had a choice to avoid being part of that whole thing. I mean nobody ever was able to get out from under that broken system (short of a revolution)...
I'm sorry about that whole mad cow beef ban. Look, we have enough crazy people here already, we'd prefer as many crazies as possible stay above the 49th parallel...
I'm sorry for Brent Hayden in the olympics. I guess he had high hopes setting canadian swimming records and all. Too bad that the canadian record wasn't even good enough to qualify for the medal rounds...
I'm sorry about Molson. Of all the beer companies to merge with you got dumped with Coors light. At least you didn't get Bud or Miller...
I'm sorry about those pesky car companies. Don't worry, we'll start the process to move them back down south and make sure that they won't bother you economy with those high-paying union jobs.
I'm sorry about all the energy crash. Turns out we actually couldn't afford your energy, so we'll be dialing back our economy so you don't have to sell it to us anymore. Don't worry, china will be asking for it soon and paying in american dollars. I'm sure you can find some place to spend that money.
As for the trees, don't worry. We don't read books any more and our housing market is in the dumpers, so we won't be needing them anymore. Don't worry, though, china will be asking for them soon and paying in american dollars. I'm sure you can find some place to spend those green backs.
Oh yeah, don't forget to shut off those lights, the parties over and we all know canadian's aren't scared of the dark ;^)
Or that firing US Attorneys is something that only Bush did and it is unprecedented.
Nice try, Karl Rove. The way that Bush did it is unprecedented, because only certain Attorneys were fired. Clinton, for example, fired ALL 90-something of them. There's a fine line between sweeping out everyone, and sweeping out just the ones that aren't "loyal Bushies". That phrase in quotes alone ought to make you throw up in your mouth a little bit, if you have any respect for what these people are supposed to do.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
He is saying you have to do something about your country, he can't do it all alone.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Never.
But nice quantum leap of logic there...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Unfortunately. So is lynching black people.
You must conveniently forget that he specifically created and tasked an office under his control to produce that bad intelligence at all costs.
You also must conveniently disregard the thousands of african americans who were wrongfully purged from voting registrations in Florida in 2000. As the recount came within under 500 votes difference, the recount was called off by the voting authority in charge (can't remember the cunts name), who also happened to be a major member of the Bush election party.
Sure, when you ignore the facts, you've got a point.... :rolleyes:
It is all there in bloody Wikipedia.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Oh yeah, lets ignore one was preaching hate and war while the other is promising noble goals.
But yeah, lets keep making idiotic comparisons for the sake of argument.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...on electing a president who can speak English.
it only took the white settlers and their descendants 240 years or thereabouts to mend some of the damage done (slavery, genocide of original American inhabitants).
That suspicious bastard had no reason whatsoever to doubt the good intentions of the white folk in the US of A !
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most of We The People wouldn't know the Constitution from the holes in their asses, pick and choose the parts of it they want to pay attention to and modify the meaning of other parts to their liking, or simply don't care what it has to say in the first place.
Coincidentally, you could say the exact same thing about the Bible. Of course, many people seem to think the Bible is also a governing document of this nation, so I suppose it's fitting that they would treat the two the same way.
What is this 'bible' you speak of? Do they have it at Borders?
Don't tell me its some kind of "Chicken Soup for the..." spinoff. Those books are so preachy and the stories are so obviously fake.
I enjoyed the inaugural ceremony up until the benediction. I even thought the benediction was fine until the end when Lowery, trying to be funny, added his racist epithets. I am a Christian, but when I hear trash like this coming from those who are supposed to be spiritual leaders, I no longer wonder why so many are fighting to remove any semblance of religion from public view. I found his benediction offensive, irreverent and blasphemous. It makes me wonder about all these black ministers that call themselves "Reverend." It clearly has nothing to do with God, love, or spiritual guidance; the title merely provides a back-door approach for the realization of political ambitions that could not be obtained through legitimate channels. Although I did not vote for Obama, I will support him as president. If he can do even 1% of the things he promises, he will definitely work wonders for this country of ours. Obama has thus far been very careful not to make his campaign and presidency about race, it's a shame this "Reverend" had to go and say what he did.
What if he then refused to take the oath!
Would he be fired? By whom? :)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Fair enough. I'd say that they balanced those things out with the DOE and such, but you absolutely met my challenge, so I stand corrected. That said, there has been, while not monotonic, at least long-term smoothly net growth in the federal government's power and size since July 4, 1776. That's why I usually write in "Veto Bot 9000" for President.
I saw a video where he answered a similar question, and his general response was that being vilified by the US media doesn't automatically mean that they're "the good guys". In the case the media coverage of the Sandanistas made a good example for his point about media coverage. If the book had been written today, it might have mentioned Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; both of them certainly first-class douchebags, and both certainly subject to biased coverage by the media in the US.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
What if Bush had pulled out a gun and shot him a 20 minutes to noon!? He would have still been president - would different rules apply? Or would they just arrest him a second past noon? :)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I just love stuff like this, because it's mostly hyperbole and a leftist view of the world.
What color is the sky in your world?
Quote something to make it clear what you are talking about.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Something tells me that even if there was some legal loophole, the American people wouldn't let him get away with it.
Kudos. You managed to type all that without saying a single thing.
I work at a school, and am looking to download a HD version of the swearing in / speech / anything else interested & related (I've already got a few other inaugurations)
I want to project them on our big auditorium screen (so, the better the resolution and less flash videoish the better) and also hand them out to teachers on DVD for use in class.
Anyone got anything going on?
From my years of study on the topic, I have come to the conclusion that it merely meant that which, within the scope of the Federal Powers (laid out in the subsequent 17 paragraphs) and under the limitations placed upon the Federal Powers (laid out in Article 1, Section 9), was beneficial to the general public.
This should be contrasted with "Special (or Specific) Welfare", which is something that would only benefit one portion of the populace.
HAY MODS!
And any second we aren't spending our lives toiling away in factories is time wasted. It is unpatriotic to take a day off to watch an inauguration! If you want to help America recover from this recession, stop taking time off and get back to the salt mine for your 12 hour shift. Weekends are for the week.
Obey.
cORRECT. MPU. You know what that means.
But can you really ignore the rate of negative change?
I'd say that the Integral term is responsible for the above statement.
Although the Derivative term could also be a likely factor.
Money is the root of all evil?
Please. There are lots of different opinions about what the "Constitutional tasks" of the government are. Even the people who wrote the thing didn't completely agree on what they were. Some early Americans insisted that a standing army or a professional police force were unconstitutional.
Imagining that there's some ideal government buried in the constitution is silly. It's on the same order as the fundamentalist demand that we judge all our moral, social, and scientific ideas solely on whether they agree with the Bible — another document that's full of ambiguity.
Which is not to run down either the Constitution or the Bible. Both are thoughtful attempts to tell lots of different people how to live together. Both are complicated, inconsistent, and ambiguous because that's how life is. Both provide good rules — but rules that need to be read with some intelligence. Claiming you're the only interpreter reading the document "literally" ends up being a selective reading designed to back up your own prejudices.
If you think that the roll of government needs to be cut way back, then argue that idea on its own merits. Don't hide behind a magic invocation of holy writ.
by 'saving' a home you mean... having the taxpayers pay off someone's mortgage?
Which is the greater benefit: saving 340 homes at $500,000 each, or giving 2 million attendees hope for the future with a big ceremony?
I assumed you meant the answer to that rhetorical question to be saving people's homes... you know, helping people in desperate times rather than giving people warm fuzzy feelings with inspiring words and marching bands.
But I reread and now I'm not sure.
Property is theft.
As for the slave issue, this country was on the verge of collapse just a few years after the War of Independence... we NEEDED a Constitution or we would crumble and be conquered by another nation. The Founding Fathers recognized these very real dangers and so compromised with the South on the issue to accomplish the more urgent need. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers recognized that allowing slavery was hypocritical and wrong, but they left it to another generation to resolve. Of all possible solutions to the problem, Lincoln chose the worst course of action. It's unfortunate, but it's over now, so we move forward.
It really irritates me when people point to the slavery issue to say that there was all sorts of confusion built into the Constitution. That is utterly bogus. Yes, the principles of the Individual Liberty are at odds with the principles of Slavery, but you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The rest of the Constitution makes perfect sense and it is deceptive to suggest otherwise.
If you ever hope to understand the Constitution, you must read it (and interpret it) in the context of the time and circumstances in which it was written (yes, I am *mostly* a contextualist), only when you understand what the document meant when it was written can you even begin to understand how it should be interpreted today.
The road to hell...
mod up grandparent!
MOD up the great grandparent
mod up great great grandparent! eh!
While I mostly agree with the Chomsky model, I think there's one fairly significant filter that he didn't include. I'd probably label it as the Sensationalist filter. Namely that news organizations are increasingly finding themselves competing for mindshare as the number of news sources have proliferated. So news items that are likely to garner viewership are promoted while mundane issues are put on the back burner, if covered at all.
News outlets are quick to play to our fears and base instincts. It's why terrorist attacks are blown completely out of proportion...the media wants us to believe that it could happen to us at any time and that we need to keep tuning in for the latest updates. When, in reality, there are half a dozen ways that we could die in his our own houses that are each statistically far more likely to happen to each and every one of us. It's why people are afraid of flying in an airplane and have almost no fear of riding in a car. It's why people swimming at the beach are afraid of a shark attack and completely oblivious to any possible undertow.
These are all a result of the media playing to our fears for ratings. I think Chomsky missed this filter in his analysis.
you spelled twat wrong you illiterate twat!
As one of the first-time voters in this election that helped elect President Obama, I actually broke down and cried during his inaugural speech when we were watching the news coverage today in class. I have never been so happy after an election, especially one in which I played (or at least feel as though I played) such an important part.
I doubt it. 2 years ago, MD Lt. Gov Michael Steele ran for the Senate. And largely black audiences heckled him and called him Uncle Tom and threw "Oreos" at the stage -- to imply that he is half black, half white.
They treat Barry Soetoro so well because he's a Democrat -- if a black man had tried to run for President on the Republican ticket, he would have been lynched by the Democrats, media, and "urban population" (media slang for black people).
From wikipedia, the font of all knowledge:
The dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy is a United States political scandal initiated by the unprecedented[1] midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys on December 7, 2006 by the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice.
(snip)
The dismissed U.S. Attorneys had all been appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate, more than four years earlier.
Aside from wanting replacements more in sync with a specific agenda, why was this done? Apparently even the administration couldn't say exactly why:
Members of Congress investigating the dismissals have found that sworn testimony from Department of Justice officials appears to contradict internal Department memoranda and e-mail, and that possibly Congress was deliberately misled.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
... but the poetry that followed was making the Vogons worried it would surpass theirs as the third worst in the universe.
My life's goal is to get a score of +3!
There are plenty of people in the gun loving right who fit your description, but that is definitely not true of all gun owners. There are those who own a gun, voted against Bush and for Obama and have no fear that he will try to take their guns away.
Guns ARE a legitimate check and balance of last resort. They don't tend to get used too early since a single person standing up to his government simply ends up dead. It takes many in consensus to use guns as a check and balance.
I am a native born american citizen, a native born buddist (not converted), and strong believer, but I am not christian, nor muslim, nor jewish, nor hindu...
Personally, I think all this crap should be out of government (including taking an oath on a bible and having tax exempt charities at all including churches).
However, to be truthful, actually I'm not really that offended by obama in particular, but to the self-rightous obama cheersquad that think by just mentioning something like this in a speech means we automatically get respect for our religion as we are often cast as non-belivers by people like you who exhibit no sensitivity at all to our believe system or our religion. Personally, I think christian, muslim, jewish, are the real non-believers (all these religions seem to profess more belief in written translated artifact books and anecdotal reports from questionable prophets than learning universal truths)...
But I digress ;^)
Excuse me if I think for myself for a second, instead of relying on an article some random dude wrote. Every president in history stocks his adminstration full of his supporters and true believers, those who agree with his views. That's why we have elections, and they have consequesnces. Just like Clinton and every president before Bush did, Bush picked law enforcement guys who see eye-to-eye with the chief law enforcement officer in the country.
There is a reason US Attorneys are POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS rather than civil service jobs. The system is purposely set up for the president to appoint people who will execute the laws as he sees fit, since he (and the VP) is the one guy in the whole branch who is actually elected! But suddenly, for the first time in 200+ years, political appointments are not supposed to be political. I guess you would want a bunch of Bush appointees who disagree with Obama's vision of justice to not be fired? Should Obama also keep all of Bush's other appointees too? Maybe hire Karl Rove, lest he be considered "political?"
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
The nitpick isn't that he was running late, but that he got the Constitutionally-mandated wording wrong.
Obama flubbed too. I don't think it's really fair to start nitpicking this early, especially on the most exciting day of a man's life; but it is kind of funny that the rap on Bush (fairly) was that he couldn't talk, and of course Obama is oh-so-articulate. But it was Obama, not Bush who flubbed his oath.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Sheriff Obama (as Bart from Blazing Saddles): "Ooh, baby, you are so talented! And they are so DUMB!"
Ahhh, public school liberal brainwashing shows through so clearly. (By the way, I went to public school but seem to have come detached from the brainwashing system at some point)
Remember when everyone bitched about Bush's (private) $40M inauguration celebration?
How much did Michelle Obama's dress cost?
Why the hell is anyone this excited about a US president in the first place?
He's not a messiah. He's not Jesus Christ.
He's an executive officer in the US government.
"... hope..." - you people are so fucking brainless. This isn't a movie, this is the real world - you know, that thing outside of your TV/iPod/PC, surrounding your Starbuck's coffee cup and college diploma that was paid for with your parents' hard-earned money.
Yea, continue trying to rationalize every little thing your beloved savior does which contradicts complaints you've been told to have about conservatives. There is no talking sense in to you.
REMEMBER:
The proof is in the pudding.
Who cares who's president. We must master our lives and help our neighbors, and not expect everything to be provided to us by any government. We don't need a government if we can self-organize.
What scares me isn't Obama or his campaign promises. What scares me is the mob that hangs on his every word, and is seemingly convinced that he can Do No Wrong. I watched the inauguration, and the mob started chanting Obama! Obama!
It terrified me, because my family remembers another politician who also had a mob. A mob who also hung on the politician's every word, and also believed he could Do No Wrong.
Only the chant was different: It wasn't Obama, it was Sieg heil.
Regards;
It's gotta be a record to have over 1340 comments for a single topic!!
I was like..holy shit!!
BTW.. The President's speech is simply awesome and can't wait for things to get better again.
Roberts: "Are you prepared to take the oath senator?"
Obama: "I am"
Roberts: "I Barack Hussein Obama..."
Obama: "I Barack"
Roberts: "...do solemnly swear"
Obama: "I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear"
Roberts: "That I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully"
Obama: "That I will execute..."
Roberts: "The off/faithfully the pres/the office of President of the United States"
Obama: "The office of President of the United States faithfully"
Roberts: "And will to the best of my ability"
Obama:"And will to the best of my ability"
Roberts: "Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"
Obama: "Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"
Roberts: "So help you God?"
Obama: "So help me God"
Roberts: "Congratulations Mr. President"
Well at least it didn't go like this:
Roberts: "I Barack Hussein Obama, secret muslim, and socialist...."
Also the "so help me God" bit is optional...
Why is it that anything anti-government around here always gets modded down, anyway? And no, I don't mean anti-government in the sense of "look, the government did something wrong", I mean anything honestly anti-government. Agree or not, the least a person should do is honestly consider such opinions rather than blindly labeling them as "flamebait". Parent is actually a fairly enlightened contribution to the discussion and a welcome change from the large number of statist posts around here.
RON PAUL 2012!
Fuck you Bush along with your Nazi family and friends.
Fuck you redneck white bread corn fed motherfuckers.
Fuck you elitist rich shitheads.
Fuck you New World Order.
Long live the PEOPLE!
Viva OBAMA!
Viva CHAVEZ!
. . . losers.
Ha ha ha!
Chief Justice John Roberts had good reason to choke!
Criminal investigations begun years ago [clandestine] within the DoJ can now move swiftly to arrests and prosecutions.
The Perps -- George Walker Bush, "Dick" Cheney, all former members of the White House Staff, All Cabinet Officials, all appointees.
Mr. Hor. John Roberts is high on the list for answering to crimes of torture, wire fruad, impersonation of a Federal Employee, Murder, Kidnap, Grand Theft, and Abdication of the Constitution of the United States of American and all States Constitutions, all States Laws, all Local Ordinances and Laws, and Crimes Against Humanity outside the United States of America.
"Hang'm High."
Just to freshen your memory, the Oklahoma City bombing was a major act of terrorism (and according to the Wikipedia article the deadliest act prior to 9/11).
Ok, I pondered which approach to use as commentary on your argument until reading every one of your posts today, and have finally come to a conclusion:
::
Gay man : "Marry opposite sex (Woman)"
::
Gay man : "Marry opposite sex (undesirable outcome for the Gay man)"
You and your opponents are not acknowledging the EXACT view of each other.
While you would make a more effective argument by stating disclaimers ahead of time ("I'm not against gay marriage, I'm against use of existing law as assuming such rights, when it doesn't... so fight to change that correctly if you so desire"), you do make 99% correct arguments.
However, you missed one fallacy: You offer "marriage to someone of the opposite sex" as an equal right for a gay man and a straight man. While you're obviously intelligent enough to have caught the fallacy, your blatant disregard for it in this last paragraph of your last post only angers your opponent, and therefore galvanizes them to flame on. If that was your intent (fluster your opponent), bravo. If you wanted someone to learn something, you would have to include your opponent's proper view.
I'll do that for you.
your view is that that the following are equal:
Straight man : "Marry opposite sex (Woman)"
According to the constitution (laws), you are right.
However, not excluding human thought (morals), your opponent is correct that you have made a logical fallacy. You failed to include the relevant terms of attraction and desire. Once you do, the argument fails:
Straight man : "Marry opposite sex (desirable outcome for the Straight man)"
See? There is this missed connection between you and your opponent. You lack acknowledgment of your opponent's inclusion of humanity and its relevance to the argument. Therefore, they think you're a dick.
Just drop acid, already, and invent something better... or quit your whining.
Greatest since Kennedy? How about greatest ever. There was a 35% turn out of the Youth vote this election. That is completely and utterly unheard of. Lets hope that this victory encourages the Youth to continue voting. Their voice was heard and they won. There is no better reenforcement than winning.
We all know if he fails at anything he can just blame George Bush, and the media will eat it up. He got elected on hope, not policy. That means he doesn't have to deliver on anything, because losing hope isn't something most people blame on any one person. Despite all that, I truly hope he proves me wrong and actually becomes the first President (in my lifetime) to really do something.
It'll be ok. We're allowed to wipe our behinds with the constitution. It's freedom of speech.
Yay
For he who is without sin may be and see the future and the past. But the past is without a present, when the future meets the past in a glorious fusion of man and machine, we to shall realize that in the end. It doesn't really matter.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I do find myself feeling increasingly dubious about Obama, based on his actions thus far.
I'm a storyteller so I like to understand people's motivations. I have lots of trouble believing a story when I can't understand someone's motivation.
Very sensible. The problem is that motivations are like sound waves. There are lots of them out there, but only some will resonate with a given receiver. We don't really know what kind of receiver Obama is. Not yet, anyway, but there are indications. We've seen in his choice of appointments some counter-intuitive, if not outright bad picks. We've seen his reaction to the Israeli conflict. Through his comments about Hugo Chavez, we've gotten a small taste of his foreign policy wrt South America. None of these things are unforgivable, and people are quick to create logical justifications on his behalf. There is always the chance he is simply playing his cards close to his chest while consolidating a position of power so that when the time comes, he will be able to make bold moves with assurance. Kennedy was in bed with the Mob before he was able to move more freely in government, for goodness sake. But still. . . It's been raising eyebrows.
1) Why would he lie about all of the change he wants to bring about? What's in it for him to lie? He's wealthy. He has as much power as can be attained. He has a reputation to keep if he wants more money and power.
There are so many reasons here which can be borrowed from to answer that. Everything from psychopathy and Manchurian Candidate stuff, to simple idealism rebuffed by too big a counter force and not enough courage on his part. Do you indict Bush and Co. for war crimes when you know that 4 - 8 years down the road the GOP could turn around like the bunch of school yard egoists we saw evidenced in the McCain camp and do the same thing? Safer to not rock the boat. Do you go head to head with the Zionists by avoiding conflict in Iran? Do you attempt to tackle the root of the money problem? Bill Hicks put it well when he said, "I think after a new president is sworn in, they take him and put him in a small room deep underground. Then a screen rolls down, and they play the Kennedy Assassination for him, but it's footage nobody has ever seen, from a completely new camera angle. Then the screen rolls up, and they say, 'Do we have an understanding?'" --Simple fear could make a liar out of him. But again, we'd need to know what kind of receiver we're dealing with. We don't yet.
2) Why wouldn't he want to fix the economy? He does have a re-election coming up in ... 4 years. It's in his best interest to do whatever it takes to improve the economy.
Fixing the economy can only be done in one way. Changing the source of money. Right now, all money in the U.S., and indeed, the entire industrialized world, is borrowed at interest from a small consortium of private bankers. Very simply, to pay back that money plus interest, you need more money than exists, because all money comes from the same source. When the world defaults, as it inevitably must every 100 years or so, the banks scoop up all the collateral; land and holdings. The current banking system is deliberately set up in this manner for one reason: Power. Barak is no fool. He knows this, as anybody with real brains in government does, but he's never mentioned it. Kennedy tried to deal with this problem through the issuance of real government dollars which were minted at zero interest. After he was killed, this policy was quietly snuffed. If Barak doesn't face down this same problem, then he is just playing along to the real powers that be, which makes him just the top slave. But it's too early to judge. Maybe he'll do something about it.
3) Nobody wants an end to the war on terror. We just want it to be fought pragmatically... by first up actually fighting terrorists instead of invading secular despot nations. Fighting terror means u
We can fix two of those 3 big problems today.
Well, maybe not in one day, but certain much faster than people have been trained to think. Government is hopelessly complex, and this is by design, I think, to keep people gridlocked into place.
After all, solving problems would amount to letting all the human livestock leave their pens. --And this is quite literally true as per one of your examples!
-FL
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
Government run healthcare systems seem to work well enough for Britain, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Japan, Taiwan Switzerland, et cetera, et cetera. Government run power is why France gets 80% of its energy from nuclear plants and can tell the Middle East to get bent. Do you think a private corporation is ever going to invest in a nuclear plant, given the length of construction time and delay of ROI, when you can slap up a coal-burner and start raking in the bucks immediately? And airlines? FedGov has been bailing them out for decades - they might as well be nationalized, it's not like they could get any worse.
As an American I've come to the conclusion that the reason that these socialized programs work in other countries and not in the U.S. is not due to some fundamental problem of ideology, but that a majority of the American _people_ in both the public and private sector are myopic, mentally defective and terminally incompetent.
Well maybe someone would care if the entire Constitutional Amendment procedure weren't built to discourage Constitutional amendments for all but the highest and broadest purposes.
That's exactly what the shaman said, as he let the guy with a sickness writhe around and die instead of treating him.
I think much of it has to do with psychology. In the US we can rationalize attacks by people like the Unabomber, or school shootings, as "Well, this is an isolated incident by a fellow American who has lost it." Perhaps similarly in the UK (I'm just guessing here so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) there was a feeling that while the IRA attacks were devastating, they were done by "fellow Europeans" who believed in a cause so strongly that it led them 'round the bend. The same argument could be applied to the Aym Shinryoko cultists responsible for the subway attack.
But when you present to people the concept of Islamic terrorism - the concept of an entirely alien group of people with whom you supposedly cannot rationalize with, identify with, or even attempt to reason with, then it brings in the psychology of xenophobia and "the other" which starts people thinking that drastic measures have to be taken.
...not going to happen, under this or any administration I fear.
Thank god for that as well.
We need more government regulation, not less, or have you not been reading your financials the past year.
not to mention the government needs to step in and reform healthcare in SOME way. I'm not necessarily pointing to government run medicine, but health insurers should not be allowed to drop anyone who gets sick, deny the same, impose 12 month "waiting periods" to prevent competition, etc etc.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The way that Bush did it is unprecedented, because only certain Attorneys were fired. Clinton, for example, fired ALL 90-something of them.
You are joking, right? You are actually a Republican being sarcastic. You aren't seriously defending the practice of Clinton firing 90 of Bush 41's US Attorneys, and packing all 90 openings with lawyers who pass Clinton's litmus test - you know, the guy who fired the White House Travel Office and packed it with cronies from Arkansas? - and Criticizing Bush for firing 8 AND RETAINING 82 of Clinton's appointees. Bush is the bad guy. Amazing. Just another example of "the rules are different for Republicans."
These are POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS. They are MEANT TO BE POLITICAL. Elections have consequences, one of them being is that the person who wins the presidential election, to some degree, gets to define the executive in his image. In areas that are to be shielded from politics and patronage, (99.9 percent of government employees), they get civil service protections. US Attorneys do not have that protection for a reason - they serve at the pleasure of the president.
I love this "don't politicize" line. The US government is a political system, politics being the process by which policy is made - and implemented.
I can only hope the Democrats are dumb enough to burn political capital on investigating Bush for something he has the full right to do. Unfortunately, I believe Obama is way too smart for this, and will stop the likes Pelosi and Reid from such idiocy.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
1. While I see your point about my poor choice of example, there _have_ been Islamist terror attacks and hijackings in Europe at least yearly, all the way back to the 50's-60's. The funny thing is, most of Europe is actually friendlier to muslims and arabs than the USA opinion seems to be lately.
Plus, the example about Israel still stands. While the daily attacks sure didn't help reduce the tensions between the arabs and the jews, I don't think Israel gave up that many of their own citizens' rights in the name of it.
2. The religious tensions between the protestant English and the catholic Irish were deep enough to warrant lots of people shooting each other, rather than thinking of each other as "fellow europeans."
From what I can see, most violence is sectarian anyway. There are more arabs bombed for being the wrong shade of Islam than christians or jews bombed by the Islamists, and violence between christian sects has a history going all the way back for some 2000 years.
Long before persecuting the protestants, there were repressions of such sects as the Cathars. Or there were conflicts and wars and propaganda wars against such early sects as Arianism, Pelagianism, etc. Pelagianists are apparently the "snakes" that St Patrick drove out of Ireland, btw. Or the Byzantines felt a need to differentiate between such views as "jesus had two natures, human and divine" (dyophysite), "nah, mate, it was just one" (monophysite), and "it was two but they're inseparable" (myaphysite), and conducted purges of whoever picked the wrong choice out of those 3. There were schisms and occasionally violence, over the translation of 1-2 words. (E.g., the Syriac church had a problem with calling Mary the "mother of god", or calling Jesus the "word of god".) The Pope and the Byzantine emperor excommunicated each other about a detail as silly as whether communion bread should be leavened or unleavened. Etc.
I think that (sadly) there are enough people for which "omg, he's of another religion" trumps "he's a fellow European."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This conversation is tangentially related, but im sure this quote from the transcript of his speech will make it abundantly clear what he thinks of programs that don't work.
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.
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In either case, picking that out as even a top-100 issue in the US is so rediculous its hardly worth even getting into.
I remember a link to one of obama's feedback blogs where he answered the highest couple-hundred questions (community moderated).
The choices were linked to one of the slashdot threads and i was amazed..
50% of them were dupes, and they all said, to paraphrase.. "when the fuck are you ending the war on drugs"
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"How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."
You could say the same about drug laws.
Indeed. I, for one, do say the same thing about drug laws.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
You must conveniently forget that he specifically created and tasked an office under his control to produce that bad intelligence at all costs.
Source? The foremost investigative reporter, Bob Woodward, reported in his book Plan of Attack of how Bush challenged CIA Director George Tenet (a holdover Clinton appointee) that he needed to be absolutely sure about WMD before he asks the American people to support an invasion. Tenet said, "It's a slam dunk."
And of course every intelligence agency in the world thought Saddam had WMD. In fact the UN passed a unanimous resolution giving Saddam "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations." Did Bush control all the world's intelligence agencies or the UN Security Council? China and Russia?
You also must conveniently disregard the thousands of african americans who were wrongfully purged from voting registrations in Florida in 2000. As the recount came within under 500 votes difference, the recount was called off by the voting authority in charge (can't remember the c--- name), who also happened to be a major member of the Bush election party.
I conveniently disregarded that bogus claim because it was an unsubstantiated urban legend, the old "blacks were intimidated" myth. Silly claims made by Al Gore's lawyers or partisan Democrats.
Once again, every news organization (did they work on Bush's campaign?) that did a recount afterward found Gore would not have won by any metric, even the cherry-picked Dem-friendly districts Gore wanted. And the media was never able to find a single black vote that was wrongfully discarded, let alone 5,000.
And let's not forget the shameless attempt by Bill Beckel to disqualify 1000's of overseas military ballots because they were delivered too slowly. Beckel went on TV and defended that one, so it's not like it was even disputed.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Translation: they knew it was wrong, but did it anyway to serve their personal interests. Just like Bush and every other politician before and after.
Worst possible course of action ? By actually enforcing the law he had sworn to protect ?
I suppose it could be argued that ignoring some parts of the Constitution would had been preferable to waging a war; however, please understand that it logically follows that any other part of it can be ignored if whoever does the interpretation thinks that greater good can come from that. Basically, it stops being a law and becomes a mere suggestion. That may or may not be preferable to treating it as binding law, but if you think that Lincoln was wrong to not ignore parts of the Constitution for pragmatism's sake then don't complain if the modern-day government decides to ignore, say, the parts about the First Amendment.
Once you accept the principle of Slavery, you have abandoned the principle of Individual Liberty. Once you accept the principle that Constitution can be ignored, you have abandoned the principle that it is binding, and have no reason to compain when it is ignored again, and again and again. So, whether or not the rest of the Constitution makes sense or not is irrelevant, since the document is nothing but a piece of paper even its writers didn't actually stick to.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Same in NC. Heck, the only time I even have to go in the DMV anymore is for new things and license renewals. Duplicate licenses, registration fees, etc are all online.
Whee signature.
Good to see us rationalists getting a name check (and emphatic gesture).
Wrong, it is only PARTLY paid for by private funds,MOST is from public. This inauguration is 100+ MILLION more than any other. Obama is hardly getting less than the previous guy.
Yes, how dare he open up the mall to allow more people to view this event
The surge in spending is partly because of the Obama's decision to open the entire Mall to the public.
Other things that raised the price which is not the fault of the inauguration committee: Bad weather, Emergency services, security, Virginia and Maryland asking for money due to this event. The amount budgeted was actually 49 million. According to the article, you linked, obama asked people to hold events local to them to help alleviate the stress to DC. What does my current paragraph have in common, that the people came in the million+ range and the gov't has to acknowledge this with extra security, transportation, emergency services, etc.
I read the article you linked - where does it say that MOST of the spending came from the gov't and not private funding? The core of the event is paid by the gov't, plus things like the city services (transportation, security, emergency services, etc) are paid for by the gov't. The article does not say this - you say this. In fact, according to the article YOU quoted
Most of this new federal funding will be to deal with the huge influx of people, estimated 1.5 million to 2 million.
That is a far cry from "MOST is from public"
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
And here's another quote in favour of the right to wear arms: "No arms, no cake".
Except that "perfect" doesn't mean flawless, but rather it means complete. It's not about a union without flaws, it's about a union without state-by-state insurgence.
According to Merriam Webster dictionary the first definition is about flawless. The 5th definition is about being complete. Also the most common use of perfection is not about complete first -it is a state of flawlessness. Typically, when something is flawless there is no way to make it better so it is thusly complete. But being complete is not the first answer
Synonyms: Perfect, Whole, Entire, Intact. Entire has an "implies" and then completeness. But considering the size of the entry, this is small
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perfect
The framers of our constitution never intended for the consititution to be perfect or complete - it is a living body to be changed as the times changed. They were also arrogant SOBs and some of them were fairly racist (e.g. the three fifths clause). Thank god they had the forsight to realize someone may want to edit this document in the future.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
You always come closest to unattainable things while you're still striving to reach them.
A friend in college once told me (paraphrase) "If you think you can only get an 80...you will probably get a 70. If you think you can only get a 100...you will probably get a 90. Always think you can get a 110."
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
...or die in a fire set forth by YOUR MOM!
Arrest the people working at the Federal reserve.
Make public the identities of the people who actually own it (such as the Rockefeller family).
Make a new currency system that will enable us to actually have money that is worth something, not this worthless piece of paper with Benjamin Franklin on it (shame on the reserve for associating them with this monumental scam).
Make a new law that makes the IRS legal, and the income tax legal - because it is currently ILLEGAL to collect income tax in the US.
Stop the war in Iraq and apologize for it.
Put Bush on trial for crimes against humanity.
Restore peace and bring freedom to the galaxy...
Aside from that, hey, have fun!
Sébastien Ferland couzin2000@gmail.com freedom | liberté | libertad | freiheit | libertà libertade |
Your second paragraph responds to a point not made - you seem to think that the comments about a "more perfect union" somehow refer to a more perfect constitution. I'm going to pretend you didn't write that irrelevant bit.
Did you use the 1781 dictionary? Our language has evolved a great deal in the past 230 years. Then-common uses of words have fallen to secondary definitions in modern dictionaries. You simply can't argue "The 2009 dictionary lists this definition first, so it is obviously the one that the Framers intended 230 years ago!" and be taken seriously.
There was some commentary yesterday about how this inauguration fulfilled M L King's dream. Were that true and African American voters had split the way the non African American vote went instead of being 95+% for "The One", BHO would not now be President.
Yeah, because firing two rockets and killing ten people is obviously far worse than bombing a huge area and killing a thousand.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but seriously:
I'm half Danish and I live in Denmark. The Danes tend to be rather proud of the resistance movement that they had during the nazi occupation in the 1940's -- and I can totally understand why. Even though killing people is generally not a nice thing, I certainly cannot say that it was wrong of them to resist the nazi occupation, including by killing Germans. Likewise, I cannot say that it is wrong of the Palestinians to resist the zionist occupation, including by killing Israelis. What Israel is doing to the Palestinians amounts to an ethnical cleansing strikingly similar to what happened in Europe in the second world war.
I assume that you don't agree, but then how do you explain all the reports about Israeli soldiers shooting children up close in cold blood? Or herding large number of civilians into a building and then bombing it? What about the graffiti the soldiers had written in Gaza with statements like "Death to all arabs"? I can look up the links for you if you want me to.
At first glance it might seem odd that a people who only 65 years ago were victims of such horrible acts would turn around and do the same thing to others, but it's really not that strange; it's a common pattern -- just think of how people who were abused as children tend to be the ones who themselves abuse children later in their lifes! It really comes down to not being able to forgive the terrible things that have been done to you, and therefore hanging on to the suffering, and then, unintentionally, ending up perpetuating the same kind of actions. I have observed that kind of pattern in my own life, where I have treated people who were close to me badly, and later thought "Why in the world did I act like that", and then realized that I had been similarly treated badly earlier in my life and had not fully recovered from it, and that was what was causing my behavior. What we're seeing in Israel's behaviour is just the same thing as the bullied kid who then goes on to bully other kids -- just on a far larger scale. It's what happens when you cannot *let go* of what was done to you.
I'm sorry to have to tell you the unpleasant truth that you seem to be unaware of, but Israel's policies and military actions are inherently racist. You and everybody reading this ought to, for starters, watch this 9-minute clip from 2006, during that wave of the Israel-Lebanon war. It's an interview with a British politician who talks about the background of the conflict, and it is simply one of the clearest, well put things I have ever heard anyone say about this whole subject.
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
Uh, no. In fact, I seem to notice a big to do about one almost every year. Right now, the stink is being made about the introduction (again) of a proposal to repeal the 22nd Amendment (its being characterized by critics as an effort to make Obama President-for-Life, despite the fact that the Congressional author of the proposal has submitted identical proposals frequently in the past.)
Other recent controversies over federal Constitutional amendments that have been proposed include controversies over amendments to explicitly disclaim federal abortion rights via Constitutional amendment, to define marriage in the federal Constitution as between one man and one woman, to eliminate the requirement that the President is a natural-born citizen, to establish a line-item veto, and others. There are, typically, over 100 Constitutional amendments proposed in each two-year Congress, from every conceivable side. Contrary to your suggestion, people do, in fact, still care.
If you aren't hearing about them, and the public controversies surrounding a few of the most significant ones in each Congress, its because you aren't paying attention.
I realize people have been ignoring it since day 1. It's just snowballed far out of control.
So let me get this straight. No one amends the Constitution, they simply ignore it, because it's too hard to change, which is by design? So it's designed to be hard so that it's ignored? Well, thank god it works at least.
This still doesn't explain why amendments aren't sought for extensions of Federal power that would not have initially been tolerated.
If you aren't hearing about them, and the public controversies surrounding a few of the most significant ones in each Congress, its because you aren't paying attention.
I do know they propose them. I'm talking about the rate at which they actually pass or make a difference in society. There is nothing more a politician enjoys than make a meaningless gesture which they know will go nowhere. When I say "no one mentions them" I mean we saw more eyes on a parade yesterday than have considered amendments in the last decade.
Translation: they knew it was wrong, but did it anyway to serve their personal interests. Just like Bush and every other politician before and after.
::sigh:: There is no doubt that the Southern delegates to the convention were serving their own self-interests, but it is unfair in the extreme to attribute their actions to the entirety of the Founding Fathers. Most of them were opposed to slavery, but the decision was either accept it for the time or not have a Constitution at all, continue to descend into chaos and lose everything they won in the war. It was a trade-off... we got the Constitution, which gave the country stability (in a very chaotic time) and remains the greatest political document every created. In return, we had to accept that certain people were going to continue an immoral and horrible practice. Or would you rather we divided on this issue to begin with?
The anti-slavery faction at the convention fought over this issue for months and months. It was no easy decision and they agonized over the decision the entire time. It was so divisive that the convention was on the verge of failure a number of times. You do a disservice to these great men who sacrificed so much to give us the freedom we enjoy today when you equate what they did with what modern politicians do. They were statesmen... we haven't had a statements in a LONG time.
Worst possible course of action ? By actually enforcing the law he had sworn to protect ?
First off, let me say... Yes, the North had the moral high ground on the slavery issue. But there is a right way to accomplish something and a wrong way. The north treated the south as subordinate states and did serious damage to the Federalist traditions of this nation. Two wrongs don't make a right. Instead of treating the south as equals and coming to some agreement that would eliminate slavery peacefully, the north passed unilateral legislation that unfairly burdened the south. The south did not secede on a whim, they were given good cause to secede. Lincoln only exacerbated an already tense situation.
There weren't any amendments ratified for 61 years after the 12th amendment was ratified, which was only 16 years after the Constitution itself was ratified. And that bunch 61 years later was a direct result of the Civil War; after those three, it was another 43 years till the next amendments were ratified.
Then you've got a cluster of 5 amendments in 7 years, a thirteen year gap, and two more, then an 18 year gap and one lonely amendment, a ten year gap and then four almost evenly spaced over 10 years, and then a 21 year gap and the most recent amendment 17 years ago.
Amendments aren't being ratified any less frequently than they were in the past, unless you are comparing to the 1788-1804 period immediately after the Constitution was ratified, they've been rare since the concerns identified immediately were with the first flurry of amendments.
So, even your recast argument doesn't make sense if you look at the facts.
A candidate? Power in the U.S. is very diffuse. We vote for individuals for offices from local township councils to President. I don't require that every candidate represent me exactly on every issue at every level. Only that the sum of the individuals who win keep things generally moving in the direction(s) I prefer. Having watched 11 Presidents in my lifetime (25% of the total) try and run a country that has grown to about 300 million people (its grown by about 120 million people in my lifetime), I think the whole thing works remarkably well.
FreeSpeech.org
How is this informative? The Clinton staffers didn't do it at all. It was thoroughly debunked within a month of the allegations coming out.
Actually, the GAO found $15,000 in damage.
"Notes in desks or affixed to filing cabinets allegedly left by Clinton staffers reading "GET OUT," "Hail to the thief" and "W happens" were shown to investigators but were not included in the report"
But let's not let the truth get in the way of a good story!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I'm not talking about blacks being intimidated. Re-read what you quoted me saying, which was thousands of blacks being purged from voting registrations for having the same general names as convicted felons.
You obviously avoided that and reverted to the 'blacks intimidated' concept because you know you can't disprove what happened on that one.
You need sources, use google you biased cherry picker.
Who ever said race wasn't a factor?
OTOH, black voters went 90% for Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. Obama went into it knowing he had that much of the black vote locked up just for being a Democrat. If you're trying to imply that the black vote came out for one of their own, you're only 5% right, assuming that those 5% weren't also impressed with someone who can speak in full sentences after eight years of Chimpy.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
That's because a pro-marijuana group via Digg astroturfed the website on several occasions.